5 REASONS You Feel Lost In Life & How To FIND YOURSELF! | Brene Brown & Lewis Howes

Fitting in is assessing a group of people and thinking, who do I need to be? What do I need to say? What do I need to wear? How do I need to act? And changing who you are. And true belonging is being a part of something bigger than yourself. But it's also--.

I didn't know who I was for a very long time. And still, I'm trying to learn who I am.

Yeah, me too.

You are?

Yeah.

But you seem like you have it all figured out.

Oh, God. No, I don't. No, I don't have, I mean, first of all, I think the one thing I've learned in my research above all else is that in the absence of love and belonging, there's always suffering. So when I hear about your experiences growing up, that's suffering.

Yeah.

You know, that's real suffering. And for me, not making the drill team when I was, I think it was in eighth grade, by itself is not a lot, but how my family responded to it. It was like when things changed for me and I didn't feel like I belonged to my family anymore. So I think that I still am trying to figure it out. I don't know that I've interviewed anyone, even spiritual leaders who have the belonging thing completely nailed, because I don't think it is what we think it is. You know, I don't think that it's having a big posse of friends, or having a crew or rolling with a bunch of people, I think I'm still trying to figure it out because I still feel lonely and alone and on the outside of things on a really regular basis.

Really?

I mean, you're going on a book tour with thousands of people, a 15-city tour, millions of fans around the world and you still feel alone.

Yeah, I can feel really lonely.

Why?

And it's really hard because, you know, you talk about that book tour, I'm a severely introverted, super private, and so I love that connection between me and an audience, but it can also be hard on me. And also, I'm talking about things that no one, it's weird to me that people sign up to talk about them, but they're hard topics sometimes, and we laugh and we have fun and we'll sing, but I think What I've learned in doing the research on belonging is that belonging is being a part of something bigger than yourself, but it's also the courage to stand alone and to belong to yourself above all else. And so I think I spend a lot of time belonging to myself, and sometimes that makes other people uncomfortable. And so I think that's hard. I think I do feel I'm always looking for, I don't know about you, but I'm always looking for the roadmap. Like, I want to find the researcher, storyteller, Christian lover of all people, fighter of the resistance. I want to find the blueprint of who's ahead of me, believing what I believe in and doing it really well.

But.

There's not really a blueprint sometimes.

We're all trying to figure it out. We're all trying to figure it out.

I don't get to copy anybody. And so it's hard. It's still hard. But here's a thing that has changed everything for me. I belong to me. So even when I feel alone and I wonder, like, who's my crew and who are my people, I belong to me for sure. For the first time in my life, maybe.

Yeah, and I think we lose ourselves sometimes by trying to belong in groups that we don't fit in. Yeah. You know, I remember being in, you know, the youngest on these sports teams growing up. I was playing on the junior varsity as a freshman or the varsity or whatever, so I was the youngest and I remember just wanting to fit in, just like you did in that team. I wanted to fit in, I wanted to feel like they liked me, like I mattered, like I was a cool kid or whatever. And when they would do things that I didn't really agree with or they would bully other kids or make fun of people, It's like, I didn't want to not say anything, you know, I didn't want to stand against them because I wanted to belong.

Yeah.

So if I did stand up against them, then that means I was alone. And that was my biggest fear, was being alone.

Oh yeah, because that's what teams and groups deliver. They deliver this thing that you're not alone. The problem is there's just, I was so shocked to learn in the research that the opposite of belonging is fitting in. Because fitting in is assessing a group of people and thinking, who do I need to be? What do I need to say? What do I need to wear? How do I need to act? And changing who you are. And true belonging never asks us to change who we are. It demands that we be who we are. Because if we fit in, because how we've changed ourselves, that's not belonging. That's not belonging because you betrayed yourself. for other people. And that's not sustainable.

Yeah, you start to lose yourself.

You start to lose yourself exactly what you said. And so I think it's hard. You have to show up as who you are.

How do we find out who we are?

That's the life's work, right? That's frickin' hard.

Do you know who you are?

Yeah, I do.

Who are you?

In what way?

If someone just said, who are you, Brene, what would you say?

Uh, Brene Brown. Mom, partner, researcher, storyteller, Texan. I don't know. I ask them how much time they have. Because, you know, the thing is that we want to, when we ask people who they are and we want to know we'd like those really easy files to put them in.

Of course.

But I'm a complicated person.

Are you?

Yeah.

I know who I am.

What makes you complicated?

I don't know if I'm complicated, but I'm complex.

You're interesting.

I hope so. I think that some days now, very interesting. I think what makes me complex is I think what makes everyone complex is the paradoxical nature of people. So, you know, like, I speak in public. I love doing that, but I'm incredibly introverted.

You're introverted.

Yeah.

I'm kind of a traditionalist around things. My kids say yes, ma'am, no, ma'am, but I also raise them to challenge authority every time they get the opportunity to do that. But to be really polite when they're doing it. Sure, sure. Yeah, so I think I'm unapologetically earnest. Like, I believe in the goodness of people, but I believe it's hard work to stay out of fear and stay good.

Yeah.

And so, I think I understand people.

I think I have a lot of.

Empathy, but I'm also not afraid of discomfort. So I think there's just a lot of push and pull. Sure. And I think that's true of all of us. I do not like to be defined. I think that's true. Do you?

I was gonna say, I feel like my entire life, I didn't wanna be defined as well. They were like, you,'re gonna be this jock in college, you're gonna be like this alcoholic, you're gonna be in the frats.

Yeah.

All my siblings said this to me, and I was like, no, I'm not. I made a bet with each one of my siblings, $100 each, that I wouldn't have one sip of alcohol in college. Because I was like, I'm gonna go against everything you think I'm gonna be.

Yeah.

I joined the school musical because they were like, you,'re just gonna do sports. I sang, I played guitar, I salsa danced. I was like, I'm gonna do everything.

Different than what people would expect of.

A tall white man, right? That's awesome. I was like, I wanna be different.

Yeah.

And I think in that process, I was like trying to discover who I really was, what I liked, my dreams, what, you know. what was fun for me, as opposed to just trying to fit the box and the mold of everyone else. Because you can lose yourself in that.

Fitting in, I think. You can lose yourself in the fitting in and you can lose yourself in.

The rebuttal to the fitting in.

It's true. Trying to go against it all too, yeah.

Yeah, it's really hard.

I mean, it's the thing that it's a quote that is Braving the Wilderness is all about this, starts with this quote from Maya Angelou that, We're never free until we belong nowhere. We belong everywhere, which is nowhere, which is no place at all, which I thought was a terrible quote for many years. And I was like, why are you saying that, Dr. Angelo? You're pissing me off. But then I realized, really, and she says, the cost is high, but the reward is great. And I think, I think that's the thing that I feel like I belong everywhere I go, no matter where it is or who I'm with, as long as I never betray myself. And the minute I become who you want me to be in order to fit in and make sure people like me is the moment I no longer belong anywhere. And that is hard.

Yeah.

I mean, that's a hard practice. That's an everyday practice.

Wow.

Yeah, 'cause I can be whoever you want me to be like that.

You're like a chameleon, you said.

Oh, I can be totally like a chameleon. Like sometimes it's really funny 'cause I always, 'cause I travel so much, I have all these miles, I always sit in business class and I'm normally the only woman in business class. Every now and then there's one other maybe, which is a conversation we should be having too. Sure. But it doesn't matter what dude sits next to me. I can talk about whatever that person like, And it's so funny because we'll talk about sports usually first or football or we'll talk about politics and he'll say, what do you do? And I'll say, I study vulnerability and shame. Oh, well, huh. Well, I'm gonna play some angry birds, you know, and right that moment, like, I can just, it's not that I know everything about everything, it's just, so.

You'Re saying most men don't wanna chime in and learn more about that.

No, that's usually, if I wanna go to sleep, I'm like, I'm a shame researcher. What do you do? You'd be like, okay. But I think I can be anything.

Yeah, you're adaptable.

I'm adaptable. And adaptable is great because anyone that comes to my home or here to work, I can make you feel comfortable.

Of course.

But then if I get so adaptable that my goal, my intention of adapting is to make sure you like me, then that's when I betray myself.

Yeah, yeah. When would you say is the time in your life you've been the most alone?

High school.

It's the whole journey.

Yeah, it just sucked.

It does suck.

And you know, my daughter just graduated from high school and she had this amazing experience. You know, just incredible experience. And it was so healing to watch.

Oh, that's nice.

Yeah, and I think it happened because she, I think she has the confidence to put herself out there and, you know, student council president and that kind, I think because we have a rule at our house that no matter what, you belong here. No matter how goofy, awkward, afraid, wrong, it doesn't matter, you belong here. And so I think when we give our kids a platform like that at home, It gives them the courage to take risks outside of home. Does that make sense?

Because they feel safe coming back, no matter what happens, they always have a place to come home to.

Yeah, and I grew up in a house where it was very chaotic. I'm the oldest of four, and fitting in and being cool was the most important thing. So I think without that pressure, I probably would have never tried out for that drill team. But in my world growing up, you only did two things. You were a cheerleader, Or you were on the drill team and preferably you married a running back or a quarterback. I mean, that was the way it went. And so for me, I probably would have been like president of the French club. You know, I would have been in debate or those kind of things. Newspaper.

Oh, for sure.

Yeah, yeah, photographer for the yearbook.

Yeah.

But those things did not have a lot of value. Really? Not, no.

Your parents didn't instill that as something credible or worthwhile?

No, it's just cool. Cool was the number one value at home. Cool, lots of friends, popular.

Yeah.

And that just wasn't my, I wasn't that thing. You know, I was, yeah, I wasn't. And so what I did is I just started drinking, smoking weed, hanging out with, you know, I found a place to be, you know, cool. And, you know, that just goes bad fast.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Have you ever had a conversation with your parents about this?

Oh, yeah, we've talked about all of it.

You have?

Yeah.

You've let it go, you've processed it all.

Oh yeah, 'cause they read my books as I write them. And they're like, shit, this is exactly what every parent wants, a child who grows up to be a shame researcher. But no, that's the miracle of my parents. My parents, they've taught me the best thing about parenting that anyone I think could ever know, which is it doesn't end when your kids leave. They keep growing and exploring. Learn, you know, and however hard it was for me not being able to be, you know, we did not do vulnerability growing up.

Really?

No, no, no, no. Like, yeah, like our family motto was literally lock and load. Like, get ready, you know, family trips, you're in the car for five hours, that's all six of us, you really have to go to the bathroom, but the rest stop is on the other side of the highway, we're not pulling over, like suck it up, hold it. Like we were tough. We were tough. Like we'd fall down and get hurt, you know, my dad would say, like, I got bigger scratches than that on my eyeball. You know, like, yeah, like we were tough. And so, and we were taught to outrun vulnerability. We were taught to suck it up, soldier on, get her done. And so, however hard that was for me growing up, imagine what it was like for my parents in the '50s. You know, my dad, who was the youngest of six, his dad died when he was 16, you know?

Was he able to process that or no?

No, he just did the next thing you do, played football, played college ball. My mom, who's my grandmother, who I named my daughter after, was an alcoholic. And she was drunk every other day of my mom's life. But she was the most amazing person in the world. But everyone knew she was an alcoholic, so my mom wasn't allowed to have friends at our house growing up because it was the 50s and she was divorced. divorced, you know, and so my mom became the head of the drill team and the, you know, the valedictorian. And, and so however hard it was for me growing up, having to try to outrun vulnerability, it was a million times harder on my parents.

Yeah.

And they didn't, they did what they knew how to do, and they loved us as much as they could love us with the tools they had. And so I don't have I think the hard part comes from people that I've interviewed my whole life where the parents don't grow and change and they see anything a child trying to do differently as criticism of what they did, as opposed to my parents who lean in and say, Tell me more about that. Tell me, I have a funny story. We hear a funny story about my dad. Yeah, it's great. So we do a lot of choice theory with my daughter and my son. And so choice, my husband's a pediatrician. Okay. We knew a lot about child development from school. And so when Ellen was little, we used to do this thing where we would say, you have two choices. Like, Louis, you have two choices. You can either hand me the water, I'm gonna have to take it from you. What is your choice? So that if you decide not to hand it to me and I have to take it, it's not my fault. That was your choice.

Right.

And so one night I was talking to Ellen, we were at my dad's house in San Diego, and I was like, Ellie? You need to turn off Dora the Explorer. It's time to go to bed. And she's like, mm-mm. And I said, Ellen, you have two choices. You can get up and turn off the TV, or I'm gonna get up and turn it off for you. And if I have to get up and turn off the TV, you're gonna lose privileges to watch it tomorrow. And that's your choice. Yeah, that's your choice. So do you, you know, and I would hate that for you, but that will be your choice. And my dad was sitting in the recliner next to me, and he's like, I'm damn, sis, what are you raising, a hostage negotiator? And I was like, Dad, and he's like, Seriously, Brene? We had four of y'all. We didn't have time for that. So the next day I come home, I'm visiting friends in San Antonio and he's watching Ellen, and he's in the driveway. It's like 110 degrees in San Antonio, and he's sweating. He's like, Ellen, you have two choices. You can either put the bicycle up.

Or I'm gonna have to boot it up for you.

And the second one's a dumb ass choice. So I was like, Wow, you're so close. You're getting there. You're getting there. My parents are amazing in that way that like they're learning and changing. So I think it's harder when parents say, I'm done. What you got was what you got. No apologies, no change.

They were there for it.

Take it or leave it. And if you do it differently with your own kids, you're a sucker.

Wow.

And I think we see that a lot.

Yeah, we do. I mean, what should parents be learning about how they can grow? I mean, how can they start to be aware? Because I think it starts with being aware of what they know and what they don't know and being receptive to learning something different, which is really hard to do. I think once you've had these habits for so long. So that's the first thing. And I wanna dive into the lack of vulnerability, what's happening in Charlottesville right now as well. I know you did something on that this morning. So I guess how can parents listen to this and be aware and be willing to move forward in a different way of learning something new when they're so stuck in their ways, potentially, that it's worked for them to this point to get to where they're at.

You know, I think I believe this with my whole heart. I believe that 99.9% of parents are truly waking up every day and doing the very best they can with what they have. I don't think there are a lot of parents who wake up and maliciously try to screw up their kids or hurt their kids or belittle or shame their kids. I think we're doing the best we can with what we have. And so I think to let go of the idea that if I have done something that I could have done better or that I could learn from, that I have to just come down. People defend their parenting like they're defending their lives because it's such a shame minefield. Yeah. You know, I mean, a great example is the work you're doing around men and vulnerability. I cannot tell you the number of fathers in the hundreds, if not thousands of fathers I've interviewed that said, I shamed my son every time he was vulnerable.

Yeah.

I put him down, I made fun of them, I hit him. Every time he was vulnerable. And now I look back and I know it's because that's the way I was raised or I was afraid he'd be soft and get hurt at school. or whatever the thing is. And so I think for parents it's about understanding, giving yourself permission to not have been, I'm not perfect. I've never not been a researcher and a parent. My husband's a pediatrician. Our kids will be in therapy. And the reason why I think that'll be so successful is there's only two kind of kids you raise, kids who will ask for help when they need it, or kids who won't. And that's as good as it gets, is to raise a kid who'll ask for help.

Yeah, I never asked for help.

Yeah.

I was always suffering inside.

Yeah, right.

And I always felt shameful, guilty, and I just, my way of asking was being angry, resentful, mad, hitting people in sports or outside of sports, 'cause that's all I knew.

I'll tell you a story about a guy that I interviewed, one of the first men I interviewed when I went from interviewing all women to men, was a guy who said, I said, what a shame for you. And he used to he used the P-U-S-S-Y word, which is like just synonymous with shame and male culture, right? And he said, I'll never forget the day that changed my life. He said, I was at football practice. I was a freshman in high school. And he said, the coach yelled, Get on the line. And I didn't wanna get on the line. The line of scrimmage, in case people don't know. I know you know, but he asked me to make sure I walked through all the sports metaphors with them now.

Exactly.

And he said, I was afraid to get on the line because I know, you know, it's where people crash into each other. And so I must have had fear on my face because my coach looked at me and said, Don't be a P-U-S-S-Y, get on the line. And he said, that's the day that I learned that the way you deal with that is you change that fear into rage. And he said, and I just plowed over the guy. cross for me. And then he said, Then I spent the next 20 years plowing over my wife, my children, my colleagues, the people who worked for me. He said, that's what I did with my fear.

Yeah. I mean, I can definitely relate.

Yeah.

I mean, I remember being picked last on a team once when it was a co-ed sport. We were playing dodgeball on the playground. I think it was third or fourth grade. And there was two captains, two guys. And they were picking one at a time, right? I'm bad, brutal. They pick all the guys.

Yeah.

And then I'm like, okay, I'm gonna be the last guy chosen.

Yeah.

But then they go and pick all the girls, and then they don't even pick my name. I'm just by default the last pickers team. And so as a, you know, a boy trying to fit in, third, fourth grade, it was devastating. And I told myself in that moment, I was like, never again will I be picked last at any sport. I'll do whatever it takes. I am going to be a machine. I'm gonna train for six hours a night. I'm going to, you know, take no prisoners mentality and just, I mean, I dominated on that dodgeball game that day. I was just like throwing the ball, like just diving everywhere.

I was like, never again, you know?

Did you ever get picked last again? Never got picked last again. Right. But, and it helped me achieve, you know, was all state in multiple sports, was all American in two sports, I broke world records, I played professional football, I play on the USA handball team now, and it guided me towards achieving these things, but it left me feeling very unfulfilled every time I'd achieve them. Or anytime we lose, it was like an attack on my life. Every loss we ever had in a sport, it was like my life was at stake. And I felt like I was worthless. Because if I didn't win, that meant no one was gonna accept me. I wasn't good enough or I was gonna be picked last or something. So I would take it so personally when I wouldn't win. And then I would take it out on my family, my girlfriends, my friends, everything. And I didn't know how to communicate. And I'm still learning, you know, I'm still imperfect every day. But it's like, I wasn't even aware. There was never information about how to connect or how to communicate and feel like it was okay or you're allowed to. Because anytime you try to talk about any vulnerabilities as a guy growing up for me, it was like, you,'re a P-U-S-S-Y. Don't be a little girl. Don't be a B-I-T-C-H. all these things. And so it's very, I think it's very hard for me and especially for a lot of men who grew up to stand alone and feel like they belong in an isolated world. If they're not going to join a group that's going to make fun of them or put other people down. So how do we stand alone when we're not introverted or we want to be around other people? How do we, how can men communicate better or feel like it's okay to be vulnerable?

Yeah.

We were talking before about how you know, most men that I know played sports with would never watch the Power of Vulnerability TED Talk or they would never read, you know, books from you or Oprah that I'm aware of because they would talk bad about, you know, female leaders trying to talk about vulnerability. Yeah. You know, they would say that's soft, that's weak.

Yeah.

You know, I don't watch that stuff. I don't read that stuff. When really that's the stuff we need.

The most, in my opinion. And I think it's changing. I think I told you earlier that I think 50% of the readers of Daring Greatly are men. And the vast majority of leaders who bring me into organizations are men. And I'll tell you why.

Wise men.

I can flip it for you on a dime.

Yeah.

So it used to take me when men would say, this is how the call would go, Hey, we'd love for you to come in and work with our leadership team. We saw your TED Talk. We thought it was great. Are you available? And I'd say, Sure, what do you want me to talk about? And they'd say, Anything but vulnerability and shame.

And I would say, why?

So what do you want me to talk about? If I don't talk about vulnerability, they say courage. And then I say, okay, then I would try to spend like a half an hour explaining the relationship between vulnerability and courage. 'Cause all men wanna be brave. Isn't vulnerability courage? Vulnerability is courage. It's all he has. Isn't vulnerability power? Yes, I have to ask one question. to flip the whole thing. It's this, vulnerability is defined as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. Can you name one act of courage that you've ever been involved in or that you've ever even witnessed that did not involve uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure? And it's a loaded question because I know the answer is no because I've asked it thousands and thousands. I've stood in front of Navy SEALs and Special Forces military personnel and said, Give me an example. I want you to try hard to give me an example of courage that didn't require vulnerability. And in 10 years, I've never had a single person be able to come up. I've even had two guys come up to me who were in the military that said, We're gonna think about it and get with you.

They never got back to me.

Oh my God, I said, Do it. I would love it. Give me an example of courage even on the field. that doesn't involve vulnerability. Like if you think you're being brave and it doesn't involve risk or uncertainty, you're not being that brave. If you know how it's gonna turn out, it's not courage. And so in that moment, people go, shit. But I wanna be brave and I don't wanna be vulnerable. And I'm like, there in lies the great dilemma of our time. Yeah, no one wants to be uncomfortable. No one wants to be vulnerable, and everyone wants to be brave. And it just doesn't work like that.

And anytime we try something new, we've got to be uncomfortable.

It's vulnerable. Yeah, it's vulnerable. I mean, when I ask people, what is vulnerability? People would say, initiating sex with my wife, sending my child out the door who thinks he's going to make the first chair in orchestra, and knowing he's probably not going to make the orchestra at all. getting fired, starting my own business, saying I love you first in a relationship, trying to get pregnant after my first miscarriage. I mean, like, vulnerability is, it's uncertainty, it's not knowing, but doing it anyway because it's the brave thing to do. And so the problem is, I think, that the greatest shame trigger for men is do not be perceived as weak. And in our culture, we believe that vulnerability is weakness. So you don't have to skip too many steps before you go, hey, it's shaming to be vulnerable. And so men do two things in the face of shame, pissed off or shut down.

Put on a mask.

Put on a mask.

Yeah.

And so what we're learning and what people are starting to see very quickly is you cannot be a courageous leader if you're not vulnerable. If you're not willing to have hard, uncomfortable conversations, give hard feedback, receive hard feedback, excavate issues like Charlottesville that no one wants to talk about. Like discomfort is the great enemy of courage. Like my motto is, we say it here all the time, choose courage over comfort, because you can't have both. And if you think you're being brave and you're super comfortable, you're not being that brave.

I never wanted to feel the emotional pain. It was so hard to go through. I got a breakup with a girlfriend. Like, I didn't know how to deal with the emotional loss of any type of pain or suffering as a man. And I remember being in the fetal position my freshman year in college for days sobbing in my dorm room, just curled up in a ball because a relationship ended and I was so sad to be alone and I didn't have this person in my life anymore. And I would take it out on the football field. I was like, I don't want to feel this type of emotional pain, so how can I inflict as much physical pain on myself and other people to get it out? And it's hard to switch that off and just be like this loving, vulnerable man after you're on the football field inflicting pain on other people because you're supposed to.

No, and I think whether we play football or not, we're much better at causing pain than we are feeling pain.

You don't want to feel it.

No, you don't. And so we cause it and we hurt other people.

Yeah, we do.

And so, and if you look at leadership, whether you're in an organization leading a country, leading a family as a parent, one of the cheapest, the easiest ways to lead is to give people someone to hate and blame for your own, your misery. And so we have to really watch that in our country right now. So if we, all you have to do when people are in uncertainty and fear is give them someone to blame.

And.

Give them a reason to blame them. And then step back and watch everything just fall and so I think that's happening right now in our country. And so we have to push away the rhetoric. You know, we have to own our pain. And let me tell you, it's not like you tell that story about the football field and it's so prophetic because every crisis we're up against right now, almost without exception, is about our inability our unwillingness to deal with pain. If you look at the opioid addiction right now across, you know, somewhere beginning with physicians sent the message, there's no reason for you to hurt at all.

Here's a pain reliever.

Here's a pain reliever, you know, and things are not going well in your life. Well, here's a way to discharge hate and pain that'll make you feel better, like- By drinking or by- Drinking, where.

The Sex, or drugs, or whatever.

Medicated, addicted, in debt, and obese Americans in history. Like our tolerance for discomfort is zero.

Soft.

Yeah. Yeah, so here's the irony.

Soft.

So our tolerance in football, don't be soft.

Don't be soft. So it's actually our inability to be vulnerable.

Yeah.

That makes us weak.

So how do we come to terms with our identity when it's probably we're never gonna have the full truth about everything from our past, even myself, who I knew my parents are, I don't know what they all went through and their past went through. How do we, what is our true identity?

Okay.

Even stripping down all the labels.

Yes.

What is our true identity?

Okay, so I think the identity is found when you do what you do. I watch you do this. You are a professional at stopping, looking and listening. Most people, they move so fast through life that, as you've heard it said, they are human doings rather than human beings. You are in the moment, okay? Sure, you're doing a ton of things, but you'll take the time to go freeze your butt off in ice. What's Louis doing? He's in ice and something. So I think that when you stop and you look within and you just listen, the real you starts to speak to you because your dream and your identity has a voice. So I believe that little Timmy Story knew I was going to be a freaking world leader even when I felt In that house, it's like a garage. The guy that's supposed to be my dad just took all four kids and left my butt at home. Inside of me, in that quiet, I did what I just said. I was stopping. I was looking within and I was listening. And there would be a time that I would unfold, as we see now. Mmm.

Should we be wishing for an easier life and less unfairness and less pain? Or should we be saying, you know what? These are the things that made you who you are today.

Yes.

If you had a warm, cozy identity, family, maybe you wouldn't have been so interested in seeking wisdom and seeking answers to help other people going through that.

Yeah. I don't blame people for wishing for an easier life. But the reality is a song by the Byrds. and it's called Turn, Turn, Turn. It was big in England and then got big in America, and it's based on the book of Ecclesiastes chapter 3, which you've heard as you were a kid. And that is there's a time and a season for everything. A time to tear, a time to mend, a time to be silent, a time to speak, a time to laugh, and a time that you'll mourn. So there's just seasons in life. So as long as I know there's a winter, there's a spring, there's a summer, there's a fall, okay? So as a person who studies spirituality, as a doctrine in world religion, I will say this to you. COVID-19 has been a winter season, but of a heck of a long winter, right? Still masked, okay? Quarantine, guys like us who love to travel, we talked earlier, we're not moving around as much as we used to. So that's a long winter. But there's lessons to learn in the winter. There's lessons to learn in that pain. So I need to have that pain because that pain, when I am in that winter season, okay, I can use that pain as a library. Man, pain has been my library. Watching people go through pain, seeing guys do stupid stuff, and it gets them in a lot of trouble. I'm like, Don't do that same thing, right? So it's not just my pain, it's the pain I witnessed.

You mentioned about spirituality and your path of studying this for a long time. How important is our spiritual health in supporting our mental health? Or can we be mentally and emotionally fit without spiritual fitness as well?

Yeah, excellent question. I think that from my perspective, and even studying a lot of your friends and my friends, I think it starts in the spirit. I think that it starts in the spirit. And that's why when I see you in various countries and you take great photos and you really look like you're in a nice place, like you're in the moment. And as your buddy, I'm like, good going. Because I know how busy you are. But I think that what's happening at that time is that something's happening to your soul. Your soul is being fed. And your soul is the center of your being. Because out of your soul comes the goodness of your heart. Out of your soul comes forgiveness. Out of your soul comes gratitude. It comes from the soul. So if we're not fed in the soul, Okay, then no matter how strong your mind is, there's gonna be conflict.

Interesting.

And the Bible talks about that. It says a double-minded person is unstable in all his ways. So your mind could be like, okay, I'm like, I believe it all, but your soul could just be broke down. So I know people that have a broke down soul because of conflict and trauma. But yet their mind is kind of strong, but they are unstable. There has to be an alignment here and here, and then you're pretty much unstoppable.

For those who might have challenges with religious context or maybe doesn't believe in every element of the religion they're in, but they want to be spiritual, they want to have a connection to something greater than themselves. They want to have a connection to God or the source of the universe.

Yes.

What suggestions would you have for them, whether they're not in a religion?

Yeah.

But they want to be connected to their soul.

Yeah, and those, I would say like 75% of my followers are not religious people. They're just like people that want to live a better life. So I think that one of the things that helps you is to go to beautiful parts of creation where we have not put concrete on it.

Go to nature.

Go to nature. Doesn't that do it for you? Okay, so whether you go to the desert or you go to the mountains or you go to the ocean, it's strange, man. Your soul just starts to be fed. So I would say to somebody, go to somewhere where there's not a lot of concrete and where the earth is breathing and watch how soulful and how fed you start to feel. Yes.

I want to shift the conversation to relationships between parents and their kids.

Yes.

I don't have kids. I have amazing parents that weren't perfect, that had a lot of challenges for me when I was growing up that I needed to overcome. It took many years to overcome that and still I'm overcoming things. What do you think is the biggest mistake that parents make in general? with raising kids and what was the biggest mistake you think you made in your journey of being an unperfect parent like all parents are? Yeah.

Okay, so here's what I think. I think number one, this idea of putting pressure on our kids that they have to become something by a certain age. Okay?

Like truly, once you leave college, you need to be this and then by 25 you need to be this.

100%. It is the worst thing a person can do. 'Cause at 18, really, do I have to say for sure I wanna be a pharmacist? Right, right, right.

I have no idea what I wanna do. I just wanna hang out with my friends and play video games, right?

Exactly. Like, can I show up at Ohio State with an undeclared major? Yeah. And so again, I think as parents, they always think they have to decide, decide, decide, decide. Come on, you're 17, you're about to go to college, you need to decide. No, some things you discover.

Ooh.

Yeah. So some things is not the decision, it's the discovery. Like some of those brilliant guys that we get to talk to, I'm telling you, it was not in the decision, it was in the discovery. Like I'll give you a cool one, like Vidal Sassoon. So he was a really good friend of mine and Eden, his daughter, I talked to all the time. So we're sitting on Cannon Drive in Beverly Hills just talking about life. He's Vidal Sassoon. Sure. You like see his name everywhere. That was not his plan, like to be Vidal Sassoon. And so he told me how he saw this guy and this guy inspired him and he decided to try it. So one of the biggest mistakes parents make is that they don't let their kids try something. because they think, well, what if they fail? What if they fail? What if they fail? Well, then they learn something. And so, again, I think the pressure to decide now instead of the discovery is one. And the another thing is this, I see a lot of parents try to make up for their life that they missed. And they lived an almost life, but that's not gonna happen to little Johnny. Little Kylie, she's not gonna have to go through what I went through. I went through. So they overdo it.

Yeah, a lot of pressure on a kid.

So much pressure. I was on the elevator in Miami and this lady looked at me and she goes, Hey, I recognize you. I go, well, good to see you. And we started chatting about life and she had this little kid and she goes, Do you know my daughter knows all 50 states?

Wow.

It was a little tiny kid. I never even asked. And I went, Whoa, that's amazing. Guess what? The kid just started just spitting out the stage. Because that was the connection between the mother and the child is perform, do, right? Be advanced. So I think a lot of parents, another mistake is, like I said, they try to make up for what did not happen in their life and they overcompensate. Not a great idea.

What do you feel like was the thing that you did, the mistake?

Exactly what I just said. Is that it?

For your kids?

Yes. Yeah, I think that, you know, number one, I'm glad I didn't name my son like Tim Story Jr. 'Cause that would have been not so great. So my son is the type that he's an artist. He's an artist. So I would say, okay, so do me a favor. Go over there and do those three things because I'm about to do an interview and I need you to help me. So then I look at him, he's still playing video games. Okay, he's 14.

Right?

So I think that I didn't understand what his strengths were at that time. And what I should have looked for is his strengths were more in the creativity. and let him soar with his strengths and not like be tough on him because he didn't move at the pace that you move at or I move at.

How do we let go of these expectations as parents? I'm trying to learn, I'm trying to learn.

Yes.

You know, for my five year ahead of course.

Yes. Okay. So an expectation as you know is something that we've kind of ordered and now we want it to arrive the way it arrives. Okay. So this is like very much your culture even more than mine because I'm older.

Sure. Where you just-- I want it now.

Yeah.

Give it to me.

You got used to just being in your nice locations that you live in, and I want to-- Here it comes to me. Here it comes. Oh, whoa, this is wild. I can't believe it's just semi-warm. Yeah. Yeah, dude, they had to bring it from there into a car, right? So I think that in your culture and where you are in life, that you guys are so used to like everything like so-- Instant. Instant and the immediate. And so really what I see life as now, oh this is so good. I see life as it unfolds. Man, it unfolds. My son's in a beautiful place in his creativity. My daughter's in a beautiful place in her creativity. But they did challenge me as they got older and they would say to me, Dad, could you not life coach us? at least for just a couple days.

Sure.

Because I didn't realize that that's what I was doing. Like I was making everything about a life coach.

You should be doing this or why don't you try this thing or why don't you do this as opposed to allowing them to discover it.

One 100% and in the discovery and in the slow rollout, they have found a better rhythm for themselves. You're gonna love this. In the game of cards, as you know, if you don't like your hand, You can fold. So I see my cards. I don't like it. So I decide to fold. I feel like a lot of people that are watching right now, they have folded their dreams before they really unfolded. So they folded thinking like, this is me. I'm married. I got this many kids. This is my life. It didn't work out. I fold. This is my existence. I disagree. You're still unfolding. But I'm 42, you're still unfolding. I'm 58, I'm still unfolding. So don't fold while you're still unfolding.

Yeah, some people don't even pick up the cards and look at them. They get dealt the cards and they say, I'm too scared to even pick it up. And so they just don't even play the hand.

Yes, but again, I don't blame the parents for wanting the children to do well, mostly if they see other children not doing well. But kind of back off a little bit. And if you feel like you've trained your children in a good way with character and morals and really to be strong children, they'll find their way. They will find.

They'll figure it out.

They'll figure it out.

So how do we as parents, I say we like I am a parent, but how do parents learn to allow their kids to discover themselves more while also giving structure and organization but not too much pressure?

Communication. So one of the things that I started doing with my kids, and it was kind of painful to me, is I would then say to them, like when they were teenagers, okay, let's talk about like, what would you like me to do different? And it shocked me that they had feedback. Yes. Dad, I just feel like you're boom and bam and boom.

Too hard on us here and this.

Yes. And my daughter, She's very, very smart. And she said to me one time, she goes, Dad, I just feel like you think you have to be on. You don't have to be on. I know that when you go somewhere outside this house, there's expectations. You don't need to be on for us in here. Like that blew me away. But she was right.

Just be here. Don't be on here.

Yes, because I was so used to being on a stage so often. that even when I come into the house, I'm like, it's gonna be a big night. Let's watch this movie. Then we're gonna.

Yeah, sure. Now, you went into a spiritual.

Yes.

Religious path after school, right? You went on to study religion, spirituality. Yeah. And essentially be a preacher for many years.

Yeah, I became. I became a very famous preacher. So. And I. I know you. You have friends that. famous ministers and you roll with the guys from a lot of different religions, just like I do. But I didn't try to become a famous minister. That was wild, to be honest. So I was like, let's see how we put it. I was just out there minding my own business and I was doing something for inner city kids. And I look in the back, there's a tall guy. It was Reggie White. Reggie White, the football player, right? You love football.

Sure, sure. Okay.

So Reggie White was there. And Reggie White had heard from a friend of his about this guy Tim Story that was speaking at these inner city schools and just like amping people up. So he started getting me in NFL chapels in my early 20s. So I'm in my early 20s speaking in all these chapels. And then that exploded for me in the NFL. I was in all these teams. so that gave me like a little bit of leverage.

Yeah, credibility.

Credibility. Like, look at it, he rolls with all these guys, right?

Sure.

And then it went from that to more and more churches started to invite me. And then the bigger guys in the space, it's almost like the space of what we have as speakers today in our world that we walk in, the big guys of the ministry world saw Tim's story.

Sure.

And they started taking me with them. I was like the opening act.

Sure, sure. It's great. It's awesome.

So I was the opening act. So I was speaking to like, you know, 3,000 that's super young. 5,000. I had a conference of 8,000 people when I was 29 years of age. That was my conference. So I was like a boy wonder. But I was still very vacant. I was vacant. Because remember, it went back to identity. Still didn't really know who I was.

Really?

Okay? I was trying to find myself. Did I believe in the message?

Yes.

Did I believe in what I was speaking? Yes. But there was a real void in my life that I do not feel today.

How do we chase our dreams when we have that void? We don't know who we truly are still. Or we're still seeking answers. How can we fully be confident in that message, that work, whatever it is that work that we're in, that field?

I honestly think that when you feel like you're chasing, chasing, chasing and the void is there too long, that you have to call it a necessary timeout. And because we both love sports, Phil Jackson was the master of the timeout. And here's what he said about it. He said, you, don't see me calling too many timeouts because I believe that what I taught the players in practice that they'll figure out during the game. Pretty cool, right? He said, so if you see me call a timeout, It is totally necessary.

So I think- They're in breakdown mode. They haven't, they're not figuring it out.

Yeah, exactly. So I think that there's times in your life, in my life, where we're playing hurt.

Yeah.

But you still have to be Lewis and I still gotta be Tim. You still gotta do your conference. I gotta show up at a conference, right?

You gotta show up even if you're 70, 80%.

100%. So we both know how to play hurt. But there are times where There needs to be a timeout. There needs to be a timeout. We need to come to the sideline and we need to regroup. And that's what the pandemic has done for Tim's story. That's when I decided with my editor to talk about the situation with who is my dad for the first time, 'cause I thought that I would just, you know, not tell anybody my whole life for real. And that's where I've got so much peace in my life, so much joy, I think I'm more funny than ever. It's like, yeah, so the pandemic to me has been like a big Phil Jackson timeout. It's been a reset for me.

What is the blessing that comes from you finally talking about this or accepting it or acknowledging it fully and being open to sharing it publicly? What happens inside for you and what happens for other people when they finally do whatever that is for them?

I think the, The blessing of talking it out with Dr. Helen Mendez, the lady from USC, was that I could say it and she knew I was not judging my mother. I was not judging my sisters for not telling and my brother that I was not judging anybody, but I had a safe place to tell the story. And I think the one reason that I'm being more open about my life nowadays is because all of us feel undone. We all feel undone. I mean, here I write a book on the miracle mentality. You know, miracle is extraordinary, uncommon, not normal. But at the same time, I feel undone. And that's okay. I think we all have something that's slightly hanging out. There's some kind of injury in us, right? And so in telling the story, It is liberating me even more and I think it's going to liberate a lot of people.

Oh, that's cool. I'm curious about, yeah, because I think a lot of us hold on to shames, whether they're little shames or big shames. Yeah, no doubt. You know, maybe this was a big shame for you or a little shame that you were holding on to for many years. This is a gigantic shame. Exactly. I think a lot of us, you know, I held on to shames for many years on the sexual trauma that I went through as a kid, but then other just like little shames, you know, throughout the years, I shouldn't have said that or, ah, maybe that was a white lie or, eh, was I in integrity in this moment? holding on to these little shames. When we, what I've realized is that when we fully own the shame.

Yeah.

Big T, little T, trauma, big ass, little ass shame. And we embrace it and we do talk about it. Whether it doesn't have to be publicly in this format, but just with someone.

Yeah.

Trusted. And we own it and we embrace it and we learn to let it go. Then we can be fully ourselves. We don't have to hold on to some identity that isn't supporting us anymore.

Yeah, I think you even have a deeper revelation on that than I do. And I will tell you that I've learned from you in this by reading your book about this whole idea of taking off the mask. And then let me just tell you an observation I have of my friend, Louis. When I went to your conference, And I see you running this big conference, which I think, and I'm not joking, is the best conference because it's boutique. It's packed. There's so many creatives in it. And I see you have to go from organizer. You're the organizer. And when you're organizing, there's always something going on, right?

It's always some breakdown.

But then you can turn around to a famous guest and then be the nice person.

Mm-.

Then your attention to detail with your team, of course, of, hey, let's buy presents for these people. Right. And you like bought really cool presents for all of the speakers. Then I'm not done yet. Then you got to go up and perform and speak like you're Lewis Howes. So you, you, so look at all the hats you wear. Yeah. Okay. Then, you know, you have friends and close friends and family you got to be nice to and all that. But I love that you can go from that, this is a really cool moment. So then you have a party with your DJ buddy. Okay. So then I see Lewis from college days.

Just like, how's party?

Ah. Yeah. So you're like dancing in that, and I'm older than you, and I'm like, come from this ministry background in which, you know, that the biggest churches in the world, 80,000 people, 20,000 people. I'm like, I'd walk in, they're like, oh! And Louis, you grab me, you're like, Story, get up here! So I get on the stage and I started dancing with you guys. I never got a chance to tell you this. Freedom came to me.

Ooh.

Like such freedom. 'Cause if the religious people were watching that move, They'd be like, what's he up to? Because the song had a lot of F words in it. Okay, all right. So then you at your size and your svelte body, then you stage dive, and then you come out and then you're like, come on, you're hyping me, like you hype me. And then I go, man, you talk about freedom.

What did I feel like?

You talk about freedom. So I'm telling you as a little brother that you are to me, thank you for having the damn guts to dig deeper than I did at your age. Because to be honest with you, I was afraid to unpeel the onions because I didn't know what I was gonna find down there.

What is this self-talk you do internally? If you don't have a mirror, if you're not alone in a bathroom, what's your process that you say to yourself? What are the reminders? What are the mantras, meditations that you think about before that?

It always helps me to voice it whenever I'm insecure. I either I'll write about it somewhere. or I'll speak to somebody who I trust, my mom, my husband, my best friend. But I find it easier to talk about it. So that's why I have a healthier relationship with my insecurities, because I take away their power by discussing them. I choose not to live with them alone in the dark recesses of my mind, because then they become monsters. and then they become really, really large and they're usually not real. So it's always been very helpful to me whenever I'm feeling crazy or insecure or afraid or even if I feel like I've made a mistake. My dad told me this when I was very young, when I was 16, the first time he sat me down and he gave me a glass of champagne and I was like, what? And he was like, yeah, you're 16, you know, you can have a glass of champagne with me, you're gonna do it anyway. It was like, and he told me, he was like, Whatever happens in your life, you should feel free to be able to do it with your parents. There's nothing to hide from us. I'll always be in your corner. And, you know, he told me that about feelings. I always had the freedom to talk to my mom or my dad as a kid about anything I was feeling. At least to my father, I wouldn't discuss the boyfriends, but my mom, she was like my best friend. She knew about every object of attraction that I ever had. And I think that that sort of gives you the sense of confidence to be able to talk about it. And I just think it's a great first step to get rid of insecurity.

I'm just a big believer. I love everything you're saying. And I'm just a big believer that if people really listen to this and understand, take it in what you're sharing, that It's hard to achieve anything without confidence. You could have the greatest experience, you could have the greatest degree, the skills, you could have the family, you could have the money, like you could have good looks, whatever it is, you could have this stuff, but if you don't know how to build confidence when it matters, it doesn't matter if the world believes in you, if we don't believe in ourselves, nothing's going to happen. And the reverse.

The world won't believe in you.

Exactly.

If you don't believe in you. And I think like as someone in the public profession, you know, my job is to be entertaining and be confident and in every step that I take and in every move that I make. But I think recognizing that confidence is not something we are born with. It's a skill. It's like, you know, it's a muscle almost. If you think of it like going to the gym and, you know, to have muscles and to be in shape. you gotta work at it. Just like the vocal cords, people, the greatest musicians in the world, they use, you know, their vocal cords. They do riyaaz like we call it in Hindi, but which is warm-ups and stuff like that. So confidence to me is like that. You start using that at a very small level. Everyday life, you know, when you're in school, there were times when I was in school where I used to take the other hallway because I didn't wanna bump into someone else. When I started high school, by the time I was in 11th grade, I was walking in the middle of the hallway.

You're strutting around, you're getting people moving away.

Yeah.

I was like, excuse me, I didn't even have to say that. I was just walking. Because, and that's the same person. But I think that in any profession or any aspect of life, confidence is perception is reality. Most people believe that, right? You know that how people perceive you is what they think reality is. So give them something perceivable.

Amen to that. What would you say are three things on a daily basis that you do to build confidence that you think anyone could apply for their life, even if they feel like they have no confidence?

When I wake up in the morning, I take time in the bathroom. Like I shower, I will, you know, pick the outfit that I'm feeling today. I will, you know, sort of doing my makeup and my hair sort of helps me or my skincare routine actually. at night helps me be sort of introspective. Otherwise, through the day, I'm very erratic. I have, you know, multiple balls in the air. Professionally, I'm doing a lot of things. I'm always behind on time. I'm always playing catch up. So at the end of the night, in the beginning of the day, I really give myself some silence. I play music and, you know, I put my creams on and I really think about what the day is going to be like and how my first step outside of my room is going to be. When I take that first step outside my safe space, it sets the tone for my day. So I try not to have it be erratic or scary or like, you know, if I'm late and if I'm running, that always sets the tone for my energy through the day. So I try to really, you know, start my day on the tone I want to have and the confidence I want to have. And at every given step during the day, I remind myself of the things I have instead of the things I don't have. Like insecurity comes from a lot of it sometimes, I think, comes from, oh, my gosh, I don't have this. It's not good enough, or I'm not good enough for a particular scenario or a particular situation. Or, you know, we start judging ourselves. And this was another lesson, actually, an activity that my mom and I used to do is we used to count our blessings. and me and my husband do it too whenever we're feeling crazy because our schedules are insane, we're always in different parts of the world. We do that, we found our blessings about just five things that whenever you're feeling sort of crazy and unstable that you have that you're really grateful for. And I'm not even saying this superficially, this was truly an exercise. No matter how badly off you are, someone else is worse off than you. That makes it so easy to come to a blessing.

I mean, especially watching this, this latest movie that you're in. I mean, white tiger.

It.

I've been in. I've only been India once. I went there four years ago and studied meditation in Chennai for a couple of weeks, but I went to Delhi and, you know, kind of traveled around a little bit. I didn't see everything, but I saw a lot of dark things and a lot of things that were. Constantly reminding me, wow, I have a lot to be grateful for every moment. So I think it's important to have that perspective in our lives that we always have something to be grateful for. Even when it's the darkest time, there's.

Something to be grateful for. Absolutely. And that's so empowering. That to me is my greatest mantra is, you know, truly and tangibly do it on your fingers, do it like just five things. Um, and it's, it's a great exercise to do with someone as well, your kids, your family, you know, anytime, it's just like five things, then you have to just say rattle it out, the five things that you can think of at that point. But you know the crazy part about the white tiger is that it's based in India and you probably reacted to it because it's shot so authentically. But if you think about it, the majority of the world lives in those conditions, you know, and the socioeconomic divide that exists right now is only increasing. Even the sustainable development goals have been set to eradicate extreme poverty because it's such a big problem. There's such a large population of the world. And we as privileged society, we as privileged people, anyone who has a roof above their head and meals on their table is privileged. and as privileged people, like that's something that's our concern. You know, there's a large generation of children who don't have a choice in their future or in their lives. They don't know if they can have aspirations or dreams. And how desensitized are we? When last time, you know, you've driven past a homeless shelter and you've not even looked at it or a homeless person and not even looked at them. It's the desensitization that we as people who have, and that's the differentiation between the have-nots. But it's also a reality and it's a reality everywhere in the world.

I don't want to give away the whole movie. I want everyone to watch it because it was really powerful and inspiring to see someone come from poverty to essentially become an entrepreneur and be successful in their own way. And the story is really powerful. But you took on a role that is, I found fascinating because that's probably not, I don't know if that's how you would react in real life because I know you have such a giving, grateful heart caring about humanity, but your character does something that's very controversial. And you essentially, from my opinion, don't take accountability. And how did you feel doing a role that is probably against your morals, your values, and the way you live your life right now.

I never judge my characters. You know, like I never judge people. Live and let live. Each person is individual to their decisions. And if I started, I would never be able to play bad guys. And I love playing bad guys. But I think what was most interesting for me when I was playing Pinky is She's an American, you know, and I'm an Indian who's grown up in India and understands the complexity of the diversity of that country. There is no one India. There is multiple Indias and you can spend your whole life trying to get to know it and you'll still never know her. So this is one aspect of India that is showcased in this movie, but it's also, it's more than that. It's the story of this one man and everyone else from his perspective. So it's not us looking at him, or the country. It's him looking at all of us saying, oh, you know, and especially with my character, she's woke, but she's fake woke.

Right.

She's one of those girls who's like, why don't you pull yourself out of your circumstances? I, my parents worked in a bodega, you know, and I pulled myself out. Why don't you do it? He doesn't have a roof over his shoulder. His family doesn't have food. It's a completely different complexity that most woke people don't have the ability to understand, including me. I lived there and I can't claim to understand it because, you know, I have had the basic lively life rights since I was a child. I've been to school. I've had an opinion about where my future is going to be choices. And that's what's so amazing to me about this movie, was that I leaned into playing a character that was fake woke and, you know, pivoted when it wasn't convenient. Me and my husband both in the movie, not my real husband.

Right, right.

The character in the movie, both of us sort of like were like, this is not the right thing. But, you know, when it wasn't, when it was inconvenient, we kind of stood back and watched. And that's a very human testament, which is why this movie, which was originally a book by Aravind Adiga, which came out in 2008. It was a Man Booker Prize winner. It was a New York Times bestseller. When this book came out, that's exactly what it did. It was such a human sort of transcript, human behavior, you know, flawed, not black or white, living in gray, all of them living in gray, which is truly how we live. And it's sort of self-reflective it's in it. It should make people feel introspective and. think about the last time we behaved like that. Plus, it's clever and it's sarcastic. Sarcasm is my favorite language, so I really enjoyed the tone of the movie as well.

Speaking about sarcasm, was it pretty easy for you to step into that character living in LA then with all the woke, fake woke people here?

I mean, I will say that I may have been inspired by my surroundings, just to listen to it.

I'm curious about your evolution as a woman in this industry. Typically, younger women are more desirable for opportunities in their late teens, early 20s. And it's like when you're 26, 27, it's almost like you're old as a woman and you may not be the young, sexy one anymore or something in this industry. How do you feel after getting into your late 30s now? How have you evolved personally to not allow that stigma to hold you back from being who you want to be, from accepting yourself, from loving yourself, from innovating and reinventing yourself that you've done so many times? How do you not let that stigma hold you back?

I can't say that I don't. I just am hoping that it doesn't happen to me, you know? we live in a world where anything is possible right now, as we've seen in the last few years as well. And I think that I remember when I was 28, my mom sat me down one day and she said, girls have a shelf life and you're reaching that where the older boys, they're always looking for the younger girl to act with and even if they're in their 50s, you know, they're still going to be working with 20 year olds, but you're going to be old and you need to think about a business. If acting opportunities stop coming your way, that's how I actually started my production house.

Wow.

Because I was like, you're right. What if I'm like, I need to be financially independent in my life. But at the same time, while this was happening to me, I recognized that Innovation and Reinventing who I am, even for me, is so important and being true to the craft that I'm doing and the service that I have to provide, which is my job. So I started trying new things. I started wanting to grow. I didn't want to stagnate into doing the same kind of roles. I didn't want to stagnate in similar kind of parts or even languages and borders. And I did music. I was signed as a recording artist to Interscope, Premature Posture, I pivoted from that into television that I had never done, English language TV. Then I moved into features in America. Now I'm producing in India and America and acting in both these countries, which are two of the greatest movie industries in the world. But if I sat down to think about the glass ceiling that was built for me, I would never have a trajectory powerful enough to break it.

Wow.

Because I didn't make that glass ceiling. So I don't want to think about where it is. You know, it's been made by other people. So you just kind of have to have. you know, speed and run towards your end game and, you know, have a goal and be ambitious and fuel that ambition every single day.

What is the end game?

To have a legacy, I think. I want my children to be proud of, you know, the legacy that I've had. I want to be hopefully, you know, part of contributed to the arts in some way. with the work that I have done or the work that I create or the work that I will do. So I want to be able to, as a woman, you know, leave a better world for the girls after us, like the women before me did for me. I don't think about voting today. I don't think about driving today. I don't think about aspiring to have the same job as a man. And all of those fights were fought by women that came before me. So it's my responsibility and our responsibility as a generation to leave better for the next one. So those are broad strokes of my end games.

And what, I mean, I'm sure you get this question a lot. I'm just curious because my audience is a lot of high achievers. They, they're big dreamers. They're going after what they want. They're learning the skills, the tools to become more confident, more, more giving, all those things. It sounds like you're doing everything all at the same time. How do you navigate intimacy, connection, love with, you know, you know, your husband, your family, your friends, the people that matter the most to you, how do you navigate relationships with such a busy, full plate?

It's not easy. There's not as much FaceTime as you would possibly want. When I made the deal with the devil about running at this fast pace many years ago, I realized that there would be sacrifices that are required. you know, when you have, there's no free lunch in the world. And when you have Ambitions, you've got to sort of pay for it.

And.

But I overcompensate, or I try and compensate with making sure, even if I don't have FaceTime or if I've, like, for a very long time in my life, I missed, you know, birthdays and Diwali and New Year's, and I would always be working. All I could do was apologize. And my family always understood. because, you know, I was, I was working at something. But I think that I, I made sure that I always call. I never forget birthdays. I will always call on a birthday. If I go to a city, even if I can't meet someone, my family, my friends, I'll make sure we FaceTime. I'm very, it made me very thoughtful about the people I love. I love loving the people I that I care about. I love making them feel special and I love being empathetic and I think it's very important to leave the baggage of the job behind when you walk into your house and just be true to what you're feeling. I think it's important to choose relationships when you're really busy because we can all be caught up in life and you know life is like really fast river, you know, you don't know what the currents are going to be because it's just moving. You don't know what you're going to bump into because it's just moving. But you have to choose to hold on to something when you want to take a breath, right? Just like that, you have to choose to hold on to a relationship, whatever that might be with your children, with your family, with your parents. You have to make the time and you have to tell the people you love that you love them. Don't just assume that they know.

You've got some wisdom, Priyank. I love this.

Thank you.

I'm curious about, I know how meaningful the relationship was with your father. And he obviously got to experience a lot of your success. And I'm sure he was extremely proud of you for, you know, the 3000 movies and all the projects you worked on. But I'm curious, what do you think personally he would be most proud of that you've done in your life since his passing?

That I didn't give up, you know, that I didn't rest on my laurels. He used to always push me. He would always push me to never be satisfied with what I have. He pushed my ambition. He claimed my ambition. He was always like, what's the next thing? What are we doing? He loved hearing stories about the next movies that I was doing. I literally married them to him in the hospital bed as well. this is my character and I used to break down my characters with him or movies that I wanted to make. And, you know, there were phases in my life like that a little bit of a dark phase, especially after my dad died, where I felt like I don't know if I could keep up with the life that I had built and what was expected of me by then. Because I personally took a hit and I personally was feeling sad and, you know, sadness sort of, sadness is strangely seductive. You know, it kind of sucks you in and you're, it's like, it feels comfortable. It feels like you're floating and it's easy. Light might be harsh a little bit, but the joy that you feel when you choose light, when you choose to let go of the seduction of sadness. I think my dad was afraid that because I'm very sensitive that I would have been seduced by sadness for a long time. He was very afraid of that. Even before he died, he used to always talk to me about, don't be sad. Do not be sad. That's. I'm not going away. I'm always with you, you know? But I was. I was tremendously sad and. But it takes choosing yourself. And I've done that multiple times in my life. And I think it's such a powerful tool because the longest relationship you have is with yourself.

I read somewhere about you sharing that you come into this place alone, you leave this place alone, you've got to build that relationship with yourself. I love that you keep saying choose yourself. A friend of mine wrote a book called Choose Yourself. His name is James Altucher and it's a really powerful book. It's about, you know, going after you want and choosing yourself and not allowing someone else to dictate what you can and can't do and all that stuff. But I love that you keep using that phrase because I think it's important for people to be reminded that we need to choose ourselves when no one else will choose us. We need to be there for ourselves when we're single.

It's no one's job. It's no one's job to choose someone else. You know, your parents will do it for a while, your spouses will do it for a while, maybe your children will do it for a while. But you are no one else's responsibility but your own. And what you do with your life and the choices you make dictate the sum of your life. It's such simple math actually. We are the sum of all our choices. And if you want to achieve something, if you want to achieve greatness, and I'll give you a small example, the White Tiger, the movie, I was never attached to it. I was never approached for it. I read about it on Twitter that it was being made. I read in a trade magazine, I read a deadline, actually, that the White Tiger is being adapted by the director Ramin Bahrani and for Netflix. And I was like, I have to be a part of this movie. I called the agents. I called my agents. I made them call the producers. I chased Ramin. from Mumbai to New York to LA. I met him three times. I auditioned with him three times. I offered my services as an executive producer because I wanted the material, because I want to align myself with good content. And I believe that would be good content. And that's such an example of what's the worst that could have happened? They would have said no. And, and that's happened to me multiple times. It's not stop me from trying again. That's choosing yourself.

How do we get back into manifestation mode when we have zero control in our life?

We have to use the circumstances that we're living in as an opportunity to go Further in our own personal development.

What does that mean?

Period. Let me unpack this for you. To truly manifest means that you feel good. Feeling good means your energy is free, you're inspired, you are receptive, and therefore attracting towards you what you desire. So if we're in a place now where we feel like we're out of control, we're trying to get control, we're in the opposite of that manifestation state, which I refer to as being a super attractor. We're no longer connected to that power. So the way back to that power is to put our personal growth first, to get back, not go out and try to force anything or do anything out there to find control, but to turn inward, to go deeper and identify what's unresolved. work out what needs to be healed, bring forth to the surface the truth of what's up so that we can show up for it, and get back to a baseline of feeling safe, a baseline of feeling joy, a baseline of connection, rather than thinking that I have to go get control over something, we have to return to who we are. And it's a lot of language, but I can further that too.

And what happens when we try to control our environments on the outer world, people on the outer world, schedule, food, working out, whatever it may be, when we try to control everything on the outside, but we're constantly in trigger mode, things affect us so deeply what's happening on the outside internally. Will that give us a sense of control if we have everything under control, but we're still triggered by everything?

So, When we're triggered, we try to find control because it's a way of staying safe. Being triggered in any form is really just an activation of a sense of being unsafe. So what we're going to do in that moment is go try to control our relationship or go try to control our food or go do something to feel safe. And that also can come in the form of addictive behavior, like overeating or drinking too much. to anesthetize and numb out that feeling of being unsafe, that feeling of being activated and triggered in a wound, in a place of fear ultimately. So what we want to really begin to recognize is the reasons that we get triggered and then find tools, self-soothing tools, self-help methods, breath practices, For self-regulation, regulating our own nervous system, our energy, our field in those moments so that we don't live from trigger to trigger.

To trigger to trigger to trigger.

During COVID man, I mean, the whole f***ing world has been triggered.

So.

We'Ve been in this constant state of hyper arousal, fight, flight, freeze. reactivity. And I said very early on, I said this in March of 2020, there's two ways you can show up for this. You can numb out and drink and use and anesthetize yourself in whatever way you do, or you can show up. And when I say show up, show up for yourself, show up for the unresolved parts of yourself, show up for the painful stuff, show up in your therapy, show up on a show like this, show up in a self-help book. show up through a 30-day contemplative practice, whatever it is that you are guided to, to actually take action with it. So we had two choices, and we still have that choice. Even if it's been a year of numbing out, you can choose again right now.

Yeah. What's been the biggest internal trigger for you that still affects you today, that you haven't fully gotten over the hump or, or do you feel like you've kind of Mastered that part of your life.

I am in the mastery process, but I, I think that I will be for the rest of my life in, in mastery. But I'm really, really a year ago now, a year ago today, I was in a much more triggered state than I am fast forward 12 months a little more because like everyone else, COVID activated unresolved parts of me, feelings of feeling out of control. It's a big one for me. Like, like you said, feeling out of control. feeling unsafe, feeling not cared for, feeling like I have to do everything. So while I've spent the year really, really like, like in full-blown recovery mode, like.