The School of Greatness

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Hey, it's JJ Virgin. And welcome to the JJ Virgin Lifestyle show where I track nutrition, exercise, mindset and lifestyle with some of the coolest people in the world. Plus, I give you tips that you can put into fast action to up level your help so you can go out there and live that big life you're meant to live. Now, today's show is all about, you know, I'm not sure what it's about. It's going to be a bit of a surprise. So I'm interviewing someone who has a huge fan base and he said, I'm not going to tell you the questions in advance because usually I go, okay, tell me what you want to talk about. Give me some questions that I can jump off of. I always like to throw my own in because that, no, let's just like let it rip. So we're gonna let it rip and you see what you think. This guy's amazing. He's fantastic. He's great. And he's great because he runs the School of Greatness. So yes, I'm interviewing Lewis Howes. He's the New York Times bestselling author of the School of Greatness. Plus he's got the podcast School of Greatness, which has got, gosh, a million plus downloads a month. He is just cranking that one out. People love him. He's going to share his story today about how he got into all of this. And he really came into it because he was a crappy student, tried real hard, but just always in the lowest part of his grades. But a really amazing athlete. So he's going to share what he's learned on the field. And this guy was a former professional football player, 2 sport All American US men's national handball team athlete. So massive athlete. And really he talks about everything that he learned, he learned in sports and he's going to share that with us today. He's been recognized by the White House and President Obama as one of the top hundred entrepreneurs in the country under 30. And he's also a contributing writer for Entrepreneur and Yahoo Health and has been featured in the New York Times, Forbes, Men's Health, the Today show and Other major media outlets. I had the opportunity to hang out with him at Dr. Pedram Shojai's Urban Monk book launch party up in Hollywood. It was me, Dr. Mark Hyman, Dave Asprey, and Louis Howes. We had a blast. What a sweetheart of a guy and just a fantastic speaker. So I'm not sure what's going to come up, but I'm excited to share it with you. So again, today, we're going to be talking about greatness with Lewis Howes. All right, so let's do it. Lewis Howes, welcome to the show. I am so glad you're here with me today.

Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited.

I am, too. And I have no idea where this is going to go, so.

Perfect. That's where the best things happen when you don't have a plan.

All right, so let's roll with that. I'm going to just believe that that's the case. And I love spontaneous, so I want to dive into this whole idea. You've got this book, the School of Greatness. I know we've been on. I did your podcast, or summit, I think, with you a while ago. Super fun. And I told a couple people on the team that I was interviewing you, and they're like, oh, my God, I love that guy. So you've got, like, quite the fan club out there. If you were going to jump in and kind of sum up what the heck school of greatness is and what you're about, where would you start?

You know, school of Greatness for me, I was really. I struggled a lot in elementary school, middle school, and high school, and through college, I was always in the bottom of my class. And I went to a private boarding school in high school. And the worst thing they in boarding school was they would rank you with your classmates. So I was always in the bottom four on my grade card, which didn't help an already insecure kid feel good about himself. And I remember that I would take all this energy or stress or resentment or frustration or insecurities out on the playing field when I'd play sports. And I really learned all the principles about how to live a great life, how to build a team, how to be a leader, how to take instructions, how learn and take feedback, how to understand your competitors and your opponents, and really learning how to achieve a common goal through sports. And for me, I love learning and growth, but traditional school didn't work for me in understanding how to really grow. And that's why I started the School of Greatness Because I wanted to interview some of the world's leading experts, like yourself, and learn how do we achieve our vision and our dream in life and maybe the things they didn't teach us in school and bring it to life.

Well, I love that you're sharing it that way because honestly, and especially for boys, school is not set up for boys at all. I mean, it's ridiculous. I still remember early on, I'm a boy mom. So I have these two great young men who I just adore and I'm so proud of, and I took them to this little thing called my gym. And they sat around in this circle and there's boys and girls and there's all these cool things outside the little circle. There's like, you know, there's a ball pit and there's this swingy thing. Yet they have to sit around the circle and they're gonna have story time. Well, my boys are like, there's no way this is happening. And I'm thinking, this is the dumbest thing I've ever seen. Like, they want to go out and explore and learn. And then this. Of course, they got, like kicked out of my gym, you know, and then they go on to school and same thing. It's like they're supposed to sit around the circle time and do these storytelling stuff, and they want to be hands on and physical and mess with stuff. And I'm like, that's what boys are supposed to be doing. And it just strikes me that one of the greatest ways that we learn, just like you said, leadership and teamwork and how to win, but also how to lose with grace, is through sports. And yet it's like it's getting taken out of school. We've got these team sports are pulled out. Women, especially girls. There weren't that many opportunities in school. I always played sports, but I had to be on boys teams. So this is such an important area for us to learn.

Absolutely.

Yeah. And it's just forgotten. So what are some of the, like, top lessons that you learned growing up from sports?

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of principles that I learned, and for me, I kind of relearned them as I was interviewing all these incredible experts in all walks of life, of sports, business, politics, everything. I realized those are the same things that they're doing that I learned in sports. And the first couple are the first one that any great leader, any person who achieves anything of achievement is they have an incredibly powerful vision. And this is, you know, basic. They have a clear vision, but there's so many people, and I'm sure you, jj, know this as well. There are so many people that come to you and say, well, I don't know what I want, or I don't know what I'm passionate about, or I don't know, you know, what my dream is. They're not clear. And it's hard to achieve anything if you don't know exactly what you want to achieve. So the basics is simply having a vision, having a clear vision that you can define of exactly what it is and not just saying, well, I want to play and swim in the ocean. It's gotta be a very clear vision of what you want to create if you want to achieve something meaningful. And that's the first thing. All great leaders have a powerful, clear vision, and they're really great at learning to enroll others in that vision to support them, because no great leader can do it on their own. They know the power of a team. And that's another principle is building a championship team around you. And I know, jj, you're great at this. You wanted to have the book success as an author, the audience reach, all the things that you do. If you did it all on your own, you've got an incredible team that does the events with you. Everything that you do, there's a team behind it. And we can only go so far alone, but we can create so much more with a group of intelligent, wise, passionate people around that vision. So that's the first couple of things is vision and building a championship team.

Well, so what do you say, Louis, when you get someone, and I'm thinking of my son, and I know we talked about this on the last podcast, that when my son was 16, my older son, he was a victim of a hit and run. And one of the things I did was assembled my team immediately I was thinking about that, as you said that I had such a clear vision. Make son survive. Help son survive and thrive. Not just stay alive, but be better than he was before. Clear vision. He's going to be 110%. Next thing, assemble the team. But something interesting that's come out of this is that then he came out of it and all I was concerned about was, okay, now protect him and keep him alive. And he's like, what's my purpose? I need to have a reason to be here. So that person who comes to you and says, well, I don't know what my purpose is, I don't know what my passion is. Do you have a process? What do you say to that person? Because I think both of us are lucky now in that we have that purpose, vision that we have in our life. But what about those people who just don't know what it is?

You know, it's challenging. I was just talking with someone actually about an hour ago about this. She went on a trip to Costa Rica to study Spanish and become fluent in Spanish. And she just came back to her home city in Columbus, Ohio. And I said, well, what's your vision now? And she said, you know, I'm just kind of figuring it out now. I'm not sure what that is. And I think there are people that have different. We have different seasons of life, right? And there are different seasons of our visions. And when I was in high school, all I wanted to do was get a college football scholarship. That was my vision. And then there was my college season where I got that and I did that thing. And then afterwards was the off season and I had to reevaluate. What do I want to create next? What's my next dream? What's my next vision that I want to bring to life. And sometimes there's a phase where we have a longer off season than normal where we just don't know. And we're trying to figure it out. And I think that's okay. It's okay if there's a period of time where we're dabbling in different things and taking breaks or trying new skills and learning and it's going to unfold. So I think if you wait five, 10 years and you still have no clue what your vision is, then I think maybe there's some things you could do. But usually it starts to come to people with time and with different experiences.

You know, as you said that, I was thinking about a girlfriend of mine who I was in a mastermind with, and she hit all her goals, right? I mean, she just blew them all out that year, and it was amazing. And then she came to me and she goes, I don't know what to do. And I was like looking at her kind of going, you're looking at someone going, really? You know, because I'm still like struggling, trying to hit these things. And she's just blown them out, right? Maybe you just have to sit in it for a bit there and figure it out. And I'm just realizing, you said it's like there's these periods that through life where you. You reach a goal and you're like, huh, now? And sometimes it's just. It's that uncomfortable, icky place where now you kind of Feel like, now what do I do next? And you just sort of have to have faith if you're out there trying a lot of different things. It's how I went through college. I was like, I thought I was going to be an actress. I went to UCLA on a theater scholarship. And then I went, oh, I actually don't even really like this. I don't actually want to do this. And then I went, well, now what the heck do I do? And I just went through. And I tried every single thing. And what's so funny now is that's when I found nutrition and exercise science, and now I do everything that. And I became an English major. You know, I'm like, well, I'm writing books and I'm on stages, but you just. Sometimes you can't see that. So you just have to go out and then go, okay, let's just try a lot of stuff and be open to possibility. Right? Yeah.

We all need that off season to be able to explore that and to evaluate do I still love what I'm doing, or is it not my vision anymore? And if we don't have that off season, that time where we're kind of, like, in limbo, then I think it's hard to really evaluate if we still love that thing.

I love that you talk about that, too, because I think sometimes we get so invested in a specific goal, and sometimes I had a very big business goal, and all of a sudden I went, I don't actually want that business. Right. You know, when you're, like, going, you know, wow. I told everybody I want, because one of the first things I'll do is announce to everybody what my big goal is, because I always feel like that, like, holds me accountable, and then I don't really want that anymore. But I think it's even more important to be able to show people it's okay to make that sh. And stay open to it. So now that you have this, give me a couple. Because with School of Greatness, what do you do behind this? Do you have coaching programs? What else are you doing with people?

Yeah, I mean, it started with a podcast. It started with me being interested and curious to hear from other great individuals how they became great, how they achieved balance in their life, and also got to the top of their business or their field that they're in. And then it grew my audience. It grew pretty fast. The podcast gets 1.4 million downloads a month, and people said, we want more. You know, we want more interviews. We want. We want you to package the information So I wrote a book about it. Then I have an online course about it. Now I'm doing a three day event called the Summit of Greatness. I'm trying to create a holistic approach to educating people as much as I can about how they can achieve their own level of greatness.

So you said something in there that I want to dig into a bit and that's balance. You brought up this idea of balance. And I'm always curious about this, you know, because we talk so much about, you know, you've got to have balance. Well, what I mean, what does that really mean? What, what's a balanced life to you?

I think. Here's what I think. I don't think you're great if you're making a billion dollars, but you're in the hospital every single day because you haven't been able to take care of your health. I don't think you're great if you are an incredible athlete, you're the best basketball player in the world, but you beat your wife every day. I think there needs to be a balance in terms of, yes, you're going to strive for greatness in probably one thing and you're going to try to best at that one thing and serve the most people at that thing. But I think there's a holistic approach to. You get to continue to balance yourself and work on all areas of yourself, mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, and also being a good human being, being kind to other people. Again, if you're great at something but you're a jerk, then I really don't think you're great. And listen, I'm not perfect and you know, I'm sure I'm a jerk all the, you know, not all the time, but sometimes. And I'm defensive and sometimes I'm not in perfect shape as I want to. But it's constantly being aware and receiving the feedback of how we're showing up and if it's serving our vision to the fullest and if we are serving the maximum number of people that we can in our pursuit of our vision.

So greatness really is a process. And it sounds like you can never be great in everything all at once, that you're always working at it.

Yeah, I think it's a challenge to be the best in everything at once. But if you can have a balanced approach to life and be a good human being and work towards your vision, I think that's all we can ask for.

Alrighty. Agreed with that. I would love to have where to send people to. I know Obviously your podcast is a great one and you have a ton of fans. And again, my team with your podcast. If people want more from you, where should they go? Louis?

Yeah, best place is Lewishouse.com or the school of Greatness podcast on itunes.

All right. So Lewis, thank you so much for joining me today. And I want to remind you, listening to visit Lewishowes.com that's L E W I S H O W E S.com to get more from Lewis and be sure to go and get his School of Greatness podcast. It is awesome. Now after the break, I'm going to be answering a listener's question, so stay with me.

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Welcome back. Now this is the time where I answer a listener's question. And today's question comes from Uli. I hope I got that right, Uli. So Ulli asks about exercise and I figured that'd be good since we just had a big athlete on the line. And Ulli says the sugar burner versus fat burner theory. What are we doing when we exercise? What kind of burner is happening at that time? Both burners. Can you clarify what exercise falls between the burners? We always want to burn fat. Thank you. Thank you. Than actually. And that's why I wanted to take this. You don't always want to burn fat. And this is what's really interesting about exercise. So when I first started in the whole exercise world, I was actually paying my way through college as a personal trainer. And then I started immediately into graduate school in exercise science. And back then everything was about exercising long, slow distance. And we used to say that you need to work out for at least 30 minutes and you need to do cardio. And if you couldn't do at least 30 minutes, don't even bother because you couldn't get into your fat burning zone. And then the longer the better because the more fat you burned. Well, it was very interesting because I noticed a couple things I used to Work out down at Goldstein in Venice. And I used to train clients down there. And what I noticed was those people down there weren't doing any cardio. They were leaner, fitter, and more ripped than the people I saw out jogging on the streets in Santa Monica. And so I asked the question because I was like going, all right, I'm out with these clients jogging and walking and cycling, and I'm hired by body fat than ever and hungrier than ever. And they are too. This is clearly not working. And it turns out that people who do a ton of cardio, a lot of running, endurance training, actually have the same muscle mass as the couch potato. When you do a lot of endurance training, it creates a lot of oxidative stress on your body. That is, it ages you. And it also raises stress hormones, which can break down muscle and raise fasting blood sugar, which can raise insulin and make you store more fat. So this idea of trying to burn more fat when you exercise is actually wrong. What it turns out is you want to have high intensity interval training, also known as burst training and resistance training. These types of exercise burn a lot of carbohydrates or sugar when you exercise. And then when you're done exercising, your body preferentially stores energy back into your muscles, stores carbohydrates back in your muscles as glycogen to be used again, and then burns off fat the rest of the time. The best time to burn fat is not when you're exercising, it's the whole rest of the time, which is most of the time, because that's when you're able to use oxygen freely, when you're going to be using fat as your main fuel source. You're never purely using fat or purely using sugar, unless it's a brief all out sprint of, say, 10 to 20 seconds. The rest of the time you're wavering between different energy systems using some fat and carbs. But during exercise, you really want to use as much sugar as possible. And what that does is get your body able to burn more fat after the fact. In fact, what was found was that the fuel source you use during exercise is the fuel source you store after exercise. And so if you use more fat during exercise, you actually get better at storing fat. If you use more sugar during exercise, you get actually a better storing sugar in your working muscles to be able to use again for energy later. And then you are better fat burner all day long. So it's not about burning fat during the exercise. And of course, as you mentioned, it all starts back at diet because diet impacts your insulin and your cortisol so you want to keep insulin low so you can access stored fat for fuel when you are not exercising throughout the day. So I loved that question. Thank you Uli. Okay, if you'd like to submit a question, just go to jjvirgin.com ask and you can leave a voicemail for me. I can't wait to hear from you. And one more way I'd love to hear from you. I'd humor appreciate it if you could jump on Stitcher or iTunes and leave a review for me. It helps a bunch and be sure to subscribe and share the show with your friends. This is JJ Virgin signing off and reminding you that you are worthy Dare to live a life that matters.

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