How To Stop Feeling Stuck In Life (By Doing THIS) w/ Craig Groeschel EP 1394

https://lewishowes.com/mindset - Order a copy of my new book The Greatness Mindset today! Craig Groeschel is the founding and senior pastor of Life. Church, an innovative multi-site church known for creating YouVersion, the world’s most downloaded Bible app. As one of the most respected leaders in the Church, Craig frequently speaks at leadership conferences worldwide, including events for the Global Leadership Network that reaches hundreds of thousands of leaders around the world annually. Groeschel hosts a leadership podcast, and is a New York Times bestselling author, and his latest book, The Power to Change: Mastering the Habits That Matter Most, will be released in February 2023. In this episode you will learn:How to channel your inner leader. When to step out of your comfort zone. How to prioritize your life and set realistic goals. Why discipline is so critical to reaching your goals. For more, go to lewishowes.com/1394How To Change Your Behavior And Accomplish Your Goals [MASTERCLASS]: https://link.chtbl.com/1317-podDr. Joe Dispenza: Break Free Of The Addiction To Negative Thoughts & Emotions: https://link.chtbl.com/1309-podBruce Lipton on How To Reprogram Your Subconscious Mind To Manifest Your Dream Life: https://link.chtbl.com/1312-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.

• 0:01Lewis Howes?

  Okay, so if you haven't heard the news yet, I've got a new book out called The Greatness Mindset. Unlock the Power of Your Mind and Live Your Best Life Today. It's coming out soon and I'm pumped to invite you to be a part of the launch team for this book. This is a rare opportunity to get your questions answered and network with other champions of greatness in this exclusive community of conscious achievers. If you're ready to receive early access to the first few chapters of the book, behind the scenes updates from me, plus VIP access to bonuses and giveaways, then this is for you. For instructions about how to join this greatness launch team, make sure to go to lewishouse.com/launchteam right now.

• 0:43Lewis Howes?

  Again, make sure to check it out at lewishouse.com/launchteam right now.

• 0:49Speaker 01

  You have to create the pockets of time to do what makes you great. What are those things that drive you, that renew you, that give you energy? And then you have to...

• 1:01Lewis 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.

• 1:25Lewis Howes?

  I feel like a lot of people don't even know what it means to be a leader because they're so wounded. They've got a lot of hurt. They've got a lot of adversity they're facing or they've faced and haven't overcome yet. They've got a lot of pain and fears from their past that keep them stuck in the past as opposed to a beautiful vision of a future. And I want to ask you, when was the time you were the most in pain internally? And how long did it take for you to finally heal that pain? Was it when you were younger? Was it when you were married? Was it when you were launching a business? Like, when was that moment? What was it? And when did you realize like, this was something that was holding you back?

• 2:04Speaker 01

  I think there, Lewis, and that's a, that's a deep question.

• 2:09Lewis Howes?

  We go in right away.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:12Lewis Howes?

  I'm not gonna lay it up for you.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  I'd say, I'd say there's probably two seasons. Okay. And it's almost like pre-leadership mindset and then, then leadership mindset. So the pre-leadership mindset for me was in college. And the pain that I experienced is I just was not a person of integrity. And so I would try to be one person for one group, another person for another group. And I ended up just hurting a lot of people. Really? Hurting a lot of people and just did not live a good life. And so it was a result of my own actions that I was in pain because I was causing pain. And it's pretty much what I'd seen modeled. And so that's who I was becoming. Interesting.

• 2:59Speaker 01

  It was, it was my own failure that led to changes. And then in leadership, I would say, I mean, there's almost too many, like you kind of live in pain. You know? When you're in leadership? Yeah, I always say if you're not hurting, you're not leading. Really? So, yeah, I mean, you're, there's always, I mean, like I'm, I'm walking in today with pain after having to make a really painful decision. And, and so if you're not, if you're not hurting, you're probably not leading. And so, you know, several examples come to mind. I had a mentor and a hero who ended up taking his life. And I did do his funeral. That was, that was pain. And then just the, the pain of failure is very, very real.

• 3:43Speaker 01

  Public failure of trying something that doesn't work. And then relational pain of any time you don't handle something well with somebody. It's, it's just, then you have to live with that. So it's, it's, it's season after season after season of pain, but that's part of it. I always tell people that it's sometimes the difference between where you are and where you could be is the pain that you're unwilling to endure. So sometimes it has to be the pain of making a hard decision actually gets you to the right place. Or the pain of which, you know, some kind of a discipline you add to your life. And so I don't. I don't run, I try not to run from pain. I don't like it, but I know that it's a part of it.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  And so I try to embrace it as a part of what we do.

• 4:31Lewis Howes?

  Why do you think so many people avoid facing pain when they know that's what's going to help them get to the next level and actually remove the pain and suffering they're in?

• 4:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know that everybody really knows that. I think sometimes they think that avoiding pain is the goal. And they don't necessarily see the benefit on the other side of the pain. Yeah, let's say someone in a business has an employee that's got kind of a toxic mindset. And so they kind of put up with that for a while. And then eventually they remove that toxic employee and they have no other like, oh my gosh, things are so much better. I have no idea how much, it's like, it's amazing how much better it is. And they don't realize also when they tolerate that intolerable behavior, how much credibility they're losing with everybody else.

• 5:17Lewis Howes?

  So true.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  Eventually, the toxic employee is not the problem. The person he's putting up with is the problem. And in avoiding that pain, it can create more pain. And so that's what I think that a lot of times, it took me years to understand that I could avoid the short-term pain because it's painful, but that pain could actually compound over a longer period of time if I don't deal with it. And so I try to step into the pain that's going to lead to the progress. And sometimes I don't feel like it and don't do it. But when you, when you do, when you're on, you didn't become a two-time All-American athlete.

• 5:51Lewis Howes?

  By being comfortable.

• 5:52Speaker 01

  By being comfortable, right? Growth, growth and comfort rarely coexist. You have to step into the discomfort.

• 5:57Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 5:58Speaker 01

  So I feel like my life is a constant discomfort.

• 6:00Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man. So it's painful to be a victim and it's painful to be a leader.

• 6:05Speaker 01

  It is.

• 6:06Lewis Howes?

  But, but the leadership one.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  Choose your pain.

• 6:09Lewis Howes?

  You have to choose your pain.

• 6:10Speaker 01

  Choose your pain, yeah.

• 6:11Lewis Howes?

  And there's better results on the other side of being a leader, but the pain doesn't go away. It doesn't sound like the pain goes away as a victim or a leader.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  No, I don't think the pain, I don't think pain goes away. And in this broken world, pain doesn't go away. But there are certain types of pain that lead to a better tomorrow. And there are other types of pain that lead to more pain.

• 6:30Lewis Howes?

  That's true. So your season, you know, you're mentioning two seasons, the first one being in college, being out of integrity. And I'm assuming, well, I don't want to assume, but there's probably things you were doing or saying that were out of integrity or not being your word. Or you said, being one person to a certain group and being another person and. And I had a season when I was um ten to twelve where I was stealing a lot. Candy bars, cigarettes.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  Did you get arrested for it?

• 6:58Lewis Howes?

  Never got arrested.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  I did.

• 6:59Lewis Howes?

  You did?

• 7:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:01Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 7:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:02Lewis Howes?

  Wow. How old were you?

• 7:03Speaker 01

  I was in college.

• 7:04Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:05Lewis Howes?

  So this season of pain.

• 7:06Speaker 01

  It was, yeah. Uh, yeah, there was this guy I looked up to, he was an older athlete and he went, he was, he, I can't remember what he called it. He said like, we go, something, we never go out without a hit, I think is what he said. And so you go out and you always steal something.

• 7:19Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 7:19Speaker 01

  And so I kinda wanted to be liked by him.

• 7:21Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 7:21Speaker 01

  I wasn't as good as he was.

• 7:23Lewis Howes?

  You got caught.

• 7:23Speaker 01

  I got caught, yeah.

• 7:25Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 7:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I was a college athlete and I like, I was gonna lose my scholarship.

• 7:29Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, it was, I mean, it was a spiral of things like that. That was one of many things that I did that were, uh, brought a lot of pain.

• 7:38Lewis Howes?

  So how did you overcome that? Like when you got out of jail, I mean, was it just the night or for an hour?

• 7:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, it was, they actually just scared me. It was a really, and they effectively scared me. It was a, they did a pretty good job, but I, um, my dad was an alcoholic. And so, um, I ended up, you know, drinking way too much and thought I could stop it. And then one day I tried to stop and I couldn't stop it. And that was in the season of all the other things. And so for me, we had, uh, I was the president of the fraternity that I was in. We had four guys commit grand larceny and our house was in a big bunch of trouble. And so they, they, I came up with kind of a plan to try to establish some credibility. And part of what I did, it was, it was at a, um, a kind of a religious Christian university. So I said, we're gonna do a Bible study there and that was part of my plan.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  And so what I did is I went on just kind of a quest for spiritual meaning. And which ended up me, I'm obviously a pastor, which led me down a, a path of faith. And so that was when my, had my big kind of turnaround.

• 8:37Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 8:37Speaker 01

  Which was I hit bottom, couldn't stop drinking, was stealing, cheating on, you know, every single girl I ever dated at that time. And betraying my friends and. And so kind of hitting bottom made me ask some bigger questions in life.

• 8:51Lewis Howes?

  Really? Were you into, I guess, faith growing up before then?

• 8:55Speaker 01

  No, no, so we, we went to church, but it was, I mean, it was nothing but an action.

• 8:59Lewis Howes?

  But when you see your father, an alcoholic, or your parents, you know, struggling or fighting, you're like, well, they're not living to this message.

• 9:07Speaker 01

  There was, it was not, there was nothing real about it for us. It was just a

• 9:10Lewis Howes?

  An act.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  Christmas and Easter, feel good, go every now and then. Yeah, and, and so then it became, you know, like going, am I going to live in a way that hurts people? Or am I going to live for something that's more meaningful and lasting? And that's, that's when I had a, a big, big life change.

• 9:27Lewis Howes?

  So that was season one of pain. When was, what was, you said there was two seasons?

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Well, I'd say, I mean, then like leadership, and so I just, it's, it's really hard to say the biggest time. I mean, it's just, it's, it's, uh, is really hard to say the biggest time. There's just, in early on, you know, the mistakes that we made and, you know, the failures and, and it's just, it's been, it's been a, not, not, so 27 years of leading the, the church that we started and, it's just been 27 years of different types of pain. You know, and 27 years of different types of like blessings and wins and, and things that we're proud of as well. But you just can't lead a lot of people without experiencing a lot of hurt.

• 10:12Lewis Howes?

  Really? How do you, I guess, forgive yourself or

• 10:18Lewis Howes?

  be okay with, you know, unintentional pain that you may cause on others from 10 years ago, 20 years ago, from just, you made a mistake. You, you didn't say the right thing at the right time and someone took it the wrong way. How do you learn to forgive yourself and not hold on to the suffering of that?

• 10:33Speaker 01

  That's, that's a great question. So, you know, what is forgiveness? And so, uh, one is you have to receive forgiveness. And some people can say, okay, well, I feel like now I'm forgiven. But then the forgive yourself part is a huge deal.

• 10:46Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  And there's kind of a, an illustration someone used of like, if you're holding on to broken glass and you squeeze it like that, who you're hurting, you're hurting yourself. And when, when we hold on to any kind of Unforgiveness or what we did wrong and squeeze it, we end up hurting ourselves. And when we're hurt, we tend to continue to hurt other people. And so there has to be a point where we say, I cannot change that. I can't change what I did, can't change what I said, but I can change what I'm doing moving forward. In order to become different moving forward, I have to let go of what I did in the past.

• 11:22Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  And, and.

• 11:24Lewis Howes?

  When did you learn to let go?

• 11:26Speaker 01

  I would say I'm still learning to let go.

• 11:28Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  Meaning I still am very hard on myself when I do something that is beneath my standards.

• 11:35Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  And it's something as small as there was a guy that I didn't know very well. It was, that went through a horrible thing and I thought I'm gonna call him. And then I didn't call him and didn't call him and didn't call him. And then too much time went and I thought, well, if I call him now, it's been too late. And then I bumped into him a year later and I saw him and I was just like, I didn't do something. I didn't, didn't call you. I mean, it was a horrible situation he went through and I just didn't do something like that. And I beat myself up over it. So there's, people with high standards often have high shame. What we want to do is we want to have a high standard without high shame. We have to, we have to let that go and move on.

• 12:11Lewis Howes?

  How do you let it go though? And not feel guilty or shameful if you don't do something?

• 12:15Speaker 01

  Well, for him, I apologized and I said, would you please forgive me? Because I thought about it and I didn't do it and too much time went by. And so I just named it and he was very gracious to me. And so sometimes it comes with an apology to someone else. Other times it just, it's almost like you have to draw a line in the sand and said, I'm not gonna let the actions that I did or didn't do continue to rob me from doing the right thing today. And so it's kind of a internal choice to move forward. You have to move forward.

• 12:45Lewis Howes?

  How do we learn to fully heal and create peace? Can you do that if you don't forgive yourself or others? Can you still start to heal while holding a grudge and being shameful? Or is that part of the process towards healing?

• 12:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, okay, so my, so my dad was an alcoholic, which creates challenges in any kind of, in any kind of family.

• 13:08Speaker 01

  And so there was a lot of hurt there.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  I don't think I could be doing. Today, what I'm doing without having forgiven him and forgiving myself for my part in what went on. So first of all, it's forgiving him. Mm-hmm. And the second thing is, I was often not, um, my reactions weren't always good to what was going on. In fact, the times were worse than you could imagine. And to apologize, he went through a 12-step program, Alcoholics Anonymous, is now sober over 30 years and is, I talk to him every day. Wow. And I look up to him today for, not for the reasons I wanted to look up to a dad for a kid, but totally different reasons. Interesting. Now, for a man who's humble, for a man who's caring, for a man who helps other

• 13:58Speaker 01

  people. And that, that healing in both of us created something on the inside that says we can overcome, we can move forward, we can make something better, we can do something different. And, and, you know, so much of life is a wound, any, any kind, an addiction in many ways. So someone comes to me with a pornography addiction, and I go, I can't stop, I can't stop. What I'll try to say is, okay, when did you look at it first? And they'll tell some kind of dramatic story of, I was in the fourth grade and something, or, or someone did something inappropriate to me, and then I started, whatever. And so I'll say, what that actually is, is it was a wound. It was a wound. You experienced

• 14:42Speaker 01

  something, you feel dirty, like you did something wrong, but that actually was a wound. And what you have to do is, you have to protect that wound in order for it to heal. Meaning, you have to stay away from the thing that continues to infect that wound and let your mind be renewed, how you see yourself, maybe how you see people or images or the opposite sex or whatever. And so you literally, you have to, you have to place a protection around the wound, because if you keep picking at the wound, the wound doesn't heal. Ah. And, and then, and it may be- Therapy, it may be you you read the Bible, it may be you get you get in a group of people that are working together.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  But you do something different. It doesn't, wounds don't typically heal without some time of treatment, some time of help and some time. And you have to have all, some combination of all this.

• 15:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. How does someone learn to manage their thoughts? When they have a wound that becomes an addiction, that seems like it's just, whenever there's pain or anxiety, they go right to that thought.

• 15:46Speaker 01

  Well, a hundred percent, yeah. And and you do because of the way our our minds are created. And, you know, when we think a thought, we create a neural pathway, which is kind of like a, you know, if there's a road between the two of us. If if we travel across the yard the same way every day, you create a path. And that's what our thoughts do is we create the the neural pathway. And what we have to do is we have to learn to stop traveling the same destructive thought pathway and create another pathway, which is not easy. And so we have to determine what is, what is the wrong thought or what is the lie that I'm believing? And then what we have to do is determine what is the correct thought or what is the truth? And we have to think that thought over and over and over and over again.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  And I would say like, write it down, whatever it is, think it, confess it till you believe it, write it, think it, confess it till you believe it, write it, think it, confess it till you believe it. And so what I did, Louis, is I I had some thoughts about me that were not always positive.

• 16:44Lewis Howes?

  What was the hardest thought for you to overcome?

• 16:46Speaker 01

  I would say I always felt like I'm not enough.

• 16:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 16:49Speaker 01

  And so.

• 16:49Lewis Howes?

  Why is that for so many people, myself included?

• 16:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:52Lewis Howes?

  Why is that, they seem like the the core of a lot of our fears?

• 16:56Speaker 01

  I think it's because we're not enough. We're not, because we're not, we're we're broken human beings. And.

• 17:01Lewis Howes?

  We're not the source of creation.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  We're not, we're not, we're not, you know, and and we know our flaws. And so we always know that we're we're not, we're not enough.

• 17:11Lewis Howes?

  But living in that belief that I am not enough, I'm never good enough, I'm not going to be smart enough, pretty enough, whatever it is.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:17Lewis Howes?

  That doesn't support us either.

• 17:18Speaker 01

  No, but that's probably why a lot of the people in the school of greatness, you haven't feel that way. Because what that in our dysfunction, we try to prove that we are.

• 17:26Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 17:26Speaker 01

  So you'll be you'll become a great athlete too, or you'll become successful. And you're trying to prove to someone else or prove to yourself that you are enough. And that works for a little while, but it doesn't sustain.

• 17:39Lewis Howes?

  Doesn't last.

• 17:39Speaker 01

  It doesn't last, no.

• 17:40Lewis Howes?

  So how do we get to a place where we stop thinking, I'm not enough, I'm never enough, I'm stupid, I'm an idiot. I'm I'm always a failure. How do we eliminate those thoughts? What do we replace it with to create peace?

• 17:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, it depends on your your framework. So and so I'm I'm a pastor, and so I have a spiritual framework. And so for me, it starts, it starts with Christ. And and so for me, like it, and there's actually a verse in the Bible, this is a pretty powerful verse. And, you know, I know people from all different faith backgrounds, and we actually love that, respect it. But there's a verse that says, you have everything you need for life and godliness. It's a powerful verse.

• 18:15Lewis Howes?

  And godliness.

• 18:16Speaker 01

  And godliness, you have everything you need. And so in other words, if you recognize that that God, or whatever your source would be, I would say God has given you the relationships you need, the mind that you need, the resources you need, the internal strength you need, the people to call that you need, the emotions that you can need, that he's giving you everything you need for life and godliness. Then you go to him or go to your network of friends or whatever it is and say, I'm going to apply the things that I have to get things done. And so I'll teach that in leadership too, is that we tend to think that a lot of people say, I can't because we don't. I can't do this because we don't have this. I need more people, money, more time, whatever.

• 19:00Speaker 01

  And I'll say, you have everything you need to do, everything you're created to do. If you choose, you know, instead of saying, I don't have the time, we say, no, you actually have the time to do what you choose to have the time for. You make, you make the choice.

• 19:10Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 19:11Speaker 01

  Uh, we don't have enough money. Actually, sometimes too much money gets in the way of innovation, right?

• 19:16Lewis Howes?

  That's true.

• 19:16Speaker 01

  I mean, it really does.

• 19:17Lewis Howes?

  You're not hungry, you're not creative.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  No, no, too, too much money makes you sloppy. And so the most innovative companies are you, you usually are most innovative in the startup phase because they have to be.

• 19:27Lewis Howes?

  They got no money.

• 19:27Speaker 01

  No.

• 19:28Lewis Howes?

  They're trying to figure it out.

• 19:29Speaker 01

  So back to your question is, I want to fundamentally, you, you do what you do because of what you think of you. You do what you do because of what you think of you. If you think you're broken, you act like somebody's broken. If you think you're insufficient, you're always gonna feel like you're lacking something. If you, to change what you do, you need to change what you think of you. And so, when we talk about discipline and we talk about habits, uh, we, we start first with the who, not the do. What do you mean by the who? So not about what to do, but who you believe you are? You, you, you do what you do because of what you think of you, so. Of who you believe you are? Who you believe you are, so. So it's changing the belief around yourself first? Hundred percent.

• 20:13Speaker 01

  So they did, they did a study, basically, when you get any kind of situation, um, subconsciously, you have three thoughts. The first thing is, um, is, um, what type of a person I am? Who am I? What type of person I am? And the second thing is, that you're asking the subconsciously every time, what type of situation is this? And the third question is, what does a person like me do in a situation like this? And that's how you make decisions. And so, if you wanna change what you do, you have to change what you think of you. What type of person am I, am I? Uh, this dumb story. I'm a pastor, I'm in an office building in the early years. We had this rented building, there was only, you know, forty staff members at the time or something. And, and this, these teenagers pulled up in the parking lot outside,

• 20:57Speaker 01

  um, and they got on a car, these guys took their shirt off and a fight's on. And so, I thought, this is amazing. I mean, I'm in here studying, there's gonna be a fight. So, I ran through the office like I'm fifteen years old, going, fight, fight, fight. This other pastor named Robert, he's like, you know, he's a man's man. We ran outside, fight, fight, fight. And we're watching that, it watched this fight go on for about thirty seconds, and he looked at me, and I looked at him, like, wait a minute, who are we? We're grownups. We're not teenagers again. We're supposed, we're supposed to break this up, so when you know who you are, you'll know what to do. So, when you know who you are, you'll know what to do. So we broke the fight up, you know, it's just, because, because we remember who we were. And fundamentally, when we wanna change our habits, it has to start with identity.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  What would a person like me do in a situation like this? If I continued to do the wrong things because I've got the wrong mind? Mindset and so we have to change what we think about.

• 21:48Lewis Howes?

  So how do we shift our identity if their identity has served us in some ways, but not in every way?

• 21:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, so our dysfunction can serve us, meaning like I'm the oldest adult child of an alcoholic, which makes me, um, makes me a people pleaser, which works until it doesn't.

• 22:04Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  I'm a type A personality, it's gonna be an achiever, which works until it doesn't. And so those things, our dysfunctions can work for us up to a point. But to truly have sustained health and sustained impact, we have to be healthy in what we're doing. So the mindset matters so, so, so much. And essentially what we have to do is we have to retrain our minds. I mean, we literally have to retrain our minds. I've got a dog that would run out into the street all the time and was gonna get killed. And so I tried to train her, eventually I had to buy one of those collars that would, you know, shock before she went on the street. Now, um, we don't even turn on the thing because she knows she doesn't go past a certain point, so she's, she's trained. What I want to do with my mind is I want to train it not to go to those dangerous places.

• 22:46Speaker 01

  And if you, you know, I'm fifty five when this comes out. If I've thought in a certain way for twenty or thirty years, the idea of changing my mind in a week is almost impossible.

• 23:00Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 23:01Speaker 01

  Right? It's a discipline. So in the same way, ye fifteen years ago, I decided to get serious about my health and, and diet. It took me probably three years.

• 23:13Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 23:13Speaker 01

  To see significant benefits in my physical health. And I mean, you see some immediate ones, but until it becomes a sustainable lifestyle, it's probably three years.

• 23:24Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 23:25Speaker 01

  And then probably another seven years of dialing it in with supplements and meals and workout and such. And the same thing with my mind is in order to take out all, all of the, or at least as much dysfunction as I can and start to replace it with healthy, um, sustainable, productive, positive thoughts. It's taken years and it's, it's been, it's, you don't get great at anything without a lot of time and you don't get great healing your mind without putting some work into it.

• 23:59Lewis Howes?

  So after this, you know. 10, 15 years of doing these activities to kind of retrain your thinking and your habits and your discipline in being the leader you are now. When a thought creeps in from the past, like maybe it used to consistently and it creeps in, what do you think and what do you say to yourself about it? How do you shift it? How do you get back to your, your new identity?

• 24:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, so there's, there's, um, like, sci- science would call it, you know, creating new neural pathways. Scripture would call it renewing your mind. And there's, there's actually a Bible verse that says, "We're to capture any wrong thoughts." And that's a great kind of metaphor. And so, let's just say that you feel like, "I'm never gonna be good enough." The moment that comes up, you wanna recognize it as early as you can. And you wanna capture it and say, "That's just not true." And what is true? Uh, and then you want, you wanna replace it with what's true. And you have, you, you, if you don't capture it, it's kind of like, if you let a few roaches in your house, you're gonna have a bunch of roaches in your house.

• 25:03Lewis Howes?

  It'll multiply.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  You gotta, you gotta solve the, you gotta see the problem early and solve it quickly. And so you wanna recognize, and one of the key things is, is that like, like a lot of us just don't recognize the wrong thought patterns. You see it with people on social media when they say just dumb things and everyone else goes, "That person's not healthy," because they don't see it. And so, you wanna, first of all, recognize, "What is it? What wrong thought patterns are holding me back?" And when you, when you, when you believe a lie long enough, you just start to think it's true. And so sometimes you have to have outside help to, for example, the performance psychologist I worked with, he, he helped me to see that because of my feeling unworthy, I find it difficult to ask for help. I find it very difficult to ask for help.

• 25:49Speaker 01

  And so, he said to me, "What do you need in life?" I'm, "What do you need? What are your needs? What do you need?" And so in my mind, I'm thinking, "Okay, well, I need to eat. I need to sleep." And I kind of slowed down there. What else do you need? So I've been, I have been married to Amy for 31 years. We've got a great marriage. I kind of need her, like I technically, but I really want her, you know? And you'll know, you're just being, you're believing a lie. What you need is you need recreation. You need friends. You need enjoyment. You need time without a ton of people in your home. You need to go to a place where you have anonymity. You're like, I don't need that. No, actually, you need that. And so what he helped me to do is to dignify need.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  That that doesn't make me less of a servant, or doesn't make me more, it doesn't make me narcissistic. It doesn't make me a bad leader. It doesn't make me a bad husband. It makes me a human being that has needs. And so as one who's been trained to always serve others,

• 26:49Speaker 01

  it's okay, it's not only okay to ask for help or to have need, but it's important to ask for help and to let others meet your needs. And so I've had to retrain my mind to do that, which is not, hasn't been easy.

• 27:01Lewis Howes?

  What happens if we ask for too much help? Is there such a thing, or is that a good thing?

• 27:06Speaker 01

  Certainly, there's such a thing that you can't let other people do everything for you. You can't let them solve all your problems, you know? Like if you have, if you create a great course and it's always free and I don't have any skin in the game, then I might not take it seriously. So I think, I think that there's, if you're a baby, you probably need unlimited help. But when you're not a baby, at some point, you have to, you have to feed yourself.

• 27:32Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. What's the place in your life right now? You feel like if you continue to level up to the next level, would solve a lot of problems? Either internally, you know, emotionally, spiritually?

• 27:46Speaker 01

  If I leveled up, it would solve a lot of problems.

• 27:49Lewis Howes?

  Or if it was something that's holding you back still, even if it's a smaller level. I mean, you're at a whole nother level than most people because you've been so disciplined for, you know, 15 years. But is there anything still a thought that holds you back? An emotion that holds you back, an intention?

• 28:03Speaker 01

  I would say like my disciplines are pretty dialed in, and which is good. But I think that probably the, here's, here's something. So I told our team, it's hard to say, but I basically had been leading afraid. And so there's a part of me that just is cautious now. In the early years, I was too dumb to be afraid as a leader.

• 28:24Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  And didn't have anything to lose. And so I took a lot of risks.

• 28:28Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  And now what I realized, in this culture, someone like me can, and you, we can say something small, something, a misstep, we can misspeak, and it can be incredibly costly.

• 28:43Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  And so, not only could it hurt me, but, you know, I've got a thousand employees, I take a misstep, it could be costly there. I represent something that's more than just a brand, but it's spiritual. And so, so I think that I've been way too hesitant. I've played it safe. I haven't, haven't been as bold at times. And I think that one of them, what I did a lot because I was fearless, I've done less because I've been fearful.

• 29:16Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. What would you step into if you weren't fearful at all?

• 29:22Speaker 01

  I think that there are, I've actually stepped into some of the things more recently, is I think there are certain subjects that, that even like we talked about off camera, that are a little more controversial, that I have been stepping back into.

• 29:41Lewis Howes?

  Tipping toe into it.

• 29:42Speaker 01

  Tipping toe back into, because what I want to do is, like, I want to keep the conversation going. And so there's certain things I can say, or certain things I may believe, that if I come out too strong, the conversation ends real quickly. And

• 29:55Lewis Howes?

  If you come out too strong.

• 29:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:57Lewis Howes?

  I'll say, this is my belief.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  I can lose credibility.

• 29:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  And, you know, I'm actually pretty open-minded and have a wide tolerance and love for a lot of people. But I do have some pretty firm beliefs. And so, what I don't want to do is I don't want to push them, but I believe they can be really helpful. And so, I, I'm, so I'm waiting back into some things I think are important for someone like me to talk about. And, but they're risky. So I'm going back and doing some of that. And I think every now and then, for example, our church created something called the U-Version Bible app. And it's on over a half a billion devices. We give it away for free. And we've been, the language I use is we've kind of been nickel and diming it, meaning we put a lot of money toward it and have a big team. But we've been playing it safe. And, and we steward

• 30:43Speaker 01

  what is probably the number one Tool in the world, in the history of the world of getting out that word.

• 30:51Lewis Howes?

  It's pretty powerful.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  And we've been playing, say, so what we've done and we've come in and we're gonna, we're ramping up. We're taking some risks and putting a lot toward it that may or may not work. So that's something now that I'm saying I was hesitant and I'm not going to be as hesitant there.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  And so if I thought about for a long time, there's probably, there's probably a ton of areas like that. Where my fear has just kept me from being as bold or.

• 31:20Lewis Howes?

  Play a little safer.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  Play a little safer.

• 31:22Lewis Howes?

  Well, this is the challenge, I think you've, you've accomplished so much individually and also with your church. I mean, you have so many locations, you reach a lot of people, the app has a half a billion people using the app. You know, the, the books, your work, your credibility, your leadership, all the different things that you've created.

• 31:40Lewis Howes?

  Why do you think it's so hard for people once they've created something? That to other human beings looks like a lot, right? It looks very credible and a big platform. Why is it so hard for people to continue to be courageous in using their voice? Not saying you're not doing that, but to continue to do the things that got them there. And also, why do you think so many people want to bring down those that have created something that they aspire to create themselves? Why is there this culture in the past five, 10 years of just like, let's pick apart anyone who's doing anything of value?

• 32:19Speaker 01

  I'll start with that part of the question, that's easier. So in, like in New Zealand or Australia, that's where the tall poppy syndrome would be most well known. And so whatever the poppy that grows the tallest, people want to cut it down. I think it's a, I think it's a sad commentary on human nature born out of insecurity. And so here's what I've found is that. For a big part of my life, I was very much like that. If I saw something that was successful, I felt threatened by it. And I must not be good enough because I'm not doing that. So there must be something wrong with them. So I kind of grew up in a home or a mindset where I was taught wealthy people are bad. Yeah. I mean, literally, that was almost word for word was said. They're evil.

• 33:03Speaker 01

  They must have done something wrong to get that way. And what's interesting is a family member that believed that ended up marrying somebody that had wealth. And it was this world-class wealthy person, like world-class, generous, kind, amazing. And so I said to that person, I said, do you think maybe that they are wealthy because they've treated people well, because they've had integrity, because they've served people well? And then that person who was marrying, I said, now you're going to be wealthy and you're going to get to decide what kind of wealthy person do you want to be? So it was interesting because that was, we're raising a mindset where people want to cut them down.

• 33:42Speaker 01

  As, as I've grown to not be threatened by success, but celebrate success, is I'd rather cheer people on like crazy. And it takes, it takes a real different mindset. It's just like the difference between an abundance mindset and a scarcity mindset. And, you know, what is scarcity? Like there's one pie and if you get a piece, I don't. Abundance is we can make more pies. Unlimited pies. Yeah, we can make tons of pies. And so if we believe that successful people probably did something to deserve to be there and it's hard to be there, and then we would cheer them on rather than tear them down. And it's, and just also, I read, I think it's Engelman's that does the trust surveys now.

• 34:27Speaker 01

  I think it's 67% of people choose not to trust unless there's a reason to trust, which is horrifying. Because I don't know you, but we're on podcast together, come putting my trust in you. I flew in a plane to get here and trusted the pilot to get me here. When I go out to lunch today, I'm untrusted, they don't spit in my food. So our whole society is built on trust, but when 67% of people don't trust, unless it's proven, it's almost like a breakdown of relational. Yeah. Anything. And so I think long answer to that.

• 35:00Speaker 01

  And what we criticize the most is often what we understand the least.

• 35:04Lewis Howes?

  What should we do instead of criticize?

• 35:06Speaker 01

  Should be a student. I mean, we should.

• 35:08Lewis Howes?

  Get curious.

• 35:09Speaker 01

  Get curious. Like, what have you done? I mean, you've been, you've been curious and that's what makes you great. And so you haven't, you don't tear down greatness. You create a school of greatness.

• 35:21Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm, exactly.

• 35:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:23Lewis Howes?

  Why, you know, I've seen over the past, I don't know, five, seven years, different pastors, just leading churches in general stumble, right? Have marital issues or a cheating scandal or financial scandal or something like, I've seen it. I don't know all the details. I'm not in the, that scene really, but I've seen this happen.

• 35:46Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 35:48Lewis Howes?

  And then, you know, they lose their credibility or their church, or whatever it might be.

• 35:54Lewis Howes?

  Why do you think that's happening to certain people in the faith-based communities? And why do we have such high standards for these individuals to not also be human and make mistakes? Can you speak into just this?

• 36:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, I could talk about this for a long time because it's really important.

• 36:13Speaker 01

  First of all, yes, we have had some visible leaders fall. And we've had tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of leaders, spiritual leaders not fall.

• 36:27Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 36:27Speaker 01

  And thousands of visible ones, visible ones not fall. So, so we do have a problem, but we also have a lot of places where things are going really well. And so I just always like to point that out because we live in a day where the failures hit the news. And rightly so for doing something that's, um, isn't right. So, but I also want to say there's a lot of, a lot of people doing it really well.

• 36:53Lewis Howes?

  Hundred percent.

• 36:54Speaker 01

  We don't want to forget that. Why is it happening? I think several reasons. I think that, I mean, almost too many reasons to count. I think, um,

• 37:04Speaker 01

  If we put our identity in the wrong place, we get vulnerable. If we work too hard without recovering, we get vulnerable. If we're visually distracted by something we shouldn't look at, we're vulnerable. If we, if our identity is in, if we neglect our marriage, we're vulnerable. If we don't have, and this can be a problem, if we don't have real accountability, people that we answer to, and we're on the show, we're incredibly vulnerable. And it's, you know, that can be an issue.

• 37:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 37:34Speaker 01

  And so I think the list goes on and on and on of why we're there. And one of the things, one of the challenges is, let's say we, so we take a small misstep, at least a bigger misstep. A lot of times, spiritual leaders don't feel safe confessing it. And so like where we are, what we want to do is we always say, we want to be a safe place to confess sin early. Meaning if, for someone to do something that would be newsworthy or disqualifying, this is generally not a one-step action. Generally, there's one, two, three, four, five, six smaller steps that lead up to that.

• 38:08Lewis Howes?

  Right. It's not just, oh, I have this idea, I want to go and act on it. It's like, I've been thinking about this for years.

• 38:12Speaker 01

  And working toward it, meaning, and compromise here, compromise here, compromise here. And so what I'm a big believer in is high levels of accountability. Okay, so let's say, let's say, we're gonna look at your life and there's certain disciplines in there. You've got parameters. So like, there's certain things I'm gonna eat today, certain things I'm not gonna eat today. There's certain things I'm gonna do with my time. When it comes to guarding my marriage, 31 years and six kids that are grown, five grandkids, there's, I have parameters in my life, safeguards, that-

• 38:40Lewis Howes?

  Give me a few.

• 38:41Speaker 01

  Tons of them. So my, so if people would criticize this all day long, and I understand in certain circles, this would be, but I'm just not alone with someone of the opposite sex.

• 38:53Lewis Howes?

  Right, you're not alone.

• 38:54Speaker 01

  I'm not alone, I'm not alone. My computer and my cellphone and all, they have, there's like tracking stuff on there. Every click I make on the computer, someone else sees. Same with my phone, it's got, it's got blockers of inappropriate material. I can, I can't book a massage because I can't type in massage, it blocks things. Which is, which is incredibly inconvenient if I want to get a massage. But it's, it means I can't look at something I shouldn't look at. And so, so the, and someone's like, well Pastor, are you really that vulnerable? Are you that big of a sicko?

• 39:27Lewis Howes?

  I'm just about to keep you accountable, right?

• 39:29Speaker 01

  The answer is like, generally not. Yeah, generally not.

• 39:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  I mean, like, most days, no.

• 39:34Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  But you never know if there's gonna be a time when I'm upset, mad, angry, vulnerable, whatever. And so the way I always phrase it, Louis, is I'm gonna close as many doors as I can to something that could be costly. And the way I say it is, why would I resist a temptation in the future if I have the power to eliminate it today?

• 39:53Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 39:54Speaker 01

  Okay? So.

• 39:55Lewis Howes?

  I love this.

• 39:56Speaker 01

  Why, why fight it? Like, I don't know when I'm gonna be vulnerable. So if I am, because I'm still a human being, let's not have that thing, be able to, let's not have access to it.

• 40:08Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  And so, there's, and then, you know, how are you gonna do this? Well, you're only as strong as you are honest, right? You, you have to be, you have to be honest. And so, for someone like me to say, I have those kind of parameters, that implies that I could be vulnerable. And the reason is because I could be vulnerable.

• 40:28Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 40:29Speaker 01

  Because of where I came from.

• 40:30Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 40:31Speaker 01

  And I always joke around, long before I was a pastor, I used to be a man.

• 40:37Lewis Howes?

  It's so true.

• 40:38Speaker 01

  Right?

• 40:38Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 40:38Speaker 01

  And just because I'm a pastor doesn't mean I'm not a human being that's capable of wrongdoing.

• 40:44Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  And so, so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna say, where am I vulnerable? And I'm gonna put safeguards in those places.

• 40:50Lewis Howes?

  So every keystroke and every link you go to, someone's able to look at.

• 40:55Speaker 01

  Hundred percent, yeah. Yes, software, so.

• 40:58Lewis Howes?

  Someone on your team, or your wife, or your email.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  Oddly enough, in my office, like, on my computer, and so if you, this is, you may not like this, but if you text me, someone can see that.

• 41:05Lewis Howes?

  Sure. So I'll only text you inappropriate things.

• 41:09Speaker 01

  Yes, and there's a couple of people that need to remember that. So, a couple of my friends. And so, like, all, like, everywhere I go, my mileage is tracked, so people in my office know everywhere I am.

• 41:21Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  Every dollar I spend, I've got several people that helps, they all see that. Every dollar I make, every dollar I give. And so there's financial transparency with a group of people.

• 41:31Lewis Howes?

  Extreme accountability.

• 41:32Speaker 01

  And that's not even accountability, that's just how, how my life's set up, meaning, like, and, and if, if, then what is there to hide? So, when I took up a new, um, I took up jujitsu uh three years ago. And so the lady who'd buy office, she going, what's, what's this place you've gone to four times in Guthrie?

• 41:50Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 41:50Speaker 01

  And uh, cause, cause I, my life is so boring. I went to a new place. So that people see that and, and that would be really extreme for a lot of people. I know a lot of your audience going, this guy's wacko, this guy's weird. And I've had a lot of people criticize my standards and end up in trouble. And so I have a lot to, um, I have a lot of reasons to stay on the right path.

• 42:14Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  And so I'm gonna put fences up to keep me from going on the wrong path.

• 42:19Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And if you took those away, let's just say, you know, I've been doing this for thirty years now. I've been having these parameters, these guidelines, these boundaries that I've set myself. I'm in a good space. And if you started to pull them all back, you know, maybe for a year or two, you would still continue that. But then, oh, no one's gonna see this. Let me get away with this little thing. Uh, this isn't really that big a deal, but it can lead to some.

• 42:41Speaker 01

  There are a ton of boundaries I have right now that I do not feel like I need right now.

• 42:44Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  But you never know.

• 42:46Lewis Howes?

  You never know, man.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  Like I don't, I don't feel like I do it right now.

• 42:49Lewis Howes?

  You were born a man.

• 42:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I, I don't feel like at this age, I am uh way less vulnerable to some things I was before.

• 42:58Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 42:59Speaker 01

  Uh, but I'm not invulnerable. So I'd rather be, I'd rather be um wise than foolish.

• 43:08Lewis Howes?

  I mean, it's an extreme way to look at things, but it's gotten you, you know, extraordinary results in your life and a sense of peace and freedom that you probably wouldn't have otherwise.

• 43:18Speaker 01

  That's what discipline is. Most, most people hate discipline. The, a simple definition of discipline is choosing what you want most over what you want now, right? And there's some things I want a lot. There's some things I want now. And sometimes they're not the right thing. And so it's all the way like down to my, my diet, which is, is really, really strict.

• 43:37Lewis Howes?

  You're dialed. I can tell.

• 43:38Speaker 01

  Well, thank you. But it's, it's, it's not because I don't like donuts. It's not because I don't like chocolate ice cream. I like it. I just don't have access to it.

• 43:46Lewis Howes?

  You want to have energy? You want to live a long time?

• 43:48Speaker 01

  No, so I mean, my meals are pre-planned and I've got the healthy snacks around all the time because if I don't, I'll be, I'll be vulnerable to it. And so that's, there's, there's just choices that we make to put the right people in our lives, the right environments, the right systems, the right accountability, the right structure. And, you know, people say, they'll say, Craig, like you're incredibly disciplined and they'll say, I'm not disciplined. I'll say, you're actually are disciplined. Like, you know, some people, you may be disciplined to eat Doritos and play video games all day, sleep in, but you know, that's what you've chosen to do and you do that consistently. And I, I'm not naturally disciplined toward the right disciplines. I have to choose them.

• 44:30Speaker 01

  And it's like your mind, once you choose them often enough, you create pathways and then you see the benefits from it and then you, then it becomes, then it's who you are. Then it's, so for a while, I was a person who was trying to eat healthy. Now I'm a person who values, this is, this is the temple of the Holy Spirit is what my faith would believe. And so I'm going to put good things in it.

• 44:54Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 44:55Speaker 01

  It's who I am. Not just what, I don't just eat right. No, this is, this is who I am. It's identity. If you want to change what you do, change what you think of you. And so it's the mindset that, that goes a long way.

• 45:08Lewis Howes?

  What's a thought you think of frequently throughout every day that supports you in your life the most?

• 45:14Speaker 01

  Um, I would say there's, there's, there's several things. So I have kind of, um, for Amy, I always say,

• 45:24Speaker 01

  um, I will love her like Jesus loved the church. I'll lay down my life to serve her.

• 45:27Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 45:28Speaker 01

  And so I want to, uh, I want to, I want to, I want to love her. I want her to feel blessed, honored, cherished. And so that relationship matters so much to me.

• 45:39Lewis Howes?

  When did you get to that point? Was that from day one? Was that like 10 years in where you're like, okay, this is my-

• 45:44Speaker 01

  We decided going into that we wanted to have something that was different. We really want to have something that is different.

• 45:49Lewis Howes?

  But this is a different way of thinking 30 years ago. People weren't thinking that way, right?

• 45:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:54Lewis Howes?

  You just kind of follow the norm, you get, you date for a few years, you get engaged, you get married, and then you get divorced.

• 45:59Speaker 01

  So I told you, like, I was, I did everything that would have been wrong in the dating life that, that I could have possibly done. And then when I had kind of my change, what I did is I took two years and I stopped dating. So you, you kind of have some weird stuff like this too, right?

• 46:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:13Speaker 01

  So I stopped dating to try to reset myself. And I started back, I started reading everything I could on marriage. I started listening to cassette tapes. This tells you how long ago it was. This was the eighties. I started journaling what would a good husband be like. And I wrote love notes to the person I would marry one day. I didn't know who it was, but I wrote these love notes. So like three months into dating, I had this shoebox. It was, you know, I should have made a presentation of like, I think these are for you. And I gave her these love notes, you know? And so I just went into it thinking we're going to be different. And, and you have to be different, meaning you have to be way different. So people laughed at us, made fun of us. Our finances were different. We didn't, you know, we were going to save and invest. And they made fun of us. Our priorities were different.

• 46:58Speaker 01

  And then after a while, things started kind of working and, and working well.

• 47:03Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 47:03Speaker 01

  And then, um, then it earned a little bit of credibility when before we didn't necessarily have it.

• 47:09Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  So that's at the top of, that, that relationship with her is, um, at the top. And then, now I'll say, I can, I can do everything, um, God calls me to do because I have everything he needs me to do. And so that's, that's kind of one of the things I say over and over again.

• 47:26Lewis Howes?

  It's like a mantra throughout the day, kind of?

• 47:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I'll believe the best about people, um, you know? I try to always tell myself that, that I would rather, I'd rather be wrong believing in someone than being skeptical because of my nature, I'm skeptical. So that goes against my nature.

• 47:43Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 47:44Speaker 01

  And I feel like to really be good in leadership, you have to believe in people. You have to believe in people. If I want them to, so we always say that trust is given, mistrust is earned. That's opposite of culture. That, and I want to trust you until you prove I can't versus in culture today is the other way around. So to have a team that's really healthy, that really wants to be there. I want them to know that I want to be a you-oriented leader. I want to believe in them. And that's counterintuitive to the way I was raised. So I have to force that to the front and renew my mind to that way.

• 48:18Lewis Howes?

  Wow, it's inspiring. Who is the mentor that inspired you the most in this space? Maybe someone you're, you know, around your age or older that paved the way in their relationship, in their faith, in their, the way they did things in the business, like, and what was the biggest lesson that that person taught you?

• 48:40Speaker 01

  I would say for me, there's not a single person. It's almost like, and I always tell people, like, don't look for a mentor. Look for categories of mentors. And so I have, I have a ton of different in each category. Like if you ask me a category, I could tell you a person. So kind of like in business and leadership, there's a guy just named Michael Adell. That's just, he is disciplined, great man, great family leader. If you look in leadership, I would say like I was hatched on John Maxwell in the early years and read everything that he ever wrote.

• 49:18Speaker 01

  I mean, like a lot of the people you interviewed like years ago, just listened to Ferris and the, you know, his four-hour work week, which a lot of it is kind of almost like hyperbole, but there was gold in there.

• 49:29Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 49:30Speaker 01

  And then, then listening to, you know, everybody I listened to like would, they did sauna cold plunge, or they meditate, like almost everybody.

• 49:39Lewis Howes?

  Everyone.

• 49:40Speaker 01

  And so I'm going, if they're doing that, I'm going to try it. And so I do that now. And meditation's not been as consistent, but it's, it has, I do, I actually created my own form of meditation that I do in the sauna, which is different. But if there's someone I respect that's doing something, I want to do the thing. I want to, I want to, I can't always do what they do, but I want to know how they think and I want to know the why behind it. And so in every category, I've got different mentors that inspire me.

• 50:06Lewis Howes?

  Wow. What's the best relationship advice you heard?

• 50:10Speaker 01

  So when Amy and I got married, there was a writer in the newspaper called Ann Landers. Most people, she was real big back then. And she wrote this thing that said, neglect the rest of the world if you have to, but never neglect your spouse. And we cut that out. This was back when you put magnets on the refrigerator. We put that up there. Neglect the rest of the world if you have to, but never neglect each other. And so we just took that in mind. And so we really prioritized our marriage relationship.

• 50:38Lewis Howes?

  But how do you do that? I mean, you've got such, you've got over a thousand employees. You're leading millions of people around the world. You're, the weight is on your shoulders to be, to have the, you know, the right message to say in the right way every single week. You're writing books, you're running other businesses, you've got the Bible. Like, how do you put your marriage or the relationship first? When you're creating so much with your mission?

• 51:04Speaker 01

  I would say there's a couple of things that people wouldn't understand. One is that the amazing people that I have around me that do so much. So you would be shocked at what I don't know and what I don't do. Like, you know, it would be, it would, people, your head would spin like, you don't know that. You know, I don't know so much about what they do. I trust them, so there's great people, there's that. And the other thing is, is that like, my life is just stupid boring. Meaning it's just, you know, you-

• 51:30Lewis Howes?

  Get up, work out.

• 51:31Speaker 01

  It's the same thing over and over and over again. And I mean, I'm done at the same time. And so like, it's one of the big things I try to teach. I call them artificial deadlines. And so, you know, my, like, my message, I have to preach it on Sunday, right? But it's due on Wednesday noon. Who created the deadline?

• 51:48Lewis Howes?

  You did.

• 51:48Speaker 01

  So also, I leave at 3:45 every day, which is really early. I probably started a little earlier than most. But, but if I, if I create an artificial deadline, what that does, it makes me delegate more. It makes me do things, not do some things that I probably shouldn't be doing anyway. And it makes me make decisions faster. So think about that. If I, if I have an open-ended day, I'm probably going to be not as productive because I'm not going to delegate, I'm going to do some things I shouldn't be doing. I'm going to be slower to make decisions. So creating an artificial deadline makes me more productive. To have time with Amy, we block it out. And it's just a priority. And so really productive people-

• 52:29Speaker 01

  Don't have more time. They just do more with their time and they do more through other people. And then you have to prioritize what really, really matters. You just have to prioritize it.

• 52:38Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 52:39Speaker 01

  And so like, how do you have time to work out? Well, you choose to. How do you have time to have your wife? You choose to. How do you have time to pray? You choose to. I got my pilot's license. You know, now I'm working on my instrument rating. How do you have time to do that?

• 52:51Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 52:52Speaker 01

  I chose to.

• 52:52Lewis Howes?

  You fly out here yourself?

• 52:54Speaker 01

  No, no, no. No, I just flew in the clouds for that. I did my first instrument landing yesterday.

• 52:59Lewis Howes?

  Ah, congrats.

• 53:00Speaker 01

  I'm not that good, but I'm, I have my license and I'm getting instrument rate. But what that does is that's a disconnect from my mind. So how do you have time for that? You choose to. And so typically, if you want someone who will actually get something done, you go and get someone who's doing a lot of things because they're not a manager of time. And so, and your energy. So a lot of times we just talk about time management. Energy management is a whole different category and a whole different way of thinking about when, when do you have the most kind of creative energy or when do you have the best decision-making energy? So I'm, I'm disciplined all the way down to I don't make decisions on certain days. You know, if you want to ask me decisions, we do them after I've done certain things. So it's, it's really boring. It's boring. It's structured, but there's freedom in that.

• 53:44Lewis Howes?

  There is.

• 53:44Speaker 01

  There's freedom in it.

• 53:45Lewis Howes?

  What happens on the other side if you're, if someone's like, well, no, I don't want to have that much structure. I don't want to be that, you know, diligent with my time. I want to, I want to be able to do things when I want.

• 53:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:56Lewis Howes?

  Eat what I want, work out whenever.

• 53:58Speaker 01

  Well, I would say that it would be wrong for a lot of people that are not wired this way to try to do this. It would be, it would be cruel to ask someone that's not wired like this to perform like this. But what I would say is, is let's say you're way more artistic or let's say like I'm, I'm an ESTJ. Let's say an INFP, you're much less structured, more relational, more floaty, floaty. I'd say you probably want to have some kind of like artistic structure. Or you and that might mean on Tuesdays I go away and I look at the clouds and I paint. But you do it on Tuesdays and that's the day you might do it. Or instead you might say during this week, I don't take any kind of appointments because of whatever.

• 54:39Speaker 01

  So you have to create the pockets of time to do what makes you great. And structure and systems and goals and agenda and accountability that makes me do better than some. For other people, it might be creative, it might be flexibility, it might be relational time, it might be reflective time. But you have to define what are those things that drive you, that renew you, that give you energy. And then you have to ask, when do you do them best? Meaning like I create content in the mornings, not in the afternoons. I'm fresh in the mornings and so then you put your, you, you, you direct your energy, your gifts in a way that's consistent with how you're wired and, and you find, you, you find freedom and productivity in that.

• 55:21Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 55:21Speaker 01

  So I don't want to, I don't want to ask anybody to be like me, that'd be dumb. Because they're not wired like me. But what we want to do is find out how are you wired, what brings you joy, where are you great, when are you great? How are you great? What are the environments around you that are great? And then go recreate that.

• 55:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, lean into that.

• 55:38Speaker 01

  Lean into that.

• 55:38Lewis Howes?

  Your wife's Amy, right?

• 55:39Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 55:40Lewis Howes?

  What's the thing you love about Amy the most?

• 55:42Speaker 01

  I love her consistency. She's just, she is, I'm like, I'm intense, I'm emotional. She's just, she's solid, steady, easygoing and she's just fun. She's, I mean, she's fun.

• 55:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:57Lewis Howes?

  What's the quality about her that, I'm sure you tell her all the things you love about her all the time. But what's the quality about her that you think about that maybe you don't say enough about her?

• 56:07Speaker 01

  I say it all.

• 56:08Lewis Howes?

  You say it all.

• 56:08Speaker 01

  I know, I promise you, like, if you think something good, say it. And so I'm a words of affirmation person, so I say it. A different question for me is like maybe what, what should you do for her that you don't do? And then I could get into a lot.

• 56:20Lewis Howes?

  What's that?

• 56:20Speaker 01

  Meaning, I would just say serving her better. So I'll, I'll express the words all the time. And um, but she respects my work schedule so much. There are times when I should probably like take a morning off and spend it with her. And I don't, I'll spend it at work. So it would be, it would be, it wouldn't be I would say something better. It would be how would I serve her better?

• 56:45Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, that's cool. I love that. So when are you gonna take off? What morning are you gonna take off?

• 56:50Speaker 01

  No, I don't take off mornings.

• 56:53Lewis Howes?

  Maybe some Friday in the future.

• 56:55Speaker 01

  I'll take off an afternoon.

• 56:56Lewis Howes?

  Afternoon, there you go.

• 56:56Speaker 01

  But the mornings are.

• 56:57Lewis Howes?

  That's where you get all your stuff done.

• 56:58Speaker 01

  They're dialed in, yeah.

• 56:59Lewis Howes?

  So your afternoon, which afternoon are you gonna take off for the next month?

• 57:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'll tell you what, man.

• 57:04Lewis Howes?

  Text me and let me know what you do.

• 57:06Speaker 01

  I will do it. I will, I will.

• 57:07Lewis Howes?

  Sometime before the end of the year.

• 57:09Speaker 01

  If I don't do it, you can hold me accountable to it.

• 57:11Lewis Howes?

  Yes, exactly.

• 57:13Lewis Howes?

  What does she bring out and what's, what's the thing that she brings out of you that is the best version of you?

• 57:18Speaker 01

  She helps me believe in me when she saw I'm fundamentally insecure.

• 57:24Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 57:25Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. Uh huh. Are you, are you?

• 57:28Lewis Howes?

  I'm a lot better. I used to be more insecure.

• 57:31Speaker 01

  I'm way better. I'm way better. But, well, you know, a million times better. But at its core, there's still that.

• 57:36Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 57:36Speaker 01

  Am I good enough? You know? And so there's a, in any kind of public anything. You've got fans and you've got haters, right? And the fans are meaningful, but they don't move the dial internally. And the haters can get to you or not depending on the day. And so for me, if she believes in me, I think it was Maxwell who said that. What he said, he said, what is success? He says, success is when the people who know you best, love you the most, that's real success. I like that a lot.

• 58:07Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 58:08Speaker 01

  And so if the person who knows me best loves me and believes in me, I feel confident.

• 58:13Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful.

• 58:14Speaker 01

  And then it goes beyond that. It goes like into my office, my assistants. If they believe in me. And so every assistant I had in my office, um, if they're not still there, they're still a part of the church and still part of our lives. And so that makes me go, okay, so we must be doing something right.

• 58:32Lewis Howes?

  They didn't run away from you.

• 58:34Speaker 01

  They didn't run away. They're still a part of our internal circle. And that means a lot to me. So if I didn't have that, or she didn't really believe in me, I would question myself.

• 58:44Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, that's beautiful. What do you feel like is the thing every man should give to their wife more?

• 58:53Lewis Howes?

  That would bring more joy, peace and love to the relationship and every, every, uh, every woman should bring to their husband more. That would create more peace, love, respect.

• 59:04Speaker 01

  It's a great question from someone who's dating right now.

• 59:07Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 59:08Speaker 01

  That's pretty serious, that's a great question. So I would say, I'd answer it in two different ways. The first way I would say is, what we want to do is find what is their love language? And we want, we want to love them in that language. We don't, we don't want to love them the way we want to be loved. We want to love them the, the way they want to be loved. So it's the first thing. And then I think the, um, the second thing is that, um, for, for, for women, what they typically need, and this is, it's always dangerous to talk, but what they, women generally want to know, do you love, cherish and value me today? So they want, they want love, cherish and value. Or what a man usually wants is some version of,

• 59:50Speaker 01

  do you believe in me and respect me today? Those are two different things. And so what tends to happen is a woman wants to be loved, cherished and valued. So she wants to love, cherish and value her husband and kind of that more intimate. And, and, um, and a guy wants to be respected and admired. And so he may say, you look beautiful, you know, kind of admiring her looks or whatever. And at some point she's like, and I want to be more than just a, you know, physical person to you. I want to be an emotional person. And so I would say, what I want to do for Amy is I want to, to love, cherish her and value her. And then the way she loves me is more the belief in me, admire, you know?

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

  And so I tend to think that, you know, your spouse is often becoming more of what you see in them and say about them. If you see greatness and speak greatness and, and encourage what you're seeing in the winds, they tend to become more of that. They, they tend to do what's rewarded. And if you tell them what they're not and tell them where they're failing and how they suck, the oftentimes it tears them down and they have a harder time pulling out of it. And so we're multipliers, right? So when I met you today, you gave me a long hug. And so next time I'm gonna hug you longer. You said I like it. I give long hugs. And so what you give me, I give back. And so if you don't like what you're. Getting in a relationship, you need to look at what you're giving.

• 1:01:16Lewis Howes?

  True.

• 1:01:16Speaker 01

  And so we're either, we're either investing in and helping someone become more, or we're tearing down and becoming less. And, and if we give, if I give her affection, give her the words that build her up, love her in her language, and she gives back to me, then it starts compounding. And then we just, it's not perfect by any means.

• 1:01:37Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 1:01:37Speaker 01

  But it becomes rich and meaningful, and then you can endure the hard times.

• 1:01:41Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:01:41Speaker 01

  If I'm tearing her down, she's telling me, you're nothing, whatever. I wish you were something like so and so. It robs me of confidence, it robs me of intimacy, and it spirals in the wrong way.

• 1:01:50Lewis Howes?

  I love that. I'm really careful about the words I use in my relationship with Martha. I don't think I, I don't know if I'm ever critical of her. And I think I was telling you off camera, I was like, once I decided I'm gonna be committed to you, I'm gonna accept you for who you are. So why would I be critical of things if I'm accepting of you?

• 1:02:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:02:10Lewis Howes?

  And that doesn't mean I won't give her an opinion if she asks for it. And sometimes I'll say, hey, listen, would you like some, a suggestion about what I'm noticing that's happening right now? Some suggestions, some feedback, only if you're open to it. But I'm not gonna be, yeah. Because I don't want someone to be like, you need to stop doing this, this, and this, this, because I'm not gonna receive that well. See if I want the feedback first.

• 1:02:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:02:36Lewis Howes?

  Maybe encourage some good things in me first, and then, you know.

• 1:02:39Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 1:02:40Lewis Howes?

  And then be like, hey, but this one thing you're doing over here, you know, I see it maybe affecting you.

• 1:02:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:44Lewis Howes?

  You may wanna take a look at it.

• 1:02:45Speaker 01

  That's brilliant.

• 1:02:46Lewis Howes?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:02:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, and what you're doing is, is you're, you're, you're working on your relationship. I call it working on it in non-conflict times.

• 1:02:52Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:02:52Speaker 01

  So not at 2:00 AM when you're tired. No, no. And what you're doing is brilliant, too. So here's, here's what we've learned to do is, is, well, it, we're, it's evening time, the kids are in bed, and we'll have kind of a marriage checkup. And so I'll say, what, you know, what are three things that I'm doing that are blessing you? And what's one suggestion of a way I could love you better? So what does that do? Three, three things. She'll often tell me things that I'm doing that are not what I thought were blessing. I'm like, okay.

• 1:03:19Lewis Howes?

  I just bought you flowers.

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

  She doesn't really care.

• 1:03:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:21Speaker 01

  But I helped. Um, I helped go spend time with her, the grandkids, she cared about that. So it helps me know what are the three things? And then there's three things. And then what's one way I could love you better?

• 1:03:32Lewis Howes?

  Not one way I'm horrible at, but one way I could be positive.

• 1:03:35Speaker 01

  Yes. But then she gets to, after affirming me, give me something that really might be a complaint.

• 1:03:40Lewis Howes?

  That's good.

• 1:03:41Speaker 01

  It really bothers me when you do this, but it's framed. And so then

• 1:03:44Lewis Howes?

  I like that.

• 1:03:44Speaker 01

  And then we go both ways. And we've had so, we've learned so much.

• 1:03:48Lewis Howes?

  I like that a lot.

• 1:03:48Speaker 01

  We've learned so much. And it's during a non-conflict time, because you know when you're emotional.

• 1:03:53Lewis Howes?

  I don't want to hear this. Yeah, exactly. This is beautiful, man. I gotta, we're gonna have to have you come back on and do a whole relationship episode sometime. Uh, but I've got a couple of final questions for you, Craig.

• 1:04:02Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:04:02Lewis Howes?

  Your book, The Power to Change, Mastering the Habits That Matter Most. I want people to get this because this is practical, biblical, and doable. Uh, when you, when you discover the power to change. So I want people to get this book. Um, because I feel like we're either going to be stuck in a situation we don't enjoy. Or we're gonna need to overcome something by experiencing some type of pain.

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:04:27Lewis Howes?

  Some type of change transform from the inside out in order to enjoy life better. So somewhere there's gonna be pain, like we talked about in the beginning.

• 1:04:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:04:36Lewis Howes?

  Uh, but it's really learning the habits that matter most to support you in changing in the right ways. And so I know people are gonna get a lot of value from this book. I encourage you guys to get one for yourself, a few for some friends as well. The power to change. Make sure you guys get a few of these copies for your friends. Where can we go and get this book or support you? Uh, specifically for the book?

• 1:04:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, the book is, um, anywhere books are sold. And that's the best place to get it because we don't sell any.

• 1:05:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:02Speaker 01

  And so, yeah, um, and Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, Mardel, anywhere books are sold, it's there.

• 1:05:07Lewis Howes?

  What's the best website for you to stay in touch as well? And also the social media that people can follow?

• 1:05:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. So my name, Craig Rochelle, on, um, pretty much most platforms. And, um, website would be life, life.church is, uh, the church that I lead. That's in, um, forty-four different locations. And then of course, there's an online avenue there. And then for anybody that maybe wants to Learn more about the Bible, the Uversion Bible app is something that we're honored to give away, completely free.

• 1:05:36Lewis Howes?

  Uversion.

• 1:05:37Speaker 01

  Uversion, Y-O-U-V-E-R-S-I-O-N, and then there's, there's, there's literally hundreds and hundreds of translations, hundreds and hundreds of languages, devotions from people all over the world, plans and such that can help people on a spiritual journey that would be meaningful to me to give that as a gift to someone.

• 1:05:55Lewis Howes?

  That's amazing. We appreciate that. This is a question I ask everyone at the end called three truths.

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:06:00Lewis Howes?

  So imagine your last day on earth, many years away, you accomplish everything you want to accomplish, you rid yourself of any insecurity you might have, and you live a beautiful life the rest of your life. But for whatever reason, everything you've created has to go with you or somewhere else. We don't have access to the book, the apps, the churches, for whatever reason, hypothetical. This podcast has gone everything, but you get three things to share with the world, and this is all we would have of your content, three truths or three lessons. What would be those three truths for you?

• 1:06:33Speaker 01

  I would say, and I hope that a broad audience would accept this from me because I wouldn't push it.

• 1:06:39Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 1:06:40Speaker 01

  But I would say that when you look at who Jesus was, the way He loved, the outcast, the broken, that I believe that He is, that Jesus is love and that Jesus saves. I would say number one. I would say, number two, what I would say is that you're a leader because you have influence, use that influence for some, to make a difference in this world. And I would, I would stay there for just a moment because most people truly don't see themselves as leaders, and we have to ask ourselves, what is leadership? Leadership is influence, and everybody has influence. And so I really try to help people see that

• 1:07:18Speaker 01

  they have influence. And then I would say that in a world full of doubt, hate, brokenness, that, again, to go back to the book that inspires me, that love never fails, and I would say that love, love generously, that that's the best thing you can do.

• 1:07:41Speaker 01

  To make the world a better place and the more that you give, the more that you give love, the more you serve others, the more meaningful life's gonna be. So I would say, Jesus saves, you're a leader, use it, and love well.

• 1:07:55Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful, man. I want to acknowledge you, Craig, for the way you show up. Again, I've watched your stuff for a while and just meeting you and connecting with you, you really show up as a leader to me, the way you've designed your life, your marriage, your business, your church, your service, and it's inspiring. It's very inspiring to me, so I acknowledge you for how you show up and how you show up at a high level, even when you feel like you might have more to lose or something, when you've accomplished more or you've accomplished a certain level. So I acknowledge your constant courage to lean into being more fearless and taking the necessary risks. And just the way you serve, man, I just really acknowledge your message, you know, and your examples.

• 1:08:38Speaker 01

  Thank you. Well, thank you for creating content that helps me and so many other people. That the, to be on this with the quality of people you bring in is humbling and an honor to be amongst some of the greatest people that I've ever learned from. And so, thank you for creating that.

• 1:08:58Lewis Howes?

  Appreciate it. Final question, Craig, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:09:01Speaker 01

  Well, I have to go descriptive on that, that the greatest would be those that serve.

• 1:09:05Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:09:05Speaker 01

  And I mean, just the way your team has served and welcomed me today, you have that quality. And so, that really is greatness, to make a difference in other people's lives, to leave them better, to come as a giver, to believe the best, to serve others, that makes greatness. And I read a book, a really good book called, by Daniel, Rabbi Daniel Lappin.

• 1:09:31Speaker 01

  And anyway, basically, he says, how do you create wealth? You actually serve people, and the more people that you serve, the more wealth you create. And so, if we define wealth broader than finances, but in friendship and in health and in meaning in life, the more people we serve, the wealthier we get in a way that matters most. And so, let's keep serving.

• 1:09:52Lewis Howes?

  Craig, appreciate it, man.

• 1:09:53Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:09:54Lewis Howes?

  Thanks, man.

• 1:09:54Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:09:55Lewis Howes?

  I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.

• 1:10:39Lewis Howes?

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