470 Apolo Ohno: Train Your Mind and Body to Achieve Olympic Level Results

"Passion is really important. You can only do something for money for so long." - Apolo Ohno If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/470 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 470 with the eight-time Winter Olympic medalist in speed skating, Apollo Ono.

• 0:12Lewis Howes?

  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.

• 0:38Lewis Howes?

  We have a special treat today. Welcome greats to the interview in this episode of the School of Greatness podcast. I love it when we bring on Olympic medalists. Why? Because they have something inside of them that most of the world doesn't have. They have a taste of something that most people will never experience. And that experience is so profound and powerful. And for me, I'm always so obsessed with learning how they did it, how they continue to thrive at the highest level when millions of people are watching and everything is on the line for them for literally just a few moments of an opportunity to achieve their dreams.

• 1:21Lewis Howes?

  They have to have so much clarity and focus in order to make themselves reach the goal. And that's why we've got Apollo Ono on. He's a retired American short track speed skating competitor and an eight-time Olympic medalist, two gold, two silver, four bronze in the Winter Olympics. He has been the face of short track in the United States since winning his medals in the 2002 Winter Olympics. And since gaining recognition through his sport, Apollo has worked as a motivational speaker, philanthropist, co-founded a performance supplement business, and in 2007 competed and won on the reality show Dancing With

• 2:02Lewis Howes?

  The Stars. And in this interview, we talk about a lot of things that we have in common. But man, Apollo has done so many inspiring things that I couldn't get enough of him. And one of the things we cover is why Apollo went from not caring about his sport to becoming an obsessive training teenager. Also, how he prepared his mind right before every race and especially during the Olympics. What the human body is truly capable of, as sometimes I believe we limit ourselves and we're afraid to see what we're capable of pushing it. And I'm telling you, we can do so much more. Also, how failures prepare us for our biggest successes. And Apollo talks about a lot of his.

• 2:46Lewis Howes?

  And why focusing inward is where all the answers are found. You have the truth inside of you, my friends. This and so much more. I'm super pumped for this. Get ready. It's about to be an explosion of greatness coming your way. And before we dive in, I want to give a shout out to the review of the week. And the iTunes review of the week is by 1130 Diesel, who says, I stumbled upon this podcast and I'm not exaggerating when I say that every episode has found a way to inspire and/or inform me. Everything that I am currently reading, studying, or pursuing is either a direct result of either Lewis's example or the topics and guests which he has had on.

• 3:29Lewis Howes?

  It has become part of my regular routine and I am incredibly thankful for the accidental path which led me to find it. So 1130 Diesel, thank you so much for the review over on iTunes. You are the review of the week. And again, it's always my goal to curate and bring the best individuals, the most inspiring, the most informative, those who have the most experience and those who are the biggest experts in the world to help you unlock the inner greatness. That's what this is all about. And I'm constantly obsessed with finding those human beings and tapping into their souls to give you that information.

• 4:10Lewis Howes?

  So if you want to be featured as the review of the week, make sure to go to iTunes.com/greatness and leave your review today. Without further ado, I am so pumped for this one. Make sure to share this out on social media right now as you're listening to it. LewisHowes.com/470. And without further ado, let me introduce to you the one, the only Apollo.

• 4:38Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone back to the School of Greatness Podcast. We've got Apollo Ano in the house. Good to see you, man.

• 4:43Speaker 01

  Good to see you.

• 4:44Lewis Howes?

  Excited for this. There are a few things in common that we have that I want to start off with. Number one, we both have danced salsa with Julianne Hough.

• 4:53Speaker 01

  Yes, we have.

• 4:54Lewis Howes?

  You did it on Dancing with the Stars. I haven't been on that show. You won Dancing with the Stars, right?

• 4:59Speaker 01

  I did, with Julianne.

• 5:00Lewis Howes?

  With Julianne, and you came back for the All-Star season.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  I did, with Karina, soon enough.

• 5:03Lewis Howes?

  And you didn't win.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  I did not win.

• 5:05Lewis Howes?

  What'd you get?

• 5:06Speaker 01

  Uh, we made it to the semifinal.

• 5:08Lewis Howes?

  Semifinal.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  And we got voted off.

• 5:10Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 5:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's alright, it's alright. You've been there and it's awesome. How was that winning? Was it amazing? Was it a cool experience, or was it...

• 5:16Speaker 01

  It was a new experience. It was a new... I was, uh, I was 24. I turned 25 like a couple days before I think the finale was, uh, went live. And then, um, you know, I mean Julianne was 18 at the time, fresh, like just came right into LA. So cute, you know, didn't really understand the entertainment industry, but she knew she had a lot of talent. I knew she had a lot of talent. And then so we, you know, we had a great just chemistry as friends, right?

• 5:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 5:48Speaker 01

  But also we had just had chemistry as like, as I think athletes and dancers.

• 5:51Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  I didn't, I, I considered myself a guy who knew how to dance. I had no idea. Let's just be real. I had zero idea how to dance.

• 5:58Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 5:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I, I thought I did, but you know, ballroom did.

• 6:01Lewis Howes?

  But you're an athlete.

• 6:02Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm coachable.

• 6:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  So that's easyable. So, you know, it was a, it was a great experience.

• 6:06Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  But different, you know, the entertainment world is, is unique.

• 6:09Lewis Howes?

  Another world.

• 6:10Speaker 01

  It's pretty unique.

• 6:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I'm figuring that out right now. Um, so that's one thing. Number two is, we're both the same age right now.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  I know, 34.

• 6:17Lewis Howes?

  Today I turned 34, you're 34.

• 6:19Speaker 01

  Congratulations.

• 6:19Lewis Howes?

  Thank you very much.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  We made it.

• 6:20Lewis Howes?

  We made it.

• 6:21Speaker 01

  We made it.

• 6:22Lewis Howes?

  And are you born in 83, or are you...

• 6:24Speaker 01

  82.

• 6:24Lewis Howes?

  82, okay, so, different year, but...

• 6:26Speaker 01

  I'm a Gemini. Uh, dog.

• 6:29Lewis Howes?

  Dog, okay, alright, alright. The third thing we have in common is, uh, we have at one time both worn stingers. So you have a stinger right now?

• 6:39Speaker 01

  A stinger?

• 6:39Lewis Howes?

  That's what we call a stinger. Flavor saver, as my friend would say, flavor saver.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 6:43Lewis Howes?

  I used to wear one in college playing football, I'd have a little stinger, so.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, this has been with me for quite a long time.

• 6:48Lewis Howes?

  I know, that's like a trademark, man.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  Part of it is that me being half Asian, this is the only way that my facial hair grows in.

• 6:54Lewis Howes?

  You don't have hair anywhere else, right?

• 6:56Speaker 01

  It does, but when my, when it grows out, I just, my face just looks dirty. So that's a little bit of an issue, you know, so there's oftentimes people like from afar, you're like, what's going on with this guy, you know? Paul O'Neal, where is he now? Oh, he's not doing so well.

• 7:08Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, it was clean though, I like it.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 7:10Lewis Howes?

  Uh, the fourth thing is we both represent the USA national team for different sports.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 7:16Lewis Howes?

  You are, however, an eight-time Olympian, or medal winner.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:20Lewis Howes?

  And how many Olympics have you gone to?

• 7:22Speaker 01

  I went to three Olympic games.

• 7:23Lewis Howes?

  Three Olympic games.

• 7:24Speaker 01

  Two thousand two, two thousand six, and two thousand ten.

• 7:26Lewis Howes?

  You won eight medals.

• 7:27Speaker 01

  Eight medals, yeah.

• 7:28Lewis Howes?

  They've all been under controversy, right, or something, is, is that what I heard?

• 7:31Speaker 01

  Not all of them, a few of them.

• 7:32Lewis Howes?

  A few of them.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  A few of them, the good ones.

• 7:34Lewis Howes?

  The good ones, the golds and the silvers were like, under controversy if you should have won them or not, because your sport is technical, it's not like a true, it's not like if you cross first, you're like the automatic winner, right?

• 7:43Speaker 01

  Right, right, right.

• 7:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and so, um, so you have had a much more decorated, uh, journey with the USA team than I have. I've just been trying to scrap on and, and stay on the team and, and get to the Olympics.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 7:55Lewis Howes?

  Haven't made it yet, but, uh, we have that in common and we're both athletes, so. I'm excited, and we're also both authors. You've written a book, you're an art, New York Times bestseller?

• 8:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 8:05Lewis Howes?

  So there we go.

• 8:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I wrote a book in two thousand ten, um, called Zero Regrets, Be Greater Than Yesterday.

• 8:10Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, it was a great process.

• 8:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's fun, right? Now you've now got another book you're working on.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Working on another book.

• 8:16Lewis Howes?

  What's it about?

• 8:17Speaker 01

  Um, I figured that, you know, between the ages of eight and fourteen, there's been some impactful moment in someone's life, man or woman. Uh, you know, girl or boy, who... Takes that with them through the rest of their life. And so it's such a formidable kind of arena. We always change, right? Every seven years, they say we have a new body or so, right? But I think that there's something that happens in a lot of these people who we deem to be successful. So it's a businessman, an author, someone like yourself. There's something that happened, whether it was through our parents, whether you had a single parent household, whether you had a tiger parent, that seemingly to others would seem like it was a negative component.

• 8:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 8:57Speaker 01

  Either there's a bad loss, a loss of someone.

• 9:00Lewis Howes?

  Divorce.

• 9:00Speaker 01

  A divorce, a lack of parenting, you were picked on. There's something there that ignited the individual to change something internally. I think that's a huge driving force. And so I notice it a lot within athletes. And I also notice a lot within my friends who are in the business world.

• 9:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 9:18Speaker 01

  And so

• 9:19Lewis Howes?

  We're very driven, right?

• 9:20Speaker 01

  Extremely driven and so competitive that I wonder, I was like, hey, you know, like a couple of my friends who are in business. Hey, like what happened to you when you were younger? Because you're so, you're such a savage when it comes to business, in a good way.

• 9:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 9:35Speaker 01

  But what did you do to develop that? And they can't really explain it until, you know, you break down those barriers, you understand what's happening. You know, and I grew up in a single parent household. And so my father was kind of the mom and the dad in my life. And I'm a firm believer that because there was no true, I had mother figures in my life, but there was not somebody there consistently. I'm a firm believer that that's partially the reason why I was so competitive and I hated losing so bad. There, I'm sure there's some psychological components that are associated with that early stage.

• 10:09Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  And I just, I find basically human behavior fascinating.

• 10:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  And whether it's through the mind, you know, everything. I just, I'm always interested in why we do the things that we do, why we make the same mistakes that we make all the time. Why do some people seemingly always win? Why do some people always seemingly always lose? Right? We always know that one person or one girl who wherever they go, it seems like this is raining.

• 10:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  You know? And they're just seem like that, whatever you say, hi, oh, I'm really tired. Oh, you know, this is what's going on.

• 10:38Lewis Howes?

  I don't know if you remain raining like it's always dark or like they make it rain. It's like they're

• 10:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, like it dark.

• 10:43Lewis Howes?

  Rainmakers.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  Both. I mean, there's people who just, they're just, they're so

• 10:46Lewis Howes?

  Everything they touch turns to gold.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  Medals touch. I have some friends like that. I'm just like, this, this girl or this guy, they can't lose.

• 10:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 10:52Speaker 01

  Anything you do is amazing. But I think we only see a part of it, right? I think there's we have shields, like, you know, as we were talking about before.

• 11:00Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  Um, and I think it's very, we have very unique aspects of our personality that we tend to concentrate on. And as human beings, we are naturally drawn to the things that I think we appreciate, or that we want, or that we like the most.

• 11:13Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  Um, or we feel like we're needed, right? So relationships are different, but, um, you know, sometimes they say like, if you take something away from someone, we, we always will go to, towards something that uh, retracts from us, right? That, that, that dissipates. And, um, same thing with, you know, with sport, same thing with, I think with life, we always seem to want things that are seemingly out of reach.

• 11:37Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 11:38Speaker 01

  At least from a goal setting perspective. And, uh, I don't know. Again, I, I love human behavior, super fascinated by it. I used to study it a lot when I was training as an athlete. Um, from a psychological perspective, right? So before races, um, when I was kind of coming up through the ranks as an athlete, I became so obsessive with how I would approach specific elements of studying each athlete. So I would look at this one guy from Canada, this guy from Korea, this guy from China, from Russia. And I would watch them through the week leading up to the competition.

• 12:06Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 12:06Speaker 01

  Right? So we would arrive at a location and from basically Sunday until competing on that following Friday.

• 12:11Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  I would watch them walk through the locker room and watch what they eat and watch, and I try to find out what kind of music they listen to.

• 12:18Lewis Howes?

  Their attitude.

• 12:19Speaker 01

  Their attitude, because I wanted to see if I could tell when they actually felt good on the ice and when they were having a bad day, because everything is a poker game in sport, right? So you never show your weaknesses. And I wanted to break that. I wanted to understand the small intricacies that allowed me inside information to what they did. And, um, human behavior is very interesting. So, you know, most of the time people over display what's really happening, at least in sports, so. You know, like a lot of times, some of the athletes, they would, I could always tell when they were having a, that they, they were really tired, they weren't having as good as they. I feel like there's a, there's a creation of false confidence, right? Kind of fake it till you make it.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  I think that only goes so far. In sport, like, you know, if you're under a squat rack, you got 550 on the squat rack.

• 13:04Lewis Howes?

  Can't fake it.

• 13:05Speaker 01

  And you're saying like, "I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this." You put the squat rack on your back and you said, "I'm not gonna do this."

• 13:09Lewis Howes?

  Right, yeah, you hurt yourself.

• 13:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I think there's a, there's a, there's a fine line between really, really believing that you feel great that day, and just keep telling yourself that you feel great. But you don't really intrinsically feel it, like in your cellular system, right? There's not that energy. You know, and you know, like, when you shake someone's hand, you know that person is confident, if they feel good, if they're resonating a certain type of frequency of energy that you feel like you can vibe with.

• 13:33Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 13:34Speaker 01

  You know?

• 13:34Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  Anyway.

• 13:35Lewis Howes?

  Do you ever feel, was there ever a moment before you went, uh, in the championship race, or the, the medal race, at the Olympics where you were like, "I don't feel that great"?

• 13:44Speaker 01

  Every single time, dude.

• 13:45Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 13:45Speaker 01

  Every single time.

• 13:46Lewis Howes?

  You're like, "I don't know if I'm gonna win, this is nerve wracking."

• 13:48Speaker 01

  I tell you what, there was a-

• 13:49Lewis Howes?

  It's a billion people watching, how, what am I gonna do?

• 13:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, uh, all those thoughts.

• 13:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 13:54Speaker 01

  So, you know, I, I competed hundreds of times. I'd won, I'd won every single medal, I broke every single record, and then you get to the Olympic Games, and, you know, as an Olympic athlete, unlike a professional athlete, you're not getting a salary.

• 14:08Lewis Howes?

  Not getting paid.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  If you don't win, and if you don't have a story that NBC likes to highlight-

• 14:14Lewis Howes?

  You don't get featured, and then you go and get endorsements.

• 14:17Speaker 01

  You go work for Home Depot. That's what's gonna happen.

• 14:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  So you go back to the normalcy of society. So you spent your whole life, eight years, I, I call it eight years because you do two Olympic cycles, okay? Towards a race that lasts 40 seconds long. It's finished like this, and if you're not perfect on this one specific day, against the world's top 1%, unfortunately, because of the rise of social media, you're forgotten, because we all have information and our attention spans are going on to the next thing. So, when, you know, before the start line, there's a whole process that I would do. Before the start line, yes, there's a billion people watching the race. There's a camera on my face that's normally not there, recording every single movement that is totally distracting. Um, I'm trying to meditate, kind of focus on my breath, stay in my zone.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  Do I think I can win? Yes. Do I think I'm going to win? Sometimes I think yes, sometimes I think I don't know.

• 15:11Speaker 01

  Maybe that's maybe that's just unique to me, but you know, I think unlike maybe like an MMA fighter, they gotta have no doubt that they're gonna win this.

• 15:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, well, that's like life or death for them, yeah.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  Life or death. I mean, that's a true athlete, right, these MMA guys, right? I see them as like, fighting another human being is just the ultimate, right? Same thing with, you know, people in the military. That's like the ultimate test of like, human performance. So, you know, I try to take that mentality into sport.

• 15:38Speaker 01

  But there's many times where I just physically didn't feel good. The equipment that I was using felt like it was a little bit off.

• 15:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 15:45Speaker 01

  Maybe it was me psychologically, maybe it's the ice, who knows what the problem is, right? But I didn't have any Olympic race where I felt really good.

• 15:52Lewis Howes?

  Really? You were never like, "I'm the best shape, best mentally."

• 15:55Speaker 01

  No, I knew, I knew that I was in the best shape. I knew that mentally and spiritually, I was in the greatest place. Uh, my cognitive processing was at the all-time high. I felt like I was in the matrix, right? I just felt so good, so clean, so strong.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  But still, you know, when you're dealing with a sport where anything can happen a split second, those variables will change. It's very unexpected and there's no guarantees. And so how did I maximize my experience at the Olympic Games, knowing that literally, I could get to my last Olympic final, which was in 2010. And in that final, at a split second, I could be taken out, I could get disqualified, and then all my dreams are over.

• 16:37Lewis Howes?

  Gone.

• 16:38Speaker 01

  Gone.

• 16:38Lewis Howes?

  Forgotten.

• 16:39Speaker 01

  Forgotten, right? So, I think, yeah.

• 16:42Lewis Howes?

  You gotta get that out of your head, though, before you go on the ice, right?

• 16:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, you don't wanna be thinking that type of stuff, right? It's not something you think of. So, I always thought about the process, right? So I was very kind of centered in on being present, focusing on my breath, kinda calming my heart rate, understanding what process and strategy that I had in front of me, the things that I could control, right? The things that I couldn't control was the previous four years of preparation. So, that's why I think I trained so psychotically hard and prepared so well, to a degree that I really, to this day, believe that other athletes weren't willing to go through. Because I felt like if I could get to the start line and it was time to shine and I looked to my left, I looked to my right. I felt like there was nothing more I could have done.

• 17:25Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  So having this like zero regrets mentality, even though I look back now and I say, I could have done this better, did this better.

• 17:30Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  Of course, right, analytical, but I wanted to always be in pursuit of being able to say, no matter what my outcome in that race, kind of be happy. And satisfied with that performance, which is very difficult as competitors because we hate losing, right?

• 17:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I mean, I remember my, this is not even comparable to yours, but I remember when I wanted to be a New York Times bestseller, I really wanted to hit number one. And I got number two. I was still really happy, but I was like, ah, gotta get that one little spot, you know, it's like the silver's great.

• 17:57Speaker 01

  I know what you're talking about.

• 17:58Lewis Howes?

  But it's not the gold, you know what I mean? So. So what was the process? The night before and 30 minutes before, an Olympic medal race for you. And was it different than any other championship race out there?

• 18:11Speaker 01

  It's completely different. So, um, like we have world championships every year, we have world cups all over the world. The Olympic Games are so unique because all the media is there. There's thousands and thousands of additional people who are watching that were watching before.

• 18:25Lewis Howes?

  Who have no clue who you are, the sport is.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  It's the only real coveted event, especially in these anomaly sports like mine, short track speed skating. How many short track speed skaters are in the US? Not many. So it's our only chance at performing when the light is there.

• 18:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Otherwise, no one else is gonna watch.

• 18:42Speaker 01

  And there's no monetary gain, really. I mean, to be honest with you, I never did this sport because I thought I was gonna make a lot of money. It's just, if I did, I was an idiot. That's just not the case. Uh, I just did it because I really, really loved what I did. Truly, that's what I felt like. If you asked me when I was 17, if I would do anything else, no, it was sports only. So. The process was, well, 30 minutes before, I was still, I'd probably just completed a semifinal.

• 19:01Lewis Howes?

  Oh, really?

• 19:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:02Lewis Howes?

  Right, you did a semifinal, then you go right into it?

• 19:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, you, you had 20 minutes in between the race.

• 19:05Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  So by the time you get your skates off, untie, go to the locker room, sharpen your skates, you got maybe like 12 minutes left or 10 minutes left. So. Those 10 minutes are, you look at the start sheet, this is who the lineup is, this is who I know I'm skating against. And then I think from there.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  It's, it's a mental game. It's a mental game, which is my favorite part of sport.

• 19:28Lewis Howes?

  And so what was your mental process?

• 19:30Speaker 01

  Uh, you know, I, I have a strategy about how I want the race to go. So I've, I, you know, I, I spend some time visualizing how I want that to go, which like nine times out of 10 never goes that way. But I still, I visualize it because I want to see the passing. I want to see myself moving in that direction. I want to see me in these specific positions throughout the race. And then, uh, you know, I, I, I, I basically just go more internal and I just, I, I, I focus on centering. I focus on my, kind of the smoothness of breath and I basically just meditate pre-race. So I'm still stretching, I'm still moving, but everything is geared towards being in that flow state, being in that peak state where

• 20:10Speaker 01

  you just have some kind of unexplainable ability to go above and beyond what your previous physiology has shown you. So I want to skate faster than I've ever skated, ever clocked. I want to make passes in that race that I've never done in before. I want to do things that are seemingly superhuman. And the only way that I know that I can, and I'm fatigued and I'm tired and I just raced against the world's best. And I'm racing against the world's best again for a chance to win gold for the United States. So in that moment.

• 20:41Lewis Howes?

  No pressure.

• 20:41Speaker 01

  There's, there's tons of pressure, right? There's tons of pressure, but that's the beauty of sport, right? As you get this like instantaneous kind of rush that gives you an answer, yes or no, did I succeed or not? A lot of it's out of your control at the end of the day, right? I can't control that outcome. So I do focus on things that I can control and everything that I control is in my own body. So, you know, the way that I project my own energy, if I'm jogging past another competitor, if they're on the start line with me, I know they're thinking about what I'm doing in the race. I know that they want us to kind of study and, and figure out kind of strategically how they're going to beat me. I know there's a target on my back, but none of that really, really matters at the end of the day. 10 years from this race today, am I really going to be keep looking back on this race?

• 21:22Speaker 01

  Probably not, but I want to make sure that I can finish this race and in 10 years say, that was amazing. That, that was an amazing, incredible experience. I competed against i- i- in front of billions of people who watch this sport.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  Whether I won, whether I lost, got disqualified, yes, I could have made some changes, but I want to be able to kind of appreciate the core for what I was doing, which is really, I'm there because I really love competition and I love the sport. And when I take that into consideration, the pressure kind of dissolves. And then when you have this ability to have this, you know, we talk about ego dissolution, right? So, once a year, as athletes, we do, you know, we basically try to dissolve our ego. And we break down and we try to basically crack ourselves physically in front of the rest of the athletes. And that happens moments before you go out there. Because I gotta tell you, you know, you spent four years of your life and I got one minute before the race.

• 22:22Speaker 01

  All of a sudden, I got this voice in my head telling me, hey, maybe you're a little bit tired. Hey, did you sharpen your skates properly? Hey, maybe you should do another couple of jumps to warm up. Did you eat, you know, did you get enough rest? Did you train hard enough this year and should you race it more? You know, like, should you have done something different? This guy's technique looks better than yours. All this crazy negative energy is happening. You know, this, this like, little voices in my head. So, everyone has their own ways of dealing with those voices. For me, I either try to squash the voice and say, I'm gonna block it out, I don't want to hear it. Or say, you know what, I'm accepting this. This is a natural, human, psychological response, given the anxiousness that I have leading up to the race. And it's okay, but I can't, I just gotta let that go.

• 23:04Speaker 01

  Because the only things that are gonna benefit me are, how can I focus on the positive components of what I got? What are my strengths? What did I do? I didn't sacrifice every single thing I could possible for this moment. And I'm gonna perform well. It's muscle memory. I've done this race a million times. I've played this over in my head while I meditate in the sauna.

• 23:25Lewis Howes?

  Every day.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  Millions of times, every single day. Now it's the moment to really, truly appreciate it. And, and I'm a firm believer that if you go into a race worried, or a competition worried, or angry, you either punch yourself out, or you, you're just limiting yourself. But if you go into it with a very kind of, I, look, it's pretty simple, just positive. And a belief system that everything is going to work out. Not in a false way, but in a way that you've prepared. Uh, you know, the results, I think they speak for themselves.

• 23:55Lewis Howes?

  Sure, man. Yeah. It's amazing.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:59Lewis Howes?

  Were you going to school during this time or were you training full time? You weren't going on, because you won a national championship at fourteen, right?

• 24:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:05Lewis Howes?

  And then were you, you were in high school after that? And so you're doing full-time training after school in the mornings?

• 24:10Speaker 01

  Before and after, yeah.

• 24:11Lewis Howes?

  Before and after and studying. And then did you go to college too?

• 24:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:15Lewis Howes?

  Where'd you go to school?

• 24:16Speaker 01

  Uh, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs.

• 24:18Lewis Howes?

  Because you're training there.

• 24:19Speaker 01

  I didn't finish though.

• 24:19Lewis Howes?

  Because you're training.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  I'm like shy, like thirteen credits, I think.

• 24:22Lewis Howes?

  It took me like seven years to finish, so.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  Well, it's taken me a long time.

• 24:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  I haven't even thought about it. Um.

• 24:27Lewis Howes?

  But you were training at the Olympic Center in Colorado Springs and went to school.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  Well, I, I, so when I was, I grew up in Seattle.

• 24:32Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  Um, when I was fourteen years old, uh, I'll, I'll give you the kind of, the, the, the quick rundown. So I grew up in Seattle, single parent household. My father came to the United States, straight from Japan, no money. You know, immigrant, had a camera around his neck, sold the camera for money, started his life, didn't speak the language.

• 24:51Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  Um, he was seventeen and a half or eighteen years old and struggled very much in a, in a time, in a period where especially Japanese were not accepted in our country. Um, and so he kind of settled in the northwest region, which was the Seattle area, Washington State. Um, became a hairdresser, a hairstylist out of all things.

• 25:10Lewis Howes?

  That way your hair looks so good?

• 25:11Speaker 01

  Well, you know, but thank you. Uh, and then he, uh, you know, my dad, he, he said everything was actually really turning up for him in terms of business until I came along and it like just changed his entire, entire life. So when I was born, uh, my father and my mother separated. Um, and then my dad took full custody of me and raised me. I think I was like maybe like one years old.

• 25:34Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  I, I, I don't, you know, I don't really know. So.

• 25:36Lewis Howes?

  Pretty quickly after you were born?

• 25:37Speaker 01

  Very quickly.

• 25:38Lewis Howes?

  He took you?

• 25:39Speaker 01

  He took me. He thought that he was the best suited, you know, parent to take care of me. Um, raised me without really knowing what was happening. Noticed right away that I was.

• 25:48Lewis Howes?

  She wasn't around at all?

• 25:49Speaker 01

  At all. At all. So, so here's the crazy part. This is another topic, but, so my mom was adopted.

• 25:57Speaker 01

  She doesn't know her background ethnicity because she was adopted. So, for the longest time, people ask you, okay, what's your ethnicity? I'm half Japanese. What's the other half?

• 26:06Lewis Howes?

  Don't know.

• 26:07Speaker 01

  Good question. You know, I had no idea.

• 26:08Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 26:09Speaker 01

  Until I went and got this, you know, this swab test.

• 26:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 26:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then it kinda showed where I'm from and I'm like a complete mutt. Like, it's crazy, my mix. Anyway, so.

• 26:16Lewis Howes?

  So she was gone when you were one?

• 26:17Speaker 01

  Gone. Gone when I was one.

• 26:19Lewis Howes?

  Do you have a relationship with her now?

• 26:20Speaker 01

  I have no relationship with her now.

• 26:21Lewis Howes?

  Have you hung out with her?

• 26:23Speaker 01

  I've never met her.

• 26:23Lewis Howes?

  You've never met your mom?

• 26:24Speaker 01

  Never met my mom.

• 26:25Lewis Howes?

  Never once?

• 26:26Speaker 01

  Never once.

• 26:26Lewis Howes?

  Never seen her?

• 26:27Speaker 01

  No.

• 26:28Lewis Howes?

  Is she alive?

• 26:29Speaker 01

  I think so.

• 26:30Lewis Howes?

  Have you ever tried to reach out?

• 26:31Speaker 01

  I haven't.

• 26:33Lewis Howes?

  Why not?

• 26:34Speaker 01

  Um, I think two reasons. One, uh, I'm not sure if I would really recognize the person who I'm meeting. Meaning, my father did such, I think, a great job, but, like, if my mom walked in the room right now, I wouldn't know that's my mom. If you just said, oh, this is so-and-so, she works for me.

• 26:57Lewis Howes?

  Right, but if I said, this is your mom?

• 26:58Speaker 01

  I don't think I'd believe you. Because I, you know, like, show me some proof that this is my... I don't know, it's definitely a very weird situation. So, I'm, at some point in my life, I'm sure I'm gonna get to a point where I'd say, I'd like to kinda reach out to someone who's biologically responsible for me being here on Earth, and I'd like to talk to that person. Cause I just wanna know.

• 27:19Lewis Howes?

  You're not calling her your mom, but the person, yeah.

• 27:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:21Lewis Howes?

  Person who gave you birth, though.

• 27:22Speaker 01

  Who gave you birth, right? So, there's some...

• 27:24Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 27:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's really, really crazy. So, again, like I said, this, I grew up in a

• 27:31Speaker 01

  American-Japanese household, from a dad who's extremely strict, but also not super Japanese, you know? That's why he left Japan, because he didn't wanna be Japanese. He wanted to be American. So he came here, and, uh, anyway, so, um, fast forwarding.

• 27:46Lewis Howes?

  So, does he, so, when she left?

• 27:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:49Lewis Howes?

  Was she still in Seattle, or were they married, or was it just like a...

• 27:53Speaker 01

  Divorced.

• 27:54Lewis Howes?

  Divorced.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  Divorced.

• 27:55Lewis Howes?

  They were married for a couple of years.

• 27:56Speaker 01

  They were married, yeah.

• 27:56Lewis Howes?

  Had you, and she left.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  Had me.

• 27:58Lewis Howes?

  He said, get out of here.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  Uh.

• 28:00Lewis Howes?

  You don't know, he doesn't know where she's at.

• 28:02Speaker 01

  No, he has contact with her like every couple of years. She'll just like call him out of nowhere.

• 28:07Lewis Howes?

  You haven't wanted to meet her?

• 28:09Speaker 01

  He'll just call me and tell me and he'll say, hey, you know, I spoke to.

• 28:12Lewis Howes?

  Shut up. So she knows who you are?

• 28:14Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 28:15Lewis Howes?

  She's watched you over the years?

• 28:16Speaker 01

  My name like all over the place, right?

• 28:18Lewis Howes?

  And she's never tried to reach out to you?

• 28:20Speaker 01

  So the last, so the first time I won a medal in two thousand two, she had called my father and said,

• 28:27Speaker 01

  I just want to tell you that I'm really proud. I know that obviously I didn't help raise, but.

• 28:32Lewis Howes?

  Proud of you.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  Cause my dad is really protective. Like, he's, he's very sensitive and.

• 28:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  I'm sure there's some other in, you know, some internal stuff there, but, uh, you know, so he, he would tell me and say, hey, look, you know, I got this call. And it kind of explained to me how the call went. But, you know, emotionally, it's very difficult for me to,

• 28:55Speaker 01

  to understand what that feels like.

• 28:58Lewis Howes?

  Well, what feels like?

• 29:00Speaker 01

  Having a mom. Cause I don't know. I had someone who was a mother figure in my life. She was amazing.

• 29:04Lewis Howes?

  Your, your dad get remarried or?

• 29:06Speaker 01

  He got remarried.

• 29:07Lewis Howes?

  So you had a stepmom who was there, was loving?

• 29:10Speaker 01

  No.

• 29:10Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  Uh, I mean, cause I, I moved away from home when I was fourteen.

• 29:14Lewis Howes?

  Got it. So you got married after you left?

• 29:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, after, after Kiana saw that I was on my own.

• 29:18Lewis Howes?

  For the first fourteen years, you didn't have a mother figure?

• 29:21Speaker 01

  No. Man, I was like making my own food at eight, when I was eight years old.

• 29:24Lewis Howes?

  It was just you?

• 29:24Speaker 01

  Cause my dad was working. I would come home from school and I'd have to take care of myself. I'd have to study and my dad would come home very late cause he was working trying to provide, right?

• 29:32Lewis Howes?

  You have babysitter? Do you have siblings?

• 29:34Speaker 01

  No, no babysitter. My dad was like.

• 29:36Lewis Howes?

  Single kid?

• 29:36Speaker 01

  And he was like, look, this is how you cook. This is how you clean. This is what you gotta do. Yeah, for years. Like, like, like, like true latchkey. What was it? Latchkey, is that latchkey kid? Is that the same?

• 29:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:46Lewis Howes?

  Wow. So you grew up quick.

• 29:48Speaker 01

  I grew up quick knowledge because when I was 14, I made my first team.

• 29:51Lewis Howes?

  So you were playing, you were with guys who were 21.

• 29:53Speaker 01

  I was number one in the US when I was 14.

• 29:55Lewis Howes?

  You were with guys who were 20s.

• 29:56Speaker 01

  Guys who were 35. They've been, they've been at two Olympic Games.

• 29:59Lewis Howes?

  You're like this child.

• 30:00Speaker 01

  They have families. I'm this 14 year old kid, punk kid from Seattle. I had no idea what respect is, what discipline, what hard work is. I just naturally had a God given ability for sport.

• 30:10Lewis Howes?

  And you were hungry and you were, yeah.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  It was actually, it was easy for me when I was 14. When I was 15, it was hard. And I don't know, for whatever reason.

• 30:16Lewis Howes?

  Because you started thinking too much probably.

• 30:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Right?

• 30:18Lewis Howes?

  If you're just having fun and you're playing, you're just like, I'm just gonna be the fastest.

• 30:21Speaker 01

  There's a.

• 30:21Lewis Howes?

  But then you're like, oh, there's money and there's this, there's that, there's press.

• 30:24Speaker 01

  Jennifer Capriati, the great tennis player, played against Steffi Graf when she was 15. And I, I forgot if it was, it was who I was writing the article, but it's something along the lines of she had this supernatural naivety. Right? Within her that she thought, I can beat Steffi Graf.

• 30:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:40Speaker 01

  I'm 15. Well, I don't see why not.

• 30:42Lewis Howes?

  She did it, right?

• 30:43Speaker 01

  And she did it, right? Um, that's the kind of mentality, I think.

• 30:46Lewis Howes?

  And then there's all this stuff at stake afterwards. There's like the money, there's the.

• 30:50Speaker 01

  I think, I think what happens is, yeah, psychologically is when you start, it's the scarring. So when you lose or you prepare, that emotional trauma, or whatever you want to call it, starts to affect you. And so psychologically, when you're kind of young, you have nothing to lose. It's a beautiful thing. You're a child. You're always in flow state.

• 31:09Lewis Howes?

  Always in the zone.

• 31:10Speaker 01

  It's always easy. You're strong, you're growing. There's, there's no responsibility. Yeah, you push ups, my legs get stronger. You know, like, it's like, doesn't matter. You know what I mean? It's, it's a, it, yeah, it, anyway, so back to the story, back to the story. So. For, so when I was 12 years old, I was a swimmer, had some success in sport. I wanted, I wanted to play football.

• 31:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. A little short for that, man.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  Thank you, thank you. Uh, my dad said no. Um.

• 31:36Lewis Howes?

  Very good.

• 31:37Speaker 01

  I, yeah, very good. I wanted a box. He said no. Um.

• 31:41Lewis Howes?

  At 12. So you'd never done skating before then?

• 31:43Speaker 01

  No. I mean, I did like roller skating and stuff, like the roller rink, right? But nothing like, and I was pretty good at sports, but. Never really took it seriously. And, uh.

• 31:52Lewis Howes?

  Did you do martial arts or anything also?

• 31:54Speaker 01

  No, no. But I've always been fascinated with, with mixed martial arts. Really fascinated with it.

• 31:58Lewis Howes?

  Okay, so 12, he said no to all these sports.

• 32:00Speaker 01

  I saw speed skating on television.

• 32:02Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 32:03Speaker 01

  Said, that looks so cool. 1994, 1994.

• 32:06Lewis Howes?

  On the Olympics or what?

• 32:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, on the Olympics. And I said, that is so cool. I want to try that. Six months later, my dad got me skates.

• 32:12Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 32:13Speaker 01

  I was practicing in some local hockey rink with some friends. Um, he took me to a couple of local competitions. And then from there.

• 32:21Lewis Howes?

  At twelve?

• 32:22Speaker 01

  Thirteen, about thirteen.

• 32:23Lewis Howes?

  And a year later, you won the national championship?

• 32:25Speaker 01

  I moved to, no, I, I, at the age of fourteen, here's a story. So, I was kind of a bad kid, but um, I think most kids are bad at some degree. So, uh, you know, living in Seattle, my dad said, I want to take you to Lake Placid, New York. You got an invite to attend the Junior Olympic Development Program in Lake Placid, New York, at the Olympic Training Center.

• 32:44Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 32:45Speaker 01

  Fourteen. They pulled some strings. You're supposed to be fifteen, but they see so much talent in you. You've gotten the invite. You're gonna go. I said, Dad, I'm not going. It's the summer in Seattle. It's beautiful.

• 32:55Lewis Howes?

  You want to hang out with your friends?

• 32:57Speaker 01

  I want to barbecue, like, I'm fourteen. I got all the answers.

• 33:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  You know? You, you don't understand me, Dad. And um, this was also a time when my father and I were clashing heavily.

• 33:08Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:09Speaker 01

  Uh, and so he just forcefully made me pack my bags and then took me to the airport two weeks later. And said, you're gonna fly to Albany and then take the, take the, the, the bus from Albany to Lake Placid. And um, dropped me off at the airport.

• 33:21Lewis Howes?

  Beautiful drive with the lake up there.

• 33:22Speaker 01

  It's beautiful. Now.

• 33:23Lewis Howes?

  Nothing to do up there.

• 33:24Speaker 01

  But when I'm fourteen, you don't see any of that, right?

• 33:26Lewis Howes?

  Just like two restaurants and.

• 33:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, you see like a very small town that hasn't changed.

• 33:30Lewis Howes?

  Ice hockey rink from Miracle on Ice.

• 33:31Speaker 01

  From nineteen eighty.

• 33:31Lewis Howes?

  That's like, yeah.

• 33:33Speaker 01

  And so my father drops me off at the ice rink and uh, after, or sorry, excuse me, my father drops me off at the airport.

• 33:40Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 33:40Speaker 01

  Um.

• 33:41Lewis Howes?

  Get to the.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  At Sea-Tac and I waved by to my father.

• 33:44Lewis Howes?

  Fourteen.

• 33:45Speaker 01

  Fourteen. And I walk right up to the payphone. Back then we had payphone kids. You guys don't even know what those are.

• 33:52Lewis Howes?

  So this is what, ninety?

• 33:53Speaker 01

  Ninety-four.

• 33:53Lewis Howes?

  Ninety-four.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  No, sorry, this is nineteen ninety-six.

• 33:55Lewis Howes?

  Ninety-six, yep.

• 33:56Speaker 01

  Ninety-six. I call my friend and say, hey, look, I'm supposed to go to New York today.

• 34:00Lewis Howes?

  At the airport?

• 34:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:01Lewis Howes?

  In Seattle?

• 34:02Speaker 01

  Yes. I'm not gonna go. I'm coming to your house.

• 34:04Lewis Howes?

  Shut up.

• 34:05Speaker 01

  So I go to my friend's house and then for the next two weeks, I bounce around from house to house.

• 34:10Lewis Howes?

  Shut up. Without your dad knowing.

• 34:12Speaker 01

  He kinda knew, but he, he didn't know until he gets the call from the coach in Lake Placid.

• 34:17Lewis Howes?

  Hey, your son's not here.

• 34:18Speaker 01

  Looks like, uh, Mr. Rono, the, the, look, the invitation's still wide open. We're just kind of curious. You know, what's happening? And my dad, you know, oh, you lost my son.

• 34:29Speaker 01

  And uh. He somehow finds out where I'm at.

• 34:33Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  He's furious. Um, picks me up and then we fight again for like another two weeks and he says, you're going to, you're gonna go. You're gonna try it for one month. Packs my bags, we go to the airport, parks the car, walks through security, walks through the gate.

• 34:47Lewis Howes?

  Make sure you get on.

• 34:48Speaker 01

  Gets on the plane with me, obviously he's flying with me.

• 34:50Lewis Howes?

  Oh, wow.

• 34:50Speaker 01

  He flies to Lake Placid, he goes up and we, we meet the coach, looks the coach in the eyes, shakes his hand and says, good luck. And then goes home.

• 34:58Lewis Howes?

  That's it.

• 34:58Speaker 01

  That's it. And then, um, this coach was like, you know, obviously during this like two and a half, three week period. This coach has started to hear some pretty horrific tales about this like problem child who's gonna come into the training program.

• 35:10Lewis Howes?

  When you weren't there.

• 35:11Speaker 01

  When I wasn't there, right? Cause he's, you know, so these like rumors started. Anyway, so then I started the program. Um, and it was.

• 35:19Speaker 01

  It was, it was actually pretty amazing. So that first mentor who was my coach, Patrick Wetland, took me under his wing. Saw that I had talent, um, but I didn't know what work ethic was. Um, I was competitive, but didn't know how to channel it.

• 35:34Lewis Howes?

  You weren't disciplined.

• 35:34Speaker 01

  I had anger and rage, but didn't know how to use it in a positive perspective or direction. Uh, so this was his job was to mold these younger kids to one day grow up to be great athletes. And then I, I just fell in love with the sport and then literally six and a half, seven months later. I tried out for the US world team trials, which is all age groups and I ended up winning it.

• 35:58Lewis Howes?

  Six months later.

• 35:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. Which I came out of nowhere. People were just like, who the hell is this kid? Um, fast forward a year later is the 1998 Olympic trials, didn't make that team, got dead last. The reason why is I went back home, um, after I made my first team and, you know, hung out with the same friends, partied and.

• 36:16Lewis Howes?

  Didn't train.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  Didn't train.

• 36:17Lewis Howes?

  Didn't focus.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  Zero focus. Didn't know that the off season was really the kind of the seed, the preseason.

• 36:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 36:22Speaker 01

  And, um, harsh lesson, but that.

• 36:24Lewis Howes?

  Dead last at the trials.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  At the trials. Dead last. I went from first to dead last. Yes. Uh, US Olympic trials.

• 36:29Lewis Howes?

  US Olympic trials, yep.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  So.

• 36:31Lewis Howes?

  They take what? Top three or what do they do there?

• 36:32Speaker 01

  Uh, they take top four and there's a fifth alternate. So four for the, for the relay, top two skate individual races.

• 36:38Lewis Howes?

  You were last out of how many?

• 36:39Speaker 01

  Six. Well, you have to make the cut, which is 16, top 16 men.

• 36:42Lewis Howes?

  Got it.

• 36:43Speaker 01

  But I barely made the cut and I also barely made 16th place.

• 36:45Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 36:46Speaker 01

  Just gave up. And then so my father.

• 36:49Lewis Howes?

  And you're sixteen?

• 36:50Speaker 01

  I was fifteen.

• 36:51Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 36:51Speaker 01

  Um, takes me back to Seattle. He's furious. Uh, cause he just, you know, my, my dad is a guy who, he really believes in like hard work, right? He really believes in kind of dedicating yourself towards something regardless of the outcome. Because if you don't, then you're leaving yourself open to the possibility of saying, I wish I could have, I would have. He hates that and he really instilled that within me, but I obviously didn't show that because I just a lack of passion.

• 37:15Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, you're also fifteen.

• 37:16Speaker 01

  Fifteen, but I grew up early.

• 37:17Lewis Howes?

  Lack of awareness, that's true.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  Lack of so many things.

• 37:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:20Speaker 01

  So many things.

• 37:21Lewis Howes?

  I still lack things at thirty-four, right?

• 37:23Speaker 01

  A lot.

• 37:23Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 37:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm still fifteen in a thirty-four year old body. But, uh, so he, he dropped, my father drives me about three and a half hours, you know, southwest of Seattle. To this area called, uh, Copalis Beach. Um, and there's a resort there called the Iron Springs Resort, which is not a resort, by the way. It's been renovated, but at the time it was just cabins, right? Nothing in there and he drops me off. He says, you're gonna find out what you're gonna do with your life. And you're gonna call me when you figure it out. And I, he gave me food and like I had clothes. I'm fifteen years old, man, like. I don't know if I could do that. If I, you know, when I have kids, I don't know if I could do that.

• 38:04Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  But it might.

• 38:05Lewis Howes?

  You're at a campground. There was no other people there? You're by yourself here?

• 38:08Speaker 01

  I mean, this is a place they send people to when they're part of like the witness protection program.

• 38:11Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 38:12Speaker 01

  Like there's, this place is desolate. There's nothing there, man. Yeah, there's like, I can buy fireworks. That's about it.

• 38:17Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  You know, like this is like.

• 38:19Lewis Howes?

  You're on your own. You're living by yourself.

• 38:20Speaker 01

  It's beautiful, this place, but there's no one there and it's raining every single day, all day.

• 38:24Lewis Howes?

  So what do you do?

• 38:25Speaker 01

  I just started working out. I started running.

• 38:28Lewis Howes?

  By yourself? There's no other people there or?

• 38:30Speaker 01

  I had a moment at the age of fifteen where I was going through like a midlife crisis.

• 38:35Lewis Howes?

  This is like your peaceful warrior moment?

• 38:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, seriously.

• 38:37Lewis Howes?

  Have you seen the movie Peaceful Warrior or read the book?

• 38:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, read the book, yeah.

• 38:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, Dad Millman. Yeah. Yeah, great book, great book.

• 38:42Lewis Howes?

  This is like your moment where you're like.

• 38:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:44Lewis Howes?

  The cocky like guy.

• 38:46Speaker 01

  It was, uh, it's identical. And so, you know, you have this fifteen year old kid who had all the talent in the world. I, I could have made that team in ninety-eight.

• 38:54Lewis Howes?

  You could have.

• 38:54Speaker 01

  If I just trained for a month properly.

• 38:56Lewis Howes?

  You think so?

• 38:56Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 38:57Lewis Howes?

  Top six, yeah.

• 38:58Speaker 01

  I could have gotten third, at least third, for sure. Um.

• 39:02Lewis Howes?

  But she didn't care.

• 39:03Speaker 01

  Didn't care. Thought that it wasn't important. Didn't understand the importance of.

• 39:07Lewis Howes?

  Going to the Olympics?

• 39:08Speaker 01

  I didn't understand it. I didn't understand. I just didn't.

• 39:10Lewis Howes?

  It wasn't like a dream of yours, or?

• 39:12Speaker 01

  It was, but obviously not.

• 39:14Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  Um, until I lost and I felt that kind of pain of, man, I could have done something better, you know, I could have been. And then I tried to just kind of find myself in this period of time where I was just trying to training and I called my dad about five days into the, five or six days into the, this mindless training program that I set up for myself and said, I made a decision. I want to try speed skating one more time. I, I didn't tell him actually. I just said, I, you know, I made a decision. He came, picked me up and then. Then I kind of.

• 39:42Lewis Howes?

  You made a decision what you want to do with your life.

• 39:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I, he was like, look, either you're going to go back to school, really, really study, or you're going to pursue the Olympic games and try to become an Olympic athlete. And I said, I, I think I could, I could do it. And I decided to do that. So I then really dedicated myself back and towards the Olympic movement.

• 39:58Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 39:59Speaker 01

  And, um.

• 40:01Lewis Howes?

  Sixteen now.

• 40:02Speaker 01

  I fell in love with the sport. So when I came back home the second time, I didn't call any of my friends. Um, I set up a little stationary bike in my basement and a small, like little seven inch Sony Triniton TV. I always remember it's white. And I set up like a little player and I just watched skating tapes while I was biking every single day and I went to school and studied. And it was very non-scientific, but I just, I basically just busted my ass and I became completely obsessed with the sport. Obsessed. And I understood every single athlete who was competitive. I knew their strengths. I knew their weaknesses. I knew why they won. I knew why they lost. I knew everything about the sport.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  And I showed up into the next training program six months later and I was trim. I was fit. I was way stronger than anybody else. Super hungry.

• 40:50Lewis Howes?

  Focused.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  Super focused. Um, and I was also just, you know, I was growing. So I started to get really, really strong. And then I started to win and I just started to win. And then once I got my first taste of international victory, I was just like this, like monster that couldn't be stopped, you know, and, uh, then my, then my career, you know, kind of started.

• 41:11Lewis Howes?

  Wow, man.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:13Lewis Howes?

  I love this stuff.

• 41:14Speaker 01

  And it, but it wasn't always, my career wasn't always like this, you know, like I think everybody goes, go through these crazy kind of up and down moments.

• 41:19Lewis Howes?

  Little injuries, little this, little that, whatever. Yeah, I hear you. I remember, um, my senior year of college, I remember my whole, my whole goal as a kid was to be. Three things, an all American athlete, a professional athlete and Olympian. It was my senior year and I got injured. I broke three ribs playing football. And the previous year, I broke a world record for the most yards in a game and I was the second leading receiver in the nation, but I didn't get the all American award because we didn't do that well as a team. And so my senior year, I say, you know what? Screw it. I'm just gonna go to track. I broke my ribs playing football. So I've got one more season and I've got the track season coming up. I'm like, I'm gonna do whatever it takes to be an Olympian, or not Olympian, but an all American. And I knew the only way to do that was through the decathlon.

• 42:04Lewis Howes?

  Cause I wasn't great at any one sport, but I was really good at a lot of events.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  It's hard, man.

• 42:08Lewis Howes?

  So hard. So I dedicated six months of my life.

• 42:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:11Lewis Howes?

  Your story is like almost identical to what I did. I dedicated six months of my life. I didn't like talk to anyone. I didn't eat sweets.

• 42:17Speaker 01

  You went in the hole.

• 42:18Lewis Howes?

  I was in the hole, man. Every morning, 6:00 AM with my coach, after school, after practice, I was staying. I was just like a machine. And I would watch every single night before I go to bed because the hardest sport to learn event was the pole vault. Cause I didn't know how to do the pole vault at the time. So I was like, I need to learn this ASAP.

• 42:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:35Lewis Howes?

  And I would watch an hour videotape every single night in my bed and visualize myself as dreaming, going over like a higher and higher bar every single day.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:45Lewis Howes?

  And I just became obsessed with it.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:47Lewis Howes?

  And I loved that time, man. That was the best time. I got in the best shape I've ever been. I was like 196, where I was 225 before that. Got to 196, was lean, fast. Felt good, man. Felt amazing.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  Isn't it amazing what you can do? Like when you really want something?

• 43:04Lewis Howes?

  It's the best.

• 43:05Speaker 01

  It's, it's, there's no limits.

• 43:06Lewis Howes?

  It's unbelievable.

• 43:07Speaker 01

  It's so crazy with the human body and mind, when they're synergistically working together and you have something of a sight in front of you.

• 43:14Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:16Speaker 01

  Sometimes you don't reach that, what you want, right? But I think the process that you develop.

• 43:20Lewis Howes?

  What you learn along the way.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  Oh my gosh, it's so, the life lessons are amazing.

• 43:24Lewis Howes?

  And I think if you wanna be the, you know, if you wanna win, I think the Olympics or anything and be great in business, I think you have to be obsessed.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:32Lewis Howes?

  There's no, you can't just be like, you know what? I'm gonna work pretty hard. It's like you have, if you want to be number one at anything, or have the chance at it, I think you need to be obsessed for a period of time.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:42Lewis Howes?

  That's the only way.

• 43:43Speaker 01

  I agree with you 100%.

• 43:44Lewis Howes?

  If you want to do the best movie, like the best directors in the world, they're not like normal people.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  No.

• 43:49Lewis Howes?

  They're obsessed freaks of like their craft, right? And they will obsess over every little detail of edits and storytelling and like.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:57Lewis Howes?

  Same thing with authors and writers, like the best ones got a little bit off. I think. God, I just want to get in there all the time.

• 44:05Speaker 01

  But you, but you can, you can. There's people who, like a light switch, they are able to turn it on and off.

• 44:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:12Speaker 01

  You know? Some people easier than others. In my, when I was competing my best, there was times when I could turn the light switch on.

• 44:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:18Speaker 01

  And when I was on, I was not gonna lose.

• 44:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:21Speaker 01

  I don't care if you had the most incredible day in your life and I was fatigued and wearing a weight vest.

• 44:27Lewis Howes?

  You were gonna win.

• 44:28Speaker 01

  I was gonna smash you.

• 44:30Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 44:31Speaker 01

  Smash you, right?

• 44:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:32Speaker 01

  That's the feeling that you have, right? That's why I think we train so hard, but obsessiveness is, is awesome.

• 44:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:38Speaker 01

  You know?

• 44:38Lewis Howes?

  Did you try with a vest too? All the time?

• 44:40Speaker 01

  I did everything. I did some crazy, crazy training.

• 44:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, we did, I mean, we did, the weird thing about short track speed skating is it's not a natural movement that our bodies are used to. So you're crouched over, like, you know, your back is bent over, it's, you're using all these small kind of muscles and tendons that you just aren't supposed to be using that way. And you're ripping around these corners, pulling two and a half Gs per leg, which is like a, almost a 400 pound one leg squat.

• 45:07Lewis Howes?

  So much force on your.

• 45:09Speaker 01

  Your hips, your legs, and it's like, you know.

• 45:11Lewis Howes?

  Twerking of it.

• 45:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it's, you know.

• 45:14Lewis Howes?

  You gotta be low to the ground to be able to do that sport, right?

• 45:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:17Lewis Howes?

  I want to be able to do it that well.

• 45:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:19Lewis Howes?

  Straight line, I'm pretty good.

• 45:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm explosive, I'm sure.

• 45:21Lewis Howes?

  Straight line, if I don't have to turn, I'm gonna be alright.

• 45:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. But obsessiveness is, is great. I think that that's one thing that we're starting to see, you know, like when you look at like the tech industry, guys who, I just, I had, I, I did this, um, this conference the other day where I was talking to some guys and, you know, it was about 11:30 PM at night. And this guy says, hey, Paul, it was really great to meet you. Let's keep in contact. I said, oh, you're taking off? He says, yeah, I'm gonna go back to work.

• 45:46Lewis Howes?

  Eleven o'clock at night.

• 45:47Speaker 01

  Eleven, eleven thirty at night. This is like a Tuesday or something like that. And he's gonna go back to his office slash home in Venice and go hammer out some more programming for this new video game he's creating.

• 45:58Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 45:58Speaker 01

  Right? Because that's all he cares about. It was great to be there in this event, but he actually, I could feel, he's like, I don't.

• 46:03Lewis Howes?

  I'm gonna need to be here.

• 46:04Speaker 01

  I wanna go back to like my little.

• 46:06Lewis Howes?

  Obsession.

• 46:07Speaker 01

  Obsession. This is where I wanna be. But I think those, those greatness elements can come out of those things when you really tap into them.

• 46:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:14Speaker 01

  But it takes a lot of effort. Some people, they don't have to put in a ton of effort, right? We're all different human beings. But I'm a firm believer that if you really, really hammer out the hard work, maybe this is, maybe the path that you're on is not the one that's gonna be your home run. But along this process, you're gonna learn something about yourself that'll lead to another path that you will have a grand slam.

• 46:32Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 46:32Speaker 01

  Right? And we don't know those end goals. We don't know, we have goals which we wanna reach. This is my end game. I wanna do this. I wanna be the next unicorn. I wanna have the next successful book. I wanna be this kinda success in business. I wanna be the next athlete. We have these wants that we seemingly think are important today in our life. Like when I was seventeen, someone says, Apollo, what do you wanna do, you know, in the next ten years when you're done skating? I said, what are you talking about? I'm, this is, this is my sport. This is what I'm on earth for. This is why I was supposed to be here. It was because of short track speed skating. I'm gonna inspire millions of people throughout my craft, not understanding that maybe this was actually just one of the vehicles that would launch me into another, perhaps another vehicle, that would allow me to touch millions, if not billions, of people's lives in a positive perspective. And take from, or learn from, or collab with, whatever those are.

• 47:18Speaker 01

  I don't know what those answers are, right? I'm not, I don't think we can see the future.

• 47:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 47:22Speaker 01

  We just, we're like these, you know, consciousness beings just walking around these little meat vests we're wearing.

• 47:28Lewis Howes?

  Uh-huh. Yeah. So why did you decide to retire then?

• 47:32Speaker 01

  I retired in two thousand and ten, uh, two reasons. One, I wanted to explore components just outside of the sporting world. I had been living in the bubble for fifteen years.

• 47:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's a long time, man.

• 47:43Speaker 01

  Uh, and I, actually, I wasn't sick of it. I still loved it. Uh, and I miss it every day.

• 47:48Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 47:48Speaker 01

  But I was ready for the next challenge. So I was super hungry for business, super hungry to explore the world, entrepreneurship, wanted to test my own will and creativity against the world and see what I can come up with, see what kind of businesses I can have an impact with, what partnerships I can create. And I wanted to live outside of the sporting world. So, you know, I think the hardest transition for any athlete is especially Olympic.

• 48:18Lewis Howes?

  Identity is a lot of it, man.

• 48:19Speaker 01

  Huge. You, you leave the sport, okay, February 23rd, 27th, Olympic Games, closing ceremony is done. 28th, you wake up, I don't have to train, I don't have a coach, I don't have my skates, I don't have a job, I have no income.

• 48:34Lewis Howes?

  No more press.

• 48:35Speaker 01

  No more press. Well, if you win, you have press. Um, it's not like you think. And so that transition, and then after that dies off, so like, let's say a year goes by after the Olympic Games.

• 48:44Lewis Howes?

  You're forgotten.

• 48:46Speaker 01

  Now, you are no longer in the spotlight, you haven't had the schooling or the social interactive skills.

• 48:55Lewis Howes?

  Emotional intelligence.

• 48:56Speaker 01

  Emotional intelligence and the experience of winning and losing in life outside of sport. That is so important for your development as an individual. So you're blunted and now you're trying to try out for a job at maybe, you know, at one of these investment banks or at another place. And you're competing against a kid who's fresh out of Columbia, who is, you know, 21 years old, you're 28. You have no experience. This kid used to intern, he's got two degrees, you've got one.

• 49:21Lewis Howes?

  You're living off your past success or your game in the past.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  You're, you're, you're, you have to find a way to find something that still fuels you and is, you're passionate about, so.

• 49:31Lewis Howes?

  I almost feel, every time I think about this, like, I love the Olympics so much. But every time the Olympics comes around and I see so much attention on like a 17-year-old kid or whatever, who's, whether they win or not, but they're just like in the spotlight, on the cover of every magazine, on all the press. I'm like, I'm so happy for that person, but I'm also like terrified for them because I know, like, when they, in a year or two, like you said, when they're forgotten, or they're just that person that did that thing years ago. It's like, who are they then? And they've never developed the skills. And it, I feel sad almost for the person who's gotten that much attention, so young, because they don't know what to do afterwards. I feel bad.

• 50:11Speaker 01

  I think it's like people who are child actors.

• 50:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  You know, it's it's similar.

• 50:16Lewis Howes?

  Music stars.

• 50:17Speaker 01

  And I think we also see the same thing when you see these vets come home. Or these sometimes, sometimes some of the SEAL guys who come home.

• 50:24Lewis Howes?

  They have a mission and then they have no mission or purpose, right?

• 50:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, and this mission, even though it's impossible to us as civilians. These guys, that's where they feel the most at home.

• 50:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 50:35Speaker 01

  So I struggled with that for years.

• 50:37Lewis Howes?

  Did you?

• 50:38Speaker 01

  I did.

• 50:38Lewis Howes?

  You were also like, you for some reason, you were like the king of getting sponsorships. I mean, I saw your name everywhere for years. I was like, how is he getting, I think you were in like Subway and like.

• 50:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, a lot of love.

• 50:47Lewis Howes?

  The White House and this and that. I was like, how is this motherfucker like getting all this stuff for years? And I was like, he's not even doing anything anymore.

• 50:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, for years.

• 50:54Lewis Howes?

  But you're like the unicorn. No one else was getting that love.

• 50:57Speaker 01

  I was, I got a lot of love. I worked really hard at trying to stay relevant. And I created just great partnerships.

• 51:05Lewis Howes?

  Not many people can do that, though.

• 51:06Speaker 01

  No, they can't. And I look, I've.

• 51:10Lewis Howes?

  And you were, it sounds like you really developed those friendships while you're in the games and like in between.

• 51:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did.

• 51:14Lewis Howes?

  You knew how to like.

• 51:15Speaker 01

  I did internationally especially. So, you know, I knew when I retired that I wanted to do business right away.

• 51:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, smart.

• 51:22Speaker 01

  And so I was super hungry and I tried everything, man. I did every business you could possibly imagine. I invested in so many things. I lost so much money.

• 51:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 51:33Speaker 01

  I've made money and I've lost millions of dollars.

• 51:35Lewis Howes?

  That was your PhD, man.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  Millions of dollars.

• 51:37Lewis Howes?

  That was your master's degree.

• 51:39Speaker 01

  Holy smokes, you know?

• 51:41Lewis Howes?

  You learned a lot.

• 51:41Speaker 01

  I learned a lot, a lot. But in that process, I also found that the things that I thought that I wanted in business actually aren't really what I want. I thought that that's what I want because society, I think, teaches us and what we see through social media is that these are the things that make you cool. These are the things that make you important. These are the things that make you feel good.

• 52:06Lewis Howes?

  What were those things?

• 52:08Speaker 01

  I think the traditional materialistic items that can be replaced with the next thing. And it's a never ending cycle that there is no ceiling. There's always something more. You always seek. There's no fulfillment, right?

• 52:20Speaker 01

  And in sport, there is because it's quite pure. You know, I'm not doing it because I wanted money.

• 52:26Lewis Howes?

  Well, amateur sport, Olympic sport there is.

• 52:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, but I think still these guys. You know, you look at Russell Westbrook. He wants, this guy wants to win, man.

• 52:34Lewis Howes?

  Loves the game.

• 52:35Speaker 01

  When he loses, it hurts so bad. I can see it in his face if you watch the game, right? Some guys, they, look, they're happy they made it, they got a huge contract, they kind of go relax. But, you know, still, it's, it's, I mean, same with MMA, right? You watch these guys who fight like.

• 52:48Lewis Howes?

  It's their life.

• 52:49Speaker 01

  It's their life, man. You know, like, sure, they're getting a great contract, right? But they are training because they want to win and lose. In business, same thing. So I, I approach the same thing in businesses. I make sure are my values aligned with the same kind of component? And look, I'm not going to turn away an opportunity just because I see there's an opportunity to create some financial gain. Of course, I'm going to do that. Uh, but I think that now the businesses that I have, um, and I'm focused on are making positive impacts. Those are the ones that I like the most.

• 53:17Lewis Howes?

  That's good, man.

• 53:18Speaker 01

  Right? And we were, you know, I was talking about this before, my company, Elysian. So we focus on essentially nutraceuticals. So brain supplements was our main focus. And then we have a whole skew of lineup. But that's one component, right? Is saying, look, this is, these are some tools to help kind of biohack your way to make sure you're healthy, clean, and give you the optimal edge. And then there's a huge part of the story here that you're missing. You got to meet me halfway. When you come meet me halfway and you make the commitment, let's talk about how we can help you improve as an individual. So, you know, yes, let's change your physiology. Let's change the way you think. Let's change the way that you move. Let's change, let's create some kind of psychological and physiological shocks to your system that says, I want to change today. Let's make it happen. Once you do that, then you start focusing on these everyday elements, right?

• 54:03Speaker 01

  Everyone, I want to lose weight. I want to look better. I want to have better social skills. I want to have more confidence. I want to go to sleep earlier. I want to cut my coffee. I want to cut my tea, whatever your goals are, right? Doesn't matter, I think we, we often lose sight of the process that gets there and appreciating that process and understanding what that process is and learning now that we've got all the information at our fingertips. Like you literally can be a high school student and you can get every single piece of information you want from your phone.

• 54:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 54:33Speaker 01

  From your phone. So now there's no excuse to not having the proper education and learning from someone like yourself or another social media influencer or another guy who's got an incredible impact in society. Or someone like Tony Robbins, who is one of the great speakers of all time, right? So people like this are now accessible to you.

• 54:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 54:53Speaker 01

  At all times, 24 hours a day. And if you're not taking advantage of that, you are just losing and missing out. Cause there's some kid in India or China who is logging on to the internet, who is getting the information, who is hungry, who has an idea, an idea set and wants to change their own personal life and in return to help others. And same thing with kinda what we're doing and my impact is, and we talked, you wanna impact a hundred million people. I think you're gonna impact way more, by the way.

• 55:20Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 55:20Speaker 01

  I think that's.

• 55:21Lewis Howes?

  That's the starting goal.

• 55:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:22Lewis Howes?

  Once I do that, then I set a new goal.

• 55:24Speaker 01

  It's a micro goal, yeah.

• 55:24Lewis Howes?

  Yes, yes.

• 55:25Speaker 01

  Um, you know, I think the beautiful thing of living and operating in LA is the creative minds that are here.

• 55:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's amazing.

• 55:31Speaker 01

  And if you could find your tribe who kinda cultivates the same societal trends that you deem important in your life, together, the transformation process for yourself and for others is, is, is amazing. And I see an opportunity to impact people all over the world. So you know, we have offices that are based in Vancouver, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, um, Shenzhen, China, Shanghai, Beijing, the Philippines, Thailand, these different areas of the world where when I go there and I talk about biohacking, they're like, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know why you're putting fat in your coffee. You're putting fat in your tea. You know, what are you talking about? They're, they're very behind in some of these elements. So the self-development or the,

• 56:15Speaker 01

  I guess a self-improvement perspective that we all seek on a daily basis is so new to them. Um, I, my only goal now is to end duality, have the business that also can be successful, but also create a community of individuals and people who are really interested in becoming the best versions of themselves, right? And I think we naturally compare ourselves to other people.

• 56:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 56:40Speaker 01

  Because that's our barometer for success, right? Well, this person does this, well, he's got, you know, this person's got a hundred million downloads on their podcast, right? So you naturally, you're competitive, and that's your barometer towards what you deem successful. Um, which is, I think is fine, but I think when we really, really focus on the things that we really, really want, and when you define them, whatever they are, if you just want to make more money, because you want to buy a nice car, or you want to buy that fat new gold roly, you know, whatever it is, uh, make sure you define what those goals are, and then you work backwards, right? And you develop a plan, just like anything else, so.

• 57:17Lewis Howes?

  This is the athlete mentality, you're speaking my language.

• 57:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, you know, I plan four years in advance. Like, that's my quah, that's like what I like to do. So I say, okay, well, it took me four years to be in my best shape of my life. If it's four years for a business, can we be a unicorn? Yes, we can. Well, what are the steps that need to happen for me to get the unicorn? Are there funding problems? How do I raise money? Are there staffing problems? How do I get people on board? Is there culture issues? Well, how do I make sure the movement is in line with the things that I believe in? Right? All these different components are the beautiful part of business. And I think that, I mean, we live, I, I, I get excited every single day because we live in a society now in the United States that is so open to having entrepreneurship. Never before in the history of the world has there been a better time to be someone who

• 58:04Speaker 01

  is hungry to make a change for themselves. You wanted this 20 years ago, it was difficult. Man, you gotta, you gotta go back to work and just keep it happening. Now, you can actually do it and make it happen, and you can do it instantaneously. And I saw, I get so fascinated from hearing from these kids and from these people, like this woman who. Left her, she was working at some marketing firm for like twenty years. She left and now she wanted to work for for our company because she loves what we believe in. She was, I've never been more happy in my life. She's making half the amount of money.

• 58:32Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 58:32Speaker 01

  Right, but she started making the money right away, no company. In about a year time from now, she's making three times as much is what she did.

• 58:38Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 58:38Speaker 01

  But she's following something that she really, really loves. So. Passion is important. You can only do something for money for so long.

• 58:44Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 58:44Speaker 01

  And, um, you know, I I think. I think there's so many different elements of business and commerce and connectivity that. I think we all love and and there's so many opportunities out there.

• 58:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 58:56Speaker 01

  I mean, I get opportunity, I'm sure you do every single week.

• 58:59Lewis Howes?

  Opportunity overload now.

• 59:00Speaker 01

  Overload.

• 59:00Lewis Howes?

  Stay, you have to say no a lot, just stay focused on your your vision.

• 59:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. You got it, you know, which ones are the priorities?

• 59:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 59:07Speaker 01

  Uh, one, two, and three, right? And if this is important, this is important, this is important. And I got three hundred other deals or possible collaborations or investments.

• 59:15Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 59:16Speaker 01

  What are those things?

• 59:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. I'm curious, um. What, who was more influential in your life, do you think? Mom or dad? And why?

• 59:26Speaker 01

  Well, I think, I think my dad was more influential because he was hands on, he was there. Um.

• 59:34Lewis Howes?

  What's the biggest lesson he taught you?

• 59:38Speaker 01

  Leaving no stone unturned is one of them. Um. In my preparation. So I think he's got, my father's got this kind of very. Japanese mentality, right? You fall down seven, you get up eight. You know, um, you, you have no. You know, the reasons why you do what you do. Make sure that they're. Beyond just winning.

• 1:00:01Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:00:02Speaker 01

  Right, so he was very much, you know, my dad was quite philosophical at a very, he was like the real life Mr. Miyagi. Cause there, there's times even today.

• 1:00:10Lewis Howes?

  I saw.

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's so crazy. My father would tell me some things and I'm like, Dad, I don't know what the hell you're talking about. Speak English, I don't understand, you know, but. He's got a way of putting things that now they make so much sense. Uh, and they had much deeper meaning. And like he told me six years ago, he said, Apollo, you don't understand it now, but at some time in your life, you're gonna understand that. You think that this is the most important thing you're doing in the world, which is, which is, you know, racing. It's not, it's really not. You're gonna look back and you're gonna laugh.

• 1:00:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  But I want you to recognize that because you're here for a greater purpose. I don't know what that purpose is, and you're gonna find out what that greater purpose is.

• 1:00:46Lewis Howes?

  This is just a small stepping stone to something bigger.

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  This is another chapter in your, in your life's book.

• 1:00:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:51Speaker 01

  Um, so don't waste it. Don't waste it.

• 1:00:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:54Speaker 01

  Uh, but my father for sure. He's my best friend, my mentor, so blessed to have someone who

• 1:00:59Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 1:01:00Speaker 01

  was just, I'm close to, you know, and been so supportive of me. Cause it hasn't been without challenge, for sure.

• 1:01:05Lewis Howes?

  Sure, yeah. And what's the biggest lesson your mom taught you? Even though she's never been there?

• 1:01:09Speaker 01

  Um, I don't know. Uh, I, I would say, because I, you know, I dream of having a family. Uh, and I don't wanna be divorced. I mean, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna have a tightly knit family, right? And provide what I didn't have. But I think there's some things that because I was missing that relationship with my mom, really allowed me to be Kind of somewhat pretty brutal in my training and kind of like a

• 1:01:38Lewis Howes?

  Take it out on the training.

• 1:01:39Speaker 01

  masochist for pain. You know, um.

• 1:01:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  Just living in the pain box all the time. I really craved it as an athlete.

• 1:01:49Lewis Howes?

  Do you think if your mom was there and was like this loving mom to you and to, you know, with your dad?

• 1:01:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:54Lewis Howes?

  That you would be as great as an athlete you are?

• 1:01:57Speaker 01

  I don't. I don't. But I don't know, but I don't, I don't think so. I don't think, for sure, there's something, there's an imbalance there That allowed me to be so driven. I was so, I look back at my career and it's like, you were so crazy. I didn't care about anything.

• 1:02:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:15Speaker 01

  Nothing mattered, except for every minute of the day was dedicated towards this craft. If I, I would rather cut off my arm than lose. Like I literally, I, it was so painful to me. I did whatever I could, you know, and um, it's not that I actually even, even loved winning, to be honest with you. It was that I

• 1:02:32Lewis Howes?

  Loved, hated the idea of losing.

• 1:02:34Speaker 01

  The, when I lost, I hated it so much and it hurt so bad, I couldn't sleep.

• 1:02:38Lewis Howes?

  What did it feel like?

• 1:02:40Speaker 01

  I don't know, just uh pure just internal disappointment with myself. Cause I felt like I should have won, cause I was better and I could have been better and I prepared better. And I felt like this guy didn't understand the sport as well as I did, you know? Yeah, and I lost a lot.

• 1:03:01Lewis Howes?

  You did lose a lot.

• 1:03:02Speaker 01

  I lost a lot, yeah, I lost a lot, many times. And whenever I lost, I came back stronger.

• 1:03:07Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:03:07Speaker 01

  You know, with I, look, within, within those failures, I think we always have the ability to kind of bounce back. We go back to the drawing board, we recalibrate, it's our time to reengage and understand, okay, what went wrong? What happened? How do we learn from this process? Okay, let's, let's keep it moving.

• 1:03:24Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:03:24Speaker 01

  Right? And now, you know, like, I make mistakes all the time. But how do I learn from and adapt faster, quicker, and don't make the same ones over and over again? Especially in business.

• 1:03:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:33Speaker 01

  Especially in business.

• 1:03:35Lewis Howes?

  Have you ever thought about going back into the sport, since you miss it so much?

• 1:03:37Speaker 01

  Two thousand twelve, I thought about coming out of retirement. I watched Phelps in London and uh talked to Phelps. And I thought, man, like, I think, you know, my legs still feel good, I'm super healthy. I don't see why not. I know so much more now than I do then.

• 1:03:53Lewis Howes?

  Your mind is sharper.

• 1:03:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, um, but I'm happy broadcasting.

• 1:03:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you're not gonna go back.

• 1:03:59Speaker 01

  No, I don't think so.

• 1:04:00Lewis Howes?

  You're done. Have you ever tried to do just like a fun ra- a race to just see if you still got it?

• 1:04:04Speaker 01

  I don't even wanna get inside that racing suit again.

• 1:04:06Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:04:07Speaker 01

  It's quite skin tight.

• 1:04:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, right? Wow, okay, so no more, it's not gonna happen, not even thought about it.

• 1:04:13Speaker 01

  No, so right, you know, my focus is now is.

• 1:04:16Lewis Howes?

  What's the next four year vision then, if that's where you do your four year block in?

• 1:04:19Speaker 01

  Sure. So I started a company two years ago called Alyssian. Um, you know, we focus on nutraceuticals. Uh, my goal is to have it in fourteen more countries. And have off fully operational offices in fourteen of those countries. Um, that's what my main focus is on. Uh, writing a book, um, toyed with an idea of doing a podcast, toyed with an idea. Um, have always wanted to do one, really just kind of just.

• 1:04:44Lewis Howes?

  Call it skin tight.

• 1:04:49Speaker 01

  That's a, that's a different podcast. Um, that's the, that's the after, that's the late, the late, late night.

• 1:04:54Lewis Howes?

  You should do one.

• 1:04:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:55Lewis Howes?

  But you gotta make sure it's very competitive right now, there's about four hundred thousand podcasts. You gotta be very different, unique.

• 1:05:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's difficult.

• 1:05:01Lewis Howes?

  You gotta come with your own angle, you know?

• 1:05:02Speaker 01

  Absolutely, and um. So, you know, I think that my goals and visions are, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm still involved in the Olympic space heavily.

• 1:05:10Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:05:10Speaker 01

  Uh, I love, you know, I look, I love-

• 1:05:12Lewis Howes?

  Summer and winter.

• 1:05:13Speaker 01

  Summer and winter. So, uh, you know, I do broadcasting for NBC every two years. So the next games are in Pyeongchang, uh, in 2018, February. The ones after that are in Tokyo, 2020. One after that is 2022 in Beijing, Winter Olympics. And then hopefully we can bring the games back here to LA, which would be a huge transformative-

• 1:05:31Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 1:05:32Speaker 01

  Um, process. I think we have a good shot.

• 1:05:33Lewis Howes?

  I do too. I saw the bid, like, at the, uh, the USA House in, uh, Rio. I watched it and I was like, this looks pretty good. It was pretty good.

• 1:05:42Speaker 01

  We have a good shot. You know, the games transforms, I think, communities and people, you know? You kind of get together. Our, you know, obviously our country is at a time where there's some severe divide.

• 1:05:52Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:05:52Speaker 01

  And I found that the Olympics is kind of that one time that everyone cheers for the one flag again.

• 1:05:58Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:05:59Speaker 01

  And the one team.

• 1:06:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  Which is very powerful. And, uh, LA is like, you know, it's accumulation of so many different ethnicities and cultures here.

• 1:06:05Lewis Howes?

  It is.

• 1:06:06Speaker 01

  There's so many powerful people here.

• 1:06:07Lewis Howes?

  In the Summer Olympics, what do you do the commentating on?

• 1:06:10Speaker 01

  Uh, I more go sport to sport.

• 1:06:13Lewis Howes?

  Interview athletes or-

• 1:06:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I'll go play different sports. Um, it's more free. And then when the winter comes, I spend almost full time doing, you know, kind of my own sport, broadcasting.

• 1:06:24Lewis Howes?

  Cool, man.

• 1:06:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:24Lewis Howes?

  That's amazing.

• 1:06:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:25Lewis Howes?

  I love it. Um, we've been talking for a while, haven't we? I just got like lost in the stories you've been, you've been sharing.

• 1:06:32Speaker 01

  What time is it?

• 1:06:32Lewis Howes?

  It's, uh, four o'clock, so I gotta get you out here in a minute.

• 1:06:35Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah, no worries.

• 1:06:36Lewis Howes?

  Um, final few questions for you. We're gonna have to come, have to kind of you come back on when you have your book.

• 1:06:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:40Lewis Howes?

  Cause I feel like I just scratched the surface with you and I can talk to, talk to you all day long here on this. Final few questions. Uh, one is, um, called the three truths. So this is the last day for you many years from now, and you have a piece of paper and a pen to write down three things you know to be true from all your lessons of sports, business, relationships, uh, you know, being with motherless, all these different things that you've learned, and this will be the only message you get to share with the world. Three truths, what would they be for you?

• 1:07:11Speaker 01

  Three truths as messages to share with the world. Um, I think first is love, because it's so universal in so many ways and heals so much. Um, empathy.

• 1:07:31Speaker 01

  And I would have to say,

• 1:07:38Speaker 01

  almost like a smile, fulfillment, happiness.

• 1:07:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, I think fulfillment, because that, that, that, it kind of encompasses what we truly want as human beings. We think we want tons of money. We think we want shiny things. We actually want

• 1:08:03Speaker 01

  great community, wanna be loved, we wanna love, we wanna be with people that we don't have to wear armor around. We want connections as human beings. We wanna find our tribes.

• 1:08:17Speaker 01

  And we wanna be able to do something that we feel is respectful, I think, right? So,

• 1:08:26Speaker 01

  yeah, that, that to me is

• 1:08:29Speaker 01

  intrinsically what I also strive for now. And

• 1:08:36Speaker 01

  notice I said nothing about sport, you know, that's a good thing. But I think, I think love is a huge component. Empathy and understanding that you meet someone, they just flipped you off, they cut you off in traffic. Someone's had a really bad, you don't know what this person's going through. Maybe they don't know how to handle it, or process it, or express themselves in the way that you would. But there's something going on that makes them react like that. And the quicker we are to realize that, the less likely we are to bark back. We're all guilty of it, cuz that, cuz we're fighters, right? People, human beings have designed to fight for thousands of years. And I think we now live in an age where we can combat that kind of old-school, thousand-year-old brain

• 1:09:21Speaker 01

  that we think we used to be like. And I don't think the world, I don't think we are designed to conquer anymore. I think we're designed to conquer our own insecurities and hardships.

• 1:09:35Speaker 01

  And I think we're also truth seekers, you know, so um. You know, my, my father instilled in me some very spiritual beliefs. He was never really very religious. He kind of let me choose my own religion, but he wanted me to be very much in touch with kind of who I am and my own spirituality. So. Throughout the sport and the training. I felt like I was always going to be somewhat taken care of, no matter what my outcome was. Because in the grand scheme of things, in fifty years when I walked away from the sport. I don't think it's that impactful on the whole life, short life that we have on earth. And I noticed that whenever I went to go speak, whether it's an inner city school or impoverished area in a different part of the world.

• 1:10:21Speaker 01

  What I felt. Walking away from that or Special Olympics, you know. The Special Olympics in Austria, um. Those impactful moments are. I think what we really, really crave. And, uh, you know, we live in a, we live in a society where hierarchy, money, power, greed, all these things still exist. And we're victims of those things and we also are susceptible to those things because we're surrounded by them, but we don't have to be slaves to those things. I think we can carve our own path. We can do the things that we really want to do. Having the plan, having the discipline, having the passion and the work ethic. Anyone can make it out of the box. Anyone can make it out of any situation. And I've seen people who've been dealt.

• 1:11:07Speaker 01

  The worst deck, you know, the, the worst hand of cards you can imagine, and they've turned that around and said, well, look, you know, I've got cards in my hand. You know, uh, it's so life really is perception. And, um. I've been blessed to have an incredible career. I've screwed up so many times throughout that process and after, and I continue to probably screw up, right? But I accept those things and. I hopefully can become a better person. I can be a great father someday. I can be loved by my friends and my family and I can spread love to people who really, really need it. And I think throughout that process. And that's being broad.

• 1:11:48Speaker 01

  Whether I do it through the business I'm in now, whether it's through a motivational side or inspirational side.

• 1:11:55Speaker 01

  You know, I hate being labeled a motivational speaker or inspirational figure. Because I always feel like your motivator inspired for like, you know, two days or two weeks and then it just dies down. And it fades into darkness. But how do you create change in something that's long lasting? How do you continuously keep doing? So something like this medium here, which we're in this amazing place, right? So we're in one of the epicenters of the world. And you've transformed this area into an area of expression, of education. And of connectivity to where you're expressing and giving people the opportunity to learn. And so you're spreading love by teaching them about themselves.

• 1:12:37Speaker 01

  Learning from people who've had success, who've made their lessons, who've made the mistakes already before you. And you're extrapolating this data and saying, look, guys, you can do it too. Continue on this path, figure out what that path is, figure out what you're good at, figure out what you're not good at. You know, and then continue on. Because you, you, you know, you probably haven't done all the things that you think you can do yet.

• 1:12:57Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:12:57Speaker 01

  And you probably haven't put in the discipline that you really, really think you've done. You say you're working hard, you say you're really putting in the time. Are you really? When you lay your head out at night and you think about, do you have regrets about your day? Can you say to yourself, I cannot do any more today than I've done? Most of the time, I say no every single time. Because I'm just like, no, I could have done more, I could have done something better, I could have been more efficient, I could have gotten more rest. I could have been taking care of my body. Whatever it is, you know?

• 1:13:23Speaker 01

  There's always something we can do and then, you know, so love, empathy, and whatever that happiness, smile fulfillment, they kind of go in hand in hand because uh, you know, I'm sure you've, we've always heard this, when you have those types of things, whether it's gratitude or happiness, you can't be angry or sad at the same time.

• 1:13:42Lewis Howes?

  Very challenging. It's hard to do.

• 1:13:45Speaker 01

  You can't do it, so.

• 1:13:46Lewis Howes?

  Gratitude is the antidote of anger.

• 1:13:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:13:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:50Speaker 01

  Yes, and I think that we, you know, we live in a society unfortunately that we take things for granted because it's accessible to us. And um, I find, I'm just so fascinated by, by the next generation of people. I think, well, you know, a lot of people kind of label millennials and just say like, oh, you guys are just, you know, you think everything should be given to you. And I'm just like, I don't think they think that. I think that they're given things because society and culture and technology is there. So their expectations are just how they, this Pavlovian training is just along this process, so, you know, the world we live in today is gonna be so different in 20 years.

• 1:14:27Lewis Howes?

  It's gonna be crazy, man.

• 1:14:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:28Lewis Howes?

  It's gonna be crazy. Well, this has been amazing. What's the best place we can connect with you online? Where do you hang out the most?

• 1:14:34Speaker 01

  I hang out on Instagram at Apollo Ono. I hang out on Twitter, at Apollo Ono. Find me on, on Facebook as well.

• 1:14:41Lewis Howes?

  Awesome.

• 1:14:42Speaker 01

  But yeah.

• 1:14:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, man. Um, this has been great. Uh, before I ask the final question, I want to take a moment to acknowledge you Apollo for

• 1:14:51Lewis Howes?

  constantly showing up and striving to improve other people's lives after a sport.

• 1:14:56Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:14:56Lewis Howes?

  I think you did an incredible job as an athlete and defining who you are and what you're capable of with your body and your mind in sport, winning all the medals, but it's what you've done afterwards which has been impressive to me and how you're not satisfied with that as your life, where most athletes are satisfied with their uh, sports accomplishments and they kind of live off that. You have taken that mindset and been uh, hungry to inspire others through business and through everything else that you're doing. So I want to acknowledge you for that, man.

• 1:15:25Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:15:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, and thank you for having me on. This is,

• 1:15:27Lewis Howes?

  Of course, man.

• 1:15:28Speaker 01

  I, I love mediums like this of expression because I think they're so important, given the clutter that we have in society and kind of, The distractions that are in front of us.

• 1:15:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:39Speaker 01

  Right?

• 1:15:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:40Speaker 01

  You know, how much time you spend on Instagram, looking at this picture, this picture, this person, this person's life? Who is not living that life you think they're living?

• 1:15:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:47Speaker 01

  I think that, you know, focusing inward, you'll find all the answers you possibly can get.

• 1:15:53Lewis Howes?

  That's it, man.

• 1:15:53Speaker 01

  You know, and just keep learning.

• 1:15:55Lewis Howes?

  That's it.

• 1:15:55Speaker 01

  Because we're just, we're babies. We're just babies. We're just, we're, like I said, we said this before, we're, we're always learning and I,

• 1:16:02Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:16:03Speaker 01

  I value it. So I value this time.

• 1:16:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:05Speaker 01

  Lewis, thank you.

• 1:16:05Lewis Howes?

  I'm glad you came, man. Final question, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:16:09Speaker 01

  Oh, my definition of greatness, uh, definition of greatness to me personally, uh, is someone who has reached a state and time in their life where they feel truly fulfilled. They're doing what they really truly love and they're actually making massive impact.

• 1:16:29Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:16:30Speaker 01

  Um, I, I like that the human behavioral change that people create amongst those who don't have the same chances or don't have the same deck of cards that we were dealt.

• 1:16:40Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:16:40Speaker 01

  So people who take their successes and they aren't afraid to duplicate them in a way to other people to also bring them up.

• 1:16:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:49Speaker 01

  Uh, and bring people together in a positive perspective. I, I, I love seeing people make it and go against all odds, no matter if they came from the hood and they came from the, you know, I know you had, you know, you had Clef on here.

• 1:17:01Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 1:17:01Speaker 01

  Coming from Haiti, his story's outrageous. You know, there's, people have so many unique skills and sometimes we need a spark, whether you follow your, you know, whether you follow Lewis.

• 1:17:14Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:17:14Speaker 01

  And his, uh, entire mediums of expression and his programs, or you follow Apollo.

• 1:17:20Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:17:20Speaker 01

  Or whoever, it doesn't matter who it is. Whoever speaks to you, whoever you vibe with, use that as your catalyst.

• 1:17:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:27Speaker 01

  To create change, you know, and so I, I think that greatness to me is someone who has really truly kind of understood that their first region of success was actually only a way that they could help other people.

• 1:17:41Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:17:42Speaker 01

  And using that tool.

• 1:17:43Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:17:44Speaker 01

  Um, and I, I strive to be that person.

• 1:17:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:48Lewis Howes?

  You are, man. I appreciate you coming on.

• 1:17:49Speaker 01

  Yes, thank you.

• 1:17:51Lewis Howes?

  This is great.

• 1:17:53Lewis Howes?

  There you have it. Greatness is upon you and all you need to do is use this information and take massive action. If you just listen to it and you don't apply this, or if you don't allow this to assimilate into your body and your soul and use it on a daily basis, then it will do nothing for you. So please use this information, even if you just get one little nugget from every episode that I bring out, one little idea, or just continue to confirm what you're doing, or continue to keep you inspired, because we need that positivity, we need that inspiration on a daily basis. The bigger the goal we have, the bigger the dream we have, the more challenges we will

• 1:18:35Lewis Howes?

  face, and that's why this is crucial to stay committed to a positive mindset and a tool like the School of Greatness. If you enjoyed this, please share it with your friends, LewisHowes.com/470. Tag myself and Apollo over on Twitter and Instagram and let us know what you think. Send him some love and let him know your thoughts as I love this one and want to have him come back on sometime in the future to talk more about the mindset and how we can all become Olympians in our own worlds and our own life, even if we don't make it to the Olympics. If you haven't subscribed yet, make sure to subscribe over on iTunes, on SoundCloud, or on Stitcher, or on any podcast app that you listen to your podcast.

• 1:19:19Lewis Howes?

  And as always, please leave us a review over at iTunes.com/Greatness for your chance to be known and featured as the review of the week. I love you guys so very much. Greatness is definitely upon you. You just have to capture it and take action and stay committed and consistent with your dreams every single day. I love you and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.