Fortune vs. Luck, and Why It Matters | Dr. Tina Seelig

Stanford professor, neuroscientist, and bestselling author Dr. Tina Seelig joins Lewis Howes to unpack the science behind luck, drawn from her book What I Wish I Knew About Luck: A Crash Course on Turning Aspirations into Achievements. Seelig, who also wrote What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20 and runs Stanford's Entrepreneurship Center, breaks down her Risk-O-Meter framework, the three-part model for catching luck, and the science of reframing failure, risk, and opportunity.

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

• 0:02Lewis Howes?

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• 0:46Lewis Howes?

  So is there a science to being luckier in your life?

• 0:49Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely. The definition of luck is success or failure apparently caused by chance. It looks, and it might look to you, it might look to someone else like it was caused by chance. But when you pull back the curtain, you see all the things that happened, like applying for that job. I'm lucky that I got an interview or a second interview. Guess what? I wrote that thank you note. Or I was prepared. There were lots of things I did to get me to the next step.

• 1:12Lewis Howes?

  He's a Stanford professor, a bestselling author, and one of the world's leading voices on creativity. Please welcome Dr. Tina Seelig.

• 1:21Speaker 01

  The most common thing I say at work is, what can I do for you? What can I do for you? How can I be helpful? Most of the time, people don't need anything, but if they do, it's usually something little that would be easy for me, like a little five-minute favor that I can do. It's really meaningful to them.

• 1:36Lewis Howes?

  What would you say then is the formula to creating more luck in your life?

• 1:39Speaker 01

  Okay, the framework that I present in my book is that...

• 1:45Lewis Howes?

  So is there a science to being luckier in your life?

• 1:48Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely. I think it's very, very important for us to start with the definition because...

• 1:53Lewis Howes?

  Of luck?

• 1:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:54Lewis Howes?

  What is the definition of luck?

• 1:55Speaker 01

  Okay, so when I ask people, there's a lot of hand waving. It's like, but the definition is really important. The definition of luck is success or failure apparently caused by chance. Apparently. It looks, and it might look to you, it might look to someone else like it was caused by chance. But when you pull back the curtain, you see all the things that happened that set the stage for something really lucky to happen. Also, it's extraordinarily important to differentiate between fortune and luck.

• 2:26Lewis Howes?

  What's the difference?

• 2:27Speaker 01

  Big difference. Fortune is the things that happen to you. Luck is something over which you have much more control. So you're not, you're fortunate or unfortunate where you're born. You know, who your parents are, what the weather is on your birthday. I mean, all these things that are out of your control. I was thinking this morning, boy, I'm so fortunate there's no traffic on my way to the airport. Right? These things were out of my control. But luck is something that I control, like applying for that job. Right? I'm lucky that I got an interview or a second interview. Guess what? I wrote that thank you note. Or I was prepared. There were lots of things I did to get me to the next step. And we're in a constant dance in our lives between fortune and luck, the things that happened to us and how we respond.

• 3:10Speaker 01

  And sometimes that dance is so closely tied that it's hard to differentiate. But if you really tease them apart, you start seeing the places where you have more agency than you might think.

• 3:21Lewis Howes?

  Where do you feel like you're the luckiest in your life?

• 3:23Speaker 01

  Oh, my goodness. I would say the people in my life. I really have the most wonderful family, the most wonderful friends. And I realize that I cultivate that. I spent a lot of time doing things for other people. The most common thing I say at work is, what can I do for you? What can I do for you? How do I, how can I be helpful? And also with friends, you know, what can I do to be helpful? Usually the things, most of the time, people don't need anything. But if they do, it's usually something little that would be easy for me, like a little five-minute favor that I can do, that is really meaningful to them.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  Making introduction, giving them a resource, helping them find their way through some, you know, political quagmire that they don't understand. Like, oh, wow, thank you so much. And then it comes back later and I was like, I didn't even remember I did it because it was such a little thing that it was so meaningful to them.

• 4:24Lewis Howes?

  In some of my talks that I give, I like to do an exercise towards the beginning of my speech that has everyone take out their phone and think about one person in their life that they has done something for them that they want to appreciate and send them a quick little text towards the beginning of my speech, appreciating them. And just say, I appreciate you for this. And it's amazing at the end of my speech, I say, take out your phone and see if those people replied.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 4:48Lewis Howes?

  People are like, the responses they get are so much gratitude and appreciation in return. And I say, listen what you just created with 15 seconds of sending an appreciation text to a friend or whoever, a family member, coworker. The bond you created with that individual and how it made them feel today goes so far into the future for creating luck for you. The potential for more good to happen, and all it took was 30 seconds.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  Well, it's such a great example. I just love that. That's totally brilliant to do that, you know, in a short period of time. Well, just a few weeks ago, as an experiment, right? I do a lot of experimenting and that's actually another aspect to luck is try lots of things, keep what works. I mean, clearly this podcast at some point was an experiment and you just kept adding more fuel to the fire. That's another thing, like building on success. So again, you know, pulling it apart, but I did an experiment. I ran a free online luck makeover workshop. I thought, what's the minimum viable intervention I can have to help people get luckier? And I just put it on LinkedIn. I had about 75 people who signed up and I just did two Sunday, two one-hour workshops, one week apart.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  And then we went through all these different things that people can do to be luckier. And they had to then make a commitment to do something during the week and then report back the next week. A number of people chose appreciation. So can I give you some examples of what happened?

• 6:15Lewis Howes?

  As one of the things to do.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  As one of the things they were going to do that week. So can I give you some examples?

• 6:18Lewis Howes?

  Yes, let's hear it.

• 6:19Speaker 01

  Okay, so one person went to get their car fixed. And when they got their car fixed, they were so appreciative of the mechanic. They said, thank you so much. You did a great job. The car is working so beautifully now and it's really clean. I couldn't be more delighted with how your customer service was. And the guy said, you know what? I'm going to give you $80 off instantly. Right? Appreciation.

• 6:43Lewis Howes?

  Just because of appreciation?

• 6:43Speaker 01

  Because appreciation. Another person called up someone who had been a mentor to them and helped them get a job a year earlier and gave them some coaching. And they said, you know what? Called them up a year later and said, I just want to let you know how things are going and I really appreciate all the advice you gave me. At the end of the call, they had some other really cool opportunities they had to know about before. And a third person contacted their chess coach. She was a woman. She was, I think, at Oxford and she was now a grad, poor grad student. And she had been a chess, a professional chess player. She called up her chess coach. She hadn't talked to him in three years. And said, I just want to thank you so much for everything you did for me. That was really meaningful. And at the end of the call, he said, you know what?

• 7:28Speaker 01

  I'd be happy. I know you can't afford it. I will coach you for free if you, maybe you can help me hone my English. And all three of them, I mean, realized there's no statute of limitations. Right? It doesn't mean you have to do it right away. Like even three years later, it was valuable.

• 7:45Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that's beautiful. What would you say then is the formula to creating more luck in your life?

• 7:50Speaker 01

  Okay, so the framework that I present in, in my book is that luck is ubiquitous. Opportunities for good luck are plentiful, but they're like the wind. They're invisible. They're powerful and they're ever-present, but they're invisible. And so if they're like the wind, you need a sail to catch them. And so how do you catch the winds of luck? That's the framework. And so there are three things you need to do, major things. One is you need to build that ship. That's all the internal work you have to do. Think of the quote, fortune favors the prepared mind. That ship is your prepared mind. Next, you need to recruit your crew because luck seldom, seldom sails solo, right? You need other people. This is, the appreciation plays into that.

• 8:35Lewis Howes?

  Team sport?

• 8:35Speaker 01

  Exactly. Luck is a team sport. And third is, how do you hoist the sail? So that is the things you do every single day to catch that wind that's blowing by.

• 8:47Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Didn't you have an image of this too?

• 8:48Speaker 01

  I do, I do, I do. You want to see?

• 8:50Lewis Howes?

  Yes, see it.

• 8:51Speaker 01

  Well, where did it go?

• 8:52Lewis Howes?

  It's right here, yeah.

• 8:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I created this little image. Can you see that?

• 8:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 8:57Speaker 01

  And the thing that's really fun about this image is I wanted to capture all the ways that you can engage with the winds of luck.

• 9:04Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  So if you're engaging with the winds of luck, you can stay inside. You can essentially ignore it. Shut the curtains, shut the blinds, say, I really don't care. My life is my life. I'm not going to do anything about it. You can be a wind vane on the top of the house.

• 9:22Lewis Howes?

  Spinning.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  Where you are looking at it, you notice it, but you don't do anything. You know, it's funny, I was thinking about this yesterday because I was giving a talk at a part of Stanford campus I haven't been to frequently. And I thought, wow, there are all these things out the window here that I'm actually not very familiar with. And here I am on this campus and I'm see it. Am I going to engage or not? Right? We often see things that are there, opportunities, but we don't do anything. And I thought, you know what? I need to go to that museum. I need to introduce myself to that person. I need to engage because otherwise I'm just a wind vane spinning around and seeing it, but not actually doing it.

• 9:59Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  You can be a hot air balloon. And that's actually an interesting thing. Sometimes in our life, we have to be a hot air balloon, you know? Letting the winds take us where they may. And I know that I, when I moved out to California when I was much younger and I was like, I just want to be a leaf in the wind. I want to see what opportunities surface. And so there are, there are times in our life where we want to sort of, like when you're in college, take lots of classes.

• 10:23Lewis Howes?

  Who knows what I'm going to major in?

• 10:24Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly. Before something's your passion, it's something you know nothing about. So I'm going to go try lots of things. You can be a windmill. A windmill is capturing that luck efficiently in a local place, in a job, in a class, in your lab, in your podcast, like saying, okay, I'm going to harness this right here and squeeze all the juice out of the opportunity right here. Or you can say, there's something I want to accomplish or something I want to do. It's not here right now and I'm going to build a sailboat. And I'm going to go out in search of the winds. And I'm going to go move my sail. I'm going to trim that sail to catch luck to take me to my destination.

• 11:08Lewis Howes?

  Wow. What if you're in a sailboat and you don't know where you're going?

• 11:11Speaker 01

  Well.

• 11:11Lewis Howes?

  And you don't see it in front of you, what's, what's ahead?

• 11:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, you have to have a compass. You need to know where you're going. And that's one of the parts of your prepared mind is having some very clear objectives. Otherwise, I mean, I guess you can go out for a day and go sailing around the bay and come back if you want to, which is also fun, right? But if you have a destination, it's much easier to.

• 11:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  Point the sail in the right direction.

• 11:36Lewis Howes?

  What has been the most surprising part of your research around luck? That would shock most people.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  You know, there are some foundational things that people don't realize affect their luck. So the opening chapter is about values.

• 11:53Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 11:53Speaker 01

  And why you need to be really clear on your core values to be luckier.

• 12:00Lewis Howes?

  Why is that?

• 12:01Speaker 01

  Because, well, all you have to do is read the newspaper every day and see people who weren't clear on their core values who end up in prison.

• 12:08Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 12:08Speaker 01

  Right? People who get on a slippery slope, make decisions that were not smart. If you take the time to really think about what's important to you, what you won't compromise, so that when you're asked to do something, you know, whoa, will you just fudge these numbers? Or will you just exaggerate, you know, what this product does? Or for me, it was a situation when I was in just my first job out of school. I was asked to misrepresent myself at a conference.

• 12:37Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 12:37Speaker 01

  And to go there, not tell people I was part of working for the company and to say I was Team SEAL from Stanford, you know, just be there.

• 12:45Lewis Howes?

  Research and spy a little bit.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  Exactly. Yeah, but I got caught.

• 12:50Lewis Howes?

  Because you lied.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  I lied. I lied. I mean, and I didn't for one second even take the time to think that, wow, this was actually not okay. And there are lots of ways to inoculate yourself against making decisions like that. You can have a personal board advisors, you know, people who you can go to and say, hey, listen, Louis, does this smell right? You know, I'm being asked to do this. Is this okay? Imagine it on the front page of the newspaper. You know, how would I feel if the story of what I did was something that everybody knew? And also being able to walk away, knowing that that's an option that you can, if you're

• 13:32Speaker 01

  being asked to do something that you doesn't, isn't consistent with your values, that you can say no.

• 13:38Lewis Howes?

  That's so, that's so interesting because, you know, I say that not all money is good money. And in my business, you know, it's mostly run through sponsorships. And there's a lot of different shows out there have different sponsors. But for me, I decided early on, there's certain categories I'm not going to promote on my show. My show's all about positivity and personal growth and development and becoming a better version of yourself. And there's a lot of companies that would say, don't support that, you know? That want to give me a lot of money. And I've said no to it from the beginning, but sometimes you're like, oh, man, that's, that's a lot of money to say no to. Like, do I really want to say no? Can I get behind this? You know, and it's, and you've, I think you've got to be so clear on your values.

• 14:22Lewis Howes?

  And because I'm clear in that, maybe I've made less money over the time, but I feel at peace.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:28Lewis Howes?

  And what I'm endorsing.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly.

• 14:31Lewis Howes?

  Um, and yeah, but not all, not all money is good money.

• 14:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's interesting. We do a number of case studies with our students that help them practice doing this.

• 14:43Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. What does that look like?

• 14:44Speaker 01

  Well, it might be a donor, you know, to the university who wants to give you money, but they have a lot of strings attached. At what point do you say, no, I'd rather not take it, even though it would be game changing, right? Like, oh, my gosh, this is going to help us get out of debt. This is going to help us retain our faculty. What is like, at what point you say, no, I won't do this? There's a case that I use in my classes. It's a Harvard Business School case about a young man who really has a lot to prove in his life. And his boss starts asking him to fudge the numbers and so, and he's the CFO of the company.

• 15:21Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  And, you know, it's really sort of like approving expense reports of things that really are not kosher.

• 15:27Lewis Howes?

  They both have wrong values, the boss and the CFO.

• 15:29Speaker 01

  Exactly. But, you know, you're seeing the story from this young guy's perspective. And at what point do you say, I say no to your boss or quit your job?

• 15:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  Sometimes what happens though, is you get so far into it that you're putting sort of, you're now so deep into it, you can't leave. Now you're also a culpable.

• 15:50Lewis Howes?

  And can't leave and you're the one who's probably going to take the fall.

• 15:52Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 15:53Lewis Howes?

  Because the boss is not going to take the fall. It's going to go on you probably. Say, oh, you're the one who made these mistakes, not me. You might be the one going to jail or who knows what.

• 16:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I really, you know, sometimes young people are so in a hurry. I see this, they're so in a hurry to be successful as measured by, you know, making a lot of money. And I really try to urge them to just slow down, to just not get out over your skis because patience, right? This is a long game. Yes, you might see someone who like won the lottery essentially by instantly at a very young age, having early success. But it doesn't preclude you're doing it in the long run.

• 16:33Lewis Howes?

  That's true. And it might compound even more in the long run, the more patient you're willing to be. There's so many relationships I've built from 2008, 2009, 2010, when I was just getting started in the online business world. That I didn't do anything with for the first 10, 15 years, that are just now, because we've stayed connected and something opened up for one of us just now starting to work together or, you know, and it's how we've called, how we both cultivated the relationship over time, that we both have the ability to help one another or something like that. And had I pushed everyone early on and thinking, what can you do for me? I don't think I'd be here today.

• 17:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I think it's also really interesting to differentiate between networking, as people define it, and actually building real relationships.

• 17:21Lewis Howes?

  Real relationships.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  I mean, honestly, I can't stand the concept of networking. I mean, silly, what a waste of time. It's really about building trust. And so when you ask, what are the things that people misunderstand about luck? Building trusting relationships over time is really powerful. In fact, I have a story about one of my former students who ended up becoming the videographer for Kamala Harris at the White House.

• 17:47Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  How did she get that job? Well, she had a professor when she was in college who she took a documentary class, loved the class and stayed in touch over 10 years, just stayed in touch with this professor, sent samples of things she was doing and, you know, they were, they just became colleagues and friends. And when she graduated from graduate school, she sent out hundreds of applications for jobs and could not get a job. She was really panicked and she reached out to this professor and said, hey, I'm just really struggling. I just need one job. Like, I can't even get an answer. And the professor said, you know, I just got a call from a friend who's trying to source some candidates for this job at the White House. May I throw your hat in the ring?

• 18:33Speaker 01

  And lo and behold, she got the job.

• 18:34Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  But she would not have gotten the job if she'd just reached out to this professor, you know, out of the blue, right? It was they, they had a 10 year long, real relationship.

• 18:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  That opened the door to something really special.

• 18:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's like there's a, you know, luck, from my understanding, and what you talk about, luck favors those who are courageous and act now, but also those who are patient and long run as well. It's kind of a both and, right? You have to put yourself out there, knowing that nothing may happen in that relationship or that opportunity, but you also have to keep appreciating relationships over time, showing up for people, and maybe something happens in the future as well.

• 19:15Speaker 01

  Well, let me tell you, it can go both ways, right? You can have a negative experience that people, you know, basically say, no, I'm not going to work with you. I mean, luck is a long game. I mean, sure, you get calls for references for people.

• 19:29Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 19:29Speaker 01

  And you decide, wow, is this someone who I want to support or not? There's a funny story. About 18 years ago, I was on a trip with my family to Costa Rica, and I'm so excited about this trip. Our son was about 16, 17 years old. So excited trip was over the Christmas break, and we got there and this trip turned into a disaster.

• 19:55Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 19:56Speaker 01

  Disaster. They, it was a Stanford alumni trip. They had scoped out the trip during the off season. And when we got there, it was high season.

• 20:07Lewis Howes?

  Hot.

• 20:07Speaker 01

  And it turned into like a party place. There were bars in the pool, the drinking age was not enforced, the music was blaring day and night. We were right at the beach, so it was really dangerous, the alcohol. There were a lot of parents who were so upset, they just took off. Other parents who were really angry and screaming at yelling at the staff, who certainly had done nothing to do with planning this trip. They were just running it. I apparently was very supportive and helpful. I don't even remember. Honestly, I don't remember, you know, over time, I forgot about it, you know, tragedy plus time equals comedy, we went through it. But guess what? 15 years later, I was being considered

• 20:51Speaker 01

  for my current job.

• 20:53Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 20:53Speaker 01

  Which is my, like, dream job. And it turns out, one of the people on the team was person leading that trip.

• 21:01Lewis Howes?

  No way. And they're remembered?

• 21:03Speaker 01

  Of course, they remembered. I didn't remember her. I mean, it was 15 years earlier.

• 21:07Lewis Howes?

  They remembered how you handled it and made it better and needed more.

• 21:10Speaker 01

  It wasn't until after I was hired several months that she told me that she had led that trip. And it was like a nightmare for her. And I know, and she told me, there's no way I would have gotten that job if I had behaved badly 15 years earlier.

• 21:23Lewis Howes?

  Well, of course. Well, that's crazy.

• 21:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, but that's the point. I mean, think about it, you know, you hear from someone who, you know, I see this all the time, like, somebody who's behaving badly, and I feel really bad for them. I think, this is going to come back to bite you. I'm sorry.

• 21:39Lewis Howes?

  It's so interesting, because what you're saying there is like, every decision we make on a daily basis is setting ourselves up for five, 10, 20 years in the future to have the most incredible luck and life of our dreams, based on how we act today.

• 21:53Speaker 01

  I love it. One of my favorite things I ever told my son when he was in high school was, the choices you make today determine the choices you will have tomorrow. I think that we don't realize that, that we are making choices every single minute, every single day, and it sets the stage for the opportunities that flow to you in the future.

• 22:18Lewis Howes?

  What is actually happening in the brain that causes most people to miss lucky opportunities, even when they're right in front of them? Even if there's something right in front of them that they could take, but they miss it?

• 22:29Speaker 01

  Okay. I love that question. I mean, I don't know if you know, I'm a neuroscientist, right? So I certainly, I'm not going to answer this from a neuroscience perspective, but it's kind of fun that you asked me about the brain. I think a lot of it has to do with the story people tell about who they are in the world, that we all have a story, not just the story we tell about ourselves, but also the story other people tell us about ourselves. You know, we're constantly integrating, you know, how people are treating us and how we think about the opportunities. And sometimes we don't take opportunities because we don't think we deserve them, or we don't think we can do it. You know, we limit ourselves. I have such, because I have so many students, I get to see every single day, how their

• 23:10Speaker 01

  stories get manifest in the world, right? Those people who have a can do attitude, and feel, sure, I can do that. Give me a hard problem, I can crack it.

• 23:18Lewis Howes?

  I'll figure it out.

• 23:19Speaker 01

  I'll figure it out. And the others who go, oh, no, no, I can't do that. Or, I want to be the president of my home country, or, oh, gosh, I would like to, you know, they have very low aspirations for themselves. And I think it's incredibly important for us to each own our story. If you think about it, it's the same skills, same skills, to do something on a tiny stage as a big stage. And you get to decide what stage you play out your life.

• 23:48Lewis Howes?

  That's true.

• 23:49Speaker 01

  You get to decide. Now, there's nothing wrong with playing out your life on a small stage. That might be super comfortable, and that's what you want. But I think you should be intentional about it.

• 23:58Lewis Howes?

  Is there anything that's felt scary to you when luck has come to you?

• 24:03Speaker 01

  Oh, that's an interesting question. What would be an example? Tell me, how would you answer that?

• 24:08Lewis Howes?

  I mean, like, where you're like, wow, this massive opportunity came to me, and like, every week and every month, there's just more good things that come to me constantly. My life is so lucky, and it's just bigger and bigger. Have you ever felt that way? Like, why is this happening to me versus it doesn't happen for others? Do you feel guilty about how lucky you are?

• 24:27Speaker 01

  When one person, I'm going to say this more generically than personally, but when one person in a friendship, or in a group of friends.

• 24:36Lewis Howes?

  Family.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  Family, family, is having a lot of luck, and other, someone else is struggling, it creates a lot of tension. Because, you know, the person who's really struggling is probably frustrated, envious, disappointed, and there may be things that they're doing. It might not just be bad fortune, right? It could be, it could be health issues, it could be, I mean, there are all sorts of things that can happen, that really get in the way, that are headwinds, that, you know, really push you back. But I think that's the biggest problem, when one person is really successful and has a lot, had a lot of good

• 25:18Speaker 01

  fortune, even if they've worked really hard for it, even if they have, it's difficult when there are people who haven't, and that creates attention. I think the question then is, how can you be as generous as you can to those, and help them in a way that would be meaningful?

• 25:35Lewis Howes?

  You had another graph here as well, right?

• 25:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:37Lewis Howes?

  Can you share what this is?

• 25:38Speaker 01

  Yes. So, one of the things that I spend a lot of time with my students, is helping them understand how to take risks. Because...

• 25:49Lewis Howes?

  Do you have to take risks in order to be lucky?

• 25:51Speaker 01

  You bet. You have to push yourself. You have to get out of your comfort zone. But let me ask you a question. Are you a risk taker?

• 25:56Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 25:57Speaker 01

  Okay. That was a trick question, though. Because there are lots of different types of risk, right? Risk is not binary, right? There are physical risks.

• 26:05Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 26:05Speaker 01

  Probably you're very comfortable taking physical risks. There are intellectual risks, right? Taking on a big problem.

• 26:11Lewis Howes?

  Social risks.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  Social risks, so getting up and giving a talk in front of a big group, okay? Emotional risks, telling people how you feel. There are financial risks, right? Investing in a company. Political risks, you know, speaking truth to power. So this is a riskometer, a riskometer that we developed in our class, where students get to, and you can do it too, if you want to be a student.

• 26:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 26:38Speaker 01

  Map their risk profile. So it's called a spider charge, because the, looks like a spider web. The inside is at the bottom, and the ordinate is zero, and then 10 at the end. And so you map your risk profile. So...

• 26:53Lewis Howes?

  One to 10. 10 being you will only take the most risk.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  Exactly, exactly.

• 26:56Lewis Howes?

  And you do it in each area. Interesting.

• 26:58Speaker 01

  Okay. So are you a, let's start with...

• 27:02Lewis Howes?

  Political is probably my lowest.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  Okay. I think you're a pretty high risk taker all the way around. I'm going to...

• 27:06Lewis Howes?

  I'm very high all around, except for political. I went right to the least already.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  Low political, but...

• 27:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. It's more like, I want to, I don't want to talk about it on my show, because I want to be able to have everyone involved.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. In fact, right, you're probably not going to say your opinion, because you want other people to be able to express...

• 27:25Lewis Howes?

  But also, I'm not as knowledgeable in that category. So I'm also like, well, I don't have as much intellect in that area to really speak about certain things, so...

• 27:36Speaker 01

  Ask questions. Right. So, intellectual risks.

• 27:41Lewis Howes?

  What does that look like?

• 27:42Speaker 01

  It means a problem like, okay, I'm gonna have a, there's a problem, I'm gonna solve it.

• 27:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I would say it's pretty high then.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  Pretty high.

• 27:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:48Speaker 01

  Financial?

• 27:50Lewis Howes?

  Pretty high.

• 27:50Speaker 01

  Pretty high.

• 27:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah. Social is the highest because it used to be, that and emotional, used to be the lowest because I was so afraid of embarrassing myself, afraid of looking silly, afraid of judgment of other people, and I was afraid of exposing my emotions. So I would mask them when I was kind of in my teens and twenties. So those were the lowest, but I've made those probably the biggest.

• 28:17Speaker 01

  Well, I love this. Here's what's so important about what you just said.

• 28:20Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 28:21Speaker 01

  They weren't fixed.

• 28:22Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 28:22Speaker 01

  You stretched.

• 28:23Lewis Howes?

  I stretched.

• 28:25Speaker 01

  You stretched and you said, you said, I want to be able to accomplish this, therefore I need to do this. I need to get comfortable making

• 28:32Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  social risks.

• 28:33Lewis Howes?

  It's interesting. I met someone when I was twenty-three. Um, I was actually learning to salsa dance because that was a big fear of mine. So this was a social risk. Was like being in a Latin dance club as like a tall white guy.

• 28:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 28:47Lewis Howes?

  I was like, I do not belong here based on like society's standards. And that's why I went there. So I was like, I want to learn how to, how to belong in someplace that I'm not supposed to belong, right? And I met a guy who was an amazing dancer. That I was like just observing when I went to the club, the nightclub. And I asked him what he did for a living.

• 29:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:07Lewis Howes?

  And he said, I'm a public speaker. I go, man, that would terrify me also. I was like, this is from one fear to another. And he said, let's meet up like tomorrow, we'll go get coffee and I'll tell you what I do or whatever. And he taught me, he was like, if you want to change the world in any way, if you want to change the world at a company you're with or on a bigger platform, you need to be able to speak in front of people. You know, five people at a time, five thousand people at a time. If you want to enroll people, you need to be able to communicate. And he was like, you've got to go to Toastmasters, go every week. It's a public speaking class.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:40Lewis Howes?

  And overcome your fear until it disappears.

• 29:42Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 29:43Lewis Howes?

  And I did that every week for a year and I humiliated myself and embarrassed myself, but it was my social experiment. How can I improve? And so that expanded on this web of, what do you call it again? Web of?

• 29:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is your riskometer.

• 29:56Lewis Howes?

  Riskometer. So that expanded on the social and then also the emotional side. Expanded when I got into relationships and intimacy and when I started healing wounds of the past and exposing myself by talking to other people about my, my insecurities from my past. And once I was able to expand those, I felt like unlimited of what I could create.

• 30:18Speaker 01

  Isn't it amazing?

• 30:19Lewis Howes?

  Like I was superhuman almost.

• 30:21Speaker 01

  You know, it's such a funny thing when you said you went to Toastmasters, a couple of thoughts. One is, we teach storytelling. We have an entire year-long program on communication skills for all of our first year students.

• 30:32Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 30:33Speaker 01

  And they say this is one of the most important things they look.

• 30:35Lewis Howes?

  Should be mandatory.

• 30:36Speaker 01

  Exactly. Get up and every week they're practicing telling stories and learning new approaches.

• 30:42Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 30:42Speaker 01

  To know your first and last lines, you know, add in mystery, add in deep like all different things to help you become better storyteller. But I also thought, you know, what would I do if I wasn't afraid? Like what is it? And you know, it's funny, it was like, oh my gosh, I don't know. It's like, it's so off the radar for me that I don't even, wouldn't even consider it is singing.

• 31:04Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 31:05Speaker 01

  Like I've been told since I was a little kid, you can't sing, you can't carry a tune. So I'm thinking that.

• 31:11Lewis Howes?

  That's your next level.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 31:13Lewis Howes?

  That's your next level. Whatever you're afraid of.

• 31:15Speaker 01

  Exactly. Like, could I, like, you know, could I actually carry a tune?

• 31:20Lewis Howes?

  You could, but you gotta commit every week for a year.

• 31:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, but.

• 31:24Lewis Howes?

  This is your new social challenge.

• 31:25Speaker 01

  My new, my new.

• 31:26Lewis Howes?

  You know, it's interesting because you said before we got started, I want, I want to keep that up for a second. Cause you said, when I asked you before we started, I said, what's the biggest thing blocking people from becoming luckier in their lives? You said the story they tell themselves about themselves.

• 31:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:40Lewis Howes?

  And the story that other people tell about you.

• 31:42Speaker 01

  You bet.

• 31:43Lewis Howes?

  You heard, maybe it was only one time, but you believed it over and over. Maybe you heard it over and over. You can't sing, ah, don't, go do dance, do something else.

• 31:52Speaker 01

  Exactly. Just move your mouth, right?

• 31:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah. Ah, maybe don't sing because you're not there yet. So whatever story you believed, you've held on to it.

• 31:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:59Lewis Howes?

  Your entire life. And now it's time to, for you to break free.

• 32:04Speaker 01

  Okay, okay. Next time I see you, I'm gonna sing you.

• 32:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, see you. Imagine the, the next level of luck you create because of the next level of internal freedom you develop. You know, you're the one talking about in the sailboat, you need the values and the internal skills to be able to then have the crew and everything of the sail open, but that's the next level. We all have something.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  Exactly. Well, you know, it's funny, funny, not funny. When my son was in second grade, his teacher told him he couldn't draw.

• 32:34Lewis Howes?

  Oh man, yeah, I had that too.

• 32:36Speaker 01

  Did you really?

• 32:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. When I just, you know, he believed it, you're like, ah, I'm trying.

• 32:40Speaker 01

  No, then he stopped. I mean, this, like, what a tragedy. And so, you know, the messaging that adults can give their students.

• 32:49Lewis Howes?

  What are your thoughts on, on words being a program?

• 32:54Speaker 01

  Say more.

• 32:55Lewis Howes?

  So, you know, the words we hear and the words we speak about ourselves become a program that we believe. You heard, you're not a good singer and it became a psychological program, essentially a weapon against you. Because you interpreted that story as true. And if we speak over and over, I can't do this. I'm not good at singing. I'm not able to do this. I can never find love again.

• 33:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 33:21Lewis Howes?

  I can never trust someone again. I'm not good with money. Whatever the words we're saying, it becomes a psychological program. And I believe it becomes an imprint in our nervous system where our body starts to believe what we're thinking.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 33:34Lewis Howes?

  And therefore we're manifesting that belief in a negative or positive way.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  But you're absolutely right. I mean, this again, these stories. So this is a major thing that gets in the way of people achieving their dreams is the story they tell. Um, I have, you know, some sort of both positive and, and negative experience of this in my own life. I mean, when I was a kid, I was really interested in the brain. I mean, I used to, you know, we didn't have the internet. And I would read my parents' medical encyclopedia. That was like the only thing I had access to, to find out. Like, how do you do brain surgery? And my parents had a friend who is a neurosurgeon and I asked him, you know, some question. I got up the nerve to ask him and he made some joke and was really dismissive. And it was terrible. Honestly, I could have been his protege. I could have been, I mean, it was

• 34:22Speaker 01

  such a disappointment to be really dismissed because, you know, of my interest.

• 34:27Lewis Howes?

  You're curious.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  I was really curious, but when I was in, in college and I had a professor who wrote on the top of my paper, Tina, you think like a scientist. Boom. Every cell in my body, every cell like shifted at that moment.

• 34:48Lewis Howes?

  Isn't it fascinating?

• 34:49Speaker 01

  It's amazing. But when someone gives you that, and I'm very aware of it, that we have such power over what we say to people.

• 34:57Lewis Howes?

  Oh, as a Stanford professor and as a neuroscientist yourself,

• 35:04Lewis Howes?

  what have you noticed through the study of neuroscience on the words we use about ourselves? And the words we speak into others on how it unlocks greater possibilities for their life?

• 35:15Speaker 01

  Well, first of all, I have not been in the lab for a long time, so I'm not going to speak as a neuroscientist. But I, I just think that we need to really be very aware of those messages and change the story. And we can change the story. I have often asked people to write their life story from different perspectives. Write it, your life stories in perspective of all of the trauma that you've had. Now write your story from all of the amazing good fortune you've had. Now write the story with all the funniest things that have happened to you. And you realize, oh, every single day you have a choice of which way, which frame you want to use.

• 35:55Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 35:56Speaker 01

  So I, I think, I, I spent a lot of time, um, thinking about framing problems and how you can look at things from different directions to completely unlock new solutions.

• 36:07Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 36:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:08Lewis Howes?

  So give me an example. If someone is faced with a challenge in their life right now, maybe something that's really hard they're going through, a breakup, a breakdown, bankruptcy, they're not getting the opportunity they want. They feel like a friend betrayed them, whatever it is. And they're experiencing this challenge right now. How can they tell a different story around that? Not to bypass the pain, but to see it for what it is, to create more opportunities in their life.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  Having the ability to frame storm, so that's what I call it.

• 36:39Lewis Howes?

  Frame storm.

• 36:40Speaker 01

  Frame storm. That is to brainstorm the question you're asking before you even start coming up with the solutions is really important. Because what you're asking is, you know, you're assuming that you know what the problem is. Right? If you're saying, I want to, um, I want to get married, right? Well, what is it that you really want? I want, is it that you want companionship? Is it that you want security? Is it you want children? Like, there are lots of things.

• 37:13Lewis Howes?

  You don't want to be alone.

• 37:14Speaker 01

  I don't want to be alone, right? I, I, so it's really important to frame storm and to think what problem you're really trying to solve before you run to the solution. We so often think that we know what the right problem is. And we race, you know, especially in school, you know, you're, you're like, how quickly can you do your multiplication tables? You know, you rush to the answers. But living in the problem space and really understanding what the issue is at the beginning is one of the most powerful things you can do. Can, okay, want me to give you a, a fun example from my classes on creative problem solving? So I will ask people, okay, since I just flew here, I'll say, you know, um,

• 37:57Speaker 01

  everybody has a suitcase, right? And I'll say, okay, make a list of all the things you love and hate about your suitcase. So people will make all sorts of, you know, the handle gets stuck, the wheels get dirty, there's not enough space, blah, blah, blah, it's too heavy, you have to lift it, whatever. All the things they don't like about their suitcase. So I said, great.

• 38:17Speaker 01

  Design a new suitcase that solves these problems. So they go and they quickly, you know, they're so excited designing this brand new suitcase. I go, great. Why do we use a suitcase in the first place?

• 38:31Speaker 01

  And they're stuck. It's like, what? No, what, what problem were we really trying to solve with a suitcase? And it takes them a while to figure it out. Because we just assume we have to use a suitcase. But we use a suitcase because we want to have the things we need at our destination.

• 38:47Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 38:48Speaker 01

  We don't use a suitcase because we love packing a suitcase or we like dragging a suitcase around or we like losing our suitcase. We, we use a suitcase despite the fact that we hate using a suitcase. So I go solve that problem. The problem of how do I have the things I need at my destination?

• 39:06Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 39:09Lewis Howes?

  You know, I go to back and forth to Mexico a lot because my wife is a movie star and makes movies there. And so she films a lot of movies there in Mexico City mostly. And we were going back and forth and, you know, I was like, I don't really like staying in a hotel. You know, it's just like a different hotel every time. And carrying this luggage and all this stuff. And I go, why don't we just get a small little place and we just have our stuff here for enough for like a week or two at a time that I don't have to travel with a suitcase.

• 39:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:37Lewis Howes?

  So maybe I went a little extreme where I was like, when I go to Mexico City, I just bring a backpack with a laptop and I just show up and I'm relaxed and everything is there for me, ready to go.

• 39:46Speaker 01

  But guess what? You didn't even need to buy the apartment. You could have just left your suitcase.

• 39:50Lewis Howes?

  I could have done that too.

• 39:51Speaker 01

  You could have just like had a hotel where you just leave the suitcase.

• 39:53Lewis Howes?

  Or we could ship our stuff beforehand or whatever.

• 39:55Speaker 01

  Exactly. Or think about all the creative solutions. What about, um, you've got Airbnb for clothes. Maybe you find your body double.

• 40:04Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 40:04Speaker 01

  Down in Mexico City and they just sort of rent you their closet.

• 40:07Lewis Howes?

  I like that.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Or my favorite, which I think it used to sound like real science fiction, but what about 3D printed clothes? What if I have my closet in the cloud? And in the morning I just go online and I go, oh, I want to wear this and this and this. In fact, I'd like that jacket not in purple. I'd like it in green tomorrow.

• 40:24Lewis Howes?

  That's happening in the future.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  Right? And I just print it out.

• 40:28Lewis Howes?

  That's happening.

• 40:28Speaker 01

  I mean, so the point is, we're going to put that suitcase companies out of business.

• 40:32Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  Because nobody really wants a suitcase. So anyway, the point I'm making is you need to question the question you're asking in the first place. So when you're really struggling to think about what problem am I really trying to solve for? And then start thinking about, okay, what are all the different ways in which I could address that?

• 40:49Lewis Howes?

  Of all the things that you teach at Stanford in your classes, what are the three things that surprise you the most that people get the most benefit out of? Maybe it's something small. Maybe it's something not even in the main curriculum, but it's a little off thing or, I don't know. What are three things that you get the biggest response from with your students?

• 41:10Speaker 01

  Okay, that is such an interesting question. Okay, I want to make sure that I really think it through. One would be, so we talked about the riskometer and risk taking. I ask my students what the bottom is made of when they hit, when they fail. When they fail, what is the bottom made of? What's their mental model of what the bottom is?

• 41:29Lewis Howes?

  What do most people say?

• 41:32Speaker 01

  A black hole, you know, burning lava, broken glass. I was like, really? If you've get a B on that exam, you're gonna die, you know? Um, so I'm curious, when you hit bottom, what is it made of?

• 41:47Lewis Howes?

  It's more like sadness.

• 41:48Speaker 01

  No, no, I need a physical. I need a physical thing. Is it rubber? Is it a trampoline?

• 41:55Lewis Howes?

  No, it's like rocky, cold.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 41:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, like hard, rocky, cold.

• 42:01Speaker 01

  Okay. So this is so interesting though, because who told you that? Like, where did you get that? And so there are some people who say a trampoline or a safety net.

• 42:09Lewis Howes?

  I like that. You just bounce right up.

• 42:11Speaker 01

  But the thing is, you get to tell that, again, the story you tell.

• 42:14Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  And to help people become more resilient, because resilience is one of the best ways to become luckier.

• 42:22Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 42:22Speaker 01

  Because every time you bounce back, you get another chance.

• 42:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Isn't Angela Duckworth is all about resilience and grit, right? It's like, is she Stanford also?

• 42:30Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, no, she's at Penn.

• 42:32Lewis Howes?

  Penn, okay.

• 42:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:33Lewis Howes?

  Close. Oh, yeah, yeah. Not as good as Stanford. No, it's good. Yeah, but it's all like the, the key determinant for successful people is like grit. And that's really resilience, right? It's like being able to be resilient.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, and keep, right, try again and try again. I don't know it yet, right? I haven't done it yet. So I haven't learned to public speak yet.

• 42:53Lewis Howes?

  Yet.

• 42:54Speaker 01

  So that's one is understanding.

• 42:55Lewis Howes?

  Or singing publicly, yeah.

• 42:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. So one would be definitely, um, getting more comfortable with failure. In fact, I have my students write failure resumes, all their biggest screw ups, personal, professional, academic. And it's okay to fail as long as you capture what you learned and what you're going to do differently.

• 43:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I think of failure as feedback. It's information that.

• 43:18Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 43:19Lewis Howes?

  Telling you what didn't work and what you can do differently to work next time.

• 43:23Speaker 01

  Well, let me ask you, did you walk the first time you tried?

• 43:26Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 43:26Speaker 01

  Did you ride a bicycle the first time you tried?

• 43:28Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  What about anything else hard? What about salsa dancing?

• 43:32Lewis Howes?

  I wish.

• 43:32Speaker 01

  Public speaking.

• 43:33Lewis Howes?

  Painful moments for months of this humiliating myself in front of people, you know?

• 43:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, but now you're probably pretty good.

• 43:40Lewis Howes?

  I'm really good. I can say that confidently. My wife, who's Mexican, says that I'm better than her. So as long as she says that.

• 43:46Speaker 01

  Okay, great. So the point is being willing to like, what did I do wrong? What do I do differently? I mean, think as an athlete, you are practicing and getting better and have a coach.

• 43:57Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 43:57Speaker 01

  And being willing to, to own your failures and to move on. So one is about risk taking. The other is really is about framing and the idea that you really need to understand what problem you're really trying to solve. And that, that if you live in that problem space long enough and do your real need finding and understand, there's a great famous quote, um, Einstein, it's attributed to Einstein, which is that if I had a daunting problem to solve, I had one hour to solve it and my life depended upon the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes framing the problem. Because once I framed it properly, the answer would become obvious.

• 44:37Lewis Howes?

  Really? Interesting. So can you give an example for your personal life of what that would look like?

• 44:45Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 44:45Lewis Howes?

  Like framing the problem and then finding the solution because of the frame rather than just the pain of the problem?

• 44:54Speaker 01

  Well, let me just see. I don't, um, I want to make sure I get.

• 44:58Lewis Howes?

  Maybe something from the past or like, I don't know.

• 45:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So maybe I want to get a job.

• 45:05Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 45:06Speaker 01

  I really want to get a job and you're applying, you're applying, you're not getting it. And you're like, actually, I want to work. I can start my own company. Right? So instead of sort of thinking, oh, I've got to have someone else who hires me, you know, I actually want to have meaningful work.

• 45:22Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 45:22Speaker 01

  And I want to have an income. I don't need someone else to do it for me. I could do it myself. So that would be an example.

• 45:27Lewis Howes?

  Okay, got it. Awesome. And then back to the, uh, the, the.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  The riskometer.

• 45:33Lewis Howes?

  The riskometer. If we, if you show that up one more time and people go through this, they go one through 10 on each area of like, where are you able to take risks at, right? And let's say it expands higher in some places and shrinks in other places. What does that show you when you take this riskometer for yourself? You know, should we be trying to expand in all areas?

• 45:57Speaker 01

  Well, not necessarily. And so it's a really good question. You're going to find out like, okay, some people are really, you know, their risk profile is really small.

• 46:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:08Speaker 01

  Some people are very angular, like it looks like a bow tie. You know, there are a couple of things or three or four things that they're really strong at and very comfortable taking risks. And others, they, they're not. Now, one thing that keep in mind, right, people who like are venture capitalists, you might say they're very high financial risk takers, but they're really not because they're trying to squeeze all the risk out of it.

• 46:34Lewis Howes?

  They don't want to lose money.

• 46:35Speaker 01

  They write, they want the best team. They want the best product. They want the best market. They want the best timing. They're going to try to squeeze the risk out. Nobody's going to jump out of a perfectly good airplane, you know, unless they know their parachute has been packed properly. So when we take risks, the best thing to do is to take tiny risks from, like you get a little better, a little better, like push a little bit further, right? I'm not going to decide that tomorrow I'm going to run a marathon. If I decided I wanted to be, you know, run a marathon, each day I'm going to run a little bit more. And we all know, I mean, not necessarily all know, but it's, you know, if you get 1% better every day or 1% better every week, it's amazing what happens. Do you know, are

• 47:17Speaker 01

  you familiar with this? If you take 1.0, you do the same thing every day, 1.0, and you multiply it times 365, what do you get? 1 times 365.

• 47:28Lewis Howes?

  365.

• 47:29Speaker 01

  No, 1, 1, 1 times 1 times 1 times 1 times 1 times 1 is 1.

• 47:33Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 47:34Speaker 01

  If you multiply 1.01, 1.01, 1%, 1.01.

• 47:42Speaker 01

  Three hundred and six, five times.

• 47:43Lewis Howes?

  What do you get?

• 47:44Speaker 01

  Thirty-eight.

• 47:45Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 47:46Speaker 01

  So if you get better, one percent a day, over one percent a week, if you did one percent a week, you would be twice, you would be at two. So it compounds, again, the compounding effect, we talk about appreciation, the compacting effect of taking risks, the compounding effect. I think that's another thing, right? The compounding effect of the things you do. Luck and life is a long game and that by compounding, you end up tempting really good things your way.

• 48:18Lewis Howes?

  So how do you learn to retrain yourself to be lucky? If you've always been risk averse and never felt like luck comes your way?

• 48:26Speaker 01

  But there are lots of little experiments you can do. One of my favorite things about being lucky is just meet new people. Like every new person you meet, I am addicted to talking to people standing next to me in line, talking to people sitting next to me on airplanes. I could tell you so many stories about the things that have happened. So my best friends resulted by standing in line on the way to get on an airplane.

• 48:55Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 48:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, and they've like changed my life. You know, we're sitting there chatting on the way and then one person, my friend Beverly, we ended up switching seats to sit next to each other on the plane. And then we talked the whole way, we've become, became fast friends, we've been a bunch of collaborations. Yeah, and it's amazing, we met on, on an airplane.

• 49:15Lewis Howes?

  And you took a risk just by saying hello, how's your day?

• 49:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, tell me what's going on.

• 49:19Lewis Howes?

  Where are you going?

• 49:19Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly, and one of the hacks there is, you know, have something with you, whether it's a back, I never, I usually travel wearing something with a Stanford logo on it.

• 49:29Lewis Howes?

  So it attracts, and it's a signal.

• 49:31Speaker 01

  Say something, oh, is that Stanford? Or I went to Stanford.

• 49:34Lewis Howes?

  What's that? Trees or something? What is it, a tree?

• 49:37Speaker 01

  Exactly, and then there's something, or you see something someone else has, oh, that's so interesting.

• 49:42Lewis Howes?

  So funny you say that because I'm from Ohio and every time I see someone with an Ohio State hat, I say, I say, OH, and you try to get a response, IO, and just a little moment.

• 49:49Speaker 01

  And it starts something, right?

• 49:51Lewis Howes?

  Starts it.

• 49:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'll tell you a funny, can I tell you a funny story?

• 49:53Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 49:54Speaker 01

  So when Josh, my, my son, was maybe around seven or eight years old, I was at the grocery store.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  And this man came up to me and he was with his little daughter and he asked me how to make lemonade.

• 50:09Speaker 01

  And I said, that was, it's kind of interesting because most people sort of knew, like mix three cans of water with lemonade, but it didn't say a lemon can. So I explained it to him, but I was sort of curious. So I, I got in line behind him, right, I took a little, so I got in line behind him at the grocery store. And I said, hi, I don't recognize your accent, where are you from? And he said, I'm here from Chile. I said, really? That's interesting, but what brings you here? And he said, well, I'm, I'm in town to learn about entrepreneurship. I'm going to be taking over my family's business and I'm here in Silicon Valley to learn about entrepreneurship. I said, so interesting. I run the entrepreneurship center at the School of Engineering in Stanford. Here's my business card if I can be helpful. Well, he reached out and I introduced him to some people who could be helpful. He ended up bringing an entourage of people to Stanford.

• 50:54Speaker 01

  I helped them just secure a space, things that were easy for me to do. End of that story, but we had sort of stayed in very loose touch. I then, two years later, was going to Chile. I was running a conference in Santiago. So I reached out to him and I said, hi, would you like to get a cup of coffee? And he said, sure, that sounds great. But as the time came up, he said, I can't get away. But do me a favor, bring a couple of your colleagues with you and meet in the lobby of my building, my company's building. So I grabbed a couple of people, didn't know what was going to happen. We went over there, we got met by one of his colleagues, taken to the roof of the building.

• 51:33Speaker 01

  We got invited to go onto their helicopter and flown around the city of Santiago.

• 51:41Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 51:41Speaker 01

  Up to their family's ski resort and then back down.

• 51:47Speaker 01

  How lucky, right?

• 51:48Lewis Howes?

  It's cool.

• 51:49Speaker 01

  But of course, most people think of luck as like, you know, oh, I'm turning lemons into lemonade. But that's an example, I'm turning lemonade into helicopters.

• 51:58Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 51:59Speaker 01

  Right, and that's the way it works. It's like, there is a million dollars in every room, it's up to you to find it.

• 52:07Lewis Howes?

  So, man.

• 52:07Speaker 01

  And if you think of life that way, that there is a million dollars in every room and it's a game. Who should I know here? Who's going to be my new best friend? Who's going to be my business partner?

• 52:21Lewis Howes?

  So true. I feel like you and I think a lot alike in that way because I didn't grow up thinking I had like the, the intellect from school. I was like in the bottom of my class. And I didn't feel like I had skills outside of sports. But I could ask questions and I was very curious, kind of like you were with that, that person when you were younger, trying to ask someone, but you got stink, like stunted and being curious. But I always had the courage to ask people much older and wiser than me, like, man, how'd you do that? You know, tell me more about this or how you overcame this. And just being fascinated on how people became who they were.

• 53:00Lewis Howes?

  And I didn't have to have any other skill or talent other than curiosity in being present.

• 53:07Speaker 01

  I love it. Curiosity is, is so important. I mean, it is a superpower. And I learned how to be curious from my father.

• 53:16Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 53:17Speaker 01

  My father was the most curious person in the world and he taught his grandkids to be, to me, but also I watched him with his grandkids. Here's something you can do with your two daughters.

• 53:27Lewis Howes?

  Yes, tell me.

• 53:28Speaker 01

  Okay, this is really a fun thing he used to do with his grandkids. Whenever they would go into a new room, it could be a restaurant, it could be a party, it could be somewhere, he'd say, okay, look around.

• 53:39Speaker 01

  Take a minute to look around and then say, shut your eyes. And he would do, test them. How many windows are there? What color is the carpet? How many doors are there? What kind of light fixtures? You know, and, and how many tables are in the room? And they got so good at observation because they always knew their grandfather was going to test them on paying attention.

• 54:03Lewis Howes?

  Observation is a superpower.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:06Lewis Howes?

  And if you can observe people on, you know, their body language, what they're saying, what they're not saying, and just ask follow questions, I just feel like it goes a long way.

• 54:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, then, and also just being so curious about everything. Another thing my dad used to do, we, we were kids and someone left the cap off the toothpaste too. Okay, that was a very big transgression, right? So he lined the three of us up and he did a lie detector test. He measured our pulses.

• 54:38Lewis Howes?

  Who left the cap off?

• 54:39Speaker 01

  What's your name? What's your favorite color? What's your birthday? Did you leave the cap off on your face too?

• 54:49Speaker 01

  You know, just like turning everything into a bit of an experiment.

• 54:54Lewis Howes?

  Cool.

• 54:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I think, you know, growing up in an environment where curiosity and experimentation are sort of every, everyday activities is, is, trains your mind to think that way.

• 55:04Lewis Howes?

  Hundred percent.

• 55:08Lewis Howes?

  I believe the brain is wired to scan for threats, mostly for most people. It's like, where's the threat, you know, in our, in our brain? And it's not necessarily wired for opportunities unless you've been trained that way, like by your dad. But most people aren't seeing the opportunities or seeing the threats. So how do we override this default setting that a lot of us have? Where our brain is worried more about what will go wrong rather than what will go right?

• 55:35Speaker 01

  I think it just takes experience, right?

• 55:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:40Speaker 01

  Right, you just have to do little experiments. One of my favorite things I learned teaching was with my colleague Alberto Savoya, who has a book called The Right It. And he helps people do tiny little experiments to test their ideas. And you know, you don't want to do experiments that are just going to, like, if they don't work, you're going to lose all your money or lose your leg, right?

• 56:05Lewis Howes?

  No, small, small stuff.

• 56:06Speaker 01

  Tiny things, and how do you do tiny things? He calls them predo types, right? A prototype tests if something will work, but a predo type tests if it's the right thing to be working on. And so there are lots of ways to do some really, really fun predo types to test things in your own life.

• 56:26Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 56:27Speaker 01

  You know, let's imagine, so my, my son and daughter-in-law and our new grandbaby live in New York. Well, I think, oh, should I move to New York? It's like, well, I don't need to move to New York, like maybe I predo type it. Maybe I stay for a month, you know, and see if I like it, right? You don't have to go and like, you didn't need to go and buy a place in Mexico City. But you did, how nice, that's great, but you could have said.

• 56:53Lewis Howes?

  I went there for a few, for years and did these things.

• 56:56Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 56:57Lewis Howes?

  And then I did it.

• 56:57Speaker 01

  And then you say, okay, let me, let me try it out, let me spend enough time. And you can do that in so many other parts of your life.

• 57:03Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 57:03Speaker 01

  You can take little tiny, and therefore you get better at knowing if you're doing the right thing.

• 57:09Lewis Howes?

  You know, a lot of people in their manifestation or visualization space and the mindset space, think about the idea of just thinking of something and they're going to manifest it. But a lot of your research talks about luck heavily rewards people who act and who move and really take action. Where's the line between getting your mindset right and thinking and believing something is possible versus acting consistently to create that luck?

• 57:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, the kind of manifestation is really funny to me because.

• 57:43Speaker 01

  Yes, it's a starting point to envision where you want to go. That's like having your compass and knowing where you want to go. But you have to do something, right? I can't manifest getting into medical school, right? I can't. Now, I have to say, one of my students, he, he told me the story, which I thought was brilliant, which he does, he writes a letter to himself from the perspective of the future of all the things he's accomplished.

• 58:07Lewis Howes?

  Mmm, I love that.

• 58:08Speaker 01

  And he writes it in blue text. And every time he accomplishes something, he turns the text black. Until finally, the whole letter is black and then he writes a new letter. And so by writing this letter, he sort of sets an intention. But then he has to do it. So he actually went to medical school. So he said, I want to go to medical school. And so what he did is, okay, it's like, okay, I need to go study for my MCATs and I need to go write my essay and I need to go do all of these things. So the manifestation is really about setting an intention. You know, you had to set an intention to salsa dance. You were not going to learn to salsa dance by, you know, thinking about it.

• 58:48Lewis Howes?

  Thinking about it.

• 58:49Speaker 01

  Yes. You need to get out there and move your feet.

• 58:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I love that you talk about the intention because in your book, on page 80, it says, luck favors those who are both clear in their intentions and bold enough to ask. And you give a framework for asking. And the first question is, what do you need? Who will you ask? And how will you ask such that it is likely to get a lucky response?

• 59:12Speaker 01

  Okay, this is important. Okay? All right. You need to ask for what you want from people who can help you. But you need to know how to ask in a way that they're likely to say yes.

• 59:25Lewis Howes?

  How do you do that?

• 59:26Speaker 01

  My guess is you get a lot of people asking you for things.

• 59:28Lewis Howes?

  All the time.

• 59:29Speaker 01

  And sometimes you just hit delete.

• 59:31Lewis Howes?

  Oh, yeah.

• 59:32Speaker 01

  And sometimes you answer right away.

• 59:34Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 59:35Speaker 01

  So first of all, people need to do their homework, right? They need to know, like to say, hey, listen, you know, I know you're an expert in XYZ. I listened to your podcast. I have one question for you, right? Ask for something little. Ask for something that is very specific to the person and do your homework. Don't, don't say, can I meet you for coffee tomorrow? That's another way. Can I meet you for coffee tomorrow so that I can pick your brain?

• 1:00:02Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 1:00:03Speaker 01

  What?

• 1:00:04Lewis Howes?

  Read my book first.

• 1:00:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:05Lewis Howes?

  Go listen to a podcast.

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  I've taken everything I know and put it in this content. Please do your homework. It, it's interesting. It's really funny. This last week, there was a little bit of a aha for me. This woman said, I'm on campus this summer. Can I meet you for a cup of coffee? And I said, I'm really busy. Why don't you send me one or two questions and I'll do my best to answer? She then wrote back and she said, I just bought your book. Would you be willing to sign it for me?

• 1:00:38Lewis Howes?

  Well, that's good. That's good. I like that.

• 1:00:41Speaker 01

  I was like.

• 1:00:41Lewis Howes?

  Of course, I'll sign my book. If you're gonna come to my office, I'm sure.

• 1:00:45Speaker 01

  Exactly. And now I said, of course. So come on over. And of course, I'll have 15 minutes with her when she signs the book. But she was gonna go read the book and she, like, it was like, and it's not that she needed to buy the book. Like, that was not the issue. But she was doing something that indicated that she was doing her homework. And she also found something that I would resonate with me, you know? So here's a great example. I love this example. So this young man named Oliver reached out to me. He was living in Japan. He had graduated from college and decided he wanted to live in Japan and have an experience living somewhere else and having a new, brand new experience for a couple of years

• 1:01:29Speaker 01

  before he moved back to the States and got a job.

• 1:01:33Speaker 01

  He watched my TED Talk on luck. And he said, it really resonated with me and I want to become a luck coach. Would you be willing to talk to me?

• 1:01:42Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 1:01:43Speaker 01

  So I said, that's cool. And I just started working on this book. So I said, sure, I'm happy to talk to you for a few minutes. So I got on a call. And we had a very nice conversation, maybe five, 10 minutes we chat. And then afterwards, what did he do? What did he send me?

• 1:01:58Lewis Howes?

  Thank you.

• 1:01:59Speaker 01

  Thank you. He sent me a thank you. But he didn't stop there.

• 1:02:03Speaker 01

  He sent me a list of 10 things he could do to help me with the book.

• 1:02:07Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:02:08Speaker 01

  Like, wow, right?

• 1:02:09Lewis Howes?

  Like, real things.

• 1:02:10Speaker 01

  Real things. Like, here are 10 things I could do. I understand you're writing this book. Here are things I could do to help you. Nothing was on there that was exactly what I needed. But I was so taken with his initiative that I asked him if he wanted to be a research assistant for the book. You have to realize, I've never, ever, ever had a research assistant for a book. Like, that's not something I do. But I thought, I think he can help me. And so I hired him. And there's now a whole chapter about him in the book.

• 1:02:33Lewis Howes?

  Come on.

• 1:02:33Speaker 01

  And the things he does to become luckier. And it started with him just asking a favor, but then building on it.

• 1:02:40Lewis Howes?

  And it goes back to chapter seven on here, page 81. Appreciate luck. Luck favors those who give thanks. Goodwill grows into good fortune.

• 1:02:48Speaker 01

  Exactly, which is where we started.

• 1:02:50Lewis Howes?

  He was creating goodwill for you. He was saying, how can I help you? Here's ways that I can help you.

• 1:02:53Speaker 01

  He was very specific.

• 1:02:54Lewis Howes?

  He was even asking, how can I help you? Which is also not even, it's not a bad thing to do. I think him saying, here are 10 ways that I could help you.

• 1:03:02Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:03:03Lewis Howes?

  Makes you not think of, okay, here's what I mean.

• 1:03:05Speaker 01

  I have to figure out.

• 1:03:06Lewis Howes?

  I have to come up with the work, right? Not that it's a bad thing. I think offering, hey, how can I help you? Is a great starting point. But the next level of that, the advanced, the extra credit version of that, uh, speaking in professor talk, is, uh, here are three things that I see might be helpful for you.

• 1:03:25Speaker 01

  Right, I see you're struggling with this thing. You know, you see someone and you go, let me help, let me help you with that.

• 1:03:32Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:03:32Speaker 01

  Right? I know you're working on this thing. The other thing is, you know, I know you're working on this. Here's an article that might be interesting, right? Here's someone you might want to talk to.

• 1:03:42Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:03:45Lewis Howes?

  These, you know, these skills, the, the cool thing about luck is you don't have to go get a master's degree in learning these skills. Like, you teach it in this book. That's like, send someone an email thanking them. Appreciate someone. Offer a solution for someone. Be curious. Take a risk. You don't need to go to school to learn this. You can go through your book and just take a two-minute action a day to create more luck in your life.

• 1:04:13Speaker 01

  Yes. What I find is that people are leaving like gold coins on the table. So I'll give you an example. I might invite in an amazing speaker. You come in and give a talk to the students. And at the end you go, you know what? If, if you have any further questions, feel free to reach out. Here's my email. How many people are gonna reach out?

• 1:04:33Lewis Howes?

  Maybe one, maybe.

• 1:04:35Speaker 01

  Maybe. And you're like.

• 1:04:36Lewis Howes?

  I gave my email to anyone, yes.

• 1:04:38Speaker 01

  Like, really and truly, you didn't follow up?

• 1:04:41Lewis Howes?

  Crazy.

• 1:04:41Speaker 01

  Even just to say thank you.

• 1:04:43Lewis Howes?

  Thank you.

• 1:04:43Speaker 01

  Even to say thank you.

• 1:04:45Lewis Howes?

  There's a kid, now that I'm thinking about this, there's this kid who I spoke at my, my alma mater a couple of years ago. And there was a kid who graduated like last year, who's been emailing me just saying thank you from like my talk there a couple of years ago. And now he's coming to like live in LA. And he's been following up like every six months for the last couple of years, just saying thank you and hey, I would love to meet you someday. And now he's moving here and I'm supposed to meet him in the next couple of weeks, I think. But it's because he continues to follow up, because he followed up after I spoke, that I'm like, yeah, come by the office and I'll meet you for now and we'll connect. Who knows what will happen? I don't know. But it's, it's, it's just taking the initiative when you, when someone's willing to reach out and say, hey, here I am, feel free to reach out to me. Most people don't follow up.

• 1:05:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is the, you know, luck seldom sails solo. You, luck comes through other people.

• 1:05:34Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:05:35Speaker 01

  And understanding that and understanding the relationship get built. I, I also talk about conflict resolution. You might like, why is there conflict resolution? Well, think about it. If you wake up every day and there's a conflict in your life, not only is it, you know, something negative, but it's something that weighs you down.

• 1:05:54Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:05:54Speaker 01

  You know, if you can get up in the morning and say, I, my slate is clean. I don't have anyone. I don't have anything that's perseverating in my brain, that story. Right? I don't have a story that's going on. Your mind is free.

• 1:06:09Lewis Howes?

  Your energy is more expansive.

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  Exactly. When you, and so one is it's good for you, but it's also good, again, to have those relationships clean.

• 1:06:18Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:06:19Speaker 01

  Because, again, good luck comes through relationships.

• 1:06:23Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. One of the things is, uh, there's two questions I try to ask most people. Is what are you most excited about in your life right now? Because for me, when someone is able to express their biggest joy and excitement, you never know what they're gonna say and how you can relate to that as well and connect on that level. And then the second question I like to ask is, what's the biggest challenge you're faced with in your life right now? And to see what opens up for them. Maybe it's not related to their career or business at all. It might be like, ah, my health challenge or a relationship or this and that. And if you can be a, a problem solver for someone's biggest challenge or add to their biggest excitement, that is going to, in my mind, it's always created more luck for me as well.

• 1:07:04Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:07:05Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:07:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, and asking people, right? What are you excited about? What's getting in the way of that? And, uh, and how you can contribute to it? I think it's brilliant.

• 1:07:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:13Speaker 01

  Totally brilliant.

• 1:07:14Lewis Howes?

  Tina, this is amazing. I'm, I'm super excited about this book, What I Wish I Knew About Luck, a crash course on turning aspirations into achievements. I want everyone to go get a copy of this book. Or give it to a friend who's really lucky to see how they can be luckier or someone that maybe feels like they don't have luck on their side so they can start getting luck on their side. Uh, again, What I Wish I Knew About Luck. I've got a couple of final questions for you. Uh, but people can get this online. But where else can they follow or support you? I know you're a professor right now at Stanford, but what else?

• 1:07:45Speaker 01

  Well, I love to, I, I tend to use LinkedIn.

• 1:07:48Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:07:48Speaker 01

  And I'm pretty easy to find on LinkedIn.

• 1:07:49Lewis Howes?

  Connecting with you after this, right?

• 1:07:51Speaker 01

  Yes, I, that's, I use, I use LinkedIn to share a lot of things. Uh, my publisher has been encouraging me to use Instagram, which I really don't.

• 1:07:59Lewis Howes?

  You're not on there much, huh?

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm on there, I'm not on very much, but I, I might be. But I think LinkedIn is gonna be.

• 1:08:04Lewis Howes?

  What is your LinkedIn? Just your name on your LinkedIn?

• 1:08:06Speaker 01

  It's just my name, this tier of feeling, yeah.

• 1:08:07Lewis Howes?

  And, uh, if anyone is watching or listening and you message her on there, maybe, if you mess with the right way.

• 1:08:13Speaker 01

  I always answer. I answer everything. I do answer everything because it might take me a few days, but.

• 1:08:18Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 1:08:18Speaker 01

  You know what? If someone takes the time. The other thing is, the trick though, send a short message.

• 1:08:24Lewis Howes?

  Short. Not a long story of your whole life.

• 1:08:26Speaker 01

  Send something really long. Now I have to go through and figure out, what is it that's in here?

• 1:08:32Lewis Howes?

  It's too much.

• 1:08:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, just send it, you know, the goal of a conversation is to get to the next conversation. You know, not to like have it sitting in my inbox.

• 1:08:40Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 1:08:41Speaker 01

  You know, waiting, you know, for me, okay, when am I gonna, okay, I'll get to this when I have time.

• 1:08:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:08:45Speaker 01

  And when are you gonna have time?

• 1:08:47Lewis Howes?

  This question is called, the three truths. So imagine, Tina, hypothetical, um, you get to live as long as you want to live, but it's your last day on earth, many years away. And you get to create. And do all the things you want to do, but for whatever reason, you have to take all of your work with you on the last day. So this book, you know, your, the 30 books that you have by that point, this conversation, it's gone hypothetical. But on the last day, you get to leave behind three lessons to the world. I call it three truths. What would that be for you?

• 1:09:17Speaker 01

  Okay. Well, I can tell you, I did my homework.

• 1:09:20Lewis Howes?

  I know you did. You came prepared.

• 1:09:22Speaker 01

  So I've actually had some time to think about this, which was really fun.

• 1:09:26Lewis Howes?

  They're like, huh, you know.

• 1:09:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was really, no, but I've really thought about it seriously. What would the three truths be? So the first one is that we all have more agency in our life than we might think. And whenever we feel stuck to realize what are the things I really do have, how, what, what can I do with what I have?

• 1:09:47Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:09:48Speaker 01

  Constraints are often an incredible stimulator of creativity and problem solving. What, what do you have? What, where, where is the agency that you have?

• 1:09:59Lewis Howes?

  Okay, that's one.

• 1:10:01Speaker 01

  The other is that most problems are actually opportunities. And the bigger the problem, the bigger the opportunity. And so if you're struggling with something, probably other people are too. What is it that maybe you can not just solve it for yourself, but you can solve it for others? And that turns into a pretty big opportunity. So reframing problems as opportunities. And the final one is, you know, luck really is a long game. And we are investing, I love the appreciation appreciates. So I'm going to quote you on that. I'll give you attribution, is that, you know, it is a long game. And we are investing

• 1:10:42Speaker 01

  every single day. And the more you invest, the more comes back to you. It really, really happens. I can tell you that, you know, I wrote a book, What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20. And I really wish I knew these things when I was 20. Because at that stage, when you're sort of primordial, and you don't have much you can do, except for just investing, just invest a little bit every single day. And the payoff is truly remarkable.

• 1:11:11Lewis Howes?

  Well, two things, Tina, I want to, I want to acknowledge you and thank you for being here. Thank you for coming down here from, from Stanford and for having so much excitement and passion about this, because I believe the world makes room for passionate people. And you have created luck in your life in so many different ways from, from creating a beautiful, rich life for yourself, I think because of your passion and excitement. So I acknowledge you for that. And I thank you for being here and sharing this wisdom with my audience. Thank you very much.

• 1:11:40Speaker 01

  This is a huge opportunity. I could not be more delighted. And thank you so, so much for inviting me to join you. I am learning so much from your podcast. And I know it's just the beginning.

• 1:11:51Lewis Howes?

  Thank you. I have one final question. What's your definition of greatness?

• 1:11:55Speaker 01

  My definition of greatness, I think it's different for every person. It's about finding who you are in the world and resonating. I, I, I am a strong believer that before something's your passion, it's something you know nothing about. And so you need to experiment and try lots of things until you find like, oh, my gosh, this is what resonates with me. It wasn't until I was 41 years old, that I ended up in a job that just finally was saying for me. I changed careers, not just jobs. I used to joke, I used to change careers every two years, whether I needed to or not. I mean, really, I started as a neuroscientist, then I ended up teaching entrepreneurship to engineers, you know,

• 1:12:35Speaker 01

  that there's a lot of pivots in there. And I can tell you that when you find the place that really resonates, it's remarkable. And so it's different. Greatness is different from every single person. It's about finding your place in the world.

• 1:12:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Dr. Tina, thanks for being here. Appreciate it.

• 1:12:52Speaker 01

  Thank you so much. It was really a joy.

• 1:12:54Lewis Howes?

  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 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

• 1:13:38Lewis Howes?

  now it's time to go out there and do something great.