309 The Power of Meditation with Andy Puddicombe

"Meditation is at its best when we use it for prevention." - Andy Puddicombe If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video and more at http://lewishowes.com/309 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 309 with meditation expert and Headspace founder, Andy Pudakom.

• 0:09Lewis 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.

• 0:35Lewis Howes?

  There's a great quote by Ramiz Sassen that says, "You get peace of mind not by thinking about it or imagining it, but by quietening and relaxing the restless mind. Your nature is absolute peace. You are not the mind. Silence your mind through concentration and meditation, and you will discover the peace of the spirit that you are and have always been." I am very excited to introduce you to Andy Pudakom, who is a meditation and mindfulness expert. He is an accomplished presenter and writer, and he's the voice of all things Headspace.

• 1:14Lewis Howes?

  There's a great app right now called Headspace that I've been using for a while that has been blowing my mind. And literally blowing my mind, I listen to it almost every single day. And Andy is the voice and the creator of this process. And in his early twenties, he made the unexpected decision to travel to the Himalayas to study meditation. It was the beginning of a 10-year journey, which took him around the world, culminating with ordination as a Tibetan Buddhist monk in northern India. He later decided he wanted to transition back into the real world, and he trained briefly at the Moscow State Circus, where he then returned to complete a degree in circus arts.

• 1:58Lewis Howes?

  And in this episode, we cover all things meditation and also about his crazy experience, from leaving again normal life to going to be a monk, what that was like, the whole process, to then unraveling that process and going back into the real world, to then teaching meditation.

• 2:19Lewis Howes?

  One by one in small groups and now building the largest meditation app called Headspace with over six million users. And in this episode, we cover a lot of things, especially how to navigate emotions in a busy life. If your life feels overwhelming, you're definitely going to want to listen to this one. How monks can survive for years and only on four hours of sleep a night. Why you can sleep for 10 hours and still be exhausted. We also walk you through a guided meditation about how to optimize for any type of performance that you have. This is something you want to make sure you listen to. Why the approach is more important than the technique

• 3:00Lewis Howes?

  you use in meditation and so much more. I really enjoyed this one because again, Andy's, it's interesting. It's almost like I meet so many people who listen to the podcast and they say, you know, I listen to you every single day and I hear you for almost an hour a day while I'm driving or working out or, you know, getting ready for the day or going to sleep. And it's like I know you, right? A lot of my listeners, a lot of you listening who talk to me and they're like, it's like I know you when I hear you and I meet you in person. It was like I knew Andy because I've been hearing his voice every night before I go to bed and it was such a pleasure to connect with him in real life and he's an incredible human being. And I hope you enjoy this episode. Again, this is episode number three zero nine. Make sure to share this out

• 3:44Lewis Howes?

  with your friends and have them listen along with you right now. LewisHowes.com/309 and check out the full video interview. There'll be a special bonus as well. So make sure to stick around to the very end to hear what that is and it includes Headspace. So without further ado, let me introduce you to the one, the only Andy Puttacom.

• 4:10Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast. Very excited about our guest, Andy Puttacom. Good to see you, man.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  Good to see you. Thanks for having me on.

• 4:18Lewis Howes?

  Thanks for being here in studio. I'm excited about having you on. For those that don't know who you are, you're are the, one of the creators of an app called Headspace, which I just learned that you've been Doing the headspace thing for for like five to seven years where it was an event.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:33Lewis Howes?

  Um. And then you did one on one kind of coaching, meditation coaching, and then you built this app. Kind of bootstrapped it. And now it's this huge platform, six and a half, something million subscribers, users.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  Users.

• 4:46Lewis Howes?

  And it's taking over the world in a in a world of hundreds of meditation apps. I feel like it stands out, which is you've done an incredible job. So congratulations.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Thanks. Thank you very much. Right. It's a big, big team effort. There's like a hundred, hundred people in the team now.

• 5:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  Split between LA and London and everybody kind of adds something, something to the app. But it's been, yeah, it's been quite a journey, you know, it's, uh, it's probably ten years or so since I left the monastery.

• 5:15Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  And in that time, it's, yeah, it's hard to, hard to, I would never could have imagined.

• 5:20Lewis Howes?

  Right. The impact that you're creating now. So tell me what happened. So you became a monk. Why did you become a monk?

• 5:25Speaker 01

  Um, I became a monk. It's a strange, um, thing to do as a, as a twenty two year old guy. I get it.

• 5:31Lewis Howes?

  Twenty two year old monk.

• 5:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was twenty two. I, I, I went off to become a monk. I trained first as a, as a layperson and then as a novice monk and then as a fully ordained monk. Um, but I started meditation was pretty young. I was like eleven, something like that. And my mom was kind of doing it and I was going along to classes with her.

• 5:46Lewis Howes?

  You grew up in the UK, right?

• 5:47Speaker 01

  In the UK. Yeah. And it wasn't, she wasn't like a crazy hippie or anything like she was just kind of, she was fairly open minded, I'd say.

• 5:54Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 5:54Speaker 01

  Quite, quite progressive and early adopter, they say now, right? And, um, and then in my, I kind of did it for a few years and, you know, and then it dropped out a bit. And then just in my late teens, early twenties, um, a couple of pretty heavy things happened. Uh, I was out for a night with a group of guys. We're outside the rugby club. I think it's Christmas Eve. And a drunk driver crashed into like a big group of us.

• 6:19Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  I was on the outside of it. I didn't get hit. Most people did. Couple of them died.

• 6:24Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  A lot of them were really badly injured.

• 6:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Wow.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  And then probably about three months after that, my stepsister was killed in a, a, a car accident as well. She was cycling and the driver fell asleep.

• 6:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  The wheel and. For a couple of years, you know, I kind of, I didn't really know what to do with that stuff.

• 6:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  You know, and the mind was very busy and I, it was kind of there in the background, but I didn't really kind of know how to process it. And, and I was going out with this girl and she was talking a lot about Buddhism and stuff and, you know. And, um, and I wasn't really kind of like massively kind of engaged in those conversations, but

• 6:59Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  At some level, like the idea really kind of resonated, you know, like not, not to go and read a book about philosophy or psychology, but to actually, you know, go and look inside.

• 7:11Lewis Howes?

  Live it.

• 7:11Speaker 01

  Exactly, you know, and kind of actually examine the mind and find out why the mind was unhappy. You know, and why it didn't feel kind of at ease or at peace. And in that moment, it felt like the most natural thing to do in the world. I couldn't imagine doing anything else.

• 7:29Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  So I, yeah, I quit, I quit university.

• 7:32Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  And, um.

• 7:34Lewis Howes?

  In London or?

• 7:35Speaker 01

  Uh, it was just outside London. I was doing, um, I was doing a degree in sports science at the time.

• 7:39Lewis Howes?

  Oh, cool.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  So I was, I was kind of competing in gymnastics. I was working as a P T and I was studying sports science.

• 7:45Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:47Lewis Howes?

  Very cool.

• 7:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:48Lewis Howes?

  I'm a sports management major. I haven't done anything with it, but you know, it's good. Um, so you left university and went to go be a Buddhist monk?

• 7:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:55Lewis Howes?

  Okay. And where did you go?

• 7:56Speaker 01

  Um, I went first. Um, it's a bit cliche, but you know, where do you go to start being a Buddhist monk? Right? So I thought, well, I know where the Dalai Lama lives. May, maybe I'll go there first.

• 8:06Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  So I went, I went there and I, I stayed in a retreat for a little while, just a few months to begin with. Just kind of get a hang of, you know, what it was like and to better understand the different traditions and and I actually ended up going down, um, the Theravada route, which is, it's the school of Buddhism, which is more, um, it's probably easiest to think about it in colors, like so you see the maroon guys, like they're from, um, Nepal and Tibet. Um, black is a bit more kind of like Japan and China. And then you've got the saffron kind of, which is more Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka.

• 8:39Lewis Howes?

  The orange?

• 8:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Like the orange.

• 8:41Lewis Howes?

  I was in Laos and everything.

• 8:42Speaker 01

  Okay, exactly. Yeah.

• 8:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  So I did that. I sort of studied in that tradition. For about five years and then eventually went back to become a fully ordained monk in the Tibetan tradition. So I did a bit of.

• 8:53Lewis Howes?

  Five years.

• 8:54Speaker 01

  So five years I studied Theravada and then five years I went and did the Tibetan.

• 8:58Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 8:59Speaker 01

  The Tibetan.

• 8:59Lewis Howes?

  Is that where you essentially, you know, you don't, you don't work, you just like go get food in the morning? Like all the monks would come out in the morning and get the rice and the food and everything.

• 9:08Speaker 01

  There's different, there's different ways actually. So there are, there are working monasteries where you're involved in, you know, cooking and cleaning and you have responsibilities for the community.

• 9:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  And then there are retreat monasteries where it's a little bit more hardcore. Um, you don't do anything other than meditate.

• 9:25Lewis Howes?

  Just like a ten day silent meditation retreat type of thing.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  Except imagine that over like a year or something, you know, so. Yeah, so it's, you know, if you think in Burma, uh, you, you get up at two. Um, and apart from breakfast at five and lunch at eleven.

• 9:43Lewis Howes?

  Two AM you get up.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the, the.

• 9:45Lewis Howes?

  Want to go to bed?

• 9:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, you get a bed at about, uh, just after ten. So it's quite a short night, but about eighteen hours of, um, of meditation.

• 9:53Lewis Howes?

  Wow, only four hours of sleep.

• 9:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:55Lewis Howes?

  But I guess the meditative, uh, training you do during the day is almost like a deeper sleep where you're getting the.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  It's very different. I think as well, the environment and the atmosphere of the monastery, like this, you have no distraction. There's no stimulation. The mind is not active in the same way.

• 10:11Lewis Howes?

  Getting exhausted.

• 10:12Speaker 01

  Is exactly. And if you think about it, like even when we get a, a full night's sleep, sometimes, you know, I say this, having a, a baby at home who wakes us up often in the night, sometimes even if we do have a full night's sleep, the mind is not necessarily resting. So we could wake up from like a ten hour sleep.

• 10:28Lewis Howes?

  Be exhausted.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  And be exhausted.

• 10:29Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 10:30Speaker 01

  So as long as the mind is active, it doesn't really matter whether we're awake or asleep. We're still gonna end up kind of feeling quite tired. So it's very different in the monastery.

• 10:38Lewis Howes?

  So the goal is to calm the mind, whether you're throughout the day.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 10:41Lewis Howes?

  Or at night.

• 10:42Speaker 01

  Exactly. And the reason they kind of make the nights really short in the monastery is you're, you're attempting to kind of develop stability of awareness twenty four seven. Even when you're asleep. And if the night's too long, uh, it's really hard to kind of try to maintain any. Awareness through the night anyway, never mind over like an eight hour period. But for a few hours, you can start to kind of get a sense of.

• 11:03Lewis Howes?

  So you're being aware of your sleep.

• 11:05Speaker 01

  Aware of the mind throughout the sleeping process.

• 11:09Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 11:09Speaker 01

  As much as possible. Yeah, that's the, I mean, speak to real masters, they've, they've done it.

• 11:13Lewis Howes?

  So they're dreaming and they're aware of themselves, being asleep.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  So it's lucid, so the dreaming is lucid.

• 11:19Lewis Howes?

  And then they wake up and they're just like, well, yeah, I just experienced, I know everything that just happened.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  Exactly. So I mean, that's, that's quite.

• 11:25Lewis Howes?

  That's a skill.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  Advanced kind of practice and those guys, they're, they're doing this as a vocation for their lifetimes, you know, so.

• 11:32Lewis Howes?

  What's the benefit of that, being aware of every moment, 24 hours a day for your whole life? What's that benefit?

• 11:38Speaker 01

  I think there are many different ways of, of talking about it. Um, I think the interesting thing is, I think there's often this idea that happiness or enlightenment or whatever you want to call it is this, this thing out there, over there in some other place. When actually you start to realize when you kind of practice in that way, that it's actually moment to moment. Like enlightenment, happiness, peace of mind is, is here in this moment. If we experience this moment, not only now, but in the next moment and the next moment and the next moment. Then we have stability of enlightenment, of happiness, of peace of mind. So if you have it 24 seven and it's moment to moment and you develop consistency and stability of that.

• 12:22Speaker 01

  Then you always have what you always wanted and it was always here all along. So.

• 12:27Lewis Howes?

  Drop the mic, let's go. Okay, but I, I get that and part of me is like, that's something to strive for. And another part of me is like, there's no flavor to life.

• 12:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:40Lewis Howes?

  If everything is enlightened.

• 12:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:42Lewis Howes?

  And perfect all the time, where's the texture? Where's the juice? Where's the contrast? That's also what makes life exciting and interesting as opposed to just this, I'm fulfilled all the time, you know?

• 12:57Speaker 01

  But that, that's a.

• 12:57Lewis Howes?

  Does fulfillment ever become unfulfillment? You know what I mean?

• 13:01Speaker 01

  Well, it's, it's interesting because it, the idea again, I think the misconception sometimes is that that fulfillment or peace of mind or enlightenment, whatever you want to call it, is somehow, somehow dull and boring. You know, um, and that maybe we experience less of life, less of our thoughts, less of our emotions. Everything's just a bit flat. But if you think about it, we're training awareness. So we're not becoming less aware of our emotions and of life and the highs and lows. We're actually becoming more aware of it.

• 13:31Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  The difference is that life is no longer controlling us. We're no longer so easily overwhelmed and we get to choose. So we see a thought that appears and it doesn't mean that we're not going to experience sad thoughts.

• 13:41Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 13:41Speaker 01

  Close friend dies, of course, we're going to feel kind of devastated. But does that kind of leave us so paralyzed that we're unable to continue to live our life?

• 13:52Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 13:52Speaker 01

  Or are we able to see it, process it and let it go?

• 13:55Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 13:55Speaker 01

  It doesn't mean we forget them in that, so that we're still living kind of life in in the same way. Life is still going on all around us, but we're just getting to kind of step back a little bit and kind of say, hmm, actually, when I follow that route in my mind, when I follow that habit of thought, it doesn't make me feel good.

• 14:13Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  So you know what? I'm not going to do that.

• 14:15Lewis Howes?

  I'm gonna let it go.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  Gonna let it go.

• 14:18Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Wow. Okay. So what happened next? You became a, you went to Buddhist, you went two different routes for to be a monk.

• 14:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:27Lewis Howes?

  And the second part was how long, two years?

• 14:29Speaker 01

  Um, the Tibetan. So I trained in Tibetan school for about five years. The last, um, the last, I suppose, three years of that was as a, as a fully ordained, um.

• 14:38Lewis Howes?

  What's the difference between ordained and?

• 14:40Speaker 01

  Uh, when you're a novice, um, you're still, um, you're still kind of training, you're learning the ropes and, um, there are a lot more rules when you take full ordination. So it's a bit kind of stricter and.

• 14:51Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  Um, yeah. Um, it feels, it feels a little different. It feels a bit more serious.

• 14:57Lewis Howes?

  Okay. It's like high school basketball to professional.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 15:01Lewis Howes?

  Right? Okay.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 15:02Lewis Howes?

  So you did that for two year, or two years, right?

• 15:04Speaker 01

  Uh, for three years.

• 15:05Lewis Howes?

  Three years. And why did you stop?

• 15:06Speaker 01

  I stopped. So, um, I finished a period of training. I went to, uh, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery and did a, a year's retreat there. And after that, they, they sent me off to, to Moscow and in Russia. And I ended up spending about four years there. But, um, whilst I was there, a lot of laypeople, like general public, would come along to the meditation center. And I was still in my, my robes and the feedback was always the same. This is really beneficial. I really kind of find this useful, but. You know, I don't necessarily relate to the whole kind of Buddhist thing and look, it's a bit weird like

• 15:39Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  You're a man dressed in a skirt.

• 15:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  So the more we kind of talked about it, the more I thought about it and I was kind of like, you know, so what am I passionate about here? Is it, is it being a monk or is it kind of teaching meditation? And it was, it was teaching meditation every time, you know, so.

• 15:55Lewis Howes?

  You gain fulfillment and benefit from adding the value to other people, not just being alone and meditating all day.

• 16:00Speaker 01

  Exactly. And I thought that was something that I could do, something useful that I could do. So I spoke to my teacher and I um, I made the decision to, to, yeah, to not leave the robes behind, but kind of dress in a different way.

• 16:14Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 16:15Speaker 01

  You know?

• 16:16Lewis Howes?

  That's interesting.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  For me, like the, I, nothing has really changed that much, you know, obviously.

• 16:20Lewis Howes?

  Just the appearance, the transformational appearance.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, and obviously I have a wife and a child now, which I couldn't have done as a monk.

• 16:25Lewis Howes?

  Done, right.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  But it's, I'm, I'm teaching meditation and whether I'm dressed in maroon robes, kind of, and smell a little bit of incense, or whether I'm kind of living here in L A and wearing board shorts, it kind of.

• 16:38Lewis Howes?

  It's a pretty similar lifestyle.

• 16:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's not that different, you know?

• 16:41Lewis Howes?

  You're living in Venice, it's so similar.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Alright, so there are, there are a few differences, yeah.

• 16:46Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. Now, did you have conflicting thoughts when you were like, okay, well, I'm not supposed to, this is the path that I thought I was supposed to be chosen to do.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:53Lewis Howes?

  Or choosing to do, um, and you know, no wife, no kids in this path, but now everything that I thought I wanted, I'm going to change and go against those beliefs, I guess, in a way.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, it's interesting. So the, the lovely thing about Buddhism is that it's very kind of open, you know? So there's no idea that once you take robes, that's it for life. In fact, people regularly go in and out of the monastery and kind of, it's not considered like, you know, a bad thing. So there's no guilt or anything attached to it. In fact, so much so, you even make a commitment, like one year, three years, five years, and then every, when that commitment ends, you either just stop, because that's the commitment you made, or you make another commitment to continue a bit further.

• 17:30Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  So it provides a certain element of, of freedom.

• 17:34Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 17:34Speaker 01

  I would say, um, but in terms of, of changing, I think the hardest thing was, like, as a monk, you give away everything. So I had nothing. My, I kind of had my clothes I was wearing. And I was thinking like, how do you even begin to go back to, to normal life? I was living in Moscow, I kind of wanted to go back to London.

• 17:52Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  And so anyway, I finished my time.

• 17:55Lewis Howes?

  How did you?

• 17:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I finished my time as, as, as a monk and I had six months left in Russia before going back to, planning to go back to England. And some friends who were helping me go back to go back to England.

• 18:07Lewis Howes?

  You were you were still in contact with friends and family.

• 18:09Speaker 01

  At this stage I was not so much in the in the retreats and the monasteries, but once I was living in Moscow, there was a bit more, a bit more contact. And a friend of mine in Moscow was studying, he was doing a degree at Moscow State Circus. And, you know, I'd competed in gymnastics and I'd had ten years where I'd done no exercise at all.

• 18:26Lewis Howes?

  No exercise, you're not supposed to, right?

• 18:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's just kind of not part of the daily kind of routine. So it was kind of itching a little bit to do that, just to get back into my body and.

• 18:35Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  And.

• 18:37Lewis Howes?

  Too much headspace.

• 18:38Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly. There is such a thing. And so I, he said, look, why don't you come along to the to the circus, you know, and kind of, you know, maybe just do some one on ones and. So I did and I really loved it. And the guy said, hey, do you know what, like you can, you can actually do a degree in London. And so I started thinking about this and I was like, well, I want to go back to London. I kind of need a bit of time just to work out how I'm going to do this transition and what I'm going to do. And I knew that the government in England, because I was quite old by that stage, like thirty two or something, and they give you incentive to kind of go and study. And they would actually pay and they'd not only pay for you to go to university, but they pay for like your accommodation and stuff. And I was like, hey, this could work out.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  This could work out. So I sent off a video, I made a video audition tape to to get into the National School of Circus. Um, which is part of the Conservatoire Dance and Drama in France. And, um, yeah, and I somehow I got in, I've no idea how. So I did a degree in circus and while I was doing that, I put together the material for for Headspace.

• 19:38Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 19:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:39Lewis Howes?

  And were you working on different people in the circus or in the in the school and teaching them?

• 19:44Speaker 01

  Meditation wise, more outside, actually. So I was, yeah, not so much within the within the circus. That was very much kind of physical, kind of all physical.

• 19:53Lewis Howes?

  What was the most interesting lesson you learned about being in circus school?

• 19:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, good question. There are several. I think the one that stayed with me is the willingness to just go out there and just try something. And to leave behind any idea of success or failure, their ideas in the mind, like. Admittedly, if you're swinging from the trapeze, you want to succeed in catching the other one.

• 20:20Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 20:21Speaker 01

  But in terms of kind of going out there and and performing, like as long as you're thinking, you're kind of getting in your own way.

• 20:28Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  Like in life generally.

• 20:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  And you think if if you're too tight on the tight rope, you're gonna fall off. If you're too loose and relaxed, you're gonna fall off. It's finding that kind of sweet spot. So there's something about stepping out on stage, finding that sweet spot in both body and mind, and kind of letting go of any idea of trying to be a certain way, but just simply being in the moment. And just letting that moment unfold. There's something beautiful in that, very kind of liberating. And there's no way I could do what I'd now do with Headspace today unless I'd gone through that first, I think.

• 21:00Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 21:01Speaker 01

  You know.

• 21:01Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 21:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:03Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. What's the scariest part of uh being a monk?

• 21:07Speaker 01

  Uh.

• 21:09Lewis Howes?

  For you, what was scary? Was there anything scary for you?

• 21:11Speaker 01

  Before going to do it?

• 21:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, before and during.

• 21:14Speaker 01

  I think before, um, the idea of leaving friends and family and life kind of somehow carrying on without.

• 21:22Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  Me, like, you know, friends were getting married and having kids and all that stuff.

• 21:26Lewis Howes?

  You weren't there.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was kind of happening and I was kind of missing a lot of it. So I think the idea of that before I went was was pretty big in my mind.

• 21:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  And then when I was there, I think just the intensity of it, like sometimes it's just like, wow, this is full on.

• 21:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:43Speaker 01

  As much as you get the the calm and the peace of mind, a lot of it involves sitting down with a very busy mind that's kind of, you know, it's quite cantankerous, you know, throwing up difficult thoughts.

• 21:53Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  And you have to kind of maintain that sense of awareness of just seeing thought without getting involved in it with that. And that takes some time, that takes some practice, because normally when difficult thoughts arise in the mind or or difficult emotions, we normally buy into them and we become those emotions.

• 22:09Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  So it takes a little while to kind of step back enough to kind of go, oh, oh, you know what? That's just a feeling. How about that?

• 22:17Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, and I don't have to become it.

• 22:18Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 22:19Lewis Howes?

  I can let it go.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  Exactly, but it it takes time. And so to begin with, it's quite a shock when you.

• 22:25Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 22:25Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 22:26Lewis Howes?

  Do you do you face big moments or breakdowns in your day to day life right now? You're you're co-founder of a big company. You've got a lot of employees in the team.

• 22:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:35Lewis Howes?

  In a busy city, there's traffic, you know, probably getting here, you're probably like, what's going on? What happens when you feel like you're about to have an emotional breakdown or you feel emotions turning or something?

• 22:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:46Lewis Howes?

  How do you navigate the process now in a busy life?

• 22:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think the the beauty of of training consistently is that it tends to kind of last. Like, there is.

• 22:59Lewis Howes?

  The training lasts.

• 23:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, the training lasts. So there's an element, it's not like you leave the monastery and you leave your mind at the monastery and all the training at the monastery. Kind of comes with you. And that's really the idea. Same with meditation in everyday life. It's the idea is not to kind of make it all about the meditation, those 10 minutes, because what about the other 23 hours and 50 minutes, right? So it's how do we take that and kind of carry it into our life in the same way? How do you take those years of training? And and it after a while, there isn't really any kind of effort required. It it's kind of in inbuilt. It's it becomes an effortless thing. It doesn't mean like, I'm definitely no kind of master here.

• 23:38Speaker 01

  Like, so of course I have moments and, you know, if if the baby kind of hasn't slept for for a number of kind of nights.

• 23:46Lewis Howes?

  How do you handle that when you're just like agitated or you're frustrated or something?

• 23:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:51Lewis Howes?

  What's your process?

• 23:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I I don't really have a kind of, okay, right, now I need to do this. Definitely stopping, pausing and doing some meditation will make a difference. It kind of helps to reset the the mind a little bit.

• 24:02Lewis Howes?

  Minutes, uh, 10 minutes, some seconds.

• 24:04Speaker 01

  Even I I think, look, in in the night, kind of a few genuinely, so 10, 20, 30 seconds is enough to kind of let go.

• 24:12Lewis Howes?

  And be aware.

• 24:13Speaker 01

  Frustration of kind of being awake. Because if you think about it, anything in life, it's really just our resistance towards it is wanting it to be a different way. As soon as we realize, oh, yeah, it's just because of that, then we kind of let go of it.

• 24:26Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  It doesn't mean that we kind of love the situation.

• 24:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:29Speaker 01

  But at least now we're not pushing against it, resisting, causing even more stress.

• 24:33Lewis Howes?

  And it's not owning us.

• 24:35Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly.

• 24:36Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. What's your? Do you have like a go to mantra or meditation practice like in these situations?

• 24:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:45Lewis Howes?

  I mean, your app, obviously, you have like all these different, I guess, kind of like chapters and categories. But what do you personally do in that moment when the baby's crazy or something? You know, someone says something to you or the car, you know, traffic? What is, what's the go to for you?

• 24:59Speaker 01

  There's a little bit at the end, I know you've used the app, there's a little bit at the end. Whatever one you're doing that I always say, okay, right, right now, just let your mind do whatever it wants to do. So it's a sense of, on the one hand, giving the mind total freedom to do whatever it wants. And at the same time, there's a sense of awareness. You can't really do that, let your mind go free unless you maintain a certain degree of awareness. So for me, that is the shortcut. It's in there because I think it's just an incredibly valuable tool. It's so short because if you leave it too long, then the mind will start to wander and you lose that sense of awareness. So it's kind of just getting the balance, right? But if you do that even for 10, 20 seconds.

• 25:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 25:42Speaker 01

  It's game changer.

• 25:44Lewis Howes?

  You know, we were talking before we started the interview that I've been doing, you know, guided visualization meditation for over 15 years. And I see the power of it because when I started doing this, my sister gave me a meditation from, it was like a 13 minute meditation from a a guy from Tibet. I think, or no, a guy from Nepal who was a yogi, his name is Swami G, it was like Earth, Swami G or something. And she just goes, here's the audio, check this out, I think you might like it. When I was in college, I was like 18 or 19. And like I said, about a month afterwards, I broke this world record in football and just the records kept coming. And I just felt sharper and so focused. And I was a pretty focused guy already, but I just felt like unstoppable, you know, it's just like.

• 26:30Lewis Howes?

  I just didn't feel like anyone could stop me.

• 26:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:32Lewis Howes?

  In my sport.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:33Lewis Howes?

  And in life, really, but I was just like, I was more committed to my vision. I had, I guess, more willpower to like, you know, I wanted to be to eat well and I was able to be clearer on like why I'm eating purposefully as opposed to just eating junk food. And everything just made a lot more sense.

• 26:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:51Lewis Howes?

  In sports, life, relationships. And I was just like, okay, I'll just keep doing this one thing.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:57Lewis Howes?

  And I didn't really know, and I actually took a break for a few years after sports. And I gained like forty pounds and you know, I was making money, but I was like, my life was kind of out of balance. And I remember getting back into it, listening to the same audio track a few years ago and then I noticed a big difference.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:15Lewis Howes?

  And then I started Headspace about five or six months ago, I think. And um, man, it's been so impactful in my life. It's been so positive and powerful and the way you teach or the way you just, you know, share, it's like this, it's almost like therapy.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:32Lewis Howes?

  It's like a therapeutic.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:34Lewis Howes?

  So relaxing. And I actually listen to you right before I go to bed, which I don't think you, I think you actually say, don't do this. You know, it's like.

• 27:41Speaker 01

  It depends on the individual, actually. I think it's a very personal thing.

• 27:43Lewis Howes?

  For me, it puts me to sleep after like a few minutes.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:46Lewis Howes?

  Because my mind is so busy that I need to allow myself to calm down.

• 27:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:50Lewis Howes?

  And it puts me in like this calmer state. And um, and then I'll listen to it. I try to listen to it in the morning, the first thing as well. Depends what I'm doing, but um, I feel like even more powerful when I do it in the morning for ten minutes.

• 28:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:02Lewis Howes?

  Cause then I'm really setting my intention for the day.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  Exactly. I think that's the difference.

• 28:06Lewis Howes?

  And uh, it's just a game changer. I mean, it's like such a game changer. And I'm curious, how many meditation apps are there out there right now? Do you know?

• 28:16Speaker 01

  I have no idea. Like we, we were, we were definitely the first one.

• 28:20Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 28:20Speaker 01

  Out there. Um.

• 28:21Lewis Howes?

  And when did you launch?

• 28:22Speaker 01

  Uh, we launched about four years ago.

• 28:25Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 28:25Speaker 01

  The first version of it.

• 28:27Lewis Howes?

  But it's really kind of taken off in the last year or two.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think about a year and a half ago, we launched, the first one was really, uh, it was a beta version. We just wanted to, to see what worked and what didn't. And then we kind of worked a lot on the app over about a period of a year and a half. And then, yeah, uh, about a year and a half ago, we, we launched version two. And we jumped from like seven hundred and fifty thousand uh, users to say, well, over six million.

• 28:52Lewis Howes?

  Crazy.

• 28:52Speaker 01

  So it was a big, a big jump, big change.

• 28:54Lewis Howes?

  Crazy. Oh, who is it for?

• 28:58Lewis Howes?

  Who's the app for?

• 28:59Speaker 01

  It's for all of us.

• 29:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  You know, and it it sounds a bit kind of cheesy, like it's for human beings like, but I don't know anybody. I've never met anyone in the world who wouldn't like to feel a little more calm. Who wouldn't like a bit more clarity, who wouldn't like to feel a bit more content and who wouldn't want to feel more kindness or compassion in their life. I just, even if we feel like everything is going well in our life, at some stage, the the nature of the human condition is such that things will probably change. And it might be, it could be illness for ourself, or it could be illness for the people around us that we love.

• 29:41Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 29:41Speaker 01

  It might be a change in environment, it might be a change in geography. Anything can happen, you know, so I feel like rather than, I think the society generally, right, that we live in is very kind of about fixing stuff, like once it's already happened.

• 29:56Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 29:56Speaker 01

  You know, it's management, treatment, like meditation is at its best when we use it for prevention.

• 30:03Lewis Howes?

  When you're already doing well.

• 30:04Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 30:05Lewis Howes?

  Not when things are crazy and messed up.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  Only because it's that much harder, you know, like if you think if you're in the middle of a really intense situation and someone's like, oh, just learn meditation.

• 30:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:14Speaker 01

  You're struggling to even deal with, never mind learn new stuff. So it doesn't mean we can't use it for for those things, but I think if we can get into a cycle and a habit in the same way, we don't wait for our teeth to go really well in Britain.

• 30:27Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  Exactly, right? So we get into this kind of pattern of hygiene. And in the same way, I think it's hygiene of the health of the mind. You know, how do we just kind of keep it fresh and sharp and calm and focused? And if we do it consistently, that happens.

• 30:44Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. I love it. It's like flossing your brain.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:48Lewis Howes?

  Right? It's like getting the gunk out in between the stuff.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  It's a new light.

• 30:52Lewis Howes?

  It's flossing the brain, yeah. I didn't prep you for this, but I'm curious, can we can we do like a couple minute meditation or something? Okay. I would love to, yeah, I mean, just to either give people a sample of like what this even looks like and sounds like and is. And I know you have different like tracks for like going to sleep and like

• 31:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:15Lewis Howes?

  all these other things in there. Let's do one, if you can, again, I'm putting you on the spot here, but let's do one for like, preparing yourself for a big moment in life.

• 31:24Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 31:24Lewis Howes?

  Like you're, you're feeling anxious because you've got a big speech, TED Talk. You've got a big sports game, like the biggest game in your life. You're going on the first date of like the woman of your dreams that you're about to meet.

• 31:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:38Lewis Howes?

  And you were just like, your heart is pounding, your mind is racing. You know, nothing bad is happening in your life, but you're just like overwhelmed and you can't relax. But you want to perform and do the, this is like your make or break moment.

• 31:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, we can do that.

• 31:53Lewis Howes?

  Let's do it.

• 31:54Speaker 01

  The, the context and it's important to give, cause it's, it's as much about genuinely like the technique's important in meditation, but the approach is even more important. Cause unless you know how to approach it, you're not going to get the benefit from it.

• 32:08Lewis Howes?

  What do you mean by that?

• 32:09Speaker 01

  So for example, three, just three tips, kind of which I think will give you more benefit from this exercise. So tip one, expectation, like if you are sitting down and you're thinking, just because we're doing something called meditation, that your mind is immediately going to switch off and be quiet and there'll be no thoughts. You're going to think that this has failed and you might not do it again, cause you think I'm no good at this, you know?

• 32:31Lewis Howes?

  Right, cause your first time, it's probably not going to be calm.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 32:34Lewis Howes?

  You're probably going to continue to have thoughts, not be able to focus.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  Exactly, perfectly normal, like learning any skill.

• 32:40Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 32:40Speaker 01

  More than that, meditation is not even about stopping thoughts. It's about stepping back and seeing the mind more clearly. And so this place, kind of, I always think about it like cars on a road. Kind of the, the road is the mind and the cars are the thoughts. Kind of, the job is not to kind of run around in the road, kind of trying to stop this thought and chase after that thought. And it's about actually stepping off the road.

• 33:03Lewis Howes?

  And seeing the thought.

• 33:03Speaker 01

  Sitting on the verge comfortably and witnessing thoughts coming and going. And when you do that, over time, the traffic starts to kind of slow down a little bit. And you might one day, doesn't happen very often here in LA, I know, but you might just see a road without any cars on it at all. You know, who knows, who knows? It could, it could happen, man, it could happen. So expectation is the first thing. So, so know that your mind will continue to think, thoughts will arise, that's okay, perfectly natural. Second thing, effort. Okay, we again, live in a society where we're encouraged to kind of do stuff. And to do stuff kind of with passion and intensity and.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  Well, that's fine and it's great and it gets us kind of to a lot of places you wanna get to in life. But you can't force relaxation to happen. You can't force a quiet mind in the same way that you can't force sleep. So, you know, I would say the things are very similar. You lie in bed, let's say you've got that big presentation or whatever it is the next day. And you're lying in bed thinking, I've got to get to sleep, I've got to get to sleep. Well, the more you think that, the less likely, you know, you start, start sweating, you know, it's like, oh my God, I can't get to sleep. No, I've got to try harder, I've got to try harder. This is never gonna work, right? So in the same way, you know, with meditation, it's can't, it can't be a case of, oh no, I'm doing terrible. I've got to focus harder, I've got to focus harder. I was saying to someone the other day, I mean, it was a talk I was giving, I can't remember.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  I was in a, I went to, to do a, a thing in a bank once. Six hundred kind of bankers, traders there and.

• 34:38Lewis Howes?

  Teaching them meditation.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, and as I, as I walked in there, I heard one, one of them say, say to the other one, like, right, I'm gonna meditate the crap out of this. And it's kind of like, okay, well, if, if we're going into it with that kind of intensity, we're probably not gonna get the benefit we're looking for.

• 34:52Lewis Howes?

  Yes, you wanna give your full effort.

• 34:54Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 34:55Lewis Howes?

  But that doesn't mean like.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  It's not kind of a will kind of thing. It's more kind of actually like easing off a little bit, like and kind of saying, oh, this is nice. For ten minutes, I don't have to do anything. Right, you know, so expectations are first, effort's the second. And the third one, I think of it as blue sky. It's, um, for me, this idea was a, a total game changer. I always meditated with the idea that, as we were talking about earlier, like happiness or peace of mind was somewhere else. And it was maybe five minutes ahead of me or ten minutes or maybe a year ahead of me. And if I could just get to that point, then everything would be okay. And then one of my teachers said, kind of like, think of it like this, you know, so even on a, even on a cloudy day.

• 35:39Speaker 01

  The the blue sky is still there. If we think about the blue sky being that peace of mind, that sense of kind of happiness and ease, like that's always there. And if we live in a very cloudy country like England where I'm I'm from, you know, sometimes you forget, you don't see it much. And so you forget and you kind of, and you have to get in a plane and kind of go up through the clouds to be reminded, okay, it's it's still there. And in the same way, like in the mind, happiness, peace of mind is always with us. It's never been anywhere else. It's just that we've got so caught up in the clouds or the clouds have obscured our our perceptions so much that we've forgotten about that. So it doesn't make any sense to be sitting there trying to create what we think is relaxation or happiness or peace of mind, because it's already there.

• 36:24Lewis Howes?

  It's within us.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  And so all of it, that does something to the dynamic. Rather than trying to project an idea onto the experience, instead, we simply witness the experience.

• 36:32Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 36:33Speaker 01

  So remembering that your mind will think anyway, knowing that you don't have to try too hard, and knowing that peace of mind is is all is with within us and is always here. If you can remember those three things, then you then you start to get some benefit from the exercise.

• 36:49Lewis Howes?

  Before we get into the exercise, then, can you give some, for those that are skeptics, or I was talking to a friend of mine recently the other day, who's a world-class, really well-known athlete, top of the world. And she was like, yeah, I don't know if I, you know, do meditation. I just don't know if I believe in it, you know, I don't know. I feel like I'm already like trained my mind so much through my practice, working out and like rehabbing and everything that I just don't know if I would need additional training for the mind.

• 37:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:16Lewis Howes?

  You know, she's got sports psychologist, she's got everything. So maybe she's already doing it in a sense.

• 37:21Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 37:21Lewis Howes?

  Um, so, you know, why, for anyone who's skeptical, why is meditation, is there science that backs this up? Is there research? Is there facts? Like data? It's like, here's why when you do this, it adds so much value to you.

• 37:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, there's a, there's a ton of different stuff in in that one, in that one question. I think the first thing I'd say is that, like, anyone who kind of is skeptical and thinks that kind of meditation isn't for them. The beauty of meditation is that you get to define it by your intention. So we can't even say that meditation is this in a box. To one person, it's helping them sleep better.

• 38:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  To another person, it's about reducing stress. To another person, it's about performance, kind of on the track or in the water, whatever it might be. To another person, it might be about patience and being able to listen better to their, to their partner and have kind of happier relationships. So we can't really kind of say like it is one thing, it's defined by the intention of the user. So if there is something in your life, I would say to that kind of that skeptical audience, you know, that you would like to feel more at ease with, then there's a pretty good chance that meditation is going to be beneficial.

• 38:33Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 38:34Speaker 01

  And whereas kind of 20 years ago, um, I'd have probably sat here and I was like, I can't really prove it, you know, it's. So now we have the science. So we have FMRI technology, which allows scientists, researchers to actually look at the brain before, during and after meditation. And they can see that the, the areas of the brain, which are responsible for our feelings of happiness and wellbeing. The cortex is receiving greater amount of blood flow when we meditate.

• 39:02Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 39:03Speaker 01

  It gets thicker, it gets stronger in the same way as when we go to the gym and we train a muscle, it gets thicker and stronger, same time, same way. When we sit down to meditate, we're training that part of the brain. It gets thicker, it gets stronger. So we spend more time there, we experience more of it. And there's some really interesting, sometimes people think like, yeah, it's fine for Tibetan monks, but kind of what about the rest of us, you know? What if we're only doing a little bit a day? A year, two years back, some great research that shows that after just four or five days of doing 20 minutes a day, already the areas of the brain, kind of that we were just talking about, they're already receiving a great amount of blood flow. So although the cortex isn't necessarily changing that quickly, the behavior, the kind of neural network is already changing.

• 39:47Speaker 01

  So we can see changes really, really quickly. And this whole process, this world of neuroplasticity, where we start to understand that the brain is not fixed, that our habits are not fixed, it can change. And not just on a psychological level, but on a physiological level as well. It's, I think for a lot of skeptics, you kind of look at that and it's like, wow, that's real. Like it's, there's no kind of, does it work? Doesn't it work? It's there. There's a. Talking about sport just now, there's a great one which I I still love. It was um it's golfers and they're visualizing playing a golf shot. We got a professional golfer, he got an amateur golfer. And you look at the professional golfer who's visualizing in the MRI. And in the brain, there is just like a single dot.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  Like it's beautiful. It's like a little golf ball, actually. It's kind of, it's it's just bright. It's very clear. Everything else is black. It's like it's single pointed focus. And then you look at the amateur golfer and it's like fireworks going off like because they're not just playing the shot. They're not in the moment playing the shot. They're thinking about playing the shot. And so they're thinking about, oh, my shoulder's in the right place. Well, but what about this and this and this and this? And I think in life, so often we're kind of thinking about life rather than simply living life. We're so busy. We make it so complicated that the mind becomes scattered. It feels very kind of busy. Whereas if we can kind of let go of some of that stuff and simply be in the moment with whatever we're doing.

• 41:17Speaker 01

  Then we might start to experience that single minded focus.

• 41:20Lewis Howes?

  I love that. Okay, perfect. All right. Well, let's let's do the exercise.

• 41:24Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 41:24Lewis Howes?

  Works for you.

• 41:25Speaker 01

  All right. So we won't do a whole kind of ten minutes.

• 41:27Lewis Howes?

  Just a few minutes.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  Couple of minutes.

• 41:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, no big deal.

• 41:29Speaker 01

  Okay. So obviously, you know, typically we wouldn't be sitting here looking, looking, looking at each other.

• 41:34Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  Excuse me. So but I would recommend to anyone who's kind of trying this exercise. Don't need to sit cross legged on the floor or any of that. You can do it sitting on a chair. And I do it with the arms and legs uncrossed, with the feet flat on the floor. And the hands, you know, just on the on the lap or or in the knees. You know this intro well by now, Lewis.

• 41:54Lewis Howes?

  Yes, yes, yes, yes. I'm always laying on my back, actually. You always say like sit in a chair, but I'm always laying down.

• 41:59Speaker 01

  That's okay too, you know. That's okay. So you're gonna start off, okay? We're gonna start off with the eyes open. And just looking directly ahead. So you're not looking at me. And if you're at home, you're not looking at one particular thing. You're aware of that entire space around you. So without moving your eyes, you're aware of the peripheral vision either side of you and also above and below. So it's like you have a very sort of soft focus that takes in that entire space. And just maintaining that focus, just taking a deep breath, breathing in through the nose.

• 42:35Speaker 01

  And out through the mouth.

• 42:38Speaker 01

  As you breathe in through the nose, just a sense of the body expanding, the lungs filling with air. And as you breathe out, a sense of the muscles just sort of softening in the body a little bit. And with the next out breath, just gently closing the eyes.

• 42:56Speaker 01

  So as you close the eyes, you're immediately going to be more aware of the space around you, the other senses.

• 43:07Speaker 01

  So I'd like you to focus in particular on that sensation of, of touch. You can just allow the breath to return to its natural rhythm now, just in and out through the nose. And just focusing on that feeling

• 43:21Speaker 01

  of weight, the body pressing down against the chair beneath you.

• 43:27Speaker 01

  That sensation of the feet on the floor

• 43:31Speaker 01

  and of the hands and the arms just resting on the legs.

• 43:39Speaker 01

  Just take a moment to notice any sounds around you. Doesn't matter what environment you're in, doesn't matter how many noises are going on around you. In this exercise, we're going to actually use the sounds as a point of focus.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  So just noticing the different sounds, allowing them to come and go.

• 44:10Speaker 01

  Remember, it's perfectly normal for thoughts to arise in the mind, especially if you've got something big coming up. So just recognizing that, allowing the thoughts to come and go.

• 44:24Speaker 01

  And as you do that, just bringing the attention back to the body.

• 44:29Speaker 01

  Just starting to notice how the body feels. Again, not trying to change anything. If you feel nervous,

• 44:39Speaker 01

  whether you feel a sense of

• 44:42Speaker 01

  lightness in the body, excitement, if you've got something coming up.

• 44:47Speaker 01

  Just noticing it. The easiest way of doing it is just to scan down through the body. So starting at the top of the head, just scanning down,

• 44:56Speaker 01

  noticing how each part of the body feels.

• 45:07Speaker 01

  Just slowly working your way down towards the toes.

• 45:17Speaker 01

  So not trying to change the feeling in any way.

• 45:23Speaker 01

  Maintaining a nice, slow, steady pace as you continue down through the body.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  And as you get down to the feet, just feeling

• 45:38Speaker 01

  that contact between the feet and the floor. Doesn't matter whether you're standing, sitting, or lying with your knees bent.

• 45:48Speaker 01

  Just focusing for a moment on that contact,

• 45:52Speaker 01

  the feet on the floor, feeling grounded.

• 45:58Speaker 01

  Knowing that the mind will continue to think that thoughts will come and go. And allowing them to do that.

• 46:11Speaker 01

  But just bringing the attention to that feeling of contact.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  And then just starting to become more aware again of the space around you, the different sounds.

• 46:35Speaker 01

  Starting to become more aware of that contact of the body on the chair, the feet on the floor, hands on the legs.

• 46:47Speaker 01

  And when you're ready, just gently opening the eyes again.

• 47:02Speaker 01

  And have a stretch, if you like. You didn't fall asleep there, did you?

• 47:05Lewis Howes?

  No. Oh, man. Oh, that's so powerful.

• 47:12Speaker 01

  And it's just a couple of minutes, right?

• 47:13Lewis Howes?

  A couple of minutes.

• 47:14Speaker 01

  You know.

• 47:15Lewis Howes?

  It's so powerful. Put me right back into this relaxation, calm, like at the first moment of it, I was like, I actually started sweating and I felt very heavy.

• 47:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:27Lewis Howes?

  And so I started thinking, man, am I gonna look sweaty on camera when I wake up? And then I was just like, just let it go. As you're going through all the different moments and then I felt very relaxed and, you know, fine, not sweaty anymore. It was just like, uh, it's just such a, every time I do it, it's such a powerful reminder that even a few minutes.

• 47:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:45Lewis Howes?

  Can change the trajectory of your day.

• 47:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:48Lewis Howes?

  If you choose it.

• 47:49Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 47:50Lewis Howes?

  If you allow it.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:51Lewis Howes?

  It's, it's so powerful. Um, wow. How many different types? I mean, when I think about it, when I try to break it down, I haven't thought about it that much, but when I try to break it down right now, there's different elements of these 10 minute meditations that you. You talk about, you talk about being aware of the, the body, the sounds, feeling, you know, touching things.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:14Lewis Howes?

  Um, and then there's some meditations where it's like, I don't know if you do this, but I've heard somewhere it's like thinking about the trees and the clouds and this and imagine yourself walking in a mountain, you know, it's like taking you to different places.

• 48:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. We definitely do a lot of visualization or I do a lot of visualization. It tends to, it tends not to be so much to kind of imagine you're, you're walking out there, that kind of thing. It's more kind of, okay, here's, here's the image.

• 48:43Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 48:43Speaker 01

  Okay, can you sort of maintain, exactly, kind of maintaining focus on that. Uh, I think that does something very particular to.

• 48:51Lewis Howes?

  Why do you do that?

• 48:53Speaker 01

  Um. So one, it's a, it's a technique that we used a lot in, in the monastery. I found it incredibly beneficial. Because I was trying to explain it to someone the other day. I, for me, it's really kind of interesting. When you look at pictures or documentaries of monks and nuns, kind of. And they're sitting there and maybe they're chanting and they're ringing bells and stuff and you're like, like, how does that bring peace of mind? What are they doing? You know, is that even meditation? And so if I think back to kind of the Tibetan Buddhist monastery, so. You'd be sitting there and there would be kind of piece of paper and you'd be reading the Tibetan. So you have to learn Tibetan. And then underneath, they'd very kindly put an English translation. So you're reading it in Tibetan.

• 49:33Speaker 01

  But you're at the same time scanning the translation to make sure you understand that you know what you're actually sort of saying. In this hand, you've got a little bell. And if you don't keep it steady like this, the bell starts to kind of do this and all kinds of kind of funny shit. So you're trying to keep it really kind of steady. It sounds easy. It's not because in this hand, you're holding something else. And then in your mind, you're visualizing. And if I think about kind of one particular visualization, there's, there's a hundred and eight different people. All wearing slightly different things. They're all sitting in slightly different positions, holding different instruments. They're wearing different color clothes. And you're trying to kind of main, build up this visualization. You start with one person and you kind of build it up. You're trying to maintain this visualization whilst doing this and doing this and kind of reading the Tibetan, scanning the English.

• 50:19Speaker 01

  And what it does is it kind of, it creates a situation where you're not having to force the mind to stop thinking. In that space, there is no, there is no place for the mind to think. Like thoughts just kind of disappear. They evaporate in that space.

• 50:35Lewis Howes?

  Because you've got five things.

• 50:36Speaker 01

  Exactly. So kind of, and, and through that, it kind of creates a very sort of gentle focus. So there's. There's, there's something about kind of setting up a framework of visualization. Where it allows us to, to naturally be present with one thing, rather than being kind of caught up in, in lots of things.

• 50:54Lewis Howes?

  What would you say is the key to getting in the zone for someone? You know, we talk about as athletes, talking about getting in the zone is like where you can reach your peak performance. Um. And obviously it's being present and focusing on the single moment.

• 51:07Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 51:07Lewis Howes?

  That's how you get there. But how does someone approach that?

• 51:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:10Lewis Howes?

  To.

• 51:12Speaker 01

  To cultivate that experience. Yeah. So what I would encourage with that kind of thing is is to look at the shortcut. So because in those situations, you probably don't want to kind of sit down. You don't have ten minutes. Exactly. How do I get there now? Exactly. So part of that is training and the more you train, like the easier it becomes and the quicker. You'll always be prepared and ready. Exactly. So there is that aspect. Yes. But I would look at another aspect as well, and that's kind of the loop that exists between body and mind. So the temptation with meditation is think, oh, okay, well, it's all about the mind. It's not about the body. But the quickest route kind of to getting in the zone is to step out of the mind and to be present in the body. Normally, the body is here or we're walking down the street, but the mind is somewhere else.

• 51:56Speaker 01

  It's with a conversation we had last week or. On your phone or whatever. Exactly, or a big game or something that's kind of coming up soon. So what happens is, okay, in the mind, perhaps as a thought, like, oh, wow, this is a really important moment for me. I really need. And then we feel in the body like a reaction to that thought. There's an emotional response. Maybe it's butterflies in our stomach or maybe the chest gets a bit tighter. The mind recognizes that and goes, oh, shit, we're in trouble. Like, it's time to start worrying. Like, this is real. Yes. So then the mind starts kind of producing a lot more kind of anxious thoughts. The body recognizes that it gets even more tight, even more tense. And all of a sudden, we're caught up in this vicious sort of spiral, you know? So it's how do we step out of the loop? And the quickest way to step out of the loop is to be present in the body.

• 52:40Speaker 01

  So just like we did just then, like, I chose the sensation of the feet on the floor. But if you can find either that or it might be the sensation of, I don't know, the backside on the chair. If you can find a point of focus that's in the body, essentially, again, you're not kind of ignoring the thoughts. You're not resisting thoughts. You're just saying, hey, mind, just kind of be present of this sensation. And it has a really weird, it's like the thoughts just, they just. They disappear and all of a sudden we're in the body and ready, present to do whatever we need to do in the moment.

• 53:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I've heard another trick of just like taking your shoes off and stepping on grass or dirt and feeling the ground with like your feet.

• 53:22Speaker 01

  It's all about feeling grounded and being present in the body rather than lost in the mind.

• 53:27Lewis Howes?

  Yes. Do you think there's a, a great, like say someone's like a beginner and you're like, okay, here's the, here's the approach you should take. If you want to become a master meditator, here's the right time, here's how often you should do it throughout the day. Like it should be free Thursday in the morning, should be last thing at night, driving your car. I don't know. Like how many times a day? When is the perfect optimal time? How long should you meditate for in those times if you're just starting out?

• 53:55Speaker 01

  Okay. Yeah. It's a great question. Well, I would say it's all about consistency. The, this is a skill and like any skill, it only kind of, it only works if you practice it.

• 54:07Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 54:08Speaker 01

  And I would think, always think about it as a practice. I'd say that we are never masters of meditation. We are always students of it. We are always kind of learning and we continually refining.

• 54:18Lewis Howes?

  And if you don't use it, you probably lose it eventually.

• 54:20Speaker 01

  Exactly. And, and I think, um, like, you know, I know a lot of people who very diligently kind of take their, their gym kit to work every day, but they don't go to the gym. Okay. You're probably not going to see the benefits, right? So in just the same way with meditation, it only works if you do it. That's my number one. Number two, yet although we're all different and we should be flexible, we're finding the right time. The best time, the, or the time you're going to see probably the, the maximum benefit in terms of stability of awareness as opposed to kind of sleep is first thing in the morning.

• 54:55Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 54:56Speaker 01

  Um, I'm always reminded of a, an email we got in from a guy who said, look, I'm loving this meditation, but to be honest, the meditation thing isn't the bit I'm excited about. The, the difference is that when I meditate first thing in the morning, I'm more mindful throughout my day. I make better choices. I eat the right foods. I actually do follow through and go to the gym. I actually do communicate better with my wife and.

• 55:20Lewis Howes?

  I don't react to people.

• 55:22Speaker 01

  Exactly. Exactly. So somehow by setting up first thing in the day, we are that much more likely to be mindful throughout the day. So I think that's a really important thing. If you look at kind of just basic habit stuff, habit formation, same time, same place is is a useful thing. Again, don't allow that to be an obstacle. If you find yourself somewhere else at a different time, it's still fine. Better to better to do the meditation. But a trick that I think works especially well is called coupling. I don't know if you've ever heard of this. So if you're if you're brushing your teeth every morning, make it brush your teeth and meditation. Or if it maybe it's a cup of tea.

• 56:00Lewis Howes?

  At the same time?

• 56:01Speaker 01

  Well, definitely be more mindful of brushing your teeth, but actually to do the activity. So yeah, to find something that you do in your life every day. And to attach meditation to it. So it just becomes kind of part of the shared joy.

• 56:16Lewis Howes?

  It's second nature, yeah.

• 56:17Speaker 01

  Exactly. Oh, breakfast and meditation, shower and meditation.

• 56:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 56:20Speaker 01

  And it just becomes kind of, it works really well. And if you still struggle, put it in your diary. Kind of actually prioritize the health of your mind to such an extent that you say, hey, you know what? My happiness and the happiness of the people around me is worthy of a 10 minute space in my diary.

• 56:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 56:39Speaker 01

  And I think that will make a make a real difference.

• 56:43Lewis Howes?

  Is physical activity before or after meditation, a good thing, a bad thing? Does it benefit? Does it not benefit?

• 56:50Speaker 01

  I think it's just a thing.

• 56:51Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 56:52Speaker 01

  Like, no, I wouldn't.

• 56:53Lewis Howes?

  It's not gonna hurt you.

• 56:53Speaker 01

  No, a lot of people I've spoken to, and it's a really personal thing. Some people love the feeling of exhausting the body first. And they find that meditation is much easier after doing that. Other people find it's a great way of preparing the mind to go and exercise. So I think it can work either way.

• 57:12Lewis Howes?

  What's the future of meditation like? I mean, this is something I've been hearing more and more people talk about. That there's gonna, you know, Unplug is the center in Santa Monica.

• 57:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:21Lewis Howes?

  It's a meditation center, like a, it's kind of like a yoga practice for meditation, you know, you do hour long sessions. Where do you see meditation going? You know, obviously your app has blown up six and a half million users.

• 57:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:35Lewis Howes?

  Tons of apps out there.

• 57:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:36Lewis Howes?

  More books about it.

• 57:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:38Lewis Howes?

  Do you feel like it's going to die off eventually? Do you feel like this is a small trend that's gonna

• 57:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:43Lewis Howes?

  fade at some point and people are gonna get back to realizing that the mind isn't invaluable? I don't know. Or do you think that it's just gonna get bigger and bigger and more saturated of everyone's gonna be doing this? They're gonna be teaching in schools.

• 57:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:55Lewis Howes?

  Where do you see it going?

• 57:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's interesting, like, I was just thinking of a phrase one of my Tibetan teachers said, like, with meditation, it's a bit like swallowing a porcupine, like, it's not coming back out. And, um, and in the same way, one, I think as a society, once we've kind of started out on this journey, can't really kind of change it. I think once people become more aware of the importance of mental health and the health of the mind generally, you can't really be less aware of that. You know, we could ignore it, but you just have to look at the, the, how physical health and how we've kind of related to physical exercise over the last kind of thirty years to see what the pattern is. So people start to become more aware of it. Scientists start to become more interested in it.

• 58:38Speaker 01

  We get the science and we get the research and we get a better understanding of why it's important. That starts to influence kind of normally kind of fairly either early adopters or it's very kind of high level. And it's kind of governments start to look at it. And, you know, in, in the UK, there's even kind of a government panel on mindfulness and meditation. And kind of looking at how does it apply to the judicial? Like, how does it apply to, yeah, people in jail, to schools, to education? And

• 59:06Lewis Howes?

  People in the military.

• 59:07Speaker 01

  Exactly. But, yeah, so it's, it's really kind of broad. And when you look at right now, it already is available. Like, we make it available to people in jails. We make it available to schools, um, and to the people in the military have used it. I think it's, it's already part of so many different environments, even kind of, you know, we have companies of a hundred thousand plus kind of using kind of headspace. If you, if you think kind of it's already in all those things, there is an element of kind of You know, faddish behavior that comes with everything. So I, I think perhaps eventually kind of the media might kind of tire a bit, but I don't think that will make it any less important.

• 59:48Lewis Howes?

  Got you.

• 59:48Speaker 01

  I just think we will have a more refined understanding. And I also think there'll be a shift away from just awareness. And again, although it sounds a bit kind of cliche towards compassion.

• 59:58Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 59:59Speaker 01

  I think there's already research, ton of research going into it. And, and what is the impact of meditation, not only on ourselves as individuals, but also on those around us? I think that will be the biggest kind of shift.

• 1:00:10Lewis Howes?

  Okay, cool. A couple of final questions for you.

• 1:00:13Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:00:14Lewis Howes?

  And before I ask the final questions, we didn't talk about this beforehand, but is there like a special discount or code people can use to go try this right now that I can send people to or?

• 1:00:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, um, you can just try it.

• 1:00:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:26Speaker 01

  Free. See if you like it. And I would say to anyone, even the most skeptical, try 10 minutes.

• 1:00:32Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:00:32Speaker 01

  And try it for 10 minutes a day. Like it's completely free.

• 1:00:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:36Speaker 01

  Like 10 minutes a day for 10 days. Just see it as an experiment to yourself. Do you feel any different? If you don't?

• 1:00:42Lewis Howes?

  Don't, don't use it again.

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  Nothing lost. Don't use it again. But if you see a difference, then maybe you might start thinking differently about looking after the health of the mind.

• 1:00:49Lewis Howes?

  And even if you do it once a week, it's better than nothing.

• 1:00:52Speaker 01

  Hundred percent. Like, yeah.

• 1:00:54Lewis Howes?

  Starts somewhere.

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  E- e- exactly. Yeah. It's as much as consistency is important, like, yeah, uh, be flexible as well and start, start in a place that feels comfortable.

• 1:01:03Lewis Howes?

  And there's times where I'll go even months without doing, you know, meditation. And I'm like, you know what? What am I doing? This is something that's important. It's just like, again, when you focus it on like, would I go months without working out?

• 1:01:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:14Lewis Howes?

  Probably wouldn't, you know, if you're an avid person that likes to be healthy. Um, so just take that into account and like, this is just as important.

• 1:01:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:23Lewis Howes?

  10 minutes is nothing.

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:25Lewis Howes?

  You know, for the benefit, just doing this for five minutes before.

• 1:01:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:28Lewis Howes?

  I feel so much calmer and relaxed and, you know, refreshed at the same time.

• 1:01:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:33Lewis Howes?

  It's just, it continues to remind me every time I do it. So, um, I'll link this up in the show notes afterwards. So check out the show notes here in a second. The app is called Headspace for you guys, uh, who, to check that out on the app store. It's in I, iTunes and.

• 1:01:48Speaker 01

  And Android.

• 1:01:48Lewis Howes?

  Android and everything, right? Yeah. Okay, cool.

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, web and.

• 1:01:50Lewis Howes?

  Um, final three questions. What are you most grateful for in your life recently?

• 1:01:57Speaker 01

  Uh, I think the arrival of our, of our little boy.

• 1:02:01Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, how old is he?

• 1:02:02Speaker 01

  So he's, he's eighteen months old now, just, just passed.

• 1:02:05Lewis Howes?

  Congrats.

• 1:02:06Speaker 01

  And um, it's been an extraordinarily uh, kind of exciting roller coaster time, you know? And um, mindfulness has been so valuable.

• 1:02:18Lewis Howes?

  Huge.

• 1:02:19Speaker 01

  In, in the midst of it all, you know, it's, cause it's so exciting, but any parent, you know, you know, it's, um, it's also exhausting, but he has brought so much joy into our house and I'm very grateful for him.

• 1:02:30Lewis Howes?

  Did you ever think you'd have a child?

• 1:02:32Speaker 01

  As a monk, I never thought I'd have a child. So it was, yeah.

• 1:02:35Lewis Howes?

  You never dreamed of this, huh?

• 1:02:36Speaker 01

  I think as a, as a, as a younger guy, you know, like in my late teens, I really, really kind of found he was really important to me. And I always dreamed of having a kid, but once I'd made the commitment to be a monk, I was kind of like,

• 1:02:47Lewis Howes?

  You accepted it.

• 1:02:48Speaker 01

  Okay, so that's not happening. And then all of a sudden, here I am with a little boy and, uh, don't know if it's kind of relevant, but I, I feel like in terms of gratefulness, a couple of years back when I arrived in America, I actually found out I had um, I had cancer, testicular cancer.

• 1:03:02Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:03:03Speaker 01

  And so again, we sat in a, sat in a room with a doctor and the doctor was kind of like, you know, like if you want to have kids, like, you know, you've got three or four days, kind of just,

• 1:03:11Lewis Howes?

  Shut up.

• 1:03:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, so again, kind of,

• 1:03:13Lewis Howes?

  Three or four days?

• 1:03:14Speaker 01

  Yes, until the operation.

• 1:03:16Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 1:03:16Speaker 01

  And he's like, you know, you need to go to the bank and stuff and that kind of banking.

• 1:03:19Lewis Howes?

  The sperm bank.

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

  Exactly. And then so, but again, I found myself in a situation where I kind of thought like, wow, okay, so maybe I'm not gonna have, even though I'm not a monk anymore, maybe I'm not gonna have a kid. And then, two months after the operation, my, my wife got pregnant.

• 1:03:31Lewis Howes?

  Shut up.

• 1:03:32Speaker 01

  And uh, and here we are, you know, so,

• 1:03:34Lewis Howes?

  Holy cow, man.

• 1:03:35Speaker 01

  I feel grateful for many things.

• 1:03:37Lewis Howes?

  That's incredible. Even when you like, go to the sperm bank, there's no guarantee.

• 1:03:41Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:03:42Lewis Howes?

  Holy cow.

• 1:03:43Speaker 01

  So we were just incredibly grateful, you know, it's,

• 1:03:46Lewis Howes?

  Wow, man.

• 1:03:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:47Lewis Howes?

  I didn't know about this operation. That's crazy. That's a whole nother conversation.

• 1:03:50Speaker 01

  There's another conversation.

• 1:03:51Lewis Howes?

  How important was meditation during,

• 1:03:54Speaker 01

  I mean,

• 1:03:54Lewis Howes?

  During, first of the stress of knowing that that was happening.

• 1:03:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I didn't even know it happened. It literally happened. I don't want to scare anyone, but like it literally happened overnight, kind of. Um, it wasn't like uh, a, the tumor was growing, but it was growing in such a way without going into too much detail that it kind of grew from the center. So there's no way of kind of knowing it was happening until one night, something kind of changed and it was like, oh, I think I need to go to ER. And I went and found out and it was really advanced and very aggressive. And I had to have the operation here four days, four days later.

• 1:04:26Lewis Howes?

  How did you, what did you do in those four days? How was your mind racing, man?

• 1:04:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was crazy.

• 1:04:30Lewis Howes?

  That's like twenty years of practice to the test now.

• 1:04:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:33Lewis Howes?

  Like, let's see how good of a monk you are.

• 1:04:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's true, it's true. You know, like, I think initially, there's just the shock of it.

• 1:04:41Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 1:04:42Speaker 01

  You know, and having to share it with family and stuff and my wife and that was, that was tricky, you know?

• 1:04:47Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:04:47Speaker 01

  Um, and then there was the kind of, there was even, you know, first you find out and then it's like, okay, well, that's kind of, it's not good. Like, but let's find out how bad it is. And then, you know, go and see the doctor and the doctor's saying, well, we should do some scans because it may well have spread, you know? So then there's the uncertainty of like, has it gone to the brain?

• 1:05:04Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 1:05:05Speaker 01

  And I think throughout that time, like having that sense of being grounded and the, the most thing, the thing I'm most grateful for in that situation from the training and meditation was, was being okay with uncertainty.

• 1:05:20Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:05:21Speaker 01

  And not knowing. And in that moment, because the truth is, in that moment, you don't know anything. Like, does the could be, might this happen, should this happen, could this happen? But the truth is, in that moment, you're sitting in a chair in a doctor's surgery, you're alive, there's no pain. It's kind of like, okay, this is, this is actually what's happening in the moment. Everything else is an idea.

• 1:05:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:42Speaker 01

  And so kind of keeping kind of present on the side of the road rather than kind of, you know, hopping in the cancer car and kind of driving miles down the road thinking about it. That for me was the most valuable thing.

• 1:05:53Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Holy cow.

• 1:05:56Speaker 01

  It was a surprise, big surprise.

• 1:05:58Lewis Howes?

  My gosh, I can only imagine.

• 1:05:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:00Lewis Howes?

  Well, well, congrats on making it through the other side.

• 1:06:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it feels good.

• 1:06:03Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh. Um, now we'll have to have a whole nother conversation about this. Um, final two questions. It's many, many years from now.

• 1:06:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:15Lewis Howes?

  Uh, and it's your final day.

• 1:06:17Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:06:18Lewis Howes?

  On Earth.

• 1:06:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:19Lewis Howes?

  And, uh.

• 1:06:20Speaker 01

  Big question, man.

• 1:06:21Lewis Howes?

  Headspace is deleted.

• 1:06:23Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:06:24Lewis Howes?

  And every book you've written is gone, every, this interview is gone.

• 1:06:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:28Lewis Howes?

  Videos you put out there, gone. I know you've got a lot of content on it. A lot of videos, a lot of content. Uh, but for whatever reason, it's erased and your friends and family are all there. They give you a piece of paper and they say, um, this is all that we're going to be reminded of you physically. The words you write down here is going to be the message you leave behind. And there's three truths you want us, we want you to share with us.

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:06:50Lewis Howes?

  Three things you know to be true about everything you've learned in this experience from childhood to being a monk to meditation to whatever you create for the rest of your life. What would you pass behind for us to remember and to use as principles as three truths?

• 1:07:05Speaker 01

  Goodness me. I think, I mean, I was tempted at first to say I would, I would leave it blank. And not as a, to, to dismiss the notion. But actually I, I feel in, in words, we kind of limit ourselves, you know? I feel every time I speak about meditation in a way, moving further away from the experience itself, which is

• 1:07:31Lewis Howes?

  Talking about it.

• 1:07:32Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly. And I feel like as a, as a world, as a society, words so often divide us. Uh, of course they bring us together as well, but so often they divide us. And in our mind, even if we don't speak the words, we are always judging and labeling and dividing. And if we could only just for a moment, like silence unites, like I sat in a room last week with three, 4,000 people doing meditation, leading meditation. And in that moment, all we were doing as a group was experiencing the human condition. Like, we were all the same. Like, it didn't matter what people were wearing, what names they had, what culture they came from, what age they were, kind of what they

• 1:08:16Speaker 01

  believed in, what politics they followed, like, we were all just following the breath. And I love the idea of that unity. You know, that in, yeah, in silence, we, we are united. But if you if you then said, look, Andy, that's a load of nonsense. Like, still, give me the three things, you know. Then I I would probably say um the first one, appreciation, like precious human life. Like this, it's so easy to forget that our time is limited.

• 1:08:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:46Speaker 01

  And we live very often with this delusion that we're going to live forever. We know intellectually that we won't, but that's not the way we live our life. So number one would be appreciation or precious human life. Number two, I think would be recognizing and embracing change or impermanence. Everything is always changing. Nothing stays the same. So much of our our suffering in life comes from trying to hold on to things or being fearful of what might arise in the future. If we recognize that everything is always changing, that everything's always coming and going, then we're free.

• 1:09:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:21Speaker 01

  Like, there's a there's a completely different feeling kind of to life. And the last one would be probably acceptance. And I think we live with this idea that life should be kind of, we should always be happy, that everything should always be as we always want it to be. That's not the nature of life.

• 1:09:40Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:09:41Speaker 01

  Because of that, we're always fighting with life. Now, we're fighting in our mind, fighting outside, like, it doesn't matter, like, there's this sense of kind of resisting. We want life to be different from how it is. Life is how it is, and if we can only be okay with that, acceptance, then, you know, we we live a very different kind of life. We feel very different. It doesn't mean, to be clear, acceptance doesn't mean just going with the flow when someone's doing something very negative. It doesn't mean kind of just saying, oh, okay, then I don't need to do anything. That's a very different thing.

• 1:10:13Lewis Howes?

  But you can still choose to change your outcome.

• 1:10:15Speaker 01

  Exactly. But it's with those things that we're unable to change in life, can we be at ease with them? So appreciation, impermanence, and acceptance would be my three.

• 1:10:24Lewis Howes?

  I love that. That's great. Uh, before I ask the final question, I want to acknowledge you, Andy, for the choices you've made in your life to first leave everything behind and go learn something and and develop your your mind, your heart, your body.

• 1:10:40Lewis Howes?

  With the practice that you have and then to have the courage to leave that, which I can only imagine how fearful and scary that could be at that time. To go back into something else that you hadn't been used to for a while. And then say, I'm going to use everything I've learned for the last decade and impact the world to the best of my ability. I think it's incredible, your amount of service, your amount of of love and compassion that you have for humanity. And helping all of us heal whatever that is going on in our minds and our hearts that isn't serving us. So I want to acknowledge you for your incredible gift to humanity.

• 1:11:19Speaker 01

  It's very generous to you. Like, yeah, it's really, really kind. I, I don't know, you know, you know what it's like, like for me, I'm just, I'm living this life and, and I, I genuinely, anything that I have. I have to offer, I've learned it from people far more impressive to me. And I've learned it from teachers and this is a, these techniques, these teachings, they've been around for thousands of years. They, and I think whenever I teach meditation, I always kind of think what I'm teaching has been refined by how many, how many individuals over how many hundreds, how many thousands of years. And I'm just another one and there will be kind of many more who can refine it and simplify in a way far more eloquently than, than me.

• 1:12:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. No, I appreciate it.

• 1:12:06Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:12:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And the final question, before I ask the final question, you know, as you were going through things today, the meditation today, and as I listen to them all the time. The way you do it is much different than when I hear other people do it. And what I love, what, what came up for me was that meditation for me comes, when you're listening to a guided meditation.

• 1:12:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:26Lewis Howes?

  It comes between, in the space between the words.

• 1:12:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:29Lewis Howes?

  It's the pauses that you have, they're very intentional, I'm assuming, in their length of time. And that's when everything starts to like connect with me.

• 1:12:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:40Lewis Howes?

  It's not actually when you're saying the words.

• 1:12:42Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:12:42Lewis Howes?

  It's when you stop saying the words.

• 1:12:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:45Lewis Howes?

  And I'm like, it's just so, everything you do is very intentional, I'm aware of it and it's so powerful. So I want everyone to make sure they check out and try this for yourself because it's going to be really transformative for your life. And impact the people around you because how you show up on a daily basis impacts others and you want to show up your best.

• 1:13:02Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 1:13:03Lewis Howes?

  Um, final question is what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:13:09Speaker 01

  Again, not wanting to dodge the dodge the question, but I would encourage anyone to actually, I think we find greatness in letting go of these labels and notions of of what we perhaps because what I I thought was greatness when I was younger, turns out that was something else. That was that was maybe for me that it it didn't turn out to be true. And what I thought wasn't important when I was younger. Those turn out to be the really important things to to learn to be to love well and to be able to be loved and to be kind. And yeah, all those other things to, you know,

• 1:13:51Speaker 01

  to be successful with what we're doing in in the world like that's important. But it's probably not as important as being happy, as having peace of mind of having kind of healthy, happy relationships. And remembering that we are just one person of many on a very crowded planet. And each and every one of us has a responsibility, not only to ourselves for our health and happiness, but also to those around us immediately and people we've never even met on the other side of the world.

• 1:14:21Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. Andy, thanks so much for being here.

• 1:14:23Speaker 01

  It's a real pleasure. Thanks for having me in. Thank you.

• 1:14:27Lewis Howes?

  There you have it, gang. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Again, meditation is something that I continue to dive in and talk about and apply to my own life because I see such incredible benefits. I'm not saying you have to meditate to achieve your dreams and and achieve greatness and get to the next level. Uh, and there's a lot of peak athletes that I talk to who actually don't meditate. They don't follow a specific practice. But I believe it is extremely helpful, especially if you're not clear. If you get distracted, if you ever feel overwhelmed, if you've ever feeling stressed before, I feel like it's extremely important and valuable tool to use to help you stay balanced and focused on a day to day basis

• 1:15:12Lewis Howes?

  and not feel the overwhelm or the busyness that comes in our lives. So I hope you guys enjoy this and make sure to take up the offer on Andy. Check out LewisHowes.com/309 to learn about the Headspace offer and

• 1:15:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah guys, make sure to check it out. Let me know what you guys think of this one. Share with me your thoughts over on Twitter @lewishouse. And please share this with your friends. LewisHowes.com/309. If you know someone who feels stressed or overwhelmed, or could use some meditation in their lives, and maybe they haven't tried it yet, and you've been telling them to, send them this interview, and maybe we'll get them to jump on board and give it a try. Thank you guys again so very much. I love you. You mean the world to me. And I hope you're constantly going after your dreams, and know how much that you do matter. Thank you again. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.