635 High Performance Habits from Master Coaches

TO BE THE BEST YOU HAVE TO LEARN FROM THE BEST. This week I wanted to bring you something new. I’ve recorded well over six hundred episodes at this point. There’s been so much knowledge and wisdom from the brightest minds on the planet shared on the show. I know it can be overwhelming to try to take it all, so I'm bringing you a recap of some of the strongest wisdom I’ve received over the years of doing this podcast. For this episode I wanted to concentrate of high performance habits that I’ve learned from such amazing people as Brendon Burchard, Michael Gervais, Tony Robbins, and Mel Robbins. Each of these guests has reached the top of their game, and the biggest factor in that has been their habits. They set their mind to achieve something big and found a way to persevere even at some of the worst times. So what makes them different than you? Nothing. They aren’t super human and they aren’t luckier than you. If you take their words of wisdom, you’ll find how to overcome what’s holding you back. I hope you enjoy these nuggets of information I hand selected so you don’t have to dig for them. Please let me know what you think of this new format on social media. Now get ready to learn high performance habits from the masters, on Episode 635. Some Questions I Ask: Why do so many of us just focus on our strengths? (10:05) What’s the habit you take on with clarity for your life? (14:44) What’s slowing people down from being their best? (18:53) Why do we fear not being good enough? (19:37) How can we train our minds to overcome fear? (22:05) What are your personal philosophies? (22:47) How does someone continue to stay hungry? (31:42) In This Episode You Will Learn: What’s really correlated with high performance (4:40) 6 most important habits for high performance (6:00) Why you can’t just focus on your strengths (12:03) What your relationship with fear should look like (18:02) How to get to your personal best (21:38) Why you need to be clear about your philosophy (25:00) What makes us grow and what makes us change (27:18) The one common denominator among all successful people (30:00) What you can count on in life (32:41) The two states of life we live in (33:48) Two of my most significant life experiences so far (36:01) What happens during our highest experiences of life (37:28) The thing everyone you admire does (40:31) 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 635, The High Performance Habits From The Masters.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

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

• 0:31Lewis Howes?

  I can predict the long-term outcome of your success if you show me your daily habits. John Maxwell said that, and this episode is a little different. We're trying something new. We've got over 620-plus episodes on the School of Greatness podcast. And for some of you who are just joining us, it could seem daunting, like there's 600 of these episodes out there. You've got some of the greatest world leaders, world changers, world-class athletes, rock stars, celebrities, influencers, doctors, revealing some of their greatest insights, the wisdom from the biggest mentors in the world. It's all here in these episodes. But what do I do? Where do I start?

• 1:12Lewis Howes?

  And if I've listened to all of them already, what's a great recap for me to sharpen my mind and move forward into action to create extraordinary results in my life? So I wanted to start featuring some of the biggest nuggets of wisdom that I've heard, that maybe you heard as well, but you might have forgot, or maybe you missed out on because you just didn't hear that specific episode. And I wanted to get you the best support in your life right now to help you get to the next level with some amazing coaches and wisdom that's really going to support you. So this first episode on this series is a mashup of some of the best wisdom I've heard on creating and keeping the habits that turn you into a high performer.

• 1:56Lewis Howes?

  So I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. I think it's mind-blowing and powerful what these individuals are about to share with you. Because we've got some featured moments from people like Brendon Burchard, Tony Robbins, Mel Robbins, and Michael Gervais.

• 2:10Lewis Howes?

  Are going to be some powerful nuggets right here. So make sure to take a screenshot while you're listening to this. Tag me on Instagram. Send a tweet on Twitter. Let me know the thought or the quote that you enjoyed the most. LewisHowes.com/635 to share out all the information that's on the show notes there. Before we dive in, I want to give a big thank you to the fan of the week. This is from Steven Boma, who said, choosing to listen to the School of Greatness is one of the best additions I've ever made. I listen to the podcast almost every day and I'm filled with positivity. Lewis is an awesome human being who has meaningful conversations with other human beings for the purpose of our learning. Thank you so much, Lewis, and keep being great.

• 2:55Lewis Howes?

  So Steven, thank you so much for your support and you are the fan of the week. Again, if you guys haven't shared your review on iTunes yet, we've got almost 3,000 five-star reviews over there. So go ahead over there, leave us a review for your chance to be shouted out as the fan of the week. Again, every day is a new opportunity to increase our level of production, our performance, increase our mindset, our positivity, and our impact in the world. And this episode is all about how to increase that high performance in our life and to inspire those around us to do that as well. So without further ado, let me introduce to you the masters of high performance habits.

• 3:41Brendon Burchard?

  Creativity is not strongly correlated with high performance. And if you told me that seven years ago, I would have fought with you for like two or three hours. But then in one interview with one of the world's largest CTOs, Chief Technology Officer, he said, Brendan, they're a top 10 brand in the world. He said, my team, he said, I'm not creative. My team's not creative, but we know how to execute and scale. And execution and scale is really important to long-term high performance. Creativity might get you in the game, but a lot of people are creative, but can't work their way out of a bag. And I was like, I would argue that forever because I'm a creative, I'm a writer and a coach. I would have never thought that. Age, nationality, ethnicity, and here's a big one, compensation. Here's a big one, personality. Here's a big one,

• 4:27Brendon Burchard?

  They are not correlated strongly with high performance. Some of them have weak correlations. And all those things, by the way, because if academics are listening to that, they're like, no, he's wrong. And this is tied towards high performance. It's not that those aren't important. Those things can shape your mood. They can shape lots of important life outcomes, well-being, health, happiness. But when we're talking about high performance, those are less important than these six. And what I keep telling people is, I'm not saying those aren't important. These just happen to be more important. So the six habits, you want me to do those? Sure, yeah, yeah. So the personal habits, and these are the ones that move the needle the most. Number one, high performers, you'll like this one. High performers seek clarity more often than their peers.

• 5:08Brendon Burchard?

  And what that means for them is every situation they go into, they're seeking clarity and setting intention. And it's not like once in a while, they're doing it way more often. It's like, you know, I've been blessed to work with Oprah Winfrey. When she has a meeting, at the start of every meeting, she asks, what's our intention here? What's the intention of this meeting? Not, what's the agenda? What do I do? What's the intention? That's every meeting. So she's seeking clarity at the beginning of every meeting. That's why she's so amazing, right? If you think about her whole career, she was always trying to have people seek clarity on who they were so they could be themselves. That's what high performers are doing. They just do it more often. They seek clarity before they shoot that video, before they have the podcast interview.

• 5:53Brendon Burchard?

  But specifically, we found three practices help you get better at seeking clarity. Number one, they are seeking clarity in what we call the future four. So you've probably heard that successful people are more future minded. It's true. And specifically what they're looking at, if you talk to a high performer, they're more clear about, who do I want to be in this upcoming situation? And by the way, it's not about who I am, it's about who do I want to be? They're more future oriented. They're more intentional about who they want to be in social situations. So it's like, I want to have this type of interaction with Luis today. That's intentional. They're more clear about what skills they need to develop to reach their next level of success. Right. Here's how you really know an underperformer.

• 6:37Brendon Burchard?

  Open up their calendar and look for any evidence that they have planned their own curriculum for greatness.

• 6:46Brendon Burchard?

  If they don't have classes or courses, if they're not actively skill building, there's no chance of high performance. I mean, maybe they can dumb luck into it for initial success, but high performance is long-term success. You gotta be building. Constantly growing, constant learning, constantly growing. Being aware of it. And the last of the future four is I know the service I want to provide in the future. Talk to any high performers, I'm sure you've interviewed, they kind of know the service and the difference they want to make. Maybe not precisely, but they're asking the question. So that's some of what we know. They seek clarity. And that's kind of the first practice is asking questions in those areas. And the other two real fast is when you're seeking clarity, they're more clear about the feeling they want to have.

• 7:31Brendon Burchard?

  Like an Olympic sprinter who's won gold is more likely to have said before he went or she went on the track. How do I want to feel out there? Not like just the result, like when the foot's in the block and arms down, like what do I want to feel? Like they're very aware of the feeling they're trying to get. Yeah, I don't want to feel nervous and stressed. I want to feel calm and. Yes. Clear and smooth and. Yes. And they're doing that self-talk, which is seeking clarity. And then the last one, which is really important, they're clear about what's meaningful to them now. And what might be different in the future, which is something I didn't know until we did a lot of the interviews or the conversations is.

• 8:13Brendon Burchard?

  A lot of people kind of know what I like now. They know what their passion is. But it's like, what's going to be meaningful to you later, like in five years? They've thought about that. You know, I would say they've done the work. So that's just the first habit. And so the book kind of opens with, with that story of like finding what's. We all have to decide who we are and what we want and how to get it at this stage of our life. And when we don't know that, you know, reaching high performance can be really hard.

• 8:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's all about clear vision for me. It's the first chapter in my book is the greatest leaders in the world have a clear vision.

• 8:50Brendon Burchard?

  Love that.

• 8:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 8:51Brendon Burchard?

  That's it. And they got that vision by seeking clarity.

• 8:53Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 8:54Brendon Burchard?

  That was the habit that gave them the vision. They were consistently seeking like, how do I, what do I, I mean, they ask themselves more questions. That's one of our findings. They literally are doing more of the self-talk, asking more of the questions, which is so important.

• 9:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, awesome.

• 9:08Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 9:09Lewis Howes?

  And, and I love how you talked about this. You say the world cares less about your strengths and personality than about your service and meaningful contributions. Then why do so many of us focus on our strengths and personality?

• 9:20Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah. Oh, that was a huge finding. And I would, that's another one. I would have completely freaked out on anybody.

• 9:26Lewis Howes?

  Strength finders, all these other books out there, you know, it's like,

• 9:28Brendon Burchard?

  Yes.

• 9:29Lewis Howes?

  Focus on our strengths.

• 9:30Brendon Burchard?

  And then fortunately, one, that's in the history of personal development, that is the greatest false dichotomy there has ever been. Focus on your strengths or it's like, you have to do both. You have to do both. But what we found in our research, which surprised me, high performers do not report working on their strengths any more than regular people. So that's not what gives them the edge. One of the chapters opens up with this guy, he wrote this email, really highly successful guy. And he wrote this email to me, says, you know, and I'd put him through all this, I put him through StrengthsFinder, the Berkman, the Colby, the Myers-Briggs, put him through everything. This was one of my first coaching clients ever. I knew everything about him. We knew all his background. He did all the, I mean, he did all the homework, had his peer review, you know, his 360s assessments from work. And then I watched him fail for two years.

• 10:14Brendon Burchard?

  And he wrote me this email and he said, Brendan, stop telling me like what successful people are like because we know my strengths, I'm not getting ahead. And start telling me what they do. And that's what this book became out. It's like, what do you need to do? Because, and in this email, he wrote this, which is where that finding came from. He said, this was so good. Listen to this line. He said, as a leader, I have to be honest with myself. That my mission and vision should never be made to bow down to my limited human strengths.

• 10:51Brendon Burchard?

  I should have to rise up to my mission or vision. The strengths aren't the relevant thing is, the question is, what is necessary for me to develop into to reach that mission?

• 11:03Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 11:04Brendon Burchard?

  It's like, your strengths are great, and it's like, yes, of course do your strengths, but that's kind of like, what I tell people is like, uh, if, let's imagine you have a bear, and that bear wants to go on top of this cliff over here, and it's never been on the cliff, and it wants to get that new honey up there, right? Telling the bear to focus on the strengths, to go somewhere it's never gone before and do something that's never done before, is stupid. It's like saying, hey, you know what? Just try being more of a bear.

• 11:32Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 11:33Brendon Burchard?

  If I just, you say, Brendan, I got this big new vision, I just say, just try being more of Lewis.

• 11:38Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:39Brendon Burchard?

  I mean, at a spiritual level, that feels good, but you and I both know you're gonna have to develop far beyond your comfort zones, and strengths are typically comfort zones.

• 11:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 11:50Brendon Burchard?

  We gotta overcome that and go to the next level.

• 11:51Lewis Howes?

  And develop new skills, and overcome certain fears, and all these other things that are gonna help us get to the next level, is that right?

• 11:55Brendon Burchard?

  Yes, yeah, yeah, the whole conversation of beyond the comfort zone really requires us to go beyond our strengths. It really requires us.

• 12:02Lewis Howes?

  That is our comfort zone.

• 12:03Brendon Burchard?

  That is our comfort zone.

• 12:04Lewis Howes?

  What we already know, what we're good at.

• 12:05Brendon Burchard?

  And the problem with all the StrengthsFinder, and all of the strengths-based movement, is the assumption, and they're all written academically this way, based on what are called innate strengths. An innate strength is the assumption that you had that from birth, and that those innate strengths are sure what you focus on. And I'm like, well, if you had it at birth, you probably had it when you were 15 years old too. So if it's innate, you had it at 15. Are the strengths you had at 15 sufficient to serve you at 50?

• 12:30Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 12:31Brendon Burchard?

  Hell no. You need to develop beyond what's innate and go to a whole other level. And so, uh, I take on strengths in the book in that way, uh, because, but I also say, it almost doesn't matter, because a lot of people have strengths, and they suck at work because they're not doing these habits. Oh, I mean, how many people do you know who are amazingly strong and their strengths finders are amazing and they don't do anything all day?

• 12:55Lewis Howes?

  That's it. Yeah, a lot of people. I mean, in the sports world, there's a lot of great talented people who have the greatest gifts, but they still weren't able to win.

• 13:03Brendon Burchard?

  Yeah.

• 13:04Lewis Howes?

  Or they were lazy, or they wouldn't, you know, hustle or sacrifice their body because they just relied on their talents, their strengths.

• 13:10Brendon Burchard?

  Yep.

• 13:11Lewis Howes?

  And so they were never able to get to the championship game or get on the best teams because and they had all the talent in the world and you're just like, if I was as gifted as this person, I would be incredible.

• 13:19Brendon Burchard?

  Yes. And that's the whole thing about the talent code or a lot of new sort of newer research and performance. It just says, what's more important is what you do with what you got to develop into the vision of the mission you need to serve. And so the book kind of lays out a lot of the science behind that and then goes into, you know, obviously most of it's oriented towards the six habits.

• 13:42Lewis Howes?

  So in terms of clarity, what is that habit that you take on on a daily or monthly basis with habit with clarity? What do you think about? You're like, every morning, what am I clear about? Or, you know, how do you apply that habit to your life?

• 13:55Brendon Burchard?

  Uh, I apply it a couple of ways. First, for me, every situation I go into, I'm consistently asking like, what, what's the feeling I want to have here? If you ever see me teach, it's often I would say, bring the joy. So I have joy triggers that I've set up in my mind that makes me more intentional about things. So for example, I have a door frame trigger. Whenever I walk through a door, I say, bring the joy. So when I walk through that door right there, it's like, bring the joy into this room. It's just, it's just a mental trigger that I've set up for myself. Every morning in the shower, I ask myself three questions and not that I shower every morning, but the first question I say, what can I be excited about today?

• 14:36Brendon Burchard?

  So it forces me to be clear about what's going to draw joy enthusiasm from me. Number two, I say, what might trip me up today?

• 14:46Brendon Burchard?

  Because usually I know what's going on in the day. I'm like, what, what might mess me up? What might, where I might not perform well? What might bother me? And number three, I say, what can I do to surprise somebody today? Hmm. To give a gift of appreciation or acknowledgement today? And so I think through that in the morning. So I think that helps me begin my day pretty clear. Um, then when I sit down before I do work, I literally look at my calendar of the day. This is morning. And I look at whatever's going on in the day and I think about it for 20 minutes. It's one of my 20 minute routines in the morning. I literally think about my calendar for 20 minutes a day. People think that's crazy, but what I'm thinking through when I'm looking at the calendar, I'm like, okay, I'm going to have that call. What do I want to happen on that call? You know, what's my intention for that call? What's my goal for that call?

• 15:31Brendon Burchard?

  What's the feeling for that call? How do I want to end that call?

• 15:33Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 15:34Brendon Burchard?

  You know, I'm going to have that time with Louis. Like, how do I want to be there? And, and, and how can I make sure I enjoy it? Because it's a big deal.

• 15:42Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 15:42Brendon Burchard?

  I love your show. I want to do a good job. I want to share something good for the people, even though I have no idea what you're going to ask.

• 15:48Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 15:48Brendon Burchard?

  And this, I just, I want, I want to be present for that and, and make sure I'm really there, even though maybe I have a head cold today. You know, it's like, it's like just thinking through it. I think that helps me. It keeps me asking questions. Every Sunday, I do a life arenas assessment. That just means I think there's 10 areas of our life and I score myself in them.

• 16:08Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 16:09Brendon Burchard?

  And this is about my 11th year of doing this.

• 16:11Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 16:11Brendon Burchard?

  So each area of my life, you know, from, from emotional quality to happiness, to relationships, to time, to hobby, et cetera. I just give myself a score of one to 10. And one means I suck. And I, I was horrible in the previous week on that. 10 means I did do a good job. And then I ask, how can I do better?

• 16:29Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 16:29Brendon Burchard?

  It's my Sunday routine.

• 16:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 16:30Brendon Burchard?

  And it just keeps me clear. And it's not like I don't, sometimes like everyone else, you know, wonder what's going on or what I'm doing, but those habits, those were my habits. You have to establish your own for seeking clarity. But when you have them, you weaponize your life.

• 16:53Michael Gervais?

  If we get the fear thing right, and we have a relationship with fear, and we look for moments to challenge our relationship with fear, I can talk a lot, I'd love to talk about that with you. And the other is getting the fatigue thing right. And we've come in modern times to believe that we need to do more to be more.

• 17:10Michael Gervais?

  And it's broken, right? It's fundamentally broken. The idea is that we need to be more and let the doing flow from there. Be yourself, be your authentic self, be here now. You know, be grateful, be present, and let the doing flow from those, that orientation is a completely different model that, you know, it's like I, I've, I'm spending my life efforts, I think, working to share that and to help the, some of the best doers and thinkers in the world to reorientate what got them good, but is slowing them down from being their absolute personal best.

• 17:47Lewis Howes?

  What's slowing them down? Fear and fatigue still?

• 17:50Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, well, the idea, the framework, the psychological framework, that I need to do more to be more. And that's born out of anxiety.

• 17:58Lewis Howes?

  Not doing enough.

• 17:59Michael Gervais?

  Yeah.

• 17:59Lewis Howes?

  Could be doing more.

• 18:00Michael Gervais?

  And the trick.

• 18:01Lewis Howes?

  Stressing about that.

• 18:02Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, but flat out. And the trick, though, there is that that'll get people good. I need to do more. Damn, I missed that jumper. How am I gonna miss that jumper? Let's keep it like, you know.

• 18:12Lewis Howes?

  Drive them to be, practice more to, yeah.

• 18:14Michael Gervais?

  It's like, just enough anxiety will get you good, but it will slow you down for being your absolute best at some point.

• 18:21Lewis Howes?

  But why do we fear so much about what could go wrong? What other people think about us? Who are we gonna let down? That we're not worthy enough, good enough? Why do we fear that?

• 18:30Michael Gervais?

  It's a great question.

• 18:31Lewis Howes?

  So much.

• 18:32Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, it's a really great question.

• 18:33Lewis Howes?

  For our whole life.

• 18:34Michael Gervais?

  Mm-hmm, yeah. So there's some biological things we can take a look at, and then there's also psychological, right? And then, so it's the interaction of those two. Biologically, our brain, as best as we think, and it's three pounds of silly putty that sits in our skull. It's more complicated than, you know, like, the brightest minds in neuroscience are still amazed by how our brain works. But we think that our brain is designed to scan the world and find what's dangerous. Right? And so our ancestors passed that gift on to us, your lineage passed that gift on to you, that they were able to survive. And so how survive way back in ancient times that they could scan the world and

• 19:14Michael Gervais?

  easily discern how to be ready between, now let me say it more eloquently, they could scan the world and find what was dangerous or what was threatening, so that they wouldn't be eaten, eaten by the saber-toothed tiger, as the story goes, right?

• 19:29Lewis Howes?

  Or they want to eat something bad, or they want to whatever, protect themselves.

• 19:32Michael Gervais?

  That's right. So, and then not only was nature dangerous and all the elements in nature, but other humans became dangerous to each other. So now what we've created is the ability, the heightened ability to read micro-expressions. And micro-expressions are the small squinting of the eyes, the frontalis muscles between the eyes. And when those squint or don't move, it's a sense of threat, right? Because we don't know what's happening to that, from that person. And so if you got this ancient brain that's programmed beautifully to find what's dangerous, and we scanned in an undisciplined way our environment around us, we're going to find dangerous things. And in modern times, we're not chased by saber-tooths anymore. The new, modern saber-tooth are other people's opinions.

• 20:17Michael Gervais?

  And so we're well-conditioned from an early age, and this next generation is going to be even more well-conditioned, you know, with Insta-highlight reels for everything, my life is better than yours, I'm gonna show you via a snap picture. Is that, you know, so we've got this real challenge that to pursue a path of our personal best, we have to override our DNA. That's, that's hard to do. That's really hard to do. It requires deep commitment to training. And that's a psych, that's what psychology, the optimal opportunities that psychology offers us is just that, how to train our minds to override our DNA and to use the smaller parts of our brain to scan the world and find opportunity.

• 20:59Lewis Howes?

  How can we train our minds every single day, throughout the day, to do that?

• 21:03Michael Gervais?

  Yeah.

• 21:03Lewis Howes?

  Overcome this fear? What are the things that we could be doing?

• 21:05Michael Gervais?

  I could, I will, not I could, I will rattle off as many as you want to hear, like tactics. And then I also want to put a small little asterisk next to this, is that the tactic alone is not enough. Right. It's the stitching of the tactics. It's the stitching of the mental skills training to each other and to one's personal philosophy. So without a personal philosophy, it's like you, we end up just trying all these different things to get better. But what are we getting better at? What other people want us to be? So there's a fundamental piece of work first. Got it. What would be your personal philosophy? I'll, I'll, I'll share mine. Cool. I've spent a lot of time with it and I'll tell, if I could tell a story of how it worked.

• 21:49Michael Gervais?

  I think it, it will harden it a little bit. So I needed a mentor when I was growing up and I'm thankful, what's up Gary? Like I'm thankful for Gary. He helped me out in so many different ways, even currently today. And so one day he says, hey, Mike, I want to introduce you to my mentor. Ah, great. I didn't know there was such a thing as like a grand mentor. Like, am I ready? And so, you know, it's this moment, I said, okay, here we go. And it was this, but to my surprise, it was this small, you know, two, uh, three bedroom, two bedroom, uh, three bedroom, two bath home. And it was well manicured and it was this pleasant, like 78, 82 year old woman comes out. And I was just so pleasantly surprised, like, okay, this is going to get good.

• 22:34Michael Gervais?

  Cause she just had that sense of wise woman. And it's the setting that you would imagine. The shag carpet was a little bit long. The drapes were just a little bit, you know, outdated. And so we sat at the table and she's pouring me tea and, and she says, you know, uh, welcome. And so interested to meet you. Then we sat down and she said, so tell me what you're about. And I said, okay, well, well, okay, let me start this way. And she looked at me and she looked at my mentor and she said, I thought you said he was ready. I, I am ready. Wait, wait, no, no, no. I want to answer that. And she grabbed my tea and she said, you know, when you're ready, sweetie, I'd like to share this tea with you. Yeah. So I was like super embarrassed in that moment. Like I thought I let my, my mentor down and, you know,

• 23:19Michael Gervais?

  it was like this really intense experience. Wow. How old were you? I was at that point, um, I was right after, it was like 26, 27, somewhere in that range. And so I didn't know what to do. And so it was this awkward moment, but I knew that I had, I was not prepared to even answer the most basic question. Who are you? I just want to anchor that because I think that that captures what most of us feel like a lot.

• 23:46Lewis Howes?

  Most people don't feel like they know who they are.

• 23:48Michael Gervais?

  Yeah, and so I had this dramatic moment for me, but I think it's a really important process to go through. So let's call it a personal philosophy, but then let's extract one, one level out from that. The greatest and the most influential people across the globe are very clear about their philosophy. The greatest movers and shakers and change makers are spiritual leaders and political leaders for the most part. And now we're starting to see business leaders, you know, to do that. What was Confucius' philosophy? What was Buddha's philosophy? What was Jesus' philosophy? They're really clear. Jesus was, and I want to oversimplify a beautiful set of traditions, but Jesus was more about love and service.

• 24:29Michael Gervais?

  Buddha was more about, you know, that all people are suffering. And then so let's work through compassion to live with love and kindness. What was Martin Luther King Jr.'s? Dr. King Jr.'s was about equality, you know? Malcolm X, equality, totally different tone, totally different approach. Mother Teresa, Helen Keller, what was Helen Keller? It's like, okay, I'm gonna go for it and like, I deserve to be educated as well. She changed the educational system. So the most influential people were very clear. Why? Because they lined up their thoughts, their words and actions to the thing that matters most to them. And that's what a philosophy is about. Everybody already has one. You have one, I have one. Whether we could articulate it at knife point in a dark alley, totally different element, right?

• 25:14Michael Gervais?

  And so I think that that's a nice litmus test. Like, could you get it out in front of a deranged person who's got a knife to your throat? Like, could you, do you, are you that clear what you stand for? And do you have your personal philosophy? So that's the litmus test for folks I work with. And I'll share mine. It's every day is an opportunity to create a living masterpiece. And so there's optimism embedded in there. There's creative juices embedded in there. And then there's, you know, this idea of a living masterpiece. And so when I met Coach Carroll, head coach of the Seattle Seahawks about six years ago, six, seven years ago, one of our first conversations, it was, it was over dinner, a mutual friend put us together and we had this really wonderful conversation and it was

• 25:58Michael Gervais?

  born out of like, what is your philosophy? So he had been on the same, similar journey, I should say, where he was fired from two head coach jobs in the NFL.

• 26:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 26:07Michael Gervais?

  And on, on the second time he was fired. So from pain creates change. Uncomfortableness is how we grow, but change is how we, I'm sorry, uncomfortableness is how we grow, but pain is why we change. So he experienced pain and said, if I get another chance, I'm going to do it exactly the way that is authentic to me, but I gotta figure out what that is.

• 26:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 26:29Michael Gervais?

  So he just went and scratched down on, you know, multiple pads, spiral, you know, old school spiral notebooks, just wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote, took a second pass at it and said, what are the words that keep showing up? Circled those words, wrote more about those words. And that's how it eventually spilled out of him. His philosophy is always compete. Always compete for what you say? Always compete to be a great dad, to be a great coach, to be a great friend, to be a great partner, like always compete. And so he says at his core, he's a competitor and he's always trying to become better. And so, so he's built his whole life around, you know, that, and including the Seattle Seahawks and USC before that. So yeah, so philosophy is really important to us. And so that would be the most significant investment first.

• 27:18Lewis Howes?

  Hey guys, I wanted to take a quick break from this episode to tell you about one of the best sources I've found for running your business online. Again, if you want to expand your horizons in the online world, I know it can be crazy and more than one fourth of Americans say they'd start their own business in the next year if they could, but only a fraction of those people actually do. Why is that? Why? It's because taking the leap can be scary for starting your own thing. And luckily there's Weebly. And Weebly is the easiest place to create an incredible looking website. But more importantly, it's full of e-commerce platform packed with tools to help you sell your products, process payments, manage inventory, create marketing campaigns and grow your brand.

• 28:03Lewis Howes?

  And because Weebly's mission is to help people turn great ideas into successful businesses, they've built an incredible support team. So if you've got a question, you just pick up the phone to talk to a customer success expert. There's no robots or scripts, just a friendly human who can help you with your goals. So if you've got a product, or an idea, or you want to share something with the world, check out Weebly and you can have a beautiful, powerful online store up and running in a matter of hours. And because you listen to this podcast, you can visit weebly.com/greatness and get 15% off your first purchase. Don't just build a beautiful website, build a successful online business with Weebly.

• 28:45Lewis Howes?

  Again, weebly.com/greatness. Now let's get back to the episode.

• 28:55Tony Robbins?

  The capacity to strengthen and increase your hunger is the one common denominator amongst the most successful people. You know, Richard Branson is a good friend of mine and Peter Guber, Steve Wynn, all these guys, they've never lost their hunger. Most people are hungry to achieve a certain amount, make a certain amount of money and then they get comfortable and relax, or to get a certain level of fitness and then they relax. But you know, Richard is as driven today as when he was 16 years old starting. I mean, he's like on fire and he's 65 years old. Warren Buffett is 85 years old. He's as driven today as when, you know, he began the journey, right? And so people that have that hunger, I believe intelligence, I love people that are wickedly smart.

• 29:39Tony Robbins?

  And I worked to be wickedly smart by educating and training myself and so forth and training my brain. But there's a lot of intelligent people can't find their way out of a paper bag, right? Hunger is the ultimate driver because if you're hungry, you can get the strategy, you can get the answer. If you can't model it, you can find it. So hunger, modeling would be maybe the next best skill, knowing that success leaves clues. Like why reinvent the wheel? If someone took... This plane was Mickey's plane who owns the Miami Heat and owns Carnival, right? I mean, you can learn so much from there. Like Mickey is blow your mind what this man has been able to do in his life.

• 30:18Tony Robbins?

  And so why would I go learn by trial and error and maybe take 10 or 20 years when I could learn from somebody in a few weeks or a few months or a few hours, something that could save me a day? That's what it is. That's why, that's why I read 700 books in the first 7 years because I was like, if somebody takes 10 years of their life, they pour no book. Right. And I can read that an hour, two or three or four. Why wouldn't I? So how does someone continue to stay hungry? Or re, you know, rediscover what they're hungry about? The best way is get around where it's better and things will hit you. Who you spend time with is who you become. So, you know, when I started coaching all these billionaires, there's a part of me that said, I'm as smart in certain areas as they are. I gotta step my game up. It's not about the money. It's about,

• 31:00Tony Robbins?

  how can I take the invisible and make it visible? How could I find a way to add more value to other people? To such an extent where economics are not a question whatsoever. And then I can take those economics and do even more where I'm not there. I look at money as portable power. I can leverage my money to do things for people even when I sleep. But I love doing these for people and I work 18, 20 hour days still, but it's really nice to have the leverage of that as well. The most important decision of your life is deciding whether you're truly committed to being happy no matter what. Because life is going to throw all kinds of curveballs at all of us. There's the one thing that's in common in this lifetime is extreme stress. You're going to experience it if you haven't already and even if you have, you will in the future. Like this positive thinking.

• 31:45Tony Robbins?

  But it's just true. Someone you're going to care about is going to die. Someone's going to take advantage financially if you're not careful. You're going to find yourself in a position, the government might change the rules and you can't do what you're doing before. Somebody call, like I've gotten a call saying you got a tumor in your brain. Those days alter you. And if you decide that you're going to live in a beautiful state of mind, that doesn't just mean happy. It means. Uh, people say, oh, yeah, I'm committed to be happy, but my wife left me. Well, then you're not committed to being happy. You're committed to be happy unless your wife leaves you. And you can't control that. You can certainly influence it, but you can't control it. Or I'm gonna be happy except my friend died. Your friends are gonna die. Your family gonna die. So the greatest gift you could give yourself besides making this life about love and making this life about giving,

• 32:28Tony Robbins?

  because to give, you have to keep growing, is I believe to make that decision and say, life is too short to suffer. And most achievers like you and I, we never use the word suffering, but we get stressed, we get pissed, we get overwhelmed. Some people get sad or depressed, and those are all forms of suffering. And all your entire life, you live in one of two states, states of suffering or beautiful states of being. In beautiful states of being, it doesn't matter what happens. Um, you're gonna find something to enjoy and appreciate. And you know, you know, I've interviewed people, I'm sure, I'm sure you have, that are born with no arms or legs, or they've been, they've lost their sight, and they're happy. Yes. And then you meet billionaires or people, families, they got beautiful kids, beautiful husband, beautiful wife,

• 33:12Tony Robbins?

  and they get miserable over anything. I really believe you have to make, that's the most important decision of your life, is that no matter what happens, I'm gonna live in that state. And then you have to do the work, which is, I got a 90-second rule. They get pissed off or frustrated, suffering comes up, it always shows up. But what I decided is, within 90 seconds, I kill it. Because in that suffering state, I'm not gonna be there for my wife or my kids. In that suffering state, if I solve it, I'm gonna be miserable even though I solve it, right? I realized I would give away my happiness so easily, because, look, I got 1,200 employees plus in 18 companies on multiple continents and multiple industries. What are the chances that today, somebody's gonna screw up something? Yeah, a big chance.

• 33:56Tony Robbins?

  It's 100%. And so I would be like, oh, I was so happy, and then John did this, or this person, what were they thinking? Or he opened the door in the middle of the interview, or whatever. There's always something, right? And so I decided, that's the shit that's gonna happen. That's part of, you know, having multi-billion dollar companies in lots of industries. So I'm gonna enjoy it. And when something doesn't work out, we'll learn from it, we'll grow. It's all small stuff, right? You don't sweat the small stuff, it's all small stuff. So I've really experienced in the last year, that's probably the greatest growth for me, is Not letting that suffering last and calling it suffering because it's inconsistent with my identity and probably yours as well, right? So I'd never do that stuff, so I don't. And I call a spade a spade.

• 34:39Tony Robbins?

  Pissed off is suffering, worried is suffering, stressed out is suffering. And so I know it sounds esoteric because we're doing this in two minutes. I usually take people now to like a day of experiences where they uncover this. I asked people, I asked you, what are two of the most magnificent experiences of your life? So far.

• 35:00Lewis Howes?

  The first two things that came to the top of my head was visiting a third world country and building a school for kids. And seeing their joy. And being in that experience. And then two others was achieving a dream of being an all-American athlete when I wanted to early on. When I worked for it for so long and then also not to pitch myself, but writing a New York Times bestselling book. And having a dream and creating that dream, so.

• 35:23Tony Robbins?

  And then let's, now there's a pattern to those examples. I'm not just listening to the content, I'm listening to, tell me what you felt. What did you feel when you helped build that school?

• 35:33Lewis Howes?

  Incredible joy. It was like, it was like I was able to give, I was able to use what God had created for me to give back and support other people. And that contribution, that service for me was a major thing to see what I was capable of doing for so many other people beyond myself.

• 35:51Tony Robbins?

  And when you became an all-American, what did you feel?

• 35:54Lewis Howes?

  I felt a sense of, well, actually the first time I was an all-American, I was really happy and then I was really sad. I was really upset because I was driven by anger to prove people wrong, that I would become it. So I made it happen by this willing it and this commitment to like proving everyone wrong and all the people that screwed me over like, here's why you're gonna accept me and why you're gonna love me.

• 36:16Tony Robbins?

  And it, and it didn't work completely.

• 36:18Lewis Howes?

  It wasn't fulfilling. It was for a moment and then I was like, this sucks, what's the point of this?

• 36:23Tony Robbins?

  So, so you, you just so beautifully demonstrated what I want to get across. Whenever we have our highest experiences of life, two things are involved. Some form of growth within ourself and some form of contribution beyond ourself. I could ask a hundred people, and I've done this with thousands, and they always tell me something that where they would face the fear, overcame something, but also in doing it, it benefited their family or benefited somebody else or like what you did with the building. Whenever I ask people the worst experiences of their life, they will tell me something and it was all about them. You. What happened to them? Yeah, so one of the reasons you valued that experience is there was growth in that experience to become the all American. But because you did it all just about you, it wasn't fulfilling. Exactly.

• 37:08Tony Robbins?

  That's when I say, life's not about me, it's about we. And that's also why when people are suffering, it's always because you're obsessing about yourself. You're obsessing that something happened and now you have less, you think you have less. Or something happened and you've lost something, lost love, lost money, lost significance, lost attention, lost something. Or because you did this or said that, or because I did something myself, I'm never gonna have something. Lost, less, never are the sources of suffering. And when you say, no, I'm suffering because my children are doing well, no, you're suffering because you failed your children in your mind, it's about you still. When you get that all suffering is obsession with self, you can snap out of it and all you have to do is stop expecting and start appreciating.

• 37:52Tony Robbins?

  You look around and appreciate things outside yourself, the people around you, your friends sitting across here, anything of that nature. And then starting to enjoy something, if you start to learn or grow from that, if you love, which to me is an action, if you love, if you give, if you're grateful, suffering disappears instantly, but you have to tell yourself the truth. The only suffering is in your mind, it's because this brain is not designed to make you happy, it's two million years old, it's designed to make you survive. Happiness is your job and happiness is a decision and it's a daily set of practices. And the difference for me from before, if you said, do you have a beautiful, magnificent life, is there kidding me? I mean, it's like, I have this incredible mission, I work with millions of people, I have this beautiful family, I love my wife, I'm physically strong and healthy. But it's like a business.

• 38:37Tony Robbins?

  If you measure the business annually, you feel good about the business, but you're gonna have some bad years. If you measure it monthly, the worst you're gonna have is bad months. Daily, when I take over a company, turn around, I find. Usually a dozen elements of that business and I'll measure five times a day in the beginning. Wow. Because the more you measure, the better you can adapt and change. I make everybody have to focus on it. Well, what I've done with this area of my life is instead of saying, is my life beautiful? Of course it is, or again, of course it is. I now measure it moment to moment. Wow. So if I feel that that suffering, that frustration, that whatever's coming up, I go, this is the mind, I breathe in my heart, I find something I can appreciate. I become entertained by the experience and go, you know what? I'm gonna live in a beautiful state no matter what, because not everything can I control.

• 39:22Tony Robbins?

  And the things I'm most upset about, they're fleeting anyway, most of them.

• 39:29Mel Robbins?

  Everybody that you admire is doing the exact same thing. They actually listen to their inner wisdom.

• 39:36Mel Robbins?

  They have figured out how to tune out the critic up here and trust the instincts. And, you know, I have this saying about confidence that I've only recently kind of stumbled into as I've been digging into more research around the science of confidence and the skill of confidence. Because a lot of people think that confidence is a personality trait. It's not. It's actually a skill that you build through action. And a lot of people think confidence is a state of belief. It can be, but that's not where it begins. And so I say that confidence is the willingness to try. That's all that it is. Knowing that you may succeed or survive, but you'll still try.

• 40:19Mel Robbins?

  And to me, all those people that we admire most, that's what they're doing. They have the ability to tune into those instincts that are true for them. Because the fact is, there's only one you. That's it. And you matter because there's only one you and there's only ever gonna be one you. And your instincts and your experiences and your inner wisdom is a gift to the world. And every time that you tune it out because of the habit of hesitating or the habit of self doubt or the habit of worrying or the habit of overthinking, you are robbing the world of that gift that you have to give to everybody.

• 41:02Mel Robbins?

  And you can use this simple, stupid, silly tool to train yourself to not only hear it, but also to develop the skill of courage to act on it.

• 41:14Lewis Howes?

  There you have my friends, powerful wisdom from the top performers in the world on high-performance habits. And again, your life is a direct result to the habits you have. The results you create in your life, the feelings you have, the relationships you create, the income you create, your health, your energy levels, all of these things are a direct result based on how you show up in your habits. The habits you choose to do, the ones you choose not to do. So if you want to increase the level, the quality of your life, make sure to increase your habits and the quality of them. Again, check out the full show notes over at LewisHowes.com/635.

• 41:59Lewis Howes?

  Let me know what you thought of this. Share out the tweets over there on your Twitter, on Instagram, on Facebook, and tag me on Instagram, and tag me on all these places, letting me know who you enjoyed the most, whose wisdom or habits you enjoyed the most, and what you're going to apply to your life based on what you learned today. Again, John Maxwell said, "I can predict the long-term outcome of your success if you show me your daily habits." You know what time it is. Increase your habits, make them better, tweak and test things, continue to optimize your life. It's time to go out there and do something great.