FIND DEEP MEANING Life & DISCOVER YOUR PURPOSE By Doing This... | Rob Bell & Lewis Howes

In times of disruption, trauma and tragedy, you either dig in your heels and give your energies to reclaiming the thing that got lost and making it great again and idealizing it as once great. Or you let the pain and disruption break you open and you find the seeds of imagination to build a new thing.

I think you gotta have a dream.

The School of Greatness. Really? Heck yeah.

Please welcome Lewis Howes. Welcome everyone back to the School of Greatness podcast. Super Pumped from I have Rob Bell in the house. Air pound.

COVID fist bumps.

So glad you're here, man.

Over the top of face masks.

Exactly. So glad you're here, man. It's so good to see you. I think this is our fourth or fifth interview together. We've done probably three in the past. Every time someone asks me, who is your favorite or some of your favorite guests, I have to reference you. You're always in my top five. Of course, Kobe is my favorite. and I've had some other big names that I've always wanted to have, but you came into my life when I was just like needing more spiritual grounding and a compass to keep me on the right track and also just to like answer questions that I had about life. And I feel like every time you come on, I get more and more clear and less clear at the same time.

Okay.

Because spirituality and the universe, is hard to understand.

Yeah, yeah. That's the thing about actual mystery. Mystery isn't something you can't know. Mystery is something you can know endlessly. So, for a lot of people, they bump into mystery and they're like, that's just seems, it's just all fuzzy, woo-woo, whatever. Oh, no, no, no, no. Love, the nature of the cosmos, the depth of the human heart, these are great mysteries, but you can actually know them. It's just a different kind of knowing. It's like a bottomless infinite knowing.

What's the mystery that you still don't know?

I mean think about you, like the first time we met and talked. I remember in that interview, oh he's asking questions because he's a good interviewer because he has a show and he's building a whole thing here. But he's into this. He's not just asking, he's asking. I remember- For me. Yeah. There was a deep knowing you were after. and right away I was like, oh, I didn't know your background, but I was like, oh, there's a whole history here. I remember sensing Lewis probably came up through some world that gave him some vision of the world because most people, well, all of us, we came up through a tribe, through a subculture, through a family system, business, academic, sports, whatever, that gave us a way to navigate the world. But then you go out and become who you're becoming. And some of that works, but some of it doesn't. So there's this ancient pattern of orientation, disorientation, reorientation.

And I feel like every season of life you're going through the same pattern.

You're often doing this. So when I first met you, I remember thinking, oh yeah, Lewis is like, there's a bunch of things that he was handed that don't work anymore. So he sort of like tossed those. But his heart is open and his mind is engaged. I remember that thinking. So he's looking, okay, so how do you think about even like the word God, which essentially means ultimate reality. And oftentimes people think of the word God as like a religious term, which is much more helpful to think about it. Like, what is the nature of this universe that we call home? Like, what's the thing behind the thing behind the thing? What's the source? Because people are always talking about God, they just use different words for it. Remember you were asking all those sorts of questions. Is it a place of love, generosity, hope? Are we going to be okay? Or is it a cold, dark, lonely place where you might as well just throw some elbows and fight for your peace and see what happens?

Yeah, something I love about your message in one of our interviews, I deeply remember one of the interviews we did, you saying something about the universe is 13 billion years old and there's so much dark matter Unknown, darkness, scary, crazy things, and we would actually not exist without the dark matter.

Isn't that like, yeah, scientists are like basically 4% of the universe is sort of known and 96% of it black holes, dark matter, dark energy, and we kind of have a vague sense, even the best scientists are like we kind of have a sense of what that is. We just know that It's somehow integral to the life of the universe. And then you talk to most of us who have dark matter, regrets, mistakes, things we would have done differently, things were like, please don't bring that up. And yet, it's the engine of life. It's how you grow, it's how you expand, how your consciousness awakens is generally the tough stuff.

So we need the tough stuff in order to grow, expand, live and understand What the 4% of beauty?

Well, think about like you're at dinner, like you're at a dinner party and there's some guy named Chuck at the end of the table and he's like, I was always pretty awesome. And then I tried some other stuff and I was good at that too. Then I started branch out and I was pretty sweet at that. Get that guy, right? Get that guy that's in. What? So boring. But this person over here was like, yeah, I fell face down three times. I lost all my money. I tried some other stuff. Okay, now this is somebody. It's like the ache is actually what draws us to each other.

Where we connect.

Yeah, right.

When there's someone in your position who has been a spiritual guide for so many years and this has been your path and your mission, how does someone like you handle adversity when it comes now? Or do you not even see adversity as actually a bad thing or something that knocks you off track? How do you actually stay at a level of grounded spiritual peace when it hits you?

Honestly, now, a good chunk of the time I start smiling. Anger, rage, something where I was like, what was I thinking? Why did I fire off that email? The real art is to witness to it. oh look, there's I'm angry and then there's oh look, anger. So the problem is for most people adversity, they identify, the adversity becomes everything. But the real art of a spiritual vision for life is you're learning how to witness to it. Oh look, this person gets under my skin. -Wow. -In like a supernatural way. Like in the book, I talk about so, so you can just let you can have it be parts, division. I want nothing to do with that person because they walk in the room and my blood boils or all parts exist within a greater whole. This person is my teacher. So, there's some reason why they get under my skin, why they provoke me. Why they can just set me off like that. What is it? What are they here to teach me? But yeah, adversity, like even this past half year with lockdown and there are days that are just, what the... I wake up in the morning, take the dog for a walk and I'm.

Like, what are we... What's happening with this world?

Like your head is just spinning. So I just go, okay, hold on, take a deep breath, witness to it. And then remember that you'll have everything you need for the day when you need it. The only place you can ever be is here. The only thing that goes on forever is now.

You can't think about the future too much, yeah.

But adversity, I noticed recently somebody mentioned failure and almost conceptually I don't know. I sense you have the same thing. Do you even now Have the category of failure?

No, I mean we talk about all the time is feedback.

Right.

It's information that's telling us what we shouldn't be doing or what we could be doing better.

Right, it's data.

Yeah, it's information.

And a good story.

Great story.

So...

There's no good movie out there. It's just like the person's life was amazing. There was no adversary, there was no challenger, you know. It's like you have to conquer something.

Right.

So it's a good story.

Right, right, right. There's this old story in the book of Genesis about Jacob wrestles an angel, and he gets his hip injured. And the rabbis talk about Jacob walks away limping, but he's experienced the divine.

Why?

So there's like a limp.

Why is he experiencing the divine?

He's wrestled with who he is in the first time you meet him. He's pretending to be his brother. Who are you? And he gives his brother's name. But then when he wrestles with the divine, I'm Jacob. So actually if you trace the story, it's somebody becoming comfortable in his own skin. Because when you first meet him, he's trying to be somebody else.

Now he's owning himself.

And now he's, I'm Jacob. And so this path we all go on to learn to be comfortable in your own skin. This is how I am. This is where I'm from. That's why Lebron always says he's from Akron. You gotta own every square inch of your story. Yeah.

What happens if we don't own a story?

You got bits and pieces that you don't know what to do with. Often they haunt the house.

Ooh.

They're present. Anything that doesn't get named or expressed, then it's lurking somewhere. You develop a shadow. So think about any Family system, any business, any partnership where there's two columns, things we can talk about and things we can't. The things in the column that we can't talk about that can't be said are running the show.

Those are the things you need to be talking about.

Yes, and if they can't be spoken, then they're the shadow, they're the underbelly, they haunt the house, and they actually are running the show.

That's what's keeping you from what you want.

More joy. Everybody's agreed not to talk about that. Tell me what you can't talk about, and we can diagnose quite quickly the thing.

Why is it so hard for people to talk about the thing they don't want to name? When that's the answer.

Right, right, right, right, right, right. Yeah, the terror of could we speak that and be okay? Could we face that and it wouldn't blow things to pieces? Yeah, it might. It might, the truth might get spoken and the current structure and arrangement might be blasted to pieces.

But at least you'll be free.

You'd be free, so which?

You want freedom?

Would you like?

And potential chaos of blowing up the system?

Right. Or... You can't have new creation without a disruption of the current creation. So like in America right now, we need to police ourselves in new and better ways. Greater community responsibility, less brutality, obviously. But to police ourselves in a better way, there will have to be a disruption in the way that we currently understand what we mean by policing. Because it's not working. And generally, somebody somewhere has a vested interest In the current arrangement, like people generally don't understand things if their paycheck is dependent on them not understanding it. -Right. -So yeah, for there to be new creation, there'll probably have to be some sort of disruption of the present creation, which always has a structure, which always has somebody from a vested interest. Power, money is probably lurking. -Mm-. -Yeah, so In some ways, the work that we do is helping people like, it's okay. It's okay. You can speak the thing, you can say it, you can name it. Yeah, it might be blown to shreds, but on the other side, you'll be free.

Peace.

It'll be so much better.

What are the questions all humans should be asking themselves during a time like this of uncertainty, of chaos, of I'm not sure what's gonna happen, of information overload when we don't even know where tomorrow will bring us. We don't even know if we're going to have our jobs and health and scariness. What are the questions we should ask ourselves about life, God, why we're here?

Yeah. The first thing is what new creation is waiting to be birthed in this. So you think about like America spends twice as much on health care as other first world countries and our health care is way worse. So and most personal bankruptcies are rooted in A healthcare system doesn't work. So everything is spiritual. This is all spiritual. How do we... What does health look like? And the way that we've arranged ourselves. So you can see it all as a... This thing isn't working. But if you immediately have that, this thing isn't working. Okay, well then how should we arrange it? So grief and imagination. have a long-standing relationship. Because grief is loss. And anytime you're losing something, anytime there's grief which is loss, that's always where the seeds of imagination are hiding. This thing is passing away. Well, then by default we're gonna have to cook up something new. So you can see it, especially in the ancient tradition, anytime there's grief, that's always the moment to keep your eyes peeled because this is always where the imagination begins to arise. Well, if that thing's gone, well, how would we do it if we had to start over? So I think that's the number one question right now. Are there better ways for education? Think of all the things that aren't working like they used to. And you can see that disorientation as.

Terrifying and Well, you know what's interesting is it's typically hard for a lot of people to make a change in their life without a near-death experience, without a sickness, a cancer scare, someone in the family close to them dying, a divorce, a death of something.

Yes.

Well, for us to say this isn't working for me, I've got to start eating better. I got fired from my job. You know what? I didn't like it there anyways. Like, what do I really want? It was weirdly a gift that they gave me.

Yeah.

So it's almost like, Since the world hasn't been able to make the change on its own, it's being forced to change in a drastic and uncomfortable, painful way.

Yes. When I started out like 24, 25, I started out as a pastor. And so the job was basically walking with people through the awful stuff of life. The good stuff, weddings, but funerals. Hospital.

You were the one showing up at the hospital, at the home.

And I wasn't even prepared for this. The job of the pastor is somebody calls and is like, My dad just got sent to prison. We need somebody with an official credential because none of us can get in to visit him right now. Could you please go visit him? Because he hasn't had any visitors. Okay. So I would, I, and for, especially in the beginning, my like mantra was, I'll go anywhere. I'll talk to anybody. But what happened is I would end up the 16-year-old hung himself and now I'm in the hospital room with his family. I'm standing over the casket with this guy and his wife is in the casket and this is the woman he's been with for 50 years. I mean this and I'm like 25, 26. But what I kept noticing is I would see the person in the lowest moment, but then I'd see them a month later, six months later, 12 months later, and I would watch how some people got smaller. It's almost like their soul constricted. They became bitter. Life owes me. Stuck back there. But then most people, which I didn't see coming, most people It took them to these new places they never would have gone.

Breakthroughs.

Big, wide, expansive. And then I would notice people would say things to me like they'd say, that was a hell on earth. You were with me in that time. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. And yet now, if I hadn't have gone through that, I can't imagine where I would be. Right.

It's almost like we need those things.

Oh, so weird because they would say things like, Honestly now, and you could see the word on the tip of their tongue was grateful. They'd be like, I'm honestly kind of, I can't say grateful, but that's actually the word, but it feels so counterintuitive. And yet, so right away, like my late 20s, there's something upside down about the whole way this thing works. And all of the endless striving to win, be successful, make a bunch of money, have everybody, Okay fine, yeah that's great. But the actual game that you really want to be playing is like upside down. Yeah. It works so differently than everybody was taught.

What's the game we should be playing?

Well what's interesting is how many people have a deep knowing. So they would be like, my job isn't working out, I don't feel like my life is where it's supposed to be. And just a couple of questions in instantly, I'd say, Do you think that or are you reading off someone else's script? Or even inviting people, Please don't tell me what you think. Tell me what sits on top of your heart. And to this day, a lot of the work I do is just inviting people, 'Cause soul knows, heart knows. Mind chatters, it compares, it's envious, it's jealous. Your mind is all over the place. It's like looking at someone's Instagram followers. It's lovely, it's also a wreck. Yeah. But the amount of times when you sit in silence or you create a space where somebody can listen for the real thing, I'll often invite people to sink down into heart and the person knows instantly, oh, that direction, that person, that job. So, There's like a deep knowing that all human beings have. And the number of people who would say something within me was telling me things, but I went with what everybody around me was saying. And later I was like, I knew it the whole time. Yeah. So, I think that's actually the great cultural crisis right now.

You've talked about in the past about how doubt is actually essential for faith. I think, I don't know how you do that.

They're like, we have partners. Right?

It's like you need doubt in order to have faith. I think something like that.

Sure, sure.

So how should people address doubt, whether it be doubt on the external or internal self-doubt? Also, is there anything you're doubting right now?

Yeah, doubt's really interesting. I think it's all part of it. Of course you have questions. If you don't have questions right now, where is this thing headed? What is going on? Yeah, doubt is all part of it because it's all part of the full spectrum of the human experience. I actually now, the work that I do, the stuff I do is because when I first started to think about it, I'm like, I don't know if I could pull that off. I don't know. Could I, I don't know. Could that, would that work?

Really? The great, the great spiritual Rob Bell.

Oh yeah, sure.

10 time bestselling author. One of the most influential people in America, Time Magazine, on tour with Oprah. You ask yourself, could I pull this off?

The first line of this book is, My grandma used to keep cash in her bra.

Yeah, and she would ask you if 10 or 25?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You'd ask her for 20 and she'd say, well, 10 or 25? She'd reach in her shirt. When all of a sudden I realized, oh, this book is you starting way back there. And telling what it's like to be you and all the missteps and awkward moments. Would that work? Could I do that? Is there something there? The question mark. The like curiosity. That's a weird book to write. Opening with that line, like, yeah, that's how it works now for me.

How do you find the self-confidence or the belief when you doubt yourself? How do you develop that skill, whether it's a spiritual, mental, physical skill? What is that?

I always ask, where's the joy? Or where's the life? So is it good or bad? Is it right or wrong? Is it not interesting questions? The question is, well, one question is simply, where's the curiosity? 'Cause curiosity is underrated. Calling is overrated, curiosity is underrated. Calling is that like sort of high sense of, this is what I'm here, this is my, okay fine, yeah whatever. What are you curious about? Like your whole thing is curiosity. Yeah. You follow it the whole time. How can I help people in this way? How does it work? You know about this. Curiosity is the engine. So you'll think about, like, you'll see a film that moves you, so you go read interviews with the director, the director's always, I wanted to tell this story. I had this, it's like, I want to try to make this or humanitarian work. I want to try to help people or education. I thought there was a new way to teach people this. Curiosity is the thing. So that's often-- so when we doubt.

Ourselves, what should we be thinking as opposed to, oh, am I gonna be able to do this? Maybe I'm not good enough. I don't have the skills.

I don't have the experience.

What should we be asking in terms.

Of-- Because the doubt is authority, legitimacy, imposter syndrome. What if no one cares? What if it doesn't sell? What if I try, it doesn't work? None of those are interesting questions. And all of those questions pull you out of the present moment and put you in the future.

That doesn't exist.

Right, right. So that's the thing about the only moment we ever have is now, is this takes you into a different relationship with time. Regret is stuck in the past. Worry is stuck in the future. But what's interesting is all of the questions of self-doubt that keep people from doing the thing are in the future, which isn't real. That's an illusion. So the only interesting question is, what do you want to do now? Like what do you want to do? Right.

And why are you curious about that?

With our culture, it was so like you need to get good grades, you need to go get a good job instead of like what do you want? Or think about how many people their family system literally trained them away from their heart. Like at early ages they had something rising up within heart demanding expression and what they were taught is whatever you do don't listen to that. actually be suspicious of that.

It's probably why a lot of kids are rebellious.

That kid, right, that kid has a problem because that kid's responding to a system that is splitting her from her true self. So she's actually responding in a very healthy way to a system that isn't... She's rejecting it. Some people think the greatest American architect was Louis Kahn and when he would begin designing a building, Louis Kahn would ask, What does this building want to be? Isn't that great?

It's kind of like a sculptor who's.

Like chiseling away what does this want to be? So like you think about every parent with every kid, what does this kid want to be? Like what do I want this kid to be?

I want this kid to be.

What we're here to do is to watch this kid discover who they're here to be. That's the only game to be playing. So the self-doubt, the lack of confidence, I don't know if I'll be any good, never an interesting question. The question is, where's the curiosity? What's the thing that something within you is like, oh, I would like to try that. There's this interesting thing in Hebrew consciousness, Moses in the Torah, is told, I put before you, the divine says to Moses, I put before you life and death. And we read life and death as you're here living and then you die. Two modes, here and then gone, somewhere else dead. But in Hebrew consciousness, life and death are two modes of being right here and right now. So you could be living, alive, breathing, but actually dying. It's possible to be living and dying. Which I think is really helpful because I'm sure you've interacted with people who are like, this thing over here seems trivial but it keeps tugging on my sleeve, calling me to it. I get the wake in the night thinking, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's where the life is. So, just own it. It's a matter of life and death.

-Wow.

-Something within me dies if I don't Try that.

If I don't lean into my curiosity, the thing that's on my heart.

Yeah, you got some idea? You got some... If you reframe it as, if I'm not true to whatever this is, something within me dies. Yeah, that might be the way... That might get you out of a lot of different situations where you're all bound up and stuck and the energies are all Mm-. Yeah.

I'm curious, what were the few big questions you asked yourself before pastor school? Did you ask yourself, I mean, I feel like there's a lot of questions, there's three main questions I feel like a lot of people ask. Why am I here or slash, what's my purpose?

Yeah.

Is there a God?

Right.

And what happens after I die?

Right.

Did you ask yourself those questions ever before going into pastor school and this training? What were those answers for you then? And what are those answers for you now?

They're probably the same exact answers.

Really?

I had, in college, I was in this band.

Yes.

Lead singer. Lead singer syndrome.

Scar band.

So it was called alternative at that time in the late 80s. which basically meant not Bon Jovi. But there was something about creating these songs and then we'd play these shows, like us and like six punk bands in a basement somewhere. It was like there was something communal. There's all this energy, all these bodies. There was something about, I would write these lyrics, something about what I was experiencing and then giving it expression and then watching people sing the lyrics. There was some sort of, I was doing some, it was like a tribal fire, you know what I mean? It was like harnessing, it was like lassoing the love and energy in the room and all of us going somewhere together. And I was probably, I was 19. Yeah, so there was something in that that was like naming the thing that we're all experiencing. that it struck a, it was the first time in my life I was like, oh, this is something I, like, 'cause there was always a better student. There was always better athletes. They're all the cool kids who got invited to all the right parties. Everywhere I turned, the world was ranked. Sound familiar? Yes. Everywhere I turned, there was somebody who was winning, and I was nine clicks down. But what's interesting about that impulse when I stumbled into it is it wasn't like, oh, I could be the best at this. It was like it tossed out even the idea of ranking. It was just, this is where the joy is. Then the band broke up as college bands do. And there was something about the big questions, the big mysteries.

What were the big questions for you?

What are we doing here? How's this thing work? what is. What is. What is meaning? Why do some things matter and some things don't? My parents said, my parents have taken us to church here and there. So I had, like, I I was familiar with the idea of, like, spirituality. It always seemed kind of not boring, just like, this can't. If this is it, this should be the juice. This should, like. The big stuff, why is it so like sweater vests and acoustic guitars? This thing is like, this should be awesome. So I think something within me was like, I'm gonna do my version of that. And in the world I came from, intellectual rigor was very important. So it's like, well then you need to go get a master's degree in divinity, which I laugh now, a masters in divinity. I never at the time was like a master of the divine. Like that's... You know what I mean? Yeah. That's just a ridiculous premise. But so that's sort of in the world. Because we all come from these worlds that are like, oh, you want to do that? This is how you do it. But yeah, it was all... What's going on here? How do you forgive people who have wronged you? What kind of universe is this? Is this whole thing headed somewhere? Or is it just a series of random events that you sort of duct tape together your own version of? And then, so I learned a number of things, but they also, you learn stuff and it just creates new questions. So, that's how it works now.

Is there anything that you were firmly a believer in for, I don't know, the last 20-something years that you've started to question in a different way that you're like, you know what? Maybe that's not true to me anymore. A set of beliefs, one belief, two beliefs that you question again, that maybe you were so firm on believing.

Oh, guarantees. Oh, you're gonna be fine. Everything's fine. Instead of oh, I have no idea how it's gonna go.

So you used to have the belief that everything's gonna work out, it's all gonna be fine.

The goal is to comfort.

Yes.

The goal is to give people a rock solid foundation. Here are the things you, here's the ground that you can stand on that won't shift. Because that's what everybody wants. Just show me the rug that's not gonna get pulled.

Yeah, yeah. Now what? Now we're, and now how do you think?

Uncertainty is baked into the whole thing. The people that we love the most, the structures that we all are like, well, this will be around the whole way. Who knows? Yeah. Who knows? Even when I began to study quantum physics and everything is made of atoms and atoms are made of particles and particles come and go and there's probabilities, but ultimately, in empty space, a particle comes into existence and then a particle, they don't know where it came from, they don't know where it goes. that the whole thing is a relationship of energy that is deeply, deeply mysterious. And the more we know about it and the probabilities that help you make airplanes and flat-screen TVs, it's still, I think the uncertainty is all part of it. It's okay. And slightly terrifying, sometimes really terrifying. So like, Louis, just do these things, you'll be fine. Louis, do these things and your whole thing might completely catch on fire. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. And you'll be okay. So all the paradoxes and contradictions. Yeah. All the paradoxes and contradictions, you might get everything you ever wanted. All your dreams might come true. And you might, in that moment, realize there might be a dull thud of, this is it. Mm-. And that's all part of it. So I think I'm much more, even this book is embracing all the weirdness and painfulness and ache of it instead of how to get rid of it, how to embrace it as all part of it. How to embrace it as all part of it.