812 Calm Your Mind and Master Meditation

MEDITATION WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE. A lot of us are suffering, and we don’t even realize it. We’re always on the move. We’re always doing. We’re balancing so many responsibilities. We don’t take time to quiet our minds so that we can start to understand what’s going on up there. That’s why meditation is so powerful. It allows you to get to the root of your problems instead of constantly fixing the symptoms. It’s like flossing your brain. Meditation will get all “gunk” out. On today’s episode of The School of Greatness, I’ve combined interviews with experts on meditation: Jay Shetty, Preethaji, Krishnaji, Dan Harris, and Andy Puddacomb. Jay Shetty is a former monk who was named in the Forbes 30 Under 30 Class of 2017 for being a game-changer and influencer in the world of Media. Jay’s daily show HuffPost Live #FollowTheReader, where he interviewed the likes of Russell Brand, Tim Ferriss and Deepak Chopra reached 1 million people daily. Jay aims to share knowledge at the pace we want entertainment, something he likes to call “making wisdom go viral.” He has created content for and partnered with Snapchat, Facebook, National Geographic, Nasdaq and HuffPost to name a few. Preethaji is a modern day Indian philosopher and sage who has co-founded along with her husband Krishnaji the O&O Academy (school to revolutionize and transform human thought), World Youth Change Makers (an elite community of youth redirecting the future of the world through a revolution in consciousness), and One Humanity Care (a Foundation working with the vision to uplift 10,000 villages in India). Dan Harris is correspondent for ABC News, an anchor for Nightline and co-anchor for the weekend edition of Good Morning America. Harris encourages the use of meditation, and his "10% Happier" podcasts are interviews with other meditators. Harris' book, 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Really Works – a True Story, was published in March 2014. Andy Puddicombe is a meditation and mindfulness expert. An accomplished presenter and writer, Andy is the voice of all things Headspace. In his early twenties, midway through a university degree in Sports Science, Andy made the unexpected decision to travel to The Himalayas to study meditation instead. These masters explain the importance of meditation, the common misconceptions, and the science behind it all. It’s a lot more straightforward than you might think. So get ready to learn all about meditation on Episode 812. Some Questions I Ask: What’s the biggest lesson you learned from being a monk (5:45) What’s the intention you set every morning? (10:45) Why do we focus so much on suffering when it only hurts us? (21:10) What’s the importance of a spiritual vision? (22:35) Why is meditation so powerful? (24:45) Why is mindfulness meditation healing and how can we know what’s for us? (29:00) In This Episode You Will Learn: Why you need to deal with the root of the problem instead of relief of symptoms (7:00) A three-minute meditation to connect you to your emotions (13:00) How to end all suffering (20:40) About “mindfulness meditation” (28:30) Three tips for meditation (37:00) 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.

• 0:03Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 812, Calm Your Mind and Master Meditation. 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.

• 0:35Lewis Howes?

  Eckhart Tolle said, "You have a treasure within you that is infinitely greater than anything the world can offer." And Marcus Aurelius said, "Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul." This is all about calming your mind and becoming the master of meditation for yourself, whatever that looks like for you. I've got some incredible leaders in this space, the top in the world at what they do in meditation and calming the mind. Here to reveal the strategies, the secrets, the techniques to support you in doing just that.

• 1:18Lewis Howes?

  Jay Shetty is a former monk, award-winning host storyteller and viral content creator. He's got over 24 million followers globally on Facebook, millions of people on YouTube and Instagram, learning how to become more wise in their own way through his content. Pritha G. and Krishna G., founders of One World Academy in India. They do workshops and retreats around the world to help people tap into their own consciousness and find peace within on a daily basis.

• 1:54Lewis Howes?

  Dan Harris is an Emmy Award winning ABC News correspondent whose panic attack live on Good Morning America led him to something he always thought was ridiculous, which is meditation. He went on to write bestselling book 10% happier. And he started the app 10% happier meditation for fidgety skeptics. He's got a podcast 10% happier with Dan Harris. Interviews guests on whether you can still be ambitious and pursue enlightenment. And Andy Petticoat, who is a meditation and mindfulness expert, an accomplished speaker, author of many books and founder and the voice of Headspace. Here to bring you wisdom on how to bring more calm in your minds.

• 2:38Lewis Howes?

  And in this episode, we talk about the single thing that is with you your entire life. The three minute meditation that will connect you with your emotions. How to release yourself from suffering. Why objectifying your thoughts is so important. The science behind the benefits of meditation and so much more. Get ready to tap into your soul and tap into your heart. In this episode, make sure to share with your friends. If you know anyone who's dealing with stress these days, just take this link, text them, post it all over your social media accounts. Tag me at Lewis Howes on Instagram stories and let me know you're listening and share this. And be a champion to someone who is dealing with stress in their life today.

• 3:23Lewis Howes?

  LewisHowes.com/812 to send them the meditation episode. All right, my friends, get ready, get excited and get ready to tap into the power of meditation and calming your mind.

• 3:41Jay Shetty?

  So I remember my first day of monk school. I've just shaved my head. I'm now wearing robes. I still look like I'm from London, like I can't get away with it. I'm walking around and I noticed this monk who's teaching. This monk's 10 years old and he's teaching a group of five year old monks. Right. And I see him teaching, he looks like an adult, like, you know, his ability to like teach these five year olds and conduct himself. And he's got this great aura about him. And so I'm kind of eavesdropping on his class. I can't obviously go and sit with a bunch of five year olds, even though I really want to, because I'm like, I feel like a five year old next to that 10 year old. And I went up to him, I said, what are you doing? And he said, oh, well, we just taught their first class ever. And I said, oh, cool. And he said, well, what did you learn in your first class at school?

• 4:26Jay Shetty?

  And I said, oh, well, I learned the alphabet and numbers. And I said, well, what did they learn? He said, do you wanna know what they learned on their first day of school? I said, yeah, of course. He said, the first thing that we teach them, the first thing you learn at monk school is learning how to breathe. I said, why? He said, because we're taught that the only thing that stays with you from the moment you're born to the moment you die is your breath.

• 4:51Jay Shetty?

  All your friends, family, the country you live in, all of that's gonna change. The only thing that doesn't change, that stays with you from the moment you're born to the moment you die, is your breath. And he said, notice, when you get stressed, what changes? Your breath. When you get angry, what changes? Your breath. When you're sad, what changes? Your breath. When you're happy, what changes? Your breath. Every emotion is experienced with the change of the breath. So he said, when you learn how to navigate and manage your breath, you can actually navigate any situation in life. And I was just blown away. I was just like, wow. And then I remember researching it and noticing how athletes were taught how to breathe,

• 5:33Jay Shetty?

  musicians, singers, especially those who play wind instruments who have to reach really high notes. They're all trained how to breathe because they have to use their breath in challenging, stressful, pressure-filled situations. But I was like, so are all of us. You've gotta go on stage in front of 10,000 people. You've gotta go do a concert. You just lost a deal or a contract. Our breath changes in all those scenarios, yet we don't know how to use our breath to change our life. And so for me, that was a huge learning point where I just thought, wow, that's what you're taught. The priority is on the root of things, not the leaf or the symptoms. And that's the biggest thing about living as a monk. You're not dealing with your challenges at symptomatic level.

• 6:18Jay Shetty?

  You're dealing with it at root level. Right? People say, oh, if you're stressed out, just take a stress pill. If you're stressed out, just go to get a massage. If you're stressed out, just, just relax, watch Netflix and chill. But all that's doing is pacifying you, escape for that hour, two hours, maybe a week. But going to the root of it and learning how to change your breath, I mean, you can manage any situation in life. And that principle, that's an example of the principle, which is so much deeper, that always go to the root. It will take longer, but it will last longer.

• 6:51Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 6:52Jay Shetty?

  Right? If you go to the root, it takes longer, but it lasts longer. But if you go for the symptom, you get it quick and it lasts. And it never lasts, and we don't know that.

• 7:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 7:02Jay Shetty?

  So that was the deepest principle I learned as a monk. You always go to the root. Cut down the root of that weed in your heart. Cut down the root of that weed in your mind. Don't just let it grow and kind of water a little bit and snip, snip, cut a bit. Like, just really go to the root and just knock it out, you know, just get rid of it. Get a big axe and cut it down.

• 7:19Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Are there any weeds in your life right now?

• 7:21Jay Shetty?

  Loads.

• 7:22Lewis Howes?

  In your heart or in your mind?

• 7:24Jay Shetty?

  Always. My daily practice is to refine my intention. The biggest weeds that we all get is on our intention. So when I say intention, I mean, my current intention is to use everything I've been given, everything that I have in the service of others. So I wanna use the following that I have to help people. I wanna use the money that I have to help people. I wanna use the network that I have to help people. But every day, that intention, which is a beautiful little plant that's growing, gets weeds around it. No, do it for the money. I hear that voice, right?

• 7:59Lewis Howes?

  Do it for the fame.

• 8:00Jay Shetty?

  Just do it for the fame, do it for the followers, do it for this, all these weeds are like going around. My real intention every day, every day. That's a weed. A weed is the intention that you don't want. And the problem is, sometimes you've let it grow so much, the weed looks like the plant. Right? The weed looks like your intention, and you start believing it's the same thing. So for me, my daily practice is going back in, reflecting on what is my voice right now in my head? What am I saying to myself? And I'm hearing, make that deal, it makes a lot of money, do this, do that, do this, more followers, fame, all that stuff. And I'm cutting it down. I'm cutting that weed every day. And you've got to do it every day, because the more you're surrounded by that energy.

• 8:43Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 8:43Jay Shetty?

  The more it's gonna keep creeping in, like a creeper weed, right? Like, I'm just using the plant analogy because I don't garden at all, by the way. Like, I have no idea, but...

• 8:52Lewis Howes?

  What's the intention you set every morning for yourself then? If it's going back to the... The core of what you really wanna create, what is that thing you wanna create the most? Service?

• 9:01Jay Shetty?

  Yes, service. To help people find their purpose, whatever that may be, and help them help other people find their purpose. I think Mark Zuckerberg said it brilliantly at Harvard. He was saying that finding your purpose isn't enough. You have to help other people find theirs. And I know you're passionate about this. Whatever that definition is, but it has to lead everyone. So if I'm, whether I meet a celebrity, an entrepreneur, or whether I meet somebody who's starting out, I'm always asking them the question, how can you use what you have to make a difference in the life of other people?

• 9:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 9:30Jay Shetty?

  Because if you start there, everything else will work out. But if you're starting from the point of, what am I gonna get? Then you're always gonna feel disconnected. And I see that. I see people who live like that and feel pain in their lives every day. I see that. It's not like some conceptual philosophy. We see it. I see people who are only in it for themselves and they feel disconnected, dissatisfied every single day. And then you see the other extreme where people are just trying to give too much more than they even have themselves and they also feel disconnected.

• 9:59Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 10:00Jay Shetty?

  And again.

• 10:00Lewis Howes?

  And they have nothing at all.

• 10:01Jay Shetty?

  And they have nothing at all, right? So we know, again, attachment and aversion, two sides of the same coin.

• 10:06Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 10:07Jay Shetty?

  So we wanna be in that dynamic balance of growth, but always to give.

• 10:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 10:11Jay Shetty?

  So I always think, how can I go three steps deeper so that I can move three steps forward so I can give three times as much? Right? It's, that's always my mentality. How do I go deeper to go more forward to give more?

• 10:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 10:25Jay Shetty?

  And if I can get those three in action for that reason... See, it's all about the reasoning. You can do anything you like, but it's why are you doing it?

• 10:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course, yeah.

• 10:40Speaker 03

  For most part of our lives, we really don't know that we're suffering. We don't know that we are in this limiting states of anger, of fear, of frustration, of stress, of anxiety. Yes?

• 10:51Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 10:52Speaker 03

  We feel, in that space, life feels so difficult.

• 10:56Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 10:57Speaker 03

  In that space, life feels so painful, so heavy. So we have a practice, even the smallest three-minute practice that we see. Get to your emotion. What is, what is, what is the exact emotion that is arising within you now?

• 11:13Speaker 03

  It is a small practice for three minutes. So people learn that practice, they know what exactly they're feeling. And it involves a small technique of visualization to move them away from a place of... that emotion to a place of calm.

• 11:27Lewis Howes?

  Should we try it?

• 11:29Speaker 03

  Yes, definitely.

• 11:30Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 11:30Speaker 03

  You want to try?

• 11:31Lewis Howes?

  Sure, or do you want to try with me, or the audience, or both of us?

• 11:34Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 11:35Lewis Howes?

  Okay, perfect.

• 11:37Speaker 03

  Close your eyes.

• 11:40Speaker 03

  Can you practice three conscious breaths? Where you inhale deep

• 11:47Speaker 03

  and let your exhalation be prolonged.

• 11:52Speaker 03

  So let us do it for three conscious breaths.

• 12:29Speaker 03

  What is the exact emotion that is arising within you right now?

• 12:38Speaker 03

  It can be an emotion which is limiting. Say anger, fear, frustration, stress, anxiety.

• 12:49Speaker 03

  Or it could be

• 12:52Speaker 03

  an emotion which is a beautiful state. It can be a state of calm, peace, love, joy,

• 13:01Speaker 03

  serenity, or bliss.

• 13:05Speaker 03

  Recognize the exact emotion that is arising right now.

• 13:20Speaker 03

  As you recognize this emotion, observe your mindset.

• 13:27Speaker 03

  Where is your thinking revolving around? Is it moving into the past? Or moving into the future?

• 13:36Speaker 03

  Or is it moving in the present?

• 13:44Speaker 03

  Are you just in the present? Observe your thinking.

• 13:50Speaker 03

  If you're obsessing about your past, or obsessing about your future, or are you in the present?

• 14:22Speaker 03

  Now visualize a candle flame glowing in the middle of your skull.

• 14:31Speaker 03

  The place around your pineal gland.

• 14:35Speaker 03

  Visualize the candle flame glowing.

• 15:26Speaker 03

  When you're ready, may I open your eyes?

• 15:32Lewis Howes?

  So why, why that process? What does that process do for us?

• 15:37Speaker 03

  It actually helps in getting in touch with your emotion. You don't know. You feel so clouded because you're so fast. You have to do one after the other. You have to send your children to school, then you have to get to work. And then you have to attend to all the problems there, the challenges there, then get back. Life is so fast.

• 15:55Lewis Howes?

  We're reacting a lot.

• 15:56Speaker 03

  We are reacting, not even knowing from which place you're coming.

• 16:00Lewis Howes?

  So this process is to be aware of how we're feeling?

• 16:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, and it is just a three-minute process. It doesn't take longer than three minutes.

• 16:08Lewis Howes?

  So when we're aware of that, okay, I'm frustrated.

• 16:11Speaker 03

  Actually, what happens is, if you think this has to brain. This is how the brain looks, right?

• 16:17Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 16:17Speaker 03

  So the interactivity around the brain when you're in the negative states. When you call it negative states, the limiting states where you feel separate. It's about fear or anger or frustration. It is this part of the brain, just the limbic system that gets activated.

• 16:30Lewis Howes?

  When we're frustrated or angry?

• 16:32Speaker 03

  When you're frustrated and angry, so this, this entire part, we can call it the neocortex. And this part of the brain is responsible for analytical thinking and logical thinking. So we're not concerned about it. We have enough schooling already happening and all skills given to.

• 16:47Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 16:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, so the journey that is happening right now, a journey, a moment within, a moment of actually knowing what is happening. It focuses on activating the mid prefrontal cortex. Mid prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for experiencing the expansion and experiencing connection. And it's a place of greater wisdom.

• 17:14Speaker 03

  This small practice that we did kind of moves away from the limbic, activity from the limbic system to the mid prefrontal cortex.

• 17:21Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, okay. So we're activating a different part of our brain?

• 17:25Speaker 03

  Different part of the brain, which is, which is kind of neglected.

• 17:28Lewis Howes?

  Refocusing our attention on something different. How did you learn all this?

• 17:32Speaker 03

  We want to help people.

• 17:34Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 17:34Speaker 03

  We want to help them move out of the suffering states to a beautiful state. We know life can be lived out of a beautiful state.

• 17:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 17:41Speaker 03

  You don't need to suffer all along in order to create wealth. You don't need to suffer all along to achieve. You don't need to suffer being those painful states of stress and anxiety.

• 17:51Speaker 03

  Because if you're not in that space, you can create so much, you can innovate so much, you can create nurturing relationships. You can stay in a beautiful state at all the time, having the space of joy, and then still go about doing whatever you want to achieve, but in a more, what do you say?

• 18:14Speaker 03

  More intelligent way?

• 18:15Speaker 05

  Intentional, yeah, yeah.

• 18:24Speaker 05

  The beauty is when you look at the truth, the freedom is automatic.

• 18:27Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 18:27Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 18:28Lewis Howes?

  So nothing else needs to happen?

• 18:30Speaker 05

  Nothing else needs to happen.

• 18:31Lewis Howes?

  And look at the truth, you see it?

• 18:32Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 18:32Lewis Howes?

  And realize it's about me, I'm suffering because of my obsessive self-centered thinking.

• 18:37Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 18:37Lewis Howes?

  And once I recognize that, then the suffering goes away?

• 18:39Speaker 05

  Yes, because you clearly see that you have moved away from love, you have moved away from connection, you have moved away from courage, you have moved away from vision, your passion to yourself. So you have moved away from also addressing your problems to yourself. Then you are in the space of really answering the question, what is important to me? Am I going to keep suffering like this and obsessing about myself?

• 19:02Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 19:03Speaker 05

  Or if I have a problem with my children or with my wife, am I going to move to a beautiful state and address that problem? Because I need to address it, because if I go on this path of suffering, everything around me is going to get destroyed.

• 19:17Lewis Howes?

  So that's, I feel like a lot of people inflict suffering themselves, whether through their beliefs, through religion or through family stuff, they just, they feel like they have to suffer to, I don't know, live better in the afterlife or do something or give back in some way. What is that doing for us? Why do we focus so much on suffering? When it only hurts us more and more and takes us away from joy?

• 19:40Speaker 05

  Well, the first answer is we don't know how to come out of the suffering. That's the first one. The second answer is we really do not have a stronger, deeper purpose for our relationships. We need to find those answers. And the third one is we need to look at the truth. See, I was in London giving a talk when we started in 2009, 2010. And there was this woman who stood up and asked me this question. Krishnaji, I understand these two states and everything, but throughout my life, I have been taught that if you suffer from there, your passion to... Uh get more in life or achieve more in life uh is easier. Because now you have learned a lot, you have suffered.

• 20:24Lewis Howes?

  Now you're driven or something.

• 20:25Speaker 05

  Now you are driven. So I just told you that you just do not have, you have just not learned the art of creating success from a beautiful state. That's it.

• 20:34Lewis Howes?

  From inspiration as opposed to proving people wrong or.

• 20:38Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 20:39Lewis Howes?

  Trying to make yourself look good.

• 20:40Speaker 05

  Yes, absolutely.

• 20:42Lewis Howes?

  So what's the importance of a spiritual vision? And if we don't have one, what's gonna happen to us?

• 20:48Speaker 05

  Well, if we don't have one, we are going to suffer.

• 20:51Lewis Howes?

  We don't have a spiritual vision?

• 20:52Speaker 05

  Yes. Because spiritual vision is all about uh living in a beautiful state and acting from that beautiful state. Addressing your problems from a beautiful state, not from a state of anger, not from a state of fear, insecurity, loneliness or depression, but a frame, but from a state of courage, passion, connection. So, so one needs to learn to live in this state. That should become the most important thing because as I told earlier, all experiences are happening within. So.

• 21:24Lewis Howes?

  It's our interpretation, right?

• 21:26Speaker 05

  One is our interpretation, two, if you're suffering, there's only one interpretation, it's about you.

• 21:33Lewis Howes?

  Right, okay, but there's experiences happening in the external world.

• 21:36Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 21:37Lewis Howes?

  And then we interpret it in a certain way internally.

• 21:40Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 21:40Lewis Howes?

  Right?

• 21:41Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 21:41Lewis Howes?

  And it's either suffering experience or not suffering.

• 21:45Speaker 05

  Yes, and you are right, but when suffering arises, you stop interpreting out the world. You're only thinking about yourself, okay? But if you're just interpreting out the world without suffering, then you are probably thinking about how do I solve this problem from a strategy point of view or just from, from a vision perspective. You're looking at, at how do I make this just better? You're not suffering, but you're just seeing it as practical, pragmatic, uh pragmaticly. So uh.

• 22:19Speaker 05

  So yeah, spiritual vision, I think, is the most important thing. Uh, if you do not learn to live in a beautiful state and learn to relate from that state, you will not be enjoying any of your relationships, be it your kids, your wife, your work, your profession, and yourself.

• 22:37Lewis Howes?

  So how do we cultivate that on a daily basis? Besides being aware of we're not suffering, but how do we just stay in that and cultivate it?

• 22:44Speaker 05

  Uh, there is, there are definitely certain meditations that we offer, which you can practice on a daily basis. Uh, those will help cultivate in a beautiful state.

• 22:53Lewis Howes?

  Why is meditation so powerful?

• 22:56Speaker 05

  Meditation is powerful because meditation becomes powerful when you apply this stuff. See, meditation should go along with this stuff.

• 23:04Lewis Howes?

  So not just meditating, but meditate, not understand why?

• 23:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, not understanding.

• 23:07Lewis Howes?

  Not understand why you're meditating?

• 23:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 23:09Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 23:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, you have to, there has to be a purpose for meditation. And that purpose must have the right path. Then you're meditating in the right way. Otherwise, meditation by itself has no purpose.

• 23:21Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 23:22Speaker 05

  It might make you just feel good, but you won't have achieved anything.

• 23:26Lewis Howes?

  Might help for a few hours, a few hours or a few minutes.

• 23:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 23:29Lewis Howes?

  What would you say to your spiritual vision then?

• 23:31Speaker 05

  My spiritual vision has always been, uh, to live in a beautiful, powerful state. And address my, uh, challenges and, uh, my vision in every aspect of my life from that state.

• 23:46Lewis Howes?

  How does this wisdom applying for business? Because you've built a number of successful businesses. You've done very well financially. How do you apply this mindset and this, this way of being in all of your relationships and the business? Because there's a lot of entrepreneurs watching.

• 24:00Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 24:01Lewis Howes?

  And what if you're like, well, this is just for your relationships, your family and your intimate relationships, but can this really be

• 24:08Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 24:09Lewis Howes?

  helpful for my career, my business?

• 24:11Speaker 05

  Yes. I have interacted with many business people and one of the strong emotions that they work from this competitiveness, they constantly compete with somebody else. Competitiveness. Competitiveness, yeah. So I was in a meeting with one guy here in India who's a very big business person and I was asking him, what's the vision and what's the purpose? And he was telling me like, I want to become better than that guy. Right. I want to do things better than that person. I want to get those projects. Then I told him, I don't think so that's going to work because that guy is good at what he's doing. So you need to find what you are good at and what you really love doing. Then I think

• 24:52Speaker 05

  you'll be far more successful. So I think it's very important, number one, to find what the vision is and number two, not to go about achieving that vision from a place of fear. See, we are constantly, most business people want to achieve from a space of fear. And after achieving, they don't want to lose what they've achieved. Again, it's fear. So there's definitely no enjoyment in this entire path. So I have done it from a beautiful state. If there's a challenge, because I can differentiate challenge and suffering, I address it. I see the sufferings about me and once I'm out of my suffering, there is immense clarity and power to address the challenge, whatever the challenge might

• 25:37Speaker 05

  be. Because now you've seen challenge as a challenge, you are not part of that. So then there's tremendous clarity to address those problems. Unfortunately, we make it too much about ourselves, we make it too much about our image, we make it too much about what people are constantly thinking about us. So if you bring awareness and if you start looking at the truth, then you will actually see that 70% or 80% of the time, you are spending thinking about yourself rather than your business.

• 26:13Speaker 07

  I do a lot now, so I've kind of jumped into the deep end of the pool, or at least I'm trying to. So I do two hours a day.

• 26:20Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 26:20Speaker 07

  But my, my way of doing that is I tell myself I can do it in whatever increments I want, whenever I want.

• 26:28Lewis Howes?

  Five minutes at a time.

• 26:29Speaker 07

  I could do five minutes. So this morning I had time, so I did 70 minutes. And so at some point during my goal during the rest of the day will be to get those 50 minutes in somehow.

• 26:39Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 26:40Speaker 07

  And I do straight up mindfulness meditation, which is, there are lots of permutations of that.

• 26:47Speaker 07

  So usually the basic instructions are just to feel your breath coming in and going out. And every time you get lost, go back to the breath. So I do a little bit of that, but I also do what's called noting practice, where drop my focus on the breath and just note whatever's happening in my field of consciousness. So thinking, feeling my butt on the chair, feeling the cold air coming in. Yeah, so it's, and what, the, why that's useful is in a sense, you're kind of like objectifying your thoughts and, and the sensations that come up in your consciousness. And so you're not taking it all so personally. And so when anger comes up in your real life, you're not yanked around by it. So when somebody cuts you off on the freeway.

• 27:30Lewis Howes?

  It's like someone just cut me off on the freeway, you know.

• 27:33Speaker 07

  You don't have to, you, you will get angry. You're not going to be like transformed into, you know, a, a, you know, a bowl of Jell-O, but

• 27:40Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 27:40Speaker 07

  you don't have to take the bait and act on it and start chasing that dude down the highway. Your kid's in the back of the car. So the, the, the cliche here, and I hate meditation cliches, but the one that I love is that what meditation teaches you how to do is respond wisely instead of reacting blindly. And that's the game. That is mindfulness.

• 28:00Lewis Howes?

  Why do you think we react so much to? So many situations in our day to day life.

• 28:04Speaker 07

  Because we're unaware of the central feature of our lives, which is our inner narrator. Nobody points out to us that this voice that's offering up terrible suggestions like, you know, eat the 18th cookie, or say the thing that's going to ruin the next 48 hours of your marriage, or whatever. Nobody points out that that voice is is full of shit. You know, that it's it's just a, you know, it is, um, has no relationship necessarily to reality. Sometimes it has great ideas, but you have to have.

• 28:33Lewis Howes?

  An awareness.

• 28:33Speaker 07

  Mindfulness. Yes, you have to be able to step out of the traffic and to see it with some non judgmental remove in order to figure out, in order to separate wheat from chaff, in order to figure out, oh, this is a good idea. This is a terrible one. Um, and and mindfulness is a basic human capacity we all have. It's our birthright. It's not just something like Eckhart Tolle and Deepak Chopra have. We all have it. Um, and all you, all you have to do is have it pointed out to you that you have this capacity to step out of the stream of consciousness a little bit and to see it without blindly reacting to it. And meditation teaches you how to do it.

• 29:07Lewis Howes?

  Why do you think we were wired and designed to be this way?

• 29:10Speaker 07

  You know, it's, you know, the best guess I've asked this people, I've asked this question a lot. I mean, we, we, um, you know, we evolved for threat detection, you know, we as a species evolved in a time when there were a lot of threats, you know, saber toothed tigers, um, other dangerous, uh, human beings, um, other animals. Um, and so we had to constantly be on guard. And what made us different from other animals is this ability to plan for the future and learn from the past. And so really we evolved. This part of the brain, the new part of the brain really evolved and allowed us to do some of the things that are the most remarkable feats of humanity. Like I was saying before, build, plan and build skyscrapers.

• 29:51Lewis Howes?

  Go to the moon, build a airplane.

• 29:53Speaker 07

  Correct. Yes, yes, yes. And but it also, you know, you don't see your dog spending a lot of time worrying, uh, or planning. This is by the same token, you know, the dog poops on the rug. So it's not.

• 30:04Lewis Howes?

  Mindful.

• 30:06Speaker 07

  I don't know if you want to call it, there's a difference between being present and mindful, right? But the dogs are present.

• 30:10Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 30:10Speaker 07

  You know, my cats are present. I don't know if they're mindful when they're puking on my bed, which they do.

• 30:17Lewis Howes?

  They all do, right?

• 30:18Speaker 07

  Mm hmm.

• 30:18Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man. Amazing. So no one's really given you a great answer except for that, that answer of-

• 30:23Speaker 07

  That's the guess. That's the guess. But clearly, we also have in our brains/minds this capacity to be mindful. So, and, and what, the genius of the Buddha, and, and I say this as a guy who describes himself as a Buddhist, but at the same time, I'm not religious. So I think Buddhism is not something to believe in, but something to do. The genius of the Buddha was, and, and lots of other people in history, by the way, not just the Buddha, but the Buddha is the guy who I just know the most about, is that he, he saw that we have, we have this ability to kind of hack our own minds-

• 30:57Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing.

• 30:57Speaker 07

  And get out of this rut.

• 30:59Lewis Howes?

  How many years ago was Buddha?

• 31:00Speaker 07

  Twenty-six hundred years ago.

• 31:02Lewis Howes?

  Pretty incredible.

• 31:02Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 31:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:03Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 31:05Lewis Howes?

  So what is, uh, what's next for this mindful space, this meditation space? There's a lot happening. There's a lot of voices, experts, books, apps. Where is it heading? And how can we know what's right for us? Or what can we start with?

• 31:20Speaker 07

  I think it's awesome. I think there's like kind of an explosion now where, where you're seeing it in corporations, you're seeing it in locker rooms, you're seeing it in, um-

• 31:28Lewis Howes?

  TV stations, probably.

• 31:29Speaker 07

  Absolutely. We have a meditation room on the 13th floor of, of our building.

• 31:33Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 31:33Speaker 07

  In ABC News. We have a meditation room.

• 31:35Lewis Howes?

  Do you go in there?

• 31:36Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 31:36Lewis Howes?

  Other people?

• 31:37Speaker 07

  I do. I do. I, when I go, it's usually, cause I, I usually go before, uh, I anchored Nightline, and so I'm by myself, but there are three o'clock meditations almost every day.

• 31:46Lewis Howes?

  No way. So someone's leading the meditation.

• 31:48Speaker 07

  Actually, you know, they use the meditations from our app.

• 31:51Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 31:52Speaker 07

  In the room.

• 31:52Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 31:53Speaker 07

  And sometimes people lead it, and it's a whole mix. But it's taken off on its own. Lots of corporations have meditation rooms now. Um, uh, lots of, you know, I mentioned before, the lead singer of Weezer is a daily meditator, Katy Perry, Lena Dunham, 50 Cent.

• 32:07Lewis Howes?

  Lot of people, yeah.

• 32:08Speaker 07

  Lot of people are meditating. So I think it's an awesome thing. I don't know where it's all heading. What I, where I hope it's heading is that this is the next big public health revolution.

• 32:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:18Speaker 07

  I think that-

• 32:18Lewis Howes?

  The next yoga, like the way yoga is becoming mainstream. It's like, this is the next.

• 32:22Speaker 07

  I think we're gonna view mental exercise the same way we view physical exercise.

• 32:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, physical gyms.

• 32:29Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 32:29Lewis Howes?

  I mean, there's a, I don't know if you're aware of the- Meditation center that's here.

• 32:33Speaker 07

  Unplug.

• 32:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, unplug.

• 32:35Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 32:35Lewis Howes?

  You know, I'm assuming those are gonna be opening up like yoga centers.

• 32:38Speaker 07

  There's one in New York now called Mindful. Uh, there's, I just heard that they're opening up, uh, uh, I just got a call from a woman who's opening up a center in Miami. I know there's one in Austin, so it's definitely happening.

• 32:53Speaker 04

  Meditation is at its best when we use it for prevention.

• 32:57Lewis Howes?

  When you're already doing well.

• 32:58Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 32:59Lewis Howes?

  Not when things are crazy and not stop.

• 33:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, only because it's that much harder, you know, like if you think if you're in the middle of a really intense situation and someone's like, oh, just learn meditation.

• 33:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 33:09Speaker 04

  You're struggling to even deal with, never mind learn new stuff. So it doesn't mean we can't use it for, for those things, but I think if we can get into a cycle and a habit, in the same way, we don't wait for our teeth to go really, well, in Britain we do.

• 33:23Lewis Howes?

  Did you clean them so they don't get bad?

• 33:24Speaker 04

  Exactly, right? So we get into this kind of pattern of hygiene. And in the same way, I think it's hygiene of the health of the mind, you know? How do we just kind of keep it fresh and sharp and calm and focused? And if we do it consistently, that happens.

• 33:38Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. I love it. It's like flossing your brain.

• 33:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:43Lewis Howes?

  Right? It's like getting the gunk out in between the stuff.

• 33:45Speaker 04

  It's a new light.

• 33:47Lewis Howes?

  It's flossing the brain, yeah. Um, I didn't prep you for this, but I'm curious, can we, can we do like a couple minute meditation or something? Okay. I would love to. Yeah, I mean, just to either give people a sample of

• 34:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:01Lewis Howes?

  like what this even looks like and sounds like and is. And, um, I know you have different like tracks for like going to sleep and like

• 34:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:09Lewis Howes?

  all these other things in there. Let's do one, if you can, again, I'm putting you on the spot here, but let's do one for like preparing yourself for a big moment in life.

• 34:18Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 34:19Lewis Howes?

  Like you're, you're feeling anxious because you've got a big speech, TED Talk, you've got a, a big sports game, like the biggest game of your life. You're going on the first date of like the woman of your dreams

• 34:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:30Lewis Howes?

  that you're about to meet.

• 34:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:32Lewis Howes?

  And you were just like, your heart is pounding, your mind is racing, you know, nothing bad is happening in your life, but you're just like overwhelmed and you can't relax.

• 34:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:42Lewis Howes?

  But you want to perform and do the, this is like your make or break moment.

• 34:46Speaker 04

  Yeah. We can do that.

• 34:48Lewis Howes?

  Let's do it.

• 34:49Speaker 04

  The, the context and it's important to give, cause it's, it's as much about genuinely like the technique's important in meditation, but the approach is even more important. Cause unless you know how to approach it. You're not gonna get the benefit from it. What do you mean by that? So, for example, three, just three tips, kind of which I think will give you more benefit from this exercise. So, tip one, expectation. Like, if you are sitting down and you're thinking, just because we're doing something called meditation, that your mind is immediately gonna switch off and be quiet and there'll be no thoughts, you're gonna think that this has failed. Right. You might not do it again, because you think, I'm no good at this, you know? Right, because your first time, it's probably not gonna be calm. Exactly. You're probably gonna continue to have thoughts, not be able to focus. Exactly, perfectly normal, like learning any skill. Yes.

• 35:34Speaker 04

  More than that, meditation is not even about stopping thoughts. It's about stepping back and seeing the mind more clearly. And so, this place, kind of, I always think about it like cars on a road. Kind of, the, the road is the mind and the cars are the thoughts. Kind of, the job is not to kind of run around in the road, kind of trying to stop this thought and chase after that thought. And it's about actually stepping off the road. And seeing the thought. Sitting on the verge comfortably and witnessing thoughts coming and going. And when you do that, over time, the traffic starts to kind of slow down a little bit. And you might one day, doesn't happen very often here in LA, I know, but you might just see a road without any cars on it at all, you know? Who knows? Who knows? It could, it could happen, man, it could happen. So, expectation is the first thing.

• 36:19Speaker 04

  Okay. So, so know that your mind will continue to think, thoughts will arise, that's okay, perfectly natural. Second thing, effort. Okay, we, again, live in a society where we're encouraged to kind of do stuff. And to do stuff kind of with passion and intensity and, well, that's fine, and it's great. And it gets us kind of to a lot of places we wanna get to in life. But you can't force relaxation to happen. You can't force a quiet mind, in the same way that you can't force sleep. So, you know, I would say the things are very similar. You lie in bed, let's say you've got that big presentation or whatever it is the next day, and you're lying in bed thinking, I've gotta get to sleep, I've gotta get to sleep.

• 37:02Speaker 04

  Well, the more you think that, the less likely, you know, you start, start sweating, you know? It's like, oh my god, I can't get to sleep, no, I've gotta try harder, I've gotta try harder. This is never gonna work, right? So in the same way, you know, with meditation, it can't, it can't be a case of, oh no, I'm doing terrible. I've gotta focus harder, I've gotta focus harder. I was saying to someone the other day, I mean, it was a talk I was giving, I can't remember. I was in a, I went to, to do a, a thing in a bank once. Six hundred kind of bankers and traders there and.

• 37:32Lewis Howes?

  Teaching meditation.

• 37:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, and, and as I, as I walked in there, I heard one, one of them say, say to the other one, like, right, I'm gonna meditate the crap out of it. And it's kind of like, okay, well, if, if we're going into it with that kind of intensity, we're probably not gonna get the benefit we're looking for.

• 37:46Lewis Howes?

  Yes, you wanna give your full effort.

• 37:48Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 37:49Lewis Howes?

  But that doesn't mean like.

• 37:51Speaker 04

  It's not kind of a will kind of thing. It's more kind of actually like easing off a little bit, like, and kind of saying, oh, this is nice. For ten minutes, I don't have to do anything. Right, you know, so expectations are first, effort's the second. And the third one, I think of it as blue sky. It's, um, for me, this idea was a, a total game changer. I always meditated with the idea that, as we were talking about earlier, like happiness or peace of mind was somewhere else. And it was maybe five minutes ahead of me, or ten minutes, or maybe a year ahead of me. And if I could just get to that point, then everything would be okay. Then one of my teachers said, kind of like, think of it like this, you know, so even on a, even on a cloudy day, the, the blue sky is still there.

• 38:36Speaker 04

  If we think about the blue sky being that peace of mind, that sense of kind of happiness and ease, like, that's always there. And if we live in a very cloudy country like England where I'm, I'm from, you know, sometimes you forget.

• 38:48Lewis Howes?

  You don't see it much.

• 38:48Speaker 04

  You don't see it much, and so you forget and you kind of, and you have to get in a plane and kind of go up through the clouds to be reminded. Okay, it's, it's still there. And in the same way, like in the mind, happiness, peace of mind is always with us. It's never been anywhere else. It's just that we got so caught up in the clouds, or the clouds have obscured our, our perception so much that we've forgotten about that. So it doesn't make any sense to be sitting there trying to create what we think is relaxation or happiness or peace of mind, because it's already there.

• 39:18Lewis Howes?

  It's already there, it's within us.

• 39:19Speaker 04

  And so all of it, that does something to the dynamic, rather than trying to project an idea onto the experience, instead, we simply witness the experience. So remembering that your mind will think anyway, knowing that you don't have to try too hard, and knowing that peace of mind is within us and is always here, if you can remember those three things, then you start to get some benefit from the exercise.

• 39:51Lewis Howes?

  There you have it, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this episode all about mastering meditation and calming your mind. If you did, please share this with a friend. Just take the link on the podcast, wherever you're listening to this, on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or anywhere podcasts are listened to. Take the link and text a few friends right now the link. You can be a champion in someone's life by sharing this message to them. If this is your first time here, please rate, subscribe, and review over on Apple Podcasts right now. The more reviews we get, the more this message spreads far and wide, and we can help more people in taking their life to the next level. And as Eckhart Tolle said,

• 40:31Lewis Howes?

  "You have a treasure within you that is infinitely greater than anything the world can offer." And Marcus Aurelius said, "Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul." You have the power in your soul to tap into something much greater than any technology out there. You have the technology within you, if you're willing to manage your thoughts, calm your mind, transform your mind into one of clarity, calm, and peace. When you change the thoughts in your mind...

• 41:13Lewis Howes?

  Your emotions start to transform. From chaos to stress, or anxiety, or resentment, or fear, or anger. To one of pure love. Love and flow. You deserve to be loved. You deserve to be in the flow. Because that's when you can create something at your fullest potential. In those states, love and flow. You cannot create full potential results in any other state of anger, anxiety, stress, or overwhelm.

• 41:48Lewis Howes?

  Calm your mind. Master the art of meditation. Step into your purpose of love and flow. And as always, you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.