5 Wealth Secrets No One Ever Taught You | Lewis Howes

Lewis Howes, host of The School of Greatness podcast and author of the book Make Money Easy, shares five wealth-building secrets on money mindset, the shift from active to leveraged income, multiple income streams, the proximity principle, and generosity as a wealth strategy. He cites the nonprofit Pencils of Promise, founder Adam Braun, and income categories including earned, investment, royalty, rental, and digital income, closing with a 30-day wealth-building challenge.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  What if everything you were taught about building wealth was designed to keep you broke? The people who often talk about money around you have never actually built wealth themselves. Think about it, your parents taught you what they knew. Society taught you to get a job, save a little when you can, retire someday if you're lucky. But nobody taught you the rules, the gap between where most people are and where they want to be. It's not about how to work hard. It's not about getting lucky or winning the lottery or having someone just give you a bunch of money. It's about the right information and making sure you apply it on a consistent basis. Today I'm going to give you the five wealth secrets that aren't ever talked about. Most people don't talk about this all in one place.

• 0:45Lewis Howes?

  And by the end of this episode, you will be further ahead than 99% of those around you. My name is Lewis Howes. My mission is to help you improve the quality of your life. And I believe that this is going to be one of those moments where you reflect, you come back to and you say, this was the moment where I got the right information. I took the actions and things started to snowball in the right direction. At least that's my intention for you today. Again, these five keys are here for you and I want you to take action on them. So get ready and let's dive in because secret number one is that your relationship with money is actually the real problem.

• 1:27Lewis Howes?

  Now, before we talk about strategies and tactics, we need to talk about something that most people never address. Every time I talk about this, people are like, huh, I never thought of it that way. Why do smart, hardworking people still struggle with money? I'm sure you're smart. I'm sure you work hard. I'm sure you know a lot of people in your life who are hardworking, smart people, educated, but for some reason, struggle with money. There's an entire book that I wrote that's all about how to reinterpret your relationship with money, your beliefs around money. It's called Make Money Easy.

• 2:09Lewis Howes?

  And this book helps you identify your relationship and your mindset with money. Now, think about it, what is your belief? What is your relationship tied to money? Do you have a physical reaction or a chemical reaction when you receive money? Do you get really excited? Do you get nervous? When you spend money and you see your bank account and going down, down, down? Do you get anxious? Do you get scared? Do you believe it's hard to make money? Do you feel like you understand money? Do you feel like you're good at making money? Like, think about all these different things, your beliefs around money. For me, I grew up where there was a lot of stress tied around money.

• 2:53Lewis Howes?

  My parents worked extremely hard. I was the youngest of four kids. We always had the, you know, the secondhand toys. We can never get new clothes. It was always kind of the hand me downs, thrift store clothes, things like that. I remember I got picked on because I never had the cool stuff. I didn't have a Nintendo, all these things that all my kind of classmates had, I didn't have. There was a time when I, you know, back in the eighties and nineties, when I was growing up, when people were playing rollerblade hockey in parking lots in the neighborhood. And I was the only kid in rollerblade hockey where I was wearing sneakers.

• 3:38Lewis Howes?

  So everyone else had rollerblades or roller skates, but we couldn't afford them. So this was a period of time where my dad was working really hard. My mom was working as well. They were both trying to do their best to take care of us. But they had a lot of stress in their relationship and a lot of it was tied to money. Money, stress. And that played into scarcity, insecurity, worry, fear. And this belief that, oh, the relationship is not well because it's tied to money not being well. That was just how I learned things. It was just how I experienced the world. And I was always a little bit behind everyone else in my peers and in my school and in my town. And therefore I felt like I'm not good at money.

• 4:22Lewis Howes?

  It was a belief system that I picked up through years of conditioning. And you might have a similar one, a different one. You might have a healthy relationship with money. You might have an unhealthy relationship with money. But most financial books skip over this part. But your outer results with money are always a reflection of your inner beliefs about money. Again, this is the exact reason why I wrote this book, Make Money Easy. Because it's all about how to create financial freedom and live a richer life by having a healthier, healed and aligned relationship around money beliefs and a money mindset with yourself.

• 5:05Lewis Howes?

  And if you grew up hearing that money doesn't grow on trees or we could never afford that or rich people are really greedy and, you know, you can't trust rich people because they're so greedy. Then why would you ever become a person that becomes wealthy? If you believed that rich people are bad or wrong and greedy and you don't want to identify as bad or wrong or greedy, you will constantly be pushing against abundance. You'll constantly be pushing against opportunities. You will constantly self sabotage when you receive money. You'll spend it, you'll blow it on the now.

• 5:47Lewis Howes?

  You won't think about saving or investing for a future self that really needs it as well. And again, some of these phrases, you know, we can never afford that or rich people are greedy. Those phrases become your financial programming. Let me repeat myself. These phrases, these conditionings, they become your financial programming. And that programming is running in the background of your subconscious. Every time you make a decision about money, it's just spinning its wheels inside of you. Your relationship with money must change before your bank account can change. And if it doesn't change, then the more your bank account goes up or down,

• 6:31Lewis Howes?

  the more stress and anxiety you're going to have in either direction. You're never going to feel like it's enough the more you save and hoard your money. You're still going to feel anxious or worried or concerned like someone's out to get you. Or if you don't have enough money, if it's always going down, you're going to be thinking to myself, this is so hard, living paycheck to paycheck. What happens if I get injured or hurt? I have no money for the future. If my car breaks down, if something happens, if there's an emergency, what am I going to do? Either way, your relationship with money must change before your bank account can change. Or if your bank account changes, your relationship will still be hurt.

• 7:14Lewis Howes?

  So ask yourself right now, do I believe money is hard to make? Do I believe I have to sacrifice everything in my life and give up my family and my health to earn it? Do I feel guilty when I spend money? When I spend it on myself or for an adventure that I want to go on? Do I feel like wanting more money makes me a bad person? If you answered yes to any of those, you don't have a money problem. You have a belief problem. And this does not mean you are a bad person if you think this way. This just means you've been conditioned, you've been put in an environment and you've been

• 7:54Lewis Howes?

  thrown into a belief system already from peers or parents or your society or your culture that has put you in this situation. And this is why you have come to this video. This is why you've come to this episode. And I hope this is that turning point for you where you come back to this episode, where you share this with your friends and say, hey, let's talk about this together. You don't have a money problem, you have a belief problem. And beliefs can be changed. Beliefs can be changed. And I'm telling you, if I can change my beliefs around money, my relationship with money, when I felt so scarce, when I felt so insecure, when I felt like, why would anyone ever give me money?

• 8:38Lewis Howes?

  In my early to mid twenties, I was like, I'm going to be broke forever. That's literally, I was living on my sister's couch for a year and a half, not making any money, afraid for the future, thinking, how am I ever going to make money? The economy was crashing, the housing market crashed. They weren't hiring people with master's degrees and I hadn't graduated college yet. So I had all these beliefs like, I'm sleeping on my sister's couch. I have no skills. I have no talent. I was in the bottom of my class. I don't have a college degree. How am I going to ever make money in this economy? And some of you might be thinking that right now. This was back in 2008.

• 9:20Lewis Howes?

  We're in 2026 in this moment of recording this and you might be thinking the same thing right now. Gas prices are like 10 times higher now than they were then. Houses and apartments are 10 times higher than they were then. It is like, it feels like there's a war every other day. It feels like there's the AI revolution. What do we do about this? Everyone's losing their jobs. Is there any security and financial future? I'm in so much debt, how am I going to get out of debt? It might feel overwhelming to you right now as well. And I'm here to tell you, if I was able to get out of it, I know you can as well.

• 10:00Lewis Howes?

  If an insecure little boy with a lot of wounds, with a lot of conditioning, with an uncertain future, with an identity that was broken down. If I was able to get out of that space and learn how to create a more abundant future for myself, then I know you can as well. I know it. You have to be willing to receive the right information. You have to be willing to apply the information on a daily basis to set yourself up for success. You need to be willing to have the courage to learn in the messiness. Because gosh, I am still learning today.

• 10:43Lewis Howes?

  And I feel like it's been almost, you know, 17, 18 years or whatever, since I was that scared little boy on my sister's couch in my mid twenties. I was a grown man, but literally I was a little boy emotionally trying to figure out life. And it has taken courage to read information, to learn about things that I had no clue about and feel so stupid that I was like, man, I feel so ignorant, like I have no clue what any of this money stuff is.

• 11:18Lewis Howes?

  And learning a new language, learning a new vocabulary, learning an unfamiliar way of being, to go from a place of scarcity into abundance. And I'm telling you, if I can do it, I know for certain that you can, if you're willing to apply yourself consistently, have the courage to fail and make mistakes and, and sound or look a little silly for not knowing it all. And that's okay. I still don't have all the answers. That's why I continue to sit across from the world's leaders on money, entrepreneurship and business to continue to learn to get to the next levels of my life as well. So you don't have a money problem, you have a belief problem and beliefs can be changed.

• 12:00Lewis Howes?

  And that is the end of secret number one, that your relationship with money is the real problem. Secret number two, the wealthy don't trade time for money. Now, once someone shifts their money mindset, again, this is everything I talk about in this book, Make Money Easy. We talk about the mindset of money first. And once you shift your money mindset, what is the first strategic secret that actually changes the game? Well, I'm going to share with you a story that I learned early on because early on I was working really hard. After I was on my sister's couch, try to develop a skill. And that skill at the time, a mentor told me, why don't you check out LinkedIn?

• 12:45Lewis Howes?

  To see if you can get some connections to find a job. So back in 2007, 2008, it's a long time ago. And so I obsessed on it. I was on my sister's couch. I was learning about LinkedIn. I was researching it. I was trying to optimize my profile. I was connecting with thought leaders and different individuals in my city. I was trying to reach out and build relationships. And after about six months of just obsessing on LinkedIn and building my network and optimizing it and trying to research and learn about it. People started to reach out to me and said, hey, Lewis, you've got a really cool looking profile. It looks really professional. Can you show me how to optimize mine?

• 13:26Lewis Howes?

  And I would start working with people just for free, kind of like friends, relationships that I had built. And I was just like, hey, here's what you can do to make your profile look better. I was just helping people on what I was learning over the previous six months. And I did this for, for a person, uh, maybe I did this for like, I don't know, 10 or 15 people for free. And then I did this for a person and afterwards he said, this is going to really help my business. Thank you. And he got out his checkbook and he wrote a hundred dollar check and he handed it to me. And it was like, oh, really? Like I could help someone do something and they'll give me money? Like I just didn't understand how to make money. I'd just gotten out of college.

• 14:06Lewis Howes?

  To go to try to make the NFL. I didn't make the NFL. My dreams got crushed. I was playing arena football on my way trying to make it. I was making $250 a week as an athlete and I still hadn't graduated college yet. So all this happened, I didn't have the skills to make money, but I was just trying to be useful. I was trying to be helpful. So I was helping people learn about LinkedIn and someone wrote me a check for a hundred dollars. And I was like, wow, okay, let me just do more of this. I made a hundred dollars. Let me start reaching out to people and telling them, hey, do you want me to optimize your LinkedIn profile for you? I charge a hundred dollars. And I just started doing that and more and more people said yes. And eventually I said, oh, okay, let me charge more for this.

• 14:51Lewis Howes?

  You know, I'm becoming more in demand. I'm getting more opportunities, you know, my schedule's booking up. So I started charging 150, $200, 250, $300. Now I would spend a few hours with people, maybe a half day. I would do follow-up stuff with them. So it wasn't like an hour thing, but I would spend time with them to optimize their profile. And then I remember I go, oh, interesting. The more I do this, like it's just going to be harder and harder to scale my time. So I need to find a way to productize my information. And at the time in 2008, there was no really easy way to do self-publishing. But I was like, oh, if I could just put all my knowledge down into one thing, like a book,

• 15:34Lewis Howes?

  and then go sell that, then that's a way to make some extra income. And that's what I did. I met someone who had written a book. I asked them if they could guide me on how to self-publish. And self-published my book with that person actually in 2009. And I think maybe we sold around 700 copies and they were like, you know, $10, $15 a book that I would just go around and try to sell to people. But it just opened my eyes to creating a, a different way of impacting people, servicing people that would create an extra stream of income. And if you only get paid when you work, your income is capped by your hours, by the time you put in for that pay.

• 16:16Lewis Howes?

  And your hours are finite as a human being. There's only 24 hours in a day. And really, you've only got, you know, eight to 10, maybe 12 good hours a day. If you're younger, when I was younger, I was putting 12, 14 hours a day into my business, but I had a lot more energy then. And I didn't have anything else to do. So I was just obsessed about it. But you cannot hustle your way into millions of dollars, even if every dollar requires your direct time.

• 16:45Lewis Howes?

  And listen, I say that knowing that that's what I did for many years. I tried to hustle my way to doing it. And with a caveat, if you do it, you could potentially be successful in creating more money for yourself. But the cost of hurting your health, your relationships and your sleep. And that's what happened to me. For years I was just like, I don't want to be scarce. I don't want to be broke again. So I just obsessed over trying to make as much money as I could for about five years.

• 17:17Lewis Howes?

  I got overweight. I was had really poor eating habits. I didn't sleep well. I was up till like 3, 4 AM almost every night for years, just like in scarcity and hustle mode, thinking that was the way. And I wish I could go back and restructure my time because I felt like it hurt me over the long run. And I wish I didn't have to hustle in that same way if I could go back, if I learned it differently. Cause the wealthy understand one thing that the rest of us don't, that you don't just sell your time. You build systems that generate value while you sleep. And that could be a podcast, for example, the School of Greatness podcast. We've done later this year, it'll be 2,000 episodes, 2,000 episodes.

• 18:02Lewis Howes?

  Now, think about this for a second. It's been over 13 years. Every single week, for 13 years, we put out podcast episodes. For the last 11 years, it's three episodes a week. And that podcast produces certain results. And every second now, someone is watching or listening to this show, to one of the episodes we put out there, someone in the world, every second is watching or listening to this show to help them improve an aspect of their life, their business, their health, their relationships, their purpose, their spirit. Because of that, it is generating income and it's generating revenue 24/7.

• 18:46Lewis Howes?

  Every second of the day, it's generating something. It might be a few dollars. It might be a few pennies. It might be hundreds of dollars. Whatever it is, it is generating money that then fuels back into the business that allows us to reinvest in the team, in software, in AI and tools, creating a lifestyle for myself, a lifestyle and providing for the people on our team. And being able to reinvest into making this business hopefully even more successful in the future. So it could be a podcast. It could be a product. It could be a brand. It could be an investment, a business that you hire others to run for you. It could be a side hustle. It could be a side project.

• 19:26Lewis Howes?

  It could be something you do on Etsy. It could be a book. It could be an audio course. It could be anything. And the goal is to move from active income to leveraged income. From earning with your hands to earning with your minds. And it is the single most important transition that any entrepreneur or professional can make. And here's the thing, I also want to emphasize that entrepreneurship is not for everyone. It isn't. It, it can be extremely lonely. It can be extremely hard and it can beat you down. If you take a chance on something, you lose all your money and no one buys. It is not for thin-skinned individuals.

• 20:11Lewis Howes?

  It is not for people that are willing to risk everything and you know, struggle and suffer if they don't want that. A lot of the times you only see the 1% of 1% of 1% online who are actually succeeding and generating millions of dollars. Most of the time, business, business owners, small business owners in your local city.

• 20:38Lewis Howes?

  You know, they're not crushing it. They're not making millions of dollars. And if they're generating millions, their profit margins are usually between 10%. Maybe at the end of the day, after all their expenses, after all their costs, after all the legal fees, after all their taxes, after all their employers, after all the different things they have to pay for, maybe it's 10%. If you're lucky, that's most businesses in the world. Maybe 20%, but here's the thing, there's still ways you can generate extra income. Because when your money works for you, you stop being someone that is only fixed to your calendar. And that is the, the key secret.

• 21:23Lewis Howes?

  Number two is that the wealthy don't trade time for money only. They're also looking to optimize. They're looking to optimize into the next level. And they're looking to create more streams if possible.

• 21:40Lewis Howes?

  Now I'm going to give you a caveat with this into secret number three, which is one income stream is a financial emergency. Now, what does this mean? You're going to get two different sides of the coin here. So this is not for every case, but I'm just going to try to caveat this. Most people are one paycheck away from a disaster. It's true. Most people are living paycheck to paycheck and they do not have an emergency fund for more than a few months. So what is the secret that the wealthy use to make sure that this never happens to them? Well, one of the main things is they don't focus on just one income stream.

• 22:21Lewis Howes?

  Because one income stream alone is not a financial strategy. And the caveat I'm going to say to this is twofold. Because I went extreme on multiple streams of income in the first half of my business career. I think I had like 17 streams of income. I had, you know, the podcast, I had speaking engagements. I was hosting my own events. I was doing free webinars and then selling courses. I had a membership site. I had paid trainings. I was trying every different thing. I had books, I had audio books. I was like, I need as many streams. I took it so extreme.

• 23:01Lewis Howes?

  I took it so extreme that it exhausted me because I was the one generating all those income streams. I was the one fulfilling all those products. I was the one doing all the customer support, developing them, selling them, and it burnt me out. To the point where I was like, I'm getting rid of every stream and I'm coming down to two or three. Now, so I go to, I went to one extreme, back to another extreme. And I feel like I'm in a healthy place right now. At the same time, I'm still thinking of the next income stream that I could add on to my business. Where I can think about how can I serve the maximum number of people to help them improve the quality of their life?

• 23:44Lewis Howes?

  While also not burning myself out and making sure I use smart systems in place to serve people to generate income as well. And so again, focused effort, all the risk into one main thing is actually how you become really rich. You put all your energy and time into one thing and then boom, it accelerates, it grows. You make a ton of money from it, you sell it, whatever it might be, and then you generate a lot of wealth. Right? But then helping your wealth continue to grow is actually diversifying it into multiple different investments. So you protect it and it grows over time. But one income stream is not a financial strategy alone. It is a financial risk at a certain point.

• 24:29Lewis Howes?

  And again, if you're smart with your one income stream by investing it in other places, then that's fine, that's great. But a lot of people don't do that. They just spend all their money and therefore they have no money left over. They have no savings, they have no investments. And a lot of people will say that the average millionaire has seven streams of income. And I know that can sound overwhelming. It's also unrealistic if you are starting with just one right now. But what's typical, what's typically true about this is that they're, they're one source of income. That is their main driver that allows you to build up other sources over time. So our main focus of the school of greatness is the podcast.

• 25:14Lewis Howes?

  That is the engine. Now I also have, you know, five different books, three New York Times bestselling books and a few other books. And this comes as a, an extra source of income, right? But the content is driven through the podcast. So the content comes to the podcast, then I'm able to create IP. I'm able to create books and IP through the content by repackaging it. Packaging it in a way that is easy to consume with lots of information on one subject around the relationship with money. Then I'm able to use the podcast engine to sell this to our audience that wants more products to serve them in that way. Right? That's one way.

• 25:59Lewis Howes?

  Then I have my speaking fees. I don't do a lot of speaking these days because I have twin girls, I'm married, I have less time where I travel. But I still get asked to speak a lot. And for the right fee, I will go out, I will travel and I will speak to companies. I will do workshops for senior leadership teams. I will speak at conventions to give people my insights, my perspective, my inspiration. If people want me to come out for my fee, right? That's another way through this, this business. We have affiliate relationships and partners. We have a mastermind coaching program that also serves higher level entrepreneurs to take their business to the next level.

• 26:41Lewis Howes?

  And so we have a few core revenue streams that support us and this business. And if you try to build multiple at the same time, you're probably going to struggle and feel burnt out. Instead, build whatever your main income source is now as high as you can. And then determine what second source you begin to create. And here are some of the common income streams that wealthy people build. First one is earned income, which is your job or your active business. Like focus on maximizing that to the best of your ability. And really be thinking about that money or that income on how you can use that income to make more money for you.

• 27:25Lewis Howes?

  The second one is investments, investment income. So how do you use that career income, that job income, that business income? First thing is to put it into certain investments that you feel comfortable with. Like stocks, index funds, real estate, another side business that's generating income for you. Products, services that you sell, things like that. Investment income. And this is something that I think I started to do in my late twenties and I wish I did sooner. I wish I started putting 50 bucks a week, 100 bucks a week, a thousand dollars a week. Whatever I could have put in into investment income so that I could be generating returns from my money.

• 28:10Lewis Howes?

  Always making money for me, making money in my sleep over time through one of these investment incomes. The next one would be through royalty income. This could be, again, I get royalties every day through books for you. Maybe that's music royalties, maybe that's art, maybe that's intellectual property, IP. The next one could be rental income, property or assets you own. Now I own physical properties with my wife. We own different apartments that we rent out on Airbnb or long-term rentals. I also have investments in real estate funds where someone else manages those.

• 28:53Lewis Howes?

  And they are managing all the stress of, you know, getting the tenants in and out, managing the buildings. And I'm getting a monthly return on those assets. So that's another thing that you can do. But again, know the risks, whatever you get into on investing your money. I've also lost money on, on stupid investments that didn't work out or startups that I thought would make money that didn't make money. So you've also had, got to know the risks to any investment that you make. There could be digital income. There's a lot of people, you know, right now, there's so many creators that have courses, content, micro communities, things like that. Where they are generating income based on their digital content.

• 29:38Lewis Howes?

  There's a lots of different ways you can be thinking about. But if you also focus on one, your main career, and you focus on your job of generating that income and being just as wise and intelligent as possible about taking action with that money. You could set yourself up for financial freedom if you do it the right way, if you do it consistently and you do it over a long term. You don't build it all overnight, but the wealthy mind thinks in multiple streams. Or taking the money they're bringing in every month and investing it for long-term wealth. The ordinary mind thinks in paychecks and spending as much as possible to feel good.

• 30:22Lewis Howes?

  And the moment you start thinking in streams, your entire financial life begins to shift. And your future self will thank you for being wise with your money today. That's the end of secret number three, one income stream is a financial emergency.

• 30:42Lewis Howes?

  Number four, this is a big one. This is probably if I could boil down all of my success in business comes down to secret number four. Now, I've done a lot of other things. Well, I've also made a lot of other mistakes, but number four is the thing that's probably generated 80% of my money from secret number four. And that is to get into the room where you're the least successful person. Now, when you grew up like me, the bottom of my class, feeling like a stupid person that had no money when I was 25. I was broke as a joke, living on my sister's couch. Student loans, I hadn't graduated college yet.

• 31:27Lewis Howes?

  I just felt like the stupidest person in the world. I was always the dumbest person in every room. So this was not hard for me to do. Every, anywhere I walked, I was the dumbest person. I was the least successful person. I had no money. Everyone had more money than me. And most people surround themselves with people at their level or maybe a little below, below. And they wonder why nothing in their financial life ever changes. So what is the move that actually accelerates wealth faster than almost anything else? It's getting yourself in rooms with people who are farther ahead than you financially. The fastest way to change your financial life is to change what feels normal to you.

• 32:09Lewis Howes?

  And what feels normal to you is determined by the room you're in. If everyone around you is stressed about money, that stress becomes your baseline. It becomes your normal conversation and becomes your normal way of being. If everyone around you plays it safe, then playing it safe becomes your ceiling. It becomes a place where, oh, we all play it safe here. No one goes past this point of discomfort. We like to stay in this comfort room bubble and we're not going to try to risk something different from where we feel comfortable right now. It's going to be hard for you to break free from that if that's your environment and that's your room. But when you jump and get so uncomfortable and get into rooms

• 32:54Lewis Howes?

  where people are making decisions you've never even dreamed of or considered or thought about, then talking about investments like they're obvious or building businesses at scale that you haven't even imagined, or giving away money in amounts that you've never even thought about receiving that seem impossible to you. When you get in those rooms and those conversations are happening, something shifts inside of you. At first, you're going to feel terrified. You're going to feel like, ah, like I'm in the wrong room and this is scary. But that's exactly what you need to start thinking differently, to start seeing possibilities, to stop limiting yourself from what you're capable of.

• 33:36Lewis Howes?

  And I'm not saying you need to think like millionaires and billionaires and be in these rooms in order to create some certain lifestyle that's not you. But what I'm saying is you want to be surrounding yourself with people that are willing to think just a little bit differently, a little bit, maybe a little bit delusional at times, a little bit unrealistic at times to see what is possible. And it doesn't mean you have to go there, but at least you gets that gets you out of the environment you're currently in. Not because someone handed you a strategy, but because your brain starts to recalibrate again with what is possible for yourself. Proximity is the strategy. It is about being in the rooms where the right people are, who think in ways that you've never thought.

• 34:21Lewis Howes?

  And early on in my career, I got on a Greyhound bus from Columbus to Philadelphia. And I think I spent around $55 and I maybe had a hundred dollars at the time. I didn't have a car and I got on a Greyhound bus because there was a conference. This was in late 2008, early 2009. And I didn't have a place to stay. I found a hostel, I think it was $17 a night. I put my bags in a little locker when I got to this hostel. I had a carry on like bag I brought on the bus with me and a suit jacket.

• 35:06Lewis Howes?

  And I locked in my bag in this little locker. There was bunk beds, there was probably 20 bunk beds in one room. I left my bags there. I went to the event, I was there till about 2:30 AM, late night, building relationships. I come back to the hostel, I kid you not, there was puke all over the doors to get into the bathroom. There was puke all over the mirrors, all in the sinks, all in the urinals. So I couldn't go to the bathroom. I was stepping on the floor of puke everywhere to just go to the bathroom at 3 AM. I get in one bunk bed. All the bunk beds are full. I kid you not, there was puke all over my bed and all over the floor,

• 35:51Lewis Howes?

  right when I'm stepping into the bunk bed to go to sleep. And 19 European guys are snoring all night long. And I'm thinking to myself, this is, this is hell, this is crazy. But I'm telling you, I still have relationships today that I connect with from an event I went to 16, 17 years ago at a conference that I couldn't afford, that I snuck into, that I took a Greyhound bus to get to, that I stayed in a hostel filled with puke. And I got in the rooms where the right people were. And I'm telling you, if you are willing to have the courage to risk,

• 36:37Lewis Howes?

  to get in proximity and open yourself to say, hi, my name is Lewis Howes, what's your name? And ask people questions and be curious about them and not talk about yourself and just think, how can I learn about people and serve them? I'm telling you, it's almost like God or the universe just opens doors for you to create abundance in your life. When you are willing to get into uncomfortable situations and rooms. I'm not talking scary, unsafe rooms, but I'm talking about maybe, oh, these people, I don't feel like I belong because they're so much smarter, so much more successful. They've created so much more results in their life than I have. You put yourself in a room. You have the courage to go up and talk to people.

• 37:21Lewis Howes?

  You have the courage to ask questions. You have the courage to say, hey, how can I be of service to you? And I'd really like to serve you. What's your biggest challenge in life? If you have that ability to have courage to risk with proximity, this is 80% of my wealth is being in the right rooms and developing these relationships over time. The goal here is not to impress people in these rooms. Again, if you are the least successful, the least rich, the dumbest person in the room, you're not going to impress people. The only thing you can do is impress people by being present with people, by looking them in the eyes and being curious and actually being interested in learning about them.

• 38:03Lewis Howes?

  Not trying to talk about you because you don't have anything of results that, that's going to impress them. So don't try to. The goal is to learn from them, to let their normal way of being become your new behavior. Because once something feels normal to you and once it stops feeling out of reach to you and once you feel comfortable in those situations, you should start opening doorways, inner channels to embody that abundance, to create financial opportunities, to look for new advances in careers, to be seen with different levels of respect, to build your personal brand in those rooms and industries

• 38:48Lewis Howes?

  where people will start talking about you in positive ways behind your back. You start moving toward abundance without even realizing it. So the question is not, am I ready for that room? I, I've never been ready for any of these rooms. The question is, what room do I need to get into? What room does my future self need me to get into today? That's going to unlock this level of abundance for my future self. And that is the end of secret number four. Get in the room where you're the least successful person. And secret number five. Generosity is the most underrated wealth strategy. This one is a

• 39:31Lewis Howes?

  one you're probably not going to like because I heard Tony Robbins say this, that the secret to, the secret to living is giving. And it's so true, but it's so hard when you have nothing. It, it's so hard to say, how do I give when I have nothing? When I'm broke, when I'm in debt, when I'm living off credit cards? It's really hard to think I need to be a giver. When you're living scarcity day by day, moment by moment, and you're thinking, no, I just need to save, save, save, save. So this last one is the, the one that surprises a lot of people because it feels counterintuitive to almost everyone. And how does giving more lead to having more? Well,

• 40:15Lewis Howes?

  for the last, man, how long has it been now? 14, 15 years, I have been a

• 40:22Lewis Howes?

  A contributor to many nonprofits, one of them is one that I really love is called Pencils of Promise. And I remember many years ago, I met the founder of Pencils of Promise, Adam Braun, who's a friend of mine, who just inspired me so much by his way of giving and his contribution to the world, because he started building schools for kids in different countries when he would go backpacking around the world in kind of gap years in college. And he would backpack through Ghana and Guatemala and Laos, and he would take around pencils and

• 41:00Lewis Howes?

  give them to kids. And he remembers giving a pencil to a kid and his eyes just lighting up. It was like the greatest gift he could ever receive. And he gave him this pencil because he said, hey, if there's this one thing you could want, you know, one gift that I could give you, one thing you could want in life, what would that be? And he said, I want a pencil. And when he gave it to him, his eyes lit up because he wanted a pencil because he just wanted the ability to learn. He wanted to have the ability to learn, to eventually get out of his situation in his village and create something more for himself. So receiving a pencil

• 41:42Lewis Howes?

  was such a great gift, because it sparked a greater future that this child had never seen before. The ability to learn, the ability to read and write, the ability to come up with creative ideas and make something. And I met Adam, I think after he'd made maybe five schools. And now the organization, I believe, has made 500 plus or close to 1,000 schools around the world and help kids develop their education in conjunction with the local communities, with the local governments to support the way they want things done as well. And so I guess it's been maybe 15 years, 14, 15 years where we've been contributing every

• 42:24Lewis Howes?

  year to helping build schools, fund the teachers, fund the kids for that. And that started because I was like, I started learning this principle from people by being in these rooms. I would ask wealthy people early on, what is one of the greatest keys to earning more? And so many people said, you gotta give more. You gotta give more. You know, it's a blessing to be on this earth. It's a blessing to have an opportunity to live another day. No one is guaranteed this day or tomorrow. And people, so many people have been here before you who have given you so much, this environment, this world, this building, this facility, this work, this art, this book

• 43:06Lewis Howes?

  that you get to read. So many people have created before you, they've given to you whether directly or indirectly, it's benefited your life. Be a giver. Give more. If you don't have money, give time. If you don't have time, give knowledge, give resources, give whatever you can. Every wealthy person that I've ever interviewed has talked about generosity as one of their core parts of their life. Not because they were naive, not because they didn't understand business, but because they understood something deeper. And that is abundance is not a fixed amount. It expands when you share it. Let me repeat myself. Abundance is not a fixed amount. It's

• 43:50Lewis Howes?

  not limited. It expands when you share it. So when you invest in something, when you share something, when you give knowledge, give resources, give money, give time, it impacts people. And it's not limited. But I'm not saying give all your money away every single day. That's not what I'm saying. But I am saying you can give some of your money, and the more you're willing to reach and stretch to give to causes that you care about, that you want to make a difference in, it's eventually just going to come back in different ways. And it may not come directly from that. But that idea, that philosophy, that belief, that baseline of I am a giver, it just means it opens the door to abundance.

• 44:38Lewis Howes?

  Now, I caveat this with the saying, you don't want to be a giver with no boundaries, because sometimes if you find a narcissist or an extreme taker, then they're just going to take everything from you until you're nothing. So this is a caveat, that you get to be discerning in your life with certain people that are only takers, that are also not in appreciation, but they just want to take, take, take from you until they take all of you. That's not what this is about. You need healthy boundaries. Sometimes that's with family, friends, coworkers, whatever it might be. And so you're going to have to learn those lessons on your own through how you do it. But being a giver, being generous, is the gateway to abundance.

• 45:18Lewis Howes?

  Scarcity says, if I give, then I have less. But abundance says, when I give, I open the door from war. And the people who grip money the tightest are almost always the ones who have the least. And really, they're the ones that have the least joy, the least hope, the least positivity, the least inspiration, the least love, because they're holding on to something so tight. And the people who give most freely with their time, their resources, their knowledge, their joy, their love, they are the ones who somehow always seem to have enough and it's overflowing. It just overflows. And even if they don't have all the money in the world

• 46:00Lewis Howes?

  right now saved up, they know money's going to come to them and they're going to have enough to be okay. And they feel good about that. Generosity is not just a moral virtue, although that's a great moral virtue. It's a great business strategy. Be generous. Our podcast, our show is 100% free. Sure, we have ads, we have sponsors, but the consumer doesn't have to pay for the content. It is free. So if someone says, hey, I can't afford your book, Lewis, I can't afford an event or a course or whatever, your coaching, that's okay. We want to give you the best information we can. Every single day, you can watch thousands of episodes for free to help you improve your quality of your life and your business. It's free.

• 46:45Lewis Howes?

  Generosity, it's a great business strategy. Give. It's an energetic strategy. It's a wealth strategy. And when you lead with your heart by giving, you build trust with people, you build community, you build loyalty, people want to be around you. You're like, hey, I like that guy, I like that gal. They're givers. And those, those things are worth more than any tactic. Just be a giver. And that is the end of secret number five. Generosity is the most underrated wealth strategy. And I want to leave you with this. I hope you've enjoyed this so far, but I want to leave you with this. I want to leave you with a 30 day wealth building challenge. And the beginning of this episode, I told you that you're going to come back to this,

• 47:28Lewis Howes?

  and there's a turning point in life around money. And you're going to say, you know what? That one time, a year ago, six months ago, three years ago, five years ago, Lewis Howes did this episode around money that shifted my belief system, shifted the way I think about money. And at the end, he talked about this 30 day wealth building challenge. Send this to your friends so they get on this challenge with you. And if you've made it this far and feel ready to change your financial life, then here's what I want you to do for the next 30 days. I want you to audit your money beliefs. Go back to the beginning of this video, we talked about your money beliefs. I want you to write down every negative thought or belief you have about money. Again, most of you won't do this, but if you're ready to actually start shifting

• 48:12Lewis Howes?

  the frequency of creating more abundance in your life around money, then I need you to get out your journal, I need you to get out a pen, your journal, or on your phone right now in the notes app, and write down every negative thought or belief you have about money right now. Do not wait. Do not say I'm going to do this tomorrow. Do it now. Otherwise, the more you delay, the more you delay generating money for yourself. After you write down every negative thought or belief you have about money, I want you to answer, where did it come from? Who taught you that? And is it even true? Just because it's a belief, doesn't mean it's true. It's just a

• 48:54Lewis Howes?

  belief that you've stuck with up until now, and it's been true for you, but it doesn't mean it's true for everyone. And it doesn't mean it has to be true for you. It's just a belief that you've been stuck in. I want you to audit your income. How many streams of income do you have? Write them down. Where is your time going towards that income? Write that down.

• 49:19Lewis Howes?

  Where is your extra time going right now, if it's not towards an extra stream of income or developing an extra skill that could one day bring you income? I want you to identify one new stream that you could be building, whether it be at a skill level, a talent that you could eventually build a stream in the future. And I want you to make one investment in yourself, whether it's, and it could be a free thing, you know, it's like it can do something for free as well. This can be an investment in your time, but I want you also to make an investment in yourself. It can be a book. Again, we have Make Money Easy, but there's lots of great financial books out there. Get any book

• 49:59Lewis Howes?

  that has been recommended on learning about money. This is about your relationship with money. There's other great investing books out there that I recommend. Get a book, get a course, get a mentor, or a mastermind. A mastermind is a group of people that are typically smarter than you. I'm in lots of them because there's a lot of smarter people than me, and I want to be in those rooms where I can learn more. And commit to learning one skill, like we talked about, that will pay you back in the future. That could be, I'm going to learn how to write copy, I'm going to learn how to speak in public, I'm going to learn how to develop some type of skill with AI, whatever that skill is for you that can pay you back on the future. And I want

• 50:43Lewis Howes?

  you to start thinking about leading with generosity with your knowledge. Instead of hoarding your knowledge and information, be more open about what you've learned and your skills. I want you to be more generous with your time or your resources to someone. And don't do this with expectation of return. Just notice what happens when you're a giver and you give more. And if you do these few things for the next 30 days, you won't just think differently about money. You'll start moving differently and money will start moving towards you differently. Now, if you want to go even deeper on what we talked about today, again, my book, Make Money Easy, it's a New York Times bestseller. It's the book I wish I had when I was 25, broke on my

• 51:28Lewis Howes?

  sister's couch, because it teaches me everything that I knew wrong about money. And it's about developing a deeper mindset and relationship to money so that when you have it, you feel good. When you don't have it, you learn to feel good with that relationship as well. It's about the mindset first, understanding your money habits and how to unlock money in your life. The link to get your copy is in the description below of this podcast or video. You can go on Amazon or any bookstore and get it. Again, it's called Make Money Easy. And the wealth you want is not out of reach. You were just never given the right map on how to generate it. Now you have

• 52:09Lewis Howes?

  that map, and it's time to start moving in the direction of your dreams. I hope you enjoyed this episode. My name is Lewis Howes. My intention and my vision and my mission is to serve you to improve the quality of your life. I hope this has given you some time to reflect on that relationship you have with money. And I want to see you start generating more for yourself and having a healthier relationship to it for the future. And if no one's told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And it's time to go out there and do something great. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode

• 52:52Lewis Howes?

  with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.