Harnessing Vulnerability: Build Courage & Resilience (How to Make it Your SUPERPOWER)

Have you saved your seats at Summit of Greatness 2024 yet?! Get them before they sell out at lewishowes.com/ticketsToday, Lewis explores the theme of building resilience in the face of life's challenges with renowned guests Brené Brown, Inky Johnson, and Shaka Senghor. Brené Brown dives deep into the connection between vulnerability and courage, emphasizing that true bravery always involves emotional risk and uncertainty. Inky Johnson shares his transformative journey from a career-ending injury to becoming a beacon of hope and resilience, highlighting the importance of finding the good in adversity. Shaka Senghor recounts his harrowing experiences from a troubled youth to becoming a motivational figure, showcasing the profound impact of forgiveness and self-reflection. In this episode you will learnThe essential role of vulnerability in building true courage. How to find and embrace the good in the midst of adversity. The transformative power of forgiveness and self-reflection. Practical strategies for cultivating resilience in challenging times. The importance of self-compassion and empathy in personal growth. For more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1643For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960Full episodes featured in today’s mashup:Dr. Brené Brown – https://link.chtbl.com/1518-podInky Johnson – https://link.chtbl.com/1483-podShaka Senghor – https://link.chtbl.com/1284-pod Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hey everyone, this is Lewis Howes and I am so excited to invite you to the Summit of Greatness 2024, happening at the iconic Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California. This is more than just an event, it's a powerful experience designed to ignite your passion, boost your growth, and connect you with a community of other inspiring achievers. Join us Friday, September 13th and Saturday, September 14th, for two days packed with inspiration and transformation from some of the most incredible speakers on the planet. Don't miss out on this chance to elevate your life, unlock your potential, and be part of something truly special. Make sure to get your tickets right now and step into greatness with us at the Summit of Greatness 2024. Head over to lewishouse.com/tickets and get your tickets today and I will see you there.

• 0:46Brené Brown?

  Vulnerability is defined as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. Can you name one act of courage that you've ever been involved in or that you've ever even witnessed that did not involve uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure? And it's a loaded question because I know the answer is no, because I've asked it thousands and thousands. I've stood in front of Navy SEALs and Special Forces Military Personnel and said, "Give me an example, I want you to try hard to give me an example of courage that didn't require vulnerability." And in 10 years, I've never had a single person be able to come up. I've even had two guys come up to me who were in the military that said, "We're going to think about it and get with you."

• 1:29Brené Brown?

  And I said, "Oh my God," I said, "Do it, I would love it. Give me an example of courage, even on the field,

• 1:38Brené Brown?

  that doesn't involve vulnerability." Like if you, if you think you're being brave and it doesn't involve risk or uncertainty, you're not being that brave. If you know how it's going to turn out, it's not courage. And so in that moment, people go...

• 1:55Brené Brown?

  But I want to be brave and I don't want to be vulnerable. And I'm like, therein lies the great dilemma of our time.

• 2:03Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 2:03Brené Brown?

  Yeah, no one wants to be uncomfortable. No one wants to be vulnerable and everyone wants to be brave. And it just doesn't work like that.

• 2:11Lewis Howes?

  Right, and anytime we try something new, we've got to, we've got to be uncomfortable.

• 2:14Brené Brown?

  It's vulnerable.

• 2:15Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's vulnerable.

• 2:16Brené Brown?

  I mean, when I ask people, what is vulnerability? People would say initiating sex with my wife.

• 2:22Brené Brown?

  Sending my child out the door who thinks he's going to make the first chair in orchestra. And knowing he's probably not going to make the orchestra at all. Getting fired. Starting my own business. Saying I love you first in a relationship. Trying to get pregnant after my first miscarriage. I mean, like, vulnerability is, it's uncertainty. It's not knowing, but doing it anyway, because it's the brave thing to do.

• 2:48Brené Brown?

  And so, the problem is, I think, that the greatest shame trigger for men is do not be perceived as weak. And in our culture, we believe that vulnerability is weakness. So you don't have to skip too many steps before you go, hey, it's shaming to be vulnerable.

• 3:12Brené Brown?

  And so, men do two things in the face of shame. Pissed off or shut down.

• 3:19Lewis Howes?

  Put on a mask.

• 3:19Brené Brown?

  Put on a mask.

• 3:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 3:21Brené Brown?

  And so, what we're learning and what people are starting to see very quickly is you cannot be a courageous leader if you're not vulnerable. If you're not willing to have hard, uncomfortable conversations. Give hard feedback, receive hard feedback. Like discomfort is the great enemy of courage.

• 3:39Lewis Howes?

  And I try to come from a place of like, super authentic and loving of all humanity all the time. And I was raised by You know, I had two great parents, but my mom and two older sisters were really the ones who came back to me after they would go on a date with a guy. They'd be like, Louis, never do this on a date. You know, always treat women this way. So I've always tried my best.

• 3:57Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 3:58Lewis Howes?

  You know, I'm imperfect in so many ways and constantly make mistakes with people.

• 4:02Brené Brown?

  Yeah, me too.

• 4:02Lewis Howes?

  But most of my team, I was telling you before, most of my team is women. I think 80% of my team is women. And

• 4:09Brené Brown?

  Clearly why you're successful.

• 4:10Lewis Howes?

  And they get paid more than the men on my team, not because they're women, but because they produce better results. And I, my, my business is based on results.

• 4:19Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 4:20Lewis Howes?

  I've got people of different ethnicities. I've got people of different sexual orientations.

• 4:24Brené Brown?

  I think we need to come in and with humility and curiosity and say, this is what I think and I want to learn and I want to, if I make mistakes, let me know and I'll try to make them better.

• 4:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 4:34Brené Brown?

  Um, and I think we need to take responsibility. And I, I think it's easier sometimes for me in my life to just keep asking questions, just keep reading, just keep, just keep talking about it. Um, and when I am so uncomfortable that I don't want to do it anymore, just to keep doing it.

• 4:58Lewis Howes?

  As a man, and I remember being in the fetal position my freshman year in college for days, sobbing in my dorm room, just curled up in a ball, uh, because I, you know, a relationship ended and I was so sad to be alone and I didn't have this person in my life anymore. And I would take it out on the football field. I was like, I don't want to feel this type of emotional pain. So how can I inflict as much physical pain on myself and other people?

• 5:23Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 5:23Lewis Howes?

  To get it out. And it's hard to switch that off and just be like this loving, vulnerable man after you're on the football field, like inflicting pain, uh, on other people because you're supposed to.

• 5:34Brené Brown?

  No, and I think whether we play football or not, we're much better at causing pain than we are feeling pain.

• 5:38Lewis Howes?

  You don't want to feel it.

• 5:39Brené Brown?

  No, you don't. And so we cause it and we hurt other people.

• 5:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, we do.

• 5:42Brené Brown?

  And so, and if you look at leadership, whether you're in an organization, leading a country, leading a family, as a parent, one of the cheapest, easiest ways to lead is to give people someone to hate and blame for your own, your misery. Um, and so we have to really watch that in our country right now.

• 6:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 6:04Brené Brown?

  So if we, all you have to do when people are in uncertainty and fear is give them someone to blame and

• 6:15Brené Brown?

  Give them a reason to blame them. And then step back and watch everything just fall apart. And so I think that's happening right now in our country. And so we have to push away the rhetoric. You know, we have to own our pain. And let me tell you, it's not like you tell that story about the football field and it's so prophetic because every crisis we're up against right now, almost without exception, is about our inability, our unwillingness to deal with pain. If you look at the opioid addiction right now, across, you know, somewhere, beginning with physicians, sent the message, there's no reason for you to hurt at all.

• 7:01Lewis Howes?

  Here's a pain reliever.

• 7:02Brené Brown?

  Here's a pain reliever. You know, and things are not going well in your life. Well, here's a way to discharge hate and pain that'll make you feel better. Like, like we-

• 7:11Lewis Howes?

  By drinking or by smoking or sex or whatever.

• 7:15Brené Brown?

  Medicated, addicted, in debt and obese Americans in history. Like, our tolerance for discomfort is zero.

• 7:24Lewis Howes?

  Soft.

• 7:25Brené Brown?

  Yeah, yeah. So here's the irony, soft.

• 7:29Lewis Howes?

  What we're taught in football, don't be soft.

• 7:31Brené Brown?

  Don't be soft. So it's actually our inability to be vulnerable.

• 7:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 7:36Brené Brown?

  That makes us weak.

• 7:39Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I agree. One of the things I talk about and try to express to as many people as possible is to actually put yourself through pain and discomfort every single day. I try to do this physically through working out to try to push myself farther than I want to, where I'm like emotionally want to cry.

• 7:53Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 7:54Lewis Howes?

  Because I just know by conditioning myself to feel pain every single day, that when a lot of stuff comes my way, I'm capable of taking it on and processing the emotions as opposed to being like, I just need a drink. I need this, I need that. I mean, I've never been drunk in my life, so I don't even know what that feels like. But it's hard, especially as for myself, I'll speak for myself as a man. It's hard growing up, learning how to deal with those type of emotions. It's really challenging. There's no class in school that says, okay, when you're feeling this way, Louis, here's how you're supposed to act.

• 8:26Brené Brown?

  It's vulnerability.

• 8:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, here's how you're supposed to act. Here's the step-by-step process. Like, there's no process that we're taught unless it's our parents or we seek it out.

• 8:35Brené Brown?

  And it's not modeled because I think parents fear kind of soft boys turning into soft men.

• 8:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 8:45Brené Brown?

  Who, you know, I remember interviewing this guy who was in his 70s and I said, what is shame to you? And he's like, shame is being the kid you can shove up against the lockers.

• 8:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 8:56Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 8:56Lewis Howes?

  Shame is being the kid that you shove up?

• 8:58Brené Brown?

  Yeah, being the kid that you can shove up against the lockers.

• 9:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 9:02Brené Brown?

  You know, and it's like,

• 9:05Brené Brown?

  but really,

• 9:10Brené Brown?

  we've got to shift it and we've got to shift it. I think it starts parenting, school. Athletics is huge.

• 9:15Lewis Howes?

  Huge.

• 9:16Brené Brown?

  I mean, it's a really, I mean, let me, let me, let me do this. Okay, let's do the sports thing.

• 9:21Lewis Howes?

  Do it.

• 9:22Brené Brown?

  Okay, ready? Okay.

• 9:25Brené Brown?

  Two football teams. You're gonna place a bet.

• 9:28Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 9:29Brené Brown?

  Both of them have hurt quarterbacks. Both of them are playing, well, both of them have hurt quarterbacks. This team over here recognizes its vulnerability and is gonna put in a second string quarterback. This team ignores its vulnerability and pretends like it doesn't exist. Who are you betting on?

• 9:47Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, depends on the injury.

• 9:49Brené Brown?

  Oh, Jesus. Football team.

• 9:51Lewis Howes?

  Hey, because I played hurt my whole life, you know, so it depends.

• 9:54Brené Brown?

  I would say that most of us would say you are more, you are less likely to win if you do not acknowledge your vulnerabilities as. So even if you play your quarterback,

• 10:03Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 10:04Brené Brown?

  you gotta make sure your line is ready.

• 10:05Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, and you gotta switch the plays up.

• 10:07Brené Brown?

  Right.

• 10:07Lewis Howes?

  If his arm's hurt, you're gonna pass it off.

• 10:09Brené Brown?

  You're gonna pass off, right.

• 10:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly, so.

• 10:11Brené Brown?

  Give him more time in the hole, whatever you're gonna do.

• 10:12Lewis Howes?

  The team that acknowledges their vulnerabilities.

• 10:14Brené Brown?

  Is gonna be more successful.

• 10:15Lewis Howes?

  And is adaptable to change.

• 10:16Brené Brown?

  Right.

• 10:17Lewis Howes?

  Is gonna be more successful.

• 10:18Brené Brown?

  Right.

• 10:18Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 10:19Brené Brown?

  Right, so why do we think as men to pretend like you're not vulnerable makes you the most vulnerable?

• 10:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 10:27Brené Brown?

  Makes you the most susceptible? I mean, we just have data, I mean, just like I could fill this whole room with data about you don't get to opt out. Let me ask you this. Do you know a guy in the world, you know, a lot of guys, right? Who can say, I've existed this point in my life without being uncertain, at risk, or emotionally exposed?

• 10:50Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 10:51Brené Brown?

  Right. You can't not do vulnerability, but you can pretend like you don't. Then you're not making choices over the behaviors you engage in when you're vulnerable.

• 11:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 11:01Brené Brown?

  Then you don't know when you're vulnerable, and then you're acting nutty.

• 11:05Lewis Howes?

  And I think you pay major prices.

• 11:08Brené Brown?

  Oh, yeah.

• 11:09Lewis Howes?

  When you don't, when you aren't aware, or when you're not acting like you're aware.

• 11:12Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 11:13Lewis Howes?

  You just act like everything's fine, or you don't need help, you don't need support, you don't need to address the situation, or

• 11:18Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 11:19Lewis Howes?

  grieve, or whatever it is.

• 11:20Brené Brown?

  No.

• 11:21Lewis Howes?

  That's when you get hurt the most.

• 11:22Brené Brown?

  It's when you get hurt the most.

• 11:23Lewis Howes?

  It's when you suffer the most, and I think that's when the most anger, frustration, rage, rage, and I guess, divergent happens.

• 11:32Brené Brown?

  It all comes back to identity and belonging.

• 11:34Lewis Howes?

  Belonging, yeah.

• 11:35Brené Brown?

  But underneath identity and belonging, there's something that we don't talk about, and it comes, it comes down to power. It comes down to power. I mean, I think what we're witnessing is power over's last stand.

• 11:47Lewis Howes?

  And that's what I love, you write about how, I think, most men who come from this place feel like power is only one person, or one group can have the power, as opposed to we can spread the power

• 11:57Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 11:58Lewis Howes?

  throughout the world.

• 11:59Brené Brown?

  Like it's a pepperoni pizza.

• 12:00Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 12:01Brené Brown?

  Like if I give Louis a little power, I'm gonna have less, so make sure I'm comfortable giving it to you.

• 12:06Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 12:07Brené Brown?

  When it's not.

• 12:08Lewis Howes?

  Don't give any slices away.

• 12:09Brené Brown?

  Don't give slices away, hold all the, and so what we see around the world right now, not just with this administration, but globally, is we see the concept of power over making a last stand. And it is not going to work. What is going to work moving forward with the completely

• 12:28Brené Brown?

  devastatingly difficult problems we have at hand is power with and power to power with each other collective power the things that are killing us right now we're not going to solve by ourselves as a nation they're global issues we need global solutions we need everyone at the table for them but that is a really I mean we are at a huge turning point in history that should not be minimized or misunderstood I mean for the first time ever the problems that challenge us us challenge us the most are problems that will not be solved with national solutions they are global problems that require global

• 13:09Brené Brown?

  solutions and collaboration and for a lot of people that's really scary

• 13:16Lewis Howes?

  hard

• 13:16Brené Brown?

  hard hard what about us what about me you know um and last dance you know about last dance last dance are violent

• 13:26Lewis Howes?

  yeah

• 13:26Brené Brown?

  last last dance are fueled by desperation vulnerability is not weakness

• 13:32Brené Brown?

  it's about the willingness to show up and be seen when you can't control the outcome and it is actually our greatest measure of courage so show up

• 13:47Brené Brown?

  in an authentic way and let us see your hearts

• 13:53Brené Brown?

  because we know how lonely you actually are

• 13:57Lewis Howes?

  wow

• 13:58Brené Brown?

  yeah men are lonely I mean it's it's it's really men are lonely it's really hard

• 14:07Brené Brown?

  but I I would not I think that's I don't think I would say anything differently to women as either you know because I think there is certainly you know for women the greatest shame trigger is do it all do it perfectly and never let them see you sweat look perfect work perfect

• 14:24Lewis Howes?

  in all areas

• 14:25Brené Brown?

  in all areas

• 14:26Lewis Howes?

  workforce at home

• 14:27Brené Brown?

  yeah be smoking hot and brilliant and this but don't ever look like you're putting any effort toward it and so

• 14:32Lewis Howes?

  so easy right

• 14:33Brené Brown?

  right it is I don't I don't understand why my sisters have not nailed that but I think

• 14:42Brené Brown?

  So it's hard for women to be vulnerable because it's less than perfect.

• 14:47Brené Brown?

  You know.

• 14:49Lewis Howes?

  You mean women aren't wearing masks?

• 14:51Brené Brown?

  Yeah. Yeah, and it's terrible because then the two collide. And you see in a lot of partnerships, I mean, I've seen it so much in my research, this contract we have where I'll stay smoking hot and awesome and, you know, money and provider shame is such a real thing for men. And, you know, you do this and this is our contract and we're both in straitjackets till we die. Yeah, and so like-

• 15:20Lewis Howes?

  How do we remove those jackets?

• 15:21Brené Brown?

  We just start getting real with each other. We just start being really honest.

• 15:27Brené Brown?

  And we see each other.

• 15:30Brené Brown?

  You know, we really see each other.

• 15:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, wow.

• 15:35Lewis Howes?

  I've got a few minutes left, so I'm gonna be mindful of these questions.

• 15:39Brené Brown?

  I know, let's go now, cut it.

• 15:41Lewis Howes?

  I could ask you, I could talk to you for hours. Is there anything you feel ashamed of still?

• 15:47Brené Brown?

  Oh, I have moments for sure, like I will have moments of...

• 15:53Brené Brown?

  But now I know, I mean, it's, we can't ever get rid of shame. What we can do is develop resilience to shame. So when it happens and it washes over, that warm wash that makes you feel small and not enough, when that washes over me, rather than yelling at my kids or just decimating myself with hateful language, you know, and like, you're stupid or you're not, you know. Now when it washes over me, I'm like, okay, I'm in shame. Don't talk, text or type. What happened? So there are still, I mean, I still have triggers around it. I still have triggers around it. I still think it's probably the same. Motherhood, trying to, you know, do everything and balance everything and be where I'm supposed to be and that's still hard sometimes. You know.

• 16:32Lewis Howes?

  What's the process that someone should take on when they feel shame, anger, rage?

• 16:37Brené Brown?

  Well, shame is, shame I can really help you with is- First and foremost, talk to someone, talk to yourself like you talk to someone you love. So if you really, if you, if something happens and you're overwhelmed with shame, the first thing you need to do is get back on your emotional feet. Don't talk, text, or type to anyone because the first, one of the things we want to do is push that out on other people.

• 16:56Lewis Howes?

  I'm good at that.

• 16:57Brené Brown?

  Yeah.

• 16:58Lewis Howes?

  I'm guilty of that.

• 16:58Brené Brown?

  Yeah, no, yeah. So just get into a dark, quiet place and then talk to yourself like you talk to someone you love. Just be like, dude, it's okay. Like, you screwed this up. You, what you said was super hurtful. You're gonna have to circle back and clean that stuff up. But give yourself a break here, just like I would talk to Ellen or Charlie if they made a mistake. Then reach out and talk to someone about what you're feeling. Shame cannot survive being spoken. So if you, if I call you and I'm like, oh my God, Louis, I'm in a shame storm. You're not gonna believe what happened. And you listen to me and you respond empathically or empathetically with something like, oh my God, I've been there or oh God, I get it. I'm sorry, that sucks. Shame can't hold on because shame can't survive empathy.

• 17:48Lewis Howes?

  And challenging things happen, which I don't like when they happen, but it's not fun, man. It's not fun.

• 17:53Speaker 03

  Doesn't feel good.

• 17:54Lewis Howes?

  It doesn't feel good, but when challenging things happen now, I feel like I can put myself in a place of peace for moments and say, everything that has been hard in the past has all worked out. Do you ever think about it and wish you would have tackled differently? Or are you, are you grateful with everything that's happened the way it's happened?

• 18:12Speaker 03

  You know, be honest, man. Somebody comes up to me almost every week and say to me, like, be honest, man. You said you wouldn't change what happened to you. Like, be honest, like you said you wouldn't change what happened to you. Why? Right? Because for most people, when they look at adversity and opposition, if a person goes through something that's traumatic, right? Trauma, whatever the case may be, the average person's perspective is gonna go to a space and place, what did you lose? How did it affect you? What did you have to sacrifice? What did you have to give up? People very rarely were asked the question. Man, what did you learn from it? What did you gain? What did you gain? Oh. Right? How did it make you a better person? I know it didn't feel good, that's obvious. I know it hurt, right?

• 18:56Speaker 03

  I know you didn't like it, it wasn't convenient. But like, what did you gain from it? I just wanna know. Right? From the loss, from the pain. Right? And so for me, it was such a traumatic experience to where I was searching for the good. It was so traumatic. There is no good. Right here. It was so traumatic to where I'm like, all right, God, like, what's, like, what is this, man? This hurts, like, I don't like this. Like, why did this show up at this point in time? I remember being like, God, just let me make it to the NFL, get the contract. Give me a few years. Help my family. And then like, we can go through something like, just let me help my mom, help my grandma, help my cousins, like. I, when I was a kid, man, I remember saying to my cousins,

• 19:39Speaker 03

  like, if I make it to the league, man, we can get our own beds one day. Right? We just wanted our own beds, right? Right? And so, when it happened, I remember seeing certain things happen that it caught my attention. Right? But I was so in the midst of what had happened to me that it just caught my attention. I think the beautiful thing about adversity and opposition, when you live with it, it teaches you. Right? If you're open to it. Right? When you live with challenges, it teaches you. And so, the reason that I wouldn't change what happened to me or go back and even change the incident is because of not only the man that it's shaped and molded me into, but the way it's impacted those close to me. Right?

• 20:21Speaker 03

  My mother and my father, their relationship was fractured majority of my life. Yes. Like, I'm talking about. Were they living together or no? No, no, like, never. Right? And so they couldn't even. How many kids did your mom have? My mom just got me and my sister. Yeah. Yeah, and so, my dad, he's married, and he has two daughters as well. But when they had me, they were teenagers. Right? And so, my dad's trying to figure it out, mom is trying, young, right? They don't have tools. No, no. They don't know how to connect with each other, communicate, or. None of that. Deal with conflict. None of that, man. Act like a child, essentially. That's it. Act like a child, have a child. Yeah. And so it created a lot of hurt, a lot of resentment on both ends. And so for me.

• 21:04Speaker 03

  When I started growing up, I had a level of resentment toward my father. That I very rarely spoke about. And so I would speak to him and we would be cordial when we got to the point of communication. For a long time, I resented him. And so my mother and my father could very rarely be in a room and it be peace. Right. Very rarely. When my injury happened, they had to be in a room. It had to be peace because it was a much bigger issue at hand. They didn't know if they were gonna have to amputate my, they didn't know any of that. Right, but fast forward a bit. What's happened, not only in my life, but in my family's life, it's been phenomenal. Like, my mother and my father can be in the same space and place, in the same room. Wonderful grandparents.

• 21:50Speaker 03

  My father came and lived with me for thirty days after my injury, under the same roof. Helped take me to rehab for my arm. Wow. Take me to class, wash my clothes, like what it did for our relationship. What it did for my family's relationships. What it did for me and my buddies, my friends, right? Guys tying my shoes, our connection, what that produced. Like, it was phenomenal, right? The way it shaped and molded my perspective in my life and how I treat people, right? Not that I was a bad person before, because I wasn't. It's just the way that it shaped and molded my perspective and how I view this thing called life every single day. Right. Right, because of what you just spoke about. When you go through something, I asked the guy this, Louis, I was in St. Louis, speaking.

• 22:35Speaker 03

  Pandemic, one of my live trips during the pandemic. And I said, can somebody tell me something good that's happened as a result of the pandemic? Lady stands up, she says, uh, my mother lives in Japan. I get to speak to her every single day. I know if I was working the same schedule, I never would have got the opportunity to have those moments. Gentleman stands up in the back of the room. A man looked like he's supposed to have been in the movie Three Hundred. Traps up to his ears, and to my yoked up, Louis, right? Starts bawling and he says, I'm thankful I got to watch my first child being born crying. He said, I knew for a fact if I was working the same schedule, I never would have got the opportunity to witness that moment.

• 23:19Speaker 03

  He said, what's something you thankful for, Inc? I said, man, I'm thankful for 3pm. He said, why 3pm? I said, man, I get to raise cats and be the first one in the carpool line, right? He was like, the carpool line, really? I was like, yeah, the carpool line. I was like, but not the carpool line. He was like, what you mean by that? I said, the carpool line is extremely important. I get to pick my kids up from school most days, phenomenal, love it, right? I said, but more than that, it's about can I condition my mindset and my perspective? That when uncertainty happens, opposition happens, adversity happens, I can put my mind, my perspective in a space and place to extract some good, right? And so with adversity and opposition with my arm, I got a paralyzed right on my hand.

• 24:02Speaker 03

  My perspective, my drive, my dedication, my commitment, my essence, my ethos, the thing that makes me Inc. It never got paralyzed. That was just my identity in sport. Yes. That's what people knew me by in sport. But who I am as a man, that never got paralyzed, right? I'm extremely grateful for that. My right arm, my hand gets paralyzed, I get to go to disability services and learn how to write with my left arm in. Like I get to try different things, right? I get to go up to the Mayo Clinic and my first visit there, I sit down and I come out of a room to where they had just shot four needles in my back, full of dye. I'm talking about biggest needles I've ever seen in my life. I sit down, I'm feeling sorry for myself.

• 24:44Speaker 03

  A little kid had to be 10 years old, sits down, I don't know what the condition was. A mother sits down on one side of her, father sits down on the opposite side of her and it's like they're holding skin up on her face.

• 24:58Speaker 03

  And I was like, man, I just got a arm and a hand. But I got put in those environments and I got to see that.

• 25:05Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 25:06Speaker 03

  Extremely thankful and grateful. Most people don't get to see things like that on a daily basis.

• 25:11Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 25:12Speaker 03

  That conditions the mindset and the perspective to look for good in the midst of adversity, opposition, or uncertainty. I tell people all the time, man, the easiest thing in the world to do is to be negative.

• 25:22Lewis Howes?

  So easy.

• 25:23Speaker 03

  Easiest thing in the world to do is complain. Easiest thing in the world to do is to quit. That's easy. Me and you both can walk out of this building and see something on the streets of L.A. and say, man, that's whack and complain about it.

• 25:36Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 25:36Speaker 03

  Or we can look at it and say, you know what, man? That's really unfortunate. But if they did this, if they can change this about it, I think that can be a beautiful situation.

• 25:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 25:47Speaker 03

  That's a gift and that's a talent that not everybody has. And it's extremely underrated.

• 25:53Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 25:54Speaker 03

  Extremely underrated.

• 25:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 25:56Speaker 03

  But it's extremely powerful when used in the right manner.

• 25:59Lewis Howes?

  How did you learn to have the positive perspective in the pain and in the trauma?

• 26:04Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 26:04Lewis Howes?

  Like, was there someone helping you get out of that? Or did you just flip the switch into that mindset?

• 26:11Speaker 03

  Yeah. I would, um, I would say part of how I grew up.

• 26:16Speaker 03

  When you grow up in that two bedroom house with fourteen people, you don't have a lot of choices in terms of what you gonna eat. You know, how much of it can you get? Like, I remember watching my mother count change in a, uh, old Buick Regal, man. Never forget this. And she was counting up change. She had a few dollars in there. And she was trying to get me a pair of cleats. Never forget it. Shaped and molded my perspective at practice, how I practice. Like, if you ask any coach that ever had you on their team, I bet they'll be like, man, that cat, you should practice hard. Because I remember moments like that. I remember as a kid, my uncles would stand on the corner all night,

• 27:00Speaker 03

  engaging in their legal activity. Come in the house, take the clothes off that they were on a corner in all night. Wearing two X T-shirt, put it on me, I'm one hundred and thirty-five pounds. And I wear it to school the next morning. I remember me and my cousins coming and they're saying, hey, man, y'all just make sure y'all got a lot of T-shirts from the corner store. And y'all just change out the jeans, right? And so I might wear it one day, my other cousin will wear it the next day. Other cousin will just be shifting, you know, spinning it around, right? It shaped my perspective. It made me extremely grateful. I remember Christmas Eve, we got our first pair of Nikes. And somebody broke in our house and me and my cousin was going back and forth in the room like, man, can't wait till we wear them Nikes. We gonna race.

• 27:45Speaker 03

  Like any other kids, like kids in the streets of L.A., Chicago, Florida, Atlanta. Like, we used to race coming up, right? You race with your boys coming up. We used to race light pole to light pole. We got our first pair of Nikes for Christmas. We're going room to room, you know what I'm saying? We just talking, man, I can't wait. We gonna race tomorrow. And I'll never forget when we walked in that room and they were gone. Oh, man. And you saw a cat had came through that window, hurt, right? Wearing his pants nice, hurt, right? And I'll never forget, my mother called my coach, a little league coach, man, that put me in sports. Guy by the name of Trey Hirsch. And he showed up the next day. And we were sitting on the curb and, you know, people outside with whatever they had for Christmas. And you're sitting there.

• 28:28Speaker 03

  And he drove up and he gets out of the truck. And he says, Ink, I'm sorry, man. You know, I got the call late. And he had like a little brown bag that you get from like a corner store. And he was like, but, you know, I was able to get some stuff, man. This is all I could do at the last minute. And he had drawers and socks in the bag, right? And I was grateful that my guy showed up, right? More than what he had in the bag, I was like, my dude showed up. And my guy still tries to get me drawers and socks till his day on Christmas and I don't even need them, right? Just my dude, you know what I'm saying? But it's moments like that, that you remember, that shape and mold you as a person as you go

• 29:13Speaker 03

  throughout life, and I think we all have them, right? We all have these moments, right? Whether it be humility moments, whether it be, you know, moments that keep us grounded, it's just we choose sometimes to forget them.

• 29:24Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 29:25Speaker 03

  But I feel like we all have those encounters that as we navigate and we go and we grow throughout life, it's those moments that keep us grounded, that makes us remember where we come from, that makes us remember how we've gotten to the points that people know us at, that we look back and we think and we reflect on to where we can say, alright, I got it, right? And so it's those moments.

• 29:46Lewis Howes?

  What would you say was the biggest fear or insecurity that you overcame or needed to overcome since after those two years until now? Was it learning how to do public speaking? Was it learning how to accept yourself and the way you looked? Was it connecting with your boys in a certain way or being perceived as someone who got injured? Was it, what was the fear or insecurity you had to overcome?

• 30:09Speaker 03

  Man, I would say it's layered, so I wanna, I wanna touch on it. It was extremely difficult when I first started going out with my arm. It was extremely difficult, you know, because...

• 30:21Lewis Howes?

  Were you single at the time or did you have a girl at the time or?

• 30:24Speaker 03

  No, me and my wife, you know, we, we've been on and off, you know? She's had more patience with me.

• 30:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, but at the time you were with her or on and off with her?

• 30:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, on and off and, but she, she was always there, man. It was my immaturity.

• 30:38Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 30:38Speaker 03

  But, you know, my arm, you know, it's just naturally, you know, smaller. And so when I first started going out, sleeve, and I would go out and either people would shy away, which would hurt, you know, in the early years, or a person would just look.

• 31:00Speaker 03

  Right, like, man, what is that? You know, and very few people would ask, right, when I started going out with my sleeve, very few people would say, just in terms of if I'm out in an area, like if I'm at Habitat for Humanity, I'm there with the football team. So it's all good, like, people gonna come over, boom, but if I'm out, like, solo, walking through the mall, very few people would just come up and be like, hey, man, what happened? They would just look, right, and just stare. And that was extremely difficult for me for a long time, right, just thinking about, okay, man, like, what are they thinking, right? Or it really hurt when people would just look and they would think I'm looking and they would shy away. Like, that hurt, you know, early on.

• 31:41Speaker 03

  But I would say the biggest thing that I've had to overcome, like, public speaking, I was fearful of that, but the biggest thing, man, was, um, running from poverty. You know, what I considered to be poverty, man, um, because I thought football was gonna help my family, and so when I started speaking, I started doing extremely well, you know, have been for a while, with speaking, to where I would just go, and I was just trying to accept gigs, gigs, gigs. Makes much to. I was just running, right, just trying to speak, because I grew up a certain way, and I was like, man, I don't want You don't wanna go back there. Yeah, to have to grow up the way I grew up, my kids, or go back to that environment.

• 32:24Speaker 03

  And I loved every element of it, right? I loved the encounters with the people. I loved the impact that it gives you. I was just running from my past. And I'll never forget, I was in a small group and a gentleman was walking around in a circle, and he was like, what's something that, you know, you guys feel like in your childhood you're still dealing with or you're running from? And, you know, everybody would raise their hand and say something, and he got to me, and I was like, poverty. And he was like, are you in poverty? I was like, no. He was like, well, stop running.

• 32:57Speaker 03

  And in his simplicity, it was yet profound, but it was simple, right? And I thought about it when I got to my room. And I'll never forget, Louis, I got a gig. And it was one of the biggest gigs I had gotten to date. And they were about to pay me more money. How old were you then? How old were you? I was thirty six now. I was probably thirty. Okay, six years ago. Yeah. They're about to pay your biggest check ever. Yeah, biggest check ever. And I was stoked. And the challenge was it fell on my wife's birthday. Right? And so I'm like, man. And so, you know, you start working it out in your mind. Oh, man, my wife's birthday. I started talking. I'm negotiating.

• 33:44Speaker 03

  Right, I'm working it out. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So when I bring it to her, I already done worked it out. Hey babe, this gig, you know, like, I could send you and grandma to the spa. I can come back right after that. We can work. I got it all figured out. Oh, I got it all figured out. And she could see how excited I was, so she was like, oh, yeah, yeah, go, sure, go. And my wife, and my wife been at it since fifth grade, so she knows me. Go. So I go, it works out, do the gig. I send them to the spa, fly back the same day, pick her up. Everything goes great on the birthday. Two days later, I think it was something about, might have been some socks or something, something small. Wife blew up.

• 34:27Speaker 03

  Right? She showed a side to me that I hadn't even seen yet, right? And I knew exactly what it was. Like, it clicked immediately. I was like, that was the gig. I was like, she's blowing up, not because she's blowing up about the gig. She felt as if I value the opportunity, the engagement, and the money over her and her birthday. That was the damage, right? Over the kids, over the family, over that moment, right? And so what I had to do was realize that, man, you got renewable and you got non-renewable moments in life, right? Renewable, you can always make some more money, right? Non-renewable, my wife will never get another thirtieth birthday. My son will never have another 10th birthday.

• 35:12Speaker 03

  My daughter will never have another 11th birthday. Right? And so my biggest thing that I had to overcome and destroy and grow through was that spirit and that thought process of running from poverty. Something I encountered as a kid. And once I got to a solid space as an adult, you know, every next level of our lives demand a new version of us. Right? Taking that toolkit.

• 35:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 35:37Speaker 03

  Reconstructing it, growing to another level. So I didn't do damage by having the right intentions while doing damage. The right intention. I want my family to have a better way of life, but I'm doing damage with the right intention because I'm not growing beyond that level and that thought process.

• 35:53Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 35:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:54Lewis Howes?

  So how do you negotiate? What if you got a hundred thousand dollar gig on her birthday?

• 35:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 36:00Lewis Howes?

  I used to say, nah, sorry.

• 36:01Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 36:02Lewis Howes?

  Nike, nah, I can't come and speak.

• 36:04Speaker 03

  She might be like, nah, we good. Go, go, right? We good.

• 36:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 36:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, but man, just trying to communicate. You know, that's a skill that

• 36:12Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 36:12Speaker 03

  I don't think is, man, we always get or cultivate. You know, so, but yeah, it worked out.

• 36:18Lewis Howes?

  Why do you think so many people hold on to their tragedies or traumas so intently in their present? From something that happened two, five, 10, 20 years ago? Why do you think people hold on to it so long?

• 36:32Speaker 03

  I think just the, the nature of the impact when it happens. Right? And how it stuns their life. Right? Like I had one of my friends who is a high level coach, division one coach, that ended up getting fired. And, um, great coach, man, just had a bad run, bad couple of years. And hit me up and was like, hey, Inc., man, I need you to help me with something. Said, why am I resisting opportunities to get another head gig? It's like, I love ball. Like, why am I resisting the opportunity? Why am I fearful? And I was like, I'm not saying this is for certain. But I think for one, maybe the embarrassment of being fired. Mm hmm.

• 37:15Speaker 03

  And how that made you feel, how that impacted your children, how that impacted your family. Because I think painful experiences, they always come with a lot of different emotions. Right? Like me talking about going out and it was hard for me with my arm when people would look at me. Right? That was a bit embarrassing at first, right? And so sometimes we hold on to these different emotions that attach to the experiences that we have. So I think you got the experience and then you got the collateral damage of the experience. Yeah. How it affects our mindset, how it affects the way we see people, how it affects our emotions. And I think sometimes it's challenging to separate the two and deconstruct the two. Mm hmm.

• 37:56Speaker 03

  And so therefore we hold on to the feelings that the trauma may have given us, right? The feelings that adversity and opposition may have given us. And so I think the moment that we can grow through it. Mm hmm. And figure out a way to use it, I think the quicker we get through it. Because I think it's a powerful thing, Louis, and I think you probably know this to be true. When we use what happens to us and it creates a light bulb moment for another person, that's a great feeling. It's like when you get something for yourself for Christmas. Mm hmm. That's awesome. It feels great. But when you do something for another person that you know is in need, like that feels 10 times better for some reason. Mm hmm. And so I take adversity and opposition and I, I interconnect it the same way. Yeah.

• 38:40Speaker 03

  When we go through things that hurts or we figure out a way to get through it. But when we share something and we identify with another person to let them know that. Because oftentimes when people go through stuff, you feel alone, you feel isolated. And you feel like, man, like is something wrong with me? And I think what happens when we go through and we create a level of empathy, we show them that, nah, man, you're human. Like, we all go through things. Like, nobody is perfect. Like, I told a guy that had a brachial plexus injury. He's like, "Man, I see how you got through it." Like, it hasn't been that easy for me. I was like, "No, bro, it took work." It took years. Like, this was painful. I went through every emotion that you're probably going through. And I had a lot of people that helped me with them. And so I feel like sometimes it's just the feelings

• 39:24Speaker 03

  that are attached and interconnected to the experiences that we have that creates the reason that we hold on to it for so long.

• 39:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 39:33Speaker 03

  Right? And I think the quicker we can get through and use what we go through, the quicker we can go out and we can make the world a better place.

• 39:39Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely, man.

• 39:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:41Lewis Howes?

  Where do you think you'd be right now if this didn't happen? Do you think you'd have the same level of emotional intelligence and wisdom and

• 39:53Lewis Howes?

  service mentality that you do now? Or do you think you'd be in a different place?

• 39:58Speaker 03

  Think I'd be in a different place. Much more reserved.

• 40:00Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 40:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, much more reserved. Because just the nature of my personality. You know, I speak and people see me speak. But to be honest, I'm an introvert by nature. That's why it was so hard for me to do it.

• 40:12Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 40:13Speaker 03

  But I know for a fact, if I'd have played ball, God would have blessed me to go to the NFL.

• 40:18Lewis Howes?

  Play for a few years.

• 40:19Speaker 03

  Play for a few years. I'd have just faded to black, man. I'd have helped the people near and dear to me, probably. Like, they would have knew me, but I wouldn't have been out in front of the world, sharing or traveling. It just wasn't my personality. Like, just the be able to go out and share, that took work for me, to be in front of a crowd. And so I know for a fact, if I'd have played ball, and I think about that often. If I'd have played ball, went out, got a couple of contracts, did well, I'd probably just sit on the porch every day. You know, I'd be doing work, take my kids to school, be involved in local community stuff. But I never would have discovered some of the gifts that now I know I possess.

• 40:59Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 41:00Speaker 03

  Like, I'm being completely honest with you, bro. I never thought. I would speak. Like ever. They put me in public speaking in college. I dropped the class on the second day.

• 41:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, terrifying.

• 41:13Speaker 03

  Never, never like and so for me, this is extremely humbling for me. Like to speak, to go out and share, it's the thing that I feel like honest, like I could do forever. Like the interactions never get old to me.

• 41:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 41:30Speaker 03

  Because I wasn't the guy that was saying, man, I want to go speak.

• 41:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 41:34Speaker 03

  I want to go share, right? I never thought I could speak. Right? When I got to college, they were putting me in public speaking because they couldn't understand most of the words I was saying from where I was from. You know what I'm saying? And so I never thought, and so for me to understand and know that my life was being guided by a force and by a source that was a lot greater than me, it's extremely humbling to know that there was a plan in place, even when my plan didn't work. That was extremely humbling for me. And so when a father comes up and says, hey, man, like I saw this story. It helped me hang in there with my family. Like I take that to heart. When a kid comes up and is like, man, I watched that before the games.

• 42:16Speaker 03

  I'm like, man, that's amazing, right? That can never get to the point in my life to where I'm like, oh, they're just saying that because I never imagined, I never thought, I never knew I had this gift. Right? And so for me, man, I, I think, I thank God that this happened. And for some people, it's hard to understand and look at it that way because it helped me discover things about myself that I never knew.

• 42:43Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. What would you say the three biggest lessons you've learned from the trauma you've experienced?

• 42:49Speaker 03

  Patience, um, empathy and um, always being willing to extend a level of grace to others, but also to yourself.

• 43:04Lewis Howes?

  Did you beat yourself up for a long time?

• 43:08Speaker 03

  I wouldn't say um, beat myself up, but I definitely thought about, like, man, like.

• 43:21Speaker 03

  Why did it happen? You know what I'm saying? Like, just going down that rabbit hole of searching like, what is this? Like, why did this happen? And then, when I released that, and it was like, alright, man, just survive it. Stop trying to understand it, survive it.

• 43:36Lewis Howes?

  This did happen. I can't go back.

• 43:38Speaker 03

  Can't change it.

• 43:39Lewis Howes?

  So you gotta accept it.

• 43:40Speaker 03

  Gotta accept it.

• 43:41Lewis Howes?

  Get through the pain and the emotions, and then find meaning from it.

• 43:44Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 43:45Lewis Howes?

  Is that the process?

• 43:46Speaker 03

  That was the process, bro.

• 43:47Lewis Howes?

  Is that what you would suggest to anyone? If they go through a devastating divorce, or some type of heartache or injury, and they're questioning, why did this happen? I've been following the rules, and I've been a good person, and living a good life, and why did this thing happen to me? What would you say?

• 44:04Speaker 03

  Sometimes, you gotta stop focusing and thinking about what could have happened and what should have happened, and you gotta live in what is happening. Right? Because I always say to them, stop trying to understand it and focus on surviving it. Because the quicker you can survive it, the quicker you can use it.

• 44:25Lewis Howes?

  How would you say that your childhood developed for you to get to a place to be in that environment?

• 44:33Speaker 04

  That's a really profound question, you know? And it takes me back to my healing journey. And one of the parts of that healing journey started with reading this quote from Socrates, "Unexamined life isn't worth living." So, I was sitting in a prison cell in solitary confinement, being told that I would never get out of prison.

• 44:54Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 44:55Speaker 04

  Let alone out of solitary confinement. And the thing about it is, I almost started to believe that because my neighbor across from me, this guy named Tony, a super fascinating guy, one of the most charismatic, charming guy. He can emulate voices like you wouldn't even begin to believe. He had been in solitary for like 20 years.

• 45:15Lewis Howes?

  20 years?

• 45:16Speaker 04

  20 years.

• 45:16Lewis Howes?

  So, in solitary confinement, for people that don't know, how much time do you get to spend with others? How much time do you get out of your cell? How much, you know, activity time? What is that? What is the day-to-day?

• 45:27Speaker 04

  23-hour lockdown.

• 45:29Lewis Howes?

  Come on!

• 45:30Speaker 04

  Five days out of the week.

• 45:31Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 45:33Speaker 04

  And 24-hour lockdown, the other two days out of the week. So, for five days out of the week, you can go out to... Basically, it was essentially dog. The yard. Yeah, so they put handcuffs on you, put a leash on the handcuffs, walk you out to this cage. And you're allowed to stay out there for like, you know. An hour. Hour or so. Um, and oftentimes, me personally, I would choose not to go out for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they were like feces wars, like guys just swinging feces and, you know, I didn't want to be in a line of fire of that. And then other times it was just like, um, it was a Michigan, so it could be extremely cold and you have the bare minimum on. Um, but it was in that environment that I really began to examine, like, how did I end up here?

• 46:17Speaker 04

  And what got you into solitary? Cause originally you're not in solitary confinement. Yeah, so I got into a conflict with an officer and that actually ended up being two additional years in prison. Oh, man. It turned out to be four and a half years straight in solitary on that particular stint. Cause how, what was your original sentence for? So my original sentence was for second degree murder. For how long, how long was it supposed to be? Seventeen to forty years. Geez. And so I ended up serving a total of nineteen years. Cause you had a two years with this. Yeah, it's had two years added. Um, and so that, that extended my time, but during this time in solitary. You know, it was a serious of, of assault on an officer was the charge.

• 46:59Speaker 04

  We got into a fight and because I was incarcerated, I got charged with, you know, a crime, a new crime and. You know, sitting in that environment, one, I, I was reading, you know, that line, unexamined life isn't worth living. And so what happened is I asked myself this question. How did you go from an honor roll scholarship student with dreams of being a doctor to this being your life? And so I began a journal and I began to unpack all the things that had transpired in my childhood that led me to that moment. And as I was journaling, I was like, how is a kid who has experienced this level of trauma,

• 47:44Speaker 04

  even a life, let alone, you know, capable of just being like, hey, you know, what happened to my life and why am I here? And so that journaling just peeled back the layers and it was raw and it was ugly. And then it became beautiful and it became powerful. Because what I was able to do was to go back and reassign responsibility to the people who had caused me harm, who had traumatized me, you know, early in my childhood, that trauma started within my household, uh, with my mom, which was very difficult to write. Growing up and, you know, the kind of community that I grew up in, it was unheard of to say that this is abuse.

• 48:28Speaker 04

  Um, and that this is traumatizing me. So I, early on, I began to accept that this was just the way it was.

• 48:37Speaker 04

  And so when I began to journal and unpack that and think about, you know, like what that meant, I was able to say, you know, I wasn't responsible for those hits. I weren't responsible for those mean words. And as I got deeper into that conversation, I began to understand how that household trauma led me to running away when I was around 14 years old. And when I ran away, I was so naive. You know, I thought that one of my friend's parents would see this smart, you know, handsome kid and just take me in and wrap me in the love that I believe all children deserve. Um, you know, it's something I'm so adamant about in my work.

• 49:22Speaker 04

  I think children deserve like love and care and kindness and, you know, all the things, you know, wrapped in structure, you know, they need discipline.

• 49:33Speaker 04

  And what ended up happening is for like two weeks, I just was like roaming the neighborhood. I was sleeping friends' garages. I was sleeping basements, you know, I was hustling food at the store. I would, you know, hey, can I take your bags to your, you know, car? And they would give me fifty cent and I would like, you know, go eat, um, you know, potato chips and cookies. And I was un-bathed and, you know, I began to get ridiculed by, you know, the, the older guys like, hey, you know, you're kind of dusty and like go take a shower and get some sneakers and all the things. And like a lot of kids who grow up in those experiences, I was vulnerable. Uh, we don't talk about it a lot culturally because, you know, if you come from the streets, you have to be like hard and you gotta wear that mask. But when you really get down to it, like I was a kid.

• 50:18Speaker 04

  Fourteen. Fourteen and most of us are kids, we get looped into this very adult world and it's a seduction. And I, over the years, I began to actually reframe the language for exactly what it was, right? What was it? It was, it was the seduction of a kid into a culture, an adult culture. And what that looked like was. Were you still going to school or were you more just? So I was kind of going to school whenever I can shower and bathe and, you know, so I would go up to the school. And what happened is there was an older guy in the neighborhood and he was like, hey, you know, I see, you know, what's going on, like, you know, come rap with me, let's go get something to eat. And he took me to Burger King. And then he was like, you know.

• 51:03Speaker 04

  Acting like he's gonna take care of you a little bit. Yeah, he's like, yo, you need some sneakers, you need some clothes. If you come, you know, work this spot, this is the beginning of crack cocaine, uh, the crack cocaine era. Was it nineteen? This is like eighty-six. Yeah, so this is when crack is just penetrating the Midwest. And this is Detroit, right? It's Detroit. Yeah, so we don't even know. You know, this is a new drug in the community. We don't even know how devastating it's gonna be. Uh, and as a kid, you can't even begin to imagine what that is, you know? And so, you know, he takes me in, he's like, you know, let's go get sneakers and let's go get food and all the things. And then I'm in this crack house on the east side of Detroit.

• 51:43Speaker 04

  I'm, I'm in here and I remember the first time where I was like, this is scary. Is he brings me this sawed-off shotgun and he's like, if anybody tries to break in, just shoot through the door. You're fourteen, fifteen. Fourteen years old. Oh, my God, that's terrifying. I'm never, you shot a, a low caliber gun, let alone a shotgun. That's terrifying. It's terrifying, but I can't say that I'm terrified because that's not the culture. You gotta act tough. Yeah, and so it's like, you know, he breaks down the, the amount that I'm gonna sell and what I owe. And then what I'll make at the end of the week. And so the end of the week comes around and it's three hundred and fifty, four hundred dollars mostly in singles and five dollar bills.

• 52:26Speaker 04

  It's this big wad of cash. And the first thing I do is go to the grocery store. And I just buy all the cereal. Captain Crunch. It's like everything, Captain Crunch, the, you know, Lucky Charms, Fruity Pebbles. And then I buy like chocolate milk and strawberry milk. You know, the reality is I'm a kid. Yeah. You know, I'm gorging this, this cereal now, but that was my entry into that culture. Wow. And within the first six months is when it got real. You know, my childhood friend was murdered. Oh. I was robbed at gunpoint. And then I became addicted to crack cocaine at fourteen years old.

• 53:08Speaker 04

  Um, you know, I was introduced to that again by another adult who's like, hey, this is cool. This is what we do, it's fine, we make a lot of money, you know? And so I had to navigate addiction in this adult culture as a fourteen-year-old kid. Um, and then after that, I ended up messing up the money because of the addiction. And they beat me near to death. Oh, man. You know, and I remember being fourteen years old, laying on the bathroom floor in a pool of my blood and asking this question. What kind of world do we live in where this happens to kids?

• 53:51Speaker 04

  And so that was my intro into that culture. And then over the years, you know, I began to become hardened. I began to put up the mask. And then when I was seventeen years old, I got shot. And at that point, I was the third of my mother's sons to be shot. Come on. My oldest brother had been shot in the neck. Geez. Um, my second oldest brother had been shot. At that point, when I got shot, he got shot in the arm. And then he got shot again, and he's currently paralyzed. He's been paralyzed since, I want to say nineteen ninety-eight. Um, so high levels of gun trauma, high levels of, you know, uh, gun violence within the culture. You know, I can't even tell you how many of my friends have actually been shot or murdered.

• 54:37Speaker 04

  Um, and so at seventeen, sitting in a hospital bed, I'm processing this very traumatic event. And there's nobody there to help me. There's nobody there to say, hey. No support, no family support, friends. Yeah, I think my, my dad and my mom came, but I think they didn't even know what to do at that point. So I'm the third of their child, just laying in a hospital bed with bullet wounds. Um, and I can't even tell you how many kids in the neighborhood who they saw grow up. You know, this was, I mean, and this is the height of that era, right? So, you know, eighty-six to ninety, you know, this is like a very volatile time in Detroit. You know, and this is when crack cocaine is at its high. The war on drugs is happening.

• 55:22Speaker 04

  Um, and, you know, it wasn't until I began to journal that I realized there should have been an intervention. And had I been from a different community with different resources, then somebody would have said, hey, you're gonna need help. You're gonna need a psychologist, you're gonna need a therapist, you're gonna need somebody to talk to and help you unpack this traumatic event. Absolutely. And that just didn't happen. And so what happened was I went back to my neighborhood with this narrative in my mind that if I get into a conflict. I'm shooting first and I began to carry a gun every day. I didn't feel safe.

• 56:07Speaker 04

  And what you can't say, you know, when you grow up the way that I grew up, you can't say that, you know, that actually hurt when I got shot.

• 56:14Lewis Howes?

  No, you're saying.

• 56:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was like, ah, whatever, you know, I'll get back, you know, I'll get the guy next time.

• 56:19Lewis Howes?

  Be fine in a couple of weeks, yeah.

• 56:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, and so that's the mindset at seventeen years old that I'm just like, yo, I'm hard, I'm standing on this corner. What I can't say to my friends is every time a car pulls up, that I have anxiety because there's no language for anxiety.

• 56:34Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 56:35Speaker 04

  Um, there was no language for paranoia, there was no language for fear because, you know, you can't be a tough kid growing up in the hood and be afraid. You know, you just gotta navigate it, you just gotta put the mask on. And so I wore that mask, but deeper than that was the narrative that I created. That if I found myself in a conflict, I would shoot first and sixteen months later, um, at nearly two in the morning, I got into this conflict over a drug deal that I refused to make and that conflict escalated. And there was this moment, you know, that I always think back to where I turned to walk away.

• 57:14Lewis Howes?

  You did.

• 57:14Speaker 04

  And I turned to walk away. And what I thought was happening was that the person I was arguing with was attempting to get out of the car and I just turned and fired, four shots that tragically ended his, ended his life. And, you know, it's a moment that I played over for years of like, why didn't I just take that second step?

• 57:41Speaker 04

  You know?

• 57:42Lewis Howes?

  And keep walking, yeah.

• 57:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, and it wasn't until I was journaling that I realized that the, the grip of the trauma of being shot would not allow me to make a different decision.

• 57:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Cause you weren't healed, you can't make a conscious decision from a hurt place.

• 58:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:01Lewis Howes?

  You have to make that from a healed place.

• 58:02Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 58:03Lewis Howes?

  Or a healing journey.

• 58:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:05Lewis Howes?

  You know, you gotta be on that journey.

• 58:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:07Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. What happened after?

• 58:10Speaker 04

  Of that incident. So I was subsequently arrested. I was charged with open murder and I was eventually sentenced to seventeen and forty years for second degree murder. And, you know, going through the legal process, I was like psychologically, I was already traumatized. Like I was just like so numb. And I remember at my sentence, you know,

• 58:39Speaker 04

  my lawyer telling me, you know, here's what you say to the family. And it was the most superficial apology ever. And what he wanted you to say? Yeah. And, you know, I was still a kid. And so I trusted his judgment and I just kind of went with this kind of rope apology.

• 59:04Speaker 04

  And that was, that was devastating. Really? You know, as I began to navigate my prison sentence. For you it was devastating or for them? It was for, I'm sure it was devastating for them. Uh, but it was devastating for me in the sense that I knew that I didn't communicate what I actually felt. What did you actually feel? That I had made a horrible decision that had caused them incredible pain. And like I was deeply sorry and just like, it was something that I wish I could have took back. And. As opposed to like the scripted kind of clinical apology or? Yeah. You know, and so for years I, you know, in prison, I just kind of beat up on myself and I just internalized

• 59:47Speaker 04

  even more of that pain, you know, and, you know, my first five years in prison was just like dark and anger filled and just, I got into tons of trouble and. Lots of fights or? Lots of fights and, you know, disobeying the rules and it's very recalcitrant. Like I'm like, I'm not listening to no rules.

• 1:00:11Speaker 04

  And it was in that environment where in that, in that dark space, where one of what I call my three miracles transpired. And that first miracle was meeting some of the most incredible mentors in the world.

• 1:00:28Speaker 04

  And

• 1:00:29Lewis Howes?

  In prison.

• 1:00:30Speaker 04

  In prison.

• 1:00:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:31Speaker 04

  Yeah. And these weren't like, you know, people who were coming to visit us to help salvage our souls, or people who were just like, you know, you know, we want to come and help you fix your life. These were guys serving life sentences. Guys who, if you, you know, really think about what a life sentence is, they had nothing to gain, you know, they were

• 1:00:52Lewis Howes?

  By helping you.

• 1:00:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, by helping me. But these guys were brilliant, you know, these guys challenged me to read, to think, you know, they challenged my thinking after I read. Uh, we debated, you know, they tried to give me guidance and even though I didn't listen to them in a moment, you know, that, that wisdom later on became one of the most valuable gifts I've ever received. Yeah, so that's what it was like, the, the first part.

• 1:01:22Lewis Howes?

  The first five years is dark, you're getting in trouble, some mentors are trying to help you, you're doing a little bit of the work, but you're still from a hurt place, you're still reactive, you still haven't healed the trauma or done the journaling and the, the healing work yet. And so what, then five years in, you got into the fight with the, uh, the guard, which sent you into seven years solitary?

• 1:01:44Speaker 04

  No, that came about three years later, the second miracle actually sold up in about that fifth year. Um, and it came in the form of a letter from this woman named Nancy. And when I first got the letter, I'm just like, okay, who is this random person writing me? Cause

• 1:02:03Lewis Howes?

  You didn't know what she was?

• 1:02:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, I thought it was, you know, just a pen pal, cause that's what happens in prisons, like, people hear about your case and you just start getting these letters from random strangers who are like, hey, you know, I just want to be friends, et cetera. But it turns out Nancy was the woman who had raised David, whose life I was responsible for.

• 1:02:22Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 1:02:23Speaker 04

  And so Nancy writes me this letter.

• 1:02:26Lewis Howes?

  She wasn't the, she wasn't the mother?

• 1:02:28Speaker 04

  She wasn't the mother, she was the godmother.

• 1:02:29Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 1:02:30Speaker 04

  Um, she writes me this letter.

• 1:02:33Lewis Howes?

  So this is five, seven years in?

• 1:02:34Speaker 04

  About five, five, yeah, five or so years in. And I remember opening the letter and her beginning to tell me who David was. You know, the father, the husband, the man, the friend. And I can tell you, I wanted to boil that letter up. Oh. I was like, you know, emotionally, it was just like a tidal wave of like guilt and responsibility and all the things that I hadn't unpacked yet. And something was like, you have to read the letter all the way through. You have to finish this thing. And I continued to read the letter and what Nancy said to me was like, despite the harm and devastation you've caused my family, I love you.

• 1:03:20Speaker 04

  Holy cow. And I forgive you because that's what God would want me to do. Oh, my goodness. And. How did that make you feel, reading that? I was like, I went through kind of like a process of different feelings. First, I just felt horrible because I'm like, this woman in a moment of her own hurt and anguish is giving me something that I didn't even know if I was capable of receiving, which was love. Hmm. And forgiveness. And I wasn't emotionally mature enough at that time to even understand,

• 1:04:04Speaker 04

  like, the power of like, you know, love, that's like spiritual love, you know, this, this deep, deep spiritual love, this principle, perspective of like somebody's beliefs really aligning with what they actually do. Um, I hadn't forgiven myself, so forgiveness was like, whoa, like, what is this, you know, what, what am I supposed to do with this, you know? Um, but I wrote her back, you know, and I wrote her back and her and I embarked on this correspondence journey. And, you know, Nancy

• 1:04:47Speaker 04

  was essential to my personal healing in this way.

• 1:04:54Speaker 04

  What she said to me was that I want to know what happened to that nineteen year old kid that pulled the trigger that night.

• 1:05:04Lewis Howes?

  What caused you to get to that space?

• 1:05:05Speaker 04

  What caused me to get to that space?

• 1:05:07Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:05:08Speaker 04

  And so her and I began this journey of just unpacking a lot of the things.

• 1:05:14Speaker 04

  But even with that, it wasn't the kind of moment of just like where everything comes together, right? You know, in storytelling, people often want just that one moment of like, it's your come to Jesus moment.

• 1:05:30Lewis Howes?

  Healing is a journey, man. Healing is a journey. It may not be like, oh, I'm healed in this moment. There might be little moments that bring you closer to awareness.

• 1:05:40Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 1:05:40Lewis Howes?

  And then eventually over time, it starts to mend and heal. And I, I remember a moment that I had, not to go off track, I remember a moment I had where nine years ago, I mentioned I was, you know, when I was thirty, I opened up about sexual, the sexual abuse for the first time. And I held on to it for twenty five years. So I didn't even start to heal until twenty five years later. And if I look back and I'm like, hmm, there's reason why I reacted in this way, in this situation, in this situation. Not saying it's okay or that I'm off the hook, but without having the tools to heal, even the littlest of traumas, we could turn situations into horrible situations.

• 1:06:21Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 1:06:22Lewis Howes?

  We can choose bad things.

• 1:06:24Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 1:06:25Lewis Howes?

  And I remember I started my healing journey at thirty, but I still had other things in my life that I hadn't started to heal. Other traumas, right? From parents to previous relationships to whatever, shame and guilt that I was holding on to. And it wasn't until about a year and a half ago in therapy, diving in very deep, where like I felt the pain in my chest that I had for so long, kind of disintegrate. It was like, it was actually a moment, but I was like, this is almost ten years of a healing journey.

• 1:06:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:06:54Lewis Howes?

  But then there was a moment that I felt like it connected like my mind to my heart and my body, where my nervous system finally fully relaxed from that trauma. Now, I'm sure I'm still gonna have things that come up and you, you, you go back and you have to learn and heal and you go back a couple of steps and you learn and heal. It's a journey, but. There wasn't like this aha moment, the moment I talked about it the first time. It took me nine years.

• 1:07:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:21Lewis Howes?

  And then I'm still gonna need to learn how to heal, you know?

• 1:07:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:24Lewis Howes?

  But so that so that happened for you with the letter.

• 1:07:27Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 1:07:27Lewis Howes?

  The correspondence was like, it was a moment of awareness, but it wasn't like, oh, I'm this loving, healed, no shame, human being anymore.

• 1:07:34Speaker 04

  Absolutely. And you and you speak to something that really, you know, speaks to me, right? Is that the healing journey, when you explain it, what we haven't created space for is the explanation. Without interpreting it as an excuse.

• 1:07:54Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:07:55Speaker 04

  Like, I don't make any excuses for the horrible decision of that night.

• 1:08:00Speaker 04

  But I think it's important for people to really understand how we get to those moments. Like, I don't think that violence is born in a vacuum. I don't think that these acts that we see play out all the time in the world are things that just are in a moment or are born in us as human beings.

• 1:08:18Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:08:18Speaker 04

  There's all these things that happen, right?

• 1:08:20Lewis Howes?

  And so. And I heal, in a, in a healthy, conscious human who's

• 1:08:28Lewis Howes?

  got, you know, on a healing journey or is just processing their pain. You know, processing trauma when it happens and learns how to do that, which they don't teach us these things growing up in school. Parents don't teach us. You know, I grew up in Ohio was never, you know, share with me how you feel. You know, it was just tough one up and in the sports field specifically, you fall down, you get hurt. It's just put the dirt on it and go back, right? You're made fun of if you showed emotion, right? In the sports field, right?

• 1:08:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:08:55Lewis Howes?

  And so you just wanted to, I just wanted to fit in. You just wanted to fit in and you couldn't, you couldn't show a tender, emotional side. And I think it's, you know, it's one of the reasons why I wanted to create this show 10 years ago. During my healing journey was like, what are these tools that can really help transform human beings inside? So we can have a healthier outside. We see all these, you know, all the pain in the world, right? School shooting that just happened the other day, 19 kids, right? And this is what, I don't know, 20 or 30 shootings this year so far?

• 1:09:34Speaker 04

  A mess, yeah.

• 1:09:36Lewis Howes?

  It's whenever these mass shootings or this wars, it seems like a lot of times is caused by men who are hurt, who are in pain, who haven't learned how to heal trauma. And there's no justification, there's no, you know, lack of responsibility by any of these acts. But I think you can see where that pain is coming from and how like, man, this, this person had to go through a lot of years of trauma that was unresolved to get to this breaking point. Absolutely. And I think, and I'm so glad that you're doing the work you're doing, because for me, I know that if I didn't have some environment that was healthy,

• 1:10:17Lewis Howes?

  and some friends that were good, and some, you know, parental figures that were good, I could have gone down the same path. You know, my brother went to jail, I told you about this. And it's like, I could have seen myself going down that with one decision. Absolutely. One action that just like my pain gripped a hold of me, and I made a dumb decision, and now I'm in jail for five, 10, 20 years. So it's, it could be so quick, how one action can hurt a lot of people and yourself forever. Yeah. And I think the most important thing is teaching men how to heal their emotional wounds,

• 1:10:57Lewis Howes?

  their traumatic wounds today, because a lot of the pain, domestic violence, and community violence, in schools, and just the world, the wars that people are having, is from men who are hurt and haven't healed. And so I'm so glad that you're doing this work and you're talking about this, because when you're a young boy growing up, as a young teen, I'll speak for myself. One of the main drivers is to try to get a girl to like you. Yep. It's like in our DNA or something, right? It's like, how can I get a girl to like me? To hold my hand, to kiss me, to whatever it is when you're like 10, 12, 14. You just want to be accepted by a girl that you like. Absolutely. So we're driven to do things to get the attention from a girl, essentially.

• 1:11:41Lewis Howes?

  Whether that's right or wrong, it's just kind of like, what drives us. That's the driver, yes. And this may sound not politically correct, but the challenge is...

• 1:11:53Lewis Howes?

  I don't think women understand how to allow men to be emotionally vulnerable, especially when they're growing up. It's not accepted. When you're made fun of, when you're picked on by other boys, when you're being sensitive, or maybe a girl who's saying, hey, what are you crying for? That's not sexy to me, that's not a turn on. Then boys start to toughen up and say, okay, I can't show my emotions because my buddies are gonna make fun of me. I'm not gonna get the girl. And she's not gonna think I'm a real man.

• 1:12:24Lewis Howes?

  And so we kind of put these masks on.

• 1:12:26Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 1:12:26Lewis Howes?

  Right? Am I, tell me if I'm wrong here.

• 1:12:28Speaker 04

  No, no, I think you're, I think you're right. And I think what it is, is that the culture, even for, you know, young girls who eventually grow on to be women, who want men to be emotionally vulnerable, they're as much a victims of it as we are because they're told that, you know, the toughness, the mask, the indifference, you know, the, the, the bad boy, you know, imagery is what to, you know.

• 1:12:53Lewis Howes?

  It's a turn on.

• 1:12:54Speaker 04

  It's the turn on, right? And then as they go through their maturation process, they realize that, you know, there's something else that's needed and that vulnerability. And then I think from a cultural standpoint, as men, what, what we fail to do is to say, hey, you know, I actually love love.

• 1:13:12Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:13:13Speaker 04

  You know, I actually appreciate intimacy, you know?

• 1:13:16Lewis Howes?

  Yes, man.

• 1:13:17Speaker 04

  That, you know, as beautiful and as amazing as you are, what really is beautiful is that I can trust the conversation we're having is authentic. And I can be my true self and I can say, you know, today this actually hurts. You know, one of the things I, I wrote about in a new book, I said, you know, as a boy, when I couldn't cry tears, I cried bullets.

• 1:13:38Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 1:13:38Speaker 04

  Like, that's our community right now, right? These mass shootings are unexpressed sadness. They're unexpressed frustration, they're unexpressed insecurities. And while it doesn't excuse the behavior, if we go to understand it, then we can actually better prevent it, first of all. Cause everybody can do, you know, a, a Monday morning triage and, you know, we can all play Monday morning quarterback. But prevention is what we have currently available to us.

• 1:14:10Speaker 04

  And that prevents the stars with understanding. If you don't understand, if you don't create space for men to actually say, here's how I really feel. You know, let me, let's, let's, let's take down the idea that you think about how I feel. Uh, but here's how I really feel. And like, and we have to do it with each other as men. Absolutely. And what I found is that like in my men's circle, I get so excited to talk about my friends. Like I say to them, you know, I, I love you, brother. Like I, I care about you and how does your soul feel today? You know, did you do anything that was joyful? Um, are you fulfilled in your life and in your purpose? And we don't have to talk about numbers and metrics and all these other things that, that have been defined as the way that we measure our manhood.

• 1:14:53Speaker 04

  But I can do it because I'm willing to share those things. And I didn't get there overnight. Like this was a journey unlike anything imaginable. And I would say that it, the, the tipping point from the emotional growth started with the third miracle. We must see that there was these three miracles. Nancy was the second, the second one. Yeah. And so that third miracle was getting a letter from my son while I was in solitary. So this is after the altercation with the officer. I'm about seven or eight years into my sentence. From your son? Yeah. When did you have your first son? So my first son was born six months after I was arrested. So his mom was three months pregnant.

• 1:15:37Speaker 04

  Wow. Oh, wow. And so, you know, probably about two years into that time in solitary. Um, which began about, um, about my eighth year in prison. So I probably was coming up on 10 years when I get this letter. Wow. And my, my dad always would sit my son down and make sure he wrote me letters. And normally they were just, you know, these little kid letters. Hey dad. You know, Transformers is my jam right now, you know, or, you know, here's a drawing or whatever. And I love you dad and you know. He would send you those as a kid, young, two, five, seven year old. Yeah. And I actually still have those letters, some of those letters.

• 1:16:19Speaker 04

  Um, and so he would send me these, you know, throughout my, my journey. And then I get this one letter when he's about 10 years old. I'm in solitary at the time. I think I'm on about year two.

• 1:16:32Speaker 04

  And I opened the letter expecting it to just be, you know, hey dad, here's what's happening in my world. When I opened it, my son writes to me, dad, my mom told me why you're in prison for murder. And he said, dad, don't kill again. Jesus watches what you do. That letter destroyed the facade of toughness. Like the mask that I had worn up to that point in my life. I mean, it just disintegrated. And I was like, I owe him a dad. And if I don't know if I'm getting out of prison or not, but what I do know is that I have to live my life in a way

• 1:17:14Speaker 04

  that my son understands that no matter how far down you fall in life, if you are willing to do the work, you can get up and you can overcome. And so I said to myself in that moment, I don't know how, I don't even know if I'm ever get out of this place. But I need to prove to myself that I am committed to transforming my life. And I'm in the Spartan cell at the time, like there is nothing there that says, hey, here's how you can prove it. So I started with journaling. Cause I wanted to get to the truth of like, you know, how did I end up here? Like there was a part of me that was like, I know I'm not a bad person.

• 1:17:58Speaker 04

  Um, I know that I'm a good soul, but I've done horrible things that have hurt people. And so that was a conflict that was just like, this is a war right now, right? And so I go into battle mode. I'm like journaling and I'm writing and I mean, it's raw and it's scary and it's just like, sheesh, this is the things that I've done. These are the things that have been done to me. Um, and while I was doing it, I realized that I hadn't completed anything other than the GED. And I was like, okay, if you're committed to transforming your life. You have to finish something. Hmm. And you have to do it for you.

• 1:18:39Speaker 04

  And you can't do it for the warden, you can't do it for the guards, you can't do it for your parents. I told them many times, oh, I'm turning my life around. So last time I've been in trouble, it was all the fluff, it was the mass, it was the lies that we tell ourselves in the moment when we're hurting and we're just like, okay, we don't want the, we want that immediate hurt to stop. But it wasn't about turning life around. And so I said, here's what you do. You have to write a book in thirty days. Hmm. And if you write this book in thirty days, then that will be your proof that you're ready for a change. That's cool. And so I didn't have a laptop, though. I didn't have a typewriter. Your handwriting.

• 1:19:22Speaker 04

  It was old school. I didn't even have a real good pen, like, so imagine if you pulled the inside of that pen out. You had that little thing. That little thing. Oh, my gosh, that's hard. Yeah, and so I was like, okay. They want to give you a pen? No, not in solitary. They're scared you're gonna like shank the guard or something, right? Oh, my gosh. And so immediately I was like, it's no way possible I'm gonna write a book in thirty days with this thing. And the first thing that popped in my mind was, here's excuse number one. Here's your victimhood. Here's your blaming everything other than being accountable. And I was like, okay, no, this not gonna happen. We're not, we're not going back down this path, right? And so I took that pen and I rolled it up in some paper.

• 1:20:07Speaker 04

  Ah, you. Yeah. You getting in there, making it hard. Yeah, I'm like, yo, I mean, I had tons of experience rolling things up, so it was just like, let me, let me be intentional, right? Like, this is innovation, this is, you know, I learned that later on in my life, that, oh, that's what that is, like, innovation. But rolling it up in that paper made it firm enough for me to write. And I wrote for thirty days straight until I finished that book. And when I finished that book.

• 1:20:35Speaker 04

  I felt this incredible weight lifted from my shoulder. And I felt empathy for myself and I felt compassion and I was like, you are a smart kid. You are capable of doing good. You are worthy of doing good. Greatness is the ability to do something good over and over.

• 1:20:56Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm. 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,

• 1:21:40Lewis Howes?

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