Manifest Abundance By Eliminating THIS From Your Relationships EP 1352

Steve Young is a Pro Football Hall of Famer and former San Francisco 49ers quarterback who is now a NFL analyst for ESPN. Steve co-authored the New York Times best-selling book, QB: My Life Behind the Spiral and has just written and published his latest book The Law of Love. A former Super Bowl MVP, Young retired after 15 NFL seasons in 1999. As a collegian, Steve Young, the great-great-great grandson of Brigham Young, was a consensus All-American and a Heisman Trophy runner-up at Brigham Young University in 1982. In this episode you will learn,Why you should be less transactional in your relationships. To find abundance even in a losing place. Why becoming a good parent starts by challenging your insecurities. How you can get started on your healing journey. For more, go to lewishowes.com/1352Inky Johnson on Hacking Your Mindset To Overcome Life's Challenges: https://link.chtbl.com/1279-podTerry Crews On Overcoming Toxic Toughness & Finding True Power: https://link.chtbl.com/1258-podJay Glazer on How To Make Vulnerability Your Greatest Strength: https://link.chtbl.com/1253-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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  That's all we really are is a series of relationships. Yeah. Life's most important aspects all happen in those relationships. And so, how do we see them? The only way is if we...

• 0:12Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now, let the class begin.

• 0:36Lewis Howes?

  Do you remember your first coach that gave you a lesson that helped you develop the mindset that you still have today? And what was that lesson?

• 0:46Speaker 00

  Well, it's my father. And he was always... His nickname is grit.

• 0:52Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 0:53Speaker 00

  And he means it. Like, it's like he's a... In fact, a famous book, Grit, was written not too long ago. He was in there.

• 1:00Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:01Speaker 00

  Angela read about him and said...

• 1:03Lewis Howes?

  Angela Duckworth, right?

• 1:04Speaker 00

  Interviewed him. And so, there's a chapter on grit young, you know?

• 1:08Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that's cool.

• 1:08Speaker 00

  And so, but he means it in a really balanced way. Because a lot of times, someone has a... Someone has a dream or... And that becomes myopic, and that's all your life is. And then, there's no athleticism in it.

• 1:22Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:23Speaker 00

  And I think one of the greatest qualities that I love in people is someone who's superior talent, but is not afraid to... It doesn't just make that a... I just play one note on the piano. Like, I can do more than... And so, my dad was gritty, as I look back, you know? He was tough, and he was strong-minded. But he was also, in a way, and I'll say loving. I don't think he would call it love, but he would... So, he would always say... Find what you love to do, but then you can't quit. So to him, you don't, I'm not for, you don't have to do it. I'm not telling you what to do, but once you choose something.

• 2:05Speaker 00

  And so as a young kid, I remember we were in baseball and uh, it was a baseball, basketball, football town. That's like where I, you know, the mean streets of Greenwich, Connecticut, people laugh about that. But, but uh, but that's what my friends did. We played those sports. And so I was in Little League and I don't remember what it was and practices were too long and it was something frustrating. And I'm like, Dad, I don't want to do it anymore. And that's when he's like, oh no, no, no, you forgot what I told you. You can choose what you want to do, but you chose it. Now you're in and you finish it. And so as a young kid, that was like religion. That was just, that's how it worked. And so when I wanted to quit college football, my freshman year, cause they ate the string.

• 2:48Speaker 00

  No one cared about me and I was doing the scout team for the defense and they were abusing me and no one, the coaches didn't know my name, you know? And I remember, and I was gonna, I could have gone to North Carolina and started. Why didn't I do that? Let me go. I tell him I wanted to quit and come home and he said the same thing again.

• 3:03Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 3:04Speaker 00

  He's like, look, you can quit, but you can't come home because I'm not, I'm not living with you.

• 3:08Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 3:09Speaker 00

  And I, and he was serious, like in other words, I didn't have another place to go. So I stayed, if he would have said, you're right, they're screwing with you, they're not respecting you. Let's come home, we'll figure it out. I would have gone home.

• 3:21Lewis Howes?

  And what would have happened?

• 3:23Speaker 00

  Not what happened.

• 3:25Lewis Howes?

  You wouldn't be here.

• 3:26Speaker 00

  Not what happened.

• 3:27Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 3:27Speaker 00

  And so I think in many ways, um, but I appreciate, cause a lot of parents want to tell you what to do. They have the dream for you. It's their, it's their dream. It's not your dream. And that's why I always say, be very careful as a parent that my oldest is a music theater major. Didn't really like sports. I wanted him to, I, I did want him to experience sports. Because there's, there's a sociality, there's some lessons to it. So, and so we did that, but he clearly wanted to do, he wanted to go perform. And now that he's performing on, on stage, we have so much in common. You know, that I didn't really think about me as a performer.

• 4:10Speaker 00

  And so so much of the anxieties of performance and so we are. Went full circle, like it seemed like he was going as far away from me as possible. And now we're back kind of doing the same business in the same way, show business in a way, so.

• 4:24Lewis Howes?

  I always looked at myself as an artist on the field.

• 4:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:27Lewis Howes?

  Improvising and expressing myself.

• 4:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:29Lewis Howes?

  You know, you have set plays, but it's like, it never goes exactly the way you want it to go.

• 4:34Speaker 00

  Well, I took that to its farthest length because, because I had the legs to do it.

• 4:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 4:37Speaker 00

  And that's why I'm so grateful. I was with Peyton Manning yesterday. And so Peyton and I played the same position for a long time, 18 years, and I think he played 19.

• 4:44Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 4:45Speaker 00

  And, but we did it completely different because our talent level, I mean, he couldn't move as much as I could. And so he, he honed with his talent. And I just honored Peyton Manning, like amazing what he did on the field. I don't know how you would ever play quarterback in the NFL with what you have to go through and say to yourself, I'm, I'm gonna do it from one spot.

• 5:06Lewis Howes?

  It's crazy.

• 5:07Speaker 00

  I'd be like.

• 5:07Lewis Howes?

  Especially today.

• 5:08Speaker 00

  No, no, no. No, no, no. I'm not doing that job. So, and the fact that we did the same job, but did it so differently. Um, there's an honor, uh, and I just, I'm so grateful for the ability to have expressed it more, you know, physically.

• 5:24Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 5:25Speaker 00

  Out in its outer reaches. It was fun for me.

• 5:27Lewis Howes?

  But I mean, going in as eighth string, how did you stay true to yourself? Obviously your dad didn't give you a backup plan from there. But how did you overcome one person at a time until you became the starter?

• 5:40Speaker 00

  So, and I think this was, you know, come back from my dad, but well, you know, there's a funny story. My mom, when I was really little, playing eight, eight-year-old football. I got tackled, got the wind knocked out of me. And I'm laying on the ground. I can't breathe. I thought I was gonna die. My dad came running out. You know how you're laying your back and you pull your pants up and it lets you breathe and you're like, oh, I feel better. I feel better. My mom starts out. And she almost steps on me as she heads for the kid who tackled me. Don't you grabs him by My gosh. Don't you ever hit my son. That was late. That was illegal. You know, and I'm like. In the middle of a game? Yeah, mom. Get out. What are you doing? Like, get out. Ah, so maybe it's my, I don't know where this comes from, but I, when I started the eighth string, to your point,

• 6:24Speaker 00

  I was running scout team for the defense. And so I was for BYU, was playing Wyoming, was playing University of Utah, was playing San Diego State. And so every week I would You're running their place. I was running the place for the other team. And it was the wishbone or whatever else. I say, you know what? I'm going to be the greatest. Wyoming, I'm going to be, when they play Wyoming, and they, defense comes back in the game, I want them to say, you know what? That kid that was doing scout team was better than the Wyoming quarterback. Wow, that's cool. That was in my mind. So, and that's how I attacked it. Cause there was something to be done, even though no one cared, no one's paying attention, no one knew my name. In my mind, that was how I was going to make a difference. And that's how I approached it. Yeah. So in that, I ran the wishbone so well

• 7:10Speaker 00

  that there was a JV team, BYU has a JV team that'll go play UNLV, Air Force, JV teams. JV some freshmen. So I was on that team. I was third string freshman. Wow. And so we would go play and they'd said, well, he does, he play, he runs the wishbone so well, let's just run the wishbone that we practiced last week against Wyoming, when we go to the game. And I thought, you know, in some ways, the most disrespectful thing you can tell me is that, you know, my goal of making them think that I was a great Wyoming quarterback is now, I'm not even running, I'm not even getting ready to play my own team. So it kind of backfired, but um, I think that that, that mentality was when you asked me how I went from eighth. Yes. And moved up was finding purpose.

• 7:54Speaker 00

  When it's easy to say there wasn't purpose. Find a way to make a difference. When uh, it doesn't look like there's much place to do it. Right. My goal, Kyle Whittingham was the long-term coach of the University of Utah for the last 20 years. He was the middle linebacker. The leader of the defense when I joined. And so I'm running the scout team and I wanted to make, I wanted to frustrate Kyle Whittingham. I remember running to the sidelines one time, running and running out of bounds and him, cause you know. They hit the, they hit us, but it wasn't like it was full speed.

• 8:27Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 8:27Speaker 00

  He hit me as hard as he could and put me out of bounds and into the fence, you know? And then he came over the top and says, quit embarrassing me.

• 8:35Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 8:36Speaker 00

  And I was like, yes.

• 8:38Lewis Howes?

  I'm doing my job.

• 8:40Speaker 00

  I won. I remember that so vividly.

• 8:44Lewis Howes?

  Now, you talked about, I've heard you talk about, you know, having a lot of anxiety and nerves. I think you threw up a lot before almost every game.

• 8:50Speaker 00

  Every game.

• 8:51Lewis Howes?

  Every game and pro or more just college?

• 8:53Speaker 00

  So I don't know how, we don't want to get too far into this, but I, I didn't know as a kid. During the day, three sport, all state, straight A's, never missed school. I mean, if you saw my life, you'd like, that guy, he's got it going on. But when the sun went down, I was at home. And I didn't realize why, but if people said, hey, we're going for a week, ski week, or we're going to, you know, scout camp, or like, oh, no, I gotta practice, oh, no, no. Cause I had innate fear of that not being home. During the day, it's fine, but like, if my parents left for a vacation, which they tried once, I convinced all my brothers and sisters, and I was the oldest, that the people babysitting us were ax murderers and we got,

• 9:37Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 9:37Speaker 00

  Got them so upset that their parents had to turn around. So I had this pretty severe, what we'd call separation anxiety. You've seen kids that are afraid to go to people's houses, afraid to go to school, afraid to, that's me.

• 9:49Lewis Howes?

  Where do you think that came from?

• 9:51Speaker 00

  It's genetic.

• 9:52Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 9:52Speaker 00

  It's on my mom's side of the family.

• 9:53Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 9:54Speaker 00

  And we found out when I was 30 years old, through another traumatic event with the NFL, that it finally got named. I didn't know. I grew up, when I went to college, it was deathifying. I didn't unpack my bags. Oh, but I knew I was, I knew you're supposed to go, yeah, like, you're supposed to go to college. And you're supposed to love it. And I was like, oh, inside my stomach was, you know, the anxiety, whatever, that's what it was, but it just, to me, felt like a stomach ache. Like, this is not, I don't want to do this, but I knew I, I can't sit at home. Right. And so I did that. My, I remember that first semester. That's why I was begging my dad, let me come home too, because I just like, get me back. Homesick. Homesick and I just want to get back.

• 10:38Speaker 00

  So I remember going back for Christmas, finally getting a chance to go back home. I remember walking in the door and when I walked in, I realized, oh, I have two homes now. Because I want to go back to college. You did want to go back. So that was where the first step for me was like, you mean, I don't, I don't have to have this all the time. I can actually develop a second home. And then that home was, became a great home. And then I had to go pro, which I know, I, I told myself, don't do it. You've, you've, you know. Don't go pro. Pain and anguish for what you've been through to play college football. And I'll hear I'm all American, I finished second in the Heisman Trophy, but the emotional strain on doing that and the,

• 11:20Speaker 00

  it wasn't, playing was the best. It was the three days before, especially the day before, because genetic separation anxiety in performance shows up as, and everyone always says, well, of course you're nervous. You know, that's normal. You know, like, yeah, but I don't know if this is what that is. And so that was my, that was my life. And to find so much of my career. People, you know, if you said to me today, Steve, if you could leave that genetic part of you that's in your mom's side of the family that you were born with, now that you're 60 years old, would you, would you do that? And I thought about that recently. I said, no, I wouldn't. Despite all the anguish and pain of it and the, it defined, because there's good sides to it.

• 12:05Speaker 00

  There's hypervigilance. What was the benefit for? Well, I, you want to think I was ready to play? You want to think that I was. You were prepared. Yeah. And so in that way, that defined, you know, people say, well, you're in the pro football hall of fame. How come? If you had to say why, well, this is one of the main reasons why. So if that's the why, then like anything, and that's why it would have been nice when I talk about mental health and I'm so open about it because like everyone has insecurities, everyone has reasons to be asking questions about mental health. I say to them, if you're in the woods, lost in the middle of the woods, had no idea where to go and a park ranger came by, would you ask for directions?

• 12:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 12:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:45Lewis Howes?

  I'd say, hey, pick me up.

• 12:46Speaker 00

  So but we have this shaming that goes on around insecurities and mental health and everybody's going through it to actually be vulnerable like you did and say, well, what are my insecurities? What, how can I be better? And then what are, are there genetic or clinical things that I can find help with? Like, so if I could have defined that as a kid at eight years old, that would have been better, you know?

• 13:12Lewis Howes?

  That's crazy. Yeah. I mean, how, on your, on a scale of one to 10, let's call it the peace scale, the inner peace scale, 10 being you had ultimate inner peace, you were calm and relaxed, one being zero peace. In college, where were you on that scale, one to 10, on average?

• 13:28Speaker 00

  It's, it's, it's episodic, right? Because when, when I wasn't now walking around the day before the game, when I would see everyone as this lucky guy who don't need to go face this music, you know, like, look, you don't have to worry about anything, but if it was during the time or in the week when it just wasn't as heightened, it was wonderful. Yeah. And so, and people, you're Steve, you're great, I saw the game, you know, so you get all that too. So it was just a

• 14:01Lewis Howes?

  There's a lot of pressure before the game.

• 14:03Speaker 00

  My teammates, you know, they got used to it. Like, hey, Steve's thrown up yet? Because if he's thrown up, then we're good.

• 14:09Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 14:09Speaker 00

  Yeah. And if he hasn't, then we have

• 14:11Lewis Howes?

  Go throw up. Oh, my gosh.

• 14:14Speaker 00

  We gotta get this over with.

• 14:15Lewis Howes?

  Did that translate into pro career also? Do you were

• 14:17Speaker 00

  So you, like, the human, the human condition, you do get better at, like, I got better at separation anxiety. I got

• 14:29Lewis Howes?

  You got tools, you learn to manage it.

• 14:30Speaker 00

  Nah, I don't have tools. I just had Like you have to, you can't live that way. So, did it get easier? No. I retired eighteen years later. And the day I retired, I was like, I remember one of my last games I ever played was a Monday night game. And I was engaged to my wife Barb and she was, and I was walking around the stadium, early. Cause you know, it's Monday night and you know, and I was hypervigilant, I'll call it, and not anxiety ridden, but hypervigilant. And I wanted someone to talk to and she's like, I, I need to go. I'm like, can I just talk a little bit longer? This is eighteen years later. So.

• 15:08Lewis Howes?

  You'd already won three Super Bowls.

• 15:10Speaker 00

  Yes, of course. It's like, it's already, yeah, so it doesn't, um, who you are is kinda how you do it. And, uh,

• 15:19Speaker 00

  you know, that's, uh, when I, when I finally realized when I was thirty years old, uh, through tough circumstances, uh, I had not slept for a couple, I always slept, which is great.

• 15:30Lewis Howes?

  That's good.

• 15:31Speaker 00

  That, that's how you do it.

• 15:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:33Speaker 00

  And one week, I was in a bad spot, we'd lost some games. I was in a bad place, trying, trying to replace Joe Montana and all the expectation, you know, just over the last months, it had kind of, I got myself in a pretty hole of victimization, like everything was everyone else's fault. I'm being victimized. It's terrible. This is horrible and, and, uh, and then all of a sudden I wasn't sleeping. And it was a big game again, Falcons, I think, that week at home. And so two nights I didn't sleep and the people that I was living with nearby, a family that I was really dear with, said, look, Steve, we know you. And we know that, we see you go, what you go through to go play and we get used to it. That's fine. But this is not right. This is not cool.

• 16:16Speaker 00

  And so we're not gonna, we, we can't abide this any longer.

• 16:19Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 16:19Speaker 00

  So what are you gonna do about it? And I said, look, if we win, cause then you can have something wrong. I'll go to the team doctor and I'll talk about what's going on. Cause I don't know what the heck it is. And, but if we lose, I, I can't do that. I ended up playing well, winning.

• 16:39Speaker 00

  Fulfill my promise.

• 16:40Lewis Howes?

  And they have to face it, yeah.

• 16:41Speaker 00

  Face the, and so the team doctors, Jim Clint, been around forever, came in with Joe Montana and Ronnie Lott and Bill Walsh and he was, I was an honored guy, like he was a guy I didn't want to necessarily go talk about, like some weakness that I had, or something that I thought was, you know, here's the park ranger, do I ask the question, right? And so I promised myself I would, I promised his family would. So I get back in the corner, Kansas Park, in the training room underneath, when crap's dripping on you, towel and ice bag and I go, uh, rest of them was Reggie and Reggie, I gotta talk to you. So I go in the corner, I look, and I start to recount the week and what's going on. And I noticed that all of a sudden, a big ball of tear comes into his eye and drops to the ground, and then another.

• 17:25Lewis Howes?

  The doctor's eye.

• 17:26Speaker 00

  The doctor, and I'm like, Reggie, are you crying?

• 17:31Speaker 00

  And he essentially breaks down and tells me that he barely got through medical school, fighting a different kind of anxiety that was like plagued so much of his life. And that he was crying because how upset he was as the team doctor. Cause he sensed in watching me, he's like, I should have, I felt it and I didn't do anything about it. And I've watched you for years now.

• 17:58Lewis Howes?

  And I never talk to you about it.

• 17:59Speaker 00

  And I'm so, I'm so sorry.

• 18:01Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 18:02Speaker 00

  And so his, so thing about me, I'm nervous about asking this question, cause I don't know what the heck's going on. I'm like at my wits end, and finally I ask it to him and he comes back to me weeping. I'm like, oh my gosh, so that starts that whole, that, I didn't mean to get belabored on that.

• 18:17Lewis Howes?

  No, how did that make you feel when he brought that vulnerability?

• 18:20Speaker 00

  He immediately told me, Steve, you have undiagnosed childhood separation anxiety. It's very typical, a lot of kids have it, and you need to know that that's what, that's what it is. And now you're performing and so it's got its tentacles in, in performance, but then, you know, and uh, and ends up being a pretty severe case of it, and that's it. And so once it was defined, that was what I needed. I needed to know.

• 18:45Lewis Howes?

  Clarity, what is this?

• 18:47Speaker 00

  What is it? Cause I look back, I'm like, oh, that's why when I went to my aunt's house and freaked out for the whole weekend, you know, that I thought he was an ex murderer too.

• 18:55Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 18:56Speaker 00

  Cause that's how my body responds to the.

• 18:59Lewis Howes?

  When did, when did you feel like you were able to start healing? The journey of healing?

• 19:03Speaker 00

  Well, the healing is, uh,

• 19:08Speaker 00

  I think that more than anything, it wasn't necessarily that I felt like,

• 19:14Speaker 00

  it was who I, in other words, there's nothing, I, the, I have this genetic part of me, like it's, and I think that what I could do is use the good parts

• 19:23Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 19:24Speaker 00

  as a much more profound thing and then you see the parts that are more difficult and figure out ways to, the tools to get through them better, but not, healing wouldn't how I would describe it.

• 19:35Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 19:36Speaker 00

  You know, I think that through time, when I retired, my life was zen.

• 19:40Lewis Howes?

  Really? After you retired, you were like, no more pressure?

• 19:44Speaker 00

  Getting married, zen. Having kids, zen.

• 19:47Lewis Howes?

  It was all easy.

• 19:49Speaker 00

  Eighty thousand people aren't watching?

• 19:50Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 19:51Speaker 00

  You know, there's not a national audience every week. Like, it was like, it just disappeared.

• 19:57Lewis Howes?

  So you didn't have any anxiety after that?

• 19:59Speaker 00

  Not, not really, no. Cause I, I think it just, over time, it finds its, um,

• 20:08Speaker 00

  you know, it kind of beats, getting beaten out of you a little bit, so.

• 20:11Lewis Howes?

  Well, you talk about the law of love is, is loving as God loves, seeking another's healing and expecting nothing in return. And when I read that and I heard that story about the doctor, it felt like he was able to, he was kind of sad, but also there was some healing in him to be able to see it in you and have you open up about it and allow vulnerability, the space in between, the unknown, to come together and allow for love and healing to start to occur.

• 20:38Speaker 00

  So, Lewis, you're, you're now getting a theme for me for relationships.

• 20:45Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 20:46Speaker 00

  That's all we really are, is a series of relationships.

• 20:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 20:49Speaker 00

  And then in those relationships, you and I have a relationship. We've known, we've been around each other half an hour. We're in a relationship.

• 21:00Lewis Howes?

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• 21:45Lewis Howes?

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• 22:29Lewis Howes?

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• 22:56Speaker 00

  Someone I just got an Uber ride over. We were in a brief relationship. He was in the car with me. You know, what, what... I'm married. I've got a long, lifelong relationship. I've got, you know, I mean, I've got all kinds of relationships. But everything is, in the end, and that's, in that, in that space is where purpose and legacy and, and, and growth and, and life's most important aspects all happen in those relationships. And so, how do we see them? And I was, I have to tell you a quick story about Bill Walsh. So he's my head coach in 49ers when I joined in 1987, he was the king, two Super Bowls. Everyone knew he was three generations ahead of everybody. His offense, the west coast offense, you're very familiar with. Uh huh.

• 23:40Speaker 00

  How he thought, how he saw players as partners. He didn't see him as chattel or someone to pound with a big stick. He saw them as not, almost as equals. Like, how do I, how do I think about your food? How you eat, how you sleep, how your mental health. Back in the eighties. In the eighties. Wow. He was asking these questions and he, and he, and he, um, I remember the first meeting. He said how he's gonna integrate the team and we thought about racially, because that's where we were. Black guys and white guys, we're all gonna come together in the locker room. We're gonna, he says it's even more than that. It's all the things that separate us. Where you went to school, just geography, socioeconomic background, uh, language you speak, religion, uh, everything that's kind of generally culturally separates people. We want to break them all down because we're gonna be in Lambeau Field, we're gonna be down by four points.

• 24:24Speaker 00

  It's gonna be the last couple of minutes of the game. It's gonna be raining at 30 degrees. You've never been colder because it's windy. There's 80,000 people that are screaming at you and I want you to get in a huddle. And I want to look at each other and I want you to share an element of love for each other. Wow. And that's the speech, the first speech he ever made that I was a part of in 1987 was that speech. Holy cow. And so I was like, I don't know what that is, but I'm in for that, right? And so he then, and I noticed in the corner as he was making that speech, a guy with a, a camera, filming the whole thing, then filmed him going down in the field, field and going into the locker room and going. And I chuckled a little bit, like, what is he? I know he's famous and always like ahead of the game and everything, but

• 25:07Speaker 00

  is he a museum? Has he got something going? What he was doing was creating a video based, audio based, paper based, collection of everything that he was.

• 25:20Speaker 00

  Everything that I am as a coach, everything that I know, everything that I'm now three generations ahead in the NFL and everyone knows it, I'm gonna put it in a, I want it in a box. Wow. Why do I want it in a box? Because I have minority coaches who I want to see thrive in the NFL. Mm-hmm. And I want to hand it to them as they go out the door. It's incredible. To get head coaching jobs. It's incredible. And the last thing he says? I'll see you in the championship game. Cause he knows with this box. They have all these tools to get there. And that's what happened. He was vlogging in the eighties. Mike Holmgren came back as assistant coach, goes to the Packers and we came back and saw him in the championship game. And I remember seeing Brett Favre after the game, they beat us. I go Brett, what was your, what, what did Mike tell you, the big speech in the, in the

• 26:05Speaker 00

  hotel last night? He told me the speech, he's like, he went to Bill's toolkit, bought out the big game file. That speech. And gave the speech. Crazy. So I guess the point is, Bill Walsh, why would someone who's three generations ahead, think of technology, think of business, think of sports, think of anybody who has some proprietary knowledge that they know is a huge advantage, some talent that they have, some, anything. And I'm gonna box it up somehow and hand it out. For free. For free, to elevate you. When you talk about the law of love, selfless, selfless acts are hard. I've been trying to teach myself. This book has probably helped me more than anything.

• 26:50Speaker 00

  How do I get into a space where I have no transaction? Yes. Cause even the best, so much of the good in the world is still slightly transactional. I actually get a wonderful feeling, cause I helped this person. Yes. What if it can be completely non-transactional, let's, you lose yourself. In that way, Bill might have been thinking about legacy, he might have been thinking about abundance, but I have a feeling he was completely isolated on this coach and their success. And when you can get to that place, what happens is life stops being zero-sum game. We are in a, in tropic world where we're all gonna die, everything's corroding, everything

• 27:35Speaker 00

  we see is headed south, eventually.

• 27:39Speaker 00

  Very transactional world. Eat what you kill, zero sum game. You get what you get, I get what I get. Shake hands, move on. Right. Is there a place of abundance? Is there a space? And people say, well, yeah, if you give in. But what if there was just a spirit of abundance? And you sought it. You, that's, I'm gonna look for it. Can you find it in? I'll leave you a quick, another quick story. Remind me of Bill Ross, because I want to finish it. But Reggie White. Reggie White was the, you know Reggie White. Reggie White was the greatest defensive player. I would make the argument, the greatest defensive player ever played in the NFL. Ever.

• 28:23Speaker 00

  You say Lawrence Taylor, you could say, but he was massive. His football card said, I want to say it's 6'6", 310. Anyone who writes down, you know this, but when you're a rookie, the, the trading card company gives you a piece of paper, you fill it out. So you look at my cards. Your two inches taller. 6'2", 205. Every card in existence will say, Steve Young, BYU 6'2", 205. Because I wrote that down, and I wasn't lying. That's what I believed. Oh, wow. It was aspirational. It was aspirational. But that's what I believed. Reggie writes 6'6", 310. If you write 310, you're 400. Right. There's no way you write 310 and literally mean that. But he was the most athletic, biggest, strongest guy you've ever seen.

• 29:07Speaker 00

  LeBron James, if you've ever been around him, 6'8", 280. Beast. You just, you, you just kind of, not cower, but you just kind of slink back. It's like. As a real athlete. It's like you just cannot know how fast and how strong. That's Reggie White. Reggie was 380, 400 pounds, but ran like he was 210. Wow. So when you played him, and he was loud. You know, like he yelled, he would scream and the guttural stuff. And you could hear him coming, drop back the pass. You could hear it coming closer and closer and closer. Then, classic Reggie, he's gonna get there. Grab me every time he ever sacked me. What, 20 times? Really? Oh, man. I don't know. That's painful. Played the Packers, played the Eagles, like. That's painful.

• 29:52Speaker 00

  He'd get me. Turn me on and let him, you know, and he'd fall on his back and I'd fall on top of him.

• 29:58Lewis Howes?

  Oh, wow.

• 29:59Speaker 00

  So here's the most intense, adrenaline-filled, you've been on the football field, eighty thousand people, millions watching TV, the biggest games, championship game. There's a place of intensity there that's hard to describe. He's the most intense of the guys there. Coming to get, do his job, competitive as ever, talk about transaction, like, this is my transaction world, and I'm, you're going down because that's my job.

• 30:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:24Speaker 00

  Grabs me, and in that flash of an instant, turns, lets me fall on top of him, he's got me around, and he goes, Steve, how you doing, buddy?

• 30:31Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 30:32Speaker 00

  Because we were friends from when we were rookies.

• 30:34Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 30:35Speaker 00

  And we, we went to the Hula Bowl together, he was Tennessee, I was, we were fast friends, he's a minister, he was an evangelical minister, I loved chatting with him about religion, about life, about everything. And my, and I, my dad was a lawyer, grit, and it helped me get an agent, and he goes, well, can your dad help me? So my dad helped him, so he, he had me in his thing, he's like, how's your dad?

• 30:55Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 30:56Speaker 00

  How's everything going? And I'm like, well, right now, Reggie, not so good.

• 31:01Lewis Howes?

  I'm getting sacked right now.

• 31:02Speaker 00

  But my point, the relationship, same point I want to describe to everybody. In the athleticism of who Reggie White was, he could be the ultimate competitor, and in a flash, be the ultimate friend.

• 31:13Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 31:14Speaker 00

  Can we, because most of the guys I played against who were friends, couldn't make that transition.

• 31:19Lewis Howes?

  They were like, I need to destroy you, after the game, then I can.

• 31:22Speaker 00

  Hey, buddy, how you doing? But in the moment, can you, can you be two or three things? Can you, can you have, can you hold in, in suspense, the pieces of you? And that's why I say go back to Bill Walsh. Like, I, the, the legacy of that abundant act is throughout the NFL today.

• 31:44Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 31:44Speaker 00

  Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVay here in town, you go up and down, every team, the Chargers, the Rams, the 49ers, the Seahawks, well, Pete Carroll, I mean, that's just the West Coast. You just go throughout the league, I can read off probably thirty of thirty-two teams that have coaches who were directly influenced by this toolkit, and by the people who took it.

• 32:05Lewis Howes?

  What were the three biggest lessons he taught you?

• 32:08Speaker 00

  One is the spirit of abundance. I didn't know it at the time. I didn't know what to call it. As I've gotten older, I see it. I see its power. The legacy power of why if we act, even in some kind of righteousness transactionally, it will rot like the rest of this world sooner or later in self-interest.

• 32:36Speaker 00

  If you can find a spirit of abundance where you can have a transaction. There are a lot of business transactions, a lot of transactions. But in that relationship, there's a spirit of abundance. Yes. Like, how do I speak? If I'm going to speak in abundant language, what would I say? If I'm going to be a long-suffering, gentle persuasion, loving, love-unfeigned kind of person, and I'm going to act that way, what would my language be like? Even in intense, highly competitive, transactional world. Because that's not going away. Right. Like, I can't be a monk and just go and disappear for 10 years. I'm in the mix. And I like being in the mix. Yes. That's where I want to be.

• 33:20Speaker 00

  But can I speak abundantly in all of those places? On the field, in the most intense, crazy spots? That's why I bring up the Reggie White story. Yeah, well, there's a win-win-win. How can, there are thousands of books written about it. Yes. In the end, I think it's an intent. And it has to be a... Yes. It has, some people do it, I think, very naturally. It's in them. It's just who they are. They're naturally love-loved kind of people. But those of us that are super transactional, want to win, want to do great, want to show how, like, I want credit. What human being doesn't want credit? Right. To be acknowledged, to be seen, to be valued. Right. Yes. That's human nature, is to want that.

• 34:07Speaker 00

  That's why what we're describing here, abundant thinking is not of this world. Because this world's a transactional world. This is a dog-eat-dog world. This is a kind of, science has proven it by the second law of thermodynamics. It's, this is where we're headed. And, uh, and I just. That's not where you, that's not where you create. You create the abundance and elevating beyond and above what is natural seeking of. Human desires. Yeah, it's a different field. It's a different field. And, and I, I thought about it a lot, like, well, that's easy to do. When things are quieter. Yeah, when it's easy.

• 34:50Speaker 00

  But what about laying it on top of the most intense places on earth? Whether it's politics. And think in our political game today, completely zero-sum game. Completely, everything is just mine or yours. And we are, and not only that, we kind of point it out and then. Attack, attack. Like, we're gonna, where are you headed? We are essentially becoming the full measure of this transactional rotting world. If that's how we're gonna, that's how we're gonna be. Doesn't matter what, we're the biggest winner, we're great. You know, school of great, and we're great today because I beat you. And I won, and here, look at all, look what I have. I'm great.

• 35:35Speaker 00

  In this world, way we're, you know, depends on how you describe it. Okay, that, if that's great, then great. But what's the legacy? What's the abundance? What's the long, because if we're gonna last a long time, by definition, we can't do this. Yes. What doesn't work? Can't, like, people say, oh, Steve, what about, trust me. You're on a path of entropy, right? Like, we're gonna rot. Yes. You're gonna die. Your marriage, because you're in a marriage. And my wife and I, and like, we're fifty-fifty, we're in it together. You're on your way to destruction.

• 36:16Speaker 00

  Because fifty-fifty says that, well, if you do forty-nine, I'm off the hook. Yeah. You gotta be a hundred, a hundred. Have to. Spirit of abundance would demand that it doesn't matter what you do. I'm in. And when your spouse feels that. I start to, I weep because I, that, that is an abundant relationship that can, that is not, like, that's a perpetual, it's a perpetual, like, think about it, it's heaven, people talk about heaven, like, what? Well, if there's a heaven, it's a perpetual place. It's a place of perpetuity. It's not a place of transaction, it can't be self-interested.

• 36:58Speaker 00

  It has to be a place where people live in a, in a state of others' interest first, seeing others.

• 37:06Lewis Howes?

  That was great. I want to go back to the lessons that Bill taught you in a second, because he gave me one, I think. But you mentioned your wife, and, and I think you said you got married later, and

• 37:15Speaker 00

  I did.

• 37:16Lewis Howes?

  So you're eighteen, nineteen years in the, you're eighteen years in your career.

• 37:19Speaker 00

  Right at the end, the last season.

• 37:22Lewis Howes?

  Why did you wait? I'm curious.

• 37:24Speaker 00

  I didn't wait. I try, I, I was about, I, I wanna, I, I sought marriage. Like, I knew it was a good thing, and I wanted it in my life. And I didn't find it. And, now again,

• 37:41Speaker 00

  women that I dated through the years would probably, we hear the story about the anxiety and the hyper-focus and the, and the distraction, like, oh, that makes some sense.

• 37:51Lewis Howes?

  That's why we didn't work out.

• 37:53Speaker 00

  But I would tell you that, uh, when I met Barb, I, I was, we're gonna, we, ten years in the making, by the way. Finally, we're gonna do it. She didn't want to date an athlete. And it was just hard getting one, and so I was coming to pick her up, and I left a message and heard her voicemail back in nineteen ninety-nine. And I heard her voice, and I, I said, oh, that sounds, there's a familiarity to it, I don't know how to describe it. So people say love at first sight, it's like love at first hear.

• 38:24Lewis Howes?

  First sound.

• 38:25Speaker 00

  First sound. And, uh, and that's, you know, I went on the first date where she was in Scottsdale, Arizona. I was in a rental car, a town car, like a Lincoln Town Car, and I never went home, just stayed and dated her throughout the offseason. And then we got engaged six months later.

• 38:41Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that's beautiful.

• 38:42Speaker 00

  So, why, like, I tried. It was not an effort, like, getting married at thirty-eight was not, that was suboptimal.

• 38:49Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, you wanted to earlier.

• 38:51Speaker 00

  Right.

• 38:51Lewis Howes?

  So you've been married how long now?

• 38:53Speaker 00

  Twenty, where we're two thousand, so twenty-two years.

• 38:55Lewis Howes?

  Twenty-two years, yeah.

• 38:56Speaker 00

  Twenty-two years.

• 38:57Lewis Howes?

  What's the greatest gift she's given you in twenty-two years?

• 39:00Speaker 00

  Uh, she is a reflexively loving person, especially to marginalized people. And her, she see, like, I dedicate this book to her because she started me this, like, super transactional guy that does, wants to be good, wants credit, but wants to do good in the world, and wants to, wants to see the best in the, to us, we define this transactional world. We say, what's the best part of transaction? Well, if I do something good for you, and then I get a little something, that's, that's, that's win-win. That's not what I'm talking about. And so she had this reflexive love for, for people that were marginalized, not like me or her.

• 39:45Speaker 00

  And, and I could see that she saw them, when he was put in quote, I hate air quotes, but

• 39:50Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 39:50Speaker 00

  You, to see somebody, you can only see them in that way when you've lost yourself in it.

• 39:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 39:56Speaker 00

  And you just, then you see the full measure of the person that's across from you.

• 39:59Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 40:00Speaker 00

  And that's just natural to her. Even if I desire heaven, it's a transaction, right? It's like somehow it's, and, and we got talking about that. And until you lose, in the spirit of abundance, in the relationships you have here, right now, there's a miraculous thing that happens in relationships when that happens. It's rare, when you've actually lost.

• 40:24Lewis Howes?

  What happens?

• 40:26Speaker 00

  I, I think it's, it's how God loves.

• 40:31Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 40:32Speaker 00

  God loves without transaction. Like, in other words, I seek your glory, I seek your learning and growing.

• 40:41Speaker 00

  Well, what do you get? I know, I get it through your learning and growing. If I wanted something, there's only way to get it is to lose yourself in this healing of other human beings. So, I, for me, I started to practice, like, can I do that in business?

• 41:00Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 41:00Speaker 00

  In negotiations? In big, huge contracts? Can I do that up and down the partnership? Can I do that? Could I have done that better in the football field? How much was I doing at the time? What would I do differently? And it came to me that you can go and do all the things you want to do in the spirit of this, what we're describing. And what you do is you unlock the potential, full potential of the relationship, of its healing, of its growth, of its abundance, of whatever it could possibly be. And then it just emanates. So that if you could get theoretically 30,000 people to just go do this and practice it and try to, like, you kind of think to yourself, well, I could change the world.

• 41:42Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 41:42Speaker 00

  So, that's, I don't know.

• 41:45Lewis Howes?

  It's beautiful.

• 41:46Speaker 00

  You can see I'm slightly energized about it just because it's an amazing realization.

• 41:50Lewis Howes?

  This is everything that I, that, you know, I've been doing this for 10 years in School of Greatness. And I've had the pleasure of sitting across people like yourself.

• 41:57Speaker 00

  Amazing, yeah.

• 41:57Lewis Howes?

  Who are at the top.

• 41:58Speaker 00

  Not me amazing, but the amazing people you've talked to before I showed up.

• 42:01Lewis Howes?

  But, I mean, there's a common theme that a lot of people have been having over the last few years, which is similar to what you're saying. And they're saying in a different sectors of therapists, scientists, doctors, world-class athletes, billionaires, which is about creating a space of healing and of opening, of connection, of intimacy.

• 42:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:19Lewis Howes?

  And one of the greatest things, which is service. And I heard recently one person say there are three circles in life. The first circle is survival. The second circle is success. And the third circle, he said, was significance. And I was like, I really think it's more service, that third circle. And if we can really get into a place of service earlier in our lives, while we're trying to survive and be successful, I feel like we'll have a lot more healing, peace, abundance, and love with everyone around us as well.

• 42:51Speaker 00

  So, people hear that, hear me and you talk like this, and will say, "Oh, that sounds..."

• 42:57Lewis Howes?

  Our life is really hard, yeah.

• 42:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, but that, I'm sorry, but on the ground,

• 43:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 43:01Speaker 00

  that doesn't work. And I, what I would say is, I understand that. Because scientifically, it's been proven that you are right. We're in an entropic world. We are gonna rot and decay and we're like, you know, it is dog eat dog and eat what you kill. Like, I get that as a foundation, but clearly as a foundation, if we see it as an educative condition. In other words, we can't be abundant, or grow, or heal, or any of the things that we just talked about, unless the conditions are such that we have a body, we have agency to choose, and we have opposition to fight against. Like, those are the... So in some ways, people say, "Ah, there's great evil in the world." Well, it must be.

• 43:47Lewis Howes?

  We need it.

• 43:48Speaker 00

  It has to be, opposition has to be.

• 43:50Lewis Howes?

  What happens if we don't have that?

• 43:52Speaker 00

  You can't grow. It grows in agency. Like, in other words, you and I, whatever, you could be wrapped up as a mummy in a corner chained, like, but still breathing alive.

• 44:06Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 44:06Speaker 00

  You still have a choice. Your next breath has a choice. You might not be free in your mind, I mean, as far as what I can go run and do,

• 44:13Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 44:13Speaker 00

  but you still have a conscious thought of what my next conscious thought's gonna be. What's my next act? What's my next... So there's agency in the human condition, and there's opposition in the human condition, recognizing it for what it is. So that then the person says, "Oh, Steve, that's really sweet what you guys were talking about. That's a bunch of crap, because I don't have, I don't have time for that." Totally understand. But, because I actually appreciate that you are in the mix, recognizing the rigor, but you're not seeing the miracle in the rigor.

• 44:45Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 44:46Speaker 00

  Because in that, that's the ingredients for why you can even talk about this.

• 44:50Lewis Howes?

  Man, there's, there's some, there's something of when I think back at those two years of struggle, after football was done, being injured on my sister's couch, no money. This was 2007, 2008, 2009, when the economy was crashing, so there weren't job opportunities at that time. As challenging as it was, I'm like, man, those were some great times too. Just because it allowed me to see what I was made of. What can I overcome? What can I discover and learn and grow into? And I want to take back that challenge, that, you know, that suffering time, or whatever you want to call it. It allowed me to overcome something to help me get one step closer to service and becoming something I'm proud of, you know? So, I don't know if you had a moment like that.

• 45:30Speaker 00

  Well, that's the sweet, so there's the sweetness in life. And I've had a thousand moments like that, where now, recognizing...

• 45:40Speaker 00

  Just through years not understanding this dynamic and this truth about humanity and about, no matter religion, look, what we can agree on is, science, this is entropic. Yeah. These are the conditions, and are these conditions that can actually elevate? And I say absolutely yes. They're the fundamental conditions. Agency, opposition, and a body. Three things that you have to have to go enact this incredible gift that you've been given of rigor and pain and heal, and that can we be aids in each other in the healing as we grow? Yeah. Because if you think about what God would want is, I want your healing and growth.

• 46:22Speaker 00

  It's gonna be a bumpy ride. Can you all help each other heal? That, then it becomes super. And it doesn't have to be religious. It can just be, it can be completely from an atheist perspective, how do I want the human condition to rise? The only way is if we leave this, the condition we're in. Yes. We have to go, we have to rise above it. Go beyond it, yeah. And if we're gonna, in any system, by definition, we have a political system. You can see it, like, rotten, it's the unknown. Education system. You just start to see them and say, which ones are working? And that's why you talk about the recent conversations you've had with folks. It's rattling around a lot of people's minds, like, wait a second, I'm super rich, I'm billionaire, I dominate the world, I got planes all over the, that's not me, by the way, but I'm really getting the planes,

• 47:06Speaker 00

  I can go anywhere, I can do anything I want. What's meaningful? What's meaningful? What is not for credit anymore? What, is there someone to heal? And the truth is, for every human being, it's probably the person you're sitting right next to. Wow. Right? That's where to start. I was talking to some Christian missionaries recently who, you know, they were, they couldn't be out because of COVID. And that's, all I wanna do is be out and do this work, I have this energy about it. And I said, well, do you have any humans you're having in contact with? Because I'm stuck at home, like, well, yeah, my mom and my brother-in-law, like,

• 47:51Speaker 00

  Be in service here. What, no, what healing can you bring? What abundance can you bring to that relationship? That's, doesn't matter where you are.

• 48:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 48:04Speaker 00

  That's where, and then, so people say, okay, so now you're lined up across the field. Reggie White, where's the abundance? Doesn't mean you can't compete. I'll leave you with another story. So Ronnie Lott, one of the great competitors alive. He's the only guy that cut off his finger. Remember it got crushed and he said, I gotta play. I'm gonna cut off the tip of his finger. He, uh, he, one year we were supposed to, you know, the Giants, New York Giants, needed us to win the last game of the year, so they could get in the playoffs. But we didn't need to win it because we'd already wrapped everything up and so we're gonna play the backups and everything else, so we didn't, so we ended up losing the game because it wasn't that vital, and Phil Simms said,

• 48:45Speaker 00

  "Forty Niners laid down like dogs." And Ronnie was just livid. So the next year we played the Giants in one of the big games, and, and, uh, warmups at halftime at Candlestick, and you start at the 50, go the opposite, so you're all standing right there. And Ronnie goes over and sees Phil Simms, you see him, and usually in that situation, you know this, everyone got like, "Oh, you can't talk, Ronnie." Everybody's like, "Ronnie."

• 49:11Lewis Howes?

  We're backing off.

• 49:11Speaker 00

  Back off. And so, and, and I could hear some of them, and I go afterwards, like, "Ronnie, what, what'd you say?" And he goes, "He doesn't understand that competition is a team game."

• 49:24Speaker 00

  And that if you disrespect anyone in the competition, you've lost the ability for the competition to elevate.

• 49:33Speaker 00

  Because in the, I'm, I'm going in, I might win or I might lose, but either way, I can grow.

• 49:39Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 49:41Speaker 00

  And I was like, huh.

• 49:42Lewis Howes?

  This is on the field, pregame.

• 49:44Speaker 00

  On the field, it's like, no, this is later when I talked about what he said. He goes, he said, "Why were you so animated?" Because he doesn't understand. And I was like, huh, funny, because I didn't understand it either.

• 49:53Speaker 00

  But, but, think what he was saying. The, the competition can be a place of elevation if it's properly.

• 50:01Lewis Howes?

  Yes, absolutely.

• 50:02Speaker 00

  Nurtured.

• 50:03Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 50:04Speaker 00

  Cause do you, you just described that a couple of years in 2019, it's in the, like, what I lost is where I gained, where I gained the greatest gift. And so, losing can be the place of abundance, but if you did, so if we become a winner and losing society where the winners get everything and the loser is just some sad sack that doesn't, we've, we've, we've lost the spirit of Ronnie Lott. To show, and I think, think about our culture, our culture is really a winning culture. Great, I get it. But we need to do better at recognizing the competitiveness, the, the, the spirit of that space of competitiveness that we honor losers.

• 50:43Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 50:44Speaker 00

  For what can be gained. Cause if we don't honor them, as they're, you know, the Lakers play the Clippers and the Clippers lose, you're a loser. But if we don't honor the, the loser's ability to grow and gain, then we, we end up doing

• 50:58Lewis Howes?

  We're the losers then, yeah, yeah.

• 50:59Speaker 00

  Well, we do the same thing.

• 51:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, of course.

• 51:01Speaker 00

  I feel like a loser then I go.

• 51:02Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, right.

• 51:03Speaker 00

  So it's just, again, it, it, you start to see it, it repeats itself over and over again.

• 51:07Lewis Howes?

  I'm curious how, I mean, you've, you've transitioned to this successful business career. I don't think a lot of people know about the success you've had in, in, in business. What has been the biggest fear and insecurity that you've had in the last, I guess, 20-plus years now of, of building this, you know, being a part of this firm and building this massive private equity?

• 51:28Speaker 00

  So it's funny, I told you, when I, when, when you stopped playing, no matter whether you played 18 years or one year or even leaving college, there's this, the dream of those games that you love, that you wanted to, you know, you knew you can't play forever. It's the young man's game, but you know, whatever it happens, there's a day before, and when I finished, I'd played 18 years, and you could say one of the better guys that played, and the day before, I was probably one of the better guys in the world that could play quarterback in the NFL. The next day I retired.

• 51:59Speaker 00

  I'm not great at anything. Right, you're a beginner again. I'm not even good at anything.

• 52:05Speaker 00

  How do I get started? And I think, like you, I dug in and tried to find that vulnerability to say what I'm good at. What could I good, what can I get good at? How can, how do I do it? And how do I get started? And that's what I did. Luckily, I'd gone to law school while I was playing, which is. That's amazing. It's a great young story where he told, he kept peppering me, he said like, you know, because his big thing when you're growing up is you have to have a dream and a plan. He said they're both vital. Dream is 1% chance, plan is 80% chance. Wow. And you need both. And I said, and I kept telling him, well, my dream is 1% chance I'm gonna play in the NFL. And that's my plan too. And he goes, that's not a plan. So, but then when I played in the NFL, I go, Dad, ha! I made it. The dream became the plan.

• 52:49Speaker 00

  And he kept saying, no, it's not something, because you only can play three years average. Then I played five years and he goes, but you know, let's say you finish at 30 years. You go the other half of your life, what are you gonna do? So he kept planning. So I ended up going to law school. It's incredible. To try to appease this crazy man. So anyway, that law school gave me the opportunity post-playing when I had to figure out what I was even good at or could be good at. But the funny thing is, because I didn't do it traditionally, and those in private equity usually leave school, go to associate, as an analyst for a couple of years, then go back to business school and then get a job. And then, you're in banking, you know, and all around the world. They have certain skills that are gained through that. Now, I wanna cut the line essentially.

• 53:32Speaker 00

  And I don't think I ever lost the insecurity of doing that. Now, despite people saying, whoa, no, Steve, you have, you know, blah, blah, blah. In the end, I think the thing that I, that was super hard was always,

• 53:45Speaker 00

  you talk about insecurities, it was like facing the insecurity of I'm not. A legitimate.

• 53:52Lewis Howes?

  Business guy, yeah, because you're now 40 essentially, when everyone's been doing it since they're 24 or whatever, yeah.

• 53:57Speaker 00

  Right, and so I think that holding on to that vulnerability was probably a good thing, because what you don't want to do is go rolling into a an off a room and thinking that you're more than you are. I do, I am a fan of fake it till you make it.

• 54:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 54:10Speaker 00

  I think there's a piece of life that's important when you're getting started.

• 54:13Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 54:14Speaker 00

  But I think that fake it means not fake other people, but fake it yourself, like

• 54:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 54:19Speaker 00

  fake yourself out because you have the insecurities, you got the doubt, you got the fear, like just act like you really know what you're doing, it's part of the game.

• 54:26Lewis Howes?

  This was part of, you know, I heard this early on, I can't remember who said this, but I didn't come up with it, someone said, face it till you make it. And so I started facing my fears, saying, what can I do every day just by showing up?

• 54:37Speaker 00

  I like that better.

• 54:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's like

• 54:38Speaker 00

  That's more positive.

• 54:39Lewis Howes?

  I'm, I'm vulnerable, I don't have the skills, but I'm gonna keep facing it.

• 54:43Speaker 00

  I love that.

• 54:43Lewis Howes?

  Until I gain.

• 54:44Speaker 00

  I mean, I'm not gonna say fake it till you make it anymore, because I don't like, I never liked it, but it gave the right image.

• 54:48Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 54:49Speaker 00

  Face it till you make it is like, so look at you, give him back.

• 54:52Lewis Howes?

  Well, I've learned a lot here, but it's not, it's not from me, but someone else said, face it till you make it, and then you embrace it, or something like that too, so it's like

• 55:00Speaker 00

  That really resonates with me.

• 55:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:02Speaker 00

  Uh, because I tell people to fake it till you make it, but I don't, I never liked it.

• 55:06Lewis Howes?

  Face it, face it, you know, you went all in and showed up every day, you were faking it by acting upon it. You were practicing it every day by showing up, which I think is really cool. What is your biggest fear now, after, again, Hall of Fame career, Super Bowls, you know, um, billions of dollars in assets that you guys manage and

• 55:24Speaker 00

  I think

• 55:24Lewis Howes?

  TV, you know, all these things.

• 55:28Speaker 00

  Fear.

• 55:30Speaker 00

  I think it's, I mean, inevitably, one of the best things that heaven's given to learn some of these things we've been talking about, to elevate, is kids. Because you, you have a little baby and they're completely helpless, and without you doing selfless acts of service, because the baby's not gonna give you any, like, oh, thanks for that, I appreciate it. In fact, I found out that kids generally, not until they have kids, do they really ever

• 55:56Lewis Howes?

  Appreciate you.

• 55:57Speaker 00

  Really understand.

• 55:58Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 55:58Speaker 00

  It's not anyone's fault, it's just

• 56:00Lewis Howes?

  Circle of life, yeah, yeah.

• 56:02Speaker 00

  Simba, so, uh. So I think that that's if you're talking about fears and anxieties naturally when you are so invested in the success or glory or growth or maturity of abundance of this human that your wife and I, your wife and my wife and I created, you end up in a place of anxiety or fear because you want to make sure it happens. And if you really want to do it right, you can't guarantee that, nor should you guarantee it. In fact, you should be very careful where you insert yourself.

• 56:42Speaker 00

  And the thing that I've found is the fear is that I haven't modeled what I hope they would see.

• 56:51Lewis Howes?

  You don't feel like you have?

• 56:52Speaker 00

  That's the fear. I hope I have. Because in the modeling is where the power is. It isn't in the

• 56:59Lewis Howes?

  The saying.

• 57:00Speaker 00

  Or making sure that you've created a lane that, you know, made it made it available or God given an opportunity. It's have you modeled the very thing that you hope for them? And have you done it in a way that is they've taken it over a lifetime? So it's a part of them. And so maybe the fear of that is how you get there.

• 57:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 57:23Speaker 00

  But that's the

• 57:26Lewis Howes?

  And what's the biggest lesson then being a dad has taught you?

• 57:32Speaker 00

  Don't raise yourself. You know, if my son had been quarterback and a three sport athlete and had some anxiety, you know, like I could, I can parent that because I know that. And what came with Brayden is someone who's very different. It's a lot of similarities, but a lot of differences that were fundamental that I had to Really grow to be a productive parent. I had to figure out new ways to parent someone that wasn't just like me.

• 58:08Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 58:09Speaker 00

  And I found that my initial reaction is to try to make him like me so that I could parent me through him.

• 58:17Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 58:18Speaker 00

  Because that's what I knew. And the biggest lesson is if you're gonna be a great parent, you need to become an athlete. Spiritual, emotional athlete. And challenge your insecurities and challenge your fears and all the things you just showed me how to do. Cause parenting is really bespoke to that human being. And that's a lesson. And I failed at some places early on trying to figure that out. And recognizing Sweet Braden was patient with me.

• 58:55Speaker 00

  You know, to kind of work my way through.

• 58:56Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful. I've got three final questions. I want to be mindful of the time here. I could talk to you for hours.

• 59:00Speaker 00

  Oh, I love, you know, I can.

• 59:02Lewis Howes?

  This is fun, man.

• 59:03Speaker 00

  Have we, has it been 10 minutes?

• 59:05Lewis Howes?

  I know, this is great. Uh, three final questions before I ask you these questions, I want people to get the book, The Law of Love. I think it's really cool that you are this elite, you know, athlete from sports to business to life, relationships. And we're here talking about love and abundance and peace and harmony and healing. And you're diving into what I'm hearing you, what's sounding like is this is the stuff that really matters the most. Above all the success, it's like the way to get those things also is through the law of love.

• 59:41Speaker 00

  So I appreciate that. And I, I can tell you that the book is written to an LDS audience, a religious LDS audience. Because that's, all Baltics are local, right? So that's my house, my, my, my, and, and we are a can do people.

• 59:59Lewis Howes?

  Oh, yes.

• 59:59Speaker 00

  And that's a transactional people. And this is not that.

• 1:00:04Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:00:04Speaker 00

  And so it's really a. Myself, this is my way forward.

• 1:00:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:09Speaker 00

  This is where I think if I was gonna love like God and and find the abundance despite the wonderful ingredients we have to grow, this is how I would do it. And so I want to just tell people if you're in, this is a, the language in here is not necessarily, but, but the lessons are

• 1:00:27Lewis Howes?

  Lessons are powerful.

• 1:00:27Speaker 00

  Truly, I believe in every religion. And regardless of religion, in the human endeavor of the spirit of abundance and the law of love is absolutely the way forward because by definition, it's perpetuity.

• 1:00:41Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:00:41Speaker 00

  And do we as a, as a, as humans, want to pay it forward, bring abundance into the future? Of course we do.

• 1:00:48Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:00:48Speaker 00

  Do we want to drag back and hold back in zero sum game and diminishing returns? Of course not. But me, all of us behave unfortunately in a way of diminishing returns.

• 1:01:00Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:01:00Speaker 00

  And that's

• 1:01:01Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:01:02Speaker 00

  You get what you get, right? So I, I just want to caveat that because I want to make sure that people are like, what, what the heck, young?

• 1:01:07Lewis Howes?

  We have a

• 1:01:07Speaker 00

  You got this book and it's all this other stuff, so.

• 1:01:10Lewis Howes?

  We, we, we have a very open minded, uh, I call them conscious achievers. They're constantly open to learning new things, even if it's not where they came from, this community, whether it be on YouTube or audio or over the place.

• 1:01:21Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:01:22Lewis Howes?

  I think people really are gonna like this. I, I've had a great time going through it. I haven't finished it, but I went through a lot of it and the stories are really powerful and inspiring. It doesn't matter what, what religion or background it's from.

• 1:01:31Speaker 00

  It's human.

• 1:01:31Lewis Howes?

  It's very inspiring. So I want people to get the law of love. Make sure you guys get a few copies for friends as well. Where can we get it? Is there a site we can get it from?

• 1:01:39Speaker 00

  You on Amazon.

• 1:01:40Lewis Howes?

  Just Amazon's the main place. Um, you've got an amazing foundation.

• 1:01:44Speaker 00

  And I'm not selling. I didn't do the, I wrote this book for my family and someone convinced me to publish it. So I just want you to know that I am not here trying to sell this book.

• 1:01:54Lewis Howes?

  I'm here to do it for you.

• 1:01:55Speaker 00

  But I'm not. I really, I just like if it, if you have a, if there's a gravitational pull to it, great.

• 1:02:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:01Speaker 00

  But I, please don't get that.

• 1:02:02Lewis Howes?

  No, I'm excited about it though. I think it's beautiful. And you do, you know, I want to acknowledge you, Steve, before I ask the final two questions for. There's a lot of athletes who make it that don't live a life of service afterwards. They make it and they make it about them. And the fact that for the last, you know, 20 plus years, you continue to make it about others through your foundation, through your charitable efforts. You're constantly involved in children's charity efforts. Through Kelly, you know, is always talking about how you serve every year. You just give without even needing the credit. You're just like, how can I serve through your own foundation? There's a lot of stuff behind the scenes that people don't see that you do. That makes a massive difference to individuals and to communities.

• 1:02:46Lewis Howes?

  And I really want to acknowledge you for you consistently showing up, you consistently healing, growing and living a life of abundance through your efforts and your energy. You know, you show up on TV every week and inspire people that way through adding in lessons when you can. Obviously there's analysis, but then you throw in these great lessons that I think are, you know, you throw in the peas and carrots in the sugar, right? You do it through this book. You don't have to write this book. You don't have to spend the time to do this. You do it through the charities you do. And I just really acknowledge you for the continual gift that you are and that you bring to the world.

• 1:03:22Speaker 00

  Well, and again, so vital that it's like I'm learning. Like this book helped me.

• 1:03:31Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:03:31Speaker 00

  Like I didn't, I'm, you said, oh, I love Steve Young is the expert. No, no, no, no. Steve Young is along with you on this, what I believe is heaven's gift. Like it's like I'm along, I'm a, I'm a passenger along with you. And if I have a couple of tips for you, great. If I don't, but I'm, so by no means do I have, then my foibles, if someone wanted to list all my foibles through the years, you could easily do it. So I just want to make sure that Gandhi is like for a reason, right? For us in this, we're, we're in the mix.

• 1:04:03Lewis Howes?

  You're a human being. I get it. We all got, we all got childhood.

• 1:04:06Speaker 00

  But I appreciate what you're saying. That's very kind.

• 1:04:08Lewis Howes?

  But you keep showing up and that's a beautiful thing and you don't have to. You know, you've made money. You don't have to keep showing up for others. So that's a beautiful thing that you're living a life of significance. Yes, you want to build your business and things like that, but you're living a life of service.

• 1:04:18Speaker 00

  Well, again, you can, you can, you can fully engage in this. Transactional world, but come from it in a spirit of abundance.

• 1:04:29Lewis Howes?

  I love that. Two final questions, and then we got to get you back.

• 1:04:35Lewis Howes?

  This is called the three truths question. I ask everyone this at the end of the interviews. So it's a hypothetical question. Imagine it's your last day on this earth, many years away. You live as long as you want to live.

• 1:04:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:04:45Lewis Howes?

  You accomplish and give all you want to do in life. But for whatever reason, you've got to take all of your work with you. And it's your last day, and you gotta, you gotta turn the lights off in this world.

• 1:04:57Lewis Howes?

  And hypothetical, no one has access to your commentary, your videos, your audios, this book. No one has access to any of your information. But you get to leave behind three lessons to the world. Three things you know to be true.

• 1:05:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:05:10Lewis Howes?

  And this is all the information we would have about you, Steve Young. What would be those three truths for you?

• 1:05:17Speaker 00

  Well.

• 1:05:22Speaker 00

  For me, okay, so, all right, how do I say this in a really useful way?

• 1:05:31Speaker 00

  I believe fundamentally in a durable spirit that's inside of every human. That durable spirit is actually not, it's, it's of a place of abundance and perpetuity. But it's here to grow, and that's what we're, that's what we're doing. So.

• 1:05:54Speaker 00

  If that's, so for me, the truth is, first truth is, I guess that, that, that this whole human experience is to learn and grow. And, and we're in a perfect place to do it. This is the perfect conditions to do it. So that's, I guess, one.

• 1:06:17Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful. That's one.

• 1:06:19Speaker 00

  If you asked me 10 years ago, it'd be different, right?

• 1:06:20Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 1:06:21Speaker 00

  You ask me today.

• 1:06:21Lewis Howes?

  Different season of life.

• 1:06:22Speaker 00

  Today, the other, another truth is kind of to, to be able to create growth in other human beings. Like, we actually help, we, we are the, we are the, we're the fuel.

• 1:06:35Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 1:06:36Speaker 00

  You know, I think that. I don't think anyone feels that God can do that by him or herself. Like, they can't just say,

• 1:06:43Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:06:44Speaker 00

  I may, because that would not be, that's compulsion. You can't compel people to be, to grow and to learn. It has to be free, it has to be freely done. And that's why we as, we're here at the Human Edition, we're free. So that, in that freedom, I can actually do something miraculous for you.

• 1:07:03Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:07:04Speaker 00

  So that's another truth for me.

• 1:07:05Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful.

• 1:07:06Speaker 00

  Is there's, geez, you are tough.

• 1:07:08Lewis Howes?

  We're the fuel to help others grow, I like that.

• 1:07:12Lewis Howes?

  And the third.

• 1:07:12Speaker 00

  The third one is, you can ask transactional questions. You're gonna get transactional answers. From heaven or anywhere else. And there's abundantly clear that it is a place of no compulsion here. And so even from heaven, you ask transactional questions, you're gonna get transactional answers. If you ask selfless, non-transactional questions, you get completely different answers from others and humans. And that is a place that I,

• 1:07:46Speaker 00

  you know, like, I could think about the most important things in my life, my marriage, and how much I want abundance in my family, you know? And all politics are local, right? It's all right here. And in the most, there's always talents, human, we're in the mix, right? There's always, heaven's revelation for me has come tenfold when I ask the, not, when I leave the transactional and I ask these more abundant questions from a place of long-suffering, gentle persuasion, love.

• 1:08:24Lewis Howes?

  What's the most important question you ask?

• 1:08:29Speaker 00

  Of myself? Am I, am I exuding those qualities?

• 1:08:37Speaker 00

  It's not something to do, it's something to be.

• 1:08:41Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 1:08:43Speaker 00

  And for someone who loves to do, give me a list.

• 1:08:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, let's do this.

• 1:08:47Speaker 00

  Give me a list. I will get it done.

• 1:08:50Lewis Howes?

  Take action.

• 1:08:50Speaker 00

  It's happening.

• 1:08:51Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:08:52Speaker 00

  But now I'm asking you to be, not do. And in the being is, that's what I say. I lay, I, I, I, I come into a relationship and I, and I, I lay on those attributes of myself. If I was gonna be those things, what, what, what words would I say?

• 1:09:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:16Speaker 00

  What actions would I take? What would define how I approach the problem? Like, do I have a solution for the problem? I don't know. But I have a solution for how I'm going to bring myself into it.

• 1:09:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:30Speaker 00

  From these qualities of long-suffering, gentle persuasion and love.

• 1:09:34Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:09:36Speaker 00

  If I, if I use those words and act that way and try to, that's when there's a door unlocked. There's a, there's something, I don't wanna say magical, it's not the right word, but miraculous.

• 1:09:47Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:09:48Speaker 00

  Happens when that, that, that's like somehow the, the.

• 1:09:54Lewis Howes?

  The magic happens.

• 1:09:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's like it happens.

• 1:09:56Lewis Howes?

  It does happen.

• 1:09:56Speaker 00

  And, and I've seen that, I've seen that in most intimate relationships I have.

• 1:10:00Lewis Howes?

  That's amazing.

• 1:10:00Speaker 00

  Sorry about that.

• 1:10:01Lewis Howes?

  I love this, man. I love this. Final question for you, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:10:07Speaker 00

  Uh, my definition of greatness, and I go back to Bill Walsh and how he, and Barb, my wife, and how people who have guided my dad, my mom, like, started me on a, on a journey, right? And greatness, the other day I was on 101 driving, there was a wreck ahead of me. Back up. It had just happened. You can see there was still the smoke in the air, right? It looked like it wasn't a gra, it was like, could be bad.

• 1:10:33Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:10:36Speaker 00

  Highway patrolman had just shown up on the shoulder. And guy gets out and so I'm one of the early cars, right? And so I'm watching this happen. He gets out. Cars are still going by kind of more quickly than they should like. And I see him get out and start running around. And like dodging in out of the cars.

• 1:10:58Speaker 00

  I'm like, what's he doing?

• 1:11:02Speaker 00

  There's a dog. That has gotten out from one of the cars because the the the second patrolman's checking the people. He's trying to save the dog. Because he sees that the people are cared for, they're okay.

• 1:11:16Lewis Howes?

  Now they're driving fast.

• 1:11:16Speaker 00

  I want to go get the dog.

• 1:11:19Speaker 00

  Who does that? Who shows up in danger situations and jumps into danger to save save a human being? Hey, they didn't save anybody. And I just, you asked me what greatness is. You might say greatness is having the most money or the most stuff or the most things and that's fine. But I just saw, I just saw greatness. And so for me today, when I see selfless acts of selfless, like literally no credit. I'm not looking for anything. He was not looking for anything other than to try to save this life of this dog. And I just thought myself, I kind of little shed a little tear and said. Thankful for those humans that naturally are that way because I'm, I'm trying to learn.

• 1:12:04Speaker 00

  I'm trying to learn that greatness. So.

• 1:12:07Lewis Howes?

  Steve, thank you so much, man. Appreciate it. Powerful. 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

• 1:12:50Lewis Howes?

  that you are loved you are worthy and you matter and now it's time to go out there and do something great