The Secret to Avoiding Burnout & Reshaping Your Identity w/Dr. Benjamin Hardy EP 1181

Today’s guest is Benjamin Hardy. He’s an organizational psychologist and best-selling author of the books Willpower Doesn’t Work and Personality Isn’t Permanent. His blogs on productivity and psychology have been read by over 100 million people and featured in the Harvard Business Review, the New York Times, on CNBC and many others. He’s written a new book called The Gap and The Gain: The High Achievers' Guide to Happiness, Confidence, and Success. In this episode we discuss how to overcome trauma and use it for growth, why you should make plans on behalf of your future self, how to reshape your identity if you’re feeling stuck, why willpower isn’t enough when it comes to achieving your goals, how to prevent yourself from burning out in your work, and so much more! For more go to: www.lewishowes.com/1181Checkout his website: www.benjaminhardy.comThe Wim Hof Experience: Mindset Training, Power Breathing, and Brotherhood: https://link.chtbl.com/910-podA Scientific Guide to Living Longer, Feeling Happier & Eating Healthier with Dr. Rhonda Patrick: https://link.chtbl.com/967-podThe Science of Sleep for Ultimate Success with Shawn Stevenson: https://link.chtbl.com/896-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 1182 with Benjamin Hardy. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:27Lewis Howes?

  Welcome, my friend. Today's guest is Ben Hardy. He's an organizational psychologist and bestselling author of the books, Will Power Doesn't Work and Personality Isn't Permanent. And his blogs on productivity and psychology have been read by over 100 million people and featured in the Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, on CNBC, and many others. And he's written a new book called The Gap and the Gain: The High Achiever's Guide to Happiness, Confidence, and Success. So if you're looking to accomplish more and achieve more while also feeling fulfillment, then this episode is going to be powerful because we discuss how to overcome the trauma that you've had in your life and use it for growth. Why you should make plans on behalf of your future self. And this is a theme we talk about a lot, the future self.

• 1:09Lewis Howes?

  How to reshape your identity if you're feeling stuck. Why willpower isn't enough even when it comes to achieving your goals. How to prevent yourself from burnout on your work, and so much more. And if you're enjoying this and you can think of one or two people that would think this is inspiring and powerful for their life right now, then make sure to text a few people or post this over on social media and tag me while you're listening to this episode. And if this is your first time here, then welcome. Please click the subscribe button right now over on Apple Podcasts and leave us a review. Because every week we talk about the fans of the week who leave us reviews. And this one is from Gabby who said, "This is one of my favorite podcasts to listen to throughout the day. Always insightful and influential guests. I always finish listening motivated and feeling inspired.

• 1:53Lewis Howes?

  And Lewis has gotten me out of many mental ruts. Highly recommend this podcast to everyone." So a big thank you to Gabby for being the fan of the week. Again, leave us a review at any point when you're enjoying this episode. Let us know what part you enjoyed the most. And in just a moment, I bring you the one and only Benjamin Hardy.

• 2:14Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest, Dr. Ben Hardy in the house. My man, very pumped about this.

• 2:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, man. Happy to be with you.

• 2:23Lewis Howes?

  You've written a number of books, a number of articles online that have done incredibly well. The current book is "The Gap in the Game: How the High Achiever's Guide to Happen is Confidence and Success." And we were just talking beforehand about how really to create gains from a traumatic experience. In the last couple of years, there's been a lot of trauma in the world, not only from the pandemic, but also just the side effects of the pandemic that so many people have had. Loss in their life, loss of their health, friends, family members, loss of their careers, loss in relationships, loss financially. There's been like multiple layers of trauma for a lot of people in the last couple of years.

• 3:06Lewis Howes?

  How can we look at the trauma and learn how we can gain from it? When it seems like it's so overwhelming for people, not even just high achievers, but just people in general, is there a way to gain from trauma?

• 3:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, there's a certainly actually the only way to get out of a trauma is if you actually do believe it was a gain.

• 3:29Lewis Howes?

  Ah, if the event or loss is actually in your favor.

• 3:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, so like what a trauma is, is you had an event. The event, in this case, you're measuring the event against what you wish it was. So something happened, you feel like it was a bad experience, you wish it hadn't happened. And because the event happened, you feel like you're worse off. And you feel like you have long-term disability for some reason or another. So when you're, when you're living that way, then your experience is happening to you. And what post-traumatic growth basically is, is you have an experience, but rather than the event happening to you, you actually happen to the experience. So you say, this is what happened, but I'm like, basically, trauma is when something bad happens. And from a gap perspective, you're wishing it hadn't happened. And so you devalue the experience.

• 4:17Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 4:19Speaker 02

  And you don't want to think about it. And you say, this, this event made my life worse. But when you actually happen to your experiences, then you say, yeah, this was rough, this was painful, but how can I actually learn from this? What can I get out of this? And so you know that you've had post-traumatic growth because on the other side of the experience, you actually believe you are better off. You are actually grateful that the event happened and you have higher sense of meaning, purpose and learning. So you've inflated the value of the experience rather than devalue it. And so even though something rough could have happened and left you pretty scarred, you do genuinely believe on the other side of it, I am better off.

• 4:51Lewis Howes?

  You're better off.

• 4:52Speaker 02

  I have gained and I'm now more capable than my former self was.

• 4:55Lewis Howes?

  Is there situations in life where you're just like, no, there is no way to have post-traumatic gain from a scenario of trauma? Where it's like, this is so bad, how could this actually help me in my, the rest of my life?

• 5:06Speaker 02

  Um, there are, I think that that's the initial response to a lot of experiences. Like as an example, like my in-laws had an experience where, you know, I won't go into all the details, but basically they were, they own an apartment complex and like the government came in and shut it down. And like, they just, they felt like there was absolutely nothing that they could gain from it. Zero they could gain from it.

• 5:29Lewis Howes?

  We had this apartment complex, this was our whole livelihood. We had this business and now the money's not coming in and we're screwed.

• 5:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, and like, I think that people have different experiences. Some way worse than that, you know? You lose a loved one or something. I think the initial response is there's absolutely nothing I can get out of this. And, you know, it would have been better if it hadn't happened. But I think that if you approach every experience as learning, right? And if you take your experiences and value them and increase the value of them and know that your experiences are kind of like clay, like you can form them, you can shape them, you can do whatever you want with them. Like, I don't have access to your experience, you don't have access to my experience. You'll never know what I'm experiencing in this conversation.

• 6:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 6:09Speaker 02

  And so I get to do whatever I want with my experiences. I can make them more valuable, I can learn more from them, I can increase the value of them and I can be better off because of my experiences. And I can be grateful for my experiences or I can be worse off because of my experiences and let my experiences, you know, be the driver of my life rather than me being the driver of my own experience. And so I, I don't think that there's any experience you can have that you can't be better off without if you choose to contextualize them in a way that benefits you and makes you better.

• 6:38Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha. Post-traumatic growth, is there a process? After you go through this traumatic experience and how to reflect and think about this?

• 6:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, so in psychology, they call it deliberate rumination. I think that the first thing you want to do is certainly know that you're the one who controls your experience. You're the one who gets to decide what it means. You're the one who get, you know, first off, you're the only one who has access to it. And so you get to decide.

• 7:04Lewis Howes?

  It's your experience, yeah.

• 7:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, like you can't, you don't get my past.

• 7:06Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 7:07Speaker 02

  You know, and so I think recognizing like part of a positive psychology or healthy psychology is is you've got to have a positive past, which obviously you're the one who chooses what your past means. And also you want a compelling and exciting future. And usually those two things go together. But I think the first thing is recognizing like you get to decide what your past means. You get to decide what this experience means and you get to decide how much value you give to the experience. And so like in really simple terms, you know, you certainly don't want to avoid it. You want to think about it like just as an example. And it could be something that happened 10 years ago or 20 years ago, like so like my, my parents got divorced when I was 11. And you know, there was a lot of trauma for sure. My dad became a drug addict and things like that.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  And I can go back even 20 years later and I can go back and think about those experiences and I can get more gains from those experiences. I can think about and learn more and more from my past. And so one, one aspect of it is simply just thinking about the experience. You could write about it and think about what are all the ways that I've grown because of the experience? How has that experience increased maybe my, my empathy towards other people or shaped what I do? That one, one example is me, like I don't think I would have gotten, I wouldn't become a psychologist had it been for my experiences. I wouldn't have been able to, you know, I probably wouldn't have learned how to write and learned all the things I did without that experience. And so I can choose to say that experience led to a lot of benefits for me and I'm really glad it happened.

• 8:31Speaker 02

  Gratitude helps as well, like when you're thinking about an experience to actually choose to be grateful for the experience. And then just listing what, what from this experience do I not want, you know? That's, that's just as much gains as well, like what, what about that experience do I want to avoid so that I don't have to deal with that ever again? And also what about that experience can I use to help other people or to? Improve my life and so you know I can go back to an experience over and over and over again and keep increasing the value of that experience and getting increasing learning from it. And you can do it in simple bullet points, just what are the things that I learned that now I no longer want to deal with or avoid because of that? What are the things that I'm now better at because of? You know, how did this shape my goals?

• 9:11Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 9:12Speaker 02

  So it's just a simple process of writing things down and then being grateful that the event happened and saying because this happened, I'm now more capable than my former self.

• 9:19Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. And it seems like there's, there's three, I guess, scenarios in life. There's our former self, our current self, and our future self.

• 9:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:28Lewis Howes?

  The, the former is the thing that we ruminate and reflect on a lot. And the current is where we're at right now, and then the future is where we want to be. Is there other states? Are those the three main states?

• 9:38Speaker 02

  Those are, I mean, obviously, so Daniel Gilbert is a Harvard psychologist who spent an enormous amount of time studying, I guess you would call it, these three stages. And one of his famous quotes, he gave a TED Talk called The Psychology of Your Future Self. He spent a lot of time studying, helping people recognize that they're not the person they were in the past.

• 9:58Lewis Howes?

  They're not the past.

• 9:59Speaker 02

  Oh, no, no. I mean, you're not even actually the same person you were a week ago. Like, you've had experiences slightly that have slightly altered your goals, your aspirations, you know, even potentially your habits. And so there's actually a million versions of your former self. But yeah, you're not your former self, you have different goals, you're in a different situation. And so you actually see the world differently than your former self and you approach things slightly different than your former self. And part of, I guess, the gain mindset is, is that you measure yourself against your former self and recognize how far along you are. And so even if, for example, one aspect of your life went downhill, like maybe in the pandemic, your business actually went down a little bit. If you're measuring yourself and saying, well, I actually went backwards, then you're in the gap. But if you're like, well, yeah, maybe my money is not as far, but I actually know more than

• 10:44Speaker 02

  my former self and I, I now can think things through differently, so you actually are ahead of your former self. And then future self is obviously just specifically who you want to be in the future. And fixed mindset, like Carol Dweck's fixed mindset, is people who are overly defiant about their current self. They're like, this is who I am, this is who I'm always going to be. Their identity is very rooted in their present or their past, whereas growth mindset, their identity is more rooted in their future, they have a more flexible identity, they're not as caught up in who they are today, they don't worry if people... You know, they don't need to have all the answers right now. Like, I don't, they don't have to have that perfect website, or they don't have to have the big business. It's like, you know what, my current self isn't the be all end all. My future self's gonna be a lot further along, so I'm gonna be a lot more compassionate towards my current self.

• 11:29Speaker 02

  I know my current self is very temporary.

• 11:31Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 11:32Speaker 02

  So it's okay if whatever I'm trying to do, it's not working perfectly. Like, I'll figure it out, my future self's a lot further along than me, they're a lot further developed than me.

• 11:40Lewis Howes?

  And what is the science of the future self, planning and visualizing? How do we, how do we think about our future selves to get from where we are to where we wanna be in a healthy way?

• 11:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, one thing that's really funny about that is, is that basically all the research on that subject shows that as a rule, human beings are not very equipped, you know, whether it be evolution or whatnot, to think about where they wanna be, let's just call it 10, 20 years from now, and then properly plan and set plans for that. People are really good at like, planning a week in advance, maybe a month in advance, but like, a lot of people, they don't really set their future self up for success.

• 12:21Speaker 02

  They, you know, they're not very good at planning retirement, setting up systems for retirement, planning for their future self's health. And so, like, what they say the first aspect is, and the same area in your brain that allows you to have empathy for other people, actually allows you to have empathy towards your future self. So, the first step in kind of thinking about your future self is thinking they are a different person than you. Like, Louis in the future is not Louis right now.

• 12:45Lewis Howes?

  He's a different person.

• 12:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, Louis in five or 10 years from now is gonna have different goals. You're gonna be in a different situation, you're gonna actually care about different things. And so the first aspect is having empathy towards your future self and recognizing they're a different person. They're gonna be in a different situation, they're, they're not you, they may have different values. And so, you're, you know, that's, that's, I think, a healthy aspect of having a growth mindset. Like, other researchers have found that people with a fixed mindset, they actually think that their future self is basically the same person they are today. And so they don't have a lot of imagination towards their future self. They don't think that their future selves could be dramatically different, or be in a totally different situation. You know, have great money, or great relationships, or things like that. And so I think the first step is just... Recognizing that your future self is a different person, even if you don't try.

• 13:30Speaker 02

  Like, it's kinda like that idea that like, change is inevitable, growth is optional. Um, so your future self is a different person, then just beginning to think, who do I want that person to be, getting more and more specific. Um, and then obviously there's strategies of bringing your future self to you, because it's actually easier to bring your future self to you than going to your future self.

• 13:46Lewis Howes?

  How do you bring your future self to you?

• 13:48Speaker 02

  Um, I mean, one simple step is just actually thinking about where you want your future self to be, and then writing a letter from your future self to you.

• 13:57Lewis Howes?

  Give me an example. So, if I'm gonna write this letter, what does that look like? A future, a letter-

• 14:03Speaker 02

  From your future self.

• 14:04Lewis Howes?

  From two years, you know, I'm thirty-eight, so- Forty-year-old Louis, speaking to my thirty-eight-year-old self.

• 14:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:11Lewis Howes?

  How would this look?

• 14:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, and one reason why this is interesting, so there's a concept in psychology called the return home, or the return trip effect, and basically it's the idea that whenever you go somewhere, coming home is actually a faster trip. So like, if I, I flew here from Florida.

• 14:24Lewis Howes?

  Why is it, why does it feel that way?

• 14:26Speaker 02

  Because home is a lot bigger concept than wherever the destination is.

• 14:30Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 14:31Speaker 02

  Um, but anyways, bringing your future self to you, you just obviously imagine and think about, who do you want your future self to be? Get as specific as possible, maybe think, you know, three core areas of your life. You know, could be finances, could be relationships, could be spirituality, but just put yourself in the situation of your future self.

• 14:47Lewis Howes?

  So you're writing this from-

• 14:48Speaker 02

  From your future self.

• 14:49Lewis Howes?

  From, from your two-years-older self to your current self.

• 14:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:53Lewis Howes?

  And saying what? Okay, two-years-ago person-

• 14:57Speaker 02

  Well, you're bringing them to you. So they're talking to you, they're not talking about, they're not talking to two-years-ago person, they're actually talking to you.

• 15:03Lewis Howes?

  And just- Oh, right, so they're in the future.

• 15:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:05Lewis Howes?

  You're speaking from the future to your current self.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  So this is part about how, this is part of how you create more vividness of your future self, but it's also how you create an emotional connection to your future self. Because, um, you actually want to have a relationship with your future self, and actually get to the point where you have a friendship with your future self. Um, it's kinda like that idea that, you know, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with, well, one of those five people should probably be your future self.

• 15:24Lewis Howes?

  That's good.

• 15:25Speaker 02

  Um, but also, there's, what's hilarious is, there's actually research that shows that people who do not have empathy or connection to their future self are more likely to, well- The most basic thing is, is if you are not connected to your future self, you're gonna make very bad short-term decisions. Like financially, health-wise, they say, like, the research basically shows, the less connected you are to your future self, the more the present, you seek present dopamine. So that would be like, that'd be destructive dopamine. Like, the present becomes very powerful and you make short-term costs rather than short-term investments towards your future self. So like, anything and everything you do is either an investment towards your future self, or it's a cost to your future self. Anytime you invest towards your future self, your future self actually gets a little bit bigger. It's just like you invest in anything. And anytime your future gets bigger, your present actually gets better.

• 16:10Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm. That's interesting. So it's kinda like, my sister trains for like, Ironmans and marathons, and she's, she'll do this training, you know, throughout the week. And she's like, "My future self is thanking me for like, the work I'm putting in now, these like, long-term goals that I'm committing to and staying consistent with. My, my health is thanking me in the future, now."

• 16:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, when you're making short-term investments. You're making, you know, and you actually emotionally love what you invest yourself in. You love what you invest in. So it's like, it basically, like, you know, as far as writing that letter, you know, certainly you'd want to provide the context. So like, you know, and you're talking as your future self. You know, like, "This is where I'm at, this is where my life's at, this is what I've done in the last two years, and, you know, this is what I would say to you right now."

• 16:52Lewis Howes?

  Here's what you need to do to get here, or?

• 16:55Speaker 02

  You could. You know, "Here's what you should look out for, or here's a, you know, here's where you should put your focus." You know, like...

• 17:02Lewis Howes?

  Right, stop focusing on these distractions.

• 17:03Speaker 02

  You can do this a million times. It's not like it has to be perfect once. It's like drafting anything. You can try again next week and adjust it, you know? I think that that's part of having a flexible identity and a flexible mindset, is like, right now, your current self is temporary. And so in a week from now, your current self will be a little further along. Your current self will know, you know, your future self, even in a week from now, will know more than you know. And so, yeah, you can write the letter however you want, but write it from the perspective of your future self, and that's kind of you bringing the future to you. And just, you know, say whatever you wanna say happened and occurred, but speak from your future self.

• 17:36Lewis Howes?

  How do, how important, how important is the idea of identity for ourselves in order to become... Happier, more confident, and more successful.

• 17:47Speaker 02

  So, identity is basically what you're most committed to. So, it's what you're most committed to in terms of your beliefs, in terms of your values, and in terms of how you define yourself. And, basically, your view of your future self has a big impact on your identity, because however you see your future and wherever you see yourself going has a big impact on how you see yourself now.

• 18:09Speaker 02

  And so, your identity is very much what you're 100% committed to, right now. And your identity drives your behavior. And so, like, whatever behaviors you're doing is because that's how you identify. And I guess part of a lot of this future self research and just strategy is to get yourself more connected, identity-wise, to your future self, so that you're being and acting more as your future self rather than your former self.

• 18:30Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 18:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, identity is the driver of behavior. And identity is 100% what you're committed to. And so, if you want to commit to something different, you know, that'll change your identity. Once you get 100% committed to something else, like, whether it's, you know, at some point or another, my identity, I committed 100% to the idea that my future self was a writer. And so, once you commit 100% to something, then you begin to identify with that. And your behavior then follows that 100% commitment.

• 18:57Lewis Howes?

  So, how do we shape our identity to be the optimal for us to have the greatest future self?

• 19:03Speaker 02

  You just need to think about who you want your future self to be, you know? And also, you want to have a flexible identity. You don't want to be-

• 19:09Lewis Howes?

  Now, what's a fixed identity do to people?

• 19:12Speaker 02

  It's essentially a fixed mindset. It's saying, "This is who I am, this is who I'm always gonna be, these are my characteristics."

• 19:18Lewis Howes?

  This is right, this is wrong.

• 19:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, so like, so Adam Grant wrote a book called Think Again. And Think Again's all about recognizing that, like, you can change your mind. Part of that's not overly attaching your current identity to your former beliefs, or like, to your former goals, even. Like, your former self may have had goals that, right now, are irrelevant to you. Or even they had strategies. They did things that maybe even brought you to here, but- Maybe that's irrelevant to you right now because now you know more than your former self and so now you can visualize a different future self and now you need to figure out new steps. It's kind of like what got you here won't get you there.

• 19:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:53Speaker 02

  So I think being flexible and just thinking like where do I want to be? It could be five, 10 years, could be two years. Getting specific, choosing the right metrics. Like one of the things that Seth Godin said that I really like is he says, "You see whatever it is you're measuring." So like you're probably measuring different metrics or forms of success or goals than your former self was. And thinking what are the things I want to be measuring? What are the things I want to be seeing? What are the things I want to be focusing on right now? It kind of shapes your selective attention, it shapes what you see. So just choosing based on where I'm at right now, based on what I value, based on where I would like to be, who do I want my future self to be? Get very specific about, you know, three or so areas and then,

• 20:35Speaker 02

  you know, begin to craft your identity around that.

• 20:37Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 20:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's powerful. I mean, I identify, because there's so many identities that we can have in our life, right? There's so many.

• 20:46Speaker 02

  One, we do all have a lot of identities.

• 20:47Lewis Howes?

  Right, we have lots of identities. You know, I'm a man, I'm from Ohio, I live in Los Angeles, I like the, you know, the Cleveland Browns, I like the Houston Buccaneers. It's like all these are different identities of likes and interests and associations and I don't smoke, I don't drink, like these identities that I've defined myself.

• 21:06Speaker 02

  Or just big aspects of your current identity.

• 21:08Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 21:09Speaker 02

  How you currently define yourself.

• 21:10Lewis Howes?

  What are these aspects of my identity doing for me? And how should we know if certain identities are hurting us from accomplishing our goals or feeling happier in life?

• 21:27Speaker 02

  I mean, it's a really good question. I think that it's hard to really, it's hard to really like. I don't really grab all of those parts and say like which parts of these are hurting me. I think asking yourself, who do you want to be? Who's your future self is always like the first place to start. Like, and then from there you can say, okay, if this is who I want to be in three years from now, what about my current self can come forward? And what about my current self can't come forward?

• 21:56Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 21:57Speaker 02

  And there's, there's things you do need to let go of. You like, it goes back to what got you here won't get you there. And so if.

• 22:04Lewis Howes?

  How do we know what got us here won't get us there? How do we know what those things are?

• 22:08Speaker 02

  Well, the, the goal always shapes the strategy. So, you know, for example, like I do write books. And so I know that for me, my future self, I want my future self to keep writing books. And so there are certain things that got me here that I'll continue to do. But if I want to maybe write better books or write different types of books, there's certain things I've got to leave behind. Certain things that maybe, you know, like again, your identity is what you're a hundred percent committed to. And what you're a hundred percent committed to reflects your current results. And so if I want better results, the results maybe of my future self, who's, you know, maybe written better books or influenced, then I do have to genuinely say, there's, there's things that I'm doing right now.

• 22:51Speaker 02

  Part of my identity, how I see myself, maybe even part of my process that is keeping me where I'm at. And so, yeah, that's, I think, where you really get clear on the goal. And then you start to think, okay, how do I get up there? That's where you start investing in more education, maybe investing in, you know.

• 23:09Lewis Howes?

  Doing a lot of coaching.

• 23:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, and doing a lot of deliberate practice. Where you, you know, like I'm, just as an example, back to my books. Like, I know I'm going to write more and more books. And so that's my deliberate practice. And so like, and I'm okay that my current self isn't there yet. I'm okay that my current self is a work in progress. I'm not a finished product. And so I'm okay that I'm not there yet. But I do see where I want to go. And I know that there's things I need to adjust in my process if I want to get there. And so it's not like you can get all the answers immediately. You're not going to immediately be able to say. You know, here's the three areas of my identity that I gotta toss out. But like in psychology, they view it as either you've got approach motivation or avoid. Approach is where you focus on what you want, rather than focusing on what you don't want. Avoids where you focus on what you don't want. And so if you just focus on like, this is what I want.

• 23:52Lewis Howes?

  So who do I need to become to create that?

• 23:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, and then you start to invest in it. Like that goes back to investing in your future self. There's a lot of research that shows whatever you invest money in, you become more committed to. Sound cost bias, endowment effect, like you have ownership over what you invest in. And so if you start, if you have any goal, any desire, it could be to get in a relationship. It could be me to be a better father, you know, or whatnot. Like you see yourself in, you know, whatever vividness you decide to create there, whatever specific outcomes or experiences, and then you start to invest in that, start to learn in that, start to practice in that, and be very flexible with your current self and that you're not there yet, and get genuine feedback, you know, like get feedback along the way.

• 24:36Speaker 02

  But the more invested you are, and it's good to have deadlines, like it is good on any goal. Even me wanting to spend more time with my kids, giving yourself a deadline so that there's some form of forcing function. And then just measuring the gain, honestly, like going back to the gain, whatever progress you make, don't compare yourself with your ideal all the time, but actually say, this was my goal, whatever it was, to become a better writer, or to be a better father, or to be in a relationship. How am I doing now compared to where I was three months ago?

• 25:03Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 25:04Speaker 02

  And, and actually documenting the learning, document the differences, see your current self is different from your former self three months ago.

• 25:10Lewis Howes?

  So what is the problem most people have? They see the gap of where they want to be, and they see what's in the gap, and they think about how to get there. What's the problem with just seeing that and not seeing the gain that you've already accomplished since yesterday, or last month, or last year, or last decade? And how do you measure? And manage both where you are to where you want to be and where you've been and really using that as a springboard to the next step.

• 25:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, so when you're in the gap, and again, this idea originally came from Dan Sullivan. He's, you know, the co-founder of Strategic Coach. It's a coaching company that's been around for like 40 years. I read his little version of The Gap in the Game three years ago, fell in love with the idea and started writing articles about it and then was excited enough to turn into a book. But the gap is where you're measuring yourself against your ideal, wherever you want to be. And so like, I have different ideals than I did three weeks ago. You know, like, because I've learned things that I didn't know three weeks ago, maybe something really cool happened. Or, you know, I certainly have different ideals than I did five years ago. My ideal maybe five years ago was that I wanted to be a published author.

• 26:13Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 26:13Speaker 02

  But your ideals always keep growing and changing. They're kind of like the horizon in the desert. You're never going to get to the horizon and it keeps moving. But if you're constantly measuring yourself against that ideal, then you're always feeling like a failure. Because you're never actually there.

• 26:27Lewis Howes?

  Never there. It's always moving.

• 26:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, so measure, and so, from that standpoint, it really doesn't matter what you've accomplished. Like, everything you've done, or everything that anyone's done, anyone listening to this, it doesn't matter what you've done if you're always measuring yourself against the moving target. In psychology, they call that the hedonic treadmill. It just keeps you feeling like you need more and more and more in order to feel successful.

• 26:48Lewis Howes?

  It'll happen, yeah.

• 26:48Speaker 02

  But it's an insatiable need. You don't actually need anything. And so, yeah, and by the way, the gap happens in small ways. Like, for example, my wife makes dinner for our kids, and they come down and they're like, "Oh, it's not what we wanted." Like, that's measuring what's on the table against what is the ideal in their head.

• 27:06Lewis Howes?

  The expectation.

• 27:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so whatever, so you're always devaluing anything when you're measuring against your ideal. You know, and if you, me for an example, as a parent, if I'm watching my son play tennis, and then the only thing I see is the shots he's missing, and then I go up and I say, you know, "Dude, look what you, you should have been doing this, and this, and this, and this." Then I'm always moving the target of success for him. And so, now I'm teaching him to measure himself against my ideals, which are always changing, or against, you know, versus saying, you know, "How are you doing compared to what you were doing three weeks ago? What have you learned? How are you better than you were three months, you know, a month ago?" You know, and, and so, the gain is obviously where you actually appreciate your progress. You recognize that you are further than your former self. Like in, like in measurement terms...

• 27:53Speaker 02

  Like, uh, what do they call it? Well, you're always measuring yourself against a reference point. So like in, we're always, we're always trained to measure ourselves against reference points.

• 28:00Lewis Howes?

  Right. Why does it seem to be most of us reference ourselves against other people?

• 28:05Speaker 02

  We're trained to.

• 28:06Lewis Howes?

  We're trained to compare ourselves against others?

• 28:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:08Lewis Howes?

  Why?

• 28:09Speaker 02

  Well, it starts with the public education system, right?

• 28:12Lewis Howes?

  Who's got the top grades? Who's number one in the school?

• 28:14Speaker 02

  We're all, the reference point in school is test averages or whatnot, like general averages. You got an A, she's got a B. So you're, you're given a reference point by the education system. It wasn't created by you and you're measured on it against other people. So you're competing against other people, right? And so like you start with external reference points that you're measuring yourself against. Then you've got social media where it's all of these, you know, people with six pack abs and all these things and like telling you what success is. And so we're trained by society to have external reference points and always be measuring ourselves against either externals, ideals, other people, and never measuring ourselves against an internal reference point, which is me versus me three weeks ago, me versus me four years ago. And so I think a huge beginning point to being in the game or actually even getting

• 28:59Speaker 02

  to know yourself is stop measuring yourself against ideals, start deciding your own internal reference points. You know, how do I define success? What matters to me? How am I doing on that definition of success versus my former self? And starting to just measure Benjamin Hardy or whoever's listening, like just measure yourself against where you were before. That's the only accurate measurement because that's the only thing that had a decent starting point. Like if I tried to measure myself against you, what would the measurement be? Would I try to measure you, you know, me versus you on like a podcast? I don't have a podcast, you know? So immediately I'm a failure, right? I could probably try to find ways to measure myself against you so that I feel like I'm beating you, but like we're, we both have different goals. We have both different starting points. And so like the only thing that I can accurately measure myself against that makes any sense is my former self.

• 29:44Speaker 02

  And so if you start just measuring yourself in that way, then you can see your progress. You, you increase the value of your past, you increase the value of your present. And then from there you can have more of an intrinsic motivation to say, what are the targets I actually want to set? And who cares what anyone else is doing? And also who cares what anyone else does to evaluate my progress? Because the only person whose opinion of my progress that matters is me. Your opinion of my progress doesn't really matter. Like the only person whose value You know, of my progress that matters is me and I get to decide that, but if I'm in the gap, I've devalued on my progress because I'm saying, why am I not there?

• 30:19Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 30:19Speaker 02

  So it's pretty destructive.

• 30:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it is. So always be looking at the gain

• 30:30Lewis Howes?

  in order to find kind of peace towards your goals of accomplishing your goals where you are to where you want to be. Don't compare to other people is what I'm hearing you say, compare to where you've been and how far you've come. What if someone could look at their past and say, well, I haven't really done much and they're not proud of the gain? Cause they're like, well, I'm still stuck.

• 30:48Speaker 02

  Well, you still have, you still have to find the gain. You still have to create the game.

• 30:53Lewis Howes?

  Find the meaning. Yeah.

• 30:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, but you still can create gains. I mean, there's a lot of people who maybe aren't, who, who can look at their past, maybe say 10 years has passed by and, you know, I really haven't done that much with my life.

• 31:07Speaker 02

  But that's again, devaluing your own past, devaluing your own experience. Certainly if you look back and, and again, you probably feel like a failure because for some reason or another, you're, you're still comparing yourself with maybe where you thought you should be. Or, or where society thought you should be or where your parents thought you should be or where you're. And so the only reason again, you feel like you aren't doing well is because of you're in the gap and you're saying, this is what I should have done or where I could have been. And so the first step of getting out of that is just actually increasing the value of your past and saying, here are the things I have gained, you know? I mean, for example, my own younger brother, like he's had a lot of challenges, you know, he went through a lot of challenge and trauma growing up. And, uh, you know, you can feel like a failure if you keep measuring yourself against other people.

• 31:47Speaker 02

  But the truth is you can train yourself to choose gains. I mean, he actually, and again, it's up to him, my brother, to decide what his gains are. Not, not me, but if he chooses to look at the gains and say, you know, he does have an amazing daughter, you know, he's had a lot of great experiences. He, he has learned a lot through ups and downs like, once you actually increase the value of your past and actually. Start to love yourself and say, you know, I have gained, I have learned, I am further than my former self. And because of that, I'm gonna move forward. Like, that's a great starting point for any form of progress. Rather than, I'm a loser, look at my past 10 years, look at where. That's a really bad starting point for any form of progress. It gets much better to start wherever you are. Any form of progress you want to make, start in the game and say,

• 32:31Speaker 02

  this is where I actually have made progress. This is where, because that puts you in a position of confidence, puts you in a position of gratitude. It also puts you in a healthy place where you're not trying to compete against anyone else. You're just like, this is, this is my starting point. I do have some momentum from my past. And so from there, I'm gonna move forward feeling like I have made progress and I can own that. Whereas if you're always starting from the vantage point of I'm not where I should be, or I'm not where I could be, or, you know, my, the last year was a then you're, you're trying to like fix something that's not really broken.

• 33:03Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 33:06Lewis Howes?

  You've got another concept about who, not how. I think a lot of people are thinking, when they have a big goal, that they've never accomplished something before, they think, how am I gonna do this? And then they, they get emotionally kind of like paralyzed. Because like, I don't know the steps how to do this. Even if I see that someone else did this and here was their steps, how am I gonna do this? Why should we be thinking who, not how, when it comes to accomplishing big goals?

• 33:36Speaker 02

  Such a, such a cool question. I honestly was not trained in who, not how. So this is another, you know, Dan Sullivan concept, which we, we wrote together and wrote who, not how. But who, not how is a totally different way of looking at life. It's a totally different way of looking at people and it's a totally different way of looking at achievement. When you're a how thinker, you think about a goal, you know, I wanna start a business or anything. I wanna clean my house. And the first question you say is, how do I do that? And so you immediately put all the pressure on yourself to figure out the problem and to execute the problem. I want a new website. Okay, how do I do that? I wanna do this. And people are trained in how, and a lot of that also has to do with the education system because

• 34:18Speaker 02

  we're not trained to collaborate, we're actually trained to compete against each other. And, you know, if you try to get answers from your friend on the test in school, that's called cheating, right? And so. Who not how is a view of collaborating with everyone around you and finding the right who. So if it's like, I want to, you know, build a website. Rather than the first question coming out of your mind, rather than the first thought being, how do I do that? The first immediate thought is, who can do that for me? Or who can help me do that? And basically, the premise of who not how is, is you want to view other people as investments, not costs. So like, if I want to free up my time, if I want to free up 10 hours a week, which I think

• 35:01Speaker 02

  everyone should do, get someone to handle your logistics. You know, like even my wife, like she, she homeschools all of our kids. And we, like I finally got her to think who not how, and like we actually got someone to like help our little twins in the morning so that like she could focus on the other kids. You know, it's like, get a who to help you, and that who is not a cost. It doesn't, you know, even if it's $10, $15 an hour, you know, hire that person to do your website, or hire that person to ghostwrite your book. Like, it's not a cost, it's actually an investment in your future self. And it's an investment in your current self, because when you, when you make that investment, you've now freed yourself up to do what you want to do. You've also invested in the result. And so who not how is a result-oriented approach to life, where you say, what is the result

• 35:46Speaker 02

  I want? And who can, who can make it happen? And the more you start investing in who's, the faster you're going to get results. Even if it's, even if it's learning. Like, the more, the more who's you have around you, the more invested and committed you are to what you're trying to accomplish. So it's like, if I want to run an Ironman, why would I try to figure out how to do that? Why don't I just get who's? Why don't I invest in a trainer?

• 36:08Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 36:08Speaker 02

  That increases my commitment, it also immediately gives me education. So, yeah, who not how solves a lot of problems.

• 36:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 36:16Speaker 02

  It gets you to where you want to go a lot faster.

• 36:17Lewis Howes?

  How do we find the who's, though?

• 36:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:20Lewis Howes?

  When you really think like, you know, a lot of times, people don't know how to find the who. Very specific people they're looking for. Sometimes very technical people.

• 36:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 36:30Lewis Howes?

  And they're like, well, I can't afford the who.

• 36:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, so that's again, thinking in terms of cost.

• 36:35Lewis Howes?

  Not investment, yeah.

• 36:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you, if you make an investment in a who, and it could be small investments in who's in the beginning. When you make the investment, first off, you become more committed. Second off, it creates an environment or a context where now you've got to actually find a way to generate the results. So that you can, so it actually, it's actually a fast way to increase your ability to earn. It's again, an investment mindset. But back to the idea of how do you find the who? Again, that's a how question. Who can find the who?

• 37:05Lewis Howes?

  Who can find the who?

• 37:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, and so like I have.

• 37:06Lewis Howes?

  Who can you hire or who can you help you? That's why I asked you before the, our interview, I was like.

• 37:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:12Lewis Howes?

  Looking for a ghostwriter, who do you know?

• 37:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 37:14Speaker 02

  So you need a who to find your who's.

• 37:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 37:16Speaker 02

  Um, like I have an assistant who, whenever I want to like hire someone, like I recently, they're like, if I want to grow a YouTube channel, like, who is the person to help me do that? Obviously, there's lots of who's, like, there could be mentors, but there also could be like someone who manages your channel. The first thing to do when you find a who, and this is the first aspect of leadership, is you have to clarify the what and the why. Like, what is the goal? What's the result? Why does it matter so much? And what are the specific success criteria? So like what, you know, this is a concept that Dan has called an impact filter. It's a one-page document. We actually put it in the who, not how. If anyone wants to just like, um, look up impact filter.

• 37:54Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 37:55Speaker 02

  But basically, the impact filter is a one sheet that Dan made that helps you clarify the what, the why, and the specific success criteria. So for example, if you want to hire a ghostwriter to write your books,

• 38:07Speaker 02

  what you would say is like, what's the, what's the objective? I want to hire someone who writes a book and I want, and then it's like, what's, what's the actual goal? One to two books per year, and you'd have to define it very clearly. Let's just say it's one book a year. I want one excellent book written every single year, published every year, in my voice. It's powerful, it's profound. So you get really clear on the outcome. Why is this so important? You know, because we want to help other people become great. And like, you just write down all of the why. You know, why is it so important? What's the best case result when it's done? And then what's the worst case result if you don't take action? And then this is where it gets really important, is what are the specific success criteria? So what has to be true in order for this to be successful? This is just laying out the vision so that you use that to find the right who.

• 38:51Speaker 02

  And so like, in this case, it could be, well, it only is going to cost Lewis 10 hours a week. Like, you know, like, you've got to be really good at headlines. You know, like, you know, you have to be self-starter. Like, you have to just lay out what must be true. And then you use that filter to find the right who. You know, and for me, I just, I use that whenever I want to hire someone or find someone. Whenever I have a goal, I just lay out what has to be true. And then I have my assistant, in this case, go out and use that to find the right who. You know, the vision is actually what attracts the who. They're like, yeah, I can do that. I'm a writer, I want to do that kind of work. Yeah, I can do those things.

• 39:31Speaker 02

  Like, if you lay out success and make it very specific, you know, and so I have someone go out and find the who's. But they use my vision and my success criteria to go find what I'm looking for.

• 39:42Lewis Howes?

  Right. Do you think that holds people back from a lot of the things they want? Is the who not the how?

• 39:47Speaker 02

  Totally. I mean, I'll use myself as an example. I wanted to start a YouTube channel for five years.

• 39:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you didn't do it for years.

• 39:56Speaker 02

  So how leads to procrastination because there's so many aspects of it that you either don't want to do or you don't know how to do. I don't know how to film videos. I don't know how to edit videos.

• 40:06Lewis Howes?

  I don't know YouTube, I don't know, yeah.

• 40:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, so there's so much complexity. And so because I've put all the pressure on myself to do the hows, rather than just getting a who to start the process and get the ball rolling, you know, how leads to procrastination because you've put all the weight on yourself. Whereas if you would just clarify the goal and immediately invest in the who, And then you've offloaded the how to them, given them the responsibility for that. You've become a leader, then you can just do the parts that you want to do. Get that video editor, but you have to view them as an investment, not a cost. This is an investment in future me. This is an investment in my goals. It's also an investment in current me because now I can actually focus on the parts where I want to focus. And so, yeah, the more you try to do how, the smaller your vision of your future self will be.

• 40:49Speaker 02

  The more you apply who's, and this could also be with mentors. Like, you know, like there are certain people who can immediately open a door for you. Like who's the right who who can connect me with that person? Or who's the who can get me that opportunity? And so, how very much shrinks people's vision of their future self. Whereas if you start playing the who game, not only can you get other people on board with your vision and to handle the parts of it that you don't want to do, and also they'll do it enormously better than you. One of the things that holds people back-

• 41:18Lewis Howes?

  And faster than you.

• 41:20Speaker 02

  One of the things that holds people back from who is that they don't trust other people. A lot of entrepreneurs think-

• 41:25Lewis Howes?

  They can't do it as good as me, or they can't do it as fast-

• 41:27Speaker 02

  Pure ego. You know, like, well, you have to trust other people. You have to clarify the vision and you've got to trust that not only can they do it better than you, they want to do it, they love to do it. That's what they want to do. They're the ones who have opted to do it. And so, trusting other people, getting out of their way, that's why it's called who, not how. You don't tell the who, you don't tell them how to do it. You don't micromanage. You've clarified the vision and you come the other way. That's one of the reasons actually I like writing books with Dan, is I'm the who, in this case, for writing the books. He had a vision. He wanted to turn his concepts into major books. And I was like, I would love to do that. And he literally doesn't, I write whatever books I want, in the case of our collaboration with Dan.

• 42:10Speaker 02

  Like, he doesn't tell me what books to write because he's like, I don't, I could never advise you on that because you're the one who does that. I don't do that. And so, I wouldn't even try to advise you on that.

• 42:17Lewis Howes?

  I coach entrepreneurs. And you write books.

• 42:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, and so, like, I wrote whatever book I wanted. That's a Benjamin Hardy book, even though it's got both of our names on it. There's no way he would have even ever been able to imagine that book because he let the who do it. And if he had tried to tell me how to do it, I wouldn't have done it because I want freedom. And so does he. And so, you have to trust your who's and give them the freedom to do it how they would do it. And it will most certainly be different than how you would do it. And that's actually a good thing. And you shouldn't even be thinking about the how. Like, you shouldn't tell the mechanic how to fix your car. You know what I mean? And so, apply that to all areas of your life. But if it's like, I want to- Make a million dollars or whatever. Well, who can help me do that?

• 42:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 42:57Speaker 02

  Who can teach me how to do that? Or who can immediately open up the doors rather than how do I do it?

• 43:00Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm. And what about, you wrote a book called Willpower Doesn't Work. What is, why doesn't it work? And what does work if willpower isn't the efficient way?

• 43:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, so willpower is, one way of looking at willpower is willpower is trying to do the how.

• 43:17Lewis Howes?

  Willpower is you trying to do the how.

• 43:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a lot of reasons why willpower doesn't work. I wrote that book originally thinking about it in terms of addiction. You know, willpower is trying to like, white knuckle, try to muster up the strength, trying to force yourself to do it. Willpower is like, one of the most terrible way to try to overcome an addiction. It actually compounds the problem because at the end of the day, you have to finally realize, I need help, I can't do this by myself.

• 43:46Lewis Howes?

  Because you have no energy, you're exhausted, you're drained, and you just need that thing to get back to, yeah.

• 43:51Speaker 02

  Well, when it comes to addiction, usually it's realizing that you need other people to help you. You know, like in the AA world, surrender to God, you know? But also like, you need to change your environment. So like, that book was really about how environment trumps willpower. Like, there's a quote from Marshall Goldsmith. He's a performance coach, and he said, "If you do not create and control your environment, your environment creates and controls you." And so like, willpower is trying to beat a bad environment, rather than just changing your environment, eliminating all of the bad options. But also, your environment does shape you. So like, as an example, you know, it kind of goes back to the idea you're the byproduct of the five people you spend the most time with. But if you're in a bad situation, it doesn't matter how much willpower you muster, you're not going to be able to do that much.

• 44:36Speaker 02

  Like, take my three kids, for example, who we adopted. We adopted three kids from the foster system. They came from a broken home, poverty. All of the willpower in the world by those kids wouldn't have been able to do much in that small situation. Like, you know, but if you immediately change their situation, all of a sudden now they've got infinitely different options, potential. And so, like, all of the willpower in the world 100 years ago wouldn't have been able to get a person from, you know, to Florida to California in five hours. But we now live in a situation that enables us to do it.

• 45:09Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 45:09Speaker 02

  And so that book's a lot about... Creating the context, creating a better situation.

• 45:14Lewis Howes?

  Creating a better environment than trying to have willpower.

• 45:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, rather than me trying to, you know, stop looking at my phone. It's like leave it on airplane mode, leave it in a different room, like create the context so that I can be who I want to be, be my future self. And so, and one other aspect of willpower, like an aspect of willpower is called decision fatigue. And like decision fatigue is the idea that the more options you're trying to weigh, the more your willpower gets fried.

• 45:39Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 45:40Speaker 02

  And so not only do you want to create an environment where you can, you know, not necessarily need to control all of your behavior, but you're being who you want to be, but you also want to make decisions. Like the opposite of decision fatigue is decision, cut off alternative options. So like, you know, decision fatigue means you still haven't made the choice. It's like you're 98% committed. So like, there's a great quote from Clayton Christensen. He said 100% commitment is a lot easier than 98% commitment. Because if you're only 98% committed, that means you're still kind of, you're not, you're not actually there. And that goes back to identity, that your identity is what you're 100% committed to. And so if you're only like 98% committed, then you're kind of torn between options. You're just, you're overthinking it and you haven't quite made the decision, you haven't committed to something. And so you're just, you're not really going anywhere.

• 46:23Speaker 02

  And so a big aspect of killing willpower and making it irrelevant is just actually making a decision and learning how to commit to that decision. And then obviously creating the environment and the context that supports that decision. Learning how to identify with your future self so that you no longer see yourself as that smoker. Or, you know, like you start to, you know, because your identity and your behavior go hand in hand, but part of willpower is, is that you still identify as someone maybe who has those bad habits, even though you want this. And so your identity and your behavior are all trying to conflict.

• 46:52Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 46:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, so willpower is really a bad angle.

• 46:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:56Speaker 02

  It's the opposite of intrinsic motivation.

• 46:58Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm. What about the feeling of burnout? How do people accomplish their goals if they just feel burnt out? Is that also with decision fatigue, feeling burnt out? How do they get back to a place of, you know, clarity and focus so they can really just be their best self in a day-to-day process and becoming their future best self?

• 47:18Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of reasons why people burn out. One of them might be that they actually, maybe it's decision fatigue, maybe they're still like not really doing what they want to do.

• 47:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 47:28Speaker 02

  And so they're... They're not really excited about what they're doing. They're not really moving towards their desired future self. They're just expending a lot of energy on things that they don't really value. Like if you're moving towards your desired future self and you're investing in your future self and you're working on projects that you love, like you're being pulled towards your future self. Like pull motivation is a lot more exciting than push motivation. Push motivation is like, I really don't want to do this. Like, let's go to work for five hours.

• 47:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 47:54Speaker 02

  And so if you're, a big part of burnout is a recognition that maybe what you're doing isn't taking you towards your future self. And maybe you need to sit back down in your journal and reevaluate your future self. Who do you really want to be? And how do you start making small, simple investments in your future self so that your future self keeps getting bigger and so that you start moving towards that future self? I think another, you know, great way to, you know, avoid burnout is simply just taking time to sit and measure your gains. Like, sometimes burnout happens because, you know, you're so busy trying to get somewhere that you forgot that, like, you know, how much progress have you made? Like, let's take a second to, like, be grateful. Let's take a second to, like, evaluate your progress and to appreciate your gains for a minute. Appreciate how great your life is. Who not how is another great antidote to burnout because maybe you're burned out because

• 48:39Speaker 02

  you're doing a lot of how that you don't want to do. And so maybe you need a who to, like, what are the, if you've got five things that you do on a regular basis, which two of them are sucking all your energy? And how can you just get who's to do that or get rid of them? And you just focus more and more on the one or two things that bring you energy. And so I think that, you know, connecting with your future self, continually measuring the gain, applying more and more who not how so that you actually are generating results with less effort, but, you know, doing what you want. So, and sometimes you just might need a break. Sometimes, and sometimes you actually need a break from your future self. Sometimes, like, you just...

• 49:12Lewis Howes?

  From striving so much.

• 49:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, or, yeah, like, sometimes you just do need some active recovery. Like, I do like the concept of, you know, Stephen Kotler on active recovery and flow state, like embedding active recovery in your life. Like, maybe you actually do need more play. Maybe you do need, like, active recovery is the idea of... What's a, what's an outside work activity that gives you flow? What's an outside activity that you enjoy, that gives you engagement, that is kind of healing and restorative? The gain is very restorative, you know, like it's like here I am versus where, where I was before. But what are some flow activities that you can do that bring you joy outside of work? And how can you spend more time doing those? Cause whatever you, it's that, you know, other idea of how you do anything is how you do everything.

• 49:57Speaker 02

  And so like if you're creating flow outside of work, and there's a lot, there's a lot of research in occupational psychology. There's a concept called psychological detachment from work. We, we live in a world where our work is always pinging us, dinging us, you know, texts and emails. And so psychological detachment from work means you cut off work mentally, physically, and you fully engage out of work.

• 50:20Lewis Howes?

  And play activities and family activities.

• 50:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And I think you can create a life and an environment where, you know, you're, you're recovering enormously. And you're doing activities outside of work that are restorative, they give you flow. And then you can transfer that to having flow in your work.

• 50:37Speaker 02

  I think one other, one other thing that leads people to burnout though, is spending a lot of energy and not actually feeling like they're making progress. So like, I have a lot of energy when I achieve a goal, right? Achieving goals gives you energy, it's exciting. And so if you, if you actually like give yourself deadlines and if you actually like create a result and you actually watch yourself succeed and you just build some confidence, because you just measured yourself against where you were before you achieved the goal. Rather than against your ideal, like you're seeing yourself move forward and that gives you excitement. Like success, success creates confidence, success creates motivation. And so watching yourself get small wins and watching yourself get big wins gives you energy.

• 51:16Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. What's the one thing that holds you back from where you are to where you want to be?

• 51:22Speaker 02

  I go in the gap a lot. Yeah, I go in the gap a lot.

• 51:27Speaker 02

  Where I...

• 51:30Speaker 02

  Think about all the areas of my life that I wish I was where I was at.

• 51:33Lewis Howes?

  Currently, you wish you were.

• 51:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, I can, I can measure myself against my own ideal. And then maybe it starts to feel like that's no longer possible. Or that I made a mistake and now that door's closed.

• 51:45Lewis Howes?

  I should have started five years ago my YouTube channel, it's already too late or something.

• 51:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, or just any other dream that current Benjamin Hardy is coming up with versus, you know. And so then I start to be in the gap and not feel, not feel great about my life. And then I start missing all of the greatness around me, all of the just beautiful things in my life. And so, yeah, I think.

• 52:07Lewis Howes?

  So getting back to the game, what you've gained in the last month, in the last year, in the last five years.

• 52:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm looking at your life, looking at all the gains, looking at the amazing people in your life. Being genuinely humbled. You know, I have six beautiful kids, you know, like, you know, actually giving them the love that they deserve. And actually loving them and just being blown away by my life. Yeah, I think that the thing that holds a lot of people back is just that they don't love their life. They're still trying to get there rather than being here, you know.

• 52:41Lewis Howes?

  Love where they're at.

• 52:43Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, and appreciate where you're at and value where you're at. Doesn't mean you can't keep going, it doesn't mean you can't, you know, I have goals. I have a future self that excites me and that I'm investing in every single day. But if you feel like you need that thing in order to make you feel happier, make you feel worthy, then that's the gap. You know, you feel like there's something missing. So I think whenever I, whenever I slip into that and I think I need to be somewhere else or have achieved something. And I start to feel dark and feel like I'm, you know, feel like everything's going the wrong way. Then I've, you know, devalued everything around me. I've put myself in a weak position and from there you can't really move forward.

• 53:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 53:27Speaker 02

  And so getting, you know, regularly reminding myself of my gains, being in a state of gratitude. Like, not only does it empower you, but it helps you see everything in your life more clearly. And then from there you, you're in a more powerful position to move forward. But I, I, I think that recognizing you don't need anything. Like, I don't need that next achievement. I can want it, but I don't need it. I'm great where I'm at, like, my life's great. I'm very happy, I'm very blessed, I'm very lucky. And I have amazing things, like I don't need anything else. And that's kind of bringing back to your own internal referencing system. And once you get close to that, then, you know, nothing can really hold you back.

• 54:13Lewis Howes?

  I love this stuff, man. What's the, you talked about this 100% rule. Can you tell me what that is and how it can help us accomplish our goals? Is this the 100%, 98%? Is that what you're just talking about?

• 54:24Speaker 02

  A little bit, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it goes back to identity and commitment. Like 100% commitment is much easier than 98% commitment. Because if you're 98% committed, then you haven't connected your identity to your future self. You haven't connected your identity to where you want to go. You're still in decision fatigue, you're still in process by analysis. And so 100% really is a lot easier. It's a lot easier when you just say, this is who I am, this is who I'm gonna be. You're no longer hiding from your future self, you're no longer hiding other people from it. It's like, this is what I'm gonna do, this is what I'm... Like, I think the two hardest things in life for people are, what do I commit myself to? What do I want? And then how do I get myself committed to it? Like, you need to know what to commit to, and you need to know that you can already have it.

• 55:08Speaker 02

  You know, you can commit 100% to it. And so, yeah, once you get 100% committed, you've made the decision. You've started investing in that future self. You're no longer hiding it, you start to, you know, like, you know, you start to develop the narrative of your future self. There's a great quote from Michael Jordan, he said, "Once I made a decision, I never thought about it again." You know, so it's like, it's getting to that point of decision. And, and actually, there's another great quote, this is actually my favorite quote, Louis. It comes from Robert Brod. He said, "We're kept from our goal, not by obstacles, but by a clear path to a lesser goal."

• 55:41Lewis Howes?

  Say it again?

• 55:42Speaker 02

  I'll say it again, it takes a second. "We're kept from our goal, not by obstacles, but by a clear path to a lesser goal."

• 55:51Lewis Howes?

  Oh, that's interesting.

• 55:52Speaker 02

  So it's not, it's not the obstacles between you and your goal that's stopping you. You can go through those obstacles, you can learn through those obstacles. Your future self's capable, your future self's figured that stuff out a long time ago. It's that you keep investing in lesser goals. It's cause you, you know, you keep, and it's, it's cause there's a clear path.

• 56:08Lewis Howes?

  Safer, smaller goals.

• 56:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that's the 98% commitment. It's, you're still actually entertaining those lesser goals. You're still saying yes to situations, opportunities, people that your future self would have said no to. You know, if you're still saying yes to things your future self would say no to, then you're, you're still saying yes to lesser goals. And so part of getting 100% committed is actually finally saying, and being able to discern, you know, I'm not gonna invest in that anymore, like that's a lesser goal. That's, that's something that former Ben may have been interested in, or would have even aspired to, but it, it no longer fits, or it's a distraction. And so, you know, getting better at uncommitting to those lesser goals, and actually recognizing when you are spending time on things because you're not going through the obstacles and just not investing and committing 100% in the future self that you want.

• 56:51Lewis Howes?

  Right. So interesting you say that because sometimes I look back 10 years ago and I say, wow, so many things that I did for whatever $500 or $1,000 that $100,000 I say no to now.

• 57:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:04Lewis Howes?

  For the same things. And I'm like, gosh, it's crazy to think that at one point, the person I was.

• 57:10Speaker 02

  That was your former self, man.

• 57:11Lewis Howes?

  Would have, you know, been like, this is insane, $100,000 for this thing? And now it's like, nah, it doesn't fit where I'm at right now. The time isn't meaningful, or it doesn't like work for my situation. It's cool to see the gain.

• 57:25Speaker 02

  It's massive.

• 57:25Lewis Howes?

  You know, how far you've gone, if you're willing to reflect back all those years. But I think sometimes we, we don't look deep enough into that.

• 57:34Speaker 02

  Well, and life in the moment could be punching you in the face. You know, you've got that deadline, or you've got that goal, or, or something might be falling apart and stressing you out. And so you're, you're like, I'm dealing with this problem. And you forget that actually, like you just said no to that $150,000 opportunity that your former self would have spent, you know? And so it is nice to regularly reflect on that and to, and to, you know, it's not always about like patting yourself on the back, although that is a much better way of living than, you know, you know, being a drill sergeant on yourself, but. Yeah, yeah, and also a lot of your former, a lot of your lesser goals are the thing, they were maybe the number one goal for your former self. Like, that might have been the thing that got you here, but it's not gonna get you there.

• 58:19Speaker 02

  And so like, you got, you know, what you want now and what you know now, you know differently than your former self. And also, maybe you have different goals. And so you can say no to a lot more things than your former self could have said no to. That's actually how you advance, is that you're now saying no to things your former self was saying yes to. Your former self was saying yes to $150 to do that opportunity.

• 58:38Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, right.

• 58:39Speaker 02

  But you now say no to that. And so it's like, well, what is your future self say yes to? What is your future self? What do you want to commit to 100%?

• 58:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's, there's a really humbling quote. It's from the book, The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership. And they basically say that you can know what you're committed to by the results you're currently getting.

• 58:58Lewis Howes?

  Right, that's, that's what you value, the results you're currently getting, yeah.

• 59:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's like, you're not committed to what you want, you're committed to what you have. If you, if you were committed to something else, you'd have something else. And so like, that's where you have to say like, okay, this is what I'm committed to. Like, whether it's my weight, whether it's my income, whether it's, I'm, I'm committed to this because I keep doing it.

• 59:15Lewis Howes?

  Based on results, that's what I'm committed to.

• 59:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, whatever, whatever results you're currently getting, that's your commitment. And that's your identity right now.

• 59:24Speaker 02

  And so, a big part of, well, what is the goal? What do I actually want? Who is my future self? What are all of the lesser goals that I keep distracting myself with? Because I don't want to go through the obstacles, or because I don't want to commit to my future self. And then the more you start saying no to those lesser goals, then you're actually making investments in your future self. You're actually saying, I'm no longer, I'm gonna say no to that now, because my future self would.

• 59:42Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 59:43Speaker 02

  I'm gonna say no to that opportunity, that relationship, or that bad habit. And that literally goes straight back to like, the more connected emotionally you are to your future self, and the more committed you become to your future self, the more you make high-quality,

• 59:56Speaker 02

  decisions in the present that are investments towards that future self.

• 59:59Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. I love this, man. This is good stuff. BenjaminHardy.com, you're all over social media as well. Where do you hang out the most? Which, which social media platform these days?

• 1:00:10Speaker 02

  I think really.

• 1:00:11Lewis Howes?

  Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, where are you?

• 1:00:13Speaker 02

  I'm mostly just starting on YouTube. So I've got, it's mostly just YouTube and then I'm in the books. So that's kind of where I'm at, man.

• 1:00:20Lewis Howes?

  What's your, what's your YouTube?

• 1:00:22Speaker 02

  Uh, I think it's.

• 1:00:24Lewis Howes?

  Benjamin Hardy on YouTube?

• 1:00:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, Dr. Benjamin Hardy or just Benjamin Hardy.

• 1:00:27Lewis Howes?

  Okay, cool. Make sure to link that up here. Go subscribe. He's finally getting into YouTube.

• 1:00:32Speaker 02

  I've been doing it for a year. I've been doing it for a year. My current self's a lot further than my former self, man. I'm in the game. I've been doing it for a year.

• 1:00:37Lewis Howes?

  But you thought about it for five years.

• 1:00:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, I got 40,000 subs, but my future self has a lot more, man.

• 1:00:42Lewis Howes?

  That's great, man.

• 1:00:43Speaker 02

  But I'm, but I'm in the game. You know, I'm not measuring myself against anyone else, just my former self.

• 1:00:46Lewis Howes?

  That's good.

• 1:00:47Speaker 02

  Making progress, man.

• 1:00:48Lewis Howes?

  You're imagining yourself from where you were a year ago.

• 1:00:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:50Lewis Howes?

  Not having a child.

• 1:00:51Speaker 02

  And I'll apply who, not how to make 10x progress.

• 1:00:54Lewis Howes?

  That's good. Who, not how. I like that a lot. The book's called The Gap and the Gain. It's all about the high achiever's guide to happiness, confidence, and success. So if that's something you want, make sure you pick up a copy of The Gap and the Gain. Some great strategies in here. Check you out on YouTube and benjaminhardy.com to check out more of your books and all of your work. A couple of final questions for you. This one's called the three truths. So imagine a hypothetical scenario. It's your last day on earth, many years away from here. You get to live as long as you want to live, but eventually it's your last day. And you've accomplished all the things in the game that you want to accomplish for your future self. You become those things.

• 1:01:33Speaker 02

  Sure, sure.

• 1:01:34Lewis Howes?

  But for whatever reason, you've got to take all of your work with you or it goes somewhere else. But all of your books and content and YouTube videos that you've been building for years, they're gone. And you get to leave behind three things you know to be true, three lessons that you would share with the rest of the world. And this is all we would have to, to kind of remember your work by are these three lessons of life. What would you say are those three truths for you?

• 1:02:01Speaker 02

  One is definitely that the view you have of your future is the thing driving your present.

• 1:02:06Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:02:07Speaker 02

  That's the direct driver of your present, whatever view you hold of your future self. In psychology, they call that prospection. So like. Literally, whatever view of your future self is the thing driving your present. Like if you believe in a God, like that's gonna obviously impact your future self. You know? And so, yeah. Your future, you know, whatever view you have of your own future and whatever committed view you have of your future is the driver of your present. And a connected concept with that is that the bigger your future, the better your present. You know, so like that's the only, you know, like having a bigger future, whatever that is for yourself. It could involve, you know, achieving a goal or it could be your views of the afterlife. But the bigger the future, the better the present. And your present is being driven by your future.

• 1:02:52Speaker 02

  So that's, that's one.

• 1:02:56Speaker 02

  I do like the quote for me, that no other success can compensate for failure in the home. For me, my family is probably a much higher value than anything I achieve. You know, I just love investing in my, my family. So.

• 1:03:09Lewis Howes?

  Invest in your family?

• 1:03:10Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Invest in my kids and, and you love what you're invested in. I mean, that's, that's, that's a big part of that one is, is you love whatever you invest yourself in. And whatever you invest yourself in, you're committed to. And so, and whatever you invest in is, is a big view of your future self. Whatever you keep investing in, it's because you have some future self in that area. And whatever you invest in, it becomes bigger. Even bad habits, like those become bigger too. And so, certainly those are the things I want to invest myself in. So I guess the third one, I'll just make it simple is the third one is, you know, you love whatever you invest yourself in. Whatever you invest in, you become committed to. And whatever you invest in compounds and becomes bigger. And so you have to decide, what do I want to invest in? Because whatever I invest in, I become hyper committed to.

• 1:03:56Speaker 02

  And whatever I'm committed to is my identity, which is shaping my behavior. And obviously, the more you invest in, the bigger your future self becomes in that area, for better or for worse. And so, yeah, the more investments you make in your future self and the one you want, the more committed you get to that future self. And the bigger it gets, the better your present gets. And then your, then your present becomes beyond the dreams of your former self regularly.

• 1:04:17Lewis Howes?

  Right. It's beautiful. Well, I want to acknowledge you, Ben, for, for constantly creating this work and being invested in your future and your current self and in your family. I think, I think the fact that you mentioned family and investing in the home. For high achievers, sometimes they, they, they miss out on the. The thing that they're creating right now as well and investing in the people in your life who are in your home for their future as well. So I really admire you and acknowledge you for showing up in a way where you can have it all. You can be healthy, you can have great, you know, relationships and your family and also work towards your goals and your future accomplishments. And it's really cool that you're doing that and serving the world

• 1:05:01Lewis Howes?

  in a great way with your writing and now as a YouTube star. So.

• 1:05:04Speaker 02

  Being in the game. Just being in the game, man. I'm very grateful and I do like making investments, you know, and even just like two days ago, I just decided I would cuddle with my, you know, 10-year-old or 12-year-old daughter now and just help her to sleep. And like, that's a small investment in your future self and in her future self, right? And so you, you gotta choose what you're gonna invest yourself in. But you can invest in other people and that's, that's key as well.

• 1:05:31Lewis Howes?

  That's great, man. Final question, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:05:34Speaker 02

  For now, just to keep in keeping with this conversation, I think that greatness is being true to who you want your future self to be, you know, not chasing lesser goals, uncommitting lesser goals, but just being, I think that that's a good definition of success for me. Your greatness is that you're actually being true to the future self you want to be. Doesn't mean you have to be there yet. You don't need to go in the gap. My current self is not to be all in, I'm gonna get there, but that I'm investing in my future self and I'm being more true to the future self I wanna be than to someone else. And then also just staying in the game, measuring myself only against my former self, not against you, not against anyone else. Staying in the game, recognizing and appreciating my own progress while being continuously more true, committed and investing in the

• 1:06:19Speaker 02

  future self that I most believe in, the future self that I most want. I think that's pretty close for me.

• 1:06:26Lewis Howes?

  Love it. Dr. Ben Hardy, thanks, man. Appreciate it.

• 1:06:29Speaker 02

  No worries, bro.

• 1:06:30Lewis Howes?

  Good stuff, yeah.

• 1:06:31Lewis Howes?

  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. Leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts 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.