Pod Insights The School of Greatness 692 The Power of The Mind (And How I Think) with Rob Murgatroyd About this episode WE ARE SPIRITUAL BEINGS HAVING A PHYSICAL EXPERIENCE. They say that the first seven years of your life shapes you into the person you will become. As many of you know, I grew up Christian Scientist. While it caused me to struggle in some ways, it taught me that the mind is more powerful than the body. From an early age I learned to create intentions to keep me grounded throughout the day. I was also forced (in a good way) to constantly challenge my thought patterns and mentality. For this episode, I’m sharing an interview by an old friend, Rob Murgatroyd, on the Work Hard Play Hard Podcast. Rob asks me some great questions about topics that I don’t usually talk much about. We dove into my religious upbringing and mistakes I made in my youth that led me to where I am today. It’s important to reflect on our past so we can understand our present. Get ready to learn how my childhood has shaped the way I think on Episode 692. Some Questions I Am Asked: How do you think the teachings of Christian Science affected you? (10:20) What did getting caught stealing teach you? (22:18) Where does your radical honesty come from? (25:00) Which teacher has impacted your growth the most? (32:50) What are some new beliefs you have about life? (36:20) What is something you do that people disagree with? (43:30) In This Episode You Will Learn: What I consider my secret sauce (8:46) Where I learned to live intentionally (12:30) The thing a lot of people don’t know about me (14:10) The greatest lesson I’ve ever learned (36:20) Facts about my life that has nothing to do with work (47:50) The one thing I would do if I had unlimited time and money (50:00) All about the upcoming Summit of Greatness (55:00) Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX
Transcript 11,274 words · 2 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Lewis Howes? This is episode number 692 and the mindset of my personal life. 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.
0:32 Lewis Howes? Michael Jordan said, "I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something, but I cannot accept not trying." Welcome to today's episode. That quote by Michael Jordan is something that I've lived by my entire life. I've never been afraid to fail, and I think that's one of the keys to my success. As I understand that, failure is just the foundation of creating a life you want. It's the founding blocks that you build your success on top of. It's the lessons you learn through trying those failures, which is where you're going to learn and grow the most. And I think my entire life, I've somehow figured that out at an early age.
1:16 Lewis Howes? And in this interview, I actually went on my good friend, Robert Murgatroyd's podcast, which is called The Work Hard, Play Hard Podcast. I recommend you checking it out. He had a powerful blog called Jet Set Life. He and his wife would travel around the world, but he was also kind of working really hard in a chiropractic business and wasn't able to figure out the balance until he's now figured out this pivotal moment where he decided to apply himself to mastering the counterbalance between the science of achievement and the art of fulfillment with his work-life-family balance. And that's where he talks about in the Work Hard, Play Hard Podcast and where that was born.
2:01 Lewis Howes? And I just went on there and I told him at the end, I said, "Man, this was really powerful for me." He really allowed me to open up and share stories that I don't think I've shared ever, or maybe not in a long time in this way at least. And what we covered were really diving into the foundation of the way I think and how I think and why I think. And we discussed my religion that I grew up in and what it was like growing up in Christian Science and how it became my secret sauce in sports in high school and college. And this is actually the same religion that Ellen DeGeneres grew up in as well. I no longer consider myself a Christian Scientist like herself, but there
2:43 Lewis Howes? were some powerful lessons that I learned then that I actually have come full circle now that everyone talks about, which is kind of interesting. I also talked about my addiction to stealing and why I overcame it. Now, some of you might not have known this about me, but I was a pretty big stealer. Pretty much every time I went into a store, I had to steal something for about a couple of years. So I talk about that and I open up about it. I talk about the school that changed my foundation and mindset forever. How you can neutralize negative feedback. Also talk about my routine to feel more loving, calm, and relaxed throughout my life because it wasn't always that way. And also how I make
3:24 Lewis Howes? myself stronger every single day. Again, for me, I asked Rob if I could use this and put it on my podcast and I get interviewed a lot. A lot of times I get interviewed, but this one I felt like I wanted to share. I couldn't recreate it on my own and I wanted to share with you guys. But make sure to check out the Work Hard, Play Hard podcast as well if you want to learn more about Rob and what he's up to. Again, a big thank you to our sponsors, but I'm excited about this because I really got to open up in a powerful way and I hope you appreciate this as much as I do. So without further ado, I'm going to dive in right now with some lessons about the mindset and the way I live my life.
4:11 Speaker 01 Lewis, welcome to the show.
4:14 Lewis Howes? My man, thank you.
4:15 Speaker 01 What can I say, I am beyond blessed to have you in my life, to call you a friend. But more importantly, I get to dig in and ask you new questions today that I've never asked you before.
4:27 Lewis Howes? Yeah, let's do it.
4:28 Speaker 01 All right, so thanks for making the time to do this. I think today, yep, I think today what we'll do is I want to cover a little bit about your background that maybe people who aren't completely familiar with you can fill in some gaps about you that haven't been discussed. Talk a little bit about the areas of your life that have nothing to do with work, sort of in the, the play hard part of the show. And then I want to talk about something that we're both excited about, which is the upcoming Summit of Greatness. Sound good?
5:00 Lewis Howes? Let's do it.
5:01 Speaker 01 All right, so I think a good jumping off point would be to talk about your religion. You know, they say you should talk about religion and politics at every dinner you go to, so I figured.
5:13 Lewis Howes? Exactly.
5:14 Speaker 01 I figured we'd start with religion. So they say the first seven years of somebody's life dictates a lot about their future and you were raised in the Christian Science religion. For those that don't know, can you describe for people what the basic principles are of that religion and maybe even some misconceptions about it?
5:35 Lewis Howes? I think I had a lot of misconceptions about it growing up because I didn't understand it fully, all of the founding principles. But essentially for me, the way I was raised was that our mind is more powerful than our body and we are actually spiritual beings, living a physical experience. But my dad would always tell me that. You're spiritually perfect. There is no imperfections in God's kingdom. And so therefore, your physical body can actually never get hurt. You can never physically have an injury, feel pain, get hurt. When you believe so strongly in the spiritual being and the spiritual essence in mind.
6:17 Lewis Howes? And in one truth, that God is love and that we are all spiritual beings in his kingdom. And so that was what was ingrained in my mind over and over again. But as a kid, when you start to have sexual urges and you start to feel this pain and you get hurt in sports. And I'm like constantly conflicted with these ideas for myself because I'm like, well, this feels painful when I hit myself and I just broke something and that hurts. And I have these, you know, sexual desires and all these other things. So I feel like I'm physical, but I'm being taught that I'm actually in a spiritual. So for me, it was a constant kind of like battle.
6:58 Lewis Howes? Not a bad way, but in a, in a good way to challenge myself, to challenge my thinking, to challenge my mentality, the way that I walk through life. And in some ways I struggled because I was the only kid that had like a permission slip or a slip from whoever that said like, I didn't have to get shots. I didn't have to go to the, you know, I never went to the nurse's office. I never did these things. Because my dad wanted to, if I was sick or anything happened, he wanted to make sure we focused on prayer. And essentially thought, you know, prayer that we talked about was thought, the ideas first. And how do we heal ourselves through ideas and our thoughts? And it's interesting because the more I learn
7:40 Lewis Howes? from a lot of psychologists and doctors and spiritual leaders and quantum physicists. They're actually confirming the things that I learned in my religion at an early age. You know, I just had Dr. Joe Dispenza on and he's all talking about, you know, the body does what the mind thinks and says and believes. And you can change your physical makeup through thought alone. You can heal yourself through thought alone. So as crazy as a lot of people thought that when my dad went and take me to the hospital or things like that. Or that we would use prayer to try to heal ourselves. It's kind of coming full circle to where all these people are talking about that now. And I'm like, yeah, that's my whole life.
8:21 Lewis Howes? You know, this is what I believed growing up and saw almost miracle after miracle happen through myself, through my family, through other people in the, in the church. Because they were always talking about how they were healing themselves and they weren't taking medicine, they weren't going to the doctor, things like that. Now, I ended up going to the hospital and doing things because I ended up getting sick a few times and my mom, who was not in the religion was like, screw this. If it ever gets too bad, I'm like, I'm making sure that you're going to survive and be alive. And I think that's where the misconception or the, the stigma comes from the church or people thinking about the church is that they've had some instances where I guess
9:04 Lewis Howes? kids have died in the past because parents didn't take them to go get treated. And that's where they get, I guess, a bad rap, so.
9:12 Speaker 01 You know what's interesting about this? I was just watching a documentary. For those of you that follow either Lewis or me on Instagram, you'll have seen that we've just spent some time together in Greece. And when I was in Greece, somebody asked me about Icaria. And I was like, what's that? And they're like, well, it's one of the blue zones. And for those of you that don't know what a blue zone is, it's where people live the longest. So apparently Icaria is really super close to Mykonos. And so I just recently watched a documentary about it. But what I learned in that documentary is that one of the blue zones, or the only blue zone that we have in the United States is in Loma Linda, California.
9:53 Lewis Howes? Yes, nearby.
9:54 Speaker 01 Yeah, which is, and they attribute that to the Seventh Day Adventists who also don't believe in medication or drugs. Yeah. So that pocket in Loma Linda, specific to the Seventh Day Adventists, are the highest living people in the United States, which I thought was really interesting.
10:16 Lewis Howes? Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, the founder of the religion is a woman who was founded back in, I think, the eighteen, mid eighteen hundreds. Her name is Mary Baker Eddy, which I thought was also pretty powerful. She was actually very sick a lot of her life, and she had all this time, kind of like sick in bed, to reflect, to ask the question, why am I feeling this? Why am I sick? How do I heal myself? And she started to become a student of the body, of the mind, of spirituality, the Bible, and all these things. And she wrote a book called, Science and Health: The Key to the Scriptures. And it's funny, again, as I meet with these doctors and spiritual leaders and quantum physicists, it's like they all talk about
10:57 Lewis Howes? modern day science, they talk about spirituality and blending the two. And so I think she was on to something, you know, a couple hundred years ago, when she started diving in. And listen, nothing is perfect. There's no perfect religion and perfect ideals and things like that. But for me, it was an incredible foundation that I believe, even though it was kind of like different and weird or whatever, it gave me a mental edge. And I still use those founding principles from what I learned as a kid to apply to my life. And I feel like it's kind of my secret sauce.
11:33 Speaker 01 It is. That was going to be my next question, which is, how do you think that the teaching has impacted you? Because you really do, if you look deep into your work, whether it's the books that you've written or the podcasts, there is a mind over matter philosophy that is weaved into the tapestry of, I think, what you teach. And I'm just, I'm curious how much you attribute either the religion, the upbringing, or however you want to hold it, into that.
12:03 Lewis Howes? You know, I think I went through a lot of emotional and mental trauma as a kid, just through like family dynamics. And I don't think my, you know, parents were trying to cause that. I would think it was more like self inflicted trauma and confusion and... Insecurities and things like that. I just always felt alone. I always felt like no one understood me, no one got me. And I think every kid feels that way, like no one gets me and no one understands me. But I left home when I was 13 because I was just like, I need to get away. I needed to get away. And I actually went to a school for boarding school for Christian scientists. So I actually kind of like rejected the religion early on. Like I never wanted to go to Sunday school or church. Like I was just bored, you know,
12:47 Lewis Howes? I was just like a kid with ADD and wanted to go play. I didn't want to go sit in a church for an hour every Sunday. And it was early and I wanted to sleep in, you know, all the things that kids want to do. And it's funny, my but my dad was sending to a summer camp every year in Missouri, and I lived in Ohio, and the summer camp was for Christian scientists. It's just like every summer camp, like, you know, water sports and activities and basketball and games and stuff, but they would have like little, what they called metes, metaphysical before every activity. We'd have five to 10 activities a day. You'd go for an hour and you play basketball, you go here, you water ski, you jump off a rope swing, you do all these things that kids do. Horseback
13:28 Lewis Howes? riding. But before every activity, they would have like a little mini church, like a little five minutes where they called metes, metaphysical. And they would have us essentially create an intention for how we wanted to live in that next hour and during that experience. But from a metaphysical spiritual way, what is God? We would just kind of reinforce, like, what is our beliefs? What are we looking to create here? How do we want to show up? Has something happened to you yesterday with a kid that you want to reflect on and talk about and work through? It's just like these little moments. And that set the groundwork for me to having these.
14:10 Lewis Howes? Grounding intentions every single day of my life. Again, I created these habits and practices and rituals for just being thoughtful and mindful of how I wanted to show up in my life during a session, an activity, a speech, whatever it may be. And I went to this camp every summer as a kid for a couple of weeks. And I remember when I was 12, I went to this camp and I was just kind of going through a lot. I think again, a lot of kids go through a lot in middle school. So I'm not trying to act like I was different. My brother had just got out of prison after four and a half years. My parents were never happy. They were always arguing or there was just like this tension constantly in the house. So
14:53 Lewis Howes? there's arguments. They had gotten in a kind of a fight recently at this time when I was in the house and heard these loud slams and screaming. And it was kind of a traumatic experience. And I went off to this summer camp. And again, at just the time, I just really didn't have many friends. I started stealing a lot more for about a year and a half. I was stealing every single day. I went into a store, whatever it be like the grocery store, like the five and dime or whatever. I would steal, you know, candy bars, then ended up stealing jewelry, then ended up stealing more and more expensive things. A lot of people don't notice about me actually, that I don't even know what that's called. Is that a klepto or something where you're just like, I became addicted to stealing. Yeah, kleptoman.
15:38 Lewis Howes? I became addicted to where it was a game for me. I could walk into a gas station, a restaurant, or whatever. And instantly I knew where all the cameras were. And this is back in, I don't know, 1995. I instantly knew where the double sided mirrors were, or windows. I knew where the cameras were. I knew where the employees were working. I knew where the hidden spots were. One of my greatest talents in sports was vision. I could just see where the ball was going to be thrown, or where I needed to throw the ball, where I needed to bounce the ball, where I needed to go. I knew where the empty spaces were going to be. So I could always anticipate.
16:23 Lewis Howes? The play before it happened. And it's because I used to play all these games with myself as a kid. I was alone all the time and I would play these games where I would anticipate throwing a ball against the wall, hit four corners, and I know exactly where it was gonna land. And I would do this for hours and hours every day because I was so bored and alone. And so I started doing this and applying this in the real world. It became like, let me see if I can steal a pack of cigarettes. And ooh, that was like this scary thing. Even though I didn't smoke, I just was, wanted to do something that seemed, you know, like it was gonna get me excited. And I would do more and more of this. And for a year and a half, I never got caught until the day I got caught, which wasn't even in the store or anything like that.
17:08 Lewis Howes? I mean, I was going into Walmart, I feel bad saying this, but I was going into Walmart and like leaving with like clothes on me, like figuring out how to like take on two, I put on two pairs of shirts and then take off one, acting like I didn't want it anymore. I had this whole game down where I was just like, no one can catch me. I would pick up four candy bars in one hand, three in the other hand. I'd used to wear this huge starter jacket. And I would look at both of them so that the camera could actually see me. And I would put one down while I would slide the other one in my starter jacket, hid in front of the camera, but then also take another one at the same time and look at that one and be like, okay.
17:52 Lewis Howes? And I'd always go buy something. So the trick was never to leave without buying something. But it was just to show that, hey, I could pick, it was like a, it was like, what's that called with magicians where they kind of pick up two cards, but it looks like one? I was like really good at this like kind of sleight of hand thing. Mm-hmm. And until the day I got caught, my dad took me to, he took me to one of his clients. My dad sold life insurance for like 30 years. And he took me to a client's house of his, which was in the farmlands in Ohio, about an hour away. He took me and my, you know, basketball teammate of mine at the time, again, I'm 12. He took me there. We just got done with practice and my friend came with me.
18:36 Lewis Howes? And we were kind of like walking around this guy's, this farmer's house while my dad was doing like a business meeting with him. And we were walking into like all the different rooms and seeing if the drawers would open and we went down to the basement. We're just kind of exploring the house. We went in the basement and we opened up one of the drawers and there was 25 bucks in there. And we both took, I took $5 and my friend took $20. And didn't think of anything of it. Didn't think it was going to be an issue. Ended up leaving, all was good. At about 3 a.m. that night, I get woken up by my dad who's really mad. And it's like, did you take money from so and so, my client?
19:19 Lewis Howes? And I was like, no, I was like terrified. I was like, no, I didn't take any money. And he goes, this was his money to pay for the feed for like the, the cows or the chickens for that morning. And he needed the money to pay for this food for his animals. And I was like, no, I didn't take it. And again, I was terrified. My dad was larger than life. So having this presence wake me up at 3 a.m., I was just like, no, because I didn't want to get in trouble. Little did I know that he calls my friend's mom and dad. And then he admits that he stole money. My dad is furious. He takes me back later that day. We have to drive an hour to go give this guy back his money.
20:03 Lewis Howes? And I have to confront this person who is so angry at me. I let my dad down. You know, my dad's client, he's making money out of this guy. They're working together. They've been friends for a long time. And I steal money from one of my dad's clients. It's kind of that moment where I stopped stealing. And realized like, this is not the way I want to live. Bring it back full circle. I went to summer camp that year in Missouri to this kind of Christian Science summer camp. And I was kind of rebelling from going to church. I didn't really want to be in church anymore. Again, because I was doing all these bad things. And I went to this summer camp and again, my parents were going through this stressful time. I really didn't have any positive friends in my life. I was just stealing every day to
20:47 Lewis Howes? try to make myself look cool and do something exciting. My brother had just gotten out of prison. My two older sisters were off at college and I was going to be essentially the only one at home. And I just felt like there was no good path I was going to go on for the next five years, eighth grade and high school. I just kind of had this feeling. And when I was at this summer camp, something switched for me. It was the right time of my life where I met a few of these kids who just were so positive and so accepting and so loving and giving and joyful. And I just had a blast for two weeks. I had so much fun. And this was the first two weeks of
21:28 Lewis Howes? summer. And I got off the plane from St. Louis, coming back to Columbus, Ohio. Both my parents were there to pick me up. And literally, the first thing I said was, I want to go to this school in St. Louis, Missouri. And a lot of these kids who were at the summer camp were, it was all a camp for Christian scientists. And a lot of these kids were at this private school for Christian scientists that happened to be in St. Louis. And I said, I want to go to this school because I want to hang out with these kids. Like, these kids were positive, inspiring. I want to be around this type of energy. And my parents were like, absolutely not. We're not sending you away. We can't afford it. You know, we want you at home. All these
22:13 Lewis Howes? things. Once I have a clear dream, vision, goal in my mind, there is nothing that will stop me from doing whatever it takes to get it. Every single day, I hounded them and just said, I am going to this school. I will do whatever it takes. I will. Clean my room every day. I will do this. I will, you know. And it's funny, once we have something we care about enough, like the desire to do greater and do anything at all starts to happen. They were like, well, we can't afford it. And I go, I'm gonna write letter after letter to get grant money, to get financial aid, to figure out whatever it takes. They were like, well, you don't have the grades. You know, it's a private school. You don't have to have the grades to get in. And I was like, I'll take tutoring. I'll do summer classes. I'll do this.
22:56 Lewis Howes? It was like, whatever it took, I showed my parents that was willing to do anything. And I had to apply to get into the school. I had to write essays. I had to get letters from the church. I had to do all these things. And the last week, I was like, okay, guys, I've got everything. Will you please let me go? And they let me go. And that was the moment my life changed forever. Because this school, even though it was strict and hard and challenging and all these things, gave me such a strong mental foundation. And I definitely would not be here without making that decision to go to that school.
23:33 Speaker 01 What do you think that stealing the candy bars taught you? Why do you think that was put into your life? Or why do you think you created that in your life? Do you think it was purely just out of boredom? Or do you think that there was a bigger cosmic lesson that you needed to learn? And you had to learn it by really letting somebody down like, you know, in the story?
23:52 Lewis Howes? That's a good question. I think, you know, my brother went to prison for selling drugs to an undercover cop. And I think it taught me a lot about, I don't want to go down that route. Like, if I kept doing that, I realized that I let my dad down. Not only did I let him down, but I hurt his client, the person that I was stealing from. I hurt his client's family. I hurt his client's farm. The animals, like the ripple effect of the decisions we make hurt more than just one person. It hurts. Could potentially hurt hundreds or thousands of people if you make one wrong decision to steal, to lie, to kill someone, you know, it doesn't just affect that person's
24:34 Lewis Howes? life, which is finally over, it affects their entire family, the community that that person impacted, the organizations that person donated to it, it affects such a broader ripple. I think that's the moment that I kind of woke up and was like, oh, my actions can hurt a lot of people, even though I only stole five bucks, right, or whatever, but I was stealing, I was more on a stealing spree and I realized I was hurting the business owners and the people that worked at these companies and it just didn't feel good also, it didn't feel good to do that and to kind of live with this out of integrity feeling. So I think it taught me a lot about integrity and listen, as long as I'm breathing, I'm
25:16 Lewis Howes? going to be out of integrity with something, you know, I was two minutes late to this call, I'm out of integrity, I'm not on time for things, I'm not this, I'm not exactly my word a hundred percent of the time. So as long as I'm breathing, I'm going to be out of integrity, but the key is to be the best that I can with my integrity, with my word at all times.
25:36 Speaker 01 You know what's interesting to me, back at that time, when you were confronted with the candy bar, you're like, no, I don't know what you're talking about, dad, I have no idea. But now, at this stage in your life, you're so willing to be honest about what you're experiencing, that I think it's, frankly, I think it's one of the things that make you so incredibly relatable for people. I mean, you have created, we've overused this word, raving fans, but you have created raving fans. I mean, people are nuts about you and I think a lot of that has to do with just how honest you're willing to be about struggles
26:17 Speaker 01 you've had, things you've done in an effort to correct it. Where do you think that came from and have you always been that way?
26:23 Lewis Howes? I'm not sure if I've always been that way of like radical honesty or opening up. I think, you know, five years ago, when I started to do a lot of more emotional intelligence training and, and opening up about being sexually abused for the first time when I was five and kind of going through that journey and process and, and healing stage, once I opened up about that, it was the scariest thing for me to, to let people know about that, about me. I was like terrified that people would not like me anymore, make fun of me, or think I was less than, or it would hurt my business, or whatever I was afraid of. And when I realized like, oh, people actually trust me more and love me just as
27:05 Lewis Howes? much and still like me and want to spend time with me. Then the fears, that was the biggest fear for me to reveal my biggest secret. And so when people actually embraced me more and fell in love more, or just the same, I was like, oh, okay. Well, then I can share anything because this, this is the worst of all things to share. So what, I mean, I stole some candy bars, like, okay, whatever, like, it's no big deal. That opening up, you know, when I turned about 30 years old and started to open up about things, I've just been down that journey ever since. And it feels natural. It's like I don't know any other way now. And so I just do my best.
27:45 Speaker 01 You know, it reminds me of like watching Eminem and the Eight Mile movie, if you've seen it.
27:49 Lewis Howes? Yeah, he just puts himself down in the rap.
27:52 Speaker 01 Right. He's just like, okay, I live in a trailer park, my mom smokes crack, what are you gonna do?
27:56 Lewis Howes? Yeah. My friend shot himself in the crotch, this and that.
27:59 Speaker 01 Yeah. What did you think you were gonna be in high school?
28:03 Lewis Howes? Professional athlete was the only thing I thought about. I think I had a, a powerful mind, but also a limited mind because I didn't see beyond sports. So I wasn't thinking about like the rest of my life. I was thinking about college and figuring out a way to get paid to play football. That was the dream. I also dreamt about being an Olympian. So I, I was a, you know, decathlete and thought about that for a minute, but really it was just like, how do I make it into college, develop my skills as an athlete so that I can get paid after college to, to catch a football? And that was the only thing I obsessed
28:42 Lewis Howes? over it. It was the only way for me. And so when that was done, my identity was completely ripped away from me. And that was the biggest. Biggest kind of loss for me because I was again powerful in my thinking, but also limited in my thinking because I didn't have anything else I was thinking about. I was just like, well, this is all I know how to do, and this is my life and my identity, and this is the way. So when the way was no longer an option, I was like, well, who am I? What am I gonna do? What's my purpose? Like, why am I even alive? And I think that, you know, a year and a half on my sister's couch of like, recovering from injury and figuring out who I was.
29:24 Lewis Howes? My dad went through, he was in a coma for three months of the year prior to this happening to me. He got in a bad accident, car accident, hit his head, another car came on top of his car. The bumper hit him in the head. You know, they had to cut open the car. He was, it was a helicopter to the hospital and then three months on life support. And it was a very traumatic time as well for me because I was a senior in college, my senior football season. So he missed my entire senior season. And when he came back, it was just really sad. It was happy that he was home and alive and that he woke up.
30:05 Lewis Howes? But at the same time, I lost my dad that day because he couldn't talk, he couldn't remember anything. He was just a shell of his former self. And his former self was larger than life, inspiring, powerful, loving, all these things. Once he and my mom had gotten divorced when I was a young teenager, he like transformed into this like, I don't know, beautiful butterfly that was like shedding old energy. The same thing with my mom. You know, I just think they weren't right fit for each other. And so when they both were, you know, separated, they, they kind of started to fall in their own lane and figure out who they are. And he was the most incredible dad from 13 to 21
30:48 Lewis Howes? until he got, until he got into his accident. And he's still alive today, and I talk to him every once in a while and see him, you know, once, maybe twice a year. But his emotional capacity, mental capacity has never been the same. And he's recovered and you can have conversations with him and have a good time connecting with him. But
31:11 Lewis Howes? Every time I see him, he says the same questions. He says, where did you go to school again? And did you used to play football? And it's kind of the same story over and over, which is where his mind is limited to right now. So it's very, the first three, four years to see, you know, my dad, my hero, my friend, my mentor, the guy who was helping me through my, my dreams, guiding me into college and was going to guide me afterwards. To no longer have that support was one of the most challenging things for me, but also at the same time, one of the greatest blessings for me, which is weird to say, because I also don't think I'd be where I'm at today
31:56 Lewis Howes? if my dad was okay. And I think in some ways it was supposed to happen. And it sucks for me to say that because, you know, pains me to see my dad the way he is right now. And it's, it's really challenging to watch him, you know, physically deteriorate and emotionally and all these things. But he's happy the way he is and he, you know, he has a happy life. So I'm at least okay with that. But for the first few years, it was really hard. You know, we had to teach him how to walk and talk and go to the bathroom with him, all these things.
32:31 Speaker 01 I remember in my life, well, let me say this. You and I share a very similar story. I was probably, I guess I was in about seventh grade and we were getting ready to go to Disney World's the next morning. I woke up, all the bags were packed. My dad had a car accident the night before. He was drinking and my mom was looking through the house for pictures to take to the surgeons to reconstruct his face. And I remember having to, you know, he was in a wheelchair when he got eventually home. And I remember vividly having a Maxwell House coffee can that I had to give him so he can go to the bathroom and then then empty it for him.
33:15 Speaker 01 So I have very vivid memories and, you know, I've actually never shared that with anybody. So thank you for sharing that. And there's a great example of how when somebody's willing to go forward, then it creates the space for somebody else to go forward. Your podcast is all about greatness. You interview the best of the best about greatness. And I want to dig in a little bit to what you've learned and maybe even what you're struggling with right now. Are there any particular teachers, and it could be a podcast guest if you want to use one, or it could be anybody that you can point to, that if you had to, and I know you've interviewed just hundreds of people. So it's a very difficult question to ask, and I know
33:56 Speaker 01 that there's a lot of categories. But if you had to think about just one, either a past guest or anybody else in your life that you can point to, that you can say, this person has impacted my growth, either first thing comes to your minds, or somebody that you know this guy's or woman has impacted my growth the most?
34:18 Lewis Howes? I'm looking at my wall. I've got a wall of greatness with all these people I've interviewed. And a lot of them, I've had amazing relationships and connections and moments and times with. But I just looked at one person that, as you were saying, that kind of stood out, and that's Chris Lee, who I've had on the most. I think he's been on like 12 different times on the podcast. And he was the one who facilitated this workshop five years ago that got me to open up about the sexual abuse story. And I've just had a really close relationship with him ever since. You know, after that, he was my coach. I hired him to be my coach, and then we just became good friends. He's always kind of looking out for me. There was a couple of years ago, I think maybe three
34:57 Lewis Howes? or four years ago, where I was still overcoming a lot of like challenges, even though I had let go of a lot of this past stuff and was healing and moving forward and more positive. I was still kind of like defensive online. When someone would leave a critical comment or review or something, I would always kind of try to like reply back and defend myself and be like, well, this is why I did this and you know, and I remember he wa- he saw one of these comments that I did online and he texted me and he said, never respond like that again. He goes, you're giving your power away when you respond like that. Instead, instead, just say, thank
35:39 Lewis Howes? you for the feedback, period. And leave it at that. When someone leaves you a critical response or negative response and you just say, thank you for the feedback, period. What are they gonna say? They're not gonna keep coming back, right?
35:52 Speaker 01 You can't do, hey, you've actually just taken them, taken them out of the
35:56 Lewis Howes? Neutralize it, yeah, and so
35:57 Speaker 01 Neutralize, that's the word, yeah.
35:58 Lewis Howes? It's, it's like either don't respond or respond, thank you for the feedback and, and move forward. And he said, look at it as feedback. Don't take it personally. Realize that you weren't able to, to connect with that person. Maybe it's one out of a million people who the message you shared didn't resonate with. So look and see if the feedback is relevant in any way. If it is, how can you improve? How can you get better? How can you communicate in a way that does connect with that one individual as well as the millions? And if not, it might just be about them and what they're going through that day and let it go. And that was a powerful reminder again, and, and he's helped with a lot of different
36:39 Lewis Howes? things over the years, but someone who's always got my back and looking out for me, I think he's one of those people.
36:45 Speaker 01 Yeah, he's great. I just did an interview with him a couple of weeks ago. Not only that, what you just described, but he's also really funny.
36:53 Lewis Howes? He is funny.
36:53 Speaker 01 And he makes you, he makes you laugh.
36:55 Lewis Howes? He is funny.
36:56 Speaker 01 What are some beliefs that you have about life now, having done all of these interviews? What are some new beliefs that you have that you really think are helping you?
37:08 Lewis Howes? I think it's more of like, the beliefs that don't support me anymore. I don't know if it's new beliefs, because of, I've heard a lot of these things before. It's kind of reconfirming beliefs. But there was one belief when I went to India, when was this, a year and a half ago, to do a two-week meditation experience. I'd learned a lot there, actually. I learned a ton about suffering and not suffering. And really what I realized was from this experience, it was called One World Academy. They taught there are two essentially ways of being, suffering and non-suffering.
37:47 Lewis Howes? And suffering, we are living in a state of anger, or frustration, or resentment, or fear, or anxiety. That's a suffering state of living, of being. And a non-suffering state would be peace, and joy, and passion, and love, and community, and family, and all these other ways of being, of coming together, where it's more of a relaxed state. It made it easier for me to recognize anytime I'm suffering or not suffering. Whereas before, I used to just think like, well, this is who I am. I guess I'm just gonna suffer. I guess I'm just gonna be in this fear, and stress, and anxiety until it goes away.
38:30 Lewis Howes? But when I was able to realize that, if you look at your, at these two states in front of you, suffering and non-suffering, and you see them in front of you, right? All you need to do is remove yourself from the suffering, the ego mind, the self-centric way of thinking. And when you're living in anxiety, fear, stress, whatever it may be, it's all about you and your ego. Well, this hurts me. Someone said something nasty to me and it hurt me, or I'm hurting here, or I'm frustrated here. But when we remove our, kind of our ego, the thing that's getting hurt the most, and we put it to the side, act like you're grabbing your ego out of your body,
39:11 Lewis Howes? and you're holding it into your hand in front of your face, and you're looking at the ego. And that is the thing that suffers. So when you look at it, you can have it in your hand and just say, okay, this isn't me. This is something I'm holding on to that is suffering. It's my egoic, self-centric self. So when I remove this from my body, and I look at it from the side, I can laugh at it, I can look at it, I can play with it, I can... Disassociate from the ego where I'm not feeling attacked or hurt anymore. It's just my ego. And when I let it go, then I can move forward in a non-suffering way of being, a peaceful state, a joyful state, back to gratitude, back to perspective.
39:52 Lewis Howes? And that belief for me has supported so much over the last year and a half. And just also having a continuous practice of meditation. It's funny because all these things come full circle. Again, when I went to this Christian Science camp, we would have these Mets, we called them metaphysicals. Before anything we did, we would ground ourselves, we would pray, we would set an intention. And going to this meditation retreat really talks about the first thing in the morning is following through on this meditation of setting an intention for the day of being mindful of not suffering and moving into a peaceful, joyful, powerful, passionate state of being.
40:36 Lewis Howes? And so, again, it's just kind of confirms all these things that I learned as a kid. But maybe I just need to relearn them in a different way that works for the times and for where I'm at in my life. But that was a powerful belief.
40:50 Speaker 01 Can you give me an example of when you caught yourself recently suffering?
40:55 Lewis Howes? Yes, for me, it's my big thing that I constantly work on is when I feel taken advantage of or abused, that's when it can creep back in if I'm not prepared. If I haven't meditated for a number of days, if I'm tired or exhausted, I can go back to that old way of being, that suffering state where I'm triggered, I react, and I try to defend myself. And then I get into this like, how could this person do this? And don't they know what I'm doing for them? And, you know, get this kind of like anxiety frustration buildup where it starts to consume my energy and take my energy away from me. I give my power away when I go into that place.
41:38 Lewis Howes? And then it bleeds into the rest of my day. It bleeds into trying to be present when there's some celebrity on my podcast and I've got this little negative suffering mind that's fixated on something that happened, whatever. And it bleeds into working with my team. It bleeds into my workouts where I'm more tired. It affects me in a negative way. When I allow that to happen and I give my power away. And that's why I talk about having these habits embedded into your lifestyle. Or for me, it's like waking up at 6:00 AM, working out at 6:30, meditating, although I haven't been as consistent meditating lately.
42:18 Lewis Howes? Having that in, I always feel more loving, more patient, more relaxed, more calm state. And when I'm in that state, that's when I flow more. And when we flow more, our dreams come to us as opposed to having to work as hard. And I think that's what people get to remind themselves. It's like when we are living in anxiety, or frustration, or anger, or resentment, or hurt, whatever it may be, we're unable to fulfill our dreams because we are so fixated on this suffering way of being. When we let that stuff go, and we express it in ways so where we can move through it quicker,
43:01 Lewis Howes? and we can let it go quicker, then we can get back into our most powerful way of being. We can get back into confidence, into poise, into presence, into grace, into mindfulness. And that power becomes a momentum that is unwavering, that is just because it's so magnetic, that when we live in that magnetic, momentous energy, anything is possible for us. But when we have those anxious thoughts, those negative thoughts, that suffering way of being, it's almost impossible to create something meaningful.
43:37 Speaker 01 You're really good at that. I mean, I've seen a thousand people around you, and you're very zen. You're very in the moment, you're very present with whoever you're talking to. Certainly, if I've been one of the thousand people that are around you, you're just very, very present. So whatever you're doing is working. So I want to give you the feedback. It really is super inspiring.
44:00 Lewis Howes? Thank you.
44:01 Speaker 01 Let's just say that.
44:01 Lewis Howes? Appreciate it.
44:01 Speaker 01 Yep. What are some things that you do around success and greatness that people disagree with? Or think you're crazy?
44:12 Lewis Howes? First thing that came to my mind is, I don't know, I don't know if this is the, the main thing I do, but whatever reason, the first thing that came to my mind is I put my mission above anything. And I have a belief that my life is now currently, at least in this moment, that I'm here for a mission and that mission is the most important thing. And it doesn't mean my friends and my family are important. It doesn't mean like I won't do anything for people. But for whatever reason, I believe that my mission is more important than anyone.
44:52 Lewis Howes? And I will pursue my mission over anything because I believe I will regret myself, regret and hate myself later in life. If I allowed a couple of people to hold me back from pursuing the mission. That doesn't mean I don't want to have it all and I don't want to do the mission and be there for my family and be there for my friends and, you know, show up in a powerful way for people. But I will cut out relationships in my life. If I don't think it's supporting the mission at the highest level. It doesn't mean I won't have a conversation with those people and talk with them and figure out a way to make a win-win. But if it's not creating a win-win where I can do both, I will choose mission over people.
45:37 Lewis Howes? And I think that's, it may sound like, I don't know, bad or may sound negative or like I don't have a heart or something, but you know me, I care deeply about human beings and I care deeply about other people and their growth. But if someone is just trying to be negative to take my energy away, then I'm, I'm not allowing that person to be in my life. Again, after we talked and after we like figure out a way to make it work. But if, if they're not willing to make it work, then I'm not willing to just sacrifice my energy for my mission for one person.
46:13 Speaker 01 That is absolutely the answer to the question I was looking for. That is a polarizing statement and it's a controversial statement, but I know, I know the place that it's coming from. I mean, I have like a thousand things I want to say about it. I'm not going to say anything.
46:26 Lewis Howes? Yeah.
46:29 Speaker 01 You know why I'm not going to say anything? Because your assistant told me that I have exactly 59 minutes with you, or I'm going to turn into a pumpkin and I don't have the time.
46:39 Lewis Howes? Well, here's, here's the challenge. And the reason I try to say it that way is because so many people are all about family, family, family. And I am as well. I like, I love my family. Some of my family works with me. I pay a lot of things for my family. I'm there for my family. I'm there for my friends. Like, I care deeply about human beings. That's who I am. But I'm also, I left when I was 13. I've been on my own since I was 13 essentially as well. And I've been kind of on this mission-driven life at an early age where I, and I always felt alone. I was the youngest. Everyone was older than me. No one really hung out with me. Like, I felt alone. And I was just like, okay, I'm here for a reason. What's the mission?
47:24 Lewis Howes? Let's go pursue it. And I, I just want to know that at the end of the day, that I fully pursued that mission to try to make, you know, the community, people's lives better, the world better, whatever it may be. And know that I was an example and was a symbol of an example of how to live a good life. And it doesn't mean I don't want to spend a lot of time with my friends and family and like be there for everyone. But it's just if someone gets in the way of the mission, where they're unable after, you know, years of communication and going through workshops together and therapy and all these things, like I will cut them out. And that's just where I'm at.
48:07 Speaker 01 Mm hmm. I got it. I got it. We're going to do podcasts too on that one because I have some thoughts. I want to talk to you a little bit about the play hard part of your life. You and I just got a chance to do some play together in the islands.
48:21 Lewis Howes? Blast.
48:22 Speaker 01 We had a great time. Well, let me just give you this pre-frame before I ask this question. Entrepreneurs like yourself really set their lives up in such a way that work and play is kind of blended in a lot of ways. So I want you to kind of filter the questions that I'm asking you through the lens of having nothing to do with work, if that's possible. If you could spend a month anywhere in the world, where would it be and why? And it could be somewhere that you just want to go back to. Like I was there, like I was in Italy and I just loved Italy. I want to go back to Tuscany. Is there anything that comes up for you? Like, I just want to spend a month there.
49:01 Lewis Howes? I could go to a lot of places and have a lot of fun. So for me, it's, it's hard to be like, I only want to go to this one place and spend a month there. I haven't been to Japan and I keep hearing about Japan. And there's like this deer city where all these like deers just roam. And you can like pet deer and hang out. And I just know there's so many cool things with the culture there. I think I would love exploring in Japan for a month. Yeah, just all the ancient wisdom there and their culture and things like that. So Japan, I'd say that.
49:31 Speaker 01 What's the thing that's rocking your world now that has nothing to do with work? But you're like, dude, this is great.
49:39 Lewis Howes? I really love taking care of my health. And even though maybe that's partly for work, but it's just for myself. Like, I would want to do this anyways, even if it wasn't like I needed to be look fit on camera or something. But I really love kind of, again, taking a full circle back to my roots. Like practicing food as medicine and thoughts as medicine. And seeing how far I can take my body with, with the pain that I feel. And where, how far I'm able to take my mind every single day by showing up, putting in the work and seeing the transformation, both internally and externally.
50:17 Lewis Howes? So I love the body mind connection and pushing myself through pain every single day to see how much stronger I can get.
50:29 Speaker 01 I love that. That's a perfect answer. If you had all the time and money in the world to pursue a hobby or some recreational activity, what would it be?
50:37 Lewis Howes? I don't know. I had a dream of like,
50:41 Lewis Howes? Traveling to the greatest salsa clubs in the world and like doing like a TV show like an Anthony Bourdain of like white boy salsa dancing and the culture and like from my perspective. But I kind of do that. Like every time I travel, I'll go and find like the best clubs and like dance and experience it. So I'm not sure if I, I feel like I'm doing what I want to do. You know, I would probably start a sports league. I would start, I would start a professional handball team, uh, league in the US because it's something I'm passionate about and there's no pro league here. And I would spend the next 10 to 20 years building the next premium sports league in the
51:24 Lewis Howes? US that actually gets attention, that actually gets like traction. You know, there's really like, what? There's base MLB, there's a basket NBA, there's football, I guess the NHL, but that's kind of like the main things. And the MLS now is starting to pick up a little bit more, but like there's not really other big major sports leagues in the US that have taken off that are real iconic franchises. So I think creating a, an iconic sports franchise and building a movement that's already big globally, but then making it big in the US, that would be fun. It would just take a lot of money, time. It would take 20 years and a lot of money in building
52:07 Lewis Howes? grassroots programs through every elementary school in America and middle school and high school and infiltrating a new sport into kind of like what soccer tried to do 25, 30 years ago in the US. And it's still taking a long time to pick up. So I think that would be a fun legacy hobby to build.
52:31 Speaker 01 Love it. They say that we are the average of the five people that we hang with. How do you approach reaching out to people that you want to be in your tribe? You know, people who look at you are like, God, he, you know, he hangs out with the biggest athletes in the world, the biggest celebrities in the world, the coolest online influencers in the worlds. But I'm sure that you're always searching and reaching and trying to up level your tribe. How do you approach reaching out to somebody that is not currently in your tribe, but you want to be in theirs, or you want them to be in yours?
53:06 Lewis Howes? Humbly. I, I focus on becoming the better version of myself that people would want to be around. I focus on if I was them, what I want to hang out with me, what do I have to offer them? What makes me special, unique, different? How can I solve a problem for them? How can I add value to their life? How can I never ask them for anything or bug them, but just be a quality person that they want to spend time with or would love to meet up with? So I just think about, you know, those things and adding value, not asking for something and just seeing how I can be of biggest service to them in any way possible.
53:48 Speaker 01 All right. In the last two minutes we have left here, this is the ask me anything you want round. Let's change it up. What one question would you like to ask me?
53:58 Lewis Howes? Why are you afraid to go after your dreams?
54:01 Speaker 01 Why am I afraid to go after my dreams? Wow, that was a good one. That shot adrenaline right through both my hands. I think that it is pure fear of failure. I think that it's, it's just old school 101 afraid of failing. And I think I've spent, I've spent most of my life very protected after I got out of chiropractic school in that I had and have a very successful practice that has provided a great life for me. And it's put me at 72 degrees. It's never been amazing and it's never been horrible. I've pretty much been able to do whatever I've want with it.
54:43 Speaker 01 So I've never been willing to go through the pain of failing at the level that I should. You know, when you're, you know, when you're doing a startup and you got nothing to lose, you're like, screw it. I got nothing to lose. Let's go all in. Let's put all the chips on the table. And I've never done that. And I've always played it safe because I've been afraid to fail. But that's not something I'm doing anymore. I'm going all in. And that was a really good question.
55:10 Lewis Howes? I love it. It's great.
55:11 Speaker 01 That was a really good question. Now I'm gonna have to think about that all day long. Let's talk about the summit of greatness.
55:18 Lewis Howes? Yeah.
55:19 Speaker 01 Tell me about why you did this thing and what your vision is for this next one coming up.
55:25 Lewis Howes? Every year I try to take on something new that scares me and it challenges me. It's again, something I learned early on in sports. It's kind of my philosophy for life that if we want to grow, we have to do the things that scares the most. And so every year I think about that personally, for my health, but also for my business, my career, things like that. And a few years ago, I remember everyone was, who was listening to the podcast was like, we want to meet people in person. And we want to, you know, we want to form a community. When are you going to start doing meetups and events? So I created this experience for my community because they were asking for it. And I remember saying to myself, like, I don't want to do an event, just like all these other events I go to. I want to create this unique and different, but I don't really know what I'm doing.
56:10 Lewis Howes? So I've got to figure this all out on my own and hire people that do know what they're doing and try to kind of reinvent. And I steal very well. Again, I told my story of stealing and I steal from not inside the industry, but outside the industry. I find things in other passions of my life and I feel what gives me.
56:35 Lewis Howes? You know, that warmness in my heart, those goosebumps, those chills, that excitement. And then I try to steal that experience, that idea, that format, recreate it in my space. And that's what I tried to do with the Summit of Greatness. And so this will be the third year. I really like TED Talk format, but I was like, I don't want to copy that because it's in my industry. How can I recreate something in other spaces and bring it to this space? So it's really kind of like a TED Talk for the heart and soul and body. Where in the morning, we do workouts with world-class athletes. We've got Olympians leading workouts. We've got world champions leading workouts.
57:15 Lewis Howes? And then to activate the body, then we have world-class speakers throughout the day where we activate the mind and the heart. And then we have, you know, awesome experiences at night to activate the soul and community. And so for me, it's just about creating an experience to really add value again to my core audience, the people that listen to my podcast or are part of my community the most to give back, to meet up, to hang out and have fun. And that's what we're doing for this time, October 4th through 6th.
57:45 Speaker 01 For those of you that have not been to this, I'm just going to make it really simple. Just go because it is by far, I promise you, I know that people who listen to this podcast, you've been to a bunch of events, you've been to a bunch of seminars, what's the difference? It's just going to be another speaker. It isn't. It isn't. This event has Lewis's thumbprint all over it, from the moment you wake up until the moment you go to bed. It's a family and I have a Summit of Greatness family now.
58:16 Lewis Howes? You've met a lot of people from there, haven't you?
58:18 Speaker 01 It's unbelievable. I mean, it is unbelievable. I cannot tell you how many people are in my life from this event. Oh my God, it's crazy. I mean, just really, really close people that I get messages constantly from. So thank you, thank you, thank you, Lewis.
58:36 Lewis Howes? I appreciate it, brother. Thank you.
58:42 Lewis Howes? There you have it, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this one. If you did, please share it out with your friends. LewisHowes.com/692. You can tag me on Instagram story. You can message me on Twitter, on Facebook. Let me know what you think about this. Again, I haven't shared a lot of these stories, and I've shared a lot before, but I haven't shared a lot of these stories, and in this way. And I get a big thank you to Robert Murgatroyd from Work Hard Play Hard Podcast for allowing me to open up in the way that I did, and for asking those questions in such a unique, powerful way. I appreciate you, buddy. And again, let me know what you guys think. Send me a message on Instagram, @lewishowes. Follow me there. Leave a review. You can tell me how you felt about this by
59:26 Lewis Howes? leaving a review over on the podcast, as well on The School of Greatness on iTunes or Apple Podcasts on your podcast app. And let me know what you think. Again, I want to reiterate what Michael Jordan said in his quote at the beginning of this episode, "I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something, but I cannot accept not trying." And there's so many of you that reach out to me, that talk about the fears of your life, the fears of your dreams, the fears of trying something. And I'm telling you, if you stay stuck in your fears, and you don't at least move towards something, and at least take action with fear, you may never leave the fear, but at least try, at
1:00:10 Lewis Howes? least do something while you're afraid. That's when magic happens. That's when you start to develop a mindset of belief in yourself. And you cannot do anything great without believing in yourself, but you must be willing to try and take the actions necessary to build that belief. Thank you, guys, again, so much for being a part of this journey. We are almost at 700 episodes. This is blowing my mind. Again, if this is your first time here, click the subscribe button, leave a review. And as always, you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.
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