Why You Should Pursue Your Dreams & How I’ve Grown My Brand For 9 YEARS! EP 1220

This week is a very special one. 9 years ago I took a bet on myself when I uploaded an interview with a man named Robert Greene for a new show I was starting called The School of Greatness. The last 9 years have been extremely transformational for me and none of it would’ve been possible without 1. Your guy’s support of the show and coming back to listen each week… and 2. Having the courage to believe in myself and start this in the first place. I took in some questions around the show from you guys over on social media that I think will help give more context to my journey and help you if you’re in the middle of a career change or thinking that it might be time to make a change in another area of your life. In this episode we discuss why so many people are wanting to leave their jobs to go all in on their passion, how to develop the belief in yourself to pursue your dreams, how The School of Greatness has changed my life over the last 9 years and what went into building this show, what my big vision is now that we’re 9 years, and so much more! For more go to: www.lewishowes.com/1220Kobe Bryant on Mamba Mentality, NBA Titles, and Oscars: https://link.chtbl.com/691-podKevin Hart Breaks Down His Secrets to Success: https://link.chtbl.com/956-podKatherine Schwarzenegger Pratt on the Power of Forgiveness: https://link.chtbl.com/925-pod Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 1,220, and it is the nine-year anniversary of the School of Greatness.

• 0:10Lewis 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.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  My friend, welcome back. This week is a very special one. Nine years ago, I took a chance. I took a bet on myself when I uploaded an interview with a man named Robert Green for a brand new show that was called The School of Greatness. Now, the last nine years have been extremely transformational for me, and none of it would be possible without, well, your guys' support of the show and coming back to listen each week. And the second thing, having the courage to believe in myself and start this amazing adventure and journey in the first place. And I took in some questions around the show from you guys over on social media that I think will help give more context to my journey and help you if you're in the middle of a career change

• 1:17Lewis Howes?

  or if you're thinking that it might be time to make a change in another area of your life as well. So in this special episode, I discuss how to develop the belief in yourself to pursue your dreams. And I know this is challenging for a lot of people. Talk about how the School of Greatness has changed my life over the last nine years and what went into building this show. I talk about what my big vision is now that we're nine years in since I feel like we're just getting started and so much more. I really got time to reflect and go deep on a lot of these different questions that came in. Again, big thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who is listening. It's been a game changer and I'm so grateful for you. I'm humbled of what we've been able to build. I'll share some of that data with you during this episode as well, but a big thank you for being here.

• 2:02Lewis Howes?

  Whether you've been listening for years or this is your first time, I'm truly grateful and appreciate you. So let's go ahead and dive into this episode.

• 2:13Lewis Howes?

  Huge thanks to Edmunds for sponsoring the show and also for being the perfect solution to making the car buying process a little easier this year. The market is already a lot more competitive than in past years. With inventory shortages, it might get tricky finding your perfect car, but Edmunds will go the extra mile for you. The current car shortage means that some models are harder to find and more expensive than usual. So it's important to do your research through Edmunds before you purchase. Edmunds goes beyond just listing vehicles for sale. The Edmunds homepage has car rankings compiled by their review editors. Their website is so easy to use and it's packed with 50 years of trusted car shopping advice and price guarantee, all in one place.

• 2:57Lewis Howes?

  I don't always know the best car options out there, which is why I love that Edmunds has their own top rated awards for the top cars to get in 2022. This helps take the stress out of the decision making. Car shopping can be overwhelming. Edmunds is here to help. Visit edmunds.com and click on Edmunds Best Car Rankings to research and compare vehicles. That's E D M U N D S dot com. Edmunds, we drive it like it is.

• 3:28Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness. I'm excited about this episode. It's a special one. Again, nine years, there's a lot that's been happening over the last nine years, over 1,200 episodes, 500 million downloads and views of the show. It's been incredible to see the growth of what we've created. So here are some questions that came in. The first one is, what do you think is the root cause of the great resignation that's happening right now? Well, when I think about it, when, when people are able to really sit down and develop their vision for their lives and have some time to reflect, they're realizing that the way they've been living isn't really aligned with the way they want to be living in the future. So whenever we have a breakdown, whenever there's a, a loss of a job, a loss of a relationship,

• 4:13Lewis Howes?

  whenever there's a You know, a breakdown in identity, whenever there's a struggle, maybe you're having a health breakdown and it gets really challenging. We usually have moments to reflect and say, I'm feeling a sense of pain. I'm feeling a sense of letdown, a sense of frustration, and I don't want to be feeling this. We all want to be leaning more into joy and happiness. So when we feel pain, frustration, we feel like stuck, like something isn't really right, we're not feeling fulfilled, and we have a moment where there's a bigger breakdown, which the pandemic created a lot of breakdown for people where they got to have more time to reflect. And I think that's when people can start to choose something differently when we have the time to reflect. And so it's, it's important to take that time to reflect consistently,

• 4:57Lewis Howes?

  not just when you have a massive breakdown, in my opinion. But I think because of the breakdowns that have happened in so many different areas, we've had that time. And when people get to sit down and really think about and map out on a journal or reflect and talk with their friends, like, this is not where I want to be. And they can start dreaming. When you have space and time and energy to dream, then you can start thinking, well, what do I need to do to start getting there? What's the next step? So I think that's one of the main causes of the great resignation that's caused a lot of people to, to leave their jobs and to start something else on the side, or go all in on something, or leave their jobs and go for more of a career that is aligned with their vision, aligned with their mission of where they can use their talents and skillsets

• 5:39Lewis Howes?

  to the best of their abilities. So that's why I think the main cause is. Next question we got was most people can't even process how to believe in going all in on their dream. How are you able to develop that belief? For me, I didn't really have another backup. I didn't have a backup of what I was gonna do. You know, my father got injured a year before I went to go play arena football. I went to go pursue my dream of playing professional football. A lot of you know that story. I got injured and the backup plan was to go work for my dad's company. Once I was done pursuing my dream of playing football. He said, you know, go live your life, do what you want to do. When you're done, you can come and work with me and I'll help you show you the ropes. When he

• 6:21Lewis Howes?

  got in his accident, his injury, he didn't have his business anymore. So I didn't have the, I didn't have the ability to go back and learn from him or work with him or have that kind of backup plan that I guess was there beforehand, even though I knew that's not like the career that I wanted to I really enjoyed spending time with my dad, so I thought it would be a cool experience to go work with him, but it wasn't probably the best use of my talents and skills. It wasn't like what I was really feeling inside that I was supposed to be doing at that time. But I probably would have done that. So when I didn't have that ability anymore, and I didn't really have his emotional guidance or mentorship anymore, or leadership on how to develop myself in a new career,

• 7:02Lewis Howes?

  how to overcome these challenges as a young adult, I was 23 at the time, going into 24, I started to look at job opportunities. You know, at the time, this was in 2007, 2008, 2009, that timeframe. I started to look at other opportunities, and I just kept thinking to myself, man, I saw the future. I saw myself working for a job that I knew I really didn't like. That was kind of like, you know, I got a degree in sports management, so maybe I'll go work in sports marketing. But it wasn't really what I wanted to be doing. And so I just thought to myself, why don't I just go try and fail miserably for a few years? And if I can't figure this out, I can always go work for some company that maybe at that point,

• 7:47Lewis Howes?

  I'll be more aligned with. I'll figure out like this is what I really want to be my mission and what I want to create. But at the time, I was like, well, I've got nothing. I've got no money. I've got no relationships, you know, or I'm not in an intimate relationship where I need to spend to go out and dating or something like that. So why don't I use this time to develop skills? Why don't I use this time to overcome my fears? And that's really when I created this fearless process, where I wrote down a list of all my biggest fears, because I had so many insecurities at that time. I hadn't graduated college yet. I left early. I had a lot of free time, and I was in a breakdown in my life. I got injured. I was living on my sister's couch during this time.

• 8:28Lewis Howes?

  And so I wrote a list of all the things I was afraid of and insecure about. And this list became my guide, it became my mission. All my fears became my mission. And so for the next couple of years, I just said, how do I overcome these fears that are on my fear list? And I started going one by one down the list and saying, I'm gonna conquer this fear. I'm gonna overcome this one. And then as I overcame that one, I went to the next one. And that was, you know, public speaking, salsa dancing. I was doing all, I was, I was learning different skills, online marketing. I was, I was writing a book, like all these things I was afraid of. I said, I'm gonna do it. It's gonna be imperfect. I'm gonna embarrass myself. But what was, on the other side of that was magic.

• 9:09Lewis Howes?

  Because after a few years of going through struggle and embarrassment and frustration and not feeling worthy and not feeling good enough and not being at the same level as everyone else in the industry that I was trying to learn from. And really feeling like I was at the bottom of everything that I was doing. It gave me a couple of things. One, it gave me a ton of humility, a ton of humility going into these things. Two, it kept me curious. It kept me curious and with a beginner's mindset. And so that gave me the ability to say, I don't have it all figured out, which made me curious to wanna learn from every human being that I met. I just became a sponge. I asked questions to people and I was fascinated by what they knew

• 9:53Lewis Howes?

  and how they learned the skills that they had. And I was willing to learn from anyone. It didn't matter who they were. So that journey, that process of creating a fear list and then learning how to overcome all my insecurities, all my doubts, all my fears, one by one, gave me a two to three year window where I really wasn't making that much money, a little bit here and there from side gigs. But it gave me courage to know, okay, when I'm down and out, when I don't have the, the support from my father, when I don't have a backup plan, when I don't have money, when I'm sleeping on my sister's couch, when my dream is gone because I'm injured now from playing football and I'm not sure what to do next. And I'm not sure where my life is headed.

• 10:35Lewis Howes?

  That's when I gained a lot of confidence and belief in myself. So that's where this belief really came from. Knowing that I had a lot of insecurities. And yet I was still able to overcome them and come out on the other side, feeling good about myself. And really building a foundation for what was to come. So that was a huge key for me and a huge lesson in in building confidence and belief in myself. Next question that came in was, what should people know about the financial aspect of going all in on your dream? And what were your priorities to make sure that it worked out for you? I think this is a tricky one for me. I was, I've never taken on anything new without being ready for it.

• 11:19Lewis Howes?

  Let's say that financially, when I was broke and on my sister's couch for a year and a half. I was able to live off of nothing. And so I wouldn't take anything on. I think since I know myself that I can live off nothing, I can live off of leftovers from other people. I can live off of, you know, taking buses and trains to places if I need to. I can live off of walking. I don't need the car. I can live off of very little because I've had little in the past and I know what it's like and it's fine. I don't need the luxuries of life. I don't need to spend more on things that that aren't necessary. I can live on the basics. I can live on very little if I need to in order to take on that that dream. And that's what I did early on.

• 12:02Lewis Howes?

  And then when I started the podcast, I started it after leaving a business that was thriving. I had another business before that was a multiple seven figure business. And I left it. I left all the money, all the growth opportunities, everything, because I knew I wanted to go go try something else. I knew that there was something more for me to go create and serve. And so I left it knowing that I wasn't going to make money from that business anymore. But I had been smart for years. I just saved a lot of my money. So I had about two years of a runway for me at that time. Where I had enough money to pay my rent and expenses and I could downsize if I needed to, to go all in on this dream.

• 12:47Lewis Howes?

  So that's what made me feel comfortable. Early on, when I was chasing the dream, I had nothing and I didn't need much to survive. So I just wasn't spending it on things that didn't matter. I didn't have subscriptions to things. I didn't even own a TV at that time. I just said, I'm gonna focus on overcoming my fears and develop myself. It's interesting, when you invest in yourself and you develop yourself, you start to appreciate in value. You start to believe in yourself more. You start to have more confidence and courage. And other people recognize that value within you. So opportunities start to come to you when you develop that appreciation within yourself. But it's hard to appreciate yourself if you're not comfortable in your own skin, if you're not overcoming those fears and insecurities.

• 13:31Lewis Howes?

  So that's why I think it's so important to create a fear list and start going all in on those fears at any stage of life when you have that time. And you might say to yourself, well, I'm really busy right now. I've got a lot going on. I barely have time to build my side hustle or go after my dream, let alone overcome fears. I am still finding the time. Right now, Spanish lessons is something that I've wanted to take on. Years ago, twenty years ago, I wanted to learn Spanish. And now I'm doing it every single day. I'm taking, I'm practicing and studying every single day. And it's still a fear and insecurity of mine because I'm not that good at it yet. I'm not fluent yet. I, I, I spend time with Spanish-speaking people who are fluent, and I try to speak it, and I know I don't sound correct. I know I'm making mistakes and I sound, you know,

• 14:16Lewis Howes?

  not as fluent as I should be, or as they are, let's say that. And so I'm still going all in, I'm finding time, last night at eleven o'clock, I'm supposed to do it every day, and if I miss a day, I have to start back to zero. And so I make sure even if it's eleven o'clock at night, I'll start my Spanish lesson and I'll keep practicing in order to keep the consistency of that identity of this is the thing that I'm overcoming. So, and I'm a busy guy, I've got a lot going on, but it's still a fear and insecurity of mine, so that's why I make it a part of my life and something that I want to take on whenever I can. But for the financial aspect of things, for me, I think you gotta be willing to live with less if you're just getting started out and be comfortable with that and know that the money will come.

• 15:00Lewis Howes?

  And I remember when I started the podcast, I said to myself, I'm gonna do this for one year. I'm gonna go every week for one year. And I'm not gonna try to make money, I'm not gonna make this about money, I'm gonna make it about serving and helping other people and creating something that brings me a lot of joy and a lot of fulfillment. And by the end of the year, money opportunities started to come and I wasn't focused on it. I wasn't thinking about it, I wasn't focused on it because I had that two-year runway of money that I'd saved up. And I think when we create from a place of joy, when we create from a place of service, when we create from a place of value and trying to say, how can I create as much value

• 15:42Lewis Howes?

  as possible for the person that will watch this, consume this, read this, buy this, whatever it is that you're creating? The money will usually follow, but start with value, start with like creating something based on a mission because you love something, because you're excited about it, because it's part of your talents and skill set, and add as much value as possible. Money comes to those who add a lot of value. So that's what I think about when it comes to the financial aspect of going all in on your dream. Next question we got was, what was your vision of the School of Greatness when you first created? For me, my vision was that I struggled so much in school growing up. I was in the bottom of my class.

• 16:23Lewis Howes?

  You know, they used to rank us on our grade cards in the class of how many students are in the class. They would rank us of how well or poor we did based on the other students in the class. And I was always in the bottom of four members of my class. I had a smart class, but I was always in the bottom four. And I remember thinking to myself, growing up, like, I wish I took classes in school. Or I wish school taught me things around what I was really struggling with. I was really struggling with insecurities. I was struggling with believing in myself. I was struggling with having the courage to have conversations with strangers. I was struggling with overcoming failure and embarrassment when other kids picked on me or made fun of me.

• 17:09Lewis Howes?

  I was struggling with how to overcome the embarrassment and the shame. I was struggling with all these things emotionally and internally that were... And spiritually, I was struggling with like, why am I here? What's the reason for this whole world? Why am I born? Why is it the existence? You know, what does this all mean? I was just struggling with finding meaning and fulfillment and learning how to overcome all the other stuff in life that are more useful in my mind than learning about, I don't know, something that I would never use. There's not many things that I remember from the skills that I learned in school. There's really not many things I remember. And I said to myself, I wish I would have had something where I could have really enjoyed learning it, where I could have used it. I wish they would have taught me meditation in school.

• 17:53Lewis Howes?

  I wish they would have taught me things that would be... Nutrition, things that would be useful today. Breathing techniques for when I feel anxious or overwhelmed or feel like stressed out. What are the things that are actually going to help me for the rest of my life? I wish I had a school like that growing up. And so for me, my vision was to create the thing that I wish I would have had, the thing that I wish I could have attended. And that's where the School of Greatness came about. I was always curious about accomplishing goals, accomplishing my dreams. I was always curious and fascinated how world champion athletes overcame so much adversity to win the championships and all these different things. But I was like, man, how did they do it? How do these people build such a big business?

• 18:36Lewis Howes?

  How do these, you know, people learn the science of nutrition? How do they do all these things and overcome these challenges to create these discoveries? So that's where the curiosity came from. And I knew I had a lot of insecurity and a lot of pain and sadness inside of me from my childhood that I hadn't yet learned to overcome yet. So the School of Greatness was just as much for me as it was to serve other people who might be struggling with certain insecurities, fears, shame, doubt, or just wanting to figure out how to improve the quality of their life. As much as it's benefited so many people listening or watching right now, again, half a billion downloads over the last nine years, it's been the greatest gift to me. You know, for me wanting to be of service to help others,

• 19:19Lewis Howes?

  it's been the greatest gift for me to overcoming a lot of challenges and inner battles that I've just faced my entire life. So that's the mission. That was the vision why I started it and it continues to be the vision moving forward. The next question is, at what point did you realize there was a lot of potential for the show? And it would become what you would be known for? You have to understand, guys, this was before podcasting was a thing. This was just an audio podcast. 2013, we launched, January 2013, we launched. No one knew what podcasting was. You had to go, you had to like educate people. You had to go on your computer to listen to podcasts. It was in iTunes. You had to tell people where to go.

• 20:03Lewis Howes?

  You had to go download this thing and they click here and they click subscribe. It was a hassle to get people to just be educated in what a podcast was. People didn't even know what the word, they didn't even hear the word podcasting before. There was no such concept. So this was a time when, when I went one by one, I would message people one by one throughout the whole week. I just did one episode a week the first year. And all week, I would just message all my friends. And then I'd find new people to message who I thought might be interested in that topic or the guest that I had on. And it was probably six months in where I started to get people noticing it. And they were like, hey, I'd love to be on your show. And it was tiny. I didn't even get one million downloads the whole first year total.

• 20:47Lewis Howes?

  It got 750,000 downloads in the first year of me going all in, obsessing about it. And you know, people can put up one video on Tik Tok, their first video and get 10 million views. It took me all year to get 750,000 downloads of my life, right? This is like everything I did. It was so much harder back then to actually to create something and build it, to get attention, to get people to listen or watch or download or read. It's extremely challenging and people didn't even know where to go to listen to a podcast. It's like it was right in front of them. So within six months, people started reaching out and saying, hey, I'd love to come on your show. Whereas before it was just me reaching out to people that I knew, trying to get them to come on and convince them to come on this show that was brand new.

• 21:32Lewis Howes?

  That no one even knew how to listen to, and there was no video, nothing. But every year, something would happen, you know, we started an event, Summit of Greatness. I wrote the School of Greatness book, which came out a few years later, which then that became a massive New York Times bestseller. And all the press and opportunities and getting on, you know, GMA and Today Show and Ellen and, you know, all these different things, getting all the press and attention started to build. But it was because of the consistency of the podcast. The podcast was the foundation that added value to people listening, which then people said, hey, can you do a live event? So we can all come together and get to meet each other. I didn't know I was going to do a live event, but I created it because you guys wanted it.

• 22:17Lewis Howes?

  So we created the Summit of Greatness. You can go to summitofgreatness.com and check out for the information for the event coming up later this year as well. Then people said, hey, can you distill all the wisdom that you've learned from this, this show over a few years and make a book? We did the book and that took the show to the next level and took my personal brand to the next level. Then we created a documentary, then we got the show on PBS, like all these different things continue to happen. But it was because of the consistency of the podcast. And so I think that's, you know, I realized within six months that there was potential here. And even though it didn't get a million downloads in the first year, I still like, there was some, there was something happening. And I was getting a ton of value from doing it.

• 23:00Lewis Howes?

  And so that was what excited me, that I was learning a lot and I was helping people that I was interviewing and helping people who are listening to it. So that's what became important to me. Next question, what was the lowest moment you experienced with School of Greatness during the last nine years? I think there were many years, this is interesting because this will tell you that you're on the right path. What I'm about to say here, there were many years, I would say, probably three or four different years throughout. Where I felt like I was living a six or a seven out of a 10. I was going through a couple of different, I was in, I mean, I've been in three different relationships during the podcast. I guess the fourth, now I'm in the fourth one.

• 23:43Lewis Howes?

  And so I was ending one right when I started the podcast. So I don't know if I was actually in a relationship before then, but I was going through a lot of different emotional ups and downs from different relationships and questions and conversations that just made me feel like I was abandoning myself over and over. I don't blame anyone else but myself, I take full responsibility, but I was abandoning myself to try to make others happy, to try to please others, to try to, you know, get them to like me or whatever it might be in intimate relationships. Because a lot of them were just never happy with who I was, they didn't like who I was. And so I felt like I needed to change who I was in order for them to like me, which meant that I was abandoning myself

• 24:24Lewis Howes?

  and my personality and my identity over and over and over again, just to try to make someone happy with me. And to create peace in an environment of peace and love. So this would happen at different times, not all the time, but at different times. And so there was a few years off and on where I felt like, man, I'm like a six or a seven. I'm not living to the potential that I know I could be living internally. On the outside, I was creating results still, but internally I felt like I was off at different moments. Those would be like the lowest moments for me because I felt like, man, I really wish that I was feeling more myself. And then I would learn something from the show. I'd have an expert on it. And it was kind of like,

• 25:06Lewis Howes?

  I would just do therapy throughout the entire nine years. I'd be like, this is what I'm struggling with. And here's how I messed up. And here's my mistakes. And here's what I'm doing wrong. And I would find someone on and I would try to start tapping into that, you know, so many different experiences I can remember from Byron Katie, where she had me do the work, her, her, her whole thing about the work. She had me doing that in the session with her, which was extremely, you know, eye opening from Esther Perel and different therapists that I've talked with, Guy Winch, who I've had on the show, to Erwin McManus, talking about, you know, after going through a breakup, having him on and just the spiritual exploration of, of grief and loss and all these different things.

• 25:49Lewis Howes?

  I've been experiencing them and sharing them during the last nine years with you. I've talked about these things. And it's been extremely therapeutic for me to be able to learn, you know. It's taken me a lot longer to learn than most people. So I've had to repeat the lessons over and over again until I finally learned them to not abandon myself. But I think just being in, in kind of this inner turmoil and different, different moments of different relationships. Again, not all the time, but at different moments that made me feel like, gosh, I don't feel like I'm giving my best. And I don't feel like I'm showing up fully. But here's when you know that you've got something good. It's when I still wanted to keep showing up because I cared so much about the mission.

• 26:33Lewis Howes?

  If I didn't care about the gig, which was being the host of the show, creating it, running a business, managing the team, all the stuff that comes with running a business, which for a lot of people is very stressful, overwhelming, the finances, the accounting, the bookkeeping, the taxes, hiring, firing, coming up with content, doing press, having to be on all the time, having to create consistently. You know, managing egos, all these different things, booking the show, whatever it might be, running with the advertising, the promotion, writing a book, creating courses, doing webinars, creating all this stuff that comes with this. It can feel like overwhelming if you're not in the right place. And so I knew I was always in the right place because even when I felt exhausted

• 27:16Lewis Howes?

  from the inner turmoil of a relationship or overwhelmed, and even when I felt like I was at a six out of a 10, some days a four or five out of a 10, I still wanted to show up and be of service. And I think that's what's been powerful for me because I've been in this game for, you know, nine years, but really 13 years in kind of the online marketing world. I've seen so many people come and go quickly. They had a few big hits, they become viral, they, or they, they launch a podcast, or they, they get their blog going for a year or two, but then they stop. And then you don't see them for a year or two. They're gone, you know, they've, they've gone. You're like, where do these people go? They were, they had some traction and then they left.

• 28:00Lewis Howes?

  I've seen this over the years. Very few people have been consistent every week for nine years in this space that I've seen, very few. And most people, um, they'll do it for a couple of years and then they move on to something else. Because it wasn't the main thing for them. It wasn't what they wanted to do consistently for a long time. And that's fine. This one day will transition, you know? I don't see it happening anytime soon. I see myself wanting to do this for a long time because I still love it. I still feel like this is my mission. But in one day, this will probably transition into something else. Uh, but feeling those low moments throughout the years, multiple, multiple times, multiple different years, made me realize that I'm in the right place and this is where I want to be. And I've said this to my team all the time.

• 28:43Lewis Howes?

  I don't know if like someone gave me a billion dollars to like buy everything, right? All that we've created, they said, here's a billion dollars. I want to take greatness, uh, everything you've created with greatness and now it's mine. I had to sell it. I honestly don't know what else I would do. I'm like, I would just recreate the same thing. I'm still curious. I'd want to do it in a different way, maybe. But I'd still be interviewing people, creating content to help improve the lives of other people. Because for me, personal, my existence on this planet, I don't know what is greater than being of service to someone else. I don't know. That's me. But if I was a singer, maybe I would just want to sing, and that's what I'd want to do. If I was an athlete, I'd want to play and perform as an athlete.

• 29:26Lewis Howes?

  If I was a writer, I would just want to write, you know, but for me, I want to be in service. I want to help people improve the quality of their life. And I think it's because I went through a lot of the inner battles, growing up and struggles from all the different things I've talked about here. And I don't want people to suffer. I don't want people to go through the same amount of suffering and inner pain that I felt like I lived with for decades. And I want people to feel shame and insecure. I don't want that because it is so painful. It's not fun. And that pain was really a driver for so many things, but it left me feeling unfulfilled until I knew how to manage it, until I knew how to process and integrate it into peace and into purpose.

• 30:08Lewis Howes?

  And so those were some of the low moments for me. When a lot of people go through low moments, they'll give up or they'll stop the thing they're working on. And that means maybe the thing you're working on isn't what you're meant to do. It reminded me that this is what I'm meant to do because I still continue to do it and I still love it. Next question. What's the most surprising thing you've learned about yourself over the past nine years? A couple of things. One, to follow up on that last question, I think having the ability and the courage to continue to show up, even when I feel like, man, I don't want to, you know, I don't want people to see me today. I don't want people to, you know, hear about the mistakes I've made or how stupid I was with something I did or how, you know.

• 30:49Lewis Howes?

  Whatever, what I'm going through, I don't want people to hear my shame and my insecurities. But having the courage to keep showing up and put myself out there is something that I would have never done growing up. I never had the courage to let people see who I truly was, like my insecurities. I just always wore a mask because I didn't want to be made fun of. And so now having the courage to be like, man, here's all my mistakes, all my flaws, all my, all the things I messed up, I'm not perfect, I constantly am learning and being courageous enough to open up about these things. I mean, I never in my entire life would have thought that I'd open up about sexual abuse publicly and talk about it on a podcast when I was older. I never thought this would ever happen.

• 31:31Lewis Howes?

  So having the courage to transform myself and be in continual transformation, because I'm still growing and learning, and talk about these subjects like the mask of masculinity. I never thought I'd write a book about masculine vulnerability. This was not like who I was 20 years ago. It was all about success and results and winning and competition. It wasn't about collaboration, it wasn't about, you know, sharing your feelings and your emotions and hugging other men and crying in front of them. It wasn't about that. But what I learned is that there is, if you don't have the ability to process your feelings and emotions, if you don't have the tools on how to process these things that have hurt you in the past

• 32:14Lewis Howes?

  or that have made you feel like you went through some trauma, then that is always stick with you, it's going to manifest in some other way in your life and it's going to hurt you in some way. Maybe your relationship won't be as intimate and vulnerable as it could be because you're not willing to go there. Maybe you're disconnected from family members because you're still holding on to resentment and pain from something that happened in the past. Or maybe you just lack the courage to actually connect with people the way you need to connect with them in order to attract the things you want in your life. So for me, to be able to process and learn these things over the last nine years, it's been the greatest gift for me, the skills, the school of greatness has helped me the most in my mind

• 32:54Lewis Howes?

  because I put myself out there and allowed myself for embarrassment, humiliation, judgment. I mean, the judgment that I've received over the last nine years just. If I have a certain guest on, if I said the wrong thing, if I talk about a certain topic, like the amount of judgment that I have received in nine years. If you would have told me like, hey, 20 years ago, you're gonna get 500,000 comments of people saying that you suck, or you're an idiot, or this or that, and it's not gonna affect you. I would have said, there's no way, because I couldn't take one negative comment 20 years ago, or one criticism. And so, to be able to take on all the reviews and the negativity that people have, just because, for whatever reason,

• 33:38Lewis Howes?

  has been something that surprised me as well, because I think that is a fear that holds a lot of people back. They don't create because they can't take the reviews. They can't take the feedback. And I learned, in the first year of the podcast, the hard way, that feedback is very valuable. And if you take feedback personally, it will ruin you and it will cripple you. I went through, here's a story for you, that I'm not proud of. I went through, I could probably find this still. In the first year, I remember I went through like a Twitter battle with some guy. Some guy I didn't even know, I still don't even know who this guy's name is or whatever. But I remember for like, four days, this guy left like a negative comment about me on Twitter, and I like,

• 34:20Lewis Howes?

  my ego was big then, and I like, lashed out back, and I was like, you're wrong, or you suck, or something. I can't remember what it was. And then he made a comment back, and we just went back and forth. It was this little Twitter, Twitter debate battle. You know, egos one upping each other, it was ridiculous. And I remember that happened, and I spent like, three or four days obsessing over this guy's comments. And I can't even remember what it was about. But I remember how much energy it took away from me, because I was so concerned with like, proving this person wrong. Learning how to overcome that, and, and, and deal with the criticism over the years. Luckily, we've had, we do so much good, we, our whole intention is to be of value. It's not to hurt people, it's not to say malicious things. You know, we try to do the best we can, but

• 35:05Lewis Howes?

  when you put that much content out there, someone's gonna be offended about something. And so for me to just not reply to these things in a, in a negative way anymore, and learn how to overcome that was something that's very surprising for me, because I didn't have that skill growing up. I was the... You know, compete, you know, defend yourself. That was my whole come from as a, as a kid and playing sports. I think something else surprising I learned about myself is I'm far more capable than I believe. I'm far more capable of creating things I've never done before than I believe. This was again, all a dream nine years ago to have my own show, to interview the biggest guests in the world, to write a New York Times bestselling book, to do a documentary, to be on PBS,

• 35:47Lewis Howes?

  to host this massive event every year, to be on the biggest press in the world. Like this was all a fantasy. It was all a dream. And I didn't feel ready. I didn't feel like I had the credibility. I didn't feel like I had the skills, the experience to do these things. So to know that I am far more capable of creating magic than I ever believed before, because this was not even something that was possible nine years. So it's, it's cool to witness when I look back. A lot of us compare ourselves to other people, but we don't look back in time to see what we've actually created. And in nine years, we've created some amazing things. And it always seems really challenging until you do it.

• 36:31Lewis Howes?

  And then once you've done it, you can say, okay, I did it now. And it doesn't seem as big when you look back years ago, but it's a big deal. And so building upon the past into creating something even bigger in the next year and years to come is what I'm really excited about. And those are some surprising things I learned about myself. Next question we got is when you started out, what were the biggest names you wanted to interview and how did it feel getting to meet them? When I go back to the original launch date, I remember saying like, who would my three big guests be? And one was, Tony Robbins was one of them. The Rock was up there, Will Smith and Jim Carrey and Sylvester Stallone.

• 37:13Lewis Howes?

  Those guys were, you know, among the top people that I wanted to have on. I've only had Tony, Tony Robbins on was the only person I've had on that list. I've gotten close to Jim Carrey a couple of times. I'm close to the circle of The Rock, but I haven't had him on yet. We had Kevin Hart on, and that was a big interview for me because for, even though he wasn't the original top five when I launched it, but within like the first year or two, he became on the list. And so for five years I worked on, on getting Kevin Hart. So it was great to have him on there. But we've had so many big names. That it's just been cool because it just becomes easier and easier to book when you, you know, you get the credibility of other people who've already come on the show.

• 37:57Lewis Howes?

  So, um, you know, here's the thing, these were names that I wanted five, uh, nine years ago. And a lot of these people I still haven't got on. So I still haven't accomplished my goals of like, dream guests that I wanted nine years ago. You know, I thought it would have happened by now, but it hasn't. And that's okay. Because the people we do have on, the impact we're making for me is just rewarding, it's fulfilling. I think we've had Tony on now four times, four or five times. And so it's, it's been fun to have him back over and over and it's, I always learn something new and, and when I have The Rock or Jim Carrey or Sylvester Stallone on in the future, it's going to be just inspiring as well. But I'm excited to see what we create this year. And if you know, uh, any of these names that I just talked about,

• 38:39Lewis Howes?

  and you have a connection to them, then reach out to me personally and let's get them on because I think we can create some magic together. So that's, that's some of the big names that I wanted early on. That's how I felt. You know, I've had so many great people. Matthew McConaughey, uh, Brene Brown was someone I wanted to have on as well, early on. And when I got to interview her, it was a very special time. I went to, uh, her place in Texas and I interviewed her there. And that was just a beautiful experience for me. So, so many moments that I have with these guests that have inspired me and, and it's just been a beautiful time. Next question, how was focusing on service with the show versus just focusing on building a business like your previous endeavors? How did that change the way you think about business and success?

• 39:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, when I started the show, I said, I'm going to do this for a year and I'm not going to try to make money. And again, I had the privilege at that time because for the previous four years, I built a company where I pretty much saved every penny. Because before that I was broke on my sister's couch. So I saved enough money where I felt like I could live for two years without making any money. So they gave me a privilege and a little bit of a runway. But we've always made decisions on will this serve the mission? You know, is this gonna help people? Is this gonna serve people? I have probably lost out, let's say, lost out on making millions and millions of dollars in the last nine years from opportunities that came in that we said no to.

• 40:05Lewis Howes?

  I, I wanna make money and build the business financially in a big way. This is not like I don't wanna make money. I want the business to thrive and you don't have a business unless you bring in money. It's just a hobby at that, at that point, if you don't have money coming in. And you can't only serve people to the limit. You can only have as many people on your team and expand on content and what you're creating. If you have a small team, you're unable to serve more people. So we need resources. We need money to come in in a massive way so we can bring in more people and then make a bigger impact. So the first four years, I would say that I said no to a lot of money making things. One, because I had a couple of years of runway. So I was like, no, I just wanna serve. The first year, we didn't even run ads.

• 40:49Lewis Howes?

  People were trying to run ads on the podcast and I was like, no, I just wanna serve. I just wanna give it all away for free. I don't wanna, I don't wanna take any money. I just wanna give it all away for free. Then I realized like, this is actually not setting a good example. You know, um, it's funny because I feel like this show actually became more credible when it had ads. I remember I was like listening to Oprah's podcast when she launched hers. And she launched with a bunch of, you know, and it had a bunch of ads in there. But I was like, it makes it sound more credible. And she's bringing in resources to hire the producers, the editors, the showrunner, all these different people to come in to run the show. And so it made it more credible in my mind when I actually started bringing in ads.

• 41:29Lewis Howes?

  It also teaches other people like, you can't just do something on the side for fun and always give it away for free. If you're adding value, you should charge for it as well. And so we, we learned how to charge in different ways. You know, the podcast is free. The YouTube channel is free. You don't have to pay for anything to get this valuable information, to get access to these minds. Come on and share the way they share. But businesses pay to run advertising on the audio and in the video. So we're able to generate revenue that way, but it's free to the consumer. So it's been cool that way. And then if people want more, we've got our membership, we've got our coaching, we've got our events, we've got our books that people can pay for if they want that. So we try to create different models for people that

• 42:12Lewis Howes?

  if you've got no money and you're just starting out, or you're you're trying to learn on the side, we've got free stuff. If you want more packaged information to really support you step by step, accountability, coaching, those things, then we've got programs for you as well. But focusing on on service first was important for me early on and still is today. Next question, what's been the most exciting part of building the School of Greatness? The community, the first thing I think about, you know, Summit of Greatness is a beautiful experience. It's this three day experience we do in Columbus, Ohio. And it's really the time of year where thousands of people come and you get to see the value you've created from the show.

• 42:53Lewis Howes?

  I don't get to see a lot of people who are listening or watching the show or consuming the content. Unless someone comes up to me on the street or when I'm out somewhere, someone will come up to me and they'll tell me. But day to day, I don't get to see that and experience it. When we do a live event and people come together, you get to really feel how what we have created together as a team is making a massive impact on people that are consuming this information. And that is really cool. So that's been the most exciting part. When I get to see people and hug people and high five people and hear people's stories about I discovered the podcast from my friend who sent me this one episode, which got me to take action in this part of my life and it set me up

• 43:37Lewis Howes?

  and for a massive growth in this area of my life. And thank you. So hearing that is just like the most exciting and rewarding part of this because that's why I do it, to try to help people. Doing all the other cool things that were dreams of mine, you know, 10 years ago, writing a New York Times bestseller, having a TV show on PBS, making a documentary. All these other things are really cool and exciting, you know, dancing with Ellen on The Ellen Show, and being on The Today Show, and being in Times Square on a billboard. Like, all these other things are really cool and fun. But at the end of the day, it's about the community and people that we get to impact as a team, which really excites me. Next question, have your thoughts on self-care changed at all during the last nine years? And so, how?

• 44:22Lewis Howes?

  Yes, I've talked about this on the show, but the last year I spent every two weeks doing therapy. And for the first six months, it was almost every week in a therapy session, as I was transitioning out of one relationship, and really trying to figure out like, why do I keep creating the same pattern of abandonment? Why do I keep abandoning myself? Again, no one else is doing anything, you know, there's no blame anywhere else. It's 100% accountability. Why do I keep choosing certain actions for myself that abandoned me? So doing a year of therapy, a year of coaching, where a couple of times a month, I got to have emotional processing, which led to emotional integration, which then leads to emotional accountability,

• 45:06Lewis Howes?

  gave me the permission to release all pain throughout my emotional body, and not hold on to painful thoughts or feelings in my head, or painful emotions in my heart, in my throat, in my stomach, in my chest, my back, and allow me to release those things. For years, I would hold on to emotional or mental frustrations. Not 100% of the time, but it would happen when I was triggered or when I would abandon myself. So taking on accountability and therapy for a year has been extremely powerful. But also making my health a priority, saying this needs to happen.

• 45:50Lewis Howes?

  My physical health, I gotta work out consistently, which will help me process these things. The emotional accountability, I think, is one of the things that most people need. It's what I needed the most, and it's what I'm gonna continue to want to have emotional accountability because of the incredible benefits that I have. Again, mentally and physically and emotionally. It's been incredible. And I think, you know, if we don't get a tune-up on our car, if you don't get an oil change, if you don't fill it up with gas, it can't go anywhere. But we were never taught as kids, in general, some of us were, but most of us were not taught how to have emotional regulation, emotional processing, emotional integration, and emotional accountability.

• 46:31Lewis Howes?

  And so we allow things to weigh on top of us emotionally, mentally, which manifest physically, which creates resentment, anger, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, all these things that we're seeing in the world right now with the mental health struggles. And I'm learning through my process that the physical conditioning is a big support of self-care, physical activity, whatever it is for you. You can play sports, you can work out, you can run, you can do any activity that you wanna do that moves your body. The emotional integration and processing is more powerful than the physical. Because I was a workout machine, but I still had stress in my mind, throat felt clenched,

• 47:15Lewis Howes?

  and the heart palpitations would come, you know, throughout the years. And it wasn't until I started to really heal the inner child, the inner child that I had inside of me that was still hurting, that was still frustrated, that was still resentful, that was still angry, that was still... Felt like it needed to defend itself. And, and the inner child that I continued to abandon over and over again. From what my inner child needed to express, needed to say, needed to feel. Needed the environment to create for myself. I kept abandoning myself again. No one did this to me. I did this to myself. So there's no past relationship or business partner or employee or family member that did something to me. They only lived their lives.

• 47:58Lewis Howes?

  They only just experienced their own experience. I allowed to interpret that experience in negative ways, which caused the manifestation of physical pain and stress and anxiety in my life. A trigger, a root cause trigger that was on a repeat and on a pattern. And so a lot changed for many years. From nine years ago, in the first year, I opened up about sexual abuse and went through a big transformation that allowed me to process a lot. But there are levels, my friend, there are layers and levels to the different challenges, pain, process, anxiety that we've all experienced throughout our, our lifetimes. And even though I thought like I'd healed in a big way nine years ago,

• 48:41Lewis Howes?

  by going through this, this kind of breakthrough of processing and opening up, I realized that there was so much more that I hadn't healed yet over the last nine years. And I'm sure there could be more years where I'm going to need to heal other things. But at this stage in my life, the self-care of emotional therapeutic experiences consistently, from the emotional processing, from the emotional integration, and then the emotional accountability, is a life changer. And that happened from therapy with me. And it continues to happen with the accountability of going every two weeks. So for me, I don't know. I just feel like that's a big thing that people should be thinking about.

• 49:24Lewis Howes?

  The physical expression on a consistent basis, but the emotional expression is more powerful in my mind. Next question, what's the origin story of the three truths question? I gotta remember when, I can't remember when the first time I asked this. I wrote, but what I do remember is like it was in the middle of an interview. And the question just came to me. I, I, I want to go back and try to figure out what was the first time I asked this. I think the question came to me because I was like, I don't want to ask, how do you want to be remembered? Cause I'd heard that before from other people in interviews. They would like be like, how do you want to be remembered? Or if there was only one thing you'd want to say to the world, what would it be? Or questions like that. So it just came to me. I was like, okay, if there's, if it was your last day and you had to get rid of everything you've created,

• 50:07Lewis Howes?

  but you have three lessons that you felt were most powerful to you, three things that you knew to be true, that you would share with the world, and this is all we had to remember you by, what would you say those are? And I think the response I got from that was like, oh, wow, I've never been asked that question before. And the response was really insightful because a lot of people strip it down to the basics, you know? Be grateful, you know? Love is the most important thing. And pursue your dreams, or whatever it is, like, they get back to the basics. They, they share all this wisdom on the, up, the interview and the episode for an hour or two hours. And then I'm like, okay, if you could only share three things, what would they be? And it goes back to like the core message of their heart, what they're feeling in that moment.

• 50:50Lewis Howes?

  So that's where that, that question started. Next question, when did you feel like it was the right time to begin investing in building out your team and expanding your business? This was a fear of mine. I did not know how to run a company, you know, 12 years ago. And I had a small team in my other company of mostly freelancers. I never had employees. It just kind of all scared me, to be honest. I just wasn't sure how to, how to build a business. Like, again, they didn't teach them this stuff in school. I didn't know how to manage a team. I didn't know how to hire an employee. I didn't even know how to deal with HR. I didn't know how to deal with taxes. Like, I wish they would have created this process and training in school growing up, because that's important. So I was just afraid of it.

• 51:35Lewis Howes?

  And so it took me probably years until I fully went all in on like building a team, which in some ways benefited me, but in other ways hurt me because I just put everything on myself. I said, okay, I've got to create this. I've got to do the programs. I got to do the webinars. I got to create the slide deck. I got to email everyone. I got to, I mean, just, I took on every job. So I think it held me back from my growth and my expansion because I thought, you know, I would have to take more time to train people to, to learn what I already know. And I'd rather just get it done quick. And that held me back in a big way. I wish I would have built a team faster. I wish I would have gone all in faster, but now we're doing that.

• 52:17Lewis Howes?

  We're, we're bringing on more and more team members who want to serve humanity, who care about creating this type of meaningful information, this content, and trying to impact lives. And so that's what's been really cool is now we're doing that more and more. And it just takes that initial time of like hiring your first person, you know, hiring a few people, you know, letting go of people, people leaving all these different things. Just learning how the ins and outs of a business works and learning not to take things personally, which is hard. It took things so personally early on because I was like, this is my baby. This is my business, my dream. And, you know, you just gotta learn to not take offense to things. But that is really, that was really hard for me to do early on because it was my life.

• 53:01Lewis Howes?

  And if I felt like someone was taking advantage of me, they were taking advantage of my life and my business and my livelihood. So I had to learn again how to process and heal a lot of these things to get to this point. Next question, what's your big vision now that you're nine years into the School of Greatness? The big vision is, is consistent. It's been constant. It's to serve 100 million lives weekly to help people improve the quality of their life. That's what we're here to do with the School of Greatness, with Greatness Media. We are launching more programs this year and in the coming years to facilitate that process. We're launching greatness.com sometime later this year, which will be a whole new experience of, of reaching people in a different way.

• 53:45Lewis Howes?

  We're building out new YouTube shows and new programming and new video content. We're to be bringing on more content for the audio side of things with different shows and audio format in the future as well. We're working on a new books, programs, events, all these things to impact people in a way that they want to consume information. We are in the business of service. And if people say, "We want to learn in this style," then we're in the business of trying to figure out how to deliver that style to help people in the best possible way. If that's through group coaching, cool. We've got greatness coaching that you can be a part of. We have accountability every single month. We have a coach and a small group of people that will support you.

• 54:30Lewis Howes?

  If that's through a membership portal, where you have all of our top trainings for years on how to build your business, generate leads, traffic and sales, and build your personal brand, we've got that. If that's through the podcast, through books, through events, all these things we're trying to develop to support people. But the mission has been the same, serve 100 million lives weekly. And we're getting closer and closer every day to achieving that. So I just want to say a big thank you. If this is your first episode here, if you've been here a bunch of times, I appreciate your support in being a part of this community. It's an incredible community of conscious achievers who are looking to learn, to develop, to improve, to make a bigger impact in their lives and to be more valuable to their friends,

• 55:15Lewis Howes?

  their family members and their community around them and make a mark in this world and what they know they want to do and start taking it on in a bigger way. So I just want to really thank you and acknowledge you for being a part of this community. Again, whether this is your first episode here or you've been here for nine years, I acknowledge you for your commitment to growth, to helping others and to being of service to yourself, to improving the quality of your life. That's why I'm here. I want to keep doing that myself. That's why I keep doing this nine years in. And we're not stopping anytime soon. In fact, I feel like we're just getting started. I feel like this is now the beginning. Like we've got enough foundation where we can really start to take off now. And it's going to be a massive explosion here in the coming years. So I feel like we're just getting started.

• 56:01Lewis Howes?

  And now we've dug very deep so we can go very high and broad now and that's been the key. If you haven't subscribed yet to us on YouTube, make sure you subscribe right now on YouTube. Click the subscribe button, leave a comment below, subscribe on Apple Podcasts right now or Spotify if you use Android and leave a review over on Apple. Take a screenshot of that review and then text in the text right below. We've got in the description of this on audio or on YouTube where you can text. Text a screenshot and you'll be entered into the giveaway for some cool prizes that we'll be sending out here in the next couple of weeks. So make sure you guys do that right now. Big thank you again for being a part of this journey.

• 56:44Lewis Howes?

  Nine years of the School of Greatness and we're just getting started. I'll see you guys next episode. Thank you so much for listening. 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 show with all the important links and also make sure to share this with a friend and subscribe over on Apple Podcasts as well. I really love hearing feedback from you guys, so share a review over on Apple and let me know what part of this episode resonated with you the most. And if no one's told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.