How To Defeat Your Self Doubt - Lewis Howes

Lewis Howes is a former professional athlete, podcaster and an author. Many people are wildly uncertain that they can achieve the things they want in life. If a lack of confidence killed more dreams than a lack of capability ever will, how can we get past this self-doubt and find a place of genuine, positive reassurance to start working from? Expect to learn why your heroes aren't gods, where self doubt comes from, how to discover your mission in life, what you can learn about positivity from an army veteran who had his face blown off, how to stop negative self-talk, what to do if you don't have a support group around you, whether greatness begins with an action or a mindset first and much more... Sponsors: Get 15% discount on Craftd London’s jewellery at https://craftd.com/modernwisdom (use code MW15) Get 20% discount on all Keto Brainz products at https://ketobrainz.com/modernwisdom (use code: MW20) Get 5 Free Travel Packs, Free Liquid Vitamin D and more from Athletic Greens at https://athleticgreens.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Extra Stuff: Subscribe to Lewis' YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/@lewishowes Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom #mindset #greatness #motivation - 00:00 Intro 00:37 What People Misunderstand about Greatness 06:23 Learning Positivity from an Injured Veteran 10:30 How to Find Your Personal Mission 21:10 Discovering the Source of Your Self-Doubt 33:38 Turn Fear of Failure into Action 40:38 The Balance Between Feeling Enough & Staying Hungry 43:57 The Need for a Strong Support Network 1:00:03 Powerless Mindset Vs Greatness Mindset 1:08:18 Finding The Thing that Fuels You 1:18:36 Practical Tips to Build a Greatness Mindset 1:21:20 Where to Find Lewis - Get access to every episode 10 hours before YouTube by subscribing for free on Spotify - https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn or Apple Podcasts - https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Get my free Reading List of 100 life-changing books here - https://chriswillx.com/books/ - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  The problem I want to solve is helping people overcome self doubt because I believe self doubt is the killer of all of our dreams. When we doubt ourselves, we can have all the talent, we can have all the people encouraging us around us, but if we don't believe, it's going to be hard to accomplish what we want. Well, I want to rid the world of self doubt.

• 0:19Chris Williamson?

  Lewis Howes, welcome to the show.

• 0:20Speaker 00

  My man, thanks for having me.

• 0:22Chris Williamson?

  My pleasure, dude.

• 0:22Speaker 00

  You're even better looking in person, even though you look good on screen too. You look jacked on screen, you know?

• 0:27Chris Williamson?

  Thank you. Well, for the people that are just listening, we did actually decide that we're going to dress the same.

• 0:31Speaker 00

  Twinsies.

• 0:32Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, it's cute. Uh, thank you for coming to Austin to see me.

• 0:35Speaker 00

  Thanks, brother. Thanks for having me, man.

• 0:37Chris Williamson?

  What do you think most people misunderstand about greatness?

• 0:41Speaker 00

  Most people go for success and they realize that it's not the thing that's going to bring them the most fulfillment. Success is a selfish game, something I played for 30 years. And there's nothing wrong with success. I think success is fine. But when we just chase success by itself, it's really about me. Look at me, winning, succeeding, accomplishing, making money, getting the awards. This is a, this is a me game. And I played that game for a long time and it worked. I got results. I got things, money, opportunities, success, but it didn't solve the, uh, the heart game. It didn't solve the game of how do I feel about me? Chasing the success and winning or earning never felt enough still.

• 1:26Speaker 00

  So I was doing it from a wound and I think people, again, there's nothing wrong with it, but I just think that greatness is different than success in the terms that greatness is a we game. Success is a me game and greatness includes going after what you want, but really making an impact on the people around you and empowering and lifting others up and helping them succeed and win too. When it's just me versus the world, I just think that's a lonely game.

• 1:53Chris Williamson?

  I would agree. There's a quote from our mutual friend Alex Hormozi that got me thinking quite a while ago about the tension between success and a desire to feel like enough. So I'm going to give you, read this out to you. "Success is a strange thing. Presumably, we want success because we think a more successful life will bring us more happiness, meaning and fulfillment. Here's the problem. We sacrifice the thing we want, happiness, for the thing which is supposed to get it, success. Failure can make you miserable, but I'm not sure that success will make you happy. One of the most common dynamics I see amongst high performers is this. Parents want their child to do well. Parents encourage their child to do well by praising when they succeed and criticizing when they fail. The child learns that praise and admiration is contingent on succeeding. That lesson metastasizes through early adulthood into, I am only worthy of

• 2:38Chris Williamson?

  love, acceptance, and belonging if I succeed. Now, powered by internal feelings of insufficiency, this person is driven to achieve many things. They're prepared to outwork, out hustle, and out suffer everyone else because they're not just running toward a life they want, they're running away from a life that they fear. Success and progress ameliorates the feelings of insufficiency. Therefore, success and progress have become prioritized above everything else."

• 3:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, and it's interesting because Sarah Blakely, who just sold her company Spanx for, I think, 1.2 billion. When I asked her about dealing with failure and how to overcome this fear of failure, she said that when she was growing up, her dad would have the family have dinner every night together, and he would ask the same question every night at dinner. "What did you fail at today?" And he would actually celebrate the failures, and he would encourage them. And they would actually get in trouble if they didn't have something to share about what they failed at that day. And she said that, that framing around failure not being a bad thing, but actually a thing that helps you get feedback on how to get better, was the thing that was celebrated. You tried something. That's

• 3:45Speaker 00

  an awesome thing that you did this today. Not only praising when you succeed, but also praising that you tried, you put effort in, you had a good attitude, you failed at something, man, you had courage. You weren't trying to look perfect. And keeping the failure up only means you're going to succeed. You played sports growing up, right?

• 4:07Speaker 00

  You and I know that the only way to succeed was through failure. You know, Michael Jordan missed 50% of his shots. The best baseball players in the world failed 70% of the time and they were the best. They missed 70% of the time. And we celebrate them for their successes, but they also failed a ton, ton more than they succeeded. And I think in athletics, we were taught that, you know, failure is just feedback. It's a part of the process and how you succeed. I saw this, this meme, I don't know, a few years ago, online about a, it was a meme of like a baby, kind of like wobbling and falling over.

• 4:48Speaker 00

  And the meme said, "A child, when learning to walk, falls a thousand times and never thinks to himself, maybe this walking thing isn't for me. He just keeps getting up and trying again until he figures out how to walk. And I think if we can take that approach on everything, like, okay, I'm just gonna fall a thousand times, but eventually I'm gonna walk. And I'm not gonna think this isn't for me. But a lot of the times, we, we stop after one fail today. You know, we stop after one try and it didn't work out because we got judged or criticized by someone.

• 5:22Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, certainly a healthy relationship with failure, I think, and reframing that. One of the problems that you have in the modern world is this asymmetry between what we see of everybody else and what we see of ourselves, right? And you don't really get to see the, you get to see the grand failures of people, you know, the bankruptcies and the, the house going up in flame and the very public marriage. Yeah, you, you, you see all of the divorces, you see all of that. What you don't see are the ones that I think are actually a little bit more ruthless because it's death by a thousand cuts. The way that they made a promise with themselves that they weren't gonna hit snooze this week, and yet they did on a morning, or the fact that there was a cookie left out from last night and they decided to have it for fucking breakfast. Like, why'd you have it for breakfast? Oh, well, it was there and I'm sorry, but you're saying it to yourself, right?

• 6:05Chris Williamson?

  And those very mundane failures, I think, are, um, it's hard to find the balance. And I think this is something that I really wanna dig into with you today. This balance between feeling like we're enough and staying hungry. And that's something I wanna get into. But first, tell me this story about Jason Redman.

• 6:25Speaker 00

  Have you interviewed him yet? No. Oh, he's amazing, man. It's inspiring. Um, he was, uh, yeah, he's, he's an inspiring guy who was at war and, um, he essentially got in crossfire. He was supposed to come home like a week or two later, but was deployed and, and had, uh, he was supposed to come from home for Halloween, I think in a couple of weeks and he was going to be done with his deployment. But he had one final mission and he got in this crossfire where he essentially got shot in the face, got shot in the body, got shot everywhere and, uh, lights out, woke up unconscious, trying to figure out where he was.

• 7:03Speaker 00

  Eventually got evacuated from the location he was in and he was in a hospital. And it's kind of in and out of consciousness. And as he woke up and heard one time, there were some doctors or nurses or people talking in the room, talking about how, oh, man, this is, this doesn't look good. This is not gonna end well and, uh, this guy's face is blown off. He's got no nose. He's got side of his head blown off. You know, his body is really damaged, shot in the side multiple times, all these things.

• 7:33Speaker 00

  And he, like in a moment of consciousness, he heard this and he finally was able to communicate. He was just like,

• 7:40Speaker 00

  this type of language cannot enter my room. This type of communication cannot enter me, otherwise I would not get better. And he ended up writing this declaration, uh, this sign that he put on the outside of the room that said something like, whoever enters this room, you must enter with joy, peace, positivity, love and service. Any type of negative attitude does not work for me. Uh, so you only enter this room if you believe in positivity, joy and a full recovery. And I will recover to the my best of my ability and then 20% farther beyond that because I'm so mentally tough. But if anyone brings negativity in here,

• 8:22Speaker 00

  It's gonna only hurt me, so please do not enter. I'm paraphrasing the actual quote, but that was the synopsis of it. And he had this amazing recovery. And I think it's the more the the attitude and the mindset. Once something tragic happens to us, really determines how the rest of our life goes. A lot of us have experienced trauma, pain, whether it be a huge trauma or just death by a million cuts, micro traumas. But it's how we interpret it and the meaning we give those those events that really dictate how much peace and harmony we have after those things. So he's just an amazing example of, and again, he's still on a healing journey, but his attitude,

• 9:02Speaker 00

  his energy, his effort towards recovery and healing and taking care of his mind is what's really inspiring.

• 9:10Chris Williamson?

  That is the single sort of unifying criteria between most of the people I find that's successful. That, you know, they all seem to be able to deal with setbacks.

• 9:22Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 9:23Chris Williamson?

  With difficulties, with challenges.

• 9:25Speaker 00

  It's Man's Search for Meaning. It's Viktor Frankl, which is probably the best example of this. The, if you haven't read the book yet, I recommend everyone checking it out. I mean, how could a man who goes through so much extreme trauma around him with thousands of people dying around him in a concentration camp, live a happy life after he gets out? How is that even possible? And he was able to create new meaning from the memory, from the wounds, from the traumas. And whatever we go through, if we hold on to any type of pain around that wound, then every time we feel abandoned, taken taken advantage of or triggered, we are going to react. And I'm not saying it's not justified. It it could be justified, but is it useful?

• 10:09Speaker 00

  Is reacting with anger and negativity, stress, overwhelm? Is it useful towards living a beautiful life like Alex Hormozi talked about? Is it useful towards happiness, joy, abundance? Is it useful towards having more energy towards the mission we're on? And again, I'm not saying it's easy, but it's not useful to hold on to that meaning in a negative way.

• 10:30Chris Williamson?

  So the primary takeaway is a man who has a strong enough why can bear anyhow, right? From Man's Search for Meaning. How do people find their why or their mission?

• 10:43Speaker 00

  It took me a while to figure it out, but I think there's a, there's an exercise you can play with to start trying.

• 10:51Speaker 00

  For me, it's, it's first facing yourself and realizing that there are stuff that you might need to heal. There might be some wounds that you need to heal and being on that journey, we could talk about that later, but once you're on that journey and you're trying to figure out what is this mission for this season of life. It doesn't need to be, I need to change the world or cure cancer or something crazy, but figure out where you're at right now. When I was twenty-three, twenty-four, I was on my sister's couch for about a year and a half. And that season of life, I couldn't think beyond just trying to find how to make enough money to get my own apartment. I couldn't think beyond that. I wasn't like, I want to go change the world. I want to go do something crazy. I was like, I just need to survive and get my own life together. So I had a season of life where that was my mission, but I was clear.

• 11:34Speaker 00

  I need to figure out how to make enough money to get an apartment and get on my own. Then, once I accomplished that mission, I could think beyond that. I could explore what is it that I want right now? And when we're in that exploratory phase of not, of trying to get clear on our mission, think about the three Ps. The first one is your passion, and this may sound kind of lame or whatever, but I really feel like when you're interested and curious about something, you're more willing to deal with the stress and the adversity that comes your way than if you're not interested or curious. So figure out what you're really passionate about and ask yourself those questions about curiosity. Lean into that. The second P is

• 12:14Speaker 00

  the, the power that you already have. Now, when I was on my sister's couch, I didn't think I had any talents. I didn't think I had any power. I was, just got finished playing arena football, which wasn't even good enough to play the NFL. So I was making two hundred and fifty bucks a week. I didn't have a college degree yet. I was one of the lowest in my, in every grade in school. So I didn't think I had talent. But you've really got to assess, like, what are the invisible talents that you might have? An invisible talent was I was really good at connecting with people one-on-one. I was really good at seeing things, organizing ideas, uh, setting goals and accomplishing them, but I didn't think that I could make money from it. But I just assessed my talents with my power.

• 12:55Speaker 00

  And the second part of the, the power is figuring out what makes you feel the most powerless. In my early twenties, I had a lot of false confidence. You know, I was athletic or whatever and thought I knew a lot, but really I knew nothing. And I acted as if I was confident, but I was really an insecure scared little boy inside. And so I went through a period of assessing all my fears. I created a fear list and it was a long list.

• 13:24Speaker 00

  But one by one, I started going all in on these fears. And making them a superpower, making the thing that made me feel the most powerless. The least amount of confidence in myself, I started overcoming them one by one. Public speaking was a big one. Learning how to salsa dance was a big one, learning an instrument, all these different things that would create. Emotional humiliation, right? Social humiliation for me was a big fear. Judgment was my biggest fear. And so by going all in on those things and actually overcoming them, they gave me a new skill, a new power. And actually more confidence because then I overcame the thing that I was the most afraid of. And so whatever it is in your life right now, create a list of your fears and start making those your talents, not insecurities anymore.

• 14:07Speaker 00

  So that's the second P is the power. The third one, I really believe this is when you step more from success into greatness. Is when you find a problem that you want to solve, the third P. So if you're in a discovery phase of like, what is my mission? What is meaningful to me? What is the thing you want to solve in the world or for this season of life? And when we do that, we feel more in service. We feel more useful when we're solving a problem. If it's a problem we don't care about and we're, we have a curiosity and a, and a power around something. But we do it towards a problem. We don't care about, it just becomes less meaningful. Doesn't mean we can't be successful or make money out of business, but if I was going to go solve a problem of, I don't know.

• 14:53Speaker 00

  Nail polish remover and go start a company. It just, I'm sure I could do it, but it's not useful and it's not a problem for me, right? So it's figuring out what is the thing for me. The problem I want to solve is helping people overcome self doubt because I believe self doubt is the killer of all of our dreams. When we doubt ourselves, we can have all the talent, we can have all the people encouraging us around us, but if we don't believe. It's going to be hard to accomplish what we want. So I want to rid the world of self doubt. Help people have a new relationship and manage it because I think that is going to give them the courage to act on what they do, what they want to do. And I know you've heard a lot of people come to you and say, you know, Chris, I've had an idea for launching a podcast for five years or for writing a book for

• 15:36Speaker 00

  10 years. I've had this idea to launch a company for so long, but they don't have the courage to act. It's because they doubt. And at the center of these three fears, the fear of failure, success and judgment, is this doubt that I am not enough. And when we can get to the root of that, we can start to figure out how to overcome it, how to heal it. And again, solving the problem, finding these three Ps, the passion, the power and the problem you want to solve, will give you a sense of like, okay, here's a direction I want to start going towards. And some people might say, well, I don't know what problem to solve. A buddy of mine, Rory Vaden, says that we are perfectly positioned to help the person we once were.

• 16:18Speaker 00

  So if you had lost 50 pounds and you overcame this problem, or if you got out of debt, or if you figured out how to do relationships but struggled for a long time, you're perfectly positioned to help that person that you once were in the world. So start evaluating with these three Ps in order to find your meaningful mission.

• 16:37Chris Williamson?

  One of the easiest things that you can do if you want to alchemize suffering into something useful, if you want to transcend it, is to take the things that you've been through, the challenges that you've been through, and then teach other people how to avoid the pitfalls or expedite the successes.

• 16:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, avoid the pain or get to the result faster.

• 16:58Chris Williamson?

  Yes, precisely. And it's because you get to point at whatever caused the problem to you, you know, the childhood bullying or the bad relationship with your parents or the heartbreak at the age of 18 or the financial misery that you were through, whatever, whatever the problem was that you occurred, right? And you get to point at it retrospectively and say,

• 17:17Speaker 00

  Put it yourself, yeah.

• 17:18Chris Williamson?

  Not only did you not get me, but you're not going to get anybody else either, and I'm going to help. And that's one of the, it's a really easy thing or a strange thing actually to do because Being in service is something that we're told a lot of the time is transcendent. It makes everybody feel better. It's something that you know, the absolute top self actualization of Mazel to hierarchy of needs. But then the one above that would then be service. It would be, okay, not only if you actualize, but then you open back out into the world. And you think, well, that sounds great, but like, where do I start? Like, do you want me to go to a soup kitchen? What am I supposed to do? And I do think that looking at the pains that you've been through in your life as an identifier of if you went through it, there's probably a lot of other people that will as well.

• 18:02Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 18:02Chris Williamson?

  You are by definition of having lived it, an expert in this particular field, especially if you've done some introspection and a little bit of self-work around it. Use that opportunity to help people that have been through or are going through what you went through to avoid the pain in future in their life.

• 18:18Speaker 00

  Exactly. There's a good example I talk about in the book with Robert Greene. I don't know if you had him on yet.

• 18:22Chris Williamson?

  I have.

• 18:23Speaker 00

  Robert, he's amazing. He talked about, he was my first interview 10 years ago and I've had him on many times, but he's, he's been inspiring for a long time. And when I asked him like, how did you find your mission? He was like, you know, I tried a bunch of stuff. I tried a bunch of stuff that I thought I was curious in, that I thought would be it until I realized it wasn't. So you might need to try a bunch of things and you might need to do it to a one-to-one level. You know, maybe you're helping a friend overcome their weight loss journey and you got a lot of satisfaction from it and you saw results and you're like, all right, let me go take this to three to five friends. But when he was telling me about his journey, he said that he knew he was passionate about writing. He loved to write. He was curious about it. So he was in there. He was also like a town of his.

• 19:05Speaker 00

  He got like good results and he got like some success from it in school. So he was like, all right, and we go be a writer. And he started, I think it was at like a newspaper or something like that, a small town newspaper. He did that for a couple of years, but he was like, it's not really like loving. So let me try like. Writing for TV shows. So he goes into Hollywood, tries TV shows. It's like, I actually don't like writing in these writing rooms. Like, my personality doesn't jam with like ten people in a writing room or whatever. Didn't work for him. Let me try movie scripts. Tried movies and he's like, I just don't like this industry. And he tried writing novels. And he was like, writing these books, but they weren't really getting traction. And this was like ten, fifteen years of him trying a bunch of different stuff. Until he said, you know what, I've got this idea, like, I want to

• 19:50Speaker 00

  solve this problem. And I want to write about a book in a unique way that I've never seen written before. And I want to create this thing that it's just don't feel like it's out there, but I feel like it needs to be. And he tried to pitch it and no publishers were really interested in this. But he finally got some traction, got it off the ground, and then Forty Eight Laws of Power, you know, became this massive hit. And I believe that was his first kind of main book that he wrote in his series. And it was written differently. It looked different than all these other books out there. But it was solving a problem for him that he wanted for himself, and he wanted to help others with. And then he's like, you know, I just figured out that I was going to write these unique type of books in a unique way and solve this problem. Use my

• 20:32Speaker 00

  passion, my power, and solve this problem. It took him ten, fifteen years to get there, probably more, and it keeps evolving. But trying a lot of things around his interests is what got him there.

• 20:43Chris Williamson?

  And this is one of the best nonfiction authors of our era.

• 20:46Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 20:46Chris Williamson?

  Who dicked about and failed and sort of circled the edge of the

• 20:50Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 20:51Chris Williamson?

  the rim for a very long time.

• 20:53Speaker 00

  Yeah. And maybe you got to try a bunch of stuff in your interest to see like, what's going to work for you.

• 20:57Chris Williamson?

  One of my friends, William Costello, says, research is me such.

• 21:01Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 21:01Chris Williamson?

  He's an academic. He actually researches incels. So I'm not going to comment on whether or not that's that's true for him. Okay, so you've mentioned those three big fears that are kind of wrapped around this self doubt conversation here.

• 21:13Speaker 00

  Fear, failure, success, and judgment.

• 21:16Chris Williamson?

  Yep. How can someone do a postmortem on their self doubt? How can they analyze where the negative self talk and lack of self belief is coming from?

• 21:28Speaker 00

  Man, one of the hardest things I've ever done is just look myself in the mirror and say, do I recognize who I am? And ask myself, who am I? And really take a look and say, what are the things that are holding me back emotionally and psychologically? What are the biggest fears and doubts that I have? And it was hard to face this 10 years ago, and I've faced it many times since then.

• 21:47Chris Williamson?

  Hold on.

• 21:48Speaker 00

  I'm gonna be 40 in two, three weeks. Yeah. So I kind of started this journey right around 29 of the School of Greatness and just kind of overcoming myself from not feeling happy, getting success, but not feeling fulfilled.

• 22:05Speaker 00

  And it's been a journey of allowing myself to be a beginner constantly and saying, okay, I'm gonna get feedback from as many different types of experts, therapists, healing individuals as possible, to see what I can do to break through from the self that does not serve my highest self. So it's been a 10-year journey of healing and recognizing. And when I think I've figured it out, I'm humbled and my ego is shattered over and over again. So now I just try to stay as humble as possible and say, I don't know anything and I'm always a beginner. I have wisdom, but there's always a lot more to learn. Just like I think you do really well with your show. I think it's a beautiful thing.

• 22:50Speaker 00

  But again, going back to creating a list of all my insecurities was a big thing that helped me because that was the place where I was most reactive. I, 10 years ago, I had a belief, an identity that was unhealthy, that I was based on results and how I would respond and react. I was angry. I was frustrated. I would get, you know, depressed at times. I was in a depressive state where I wanted to commit suicide, but I would be in my room for a week at a time, kind of in a depressed state.

• 23:20Chris Williamson?

  Based on results, what sort of results?

• 23:22Speaker 00

  Based on how I would react in situations. I would react with anger when I was triggered. I would get depressed when something didn't work out for me. And I would tell myself over and over internally and externally that I'm stupid, that I'm such an idiot. I can't believe I made that mistake. What a dummy. I would say these words. So I was my own worst critic. Based on how I showed up. And 10 years ago, I created a new contract with myself. I started to have a lot of breakdowns in my life and I went to a an emotional intelligence leadership event that kind of kicked off my journey of healing and trying different healing modalities. And in this experience, I created a new contract. I was able to see and face myself and realize

• 24:05Speaker 00

  the narration I've been having with myself and to others about me has not served my happiness. If we recorded the things that we said to ourselves consistently and played it on a loudspeaker, they'd probably put us in a mental institution for most people. And if we said the things that we said to ourselves, to our lovers and our best friends, they probably wouldn't be our friends. So it was creating a healthy identity with myself. I didn't know what that meant. I thought I worked hard and I was disciplined. I could out-train people. I could work hard, what all these things. But I couldn't, I didn't learn to accept and love myself. But also not be complacent, right? How do you accept and love who you are and want to continue to grow to be more?

• 24:47Speaker 00

  So I created a new contract instead of being angry, depressed and stupid, which was the results I was creating in my life based on the narration and the identity I had with myself. I created a new contract that I literally wrote down and said aloud and signed to myself on a piece of paper. And I said, I am a loving, passionate, wise man. This is not a mantra to just speak in the mirror constantly. This is a new belief that I had to step into and become. And I had to create something for myself that was authentic, not a lie. I knew I was a loving guy, but I had anger inside of me.

• 25:30Speaker 00

  So I had to figure out how to get to the root of letting go of anger. But I knew there was love inside of me. I knew I was passionate, but I had a lot of kind of depressed energy as well that I was holding on to. So I had to learn how to get rid of that. I didn't think I was smart. I didn't believe I was smart because I was in the bottom of my class all through school, dyslexic growing up, it's very hard to read and write in general. So saying the word smart would have actually been a lie to me. I can't lie to myself. But I did think I was wise. I was like, I have street smarts. I have wisdom from, from different experiences and I believed I was wise. And so I said, I'm a loving, passionate, wise

• 26:10Speaker 00

  man. And I, and I had to do a couple of things. It wasn't just shouting this as affirmation as Goggins says, it's not something you do and just get better. I had to act accordingly every moment of every day to be those things. I had to create and reaffirm those things through my actions consistently. Then I became them and I believed them more until, you know, letting go of the anger, depression, and the feeling stupid left me. It took time to integrate, but that practice of creating a new contract was huge for me.

• 26:43Chris Williamson?

  Do you think that beliefs or action comes first?

• 26:50Speaker 00

  Well, here's the thing, a lot of people can take action and still not believe. You know, I was a, I was in eighth grade playing basketball and I was watching the varsity team play and sometimes I'd practice with them because I was taller. And there was this athlete who was the freakiest looking athlete that I've ever seen in my life, had a 45 inch vertical, could dunk at will at any moment, just right into the rim and just 360 tomahawk jamming, could score at will, was one of the smoothest basketball players I've ever seen. He took the action. He put in the reps, he worked hard, all those things happened, but he didn't believe in himself. And it's interesting, everyone was like, you're, you're like a god out

• 27:32Speaker 00

  here. You can do anything in practice, but when the games came, he didn't believe. So he had the talent, he put in the reps, all those things, but he still didn't believe in himself. And here's the thing, it doesn't matter if

• 27:46Speaker 00

  It really doesn't matter if the world believes in us. If we don't learn to believe in ourselves, we may not create the results we want. But on the flip side, what is cool, it doesn't matter if the world's against us. If we learn to overcome it and believe in ourselves, we can do some amazing things. So there's a combination that once you take the action, you still have to learn to believe. And when we have that negative script constantly running, I think it's hard to overcome ourselves with that identity.

• 28:13Chris Williamson?

  It's hard to overcome the negative script without any evidence that suggests the otherwise.

• 28:16Speaker 00

  Hundred percent. Yeah, you can't fake it.

• 28:18Chris Williamson?

  Correct. Yeah. Asking for confidence without competence is delusion.

• 28:21Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 28:22Chris Williamson?

  But having competence without confidence is what I call impostor adaptation.

• 28:27Speaker 00

  Wasted talent.

• 28:28Chris Williamson?

  Well, the...

• 28:29Speaker 00

  You've got all this talent, but then you don't take action.

• 28:31Chris Williamson?

  You have to accept that after a while, if you continue to disprove all of the concerns and impostor syndrome that you have internally by succeeding in the real world, if every single time that you're faced with a challenge, you overcome it, and yet your impostor syndrome still persists, you have to admit to yourself, it's got nothing to do with your competence and everything to do with your addiction to feeling like an impostor.

• 28:53Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 28:53Chris Williamson?

  So I think that...

• 28:55Speaker 00

  And your inability to think in a way that serves you. You're thinking in a way and believing a way that discredits all the hard work you've done. You were being the worst critic. When other people are like, "You're amazing. You've got this. We believe in you." But we have to learn how to overcome our own negative self-critic. And I think that's a hard thing to do. And they usually don't teach us how to do this in school. Or our parents may not teach us unless they have that skill. That's why I think it was so inspiring that Sara Blakely's dad was like, "Let me celebrate you when you fail and tell you that you are still loved. You're loved. You're enough. I celebrate you."

• 29:29Chris Williamson?

  Yes.

• 29:30Speaker 00

  And, "Great job. You tried something. You overcame something." And I think that's inspiring. But when we do all the hard work and we still say, "Uh, no, I'm not good enough." Or, "I don't know if I can do it." Then, why are you working so hard? Just go be lazy.

• 29:44Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, it's a very difficult one, man, because we know the the strategies that got us here, wherever here is, even if it's step two, right, or step 2000, we know that the strategies that got us here were probably paying very close attention to every small element of whatever practice it is that we're doing. We're scrutinizing our game tape, we're listening back to the podcast, we're looking at the traffic on the website, we're getting other people to read our article, whatever it is that we do, right? Whatever the thing is that you do, you scrutinize it, and you use a lot of cognitive effort to look at it. And the problem is that that same degree of scrutiny, applied over a long enough time, doesn't actually end up facilitating performance past a certain point. And this is why I think that the tools that got you here

• 30:29Chris Williamson?

  won't get you there, is a really interesting way to look at this stuff. Yeah, look, when you start out, there are certain things you need to do. The degree of attention that you need to pay to the things that you do, the level of resolution that you need to look at things through is great. But if you now, podcast episode 1500 or whatever that you're going to release next week, was looking at it through the same lens that you looked at episode one, everything would be moving so slowly, it wouldn't be as easy or as graceful. Yeah. So I do think that there is this balance between belief and action, in my opinion, because I was someone that and still does deal with chronic unconfidence at times, right? Very, very unconfident, especially going through my twenties. Really? Oh, yeah, massively. Hidden behind a very brash.

• 31:14Speaker 00

  Even now?

• 31:15Chris Williamson?

  Less so now. But the reason for that is because I've got a stack of undeniable proof that I am who I say I am. Exactly. Evidence. Yeah.

• 31:23Speaker 00

  But a lot of people have evidence and they still don't believe. They still don't believe.

• 31:26Chris Williamson?

  So it would be that impostor adaptation thing where it's like, there is so much undeniable evidence that you are, that you literally have to be delusional to believe the opposite.

• 31:39Speaker 00

  Or you don't, you haven't been trained on how to believe in yourself and accept who you are. Because a lot of people are striving for perfection and it hurts their performance. And we must think, how can I just perform better? And let go of perfection. Perfection, I don't think will ever happen. If it does, great. Maybe it happens for a moment or a few moments. But striving for performance should be the factor that everyone focuses on, not perfection. Cause that's what's getting in the way of your results.

• 32:07Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I mean, there's a great quote from Tiago Forte, where he says that polishing things to perfection is a low leverage activity. Which is why some of the best performers in the world, their work has a rough edged, half assed quality to it.

• 32:22Speaker 00

  Oh, that's good.

• 32:23Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, because the difference between, for most people, unless you're in elite sport, getting from 95 to 97 is not actually going to make a massive amount of difference to your learning in terms of practice, or the way it's issued to the market or the audience or whatever. But it's going to take you twice as long.

• 32:41Speaker 00

  So hard, maybe even longer.

• 32:42Chris Williamson?

  Yes, to get from 95 to 97. Now, if you are Usain Bolt, the goal is to get that hundredth of a percent, thousandth of a percent, right? That's what you're playing with.

• 32:50Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 32:50Chris Williamson?

  But for most people, I think just time and attention and getting things done.

• 32:54Speaker 00

  There's not one thing that I've done that's perfect in the last 10 years on my show. Not one thing. I could look back at every episode of Man and cringe at everything that I do constantly and like, ah, I could have done that better. Or Chris did this better than me on this thing. Or I could have done this, it could have looked better or changed this up. I could compare to everyone in the world and be crippled by that comparison of it's not perfect yet. But the one thing that has served me was just being willing to put stuff out there consistently and improve over time. And I still don't feel perfect 10 years later. I feel like, man, I got a lot of room to grow. There's a lot of stuff I can do to get better, but it doesn't hold me back from my performance. I still show up, deliver consistent results and perform as opposed to focus on being perfect.

• 33:38Chris Williamson?

  What's the fear to conversion toolkit?

• 33:41Speaker 00

  For me, it's really transforming your thoughts, your behaviors and actions into congruency and in harmony with moving forward towards your meaningful mission. Because a lot of fear holds us back from acting, the fear of failure, success or judgment. So we don't act because we don't believe we're going to get the results. So we believe something bad will happen. And at the, the core root of this fear of failure is I'm not enough. And so what we can convert that into knowing I am enough. Maybe I'm not where I want to be. Maybe I'm not as good as I want to be. Maybe I've made mistakes. Maybe I've messed up. Maybe I've hurt people. Maybe people hurt me.

• 34:23Speaker 00

  Accepting the past and learning how to accept it and say, okay, I'm not happy with where I am, but I can learn to accept who I am. Not beating myself up anymore and start going all in on my fears until these fears start to disappear. When we can convert it into saying I am enough and actually realizing it, which I think is one of the hardest things. It's why people lack confidence. It's why they beat themselves up. What's why they harm themselves. It's why they go on antidepressants because they don't feel enough. So it's really learning the skill of feeling and believing we are enough where we are. And also not being complacent and not giving effort to improving and growing. It's both and, accepting where we are, saying, I'm also going to take massive, consistent,

• 35:08Speaker 00

  imperfect action to improve over time.

• 35:13Speaker 00

  When I think we have fears that hold us back and we do nothing to do them, we're always going to feel stuck or trapped in some area of life. So it's really paying attention to what are my biggest fears? Creating a game plan and a system with support. I don't think you should do it alone in order to go all in on them until you start to overcome them. When we can do that, again, it's converting fear into confidence. Like you said, you have undeniable evidence and proof based on putting in the reps consistently. If you didn't have that evidence or proof, you still might be. Lacking confidence or fearful of certain things because you didn't take the action. And that's what really what it is. A lot of us are unwilling to face the fear and acknowledge that something's wrong with us, or something is not perfect, or something's off.

• 35:58Speaker 00

  So we mask it. We put on a mask to fit in and belong to others. But what we are saying when we do that is we do not belong to ourselves. I'm trying to do something for you to like me. Cause I don't like myself. So I'm putting a mask on. I'm projecting a false sense of confidence. Performative. And again, this is not right or wrong, good or bad. I'm not judging people because I did all these things most of my life. Is it useful? Is it effective towards your meaningful mission? Is it going to help give you more energy? Feel more peace and harmony when you go to sleep? I don't know about you, Chris, but I couldn't sleep for most of my life until I hit thirty. Because I would ruminate for an hour, hour and a half, almost every night, just staring up at the ceiling. Thinking, stressing, anxious about.

• 36:42Speaker 00

  Myself and not feeling good enough.

• 36:46Speaker 00

  And I would try to perform and work really hard to feel better, but it still didn't work.

• 36:49Chris Williamson?

  I know what it feels like to lay awake at night, wondering if you're doing the thing that you're supposed to be doing. Uh, I'm wondering where your life's going and if this is actually how you're supposed to spend your days and. Am I really fulfilling my potential and? Why don't I have the things that I want? Why don't I feel the way that I should? Uh, why is life not? I don't know. It's, it felt discordant. It felt like chords that were being played out of tune with each other. I do think. One of the easiest ways, and this is me speaking to myself, but also anybody that feels like, okay, I don't have the self belief, but I also don't, also don't have any proof. For me, the easiest place to start is to do action. And the reason is for this, for the same reason that going to the gym is easier than meditating.

• 37:34Chris Williamson?

  That you can see the reps that you do, right? I, I know that I've spent thirty minutes writing after sitting down for an hour and a half and procrastinating.

• 37:42Speaker 00

  Ruminating, yeah.

• 37:42Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, on, on writing my blog post, right? On starting my Substack, on choosing the fucking logo for my website or whatever it is that you decide to do. That is, it is so obvious to me that that is work that is done and it is more undeniable. Yes. Than I spent time digging through the trauma of my past introspectively and changing my beliefs.

• 38:03Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 38:03Chris Williamson?

  For me, and this may be different for girls, I'm not sure, but certainly for guys, I think that an action focused. I did a thing today. I can tick it off a list. You know, the the inner autist inside all of us is going to be satisfied when we decide that we're going to have ticked off the the boxes.

• 38:19Speaker 00

  Of course. Here's the thing. It's a both end. I think it's taking massive imperfect action on building confidence and reps, but I think it's also that can be a cover up. That can be a mask if not addressing the wounds that hurt you at some point. So it's we don't have to sit here and think about our past pains and traumas every single moment of every day. There's a season and period of time to start and develop that healing, integrating process. For me, it wasn't until the last couple of years when I really went all in on every area of my life that caused me the most pain. And reimagining it, facing it, doing physical exercises with it, having a coach to support me emotionally process it

• 39:03Speaker 00

  to where I felt the most freedom and peace in my heart that I've ever had in my life. It doesn't mean I don't face challenges and stresses in my day to day.

• 39:13Speaker 00

  But I sleep peacefully at night and I

• 39:17Speaker 00

  am way less reactive about what happens in life. Whereas before I used to be in fight or flight mode whenever I felt triggered or someone was out to get me.

• 39:26Speaker 00

  And so I could still take action and build this unwavering evidence that I have put in the reps. I've got skills. Now I've got the confidence. But if I'm still triggered emotionally by someone cutting me off in the street, it's not right or wrong, good or bad. It's just taking energy away from being more effective. And being driven to to deliver results, using that anger, that fuel, that pain worked for 30 years of my life in getting success, but it didn't bring me fulfillment. So it was unsustainable, the drive to prove people wrong, to win at all costs, to get back to the bullies, the people that made fun of me. Uh, or to just overcome all the challenges I faced.

• 40:10Speaker 00

  It didn't give me peace. It didn't give me fulfillment. Actually, when I accomplished the goals, I became angrier. Cause I thought this is supposed to be the thing that brings me more joy. Why am I not feeling it? Why do I still not feel enough? So it's taking the action. So you build the confidence, but I think if you have a story or a memory that still triggers you today, that thing has power over you. That thing is still consuming and controlling your mind. And holding you back from what I believe is your authentic self.

• 40:38Chris Williamson?

  Talk to me about this balance between feeling like you're enough and staying hungry. There's certainly a big cohort of people that I know who internally have a fear.

• 40:50Speaker 00

  Went through the complacent, they don't want to get complacent.

• 40:51Chris Williamson?

  Of dealing with their shit because they know that the chip on their shoulder is part of the fuel. Now, it's an incredibly toxic fuel, but it's fucking potent.

• 41:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, you hear, you hear about some of the greatest athletes of all time. You see, you know, Tom Brady talking about, I've always had this chip on my shoulder and look at him. He's the greatest athlete. I mean, the greatest quarterback of all time, undeniably based on results, right? But who knows if he's really fulfilled or happy and I don't, I don't want to sit here and judge either way.

• 41:21Chris Williamson?

  You've got Michael Gervais on the show, right?

• 41:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:23Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. So he, I asked him this question. I said, do you think that most high performers on average are happier or more miserable than the normal person? He said, without a doubt, they're more miserable.

• 41:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think so. I think so, unless you find some other way to create harmony in your life.

• 41:36Chris Williamson?

  Think about it this way, think about how much of an outlier you have to be, to be an unbelievable high performer. And then within that cohort of the best in the world, there's outliers within that, that are the ones that have somehow managed to be balanced with it.

• 41:48Speaker 00

  Yeah. I just think here's, I've had some conversations with some mutual friend of ours about this. I don't want to let this chip off my shoulder because then it's not going to drive me anymore.

• 41:59Chris Williamson?

  Yep.

• 42:00Speaker 00

  And here's the thing, I don't feel like, I really don't feel like I have a chip on my shoulder anymore. I did. And I don't feel like I do. I feel like more, I have a desire to fulfill my mission and I have a desire to

• 42:15Speaker 00

  give my best to my creator, you know? If that's God, great. I'm here for a reason. I don't really know what that is, but if it is a reason, I want to make sure I give it my all. And I want to give my all to the mission of this season of life. And that's more of what I'm afraid of is not like a chip on my shoulder about three kids from middle school that picked on me, or someone that picked me last on a dodgeball team, or the guy that sexually abused me, or all these things. It's not like I'm gonna go show them. What does that do for me? It doesn't do anything for me. It's more, how can I be of service to my mission? How can I show up for my mission? And by doing that, man, I want to be super proud of myself. How can I show up for my friends, my family,

• 42:56Speaker 00

  my community in a big way? Man, that gives me energy and fuel, knowing I'm making an impact, rather than knowing I'm right, winning, or being successful. That gives me this like renewable energy. It gives me like this fuel that I feel like will never burn out.

• 43:12Chris Williamson?

  I wonder whether part of the selection criteria for the people who have a

• 43:20Chris Williamson?

  forward, running towards something they want, as opposed to running away from something they fear mentality, is to do with that group that they've got around them, whether they have a support structure or not. Because a lot of the creators and other discussions that I see about this online, one of the common threads between the people that seem to have the more Lone Ranger, I'm gonna use this chip on my shoulder thing to drive me forward, is that they don't have that support structure.

• 43:45Speaker 00

  They don't have good community. They don't have good friends or family or community to really support them, because they've kind of pushed everyone away of just this obsessive nature, I feel like.

• 43:54Chris Williamson?

  So what do you say to people who don't have a strong support system or community around them at the moment? What can they do?

• 44:01Speaker 00

  I just think this is, this is not a lone, this is not a one man game. I just think it's a, it's a game we're supposed to play with other people, you know? And I used to be the kind of the lone wolf, and it was me versus the world, it was me against the world with everything. And I always thought the world was against me. And I'm gonna have that feeling of anxiety, stress, and overwhelm when it's me versus the world, as opposed to we're all in this together.

• 44:25Chris Williamson?

  You do realize how narcissistic that is for the people that have that viewpoint, right? You think that the world is against you? The world doesn't think twice about you. The world-

• 44:34Speaker 00

  That's what it feels like, though.

• 44:35Chris Williamson?

  I'm aware that it does. I'm aware, and I'd see this online, and I had the same, I had this, the exact same thing. This is me speaking to my past self. Like, dude, the world doesn't think twice about you.

• 44:45Speaker 00

  They're thinking about their own stuff.

• 44:47Chris Williamson?

  People, you would be way, way, way more self-confident if you realize how rarely other people gave a shit about anything that you did. And yet, this, it is a incredibly narcissistic victim mentality that, look at what the world is doing to me, look at how hard I have it, it's me against the world, I'm gonna sisyphus my way up this hill, I'll bear the brunt of all of it.

• 45:08Speaker 00

  Carry the weight of the world.

• 45:10Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, precisely, this existential burden, it's like, bro, you have had some traumas that are absolutely independent to you, and quite rightly, you require sympathy for that. But it's not like the world made this happen.

• 45:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 45:24Chris Williamson?

  You know?

• 45:25Speaker 00

  Who is, uh, who are some top athletes in your mind that you think of when you think of sports and the greatest athletes of all time?

• 45:30Chris Williamson?

  Jordan.

• 45:31Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 45:32Chris Williamson?

  Brady?

• 45:33Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 45:34Chris Williamson?

  Uh, Cristiano Ronaldo?

• 45:36Speaker 00

  Yep. And when they got to, you know, I don't know if you've had Tim Grover on, but he's, I've read about him in my book, Working with Jordan and Kobe. When Jordan and Kobe won their first championship, they didn't get there alone, they had a coach, and they had teammates around them. And when they won their first championship, they didn't say to their coach, "Coach, thanks for getting me here, I'm gonna do this on my own next year." They actually went and hired more specialists, more coaches, more support to help them get to that 95 to 97%, right, like you talked about. And to stay on top, to overcome the challenges that come, they enlisted more support, but I think a lot of us, and I think that's wisdom, finding coaches, finding people that support

• 46:18Speaker 00

  you and give you real feedback, not criticism, but how to adjust to perform better. And when we try to do it alone, I just think we are exhausting our energy. I have a coach for almost every area of my life. I've got a business coach, I've got a fitness coach, nutrition coach, I've got an emotional coach, and I also just have mentors, friends, personal advisors that I lean on when I need support. I don't think it's weak to ask for support. I think it's wise. And when we can lean on mentors, like you said, or just watching your show is wise. When people watch you or listen to you, you're their mentor, or you're bringing on people that are their mentors. And they're learning things on how to overcome challenges faster. They're minimizing their time to accomplish things. They're dealing with less pain because of it.

• 47:03Speaker 00

  That's called wisdom. That's not weakness.

• 47:06Chris Williamson?

  Well, certainly for the people who don't have the resources to maybe be able to get five, five coaches for each area of their life. You have the opportunity to surround yourself with the greatest minds that you like. With your content career, you know, I, this was me. At some thirty four now, and this was me at sort of twenty seven, twenty eight. You know, the advent of your Jordan Petersons, your Sam Harris's, your Alain de Botton from the School of Lives. And I was in a working class town in the northeast of the UK. I'd met about a million people throughout my career of running nightlife stuff. And I'd managed to have a handful of friends. So I was

• 47:41Speaker 00

  After knowing a ton of people.

• 47:43Chris Williamson?

  Precisely. I was the guy on the front door of the nightclub. Every single person knew my name. Every single person in that city knew my name for a decade. And I had a handful of friends because I was struggling to connect.

• 47:53Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 47:54Chris Williamson?

  And I knew that there was something wrong. I knew that I needed to find insight and answers and guidance toward a more effective version of me.

• 48:06Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 48:08Chris Williamson?

  And yet I was in a world where those role models seem to be quite scarce. Uh, so yeah, very much so. I mean, dude, nightlife, believe it or not, nightlife is not exactly a hotbed for philosophical and life direction insight.

• 48:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:23Chris Williamson?

  Um, and I'd come from, I talked about this with Goggins, the reverse role model, a world where I had people like the sort of person I didn't want to be like a lot.

• 48:34Speaker 00

  Surrounding you.

• 48:35Chris Williamson?

  Yeah. So not that they were close to me. Mum and dad were absolutely fantastic, but you know. The sports that I played when I was younger, especially because in cricket, it's a game where physicality isn't a big deal, skill is, which means that you can immediately at thirteen or fourteen years old, play adult level. So you get exposed to marriages and kids and divorces and breakups and financial worries and alcohol addiction or gambling or money worries. All of these things you get exposed to, it's like a crash course in human life at the age of fourteen or fifteen. So I started to see people where I thought, well, okay, I don't want his relationship with money and I don't want the way that he shows up for his wife and I don't want this and this and this. So those are way markers in the ground that taught me what I didn't want.

• 49:19Chris Williamson?

  But finding a community, a role model that you can admire, that you can look up to, that makes you feel like you have a direction that you're moving in that's effective.

• 49:30Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 49:32Chris Williamson?

  Is hard, man. And yet we have the opportunity now to find people on the internet that are the exact big brother that you never had.

• 49:41Speaker 00

  Exactly. Here's how I did it early on, because I knew going from sports into life, you know, after I was done playing arena football, got injured on my sister's couch for a year and a half. I was like, I don't know how to get a job, I don't even have a degree. This was in two thousand eight when the housing crisis was crashing in America, so the economy was like very shaky. I was just like, I have no clue what I'm going to do. School did not prepare me for life. So what am I going to do? Let me just think what I would do as an athlete. I need some coaches. I need to find a coach and go do this life thing. And early on, at this time for a year and a half, I was just like, man, I'm so afraid of so many things. I created this fear list and I was a long list and I was just like, I just don't want

• 50:26Speaker 00

  to feel like a piece of shit anymore. I don't want to feel like crap, knowing that I have all these fears on this list, knowing that these things are consuming my energy and they hold me back from taking action. So I found my mentors by going all in on my fears. One of the most public speaking, I met someone who was a public speaker, a professional speaker, went around the country speaking to colleges. And I asked him like, man, I can't even get up in front of three people and give a five minute conversation without stuttering and stumbling. What can I do? And he gave me the path. He said, go to Toastmasters every week for a year. It's going to give you, Toastmasters is a public speaking class. It's going to give you tools and give

• 51:07Speaker 00

  you practice and give you feedback in a community. I didn't even know what it was, but I said, okay, cool, I'm going. I, he said, go to the, you know, go to a bunch of different Toastmasters clubs in this city. I was in Columbus, Ohio. So go check them out. Join the one that scares you the most. That's going to push you the farthest. So I went to five different ones and one of them, I was like, oh, this one is the one I do not want to be in because everyone's a pro, everyone's in suits, everyone's like unbelievable. I do not belong. I got a backwards cap, I got a cast ons on my arm in this position, you know, 90 degrees with a cutoff shirt, looking like a bum. These are all like 30, 40, 50 year old pros actually

• 51:47Speaker 00

  getting paid to speak. And I go, wow, this is where I need to be. By going there, I met a guy and one of these kind of events, there was um, kind of like free appetizers and food in the back. It was like a guest event you can come check out. Yeah. So at the end of the, the event, I went back there. This is when I'm on my sister's couch. I've got no money, three credit cards debt, student loan debt, a bum arm. I can't, you know, I'm in a cast for six months, got no job, no money. And there is a bunch of, it's probably one of my lowest moments, just for me personally, is being injured, losing my identity, being on my sister's couch. And the back of this room is like all the, you know, whatever,

• 52:29Speaker 00

  carrots and broccoli and chips and things like that. I, I've got no money for food. I'm stuffing it in my mouth and then I get all the napkins and I stuff food in my pockets, stuffing all this food. This guy who spoke sees me, goes, what are you doing? I go, uh, this is kind of my food for the day. And he goes, let me just buy lunch. There's a diner next door. So he, he bought me lunch. He had spoke that day and I watched him speak. He became a mentor of mine and a coach in public speaking for that whole year. He helped me write my first book. He gave me the confidence and the courage and the coaching to then take action. I would not have met him had I not gone after my biggest fears. I did

• 53:11Speaker 00

  this as well in salsa dancing. Salsa dancing was a huge fear of mine.

• 53:15Chris Williamson?

  Specifically salsa?

• 53:16Speaker 00

  Specifically salsa dancing.

• 53:17Chris Williamson?

  Why not ballroom?

• 53:19Speaker 00

  Well, it's an element of ballroom, right? So salsa dancing is an element of ballroom. So I, here's why. Um, I couldn't dance growing up, right? And being a white dude in the middle of Ohio, you're not known for being like cultured as a dancer, right? This just wasn't it.

• 53:35Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I feel you.

• 53:36Speaker 00

  And I lived in college above a, my brother was a, he's the number one jazz violinist in the world today. He's a, a master and he's played all around the world with the greats, all these different things. When I was in college, I had an apartment that was a studio apartment. I don't know, maybe twice the size of this room. And it was, um, it was above a, a jazz club. It was like upstairs above a jazz club. So my brother got me the, the apartment because he had stayed there a couple of times or whatever. And he knew the owner. And so the, every week there was jazz music downstairs like being played, but one night a week, they had a salsa band and all the salsaos in Ohio would come out to Columbus, Ohio and dance.

• 54:20Speaker 00

  So I would go down just curious, watching jazz. And then I saw salsa one time and I go, I do not belong here. I'm watching this. It's, you know, I'm the only white guy there. I'm a foot taller than everyone. And they are, you know, singing in a language that I don't understand. They are dancing a language that I don't understand. And I feel extremely vulnerable and uncomfortable, but I was just fascinated watching these individuals dancing together. And how can they just pick someone randomly and know how to dance? The language of it, I was just like, this is fascinating, but I was so intimidated. I shit you not, for three months, I would go down there and sit in the corner.

• 55:00Speaker 00

  Kind of creepy, but not that creepy because I wasn't like staring or gawking or just, I was just like mesmerized at the music. And it was just like beautiful.

• 55:09Speaker 00

  And I got to know people over these three months and they always asked me to come dance, these girls. And I go, no way. I don't want to make you look, I don't want to humiliate myself or make you look bad because I can't dance like these other guys. And so that became a huge fear because I was just like, the thing I'm resisting. It has power over me. It makes me feel not confident just watching it, let alone thinking about taking a step on the dance floor. So that was another thing. I met a guy who I thought was the best dancer and he was incredible. His confidence, his poise, like his charisma, just how he moved. And I was like, it would be a dream to be able to dance like this guy.

• 55:50Speaker 00

  He became my coach and mentor for the next year. Finally, after three months, one girl like yanked me on the dance floor after trying to get me for, for weeks. I go out there, I am like drenched in sweat. I'm so terrified. We go to the middle of the dance floor. It's crowded. It's packed. Music is playing. People are swinging and dancing all around us. I am just stepping on her feet. I'm like apologizing constantly. I'm looking down the whole time. After about five minutes of just fumbling around like a giant idiot, she grabs my head and pulls my, my chin up and looks at her. She goes, Louis, just look around. Just have fun. Look around. And I'm looking around and everyone's dancing and smiling and laughing

• 56:31Speaker 00

  and having fun. And something I realized, no one is looking at me. No one cared about what I was doing. And even if they did, maybe they looked at me for a moment and said, oh, this guy's not that good. But then they went on to their own lives. They're dancing. They're having fun. And it was at that moment, I was like, oh, wow. It was, I was so afraid of the fear of judgment, the humiliation that could happen. And who cares if a few people were making fun of me or laughing at me? I didn't even see it. And I was hooked. I started going out four times a week for the next six months. I started taking private lessons, group lessons, doing everything I could. This guy started coaching and mentoring me. And within six months, I literally became fluent in salsa dancing. And then for, I don't

• 57:15Speaker 00

  know, seven, eight years, I traveled the world to all these different countries, to the top salsa clubs in the world, and when enter. Not knowing anyone and go find the the top dancer in the club and I would just watch and see who's the best girl dancer and I would go up and ask her this was a a challenge that I gave myself and most of the time I'd get rejected and I was like awesome okay let me overcome this fear let me just get back into this I'd find other people to dance with and eventually at the end of the night those girls that rejected me would ask me to dance because they would see that I could dance but they didn't think I could originally so I did this in so many different areas writing books public speaking salsa dancing launching a business I started to go all in on these things

• 57:57Speaker 00

  by taking action the thing you talked about building reps people found me I found mentors and coaches in that process of action of humiliation and they said hey let me give you a few pointers let me give you this now I took the action on what they said I think one of the worst things you can do today is try to reach out to someone and say hey can I pick your brain for five minutes and then they tell you exactly what to do and you don't do it for me it's the worst thing you can do because a coach or a mentor or an advisor wants to know that you took action on the thing they told you and you got some type of result so I just said whatever people tell me to do I'm gonna do it they've got results I want to learn how to do this and that's what I did

• 58:42Chris Williamson?

  Pretty much everybody is one DM away from a message that'll probably change their life

• 58:46Speaker 00

  Yeah exactly but a lot of people just fear to take action consistently and they don't want to humiliate themselves or fail and lose over and over again I was willing to humiliate myself every day for years if it was gonna give me freedom

• 59:01Chris Williamson?

  Have you still got the skills now?

• 59:03Speaker 00

  I can I can dance with the best dancers in the world in a salsa club setting I'm not a ballroom dancer there's a different form and style and pose but if I I can you can drop me in any salsa club in the world And in a moment, I can grab someone and I can do anything I need to do. Yeah.

• 59:21Chris Williamson?

  That's cool.

• 59:22Speaker 00

  But I've done it for 17 years. I put in the reps and for weeks I would go two, three, four times a week for years. I mean, I obsessed about it, just like obsessed about learning how to read and write as an adult. In eighth grade, I had a second grade reading level and I couldn't read or write even through college. And so I had to learn these things in my twenties in order to be effective as a writer and write books. If I had a message I wanted to get out there, speaking, I had to overcome the fear of speaking. Same thing with writing, same thing with interviewing. All these things were fears. I didn't know how to do any of these things, but I overcame them and continued to overcome them through action consistently.

• 1:00:02Chris Williamson?

  What's the mindset in motion cycle?

• 1:00:08Speaker 00

  Let me get to the page here because there's a graphic.

• 1:00:10Chris Williamson?

  Get it up.

• 1:00:11Speaker 00

  There's a graphic here for this.

• 1:00:15Speaker 00

  Let me find it here.

• 1:00:21Speaker 00

  And before I get to that, actually, I want to talk about the difference between a powerless mindset and a greatness mindset. Because I think this is, this is going to be interesting. This is where I actually think people should start. Is, is going over the powerless mindset versus the greatness mindset. Then I'll get back to the, uh, this other part here. Um, since this popped up for me. So wherever you're at right now, whether you're crushing it or succeeding, or you feel like you're stuck in your in between transitions, maybe a career breakup or you're, you just sold a company. Whatever it is, on page 201, I have this graphic, um, and I can just share with you guys to see or understand it. Is to assess and see, am I in a powerless mindset or in a greatness mindset?

• 1:01:06Speaker 00

  And there's really six key factors.

• 1:01:10Speaker 00

  And this does not mean you are good or bad, right or wrong as a human being. It does not mean you're not lovable or anything like that. It just means is your mindset as effective as it can be? Or is it holding you back? That's all it means. And a powerless mindset is someone who lacks a meaningful mission. I think your interview with Jordan Peterson was great because he talked about, you know, making sure you have a direction, an aim, something to go towards. A lot of people don't have a clear direction. Well, the direction isn't the right direction. It's an inauthentic direction. And so they might hit it, but realize it's not what they wanted. But either way, I believe a man without a mission is a dangerous man. When we have no clear direction, that's when bad things usually tend to happen.

• 1:01:53Speaker 00

  And you see a lot of our military who struggle and suffer after their mission ends and they come home and they don't know what to do next. And thankfully, there's a lot of programs for our men and women who are, who have returned to get them back on a new mission. But I just think lacking a meaningful mission, we are in a powerless mindset. The mission can be, I'm in a season of figuring out my life. Cool. At least you're clear that you're in a season of recovery, reflection of trying stuff. Awesome. But when you're just like, I have no clue what I want to do. You are in a powerless mindset. Number two, when we're controlled by fear. Again, it doesn't mean that there's not going to be fear that comes up. But when it controls us, we are powerless to it.

• 1:02:36Speaker 00

  So that's why we have a lot of exercises about overcoming fear. When we're crippled by self doubt, again, for me, I was crippled by it for a long time, the fear of judgment and not feeling enough, not feeling lovable, not feeling enough.

• 1:02:49Speaker 00

  And it was really me learning to feel enough to myself. I seeked it from outside validation, but still didn't believe in internally. So it was learning how to have a new relationship with self and stop abandoning myself in this process to overcome self doubt. The fourth one, I think a lot of people don't talk about when it comes to mindset is concealing past pains. This is something that I think a lot of men struggle with, the idea of actually sharing their past pain. And

• 1:03:20Speaker 00

  I am just a big believer, based on all the science and all the research and all the therapists and neuroscientists I've interviewed and talk about in the book, that when we conceal past pains,

• 1:03:31Speaker 00

  it hurts us more. It's more of a poison inside of us and it affects us and our abilities to feel peace and abundance and harmony better when we have something in us that we're afraid to share. For 25 years, I held inside of me that I'd been sexually abused until 10 years ago, I opened up about it privately with people and eventually started talking about it publicly because I wanted to give men more of a permission to open up about all their shames or pains, not in a public setting, but being able to talk to a good friend, therapist, priest, or whatever it is for you. When we conceal, it means we're afraid and we have shame around something that has happened or that we did. And I just think that keeps us powerless. The fifth thing is being defined by

• 1:04:14Speaker 00

  the opinions of others. It doesn't mean don't get feedback and support from others, but being defined by them as our identity is what holds us back and makes us powerless.

• 1:04:23Chris Williamson?

  That's an interesting balance there. You know, the same as the, is it belief or is it action?

• 1:04:27Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:04:28Chris Williamson?

  Is it fear of insufficiency or is it desire for more? Is it feedback from the world around us? Or is it completely reliant on what they think about us? This is the virtuous mean, as Aristotle called it, right? You know, the middling section where it's not so much that it's toxic, but not so little that it's ineffective. And that appropriate dose for certain things, like to get feedback from the people around you or the world at large, right? The actual band that you're playing with isn't all that wide.

• 1:04:54Speaker 00

  I know.

• 1:04:55Chris Williamson?

  It's really difficult to manage to find it right.

• 1:04:58Speaker 00

  Did you, um, did you have any really good coaches growing up in sports and cricket or anything else you played in?

• 1:05:05Chris Williamson?

  So, no, not really, not in terms of mindset. What can I say, man? I mean, the guys, they were fantastic at what they taught, but I never once learned the value of practice. I never learned the line between putting in work now that would facilitate a performance in the future. And I remember being, so before I did the podcast, I was always a little bit resentful of the fact that I had this sort of drive. I wanted to do things. I felt like I wanted to have a thing that I could commit myself to. And I didn't have a thing I could commit myself to. I'd run this business.

• 1:05:43Speaker 00

  You wanted those things, but you didn't have it.

• 1:05:44Chris Williamson?

  I didn't have a, I didn't have a vector through which I could put this passion, right? I'm good at being obsessive. I'm very good at being obsessive. And I remember being almost resentful about the fact that I didn't learn the line between practice and performance. I didn't understand the relationship between putting in reps and how that's going to facilitate you in the future. And now I felt like I was in my late twenties and what, what fucking hobby am I going to find now that's going to allow me, that's going to be the, you know, the, the vector through which I can do this. Fuck knows. And then the podcast came along. And Peterson, one of his rules is commit yourself to one thing to try as hard as you can and see what happens.

• 1:06:26Speaker 00

  Yeah. And maybe it doesn't work out that way you want it. Maybe it works out better.

• 1:06:30Chris Williamson?

  Yes, sometimes.

• 1:06:31Speaker 00

  Or maybe you realize that's not what you want to do, but at least you can cross it off your list.

• 1:06:34Chris Williamson?

  That's your Robert Greene thing, right? But it's also the Steven Pressfield turning pro thing.

• 1:06:38Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:06:38Chris Williamson?

  The war of art thing, which is that when you do decide to commit yourself to one thing, you learn an awful lot just about the process in general. And, um, you know, that again, I, I feel for people that have the desire to be great at something, to try hard at something. They've got the conscientiousness, the obsessiveness, the work rate. They've got those things, but they haven't found

• 1:06:59Speaker 00

  The right avenue.

• 1:07:00Chris Williamson?

  They haven't found the thing.

• 1:07:01Speaker 00

  The mechanism.

• 1:07:02Chris Williamson?

  Yes. And that's where that, that's, that makes me feel really sad for those people because you think, God, dude, you've got all the raw materials, the core components.

• 1:07:12Speaker 00

  The talent, yeah.

• 1:07:13Chris Williamson?

  So in that situation, that's where that, you mentioned it earlier on, the explore exploit framework. It's like, dude, just try, someone messaged me, a guy, I get quite a lot now.

• 1:07:24Chris Williamson?

  Pieces of advice requests and stuff online. And this one guy sent a really well meaning message and I said, I'm in my thirties. I haven't found the thing that I want to do. The friends around me don't seem like they've got my best interests at heart. I drink more than I want to because I don't have anything else to do, blah, blah, blah. I was like, dude, commit to one thing a month for the next year. Like the first month you're going to try improv. Then it's going to be interpretive dance. Then it's going to be like painting, then it's going to be blogging, then it's going to be whatever, because. If you genuinely feel like you've got that that fuel inside of you to be great at something and you haven't found the thing, that fuel is going to either get used to be to drive an engine or turn toxic.

• 1:08:04Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 1:08:05Chris Williamson?

  Because unfulfilled or unrequited life desires are going to murder you inside.

• 1:08:12Speaker 00

  Absolutely, man. Yeah. And that's why I think we've got to figure out what that meaningful mission is and try a bunch of stuff until you get clear. And even once you're clear, that thing might change a year, five, 10 years later, you know? I loved baseball until I didn't. I played from five years old till I was 17. And then one summer after the season was done, I was just like, I don't think I want to do this anymore. It was part of my mission until I had new interests, until it wasn't. And I was like, actually, I'm not getting fulfillment enjoyment from this like I was. And that's okay.

• 1:08:43Chris Williamson?

  That's a really interesting point to bring up because I think a lot of people presume that what they're about to embark on now is going to be there forever.

• 1:08:50Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:08:51Chris Williamson?

  It's a very juvenile approach. And I have this, again, this is me speaking to myself, not only now, but in the past. It's not, the thing that you're pursuing now can be periodized. It can just be for the next few years.

• 1:09:03Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 1:09:04Chris Williamson?

  And David Data talks about this in Way the Superior Man. At the very start, he says, the thing which used to light you up now no longer makes you feel alive. And it's like a crab outgrowing its shell.

• 1:09:16Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:09:17Chris Williamson?

  And all of the things and the routines and you have to force yourself to go to the gym, to go to practice, to see your friends, to go out and party, whatever it might be. And that's a signal that's you being poked and someone saying, dude, this, this isn't really aligned for you so much anymore. Maybe you got to find something new. But the advantage of that is there is less pressure on you to get the thing that you choose. It's not got to be the life purpose for the rest of time. It can just be for the next three years.

• 1:09:45Speaker 00

  What's the season? And that's why I love sports analogies. I mean, I'm an athlete. But I mean, you look at The guys who, I mean, J.J. Watson, example, he just retired. He was like an all-star NFL, one of the top NFL players in the last decade. And he realized I'd accomplished everything I wanted to, like this season has run its course. And that's why it's important to have an off-season to be able to reflect and say, is this something I want to do anymore? Let me reflect on this and get clear on my mission for the next season, or I'm in a new chapter. I'm discovering something new. And I think the other, the last part of the powerless mindset is when you drift towards complacency. When we stay in that place, we are just powerless to not having a clear mission and not wanting to grow and improve.

• 1:10:27Speaker 00

  And I'm not saying that we should be working hard and pushing ourselves to the limit constantly every day in extreme levels. But if we stay complacent, I just know we won't also be happy and be joyful in consistent complacency. You know, there might be a season of time where that's fine. And the greatness mindset, it's really, so it's reflecting, do I have any of these six areas on a continual basis? And asking yourself, am I in any of these six at any moment? Do I lack a meaningful mission, controlled by fear, all these things? If so, again, you're not bad and wrong, nothing about that. It's just, are you using your talents to the best of your ability? And if not, now we're aware of it. And the greatness mindset is being driven by a meaningful mission.

• 1:11:12Speaker 00

  For me, I have one sentence that I'm driven by, and that's to serve and impact 100 million lives weekly, to help them improve the quality of their life. That's my mission. The mechanisms can change. It could be podcasting on YouTube today. It could be blogging tomorrow. I have no idea. Whatever that I'm passionate about and have power and talent in, I'm going to lean into the mechanisms with that mission.

• 1:11:36Speaker 00

  But I am clear, and most people listening or watching, they can't tell their friends in one sentence what their mission is. They can say, well, I'm working this job, or I'm in this relationship, or I've got these goals. But what is the mission of this season of life? And I think when you get clear in one sentence for yourself and you can speak it, then you can act accordingly. It's really easy to say yes and no to things, because you know what's going to serve the mission or what's not going to serve it. So it's just getting as clear as possible. And again, you don't.

• 1:12:07Speaker 00

  It can be like, I'm just trying to make a couple grand a month to get off my sister's couch. Okay, cool. Then you're clear on this mission until you accomplish it.

• 1:12:13Chris Williamson?

  There's a really great insight from Jeff Bezos when he was still at Amazon. Both him and Musk had a single ordinating principle that they wrapped everything around. And for Bezos, it was, does this improve the customer experience?

• 1:12:27Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:12:27Chris Williamson?

  One question, does this improve customer experience? For Musk, it was, does this get us closer to Mars? Does this get us close to Mars? And when you have a single orienting principle with it, and this is what I really like about talking about seasons of life or periods of life, is that it allows you to optimize very, very narrow, but very, very deep on one area. So at some point, I can't wait to have a family. And when I do, for a big chunk of time, my goal is going to be be the best father that I can.

• 1:12:58Speaker 00

  Beautiful.

• 1:12:59Chris Williamson?

  And that's it.

• 1:12:59Speaker 00

  And that's going to be your season.

• 1:13:00Chris Williamson?

  Yes, the season of fatherhood.

• 1:13:02Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:13:02Chris Williamson?

  Right? And that will be all that I'm bothered about, all that I want to do. Everything else facilitates me being the best father that I can be. That's exciting, but it's not right now.

• 1:13:11Speaker 00

  It's not right now. It's not your season right now.

• 1:13:13Chris Williamson?

  Yes. And I like that. It takes the pressure off, I think, having to get this grand plan right.

• 1:13:19Speaker 00

  And that's why, again, I just think everything is seasons of life and figure out what season you're in and being okay with this season and working on your mission for this season. So when you're driven by a meaningful mission, you're clear on that. It just gives you, it doesn't mean there's not going to be challenges and adversity and things you've got to work hard to do every day. You're actually going to probably work harder, but at least you know where you're going. Second one is, again, turning the fears into confidence. That's why we talk about figuring out all these different tools and modalities for overcoming fear. And we've got all the different research in neuroscience that talks about that. Overcome self doubt. I think that's when you're stepping into greatness, the mindset of overcoming it. And it may be a constant journey of overcoming self doubt. And every season brings new doubts.

• 1:14:03Speaker 00

  You know how to live your life now, but until you're a father, you're not going to know what to do. And there might be six months to a year to four years where you're like, I'm kind of doubting myself. So you're going to have to go all in on it and overcome it. And it's going to be a new season for you to overcome new doubts. Uh, heals past pains. Again, I think if we conceal these things, it's just gonna make us suffer. Creating a healthy identity. For me, this is part of the uh, the mindset in motion, the thing you were talking about. When our thoughts, our emotions and our behaviors, the intersection, intersection of them is really creating a new mindset of identity. Around our beliefs, from our thoughts, our behaviors and our actions.

• 1:14:44Speaker 00

  But a lot of us, again, going back to that unhealthy identity, if we recorded the thoughts in our mind, they would probably send us to a mental hospital if they said it out loud.

• 1:14:53Chris Williamson?

  What was that movie? Was it Netflix that did it about two years ago? And everybody walked around with this sort of aura halo and it was colored and it would speak out the thoughts that they had.

• 1:15:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, what was that called?

• 1:15:05Chris Williamson?

  People are screaming into their iPods. Anyway, that, that movie, uh, and I thought everyone's considered that, right? Everyone's considered what is the world like, what would the world be like if our inner thoughts were broadcast out to everybody else?

• 1:15:16Speaker 00

  Crazy.

• 1:15:16Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, it would be, it would be wild. And if you wouldn't speak to a friend the way that you talk to yourself, what are you doing?

• 1:15:22Speaker 00

  Yourself then? Yeah. Why do you talk to yourself that way? And I get it. This is the way we've been conditioned and trained, but it doesn't serve us. It's not effective. It only makes us feel worse about who we are. Feeling worse about who we are only is good if we recognize, oh, I made a mistake.

• 1:15:39Speaker 00

  That was my bad. Let me take responsibility and ownership. I said this thing that wasn't okay. Let me ask myself why I said this thing to make sure I don't do it in the future. That's the only time it's really good to kind of, I guess, quote unquote, beat yourself up is when you're like, I actually hurt someone. I did something bad. That was wrong. That was immoral. That was against the law. Let me take a look at myself and realize, okay, let me take full ownership. Actually beating yourself up isn't good still, but feeling that, I guess, healthy shame is good because you don't want to do that bad thing again. But then, holding on to it for years and decades of your life does not serve you or your mission or the people around you. So learn to integrate the lesson, heal and move on.

• 1:16:24Speaker 00

  But creating that healthy identity, I think is something, and again, I know like I've heard, I think Doggins talked about this on your show where he was like, listen, you can't just like scream affirmations at yourself in the mirror all the time. And I don't think it's about affirmations. I think it's about an internal dialogue backed by action and belief within that action, putting in the reps and saying, oh, and I'm proud I did that 30 minutes today of that work that I said I was gonna do. So now I can believe and accept myself more for who I am. And I think that's what it is, taking action with a game plan. That's part of the greatness mindset. When we, when we don't take action with a clear game plan, whether the game plan works or not, but being clear on it consistently, then we're living in a powerless mindset state of being. And we just want to try to move towards the greatness mindset more frequently as possible.

• 1:17:09Speaker 00

  But the mindset in motion is really the intersection of the thoughts, behaviors, and emotions. And it's the sweet spot where how you think, how you feel, and how you act all come together. And I think that's, again, if we have poor behaviors, if we have poor thoughts, we're probably not feel good about ourselves. So how do we shift our thoughts so we can feel better? And how do we shift our behaviors, our actions, so we can feel better as well? I think a lot of this comes back to the emotions of the heart. When we think a certain way, it makes us feel a certain way. When we act a certain way, it makes us think and feel a certain way. So it's the intersection of all these things, making sure our thoughts,

• 1:17:53Speaker 00

  our behaviors, and our emotions are in congruence with our highest level of thinking, our highest level of love and harmony. And if one of them is off, it will affect the other two. And it'll make us feel like we're trying to catch up, or make sure, make us feel like we got a chip on our shoulder. And this is not a make wrong or good or bad. It is what is most effective for you as a human being to actualize your potential, to feel the most love and harmony in your, in your heart, and do some good in the, in the world with the people around you. That's what I'm talking about.

• 1:18:28Chris Williamson?

  What would you say?

• 1:18:29Speaker 00

  Your stomach is confirming it too. It's speaking to me.

• 1:18:32Chris Williamson?

  It's saying, well, you can tell I'm fasted today.

• 1:18:33Speaker 00

  I'd be too, yeah.

• 1:18:35Chris Williamson?

  What would you say to someone that's listening and goes, this is great. I like the idea of a greatness mindset. I'm aware that I've got limiting beliefs. I'm aware that I've got fears. What are some actionable first steps that you would give to a friend that came to you and said, book's great, mate? What do I do?

• 1:18:51Speaker 00

  I would do an assessment first and I'll do this assessment with you. On a scale of one to 10, let's call it the self-love, inner peace scale, hypothetical scale. Feeling inner peace and feeling a sense of love for yourself, not a narcissistic love, but an actual authentic love for yourself. One being you hate yourself and have zero peace in your life internally. 10 being you have your bliss 100% of the time and you love and accept who you are at all times. Where are you currently on a, you know, general scale of one to 10?

• 1:19:26Chris Williamson?

  Probably a strong seven or a soft eight, somewhere in between a seven and an eight.

• 1:19:29Speaker 00

  That's awesome. So for you, it's just asking yourself, do you want to go a little bit further? Are you trying to go, you know, further towards that 10 or do you like where you're at? And the goal is everyone to ask yourself, kind of where are you on that scale? And I used to be-

• 1:19:43Chris Williamson?

  Why is that the first place that you go to?

• 1:19:44Speaker 00

  I think it's first just taking an assessment and the book is really about multiple assessments of asking yourself, where are you? And are you happy where you're at? And if you want to create something new, then here are the examples, the science, the research, the experts. It's not about me. It's about all the experts I've brought in to solve the problems that I had 10 years ago, five years ago, two years ago. This is the book I wish I had when I was 16 and struggling, trying to find a girlfriend and deal with the emotions of heartbreak. This is the book I wish I had at 23, when I was broken wrist and on my sister's couch, trying to figure out my mission next. It's the book I wish I had 10 years ago before I started this whole journey because that's what I was looking for.

• 1:20:22Speaker 00

  These solutions from all these experts with backed science and research, not just, I tried this thing and here it worked for me. But what works against every discipline and every industry with different individuals from neuroscience, therapy, medical doctors, world-class athletes and billionaires? What works for them to create peace, harmony and ultimate success?

• 1:20:47Speaker 00

  Along with impact with others, that is the intersection of greatness. This is what Kobe talked about when I had him on. It's not about him winning. It's about him inspiring the people around him to win as well. It's about them feeling loved. That's what he talked about in the interview. It wasn't about being the best. It's about how can I inspire people to be their best? To then inspire others to be their best and feel a sense of love and community in the process. And I think if that's something you feel like you're missing or you want more of, then this is a good place to start.

• 1:21:19Chris Williamson?

  Lewis Howes, ladies and gentlemen. Where should people go if they want to keep up to date with the stuff that you do?

• 1:21:23Speaker 00

  Appreciate you, brother. The Greatness Mindset is the book. You can check it out anywhere. The School of Greatness podcast or at Lewis Howes anywhere on social media.

• 1:21:33Chris Williamson?

  I appreciate you, man. Thank you for finding out.

• 1:21:34Speaker 00

  Thanks, brother. Appreciate you.

• 1:21:35Speaker 02

  Mr. President, my company formed me of the explosion on our rig on October 2nd. Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me. Tom Cruise is.

• 1:21:46Speaker 03

  Digger got us into this mess and Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 1:21:52Speaker 04

  What would happen if I stopped going? You stop, you freeze to death. That's what.

• 1:21:56Speaker 03

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:21:59Speaker 04

  I'm not the first then.

• 1:22:01Speaker 03

  Digger, see the trailer online, only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R, under 17, not a middle without parent.