278 Lisa Nichols on The Key to Abundance and Success

"Don't count the number of times you get knocked down. Get attached to the number of times you get back up." - Lisa Nichols If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/278 Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 278 with New York Times bestselling author Lisa Nichols.

• 0:08Lewis Howes?

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

• 0:34Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone to the episode. Thank you so much for joining me. We've got a great guest on today. Her name is Lisa Nichols, and she's one of the world's most requested motivational speakers, as well as a media personality and corporate CEO, whose global platform has reached and served nearly 30 million people. From a struggling mom on public assistance to a millionaire entrepreneur, Lisa has become a multiple time bestselling author and appeared on shows like Oprah, The Today Show, and Steve Harvey. Her company, Motivating the Masses, was one of the first self-development companies to go public. And in today's episode, we dive in on a lot about how to generate abundance in your life, abundance and prosperity and wealth in your life.

• 1:17Lewis Howes?

  Some of the things we cover, what the catalyst was for Lisa to switch from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset. We talk about that because a lot of people grow up in this scarcity mindset or thinking that money is a bad thing, and how she switched that and what you can do to switch that as well. The power of our environment to tell us what we deserve is something else we cover. How visualization creates cognitive dissonance and why this leads to action. Talk about my visualization process as well, from sports to business. The three types of relationships, number one, life-giving relationships, lifetime relationships, and purposeful relationships. And the amazing story behind Lisa's health transformation as well.

• 2:02Lewis Howes?

  We dive into a lot here, and we also have the full video interview that you can check out at lewishowes.com/278 if you want to watch that. I am super pumped for this episode, so let's go ahead and dive in with the one, the only Lisa Nichols.

• 2:21Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone to the School's Greatest Podcast. Very excited about our guest today, Lisa Nichols. Thanks so much for being here. I appreciate it.

• 2:27Lisa Nichols?

  Thank you for having me. Yeah, I'm excited.

• 2:28Lewis Howes?

  You've got a new book out. I'm just gonna show it to the camera really quick. Make sure you guys check this book out. We'll have it linked up. It's called Abundance Now: Amplify Your Life and Achieve Prosperity Today. And I'm very excited about this. I was just going through it and I love your message. I love your insights. I love your wisdom. And I also love your story. And I want to dive into it before we begin the process of how to be abundant. Because you didn't start out abundant, right?

• 2:52Lisa Nichols?

  No, not at all. No.

• 2:54Lewis Howes?

  And you're also a track star, from what our agent tells me.

• 2:57Lisa Nichols?

  I know. How'd you know that? That's like back in the cut. That's not in the book.

• 3:01Lewis Howes?

  He's like, you get to talk about your track days because I was a decathlete All-American.

• 3:04Lisa Nichols?

  Yeah, come on. I'm a state champion.

• 3:07Lewis Howes?

  There you go. All right. What events?

• 3:09Lisa Nichols?

  I ran the 110 and the 330 Low Hurdles.

• 3:11Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 3:12Lisa Nichols?

  The 4x400, 4x100 relay.

• 3:14Lewis Howes?

  That's tough.

• 3:15Lisa Nichols?

  And the open quarter.

• 3:16Lewis Howes?

  Okay, cool. What was your favorite event?

• 3:18Lisa Nichols?

  The 330 Low Hurdles.

• 3:19Lewis Howes?

  330 Low Hurdles.

• 3:20Lisa Nichols?

  And I held the record at my high school, just got to say, for the 330 Low Hurdles for 18 years.

• 3:26Lewis Howes?

  Get it, girl.

• 3:29Lisa Nichols?

  I found out in the 15th year that I held the record. So only three years of bragging right before someone broke it.

• 3:35Lewis Howes?

  I love it. I love it. Okay, cool. I'm curious now, growing up, who was the most influential person in your life? And what was the biggest lesson you remember them teaching you?

• 3:44Lisa Nichols?

  My grandmother, my father's mother, my grandmother Bernice. And she taught me that, she prophesied over my life, meaning she spoke life into me when I didn't see it for myself. And she said several things, but one of the key things was, she said, "Baby, as you grow up, you're going to impact lives and they're gonna write about you." I have no idea how she knew. "And many people are gonna talk about you." She said, "Do yourself a favor. Take everything they've written about you and put it in a file cabinet. Don't read it." She said, "And when you get old in my age, sit in your favorite rocking chair, grab a cup of tea, and be entertained by who they thought you were while all the time you knew who's you were." And she just instilled this sense of humility, like you are a servant leader.

• 4:28Lisa Nichols?

  And I don't care what they call you. Expert, guru, master, you are a servant leader. You remember that. Because they'll say a lot of things. And so she has been my anchor. You know, she's long since deceased, but she's been my anchor. And that was just one of the most powerful things. And then she also said, "Baby, you can get all the knowledge in the world." She said, but only time will give you the wisdom that I have.

• 4:49Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 4:50Lisa Nichols?

  I was like, whoa, I was like, I think she just grandma checked me, you know? And so I still to this day, with all the knowledge that I've acquired from great books like yours and great books like Stephen Covey's and great books like from Phil Jackson, Eleven Rings, and Howard Schultz onward, you know, all these great pieces of work. I still sit at the feet of seniors. I still sit, my spiritual mentor, I sit at her feet once a quarter. I sit at people's feet when they're 20 years older than me or more. Cause they have something I don't have, which is wisdom, time.

• 5:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 5:21Lisa Nichols?

  So she's, she anchored me in two things, which both leave me in humility.

• 5:25Lewis Howes?

  Wow, okay. What's the wisdom you have from all your time so far?

• 5:30Lisa Nichols?

  Um, don't count the number of times you've been knocked down. Get attached to the number of times you get up.

• 5:36Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, all right. I'm gonna get these truth bombs all day.

• 5:40Lisa Nichols?

  Right, right, boom, boom, boom, boom.

• 5:42Lewis Howes?

  I love it. Um, I'm curious now, cause you didn't start out, you know, with a lot of money and with a lot of abundance mindset, did you?

• 5:49Lisa Nichols?

  Right. Um, it wasn't just not a lot of money, you know, it's one thing to be fiscally broke. It's another thing to be emotionally broken. Two very different things. And I was broke and broken. And, um, in 1994, I had to go get on government's assistance just to feed my, my newborn baby. Um, I had to get on WIC, Women, Infant and Children. Uh, and I still say it and, you know, I say it often, I'm interviewed, I was interviewed 155 times in five months for my previous book, No Matter What. And it still hits me in the same place. I, I was, um, ashamed to stand in line with all the other mothers, some fathers,

• 6:34Lisa Nichols?

  to get free butter, free cheese, free milk, free pasta. But at the same time, I was grateful that there was such a service to help people like me that I knew this wasn't where I was going to stay.

• 6:48Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 6:48Lisa Nichols?

  But it was where I was in that moment. I wasn't committed to take up real estate there, but it was my current address and broke and broken. It kinda hit the. I I I felt like I hit the bottom. Sometimes you feel your back on the bottom like I think that's the bottom, right?

• 7:06Lewis Howes?

  And then there's always a deeper.

• 7:07Lisa Nichols?

  Yeah, right, right, right, right. So when I was getting, uh, when I was getting, uh, food stamps, I thought I was at the bottom. And then.

• 7:15Lewis Howes?

  You went deeper.

• 7:16Lisa Nichols?

  Right. Uh, I went to the ATM. I ran out of Pampers for my son Jelani, and I went to the ATM to get money to go buy Pampers. And it said insufficient funds. And I had eleven dollars and forty two cents in the bank.

• 7:32Lewis Howes?

  What's the minimum? You can take out twenty bucks?

• 7:33Lisa Nichols?

  Exactly. You need twenty in to get twenty out. And, um, I had eleven dollars and forty two cents. And so I went home and I had to wrap my son Jelani for two days in a series of different towels. That?

• 7:49Lisa Nichols?

  That was my rock bottom. And that was because as a parent, all you want to do is provide. That's it. It's simple. I just want to provide safety and food for my baby. Somebody else was providing my food and I didn't even have Pampers. And I remember on the second day of wrapping my son in the towel, Louis, I put my hand over his stomach and I said, "Don't worry, Jelani." With tears streaming down my face. I said, "Don't worry, son. Mommy will never, ever be this broke again." And so, um, you talk about, um, having financial resources. I realized that I needed to first believe that I could do something different. That wherever my mindset was, my bank account was gonna follow.

• 8:33Lisa Nichols?

  So I needed to change my mental zip code.

• 8:35Lewis Howes?

  What was your mental zip code then?

• 8:37Lisa Nichols?

  Scarcity, lack. I was born and raised in South Central LA. I grew up between the Harlem Crip thirties and the Roland sixties. I had three fights a week to get home from school. My highest grade in school was a C plus. In twelve years of school, my highest grade was a C plus. And so if you ever tell this story to anybody, don't forget my plus. Don't forget, y'all don't forget my plus. It's very important to, to a C student, to an A student.

• 8:59Lewis Howes?

  I was a, I was a C and D student.

• 9:01Lisa Nichols?

  To an A student, it doesn't matter. Like plus, plus, whatever. But to a C student, the plus matters, man.

• 9:07Lewis Howes?

  I get it.

• 9:07Lisa Nichols?

  So, um, so I struggled. Everything in my life was about a hustle. Everything. Nothing was easy. Except the love for my family. That was easy and effortless and graceful and bountiful and, but everything else outside of that. It was a hustle, get or get God. It was the environment I grew up in. And I'm not saying that you have to grow up in that rough environment to have an amazing future. People always say, well Lisa, I didn't have it rough. Could I have a? Listen, I would have traded my background in for anybody. Like, don't think I chose that so I can have this. And so I didn't know abundance. I didn't know abundance existed. I didn't know abundance could happen to people who look like me. A woman, geographically from my neighborhood, I didn't know abundance can be that. I didn't see it around me. I didn't know abundance can be for someone that was in my culture.

• 9:52Lisa Nichols?

  Everything was about survival and hustle. So, so many things. And spiritually, I didn't know that someone who loved God, who had a spiritual foundation can also have prosperity without being perceived as greedy. I mean, everything in my environment said, not me. Everything said, not me, if I listen to the sound effects.

• 10:10Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 10:10Lisa Nichols?

  And sometimes you've got to turn the volume down and listen to your heart.

• 10:13Lewis Howes?

  Right. So what was the conversation you would tell yourself during this time? When you're in this scarce zip code?

• 10:21Lisa Nichols?

  Someone like me can't have it. Them over there, that, that guy right there, he comes from the right family. That girl right there, her skin color is the right complexion. That I'm full figured, a, a, a moka skin, full lips, round hip, kinky hair girl? Nah, not me. Not, nah. I get other things. I get, I get a, a bountiful family. I get, I get great children if I want. I get closeness to God, but I don't get abundance. And, and, and I realized that so much of that conversation was embedded in me before I was, I was five. I mean, it just comes with the territory. I would watch my grandmother make a dime go in 20 different directions. And I never wondered about having 21 dimes. I just wanted to grow up and make my dime go in 20 different directions to be like grandma.

• 11:06Lisa Nichols?

  And so, so much is culturally inherited, gender inherited. As a gender, as a woman, you're not raised to make millions. You're raised to either get a good job or... Get a man with a good job.

• 11:18Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 11:18Lisa Nichols?

  You know, and so that's.

• 11:19Lewis Howes?

  Especially in the eighties and nineties.

• 11:20Lisa Nichols?

  Absolutely, absolutely. And that's how we were raised. Spiritually, you're taught, you know, in my background, my religious background, now I'm spiritual. I'm not attached to a religion at all, but growing up in the Mount Tabor Missionary Baptist Church, it was, you know, money is the root of all evil. Well, who would want a lot of that? And that, uh, good people.

• 11:39Lewis Howes?

  Who wants evil?

• 11:39Lisa Nichols?

  Exactly. Who wants evil? And if that's what you say, then I learned that I don't need it. And Sister Brown, I watched Sister Brown, and Sister Brown was the most godly woman in the church. And she was always selling fish dinners and barbecue dinners to make sure she had enough money. And so unconsciously, I wanted to be like Sister Brown because that woman can pray the heavens down. And so then again, I'm looking at that. And then in my neighborhood, it was the moment you get a little extra, you give it away. You give it away. Still to this day, I kid you not, I want, one of my last opportunities, I call, I don't call them challenges, opportunities, is I'm, I'm in the top 1% earners in America. And I say that humbly, I'm grateful. And my job now is to learn how to keep it and grow it because I love to give it away. And I know it's a learned behavior.

• 12:24Lisa Nichols?

  It's a learned, and I, and I give it away to good things. I just put eighty-two thousand dollars and revamped my grandmother's whole house because I knew she wasn't gonna move. She gonna listen, she gonna, that's what she gonna rest in peace. She's gonna stay right there. She's been at that house since nineteen sixty-eight. She's not going anywhere. So I just redid the entire house, gutted out the entire house, and, and, and spent close to a hundred thousand dollars doing it. And I'll do that over and over and over and over again because I also was taught, give it away. So now I'm going to people who are more powerful in money in terms of I know how to make a lot, I know how to keep a lot. Now I learn how to grow a lot.

• 12:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 12:57Lisa Nichols?

  You know, and being willing and being humble enough to say that's where I am. I got the first two down because money has three levels. How do, how do you earn it? How do you keep it? And how do you grow it?

• 13:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 13:06Lisa Nichols?

  And so, you know, um, I, I had a conversation for a long time in many different ways. And then it's the conversation as a woman, if I make so much, it's gonna be hard to be de- de- de- de- de- dateable. That big D word, you know, and so as an African American.

• 13:23Lewis Howes?

  You're unapproachable now.

• 13:24Lisa Nichols?

  Exactly, and men are taught, as I'm taught as a woman about money, you're taught as a man, be the provider. Well, you know, it's kind of hard to provide for a G like me, you know? When I come in, I go, how about we just put it together? Because I'm kind of cool on the provision thing, you know, and so I realize that men have to also feel comfortable with the fact that, that that's an 80s conversation. And in 2015, she might make millions.

• 13:46Lewis Howes?

  2016 now.

• 13:47Lisa Nichols?

  Right, 2016, right, right.

• 13:48Lewis Howes?

  You're on the book tour, you're still, it's still last year.

• 13:50Lisa Nichols?

  I started the book tour and I have like, you have to at every moment tell me the date that we're, we're living inside of right now.

• 13:57Lewis Howes?

  I feel you, I feel you.

• 13:58Lisa Nichols?

  Right, you know, you just, you just.

• 13:59Lewis Howes?

  I'm just recovering, I'm finally just like.

• 14:01Lisa Nichols?

  Tell me there's something on the other side of recovery is true.

• 14:04Lewis Howes?

  There's a clear voice, there's sanity.

• 14:06Lisa Nichols?

  I'm not seeing doubles, right.

• 14:08Lewis Howes?

  There's a healthy body again.

• 14:09Lisa Nichols?

  Right, right, right.

• 14:10Lewis Howes?

  Uh, there's your freedom of time. Um, so I'm curious, what was this moment then that you realized, okay, I need to shift the way I'm thinking, the conversations I'm having, uh, how I'm showing up, who I'm being in every moment, from living in this scarce environment that I've lived in for 20 something years, to all of a sudden shifting into an abundance mindset and way of being. What was the moment you experienced that the thought, the idea, the catalyst that broke that?

• 14:38Lisa Nichols?

  I like how you say a moment. Like I got a, oh, the ceiling opened up and the lights came in and the angels came, no.

• 14:46Lewis Howes?

  Maybe it was over time.

• 14:47Lisa Nichols?

  Right, it was, there was a moment when, there was a moment when suffering became too painful.

• 14:53Lewis Howes?

  There you go.

• 14:54Lisa Nichols?

  So mine didn't necessarily come in a glory moment. It came with $11.42 and watching my baby wrapped in a towel. A towel, I, I felt like I was being unfair to him. See, because 30 days before the towel, I'm really telling my stuff. Forty, thirty days before the Tao, his father called me. And when I answered the phone, I'll never forget, I said, hello? He said, Lisa, I'm in LA County Jail. Well, I don't do jail, and I don't do people in jail, and I don't do people who have a possibility of going. So how did you get there? Because I met you in corporate America and you were a professional. How you got there is his business, I don't know.

• 15:37Lisa Nichols?

  But now I'm a single mom of a son whose father's now in prison. Boom, boom, rock bottom, rock bottom again. So thirty days later, when I had my son wrapped in a towel, I was done. I was just done.

• 15:50Lewis Howes?

  You're sick and tired of being sick and tired.

• 15:51Lisa Nichols?

  I was done. So you know, the concept of bankrupt is there's nothing left. That's the concept of bankrupt. So I like to explain it, I was bankrupt in my mess. I was bankrupt in my chaos, and I was bankrupt in every sexy. Because my excuses are sexy, by the way. I've been a linguistic specialist for years. I could talk my teachers into doing things right. I mean, that's just been my gift. My father used to say, Lisa, please, promise me you will use your powers for good. And so I was bankrupt in all of my excuses. So if you ask when, it was probably about three hours after I told my son, we'll never be here again on day two of being wrapped in a towel in nineteen ninety-four. And then I said, how?

• 16:36Lisa Nichols?

  The next question was how? If I'm done with this, I'm not even sure what that looks like. I just know over there are a bunch of abundant thinkers, living an abundant life, having abundant memories with a surplus of everything. Because abundance is to be an overflow of the things that you have. Abundance is just about overflow. It's about overflow. That means that if there were a saucer under this cup, abundance would be everything. This tea flows over into the saucer, and I can feed you from my saucer because I have filled my cup up enough. I use my cup for me, and I feed you from my saucer. And abundance is saying, I have a saucer in my relationships filled with great experiences. There's a saucer in my health and wellness.

• 17:21Lisa Nichols?

  I have so much bountiful health and vitality that I can show up for you. There's a saucer with my spirituality that I can pray for you. I can forgive the perceivably unforgivable and love the perceivably unlovable. And then there's a saucer for my finances. And that in every area, because abundance is a three sixty experience. See, wealth is singularly focused. Wealth is about your money and your possessions. That's wealth. Okay, but abundance is three sixty. I have a lot of very, very wealthy friends.

• 17:48Lewis Howes?

  Who are miserable, unhappy.

• 17:50Lisa Nichols?

  Who are not abundant. Who are not abundant. They're wealthy.

• 17:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 17:53Lisa Nichols?

  They're wealthy, they're not abundant.

• 17:55Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 17:55Lisa Nichols?

  And they understand that. And they come to me and go, Lisa, help me with my relationships with my family, or whatever.

• 18:00Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 18:00Lisa Nichols?

  And so, um, I, I, I had to learn something different. I, I, Louis, I didn't know what I didn't know.

• 18:06Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 18:07Lisa Nichols?

  And so I, I, that, that became the moment when I said, what do I need to know to have something different? What do they know that I don't know? And how can I get it? And I became a hunter.

• 18:18Lewis Howes?

  So what was the first discovery?

• 18:21Lisa Nichols?

  Um, that there's a mindset that comes with abundance, that they think differently. They don't just do something different. There's not a hookup. First of all, what camera do I look into? Is it that?

• 18:29Lewis Howes?

  Anyone, anyone.

• 18:30Lisa Nichols?

  There is no such thing as a hookup. I am still waiting on mine. And if you know where it is, my phone number is. So there was no hookup.

• 18:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 18:39Lisa Nichols?

  There's no hookup. Like, it's not true. Like, you got a two hundred and ninety seven million chance in one to win the Lotto.

• 18:46Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 18:47Lisa Nichols?

  And within five years, the people win the Lotto are in more debt than they were before they won the Lotto. So that ain't even a hookup, right?

• 18:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 18:53Lisa Nichols?

  And so, um, I, I realized that I needed to change my mindset. I needed to learn something different. And, and I needed to know it at a cellular level. All that stuff I just told you about, my color, my gender, my, I had to unlearn. People are, we're, we're information junkies, because we got all kind of access to information online.

• 19:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:12Lisa Nichols?

  And we're learning all this stuff, but we're not implementing anything. I'm sorry, I might step on a few toes. That's what I do.

• 19:16Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 19:17Lisa Nichols?

  And so I realized that I had to, at a cellular level, first, before I went to get any more information, I had to be willing to divorce and evict some belief systems that I already had. That they had taken me as far as they can take me, and now they're holding me back.

• 19:32Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 19:33Lisa Nichols?

  It's almost like you wear a size eleven, you have eleven foot, and you tried to fit it back in a size seven shoe. You, you passed that a long time ago. And, and that's gonna be a very uncomfortable day. I was in discomfort. I was very uncomfortable with my thinking. And so I I'd start diving into books. The first book I dove into was Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And it disrupted me. It disrupted everything. I didn't know. It was like it was like a double door opened up and then a wall opened up. I'm like, what do they they know that? Like, why nobody told me that? Like, I felt like I was out of a club. And really, you are. I'm just gonna tell you. Abundant thinkers think a certain way. And they don't go around trying to trying to convert you. Like, people like you and I go, let's open it up to everyone.

• 20:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 20:18Lisa Nichols?

  But here's what I I know about the human spirit. It's that the human spirit has the power of choice. And most people don't want to choose this kind of thinking because it costs you something.

• 20:26Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm. What's the cost?

• 20:28Lisa Nichols?

  The cost is you got to get up earlier. You get up earlier than the average guy. Your day, what you do in a day is what some people do in a week.

• 20:35Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 20:35Lisa Nichols?

  What you do in the mornings is what some people do in a 12 hour day. You got to be willing. What you're willing to do on your book tour to get on the New York Times? Some people say, I got to do all that? I don't want to do all that.

• 20:44Lewis Howes?

  It's a lot of work.

• 20:45Lisa Nichols?

  Okay, great. Then have your life. Like, you have to you sign up for your life experience. There's no way. Like, you were when I realized that I was a culmination of all my decisions. That's like straight with no chaser. That's like getting it with no cookies and milk.

• 20:59Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 21:00Lisa Nichols?

  I was a culmination. You're a culmination of all your decisions. And then when you up level your decisions. And that's even harder times when you go, God, why am I always single? You're a culmination of your decisions. You're a culmination of your actions. Why can't I keep any money? You're a culmination of your decisions, your life. So I wanted to make better decisions. Because my son being wrapped in a towel. Me having eleven dollars and forty two cents. Me being overweight. Me, my my son's father being in prison. I I couldn't shake it. I was a culmination. My life experience was a culmination of all my decisions. And it was undoubtedly a hot mess.

• 21:34Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 21:35Lisa Nichols?

  And so I went, well, let me go learn from somebody whose life don't seem like it's a hot mess. And then let me adopt some of their behaviors. When I began to hunt, I went to conferences, I and and scared the bejeebies out of me these conferences. I'd never been to conferences before. I went to entrepreneurial conferences. I was the only, I was one of four women at an eight hundred person conference. And I was the only woman of color. So it was all older white men and me. And I was like, okay, well, they they're not afraid of money, seems like. They're talking money and business and corporations and ROIs and PPMs and term agreements and no habla español. I don't know what that mean, but I am not leaving until I figure this out. And I went to the same conference. When I say do what other people won't do, so and you'll have what other people don't have. I went to the same conference, those forty two times.

• 22:21Lisa Nichols?

  I told you I was a C student, so it took me a minute to get it. And I kept getting sponsored back to the, I didn't even have the money to go to the conference. I started volunteering at the conference. I would be on stage teaching because they loved the way I spoke. Then I'd get off and I'd help clean up because I had to pay my dues to be there. I was okay. I ate ate my slice of humble pie every day. Because I was bankrupt. See, some people, you haven't pushed non-negotiable yet. You're still optional. I really would love to be successful.

• 22:46Lewis Howes?

  I want to be successful.

• 22:46Lisa Nichols?

  I want to be successful.

• 22:47Lewis Howes?

  I want to make money.

• 22:48Lisa Nichols?

  I want to make money. I want to be healthy, but it's not non-negotiable yet. Because the moment the rubber meets the road and you feel a little skin and it gets a little tender and a little blood may show up. And you don't want to give blood, you don't want to give sweat, you don't want to give tears. Let me just tell you, you can't take the elevator to the top. It ain't number stairs.

• 23:05Lewis Howes?

  Right, yeah, boom.

• 23:07Lisa Nichols?

  Sorry, I got excited. I don't know where you're going with the questions.

• 23:09Lewis Howes?

  What was this event you went to?

• 23:11Lisa Nichols?

  You know what? I I'd rather not even tell it because people begin to think the event was everything, you know? I'm gonna say there's a conference you know about.

• 23:17Lewis Howes?

  There's every conference.

• 23:17Lisa Nichols?

  There's a conference you know about. Find like-minded people in your tribe that's gonna make you stand on your tippy toes. So I, you know, with no disrespect to it. But people start saying, that's the next light. No, it's not. It was me hunting. Because the conference didn't give me a whole lot, other than the people there I kept pulling from. You know what I mean?

• 23:34Lewis Howes?

  How important, you know, I'm a big believer in visualization. And obviously in The Secret, that's something that was talked about. I haven't watched Secret in 10 years when it came out. But I mean, this is something I practice as an athlete to visualize my results before the game would happen. To see myself scoring the touchdown in the track meet, and I'm sure you did a lot of similar things. How important is visualization in abundance, but then also how important is taking action?

• 23:58Lisa Nichols?

  Right. So I have five visualization exercises in that book, just because it's so important. Visualization is a gift to your heart and your soul. It's a gift. Because if the, the idea is the seed, visualization is the, is the, um, it's the fertilizer. It's the fertilizer. Because when your thoughts are connected with an emotion. See, you would visualize yourself winning, and you would feel all the emotion that came with that. And all you're doing now is you're not chasing a foreign emotion. You know the feeling, and now you're just doing what's necessary to get back to that feeling in real time.

• 24:36Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 24:37Lisa Nichols?

  And so, what, what a good friend of mine, Vishen, um, who, uh, the CEO of Mindvalley, who you know. Um, I would, I did a visualization with him. We were in Bali. And, um, he said to me afterwards, I never get emotional. I cried.

• 24:51Lewis Howes?

  He doesn't get emotional. He's like, super, yeah.

• 24:54Lisa Nichols?

  Well, I, he was like, I cried. I got emotional. He goes, I figured it out. It's visualization, a good visualization brings in emotion. He was like, that's how you do it. And so, um, I, I love doing visualizations because, and, and it's really important in the visualization, you can't see it over there. You have to see it right here.

• 25:14Lewis Howes?

  Feel it.

• 25:15Lisa Nichols?

  You gotta feel it right here. Like, I am, it's all I am. I am. I am in my dream home. I am in my dream relationship. And then unpack what that looks like. But most importantly, unpack what it feels like. And when you have that, that emotion in this moment, all of a sudden you stir up something that I don't think will ever go back to sleep. It'll go, okay, let's go get that. And what it really does is it sets up a state of cognitive dissonance. And cognitive dissonance is when you see something in your mind and you see yourself in a way that your behaviors are not currently leading to it. So your mind becomes disrupted and it goes, okay, can we get there?

• 25:54Lewis Howes?

  Right, because I'm not there right now.

• 25:55Lisa Nichols?

  I'm not there right now, and that's not comfortable. Your mind wants to literally be congruent, what it thinks is what you're doing, what it thinks is what you're doing. And so when you set up a constant and abundant thinkers like you and I, we do it unconsciously. We're constantly keeping ourself in a state of cognitive dissonance, meaning, okay, what else? And I'm seeing Lisa over there and I'm going, okay, let me go, while, while being grateful for my now.

• 26:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 26:21Lisa Nichols?

  It's not in that I'm gonna be whole and complete when I get over there. I'm whole and complete now. I just know I'm supposed to be over there. So let me do what's necessary to get over there. And let me, let me evict any behaviors or characteristics that are stopping me and let me adopt any new ones that I need.

• 26:36Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. How does someone discover their unique calling? Because you talk about that in the book, discovering your unique calling. What if people are like, I don't even know what I want. I know I want to be out of the place I'm in. I want to be abundant, wealthy, healthy, great relationships.

• 26:49Lisa Nichols?

  Right.

• 26:49Lewis Howes?

  But I don't know what my purpose or calling is right now.

• 26:51Lisa Nichols?

  I think that people put too big of a notion on purpose in that they think that it has to look like Nelson Mandela, or Mother Teresa, or Oprah, or you, or I. And, and a lot of times what you're really good at is right in front of you. What you're really great at is right in front of you. And to recognize that your calling and your purpose can change.

• 27:13Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 27:14Lisa Nichols?

  That it can change. You have a long lifetime. It's not gonna be the same calling the whole time. And so allow yourself to evolve, allow your purpose to evolve. What's that thing you do effortlessly that you give no credit to? Because you're, you're, you're just looking past, oh, it can't be that because it's not hard. Well, how about, it doesn't have to be difficult. How about the fact that you're a great listener? How can you take that and use that and expand it? And, and don't compare yourself to someone else. Comparison, I think Benjamin Franklin said comparison is the thief of all joy. It's all, when you look left or right, you know, people are always comparing me to. Oprah Winfrey, or Yana Von Zan, or Les Brown, or Tony Robbins. I said, listen, I will, if you want me to give you Oprah, or Yana, or Tony, or Les,

• 27:57Lisa Nichols?

  I'm always going to 1,000% fail you.

• 28:00Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:01Lisa Nichols?

  But if you're ever interested, I do a damn good Lisa Nichols. I do, I do a good Lisa Nichols.

• 28:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 28:07Lisa Nichols?

  And so when you look at what are my gifts, what are my unique gifts? I knew very early on I was a gifted speaker. I wasn't certified as a gifted speaker. I haven't passed any courses as a speaker. Matter of fact, the last time I took a speech class, I got a D minus. And my speech teacher told me, Ms. Nichols, I recommend you never speak in public. That you get a desk job. That was in my freshman year of college, the last speech class I took. So a lot of times, your gift and your purpose, you've discounted it. Either because someone else discounted it, or what's more common is you don't know how to monetize it.

• 28:40Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 28:41Lisa Nichols?

  And sometimes the greatest gift you have to give is not for fee, it's for free. You watch people like you and I and go, well, why can't I get paid for it? Well, not every gift you're supposed to get paid for. Nelson Mandela did not get paid for leading 27 years when he got out of prison. He got paid after that, but he was a great leader while he was in prison. And Martin Luther King, he was a, he, he got paid from the church, but his rights, his fight for civil rights, that was a free one, and he paid the highest cost. And you can go on and on and on to the, some of the greatest leaders, Mahatma Gandhi, it wasn't a paycheck.

• 29:11Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 29:12Lisa Nichols?

  And so, and I'm not, and, and I know we're scaled down to our version, but don't get attached to having to get paid for your gift.

• 29:19Lewis Howes?

  Right. Yeah. I started this podcast as a way of, I'm gonna do this for free for a year. I'm not gonna take any sponsors. I'm not gonna do anything, not gonna sell anything, I'm just gonna create and facilitate great conversations.

• 29:30Lisa Nichols?

  And serve.

• 29:31Lewis Howes?

  And that's it. And now the, the money is coming in because of how it's impacted people's lives.

• 29:36Lisa Nichols?

  And your intention was in the right place.

• 29:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, but it wasn't like, how can I do this right now to make money? It was how can I serve the maximum amount of people?

• 29:43Lisa Nichols?

  That right there. That when people live in a place of servant leadership, my grandmother said when I was twenty-four, if you leave and how you, how can you serve the most people? When I sit with my team, I go, how can we serve more people? How can we serve? Last year, we were able to touch thirty million people. How, and that's all our question. Now, as we serve, our platform gets brought up. But how can we serve? Don't tell me how we can make more money. I'm not interested in that. I'm interested, how can we serve more? Because if I do the right thing for the right reasons, everything I need will be a byproduct of that.

• 30:12Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 30:12Lisa Nichols?

  So I think we get caught up in, you know, society allows us to have us, has us looking at possessions. And so we begin to measure our joy and our abundance on possessions. I, I have a friend who's worth, he's worth fourteen billion dollars. I didn't even write that. I had to write it down so I could see it.

• 30:31Lewis Howes?

  How many zeros is that?

• 30:32Lisa Nichols?

  Right, right, a lot. He's worth fourteen billion dollars. I checked my email on my phone before we started, and he's on my phone asking me, please come visit me. Because he's lonely. He's rich, but he's not abundant.

• 30:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:46Lisa Nichols?

  He flew from Canada to co, to come to my house for New Year's just to be around people who were celebrating and wanted nothing from them. And so, don't pursue the things. Pursue the acts of service and everything you need will come. I promise you.

• 31:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's powerful. Let's talk about the four Es. What is this principle of the four Es that you talk about in your book?

• 31:07Lisa Nichols?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, um, so that I, I like to break up my life in quadrants. And I help my students. I do a lot of coaching. I do personal development and professional development coaching. And no matter where you come, where you come to me, whether you come to me for personal development or whether you are, want to turn your passion into profit in this professional development and business development. For entrepreneurs, we go over the four Es. Because abundance is holistic. It's a holistic experience. So the first is enrichment of self, that you're only going to go as far as you think you're worthy. I can push, you can push, you can have the greatest product. But if you don't feel worthy, you will work hard to sabotage that relationship. You don't know you're doing, you don't know you're doing, you think these are the things I need. And you're driving that guy away.

• 31:52Lisa Nichols?

  You're driving that woman away because your self-worth says they weren't gonna stay forever anyway. Or self-worth around money, you have a cap that you feel like you're worthy of a million dollars. You will always get to nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand and you will stop because your self-worth says it. So enrichment is number one.

• 32:10Lewis Howes?

  What's a good exercise or process that we can follow on a daily basis? Maybe something simple to enhance our enrichment and worthiness.

• 32:19Lisa Nichols?

  Absolutely. I did this for six months, every single day, right after I brushed my teeth. And it's the I see you exercise. And you get in the mirror now, it is not necessarily simple because you're dealing with yourself.

• 32:33Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 32:33Lisa Nichols?

  And as complicated as you are will be the degree of the.

• 32:36Lewis Howes?

  Mechanics of it are simple.

• 32:37Lisa Nichols?

  The mechanics are very simple, yes. I appreciate that distinction. You get in the mirror and you complete three different sentences. You want to write this down. The first sentence, you look at yourself and you say your name. So you would say Louis and you complete this, I'm proud that you. And find seven different things every day to celebrate yourself for, seven different. Each day you can do the same thing you did the day before, but each day do seven different things to be proud of. The second sentence is gonna knock you down a little bit. It's gonna come from your gut.

• 33:06Lisa Nichols?

  Louis, I forgive you for and cut the shackles to blame, shame, guilt, regret, and anger. In that sentence, you cut those five shackles, not the first day, maybe not the third day. But by the twenty-first day, by the thirteenth day, you'll feel some relief. So Louis, I forgive you for and go back five years, fifteen years, twenty years. Do that forgive you for that thing, don't nobody know about. But you go ahead and cut those shackles because if you can still think about it, it's still in your energy space. And then the third sentence is Louis, I commit to you that. Before you make a commitment to anybody else throughout your day, you make seven commitments to you. So the first sentence is I'm proud that you you're celebrating yourself first. We are under celebrated as a, as a society. We look for acknowledgement.

• 33:50Lisa Nichols?

  They in- they interviewed a hundred executives that all made over a quarter of a million dollars. And said, would you like a five percent raise next year? Or would you rather be told thank you more often? One hundred percent, one hundred percent said, keep your money. I'd rather hear thank you. So we're under celebrated, but first celebrate you. Be the example. When I was on Oprah, when she said, what do you do? I said, I recognize that I'm the example of how the rest of the world is supposed to treat me. And it's my job to give the world the best example of how I like to be treated.

• 34:18Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 34:19Lisa Nichols?

  So celebrate yourself, forgive yourself, cut the shackles and then commit to yourself before you commit to anyone else. That right there.

• 34:26Lewis Howes?

  Powerful.

• 34:26Lisa Nichols?

  That right there will begin to fill your cup up to get to your salsa.

• 34:30Lewis Howes?

  I love that. Where did you start to learn that process? Was that something you just started to practice yourself and started looking in the mirror and trying different things?

• 34:38Lisa Nichols?

  You, boy, you asked the question. Um, I was in a relationship, engaged to be married, and it became abusive. I was emotionally abused. And then, um, he picked me up and threw me three feet across the room. And choked me until I passed out. I don't tell a lot of people that. And I was suffering with post traumatic stress disorder. And my mother asked me to go to the doctor, strongly recommended I go to the doc. Drug me to the doctor. And after the assessment of me in Manhattan Beach, um, my doctor said that I was clinically depressed. And I, I said, how did I get here? Me? That don't even fit with my name. I was head cheerleader at my high school. I was, I was the captain of the track team.

• 35:23Lisa Nichols?

  I was, I'm always the person to get people going. It didn't fit. How did I get here? I don't know if you've ever found yourself saying, how did I get here? I was sitting on the table in the doctor's office saying, how did I get here? And when she wrote me the prescription, she handed me the prescription. And I read the prescription and it said Lisa Nichols Prozac.

• 35:46Lisa Nichols?

  It was like, I was looking at a foreign statement, my name and Prozac. And I asked her, I said, can I try something for thirty days? Cause I, I realized I was just sad. I lost me. I had lost me in him. I had lost me in being a mother. I had lost me in being the mother of a son whose father was in prison. And trying to hide that shame. And then trying to make this man happy and then beginning to fend for my life. I lost me. So I needed to discover me. I needed to remind myself who I was. And so I just realized I, I didn't celebrate me. I was beating myself up. I was really mad at me. And I was showing up for everyone else. So I just made up these sentences.

• 36:31Lisa Nichols?

  And I did it to rescue myself, to turn my crawl into a walk. And I ultimately was able to turn my crawl into a walk. And my walk into a run. And my run into a soar. But it started out as a crawl. So I don't offer the how I got to that exercise often unless someone asks. Thank you very much, my darling.

• 36:52Lewis Howes?

  Thanks for sharing and opening up.

• 36:54Lisa Nichols?

  I, I've, I've, I've, I've long since learned four things. To me, this is the road to true freedom. I have nothing to prove. I have nothing to protect. I have nothing to hide. And I have nothing to defend. That your perception of me, after I tell my truth, is actually none of my business.

• 37:17Lisa Nichols?

  My perception of me, that I go to bed as whole and complete as I woke up. Before I check how many likes I have on Facebook, that I like me first. And every other like is bonus.

• 37:31Lewis Howes?

  There you go.

• 37:31Lisa Nichols?

  Like it. That was a long road to get to. Long road.

• 37:35Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 37:35Lisa Nichols?

  Long road.

• 37:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. We probably have to constantly be reminded of it, you know.

• 37:40Lisa Nichols?

  And then when I-

• 37:40Lewis Howes?

  Forgetting that place.

• 37:41Lisa Nichols?

  And then when I, when I live like I'm forgetting, you have to have accountability partners stashed in the corners of your life. And you have to give them an assignment on your high day. You have to give them an assignment on your high day. If I look like I'm slipping.

• 37:55Lewis Howes?

  Well, my ego's in the way.

• 37:56Lisa Nichols?

  Get in my face. Get in my face. Right. Get in my face and remind me of the man, of the woman I said I wanted to be. Don't let me off the hook for the 2020 version of me.

• 38:08Lewis Howes?

  Cause we're humans. It's gonna happen. As long as we're breathing, we're gonna be out of integrity at some point.

• 38:12Lisa Nichols?

  Come on. Your humanity's gonna get in the way. Your ego, or ladies, your she-go is going to get hooked.

• 38:17Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 38:18Lisa Nichols?

  Absolutely.

• 38:18Lewis Howes?

  Your resentment, your-

• 38:19Lisa Nichols?

  Absolutely. Your smallness. Your smallness. It all fits in smallness. I'm, I'm, I'm human. And so I, I'm, the best thing I did was to keep people around me, to hold me accountable to the woman I said I want to become.

• 38:31Lewis Howes?

  Sure. That's great. I love that. That's why I have a lot of people from the Midwest who, who work with me on my team, support me, keep me grounded.

• 38:37Lisa Nichols?

  Right, right, right, right, right. Like, don't get too Hollywood.

• 38:39Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 38:39Lisa Nichols?

  Don't get caught up in the lights and the cameras and the dag gone headset.

• 38:43Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. Exactly.

• 38:44Lisa Nichols?

  Absolutely.

• 38:45Lewis Howes?

  Okay, enrichment. That's the first part. Uh, the second part is enchantment.

• 38:49Lisa Nichols?

  Relationships are going to define the quality of your life. When you're on your bed on your last days, you're gonna wanna know who's gonna be around you. Bottom line, you're not gonna care about another podcast. You're not gonna care about another sponsor. I'm not gonna care about another book or the freaking New York Times best- It matters to us now. But the relationships in your life are going to determine the quality of your life. And so mind your relationships. And so in the book Abundance Now, I teach you how to, how to heal broken relationships that matter to you. How to give back level set. I give you this great, um, this great tool, um, called, um, it's a, it's a, it's a, a conversation to heal a broken experience. So, uh, it's called a communication charter. I use it in my company. I use it at my house.

• 39:34Lisa Nichols?

  And, um, so just is about how do I keep great relationships? And then the third area- Is engagement, work engagement. You're gonna spend so much time in work. And we're so emotionally attached to our work. And most of the time, people are attached in such a dismal way. That why would you have that dismal energy around something? You're gonna spend so many hours in. So I teach you how to shift your energy toward your work. So that you no longer look at it as your work. Now, it's no longer your J L B. Like everyone in my community, all everyone in my tribe. They no longer say they have a job. They say, I have an investor. And when you look at your job as your investor, and you really rename it as your investor. And it's investing in your breathtaking future. It has the capacity to buy anything you want for your future. If you mind your money, right?

• 40:19Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 40:19Lisa Nichols?

  Right? It can buy your freedom. And all of a sudden, you start treating your investor better. And you're more excited about going. Matter of fact, you're grateful. You're grateful for your investor. Man, my investor was L A Unified School District. That was a hard place to be when it was a job. I'm just telling you. But as an investor, for three and a half years, I wrote myself a check. And I put in the memo line, funding my dream. I didn't even know what the dream was. I wasn't even clear. I just knew whatever my dream was, it was gonna cost some money. And I needed to pay. And I need to have some money to pay. In that, if I was gonna ask other people to invest in me, I had to be my first investor. Who am I to ask someone to put money my way when I didn't put money my way? So I wanted someone for them to match, just match my investment in me. I got ten in, can you put ten in? I got twenty in, can you put twenty in?

• 41:03Lisa Nichols?

  And so when you look at your job, your work engagement as an investor into your breathtaking life. All of a sudden, there's a different energy around it. And then the last one is money endowment. And to recognize, more than the Dr. Seuss family, and the Disney family, and the McDonald's family, and the Lawrence Welk family has a right to an endowment. When you get the understanding, and I really unpack it here, where you kinda go, what? Like, I'll make you do a couple of Scooby Doo looks in the book like. When you look and go, I can do an endowment? Like, I, like, cuz we think it's for them. Remember, I started this conversation with, abundance is for those people over there. Especially when it comes to an endowment, our living legacy, like in your book. And be, quit creating a legacy. To recognize that, wait a minute, there's a Lewis endowment, and a Lisa endowment,

• 41:48Lisa Nichols?

  and a Don, and John, and Tanya endowment, and fill in the blank here endowment. And I need to live my life to set up my endowment. All of a sudden, you become responsible for generations to come. Responsible for changing the trajectory of your family's life. That's some bold stuff. When, in your lifetime. You do a needlepoint move for your family? In my lifetime, I was able to do a needlepoint move for my son. Like, he's a Nichols child. He's one of many Nichols men. But that's a Nichols man who now knows what it feels like to cook in Italy and in Tuscany and in Florence and in Venice and in Rome. That's a, that's a Nichols child who knows what it feels like to go surfing on the Gold Coast of Australia.

• 42:32Lisa Nichols?

  That's a Nichols child who understands what it feels like to stand on the tallest mountain in Africa. Like, his life. I asked him this morning, I said, Jelani, can you, when you get married and have children, can you stay in California? So mommy can really see her grandchildren? And he goes, well, mom, that's kind of restrictive. It's restrictive to stay in big California. It's like, mom, it's kind of, because he knows the world.

• 42:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 42:52Lisa Nichols?

  His, his paradigm shift has occurred. He won't ever live like another. And he'll take everything he's learned and expand the Nichols male child experience. So in, in my generation, in my lifetime, I was able to change our family experience for him. And so I, I believe that we have a right to look at our legacy and create a living legacy. And then create a legacy.

• 43:15Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. I want to talk, talk a little bit more about relationships because I feel like from my success, my growth has all been about relationships and building quality relationships. In the process, I've lost, I would say, a lot of friends from college to after college. You know, it's like, a lot of people don't understand it, they don't get it.

• 43:35Lisa Nichols?

  Right.

• 43:36Lewis Howes?

  And when you try to connect with them and educate or, or just lift them up and say, hey, this is possible for you too.

• 43:41Lisa Nichols?

  Rescue 911.

• 43:42Lewis Howes?

  It's almost scary for them and

• 43:43Lisa Nichols?

  Yes.

• 43:43Lewis Howes?

  A lot of judgment happens, a lot of negative talk behind your back, jealousy, things like that. Have you lost a lot of relationships over the years from family to friends? Um, and how do you handle a situation when someone that you're very close with no longer wants to grow, wants to learn, wants to be in this abundance mindset? What do you do in that situation? Do you just cut them out? Do you add new people to your life? How does that work?

• 44:08Lisa Nichols?

  So

• 44:09Lewis Howes?

  Because I know you have great relationships and you're constantly connecting with people.

• 44:11Lisa Nichols?

  I do, and I nurture them.

• 44:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:13Lisa Nichols?

  And there's probably just a few, few years between us. Just a few. But they've taught me something.

• 44:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:22Lisa Nichols?

  And I'm happy you asked that question because I've been looking at that lately. So there are three types of, I talk about this in, I deep dive this in the book. There are three types of relationships. There are life giving relationships. Now, I'm going to speak to friendships and I'm going to speak to romance, may I?

• 44:43Lewis Howes?

  Sure, of course.

• 44:44Lisa Nichols?

  Because what we talk most about are relationships. What many people think most about is money. Those are the two anchors that just kind of consume a lot of energy.

• 44:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:54Lisa Nichols?

  Right?

• 44:56Lisa Nichols?

  There are three types of relationships. There are, and I'm happy to answer the friendships that I've lost in what I've done. But I want to kind of give this context because I think this is going to be a liberator for someone. Someone came to this podcast just for this. Like this is your nugget. Everything else is bonus. This is it. There are three types of relationships. There's a life giving relationship. And that's the friend or the romance that lasted one day to two years. And it was, they were in your life just to remind you, you still got it. That you were, and you know that friend you made, it was like for like six months and then they're gone.

• 45:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 45:34Lisa Nichols?

  And you, because you can't even sustain it. It's, it's, it's too combustive, you know, it's too demanding, it's too chaotic. It's too, it's the turbulent, the, the joy is high and the turbulence is high.

• 45:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 45:47Lisa Nichols?

  And, and so it was, it can't, it can't exist past two years. But that's called a life giving relationship. And some will last for one day. There's, there are strangers that passed in your night and it was delicious. It was one good night, right? Or two. And, and, and with no judgment on that, that's, that's just life. They're life giving. They're there to remind you, stay in the game. That fire you had in your belly when we played or skated or made love or sang. Keep that fire in your belly. That's a life giving. Relationship number one. Relationship number two is a lifetime. No matter what you do, someone's gonna bury the other person. Friends, romance, it's just meant to be lifetime.

• 46:32Lisa Nichols?

  They can get on your last nerve. Y'all ain't going nowhere.

• 46:35Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 46:36Lisa Nichols?

  And then this third type is the type that there's the most disruption in. The most chaos in, the most sadness in, the most discord in, and it's the relationship we're in the most of. It's eighty percent of our, eighty percent of our relationships are in this category. And probably about ninety-nine percent of our chaos and discord is in this category. And that's called a purposeful, I hope you're writing this down by now. That's called a purposeful relationship. And a purposeful relationship is a relationship that was brought together to serve a purpose. Whether the purpose was to birth a business, to grow each other up, to have children, to learn how to love mathly. There's a purpose.

• 47:19Lisa Nichols?

  And that relationship lasts anywhere from three years to fifteen years to twenty-five years. It, it can be a long time. However, where the discord comes in, where the sadness comes in, where the disgruntledness comes in is that once, you know what I'm gonna say. Once it's a purposeful relationship, full of purpose, purposeful. Once the purpose is fulfilled, the relationship will forever take a shift. It won't necessarily be over, but it is in the beginning of its decline. Now, can you stay together for a lifetime after the purpose is fulfilled? Yes, you can, but it will have a flat line. It will just have a flat line.

• 48:00Lisa Nichols?

  And then most people, a lot of people, the relationship ends because something just isn't right. Cause someone's saying, why can't we just go back to the way it used to be?

• 48:09Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 48:10Lisa Nichols?

  Well, we used, we used to be serving and fulfilling the purpose.

• 48:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 48:14Lisa Nichols?

  It's already for, isn't that beautiful, juicy, great content? It didn't even come from me. I learned it years ago and I adopted it to save my own life. Um, and so in that context, I do have friends that have been with me for years. And I have friends that have moved on. And they were purposeful. And that was the only thing I could give it. To find peace, because there is this gap. There's this hole. There was, I wish I would have got them. But let me share something with you, Lois. I realize that my job in my friend's life and in my family members' life is not to rescue them. Now, this is where the distance in our years comes a little bit.

• 48:59Lisa Nichols?

  I realize that I can have all this information in your beautiful book. I can have all this information in what I wrote in mine. And when I show up to them, with them, they just want their girlfriend. They just want their homegirl.

• 49:12Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 49:13Lisa Nichols?

  They just want their niece. They just want their cousin. They just want their daughter. They don't want me to rescue them. That I have to retire from the converting business. Because I suck at converting people. They are going to be who they want to be in this, to no disrespect to them. But no one drug me to this place of awareness. So who am I to drag them? And I know we get excited because we, we see the light. And the reality is, all we, all your job, all my job, all your job, all your job is to be the light. Not try to pour it on people, but to be the light. So that we get to serve them again from our saucer.

• 49:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 49:52Lisa Nichols?

  And they pick up on it. Last night I had a book signing.

• 49:54Lewis Howes?

  But they've got to want it.

• 49:56Lisa Nichols?

  And when they're ready. In their time. Last night I had a book signing. And I don't know if my family's going to be watching this. But if they are, I'm grateful. More people from my family showed up to my book signing last night than any other event in the history of my business. I've been doing this for 21 years.

• 50:17Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 50:18Lisa Nichols?

  Any other, I've been inviting them.

• 50:21Lewis Howes?

  Why, why now?

• 50:23Lisa Nichols?

  I don't know. I didn't ask them. I was just grateful.

• 50:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 50:26Lisa Nichols?

  I didn't even ask. And then today I got a text from my cousin who I grew up with, six months difference. My ride or die. She's the one I got in trouble all the time with, right? Ride or die. Never interested in coming to my work. And it would kill me to see her life. Kill me to see her suffering. Kill me to see her struggle. Kill me to see her not happy. And today she sent me a text and she said, I'm going to read your book because I'm ready for a change.

• 50:58Lisa Nichols?

  I I read it like three times and then I text her back.

• 51:01Lewis Howes?

  This is my friend.

• 51:01Lisa Nichols?

  My cousin.

• 51:02Lewis Howes?

  My cousin.

• 51:02Lisa Nichols?

  My first cousin.

• 51:03Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 51:04Lisa Nichols?

  And I I I text her back. I said, nothing would make me more happy to support than to support you in your journey.

• 51:09Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 51:09Lisa Nichols?

  Let me know what I could do.

• 51:10Lewis Howes?

  That's awesome.

• 51:11Lisa Nichols?

  When you're ready, when you're ready.

• 51:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 51:14Lisa Nichols?

  And so I stopped trying to convert my friends because I was driving our friendships away.

• 51:19Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 51:20Lisa Nichols?

  I it was a hard lesson learned.

• 51:21Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 51:22Lisa Nichols?

  Um, and then I started thinking my work was so big and so so so meaningful that they would understand if I didn't have time.

• 51:29Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 51:30Lisa Nichols?

  And I realized people don't care about what you're doing for the planet.

• 51:33Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 51:34Lisa Nichols?

  You need to nurture this friendship.

• 51:35Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 51:35Lisa Nichols?

  So I let some die on the vine. So their relationships that you've let die on the vine because you didn't invest enough in it.

• 51:40Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 51:41Lisa Nichols?

  You thought the plant would live without water. I thought the plant would live without water because I was watering everyone out here. But I forgot to turn the water back around to my friendships. And so if they died away, I am one hundred percent as responsible as my friend.

• 51:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course. What do you think is the most purposeful relationship you've been in?

• 52:04Lewis Howes?

  The one that's.

• 52:05Lisa Nichols?

  Are you gonna turn around and ask me the most life giving one too? I gotta check. I gotta check this question out.

• 52:10Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 52:10Lisa Nichols?

  Right, right, right.

• 52:11Lewis Howes?

  Both of them.

• 52:12Lisa Nichols?

  Um, purposeful relationship that I've been in. Um, I'm gonna tell you three. Uh, um, so one is with a girlfriend of mine who taught me to trust other people. Her name is Denise.

• 52:30Lewis Howes?

  Did you not trust people before?

• 52:32Lisa Nichols?

  Um, I don't know if I distrusted. I didn't just didn't try to trust. I I was I was cleaning up. I could do it.

• 52:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 52:38Lisa Nichols?

  I could do it. Don't worry about me. I'm good. Don't worry about me. Which we don't think that's lack of trust. We just think that's I'm a superhero.

• 52:43Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 52:44Lisa Nichols?

  You see this on my chest? I got this. I realized if I don't, I think it was a part of no trust, but it was unconscious. And I would never say I don't trust people. I just said, I got it. I got it. Don't worry about me.

• 52:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 52:53Lisa Nichols?

  You're good. Don't worry about me. I'm good. I'm good.

• 52:55Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 52:56Lisa Nichols?

  So she taught me how to trust. Um, and my ex fiance who abused me uh, taught me how to fight for my life without fighting with words. I fought without fighting. I fought. I I grew up like this.

• 53:11Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 53:12Lisa Nichols?

  I grew up like this and I had to learn how to fight with uh, uh strategically.

• 53:19Lisa Nichols?

  He made me realize how much I wanted to live and how much I had to live for. And how willing I was to go out of my norm to make sure I was around. So my son doesn't fit in purposeful because he's a lifetime. But my son has taught me. I had a consultant come in my company and fraud my company.

• 53:45Lewis Howes?

  It's the worst.

• 53:46Lisa Nichols?

  Cost me several hundred thousand dollars, but that's money's just dirty paper. That was, that was the easy part. The feeling of betrayal.

• 53:53Lewis Howes?

  The emotional part, yeah. The ego in the way, the resentment.

• 53:58Lisa Nichols?

  When I told my son, and I'm crying, I couldn't fake it. My son knows me so well. He's 21 now. He can look at me and go, Mom, something's wrong. And I, I was trying to fight it off and he's like, something's wrong. And I just started bawling and crying. And my son took my hand and said, Mom, let's just pray.

• 54:17Lisa Nichols?

  And we're not religious, we're spiritual, but we, we, he was raised praying. And my son started praying for us. And then, then he did something that rocked my world. He started praying for the guy. I never, I thought about doing a lot of things to this man. Praying was not one. Praying was not one, I'm just telling you. My son prayed for him and my son prayed for his children.

• 54:42Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 54:43Lisa Nichols?

  My son cracked my, cracked my compassion wide open. I started bawling even more, but I started crying for a different reason. I started crying because I had no compassion. I had no forgiveness in my heart at that moment.

• 54:56Lewis Howes?

  It's hard to when you feel like someone deliberately intentionally betrays you.

• 54:58Lisa Nichols?

  But we do hard things every dang day. We're athletes on top of life athletes. We're athletes, athletes sign up, get dressed and go out to hurt.

• 55:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 55:07Lisa Nichols?

  I mean, there's many days.

• 55:08Lewis Howes?

  I played football. I was allowed to physically hurt people.

• 55:11Lisa Nichols?

  Man, man, there are many days I made a personal phone call to Earl on the side. Earl, on the side of the track. I knew when I did 800 breakdown, I was going to make a direct line call to Earl.

• 55:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 55:23Lisa Nichols?

  And I signed up for it. So we know hard. I, I didn't, as hard as that was, I wasn't entertaining it. So my son is the other person. He's a lifetime relationship, but he taught me like in that moment. And that was recently, that was in the last 12 months. He taught me, I don't care how much you're hurting, still open up your heart to compassion. Don't ever stop forgetting where they might be that would cause them to live in that kind of dark place, Mom. It's not your job to leave them there, Mom. Shine your light on them, even if they don't know it's your light. Even if they violated you, you still live in the light. Living in the light is not optional. When you choose the light, stay in the light.

• 56:05Lisa Nichols?

  You never, ever take the train down to darkness because someone betrayed you. You don't ever leave the light. That's what he said, basically. That was powerful at twenty-one, you know? Mom, let's pray. And I'm like, he's praying for him. And so.

• 56:19Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 56:19Lisa Nichols?

  And then, I'm not telling you, like, uh huh, life giving, relationship.

• 56:27Lisa Nichols?

  You know, it was romance for me. It was romance. It was, um, it was at a time where, is this PG or is this R? What is this?

• 56:37Lewis Howes?

  PG thirteen.

• 56:38Lisa Nichols?

  Okay, PG thirteen, okay.

• 56:39Lewis Howes?

  Mom, share this with the kids.

• 56:40Lisa Nichols?

  All right, all right, amen. I'm good. I'm, I can do PG thirteen. I wasn't going to R, but, well, thank you.

• 56:45Lewis Howes?

  We can bleep stuff.

• 56:46Lisa Nichols?

  Right, right, right, right. No, no, no, no, I think not, maybe.

• 56:52Lisa Nichols?

  There was someone in my life and, and still is. He's a great friend. And, um, it was at a time that, um, I didn't see myself through the lenses he did. Like, he saw me far more beautiful than I saw myself. And it, and it speaks to a bigger picture that sometimes you have to borrow someone else's lenses and look at yourself through their lenses. He was significantly younger than me. And that was a big thing for me. Cause I felt like, and he was phenomenally beautiful. He was African American and French. Just a delicious blend.

• 57:32Lisa Nichols?

  That's all I'm gonna say. Everyone over twenty-one knows that, love you, what it means. And, um, I would look at him and literally lose my breath. I would lose my breath when I would look at him. And I would watch him look at me and lose his breath. And I kept wondering what he saw. It was the craziest thing. I kept wanting to go, go behind him and look at me. Like, you know, I don't know if you understand, but I just wanted to see what he saw. And I was, I was seventy-eight pounds heavier than I am now. Oh, I haven't been in this body long.

• 58:08Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 58:08Lisa Nichols?

  So I'm still, I'm still getting used to being under 210 pounds.

• 58:13Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 58:15Lisa Nichols?

  So for him to see me so beautiful then, where'd my napkin go?

• 58:18Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 58:19Lisa Nichols?

  Where'd you sit it?

• 58:20Lewis Howes?

  There we go.

• 58:22Lisa Nichols?

  You got me there. God.

• 58:24Lewis Howes?

  You got yourself there.

• 58:25Lisa Nichols?

  Yeah, well, you, you opened the door.

• 58:27Lewis Howes?

  Now, I'm curious. I want you to stay in this moment because, you know, I'm curious how for, it sounds like to me for a long time, and this is the first time connecting.

• 58:35Lisa Nichols?

  Yeah.

• 58:35Lewis Howes?

  But it sounds like to me for a long time.

• 58:37Lisa Nichols?

  Not the last.

• 58:37Lewis Howes?

  Yes, I hope not. It sounds like to me for a long time, you were living in abundance in a lot of areas of your life, but in, in, except the health category.

• 58:45Lisa Nichols?

  Absolutely, absolutely. And. 100%, 1,000%.

• 58:48Lewis Howes?

  And how were you able to navigate that process, the conversation with, I don't see myself the way this man sees me and other people see me.

• 58:56Lisa Nichols?

  Right, right, right.

• 58:57Lewis Howes?

  And my body isn't showing who I'm being.

• 59:00Lisa Nichols?

  Right, it was incongruent. I'll say it, it's a grown folk conversation. It was incongruent with who I knew myself to be. It was what I call my kryptonite.

• 59:11Lewis Howes?

  We all have it.

• 59:12Lisa Nichols?

  It was my kryptonite.

• 59:13Lewis Howes?

  We all have it.

• 59:13Lisa Nichols?

  Right, right, right. A lot of people's kryptonite, you can't see.

• 59:17Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 59:17Lisa Nichols?

  You could see my kryptonite and I wore it well. If you, well, sometimes I had some bad outfits.

• 59:23Lewis Howes?

  I mean, even in the book cover, you don't even look like yourself right now.

• 59:25Lisa Nichols?

  Right, right. I, I was still in the work. You know, they needed a cover shot and I'm like, okay, I'm in this work of transformation. You can take it now, but that's not who you're gonna see when the book comes out. And I was committed to keep going.

• 59:37Lewis Howes?

  You've never been this weight, I mean, before, in the last 20 years or?

• 59:40Lisa Nichols?

  When I ran track, literally. Literally, at my book signing last night, I had five people from my high school and they said, you are.

• 59:47Lewis Howes?

  You look like you're back in high school right now.

• 59:48Lisa Nichols?

  Right, hello now, what? Right, right, right, what? So, so I, it's all over Facebook now with my high school, my high school track members, they're going, Lisa, this was you running track. I'm like, I know. I mean, I'm actually a little smaller than I was when I was.

• 1:00:01Lewis Howes?

  You get to change all the videos on your site, by the way.

• 1:00:03Lisa Nichols?

  I know.

• 1:00:03Lewis Howes?

  Cause I looked at the videos from before and then there's a video.

• 1:00:06Lisa Nichols?

  I know.

• 1:00:06Lewis Howes?

  Of like you with a party in the background. And I was like, wait, who is that?

• 1:00:09Lisa Nichols?

  Right, who's that lady?

• 1:00:10Lewis Howes?

  Is that like a fangirl? And I was like, oh wait, that's her.

• 1:00:13Lisa Nichols?

  Right, right, right. You can say fan, fine girl. So you know how many videos I have out on YouTube?

• 1:00:18Lewis Howes?

  So many videos.

• 1:00:18Lisa Nichols?

  Like, there's so many to replace.

• 1:00:19Lewis Howes?

  That no one's gonna recognize you.

• 1:00:20Lisa Nichols?

  No one's gonna recognize me and so, um,

• 1:00:22Lewis Howes?

  But how were you able to?

• 1:00:23Lisa Nichols?

  I appreciate the question.

• 1:00:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:24Lisa Nichols?

  How was I able to navigate through it?

• 1:00:26Lewis Howes?

  And, and feel like, cause.

• 1:00:28Lisa Nichols?

  I was congruent. I know what you're gonna say.

• 1:00:29Lewis Howes?

  Feel congruent, feel like you weren't a liar or weren't like.

• 1:00:33Lisa Nichols?

  Well, what I said was, I'm still in the journey with my health. I'm not gonna, man, I don't wanna.

• 1:00:39Lewis Howes?

  Now, is that a, like, a mask or something that you just continue to say for twenty years, like?

• 1:00:45Lisa Nichols?

  No, it was, uh, it was, it was, it was, I, I thought my weight was just weight, just.

• 1:00:51Lewis Howes?

  I'm not saying it's bad or wrong.

• 1:00:53Lisa Nichols?

  No, no, no, no, no. I appreciate the question. No, I, I'm, I love the question. I, I, I didn't know what I didn't know. That's number one. So my truth was, my truth based on what I knew up until that moment. So for years, I would say I don't know how to lose the weight because I couldn't be consistent. But for years, I just made it about what I ate and what I did, and I never let it be emotional weight. Like, when I realized, I don't say I lost weight as much as I say I released it. Because I wore a jacket, a seventy-eight pound jacket, and I didn't know why I was wearing the jacket.

• 1:01:27Lewis Howes?

  Seventy-eight pounds? Why would you, oh, you mean, I thought you meant literally.

• 1:01:31Lisa Nichols?

  No, that was the weight. It was the weight. Like, this is who I am, and, and.

• 1:01:39Lewis Howes?

  But you lost seventy-eight pounds in the last, how long has it been?

• 1:01:41Lisa Nichols?

  I released seventy-eight pounds, and I, it took me eleven and a half months to release it.

• 1:01:45Lewis Howes?

  That's great.

• 1:01:46Lisa Nichols?

  And so, um, but what I didn't realize was that there was an emotional weight that preceded the physical weight. And I put the jacket on twenty-one years ago for a reason, and I never looked at the reason.

• 1:02:00Lewis Howes?

  What was the reason?

• 1:02:01Lisa Nichols?

  You are all in my business. Like, for real, for real, for real. Absolutely. So, I told you my son's father went to prison. And when he went to prison, I put the jacket on. I never acknowledged that I was wildly, madly in love with him, and that I saw myself with him for a lifetime. And so I put a jacket on almost immediately after he went in. I didn't put all seventy-eight on immediately. But it slowly came on because I actually didn't want to be attractive to anyone else. And I wanted him to come home. And after ten years, there was a ten-year mark, I realized, I'm not gonna date him again. Cause in my, in my opinion, he was institutionalized or whatever. And I was never, I was never a fan of prison, never a fan of people in prison, never a fan of.

• 1:02:45Lewis Howes?

  My brother was in prison for four and a half years.

• 1:02:47Lisa Nichols?

  Right, right, right. I never was a fan. I didn't go visit him for the first eight years. I only went to visit him when my son said, Mom, I want to touch my dad. Now, I let him talk to his son every single week, every week. I was all about fostering the connection. And I realized that I unconsciously was trying to hold myself and stay unavailable.

• 1:03:07Lewis Howes?

  Protect yourself.

• 1:03:08Lisa Nichols?

  Protect myself until he came home. And, and, in, on December 12th of 2014,

• 1:03:20Lisa Nichols?

  I called him.

• 1:03:23Lisa Nichols?

  After leaving the Steve Harvey Show. And on the Steve Harvey Show, I was supposed to coach a woman on relationships, which I got. I could do that.

• 1:03:32Lewis Howes?

  Relationships, money.

• 1:03:32Lisa Nichols?

  Got it, got it, got it. At the last minute, she didn't show up, or she canceled. And the woman to replace her, they asked me to coach her on weight loss.

• 1:03:43Lewis Howes?

  Ooh, zing.

• 1:03:46Lisa Nichols?

  And to drive home the point that you opened with, I sat in the green room, keenly aware that I wasn't qualified to coach her.

• 1:03:57Lisa Nichols?

  I would be incongruent if I did. So in the green room, I'm having a slight meltdown, not good for the.

• 1:04:04Lewis Howes?

  Couple, couple million people are gonna watch me be incongruent.

• 1:04:07Lisa Nichols?

  Well, not good for the expert coach to have a meltdown.

• 1:04:09Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 1:04:10Lisa Nichols?

  And I wasn't willing to be incongruent. I wasn't willing. I wasn't willing. I never opened up health and wellness as a deep dive conversation. I never. I said, there are four quadrants of your life that you need to master. I talked about all four, and I said, in the fourth quadrant, I'm in that. I'm living that. I'm working through that now.

• 1:04:27Lewis Howes?

  The health quadrant.

• 1:04:27Lisa Nichols?

  The health quadrant. So here we are, I have to only focus on this quadrant. And so I committed to her that I would take the journey with her.

• 1:04:35Lewis Howes?

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:04:37Lisa Nichols?

  I, I, I, I put myself out there. I bust myself out. I exposed myself. I said, I can't coach you.

• 1:04:42Lewis Howes?

  Talk about accountability.

• 1:04:44Lisa Nichols?

  I said, and Steve's sitting there, Steve Harvey's sitting there looking at me like this.

• 1:04:47Lewis Howes?

  He's sure what you're about to take off.

• 1:04:48Lisa Nichols?

  She's over there and he's looking at me like, what are you doing?

• 1:04:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:53Lisa Nichols?

  And I said, I can't coach you. I'm, I'm, I'm over 200 pounds. I don't qualify to coach you. But what I do qualify to do is walk with you.

• 1:05:01Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:05:02Lisa Nichols?

  And I said, so let's do it together. Every Sunday, I'll meet you on the phone. I said, and how about we come back here in five months? And I commit in five months, I'll be forty seven, forty five pounds lighter.

• 1:05:13Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that's a ballsy commitment.

• 1:05:15Lisa Nichols?

  I feel, you know, play bigger, go home.

• 1:05:17Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 1:05:17Lisa Nichols?

  And so I did that. And I went home and I sat still and I said, what do I do? And I started sitting on, why did you put the jacket on? And it, and I tracked it back, tracked it back. Oh, my God. Cause before then, I was an athlete, 13 years. I, I mean, I was, I did track, I swam competition. I was a state champion and city champion and, and, and freestyle and swimming. I did water ballet for seven, five years. And so why did I put the jacket on? I looked at it. And so it was because of him and I, because of my emotions around him. So I called him. And we talked for an hour and a half.

• 1:05:50Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:05:51Lisa Nichols?

  And I told him everything. I told him how much I loved him, that I waited on him. I told him that I released him at 10 years, but I didn't know how to release the weight. And that I've been waiting, you know, I just said everything. He cried, I cried, we cried. I sat with my son. I told my son, I cry, he cry, we cry. And then I was okay to take my jacket off.

• 1:06:10Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:06:11Lisa Nichols?

  And then people ask, what did you do? Then I did everything I've been hearing for the last 20 damn years do. I just did it.

• 1:06:16Lewis Howes?

  You ate better, you worked out.

• 1:06:17Lisa Nichols?

  Right, right. I was consistent. I ate smaller meals. I didn't work out for an hour a day. I didn't do that because an hour a day would cost me two hours a day in time. And two hours a day would cost me around about $40,000 in money and time. Time was my highest commodity.

• 1:06:31Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:06:31Lisa Nichols?

  And so I may, I, I consistently agreed to work out 15 minutes a day. And cause fifteen minutes I can do and every win built on the next win. Every day I completed my goal, which built momentum.

• 1:06:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:42Lisa Nichols?

  I did it. It was just fifteen minutes, but I did it. So I was consistent. The length of time wasn't my big deal. It was the consistency. Traveling on planes. I was on the road three hundred and twenty-one days.

• 1:06:53Lewis Howes?

  Oh my goodness.

• 1:06:53Lisa Nichols?

  The same year I lost the weight.

• 1:06:55Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:06:56Lisa Nichols?

  The same year I lost the weight.

• 1:06:57Lewis Howes?

  It's not easy to lose weight while you're traveling.

• 1:06:59Lisa Nichols?

  No.

• 1:07:00Lewis Howes?

  Eating all the junk food.

• 1:07:00Lisa Nichols?

  No, no, no. And so I I ate smaller meals. I made my meals in the morning while I was at home. I stayed home for ninety days. I didn't travel, wouldn't travel. For ninety days to jumpstart my weight loss. Uh, cause I had to get off forty-five pounds before.

• 1:07:12Lewis Howes?

  In five months.

• 1:07:13Lisa Nichols?

  In five months. And so, um, I was radical. I made all my meals, small meals. And I set them aside. I looked like all the little athletes like you. All athletes made meals and and then I worked out. I slept in my sweat sometimes. I took a shower and got in my sweats. So I can get out of bed.

• 1:07:28Lewis Howes?

  That's the old track days. That's your high school, college workout days.

• 1:07:31Lisa Nichols?

  Go hard or go home.

• 1:07:32Lewis Howes?

  Five AM wakeups to gym.

• 1:07:33Lisa Nichols?

  I I can't even think about getting dressed. I'm gonna wake up dressed.

• 1:07:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:37Lisa Nichols?

  And then I didn't lo- lo- use any weights. And I didn't go to the gym. I used my body weight. I used my cardio.

• 1:07:44Lewis Howes?

  Enough of it at the time.

• 1:07:45Lisa Nichols?

  I had enough of it. I jumped, jumped jacks, jumping jacks and lunges and and crunches. I just said. Everything I have. I just believed what every trainer said. Everything you have is right here. So that when I did start traveling, I was okay.

• 1:07:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:57Lisa Nichols?

  I conditioned myself.

• 1:07:58Lewis Howes?

  You have the tools to use in the in your hotel room or whatever.

• 1:08:02Lisa Nichols?

  Anywhere I am. Oh, listen, let me tell you. I got radical. I was lunging through the airport.

• 1:08:06Lewis Howes?

  Sure, yeah.

• 1:08:07Lisa Nichols?

  I don't care if people see me. You can call me crazy.

• 1:08:09Lewis Howes?

  Fifteen minutes, you gotta get it in.

• 1:08:10Lisa Nichols?

  You can call me crazy. I don't care if you call me crazy.

• 1:08:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:12Lisa Nichols?

  Do you understand? I'm fighting for my life now.

• 1:08:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:14Lisa Nichols?

  And so, um, I went back to Steve Harvey in five months and I wasn't forty-five pounds lighter. I was fifty-seven pounds lighter.

• 1:08:21Lewis Howes?

  There you go.

• 1:08:22Lisa Nichols?

  And she was fifty-six pounds lighter.

• 1:08:25Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:08:25Lisa Nichols?

  And then it became a big conversation, like. Thousands and thousands of women began to follow me.

• 1:08:31Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 1:08:31Lisa Nichols?

  And so I publicized my workouts. I wasn't trying to be a workout guru. I'm not that. People still tell me, let's do a program. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not the teacher, I'm the student.

• 1:08:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:42Lisa Nichols?

  I'm clear. Yeah, I'll go follow that person.

• 1:08:44Lewis Howes?

  Maybe in ten years after you've mastered it.

• 1:08:45Lisa Nichols?

  I don't even need to do it. I just need, I'm the student, watch me as a student.

• 1:08:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:49Lisa Nichols?

  I got ugly workout pictures of me online still on Facebook. I got, you know, early morning, you know, crazy shots. And then people want to do shows with me, television shows with me. I don't want to make any money off of it.

• 1:08:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:59Lisa Nichols?

  This was for my liberation.

• 1:09:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:00Lisa Nichols?

  This was so I can tackle all four quadrants. Do you know how powerful I feel today?

• 1:09:04Lewis Howes?

  Very.

• 1:09:04Lisa Nichols?

  Do you know? Right, I'm completely in a line, thank you, amen. And hopefully humble and grateful.

• 1:09:10Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 1:09:10Lisa Nichols?

  You know, but now, now, now game on.

• 1:09:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:15Lisa Nichols?

  Game freaking on now, now. Game freaking on, now I'm going, man, I, I, I built a multimillion dollar business, wrote seven bestsellers, traveled the world, all of that carrying two, over two hundred and ten pounds. All of it.

• 1:09:29Lewis Howes?

  Almost as big as me.

• 1:09:30Lisa Nichols?

  All of it, right. Now, what do I do? Now, watch out.

• 1:09:35Lewis Howes?

  Now it gets interesting.

• 1:09:36Lisa Nichols?

  Now I gotta watch out because like young men now don't know quite my age anymore, like, and with my braids and the auburn hair and.

• 1:09:45Lewis Howes?

  They're hollering at you.

• 1:09:46Lisa Nichols?

  Oh, and like, you know, and then I'm hanging out at the, the, uh, Mind Valley conferences and where all the young, you know, amazing entrepreneurs go. So it's funny, I'm tickled all the time, I just laugh and go, this is funny, this is really, really funny. I was walking out of, I gotta just tell you this, I was walking out of a, a, a little hole in the wall restaurant in LA and this guy comes running out behind me goes, excuse me, cutie, you cutie. And I turn around, like, I've been a long time since my, since my walk has called me cutie. Excuse, excuse, excuse, excuse, excuse, cutie, shorty, cutie, she called me shorty. He goes, I'm a producer and we're doing a Bone Thugs in Harmony video, uh, video.

• 1:10:23Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:10:23Lisa Nichols?

  And we're doing it with fine sisters, fine sisters who are, what do you call it? Mature fine sisters, that's the old, that's the old folks. And I said, oh, oh, old ladies? He goes, no, no, no, mature women, like, in their like late thirties. I smiled, I was like, oh, you're so cute. He goes, would you be interested in being in a video? No, baby, but thank you so much for asking. You have made my day. So anyway, it's a, it's a new season. Yeah, I'm enjoying it.

• 1:10:51Lewis Howes?

  I love it. I love it. I want to ask you a few, three more questions.

• 1:10:55Lisa Nichols?

  Yes.

• 1:10:56Lewis Howes?

  Before I do, I want to make sure everyone goes and picks up the book. Make sure to check this out. We'll have it linked up also below this and in the show notes. But go get Abundance Now if you want to have an abundant life.

• 1:11:04Lisa Nichols?

  It gets spicy now, I gotta tell you.

• 1:11:06Lewis Howes?

  It's great. There's a lot of stuff I wanted to ask you in here, but you shared so many great stories. I had a lot of things marked off here that I liked. Balance is a myth. Harmony is a must. Rich people think differently. All the different topics you talked about in here. To create prosperity must create a new relationship with money. I think that's going to be powerful for a lot of people. So make sure to get this book. To learn these principles, where can we connect with you online before I ask the final three questions?

• 1:11:29Lisa Nichols?

  Yeah. So I'm in a season where people ask me, what, how did I go from public assistance to going public? My company two years ago went public.

• 1:11:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:38Lisa Nichols?

  And so the big conversation.

• 1:11:40Lewis Howes?

  You're the second, what is it, the second African American woman to go have a public company, is that right?

• 1:11:44Lisa Nichols?

  Yeah, yeah. And the only person in the self-development industry today to be the founder of a publicly held company. I'm grateful. Thank you very much. And so the big question is, how do you go from welfare to Wall Street? How do you go from public assistance to going public, which is a big leap? And there's two big things. One, I changed my mindset. I picked up a book, which is why I love this book because I wrote it. Modeling kind of like the seven habits. Like, how did I, what did I give them? What did I get? Okay. Then the second thing was I went and I joined a tribe of people that made me stand on my tippy toes. And so I'm, I'm doing something kind of, well, not kind of crazy. My CFO says it's very crazy. I've invested over $200,000 to put on two free conferences where you just come.

• 1:12:27Lisa Nichols?

  Like, your book is your ticket. Like, this is your ticket to get in. And so the way you find out about me online, I would say go to joinlisafree.com.

• 1:12:37Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:12:38Lisa Nichols?

  Joinlisafree.com. And there it'll give you access to my website, access to, you know, my programs, how you can be coached if you want to. But I think first and foremost, it gives you access. To come and be in my presence at no cost. Like you bought the book for you, bring the book, cause you're past, hold it up, I'm gonna love on it. And then for nine hours, we're gonna talk about bringing concept into action. Like what do you do? That's the benefit, that's the beauty of that day that we're gonna come get in action. Like I said, I went to this conference over and over and over again, I wanna get you into the same process I did, cause it worked. But what I, what I also love about is that I've gathered some of the best people on the planet

• 1:13:18Lisa Nichols?

  to come together in the right mindset of movement to set you up with an accountability community. Cause I know that when you have an accountability community, you are eighty percent more likely to follow through with the dream you said you have.

• 1:13:32Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 1:13:33Lisa Nichols?

  And so accountability gets me everywhere. And so we're gonna have accountability pods, accountability communities that we set up that day. It's gonna be so juicy, so delicious. It's gonna be confrontive, it's gonna be edgy, it's gonna be spicy, it's gonna be liberating, we're gonna have breakdowns and breakthroughs. It's gonna be one of those days, I'm coming for your breakthrough. I am not coming to entertain you, though I can be quite entertaining. I'm coming for your breakthrough. And so I just wanna give people what I got. You know, someone said, oh, it's like you're paying it forward. And I thought, oh, I never thought like that. I just feel like I'm being responsible with what I know. And someone blessed me with this information and then blessed me, people, people poured into me, Louis, people loved me. People saw my light and said, I'm gonna help you, young lady.

• 1:14:15Lisa Nichols?

  I mean, white people, black people, men, women, young, old, more older, more older. People who had made so much money, had so much success, had such great relations, all they wanted to do was help somebody else. And I was the beneficiary.

• 1:14:28Lewis Howes?

  That's great.

• 1:14:29Lisa Nichols?

  And so this is just going, here, let me show you what they gave me, I don't know if you're gonna meet them. You know, and then come, come play with my tribe, cause they're pretty awesome. And so I'm excited to be able to allow twenty-five hundred people to just come.

• 1:14:41Lewis Howes?

  I love it. And what was the link for that?

• 1:14:42Lisa Nichols?

  Join Lisa free.

• 1:14:44Lewis Howes?

  Okay, cool.

• 1:14:44Lisa Nichols?

  Keyword, free.

• 1:14:45Lewis Howes?

  We'll have that linked, we'll have that linked up as well. Um, okay, final three questions. What are you most grateful for in your life recently?

• 1:14:52Lisa Nichols?

  Oh, oh, when you say most, you make me have to pick one. Um, I am most grateful for my newfound health.

• 1:15:02Lewis Howes?

  Amen. I love it. Congratulations.

• 1:15:04Lisa Nichols?

  I'm most grateful that my body can now keep up with my life purpose.

• 1:15:10Lewis Howes?

  It's great. It's beautiful.

• 1:15:11Lisa Nichols?

  And I'm, I, I, I just have to say this. I would be remiss if I didn't. I'm grateful for my eighty six year old grandmother,

• 1:15:21Lisa Nichols?

  who was sitting in the audience last night cheering me on, who accompanied me to Jamaica to see me speak, who's coming out tonight to see me speak again. That she's in her right body, her right mind, a, a able body, a right mind. And she's in my life and she's able to witness what she helped create.

• 1:15:42Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. I love it. Thanks. Um, I'm actually going to add one more question. What's something you do every single morning, a ritual that you do? No matter where you are, what's happening, what's something you must do, non-negotiable?

• 1:15:56Lisa Nichols?

  Um, I find ten things to be grateful for before my feet hit the ground. Ten things, and they can't cost money. They can't cost money.

• 1:16:05Lewis Howes?

  Perfect. Do you write them down or just think about them, acknowledge them? Yeah.

• 1:16:08Lisa Nichols?

  I think about them. I say them out loud. Um, I, I speak to them. Some days, a lot of days I do twenty five, but I won't let myself move until I've done ten every day, no matter where I am. Sometimes I do it on the plane because I get up really, really early. And so I, if I'm at a crackdown flight, I, I, and especially if I'm feeling strained and stressed, I go over my gratitude list because gratitude will reduce stress all day long.

• 1:16:32Lewis Howes?

  Of course. I believe in it. Every morning I do three things. Maybe I have to step it up to ten, but every night I always speak it out loud and ask someone what their, the three things they're most grateful for for the day. And then I'll repeat my three things. So I think it's really important.

• 1:16:46Lisa Nichols?

  And every six months, I ask my son to measure our relationship. Every six months, I ask my son on a scale from one to ten. Ten being amazing, one being it doesn't exist, mom. How do you measure our relationship? And when he measures it, the next question is the most important question. I say, son, what would take it from an eight to a ten? What would take it from a nine to a ten? What would take it from a seven to a ten? Every six months. That's a ritual.

• 1:17:12Lewis Howes?

  That's powerful. Very powerful.

• 1:17:15Lewis Howes?

  This is a question I've been asking a lot recently. It is the last day for you. Sometime way in the future.

• 1:17:22Lisa Nichols?

  Yes.

• 1:17:22Lewis Howes?

  All your books have been erased. Every video that's ever been on YouTube's been gone. Everything you've said, the secret is long gone. It's been erased from time.

• 1:17:30Lisa Nichols?

  The secret is a secret.

• 1:17:31Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, yeah. And you have all the people that you wanted to be there by your side. You're healthy, happy, but it's your last day. And they say, hey, mom, sister, lover. Everything's erased that you've created, but we have a piece of paper and a pen. And you get to write down three truths. The three things you know to be true about what you've experienced in this beautiful world. This will be what we, the only thing we get to remember you by.

• 1:17:58Lisa Nichols?

  I love this question.

• 1:17:59Lewis Howes?

  Three Truths by Lisa Nichols. What would you say? What'd you write down?

• 1:18:05Lisa Nichols?

  I love you. Three truths.

• 1:18:07Lewis Howes?

  And I'm putting you on the spot. I apologize.

• 1:18:08Lisa Nichols?

  No.

• 1:18:08Lewis Howes?

  What's opening up for you right now?

• 1:18:10Lisa Nichols?

  First of all, I love the spot. I love the spot. I love organic. I love non rehearsed. It's, non rehearsed is so much richer, juicier. Three truths.

• 1:18:22Lisa Nichols?

  My three truths would be that you get a thousand second chances. And every time you get to nine ninety-nine, you get to press reset.

• 1:18:37Lisa Nichols?

  You get a thousand do-overs.

• 1:18:40Lisa Nichols?

  That would be truth number one. You get a thousand do-overs and every nine ninety-nine, you get to press reset.

• 1:18:47Lisa Nichols?

  The second truth would be the most valuable possession, commodity, investment that you could ever make and have would be to nourish the people around you that are loving you. Because if it's my last day, then these faces are the ones that matter the most. And these are the people that I somehow invested enough in and gave enough value to that you would bless me with being here on this special day.

• 1:19:25Lisa Nichols?

  And then third, make your dash dance.

• 1:19:32Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:19:33Lisa Nichols?

  Make that dash between your birthday and this day.

• 1:19:37Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:19:38Lisa Nichols?

  Make that dash dance. Make it rock this planet. Make it unapologetic. Take no prisoners. Play full out. If you're gonna run, run fast, run hard, even at the risk of hitting the wall.

• 1:19:54Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:19:54Lisa Nichols?

  Make your dash dance.

• 1:19:55Lewis Howes?

  I love it, I love it. Um, final question before I ask Lisa, I just want to acknowledge you for a moment for coming on and sharing your wisdom and opening up and being present and being loving and committed. And for the constant work you've done over the years to not only develop yourself, but also develop so many others who are ready for that type of information and transformation. And I acknowledge you for your ability to show up and be honest over the last couple of years about uh the things that aren't serving you, the things that are holding you back or weighing you down, and taking them full on and being committed to all areas of your life.

• 1:20:34Lewis Howes?

  Always understanding that it's a work in progress and you're never gonna be perfect, neither am I, but for acknowledging it and taking the action, even if it is after many years when people wanted you to do it. It's it's amazing that you took it on now and and it looks, you look amazing. You look beautiful and you always have been, so I acknowledge you for all the work you continue to do to to support so many.

• 1:20:55Lisa Nichols?

  Thank you, I appreciate that.

• 1:20:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:57Lisa Nichols?

  Appreciate that.

• 1:20:58Lewis Howes?

  And a final question is what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:21:02Lisa Nichols?

  My definition of greatness is living with intention to leave people better than how you found them. To allowing your your breath to show up and possibly be a change agent moment for someone else. For giving yourself permission to illuminate your light so brightly that if someone is in your presence and they might be in a dark moment in life, that your light brightens their life just long enough for them to see their own possibility again.

• 1:21:39Lisa Nichols?

  Greatness is about being willing to be used to your highest level of possibility, even when it's uncomfortable, even when it's unpopular, even when you're alone, even when it's inconveniencing, you're still willing to lead.

• 1:21:55Lewis Howes?

  Lisa Nichols, thanks for coming on, I appreciate it.

• 1:21:59Lisa Nichols?

  Thank you for having me.

• 1:22:00Lewis Howes?

  This is awesome.

• 1:22:01Lisa Nichols?

  Thank you.

• 1:22:02Lewis Howes?

  There you have it guys, I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, make sure to share this with your friends, lewishouse.com/278. And also watch the full video interview back at lewishouse.com/278 as well. You can share that with your friends over on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram. And let me know what you thought. Leave a comment below in the show notes. We'll have everything linked up, how you can get access to Lisa's book as well, we'll be there. And everything else we covered today will be at the show notes, lewishouse.com/278. We've got some big guests coming up. Our next episode is with Damon John from Shark Tank.

• 1:22:43Lewis Howes?

  And we talk about his story of becoming a successful entrepreneur and the entire journey of how he got started in his new book as well. So make sure to subscribe to this podcast if you haven't yet at iTunes, Stitcher, or SoundCloud. Again, make sure to subscribe if this is your first time. And thank the friend who sent you to this episode, or that you saw this online with them sharing. Thank them for bringing you to the School of Greatness podcast. I appreciate you guys so much, I love you. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.