How To Find The PERFECT PARTNER & Build A Lasting Relationship! | Joel Olsteen & Lewis Howes

Don't marry a person expecting them to change. And I don't mean to be negative, but meaning that the things that you don't like about them now, don't think, okay, I'll fix them later. Now, I don't mean you have to find somebody that's perfect, because nobody's perfect.

But I think you gotta have a dream.

The school of greatness.

Really? Yeah.

Please welcome Lewis Howes.

I believe that in this last season of life, a lot of people don't think they're that strong at all. With all of the things that keep stacking, it seems to be against them. The relationships that they're going through, which are struggling or suffering or people going through divorce, the job loss, the life loss, the health loss. How can people actually believe they're stronger when it seems like a lot of adversity is just keep piling on top of them?

I know it is. It's a difficult time. And I believe, Louis, that, you know, coming from the faith background, that God knows, knew everything that we'd ever face. Every struggle, every disappointment, every breakup, every lonely night, he knew it, and he took into account what we would need to get through it and not just drag through it, but get through it victoriously. Now, I think sometimes we defeat ourselves in our own thinking. We think, I can't handle this and the pandemic, and I can't raise these children if we have a defeated mindset. I think we're diminishing the strength and the greatness and the favor that God put in us. So I think you have to come to me, you have to come to a point to say, okay, I wouldn't be facing this if I couldn't handle it. It may be a surprise to me, but it's not a surprise to God. See, I believe that God, again, he knew everything about us. He knew what we were going to face. And so in those tough times, I turn to my faith and then I get my mind going in the right direction instead of, this is too much. I can handle this. I'm strong. I have this greatness in me. God, you're breathing in my direction. So I think that attitude of faith helps us to release the strength.

Yeah, the faith, faith. I think a lot of people don't know how to cultivate that faith. Was there ever a moment where you said, in your life, this is too much to handle? Like, faith is not enough. This is such an overwhelm of stress. Whether you may be a business relationship or people are just undercutting you emotionally or even Your marriage, I don't know. Was there ever a time where you're just like, man, this, I don't know how to get through this?

Well, I think there were several of those times, but I think I don't know how to do this. This feels overwhelming, not denying the facts. But, God, I'm trusting you. I believe that you're in control. I believe that you're still ordering my steps. So there were times, you know, my mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 1981, and it was a difficult time. Now, fortunately, through prayer and faith, she's alive today, 40 years later, almost 88 years old. But, you know, that was a dark time. And I'm not saying that faith will keep you from the adversities, but I believe it will help you get through it. I like to think of it like this. So I can give a quick analogy. Like when an architect is going to design a building, they take into account, let's say it's a high rise, you know, how much each floor is going to weigh and how much wind it's going to face. You know, they just take into account. So they design the foundation based on all the pressure and the weight. You know, a residential house wouldn't be designed with the same foundation as 80 story building. Well, I like to think of it as our architect is God. He planned out all of our days, so he took into account what we'd face in 2021 and 2025 and all these things. And he put in us the beams that are big enough, the foundation that's strong enough to withstand wind and pressure. I mean, when I think of it like that, it helps me to know, you know, what, God, this is not a surprise to you. I've been designed to withstand this pressure and, and, you know, you go through it. I think a lot of it, Louis, is, you know, how we go. Because we're all going to go through difficulties. How do we go through them? Do we go through them? Negative, bitter. I can't believe that happened. And how could this. Or do we say, okay, God, I may not understand it, but I trust you. I'm going to keep an attitude of faith. I'm still going to be good to somebody. I'm still going to be my best. I think that's the attitude that we just, you know, you've heard that saying, you don't just go through it, you grow through it. You're showing God that you can handle more weight. You can go further.

Do you think there's. Have you met people that don't have a faith background that are able to get through things in a positive way. Like, is there a way beyond faith to kind of withstand the pressures of life that may be thrown at us?

It seems like, you know, I think you can get through it, but I just think you get through it better with faith. I think people. You know, it's hard, Louis, to. You know, because some things are not fair. I mean, we were. I was doing something yesterday with somebody that's fighting terminal cancer and other things. You know, it's just. How do you get through that? But, you know, you got to go back to me. You have to turn to your faith, because otherwise life's not going to make sense. And I think it's. I think it's really easy to get bitter, get discouraged, and get, you know, just not. Not pursue your dreams anymore. Hey, I tried and it didn't work out. I tried, and the pandemic hit. Or I had this relationship, and it didn't work out. It's easy just to. I think you have to. Again, you have to turn to your faith and believe that. You know, what's helped me is even the closed doors can be the hand of God. And sometimes I think, oh, man, I want the door to open.

God.

I want to go further. I don't want that to close. But I think the older I've gotten, the more I've learned to trust that God, you know what's best. That I'm going to honor you. I'm going to be my best. I'm going to be good to people. I'm going to have the right attitude, and I believe you'll get me to where I'm supposed to be.

Yeah. And you mentioned the older you've gotten. It seems like you're always aging in reverse, though. You always look younger every year. So whatever you're doing with the faith, it seems like it's working.

Thank you.

You know, this wasn't your intention growing up. This wasn't your dream. From what you were sharing with me, your father started a church, but you were like, I don't want to be involved in this. Really. Like, I'll hang out. But you didn't think you were going to be on stage, is that right?

Exactly. I never dreamed it, you know, so. So I grew up as a preacher's kid. That's all I've known. My dad was the pastor of the church. When my dad started the church, it had a couple hundred people when I was born, and so it grew to a church of 6 or 10,000 at that time, but. So I came back from college and I started a TV outreach of the church, you know, where I put my dad's messages on television. So I loved production and editing, lighting, doing all that. I thought that's what I'd do with my life. And so 17 years, I was behind the scenes at the church, and my dad would ask me to come out and speak. He said, you know, give me a week off, help me to minister. And I used to think I wouldn't know what to say. I was very naturally, very quiet and reserved, and that was the least thing I thought. I would never get up in front of people because I didn't feel qualified. Anyway, I'll make a longer story short. So my dad, at 77 years old, he passed away from a heart attack. And he preached a week before he died. So he had a good life. I should preface it by saying my dad and I were very close. We traveled the world together. I worked with him every day. We'd go to India a couple times a year, he did. He'd speak to pastors over there. I'd take the camera and equipment and make reports. So we're very close. And I used to think. I told Victoria, I said, what am I going to. You know, when my dad's gone, it's going to be very different because we were so. My life was so intertwined with his. But it's interesting. When my dad died, it was, you know, the first day or so. I don't know. You know, if you've lost somebody, you're kind of in a fog the first day. But you. You know, after he passed, I felt this desire to step up and pastor the church.

Oh, really?

Yeah. And it didn't make sense because for 17 years, you could not have talked me into getting up there. But I knew it wasn't in my mind. It was down in here. I thought, you know what, Joel? You're supposed to do this. And I felt it so strongly that I started speaking on the weekends. Now. Everything in my mind said, you can't do this. You're not qualified. You haven't been to seminary. You're too quiet. Nobody's going to listen to you. You don't have the experience. So all these negative thoughts, and I had to fight through that, I believe, to reach your dreams. You know, you can talk yourself out of it or you can talk yourself into it. So I would have to. You know, I'd have to look at myself sometimes in the mirror, and I just quote scripture, Joel, you're strong in the Lord. You're equipped, you're empowered. You can do all things through Christ. I had to talk myself into it, in a good sense, to not let those negative thoughts defeat me. So, anyway, I stepped up and started ministering. Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry.

You're good.

I stepped up and started ministry, never dreaming the church would grow. You know, I thought if we could maintain what my dad built, we'd be doing great. And I never dreamed that, you know, people would listen to me or that I had something to say. And after about a month or two, somebody said, wow, you have such a gift. And I thought I told Victoria. I said, what do they mean? Because I was just talking. I was just doing this, and I just. I don't know. Sometimes you have things in you didn't know you had. So I never dreamed I'd be here. I think that's why it's easy for me to encourage people that you don't know where God can take you. And think about this, Louis. So you're a sports fan. So I'm jumping ahead in my story. But, you know, so we get the compact center they have church in now.

That's cool.

And so I grew up with season tickets, watching the Rockets, Hakeem, Larry Bird, man. If you would have told me 21 years ago, before my dad died, that one day I'd be a minister, I'd be in front of people and have books, we'd be having church in the compact. I think you got the wrong person.

Wow.

But that's why you don't know what kind of plan God has for your life. You don't know where he's going to take you. Even reading your story, I mean, it's so inspirational that you could have been. A lot of things come against you, and a lot of things that you could say, you know what? I'm sorry I didn't get good breaks. But, man, you took the hand you've been dealt and you've done great things with it. Yeah.

And I think so. Inspiring. I think the adversity can either make us or break us, like you said. And for me, I said, there's got to be something greater for my life than these adversities.

Yeah.

Not to be stuck and feeling sad about my. Myself or what happened or what dreams didn't work out for me. There's got to be something greater. And I just said, I got to figure it out. I don't know what it is. And it took a, you know, a few years of trying a bunch of things Until I figured out what I didn't want. And then I started to become more aligned to service. It's like, well, how can I create something to add value?

Yeah.

And then how can I do it in a way that I like it? You know, it works for me. I think if people learn that process, that maybe you're not going to figure it out right away. It may take a little time, but have faith. Like you said, that's the key.

I know. And I think it's important what you said, because those closed doors, sometimes you have to go through your closed doors before you get to your open door.

Absolutely.

And you may have to figure out what's. What's not going to work for you. Or sometimes we think we want something. When we get it, we think that's not really what I want. So I think on the other side of the. I believe the adversity, it's a test, you know, how are you going to go through it? Are you going to handle it right? Are you going to still treat people right? Are you still going to have a good attitude or. Too many times we get better and discouraged. Oh, great joy. You say there's a God, but it didn't work for me and all that. But I think you have to just keep doing the right thing when the wrong thing is happening. You know, I think that's the key. And just. I even think I go back to the scripture sometimes. But, you know, before David, what made David great, what made him a king, what brought him notoriety was defeating a giant. And so you would think, you would think, you know, what? God give him a big promotion, give him something great. Well, what God gave him was a great enemy, great adversity, something that looked too big. But David had the wherewithal to say, you know what? I've been raised up for this time. I can defeat this giant. I'm not going to. I mean, the rest of the Israeli army, they were scared. The giant Goliath was taunting them. But he felt something rise up in him. So I see the principle of, you know, you have great adversities because you have a great destiny. And we wouldn't be talking about David if he had not defeated Goliath, if he had not had this giant in there. So, you know, sometimes we face giant adversities, things we don't understand. A sickness, a relationship, the business didn't make it, but just keep going forward. You never know how. That's. I've learned, too. And forgive me for doing all this talking about it, but, you know, all those adversities is preparing us. I mean, you can face things today. I bet you that 15 years ago, they would have probably defeated you. But, Jane, you've come through critics. You've come through things that you didn't understand. Same with us. And so it's getting you prepared for where God has taken you.

And I was listening to one of your podcasts today, which if people haven't subscribed, they must. It's mandatory subscribing to right now, Joel Osteen podcasts over on Apple and Spotify. You got 30 minute chunks over there. And every time I feel like, man, I just need to pick me up, I play any one of them. And it's like, speaking of my soul, you were talking about the walls that we should be putting up and defending are the negative critics that constantly try to come our way. And I always tell people this. If you're doing nothing with your life, people are to criticize and judge you. And if you're doing something with your life, they're going to criticize and judge you. So you might as well do something that's so good. Either way, they're going to tell you, what are you doing, you lazy bum? Or stop doing what you're doing because you're making me feel insecure, or I wish I was in your position. How do you handle the criticism at this level? The greater the favor you talk about that God puts on you, where you have the ability to impact others, the greater the chance for criticism and judgment. How do you keep your mind and your soul clean of the. The negativity that may come your way, no matter what your positive intention or how you want to serve people. How do you do that?

Yeah, it was tricky. It was interesting at first because, you know, when I first started ministering, it seemed like everybody loved me and everybody was for me. Then you get a little notoriety, and some of that turns. And when you're not hard enough, you're too soft. You know, just different things people don't understand. But one thing that helped me, Louis, is. Is my personality is to want everybody to like me, want everybody to accept me. So, you know, somebody asked me to go mow their lawn. I'll probably do it because, you know, I just. I want to do good for you. But I had to come to the. To the realization that not everybody's going to like you and not everybody's going to accept you. And that's okay because, you know, I go back to the scripture, you know, you can't reach your destiny about without people being against you. And even really, you know, you look about, you know, if you look at, from a Christian point of view, we wouldn't have salvation if Judas had not betrayed Jesus. And so a betrayal was in Jesus destiny to fulfill God's plan. So I think sometimes we think, well, you know what? I'm not doing anything wrong. Why are these people against me? But I think you have to take it as okay, some people are not going to understand you. They don't want to understand you. And I think sometimes we spend time and energy trying to convince somebody to like us, and they're never going to like us. I think it's helped me to say, okay, there's a percentage that are not going to like you, not going to understand. And that's okay. Stay focused on your race. And so what I've been good at and I encourage people often is, man, tune out the negativity. Run your race. I believe we only have so much emotional energy each day. It's not unlimited. And I think, even if I think it like this cup of water, if that's all emotional energy, man, how much am I spending for negativity, for unforgiveness, or for what that guy said, or that guy that cut me off in traffic or the co worker that played politics and left me out? All that energy, that water that I'm giving to that, that's energy that I don't have for my dreams and my goals. And it helped me to realize that that emotional energy is not unlimited. And so if I sit there thinking about what the critics said or how can I pay them back or I'm going to get even, man. I need that to come on the school of greatness and be with you. I need that to love my kids. I need that to go work out this afternoon. So I just didn't. Life is too short to waste any of our emotional energy on things that don't matter. I think, Louis, a lot of times we fight battles that are not significant. They're not between us and our destiny. It really doesn't matter what somebody said about you in one sense. Now, if it's your boss or if it's. If it's. I say this, if it's not between you and your destiny, it's a distraction.

Wow.

And I think it's easy to get distracted. And I'll tell you, I have minister friends. I can listen to them. Sometimes I think, guys, you're preaching to the critics. You're trying to straighten out your critics and everybody in your Audience loves you. But you got a letter or a tweet or from somebody that said you didn't do this or that, and we become defensive. And I think that's. Even you mentioned that podcast you listen to about keep your walls up. You got to keep things out of your heart because they're going to come, offenses are going to come. People aren't understand this. They're going to do things. But you got to keep your heart from a pure place. Otherwise you become defensive and you start changing. And, you know, if I listen to critics, you know, you. I'll be harder this way and I'll be easier this way, and you'll forget who you are. So I try to tune it out.

I love that. Did you feel like you learned this from your father by watching him when he was going through this?

I think some of it, it was more. It wasn't as. The day was different in his day with social media, it's good and bad.

You know, get Amazon reviews, you know, I know.

And you get everybody commenting on everything. So I think it was different during his day. But I did learn a lot from my father. But I think this is. This is an area just, you know, I think naturally I'm good at being focused. And I just had to say, you know what? I can tell you that I have never read of more than five seconds a negative thing about me. And I know there's all this stuff, but you know what? Life is good for me. God is good. I have a good family. I feel blessed to be able to help people. And okay, whatever the percentage when you're. When you're doing something, you know there's going to be 10 or 20% that don't agree, and you've got to focus on the 80 that you're helping. Helping and move forward.

Absolutely. So would you say you and your dad were best friends as you started to get older? You connected pretty much every day.

We really were. My dad was 40 years older than me, so he was really like my hero. You know, everybody loved my dad, and he was. My dad was. I learned so much from him. My dad was always for the underdog. I mean, he never judged people. He's a pastor in a denomination for a while, but he didn't judge people. He no more cared if you had many, many problems or if you were not thinking. You didn't live like we live. But he. He welcomed everybody and he was for everybody. So I learned a lot from my dad. And yeah, we were close and just like I said, travel together. And we go watch sports together and things like that. So it was a lot of fun.

What would you say is the biggest lesson he taught you that you still keep with today?

I think too, if I can have two. One was the love for people. Like, I'll give you an example. Just, you know, one time we were traveling overseas, we had to stop at this little airport. I don't know, it's like a, it's like a Runway. The airport was like a thatched roof type thing. It's out somewhere like in Africa or something. My dad liked to do missions trips. So we stopped there and you know, we had like a two hour layover. So I was just hanging out. I was like 18 years old. And so I look up, where's my dad? He's over there talking to this, this young guy that's about 25 on, sitting on the floor of the airport, like, you know, definitely a hippie. And got his bags and anyway, next thing I know, my dad's giving him money and I think, okay, he comes back home and says, dad, you know, because me, I'm reserved, I wouldn't necessarily go talk to anybody. He said, what? I said, what was that all about? He said, oh, I got to talking to him and he got stranded here and ran out of money and trying to get back to the States and just, you know, wanted to help him out. He said something like, you know, I'd want somebody to do that for one of my kids. And it just impacted me that, you know, he didn't know him. He probably doesn't, you know, live by our values, which is all fine too. But I just, my dad was for helping people and I think that's what our church was born out of. And I think that got instilled in my things about, you know what, it doesn't matter where you come from, what your, you know, what your lifestyle is, who you are, we're going to, we're for you. And somehow kind of like what you do. Let's lift people up. There's enough people being pushed down. So it was that second thing real quick is I saw the integrity with my father. My dad was the same in the pulpit as he was at home.

Yes.

He didn't get involved in shady deals or just. He just lived with integrity. And I think that's important, especially in every occupation. But, you know, there's sometimes just, you know, you gotta do things with the right intentions and keep your word and be a person of integrity. And I saw that with my father. I think that's what helps you to go further and to stay further because, you know, you go high, but if you don't have integrity and you're, you know, not doing the right thing, it's going to catch up with you.

Absolutely. What would you say was the. You know, people talk about. Imposter syndrome is a thing that people talk about these days. I don't know if this is something that you heard growing up, but you mentioned how, you know, your dad wanted to come on stage at different times and speak, and you never thought that was for you, and then you started to take it over. How did you learn to kind of overcome those. That imposter syndrome feeling or mentality of like, I never went to school for this, and I was never trained to speak on stages and. Yeah, how did you learn to overcome that feeling?

You know, let me see if this answers it, Louis. But I tell you, it wasn't easy. Let me give this example. So when my dad passed, he had been pastor in Lakewood for 40 years. So when I went up to get up there to minister, I knew every person that came had come from my dad because they never even heard me. And so I think, you know what? I got to be like my dad. I got a minister like my dad. I mean, it's not fair. They didn't come to hear me. I got to lead like my dad. Well, I wasn't like my dad. My dad was more fireball. He would get loud. Not screaming, but he'd get loud. He was, you know, passionate. More passionate. Yeah, yeah. And I'm more laid back, and I'm just easy going. And he could be. And then just the way he led. My dad came out of the Great Depression, grew very poor. So at the office, he's the last one there. He'd turn out every light, make sure, you know, just.

He's taking out the trash, he's sweeping the floor.

Well, so when my father passed, I needed the whole week to get prepared for the message. I thought, I can't go down there and smooze with people and make sure they're there and doing their work and all that. So that was different. So I had to get past that in my mind. But the first three or four months after my dad passed, I preached his messages, got his notes, and I felt like I had to. You know, my dad sometimes would have a scripture reading at the start, and I thought I got to do that to show people that I'm spiritual and all. But after about four or five months, I thought, this is not really Me, I'm not my dad. I love my dad. I respect my dad. But I read a passage in the scripture. It says, David fulfilled his purpose for his generation. And I felt like I heard something in here that said, joel, your dad fulfilled his purpose. Now go fulfill your purpose. In other words, Joel, go be you. And my gift, Lewis, was a lot like yours. Well, mine is just taking a part of the scripture and explaining it and encouraging people. Help them to have a good self image, help them to reach their dreams, help them to know how to forgive. Not so much the doctrine and all. And that's all good, but I think people have to learn what does this scripture mean and how do I live it? So I felt like that's what I was good at. Well, when I stepped into my own shoes, that's when the church began to grow and people started really listening. And I really think if I had not got past that thought of be like your dad, you know, you have to be like your dad, I don't think I would be here. Wow. I think that the principle is, you know, you're anointed, if I can use that word. You're empowered to be you. And nobody can beat you at being you. Nobody can beat me at being me. And that's why talking with you is easy today, because this is me. I'm not trying to impersonate or be somebody else. And I think that's where we lose a lot of power and a lot of potential is, man, I can't do it like you, Louis. You're one of a kind. But you have to see. Everybody has to see themselves as one of a kind. Because a lot of times we're trying to copy, imitate and all that, and it's lessening our power. And I think sometimes if you don't realize you're a masterpiece, that you have something to offer that nobody else has, we limit ourselves. We think, well, I can't do it as good as Louis speak. Like this other guy. Not as beautiful as this lady. But you know what? You're still unique in your own way. And I think the minute we think, you know, we try to copy or even. I think another thing, if I get off course here, if you can't celebrate somebody, that's ahead of you. I think sometimes we try to pull people down. Well, man, if you can't celebrate them, I don't think you'll get there, really. So I think you have to say, okay, wow, they can do it better than me, but this is what I'm good at. I'm going to keep improving. I'm going to keep being the best that I can be and. And not feeling, you know, less than or not trying to cut them down. Well, you know, Louis is not that good, really, because of this. You know, that's what I think people tend to do. But rather I say, man, my first thing is to celebrate what you've done. I told you, I don't know if it's on camera, off, but, you know, I took over from Dad. I had a base of this. You started from scratch and built this. So, man, I celebrate the success and victories in others, and I think it helps you to rise higher.

I appreciate that. Yeah. And I think, you know, I remember when I started my show, I said, you know, I want to celebrate other people first. I didn't feel like I was really educated enough to be speaking in my own sense of, like, I have the answers or I'm ready to teach or. So let me create a school where I bring on people like you, Joel, and say you teach, and let me just put the spotlight on you and have a dialogue and a conversation and just come from a curious place, from how I want to learn. And I think Oprah did an amazing job of doing this for most of her life. Was like, let me shine the light on so many amazing people. And the light usually reflects back, and you become celebrated as well. So I think I've just said, how can I serve others and focus on sharing their message, and then, you know, good things are gonna happen.

I think that's. That's a big part of the success. Even yours, Lois, is. Louis is sometimes, you know, if you don't have that humility to say, and I'll be the first to say, I don't know it all. I'm learning every day, learning from you and others. But I think having that humility to say, what can I learn from others? And I don't know, I think that's what allows you to grow and come up higher. But I see that in you, and I can see in one sense, can God trust you with more success? I'm asking a question for all of us. Can God trust me with more success? Am I going to handle the influence properly? Am I going to still be good to people? I'm going to still stay humble and keep growing and keep learning and keep using the influence for good. I think, like, you've proven that you can, and I think that's why you continue to rise up.

Yeah, I appreciate that. And I love how you said you tried to be like your dad, which essentially you tried to be a different identity for four or five months. And it's hard to have full confidence when we're living someone else's identity. How important is shaping our own identity when we're not confident with who we are? How do we learn to build confidence and shape our identity? Or how should we be thinking about identity in general?

Yeah, I don't know. Let me think about that, Louis. I think part of it is, you know, looking down deep and being comfortable with who you are and what you have to offer. I think maybe get off course a little bit, but not discounting yourself, not seeing somebody that's successful and saying, well, I'm so much less than that. I can never be that. And I think that's. Maybe this will help some. But there was a time that I saw my dad, and he was such a powerful speaker. People loved him, and he commanded the audience and all that, even off camera and off the pulpit. He was great. And in a sense, sometimes that would intimidate me, really. And I think that's probably why I shrunk back for 17 years. I don't think it was the right time, but I used to think, my dad is so great. Why would anybody want to hear from me? And so I do think that we can take it the wrong sense and let it diminish us. So I had to come back to say, and especially when my dad died, that, you know what? I have something to offer. I've been made in the image of God. I have seeds of greatness like you talk about. So I think a big part of it, too, is, you know, keep the right recording playing in our mind. I know you talk about the inner dialogue, and I think so many times it's negative. It's just, you know, I think I talked about the beginning. Well, you know, I'm not as talented as my father. Never been to seminary, and who's going to listen to me? And I think, you know, just in general, it can be just. Just, you know, demeaning thoughts toward ourselves if we can change that recording. Not in arrogance, but it should be saying, I'm blessed, I'm prosperous, I'm talented, creative, disciplined, focused, motivated, you know, equipped, empowered, valuable. A masterpiece. And again, I don't mean. I don't mean in an arrogant sense, but you need to be positive towards yourself. And I think that's how you can step into your identity and step up to who you're made to be.

Yeah. In the personal development world, they call these mantras. You know, what's the thing you're going to look in the mirror and say to yourself? Or when you're going through a struggling self doubt moment, what's the word or phrase that you want to repeat to get you out of that negative space? What happens when we stay in a negative, ruminating space of self, self doubt, ego comparison? What happens to our soul?

Yeah, I think it just limits us. It keeps the greatness from coming out. And, you know, sometimes I think it's natural to us because I've talked to a lot of people. I grew up very positive. My parents were positive. Joy, you can do anything. They were loving and kind. Well, it was new to me a while years ago that not everybody grew up like that. And so their natural recording is good enough. And we don't, we'll never be successful and we can't break these addictions. It's just a negative thing. And, and when you, when you don't realize, you know, I guess the thought would be pay attention to what's playing in your mind. What are your thoughts toward yourself, what, what comes naturally, maybe it's even subconsciously. I think sometimes it's negative. And that's what's limiting us from having good relationships, building big businesses.

Right.

Living happy and healthy. It's just my dad used to say this, and I feel like it could tie in. He said, you'll never rise any higher than the way you see yourself. Oh, and I think sometimes we see ourselves. Well, you know what I see, Louis? Great. But I don't see myself doing that. Or I don't see myself having a big church. I don't see myself successful or paying off my house. Or maybe it's, I don't see myself ever breaking this addiction or I just live with this depression. Depression. And you got to get a right image on the inside. Now I see myself healthy, strong, successful, blessed, helping other people get that vision on the inside.

Yes. Does Joel Osteen have any fears? I'm curious. Like, it seems like you just, you know, life is so good, you're so grateful, you're blessed, you come from a service mindset, you live in service. You got a great marriage, family. Like, do you ever have fears? And if so, how do you handle fear that comes your way?

Yeah, I think fear comes to us all. I'm trying to think what a fear. I probably don't couch it as fear, but, you know, more like, you know, there's things that concern me, concern me. And I don't know, maybe, maybe the concern, but I Just handle it to going back to, you know, times we all feel pressured or overwhelmed or this problem is not going to work out, or, hey, the pandemic. Are people going to still support the ministry? What if we can't pay our bills and all that stuff like other people? I just try to come back to say, okay, God, you're on the throne, you're in control. This is not a surprise to you. So I do my best to not let the fear live in my mind. And maybe this is too religious type stuff, but I always say this, you know, don't magnify your problem, magnify God. In other words, you know, we can say, oh man, how's this going to work out, this medical report, this situation? Or you can say, okay, God, you're in control. You're on the throne. You're directing my steps. I know that's coming from a place of faith and other people may not see it like that, but I think you can't. Again, I say it this way. It takes the same amount of energy to believe as it does to worry as it does to live in fear. In other words, I can think what's going to happen. I'm afraid about this medical report or this. I'm afraid of this other situation verse. Okay, God, you're in control. I'm well able. I can handle this. It's going to work out. I think you have to use your energy to believe.

Yeah. And you talk about protecting your peace and really making sure your thoughts and your feelings and your emotional energy helps you stay in a peaceful state. Because it's hard to grow the seeds of greatness from stress and worry and ego and envy, Right? It is. When you're in a peace, calm environment, really, the roots can dig in deeper, you can grow higher. Isn't that correct?

It's so good. That's exactly right. And we're not saying that you can control your circumstances because things come against us, but I think I know we can control what we allow to get in us. And I think that a place of peace is a place of power. It's kind of like the winds and the waves may be strong all around you, but when you can be settled in your heart, you know, even. Even, you know, when my father passed, yeah, I was mourning and it was. It was kind of chaotic there, but it was. It was kind of odd, Louis. Down deep in here, I just. I felt a peace. Something was saying, everything's going to work out, it's going to be. You know, I just. I just felt A peace, a kind of a rest on the inside. And so I think living out of that place is important because I think we're losing energy. And you said it beautifully. You can't develop your potential with stress and worry because really, there's always something to be worried about.

Always.

There's always something to be stressed out. And you've heard that saying. I'll see if I can quote it. A ship doesn't sink because of the water all around. Sinks only if the water gets in it. So a ship can be in an ocean. So let's say the ocean is fear, worry, pandemic, people coming against us. You're not going to sink because that's around you. But if you let it get in you, if you start thinking, oh, man, listen to what they're saying. Oh, man, the pandemic. And what about my child? How's he going to get through fifth grade? There's just so much. It's powerful when you're able to stay in peace. And really, again, from my point of view, when you're in peace, you're saying, God, I trust you. I may not understand it. I'm not saying the circumstances are good, but I can be good in here.

Yeah, I've heard you. You mentioned how when someone comes to you with a problem and they want to start sharing all the details, you say, okay, just give me the 22nd cliff note version, not the 20 minute gossip, elaborate story. Is that true? You do that with pretty much every area of your life. Like, if someone's bringing, like, their worries and concerns or you're someone's trying to read a negative review to you, you're just like, okay, I heard a few seconds. That's all I need to know. And you don't lean into the rest of it.

I do my best. Again, I want to be caring and concern. If people want to share something, I don't try to cut them off. But I do think the principle is that, you know what, I wouldn't spend 20 minutes talking about the problem and all that. I mean, I tell Victoria often, you know, give me the 32nd version, something's wrong. Okay, this is what happened. But I don't want to hear all the details, especially if it's something negative about, you know, about myself. I don't need to hear that. Okay, they don't like you. Okay, that's good. I'll leave it out.

That's fine.

But, yeah, I just think it's important to keep your spirit, your heart, your inner person, peaceful, calm, positive, hopeful, and you can't allow all this in. And I think even now, Louis, with all the negative news, I like to watch the news. But after about 20 minutes, a kid, Victoria, because she'll go watch the news for two or three hours and she comes out like a different person. I see, Victoria, you're stressed, you're upset, you're mad at the world. I'm exaggerating a little, but I said, victoria, turn that off. Let's go for a walk, get your news and stuff. But I just think it's important. Maybe we don't realize as much as we should about how what we're putting in. You can't put in negative all day and see those seeds of greatness. And I think that's why people are drawn to your podcast and to your work, because it's inspiring. People got enough negative news. And I'm not saying, you know, deny the circumstances and hide your head in the sand. I want to know what's going on. But, man, I don't want all that negative details.

Yeah, it's interesting. My dad used to, when we were growing up, he would watch sports together and he would turn the commercials off anytime there was an in his mind, a negative commercial or a thought that tried to kind of bleed into your soul of, you know, medicine commercials or you're going to get sick or you're dying. You know, he was like, turn this off, because we don't need to feed our mind that we're going to get sick. Let's focus on health and abundance and flourishing. You mentioned abundance a moment ago. Emotionally. I'm curious about your thoughts on creating just opportunities, financial abundance, relational abundance in your life. How does one think abundantly in terms of all these buckets of their life?

Yeah, I think it's, you know, I call it taking the limits off. And so I think you have to go back to, you know, check your thinking. Are there. Are there limiting thoughts or restricting mindsets that are keeping you from going further? And if I can go back to my father, raised in the Great Depression. You know, my grandparents were good people. Didn't know them real well because they were older, but just good, loving people. But they had a limited mentality. They just thought, you know, we lost everything in the Great Depression. They worked on a farm. And so my dad at 17, gave his life to Christ. He felt something big in him all of a sudden. He felt like he had something to offer the world at 17, no money, no education. He got the Christmas basket at school because they were the poorest family. So you know, it was statistically he should have just kind of faded away. But he told my grandparents that he wanted to be a come up minister and go out and start pastoring. And they loved him. But they said, john, all you know how to do is work on the farm. You're going to get out there and fail, you better not leave. And they were doing that out of love. But if my father would have let that negative mentality, I call it a poverty mentality. They had a poverty mentality. This is just, this is our lot in life. We're not bad people and we're not against wealth. We just are not going to have anything. But if my father would have kept that, I wouldn't be here today. So my dad didn't have any money, but he was 17, he had to hitchhike. And he went and started speaking in prisons and senior citizens. Homes and doors opened up and one thing led to another. I say this, he broke a curse of poverty off of our family. And it was a mindset. It was just a mindset. I get knocked because people tell them, say I'm trying to tell people they're going to be rich. I'm not saying that prosperity to me is great relationships. It's health in your body. It's having money to pay your bills, to fulfill your destiny, to be a blessing to others. And I don't make any. I'm not against, God's, not against people having wealth and money if you're using it for the right purposes. And I think there's a mentality, especially growing up in a church environment where you're supposed to be poor and defeated, to show that you're humble. But that's not the way I read the scripture. So I think getting back to the question is you have to take limits off of, you know, what are these limiting mindsets that have even been passed down. And maybe it's just, hey, everybody in my family gets divorced, can't have abundance in relationships, or we all struggle with these addictions. It's just who we are. We will never live in a nice neighborhood and have enough to help others. Because I think you have to get rid of that. Say, you know what, I'm the one to break the, I don't know if you call it a curse. I'm willing to break the limited mindset. And I think you have to break it in your thinking first. And then I believe it opens the door to say, okay, maybe I can start that business, or maybe I can, this marriage can last. Or like my dad Just, you know, those doors began to open when he took the limits off.

I mean, your dad was a great model. He had a foundation, but he really didn't. He wasn't out there preaching to millions of people every week like you're doing. He didn't have the long largest congregation in the world. He wasn't, you know, doing the things you're doing. Did you have a model that you got to witness someone else doing this, where you could see it and then see yourself potentially doing it one day? Or how do you. How does someone see something in their mind first if they don't have the environment that shows it's possible?

I think. I don't know if I had.

It's amazing how you've just created this abundance in your life, health, relationships, wealth, you know, opportunities without having that model.

Yeah, I really didn't, because nobody had taken, like, a compact center. But I don't know, I think that some of that was just. It was rising up in me that I knew that we were created to do something. But I think, Louis, an important thing is to get around people that have what you want, the joy, the peace, the relationships, and to be mentored and just get in the environment. I had a friend that. I have a friend that was just living in an apartment, didn't have hardly money for gas to go to work, and all this years ago when he was young, but he came out of the environment of his family, didn't have much, and he used to drive to a parking lot close to a big hotel down the road here, and he would just go into that lobby, go to the hotel lobby for free. And he said, I'd just go in there and dream. He said, I couldn't afford to park, and I had to park out in the street. But I just go in there and I dream and I look around and I think, oh, I see abundance, I see success. I see, you know, he called it God's favor, but he kind of got in that environment. And I think. I think, you know, in one sense, you can adapt to your environment. You can adapt to a negative environment. You can adapt to a limited environment. So why not adapt to saying, you know what? I want to be around people that inspire me, that are doing better than me, that maybe have what I want. And I think that helps you to. Got to be exposed to it.

Absolutely.

I think sometimes. I had a friend that, you know, he had never been out of a. You know, he lived in, like, the inner city, just gangs and violence. And he told how, you know, up to 20 years old, he had never been out of a five mile radius. And he thought the whole world was like that. And he said, my goodness. When they, When I went to the city, you know, the big city, and I saw the skyscrapers and I went and saw other people aren't killing each other, people aren't doing drugs every day, just a little bit of exposure to say, you know what, I can live like this. I was meant for more. My dad tells this story and it's kind of corny, but it's funny, but it's about this frog. He was born at the bottom of this well. And, you know, every day he played in the water at the bottom of the well and all. One day he looked up and he saw the light and he went up and he looked over the corner and he. He saw a lake and he thought he had all the water in the well there. He saw this lake and then he hopped a little further and he saw a pond or. Anyway, he ended up, he popped a little further, he saw an ocean. Well, his thing was, I thought I had it all at the bottom of that well. He was happy in a sense. But I just wonder how many of us are that frog, thinking that we have it all because this is how we were raised. But then you get out and you say, oh man, there's oceans of favor and abundance and joy and peace that we can be enjoying.

Yeah, my dad, I grew up in the 80s and 90s and my dad, we didn't have a lot of money growing up. He started to create more financial wealth for himself when I was older. So I lived in a small town in Delaware, Ohio, very small town. Didn't really get out much until I was about 13. And he wanted to expose us to the world. So we had exchange units live with us from all over the world. Seven different exchange units from different countries that would come with their language, their culture, their point of view, their environment, their food and everything. And it was cool to witness the world in my own little well, you know, so it's like, find the ways, you know, by subscribing to your podcast or getting books like this. Find ways to create an environment even if you can't get out of your own small town right now. There's ways with the Internet to create an environment of seeing other things, which is cool.

I love what your dad did. Yeah, what a great thing.

It was fun. So I've got two final questions for you before I go into those. You have so many amazing books. The latest one you Are Stronger Than youn Think. Unleash the Power to Go Bigger, Go Bold, and Go beyond what Limits yous. It's All About Waking up to youo Greatness.

Yeah.

Which I'm all about. So you have an incredible message here. I want people to get a few copies of this book, give it to a friend or two, buy it for a family member. You know the thing I love about the way you write, it works well for me. I'm a. Yeah, it's hard for me to read a lot. So you use simple analogies, simple stories that I can connect with. They're quick reads and they get right to the point of, like, how to Step Up. So I love the way you create your content. Your podcast is such a staple for so many people around the world. So if people haven't subscribed, go subscribe to the podcast. You're Also, I think, SiriusXM, it's 24 7. Your message is out there. Right. What's the channel in Sirius?

128.

128. So any moment you're feeling insecure or doubting yourself, go to channel 128. Your website as well has everything. You're massive on social media. Joel Osteen. But Joel Osteen.com has got all the stuff about coming to see you, you know, in church and Houston and all this stuff, right?

Yes, that's right. Thanks, Louis. Thank you. You don't have to do all that.

Of course. Of course. Well, people need to know. People need to be empowered, in my opinion. You've got a great way of reaching people and connecting. Connecting to people's hearts. That's different than me.

Yeah.

And so I think people need to be aware of this. And I love listening to your stuff and I think people should at least check it out. If they have never heard about you, at least check out one 30 minute podcast. Just click on one of them and see what they think. So I think they'll love it. These final two questions are questions I ask people. Is there anything else I should mention about this or where people can go to get more?

It's good. Thank you.

Okay. Of course, the final two questions. This one is called the Three Truths. So I asked this hypothetical question at the end with every guest. So imagine it's your last day on this earth, many years away, and you live as long as you want to live, and you accomplish your goals and your dreams and you keep serving the world. You have great relationships, all that, but it's the last day and you got to Turn the lights off in this world. And for whatever reason, hypothetical scenario, all of your written work, your videos, your content has to go somewhere else. So we don't have access to your content anymore, unfortunately. Hypothetical. But you get to leave behind three lessons to the world. Three things you know to be true that you would share with the world as your message. And this is all we would have of your message. What would you say would be those three truths?

Those three truths? Well, I'm going to make it good, Louis. I think first off is honor God with your life. Be a person of faith, Keep him first place. I think the second thing would be stay positive, stay hopeful, stay grateful. You know, keep that attitude of faith. And the last thing I would say, be a blessing. Lift up other people, help the. Lift the fallen, help the hurting. You know, that's. That's in a very short nutshell.

Beautiful man. I love those. Honor God, stay positive, and be a blessing. Yeah, it's powerful.

That's what I'd want to be known for.

That's powerful. Before I ask the final question, Joel, I want to acknowledge you. You know, when you walked in here, I was just so glad to see you and meet you because we've been trying to make this happen for a couple years. I know my team's been connecting with your team up and trying to see when am I doing a speech in Houston so I can come see you. And you happen to be here for the book tours, which is great. And I just want to acknowledge you for the gift you are in the world, for the way you continue to show up. You continue to rise above negativity, nasty things that might be said about you. You continue to come from a service mentality. How could I? You use your gift to create something that can help other people, whether it be through your books or your sermons or your talks or your events. You're serving people. And for me, that's an inspiration that you keep showing up consistently to serve. You don't have to. You could stop and say, you know, I've done my part. But you keep showing up and serving, and I think that's for me, I really acknowledge you for that. It's an inspiring thing to watch, and I'd love to watch you sometime in person down in Houston. So hopefully when I come down next, we can hang out, we can play some tennis. We're both not that good, so hopefully we can match each other well.

Awesome. I'd love to have you. Thanks for saying that about it.

Of course, of course.

Thank you.

The final Question. What is your definition of greatness?

My definition of greatness would be becoming all that God created you to be. So I think greatness is different for each one of us, but it's just. It's reaching your full potential, you know, just becoming what God created you to be. Taking the limits off of yourself and stepping up.

There you go. Joel, thank you so much, man.

Thanks, Lewis. Awesome to see you.

You have an amazing marriage, amazing relationship. You guys do events together. You're, you know, supporting each other. I'm curious. It seems like in the modern world, from my point of view, it's hard for a lot of people to find love. What do you think is the biggest reason that people aren't able to find true, authentic intimacy, love, and connection in an intimate partner?

Man, I wish I knew some things I'm not an expert on, but I don't know. I do believe. Okay, I got to go back to my. What I know. I do believe that God has the right person picked out. He has divine connections for us. And I think maybe, you know, again, I'm not an expert, but, you know, don't. Don't settle for something that you know is. Or someone that you know is not the best for you. And I don't mean to be too picky to where you're never going to find anybody, but I do think sometimes I have people tell me, well, if I don't. I don't know necessarily, I feel good about this person, but if I don't date them, I don't know if I'll find anybody. But I believe this, that what's supposed to be yours is going to come to you. So. So if you keep honoring God and doing the right thing, I believe that nobody's going to get your spouse. Nobody's going to get your, you know, your business and things. It will come to you. So I don't know. I think you have to, you know, pray, believe, do your part and, you.

Know, do you guys have values that you live by in the relationship where you're like, these are our core values, and this is what we live by and, you know, talk about them frequently, or is it more just an understanding?

I think it's more of an understanding, but it is love and friendship and being good to people, honoring God and being respectful, and, you know, I can't. If I can speak to the relationship. One thing. Victoria and I, we still have fun together, and I think that's important. I mean, we've been married 34 years. But I think what happens sometimes, Louis, Is, you know, you get the stress of life happening, and you're raising kids and you've got the bills to pay, and all of a sudden you don't have any time to just breathe and have fun and laugh. And I don't mean we're laughing every minute of the day, but I think we can bring the stress from the outside into our relationships. And I'm worried about work. And that wasn't. Right now, I'm no good at home with my kids. And I think you have to leave that stuff the best you can at the door and keep your home a place of peace, a place of love. And what Victoria is so good at is she loves to laugh. And so all through the day, she'll be on the phone, and I hear laughter going through the house, and I love that because I think it creates an environment that says everything is good. Yeah, we have challenges. Yeah, we're dealing with stuff. But you know what? There's still joy. There's laughter. I think the, you know, again, the atmosphere of our home is critical. That's our safe place, I think, for some people. And I know it's not easy if you're struggling in a relationship because there can be tension and strife. But I'm talking about maybe some preventative measures is that we, you know, we still go for bike rides, we still go for walks at night. We still, you know, we'll swim together, we go to sports events together. And I don't know, you have to cultivate it. There's different seasons. But I think one thing is keep that joy in the home.

Keep the joy in the home. Yeah. I mean, I've definitely struggled in my. In my previous relationships and felt like I told you before, I had to learn the hard way how to get into alignment of, you know, not settling and just not settling for what I want. And all these people have been great individuals in my life, but just weren't the right match moving forward. When did you know that Victoria was going to be your wife? When did you know? This is the person I want to spend, you know, my time with.

You know, I'm probably odd in this.

But let me go back a little.

I'll give you. So, Louis, So I grew up playing sports, probably like you, but I was just playing sports all the time. Even when I got out of high school and college, I was still playing softball four nights a week and tournaments on the weekends. So I never really dated anybody. I was more quiet, shy, and small, and I thought, oh, man. But anyway, I got my nerve Up. I met Victoria. I met her in her mother's jewelry store, and I asked her out on a date. And I don't know, there was just something about Victoria. She's so beautiful, but she was so fun. I never met anybody like her. So I just think after a couple of months, I thought, I'm not going to let this girl get away. There's no way. And we just had. I spent every minute I could with her, and we just laughed and had fun. So I think that's where, you know, maybe mine's a little odd. I didn't date well. We dated a year and a half, but I knew early on. I didn't tell her, but I thought, this girl is amazing. And so I liked everything about her. So I don't know, because I don't. That's why I say I don't have good experience there about, you know, I've been gone through four or five.

You didn't struggle as much as I did. You found. You found one early on.

I know.

What is the thing you love about her the most after 34 years?

Well, I don't know if I can say one thing. Just her kindness, her spontaneity. I'm so routine. Better word discipline. She would say boring, because I just. It can be very machine like. But Victoria is spontaneous, and she just says, come on, Joel, let's go have fun. Let's go do this, or let's go travel somewhere. So she keeps that. It's a good balance, you know, and so I love that part about her, and just, she's just a fun girl. And so I feel blessed. And, you know, I pray everybody will get somebody that they love and just have fun with.

If you could coach people, maybe they've been dating for a year or they're just starting to date. If you could say, you know what? You should really figure out these three main important things. Like you should ask these three questions and make sure you're aligned on these three things before you move forward in your relationship, before you even, you know, keep going. What would you say those three questions or three things you should really be aligned on are for people?

Well, off the top of my head, and I hope. I hope I'm giving good advice. I think, you know, what is coming from my point of view. What is your. What are your values in faith? I mean, you know, if I like me, I'm going to be a person that honors God, that's going to live by scriptural principles. Probably not gonna be perfect. But I think where we Go in there. And I think just overall values. Where do you want to. Where do you want to go in life? What is your. What are your passions, and what are you excited about? I think those are a couple that I would think of. I think another port I'm getting off. Another thing would be, you know, does the person have the drive that you want, or do they have too much drive? Or, you know, I just go back to some of the friends I've been dealing with, and, you know, the things they've been dealing with as there's people. But, you know, are your goals aligning like one. One friend that they want to go do big things in New York? Well, he doesn't have that kind of goals. He wants to be here and do other things. And so I think those are important things to something. Something Victoria's father told her and I think is good is the person you marry. Don't marry a person expecting them to change. And I don't mean to be negative, but meaning that the things that you don't like about them now, don't think, okay, I'll fix them later. Now, I don't mean you have to find somebody that's perfect, because nobody's perfect. But I do think sometimes we get into a relationship. I don't mind that he has this addiction because I'll help him get over it. Or I don't mind that he's a little disrespectful because he'll change when he meets me. I think that's the kind of stuff that you can't sweep under the rug. And again, I know there's a balance with everything, because I don't want you to say, well, they said one wrong thing. And I think they said, I think you have to find that balance. But I believe, too, Louis, you can check your heart. Every time I've. I would think every time I was going to make a major decision if I didn't, if it wasn't right, I'd feel this unrest about it. And I've learned not to ignore that now, because I have ignored it.

I've ignored that in the past and stayed with it. It just, you know, I've ignored it.

And it doesn't go away for a long time. But if it's like an alarm, if you keep turning it off after, you know, after whatever, after a couple months, you're not going to hear it. You're just immune to it. So I think that's God leading us. And. And I know I've ignored it, too, because I Wanted my own way. But, you know, God's merciful. He'll help you get through it. But I've learned now, just, okay, why do I feel this unrest? I mean, this. Whatever, this business still looks perfect. Why do I feel this unrest? And I think it's a fine line, because this is a question I get is, well, I'm nervous about a lot of things. It's not necessarily nervous, because I was. I was nervous about stepping up to pastor. It was more down in here. I felt a peace. It is not in my mind, but I call it down in here. So if there is just an uneasiness. And sometimes women are better at this. I mean, Victoria, I can meet somebody. I think they are the greatest guy in the world.

No, the guy's off. Yeah.

I don't feel good about it.

Isn't that interesting? Why is that?

They have a greater perception or a discernment, maybe intuition. Intuition, yeah. And sometimes. You know what I've learned, though, now, as much as I don't like to hear it from Victoria, I think, okay, I got to pay attention because, you know, three years later, I told you that guy was not, why are you.

Doing business with him or this. Yeah.

So I think you have to, you know, listen down in here, and if there's an unrest. But again, I will go back to the positive side. God has somebody great for every person. Don't settle. And I believe that when I say, they're going to come to you, it's going to happen.

Yeah. Man, 34 years. You got a lot of wisdom in there. What do you think has been the key to thriving year after year, adversity after adversity? Were you guys keeping the peace within the home, keeping the fun, like you said? She's still laughing. I mean, I feel like some men feel like I want to, you know, they've taken the joy out of their wife because of the pain and the adversity and the hurt and the lack of forgiveness. How do you. How do you cultivate the environment of peace and laughter in home? I feel like everyone wants that to 34 years. Are there things you guys do on a yearly basis where you reflect and say, what are we doing right? What could we do better? Are there things every night you guys talk about before you go to bed to just keep it on track? Is there. Is there something like that you guys do?

Not officially, but we do from time to time. I do think one thing I should throw in here, too, maybe along those lines, is we've done our best to keep Respect in the marriage. Because, you know, we're people, all of us are people. We're going to say things we shouldn't. We're going to feel times that we feel offended or discouraged. But we've done our best to not.

Say things, say hurtful things to each other.

Yeah. Because it's easy in the heat of the moment.

I knew this.

I knew that you'd never done that. You never did. You know, it's easy. But you know what? It's important to bite your tongue and keep it respectful. Because I heard that saying people are, you know, takes just a second to stab somebody, but that wound can last 10 years, you know, and, you know, what are we stabbing them with their words and thinking, oh, I didn't really mean it. But so. And again, I don't mean to make people feel condemned because we've all said things, but you can start now. But we've just done good to, I think, keep respect. And part of that was just. You've heard that we just many times or sometimes we'll just agree to disagree.

How often is that? How often does that happen?

Oh, it would happen. So, you know, because we're running the church together in the ministry. So I was going to say it happens every month, but I don't know if it's that often. But there are major things that just say, Victoria, I feel passionate about this. I feel good about it. And she just, let's just agree to disagree and keep it respectful.

What do you do in that moment when both of you have a different vision towards something, whether it be small or it could be a big decision, how do you agree to disagree? And then which way do you move forward? You know, what's next?

Yeah, it's a good point. Who gets their way? I don't know. It goes both ways. But I do think that everybody has natural gifts. Well, I don't argue, I don't raise my voice, and I don't. And I'll say, I'm not trying to be a saint, but I just, I don't. It takes two to argue, and I think I've just learned to walk away. And again, I'm not bragging on me. I just, I think we have different personalities, and mine is real. I can. I could be aggravated or concerned and just say, okay, you know what, let's talk about this later and let's just come back and I'll research it more or something like that. But I don't know. Sometimes if she feels very strongly about it, I probably don't do it.

I'm probably strongly not to do something.

Yeah, I would probably go with her way if it was hiring somebody or, I don't know, something with her kids. I say, Victoria, you know, I'll tell her this. I said, I'm not going to do anything. I'm not going to go against what you want. But that's not. I don't agree with that. And I think that, you know, we're missing it or something and, you know, it seems to always work out.

That's beautiful.

But, you know, you have to give and take. And if it's, if I felt very strongly about it, she's, she's real good about, you know, she'll, she'll trust me in certain things.

That's great. Now, when you got married 34 years ago, you were not in the position you're in now. You were more of a behind the scenes production person. Right. You weren't like, this is my dream. One day I'm going to be this person that has the largest church in the world, that's reaching millions of people every day on TV and in their homes. That wasn't a part of the vision originally.

Exactly.

So how do people, when things happen later in their marriage that weren't expected, a part of their vision, that maybe one person gets more opportunities or abundance or a platform and the other person didn't think that was going to happen for them. How did you guys stay connected and aligned and teammates as opposed to, I don't know, jealousy or insecurity or. Now these women are flirting with you and can I trust you when you're, you know, how did you navigate all that?

Yeah, it was an interesting time because you're exactly right. Even Victoria said, joel, I didn't marry a minister. And all of a sudden she's, you know, she's a minister's wife and she's certain things expected from her. But a couple of things I think you have to be willing to change and to reinvent yourself. I do think that it's what you said is true. You know, you face new challenges. I think ours, we were able to come together in that we believe this is, you know, the hand of God, our faith part of it that we've been given this opportunity. Unless go for it full force together. But when my dad died, our daughter Alexander was three months old. So we had, you know, we had a son that's five too. And so we had a lot going on. Meaning that, you know, we still had to raise our children and not had to, but got to raise our children, have this little baby. So it was an interesting time. It's a good question. And it's just there were times that, you know, we would be out to eat over the years, and then all of a sudden people were coming up to me now and I was becoming known. And that was very different with our family. And not that Victoria didn't mind it or didn't. Was offended by it, but just. It was just different.

There was a change.

Yeah, we went to Disneyland one time and we had to, you know, I couldn't really. Couldn't really go with my kids then. I'm not saying I'm that well known, you know, I'm just saying there's just certain times it was happening. So it was, you know, I think it's time it didn't happen with us, but I think it's easy to resent some of that, like you're saying, but I think you have to go back to say, okay, this is the hand we've been dealt with. Every blessing, there's a burden. The blessing is we get to help many, many people and we get, you know, there's a favor on our life and a blessing. The burden is, okay, you've got critics, you've got, you know, I'm busier now than ever, you know, certain things like that. But I think one thing too, if I can go back.

Yeah.

Victoria and I, we've always had goals of doing something together. Meaning that we, We've. We've. When we got married, we, we bought. We bought an old townhouse and we fixed it up and lived in it. We. We flipped it and then we did it. We did about six of them. So we were always doing projects together. And it wasn't. We weren't. I wasn't in the pastoring part yet, but it was just something. We were, we were this team. We were doing it again. She'd find a house. Joel, we can do this. We. We fix it up. And also, I think sometimes there's no camaraderie with the husband and wife and that we're doing. You know, the husband's doing great things in business, wife's doing something, but maybe there's something they can do together.

I like that because you're building this teamwork and that way when there's a new opportunity that arises. Hey, how can we be a team together on this?

Exactly. And see, before my dad died, two years before, we got a construction permit for the last full power television station in Houston. And it was like, I mean, I love tv. And I love production.

I thought, oh, wow.

And we were able to put that station on the air. So we did that together for the last two years, you know, before my dad died, like I said. So we had to find a studio, we had to find a tower, we had to get programming. So I think we could do that because we built all these houses together, remodeled houses together. And so we had this teamwork. And so, again, it wasn't. We didn't always see eye to eye, but we had had enough respect that we've given take and all. But do you think. Yeah, I see it. I see it as a team, even, you know, we do things called Nights of Hope. It's always with Joel and Victoria. You know, the church. If you go to the church, you see the signs. Joel and Victoria. I want Victoria can reach people I can't reach. She has wisdom and insight. I tell people this, Louis, and it's the truth. I wouldn't be happy who I am without Victoria. Because 10 years before my dad passed, we would sit on the front row at church Sunday nights when I wasn't up in the TV area. And she said, joel, one day you're going to pastor the church. Ten years before he passed, I used to think, victoria, you. I got you so full because I had nothing to say and all that. But I think because she had told me that so many times. In other words, she saw things in me that I didn't see in myself. And I think it's a great principle in that you can call out the seeds of greatness in other people.

That's so good.

And I think sometimes. See, I felt. I felt limited. I felt shy and reserved, and nobody's going to listen to me. I didn't know why she would say that. My dad saw it, but I think when Daddy died, I'd heard her say that a thousand times, not pushing me to, Joel, one day you're going to pastor the church. Well, what if we all called out seeds of great mystery? I found sometimes we can see things in people that they can't see. And, you know, a blessing is not a blessing until it's spoken. And so I can think something. I can think, wow, man, Louis is really talented. Or I can tell you, man, Louis, you're talented. You're changing the world. But that's what Victoria did. And I think when we call it out for others, then God will have people to call it out in us. And I think it's in this society that we're living in, it's, you know, A lot of people want to demean and push down. We got enough of that happening. How can you be someone that lifts someone else? And just sometimes it's a simple word of encouragement or simple, man, you are good at that. Or man, you can pastor that church one day. Who knows what that's going to do?

Is there any non negotiables you guys have on a daily basis? Like, every day we say we love each other. Every day we pray together. Every day we give each other a hug. Is there anything you guys do every day that has been consistent?

Well, every day we tell each other we love each other. I think it just happens. I don't think it's like, you got to do this. Every morning when I get up, I tell her it's going to be a great day. She's telling me the other day, she said, you know what, you've been doing that for 20 something years. But, you know, and every day is not a great day. But I think it's just setting the tone for the day. I think it's just, I think it's a lot of times it's these simple things. And again, we don't have a formality of just saying good morning, saying hello before you leave the house, or saying hello when you get back in. It's just taking time to, hey, where's Victoria? Let me just tell I'm back and just, I think it's just the simple things of staying connected. And because it's easy in life and I'm not telling people anything they don't know, to get disconnected, to get busy. I mean, anybody here traveling for four days and all of a sudden you're doing your life, she's doing hers. But I think it's important to stay connected. So we talk a lot. I'm not a small talker. She'll tell you, you talk a lot. I know, but I don't really talk politics and all this stuff. But we'll talk, we'll have fun. But I think Victoria is much deeper than I am. I'm much more, you know, surface meaning. I just, you know, what's going on today? Here's some sports and let's go for a bike ride. And I just. But you know what? She respects that part of me as well. And I think sometimes we try to get something out of people that they don't have to give.

Like what? What do you mean?

Well, like, she doesn't try to make me into being a deep talker. Let's spend two or three hours communicating, talking about how much we love each other each night. And I do love her. It's just different strengths and, you know, but I think she has not tried to make me into something that I'm not. She accepts what I am now. I try to grow. I'm not going to say, you know, you can just put everything you got to communicate, but I try to grow and do better at things. But I think it's important to accept someone's strengths and celebrate their strengths and don't necessarily focus on the weaknesses.

Yeah, it's beautiful. Okay, I got you off the hook there on the relationship talk. I got two final questions for you before I go into those. You have so many amazing books. The latest one, you Are Stronger Than youn Think. Unleash the Power to Go Bigger, Go Bold and Go beyond what Limits yous. It's All About Waking up to youo Greatness.

Yeah.

Which I'm all about. So you have an incredible message here. I want people to get a few copies of this book, give it to a friend or two, buy it for a family member. You know the thing I love about the way you write, it works well for me. It's hard for me to read a lot. So you use simple analogies, simple stories that I can connect with. They're quick reads and they get right to the point of, like, how to step up. So I love the way you create your content. Your podcast is such a staple for so many people around the world. So if people haven't subscribed to go subscribe to the podcast. You're also, I think, Sirius XM. It's 24. 7. Your message is out there. Right. What's the channel in Sirius?

128.

128. So any moment you're feeling insecure or doubting yourself, go to channel128. Your website as well has everything. You're massive on social media. Joel Osteen. But Joel Osteen.com has got all the stuff about coming to see you in church in Houston and all this stuff, right?

Yes, that's right.

Yeah.

Thanks, Louis. Thank you. You don't have to do all that, of course.

Well, people need to know. People need to be empowered, in my opinion. You've got a great way of reaching people and connecting to people's hearts. That's different than me.

Yeah.

And so I think people need to be aware of this and I love listening to your stuff and I think people should at least check it out. If they have never heard about you, at least check out one 30 minute podcast just click on one of them and see what they think. So I think they'll love it. These final two questions are questions I ask people. Is there anything else I should mention about this or where people can go to get more?

It's good. It's good. Thank you.

Okay. Of course, the final two questions. This one is called the Three Truths. So I asked this hypothetical question at the end with every guest. Okay, so imagine it's your last day on this earth, many years away, and you live as long as you want to live, and you accomplish your goals and your dreams, and you keep serving the world. You have great relationships, all that, but it's the last day, and you got to turn the lights off in this world. And for whatever reason, hypothetical scenario, all of your written work, your videos, your content has to go somewhere else. So we don't have access to your content anymore, unfortunately. Hypothetical. But you get to leave behind three lessons to the world. Three things you know to be true that you would share with the world as your. As your message. And this is all we would have of your message. What would you say would be those three truths?

Those three truths. Well, I better make it good.

Louis.

I think first off is honor God with your life. Be a person of faith. Keep in first place. I think the second thing would be stay positive, stay hopeful, stay grateful. Keep that attitude of faith. And the last thing I would say, be a blessing. Lift up other people, help the. Lift the fall, and help the hurting. You know, that's. That's in a very short nutshell.

Beautiful man. I love those. Honor God, stay positive, and be a blessing.

Yeah, it's powerful. That's what I'd want to be known for.

It's powerful. Before I ask the final question, Joel, I want to acknowledge you. You know, when you walked in here, I was just so glad to see you and meet you because we've been, you know, trying to make this happen for a couple years. I know my team's been connecting with your team up and trying to see when am I doing a speech in Houston so I can come see you. And you happen to be here for the book tours, which is great. And I just want to acknowledge you for the gift you are in the world, for the way you continue to show up. You continue to rise above negativity, nasty things that might be said about you. You continue to come from a service mentality. How could I? You use your gift to create something that can help other people, whether it be through your books or your sermons or your talks or your Events, you're serving people. And for me, that's an inspiration that you keep showing up consistently to serve. You don't have to. You could stop and say, you know, I've done my part. But you keep showing up and serving, and I think that's for me, I really acknowledge you for that. And it's an inspiring thing to watch, and I'd love to watch you sometime in person down in Houston. So hopefully when I come down next, we can hang out, we can play some tennis. We're both not that good, so hopefully we can match each other well. Awesome.

I'd love to have you. Thanks for saying that about it.

Of course, of course. The final question, what is your definition of greatness?

My definition of greatness would be becoming all that God created you to be. I think greatness is different for each one of us, but it's just. It's reaching your full potential, you know, just becoming what God created you to be. Taking the limits off of yourself and stepping up.

I hope you enjoyed this episode with Joel Osteen. And I just loved getting to know him more. I loved hearing his story, and quite frankly, I'm so used to hearing him speak on stage and just be so on it with his message. You know, beforehand I was talking with him, he was like, you know, I write down all of my sermons and I memorize them. I work throughout the week to really memorize them so I can deliver them and be as effective as possible as getting the message out there to people when they're watching me live or live streamed across the world. It's got one of the largest congregations in the world, largest churches in the world. So I just thought it was so impressive how he delivers his message. I said, you know, you could give a master class on the way you communicate and how effective you communicate on stage in front of massive audiences. And so for me, it was fun to hear him go off the cuff and to answer questions and say things like, you know, I'm not sure and I'm still figuring things out and show some vulnerabilities in this interview. So if you enjoyed this interview, make sure to leave a comment below. And if you want more of me and Joel, then just type in yes below that you want more. And I want to kind of break down what I learned from this episode with you about some of the things he shared and related to my life and my lessons as well. So the biggest takeaways from me for speaking with Joel about overcoming self doubt and negative thoughts. I've learned strategies to Kind of overcome self doubt and negative thoughts for myself. When I was growing up, I had a lot of negative thoughts. I would say things to myself internally. I would say things out loud. And it's tough because anytime you add I am, whatever sentence you add after that, whether it's positive or negative, you really start to manifest that in your life. So I'm an idiot, I'm stupid, I'll never be enough. I'm too small, I'm too short, I'm too, you know, I'm not talented. When you start saying these things to yourself, you really start to manifest this in the physical world. And so this is something that Joel was talking about. You know, this was his dad's church. This wasn't his vision, it wasn't his dream, it wasn't his life. But he really later, once his dad died, then he had the opportunity to say, you know what, I'm being called into this. And sometimes there's a season when we feel more confident in our life and a timing in our life to lean into these things and other seasons that are not for us. So maybe if you're feeling insecure or doubting something, it's because it's not the right season. Maybe it is the right season, but that self doubt and that insecurity is just holding you back. You've got to overcome it. One of the things I loved what he was talking about is really surrounding yourself with people who aren't going to speak negativity into your life. He says he stops people once, he says, when they start telling him about the negative reviews or what people behind his back are saying negative about him. He doesn't want that to come into his mind and in his heart and his soul. So he's aware of it, but then he doesn't take on all the details. I think that's important not to, to be wrapped up in gossip. Not to be wrapped up in gossipy news like know the facts. Know the facts of what's happening in the world. Know the facts of what's happening to your body and to your friends and family. But don't go into the story and the details and the juicy gossip. Just that doesn't support you in your, in your health and your dreams. Another thing you talked about is this cup. You know, we have. Imagine having a cup full of water every single day. And the water is emotional energy, emotional fitness in every interaction you have with a human being that has gossip, stress, negativity, manipulation or fear, frustration in the conversation, then you lose some of that water. It Goes down and down and down. In other words, if you're having those conversations all in the morning and then it's noon, you've got no more emotional energy. And I like that analogy that he shared there. So make sure you're stopping it so you have a full cup that you can keep yourself hydrated and not lose it all and not be pouring it all out on other people when they're bringing negativity to your life. So I really like that analogy to make sure that you're constantly guarding your heart of negative thoughts, negative emotions that may be trying to come your way from peers, family, the media, news coworkers, and really just say, okay, thanks for sharing the facts and move on towards your goal towards saying something positive and shifting the conversations. That's one thing I really liked in the approach that I would take there. You know, I was trying to connect with Joel for many years. I think it's fascinating what he's built. I think it's amazing the career he's built and how he's built it on service. And it's funny because, you know, sometimes we want something right away. I think I tried to book Joel a few years back, and we never got the timing right. Then the pandemic hit. He wasn't traveling to la. I wasn't traveling to Houston where he's based. I didn't want to do it over zoom with him because I really wanted to do it in person and meet him in person. And so sometimes the things we want in life will come to us when we are patient and we are playing the long game. Sometimes we want things right now and again, maybe it is the time to do something right now. But the more consistent you are in your life, and the more consistent I've been, the more opportunities keep coming to me, the bigger guests that we have on our show keep coming to us, the longer we stick around. When I launched, first year, first two years, you know, people like Joel, it wouldn't have been as interesting for him to be on this show. Now when we met in person and, you know, in this episode, he's saying, you know, I've been a fan, I've been seeing what you're up to. It's amazing to see what you've created and how you've built this. He wouldn't have said that. The first six months, the first two years, the first three or four years, he maybe didn't even know about it. But the longer I've been consistent, the more I keep showing up, the more patient I am. While also taking massive action. More things come our way, right? And that's what I want to say to you. Like, you may want something to happen right now, you may want this big goal to happen right now, but maybe you're not ready. Maybe you still need to acquire some skills, or maybe you're not emotionally equipped to handle the pressure that will come your way with these big clients or big opportunities or. Or the press that could potentially come your way. Maybe you're not trained enough or skilled enough. You just need a little bit more time. So keep playing the long game towards your goals. Keep being patient. That's what I'd say for you there. Also, Joel had to realize that as he started to put himself out there and step into his greatness, into his gift, this wasn't his original dream, but he stepped into it after his dad passed away and said, I'm going to try to make something of this. I'm going to try to be of service to this community and then grow this community. He wanted everyone to like him, and not everyone loves him. There's a lot of people that are big fans of him. He's got one of the biggest churches in the world. But there are also some people in the world that don't like him, that don't agree with him, and for whatever reason, they're not a fan. And he shared that this, you know, kind of 25, 25, 25, 25 rule. He's like 25%, 25% of people are going to love you no matter what. They're just going to fall in love with you. You can do no wrong and they'll still love you. 25% of people kind of like you, and maybe they'll fall in love with you more and more over time, but they like you. Then there's 25% of people that aren't sure and they could not like you at one point. They could be persuaded either way. And then there's another 25% of people that are just not going to like you. You could mow their lawn every single day, you could make them food every day, you could give them money every day, they're still not going to like you. And if we can understand this kind of really approach to life, how really there's going to be a lot of people that may like you and some people that aren't going to like you. But there are certain people you can never do enough for. It doesn't matter what you do, they still won't like you. And I think that was really Hard for me in the place first. First, probably five, six years of my career because I wanted everyone to like me. I was like, I'm a nice guy. I care about people. I feel like I'm showing up for people. I'm working hard. Why would someone not like me? Why would I ever do anything to hurt someone? It's not my intention. And I remember something specific. I had an episode come out. This must have been like, five years ago. I had an episode come out and someone left a really nasty comment on my blog, which is essentially like, you're walking into my home and you've got muddy shoes, and you're just wiping your muddy shoes all over my carpet and jumping on my couch and screaming at me in my own home. This is my blog, this is my site. This is my content. Someone's coming to my home and wiping their dirty shoes all over my carpet and screaming at me. I remember defending myself, like writing this really long reply and response and defending myself and kind of getting frustrated back. And a coach of mine, his name is Chris Lee, who's been on this podcast many times, he calls me, you know, later that day, he sees this reply on my site and he calls me and he says, louis, what are you doing? Never reply like this. He's like, you're just wasting your emotional energy trying to convince someone to like you, who will never like you. And what you're trying to do is not going, like, use that energy on people that do like you. Use that energy on helping those people that are already bought in, already inspired by your message. Don't try to convince someone who's attacking you to start liking you. That energy is going to drain your energy throughout the day. It's going to hold you back from helping more people. And there are just some people that no matter what you do, what you say, they just look at you and they have a judgment. They're just not going to listen to you. They're not going to. Going to care what you have to say, and you just have to be okay with that. And this is kind of part of life. The biggest leaders in the world, you can mention all these massive names, and there are going to be people that a lot of people that love them, and there are going to be some people that for whatever reason, will find something to not like about them. I think his examples and his information about that inspires me because it continues to remind me as our platform grows and expands here. You can see on the YouTube comments below that there's going to be a lot of negative comments. A lot of great comments. You'll just see it below here. And to not respond, to not give your emotional energy to someone else who's hiding behind a computer and criticizing, it's not worth your time. So focus your energy on who are the people that do like me, who are the people that care about me in my life, My friends, my family. Family. How can I give more to those people and just learn to not let this affect you. It's hard to do. In the beginning, at least, was for me. But it was extremely freeing when I learned to let go and just understand this is part of life. People aren't going to like you. I was talking to Joel about imposter syndrome, if he ever had that, and how he overcame it. I want to talk about myself as well. You know, Joel talked about when he first started. He didn't go to seminary school. He was small. He was quite quiet. He was shy. He was never cared about speaking publicly in front of other people. He was more behind the scenes. He had that imposter syndrome. But something was kind of calling him. He kept pointing here and saying something was like pulling me forward and calling me when the season was right. It wasn't calling him before. For many years, when the season came, that's when he started to feel that pull. For me, I've definitely felt it earlier in my career. I felt it a lot certain times in my career. Now I feel it. The bigger the stage, the bigger the opportunity. I still ask myself, like, wow, 10 years ago, this would have never been possible for me. So if I go back and think to myself, man, my younger self would think, this is crazy. This is a dream. This is like, they've got the wrong guy. But then I reflect back on how much I've actually created, how many skills I've learned, how many mistakes and adversities I've overcome in the past decade and how much we've grown. And I think, wow, actually, we've done some amazing things. I am in the right place. So that's one approach that I do. Another approach is instead of thinking like, I don't belong here, I go into a place of, what do people need in this moment? Whether this is a room or a conference or an interview, how can I be of service to this person? Maybe they're so much bigger than me. Maybe they have such a bigger business or so much more credibility or whatever. It is a bigger platform. And I'm saying to myself, why would they want to sit and have a conversation with me? Why are they having me speak at this event. If I do that, just think about, well, there's a uniqueness about me that no one else has. And Joel talked about that, like, we're all one of a kind. There's something that I have that no one out of eight billion people have. And so that is meaningful. So think of, how can you share your message, your talents, your gifts with this person in front of you, this platform, this community, in a way that only you can offer that gift? There might be people smarter, more talented, more successful, better looking, you know, more financially abundant than you. But what is the gift that you can bring? Is it your charm, your charisma, your energy, your passion, your love, your joy, your perspective, your experience? How can you package that information and then share it in a unique way? I think Joel talked about that as well. He said I was not as big a personality as my dad. I felt like an imposter because my dad had this large, unlike personality. I was shy, I was small. I didn't go to school for this. I didn't have the credibility. But he said, you know, I started being me on stage. I started being me in front of this audience. And I started sharing my message in a more practical way. And I didn't do as much scripture, but I just shared simple stories and more relatable stuff. And that relatability helped him spread his message and grow to larger audiences. And if he would have tried to be an imposter and tried to be like his father or someone else, it wouldn't have worked. So that's how you overcome the imposter syndrome. So I want to talk about how my life has changed since shifting my mindset to thinking more abundantly rather than in scarcity. In the first handful of years of starting my business and really learning how to sell effectively and learning how to create courses and programs and coaching and events and books and all these things, and learning how to generate revenue. I went from a place of having no clue how to make money for a number of years to learning how to make money for a period of time. And then it started to come in after about a couple of years of figuring it out. And when I got to that place, the first few years, I was terrified to spend any money. I stayed in a small, you know, one bedroom apartment for many years. I was, you know, I didn't have a car for a couple years. I was just like, I want to walk everywhere. I didn't have TV for a few years. I was just like, I don't want to spend on any expenses. I was afraid to buy new clothes. I was just like, I'm going to. I still bought, you know, the cheapest flights possible, middle seat, back row buses, whatever I could for a number of years. Even when I started making more and more money because I was afraid to go back to a place of having nothing. And it was terrifying. So I was just in save mode in my bank account. I didn't invest anything. I just like, save and spend the least amount. And I remember I had this dream to make the Olympics and go to New York City to learn a sport for called team handball. And I wanted to make the USA national team was a goal of mine. And then once I was on the team, have us qualify for the Olympics. And I remember moving to New York City for a month. I was like, let me check it out for a month and go to this practice where this team was at that I wanted to learn from. And I remember paying this Airbnb, I think it was $2,700 a month. And I was paying $495 a month for an apartment before then. So from $495 to $2,700 in a month, I was thinking, this is insane. This is so much money. I thought it was crazy. This is like, you know, six months of my rent in Ohio that I'm paying one month here in New York City for a tiny little place. What am I doing? But I said, I'll try it for one month. And within that first month, it's like opportunities and abundance started coming my way. I literally walk outside and I found money on the floor. I found $100 in the first week right outside on the streets in New York City. And I was just like, huh, there is abundance here. When I invested in myself, I started to see money, literally. I started to find opportunities, meet people. I met more people in that first month going to networking events in this bigger city that I said, abundance is coming my way. When I invest in myself, when I invest in a greater environment for myself, abundance will come my way. When I keep it small, when I shrink myself, when I hoard my money in my bank account and I don't actively invest it in positive growth, environment, people, things like coaching, things like that, then it's going to be harder to grow abundantly. So when I started, that was like the start of the process. Okay. I remember moving after that into another apartment in New York City for 30. I think it's $3,700 or $3,900 a month and thinking this is crazy. This is so much money. But then I stayed there for a little over a year and it just continued. Opportunities continued to come my way. So every time I have moved, every time I've invested in high level coaching, invested in a coach for therapy, for business, for relationships, for my health, abundance comes my way in that area of my life. So it's something to think about. How do I manage my fears? I was asking Joel about this. Is there anything you're afraid of these days? You've got so many big opportunities and you've got so much going on. I want to talk about how I manage some of my fears and the things I think about overcoming and how to overcome stuff for me. I've talked about this many times. If this is your first time here, I highly encourage you to do this exercise. You take out a piece of paper and a pen and you write down your fear list. So it's a list of your fears, your biggest fears. For me over the years, public speaking was a fear. Doing a podcast was a fear because I didn't know how to interview people and how to do the technology. Writing a book was a fear. Just putting my writing out there, salsa dancing, all these things have been fears of mine. So I'll take out a piece of paper and a pen and I'll write down like, okay, number one, fear. The thing that makes me feel the most afraid when I think about, if that's speaking in front of an audience where I would tremble, then that's number one. If it's learning how to salsa dance, whatever it is, writing a list of your fears, your fear list. And the key for me has always been I've got to go all in on the thing that's the biggest fear first. When I do that, it's like it builds a level of confidence. Because for 30, 60, or 90 days of going all in every day on that fear, it's not fun. It's not fun. The first few weeks when you fail, when you humiliate yourself, when you embarrass yourself, it's not fun. But on the other side of the 30, 60 or 90 days of you going all in on that fear, you realize I'm still alive. I've learned and grown in this process. I have developed more skill of the greatest fear in the last 30 or 60 days than decades. I've created more skill in this small time period than ever before. And now I can go and take on this in the real world with more confidence, with more ease and less fear and insecurity. This is something I'm always thinking about. What is my fear for this year? What is the thing that is holding me back? I'm always trying to grow, so these are always things I'm thinking about. But it's like, okay, going all in, investing in that skill, investing in that fear and going from that space. That's how I do it. I really feel like you can't out think your fear. You've got to act on your fear. The sooner you do it, the better. So write down the list, the fear list, if you want to become fearless. And then go all in on that fear for 30, 60 or 90 days and see what you create on the other side. I'm always inspired by successful men or men who have a driven mission to serve people and to create something meaningful, a purposeful, driven life. I'm always inspired to learn about their intimate relationship because I've just found over the years that it's hard to find a man within a big purpose, a big mission where they stay focused decade after decade, doing it on their own without a great partner by their side. I'm always curious to ask these questions and to learn how do you make it work? How do you know it's the right person? How do you keep things interesting year after year? All these different stuff. I was fascinated by what Joel talked about because he is a big personality. He's got a massive personal brand, he's got a big audience that follows him online, offline. He gets a lot of attention and there could be distractions for someone like that. One of the things that I really loved about his conversation was he said one of the things is you got to find the right person. He talked about keeping the joy in the home, making sure your goals and values are aligned, which is something I want to talk about. He talked about how important respect is, which I couldn't agree more, and why you shouldn't say hurtful things to one another because it's hard to take those things back. Just really watch your tongue, watch your language with your intimate partner, because those things could really affect someone and they could carry that with them if you don't have a clearing conversation. One of the things that I really respect about a lot of these men that I've interviewed who have been in marriages for 20, 30, 40 years and had successful, sustainable careers and are healthy and happy. It's not about just staying together with someone for the sake of being together for a long time. It's about can you generally feel like you're in a good attitude, you're a positive person, you're happy a majority of the time. Obviously, there's going to be adversities and challenges and struggles that any relationship faces. The longer you're alive, you're just going to face these things naturally in life. But if the relationship is solid, are you joyful and fulfilled most of the time? I think that's the key for me, 80, 90% of the time. Can you turn back into a happy place? Can your foundation be joy, happiness, kindness, love? For me, that's what really excites me about the future of a possibility. And if there isn't that possibility, if the foundation is misery, stress, resentment, lack of respect, then that's not the relationship I want. And I wouldn't want to stay in something for decades if there wasn't a foundation of peace, love, joy and respect. For me, that's so important. And one of the things that Joel was talking about with his wife, Victoria, is it's finding the right person up front. And something that I really lean on with that. He said, make sure you find someone with values and the same faith, certain passions and things like that. For me, it's values, vision and lifestyle. The more and more I talk about this, you could have the same values, but if one person loves to be traveling and going out all the time and the other person loves to stay at home all the time, your lifestyle is going to be different. And obviously lifestyle can evolve and change over time, but you want to be somewhere aligned on values and vision and lifestyle. It's important to make sure you find the right person who has those three things up front. And not everything is going to be the same and perfect and all these things. I'm not saying that, but I'm saying is there alignment? Is there alignment on values, vision and lifestyle? It doesn't mean everything has to be 100% accurate, but do you have that? I love that he talked about finding the right person and making sure that you line up with those things. So I wanted to reflect on some of these questions that some people had for me about this. And one of them is how important are values in your relationship, whether it be intimate, business or with friends. For me, it's everything. It's something we talk about when we bring people on Team Greatness with School of Greatness and Greatness Media we share with people. Here is our list of values and here is our mission. If you're not about being of service to the world and creating meaningful content that inspires, that educates people, that entertains people to help them Improve their life. If that's not your mission, then this is not the place for you. If we try to force that on someone who doesn't have that same value and mission, it's just not going to be a good fit. Just like in a relationship, an intimate relationship. If you say, this is where I'm heading in my life, this is my vision for the future, here are my values. And someone has a completely different vision and values, it doesn't matter how much attraction you might have. This is where I learned my lessons from previous relationships where I was more attracted chemically, sexually, physically, as opposed to attracted. Values and vision and lifestyle wise. And I had to learn the hard way by getting into relationships that weren't the right fit for me and probably weren't the right fit for them quite honestly as well, because we weren't aligned with our values, vision and lifestyle. There's no one right or wrong here. It's just about are you aligning your life with someone? Friends, business relationships and intimate relationships. So for me, I hang out with people, my friends, who are into similar things like me, where we can have certain conversations that line up with our missions in life. People that are creators in the world, entrepreneurs in the world, who we can share the similar ideas and talk about challenges we're facing and reflect on these things. And people that I believe in their missions as well because they're living a life of service. They're creating from service, trying to help people. That's the baseline for me. If someone's doing that, that's great. I don't care what profession you're in, as long as you're doing something that you enjoy and you're trying to do it to the best of your ability and you're trying to help people in that process. It doesn't have to be helping millions of people. It can be one person. I'm cool with that. And that's what excites me. I want to hang out with those people. I think about this in my relationship. Currently my partner and I, we're constantly talking about our vision. What is her vision? What is my vision? Our lifestyle. We're so grateful that our lifestyle, our values and our vision are aligned. You could have alignment and still not work out. But I'm telling you it's that much harder when you don't have alignment to try to make it work. And this is why divorce rate is over 50% now. And probably a lot of people who are married for many decades are not as happy as they could be. And so it Comes back down to that. And it's finding the right person at first who has those things. Relationships, friendships, intimate partners, business friendships as well. Can you align on these things? Again, everyone's going to have their quirks and personality traits that are different, but can you align on those things? I think that's the key. So much struggle in relationships come from not being aligned first with the right person. You're attracted to someone not for the wrong reasons, but I would say for not all the best of reasons to start. And there's nothing right or wrong with that. But it's having those challenging conversations up front, which will save you time in the long run if you can have those conversations. Something to think about. Are you aligning yourself with your values, your vision and your lifestyle with the people in your life? Here's another question. What difference can you see in those who share your values versus the ones who, who didn't, that you tried to keep a connection with? It's just hard to. It's hard to be excited. It's hard to want to invest time and energy consistently. I can be friends with anyone, I can talk to anyone. I can ask questions to people that have completely different values and different lifestyle, different religion, different backgrounds. I can have a conversation with anyone and I could be friendly with anyone, but it doesn't mean I want to spend all my time with them and invest an hour a day of my life with that person. There's over 7 billion people on the planet. You only have so much time with so many people you can spend dedicated time with, intimate time with. I'm really focused on who are people or just. I feel like it's more effortless because we can talk about similar things because we have shared visions, values, lifestyle, because we like doing same activities, things like that. So again, I love bringing people on the podcast that maybe I wouldn't normally be best friends with. And sometimes I want to be their friend and hang out with them more because they have a different perspective. And for me, that's interesting. I like people who also bring a different perspective. But the value of being a good person, being kind, being generous, being respectful, like those basic values for me need to be there. And if someone is more of a victim mentality, if someone is constantly stressed and they're not willing to work on finding solutions or improving and they're just blaming others, it's hard for me to really relate. I can empathize, I can have compassion, but for me, it's like people got to be responsible for their lives and seek support and look for resources and do the work to find that base level of joy, of commitment to growth. For me, that's exciting. For me, a growth mindset, not a fixed mindset. So if someone's more fixed in their mindset, it's just challenging because you're always kind of butting up against each other. You're trying to pull them up, they're trying to bring you down. I think if that's happening in an intimate relationship, that's a real struggle. It's just exhausting. You want to be there for someone who fully accepts and supports you with who you are, your personality, all your quirks and your mission in life, your goals. You've got to be supporting that partner. And you want to find someone who fully supports you for your unique character and quirks, for your personality, your goals and your dreams. And I think I've experienced many times in previous relationships, not every relationship, but in previous relationships where I didn't feel fully supported for who I was, and I felt like people wanted to change me to make them feel safe or fit into their lifestyle. At those moments when someone tries to change you, I personally think that you're out of alignment in that relationship. And if someone's trying to force you to change to make them happier, if they're not happy because of something you're doing, then you shouldn't be together. Probably. Maybe it's not the right match early on. You have to think about that. Obviously people are going to evolve and change, but it's hard to force someone to change. It's really to come from within. So that person's got to want to change, otherwise they'll resent their partner for forcing them to change and making threats. No one wants to be told what to do, especially in an intimate relationship. And so I think it's important early on to say, this is who I am, this is where I'm at in my life, this is my vision, this is my goals. I'm going to change on my own pace. But you got to fully accept me for who I am right now. And I need to in return look at you and fully accept you. So this goes both ways. You can't expect someone to constantly be evolving, but them not wanting you to evolve and being okay with where you're at, you've got to be on the same page and say, I fully accept you, you fully accept me. We don't try to change each other. We elevate each other in seeing the greatness that we both have. We encourage growth. We become a Stand for what someone made a commitment to and say, hey, I'm encouraging you to do this. I'm happy to do this with you. I'll support you. Yes, do those things. But making threats or playing the passive aggressive game or getting mad at someone for the way they're being, if it's, you know, if it doesn't break an agreement that you've made early on or boundaries that you've created early on, then I feel like that's where resentment starts to build when someone's trying to threaten or push the other person to change who they are. For me, that's important. Another question is what are the biggest reasons you feel like people are struggling to find lasting relationships today? I'm not the poster child for this because I haven't been in a lasting relationship. I've been in, let's see, three long term relationships in the last 10 years. I've been a very committed person in long term relationships. One was about a year to a year and a half. Another was for four and a half, five years, kind of with off and on. Previous one was two to two and a half years. And now I'm in a new relationship. So in the last 10 years that has been my journey. So again, I have been improving and growing through reflection, through making mistakes and stumbling along the way and through taking full accountability and responsibility by going to therapy, getting coaching and saying, you know what, what do I need to heal? How do I get to improve? What actions can I take to grow? Because that's what I'm seeking, that's what I'm looking for. Growth and healthier long term relationship. So I think one of the biggest reasons why people are not creating long lasting relationships, healthy relationships. It comes back to what Joel said early on is finding the right person. And in my opinion, there are four elements of a relationship. There is the spiritual element, there is the emotional element, the mental and the sexual. These four key elements, and I'll just share with you my personal experience, these are realizations that I've had in the last year where most of my relationships started with the complete opposite. It should start on the sexual element as opposed to the spiritual element. The spiritual element for me should be the first element. What are our values? What is our vision? What is our lifestyle? And who are you and who am I? And do we align and accept each other for where we're at in our lives right now and where we say we're going? And are we consistent in these actions that we, that we say we are creating in our Life and these values and this vision. And so I've always, in the past leaned towards sexual chemistry and connection first and built a foundation there. And that's probably the worst place to build a foundation. I'm not saying you can't have a great relationship with that as a foundation, but I think you've got to be willing to get to the mental, emotional, and spiritual side quickly. So if you can flip it and say, okay, I'm going to get on the spiritual side first. And one of the biggest challenges that it's going to face is, in my opinion, removing the sexual element for a period of time. This could be, you know, many months. This could be as long as you want it to be. The longer you can sustain from sexual intimacy, the better, because then you go into straight conversation, you hang out with each other, you spend quality time together, and you communicate about values, vision, and lifestyle. I'm not saying you need to do this on day one. In the first three dates, you have to go right into who are you? And tell me about your soul and your values and your lifestyle. You don't have to go into this right away, but you want to delay the sexual element for as long as you can. For me, this has been what's been extremely effective. And seeing clarity, seeing the whole picture and creating a safe environment and creating an environment of this is fully who I am, and I'm going to act accordingly. And I'm going to show up as I am. I'm not going to show up with some type of trigger or some type of fear or anxiety. I'm going to go all in obnoxiously myself. And if someone can accept me for obnoxiously being myself, 100%, doing everything I love, all the things my friends, everything that comes with me or everything that comes with you. And you can just be friends and date. Of course you can hold hands and hug and kiss and things like that. But I'm talking about eliminating the deeper sexual element for as long as you can. My friend Devon Franklin wrote a book with his wife called the Wait, and it was about waiting for sex until marriage and about how they were able to build a stronger foundation by waiting. The longer you. I'm not saying you need to do that. We had Erwin McManus on as well, who talked about this. He was a pastor over at Mosaic. And I said, okay, listen, you know, with the. With where culture is at these days, most people are not waiting till marriage to have sex. And I said, I know that's what you believe in, but if you could give some advice to someone to when would be appropriate time to have sex in an intimate relationship, what would you suggest? And he was like, listen, I wouldn't suggest anything about waiting until marriage because I think it's very sacred. I think it's, you know, it shouldn't be something that's thrown around early on. But he said, if you're not going to wait till marriage, then the best thing you can do is wait till you're fully committed to each other. Wait till you're fully committed to each other and you love each other. Because if you're just having sex without love, then you're not laying the bricks of a strong foundation of the spiritual element, the emotional and the mental element. And so if you dive into a relationship where sex is the foundation, you're going to be constantly chasing that chemical desire, that chemical feeling of man. This feels really good, this connection, this chemistry, this sexual element feels great. And this person's amazing. They make me feel feel this way. And you don't talk about all these other things. You look beyond those things. You look past it, and those red flags start coming up and you lean back on your foundation, which is the sexual element. And then a year, two, three years goes by and you start having problems and challenges because it wasn't the alignment with the right person early on. And then you work on fixing something that never had a foundation from the beginning. So for me, those four key elements, spiritual, emotional, mental and sexual, are really the core foundation of building a lasting relationship. A healthy, authentic, lasting relationship. And again, you're not speaking to the poster child here, because I'm not married. I've been in three relationships in the last 10 years. I've been in committed relationships, but I felt like I wasn't comfortable having those conversations early on in the relationships. I was with great people. I wish them all the best. I had amazing experiences and times, but we just didn't have the alignment. Neither of us in all those relationships were willing to have the courage to delay the sexual element and to dive into values, vision and lifestyle. If we would have done that, I probably wouldn't have been with most of the people I was with, because those things didn't line up. It became very clear later in the relationship because I went to therapy in every relationship in the last 10 years. I said, I want to go to therapy to figure out how we can make this work. Each one of those partners, I wanted to go, I wanted to improve them, I wanted to be with them, I wanted to make them all all work, because that's kind of my come from. And we had so many things that just the foundation was not solid. In therapy, we realized that and realized that just we're not aligned. So we had the hard conversations later in the relationship when there was challenge and frustration and struggle on both sides. And I highly believe that if I would have done those conversations earlier, and that's all my responsibility, and I take full ownership from those. But if people today were willing to have those conversations again, I'm not saying you need to do this in the first weekend. Just get to know people, but then really start sharing values, vision, and lifestyle. And if you can do that, I think it's massive. Another question. What are the biggest realizations that you've had when it comes to relationships? And one of them for me is that love is not enough. And I have loved so many different people in my life, from friends to family and intimate relationships. And I realized love by itself is not enough. Authentic love is enough. Love where you accept the other person for who they are. You're not judging them, you're not trying to change them, you're not trying to fix them, you're not trying to control or manipulate them. But you're here to accept them and support them is enough. Now, I'm not saying you've got to fully commit to the first person that walks by you and fall in love with them and then just accept them for who they are. No. Take time to get to know someone, date someone, and ask them the tough questions. And ask yourself the tough questions. Am I interested in this person? Because I'm super sexually attracted to them because they have this really cool job or this talent or this gift, or maybe they've got this position at a business that is enticing to me and it's seductive because maybe they could help me in my career or they're a celebrity or whatever it is. If you are jumping into a relationship because of one of those things, as opposed to the foundation, finding the vulnerabilities within each other and being fully accepting of each other and. And being excited about it. It's funny because my girlfriend Martha, she's like, is this how you've always been? I go, yeah. She goes, wait a minute. So this is who you are? After, like, a few months of dating her, she was like, this is who you are. And I was like, this is who I am. This is how I've always been. She goes, everything you do, I love. I wish people I was with in the past did these things. And I was wanting them to do these things. And I said, this is how I've always been. And it just comes down to finding that alignment and making sure that it feels more. I don't know if the word is effortless. I don't know if the word is peaceful. I think that's what it is. It feels peaceful because there is acceptance on both sides and both parties are taking accountability. And it's just like, I like what she does, she likes what I do. But we communicated those challenging things early on in the first few months while eliminating the sexual element. That's hard to do for people these days, I think, who are more into instant or quick gratification. I'm to blame for being one of those people for many years. And it just gets you in trouble. Maybe it works out. Maybe it's you found an aligned partner and you had the sexual element early on, and it's still great and it still works out because you were just the right people. But I think you can discover that easier when you eliminate it. If you said, if I was not able to have sex with a person, would I want to hang out with them for a year and spend all this quality time with them? Would I be mentally and emotionally excited around them? Would I accept them for who they are, their career, their choices, their family life, their parents? Would I want to spend quality time with this person consistently if there was no sexual element? And I think a lot of people might ask that question after six months or a year and be like, nah, like, if there was no sex, I don't know if I'd want to spend quality time with this person as much. Or maybe that's what's keeping the relationship together. It's like every time you get in a fight, you come back to the sexual element and it lasts another week or two and it keeps you together again. I've been there in all these scenarios in the past. And so for me, I speak from experience on what not to do. I speak from experience on feeling pain and stress in my chest consistently and not feeling peace. And so if the foundation is peace, again, not every moment is going to be peace. I'm not saying this is going to be some utopia, but if the foundation that come from the common ground is peaceful acceptance, peaceful love and joy, then that's a beautiful thing. And it's hard to create a lasting relationship when your foundation is stress and chaos. Another question. How important is having your own identity outside of relationship? I think this is everything for me. And I remember, again, I take full responsibility for every relationship I've been in. And I chose to allow myself to lose my identity because I wanted to keep the peace. My therapist talks about this with me. She was like, you were trying to buy peace in previous relationships. You were trying to shift who you were to make someone else happy and buy peace. Not going out with your friends, not doing the workouts you wanted to do in certain places, not going out salsa dancing, doing the activities that brought me joy, that brought me an identity, not traveling in certain ways. I stopped doing those things outside of the relationship to try to make partners that I had happier or feel more safe or whatever it might be that they didn't like about that within my lifestyle and losing that identity, I resented them. I resented myself because then I was abandoning who I was, my true identity, my nature, my authenticity, power. I was abandoning that inside of myself. Those things wanted to come out and I didn't let them. So it wasn't their fault. It was my responsibility for choosing to try to buy peace, to not be who I wanted to be, to try to make them happy. And I believe that, again, this goes back to the right person. The right person wants you to be fully yourself. They are confident, they are a secure person. They're not insecure around you. And that takes healing and doing the healing work from previous relationships or childhood, which is not easy to do. It's not easy to heal our past, our traumas and to look at that stuff. This is stuff that I've been working on for many, many years. And it takes time, and it's a journey to fully work on that integration process of healing that past trauma. But I think the more you start letting go of your identity, I'm not saying you shouldn't be creating mutual commitments and sacrifices on, you know, I'm not going to go out every night with my guy friends or whatever. But making sure you have that time and energy to do things you love and scheduling that time in your life, it's so important. I think that's what attracted you to your partner in the first place, is them being themselves in the world. If you were attracted from a healthy space, you saw what they were doing. They had confidence, they had an aura about themselves with the activities they did, they put themselves out there. If you start to make yourself smaller, you start to hide yourself and neglect the core parts of your identity that you expressed before, then you're going to resent yourself, you're going to resent your partner, and you're going to resent the relationship. I think it's highly important to have that identity. Another question. How does not loving yourself first affect your relationship? Oh, my gosh, this is a big one. It's learning how to heal and learning how to fully love and accept yourself. I'll be the first to admit that for many years I didn't know how to fully love myself. And I think a lot of us don't know how to love ourselves. I'm not talking about the ego, overly confident, I'm the best loving yourself type of energy. That's not really loving yourself. That's a false sense. I'm talking about having acceptance for who you are, believing in yourself and knowing that you are worthy and you're enough. I didn't know how to fully embrace that until I really started doing more healing work in the last eight years and really in the last year and a half, two years, integrating it more and more and more. If you don't love yourself, you're going to neglect your identity. You're going to neglect the things that you love expressing about yourself. You're going to find resentment there. If you don't love yourself, you're going to give in. Every time your partner wants something that you don't want to do, you're going to give in. You're going to abandon yourself over and over again. Loving yourself means creating healthy boundaries, creating standards, creating agreements, and having uncomfortable conversations that may feel scary and messy, but bring you a lot more peace in the long run than just neglecting those conversations. In my current relationship, we've had many uncomfortable conversations. I was just like, man, I really want to talk about this right now. But on the other side, we gain clarity. Okay, are we in alignment? You know, are these things in alignment or not? So loving yourself looks a lot like 100% honesty of this is who I am, this is where I'm heading. And it's not a take it or leave it conversation or, or nothing. This is authentically who I am, and I don't need to be in a relationship with someone who doesn't see that. And I also want to make sure I'm in a relationship with someone that I fully accept. I'm not trying to change. This is a standard for both parties. But you got to be willing to love yourself first. And it's hard to fully love someone else if you're constantly abandoning yourself, if you're constantly shame, doubt, insecure yourself. How can you fully give to someone else if you don't believe that you love yourself fully first? That's going to say, I'm not deserving of love as well. You've got to come from that whole healed place. My therapist says healing is not an event, it's a journey. You have healing moments and you're consistent in the practice of healing over a journey. That's where you continue to grow and having that growth mindset. The next question is, how has healing your trauma from the past affected your relationship? Again, I've been kind of already talking about this, but it's really, I think, necessary for both parties to be thinking about. Is there anything from my past that I haven't worked on yet? Is there events, moments, relationships that I've been affected by in intimate parties, friends, family, parents, any which way? Are there moments and scenarios and events of my past that have wounded me, that I have yet to start mending and healing and repairing those wounds? And if you know you have a wound from the past that you haven't healed yet, if you are reactive, if you're defensive, if you get angry and frustrated easily, if you are passive aggressive, if you give the cold shoulder and you don't talk to someone for a few days, if you blame other people all the time, if you're doing some of these things, if you're manipulative, if you're gaslighting, if you're doing some of these things, it's probably signs that you have a wound and you haven't started to heal it yet. Because a healthy whole person, a person who is in a healing journey and who has processed their pain and has let those things go and not saying they haven't affected them, but they've learned how to heal those things. So it's not a constant wound. They are peaceful, they are non reactive. It doesn't mean they don't get angry still, they're just not reactive towards their anger. They learn how to process it in a different way. And maybe you've seen some of these people before that just seem like, man, they just had some horrible things happen and somehow they're able to process it with kind of a grace, kind of a poise about them. It doesn't mean they're still not. They're not affected and they're not in pain and they're not hurting. It doesn't mean that, but it means they realize that coming back with anger and reaction only hurts them more. And you're speaking again or you're listening again or watching again to a guy who was angry and reactive and defensive, all these things for many, many years in my 20s, and I would say some of my early 30s and no means am I perfect still. But it's a place of consistent growth and healing journey that allows me to be minimize those things a lot. If you talk to my closest friends that know me, they'll tell you, from 10 years ago to today, it's like night and day of the reactions that come from me. You want to ask yourself if this person is always in reaction mode, if this person is constantly frustrated, defensive, if they're guarded, if they're not willing to express themselves and open up after a period of time. People guard themselves in the first few weeks or months, I get it. But after a period of time, if they're still not willing to open up about something, that means there's a shame, there's an insecurity, there's a doubt, there's a pain that's inside of them and they lack the confidence to express it to you because they're so afraid. They're afraid of that pain. But someone who has created that healing process, that whole human experience, they can talk about everything from their past with peace. Maybe the memory still makes them a little sad and it can bring up some emotions, but they're able to communicate everything from their past. Maybe not like a Zen monk, but they're able to talk about these things and really just be like, you know, this is something that happened and it was really sad for me and it still sometimes affects me. But I'm working through the journey. I'm working on the process that is someone that you can trust more and know that, hey, they're open to this. And some people are less likely to open up than others. And I'm not saying you should not spend time with these people, not be friends with them, you know, kick them out of your life. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is when you're looking for your intimate partner, you've got to be asking yourself, are they on a healing journey at least are they working on it? Or are they completely saying, no, I'm not going to go there, I'm never going to talk about these things. They're always going to be in reaction mode. They always think the world is out to get them and they're going to be angry and resentful for the rest of their life. If you feel those signs and that's not your vision, if you say, you know what, I really wish I could be with someone who's defensive and reactive and wounded and isn't working on their healing journey, then cool, maybe you'll keep attracting Those individuals, if you haven't done that work as well, it's something to think about when you think about your own trauma from the past. My friend Stephan speaks says in a lot of his books and the content we've done on our show here on YouTube and podcast, he says step one to any relationship is number one, heal. Heal yourself first. Focus on the healing journey first. Because if you don't learn to heal your own stuff from your past, you will keep manifesting and attracting a partner that will be chemically exciting in the beginning, but will be usually not a good fit long term. I'm not saying you can't always figure out a way to make it work. You could. But you both got to be doing that work together and that healing journey, or you're just accepting each other for being in a fixed mindset. Maybe you're okay with that as well. But I want peace, and I think most people want peace in their life. Some people are addicted to drama because that's what they know, that's what they grew up in. That's what their parents and their previous relationships were. But most people who are addicted to drama really just want peace. They don't know how to handle the peace because they haven't healed yet. But most people in this world want peace, and that comes from acceptance, that comes from respect. That comes from a shared values, vision and lifestyle. So you have alignment on your life. That's what it comes down to. Again, they say opposites attract. There's going to be differences in your relationships, and that's part of the magic as well. Is not having everything the same, but it's being in alignment with your values and vision, with the unique differences that you both have. These are some of the things that opened up for me as I was interviewing Joel about his relationship. Again, he's got a book called Unleash the Power to Go Bigger, Go bold, and Go beyond what limits you, because you are stronger than you think. I want to make sure you guys check out this book. Check out the other episode we did with him as well. That goes more into that. And one more thing that I'll say about my thoughts on the relationship side of things. If you go back to those four elements of relationships we talked about earlier, the spiritual, the emotional, the mental, and the sexual. Just ask yourself in your previous relationships, out of those four things, maybe write this down. Ask yourself, on a scale of 1 to 10, where were you at in your spiritual connection, your spiritual relationship without sex involved? Where was the spiritual relationship at 1 to 10 where were you mentally? Were you on the same wavelength mentally? Did you guys think in a certain way? Did you guys have a similar philosophy about life 1 to 10? Where were you? And be brutally honest. Don't just look back and think about the best moments. Think about all the moments. Were you brutally honest with yourself? When giving this kind of ranking, 1 to 10, mentally, think about the emotional side of things. Did you guys gel well emotionally? Were you always in trigger and reaction in defense mode or aggression mode or passive aggressive mode? Were you in that emotional state? Was it heightened when something happened? Did you feel triggered emotionally? Where was that at? Let's say on these scales, 1 to 10, 10 being the best that it could be, 1 being it was always up and down, you'd be a 1 if it was extreme drama. Emotionally, it'd be a 10. If there was peace, 99% of the time, it'd be a 1. If there was no spiritual connection at all. Everything was surface level, and there was talking about. It was talking about people, drama, gossip, news, as opposed to talking about greater ideas and spiritual concepts. And then sexually, where were you at 1 to 10? Maybe you never really had sex. You didn't have a good sexual connection and the sexual energy was dead. It's a 1. 10 would be. It's thriving. You feel connected, you can connect with one another and, and really create these magical, sexual, spiritual moments together. That'd be a 10. So I want you to look back at your previous relationships and just, you know, this is not making someone right or wrong, good or bad. This is just taking inventory so you can start to see, how have I shown up in my past relationships and where can I take responsibility and never putting the blame on someone else? But how can I hold myself accountable for choosing these relationships, for staying in these relationships? And by not having the uncomfortable conversations early and really evaluating these four different elements of a relationship, I want you to start thinking about, okay, was there any of those relationships where we are at 10 on all four elements? And if not, what was missing from you, not from them? What was missing from you? How can you continue to show up with responsibility in your previous relationships and moving forward? If you're in dating right now, if you're in a single season of your life, what can you do to create from a spiritual standpoint of building a foundation with people to begin and making that in the 7, 8, 9, or 10 range early on? I think if you do that early on, you're setting yourself up for better relationships with all people. If you're dating someone and it doesn't work out with the other elements, then maybe you have a friend, maybe you didn't need to commit to that person because you learned that you didn't have those other elements in alignment, but you came away with a friend, or at least with a good experience, without any type of sexual bonding and chemicals that are bonding you, without a foundation of the spiritual, the mental, or the emotional elements in a relationship. This is something that I want you to reflect on, take inventory on, and ask yourself, how did I show up in previous relationships and what can I do moving forward? Whether I'm in a relationship right now, how can I start to shift these four elements to make sure that I'm going from a 1 range towards a 10 range? And ask yourself, what can I do to improve these four things? Reflect on the things you did in your previous relationships. If you enjoyed this and you want more relationship content from me, more from me, sharing my ideas, my thoughts, my experiences, my mistakes, my flaws, all of it. Because, you know, we keep it real here on the School of Greatness. If you want more from me, then leave a comment below on this video over on YouTube, or if you're listening to this over on Apple or Spotify, message me over on Instagram and say, louis, please do more relationship conversations with yourself. And if that's something you're into, then maybe we'll do more of this. Personally, I'm always a fan of bringing these people on. Who've got again? Joel's got decades of experience with his marriage and his relationship. He's really in a different level, in a different category than me. I bring the real messy stuff of what not to do and what I've learned from all my mistakes in the past. But if you want more from me, feel free to please let me know. And you guys are amazing. I appreciate your constant support for showing up for what we're doing here at the School of Greatness, and I'll see you in the next episode.

What we need to realize is every time we try to blame God, we're just actually trying to diffuse and to.

Displace the blame that is ours.

Because the best way to grapple with that is there's no God. So who's responsible? When people say to me, I can't.

Believe in God because of suffering in.

The world, okay, there's no God, is there still suffering?