How To Build Confidence, Overcome Perfectionism & Achieve Your Dreams w/ Jordan Fisher EP 1262

Today's guest is Jordan Fisher. He's an actor, singer/songwriter, dancer, choreographer and musician. Fisher's talents span from TV to music, Broadway and film. His additional accomplishments include being the first African American to portray the title character of ‘Evan’ in Broadway’s “Dear Evan Hansen” and ‘Mark’ in Fox’s Emmy nominated “Rent Live,” as well as being named a breakout star by MTV and People Magazine for Fox’s Emmy-winning broadcast “Grease Live!” He's now producing his first film called Hello, Goodbye and Everything in Between. In this episode, you will learn:How to not care about what others might think of you. How to overcome perfectionism. How to develop true confidence in your craft. How to keep yourself grounded in the midst of fame and success. How to feel comfortable saying no to opportunities. For more, go to www.lewishowes.com/1262 Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds with David Goggins: https://link.chtbl.com/715-podJosh Peck on Fame, Fatherhood, & Finding Happiness: https://link.chtbl.com/1261-podScooter Braun on Healing Past Trauma: https://link.chtbl.com/1244-pod Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I get excited, but I don't get nervous. I don't feel insecure. And if I do feel insecure, that's some, I try to put a stop to it so that I can figure out what that is, so that I don't.

• 0:11Lewis Howes?

  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.

• 0:34Lewis Howes?

  What has been the best way for you to connect with people, specifically growing up, you know, being adopted and kind of in the South, I had Twitch on as well. He was like, you know, you couldn't dance in the South in Alabama.

• 0:45Speaker 00

  No.

• 0:46Lewis Howes?

  He's like, you're not accepted as a guy.

• 0:47Speaker 00

  No.

• 0:48Lewis Howes?

  Dancing, singing.

• 0:49Speaker 00

  Bro.

• 0:49Lewis Howes?

  Doing these things. How did you overcome that?

• 0:52Speaker 00

  He was, he was in Montgomery too, totally like, I mean, so much, there's so much civil rights history all over Alabama, as you can imagine. It gets all over the place, but I grew up in a football town outside of Birmingham called Trustful. And one of the only people of color, you know, I was the only mixed kid in my school.

• 1:09Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was not, we, we, five or six black kids. Everyone, it was white. I lived in a white football town and I was a gymnast.

• 1:18Lewis Howes?

  Right. You didn't play football, did you?

• 1:19Speaker 00

  No. And then I fell in love with theater and dance and music, like,

• 1:26Speaker 00

  me in this town with the things that I loved to do and my passion was forcing that, that square peg through the circle hole. And it just wasn't going, like, it just wasn't gonna, it wasn't gonna ever be right or feel like the right place for me to be.

• 1:44Lewis Howes?

  Were you ever accepted in school doing those activities and passions?

• 1:48Speaker 00

  Through success.

• 1:49Lewis Howes?

  Right. Like the talent show, then you're like?

• 1:52Speaker 00

  The fact that I would get up and sing and I was good. And kids would be like, wah! That I was accepted then. Interesting. Had I not been, but it'd still be something that I'm really passionate about.

• 2:08Speaker 00

  It wouldn't have been received the same way. Subsequently, wouldn't have been treated the same way. Right. Which is really interesting. How were you? I remember a shift when like all of a sudden, every teacher in the school knew who I was. And all of them loved me. And all of them were like, Jordan! And I was like, eh, like, okay, this is interesting. How old were you then? I was in fifth grade. That was the beginning of my love for art was fifth grade. Really great drama program. And that was the beginning of that, but it was from that year, it was January of my fifth grade year to December of my sixth grade year, which would have been, you know, just that one, that 12-month period. Everyone started to see you differently.

• 2:53Speaker 00

  Completely. Is it because you were performing in front of the school or were you getting notoriety outside? Kind of all over the place. Like it was, you know, it's sort of with that school play, the beginning of the year. By the end of the year, I was in middle school. And I had joined a professional theater company, started working professionally, started training with Broadway professionals over that summer. And at the beginning of that fall, by the time we got to the fall musical at the school. And you performed, it was like. People were like, what is this? Because there was this amazing program in Birmingham, Alabama.

• 3:26Speaker 00

  Gonna blast it out right now. Red Mountain Theater Company, Birmingham, Alabama. You, there's nothing like this company. You would never imagine in Birmingham, Alabama, would there be the most

• 3:42Speaker 00

  opportunity to genuinely learn under masters of their craft, Broadway. Broadway phenoms and directors and choreographers come down and teach and train. And that was my, that was my school. That was my school. What was the three biggest lessons you learned from that summer experience or that program? It was that summer that I was like, this is, this is what I want. Really? This, I just love this. Like this is it. This is what I want. And then I auditioned for The Lion King on Broadway and I got down to the bottom two. This all happened in one summer, dude.

• 4:19Lewis Howes?

  You're like 11.

• 4:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:21Lewis Howes?

  That's crazy.

• 4:21Speaker 00

  Brand new to it all.

• 4:23Lewis Howes?

  So anyway, so if you're, so you're, you're at home with your mom and dad, were you ever, you know, acting or performing or dancing or singing with them until this time?

• 4:31Speaker 00

  I was like performative, but not really. Like we would sing in the car. I would, you know, apparently I was tone deaf. Apparently I really wasn't a good. Ask my folks.

• 4:40Lewis Howes?

  So they never, they were never like, you were incredible.

• 4:42Speaker 00

  No, no. As a matter of fact, I wanted to go on Star Search. David Archuleta was on Star Search. And I was such a fan of his. I was like, oh my gosh, he's doing the thing. I was like, I want to go on Star Search. My folks were like.

• 4:53Lewis Howes?

  Not that good.

• 4:54Speaker 00

  No. And then all of a sudden, dude.

• 4:57Lewis Howes?

  They said, wait, did they say you're not that good?

• 4:59Speaker 00

  They, they, they asked me, they're like, do you think that if you went on, you would beat David? And I would go, no. And they're like, well then why would you want to?

• 5:08Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 5:09Speaker 00

  Like, I was, dude, I could not sing.

• 5:12Lewis Howes?

  Come on, man.

• 5:13Speaker 00

  How, I'm, I'm, I don't know what else to tell you.

• 5:16Lewis Howes?

  You're so talented.

• 5:18Speaker 00

  I mean, so we'll thank Mr. Byers in fifth grade, I guess. My music teacher. I don't know what happened because to me, always sounded the same. Singing Whitney Houston, always sounded the same. Like I didn't, I thought that I sounded fine. So it blew my mind when people were like, oh, you really weren't good, Jay. Like, you weren't good. And then all of a sudden, you were. It was miraculous like that, like genuinely. We could, I can, I can, I can call like five people on the phone right now and they'll tell you the exact same story.

• 5:49Lewis Howes?

  Some type of decent, you couldn't be horrible.

• 5:52Speaker 00

  I think, like, I think that there, there was a creative side. I, I watched a lot of movie. I listened, a lot of film, TV. Listened to a lot of music growing up and had a lot of opportunity to soak in art because I definitely had an affinity for it. So like, I.

• 6:04Lewis Howes?

  You enjoyed it, you appreciated it.

• 6:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, like I, I knew what it was and I appreciated it in ways that my, like, I would have been just as happy to sit at home and watch movies as a kid. When my other friends like wanted to go out and do things, like I'm happy to go out and play, but like, I also really love just. Diving into a story that a bunch of people worked their off to build and put together. That's so fulfilling to me and by the end of the film, I feel good. I have a new story in my head. My imagination has expanded and I feel fulfilled in that way. And I think empowering kids to do whatever feels good to them in that way is so important. Obviously, balance is really great, but.

• 6:41Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. So your parents never like pushed you into this? They were not like, okay, you've got this little talent. Let's put him into classes and things. You were just curious about it. You were, you thought you were so-so and then you started doing more.

• 6:53Speaker 00

  I did, I did School of Rock, January of fifth grade. The week later, drama club teacher called my parents, hey, there's a community theater. The Levitt Jewish Community Center is doing the Velveteen Rabbit. I told the director about you. She'd love to hear you sing. If you want to do your first community show, went and did it. Somebody that worked at Red Mountain Theater Company came to see it. I got a standing ovation during my solo every night. I played a skin horse. I played, it was like a toyed horse with a big head.

• 7:24Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 7:25Speaker 00

  And just, you know, high little alto voice just wailing, you know, just belting and no dynamics, but just like I was.

• 7:32Lewis Howes?

  Going for it.

• 7:33Speaker 00

  Tiny little, you know, chocolate boy on a stage with a, with a big voice. And we were approached by somebody at Red Mountain was like, we know just the place for you. So this happened just like that. It was really like.

• 7:46Lewis Howes?

  Within a year.

• 7:47Speaker 00

  Within six months.

• 7:48Lewis Howes?

  That's crazy.

• 7:49Speaker 00

  January to June. I did my first school play, community theater show, and then did the intensive for Red Mountain. And then that, that was kind of the ball that got everything started. It's also where I met my wife.

• 8:00Lewis Howes?

  Wow. When was the time you were on stage where you felt the most unprepared or insecure?

• 8:09Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 8:11Speaker 00

  I'm going to tell you a story I've never told anyone. Because I pride myself on always being prepared.

• 8:18Speaker 00

  I did a musical one time and it was a it was a holiday season. This was me really like pushing my limits. I don't know how it ended up working out this way, but I ended up doing five Christmas shows at the same time. I was homeschooled, so that's helpful.

• 8:32Speaker 00

  I was doing a show at Red Mountain. I was doing a show at Children's Theater downtown. I was doing a show at ACTA. I was doing a show at the middle school that I was just helping out with. I was doing a show at my church. I was doing five Christmas shows. The only one that I was really prepared for was the Red Mountain one because that was that was my place. That was my church. That was my temple. That was my everything, my world where all of my friends were. That was my school. That was my community, my extracurricular, everything that it was Red Mountain. Like that was it. Everything else like took back, took a backseat. All of a sudden, we were two nights out from opening one of those Christmas shows and I knew half of my material.

• 9:11Lewis Howes?

  Two nights away.

• 9:12Speaker 00

  Still wasn't off book. We opened.

• 9:17Speaker 00

  We got through all of the shows, never got notes. I don't know how I survived. I'm sure that I skipped things. I'm sure I don't even know. It was it was also so long ago. I mean, that was that was that was that was 16 years ago, 15 years ago. Yeah, that was it was a minute ago, but it was a it was a good learning lesson and and definitely grounds for like that recurring nightmare of showing up. Every actor has that nightmare, right?

• 9:44Lewis Howes?

  Do you have a insecurity before you go on stage or perform? At a small show, a big show, you know, whatever. Do you ever get insecure?

• 9:52Speaker 00

  No.

• 9:52Lewis Howes?

  Never?

• 9:53Speaker 00

  No. No, because this is what I do.

• 9:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. There's pros who get nervous before big games or the Super Bowl or whatever it might be. You know, I saw you perform at the World Series and I'm sure those athletes are nervous even though they do this every day.

• 10:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:08Lewis Howes?

  How did you develop that type of confidence in yourself to just show up and deliver?

• 10:12Speaker 00

  Recognition that preparation is the answer. That's that's how I that's how you beat that if you're prepared.

• 10:21Speaker 00

  What is there to worry about truly? I guess it's a form of Taoism in a way. You know, you have an issue. You don't have an issue. This is the picture. We'll start with this tree. Do you have an issue? If the answer is yes, then don't worry about it. Right? Oh, sorry. If you have an issue.

• 10:41Lewis Howes?

  Don't worry about it.

• 10:41Speaker 00

  If you have an issue, the answer is yes. The next question is, can you do something about it? If that answer is yes.

• 10:47Lewis Howes?

  Don't worry about it.

• 10:48Speaker 00

  Then don't worry about it. Just do it. If the answer is no, you can't do anything about it, then

• 10:54Speaker 00

  don't worry about it because you can't do anything about it.

• 10:56Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 10:57Speaker 00

  If it's your craft, if it's your work, if it's like the thing that you're meant to do, contracted to do, expected to do, you should probably prepare to do it before you go.

• 11:08Lewis Howes?

  Right. How often? What's your preparation look like then before you take on a new Broadway show?

• 11:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, it depends on the project and it depends on the amount of material. So like Evan Hansen, for example, the character doesn't leave the stage. It's a two and a half hour long musical and it's just so many pages of material, so much music. I, before we got into rehearsals for a month, was studying my script and getting as prepared and as off book as possible. So that when there's a reference for a scene that the director says, like, I haven't worked with this company before. I haven't worked with this cast before. I haven't done anything like that. You know, I've worked with the director before, but on a totally different show. And, you know, at a lot down the street here at Fox, but not for his Broadway baby. You know, so I don't know what the process is going to be like. And it's a super emotional, super intense show.

• 11:58Speaker 00

  Why don't I just do myself a favor?

• 12:01Lewis Howes?

  Prepare as much as possible, yeah.

• 12:02Speaker 00

  Since I really don't know what variables are going to come and just prepare for as much as I can. And recognize that once I have prepared.

• 12:13Speaker 00

  Then it's just a matter of going and doing it.

• 12:14Lewis Howes?

  Doing the best you can.

• 12:15Speaker 00

  To the absolute best of your ability. Like, and I mean like truly to the absolute best of your ability. Go and do it. That's it. And so like, yeah, pre-anthem, you read the game. I was happy. I had a couple of friends up there, I was chilling. I have sung the anthem so many times. It is the most nerve wracking song to sing. The only thing that I ever worry about when performing the national anthem, regardless of the audience's concern, is don't say ramparts first. Because if you say ramparts first, you're stuck and over. You can't say ramparts first.

• 12:54Speaker 00

  And it's a common mix up. And then there's no way to repair. That's the only thing. It's like, once you get past the first two lines.

• 13:01Lewis Howes?

  You're fine, yeah, it's automatic.

• 13:02Speaker 00

  You're set. So no, I get excited, but I don't get nervous. I don't feel insecure. And if I do feel insecure, that's some, I try to put a stop to it so that I can figure out what that is, so that I don't go into the performance insecure.

• 13:16Lewis Howes?

  Do you ever feel afraid of like how people will think or judge your performance ever? Or what they'll say? Or if they didn't like it? Or if they compare you to someone else? Or anything like that?

• 13:28Speaker 00

  I guess like, you know, if it's like a controversial topic or something like, you know, it's probably normal to be fearful of what like the general public might think. Because if you're taking on a controversial topic, your goal is to probably turn it on its head, right? And give people perspective and be restorative in some way.

• 13:44Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. I guess the reason I ask you this is because I've met so many incredibly talented people in sports or in business, afraid to go to the next level, afraid to put their message out there, whether it be a book or some product or whatever it might be. Their expression into the world. But they are so talented. I'm like, give me a percentage of that talent. The fear kind of cripples them. What people, the fear of judgment, the fear of success, the fear of failure. Do you not have any of those fears?

• 14:16Speaker 00

  I, here's the thing. We just, we just met, right? And when I walked in, I met somebody I had not met before, I met a stranger. You probably had a first impression of me. I don't know what the first impression was, I'm not gonna ask you. Whatever that first impression was, I cannot change it.

• 14:31Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 14:31Speaker 00

  I do not have the ability to do that.

• 14:35Speaker 00

  Would it be cool to? Yeah, sure, sometimes, maybe. That's like playing with, that's playing with time and like Doctor Strange will come in and, and put a stop to it all, but. I can't change the way that you looked at me, or how you felt when you shook my hand, or if you thought initially like, you know, maybe he's, maybe he's not as nice as I hear, or whatever. I don't know what that is, or what you're gonna think of me when we leave the place, but hopefully it's good. And if it's not, I mean, I can't change it. And if it's good, I'm sure I could do something to change it, but I would have to be intentional about that, you know what I mean? And so since I'm just being intentional about the art, and I'm doing what feels good to me, and I'm doing what feels good for, for, for the piece,

• 15:18Speaker 00

  I'm doing what feels good for the project, for the character, whatever that case may be, then that's why I do it. I don't do it to see what people might think about it.

• 15:27Lewis Howes?

  Of course. Have you always felt that way, or thought about yourself in that way? Because a lot of people don't think that way.

• 15:33Speaker 00

  I think that I have treated my career like a business from the moment I started. It's never bled into my personal life, so I just, I really try hard to not take it personally. Of course, there are things that you do take personally, like not being casted because of the color of your skin, and then like,

• 15:50Speaker 00

  things like that, you know, lack of opportunity for

• 15:56Speaker 00

  all sorts of people, people of color, LGBTQ plus, etc. It's, it's, you know, the Asian American community, Asian community in general, Latinx, etc. There's, there's so, there's so many things that like, could, like, that, that could be hurtful and really put me out, but like, we're evolving in those ways. Where it comes to the art, that's what I do.

• 16:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. It's inspiring.

• 16:19Speaker 00

  That's what I do. Like, you can, you can think whatever you think, and if you choose to write about it, that is entirely your prerogative, but like, I'm gonna put it out.

• 16:28Lewis Howes?

  It's amazing that you don't allow any of that to distract you from your mission of sharing your expression with each project the way you intend to share it. So that's really inspiring. I think a lot of people struggle with that.

• 16:39Speaker 00

  Yeah. But it's also not my sole mission in my life. My sole mission in my life is to be a good dad.

• 16:43Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 16:45Speaker 00

  That's it. Like, I go to work. This is me working right now. This is like just what I'm doing today.

• 16:50Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 16:51Speaker 00

  And it's great. And it's cool because it's dynamic and I love it. I love all of the things that I get to do. It's, you know, I have a lot of fun on my day to day. Got a really big team, really great assistant, really great.

• 17:02Lewis Howes?

  Cool opportunities, projects.

• 17:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, get to like swing like all over the jungle gym of the entertainment industry and then like, you know, the, the, the bell goes off and the, and the, the, the street lamps come on and it's time to go home and have dinner.

• 17:17Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 17:19Lewis Howes?

  I don't think many people in the industry think that way though.

• 17:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:22Lewis Howes?

  I don't know, maybe, maybe they do, but I haven't really seen.

• 17:24Speaker 00

  I think that a lot of people romanticize it, but I think a lot of people are so wrapped up with wanting more, where I'm happy where I'm at.

• 17:34Lewis Howes?

  You don't need to take on more things if you don't want to.

• 17:37Speaker 00

  No, I love my pace. I love my level of like, I hate the term fame because I don't like the celebrity part of everything that we do, but I, I like my.

• 17:49Lewis Howes?

  That you're famous, but you're not that famous.

• 17:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, like I can still go to the grocery store. People might ask for a picture or be like,

• 17:55Speaker 00

  but they're not, for the most part, depends on where I'm at. If I'm at a Disney park or something, it's a different situation. If I'm at a, if I'm at a, you know, Olivia, wherever you go concert in Texas, it's going to be a different situation. Like it's, it's, it's specific, but yeah, I, I think that so many people are so wrapped up with when am I going to be satisfied? Where I found my satisfaction in my family and in my love and in my relationships with my friends and in my home.

• 18:24Lewis Howes?

  Have you had that your whole life or was that after a period of time of being in LA and realizing?

• 18:28Speaker 00

  Oh yeah, dude. No, I was, I was, I was 16, 17 in LA and working and like had a good car and like, I was bouncing around and doing the thing, finding myself, dude.

• 18:37Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 18:37Speaker 00

  I was a kid.

• 18:38Lewis Howes?

  When did you feel like you found who you were or wanted to be? What year was that?

• 18:43Speaker 00

  I'll let you know.

• 18:45Lewis Howes?

  But it sounds like you're, have this reflection where you're like, you know, family is the key where I'm at right now and.

• 18:50Speaker 00

  That was always.

• 18:52Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 18:53Speaker 00

  Always loved my family.

• 18:55Speaker 00

  I have a crazy family life and family history and stuff, but like the core is my mom and my dad and me and my little brother.

• 19:04Speaker 00

  And all three of them are gonna come to my hotel tonight after this podcast. They're gonna come, we're gonna have some drinks, we're gonna hang, eat, get in the pool, chill. Go for a stroll on the beach. I got a couple of other friends that my family's really close to. They'll come over like a little bit later and hang with all of us. Because they all know that that's what fills me. And I know that that's what fills me. Where I have so many friends that would get here, they would land, they would go to their hotel. They dropped their stuff, they I think, freshen up and they would go to the first function they could find.

• 19:32Lewis Howes?

  The industry event, yeah.

• 19:37Speaker 00

  And I

• 19:39Speaker 00

  Wait, stop, stop, wait. Stop, listen. Because the thing is, is that like, you have to, for a while.

• 19:48Lewis Howes?

  If you are trying to build yourself up here.

• 19:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:51Lewis Howes?

  You've gotta show.

• 19:52Speaker 00

  You have to.

• 19:53Lewis Howes?

  You gotta do the rounds, you gotta do the meetings.

• 19:55Speaker 00

  Let's go somewhere, shoot some really ironic photos of each other and put them on Instagram and like get our likes and make our TikTok videos and do the things and it's like, yeah, sure, do it, all of it. It's all great and wonderful. I don't have the energy anymore. I don't have the time.

• 20:12Lewis Howes?

  You've also been doing this since you were, you know, 11, 12, 13.

• 20:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's 10. I've been doing it for 18 years professionally.

• 20:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And you've got, but you've kinda, you've made it to a certain level of notoriety and opportunities and, you know, financial

• 20:25Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 20:25Lewis Howes?

  abundance.

• 20:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:26Lewis Howes?

  Where maybe others are trying to get to them.

• 20:29Speaker 00

  Right, 100%.

• 20:29Lewis Howes?

  So they gotta build.

• 20:30Speaker 00

  100%. And the thing that I love to talk about is that like it never happens overnight, right? Like when, when, when, when I did Grease Live for Fox, I don't even remember what year that was, it would have been like 20 let's see, I joined Hamilton, fall of 2016, so it would have been, we would have rehearsed November of 2015, so 2016.

• 20:46Lewis Howes?

  Was that with Julianne Hough?

• 20:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was Julianne Hough, anyone to date. So January 16th, sorry, January 2016. So Grease Live happened and I got the, it, there was a moment. There was a moment. I played duty. I sang one song on the show.

• 21:04Speaker 00

  I did not, no one expected, I did not expect for the world to care about duty. Also, frankly, I didn't want to do it in the first place.

• 21:15Lewis Howes?

  Why not?

• 21:15Speaker 00

  My agent had to convince me to do it because they're all hate watches. And as a Broadway person, as a theater person, as a fan, I want to give those shows a fair shot. And it's so hard because I know that so much of the world watches those shows. To play drinking games and to poke fun and all of those things. And my agent was like, I need you to do, to like, to trust me in this. Like, you know, it's a great team and I knew the team obviously was dying to work with the creative team. Tommy Kael, I was a big fan of, he directed In the Heights. And Hamilton was obviously like gaining momentum in a big, big way and had just opened, et cetera.

• 21:54Speaker 00

  It, I was like, okay, like, I'm gonna give it a shot, I'm gonna do it. And then it happened to be the best scenario. It happened to be the best live musical that we had done. Of course, I did Rent years later and it was like, it was a moment. But they happened and you learn and like, you know, I wasn't hurt by that at all. I was just upset for our castmate that broke his foot. You know, that was an interesting thing. But I had that 15 minutes, dude, I had that 15 minutes. And all of a sudden, I felt, I felt it. I felt for the first time the, how quickly the industry goes, you're next.

• 22:25Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 22:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:26Lewis Howes?

  So you've been working for 13, 14 years at that point?

• 22:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:30Lewis Howes?

  And in that one moment, what happened?

• 22:32Speaker 00

  It was an overnight, like, all of a sudden, because of this one song that I sang in the show, the world was like, what? And I still don't really understand the magic of that moment. But it happened and I don't take it back, I don't ask questions.

• 22:49Lewis Howes?

  What happened after that? You mean, people kind of anointed you as like...

• 22:52Speaker 00

  I, my phone wouldn't work.

• 22:58Speaker 00

  Like I came back into my dressing room at the end of the show and somebody that I passed by was like, dude, just so you know Twitter's freaking out and your phone's probably blowing up. Get home.

• 23:10Lewis Howes?

  Cause it was live, live.

• 23:11Speaker 00

  It was live, live.

• 23:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 23:13Speaker 00

  And I had no clue and I went and looked at my phone and it was just, I just turned it off. It freaked me out. I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know why, you know, I knew it was good. It was good reviews and stuff, but like I didn't know ultimately what had happened. And that was like, that was the mile marker that where my career really began.

• 23:31Lewis Howes?

  Isn't that interesting? It takes 10, 15 years until, okay, now you've put in enough reps, enough projects.

• 23:37Speaker 00

  And the industry then was like, oh, this new kid.

• 23:41Lewis Howes?

  You're like, I've been doing this since I was 10.

• 23:44Speaker 00

  Hi guys. Well, hey, good to see you all again. It's, it's.

• 23:48Lewis Howes?

  You're like, I met you six years ago when I did the rounds.

• 23:51Speaker 00

  Here we are again. Now we're interested. Totally fine. I, that's just the cycle of this industry, dude. If you take it personally, it will become corrosive.

• 24:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 24:01Speaker 00

  You cannot take it personally. You just have to do the work and recognize that it's going to be your time when your time is right.

• 24:07Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 24:07Speaker 00

  Period.

• 24:07Lewis Howes?

  Not try to rush it.

• 24:08Speaker 00

  No.

• 24:09Lewis Howes?

  Except when you get casted or don't get casted.

• 24:11Speaker 00

  The moments where you're not the talk of the town. Soak up those moments because like when you are, you quickly don't want to be anymore. It's great for the work, but like it's exhausting. It's exhausting. It's exhaustive work.

• 24:26Lewis Howes?

  What's the most exhausting part of being the talk of the town for a season or years or the moment?

• 24:34Speaker 00

  This is probably my anxiety talking, but the worship culture.

• 24:40Lewis Howes?

  Of how you're the greatest, you're the.

• 24:42Speaker 00

  Celebrity worship culture is, is not talked about enough. It's just not.

• 24:51Lewis Howes?

  Cause no one actually knows who you, who you were. I mean, some people might've known who you were, but no one actually knew you. They saw a performance.

• 25:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:00Lewis Howes?

  They saw a talent expressed in a beautifully artistic way that touched people's hearts, soul, minds. Made them feel something, but it was a few minutes song. It wasn't like they knew your whole life story or they were friends with you or connected with you.

• 25:15Speaker 00

  But for some reason, all of a sudden mob mentality, whatever the case may be, everyone decided that.

• 25:23Speaker 00

  I was it for the minute.

• 25:24Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 25:25Speaker 00

  You know? And then it fades away.

• 25:29Lewis Howes?

  How long does that last?

• 25:30Speaker 00

  It's a fifteen minute window, dude. It's like, it's like.

• 25:32Lewis Howes?

  Six months a year.

• 25:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, six months a year of like, strike the iron while it's hot. I did an interesting thing. I, the, the TV iron was striking. It was hot. I was getting offers for some really great shows for television, but I had, I had been working on Disney Channel for a while and been doing TV films and stuff like featurettes and things like that. Commercials. I was really, I was signed to a record label and really ready to start giving my music a fair shot. And was met at a, at a crossroads and needed to decide like, okay, this thing that I've been working ten years to become successful in, or this thing that I've, you know, been signed for a year and I now have a record that I can put out and it's gonna chart and we can go.

• 26:12Speaker 00

  If I don't do this now, I don't know when I'll ever be able to really start my music career. And I was young and single and ready to be on a radio tour and could be on a radio tour. Nine month grueling, going to a hundred and twenty different radio stations. You're playing multiple shows a day in different cities, two, three flights a day.

• 26:31Lewis Howes?

  Just building up.

• 26:31Speaker 00

  Never home. It's, it is, woo, it is a moment.

• 26:36Lewis Howes?

  How old are you then?

• 26:37Speaker 00

  I would have been, I would have been like twenty, twenty-one.

• 26:40Lewis Howes?

  You weren't in a relationship at the time?

• 26:43Speaker 00

  Twenty-one, twenty-one, twenty-two.

• 26:44Lewis Howes?

  You're single, meaning not married or you weren't?

• 26:46Speaker 00

  Single, meaning not in a relationship at all. Like I had no, I had a pub. That was my commitment.

• 26:52Lewis Howes?

  That's a big commitment.

• 26:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, but he was my, that's my, that's my boy.

• 26:54Lewis Howes?

  So you had this season of life where you're like, okay, here's these two crossroads essentially.

• 27:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:00Lewis Howes?

  Go all in on the TV stuff or, or say no to what potentially every actor wants out here. Is this opportunity to do all these things?

• 27:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:09Lewis Howes?

  And go all in on the music.

• 27:11Speaker 00

  And it's interesting that we're having this conversation right now too. So I'd love to like, I'm gonna come back at some point in time. We can like have a good catch up. We should, we should do this like once a year.

• 27:19Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. Unpack it, unpack it, man.

• 27:21Speaker 00

  The, the interesting thing in that is that when I made that decision and committed to that decision, we're gonna say no to all these TV offers. Man, painful. Painful, painful for me, painful for.

• 27:38Speaker 00

  My team, agents, managers. They wanna make their ten, fifteen, twenty percent. They, and they see an opera, a roadmap for the future for you. And they know too, like, eventually the music's gonna help, you know, feed this thing, and this is gonna help feed that thing. And like, as one area wins, the other does. But that means that like, I have to put TV and film on pause. For a while, especially immediately after all of this momentum. I did a couple of guest spots and some shows, and then I hit the road. Wow. And I used the grease momentum. For the music. And what did you learn during that nine month or year-long season? As much as you learn that the industry does get over you,

• 28:22Speaker 00

  they don't, it doesn't go away. What doesn't go away? Opportunity. The industry doesn't go away. And you're, you're conditioned to believe that it will. If I don't do this now, I'll never have this in the later future. Know is the most powerful word you can, you can use. It is just like, that is so powerful. Why? Because it just, it dictates everything. It dictates, it helps you dictate your space, your place, your time, your energy commitment, all of the things. Because especially as artists, we're givers, we're servers. That's, we work in a service industry.

• 28:57Speaker 00

  We grow up based on how I'm like leaning in now. Give it to me, man. Producers, directors, studios, networks. It's been so volatile, it's been so toxic for such a long time, because of the conditioning that happens within those systems. And it's that conditioning that is not talked about. If you, it's the, it's the loose, it's the loose, like, if you don't, like, it could be an issue, we don't, you don't wanna look like a diva, you don't wanna, duh, duh, duh, duh. Be as compliant as possible. Right, right. It's one of my greatest joys, is to have an opportunity to talk to kids, especially in this industry, and be like, y'all.

• 29:34Speaker 00

  It's you. You have to check in with yourself and measure what you're good with and what you're not good with.

• 29:41Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 29:42Speaker 00

  No one can tell you what that is. No one at all. And your word to use for that is a two-letter one and it's powerful. Don't let anybody make you feel bad for not saying yes to doing something because it makes you uncomfortable. You say, you know what, that makes me uncomfortable. I'm good. You're not gonna be fired. Things will get worked out as long as you're respectful. It's just, it's the conditioning, man. And it's so exhausting. And I work with adult professionals that have been doing this for many years longer than I have. And I can still see like

• 30:20Speaker 00

  the emotional damage of conditioning an actor to not be a diva by saying yes and doing everything and being compliant and overworking and getting.

• 30:30Lewis Howes?

  What happens when someone's over, abandons themselves and they're what they really want and says yes to other people out of fear of missing out?

• 30:39Speaker 00

  I, I'll, I'll tell you exactly what that is because you just described me.

• 30:45Speaker 00

  Depression.

• 30:46Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 30:46Speaker 00

  And anxiety.

• 30:47Lewis Howes?

  When was this?

• 30:48Speaker 00

  Uh, probably started really ultimately when I was 10 or 11. But didn't actually manifest fully until I was like 20, 24, 23, 24 years old.

• 31:05Lewis Howes?

  Five years ago roughly? So it was kind of like low level when you're 11 and then it built.

• 31:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, because I didn't really know what that was. I was always a workaholic and I was always like a go and doer and so I kept busy. Yes, and, yes, and I was energetic. I had the energy at the time to do it. I was gonna do it all. And so I did. And I, and I developed really, really good habits that really hurt me over the years.

• 31:25Lewis Howes?

  What good habits hurt you?

• 31:27Speaker 00

  Horrifically diligent work ethic. Meaning that like.

• 31:33Speaker 00

  I can't stop working.

• 31:35Lewis Howes?

  You can't sleep a night until you get it done.

• 31:38Speaker 00

  My brain doesn't stop. I take on everything. I say yes to everything. I jump on other people's things if I feel like they need help. I pull people's little red wagons and all of the things that I need to learn, if I'm, especially if I'm going to be a great producer and film and television here, I need to learn how to not do. Need to learn how to delegate more.

• 31:58Lewis Howes?

  Empower other people.

• 32:00Speaker 00

  Empower others to, you know, give other people opportunities to succeed and do them. And so that I have been having the, like, the time of my life doing that recently. But that's also because I've, I've gone through a lot of mental health and emotional things over the last handful of years, but like, I'm in the happiest place that I've ever been in my life right now.

• 32:21Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful.

• 32:22Speaker 00

  You know, and so the reflection's been really great because now I can go back and talk about these things that have gotten me to this point of happiness. I didn't know that I would ever, that I could ever be happier outside of LA.

• 32:35Speaker 00

  Because for a long time, I believed that the only way that I could work in this industry is by living here. And then when that became so clear that that was not the case, and we could go to our happiest place and be with people that matter the most to us. First of all, it's that, it's that healthiest separation of work and, and, you know, your personal life, like, even when we lived here, lived here for 15 years, I, I, yeah, I went to the events, went to the parties from time to time. It was a thick of a thing. It was, you know, I, I would leave and go, yeah, glad I went, it was a good time, whatever.

• 33:08Lewis Howes?

  You don't feel like you're missing out.

• 33:10Speaker 00

  I don't feel like I'm missing out. And the older I got and the more like I was exposed to and around and stuff, I was like, this is not my shtick at all. This is not my scene.

• 33:20Lewis Howes?

  It's so funny you say that because I'm, I guess it's been 10 years since I moved here, which is crazy to think about.

• 33:26Speaker 00

  Oh, great shoes.

• 33:27Lewis Howes?

  And I remember in the first six months, the first year, sometime in the first year, I got invited to like a Hollywood party in the hills.

• 33:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:36Lewis Howes?

  And I remember thinking, oh, what is this all about?

• 33:38Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 33:39Lewis Howes?

  And it was the first and last party I ever went to.

• 33:42Speaker 00

  Really?

• 33:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. I never went to another party again, like the typical party. I went to in. A book launch party or a house party with friends, but not like a party.

• 33:52Speaker 00

  There's one party in LA that I'll go to and it's at Notch's house. He's the creator of Minecraft and it's all gamer people and like, oh my god.

• 34:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, but this was, I remember just kind of walking around and being like, this is a weird feeling of people that are trying to like, like no one was really connecting.

• 34:10Speaker 00

  It just smells desperate. It's just like you can taste desperation.

• 34:13Lewis Howes?

  And I remember going up to, and I'm not in the industry, right? I'm not an actor, I'm not a writer, I'm not like music, but I'm here in LA. So I'm adjacent to it, I guess, with the podcast.

• 34:24Speaker 00

  Very much so. Yeah, you work in this industry.

• 34:26Lewis Howes?

  I work in it, but I'm not in that, in that field. Yeah, I'm a different, I'm a cousin maybe of the industry.

• 34:33Lewis Howes?

  And I remember being like, I need to get some air. So I went to like the roof of this place. We had a pool and the whole thing in the hills. And the place where I got air away from everyone, there was a few people sitting there. They're like, oh, come on by. And they're doing cocaine. And I go, hmm, this is so, this is very typical.

• 34:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:48Lewis Howes?

  Stereotypical.

• 34:50Speaker 00

  LA, here it is.

• 34:51Lewis Howes?

  And I just remember being like.

• 34:52Speaker 00

  Are you doing it because you're in LA at a house party in Beverly Hills? Is that why you're doing this?

• 34:56Lewis Howes?

  And I remember just thinking, this is not for me, this scene. But I, I found other communities in LA that I really love that I'm like, you know, I never go to parties or bars or anything like that. I don't drink. I've never been drunk in my life.

• 35:07Speaker 00

  Oh, good for you. I cannot say that.

• 35:11Lewis Howes?

  I use salsa dancing as my way to go out.

• 35:13Speaker 00

  That's your outlet, yeah.

• 35:13Lewis Howes?

  It's like, let me listen to music and connect with people through an expression, not through that. But that's so interesting. So in the last few years, would you say you were more your darkest time a few years ago then? With mental health stuff?

• 35:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, yes.

• 35:29Lewis Howes?

  Let's do this. On a scale of one to 10, where were you with self-love in terms of 10?

• 35:36Speaker 00

  That's a great question.

• 35:37Lewis Howes?

  Being you have amazing inner peace, you loved and accepted yourself fully. You had no anxiety or stress.

• 35:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:45Lewis Howes?

  And you weren't harmful towards your thoughts, towards yourself. That'd be a 10, where you really accept. One being you were extremely harmful to yourself mentally, emotionally. You didn't love and accept yourself. Where were you?

• 35:56Speaker 00

  I've only ever dipped that low a couple of times and that only lasts for a minute.

• 36:00Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 36:00Speaker 00

  And that's usually, that's usually before a big turning point for me, which is really great. The biggest turning point that I've had in my life, in my life, was learning that.

• 36:13Speaker 00

  I need medication to help me with this thing that I didn't really know that was afflicting me. I mean, crippling anxiety.

• 36:22Lewis Howes?

  When was this?

• 36:23Speaker 00

  This was months ago.

• 36:25Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 36:26Speaker 00

  Months ago. Things were tackled and because, because I, for the first time because of that, because I hit that one of like, I can't, I was angry with myself for dealing with health issues, for having like, you know, there's always all those things that led me to...

• 36:44Speaker 00

  But I have to be here. I've got a son coming. I've got all this life to live. I've got to get to the bottom of, you know, it was my aversion to, I, you know, this family stuff, drugs, alcohol, blah, blah, blah, I've got some baggage. I was averse to the idea of taking medication, even as a mental health advocate and would tell other people like, "Oh, medication's great, blah, blah, blah, blah." I couldn't...

• 37:08Speaker 00

  I, I, I, I, I just had such a hard time not being able to put more stock in my body for taking care of things. And then when I was, when, when that mentality got broken down by somebody going, "Dude, there's God in this medication." Like, someone miraculously figured out how to create something so that people like you and me that deal with, I don't create dopamine naturally. I'm missing a chemical in my brain.

• 37:43Speaker 00

  I don't have to deal with that anymore.

• 37:45Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 37:46Speaker 00

  And like, no, regardless of what you believe.

• 37:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 37:51Speaker 00

  I know God doesn't want me to suffer. I don't, I don't want to suffer. I don't want to like, deal with constantly just being sad and having to feign happiness and feign joy and feign like, you know, being on set and being a leader and being and doing a thing and just being so, so horribly sad.

• 38:09Lewis Howes?

  Wow, really? How, how long were you sad for?

• 38:11Speaker 00

  For a long time.

• 38:13Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 38:13Speaker 00

  I just, dude...

• 38:15Lewis Howes?

  Just showed up with a happy face and...

• 38:17Speaker 00

  And swept all of it away.

• 38:19Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 38:20Speaker 00

  Your, your initial question, I'm going to bring it back around to one that you asked a little while ago because I, I wanted to get back to it eventually, was trying to, like, can we play the tape? It was, um, it was, when did you...

• 38:36Lewis Howes?

  Was around the mental health question?

• 38:37Speaker 00

  Self, self-love.

• 38:38Lewis Howes?

  Yes, so one to 10, you said you only got to one a couple of times. What were you at typically? Were you like a three, a five?

• 38:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, like I think that, I think that I probably baseline for years have just been at a five.

• 38:51Lewis Howes?

  A five?

• 38:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:52Lewis Howes?

  For like five, 10 years, kind of middle of the run.

• 38:54Speaker 00

  But I consider myself to be a happy person.

• 38:56Lewis Howes?

  You seem like a happy person.

• 38:57Speaker 00

  But now I know what joy really, truly is.

• 39:00Lewis Howes?

  What is it?

• 39:01Speaker 00

  It, well, that's a, that, it can't, there's no soundbite there. There's not a soundbite for that. Here's the journey. Let's see, like just go on the journey with me. I didn't know that I didn't create a chemical in my brain that helps with happiness, right?

• 39:17Lewis Howes?

  Until when?

• 39:18Speaker 00

  Until very recently.

• 39:19Lewis Howes?

  Months ago.

• 39:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, months ago, I figured out that like I, I, I need, I have these spikes of anxiety and all of this stuff. And I'm balancing out now, obviously, therapy and, and, and all the things that are going on at home and how excited we are to welcome new life and, you know.

• 39:35Lewis Howes?

  Great, by the way.

• 39:36Speaker 00

  Thank you so much, man. Thank you, thank you. Sold a movie to Netflix and my producerial debut and it's like, it's coming out in, in July and I'm gonna be holding my son and feeding him like at home while we're watching as a family. And like, things like, I'm like,

• 39:52Speaker 00

  I know, I'm, I'm content. But I could live these days for the rest of my life.

• 40:01Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 40:01Speaker 00

  And be so happy.

• 40:03Lewis Howes?

  Did you feel like you, one of them been able to live this way without experiencing the last 15 years?

• 40:08Speaker 00

  Absolutely not, which is why I love that it all happened.

• 40:10Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 40:11Speaker 00

  I wouldn't take any of it back at all. Any of it. Any moment of hurt, heartache, damage, panic attacks, deep depression. I needed all of it and, and now it's my story.

• 40:26Lewis Howes?

  How did you manage the panic or anxiety when it occurred? How would you manage it?

• 40:30Speaker 00

  I mean, there's like all sorts of coping techniques. Do you know, do you know about tapping?

• 40:33Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 40:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:34Lewis Howes?

  EFT.

• 40:34Speaker 00

  Big, big, big, big fan of that.

• 40:38Speaker 00

  Newer pathway, audio sensory, putting on headphones and playing certain, there's like, you know, hour, 10 hour long loops online on YouTube. These incredible soundscapes that are meant to help reconstruct things in the brain and in the body while you're listening. And it's just, you know, meditation, yoga, exercise. You have a lot of healthy coping mechanisms. A hundred percent. That's powerful. I mean, I am a community person. I am a, physical touch is my number one love language. And if I don't have hugs on a regular basis, I start to wither like a flower. I was just in, I was just in Canada for like, two weeks by myself, spent my fourth birthday alone in a hotel room. And like, I know about me, my wife knows about me, my friends know about me, my team knows about me.

• 41:21Speaker 00

  Like, everyone in my life knows that I need hugs. And I got into a really bad habit of not asking for them when I'm lonely, when I'm alone, when I'm by myself. Not intentionally being like, can I have a hug? Like, I need, I have a hug quota and I need to meet it. Dude, I'm gonna hug it out even longer now. Yeah. Every time I see you, I'm just gonna squeeze. And I'm there for it. I'm gonna carry my arms. That's when I'm happiest, truly. Like, I am a human connection person. Like, that to me, that's why we're here. That's beautiful. Like, we're here, we're gonna do whatever we're gonna do with this life and it's gonna be great. And whatever the next phase is, is the next phase, when whatever, whatever that is for you. And I just wanna enjoy it. I don't wanna be happy as much as possible.

• 42:06Speaker 00

  And so, why I say I've kind of been in a baseline five is because I've really worked so hard to, I've just kind of believed that everybody dealt with the same stuff. And my wife was like, no, Jordan, you've been running a race for the last 20 years, barefoot, up against Usain and, and, and Rob Johnson and all of these incredible runners. And you have been keeping up, but they have spikes and you're barefoot.

• 42:39Speaker 00

  Imagine a world where you have some shoes. My case is medication. Figuring out what that is for me. And I haven't talked about this, and I knew that I was gonna talk about this eventually. I'm sure Sean Tallis out there being like, I didn't know that we were gonna talk about this.

• 42:52Speaker 00

  I've just been saying, like, I'll bring it up and discuss it whenever it feels right. And this is the moment where I got just, at the end of the day,

• 43:02Speaker 00

  if I can remind anyone of anything is that the person that you're looking at or talking to right now is just as complicated as you are, and probably just as damaged as you are, is fighting and struggling with something of their own, you know, or probably happy about something that they can't talk about or whatever. You have no clue what that person is doing, and so why not just meet them as gently as possible?

• 43:25Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely, man. I think we have a lot of, we put a high standard on people. You know, we put a lot of pressure on people to be something without knowing exactly what they're going through. Even if they look like everything's okay. You know, there was a, I think I saw on ESPN a night or two ago about a female athlete who committed suicide, who was just like, won some big award and then a couple of weeks later, you know? And one of her teammates said, "You never know what people are going through." Sometimes you might think everything's okay, but you never know what someone might be going through internally. And you had everything, it seemed like, for a lot of people that was happening for you in a positive way, and incredible talent and opportunities and success.

• 44:06Speaker 00

  Everything was right on paper.

• 44:07Lewis Howes?

  But you're at a five.

• 44:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:09Lewis Howes?

  And sometimes below.

• 44:10Speaker 00

  Sometimes below. And I would get angry about that. Like, it would make me mad.

• 44:14Lewis Howes?

  You'd shame yourself.

• 44:15Speaker 00

  Why? Everything is great. Everything on paper is wonderful. I'm in such a good place and space, especially at my age, like, and the perspective that I have, the goals that I have, like, what I'm looking to accomplish. Like, Jordan, you and your love, you've got people around you. Why are you so sad?

• 44:36Lewis Howes?

  What was the thoughts that you had about yourself that you would have on a loop or repeat or what would be saying internally, maybe not to your wife or to friends or family or agents, but inside what were you saying?

• 44:47Speaker 00

  No one cared.

• 44:48Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 44:49Speaker 00

  Yeah. I really thought-

• 44:51Lewis Howes?

  No one cared about you or your-

• 44:52Speaker 00

  About me.

• 44:53Lewis Howes?

  As a human, not like your talent-

• 44:55Speaker 00

  As a person, yeah. I'm-

• 44:57Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 44:57Speaker 00

  I am... It's interesting. I am... When, when... Trying to figure out how to articulate this without sounding like an absolute douche. But I'm expected to do good work, I think. Like when, when I get brought onto a project or book a project or, or, or, you know, coming creatively to develop something and build something and produce something, like people just kind of expect for my work to be good. And that's great. I love that there, that's the reputation.

• 45:34Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm. You produce great, consistent work.

• 45:38Speaker 00

  I do my best to. Sometimes it's really, really great and sometimes it's mediocre and sometimes, you know, but that's, that's just part of it. Just keep writing, just keep building, just keep putting things out and like, that's what I'm gonna do for the rest of my life. Life's long, you know? I'm gonna keep on doing it and, and certain things are gonna strike oil and certain things are gonna just kind of fall to the wayside and it is okay. I'm just gonna keep on going because I'm gonna keep learning and building and then it's gonna be great. But, um, yeah, people expect for my work to be good. And that said, I did, I, I don't oddly enough like hear from my peers, "Good job." Very much. Yeah.

• 46:18Lewis Howes?

  You mean, you mean to you personally or like they talk about you in this world?

• 46:23Speaker 00

  They'll probably talk about me in the world, but I think that because people assume that I get it a lot, I actually don't.

• 46:28Lewis Howes?

  Wow, man.

• 46:29Speaker 00

  Which is funny.

• 46:30Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 46:30Speaker 00

  And, and I was talking to my, my therapist about this and they, they hit the nail on the head. They're like, we can find this in anything, in any industry, in all industries, like Fortune 500, you know, you're here.

• 46:40Lewis Howes?

  Everything.

• 46:41Speaker 00

  Sports.

• 46:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:42Speaker 00

  Sports, whatever. Like if you are expected to do good work and you do good work, eh.

• 46:45Lewis Howes?

  You're not celebrated.

• 46:46Speaker 00

  If you do poorly, then people have something to say.

• 46:49Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 46:51Speaker 00

  You know, it's like, wait, what about the other 19 times that I did really, really well? And you didn't say anything about it?

• 46:59Lewis Howes?

  And now you critique this thing?

• 47:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's like, how was that good for me? Now, words of affirmation are a big part of my life as well. Physical touch, quality time, words of affirmation.

• 47:09Lewis Howes?

  That's my top three also.

• 47:10Speaker 00

  Okay, there it is.

• 47:11Lewis Howes?

  Gifts and acts of service are kind of like, eh, I mean, they're there.

• 47:14Speaker 00

  It depends. It super depends on what it is and who it's from. Like, one of my best friends, her number one is gift giving. But she receives love with quality time. But her number one in terms of giving it is gifts. And it's always stuff that would just blow your mind, make you cry, twist you up, turn you upside down. Like, it's all, yeah, and she's apparently done it since she was a kid. Like, her parents are like, we don't know how to shop for her. And it's Tim the Tap Man's wife, too. So, like, they're fine. They get whatever they want to, you know?

• 47:41Speaker 00

  But she's so hard to shop for for that reason. But so, so.

• 47:44Lewis Howes?

  The compliment or the acknowledgement?

• 47:46Speaker 00

  That thing right there, I started to like, I didn't, again, didn't realize this. Therapy, and this is why everyone needs therapy. You get to work backwards, and it's really wonderful.

• 47:55Lewis Howes?

  How long you been doing it, side note? Consistently?

• 47:58Speaker 00

  Four years since I had that. That, that, that, oh, I didn't tell you about the, that panic attack. It was like the panic attack that started it all. But that was.

• 48:08Lewis Howes?

  Four years ago?

• 48:09Speaker 00

  It's four years ago. Yeah, I had just a really bad moment in a music studio and was driving, was driving home. The session went great. And I was driving home and I had a red eye that night. And I just like, I couldn't, my throat felt like someone was squeezing it.

• 48:21Lewis Howes?

  I've had that feeling so many times.

• 48:23Speaker 00

  I got home, I collapsed on the floor, passed out, like crying. And I woke up with my dog, like, laid across my chest.

• 48:31Speaker 00

  And my mom, like, came into my house and, because I called her before I got home. I was like, as soon as you can get here, like, so.

• 48:37Lewis Howes?

  What did you realize in that moment?

• 48:39Speaker 00

  That something was wrong and that I needed a therapist. That was, there was like, no question. I was like, I don't, I don't know what this is. I don't know what, I'm just, it must be something that.

• 48:50Lewis Howes?

  You need to process something.

• 48:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, I need to go through something, talk through, talk through something.

• 48:54Lewis Howes?

  What was, I know we're on a side note here, I want to get back to what you were saying. But what are the top three biggest things you learned about yourself in the last four years of therapy?

• 49:02Speaker 00

  I don't give myself grace. I give everyone else grace. I serve everyone else, but I do not serve myself enough. I'm so good at doing for others and trying my best to not be an inconvenience. But man, I give myself, I gave myself no grace, dude. Such a perfectionist of things that go the way that I needed them to go, the way that I envisioned them going. I would just berate myself. I would never give myself like the love that like ultimately I've needed from peers and from other coworkers and things like that. I wouldn't even give it to myself.

• 49:38Lewis Howes?

  How can you expect it from others if we're not?

• 49:40Speaker 00

  If I can't give it to myself, but I was like, how can I even give it to myself? No one else around me. Like I can't be the only one that thinks that I'm like doing well or anything, you know, it just.

• 49:48Lewis Howes?

  I think it's also hard to receive love from others if we don't believe that in ourselves, that we're deserving of it.

• 49:53Speaker 00

  Absolutely. But we have to go through something to get to that point. Didn't know what that needed to be, didn't know what that experience was gonna be until I started therapy. Right? And so I needed to coddle my childhood self.

• 50:05Lewis Howes?

  Gosh, man. I'm gonna, I'm gonna share with you something real quick.

• 50:08Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 50:08Lewis Howes?

  Side note, because I want to hear this whole thing. I have said this so many times in the last three months on my show, so my, my audience is gonna get bored of me saying this. But I've got a photo of my childhood self.

• 50:19Speaker 00

  Oh my God.

• 50:20Lewis Howes?

  On my screensaver. And I've shown this on camera so many times, so my audience is probably like, this is crazy. But for whatever reason, so many people that I have on, we end up talking about inner child healing.

• 50:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:30Lewis Howes?

  When I was five, I was sexually abused by a man I didn't know.

• 50:33Speaker 00

  Oh my God.

• 50:33Lewis Howes?

  For 25 years, I didn't tell a soul. Growing up in Ohio, you weren't allowed to express yourself. As a, you know, as a man in the eighties and nineties, growing up in the sports.

• 50:43Speaker 00

  Especially as a guy.

• 50:44Lewis Howes?

  And playing sports and things like this. And I never really dealt with it and faced that until I hit 30, nine years ago. And that allowed me to finally start the healing journey, right? And my therapist had me do this in the last year, that's been there for a year now. Every two weeks I do therapy because I love emotional accountability.

• 51:03Speaker 00

  Oh yeah. To have, to have your person that you can look at and go, okay.

• 51:09Lewis Howes?

  And just be able to process.

• 51:11Speaker 00

  That's incredible.

• 51:11Lewis Howes?

  So anyways, I love that you were sharing that. I apologize for keep going off here. But I love that you felt like you had to coddle your inner child.

• 51:19Speaker 00

  I had to go, I had to go pick him up and hold him.

• 51:23Lewis Howes?

  What did he never have?

• 51:24Speaker 00

  And let him cry. He started a life of perfectionism at two years old, gymnastics.

• 51:31Lewis Howes?

  Oh man, I can't even remember to. That's crazy.

• 51:34Speaker 00

  My whole life has been about perfection.

• 51:41Speaker 00

  I had to be perfect in gymnastics to score well. I had to be perfect in my shows to succeed and level up. Get better opportunities. I had to be perfect in the audition so that I could book the show. I had to be perfect in my relationships so that I could be perfect in my thing. I'd be perfect in the way that I make this PB and J. I gotta be perfect in the way that I park this car. It just, it just got worse and worse and worse and worse and worse and worse and worse. And.

• 52:05Lewis Howes?

  That sounds exhausting.

• 52:06Speaker 00

  Yeah. I, um.

• 52:11Speaker 00

  I didn't give him room to make mistakes.

• 52:16Speaker 00

  And now. I'm about to have a son. And he's not gonna take his eyes off me.

• 52:26Speaker 00

  And I need him to see me make mistakes.

• 52:29Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 52:31Speaker 00

  And I need to be able to talk to him about it. And I need to be able to like.

• 52:37Speaker 00

  Show him that when I do things that are mediocre, that I'm cool with it. And, and. You know, build him up for everything.

• 52:47Speaker 00

  And when he. Doesn't do something perfectly, celebrate him for it.

• 52:57Speaker 00

  I think that's gonna be a lot, a lot of my healing.

• 52:59Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 53:01Speaker 00

  I think. I'm just not, I'm just like coming to this moment. But I do think that that's gonna be a lot of my like childhood healing is literally like raising a son.

• 53:10Lewis Howes?

  That is powerful.

• 53:12Speaker 00

  I'm going through my own thing too, because like, you know, I can't put it all, I can't put it all on like this thing.

• 53:19Speaker 00

  But I've spent a good amount of time in the last.

• 53:26Speaker 00

  Three months, I'd say. Yeah, about three months. I've spent a really good time just

• 53:34Speaker 00

  sitting my childhood self in my lap.

• 53:37Lewis Howes?

  This is so beautiful, man.

• 53:38Speaker 00

  Giving him a hug.

• 53:39Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 53:40Speaker 00

  Checking in, talking.

• 53:42Lewis Howes?

  What do you say to him?

• 53:43Speaker 00

  What do you need?

• 53:45Lewis Howes?

  What did he need?

• 53:46Speaker 00

  Sometimes it's just that. Sometimes it's just like a moment with family. Sometimes it's just like watching a childhood movie or reading a book. Or sometimes it's picking up the phone and having a conversation with somebody that I haven't spoken to that I miss really badly or whatever. It's just, sometimes it's just peace and stillness.

• 54:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 54:06Speaker 00

  You know?

• 54:07Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful you do that practice. This is a practice I've been doing for the last year and it's been profoundly healing.

• 54:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, it really has.

• 54:14Lewis Howes?

  As part of the journey, right?

• 54:15Speaker 00

  Like I literally, I envision me. Like I look at me.

• 54:19Lewis Howes?

  Me too.

• 54:20Speaker 00

  And, and like try to imagine like talking to me as a kid and being like, what's up?

• 54:25Lewis Howes?

  What do you need?

• 54:26Speaker 00

  Like, hey, I'm here for you. What's up? Hey, come here. You know? What's up?

• 54:29Lewis Howes?

  I did a crazy exercise. We're kind of going there now, but I did a crazy exercise one time after a therapy session where

• 54:40Lewis Howes?

  I laugh sometimes when things get kind of weird.

• 54:43Speaker 00

  I'm like waiting for like a bomb to be dropped right now.

• 54:46Lewis Howes?

  It's not that weird, but it's just, you know, I laugh sometimes because I think of myself growing up in Ohio thinking that I would never talk about this stuff, right?

• 54:55Speaker 00

  I have a question for you.

• 54:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 54:57Speaker 00

  Can I interrupt you real quick?

• 54:58Lewis Howes?

  You can do it.

• 54:58Speaker 00

  So that, because you obviously like you dropped that information a little while ago. I mean, just now.

• 55:05Speaker 00

  The natural instinct is to, is to go, I'm so sorry that happened. What's the best thing to hear?

• 55:13Lewis Howes?

  I think that's, yeah, that's, that sounds good. Okay. I mean, that's a good response. I think, um, I think it's just an awkward thing to have an interaction around.

• 55:23Speaker 00

  Right.

• 55:23Lewis Howes?

  I think it's awkward.

• 55:25Speaker 00

  We met forty minutes ago, right?

• 55:26Lewis Howes?

  It's, it's awkward for me to say that, but my audience is used to me opening up in such a vulnerable way that

• 55:32Speaker 00

  So is mine.

• 55:33Lewis Howes?

  This is my natural come from. I don't know surface level. I can't do the rooftop Hollywood, you know, conversation.

• 55:40Speaker 00

  It's why we left.

• 55:42Lewis Howes?

  That's why, you know, when, when people come here, that's why I ask you in the beginning, before the camera goes, is there anything off limits? Or am I allowed to go anywhere to make this the most powerful conversation possible? Because I think this is way more powerful than you saying, you know, whatever surface conversation that we could do, or not that it's bad or wrong, it's just not what I'm up to. Hundred percent. It's for me, it's about deeper levels of humanity. This is the stuff that I can talk about forever. Absolutely, me too. And that's why it's like I just get lost in these conversations. I think something that you could say for someone is, I'm so sorry you went through that, or just be present with them, you know? Yeah, that's good. You know, sometimes when you don't know what to say, it's better to say nothing, but I don't think it's, you're wrong either way.

• 56:27Lewis Howes?

  But I think good to talk about. Absolutely, because I think it's awkward for people to have these conversations, especially if people don't have the tools to communicate with someone. And I feel safe with you and I feel safe with my audience because I've been talking about it for years. I wrote a book about, you know, how men can heal from the traumas that they've faced and the masks that they've worn to protect themselves, to defend themselves in society or whatever that have hurt them and hurt more people. So this is something I feel comfortable with, but I think it might be a shocker for some if they're just meeting me, but I forget where we're going. You, you, you started laughing and you have, it's like I'm waiting for a bomb to be dropped. It's not really a bomb, it's just I think back to my childhood self and I just think,

• 57:11Lewis Howes?

  man, I would never allow myself to talk about these things because it wasn't accepted or cool in school, right? But in terms of the having a conversation, like you imagine your childhood self in front of you, you see, you know, little Jordan in front of you and like with all the dreams and fears and insecurities and joy and laughter and this tight little being growing up. I do the same for myself and that's why for me, it's on my screensaver. It's, it's here so I can always remind myself, like this, like goofy little silly kid, awkward, but man, just filled with a lot of joy, a lot of love. A lot of love, a lot of joy. So I imagine myself, I did an exercise where.

• 57:51Lewis Howes?

  I was, I was laying down when I did this exercise, but I was had my eyes closed. So I imagined myself standing up and having a conversation and kind of really facing and saying all the things I needed to say to my childhood, to my little Louis or inner child at five, six, seven, and I imagined myself there. And then I imagined myself in that position, looking up to my now self, my adult self.

• 58:15Speaker 00

  And are you comforted by that?

• 58:16Lewis Howes?

  And I had, yeah, I had a beautiful conversation. I've done this many times and it's funny because I had Terry Crews on here last week and he talked about, he's got a photo of himself when he was a child on his desk and he has conversations. So many men have talked about this now, which is beautiful, I think, to normalize this conversation.

• 58:33Speaker 00

  That's actually really, really great.

• 58:34Lewis Howes?

  And one of the things-

• 58:35Speaker 00

  I'm changing my screensaver when we leave.

• 58:37Lewis Howes?

  It's a beautiful practice. And my therapist now is like, okay, we need to work through phase, you know, 10 to 12.

• 58:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:42Lewis Howes?

  So he's like, find a photo, and I haven't changed it yet. So I'm finding a photo of me at that age to work on that part of my life where I had fears and insecurities and doubts and child, heartbreak and all these different things.

• 58:53Speaker 00

  That's really great.

• 58:54Lewis Howes?

  So I'm trying to-

• 58:54Speaker 00

  That's such a great practice.

• 58:55Lewis Howes?

  I'm trying to heal each stage of life where I might've had a wound or a trauma to bring the healing journey all the way up to now.

• 59:03Speaker 00

  That's amazing.

• 59:03Lewis Howes?

  And kind of create that peace there. But the thing that I did was, which I thought was kind of weird, was after having this kind of interaction and conversation with myself for the first time, this was, this was nine months ago, I hugged myself, you know, mentally and I felt like my little child was, was right there with me and I kind of like brought him into my heart, like through my body into my heart mentally and kind of spiritually and just connected those moments together.

• 59:33Speaker 00

  That's amazing.

• 59:34Lewis Howes?

  And it was a beautiful-

• 59:35Speaker 00

  That's a real moment.

• 59:36Lewis Howes?

  It was a beautiful ritual, practice, exercise, whatever you want to call it. For me at that time, because I felt such a disconnection from my-

• 59:46Speaker 00

  Right.

• 59:46Lewis Howes?

  I feel like I had to block so many shameful moments, right, and painful moments. I felt like I was distant from it. So now I rewrote the story-

• 59:57Speaker 00

  All of that was just, it was haunting your heart. It was just, it needed to get cleaned out.

• 1:00:00Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 1:00:01Speaker 00

  And you needed to go through those things to clean those out so that he had a place to be.

• 1:00:04Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. And he felt safe.

• 1:00:05Speaker 00

  Amazing.

• 1:00:06Lewis Howes?

  And now there's an adult in the room, you know, and it's like there's healing and there's context and there's meaning from that. Anyways, going off topic here, but so you were mentioning at one point about perfectionism of how, about everything had to be perfect. When did you realize that that was part of the problem?

• 1:00:26Lewis Howes?

  Because in some ways, it drove you to probably creating results and opportunities and...

• 1:00:32Speaker 00

  Definitely, because reputation of a really good, hard worker, kind to people on set and in and around the industry.

• 1:00:47Speaker 00

  I think that started to break when I started needing to tell people. I'm like the friend therapist, right? Like, I'm always like the person people want to talk to. I'm like, yeah, absolutely, like, I'd love to, like, let's talk about it. I'm not a mental health professional, so I'd love to talk to you, but like, I'm probably always going to end the conversation with...

• 1:01:10Lewis Howes?

  Talk to a therapist, or...

• 1:01:11Speaker 00

  Have you thought about, like, maybe meeting a...

• 1:01:15Speaker 00

  Because I'm always going to, I think everyone needs one, I think that everyone needs, yeah, so... It probably started to break for me when I, when I really started finding myself needing to tell people, like, oh, you're an idiot. Like, no one's perfect.

• 1:01:31Speaker 00

  Why would you put so much pressure on yourself to do that? Like, it's okay, people make mistakes.

• 1:01:38Lewis Howes?

  So you were saying this to other people?

• 1:01:42Speaker 00

  And then I, at some point in time, I mean, I think it was...

• 1:01:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, like, six months ago, I started just going, it's fine, it's okay. Not, not that, like, me condoning mediocrity is like the thing, but...

• 1:02:00Lewis Howes?

  Giving it your best and being okay with that.

• 1:02:02Speaker 00

  And if I screw up, because if I, if someone else makes a mistake, I'm always like, okay.

• 1:02:07Lewis Howes?

  But when you made mistakes, what happened?

• 1:02:10Speaker 00

  I'm like, how in the world could I have done that? And I think...

• 1:02:13Lewis Howes?

  People probably made a mistake to other people.

• 1:02:15Speaker 00

  And I think that everyone else is like, oh, Jordan. Because of the, again, we go backwards. I don't, that's what I'm used to hear, like, if I do well, I don't hear that I do well. As much as I, like, when I don't do well, if I was getting notes for a show, or notes for a, you know, feedback from an audition, or whatever the case may be.

• 1:02:42Speaker 00

  Interesting.

• 1:02:45Speaker 00

  And it didn't happen overnight, right? So like the reparation also is not gonna happen overnight.

• 1:02:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's gonna take time.

• 1:02:51Speaker 00

  If it's 15 years of damage, then it's 15 years of.

• 1:02:54Lewis Howes?

  Well, hopefully, hopefully, yeah. Short the time, it doesn't have to be that long. But my therapist says, uh, healing is not an event, it's a journey. You know, there's a moment of realization, awareness. And then it's a learning process of, of healing and then hopefully it eventually soothes to going away, but it may be a, a journey forever or something. But not as painful, hopefully.

• 1:03:18Speaker 00

  Hopefully.

• 1:03:19Lewis Howes?

  So you're, you have a son who's gonna be.

• 1:03:22Speaker 00

  That was crazy just now. That made my hands sweat. Bro, that was awesome to hear. That was just so cool. All right, so you have a son that it was so normal. That was incredible. So cool. It's still so fresh.

• 1:03:40Lewis Howes?

  It's crazy, huh?

• 1:03:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:41Lewis Howes?

  Your son's gonna be coming in a few months.

• 1:03:43Speaker 00

  In a few months, yeah.

• 1:03:44Lewis Howes?

  You're gonna be a father.

• 1:03:46Speaker 00

  Seven weeks, yeah. I'll be a father. On Father's Day.

• 1:03:49Lewis Howes?

  Holy cow.

• 1:03:50Speaker 00

  Which is also Juneteenth.

• 1:03:52Lewis Howes?

  There's layers to this. How does that make you feel, knowing you're gonna be a dad?

• 1:03:57Speaker 00

  It's my, it's what I'm supposed to be doing. It's the reason why I'm here. It's the reason why I'm on earth is to be a dad.

• 1:04:04Lewis Howes?

  How do you, how do you know that?

• 1:04:06Speaker 00

  Because, have you, have you read Matthew McConaughey's book?

• 1:04:09Lewis Howes?

  I had him on. I mean, I, I interviewed him for, but yeah.

• 1:04:12Speaker 00

  Okay. Did he tell you about his, his childhood and, and how he looked at his father and, and?

• 1:04:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:18Speaker 00

  Yeah. Me.

• 1:04:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:21Speaker 00

  Like, the adoption portion of my story is probably part of it. But my parents gave me an amazing example of what like, what genuine love is, what true love is. They had really, really bad first marriages. They found each other in their late twenties. You know, their oldest had me when she was 16, I was immediately adopted. The older three was, were just my big sisters and a certain brother. And I knew that Felicia gave birth to me, but like I also, you know, my mom and my dad were, my mom and my dad, Pat and Rodney.

• 1:04:54Speaker 00

  Oh my god dude, my, my brain is just all over the place. I lost my train of thought. Fatherhood, thank you. Why do you feel like you were meant to be? They showed me what like comfort and safety and love and a home is and they were happy. And we laughed and giggled and watched Friends at the coffee table while we ate dinner every night.

• 1:05:16Speaker 00

  You know, we'd go to Blockbuster on Fridays and like go to the park and

• 1:05:22Speaker 00

  everything was intentional and, and, and they raised me with respect and they showed me how to be respectful, but also like lead and to guide and to do and

• 1:05:35Speaker 00

  I looked at my dad and went like that, that's a man who has a partner that he loves more than anything. And that works his butt off to make sure that we all have a good, happy, healthy life. So does my mom. You know, working mom, like they, they work so hard to make sure that when we all get home at the end of the day, we're happy, we have what we need, you know, we have each other, because that's our sanctuary. We all go off and we do our adventures during the day and then we go, how was your day? You know what I mean? Like that's, that is what it's about. Like that is life to me personally. And so, all that said, everything that has like prepped me for this has prepped me

• 1:06:17Speaker 00

  to have that dynamic, to have that, to create that home environment that I got to grow up in. I was one of the lucky ones in my family. They got to grow up in that warm, safe place. Like I get to make that with a person that I love more than anything. That's so cool. When you have that, when you have your partner,

• 1:06:36Speaker 00

  you have that kind of commitment and history. You know, we were nine and 13 years old. So we were friends growing up and had so much time and so many adventures and different, you know, we've had so many different relationships that led up to, you know, her coming to see me do a show in New York and us getting dinner, to us now being married for a couple of years and having a kid on the way and More coming, I mean like I, my dream for as long as I can remember is to be able to go to my own home with my own wife, with my own kids. That's so cool. That's always what I've wanted. That's so cool, man. I can't wait to have like the team jersey that I wear when I make all of the breakfast burritos to take to my, to my kids' baseball practice. I can't wait to like do her hair for her recital.

• 1:07:21Speaker 00

  I can't wait to like, pick somebody up from their first date. I can't wait to like meet the first boyfriend even though it's gonna, I'm gonna hate it. And I can't, but I can't wait for these life things to happen because like to me, that's where all like the real big awesome joy is. That's cool, man. And then everything else is just, it's my work and I love it. I love my jobs. But I live, I, I work to live. I live my life.

• 1:07:49Lewis Howes?

  Is there a song that you like recently that really speaks to your heart through what you've experienced in the last few years that maybe you listen to or you sing just when you're humming something that, that has a line or lyric or a chorus that you're like, man, this is a powerful thing for me.

• 1:08:04Speaker 00

  Probably, but off the top of my head right now, no, not so much. I mean, I, I'd love to give that to you later.

• 1:08:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah. Next time.

• 1:08:11Speaker 00

  I'll hit you. By the way, here's that line. We can talk about it again. Yeah, there's so much music. I mean, that's the other thing too is like, if there isn't a line, like I'm gonna write it for one of my songs that then I can't say. But um, yeah, I, I think of so many artists probably is where I go first of like who speaks to me the most, you know? Who is that?

• 1:08:37Speaker 00

  Matt Healy from the 1975, the lead singer of the 1975. He's probably the smartest songwriter of our generation.

• 1:08:47Speaker 00

  I gotta say, man, "That's Just the Way It Is" by Bruce Hornsby is one of the most slice of life records. A lot of people love the Tupac version. The Tupac version's great, changes awesome. Yeah. But.

• 1:09:02Speaker 00

  Frankly, that whole song, that whole song is just like a, man, that's life, huh?

• 1:09:10Speaker 00

  And it really sucks, huh? It's perspective. It's a perspective song that I think is a very important one for people to like, especially kids to know kinda early on when they start to like experience boredom as a kid, you know? Boredom is the gateway to mundane and they're gonna experience that at some point in time in their lives. We all go through a mundane point in our lives and kids experience boredom and it's the like, the world's gonna explode. I'm going to die if I don't find entertainment immediately. It's like, woo, that's just the way it is. Some things will never change. It's that. It goes deeper, obviously. I mean, we talked about everything from racism to work ethic to all sorts of things in that song.

• 1:09:54Speaker 00

  But that's a, that's a big like just,

• 1:09:59Speaker 00

  he literally ends the song, the way, his last lyrics are, that's just the way, the way, the way, the way it is. And it goes into this gorgeous piano, you know, solo, yeah.

• 1:10:11Speaker 00

  And to me, the, the expression of that musically is, is saying that like, even though that's just the way it is, it doesn't mean that this can't be fun.

• 1:10:20Lewis Howes?

  I've got three final questions for you to respect your time before I get to them. I want people to follow you. You're everywhere. You've got music, art, dance, gaming. You're all over the place on some of the different things. You speak like 37 languages.

• 1:10:33Speaker 00

  No, no, I don't.

• 1:10:34Lewis Howes?

  I don't know how you find the time for all these things.

• 1:10:36Speaker 00

  I would like to be. That'd be, that'd be one of my three wishes.

• 1:10:40Lewis Howes?

  Jordan Fisher everywhere. And also you've got a new film that you produced.

• 1:10:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:47Lewis Howes?

  And that's coming out soon.

• 1:10:48Speaker 00

  It's got a long title, Hello, Goodbye and everything in between, but we mean that.

• 1:10:53Lewis Howes?

  It's kinda just like the way it is.

• 1:10:54Speaker 00

  We mean that, yeah. No, it's, it's really great. And this was a really good piece too. I mean, like the, the stuff that I'm attaching my name to as a producer and, and digging into building things are all things that, you know, I think that culturally we need to be talking about.

• 1:11:09Speaker 00

  This script resonated a lot with me because, not because of the character I play, Aiden, but because of Claire, the, the girl that Talia plays, I find a lot of my unhealthy.

• 1:11:23Speaker 00

  Planner, perfectionist, Taipei, things that come, that, that, that just kind of swirl around in here. They just kind of swirl. They don't really pop up as much anymore because I've gotten really good at like just letting them swirl and being like, "Yo, chill." And it'll, it'll taper, but um, her perfectionism definitely was one. It, it, it really, I mean, the synopsis of the film, our characters Claire and Aiden, they, they, you know, fall in love their senior year. They ultimately decide that, that, before they go into the relationship that it's, you know, they don't want to go to college in a relationship. They've heard from so many people, it's not the move.

• 1:12:03Lewis Howes?

  I did that. I ended a relationship in the last year of high school and I kind of regretted it.

• 1:12:08Speaker 00

  Really?

• 1:12:09Lewis Howes?

  I later regretted it. It was the right move, but I was afraid to lose it after a while and yeah anyways.

• 1:12:15Speaker 00

  Well, and I, I think there's something to be said about both sides, right? Something to be said about like ending the relationship so you can go and have a fresh start, fresh, you know, things like whatever. And then there's something about not and it, it, it working out, you know what I mean? Like.

• 1:12:27Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:12:29Speaker 00

  Ellie was in college when we were dating and that was, granted it was different. We had the means, we could travel, we could see. She joined me on tour for a while. Like it was different. It was, you know, it's, it's not, not a totally fair depiction, but we, we put forth the effort. We did, we put forth the effort to make that happen. Um, yeah, it's a matter of figuring out just like, what's the right move and why, how do we know what the right move is and, and, and that journey? So it's, it's, it's interesting because it's a YA rom-com and I was like, I'm done with YA rom-coms, I think. But this one doesn't feel like that. This one's very, it's slice of life, but man, it's, it's, it challenges a lot of relationship oriented things for.

• 1:13:07Lewis Howes?

  Everyone.

• 1:13:07Speaker 00

  Everyone, really.

• 1:13:08Lewis Howes?

  That's exciting, man. It's in, it's in July it's out, right?

• 1:13:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, July 6th on Netflix.

• 1:13:12Lewis Howes?

  Netflix. I'll be watching, I'll be sharing it. I want everyone to watch it too. Make sure to tag you all over social media when you're watching it. So where do you spend the most time right now on social media? Where?

• 1:13:23Speaker 00

  Twitter and, Twitter and Twitch.

• 1:13:25Lewis Howes?

  Twitter and Twitch.

• 1:13:26Speaker 00

  Twitter and Twitch.

• 1:13:27Lewis Howes?

  Double T.

• 1:13:27Speaker 00

  Double T.

• 1:13:28Lewis Howes?

  All right, Twitter and Twitch.

• 1:13:29Speaker 00

  I stream pretty much every day.

• 1:13:30Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 1:13:31Speaker 00

  On Twitch.

• 1:13:32Lewis Howes?

  I've never gotten into it. I know, I used to game as a kid, but now I'm like.

• 1:13:35Speaker 00

  You're gonna go to twitch.tv.

• 1:13:38Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 1:13:39Speaker 00

  Hope everyone's listening. Forward slash Jordan Fisher.

• 1:13:44Lewis Howes?

  Yes, I got that up here, yep.

• 1:13:45Speaker 00

  You're gonna follow.

• 1:13:46Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 1:13:47Speaker 00

  You're gonna ring the little bell so you get a notification when I go live.

• 1:13:50Lewis Howes?

  Every time you go live is right there.

• 1:13:51Speaker 00

  That's right. Ring the little bell and you will be, if you say, "Hey, met Jordan IRL and he sent me here," you will be welcome. It's kind of like the speakeasy password. Like, "I met Jordan IRL and he told me to come here." You will be so warmly welcomed and celebrated by like a few thousand of your new best friends.

• 1:14:13Lewis Howes?

  That's awesome.

• 1:14:14Speaker 00

  And it's just love. It feels like a family.

• 1:14:17Lewis Howes?

  That's great, man. That's awesome. Excited for you for all the things.

• 1:14:20Speaker 00

  Thank you so much.

• 1:14:20Lewis Howes?

  And if people follow you everywhere, then they'll see these announcements as well and they can stay up to date on all of it. Uh, this is a question I ask everyone at the end. It's called the three truths question.

• 1:14:30Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:14:31Lewis Howes?

  Hypothetical scenario.

• 1:14:32Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:14:33Lewis Howes?

  You live as long as you want, but eventually it's your last day on earth.

• 1:14:36Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:14:37Lewis Howes?

  You accomplish everything. You live the family life. You enjoy the moments. Whatever you want to do, you get to create and manifest it. It all happens. But for whatever reason, in this hypothetical scenario, you've got to take all of your work and message with you or go somewhere else. All of your music, videos, Twitch streaming, this content, whatever you create in the future, for whatever reason, it's not here. Hypothetical. But you get to leave behind three lessons that you feel like you've learned. And three lessons that you would share.

• 1:15:08Speaker 00

  What a prompt.

• 1:15:10Lewis Howes?

  And we don't have any other content or information that is accessible that you've shared before. But these three things you get to share, they can be simple, profound, anything in between. I call it the three truths. What would you say are yours?

• 1:15:23Speaker 00

  I love it so much. This is one of my favorite questions that I've ever been asked in my life.

• 1:15:29Lewis Howes?

  I'm happy to hear that.

• 1:15:30Speaker 00

  What an incredible, like, I have to slow clap with you, like, truly. Like, you know, you get prompted, some questions from time to time, but like the way that you set that up and then gave me, like, it really gave, it's finite.

• 1:15:44Lewis Howes?

  This is all we have to remember.

• 1:15:45Speaker 00

  It's gonna be concise, sweet and simple.

• 1:15:47Lewis Howes?

  Give it to me.

• 1:15:49Speaker 00

  Number one.

• 1:15:53Speaker 00

  Always treat people with kindness first, period. Period.

• 1:16:01Speaker 00

  Because you don't know if well, this is not as concise, you don't know if you are the last person that they speak to. You don't know if you're the last straw on the camel's back that made that comment to them. That was just a passing moment for you, but the thing that drove them to do something horrible, you just don't know, ever. In the same way that they don't know, and you would probably like for people to know when you're feeling not great or in a bad mood, but you're not gonna tell people, but you kinda like for them to just kinda know so that they can comfort you and whatnot. Let's just eliminate all of the other bleep me out. And just start with kindness.

• 1:16:38Lewis Howes?

  Beautiful, man.

• 1:16:42Speaker 00

  Please wear your heart on your sleeve. Always wear your heart on your sleeve. Tell people how you feel about things. I was talking to my niece today, who literally texted me, out of the blue, she said, "Jordan, thank you for making it so easy to talk to you." Randomly, out of the blue, I could show you on my phone. I was like, "Oh." And it's, it's very, it's, it

• 1:17:09Speaker 00

  it's very much that, it's, I, I was like, if, you know, if you can promise to just wear your heart on your sleeve and express how you feel about things, tell people, she was like, she, she said in the text message, she's like, "You know, I have such a hard time with opening up and talking about things that really bother me." And I was like, I just, I was, I didn't say, "I need you to promise me something," I was like, "Can you do me a favor?

• 1:17:36Speaker 00

  Next time I ask you how your day was, I want you to pause, and I want you to check in on your heart and your soul, and I wanna make sure that you are not lying."

• 1:17:44Speaker 00

  To make things better than they are.

• 1:17:45Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 1:17:46Speaker 00

  I'm asking you, my niece, how are you today? And I would like to know that I'm gonna get the honest answer.

• 1:17:53Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:17:54Speaker 00

  Because when you ask me, you know, sometimes I just like, I tell you things that are just like TMI, how like, "Oh yeah, and then I, I felt a little like, I got a little like anxiety or whatever, but like, you know, ultimately it worked out and like, you know, here we are today. How about you?" "Oh yeah, I'm good. I had a good day." Is not fair to you, to me. Like, we need to, we need to be, make it normal, like, just normalize like the, "How are you?" "Good." No, I don't do that anymore.

• 1:18:24Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:18:25Speaker 00

  I don't do that anymore. "How are you?" "Good, good, good." That's always gonna be the answer. "How you doing?" "I'm good." What's the point of asking someone how they're doing?

• 1:18:36Speaker 00

  What should that be? Let's talk about that for a second. What should that be? Like, "How are you?" Like, "How was your day today?"

• 1:18:50Speaker 00

  That's a good one. When I'm in depression, like, when I'm at my worst, you know,

• 1:19:00Speaker 00

  people that love me wanna know how I'm doing.

• 1:19:02Lewis Howes?

  Right. Not a surface answer.

• 1:19:04Speaker 00

  Right, like, "How you feeling today?" "Are you, are you feeling good?" Like, that's, that's, that's usually the thing. It's like, it's moment to moment.

• 1:19:13Lewis Howes?

  Something I like to ask people, uh, and I get caught up of saying, "Hey, how's it going? How's, how are you doing today?" What I like to ask people and be intentional about is, "What are you most grateful for today? And what's your biggest challenge you're, you're going through today?"

• 1:19:25Speaker 00

  That's good.

• 1:19:26Lewis Howes?

  And I think that it gives people the opportunity to respond with perspective on both sides. "I'm really grateful for being here, or my health, or I had this conversation, or I'm excited about this thing." And I'm also... My challenge is this right now, so allows the conversation to open up into and maybe there's no challenge.

• 1:19:44Speaker 00

  I am adopting that.

• 1:19:45Lewis Howes?

  Maybe there's no challenge, maybe it's just all the gratitude and.

• 1:19:48Speaker 00

  And that's great and we can talk about that.

• 1:19:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:19:50Speaker 00

  We can talk about that.

• 1:19:50Lewis Howes?

  So what are you most grateful for today or excited about and what do you challenge?

• 1:19:55Speaker 00

  I'm gonna, I'm gonna use that every day.

• 1:19:57Lewis Howes?

  Take it.

• 1:19:58Speaker 00

  I'm gonna like, that is one of my favorite things I've heard in a minute.

• 1:20:00Lewis Howes?

  Try it on.

• 1:20:01Speaker 00

  I will.

• 1:20:02Lewis Howes?

  Okay, so number three?

• 1:20:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, so, so we're gonna, we're gonna always treat people with kindness first. We're gonna wear our heart on our sleeve. Yeah, we're gonna talk about our feelings.

• 1:20:12Speaker 00

  Number three, hmm, it's always the trickiest one, right? Like, you know, you wish for more wishes.

• 1:20:20Speaker 00

  Number three, don't forget to play.

• 1:20:24Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, man, that's.

• 1:20:27Speaker 00

  I stopped playing. I stopped playing when I was like in my early twenties and too big for my britches and finding autonomy and starting to find success in my work and industry and everything. Took, took myself way too seriously. Needed to have a certain bravado and air for people to like know that I was good at what I did.

• 1:20:44Lewis Howes?

  Respect you.

• 1:20:45Speaker 00

  Respect me and like successful and all that stuff. I needed to know that I was the most successful person in the room and the hardest working person in the room. And I needed to know that everybody knew that, like it's being a three dude. It's the three on the Enneagram scale with the toxic pairing of being a two as well. So all of that.

• 1:20:59Lewis Howes?

  You're a three, two what?

• 1:21:00Speaker 00

  I'm a three, two. So I'm a, I'm a, I'm a three with a two wing.

• 1:21:03Lewis Howes?

  Okay, yeah, and what's the third one?

• 1:21:05Speaker 00

  Oh, like, so, so I guess it would make it like the other side of it, like when I'm at my unhealthiest, I don't remember what that is.

• 1:21:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I got you.

• 1:21:14Speaker 00

  I'd have to look at the chart because I don't remember what that is. But I'm a, I'm a three, two.

• 1:21:17Lewis Howes?

  Three, two, I think I'm a, cause two is what the?

• 1:21:20Speaker 00

  Two's the servant.

• 1:21:21Lewis Howes?

  So I think I'm a.

• 1:21:22Speaker 00

  Two's the helper.

• 1:21:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I can't remember. I mean, two, three, seven, I think, or two, seven, three, or something like that, yeah.

• 1:21:27Speaker 00

  I, yeah, it's like your main and then your wing is like, this is what you have and this is like your, your other tendencies. And, and three is the performer, the doer, the executor.

• 1:21:36Lewis Howes?

  I think I'm two, three.

• 1:21:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:21:37Lewis Howes?

  Seven, I think, yeah.

• 1:21:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, I can, I can, I get that from you.

• 1:21:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:21:41Speaker 00

  I definitely get like the two from you. You're the servant's heart and you have a real like.

• 1:21:44Lewis Howes?

  I wanna give and be of service. It's my mission.

• 1:21:46Speaker 00

  It's a beautiful disposition.

• 1:21:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you gotta make sure you're not a bad. Then yourself in the service of.

• 1:21:50Speaker 00

  Man, oh man, you're talking to the guy. You gotta make sure you don't leave him like in the corner in fetal position. Like that's I genuinely, I would imagine, we're going back to it, but like I could imagine like little me in the corner crying. Like it's the most devastating thing in the world. It's the beginning of that healing is really good. But yeah, don't forget to play. I I'm having a kid. I've got a lot of little ones in my life. I've got kids and nieces and nephews and stuff. And when I'm in town and Aunt Ellie and Uncle Jordan are in town, we are so fun. We're such a good time. You know, like we're like the, hey, let's snow go watch movies, eat food, all that good stuff. But like they eventually want to go jump on the trampoline and all that stuff. And I got to that. I got in the bad habit. Just gymnast. My body hurts, you know, like.

• 1:22:33Speaker 00

  I got into the habit of like, oh, if I don't need to expend this energy, I'm gonna save it. I'm gonna save it so that I can like use it to work and like do what I need to get done. But the bottom line is like, they're gonna not, they're gonna stop asking me to play.

• 1:22:46Lewis Howes?

  If you don't, if you keep saying no.

• 1:22:48Speaker 00

  And then eventually they're gonna not want to at all anymore. Like even if I did.

• 1:22:54Speaker 00

  I'm every time I say I'm.

• 1:22:58Speaker 00

  I'm loo- oh, I'm gonna cry. I'm I'm losing that opportunity. When they came to me and asked for me to play with them. To go jump on the trampoline and not just like sit with a cup of coffee on the porch and watch. And if you're in the backyard with a glass of wine with the rest of the parents and watch because like I genuinely meant like I have more fun watching. It's like, I mean that, like I have so much fun because you guys can go and do and stuff, but like, no, when you're there.

• 1:23:25Lewis Howes?

  They'll remember that more than anything. It means a lot to them. Yeah.

• 1:23:30Speaker 00

  Don't forget to play. And that that's not just for like the dad talk. It's not just that. It's.

• 1:23:36Lewis Howes?

  Life, man. Life.

• 1:23:38Speaker 00

  When you're making music, when you're writing your dissertation, when you're in the lab, when you're on the court.

• 1:23:43Lewis Howes?

  Have fun.

• 1:23:44Speaker 00

  Don't forget to play.

• 1:23:46Lewis Howes?

  Jordan, I've got one final question before I ask you, Jordan, and I want to acknowledge you. I'm a big believer in acknowledging the people in our lives consistently. So acknowledgement is something I do with every episode.

• 1:24:00Lewis Howes?

  And I know you wanted acknowledgement in certain ways from your craft and just as a human being with peers and things like that. And it sounded like you didn't get that often unless you had a off night, which was probably the greatest performance most people would ever have, but you had a little off night. You're a nine out of 10, maybe, not a 12 out of 10. So I acknowledge you, Jordan, for the journey you've been on, for healing and being on the healing journey, for allowing yourself grace, for letting go of the perfectionist inside of you from young years to now, for making your mission about being the best father and partner and friend you can be, not the best success you can be.

• 1:24:41Lewis Howes?

  I think it's really inspiring to see someone your age with your amount of success, where you've come from, have that mission, especially growing up in the Hollywood world. So I really acknowledge you for your heart, for your energy and your presence. And I hope we can do more of this in the future.

• 1:25:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're just a joy.

• 1:25:02Lewis Howes?

  I appreciate it.

• 1:25:02Speaker 00

  Can't wait for the next one.

• 1:25:03Lewis Howes?

  I appreciate it. We're gonna have many, many rounds after this. My, my final question is what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:25:11Speaker 00

  Transparency, I think. I think that the, I think that the most successful, great, outstanding, respected people genuinely, like the biggest change makers are the ones that are most transparent, the most real, most honest.

• 1:25:29Speaker 00

  That's my path to greatness is just being transparent.

• 1:25:32Lewis Howes?

  Jordan, appreciate it, man.

• 1:25:33Speaker 00

  Appreciate you. Much love to you.

• 1:25:35Lewis Howes?

  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 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.