931 No Limbs, No Limits, No Excuses with Nick Vujicic

“You don’t need a miracle to be one.”QUESTIONSHow did your parents instill courage in you? (4:16)How do you unchain your fears? (12:30)How do we truly let go of hurt, pain and resentment? (24:05)How do we build self belief amidst so much self doubt? (45:20)What is the biggest lesson your wife has taught you? (56:45)YOU WILL LEARNHow to prepare ourselves for the world (7:35)How attitude affects encouragement and discouragement (9:30)How to unchain your fears (13:04)How to navigate through the ups and downs of life (19:10)A powerful way to let go of things that don’t serve you (25:31)The best ways to help someone in need (29:25)Why we must not hold on to resentment (32:52)Where our value comes from (42:20)How to understand your relationship to your dreams (46:02)How to define your own goals (50:30)The key to finding value in each day (1:11:54)LINKS MENTIONEDThe Nick Vujicic podcastMoney Secrets of the Rich by John R. BurleyLife Without Limits: Inspiration for a Ridiculously Good LifeBe the Hands and Feet: Living Out God’s Love for All His ChildrenIf you enjoyed this episode, show notes and more at http://www.lewishowes.com/931 and follow at instagram.com/lewishowes 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 931 with one of the most inspirational speakers in the world, Nick Vujicic.

• 0:09Lewis Howes?

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

• 0:35Lewis Howes?

  Bruce Lee said it best, "If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life." There are no limits. There are only plateaus. And you must not stay there. You must go beyond them. I am so excited about this episode. I have just been blown away by everything about Nick Vujicic. If you don't know who he is, he's one of the most inspirational speakers in the world. He's spoken on stages with hundreds of thousands of people. And he's been touring the world for over a decade, changing the lives of so many people to help them overcome their limitations and help them believe in something greater than what they were born

• 1:20Lewis Howes?

  with, what they were dealt with, and any challenges that they've ever faced. If you don't know who Nick is, without any medical explanation or warning, he was born in Melbourne, Australia with no arms and no legs. According to Nick, the victory over his struggles, as well as his strength and passion for life today, can be credited to his faith in God, his family, friends, and the many people he has encountered along the journey have inspired him to carry on as well. And since his first speaking engagement at 19, Nick has traveled around the world, sharing his story with millions, again, filling stadiums. And he's established Life Without Limbs ministry in 2005, and he's currently serving as the

• 2:05Lewis Howes?

  president and CEO. And he's also got many bestselling books.

• 2:10Lewis Howes?

  A new podcast out called the Nick Vujicic Podcast and you are going to love it. In this interview, we dive in, my friends. We talk about how being bullied in school shaped Nick's outlook on life. And why it wasn't the worst thing for him. Also, why the janitor at his high school encouraged him to be a speaker. The power of self doubt and how to overcome it, no matter what adversity you're facing, or how low your self esteem might be. Nick's lowest moment, when he went into depression and what he focuses on now, when he feels like he may be going backwards in his life. When he met his wife and how he knew she was the one. That and so much more. We just formed a great brotherhood.

• 2:55Lewis Howes?

  We had a great business meeting a few weeks afterwards where we sat down and helped him with shaping some ideas for his podcast and his brand and his business moving forward and got to spend some time with his wife and his team and just this guy is an incredible human being and I fell in love with him right away and I hope you enjoy this and make sure to check out his videos. If you go on YouTube and type in his name, you're going to see some of the most inspirational, heartwarming speeches you'll ever watch. I'm telling you, it's amazing. And if this is your first time here, please subscribe to the podcast over on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify. And share this with a friend. You have the power to change people's lives by sharing this with one friend or posting it on social media.

• 3:36Lewis Howes?

  It's lewishouse.com/931 for the link and you again have the ability to help one person today. That's an amazing thing. And without further ado, let's dive into this episode with the one and only Nick Vujacic.

• 3:55Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone to the School Great Podcast. We have one of the top motivational speakers in the world, Nick Vujacic in the house. I'm going to pound it, brother. What's up? Good to see you, man. Love you. Super pumped. Love you too, man. I'm excited to be here, Louis. Dude, I think I saw a video of yours probably like seven, eight years ago online of you speaking at some small school or something where you're just kind of like flapping your foot and maybe you're playing guitar or you're playing drums. And kicking a tennis ball? Yes. Yeah. And I was just like, man, this guy's got such a positive attitude. And such a kind soul. And then at the end of the video, you're hugging like a thousand kids. And I was just like, I can't wait till one day to hug this guy. So when you came in, I was like, my man.

• 4:37Lewis Howes?

  Very excited. You've been taking the world by storm with your message of positivity, of living without limits. And for those who are watching or listening that maybe have never seen your story, give us a brief recap of how you were born and really how you became this way. I guess how you're born, what happens, and how you got into this world.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  Well, first of all, it's so awesome to be here. Thank you, Lewis, so much for having me. And hello, everyone watching. It's an honor. First of all, my accent's a little watered down from Australia. That's where I was born. And my parents, they loved me. They encouraged me. They believed in me. They told me every day that I'm beautiful the way that I am. And when I asked them, what happened? Why was I born this way? They said, well, we don't know why, but there's a greater purpose. And I love your title, The School of Greatness, because that's what it's all about, leveraging your full potential in not saying and wishing and hoping, I wish I was given more to do more, but doing your best with what you have. Those are the people who master full potential in their life.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  And I'm never going to be a motivational speaker to say, everything's possible, just dream and it's going to come true. No, not just hard work, but your full potential. Sometimes our dreams don't come true. But to understand with the right attitude, hey, whatever's meant to be, I'm going to reach my full potential. And that's what it's all about. And I didn't know why I was born this way. I didn't believe I would actually become independent, married, now with four kids, traveling around the world to talk about hope was really fantasy. I actually felt like at one stage, I had no hope for myself, no purpose.

• 6:24Lewis Howes?

  How old was that? How old were you when you had that?

• 6:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, age six, seven, eight were the bigger questions that I asked myself, saying, why am I here? Why did this happen to me? And I went to school and, you know, kids would come up and they would tease me and I'd try flip it around, you know, on a humorous level and say, you know, they asked me what happened. I'd just say cigarettes. And, you know, just the oldie but a goodie. Yeah, alcohol, right. And you know, I love pulling pranks, you know, today and doing crazy things like getting my friends to put me in the overhead compartment of airplanes and dress me up as a pilot.

• 6:57Lewis Howes?

  That's amazing.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's been, it's been fun. I've traveled now seventy-four countries and the universal truth of asking yourself, why am I here? What's my purpose? What's my value? What's my identity? Am I defined by what other people tell me? Am I defined by my previous failures and what I can or cannot do? And so that whole understanding of who you really are and the self-awareness that we all need to have and embracing who you are, embracing that you are unique, that there's not another you. And that's why my parents always said, Nick, there's not another you. Do your best. Keep going. Don't give up.

• 7:37Lewis Howes?

  Now, usually Serbian parents aren't as positive from my understanding. There's a more of a mentality that's more of like pessimistic than optimistic in Serbia. I don't want to be judgmental, but that's kind of the thoughts that I've heard from my Serbian friends.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  No, it's true. So we have a mutual friend, Nama.

• 7:55Lewis Howes?

  You know, so how did your parents actually instill this in you? Did they, were they always positive or when you were born, they were like, we have to switch this on so that he doesn't go down a dark place?

• 8:05Speaker 01

  Well, they, the way that I just told you how they encouraged me aren't the words that they actually used every day. It was more of like, we love you, but hey, you know, basically, we can't change what we can't change. We can't tell you why this has happened, but it's up to you. You don't know what you can achieve until you try it. Cause I have a little appendage on my left side of my body and it's, it's enabled me with two toes to do. First of all, it's my mobility. I can walk, I can swim, I can golf and fish and move and drive my wheelchair and.

• 8:38Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing.

• 8:39Speaker 01

  I've had no limits. Like I've even done sky, have you, have you done skydiving?

• 8:42Lewis Howes?

  Funny, my girlfriend wants to do it this year and I'm like, I just have no desire. I've seen the video of you doing it, but I just have no desire. But I feel like I should probably do it. I think because I have no desire, maybe I should do it.

• 8:54Speaker 01

  I don't know. That's up to you.

• 8:55Lewis Howes?

  Okay, good. I'm glad you're not pushing me to do it.

• 8:57Speaker 01

  I'm not pushing you, man. No, seriously. Hey, look, my palms was fading, my knees were shaking when I did it. But I'll tell you, it was a thrill of a lifetime. I'll never do it after having now kids, though. Now we have four children and it's just things change.

• 9:09Lewis Howes?

  It's not worth it. I went in a, uh, the Blue Angels. Do you know the Blue Angels?

• 9:12Speaker 01

  I do.

• 9:13Lewis Howes?

  Fighter jet. For me, that was the most terrifying thing to go in a jet with 5G or 6G, whatever we did. And to do the loops and everything because I get very like dizzy quickly.

• 9:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:25Lewis Howes?

  And I get seasick. I get like, when I go upside down, I get nauseous. So for me, this was a big risk to take.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  It's massive.

• 9:31Lewis Howes?

  And for three days, I was pretty much sleeping, recovering from this. So I'm just like, I just don't have, I feel like I've done scary stuff.

• 9:40Speaker 01

  It's all good.

• 9:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, jumping out of a plane. I'm like, I don't want to be out for three more days. It's the same thing with bungee jumping. I'm just like, I don't know.

• 9:46Speaker 01

  I never do bungee jumping and I wouldn't do anything just because someone told me to a month ago. But for me, my parents always said, Nick, we don't know what you can achieve until you try it. And so they didn't know what I could do until I, I was given a, a keyboard and now I can type 53 words in a normal computer and.

• 10:03Lewis Howes?

  With, with like one toe.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 10:05Lewis Howes?

  53 words.

• 10:06Speaker 01

  Yes, a minute.

• 10:07Lewis Howes?

  It's crazy.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  And so no one knew what Nick could do unless Nick was ready to try something, but embrace failure as his classroom. And that was the attitude. First of all, my parents said, Nick, you need to become a millionaire to survive. You're gonna need caregivers. Mum and dad can't help you. You need to start a, a business in accounting and financial planning, get employees, they're gonna be your hands and feet. And I was six years old when they told me that.

• 10:36Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 10:37Speaker 01

  And so that was the.

• 10:38Lewis Howes?

  We're like, but I don't want to be an accountant.

• 10:40Speaker 01

  I'm like, that's boring, right?

• 10:41Lewis Howes?

  Or be a soccer player out of here.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  But that was the understanding. I'm never gonna be a professional footballer. I'm never gonna be a tennis player. I needed to though find my full potential. And I'm so glad that it started from ground zero where I actually started vacuuming the floor of our home with my shoulder and chin for two dollars a week.

• 10:59Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  And it taught me goal setting. It taught me being thankful for what I had. And my parents, the Serbian way. They don't give their children everything they want when they want how they want it.

• 11:10Lewis Howes?

  You cry, you complain, they're like, you're not getting nothing.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  Nothing, nothing. And it's interesting, now look at the millennials, if they are given everything they want. How they want it, when they want it. When are they ever first thankful for what they have? And second of all, are we really preparing them for what the world is?

• 11:27Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  Does the world really give you everything you want, when you want it, how you want it? That's not preparing them. So my parents said, look. We are here for you. Go and do your best and get ready to fail. Um, that's basically at six.

• 11:41Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 11:41Speaker 01

  What the upbringing was.

• 11:43Lewis Howes?

  It's interesting because I, probably around six, seven, eight, I was asking, it's probably every kid's asking, why am I here?

• 11:49Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 11:50Lewis Howes?

  You know, what's my purpose or why am I here? Yeah. You know, what is this place? And I remember I would get in trouble, I was horrible in school. Horrible, always in the bottom of my class. So the reason I created the school of greatness is because I created the thing I wish I would have had. And the way I could learn something when I was a kid.

• 12:05Speaker 01

  It's awesome.

• 12:05Lewis Howes?

  And I remember I would go into the principal's office often because I'd get in trouble. And I would just tell them, I wish I were dead. All the time, over and over again, getting into the principal's office. Was there ever a time when you just said, I wish I were dead, I wish I wasn't here? And did you get picked on a lot in school or were they kind of like understanding of what was going on and friendly with you in school?

• 12:26Speaker 01

  And by the way, congratulations on your documentary.

• 12:28Lewis Howes?

  Thank you.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  Because that's one of my inspirational, aspirational dreams that I wanted a, one day wanna harp on that. That's my passion to reach now young kids about bullying because of me being affected by it. Um, and so everyone has a story and I think everyone deserves a documentary, but congrats to you and your team to do it. Because it's gonna inspire and change people's lives, so.

• 12:50Lewis Howes?

  Thank you, man.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  It's awesome. Fist bump dude, that's awesome.

• 12:53Lewis Howes?

  Appreciate it.

• 12:54Speaker 01

  But that's the point, it's like everyone feels at times that we're our biggest bully. Because we will always have someone saying something negative, but it's when we walk away, do we believe it? Do we let those voices echo in our mind when no one's watching? And that's when I realized I'm either my biggest encourager or my biggest discourager. And that's where attitude comes in. You know, you have people in your life where they'll keep on beating you down. But if you keep on coming back up, they won't keep you down. And so for me, that was the fight that I had to have within myself. And I one day looked myself in the mirror, um, after a big bullying day at school in Australia. And I looked myself in the eyes and said, there's gotta be one good thing that I've got going.

• 13:39Speaker 01

  And just hold on to that, that no matter what happened and no matter what anyone else said that day, that I could hold on to deep inner strength to say, no, but you know what? I know I couldn't play that sports activity, but I was watching and waiting for the first person to be eliminated out of that game. So then I could come over there by their side and look him in the eye and say, good job, better luck next time. How you doing? And all of a sudden, I couldn't participate and I was kind of the alien, but here I am, transforming that obstacle into an opportunity. And holding on to that and holding on to a physical aspect. Sure, we understand that body is a body. We have a spirit, we have a soul, we have a mind.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  And those are the three biggest elements of really who we are as a being. But I did look myself in the mirror and said, Nick, your eyes are pretty good looking and no one can ever tell you different. There you go. And so when I look at people, we know that the saying is the eyes are the windows to your soul. And so when someone looks at me in the eye, subconsciously, it's them affirming my value. And it's the attitude of looking you straight in the eye and saying, I acknowledge you, I see you, I'm listening to you. And I'm speaking to your soul and you're looking into mine. All of a sudden, everything else goes blurry. And now you look at them and smile and say, you know what? Better luck next time. Well, they're telling me what they're going through. All of a sudden, I have depression, I have bullying.

• 15:04Speaker 01

  But if I can look and reframe my attitude to saying this, if I don't get a miracle, I can still be one. Now, all of a sudden, that attitude redefines impossible. And so it's not a victimization, it's the attitude of understanding, here I am, this is who I am, this is what I have. I'm gonna be thankful for what I have and I'm gonna do my best to make a difference in this world. Yeah.

• 15:31Lewis Howes?

  You know, it's interesting because sometimes the bullying is actually not that bad compared to how much we bully ourselves, like you said. Someone might say something for what, 10, 20 seconds at school or a comment online, but then we hold on to it and we repeat it. We repeat it on ourselves. You suck, you're no good, you're not smart, you're not beautiful. We repeat it over and over for days, weeks, years from what one person said for a few moments. And we attach it to like that bullying. I did this for a long time. Kids would bully and then I would hold on to it and repeat it for years. It's crazy, right?

• 16:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, there are 48-year-old adults who are still trapped by what their father said when they were nine years old. And we feel like, okay, I've moved on, but deep, deep down, have we actually released those chains? And so it's unchaining those bounds, it's unchaining those fears, it's unchaining that mentality that really holds you back from actually being happy.

• 16:30Lewis Howes?

  How do we unchain them?

• 16:31Speaker 01

  How do we unchain them?

• 16:32Lewis Howes?

  If we've had it for a day, we hold on to it, or a decade, how do we let go of the bullying or the negativity?

• 16:39Speaker 01

  One of the greatest tools that psychologists use is actually writing a letter, either to yourself or writing a letter to that person, telling them what they did to you, how it made you feel, and how you forgive them.

• 16:52Lewis Howes?

  I've done this many times. I've done so many different rituals of letter writing and burning the letter and burying it, it's so powerful.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  It's been helpful for me, too.

• 17:00Lewis Howes?

  Huge.

• 17:01Speaker 01

  And no matter how courageous we seem or immune to depression, we all go through ups and downs, we all sometimes need to just take a step back and say, okay, wait a second, what am I actually still chained to that I'm not even aware of?

• 17:16Lewis Howes?

  Is there anything you're still chained to?

• 17:18Speaker 01

  There was a recent unchaining, I would have to say 18 months ago.

• 17:23Lewis Howes?

  What was that?

• 17:24Speaker 01

  Someone hurt me really bad.

• 17:26Lewis Howes?

  Someone close to you or more of like a business relationship?

• 17:29Speaker 01

  It wasn't a business relationship. I quickly forgive business relationships, actually, because money comes and goes, we all know that.

• 17:35Lewis Howes?

  I need to learn that lesson.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  I need to hang out with you, man.

• 17:40Lewis Howes?

  Because, you finish the story first, but go ahead.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  No, go, go, I'll meet you, we'll come back to that.

• 17:46Lewis Howes?

  I mean, for me, uh, it's been, for the last seven years, I've really learned how to let go quicker. Because I held on for stuff forever. I was sexually abused when I was five, and so I held on to this feeling of like, anytime, I was always a loving guy, but anyone triggered me with the feeling of abuse, it was like, I wanted to destroy them.

• 18:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, absolutely.

• 18:05Lewis Howes?

  Until I started to really start to heal within the last seven years and did practice it over and over. But in business relationships, because I was poor, at one time, I was like, if anyone ever messes with my money, you know, they're gonna get it. But see, I've had to learn a lot quicker to like, let go of that stuff and just be like, okay, money comes and goes, relax, listen to Nick, you know.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  No, the greatest lesson is just losing all your money twice and then coming back.

• 18:30Lewis Howes?

  Is that what it is?

• 18:31Speaker 01

  That's exactly what it is.

• 18:31Lewis Howes?

  No way, really?

• 18:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:33Lewis Howes?

  How did that happen?

• 18:33Speaker 01

  At age nineteen, um, I was in the stock market, I was in real estate as a teenager. And then? I learned how to day trade.

• 18:42Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 18:42Speaker 01

  And I did that as a college student. And then I went all in on a bubble that burst in nineteen, no, in two thousand and one, two thousand and two, yeah. That's when I lost forty grand.

• 18:56Lewis Howes?

  Ooh, and that was everything for you?

• 18:57Speaker 01

  That was everything for me. Now, before I lost that, I gave away thirty K to orphans in South Africa, because that was my goal. So, okay. Go away, I don't want to miss the other question though, so.

• 19:11Lewis Howes?

  How do you unchain the bullying or the hurts? So you first said eighteen months ago, there was a situation.

• 19:16Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 19:17Lewis Howes?

  Someone hurts you.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  Right. Maybe we should leave that. Okay, let's, let's. We've got so much to talk about, loser.

• 19:22Lewis Howes?

  I know, man.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  Okay, so, so because my parents grew up poor.

• 19:26Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 19:27Speaker 01

  They taught me to give money back to the poor. My parents were in refugee camps. They met in Australia, they fled Yugoslavia in nineteen sixties. My grandfathers were both jailed and tortured for their faith.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  So coming back from such a humble beginning and then seeing my dad work his butt off, three different jobs, plus my mom working, hustling all the way through while we grew up. We basically grew up in my grandparents' home.

• 19:55Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 19:55Speaker 01

  Because they were just trying to do everything they could. And so we got to a stage where they're like, hey, you gotta hustle, become a millionaire, all that kind of stuff. He taught, my dad taught me, learn financial literacy. That's how I got into it.

• 20:11Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  Um, and then I lost my money the first time at age nineteen.

• 20:17Lewis Howes?

  And you're probably thinking, well, I just learned financial literacy, but maybe I'm not that smart after all. Maybe I'm.

• 20:21Speaker 01

  But I took, that failure was my classroom, remember? I was always getting ready for a no. I was always ready for a falling of, of, an attempted, an attempt that became failure. Because that's, that's how I learnt how to become successful. That's how I realised I don't know what's possible until, so I don't know what's impossible until I know what's possible. That was the mentality. So when I lost the money the first time, I got back up.

• 20:48Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  I lost money.

• 20:50Lewis Howes?

  The second time, what was it?

• 20:51Speaker 01

  January twenty eleven. I had a cash flow crisis. So you know business, eighty-five percent of businesses fail.

• 20:58Lewis Howes?

  In the first three years, right? So wait, ten years later, you lost how much? All of it?

• 21:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I lost, uh, yeah.

• 21:06Lewis Howes?

  You weren't married this time?

• 21:07Speaker 01

  No.

• 21:08Lewis Howes?

  Oh, that's good.

• 21:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:09Lewis Howes?

  Wait, so.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  But I did meet my wife and now I'm like, bad timing.

• 21:13Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 21:14Speaker 01

  So someone stole fifty grand from me.

• 21:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  And then I.

• 21:18Lewis Howes?

  In twenty eleven.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  In twenty eleven, someone, and then I had a cash flow crisis. And so the other parts of business is the failure because of success. And you weren't ready for success.

• 21:27Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  So all that to say, I know that money comes and goes. And you can always pick up your shoes. Bread and butter, if not bread and butter, go bread and water. And then go back to, and you just keep on going. You're the only person who's gonna stop you from trying again. Period, doesn't matter. And you look back and say, now I know what I know, I will never come back here again.

• 21:55Lewis Howes?

  And we're not gonna take the money with us.

• 21:56Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 21:57Lewis Howes?

  So it's like, if you lose it, you're not gonna have it if you're dead, either way.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  That's it, that's it.

• 22:01Lewis Howes?

  It stays here.

• 22:02Speaker 01

  Right, but I'm driven now, now that I'm married, four kids, and I wanna make a difference in this world, leave a legacy. I, Nick ain't giving up, he'll never give up, he'll never slow down either. I mean, I ain't retiring.

• 22:15Lewis Howes?

  What's the purpose of that?

• 22:16Speaker 01

  What is that?

• 22:17Lewis Howes?

  We gotta make an impact in the world.

• 22:18Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 22:19Lewis Howes?

  Too many people that need to be served.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  I heard the saying that the jet runs fastest on the end of the jetway. So with all your context, with all your wisdom, with all your knowledge and understanding, you actually are most productive in your last ten years, believe it or not. With less work, and so I'm ramp, I'm only, we're at the same age.

• 22:36Lewis Howes?

  Same age, man, you're a few months older, December and March.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  You're a little taller.

• 22:40Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  But in all of understanding, where, where we're moving forward from failure to failure, so, so it's not failure. I don't like the word failure or success as much as valleys, valleys and mountains. After every mountain peak, there's another valley, and you keep on going from success to success. But when it comes to going through the ups and downs of life, you do sometimes have a monkey on your back of unforgiveness. Of something in the past that is, yeah, all that, all that. So I had.

• 23:12Lewis Howes?

  So tell me this.

• 23:12Speaker 01

  So here it is. And the amazing thing about happiness, Lewis, two things. Are the people who can unchain themselves of the past are the most happiest. And those people who actually intentionally practice an attitude of gratitude. I've met billionaires, I've met twenty-one presidents, prime ministers, vice presidents, I've spoken in front of ten governments, I've been on the internet. Two billion people know me from the internet, been on TV, to seven hundred thirty million people for ninety minutes of my time.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  Like just a whole keynote to seven hundred million people, that's ten percent of the world. And now we're focusing on America, but when I've done all that, looking back, I've realized until eighteen months ago that I've been carrying something that someone did to me in two thousand and seven.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  And I actually wrote about it in one of my books, but no, no one really reads my book. They're gonna see me more on the podcast than my book. They will, they will. Uh, but in my second book, I talk about how I fell in love with a girl uh in America. Um, back as a teenager, we were both teenagers and her dad um was a mentor of mine and encouraged me. But when he found out that we had feelings for each other, he didn't think that I was good enough. Suitable provider. If I can just put a verbal, you know, kinda just umbrella, not for my daughter kinda thing. Right, right. And so. You're seventeen. I was nineteen. Nineteen.

• 24:49Speaker 01

  And she was also a teenager and uh we walked away, but I was waiting for her for a very long time. And um unfortunately, when I could finally let her go in my heart, my mind, this was four and a half years of waiting. No dating, waiting, silently waiting for her to. No contact. No contact. Oh. Finally, we, we, we saw each other again. And it was like the first time I could actually think of her, look at her and talk to her after all those years. And feel like, okay, I can actually look at her just like any other human being and not have butterflies. Finally, I could let go and then guess what happened? What? She fell in love. With you or someone else? No, with me.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  No way. So like when we first met, sparks were in the air. It was eighteen months ago? I could wait. No, no, no, no, no. I was gonna say. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Ages ago, this is like two thousand two. Yeah. We first fell in love. Four and a half years. She said, I'm not ready for a serious relationship. I said, I'll wait for you for four and a half years. And I waited. I'll, I'll wait for you. No, no timeframe. Finally saw her after four and a half years. She had sparks, just like we had when we first met. And she's like, I actually might be stopping the biggest blessing in my life by not moving forward with you. Her dad still refused and her whole family said, basically, it's either Nick or the family. Shut up. And that was so hard for her and it was so hard for me.

• 26:18Speaker 01

  And we'd never really had closure on that and I never really forgave her family until two years ago.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  And it wasn't like um I got to talk to her whole family. One family member reached out and we had a conversation. And it helped me to like, wait a second. Here I am, I'm married, I love my wife with all my heart, I love my kids with all my heart. Um you'll never forget your first love for sure, no one ever forgets it. But to actually be missing a part of of my heart or thinking at all in some aspect, way, shape or form of that rejection. It was me, whether or not people say sorry to you is not the point. Whether people understand that they've done wrong to you or not is not as much as the point of you actually saying.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  Whether they say sorry or not, it doesn't make it easier even sometimes. Because you can still hold unforgiveness. Again, it's the attitude of understanding. I need to let go of things that I need to let go for me. Because if I harbor unforgiveness, I already have no arms and no legs. Why add another disability, right? And so I feel like we all go through that and it's all got to do with attitude. Who am I, what have people done to me, said to me, just like that, it's all bullying. But what do you still subconsciously believe that you still haven't addressed?

• 27:45Lewis Howes?

  How do we get people, I mean, there's a lot of people watching, listening are saying, yeah, that sounds easier said than done. How do I truly let go of of hurt, pain, resentment? And I love, there's a quote that you said, fear is the greatest disability of all.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  It is.

• 27:59Lewis Howes?

  And I think probably a negative attitude is probably one of the greatest disabilities of all too. I don't know, I'm gonna speak for you, but it's if you don't believe in yourself and you have this negative attitude constantly, you're disabling yourself. For all the good and all the love and all the joy in your life.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:14Lewis Howes?

  So how do we? You said writing a letter is one strategy.

• 28:18Speaker 01

  It's one strategy.

• 28:19Lewis Howes?

  What's another, I mean, it took you, what, ten, twelve years to let go?

• 28:23Speaker 01

  Right, so, so going back to any depression or letting go. So first of all, when I was a kid, going back to bullying and stuff, ages eight to twelve, I was depressed. I attempted suicide at age ten, believing that I had no future, believing that I had no hope, believing that people's opinions on me defined my future. Failure defined my future. I was just in this very unhealthy spiral. So there are three things to get out of depression. Number one, what I ritually do is, I'm a spiritual man. And so apart from prayer and believing that God gives me faith and purpose and help, I actually ritually write out the things that I'm still thankful for. And intentionally every day, being thankful for what I have.

• 29:08Speaker 01

  And not just the things that I have, but I'm actually writing a book, actually on attitude right now. And one of the things I wish that we all did more is stopping and going back to the last thing that could have happened even worse.

• 29:24Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  And being thankful, so.

• 29:26Lewis Howes?

  That it didn't happen worse.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  And I know that sounds.

• 29:29Lewis Howes?

  I didn't lose my foot. I can speak. I can see everything.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  Okay, so watch this. My dad died of cancer.

• 29:35Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  Okay, twenty seventeen. I'm thankful he didn't die in a car crash, that I could still say goodbye. I'm thankful that my whole family was in California when he got diagnosed with cancer. Can you imagine if half of us were in Australia and half of us were in America?

• 29:52Lewis Howes?

  That we're all here.

• 29:53Speaker 01

  That we were all here.

• 29:54Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 29:56Speaker 01

  Really, and not saying that's a cop out, oh, it could always be worse. And then what do we say about the orphans and the people who are human trafficked? Well, I've seen human trafficked people go through a rehab, find their spirit and their faith and their value once again, to the point that not only are they mentally healed, but watch this. They get a job, save up money, and they go with a buck. Talk about forgiveness and letting go and transforming into a miracle to let other people let go of their chains. They save up money, they go with a bucket, a white towel, water, and they save up seven hundred bucks cash in India. I've been there. They go back to the pimps and madams where they were once being abused by, they were kidnapped by them.

• 30:40Speaker 01

  And they said, I've come here to wash your feet. Shut up. No. Shut up, they do not. No, I've interviewed these girls. Oh my gosh. They've told this one, they go back with a bucket of water and a white towel and said, and I want to show you the symbolism of my forgiveness. My soul has been restored. I am a brand new person. And I know what you did to me was so bad. And I don't know why you've chosen this path. You've got money, you've got power, but your soul is lost and you haven't found happiness. And I've come here today to tell you that I held unforgiveness. Until I found the forgiveness for myself of the things I've done wrong. So I've seen, um, not, so I'll, I'll get to the three points of getting out of depression, but I've seen

• 31:25Speaker 01

  from brokenness to triumphant victoriousness of victory where this sex slave forgives that person, washes their feet, hands them money and says, give me that ten year old. Oh my gosh, so they buy them from them. Buy them. Wow. That ten year old girl is told by the nineteen year old, you're my sister and that'll never happen to you ever again. They go through rehab, they find a job, they save up money, then together they come back. Oh dude, this is crazy. If, if that's not redemption, Lewis, I don't know what is. So do I believe in redemption? Absolutely. Wow. So if you really believe in redemption for even the failures of your own self and the redemption of broken pieces being turned into something beautiful, then we must be able to forgive ourself. Wow.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  We must be able to forgive others because in the end we only harbor that negativity. So, moving forward, the three things to get out of depression. Number one is still be thankful for what you have and be thankful for what could have gone worse, right? Um, that didn't happen. Number two.

• 32:26Speaker 01

  Talk to someone.

• 32:29Speaker 01

  I feel like.

• 32:29Lewis Howes?

  This is key.

• 32:30Speaker 01

  I feel like.

• 32:31Lewis Howes?

  Especially for men, most men never express how we feel.

• 32:34Speaker 01

  No.

• 32:34Lewis Howes?

  I wrote a whole book about, it's called The Mask of Masculinity. It's about opening up and being more vulnerable as a man because for 25 years I held on to shame and resentment. And right when I started to talk about it, was when I started to set myself free. So sorry to interrupt, but talking to someone, one person can transform your life.

• 32:52Speaker 01

  And I think especially when you become a visionary and you become successful, you actually realize the value of having friends, real friends, who can be like a men's group around you, who can encourage you and you just share life together. What's going on, man? You know, well, this week, you know, I have a men's group once a week and we do life together because we need each other. And so talking to somebody, being transparent with them and getting that encouragement. And thirdly, actually helping someone in need where you cannot ascertain nor even is it in your mindset of waiting for them to look you and say thank you.

• 33:32Lewis Howes?

  Just being in service, giving.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  Yep, and that instigates purpose-ness. Many people are depressed because they don't know what to live for. They haven't found something yet to die for. When you have found something to die for and live for, when you know why you do what you do, that's when purpose gives you the strength to override all limitations and fear. Purpose-ness was key for me and that's what I wanted to tell you as a teenager. That no matter what hell I went through, I tricked my attitude into a positive mindset. How did I do that?

• 34:16Speaker 01

  I focused, just like I looked myself in the eyes and said, I'm holding on to the eyes. Hold on to a goal. My goal was to give money to orphans. So I put a picture of an orphan on my mirror.

• 34:28Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  Who's smiling at me. I didn't know who that orphan was. And I knew no matter what I was gonna go through that day, that I'm a day closer to making a difference in someone else's life. And the reason, Louis, why I became a speaker was because a janitor, you're gonna love this. It was the janitor at my high school who looked at me and said, "One day, you're gonna be a speaker." And I said, "You're crazy." He was the first person to encourage me to start speaking to students at my school, which led me to a public school speech where in front of three hundred sophomore students, I was just sharing my heart. And one girl was weeping. Half the girls are crying, but one girl was weeping.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  And she interrupted my speech. She put up her hand in the air and she said, "I'm so sorry, but can I come up there and give you a hug?"

• 35:21Lewis Howes?

  This is the video I saw, yeah.

• 35:22Speaker 01

  And she came up and she hugged me. She said, "No one's ever told me that they love me. No one's ever told me that I'm beautiful the way that I am." And that's when I knew I was born to be a speaker. And I realized, wow, here I was at ten years old, trying to commit suicide because I had no hope. Now finding hope and helping other people find hope for their own life, it's the greatest drug I've ever found in my life.

• 35:47Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing, right?

• 35:48Speaker 01

  It is. And that's why we're here in America establishing a whole new platform in corporate America because it's not just the teenagers who lack self-belief. It's not just the teenagers who bully themselves. It's not just the teenagers who have problems dreaming bigger. And when they see a man without arms and legs on stage saying, "What's your excuse?" Wait, wait, wait. What attitude do you have? Why? Wait, let's adjust that and let's see the trajectory where you really could go. If this is what I've done without arms and legs, what can you do?

• 36:24Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing, man. It's amazing. What, um, you know, one of the things that came up for me is, someone said this, I can't remember who, but... You know, holding on to resentment or being angry at someone is like drinking poison and expecting them.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  To die.

• 36:39Lewis Howes?

  To die, right, something like that. I'm getting the wrong, wrong.

• 36:41Speaker 01

  No, no, you're right.

• 36:42Lewis Howes?

  Something like that.

• 36:43Speaker 01

  You're right.

• 36:44Lewis Howes?

  So the more we hold on to this resentment, or even just, I feel like the more we hold on to depression, anger, resentment, and negative attitude, it's like we're expecting someone else to be hurt.

• 36:53Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 36:53Lewis Howes?

  By this attitude or this resentment, but we're just hurting ourselves. And that person continues to abuse us over and over again, the more resentment we have. So we only can set ourselves free when we start to forgive.

• 37:06Speaker 01

  There's other proactive things, and I love that. There's other proactive things that I'm actually writing about in my upcoming book. In the next couple of years, it'll come out in Attitude. But I've learnt something about me that I've never learnt before, just recently, which is being proactive and actually realising and being aware of those triggers being found when I go into a room in my mind.

• 37:31Speaker 01

  How do we get to that place? Is it when we're tired? Is it after we have had a drink of alcohol? Is it when we're missing something? Is it when we fail?

• 37:41Lewis Howes?

  When we didn't sleep well.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  Didn't sleep well? Is it a music? Is it a song? Is it a mood? And trying to be fully, now, I'm not getting so scientifically, but no joke, I actually found the triggers that took me to that room. And I started cutting it out. So, believe it or not, this is the first time I'm ever sharing this on public.

• 38:04Lewis Howes?

  This is what happens here, man. This is what happens in school grade days.

• 38:07Speaker 01

  It's awesome. I love you, man. You're awesome.

• 38:09Lewis Howes?

  Okay, me too, man.

• 38:10Speaker 01

  So, so no one knows this, but I've, I've got now chronic back pain. So I have, I have really intense pain that kicks in about five or six P M. every day, no matter what I do. Just to sit up straight. You can see that I'm not sitting up straight. It takes a bit for me to just sit up straight. And so with that, I, you know, in the Serbian culture, you can ask anyone, we grew up.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  Seeing my parents have a glass of wine a day.

• 38:40Lewis Howes?

  Every day, yeah.

• 38:40Speaker 01

  And that's it, that's just normal, that's it. Um, and so we were surrounded by that. And so what I found myself doing was going towards that, but also taking the edge off the pain of my back. And when I did that, especially when I'm traveling, that's when your mind kind of like, hey, I can now relax. And sometimes it's so easy being away from the wife, being away from kids, that some of those other issues come up. And you start going into that room, then you start playing some songs that you're reminiscing and then you go, you go, it's just a trigger effect. And what I realized was, I never want to be dependent on something at all. Because when you're, a substance on any way, shape or form.

• 39:22Speaker 01

  So like I had a problem with alcohol as much as I actually challenged myself. I took two months not drinking anything was fine, then did another three months, no problem. But knowing that that was, that's gonna eventually end, I'm like, I wonder if that itself is enough. So I'm transparently telling you, November sixteenth, two thousand and nineteen, I made a commitment to myself. That other, other than special occasions to have one drink. So my birthday, my family's birthdays, my anniversary, Valentine, the, yeah, those eight, nine days of the year. My twins are born in the same day, so I can't do two, but um, I'm, I'm off alcohol.

• 40:05Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 40:05Speaker 01

  Completely, completely.

• 40:07Lewis Howes?

  Congrats, man.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Thanks, thanks, and, and, and that's big, to me was big, it was big.

• 40:13Lewis Howes?

  Well, here's the thing, I mean, you probably have a lot of pressure, especially in the space that you're in to, you know, you're speaking about positive mindset. You speak a lot, I do a lot of motivational speeches in corporations, but you also do a lot in the faith-based Christian community. And you probably have a lot of pressure to show up a certain way every single day. And sometimes if you're feeling pain, I mean, it's like, you got pain, you got stress, you got all sorts of stuff you're dealing with, so.

• 40:38Speaker 01

  And I promise I never took a shot before I went on stage, that's never happened. For the record, no joke, yeah, you're right.

• 40:45Lewis Howes?

  But no, it was perfect, man. We're all human beings.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  But no joke.

• 40:47Lewis Howes?

  And I've never been drunk in my life.

• 40:49Speaker 01

  That's awesome.

• 40:50Lewis Howes?

  I've never been drunk.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  Come on.

• 40:52Lewis Howes?

  I've never been high.

• 40:53Speaker 01

  That's awesome.

• 40:53Lewis Howes?

  I've never taken drugs.

• 40:55Speaker 01

  That's great.

• 40:56Lewis Howes?

  I've had a couple of sips of alcohol here and there, but I've never been drunk.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:00Lewis Howes?

  And I just, I remember saying to myself, I have other vices, don't worry, I'm not perfect. I have like sugar, candy cakes, and it's like all of it. But I remember saying to myself, when I mess up in life, I don't want it to be because I'm on a substance and making an excuse.

• 41:14Speaker 01

  So good.

• 41:15Lewis Howes?

  I want to be able to say, yeah, I was an idiot. I made a mistake. I screwed up. It's my fault.

• 41:20Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 41:20Lewis Howes?

  And I'm the one to blame. Not this thing where I was on this influence. But I think it's cool. So why have you never told anyone about this? Why is this the first time publicly? Were you feeling shameful by it? Were you feeling?

• 41:31Speaker 01

  No, it's almost like I haven't written a book for five years and they say, so what have you been learning? I'm like, well, let me tell you some stuff. But what was beautiful about that, it's actually making the most of life. The two other stories I want to bring into this on the alcohol thing, because then you understand the full context of things. My kids, I used to jump on the trampoline. My oldest now is seven, so when he was two, we used to jump on the trampoline. I used to run around. My back got worse in the last seven years and I can't do as much. But then after I have a shot of whiskey or Scotch, which is what I really enjoyed, or a glass of wine, I don't feel like it. And he looked at me as a young kid. I think he was only four or five years old and he knows that daddy, he was a smart kid, smart kid.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  He knew what jet lag was at age five.

• 42:17Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 42:18Speaker 01

  And he said, oh daddy, I know why you don't play with us, because you're jet lagged, right? But I hadn't been in a flight for three weeks. And I'm like, man, if I didn't take that shot, I would have had the energy to remember that. And that was like, I'm missing out.

• 42:35Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 42:37Speaker 01

  My son's missing out. I'm gonna be the best me that I can be. I don't wanna take medication for my pain until I really need to. Yeah, maybe some natural herbs or CBD. Something, but my wife as well, after I have a glass of wine, like I'm a little bit more relaxed, right? And when I, when she makes me laugh or when something funny happens, it's not like I go giddy, like. I'm not like that. But I wonder when, I was wondering subconsciously, does she think I'm actually smiling or laughing at what she just said? More now because I just had a drink? Right, right. But I'm like, no, that's got nothing to do with influence. So I want even every word and interacting moment that I have with my wife. And I, I'm a little different, Lewis. You know that I've lived on the road. Yeah.

• 43:23Speaker 01

  And you know that I'm a person that I'm thankful when I'm home. I, I don't wanna be thirty thousand feet in the air anymore. Yeah. And that's why you inspire me, by the way, with this model, but. I love this. But um, no joke, I want to make the most of every day and um.

• 43:42Speaker 01

  Three months ago, I lost one of my great friends in a car accident. And um, uh, he was married to a, a girl called Bernadette. Check this out for a story. You think I, I have an issue? You think we have? Just like a story of, of just pain and, and friends. So we have, we were friends with, and I'm writing this in our book. I haven't asked for permission, but I'm sure they'll give us permission. But two couples that I've known, a couple in Ohio. That's where I'm from. Okay. In Akron area, a couple in Ohio and a couple in California. The husband in the cap, in the couple of California came down with leukemia.

• 44:25Speaker 01

  And the wife of the couple in Ohio, she had bowel cancer, colon cancer.

• 44:32Speaker 01

  They both died around age thirty nine and these couples knew each other, were all friends. And they bonded as couples going through the same thing and chemotherapy and all that kinda deal. So the husband who now was wife died and the wife whose husband died, they got married.

• 44:52Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  Now, this couple in California had a child at one year old. That's when the husband died here. They had no children. He came to California, they got married, they had a child.

• 45:06Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 45:07Speaker 01

  And at ten months old, that child, he died in a car accident. So imagine this woman in California who loses her first husband to cancer and then five, has a child and then five years later loses her second husband in a car accident at thirty nine years old.

• 45:23Lewis Howes?

  Lost her husband, not the son?

• 45:24Speaker 01

  Not, yeah.

• 45:25Lewis Howes?

  The husband died?

• 45:26Speaker 01

  Husband.

• 45:26Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 45:27Speaker 01

  So now she's left with two children from two different fathers within five years. And I look at this woman and I was able to speak at his memorial service, but I look at her and I won't share her name, but, and I'm like, wow. And she looks at me and she says,

• 45:47Speaker 01

  I don't know what good is gonna come from this. But you look at her and she looks at me in the eyes and you just see she's never gonna give up.

• 45:55Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 45:56Speaker 01

  And she knows that someday, sometime, somehow, maybe she's gonna be able to inspire one other person to not give up. And I feel like that's the human spirit that we must understand. The crux of every cloud or funk or curve ball or depression or whatever you wanna call it. It comes back to who am I and why am I here? Your value is not determined on your past. Your future is up to you today. You loving yourself, embracing yourself.

• 46:30Speaker 01

  Not judging yourself, being able to forgive, but being the best you can be proactively, being self-aware. Don't let you, yourself, get in the way of you.

• 46:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:42Speaker 01

  Um, it's not to say that everything's possible, it's not to say that everything's smooth, no. We all go through ups and downs, but I needed to get out of my own way to reach my full potential. And then take one day at a time, when you can't think of thriving, and you can only think of surviving, that's a reality. You've been through that, I've been through that. The strongest of motivational speakers have been through those seasons, and that's okay. Don't beat yourself up. Take one day at a time, and go one step at a time, and eventually, you will come out of that valley and come on the other side of that and say, wow, I'm glad I'm where I am, because people look at me, one last thing, Lewis.

• 47:26Speaker 01

  People say, wow, Nick's strong, he's courageous, he's a man of endurance. They can ask me, Nick, do you think you're a man of strength and courage and endurance? I said, yeah. They can say, well, why? I say, because I know what I've been through. We've been through what we've been through to become who we are today, to conquer the next barrier. And so, we've got to keep on going, we've got to keep on going. And I just hope that people see the smile on my face is authentic, and the peace and strength that I have in my eyes, never to pretend that I've got it all together. No one has it all together.

• 48:02Lewis Howes?

  That's true, man.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  But if we can get ahead of that curve, we can get rid of those negativity aspects and move out of that room and shut that room down. Fire excuses, it's like, here I am, that's where I want to go. How can I help myself focus on that next goal? Keep on going. Knowing that your value and your happiness has nothing to do with money or fame, but being happy, content, and embracing every day? I could die today, Lewis. Happy to. I know where I'm going, couldn't care less. Um, when I die, I'll die at the right time. I don't think about death as much as I think about life, and I'll live it to the fullest.

• 48:43Lewis Howes?

  Man, I want to ask you a few more questions, because this is, this is powerful for me. Um.

• 48:51Lewis Howes?

  The first one is self doubt. I'm a big believer that self doubt is the killer of dreams.

• 48:58Speaker 01

  That's great.

• 48:59Lewis Howes?

  And the more we doubt ourselves, the less joyful we're gonna be, the less happy we're gonna be. You said something about money and fame. You know, putting those things as our value is not gonna make us happy if we value those things. For our happiness. How do we overcome self doubt? If everything is telling us, we're not good, we're stupid, we don't have the skills, we don't have the value, no one cares about us, our parents left us, this person cheated, this person stole, this, whatever. How do we build self belief when there's so much self doubt?

• 49:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a great question. So I always encourage people to first define what their goal is and where they wanna go. What they must understand.

• 49:44Lewis Howes?

  You sound like an athlete.

• 49:45Speaker 01

  Do I?

• 49:46Lewis Howes?

  This is all I talk about. I learned all these lessons from sports and it's like, everything starts with the goal for the season.

• 49:51Speaker 01

  That's great.

• 49:52Lewis Howes?

  I look at life as seasons because in a sport, you have usually three months in the season. And then there's the postseason, then there's an off season, then there's a preseason. It's kinda like the four seasons of life. But everything you need to have is a goal, so I'm sorry, sorry to interrupt you, but I'm glad you're speaking my language.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  Great, great, I'm glad. So my book's not gonna help you. But it's true. That's exactly what it's all about. So first defining who you are, where you wanna go, but also seeing your dream and your goal, not as something, but actually as a baby. And you're parenting and you're nursing and you're nurturing that dream. Now, no one says that their parents were perfect.

• 50:36Lewis Howes?

  That's true.

• 50:36Speaker 01

  So we're never a perfect steward of our dream. And when we look at our dream, we kind of try, think of it as, well, which season am I in of this dream? And how do I treat it? Take baby steps first. The best way to build self confidence, which is the opposite of self doubt, is to set small goals. Do what you can now and start building on that confidence. You can't build confidence without a track record.

• 51:09Lewis Howes?

  That's true.

• 51:10Speaker 01

  And you can't. Wave a magic wand and now all of a sudden your dreams come true. It's it's taking once, what's the first step? You know, and if the baby falls down trying to walk, you don't. You you pick, okay, let's try again.

• 51:25Lewis Howes?

  There's an amazing meme online. It says something like. You know, when a baby falls a thousand times when it's trying to walk, it doesn't say to itself, maybe this isn't for me.

• 51:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love that. I love that.

• 51:38Lewis Howes?

  Oh, I fell down. Let me get back up. It's not like, well, maybe I shouldn't walk. I failed.

• 51:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:42Lewis Howes?

  No, you need to fail over and over again.

• 51:44Speaker 01

  Right, right. And that's that's part of the process. Thomas Edison said, I didn't fail nine thousand nine hundred ninety nine times. Now I know nine thousand nine hundred ninety nine ways in how not to make a light bulb. And to have an emotional, psychological.

• 51:58Lewis Howes?

  It's a framing of it.

• 51:59Speaker 01

  It's a framing of it. Attachment. It's a framing of your dream and goal to almost be you're birthing a baby. You're you're not birthing a baby, but you you're nurturing a baby so that thing can become giant and run and strong. Um, and so you're gonna help it. You're gonna help. You're almost like you're putting yourself in the baby's shoes. Okay, what's my first step? And so that's it. So taking, if you're, if you want to become a speaker. Go to a seminar, read a book about speaking.

• 52:26Lewis Howes?

  Toastmasters.

• 52:27Speaker 01

  Go to toast, start somewhere. So many people say, I ask them, what what's your dream? Ah, I guess one day I wanna, and I'm like, really? Like you, do you, have you ever written your dream out? I'm like, hey, wait a second. So. How much money do you want to make a year? And they tell me, I'm like, so is that before or after tax in California? I'm on fifty four percent tax, all right? It's a difference.

• 52:50Lewis Howes?

  It is.

• 52:51Speaker 01

  It's like, okay, so and you and you want to get married? And how many kids do you want? And you want them to go to college? So wait, how much money do you really need to have in a bank to actually get a five to six percent interest bearing mutual, you know? You know, it's like.

• 53:03Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 53:04Speaker 01

  Well, oh, they're, oh, I need, I said, yeah, do you know anything about compound interest? No, do you know anything about, how much do you save? None? How many credit cards you got? Three?

• 53:14Lewis Howes?

  That's me fifteen years ago, yeah.

• 53:16Speaker 01

  Do you really believe in your dream? Have you ever really been honest with your dream? And I'll never forget, I, um, my life changed reading a book called Money Secrets of the Rich by John R. Burley. He, his book changed my life. And I went to his boot camp in Scottsdale, Arizona. And we did this thing where we had this breakthrough exercise, right? And my dream was to become a speaker. This is two thousand and two.

• 53:41Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 53:42Speaker 01

  Okay, this is where my mom said. My mom, what do you mean you're gonna be a speaker? She said, do you know what speaker? I said, no. Do you know, and then that's Australia. There was no Aussie motivational speakers. Is that if there's a motivational speaker in Australia in two thousand and two, they were American.

• 53:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, right, the Americans who came over here.

• 53:59Speaker 01

  Exactly. No one was making money. It was an industry that was not even heard of.

• 54:05Lewis Howes?

  Maybe Tony Robbins came over one time or something.

• 54:07Speaker 01

  That's it, right? That kind of thing. My mom said, what do you mean you're gonna speak? She said, what are you gonna speak about? I said, I don't know. She said, do you have any invitations? I said, no. She said, how are you gonna get the invitation? I said, I don't know. She says, all these things, really good questions, but I said, I don't care. When I knew my goal, I didn't care how many times I had to fail. Cause I defined that goal for me. I went through a breakthrough event. Really cool exercise that most breakthrough events do. On one side of the piece of wood, you put your goal. On the other side, you put your fears that you gotta break through. So these people, they punch this piece of wood and they crack it, right? And I didn't walk on hot coals, cause my pants were going fire. But I head butted this thing, right?

• 54:50Speaker 01

  And, and, and it defined me.

• 54:53Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 54:53Speaker 01

  It was a defining exercise.

• 54:56Lewis Howes?

  Are you breaking the side of your fears? And the goal's on the other side?

• 55:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, my fear was.

• 55:01Lewis Howes?

  You're facing your fear, you headbutt your fear.

• 55:03Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 55:03Lewis Howes?

  And then you have to break through.

• 55:04Speaker 01

  Yep. And I realized like, there's a lot more to my story with my parents, but my parents were so scared about my decision to become a speaker that they said, you must do your accounting and financial planning degree for a plan B, which is great advice, which I'm thankful for. But I had to break through the fear, what if my parents never talk to me again? And that was extreme, but that was in my head. I didn't want to disappoint my parents. They did everything they could for me. Why now disappoint them? Is this my stupid, you know, crazy little fantasy? Or is this what Nick's gonna do? And that was the moment, like, Nick's gonna do it, with or without my family.

• 55:43Lewis Howes?

  With or without them. Even if they're not there for me, I'm doing this because it was a part of your dream.

• 55:47Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 55:48Lewis Howes?

  And I think we need to be guided by our dreams. We need to be driven by our dreams.

• 55:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:51Lewis Howes?

  Because if it's staying in there and we don't pursue it, then what?

• 55:54Speaker 01

  You're right. And I'm not saying, now, look, I wasn't married. I wasn't engaged.

• 55:57Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 55:58Speaker 01

  Now that you're married, if you're married, that's a different thing. Well, with or without my wife, I'm gonna, no, that's a different thing.

• 56:04Lewis Howes?

  You gotta learn to communicate, to renegotiate your dream to, you know.

• 56:08Speaker 01

  And seasons and commitments and them to believe in you and what's the trigger point to success? When do you give it up? When do you not give it up? Though, that's a whole different book. That's a really good book to write, actually.

• 56:18Lewis Howes?

  Should write that book.

• 56:19Speaker 01

  I should write that book.

• 56:21Lewis Howes?

  Talking about your, you mentioned your wife a few different times throughout this.

• 56:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:25Lewis Howes?

  When did you know your wife was going to be your wife? What's the biggest lesson she's taught you? And what is it you love about her the most after all these years?

• 56:37Speaker 01

  I love those questions.

• 56:38Lewis Howes?

  So when did you know your wife was your wife?

• 56:40Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 56:40Lewis Howes?

  Biggest lesson she's taught you?

• 56:42Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 56:43Lewis Howes?

  And, yeah, start with those two.

• 56:47Speaker 01

  So we met in April 2010 in Dallas.

• 56:49Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 56:50Speaker 01

  We had sparks and fireworks in the air. I couldn't feel my legs.

• 56:55Lewis Howes?

  Almost ten year meeting.

• 56:57Speaker 01

  Meeting, right, right.

• 56:59Lewis Howes?

  Couldn't feel your legs, yes?

• 57:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you got that, yeah. And then, uh, there was a complication. She had a boyfriend at the time.

• 57:06Lewis Howes?

  That's a big complication.

• 57:07Speaker 01

  And there's more to the complication. But we, we were not in touch for six months. And, um, then we met up and the chemistry was huge. And we started developing a friendship and then went into dating. And three months into dating, that's when I lost all my money the second time. So she was there for you and you had nothing. That's when you know. Okay. This girl's amazing. So. Wow. I had more money than the average nineteen. Which nineteen year old gives away thirty K cash, then loses forty K, then comes back with the money, then goes back into real estate? So my mom's like, just make sure your wife, as a teenager, make sure your wife never marries you for your money. Right. And the question was like, but how would you ever really know?

• 57:52Speaker 01

  Now you know.

• 57:54Lewis Howes?

  That's impossible.

• 57:54Speaker 01

  You gotta get in there. So. Wow. Twelve weeks after our dating, I lost it all. What'd she say? So, first of all, Nick was not Nick. Oh, you're in crazy mode, you're in survival mode, you're in, I'm panicking. Panic. Running around without legs on. Louis, I woke up thirty days straight with panic attacks. Oh, man. I was not myself. Heart palpitations. Yes, all that stuff. It was terrible. Your legs are trembling. Yeah, exactly. Sweating all the time, I'm on the floor, I can't, I don't even know what to eat, I don't know what to eat. Losing weight. It was bad. I've never been so low in my life. Wow. Sure, when I was depressed with, you know, some other things in my life, but this was really,

• 58:37Speaker 01

  and the worst timing of all, like, I'm supposed to be, at best now, to develop a friendship who could be my wife. And I finally told her what happened, she said, don't worry babe, I'm not going anywhere. Wow. I said, babe, I lost all my money. She says, don't worry, looks straight, don't worry. Well, how long did it take you to tell her? It took me two weeks to actually, she knew something was wrong. So what are you, are you just like, everything's fine? She was in Texas, I was in California. Okay. I said, look, I'm, yeah, I'm not myself, she's, I'm coming over. So she sent her friends home, and we, you know, we talked during the day, and I finally was with her, and it took me three days face to face before I could really tell her anything. Oh, my God. She said, so what happened? I said, I lost all my money, I said, four things happened within three weeks.

• 59:20Speaker 01

  Cash flow crisis, then someone took the money, I just took on more than I could chew. And she's, and I said, I lost all my money, she said, don't worry. I'll get a nursing job and support the both of us. She did not. In a split second. She looked me straight, and I'm like, man, I wanna marry you. You said that? No, I'm thinking. You're thinking. I'm thinking like. Oh, wait a few months. So that was the day. Okay. That was it, then, six months later. Yeah. She was in Dallas, and I was in California, and we had a text going on.

• 59:53Speaker 01

  And it was the first uncomfortable moment where like

• 59:58Speaker 01

  we were not on the same page with something. And she was going into the shower and she just said out loud, I just want someone to fight for me.

• 1:00:07Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 1:00:09Speaker 01

  And and and and what what it was was there there was an issue of of just an uphill climb of what we had to together do together and it was it was uncomfortable and I felt on my heart, I'm just gonna pick up the phone. Pick up the phone, she picked it up while she's in the shower, she turned off the shower. So babe, I just wanna give you a call to say I'm gonna fight for you. Word for word, verbatim, and that's when she knew I was her husband. Three months later, I popped the question. I got the ring and a cream puff with a tray of cream puffs. I got her to feed me the cream puff. And I finished the cream puff in my mouth without choking on the ring. I went down on her finger and she thought I was getting kinky and then I pulled back and put the ring on her finger. And six months later, we got married.

• 1:00:48Lewis Howes?

  Wow, man.

• 1:00:49Speaker 01

  Um, so that's when I knew that she was gonna be the one.

• 1:00:52Lewis Howes?

  Biggest lesson she's taught you in the last, how many years you been?

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  Eight now.

• 1:00:56Lewis Howes?

  Eight years.

• 1:00:57Speaker 01

  We just did, yeah, our eighth anniversary celebration.

• 1:00:59Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:01:00Speaker 01

  The biggest thing she's taught me.

• 1:01:04Speaker 01

  She is quicker to love people, quicker to forgive people than me. She has a huge heart. Her heart's bigger than Texas.

• 1:01:16Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:01:17Speaker 01

  And she's not afraid to dream. She's actually probably the most intelligent woman I've ever met in my life.

• 1:01:24Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  I just look at her after she said something, I'm like, she is so wise. Um, and I'm like, man, that would have taken me, I didn't even think I'd ever come to that epiphany. She just says it straight off the cuff. I'm like. She to me is a woman of discernment and wisdom and clear, just cut through the crap. There's no fog in her life, like she's just, it is what it is. This is, Nick, this is what you should really do.

• 1:01:47Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:01:47Speaker 01

  And that's like, I'm like, okay.

• 1:01:49Lewis Howes?

  Don't do this deal, don't hang out with this person, yeah.

• 1:01:51Speaker 01

  Just straight up. Not that she offers it, but I ask her for it and bank. So she's taught me that there's always a path. And to to do things together, I think is what my best friend taught me.

• 1:02:04Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:02:04Speaker 01

  She's my best friend, but to do things together is so important. Because if you don't do things together, you you've missed the whole point of living.

• 1:02:13Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  Um, and being content with where we're at and to to not freak out. She sees me freak out. I don't. She's Japanese Mexican. Okay.

• 1:02:25Lewis Howes?

  My girl's Mexican.

• 1:02:26Speaker 01

  Awesome.

• 1:02:26Lewis Howes?

  Oh, Mexican. Does she speak Spanish?

• 1:02:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, she does.

• 1:02:29Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 1:02:29Speaker 01

  Born and raised in Mexico, man.

• 1:02:31Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 1:02:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:31Lewis Howes?

  Where?

• 1:02:32Speaker 01

  Uh, Zatahuac or Michoacan.

• 1:02:35Lewis Howes?

  Where is it?

• 1:02:35Speaker 01

  Michoacan. It's a state, yeah, northern Mexico City.

• 1:02:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, no Michoacan. Yeah, my girl's from Monterrey.

• 1:02:39Speaker 01

  Awesome. Yeah, her mother's from Monterrey. Yeah.

• 1:02:42Lewis Howes?

  A double date, man.

• 1:02:43Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 1:02:43Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing.

• 1:02:44Speaker 01

  Si se puede, como no.

• 1:02:45Lewis Howes?

  I need to learn Spanish now. Are you fluent?

• 1:02:47Speaker 01

  Uh, you understand seventy percent.

• 1:02:50Lewis Howes?

  My mission is to get a a a full-time teacher this year.

• 1:02:54Speaker 01

  It's good.

• 1:02:54Lewis Howes?

  In the next month.

• 1:02:55Speaker 01

  It's great.

• 1:02:56Lewis Howes?

  Trying to find someone to come to my place and teach me.

• 1:02:58Speaker 01

  It's good.

• 1:02:59Lewis Howes?

  I feel like it'd be the best skill I could learn.

• 1:03:01Speaker 01

  I'm sure someone watching a podcast could probably.

• 1:03:03Lewis Howes?

  I'm a fluent salsa dancer.

• 1:03:05Speaker 01

  Ah, yeah.

• 1:03:05Lewis Howes?

  I've been salsa dancing for fifteen years around the world. I like the top salsa clubs. It's a blast. So I'm around the culture and the music all the time.

• 1:03:13Speaker 01

  I love watching people dance.

• 1:03:15Lewis Howes?

  It's a blast.

• 1:03:16Speaker 01

  If I had arms and legs, the first thing I would do is dance class.

• 1:03:19Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:03:19Speaker 01

  No joke.

• 1:03:20Lewis Howes?

  It's a blast, man.

• 1:03:21Speaker 01

  Anyway.

• 1:03:22Lewis Howes?

  So the thing you love about her the most?

• 1:03:23Speaker 01

  So the thing I love about her the most is that she's calm, she's collected, she's wise.

• 1:03:29Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:03:30Speaker 01

  And she's taught me to be happy and not freak out at anything. You have no idea.

• 1:03:37Speaker 01

  She's still in the process of getting her papers.

• 1:03:40Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  Okay, she had a rough life. Her mother left.

• 1:03:44Lewis Howes?

  Imagine.

• 1:03:45Speaker 01

  Her mother left the family when she was three. Her dad died of cancer when she was eighteen.

• 1:03:50Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:03:51Speaker 01

  She was alone in a house with her brother, took over her father's fish breeding business to just sustain, and then she came to America with her brother, um, speaking no English.

• 1:04:04Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:04:04Speaker 01

  Not finishing high school, came to America to start all over again. So she's been through a lot. I've been through a lot. But together, it's like, wow, I feel unstoppable when I'm by her side. And I've just gotta sit down, calm down, cause I'm like, personality A. You're right, just my brain. And she's taught me to switch my brain off. And I wanna share one, one last personal success with all of this. When I go to the dining table and I bring my phone, she grabs my phone. She puts it on the highest book.

• 1:04:44Lewis Howes?

  Good job for it.

• 1:04:46Speaker 01

  Right, exactly. Do it, try it. Let me see, entertain me. I'm not a doctor on call, no one's gonna die. And I was so adamant about time management, prioritization and reverse engineering. Where do I wanna be? And where I wanted to be, I achieved in twenty eighteen. Louis, I'm looking you in the eye and telling you for a year straight, I was able to, with seventeen employees, one for-profit company, one nonprofit company, seventeen employees, I'm CEO of both. I switched off my phone every week, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday.

• 1:05:28Lewis Howes?

  Wow, four days, no phone.

• 1:05:30Speaker 01

  I worked Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, eight hours a day.

• 1:05:34Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:05:35Speaker 01

  And I'm not traveling, that was my week.

• 1:05:38Lewis Howes?

  That's inspiring, man, especially with four kids, that's gonna be inspiring.

• 1:05:41Speaker 01

  Amazing.

• 1:05:42Lewis Howes?

  Well, you just learn to prioritize. What are the things I need to do and who would I need to hire to do this for me?

• 1:05:46Speaker 01

  Exactly, delegate.

• 1:05:47Lewis Howes?

  As opposed to work harder.

• 1:05:49Speaker 01

  Exactly. So now I'm going through a massive rebranding though.

• 1:05:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, we're gonna help you.

• 1:05:54Speaker 01

  Thank you, I'd love to figure that out. But the bottom line is, I don't wanna travel internationally anymore.

• 1:05:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  Between my back, my physical.

• 1:06:02Lewis Howes?

  Kids.

• 1:06:02Speaker 01

  I don't know how I'm gonna be in fifteen years' time, but I wanna be there for my kids. I wanna be there with my wife. And having that opportunity, even for me, it's a scary transition. It's not like I've got millions in the bank saying, oh yeah, let's throw a half a million at this.

• 1:06:18Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:06:18Speaker 01

  You know what I mean, like, I didn't wanna work to become rich. I do enough work to get what we need.

• 1:06:27Speaker 01

  To reposition is not an easy task.

• 1:06:30Lewis Howes?

  It's not easy, man.

• 1:06:31Speaker 01

  For anyone.

• 1:06:31Lewis Howes?

  I've been through a rebranding of my website for like eight months. It's like moving into a new office, letting go of agencies, hiring people. It's a lot of energy, time, money.

• 1:06:41Speaker 01

  But it's amazing. It's the right thing to do. And if you look at nickvoitchich.com today.

• 1:06:48Lewis Howes?

  Well, let's. Don't look at it today. Unless you want to book this guy to speak, look at it in a few months. Hopefully it'll be rebranded.

• 1:06:54Speaker 01

  I'm just gonna say it's a miracle because we actually put no marketing or branding.

• 1:06:59Lewis Howes?

  I don't know how you do it.

• 1:07:00Speaker 01

  I'm sometimes in some, in some countries, I'm top three speaker.

• 1:07:04Lewis Howes?

  That's crazy.

• 1:07:05Speaker 01

  And, and we've done no marketing and branding.

• 1:07:07Lewis Howes?

  In the US.

• 1:07:07Speaker 01

  So I've been spoiled.

• 1:07:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's crazy.

• 1:07:09Speaker 01

  And so now I'm like, hey, America, I'm here. I want to go all around corporate America and help all the, all the companies use me as a megaphone. It's almost like a physical demonstration of what they've been trying to tell their team and sales team. Hey, we have no excuses. Let's run. And let's live a life without limits.

• 1:07:33Lewis Howes?

  It's hard to sometimes hear from your, your partner, your spouse, what they need to hear. Sometimes you need to bring someone else who they can respect and be inspired by to say, okay, it's time to do what you told me to do.

• 1:07:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:07:44Lewis Howes?

  Three years ago.

• 1:07:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:07:45Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 1:07:46Speaker 01

  Finally.

• 1:07:47Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing.

• 1:07:47Speaker 01

  I get it.

• 1:07:48Lewis Howes?

  I get it. What's the thing you're most proud of that most people don't know about you?

• 1:07:57Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:07:57Lewis Howes?

  Either something you've done, something maybe that you haven't announced to the world, or maybe something you've done that no one knows about, not even your wife or your kids, or, or something that is big that you're proud about as well, but something most people don't know about.

• 1:08:11Speaker 01

  I have to say that every entrepreneurial visionary needs some spark, not just of continuing to create and build and innovate.

• 1:08:23Speaker 01

  But to give back. And I've silently been mentoring and I might actually start podcast category just for it. But coaching CEOs of nonprofits. So I've had fifteen years of experience of nonprofit. I turned around our nonprofit from where it was from different directors that were hired. I was kind of the speaker, the founder, the president, but not the CEO. And I took over about five years ago. And I learnt a ton in the last fifteen years and basically helping nonprofits who are doing okay. You know, most beginning nonprofits, they'd be happy with thirty to a hundred thousand dollars in the bank.

• 1:09:08Speaker 01

  And we help them go to the next level. And it's just an hour with me and the executive team and the CEO. Sometimes it's four hours. I love whiteboarding. I love helping them define their next goal. How do they change this? How do they change that? And I've learnt that any big organization, they cannot change twenty things. But if any organization, for profit or nonprofit, if you just hold on to two or three things per year to change and you do two to three a year, massive change happens. So they're now triple in the bank. They've, one of them just has done phenomenally well.

• 1:09:50Speaker 01

  And I'm actually now mentoring because of my friend who lost both husbands. I actually Googled, what's a nonprofit that helps widows? And apart from Bill Gates' whole deal, there was only one. And it's run by three widows. And, and they're, they've done the biggest uphill climb of nonprofit registration, being able to give actual money to a widow. Cause here I am, and I asked the local church, I said, can I give a tax deductible receipt to a widow through the church? They said, no. I'm like.

• 1:10:31Speaker 01

  So I had a call with these women, told them who I was. They said, what do you want for it? I said, nothing. I don't want you to even tell anybody. Now I'm telling everyone, but I'm just saying.

• 1:10:43Lewis Howes?

  You just wanted to serve.

• 1:10:44Speaker 01

  I just want to serve. And so there's something that no one knows. I love seeing other people fulfill their dreams.

• 1:10:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I love it.

• 1:10:52Speaker 01

  And using the talent and the skill, if I can help fast track fifteen years of education in a year for free, I would do it. And so what we're doing is I'm getting so many requests that we may have a whole list of of content, even maybe phone calls that we could do and just helping many nonprofits. You know, there's four hundred, no, one point two million nonprofits in the US alone.

• 1:11:16Lewis Howes?

  It's crazy, man.

• 1:11:17Speaker 01

  So many people are saying, well, Nick, how did you break it? How did you do this? How did you do that? How'd you build the team? And all those kinds of things. And so that's something that many people don't know. And if I don't do that, I feel incomplete because I want to pass it on.

• 1:11:31Lewis Howes?

  It could be a whole podcast series, just how to help nonprofits scale, grow.

• 1:11:35Speaker 01

  That's it. And they'd subscribe.

• 1:11:38Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely, yeah.

• 1:11:38Speaker 01

  To all the content. I don't know. I think I bring value to that. So we, after this show, Louis, are gonna brainstorm.

• 1:11:45Lewis Howes?

  A lot of things, man.

• 1:11:46Speaker 01

  And I'd love to learn from you because this is interesting, right? Here I am as a worldwide speaker, trying to actually rebrand myself to put my stake in the ground here in America like never before.

• 1:11:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I'm excited for you.

• 1:11:57Speaker 01

  And it might take a podcast and all this stuff that I'm gonna pick your brain on.

• 1:12:02Lewis Howes?

  We're gonna talk after for sure on this. I've got a couple of questions left for you. Before I ask the final few questions, I want to make sure that people do hire you to speak. If you got a big corporation, hire this man. If you're a decision maker there, send it to your boss. Where can they go if they want to book you or learn more about booking you for speaking?

• 1:12:22Speaker 01

  Nickvoyage.com.

• 1:12:23Lewis Howes?

  Nickvoyage.com.

• 1:12:24Speaker 01

  It'll be there by the time this is up. It'll be there.

• 1:12:26Lewis Howes?

  It's up there, yeah. Go there. We can also follow you on Instagram, Facebook. You're on Instagram.

• 1:12:31Speaker 01

  I am. We're at the same, I'm hearing you're growing like crazy, but we're at the same, one point five.

• 1:12:37Lewis Howes?

  Okay, cool.

• 1:12:38Speaker 01

  And then English Facebook, we have nearly ten.

• 1:12:42Lewis Howes?

  Ten million?

• 1:12:42Speaker 01

  Uh huh. But I've hardly done nothing. That's English. And then I've got two million in Spanish.

• 1:12:48Lewis Howes?

  Well, do anything to do with it?

• 1:12:50Speaker 01

  No, we, well, like, we're starting now.

• 1:12:51Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:12:52Speaker 01

  We'd see, read, see?

• 1:12:53Lewis Howes?

  Just growing without doing anything.

• 1:12:54Speaker 01

  I didn't do anything.

• 1:12:55Lewis Howes?

  I got ten million fans.

• 1:12:56Speaker 01

  I got ten million, it's exactly what happened.

• 1:12:58Lewis Howes?

  It's so simple.

• 1:13:00Speaker 01

  I worked my butt off around the world to get that.

• 1:13:03Lewis Howes?

  And people, yeah.

• 1:13:04Speaker 01

  But we didn't strategically build it. So, I mean, that's just the, that's organic.

• 1:13:10Lewis Howes?

  That's amazing, dude.

• 1:13:11Speaker 01

  And that's just the, it's just a little barometer of what it took to inspire a billion people in some sort of level.

• 1:13:20Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing. So we have Instagram, Facebook, just your name.

• 1:13:23Speaker 01

  Yep. Nick Vujicic, N I C K V U J I C I C.

• 1:13:26Lewis Howes?

  Vujicic.

• 1:13:27Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 1:13:28Lewis Howes?

  Where else can we follow you or support you? You've got five or six books. This is one, Life Without Limits.

• 1:13:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, Life Without Limits, that's our bestseller.

• 1:13:35Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 1:13:36Speaker 01

  We sold over a million copies of that.

• 1:13:38Lewis Howes?

  That's it?

• 1:13:38Speaker 01

  It's in forty languages.

• 1:13:40Lewis Howes?

  You're playing small, man.

• 1:13:41Speaker 01

  Again, no marketing.

• 1:13:44Lewis Howes?

  Forty languages, go get this book.

• 1:13:45Speaker 01

  So now 1.1 million, you guys. Thank you for selling hundreds of copies. But yeah, go to any bookstore on that. Go, just go online for that. But yeah, I'm writing a new book coming out on attitude. I want to take the attitude space. I feel like that's the one thing I can talk about when it comes to happiness, depression, overcoming, exceeding your own expectations of your limits.

• 1:14:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, relationships, everything.

• 1:14:11Speaker 01

  All of that. So we want to do an attitude checkbook and just help everyone to have the premium attitude to have the optimum altitude.

• 1:14:19Lewis Howes?

  I love it, man. This is a question, it's called the three truths. I ask this at the end of every interview. So imagine you've accomplished and achieved all of your dreams and you've lived a very long life. You live as long as you want and then at one point, you gotta go, right? And hypothetically, you've got to take all of your content, books, materials, video, audios with you. So no one has access to your spoken or written or visual word any longer. Hypothetical. But you have a piece of paper.

• 1:14:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:50Lewis Howes?

  And you get to write down your toes or your mouth.

• 1:14:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:54Lewis Howes?

  You get to write down three things you know to be true about everything in life that you've learned. These would be the only three things you could share with the world or three lessons to the world I call three truths. What would be yours?

• 1:15:06Speaker 01

  How long could the sentences be?

• 1:15:08Lewis Howes?

  As long as you want.

• 1:15:08Speaker 01

  All right.

• 1:15:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Truth number one.

• 1:15:12Speaker 01

  Truth number one, you're beautiful just the way that you are and you have value.

• 1:15:19Speaker 01

  Number two, you've been created and designed for a greater purpose.

• 1:15:27Speaker 01

  Find it and run for it. And the third thing is, even facing death, there's hope. It's called heaven.

• 1:15:42Lewis Howes?

  I love this, man.

• 1:15:44Speaker 01

  And so that for me, I understand, we all have different philosophies and religious beliefs. I understand that. But for me, I've found nothing limitless like that. That even if and when, not if, but when I face death and however I may face it. Every day, I know that I have value. I'm achieving my greater purpose and I know that this ain't it. And when you have that, then you make the most of everything you have. Because not only are you doing good to be good, to know that you are good.

• 1:16:24Speaker 01

  But that you actually do good, do well, to even change the trajectory of eternity for other souls. And if you could encourage people to know that there's a wonderful thing called

• 1:16:40Speaker 01

  purpose and eternity, that to me is the bottom line. But when you have that in your mind, go for your dream, keep running, never give up.

• 1:16:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Now imagine that you're able to broadcast live to the entire world and everyone could understand English. And you had, you could only say one thing to the world.

• 1:17:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:07Lewis Howes?

  And you had 30 seconds to share a message. And the whole world was tuning in at this moment. What would you say to the entire world?

• 1:17:16Speaker 01

  I want you to know that I love you. I want you to know that your broken pieces can somehow and sometime will come together for the good to be something beautiful. I have a history of brokenness and pieces in my life. And I tell teenagers, it's always worse being in a broken home than having no arms and legs. So it's not about what brokenness we have. It's about holding on to the beauty that will come from them. Where if you can help someone else in need, that's when you realize you don't need a miracle to be one.

• 1:17:51Lewis Howes?

  Oh, that's good, man. You are a great speaker.

• 1:17:54Speaker 01

  That was thirty seconds.

• 1:17:55Lewis Howes?

  I love it. It was all the dot. Yeah, it was all the dot. You got it in the time.

• 1:17:58Speaker 01

  Is that good?

• 1:18:00Lewis Howes?

  Before we ask the final question for you, I want to acknowledge you, Nick, for your generosity, man. You have a huge giving heart to serve people. And it's not easy for a guy with arms and legs to fly around the country. The amount of times that I do, but for you to do it hundreds of times a year, year after year, to serve, to inspire, to lead, to create hope for people. And to tell people they're beautiful and they matter is a beautiful thing, man. And I want to let you know that I value your heart and your effort and your energy towards service. And I really appreciate that part of you. So I acknowledge you for that. And so many things. I'm excited to hang out. Hopefully we can double date soon before you head.

• 1:18:42Speaker 01

  Definitely. Some Mexican food.

• 1:18:44Lewis Howes?

  I'm in, man. I'm in. My final question is, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:18:49Speaker 01

  Greatness, humility. Believe it or not, if there's only one factor. Because the moment you think you're more important than somebody else is the moment you have clipped and limited your own full potential. I think the greatest barometer of greatness is humility. Because with a humble heart, you're happy, you're thankful, you have a servant heart, and you know that every single soul matters. So you take time to make the most of every opportunity with everyone. I think humility is, out of all the words that I could have ever said, would be, to me, greatness.

• 1:19:33Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, Nick, my man. Appreciate you, brother. Love you, man.

• 1:19:35Speaker 01

  Love you.

• 1:19:36Lewis Howes?

  Beautiful, man.

• 1:19:37Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 1:19:37Lewis Howes?

  Thank you, brother.

• 1:19:41Lewis Howes?

  My friends, if this didn't inspire you, if this didn't lift you up, if this didn't help you overcome the limitations of your own mind, I don't know what will. Nick is one of the most inspirational speakers in the world. You've got to check this man out. He is an incredible human being. Follow him over on social media. Check out his new podcast. Check out all the stuff that he's doing at his website as well. We'll have it linked up over on the show notes at lewishouse.com/931. And you have the ability to change and impact someone's life today. I want you to think about someone close to you, someone who's a friend, a family member, an acquaintance, someone at your job, someone that you work with, that could be using inspirational messages like this in their life to help them improve,

• 1:20:25Lewis Howes?

  help them grow, help them move forward in their life with passion and power and clarity and confidence. Send them this link, lewishouse.com/931, and you will become a hero, a champion in their life by being the catalyst that inspires them to grow and just continue to stay learning on a daily and weekly basis because we always need to be learning in order to grow, in order to improve. Otherwise, if we stop learning, we start slowly dying. And I want you and your friends to keep learning. If this is your first time here and someone sent you this link, give them a virtual high five, give them a hug, send them a text and say, "Thank you so much for sending me this episode. I appreciate you thinking about me.

• 1:21:08Lewis Howes?

  I appreciate your generosity, your kindness, and your thoughtfulness really means the world to me." And keep spreading the message. Again, subscribe to our podcast over on Apple Podcasts, over on Spotify, and share this with your friends on social media. Tag me, @lewishouse. Make sure to tag Nick as well. I'm sure he would love to see what you think about this also. You can check out our YouTube show. If you're not over on YouTube, go subscribe on youtube.com/lewishouse. Put our videos out there. We have some amazing video content out there that will inspire you if you want to watch the videos as well. And I'm just so grateful that you decided to show up here when you have lots of different choices online to learn and grow from. Again, Bruce Lee said, "If you always put limits on everything

• 1:21:51Lewis Howes?

  you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life." There are no limits. There are only plateaus. And you must not stay there. You must go beyond them. My friend, I know that you might be feeling some type of adversity and challenge in your life right now, whether it be at work... Your inner confidence, relationship, career, vision for your future, family. There's something in your life that you might be struggling with. And I'm telling you, if you continue to work on yourself, if you continue to improve, and you continue to serve other people around you, show gratitude and appreciation for your life, and continue working towards your dreams, your goals, you will start to manifest and

• 1:22:35Lewis Howes?

  attract all the goodness that you want in your life. It's coming for you. You must keep working, and you must be patient and grateful at the same time, every day, for the efforts and the work that you put in on a daily basis. You are deserving of so much goodness. You are deserving of so much love. You are love. You are purpose. Start showing up that way, and you'll start to attract it in a magical, beautiful way. I love you so very much. I'm so grateful for you. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.