How To Be Obsessed With Achieving Greatness w/ Dan Harris EP 1419

https://lewishowes.com/mindset - Order a copy of my new book The Greatness Mindset today! Today I’m excited to share an interview I recently had around my new book The Greatness Mindset that I felt was so powerful and I wanted to share it here on our School of Greatness feed. Make sure to check out the original episode linked in the description to follow their show and give them some love. Make sure to show Dan Harris’ Ten Percent Happier podcast - https://www.tenpercent.com/podcastIn this episode you will learn,The difference between a powerless mindset and a greatness mindsetThe pernicious impact of self-doubtHow to counter your inner critic via a ‘contract with yourself’For more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1419 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?

  I believe there's two different types of mindsets. There's a powerless mindset and a greatness mindset. A powerless mindset just means you lack a meaningful mission. It's just lacks clarity of the direction we're going. That also includes impacting others around us with our gifts and talents. A greatness mindset is driven by a meaningful mission. 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.

• 0:44Lewis Howes?

  Hey guys. Today I am so excited to share an interview that I recently did around the new book, The Greatness Mindset. Again, if you haven't checked it out yet, make sure to get a copy of the book. But this interview I felt was so powerful, I wanted to share it here on the School of Greatness and on this channel. So make sure to check out the original episode linked in the description. Follow their show and give them some love. And again, make sure to pick up a copy right now of The Greatness Mindset and let me know what you think about this content.

• 1:12Speaker 01

  You've got this, uh, maybe this is not the right word, but maybe it is obsession with greatness. Where did that come from?

• 1:22Lewis Howes?

  Well, it started with being obsessed with success. And I realized that success, I got it. And it wasn't everything that I thought it was. I got it in sports and became very successful as an athlete in high school, college, professional football, and then played with the Olympic USA national handball team for eight years as well. So I accomplished success in a lot of different endeavors athletically for my goals and dreams. And none of those results got me the feeling of harmony, peace, and fulfillment. They got me a feeling of maybe

• 2:01Lewis Howes?

  Winning and competition and being right, but those things didn't bring me peace. I thought they would. I thought they would make me feel loved, harmonious inside, fulfilled, but they didn't. And that's when 10 years ago, I started the journey of, of, of saying, okay, success doesn't work because success by itself is selfish. It's for me. It's for me to look good. It's for me to win, for me to get credentials, for me to get, you know, seen on, you know, New York Times bestseller list and, and awards and all these different things for me, which there's nothing wrong with, with me, but I feel like the ultimate peace and harmony comes from service to others. And that's being in pursuing your gifts and dreams in the service of others. That's where greatness

• 2:46Lewis Howes?

  for me started to enter. And that's why I realized that greatness was much different than success. And that's where you find more harmony and peace inside because you're in service to others in the pursuit of your gifts and in your dreams.

• 3:01Speaker 01

  So what did that obsession with greatness look like for you? I mean, how, how did you go about learning about it?

• 3:09Lewis Howes?

  Um, through a series of events of a lot of pain and suffering and essentially my ego being shattered, my ego being hurt, my ego being, um, you know, tortured in a sense. And that was kind of, you know, not in the worst sense of the word, but I went through multiple different breakdowns in my life from business partnership, relationship breakdown, intimate partnership, relationship breakdown. And then it just caused me to break down in normal scenarios in life, being reactive, being resentful, being guarded, closing my heart, uh, and not living in a meditative state of peace and calm and response from joy and love and harmony. I was responding out of fear and anger

• 3:54Lewis Howes?

  and resentment. I wasn't even aware of it until multiple things broke down in my life right around 10 years ago. And it was just a good wake up call for me. It got me to look myself in the mirror for the first time and truly ask, you know, who are you? Why are you doing this? Why are you so reactive? Why are you living out of anger and resentment and fear as opposed to love? And, and again, I was driven to succeed in different areas of my life because I thought it would give me a sense of fulfillment, a sense of love, a sense of I am enoughness. But the more I succeeded, I almost got angrier at the world. I almost got angrier at others and angry at myself because I didn't know

• 4:39Lewis Howes?

  how to feel emotionally in harmony and congruent with myself. Cause I was driven to succeed. I got it and it didn't give me what I wanted. So I was extremely confused and went on, I started to go on a journey. Uh, in a similar way that you went on your journey of, of meditation and, and consciousness and self-reflection and, and finding that inner peace, uh, in a, in a world of stress. And so I started to go on this journey for myself of trying lots of different healing modalities to figure out where the original wounds were inside of me. Causing me to feel pain, causing me to be triggered and reactive in different scenarios emotionally.

• 5:23Lewis Howes?

  As opposed to noticing an event, interpreting it differently, having different meaning around it based on healing my past memories. And then responding in a conscious, more conscious way. And it was these series of breakdowns in personal relationships essentially that caused me to look in the mirror. And I just didn't recognize myself. I didn't know who I was. I thought I knew based on the results I was getting. But that identity was based on the foundation of an unhealthy identity, not a conscious loving identity.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  You said, you talked about this feeling of not, not being enough. Uh, I think that's pretty common. We, people who are uh, successful, I'll, I'll just speak for myself. I, I think that if I've been driven at many points in my life by, you know, filling some unfillable hole. Right? That I haven't even been able to perceive correctly.

• 6:21Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 6:21Speaker 01

  Um, and I think sometimes people wonder, well, if I feel like I'm enough, will I? Still try to be successful.

• 6:28Lewis Howes?

  Uh, well, for me, I can relate to that because I'd never felt enough after sports. I said, well, let me go into business and try this avenue in this arena and let me see if I can be successful here. And I realized the sports success translating into business, you know, making my first seven figures and kind of getting the awards and the accomplishments. They were nice. It wasn't like it wasn't useful and helpful, but it began to give me the, the inner peace still, the, or at least the calm presence. And the I am enoughness feeling that I was always looking for because I was still kind of feeling empty when I transferred in the business as well. And, um, what I realized is that we must be called and driven by a meaningful mission, something that's bigger than

• 7:11Lewis Howes?

  just our goals and dreams. It must be much more meaningful. And something where I, I believe there's two different types of mindsets. There's a powerless mindset and a greatness mindset. A powerless mindset, uh, lacks a meaningful mission. It's just lacks clarity of the direction we're going. That also includes impacting others around us with our gifts and talents. A greatness mindset is driven by a meaningful mission. So when I've, I've started to feel, and this has really been in the last two years for me, it's been a 10 year journey of discovery and healing, different things that were causing me to doubt myself, different things that were causing me to be driven, uh, based on a wound to feel more enough and fill the hole.

• 7:55Lewis Howes?

  And in the last two years, I feel, uh, again, healing for me is a lifelong journey, but I feel much more wholeness emotionally and psychologically from the last two years of diving in even deeper on the healing journey. And in those two years, I feel more clear, more driven to accomplish my meaningful mission.

• 8:19Lewis Howes?

  And I'm doubling my business over the last couple of years. So I don't feel less driven and more lazy and more complacent because I now feel more whole and fulfilled and harmonic inside of me. I actually feel life even with more urgency. I feel a sense of like, life is now even more. And so I must act accordingly on my dreams and goals and empower and lift up people around me in my, in my sphere of influence to the best of my abilities because it could all be gone in a moment. I know you spent a lot of time with Dalai Lama and I know you've done a lot of practice

• 9:00Lewis Howes?

  and really reflecting on death as part of a meditative practice. And I think when, you know, I've had two friends in the last couple of months who are around my age, two male friends who died. And for me, and my father just died last year after seventeen years of dealing with a brain, traumatic brain injury that, that shifted his life forever where he wasn't able to pursue his dreams anymore. So for seventeen years, he was alive after a car accident, but it left him unable to work, unable to cook, unable to drive, unable to do a lot of things.

• 9:40Lewis Howes?

  And that awareness of how death is just around the corner for each one of us potentially. Hopefully we live a long life, but it's just, it could just be around the corner. We don't know. For me, that really, that's the thing that drives me passionately towards creating something in the world, making something, helping people.

• 10:08Lewis Howes?

  And having that harmony and peace inside doesn't make me more lazy. It actually drives me to serve because now I can feel fulfilled in a deeper level.

• 10:19Speaker 01

  I've noticed that a little bit in my life and I've, I've not been great at crystallizing it, but somehow being happier, having a, a, a set of goals that transcend my own narrow interests. Has not shaved down my edge. It's made it. Um, not all the time, but for the most part, I, I feel like I'm more ambitious and more effective.

• 10:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 10:42Speaker 01

  Than I used to be. I mean, I, I still have my bad days for sure, but.

• 10:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, but your impact and your reach and your growth is expansive over the last few years and you're able to impact much more people and the results. Uh, are coming in also. I'm assuming a financial and numbers results and all these things. You just keep growing. And it's different levels to the seasons you're at, you know, maybe you're. I don't know. I want to use the word lazier in some ways, but maybe you're pulled back in some ways, but you're wiser, you're more empowering to people around you. You create systems and processes and are smarter in your efficiency and your productivity. As opposed to I'm driven all day long and hustling. It's more of a, a wiser season because you've done so much.

• 11:27Speaker 01

  Well, I appreciate that. I hope, I hope you're describing it accurately.

• 11:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's, that's the way it looks on the outside.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  Well, I love my producer DJ who's lurking on this call way in with his views. That, that'll be the real test. Uh, but back, back to you. Uh, uh, I'm curious. You, you mentioned that the last two years have been particularly impactful.

• 11:46Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 11:47Speaker 01

  First of all, I'm very sorry to hear about your dad and about your friends.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  But, but going back two years, what else has been going on in your personal life? If you're comfortable talking about it, that has provoked such a deep dive for you.

• 11:59Lewis Howes?

  I think it's, you know, I think the scariest times for us are when life are good and when life are bad. I think that's the scariest time for us because we typically don't take the, the actions we need in order to unlock the next thing. We get familiar, we get comfortable with good life and bad life.

• 12:20Lewis Howes?

  And it's just hard to stay accountable to yourself. It's hard to be driven, to be pushed, to, to get the feedback you need. And to really say, I want to get to the next level when everything is going well and when things are going bad. It's when things are in an extreme, that's when we tend to look in the mirror and wake up more. And so I was going through kind of an extreme emotional relationship, to be honest, a few years ago. Where it just wasn't working. And I had a way, I had started to heal lots of things from my past 10 years ago, eight years ago, five years ago, from things I talk about publicly. I've been sexually abused in my past. It's one of my first memories is a memory of sexual abuse. My brother, my brother was in prison for four and a half years when I was eight years old,

• 13:04Lewis Howes?

  until I was 12 and a half. And that caused a lot of trauma and pain within the family. And also, I just really wasn't allowed to have friends during that time. So it was a very lonely time for me in my small town of, of, in Ohio, where, you know, I was just looked at as a bad kid as well, because my brother had been in prison. And so there was a number of instances that, that I had to learn how to amend and create new meaning from the pain of the past that were causing me to doubt myself, that were causing me to believe in a certain thing that I wasn't good enough, that was driving me to be successful so that I could fit in and belong to groups and friends and societies and teams.

• 13:47Lewis Howes?

  But at the end of the day, I didn't fit in and belong to myself. I didn't fully accept who I was and I was crippled with shame and insecurity and self doubt. So this whole journey has been how to rid myself of insecurity and self doubt. Because even though I was successful, insecurities and doubts still caused me to feel extreme inner pain, sadness, loneliness, anger, resentment and frustration. So it wasn't giving me the fuel that was renewable and abundant. It was, it was an anger fuel to get muster out results and grind it out and left me feeling exhausted.

• 14:28Lewis Howes?

  So 10 years ago was a journey of healing the sexual abuse memories and those traumas. Then, you know, brother being in prison and parents going through divorce and kind of having a model of unhealthy conscious love between each other and me learning how to unwind that to all the bullying and being picked on in school and all that stuff. But I still hadn't figured out how to stop abandoning myself in intimate relationships. So I would want to create peace with my partner. And whenever she would be upset at me, any of my previous partners, I would give in. And I don't blame any of them and nothing is wrong or bad with any of these partners. It's just situational. When they would get upset at me or when they weren't happy with something,

• 15:13Lewis Howes?

  I lacked the emotional courage and the emotional freedom to say, okay, well, this is who I am. And here's what I can do, but I'm not going to give in in these ways and abandon who I am, who my personality is, what my vision is and my values are. But in intimate relationships, I would give in, give in, give in and change to people please and try to buy peace in my life. But you cannot buy peace. You must be peace, as you know, this is something you study constantly. We must be peace. Things are going to happen around us. How we react and respond is based on our own psychological and emotional wounds, on how we interpret these scenarios around us and how our nervous system reacts to something.

• 15:57Lewis Howes?

  So I would get very reactive in terms of fear and worry and I don't want to upset you. Okay, I'll stop doing this. I'll stop doing this. And until it just felt like I forget who I am because I would allow myself to abandon all the best parts of me in order to make someone feel safe or loved or whatever they needed to feel. So again, this is not a blame game. This is a reflection on me lacking the emotional courage to say, all right, well, maybe this just isn't the right match. Maybe we're just not the right fit. Instead of walking away, I would dive in and try to make it work more and more and more. So two, two and a half years ago, it was just, it was kind of like, okay,

• 16:39Lewis Howes?

  I've been at the common denominator of all these relationships in the past 15 years, where I ended up suffering and struggling. And I ended up abandoning myself to make my partner okay. And no matter how much I would give in, they were still not okay. And I was just like, kept repeating this pattern. And I was like, okay, I'm the common denominator. I'm the one who's the source and the cause of all this suffering. So how can I take a step back and really evaluate it differently? So this is when I hired an emotional coach to guide me in another process of healing, how I interpreted intimacy and relationships.

• 17:21Lewis Howes?

  I met with her and I said, she said, what's your intention? When I met with her, I said, I want peace, freedom and clarity. Cause I felt like I had none of those. And every time and I said, I will do whatever you tell me to do. I will do whatever it takes. I will say, I'll, I'll stay in your office for as long as it takes and meet with you. I will do any exercise, put me through any weird woo woo crazy thing. Whatever it takes for me to unlock and set myself free, I will do it. And I spent five intense months, nearly every week, sometimes five, six hour sessions, individually and joint with the previous partner to set myself emotionally free. And there was a pain, a ball of pain.

• 18:03Lewis Howes?

  I don't know if you've ever experienced this, Dan, where you had a ball of pain like in your chest, your stomach, your throat, your shoulders, kind of like a tightness. My, mine was a ball of pain. It was kind of like in my chest area that would come and go and sometimes intensify. Now I was healthy, I worked out, I ate well, but this ball of pain was there. And it was based on a psychological and emotional wound that I'd yet to face, yet to have the courage to address and, and mend. And there was a moment in one of these sessions after about four months of intensive emotional coaching,

• 18:44Lewis Howes?

  where it all started to click. Again, in a moment, things can unlock, but it took months and, and practice and application of integration for it to open up. And it was almost as if the ball of pain disintegrated throughout my entire body in a moment. It's like my brain and my body finally connected to the idea that I am not a trapped human being. That was my fear, that I'm going to be trapped, just like my parents. They were miserable for 30 years. They didn't fully love each other, but they stayed together because they felt like they had to for us kids. And they didn't, they didn't show love and affection to each other, although they loved us.

• 19:24Lewis Howes?

  And I did not want to repeat that. So I felt like there was no way out. I had to give in and give in and give in. And that caused me to feel this sense of trappedness. And the fear of judgment was my biggest fear. There's three main fears that cause us to doubt ourselves the most. And I'm a big believer that self doubt is the killer of all dreams. And my big fear was judgment. What are people gonna say? What is she gonna think if I end the relationship? What are others gonna say? How are they gonna view me? You know, I want to make sure that I look good to everyone, that I don't want people to not like me. All these insecurities and fears were boiling up inside of me constantly.

• 20:06Lewis Howes?

  And when I was able to go back and create a new relationship, this is gonna sound weird. But when I created a new relationship with my five year old self, with my 12 year old self, with my 18 year old self, and started to create new meaning from these memories and wounds. And say, hey, listen, I got you now, five year old Louis. I got you 11 year old Louis. I got you 18 year old Louis. Thank you for getting us to here. I'm gonna take over now. I'm gonna, I'm gonna support us. I've got the tools now. So we don't have to be living in this past trauma anymore. We can create new meaning, as Viktor Frankl says, creating new meaning around it. We can mend these wounds and we can live from a place of harmony and peace.

• 20:51Lewis Howes?

  And a meaningful mission as opposed to a protection energy and a need to protect and defend. And when that unlocked inside of me, it's been two years. It doesn't mean there's not stressful situations and challenges and adversity to overcome. It just means I am in a much more peaceful state of being to navigate the challenges without falling apart.

• 21:19Speaker 01

  I mean, it sounds like you did. Extremely good work there and that that cannot have been easy.

• 21:25Lewis Howes?

  It's terrifying, terrifying.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:29Lewis Howes?

  And it's here's the thing, just because I've done the work, I continue to do the work every two weeks with an emotional coach because I am such a big believer in coaching and in listing support in in ourselves and the different areas we want to improve upon. So just because I feel peaceful and good, I keep getting coaching and diving in more courageously into the things that are uncomfortable to talk about. So I can keep breaking through and just maintain a level of harmony under stress. As I grow and as I develop in the new seasons of life and as there's more pressures, I want to maintain this level of success. And I think that's why you meditate so frequently, even if it's for

• 22:10Lewis Howes?

  five minutes a day, which I've heard you talk about, if you don't have an hour, it's only five minutes. Sometimes you do it because you want to maintain a level of calmness in your mind and your emotions. Even when things are good, I think it's important to continue these practices.

• 22:27Speaker 01

  I completely agree with that.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  It's like exercise. You don't want to stop as soon as you get into good shape because then you're going to fall out of shape again. Does anybody ever say to you, all right, yeah, I

• 22:39Speaker 01

  I'm interested in greatness, but if it means staring forthrightly at all of my trauma and I don't want to look at, well, greatness.

• 22:46Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 22:48Lewis Howes?

  Well, I just think you can still have success, but it doesn't mean you're going to have fulfillment and you're not going to have peace. And there's a, and I just think you're going to live there. Again, there's for me, there's two mindsets. There's a powerless mindset and a greatness mindset. And this is just my belief from my experience and all the research I've done over the last 10 years of interviewing some of the most brilliant minds, similar minds to yours in the different fields of neuroscience, therapy, spirituality, mindset and beyond. And for me, it doesn't mean this is not a right and wrong, good or bad conversation. This does not mean you can't still be successful and have a fun life. This just means, do you want to feel disempowered in your mindset?

• 23:33Lewis Howes?

  Or do you want to feel empowered and step into greatness? And so a powerless mindset. Is when at any moment, and this could be a moment to moment thing. It doesn't, it doesn't mean right or wrong or bad. A powerless mindset just means you lack a meaningful mission. You lack clear, meaningful mission. And even if you're in a transition of your life, or you're in a breakdown, or you're, you're in a season where you're like, I'm not sure what I want, or you feel stuck, then just define the season you're in. Okay, this meaningful mission, I'm in a season of exploring. I'm in a season of resting and recovering. I'm in a season of trying to figure out who I am. Great. Then just being clear on what your meaningful mission is

• 24:18Lewis Howes?

  during a season of exploration or breakdown or stuckness. A powerless mindset is someone who's controlled by fear. When we, when fear controls us, it has power over us. I'm not saying you're going to eliminate all fear, but being able to manage the fear and move with it is what we want to learn how to step into. When we're crippled by self doubt, self doubt is the killer of dreams. So we're in a powerless mindset state of being in that moment. When we conceal past pains, I don't know, maybe you can, maybe you can give me, you can question me on this. You can come at

• 24:57Lewis Howes?

  me on this, Dan. Have you ever not shared something that you were extremely insecure and shameful of? And were just worried about what people would think about you, whether it's some extreme thing or just a minor thing. And it was a, it was a shame. It was a little insecurity. It was a past pain and you held on to it. Did you ever feel like holding on to it and not one human being ever knowing about it was empowering and gave you peace and harmony? Or did not one person intimately or, you know, a spiritual guide or a friend or spouse or family member,

• 25:40Lewis Howes?

  knowing this about you, did it allow you to have a little bit more relief and empowerment over it?

• 25:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a hundred percent the, the latter, the, Taking the skeleton out of the closet, a place where you feel like it's okay to do so. That is extremely liberating.

• 25:59Lewis Howes?

  Liberating. And so when we conceal past pains, traumas, shames, any of those things, it just, for me, those things have power over us. We, we are afraid to conceal them, to share them. Therefore, it is controlling us in some way because we're afraid of what people will think about us. When we're defined by the opinions of others, when we're defined by them, when we put our self-worth on the opinions of others, we're in a powerless mindset. And when we drift towards complacency, which I think is what you talked about is, you know, is anyone going to be afraid if they have harmony in their, in their heart, peace in their heart? Are they going to complacent? For me, it's been the opposite. I've been more driven over the last couple of years. Because I have this abundance of peace, I have so much more energy

• 26:44Lewis Howes?

  that I feel like I want to create with urgency even more now because I'm not managing stress and breakdown and, and all these different challenges. And the greatness mindset is essentially the opposite of these. Someone who is driven by a meaningful mission. For me, I just define the meaningful mission as in one sentence. Can you define what path you're on right now for this season of life? And for me, that's to serve and impact a hundred million lives weekly to help them improve the quality of their life. It's one sentence. It's not all about me. It's about including others as well, and that makes it meaningful. It includes my goals and dreams and the things I want to be successful in the service of the people around me. This doesn't mean we gotta go

• 27:29Lewis Howes?

  cure the world of cancer and, you know, change the world or anything like this, but how are we including the people around us and empowering them and lifting them up on our pursuit of our dreams? We turn fears into confidence. I don't know about you, Dan. I know you're extremely gifted and talented. I think you're in the top of your class. You know, you're you're you got thirty Emmys in the background, uh, sitting in your lap. You've got all these Emmys. You have a high IQ. Uh, you had a lot of confidence, I feel like, based on your credentials, your abilities, you know, where you went to school, all these things. Um, I don't know if you ever had any fears. I'm assuming you did. I'm just throwing that out there as a rhetorical question.

• 28:13Lewis Howes?

  But for me, I had a lot of fears and I had a lot of false confidence. I projected myself with an ego to belong, to fit in, to feel like I was enough. Uh, and it wasn't until I hit my my twenties after professional football when I realized, wow, I actually have a lot of fears. And so I made a fear list because these fears were really holding me back and causing me to doubt myself. And when I started to go all in on the fear of public speaking every single week until it became a superpower of mine. When I started to go all in on salsa dancing, because I was most terrified of salsa dancing the most because I couldn't dance. And I thought, okay, here's a dance where I don't know the language. I don't know the culture. I don't know anything. And I stand out.

• 28:59Lewis Howes?

  I threw myself into the most embarrassing things that were were for me because I didn't want to be disempowered by these fears anymore. And when I started to do that, I was able to gain humble confidence because I had to be humiliated in some sense where I wasn't good for a long time. And so I gained a sense of humble confidence in these powers that once were making me feel powerless. Uh, they overcomes you. You overcome self doubt when you're in the greatness mindset. You heal past pain. You don't conceal them. And so that you can have a conversation about these things without it crippling you and making you tremble. You can speak more consciously on the things that used to cause you the most pain.

• 29:45Lewis Howes?

  They create a healthy identity. I don't know about you, Dan, but I I um. I used to be really angry 10 years ago. I used to, I was a fun, happy, loving, joyful guy, but inside of me was anger, resentment, frustration, a lack of forgiveness. So when the wound was triggered, when someone hit my buttons, what was inside of me came out. Anger, resentment, frustration, a lack of forgiveness, a sense of unfairness, that came out of me. And I was a unhealthy identity I had with myself. I would tell myself all the time, you're so stupid. Why did you do this? What an idiot you were. I can't believe you made this mistake.

• 30:30Lewis Howes?

  What a dummy. I used to get, beat myself up. When I was younger, I used to like physically punch myself in the head when I would make mistakes because I thought, man, I can't make this mistake. I'm such an idiot. I would say these things internally to myself. And I don't know if you ever had these internal dialogues earlier in your life, Dan, but if, if people actually recorded these dialogues that a lot of us have, when they're really negative and they played it in a loudspeaker, they would probably send us to like a mental institution or do, tie us up or something. And imagine if we said these ting, these things to the people closest to us. You idiot, what a dummy. I can't believe you made this mistake and you said this over and over to the people you cared about the most. They wouldn't want to be in your life.

• 31:15Lewis Howes?

  And so it's hard to want to be in your own life when you speak this way, let alone other people wanting to be in your life if you spoke that way. So I had to create a new contract with myself. And I don't know if, if you've ever done an exercise like this, Dan, where, for me, again, I felt like I've had to do some extreme things when I was in extreme breakdowns and internal suffering. So I started to look myself in the mirror and really say like, who am I? Why am I doing this? And just ask these questions and start going through these healing modalities, workshops, meditation, retreats, therapy, coaching. I went and did it as many things as I could in the last 10 years beside, except for medication.

• 31:58Lewis Howes?

  I haven't done any type of drug therapy or hallucinogens, psychedelics. I haven't done any of that because for me. That kind of scares me, you know, I don't know what that is gonna will do to my brain. And I, you know, I have people that swear by it and they say it's amazing, but I also have seen too many cases of people that it's messed their brain chemistry up so much that they can't recover. So I feel like that would be a last resort for me. If I was suffering so badly and I felt like I tried everything I could, then maybe I would try that.

• 32:32Lewis Howes?

  But for me, I had a very unhealthy identity with self. And it was driven by fear, insecurity and ego, the need to look good, the need to be right, the need to win.

• 32:46Lewis Howes?

  And I started to shift this 10 years ago. I created a contract with myself. A new contract of something that needed to be believable. I couldn't lie to myself and say, okay, I'm going to be this way. This is going to be my new identity. And it would be something that was really I was faking it. I don't really believe in the term fake it till you make it. I think facing it until you embrace it is better. It's like facing the thing that you want to embrace. And becoming that is more empowering for me. So I created a contract with myself. This was a literal writing it down on a piece of paper and signing it contract. And I asked myself, what is the healthy identity I would like to step into?

• 33:31Lewis Howes?

  And I said, three words. I am a loving, passionate, wise man. Now, what was inside of me before then was love, but there was also anger. So I wanted to remove the anger and step more into becoming love. I was more frustrated when I was triggered and I said, but I'm also passionate. So let me step into passion. I'm a loving, passionate. And I always used to say to myself, man, you're so stupid, Louis. You're such a dummy. I can't believe you did this. What an idiot you are. I would say so many disempowering, critical things about my intelligence. Because I was in the bottom of my grade and in in in school, middle school and high school.

• 34:14Lewis Howes?

  Because I had a second grade reading level in eighth grade, because of my dyslexia and the struggle that I just faced trying to remember things.

• 34:23Lewis Howes?

  So I I used to be really good at being self critical around my lack of intelligence and schooling.

• 34:31Lewis Howes?

  And so I said, okay, I can't say I'm a loving, passionate, smart man because that would be fake to me. It would be inauthentic. I'd be essentially lying to myself and that wouldn't work. But I said, what's the word that would resonate with me? Well, I'm a loving, passionate, wise man. I have wisdom. I have experience. I've overcome stuff. I'm, I'm good with people. Um, I have street smarts. And so I became a loving, passionate, wise man, which became a contract I had with myself. I didn't need to say this to the world. I just said this to me whenever I felt like, oh, man, I'm going back into that old self critic. And I said, no, I'm a loving, passionate, wise man.

• 35:14Lewis Howes?

  That contract written down, signed, became a new identity that I was becoming and stepping into. And really allowed me to create a healthy identity, which is a part of the greatness mindset. And the final thing, part of greatness mindset is taking action with a game plan. Again, it doesn't have to be some extreme hardcore, like burn yourself out. Game plan and taking massive action hustling. But there are seasons to life and just being clear on what is the mission? And what is the game plan? And when you can do those things within the greatest mindset, that's when you unlock a more sustainable harmonic identity and life.

• 35:54Speaker 01

  I know you're not saying this, but I want to get you to accentuate it.

• 36:00Speaker 01

  Shifting into what you're calling the greatness mindset, this is not easy and overnight.

• 36:07Lewis Howes?

  Uh, I mean, I wish it was, but I mean, it's taken me 10 years to like be in the process and in each phase of these last 10 years, I, it's, I've grown and overcome certain things. But I, I don't know. For me, Dan, it usually takes me a lot longer to learn certain things and I tend to make the same mistake over and over again, until it gets extreme breakdown. So I've had to face these things in a lot more pain and suffering than I think uh, I want other people to. So the goal is just to, to give people clarity and use my suffering and my breakdowns uh, to your benefit. You know, one of the things that was extremely painful growing up was going to a prison visiting room almost every weekend, driving two and a half hours

• 36:50Lewis Howes?

  uh, in Ohio in a car with my family to go see my brother. And I kind of, I kind of smile about it now, but it was really. It was, it was pretty traumatic to like drive to a prison, have to everyone get padded down, go through the metal detector every time, be in a waiting cell and then go into visiting room with thirty other inmates and their family for a period of time, watch your brother get padded down, coming out there in a jumpsuit and like experiencing that over and over again as an eight-year-old until twelve. It wasn't fun. But looking back

• 37:28Lewis Howes?

  on it, his pain and his breakdown and me experiencing it made me never, he sold drugs to an undercover cop. That's what got him in jail. And he got sentenced on his first time getting, his first offense, he sold LSD to an undercover cop. And he'd never done it before. He'd only done like, you know, trading weed with like a couple of college buddies every now and then. But then he got set up and the setup caused him to get caught to try to sell these drugs. And so I've never been drunk and I've never been high. And maybe that's extreme, but his pain caused me to see things differently and clearly

• 38:08Lewis Howes?

  and just say, I don't even want to tempt myself to go down this path, even if I just minimally do a little bit here and there. Glass of wine is fine and all this stuff is fine. I just got clear that that's not the life that I want to experience. The pain and suffering that it caused him, my family, myself, I don't want that. And so, you know, hopefully my challenges and me revealing these things, other people don't have to go through the same stuff as well.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  I think it's extremely helpful that you are, that you're pretty, that you're open about the stuff you and your family have gone through, have gone through. Absolutely. But in terms of making this shift.

• 38:51Speaker 01

  Into a sort of greatness mindset. What are the practical steps we can take to get out of powerlessness and toward greatness?

• 39:02Lewis Howes?

  Uh, the first step is getting clear on your meaningful mission. And if you're not clear on what that is, um, there is a, is a healing journey throughout everything. In my message, in my work, in the book and, and being in greatness. Healing is not a destination, it's a journey. So it's a healing journey throughout everything. And I think it's first getting to a place of full love and acceptance and forgiveness from all of your past memories to your present. I just think it's really hard to generate, to create from a space of love and harmony

• 39:46Lewis Howes?

  and wanting to serve without first loving and accepting all the parts of you that you don't like. There was a lot of parts of me that I didn't like and a lot of things that I, that I did not want to face. And those parts of me that I did not like were little wounds that were open wounds inside of me emotionally and psychologically. And anytime that someone touched the wound, I would react. I would use energy that did not serve a mission to defend myself. I would put myself out of my environment to, to defend myself, to justify, to, to make wrong, to compete, whatever may be.

• 40:27Lewis Howes?

  And that energy pulled me away from taking action towards a meaningful mission. So this is again, not a conversation of someone who's right or wrong, good or bad, and what's, you know, what you should or shouldn't do. It's about what is the most useful energy to serve a meaningful mission? If you have a big goal, a big dream, if you've got an, an idea to write a book or launch a show or do, put your art out into the world. But your wounds are causing you to defend yourself, to react to certain situations.

• 41:01Lewis Howes?

  Then it's just not useful in putting it out into the world and you have less energy on a day to day basis. So for me, I had to, I did not want to, as a guy that cared about peak performance, about success, about winning, I did not think facing your past pain was a part of this. I was trained to rub dirt on the wound, to get up and play with broken bones, which I did many times, to not show people you're in pain, to not cry, to not show any emotion. That was the way I was trained in athletics growing up. That if you show pain, if you show weakness, you will fail, you will lose, you'll be laughed

• 41:41Lewis Howes?

  at, you won't be on the team, all these things. So for me, I had to uncondition myself because that way of being got a certain set of results, but drained the life and the energy out of me from feeling harmony and peace inside of me and fulfilled when I would actually accomplish these big goals that I was accomplishing. I didn't feel good still. I felt upset, angry, I was frustrated. And I didn't think at all facing these, these wounds, healing the pain and creating new meaning around these scenarios would help me. So step one is, is really developing a meaningful mission through the practice of healing and creating new meaning

• 42:25Lewis Howes?

  around these wounds that cause you to doubt yourself, that cause you to be reactive, that cause you to be triggered. Meditation was what big practice of mine over these last 10 years, trying different types of meditations and allowing myself to calm the nervous system, to calm the anger, the resentment. But calming is one part of it. Creating new meaning around those memories is what allowed me to have peace and total acceptance. If I don't accept who I've been in the past, I'm never going to feel enough in my present and my future. If I don't learn to say, man, I didn't like that. I feel shameful. I feel frustrated. I did these things or these things happened to me.

• 43:06Lewis Howes?

  If I keep that inside of me, that's gonna keep pulling energy away from me on my mission. So I must learn how to accept and take full accountability and ownership of my feelings around memories. Create these new meanings, these new interpretations that support and serve me in my meaningful mission. When I can do that, then I can start to follow a process of actually accomplishing the goals and the dreams I have from a place of new meaning. But I think if we hold on to the pain, it's just always gonna hurt us. Step one, heal. If I wanna make it simpler.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  Although, of course, that's not simple.

• 43:52Lewis Howes?

  It's not simple. It's been a 10-year journey of processing. It's been having different therapists, having different coaches guide me. It's been doing intensive emotional intelligence workshop retreats where I physically release things, reinterpret things, experience things, and allow myself to reflect and create new meaning. It's been doing every different type of meditation that I can essentially think of, from going to India and practicing for many weeks and becoming a meditation instructor, from doing intensive different types of yoga breathing to Wim Hof breathing, to studying with Wim Hof in Poland, half naked, climbing mountains, breathing, mindset, therapy training

• 44:35Lewis Howes?

  with a group of men, being vulnerable and opening up together, to neuroscience-type meditation retreats like Dr. Joe Dispenza, breaking down all the data and the science behind the frequencies and the energies and how it affects the body, to the spiritual meditations, to talk therapy, to intense emotional coaches, and just, and also 10 years of interviews from some of the top therapists.

• 45:06Lewis Howes?

  And individuals in neuroscience, brain surgeons on understanding the brain-body emotional connection and just applying these things. So it's been a journey for me. And again, I feel like it sometimes takes me a little longer to to face certain things. And that's why these last two years, I was just like, I'm sick and tired of feeling this. I will do anything and everything. I will face it. I will address it. I'll do whatever a coach that I trust tells me to do. And that was an extremely powerful process because it set me free in a lot of ways. And freedom is a continual practice. It doesn't mean you're free and you're never to get trapped and into a feeling of suffocating or trappedness again. That's why I'm constantly practicing it.

• 45:49Speaker 01

  I think that's important. When you talk about having a mission, but the and the mission is made meaningful because it does include other people. How do you balance that with having what what we might call selfish goals? How do you balance the selfish, unselfish divide as you think about achieving greatness in your life?

• 46:12Lewis Howes?

  You know, it's interesting because I mean, this this could be an ego thing, just to say this right now, but this this month, I'm on the cover of Success Magazine and I'll be on the cover of Entrepreneur Magazine next month. And if you would have asked me 10 years ago, or 15 years ago, or my 21 year old self, that this would happen, I'd have been like, you know, my ego would have been thriving and drooling. And I'm like, great, this is awesome that it's happening. And it's it's a cool, it's a byproduct of being of service so so continually. It's kind of like if you, you know, wanted a six pack, and all you did was obsess over the six pack because you wanted to impress others,

• 46:54Lewis Howes?

  you might get there, but you may always be obsessive over like, ah, but I'm still fat or ah, it's not popping enough or ah, someone else has got it better. I need that to feel more complete. As opposed to, I just want to be consistently healthy. I want to put in the reps daily because I want to live a long, healthy life and be a symbol of inspiration for those around me to live a healthy lifestyle. The byproduct is going to be a six pack or a good looking body. But the intention and the vision and the consistency of I want to show up because this is how I want my life to be. This is the mission I have towards my health. It's going to create these other ego results.

• 47:36Lewis Howes?

  And so it's just focusing on the service and the mission first. And again, it doesn't mean it's not cool and you don't celebrate these moments. It's, it's, you know, it's kind of crazy that I'm on these covers of magazines, but. And I can celebrate them for what they are and then put my ego back in check and say, you know what? Let's make sure that this is happening because I'm the face of this brand. But the message is to go and impact lives. The message is to direct people to the mission and let's keep focused on that. So it's a balance of yes, let's celebrate and acknowledge that we're in this human experience and the ego does run part of our lives.

• 48:16Lewis Howes?

  But if we get too caught up into it and too hyped up into it and thinking we are more than just a man. Then we're going to be humbled very quickly and life is going to humble us. And I think it's the, I think it was Marcus Aurelius, was that the story where? He would go around and, and someone would just say in the streets, like you're just a man because everyone was praising him and saying how amazing he was. I think that was the story. And I think it's constantly being a reminder that I'm just a man. I'm just a human being and that doesn't mean I need to diminish myself, but it doesn't mean I need to. Expand upon, you know, my, my greatness of who I am and really focus on service and mission.

• 48:56Speaker 01

  I think, yeah, there was, I'm going to mangle this, but I think there was Marcus Aurelius or some. Returning conqueror in Rome, uh, walking through the streets in their version of a ticker tape parade. And you would have somebody walking behind the general whispering in his ear, because it was always men. His ear, uh, you're just a man, you're going to die. Uh, it's, uh, don't, don't let this go to your head.

• 49:22Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. It's kind of like you with the thirty six Emmys in your lap. You know, it's like you can celebrate, it's, we should celebrate and acknowledge the hard work that we've done consistently. The efforts, the creativity, the genius, the masterpiece and all, and all of us, we should celebrate it. And don't diminish these things and don't say, oh, this is meaningless. It's not meaningless. It's a byproduct of you showing up in your greatness and your masterpiece. And putting yourself out there in the world in a courageous way to impact and change lives. That's what you've done, Dan. You've done an incredible job with the masterpiece inside of you that no one else can do in your specific way. There may be people that do things differently in other ways, but no one has done it in the way that you have.

• 50:03Lewis Howes?

  And being celebrated, seen and acknowledged is a big part of being a human being. And so we should celebrate these things about us. Otherwise, if we're just doing it and we're just diminishing the acknowledgements, that doesn't help us either. Let's celebrate it, but not hold on to it forever of like a constant brag. And then go back to service. And that's why, you know, you got, you only have half of them behind you as opposed to all of them. That's, that's, that's the key.

• 50:31Speaker 01

  For podcast listeners, Louis is gently calling me out for the fact that I, you, if you're listening, you can't see this, but I'm in my home studio, which is basically a closet. And in the background, you can see an Emmy that I got when I was a news anchor and, yes, it's a,

• 50:49Lewis Howes?

  I love it.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  Flex to keep that in the background, but I didn't do it on purpose. I promise.

• 50:54Lewis Howes?

  Nah, but I should, I think you should have it. If I had it, I would put it in the background. I'd be like, look what we created, you know? But it's gotta be, how can you use it as a symbol to serve more? And I think that's, that's the key.

• 51:04Speaker 01

  Do you ever screw that up? Because I, I do, you know, where I, I'll, I'll get too caught up in my own selfish stuff and lose sight of the mission. Like I'm, I'm not perfect at walking this path.

• 51:19Lewis Howes?

  Um, I think for sure I I have probably a lot of times. I think I'm a lot more mindful in these last few years. It's kind of weird, like just the example of the magazine cover, like it's weird to even show my team like, hey, guys, look at me. It's weird. So it's like, hey, guys, this is happening. This is something that's happening. And the goal is to use it as an opportunity to promote what we're doing. And so it's not diminishing it. It's not me like just flashing it all day in front of my team or something like that. It's like, how can we talk about it in an authentic way? And drive it back to service and the mission, um, while also not

• 51:59Lewis Howes?

  disempowering what you've actually accomplished. And I think I have a great partner. My girlfriend Martha is beautiful at giving me the praise that supports my ego, but also saying, hey, listen, you know, make sure you're living a very humble and grateful life, because if you don't, life will think it will give you things to be humbled by if you're not staying humble. And I think she has been a great balance for me to navigate the the growth of a personal brand, the growth of an audience, the the opportunities and

• 52:40Lewis Howes?

  uh, you know, things that come your way that are fun for the ego, but reminding me that I am just a man. You know, she praises me, but then she reminds me, hey, make sure you stay in in a life of service and humility, or life will humble you.

• 52:55Speaker 01

  You've chosen well.

• 52:57Lewis Howes?

  She's great.

• 52:59Speaker 01

  How do you, uh, how do you? How do you think about the role of money and success? Is that a is that a fair metric for success and and greatness?

• 53:08Lewis Howes?

  Again, I look at success different than greatness, and I think you can make lots of money and be successful, but and it can be useful and it can solve six money problems, but it doesn't solve the problem of loving and accepting yourself. It doesn't solve the problem of feeling like you're worthy and deserving and enough. And I think that's one of the ultimate problems or opportunities that we get as human beings to learn how to do. How can we know and learn the art of accepting and loving ourselves authentically? And in congruency without being a narcissist? How can we do this? And so I think you know, a lot of people that are extremely wealthy, mega millionaires,

• 53:52Lewis Howes?

  billionaires, who aren't fulfilled, who aren't at peace, who aren't in harmony and alignment and concurrence with themselves and their mission. They're extremely successful. They make a lot of money and they've solved that problem. But during the pandemic, I lived in a building here in Los Angeles where there was a guy worth about a half a billion dollars, big TV producer, executive, connected to all the celebrities, extremely famous in the business industry. And he committed suicide. He jumped off the building. I drove back home one day during the pandemic and there was a white tent covering the kind of the

• 54:36Lewis Howes?

  parking area. And I kind of jokingly said to the person parking the car, the valet attendant, I go, someone didn't jump, did they? And he said, yes, I did. And I go, oh, my gosh. And the later finding out about it, this person had not solved the problem, he solved the problem of money, but he not solved the problem of service and learning to accept and love himself for all of his past and his present. And I think that is, that is the ultimate challenge we get to face. And this is why I love the mission you're on of, of bringing peace through meditation, teaching and the wisdom that you teach. Because

• 55:17Lewis Howes?

  when people feel a sense of love, when they feel a sense of calmness in their hearts, they are kinder to themselves and others. They are more generous with their care, with their acknowledgement, with their gifts and their talents, and they tend to respond from peace when they have peace, rather than anger, fear, frustration, and they don't want to hurt people. And so you're doing a great service to give people meditation and tools to meditate and tools to find peace and calm, so that they can have that within them. And then when they're triggered and pressured in life, that's what comes out of them.

• 56:03Speaker 01

  I appreciate that. I, in terms of money, though, it's, it's, it's super complicated because you can have an increased amount of peace.

• 56:15Speaker 01

  And still get crazy about money. And so I'm just curious, you know, given, given you're very unique perch where you're interviewing, you know, incredible people all the time and you've achieved a great deal of success. What are your thoughts on having a healthy relationship to money, even as you, you know, have a healthy relationship to yourself?

• 56:42Lewis Howes?

  I think, I think this is the next thing I'm actually working on. So I'm actually glad you're asking me this because I'm, my next book I'm writing is about the relationship we have to money and essentially the mindset and the emotional sets we have towards what the meaning of money is to us. As I at one point had no money for about a year and a half of my life, living on my sister's couch in my early twenties. I had no idea on how to make money and I didn't have a good relationship with it. I was very scared of money and living in scarcity. And I started to find mentors who had more money to learn from and to create a new relationship and a new healthy identity with money. One of my, one of my mentors early

• 57:26Lewis Howes?

  on said, in a moment of devastation and scarcity where I was just like, man, I'm struggling. I have no money. I'm stressing out about this. I feel like a loser because I'm still on my sister's couch after a year and I don't know what to do. The economy is, this is in 2008. So the economy was kind of like, you know, a crash like 2020 or right now, kind of feeling where it's crashing, housing market. They weren't hiring people with master's degrees. I didn't have a college degree at that time yet. I had to go get one still. And I was just like, I don't know how I'm going to make money. And one of my mentors said, money comes to you when you're ready for it. And if you're not ready for it, it'll ruin you. And I was like, I feel pretty ready to have some money right now. Like, it doesn't

• 58:11Lewis Howes?

  feel good to be living off three credit cards and being broke in the bank. Like, I feel ready. And he goes, it'll come to you when you're ready for it, or it'll ruin you if you're not ready. And I started to realize this over time and about a year, year and a half later, I started to make more money. I was making a three thousand a month and kind of 10,000 and then 20,000. Then eventually, you know, I was doing hundred thousand dollar months in my business. That wasn't all coming to me personally, but I felt money started to come after I did a lot of things that I applied in, in the greatest mindset book of overcoming these fears and turning fears into superpowers. That's when the money started to come. And actually, that's when the confidence started to come in managing money as well.

• 58:55Lewis Howes?

  But I, I still didn't have the best relationship with it. It took me time because I didn't know how to invest. I didn't know how to save. I didn't know how to manage it. I didn't know how to lend money out to friends and family when they were asking for it. So I was like still learning and navigating how to manage money as it came to me. But I realized that if it would have came sooner, I wouldn't have been ready for it emotionally. Cause I didn't have a good relationship with money. It was funny. I was, I was meeting with a friend of mine.

• 59:23Lewis Howes?

  Last week here in LA, he's got a, I think his home was worth 40 or 50 million dollars. It's this unbelievable home. He had a big exit in the company, you know, a massive exit years ago in a big company. And he bought this home and, and I go, man, must be amazing to live here. Like it's looking over all of LA. It's this beautiful, it's unbelievable. Every techno- technology gadget, everything you can think of, they have. And I go, must be amazing. And he goes, yeah, but the saying is true, more money, more problems. And unless you have the emotional relationship to manage more problems in a healthy way. Again, what is inside of you will come out of you.

• 1:00:08Lewis Howes?

  And they say those that make money, it just exposes their character more.

• 1:00:14Lewis Howes?

  When they make it. So if you have a healthy relationship with yourself and others, you'll probably continue to have a healthy relationship. If you're stressed and anxious and overwhelmed, that's going to cause you to amplify that stress and anxiety and overwhelm when you have more money. So I feel like money is an amplifier of who you are and your way of being. And we've got to learn how to have a healthy relationship with it. It's interesting, I was interviewing this guy named Ken Honda. I don't know if you've had him on yet, but he'd be a great interview for it. I think he's, I think he's sold around nine or 10 million books. He's got a book called Happy Money. And it was beautiful, beautiful conversation with him. And the book, uh, he's originally from Japan.

• 1:00:58Lewis Howes?

  So he sold like 10 million copies around like Japan and Asia mostly. But it's gone like crazy and he's about how to create peace around money and how to have happy money. So he says something around like, when every time money comes in with him, he has a relationship to it. And he says, we should have a conversation with our money and treat our money like we did, like we would our most sacred friend or intimate lover. And if we want to have a healthy relationship with our lover or our partner or our spouse, a healthy relationship means you've got to speak kindly to your spouse. You must invest in your spouse. You must appreciate and acknowledge your spouse.

• 1:01:41Lewis Howes?

  And what you appreciate tends to appreciate in value, if you've chosen wisely, obviously. And he says, I have a conversation with my money. Again, this might sound a little weird, but when money comes, he has a relationship, a mental and emotional relationship to money. And he says, thank you to the money when it comes to him. And I think a lot of people are afraid, they want money, but they're afraid of it, or they think it's evil or bad when people have it. And so if you think something is bad or you're afraid of something, why would something come to you? Why would you want to attract something if you're resisting it and afraid of it? So we must learn to have a different relationship and have a love for money in an, in an, an authentic way. Not, oh, I love you so I can go buy all these things and

• 1:02:25Lewis Howes?

  look better to the world because I don't feel enough. It goes back to feeling enough with where I'm at, accepting myself and having a new conversational relationship with money. So when money comes to him, he says, thank you, money. Where do you want to go? He says, thank you. Every time that I sees a, a mount come to him, a check or something coming to me, he says, thank you. Thank you. He has an appreciation for money and money continues to come, come to him. And he also says, I, I ask money. And again, this is kind of a weird, uh, you know, weird thing that most people maybe haven't thought of, but this is what works for him. He says, I ask money, where do you want to go? Do you want me to spend you today on something? Do you want me to give you away to a friend in need?

• 1:03:07Lewis Howes?

  Do you want me to spend it on a charity day? Do you want me to leave $20 on the side of this street for someone else to pick it up and have a moment today of needing something? Do you want me to put you in an investment account? Do you want me to put you in my living, my food? Where do you want to go? And he has a relationship with money. And it's like having a normal relationship with a friend and saying, hey, what do you want to do today? Where do you want to go? What should we do together as an activity? He does this with the idea of money. And again, it might sound a little weird. It might look a sound a little different than normal thinking, but I think when we can interpret it and take a different approach to how we relate to the idea of money, then money will start to relate to us differently.

• 1:03:50Speaker 01

  In preparing for this interview, I've been thinking about you quite a bit. And as I hope you know, I'm fond of you. I've spent time with you in person a couple of times and you, uh, you have a very different approach to these subjects than I do.

• 1:04:08Lewis Howes?

  I love it.

• 1:04:08Speaker 01

  But you, and, and I think you're interested in some stuff that I'm not interested in, but you are extremely, in my opinion. Really genuine and voracious in your desire to learn and I have a lot of respect for that.

• 1:04:21Lewis Howes?

  Thank you. I appreciate it.

• 1:04:24Speaker 01

  That's a way of softening you up for a hard question.

• 1:04:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  Which is, uh, uh, when, when you talk about attracting things or the law of attraction, manifestation, that is a bit of a bugaboo for me. And so I want, I want to, I want to come at you on that and, and see.

• 1:04:46Lewis Howes?

  Bring it. I love it.

• 1:04:48Speaker 01

  Well, when you talk about the law of attraction, what do you mean by that?

• 1:04:54Lewis Howes?

  Um, when I, when I, when I think of or talk about the law of attraction from my perspective, I think about being very clear on what you want and taking massive action consistently over time in order to create it. In order to seeing it come to you. So if I have an idea in my mind that is not in the world right now, I want to write a book. I want to do an interview with you. I want to make a hundred dollars. And I have not done that thing. Like that new thing has not come to me. Then it's about being very clear on the intention of what I want, why I want that thing.

• 1:05:34Lewis Howes?

  And the meaning behind why I want it needs to be important. It can't just be for superficial things. Because again, if we attract these things, it still won't be enough. If it's from a place of a meaning out of ego as opposed to out of service. So I could attract and I can accomplish, but it still won't be enough. But the law of attraction for me means being very clear on the intention of what I want to create, feel or experience in the world. Having a deeper meaning of why I want it and then taking massive action until I create it. And you know, that could be following a game plan, getting a coach, you know, doing something creative to make it happen, whatever.

• 1:06:16Lewis Howes?

  But attraction has the word action in it. So it must be something you take action on consistently over time. And the goal for me is really to say, how do we attract things faster? How do we draw an idea that we have into us and put it out into the world, a think, a thought, thinking and put it out into the world? I want to write a book. Okay, here's a thought. Why? Well, I want to serve people with a message. And I think it'll really help people heal, create, develop, do whatever it is, overcome this challenge. Okay, I want to put this out in the world. Here's why. Here's the mission behind it. Now, the goal is to, how do I think something?

• 1:06:59Lewis Howes?

  And the law of attraction is drawing it into me to physically manifest faster, right? Okay, I had this thought for the book, put the thought out. Now I want to draw this into me so it's actually in my hands.

• 1:07:11Speaker 01

  He's holding his book.

• 1:07:12Lewis Howes?

  How, how, how do I do that? Okay, I need to get clear on all these things and I need to take action. I need to find someone to help me write. I need to find a good editor. I need to find a publisher. I need to, all these action steps. And it's my ability to communicate effectively. And be incongruence with my mission. My ability to relate to other human beings in the world. My ability to have emotional intelligence and meet people where they're at and communicate on their level. Allows me to act courageously and take massive action continuously to draw that thought

• 1:07:50Lewis Howes?

  back to me faster, so that it's an actual, complete, physical thing in the world that I dreamt of. For me, that is the law of attraction. Getting clear, taking massive, massive action, and then making it happen fast.

• 1:08:06Speaker 01

  Okay, so what I hear there is very commonsensical. You know, just, you have a goal, you go for it. And yet, when I was, you know, I spent a lot of time reporting on self-help gurus, um, back in the day. James Arthur Ray and lots of other folks.

• 1:08:22Lewis Howes?

  That must have been interesting.

• 1:08:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, he had a bunch of his followers.

• 1:08:24Lewis Howes?

  He went to jail for a few years, right?

• 1:08:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, he went to jail after some of his followers died.

• 1:08:27Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man, that, that's, yeah, that's, he had like, what, two or, two or four people died in that accident, right?

• 1:08:33Speaker 01

  I don't remember the exact number, but it wasn't good.

• 1:08:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it was sad.

• 1:08:37Speaker 01

  Anyway, my, what I often heard when people talked about the law of attraction or the power of positive thinking was you can keep this spotlessly, um, positive mind and then get things through kind of this magic. You know, if you watch the DVD of The Secret, um, you see a woman looking in a, in a jewelry store, uh,

• 1:09:02Lewis Howes?

  And all of a sudden it's on their wrist.

• 1:09:04Speaker 01

  Yes, all of a sudden the diamonds are on her neck. And so I think that's a very dangerous thing to tell people, but I'm not hearing you say that. Am I missing something?

• 1:09:14Lewis Howes?

  No, I just think that's the way that it's been framed by some people. But for me as an athlete, you don't dunk overnight as a seven year old. You can't jump. You don't have coordination. You're not tall enough to touch the rim. That was a dream of mine since I was seven. It's like, I want to be able to dunk one day. I'm watching on TV. This looks amazing. It took me eight more years until I was able to do it.

• 1:09:40Speaker 01

  Wait, you can dunk?

• 1:09:41Lewis Howes?

  And I would practice. Yeah, of course I can dunk. I'm six, four. Come on, Dan. Well, I haven't tried, I haven't tried to dunk.

• 1:09:47Speaker 01

  I liked you until now.

• 1:09:49Speaker 01

  Now I'm just jealous.

• 1:09:50Lewis Howes?

  Here's the thing, Dan. I haven't done it in like probably two years. I haven't played basketball in a couple of years since the pandemic. So I'm kind of nervous because I'm turning 40 in a few weeks. And I'm like, I still want to be able to dunk after 40. I don't want my age to limit me from anything. And, uh, but I just haven't practiced jumping. So I, I gotta get back out there and start seeing if I can dunk again. But side note, um, you know, you got an Emmy? You got a few Emmys? Can you give me one? I'm kind of jealous, you know? Just throw me one back here behind me.

• 1:10:20Speaker 01

  I'm just compensating for my lack of height.

• 1:10:24Lewis Howes?

  You know what they say about shorter men?

• 1:10:28Lewis Howes?

  The shorter men are usually way smarter, make way more money and get the dream girl. Uh, that's what happens to shorter men. They are, they get so much more intelligence, have so much more skills and capabilities that they have everything else they want, except for the height.

• 1:10:44Speaker 01

  I got, I got the dream girl, but the, the rest of it, I don't know.

• 1:10:48Lewis Howes?

  I don't know, man. You're selling yourself short. Uh, gotcha. No, I'm kidding.

• 1:10:53Lewis Howes?

  So for me, you know, I had this dream of wanting to dunk. This is just an analogy and a story, but I had to take massive action. I did jumping lessons constantly. I had jumping workouts. I was obsessing over this. And acting for, I don't know, eight years until I turned, I think 14 was when I finally, 15, when I finally dunked, barely. And then it's a level of like, how do I get to that thing even more? And how do I keep working at it and working on it? So for me, I take a very practical approach as an athlete. I know things take time, but in the, in the world of possibilities, some things you can bend time. Some things may take longer. It doesn't take five years to write a book.

• 1:11:33Lewis Howes?

  Um, it, it doesn't take that, you know, you can say, oh, it's just taking me a long time, but there are things you can do to shorten the attraction to it happening faster by taking different steps or different actions. To again, use a word called manifestation or attraction that a lot of people may not jive with because of the annotation that is attached to it. But for me, I'm able to do things faster now because I have more skills and I've overcome more fears and insecurities. And I'm just able to work in the world in a different way. But it used to take me a lot longer to do things when I had to learn certain skills.

• 1:12:11Speaker 01

  You just used the word fears and, and this is the last thing I want to ask you about here is, um, you talk a lot in your new book about dealing with fear and there's a whole set of exercises, you know, fear converter, the fear sit down, uh, the self-coaching solution.

• 1:12:31Speaker 01

  Multiple choice here, you know, or sort of, maybe that's not the right word. Pick one, I'd just be curious if you could just walk us through an exercise for dealing with fear. Cause at least for me, that's, that's a, a pretty constant companion.

• 1:12:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I mean, I was crippled by fear most of my life and

• 1:12:48Lewis Howes?

  it consumed me. It made me feel powerless in situations, in certain social settings. I didn't have courage or the abilities at the time to act, to show up, to be my, to be my authentic self because the fear crippled me. And so again, this was, this was just me living in a more powerless mindset state momentarily, until I was able to overcome a lot of these fears. And it doesn't mean that there's not going to be new fears at different seasons of life. I'm not married, Dan. I don't have kids yet. And I'm assuming there's going to be a set of challenges, or call it opportunities for me to overcome certain fears or insecurities at a new season and stage. Um, there's always going to be something that we're going to need to face.

• 1:13:34Lewis Howes?

  And so what I like to do is I like to create a thing called a fear list. Edith Egger talked about this as well when I interviewed her. Um, which I was really excited about when she said it. She's like, we need to create a list of our fears and start knocking them off. And I go, yes, this is something I've been talking about for a long time. She was a Holocaust survivor who wrote a book called The Gift. One of the mentees of, um, Viktor Frankl from Man's First Meaning. And she said, you know, these fears hold us back. And it's not until we actually face it. So she talked about going back to,

• 1:14:08Lewis Howes?

  the concentration camp where she was, where she watched her parents get executed. And she said, it was still having power over me. I still had bad dreams. Until I went back and faced it, faced the situation, the scenario, faced the, the man who took my parents away emotionally and psychologically in my mind, in that physical setting, and allowed myself to create healing, forgiveness and peace.

• 1:14:38Lewis Howes?

  For me, when we can list it and look at them. For me, public speaking was a big fear. Salsa dancing was a big spear. Reading and writing was a big fear. So the first three things I did, I said, I'm going to go all in on public speaking. And I did that every week for a year. I went to Toastmasters, which is a public speaking class. And it was humiliating. I could not stand in front of a group of people without stuttering, stumbling, sweating, uh, and just sounding like an idiot. These were all professionals and I was not one. So of course I'm not going to be any good. But by doing it every week for a year, I eventually got a lot better. And I'm facing it and checking it off my list of it's no longer a fear.

• 1:15:22Lewis Howes?

  It's now something in my tool belt that I can use that empowers me. It gives me even more confidence overcoming that one fear. I did the same thing with salsa dancing. Reading and writing was one of the biggest fears of me because I would get asked to speak aloud in class. I know you were in the top of your grade and you skipped multiple grades and you had the highest IQ and SAT and all these things. Uh, but, but I don't know if they did this with you, Dan, but with me, they, in our school, they would rank us of how well we did on our grade cards compared to everyone else in our class and our grade. And I was always in the bottom four, always in the bottom four. And most of the time, yeah, I'm not proud of this. Most of the time I would cheat on homework and quizzes and tests

• 1:16:07Lewis Howes?

  just to pass because when I would try to study so intently and do it on my own, I couldn't pass. I would fail. So this was just a survival mechanism to get through a school. And so when I would read aloud, they would ask us to stand up and read a, you know, chapter one and page, whatever. Read a paragraph. It would terrify me. I would try to do anything I could to get out of reading aloud. So when I became an adult, uh, or I don't know if I was an adult yet, but in my early twenties, still figuring out life. I was like, I need to face this fear. I'm going to write a book. And I was terrified of what people would think about me because I wasn't a quote unquote, writer. So I studied it.

• 1:16:50Lewis Howes?

  I worked with a coach and a mentor that helped guide me. I practiced it. Again, I didn't just say, I'm going to write a bestselling book overnight and then just manifest it with the law of attraction. I worked at it continuously and felt the fear and felt the embarrassment and felt the humiliation. But I had supportive feedback, positive coaches that said, hey, it's all good. It's a process. You're going to improve over time. And here's something you did better than last week and let's work with this. By creating a fear list and knocking the scariest ones off first, one by one, you will start to feel fearless.

• 1:17:31Lewis Howes?

  And I think that's an exercise that I've continued to apply in my life that has given me a lot of confidence in the face of fear. I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me as well as ad free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel on Apple Podcast. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend. Leave us a review over on Apple Podcast and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels at Lewis Howes. I really love hearing the feedback from you and it helps us continue to make the show better.

• 1:18:14Lewis Howes?

  And if you want more inspiration from our world-class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com/newsletter. And if no one has told you today, 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.