622 Love Everyone Always with Bob Goff

“HUMBLE VOICES CARRY FURTHER IN THIS WORLD.” All of us want to be loved and accepted. It’s how we were brought into this world, and it’s how we should be spending our lives. I’ve learned that if you want to get love you have to learn to give it, but it’s not always that easy. I’m sure you’ve found yourself around people who you may find creepy or that may hate on you for seemingly no reason. Your knee jerk reaction is probably to respond with an attack back, but that does the opposite of what anyone wants. Hate breeds hate and love breeds love. At the end of the day, how do you want to be remembered? I know I want to be remembered as someone who lit the way with love, compassion, and really tried to understand everyone I encountered. On this episode of The School of Greatness I’ve brought you someone who has been spreading nothing but love around the entire world: Bob Goff. Bob is one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met. He used to be a lawyer and has since turned his life into one designed to spread love. He is a New York Times best selling author, a diplomat, and a phenomenal speaker. He’s helped build schools and shelters around the world. He’s saved lives by educating witch doctors in other countries, and has even become the Uganda consolut to the US. This was easily one of the most interesting interviews I’ve ever done. Bob’s mission is one I truly believe in. And believe it or not despite everything he’s done he still gets haters on social media. We discuss how he deals with those haters, how you can love deeper, and how you can overcome your insecurities. Discover all of that and much more, on Episode 622. Some Questions I Ask: Are you insecure? (7:34) How do you do what you do? (8:50) What did you learn from the last 25 years of being magnetic? (12:24) Why did you want to become an attorney in the first place? (15:57) When did you build your first school? (21:03) What’s your best piece of advice that does rhyme? (26:17) Who are you right now? (28:22) How do you get in touch with the humblest version of you? (30:06) What does faith have to do with loving difficult people or situations? (32:54) How do you know if you are engaging people too long? (37:05) How do you deal with haters when you’re just trying to spread love? (39:48) You engaged with witchcraft people in Uganda? (43:50) Do you go to the witch doctor graduations? (46:17) What do you still need patience in? (52:27) How did you transfer from being a lawyer to having a massive social media audience? (53:53) What’s the biggest lesson you think you still need to master? (59:50) In This Episode You Will Learn: How people get caught up in stereotypes (6:46) Bob’s boat race experience (10:25) What Bob wants more than anything right now (13:06) Who I want to be in 10 years (14:20) Bob’s first publishing deal (17:33) How to really engage with someone (20:13) How to work towards the success you want (23:01) The way Bob handles haters (30:26) How you can make a large impact in the world (36:04) Why love will be what we’re remembered for (41:29) The biggest lesson Bob’s learned from witch doctors (48:30) Where the best headlines of your book would come from (51:10) Why Bob wrote his latest book (1:00:45) Plus much more 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 622 with New York Times bestselling author Bob Goff. 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?

  Thomas Merton said, "Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy." Oh, man, does that ring true. And I try to bring on the most inspiring people in the world and especially learn the things that I need to learn the most about in that moment. And we've got Bob Goff on for a reason for so many people. There's a lot of conflict happening in the world lately. I see it on social media, on Facebook. You know, I have it in my own personal life, but I hear so many people talking about conflict in politics and at work and relationships. And, man, how do we just love each other fully, even if we don't think they're worthy of our love?

• 1:13Lewis Howes?

  We're here to debate this today and really enlighten ourselves on how to love deeper, even if someone does something wrong or they're hurting people, what we can do in that situation to navigate all of this. Bob Goff, he was an attorney for 25 years, and he left his practice to pursue writing, speaking, and international philanthropy full-time. He is a New York Times bestselling author of the book Love Does, a phenomenon that gave birth to the Love Does Organization, a nonprofit providing education to children in conflict zones around the world.

• 1:52Lewis Howes?

  He is also a diplomat, recognized as the honorary consul for the Republic of Uganda. This guy goes everywhere and just touches people and impacts people in a loving, powerful way. His new book, Everybody Always: Becoming Love in a World Full of

• 2:10Lewis Howes?

  Setbacks and difficult people. It's out. You can get it right now. Again, how do we become love? Attract love in a world of setbacks and conflicting people? Conflicting ideas, opinions, points of views, actions, all these things. Not saying people are right by doing certain things that might be extremely wrong. But how do we become love in those situations? And not let that consume our body, our energy, our mindset and horrors back? Well, in this episode, we talk about these things. And some of the main things are where our insecurities come from and how to overcome them. And why this conflict may arise with a lot of different people in your life. Also, the difference between what's true and what's magnetic.

• 2:56Lewis Howes?

  How to think about failure? How to deal with these conflicting individuals and haters that you might have in your life? And what will actually be remembered for in our lifetime? Who? This is going to be a juicy one and I am excited. Make sure to take a screenshot of this, post it on Instagram stories, post it on Twitter, on Facebook. LewisHowes.com/622 for the link to share out to your friends. All right, you were born in love and you're meant to be love throughout the rest of your time. Let's introduce you to the one and only Bob Goff.

• 3:37Lewis Howes?

  All right, welcome everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast. We've got the inspiring and legendary Bob Goff in the house. Good to see you, sir.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  Hey, thanks for letting me come.

• 3:45Lewis Howes?

  Very excited you're here. You've got some of the most incredibly magnetic energy that I've ever seen. So I'm glad you're here. And for a former attorney, that's, that's nice. It's refreshing.

• 3:55Speaker 01

  Isn't that crazy? Cause you're, as a lawyer, everybody thinks you're supposed to be uptight and argumentative and condescending. But actually, many of the lawyers I've met are actually really nice people. That just sometimes you take on a caricature of who you think you're supposed to be. And that isn't just lawyers. That's, you know, you, you pick the thing. Everybody has this idea of what they're supposed to be like. And what if instead of that, we were just? Us, like you have a big podcast. It's this great big one. So people have this idea of who you must be without even knowing you. Right. And then they meet you, you're like, nice guy. Just a normal dude. Yeah, so what if we just like, just assume that people aren't who you think they are, that they're just, just assume they're really nice people. Yeah.

• 4:38Speaker 01

  Insecure in just different ways that you're insecure. Do you feel like you're insecure? I am, I actually, you know, I don't walk around like as a timid guy. But somehow I got in my mind, I think it was in high school, that if people actually really, really got to know me, that they wouldn't like me. Isn't that crazy? Why, makes you still think that? No, I think that's taken like decades to kind of loop back to say, where in the world did that come from? I'm not really sure the return address on that. But we each get something in our mind. Could be something where you were rejected and, you know, you invite somebody to the prom and they say, you know, actually, I'd rather do something else. Actually, anything else. Did that happen to you? Yeah, oh dude, I still remember it.

• 5:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I finally got at the guts to ask Paula, right? And then she's like, nope.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  So the round trip on that was like 30 seconds. Yes. So, but, but I think if we could figure out without getting caught in an eddy of introspection, just figure out why do you do what you do? That would actually be really helpful. You could not just get absorbed in introspection, but to reflect on like, are you doing it for applause? Because if you're doing it for applause, join the circus. Are you doing it for validation? Are you doing it, are you doing it because you want to just express love to people? Yeah. That's worth asking. Why do you do what you do? I used to be a lawyer by training, but then I switched over. 25 years, right? Yeah, pretty long time. And it was the difference between practicing law and doing justice. And it's just a quarter of a turn. You know, if you go down to downstairs in a wine cellar,

• 6:14Speaker 01

  there would be like this, these dusty bottles of wine. And there's somebody down there giving them each a quarter of a turn. And I never knew until recently that that's the sediment sticks to the glass. And that's how you make the wine clear. And I think sometimes what it takes for each of us in our lives is just a quarter of a twist. A lot of people are like a job or two behind who they've turned into. That isn't a bad thing. That's actually how it's supposed to work. My worldview is this kind of like we're new creations. I've spent 59 years with old Bob, but I met new Bob like five hours ago. He was fighting traffic getting up here. Right. So, but to say who's new Bob and to say like, you know, newest version of you, newest

• 6:56Speaker 01

  version of each of the people listening and to just talk to that person and to just say, well, who do you want to become? Why do you do what you do? And, uh, and then what's the impact you want to make? And usually it just takes a quarter of a twist. Yeah. I was talking to this young guy. He said, Bob, you've impacted me so much. I've done a 360 degree turn in my life. I'm like, actually you're right back where you started. All the way around. Yeah, yeah. I just give it a couple of twists backwards. Should be 180 maybe. Yeah, exactly. 180 could be like awesome, but 360 not so much. Or even just a small degree. Yeah. One degree can shift everything, the projection of your life. Yes. To a whole new stratosphere. Yeah. You know what I was thinking about when we were, I was driving up here. Uh,

• 7:39Speaker 01

  there's a race. It's the Transpac race. It starts right off the coast here in Long Beach and you go to Diamond Head. That's the finish line. And so there's in the Transpac race, you have to steer by the stars, right? You can't do GPS and all that. So we had this small crew of guys. We got this 35 foot boat, which is like two Tercels end to end. It's a pretty small boat, but this guy that was going to be the navigator was a navigator on a destroyer. So we had like this ringer. Well, two days before the race, they changed his orders and he couldn't go. They made me the navigator. By the stars. What a bad idea. To get to Hawaii. Yeah. So I went to West Marine. I said, I'm like, I need a map. They're like, it's a chart. I'm like, whatever. Like, so I got this chart out and a yardstick. I put one

• 8:24Speaker 01

  end on Long Beach and the other end on Diamond Head. I drew a line and there's a compass rose in the upper right-hand corner. So I just figured out what the bearing was and we steered that for the first 1,700 miles. Did you know there's a difference between true and magnetic north?

• 8:41Speaker 01

  And from here to downtown, it's two inches. But from here to Hawaii, you miss the entire chain. Your first landfall will be Japan. And I think-

• 8:50Lewis Howes?

  Where'd you go?

• 8:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, we figured it out after 1,700 miles, hung a left and went the last 500 in the right direction. But there's a difference in my life, maybe you've seen that too, between what's true and what's just magnetic. So, winning arguments, that's magnetic, right? But I want to listen for the truest voice, not the loudest voice. I don't want to go for what's magnetic anymore. I want to give my life a quarter of a twist. And a lot of that means encountering some of the people that have been really difficult to deal with. But encountering them with love. I believe faith's a big deal for me. And so I just, I don't want people to meet all my opinions. I actually want them to meet love.

• 9:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, wow.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  So-

• 9:32Lewis Howes?

  What did you learn from the last 25 years of being magnetic and winning these arguments essentially? Because it sounds like you, you probably won some arguments in the court that maybe wasn't justice, right? Or a lot of people, I guess, win, but maybe it isn't the right justice, but you become so magnetic that you're convincing. Isn't that right?

• 9:52Speaker 01

  Well, one of the things I think that happens is we're looking for validation. So that you can get your validation from your work or your titles or whatever it is. So it's just, I'm right back to that thing of like thinking, why do I do what I do? It'd just be such a great thing. Like your feet hit the floor in the morning before you hit the coffee pot. Like, why am I going to do what I'm going to do? I'll give you a couple of examples. Like, so I have three kids and I want to be a grandpa more than I want to breathe. So two of them are married right now. And I'm just waiting-

• 10:20Lewis Howes?

  Excited.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  Forget Instagram, I want sonogram. So I schedule things nine months and a day in the future. And only nine months and a day because somebody's going to show me a sonogram. I'll finish up what I'm doing. You'll never hear from me again. Because I spent a bunch of my life trying to do things that worked. And a quarter of a twist on that, I want to do things that last. And like investing in my kids and being available, this 18 inch like grandkid won't know I'm there, but my kids will know. Cause my kids right now, if you ask them, where's your dad? They'd be like, they'd just point at earth.

• 10:58Lewis Howes?

  You're all over the place.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, like Sydney earlier this week and New York, all that. But I'm just want to be that guy that if you know who you're becoming, which is a grandpa, I'm not going to be with anybody, then it informs who you are right now. So think of you plus 10 years. So me, I'm 59, so me plus 10 years, 69 year old Bob. I bet he has a bunch of nine year old grandkids running around. That's my hope. Yeah. So think of you, add 10, and tell me about that guy. Who are you in 10 years?

• 11:30Lewis Howes?

  I'll be 45 in 10 years.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  Okay, tell me about that guy.

• 11:35Lewis Howes?

  I'm my most authentic self. I'm my best self. I'm following through on all the commitments, the habits, the routines that I want to live into. And I'm making the deepest impact on humanity.

• 11:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:48Lewis Howes?

  And I feel like I'm, I'm doing that now, but it could always be better. It's driving to impact more people.

• 11:54Speaker 01

  Then, and then the new version of you, the new version of me, the new version of everybody that works around us, just to continue to encourage people and point them towards that.

• 12:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  The people that have been kindest to me were the ones that spoke these words over me. Uh, there's a guy named Brad Quick, I remember in college, they were having like a Bible study at his house and they said, I got there early, it must've been daylight savings time or something. Cause I never got anywhere on time. And he said, you know what? It really honors me that you got here on time. And you know, this was 38 years ago that he told me that, but I got here 20 minutes early. You know why? Cause Brad Quick told me 38 years ago, I was that guy. I was the guy that got places on time. And so I don't freak out about it. I just get on time because somebody, just not a mystical thing, they just spoke that into my life. And so I wanted to say true words to people, talk about who they're becoming,

• 12:49Speaker 01

  not all the versions of who they used to be. And what we spend a lot of times, it seems like, is focusing on who people used to be. And I'm more interested in like, this is where the music changes in the movie. You're like, tell me who you're turning into. Now we got a game. Wow, and why did you want to become an attorney in the first place? Back in my day, there was a, every guitar shop had this sign with a circle and a cross there saying, "No, stairway to heaven." Because that was the little lick that everybody knew how to play and everybody was so over it. And I just didn't want, I thought I wanted to be like a youth leader guy. There's this outfit that does that, and you can like raise your support and do so. I raised it all, I said, "So can I be like a youth leader?" And they said, "No." Really? I'm like, "Well, it won't cost you anything."

• 13:34Speaker 01

  They're like, "I guess they thought I wouldn't be good with people." So I went to law school because I wanted to... So your dream, you didn't make your dream come true essentially? Yeah, didn't, but it just changed. I gave it a quarter of a twist. Yeah. And I was a construction lawyer. And I didn't do that because Jesus was a carpenter, it just was interesting to me. And so I, I just started, I just started trying construction cases up and down the coast, in Seattle, and San Diego, and LA. And so, but I gave that a quarter of a twist. And I started seeing the needs when my kids were the age of these kids that were being bought and sold in India and other places. I thought, "Man, I want to get some skin in that game." So I kept my day job as a lawyer. I had a law firm that had my name on it. But I gave it a quarter of a twist, and I just started spending more and more time

• 14:20Speaker 01

  overseas and doing this thing. And I don't think God's wild when we go across an ocean. I think he's dazzled when we go across the street. When you go to the office mate next to you, when you go to somebody who's been kind of difficult, who's let you down. So that's what I've been trying to do. I've been just, one thing like in your life leads to another thing. And then a publisher said, "Will you write a book?" And I said, "I don't know, will you build a school? I'll trade you." One book for one school. And they said, "Not just a school." I said, "A thousand child soldiers and a hundred teachers." They're like, "Big school?" I said, "Big book." So I wrote the first book, it was called Love Does. And I made them pay me in advance. I didn't know if it'd be any good.

• 15:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  And so we built the school and then they sold a bunch of copies of it. So we built the next school in Mogadishu, Somalia, and the next one in Iraq. We've got one in Nepal and an orphanage and one in India.

• 15:14Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  So we're still endeavoring to start schools. You know why? Because I talked to the next version of me. I talked to Bob plus 10 and he's going to be at home with his grandkids. So I'm like, let's make some moves.

• 15:26Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  That's a movement, just a bunch of people making moves.

• 15:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 15:29Speaker 01

  So I just hope for each of your listeners that they're just making their next move, whatever that is. But don't make a move towards, you know, like burning down other people's opinions because that doesn't make you right. It makes you an arsonist.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  So just engage people, engage them with love. And that isn't this like hallmarky, kind of like fluffy thing. You can be love and justice. They can go hand in hand.

• 15:52Lewis Howes?

  You were saying earlier, well, you don't have to agree with someone. You know, you don't have to agree with someone sacrificing a child or

• 15:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:58Lewis Howes?

  selling people, human beings, whatever it may be, but you can also connect with them and engage, right?

• 16:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, engage. That idea. If, we were just talking a little bit earlier before I stopped in about how if you get one handful of sand, that's 400,000 grains of sand. Is that terrific? I haven't stopped to count, but I've got it on good, on good knowledge. But if you live 92 years, and I'm sure you will because you're really fit, and you meet 12 people a day, that's 400,000. So we're going to meet a handful of people. What if you say, I'm going to have 12 conversations a day. This counts as one. I got to talk to some friends of yours before we got started.

• 16:37Lewis Howes?

  That's like five.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  That counts as two. The rest of the time I've spent, no, no, no, that counts as one because we were in a group. So that's two. And I'm going to spend a bunch of time in traffic. So I better put somebody on the speakerphone if I'm going to get to 12 because I actually want to have conversations, not ricochet off people. I don't want to just do that. And with what you do, a lot of people know of you, but I want to make sure a couple of people actually know you. And indeed, they have because they've heard you. Speak about things, but it would be a shame if we were known of, but we were like actually strangers to the people that were around us. Right. Like we were proximity to people and not really present. Mm hmm. You have you ever done that if you're at a dinner party and somebody's looking right past you at the next person?

• 17:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, so sweet Maria Goff and I will play softball together. Like we just play catch. And I don't even like baseball, but we play catch of the ball because if you answer your cell phone, you'll lose teeth. You have to be present. Yeah, you totally go get a softball. I go literally just go play catch. Frisbee, something, yeah. Whatever it is, just be present. Lose the cell phones. You don't need to put them in a fishbowl. But just like that idea of just being present, you'll have those 12 conversations and you know what? You'll change. Instead of thinking everybody else is going to change, you'll actually change and you'll change into the next humblest version of you. Yeah. So that's what Maria is hoping. She's hoping when I get back from LA, I'm a more humble guy than I left this morning.

• 18:07Speaker 01

  Amazing. Yeah, so that's her hope every day. That's cool. Yeah. When did you start to, when did you build your first school? Let's see, it was 18 years ago. 18 years. Isn't that crazy? I feel like the Crypt Keepers now. Yeah, so we just started. They said you need to have all these like permission. Uganda had been caught up in this 25 year civil war. Hundreds of thousands of people had died as a result of this. And so we went to northern Uganda and we just said, let's just start a school. There's 400,000 kids that had never been in school. So we let as many as we could know, hundreds of thousands of you. Said, we're starting a school. You can come for free. You know how many showed up? Nine.

• 18:48Speaker 01

  Why? But I wasn't bummed. I'm like, we got a soccer team. And so like that whole idea to just start and this is a beautiful, it's both proverb and it's a saying in Africa. Don't despise small beginnings. Just because, because I think God delights when we just start the work. Hmm. You know, it's actually Zechariah that talks about that 410 that's just don't despise small beginnings. And so start small. So if you hear something that resonates with you during the day, I'm just like, what if I just start small? What's like one step? In that direction. If you're like me, and I bet you are in many ways. Are you done the Enneagram thing? It's like a personality thing. I'm a seven.

• 19:28Lewis Howes?

  I've done it, but I forget what it is.

• 19:30Speaker 01

  Oh, we gotta get you hooked up before the end of the day.

• 19:32Lewis Howes?

  I'm trying to Myers-Briggs and all this stuff.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So Enneagram is like kind of one through nine. So seven is the enthusiast.

• 19:38Lewis Howes?

  I think that's probably me.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So the enthusiast wants to spend every day at Disneyland. Right? But I don't spend every day there. I spend Wednesdays there. Isn't that crazy?

• 19:47Lewis Howes?

  Every Wednesday.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Why do you do what you do? Because I teach a class at Pepperdine Law School on failure. Isn't that awesome? It's the only class I know at a top-tier law school on how to fail. And each week, I just bring in my friends who've screwed up in front of Earth.

• 20:03Speaker 01

  So I just feel like if you haven't screwed up in front of a million people, you can't, we got nothing in common. So one of the things that I don't want people to do is we kind of get this idea that we need to go with this upward trending, you know, from one success to the other. And actually, what's marked me is just a bunch of times where it didn't work or some went way awry. But it's kind of what you do next. What do you do with that? How are you going to grow? And you know who I spend most of my time talking to? Next version of Bob. So talk about that guy. But the important thing for me is to not forget that childlike faith. Right? So that eight-year-old version. Tell me about you when you were eight.

• 20:41Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  Tell me about that guy.

• 20:43Lewis Howes?

  Really scared.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  How so?

• 20:46Lewis Howes?

  Really insecure. I was young as a four and I didn't have any friends. I was like growing really tall and just goofy looking. I was, I could barely read and write at that age. So I was just always felt like I was picked on. So for me, I had a lot of passion and like excitement, but I was always scared of people's opinions because I didn't have any friends.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. Isn't that interesting? And so sometimes you can find yourself, if you're like me, acting like this eight-year-old version. All of a sudden, it's little Bobby Goff talking. I'm like, where did he come from? I thought we left him behind. Sometimes it's useful to have that childlike version of you. Not childish, because guys, we've got childish nailed, but childlike, right? To be like a childlike faith, a childlike

• 21:30Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  approach to things.

• 21:32Lewis Howes?

  A curious mind, a passionate, curious.

• 21:34Speaker 01

  Curious about everything.

• 21:35Lewis Howes?

  Everything.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  And then when somebody has like this big opinion about why things, I, you know, people don't even know why bananas are yellow. And I'm like, you know, if somebody's telling me about some angel on a head of a horse. And I'm like, dude, we don't know why bananas are yellow.

• 21:52Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 21:52Speaker 01

  So I'll have one of my 12 conversations, but I'm not trying to straighten them, straighten them out. I'm just curious about how life works for them.

• 21:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, this is why I do this podcast. You know, that's why I continue to do it, because I'm so curious.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  Bingo.

• 22:04Lewis Howes?

  There's so many fascinating people in the world that I want to learn from. And that I feel like each person I learn, I know in abundance more of information. And also feel like I know less of anything.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  Isn't that true? It's almost like we're looking through a knothole. And you can see a hundred percent of everything you can see, but you can't see much.

• 22:24Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 22:25Speaker 01

  You just don't realize.

• 22:26Lewis Howes?

  I gotta learn from each person so much, but then I'm like, God, there's so much more to learn that I know nothing about.

• 22:32Speaker 01

  What if one of the things that's kind of a hallmark for me is this idea of living a noteworthy life? Not noteworthy like other people would know about you, but so engaged in your life that you want to just take notes on it. I bet I send myself 60 emails a day.

• 22:47Lewis Howes?

  Just ideas.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  Just ideas. I get home at night, I'm like, him again, block.

• 22:53Speaker 01

  But what I'll do, some people in their faith exercise, they'll have what they call a quiet time. And I haven't had one in 20 years. Mine are super loud. And what I'll do is take everything I thought of the day before, and I'll say, no, it sounds right. Is it actually true? And that's one of those quarter twists. Instead of just saying things that, right? Because all of a sudden, you'll just start giving people advice that rhymes. You know, if you just go with the just stuff that sounds right, rather than is it really, really true?

• 23:19Lewis Howes?

  Right, yeah, and sounding cool and.

• 23:21Speaker 01

  Bingo. If you ever get advice that rhymes, run.

• 23:25Lewis Howes?

  Really? What's your best piece of advice?

• 23:27Speaker 01

  Did that just run?

• 23:28Lewis Howes?

  What's your best piece of advice that does run?

• 23:30Speaker 01

  Oh, here's the deal. Instead of asking like, how's my life working? If somebody asks you, how's your life working? I would say, awesome. My life's always working for me. I think the better question, a quarter of a twist is, how is your life working for the people around you? Wouldn't that be a great thing to ask some of the people who love you the most? How's your life working? Because I would say for some of us, if our life isn't working for the people we love the most, then actually our life isn't working. And it just takes a moment of pause and candor with the people and palms up and just say, how's this working? And I've asked that question of Sweet Marie Goff and she's told me once or twice, you know, like this actually isn't working for me that great.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  I mapped out on a map all the places I'd gone in like two years. It was like tapestry. I was just like. Everywhere. Everywhere. And I pulled into the driveway after one of these like, like Save the World things. I pulled into the driveway and after 33 years of marriage, this woman has never raised her voice or said a cross word to me. And in the window is a help wanted sign.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  She wasn't saying she needed help. She was saying I needed help. And she just in the kindest way, she just said, you know, this is actually not working for me. But instead of scolding me, she loved me. And just like Brad Quick told me, you're that guy. She in a really loving way, just pointing me back towards the guy that she knows I want to be. And so if we could do a little bit more of that, not telling people what to do, but reminding them who they are. And that's just a beautiful quarter turn. And you don't even know what happened. You just realize you're like, wow, I just like made an actual beautiful adjustment in my life. But you have to have the conversation. You gotta have one of those 12 conversations to get there. Otherwise, if you're just like me, like Tigger, just bouncing off the walls,

• 25:24Speaker 01

  you gotta find a wise owl. I married a one. That's great. Well, who are you right now? Well, I think of your life. So I'm 59. So think of when you were like 20, you were guy number two, right? When you're in your 30s, you're guy number three. As I'm 50, 59, I'm like way guy number five, but almost guy number six. I spend most of my time talking to guy number seven. You know, that older version. You're always talking to your future self, not your past self. Talk about that guy. Yeah, the old guy, that's like, that guy's on the bus. Think about like, who am I becoming? And so you say with some of these patterns and practices you said that you've incorporated into your life. You'd want to see those carried forward.

• 26:06Speaker 01

  Are the people that helped me only tell me what I'm doing today, tomorrow and the next day? Is that great? Why? I want to be present. I don't want to be thinking about, I'm here now, where I gotta go next. I'm like, man, I'm one or you can hook all the electrodes up to me. I'm 100% right here. Cause I actually have no idea what I'm doing after day after tomorrow. And that's super helpful. And you know, that's the kind of wisdom you can get from the next version of you. I live down on the bay in San Diego. And evidently, a lot of people know where I live now. And they'll come by the back of the house on their boat and they'll talk about me.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  They don't know, I can hear them. Cause their voices carry over water. And you know what I'm learning? Probably from the next version of me is that humble voices carry further in this world. And I think I just don't want to be a loud voice. I want to be a humble voice. And so that moment of pause, when somebody does something kind of lame or says something that's a little untoward, to just pause for a moment and say, man, it was, I just want to get a hold of the next humblest version of me. Have that guy do the talking now.

• 27:15Lewis Howes?

  How do you do that?

• 27:16Speaker 01

  I think it's a moment of pause. There's a prudent pause. Some people get paralyzed. And there's a difference between being like kind of paralyzed and a prudent pause. And just that idea, forget counting to 10, I just be humble.

• 27:31Lewis Howes?

  If someone's coming at you with all they got, saying everything that could potentially offend you or attacking you or haters online or whatever, you pause.

• 27:40Speaker 01

  You know what? I actually do. There's three things. To say first, I just assume they're smarter than me. And because often tons of use bigger words than I can muster up. And so I'll actually try to learn from them. Like I'll look up the words to try to understand. I actually was gonna speak at a conference and I wrote a note to one of the other people that was gonna speak there. Just say, hey, I'd love to meet you beforehand. Cause you can tell if the people that are speaking are all friends. Like you know each other and like each other. And I got this like really mean letter back. It doesn't happen very often, because I'm a pretty hard guy not to get along with. But I got this really mean letter back and it had all these words. I looked them up. And I just assumed that they were smarter than me.

• 28:20Speaker 01

  And then I assumed that their faith was more significant than mine. Not putting myself down. But I just assumed that they loved God more than me. And that they were just like doing their thing and expressing where they're at in their life. And I just said, there's a beautiful verse that guides a lot of me is to consider others more worthy than yourself. So I just assumed that. And then, the most important step is to think of what's the least creepiest explanation. Because it's easy to come up with the most creepiest explanation for whatever happened. But what if you came up with the least creepiest explanation? I spoke at this gathering, it was maybe six months ago, and this woman, there's 3,000 seats, there's one empty seat in the front row, and a woman

• 29:05Speaker 01

  walks in with a boa around her neck. Not like feathers, like a constrictor.

• 29:11Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 29:12Speaker 01

  And I'm like, suffering, I'm like, no! And then I'm like, Bob, get a hold of yourself. I just assumed she was smarter than me. All evidence of the contrary. And then I just assumed that her faith was, you know, more significant than mine, because she was likely to meet God before me on that track. And then I thought, what's the least creepiest explanation? And you know what I came up with?

• 29:35Lewis Howes?

  What?

• 29:36Speaker 01

  Maybe she doesn't know. I thought she like ducked under a branch and wrapped her out. I'm like, I'm not telling her. So what if we just, like, just chill out a little bit? It's just, it's just that prudent pause. And that'll keep you from ricocheting off everybody. Because I think that we're, that's keeping us from having some of the conversations that we probably would grow from.

• 29:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  Because I don't think people like grow where they're informed. I think they grow where they're accepted.

• 30:03Lewis Howes?

  So, you know, what does faith have to do with loving difficult people or bad situations?

• 30:07Speaker 01

  Man, faith is so important to me in that. But I guess I'm not trying to convince other people what they ought to believe. I'm just saying, like, what do I believe? And then how am I gonna go about that? And I know that the way that I'm perceived is a guy that's beloved. I actually believe that that is the word spoken over me, you, everybody, whether they are in touch with that or not. And we just think about your biggest screw up, like the thing you don't want. Anybody in the whole world ever know about. I just hear God calling us beloved over that. And I think if you're listening in and you're not hearing the word beloved spoken over your biggest screw up, it ain't Jesus talking.

• 30:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  Just like that whole idea to just be a little bit more situationally aware that we're all gonna mess up. You know, you're gonna mess up because you're you and I'm gonna mess up because I'm me. But if you can understand in the context of that that we're beloved. And then some of these difficult people. If you want a report card on your faith, see how you're treating the people who creep you out the most. So that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to just engage them. I'm not trying to engage them with all my opinions. I don't want them to meet my opinions, want to meet love. But I think we can actually turn into love. You can and I can. And so if somebody asked me like, how do you turn into love? I'm like, I don't know, I'm still turning. But I got my eye on the prize. Because I know where here actually, oh shoot, if I had my phone, I would figure out where north is.

• 31:35Speaker 01

  But I will go into a hotel room and I'll before I put my stuff down, I'll try to think where's north? And then I'll guess it, then I'll press that little button on the iPhone to figure out north. I'm always a couple of degrees off. And there's something that's beautiful, like we just get turned around. It's not a moral thing, it's just like a life thing. You're just going so fast. And that's helped me with some people that I've found very difficult. I just assume that they're a couple of degrees off. But I'm not thinking that I'm the sheriff. I'm not the hall monitor, I'm not their parole officer to bust their chops. I just want to engage them with love. I want to see some evidence of these beautiful beloved like finding within this person that's incredibly difficult. And it's a target-rich environment these days.

• 32:21Speaker 01

  But to just say like, wow, wow, them too, like dang. And I'd admit, man, I'm not there. I'm not where I want to be. I'm just hoping that guy 10 years from now will be. But I got my eye on the prize. Like, I'm just gonna continue to try to see these people as beloved and even when I can't. But that it just takes, I think, maybe a little bit longer look. And I would say there's some people I would admit I'm still looking at and I'm still looking for it. But I'm not gonna speak ill about them. Because I remember a guy who told me that I was a guy that I wasn't yet. And I turned into that guy. It gets there on time.

• 33:03Speaker 01

  And so I'm not just blowing sunshine at people. I'm just thinking, man, if I look at it long enough, but I'm not going to just be sedentary and look at things. I'm going to be like looking on the way. So this idea in Somalia, there's a bunch of people that are starving. There's a famine that's hit. We just took a bunch of the money from Love Does. You can charter a cargo plane. We got hold of World Food Program. We chartered a plane out of Italy, filled it full of food in Nairobi, and flew and landed in the sand in the western part of Somalia. And you can actually do that. Again, a bigger deal would be to go across the street to somebody that you've been avoiding, just because they're

• 33:45Speaker 01

  different. That would be actually, I think, all of heaven would just be leaning over the rails to watch that. So we think of these big things.

• 33:53Lewis Howes?

  Gestures, but it's not as big as going across the street.

• 33:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, let's go with a bigger one, a bigger one, the more difficult one, which is to just engage the person you work with that's actually still on the way. And just come up with the least creepy explanation. Maybe they're insecure too. Maybe they got their feelings. Maybe they were terribly wounded.

• 34:13Lewis Howes?

  What's the difference between engaging people and engaging them too long where it's not working for you or for your mission and where, you know, do you stop talking to people after a while if they keep coming at you or if they keep doing things that you don't agree with? Are you becoming best friends with these people that you're not appreciating their actions or their words?

• 34:32Speaker 01

  I think there's some people in my life and in yours that are just toxic. They're actually just not, they're not good for you. And so there's some people that are actually probably worth keeping a little bit of distance from. You know, at Disneyland, they replant the trees about every 10 years. Otherwise, they'd have trunks that are five feet around, right? Because it's 60 years old. And so sometimes replanting your tree just a little bit further away from someone else's lets both trees grow better. Sometimes you just need a little bit of a room.

• 35:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  But you don't need to cut down somebody else's tree. You can just say, what I do, you know, around your bed on your last day here on earth and mine, there's room for about eight people, nine if they're thin. And I've just figured out who my eight people are. I sent them all a text message. I literally sent them a message, you're one of the eight. And they'll look text like, what's that mean? Don't worry about it. So what if you figure out who your eight people are? Who do you want around your bed on your last day here? And what if you start surrounding your life with them right now? And if you don't have eight, go get six. Do you know five fruit trees is an orchard? Right? But four fruit trees is just a bunch of fruit trees, but five is an orchard. I always wondered who came up with that. Well, there's some lawyer who had five fruit trees and needed a tax break.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  But go get an orchard full of friends. If you don't have like five, go get one friend. And there's this place, God made Starbucks so people could have like conversations.

• 36:06Lewis Howes?

  If you can get off your computer and phone.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  Totally, just do that. Just be like, just this is one of the twelve. Find a person and then I'm just, every person I meet, you included, I'm interviewing for the job of being one of my eight.

• 36:18Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 36:19Speaker 01

  Right? And just people that you engage, just say like, the reason why you do your podcast, you know why you're doing what you're doing. And so if you say, I'm always looking for my eight, and your eight are gonna change. Have your eight changed over time?

• 36:31Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely, absolutely.

• 36:32Speaker 01

  You don't have to send them another text message and say, you're off the island.

• 36:35Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:37Lewis Howes?

  It's evolving, has yours changed?

• 36:38Speaker 01

  Totally, oh yeah, all the time.

• 36:40Lewis Howes?

  Over the last year?

• 36:40Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, as I've changed. I think that's how it's supposed to be. But you don't have this send off party by like making some really untoward comment of somebody. Just say they've evolved, they're moving in a beautiful, different direction. I don't know if it's a better direction, it's just a different one.

• 36:56Lewis Howes?

  How do you deal with your saving lives, building schools, making an impact in the world? You know, all the profits to your last book went to charity. All this stuff is happening, you're spreading love constantly online, but you still get haters.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:10Lewis Howes?

  How do you deal with it when you are doing the best you can to spread love? The thing we all want the most, and you have people... In general, people would attack us for anything we do.

• 37:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just am like, I think very accurately assuming I got a lot to learn. Because if that is emoting from somebody, then maybe there's something I got to learn in that. And so, yeah, I'm not trying to figure out what they need to change. I'm like, is there anything? But I don't feel manipulated by that. I just like feel like I'm, I'm your student. I'm the student of the people that are surrounding you. And you have a bunch of people, I'm not blowing smoke at you. You just have a lot of kind people that's around you. I'm trying to surround myself with kind people, but I'm not trying to insulate myself from people that are more difficult. And I think that's that quarter of a twist. But I don't need to engage them. You won't see me engaging people online or I'm not getting into an argument.

• 38:06Speaker 01

  No, I just, I wish them well on their adventure and assume that they're making a big impact in people's lives. And they're passionate, obviously. And so you can just be a little bit more Teflon about that. And it isn't indifferent. It's actually the opposite of indifference. And so you're so engaged in trying to be the next version of you that can learn something. You become their student and say, is there something I can learn from this? And what you've learned on, then get back to the important work of True North.

• 38:35Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. You said this, "We'll be known for our opinions, but remembered for our love." How does that work?

• 38:42Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, well, think of every eulogy that you've done where somebody says, you know, these words about somebody. Oh, there's a guy, his name is Greg Murtha. And Greg, I was back on the East Coast and sitting with somebody and they had their cellphone out and they showed me the text message. It says, "Do you know who Bob Goff is?" And I'm like, I'm sitting next to him, I go, "Oh, that's awesome." Well, he told me about this guy Greg. And Greg had gotten cancer and he'd been through 100 rounds of chemotherapy. He'd been in this phenomenon business and all this stuff. But he's literally on his deathbed. And so my friend texts back to me and said, "Bob's sitting right next to me." And 30 seconds later, there's another text message and says,

• 39:26Speaker 01

  "Will you ask Bob if he'll write the foreword to my book?" And I mean, there's only one answer to that. I mean, if you say no, you go straight to hell. You don't even die. You're just eternity separated from God. So I said, you know, obviously I would. And the next day, he went to dance with Jesus for eternity. And I'd only met Greg one time. So I spent the next month talking to all his friends. And tell me about Greg. And you know what they talked about? His love. So this idea of being like known for our opinions, but remembered for our love. Greg's just a guy who's remembered for being loving people like a linebacker. He would just like, just square off. A loving linebacker. Love, yeah.

• 40:10Speaker 01

  Just full contact. Knock you down with love. Yeah, totally. So that's how I'd want to be remembered. I don't want to be remembered. Man, three days after I stopped practicing law, everybody forgot I practiced law. They're like, whatever. But you get to decide what you want to be remembered for, and you get to do that. And if you're living a noteworthy life, again, engaged, not noteworthy like trying to grab headlines, but just so trigger locked on what's true north for you. And engage if faith is a big deal for you, man, just don't put your toe in the water. Grab your knees and do a cannonball. If business is your thing, like whatever. If dolphins are your thing, like get in the tank. But like whatever it is, just engage it. And so I figured out my true north.

• 40:54Speaker 01

  I am headed towards that with everything I've got. Yeah, and it means engaging some difficult people along the way. And you were talking before about engaging with witchcraft people, is that right? Well, yeah, in Uganda, I'm serving as the consul for Uganda. Isn't that crazy? I'm not the US guy to Uganda, I'm the Ugandan guy to the US. Wow. Bigger than I walk into embassies like, are you a Ugandan guy? But I've been representing them, I think, for almost a decade, maybe more. And so one of the things that has plagued that country is, and not just Uganda, but other countries as well, is these witch doctors will engage in human sacrifice of little. Children, but in the history of Uganda, nobody had ever taken on a witch doctor because they were afraid of these guys.

• 41:37Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 41:38Speaker 01

  And part of the problem is there's always a victim, but they usually don't survive. And then they're scared of the bad guy. So there was an attack and the little boy survived. And I asked if we could try Uganda's first case. And we did, and the word of this conviction spread to 41 million people. It was like, you touch a kid, it's over. So I like this idea, there's no love without justice, but no justice without love. And so I think it's both and. I'm a pretty upbeat guy, but I know where true north is. And when it comes to like, doing these things to these kids, I'm not gonna just stand by and watch and take some notes, but.

• 42:19Lewis Howes?

  So you're the attorney on this case.

• 42:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, crazy.

• 42:22Lewis Howes?

  In Uganda.

• 42:23Speaker 01

  In Uganda.

• 42:24Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 42:24Speaker 01

  And so, one of the things that happened though, is after the conviction, I started thinking about all these witch doctors and started deciding to engage them. So I send word on the bush radio that the consul general for Uganda is here, and I command every witch doctor to come and meet with me. And they came, I've met with over a thousand. And they are creepy dudes. They make little dolls that look like me and stick pins.

• 42:51Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 42:52Speaker 01

  No, no, they're some pretty creepy dudes. But instead of just telling them, you know, if you do these things, this is what's gonna happen to them. What if you do both? Let them know what the law is. Let them know that if you touch a little kid, you will never be seen again. But what if we teach them how to read and write? And so we have a witch doctor's school and we teach them how to read and write. And the only books they have in witch doctor's school are the Bible and Love Does.

• 43:20Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that's great.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  And so there's something awesome about that. We have some pretty funky graduations, but like there's some.

• 43:26Lewis Howes?

  You go to the graduations?

• 43:27Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, every single one. Yeah, it's pretty creepy. But there's something beautiful because I know these guys by name. And I let them know. I let them know, man, you touch a kid, it's over. What if you lead your life in a way that lets you lead your life? And there's something beautiful that's happened. They've given it a quarter of twists and they've stopped sacrificing children. It's really been beautiful. I think the power of love unleashed in your neighborhood with your friends, in your office, with people far away, with people close, people you're married to, that you're dating, just to be an authentic version of that. And I know it's scary. I've spent my whole life avoiding the people Jesus spent his whole life engaging. You know why?

• 44:11Speaker 01

  Because I didn't want to get any on me. And I think the simple message that love gives is to get it on you. Like, just get some on you. You want to turn into love? You gotta get some on you. And so, in a strange way, some of these people that have creeped me out the most have been the ones that have informed my faith the most. Because I'm just realizing, there's a ropes course, probably 100 feet in the air, and I take these witch doctors up there, and they're in harnesses and all that. I'll unclip them, and I'll give them a push. I'll say, "Stop pushing me, like, stop scaring people." Because this is how everybody feels around you. Like, if you stop scaring them, I'll stop pushing you. But instead of being a guy that's pointing a bony finger at them, I've engaged them

• 44:56Speaker 01

  a lot, and teach them how to read and write. And there's something about that, to find your way. And that isn't for everyone, but find your thing, whatever that is. Find your people. Find the people that have caused you the most difficulty. And you might take staring at them for a little while, but just shuffle forward. And I just think that idea of God just delights when we begin these small beginnings, right? You just move a little. It's one conversation. It's one, like, scary, vulnerable moment to say, "You know what? What happened is that was just me being super insecure right there, so can we have, like, a do-over on that?" And the people that love you the most, they'll go, "You got your do-over."

• 45:38Lewis Howes?

  What's the biggest lesson you learned from the witch doctors?

• 45:42Speaker 01

  I think the power of transformation in people's lives, that the power of love, whether that is your faith that causes you to change, that's been my experience. Whether for some of these witch doctors, the realization that they're accepted by people, that that will be where people change. Man, people like grow where they're loved, not just where they're planted, where they're loved. And so, man, grow love by the acre. And just not this like squishy kind of love, but active, engage, roll up your sleeve, let's go do this thing. Try the case, make the trip. Mogadishu is a pretty scary place. Like rounding up, there's a total of zero people that look like me in Mogadishu. Right.

• 46:25Speaker 01

  But they won't teach little girls how to read and write because they're girls. And there's no way we're just gonna be watching that. But find your thing. That's not more noble. That's actually probably tied for first and tied for last in God's mind with engaging the person that you work with, that person that you pass by. We had this mailman. His name is Art, and he's just horrible at being a mailman. I hate to malign him on like a national audience, but he's just bad at it. He's been our mailman for 20 years. He just can't get the mail to the right people. Like little, my credit cards go over there. Somebody's getting audited. I get their envelope. I have to walk it over. I'm like, stinks to be you. Oh, man.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  Well, Art finally, after 20 long years, said he was gonna retire. I'm like, praise the Lord. And so, we decide, we have a parade on our block. We think this idea of loving your neighbor isn't a metaphor for something else. We just really think it means to love your neighbor. So, we've been having this parade for 23 years. Well, our block is eight houses long. And we get together in the cul-de-sac, and we pick one of the little ladies to be the queen. And we have a grand marshal. We made Art the grand marshal. Ah, that's cool. And we put him in the back of a convertible. We put a thousand envelopes in there. We said, just Art, just do what you do every day. Just throw all the envelopes everywhere. 800 people turned out to let Art know

• 47:52Speaker 01

  just how much he was loved. And you know what he did a week later? He called me up and he said, Bob. He was so touched by this outpouring of love. He said, Bob, I'm coming out of retirement. I'm like, no!

• 48:07Speaker 01

  Or he's back. Yeah, but he's back and nobody's getting the mail. But that's why we all know each other. But there's something beautiful. So he's brought you together even closer. Bingo. So just the things that you've experienced in your life. What I've experienced by writing books is that the best chapter titles come later. So think back in high school, like when you felt rejected. That's what I would title when Paula said no to the prom. I would have put the title of that chapter rejected. But actually, many years later, I've realized that was actually a release. A time that you felt like you were prevented from something. Man, give that a little while and you realize you were actually protected.

• 48:49Speaker 01

  Maybe something that happened when you feel like the title for that is I'm out. If you give it a little while, you'll give it a better title and it's like I'm back. And so maybe pausing a little bit before you name other people, like before you figure out who they are, before you give them a name, just pause. And just say like, man, they're just dealing with their stuff too. And it's hard to be patient. I mean, I make coffee nervous. I'm like, I'm pretty out. But what if you're just a little bit more patient? There was a guy, Paul, and he was talking to his friends and he said, man, you know what I'm working on is immense patience. And so those are the words. If I, I'm not big on tattoos, but if I was gonna get one, that would be right across my face. Like just immense. For you.

• 49:34Speaker 01

  Patience for me. What are you black patients in? Oh, Earth. Like, come on, I like to eat sushi just because they don't have to cook it. I don't even like sushi. But I'm just trying to be like immensely patient. So when something happens, traffic, a delay, the book doesn't get there on time, the whatever, just immense patience. That would be really awesome if on my last day here, people said, you know, that thing about Bob, that guy was immensely patient. That would not be said of me yet. Hey, your future self. I know who I'm aiming for. I know where True North is. So figure out who that is and aim towards that every day.

• 50:18Speaker 01

  Say, all right, new Bob. This guy's gonna be immensely patient. It's gonna take some work. You think if you had the tattoo on the cross your forehead, that you would actually be more patient? No, I'd be avoided, like immensely avoided, be like, who's the guy with the tat?

• 50:34Lewis Howes?

  Like the woman with the snake.

• 50:36Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. What's the least creepiest explanation? I guess he wants to be patient.

• 50:40Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. Now, you kind of like took off on social media. You built this massive following pretty quickly, it seemed like. You sold tons of copies of your last book. How did you transition from just being this lawyer guy to building this audience?

• 50:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 50:57Lewis Howes?

  How'd it even happen?

• 50:58Speaker 01

  Well, what I do each day is I have this very loud time, not a quiet time. And then I'll take what I was thinking about the day before.

• 51:06Lewis Howes?

  To get ideas.

• 51:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, to get ideas. And then I'll check it out, you know, because faith guides the things that I'm doing. I'll go to all the resources I've got and I'll take an idea and I'll say, I don't want it to just sound right, I want it to actually be true.

• 51:20Lewis Howes?

  You don't want it to rhyme.

• 51:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, it can't rhyme. And to say, once I know it's true, then I'll say it. Any tweet you see, any book I read, you're not going to see any Bible verses in any book I ever write. You want a Bible verse, read the Bible, it's full of them. But what I'll do is I'll make sure whatever I'm saying is actually true before I say it. Feeling the weight of that, I think you have a responsibility that you labor under very well, which is just to just say true things. And I want to do that too. And again, I think there's a place right now, and there are many true voices out there, among the smallest of them. But if we had people that were just intent on saying, what's the true north on this thing? And not swinging it every pitch.

• 52:06Speaker 01

  Just be like, yeah. It's not that it's an important issue. It's just, I got some gals in Somalia that we're trying to take care of, and that's not a more important issue, it's just a different one.

• 52:16Lewis Howes?

  It's your issue.

• 52:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's just a different one. And so that's why I think all together, we make one really well-adjusted person. Like parts of the body, right? So we just were all together and just stay in your lane. Do what you do really well, but with a focus towards who are you becoming? What's going to last, not just what's going to work, what's true, not just what's loud. Like those things, maybe use that to filter before you say something, a prudent pause, to ask, is my life working for you? If I said that sharp thing, would it be working for me or would that just be me? Trying to get validation by saying a sharp word. Because again, I win arguments, but I'm not trying to win arguments. I'm not trying to be right. I'm trying to be a little bit more like Jesus was.

• 53:01Speaker 01

  And he just was kind and compassionate. He engaged people with love. And he's like, show Peter, this guy that they said, you know, denies him three times. And he didn't say, you're such a wuss. He said, you're a rock. And Peter turned into one, right? That whole idea of speaking into people. I've got this mirror. I carry it around. When my kids are grown up, I get the mirror out. They'd be like, Dad, not the mirror. I'm like, get counseling later. And I'd hold up this mirror to them. And I would say to my daughter Lindsay, she's like Mary Poppins with grenades. She's just fearless and courageous and kind. And I'd hold it up to her and I'd be, you're a woman of virtue. And I'd tell her why. And so, you know, that time that you did this.

• 53:43Speaker 01

  I'll hold it up to my son Richard and say, you're a man of valor. And here's why. Remember that time that you, that idea of having the conversation. I'd just say a word, because that's good. That's a great start. But the bobsled race is all the way down the hill, not just the start. So, so to tell him why he's a man of valor. And when my kids left for college, they didn't take all the teddy bears I wanted at the circus. They brought their mirrors. And I bet anything, on the fourth day of college, one of their roommates said, what's up with the mirror? And can't you picture them getting that down off the shelf and holding it up and said, let me tell you about you? I think if we had more people holding up mirrors to other people and just say, let me tell you who you're turning into.

• 54:28Speaker 01

  Not in a mystical way, just this is what I see in your countenance. I see a kind person. I see an engaged guy. I see somebody who generally wants to like, love people and learn and care. You could be doing anything. You probably run in a small country, but you just decided to do what you're doing. So if we just started seeing people, I see some people today, I just go, man, I'm holding up the mirror. And I'm like, I just don't get it yet, but I'm, I'm waiting. I'm gonna hold that mirror up and I'm just right on the edge of like, okay, come on, come on. But I'm just doing that to myself. I'm not working out all my piccadilloes on social media.

• 55:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:11Speaker 01

  That might be a long answer to the question about why there might resonate with some people. Because I think.

• 55:17Lewis Howes?

  You're speaking the truth.

• 55:18Speaker 01

  Maybe some voices that would join in. And they're certainly people I'm learning from all the time.

• 55:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:25Speaker 01

  On social media. I think social media is just wonderful place. It could, like anything, it has other things, but that's just such a happy place to learn from people. And then even people that are difficult, they're like, wow, I, I wouldn't have seen that one coming. I could have spun that puzzle piece for a decade and not seen that one. But to just then continue to move on. You don't need to get caught in that Eddie. My son, Richard, we went down the Nile together. I brought him, we went over this class five rapid. There's no classics, you're just dead. So you go, we go over this class five, he pops out of the raft. We get stuck in an Eddie and he goes downstream. We didn't find him for 45 minutes.

• 56:06Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 56:06Speaker 01

  We were looking for him and he's like alligator. I'm thinking about, what am I going to tell Maria? So, and we find him hanging from a vine. But he just popped out. And I think that happens with people sometimes. They get stuck in an Eddie. It can be an Eddie career, it can be an Eddie in some bad relationships. They, they need to pick a new eight around. And then just have the courage, if you and I could, and all the people around us, could encourage people to paddle back into the fast moving waters. Cause it feels a little bit safe in the Eddie, cause it feels a little calmer. But you're actually not going anywhere. And if you're actually going to save some people's lives, I think it's just going to be in the faster waters. And you're going to take a hit. You'll pop out of the boat a time or two.

• 56:52Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 56:52Speaker 01

  I'm not aiming for that, but I'm like, if that's the price of admission, I'm in.

• 56:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah. Wow. What's the biggest lesson you think you still need to master?

• 57:02Speaker 01

  Besides patience. Yeah, patience is what was the first thing that came to mind. But I think this idea of kindness towards people, assuming that their motives are beautiful and elegant. Sometimes that's, I think people sometimes will say something and they don't really, they just hadn't caught it in time. So they just come up with a better explanation for what they might be, or an explanation that's as simple as their word just got ahead of them. Yeah. So that kind of like kindness, I've experienced. Have you been around people that are that way? Of course. They're just, they're just more generous with not only their finances, but with their thoughts towards people. Yeah, that's what I'm working on. I could work on that too. Yeah, yeah. And you get a chance every day.

• 57:47Speaker 01

  It's a new day. Another dozen people, another conversation.

• 57:52Speaker 01

  Tell me about this book. Why did you write this? Everybody always. I was actually five years late. I, you know, you signed something up with a publisher, I know you have. I signed it up and it has a due date, but I like, I just didn't have anything to say.

• 58:07Speaker 01

  I actually wrote the thing. This is so nuts. So I finally finished writing this book and visiting a friend of mine that's up in San Francisco. He's this big mega church pastor and five or six years ago, he's moved to San Francisco to work with some really difficult people, like just, you know, they're in a really rough part of town. So I went up there, I get, rent a van at Avis and I drive up into where these guys are hanging out. Well, I'm inside this house and when I go out to check on something, every window of the van is broken. They've stolen everything. My laptop is gone. It had the book on it and it wasn't backed up. Oh, man. Who needs iCloud? It's like a nickel a year. So, so I had to start all over again.

• 58:52Speaker 01

  Oh, no. Sixty-five thousand words. But you know what? Because I'm New Bob. It was a better book. I wrote a different book. Yeah, it was a better book, it was more accurate. It's New Bob. And so what had happened then is things started getting a little wonky in our society. Oh, right, right. More difficult people. Oh, more difficult people. I'm like, I got a book in me.

• 59:17Speaker 01

  But hopefully, Kinderbob wrote it to just say, "How can we become love in a world full of setbacks and difficult people?" Because I've had a couple setbacks, how about you? Yeah, of course. Yeah, and so like, so, because it's great, it's easy to love God when everything's going my way. But what happens when what I want doesn't happen? What if there's a setback? I built a lodge up in Canada and it burned to the ground because somebody made a mistake. So what am I gonna do then? I just got back to work, and so I'm not gonna stay in the eddy. I'm gonna paddle back into the fast-moving waters. Yeah. And so hopefully, this book would encourage some people that have encountered some difficult people.

• 1:00:02Speaker 01

  I think that would be earth, to engage them with love. And I hope, and it's just a bunch of stories. That's what Jesus did. He never, it said, "He never spoke to anybody without telling them a story." I think I know why. Because if people give you facts, I'm like, I can't get my mind around it. I'll forget them just as fast as I tell them. But a good story, I'll remember that. Yeah. I'll remember you as a young guy, eight years old, being really insecure. Because you painted that picture, and kind of gangly. But then, somehow you turned the corner and decided, I think, whether it was conscious or not, you said, "I'm actually gonna turn this thing into love." Yeah. "I'm gonna turn that insecurity into love and engagement." And so, as you engage people and find them and see what they did. I'm gonna tell you one last thing.

• 1:00:47Speaker 01

  There's a guy, his name is Lex, and he lost his sight when he was eight years old. But by the time he got to college, he figured out he could run like the wind. And so Lex went out for the track team. Blind? Blind. But you know what he did? He had a buddy that ran in front of him and called his name. Isn't that beautiful? And he just ran towards a voice he could trust. Well, he had to pick an event, and you know the event he picked? The long jump. Now that's just a bad idea. You run down a two and a half foot wide path for 110 feet, six inches.

• 1:01:22Lewis Howes?

  You have to hit a six inch board.

• 1:01:23Speaker 01

  Jump off a board you can't see, throw your body into the air as far as you can go.

• 1:01:27Lewis Howes?

  Trust.

• 1:01:28Speaker 01

  Into a sandpit, but you know what he's got? He's got a friend. And his friend stands at the edge of the sandpit and claps his hands and calls his name. And Lex just runs towards a voice he can trust. That beautiful? Well, they was at the World Games trying to qualify for the Olympics. He got back to the end of the track. His friend went to the edge of the sandpit, started calling his name. Lex starts running towards it and when he jumps, he's crooked and he misses the sandpit entirely. And he crashes and burns on the concrete. If it was me, I'd be out. I'd be like, I'm blind, I jumped big, I hit hard, I'm out. But Lex has a friend. And his friend got him a new uniform because he was mooning everybody.

• 1:02:10Speaker 01

  And he walked him down 110 feet, six inches, went right back to the edge of the sandpit, called his name. He did the biggest jump of his life, won the entire meet. And I want to run towards voices I can trust. And I think what the world is looking for is a couple of voices that they can trust. I think you have a following here because yours is a voice people can trust. I think what we can do, whatever our station, is just become a voice we can trust. In our neighborhood, in our community, with our family, with our friends. Just be a trustworthy voice. And you don't have to be the loudest voice, the truest voice.

• 1:02:47Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, that's beautiful, yeah. Couple of final questions for you. I want to make sure everyone gets this book. It's called Everybody Always Becoming Love in a World Full of Setbacks and Difficult People. It's out right now, so you guys can get it online or in bookstores everywhere. This is called the three truths, this question. And I ask everyone at the end. You've achieved a lot in your life already and you're making a massive impact in the world. You've written some books, you know, speak everywhere. And imagine you reach 10, 11, 12, Bob, whatever number you want to reach, you make it. And you get to choose the final day for you. You've gone, you've got beautiful grandkids, you've had the life you want. Everything you wanted to create, you've done it.

• 1:03:31Lewis Howes?

  But for whatever reason, you have to take everything with you, all the works you've created, all your messages, your books, everything that come with you when it's your last day. So there's nothing else to be remembered by you physically or online or whatever is in the future. But you have a piece of paper and you've got your eight around you and they ask you to write down on this piece of paper, three things you know to be true about your experiences in life. The things that you would leave behind in these three lessons. And that's all that they would be able to have to share to the world to remember you by, these three truths. What would you say are yours?

• 1:04:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, what a great question. I would say the first belief and truth that I have is that I'm loved, that I'm beloved by God. I would want people to know that, that they're just, whatever it is that happened, whatever happens, you are beloved. The second thing I would want people to know is that it'll probably work. I want people to just, that thing that they're just like hesitating or go like, oh, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. It'll probably work. And the third thing I'd say is to live on the edge of yikes. You know that yikes moment where you just live?

• 1:04:42Lewis Howes?

  Yikes.

• 1:04:43Speaker 01

  Just like live right there. Make that your resting position on the edge of yikes. Cause comfortable people don't need their faith. Comfortable people don't need other people. People who are living on the edge of yikes, people that are desperate in their faith, desperate in their relationships, in the most beautiful ways, actually engage life and engage the world.

• 1:05:06Lewis Howes?

  Wow, those are great, yeah. Well, before I ask the final question, I want to acknowledge you for a moment, Bob, for being an incredible grandfather, because I'm already seeing the future happening. And I already know, and I already know you're going to be the best grandfather that anyone would ever have. So I'm excited to see that come to fruition for you, hopefully in the next nine to 10 months.

• 1:05:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:05:27Lewis Howes?

  I want to also acknowledge you for... Constantly taking those quarter turns, or those one degree turns in your life, and not just sticking to what you've always been good at, and building a business and a law firm, and staying in it because you were successful, but seeing what else is available for your life, and other yikes moments for you. And I think you're setting a great example of what's possible for all of us. So I really acknowledge your humility, your patience, and your love. And I appreciate it, yeah. Final question, make sure you guys get the book. Everybody always follow you on social media, at Bob Goff.

• 1:06:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's it.

• 1:06:04Lewis Howes?

  Everywhere, at Bob Goff, right?

• 1:06:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:06Lewis Howes?

  Okay. And the final question is, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  Oh, somebody who knows what love is. When my daughter was in high school, and you know, it's time to have people ask her to the prom. I want her to be a nun, but she waved off. I said, you know, when these guys ask you to the prom, ask them what their definition of love is. And if they tell you, it's like, you know, with their guys, so they won't know. So send them home. And when they figure out what love is, come back and ask you to the prom. And if they say it's like butterflies, like you can get that from bad pizza. But love is sacrifice and commitment. And so people that I've found that are gonna change the world are people that know what love is, and they know it isn't just this rush of feelings, but it's sacrifice and commitment. And it's that edge of yikes. It's a quarter turn. It's all the things we've been talking about.

• 1:06:54Speaker 01

  You show me somebody who knows what love is, I'll show you somebody who's gonna change the world.

• 1:06:59Lewis Howes?

  Mm. Bob, thanks, man.

• 1:07:01Speaker 01

  Thanks a million.

• 1:07:02Lewis Howes?

  Appreciate it.

• 1:07:05Lewis Howes?

  There you have it, my friends. I hope you feel more love today, more loving, and I hope you spread more love to those around you, especially to those that you feel like maybe you don't connect with that well, or maybe you're someone who has a different opinion, or maybe you feel like someone who's wronged you lately. How can you at least spread love internally so that they don't affect you? So that they don't hold you back? And maybe you can start to listen to them in a different way or take it on a different approach in the way that Bob has talked about it. I loved his message, I love his approach, and it was such a pleasure connecting with him. If you enjoyed this, make sure to share this with your friends. LewisHowes.com/622. Lots of tweetables and shareables out there, so you can head back to the show notes, again,

• 1:07:50Lewis Howes?

  LewisHowes.com/622, to get all those quotes that are up there for you. You can just click and share them out to your friends on the show notes. You can watch the full video interview as well. Check out his new book, again, Everybody Always: Becoming Love in a World Full of Setbacks and Difficult People. Powerful, powerful message, and something I get to personally continue to work on pretty much every day of my life. I'm not sure about you guys, but I know I get to work on that for sure. Again, we were born in love and were meant to be love and give love. And Thomas Merton said, "Our job is to love others without stopping, to inquire whether or not they are worthy."

• 1:08:35Lewis Howes?

  I love you very much, and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.