How I've Overcome Trauma To Find Peace EP 1177

Today’s episode is a little bit different. Recently I had the pleasure of being on Dr. Caroline Leaf’s podcast Cleaning Up The Mental Mess. We’ve had Dr. Leaf on the show a few times this year and I really value her expertise as a Neuroscientist. Make sure to check out my two previous interviews with her if you haven’t yet. I really enjoyed our conversation and wanted to share the episode on my show because I think it’ll help those of you who are holding onto traumas and going through struggles. In this episode we discuss why we need to face the past to move forward and how I opened up about being sexually abused, the importance of connecting with our inner child, what happens in the brain when we deconstruct & reconstruct trauma, the importance of therapy and the different ways it can help you, and so much more! For more go to: www.lewishowes.com/1177Dr. Caroline Leaf's other episodes: www.lewishowes.com/1079 www.lewishowes.com/1127 www.lewishowes.com/1128Check out Dr. Caroline Leaf’s website: https://drleaf.com/Read her new book: Cleaning Up Your Mental MessThe Wim Hof Experience: Mindset Training, Power Breathing, and Brotherhood: https://link.chtbl.com/910-podA Scientific Guide to Living Longer, Feeling Happier & Eating Healthier with Dr. Rhonda Patrick: https://link.chtbl.com/967-podThe Science of Sleep for Ultimate Success with Shawn Stevenson: https://link.chtbl.com/896-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.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  When I feel stuck or when I feel like, man, I'm really struggling in this relationship, I have coaches in every area of my life. So for me, I want to have accountability and support on, on different levels of my life. And I think the emotional and mental level is the most important because. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:38Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone. Today's episode is a little bit different. Recently I had the pleasure of being on Dr. Caroline Leaf's podcast, Cleaning Up the Mental Mess. And we've had Dr. Leaf on the show a few times this year, and I really value her expertise as a neuroscientist and all the work and research that she's done in this area. And make sure to check out my two previous interviews with her if you haven't yet. And those will be linked in the show notes in the description of this episode. And I really enjoyed our conversation and I wanted to share this episode on my show because I think it'll help a lot of you who are holding on to traumas and going through struggles, or maybe just feel like you haven't really broken free of some things that might be holding you back from your past, or from frustrations, emotions, anger,

• 1:21Lewis Howes?

  resentments, a lack of forgiveness, judgment from your past. So if you're enjoying this in any way, please share this over on social media. Make sure to tag me as well and Dr. Caroline Leaf. And if you want more where others interview me, other experts from different fields and different industries interview me, then message me over on Instagram or tweet about it and say, hey, Lewis, this was awesome. I love this episode. Please do more like this. And share this with a few friends. If you found it inspiring for someone that you think this could help them improve the quality of their life and take them to the next level, subscribe to the podcast over on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, click the subscribe button right now. And again, let me know what you think about this episode. You can leave a review and let me know your thoughts there if

• 2:03Lewis Howes?

  you'd like to do that. And I'd like to give a shout out to the fan of the week. This is from Sydney Turtle, who said, Lewis and his. Guests have interesting, thought provoking and heartfelt conversations about how to prove your life from every aspect. Life is a muddle as it is, so it is comforting to have a regular podcast that looks at life from every perspective. Having a good or bad day, listen to this podcast. You'll learn and discover more about yourself than you ever thought. So Sydney, thank you for leaving the review over on Apple Podcasts and being the fan of the week. We appreciate your constant support in helping you improve your life to the next level. Okay, in just a moment, we'll dive into this episode.

• 2:45Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Lewis, I've been looking forward to this interview. Thank you so much for joining me today, and I'm gonna have so much fun letting you answer the questions. And every time we have a talk to each other, that's always these amazing in-depth conversations. And you're really one of the favorite my favorite people to talk to and interview and

• 3:03Lewis Howes?

  I appreciate it. Yeah, the last couple of interviews we've had, people are fascinated. They want more from us. So I'm excited to chat more.

• 3:09Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  I'm so excited as well. Well, Lewis, well, you people have heard your bio and it's phenomenal. And you just have one of those people that really touches other people's lives. And you, there's so much to ask you, but I want to start right at the top with your, you know, your, your school of greatness. And just, and there's so much to unpack from there. You've got some great stories and you've got the story about your dad and I know your childhood and football and morning routines. And there's a million things I want to ask you. So, but let's start at the top that you've got the school of greatness going. And I know everyone asked you that, but I think it's really worthwhile exploring, what is it? Why did you do it? What, what was the thinking behind starting the school of greatness?

• 3:48Lewis Howes?

  My mind wasn't right as a kid. I felt a lot of stress and anxiety, worry, fear, uncertainty. Loneliness was something that I always felt. I was always seeking answers. I was seeking the reason why I was here, seeking the reason why things were the way they were, why there was injustice in my life, where I felt like, why am I suffering? Why do I feel these things? And how come I don't know how to get out of them? Sports became an outlet for me early on to get the emotions out of me, the anger, resentment, the fear. I felt like it was a place I could channel my emotions in a contained, structured, healthy place because without sports, I was exploding my emotions everywhere around me. I was reactive

• 4:31Lewis Howes?

  as a child. I was lashing out. I used to steal a lot. I used to lie. I used to, you know, cheat on homework. I mean, I was just doing things that I wasn't, that I'm not proud of now, but as a kid, I was doing things to kind of lash out because I didn't know how to channel the emotions. I didn't know how to feel properly. I didn't know how to find my own sense of peace. And I think I was just constantly seeking truth, seeking the answers. And sports became an outlet for me to like learn discipline, learn about showing up on time, learn about consistency, learning about setting goals, learning about getting feedback from coaches, learning about working with a team and interacting with a team, learning about overcoming challenging moments, overcoming losses and how to

• 5:13Lewis Howes?

  do that. And it taught me a lot, but I felt like there was still much more missing in my life that school didn't educate me on. You know, school teaches us so many, so many skills, but not the skills of life necessarily. Maybe you learn, maybe you learn them throughout by interacting with friends and this and that, but it didn't teach me the things that I felt like were the hardest to understand, which is how to overcome loss, how to overcome heartache, how to deal with being humiliated and embarrassed. How do I get myself back up? How about how to build confidence about how to deal with the uncertainty of life, about how to get my mind right, about how to be selfless, about how to be of service. Like it didn't teach me the things that I wish I would have learned.

• 5:57Lewis Howes?

  And so when I, when I turned about 30 years old, I said, I want to create a school for myself, a school that I wish I would have learned these things growing up, school of greatness. And that's kind of became my mission over the last eight and a half years was how can I, started in kind of the sports mindset. How can I find the greatest athletes and coaches in the world and learn more from them and teach it to myself and to others. But then I became fascinated by spiritual leaders and business leaders and neuroscientists like yourself that I was just like, I need to learn about the mind, about the emotions, about the heart, about, you know, things to really help me heal the past, not just ultra performance, but also healing, which was a big part of my story as

• 6:41Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Oh, I love that. I love the fact that it was performance, but it was healing as the foundation and how you sprungboarded from as a place as a child and you raised that relevant point of you didn't get taught that at school. And if you think of it, Lewis, how many, this is something I've been advocating for for years and that I, when I was working in school systems and training teachers and things like that, I would bring in sessions, but it was such a fight to get them in, but to try and bring in a regular weekly or couple of sessions a week where you teach children about emotional health and all the things you've just described. It should be part of, like you go to math and math and you go to, you know, learn social studies and things, you learn emotional health. It's so important.

• 7:20Lewis Howes?

  It'd be amazing. It'd be amazing.

• 7:21Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Yeah, but so important and it's such, and you've interviewed so many people. I've interviewed so many people and there's always that consistent line, I wish I had learned this as a child. So it's like we know it, why aren't we doing it? So yeah, so your school of greatness is really dealing with helping people that have probably, everyone listening to you, I'm sure is feeling, hey, I needed that. I wish I'd got that at school.

• 7:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I think healing is something that, it's funny, I was interviewing Dr. Wendy Suzuki. I'm not sure if you're familiar with her. She's a neuroscientist at, I think, in New York University.

• 7:52Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Yes, I've heard of her work, yeah.

• 7:54Lewis Howes?

  She's got a book that's coming out called Good Anxiety. And she teaches, she works in the neuroscience department at psychology, I guess, at New York University. And she was talking about how for, I think, her, she was talking about for her entire, entire adult life, she never said, I love you to her parents. And they never said, I love you to her. It was kind of this Japanese, Japanese cultural thing. Grew up in this kind of dynamic. And she was like, I remember as a child, you know, they would put me to sleep and they would kiss me. And I think they said, I love you. But as adults, we just didn't do it until eventually my father had dementia. And I thought to myself, you know, I really want to say I love you to my father and my parents. And, you know, I

• 8:35Lewis Howes?

  think there are certain things that we are taught culturally or we're just taught by friends that shut us down in school, or we don't feel like because of societal challenges, we can't do certain things. That maybe she didn't feel like she needed to heal from that, but that's really like, you've got Learn how to heal something from the past that wasn't there. And and start something new that takes courage for her. She was like, it took me so much courage to just ask them, can I say I love you after I call you every week? And then have the courage to do this. I think that's we've got to learn how to heal certain things. In order to have that courage, because otherwise I know for myself without having the ability to heal. I lacked the courage to reveal myself, to share my shame, to talk about insecurities, fears, doubts.

• 9:20Lewis Howes?

  Because I really hadn't healed those things yet. And when I really started my healing journey eight and a half years ago. Of the different parts of my life that I wasn't proud of, the things that I was. So afraid I was like, if people knew this about me, no one would love me, no one would accept me, no one would want to be around me, no one would like me. And those fears really traumas that I felt like I needed to heal and I just didn't know how to I didn't know. The process of will I still be accepted? When I start to share these things, will my family and friends still like me and love me? When I start to reveal the the parts of myself that are the darkest, ugliest parts. And in fact, the opposite happened when I started to overcome that and start to talk about it and heal.

• 10:06Lewis Howes?

  I had stronger connections, stronger relationships, and I had more peace in my heart than ever before. It's definitely been a journey, and I think it's important for all of us to be lifelong learners. And for me, this is. Just as much for helping others people as it is for me learning. Like when I have you on, I learned so much about, you know, the way my brain and mind works and how it's all connected. So. I think that that this process has been an incredible journey for me to just. Have more love for myself. And I think that's. We don't, we're not taught how to love ourselves the right way. I think so.

• 10:38Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  You've hit the nail on the head there. You said so many profound things now, but I've been taught to love ourselves and. That healing when you how you had fear that people wouldn't accept you, they would reject you once you started talking about your story and. And what happened and how you felt and look how you started off so eloquently explaining that. Because of that root. And that's what you're trying to do. And then when you accepted it and you went to a whole process and this and you've now channeled all of that into your school of greatness and your books and your podcasts. And now you've reached millions and. Help people. And and your message is so profound in that you're telling you're telling people to because everyone's saying love each other, love, I mean, love yourself and. I did end you, but. People don't know how to do it. So you obviously did it.

• 11:21Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  And so here's my big, very, okay, so here's my big question. What did you do?

• 11:26Lewis Howes?

  What did I not do? I tried, I've tried everything to continue to learn. I think it's, I think, I think if I kind of analyze.

• 11:33Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  That's a good answer. Sorry, Lewis. That's a great answer. What did I not do? And you emphasized the learning. Sorry, I didn't want to interrupt you. I wanted to just hone on that. The learning side, so good.

• 11:41Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. I'm, I'm constantly still learning. You know, there's things, there's different seasons of life that bring me back to a place of like maybe frustration or a little bit of stuckness or a little bit of like, oh, this anxiety or low level energy or whatever we want to call it, negative states that, that I have to constantly learn, okay, this is a different level for me and I'm feeling this. I need to learn how to, you know, go back to the basics. I need to learn a new strategy, a new technique for this season of my life, for this level of pressure or situation or whatever it might be, or relationship that I've never been in. I've got to learn now how to overcome this, how to step back into peace and to acceptance, into self-love.

• 12:20Lewis Howes?

  What my values and my vision are and lean forward into that, not based on a reactive state or, or a suffering state. And so the process has been many things, many different emotional intelligence workshops, working with different therapists throughout the years, if, uh, based on different situations that I've needed to learn how to heal and break through, whether it be the past, whether it be inner, what is it called? In that inner, is it inner child? Yeah.

• 12:45Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Going back to the inner child to some years, as you've had as a, an experience as an inner child, going back as the adult to that point and giving yourself permission. Oh, that's cute.

• 12:53Lewis Howes?

  I've got a photo of myself when I was like five or six, because I started doing this one in about six months ago and I started working with a new therapist. That helped me, that helped me reconnect to my inner child of, of just like not abandoning myself in certain situations in my life and like, what would my younger self need in this moment? And so it's just constantly evolving and trying new strategies and not being afraid to, to explore these things. You know, if you'd asked me 10 years ago, would I want to do these things? I would've said, no, I feel like I, I know this stuff already. Like I've got results in my life. I'm achieving, I'm making money, I'm accomplishing. But it's really because at this level, I've accomplished so much, I feel like I need to continue

• 13:38Lewis Howes?

  to go back to the basics and learn even more. And I can learn from anyone and learn from everyone. And so I'm constantly, I'm always like, there's nothing that I haven't heard that I don't need to rehear again, or need to relearn again, or be reminded of again. So I'm constantly in a process of learning, growth, and application and implementation or integration. So eight and a half years ago, I started the journey of, of healing the, and talking about being sexually abused as a child. And for 25 years, I didn't tell anyone because I was so afraid that if anyone knew this, like, I thought I was the only one, the only guy in the world that had ever been sexually abused because I didn't, I didn't see it anywhere. I didn't see men talking about it. And I didn't know I would ever be accepted

• 14:21Lewis Howes?

  or I'd belong anywhere if, if people knew this about me. So I think I was just afraid. And I didn't know a strategy on how to talk about it. Once I started kind of sharing the biggest shame and, and thing that I wanted to heal, it became easier to start talking about everything else that I was, you know, not proud of or ashamed of in my life. And, and that has just been a constant process of workshops, therapists, experiences, you know, just being open to, to learning from different people. And it's been a beautiful journey. So, and the, the podcast has been a great therapy for me because I'm constantly learning how to improve and, and putting myself on the line and holding myself accountable and responsible for growth as well.

• 15:04Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Oh, I love that. You've, you've just given, you've just poured out like buckets of wisdom there. And, you know, you've, you, you touching on the, the sexual trauma. And remember in one of our interviews, we interviewed me, you brought up a little bit of that. We were talking a little bit about that. And it's, it's, you say something there. There's a couple of things that I just want to hone in on. You talked about how once you started sharing that story, how then it led to you being able to share other parts of your life and how it, it helped people to, so, and that's so important that we, it's volcanic in nature. And that's something that you and I discussed. Remember I showed you my toxic tree? And that's the trauma and it eventually builds up and and it's so often the interpretation of the trauma is that you look at yourself as I'm the only one and I deserve the pain or whatever, all these distortions that one has.

• 15:47Lewis Howes?

  I'm not worthy of love, or I'm not gonna be good enough, or whatever it is, yeah.

• 15:50Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  And and how that like invades, like a virus will spread, it spreads into so many areas of your life. And that you spoke earlier at the beginning of the interview about your behavior patterns as a child. Now, when did the sexual abuse occur? What age were you at when?

• 16:06Lewis Howes?

  It was five. It only happened once and it was five, yeah.

• 16:09Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Wow. And it was that's when your life started changing as well? You started, you had all this energy and?

• 16:13Lewis Howes?

  I mean, it was one of the first memories that I have, you know, it's like I have maybe like a handful of memories before then, but that was one of the first memories. And I'm not sure how, you know, I know that we remember the the positive moments, like the big moments in a positive way and and the negative moments in a big way, obviously. But I feel like we are probably more connected to the negative moments because of the trauma that they build or the pain and the scars they leave. And so for me, it was something that I thought of every single, I think I thought of it every single day, if not every other day for 25 years, until until it's, I felt like it was spreading like a virus in my body and also spreading emotionally and energetically when I felt like I was being abused, when I felt like there was something unfair against me, when I felt

• 16:58Lewis Howes?

  like someone was taking advantage of me, when it felt like that that type of abuse was reoccurring. And it could have been something so small and insignificant to someone else, but to me, it felt like someone was trying to kill me. And and and again, there wasn't a strategy that I learned as a as a child on how to cope and heal. And I'm assuming this is why I became, I channeled it into sports. I channeled it into an obsession of being the best I could be as an athlete. I'm grateful that I actually had. Examples in my life of people that had done drugs or done alcohol,

• 17:39Lewis Howes?

  that their life didn't turn out well, bad things happened. So I saw that and I was like, okay, I don't want that. So I need to figure out something else in my life. So whether it was an obsession or an addiction to be an athlete, I channeled it there in a healthier version, but it still, it still wasn't coming from a place of love. It was coming from a place of anger and let me prove people wrong and let me protect myself. So I'm, I'm of the believer that anger is the second most powerful fuel in the world. It can have you build and create incredible things, but it's so destructive internally that I never felt fulfilled when I would accomplish all these big goals. When I'd prove everyone wrong, I was like, but why am I so unhappy? Why am I so unfulfilled? Why do I feel

• 18:25Lewis Howes?

  like I'm suffering inside? It was never enough, no matter how much I accomplished. And that's why I'm such a big believer that service and love is the, the greatest fuel above anger or hurt pain. You know, there's like this fuel to, and the desire to serve at a higher level and create from a place of love and inspiration is this renewable energy that I have now where I can sleep easily. I can sleep at night easily. I can wake up and feel refreshed because I have a more, a meaningful mission and purpose as opposed to, I want to prove these, you know, five people wrong in my childhood that hurt me mentality. It's been a great, I'm so grateful for the awareness that I

• 19:05Lewis Howes?

  had when it took thirty, when I turned thirty and I'm going to need lots of more awareness, you know, every season of my life. So I want to continue to evolve. So I'm just grateful for it all.

• 19:15Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Yeah, it's incredible how you've taken that experience and you've managed to, to understand it and to, so initially you channeled it and you said that like as a child, you know, without the training, you spoke about this earlier on, what do you do with that? And one in 12 children are being, are going through things that has been undetected by parents and, and leaders, teachers, pediatricians, one in 12 kids. So every 12 kid is, and that doesn't mean that the other 11 aren't suffering, they're all suffering as well. And, and, but it's like the big stuff and they're literally not going to, and it's not being detected. So kids are going into adulthood. With these traumas and not knowing what to do with them. And as you quite, you know, you said there's this excess energy because it's volcanic in nature and it's toxic and it's

• 19:55Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  exploding in all these wrong areas. And, and yes, you achieved as a, as a, a, a football player and you did like brilliantly and you're doing well, but inside the peace wasn't there because the volcano was still, yeah, so that was just the volcano keeping you going, but it wasn't the volcano eventually had to finish erupting and then, you know, the lava had to cool down so that the grass could be enriched by the minerals and then grow back again. And that's what you've done. You're kind of in the stage of your life now is where the volcano has finally stopped exploding. And you now, and when the lava's cooled down and there's all this green grass growing over because the soil is more enriched than it was before, which is what happens with volcanoes. You know, and that's, so that's an analogy, but in your brain as well, you actually really did reconstruct and deconstruct. But look at how for years you were

• 20:39Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  this, this thing generates, it's the wrong fuel, it's the wrong energy and energy's never lost, it's transferred. So you naturally as a child just transferred it. But you saw, I'll transfer it there, I won't do the drugs, I won't do the, which can so easily happen.

• 20:52Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 20:52Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  But you still didn't have the peace and the peace came once you recognized you had to, you had to recognize the source and de- and reconstruct that. So was your reconstruction, if I'm hearing what you're saying is through the learning that you've done. You were aware of your interpret incorrect interpretation, you were aware of the trauma, you knew where it came from, you could analyze the behaviors, you could see what you were doing. But it wasn't until you actually reconstructed, deconstructed and reconstructed. And kind of left the past behind because you couldn't change what happened to you. But you cha- you changed what was in you and you moved into a new future. And now that new future is filled with wisdom because when you spoke earlier on about the fact that you keep learning.

• 21:33Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  It's like literally the wisdom cycle. The wisest people recognize I, I really need to learn more. And you know, there's that I can need more knowledge to get more understanding and. With these to another level of wisdom, which is, oh, wow, I need more. And you've reached, you know, you're in that cycle and that cycle is in itself healing. And then because you're overflowing, because your your brain and your body, and I know we've discussed this before, but your brain and your body, your neurophysiology, your psychoneurobiology is wired for love. So all the structures, the proteins, the the optimism, but we we we're drawn to fixing the imbalances to because they they are threatening our survival, they're threatening that love. And that's what you you're drawn in that full circle to to restoring that balance.

• 22:14Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 22:15Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  And you recognize all your warning signals, which were telling you, hey, this volcano is exploding, there's the smoke. And you you took those signals and you actually deconstructed and reconstructed. And and it's led you to this point of I need to learn more, which is amazing. I mean, that is really, I'm saying everything that you said because I really want, I I hear it myself because I teach it. But hearing it from you, it's just been amazing that people need to hear this. It's not just going to go away. And at some point, you have to leave the past behind. You have to honor that it's happened. I mean, there's no lesson to learn from being raped as a child. There's no lesson, but there's healing that needs to take place. And there's a point where if you're going to move into the future in a constructive way, you have to immerse yourself in the reconstruction process, which is love.

• 22:57Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Is then and eventually then exudes love. So you've wired, you've reconstructed it into into the healthy tree and it's now changed. And now you're operating in the foundations of love, which is bringing all that healing back into your brain and your body. And it goes with the wisdom. So I mean, I just, it makes me excited when I when I hear you talk like that. I just get so excited because you're you just explain what what we need to do. It's just amazing and it can be done.

• 23:18Lewis Howes?

  And I think some people might say, well, you know, if we wanted to question ourselves and ask, well, why is this pain happening or why did this trauma happen? I just try to find the meaning on how I can have deeper empathy and compassion and and channel it and channel it through me for through my heart into love, into service.

• 23:36Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  What you've just said is so powerful.

• 23:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's that's what I try to do. There's there's no, there's no reason why we need to go through these certain things. In my opinion, except for pain brings us wisdom if we are willing to recognize it and be aware of it. And and hopefully that wisdom gives us more compassion and empathy for others that we could then help and support others through something like that is is really all the meaning I can think of for it.

• 23:59Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  You know what? That is mic drop stuff because that is a profoundly simple truth that you have. But it's so profound that if people get that. That is because you said three things that are profound. Number one, if you ask why, why did that person rape me? Why did I have that experience? Why me and not someone else? Why didn't I get protected? Why, why, why? We, yes, to a certain extent, need to ask those questions, but you're never going to get those answers.

• 24:22Lewis Howes?

  You're a sufferer.

• 24:23Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Destroy yourself, yes. It creates so much trauma itself because you're not going to get the answers. So the next thing is to, that's the deconstruction, to reconstruct it and to say, okay, well, how can I take? What do I want to do? How do I want it to look in my future? And you've said empathy, compassion, helping others, learning more, getting wisdom, sharing your knowledge, which is, so you've reconstructed, you've done a complete de-conceptualization. And as you said, there's not a lesson to be learned from that pain. There, I mean, you can't, how do you learn from a rape? But you can, you've got to heal from it. And then the healing is the lesson.

• 24:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, the healing, the forgiveness, the, the acceptance of the past and saying, what can I do to have a greater future for myself? And to help others have a greater future around me. And I think that's, that's why I feel like I sleep so well at night now is because, whereas before I wasn't able to, before I started healing and started, started talking about these things because.

• 25:18Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Hmm, talk about that.

• 25:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I mean, for, until I was thirty, I, it would take me an hour, hour and a half to sleep at night. I would sit there, I would lay there, I would try to go to bed early, I would go to bed late. I would do all these things and I just felt like I was constantly in this anxious state of mind of, and I wasn't even thinking about like childhood trauma, but I was just more like anxious. Yeah, I was just like stressed, anxious, I was like beating myself up. I was thinking I was not worthy. I think I needed to do more to like gain love from people or whatever, whatever might have been, or just analyzing the day, what I did wrong, or what I could have done differently. And now I, I really think about a few things at night. I, well, first I have a foundation now of healing because I've been doing the work.

• 26:01Lewis Howes?

  So I have, I've healed the past, I've forgiven everyone in my past and I've forgiven myself, which I think is the most important person to forgive. And then I think about like, I just try to keep it so simple. Because I have that foundation, I try to think about. Three things I'm grateful for from the day, even if it's a horrible day, I'm like, what are the three things I'm grateful for? And I know we've talked about this before, but that gratitude allows me to have perspective at the end of the day as opposed to focusing on all the horrible things or the bad stuff. It brings me back to perspective that my life is, my life is amazing, even if it's horrible. My life is amazing, even if it's the worst day ever and everything's against me. I lose all my money and something else bad happens. It's still incredible compared

• 26:45Lewis Howes?

  to most people, you know, or I can always find someone who's got a worse off life than me. Like it's all, I'm a physical, I'm able bodied, like my mind is here, you know, I've got people in my life. I've got a roof over my head. Even when everything is against me, my life is amazing with the right perspective. And so it's finding those three things every night to be grateful for. Then I think about, I think about what am I going to do tomorrow to serve people? How am I going to make someone's life better tomorrow? And that puts me into just a positive state of mind of like, okay, I'm not, I'm not ruminating on the past and I'm not uncertain about the future. I, I am like, okay, I know what I'm going to do because I have a meaningful mission in my life right now.

• 27:26Lewis Howes?

  And if you don't have a, you know, if you're not in the, the career or the relationship that you want right now, or if you're not, you're not in a place where you want right now, you can still think about like, who's my friend or my family member that I want to give a call and be a good listener to or supportive individual to tomorrow. And, and when I focus out, when I focus on service, it just brings me more peace and joy. And so most, in the past, I used to be thinking about myself. What do I need more for me to feel good? What do I need for this? Like, what am I not getting? As opposed to how can I be of service to someone else? And that, and that level of service brings me a lot more joy and fulfillment and peace. So it's just things I think about.

• 28:07Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Wow, that's amazing. When did you make that transformation from the healing of what do I need for me to the shift of how can I pay it forward?

• 28:16Lewis Howes?

  This is about 80 years ago. Yeah, 80 years ago, that started that process and it's been a game changer for me because. I remember within the first few months of starting this process, I was like, wow, I can now sleep at night. I can put my, I never used to be able to put my head down and sleep in five to 10 minutes. It'd always take an hour, it felt like.

• 28:37Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  And did you wake up during the night?

• 28:39Lewis Howes?

  Ah.

• 28:40Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Did you have to disturb sleep or night maze?

• 28:41Lewis Howes?

  I can't, I can't remember if I wake up a lot or not. I think I, once I fell asleep, I think I was asleep. But I would wake up anxious too. And I don't wake up anxious. I wake up excited and peaceful. You know, it's like.

• 28:55Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  So there's been a transformation?

• 28:56Lewis Howes?

  Yes. Yes. So my body would sleep because I also worked out very hard. So I was like, was tired, but my mind was racing. And, and so now I feel like I'm able to calm my mind and sleep when I want to.

• 29:11Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  And that's come from the healing. It's come from facing the stuff.

• 29:15Lewis Howes?

  Yes, absolutely.

• 29:15Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Looking at the volcano, getting the volcano to finish exploding and doing a complete reconstruction. So that healing work.

• 29:24Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 29:24Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Took you from, and when you, sorry to interrupt you, but when you were in that healing work, were you very absorbing, what do I need? Or were you, as you were healing, did you find the shift happening from, okay, this is what I need, but how can I pay this forward? Cause you, there's a definite shift that has occurred.

• 29:39Lewis Howes?

  I think that evolved in a process of months. It wasn't like overnight. I remember, like when I started the healing process, I would say I was analytical and emotionally analytical, I guess as well. I was feeling, I was processing, I was journaling, I was, you know, writing letters.

• 29:54Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Getting it all up.

• 29:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I was getting it all up. And so it was a process of self-reflection, of therapy, of interaction, of experiences. It took, it took months of inter, processing and integrating it into practice. I would say that whole process probably took for me nine to 12 months to the point where I would speak about it every other day to either a friend, a therapist or a peer. Because I wanted to integrate it and, and not just do it once and be like, okay, I'm done. Cause I knew that wasn't going to work. For me, I said, I need to talk about this as frequently. As often until it doesn't make me stutter or doesn't make my heart beat or doesn't make me cry.

• 30:41Lewis Howes?

  Cause I felt like, you know, I can still have a tender feelings around.

• 30:44Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Yeah.

• 30:45Lewis Howes?

  You know, what happened to my child itself. But when I talk, yeah, but when I talk about it, it doesn't consume me and make me like. Shut down or make me, you know, scared because. So it took probably nine to 12 months of.

• 30:58Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  You shifted agency back to yourself.

• 31:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and I was, I was committed though. I was like, I want to, I wanna, I'm willing to take feedback. I'm willing to learn. I'm willing to. Look stupid. I'm willing to do whatever to find peace. And I think my willingness was a big factor in. Seeking out the right advice, seeking out the right counselors to people to really guide me and then showing up and doing the work and being like, okay, who do I need to talk to? And having conversations with all my family members to help me process it. Okay, now. My family has to accept me and love me, but I don't feel comfortable telling a friend. So I was like, so I was like, okay, I got a lot of work to do. So it's starting to tell my best friends and then. Okay, well, my friends like me, but.

• 31:43Lewis Howes?

  You know, I couldn't tell an industry peer because they would never work with me again. And then I was like, okay, well, that means I gotta lean into it. And I started talking to it. To Pierce. For me, this was my process. I'm not saying this needs to be everyone's process. And then I was like, okay, I can talk to. Anyone about this, but I felt. Afraid to open up on kind of my, my platform, my podcast about this. And I, and I, and I went back and forth on this. I was like, well, maybe it's not the place for this and. I didn't feel like I, I, I had to, but I felt like for me. It was a bigger part of my process. If I wanted to be a leader in the world, if I wanted to inspire more people. I want, I, I was like, I really need to be extremely vulnerable for myself to take myself to the next level.

• 32:25Lewis Howes?

  And I was like, okay, and this may ruin my whole business and my career if I share these things. It was the fear was.

• 32:30Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Very dominant.

• 32:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, well, people listen, you know, or they're gonna just laugh at me or something. And things actually accelerated and grew from that point when I, when I revealed myself because people were like, oh, I trust you more. I feel like you're more. Real, you know, you're not hiding something. And that was a big eye opener for me where vulnerability became something that connected me to friends, family, you know, my people were listening or watching, I connected more, didn't actually hurt me, it actually supported both of our ability to grow. And that's been a, so it's been a beautiful journey, but I wasn't taught that as a kid to be vulnerable and to share your shame, you know, as young boys in our society, we're not taught those things. And in fact, when you, when you show

• 33:16Lewis Howes?

  any type of emotion around those things, or like you're going to communicate some of that stuff with your friends in elementary, middle or high school, it's kind of like you're shunned and you're shamed and you're, you're pushed away and you're called names and you're

• 33:28Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Man up and all that kind of toxic masculinity.

• 33:30Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. So, so you know, whether or not we're taught these things, our friend groups in general don't accept or tolerate these things. So we're taught not to from our peers. You know, it took me years of, of, of peeling back and unconditioning to kind of realize that's not the way.

• 33:50Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Yes, you just unpacked like neuroscience 101 with your, with your, with your whole story. As you're talking, I'm just thinking, wow, you know, there's just such a great way of explaining. Everything that you've done was just so, first of all, the time, I'm so glad you said it took time and you, for you nine to 12 months, but that was just the catalyst.

• 34:08Lewis Howes?

  That was the foundation and now it's I'm still doing it. Yeah.

• 34:11Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Exactly. So you're still going, so there's the time factor because that's one of the things that a lot of people will feel when they're going through stuff, it's ever going to end. You know, so the time and then also the willingness to do the hard work. I mean, you've put in hours upon hours upon hours and you, you gave, you, you were okay with recognizing, okay, this is who I am. This is, and you started that process of looking at the signals and looking at all your, the data and all the emotions and all the, how you interpreted your life and you did all that hard work to find the source and the roots and the origin and what it meant. And you, you, as you did that, you weakened that in your brain. Cause as soon as we are aware of these things, as soon as we do the work you've described, you're pulling this thought, this protein structure up from your brain, you're pulling the

• 34:52Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  DNA, you, you're shifting the DNA in every one of the 37 to 100 trillion cells of your body. You're changing all the energy waves in your brain. And you're giving yourself agency, you're shifting from this controlling you to you controlling that. But the deconstruction that you described and the reconstruction was time, time consuming and hard work. There was no five steps, magic steps. There was no energy, different people, different mediums, different ways of doing it, different processes, different. And it's just you never give up. You just, and you kept on progressing forward and giving. And that's, I'm not saying this because people needed to hang into the fact that maybe you're in the middle, maybe someone listening is in the middle or the beginning of this process. It's encouraging to know that it's, it's, it's a process of keep on learning.

• 35:38Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's been the key for me. It's like, when I think I've mastered something, go back to the basics. I've been salsa dancing for the last sixteen years, pretty intensely. And I, and I've traveled the world. I've been in the best like salsa clubs. I've danced with the best people and it's been an obsession. It was an obsession for many years when I got started because I lived above a jazz club in Columbus, Ohio. And I was twenty-two years old. And once a week, they would have a live salsa band come down and all the salsa dancers in Columbus would come out and, and, and, and dance to the live music. And I would go down and I'd be mesmerized by these, mostly, the mostly Latin community that were dancing.

• 36:22Lewis Howes?

  And I was just like, this is unbelievable. I don't think I could ever do this, but I was so fascinated by, by the way these people moved and the way they connected to the music and the way the energy. So every week I would go down, I would go down every week and, and watch and sit in the corner and literally, well, I was the tall, white creepy dude that would just stand there and like, watch, but I would never dance because I was so scared and so intimidated. And a lot of the regulars got to know me and, and so I got to become friends with some of the, the individuals and some of the women would be like, well, come dance with us, come dance. I was like, no, I don't want to make, I don't want to make you look bad. But after three months of doing this, I went, I started dancing. Someone finally dragged me on the dance floor. I started to dance.

• 37:03Lewis Howes?

  I was humiliated, embarrassed, not because anyone was laughing at me, because I just felt so. Incapable compared to everyone else. But that's when, that's when things. Yeah, it's very hard on myself, but that's when things switched. I was like, okay. I got through the humiliation phase. I went out there. No one cared that I was, looked like a fool. They're all just dancing. No one looked at me. No one cared. So let me go all in on this. I went all in on this for, I don't know, a few years. I was taking lessons. I was. Group classes, traveling, just learning and, and dancing. And I would do this, and then I went through phases. Some years I was doing, I was dancing for six months, then I went and danced for six months and. I kind of hit or miss some years, but for 16 years I've been pretty passionate about it.

• 37:48Lewis Howes?

  For two years though, I didn't dance until about six months ago. Partly because of the pandemic and, and I just kind of fell out of it for a little bit. And I said to myself a few months back, I was like, you know what? I'm gonna go and become a beginner again because even though I've. You know, at a certain level mastered salsa. I'm gonna go back and take one-on-one lessons from a top pro and I went back. And started taking lessons from someone here in LA. Who's amazing and I felt like I didn't know how to dance. Like she was teaching me basics. And I was so off. I was just like. And so for me, whenever you feel like you've mastered something, this is my analogy here, but whenever you feel like you've mastered something, I think it's always important to go back to the basics, the foundation.

• 38:33Lewis Howes?

  And, and relearn the basics because now it's making me a better dancer. Not by learning the advanced strategies, but by going back to the basics.

• 38:43Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  I absolutely love what you've said and it's a principle that I apply in my scientific work too. It as soon as I think, okay, now this is what I understand. I realize, oh gosh. Back to, back to the, go back to the beginning and start again and reevaluate. And I'm so, thank you for bringing that up. That's such an incredible analogy and. And the beauty of that is that we should do that because that's how we learn. We are like. Researchers, we don't know, we scientists, we are constantly hypothesizing and changing and growing, but if you think you've known it, you've blocked off a whole learning experience. So it's going back to, it's going back to the null, basically the null hypothesis, it's going right back to square one and starting all over again. And you know that that's a tactic that's employed by the CIA intelligence as well. It's one of their thinking strategies

• 39:26Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  that when you're trying to solve something and you can't solve it, you actually have to throw everything out, everything that you've done, and you've got to go back and assume that you know absolutely nothing. And that, and then you, and you build from there again. And that's what you, you know, your analogy, that's what you basically did. And that principle as well, when, when you talk about detoxing our mind, which is what you did, you also, you basically applied that. If I listen to everything you've said in, in our previous conversations, you've basically applied that in your life too, because you looked at, you thought, okay, I better start from the beginning. What is the root? You know, you went right back to the, to that, that starting point and reconstruct your life. So that is, that is amazing, which is, and that's a principle that's very difficult to do. Look at the effort that's gone into that. And in this quick fix mentality age

• 40:10Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  that we're in, people want a quick fix. And what we're both saying over here to all of you listening and watching is there is no quick fix. If you're looking for one, you're not ever going to feel peace. And it's another thing you stress a lot, Lewis, is that sense of peace. And I love that about you because it's something that, that I believe so strongly in as well. When people say, you know, it's for ultimate happiness or whatever, I always say peace is the, is the key thing for me. I want peace. And peace is that measure because from peace you can then recognize or whatever, because life is never going to be one big walk in the park. It's not utopia. There's life is real and things happen. And so that sense of peace in the midst of chaos is the, is, is the ultimate, what we want to achieve.

• 40:47Lewis Howes?

  The ultimate, the ultimate, I think it's the ultimate in relationships. It's the ultimate in your career. It's the ultimate in life. If someone's cutting you off in the street, it's like learning to become peaceful in your authentic power. And, and not to shy away from something, but to observe situations has been an incredible gift that I've learned and I want to keep learning and mastering it. But it's been powerful to not react in situations, but rather observe and say, okay, yeah, how do I want to respond to this? Do I, you know, and how is my reaction going to help me or the situation? And it's, it's a constant practice.

• 41:23Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  It's a master, becoming a master of self-regulation, isn't it?

• 41:26Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 41:27Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  It's and it's really managing one's mind constantly. And that's when you get to that point that you find, I don't know if I mean, as you say, it's an ongoing thing. So it's not like you and I've made it, but that's both of us, I believe, are striving for that.

• 41:39Lewis Howes?

  I feel like you've made it. You've had kids, you've you've dealt with all this stuff. You've been married with kids. I haven't experienced this part of life yet.

• 41:46Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  I'm twenty years older than you. So I'm twenty years older than you. So no, no, you're doing. Sorry, go ahead.

• 41:52Lewis Howes?

  I act like I'm this peaceful person, but parents are probably like, oh, wait till you have kids and and see how you can apply that, right?

• 41:58Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Yeah, that that is another challenge completely. When you kids rock your boat, when you think you know everything and you think you're applying everything correctly, I tell you, a lot of things go out the door. Even when you've got all the knowledge in the world, you but it it it the the desire for peace will bring you full circle back again. That desire

• 42:14Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 42:15Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  To communicate, to get back to the knowledge, to start from the beginning, to talk it through. I tell you, one day when you have kids, talk things through. Don't ever keep, just be honest, just talk it through, no matter what. Let them talk, let you, you talk. Get it out there. It's one of the things that has been a big principle in our family is teaching my kids to think and to challenge and to talk it through. And you may not always like what you hear, and you may not like being challenged. Because you'll get things like my kids will say, hey, mom, you know, when I was X age, you said this and that really rocked my world and messed me up completely. And you know, here I am, like all these years later, really, how did I do that? I know all this stuff. How could I have done that to this child of mine? You know, how could I have?

• 42:52Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Yeah, that's a gross. So if my kids are teaching me, I am still learning, Lewis. And it's like, they'll tell me this, oh, wow, I definitely didn't mean that, but look at my impact. Look what it did.

• 43:02Lewis Howes?

  Isn't it crazy that one thing we say could stick with someone for decades?

• 43:07Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Yeah, you let me tell you, your kids will teach you that. I have four, as you know, and and they're adults, all of them, between the age of twenty three and and thirty. And I tell you, they, we have the greatest relationship, but they are very open to tell us, hey, you did this, and you said that, and that's what it did to me. And thank God, because then you can see, wow, you know, those that, as you say, one word can shift. I I never meant that. It's not even how, it's not, but mom, this is what it did to me. This is the, you know, that's part of being a human, being, you talk about being authentic, you talk about being getting on your mic, on your platform and telling people about what you went through and how you thought they would. That's, as I can tell from my side, here I'm in mental health, but I've messed up, I've messed up some of my kids' lives. In terms of, terms of, when I say messed up,

• 43:51Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  we, we, we mess up, we have to mess up. And listen to what I'm saying here, is because that's the only way you can repair and grow. So in the same, by the same breath, I have the most phenomenal relationship with my kids, because I can own my messes. And I can look how to fix up. And, and that's something that I'm getting better at doing. It's not always easy, but I'm getting better at doing. And it's that learning process we talk about. You know, it's that mess and repairing and growing, but you're doing it. And you've got that foundation. And at a young age, you've learned such wisdom that is so powerful. And I, and I love that. And one of the things, I know you're really good, and I'd love to pivot to this, you touched on it. You spoke about the cultural upbringing and how you're the friends, you know, man up and, you know, you don't show your emotions. And this terrible culture we have of what a male should be and what a female should be. And you've written

• 44:34Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  about this in your books. And, you know, you talk about the rigid ideas of culture in terms of femininity and masculinity. And, you know, you've intimated that a few times. Can we talk a bit about that? Because I think you really have a good handle on this, of a good understanding. And I think you, you've helped so many people get free from culture, culturally imposed.

• 44:54Lewis Howes?

  I mean, I, yeah, of course. I mean, I've, I've obviously interviewed a lot of the experts on this who have a lot more research and knowledge than me, but I speak for myself from.

• 45:03Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Experientially.

• 45:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, from a young boy growing up in, in the eighties and nineties in Ohio, in the Midwest, and I lived in St. Louis, Missouri as well. I just didn't see an environment of cultural or peer acceptance, where it was okay to express emotions as a young boy and as a teen boy. It wasn't okay, wasn't accepted, it wasn't celebrated. And, and it was kind of rejected and made fun of. And, and for me, I never really saw a model of, of boys or men that showed something different. And so if we don't see models, if we don't see that it's accepted or celebrated, it's hard, it's hard to embrace and say that's something I want to become. When we see things that are celebrated, we want to become

• 45:49Lewis Howes?

  those things. And if the things that are celebrated are maybe not driven by a moral compass, or that are rigid or emotionally unavailable, then we're going to become more of those things. That's why I think it's, you know, unfortunate that. The world seems to be dealing with anxiety, stress, depression and mental challenges. And are talking about it openly more and more, but at the same time, they're talking about it. And more men are opening up and sharing these things, more athletes, actors, you know, activists, artists who have platforms are starting to say, hey, I'm not doing well mentally. Hey, I'm feeling anxiety. Hey, I'm stressed. I'm overwhelmed. I'm depressed.

• 46:30Lewis Howes?

  And so when we can see models of people that were inspired by that are opening up about these things, I think it's making it more acceptable in culture, which I think is really cool to see. So there's some pros and cons to it, obviously, because obviously, you know, with social media, it's becoming more and more anxious and stressful as a society, comparison mode, and the desire to want more, and the desire to never look and feel good enough when you're comparing to everyone else. But at the same time, you're seeing these people that you maybe look up to, talking openly about their depression or anxiety. And hopefully that's allowing some people to evolve and grow and be more vulnerable. But everyone's got to do the work. Everyone's got to do their own work.

• 47:08Lewis Howes?

  And that's, it's, it takes courage. And that's something that is hard to tap into, but it's needed.

• 47:16Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  You're one of the three percent, I don't know if you're aware of this, but you're one of the three percent of leaders that are actually talking about what is the most basic human thing, which is mental health. And, you know, and it's every single human, if you're alive currently today, you are going through and have gone through and will go through stuff. And this whole thing of women are allowed to be emotional, men aren't emotional. It's not even scientific. It's not, it's not in brain science. It's not in, no, it's just been this like this, these laws that have come into, into play in cultures across the world. It's not even, it's not even just any culture.

• 47:51Lewis Howes?

  Why do you think that is?

• 47:52Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  It's such an, you know, that is a good question. I'd love to understand why there've been such distinct roles between males and females and what people should and should do. I think personally, it's come from a multitude of factors, but it's trying to understand what we don't understand. This, this need to also to control and to sort of set boundaries of how people should be. You should be like this, you should be like this, you should be like this, because then we can control it. So it's desire to control the uncontrollable. Meanwhile, the whole part of being a humanist is this multitude of expressions. Now, I often teach, when I do lectures on this sort of concept, is it's not about whether you are. Whoever, it's first of all, it's you as a unique person. Forget what your gender is, forget what your culture is, it's you.

• 48:35Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  And there's something unique about you and and and Lewis, it's so fascinating because our brain and I'm and I'm holding up a model of the brain. Has got two hundred specializations and yours are different to mine. So there's, I need you because there's a a role that you play that I can't play. And by us connecting and that paying forward thing that you talk about, the empathy enhancement and love. That is activated, that activates the best in me and the best in you. And then it's like two waves coming underneath each other that that lift up and we can move forward. But there's this threat of uncertainty, this threat of I don't really understand you as a female, I don't really understand you as a male. So let's simplify and categorize. Males do this and females do that. And this culture does this and this, but even across cultures, it's male, female. And it's it's thank God, it is changing now that it's every human, if you're human, you have emotions.

• 49:20Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Every when you when you think, when you your mind is thinking, feeling, choosing, thinking, feeling, choosing. Humans think, feel and choose, you build thoughts, thoughts, feelings and emotions and choices. So in other words, whether you're male or female, you're doing that. So how can you eliminate a whole portion of of who we are? And and we're all processing a child who's kicking that ball out of anger, who's a little boy. That is an emotion and to tell that child, don't cry, be a man. Or you're acting like a girl, you're acting like a sissy. I it's shocking. I don't know. Why do you think? Why do you think it's like that?

• 49:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I think you're right where it's like trying to control and maintain a level of like emotional stability. I remember being having a lot of energy as a young boy and feeling deeply. I remember crying probably every day. You know, until I until I was like five, six or seven. I mean, something would happen where it'd make me react and cry for a few minutes.

• 50:11Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  And you felt guilty for it? Did you feel guilty?

• 50:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, or if I fell down and scraped my knee or something, I would cry, I would feel pain. I remember crying in the middle of the night a lot for my mom. Until I was probably like seven, eight or nine, I come kind of a long time.

• 50:25Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Did your mom die when you were young?

• 50:27Lewis Howes?

  No, no, she she would, no, she would, I would scream for her.

• 50:30Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Okay.

• 50:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah. And she would sleep, she would sleep with me until I was probably like. I don't know, once or twice a month until I was like seven, eight or nine. And as I look back at it now, it's probably a lot of the, the, the fear and anxiety around the sexual abuse that I had, that, that I was like, I didn't know how to handle these things and the, the feelings. But I used to do that a lot. And then, and then it's kind of like stopped. Like when I got to school, it was like the classmates that were like, would make fun of you when you cried on the playground. So that's when,

• 50:59Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  It became shame.

• 51:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it became like shameful and it became like, oh, I'm gonna be alone if I show emotion in this way. So I need to toughen up and not express this. Otherwise I won't have friends and I'll be alone and no one will love me and I'll die. You know, it's like kind of this fear. So I think it's a lot of like just.

• 51:15Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Fear of being alone, not accepted.

• 51:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, absolutely. And I think,

• 51:18Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Getting into a tribe.

• 51:19Lewis Howes?

  Or not belonging. Yeah. I don't know if girls do that in the playground where they're like shame you for crying. But I know that's, that happens with young boys, at least it did for me. So that, that was the, the early process. I don't think my parents ever told me like, don't cry, but it wasn't cool in school. And so I just adopted that mentality, which, which protected me, but also left me feeling like I was suffering.

• 51:45Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Like you're suffering because you couldn't process what was there.

• 51:47Lewis Howes?

  Couldn't express, couldn't express. The only thing I could express was anger. And that, and then that would get me into trouble and then that would cause a lot of other problems. And so that was like, well, I need an outlet and sports became the outlet to express it.

• 52:00Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Outlet to express that. But that wasn't enough because it didn't give you a sense of peace. It was a way of channeling that. So, so thoughts are real things and these things are generating energy and this energy's got to go somewhere because energy is never lost. So it goes in. So until you process this energy, it just becomes toxic and then this internal lack of peace comes and eventually it just explodes as you, as you've described so aptly.

• 52:18Lewis Howes?

  That's why step one is heal. Step one is heal, you know.

• 52:21Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Which is accept, yeah, yeah. That's why we have to face that stuff. We have to look at what we're doing and we have to be able to embrace, process and re-conceptualize it. And we should be teaching our kids from young. I mean, that's part of the work that I've done, as I've told you before, is that we, is to get people to, to encourage their kids. The best thing to be with a parent is to model your own emotions in front of the kids. If you're having a bad day. You tell them, you know, like, hey, I'm very irritable. Sorry if I screamed at you and I'm frustrated, but this is what happened and this is why I am and this is what I'm doing about it. So you give them permission to model. Now, I didn't grow up with that model. I grew up with you hide it behind closed doors and you, you know, you bury your head in the sand like an ostrich and, you know, you just don't, yeah, which is not healthy at all.

• 53:02Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  So I always determine I'm not going to bring up my kids like that. I'm going to encourage them to express their emotions and and get it all out and we're this loud Italian family that does it all, you know, but. So what you bring up there is so relevant in terms of the, you know, that males not being able to express themselves and how, thank God, it's now changing, which is so important. There's a million questions I want to ask you still, but I'm very respectful of your time. I want to just ask you if we can pivot over to talking about your morning routine. And I know that this is something that's very important for you and you've got a, and the reason I want to is because part of the scientific work that I've done is that your sleeping patterns at night are begun how you wake up in the morning. So the way that you actually wake up in the morning

• 53:47Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  and what you do in that routine sets the bar for how you're going to sleep at night because your mind never stops. It goes 24/7. So that, as you said, as a child, when you called your mom and the anxiety from the sexual trauma, it hadn't been processed. At night, your mind is trying to sort out what's unresolved and that results in our dreams and all that stuff. And if you don't deal with it, it explodes and so on. But the morning routine is so vital. If you wake up complaining, you're actually damaging your brain. And so, I mean, I'm fascinated with all that area. So I'd love to hear your take on your morning routine.

• 54:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 54:19Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  What to do and why.

• 54:20Lewis Howes?

  I would say my morning routine is not sexy. I would say I try to keep it as basic as possible and just do what I know is going to work and make me feel positive and ready to take on the day in a loving way. And I don't have, I don't have like some type of biohacking strategy. But what I do have are practical things that have worked for me over many, many years. And the first thing I do is wake up and say, thank you. Thank you for another at bat, another moment, another opportunity to live life. Thank you. You know, because I could have not woken up. Thank you. It's an appreciation. And when I start with appreciation and gratitude, I already feel abundance coming my way. I feel

• 55:03Lewis Howes?

  a positive energy towards what's happening that in the morning. Even if I feel like a little tired or like I didn't get enough sleep or whatever happened, I say, "Thank you for another opportunity," and that shifts my energy. So, "thank you" is a big thing. I'm a, I'm a big believer in hydrating. You know, you know the science behind what water does for the brain and how it activates the brain. So, drinking a lot of water first thing in the morning. If you want to do, you know, I go through seasons of life where I mix it up a little bit. Sometimes it might be a celery juice, but mostly it's just been water for me right now. And my goal is to work out first thing in the morning. Depending on what I'm doing in the season of my life, I might need to work out in the afternoon, but I always feel like this morning I got up,

• 55:44Lewis Howes?

  I did a boxing session, one-on-one session with my trainer, and I feel like, man, I started a Monday with a very hard workout. I feel like I completed something. Feel proud of myself. I feel like I'm taking care of my health, taking care of my health. I sweat out any toxins that I need to sweat out. I feel more confident. I feel like I'm growing. I'm improving. I'm consistent to my vision and my goals all before the morning's over. And I also came back. I made my bed. So, I have a clean space. And when I come home at night, I'm proud of what I did for myself in the morning. My future self thanks me for my current self. And I really just try to keep it simple. If I can, and I'll add meditation in there as well. I'm not always as consistent, but if I can do 12 to 15 minutes of a meditation that I like,

• 56:28Lewis Howes?

  then it's an even more of a bonus. But if I can do those three, four, or five things, and keep it simple. Don't try to like overload your morning with like all these tasks to do in your morning routine, and then you're tired for the day. It's like, just do the things that bring you the most peace, the most joy, the most gratitude. If that's 10 minutes of journaling, great. Journal about what you dreamt about last night. Move your body in a way that works for you. Drink some water, clean space, and really express gratitude. I think that will set you up to have energy, clarity, and peace for the day.

• 57:03Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Oh, I love that. I can't agree more. You know, it's so interesting as you go from sleep to wakefulness. You've got the whole, the whole way that your energy, the energy and chemicals move through your brain changes from when you go to sleep and when you wake up. So there's this whole shift happening and as the shift is happening, you're so vulnerable. So if you, if you don't grab that vulnerability, you can land up down, you know, in that toxic pattern for the day. So when you said there, you know, just thank you, the gratitude and ending your day with it. So you've bookended your day with, you know, you bookend your day, the morning and the evening.

• 57:34Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 57:35Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  With that gratitude, which changes when you're a physiology and you immediately, like it's so, cause I for years, Lewis, I would wake up complaining. I'd wake up like thinking of the day, fortunately I haven't done it for years because I've learned the science behind it. But I was in this habit of waking up and thinking, I've got so much to do and like this and that and seeing like the negative. And you know, the whole day would just get like terrible. So this is why I'm so hot on, you know, morning routines and getting that chemistry correct. And, and the complaining actually damages your brain. You're creating brain damage. And then you've got to try and deal with it during the course of the day.

• 58:07Lewis Howes?

  What does complaining, what does complaining do to the brain? And what's the science behind complaining?

• 58:11Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Well, basically if you complain as you're waking up, the chemistry is vulnerable. So if you go into a toxic state, you create a very.

• 58:17Lewis Howes?

  It's harder to get out of it. Yeah.

• 58:18Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Very. So you create that the whole alpha day and delta theta, alpha gamma, all the, the different frequencies of the brain. Start getting, you get more what we call high beta. So you get a very high kind of heavy going, hit hard hitting like a wave hitting a beach kind of energy. And in that in itself, it's going to trigger and bring up a lot of toxic thoughts that you actually may, which is not a bad thing to bring them up because you can deal with them. But if you don't, if you bring them up and then shove them back down again, they go back stronger than they were before. So the, the wave brings up a wave, the wave energy that complaining brings up a wave of energy. That brings up, drags with it like a whole lot of debris, debris, which you wanna deal with.

• 58:59Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  But if you don't immediately, you, and you push it down, it, it, the day can get worse. Then you also upset, you, you create some damage in different parts of your brain where this, as you're drawing that up, you, the hippocampal, the middle part of your brain is where we start drawing our existing memories through. So it moves, we have this movement through this one part of our brain and it can get damaged. So you, you can repair it, but it makes you feel awful. And then your body, your telomeres start changing because every, every second you're making a million cells.

• 59:26Lewis Howes?

  You get sick, you're getting old, yeah.

• 59:28Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  You, your body. So it just leads from one thing to the next. So if you, but if you capture that, so you know, the, I, your neurochemistry also is like a milkshake. If you don't go as crazy, it becomes like a milkshake. So the gratitude, the, the slowness, almost like the way you're using your hands, the way you described it. There's a, there's this whole transition where you're giving yourself space and you said certain things like, you know, it was very calm, the way you said it. And I noticed that. That is so important because there you gave yourself time to let your chemistry settle in, to let your brainwaves get into wakefulness. You gave yourself a, a transition moment, the thankfulness, gave yourself a bridge to get everything aligned so that you can be more wise and say, okay, well, this is what's coming up. How am I going to step out of bed and face the day?

• 1:00:11Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  You said things like, I'm drinking hydrating. So you immediately gave a neurophysiological boost. And then you did maybe a little bit of meditation or you went into a workout. You made your bed, you created space. Everything is all very peaceful and

• 1:00:23Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:00:24Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Organized and that's what your brain needs in the morning. So it's like, it's super, well, your mind, brain connection, not just your brain, the mind, brain, body connection. So I love that you did that. I thought that's just fantastic. So good, so good.

• 1:00:36Lewis Howes?

  Always learning and trying.

• 1:00:37Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Oh gosh, always learning. And, and I love to hear people's routines because the, the, for me, the simple and the peaceful are the whole goal. As you and I keep saying, the ultimate thing is peace. So you are big about taking care of your emotional health. And you've really started that. You've really literally started out almost like a movement amongst men to help them to take care of your emotional health. And you've written books about it and. You've been saying this all the way through this interview, but what sort of tips could you give to the males that are listening now and the females that have got these males in their lives, fathers, sons, husbands, that are co-colleagues, taking care of your emotional

• 1:01:17Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  health? How would you summarize kind of everything we've been saying into some pearls of wisdom?

• 1:01:24Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, I'm a big fan of therapy, to be honest. I'm a big fan of having some type of therapeutic experiences and accountability and support, whether that's group therapeutic experiences, whether that's one-on-one therapeutic experiences. For me, the mechanism isn't important, it's what works for you to help you open up, to help you heal, to help you share and have someone holding you accountable to you not hurting yourself and you not beating yourself up and you not being stuck in the past, but working towards progress of a greater vision for your life, of greater peace, of greater relationship connections, you know, and feeling a deeper sense of mission and purpose. And I think unless you're able to, like, I feel

• 1:02:08Lewis Howes?

  like for the most part, I'm able to do that for myself a lot of the times. But when I feel stuck or when I feel like, man, I'm really struggling in this relationship, I have coaches in every area of my life. I've got a great coach that I've worked with on a weekly basis for a year. And then now I work with him maybe once every month where I call him and just does like check in because like everything feels pretty good. Yeah, it all feels pretty good right now. So, okay, but I'll call when I need something, I'll call and just to like, okay, here's what I'm thinking of doing. What are your thoughts as a check in about my emotions or something? I've got a therapist, I've got a therapist I'm working with right now. For a few years, I wasn't working with a therapist. Now I

• 1:02:49Lewis Howes?

  went through a transition and a breakup a few months back and I wanted to, and I wanted to work on the transition of integrating the lessons, of integrating the healing so that when, so I don't repeat these, the pattern that I was repeating and that. But I may not have that continually for years. And I think it kind of depends. I've got a coach when it comes to my, my financial situation. That helped me in my finances. I've got a fitness and body coaches, you know, health coaches. So for me, I want to have accountability and support on on different levels of my life. And I think the emotional and mental level is the most important because our mindset, our emotions kind of dictate like our life.

• 1:03:32Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  They drive everything, first cause.

• 1:03:34Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. So it's like, if you're not learning about your emotions on how to navigate them in a healthy manner or your mindset in a healthy manner, then those things will be, they'll be driving you in an unhealthy way.

• 1:03:48Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  It's so exactly correct.

• 1:03:50Lewis Howes?

  And so I'm a big fan of having support and having people that you just reflect with and talk about things who can give you some tools and exercises. And try them on. Maybe they work, maybe they don't. But being in the practice of integrating healing and integrating growth is for me a lifelong mission. And I think if other men and women learn this process by listening to our shows like ours or programs that we have or finding a therapist or a coach or just an accountability buddy to get started, I think that's a huge plus to get started with.

• 1:04:24Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  I love that. That's incredibly important and so healthy because it's not about us, it's about us in the world and we need that support. No one can walk your journey, but we're supposed to walk, support each other through the journey of life. And to get perspective, you said that right at the beginning is how talking to someone gives you perspective. And that's something that we get so, when we get so caught up in the toxic thoughts of seeing life, there's no perspective when you're staring through a toxic issue and just going to someone saying, ah, I'm so mad about this, this happened and that happened. Getting it out, if it doesn't go out, it goes in. And as you've explained so, so eloquently throughout this interview, when you didn't know how to get it out, it came out in all the wrong ways. It exploded, goes inside and then explodes in the incorrect way. So to have that, that, that account and to encourage people to do that.

• 1:05:10Lewis Howes?

  Yes. And as an athlete, I understand and value coaching. And I think if, if people weren't athletes, I didn't have that in a big way in their life, they may not understand the power of coaching.

• 1:05:23Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Talk about that for a moment. Talk about the power of coaching. I think that's a very important, because there's so much coaching, coaching language around. What does it really mean to, what you've just said, because you said a big statement, what does that really mean? Because I think it's very important.

• 1:05:35Lewis Howes?

  Well, I think, I think it's, you know, I've had coaches that were extremely effective for me and I've had coaches that were ineffective in sports. And so I think one, it's finding an effective coach that works for you. I was talking with a very, a pretty well-known entrepreneur and personality online, I'd say. I was talking with him recently about this and he was like, I've never really had coaching. And I go, there's one thing, and I was like, you probably don't need it because you're, you know, he's had this billion dollar brand and have this big personality. And I was like, you've had a lot of great results. It's not like you need a coach, but there's one thing, there's one thing a coach will give you that could support you in acceleration of your vision, your goals, that is hard for you to do on your own.

• 1:06:17Lewis Howes?

  Even if you've already accomplished so much, there's one thing that a coach could, a really effective coach could give you. And that is helping you, you know, seeing your blind spots.

• 1:06:27Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  So good. That's brilliant. So a coach helps you see your blind spots.

• 1:06:31Lewis Howes?

  Just having that, and maybe you're so self-aware that you can see a lot of your blind spots and maybe you're analyzing it all day long, but typically you're so focused and driven, if you're a high performer, it's hard to take a moment back and reflect without communicating with the coach, really letting them assess it and seeing it from a different perspective, because your perspective is your way. It's not someone else who's also had experience and sees thing, and maybe it's working with lots of people that can connect the dots and give you a different perspective. And maybe it's going to be effective that time, or it's another time. It's not always going to work. But I think having a consistent coach that you respect, who has been there, done that before,

• 1:07:13Lewis Howes?

  can give you different options, different ideas to support you in accelerating that growth that you're looking for, or eliminating pain faster, or whatever it is that you need, help you save time, help you improve, help you heal, all that stuff. So for me, I'm a big fan of finding coaches that work for you, that make you feel good, but also that you'll respect and they'll take action on with their suggestions. And I, and I think, and I think it's foolish for us to think we can do everything in our life at the highest level all the time. I think it's foolish for us to think that with the responsibilities we have in life, the distractions, the limited of time, all these things that we might have to be dealing with. I think it's foolish for us to think that we can do it all on our own.

• 1:07:58Lewis Howes?

  And as an athlete, I remember thinking, huh, in order to become a better athlete.

• 1:08:05Lewis Howes?

  I needed a great coach to guide me, to coach me, to teach me, to help me accelerate, to see things, to see things in me that I never saw myself, to pick me back up when I got down, whatever it is, and to hold me accountable consistently throughout the season. And I look at the greatest athletes in the world, and when they reach the top, they don't say, you know what, I don't need this coach anymore, I got it myself. They say, I need to go harder with this coach. I need to find a better, I need to find a better coach to stay at the top or to get to the next level. And when I transitioned from the sports world playing arena football into just life and not having coaches anymore and that structure, I was like, I need a coach. I was like, I need a coach in my life. Like, what am I

• 1:08:50Lewis Howes?

  gonna, you know, if, if I know that having great effective coaches will help me accomplish my goals in sports, why would I not look for this in business and health and relationships and emotional healing? Why would I think I can do this on my own and excel at every area without a coach, without someone's? So for me, it was a natural progression because I understood the value of coaching and having accountability and support and reflection time. And I'm not saying you can't accomplish great results and feel happy and joyful without it, without coaches, but I just feel like with coaches, I know how power, how much more powerful we can all be.

• 1:09:28Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Oh, I love that. That's brilliant. And just last question, how would you, or second last question, how would you compare that to the therapeutic intervention that you've had? So coaching versus therapy?

• 1:09:39Lewis Howes?

  I think therapy is coaching. For me, it's like, I'm having an emo, I'm having an emotional coach that's guiding me and in an emotional boot camp and an emotional work, workouts and for a season of my life, that's, okay, here, I remember when I started this current therapy program back in, I guess it was end of January, February, when I was doing couples therapy, we were doing together, and I was also doing individual therapy with her and couples therapy. So I was getting like a double boot camp and I remember she said, okay, what's your goal? If you wanted to have a goal? And I was like, I want peace and clarity. I want peace and clarity because the relationship was was unclear of where it was going.

• 1:10:23Lewis Howes?

  There was and there was a lack of peace. And I said, I want P, I want clarity to know whether we're going to continue to grow together or to move apart. And I want to create peace in the relationship while we're doing this process. And after we commit or we move on, I was like peace and clarity. And so every time I met, every time I met with her, which was weekly for the first few months, because I felt like I needed to go all in faster and dive in. She would always say, what's our intention today? I'd say peace and clarity. I'm looking for peace and clarity. And so she would guide me with her exercises, with her questioning, with her homework, with her, you know,

• 1:11:05Lewis Howes?

  all these things together, she would guide me to support in finding peace and clarity. I don't think I would have been able to find it on my own. Maybe eventually, but all the exercises, all the questions, all the therapy, all the sharing, all the different feedback. She was able to see things and continuously see things that I can't see. Or maybe I can see them, but I don't know how to move through them in a healthy way. So it's something, there's something there. And I think it's foolish to me to think I could do everything on my own when there's so many blind spots and so much to learn.

• 1:11:41Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Oh, and what a brilliant way to end part one. There has to be a part, a part two and a part two.

• 1:11:47Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 1:11:48Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  We always say this when we talk to each other because

• 1:11:50Lewis Howes?

  Which we had hours, yes.

• 1:11:52Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  I know, but we will have, we'll do, we'll do a part two soon. Because this is, this has just opened another whole you, a whole lot of questions I want to answer, ask you. But I love how you've described that and, and I really want to honor what you've said because it's vitally important that we get that, that it's, that we have those goals of clarity and peace. It's been a consistent message throughout every time I talk to you, that clarity and that peace. And that is beautiful and talking to others and that whole way. You undergird the whole concept of it's not just about Lewis, it's about Lewis in the world and and learning from others and having that openness, hey, I need your help. I don't know it all. That's just so, so amazing. And I believe one of the reasons why you've just soared and why you touched so many people's lives is because you really are walking in love. I mean, I know that

• 1:12:35Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  sounds so cheesy, but you seriously are really that clarity and peace is oozing out of you. So I just want to honor you and thank you for sharing your phenomenal wisdom. And I have such fun talking to you. I learned so much.

• 1:12:48Lewis Howes?

  I appreciate it.

• 1:12:50Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Can't wait for part two and be fantastic. And where can people get ahold of you?

• 1:12:56Lewis Howes?

  Find me Lewis Howes online or just my website, lewishouse.com or School of Greatness anywhere online.

• 1:13:03Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Beautiful. Next time around, I want to talk about relationships, to dive into relationships.

• 1:13:08Lewis Howes?

  I've learned so much in the last eight months. So

• 1:13:10Dr. Caroline Leaf?

  Well, I cannot wait to do it. So well, let's do it because let's talk about relationships and how it relates to emotional healing and just the whole connection and life and goals and all those things, having all the experience you have now and it'd be so amazing to do that. So Lewis, thank you once again for your invaluable time and it's been such fun. Thank you.

• 1:13:30Lewis Howes?

  I appreciate it, Caroline. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. 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 show with all the important links and also make sure to share this with a friend. Leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts and subscribe over on Apple Podcasts as well. I really love hearing feedback from you guys. So share a review over on Apple and let me know what part of this episode resonated with you the most. And if no one's told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.