339 Rainn Wilson on Acting, Spirituality and Living Your Purpose

"If you just believe in yourself, it's a lot of ego." - Rainn Wilson If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video and more at http://lewishowescom/339 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 339 with New York Times bestselling author and actor Rainne Wilson. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:34Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone to this very special episode with the one and only Rainne Wilson. That's right. Dwight from The Office is in the house today and I'm extremely excited to dive deeper behind who this human being actually is. And wow, did he blow me away with everything he shared. I'm going to get into who he is and what we covered in just a moment. But to give you a quick recap of what's going on, I'm actually leaving for Argentina tomorrow to go play in the Pan American Championships with the USA Men's National Handball Team and I am so pumped. I've played in the Pan Am Championships two times before, once in Buenos Aires and once in Uruguay.

• 1:17Lewis Howes?

  And now we're playing back again in Argentina in Buenos Aires. So if anyone is listening from Buenos Aires, please come and support the Men's Handball Team for the USA. And I'd love to say hi to you guys down there for all the School of Greatness fans in Buenos Aires. And you can just check out Pan American Championships or follow my newsletter at lewishouse.com to get all the updates. And for those that want to watch the games live online, again, follow me on Twitter, on Snapchat, Lewis underscore Howes, and just subscribe to my newsletter at lewishouse.com to get all the updates. And you can support us by watching live online. You know, it's always been a dream of mine to pursue my dream of playing in the Olympics.

• 2:00Lewis Howes?

  And although we did not qualify this year, it's still an honor for me to wear USA across my chest and go compete at such a high level. And there'll actually be two Olympic teams there that we'll play against. So for me, it's going to be a lot of fun. And I'm always pushing the limits on my dreams. I'm always going after them. The scarier the dream, the more I want to challenge myself to see what's possible inside me. And that means also building my business and creating the finances and the financial results and the financial gains that I need so I can support my lifestyle of pursuing handball, of pursuing different passions, of traveling the world. And a lot of people ask me, how do I build an online business?

• 2:43Lewis Howes?

  How do I build this audience, generate this traffic, generate these programs and generate sales? And in about a week and a half, two weeks, I'm launching a free video series called The Master Profit Plan. That's going to show you exactly how I've built my online business so that I can have the flexibility and freedom that I do to pursue my dreams as well. So make sure to get on my newsletter email list. It's free. Go to LewisHowes.com and subscribe because you're going to want to make sure you get access to these free videos. I'm talking about The Master Profit Plan. If you're an entrepreneur or you want to build an online business, then make sure to sign up for my newsletter right now because I'm going to be emailing you very soon on when those come out.

• 3:26Lewis Howes?

  Now, the man of the hour, I am so pumped. We've got Rain Wilson in the house. For those who don't know who he is, he's an actor, a writer, a comedian and philanthropist, best known for his Emmy nominated portrayal of Dwight on NBC's The Office. He is now equally known for his millions of Twitter followers and the inspiring media company he's founded, Soul Pancake, which launched a New York Times bestselling book of the same name and his own memoir, The Bassoon King, that came out in 2015, which is hilarious. I got myself a few copies. We'll link it up here at the end. Make sure to get yourself some copies as well.

• 4:06Lewis Howes?

  And all of the show notes of this episode are going to be back at lewishouse.com/339. So if you're already excited about this interview and you know it's going to be amazing, then make sure to click on the share button right now on your podcast app or wherever you're listening to this, share it out on Twitter and share it out on Facebook, lewishouse.com/339. Some of the main things we talked about today, we talked about how much Rain struggled as an actor before he actually made it on The Office. No, he wasn't an overnight success. It didn't just happen out of nowhere. It actually was a process where he almost quit many times. And he talks about the entire process as a creative actor and all the different struggles and opportunities that he did have.

• 4:51Lewis Howes?

  Then we talked about what would he be doing right now if he'd never got the role on The Office and how does life be? We talk about that. We talk about his role of spirituality and how it keeps him grounded in his career and what he thinks every other actor or entrepreneur should do to stay grounded as well. We talk about the number one big question people have about life. Also, whether or not we should be focusing on our purpose or the thing we love to do the most. We actually went pretty deep in this conversation and I think we talked about things that Rain usually doesn't talk about, but actually really enjoyed discussing and diving into. And kind of went off on a few different tangents here or there that I thought were fascinating.

• 5:36Lewis Howes?

  And it really showed me how incredibly human and wise that Rain actually is. He doesn't just play characters, but he's actually an incredibly intelligent, wise, loving human being. So I am so pumped and excited for you guys to connect, to learn, discover and adventure on this interview with the one, the only Rain Wilson.

• 6:04Lewis Howes?

  Well, welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast. I'm very excited about today's guest. Ray Nelson is in the house. Good to see you, man.

• 6:10Speaker 01

  Nice to see you.

• 6:11Lewis Howes?

  Thanks for coming into the Greatness Studio. We're neighbors, kind of. You live in LA, so that works.

• 6:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, there we go. Yeah.

• 6:17Lewis Howes?

  That works. And you've been actually doing a lot of podcasts lately. I've seen you on a lot of podcasts, Tom Bilyeu's podcast. I think you were on, were you on Tim Ferriss's show too?

• 6:24Speaker 01

  Tim Ferriss, yeah.

• 6:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, so I've seen you kind of like getting out there, which I think is brilliant.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  Did you see me kick Tim Ferriss in the face?

• 6:30Lewis Howes?

  I did not.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:31Lewis Howes?

  But I need to look at that now.

• 6:32Speaker 01

  Cause we talked about it. I kicked him in the, I talked about kicking him in the head on his podcast and then we actually did it and put it up on the, uh, I forget, on Instagram, I think.

• 6:42Lewis Howes?

  That's good. I like it. I like, I'll check the Instagram, yeah. And you know what? I really, I'm, I'm impressed because you're putting yourself out there in a way with new media that a lot of, I think, actors, celebrities, people in the entertainment business aren't doing, or they're more afraid of, or they don't see the value of it. So for me, I'm impressed that you're putting yourself out there and doing the podcast circuit and kind of getting your message out there. I think it's inspiring.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  You know, it's a, it's such a new world. I mean, who is listening to these silly things called podcasts even five years ago? People are like, podcast? What's that? So it's a, that's a new media as well. But yeah, with Soul Pancake, a digital media company.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  And I'm just intrigued by new ways we have of communicating

• 7:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 7:25Speaker 01

  big ideas with each other. So I love being a part of that, even at my old senile age.

• 7:32Lewis Howes?

  Well, you're 50 now, right?

• 7:33Speaker 01

  I'm 50, bro.

• 7:34Lewis Howes?

  It's crazy.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:35Lewis Howes?

  What are you most grateful for in your life?

• 7:36Speaker 01

  I'm still fit. I will wrestle you to the ground.

• 7:39Lewis Howes?

  Will you kick me in the face too? Can you reach me? I'm pretty tall.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  I'm not gonna kick you in the face yet, cause I, I would pull a, a hammy. Yeah. But, um, I'm pretty spry for 50. Yeah, I'm surprisingly spry.

• 7:50Lewis Howes?

  I like it.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  Right, Tiffany?

• 7:51Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. And what are you grateful for recently in your life?

• 7:55Speaker 01

  Oh, that's such a good question because that's really what it's all about. What am I, uh, what am I super grateful for? Uh, I know this sounds hackneyed, but, uh, I'm really grateful for my family. It's really been in the last year and a half of kind of semi-unemployment that I've just, uh, really allowed myself to just be in, in gratitude of spending time with my wife and my son and being in our home and having a home. My life was so much about my work for decades. It was all career and workaholism and trying to move the, push the, the ball down the field and the needle up the dial and, you know, moving things forward and getting things done.

• 8:37Speaker 01

  And now, like, we just had Memorial Day weekend and it was just nothing better than just hanging out with my wife and son and, and seeing a stupid movie and taking a hike and, and, and being with them. So I, I know it's corny, but that's really what I'm most grateful for.

• 8:53Lewis Howes?

  That's cool. And what was life like for you before the office and then after the office?

• 8:59Speaker 01

  Well, um, I go into that a lot in my book, but I-

• 9:03Lewis Howes?

  Which is called-

• 9:04Speaker 01

  The Bassoon King.

• 9:05Lewis Howes?

  The Bassoon King. We'll have it linked up and make sure everyone gets a copy of that.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  Yep, that'd, that'd be nice. It's, um, it's a fun read. But one of the reasons I wrote the book is, uh, that's a really fun part of my story to tell is that people kind of think that, oh, people on TV shows were just always blessed and just doors just opened for them and they magically had this talent and they showed up to LA and they just get discovered and you just get waltzed into NBC and you're given a show and, and it, you know, I struggled long and hard. That's what she said. Um, and I was, uh, I got out of acting school around 1990 in New York City and I did, um, nothing but theater for almost 10 years.

• 9:50Lewis Howes?

  In, in New York?

• 9:51Speaker 01

  In New York City and I drove a moving van. I was on a literally like poverty, like trying to figure out like, could I afford, you know, a Chinese takeout bucket of noodles for dinner?

• 10:04Lewis Howes?

  Seven bucks or something, yeah.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. We're talking like 3.50.

• 10:07Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  Even a, do I do-

• 10:08Lewis Howes?

  Back in 1990, yeah, right?

• 10:10Speaker 01

  Do I, yeah, I would get the day-old bagels.

• 10:12Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  Cause you could get six for a dollar. Yeah, exactly. And my wife and I, I lived in an abandoned beer brewery for a year and a half. And so I had some real struggles going from that. I couldn't, I didn't have a decent agent. I couldn't even get auditions for like, the, kind of the telling thing about being an actor in New York is like, did you audition for Law and Order?

• 10:35Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  And I couldn't even get an audition for Law and Order. I was there the whole, for 10 years, I never had an audition for Law and Order, which was crazy. It took me going back to LA and then getting some stuff going and then on a trip back to New York, auditioned and got into Law and Order.

• 10:48Lewis Howes?

  Finally got it, yeah.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  But this is all a very long way of saying that my life before The Office was one of incredible struggle just to survive.

• 11:02Lewis Howes?

  All the way up until The Office, because you'd done a bunch of TV and movie before then, right?

• 11:06Speaker 01

  The few years before The Office, I was making a little bit more money. You know, I would do a pilot here, a little movie part there. But that's the thing about acting is that there's all these incredible actors in LA that do these guest spots and appearances on shows and appearances in movies and stuff like that. And that pays really poorly.

• 11:24Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 11:25Speaker 01

  It's not until you're a series regular on a TV show or a movie star that you actually get the real

• 11:31Lewis Howes?

  Make a living.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  Paycheck. Yeah, exactly. So I was doing well. I was making, you know, 90,000 a year doing acting. And I was like, hey, that's pretty good. But that's, you know, most people on actual TV shows are making that per week.

• 11:44Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  So it's a very different, you know, it's a very different paradigm. So it was a lot of struggle.

• 11:51Lewis Howes?

  And so this is of 1990 when you graduated, is that right?

• 11:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, from NYU.

• 11:56Lewis Howes?

  1990 to 2005 is when The Office began, is that right?

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, 2004, I started shooting it.

• 12:02Lewis Howes?

  So essentially 14 years of consistently grinding.

• 12:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:06Lewis Howes?

  Not getting the opportunities.

• 12:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:09Lewis Howes?

  Trying to make it.

• 12:10Speaker 01

  Trying to make it. And, you know, almost quitting acting.

• 12:14Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 12:15Speaker 01

  And that's where I really That's where kind of spirituality comes into play for me because I would always get to that point of like, do I let it all go? Do I move out of LA? Do I move to Portland, Oregon with my wife and just teach at some college or start a, you know, work in a community theater or something like that? But then I would always get that one, the universe would send me little signs, just like I would get that one better little job, you know?

• 12:42Lewis Howes?

  Pay for like the next three, four months.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. I'd get some little commercial and all of a sudden a check would move me forward. Or I'd get a better job and all of a sudden I'd get on a Broadway show or I would get a, you know, a really good guest spot on a TV show and or I'd get a better agent or I'd meet some new producer and some door would open. So I would kind of be always really open to the universe like, what do you have in store for me, universe? What's happening next? And as, as long as doors were opening and there was movement forward, I was like, ah, I just gotta stick through this. And 14 years later, was able to get in the office.

• 13:19Lewis Howes?

  It's crazy. I talked to a guy, what's his name? Max Greenfield. Do you know him?

• 13:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. He's awesome.

• 13:25Lewis Howes?

  I would work out with him at the CrossFit gym down the street a few years ago. And he was like, you know, for 10 years I didn't get anything. And I thought about quitting over and over. And it's some similar story. Like I'd get a little thing here and there and I almost quit and then I booked a new girl and now like life has changed.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  But you see, but there's a difference between, you know, the universe opening doors for you and delusion. Cause you'll meet a lot of actors in LA that are like kind of sun baked and their brains are a little bit fried and they've been in the world of like ego and self and self-promotion for way too long. And they're, and they just keep staying with it. And you just want to say to them, man, it's time to move back to Omaha and teach community college or work in an insurance officer. Just find something else or go be of service somewhere in the world. Cause it's not happening. So you have to, it's a, it's a, it's an interesting line between is the universe leading me forward and our doors opening? Or am I in self-delusion and self-will so much that it's never going

• 14:24Speaker 01

  to happen, but I'm deluded myself into thinking?

• 14:26Lewis Howes?

  How do you know the difference though? Cause it took you 14 years, but I guess you were making enough to get by after whatever.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  I always made a living. And like I said, I always just, just when I would think about quitting, some new little thing would happen to move me, to move me further down the path. And I was like, well, as long as I'm going further down the path. Uh, it's like the Amway Pyramid, you know, Amway where you have to sell like

• 14:48Lewis Howes?

  Get to the next level.

• 14:49Speaker 01

  Pencils or moisturizer or something like that and you get to and then people under use sell like My wife calls it the uh, the Amway Pyramid.

• 14:57Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 14:57Speaker 01

  Working in LA.

• 14:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What do you think you would have done if you would have quit, say, you know, whatever, a couple of years before the office? If you had to move somewhere else, where would you have moved and what would you be doing?

• 15:07Speaker 01

  Well, my wife and I are from the Northwest. I'm from Seattle. She's from Portland. We have a little cabin up near Bend.

• 15:12Lewis Howes?

  I love Bend. It's beautiful.

• 15:14Speaker 01

  Beautiful, right? Uh, can we, can you edit this from the podcast? I don't want people moving to Bend.

• 15:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, we can. Yeah, yeah. I know. I have some entrepreneur friends who've moved there and they're like, they're never moving.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  It's heaven. Um, yeah. So we, it's some vague idea of living in the Pacific Northwest and doing small theater and teaching. You know, some combination of that. I, I think that, you know, I, I grew up in Seattle and um,

• 15:42Speaker 01

  Kind of by happenstance, my family moved to suburban Chicago and this high school had a really amazing theater department. And that's when I started acting. I was 17. I kind of started a little late. But my plan was always go to the University of Washington in Seattle and stick around Seattle like most of my Seattle high school friends are. And, you know, teach high school English or something like that. So that's kind of my, my path was kind of in my mind, kind of set. And then all of a sudden this acting thing happened.

• 16:07Lewis Howes?

  What was the dream for you growing up? Was it to, if you had like any dream, was it to be an actor or was it to teach?

• 16:13Speaker 01

  You know, I, I, I, I knew I liked acting. I never in a million years thought that I would make a career at it. I never knew anyone who was an artist who actually got paid for making art. My dad was an artist and he um, wrote a bunch of really corny, bizarre, Science fiction and fantasy books while I was growing up. One of them got published and I think he got a check for like $500 for it.

• 16:39Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  And um, I knew, we had Bohemian Seattle friends growing up. Um, I was a member, my family were Baha'is, members of the Baha'i faith. And so we knew kind of like, kind of hippie-ish, Bohemian Seattleite folks and who were writing poetry or painting things. And um, my dad's also a painter, but no one ever got paid for it. So. That's, this is, you know, I, I, I write about this in my book, but one of the, one of the main things that happened to me is when I, when I moved to Chicago, um, I started taking acting and I, and I started being good at it and I started getting cast in lead roles in the plays and, and the main reason that I got involved was girls all of a sudden liked me. So I was this totally dorky kid in Seattle who, I was on the chess

• 17:21Speaker 01

  team and model United Nations and marching band, playing the xylophone and

• 17:26Lewis Howes?

  Bassoon.

• 17:27Speaker 01

  And the bassoon, hence the bassoon king. And then, uh, I, I started doing the acting and, and girls started like liking me. And then, um, all of a sudden this whole new vistas opened up with, uh, the nerdy, but extremely cute theater girls.

• 17:42Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  Um, and so I went to my, uh, drama teacher and I, I never voiced this desire, this hope, this dream before to anyone in my life, but I went to my drama teacher, Suzanne Adams, who I still keep in touch with. And, and I said, on a break, I was like, Mrs. Adams, do you think that maybe someday I could potentially somehow be an actor, maybe?

• 18:09Lewis Howes?

  What year is this for you?

• 18:10Speaker 01

  This is like 83. I graduated in 84.

• 18:13Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 18:14Speaker 01

  And, um, and she was like, oh, yes, yes, you must, you, yes, you're very talented and you should go to school and you should study and travel the world and fall in love and you should read lots of books and go on adventures and have a great rich, rich, deep life. But yes, I think you absolutely could. And that was so inspiring to me.

• 18:34Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  Like that fed my soul and my heart and helped move me forward. For years afterward, I would remember

• 18:41Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 18:42Speaker 01

  what she said because it was so foreign to me, the idea of like, wait, getting paid to pretend to be people and get paid for that? I mean, I'd seen plays in Chicago. I knew that people were getting paid probably hundreds of dollars a week to pretend to be these characters and, and I, but that was always my thing was I never thought, I never sought out to be famous. I never thought sought out to be a celebrity or a TV star or anything like that. I, I just wanted to be a working actor and I thought I was going to be a theater working actor. So that would, what would my dream have been? To be in an ensemble of actors doing great works of theater at a, you know, a regional theater somewhere.

• 19:20Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Amazing. Gosh, it's interesting how, you know, I had great coaches and mentors growing up in sports. That was kind of my thing. And having one or two coaches be like, yeah, I believe you can achieve, you can be an All-American, you get a college scholarship, you can play professional. It was like those moments that we have growing up that really kind of shape our mindset.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:39Lewis Howes?

  It's crazy to think about.

• 19:40Speaker 01

  And then when I got out to LA, that just triggered my mind. It is, it is about mentorship and how important,

• 19:47Speaker 01

  if you are a teacher or a coach, it's important to be a mentor.

• 19:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:52Speaker 01

  And it's also important to look for those mentors.

• 19:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  When I got out to LA, I signed with this manager, Mark Schulman, who was a really great manager. And he, we sat down for our kind of first meeting and he's like, so what do you see yourself doing? And I think the Drew Carey Show was on at the time. I was like, well, I could be like one of those goofy guys on like the Drew Carey Show, who's like the fifth or sixth lead or something like that.

• 20:18Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 20:20Speaker 01

  One of those weirdos. And he was like, you know, I see it completely different for you. You know, and he was like, I see you starring in a TV show. I see you producing. I see you making content.

• 20:30Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  I see you writing, directing, whatever you want to do with your name above the title and really the sky's the limit with your talent. And I didn't see that in myself, but he saw it and was, that was also very helpful. So sometimes you need someone outside of yourself to kind of recognize the talent that's in you and say, hey, you're thinking too small, you know, you need to think better. But then again, what's the question, Lewis? Because if you,

• 21:00Speaker 01

  if you think that you have all this capacity and maybe you don't quite have that capacity, then you're in self-delusion.

• 21:06Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  So what is that?

• 21:08Lewis Howes?

  I can create anything I want.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. I'm going to be the next Lewis Howes.

• 21:12Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 21:13Speaker 01

  You know, and you may not have that capacity. That may not be your path.

• 21:16Lewis Howes?

  Right. It may not be your skill set or your talent either.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  It may not be your skill set.

• 21:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  Exactly. It's finding that, it's finding that skill set. And that's, and that's where, that's where, like I said before, I think spirituality comes into play because it's, it's in, in a process of prayer and meditation and connection and understanding that this physical life that we're on is just part of our spiritual journey, going on a spiritual journey.

• 21:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:43Speaker 01

  If you look at your life more as a spiritual journey, you will find those doors opening and find what your place is, I believe, more than.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  We live in a culture that values kind of self-will.

• 21:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  Over all things, you know, drive, determination, can-do spirit, pull yourself up by your own bootstraps and self-will. It's like, and that's all important. There are important qualities in that. Determination is important.

• 22:13Lewis Howes?

  Perseverance.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  Perseverance is super important.

• 22:15Lewis Howes?

  Belief.

• 22:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, belief in yourself, love of yourself, that's necessary to propel that. But it can also lead people astray.

• 22:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, so tell me more about your faith, because this is like the first time I heard about this earlier when I was researching. What's it called and what does it actually mean?

• 22:34Speaker 01

  Well, so I'm a member of the Baha'i faith, that's B-A-H-A-I. And my family, I grew up in a Baha'i family. Baha'i faith spread really rapidly in the late 60s and early 70s through the US and all over the world. When everyone was on a spiritual journey, you know, the Beatles were visiting the Maharishi and Cat Stevens became a Muslim. And Shirley MacLaine was communing with spirits from another dimension. And people were just very open to spiritual ideas at the time, just breaking away from the kind of fundamentalist.

• 23:05Lewis Howes?

  What they've always been told.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 23:07Lewis Howes?

  In their family life or whatever, and learning more about other religions and faiths.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, and they were very open to transcendental meditation or whatever it is. So a lot of people found the Baha'i faith at that time and became Baha'is, and that's what my parents did as well. I grew up in it. I left it for a long time when I, it's a part of my story in The Bassoon King is leaving, leaving my faith. And just wanting to be an artist in New York City, so.

• 23:35Lewis Howes?

  What's the faith kind of represent? Is it, is it kind of like takes all faith? Is that what I understood?

• 23:40Speaker 01

  People, people say that. I think that, it's really hard to sum up.

• 23:45Lewis Howes?

  I can imagine.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  In a, in a short podcast.

• 23:48Lewis Howes?

  I can imagine.

• 23:49Speaker 01

  Version.

• 23:49Lewis Howes?

  In a sentence.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  You could do a whole podcast just on what it is, but basically, Baha'is believe that there is only one God. And this all-seeing, all-loving, unknowable essence runs through everything. This dimension, many other dimensions, places, times, beyond time, beyond the laws of physics, let's say. And the way that this all-loving.

• 24:14Speaker 01

  Creative force in the universe educates humanity spiritually is by sending down divine teachers every couple hundred, every couple thousand years. So these divine teachers we all have known and heard of like Zoroaster and Krishna and the Buddha and Moses, Abraham, Jesus, Muhammad. And these, talking about the metaphor, moving the ball down the field.

• 24:41Lewis Howes?

  They're like Speaking my language now.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  There we go. I'm trying to use some sports analogies. I could use some tech analogies too. Here, here we go. Like this, I'm gonna bust this one out. It's like getting a new iPhone every year or two.

• 24:53Lewis Howes?

  There you go.

• 24:54Speaker 01

  Cause you've got the new technology coming out. You need to do the updates every once in a while. Well, humanity is the same way. You know, we need to update ourselves spiritually, just like iPhone updates. And these divine teachers come down and they help advance mankind and, and move them forward with compassion and love and spiritual virtues and the idea of service and detachment from the material world, from outcomes, from the vanities of self and, and ego. Exactly. And so Baha'is are followers of a man named Baha'u'llah. And that name means the glory of God in Arabic. And Baha'u'llah lived in Iran in the mid 1800s. And Baha'is believe that he's the newest of this line of teachers.

• 25:39Lewis Howes?

  Prophets and teachers.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. And he's, he's the newest divine teacher or spokesperson for God, bringing God's word to humanity in this day and age. And his, his writings are hundreds of books and letters and they're incredibly profound. They're all, it's from anything from international justice to, you know, the importance of a universal language, the elimination of racial prejudice, thinking of ourselves as all one human species inhabiting this planet, the equality of men and women, the essential harmony of science and religion, some really beautiful progressive ideas, especially coming from Iran.

• 26:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  In the 1850s and 60s.

• 26:22Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  When you can imagine how repressive it is now, even more repressive and backwards then.

• 26:28Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. So why did you leave and then come back? And how long were you kind of like away from the, you know, the practice?

• 26:36Speaker 01

  When I moved to New York City, uh, basically, long story short, I didn't want any morality in my life. You didn't want any morality? I didn't want morality. I didn't wanna, the Baha'i faith has, like all religious faiths, it has some moral laws. Some of which are very, very, uh, challenging in the modern world. So, like, premarital sex. Right. So, that was one that I really struggled with. And, um, I was having sex with my girlfriend and feeling really guilty about it. Yeah. Even though in the Baha'i faith, it's not, there isn't really a concept of like sin and hell and damnation or anything like that. It's like forbidden. It's like a law. It's like a rule.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  It's a, it's a rule, however, um, I, I would say forbidden is a too strong a word. Gotcha. It's a rule that helps one grow spiritually and helps one's soul, not our body, but it helps our soul become more whole and spiritual and enriched and, and, and evolve. That's the idea behind the laws. Um, drugs and alcohol are something that Baha'is refrain from. Uh huh. Cause Baha'is believe that drugs and alcohol get in the way of, um, again, evolving the soul or make spiritualizing the soul. Yeah. So, I moved to New York City to be an actor and I was 20 years old. And, uh, I

• 27:59Speaker 01

  had a beautiful girlfriend and I was just like, you know, there were a lot of other reasons too. I wanted to rebel against my parents. I was annoyed with the Baha'i community. A lot of really mostly immature reasons. Sure. But I just wanted to be an actor and live the bohemian lifestyle in New York. So, I wanted to get locked up and have fun and be in Greenwich Village and do plays. That's it. Um, and then it was, uh, it was a really interesting thing that happened where, uh, I met my now wife. We were together at the time. Um, we've been together for a long time and she's gorgeous and wonderful, holiday reindeer. She's fantastic. And I was starting to work as an actor. So really all my dreams were coming true, but yet I was really dissatisfied

• 28:44Speaker 01

  in, in my soul, in my heart. I, it's kind of a thing where you wake up at three in the morning. You're like, what am I doing? What's my life about? And, uh, I got really depressed and I, and I thought, well, maybe I've just discarded this whole religion thing. Too much. Maybe I, you know, I jettisoned the idea of God and spirituality completely to dive into my art and my craft, which in a lot of ways I'm grateful for. Yeah. You know, I learned a lot doing that, but I decided to kind of go on a spiritual journey at that time. Hmm. So you kind of entered back into it or just reevaluated and started? I started reading the holy books of the world and I. All the books.

• 29:25Speaker 01

  I won't say all of them, but I read the major ones in the canon. I read the Bible and the Quran. Wow. The Bhagavad Gita and the writings of the Buddha, Dhammapada and I read a lot of other books about religion and faith and ideas I was. Cause I really, there's, there's one, when we found it's whole pancake, we founded it on this, on pursuing life's big questions. That was how it started as a website and now it's a media company and a YouTube channel. But it was about exploring life's big questions and really the number one life's big question. And I know this isn't a spirituality webcast per se, but the, I'm sorry to go here, but I'm going to go here. This is greatness.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  The number one big question is, is there a God or not? Because as Thomas Merton says, who's a fantastic, one of my favorite writers of all time, Roman Catholic writer. He says, either everything is all spiritual or not spiritual at all. So there either is a creative life force that created us, has a purpose for us. Random. Or we're all a random assemblage of molecules bumping together and for some reason evolutionarily, you and I developed these brains and we have these little headsets on. Yeah, yeah. And here we are having this conversation. Yeah. And this is all just random chance and it doesn't have any meaning whatsoever.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  And whatever meaning happens is because we put our meaning onto it and then we're dead and boom, lights out. And that's the end of the show. So it's either that, or there's an all-loving creator and this physical realm is just a way stop. You know, we were in the womb for a while, and then we're in our physical bodies in the world for a while. And then our souls move on to whatever is the next phase, and then the next phase, and the next phase of essentially, I suppose, maybe meeting this creator. And so that, if that's what you believe, that puts your life in a very different context.

• 31:24Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 31:25Speaker 01

  Not to say that atheists or agnostics and people of faith can't and shouldn't work together and that there's so much that we share. We want to make the world a better place. We, um, we want to bring joy and love and inspiration to people's lives, um, for the most part. And I, I think that the whole debate of, I never want to get into a debate with an atheist. You know, it's just so pointless. Like, it's not going to convince anybody of anything. It's, but I think we have to find a commonality and a way to, to move together. But I do think that everyone has to go on that journey of deciding whether or not there is a creator.

• 31:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, what they believe in.

• 32:01Speaker 01

  What they believe in.

• 32:02Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 32:02Speaker 01

  Cause it's going to inform your life choices.

• 32:05Lewis Howes?

  I just find it's, it's going to be hard to, I don't know, if you don't believe in anything, you're going to feel very unfulfilled, I think, throughout. You're going to have a lot of those moments of unfulfillment. And then maybe that's what you were feeling when you were kind of even not just connected to spirituality. It's like, what's the purpose? What's the meaning? What's the reason?

• 32:20Speaker 01

  Well, what I believed in was self, and that's not enough.

• 32:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's tough.

• 32:24Speaker 01

  If you just believe in yourself, it's a lot of ego. And that's what I wanted. I wanted to be an actor. I wanted to be successful. I wanted to make money. I wanted people to, to, to like me and see me in plays. I wanted to make, play great roles and be seen and remembered for it. And that's just a lot of self, self, self, self, self. And then it's not about anybody else and it's, I think it's hollow. And I think for me, what it did is four or five years into my career, it just kind of rang hollow. It's like, here I am, I'm doing the plays.

• 32:54Lewis Howes?

  Draining as well, right? It's like exhausting probably.

• 32:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, just focusing on yourself all the time and self-promotion and trying to get a better agent and trying to get a better job and, um, it is, it's pretty exhausting. So what I try to do now, what I try to do and fail a lot, because I still have a lot of ego tied up in all of this, you know.

• 33:14Lewis Howes?

  Well, you mean you're a human being?

• 33:15Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 33:16Lewis Howes?

  You're not perfect yet?

• 33:17Speaker 01

  I'm not. I haven't achieved bodhisattva yet. I am, I am not a saint. I, um,

• 33:24Speaker 01

  Is I trying to look at things as more as service because you started the conversation with gratitude. And I think gratitude is always the best place to start with anything. And I think that, you know, what I always say to people who are lost is, you know, what can you do to be of service to someone else?

• 33:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 33:45Speaker 01

  And you told me out in the lobby when we were before doing this podcast, that you really started this as a service to have a great conversations and to help people. And, and I feel that and I felt that in listening to your podcast. This was not just you self promoting. You're really trying to help people with ideas and, and I appreciate that. And that's been, it's a tricky thing for an actor because, oh, I want to act. I want to be in front of the camera and play great roles and get this attention at me. But I really do want to be a storyteller that makes a difference in the world. And even doing The Office, as corny as it is, no, it's not corny. As silly as The Office was, those, my favorite stories of when someone would say like,

• 34:30Speaker 01

  my sister was dying of cancer and we would sit in the hotel, in the hospital room and watch episode after episode of The Office and we would just laugh together. And we'd laugh till we cried and, and the fact that we were able through that show to bring laughter to people.

• 34:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 34:47Speaker 01

  And bring joy to people was very fulfilling.

• 34:50Lewis Howes?

  It's valuable. Yeah, it's really important. It's necessary. I mean, I feel in a lot of ways I have a similar experiences from my sports background. You know, I wanted to achieve certain things as an athlete. I wanted to be a professional athlete for my ego and for accomplishment and acknowledgement, for people to like me. And I achieved all these big dreams that I had. And I remember feeling very like empty inside and be like, after I'd achieve everything, I'd be like the angriest person alive. I was like, why am I so angry and like resentful and mad now that I just achieved what I wanted for years? And I realized it's because it was more to prove people wrong and to like make myself look good as opposed to do it out of like giving and service, like we're talking about now. And then once I started to shift that and say, how can I still achieve everything I want,

• 35:33Lewis Howes?

  but be more of an inspiration to show people what's possible for their life? Or do it from a place of like, I'm going to give my best to show people that they can give their best, whatever it may be. It just became much more fulfilling when I would achieve certain things.

• 35:46Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 35:47Lewis Howes?

  And it's still on that path, you know, again. Being a podcast host or whatever, you know, having a book, it's just a lot of promotion to get the word out. And I'm sure you get the same thing with soul pancake. You gotta promote. But I feel like when we come from a place of love and service and giving and gratitude, it spreads a lot easier. It's not as hard and challenging. So it's more fulfilling. So.

• 36:06Speaker 01

  I think people can sniff self-promotion too, in a way that it's, you know, when you meet someone and they're just, you get that little squeezy feeling and you're just like, what's up with this person? Like we are very good at reading just in people's voices. Yeah, exactly. We all have very finely tuned BS meters. So some people try and fake it.

• 36:26Lewis Howes?

  I hear you. I hear him. Who was the most influential person in your life growing up?

• 36:32Speaker 01

  I would say that my dad was,

• 36:36Speaker 01

  for all his failings as a father, which I won't get into here and now, he might be hearing this podcast. But I will say that I, one thing I really appreciated about him was we had a house of creativity. He was a painter. He would write stories. He would write poems. He would doodle. He was always creating and he wanted to be an artist. He really was never quite successful in his dreams of being a painter and a writer. But he always encouraged that and inspired that. So we had a house that he was very unhappily married to my stepmom. So there was a lot of sadness in our house and a lot of awkward

• 37:18Speaker 01

  silences and tension and fights and stuff like that. And so that all sucked and has scarred me profoundly. But the idea that you could take all that and transform it into art. And so we were just always painting, drawing, singing, having other artists over, telling stories, reading stories. He always had this rule that no matter how broke we were, I was, we were pretty poor growing up. We were very poor growing up. When I, I got, I used to get my clothes from the Salvation Army, kind of poor. And, but he would say, However many books you want, I will buy you whatever books you want.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  So I would go, I'd be like, I'd take him up on it. We'd go to the university bookstore in Seattle and I'd have a stack of forty, fifty books. He'd be like, you want all those books? I'd be like, yeah. And he's like, are you gonna read them all? I'm like, yep. He would buy them all without, without saying anything.

• 38:13Lewis Howes?

  Did you read them all?

• 38:14Speaker 01

  I did.

• 38:14Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 38:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:15Lewis Howes?

  Like, it's, yeah.

• 38:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. I did. A lot of them were pretty corny, science fiction and fantasy, kind of Conan the Barbarian books and

• 38:24Lewis Howes?

  Hey.

• 38:24Speaker 01

  Stuff like that, but

• 38:25Lewis Howes?

  Whatever gets you going, right?

• 38:26Speaker 01

  It does, and it does. That, I love science fiction and fantasy for that reason. It really does spark the imagination.

• 38:32Lewis Howes?

  That's amazing. What was you think was the biggest lesson he taught you then? Was it to be creative or biggest thing to learn from him?

• 38:39Speaker 01

  I think he taught me the, the kind of, the, the, the magic of being an artist.

• 38:47Speaker 01

  And I think there's a, there's a spiritual act in, um, in being an artist. And I think of, um, again, I'm sorry to go there. Sorry, but

• 39:00Lewis Howes?

  It's all good.

• 39:02Speaker 01

  He, um, people like, I picture all the comments on your blog, like, oh, here is God crap.

• 39:08Lewis Howes?

  No, man.

• 39:09Speaker 01

  Um, the, uh, when you think of God, the Creator, you think of like a blank sheet of paper. And there's nothing there. And then you create something on that. You, you, you write a beautiful poem, or you create a beautiful picture or painting, or you write a song on it, or lyrics, or whatever it is that we're emulating the act of the Creator.

• 39:34Speaker 01

  Uh, in the Ba'hi faith, they call God the Fashioner. And we're emulating the Fashioner by fashioning something. And it's our, it's our kind of a, a highest spiritual act to do that, especially if we can do that for service to other people.

• 39:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 39:50Speaker 01

  So that would be, I think, the lesson that I got from him the most.

• 39:54Lewis Howes?

  Well, why do you think you were created?

• 39:57Speaker 01

  Um, that's a great question. I would put that like number two in, in the list. I don't know. I'm still, I'm still finding that out. I'm not sure. Yeah. I'm, I'm really not sure. I don't, I don't have that answer.

• 40:10Speaker 01

  There've been a few things that I have been lucky to be a part of.

• 40:16Speaker 01

  My family, again, that I'm super grateful for, Soul Pancake, this, you know, company that seeks to uplift and inspire in digital media and content. Which is soulpancake.com and on YouTube as well? Yep, yep, a YouTube channel and we're on all different social media platforms and we do stuff for TV as well and stuff with brands, but, um, and then my wife and I do this work in Haiti, um, and then I have acting and producing myself, so I have all these different irons in the fire and sometimes I feel a little scattered and I really, I would love to know, I'd love to receive some sign on where to kind of focus my energy and I'm not exactly sure. Really?

• 40:58Speaker 01

  What my purpose is, but I will, it's to, my, I'll tell you my greatest love, for me and all of that stuff that I have going on, my greatest love is playing a character. So I get a, I get a script, I love acting, I love the, getting a script, whether it's a play or whether it's a film or TV show and your character's named Greg and you look up Greg and, you know, Greg is a schlubby idiot or whatever Greg is described as or whatever and you read through the Greg, um, thing and, and then you say, how do I play Greg? What, how does Greg walk? How does he sit? What is his worldview? How does he see the world? What's the world, looking at the world through Greg's eyes? What is, what trauma has he been through? Is he sad? What's going on inside of him? How does he speak?

• 41:43Speaker 01

  Is he articulate or not? Um, where does the source of his comedy come from? And, and taking rain and putting rain into Greg and Greg's shoes is my favorite thing in the world to do, but is that my purpose? I don't know. I think that's what I'll always love the most. I'll always love that the most, but I also, I love that I have these other avenues to, um, Help people and inspire people and kind of turn people on to having bigger conversations. That's the whole purpose when Soul Pancake, when we started was let's talk about life's big questions. What is it? What does it mean to be a human being? I love that discussion more than anything else and that's and that's far greater and more important than me playing the role of Greg.

• 42:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Should we be pursuing and following what we love the most and making that our purpose? Or should we be just trying to figure out our purpose and then making that something we love to do?

• 42:38Speaker 01

  Oh, man. You're good. Oh, you're good.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  That's a good, you know.

• 42:46Lewis Howes?

  Cause you just said, you know, acting is your biggest love.

• 42:49Speaker 01

  I think you follow what what turns you on the most.

• 42:54Speaker 01

  You have to really make sure that it's not for ego and not for self-promotion. But you find.

• 43:00Lewis Howes?

  Famous or.

• 43:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:01Lewis Howes?

  To get rich.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's like you can love acting, but then if you pursue acting for all the wrong reasons, you can really end up in a morass. But you want to, or a musician or, you know, fill in the dots or an entrepreneur or businessman because you want to have a house in Montauk or something like that. Like, that's a very different reason than you have great business ideas. You want to employ people and you want to be part of a dynamic.

• 43:27Lewis Howes?

  Solve a problem, right?

• 43:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, solve a problem and be part of a evolving, dynamic, ever-changing world and helping humanity move forward. As a species, the seven, six, seven billion of us, I think you follow what turns you on and then. But then you have to be very sensitized to that journey and doors will open and you have to be really like. You know, you hear that story all the time, like, I want to be a lawyer. I want, I want to go to law school or whatever. And then I was going to law school and Dimitri Martin tells that story. He's a stand-up comic, hysterical stand-up comic. And he was in NYU Law School and then on the side he did comedy gigs and he would go do open mics.

• 44:08Speaker 01

  And he just fell in love with it and just, again, little doors started opening and he dropped out of law school to go be a stand-up comic. And he's one of the most successful ones in the United States. He just directed his first film and he's just a great guy and. You have to listen to that, that little voice and those little proddings and that.

• 44:28Lewis Howes?

  It's almost letting go of attachment too of like,

• 44:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:30Lewis Howes?

  what you kind of set out in your mind of like, I'm gonna be a lawyer. I already said it, so I'm gonna go do it and I'm gonna finish it and I'm gonna do this thing. It's like you gotta kind of be aware and open to other things, right?

• 44:40Speaker 01

  It's letting go of the result of that. Yeah. So I'm gonna, okay, I love being a lawyer. I'm gonna go study the law and then you've got to be open to whatever happens along the way. You take a trip to another country and you fall in love with that country or you meet a woman in that country and fall in love. And then all of a sudden you're working for a nonprofit in that country with the woman that you love and using your legal skills in a different way. And you've got to be open to what the universe gives you. Cause I, I do believe that the universe, there, there is that energy in the universe. I know, I know when I'm in sync with the energy of the universe, I feel right.

• 45:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 45:18Speaker 01

  I know that sounds very hippy dippy, but.

• 45:21Lewis Howes?

  You're in flow.

• 45:22Speaker 01

  I, I, I do believe that that exists.

• 45:25Lewis Howes?

  What is your, what is missing from your life?

• 45:29Speaker 01

  You, Louis.

• 45:30Lewis Howes?

  I appreciate it. Well, you have me now.

• 45:32Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 45:33Lewis Howes?

  We can embrace afterwards.

• 45:35Speaker 01

  Twenty or thirty minutes. Good.

• 45:37Speaker 01

  What's missing from my life? God, you know, honestly, uh, so nothing is missing from my life. And I really mean that. I have health. I have enough money. I have a beautiful family.

• 45:51Lewis Howes?

  Great looks.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  I have, I look amazing. Uh, I have purpose. I have faith, good friends. And, uh, so in, in that context, nothing is missing from my life. Where my, I'll take the question a little bit sideways, kind of where my ego struggle is, is I'm a weird looking 50 year old dude who's really known for playing Dwight. And I'm not given many opportunities. I'm not given.

• 46:19Speaker 01

  Too many opportunities to play other roles.

• 46:23Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 46:23Speaker 01

  And that's a struggle for me is, I mean, I get offered roles. I just did an indie film. I'm doing another one this summer and, you know, I'm developing some TV shows for me to act in that are really cool. And I get offered stuff that I turn down, but I'm not getting the opportunities that, I don't want to paint this picture like, oh, I'm

• 46:43Lewis Howes?

  Struggling actor.

• 46:44Speaker 01

  Struggling actor, unemployed actor. It's not that. I'm not getting the opportunities I feel that I want and deserve to, to move forward in my career. And so I'm always, I'm struggling with that. And that, and then I'm wondering like, was that my ego? And how much of that is my ego? And do I just want the status? Do I just want to be in the trades of like, oh, Rainn Wilson got this new great gig and oh, he's doing so good. And, um, cause it was hard. Like I had a shot. I had a shot for a while there at movie stardom. You know, when the office was really hot, there was a bunch of movies I did in a row. I did Sahara and Juno and My Super Ex Girlfriend.

• 47:24Speaker 01

  And, uh, The Last Mimsy. And then I was, I starred in this movie, The Rocker, that completely bombed. And then, and that was devastating. It was a studio comedy. And then, uh, that no one saw. I can tell by the blank look on your face.

• 47:40Lewis Howes?

  I saw the, I saw the image of you in your underwear.

• 47:42Speaker 01

  Okay. And that was enough to keep you out of the theater.

• 47:44Lewis Howes?

  I never saw this before.

• 47:47Speaker 01

  And, uh, I, uh, and then after that, I did this movie, Super, that James Gunn directed, who did Guardians of the Galaxy. And it was a really great indie film that people had kind of high hopes for, but no one went and saw it again. So I had all these, like, everything that I went in the, in the feature film world just bombed, just shit the bed. And it was hard, man. I mean,

• 48:09Lewis Howes?

  Cause when you're at the top of the world for the office.

• 48:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:12Lewis Howes?

  It's like every time you step on screen, people laugh to now, oh.

• 48:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. And they, and they tried to figure out how I could work in movies. Steve Carell obviously took off in movies.

• 48:22Lewis Howes?

  Crushing it.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  Insane. And good for him. And Ed Helms too, Hangover and other films that he's done. Fantastic. And John Krasinski doing really super well. And so,

• 48:32Lewis Howes?

  My twin.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  You're, you're a twin, John Krasinski. And I, uh, uh, and I'm happy for all of them. They're all such good, kind.

• 48:41Speaker 01

  Gentle, smart men and they deserve all the success in the world. And that, but that was hard to see that, um, that, that movie stuff crash and burn. And so like, what's missing in my life? I have that struggle of like, I'm not getting movie offers and I'm don't, I didn't have that career that I wanted to have in film and, um, and it, but then is that my ego? Should I just let that go? I'm doing this other great, awesome stuff. Maybe I need to just let that go, but I want it still. So there's kind of like, it's that icky gooey thing of like,

• 49:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  So I don't know. It's somewhere in there.

• 49:18Lewis Howes?

  What is that?

• 49:19Speaker 01

  If you have any advice, let me know.

• 49:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What's that process, process like when you're at, again, when the office was like the top show on TV for every season essentially, right? Every year?

• 49:27Speaker 01

  It was a top comedy for, for many years.

• 49:29Lewis Howes?

  It's hilarious, right? Um, what was that like? Well, first off, I'm curious. I want to go back into this. I'm going to take a step back. I want to know how you actually landed the role and if you knew it was going to be as big of a deal when you landed it. Or if you're just like, oh, it's just another TV thing that I'm going to get and cool.

• 49:47Speaker 01

  I had, um, tested against Will Arnett for Arrested Development and he beat me out. Son of a bitch.

• 49:55Lewis Howes?

  Son of a bitch.

• 49:56Speaker 01

  Um, and then right after that, I was supposed to do this other TV thing that fell apart. And then I auditioned for the office and I really thought the office was going to be like Arrested Development. I thought it was going to be this really smart, edgy comedy that would be on for maybe a couple of seasons. If we were lucky or 20 episodes or something, and then people would watch it on DVD.

• 50:18Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 50:18Speaker 01

  That's what they used to do back then is watch it on DVD. Um, so, and that's what we all thought and we, we, so I went, I was literally the very first person to audition for the US office. Um, I knew the casting director well, and she liked my work and, and brought me in. And it was a long, arduous casting process, but.

• 50:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, we, um, I had seen the BBC office, which was phenomenal. And I knew we had the chance to make something really great. I didn't understand how we were going to do that on NBC. Right. Because if you looked at the comedies at the time when we were on, it was Friends. You know, it was very handsome and good looking people, brightly lit, colorful sets with a laugh track and a studio audience and everyone was just likeable and huggable. Right. And then you've got this office with all these really despicable people. You know, and who, and flawed people and kind of odd looking actors under, in bad lighting with bad haircuts and polyester suits. And I was like, how was that going to work on NBC? And we were almost canceled like four, five, six times.

• 51:23Speaker 01

  I mean, we barely hung on. I mean, people have no idea. Wow. We, we did the pilot. It was the lowest testing pilot since the Seinfeld pilot, which was also a super low testing pilot. It's good news then, right? If it's, yeah. Compared to Seinfeld. Tell that to the studio network executives, please. And, um, then, then we were not going to get picked up, but then the head of NBC said, well, I'll pick up five more episodes. We did five more and then the next season we weren't going to get picked up. And then he was like, well, we'll do five more and then, and then after that we'll do three more and then we'll do two more. And we kept getting these little orders and then all of a sudden we took off.

• 52:03Speaker 01

  And I think that one of the main reasons was the advent of the video iPod. So this was 2005. The video iPod were just, was just being launched. And they were given as basically Christmas gift, gifts to rich kids. Right. And they would, for some reason, they decided to preload them with episodes of the office. No way. So all these rich kids got episodes of the office on their i, video iPods. And they started watching it. And then all of a sudden, we were on our, our ratings, we were like 47th, but on the iTunes list of top TV shows, we were number, it would be Office 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7.

• 52:48Speaker 01

  Top downloaded shows. And, and they started, and all of a sudden, network executives who hadn't paid any attention to that stuff were kind of going like, wow, something's going on here. Young people are. Paying money to watch this show and to own it and watch it over and over again.

• 53:05Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 53:06Speaker 01

  And that's what kind of kept us on the air.

• 53:07Lewis Howes?

  Wow, so thanks to Steve Jobs, huh?

• 53:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:10Lewis Howes?

  Otherwise you may not be in the position you're in.

• 53:12Speaker 01

  I know.

• 53:13Lewis Howes?

  Without that, that's crazy to think about that.

• 53:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:14Lewis Howes?

  That's like some Freakonomics type of stuff right there, right?

• 53:17Speaker 01

  It is, it is.

• 53:17Lewis Howes?

  It's like, oh, the iPad made us famous.

• 53:19Speaker 01

  It just happened right at that time.

• 53:20Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 53:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, and we would definitely have been canceled if we weren't on those video iPods.

• 53:24Lewis Howes?

  That's crazy to think about. Um, now I had Jenna Ushkowitz on, who was original cast member of Glee. I don't know if you know of Glee.

• 53:31Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 53:31Lewis Howes?

  But, uh, it's a show that I loved.

• 53:33Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 53:34Lewis Howes?

  That was, I think, six seasons on, big show for a while. Fox, I believe. And, um, you know, she was making good money and this big star for however many years it was on Glee. And, uh, she was like, you know, it's been a year and a half, two years. And it's like, it's really challenging to even get in the door for places.

• 53:52Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:53Lewis Howes?

  Cause they positioned me as a specific role now.

• 53:56Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 53:56Lewis Howes?

  And it's challenging to get these other roles that I really want to grow into.

• 53:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:59Lewis Howes?

  And you're finding that as well, or you're, you feel like people are just positioning you as, you know, this character that you played, Dwight, and then that's all they see you as? Or what is, what is the challenge?

• 54:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, well, the challenge is, A, I'm weird looking, okay?

• 54:13Lewis Howes?

  I think you're great looking.

• 54:14Speaker 01

  I think I'm super handsome, but for TV, I'm a little offbeat. And, um, uh, my wife is actually attracted to me, which is crazy. But, um, also I'm older now, I'm 50 years old, so that kind of puts me in a different territory. It's, it's, uh, it's very different than being 35.

• 54:33Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:34Speaker 01

  And, um, so that limits me. And then I'm very, very well known for a very specific role. Um, uh, and so those are all three strikes. I think, um, and I'm also known for comedy, so, um, it's hard for people.

• 54:51Lewis Howes?

  To take you serious.

• 54:52Speaker 01

  I'm trying to get into rooms where like, can I just, you don't have to cast me. Can I just audition and show that I can play? Roles other than creepy weirdo paper salesman.

• 55:05Speaker 01

  That I have a larger range than that because I was doing theater.

• 55:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course.

• 55:09Speaker 01

  For 12 years before I did any TV or film, playing all kinds of roles Shakespeare and Eugene O'Neill and Chekhov and in comedy and drama and because that's what you do when you're a theater actor, which is I love being a theater actor because you get to do all that kind of stuff.

• 55:26Speaker 01

  But it's it's a little bit more segmented in TV and film.

• 55:29Lewis Howes?

  I mean, your role in The Office was probably the most challenging to have, I would think. I don't think any other actor could have done on the in the cast could have done the role that you did. I mean, it probably took all the years of.

• 55:39Speaker 01

  Correll could have done it, probably better than me.

• 55:42Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 55:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's.

• 55:43Lewis Howes?

  He's pretty smart.

• 55:44Speaker 01

  He's he's pretty. He's pretty great.

• 55:46Lewis Howes?

  Well, I don't know. I still think it's a challenging role you had that I think took the years of theater probably helped you kind of craft that and be able to step into that, wouldn't you say?

• 55:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, I did.

• 55:57Speaker 01

  Part of the work that I did for a long time in theater was clowning work where we we kind of create these not Ringling Brothers clowning.

• 56:06Speaker 01

  But kind of more like I would say like what?

• 56:11Speaker 01

  You know, like Borat, you know, something like like what he does, you know, where he creates these kind of outlandish comedic characters that are really. You could almost meet them in the street. They're they're very real and very outlandish at the same time. And so I think a lot of that clowning work did help.

• 56:26Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 56:27Speaker 01

  With Dwight.

• 56:28Lewis Howes?

  Who's who's the actor or actress who you are inspired by the most right now? Who you think is like doing the greatest work or just like they blow you away?

• 56:36Speaker 01

  Michael Shannon. So do you know his work?

• 56:39Lewis Howes?

  I mean, tell me the the movie, the other roles. I don't know.

• 56:43Speaker 01

  Well, he was in the in the Superman Returns. He was the villain Zog. Is that his name? So he was that. And then he was just in this movie called Midnight Special. I've seen him in the theater in a couple of things and he was on Boardwalk Empire and he played the really corrupt tortured like FBI agent.

• 57:04Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 57:05Speaker 01

  And he's insanely good. Again, theater background, he comes from the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago. And boy, he can do anything. He's, he's like, he blows me away. I don't know how he does what he does. But I aspire to be one quarter of the actor of Michael Shannon.

• 57:25Lewis Howes?

  What do you think are the qualities that great actors have that the rest of us could apply to our daily lives that would help us improve intimacy, connection, our business, our careers, anything?

• 57:39Speaker 01

  You know, I, I, I've, that's a, that's a really tough question to answer. Because here's the thing is like, some of these really great actors are really terrible at interpersonal communication and being a human being and, and connecting or being intimate. And at the same time, they have an incredible ability to observe human behavior and, and take it in and, and you know, and use that and use that in their craft as of acting.

• 58:19Speaker 01

  Like they're incredibly observant, but they're almost like aliens observing humanity. And yeah, some of the, some of the really great actors that you'll meet like will be, will be some of the most awkward conversations you'll ever have. But they, they know human nature inside and out. It's really, it's interesting. So I don't know if there's great lessons to be learned from that. Yeah. I wish I had a better answer for you there.

• 58:49Lewis Howes?

  No worries, no worries. I want to ask a few more questions. I know we're almost at the end of time, but I'm loving this conversation. So I appreciate all the sharing. Before I ask the final few questions, what can we take action on today? You got soulpancake.com, where you create, is it daily content you create there? Or is it?

• 59:06Speaker 01

  We do it about three times a week on our YouTube channel.

• 59:10Speaker 01

  But yeah, that's one thing you could take action on.

• 59:13Lewis Howes?

  So make sure to go follow Soul Pancake and go there and subscribe. Check it out to the YouTube channel. You got over a million and a half followers there.

• 59:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, we have almost 2 million subscribers.

• 59:22Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing.

• 59:22Speaker 01

  And we're doing all kinds of work in the media landscape. But we did Kid President.

• 59:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 59:29Speaker 01

  We did...

• 59:30Lewis Howes?

  I met him.

• 59:31Speaker 01

  You met Kid President.

• 59:32Lewis Howes?

  I spoke on stage at a conference with him and his uncle.

• 59:36Speaker 01

  Brad, yeah.

• 59:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 59:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 59:37Lewis Howes?

  Very nice guy.

• 59:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. And we did My Last Days, The Science of Happiness, a lot of really successful shows. We've done some stuff in television as well. And we, again, we strive to do inspiring content. We've got a really exciting thing coming out this summer called New Age Creators, where we found these essentially teenage... Like, do you know Casey Neistat?

• 1:00:02Lewis Howes?

  I've had him on.

• 1:00:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:00:03Lewis Howes?

  He's a great guy.

• 1:00:04Speaker 01

  Amazing guy.

• 1:00:04Lewis Howes?

  Smart.

• 1:00:04Speaker 01

  So these are like teenage Casey Neistats making their own video content. They're video artists, younger than millennials. We call them Generation Z. And they're from all over the world, with someone from Portugal, Spain, England, New Zealand, Germany. And they call themselves New Age Creators. They kind of came together as this coalition. And we gave them the keys to our YouTube channel this summer. And these New Age Creators are going to be putting out new content every week, a couple of pieces every week. And they're beautiful. They're personal, they're video diaries, they're collage, they're stories. They use music and visual arts effortlessly.

• 1:00:45Speaker 01

  These are kids who have just grown up with social media and iPhones and cameras and music and editing software. And it's in their genes. And as they live, they create. And we're really excited about making this content for our millennial audience. We call them a, you know... What is it? Positive millennials, you know, upbeat millennials and people and altruistic Gen Z'ers, altruistic teenagers that really want to change the world. And this is content for them. And we're really excited about that.

• 1:01:21Lewis Howes?

  That's cool. And you also got your book, The Bassoon King, which you'll learn more about everything in your life and a lot of personal stuff, more that we talked about today in depth. So make sure to pick that up. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, anywhere books are sold. I'm assuming they're everywhere. It's everywhere.

• 1:01:36Speaker 01

  I think so.

• 1:01:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, pretty much everywhere.

• 1:01:38Speaker 01

  Everywhere except your bookshelf, dude.

• 1:01:40Lewis Howes?

  Well, we'll get it. I'll get it now.

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  But you got Arnold Schwarzenegger up there.

• 1:01:44Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, yeah. You got a lot of one. We'll have that up here soon. I'll get a few copies and put them up there and give them away.

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  Please.

• 1:01:49Lewis Howes?

  So we'll have that. And then a couple of final questions. If you could write your own script, let's say it's a long script, but let's say you're going to paraphrase it down to a paragraph or two of the rest of your life, the story you'd want to write for yourself, of everything you'd want to create. What are you going to create moving forward? If you could write down any story, what would happen for you?

• 1:02:12Speaker 01

  Oh, man. You're killing me.

• 1:02:15Lewis Howes?

  Any movie that came true.

• 1:02:19Lewis Howes?

  I did not prep him with these questions, so this is all off the cuff.

• 1:02:22Speaker 01

  He's just stumped. He's stumped me here in person.

• 1:02:24Lewis Howes?

  And maybe it's just one or a couple of things that, you know, kind of come to mind that really meaningful for you that you would like to live out and create.

• 1:02:31Speaker 01

  Well, I will say that, I mean, I could go on and on about, you know, I'd love to make, you know, important movies and TV shows that help

• 1:02:44Speaker 01

  turn people on and make the world a better place and want to see soul pancake thrive and, you know, I want to see my, my son and wife thrive and, and help them and be of service to others and become a better person as I go. But, you know, just this morning, Louis, the, we have a nonprofit in Haiti that my wife and I started called Lidei and

• 1:03:10Speaker 01

  We, I wrote a, a mass email to a whole bunch of people in the industry because we wanted, we realized that the girls need more tutoring. So we do, what we do is we do arts and literacy work with at-risk adolescent girls in rural Haiti. So we're working with about 500 girls in eight different locations, um, in the really remote parts of Haiti, like places that Haitians don't even go to. And you ask a Haitian, you know this city, they have no idea. Um, and we do arts education, we do drama and, and writing and photography, and we do literacy, and we give them scholarships and prepare them for a life of getting an education and, and kind of changing their circumstances. And we realized that they needed more tutoring and that part of what they

• 1:03:56Speaker 01

  needed tutoring on was computer skills and basic typing and some basic computer stuff, which there just aren't any out there in Haiti. So I sent a blast to LA and we got a whole bunch of donated old laptops, you know, like the, the Mac that from 2010 that you decided to get the new one and it's been sitting in your closet. So we got a bunch of like 2010 Mac laptops and we sent them down to Haiti. And I just got, I'm going to show you when this is over. I just got a whole bunch of pictures, photos of these girls using these computers for the first time and the expression on their faces of just, of joy and wonder and possibility, possibility that a

• 1:04:36Speaker 01

  computer equals like them, you know, being able to get an education or maybe to even be a secretary or work in an office or go to websites or, and these are girls that are too poor to even have a flip phone. Um, uh, it was really uplifting and I would say that, you know, uh, I really would like to see our program thrive. So many nonprofit initiatives stumble after five, 10, 15 years and just trail away. I really want to build up Lee Day Haiti and, um, and reach, you know, we're at 500 girls. I'd like to reach 5,000 girls. What's it gonna take to reach more girls? It's just gonna take, uh, finances, resources, um,

• 1:05:23Speaker 01

  Uh, we've got a, it's money, it's gonna take money.

• 1:05:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:27Speaker 01

  We have a great infrastructure in place. We have a great executive director down there. And we're currently employing about 15 Haitians in running, running it. So we can expand and there's lots of places that want us to come in. We can expand. We just need resources.

• 1:05:40Lewis Howes?

  If someone makes a donation, what will go towards their donation? Like what?

• 1:05:44Speaker 01

  It'll, it'll go towards either hiring more Haitians to help expand our, our programs. Or it'll go for scholarships to get girls into, into primary or secondary schools.

• 1:05:52Lewis Howes?

  How much does a scholarship cost? Can we know?

• 1:05:54Speaker 01

  You know, it's, um, it's about $500 a year to have a girl do, um, primary education.

• 1:06:02Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:06:02Speaker 01

  That's nothing. 500 bucks a year. That's, that's books, tuition, school, uniform, the whole thing. Uh, it's about somewhere like a thousand dollars a year to get them, um, more like secondary or college education.

• 1:06:16Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 1:06:16Speaker 01

  So it's, um, that's one of the reasons we started working in Haiti is that your money can just go such a long way.

• 1:06:22Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 1:06:23Speaker 01

  There's, there's much less bureaucracy.

• 1:06:25Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 1:06:25Speaker 01

  And, you know, with the way that, that they're so poor there that a little bit goes a super, super long way.

• 1:06:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. We, we built schools, uh, for Pencils of Promise. I don't know if you've heard of that, but they built schools for kids in poverty in Laos and Guatemala and Ghana. And again, the money just goes so much further to kids there who have nothing. So, uh, well, we're gonna make a donation and, and sponsor one girl.

• 1:06:48Speaker 01

  Oh, cool.

• 1:06:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:49Speaker 01

  I appreciate that.

• 1:06:50Lewis Howes?

  Make a donation and just afterwards all.

• 1:06:53Speaker 01

  Oh, man, that's very generous of you. Thank you, Lewis. Appreciate it.

• 1:06:56Lewis Howes?

  Um, and if you send me those photos, we'll put, put a couple of them in the show notes for people to see so they can make a donation and send them to the link as well.

• 1:07:03Speaker 01

  Nice. Appreciate that.

• 1:07:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course. Okay. A couple of final questions. I keep saying this. I keep saying this. Um, this is called the three truths. Uh, and, and for everyone, we'll have all this stuff linked up that we just talked about on how you can connect with Rain and the book and all this stuff. So we'll have it on the, the show notes here in a second. Uh, this is called the three truths. And again, I haven't prepped Rain on this. So the three truths, um, let's say it's 50 years from now and it's the last day for you and you know it's the last day.

• 1:07:29Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:07:30Lewis Howes?

  And everyone you care about is there and, uh, you're happy, you're healthy, you've achieved everything that you want to achieve for your vision. Um, and for whatever reason, everything you've created has been erased. Movies, books, works, audio interviews, they're deleted.

• 1:07:46Speaker 01

  DVDs of the rocker.

• 1:07:48Lewis Howes?

  DVDs. Those have already been erased. No, I'm just kidding. And there's a, you know, your great, great grandchild comes up and gives you a piece of paper and a pen and says, um, will you write down the three truths, the three things you know to be true about everything you've experienced in life?

• 1:08:07Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:08:08Lewis Howes?

  All the lessons, if you could boil it down to three simple things that would essentially pass on to us, since we don't have any of your books anymore, any of your work, what would those three things be?

• 1:08:18Speaker 01

  Um, I think that, uh, one is that life, it's hard to make things not sound like a Hallmark card. So, but I do believe that life is a journey and not about the destination, but it's about the process of being alive while we're here in these meat suits. So I would say that life is a spiritual journey. Um, there's that great quote by Per Techart de Chardin that, um, we are not, um, human beings having a spiritual experience, but we're, uh, spiritual beings having a human experience. So life is a spiritual journey.

• 1:09:02Speaker 01

  Here we are being spiritual beings, having a human experience. That would be number one. I think that number two might be something with, there's, we have a twofold moral purpose. And one is, and when I say moral, I mean it in the grandest possible way, not like right or wrong, but our moral purpose is one, to make ourselves, uh, to maximize ourselves, to be the best possible version of the human being that God wants us to be. Um, and at the same time, and the other hand in hand with that is to try and make the world a better place. So we have to be doing both of these at the same time.

• 1:09:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:46Speaker 01

  We have to be improving ourselves and making the world a better place at the same time. And I think every human has that obligation. And I think, you know, we could fuck around, uh, for a long time. Humanity's fucked around through most of the 20th century and it's like, yeah, let's have some wars, bomb some shit, pour pesticides in everything and genetically modify food and pour, pour carbon into the atmosphere and overfish and, you know, you name it. We could just kind of, you know, we just kind of, we were like drunken teenagers at their first party, just going crazy. But now it really is every human's responsibility to, to. To do both of those things. And number three would be.

• 1:10:30Speaker 01

  Rock and roll, baby. I don't know, man. I don't know. Two is good. Those are two good ones.

• 1:10:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you had like five in the first two, so.

• 1:10:37Speaker 01

  Okay, there. Okay, yeah. Can you break those down?

• 1:10:39Lewis Howes?

  Break it down. It's perfect. I love it.

• 1:10:41Speaker 01

  Three is have a have a good time while doing so.

• 1:10:44Lewis Howes?

  I like it. It's a good one.

• 1:10:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:46Lewis Howes?

  We gotta remember to have fun.

• 1:10:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:48Lewis Howes?

  What's the point of doing it all?

• 1:10:48Speaker 01

  Exactly. Laugh. Remember to laugh.

• 1:10:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:52Speaker 01

  Laugh more. Yeah.

• 1:10:53Lewis Howes?

  That's good. Before I ask the final question, I want to acknowledge you for a moment, Rain.

• 1:10:57Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:10:58Lewis Howes?

  For your incredible youthful spirit. I think for for how much you've done, you have this like beautiful youthful energy about you. It's very creative and you're so wise. I want to acknowledge you for your wisdom. Because you've gone through a lot. You've been through a lot. And I think a lot of people could position you as maybe not this intelligent, wise human being, but you have so much wealth of information and just connecting with you for an hour here has been incredibly profound for me. And it shows me why you achieved the results you have in your life because of your humility, your passion and your gifts. I want to acknowledge you for.

• 1:11:33Speaker 01

  Wow, that that is super nice. I can't believe you're saying that. That's making me, I'm gonna have a I'm gonna tear up like I'm on Oprah or on Jim Rome. I'm uh, but no, I really, I appreciate that. And that's one thing that's always hard for me and I think hard for many people is to take a compliment. So I'm gonna try and take in that compliment and not kind of in my head go, oh, he's full of shit. So, thank you.

• 1:11:56Lewis Howes?

  It's what I see in you. So, um, you're welcome. I think it's a challenge. Most people have a challenge of receiving.

• 1:12:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. Receiving a compliment. It's really hard.

• 1:12:05Lewis Howes?

  We want it, but we can't receive it when we.

• 1:12:07Speaker 01

  Even like even with our 11 year old son, like my wife paid him a compliment the other day and he kind of like shrugged and rolled his eyes and we were like, wait, wait, wait a second. We're gonna give you a compliment here. Can you just breathe and take it in? And she gave him the compliment again and we just, he had to kind of sit there with it.

• 1:12:22Lewis Howes?

  That's it. It's uncomfortable. It's vulnerable.

• 1:12:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:25Lewis Howes?

  It's challenging.

• 1:12:25Speaker 01

  Very vulnerable. Yeah.

• 1:12:27Lewis Howes?

  Well, the final question, and I really appreciate you being here, is what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:12:32Speaker 01

  My definition of greatness is, I guess that it has to do with capacity. We all have different capacities. And I think that you achieve greatness by maximizing the gifts that you were given and the capacity that you have. So I don't know how to get there or what people's journey is to do that, but maximize capacity. And one of the ways we maximize our capacity is by helping other people maximize their capacities. It's in being of service to others and upraising and uplifting and inspiring and helping others and helping them reach their capacities that we expand our own.

• 1:13:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Rain Wilson, thanks for coming on, man.

• 1:13:18Speaker 01

  Thanks, Louis.

• 1:13:19Lewis Howes?

  This was great.

• 1:13:20Speaker 01

  This was a lot of fun.

• 1:13:21Lewis Howes?

  Thanks. And there you have it, guys. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you loved it as much as I did, then please make sure to share this out on Twitter, lewishouse.com/339. And you can connect with Rain and all of his information about his books, about Soul Pancake. Make sure to subscribe over on his YouTube channel, follow him everywhere, get his books, all that good stuff. And you can watch the full video interview, again, back at our show notes at lewishouse.com/339. Let me know what you thought of this interview. What was the thing that you enjoyed the most of this? What was the biggest takeaway? Share that over on Twitter, tag me, @lewishouse, and tag Rain as well.

• 1:14:05Lewis Howes?

  Let him know, as I'm sure he would appreciate your feedback, your thoughts, and all of your love. And again, make sure to support the podcast by leaving us a review. The more people that review this, the more people find it on iTunes. We're currently in the top 100 in the world, but we're looking to distribute this message and this content of how to achieve greatness in your lives and inspiration to more people. Currently over 1.3 million downloads a month, but I want to double that. Let's get up there. Let's continue to spread the message of greatness. And I can't do it alone. I need your support. So I'd love for you to, again, subscribe if this is your first time. Just click. Click on the subscribe button so you get all the updates every single Monday, Wednesday,

• 1:14:46Lewis Howes?

  and Friday. Leave us a review as well. You just click on the iTunes section where the podcast is and leave us an honest review. And then share this. If you felt this was moving, or inspiring, or helpful, or useful to you in any way, then just share it with a friend. You can do it by forwarding this via email. You can tweet it, you can post it on Facebook, wherever you feel will be the most appropriate for you. I love you guys. I hope you are pursuing your dreams, because it's the most important thing in the world. It's the thing that brings us to life. It's the things that gives us purpose and meaning when we pursue our dreams. Just like Rain said, no matter how challenging it was for him, he continued to stay in the game because

• 1:15:29Lewis Howes?

  he loved it. Now, I'm not saying you're gonna be a huge famous celebrity if you pursue your dreams, but you'll have the opportunity to be the most fulfilled and inspire and impact the most people around you when you're in that pursuit. When you're not pursuing something, when you're pursuing something you don't love, it's challenging to really impact people and build a legacy and live a life of meaning. So please pursue that thing that is speaking to you and calling inside of your heart, because it'll be the most rewarding thing that you do. And you'll look back at the end of the day, and you'll never have to say, "I wish I would've. I regret that I didn't go after my dream." Make sure to go after

• 1:16:12Lewis Howes?

  your dream today. And you guys know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.