748 Michael Beckwith: Leave Mediocrity Behind You

WHEREVER YOU ARE IS A NEW TARTING POINT. We often think of pain as bad. Whether you’re going through a breakup, getting let go from a job, or making a big move, the experience is uncomfortable. But you need that feeling to truly make changes in your life. It’s how you can adopt new thought patterns and let go of old habits. Think back on your own challenging experiences and how it affected your outlook. You are the person you are today because something made you want to rise above mediocrity. On today’s episode of The School of Greatness, I talk about the mindset of abundance and the power of pain with the founder of the Agape International Spiritual Center: Michael Beckwith. Michael Bernard Beckwith is a minister, author, and founder of the Agape International Spiritual Center, a New Thought church with a congregation estimated in excess of 8,000 members. Michael was one of the featured teachers in The Secret and is the originator of the Life Visioning Process, a technique purporting to offer its practitioners a method for putting a stop to being a passive tourist in one's life. Michael knows the power of thought and how it can lead you to the life you’ve always wanted. Once you start asking the empowering questions, the universe will answer you. So get ready to learn how to stay in the flow of life by creating your vision on Episode 748. Some Questions I Ask: What principles is the church Agape founded on? (4:30) What’s been the greatest human challenge in your spiritual journey? (6:00) Why do you think we are here? (21:00) What’s something you procrastinated too long on? (32:00) Why do we block the abundance of love? (47:00) What is the root of racism? (51:00) What questions should you ask when you start dating? (1:00:00) In This Episode You Will Learn: How to deal with the people who tear you down (13:00) Why it’s important to transcend the ego (19:00) The practices of mediocrity (25:00) The questions Michael asks every morning (37:00) About Michael’s spiritual awakening (42:00) How to deal with people who have different beliefs than you (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

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

• 0:30Lewis Howes?

  Don't just live your life, then die. Set your own stage. Go for your dreams. Dance your ass off. Make a fool of yourself. Love as big as you can and allow yourself to get hurt. Play to win and be humble when you fail. Let go of the opinions of others and use your gifts to be in service to people around you. And always remember to grow into the best version of you every single day. There is and only will be one you. There is a reason you are here. Now go find out what that reason is and live big. I am so excited about our guest today, guys.

• 1:14Lewis Howes?

  This is going to be a powerful one. And man, I did not want it to end. It went on and on. We were supposed to stop in about 50 minutes and I just couldn't stop because every five minutes kept me inspired. I kept learning more and more. And if you don't know who Michael Beckwith is, he is a new thought minister, author of many books and founder of Agape International Spiritual Center in Los Angeles. And is a new thought church with a congregation estimated to exceed 8,000 members and globally, people streaming every single week all over the world. And Michael has done work all over the world with some of the biggest thought leaders, been on Oprah many times.

• 1:57Lewis Howes?

  And in this episode, we talk about this scarcity versus abundance mindset. And he blew me away with what he shared, this, how to really attract more abundance in your life, how to come back to your true self. When life throws you off course. Also cover how to move from mediocrity to excellence and greatness in life and business. And his answers here again, continue to inspire me. We talk about the power of ego and how to manage it as you continue to hit your biggest goals and dreams. That and so much more in this episode, guys. Make sure to share this with your friends. It will blow you away. It will inspire the people that you share

• 2:36Lewis Howes?

  with. LewisHowes.com/748 to make sure to share out the link with Michael Beckwith. Again, a big thank you to our sponsors. Now let's get into this episode with the one and only Michael Beckwith.

• 2:56Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone back to the School of Greatness Podcast. We have Michael Beckwith in the house. Good to see you, sir.

• 3:01Speaker 01

  Good to see you, Lewis.

• 3:02Lewis Howes?

  Very excited about this. I've heard your name for probably, I don't know, 10 years since I kind of got in the online business space and personal growth area. And I've been doing this podcast for six years and I'm glad we finally got you on. You were officiating a wedding of a good friend of ours, Preston Smiles, a few years ago. And I got to watch you there. And I'm excited to go to Agape soon, since you moved closer to me.

• 3:26Speaker 01

  Please.

• 3:27Lewis Howes?

  And where is Agape now?

• 3:28Speaker 01

  It's at the Saban Theater, right there on Wilshire, right near La Cienega.

• 3:32Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  Every Sunday, we're kicking it there.

• 3:34Lewis Howes?

  And Agape, for those that don't know what Agape is, you started it when and what is it exactly?

• 3:38Speaker 01

  Our first Sunday service was November the 30th, 1986.

• 3:43Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  So we're just completing 32 years.

• 3:46Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  Of service, actually being a strong representation of diversity, inclusivity, spiritual community. I can't believe 32 years for myself. I mean,

• 3:59Lewis Howes?

  Crazy. I was a baby then. I was four years old when you started. So that's crazy. You grew up in a church, Methodist church, right? And then you left when you were a teenager?

• 4:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, actually, I was attending Holman's Methodist Church as a child and also another church. And Holman's Methodist Church was where I actually met Martin Luther King Jr.

• 4:18Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. And my mother introduced me to him. I shook his hand and I said, Mom, he has such soft hands. And my mother said, baby, he does a different kind of work.

• 4:32Lewis Howes?

  He's not building buildings.

• 4:33Speaker 01

  No, no, no. So, yeah, I grew up there. As a teenager, I left that. The paradigm was a little bit small for me and the teachings were a little dogmatic. Not at home necessarily, but I went to a congregational church after that. So as a teenager, I left. There was too much politics and I was kind of agnostic. I was pretty much agnostic, atheistic, and I remember when I was attending Morehouse College, me and a friend of mine, who's now an attorney, we used to go out and convert Christians to atheism.

• 5:02Lewis Howes?

  Really? Why?

• 5:04Speaker 01

  Because we knew that religion, as it was being espoused, was not the real deal. And we would break it down and show people how Jesus had nothing to do with this. You know what I mean? That Christianity came a couple of hundred years after Jesus came and left and that...

• 5:23Lewis Howes?

  Made by other men or...

• 5:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so it was shocking to me that a few years later, when I was attending USC, I had a spiritual awakening in which I could see the presence everywhere in everything. And again, I didn't relegate it to religiosity. I moved more into a much more of a spiritual outlook and began to realize what Jesus was talking about, what Buddha was talking about, and what all the great teachers were talking about. It wasn't about religion. It was about freedom. It was about spirituality. It was about awakened consciousness. It was about the greatness and the beauty and the light that's within us all, of which many people who go down a religious path suffer from a paradigm blindness. They can't see outside of that particular box.

• 6:08Lewis Howes?

  They have a fixed mindset.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:10Lewis Howes?

  It's a fixed set of rules and beliefs and you can't expand beyond that.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  Can't go beyond that.

• 6:14Lewis Howes?

  Otherwise, you're wrong or you're judging yourself.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  Or you think you're the only one.

• 6:18Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, right, right. Wow. And community is such a big part of religion, right?

• 6:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. There's a lot of good to say about community. Of course, there's the whole social interaction. There's the service. There's the inspiration. Community assists each other. People that are in some kind of community have a tendency to live longer than other people. There's a stronger support system. So spiritual community is extremely powerful.

• 6:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. So when you started Agape, was it... What was the foundation that was based on the principles?

• 6:51Speaker 01

  Well, first of all, Agape means unconditional love. Again, I heard that in a speech from Dr. King when I was a little boy.

• 6:58Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  Because he's describing in the Greek languages the different kinds of love. And Agape is the love of God operating in the human heart. It's an unconditional, all conditional, non-agenda love. It's a total givingness of the spirit. And so, having studied in metaphysics, I combined the metaphysics teachings with the spirit of Agape love. And then that became the foundation of the rise of our community.

• 7:26Lewis Howes?

  And has it been kind of the same principles for the last thirty-two years? Or has it evolved as you've evolved and learned new things?

• 7:34Speaker 01

  Well, it evolves because I'm always on the verge of new insights and new revelations. But the principles, you can't really change.

• 7:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  You know, the principles of oneness, the principles of inclusivity, the principles that we have infinite potential that's within us, within everyone. And that we're here to unlock that, to unleash that, to set that free. And to make a mighty difference on the planet while we're here. The principles that a thought is a unit of mental energy that transmutes itself into perception, speech, behavior, ultimately, experience. I mean, these are spiritual principles that no one has a monopoly on. So I think with spiritual practice, you just have greater insight into those principles. And you teach them more and more in a much more beautiful and elegant way.

• 8:20Lewis Howes?

  What's been the biggest challenge for you as a human being, living a spiritual path over the last, you know, thirty-plus years? What's been your greatest human challenge?

• 8:31Speaker 01

  I think just dealing with human beings.

• 8:33Lewis Howes?

  We're complicated people, aren't we?

• 8:35Speaker 01

  I mean, it's the best and the worst in the same package. See, human beings that are on the verge of great discovery, you see miracles, you see people coming out of the depths of despair and depression and illness and sickness and addiction, rising. And then you see human beings who will criticize and complain and gossip and attack. All in the same day, you may get the same deal. You may, you know... And so I've learned to not embrace either one of the imposters, which is praise or criticism. I don't run towards praise. I don't run from criticism. And I just don't deal in that area. You know, I just keep my attention on that which is real and keep moving forward.

• 9:18Speaker 01

  But as far as just being, being human, we suffer everything anybody suffers from. There's loss, people die, all of that is in the human condition.

• 9:27Lewis Howes?

  What's been, um, you know, with all the, the lessons you've learned, the principles you've, you know, been studying for years, what's been the hardest thing for you to overcome in terms of like, maybe a loss or a struggle or a breakup when you were younger or a death of someone? Was there something specific where you're like, man, I know how to get through this?

• 9:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:46Lewis Howes?

  But it took me months or years to like fully heal or fully process this.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  I would say two things. One, my mother passed about six years ago. And it's not that people don't pass, but it happened suddenly. I mean, it happened.

• 10:00Lewis Howes?

  She was good and then?

• 10:02Speaker 01

  In a couple of weeks and, and she didn't tell us. We knew she was a cancer survivor, but she didn't tell us that it had come back. Intuitively, I went over her house every night after, after I got off of work. I just started going by there all the time. And she would say, why, why you come by every night? I said, I don't know. I'm just gonna hang out with you. I didn't know that it was close.

• 10:23Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  And then when I was called to the hospital to see her, and it was like, what? You're leaving? And, and she was like in the bed and she started talking to her ancestors that were invisible. And I remember her saying, no, no, not yet, not yet. I'm gonna go home first, then I'm gonna leave. I'm like, you're gonna leave? So she went home. Within a couple of weeks, she had passed over.

• 10:44Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  And it shook my entire family because as the matriarch, she held everything together. So it took a moment to like adjust. My father is still adjusting.

• 10:57Lewis Howes?

  Really? Six years later?

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Six years later, man. He went into kind of a reclusive kind of vibe.

• 11:02Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  I've been going over there a lot lately, helping him do a lot of things that he's been resistant to because he's such an independent guy. He was a judge, you know? And so we just, the family's just now like breathing. And then at right this moment, I've been separated from my wife for the last couple of years and we're just now moving through the legal stuff. And that's been kind of difficult.

• 11:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. How long were you married for?

• 11:26Speaker 01

  Got married in 2000, end of 2000.

• 11:28Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  So, um, but you know, there's a lot of friendship, a lot of love.

• 11:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  A lot of, um, really good stuff we did together.

• 11:36Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  So I'm not naive to think that people are supposed to stay together forever.

• 11:41Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:41Speaker 01

  Particularly with the longevity rate going up and with particularly with people, um, learning their lessons faster.

• 11:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 11:48Speaker 01

  You know, there's, there's a lot of people that are staying together that should be apart.

• 11:53Lewis Howes?

  For too long.

• 11:53Speaker 01

  For too long.

• 11:54Lewis Howes?

  Decades, right?

• 11:55Speaker 01

  So I'm not naive in that sense, but it's, it's a, it's a, it's an interesting lesson.

• 12:00Lewis Howes?

  Do you ever feel a sense of shame or insecurity around teaching certain principles? If you're going through certain challenges like this yourself, like?

• 12:09Speaker 01

  No, no, no shame.

• 12:11Lewis Howes?

  Counsel or advice on relationships? And it might look like yours is failing or didn't work out? Do you ever feel any?

• 12:19Speaker 01

  No, because, you know, you never let anybody else, uh, define your narrative for your life. So I've been married twice, so I haven't had two failed marriages. I've had two successful marriages. The first marriage, I have two beautiful children from it. Grandchildren from, from one of the kids and it was my high school sweetheart.

• 12:40Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  Friendship is deep. I mean, I was with her on Christmas with her husband, you know? So it's all families, all celebratory. Second marriage, very successful. We produced a lot of music, a lot of programs, a lot of people. So I don't look at those as failed relationships. I look at those as successful relationships. And when that particular form is over, it's over. And some people try to hang on to the form, you know what I mean? And they cause themselves a lot of, lot of issues.

• 13:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, a failed relationship is one that stays together too long without either shifting or reinventing it.

• 13:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:15Lewis Howes?

  Or bringing that sense of peace and love together when you stayed miserable.

• 13:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:20Lewis Howes?

  I feel like that's more of a failure.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  It's a deep failure.

• 13:22Lewis Howes?

  Even though you stayed together, if there's not love and real respect.

• 13:25Speaker 01

  You know, you're not growing together anymore.

• 13:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  You know, I had a friend of mine that him and his wife were together from, since high school. It was like, it was obvious. After a while, that they were just to be friends and move forward. You know what I mean? And they would never do it. And he ended up dying. I'm not saying he died from that. But I often thought that, you know, you didn't go for your life.

• 13:47Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  You ended up wanting to live with an image that we were together for X amount of years and all of that.

• 13:54Lewis Howes?

  Why do we hold on to that so much? That image of like, we're gonna make it work? Or it has to look a certain way for us to be respected in our communities? Or?

• 14:02Speaker 01

  Because people have a tendency to care more about what other people are thinking about them than what their soul wants. And so they live from, oh, what is so and so gonna think of me? What's my mother gonna think of me? What's the society's gonna think of me? And inside, everyone has a destiny. Bright, beautiful destiny. The soul is calling us to greatness. Your name of your show. To be great beings, to be great lights, to live fully. And oftentimes, people will dim their light in order to fit into someone else's paradigm. And end up with crisis, end up with disease, end up with prolonged sadness.

• 14:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 14:43Speaker 01

  When if you just step out of that, there's so much life to live. You see? So I think a lot of people are just run by what others are thinking about them rather than what their soul wants.

• 14:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, powerful. I think when we shine our light, the challenge is sometimes there are people that try to take us down.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 15:00Lewis Howes?

  Right?

• 15:01Speaker 01

  Listen.

• 15:02Lewis Howes?

  How do we handle that when, you know, it doesn't matter how much positivity you try to put in the world, how much good you try to do. If someone's always gonna try to take you down, how should we handle that?

• 15:11Speaker 01

  Well, first of all, we have to be aware that mediocrity always attacks excellence.

• 15:16Lewis Howes?

  Ooh.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  It's kind of a rule. No one's attacking a couch potato.

• 15:20Lewis Howes?

  Right, no one cares.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  No one cares. If you're sitting on the couch eating potato chips and getting fat and doing nothing, no one says anything. But the moment you start to walk toward your dream and you start to break habits, you start to change relationships that no longer serve that dream, you start to be talked about. Now, many people are afraid of failure, which really means that they're afraid of being ridiculed.

• 15:43Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  But once you become aware that you're gonna be ridiculed if you fail and you're gonna be talked about if you succeed, then you're able to put that aside. Because you know you're gonna be talked about either way.

• 15:53Lewis Howes?

  No matter what, yeah.

• 15:54Speaker 01

  If you go for it and you fall, "Oh, he went for it and he didn't make it." Or if you go for it and succeed, they'll say, "Oh, it was luck." Whatever they say about you. So, once you get out of your mind or become aware that people are gonna talk about you either way, then you go for it, you see? And at the end of the day, you are different because you went for it. That you going for it actually brings out latent powers and gifts and talents within you that can't come to bloom unless you go for it. So then, when you reach your next mountaintop, and mountaintops are endless.

• 16:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  When you meet, when you reach your next peak, who's with you are the people that are supposed to be with you or could be with you based on what you have become. Now, you go for another peak. And then, the people that are supposed to be with you there are with you. And all the naysayers.

• 16:46Lewis Howes?

  You might shed some people who came with you from the first.

• 16:48Speaker 01

  Shed the ballast, yeah.

• 16:49Lewis Howes?

  Some people might come with you to the next mountain, but some people might be left behind, right?

• 16:53Speaker 01

  Absolutely. You keep your heart open. You never just jettison people out of your life. Your heart is open, but you're constantly growing and unfolding. So, I think that when you're going for a goal, it's not just achieving the goal. It's actually who are you becoming on the way to bringing that goal into manifestation? And then, your new becoming, you have a different vibration.

• 17:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  And now, the people at that vibration are hanging with you. They support, they love, they appreciate you, they cheer you on rather than tear you down. If you're living in a paradigm of scarcity and lack, You tear people down.

• 17:29Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  If you're living in a paradigm of abundance and opulence, there's enough for everybody, you cheer people on. So your success makes me happy.

• 17:37Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  You know, oh, look at Louis D. Oh, that's great. That's fantastic.

• 17:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  I'm not in the paradigm of thinking that because you succeed, there's less for me.

• 17:45Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 17:46Speaker 01

  I'm in the paradigm of thinking if you succeed, that's a shining example.

• 17:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 17:49Speaker 01

  What he did is possible.

• 17:51Lewis Howes?

  I can go do that or something else.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  I can do what I can do.

• 17:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  In my life, yeah, so.

• 17:56Lewis Howes?

  What's the thing that you're most proud of, of who you've become on all the mountain tops you've reached?

• 18:02Speaker 01

  I think I have just a deep sense of compassion for people, and I have a very deep well of forgiveness.

• 18:10Lewis Howes?

  You do?

• 18:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, where people are concerned. I just.

• 18:12Lewis Howes?

  You forgive quickly or?

• 18:13Speaker 01

  Quickly. Nothing sticks. Nothing sticks to me. I was just recently with a good friend of mine, Cicely Tyson. She comes to Agape when she comes in town and we're having a conversation. And she was indicating, there were some things that had been done to her recently. And she had no bitterness about it.

• 18:32Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 18:32Speaker 01

  And she's 94.

• 18:33Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Like someone attacked her or did something wrong by her?

• 18:36Speaker 01

  Somebody stole some stuff from her. They preyed on her because she's a senior citizen and and she said, I don't have time to let that burden me.

• 18:45Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  I have too much life to live. She's 94 years old.

• 18:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 18:49Speaker 01

  I wouldn't be like that. I don't have time to hold the burden of rank or resentment. If somebody says something or whatever the case may be, and I think I've always had a deep well of that. But being with her recently made me know that could go a little deeper.

• 19:03Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Is there ever a time to be angry in life?

• 19:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think there's a difference between just anger and righteous indignation. Righteous indignation, we should be indignant when we live in a country and there are people that can't eat.

• 19:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  You know, we live in a country of so-called wealth and we still have people that don't have universal health care or just the basic needs that can be provided by our society or the way we treat women or things that have particular nature. I think that is a righteous indignation. That's different from just being angry or living at a high level of pessimism all the time that only sends toxic chemicals through our body temple. So sometimes anger can be a masking emotion for fear. People can actually be afraid and they mask it with anger. So no, I think there's righteous indignation. You know, with time that we need to act. Time that we need to make a difference. Need to let our voice speak about things that need to be changed.

• 20:04Lewis Howes?

  And what about the ego? You've been, we were talking off camera, how you've been, you're a doctor, you've been knighted, served, I don't know, chief. You've got 500 titles of like the highest praise. How does someone manage their ego as they continue to climb in the world?

• 20:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, we have to understand the evolutionary context of ego. Ego is what protects us as we are evolving as a human species. It protects you so that you're able to survive. So you're able to tell the difference between you and a sable-toothed tiger. You, back during tribalism, you know, you had to be able to have a level of differentiation for your safety. But now we're at the point where we have to transcend the ego's perception of separation. Because right now it's run amok. You know, we're separate from our environment. We're separate from the oceans. We're separate from the rainforest. We're separate from each other because of the color of the skin or nationality or where we were born. So we have to be aware that the ego's first job is to protect.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  But when that protection starts going to making us feel separate from everybody, then we have to keep it in check. And we have to transcend it. And that's where meditation comes in. That's where prayer, that's where study, that's where fellowship. We're able to transcend the ego. So I can see you and I are the same. We may come from different parts of the world, different skin colors. But at the bottom, we're both human. So once with spiritual practice, you don't let the ego go crazy. And it becomes not about me, it becomes about we. You know, it becomes about us. Not just my family. But where does my family end? Does it end with just people who are black? Does it end with people just in the United States?

• 21:48Speaker 01

  Does my family end just with people in North America? You know, after a while, you realize humanity is your family. And you don't want to do anything that's going to be detrimental to anyone on the family, even if it's the rainforest, even if it's the ocean water, you know? And so, again, it's difficult for people if they don't have some modicum of spiritual practice, because the ego will just come in, me me, my my, greed, stinginess, you know, I'm going to protect mine, that becomes the frequency. But when you start to grow, you realize it's really a we vibe here.

• 22:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  It's not just a me vibe.

• 22:29Lewis Howes?

  Right. Two questions. One, why do you think we are here? And why do you think you are here?

• 22:35Speaker 01

  I believe that everyone has the same purpose. We all have different missions. We all have the same purpose, and I'll say it in different ways. We can say we're all here to reflect the face of divinity, or we're here to reflect the cosmos in a way that only we can. Everyone is here for that same purpose. And we all have different missions. Some people's mission is to teach, heal, inspire, uplift, to create some level of art that's going to inspire, choreography. And we all have different missions, but every mission carries that larger purpose. How is my life reflecting the entire cosmos? Because I believe all of us have the entirety of the cosmos in us,

• 23:20Speaker 01

  and we're here to discover it, activate it, cultivate it, and set it free. So we're all here to reflect the face of God, for lack of a, just to bring it down. Not God, not a man in the sky.

• 23:32Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 23:32Speaker 01

  We're not that naive.

• 23:33Lewis Howes?

  Right, right, right, sure.

• 23:34Speaker 01

  But the presence that is never an absence. So everyone has the same purpose. Some people know their purpose, some people don't.

• 23:42Lewis Howes?

  How do you suggest people discover it if they don't know what it is?

• 23:46Speaker 01

  People grow into their purpose two ways.

• 23:51Speaker 01

  Crisis or insight?

• 23:53Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 23:54Speaker 01

  You know, because sometimes when your back is against the wall, you're in a crisis, then you begin to ask different kind of questions. You know, why am I here?

• 24:00Lewis Howes?

  What am I doing this for? What's the reason?

• 24:02Speaker 01

  Why do I keep doing the same thing over and over? And then you start to open up that there's something bigger that has your name on it, that's calling you. And sometimes people grow through it, they have an insight, they get inspired. Something happens and they're able to see, wow, my life is more than what I thought it was. So I think we grow pain insight. One of my statements is your pain pushes you until your vision pulls you.

• 24:29Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  So we're actually pushed by pain until we're pulled by a larger vision. And so unless an individual...

• 24:36Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:38Lewis Howes?

  So what if we're in the middle? What if you're like, well, I'm not pulled by anything, I'm not pushed by anything, I just kind of feel blah. Is it like eventually you're gonna feel pain?

• 24:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:48Lewis Howes?

  So bad, you're gonna be like, okay, I need to step, I need to change.

• 24:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, because the universe, which is the outpicturing of the intelligence of the presence, is progressive. We're here on planet Earth. The Earth is circling the Sun, the Sun is moving through its solar system. Every heavenly body has a rotation. Now every time there's a complete rotation, the frequency of those heavenly bodies are a little higher. The Earth is vibrating higher today than it was 10 years ago. So everything is progressing. So if you're the same person that you were 365 days ago, you're not really the same person. You've actually gone backwards. Because everything has gone forward. So since everything is progressive, it's creating a level of tension to create a level of uncomfortability and pain for you to grow.

• 25:35Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 25:35Speaker 01

  So that blah will become a mess.

• 25:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It'll eventually turn into pain at some point where you're gonna say, enough is enough. I gotta end this relationship, get out of the marriage, I gotta lose the weight, I gotta do something to change.

• 25:49Speaker 01

  The body, temple will betray you.

• 25:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 25:52Speaker 01

  Your emotional body will betray you. Something will happen that'll make you say, ooh, what's going on? I better... I better read a book. I better, I better be still. I better go talk to somebody.

• 26:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What would you say is your mission then?

• 26:07Speaker 01

  Basically, to help people wake up to the gift of divinity that's within them, to set it free.

• 26:14Lewis Howes?

  How do we set ourselves free?

• 26:16Speaker 01

  First of all, you have to break the practices, the habits of mediocrity. The practices of mediocrity.

• 26:22Lewis Howes?

  What are some of those?

• 26:23Speaker 01

  Mediocrity is, means I'm just living a life in which I'm protecting myself.

• 26:29Lewis Howes?

  Scarcity, protection.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  Scarcity, protective, protectiveness, fear, worry drives my life. And we move into practices in which we ask ourselves, how can I give today? You know?

• 26:42Lewis Howes?

  Serve.

• 26:43Speaker 01

  How can I serve today? How can I share today? If you ask the question, the universe will answer it. This is, this is a, this is a principle. That the universe, again, the universe is just the outpicturing of the intelligence of, of the mind of the infinite. If you ask a question, you'll get an answer. So if you ask, how can I give? Rather than how can I get? Then the universe is gonna provide not only answers, but ways that you have something to give. You see? And many people are still within their reptilian brain of, I don't have enough. So they're trying to get. So they end up creating a very small package of themselves, rather than a larger package of, how can I be of service? How can I give?

• 27:29Lewis Howes?

  What happens when we give more and are, and are living in service with every action we take? Obviously, we're gonna do things for us and protect ourselves and pay our rent and, you know, have nice things. But when we have the intention of, I'm here to serve in my career, my business, my team, my family, my mission is service, what unlocks for us?

• 27:50Speaker 01

  Now you've opened yourself up that, the, the presence.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  Through the universe, which is always giving. It doesn't compromise its nature, it doesn't contradict itself. Now finds you worthy, I mean vibrationally worthy, we're all worthy. Intrinsicly, vibrationally worthy to express more through you. Doors open, you didn't even know we're there. You meet people that you never even heard about. Things begin to open up for you. It seems as if it's magic, but it's not magic. You've come into a vibrational alignment with the way things work.

• 28:25Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  You know, so suddenly, you're in a meeting with somebody, you're meeting somebody, it's a chance meeting, and something opens up for you, and you're able to give your gift. You're able to share something, you're able to bring more prosperity into your life. More joy, more happiness, because you're in alignment. How can I serve? How can I be more giving? How can I unleash the power that's within me? You see? Now, most people, when they're living in this, in the mediocrity, they ask dis- empowering questions.

• 28:56Lewis Howes?

  Like what?

• 28:57Speaker 01

  Why me? What's wrong? Who's to blame? Those questions keep you very narrowly focused. Everybody's looking for a scapegoat. It's his fault. It's my parents' fault. They shouldn't have gotten divorced. They should have got a divorce. This happened, my teacher did this to me when I was little, whatever. They'll look for a very limiting, they have a very limiting scope of perception. But if you begin to ask an empowering question, how can I share? What's trying to emerge in my life? What gift do I have to give? How can I cultivate that gift? The universe would love to answer that question.

• 29:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  Because the universe, the universal presence, wants you healthy, wants you prosperous, wants you happy. Why? Because it gets to express more through you if you are. It gets to come into its own as you. Now, when you're limited yourself, then you're wasting energy. That means you're constantly going to the doctor because you're sick. You're constantly be moaning your fate because you can't have friendships in your life. You're constantly worried about all that's wasted energy that can be used for creativity. You see? So, when you ask the right questions, as you indicated, you stabilize your structures first. You have a structure of prosperity, a structure of good health,

• 30:20Speaker 01

  a structure of ego management, so you can have good friendships.

• 30:23Lewis Howes?

  You mean structure, you mean habits, or...

• 30:26Speaker 01

  We live in life structures. There's a life structure of health, body, temple. There's a life structure of relationships, you see. There's a life structure of community, how you work with others. You know, these are all structures that we stabilize, which means they're no longer liabilities, they're assets. So, if you know how to be with other people without tearing people down and gossiping about them and stealing from them, you have a good foundation of friendships, it's part of your community. Take care of your body, temple. Not going to the doctor all the time because you're sick. You're able to, as you say, pay your rent. You're able to have a level of prosperity. Now, you're not here just to stabilize those structures.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  Those structures are strong enough so that you can now give your gift.

• 31:13Lewis Howes?

  Because if you're always focused on stabilizing structures or your structures are in breakdown, you're never able to create and give your gift.

• 31:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 31:20Lewis Howes?

  So, you've got to be able to have the structures down first, take care of your business, I guess, let's say.

• 31:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:25Lewis Howes?

  And then you can go beyond it.

• 31:27Speaker 01

  Yes. Now, you're strong enough.

• 31:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  You're strong enough to do things that people would say are impossible.

• 31:34Lewis Howes?

  If someone's got one of those structures that are broken, or maybe they've been struggling with it for decades. Maybe it's the relationships, maybe it's the prosperity, maybe it's their health. How can they overcome that to fix it or to stabilize it?

• 31:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, two ways. One, you look at the area of your life that's working first. Because most of the time, our focus is on what's not working and the vibration of that. So you take one area of your life that works and you feel into that vibration. And then you begin to what I call shape shift. You begin to take that energy and begin to feel that way about the area that's not working. Okay, and then you combine that with an articulation of a vision. What would it look like if this area of my life worked? You begin to describe it. Now, the law says that you don't describe what you see, you see what you describe.

• 32:35Speaker 01

  So you begin to describe what that area looks like along with the feeling of an area of your life that does work. Now you have the feeling and the description both working. And you have, it's practice, you have to do that every day. You have to feel it, describe it, feel it, describe it, feel it, describe it. And then that begins to be a new baseline for you. And now you begin to manifest at that area.

• 32:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, obviously, you gotta take a lot of action probably in changing certain things. But you've gotta do those, the foundation first.

• 33:05Speaker 01

  You do the foundational piece. And then what happens is you're kind of compelled to do different kind of action. Instead of procrastinating, you realize, oh, I can do this. I can do this one little thing. And that shifts the whole fulcrum of being.

• 33:20Lewis Howes?

  What's something in your life you feel like you procrastinated too long on? Maybe something in your life at some point, was there anything where you're like, ah, I waited too long to?

• 33:30Speaker 01

  You know, when I started agape, I procrastinated.

• 33:33Lewis Howes?

  You should have done it 10 years ago or something.

• 33:35Speaker 01

  Oh, man, I just, I did not want to be a public person.

• 33:38Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 33:39Speaker 01

  I liked my lifestyle. I was a, I was a spiritual therapist, so I had private practice. I taught at the university, faculty member. And I ran a prayer ministry, so I had these things going on. And I would do seminars. I thought that was enough. So I kept being pulled into starting a community. And it was like, oh, I don't want to start a community. And so many things began to happen in my life, breakdown.

• 34:07Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 34:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, just that forced me to say, okay, I'm going against the energy here. And then I called some people together, some of my students, some of my clients, some of my friends. I said, okay, I'm compelled to start a community. And I started a vision group to start that. So interestingly enough, when that happened, I'll always remember this, I used to have a crook in my neck in which I couldn't turn my neck all the way to the right. I had like partial rotation.

• 34:37Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 34:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I could go all the way to the left, but I couldn't go to the right. And I go to a chiropractor. They fix it. It'd be temporarily fixed.

• 34:44Lewis Howes?

  For a day or two, then yeah.

• 34:46Speaker 01

  The moment I said yes to the vision, my neck went pop.

• 34:49Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 34:50Speaker 01

  I had full rotation.

• 34:51Lewis Howes?

  You were like an owl.

• 34:52Speaker 01

  Yes, like what? And I realized that this was a physical manifestation of my resistance.

• 34:58Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 34:59Speaker 01

  And so I look at that at times in my life, and if I'm resisting something, you know, let me just jump into the fire of it. And eventually, things are gonna work out. Don't be afraid to jump into the fire.

• 35:11Lewis Howes?

  What questions should we be asking ourselves every morning when we wake up?

• 35:16Speaker 01

  First of all, when I wake up in the morning, and when I turn and get out of the bed, I generally get on the bed on my left side, I stand up, I put my hands up, and I just go into a sense of gratitude for being alive and awake. I'm just thankful that I exist, and that gratitude is not attached to anything. I'm not grateful that I have money, I'm grateful that I have health, just grateful.

• 35:35Lewis Howes?

  Just being.

• 35:36Speaker 01

  Just being. And then I surrender to life. I just surrender my life to life. Now, some people, you can call that God, you can call it love, you can call it whatever you wanna call it, I just call it life. And then I say, what's my assignment? I ask, what's my assignment? And then I ask for the strength to do whatever my assignment is. So then, that's how I wake up. Then I'll go sit and I'll meditate and then I'll go to the gym. I'll come back and have a longer meditation. And then I'll ask, the question is determined by whatever I'm working on that day. So, I knew I was coming to see you today. Got in the shower and I would just say, "How can I be a bright presence on Lewis's show today?

• 36:19Speaker 01

  How can I be an instrument of articulation and fluency and love and harmony? Let that happen." So I just live in that question. And then I let the question answer itself through me as we met at the door.

• 36:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 36:34Speaker 01

  You know, "Hey, what's going on, man?" Like we knew each other for a long time. So there'll be a larger question. And then there's a question that's more pertinent for whatever's on my calendar that day. The larger question is always somewhere in the vantage point of, um, "How can I serve? How can I be an instrument of peace or love? Or how can I reveal more prosperity in my life?"

• 36:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 36:55Speaker 01

  You know?

• 36:56Lewis Howes?

  When we are in flow and like, man, just everything's working, just like manifesting magic everywhere.

• 37:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 37:04Lewis Howes?

  What question should we be asking at that time?

• 37:07Speaker 01

  It's, it's, it's, um, you wanna stay in the awareness of, "How can, does it get better than this?"

• 37:15Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 37:17Lewis Howes?

  When it feels like this is too good to be true.

• 37:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:19Lewis Howes?

  Everything is coming my way.

• 37:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, but listen, life is infinite.

• 37:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 37:22Speaker 01

  So wherever you are is a new starting point.

• 37:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's when it comes to the ground floor now, right?

• 37:27Speaker 01

  You don't wanna like relegate yourself and protect that, that particular spot. It's like, and you can ask that question whether things are going good or bad in your perception. You know, if things are, that is, ah, things aren't working out, this plan isn't coming together. You can ask, "How does it get better than this?" You'll get an answer. If you're in flow, "How does it get better than this?" And then you stay on the edge of becoming. So you're walking, you're walking in the, in the state of being and becoming. You're very happy about who you are. The state of being, I'm, I'm grateful, I'm in love with the state of being that I am right now. I appreciate it. And I'm becoming, there's more to me, you see?

• 38:11Speaker 01

  So if we ask the question, "How does it get better than this?", the universe will answer it.

• 38:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:23Lewis Howes?

  There's definitely some moments where I have breakdowns and challenges and struggles and things like that, but over the last fifteen, seventeen years, I just feel like magic occurs.

• 38:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:32Lewis Howes?

  Magic.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  You feel that way.

• 38:34Lewis Howes?

  I feel.

• 38:34Speaker 01

  I mean, your energy field is very, very big and it's very beautiful.

• 38:38Lewis Howes?

  And I feel like there's, when I reflect back and think on it, like, what are the things that I've been doing? It's the things you're talking about. Every day, I'm expressing gratitude, all the time. When I wake up, I do a gratitude practice.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 38:50Lewis Howes?

  When someone calls my cellphone and they get my voice message, I ask them what they're most grateful for and to share first with me before they ask what they want on the voicemail.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  That's beautiful.

• 39:00Lewis Howes?

  I'm just trying to evoke it out of people constantly. And at night, I'm always sharing what I'm most grateful for, whether I'm writing down or I'm sharing with someone. So gratitude has always been a part of my life, just because I came from a small town in Ohio and like, when things would happen, I was like, I'm so grateful for this.

• 39:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:17Lewis Howes?

  The next thing I would focus on is, is really like the vision of what I want to be, what I want to become. I'd focus on that vision, kind of what you were talking about before, just like, where am I heading? Where am I going? At least, where do I want to go? If there's a different plan for me, okay. But where am I going? Focusing on the direction as opposed to where I'm stuck.

• 39:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 39:37Lewis Howes?

  What I'm lacking. And then the third thing that I really focus on is just joy.

• 39:42Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 39:42Lewis Howes?

  Like, being joy. Just when you came in, I was just like, opened my arms, like, hey, good to see you. And I think when you, when we reflect on those three things, gratitude, a vision of where we're going, who we want to become, and being joyful, we start to attract and

• 39:57Speaker 01

  That's the pocket.

• 39:58Lewis Howes?

  Create magic, right?

• 39:59Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 40:00Lewis Howes?

  But sometimes, we, we forget those things and we're stuck in our head or we're stuck in fear and anxiety.

• 40:06Speaker 01

  That's why we call it a practice.

• 40:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  You practice, and when you get off, you come back to the fundamentals, just like an Olympic athlete.

• 40:12Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 40:13Speaker 01

  They get off, they come back to the fundamentals.

• 40:15Lewis Howes?

  The warmups, yeah.

• 40:16Speaker 01

  The warmups, the steps, whatever it is, whatever your particular, you know, area is, you come back to the fundamentals and then you find yourself in flow. When you're not in flow, you come back to the fundamentals. Now, we've all heard the statement from certain parents, if you don't stop crying, I'm gonna give you something to cry about.

• 40:33Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 40:33Speaker 01

  But the universe says, If you don't stop being grateful, I'm gonna give you something to be grateful for.

• 40:38Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 40:39Speaker 01

  It operates the same way. So you staying in that vibration of gratitude, the universe is looking for something to give you. Oh my God, if he doesn't stop being grateful, I'm gonna give him something really to be grateful for.

• 40:50Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  And it comes out of the blue, it comes out of your present paradigm. Like wow, you didn't see that coming, you know?

• 40:57Lewis Howes?

  Wow. So, so let me get this clear. When you were a teenager, you changed churches, you, you left church for a while, is that right? Or you always?

• 41:07Speaker 01

  From the age of 16 to, I was a senior at USC, so somewhere in my early twenties.

• 41:14Lewis Howes?

  And so you, there was a stage where you didn't believe in God?

• 41:18Speaker 01

  I, I wouldn't use the word God because the way people taught God was like a man in the sky, checking the list twice.

• 41:24Lewis Howes?

  You didn't believe in that, that version of God?

• 41:26Speaker 01

  No, my thing was more affirmative values. You know, be a kind person.

• 41:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 41:32Speaker 01

  Don't, don't, don't mess with people, don't steal.

• 41:35Lewis Howes?

  Be loving.

• 41:36Speaker 01

  You know, I didn't put that in any kind of religion. And it wasn't until I had that, I tell you, I was, um, when I moved back to LA from Atlanta, I was attending Morehouse College. I was a part of an organization that wanted to change the world by any means necessary. You know, it was a very revolutionary organization. And I was the propaganda commissioner for this organization.

• 41:57Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 41:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I'm sitting, and we were closely aligned with the Black Panther Party, you know? And so I was sitting in this meeting.

• 42:03Lewis Howes?

  Was this in the seventies?

• 42:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:04Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 42:05Speaker 01

  Seventies. So I'm sitting in this meeting, and someone behind me said, "If you were to take over the world tomorrow, would it be any different?" So I turned around to see who said it, but there was nobody there.

• 42:18Speaker 01

  I know I heard it. So I'm in the meeting, and it says it again. "If you, if you were to take over the world tomorrow, would it be any different?" But it was coming from inside of me. And I said, "Oh my God."

• 42:29Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 42:29Speaker 01

  So I looked around the room. This guy's sitting next to me, I said, this guy's a big ego. He always thinks he's right. This person is very territorial.

• 42:41Speaker 01

  This person is always contentious. This person, you know, I started looking around the room, and I realized, if we were to take over the world tomorrow, there'd be no change. So I left the meeting.

• 42:53Lewis Howes?

  The middle of the meeting or afterward?

• 42:54Speaker 01

  No, after the meeting I left.

• 42:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 42:56Speaker 01

  Never came back. The next week at that meeting, somebody in that meeting shot somebody. No way. In the meeting? In the meeting. No way. They got into an argument, a guy pulled out a gun and shot somebody. No way. But I wasn't there. To be a part of that legal situation. Wow. I enrolled into USC shortly after that, because I'd taken a break from. And I remember going to USC. I hadn't had the awakening, that was the beginning of the awakening. Right. And then things began to happen. Started having visions, I started seeing things, I thought I was, I thought I was losing my mind. This was, this was right at the beginning of transpersonal psychology. It wasn't popular the way it is now.

• 43:40Speaker 01

  You're 21, 22? Yeah, yeah, 23 years old, 22, 23. And then I had a, a lot of experience, I would leave my body all the time. Wow. And, but I didn't know what that was. Now we know it's astral traveling or lucid dreaming, you know. But back in those days, it was like, this was very new. Right. And so I started having this dream, and in this dream, these men were chasing me. Three men. And every night, I would wake up right before they would get me.

• 44:12Speaker 01

  Every night, they were a little bit closer. So, one of the things I did, I stopped smoking weed. As a good college student. And I said, this must be cannabis sativus. All these experiences and dreams and visions, but they intensified. Everything got more. When you stopped? Yeah. More, more, more brilliant dreams, more visions. And I didn't, I didn't tell anybody, because I, I'm in the psych, I was a psychobiology major. So I'm in the psychology department. There's no way I'm going to tell my professor. No. I'm, I'm leaving my body. He's going to put you in a mental hospital. Yeah. I'll tell you a story about that. Matter of fact, I had an internship program, I'll get back to the dream.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  And we had to go into the mental hospitals as a part of our internship program to work with the people there. Write up our diagnosis and give it to our professor, all of that.

• 45:04Speaker 01

  I'm playing ping pong with this guy. He's in the mental institution. And we're talking and I'm asking why he's there. And he's saying, well, I've had these visions and dreams. He's describing some of the stuff I'm going through. Wow. We're playing ping pong and then I realized for the last five minutes, we haven't been talking, it was all telepathy. No way. Yeah. I put the ping pong paddle down and checked myself out of there. I said, I don't know what's going on with me. So, fast forward, I'm in this dream. Three men are chasing me and I say to myself, this is a dream.

• 45:38Speaker 01

  I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna force myself to wake up. I turned around, there was a small tent with all these people lined up to go into this tent. I mean, thousands of people. And I knew every single person in line. And I said, oh, these guys can't hurt me, my friends are with me. One by one, they turned their back on me.

• 45:59Speaker 01

  Two men held me down and another one plunged a knife in my heart. Holy cow. The pain was excruciating, physically and emotionally. And I screamed out, I mean, like a blood curdling scream. And I died. And when I woke up, I could see, the presence was everywhere. The beauty that's here is beyond description. The love that penetrated every cell of my being was beyond any love, I get emotional. Any love that you'll ever experience, the love of God just poured through my body. The light and the brilliance was everywhere. And everything was different.

• 46:44Speaker 01

  And from that moment on, I went on a path of discovery as to what had happened to me. And, and the process of integrating that into my life. And then that's led me step by step by step into where I'm at today. If people could only see what's really here. But we have paradigm blindness, the perception is so small. Most people only see a fraction of reality. And it's their beliefs, it's their perceptions, it's what they've inherited from their parents, societal fantasies. When all of this is available, we only see this. What is really here? Is it the presence of abundance, infinite joy, beauty, love?

• 47:30Speaker 01

  Sometimes a sound effect would have to do. Experience it, yeah. It's just, it's just all here. And we're using so much energy to block it. Why do we block this abundance of love and joy and? The ego does not know the difference between transformation and annihilation. It doesn't know that outside of the known, in the realm of the unknown, there's so much good and so much power, so much abundance. It tries to eke its joy out of what's known. Whereas our good is actually outside of the known. You know? Matter of fact, it was Krishnamurti that had a book called Freedom From The Known.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  And he would, I used to go see him live at Ojai every year. Cause he was one that I could listen to and I realized he was authentic. He knew, I could just listen, I could look at him. And I, you know, I can go to any spiritual community and I can tell you in five minutes if they know. Or if they know about, it's a difference between knowing it and knowing about it. Knowing about it can motivate, knowing it, it's different. Different feeling, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Krishnamurti, I said, ooh, he knows.

• 48:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, but, so, you know, I don't know what question you asked me, but. Why do we block the abundance of love? Yeah, it's just, it's fear. We wanna live, we wanna basically. Cause it's uncertain, right? It's uncertain. Yeah. We wanna control our life within the realm of the known. The good is in the unknown. If I hadn't said yes to Agape, I wouldn't have known all the beautiful people I've met and the things I've got to experience. I got to, I had a chance to facilitate the synthesis dialogues with the Dalai Lama four times. You know? Crazy. I got a chance to, to meet and give Nelson Mandela the Season For Nonviolence Award. I got a chance to, to, to, to hang out with Bishop Tutu as we were inducted into the Martin Luther King

• 49:24Speaker 01

  Order of, of Preachers. I, I got a chance to, to run with and hang with Dick Gregory, you know what I mean? And so many beautiful people that have been a part of my life. I wouldn't have known any of that. I've chasced the United Nations and speak at special assemblies many times and, but all of that would have been locked into potential. You know, and I don't share those things as a brag, I just like, they're just part of my, woo, the chance to meet, it wasn't about me, it was about the people I got a chance to meet and hang out with. I wouldn't have met you. Right. You know, we wouldn't have been here. I'd have been on my couch, sure.

• 49:59Lewis Howes?

  You know, I grew up in a small town in Ohio, predominantly white neighborhood, but my parents had, they had seven exchange students when I was a kid. So I had people from Japan and Brazil and France and Philippines living with us teenagers, you know, for six months at a time. That would kind of like bring the culture and and country to me.

• 50:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:24Lewis Howes?

  And then, as I started to expand outside of my neighborhood and play sports, I was more of the minority as one of the white people, right?

• 50:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:35Lewis Howes?

  In that context. So for me, I never really understood racism.

• 50:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:39Lewis Howes?

  Like, I'm sure there's moments where I'm judgmental or racist in some ways, I don't even know if I'm aware of it. But everyone to me is a brother or a sister.

• 50:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:48Lewis Howes?

  Right? It doesn't matter what color.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:50Lewis Howes?

  Or where you're from, just because I grew up with these older brothers and sisters from all over the world.

• 50:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:56Lewis Howes?

  Where is the root of racism come from for us? And why is it so hard for us to get past seeing color?

• 51:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, a lot of it's, obviously it's learned. I mean, you don't see a racist or homophobic baby.

• 51:14Speaker 01

  You know, so it's actually learned.

• 51:16Lewis Howes?

  Wow, okay.

• 51:16Speaker 01

  And there are people inadvertently or on purpose that teach that because they're living in the perception of they are the other. They're darker, they're lighter, whatever the other is, they're from that country.

• 51:34Lewis Howes?

  Different language.

• 51:34Speaker 01

  Different language, different culture, different religion, whatever the case may be. So people live in the context of other. And they haven't yet matured into realizing there really isn't any other. There's only variations on a theme. It's all music. You know what I mean?

• 51:52Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 51:52Speaker 01

  Some's jazz, some's classical, you know, some's R and B, whatever the case may be. Just variations on the theme. So it's not other, it's just, we're the same inside, but we get to express. Now, why is that?

• 52:07Speaker 01

  Because the infinite is infinite. It doesn't repeat itself. It doesn't do do-overs and it doesn't make mistakes. So, all of us are unique expressions of the infinite. It would be boring.

• 52:20Lewis Howes?

  We all look the same.

• 52:21Speaker 01

  We all look the same, you know what I mean? And we were all the same. I mean, can you, first of all, can you imagine going through eternity? Being exactly as you are right now, without any growth?

• 52:30Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 52:30Speaker 01

  It's called hell. You know what I mean? So, if you can imagine that if everyone was exactly like you, or exactly like me, and we just stayed the same forever, that's called hell.

• 52:41Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 52:42Speaker 01

  So, the presence, which is infinite, recreated itself after its own image and likeness according to its infinite nature. We have such a variety of beauty and love and joy, and that's what we want to celebrate. And people that are in fear are bigoted, racist. They're mainly living in fear.

• 53:03Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:03Speaker 01

  And then they promote that fear. You know, "Oh, the Mexicans, oh, the Arabs, oh, the black people," whatever. You know what I mean? They promote that fear and they end up living in a very small world.

• 53:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. How much of a role does religion play in creating fear in each religious community of people that aren't in those communities?

• 53:27Speaker 01

  It depends on the maturity of the spiritual teacher. Religion itself mean, the word means to return to the source.

• 53:36Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 53:36Speaker 01

  So, religion itself is supposed to be a vehicle that brings people back to the source.

• 53:41Lewis Howes?

  Back to love.

• 53:42Speaker 01

  Back to love, back to connectedness. However, it is sometimes used as a sense of separation, depending on the maturity of the spiritual teacher. So, it's supposed to bring you, it's a boat, or, yeah, a boat or some kind of vehicle to bring you to an encounter with the transcendent. Once you have an encounter with a transcendent, you can celebrate the boat that brought you there, but you're not trying to hang on to it. So it's like, sometimes we'll say things like inadvertently, well, he was a Jewish mystic, or he was a Christian mystic. Now, actually, when a person becomes a mystic, they kind of transcend the boat that got them. There is no such thing as a Christian mystic. There's no such thing as a Buddhist mystic. There's no such thing as Islamic mystic.

• 54:28Speaker 01

  Because once you become a mystic, that means you've transcended the boats, and you realize we're all one.

• 54:33Lewis Howes?

  Right, you've transcended the religion.

• 54:35Speaker 01

  Religiosity.

• 54:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 54:37Speaker 01

  And you can still honor.

• 54:38Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 54:39Speaker 01

  You honor it.

• 54:39Lewis Howes?

  The principles and the foundation.

• 54:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, you honor where you came from, but you're not trying to convert everybody to that anymore. So religion in its highest practice brings people together. In its lowest practice, it separates people.

• 54:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 54:53Speaker 01

  And you have people that become fundamental, and they'll say things like, this is the path. If you don't walk this path, you're going to hell. That's a very limited perception. Now, how does a person get there? And there's fundamentalism in every religion.

• 55:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:09Speaker 01

  A fundamentalist simply believes that what they believe may or may not be true. So they have to convert you because they're afraid they might be wrong.

• 55:19Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 55:20Speaker 01

  You see, but once you know something, you don't convert. It's like, you know two plus two is four.

• 55:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:26Speaker 01

  So if you go into a room, and your teacher is teaching, and everybody's talking, no, two plus two is five, no, two plus two is eight, you're gonna back out of that room. You're not gonna get into an argument because you know two plus two is four.

• 55:39Lewis Howes?

  You know the truth.

• 55:40Speaker 01

  You know the truth, so you just say, peace and blessings, you do your math, and I'll do mine.

• 55:47Speaker 01

  But if you're fundamental, if you just believe two plus two is four, if you don't really know two plus two is four, but you just believe it, and you become a very high believer, two plus two is four, I'm gonna hurt you. But then you run into trouble there.

• 56:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 56:02Speaker 01

  So our religions take us beyond belief, which we practice, into a deep knowing. And then you have tolerance and appreciation and compassion for people who are stumbling along their path.

• 56:15Lewis Howes?

  What if it's a family member that is, has a strong belief?

• 56:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:21Lewis Howes?

  And you're like, gosh, that just doesn't make sense. Or that's not the truth, or that's not the knowing. How do you have compassion for someone that's so aggressively? I don't have this in my life, but I'm just curious.

• 56:33Speaker 01

  No, but it's pretty common.

• 56:34Lewis Howes?

  Right? Where there it's like family members, or friends, or partners, where they're so against a different belief, and they're trying to pull you apart. How do you have that type of compassion? Or what do you say to those people?

• 56:46Speaker 01

  Well, first of all, if they're so against something, that means there's fear there. So we have to understand what compassion is. Compassion, I define compassion as the understanding of the lack of understanding.

• 56:59Lewis Howes?

  Interesting, yeah, the understanding of ignorance. Or the understanding of lack.

• 57:02Speaker 01

  It's understanding. You don't have, you don't agree, not in alignment with it. But your heart stays open, and you're blessed. And you realize that you cannot assist an unreceptive mind. You can't convince, you can't convert, you can't do anything. So you just leave them alone, you just love them. One day, and you live your life so good, that you're shining, you're glowing. And then one day, they may ask you, "Why are you so happy all the time? I just heard that this bad thing happened in your life, and you're still grateful."

• 57:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 57:37Speaker 01

  "What do you have that makes you strong enough to do that?" Now, that's a receptive mind. Now you can go back and say, well, you know what? I wake up every day with gratitude, I'm in appreciation for life. But if you try to teach somebody before they're receptive, they will take what you teach and use it against you. And so compassion means, I understand the lack of understanding. I'm not gonna argue with you.

• 58:01Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 58:02Speaker 01

  I'm just gonna let you be.

• 58:03Lewis Howes?

  When have you felt the most loved in your life?

• 58:06Speaker 01

  Well, besides that moment of the encounter, that continues to undulate through me a lot. I'm very fortunate that I came from an unconditional loving family. My brothers and I, we could have made the biggest mistake, but there was never any withhold of love. You know, I remember being arrested. From your parents. From my parents, yeah, I remember being arrested. And my father came to see me, he kinda smiled. Just loved you anyway. Just loved me anyway. My mom was there, it was like, I'm waiting for, you know, whatever. Not that they didn't discipline or all of that that they're supposed to do, but there was never any withhold of love, so I come from a baseline of love, which I think is very fortunate. Many people don't come from that. There was abuse. Yeah.

• 58:50Speaker 01

  There was neglect or whatever. I didn't have that. So I have a strong baseline of love, and I have a strong baseline of inclusivity, because my mother was very involved in the civil rights movement, so a lot of the meetings were at my house. Wow. So we had Mexicans, blacks, straight, gay, Jewish people. Everybody was in my house all the time, talking about the next thing we were gonna do. We were gonna picket this store, we were gonna do this or that. So I didn't really have a... I didn't come to a lot of places where I am now through some kind of revelation. It was just part of my upbringing. Yeah. So I remember being in junior high school and people were attacking this guy, he was gay, and I was like, "What are you guys, what are you guys doing? So what? What's it got to do with you? Are you afraid of him? What, you know?"

• 59:35Speaker 01

  But that was just in my household, so it wasn't... You know, so I think I just, the baseline of love of my parents, my grandparents, you know, was just a part of the deal. So I was always, I probably was more shocked when I went out into the world and can see brothers and sisters who don't talk to each other. You know what I mean? It's like, "You haven't talked to your brother in eight years? What happened?" You know what I mean? Right. And that was like... Didn't make sense, yeah. No, like, my daughter and my son are like, I don't know how many years apart they are, like nine years apart, they're like best friends. You know what I mean? It's like, they just love each other, it's just... And I'm always shocked, not anymore, but it's like...

• 1:00:15Speaker 01

  You don't talk to your brother.

• 1:00:16Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:00:16Speaker 01

  You don't have to agree with him.

• 1:00:18Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:00:19Speaker 01

  Just love him. Don't talk about that subject.

• 1:00:21Lewis Howes?

  Talk about else.

• 1:00:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I think, I think the parental vibration, I'm very, and the, and the more I'm on the planet, the more I've appreciated.

• 1:00:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's cool.

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

  The environment they roll these days.

• 1:00:31Lewis Howes?

  Um, I want to ask a few more questions. This has been really inspiring. I appreciate you opening up.

• 1:00:36Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:00:37Lewis Howes?

  When someone is in a relationship that isn't working, an intimate relationship that isn't working, or there's some tension for a few months, and there just seems to be a lot of conflict.

• 1:00:50Lewis Howes?

  And when someone is looking to start dating something, someone, start to get together. Both instances.

• 1:00:59Speaker 01

  You're talking two different people here? Are you talking same?

• 1:01:02Lewis Howes?

  Uh, let's just say two scenarios.

• 1:01:03Speaker 01

  Two scenarios.

• 1:01:04Lewis Howes?

  You're, you're in a relationship, you've been together for a while, but now there's a few months of conflict. Or there's a period of time that's conflicting, and you're not sure whether or not you should stay in that relationship.

• 1:01:14Speaker 01

  Okay, that's one scenario.

• 1:01:15Lewis Howes?

  One scenario. And the second scenario is, two people meet, and they're about to start dating.

• 1:01:21Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:01:22Lewis Howes?

  What should be the questions that you should ask each other? When you just meet to see if it's a good fit to, to come together and be partners? And what should the questions be, you've already been together for a while.

• 1:01:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:36Lewis Howes?

  But there's some conflict and you're not sure about the future.

• 1:01:39Speaker 01

  Right. So in the one scenario, when people are just meeting, there has to be an understanding of what the intention is. Is the intention to be in relationship, or is the intention just a booty call? Is it just, we just want to have fun, we don't want, you know, so there's, so depending on what paradigm a person is living in, we have different kind of questions.

• 1:01:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:57Speaker 01

  So if you're interested in a relationship.

• 1:01:59Lewis Howes?

  Let's say you're interested in the relation, in a relationship, yeah.

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  Then the question is, first of all, what is, we have to define relationship.

• 1:02:05Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:02:06Speaker 01

  You know, a relationship is what we call a joint participation in the good of life. It's a participation in something larger.

• 1:02:14Lewis Howes?

  I like that.

• 1:02:15Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:02:15Lewis Howes?

  It's good.

• 1:02:15Speaker 01

  So it's not just, so when we understand that, that I'm not trying to get my good from you, I'm not trying to get my love from you, and you're not trying to get it from me, we're bringing it to the table.

• 1:02:25Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:02:25Speaker 01

  You know, it's like this, if two fish are swimming in the ocean.

• 1:02:31Speaker 01

  And one fish says to the other fish, "Baby, if you give me, if you give me what I want, I'll give you all the water you can handle." So they're swimming in water. Right. So we're swimming in love. Wow. So I can't give it to you. But I can participate in it and I can bring that to the table. My loving can bring that to the table. So that means, that means when people come together, they're actually coming together to grow and perfecting their loving. Wow. It's a much more mature state of being. When we're younger, we actually think, "That person can make me happy." That person can't make you happy. You have to bring happy. That means you have to work on yourself and you bring happy to the relationship. You bring peace, you bring love,

• 1:03:15Speaker 01

  you bring forgiveness, you bring compassion. You know, so when people are first coming together, we have to see, are we at the same level in terms of wanting to grow together? Yeah. Okay? And then we, and then we're happy, we support each other, I'm gonna support, I'm gonna love to the best of my ability. So it's the same question. If a person's, if a relationship is in breakdown, then are we still growing? Mm-hmm. Or has the growth stopped? Is there a chance to keep the growth going? Do we, are we interested in each other? Are we interested in each other's growth? Has the path diverged? This person is really more interested in this. This person is more interested in that. Has the growth stopped? You know, if the growth has stopped and we've gleaned the lessons,

• 1:04:00Speaker 01

  then we have to look at that. Now, the Western culture, America, America's like a very young country. It's a couple hundred years old. When you look at indigenous cultures, some of the Native American cultures, some of the other cultures, thousands of years old, they have renewal. For instance, in certain Native American cultures, every seven years you renew. In a relationship. Yeah, you see, do we have more juice here? Or do we not? Now, if you don't have juice, there's no fault. There's no like, "You culprit here. You don't love me anymore. You didn't do this," whatever. It's like, you know what? We've learned this, this, this, and this. We're both better people. Let's go another seven. Or, hmm, it's time to go our separate ways in this form.

• 1:04:45Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:04:45Speaker 01

  In African culture, there's a space where the people will say, maybe, maybe this is over. And they'll come to the community and then they gather with the elders and the elders will do divination and say, you guys are finished.

• 1:05:00Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:05:01Speaker 01

  You guys have done your job. You can stay together if you want, but you don't have to. Or they'll say, no, no, no, no, no. You still got a lot of work to do in this area. You know what I mean? So in the Western culture.

• 1:05:13Lewis Howes?

  So there's no like blame or guilt or shaming or wrongdoing?

• 1:05:17Speaker 01

  That's in Western culture. We're young, we're babies. People think 200 years.

• 1:05:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:22Speaker 01

  There's been cultures on the planet thousands of years, you know what I mean? That, that have a deeper insight into the unfolding of the soul. Not just getting your house, two kids and, you know, retiring and dying, you know what I mean? It's an unfolding of the soul.

• 1:05:37Lewis Howes?

  This is powerful.

• 1:05:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:38Lewis Howes?

  We'll have to have you come back on and do a whole thing on relationships sometime in the future. I'm curious, at the end of this year, let's say it's New Year's Eve this year.

• 1:05:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:47Lewis Howes?

  What would the thing that would make you the most proud of who you've been, become, or created in this, in this life?

• 1:05:55Speaker 01

  Well, I'm, I'm always inviting a greater insight into reality and a greater understanding of the awakening process and who I am. So I always want to keep that going. In terms of my, so in terms of my, my personal movement, that, that would, it's always forefront. You know, just I want to be more myself.

• 1:06:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:16Speaker 01

  At the end of the year. When I look back at this guy sitting talking to you today, I don't want this guy to be sitting here. I want another version.

• 1:06:23Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:06:23Speaker 01

  To be sitting here. When I look at my community, I want Agape community to be more stable. We're in a permanent, permanent temporary place, means we can be there as long as we want. But I want to be closer to actually building our legacy building. In our legacy community where people come from all over the world and celebrate the divine, divine together. I want to be closer financially where that is concerned.

• 1:06:45Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 1:06:45Speaker 01

  You know, in terms of a goal. Yeah.

• 1:06:48Lewis Howes?

  That's cool, that's cool. This is the question.

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  I want my book to be out, too.

• 1:06:52Lewis Howes?

  Okay, cool, yeah. Well, you have three books right now that you brought here.

• 1:06:55Speaker 01

  I think I've written seven, but those are three.

• 1:06:57Lewis Howes?

  These are the three that are, yeah, three here. You've got seven books, machine. One's called Life Visioning: A Transformative Process for Activating Your Unique Gifts and Highest Potential. Make sure you guys check this one out. I'm gonna read this one today. The answer is you. This is gonna be a good one, I'm excited, because it's shorter. That's why I read that one. And then Spiritual Liberation. So if you guys wanna feel free, make sure to get this book as well. We'll have it all linked up on the show notes. This is a question, one of the final questions that I ask everyone at the end. It's called the three truths. So you've written seven books, you're gonna have an eighth one this year. I'm sure you'll have fifty books. But imagine it's your last day on earth. Many years from now, you can go as long as you want.

• 1:07:36Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:07:36Lewis Howes?

  But at some point, you gotta go.

• 1:07:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:07:38Lewis Howes?

  Hypothetically, right? And your physical body anyways. And you've written everything you wanna write. You've said everything you wanna say. You've met everyone, you've been knighted fifty times. You've got a capes, you've got a huge theater, that's a forever legacy. You've done it all. You've seen your grandkids grow. Everything has happened. Complete life, right? But for whatever reason, you gotta take everything with you when you leave.

• 1:08:03Speaker 01

  I gotta take it with me?

• 1:08:04Lewis Howes?

  You gotta take your information, your work, your books, your words, your videos, all the content you put out in the world. It's gotta go with you.

• 1:08:11Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:08:11Lewis Howes?

  So no one has access to it anymore. But you get to leave people with three final truths. These would be the three truths or the lessons that you've lived through your whole life. And this was all people had to remember in a written form. What would you say are those three truths for you?

• 1:08:32Speaker 01

  One, fall in love with who you are, with what has been created. You didn't create yourself. There's a presence, there's a presence that created you out of itself. So you have to fall in love with that, with that presence. Two, you have to cultivate.

• 1:08:54Speaker 01

  That potential that's within you, you don't want wasted potential. If you have potential, you have to cultivate it. You don't wanna, you don't wanna leave and realize, you know what? I should have cultivated that.

• 1:09:07Lewis Howes?

  And left it on the table.

• 1:09:08Speaker 01

  I left it on the table, I didn't go for it. I didn't even try, you see? And three, you wanna live with not how much you got, but how much did you give away before you left? How much did you give away? I think that's the game that we're being asked to play on the planet right now. Not how much we can get, but before we leave, how much can we give away? Now, if we fall in love with ourselves, activate potential and give away as much as possible, we'll be in bliss. Because bliss is the function of the activation of potential.

• 1:09:42Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Those are great truths. I love those. Imagine everyone in the world is putting on headphones right now. And everyone can understand English for a minute.

• 1:09:56Speaker 01

  Or they hear it in their own language.

• 1:09:57Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, they hear their own language. And you get to share one message with the world where people put their phones away, they're not watching TV, they put on their headphones, they flip on a switch, mic comes on. What is the message you would share in under 60 seconds for the world? And what we're living through right now, what we're going through in this time and age? What would be a message you would say?

• 1:10:24Speaker 01

  I would let people know that there's a paradigm that's dying right now. Whenever a paradigm is dying, it makes a lot of noise. So right now, we have the paradigm of greed and hate, separation, supremacy of all kinds of levels, really loud, which means it's at its deathbed. And there's a paradigm that's emerging. The emerging paradigm is a paradigm of unity and oneness, of which now our quantum scientists are now echoing what the mystics have been teaching for thousands of years, that we're all one, that the separation is only in our mind, it doesn't really exist. So I would say, stay strong.

• 1:11:08Speaker 01

  Don't give in to fear, don't give in to worry. Worry is mentally and emotionally rehearsing what you don't want to happen, you see. So stay out of worry and fear and realize that we're passing through a phase of a dying of the old and a birthing of the new. Stay true to the vision of unity. Have conversations about it. Let that be your conversation. And watch as you look back at this time in history and the things that we were so afraid of will be in museums. People, you'll have kids in museums saying, mommy, did people really hate each other because they were in different religions? Mom, the grandma, you mean people didn't like each other because their skin colors were different? Mom, did that really happen?

• 1:11:53Speaker 01

  And grandmama will say, yeah, many years ago, that was the ignorance we were living in, but not anymore, babe.

• 1:12:01Lewis Howes?

  Wow, yeah, that's powerful. I want to acknowledge you for a moment, Michael, because this is just like, for me, this is so awakening for me. You know, everything you've been sharing has been resonating deeply with me. And the fact that you've been living your life in such a level of high service for the last thirty plus years is a great example of what's possible for all of us. We don't have to go start spiritual centers the way you have, but we can do things to live in service every single day with our families, our friends, and the people, the strangers around us.

• 1:12:33Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:12:33Lewis Howes?

  And so I acknowledge you for showing up the way you did today, for your constant level of service. Everyone I talk to who knows you just says how giving of a human being you are. And for showing me what's possible when all the good that comes your way, you don't have to wear a mask and think you're that much better.

• 1:12:53Speaker 01

  No, yes.

• 1:12:54Lewis Howes?

  And so I appreciate and acknowledge you for constantly showing up in service and humility and gratitude. It's a great blessing to be with you right now.

• 1:13:01Speaker 01

  Man, thank you, appreciate it. Can I give, say one shout out?

• 1:13:04Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:13:05Speaker 01

  My former wife, Ricky Byers, has a new CD that just dropped. It's called My Oh My, It's Time To Fly. It's one of some of her greatest work. I want people to go out and get it. Along with my stuff.

• 1:13:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:13:16Speaker 01

  But, but I want it.

• 1:13:17Lewis Howes?

  My Oh My, It's Time To Fly.

• 1:13:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:13:19Lewis Howes?

  We'll link it up in the show notes and make sure it's there. Make sure you guys get the CD.

• 1:13:23Speaker 01

  You know, they might like, I have another book called Transcendence. And it's my CD of my music.

• 1:13:27Lewis Howes?

  Perfect.

• 1:13:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:28Lewis Howes?

  Transcendence.

• 1:13:29Speaker 01

  Transcendance.

• 1:13:29Lewis Howes?

  Dance.

• 1:13:30Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:13:30Lewis Howes?

  We'll link that, we'll link all your books up.

• 1:13:32Speaker 01

  Very good.

• 1:13:32Lewis Howes?

  So you guys, make sure you go to the show notes. We'll tell you where that's at in a second. Check out these books, Spiritual Liberation as well. The Answer Is You, Life Visioning.

• 1:13:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, Life Visioning, this is the book that Oprah, she picked fif- out of her 30 years of being on TV.

• 1:13:47Lewis Howes?

  Uh-huh.

• 1:13:47Speaker 01

  She picked 15 books, as she said, were the best 15 books to help an individual solve a problem. And Life Visioning made

• 1:13:54Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:13:54Speaker 01

  made that 15 cut.

• 1:13:55Lewis Howes?

  Oh, maybe I'll read this one today then. This is great. I appreciate it. Life Visioning, very cool. Um, final que- and you're on, uh, social media.

• 1:14:04Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Facebook, Instagram.

• 1:14:07Lewis Howes?

  At Michael Beckwith. Michael Beckwith.

• 1:14:09Speaker 01

  Twitter, the whole, the whole deal.

• 1:14:10Lewis Howes?

  Okay, perfect.

• 1:14:10Speaker 01

  And they can go to agapelive.com to actually livestream my services. They can actually see me live.

• 1:14:16Lewis Howes?

  Anywhere in the world.

• 1:14:17Speaker 01

  Anywhere in the world. Most of the congregations around the world.

• 1:14:19Lewis Howes?

  Agape Live.

• 1:14:20Speaker 01

  I mean, I have a few thousand every Sunday. But most of the people are in Canada, Australia, New York. And they're all around the world.

• 1:14:28Lewis Howes?

  Right. So go to agapelive.com. You can watch it live on Sundays.

• 1:14:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:14:32Lewis Howes?

  If you were in LA, if you're visiting LA.

• 1:14:34Speaker 01

  You gotta come.

• 1:14:34Lewis Howes?

  People can show up to Agape. If they go to agape.com, is that where it's at?

• 1:14:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, they can, they can find it at the Saban Theater.

• 1:14:41Lewis Howes?

  Okay, perfect.

• 1:14:41Speaker 01

  Right there on Wilshire and, uh, La Cienega.

• 1:14:43Lewis Howes?

  And when you go and you meet Michael, make sure you heard him on the show.

• 1:14:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, tell him to come up and say, I heard you on the show.

• 1:14:50Lewis Howes?

  Let him know. Final question for you, Michael, is what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:14:55Speaker 01

  Definition of greatness is constantly being superior to your former self.

• 1:15:01Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:15:02Speaker 01

  So you're never in competition with someone else. You're only competing with your former self so that tomorrow, next year, two years from now, you're actually releasing more life energy than you were two years ago or a year ago. So it's a, so you're really becoming more you.

• 1:15:19Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:15:19Speaker 01

  On a regular basis.

• 1:15:21Lewis Howes?

  Michael Beckwith, thank you, man.

• 1:15:22Speaker 01

  Amen.

• 1:15:23Lewis Howes?

  Appreciate you very much. This is powerful, man.

• 1:15:25Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Thank you.

• 1:15:26Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:15:29Lewis Howes?

  There you have it, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I did not want it to stop. It was so inspiring, uplifting, informational, educational, and continues to break my mindset to think bigger and attract the things I want in my life. If you enjoyed this, please tag myself @lewishouse and @michaelbeckwith over on Instagram. Follow him, connect with him, check out his books. It's all at the show notes at lewishouse.com/748. Share this with your friends on Instagram Stories, on Twitter. Share it anywhere you can because this needs to be seen and heard all over the world. And as Joseph Campbell said, "We must let go of the life we have planned so as to accept

• 1:16:13Lewis Howes?

  the one that is waiting for us." Your incredible life is waiting for you. It's your time to rise up, to start thinking differently, to start acting differently, so you can attract and manifest magic in your life. You were born to be a magician of positivity attracting to your life. It's your responsibility to go out there and pursue excellence, to pursue beauty, to pursue joy by being these things. The more you become those things, the more you will attract and empower them in your life. I love you so very much, and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.