645 Give Your Attention with Elizabeth Gilbert

“THERE’S A HUGE AMOUNT OF REAL STATE BETWEEN THE WORST AND THE GREATEST.” Do you care about getting your social media numbers up? Do you want people to love and adore you? The problem is that you’re focusing in the wrong direction. Don’t concentrate on yourself or what you want from other people. Shift your focus to helping others. Make an impact on those who already appreciate you. When that happens, more people will appreciate you. You’ll make their lives magical, and the success and admiration will come later. For example, when Oprah comes out on stage she doesn’t say “Look at me. I’m great.” She puts her focus on her audience. She zooms in on others and does what she can to help everyone around her. For this episode of 5 Minute Friday, I’m bringing back this segment from Elizabeth Gilbert. She’s an American author, essayist, short story writer, biographer, novelist, and memoirist. She is best known for her 2006 memoir, Eat, Pray, Love, which as of December 2010 had spent 199 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list. She gives her insights on what she’s learned about the power of looking to serve rather than be served. Discover all of that and much more, on Episode 645. In This Episode You Will Learn: Where most people lie in relation to their greatness (00:45) How to really help others (1:32) How to get a larger platform (3:17) What makes Oprah so great (3:44) Plus much, much more. 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 Five Minute Friday.

• 0:09Lewis Howes?

  I am extremely excited about our guest Liz Gilbert. In her early career, she worked as a journalist for publications like Spin and GQ and the New York Times Magazine, and she has won multiple awards for her books. She just celebrated the 10-year anniversary for Eat, Pray, Love, which was a worldwide phenomenon, and she is now an internationally recognized author and speaker. She's been on Oprah's Super Soul Sessions, she's been on tour with Oprah, she's spoken all over the world, got a lot going on, and man, this was one of my favorite interviews to do.

• 0:48Elizabeth Gilbert?

  You know what I feel like doesn't work is, and it doesn't work for me, and for some people maybe it does, is this kind of like getting yourself up for something by pumping your arms in there and being like, "I'm the greatest." And the reason it doesn't work for me is because there's this very reasonable, sane part of my mind that's like, "Well, probably not." Like, there's all sorts of evidence that I might not be...

• 1:10Lewis Howes?

  You're a human being.

• 1:11Elizabeth Gilbert?

  But guess what, Louis? I'm not the worst either. And there's a huge amount of real estate between the worst and the greatest, and I'm somewhere in there, and I'll take my place in there where I am, and I'm just happy to be in the game.

• 1:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I hear ya. It's interesting. I do some speaking right now and then, not 20,000 with Oprah right now, but I...

• 1:31Elizabeth Gilbert?

  You will.

• 1:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah. But I do a lot of it my own way. And I remember about a year and a half ago, just it started to pick up more, and I was working with a coach on just my business stuff, and I called him like 15 minutes before and I was like, "I'm just a little nervous right now. I'm like, I just, I want to do a really great job," you know?

• 1:48Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Yeah.

• 1:49Lewis Howes?

  And he's like, "It's all good, but the thing is to focus on..." You shouldn't be nervous if you're focusing on them. When you focus on yourself.

• 1:55Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Right.

• 1:56Lewis Howes?

  Then you're gonna be nervous of how you look. What if I mess up? What if I slip? What if I stumble? What if I look bad? It's all concerned about.

• 2:01Elizabeth Gilbert?

  What if they, yeah, how they see me?

• 2:02Lewis Howes?

  How you show up. Instead, he's like, easiest way to shift out of that is to focus on service. And being a service, you're not gonna look perfect.

• 2:09Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Right.

• 2:10Lewis Howes?

  And people are gonna accept you for who you are when you're authentic and real and.

• 2:13Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Right.

• 2:14Lewis Howes?

  And not looking so polished is gonna look, you know.

• 2:17Elizabeth Gilbert?

  How do you serve them with? Yeah, I mean, that's the thing that I felt was like, you were here to show them, go do your job and help, you know? Serve. That's it.

• 2:25Lewis Howes?

  So when we come from that place.

• 2:27Elizabeth Gilbert?

  It's better.

• 2:27Lewis Howes?

  It may not look perfect, but it's gonna be perfect in that moment.

• 2:30Elizabeth Gilbert?

  There's this poet, the poet Mark Nepo, I was recently having a conversation with him. He said something so wonderful. He said, "We live in a culture where everybody's trying to figure out how to get more attention." Like, how do I get more, a bigger platform? How do I get more likes? How do I get more of an audience? How do I get more sales? How do I get more attention? And he said, "That's not that that's an insignificant question, but there's another question, which is, while you're spending all your energy focused on getting attention, what are you giving your attention to? That's the sole question. Like, what is so worthy to you that you will actually devote your attention to giving, rather than getting? So if you're giving your attention to your audience, it's a lot more beautiful exchange than if you're like, can I get you guys to look at me?

• 3:14Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. Yes.

• 3:16Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Versus what can I, what can I get? My, my friend Glennon Doyle Melton, who's fantastic.

• 3:20Lewis Howes?

  She's great. She's amazing.

• 3:21Elizabeth Gilbert?

  She said constantly, people are coming up to her and saying, "How can I get a bigger platform on my page? How can I get a bigger platform?" And she says, "By serving the platform you already have." Because if all you're thinking about with your platform is how can I get more numbers? You're not even paying attention to the people who are already giving you their energy. Serve them and the rest of it will take care of itself. There's a story I've told before, but I find it so remarkable. When we did that tour, there was a young girl who came with her parents and she was there as a guest of the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Teenage girl. So she was there with her mom and her dad, her little sister was probably about nine,

• 4:01Elizabeth Gilbert?

  and this girl was about 15. And I don't know what her condition was, but Louis, she was there with the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

• 4:08Lewis Howes?

  Right, something.

• 4:08Elizabeth Gilbert?

  She's very ill. You know, like, obviously something's not right, not good with this. She's a young person who's either very sick or dying, right? And.

• 4:18Elizabeth Gilbert?

  She, her wish had been to come and meet Oprah Winfrey and to come to this event.

• 4:22Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 4:22Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And so Oprah went on stage at one point and just said, in this very poised and beautiful way, she took a moment and said, we have a special guest in the audience today. And I can't remember her name, you know, just make up a name. She's like, you know, this is Kelly. She's here as a gift of the Make-A-Wish Foundation. And, and can you stand up? And she put the spotlight on her and everyone's like weeping because they don't even know, but they know, like, you know, everyone knows what that means. And that alone was beautiful, generous, empathetic, humane. That's Oprah, right? But then she did something after that that I was like, oh, that's why you're you and nobody else is you. She said, we have another very special guest in the audience today.

• 5:06Elizabeth Gilbert?

  And I was so honored to be able to meet this young woman backstage and talk to her. And she reminds me of myself at her age. She's loves reading and she's passionate about school and she loves music and she loves to dance and she's really interested in animals and she's just the most vivacious, spirited, young woman I've never met. And that's Kelly's little sister. And she puts the spotlight on the nine-year-old who's the little sister of the girl who's very sick. And I was like, oh my God, of course that kid gets no attention. Right? Of course that kid gets no attention.

• 5:42Lewis Howes?

  Because all the focus is on Kelly.

• 5:44Elizabeth Gilbert?

  Because Kelly's got the glamour of, you know, Kelly's very ill and her probably requires a huge amount of attention because she has a serious disease of some sort. But she also has the glamour of suffering around her. And this kid has probably just been, as much as doesn't mean her parents don't love her, they just don't have time and energy. They have a very sick daughter. And I was like, oh my God. And that little girl stood up and she put the spotlight on her and she was just beaming. Like she just like took up the whole arena. She's like, hi. And for Oprah to say, you remind me of myself.

• 6:18Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 6:19Elizabeth Gilbert?

  You know, like you remind me of myself. You're just like me. You're great. It's like, that's why you're Oprah Winfrey. I mean, it's good enough that you did the first step, but you saw the next thing that... Nobody else would see. And that's, again, not about how am I getting attention, but who am I giving attention to? And I see her do that in every room that she's in. Just pick the person who isn't getting the attention and see them.

• 6:47Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 6:48Elizabeth Gilbert?

  You know, and make them feel seen. And that's why she's her and nobody else is. Because I think after a certain level, people stop giving attention and only try to hold on to the attention that they have or get more.