8 The Power of Belief – How World Class Athletes Outperform the Competition

Welcome to the solo round! I plan to interview a number of inspiring business minds, world class athletes, and influential celebrities throughout this entire podcast, but today, I'm going in the ring solo. This is a test to see if both you and I enjoy this format. Perhaps I'll do more in the future like this if you […] 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 the School of Greatness, episode number eight, and you're entering the solo round.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  Hello everyone and welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, I'm an author, lifestyle entrepreneur, former pro athlete, and world record holder in football. My goal with the School of Greatness is to share with you stories from the most inspiring business minds, world-class athletes, and influential celebrities on the planet to find out what makes great people great. So please leave us a review on iTunes and join us on the web at schoolofgreatness.com to be notified of each episode when it comes out. Now let's get after it.

• 0:52Lewis Howes?

  Now let's get into the show.

• 1:02Lewis Howes?

  Hey, what's up guys? I hope you are having a fantastic day and week, wherever you are in the world, as I just got back from a two-week trip to New York City, then to Tahoe for a mastermind with some of our top affiliates in the online marketing world, then back to New York City for a handball tournament with my New York City Team Handball Club where we won our tournament. Five games in two days, won all the games, had a lot of fun with those guys, and now I'm back in LA. So it's been an eventful last couple of weeks, and I have to tell you what, I am so excited about this podcast.

• 1:45Lewis Howes?

  I'll tell you what, I'm just really grateful that I created this because the feedback you guys are giving me, the tweets, the messages on Facebook, the personal emails, it's making me love my decision to do this even more. So thank you guys so much for all your support, for all your five-star reviews on iTunes. Quick shout out to a few people, Tom Wakowski, 89 Giants fan, I see Detroit Pride, Jay Croft 41, Benicio, lots of great people have been leaving five-star reviews, so I really appreciate it. I just want to read one really quickly.

• 2:25Lewis Howes?

  By Tom Wachowski, he said, "Insider Intel on Killing It in Life and Business" is the title of his review, and he says this, "Lewis gets the top guests in Crushing It in Life and Business. His unique ability to interview top performers and link the lessons between life and business together will provide you with strategies, tools, and techniques so you can achieve even more in your pursuits. A must subscribe for anyone who wants to grow personally and professionally so they can bring more value to the world." So Tom, I really appreciate that one, means a lot to me. So thanks again for listening, everyone. Here's what this episode is all about. This is a solo round. So I'm going

• 3:08Lewis Howes?

  to be interviewing a lot of great, inspiring business minds, world-class athletes, influential celebrities throughout this entire podcast. But this one is the solo round, and I'm inspired to do one just by myself. And I'll talk about exactly what I'm covering here in just a second. But someone wrote me an email the other day and said, "You know, Lewis, I love the podcast so far. I'm loving the guests. They're inspiring me. I'm learning so much, and I don't want to take anything away from them. However, the stuff that you're teaching in between the episodes, in between the interviews, is what's really exciting me, and I'm learning

• 3:50Lewis Howes?

  a lot from that as well." So I thought, you know, I'd put together a little outline and do one myself. And maybe every now and then, I'll do some solo rounds as well, if you guys like this. Feel free to let me know if you like this format. And if you don't, if you'd rather hear me shut up and hear me interview some other people, then I'll go back to doing that as well. But this one is all about the power of belief. The power of belief. And I'll tell you why I want to talk about this topic in my solo round first. It's because

• 4:22Lewis Howes?

  The more, when I grew up as an athlete, I'm gonna talk about athletes today, and also talk about how to apply that into business and life. But when I grew up, I didn't have a strong belief in myself. I didn't have much confidence. I was a tall, gangly kid with huge ears, buck teeth, and just acne, and was just really uncoordinated and awkward, right? And I just wanted to fit in, was really the key. When I was like seven, eight, nine, 10 years old, I just wanted to fit in so people didn't make fun of me. So I didn't have the confidence, I didn't have a belief in myself. And it wasn't until I really started to put the time and the energy and the practice into my sport,

• 5:02Lewis Howes?

  where I started to see the results, and the more results I got, the more confidence and belief I had in myself. So, I'm gonna be covering a little bit of that today. But I'd like to start off this segment with a quote. It's a very simple quote, and it's a quote that I'm sure 99% of you have heard before. And it's from our good friend, Henry Ford. He says, "Whether you think you can, or that you think you can't, you are usually right." And I'm gonna say it again, "Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you are usually right." Now, I'm a big believer in this.

• 5:42Lewis Howes?

  You've got to believe in yourself, and whether you think you can do something, or you think you can't. And if you don't think you can do something, well, the results are probably going to show you that you were right, that you couldn't do it. And if you believe that you can do it, at least you're having more opportunity for yourself to achieve that result. So I've got a question for you now. And I'm gonna go back to the athletes here, this is gonna be very athlete-focused. What do you think the best athletes in the world have in common?

• 6:17Lewis Howes?

  Do you think that they're really fast, or they're really strong, they're mentally tough, that they make big plays in pressure moments, or that they lead their team to victory? What is it that you believe that athletes, the best athletes in the world, have in common? And over my research of just years of playing with some of the best athletes, watching athletes play on TV, just my experience with game film and seeing all this happen, I don't think it's about their strength, it's not about their speed, it's not about their ability to make big plays, it's not about how hard they work behind the scenes.

• 6:59Lewis Howes?

  I think what it really comes down to is the best athletes in the world have one of two qualities, or one of two things, I should say. They have a strong belief in God, or their Creator, or their religion. They have a very strong belief and faith in that. Or they have a very strong belief and faith in themselves as being the best person in the world at what they're doing. So they either have one of two things, a strong faith or belief in God, or their religion,

• 7:37Lewis Howes?

  or a strong faith or belief that they are the best in the world and no one can stop them. Now, Tim Tebow, just to give you an example, a guy that a lot of us know, especially here in the United States. Tim Tebow starts off talking in interviews after big games that he plays in, he always starts off talking about his faith. And he says, you know, "Thanks to God," and he talks about his faith, right? Can it do it without his religion, his faith, without God, and whatever he's talking about in terms of his faith? And then you see the other spectrum of some athletes where they, when they answer

• 8:18Lewis Howes?

  questions in an interview after a big game or something, they're extremely cocky, they're extremely about themselves, I did this, I did that, uh, me, me, me, and they, they're so confident and cocky that they have put the work and the time in that they have the athletic ability and that no one can stop them. It's all about the trash talk, it's all about, um, you know, show me the money, it's all about them, right? So there's two different approaches. And then you have everyone else who's kind of just like average or they're great, but they're not the best. And, uh, maybe it's because they're not leaning one way or another. Maybe they don't have a strong faith in themselves

• 8:59Lewis Howes?

  or a strong faith in God. But they're just great athletes, they perform well, they get the job done, right? So they believe so strongly that God or their creator has given them strength, or that they have put so much energy in perfecting their body and their skills, that they believe they're the best in the world at what they do. Either way, something I want to point out is it's important to know what they have in common. They have this certainty about them that is so strong, it doesn't matter whether it's God or themselves, it's that they have the certainty about it. They are so certain that something is giving them

• 9:42Lewis Howes?

  the strength, the ability to be the best in the world. Now, some people choose to put it in faith or God and put it over there in that category, and other people choose to put it on themselves. Now, I just want to talk about the definition of belief really quick. I grabbed this online on the, uh, I think I got the Webster dictionary. So the definition of belief is a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or thing. So again, belief, uh, a state or habit of mind in which trust or confidence is placed in some person or belief. Now, the definition of faith is this,

• 10:22Lewis Howes?

  a belief and trust in and loyalty to God, a firm belief in something for which there is no proof. So what I want to talk about really quickly is an excerpt I saw in an article on BBC.co.uk. And the article title is "How to Build an Olympic Champion: Be Religious." And I'll have links to the show. If you go to schoolofgreatness.com, you'll see links to this article so you can read the entire thing. But there's a couple of parts in this article I want to mention. It talks about a book called "The Inner Game of Tennis." Now, the overarching premise of this book is

• 11:07Lewis Howes?

  that optimal performances come when only you perform intuitively. So when you perform intuitively is when optimal performances comes about. Or when you're performing in the flow or in the zone, as other athletes might call it. So in this article, it says, "As soon as you start thinking too much about the way you're playing, that voice in your head starts building your self-doubt, which creates a mental disconnect, taking you away from the zone and not allowing you to perform at the highest level that you possibly could." Now, "The Inner Game," the book, "Approach," teaches athletes to avoid the opportunity for self-doubt by focusing on other things,

• 11:52Lewis Howes?

  such as the sounds of tennis play. Religion in the shape of prayers and rituals can also help block out self-doubt in a similar way, says this article. Now, it's interesting. They talk about two different things. Focusing on other things, so the sounds of tennis play or counting your steps or something else, or religion, which is prayers and rituals, to help you block out self-doubt in some way, shape, or form. And this works on two levels. Firstly, some athletes use religious rituals to give them a sense of control over what happens before and during competition. So they use these rituals.

• 12:33Lewis Howes?

  To control what is happening during the competition, maybe to help them with nerves, maybe to help them with self doubt, all these different things. It might be as simple as making a silent prayer as they enter the stadium, or having inspirational words in the Bible stitched into their shorts. As a friend of mine, world champion boxer Evander Holyfield often did, and I was introduced to Evander Holyfield through Ben Sterner, who used to represent him in the sponsorship world. Shout out to Ben Sterner, good buddy of mine. Now, Jonathan Edwards, this is interesting. Olympic gold medalist in the triple jump expressed this. He said, "My faith was pivotal to my success,

• 13:17Lewis Howes?

  and believing in something beyond the self can have a hugely beneficial psychological impact, even if the belief is fallacious, right? It provided a profound sense of reassurance because I took the view that the result was in God's hands and that God was on my side. It enabled me to block out doubt before I was due to jump." So, there's a couple interesting points here. He said that it was pivotal to his success in being an Olympic gold medalist because he was able to put the pressure off of himself and really put it on his faith, which is God for him.

• 13:59Lewis Howes?

  And it gave him the reassurance that if he put the results in God's hands, then God was on his side. So that's something he believed in. He put so much certainty and belief that it wasn't in his hands, that he had performed the best he could, and he put it in God's hands, took the pressure off him completely, allowed him to perform in the zone without distractions. I'm sure he was still distracted, but it gave him a better opportunity to jump and perform at the Olympics without distractions. Now, this is very, very interesting. Because you see these athletes who put a lot of faith in God, and you see them doing extremely well.

• 14:41Lewis Howes?

  But let's talk about some ways, let's say maybe you, maybe you are into faith, you have, you know, a strong religious view, which is completely fine, or you don't have a strong religious view. I'm not, I'm not saying one way or the other is good or bad. I'm just trying to show you two different sides of the coin here. I want to talk about how to build confidence and belief in yourself. Some things you can do, whether you have faith or you don't have faith in, in God or religion. I just want to talk about some things that I've, that I've used to help build confidence in myself, and I've seen others do this as well. So here's a list of eight things that I've put together. Feel free to write these down, or just try to keep a mental note of them all. Something I love, this is point number one.

• 15:25Lewis Howes?

  Something I love is starting with gratitude. Start and finish every day with gratitude and try to be grateful as often as possible for everything that you're having, not, not being ungrateful for the things that you don't have. So start with gratitude. The more grateful you are, the better you feel about yourself, the better your day will go. Even when things are going bad, just be grateful. It just seems to uplift you a little bit and make you feel better, make you feel more confident whenever I'm more grateful. So start with gratitude. Number two, on how to build confidence and belief in yourself. Focus on posture and stand like a winner. Now, this is something I saw from Tony Robbins.

• 16:09Lewis Howes?

  I went to a Tony Robbins event once. It was called Unleash the Power, I think it was called Unleash the Power Within. And awesome experience, actually, going to this event. One of the things I remember that stuck out from this event, except for, you know, except for the fact that he was a mutant and was on stage for like 13 hours and never took a break for food or water or anything. It was pretty amazing just to see him perform up there. But one of the things he talked about was posture, and that you can change your state, your physical and emotional state, just by lifting your chest up a little bit and by tilting your head up and just having better posture. Now, think about this, let's do an experiment together.

• 16:51Lewis Howes?

  If you slouch your shoulders forward and down, and you put your head down. And you start collapsing your chest and you start rolling your spine over. Just do this experiment for me right now, just see how this feels. I'm doing this right now and it's actually very uncomfortable. If you try to lean, roll your back forward and put your shoulders forward. I'm already starting to feel tension in my shoulders and the joints in my shoulders. I feel very out of alignment and I feel like I can't really breathe that well because I've kind of collapsed my lungs, right? Now, if I put my shoulders back, back in their sockets and I roll my chest,

• 17:32Lewis Howes?

  just lift it up gently and I tilt my head up and my back is straight and it's strong and it's sturdy and I've got a foundation. I feel already more powerful and more certain. And I want you to focus more on posture and stand like a winner. Now, for us tall guys, I'm 6'4", so it's hard to stand tall sometimes, especially when you're talking with people who are 5'3". You want to kind of slouch down and get, make sure you're, they can hear you. And, uh, but I want to tell you, just focus on posture, standing tall and standing like a winner. The more you do that, the more you can get a condition, your belief and confidence in yourself. Number three is dress clean.

• 18:17Lewis Howes?

  Now, you don't need to wear a suit every day and you don't need to wear, you know, a tie or anything like that. I often wear just clean sneakers, a good pair of jeans and a comfy v-neck. And I just want you to dress semi-clean. Now, have your own personality, have your own style, do whatever you want to do, but just dress as clean as you can. If that means increasing your wardrobe a little bit. I hate shopping. I hate going to trying on clothes. I just like to go pick something out that I need and putting it on, right? But try to dress a little cleaner. I've invested in more better clothes. I've invested in things that fit better, that are more comfortable. Just try to dress as clean as possible. Other people are gonna notice it. Uh, you're gonna notice it, you're gonna feel better when you do that.

• 19:02Lewis Howes?

  And uh, it's gonna help you build that confidence. So number four, this is something that I am strong about. And I hope you guys will take this on. Number four is walk with a purpose. So I lived, I had the, you know, the great experience of living in New York City for about a year, little over a year, year and a half. And before I lived in Ohio. Now Ohio is very laid back, it's casual, I was living in Columbus, Ohio, which is a, a major city, but it's still kinda laid back in Midwest. When I moved to New York, you had to walk with a purpose or you're about to get knocked out on the streets, right? Because so many people are walking and going everywhere, there's, there's commotion, there's chaos, you've gotta walk with a purpose to get to where you wanna be

• 19:46Lewis Howes?

  in order to make sure you get there on time and without getting hurt. So I want you to focus on walking with a purpose. That means having great posture when you walk and walking with authority. When you do that, you're gonna feel better, people are gonna notice you and be like, whoa, they're just gonna automatically assume that you're a confident person. And they're gonna believe in you because you're believing in yourself by the way your posture is and by the way you're walking. So walk with a purpose. Number five, talk with a purpose. So here's the thing. If you don't believe in what you're saying to other people, if you are struggling to get the words out, if you're struggling to, you know,

• 20:31Lewis Howes?

  convince people in what you're saying or to just have them take action in what you're saying, then uh, you've gotta change that up. You've gotta mix that up or else no one's gonna believe in you and no one's gonna have confidence in you. So just, this is the whole fake it until you make it theory. You've gotta start talking with a purpose, uh, being uh, very punctual in what you're saying and just...

• 20:53Lewis Howes?

  And just own it, simply own it. So talk with a purpose because others will notice and it's going to build your own confidence as well. Number six, this is something that I think is important as well. These are all extremely important in their own right. So number six is praise and add value to others. So when I mean praise others, I like to compliment people. I like to say, you know, don't lie to people, but obviously compliment them in ways that is adding value to them. So if you notice someone's lost a few pounds or is, you know, looks good in what they're wearing, or you liked something they did, maybe they did something awesome in business, or they're in the media recently. So you can say, congratulations on your achievements or your

• 21:37Lewis Howes?

  success lately, or congratulations on losing 10 pounds, or wow, your face is really glowing, you know, congratulations, or you look amazing right now. I just like to praise and add value to others in any way I can. And the more you do that, you're going to make other people feel better about themselves. And that's going to help you build confidence and belief in yourself because they're going to appreciate that from you as well. So take the time to just show other people you care by praising them or adding value for them. So number seven, this has become a major factor in my life over the last year and a half since I moved to New York City. And this number seven point is to value your body. Now, when I mean value your body, I mean take care of

• 22:21Lewis Howes?

  your health. Now, this is, this is your temple, right? You've got to have control over your temple and be aware of what you're putting inside of your system. Your system can't run on junk food all day for your whole life. It just can't. I don't, I don't even know how I'm alive right now based on all the sugar I've eaten as a kid. I used to eat candy bars for breakfast and lunch and dinner, and I would have dessert after every meal, three desserts, and I'd have a milkshake at 2:00 a.m. I don't know how I'm actually alive still. And I started really learning and educating about foods and drinking green juice every day and eating more organic foods and local foods.

• 23:04Lewis Howes?

  And the more, you know, I'm not, I'm still not perfect. I still have lots of sweets, but a lot less than I used to. So start putting value in your body and the nutrition that you put into your body. Okay. Number eight is celebrate the small wins like you won the Super Bowl.

• 23:22Lewis Howes?

  There's, you know, in order to gain confidence and belief in yourself, you've got to appreciate the little things that happen every day. So if you get a client, or if you, let's say you're doing online marketing and you get five new emails that opted into your email newsletter. You know, acknowledge that for yourself and say, wow, I did a good job today. You know, I got a couple of emails. I would like to get more tomorrow, but this is still great. And give yourself congratulations. Be happy, but never satisfied, right? Be happy with where you're at and, but strive for more. Okay, so celebrate the small wins like you won the Super Bowl. That's my kind of eight steps on how to build confidence and belief in yourself.

• 24:05Lewis Howes?

  Now, I want to talk really quickly about how to change a belief system. And I'm about to finish up this solo round, but I want to finish with this on how to change a belief system. So let's say you've got this belief that you're, you don't know how to grow a business and you're never going to be able to build a business. This belief that you're going to be stuck at your job and you're miserable at your job. You don't know how to get out of it. A belief that you're never going to be good enough, that you're always second best to someone else. A belief that you're always going to have unhealthy relationships or that you're never going to lose the weight are all these different excuses and beliefs about yourself.

• 24:45Lewis Howes?

  What can you do to begin the process so that your belief system changes into a more positive one? There's a few things you can do. And first thing is just being aware of what's happening inside your thoughts, inside your mind. And just take some notes on this. It could be, you can write this down or you can take some mental notes. But what are the beliefs you have about yourself right now that you believe are true? Ask yourself these questions and ask, what is it that I'm holding on to? What is this belief that I'm holding on to? What's the results?

• 25:23Lewis Howes?

  Do I constantly get that I'd like to get differently, that I'd like to change? Now, think about that. That's all you need to do is just think about and be aware. What are the things that are happening and how, um, what are the things that I don't want to happen anymore? What belief would I like to change? Think about that. The second thing is to, uh, replace those beliefs with a more positive one. So after you make yourself aware of all the negative things you're holding on to, all those self doubts and those things that you think you can never change, uh, you want to start removing them and start replacing them with new thoughts, new ideas, new beliefs and a new confidence in yourself. So the only thing that's true is what you believe is true.

• 26:07Lewis Howes?

  Remember that quote from the beginning, "The only thing that's true is what you believe is true." Whether you think you're, uh, can or you think you can't, you're right. So you can change these thoughts at any time. It's going to take habits, consistent habits to get rid of the belief, the negative beliefs, so that you can move forward to a more positive one. So it's not gonna ha- it may not happen overnight, so I don't want you to get frustrated and, and just give up if it's not happening right away. But you need to start removing these negative beliefs with positive beliefs, with the beliefs that you want to have. So if you're used to saying, "Ah, every relationship I end is so unhealthy and is so unproductive and I nev- there's never gonna be a guy for me out there, or never gonna be a girl out there for me,

• 26:49Lewis Howes?

  who's gonna uplift me, or give me energy, or help me achieve my goals, or inspire me." Instead, start changing that around. Start changing the ideas around to, yes, there are people out there who can help me and inspire me and uplift me, and this doesn't have to happen anymore. So you can make the decision and start reprogramming that, reprogramming this inside of your, your thoughts, uh, and start thinking differently about yourself. So just start replacing them, start being aware of the things that are happening and make sure to replace them when they come up in your mind, because they're gonna keep coming up. If these are ingrained, if these belief systems are ingrained in your mind for, you know, however old you are, it's gonna take some time to remove them. It's okay.

• 27:33Lewis Howes?

  You just want to stay consistent with being aware and replace them if you ever start to tell yourself these things again. And the third thing would be to, to just take action. So whenever you're- Whenever you are feeling these things, just take action, do something positive. Again, go over those eight steps that I talked about on how to build confidence and belief in yourself. Start doing those, be grateful for your, what you have currently. Uh, you know, start focusing on your posture, stand like a winner, value your body, praise others, things like that. So those are the three things you can do is really be aware of what's happening in your side of your thoughts. Remove and replace them and then just continue to take action.

• 28:18Lewis Howes?

  So this is, uh, again, my first solo round and it was all about the power of belief. Now, hopefully you guys enjoyed this so far and you'll request me to do more of these in the future. And, um, I'm excited about this podcast, guys. This one, the power of belief, I, I like transferring ideas from sports into business and life. And the greatest athletes in the world have one of two things. They have a strong belief in themself or a strong belief in God. And I want you guys to believe in whatever positive thing you need to believe in to help you achieve the results you're looking for.

• 29:01Lewis Howes?

  Whether it be in business and sports and life and relationships and your health. You gotta have the belief that you can get it done. You've gotta believe it, right? Whatever, whether you think you can, you think you can't, you're absolutely right. With that, guys, thanks so much for checking out my solo round. Please leave a five star review and I'll give you guys some shout outs in the next one. For people who do leave reviews, I really appreciate and value every review you guys leave me. Um, if you guys have any questions or if you guys have any thoughts on this, if you think I'm completely full of you know what? Or if you liked some of the things I talked about today about building belief and confidence.

• 29:43Lewis Howes?

  And the power of belief, feel free to head over to school of greatness.com right now and leave a comment on the article where this interview is posted. And let me know your thoughts. Do you think there are other ways to achieve greatness? Um, besides being having a strong belief in yourself or strong belief in God? Do you think that's the only way that athletes can be amazing? And can be the best athletes in the world is one of those two things? Let me know your thoughts. If you think I'm full of crap, or if you think I'm right, I want to hear from you guys. Please leave a comment over on the blog as I appreciate your interaction with my ideas on this podcast.

• 30:26Lewis Howes?

  With that, guys, make sure to check out again, our sponsor on it.com. And, uh, these guys are rocking it right now. I'm loving their products. I'm loving the way it makes me feel when I'm performing. I'm loving the alpha brain, which allows me to have more mental performance and peak performance when I'm working. And keeping me focused throughout the entire day. So again, you've got that coupon code for 10% off at checkout. And the coupon is greatness. So just type in greatness at the checkout, you're gonna get 10% off. Go ahead and check out some of that stuff and let them know I sent you. With that, guys, hope you have a fantastic day and make it great.