95 Simple Ways to Overcome Stress from Unmet Expectations in Life with Christine Hassler

"Whatever you're yearning for from out there, from someone else, is really something you're looking for inside yourself." - Christine Hassler To read all the show notes and connect with those mentioned in the show, head on over to www. LewisHowes.com/95 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.

• 0:01Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 95 with Christine Hassler.

• 0:07Lewis 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.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  What is up, Grace? Thanks so much for hanging out with me today. And I've got a question for you. Have you ever set yourself an expectation so high to only come out the other end feeling extremely disappointed that the expectation was not met? I've done that thousands of times, and it's getting a lot better as I get older, as I learn how to set expectations the right way, and how to understand how to deal with the expectation hangover that I might have, and how to go through it in a way that works for me, that way that's healthy. So we've got Christine Hassler on today, who's the author of Expectation Hangover: Overcoming Disappointment in Work,

• 1:17Lewis Howes?

  Love, and Life. And we're going to recover a lot of things, dive into this topic, because I feel like so many people set these expectations specifically in relationships, or on dates, or in their business, or whatever it may be with their family, they're setting these expectations, they're not being met, and then they don't know how to deal with the unmet expectation. They don't know how to deal with the feelings that they have, the resentment, the anger, the frustration, whatever it may be. So we're going to be diving into the role of expectations in searching for greatness, defining what an expectation hangover actually is, what it is not, a system for being with the pain of a breakup, the differences between releasing and recycling emotions,

• 1:58Lewis Howes?

  and also coping strategies, what works and what does not work with an expectation hangover. So I'm very excited to dive into this topic with Christine Hassler. Now, before we jump in, I want to talk about a quick little fun fact about me today. And a lot of you guys are approaching me in person and saying that you like the facts. So I'm going to keep doing the facts for a while. Fun fact about me, it's my sister Catherine. I've got two older sisters, but one of my sisters, Catherine, it was her birthday last week, and it reminded me... Big shout out to the big sis Catherine, the one who let me sleep on our couch when I was down and out a number of years ago, but it reminded me of my first kiss. You know, we're talking about relationships here, the expectation hangover, reminded me of my first

• 2:39Lewis Howes?

  kiss. And I was in eighth grade, I actually had my first kiss, it was kind of like a peck in seventh grade. I was like terrified. I was so scared. But my real first kiss was in eighth grade with a girl named Catherine Katron, a sweetheart of a girl. And I was living, I was at a boarding school in St. Louis, Missouri, and it was outside on a bench by the middle school girls dorm. So it was a coed school, and there were, there were dorms on both sides of the campuses. So it was like late at night, snuck out and like kissed her. It was a lot of fun. Anyways, my question for you guys is, do you remember your first kiss? And what it was

• 3:21Lewis Howes?

  like? Go ahead and share with me on Twitter at Lewis Howes if you do, and bring back that memory. I thought it was just fun. So big shout out to Catherine Katron for my first kiss. And let's go ahead and dive into this expectation hangover with Christine Hassler.

• 3:45Lewis Howes?

  What's up everyone? Thanks so much for coming back on the School of Greatness Podcast. I'm your host Lewis Howes, and I got Christine Hassler on. What's up Christine?

• 3:52Speaker 01

  Hey Lewis.

• 3:53Lewis Howes?

  Good to see you.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  I'm so happy to be here.

• 3:55Lewis Howes?

  I am pumped because we've been friends for how long now? Like two, three years maybe?

• 4:00Speaker 01

  Something like that.

• 4:01Lewis Howes?

  And I think we met through AJ, right?

• 4:02Speaker 01

  AJ, yeah Gary, yeah.

• 4:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And also Lissa Rankin and like a few other people. And we've had some interesting conversations, talk about a lot of fun things. We've been talking about relationships recently because I've, I've dived into one. And so I'm asking everyone about it. But you got a new book out called Expectation Hangover: Overcoming Disappointment in Work, Love, and Life. And this is a very powerful book for everyone, because a lot of us have expectations. At least I know my entire life, I've always set high expectations for myself, and want to achieve certain things. And the interesting thing is, I have a hang, I've had a hangover in the past, when I didn't achieve it, but also when I did achieve the expectation.

• 4:49Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 4:49Lewis Howes?

  That's kind of crazy. So

• 4:51Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 4:51Lewis Howes?

  So let's first talk about what can we expect from this book?

• 4:55Speaker 01

  Okay, okay. Yeah, there's actually a chapter of what to expect. And I'll just back up and formally define an expectation hangover.

• 5:04Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  Which is when you don't achieve your expected result, or you do achieve your expected result or outcome, but you don't have the feeling.

• 5:12Lewis Howes?

  But it wasn't what you thought it was.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, it wasn't what you thought. It didn't turn out like you planned. Or life throws you an unexpected curveball. And we're left with kind of hangover-like symptoms, you know? We have a sense of regret. Our head is aching, maybe not a physical headache, but from all the thinking and rethinking. We're spinning in confusion. We lack motivation. And it's a real sense of disappointment and it interrupts our productivity. We get disconnected and it slows so much of us down.

• 5:38Lewis Howes?

  After the event happens, it slows us down from the next thing or?

• 5:42Speaker 01

  From everything, because if you think about disappointment, we personalize it.

• 5:47Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 5:47Speaker 01

  Right? So anytime we're disappointed, either we disappoint ourselves, because the person we're often hardest on is ourselves. I know that's been true for me.

• 5:55Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  Or we're disappointed by another, we tend to make it personal. We tend to think.

• 5:59Lewis Howes?

  Take it personally.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  Take it personally. Yeah, totally.

• 6:01Lewis Howes?

  Defensive, take it personally.

• 6:03Speaker 01

  I did something wrong.

• 6:04Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  Right?

• 6:04Lewis Howes?

  So if you're, if my girlfriend hypothetically doesn't do something I want her to do, or I'm expecting, I think that she should do, or whatever. If I have that expectation, then I'm going to take it personally.

• 6:15Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 6:16Lewis Howes?

  I'm going to get frustrated.

• 6:17Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:17Lewis Howes?

  Angry, defensive, guarded.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:20Lewis Howes?

  If I have that expectation.

• 6:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, if you, if you attach to it.

• 6:24Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  See, the thing.

• 6:25Lewis Howes?

  Attach to the result, yeah.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  The thing about expectations is that there's huge attachment. An expectation is much different than a goal. I'm all for goals and having intentions and all of that. But there's this sense of weighted obligation that comes with any expectation. And we hold out for this feeling or, or a performance from someone else or something. And that's what sets us up for the disappointment. And disappointment is totally a normal part of life. I don't know any human being who's escaped the experience of disappointment.

• 6:57Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 6:58Speaker 01

  And I don't think it's so bad, you know, and that's one of the things, coming back to your question about what we can expect from this book. I want to take the shame off of disappointment because it's been through my greatest disappointments that I've grown the most. I've had to have some major, major, major expectation hangovers to get me more on an aligned path, the path that's more creative for my authentic self and not my ego, because we all are addicted to control and certainty.

• 7:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course. Being in control, being right, yes.

• 7:27Speaker 01

  All those things.

• 7:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I would, I'd definitely say that, you know, experiencing disappointment is a powerful feeling and we don't always have to be positive and have everything go our way. I think the joy of life is having some contrast to, you know, the great things. It's having things that aren't going so great so you can strive for greater things, right?

• 7:49Speaker 01

  Exactly. When I go to Bali, I go to Bali a lot and it's hot, super hot. I'm always sweating. And I noticed the Balinese people, they don't really sweat that much. They're never complaining about the heat. Why?

• 8:01Lewis Howes?

  Hotter than LA, Palm Springs?

• 8:02Speaker 01

  Well, they, it's just, it's hot, it's sticky, it's humid. But the Balinese people have never left Bali. They don't know any other weather than hot. I know it's hot and my body reacts to it because I know cold, you know, I know the contrast. So the human experience we learn through contrast. You know, we know hot because we know cold, we know joy because we know sorrow. And I think that one of the things, like I've been in the personal growth industry for almost a decade.

• 8:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 8:28Speaker 01

  And one of my pet peeves, I guess, is that everything's supposed to be happy-go-lucky, positive all the time. And that leads us to an expectation hangover. You know, in the book, I talk about the coping skills that don't work. Often when you're in the midst of an expectation hangover, like let's say someone just broke up with you, or your business just failed, or something like that, affirmations in a pep talk aren't really gonna get you so far.

• 8:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you gotta have a time period where you can just be in your experience of feeling however you wanna feel, right?

• 8:57Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 8:57Lewis Howes?

  If you feel shitty, then you can feel that way for a certain amount of time. Now, obviously, you don't wanna be doing that for a couple of years, probably.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  No.

• 9:03Lewis Howes?

  Do you recommend, like, say someone broke up with you, I have a friend of mine who, they just broke up, two friends of mine, actually, and he's heartbroken, and he's like, "I don't know what to do," he's just kind of having this, these feelings of disappointment, of frustration, of confusion, of why, and what would you recommend someone like that, who's going through a breakup? How long to give yourself this time of experiencing your experience of whatever's coming up for you, where you wanna eat whatever, you wanna say whatever, you wanna be frustrated? Is there a system someone could follow? Is it 24 hours, then you go back to being positive? Is it six months? You know, what is the system?

• 9:42Speaker 01

  Well, I think the time is different for everybody, but the system is something I really break down in the book. And the first, you know, the book is broken down into, you know, what sets up expectations in the hangover, then the treatment plan on the emotional, mental, behavioral, and spiritual level. So the first is the emotional, because that's the one everybody wants to avoid. Everybody wants to kind of, yeah, like, really processing the emotions, because, so, Lewis, what I've learned in my own life and working with so many people at this point, is the difference between releasing and recycling emotions, and most people recycle them, which means, let's say I have a cry, or your friend who just broke up, you know, like, because men cry too.

• 10:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  Men have hearts and feelings, and I love that more men like you are making it okay for vulnerability and emotions. But most people, when they have a good cry, or whatever, they process their emotions, they have an analyzer going. So there's one part of them that's feeling it, and then there's another part that's go, "When is this gonna be over? Why am I feeling this way? What's wrong with me? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." And, and that just recycles it. So part of-

• 10:43Lewis Howes?

  The analyzing.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  The analyzing, the judging, the wanting it to be different, the kind of going into victim mentality, "Why, why, why?" Like, when people ask me, "Why did this happen?" I'm like, "Wrong question."

• 10:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 10:54Speaker 01

  We'll, we'll get to that, I'm sure, later in our talk. But when you're releasing feelings, you're just letting yourself have the emotion. Okay, so here's why therapy and coaching and things work. You're with someone that's holding a place of compassion. So a good therapist or coach will hold a loving space of compassion, no judgment, no analyzing, no diagnosing, but will just hold this place, space of compassion, so that the person can have their feelings and they can emote. So what we're doing in therapy or coaching or whatever is modeling for the person how to be with themselves. Because there's always a part of us that's going through the feeling, and then there's this other part of us that's so compassionate and so loving. And so when we're having the feeling, like going through a breakup, or going through grief

• 11:37Speaker 01

  of any time, there's one part of us that's having the feeling, and then there's another part that's like, it's okay, just let it out, it's okay. So for anyone right now going through a breakup or a loss of any kind, give yourself that. Use the tools in the book. I talk about release writing, there's another tool called the temper tantrum technique, where I'm, because that was my biggest roadblock. You know, I was on antidepressants for 20 years of my life. So learning how to process emotions has been a big part of it.

• 12:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And whenever you try to, you know, the thing you're learning the most, you've become a great teacher at, because you've like researched everything, you've tried everything, and you know it works. So that's why I know this is going to be an awesome book for people to dive into. Did you talk about, I think you briefly mentioned this, but what are the three types of hangovers? Did you mention that already?

• 12:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's when a desired result does not occur, or the desired result does occur, and you don't have the feeling that you want from it, doesn't count like you planned, or an unexpected curveball. Yeah, and there are situat-, yeah, those are the three. And then, so there are situational expectation hangovers, interpersonal expectation hangovers, and then the ones we put on ourselves. So it's like someone else lets us down, a situation in life lets us down, or we let ourselves down.

• 12:46Lewis Howes?

  And on page 17, you talk about be-do-have, the process of being, doing, and then having. I think a lot of people expect to have something first, before they are being a certain way, and then creating what they want to get the result.

• 13:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:02Lewis Howes?

  Can you talk about that?

• 13:03Speaker 01

  Yes, we live very outside in.

• 13:06Lewis Howes?

  We expect.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  We expect.

• 13:07Lewis Howes?

  Things to come to us.

• 13:08Speaker 01

  Yes, and then it's going to feel that way. Like, once I get this job, then I'll be happy. Once my business takes off, then I won't have anxiety. Once I have a boyfriend, then I'll feel good about myself.

• 13:18Lewis Howes?

  Feel loved.

• 13:19Speaker 01

  Whatever. Yeah, the once, then, if, then, blah, blah, blah. And the thing with, you know, let's, let's take the law of attraction, for example, you know, I also talk about in the book, the flaw with the law of attraction, because you can long for things and want things and have 40 million vision boards all over your home, but if inside you aren't being that, and you don't, you have misunderstandings and limiting beliefs about worthiness or not enoughness, then it's not going to work.

• 13:46Lewis Howes?

  Sure. It's not gonna just show up.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  It's not just gonna show up. We, we have to create those internal experiences. You know, I talk about form versus essence. You know, we get so obsessed with the form, the package we want things to come in, that we're like, wow, like, I, why don't I just feel this way right now? You know, one of my biggest breakthroughs, so as the author of a book on expectation hangovers, I've become an expert on them, which means I've had to have many, many, I'm like, I'm not writing another book about disappointment. But one thing that, that I have really, really truly learned is that within each of these, it's like milking them for all their worth. And one of them was going through a divorce.

• 14:25Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 14:26Speaker 01

  And I remember just really suffering over-

• 14:29Lewis Howes?

  Which is a big expectation hangover.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  Which is a big, oh my gosh, on so many levels, right? But I remember one day when I was really suffering over being single, and I thought, wait a second, the only reason I'm suffering is because I think it would be better if I wasn't. How do I know? So for anyone listening right now, whatever you think you want, how do you unequivocally know it would be better if you had it?

• 14:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 14:51Speaker 01

  And whatever you think you're gonna get from that experience, the feeling of connection or the feeling of prosperity or confidence or whatever it is, what can you do in your life right now?

• 15:01Lewis Howes?

  To have it now.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  To, yeah, to generate that feeling, to be it, and then that's when you attract what's truly for your highest good. And that's the other thing about surrender. Surrender is one of those sexy spiritual words. It's like, oh, I surrender. It is hard. It is hard to surrender, because-

• 15:15Lewis Howes?

  For control freaks, it's hard to let go.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  For control freaks, for planners, for higher achievers, it's like, it's, it's almost impossible. But it's only when we surrender to like, what is truly for our highest good and moving into full acceptance.

• 15:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. In chapter three, talk about-

• 15:35Lewis Howes?

  What doesn't work? And I'm wondering what I'm thinking about here are these questions now.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  The coping strategies that don't work?

• 15:41Lewis Howes?

  Yes, yes. Can you talk, can you share a few of these?

• 15:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, so most commonly when people have an expectation hangover, they do things like drinking more.

• 15:50Lewis Howes?

  Ah.

• 15:50Speaker 01

  Which is no bueno, because alcohol is a depressant. So if you already are feeling crappy and then you pour alcohol into your system, it's like you're going on a hike with a 40-pound backpack, you know? Unless you want the extra workout. Um, trying to replace it with something else, like super quick.

• 16:06Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 16:06Speaker 01

  Like, like if I, yeah, if I broke up with someone, let me just, you know.

• 16:10Lewis Howes?

  Don't hook up with someone else.

• 16:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, what's that quote, the best way to get over someone is under, under someone else? Yeah, no, not so much. It does not work, especially for the ladies, it does not work. Um, and, and then the spiritual bypass is a big one. Also like, oh, well, this is all happening for a reason. I'll just look to the blessings right away and like meditate my way out of it. But if you haven't processed your feelings and started-

• 16:31Lewis Howes?

  Don't jump to being positive right away.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  Jump to being positive, or just think that they can meditate, or chant, or say, you know, do whatever, or do yoga every day. And I love all those things, I meditate, I chant, I do yoga. But I also process my feelings, change my mental patterns, you know, shift my behavior, those kinds of things.

• 16:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 16:46Speaker 01

  So it's like, we aren't taught these things in school. I mean, I, I mean, I ace-

• 16:49Lewis Howes?

  None of this.

• 16:49Speaker 01

  None of this. I ace calculus, it did me no good.

• 16:52Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  I wish somebody would have told me how to deal with my emotions and train my brain.

• 16:56Lewis Howes?

  We've got to get into some type of emotional intelligence training for, in education.

• 17:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:00Lewis Howes?

  Something, one class, like, so people understand the basics of this.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  Yes, that's part of my long-term vision.

• 17:06Lewis Howes?

  That's good, yeah.

• 17:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 17:07Lewis Howes?

  So those are some of the coping strategies that don't work. Um, the spiritual bypass one is pretty interesting.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:13Lewis Howes?

  What does work then?

• 17:15Speaker 01

  Well, it, it, the last section of the book, I talk about, you know, more the transformational tools and some of the quick fixes that work. But first you gotta go through the whole treatment plan.

• 17:25Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  So the treatment plan in this book, like I mentioned before-

• 17:28Lewis Howes?

  Treatment plan, there are four areas you address in the treatment plan.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, the emotional, mental, behavioral, spiritual, in that order.

• 17:34Lewis Howes?

  Emotional, mental, behavioral, spiritual. Okay, why in that order?

• 17:39Speaker 01

  Because we want to avoid emotion. That's the thing that we want to avoid the most, and that's the most unaccepted thing in our society and, and the most misunderstood. We either identify with our emotions and be, and drown in them, or suppress them.

• 17:53Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  And- Oh my gosh, suppressing emotion is so toxic. It's so hazardous to our health. It's, you know, I think it's why so many people end up angry or irritable or sick or whatever. Because if you think about it, anger-

• 18:05Lewis Howes?

  You can't express.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:06Lewis Howes?

  It's all bottled up and then it comes out.

• 18:08Speaker 01

  Bottles up or it comes out some way or it just ends up toxic, you know? Emotion's energy and if you don't express that in a healthy way, then it's gonna, you know, manifest in some other direction. So, you know, so many people that come to me with migraines or depression, for example. Depression is suppression. I mean, that's what it is. Now granted, there are some people that chemically are diagnosed and need medication and things like that. You know, I'm not saying that that depression is a made up thing, but I think so many people that report being depressed are really just suppressing their emotions.

• 18:38Lewis Howes?

  Not expressing their emotions.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly. So that's why so much of the book's dedicated tools to teach people how to do that. And then on the mental level, it really is, I mean, you and I were talking about this before we started recording. It's rewiring our brain.

• 18:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  Only three to five percent of our behavior is actually conscious, motivated by conscious thought. So, so much of our thoughts and behavior is automatic. And, you know, our ways of thinking have literally shaped our brain. And, uh, you know, I'm kind of a nerd. I, I won the science fair when I was 15.

• 19:08Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  I did, I did.

• 19:10Lewis Howes?

  What was it?

• 19:10Speaker 01

  It was the psych-

• 19:11Lewis Howes?

  A volcano?

• 19:11Speaker 01

  No, it wasn't a volcano. That's lame, come on, I'm more creative than that. It was, um, the psychology of color in relation to personality types.

• 19:19Lewis Howes?

  Oh, interesting.

• 19:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I did all the statistical testing. I was, I graphed, it was really funny.

• 19:23Lewis Howes?

  That reminds me of What the Bleep or something. Was that the movie, What the Bleep?

• 19:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 19:26Lewis Howes?

  Where it was like the words on the water or something like that?

• 19:29Speaker 01

  Oh, with the, yeah, with-

• 19:30Lewis Howes?

  Is that what it was?

• 19:31Speaker 01

  I think so.

• 19:31Lewis Howes?

  Where they put words on like frozen water or something and then it like turned into like cool crystals. It was love and it was like-

• 19:38Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, yes, yes.

• 19:38Lewis Howes?

  Ugly, it was anger, yeah.

• 19:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:40Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 19:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:41Lewis Howes?

  So it's kind of like that with colors.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  With colors and, yeah, and, um-

• 19:44Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 19:45Speaker 01

  But like how different colors create different behavior and, and things like that. So I've always loved science and so I talked to a lot of neuroscientists and neurologists about, you know, brains. And one of the things I learned is that repetitive thoughts create these grooves in our brain. And so if we have the repetitive thought, like a repetitive negative thought that life is hard or something like that, no matter what happens, our brain is gonna default to that, that wiring. And so we, we have to take our brain to the gym, just like we take our bodies to the gym.

• 20:15Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 20:15Speaker 01

  So the analogy that I use is that, um, and I never know if this is an analogy or metaphor. So if you know, you correct me, please. Imagine that you have a house in a field and you want to drive a truck to that house, but the field is covered with rocks and bushes and trees and it's like super bumpy. So the first time you drive the truck to that house, it's going to be pretty bumpy and you have to concentrate and hang on. But if you drove the same truck down the same path, day after day, what would happen?

• 20:41Lewis Howes?

  It'd get smoother.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  Grooves would form. Yeah, naturally. And if you wanted to go a different route, you'd have to really concentrate and steer off of that. And that's what we have to do with our thoughts, especially during our expectation hangover. So on each of these levels-

• 20:56Lewis Howes?

  So we fall back into automatic usually is what you're saying.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  We fall back into the automatic group. The truck just wants to go down that lane.

• 21:02Lewis Howes?

  Path. And if we want to go, if we want to really experience it to move past it in a healthy way, we've got to go through the bumps is what you're saying.

• 21:09Speaker 01

  We gotta go through the bumps. So we gotta get off the beaten path and rewire our brain. Yeah.

• 21:14Lewis Howes?

  Metaphor analogy.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I love those things. The other one that I use on each of these levels is something called Roll Plan RX. Cause I've, I've learned as a, as a coach-

• 21:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I was gonna ask you that next.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. So what-

• 21:25Lewis Howes?

  So what is Roll Plan RX?

• 21:26Speaker 01

  Roll Plan RX is, um, so my creativity expresses through my writing. Like I can't draw, I can't sing, like any of those things. So I get kind of creative in my, in my tools and techniques that I teach. And that, you know, I use on myself. I'm my best client for sure. Um, but Roll Plan RX, I, I found that when I use particular roles to people, put people in that they're familiar with, they can transform and use the tools more easily. So on the emotional level, you become the surfer, you know, and you learn to ride the waves of your emotion, you know, and you'd learn to use your, your surfboard, which is your compassion. And you learn to not fight the waves that are coming and really ride an emotion all the way to the beach. So, and I talk a lot about that. On

• 22:09Speaker 01

  the mental level, you're the horseback rider. Because from my perspective, our mind is like this galloping crazy stallion, right? It's just going off. But we are the horseback rider.

• 22:18Lewis Howes?

  Especially with women.

• 22:21Speaker 01

  Well, maybe you're mine. So we're the horseback rider, though, you know, we have the reins. We can direct that galloping horse. And, and one thing I just want to say to people, um, you know, there's a lot of misunderstanding about meditation and, and about working on the mental level, that if your mind isn't quiet, you're not meditating. And people say, oh, I can't meditate because my mind isn't quiet. The process of meditation is really being that horseback rider, really reining the mind back, using, you know, going whoa, and reframing. And it's not about totally being absent of thought. So don't put that expectation on yourself.

• 22:56Lewis Howes?

  Sure. Interesting. Okay. So we've got this role playing. How, how would I do it myself, then? If we're going to role play?

• 23:03Speaker 01

  Well, you take it on. Like, you're the horseback rider.

• 23:06Lewis Howes?

  So I go through each section of the hangover or the, uh, the mental, the, uh, behavioral, each part of it first?

• 23:13Speaker 01

  So what happens is, so in the book, like, on the emotional level, I teach kind of the, the role playing acts, which is like, you're a surfer. So as you're using these tools.

• 23:20Lewis Howes?

  I take it out myself. I don't do it with someone else.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  No, no, no. No, no, no. It's just, it's just an analogy so that you can use the tools better.

• 23:26Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 23:27Speaker 01

  So that like, when you're learning to, you know, use the temper tantrum technique, which is taking an emotion all the way through, you're sort of thinking about being a surfer and riding the waves of that emotion. And not fighting it. Really surrendering. Because so much about surfing is surrendering, right? You know, having some direction, but really surrendering to whatever wave comes in.

• 23:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you're not in control.

• 23:47Speaker 01

  You're not in control. Right? And we want to control our emotions. So we don't want to, you know, we want to let this go.

• 23:51Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. Okay. So in the emotional, let me go over the emotional section really quickly.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 23:57Lewis Howes?

  Uh, you have an acronym for FINE. What's FINE stand for?

• 24:01Speaker 01

  Feelings inside, not expressed.

• 24:03Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 24:05Speaker 01

  I'm fine.

• 24:06Lewis Howes?

  I'm, I'm. Feelings inside, not expressed.

• 24:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:09Lewis Howes?

  I'm fine.

• 24:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm fine. When somebody, when I'm like, how are you? People are like, I'm fine. I'm like, hmm.

• 24:13Lewis Howes?

  Feelings inside, not expressed. But how do we, you know? With society, how do we really share our feelings when we're just saying hi to someone really quickly or for a few moments or about to get into something? Should we really go into our feelings?

• 24:26Speaker 01

  Well, I think that doesn't have to be like our deepest, darkest feelings, but I think we can share about joy and excitement too. Like, I'm doing great. I'm really excited about blah, blah, blah, or, you know, I'm really grateful. Gratitude is another feeling. Like, it's, it's, it's not that we have to be, you know, emotionally vulnerable all the time. I think we have to pick and choose who we're that way with.

• 24:46Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  But I think most of us, Louis, we're just disconnected half the time. Like, how are you is a programmed thing.

• 24:52Lewis Howes?

  So what's another way we can connect with someone without saying, how are you?

• 24:55Speaker 01

  Eye contact. Just looking at someone in the eye and checking in. You know, one of the things when I really want to connect with someone, I'll just look and I'll just say, hi, it's good to see you. What's going on with you? What are you excited about? Or what, what's the latest thing that you've learned? Or something like that, you know? But not feel like we, we have to do that, hey, how are you?

• 25:17Lewis Howes?

  Not going automatic.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. But it's amazing, just, and you're really good at this, just what eye contact does. Just seeing someone, we all just want to be seen. I don't care how successful you are.

• 25:29Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 25:29Speaker 01

  We're all little kids inside.

• 25:31Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 25:31Speaker 01

  And we just want to be seen.

• 25:33Lewis Howes?

  And play.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  And play. Yeah, that's a big part, too.

• 25:35Lewis Howes?

  And have fun.

• 25:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's one of the, that's one of the things that work in terms of expectation hangover. Play, creativity.

• 25:41Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 25:41Speaker 01

  Because if you think about it, like, think about like, the songs and the movies and the art that we love. A lot of it's come from people's heartbreak and people's greatest disappointment. So that's another thing you can do with your expectation hangover. Create. Create. Channel it into something.

• 25:58Lewis Howes?

  Create something. So how do you truly experience your emotions?

• 26:04Speaker 01

  Well, a lot of what I've kind of said before, not recycle them. Not recycle them. Give yourself full permission. So what the temper tantrum technique is, is I basically teach adults how to have a temper tantrum.

• 26:14Lewis Howes?

  Exactly what it is.

• 26:15Speaker 01

  Yes. So let's just, let's just picture this. So all of us probably have seen a little kid, or maybe some of you listening have a child, you've seen them have a temper tantrum. And if you don't-

• 26:24Lewis Howes?

  I had one a couple of weeks ago.

• 26:24Speaker 01

  Did you really? Too bad we didn't-

• 26:27Lewis Howes?

  I don't have to be a kid.

• 26:28Speaker 01

  Too bad we didn't have it to get it on film.

• 26:29Lewis Howes?

  You can be any age.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  Well, that's, that's what I'm saying, you know?

• 26:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 26:32Speaker 01

  We were, we, even though we grow up, we still have these emotions.

• 26:37Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 26:37Speaker 01

  Like, I don't, age doesn't opt us out of having feelings.

• 26:40Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 26:41Speaker 01

  But if you watch a little kid and you don't interrupt them and they have a temper tantrum, you know, they get upset, they scream, they yell, then they sob, and then they kind of go to light sob that, you know?

• 26:51Lewis Howes?

  And they calm down.

• 26:52Speaker 01

  And then they soothe themselves, they rock themselves, they self-soothe, which is another thing we've forgotten how to do. And then they want ice cream. And they're fine.

• 27:00Lewis Howes?

  And they're fine.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 27:01Lewis Howes?

  And they can let it go.

• 27:02Speaker 01

  They can let it go.

• 27:03Lewis Howes?

  Not bottle it up and then explode into something crazy later.

• 27:07Speaker 01

  Exactly, yeah. Yeah, and I think in a lot, a lot of times in men, it comes more explosive and in women, it comes out in forms like irritability, bitchiness, those kinds of things. Yeah.

• 27:19Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, so now, I used to cry a lot as a kid, like, probably every day.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  Aww.

• 27:24Lewis Howes?

  Until I was like eight or nine, probably, for whatever reason, not feeling seen, not feeling appreciated, getting hurt, like, all sorts of different stuff, right? I was always, I remember screaming in the middle of the night, couple nights a week.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 27:35Lewis Howes?

  Like screaming for my mom, right? So this is, I don't think I've really told anyone this.

• 27:38Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 27:39Lewis Howes?

  Um, but I used to cry a lot, my mom, I would, I could not go to sleep until my mom was in bed with me, and I had my arm around her, and I could fall asleep.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 27:47Lewis Howes?

  And I don't really feel like I need to cry anymore. Like, over the last year, I've gone through like a journey of opening up about a lot of stuff in my past, and I've cried a lot.

• 27:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:00Lewis Howes?

  But I don't feel, in general, I feel like I don't need to have a, a temper tantrum, or not need to cry.

• 28:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 28:06Lewis Howes?

  I cry, I allow myself to cry when I'm watching a movie that really inspires me or moves me, or when I'm feeling like someone's going through something that really touches me,

• 28:15Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:15Lewis Howes?

  I definitely will go there.

• 28:16Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:17Lewis Howes?

  But I don't feel like on a daily basis, like when I was a child.

• 28:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:20Lewis Howes?

  Like I need to cry and scream, like I did so much when I was a kid.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, and not everybody does. I mean, this is, a lot of these techniques are, you know, there's another tool on the emotional level called release writing, which is more of a journaling process. Um, these are, you know,

• 28:36Speaker 01

  Processing that heavy emotion is like when we're in the midst of an expectation hangover.

• 28:39Lewis Howes?

  A big expectation or an expectation hangover in general, but if you don't set expectations, then you may not have to do it.

• 28:45Speaker 01

  Well, and that's kind of impossible. The thing is though, life's gonna throw us unexpected curveballs. So even if we have no expectations, like we're gonna have something.

• 28:52Lewis Howes?

  Things are gonna come up, we're gonna feel like, oh, this sucks.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  And like, I think as little kids, we are more open and we are more sensitive. I mean, from a spiritual perspective, we're really just wide open psychically until about seven. That's kind of when the veil drops, they say. So, you know.

• 29:07Lewis Howes?

  We start getting guarded and questioning and analyzing.

• 29:09Speaker 01

  Totally. And we become kind of less empathic. You know, we're also empathic as kids and we move out of love to more fear.

• 29:17Lewis Howes?

  Why?

• 29:18Speaker 01

  Well, because of conditioning, because of beliefs, because, and this is what's so exciting about our generation, is we're starting to shift the consciousness. You know, it's so exciting to be alive at this time. I love being alive at this time because, you know, we're having conversations like this, where in the past, it was more based on survival. And we're evolving out of just surviving right now. You know, for so long, we had to be afraid because we might have been attacked. And it's taken the human civilization a long time to evolve out of survival. And I think this is one of the, to get philosophical here, you know, I help a lot of people. A lot of people that come to me are women. And women who go through breakups, oh my gosh, like, they really struggle. And so, as I've been

• 30:03Speaker 01

  reflecting on my own, and they analyze, and, but here's what it triggers. It triggers survival. Because if you think about it, back in the day, women needed a man to survive.

• 30:14Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 30:14Speaker 01

  So, even though we don't anymore, like, again, only three to five percent of our thinking is conscious, we still have that kind of unconscious programming of, oh! Yeah, yeah. And so, as we're evolving out of that, we're gonna need less and less fear, yet that's still been our conditioning. So, so much of what kind of the doorway of transformation expectation hangover opens, is to move out of fear and move back into love.

• 30:37Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. Okay. Can you explain the beach ball analogy?

• 30:42Speaker 01

  We're talking a lot about emotions. So the beach ball is

• 30:45Lewis Howes?

  I like emotions.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  No, me too. Um, the beach ball is like, okay, so you've been in a swimming pool, right?

• 30:51Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  Okay. Have you ever tried to hold?

• 30:52Lewis Howes?

  I used to swim.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  Okay, there you go. Have you ever tried to hold inflated beach ball underwater?

• 30:56Lewis Howes?

  Impossible.

• 30:56Speaker 01

  It's impossible.

• 30:57Lewis Howes?

  Well, it's hard.

• 30:57Speaker 01

  It's very hard.

• 30:58Lewis Howes?

  You can sit and kind of bounce for a minute, but then it's like gonna fly up somewhere.

• 31:01Speaker 01

  And splash you in the face and you know, and that's what we try to do with our emotions. We try to

• 31:06Lewis Howes?

  Hold them under the water.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  Yep. And it takes a lot of energy.

• 31:09Lewis Howes?

  Man.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  It's a lot of energy.

• 31:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:11Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. Okay. So don't try to hold your emotions under the surface.

• 31:15Speaker 01

  No.

• 31:16Lewis Howes?

  And you, you mentioned, uh, release writing with journaling.

• 31:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 31:20Lewis Howes?

  So if I am having these feelings and maybe I don't feel like expressing them verbally, another way that I can release these emotions is through writing it all down, right?

• 31:31Speaker 01

  Yes, but this is a specific technique that's a little different than journaling because journaling is more reflective and oftentimes you keep it and you want to look back. Release writing is a way to purge.

• 31:39Lewis Howes?

  It's like, fuck you, I hate you.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  You write as fast as, yeah, yeah.

• 31:42Lewis Howes?

  It's the worst thing.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 31:43Lewis Howes?

  You screwed me over. This is blah.

• 31:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's all the blah. It's all the blah. And it's really good for stress. This is something that a lot of my entrepreneur clients use a lot when they're feeling like really stressed or whatever. They'll just get a pen and start writing really, really, really, really fast and just get it all out, all their fears, all their limiting beliefs, everything, and then burn it.

• 31:59Lewis Howes?

  Gosh, I have, I have a vivid memory of going through a really hard breakup, getting back together, breaking up from a previous relationship of mine where I remember typing an email probably a few times. I was just like beating on the keyboard. I remember I'll be typing so fast and like so angry.

• 32:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:19Lewis Howes?

  And then I would be like,

• 32:23Lewis Howes?

  I was like typing whatever, like nasty stuff. And then I would just like going like this and that would be in the email.

• 32:30Speaker 01

  Okay, all the like blah.

• 32:32Lewis Howes?

  Like typing everywhere.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  Perfect.

• 32:34Lewis Howes?

  Not making any sense. And then I'd go back into typing a few words like, I hate you. You're so mean to me. And, uh, I can't remember if I sent those or not.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  I hope not.

• 32:44Lewis Howes?

  I probably did some because I didn't have any control then.

• 32:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the thing. We don't want to get our anger out at other people.

• 32:50Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 32:50Speaker 01

  It's so much better.

• 32:51Lewis Howes?

  So don't send it to anyone.

• 32:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, don't send it.

• 32:53Lewis Howes?

  Do it and then look at it, delete it.

• 32:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:55Lewis Howes?

  Delete it or remove or

• 32:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. Burn it. And it's actually really good to do by hand too, because handwriting triggers your right brain, which is

• 33:05Speaker 01

  You break pencils.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  Oh, I love it.

• 33:12Lewis Howes?

  You also talk about, this is bringing up a lot from your You also talk about

• 33:16Speaker 01

  Let the AC on.

• 33:17Lewis Howes?

  You talk about making a date with your feeling exercises.

• 33:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 33:21Lewis Howes?

  So what does that mean?

• 33:22Speaker 01

  So a lot of times people are like, if they get triggered or really upset, you know, like all of a sudden I'm in Whole Foods and my memory of my breakup comes up or something like that. You can't just break down at Whole Foods, right? Screaming, wailing, crying. I mean, you could, but you'd probably get like, you'd probably get carried away.

• 33:37Lewis Howes?

  Screaming to a place where I'm mad and don't, bah, just scare people.

• 33:40Speaker 01

  What happens?

• 33:42Lewis Howes?

  These people just look like a big weird white dude.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's LA. So maybe it's more, they're like, oh, he must be either crazy or an actor.

• 33:50Speaker 01

  Now I totally lost the question. Oh, making a date with your feelings. So if you have like a feeling coming up, what you can say to it is like, okay, anger, okay, sadness. Like I feel you. I can't deal with you right now. So I'm going to make a date with you and at nine o'clock tonight, I'm going to journal about this. Or something like that, because we have to break the habit of suppression, just like we have to break our habits mentally. We've got to break how we, break our habits of how, how we suppress emotions.

• 34:13Lewis Howes?

  So let's say I go through one of these exercises or all of them and a tantrum, tantrum, how do you say?

• 34:18Speaker 01

  Temper tantrum.

• 34:19Lewis Howes?

  Temper tantrum, writing in the journal, uh, role playing with myself, all these different things. And I'm still have these emotions come up. Like, when is it over?

• 34:30Speaker 01

  Well, okay. So the other part, because we haven't gotten to mental or behavioral or spiritual yet, right?

• 34:34Lewis Howes?

  Wait for that then.

• 34:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, but part of this, and this is the thing, if they keep coming and keep coming, that means you're recycling. That means some part of you is judging. You know, and, and when we talk about the spiritual, we'll talk about things like forgiveness and things.

• 34:49Lewis Howes?

  Okay, cool. I'll ask that question at the end. So the mental side of things, you mentioned this with the horseback rider. What's the whoaing technique?

• 34:56Speaker 01

  Okay. So again, like our mind really responds well to our own pattern interrupts. And when I've tested this, everybody knows what the sound whoa means. It's a whoa, slow down. So with a pattern interrupt, a lot of times like we can start going down a train of thought and we don't even realize we're going down this self sabotage train to It's like way left the station, but eventually we realize we're on a bad train. And so in that moment, if we go, whoa, this is not the direction I want to go. Then we can start to shift the thought and redirect it. So actually saying that internally in your mind helps break that pattern.

• 35:32Lewis Howes?

  Okay. So you say whoa to yourself when you start.

• 35:34Speaker 01

  Or even aloud if you're alone, you know, that help. Yeah. Like whoa.

• 35:37Lewis Howes?

  Kind of a lax moment. Yeah.

• 35:38Speaker 01

  Exactly. Just like you would another person if they were coming at you, you know, you'd be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait a second, you know, it's that interrupt.

• 35:45Lewis Howes?

  Okay. And what is pendulum thinking? Can you explain?

• 35:49Speaker 01

  Oh, so this is kind of another thing like the, the pattern interrupter. Something I see people do is they go from thinking, you know, I, I'm a loser. Like I just got rejected or I'm gonna lose my business field or whatever. And then someone's like, oh, just think positive. And they're like, well, I'm awesome. And I'm sorry, your brain doesn't go from I'm a loser to I'm awesome and believe you.

• 36:09Lewis Howes?

  Broke and jobless and have no girl or boyfriend or whatever.

• 36:13Speaker 01

  Exactly. So.

• 36:14Lewis Howes?

  You're like, I'm not awesome. I'm actually a loser.

• 36:17Speaker 01

  The evidence supports that I'm not so awesome.

• 36:19Lewis Howes?

  Based on results, I suck at doing things.

• 36:21Speaker 01

  Exactly. But you, you can go a little more neutral. Like I'm doing the best I can. That, just that simple thing. I'm doing the best I can.

• 36:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And I'll do a little bit better tomorrow.

• 36:34Speaker 01

  Exactly. Exactly. That often works way better than I'm awesome.

• 36:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Cause you're not going to become a multimillionaire with the woman of your dreams overnight.

• 36:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. And even if you had that, you still might have an expectation hangover.

• 36:45Lewis Howes?

  Or you may lose it.

• 36:46Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 36:47Lewis Howes?

  You may go bankrupt. You may lose the girl, whatever.

• 36:48Speaker 01

  Exactly. The outside things cannot be our, our sources of safety and security or worthiness.

• 36:54Lewis Howes?

  So there's a couple of things on the mental side of things. So on the behavioral.

• 36:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:58Lewis Howes?

  I've got a lot of points here. Um, what's the iceberg example? You know, this is something I've heard before, but for people that don't know the iceberg example.

• 37:06Speaker 01

  So that, that's the visual example, what we've been talking about in terms of what's conscious and not conscious. So there's only that three to 5% of our behavior that's above the surface that you can see. But we can shift it. We can, I think, you know, like for people like you and I, and a lot of people listening who've done work. A lot more does become conscious because you're willing to go look at what's been unconscious in the eye. You're willing to go below the surface.

• 37:29Lewis Howes?

  Okay. And what's a great self-care plan?

• 37:33Speaker 01

  Well, a self-care plan that we do on the behavioral level is, you know, one of the things that happens in an expectation hangover is we start to lose trust and faith, right? And the person we often are-

• 37:42Lewis Howes?

  In what?

• 37:43Speaker 01

  Everything, ourselves, the universe-

• 37:45Lewis Howes?

  Society.

• 37:45Speaker 01

  Other people, society, whatever.

• 37:47Lewis Howes?

  Human beings in general.

• 37:48Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly.

• 37:49Lewis Howes?

  Don't trust or believe in anyone.

• 37:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, we become hopeless, helpless, and cynical. That's another thing, cynical. And when we have a self-care prescription, we start taking care of ourselves, we start to establish self-trust again. So, in the book, I keep it really simple because I've learned that sometimes we need complex things and sometimes we need simple things. And so the self-care plan is to take an inventory of everything you're doing or not doing in your life in terms of behavior. Think of one thing to add, one thing to take off, and one thing to modify.

• 38:22Lewis Howes?

  In terms of behavior.

• 38:22Speaker 01

  In terms of behavior. Diet, exercise, social activity, any kind of like behavior patterns that you're in.

• 38:30Lewis Howes?

  One thing to add and one thing to take off.

• 38:32Speaker 01

  One thing to add, one thing to take off, and one thing to modify.

• 38:35Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 38:35Speaker 01

  You know, so, for example, like-

• 38:37Lewis Howes?

  Go get a manicure once a week.

• 38:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:39Lewis Howes?

  Would be something to add.

• 38:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, take off drinking for thirty days. Modify TV watching from six hours a week to, because you know, TV, alcohol, drugs, any of those things, they're just numbing devices.

• 38:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:51Speaker 01

  They're Band-Aid, they're not gonna, they're not gonna work in the long term. And you're just gonna have repeat expectation hangovers. That's what's gonna happen. It's gonna be a different cast of characters, different scenery-

• 39:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 39:02Speaker 01

  But you're gonna be back restarted.

• 39:03Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. You know, it's amazing, I used to watch a lot of TV.

• 39:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, me too.

• 39:07Lewis Howes?

  Like, tons of it, especially, you know, in high school and college. Actually, not that much in high school, in college, uh, watched it all the time. And when I'd be injured, all I'd do is watch TV, like, stupid shows, like Road Rules and Real World and just drama shows.

• 39:20Speaker 01

  That's quality television, though, that's quality.

• 39:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, just all of the Bravo shows, like, I'd just become addicted to drama. And, because it was interesting, it was like something unique, right? And when I moved out of my sister's- Couch for a year and a half. I was watching a lot of TV there, but when I moved out of there, I moved to my brother's place for a little bit and started watching less TV. Then when I got my own, my first place, I didn't have a TV.

• 39:45Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 39:46Lewis Howes?

  And for about four years, I didn't have a TV. There might have been one in one of the places, but I didn't ever turn it on. It would be just to watch like SportsCenter at like 11 o'clock at night to watch highlights.

• 39:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:58Lewis Howes?

  And I realized I was so focused and was able to feel and experience things on a different level when I just completely got rid of TV. Now I said, I'll go back and watch like shows from time to time. Like I love House of Cards.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh.

• 40:10Lewis Howes?

  Orange is the New Black. Like so I'll watch like shows on demand.

• 40:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, me too.

• 40:13Lewis Howes?

  But it's more of like downtime for me. It's like watching a movie, which I really enjoy.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  It's relax time rather than numb out time.

• 40:19Lewis Howes?

  Yes. Well, I used to watch TV every night, like after practice, it'd be like TV from six till midnight.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 40:25Lewis Howes?

  And I would never create anything or do anything. It was just like whatever I was loading about.

• 40:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:30Lewis Howes?

  I'd just watch TV and feel better.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, it's totally, it's like when we don't have other tools, we go to what we have.

• 40:38Lewis Howes?

  The default, right?

• 40:39Speaker 01

  TV was mine too. I mean, you and I've talked about like I, I was teased a lot growing up. I was bullied and was really lonely for most of my, you know, young life and TV was it for me, you know, and I would just zone out into TV and, and I know that I'm headed down like a bad behavioral path if I'm watching more TV because to me that's feedback for I'm trying to avoid something. I'm trying to suppress something. I'm not, I'm not looking at something.

• 41:04Lewis Howes?

  Connection, you're trying to avoid.

• 41:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, or I have an expect, yeah, I have an expectation hangover that I need to treat a little bit or I'm not, you know, I'm just, that's, that's my feedback for when I'm numbing out from, you know, really being on purpose.

• 41:16Lewis Howes?

  I'm almost on the opposite spectrum now where I'm like, I don't take enough downtime. So I'm like, when I am not watching TV ever, it's like, okay, let me just take tonight, let me take the night and just kind of like watch a couple of episodes and catch up on Glee.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:30Lewis Howes?

  You know, it's like.

• 41:31Speaker 01

  And exactly. I love it. I love that you watch Glee and like Road Rules.

• 41:35Lewis Howes?

  I don't watch Road Rules anymore. But now I watch Glee and I love Nashville. Any singing shows?

• 41:41Speaker 01

  Nashville's so awesome.

• 41:42Lewis Howes?

  I'm like a singing show freak. I wish I could be on Broadway.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  Well, you know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't put it past you. We may see you on Broadway. I mean, everything else you've done.

• 41:50Lewis Howes?

  If I want to do it, I'm sure I'll do it.

• 41:52Speaker 01

  We'll see you on Broadway.

• 41:53Lewis Howes?

  I love those shows. I don't know what about is about them.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  Well, it's just so much joy and creativity. I think that that's part of it. And that's the thing.

• 42:00Lewis Howes?

  It's fun too.

• 42:01Speaker 01

  It's so fun. And that's, that's our natural essence, right? Is to be that. But we have to go through some of these disappointments and learnings and everything to, to get to the other side of it.

• 42:10Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. Okay, cool. So that's a good self-care plan. Make sure you're modifying, adding and taking off something.

• 42:14Speaker 01

  Yep. Simple.

• 42:17Lewis Howes?

  Do we just, we already talked about the compensatory.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Oh, compensatory strategies. We haven't yet.

• 42:21Lewis Howes?

  Okay. So what, what is, I don't even know what compensatory.

• 42:24Speaker 01

  Well, I can, I've made it up. Compensatory strategy.

• 42:26Lewis Howes?

  Compensatory strategy. What is that?

• 42:28Speaker 01

  So this is another thing that again, just.

• 42:31Lewis Howes?

  We talked about this in the beginning.

• 42:33Speaker 01

  I don't think we did. We talked about it before the episode. Yeah, before the episode we did. Off the air.

• 42:37Lewis Howes?

  High achievers, things like that, right? Yeah.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. So all of us, all right. So let me just kind of like.

• 42:43Lewis Howes?

  Open it up for you?

• 42:43Speaker 01

  No, sure. You can open it up. So all of us, when we're born, start off knowing we're whole, complete, perfect. Right? We talked about how we start off in love. And then things happen and we start to move out of love and into fear. We start to, we get hurt. We see something that happens. We figure out that there's some way we need to be in order to get love.

• 43:04Lewis Howes?

  We lose the trust.

• 43:05Speaker 01

  Exactly. Basically, life happens to all of us. We all have our stories. You know, I talk a lot about our stories in the book too.

• 43:11Lewis Howes?

  Circumstances and stories.

• 43:12Speaker 01

  Right. So as humans, because we have an ego, right? We all have egos. When we ever we feel lack, we have to find a way to compensate. So wherever we feel less than, we strive to find a way to compensate for that. So that's where these compensatory strategies came in. So the best way to explain is just to tell you mine. So from being teased and being bullied in the I hate Christine club, when that happened, I formed the belief system that there's something wrong with me. I'm unlikable. I'm going to be alone. I'm not going to have friends. So I had to figure out some way to make up for that. My way was to be an overachiever. So I couldn't just get a 95. I had to get 100. If there was extra credit, I had to get 104. You know, I was like so driven.

• 43:54Lewis Howes?

  People were like, whoa, look at her.

• 43:55Speaker 01

  Exactly. Cause if I.

• 43:56Lewis Howes?

  She's awesome.

• 43:57Speaker 01

  That's how I got my worth, right? You know, I'm like, if no one's going to like me, I'm at least going to be super uber duper successful. So the sneaky thing and the dangerous thing about these compensatory strategies is they are effective. On what I call the goal line, right? They can make things happen. Like I was able to go to great college, move out to LA and be the youngest ever female agent, make things, make a lot of money in my life. But I was driven by this, it was, it was driven from a place of

• 44:23Lewis Howes?

  Fear or lack.

• 44:24Speaker 01

  Fear based drive.

• 44:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I had the same thing. Yeah.

• 44:27Speaker 01

  Was yours overachiever? Is that yours?

• 44:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I was, you know, picked last on teams all the time, made fun of because I was tall and goofy and ugly. And I was just like, screw everyone. I'm going to become the best.

• 44:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well,

• 44:39Lewis Howes?

  They're all going to be laughing.

• 44:40Speaker 01

  And look at it. I bet they're, I bet they're laughing now.

• 44:43Lewis Howes?

  I'd be laughing. I'd be laughing at all you. Screw you all. And I was like, and that's what drove me, you know, I was really ignorant in school. I couldn't focus or get a C to save my life. But I knew my talent was sports and I became really good at that. So I was like, I'm going to be one of the best at every sport and beat everyone and everyone's going to lose and I'm going to win. I'm going to show them all. And that ended up working for me in terms of being a great athlete and winning, but it left me feeling very empty, very lonely, very emotionally challenged and frustrated and angry and have a huge expectation hangover.

• 45:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that's what these compensatory strategies do. They, they get us somewhere on the outside. Yeah. But the inside that we're looking for doesn't happen. So, so we mentioned ours, high achiever. Some other ones are being a people pleaser.

• 45:29Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 45:29Speaker 01

  Like thinking that you get love and acceptance from people pleasing or kind of being a chameleon. This is really common among women too. Like doing what people want you to do. That's how you get your worth. Being a control freak, like, you know, I'm not going to be let down because I'm just going to be total type A and put everything in my control. Um, an approval seeker, like always doing things for validation, always needing kind of that like outside approval, recognition. The performance or comedian, you know, I see a lot of people that as soon as things get intimate or vulnerable, all of a sudden they throw in a joke, you know, and they, they don't want to go there.

• 46:00Lewis Howes?

  Or they, or the people that make fun of themselves.

• 46:02Speaker 01

  Yes. Self-deprecation. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Comedians. I mean, there you go. Look at someone like Robin Williams, you know, we, we don't know what's going on on the inside with a lot of those things. The rescuer, caretaker, you know, I'm not going to look at me. I'm just going to take care of everyone else. Perfectionist. I mean, there's a lot of them. They're all in the book and you know, you can figure out which one yours is. And, and we can be combinations of them too.

• 46:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Cause I see myself in a lot of them.

• 46:27Lewis Howes?

  Okay, cool. So we talked about those. And what do we do when we realize which one we are? Like, once we see, okay, we've been some of these before, or we are some of these. Then what do we do with that?

• 46:41Speaker 01

  Okay, so then, see, our compensatory strategies, right, just are because we think we lack something. And really, my whole, one of my main messages, that if I could have everybody know one thing, it's that there's nothing wrong with you. There's just nothing wrong with you at all. Even if you think there are, there's just nothing wrong with you. Yeah, just like the circle on the cover of the book.

• 47:04Lewis Howes?

  Your whole and complete.

• 47:05Speaker 01

  And we're all so hard on ourselves. And we think that that's an effective form of motivation. And it's not. It's not. Being hard on ourselves does not lead to inspiration. It can lead to getting things done, but we're always gonna, it's like a bucket with holes. We just feel empty. And so we get out of our compensatory strategies, and we start to see what our superpowers are. And all of us have superpowers, are unique ones. Well, my main one, there's, there's, there's, you know, many, but one that I use a lot is intuition. You know, it's been one for

• 47:36Lewis Howes?

  What's your birthday?

• 47:36Speaker 01

  A long time, nine nine, some Virgo.

• 47:39Lewis Howes?

  Oh, that's an intuitive birthday?

• 47:41Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know, maybe.

• 47:43Lewis Howes?

  With the signs?

• 47:44Speaker 01

  Virgos are kind of intuitive. Yeah, yeah, I think so. I think so. Astrologists can correct me on that one.

• 47:49Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 47:50Speaker 01

  But

• 47:51Lewis Howes?

  That's your, that's just your power intuition?

• 47:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, intuition. And, and within that are things like love and compassion and all of those things. And so, support and understanding, and those things that come naturally to you. Because here's the thing with most people, like, most people don't even realize what their gifts are because they come so naturally. And we think that what makes us unique, or what makes us great, has to be this thing, this skill that we've struggled to adapt, that we've, you know, had to become masterful at. But really, it's just those things that come naturally. And

• 48:21Lewis Howes?

  That's why you've become a coach, because you're intuitive. Most coaches are great at intuition.

• 48:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And it's, it's also, you know, the empathy, the sensitivity, all of that. And we all are intuitive. We all have a lot of superpowers. And when we start to come from that place of what makes us unique and what our gifts are, then we move from a place of inspiration rather than motivation. And everybody has them. And I think the key is, we, we can't look at someone else and compare. We get into these comparison comas, I call them.

• 48:52Lewis Howes?

  So many people do this. I mean, I do this. Everyone does that.

• 48:55Speaker 01

  It's human.

• 48:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 48:56Speaker 01

  It's human. And so when.

• 48:59Lewis Howes?

  So how do we not compare ourselves?

• 49:00Speaker 01

  Well, I'll tell you what to do when we do, because it's kind of like, how do we not have expectations, right?

• 49:06Lewis Howes?

  It's always gonna be there.

• 49:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's always gonna, it's how do we work with these things that are just naturally human, like, hello, we're human. Let's be, like, let's normalize normal.

• 49:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 49:14Speaker 01

  So when I find myself comparing, there's two things that can happen. One is, alright, what do I see in that person that I can learn from, that I really wanna model? Right? And then that this is the good news about comparison. I can't see in you, Louis, anything that is not in me.

• 49:32Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 49:33Speaker 01

  I wouldn't be able to recognize it. If you spot it, you got it, good and bad. And there's a lot of talk about negative projection. But there's positive projection too. So if I'm jealous of your, let's say, success or something like that, or if I'm comparing myself to you, that means I'm not fully owning my gifts and my success. So when you find yourself comparing yourself to someone, I tell people to write, like, when I look at you, I see, I feel you are like, like, really get a snapshot of what you're seeing when you're comparing or what you're jealous of. And look at how you need to own that about yourself. Instead of beating yourself up and thinking you're less than, which isn't true. And there's, and PS, there's enough abundance to go around.

• 50:11Lewis Howes?

  A lot.

• 50:11Speaker 01

  There's so much. It's infinite. It's infinite. Just because somebody else has it doesn't mean you don't have your form of it.

• 50:18Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. Now, you talk about replacing expectations with values. Why do you suggest that? And how do we go about that?

• 50:27Speaker 01

  Well, because expectations are elusive, right? They're not even real. But in their extreme, they're external. They're wanting something outside of there. But our values are things that are more, again, essence driven and less form driven. And when we're moving toward our values, then we're not so attached to the form. Right? So for example, I'll use the example, because so I'm a woman and most women feel a desire to have a baby. Okay? And they put that expectation on it, right?

• 50:59Lewis Howes?

  By a certain time.

• 50:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, a certain time or like whatever. But if you look at kind of, most women also value love. They value connection, they value creativity. I would say, most people, especially women, those will be on their list somewhere.

• 51:14Speaker 01

  Having a child isn't the only way to do that. You know, I get, I get fulfilled that way by working with people, nurturing people, writing books, creating all those types of things. And so if I keep my eye on my values, rather than expectation, then I'm going to have less expectation hangovers. Because if I'm value driven, then I'm creating those intrinsic experiences that live into those values. And then we live more mission driven lives than we do like external stuff driven lives.

• 51:43Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  Which, you know, isn't the conditioning, but I think we're moving more and more towards that.

• 51:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah. You talk about the important, why it's important to have three core values. Why is it significant to have three core values?

• 51:56Speaker 01

  Well, three is one of those special numbers in terms of numerology. If you think of like three points, that's the first time like a shape is formed. When you have like three things, you can, you can put a form on it.

• 52:08Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 52:09Speaker 01

  So it's just, it's, it's a powerful number. It's even though it's a three and it's an odd number, not an even, it's a very whole number. And when we think, when we do things and think in terms of three, that's just something that our unconscious mind can wrap, wrap around. But you can have, I mean, it's not a rule. It's just, it's just, I, I like to tell people, look, what I say is a buffet.

• 52:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 52:28Speaker 01

  Take, take what resonates and leave the rest behind.

• 52:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I've had a lot of, I've got five core values I kind of live on now, principles. But I've had 10, I've had, you know, when I was a kid, it was like, whatever, 20, who knows?

• 52:40Speaker 01

  But you want to do it. You want to do the exercise. And I take you in the book, how to do that and, and really, really get clear and, and, and make every choice, either internally or externally, is this moving me towards my values?

• 52:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 52:53Speaker 01

  And if it's not, it's a no.

• 52:55Lewis Howes?

  Yes. Yes, I agree. And always come from that place, that, that foundation.

• 53:02Lewis Howes?

  You have a commitment contract you talk about. What is that?

• 53:05Speaker 01

  Well, back to self-trust and how important self-trust is. The person we break our agreements with most is ourselves. And when we don't trust ourselves, it's,

• 53:15Speaker 01

  Setting ourselves up for another expectation hangover. You know, one of our journeys here is these humans is to re-parent ourselves. Some of us really hit the jackpot when it comes to parents. Some of us didn't.

• 53:27Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 53:28Speaker 01

  And we just kind of, we can be angry about that and use our childhood issues as a reason why we don't have what we want, or we can accept it. That doesn't mean we have to like it, but we can accept it. Stop being a victim of it and start to parent ourselves in the way that we wanted to be parented. And one of the ways we do that is to keep our commitments with ourselves. So a commitment contract is actually writing out agreements that you're going to keep with yourself and signing it and putting them up.

• 53:56Lewis Howes?

  And being your word.

• 53:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, just like you are being your word, you know, just like I showed up here at one o'clock today because we had a commitment. Do I show up for myself in the things that I'm doing just for me? Or do I break those agreements? So like, if you're listening right now, really think about that. Like, are you better at showing up for other people than you are keeping your agreements to yourself?

• 54:13Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. Interesting. Okay. I like that. So that's the third part. And the fourth part is the spiritual.

• 54:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, can I say one more thing about the behavioral part?

• 54:26Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 54:26Speaker 01

  And on this level, we play the scientist. So we're becoming more observers of ourselves. This is, this is key for people. We are excellent at judging ourselves. The more you judge yourself, the more you're just going to be on the hamster wheel. You change your behavior when you start observing yourselves like a scientist does a gorilla in a zoo. And, and seeing what you're doing and what the results are and tracking your behavior and modifying it and things like that without the judgment. We've got to stop judging ourselves.

• 54:55Lewis Howes?

  How do they go with judgment?

• 54:57Speaker 01

  Well, when we catch ourselves in the act, we forgive ourselves for judging ourselves. Right? And, and rather than make ourselves wrong, it's like, what do I want to add, modify, or change? You know, what, what can I do in this situation? It's sort of like the serenity prayer, you know, except how does it go?

• 55:15Speaker 01

  Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the wisdom to know the things I can and the courage to know the difference, or something like that, but really becoming discerning.

• 55:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:24Speaker 01

  That's, that's the word, discernment over judgment. Judgment has an opinion, judgment has a charge, you know, it, it's, it gets us nowhere. But we're, we're, we're like judging machines. It's another hard habit to break. But it's, if we can move into observing.

• 55:39Lewis Howes?

  The difference between judging and discerning, discerning meaning.

• 55:43Speaker 01

  Discerning means.

• 55:44Lewis Howes?

  Being, having, having the judgment to understand what's the difference between what's going to serve you and what's not going to serve you.

• 55:50Speaker 01

  Judgment has an opinion or a charge. Discernment is just like yes or no. Like, like chicken or fish.

• 55:56Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 55:56Speaker 01

  Yes or no.

• 55:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:57Speaker 01

  You know, um, looking at other people's behavior and going, nope, that's not someone I want to engage with, instead of, they're such a jerk, that's, that's judgment. Or seeing yourself do something and go, wow, like, I didn't really like the way I behaved in that. I'm going to behave differently, rather than, why did I do this? Oh my gosh, because I, another thing I talk about in the book a lot is regret, which people get trapped in, and it's completely pointless. It's like using the information you have now to go back in time and beat yourself up for what you didn't know then. It's, it's a complete waste of energy.

• 56:31Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. I, I agree with that. That's why I like to do everything, um, so that I won't regret it.

• 56:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:38Lewis Howes?

  I'll take on something because I don't want to regret it later. If I think I might regret it, I'm like, let's do it.

• 56:42Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 56:43Lewis Howes?

  Let's go after it and try it, at least I know I went for it.

• 56:45Speaker 01

  At least you know you went for it, exactly. But a big part of that is because you're clear on your values.

• 56:49Lewis Howes?

  Yes, exactly.

• 56:50Speaker 01

  So you always knew what you, you know what you're moving towards.

• 56:52Lewis Howes?

  I know what I want and I go after it.

• 56:53Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 56:53Lewis Howes?

  I don't like to think about it, I'm just like, let's go.

• 56:56Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 56:56Lewis Howes?

  So in the spiritual section.

• 56:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 56:59Lewis Howes?

  Is the spiritual section about a religion?

• 57:01Speaker 01

  No.

• 57:01Lewis Howes?

  And what is spirituality?

• 57:03Speaker 01

  You know, everybody can have their own definition of spirituality. To me, it's being connected to something greater than yourself, some higher power. It can be nature, call it God, divine, spirit, Allah, you know. To me, it's not a, um, organized religion, although if that's what works for you, great. But I think we all. We all have this human need to feel connected to something bigger than ourselves. And I think when we don't have some kind of spiritual connection, our expectations of others are way out of control. So having a connection to a higher power, whatever that is for you, knowing that you're not alone, knowing that you're not separate,

• 57:42Speaker 01

  knowing that everything really is happening for a reason, if you don't know what the reason is, and actually making that more of a relationship. I think that people, um, you know, either have negative experiences with religion, or, you know, feel completely kind of disconnected from spirituality in general and don't know where to begin. But, you know, all of us have that connection. So a lot of times people say, well, we need to learn to love ourselves. We need to learn how to feel connected to God or spirit again. And I say, we need to remember because we came in connected. We came in knowing all of those things.

• 58:17Lewis Howes?

  You already have it.

• 58:17Speaker 01

  We already have it. And so really, it's just a process of.

• 58:20Lewis Howes?

  You don't have to find it. It's already there.

• 58:21Speaker 01

  It's already there.

• 58:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 58:22Speaker 01

  It's a process of remembering, you know, and some people, it's their expectation hangovers that put them on a spiritual path. I mean, I know it was for me. I had a suicidal moment on my bathroom floor and it turned into a spiritual awakening, where I, for the first time in my life, felt this unbelievable love, like compassion, and it just overtook me. And it only lasted for a moment because my mind came in pretty quick and was like, what's going on?

• 58:48Lewis Howes?

  Started analyzing and judging.

• 58:49Speaker 01

  Started analyzing and judging and trying to make sense of it. But we can't put those experiences into form or to words. And a lot of people, you know, get, have those brought to their knees moment. I was just reading, um, again, like I'm a nerd, so I like research. Part of, you've probably heard of post-traumatic stress, right? So there's also, have you heard of post-traumatic growth?

• 59:12Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 59:13Speaker 01

  So there's all this research right now that, um, is documenting how from a traumatic incident, people have their biggest growth periods.

• 59:21Lewis Howes?

  I believe it.

• 59:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:22Lewis Howes?

  I mean, I've lived that for sure.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  And that's why I'm so excited when someone has an expectation hangover because I'm like, if you leverage this, if you milk this, it's a huge doorway, huge.

• 59:32Lewis Howes?

  Right. Interesting. Um, I never thought about it that way, but all my biggest. Hangovers or breakdowns have turned into big breakthroughs for me.

• 59:40Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Yep. Yep. So if we can embrace them and go, what am I learning? Now, here's the thing. In between, and this is another reason I wrote this book, because I hear so many inspirational stories of people who had the breakdown and now they're at the breakthrough. But like, what's the middle? Like, what are you doing in the middle? Right? Like, so if I have, if I'm holding a bottle of water and I want to put it down and pick up like a bottle of juice, I have to put down the bottle of water and then as I'm reaching for the juice, there's that in-between period, right? The chaos period and in-between the breakdown and the breakthrough. There's all the disassembly that happens when things feel like kind of a mess and kind of scary. And you have to know that that's part of it and, and learn how to leverage that and not try to avoid it or try to get to feeling better right away.

• 1:00:23Speaker 01

  Because all the kind of good juicy part is in the chaos.

• 1:00:26Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 1:00:29Lewis Howes?

  What is living in out, not out in?

• 1:00:31Speaker 01

  Well, kind of what we talked about before about like wanting that external thing to bring me to happiness, rather than creating it intrinsically and then seeing the opportunities that come in.

• 1:00:40Lewis Howes?

  Okay, okay, cool.

• 1:00:44Lewis Howes?

  Can you explain the soul line and goal line?

• 1:00:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I studied at the University of Santa Monica, which is the only place that offers master's degrees in spiritual psychology. An awesome program.

• 1:00:56Lewis Howes?

  What is it? Spiritual psychology?

• 1:00:56Speaker 01

  Spiritual psychology. And we talk about how there's two lines in life, the goal line, which is all the physical stuff, money, relationships, uh, jobs, like just physical world reality stuff that everybody's obsessed with.

• 1:01:10Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:01:10Speaker 01

  And that's more of a, that's a, that's a horizontal line. Yeah. And really all that happens on that line is you just get more, you just get more of whatever. The soul line is a vertical line and at the top of that, you can imagine love, connection, all those things.

• 1:01:24Lewis Howes?

  Your purpose line, right?

• 1:01:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, your purpose line. And these are all your life lessons. And to me, you know, we're, we're spiritual beings having a human experience and everybody's searching for their life purpose. It's not in some job.

• 1:01:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:36Speaker 01

  It's not, or a relationship. It's really in our life lessons, what we're here to learn. We just kind of come back as how we started, you know? And the soul line are those life lessons that we learn and that's where expectation hangovers happen. It's like, what am I learning from this rather than why is this happening? And as we resolve things on the soul line, you know, that kind of personal growth line that, that, like I said, life lesson line. Things on the goal line start to match up and start to emerge and move in a way that's more aligned with who we truly are.

• 1:02:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's cool.

• 1:02:07Speaker 01

  Rather than our conditioning, because we create a lot from our ego.

• 1:02:11Lewis Howes?

  And when we're matching both those up, it probably seems like people, when you see individuals who have those two matched up, it probably seems like everything they do works and is effective and they're just killing on every level and they're happy and they're

• 1:02:23Speaker 01

  Yes, life gets a lot easier. Yeah, and I, you know, I look at my life now and there's not too much upset. There's bumps because I'm human and again, that's how I grow.

• 1:02:34Lewis Howes?

  Life's pretty good.

• 1:02:34Speaker 01

  Life's pretty good, you know, and, and what, that's what you'll notice as you do this work is that the time between expectation hangovers gets longer and the time you spend in kind of the suffering of them and the, the learning part gets shorter.

• 1:02:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cause you understand, you've been there before, so you understand how to go through

• 1:02:52Speaker 01

  Right, you have the tools and you trust yourself and, and, and there's no there.

• 1:02:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:56Speaker 01

  I don't, there's no there. Anyone who's enlightened is probably not on this planet.

• 1:03:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and you've got some, for, for those that get the book, I highly recommend it. There's some really cool prayers that you can use on page 177 of the book I have, it may be a different page, but in the spiritual section, so make sure to go through those prayers.

• 1:03:13Speaker 01

  There's guided visualizations too.

• 1:03:15Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:03:15Speaker 01

  And meditations that you can download for free of me reading them to you.

• 1:03:19Lewis Howes?

  Those are, that's at expectationhangover.com slash bonus, I believe.

• 1:03:24Lewis Howes?

  You, what's the secret sauce for pursuing your goals?

• 1:03:26Speaker 01

  The secret sauce, okay. So there's all kinds, there's different ways to perceive our goals. Most people do it with a lot of attachment. That sets you up from expectation hang up, for expectation.

• 1:03:38Lewis Howes?

  They're attached to the results.

• 1:03:39Speaker 01

  Which means that my worthiness, my happiness, my sense of self depends on, they have so much riding on the outcome, so much riding on the outcome, right? So it's, the secret sauce is pursuing our goals with high intention and involvement, meaning I'm giving it everything I got, I'm giving it my focus, I'm giving it my commitment, I'm not breaking my word with myself, but low attachment, meaning my worthiness doesn't depend on it. My self-care isn't suffering in pursuit of it. I'm not making the outcome mean anything about me. Now, and that's the thing, it's sort of, and that's what I'm practicing with, you know, this book right now and releasing it is doing everything I can, high involvement without sacrificing my values.

• 1:04:24Lewis Howes?

  I like that.

• 1:04:24Speaker 01

  Without sacrificing my self-care and without its success, meaning anything about me as a person.

• 1:04:30Lewis Howes?

  More of people are like, well, I need to sacrifice because I don't have the time right now. I've got kids, I've got.

• 1:04:36Speaker 01

  That's a story. And what does sacrifice mean? You know, do you look at?

• 1:04:41Lewis Howes?

  I can't take care of myself because I've got no time in the day. I've got all these other people to take care of and three jobs and.

• 1:04:47Speaker 01

  Story. You know, taking care of yourself a day could be five minutes of meditation in the morning, five minutes at night.

• 1:04:53Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:04:54Speaker 01

  You can just, it doesn't take that much longer to eat a little cleaner.

• 1:04:57Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:04:58Speaker 01

  You know, you can cut out caffeine and sugar drinks. There's always things to do. So I just lovingly challenge people to look at the excuse you, because we're meaning-making machines and we're really good reason makers. We're really good at making excuses. And there's this other, another unconscious belief, Louis, that I think a lot of us carry around is that in order to like achieve something great, we have to sacrifice. It's like this old penance thing that I think we're carrying around.

• 1:05:23Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:05:24Speaker 01

  And you don't. And that, and this is where having a spiritual connection also comes in handy. The way I do my to-do list every day, I write the date. Why are you laughing already? I haven't even told you.

• 1:05:35Lewis Howes?

  The way you looked at me when you saw that.

• 1:05:38Speaker 01

  I'm like, so, because I love this. So I write the date and I write me on one side, divide a line, and then write God on the other, or universe, spirit, whatever word you want to use. And so I write down the things that I need to take care of. And then I'd like, write down the things that I'd like the universe's help with.

• 1:05:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:55Speaker 01

  Everything from no traffic to an appointment, to if I need to have a conversation with someone that I'm a little nervous about, I'll ask for help with that. And what's interesting is the longer I've been doing this, the shorter my list gets and the longer kind of the universe's list gets. So also realizing, surrendering and asking for like, asking for help. I think that's another thing that people that say they don't have time, aren't good at. Asking for help from either, from both a higher power and from other people in your life.

• 1:06:24Lewis Howes?

  Sure. A lot of people struggle with that.

• 1:06:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's no badge of honor for doing everything on your own.

• 1:06:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:30Lewis Howes?

  There's more questions I want to ask, but I want to let people the opportunity to get the book. I highly recommend it. Expectation Hangover: Overcoming Disappointment in Work, Love, and Life. And I've got two final questions for you. Where can we get the book first? Just expectationhangover.com?

• 1:06:44Speaker 01

  Well, actually, Amazon Bookstores, Barnes & Noble, it's out there, or expectationhangover.com.

• 1:06:51Lewis Howes?

  And then your main website?

• 1:06:52Speaker 01

  ChristineHassler.com.

• 1:06:53Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:06:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, or you can go to expectationhangover.com. All of it, all of it works. What, whatever you do, this isn't, this is one of my coping strategies that I, is one of my favorites. In terms of avoiding expectation hangovers, is I tell people, don't go to a Chinese restaurant and expect to get nachos. So, that comes to people in your life. I think that's one of the things that we do a lot. We expect people to be what we want them to be, instead of accepting them for who they are. So, I don't go to a Chinese restaurant, even if I bring nacho ingredients, they're not going to know how to make them.

• 1:07:26Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:07:26Speaker 01

  You know, so be, be conscious of what you're expecting of people in terms of being realistic, and not setting yourself up for an expectation hangover. And remember, whatever you're yearning for from out there for someone else is really something that you're looking for inside yourself.

• 1:07:40Lewis Howes?

  Ooh, that's good. Okay, two final questions.

• 1:07:44Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:07:45Lewis Howes?

  First one is, what are you most grateful for recently?

• 1:07:48Speaker 01

  Oh, most grateful for recently? Every, honestly, now that I'm doing more interviews for the book and talking about it more, every expectation hangover I've ever had, and every one that I've been able to witness that other people have had, it's shown me so much just about the human spirit, and about what we all go through, and about how within each of us, we have this tremendous capacity and capability to thrive, no matter what our circumstances are. And it's often in those moments that we find our greatest power and potential.

• 1:08:21Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, okay. And the last one is, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:08:26Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, that question.

• 1:08:29Speaker 01

  It's like, you know, I knew you were gonna ask it, but I didn't think about it. You know, Louis, it's who we are. It's not anything we have to become. So it's our essence. It's all of us. We are all greatness. That's just, that's it. And it's just remembering that and removing any story or any belief that tells us we aren't.

• 1:08:49Lewis Howes?

  I like it. It's not finding it, it's remembering it.

• 1:08:52Speaker 01

  It's remembering it and being it and accepting your version of it.

• 1:08:56Lewis Howes?

  It's good. I like that. It's a good one. Well, Christine, I appreciate you and I acknowledge you for this incredible work you're doing. Obviously, I know you had to go through a lot of pain and a lot of suffering to experience what you've experienced, to have the journey and the quest of writing about this and practicing it over and over and supporting other people in this work. So I really acknowledge everything you've been up to, how much emotions you've been through, good and, you know, stressful. And it's truly a blessing that you're doing this work and supporting so many people. So thank you, and I'm extremely grateful for you.

• 1:09:37Speaker 01

  I'm extremely grateful for you, too. Thank you so much, Louis, for the work that you're doing. And I just, yeah, I love it all. Just love being in this conversation.

• 1:09:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Awesome. Thanks so much.

• 1:09:54Lewis Howes?

  There you have it, guys. Thanks so much for hanging out with me today on the School of Greatness Podcast. Make sure to go back to the show notes over at lewishouse.com/95 to get all the information, the links to Christine's book and her website over there. Again, lewishouse.com/95. Also, a big shout out to all the Dave Asprey fans who I met at the Biohacking Conference in Pasadena recently. I was on Dave's Bulletproof Executive Podcast recently and saw a bunch of people that said hi to me. And I appreciate you guys so much for saying hi and sharing your stories and letting me know what you're up to. So big shout out to Dave. And again, if you guys see me anywhere, conferences or out or at a speech, just come up and say hi. I'm pretty friendly.

• 1:10:38Lewis Howes?

  Give me a hug and I would love to hear what you're up to, what your favorite episode is, and what your definition of greatness is. So again, thank you guys so much. Please share this over on Twitter and Facebook, LewisHouse.com/95. You guys know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.