Keys To Finding Abundance & Success EP 1385

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Your life doesn't just belong to you. You don't get to come in and leave without being responsible for those that you impact. And when you understand that, you're like, hold on. My life literally sends waves out into the universe, and it impacts the way they choose to show up in the world. When you recognize that, then the question.

Becomes, welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome to today's special episode. Over the last 1300 plus episodes, there have been so many impactful interviews that I've been lucky enough to have, and I always like to reflect on some of the most powerful. And this episode was one that resonated with most of you guys in the past, and I'm excited for the value it's going to bring you today as well. So I hope you enjoy today's JULIE.

SHERIDAN: 00:00:00 00:00:00 episode.

You talked about self-care in a recent tweet, the importance of self-care. I'm curious, what is just the definition of that for you, self-care? Because a lot of people think like, okay, is it getting your nails done if you're a girl? Is it getting a massage?

Is it the way you think about yourself? Is it— what is self-care for you? Yeah, so first of all, I think self-care is a reflection of the the worth that I believe I have. So a lot of people, and I did this for a long time, I wasn't in self-care but I realized my lack of self-care was connected to my lack of self-worth so I believe to the flip side of that, self-care is acknowledging your self-worth acknowledging your value to yourself, acknowledging first to self, and then your value that you are, you have to the people around you, then Self-care is your responsibility to your future. It's so much bigger than nails done. It's so much bigger than massage, though those are nice. Self-care is saying, I want to be responsible for my future, meaning I want to give my body, give my mind, give myself what I need so that I'm playing the long game. That recognizing self-care is recognizing this is not a sprint. This life is a marathon. You know, I always say that your job is to identify and have the courage and the tenacity and the resiliency to own your purpose. Your body's job is to get you there.

Snap.

That right there.

So what I'm hearing you say, It's your body's job to have the energy, the clarity, the focus to sustain the marathon of life so that your purpose can be fulfilled and bring it to life.

Like you have a responsibility to your body and your health and wellness. If you believe your purpose is important or you're still discovering it, you want that dash between your birthday and your transition day to mean something. Take care of your body. Take care of your body, take care of your mind so that you can, every morning I get up and I have the same gratitude prayer. Every morning, God, thank you for giving me a mind that's sane and sound and logical. Thank you for giving me a body that follows my command. That's right there. That right there. And if you don't think about it, if you like, what has to try telling your hand to move and it doesn't move. Try wanting to run to a goal and you can't do it. And so every day, not one day goes by, I'm grateful and I share my gratitude. from my mind, thinking logical thoughts, being able to rationalize and my body following my command. Your body is your instrument, it's your tool. It's the first person, the general in your army.

What happens when we live in a state of irrational thoughts or overly emotional thoughts, especially, you know, there's a lot of people during this time that are freaking out from the pandemic and coming from an illogical, irrational place with the social justice movement that are coming from whether it's justified or not, is not what I'm saying, but coming from an emotional charged energy, what are we saying to ourselves when we come from an emotional or irrational state of mind with our actions?

Well, first it's important to understand that forward moving individuals, leaders, abundant thinkers, change agents, when you think of the Nelson Mandela's and the Dr. Martin Luther King's and the Cesar Chavez and the Mahatma Gandhi's and the Mother Teresa's, and you think about the Michelle Obamas, you think about those people, the Barack Obamas, you think about those people, they recognize that emotion and logic cannot coexist and make a logical decision. That logic must lead emotion and longing has to follow. So you make your decisions from logic and information, in fact, not longing and emotion. you allow longing and emotion to fuel a logical decision. Does that make sense? So don't be without emotion, don't be without feeling. But every time you did something and it was just feeling that led, just emotion that led, you probably said, oh, I should have did something different. I shouldn't have did that. I'm so sorry. I was too angry. I'm so, like, you're always apologizing if it's just out of emotion. And by no means am I saying don't be full of passion. but also make sure you're full of logic.

So don't just be, I'm outraged by this thing, whether it be a relationship or justice or whatever. This isn't fair, you know, just getting out there and chanting your feelings. That's not enough. Actually, not enough.

It's not enough in any form, whether it's social justice, whether it's a relationship, whether it's, you know, a business, a service, it's not enough. When you have logic in fact, logic in fact included gives you more of a chance to have longevity and impact. And so yeah, I know people recently have wanted me to be more emotional sooner than what they saw. And I found myself saying on social media very boldly, I choose my path. I found my stillness. I went into a place of stillness and some of the social injustice. I went to stillness first so that I can think about my movements. Because again, a leader, a leader, a gladiator, a change agent, a change maker, all the things that I consider myself to be or I aspire to be at the next level, I want my dash to mean something. You are not only responsible For your words and your actions, you're also responsible for your reactions. Now that's game changing. And so to those individuals who are driven by emotion, I say absolutely allow emotion to be the gas in your car, but make sure logic and information are at the steering wheel.

Oh, if you're emotional at the steering wheel, you're about to crash somewhere.

Exactly. Something. You're not making the best decisions while you're inside of traffic going 100 miles per hour.

Did you feel a sense of, what I'm hearing you say is that maybe you weren't posting or talking about your feelings of the, of Black Lives Matter or the social injustice that was happening quick enough and that some of your audience was pushing you to say, where's your stance or why aren't you speaking up? Or is that what I'm hearing you say?

Right. Well, I, I, I responded immediately, but I said I responded. When I responded, I said, I'm praying. I'm praying for George Floyd's family. I'm praying for his children. I'm praying for his, the community. I'm praying for every mother of every child, every Black male child slain, every Black male daughter slain, I'm praying for them. And I got some backlash, not a lot, but some backlash saying, you know, why are you just praying? We've been praying for so long. And so people were angry that I wasn't passionate enough. I wasn't publicly passionate enough. I was passionate. And you know, I'm a black woman. I was all day angry. I was hurt. I was disappointed. My grandmother's 91 years old. Why is she still seeing this? Why are we still here? I had every emotion everyone else had. But because I need to be responsible for my thoughts, my actions, and my reactions, because I'm gonna have a few million come with me, I wanted to make sure that I was doing something that was gonna be long led. But before all of that, Lewis, One of the reasons why I couldn't talk was because my son, 25 year old, 6'2, 220 pounds, was driving 20 hours across the country from California to Seattle during the initial part of a lot of the protests. And so my baby's on the road in the car behind the wheel. Huge African American male. So I couldn't even talk until he told me he got there safely. And that took a few days. And so I was a mother. So I was, I was blown away with how scared I was. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't think straight. I was calling him at three in the morning because he would tell me, Mom, we're going to get to the hotel, the next hotel about 2 a.m. Or 1 a.m. So I'm up, I'm on the phone, like, are you there yet? Are you there yet? And so I got some backlash. I got more support than anything, but I realized that in moments like this, Louis, where the woman sometimes wants to just speak out, I have to stop and go, hold on, is that going to do with the highest good for everyone? and I'm not saying watering down my conversation. I have no desire on any level to water down my belief system, to water down my opinions, but I do have the desire to make the strongest impact. And so, you know, what you do sometimes isn't popular, but I never started doing transformational work or to be a transformational agent to be popular. If I am any form of celebrity, if I am, it's a byproduct of doing hopefully good work in the world. But I'm not doing things to be popular. I'm doing things to be impactful.

That's good. For anyone listening who's maybe they're starting out or maybe they're growing an audience of some size, whether it's 10,000 followers to 100,000 to millions, what do you say to them about because at some point they're going to get pressure feedback about something that people don't like about them. What advice do you have for people who are leaders or want to be leaders and With that type of leadership comes some type of following or fanship. What advice do you give to them for not allowing the pressure of your audience to dictate your decisions or make you feel bad about who you are?

Well, I'm gonna tell you what my grandmother told me. And she starts every statement with baby, baby. Other people's opinion of you ain't none of your business. so. And that doesn't mean you don't care, but it means you got one job. Do you. But you need to find out what does that look like and feel like on you. You are a unique, unrepeatable Miracle. That's what you are. Unique, unrepeatable. And the moment you try to carbon copy somebody else, you're gonna be a failure of yourself. And so find out who you are. What's your belief system? Speak to inspire, not to impress. Like all day long, like speak to inspire and speak to disrupt, to disrupt for forward movement, forward moving conversations, disrupt for forward moving mindset, be willing to be unpopular at the cost, at the possibility that someone's gonna grow on the other side of it. See, my grandmother also says, and many people have heard me say this, your conviction and your convenience don't live on the same block. I was just talking to a beautiful group of coaches, all white, all looked like they were probably over 40, right? And this one gentleman said something beautiful to me. He said, Lisa, he said, I want to talk to black people as a white man because I'm afraid of finding out that the white people that have been in my life all my life might be racist. He said, I don't know what I'll do if I find that out. So I find myself wanting to talk to black people so that I don't find that out. I said, here is that moment when your conviction and your convenience don't live on the same block. You have to be willing to be inconvenienced with new information in order to have an impact on the future. When you live like that, all of a sudden, Your mind is at the highest level of consciousness. Doesn't mean you're the smartest, doesn't mean you know everything. Let me be super clear. But it does mean you're always reaching for the highest level of service. That might come with some bumps. That might come with some bruises. As my doctor said when I broke my right ankle, Louis, in three places, he said, Ms. Nichols, this will get better and you will be stronger. However, it's going to hurt first because I have to re-break your leg. Oh, I gotta re-break your leg. in order to fix your leg. And so I always pull back to that experience because in order for me to get to a healed leg, I had to break it first, meaning I had to walk through some pain. So if you are leading a group of 10, 10,000, 20,000, 10 million, be willing to lead even when you're not popular. Leaders lead even when it's uncomfortable to lead. you don't choose convenient leadership, you choose leadership. You don't choose leadership that won't cost you anything. You choose leadership. And if you don't want it to cost you anything, then sit down and don't leave.

Be a follower. Because it's always.

It's always. The path is already made. There's nothing wrong with that, by the way. There's no judgment on a follower. But if you choose this path, I'm a unicorn, I'm a gladiator, I'm a change agent, I'm here to. to disrupt. I want to make this world a better place between my birthday and my transition day. Okay, then be willing. Someone's always gonna have this. This little thing right here. Oh, wow.

It's down always. This little thing right here.

Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. Your job is to wake up, look in the mirror and say, today I am enough. I'm smart enough, I'm bright enough, I'm chocolate enough, I'm mocha enough, I'm cream enough, my hair is curly enough, my hair is straight enough. I woke up enough before you check any response on social media. You first like you and then everybody else's like is optional.

Ooh. Ooh.

Like and the only like. And I'm not saying disregard other people, but I am saying you are whole and complete and everything you touch, you have to touch it from a whole and complete, even what you don't know. Even in your ignorance about something. Right now, I'm educating more of my white brothers and sisters about having conversations across color lines. How do you want to do that? What are some things to say that can keep you in that safety net of connection? And that's what I should be used for. And that's what everyone's asking me. Give us some insight. And in that, you're whole and completing your ignorance about that conversation. That doesn't measure your wholeness.

Right. Right. And to follow up with that follower leadership point, I guess in some ways throughout our entire life, we're all following something or collaborating with and following someone else's opinion or advice or teamwork and we're all leading other people at different stages of our life as well, whether it's one person or, you know, millions of people. So we're always got to learn. I'm curious about this conviction convenience Yeah. Because the last time it came on, you had a convenience in your life for a long time that you talked about, which was this weight. I think you actually called it a suit of some kind.

A jacket.

Yeah, yeah. And it had convenience for you and it served you for certain areas of life, but then it held you back from reaching new levels of leadership, of joy, of happiness. I'm without assuming, but I'm, you know, yeah, absolutely. what is the area of your life that is convenient that you need to step more into conviction to overcome that to get to the next level right now?

Right now. Oh, what a great question. It's so funny because I would say, so I break my life up into four quadrants. And when I teach my students and I teach my coaches who's coaching, I say break your students life down up into four quadrants, health and wellness, business and finance, relationships and spirituality. And then it's easier to chop down. So when you ask me that question, I go to those four quadrants and I go, okay, which one? How is that one doing? How is that one doing? How is that one doing? And I can honestly tell you, this is gonna sound funny, but it's in my health and wellness deal.

Still?

Yeah. It's in my health and wellness. Still a very different conversation.

And that because you've kept the weight off, right?

I'm assuming. I kept it off. Yeah. Kept it off. It hasn't gone up and down. But I want my next level. Now I'm at my next level. Now I want Angela Bassett arms and I want Serena Williams abs now. First, I just wanted to get this 85-pound jacket off my back. I had another-- now that it's off and now that I'm inside of a fitness journey, now that I'm inside-- now I'm like, OK, hold on. Is it possible? So I find myself watching a lot of videos of women over 40 who are just like beasts, right? Like, oh my God, right? 'Cause I go, can I get that? And the answer is yes, yes, and it's gonna cost you something, right? And so I'm excited 'cause during the pandemic, you know, I began saying when the quarantine happened, I said, who do you wanna say you were during this quarantine? 'Cause we got about two months, three months, and on the other side of it, you have to say, when people say, what you do during the quarantine? You got to answer them. So what'd you do during the quarantine? So I'm excited to say during the quarantine, I was a beast in my home gym. I created home bootleg gym. I was-- I wish I had time. I'm gonna try to find it on my phone, but I took a broom. I took a-- the stretch bands, you know, the bands. I took a resistant band. and I took a broom, and I, I put the broom through both ends, and I put the broom on my shoulders, and I was doing some squats with the resistance band. Then I was doing curls with the broom and the resistance band. And then I took the, the Arizona iced tea big jug. I filled it with water. I filled another one, and I was doing it because we couldn't get out at all to do, to do weights. And I, we took the the plates that go on top of your roof, the roofing, you know, those big plates. We found some of those outside. I just moved into this house, so I didn't know what was in the house. I moved into a furnished house. I found the roofing outside. We stacked five roof plates, and I would do five or four. I just got radical, you know, and as a couple of stores opened up, I went and replaced them with real weights. And so that was, this is the first time since we met, Five years ago, that I've been so like on fitness training for toning and tightness and that next level. But one of the things that I realized, Louis, is that I had to honestly believe that I could get it. I had, for so long, I just-- ASHLEY BROWN: I believe you could get what? That body, that level of achievement that way. Let me tell you why. Because sometimes you're trying to outrun misery. for a long time. And all you know is I want to be out of that discomfort. And so for so long, 19 years, I was. I was overweight.

Right.

And so for so long, I just didn't want to be fat. I just didn't. So I. I can't.

Screw the abs. You just didn't want to be fat.

That's what I'm talking about.

That's.

I I. Serena Williams abs. I ain't even thinking about that.

Right? I'm not even.

I just don't want to, you know, have. A keg. Forget a six pack. I'm trying not to have the keg, right? I'm trying not to have the double keg. And so that idea couldn't even enter because I was nowhere in there. So once I got down, I was just grateful to be down. So for the first two years, three years, I was just in the, I'm not fat. I'm not fat. And then I-- so and I want you, if you're listening to me, to translate this into whatever it is for you. It could be that I'm not broke. So you're not running towards something. You're just trying to outrun something else. You know, some people say they want to be in love, but they're single forever. Well, a lot of people are single because they're trying to not be hurt again. Yeah. Come on, let me write this. This translates to anything, relationships, health, wellness, finance. Like if your energy is more on, you're trying to not be something, then you can't pursue anything.

In sports terminology, we say you're playing not to lose as opposed to playing to win.

Boom. Look, I was an athlete. I remember like, you just trying not to lose. You ain't trying to win. You're not-- you're trying not to be the loser. You're not trying to be the champion. Mm-. Right? And so I, for a long time, I was grateful for not being fat anymore. I was grateful. I was so shocked that I was in a size six. I was so shocked that I was in a size eight. I was just shocked. So I couldn't pursue anything. I was just like, I'm just grateful. It's just real. And I knew I would never go back.

I wasn't ever worried about gaining weight again. How do you determine that you're not going to go back? Or how did you set yourself up to make sure you never went back? Because that's a 19-year habit, it sounds like, and a 19-year thought process that was around a belief system of, Hey, I'm going to be this way and.

It'S not okay, but I'm living with it. So I'm going to shock you and say it had nothing to do with Managing my food, my intake, my movement, had nothing to do with that. Nothing, nothinging. It was I was done.

You were so tired of being sick and tired.

I was done because wait you have to understand, I'm going to be very transparent with you. For me, everyone has a jacket. Some people have a jacket of their success and it covers their need to be included or it covers their it gives them a sense of of Of success, it proves something to someone else. It compensates for the fact that they don't express emotion, right? Whatever it is, I'm not saying we're all walking around, listen, we're all walking around managing perfect dysfunction. Like, let's just say that, like, there is no perfect. Pursuing perfect is a false pursuit that will always leave you disappointed, right? And so our job is to perfectly dance with our imperfection. I've learned how to dance with my imperfections. I tell people, me and my imperfection, we will do the electric slide.

Yeah.

Because I'm embracing it. And so what I realized was my jacket, my weight, it wasn't me, but it was me. And I did it because a multitude of reasons. And I'll be quite, and I told you before, one, I have this personality. I've always had this personality. And I'm an alpha woman. So I got a personality that it vibes with dudes and it vibes with women. I would go into an event and the guys and I would vibe together, 'cause I'm not real frilly. I'm not gonna sit around talking about my nails. I'm not gonna talk about curl.

I don't wanna talk about none of that. I'm not that chick.

I wanna talk about-- you-'re trying to get results and impact. I wanna talk about outcomes and results and investments. And, you know, and so I would vibe with the guys. And then with the ladies, I can laugh with you and I can expand with you. And so I found that when I was smaller early on, Women would always side eye me and look, because I had all this personality. My personality is big. So I gained the weight because it gave me a false win. When I walked-- oh. Listen to this. When I walked into a room at.

210, 215 pounds-- you-- took up space.

And I would still vibe with the guys, but the women wouldn't worry about anything, right? Wow. And so the other side to that was that With relationships, I have this amazing body. Like, my body is pretty much like it was then, but imagine 20 years ago, I had this Serena Williams body. And I also had this personality, so I would meet a lot of men and always, always, because I was at the front of the room on stage and I was doing, and so I would meet a room of 500, they would meet me. And I could never discern if someone wanted to get to know me or they were interested in all that package. and so I unconsciously eliminated the package unconsciously so that when I begin to meet even men that they would go, you have a beautiful smile, you have beautiful eyes. Cause my body had morphed into something that wasn't necessarily super crazy attractive. It's a false. I've started this part with, we're all managing our dysfunction, remember, and we're all dealing with our perfect imperfection. It's your job, if you're listening to me, to find out what that thing is for you, that band-aid So it was my band-aid. So it made women seem like they were less intimidated by me and it made men seem like they were more interested in my personality. It was a false win. That's called a Pyrrhic victory. Look it up. P-H-Y-R-R-I-C. A Pyrrhic victory. It's when you get the outcome that you wanted, but it costs you more than you needed to pay.

Boom. And what?

Boom.

Boom. and what is the price you had to pay to get to a place of removing the Band-Aid and shedding the weight and shedding the psychological, you know, pains that you were holding on to that held you back from the next level.

So if anyone can relate to me on this one, I just want you, and whenever you see this, I just want you to blow up the chat box. Blow up the any way you can reach out to us. I I realized, and if this is you, just let me know that I'm not by myself. And we like to use on my campus, Yana, Y-A-N-A meaning you you are not alone. So y'all just yawn at me. Just let me know. I, you know, I'd already made millions when I lost the weight. I had already been on Oprah, Larry King, Steve Harvey. I'd already been on all that. I'd already been international for years. I'd already written. I'd. I was on. I had six best sellers, right? So I can't tell you that it stopped me. from being any form of successful in the out in the external world and our I don't know. I mean, like, who's past Oprah, right? Like, I didn't know. What it cost me was who I knew myself to be in the dark of the night. That who I went to bed with when I went to bed by myself. It cost me the fear of saying, if I die, In this big body, I would have played myself short. It had nothing to do with you, Lewis. It had nothing to do with the world. It had nothing to do with the secret. I felt like I'd already done everything I'd been serving big. It had to do with, I dare me, leave this planet and let myself down like this. It was all me. It was before I die, for me, I want to see me the way I know myself to be.

So this wasn't a look yourself in the mirror and ask myself, have I done enough with my skills and talents for the world? Because you were doing that. You were showing up every day, 10, 12, 16 hours, working hard, serving for 20 years. It was, am I going to be happy with myself if I die right now? Listen, can't nobody grind harder than the sister.

If you grind equal with me, let's do it. But like Will Smith said when he was being interviewed once, you know what I'm talking about.

I'm about to die on the treadmill.

I'm about to die on the treadmill. I'm gonna die on the treadmill. So I had no wonder. There's no more time anybody can give. I was opening the doors and shutting the doors. I would turn the light on in the morning. I would turn it out at night. I promise you, no, it wasn't that. It was, I know that I can touch more of me for me, not for anybody else. I had no guilt. left this planet and I had only done what I did only my time. I'm cool. I played full out for you, but I didn't play full out for oh, man.

That's a strong, but you knew that for 20 years. You knew that.

I didn't know it for 20 years because for the first seven or eight, I was getting the response I wanted. Women liked me. I didn't get that.

Men like you for your, your skills.

And your, Women didn't feel intimidated by me. I went for years with women just kind of like, what's up? Who she think she all that? And I was trying to make them like me, trying to dim my light so that my light wouldn't be too bright for anybody, right? But I didn't know I was doing it. And then in the relationships, when women say there are no good men in the world, I say, I don't know where you've been. I have dated some of the most amazing men on the planet. I just wasn't ready to get married or they weren't ready. I was in this crazy journey called I'm going to touch the world. And they're like, woman, you running too fast for me, I got to go. But I met amazing men, but I met them inside of that body. That body. And so there was a false illusion of victory. You got to hear what I'm saying, Louis, because so many of us are living in that right now, these hollow victories. I mean, it's a hollow, it's called a Pyrrhic victory, P-Y-P-H-Y-R-R-I-C, named after General Pyrrhus. When General PeriUs won two wars, he turned to one of his generals and said, I can't afford to ever win again. And when his general said, why? He said, because in winning these two wars, I've lost my best generals and my best friends. They're all dead. And so from that was derived the phrase Pyrrhic victory. And a Pyrrhic victory is when the cost of the victory actually outweighs the victory itself. We see it in all the entertainers that we call successful, then they commit suicide or all the people we call successful, and then they binge out and they go on an alcohol binge, whatever that thing is. You see it in their lives. It also can happen in ours. So for me, my pyrrhic victory was about 90 pounds. It gave me what I wanted, but the cost. So the cost for me was every time I looked at myself on video and it's only man when your body is not the way you know it can be and then you get popular and you get some form of celebrity and everybody wants to take a picture with you and then everybody wants to post a picture with you of you, you get all these reminders. This is who you are. So I would dress it well, I would dress it in $300 black shirts and I would dress it and I would bling it out And then I just got tired of dressing it, blinging it, compensated for it. I got tired. I said, I'm done. And it was so crazy because when I lost the weight, I stopped wearing big earrings. I stopped wearing big necklaces. I was like, I don't want to wear none of that stuff. And then it was like, whoa. All that was a part of the costume so that you can feel comfortable with what you saw. And so, yeah, it was a journey. And again, this is weight for me. Is it finances for you? Is it relationships? Is it being nice? A lot of people say yes. They say yes when they want to say no so they can be liked.

I'm gonna ask you an unpopular question.

Go for it.

The self-love movement of loving yourself as who you are in this moment and accepting yourself for who you are. I truly believe that we need to accept ourselves. We need to accept our past, what we've been through. We can't hold on to pain forever and we can't hold on to the baggage of the past and we've got to accept where we are. But I'm always trying to improve where I'm at. And if I'm not fully happy with something, take a look in the mirror and ask myself, okay, what are the sacrifices, the prices I need to pay right now to see those improvements? It's going to take time and energy. I gotta give something else up to get what I want. What are your thoughts on the self-love movement of, you know what, it doesn't matter if you're this or that, if you're broke or if you're 100 pounds overweight or if you're sick, you know, just love yourself and it's all good. What are your thoughts on kind of that vibe?

So I have a very clear opinion on it. I could not take Lisa to her next level of greatness in her body until I learned to just accept. I could not hate my body the way it was. and then do good for my body.

Ah, so you can't hate yourself and then do the work.

No, no, no. So I do align with it. I do align with it. However, hold on. Wait for it, wait for it, right? So number one, love, self-love is the soil. Self-love is the soil. So have your soil. But please, brother, sister, plant a daggone seed, then plant it and water it and give it some sunshine so you can get something. daily. So trust self-love is the soil in which you plant future contribution seeds in. And then daily grind. Hashtag the treadmill. Daily grind is the life in the water required to be of some use and some. Some possibility for those of us witnessing your life. So don't mistake self-love with don't mistake complacency with self-love. So self-love says, I'm whole and complete and enough with where I start, but hold me accountable to where I'm going.

Ooh. So don't stay where I'm at right now and just be okay with it forever. Are you okay with where I'm at now? Accepted. This is what I've gone through. This is my challenges. This is my story. This is my problem. based. Okay, now that I'm aware and I own the moment, what am I gonna do moving forward?

I'm enough. And I'm enough in this moment. However. However. Shame on me if I'm here in five years. Oh, shame on me. And shame on everyone around me who allows it. Who allowed me to. To do this sweet talking, this sugar sweet talking, whether it be self-love or whether it be. I'm just standing still. When the secret came out, everybody's like, I'm going to sit and wait and manifest my life. What are you going to sit and manifest your life on that couch? You all you're going to get is a big dent in that couch. And now you mad at the secret and mad at me. No, no, no, no, no, no. You awareness, awareness plus action equals transformation. Please don't skip that plus action part because action is the antidote for despair. John Bia says action is the antidote. Anything that's not working in your life, you have to be in some form of action. Not thought, not thought team, not just thinking, not just talking, but action. So people can out think. They're like, oh, I've really been working on this. What you been doing? I've been analyzing. No, you ain't been you ain't worked. Strategizing, thinking. I'm strategizing and communicating. Hold on. Action is the antidote for despair, Joan Byas says. Lisa Nichols says, action is the prescription for success. At the bottom line, self-love is the soil. Self-action is the path to progress and movement for you and those witnessing your life. And when you remember that your life doesn't just belong to you, that's. See? See?

This is huge. What does this mean? Your life doesn't belong to man.

Man. Man. And this is huge. The man.

People need to bookmark this. They need to put it on repeat.

Man, let me just tell you, if my life just belonged to me and I knew it to be so, I wouldn't have done half the things I've done. With all the discomfort it brought me, with all the inconvenience it brought.

Donuts all day, ice cream all night.

All the Pyerig victories, all the time lost. I'm talking just about the time that I have had to surrender. The chill time, the bubble bath time, the time that I've surrendered so that my life could be of contribution. Man, your life just doesn't belong to you. Your life belongs to those people who are going to cross your path. And because they crossed your path, not anybody else's, but because they cross your path, you inspired them to want to be a better person. You inspired them to want to express love in the way that they hadn't thought before. You inspired them to look another man, another woman in the eye. You inspired them to listen with open ears and an open heart because they crossed your path. Oh, your life doesn't just belong to you. You don't get to come in and leave without being responsible for those that you impact. And when you understand that, you're like, hold on. My life is, my life literally sends waves out into the universe. As a matter of fact, it sends waves to my cousins. It sends waves to my siblings. It sends waves to my lovers. It sends waves to the people around me and it impacts the way they choose to show up in the world. When you recognize that, then the question becomes, so what are you sending out? What are you doing with all your power? You're powerful. You're powerful. And leaders don't get to forget their power. See, I tell people, see, you don't get to have selective amnesia about the impact you have on the world. You are powerful. You are a unicorn. You are a gladiator. You are a change agent and the more you own that, and then you do the healing required. See, I had to do the healing required to own that. Oh, that's like a dichotomy. So a leader has to heal and a healer has to lead.

What was the biggest thing you needed to heal and what do you still need to heal now?

So much. No, I'm serious. I had to heal not feeling like I was good enough because of my mocha skin, my full lips, my round hips and my curly hair. I'm feeling like, because I felt the calling on my life to help humanity, but I didn't think that I was qualified as a Black woman to help humanity. I didn't feel like I would be listened to by humanity. I thought black America would listen to me, but no one else. So when I see myself in Croatia and in Kazakhstan and in Kyiv and in Ireland and in Kenya and in Dubai, I'm literally, whenever I go, I still go, wow, I needed to heal my image that because I struggled in school, because I am to this day functionally dyslexic, because I didn't graduate college, that I wasn't qualified to be of any great impact. I can be of local impact to a bunch of little Black kids, but I wouldn't be of local impact to Black educators. I wouldn't be regional impact and I sure heck wouldn't be national impact. Who am I to think I could be international impact? Heck no. Little old me, South Central LA, Harlem Crip 30s, my neighbors kicked out of college because I didn't have the money. I didn't think that. So I struggled with the I am the right person for this assignment. With all that I have, and all that I think I should have had. Yeah. I'm the right person. I also struggled with feeling like people would love me forever, meaning that I was worthy of long term. Like I would hear about people who have 25 year friendships and people who, and I hadn't experienced that early in my career. People of my past had were a part of my past. And this world of transformation was all these new people in it, you know, because it wasn't the climate, it wasn't the conversation that my friends were having. So I needed to find the people that were having the conversations like me, like you. I need to find the Jack Canfield's, I need to find the Marci Shimoff's, I need to find the Reverend Michael Beckwith's, I need to find them, but I didn't know any of them a long time. And so I begin to miss, no one knows me. No one knows Lisa Shontaye Nichols.

The old me, yeah.

No one knows that.

They know me in the last two years. Yeah, yeah.

No one, there's no one there for my bridge. For my bridge. And so I begin to wonder, will I ever have long-term friends? Will I have long-term relationships? For a long time, that was a very silent worry of mine. Like I want someone who just knows my history. They, I can leave the table. I would always say this to my friend, I want to leave the table. And if the waiter come, I want someone at the table to know what I eat. I goes, just that simple. It was just that simple. And then I worried about love. As my career grew, I'm going to talk about the more successful Lisa, as my career grew, I began to feel like it was harder to find someone that could hold my light without dimming my light. I need-- I needed someone to be a container for my light without asking me to turn my light down. And that was-- that was-- that was a long journey. I'm 54 years old. I'm proudly 54 years old. And I've just entered into the love of my life just two years ago. And I'm grateful for every relationship that helped me get there. Every relationship gave me something. Either gave me a gift or gave me a lesson. And I'm grateful for them. And I would never do this, but I'm one of those weird people that I think it's an anomaly what can be done. I could throw a party and literally invite my former relationships and they would all come and we would have a great time.

That is something to be said for right now.

That's how clean they are.

That's how- I wish I could say that about my, the past relationships I was in. I would like to be in that space, but I don't think they wanna see me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's how clean I left them. Because one of the things that I made sure is that we left the relationship leaving each other's dignity intact.

That's nice.

And that was a priority for me. And so in the onset of the relationship, I'd say, I don't see an end to this. Like, I would love for this to last. And if it doesn't, can we make a commitment to honor one another's dignity and leave our dignity intact? Because we may not be, we may be Mr. or Mrs. right for each other, or we may be Mr. and Mrs. right now for each other. And either is perfect. And so I opened it up with that. And so literally, literally, if I, if I had a party, my girlfriends all want me to, I'm like, no, I'm not doing that. But that, so that was a thing. And then the last thing I just have to say, because I struggled, was between my love of my child and the love of my career.

That was a fear?

That was a pull. I felt like I didn't know, no one ever said they had both. Everyone talked about they having to choose. Everyone talks about having to choose between my career, my family. Everyone talks about being out of balance. And so I adopted it. And so I started with a fear that somehow my son would suffer because I was living my dream. Somehow my dream would suffer because I'm a mother. And so my son, my son at 18, I don't know if you remember, they had the phones where you can put your Fave 5 in the phone.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Early on, and my son when he was 18 or 17, he was talking to his cousins on the faith five. And we have a very close-knit family. And my cousins, my, his, my nephew said, why? Why I'm not in your faith five? Why are you only, why? I'm not in your faith five. And, and my son said, I don't have room. And he goes, show me your faith five, man. Show me your faith five. And I could hear them in the background. And, and he's showing my nephew his faith five, and I can hear my nephew go, dude, your mom what is that about? And he goes, we cool like that. My son said, we're cool like that. And I, I, I, it was my first sign that I didn't have to choose that I made them both work. And so anyway, you asked the question. What were the things? Those were the three things that I struggle with.

That's, that's beautiful. And how do we own the moment? And when things are horrible, should we own it and you know, be in our suffering or say, you know what? We have a lot of things to be grateful for. What do you think about this?

So I love Benjamin Franklin's statement. He says, comparison is and will always be the thief of all your joy. So that's number one, that, that when you have a false sense of worth because you're stepping on someone else's break breakdown, like, oh, I'm better than you. That's a false sense of worth. Or when you are minimizing your greatness because someone is greater. My girlfriend Susie has this great story. She talks about she and her girlfriends were on a yacht in San Diego and they got their martinis, they got their glasses, the sunshine and music going and they're on there, I don't know, they're 55 foot yacht, right? And it's nice and they're sailing through San Diego. She said she had her shades on laying back and all of a sudden this shadow comes over her face and she opens her eyes to this 155 foot yacht. And the ladies up there, and the ladies up there drinking and she kind of looks down and hello. And she said she felt 100% complete and whole and happy until that yacht came. And she said, the woman didn't try to take her joy. She handed her joy to that woman. And so comparison will always steal your joy one way or another. The false sense of grandizing you on someone else's neck. I always say, can you be as tall as you need to be without standing on my neck? Can you do me that favor? Can you stand in your greatness without standing on my neck? Right? And so that's that, that's every time you say, but we're not as bad as such and so, you just put your foot on someone's neck to stand just a little bit taller. Right? And so, and then the other part to that, so when you're feeling great and when you're feeling joyful, what I like to do is I like to show awareness. I want 100% of my joy. I want 100% of my bliss. I want to be able to share it, but I want to share it with awareness. So it looks like this. Not everyone is having the same experience that I'm having, and I honor that, and I celebrate that. And I want to celebrate the fact that right now I am in the most fulfilling relationship I've ever experienced. I want to celebrate the fact that I found love in a way that I never even knew love exists. it. And I understand everyone is in a different place. And I honor that. I just wanted to give light and celebrate where I am right now. And so it's compassionate, a compassionate celebration.

Yeah. Right.

So if you can celebrate with compassion, I don't want to minimize my light. I don't want to dim my light. I don't want to turn my light down. I don't want to walk in a room and go, hold on. Let me turn my light down because your light isn't bright. No. That's my life. I want to bring it in the room, but I want to honor you and I want to acknowledge your light may not be the same wattage as mine. And so it looks like that. Like everyone's in different places right now. I just want to celebrate where I am. I want to expose it. I want to say it out loud. And so you do that. The other side is when life is hard and life is, you know, it's hitting you.

You've lost all your money. You've gone through divorce.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're gaining the weight in two weeks.

And, you know, everything's down. Yeah. So I think, one, you got to watch out because you. Because you can be a dark light Vortex. So you come in and you shine your dark light. You pull everyone into your dark light, and all of a sudden, everyone's swirling with you. I go, watch out. Watch out. Make sure your swirl is not the toilet bowl. Like, make sure. So you're not swirling with someone inside misery, and. There's a responsibility. And to me, I sandwich ugly stuff. I sandwich the ugly. I'll do the sandwich effect. I don't have a better name for it. Do the sandwich effect. I grew up on sandwiches as a child. So sandwich effect. Sandwich ugly with possibility. This is how it sounds. It's not going to always be this way. But right now, I feel like I'm in the darkest place ever. I feel miserable. I feel angry. I feel lonely. I feel frustrated. I'm always feeling like I want to scream. And I know that I am not taking out real estate in this location.

Oh, I know. You're just renting it.

I know that this is a rent and not even a rent to own. That if this is a stop sign, I'm gonna do a rolling stop. I don't even want to fully stop here.

Give me the ticket on the way.

Man, but I sometimes I left my door buying the ticket. I'm gonna get a ticket. I'm all right with it. And so you sandwich it. If you got to share hard news. I was just on an interview just now, I told you all white leaders and they said, teach us. And I said, okay, I'm gonna share some news. First, I want you to know that we are going to get through this, that we are going to be a better human race because of this, that you are to be celebrated because you signed up for this call. Now, this might hurt a little bit. And then I gave them insight. And then on the back end, I said, I'm honored to sit here with you as your sister. I'm honored to co-create what a future looks like. I'm honored to be on the planet at the same time as you. This is the beginning, not the end. More to come. Sandwich. Right? So if you're gonna deliver some dark energy, put it in a sandwich. Make sure you sound you a possibility. Even if you don't know what the possibility is, just say, I know there's better to come. It's my Birthright. It's my birthright to have joy. It's my birthright to have abundance. It's my birthright to experience healthy love. That's my birthright. Right now, I'm not having that experience, but I'm going to hold on to the fact that it's my birthright.

How do we remind ourselves and actually believe in abundance for ourselves when all the evidence points in the other direction of scarcity lack of not worthy of like, how do you convince yourself? How do you trick yourself? How do you is this a hack? Is this like, okay, I say this in front of the mirror every day, but I'm not making any money and I'm still.

Right, right, right. So I'm gonna be honest with you. For me, it's a part of a spiritual practice. It's a part of understanding that your mind can't contain all the things that are happening in the universe right now. Like, and if you think that all the Happening in the universe is happening between your ears and you understand it, and that's a very ego centered and a very limited universe, right? And so my faith, that's number one. My faith is, you know, having, you know, having faith in what you can't see, right? So I'm not looking at all the physical evidence. I'm not looking at that because physical evidence is just a manifestation of people's decisions. So people are helping that there is a whole universe conspiring on my behalf that I do good. I believe in good. I want to bring good. So the universe is setting things up to support me because I'm operating in alliance with the calling on my life. That's how I know like I know like I know. I'm not asking for permission to believe that. I'm not asking for the way my day is going to confirm that. See, I woke up with that awareness and then my day started. So you have to, there has to be a part of you that's not triggered by what's happening. There has to be a part of you that's sitting in the what you know. I know, like I know, like I know, like I know. I'm not asking for permission to be used in this universe. I'm letting you know I'm going to be used in the universe for the highest good. Now, today is a bad day, but I'm going to be used for the highest good. You got to stand on that. You got to let your knowing be like a pole that goes through the center of your head, Louis, all the way down through the center of your body, all the way down to the center of the earth. And no matter what happens, riots and outbreaks and quarantines and pandemics, you still got to say, hold on. This is impacting my life experience, is not impacting my life purpose.

Yeah.

When you operate like that, then you stop reacting. And your emotions are not in a reaction state. Your emotions are in a, okay, that came, okay, how do we operate with it? Okay, that came, and you'll still spin out. Like I spun, when they told me I couldn't get on the plane, I was like, okay, hold on. But then I began to search for my grounding. I began to search for my center. I began to search for my calm. And so you have to know where to find those things and how to go back and get them. you have a right to be upset, to be scared, to be frustrated, to be angry. You got a right to feel all those feelings. Please feel them so you know what they feel like. What you don't have permission to do if you say you're a leader, a unicorn, a changemaker, is to take up real estate in that feeling, to do a lease option by. What you don't get to do is stay in that state of emotion that moves you out of being impactful. And so It's an ongoing process.

Why do you think it's easier for people to stay in, I guess what's the terminology is like misery loves company. Why is misery easier to stay in than growth, you know, achievement, you know, consistency of positive things? Why do you think that is?

Because low vibration is the first vibration that if you're walking on stairs, and it was 15 flights of stairs and you saw a party on the fifth flight and no one's at the 15th flight. You're like, why is it annoying the 15th flight? Because the fifth flight was easier to get to. It requires less work. It drains your energy. It drains more energy, but requires less work to think on a low vibration.

Wow.

Every single one of us that are in a forward moving conversation right now, you didn't land there accidentally. So you can slip into toxic conversation. you can do nothing and be average. You can do nothing and be average. That's why it's crowded. I'm not judging anybody, but average is crowded because it's level one. There's no elevator required. There's no stairs required. It's level one. There's no average, right? And so toxic thinking and non-girl thinking-- Gossip and-- Right, gossip and hating and just girth, just constantly reliving and re-putting new energy into anger. That's at a lower level. Think of those of us who are about forward moving conversations. We have to climb. I have to be quiet for 10 days, Louis. I have to be quiet. Do you understand the challenge of that?

For you, Lisa, yes, I understand.

Yeah, I have to be quiet for 10 days. And then when I did my first Facebook Live and if if you go back in my May, you'll see it. I went back into my first Facebook Live. I've never cried. I've never cried on Facebook like that. I've never cried. I've cried on stage like that, but I've never, I had so much emotion, but I had already made my way to conscious thinking. And now I gave myself permission to speak. And even at that, I felt the pull. I felt the pull pulling me back into.

I can level one, man.

And I just kept going, no, no, no, no. Not on my watch. Wow. No, no, hold on. Not on my watch. Hold on. But I, when I tell you on my ankles, on that first Facebook live that I did on my, all the.

Comp, the negative comments of this, all.

The negative, all the judgment, all the, all the hurt, all the fear that I have for my son and just angry that I'm still fearful for my son to drive. And so all of that, all of that was coming up, and so you ask why do people do it? Because it requires less work. And we do it in, we're communal people, so we love to do things and we love to get people to co-sign with us. And negative thinking is cancerous. And so it spreads effortlessly. If you do nothing to cancer, it's going to spread. Right? But if you do nothing with positive thinking, it doesn't spread. You have to get up and shovel and scoop and plant and pull up the weeds and plant new seeds and get the water and water it. You got to do all this stuff for positive. So yeah, people decide, I'm just gonna hang out here in the negative world. And then they watch successful people. and wonder, why can't I have that? Well, let me just tell you something. Your mindset is birthing your life experience. You cannot have a life in a castle with a mindset in the doghouse.

Oh, dang. That's the truth right there, Lisa.

You can't have a life. I wanna have a life.

I wanna live. Say that one more time. You can't have a what?

You can't have a life in the castle with a mindset in the doghouse, in the dog pound. Like you, you, right, you can't, you, you, it's incongruent. You ain't congruent. When the tongue in your mouth and the tongue in your shoe are going in two different directions, you ain't going nowhere.

When you align, I call it, yeah.

When you align the tongue in your mouth to go in the same direction as the tongue in your shoe, now we can move.

How important is the thoughts that you say in your mind quietly every day and the words you speak out loud every day? How important are they together and which one is more valuable if you could only choose one? Negative thoughts but positive words? Positive thoughts but negative words or do they both need to be in alignment towards your mission and purpose?

Well, so I'll start with this. Your life is a physical manifestation of the conversation going on in your head. I'm gonna start with that.

Can we just speak for like 24 hours on this? I love this.

Right. Your life is a physical manifestation of the conversation going on in your head. So if you said nothing but thought everything, your life is going to show up to make your thoughts true. So you have one job. You have one job in your life for you to make what you think about life true so that you're not wrong. You don't want to walk around wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. You want to be right about the life you see. So you're going to work hard, work hard to produce the life that you talk about in your mind. Whether that life is no one loves me, I'm all alone, you can be in a group of people and you will think, I'm so alone. and. And you will feel alone and things will show up to co-sign your loneliness just because you're looking for that. And so if you start with. I'm gonna say the mind. Like, the mind is that thing. The mind is the core engine. It starts all things. It shuts all things down. When I start thinking something different, I'm like, hold on, stop. I want to think something. I shut down that behavior. I shut down that outcome when I birth something. I birth it in my mind. I focus on my mind. I see myself there in my mind. Before I got on with you, I was doing guided visualizations. I'm recording them. And I mean, they're juicy. And I'm saying, see yourself here. Because if you can see it, and then the key is evoke the emotion as if you were there.

Yep.

Right? And that's why people are, who are sad all the time are sad. Because they're thinking of things that make them sad. And then the emotion follows the thought. So I'm gonna say everything starts with your thought, Louis. But let me just say this. When you speak, you speak your future into the world. You speak your future. Whatever you say, whatever falls off your tongue, when you say, I am, right? The unconscious mind says, and you are so. Whatever comes on the other side of that. and so you, you, you ask me a hard question. Which one is most important? It starts with the thought. I think the thought is the, that's where everything originates. And then you add a whole lot of turbo boost to it with your tongue.

Yeah.

When you align the two and then you add to it, like the B12, the B12 of action. Action is like, action is like, that's the Nitro. That's the Nitro. Like.

Right?

And I see so many people, they think it, they write it, they journal it, they talk about it, and they do no action. And I go, you understand that the action is that that's like, that's like putting the flower in the sun because it requires sun.

And so, yeah, I wanted to bring back a question to the beginning and tie this kind of in a nice bow if we could, about self-care and self-worth. What do we say to ourselves? When we don't do self-care, what are we saying about how much we are worth to ourselves when we don't, when we delay that for months and years of taking care of ourselves?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not important enough to put at the front of my own line. You always are going to have a line of people to serve, things to do, and you got one job to stand at the front of your own line. you're saying that you're training other people how to treat you by the way you treat yourself. And so you are saying, you're saying that I still need to heal in the area of feeling important enough to prioritize my self-care. Yeah. You also may be saying and can be saying, I still need to learn how to fall in love with myself enough to take care of me the way I take care of others. And that's so many people. You take care of those around you far better than you take care of yourself. Yeah.

Yeah. This is beautiful. You shared last time, I want to see if your three truths are the same. So at the end of every interview, I ask people what their three biggest truths are. If this was their last day on earth many years from now, All of their content was, I had to go with them to the next place and there was no more videos or books or anything of your message, but you could share three lessons to the world or three truths. I'm curious if your three truths have changed in this season, so I'll ask you, what are your current three truths?

You are greater than your circumstances. It's your birthright. It's your birthright to have joy and abundance and love and fairness. And it's your responsibility to leave this planet a better place than it was before you came by your contribution. And those probably are all different because I'm a woman, I change. I'm right. I change hair. I changed.

I like it.

What were they for?

Yeah, the last time was you get a thousand do-overs every 999. You get to press reset. Most valuable thing is to nourish people around you who love you and make your dash dance. Those are in alignment. Yeah, those are in alignment.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay. And the last question, which I'm gonna ask you here in a second, Before I do Lisa, I want to acknowledge you for being an incredible human being of spreading positive energy. You talked about like our life is not for us, it's for other people as well. And every action, every word, every intention you set creates a ripple and you've made a powerful impact on me. You know, I know Ben is watching and listening, our producer, it's made an impact on him. the millions of people that are listening and watching right now, this is going to impact in such a profound, powerful way. I acknowledge you for your consistent growth, the consistent effort and energy you take to work on your health and maintain and improve to having the relationship you want, everything. I acknowledge you. You're amazing and I'm so grateful we're friends and you're alive.

Thank you so much. I appreciate the acknowledgement. I'm a reflection of you, brother. We are blessed enough to find like unicorns, like each other, so that we don't have to walk this planet alone, wondering about our sanity, because we play out in the universe. We don't play outside the box. We realize that there was never a box in the first place. So thank you for making the journey feel good. I'm always grateful for the company I get to keep while I'm here. while I'm up to what I'm doing. So I'm your sister in service, your sister in possibility. I want to find excuses to play together and call it work.

Exactly, exactly. I appreciate it.

You've always been a safe space. I love the space you create. It's judgment free, it's ego free, and it's full of intention of service. And that's the place I want to spend time.

I appreciate it. We'll do more of these for sure. in the future. My final question, what's your definition of greatness currently?

Being willing to lift others as you climb. Being willing to lift others as you climb. Being willing to speak even if your voice shakes. Being willing to lift as you climb and being willing to speak even if your voice shakes. There you go.

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