Episode 1,000: A Journey to Greatness (This Will INSPIRE You!)

This is episode number 1, 000 with my top School of Greatness moments ever. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes. I'm an author, lifestyle entrepreneur, former pro athlete, and world record holder in football. My goal with the School of Greatness is to share with you stories from the most inspiring business minds, world-class athletes, and influential celebrities on the planet to help you find out what makes great people Great. Legendary Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu said, the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. And what you just heard was my first step, the intro to episode number one of the School of Greatness. That was January 24th, 2013. Now, seven and a half years later, this is episode 1000. I still have the same opening music, but a much better microphone and a much better idea of how to conduct an interview. And when I look back at my early episodes, I sometimes cringe before reminding myself that no one starts out with greatness. No one begins with mastery. I didn't know what I was doing at the beginning, and I'm still working to improve every day. But the journey has been the reward. And this episode, number 1000, is a testament to learning and growth, commitment and courage. But looking back, January of 2013 was quite a month for me. The initial podcast dropped just two days after President Obama recognized me as one of the top 100 entrepreneurs in America under 30, which still blows my mind today, considering it happened just a few years after I was broke hopeless and living on my sister's couch. If you're a long time listener, you know the story. I had one dream in life to be a professional athlete and zero backup plan. Well, just a year after college, that dream shattered along with the bones in my wrist when I took a vicious fall in an arena football league game in Huntsville, Alabama. Next came intensive surgery and six months in a full arm cast. Before I knew it, my career was over, which left me dreamless, aimless, and completely disheartened. Eventually, however, I pulled myself together because I had to. My sister's couch couldn't be the end of my road. And a long story short, I had no idea what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go. I merely knew that there were a lot of smart people out there and that I could use their advice. so I started reaching out to inspiring people, first on LinkedIn, then through a sports networking company I created. And after a couple of years of grinding, I had built a successful business. But I was still in the process of building a successful life. Money didn't buy me happiness or love, and I was seeking a lot more. And then somewhere along the line, it hit me. Although I was never quote unquote good at traditional school, I was always profoundly curious about mindset, health, entrepreneurship, relationships, lifestyle, and various components of happiness and success. I had been constantly seeking out world-class individuals and picking their brains. Not only did their insights prove invaluable as I turned my life around, but those fascinating conversations also became what I lived for. So I felt like I would be doing a disservice to the world if I didn't share those conversations with all of you. Thus, the School of Greatness was born, and I had found my mission: impacting others to live greater, love deeper, and make a difference. I also wanted to elevate and amplify diverse voices that needed to be heard. This journey has taken me around the globe, and I've been fortunate to interview Olympic gold medalists and award-winning actors, billionaire entrepreneurs and paradigm-shifting thinkers, psychologists and scientists, monks and missionaries, and so much more. And while my definition of greatness is still evolving, I have come to grasp a certain set of principles, habits, routines, thought processes, and actions that lead to a more fulfilling life. And in this two-part podcast, I'm reflecting on that journey to 1000 episodes. I've learned something powerful from each one of my guests, and they've all helped me become a better version of myself. And it's nearly impossible to create a short list of meaningful moments but I had to try. So in these two episodes, I'll highlight 10 of my most impactful experiences on the School of Greatness. You'll hear from some of my favorite guests of all time, from Kobe Bryant to Brené Brown to Tony Robbins. And I'll also share the single most important thing I've discovered along the way, though you'll have to wait till the end for that. In the meantime, maybe you can come up with your own answer to the question I finish every podcast with. What's your definition of greatness? And let me know, I want to hear from you. Text me your definition at 614-350-3960. And to those of you who have been with us since the beginning, thank you, thank you, thank you. I know my journey has been your journey, and as I continue to grow, I see you growing as well. You've inspired and challenged me. You've provided me a kind ear when I needed it, and you've lit a fire in me whenever I was dragging. This milestone is yours as much as mine. And to those of you who are new, I'm incredibly grateful for this opportunity to share my story with you today. And I hope you join us for a thousand episodes more.

This podcast is sponsored by Northwestern Mutual. Everyone wants to feel good about their finances, right? Well, that's why I've had life insurance with Northwestern Mutual for years. Their financial professionals ask the right questions, truly listen, and help uncover opportunities most people miss. I've seen it firsthand. Northwestern Mutual has been a part of my journey from the very beginning, providing the security and peace of mind I need as a human and an entrepreneur. Find a better way to money@nm.com the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, paid testimonial by a Northwestern Mutual policy owner.

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Father's Day is coming up, and for lots of dads out there, dad doesn't quite cover it. They're groundskeepers, patio whisperers, and rogue leaf vigilantes, too. So this year, show dad some love with gifts from the Home Depot. They've got fast, free delivery on handy gear that helps dad do his thing. We're talking Ryobi cordless outdoor tools like the Ryobi 40 volt expanded string trimmer. Find the perfect Father's Day gift at the Home Depot. Shop in store and online at homedepot.com, free delivery subject to availability.

Author Robert Greene was the perfect person to start with, considering he's one of the world's foremost experts on greatness. He's written six international bestsellers, including the 48 Laws of Power, in which he's examined history's greatest leaders and thinkers to determine the universal keys to finding your purpose and then achieving the highest levels of success. Just a reminder, this audio you're about to hear, well, it isn't up to my standard today and neither is my interviewing. I launched this podcast with nothing more than an iPhone, an aspiration and a list of contacts who were very generous with their time. But Robert Greene gave me an ideal introduction to the concepts I wanted to explore on the School of Greatness. And he detailed theories of achieving mastery that I've been trying trying to prove correct ever since.

Well, you know, we have this myth that people who are highly successful or high achievers that maybe there's something that they had good luck or they have a large brain or there's something genetically freakish about them. You know, it could be Steve Jobs or 50 Cent or Leonardo DiCaprio or anybody else. Where their parents were successful or had.

Money or something like that.

Or they just inherited a large brain or something. But in fact, I firmly believe, I've been researching this for years, it's not that at all. It's a process that people go through. And it's a very rational process. It's a process that I can describe to you in great detail. It follows various steps that kind of go chronologically. And once you know this process, it's really, really empowering. It makes you so much more conscious of what you're doing. You possess all of the tools that you need for success and achievement. It's right there. It's basically you've inherited a brain that evolved over millions of years and it has this latent power of mastery. I describe in the book how this power evolved over the course of millions of years, but it's there in you. You have the tools. It doesn't matter if you were born in poverty, if you never went to a good school, if you've had bad luck, the tool is there at any moment, even in your 20s, 30s, or 40s. It's all a question of learning how to use this tool, how to awaken this power. It's latent in you, and I'm going to show you how to basically exploit this. A lot of people say you can't teach an old dog new tricks, but.

You'Re saying that it doesn't matter how.

Old you are or anything you can actually master.

Is it any craft or is it Any skill or are we limited to certain things? So you can't master any craft if your heart isn't in it, because you're going to peter out after five or six years. You have to find something that's in your powerhouse, something that appeals to you. Once you work with that, yes, you can master anything. The attitude that you can't teach a dog new tricks, if you feel that way, then it's going to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. You're going to feel like, I can't master anything. I have no ability to learn skills. You're already three steps behind. So a lot of it is your attitude. Now when I read this quote here, everyone holds his fortune in his own hands like a sculptor, the raw materials he will fashion into a figure. I think of some of the self-help type of books to talk about paint.

A picture in your mind of how.

You want your life to look. You can paint that picture, but then you have to take the steps. You have to do both. So if you just start going into an apprenticeship and learning things without a sense of direction, without really knowing who you are, if you listen to your parents, to your friends, and you end up in law school or business, but it doesn't suit you, then all of the six steps are meaningless. If you know what you want to be, if you know you're going to be a rock star or a football player or something, but you have no patience and you can't go through this process and you just want power and fame and attention right now, then you're screwed as well. So you need both. You need a sense of direction and purpose, and you need some discipline. I call it self-mastery and awesome.

How do you discover your calling then?

How do you figure out what your life's task is?

Some people were talking before this interview, but I was talking about some people have, they want to find their purpose.

Or they want to leave a legacy, but you talk about the life's task, which I think is very interesting.

But how does someone discover this?

Well, it's like you already know it. It's in you already. You knew when you were a child you were interested in certain things. I know for me personally, I was interested in books and in history. I was just obsessed with history. I wanted to know how people lived a thousand years ago. And this is when I'm six, seven years old. But everybody out there who's listening to this, you have the same experience. It could have been sports, it could have been something physical, it could have been music, airplanes, or anything, right?

Yeah.

It's not that you knew exactly who you were going to be or the career path, but you were drawn to certain actions that fit with you when you did them, you did them well. It felt right. This is when you were a kid. Now what happens in life is you grow distant from it. I call it a sort of a voice inside of you that drew you to these things, that drew me to history and writing. And that voice starts to get weaker as you get older. As you listen to your parents and they tell you you've got to make money, and you listen to your friends and they tell you this is cool and that's not cool. And by the time you enter college and then you leave college and you're into the work world, you don't really know who you are. You've lost touch with that. and it's okay to lose touch with that throughout the course of your life. Everybody does. I have myself. But that voice needs to be there so that at some point you can come back to it and you can reconnect with who you are and think deeply and say, this is what I was meant to be doing. And it's not a question of suddenly saying, I'm going to quit my job and start playing the guitar or anything like that. It's not where you where everything has to be fun and pleasurable in life. It's more that you're crafting a career path that suits to some degree your interests, and that eventually 10-20 years down the line is going to lead to you being your own boss, being able to do whatever you want to do, and bringing out your uniqueness. And so it starts with a bit of reassessing who you are, thinking deeply about it, and getting excited about what you're pursuing. The main thing that we know about the brain is you don't learn deeply enough if you're not engaged in what you're learning. So you could spend 10 years learning law, but if it doesn't excite you, the depth of what you're learning, it just doesn't stick. But if you're excited, you can learn in two years what would take other people 10 years. So it's the key to everything. Don't follow the advice in this chapter. You're going to burn out and you're going to find yourself when you're in your 40s replaced by someone who's younger and cheaper. And I'll say one more thing. The key to the apprenticeship in life in the 21st century is skills. Skills, skills, and skills. You want to be accumulating skills, not just one skill, but three, four, five, six, or seven. You have to take advantage of the information age. the incredible access to information that you have. In your 20s, you want to take on, it could be just one job, but it could be three or four jobs. And the more skills you acquire, later in life you're going to combine them into some new business that you start or something like my weird books or whatever. You're going to find a way that really reflects who you are. But if you don't develop these skills in this Really competitive, hyper competitive world, forget it.

That conversation with Robert Creen set the table for everything here. And I keep coming back to the importance of identifying your purpose and then maximizing your capabilities. As for the School of Greatness, even though I always knew the podcast's purpose, it's been a continuous state of evolution as I try to make the most impact. I did, however, have three big dream guests from the very beginning that I just needed to interview. I'm still waiting on Will Smith on the Rock, but in episode 109, roughly one and a half years into the podcast, I scored an exclusive sit down with the one and only Tony Robbins. Tony had long been an inspiration for me. He came from nothing, growing up in a broken home and worked as a teenage janitor, and he built an unrivaled business and brand through hard work and hustle, vision and charisma. Now, I'm honored to call Tony a friend and what's more inspiring than anything is how much he's always given back.

I had a moment, like my whole life changed. It was kind of twofold. I was really young, like yourself back then, right? Working my tail off, trying to build a business. I mean, big goals, you know, you don't always succeed to start with.

Right.

You know, it was hard. It was hard. And I remember I was so frustrated because I was working 18-hour days and nothing was working and I was broke and I felt embarrassed, you know, I should be doing better than this. And so I was driving home from Orange County on the 57 freeway in San Gabriel Valley out near a place in Pomona, California. Probably doesn't know anybody else back I remember so vividly because it was almost midnight and I was at this breaking point and then I was like, why am I not, you know, doing better? And then I just pulled over the road and I used to keep these journals. I still have them, written journals. and I wrote in big lines, the secret to living is giving. And I started to cry. And I realized I am so focused on what am I not getting? I'm focusing on what I'm giving. So for six months, man, it turned me around. But then, you know, something else I get in your body. It was in my head, it was in my heart, but I had to get in there to stay. And I started going through some really tough times, and I lost everything financially. And I was mad at everybody because, like, I'd loaned a friend a thousand bucks and, you know, I had them doing well. He didn't even return my phone call. And what changed me was I was down to, I don't know, 22, 23 bucks, something like that. I don't know, it was $24. Enough that I knew that I didn't have money for food for the next week, clearly. And I didn't have any prospects. And I was living in Venice in this 400 square foot bachelor apartment, feeling sorry for myself, getting pissed off. And I thought, you know what? I gotta eat. So I'm not gonna drive my car 'cause I'm not gonna spend the gas. I'm not gonna pay for parking. I'm gonna go to an all-you-can-eat place and load up for the winter, right? So I could get more, like, one meal a day. Right. And so there's a place called Marina Del Rey, not far from Venice, and it's a beautiful community, and it's right on the water. And there's a place called El Torito. It's still there. It's a little restaurant. It had taco bar and all that kind of stuff. So I walked there for the three miles, and I go, I'm gonna go and load up. And I was all about myself and getting through this. And this little, well, this woman walked the door. I actually very attractive lady. That's probably why I caught my eye. And I went to see who her boyfriend is, and. there's nobody up there. There's a little guy down here. It was obviously her son. And he's wearing this three-piece suit, you know, a little vest. He opens the door for her. He pulls out the chair for her. And it was just. He stared to his mother's eyes. I mean, it was just pierced into her eyes. I don't know what it was, but something about him was just so moving. It was such a sweet, caring, loving young man. It was mother that moved me. So I. I paid for my meal. I always left 17, 18 bucks. Put it back in my pocket. I left, walked up this young man, introduced myself and I said, hi, I don't remember his name. I think he said his name was Ronnie. And I said, Ronnie, I said, you,'re really, I said, you,'re a class act. I saw how you opened the door for your lady. I saw how you held up the chair for your lady. He goes, She's my mom. I said, that's even more classy. And I said, so cool that you're taking her out to lunch like this. And he goes, well, I'm not really taking her out to lunch because I'm.

Just 11 and I don't have a job, you know? I said, Yes, you are. And I had no plan. I literally just reached in my pocket A force inside and out, the Range Rover Sport is available with a choice of powerful engines, including a plug-in hybrid with an estimated range of 53 miles. We all know that staying hydrated is so important, and we've heard it a.

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Them right there in front of him. You look at me like this? He goes, I can't take that. I said, Sure you can. He said, well, why? I said, Because I'm bigger than you are. And he got this big grin on his face. His eyes got this big. And I didn't, I just shook his hand. I didn't even look at this, his mom. And I just walked out the door. But the reason I tell you the story is I had no car. I had no money. I did not, I was euphoric. I was like flying home. I was like, you know, I probably looked like an idiot, probably skipping or something. I was just, I, and what I felt was, I should have been like, what the hell did you just do? I have no meal or I wasn't gonna eat. I went on that night, I laid out a plan, and the plan was gonna take me, you know, 10 days, two weeks. So I thought, well, people fast for a week. I could fast for a week, you know, that kind of thing. And I have this great mindset about it. I woke up the next morning and I get the old regular snail mail shows up. And it's this guy I've called a zillion times. He wouldn't return my call. I open it up, there's a check, $1,000 plus interest and an apology. Wow. So I'm sitting there and I started to cry, honestly, and I was just like, why did this happen? And I don't know if it's true, but I decided that day this happened.

Because I did the right thing.

Because I didn't have a plan, it wasn't a strategy. I just felt this little soul beside me. I knew it was right and I did it. And I didn't do it because I thought I could or I couldn't. I didn't even think about it. That's the day I became a wealthy man, 'cause I didn't have any money, but scarcity left my body. And I had plenty of ups and downs since that time, in various times in my life, but I never went back to that, oh my God, how's it gonna happen? It's like breathing. Do you stop and say, God, is there gonna be any air before you take a breath? You know it's gonna be there. You don't run your life by that aspect. And so that to me is what it's about, is showing people, if you won't give a dime out of a dollar, don't bullshit yourself. You'll never give a million out of 10 million or 10 million out of 100 million. It's just not gonna happen. But if you can do that now, you don't ever get beyond scarcity. You start behind it. You make a decision to get beyond it.

So how does someone, when they're living.

In scarcity, they don't even fear, and.

It'S like this emotional feeling.

It's in your body, like you say.

When you're like, I can't even pay for my meal, how am I gonna start giving?

What are some things that people can do to start overcoming that mindset or.

Start strengthening it or shifting it?

I'll tell you what I did when I was first on my own. My mom kicked my dad out when I was 17. She's very powerful woman, my poor father, so they all learned how to get the boot. She thought I was in his side, so she kicked me out next. I was 17. She chased me out with a knife. She wouldn't have hurt me, but I wasn't going back in the room. And so I had to figure out what to do. And I didn't play stay and I ended up staying in somebody's laundry room for a while. And I started reading and feeding my mind. And then I developed this whole system. And the system was really simple. And I tell people now, say number one, every single day, you got to feed and strengthen your mind. Until you do that, you're always going to be in fear. Because fear is automatic. The human brain is designed for survival. It's not designed for success. Your brain is not designed to make you happy. That's your job. The only way you're going to do it is if you feed your mind. Because otherwise, weeds grow automatically. My coach, my mentor, Jim Rohn, used to tell me, Tony, every day you got to stand guard at the door of your mind. You got to watch what's going in. Because if you're not careful, stuff will go in. And he said, not all the times it's somebody who cares about you. He said, you know, if your family. Yeah. If your worst enemy puts sugar in your coffee, he said, what happens? I said, you got sweet coffee. He goes, what if your best friend by accident or your family don't mean to, they drop one drop of strychnine in your coffee, you're dead. He said, so life, sugar and strychnine, and watch your coffee. Right, right. So every day I decided I I'm old enough. Honestly, there was no internet those days. And pretty ancient. I used to go to the library because there's the only place you go. and I would read biographies. I'd read people's lives and it would make me go, Wait a second. As bad as I think it is, the greatest people in the world had it worse. Sure. So there's something here. So you feed your mind. Jim Rohn, you say to me, Skip a meal, but don't skip reading. He said, Read 30 minutes a day. I don't give a damn what it is. Today, I don't mean internet crap. I mean read something, a biography. Read something that's a strategy. Read something that's going to change your life. Then the second thing I tell people is feeding your mind's great, but you've got to also strengthen your body. and you do that as an athlete, naturally. I learned to do that because fear is physical, right? You know where you feel it. And if you go work out, if you go lift, if you go run, even if you're out of shape, you just go for an intense walk. That experience alone changes your life. Every day in my life, the first thing I do before I do my priming, if I'm in one of my homes, I jump in some hot water for fun, and then I jump in freezing water. And I have, you know, a river, you know, in one of my homes in Sun Valley, and I've got cold plunges everywhere else. So I go in 57 degree water.

Boom.

And what it does is like it's teaching my brain, I do, I tell my brain what to do and it does it. It doesn't feel like it doesn't want to do it and every cell in your body is alive, right? So it doesn't have to be like two hours worth of something. It could be something you do for 30 seconds, but it's training your body to be strong because a strong body could strong mind and vice versa.

You heard Tony there talking about a growth mindset. He has always hammered that home. Even when you're having more success than you ever dreamed, Dream bigger. My first Tony Robbins interview also marked a shift in the School of Greatness. I had started with nothing but my phone, obsessing over content, but not over production quality. And at this point, I had already upgraded to better audio gear, but booking Tony Robbins made me realize I needed to level up the product again. I made sure to get a camera crew for that sit down, and then I invested. in equipment, in producers, and now I have a state-of-the-art studio and the School of Greatness produces as much video as it does audio. And Tony also mentioned strengthening your body. And as an athlete, I've always tried to push myself. You've heard the cliches, no pain, no gain, no pressure, no diamonds. But when I was young, I sort of missed the point of pushing myself. I used to think it was all about winning. that an athlete's mindset was to achieve results no matter what the cost. That it was all about the destination, the end goal, not the journey. And I would get so mad whenever I lost, even if it was out of my own control. Listen, there's nothing wrong with winning. Winning is good. Winning is often an important goal. But winning can't be the only thing. And winning is a byproduct of successful mindsets, actions, routines, and habits. It's not an end. so where do you start? There is no growth, no greatness, without mastering your mind. You need mental toughness if you're going to be successful. And if there's one person who taught me the value of embracing discomfort to reach your potential, it's David Goggins. David is a retired Navy SEAL, and he holds the distinction of being the only member of the US Armed Forces to have completed SEAL training, the US Army Ranger School, and Air Force Tactical Air Controller training. All of this after overcoming an abusive father, extreme poverty, racism, obesity, and a learning disability. Now he's one of the world's best endurance athletes. And although he has finished more than 60 ultramarathons, triathlons, and ultratriathlons, David says that he's not built any differently from me or you. He's just conditioned himself to ignore the limits that his mind wants to place on his body.

You gotta start diving into those things that you are afraid of. You don't gain confidence by going to the spot that makes you feel good. It's gonna be a false reality. And the second life gives you that challenge, all you wanna do is go back to what gave you confidence, is that happy spot. No, I just stutter severely bad. So right now, I don't know how many people are gonna watch this. You know what gives me confidence? It's knowing I no longer care if I sit here and start stuttering to you. That's what gives me confidence, is facing these things, overcoming them. And maybe not overcoming them every day, but facing them. And facing them and facing them pretty soon like this, you know what, man? This is where it's at. It's not in that comfort zone. It's in the discomfort zone. is where my confidence is getting built. That's where it's getting built. They want an easier answer. There has to be an easier way. There's not. I'm sorry. I searched for it my entire life.

You cheated.

I did.

You lied.

I lied. I did everything. And I still felt empty. I coach a lot of people nowadays, billionaires, who call me on the phone and say, Man, I'm still missing something. It's because they did what they were good at. And they had this beautiful family, two, three houses, cars, everything. Has everything in the world on the outside looking in, like, My God, man, how can you be unhappy? I walk around with a backpack with all my stuff in it, no car. And I walk around happiest person in the world. Have nothing, happy as hell. It's because I found out the whole key to life. It's not in all that. You have to face yourself. So many people live to be 100 years old and they die miserable, having everything, because they never examined. I call it my live autopsy. You never examine this. Happiness, peace, enlightenment, it's all up here, man. It's all up here. If I start talking like this, people go, man, you know, I don't know. It's the truth, man.

Yeah, it is true.

It's all up here. You just gotta be willing to go and face it. And that's the hard part.

What's your biggest insecurity today?

Not to be arrogant, I don't have one.

What was the last one you had? And when was that?

The last one I had was probably still me. Me. We used to live in a $7 a month place when I was growing up. And that- Is it in Buffalo or is this- this is in Indiana. So like we had a lot of money in Buffalo. And when my mom left, my dad, we went to nothing for a period of time before she got on her feet. And that $7 a month place used to be, it was who I was. I was no one. I was in the sewer. My mom wasn't there. I had nothing. And you always feel like you have nothing. I had to cheese so much. I was a Navy SEAL. I'd gone through Ranger School. I've gone through Delta Force selection training. I've done so much. I run 200 miles, pull-up records, everything. Learned to read and write, became pretty intelligent. And I still was like, man, what is wrong with me? It wasn't until I got real sick, and I was about 38 years old, I'm 43 now, and my life got real quiet. I went from running 205 miles in 39 hours to I couldn't get out of bed. The doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. But once again, it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Why is that?

In that moment, when my whole life changed, I went from a guy who worked out every day, trained every day, to a guy who couldn't get out of bed. My life was taken from me. The one thing that kept me going was my training.

Now you didn't have that.

I didn't have anything.

Now you just had to sit alone.

Alone.

And not train.

And that's what changed me. And that's when I realized I hadn't thought, hadn't taken time to think about what I'd done in my life.

You hadn't reflected yet.

I hadn't reflected. I'd done all these things, but there was no finish line. I still believe that, but you must have time to reflect.

Yeah.

I was just going. I finished a race of life. And I wouldn't even receive my medal.

I go on.

You're like, on to the next.

I get in the car and I go. You won't even take the medal?

Gone. Don't care about it.

Like, I'm not gonna waste an hour sitting around for this ceremony.

Most people sit around and that's what they like.

They need the ceremony if I accomplish something. The validation. I haven't done anything. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. I'm just getting started. I'm just getting started. That's right. When I started figuring out life, that I was leaving so much in the tank, I caught my 40% rule. Yeah. I was leaving so much in the tank. Once I realized, my God, man, I was this dumb, fat kid being bullied, and now I'm a 180-pound person who lost 106 pounds in less than three months. Learn to read, learn to do this.

Learn to do that.

I was like, I need more. I was fueling my mind with everything. I never took time to say, my God, you came from this hell and you're here. So those insecurities, and this is how I explain it the best way. Seal training became pretty hard and a lot of guys weren't getting through it. So they designed a SEAL PEP prep program.

Like a boot camp for the boot camp.

That's right. And it was two months. In my last two years before I retired from the military, they sent me there to train these kids.

Wow.

To get ready for the- 18, 19, 20 year olds, yeah.

Young kids. So when they get to Navy SEAL training, man, they were physical studs. They were running, swimming. I mean, they were hybrids.

Wow.

But they get the buds and the same amount of people would quit.

Why is that?

This is why. We were training bigger, stronger, faster quitters.

It's not about, It's not the mind.

That's right. We weren't diving into the sewer. Everybody's got a story. We don't share it on social media. We share our nice life on social media. We all have a dungeon. I'm just willing to talk about mine. Most of us aren't willing to talk about it. I'm going to talk about my dungeon. I wasn't getting into the dungeon of these guys' minds. I wasn't building that so-called mental toughness. Mental toughness isn't something that you sample. It's something that you live in every day. So when something hard would happen to these kids, like in Hell Week, it would draw on something that made them very insecure and they look for comfort. Whenever hardness comes and you don't know what it is, it may be different for you than it is for me, but you go back to your insecurities. And then when you go back to insecurities, you then look for comfort within those insecurities. And we all look for that cookie that your mom used to give you when you were sad, when you were sick. We look for our wife or our husband. We look for comfort. It's in those moments you must retrain your mind to think differently in hell. I wasn't training them to do that.

Why weren't you training them?

I wasn't training myself to that because at that time, I was doing what I was told. These guys need to meet a standard.

Physical standard.

A physical standard. The physical standard is not what they need to meet. It's a mental standard you must meet in life. So going back to when I was sick, I was hitting the physical standards. I wasn't meeting the mental standard. The mental standard is you must know how far you've come. Wow. I had come 8,000 miles from where I started. But if you never know that, you're still in the $7 a month place. When I was sick, I was able to slow it down and reflect back on my entire life. And in that bed, when I thought I was dying, because that story is long, that sick portion of my life is long, I didn't care if I died or lived. Because I was for the first time in my life happy and at peace. I reflected back on where it started.

You said, while I have come a long way.

That's right. And no one saved me. It wasn't like someone came down here and guided me through life. When you figure this out on your own, the amount of pride and dignity and self-respect you have, that's why I walk around the streets with a backpack and just like, I don't need anything else. You figure it out by going inside yourself, by callousing over the victim's mentality. never pick the easy road. Never, never. And it always goes back to kind of that hero mentality. Never pick the easy road ever in your life. That is the one road that is doom. It is doom. If you want something like six minute abs, all these different things, people want it so fast. you may achieve what you wanted, but you want the permanent fix. The permanent fix comes from the hard road. The hard road gives you permanent results. The easy road gives you the quick fix. You will go back to where you started on the easy route. That hard route is so permanent that it ends up callousing you. Everywhere.

Everywhere.

You keep a six-pack forever.

Because you know the work that goes into it. Yeah.

Man, David Goggins just blew my mind. Nowadays, whenever I'm struggling to accomplish goals or don't feel like working hard, I think about his words and his story. But mastering your mind and pushing your body and creating your own reality, that's only part of the journey towards greatness. A fulfilling life is also largely dependent on the quality of your relationships. Being around a partner, friends, family, colleagues that love you, accept you, and want to see you grow. Enter Brené Brown. There are few people on earth who understand the complexity of the human condition better than the renowned researcher, professor, author, speaker, and host. Brené studies shame, vulnerability, belonging, all crucial elements of authentic relationships. Most of us don't want to think about those things, forget opening up about them in an authentic way. Personally, a large part of my story is allowing myself to be vulnerable, to admit my shame, to search for true belonging. Many of you know that this was not easy for me because I've suffered serious trauma in my past. And we'll get to that in part two of this podcast. For now though, I want to revisit Berné's incredibly wise words.

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... Maine, where.

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Should it stay or should it go? What if I mess it up?

What if I have to pay taxes now?

If you're unsure about an old 401k, it's okay. Fidelity can help you understand your options, avoid mistakes and taxes, and feel good about your decisions for your retirement savings. To learn more, visit fidelity.com/rollover. Be sure to consider all your available options and the applicable fees and features of each before moving your retirement assets. Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC member NYSE, SIPC. I'm always looking for, I don't know about you, but I'm always looking for the roadmap. Like I wanna find the researcher, storyteller, Christian, lover of all people, fighter of the resistance. I wanna 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.

Yeah.

We're all trying to figure it out.

I don't get to copy anybody. And so it's hard.

Yeah.

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. 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. I didn't want to stand against them because I want them to belong. 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 fricking hard.

Isn't vulnerability courage?

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.

Right.

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

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. 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. 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.

What Brene Brown teaches is so, so hard to internalize, but once you do, once you face your shame and you allow yourself to be vulnerable and stop worrying about fitting in, then you have the opportunity to really change, really grow, and really chase the life you want. But what if you want to change, but you don't exactly know how? And what if you don't know what you want? A lot of people, especially right now, feel stuck and it can seem impossible to figure out where you should be headed. that's how I felt when I was on my sister's couch. And I know how difficult it is to envision an idea of a new future, let alone go and craft it. Fortunately, there are tools out there to help. And I learned one of them from my good friend Chris Lee. Chris is an extremely successful leadership coach. He's been on the podcast more than any other guest 14 times because he has that much wisdom to offer. Still, I keep coming back to our first episode together, episode number 36, where he led me through an exercise that forever changed my perspective. We're going to pick up this interview with Chris talking about how to define your future in a moment of struggle.

Once I've identified the breakdown and acknowledged it in a positive way, took responsibility, I've taken responsibility for the breakdown, evaluating, okay, so How did I create this? What was missing for me or what could I have done different? Then I forgive self and others. Then I'm ready to make a new commitment. Now I'm ready to make a new declaration. Okay, so what, now what? Past is over. What's my new vision? What's my new commitment to my business, my new commitment to my body, my new commitment to my relationship, my new commitment to life? And I make a new commitment. And by making a new commitment, it's important to visualize it. And one of the things that I recommend is closing your eyes and doing a visualization.

So let's do this right now. Let's put people through a visualization. Yeah, let's do that right now. And walk them through their vision or their dreams.

So what I would say is right now wherever you are, just stop what you're doing. and take a moment to close your eyes. One of the things that I do is I ask people to put their hands over their heart because I think that when things are driven from the heart, the results are extraordinary. You could have things driven from your heart or things driven from your ego.

And so, before you get started, this is a powerful experience.

I want everyone to have the opportunity to experience this. So if you're at work, if you're sitting at your desk, just literally take a few minutes right now to stop what you're doing and do this little quick exercise. I think it'll be really cool for you guys. Go ahead.

Not only is it cool, it's effective in having me grounded in what I want because we are so focused on what we don't want and we're so focused on stress and focus on anxiety. And one of the things that I do in my seminars is that I give people the opportunity just to have a moment to check in with themselves. So, what I would ask is, I'm gonna actually do it with you, Louis, right now. And through you, we'll do it with all the people that are listening. So, just close your eyes and put your hands over your heart and take a deep breath in and let it out. And just take a moment to visualize. your life in one year. So it's a year later. And I want you to imagine.

The.

Life that you're living. You've accomplished the goals that you set. And more importantly, you're feeling and experiencing the feelings and experience that you've always wanted to. That one thing you've been searching for, whether it's a relationship, Family.

Health.

Finances, joy. You are now experiencing it. So think about your vision for yourself. Your body, your health, your mind, spirituality, your vision for your family, your vision for your world. It's a year later and that vision is now a reality. so in your mind, I want you to imagine moment to moment what it feels like to actually live it. So you've achieved the weight that you wanted. You've achieved the relationships that you wanted. Maybe your dream is to have that soul mate next to you. The woman of your dreams. The woman that you thought was unavailable. And she's now lying in bed next to you. And you wake up and she grabs your hand and she looks at you with a big smile and she's crying because she can't believe. but she's with you. So just look at each moment of the day, living that. Experience it, smell it, taste it. What does it sound like? And in your mind's eye go through the entire day. living and accomplishing that dream. Maybe your goal was to lose X amount of pounds. You're stepping on the scale at the gym and you've hit your goal. Or your goal is to be united with your family that they weren't talking to each other. You're at the dinner table and you're all connected. Or your goal is to have your business finally hit that profit number.

And.

You just checked in with your bank account or checked in with your accountant and you've exceeded it. See yourself experiencing that and enjoying that. And I want you to think back at the last year. What were the limiting beliefs that you needed to give up to accomplish this? What were the actions you needed to take? So see yourself celebrating health, relationships, finances, family. The life you've always dreamed of is now a reality. and you can't wait for what's next. Take a deep breath in.

And let.

It out and open your eyes. What did you experience? What did you see? Share your own vision that you saw in a year happening?

For me, I saw a vision of this amazing environment that I was living in. And all the people that I cared about on my team and my business were people I loved in the world and they were all laughing and having fun and joyful. We all had this vision together and every day we were working on this vision with passion and joy and energy. and we were all on the same page. If one person had a breakdown, we were supportive and shifted out of it. And it was sunny. It was, you know, a big space with a lot of light and just passion, dancing, joy, energy. That's awesome for the business. And I just saw us breaking our goals. When you're talking about opening your bank account, I was like, I just saw us breaking the goals every time we'd set goals because we were coming from this vision. I was picturing myself next to this amazing, passionate woman.

I saw her.

I know.

I saw her, man. I saw her next to you in bed.

Yeah, yeah.

I felt like, you know, I was invading your privacy.

Chris just saw my room before we started recording my studio here, so. I saw myself with this woman just crying and smiling and laughing in the morning.

Like you found the home, right?

Yeah.

Like what you've been looking for your whole life, you found it right there.

I saw my hand in her hand.

That's incredible.

And.

I saw my family together in the mountains, snowboarding and having this amazing experience. and coming together because I sourced it and I'm creating that and I'm bringing everyone together. And that's the main things I saw. I didn't get in the community much, but.

Well, and as here, as people hear this, some people skeptical might go, oh, that's so stupid. I want you to know I was one of those people. I used to, when I, when I closed my eyes, I saw nothing but black because I had no imagination. And so one of the key ingredients to success at any level is the ability to close your eyes, to take a moment, and I recommend that you actually do this every single day. Every day take five, ten minutes to just envision and visualize the life that you're headed towards and the life that you want. If you've got the power to imagine it, you've got the power to create it.

I always believed in the power of visualization, conceptually, but Chris really taught me how to put it into practice. And I feel like a lot of my success took root in that visualization. The wonderful relationship I'm in, the community I have around me, writing a New York Times bestseller, building an amazing team at the School of Greatness, and all the goals we've hit together, like becoming a top 100 podcast and claiming the number one spot in health and fitness. I'm so excited about the goals we're continuing to set. Finding a way to impact 100 million people a week. And if you believe it, you can make it come true.

Wow.

I feel like we've covered a lot of ground today, from facing your fears to taking control of your life instead of letting life take control of you. No matter what's going on in your life, no matter how much you're struggling, you can turn it around. And if you feel like things are going great. There's always a next level of greatness. If you enjoyed this episode, let me know about that and share it with a friend. And I can't wait to bring you part two of this podcast, where we'll go even deeper. I won't give you the full roster for part two, but I will say it features Kobe Bryant. Rest in peace. If you haven't listened to some of the podcasts I mentioned today, they're all in the description of this to episode. And remember, please subscribe over on Apple podcast or Spotify to get my full back catalog. And I want to leave you with this quote from Vincent Van Gogh. Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. And if no one's told you today, remember that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there. and do something great.

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