Dean Graziosi on Overcoming Trauma and Unleashing Your Inner Greatness EP 1462

Calling all conscious achievers who are seeking more community and connection, I've got an invitation for you. Join me at this year's Summit of Greatness, this September 7th through 9th in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio, to unleash your true greatness. This is the one time a year that I gather the Greatness Community together in person for a powerful, transformative weekend. People come from all over the world and you can expect to hear from inspiring speakers like Inky Johnson, Josie Pickering, Vanessa Van Edwards, Jen Sinchero, and many more. You'll also be able to dance your heart out to live music, get your body moving with group workouts, and connect with others at our evening socials. So if you're ready to learn, heal, and grow alongside other incredible individuals in the greatness community, then you can learn more at lewishouse.com/greatness Summit 2023. Make sure to grab your ticket, invite your friends, and I'll see you there.

There's a beast inside of me, and I have learned how to tame the beast. I've learned how to calm the beast. The beast comes out when there's a lot of emotional or psychological wounds or responses or pressure, and we don't need that physical or reactive beast to come out.

Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

Welcome back to the Own it yout Future podcast. I'm so stoked today for the guest because, you know, it might sound like I say this a lot, but I mean it when I say this isn't just an amazing man who was all American in two sports, played professional football, multiple New York Times bestselling author, top keynote speaker. He's one of my dearest friends. You know, how do you classify a dear friend? In my opinion, a dear friend could be someone you see all the time or someone you see once a month, once a week, once a year. But when you see somebody where your heart feels full, someone who truly cares, if you understand the definition of reciprocity, this man lives it. breathes it. And I'm so excited about the new book he just came out with. It is Changing Lives all over the world. But more so, I'm just really happy to hang out with my friend, Mr. Lewis House. What's up, brother?

My man, Dean. Thanks, man. Yeah, I know. I wish we were in the same city so I could see you every month, but every time I get to spend a few days with you, I just want to soak up all the time we have together. So I appreciate it.

Now, you know, hey, listen, before we get started today, and we're going to have an amazing interview, and I want to talk about your new book. I want to talk about you moved into your new house. I love the relationship you have. I love watching your evolution. And I think what's so inspiring, Louis, is sometimes, listen, you have one of the top podcasts in the world, over a half a billion views on your YouTube. I mean, it's amazing. And your downloads and listens on your podcast, all of that is amazing. But sometimes when you're out front, people may assume you got everything figured out. And I think the greatest gift and the greatest thing you've given to so many, before we get into some really great questions, if you're listening today, no matter where you are, it's great when you see somebody, myself included, and so many others around the world, but watching Louis, I've watched you transform, brother. You've always been a good man since the day I met you, maybe nearly a decade ago. I've always been, man, what a good man, but I've watched you look into your weaknesses and say, hey, I don't want to bring that with me into this next relationship or to this next business evolution or this next book. How do I become a better version of me to help help people on the outside. And I've watched you do this and so many times you could say, hey, professional football player, professional this, making good money, you know, lots of people wanna be your friends or you could say, I'm good, I'll stick here. And what I love about you is you never stop growing, you never stop learning, you're not afraid to admit where your failures are, you bring them up in public. And I don't know, I just wanna say, watching your growth and watching the amazing relationship you have right now, It's really inspiring and I just want to give you some kudos, brother.

I appreciate it, Dean. Well, again, it means a lot to me. I received that and I really believe, I'm not just saying this to throw it back at you, but I really believe that having wise mentors in my life throughout, you know, from my teens as coaches and then my 20s in the business world and guys like you who have a lot of success at different levels, For me, that's the models I look at. People that have got it figured out, people that have also struggled and had challenges and overcome them and come out better on the other side. And that's why I think people should be listening to your show and watching the stuff you do because you're a great model of that. And so I just try to look for those models. I know Tony talks about finding a model and really try to learn and soak it in and listen and ask interesting questions and say, okay, let me go try this.

Yeah. See if this works. Well, you're really good at it, man. You're really good at it. Thanks. And I share that before we get started with kind of a first the question. It's fun interviewing people that I know personally, 'cause I think I can ask some stuff that most people don't. So I'm hoping to share something you maybe never heard Lewis Howes share before today, which is cool. But secondly, I think it gives everyone hope, because all of us have our back against the wall at some point, or maybe while you're listening. The last three years have been a blur to some people. They keep moving the goalpost. Every time you think you got the game figured out, they change the rules. and media is telling us we should hate each other and be so far apart when I think most of us are more alike than apart. All these things cause uncertainty, cause fear, and when that happens, people stand still. And I love doing this podcast. I love we're here on Own youn Future, 'cause man, if you don't own your future, someone else is gonna. And interviews like this, remember, take what serves you today, throw the rest away. But if there's one thing today where you go, oh, that's what I need, then take it and run with it. All right, I'm gonna ask you a really simple question 'cause I love the answer 'cause they're always different. We're calling this the Own youn Future podcast, 'cause I did a challenge a few years ago called Own youn Future and it went monster. I mean, a million people signed up and everybody loved the tagline, if I don't own my future, someone else will. It's like, oh, that is, so to Lewis Howes, when I say, if I ask you, what does it mean to own your future at this time of your life? Not a year ago, not five years ago, but what does it mean to own your future?

It's interesting because over the last few years, I've had an emotional coach guide me through a healing journey, guide me through really looking at the details of where I felt triggered or where my nervous system would be reactive as opposed to responding out of love. And over the last few years, I've had different words of intentions for each year going into the new year. And this year is all about authentic ownership. So I love that this is about owning your future because this is the year of authentic ownership for me. and when I think about owning your future, I think about remembering your future. A lot of us have memories of the past, and those memories keep us stuck in the past if we haven't created new meaning around those memories. I know you had a very challenging childhood. We've talked about these things publicly and privately about how they affected us. And when we have memories of the past that keep us stuck in the present, and in the future, that doesn't serve us. So I love this idea of owning the future and truly remembering the future of who we want to be in the future and drawing that in closer now. That's what I think about when I think of owning your future is about remembering and instead of remembering all the negative from the past, create new meaning, heal that past so you can start having the space, the clarity to have a vision of the future and draw it closer to us now.

Man, it's so good. And if you don't mind, I want to Again, I love being with a friend because I feel like it could just be me and ask some serious questions here. I love that because I just shared something the other day. Sometimes when we're under pressure, Louis, when things aren't going perfect, the old version of us can come out.

Yes.

Right? So I'm a parent. I hope you get to be a parent today. Yeah. That we can't wait. Just so that's a whole another story. My wife, who you know dearly, is like, when? Right? So anyway, we can talk about that on another podcast. But I want to tell you something. I'm a parent of a 16 year old, 14 year old, three year old and a five month old. This past weekend, I did something special for my daughter. I have this amazing relationship with her and I want to raise, you and I have talked, I know the relationship you had with your dad. Sorry, you lost your dad. I remember all the emotions and some of the deep conversations and we compared some things and I know about the learning disability. We have so many things in common. and sometimes that's when we look at it right, those problems become our strength, our wind, not an anchor. You gotta switch it, right? The other thing I wanted to share though is sometimes I decided to parent differently than my father. And I grew up mostly with my dad, divorced parents since three, mostly with my dad. My dad being the youngest of 12, this will get someplace, I promise everybody, and then we get to some business stuff. But being the youngest of 12, my dad was physically abused, mentally abused, never got help, old school Italian and raised me differently. I was always nervous and he screamed a lot and would break stuff and very violent. I'll leave it at that. This weekend, I've parented different. My daughter's whole life, she's 16. I'm so proud of this woman. I'm proud of her values. I'm proud of her character. She's in 10th grade. She made varsity. She's pitching for the varsity softball team. Wow. That's great. Puts her heart into something she does it. But there's a couple things, 16 year olds, I just asked her a couple things. One, read a book a week or read two hours a week of a book I choose and keep her room clean. The other night, I got it. So I'm gonna, it's gonna all gonna land here. The other night, I surprised her and her friends and got a, I got a box for her and her friends of the softball team to go see Taylor Swift. They had the time of their life. The next morning, I just asked her to make sure her room was clean and before she left. She left. The room was an absolute disaster. And it happened to be one of these weeks, Louis, I put in seven days. You know, you're in the middle of it. You're promoting your book, traveling all over, you're jumping on planes, you barely sleep. I just had one of those weeks. And I was at my wits end. And something triggered in me, like my dad would, that I didn't appreciate it. I did all this for her. I asked her one thing to clean her room, and I called her. and I literally unloaded on her using swear words, profanity, anger, exactly like I got treated three days a week. I have not done, Louis, I don't know if I've ever done it before. The only reason I'm sharing that is now we went to dinner last night, we made up, I told her about my past, I told her, we are bonded deeper and I gave her my word it would never happen again. She was wrong, but I told her, don't you ever let any man talk to you that way, even your father, right? But I wanted to share that for a reason and then I wanna get to the real question I had. is because I have not seen that version of me. I work on personal development every day. I'm with you three or four times a year we're working on. I'm partners with Tony Robbins. I've written multiple books on it. I listen to personal development every day. Your book is literally slated. I started it this morning. I freaking absolutely love it. This is what I do. I live it, I breathe it, and still under pressure after a tough week, after a trigger and a snap, I unloaded on my daughter like a Like I hated as a child. So as you share, focus into the future. That was a long question, I apologize, but I wanted to get to it. Focus on the future, not the past. Sometimes the past is sticky like Velcro and pressure can bring it out. What advice can you give to people say, I wanna focus on my future and owning my future, but Louis, you don't understand.

Well, I think it's really, I think it's really inspiring how honest you are about that and how you kind of unleashed and where the worst quote unquote version of yourself emotionally on this phone call with your daughter, but how you also reconciled it. I think it's, you know, I love the thing about Wayne Dyer where he used to tell a story. I don't know if you remember this story, but he used to tell this story about, you know, an orange and he would take it out on stage and he would talk about this orange and say, when you squeeze an orange, when you apply pressure to an orange, what comes out of the orange is orange juice. and when you apply pressure to a human, what comes out of the human is what's inside. And, you know, that might have been there in your past, that. That anger and frustration. And it came out in that moment because you had a ton of pressure. And it sounds like it's the only time that's happened. And it just might have been. You also got, like, punched in the face by your son. You were, like, beaten up. You had a black eye. So it was like you have all this pressure happening at once, and I think that's just hard to. manage. And it's hard to expect that we're going to be perfect under pressure.

Absolutely. And by the way, my three-year-old jumped off the couch. I didn't get beat up by an older son. But my question to you is, I know you have passed. Only because we're dear friends and we don't have to go there today. But I know the learning disability. I know the relationship with your dad. I know the insecurities that no one saw. How do you not let that come out in your life when you're the orange being squeezed?

There was a moment where, I don't know, about a week and a half ago in the middle of my book launch where I had a moment similar to that where I was like, everything was coming apart. It felt like internally because I couldn't control the externals and things weren't following, they weren't happening the way I wanted to. And I remember I had my phone in my hand and there was a moment in me where I wanted to throw it against the wall. And I remember having this moment where I was like, okay, I really want to throw this and scream right now. and Martha was in the room. There was nothing she did or said. I was just kind of in a frustrating moment of stuff happening. And I literally remembered the future. I remembered the future and I was like, what is the highest version of me? What would he do in this moment? Now, I had to have a moment of clarity to stop myself, but I wanted to because that's what I used to do in the past.

So good.

React with anger.

This is what I wanted.

And I think the reason why the only reason why I didn't throw the phone, yell and explode doesn't mean I wasn't frustrated and kind of like huffing and puffing, but I wasn't explosive is because I truly believe it's because I've been on a healing journey. And I've for the last two years, over two years now, almost every two weeks, I have an emotional coaching session with a trained emotional coach. I like you, I can go to the gym and have a great coach guide me in workouts. I can have a nutritionist coaching me. I can have a business coach, which I've got lots of them. I can have all these different coaches in life, but a lot of us don't have emotional coaches. And we can read and listen to podcasts and go to events and all these different things, which are all incredibly helpful reminders and tools. But I truly believe the emotions and the way we think are running in our body and our minds constantly. Our nervous system is always on, you know, on guard. And if we don't have a coach guiding us or some accountability or some something beyond books and podcasts and tools and events that are all awesome, then there might be moments where we react. And again, this doesn't make us bad or horrible. I have compassion for myself. I have compassion for you. If we're screaming, we fall off the track, we're not perfect. We're human beings. we're gonna be out of integrity at times. But what has worked for me is having an emotional coach and knowing that every two weeks I'm gonna get to process, I'm gonna get more tools, I'm gonna get to have catharsis, I'm gonna get to calm my nervous system and continue to own and remember my future of what my vision is and keep that closer to me now. And that process of consistent emotional coaching has worked for me. Now, I, like you, have done many meditation retreats. I've done many workshops. I've done, you know, cold therapy, everything you can think of. I've probably done it. And they all work great, but it's the consistency of the emotions.

I mean, it's just like going to the gym, right? I mean, as you said, we have to train our emotions. And I just want to stop for a minute and just share what you said, because I'm going to take this, Louis, is in the moment, If I would have remembered the man that I've been working to be and the man I want to become, the father I want to continue to be better in the moment, I have goosebumps. That is something I hope every single one of you heard and take away, because we all get red. We all get in the moment and I feel like we're in the red. Man, we go right back to the person we've been running away from. That's owning our past, not owning our future. And I love what you said. You took a moment, and that's because you're in this every two weeks. You're doing this coach. You took a moment and go, Is this the man I want to be to Martha? Is this the man I want to be to my future children? Is this the example I want to be to friends? Is this the person I want to be when I look in the mirror? And that is a practice. Thank you for me, and I hope all of you, that is a practice I will be more on because I haven't gone red like that in a really long time. In fact, I didn't even know it was still in me, Louis.

Wow.

And so with that, thank you. Thank you for being vulnerable.

There's a, yeah, of course. And there's a beast. I was just telling this to Martha yesterday, actually. You know, I was like, there's a beast inside of me. And I have learned how to tame the beast. I've learned how to calm the beast. That doesn't mean that if I see something unjust, that in my mind, I can think crazy thoughts and think, I want to go destroy this person, or I want to go defend this, or I want to go unleash my power and will against something. or I want to go destroy something. Like, I have these thoughts. And, you know, in some ways, I'm glad there's a beast inside of me for if I ever need to protect myself physically. But we go through these, you know, the Beast comes, the Beast comes out when there's a lot of emotional or psychological wounds or responses or pressure, and we don't need that physical or reactive Beast to come out.

I would bet to say you have And I think myself and everybody listening right now or watching right now is it's good to have that beast, especially if you tame it, because the power of that beast is why when someone says, oh no, podcasts are hard to do. No, I don't care. I'm gonna have a top podcast in the world. The beast came out, but the beast came out in a polite, elegant, I'm not giving up.

Yes, loving way.

Right, right. When you go through and you say, hey, relationships are hard, but the strength, the tiger in me, I'm coming out and I'm gonna do what it takes to attract an amazing woman and have a really great relationship. This beast come out me, I'm gonna write a book and travel all over the world, do whatever it takes to make it a New York Times bestseller so I can change lives, get people a new mindset. I think it's not just taming, I think we have the beast and I think we all do is how do we use that as fuel, not the thing that can hurt us, right? I think in my life, I'm not the same size. I always joke when I'm with you, it's like I'm 5'7 and a half. But I have an inner strength that I've learned to really target and point the arrow in the right direction. And I think that's a great lesson for today. Didn't know we were going to go down that road is we all have that hunger, we all have that beast, whatever you want to call it, that inner hero. It's just how do we spend the right energy? How do we point that arrow in the right direction and unload it for a bigger future rather than dragging you backwards? Exactly.

And it's funny you talk about, you know, you're five, seven and a half, and I love you throwing the half.

You know, anyone who's...

When you're five, seven, you throw in the half, Steve.

Dude.

I get it. It's funny because the side note here, there was a guy that came up to me the other day at the gym. He goes, Man, you're so tall. And he was probably, I don't know, your height, somewhere around there. And I go, you, know what? This has happened to me multiple times where guys come up to me and they're like, Man, can you give me a couple inches? And I always say this. Like, you know, the shorter guys always get the hottest wives. They always make more money. They're always smarter, funnier, more intelligent. than the tall guys. So, you know, and he's like, yeah, but I still. I still want a couple inches, you know?

Yeah. No, I want to thank you for that. All right. Well, thank you for being involved. I got a couple other questions I had written down for you in a world gone mad, which I'm 54, and I've been through a lot. I've been through transitions. I've been through a lot of stuff, shifts in market, recessions, all those things. But I've never seen a time kind of so uncertain as this in the meaning of questioning ourselves and feeling polarized and feeling confused on the way things are moving and the way people think and are we really unalike? So long story short, I feel like it's an uncertain time. Simultaneously, don't know where the economy's going. Currently, as we're recording this, we got banks, a couple banks went out. Could be they're predicting another 200 banks are gonna go out. It's a shifting time. So in that, people can tend to, and you know this is our study, people can tend to not realize it, but back up into the goal, sit on their hands and go, Hey, let me just see what happens. And you can't own your future by seeing what happens. This is not a time to play small. It's not a time to blame. It's not a time, it could be the last president, could be the current president, could be the next one. But blame has never solved anything. So I wanted to ask you a question. Do you remember a moment in history, maybe it's always been this way for you, where you decided to take complete ownership for your future? Meaning if stuff goes right, that's on me, I did that. But when it goes wrong, it's not the partner or the relationship you're in, or the government or the president. There's no way you've had the success you've had in all areas of your life without you being complete ownership of your outcome, even if someone screws you over. was there a moment? Was it a slow ride? I'd love to hear that.

Well, I think when the last recession happened, 2008, when I was on my sister's couch, you know, recovering from an injury in football, I was there for a year and a half. And I remember my sister, after about a year and three months on my sister's couch, she gave me an incredible gift. She said, Louis, you got to start paying rent, and you need to go get a job. and at that point for a year, year and three months, I was kind of moping around just like mooching off of her, just getting free food, living for free, not taking ownership of my future. And that was a great gift she gave me where she was like, you need to either pay rent or you need to move out. So you've got to get a job. And I remember applying for jobs online. This was back in Craigslist days, 2008. So I was applying for jobs in Craigslist and I found a job opportunity that I was like, I think I could like this job. and I got an interview. And I remember opening the door to go out of my sister's house to head to this interview for the job interview. And I could not take a step outside of the door. I had the door open. I was looking out at the car that I was going to take to go there. And I couldn't take a step on the steps to go down into the. The sidewalk into the car, because I started to see the future of me taking this action. I started to see, like, I'm gonna land this job. I had a big ego back then, so I was like, they're gonna love me. I'm gonna get this job, it's going to be easy. And then I'm going to work really hard. I'm going to climb this ladder in this career. I'm going to work my way up. You know, it's going to be awesome. And I just saw five years flash by and I was like, this is not really what I want my future to be. It wasn't bad. It just wasn't the exact vision. And that was the moment I took full ownership. I was just like, I'm going to overcome all the fears. I'm going to learn these skills. I'm going to get more mentors. And now I've got to figure out how to make money on my own. and that's when I, I think that's right around the time I learned about you. And, you know, I think I met you, like, within that next year, I think, at Josh Bizony's event. I don't know if you remember that. I remember that. On a boat in Austin.

Yeah.

On, on Lake Austin or whatever. And I just said, okay, I need to learn. I need to learn from mentors, and I need to get new skills, new tools, and overcome these fears. That was one moment where I said, you know, I'm going to take full ownership of my life. and I remember saying to myself at that time, I will never feel vulnerable in another recession again. And so I prepared myself for 2020. And I said, this is going to happen. And when I was with you and Tony, I think the year before it was in October, the year before, I think in 2019, we were in Fiji. And, and you and Tony were saying, you know, winter is coming. We didn't know it was going to happen that quickly, but it came and and I remember saying, okay, I'm ready for this. And I owned that moment even more. I went all in on saying, how can I serve? How can I give to my community? How can I find new Revenue streams? How can I show up in different ways? And so I. 2008, 2009 was the first moment, and I just said, never again. Will I be unprepared for whatever comes my way? And I've had that mentality of just making sure that I, you know, I saved my money, I invest my money, I Diversified, I. I continue to overcome challenges. I to continue to learn new skills. And I think for me, the most important thing is I continue to have coaching and be coachable to be able to adapt and be flexible in these moments of uncertainty. And over the last few years, it has been stressful with all the uncertainty in the world, not because of what's happening in the world, but more because I was in challenging a challenging relationship and dealing with that. But I had peace outside of that with navigating the business stuff. It was more like I still had demons inside of me. I had to heal and and meant. And that's where the coaching gave me clarity to create that freedom and peace within me. And now I just feel a sense of peace with what's happening in the world around me while being in the middle of a book launch, moving into a new home and doing all these changes. I never felt this much peace in general. I had that one moment where I was kind of under pressure and wanted to throw my phone. But in general, I felt very peaceful over these last couple months. with all these big changes and things happening. And I think it's just I keep making the decision to own my future, to remember the future of the highest version of myself that I want to be and trying to step into that daily. Again, in no way am I a perfect human being. I've been eating tons of junk food these last few weeks while I'm traveling and off the, you know, not working out as much as I want to, but in general, The inner world is peaceful because I keep being humble in my ability to be coached, finding mentors, you know, reaching out for support, like with guys like you, and really not being afraid to reach out for support. I think a lot of people try to do it on their own, and that's what hurts them. I've always been open. I work really hard on my own, but I'm also like, I need an answer to a question I have. Let me reach out to Dean. Let me reach out to this person. and get that support? And I think that supports me in moving beyond all these different challenges of the world.

What a great answer. And I love, you know, I've been saying to myself for probably two decades, Louis, there's no one coming to save me. It's a inner mantra. I probably haven't shared it with the outside world until about three years ago, but for 20 years, every time something going wrong, oh, a partner stole my money, I made a wrong hire, advertising isn't work, the campaign didn't do, the launch didn't work, I don't, my brain doesn't go, ah, who? I go, no one coming to save me. I created this. If there's a bad partnership, I brought in the right, wrong in the wrong partner. I'm in a bad marriage, okay? I'm probably half of the problem, maybe 60% of the problem of this marriage. No one's coming to save me. It's on me to fix it. And I think, this sounds like I'm patting myself on the back. I'm not. It was a blessing and a gift that I just adopted that because when it happened, it's so liberating because you got no fingers to point. Like, it's not, you're not so concerned about what happens in the outside world because you're mastering the inner game. It's on me. This went great, I'll take the credit. Went wrong? Okay, I'll take the blame. And I know you do that because I watch you do it and I know you reach out. Hey, in a moment here, I want to talk more about your book, but I see why your new book's on fire. I see why it's so, for lack of a better word, I can't wait to read the entire thing. Is it's because you're, what people have to realize when you write a book like this, it's not saying Lewis has all the answers. for the greatest mindset in the world? No, Lewis has a lot of the answers because he's had life experience, does the coaching, does the mentor. I'm in a mastermind with Lewis at least a couple times a year where we're asking questions, going deeper. And what we get to do, because Lewis and I are in the same business, we get to impact people for a living. I mean, how freaking cool is that? I want to ask you about that in a minute. But we get to share our life experience. and then find a way to give it to you. So hopefully you take what serves you and throw the rest away so you make that shift, so you don't let the red come out and be the old version of you, so you can own your future, so you can focus on solutions, so you can take complete ownership. And we do these things from our heart. And the reason I call Lewis a friend is because his gift is to serve. Does he want a successful company behind it? Here's a secret. Yes, and he should, and he deserves it. I want to Impact millions of lives. I still want to employ my 140 people that work in the office here because we get to do both at the same time. So I'm going to share in a moment here and it'll be in the notes, but go to lewishowes.com/gmbook. lewishowes.com/gmbook. Get Lewis's book. We all need it. Listen, it is my practice. I don't, I don't miss a week. Every single week I am listening to a book because every book I listen to, I see some of them on your shelves there, the same ones I've listened to. Every book I listen to or read gives me something that helps me become the version of the man I want to be. To own my future even more, not in an ego way, but just becoming better. To have the relationship I have, I'm blessed to have the most amazing relationship I could have ever dreamed of. But I had to do the work and I gotta work on it every day. So go get Lewis's book. I got a couple questions for you. We're in the same business. I mean, let's just pull the curtain back. We get to deliver, share. You do so much of it free with your podcast and with interviews and with YouTube videos. I love all your YouTube stuff. If you're not following Lewis on YouTube, you should. If you're not following his podcast, you should. But we're in the business of selling what we know, right? You give so much away for free, but you sell a book. I hope you have a high level mastermind. I hope you have a monthly continuity that people could be in. What does it mean? I mean, neither one of us in school, when we were struggling to friggin' read with dyslexia or whatever it is we all have, would have ever thought that people would be listening to us, that would be educators. But really, we're not educators saying we have all the answers, but we have some in the swimming lane that we're in. So what does it mean or what does it feel or what is the definition to you of saying you sell what you know, that's your business. What's the best part of that to you?

I love it. And I think, you know, I took it a different level from selling what I know to selling what others know and facilitating conversations.

And you're going to say, that. That's what I was hoping for.

And for me, it's, you know, I started 10 years ago in the podcast, and I was doing online marketing before that. But 10 years ago, I started my school of greatness show, and I didn't want it to make it about me because at the time, I felt like, okay, I didn't have a lot of the answers. I had some answers, but I really want to go on a journey of, of learning from mentors. So. And that's, I think, a beautiful thing that I know you teach and Tony teaches as well, is like, you don't have to be the expert. You can interview experts, you can interview and and write about them. You can storytell about their wisdom and do just as well, if not better. I think Oprah did this fantastically for decades. She shined the light on everyone else. And by doing so, the light shined even brighter back on her by everyone that she facilitated and supported and lifted up. It all came back a million fold to her over the years. And then she became the expert in the process. And so that's kind of been my journey is how can I serve and elevate other voices? And now after 10 years, I feel like I have this authentic ownership of sharing more of my voice. That's why for me, this book was the right time because I felt like, okay, now I feel really confident in what I've learned internally and what I've learned externally. So now I can speak about these things with a sense of ownership, with a sense of belief, with a sense of peace. that I'm not speaking about things I don't know, and I'm also owning what I do know. And this really supports me in having more confidence at this season and stage after a decade of doing the show. I have to tell you, Louis, if.

You didn't write a book, it would be a disservice to the world. Because you are-- I mean, where did Think and Grow Rich come from? Napoleon Hill interviewing 50 of the wealthiest people, or more than 50 of the wealthiest people in the world at that time. How many interviews have you done in the last decade? Do you know?

Well, 1400 episodes, those aren't all interviews, but probably close to a thousand interviews.

Literally, at a thousand episodes, everyone you're like, oh crap, I gotta put that in my life. Oh, that's good. In my health, my life, my love, my future, my finances. Exactly. And the collectiveness of that, oh my God, is so rich. And I think what's cool about this industry is before, the internet, before podcasts, before we could be connected right now. We couldn't be in proximity. So now we're doing this virtually, right? Before that, when you wanted to learn something, you hope you got a book or you hope you found a mentor in your town. Now we have the opportunity to say, hey, I want to have a better mindset. A guy that interviewed a thousand people, 1500 episodes, and now he took, and he gets a coach every two weeks on mindset, and he's willing to share his vulnerability, sign me up. I'll take that, right? And it's why we encourage so many people. Everybody should be sharing what they know, whether it's a podcast, of course, a book, a mastermind, a workshop, literally everybody should because we all have something that could allow someone to get quicker through an issue that they're at.

Yeah, and I think if you don't feel like if you're just getting started, because I know a lot of people in your audience are probably just getting started or they're transitioning from one career and they want to start a side hustle or start their business on the side or launch an online course. And you may feel like, well, I don't have the training or the tools or the certifications or the, you know, the years that Dean has or the Lewis house or whatever it might be. I think it's really interesting, but your perspective on a topic through curating information can also be a powerful way of teaching.

I love that.

It's your perspective on curating information. I have my perspective. Again, in the greatness mindset, it's a collection of all the best of the best moments of interviews from scientists, neuroscientists, therapists, doctors, business stars and leaders and things like that. And sharing my perspective of my journey on how you can be great with your mindset, on how you can overcome your fears, your insecurities, your self-doubt. You might have your own perspective of how you've done that and other tools and lessons that you've learned that reach certain communities, that inspire certain communities. And there might be a community that you could serve better than I could serve or Dean could serve.

Absolutely.

You know, you might have a background in knitting or in CrossFit, and that's your community. You own it, you know it, and you speak to that micro community. But in these micro communities are typically the most passionate fans, the most passionate individuals that want to learn from someone in their space. Dean and I are broader, right? So we reach lots of different communities, but you might be able to impact someone even greater in a community that you live and breathe and sleep in all day long, whether that's CrossFit or knitting or cycling or whatever it might be. But speaking to those communities from your personal experience is how you can serve greater. And again, I think the guy's name is Kevin Kelly, is that his name? Where he talked about a thousand true fans. you don't need millions of followers on Instagram to make a lot of money. You need 1,000 true fans to really generate six figures. If you can master certain things and if you can execute certain things that you talk about at mastermind.com and all these different things that we have these tools available, you don't need millions. You don't need hundreds of thousands. If you can get a thousand true fans, you can make a full-time income doing what you love.

Wow. Everybody, I didn't pay Lewis for that rant, but that was amazing. And that's, and you know, that's what we preach from mountaintops, right? One of the things we say is to own your future, whatever way that is, own it. One great way is to do it through sharing what you know. Tell me, hold your book up again. I love the COVID Mine's at home and I forgot to bring it. I love the book. I love the COVID Let me just ask you one question about that. What is your, I know a book, I'm six in. They're a labor of love. and then promoting them as a labor of love. What is your favorite part about that book? If you had to pick one thing and say, I love this book, but this one thing I love.

Page 201. Page 201, I'll open it up real quick for you. There's a graph, and there's a graph that talks about the six distinctions of a power this mindset versus a greatness mindset. And if you just open up page 201, and that's all you do with this book, and you go through these things and you do a self-assessment and you ask yourself, am I living more in a powerless mindset versus a greatness mindset? Just it doesn't make you good or bad, right or wrong either way. Is this serving me? Is this empowering me? Is this supporting me to accomplishing my goals, my dreams, to having more love, more fulfillment and having more peace? Eckhart Tolle says the number one thing that people want at the end of the day is inner peace. And I'm a big believer in that. We may think we want money. We may think we want sleep with a lot of women, we may think we want, you know, all the accomplishments in the world. But at the end of the day, we want those things because we think they're going to give us inner peace, acceptance, self-love, that we are enough. And that's one of our biggest fears, that we are not enough. And when we're driven by not enoughness, we allow the powerless mindset to drive us to accomplish goals. And when we accomplish them, we still don't feel enough. Doesn't mean we're right or wrong, good or bad. It just means we still feel insecure and doubting ourselves. and I believe self-doubt is the killer of dreams. It's the thing that holds us back the most. That's my thesis over the last 10 years. I wanted to interview everyone about how do they overcome self-doubt? Because self doesn't matter how much talent, knowledge, wisdom we have. I know so many people way more talented than me that lack the courage to act on their goals and dreams. And I'm like, give me some of your talent. Give me some of your wisdom. Give me some of your capabilities. and I'll do amazing things with it. But when we don't believe in ourselves, we hold back our gifts, our talents. And so on page 201, the Powerless Mindset, I'll just read them out for everyone here. There are six key things of the Powerless Mindset. And this doesn't mean you're not a good person, and you're not loving and generous. It just means these things hold you back from acting on your gifts. You lack a meaningful mission. The enemy of greatness is being unclear, not being clear on what you want for this season or stage of life. That could be a six month season, it could be six years, it doesn't matter. But just being clear, I want to get off my sister's couch. That can be a meaningful mission. It doesn't mean you have to get clear on the rest of your life. It's just where are you heading right now? Lacking a meaningful mission makes you feel powerless, makes you feel like everyone's against you or you're being pulled in every direction. Your energy is not in focus. The second thing is being controlled by fear. We're all gonna face different fears through different stages and seasons of life. You know, I'm not a father yet. I'm sure I'm gonna have some insecurities and fears I'm gonna have to overcome and face when that comes. I had to move into my first home. There were some insecurities and fears I needed to face. But when we're controlled by fear, it just holds us back from acting courageously. So we need to learn how to do that. We're crippled by self-doubt. Again, this is the third thing in the Powerless Mindset. When self-doubt cripples you, you shrink your masterpiece.

Imposter syndrome, they call it in today's world, right?

Exactly. Exactly. And you just shrink. So we have to learn what the root cause of our own self-doubt is. And I have an entire process in the book about overcoming that. The fourth thing is this is a big thing. There's over 20, 000 books on mindset and success, and I don't hear a lot of them talking about this, which is The power of this mindset is when you conceal past pains. Now, I'm not saying you need to share all your pain to the world constantly or something, but if you have a darkness inside of you that you are unwilling to speak to one person about, or you're unwilling to write down in a face and a dress, that darkness will always chase you. As you keep running after something and trying to run away from it, it'll keep following you. It'll haunt you. And so learning how to not conceal past pains, that's the power of this mindset. Defined by the opinions of others, you're probably one of the best at this Dean, by not being defined by what others think of you, and it allows you to have freedom to act courageously, make mistakes and keep going and not worry about criticism or judgment. You learn with feedback, but it doesn't hold you back. Most people are crippled by the opinions of others, and it makes them powerless. And the sixth one is drifting towards complacency. Again, there are seasons and stages of life that we should relax, recover and all those different things. But when we lack a meaningful mission and we just drift towards complacency forever, it just means we're not using our gifts and talents with our friends, our family to the best of our ability. So those are the six things to think about those six things and say, Am I living in any of these areas of my life with these six elements? If so, it doesn't mean I'm bad and wrong. I had all six of these at one point. and they might come up momentarily at different times. And it just means we're more powerless as opposed to powerful in stepping into the greatness mindset. And I'll just read them really quickly. These six in the greatness mindset, driven by a meaningful mission, not by fear, not by anger, not by resentment, not by frustration, but driven by a meaningful mission. And I want to talk about meaningful. It's more than just you. It has to include others in the mission. that is more meaningful. And a lot of people don't know in one sentence what their meaningful mission is. We talk about the process of how to discover that. I just think the clarity gives you focus. It doesn't give you a sense of purpose.

I hope you're really taking this. I didn't mean to interrupt you, Chris, but I hope you're really taking this in. I know this is a quick interview and you're just getting the high level, but these are the fundamentals of life. Everybody's looking for the miracle. the magic button. They're looking for the invention. They're looking for the mindset shift. And it's the little things that are the big things. You know, I heard somebody say one time is small hinges swing a big door. I feel that about mindset. These things, as Louis shares, you may have heard them before. You may think they're little, but are you actually utilizing them in your life? Are they a practice in your life? These are the little things that have become the big things in my life, and I'm So happy. I want to hear the rest of them. And for all of you, listen, go to Amazon and get his book. Like right now, go get Greatest Mindset at Amazon or go to lewishouse.com/gmbbook. We'll put the link in the notes. I am pushing this book. I don't get an affiliate commission. I'm not doing it for a recipe. I'm doing it because I know this man and I know we're in a cloudy time in history and we need these types of principles to find our way to find opportunity rather than obstacles. obstacles to see Solutions, not the prevention. And what an amazing time to release this. All right, you got four.

Four more, I think.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That I want to hear.

So that was.

Yeah. Yeah.

So turns fears into confidence again. We all are going to have fears at different stages and levels of life, but learning how to turn it into confidence. One of the best ways to do that is to create a fear list when we. When we face and look at our fears by writing them down and say, okay, this is my fear list. and then we say, I'm going to do everything in my power to go all in on these fears until these fears disappear. That gives us the confidence and it gives us a new skill set when we overcome those fears. So turn fears into confidence. Overcome the self-doubt again, you got to get to the root of what that I'm not enoughness is coming from and learn how to overcoming yourself down. Healing past pain. This is a, this is a thing that, again, for many years, I was driven to but I was running away from the past pain. And so it kept coming up. And I was even way more explosive, you know, and reactive than you were. I was like that almost every week on the basketball court or with friends or in business. I was much more defensive 10 years ago and reactive because I wasn't healing the past pains. I was driven by the past pain to show and prove and win and accomplish. And so we've got to heal past pains. The fifth one is create a healthy identity. 10 years ago, I created a new identity where I used to say, I'm stupid, I'm an idiot, I'm a dummy, I'm never going to amount to something intelligence wise. And then I shifted it and created a new contract with self. And I said, I am a loving, passionate, wise man. I had an emotional contract with self and I had to start living into that on a consistent basis. and finding ways where I could believe those things as opposed to the past contract. And the sixth one is you take action with a game plan. So these are all the six elements of the greatness mindset on page 201 of the book. And I, you know, I'll kind of recap it with this. I interviewed this brain surgeon who was an amazing interview. He's not famous, but I think it did like a few million views. his name is Dr. Rahul Jandial, and he has done over a thousand brain surgeries, but he's also a PhD in neuroscience. So he studies thoughts in the mind, but he also studies the brain and understands the connection between matter and what's not material, but spiritual essentially. And I said, what's the number one skill after all that you've learned from neuroscience and brain surgeries that every human being should learn to master. And he said, emotional regulation. Now this is a brain scientist.

Wow.

Talking about emotions and how much our emotions tie into, you know, causing cancer, causing pain, hurt in the world and hurt against ourselves. and again, when we can learn to master our emotions through healing, through processing, through learning new tools, through overcoming fears and self-doubt and creating new meaning from the past so that the past pains actually add value to us. And we can learn to appreciate even as horrible and horrific as things that happen, if we can learn to create new meaning. I know Tony talks about this with, I think his mom used to beat him and put soap down his throat or whatever it was. and create new meaning behind these moments, then it empowers us and we can own our future in the present now because we've created new meaning from the past. And I think that's what allows us to have emotional regulation.

God, so good, Louis. I'm so glad we got the chance to share this with so many people. And I mean, if you think about, if you want to give your future self a gift tomorrow, if you look at the end of your life and you wish you could Go back. Imagine how great it is today, you can give your future self the gift of making shifts, of making those changes that we've been talking about, thinking about, you heard it. But what if this was the day you said, I'm changing. One little shift at a time, not at all overnight. Louis, I love that you wrote this book and I hope everybody goes out and grabs it and keeps going. Hey, one thing, I was inspired by you guys when we were all together in California. on the podcast, what I've been doing last, the interview I did with Trent Shelton, went really great. I said, if you have any question you'd like to ask me, if there's anything you guys inspired me to do this, is there anything that I can help you with on your book for business, for marketing, for life, love, you know, I'm a little ahead of you. I'm a little bit ahead of you, married to a Mexican woman. So I'm just a few steps ahead of you there.

So if I could give you any advice there, I got a question. I got, I got, I got I've always got lots of questions for you, but I want to ask you a question. I think it'll be resonate for the audience here. I don't know if you can cut this out if this is in public yet, but does your audience know you're doing something with McConaughey?

They will. They will by now.

Okay. Okay, cool. Well, I'll ask this then because, you know, I won't say what you're doing with him, but you've built a relationship with him. and I loved his speech when he won the Oscars. He said, I'm always chasing the ten year hero version of myself, my hero, right?

Yeah.

You're 54 at 64, which I think is Tony's age.

Yep.

63, 64. At 64, what will your 64 year old self ten years ahead, your future owned self say to you now? But the one piece of advice that you should be stepping into for this next decade. So to own your future, wow, you.

Put it back on me.

What would your 64 year old self, if you could step into that for a moment and imagine, you know, how old your kids are, you know, now they're 12, they're 14, they're 26, they're 24, they're out of college, you have a different stage of life, your marriage is at a certain place, your business has exploded even more, you have, you've impacted hundreds of millions of lives on a monthly basis with your service and your mission. What will your 64 year old self say to you now as the piece of advice to own that future and step into it now?

Wow, dude, I knew you'd put this back on me in a good way. I want to tell you real quick, a decade ago, almost a decade ago, I was going through some shifts. I was going through a divorce. I was really worried about my kids because I was a child of nine divorces. My parents got married and divorced a lot. I just was projecting they would feel the same stuff I felt, even though I'm not the same man, not same situation, you know, you got to go back and do that healing. And I remember sitting with Tony Robbins. I flew to his house and I was like, I was in an angst place worrying about my kids. And. And he just looked at me and I was three or four years away from being 50. And he looked at me and said something we've all heard. And you've heard, Louis, and I've heard, but it was in this moment that I heard it. He said, let's talk about all this stuff. I don't wanna know what you're gonna do. I wanna know who do you want to become in your 50s? And it's not profound, but it was profound in the moment. Sometimes it's the message, sometimes it's the timing, sometimes they come together. And I remember I just stopped talking. And I literally went back to my hotel room after being in his house for several hours. I just started writing who I wanted to become. I wanted to be a more connected man. I want to be the man that attracts an amazing woman, not just look for an amazing woman to be attracted to me and heal me. I need to heal. Like you want to become a man. I want my children to feel connected and alive and not obsessed on success, obsessed on being a fulfilled human. So what can I do to empower? And I just kept writing down who I wanted to become the man that could be friends with his ex, but a true friend, so our kids don't feel fragmented. And this stuff just kept pouring out of me. And as you were asking me that, I'm like, wow, it's been almost 10 years. I need to ask myself that question again, Louis. Who do I want to become in my 60s? You know, I'm 54, I'll be 55 this year. But who do I want to become? And I would say, I love what I do for a living. I love that I get the chance to be friends with amazing people like you and be in a place where I get to help impact lives. I'm not everything. I'm not getting straight A's and everything, but the areas that I'm good at, I can help people go faster while we grow a business. I would say the man I want to become, I want to make sure that I'm truly a next level present father and husband because I could provide all the things in the world, but if I'm not So I'm not there for the little things, then I missed it. I have some younger ones, so I'll have some, I'll still have kids in their teens. And I definitely know that I love what I do so much that I have to find more balance because I will choose work over anything else because I love what I do. So thank you for asking that question. Interesting. Yeah.

So you think your 64 year old self would tell you to find more balance?

Yeah, find more balance. Yep, find more balance for sure. 'cause I am, I definitely love what I do. I drive hard. I drive harder now than ever before and I don't need to. So thank you for that amazing question. Last thing, I'd love to know who in your life, sometimes there are people in your life that it's obvious to thank and there's some people who may have done you wrong or weren't perfect at it. But because of that, you're the man you are today. So before we end, who would you like to thank today? for the man you are today.

I mean, well, there's two things that came to my mind quickly. This may sound weird, but I want to thank, I want to thank, this is not an egotistical thing, but I want to thank myself for having the courage to overcome all of your, it's interesting in my dedication to my book, and I didn't know if this would come across well or not, but I'll just read it to you. And I think when people see it, they'll understand. I dedicate this book to my younger self for having the courage to carry me through pain, my current self for facing my shame and learning how to heal, and my future self because the journey to greatness has only just begun.

I love that. So, that's not from ego, that's from doing the work.

Yeah, and really facing shame and insecurity because I would not have peace internally had my younger self not been willing to have the courage to dive in and be vulnerable and open up and, like, go to coaching and therapy and all these things and really heal, because that has given my future self, my higher self, that I wanted to come here quicker. And it took me a long time to get here, but it's. I'm grateful for that. I also want to thank all my previous relationships, all the women that, you know, yeah. that taught me so much. And even though a lot of them tried to hurt me after we broke up, that gave me spiritual lessons when they would try to say bad things or talk behind my back or say things publicly or whatever to try to, you know, shame me or something. It taught me incredible lessons about detaching myself and spiritually purging things. And so I'm grateful for all of them, even though probably none of them are grateful for me. I'm grateful for all of them for that.

It took whatever that journey was, your fault, their fault, mutual fault. It took all of that and the awareness so you could be in the amazing relationship you're in today.

Exactly. I'm grateful for that.

I get to see it behind the curtain and it's amazing. Louis, thank you so much. This is amazing. Go out and get greatest mindset. Go grab that book. Go to lewishouse.com/gmbook or just go to Amazon and grab it. Once again, safe travels. I know you're going on a trip tomorrow or today. Today. Enjoy the trip. I appreciate this time. I appreciate you, brother. Keep up the good work. And those of you watching at home, keep this momentum alive. Do three things. Go listen or download three episodes. Keep going. Listen to the next one. and we do this for you. So if you if there's anything that Lewis and I shared today that you love, share it with a friend.

I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me, as well as ad free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus Channel on Apple podcast. If if you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend. Leave us a review over on Apple podcast and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels at Lewis Howes. I really love hearing the feedback from you and it helps us continue to make the show better. And if you want more inspiration from our world-class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox. over at greatness.com/newsletter. And if no one has told you today, I wanna remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.