11 Habits To DESTROY NEGATIVE Thoughts & Find TRUE HAPPINESS! | Lewis Howes

It's easy to be the victim. It's easy to say, make excuses for yourself and say, well, I didn't want to do this. I wasn't feeling this or this thing happened or this circumstance happened. But you cannot negotiate your dreams and your goals. You cannot negotiate with your goals. I think you gotta have a dream. The School of Greatness.

Really? Yeah.

Please welcome Lewis Howes. In this video, I want to talk about the 11 habits to change your life. And these are really the habits to help you increase your happiness. Now, some people like to wait and see if happiness will ever just happen to them. Maybe one day they'll wake up and suddenly be happy and everything will be fantastic. But unfortunately, that's not just how life works. And we all know it doesn't work like that. In order to be happy, we must first have to be intentional about creating a better lifestyle. And that starts with habits.

So today I want to go over.

The 11 habits that have transformed my life that I believe will help you build a happier, healthier, more loving life for yourself as well. And habit number one is to create a vision and life fulfilling goals. Now, this is something that I talk about in my book. It's one of the first principles in the School of Greatness is really creating a clear, intentional vision. And without a clear vision, you'll end up running in multiple different directions instead of staying focused on what truly matters in your life. your relationships, your health and your business. And this can lead to your success being delayed a lot longer than it needs to be. And so you really want to get clear and intentional. And you can have a different vision at every different stage of your life when you're 10 years old or when you're 50 years old. But it's important to have a clear vision. Without that, you'll just be kind of wandering around. And when we're wandering, we feel aimless. And when we feel aimless, we feel like, what's the point? What's the purpose? What's the intention for me being here? and that causes a lot of stress and anxiety when we have those thoughts. So in my life, when I wasn't clear on my vision, I was really running around and stressed out a lot. I was like, what should I be doing? I don't know. I don't feel good enough. I don't feel worthy. I don't feel like I matter. And those thoughts really don't help me improve the quality of my life. And a question someone had asked me is, what was your life like when you didn't have a clear vision versus when you created one for the School of Greatness? And for me, I remember different moments in my life. It was mostly in transition when one goal was finished, when one dream had ended, whether it be a sports dreams or business ended. It's kind of like the transition period where I was like, well, what do I do next? And it's that discovery phase of the transition where you get to get clear. Start doing the things that you really love. Do the hobbies, hang out with people you love to spend time with, travel, do the things you've always wanted to do and do them to the best of your ability. When you do that, you'll start to spark ideas. Things will start to come to you naturally. And that's what I really did in between transitioning before the School of Greatness into the School of Greatness. I was living my life. I was playing sports. I was being active with friends. And that process, I remember going through transition thinking, you know, I wish there was more tools when I was growing up that would help me overcome the different challenges that I'm faced with my life. I wish there was a School of Greatness that could teach me about all these different things. and that was the spark in the transition from one business to the next on why I created the School of Greatness. And the mission now is to serve 100 million lives weekly to help them improve the quality of their life. And we do that through a lot of the things that we do in the School of Greatness. But I'm very clear on the vision and on the mission. It's very intentional. I wake up every day thinking about it and I act based on vision. Without that vision, I would act based on, well, what am I supposed to do? I'm not sure. I don't feel good about myself. I have no direction. And again, when we have no direction, we're just kind of wandering around in a circle and that doesn't help us move forward. It doesn't help us grow. So have a clear vision. I don't care if the vision is for one month or for 20 years. Have something you're working towards that will help increase the happiness and the quality of your life. Habit number two. This is something I learned in sports early on is to have a positive attitude when things go bad. Now, the world is filled with a lot of different negativity, drama, stress, and sometimes it's hard not to fall victim to joining in on the negativity. This is one of the reasons why my father growing up would not let us watch the news. He would not let us watch commercials that talked about a lot of harmful things or the news because he didn't want us to be susceptible to hearing about things that maybe are happening in a micro level that are blown out of proportion that seem like it's happening all over the world. but it's really only happening in a small level. He didn't want us to emphasize on all this negative energy and this negative attitude. So he eliminated those thoughts from our mind to support us in the positive. In sports as well, I would also have coaches that, you know, things wouldn't always go our way. And I used to be so negative. I used to be so reactive. When I missed a shot, when I dropped the ball, when I messed up, when something that I did was wrong or was a mistake, I used to beat myself up so much. Or when we'd lose, I was such a sore loser. have a bad negative attitude. And our coaches over the years would really teach me like, that isn't helping you. That isn't supporting you or your teammates around you. But having a positive attitude when things go wrong will lift your teammates up, will lift you up to help you improve for the next play and the next moment. It's really all about having that positive attitude. Because the negative doesn't usually serve us for anything ever. There are times, absolutely, to speak up and be a stand for when bad things are happening to you or happening to other people or around you. but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about that specific moment in time. I'm talking about spending hours of your day thinking about yourself negatively and thinking about the world negatively around you. Just ruminating on how negative everything is. That prevents you from showing up as the best version of yourself. And I believe you're robbing yourself and your loved ones and the world of your gifts and who you truly are when you sit in that negative state. so when I began to shift into having a positive attitude, it really helped me in every area of my life. And negative things or things that I don't like happen around me all the time. But it's a practice even today. And when I'm hit with these adversities or these obstacles, I try to ask myself, how could it possibly serve me in the future or if it's worth putting so much energy into it around a negative attitude? Is it really worth it? Is it helping me and my health? Is it helping me in my joy and my love for others and my love for myself by holding on to this negative energy? It's usually not worth the energy, so why do we do it so frequently? You know, there's this book called Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, because it's all small stuff. You know, obviously there's adversity and there's challenges, but when you can have the attitude around it, it really shifts your life and the people around you. So you've got to do the work. to develop that awareness, to realize that for yourself. This isn't easy. This took me a long time. And having a positive attitude is, in my opinion, one of the most important things to manifesting, to attracting, to feeling better about yourself. But one thing that I've learned from the different guests and the experts on the show in the last few years is that what's most important is getting to the root of what's causing you distress, the pain, the anxiety, the negative feelings that you're having. Because positive affirmations can only get you so far if you're not also doing the deep work on what's really going on, what's underneath the trigger, the anxiety, the fear. Dr. Caroline Leaf has been on the show a couple of times. I really love her message and her expertise. She said, it's like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound when you're just trying to have a positive affirmation without actually going to the root cause of what that trigger and negativity is. But if you're able to get to the roots of some of the things causing you so much pain and suffering and the negative attitude that you have, and then begin working to stay positive and having an abundance mindset, that's when you can really start to create real change and start to see and notice the feelings of positivity, notice the feelings of happiness flood into your heart, into your body, into your soul, and that's what this is all about. So habit number three is an important one. It's all about giving back, volunteering your time, helping others, mentoring, coaching, being of service in any way possible that you can. And you might have heard me share this before, but if you're going to be addicted to anything in life, be addicted to service. I believe it's not addicted in the negative sense, but if you're going to be committed to doing something and living an intentional practice, be intentional on the act of serving other people. And in whatever way that works for you, whatever you have to do, do that for you. It's been my mission since the beginning of this show and every single day I aim to show up and give back to you, to people watching, to people listening, my friends and family, my team members, and anyone possible that I can. And it's very important for me and it also brings me a lot of joy when I can know that something I did caused a positive impact on someone else's life, whether it be a piece of content, someone I interviewed, something they said, something I said, a way we put it out there that connected with people. That brings me so much joy. It brings me so much happiness knowing that my life has had meaning on one person's life. And it continues to feed and fuel my fulfillment and my soul every day. And that's why I continue to be committed to Habit number one, which is the vision and staying true to that vision. And in a New York Times article by Tara Parker-Pope, she wrote that several studies suggest that supporting others helps buffer our bodies against the detrimental effects of stress. And a five-year study of 846 people in Detroit found that stressful life events appeared to take a greater toll on people who were less helpful to others, while helping others seemed to erase the detrimental physical effects of stressful experiences. Now, for me, that is crazy to think that those who were more self-centered, who weren't focusing outward and trying to help other people, those that were only thinking about themselves, not helping others, had more physical pain and ailments based on the stressful environment. whereas those who were focusing out, that started to go away. And for me, that says something about how service is truly important in our lives. Habit number four is a big one, something I do all the time, is to express gratitude and appreciation. This may seem like so basic. This may seem like the dumbest thing because it's so simple, but it will transform and change your life. And when we appreciate everything that we already have, not focusing on all the things that we don't have, but appreciate the things we already have. It puts us in a mindset of abundance rather than scarcity. And this is huge because gratitude drowns out negativity and it brings positivity into our lives. It puts us into perspective in the moment of what is meaningful, what we have created, what we have, the people in our life right now. And we can channel that positive energy into everything we're doing and we can shift that positive energy into our vision and our mission. and I can't speak for everyone, but gratitude has been life changing for me. It's something again that I do every day. It's a non-negotiable. When I wake up, it's on my voicemail. When someone calls me, I say, tell me what you're grateful for and I'll get back to you. In our team meetings, we talk about it. When we start a meeting, what are you grateful for today? It's just something when I go to bed at night, I express three things I'm grateful for. All these things help me continue to stay in the present moment not focused on the past of what I did or how mistakes I made, not worry about the future, but really be present. And that's the key to being happy, is focusing on what you have right now and the people in your life. And many of the psychologists that I've interviewed on this show tell me that gratitude is proven to create a happier life. This isn't just some fluffy woo-woo, you know, personal development thing. This is now science. It's been researched, it's been studied and proven that gratitude decreases depression, increases happiness in people's lives. So don't let gratitude be something you just do from time to time or once in a while or on a holiday or Thanksgiving. You need to find time and place to do it every single day. And the more you do it, the more frequently you do it, the happier, healthier, more fulfilled you will be. And it'll put your life in perspective. It'll get you out of the things you don't have and focus on things you do have. The simplest way to do that is just to add gratitude to the start of something you're already doing. We talked about this. What will I do? We do it before team meetings. You could do it while you're making coffee. You could do it right before you eat every meal. You could do it when you wake up, when you go to bed. Whatever you're about to start something, have a moment. It could be five seconds. I'm grateful for this moment. I'm grateful for this thing. I'm grateful I have this. And really be intentional on that. Spend a few minutes. and use that time wisely to express gratitude. For me, again, I wake up every morning and I express the things that I'm grateful for. I really just wake up and say thank you. Thank you for another day. Thank you for my health. Thank you for the people in my life. Thank you for the challenging times that have helped me grow and improve myself. I try to just say thank you for it all and that really supports me in the day. And you'll be able to love deeper, you'll create more light for other people and you'll appreciate the little things around you more than ever. I'm telling you, a ritual of gratitude will change your life. Again, it seems so basic. It might seem like so, this is not some crazy life hack or some thing and some app or something that's going to switch something on in your brain. This is just going back to the basics to help you improve your happiness. Habit number five is to create healthy relationships with boundaries. I didn't know what a boundary was until really a few years ago in certain areas of my life. And personal boundaries are essential in healthy relationships because they provide the foundation for your expectations, behavior, and how you communicate with others. But sometimes setting the limits can be challenging and difficult, especially if you want everyone to be happy around you. Now raise your hands if you are a recovering people-pleaser like me and you want everyone to like you, you want to be you want everyone to be happy around you, you want everyone to, you don't want anyone to ever be mad at you for anything. That's been me pretty much my entire life up until recently when I learned how to create healthy boundaries and know that I'm gonna disappoint people. But the most important person that I'm not gonna disappoint is myself. And I was always abandoning myself to try to please others and I was hurting myself in the process. And you should never hurt yourself. you obviously don't want to hurt others, but you should never hurt yourself. And we often react differently when we don't get what we want or when what it is happening around us isn't what we expected, when that expectation kind of hangover happens to us. Results in frustration or hurt feelings. I know, I know the feeling. You expect someone to say something or do something, they don't do it, you get let down, it hurts. That's why communication is so important. And whether it's an intimate relationship, a family member, a business relationship, when the boundaries we have set are not met, we feel violated or for myself, I felt abused, taken advantage of and all these different things and that doesn't feel good. I understand those feelings, they don't feel good. So when you create a standard, create a boundary, you've got to communicate and talk about your expectations in that communication process. Sometimes this can be extremely challenging and difficult conversations, especially if you've never done it in the past. And oftentimes, boundaries are not discussed and that can cause bitterness and resentment. And if you take the proactive approach by discussing boundaries with your partner, you can avoid a lot of that pain and stress and disaster. So I highly encourage you to be willing to be uncomfortable in those boundary conversations. And I loved this moment that I had when I interviewed Nedra Tawwab and she said, she's like the boundary expert and she said, when we think about boundaries, we think about them as something with someone else. But a boundary could be a morning routine, a boundary could be having some quiet time after lunch. It's not just all these things that we need other people to do. It's also what we need to do with ourselves. And I think it's so important for us to reflect on what are the boundaries we're keeping with ourselves. Not about significant others or family or friends. what are the boundaries of integrity you're keeping with yourself? So think about that for yourself and the boundaries you want to set in the specific relationships in your life. And really, are any of them being crossed already? What are the places in your life where you feel like boundaries are already being crossed? Make a list, write these down. And are you not respecting the boundaries yourself? Are you crossing boundaries that you shouldn't be crossing with someone else in your life? It's a difficult thing to do, especially if you've never really thought about them, But when I began setting boundaries in my life, as well as started to hear about the importance of them from different therapists and psychologists that we've interviewed on the show, it made a huge difference in my emotional, mental, physical well-being as well. Because really, when you think about boundaries, when an emotional, mental, spiritual boundary feels crossed, you almost feel it in your body. I know I did. I would feel tightness, tension, I would have eczema flare-ups when a boundary was crossed and I didn't know how to handle it. And you feel the boundary being crossed emotionally and physically manifests. So this will continue to help you be happier and physically healthier when you create boundaries, which leads me into habit number six, which is to take care of your physical health, work out, eat clean, physical and mental health. The emotional and mental stress can can really lean into the physical damage if we don't have a clean, healthy relationship with the mental and emotional side of ourselves, creating boundaries and all that other stuff. But taking care of your body consistently, moving your body, exercising is so important for your overall physical and mental health. We've had so many different experts come on and talk about the research and the science of how physical movement increases happiness, increases dopamine, makes you feel more confident, all these things. Being stagnant for two weeks and not moving your body will make you feel less and less confident, make you feel weak and all those different feelings will create stress and anxiety in your life. When you don't exercise, you're not giving your body the clarity it needs. It's not cleansing itself, it's not moving and you've got to move in order to get you closer towards your desired goals as well. So you've got to think about these things. What does your body need? something that I've started talking about more and more as I've started to integrate this more and more in my life. And I started taking boxing lessons a couple times a week, six months ago, and it's transformed my physical and mental health. You might have to reassess like are the physical activities I'm doing right now supporting me? Or do I need to mix it up? Do I need to try something new? Do I need a new challenge? That's what I did with boxing. I've been able to lift and run and and play sports my whole life. But I felt like I needed something to shift me physically. And boxing was something I'd never done, something that was challenging, it's mental, it's emotional and physical, and it's one of the hardest workouts I've ever done. So I go early in the morning and I do that because that's been huge for me because it means I can take care of the most important and often the hardest things first, which set up the rest of my day for success. And when I finish a workout early in the morning, and I realized, wow, there's still a lot of people that are asleep who haven't gotten up, who haven't done anything, and I'm finishing one of the hardest things of the day for me that brings me joy, that makes me a better human, that makes me feel more confident, makes me feel happier, that detoxes things that I need to let go of. When I do that, I feel like, wow, what's next? What is there that I need to do? I can do anything. Bring it to me. I will take on the world today. And when you start the day with that momentum, it really supports you with your overall happiness. Now, if you're not often physically active, don't overwhelm yourself and say, I'm going to do two hours a day of activity and I'm going to go crazy here and I'm going to sign up for all these classes because you'll burn out quick or you'll hurt yourself. You can start as small as just going for a 10-20 minute walk around the block five days a week and really get started. Just get yourself moving on the process of consistency. And even if you're making small progress, that progress is signaling your brain of the changes that you are wanting to make. And again, 5-10-20 minutes a day will eventually to be 30 or 60 minutes a day, and it'll continue to build and compound over time. So don't overwhelm yourself by thinking you have to go extremely crazy right off the bat. And I'm going to eat perfect seven days a week. I'm going to train like a machine. And I'm going to get 12 hours of sleep and all these things. You're probably not going to be able to sustain that within two weeks. But getting started and being consistent is the key. So anything is better than nothing when it comes to moving your body. and the next thing is really to focus on your diet. I know when I'm not eating clean consistently, I kind of take the 80/20 approach for nutrition and food. 80% of the time I try to eat as clean and healthy and organic as possible. 20% of the time I'm traveling the weekends, I have more sugar and desserts and things that I know aren't the best for fuel for my body. they taste good and I give myself that balance. And you can work out all you want, but you can't outwork your mouth, that's for sure. You cannot outwork your mouth. You can train for an hour and then if you're having all this cakes and cookies, it's not going to do anything for you. You're actually not doing any favors for yourself. You might be maintaining, but you're not really improving. And our guests all the time talk about eating things like, I've asked so many different scientists, doctors and nutritionists about the top food you should be eating. And they all consistently say blueberries, foods that are high in omega-3 fatty acids like salmon and walnuts and avocado oil, dark chocolate, the list goes on and on from there, leafy greens, all that stuff. But eating more of those things, adding more of those things into your body will support you. And you don't want to put in so much effort in your workout routine and then just go have, you know, alcohol and sugar and pizza every night, that's not going to really support your growth. You can have cheat meals in moderation or you can just call it balanced meals in moderation if you don't want to call it cheat meals. I do the balanced 80-20 kind of percent rule. And having a clean diet, but having a clean diet will not only serve you physically in your health but also in your mental health because we've talked about so many different experts that have come on and share that the foods that actually increase your mental health and affect your mood. We've had a lot of these different doctors and nutritionists come on and talk about that. And when you're eating poorly it can increase the feelings of depression, anxiety and stress. And I believe we're starting to really understand more about how much our diet really affects us, how much food really can either hurt us or heal us. So for your future self, it's best if you focus not only on putting your body through the workouts but also giving your body the cleanest foods possible to eat. Which brings me to habit number seven, the power of breathing. This is something that I really started to practice in sports but didn't start to really learn how to, I wouldn't say I call myself a master at this but it really didn't start to learn how to master breathing until five years ago when I went to India to study for two weeks meditation and then becoming a meditation instructor. and then from there meeting with Wim Hof and doing the Wim Hof breathing techniques, then interviewing James Nestor talking about breathing, Andrew Huberman, the famous neuroscientist from Stanford who talks about breathing and the brain and how it connects to the brain and the body connection, and really the deeper that I've gone down this rabbit hole of learning about the mastery of breathing and applying it to myself, I've noticed incredible results. And it's like I'm noticing it quicker and quicker. So it's been really helping me improve my peace, improve my mental health, improve my mood, just with breathing. And that is a powerful tool. You don't need anything. You don't need to buy anything. You don't need to eat anything. You don't need to do anything different. In a few moments, you can change the way you feel through your breath. And breathing is the number one way to give your mind a reset and to get you back into a balanced, peaceful state. When you're nervous, stressed out, feeling overwhelmed, or catching yourself overthinking something or overanalyzing, breathing exercises can help you get back to calm and control. And that's what this is all about, the power of breath. is that it lets you steer your energy. It lets you get back on to habit number one, your vision, as opposed to being distracted, stressed and overwhelmed. And I did this as an athlete. I would do this going up for big moments in a game in football. Breathe slowly. You know, I've had different sports psychologists come on and talk about how in practice you want to actually get yourself up and practice like it's a game. And when you're in a game time situation, you want to slow because you have so much adrenaline, you want to calm and slow down. So I do that as an athlete before I get on stage. Right before I really try to think about how do I slow it down because I know when the lights turn on, when the music gets on, I'm going to be hyped. I'm going to be pumped. But how do I slow down so I can communicate my message effectively as opposed to being all anxious and excited about it? So I want to share three steps to properly help yourself incorporate breathing into your day to day. Number one is to bring awareness to your breath. So really just think about it and bring awareness. And when we're breathing all the time, all day long we're breathing, but we're rarely paying attention to it. We hardly really think about it. But when we think about it, by taking a moment to bring your awareness to your breath, just as it is, you can get out of your head and into the present moment. So when you're focusing on breathing.

And.

That'S all you focus on. And see how it feels in your body, see how it feels in your mind and your heart and see how it's naturally calming your heart rate. You can actually feel your heart rate go down and you put your attention on that activity for 60 seconds. You can eliminate other distractions by putting attention on that and get back into a rhythm that will help you in that moment. And this habit is great for when you catch yourself overanalyzing things, stressed, anxious, worried, uncertain about the future, just turn your focus back to your breath and temporarily let go of any other stress. The second part is to focus on and lengthen your exhale. This is something I learned in India when I went there five years ago. They take inhales through the nose and whatever the time amount through the nose they teach you to practice twice as long exhale out of the nose. So if you're taking an inhale for two counts in the nose, four counts out of the nose. And by repeating that process, it'll calm your heart rate, it'll calm your mind and get you back into a peaceful state. If you just repeat that process over and over again, or it could be four inhale and eight out. three inhale, six out. The exhale is just as important, if not more important than your inhale. So drawing out your exhale will slow your heart rate down and again bring you into a calmer state of mind. And number three is to use a deliberate sigh. So Dr. Andrew Huberman, who is a neuroscientist from Stanford, who's been on the show a couple of times, showed me an exercise that involves breathing with a double intake and an extended exhale. So still the same extended exhale, but a double intake. And by doing this exercise for just two or three cycles can really help you calm down and it also expands the oxygen level in your body as well. And I urge you to try it a few times during the day when you feel overwhelmed. I've been doing this a lot since he taught me. It's simply you breathe through the nose with a double inhale like this. So a double inhale and twice as long exhale that way. By doing that a few times, it really opens up the oxygen level, calms you at the same time. So practice that a couple times throughout the day. How about number eight? This is huge. Again, this is no secret. This is no crazy hack, it's just sleep more, sleep more, recover. Your body is going through so much every single day, especially in the last 20 years with all the data and information we are consuming from our smartphones, from computers. We're getting so much data points every day. The body needs more rest. We're working harder, we're trying to be more productive, we're trying to squeeze the juice out of life more, whether it's play, work, relationships, we're squeezing more juice out of life and we need proper sleep to recover. And we're staying up till 2 or 3 a.m. and feeling exhausted from the day and anxious about tomorrow, then we're going to be in a sleep deficit and we need to get back on track with our sleep. So here's a few ways to start getting better sleep. Number one, stick to a sleep schedule as often as you can. Now this can be hard if you're traveling, I get it, but as often as you can try to go to bed at the same proper sleep, recovers and refreshes your mind. So the next day can be stress free. But it's important to say, okay, I'm going to be in bed by 10 every night or 11 every night or whatever that time is for you. So you have a schedule so you know you're going to get these certain amount of hours you need. Number two, pay attention to your diet that day. Try not to have big heavy meals before sleeping and also try to limit your caffeine intake after, I would say, 10:00 a.m. to noon. You don't really want to have caffeine after that. the research has shown it's going to make it harder for you to go to sleep at night. So number three is creating a peaceful environment for your sleep is crucial. My friend Shawn Stevenson talks about this in his book Sleep Smarter, that you want to create a sleep sanctuary. You want to make sure that your bedroom, where you sleep, is a sanctuary for you to shut off and go to sleep. And that can be hard for some of us as we work from home, we sleep at home, we work, we've got a lot of activities happening in the same place. it's hard to really shut it off when you're used to picking up your phone in the morning or being on your phone at night, watching TV in bed, or doing all these other things in your sleeping space. But you want to create a sleep sanctuary. You want to create a routine that helps you separate yourself from the other areas of your life like taking a bath. It'll help you rest and recover better. So what is the routine? What is the sanctuary that you're going to create? The environment of peaceful, restful sleep. It's one of the most important things you can do. and as an athlete, I used to sleep a ton. I knew the importance of sleep because your body would be so sore. We would take naps, we would sleep as much as we could. I used to sleep in as long as I could to get that quality sleep. As a business leader, when I'm traveling, I know now I'm not 21 anymore. I know the importance of my sleep. Even if I get two or three hours less sleep than I'm used to, it will affect me. I'll need more caffeine. There'll be other things you'll need to supplement. So it's important to know that if you are living a high performance life, if you are trying to squeeze the juice out of life, if that's the season of life you're in right now, you've got to make sleep a huge priority for yourself. So you have the energy, the focus and the clarity to move towards your vision. Habit number nine. Whoo! This is a big one. It's a big one because a lot of people don't like to do this, is to take responsibility for yourself, for your actions, and keep yourself accountable. Now, it's easy to be the victim. It's easy to say, make excuses for yourself and say, well, I didn't want to do this. I wasn't feeling this or this thing happened or this circumstance happened. But you cannot negotiate your dreams and your goals. You cannot negotiate with your goals through circumstances or excuses that will make you unhappy. It's up to you to take responsibility for your life and you have to decide today that you're going to get in shape, that you're going to start that side hustle or that business, that you're going to take on a new hobby, whatever it may be for you, you've got to decide and only you can decide to take that first step. And then most importantly, be consistent on those steps day after day, week after week, year after year. But the next step that matters just as much is being held accountable for the goals in front of you. That is important. The accountability is so key. and you need to create a habit of checking in with someone on a daily or weekly basis that can hold you accountable and call you out if you're falling short. This is why we have our Greatness Coaching Program that high performance leaders in our community are members of. They have joined, they have monthly accountability, they've got partners, they've got myself, they've got a coach, all these different things to help people stay accountable. An accountability partner could be a friend for you, could be a family member, could be a co-worker, could be a coach that you hire, could just be someone you pay as an accountability person to check on you daily. Whatever it is for you, accountability is key and the effects of accountability are strongest when you and your partner have similar goals so you can grow together with them. It's huge when you guys have that common goal. Just having one accountability partner can do wonders for you. Just one person to hold you accountable to give you checks and balances. But you can also consider surrounding yourself with a team, a community of people who inspire you and hold you accountable. I hire lots of coaches. Personally, I try to find the experts in every area of my life, hire them to hold me accountable for what is important to me. Only what is important to me, I have them do. If it's not important and if it's not part of your vision, it's not part of your overall life plan, then you don't have to do it. but for me, what's important, I hire people, I have accountability in those areas of my life. Fitness, relationships, spirituality, business, mental health, financial health. I mean, I hire people in every category. And I understand you may not be at a point right now where you could do that, where you can afford that. But find friends, find mentors, find people that can hold each other accountable. And if you want to improve your fitness, one of the best things you can do is surround yourself with fitness-minded people. So if you're hanging out with people that are lazy and on the couch and aren't working out ever, then start spending more quality time with people that are getting up at 6:00 a.m. and doing joint runs together. There's run groups in every city around the world. There's different things you can do to support you. So think about the accountability in your life. What's important to improve right now? Find those people to support you and move forward. Habit number 10. Learn to cope with tragedy and let go of regret. anger and resentment. Holding on to our past trauma is one of the most painful things we can do for ourselves. I am speaking for myself here that I held on to trauma and resentment and anger and frustration for 25 years, if not more, in different parts of my life. And that is a recipe for suffering, reaction, stress, painful moments, all these different things. So, you know, the therapist who's been on who reminded me of this guy winch talks about, you know, the ruminating of our past wounds and holding on to these past wounds and how to heal the broken hearts. We've got that episode that you can dive in more. And so many different therapists have come on and talked about this, but I try to really look for the positives and what I can learn from these events and feelings and channel those feelings into growth as a person. And really, how can I serve others who might be going through something similar? in that situation. I remember hearing a story from Tony Robbins who said, you know, when I was a kid, my mom used to beat me. She used to pour soap down my mouth because she thought I was lying. She used to do all these things that caused a lot of pain and trauma for me. But I loved my mother because she gave me the capacity, the expanded heart to want to help other people rid themselves from their suffering. So he used the painful moment not as resentment to hold on to, you know, being angry at his mom, but to say, you know, I love my mom for this. You know, she didn't know any better in these times. She was doing her best. She was also loving in other ways. But those moments, I'm not going to hold on to them and suffer. I'm going to use them to end suffering for those around me. And I think that's really powerful. So really think about how you can let go of the emotional traumas this might take some work for a lot of people. For me, it took a long time to really learn how to do that. It's one of the reasons why I started School of Greatness because I wanted to interview these experts to teach me. But it's created so much freedom and peace in my life and happiness in the process. And habit number 11 is to eliminate things that don't make you happy and focus on what does make you happy. So I asked Matthew McConaughey this, and when I interviewed him, I said, you know, what are five things that we should be eliminating in our life. And he mentioned this list of these five things. Number one, we should be eliminating bad people. Eliminate people that don't promote your growth and that don't bring you joy. We often cling onto these toxic relationships or people because they validate us in the short term, but they're very harmful in the long term. So eliminate those people or at least distance yourself. You know, distance yourself and start spending more quality time with people that bring you joy. Number two to eliminate is bad places. Stop going to places that encourage unhealthy lifestyle behaviors like bars or fast food restaurants, etc. Again, don't go to these places if you know you don't feel good when you're there or afterwards. And if a certain place continually makes you feel bad, do whatever you can to eliminate or distance yourself or go there less. Our environment can really impact our mood in a big way. It's hard to not notice that. So create those environments for yourself that are healthier. Number three, you got to eliminate the comparison to others. Stop comparing yourself to others and eliminate jealousy because what is it the quote comparison is the thief of joy. I think Einstein said that. When we're constantly comparing yourself to yourself of where you think you should be or whatever, it's always in comparison mode. is not going to do anything good for your happiness. Number four, overthinking your failures. Instead of dissecting all your problems, start dissecting all your success, all the things you've done to overcome the challenges. And ask yourself, how can I replicate my successes rather than how can I stop my failures? And number five to eliminate is instant gratification. This is a big one. Bite the cravings for instant pleasure and results. and be okay with delayed gratification. Knowing that you're going to be doing the work consistently and your future self is going to be grateful for your current self and the consistent effort you're putting in. You're going to reap way bigger rewards in the future if you can delay that gratification. So there you have it. These are the 11 healthy, happy habits to increase the overall joy of your life. and set you up for a better life. If you can commit to implementing these in small ways over the next couple of months, I'd be curious about what would happen in your life. What do you think you could create and transform in your life just by implementing a few of these things consistently for a couple months? Leave a comment below of one or two that you enjoy the most or one or two that you know you need to improve on in your life. Which one impacted you? Which one? Ooh, that resonated. I've got to do that more. or this one has been working wonders for me for years. Leave a comment below on YouTube and let me know. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Also, if you haven't picked up a copy of the book, the School of Greatness, this has more in depth on the principles of greatness, the distinctions to help you improve the quality of your life to reach greatness for your life. And it's all about living bigger, loving deeper and leaving a legacy. So if you want more, you can check out the School of Greatness book. We'll have links below to help you further your education. Again, leave your comment below, subscribe to this podcast over on YouTube or on the audio on Apple podcast, and let us know your thoughts. Share this with a few friends. We'll also have more content right after this to help you dissect deeper on habits and happiness in your life. So thanks so much for being here.

You spent the last two, three years researching Consistently, constantly on how people become extraordinary. And I'm obsessed with greatness.

I know you love this. And how people... That's why I knew this interview was going to be amazing. It's like we could vibe on this all day long.

Exactly. I probably haven't done the in-depth research, like the scientific, Harvard-backed studies the way you have. So, I'm excited to tap into this and really understand why and how people can become great at anything that they want to do in their personal life, their relationships, financially, whatever it may be their dream is. And I know you've paved the way with this, so I'm very excited about this.

But you have written three number one New York Times best sellers or two?

Three New York Times best sellers. This is the sixth book and all five previous books were number one on Amazon or Barnes & Noble or something like that. So we've been at it and this is, you know, people always say, well, you're the YouTube guy or you're the Facebook guy. I'm like, I'm a writer. I only learned marketing or doing stuff like this so I could support the writing. Of course.

Well, you've done a great job of marketing yourself. You're, I think, one of the top, what is it, top 100 most followed public figures on Facebook. How many millions of followers do you have on your personal page now?

5 million on my personal page, 10 million across all of our pages. So we have pages like motivation for smart people, which is not my face on it, but that's my page. Of course.

Yeah.

It's been surprising, but this is the first in-depth interview I've done in probably four years.

Amazing.

And so we talked about that a little bit this morning at breakfast. It's just like, this is not what I usually do because I'm usually the guy out there teaching. And I'm learning to step out a little bit more and share a little more of my personal background and stories because that really hasn't been the thrust of my books and work. So that's been a big part of wanting to do this. And I love your show so much.

I appreciate it.

I was so excited for this because you're one of the few guys out there doing podcasts who's talking about holistic greatness. It's not a tactic or a hack here. Yeah, it's relationships. I mean, you talk about relationships, you talk about making a difference, and there's a lot of podcasters that never say the word service, which drives me insane. They never say the word love. that's real life. You know, even with high performers, we'll talk about some of the research behind it, but a lot of people think it's lonely at the top, or they think that high performers are, you know, obsessive crazy maniacs. What we found is high performers have extraordinarily positive emotions and positive relationships. So it's a complete myth that the top, you know, 5%, 10%, 15% somehow have, you know, are lonely or more divorced than other people, or it's just not true. They cared about relationships, which is one reason I love your show, is that, I mean, what would high performance or achievement or greatness be if you didn't have somebody to share it with or you didn't give back? But that's what a lot of the podcasters talk about. It's this tactic. Or I'm talking about world-class performance, but I'm not gonna talk about marriage or relationships. I'm like, try to have world-class performance without a supportive spouse. Go for it, dude.

It's not gonna happen. Yeah, powerful. I'm excited about this, man. Before I kind of dive into about all the habits and the stuff you learned and what you're gonna share today. I got a confession.

Yeah.

Confession.

Love it. I... You can't have your money back. No.

No, here's my confession. I'm gonna be honest for a second, 'cause I don't think I've ever done this on the show. I judged you for many years when I first learned about you. And I think it's 'cause I didn't meet you and I didn't hear about you from other people. And I'm glad you're doing more media right now. and opening up and having the vlog come out here because I think because I didn't know enough about you personally besides what you shared was like the stories, the same stories. I was like, I don't know enough about them to like feel them out to feel comfortable yet. To have like a positive, I was kind of neutral. I was like, I don't know if.

I like him or I don't like him.

So I want to say I apologize for judging you because it's, you know, you're completely opposite of what I, had no clue what I was thinking about in my mind for some time. And everything that you've done has exceeded the expectation of so many people and you continue to serve at a high level. And I think that's what's powerful to talk about as service is sure we have our own stuff we're all working on all the time, but you have stepped up to serve so many people and you've committed to learning the things you need to learn to reach more people with powerful messages.

Yes.

And I usually acknowledge my guests at the end, but I want to acknowledge you now for your level of commitment to putting yourself out there, serving people, giving great information, spending two years in the dungeon to research like how to help more people. And yes, you're benefiting me as well. You run a business just like myself, so we're all going to benefit. But I think your level of commitment to your mission is what really stands out to me. And the more I get to hang out with you and know you, it's like I really enjoy our time together. So I hope we get to spend more time together. Yeah, me too. Hope you accept my apology. I don't think it's possible.

Even though you didn't know I was doing it. But I get that all the time. So, you know, our great example, our seminars, you know, 2,000 people from 40 countries around the world, half of them.

Show up and they're like, who are you?

Like, I've watched his YouTube or I've seen his Facebook, but I tell people, I would say my most vulnerable place is usually on stage. So people who've seen me on stage, they always go, oh my God, I didn't know you were like that. And part of that reason isn't because I'm scared of sharing my life. It's because of what I do. Like I said, my first move, I'm a writer. My second move is I'm a coach. Both of those things are kind of behind the scenes. And so when it comes time, when Instagram came out, everyone's like, why aren't you on Instagram yet? I'm like, dude, because I don't really show that part of my life. Or I don't have a lot of pictures with a lot of the celebrities that we work with because I sign NDAs and I sign confidentiality agreements so I can work with them and get in their personal lives. I've always been the guy who gets into people's personal lives and helps them through it. Never then turn it to the selfie and say, well, this is what I'm going through. And in some ways though, that was a mistake because I think I was just, I've always believed in a role like mine. I'm a writer, I'm a coach, and I'm a trainer. My job is to share things that are relevant to the teaching point. So it's what am I trying to teach? Now, I'll share case studies about my life or some research, but it's pretty limited towards only what I'm teaching. And people sign up for me to teach a very specific thing. So they're not seeing the whole picture of my life. They're just learning that specific thing. So I think it also left a lot of people going, okay, he's super successful, but I don't know anything about him. Right, right. And that created.

It's hard to trust people you don't know anything about.

Yes. Or you read the Motivation Manifesto, right? There is no Brendan in that book. The publisher famously turned down the book. We had a $2 million book deal. I turned in the book and the editor goes, what the hell is this? You wrote it like it's 1776. There's not one story of you in here. Your audience wants to know about you. I'm like, yeah, but that's not what I'm writing for. writing for the art. And so they said, we can't publish and we can't mark. This book is unmarketable.

So you wrote a two million dollar check back.

Wrote it back, which is painful because I already spent it.

But then you went and sold a million copies.

Yeah. Then we went into 30 weeks, 32 weeks on the New York Times best seller list after they turned it down with no publisher.

Well, I guess you had, like, yeah.

We went to Hay House and they supported it and distributed it and did a great job on it. I love them and their community really got behind the book because they knew I wrote it for the art, not for the, I didn't sell out on the book. It was, this was my artistic, my art has never been like talking about Brendan. My art has been, I want to teach, but I want to teach in a way that really hits you in the heart and gives you habits that you can implement in your life. But that also took me out of the picture a little bit because I didn't want to be the guru. I didn't want to be, you know, I'm from Montana. We're pretty private there. And one of our main sayings there is, you know, the time to have the map is before you enter the woods. So I just wanted to hand people the map. I didn't want to hand people like, look at me. I also had a big influence from my high school journalism teacher, and she said there's two kinds of people. One who walks into a room and goes, here I am. And the other person walks into a room and goes, there you are. And so I've always been more like kind of like you, I want to ask people questions and curious. So my focus has always been outwards and not in. I think that did cost me some trust in the marketplace because people are like, I just don't know him. So I'm hoping with the book, I added some more stories. I also know the number one criticism of this book is going to be, when he talks about extraordinary people, really the only stories in here are about himself. And I left the data and the research and the strategies speak for themselves.

That's good.

Yeah, because I don't think I even say it in the book. I think if you want personal profiles of extraordinary people, I'm like, go listen to podcasts. They should listen to yours. Mine is more, this is very strategic. This is what to do. And I think there'll be some criticism because I do share a lot of my habits in here, but I also hope it gives people a little more insight into my life.

Let's get into some of the habits. What are some of the key habits then? that maybe you thought were like the habits of really extraordinary people, but actually they weren't them.

And the new ones that you're like.

Oh, I didn't realize that that was actually a key habit. I always thought it was something else, but it's actually this thing.

Yeah, I was wrong. So background of the book, this is the world's largest study of high performers ever done. We have data from 195 countries. We surveyed and found the data set we pulled was from first my audience, which is over 10 million fans and followers, but also a lot of people don't know, I've graduated over 2 million people have registered for my online courses or video series. And over 100 million video views. Well, we scraped all of the comments, scraped all the user feedback, did a huge data set of just what are people struggling with, what do they say works, what helps them break through, that gave me an initial kind of data set of like, I think this is what really works. I've been teaching this most of stuff for 10 years too, and I've been coaching it. So I had my personal opinions, and I had about probably 20 or 30 from that data set and 10 years coaching. I was like, it's probably about these 15 or 20 habits. And I thought it was, by the way, all of them. Right, and there's also a lot of.

Other books about habits out there. Yes. There's Steven Covey's book, there's the Power of Habit, there's lots of books on habit. So this is a whole other thing. It's like, why another book on habits?

Yes. But there was always a big hole either there wasn't research into which habits empirically proven to move the needle, or it was just kind of, you know, because it was shared from a personal perspective, or it was just about how to set habits. The question is, which habits have proven to move the needle towards high performance over and over? Because high performance means succeeding beyond standard norms consistently over the long term. Well, you got to measure that to know. And so there's six of them, and that's what this book is about. It's split, which I didn't plan on, into personal habits and social habits. And there's things in there, and I'll get to those, but to answer your question of what I thought would be, I thought things like, oh, this one will piss you off, piss me off. Creativity is not strongly correlated with high performance.

And if you told me that seven.

Years ago, I would have fought with you for like two or three hours. But then in one interview with one of the world's largest CTOs, chief technology officers, he said, Brendan, you know, they're a top 10 brand in the world. So we don't, he said, my team, he said, I'm not creative. My team's not creative, but we know how to execute and scale. And execution and scale is really important to long-term high performance. Creativity might get you in the game, but a lot of people are creative but can't work their way out of a bag. And I was like, I would have argued that forever because I'm a great writer and a coach. I would have never thought that. Age, nationality, ethnicity, and here's a big one, compensation. Here's a big one, personality. Here's a big one, strengths. They are not correlated strongly with high performance. Some of them have weak correlations. And all those things, by the way, because if academics are listening to that, they're like, no, he's wrong. And this is tied towards high performance. It's not that those aren't important. Those things can shape your mood. They can shape, you know, lots of important life outcomes, well-being, health, happiness. But when we're talking about high performance, those are less important than these six. And what I keep telling people is, I'm not saying those aren't important. These just happen to be more important. So the six habits, you want me to do those? Sure, yeah, yeah. So the personal habits, and these are the ones that move the needle the most. Number one, high performers, you like this one, high performers seek clarity more often than their peers. And what that means for them is every situation they go into, they're seeking clarity and setting intention. And it's not like once in a while they're doing way more often. It's like, you know, I've been blessed to work with Oprah Winfrey. When she has a meeting, at the start of every meeting, she asks, what's our intention here? What's the intention of this meeting? not what's the agenda, what do I do, what's the intention? That's every meeting. So she's seeking clarity at the beginning of every meeting. That's why she's so amazing, right? If you think about her whole career, she was always trying to have people seek clarity on who they were so they could be themselves. That's what high performers are doing. They just do it more often. They seek clarity before they shoot that video, before they have the podcast interview. But specifically, we found three practices help you get better at seeking clarity. Number one, they are seeking clarity in what we call the future for. So you've probably heard that successful people are more future minded. It's true. And specifically what they're looking at, if you talk to a high performer, they're more clear about who do I want to be in this upcoming situation? And by the way, it's not about who I am, it's about who do I want to be. They're more future oriented. They're more intentional about who they want to be in social situations. So it's like, I want to have this type of interaction with Lewis today. That's intentional. They're more clear about what skills they need to develop to reach their next level of success. Here's how you really know an underperformer. Open up their calendar and look for any evidence they have planned their own curriculum for greatness. If they don't have classes or courses, if they're not actively skill building, There's no chance of high performance. I mean, maybe they can dumb luck into it for initial success, but high performance is long-term success. You got to be building yourself. Constantly growing, constantly learning, constantly growing. Being aware of that. And the last of the future four is, I know the service I want.

To provide in the future.

Talk to any high performers, I'm sure you've interviewed them. They kind of know the service and the difference they want to make. Maybe not precisely, but they're asking the question. So that's some of what we know. They seek clarity. And that's kind of the first practice is asking questions in those areas. And the other two real fast is when you're seeking clarity, they're more clear about the feeling they want to have. Like an Olympic sprinter whose one gold is more likely to have said before he went or she went on the track, How do I want to feel out there? Not like just the result, like when the foot's in the block and I'm arms down, like what do I want to feel? Like they're very aware of the feeling they're trying to get.

Yeah, I don't want to feel nervous and stressed. I want to feel calm and clear and smooth.

Yes. And they're doing that self-talk, which is seeking clarity. And then the last one, which is really important, they're clear about what's meaningful to them now and what might be different in the future. which is something I didn't know until we did a lot of the interviews or the conversations is a lot of people kind of know what I like now. They know what their passion is, but it's like, what's gonna be meaningful to you later? Like in five years? They've thought about that. You know, I would say that they've done the work. So that's just the first habit. And so the book kind of opens with that story of like finding what's We all have to decide who you are and what we want and how to get it at this stage of our life and when we don't know that you know reaching high performance can be really hard.

Yeah, it's all about clear vision for me. It's the first chapter in my book is yes the greatest leaders in the world have a clear vision.

Love that. Yeah, that's it and they got that vision by seeking clarity. Yes, that was the habit that gave them the vision They were consistently seeking like how do I what do I? I mean, they ask themselves more questions. That's one of our findings. They literally are doing more of the self-talk, asking more of the questions, which is so important.

Yeah, awesome. And I love how you talked about this. You say the world cares less about your strengths and personality than about your service and meaningful contributions. Then why do so many of us focus on our strengths and personality?

Yeah, that was a huge finding. That's another one. I would have completely freaked out on anybody.

Strength Finders, all these other books out there. Yes. We focus on our strengths.

And unfortunately, one, that's in the history of personal development, that is the greatest false dichotomy that has ever been. Focus on your strengths, or it's like you have to do both. You have to do both. But what we found in our research, which surprised me, high performers do not report working on their strengths any more than regular people. So that's not what gives them the edge. One of the chapters opens up with this guy who wrote this email, really highly successful guy. And he wrote this email to me, he says, you know, and I'd put him through all this. I put him through StrengthsFinder, the Berkman, the Colby, the Myers-Briggs, put him through everything. This was one of my first coaching clients ever. I knew everything about him. We knew all his background, we did all the homework, had his peer review, you know, his 360 assessments from work. And then I watched him fail for two years. And he wrote me this email and he said, Brendan, stop telling me like what successful people are like. because we know my strengths, I'm not getting ahead. And start telling me what they do. And that's what this book became about. It's like, what do you need to do? Because in this email he wrote this, which is where that finding came from, he said, this was so good. Listen to this line. He said, As a leader, I have to be honest with myself that my mission and vision should never be made to bow down to my limited human strengths. I should have to rise up to my mission or vision. The strengths aren't the relevant thing is the question is, what is necessary for me to develop into to reach that mission? It's like, your strengths are great. And it's like, yes, of course do your strengths, but that's kind of like what I tell people is like, if Let's imagine you have a bear, and that bear wants to go on top of this cliff over here, and it's never been on the cliff, and it wants to get that new honey up there, right? Telling the bear to focus on the strengths, to go somewhere it's never gone before and do something it's never done before, is stupid. It's like saying, hey, you know what? Just try being more of a bear. If I just say, you say, Brent, I got this big new vision. I just say, just try being more of Lewis. I mean, at a spiritual level, that feels good. But you and I both know you're gonna have to develop far beyond your comfort zones. And strengths are typically comfort zones. We gotta overcome that and go to the next level.

And develop new skills and overcome certain fears and all these other things that are gonna help us get to the next level.

Yes. Yeah, the whole conversation of beyond the comfort zone really requires us to go beyond our strengths.

It really requires us to... That is our comfort zone.

That is our comfort zone. But we already know what we're good at. And the problem with the Strengths Finder and all of the strengths-based movement is the assumption, and they're all written academically this way, based on what are called innate strengths. And innate strength is the assumption that you had that from birth, and that those innate strengths are what you focus on. And I'm like, well, if you had it at birth, you probably had it when you were 15 years old too. So if it's innate, you had it at 15. Are the strengths you had at 15 sufficient to serve you at 50? Hell, no. You need to develop beyond what's innate and go to a whole other level. And so I take on strengths in the book in that way, but I also say it almost doesn't matter because a lot of people have strengths and they suck at work because they're not doing these habits. I mean, how many people do you and I know who are amazingly strong? Their strengths finders are amazing and they don't do anything all day.

That's it.

Yeah.

A lot of people. I mean, in the sports world, there's a lot of great, talented people who had the greatest gifts, but they still weren't able to win.

Yeah.

Or they were lazy or they wouldn't, you know, hustle or sacrifice their body because they just relied on their talents, their strengths.

Yeah.

And so they were never able to get to the championship game or get on the best teams because. And they had all the talent in the world. And you're just like, if I was.

As gifted as this person, I would be incredible, you know? I mean, that's the whole thing about the talent code or a lot of new sort of newer research and performance. It just says, what's more important is what you do with what you got to develop into the vision of the mission you need to serve. And so, the book kind of lays out a lot of the science behind that and then goes into, you know, obviously most of us are oriented towards the six habits.

So, in terms of clarity, what is that habit that you take on on a daily or monthly basis with clarity? What do you think about? You're like, every morning, what am I clear about? Or how do you apply that habit to your life?

I apply it in a couple of ways. First, for me, every situation I go into, I'm consistently asking, what's the feeling I want to have here? If you ever see me teach, it's often I would say, bring the joy. So I have joy triggers that I've set up in my mind that makes me more intentional about things. So for example, I have a door frame trigger. Whenever I walk through a door, I say, bring the joy. So when I walk through that door right there, it's like bring the joy into this room. It's just a mental trigger that I've set up for myself. Every morning in the shower, I ask myself three questions. And not that I shower every morning, but the ones I do. The first question I say, what can I be excited about today? So it forces me to be clear about what's going to draw joy and enthusiasm from me. Number two, I say, what might trip me up today. Because usually I know what's going on the day. I'm like, what might mess me up? What might, where I might not perform well, what might bother me? And number three, I say, what can I do to surprise somebody today? To give a gift of appreciation or acknowledgement today? And so I think through that in the morning. So I think that helps me begin my day pretty clear. Then when I sit down before I do work, I literally look at my calendar of the day. I did this morning. and I look at whatever's going on the day and I think about it for 20 minutes. It's one of my 20 minute routines in the morning. I literally think about my calendar for 20 minutes a day. People think that's crazy, but what I'm thinking through when I'm looking at the calendar, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna have that call. What do I want to happen on that call? You know, what's my intention for that call? What's my goal for that call? What's the feeling for that call? How do I want to end that call? I'm gonna have that time with Lewis. How do I want to be there? And how can I make sure I enjoy it? Because it's a big deal. I love your show. I want to do a good job. I want to share something good for the people, even though I have no idea what you're gonna ask. I want to be present for that and make sure I'm really there, even though maybe I have a head cold today. It's like just thinking through it. I think that helps me. It keeps me asking questions. Every Sunday, I do a life arenas assessment. That just means I think there's 10 areas of our life and I score myself in them. And this is about my 11th year of doing this.

Wow.

So each area of my life, you know, from emotional quality to happiness, to relationships, to time, to hobby, et cetera, I just give myself a score of one to 10. And one means I suck. And I was horrible in the previous week on that. 10 years, I did a good job. And then I asked, how can I do better? It's my Sunday routine. And it just keeps me clear. And it's not like I don't sometimes, like everyone else, you know, wonder what's going on or what I'm doing. But those habits, those were my habits. You have to establish your own for seeking clarity. But when you have them, you weaponize your life.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Clarity. Powerful thing. Without Clarity, it's hard to achieve a dream.

Yeah.

It's hard to get better, it's hard to grow and be a high performer.

Yeah, no clarity, no change.

That's it.

No goals, no growth.

That's it. The second one that I see here is energy.

Yeah.

What do you mean by energy?

So in the way we- Peak energy.

High energy all day long.

Yeah, no, it's not caffeinated energy, but the habit is generate energy. Not necessarily have energy.

Create energy.

Create energy. And what they do, the way we measure that was kind of academic, mental energy, which is tied to your focus and your stamina and your ability to manage complex tasks without too much mental stress. Number two is emotional energy, which is just the quality of your positive emotions. And number three is physical energy. High performers are 40% more likely to work out five times per week than the rest of their peers. That means the top 15% most high performing people in the world tend to work out five days per week. And that workout could be defined as 45 minute brisk walk or hit intensity or whatever it is, but 40% more likely. That's a huge finding. And what we found is high performers just have better wellbeing and happiness and physical conditioning than everybody else. One stunning finding was CEOs, senior executives and business owners, they report expending as much energy as athletes who are competitive now.

I can imagine.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was surprised by that. I would have thought athletes would be 10% more.

I mean, the emotional and mental energy they have to the decision making, the conversations, the big deals, the stakeness.

Yeah.

It's a lot of energy.

It's a lot. That's why, I mean, if you really want to achieve your dreams, you have to care for your body, your mind. It's why all these things finally resonating in the marketplace because the science of meditation or taking a break or managing your own energy, sleep is everything. And I think all of that is really important. And we say generate energy because there's this myth that some people have happiness or they have, it's like, no, you generate it. You don't have happiness. You generate it. You create it. And so the quality of energy you have to create, like you and I both, I mean, if most of our audience knew our schedules, your schedule the last five days, it's like, how is Lewis even able to focus right now?

And how are you able to get here and do this as well? Yeah.

But it's because we say, well, this is our mission. Show up, man. Yeah, there's plenty of times I gotta imagine you walked on the field and you were like, I'm spent. Exhausted. You know, I remember you flew down to compete in-- yeah, I still play.

With the USA team handball team. Yeah. Team. And a year ago, I flew down to, I remember I did an interview.

In Miami and then flew out from.

Miami and then went and just went right into training camp and then played against Brazil, which is like, you know, Olympic, Olympic qualifiers and got our asses booked, but it was fun, you know? But I had to have clarity and show up, even when I was like, oh, we're gonna lose.

Yeah.

Like, there's zero chance.

Yeah.

It was like the worst team in the NBA playing like the Warriors.

And we were just like, we had no chance.

Yeah.

But I had to show up and give my best.

And you have to set all these routines. I mean, you know, the amount of routines that Tom Brady has in his life so that he can generate energy.

It's unbelievable.

Stuns most people.

It's unbelievable. And that's just that's that's what it.

Takes if you want to be at that level. If you don't want to be at that level, you don't have to do it. Yeah, you don't have to do it. I mean, everybody can just like, well, I'm going to go, you know, hit.

The Cinnabon, but it's like, it's like, how do you want to feel at three o'clock? If you want to feel amazing at three o'clock, don't end lunch with a Cinnabon. You know, it's like you have to.

Gosh.

It's crazy, like I'm 34 now and I could eat sugar and bad food for all my 20s, right?

And now when I go off of.

Sugar for like a month and then I just binge for a day, it's like I literally can't walk the next day. My back is like so stiff.

Oh my gosh, my whole body is exhausted.

Inflammation. So much inflammation. Once I cut it out and then.

I bring it back, I'm like, oh, I feel so old.

Yeah.

Dude, I'm the same way at my seminars. We do four-day event. And it's just me. I usually have one or two big names come in, but it's me 12 hours a day, four days, and I never sit down.

High energy.

I never sit down on stage and super high energy. I mean, really going for it. Not just the clapping, the jumping, but really just expending heart. You know how hard it is.

Of course.

And I had to about the same time. I was 35. I had a. A famous strength and conditioning coach backstage. He works with me and Usher and. And he. He's like, what do you eat back here? And another guy came in and strapped the heart rate monitor on my machine. He goes, I'm equivalently burning, equivalently working out at the marathon level every day for four days. They're like, you,'re not eat, I was losing on average 11 pounds in my 70s. Every, and I do eight events a year, so I was losing 88 pounds a year. It was like, it's horrible for your health. So I had to learn how to eat. I had to learn, I do ice baths every night at my events.

Which smart.

No one loves to do that.

I, here's the thing.

I used to do it every day in football, like, during the season.

Yeah.

And we, it sucks for the first.

Month, but then you start to love it. Yes.

Yeah.

I have to do it. You know what I mean?

It's like you just start to. Ah, I feel so good. Feels so good. After stage, you know, it's the best 12 hours. So those are, no one says, I want a habit of taking an ice bath at the end of the day. But if I want to be high performing on stage, that's the choice. Yeah. Now, obviously, people listening You know, consult your doctor. Of course.

Yeah, yeah.

And only do it for 10 minutes.

Don't stand for a half hour. Yeah. Right, right. So, but all those things you have to, what are your habits for energy? And the funny thing is, you sit down on high performers, they know them.

They can tell you, though.

I do this, this, this, this, and.

You'Re like, man, you're on your game. You got it down.

Yeah.

And they're always probably looking to improve it. Yeah, totally.

Yeah, they're always, but they're very aware of it. And they, and they, what I found was they get pissy if they're off it. Yeah, of course. I didn't meditate this morning and I was like, you know, I was kind of frustrated a little bit. Someone asked me when we were at our meeting today at the Soul House, he was like, how was your meditation? Because he knows I like to meditate. And I was like, you know, I missed this morning.

I did yesterday, but I missed this morning. It's agitating when I miss my habits. Yes. It's like, ugh, I need to get up there earlier.

Yeah.

That is exactly what you just said. It just, it really agitates high performers when they're off, they're energetic. Absolutely. The third big personal habit, which by the way, I've been teaching high performance for a decade. We have the number one seminar on that and the number one online course. And I was wrong. I never knew this was a thing and you're gonna laugh. He's like, duh, dude, I could have sat you down. But I just didn't know. I knew I taught it as subtext, but I didn't know it was the thing. And that is high performers raise necessity. And what that means is they raise the necessity of performance in their mind before each performance. They say, I gotta do great. And they give themselves reasons why. So they're connected to their why. But it's different than just giving, like, know your why is nice. Know your why and give yourself Edge for it.

What do you mean?

Give me an example. Two guys walking out on the track field. Who's gonna win? Well, equal quality of experience, similar times, maybe they've raced before. The guy at the block so I'm gonna bet on is the guy who came out and said, Gotta do this for my mom. They have a reason to perform at heightened levels, and they have connected to that over and over. Now, again, some of this Duh, Brendan. But the finding, the research is they just do that more often than under performers or even, you know, good performers. Yeah. They're more connected to their reasons why and they're stirring it, man. It's like, and they do it from two angles. One angle is your, your, your, like, your internal standards. Like, my values or my self-expectations say, I gotta crush this because that's who I freaking am. Yeah. Like, when you walk out, you're like, you're not gonna screw around on when you're playing handball, you're like, this is who I'm losing. I'm an athlete. I'm gonna kick some ass here. It's that self expectation. Then though, they pair it with external obligation. Like, my team needs me to do this. The deadline says this time. There's some kind of external, they don't call it pressure.

My family, something bigger than themselves.

Something bigger than themselves. Yeah, yeah. And that was another thing I was surprised by. They don't say, they rarely use the word pressure because they want it. Like people who use pressure, they don't want it. But high performers, I found they're connected. I'm doing this for a bigger cause, a bigger reason, a team. Or yeah, there's sometimes just like deadline. Like I'm an unbelievably high performing writer when there's a deadline. I'm a weapon, right? Before that, you know, I'm not always on my game. But if you have those reasons, so you gotta have your internal reasons and your external reasons, and then your job is remind yourself of that more often. That's what's called raising necessity. And we were the first ones trying to prove that with the data. And I was pretty stunned that, remember, these three aren't like my opinion. You might say, yeah, yeah, these are whatever. I'm like, but these ones are more.

Important than everything else we measure.

Really? Over a hundred different habits. These are the ones that move the needle. So if you wanna move the needle in your personal life, Number one, seek clarity more often. Number two, generate energy with more consistency and will. And number three, raise necessity, raise the stakes before you go into any performance situation where that's that next sales call. Because, you know, it's easy. I think what high performers do, because of those three things, they're not going through the motions. They're just not. There's more intentionality, more exerting of will, certainly more discipline. That's what's happening. That's why there's magic starting to happen. And then we compare it or combine it with the social habits, which we can walk through, and it was like, that's what makes it all come together.

So what's the first social habit?

Increased productivity. It's kind of like no duh, high performers are productive dudes. But what the uniqueness is, they've, they're not just pushing more paper or checking more boxes because, you know, I both know a lot of people who, you know, their busy work isn't their life's work, so they don't feel fulfilled from their productivity. High performers are fulfilled from what they're accomplishing, which is a big, big, big measure. And here's what they did. They identified their primary field of interest, which is a big deal. Then they identified what we call pqo, prolific quality output. which is what's the outputs that matter and get recognized and rewarded the most in this primary field of interest? And then they went all in at it. They became almost singular focus is like, you know, when jobs came back to Apple and got rid of all the product lines and said, these are what we're doing. That was prolific quality output. We're gonna be prolific quality output on these things, not those. So it's important, like for me, I thought for, there was a period of my life where I thought my primary field of interest was personal development. And that's what most of the world knows me for. I've never posted any marketing on my Facebook page in terms of like marketing advice. I teach that, that's way down in my funnel. My front, my YouTube, my podcast, Facebook are all just personal development. So I really identified with that. And then I launched my first book, Life's Golden Ticket, which was my life's message. and it kind of bombed. It had best seller and then it died, you know, bam, pow. And it really bummed me out. And I realized why. I said, you know what? I've been thinking my primary field of interest is personal development. And so I did all the book, I read all the books, I went to all the seminars, I studied with the gurus, I became friends with Wayne Dyer and Tony Robbins, the big names. That's what I thought it was. and then I had to make a shift and I shift my primary field of Interest to how to share a message. And it completely shift when I started learning. I was like, you know what? My primary field of Interest needs to be is how to share a message because I already got the message. Right. And then I said, well, what's prolific in this area? Well, what's prolific is, is what's recognized in this particular area. Right. At that time, this is 2000, you know, six, seven. Online video was just coming in. I mean, YouTube and Facebook were young.

YouTube was like 2004, I think, or 2005 or something like that.

Young.

And, but what's mattering now is video. And I went all in. You know, I've created 13 online courses because in my primary field of interest, sharing that personal development message was everything. So I learned how to share everything. And I went from, you know, kind of a busted, first book to an 18 months, 4.6 million in revenue.

Wow.

Because I learned how to sell. And I learned that sharing and selling a message was just as important because if you don't make the money, you can't sustain the message. I had the message, but I wasn't making any money. I was the poor broke writer dude. And I was like, so I shifted my primary field of interest, and I went, I gotta understand marketing. I gotta understand business. And what's going to be prolific in those in what I'm doing now, and that's creating products to sell. Oh, I gotta create my products. Higher quality products. I showed you like my brochures and beautiful stuff. Just like super branding, you know, all my books, you know, I created, I did all the covers of all my books, and I obsessed about, I was like, the look and the feel and stuff I didn't care about before. And that changed everything. So what I tell people is if you want to increase, don't just get more stuff done. get more of the right stuff done and really go in on it. I mean, super obsessed about the quality and really Focus, you know, it's that old saying. The main thing is keep, is to keep the main thing, the main thing.

Exactly.

Yeah.

But you got, you very careful what your main thing is. It's tough because it, you know, and I, especially more abundance, High performers really struggle because you have, I mean, 50.

Doors, opportunities, 50 doors.

And you want to take all of them. But you'd have to cut yourself up into 50 places. So you got to really identify what that means. The book helps people figure out what is that prolific, what's my primary field of interest really at this stage of my life? What's the prolific quality output I need to do here? And then it teaches them the habits during the day, like block time, like how to set intention and release tension, how to know when to quit on stuff, all that's in that book as well.

Powerful. So productivity, they know how to be productive on the right things.

Yeah, awesome. This one, surprising, the next habit is high performers develop influence more than those around them. It's not 'cause they're cool. It's not, I mean, look at me. I'm not getting ahead on my cool factor here. I just got these new Nikes. I walk in the store, I walk in the store, I was like, what's your newest shoe? They're like, these ones. I'm like, I need that. And they're like, why? I'm like, 'cause Lewis has sneaks, man. I wear suits or, like, I'm either on stage in a suit or at my studio, kind of formal too. I was like, man, I gotta get some sneaks. I said, give me your newest sneaks. So I'm not getting ahead on the cool. I don't develop influence because I'm cool. It's not your personality that gives you influence. It's how you treat other people. And specifically, the way that people high performers gain influence is, is this way too much?

I'm, I'm, yeah, get it.

How do you develop other people? Here's how you develop influence. if you really want high level of influence, obviously you got to do all the basics, treat people nice, be kind. And in the book, what I do is with each habit, I say, here's the basics. But then I go, here's what the needle mover practices are. The highest performing influencers, what they're doing, often they don't know they're doing it, by the way. The first thing they're doing is they're teaching people how to think. A lot of your show gained influence, I really believe, because you're really good at teaching people how to think. Thank you. You're shaping their mindset, but high performers are really doing it explicitly, and you do this too, where you say, Here's how to think about that, guys. Or high performing leaders tell their team, Here's how we should be thinking about ourselves. Here's how we should be thinking about the competition. Here's how we think about the future of the company. They're saying it. They're explicit more often. Here's how to think. I mean, what is it? The seventh most read book in the history of the world. is think and grow rich.

Crazy.

It became that way because he taught people how to think about money. We have to tell our audience how to think about things. The second thing they're doing is they're challenging people and they're challenging the specific way if you listen to great orators, great speaker. The pros, when I know, I'm like, oh, this person studied speech before, is they challenge the audience in three ways. They challenge the audience's character. Then they challenge the audience's connections, their relationships. Then they challenge the audience's contributions, what they're giving. You hit all three of those, the audience is like, I have to listen to her. I have to listen to him. Because not only are they shaping how I should be thinking, because maybe I was thinking wrong, but now they're pushing me because, you know, it's just like a great coach. The greatest coaches, they're not just saying, Throw the ball better. They're like, Louis, you're a better man than that. Come on, man. They're saying, look, you're treating your team like crap. They're, look, look, you're not contributing to the team here. That's a different challenge than just throw the ball faster or catch the, you know. So I studied that from them, but those are the primary things. And the third thing, of course, is role modeling, you know, standing. I mean, if I'm the bring the joy guy or I'm the honor, the.

Struggle guy or I'm the high performance.

Guy and I'm off my game, people are gonna know that.

Yeah.

So that's, I'm always trying to role model what I do, which is hard when you're talking about high performance because everyone thinks, well, don't you have a bad day? I'm like, dude, I have bad moments. I wouldn't say bad days because I don't want to go to bed and feel like the day was bad. But at the same time, I think that's why they're developing influence. And so much of this, when I talk about habits, I talk about them in a different way than other people. Most people talk about habits like, They just want the tricks to make it easy. This book is full of deliberate habits, meaning you have to consciously think about these and consciously will them consistently. I mean, this book I think will be kind of something people return to life over and over and over because it's not ever going to be... I didn't want to write an easy book. I wanted to write a book that said, this is the hard stuff, but if you do it, the payoff is there.

Yeah, no influence is one of the most powerful things and if you can't influence or enroll people in your vision Then it's gonna be hard to make.

The vision come to life.

Yeah, that's it so there's certain elements of how to gain that influence and how to be a role model and be effective and step up on all.

These different things you need to do.

Yeah, to continue to be an enrolling machine in your vision. Yes, yes Whether you're working on a team. It's your business. It's Whatever it is it doesn't matter but you've got to be supportive and enrolling to to influence people Yeah. So I firmly believe that.

And for, I mean, we have a lot of friends who, everybody listening who do social media or they're in marketing positions or they're trying to grow their business or their brand. And I tell people, you want, you want to make this podcast powerful. Look at the last six months and ask yourself, how strategic have I been in telling my audience what to think? How strategic have I been in challenging my audience? How strategic have I been in role modeling the actions? thoughts and feelings I want other people to feel. And if you've been surviving and growing without that strategy, you're friggin awesome and lucky. Now your next level of high performance is let's get more strategic. That's what's gonna change the game for a lot of people, you know, generating their influence. 'Cause people are like, how do you have five million on Facebook? I'm like, I'm strategic about those things. It's a lot of like how to think, a lot of challenge. Like I'm constantly beating those because I also want people to do that for me. It's why I listen to your podcast. You do that for me. I listen to somebody, I was complimenting you, your Sarah Blakely interview was just outstanding. And that inspired me to think many ways differently. You know, and you know I both dear friends with Tony Robbins. And Robbins made his entire career on challenging people. I mean, your first hour at his seminar, you've been challenged more than you've probably been challenged the last decade of your life. And so, you know, be strategic about that. And if your leaders in the room, stop placating your people. Like leaders, especially today, they want to be so popular with their people. And I say popular is good. And that will come from kindness and role modeling the way. But challenge your people more strategically. That's who I get to work with. You know, I work at the Fortune 50 CEO level as a high performance coach. Those guys, they don't mess around.

Yeah.

When they write that check to me, it's a quarter million dollars. They, if I don't get the result, I mean, in two weeks with them, if I don't start shifting them, I'm screwed. One of the first things that I do with them, by the way, is I come in, I open up their calendar, and we just start obliterating things on their calendar. Stuff that's not the main thing anymore. And I'm constantly challenging them to return their focus to what matters. I'm constantly challenging them to challenge their teams. I'm constantly challenging them to be more optimistic or powerful or present, whatever it takes for that person, person. I get paid because I challenge people more. That's it. So that's what led me to be a high performance coach. If I didn't, and by the way, that's not comfortable for me. I'm from Montana. Many of you guys listening who's been in my seminars, you meet my mom there. My mom's at my seminars. We are like the most laid back, like happy-go-lucky family you ever saw. Like my mom is, you know, what is she? 70 this year? Yeah, 70. And she's just, she's a spark plug. She's amazing. She's amazing. But super, you know, like my family would never challenge somebody. I didn't come from that. I had to learn that because if I didn't do that, I wouldn't have the influence, I wouldn't achieve things.

I think we need those challenges for ourselves. We need a challenge, it's like kind of like in a big game. You need a challenge to be able to see how great you can become.

Yes.

You need a competitor or you need something that you feel a little bit scared about or a little bit unsure about to see how you can rise up to that challenge. and if there is no challenge, we're never going to perform at the highest level.

Yeah.

I think it's we got to constantly challenge ourselves if we want to step into something new. Otherwise, we've developed a strength and a comfort zone of what we're comfortable with.

So I looked at my, my quotes. I was like, have I written much about greatness? And I found this quote that said, you know, the journey to greatness often begins the moment that challenge and contribution become more important than comfort and ease. Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, it's really good. And so we have to challenge ourselves, but the habit here, the social habit, is develop influence. And you develop influence. Teach people how to think, role model away, and then make sure that you are challenging people in those three areas. Challenge their character. You got to do that delicately. The book teaches you how. Make sure you challenge relationships because that's so important. And challenge people what they're giving. And if you do that strategically enough, You know, part of your message in greatness is challenging people to follow their dreams. You say it all the time. It's one reason I love your show. You're constantly challenging people to follow their dreams. And you're not just like, hey, follow your dreams. Like, hey, do this. I love that, you know?

I think it's one of the reasons.

That the show is so awesome. Thank you.

Appreciate it. Appreciate it. So that's the fifth one, right?

Yeah.

And the sixth and final. Sixth and final one, demonstrate courage. And I think all personal development people, of course, you know, But they actually, high performers do demonstrate courage. We can measure it from peer feedback. We can measure it from their self assessments. We can measure it from, we have this thing called the high performance indicator assessment. You take it, you get scored on all six habits. It's free on the internet, on the internet webs. But this one peaked when we did the research and I didn't know it. And it is, high performers are more willing to share their ideas, their thoughts, their feelings, what they need, what they want, and they do it more consistently than their peers. Even when there's risk or uncertainty, you do a great job. I know the book's coming out for you, talking about men and being vulnerable. That's demonstrating courage. That's when you're not conditioned that way or you're not used to that, it might not seem like a big deal, but it is. You know, when you talked about me doing this interview, that was like, it might not seem like demonstrating courage to go on Lewis Howes, but it is because I admire you and I also, I'm not used to sharing a lot. You know, you just let the work speak for itself. Yeah. So I had to like, okay, I need to share, you know, being willing to share this in different and unique ways. But I think for most people, it's when you're in your last meeting, did you share your ideas and fight for them?

To share for your ideas.

-You share your ideas and fight for them. When you wanted to post that video and you were scared to death because people are going to make fun of you, did you do it? And when you wanted to tell your spouse that you're not getting what you need, did you say it? Because all those are demonstrating courage. It's not just, you know, courage, we think, pulling someone out of the river or something. and that's part of it. And we talk about the different kinds of courage in the book. But the ones that matter the most, move the needle the most, is sharing for and fighting for ideas, but also that vulnerability of sharing your wants, needs. I mean, high performers really communicate what they want. And you've probably seen this in networking opportunities. You meet somebody and they're like, I'm trying to meet this person. I'm trying to get that done. And they're not pushy with it. They're just clear. They're like, this is what I'm trying. to do. This is what I want. This is what I need. The highest performing relationships in marriages, we correlated marriage and demonstrating courage and they stay together longer. When you're willing to tell your spouse, I don't like that and work it through. That's hard for people. It's scary to put yourself out there, follow your dream or start a podcast or start the business. That stuff is scary. Telling your boss something's wrong. High performers report being whistleblowers more than anybody else. 'Cause it takes a lot of courage to go, My boss is doing something wrong. So we teach how do you get to that without all the hype? Like what do we know actually moves the needle in psychological courage, which has been actually measured a lot in academics.

I love it. I love the habits. And I know you guys should go get the book 'cause there's a lot of research that backs all these and also steps and practices they can follow. So make sure you guys are getting this book. I'm curious. I want to ask you a couple of personal questions.

Yeah.

What's the fear you have the most right now in your life?

The fear I have the most. Probably just, you know, anything ever happening to my family. You know, I'm a very, very, you know, I'm a great son. I hope, you know, I lost my dad in 2009 to leukemia. and he was like my big mentor. And he got diagnosed on Mother's Day, kind of woke up and walked in the hallway and, you know, his back felt funny. And he kind of leaned against the hall, a little dizzy. And Mom's like, what's wrong with these? I don't know. It's kind of swollen back here. And they go to the doctor, and his. His spleen was enlarged, which is bad news. It usually means, you know, your body's kicking off stem cells that aren't good. So he got diagnosed with Aml, acute myeloid leukemia, and they said, you have a week to live. Now he made it 59 days.

Wow.

The most important interview of my life was I called him and I wrote down all these like 30 life questions. And I interviewed him. It was the first time I ever called somebody and recorded anything. It was my first interview. It's still my most valued interview. So I called him and I asked him all these questions. Was he at the hospital? Because I was at a seminar. And I didn't know. And I said, Dad, I'm going to cancel the seminar. I'm going to fly out. He goes, Don't. Just finish the seminar, come over.

Wow.

Finish. So like day two or three of the seminar, I call and I interview him for, you know, I think 60 minutes that first night, another 60 minutes, and then I flew over there. But I got that recording. And it just, I had such a great dad, a great mom. People say, you know, you're so lucky, Brendan. I'm like, I, you know what? A lot of things I didn't luck out on, worked hard, but I lucked out on the parent train. We grew up with nothing, parents raising four kids, broke, but we had abundance. We had love and they believed in us. My dad, his seven messages to me in his life, which I try to share all the time, actually it's my most shared Facebook post ever. this particular post every time I put up has been viewed 30 million times. Wow. And just my dad's thing, he said, be yourself, be honest, do your best, treat, I'm sorry, take care of your family, treat people with respect, be a good citizen and follow your dreams.

Pretty good for me.

Like there it is. So But losing him really made me connect with the rest of my family. And so fear is just, you know, family. So I don't wanna lose people that I love. You know, my whole story began when I learned that life is precious. In a car accident, 19-year-old kid, I know you know the story, but I've had sort of mortality motivation. my entire life since, I mean, I was lucky, 19 years old kid realizing I'm gonna die. I'm standing on the hood of a car bleeding out after a car accident. I got death. Another time in my life, and it was the book that I was talking about in the book, the Charge, I had a brain injury, wrecked an ATV, going 38 miles an hour, got taken to hospital. I didn't know if we were internal bleeding. I'd snapped my wrist, broke my ribs, threw out my shoulders. massive concussion, which I didn't know until later caused a lot of troubles in my life with my brain. But I sat in the hospital for three hours because no one spoke any English there and I didn't speak any Spanish. So they couldn't, when they, the first thing when someone treats you is, are you allergic to any of the painkillers? I couldn't answer the question.

Like, I don't know.

So I lay there for three hours, 16 years after my first accident. and I was, you know, laying there, and the lady keeps coming in and pressing on my chest cavity. That's checking for internal bleeding. And I knew that. And I'm like, I'm thinking, I'm like, okay, if this is, if this is my time, did I live? And did I love? And did I matter? Which is my intention after my first car accident. And I was happy with all the answers, but the number. So I'd lived my life. I was happy. But the number one thing I thought about that moment was my wife and just family. I just didn't, you know, so I think my, it's not like I have recurring fears or debilitating fears about my life. I just don't want to lose anybody I love anymore. I've lost a lot of people. Two days ago, Jess and I were actually here over at the hotel and I got a text from a dear high school friend who just got diagnosed with pretty severe breast cancer and that stuff. You know, I just want to lose people.

It's tough, but it's gonna happen for everyone, right?

Yeah.

That's the thing that's challenging.

Yeah.

My dad's loss was huge. That was just awful, you know, because it was so fast.

Yeah.

And he'd been healthy. But AML just, you know, it just takes you. And so I'm good with it because I've so many people know my story of the Second Chance.

Yeah.

And they share all around the world. They're like, man, I was in an accident. I lost somebody, too. And I hear all that and it's one thing when you're hearing it and you're coaching or advising, it's another one when it's your dad or someone you care about.

What about your mission to the world? What is your mission? And what would you like to achieve over the next?

You know what's funny? It's one of the things you said probably made you like, I don't know about this guy because I'm always hammering home one message. And some people are like, all he has is that story. I'm like, it's not that all I have is that story. It's I tell this story because that's my message. My message, when I tell my car accident story, the message that comes out of it is, at the end of your life, you're gonna wonder if you lived a good life. And so you're gonna ask yourself questions to evaluate, did I live that good life? My message is find out what those questions are for you. That's it. Because if you can identify, if you can think, like, what would I ask How would I know if I lived a good life? You'd ask yourself questions. What questions would you ask? Because if you know your questions, then you get to wake up every day and you can live intentionally. So when you have to answer those questions, if you have a moment of cognition before you die and you ask the questions, you can answer them from a place of connection, pride, heart, be like, I did. You know, I want to affirmatively answer at the end of my life, I lived fully and I loved fully and I made my difference. That's what I asked that second time after the ATV accident. That's what I learned I was going to ask at the first accident. Take my passport away. Well, every time I'm out of the country, these one of these accidents happens. But I'm a little too adventurous sometimes, but I've learned that maybe sharing that message too often, people go, yeah, yeah, but I go, that's it, man. You can't live with intention unless you know the questions you're actually going to ask at the end of your life. People say, how do I know what my purpose is? Know how you're going to gauge your purpose at the end. You got to know the questions. I tell people, identify four, five, 10 questions you'd ask at the end of your life to see if you're happy. And then wake up, look at those dang questions and live every day. So I do. Tonight, when I go to bed, it's the same thing, 21 years, I've never missed. I go to bed, my head hits the pillow, I go, Did I live today? Did I love today? Did I matter today? And it's not like I can be like, Hey, Louis, every night, you know, I'm freaking awesome and the answer is yes. I mean, I have bad days, but enough of them are yeses that I feel pretty good about my life. And so that's the message I want people to know. Find out what your questions are, live intentionally so you're happy with them at the end.

That's great, man. What are you most grateful for right now?

Well, one tactical one. I'm so happy to be done with the book.

It's the best feeling, right?

Oh, my God.

It's the best in the world.

Oh, I'm so happy the book is done. I'm super grateful that that is, you know, because I, you know, a lot of my friends and family, like, where did you go? I mean, literally three years. We managed research teams, the largest study ever. I'm not an academic. So, to put together a book like this, which, you know, 30, pages of resources and citations to prove everything out with hardcore data analytics. Honestly, it wasn't my strength, so it was exhausting, but it was what was required to serve at the next level. Because I wanted corporate audiences to be able to take this assessment and go, this is more rigorous than anything we've ever done. I wanted academics to love it. I wanted people who were entrepreneurs to go, I see what I can do. There are so many moving things I wanted this book to hit on, but it also exhausted me because it was just constant. So I'm super proud to have that done. And grateful for that, having come to a book I'm proud of. I'm extremely grateful for the patience and love of my family in this particular project. It took me away more than anything else. I'm actually really grateful that I've gotten to know you better and getting this to be the first in-depth conversation with it.

Yeah, it's fun.

Because I think that you're very talented at holding a space for people, your team, too, about holding a space for people. Just be like, this is me. This is what I, you know, about.

Yeah.

And then I would also, you know, I'm always grateful for God for the second chance I got from the standing on the hood of the car. Like, I got it. Like, knowing that each day you get up and you, it's not, you know, self-help psychobabble. It's like, knowing that life is limited and you get a second chance every morning of like showing the world more of who you are, you know, breathing, taking that walk with your love, just having that every day, that kind of new beginning. I feel that in my career. I was sharing that with you now. And by the time this comes out, you know, I'll have a new show out, the Brendan Show. I've never done that before. That's a new opportunity. I'm grateful for the new opportunities. I think right now you and I have the ability to share our messages farther and wider than we've ever had before. I'm super grateful that we're alive, like right now at this time on the planet when I think our messages really need to be heard when we're, you know, surrounded sometimes by a culture, society, politics is so negative to have a platform to share something good right now. I'm so grateful for that.

What's the habit that you realize you need more work on? or that you can improve on yourself?

Definitely raising necessity. I think the challenge you have when you're good is that you're good. Yeah.

So you're like, I'm doing pretty good already.

Yeah.

It's easy. The better you get, the more expertise development you get, the easier it is to show up and go through the motions.

Yeah. You don't have to prepare as much. You don't have to practice as much. You just get results.

Whatever you're gonna do is good enough.

Yeah.

But what happens with high performers, it eats at them. Because they know they got more in the tank.

And they're like, you know what?

That was good, but I could have gotten another. And it's not that they're dissatisfied. We take on that myth in this book. High performers are not dissatisfied. So people who say, Never be satisfied, they got to look at why they're saying that, because it's not true. Because high performers are satisfied. They're striving satisfied. Doesn't mean they're not striving for the next big thing, want to become better. But they're happy. Hyperformers are happier than all of their peers. I mean, by significant, almost double digits. So it's really significant. But I think for me, I need to constantly be reminding myself, like, okay, what is the reason you need to perform really well right now? And I need to be more consistent about that question. So I set up triggers in my life to do that, you know, from every time I stand in line. I have a line trigger, I have door triggers, I have phone triggers. So when I stand in line, I always say, what level am I right now in terms of my presence and energy? Scale 1 to 10. One, I suck, I'm dead, I'm not even alive, not even feeling grateful. 10, I'm like, I'm vibrant, I'm joyous, here I am. And I rate myself consistently on that, and it just retouches me like the need, I want to feel it's necessary to be grateful. I want to feel it's necessary to be great. I want to feel it's necessary to do my best, but you don't get that without reminders. So you got to set up alarms or triggers or some, you know, note cards or whatever it is takes for you to have that. But I know for me, raise after the research, I didn't get how, I mean, I mean, you're talking from every athlete to every high CEO to, this is what they did there. And I didn't find this. You'll see all the questions I asked them in the book. I really had to dial in their psyche. And when we found that, I was like, is that a thing? That they'd really, that's, I mean, but they all do. And so it inspired me to that level. I'm gonna raise my necessity and I'm gonna practice everything in the book to get that up a little higher.

I like that.

Yeah.

What's the first thing you're gonna raise in the necessity? In terms of your business or relationships or health or what? Whatever your life.

I would say I'm gonna raise necessity. on probably at this point in my life sharing more. And we talked about that this morning. Because it never was necessary. I made my whole career training. Here's a problem. You're dealing with disappointment, you're dealing with stress, you had a fight with your lover, you don't feel fully charged, you don't feel connected, you don't feel like you're contributing. Here's the answer. Steps one, two, three, and four, because I knew that from the research or from my coaching experience. But I didn't share a lot into that. And I probably need to read your book, Masculinity. Maybe there's something there, I don't know. So I just didn't feel like it was necessary to share Brendan. So I'm demonstrating courage, I hope, by making a show called the Brendan Show. Because I feel like for me to be able to pull that off without feeling like I should be punched in the face, I'm gonna have to demonstrate the courage of like, I'm gonna raise the necessity to share more.

You're gonna own it.

Yeah.

Okay, final question, final couple questions. Well, before I ask them, is there any question you have for me or anything you wish I would have asked you so far?

Anything we wish you? No, man, this is awesome. Now, question for you. Which of those, you know, habits would you work on them?

I mean, every one of them, but I think courage. I think it's always being courageous to.

Say what I think.

To do the things that are the right things and not hold back in any way because I'm afraid of hurting someone, I'm afraid of upsetting a situation or I'm afraid of looking bad or whatever it may be, whatever the fear may be in that moment. So I think courage stands out for me the most right now. I would say, and then I think necessity would be the next one. It's like constantly like challenging myself to be more prepared in situations.

A lot of times I just go.

On stage and I just like, I really haven't prepared anything on 10 minutes before. I'm like, what do I do? And then I just, I figure it out and I go. And because we've had so many reps. Yes. Yes. You know, you're way better than me on stage, but it's like I've had, you know, eight years of reps now of training that I'm like, I can.

Do good, I can do 80% and.

It gets a great result.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah.

But then afterwards I'm like, I just know I didn't give everything that I should have.

Yeah.

I got a tip for you on that one.

Yeah.

Knowing your work, legacy. Here's your challenge. Your backstage trigger. Every time you walk on the stage, go, if this footage is the last of me ever.

That's a good one. I like that one. That's a good one.

Is there a record?

How are you going to show up?

Yeah.

If I do that every time, what.

Are you going to say?

How are you going to show up?

Even if I, because sometimes I'm not prepared, just like you. I mean, I hit five cities, but, you know, here's 20,000 people in this arena. Here's 2000 at my event, you know, 1000 bucks a ticket. The expectation's insane. So I gotta be prepared for sometimes, but sometimes I don't have to be prepared because, you know, it's something I'm doing for somebody else. Uh, so it's easy to show up and not give. So it's like, because legacy is so important to you. I'm like, even if you're not prepared.

If it was the last footage ever, boom. that's good.

Yeah.

You give your best, you know, you do your best. So those would be for me. Cool. Well, final one, two questions. The first one is called the Three Truths. And you've written many books already. Number one New York Times bestseller. You've sold millions of copies. You've done the Brendan Show. Now you've done everything you've ever wanted to do. You've created it. And this is the last day. 70 years from now for you, right? Theoretically, you've done everything. Any dream, any raising the necessity, you did it, achieved it. Like nothing else you can do. You've conquered whatever that you wanted to conquer. And everything's been erased for whatever reason. Every piece of content you put out there, all your followers have nothing to see of yours. No books, sci-fi novels, no photos on Facebook or Instagram. You have a piece of paper and a pen to write down your three final truths. This would be your last message to the world. And the only thing that's recorded are what you write down is three truths back to the world. I kind of have an idea of what you might already say, but what would those three things be?

Well, I'll tell you what you know I'm going to say, but then I'll answer it in a different way too. Perfect. For me, it would be live, love, matter. And it'd be something around those truths, because at the end of your life, what I found, you know, It's hard to give perspective to this, but for 20 years, I've been telling people to find those questions. And no matter what, and I don't know if you know this, but I volunteered in hospices for a decade. I've been with a lot of people in their last moments, weeks and months. I've been around a lot of that in my life because I wanted to see if what I experienced on that car was what other people experienced. In some ways it was. In some ways at the end, we all wanted to know, did I live? and how that was, and did I love and did I matter? But hopefully that wouldn't be erased. But if it's related into greatness, I say, number one, the truths are knowing that outside of those, the truth is life will never be joyous unless you bring the joy. I really feel like that. So many people are waiting to have happiness, and they're waiting to like, well, maybe when my boss loosens up, I'll loosen up, or, When she's vulnerable, I'll be vulnerable. Or it's like we're waiting for something. I'm like, your life will never be what it's going to be unless you bring that thing. For me, I want to be more bold in my life. That was one of my goals, 'cause I wasn't that guy who would just go out and do the things I do now. So I made gold, like, I was like, bold is an intention. I set it as an alarm on my phone. My alarm would go off three times a day and bold would, pop up. And I conditioned myself over seven years to be more bold, which is a big deal for me. And because I wanted that, I had to learn how to bring that. So whatever you want in life, you got to bring it. I would say number two, honor the struggle. Like so many people bemoan the hardship and they hate it. And I would say anything you apply hate to quickly dies. You got a dream and you're hating the process. You apply hate to the process, the dream's gonna die. It's like, don't be very careful of what you put hate or things to. And most people do that with hardship. And I've always seen hardship as, I'm gonna honor this process. It's a little samurai mentality. It's like, I'm gonna honor that this is difficult because that is precisely what's needed. And then the last truth would be, you'll never feel good about life unless you serve and connect with other people. Because you can do the first two, but if you're not serving and connecting with other people, you'll never feel good about life. You might have a good life, have the good life. You could make a lot of money, take advantage of people, people do that. But you'll never feel good about life unless you serve and connect with other people. And one of the things in Courage just came into my mind that we found from the research we kept digging down, about courage. Courage ultimately comes from curiosity, which is such a weird thing. I didn't know that either. But you can't courageously connect with other people unless you're like, I'm curious to what they would think about this or I'm curious about them. You'll never try something new unless you're like, I'm curious to how that turned out. You wouldn't go for the gold at the stars unless you're like, I'm curious if I can do it. You have to wonder, is that possible? And so part of, I think, people's next development is being more curious about what happens if you did serve at a bigger level. Because the truth is you never feel good about life unless you do. Wow. There you go.

Make sure you guys get the book, High Performance Habits. Go get it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or brendan.com, correct? brendan.com, is that the best place? Absolutely. At brendan everywhere, or brendanbouchard everywhere.

At brendanbouchard everywhere.

At brendanbouchard everywhere on social media. you are taking over the world, my friend. And it's good to be connected and learn more about everything you're up to, and I'm here to support. So, final question is, what is your definition of greatness?

I've heard so many of your guests do it, and I was like, man, I'm not sure what I would say about that. But I do think that I wrote a little bit about this motivation manifesto because I was really like, what is that thing? And I think it's achieving your own sense of personal freedom. What that is, I define personal freedom as the ability to be oneself fully and the ability to pursue things that are deeply meaningful to you. I think that's when you find freedom. Now, that's my definition. But I think when, if you get to the end of your life, like, I I lived freely, you know, or I loved freely, or I did my thing. It was like, when you feel that you you're living your own personal freedom, whatever that means. I think that's magical. So I don't know if I have the answer for everybody else, but for me, when I feel free in life, it's I'm being myself fully and I'm doing things that I deeply care about. Like this right now, I feel free right now. This is great. That's how I would say. If I'm being myself and I love what I'm doing right now, I feel great.

When you show your passion about something, people are are attracted to energy that is passionate, that is grateful, that is fun, that is loving, that is expressive, that is creative, that is expansive. They're not attracted to people who are closed off and guarded.