560 Les Brown: Overcome All Odds and Change the World

"Never make a point without a story, and never tell a story without a point. - Les Brown I am so excited to finally be releasing this episode with the amazing Les Brown on The School of Greatness. Les is a motivational speaker who doesn't just help people find inspiration, but helps them achieve greatness, and I think that this conversation will help you get a little closer to greatness, too. Les and his twin brother were adopted as infants and never knew their biological parents. They were raised by a single woman who was strong enough to do it all on her own. As a child, Les was diagnosed as mentally disabled, and referred to as DT - the dumb twin. He let this story everyone told him hold him back and keep him from achieving greatness. One day, in a class room, all of that changed. 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 560 with Les Brown.

• 0:06Lewis Howes?

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

• 0:31Lewis Howes?

  Jim Watkins said, "A river cuts through rock, not because of its power, but because of its persistence." And today, I'm very excited because we have the legendary Les Brown. He is one of the world's most renowned motivational speakers and a dynamic personality and highly sought-after resource in business. He's a former member of the Ohio House of Representatives, and for three decades, he has not only studied the science of achievement, he's mastered it by interviewing hundreds of successful business leaders and collaborating with them in the boardroom, translating theory into bottom-line results for his clients. He is essentially one of the most motivational people in the world, spoken all over the world.

• 1:16Lewis Howes?

  His books have been read by millions of people, audio programs people have heard and listened to, and he is essentially the voice behind almost every motivational video that you watch on YouTube. All those motivational videos with B-roll clips and highlights from movies, they usually have a voice over them, and that's typically by Les Brown. I'm very excited about this. I've been wanting to have Les on for a while. And some of the things that we talk about are how failure and success are actually closely connected. Also, the incredible story of the teacher who believed in Les when he didn't believe in himself. Why you should never let what you want to say get in the way of your speech.

• 1:59Lewis Howes?

  The power of spreading hope through speaking up. And what is possible when you open your mouth. I was so inspired by this interview, and I think you will be as well. Make sure to share this out right now, lewishouse.com/560. Take a screenshot of this, post it on your Instagram page, on Twitter, on Facebook, and tag me @lewishouse, and let me know that you're listening right now so we can connect. Before we dive in, I want to give a shout out to the fan of the week. And this is the review over on iTunes from Melissa Rodriguez, who said, "The happiest accident to ever happen was stumbling upon The School of Greatness, a podcast for the great by the greatest.

• 2:43Lewis Howes?

  Each episode makes you pause, rethink, and ponder deeper questions. Lewis is not afraid to be vulnerable and honest in a way that adds a level of genuineness that stays with you." Melissa went on to say a lot of nice things about me, but I don't need to share those with you guys. I wanted to share that quick little thought and review of the week and say thank you again to Melissa Rodriguez for being the fan of the week. I appreciate it. And if you guys want a chance to be shouted out on the podcast, just go to your podcast app right now and click on the review button, leave a review for us, or you can go over to iTunes on The School of Greatness podcast and leave a review there for your chance to be shouted out as a fan of the week. All right, guys, I'm super pumped for this. I hope you enjoy this one.

• 3:28Lewis Howes?

  And let me introduce to you the one, the only Les Brown.

• 3:39Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back, everyone, to The School of Greatness podcast. I'm with the legendary godfather of greatness, Mr. Les Brown. Thank you so much for being here.

• 3:47Les Brown?

  Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. It's always a treat when great people meet.

• 3:52Lewis Howes?

  He's got a lot of great one-liners. I'm excited already. We could just stop it right there.

• 3:55Les Brown?

  Yes.

• 3:56Lewis Howes?

  One of the things that I love about you is that you live in my favorite place in the world, Ohio.

• 4:01Les Brown?

  Oh, yeah.

• 4:01Lewis Howes?

  Because I'm an Ohio guy.

• 4:03Les Brown?

  Is that right?

• 4:03Lewis Howes?

  And you, I grew up in Delaware, Ohio, lived in Columbus for many years. Just had my event in Columbus because I try to bring back meaning to the place that helped me so much when I was...

• 4:14Les Brown?

  And it did so much for me. I went to Columbus, I was 22, and became a disc jockey there and did that for many years. And then I evolved into a community activist and became very, very much involved in politics and ran for the Ohio Legislature, was elected to three terms. And then my mother became ill and resigned and went back to Miami, Florida, where I'm from originally. But Columbus, I came at as a boy, but I left there as a man. I I grew up, there are so many things and so many memories that helped me to become the person that I am and the people that played a major role in my life.

• 4:51Lewis Howes?

  Really? Twenty-two when you went there, is that what you said?

• 4:52Les Brown?

  Yes, yes.

• 4:53Lewis Howes?

  And then you moved to Cleveland event later?

• 4:55Les Brown?

  No, no. After that, I was elected to the Ohio Legislature and then I went back to Miami.

• 5:02Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 5:02Les Brown?

  To take care of my mother. My sister called me and said, are you sitting down? And I said, what's wrong with mama? She said she has breast cancer. I'm adopted. I'm one of seven children that she adopted. And when we were six weeks of age, my twin brother, I have a twin brother, my mother adopted us and then she adopted five other children. So I'm one of of seven. And I always say that I I'm here because of of two people. One gave me life, the other one gave me love. God took me out of my biological mother's womb and placed me in the heart of my adopted mother.

• 5:35Lewis Howes?

  Wow, amazing.

• 5:36Les Brown?

  Yeah.

• 5:36Lewis Howes?

  Amazing. And why did you decide to go back to to be in Cleveland then? And why did you decide to go back?

• 5:41Les Brown?

  No, I just went to Cleveland recently. I have investment in a daycare center there, three. And so I went there to help to create a new type of curriculum that will help young people early on begin to develop the communication skills that I think is very important and and becoming successful in life. That's major. Your mindset, but also to have a value for life. That we see so much violence as children. They said over 200 acts of violence when children are raised in a culture. And the study that was done by Dr. Selman in the book called Learned After Optimism, the 26-year most exhaustive study on self-esteem said that

• 6:22Les Brown?

  between the ages of zero and five, that we develop permanent personality characteristics that follow us for the rest of our lives. And so I wanted to develop a curriculum that would teach children that life has value and that your life has value, to change their vision of themselves and to interrupt. How they see themselves based upon being in a hostile culture. This is a hostile culture for people of color.

• 6:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 6:51Les Brown?

  And so to me, one of the most important things to help people to overcome the psychic disrepair is creating a curriculum early on. And what we talk to parents about that our children are molding today, what they will be in the future. When I was a kid, I was born in abandoned building on a floor with my twin brother Wesley. And we were adopted. When I was six weeks of age, I was labeled educable, mentally retarded when I was in the fifth grade. I moved, they put me back from the fifth grade into the fourth grade. I failed again in the eighth grade. I have no college training. So being identified and labeled as DT, the dumb twin, it, it gave me a lot of things to overcome.

• 7:33Les Brown?

  And one of the things that Dr. Seelman said that when you are between the ages of zero and five, a word is formulated in your heart. That word is yes, or that word is no. So when you're raised in poverty, that vision of yourself, that culture, those circumstances, those conversations, those things that you observe, they begin to create the lenses from which you see the world. And so to overcome that is, it's a major, major challenge. And so I wanted to use the things that I learned and begin to implement and integrate those into the daycare centers that we have become involved in.

• 8:15Lewis Howes?

  Really cool. Yeah. Well, how many daycare centers are there now?

• 8:17Les Brown?

  Three.

• 8:18Lewis Howes?

  Three of them. Got you.

• 8:18Les Brown?

  Yes.

• 8:19Lewis Howes?

  Very cool. What do you think it is that school is missing out on in general in the U.S.? What's the, the main thing?

• 8:26Les Brown?

  They did a study of some top achievers and successful people around the world. And they wanted to find out what was the common denominator among them that enabled them to reach their goals. And what they discovered that 85% of them reached their goals because of the attitude, their vision about themselves and, and 15% because of the aptitude. So school, as you know, has been focused on reading, writing and arithmetic. It does not consider critical thinking and the conceptual education. And it does not help young people begin to mold a vision of themselves that will allow them to be an asset to our society rather than a liability. In fact, particularly when it comes to children of minorities, one of the things that.

• 9:06Les Brown?

  The school systems do, they track and determine based upon the failure rates of African American children and Latino kids in the third grade. Based upon those failure rates, they determine and extrapolate from those numbers, how many prisons they're going to build. So if you can track failure, you can also track success. So when you come up in an environment that is, one, designed to destroy your sense of self, and two, give you and provide for you an inferior education. Like when I came up in school at Bogota Washington High School, the money that was allocated to educate kids on Miami Beach and Carl Gables versus Bogota Washington High Schools, just tremendous difference.

• 9:51Les Brown?

  And when we got books, we got the old books, books that were five and six years old, written in, pages torn out of. And when they gave the test on the new books that we never got, and they said that we were inferior, we believed them because the newspaper said so and we bought that. And so, one of the worst things that you can do is, is provide an environment and get people to buy and lie about themselves and cause them to live a small life as opposed to a life of achievement. Because the culture was designed to hold us back. When I graduated from high school, a white high school dropout had more of a chance of getting a job than a black college graduate.

• 10:30Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 10:31Les Brown?

  Yeah, so, so that kind of environment, it destroys your sense of self.

• 10:35Lewis Howes?

  I was, uh, never good at reading and writing. I was held back. I was in the, the special needs classes, all those things through elementary school, middle school, had a tutor all the way through high school. Always felt like I needed to.

• 10:48Les Brown?

  Yeah, my mother's tutor was a good switch. She believed my subconscious mind was in my behind. Oh yeah, but go ahead, yes.

• 10:58Lewis Howes?

  And for me, I'm curious, when did you start to believe in yourself? Or was someone?

• 11:02Les Brown?

  My mother was working for a very wealthy family. She worked for wealthy families on Miami Beach. And I remember Mrs. Sidersky. She cooked for these families and we ate the food left over from the families that she cooked for. She kept their children and we wore the hand-me-down clothes of the children that she worked for. And when I had the assignment of cleaning Mr. Sidersky's office and shining his shoes, and he was listening to various motivational recordings. This is reel to reel. This is before A-Track and before cassettes. And those words, I had no idea. While I was shining his shoes, listening to people like Jim Rohn. "When the end comes for you, let it find you conquering a new mountain, not sliding down an old one."

• 11:46Les Brown?

  Of people like Zig Ziglar. "If you give enough people what they want, they will give you what you want." Listening to some of the words of Winston Churchill. "The truth is incontrovertible. Mallets may attack it. Ignorance may deride it, but at the end, there it is." And so I had no idea, while shining his shoes, listening to these words, that it began to restructure my vision of myself. And I had an interruption when I was in the 11th grade, because I was in special education from the 4th grade all the way to the 11th grade. And I met a gentleman by the name of Mr. Leroy Washington. I eulogized him last year. They called him the great communicator. And I was in his class, waiting on another student.

• 12:31Les Brown?

  He said, "Young man, go to the board and work this problem out for me." And I said, "I can't do that, sir." And he said, "Why not?" I said, "I'm just here to see MacArthur Stevens. I'm not one of your students." He said, "Go to the board and do what I'm going to give you directions anyhow." And I said, "I can't, sir." And the other student started laughing, saying, "He's Leslie. He's got a twin brother Wesley. Wesley's smart. He's DT." He said, "What's DT?" "He's a dumb twin." And I said, "I am, sir." And he came from behind his desk. He looked at me. He said, "Don't you ever say that again. Someone's opinion of you does not have to become your reality." And so what he did was what you do on this program every day. How people live their lives is a result of the story they believe about themselves.

• 13:15Les Brown?

  And when you have your program and your guests and as they share ideas of how they move through the things that affect them, what you do is interrupt their story. I tell speakers, I train speakers, how to discover their story, how to tell their story, and how to transform people individually and collectively by creating an experience. When I came into the speaking industry, it was based upon the book Thinking Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Napoleon Hill's book was a good book, and they considered that the bible of the motivational speaking industry. Well, I come to know because of my mentor, Mike Williams in Columbus, Ohio, he wrote the book called The Road to Your Best Stuff. He said, Les, if information could change people, everybody would be skinny, rich, and

• 14:00Les Brown?

  happy.

• 14:01Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 14:02Les Brown?

  So he said, in order to change people, you have to create a significant emotional event, that you have to interrupt a person's story that they believe about themselves with your story. And through the delivery of your story strategically, you dismantle their current belief system and inspire them to make new choices. Because at the end of a presentation, if you don't change how a person see themselves, and if you don't expand their vision of themselves beyond their mental conditioning and their circumstances, and begin to allow them to get a larger vision of themselves and begin to ignite their spirit, you touch their hearts.

• 14:45Les Brown?

  And as a result, they leave your presence feeling better about themselves, but making new choices. Because when you change how they see themselves, all you have to do after that is to get out of the way. The motivational industry is based upon a different type of method like Tony, who I think is a great speaker. Tony, he trains to get people to go to a fire walk, okay?

• 15:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:10Les Brown?

  I'm training people to get into their greatness, to begin to develop the courage to pursue dreams beyond their comfort zones. Because in order to do something you've never done, you've got to become someone you've never been. When you're pursuing your greatness, you don't know what your limits are, so you act like you don't have any. And one of the reasons that Booker T. Washington said, judge a person not by what they accomplish, but what they had to overcome for their accomplishment. The challenge, I mean, for instance, in me having a global voice, I remember when Tony had infomercials sponsored by Gunther Rinker, and they spent millions of dollars, and it was a blessing for me that they rejected me because I have the complexion of rejection.

• 15:53Les Brown?

  He had the complexion of connection. And so they said, oh, we don't believe a black guy can have appeal to the American public. I was so furious with that. Because it's called white privilege, you know? So, so I said, I don't have a backer. I don't have four color brochures. I still don't. I don't have millions of dollars backing me to develop a global voice. And Mike Williams, his goal was to train me to speak to the world. So I thought about it, and I remember something that Robert Chula said, there's never a shortage of opportunities, it's just a shortage of thinking.

• 16:33Les Brown?

  And so when I saw what Tony was doing, training people to go to the back of the room and sign up for his fire walk, or all the other speakers to go back and get their products, I said, wait a minute. Impact drives income and referrals. I'm going to focus on training and developing a method and technique to transform people's lives individually and collectively, as Mr. Washington did for me. When he said to me, Young man go to a board and work this problem out for me. And I said, I can't do it. And he said, don't ever say that again. Someone's opinion of you does not have to become your reality. He interrupted my vision of myself.

• 17:16Les Brown?

  And as a result, my mother said, sticks and stones can break your bones. Words can never hurt you. That's our lives. Words can hurt you very deeply. And so, but he interrupted my vision of myself. And as a result of his example and the input, review, repetition, and reinforcement of that concept and how he held me in his eyes when he looked at me. I was able to die to who I was and depart from the story that I bought into. Even if you are told a lie, faith comes by hearing and hearing and hearing. You hear it often enough, it becomes your reality. Perception not challenged becomes real for you. And so, there was no one to dispute what was said about me and I bought it.

• 18:00Les Brown?

  He interrupted that vision of myself in the 11th grade. And as a result of that, I began to become a different kind of person. And so, listening to these various speakers, but then because of how I was rejected by Gunther Renker and those guys, I said, I don't have millions of dollars, but I got a story. And what I'm gonna do, I'm going to figure out how to transform audience. I'm gonna figure out how to make myself stand out. I don't have the money to compete with them. I don't have the complexion of connection. But one of the things that Mike said to me, he said, Brownie, pay more attention to the listening than the telling.

• 18:45Les Brown?

  Study the audience, conduct communications intelligence. Don't assume that you know what they want to hear. He said, never let what you wanna say get in the way of what the audience needs to hear. And so, that's what I focused on. I always do a needs assessment when I'm training speakers. I tell them, don't assume you know. Each audience is a different type of personality. Each area of industry, if you want to go big, if you want to speak globally, you want to become an expert on the audience. You've got to learn and you've got to study them so that you can have the versatility and flexibility to speak to any type of audience with your story and be able to transform them individually and collectively.

• 19:30Les Brown?

  And that impact will drive your income and your requests. Every speaker get around 25 to 30 requests a year. I get over 3,000 because of using that principle. And many of the speakers that I've trained now, and some of them have passed me, using the same technique and strategies and have made millions of dollars. Amazing. Yes. What would you say is the vision for your life right now? My vision, I'm in a place of the Russian author, Leo Tolstoy. He said, "As I face inevitable death, what in the meaning and purpose of my life that will not be undone or destroyed when I'm gone?"

• 20:14Les Brown?

  And so, the speakers that I train and the speakers that I influence and the people they train and transform their lives, that we are literally in God's pyramid, that that work will not be undone or destroyed when I'm gone. And so, my goal now, we learn, we earn, we pass it on. I noticed when Jim Ryan died and Zig Ziglar died, they had not trained anybody. We don't hear anything about the people that they poured into. I've got so many, many that can go with me toe to toe. However, I tell them, "Trust me on this." I said, "Don't let this 72 fool you.

• 20:57Les Brown?

  I still got the fire up in here, up in here." I told you, taught you everything you know, not everything I know, all right? Young brooms feed clean, but old broom know where to go. So to me, I believe we live in a greatest country in the world, bar none. I'd make America great again. Foolishness, we never stop being great. There's no country that can compare to us. And we have the opportunity, I believe, by multiplying voices of hope, that we can begin to create a new day. A lady came from Australia for me to train her, and she's rather wealthy. And I said, why did you come to me? And she said, I saw you speaking on YouTube in the Georgia Dome,

• 21:42Les Brown?

  and you were speaking to eighty thousand people. She said, wow, you spoke from your heart, and you held my attention. And I can see you were holding their attention. And she said, can you train me to tell my story from my heart? And I said, yes. And so she started to tell me a story. What, you are scripted? I said, that's what set me apart from all the other speakers. They are scripted. If you have a script that you memorize, then you've got to speak from your head. You've got to regurgitate that script. I said, I will train you how to speak extemporaneously, so you have the versatility and flexibility to create unforgettable moments in the context of your presentation.

• 22:26Les Brown?

  And so we started working together. Then she stopped for a moment. I said, can you tell me why you want to do this? And she said, yes. She said, when I saw Dale and Roof, the young white boy, who went in a church and killed nine black people. She said, I felt that there should have been someone standing to his right on trial, because he was not born with that hatred in him to kill nine black people. Somebody poisoned his mind. And then she paused and said, and this gave me goose pimples, and we both cried. She said, I believe the world is as it is, not because a few people are violent. I believe the world is as it is, because too many people are silent.

• 23:09Les Brown?

  And I decided that my goal is, in this, at this chapter in my life, is, as I face inevitable death, which I'm believing it will be a long time from now, okay? I can't believe that I'm seventy-two. I used to think people in their forties were old. Now that I'm seventy-two, I feel like I was a waiter at the Lord's Supper.

• 23:29Les Brown?

  So my goal is, is to train others how to tell their story, how to extract their story, how to organize it, how to deliver it in a way strategically to transform audiences. And I believe by multiplying those voices, we all have an energy signature. There are certain people, when I speak, I'm going to reach them. There are some people that will hear both of us, but there are some people because of your energy signature, that when you speak, they will hear you not just in their ears, they're going to hear you in their heart. And as a result of them being in your presence and under the influence of your voice, when they leave your presence, you will inspire them, as, as Mother Teresa would say, to

• 24:13Les Brown?

  become a pencil in the hand of God and start writing a new chapter with their lives. Wow. Yes. So the goal is, is to train, probably I want, if I can train 77, Mike Williams asked me, I wrote the foreword to his book, The Road to Your Best Stuff. He said, Brownie, how many Les Browns do you have? I said, I think I've got four. He said, you need more. I said, I know, seven is my lucky number. I'm one of seven children. I was born February the 17th. My phone number is 702, my address is 2737. Did I tell you seven is my lucky number? Joshua marched around the walls of Jericho seven times. Naaman dipped himself in the river Jordan seven times. Did I tell you seven is my lucky number?

• 24:57Les Brown?

  So I'm going to train 77 people to speak to the world, to transform lives, to make a difference. Harzmann said, we should be ashamed to die until we've made some major contribution to humankind. And I believe, here we are, living in the greatest country in the world, where people risked their lives to get here, to outswim sharks, to trying to outrun Jeeps barefooted. And yet and still, last year, according to the CDC, more people, over 3,000, committed suicide than died from accidents. And these people, I believe, did that because they felt hopeless and helpless. And had they heard your voice, or my voice, or someone else's

• 25:39Les Brown?

  voice, that would have interrupted the vision of being hopeless and helpless and empowered them. I had a guy who, he texted me the other day, he said, "I was in a very dark place, and I heard your voice, and it brought me out into the light." So that's, that's what the next chapter looked at. Yes.

• 25:58Lewis Howes?

  I'm gonna have to take that training with you.

• 25:59Les Brown?

  Oh, you're great already. If I could just touch the hem of your garment, I'd be made a hero.

• 26:04Lewis Howes?

  For those that maybe aren't gonna have access to more intimate training from you.

• 26:11Les Brown?

  Yes.

• 26:12Lewis Howes?

  And, obviously, it's a more extensive training that would cover all these things. What would you tell people on how they can organize their voice through a speech, so that they're tapping into the hearts of people when they connect with them, and sharing their story in such a way that it is an interruption, and gets people to transform the way they look at themselves in a more positive way, and impact others around them? What would you say? I took Toastmasters, eight years ago, I think you took it, or you were part of the organization in some way?

• 26:39Les Brown?

  Toastmasters, I never took Toastmasters. Toastmasters, they selected me among the top five speakers in the world. General Norman Schwarzkopf, Lee Alcoco, Paul Harvey, and Robert Shuler. I mean, that's a very elite group, yes. I'm the last guy standing.

• 26:55Lewis Howes?

  That's pretty big. Well, I took, I took them eight years ago, for a year, because I couldn't stand in front of five people and share anything, without stuttering, and stumbling, and forgetting what I was gonna say.

• 27:05Les Brown?

  The first time I stood up to speak, I stood up and my mind sat down. I choked. I couldn't remember anything. When I spoke in the Georgia Dome, I went to the bathroom seven times. Did I tell you seven is my lucky number? They knocked on the door, "Brownie." I said, "What is it? Come out, man. Dexter Jaeger, they're, they're, they're pausing now, because it's time for you." And I made a mistake. I looked out at the audience, and I panicked. I said, "Mike, I don't hear the voices. I'm scared." He said, "Brownie, they came to see you. You didn't come to see them." He said, "Come out. You'll hear the voices." I said, "I don't know, Mike. I've been trying. I, I just don't know. I'm scared."

• 27:50Les Brown?

  And he said, just be scared and do it anyhow. Don't speak. I said, I don't have to speak? He said, no. I said, then what will I do? He said, just tell a story. Tell a story of where you are, about what you're going through and about the goal and dream for buying your mother a home. I told my mother, I said, Mama, when I become a man, I'm gonna buy your home. I said, when I turn eighteen, I'm gonna sit you down and I'm gonna be able to buy groceries for us. We won't have to wait till someone eats and hope that there's something left over. I'm gonna buy brand new clothes for us and we won't have to wear somebody else's children's clothes that they've worn all year long.

• 28:35Les Brown?

  When I become a man, you'll never pay another bill. I don't believe that women should pay bills. I think if a woman wants to work, she should work and do what she loves to do and whatever money she earns, she should keep it for herself. A man, not a grown boy, a man provides and protects. I'm from old school. And so my vision of myself, of wanting to buy her home and be able to provide for her. And I did that. I bought four different homes before she passed. That drove me. And so I think it's important that people find something that gives their life a sense of meaning and value that drives them, that becomes their magnificent obsession.

• 29:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:18Les Brown?

  And that's where I am.

• 29:19Lewis Howes?

  I like that. And so what about for people who wanna give a speech and share their voice?

• 29:24Les Brown?

  Well, I think they should find something that they're passionate about. Some subject that they can lose themselves in. There's a scripture that says, for man to gain his life, he must lose it. And I thought it was about physically losing your life. But it's about, when I speak...

• 29:45Les Brown?

  I go to a place, LeBron James, when they won the championship, he was in an interview and they said, "How did you do it?" And he said, "I had to go to another place." So, when I speak, it's not about me. My prayer is more of thee, less of me. I'm encouraging people who are serious about speaking, don't just do it for the money. You can make a lot of money. I earn more in one hour than 90% of the American public earn working for five years. But when you find something that you love, you will study it. Something that you love that becomes a difference between being in speaking and speaking being in you,

• 30:30Les Brown?

  that you will become not just confident, but you will become competent on that. When I prepare myself for speaking engagement, and I still do because I don't believe that you're never too old to learn and you're never too young to teach. And so, I pour myself into it. I lose myself into it because it's not about me, it's about the audience. So, I'm suggesting to those, and I only want to work with people who are serious, that what we can do for those people is right now, number one, never make a point without a story and never tell a story without a point. That's number one, that's key. Because stories can be used to transform people's lives.

• 31:14Les Brown?

  Not just anchor the points, but it creates a significant emotional event. And that's how human behavior is transformed. We have emotional memory. The next thing in speaking, there is some fear and that fear is always there. I never assume that I know what that audience is going to believe. Each audience, they have their own personality. And each audience, their audience inside of each audience is separated by age, by race, by income, by education. The other thing that's crucial in speaking. Is that as you speak and as you look at the audience, always take the time to find out who they are and all that get and get understanding. So I have a needs assessment that I sent out.

• 31:58Les Brown?

  And I asked them questions, you know, what are the things that you want this audience to walk away with? What are the things that you've done? Things that that stressing you out? What's the unspoken conversation? So I sent out this needs assessment. I talked with the CEO. I do research to find out their mission statement. I talked to the marketing director. And then I interview the top performers. If it's a sales organization, I talk to the top performers. And then the next step, I interview people in the audience. If you were in my position, what are the things that people in this audience need to hear? If you were in my position, that you would suggest. I asked them individually, these five people.

• 32:41Les Brown?

  And then when I'm on stage, I integrate that. I marry that to navigate an experience. As I said, Oliver Wendell Holmes said that once a man or woman's mind has been expanded with an idea, concept, or experience, it can never be satisfied to going back to where it was. So when you bring all of those elements in there with humor, with quotes, statistics, and stories, you're able to create special moments that can transform that audience. The other thing, when you tell a story, don't just tell the story. Experience the story and the audience will go there with you. Be the story. Yes, you've got to be the story, the embodiment of the story. So that the audience, as a result of hearing it,

• 33:24Les Brown?

  that they can't rest, that you start showing up in their dreams. You know, I have a, one of the things that I love, and I'll give them an example of what I mean. Because some things are taught and some things are caught. One of the things that I spoke the other day. I wanted this group of people that I was talking to, I wanted to challenge them to get outside of their comfort zone and to become uncomfortable with where they are. There's no saying, "You can take a horse to the water, but you can't make him drink." However, if you know how to speak strategically and create a special moment, you can create a thirst where they want to drink.

• 34:05Les Brown?

  And so, when I got to the end of my presentation, I looked at them and I said, "Right now, I want to talk to you about Dr. Howard Thurman, who was one of the mentors of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Abid Swites and Mahatma Gandhi." And when I was diagnosed with prostate cancer and my PSA was 2,400, I was pondering about my life, "Am I going to beat this?" And I was reading his words for comfort, and he said, "The ideal situation for a man or woman to die is to have family members praying with them as they cross over. But imagine, if you will, being on your deathbed and standing around your bed, the

• 34:47Les Brown?

  ghost of the dreams, the ideas, the abilities given to you by life, and you, for whatever reason, you never pursued those dreams, you never acted on those ideas, you never used those gifts, and there they are, looking at you with large angry eyes, saying, 'We came to you, and only you could have given us life, and now we must die with you forever.'" And the question is, if you died today, what dreams, what ideas, what gifts will die with you? And I paused, and the room is silent. I said, "Maybe that's why Henry David Thoreau said, 'Oh, God, to reach the point of death, only to realize that you've never lived.'"

• 35:29Les Brown?

  Maybe that's why one woman said, "What if you live your whole life only to discover that it was wrong?" Then I tell them, "Live full, die empty."

• 35:42Les Brown?

  I had one lady who she was sixty two and she went back to finish law school. Wow. At Wayne State University. She said, I'm not gonna have that ghost around my bed. I spoke at West Angeles Church in Los Angeles and Denzel Washington was on the first row. And he said, and he mentions this several times in graduation speeches, that he had had a narrow vision of the roles that he would play as an actor. And after he heard that, he said, he decided that he was gonna play a variety of roles, that he didn't want any role that said, we came to you, Denzel, and you wouldn't wanna play us. You wanna just be a goody-two-shoe

• 36:24Les Brown?

  guy, alright? So I said, wow, I hope I didn't inspire him to do Training Day. I got sick of that. I couldn't keep my popcorn down. Amazing. Yeah. Wow. So it's about creating those special moments, but the other thing is, get some coaching. Yeah. From people, and not just anybody, someone who's accomplished and doing it on the level that you wanna do it, because you can't see the picture when you're in the frame. Muhammad Ali said, I'm the greatest, but he never won a championship without Angelo Dundee. Michael Jordan considered one of the greatest basketball players of all time, but he never won a championship without Phil Jackson. So get some coaching from someone who's experienced, who's operated on the level that you want to go at. When I saw

• 37:07Les Brown?

  Mike Williams, who wrote the book, The Road to Your Best Stuff, he was a powerful speaker and I loved his content and the naturalness of his personality and he had fun. And so I said, I wanna be like that. Some accommodation of Mike Williams and Earl Nightingale, who was well-read, and Zig Ziglar, who had a lot of energy. And Jim Rowan has some profound quotes. I mean, just a great thinker, a statesman. And so, and then, but I also trained to, to be able to communicate. You know, like Dr. King was a great orator. Malcolm X was a great communicator. And so I integrate all of these people. I believe if you love this, you will study.

• 37:51Les Brown?

  The people that master it and you will evolve into creating your own voice with your own energy signature.

• 37:58Lewis Howes?

  Do you have an online program as well for speaking for people that want to know?

• 38:02Les Brown?

  Yes, in fact, we have just completed one that's not online, but what they can do if they're serious and hungry, I'm looking for people that are hungry, hungry people are willing to do the things today others won't do in order to have the things tomorrow others won't have. They can email me at [email protected]. They'll tell you seven is my lucky number. [email protected] and said, I want to tell my story and make a difference. And we will get, I will send them the seven principles of storytelling and some videos of how to tell your story and we'd do that free for them.

• 38:43Les Brown?

  And also the Georgia Dome presentation and two others that I just found that would be just great for them. The seven principles of storytelling, how to tell your story and the Georgia Dome presentation and some others that I just located. And the reason that I want to do that, I believe that if we multiply the voices of hope, messengers of hope, that will provide a message of peace and a message of hope and there's hope in the future that gives you power in the present. I believe that we can reduce the recidivism rate. I believe that we can reduce the number of our young men and women that's in the military who are committing suicide on a regular basis.

• 39:24Les Brown?

  I believe that we can begin to decrease crime and the violence that's taking place all across this country because evil prevails when good men and women do nothing. Nothing happens until it's communicated. In the beginning was the word. And so my goal is to multiply the voices out here that will be, bring some words that can help us to get a different vision of ourselves.

• 39:47Lewis Howes?

  That's powerful. So you have a way to email people back, they email you?

• 39:50Les Brown?

  Yes.

• 39:51Lewis Howes?

  Well, that'd be great. Who was the most influential person in your life growing up?

• 39:55Les Brown?

  My mother. Because I remember a reporter asked her, when I had a talk show years ago in 1992, how did you know you could raise seven children by yourself and you never had any kids? And she said, I just believe the Lord will make a way somehow. And one of the things I say to people. Don't discount yourself. I didn't do what I'm doing now for fourteen years because I didn't believe being labeled educable mental retarded, failing in the fifth grade, put back to the fourth grade, and no college education, that I can compete with people with PhDs and MBAs.

• 40:37Les Brown?

  And so for fourteen years, a lot of people say they have no regrets. The biggest regret that I have, that I disapproved of myself for fourteen years. And then, they say coincidence, it's God's, we have staying anonymous. I went to a training and a guy was speaking. And Mike Williams had already said, hey Brownie, you know why you go see Zig Ziglar and Dr. Robert Shuler and Dr. Norman Vincent Peale who wrote the Power Positive Thinking? I said, because I like the message. He said, no. He said, you like to help people. That's in you. You're always holding court here at the radio station. And you got a funny laugh, man. I said, I do? He said, yes. And so he just kept saying that to me.

• 41:21Les Brown?

  And, and I was at an event. And a guy was speaking and it just stopped, like a smell came over him. He said, there's somebody here who should be doing this. He said, I do it because I make a lot of money. And he said, I'd love to make money. He said, but you, you want to change lives. And you can make money too, young man, young lady. And he said, you know who you are. And then he paused again. He said, the reason I'm standing up here, holding this microphone, and you are seated out there, I represent the thoughts you have rejected for yourself. That hit me right between the eyes. I began to cry.

• 42:04Les Brown?

  At that time, this is in nineteen eighty. I went outside, I called Mike Williams. The telephone call was a dime then. I said, Mike? He said, yes. I said, I'm not rejecting myself anymore. Do you hear me? He said, Brownie, calm down. Listen to me, man. I'm not rejecting myself anymore.

• 42:23Les Brown?

  I said, will you help me? One of the things I teach, ask for help. Not because you're weak, but because you want to remain strong and ask for help. And don't stop until you get it. He's a strategist and, and he came down to Liberty City when I was there. I, I was elected to the Ohio Legislature. I was the chairman of the Human Resource Committee, the Education Committee. I passed fourteen bills my first term and I resigned to come back to take care of my mother. I refused to allow my brothers and sisters to put her in a nursing home. They said, we found a nice nursing home. I said, oh, hell, no. She raised us, we're gonna take care of her. And so I gave up my political ambitions. And then I was trying to find something that I can do that will allow me to be available to her and earn money too.

• 43:08Les Brown?

  And so I moved into this area of motivational speaking and took care of her until she passed. Wow. What would you say, now you didn't have a father figure growing up or? No, no, I, I had a sperm donor. Yeah, exactly. Yes, I've never known my birth mother or father and. Still to this day, I know. No, and I never did a search. My mother's Mamie Brown, that's, you know, I used to have a talk show and I said, this has been Mrs. Mamie Brown's baby boar. Her love was so encompassing, I never wanted to do a search for my birth parents. After she passed, I became curious because when I had a talk show, I asked a young lady, I was doing something on adoption.

• 43:52Les Brown?

  And I said, what's been most challenging part of your life experience of being adopted? I'm adopted too. And she said, my birthday. I said, why? She said, oh, my birthday. I know that my mother thinks about me. And I said, whoa. I left the show, went and called my twin brother. I said, Wesley. He said, what? I said, do you know what? He said, what? I said, do you know our mother think about us every February the seventeenth? He said, you call me about that? I said, yes. He said, you need to do some damn pushups and hug off.

• 44:33Les Brown?

  He said he hated him. I said, how can you hate our parents? We don't even know. We don't have a face. We don't have a target to hate. He said, I hate him, but oh God, again. So that just never moved me. It's just when people saw me as a kid, they called me Mamie's boy. Because my mother could talk to a tree. She was very friendly and outgoing person. She loved children, but she never had in herself.

• 44:59Lewis Howes?

  What would you say is the greatest lesson that your father taught you, even though you never met him?

• 45:05Les Brown?

  I don't know. I mean.

• 45:07Lewis Howes?

  With his absence, is there lessons?

• 45:10Les Brown?

  At Father's Day, I gave my mother a Father's Day card. I used to be on radio in Chicago. And Father's Day, I said, here's, I'm doing an event for fathers who provide and protect. And I'm inviting mothers who service fathers.

• 45:27Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 45:27Les Brown?

  And leave the sperm donors at home. That was very controversial, but we had a full house.

• 45:31Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 45:33Les Brown?

  I never thought about that because she was strong. She had faith. She was unstoppable. She was relentless. My mother, she made a way out of no way. I saw her go through some challenging experience. Raising seven children by herself. She, um, when she couldn't work anymore, had arthritis. She wrote numbers and sold moonshine and homebrew. And, and, and she went to jail for a period of time, you know? And I just.

• 46:08Les Brown?

  She only had a third grade education, but she had a PhD when it came to life. And I was 10. I became a man then. And so. I remember when I was with her, when she, she passed on my youngest son's birthday. And.

• 46:28Les Brown?

  I remember holding her hand when she took her last breath. And I said.

• 46:34Les Brown?

  I thank you. For choosing this. I never felt that I was given away. I always felt that I was chosen with love.

• 46:44Les Brown?

  And I said, I'm gonna make you proud that you chose us. So when I speak, I think about her and the tough times we went through. And I tell people, you're gonna face tough times. You know, my favorite book says, think it not strange that you face the fiery furnaces of this world. But I affirm, no matter how bad it is, or how bad it gets, I'm going to make it. And I heard her say that, that she was determined, we will always have a roof over our head, food on the table, and clothes on our back.

• 47:27Les Brown?

  And she was able to make her way out of no way. And so she has always been my father and my mother figure. That's all I know. Mr. Washington was a surrogate father for me. I've got some, some young men who, they see me as their spiritual father. And he taught me, Mr. Brown, develop your mind. You don't get in life what you want, you get in life what you are. Mr. Brown, practice OQP, only quality people. Who you run with determines who you end up with. Mr. Brown, yes sir, develop your communication skills. Because once you open your mouth, you tell the world who you are. And so he became like a surrogate father. I watched how he dressed.

• 48:09Les Brown?

  As you look at me, I have navy blue, I have a red tie and a white shirt. And that's how he dressed when he went to school. You go to schools now, you can't tell the students from the teachers. Okay, yes, yes.

• 48:21Lewis Howes?

  Wow, wow, sounds like an amazing mother.

• 48:24Les Brown?

  Yes, she was an amazing, very amazing parent. Yes, she was.

• 48:28Lewis Howes?

  What would you say is the greatest lesson she taught you?

• 48:31Les Brown?

  Never give up. I remember when she was... Very ill. At that time, doctors would come to the house, Dr. Johnson. And he said, Mamie, you hold on now. And she said, I will, because I can't leave these children here by themselves. So she wasn't even thinking about herself. She is thinking about us. And so when I was diagnosed with cancer, and it was like six years ago in Orlando, the oncologist said that cancer metastasized to seven areas of my body. I started smiling. And this guy said, did you hear what I just said? I said, yes. He said, are you in denial? I said, man, do you know seven is my lucky number? I said, that cancer is getting the hell beat out of it now.

• 49:16Les Brown?

  He said, you are crazy. And so at that time, my PSA was 2,400. Now it's zero. And I'm about to get a new procedure next week where they draw out your white blood cells and train them for two weeks and inject it back in you and give those white blood cells the capacity to identify cancer cells and kill them. So you see, all this stuff is just advanced. But your mindset, the biology of belief, you know, Bruce Lipton, I practice psychoneuroimmunology. Your mindset, your diet, and positive relationships, giving yourself a healing, nurturing environment,

• 49:57Les Brown?

  strengthens your immune system and allows you to stay here longer and do your great work. One of the things I ask people when we're training, what's your strategy for being here? You have to have a game plan. Being here is not a given. And I don't think doctors should tell people that you're terminally ill. What I think they should say is, my knowledge and ability to help you has terminated. Now you need to explore some other options.

• 50:21Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. Wow. How do we develop a sense of belief? What I'm hearing you say is belief is one of the most important things we can have in ourselves.

• 50:28Les Brown?

  It's an ongoing process. It's an ongoing process. One, I encourage people to read at a minimum of 30 to 40 pages of something positive every day to program your mind. And all of us can do that. We can go to the library and check out books. When I think about Ald Mandino, who wrote The Greatest Salesman in the World, he was on the verge of committing suicide, went to the library, read the book Think and Grow Rich, and his life turned around. So. Reading and programming ourselves. The reason that that most people should do that. Psychologists say that that eighty, eighty-six percent of our self-talk is negative and it goes undetected by the conscious mind. That's why we're taught, be not conformed to this world, be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

• 51:13Les Brown?

  Listen to recordings and things that are positive. Go on YouTube and find things that will begin to empower you. And minimize distractions in your life. We have so many distractions. The weapons of mass distractions cause most people not to begin to live their lives from the inside out, but from the outside in. You know, there's an African proverb that said, if there's no enemy within, the enemy outside can do us no harm. Shakespeare said, the fault of Brutus is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings. So you have to program yourself, or your mind will be programmed. The other thing is that have goals that's beyond your comfort zone. Because in order to do something you've never done, you've got to become someone you've

• 51:58Les Brown?

  never been. You've got to become a risk taker. This God said, if you're not willing to risk, you can't grow. And if you can't grow, you can't become your best. And if you can't become your best, you can't be happy. And if you can't be happy, then what else is there? And the other thing is, upgrade your relationships. You earn within two to three thousand dollars of your closest friends. You've got to look at the people in your life and ask, what is this relationship doing to me? There are many people, because of the toxic, negative energy draining people in their lives, they will never be successful. Because those toxic relationships will compromise their power. There's a new term in psychiatry called relational illness. There are some people that can make you sick.

• 52:41Les Brown?

  Now, some people might say, Les, can we change him? No. It's a full-time job, changing yourself. And there's some people that's so negative, they can walk into a dark room and begin to develop. Oh, behave. You're a little slow, that's all right.

• 52:55Lewis Howes?

  I heard it, I got it. I went to photography class in high school.

• 53:00Les Brown?

  Okay.

• 53:01Lewis Howes?

  Where we used to have the developing stages.

• 53:02Les Brown?

  They don't do that anymore. No, Polaroid, you know, yes.

• 53:07Lewis Howes?

  I like it. Man, I'm curious about, I've been researching for the last couple of years about masculinity. This topic about masculinity and what it means to be a better man. I'm curious your perspective on what the definition of masculinity is to you. And you've had an interesting upbringing without a father figure.

• 53:25Les Brown?

  I borrowed Mr. Washington.

• 53:27Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha, yeah.

• 53:28Les Brown?

  And he was a good example. I read a book by Sidney Poitier called The Measure of a Man.

• 53:35Les Brown?

  To me, a man takes responsibility. A man provides and protects his family. A man builds a legacy. I saw an interview with Steve Harvey and it was really powerful.

• 53:51Lewis Howes?

  He's great.

• 53:52Les Brown?

  He went to the hospital with a friend of his to visit his grandmother who was hospitalized. His friend's grandmother. And so his friend's grandmother asked him, hey, do you know your great grandfather's name? And so this young man said, no. And she said, because he didn't leave you anything. If he had left you something, you would know his name. A good man leaves a legacy for his children and for his children's children. I'm a grandfather and I'm a great grandfather of three sons. So I'm building a legacy. My children are all involved in the business.

• 54:37Les Brown?

  And I believe that as a man, you hold yourself to a higher standard, even though I have not always done that. When I was younger, I was a different person than I am now. I'm not wearing any crown. I'm like the lady who said, Lord, ain't what I wanna be, ain't what I'm gonna be. But thank God, I sure ain't what I was.

• 54:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 54:57Les Brown?

  Yes, you know, I have 10 children, five boys and five girls. When the Lord say, be fruitful and multiply, I took him serious.

• 55:04Lewis Howes?

  He took advantage of it, yes.

• 55:06Les Brown?

  I'm a baby Christian. I'm a baby Christian. I haven't saved that long. A lady hugged me the other day. I said, I'm a baby Christian. Back up, back up.

• 55:15Les Brown?

  And so you learn things and you grow and you evolve. And my sons are very good fathers. I said, I wonder where you guys got that from. It's come on, Dad, we got it from you. I said, well, I got a lot of flaws. They said, Dad, nobody's perfect, you know, and we love you, you know, just as you are unconditionally. And so to me, a man has compassion, sensitivity, a very emotional. And you care, you love and you feel that you want to live a life that has made some impact. Gerd said, don't ask what the meaning of life, ask what is the meaning of your life?

• 55:56Les Brown?

  And to me, a man desires to live a meaningful life. So many young people, young men today, because we live in an entertainment driven culture, that they don't have a vision of themselves or what it takes to be a man. I studied Mr. Washington. He was one figure that I looked at and how he held himself, how he spoke, how he dressed. And I said, I want to be like that when I become a man. I, I want to live my life in such a way that my mother would say, I'm proud of Leslie, that my children would say, I'm proud of you. Somebody asked me the other day, what has been your greatest accomplishment?

• 56:37Les Brown?

  You've won all the top awards in speaking, you've spoken to over 80,000 people in the Georgia Dome, 30,000 in Poland. What has been your greatest accomplishment? I said, when my children got together and said, Daddy, when you're in pursuit of the dream and all those special occasions that you missed, we were angry with you. But when we see what you have accomplished, we've graduated from college with no student loans, when we see the sacrifice, the price of what it takes to make a dream happen and how you started with so little, we are so proud of you and we want you to know that. That to me. Was the greatest achievement that I've had.

• 57:19Les Brown?

  I spoke about three weeks ago in Detroit. And my youngest, uh, second oldest son, Patrick, was with me. And he said, you know what? You're a special guy.

• 57:31Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 57:31Les Brown?

  You're a special guy. For you to come in here and speak to these people and train. And they didn't pay you anything. And you spoke to them and gave them everything you had. As if you had received a check. He said, you're a special guy. I admire you. When your children tell you they admire you, that to me is special.

• 57:58Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 57:58Les Brown?

  And they work with me and now love the work that I do. And they're taking it on. That to me is special. Yes.

• 58:06Lewis Howes?

  Is there anything that you wish you didn't do?

• 58:09Les Brown?

  Yes. I wish I had not waited fourteen years. Somebody said, if you want to lose something, lose money. You can get that back. Eight out of ten millionaires have been financially bankrupt. Walt Disney filed bankruptcy seven times and had two nervous breakdowns. But don't lose time. There were fourteen years, I said on the sideline. Fourteen years, I said, I don't have an investor in me like Tony Robbins. Fourteen years that said, I don't have an MBA or a PhD. And, and I can't compete with these guys. I have the complexion of rejection. Fourteen years, I silenced myself.

• 58:50Les Brown?

  And so I regret that because there are some people that maybe if they'd heard my voice, they would not have turned to drugs. If they'd heard my voice, their lives would have taken a different direction. And I can't get those fourteen years back. I think that drives me when I speak with such energy. I'm, I'm trying to make up for that time.

• 59:13Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 59:14Les Brown?

  But I can't.

• 59:15Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. Well, I feel like you're doing a pretty good job at it.

• 59:17Les Brown?

  Thank you.

• 59:18Lewis Howes?

  You're making a big impact. I'm curious, I don't know if anyone's ever asked you this or if you've already addressed this before. And I'm assuming your biological parents are probably passed. I'm assuming maybe they've been still around. But if they were, just happened to be here in the moment and they happened to be standing in front of you, fully aware of everything and realize that you were their son. Would you ever share anything with them or say anything to them?

• 59:44Les Brown?

  You know what I wonder, it's interesting you should ask me that question because I saw this thing on television about ancestry. And give them a swab in your mouth and they can tell you where you're from and all that. I'm curious, and it always happens to me when I speak, there are things that my children are doing in speaking that I didn't teach them. They got it from me. I wonder, what did my father do? And I wonder what my mother did. Where did I get this gift from? I don't know. I, I know that there are moments when I speak that it's not me. There's something that, that happens. There's some part of me that I know that's them.

• 1:00:29Les Brown?

  And I wonder which one I got it from. And what did they do? I, I wonder about that. It's not some burning desire in me. I've met people who've been adopted or foster kids. I was a foster kid first before I was adopted. And where I'd like to, to say, you know, why did you leave me? You know, why did you all come back for me? Okay, you know, but that gets me because of, of the fact that there's something that they, a part of me that they deposited in me at the cellular level that has caused me to be able to go out and transform people's lives and live this life. And so

• 1:01:11Les Brown?

  for a long time I used to say, I'm here because, and I say it today unconsciously, because of two people. One gave me life and one gave me love. But I'm here because of three people. Two gave me life. It was not immaculate conception, okay? They don't do that anymore. It's that my birth mother was in Florida and she was in a part of Florida where they, they were chopping cane, sugarcane. And she met this guy from Jamaica and he fixed some curry chicken for her and she got pregnant. I something to the curry, all right?

• 1:01:49Les Brown?

  So I'm here because of three people, you know, the sperm donor, my birth mother, and Mrs. Mamie Brown, that God took me out of a biological mother's womb and placed me in the heart of my adopted mother. And I would ask to say, did you all see each other anymore? Right. Or did you all talk about us? Or did you, were you ever curious as to whatever happened to, to us? And, and, and, and one of the things that happened, my mother told us that a neighbor, Mr. Moss, said, Mamie, you've always said you wanted a child. Well, there's a lady, she has some twins, she's in Liberty City, and she don't want to separate them. She wants someone who will take both of them.

• 1:02:33Les Brown?

  So she said, I'll take both of them. So he drove her out to Liberty City, 62nd Street, Northwest 17th Avenue. And she said, when she went into this, this house, the lights were off, there was a mattress in the back, and, and she saw this woman had shoulder of hair, they looked a lot alike. And she had Wesley and I in her arms in a, in a, a light blue blanket. And she said, are you the lady? Our birth mother said, are you the lady that will take both of my boys? And she said, yes. And she said, our mother said to her, listen, my husband was away in World War II, he's

• 1:03:15Les Brown?

  coming back home, and I got pregnant, he will kill me if he knew that I got pregnant while he was away. Wow. Will you take them? And so Mama said, yes. Are you sure? And she said, yes. And she said, she gave us to her. And they started walking out the door, and she came outside and followed her. And she opened the door for Mama, and Mama got in with Wesley and I in her arms, and she closed the door, and she leaned over and she said, your mother kissed you both on the forehead one more time. And then she hit the door, she said, go. And when Mr. Moss was cranking the car to leave, she said, wait, wait. And she said, my heart started beating fast.

• 1:04:00Les Brown?

  And, and she said, I thought she had changed her mind. And she said, you've promised, you swear to God, you will take care of them. And she said, I swear. And you won't separate them? She said, I swear. Then she hit the car again and said, go, get the hell out of here. And Mr. Moss smashed on the gas and left. And she said, as I held you and looked at you. And so God has blessed me with twins. Is that something?

• 1:04:30Lewis Howes?

  Powerful.

• 1:04:31Les Brown?

  Yes.

• 1:04:31Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 1:04:32Les Brown?

  I'm so grateful that she chills us with love.

• 1:04:35Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, that's powerful. I want to ask a few more questions. This has been really inspiring and I already know people are going to be talking about this a lot. I want you to imagine for a moment that this microphone and headset is connected to. Every person in the world has a headset on and they can hear what you're about to say. And they can hear and they're on language. It's translated, you know, a baby can understand it, anyone in any language. And everyone puts their headphones on right now. And you turn on the mic. What's the message you would share with the world?

• 1:05:11Les Brown?

  I do this in my training. I said, if I had a message to the world, I would say, you have greatness in you. I don't know you, but here's what I know based upon my own experience. You have greatness in you, that you have the ability to do more than you can ever begin to imagine. You have greatness in you, that as you think about yourself, a reminder of the words of Howard Thurman, who said, there's a presence in each and every one of us that waits and listens to the voice of the genuine in yourself. It will be perhaps the only God you will ever have or hear. And if you cannot hear it all of your life, will it be spent on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls?

• 1:05:54Les Brown?

  When you recognize your greatness, no one will ever pull your strings. You are different. You were created on purpose with a purpose to manifest that purpose through you. You are made in the likeness and image of God and been given authority and dominion over everything on the face of the earth. But you will never exercise authority and dominion over your life until you exercise authority and dominion over what you are not.

• 1:06:24Les Brown?

  Most people go through life, living the lie that has been told about them. And we are encouraged, be ye not conformed to this world, be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. Work constantly to renew your mind, to expand your vision of yourself, to hold a vision of yourself, living in the future, living a life of contribution. He said, "I'll give you all your eyes can see. Greater is he that is in you than he that's in the world." There's something in you that's greater than your circumstances. There's something in you that's greater than the adversities that you're facing. Life is just like Forrest Gump said, a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.

• 1:07:08Les Brown?

  In life, you're either in a problem, just left one, or headed toward one. You have greatness in you. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

• 1:07:16Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, I like that one. That's a good story. What's the question you wish more people would ask you that would actually help create more transformation in the world with your answer?

• 1:07:28Les Brown?

  Who am I really? Who am I really? Dr. Carter G. Woodson, which I think he was one of the most profound thinkers that I've ever read. And he said, "If you can determine what a man shall think, you'll never have to concern yourself with what he will do." He said, "If you can make a man feel inferior, you'll never have to compel him to seek an inferior status, for he will seek it himself. And if you can make a man feel justly an outcast, you never have to order him to go to the back door, he'll go without being told. And if there's no door, his very nature will demand one." And so, we have to begin to ask ourselves, who am I? MIT did a study, if I say to you, "You can't do that," somebody else has to come along

• 1:08:13Les Brown?

  and say, "You can do it, you can do it, you can do it." Seventeen times to neutralize that one time. So, most of us are living a lie. Most of us, because we live in a world where we're told more about our limitations rather than our potential, we go to our graves never knowing who we really are. That's why they say, "Most people die at age 25 and don't get buried until they're 65." Who are you really?

• 1:08:39Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. What is the thing you think about the most during the day?

• 1:08:44Les Brown?

  Can I, with the time that I have left, inspire young men to pull their pants up? With the time that I have left to eliminate HIV, hood-infected virus? The time that I have left? Eliminate AIDS, addiction to incarceration, and death syndrome? Can I, with the time that I have left, amplify and train and multiply voices of hope? And create a better world? Do I have enough time to do that? I almost died a year ago. And I believe God gave me grace. And we all have an expiration date. So I'm cranking it up. It's 72. Amazing.

• 1:09:29Les Brown?

  Inspiring. I'm working harder. Yes, that's what I want. There's no success without successors. So I'm determined for people that are hungry to make a difference. I'm determined for those who can hear my voice to inspire them, to train them, to pour into them everything that I've learned. And I know that what I've done is only a tip of the iceberg of what they're going to do. Young men like you. And I feel blessed to be in your presence. That's amazing. So do I. How can I support? And how can we support you? You're doing this now. And help me find that 77 hungry people. I got you. I got a lot of them. I'm sure there's a lot of them listening. I don't know.

• 1:10:14Les Brown?

  Yes, you're doing it now. I feel so blessed to be in your presence. I mean that sincerely. Mr. Washington said to me, "Mr. Brown, love, inspiration, and motivation are perfumes you can't sprinkle on others without getting a few drops on yourself." He said, "Live a life of contribution." Decide that you are going to live your life in such a way as Horst Mann said, "You should be ashamed to die until you've made some major contribution to humankind." And I want to find other people who have that kind of magnificent obsession, who have that kind of conviction about their lives, who want to make that kind of mark with their lives. And you don't have to be the smartest person in the room.

• 1:10:59Les Brown?

  You know, you could be labeled educable mental retarded like me. I remember going back to Boogity Washington High School and Mrs. Eve, one of the teachers I had in special education, she wrote a book called My Most Famous Retarded Student.

• 1:11:18Lewis Howes?

  You've just got to be hungry.

• 1:11:19Les Brown?

  You've got to be hungry, yes, yes. People that are hungry believe, always strive to get on top in life because it's the bottom that's overcrowded. People that are hungry believe, do what you know, not what you feel. People that are hungry have zero excuses for not pursuing their dreams. They make no their vitamin and they come back again and again and again. They operate like Willie Jolly, who said that a setback is a setup for a comeback. I've got a saying, if life knocks you down, try and land on your back because if you can look up, you can get up.

• 1:11:52Lewis Howes?

  Ooh, I like that.

• 1:11:55Lewis Howes?

  Final few questions for you. I feel I could ask you many more, but I want to be respectful.

• 1:11:59Les Brown?

  It's okay. Come with what you've got, my brother.

• 1:12:01Lewis Howes?

  Got it. It's called the three truths. I ask everyone this at the end. Now, if this was the last day for you, let's imagine many years from now, because you're going to be around for a long time.

• 1:12:11Les Brown?

  Yes.

• 1:12:12Lewis Howes?

  But for whatever reason, everything you've said has been erased. All the audio out there, the videos, you're on like a million YouTube videos with your audio over everything, all the books, the work you've done, for whatever reason, is gone. But you have a piece of paper by your bed and a pen, and someone asks you to write down the three things you know to be true about your entire experiences that you would pass on. And this is all people would have to remember you by. These three truths, what would you say are yours?

• 1:12:42Les Brown?

  I say, live your life from a place of love.

• 1:12:49Les Brown?

  He who dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in them. I would say, live your life from a place of faith. You know, Zig Ziglar said, fear is finding, false evidence appearing, real faith finding answers in the heart. And I would say, give the world your best, live full and die empty.

• 1:13:12Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, those are great truths. I love those ones. Where can we connect with you more? Where should people follow up with you? We're gonna send them to a link to get the seven, I think the seven steps to better storytelling.

• 1:13:25Les Brown?

  Yeah, seven principles of storytelling. They can go to Les, yeah, they can go to lesbrown.com. And I encourage them to get something called Choosing Your Future. Dr. Norman Vincent Fields said, that was an incredible piece of work that I've done. And I encourage them to, if they're serious about speaking and ready to invest in themselves and want some coaching, we've just completed an online course. So they can email and we will send them information about that.

• 1:13:54Lewis Howes?

  Cool.

• 1:13:55Les Brown?

  And also information about when we're gonna have seminars and workshops. I'm going to London, November the 12th. I'm, I'm looking forward to going there, doing a training there.

• 1:14:05Lewis Howes?

  Amazing. Got a big audience there.

• 1:14:06Les Brown?

  Speak to the world, is that right?

• 1:14:07Lewis Howes?

  I got a big audience in London.

• 1:14:09Les Brown?

  And we're gonna be at the U2, the historical U2. So, so I'm, I'm excited about going back there. I love going there.

• 1:14:17Lewis Howes?

  And this information's all at lesbrown.com for the speaking there and your tours?

• 1:14:21Les Brown?

  Yes. And we're gonna be in New York on, what is that? October the 18th. Yes, October the 18th.

• 1:14:28Lewis Howes?

  We'll make sure to get it all in the show notes at the end and link it all up.

• 1:14:30Les Brown?

  Yes, and they can go to my Facebook, thelesbrown.com. Yes.

• 1:14:34Lewis Howes?

  Facebook slash thelesbrown.

• 1:14:36Les Brown?

  Yes.

• 1:14:37Lewis Howes?

  Got it.

• 1:14:37Les Brown?

  Because they've got a lot of them out there.

• 1:14:38Lewis Howes?

  I see a lot of your stuff there. It's great stuff. Before I ask the final question, I want to acknowledge you for a moment, Les, for your incredible joy that you've spread to the world. You're like a virus of love.

• 1:14:50Les Brown?

  Thank you.

• 1:14:51Lewis Howes?

  And inspiration.

• 1:14:51Les Brown?

  That's a good virus to be.

• 1:14:52Lewis Howes?

  It's a great virus. You infect people with so much joy, love, with your childlike smile and laugh, and your humor, and your ability to use words and stories to transform lives. It's such a gift.

• 1:15:07Les Brown?

  Thank you.

• 1:15:07Lewis Howes?

  And I'm so grateful that I've had the opportunity to connect with you right now.

• 1:15:11Les Brown?

  Me too. I feel the same about you. Thank you so much.

• 1:15:15Lewis Howes?

  Final question for you is, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:15:18Les Brown?

  To me, and I said it earlier, when you're pursuing your greatness, you don't know what your limits are, so you act like you don't have any. You live from a place of the willingness to live life courageously, to be willing to take chances, to become a risk taker, to make impact, to go beyond believing to knowing, to lean not unto your own understanding, to feel within yourself, there's some cause, there's something that's bigger than me, but I'm never alone in facing this, that there's a presence that will never leave me nor forsake me.

• 1:16:00Les Brown?

  And that when you step into that place, more of Thee, less of me, that there's a place where we can go within ourselves. There are things that we can accomplish, things that we can do that eye has not seen, ear has not heard, nor has entered the heart of mankind what God has in store for us. When we surrender life to Me, when you're pursuing your greatness, you find something that you love, that you surrender to that. That something gives you life, and that you turn yourself over to that

• 1:16:43Les Brown?

  and allow yourself to be used by life. That, to Me, is what greatness is.

• 1:16:48Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. The Godfather of Greatness. Thank you so much, Les.

• 1:16:51Les Brown?

  Thank you for who you are.

• 1:16:53Lewis Howes?

  Thank you.

• 1:16:54Les Brown?

  Yes. Thank you so much.

• 1:17:03Lewis Howes?

  There you have it, my friends. I am moved. Emotionally, spiritually, I'm excited to go take action and make an impact in the world. And if you are excited to make an impact in your world as well, then let me know over on Twitter or Instagram. Tag me @lewishouse. And the show notes for this is lewishouse.com/560 to share it with your friends. If you have other friends you think would be inspired and moved by Les' message, then share this out on social media. Email a friend. Again, the link to listen or watch the full video on YouTube is lewishouse.com/560. All the resources, all the information about our sponsors and links, and everything else is up on that link as well.

• 1:17:46Lewis Howes?

  And I want you to know how powerful you actually are. You were born for a reason. Now is the time to step into your greatness and do the things that make you feel alive. Do the things that bring joy to your life and that bring joy to those around you. Again, Jim Watkins said, "A river cuts through rock not because of its power, but because of its persistence." Be persistent in your pursuit of your dreams today, my friend. I love you, and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.