Lewis Howes: “Martha & I Did Everything Backwards!” How I Found Lasting Love with My Partner

The thing is, when we are constantly running away from our past, we're always gonna be running away and chasing something else to try to feel enough. I just never felt good.

Did you notice any transformation within yourself in the way that you viewed the traumas that happened to you when you started talking about it?

It set me free. Bob Diale, the mindset mentor, author of.

The book Level Up.

One of the best interviews I probably did in this last year. Enjoy this interview with me on his show. I think relationships are extremely hard if you're unwilling to have courageous conversations. and they are going to be hard and they're going to be exhausting because you're going to expect someone else to understand you when you're not communicating with courage to them about your needs, your wants and desires. I said to her, okay, there's a couple things that I want to create. We needed to start the relationship in therapy because every relationship that I had before ended in therapy and then it ended poorly. People would say, Man, that seems like a lot of work. It's kind of heavy. You know what's heavy is going through years of relationships that don't work. sleepless nights dealing with emotional turmoil from someone who wants you to change who you are.

What is Lewis Howes' mountain that he's climbing or thing that he's working on? Where are you at right now?

There's three things that came to mind. Hey everyone, Lewis Howes here. Before we dive in, this episode that you're about to watch is from an episode I did on Rob Diale, the Mindset Mentor Show. And it's one of the best interviews I probably did in this last year. Rob has a unique way of interviewing and connecting with people on their dreams, their vision, their goals, and he really dove in deep. Make sure to subscribe to his channel, the Mindset Mentor as well as he's part of the Greatness Network. And I hope you enjoy this interview with me on his show.

Welcome everybody to the Mindset Mentor podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. If it looks a little bit different for those of you guys that are looking on YouTube, I am in Lewis House's basement. Don't worry, I'm not captive of him. We are in his studio that is in his basement and I am excited to be here and be with you, man. And excited to also announce for those of you guys that didn't see it, I have joined the Greatness Network. So the School of Greatness podcast is Lewis and we have the Greatness Network, which I've joined with him and Cirrus XM. And so I am excited to sit down with you and chat.

This is round three.

Of my podcast.

Let's go, baby.

I believe.

Yeah, I believe. Is it a third time?

Third time. Third time in three years. You're one of two people that's been on three times.

All right, let's do it.

I'm excited to have with you, man. I was reflecting on the drive over here, which I told you I was on your show. I started getting kind of teary-eyed because I was thinking about this journey of life that I've been on. And I remember when I lived with.

My friend.

Dave at his house and he was listening to a podcast on his phone and he was doing laundry. and I was like, what are you doing? He's like, oh, I'm listening to a podcast. And I was like, why? Who would do that? This is 2016-ish. And he was listening to School of Greatness podcast. And I was listening to it. I was like, this is cool. I was like, I think I could probably do something like this. I might be good at this. I should give it a shot. And so it's crazy this journey that I've been on to growing it. And you've had a podcast longer than I've had a podcast. A couple years longer than I have. 11 years. And when I first started, I was like, I felt like there was nobody in the space. And so I'm curious with you just in the beginning, what's the journey been like for you, a young guy 11 years ago? I think I'm gonna do this thing that not many people are doing to now over billions of views and downloads. If you take a step back and think about it, what's the journey been like for you and what are some things that you've learned along this journey?

A lot of gratitude for the journey because I've had over 1500 episodes. So I've got to meet a lot of incredible minds and individuals from all walks of life. business, sports, arts, all these different things, science. And so I feel completely grateful for the proximity that I have to inspiring people. People with resources, with knowledge, with results that I can learn from. And then extremely grateful that I can record it and share it with other people, just like what you do. So grateful for that. But also my mind goes to all the things I wish I could have done differently. It's like I'm grateful for all the good and I'm like, man, if I to just focus a little bit better this first five years, how much more impact could we have? So I think about that as well, because I was doing a lot when I first started the podcast, similar to you, was not a thing I wanted to make money with. It was a thing to impact people, build an audience and a platform with, you know, build my personal brand with and drive people back to my coaching and courses and events and membership sites. So it was a tool to drive people back to other things.

Right.

And if I could do it all over again, I probably just focused on making it the main thing 11 years ago. But I was at a different time in my life. We couldn't monetize podcasting back then, really. It was really clunky and challenging, so. But it's all been a beautiful Journey. Yeah. What.

What do you think you've learned about yourself through the process? Like, because. Because putting yourself out there online is a scary thing because you're basically putting yourself out there to be judged by people, possibly judged by people. to have people say that they don't like you, they don't like your message, you don't like you look like, you know, it's, it's putting us up to one of our biggest fears as humans, which is the fear of judgment and the fear of other people's opinions. Yeah. And so what I have found is through the years, I don't care about any of those things anymore, but it wasn't that way years ago. And so I'm curious, like, what are some of the hurdles that you had to overcome within yourself to decide, I'm going to build this massive personal brand.

I think I was smart in a certain way early on because I didn't want to make it my name. I think I had too much fear around being the authority. I didn't think I was smart enough back then or had enough experience. I was 30 years old. So I didn't call it the Lewis Howes Show. I called it the School of Greatness with my name. And I think that gave me a lot more peace because I can make it about others. And so also in the transition of that, more people are like, hey, we want to hear more from you. So I've had to overcome that now, and I'm starting to do more solo content and more individual personal content, which I've always kind of shied away from. For a number of reasons. One, ego. I didn't want my ego to be like running the show and be like, look at me, you know, I have all the answers, which I've never thought that I did. Two, you're setting yourself up for more criticism when it is your personal content more. And three, I think it's like wanting to make sure that I'm always living in humility and in service. But I was talking with a friend, Jason Wilson, the other day, who is, you know, pretty big on social media. And I keep telling him, dude, everyone wants to hear more from you, but he's like, you know, I just want to be in service and I don't want to, I don't want it to be about me. And I'm like, you're a mirror to me right now because People need your wisdom and they want to hear from you. And if they read your book, that's great, but then if they don't have more content to go afterwards, then you leave them with just the book and then nothing else. And they want more from you, teachings, content, messages. So I'm in a season now where I'm starting to do more personal content. But again, I also just had too much on my plate that I didn't have the space and the energy to think creatively to create personal content. So now I'm trying to empower my team, let go more so I can have space and energy to create my own stuff.

Yeah. And so that's interesting because I know that, you know, we've talked about it and we both kind of had the fear of not being smart and kind of being dumb kids when we were younger and stuff like that. So as you start creating more content, what I find with people and I'm trying to even talk more about my personal life because I'm I like to teach, I like to instruct. And what I've come to find is that when I start talking about my personal life, People make connections in their own life and they're like, oh, Lewis is just like me.

I know.

It's not unattainable for me to get to that level. It's not unattainable for me to do what they have done. And what I think is it's hard because it's kind of like the there's a phrase, a Native American phrase that says, the brightest light gets the arrows. It's like we know that in order to step up and put ourselves in front, it allows us to be completely open to get arrows from other people. But then you go back to the thing where it's like your mess is your message. I think even for myself, when it's like, oh yeah, I can instruct and I can teach people these things. When I'm like, Hey, here's what I'm dealing with, here's what I've dealt with, and here's how I worked through it. I think people click in a little bit more and listen a little bit more. And I'm curious for you, have you noticed working through the fear, putting yourself out there that you've actually felt more of a connection or more acceptance from.

Other people because of 100%. I mean, in the first year, of doing my show. I remember it was all, it was a lot more towards, like, how to be successful and how to win and how to, like, be the best was, like, a lot of my content from the interviews I was doing. It was like, how do you become number one and what you do? How do you become the best? That was kind of language. Yeah. And then I went through a personal Journey where I started a healing Journey. I opened up about sexual abuse that I went through. I I talked about different family challenges I had, and I just started opening up about these struggles that I faced in my own life. And I started shifting in the content and the questions I was asking on my show. And so many people started saying, hey, I'm noticing something different. I really like the way you're communicating. Like, I liked you before. Yeah, but this is a different level of you. And I feel like I've had that probably three or four times over 11 years where I've gone through an even deeper transformation or an evolution or a reflection or a breakdown or something's happened in my life. You know, I've been through three different breakups in the last 11 years and relationships. So that unpacks a lot of different things inside of me. And I go and I bring on all these different therapists when I'm in breakups and I talk about these things.

Yeah.

So I think people get to learn as I break down or have challenges in my life. I'm very open about them. I may not say specific personal details about certain people, but I'm very open about what I'm experiencing. And I try to navigate that. And I think that's been really helpful for people to see. But I'm kind of like a guinea pig of my emotions on my show. And so that's been really helpful seeing that transformation. And I think it's brought my audience in a deeper relationship with me because I'm willing to go there.

Yeah.

And it's hard to stay in the game of something for eight, nine, 10 years, 11 years. It's hard to stay consistent and relevant or unless you're evolving. If we're not evolving in this industry, then there's going to be new people who are evolving and creating things in a different way that's going to be attracting connection with audiences. So it's making sure that we're evolving, that we're improving it, that we're always trying to get better. and I think that's been helpful. But if I'm not getting better on the inside, then it's not gonna matter what happens in the content on the outside.

Yeah, I'm curious, man. So you've had three books. You had the School of Greatness was the first one. The Mask of Masculinity was the second one. And the third one, which is the one in front of us that everyone should buy, is the Greatness Mindset. If we can go back to the Mask of Masculinity, I remember following your journey and following when you actually started talking about the sexual abuse and all of that. I can say from my father being an alcoholic, he passed away when I was a kid, I tried to hide it as much as possible. I was so ashamed of it. And then when I started talking about it, I realized that it stopped having power over me. And it went from me taking power over this thing that felt like had power over me. I'm curious as you put up like the masculinity, you put that out, you started talking about the sexual abuse. There's a lot of people out there that have been through a lot of different traumas and we try to hide it. Did you notice any transformation within yourself in the way that you viewed the traumas that happened to you when you started talking about it?

Yeah, it set me free. It set me free, like you said. I took my power back. For 25 years, no one knew about the shame or the secret that I kept inside of me. I wasn't willing to share the secret. And when I started talking about the secret of me being sexually abused by a man that I didn't know, it was the most terrifying thing because I started telling my family and friends one by one, and it was terrifying because I didn't think I'd be accepted or loved. And when I was able to get on the other side of that and realize it brought us closer together, I was like, wow, the thing I've been most afraid of has been holding me back from feeling the most loved and connected. All I needed to do was have the courage to authentically express it. Now, I think there's a time and a place and a context setting that needs to happen in order to express a shame or a secret. I don't think you just blurt it out to anyone. You have to trust the person in front of you to be able to receive the secret or the shame that you've been holding on to, especially for a long time. So I had a therapist kind of guide me in the process of talking about it with people closest to me. And I was just like, I'm really afraid to talk about this. I had opened up about it in an emotional intelligence workshop in kind of a safe environment in front of 50 people. That was the most terrifying thing, but these people didn't know me. So it was still extremely difficult to do. It took many days for me to finally get to open up. I didn't even know I was going to talk about it. But there was an exercise that said, Hey, listen, we've covered a lot of things from our past, and now we're gonna start creating the future that we desire. But in order to step into a desired future of abundance and joy and love and peace, we need to address the things in our past and start to let them go and process them and start to heal. So if there's, the facilitator said, so if there's anything that you haven't said yet or you haven't addressed yet that you need to address, now's your moment. If not, we're moving forward. But if you hold on to that, it's just gonna be harder. And I was like, okay, I'm in this experience. I'm in this workshop. I've been committed, it's been two weekends. I've seen other people open up. I've opened up about challenges. My parents went through divorce and how challenging that was being a kid from them arguing and fighting all the time and the stresses. Talked about being dyslexic and being picked on and made fun of with all these kids in school. My brother was in prison when I was eight. So for four and a half years, I went to a, you know, a visiting room at the prison and felt shame and humiliation because this had happened to a family member and my my small Community knew about it, and they didn't accept us. I had to deal with all these different things that I talked about, breakups that I went through as a, you know, my 20s. And I was like, okay, I addressed all these things. I think I'm good. And then something just said, well, what about that time you were sexually abused? Why have you never shared this with anyone? It was kind of just like a rush of a thought. And there's.

You've never shared it.

Never shared it. Never shared it. And I had multiple girlfriends, and I was kind of like, hinted at things like, oh yeah, I've been through some challenges, but I was never able to fully... Ah, this happened to me. I was unable... I lacked courage, the emotional courage to speak about it. Because I thought if anyone knew this about me, no one would love me or accept me. So I was terrified about what would happen, the consequence if I shared my authentic truth of something I'm so ashamed of. and for whatever reason, I was just like, you know, if I don't say this now, I may never say this. Like, this is the. If there's ever a moment to talk about this, this is the moment. And I stood up in front of this room. There's probably about 40 or 50 people. I stood up and I just started speaking, and I just told the whole story for the first time about, you know, when I was five years old and how this happened. It was with an older man that I didn't know. It was the babysitter's son. He was probably in his late teens. And it was a story that kind of replayed in my mind probably every day for 25 years. You know, they just replayed somehow, some way during the day, in a dream, it would just replay in my mind. And it was always kind of haunting me. It was like always kind of like running after me. and I was running away from it. And the thing is, when we are constantly running away from our past, chasing something else to fulfill us, to make us feel good enough based on the shame of our past that we're running away from, we're always going to be running away and chasing something else to try to feel enough, feel good. Right. And I just never felt good. I always felt anger, anger at certain moments. I felt defensive. I felt you know, people were abandoning me or abusing me or all these different things based on this story and this. This moment and other moments that kind of validated it for me. And I finally said it. And I remember just being so, like, when I was talking about it, I couldn't look up at anyone in their eyes. Like, I had to look down on the ground the whole time while I was telling this story because I was so ashamed. And I finally look up and started seeing people, and everyone's like, weeping, right? People are just like in tears. And I sit down and I just start like erupting of emotions. I started to start crying. I'm bawling. There was two women on either side of me. They just start hugging me. They're crying. And I'm just in kind of so much shame and emotions that I run out of the room. So I run out of the room and I leave. It's kind of in a conference ballroom, hotel room. And I run outside of the hotel and I go in the back of this kind of like an alley behind the hotel. And I'm just like sitting there against the wall crying. And I'm like, my life is over. I'm just like, my life is over. I'm not going back in that room. I can't face these people. Like, people are now, now everyone knows who I really am. And it's over. Like, I might as well just call it quits. And I remember it was probably one of the most like beautiful moments of my life. Um, is I'm sitting there like this against the wall, just weeping, and I get a tap on my shoulder and I turn around and it's just like giant of a man who's like the same size as me, but just a big guy, probably 15 years older than me. He looks me in the eyes and he's tearing up and he's like, I will follow you anywhere. So first thing he said to me and I was like, I'm just kind of like, what is going on? He's grabbing me and he's like, I will follow you anywhere. He's like, you have no idea what you just did, how that's gonna help me in the rest of my life. And I think he was in his late 40s or 50s. And he said, I've been married for 30 years. I've got three grown kids. My wife doesn't know. My kids don't know. No one knows. This happened to me when I was younger as well. And I've never had the courage to do what you did. And he was like, I will follow you anywhere. And I was just like, Holy cow. what? I was just like, it's kind of. It was just. It's overwhelming. It was beautiful, but I was scared. And then one by one, it was kind of like. It was kind of like a scene out of a movie. I don't know if you ever saw Rudy. Remember when, like, Rudy wanted to play and he wasn't gonna play. And then the last game, all the players come in, like, and give their Jersey, and they say, I want Rudy to have my spot, right? It was like. All these men came out and just started hugging me and they just started telling me their stories. A few other guys had dealt with sexual abuse, but they all had some shame that they just started opening up about. It was the craziest moment. I've never had a moment like this in my life. It felt like a scene out of a movie when it was happening. I was like, this is surreal. But it was also beautiful because these men were willing to open up and reveal their shame that they didn't want any other men to know as well. and that brought us closer together. That allowed us to trust each other more. That allowed us to like understand one another and drop our guards down with each other. So it was just a beautiful lesson and experience for me as a 30 year old at that time where I was like, oh, I can trust certain people. Maybe not everyone. Like there's got to be the right context, like I said, to be able to have the conversation and open up. But we had created that in this kind of workshop experience where the context was set. And I wanted to feel free and I knew that I needed to try something. And this was the thing that started the path of freedom for me. It started the healing journey. And it's a journey, a consistent journey. And the more I spoke about it afterwards with friends and family, And then eventually I opened up on my podcast about a year later. And the more I did that, the more impact I realized I was able to have on everyone. And so it's just been a beautiful journey because the podcast gave me and I had this, I felt a nagging, like I told my family, my friends, and I was like, man, I feel like maybe I should do it, talk about this openly. But if I do, I may lose everything. I was like, I might lose my business. Like, I might lose my audience. Who knows? But I remember just this nagging feeling that I was like, if you can help one man heal and recover, it's worth losing everything.

Yeah.

And I was just like, it's worth it. If I can help one man feel free, it's worth losing everything for me.

Yeah.

And I would have been like, this was a well lived life. Like, I lived a life of service to help one man. I remember publishing this post where I talked about it, and it's still 11 years later the most downloaded episode I've ever done. I still get messages from people finding it from 10 years ago talking about their experience and opening up about their sexual abuse experience for the first time to me. It's always like, I'm super grateful that they feel safe to talk about it with me. But usually when you open up about something you're struggled with, it gives permission for others to start opening up as well. They may not talk to you about it, but they might reflect on it. They might tell a therapist, they might tell their husband, their wife, their boyfriend or girlfriend, and that gives people permission to heal. So it's been a the podcast has also just held me accountable for for a lot. Yeah. And it's, you know, you can't hide because people can tell if you're being an authentic. So it's been a beautiful journey. Wow.

It's like a whole episode right there. I mean, that's, thank you for sharing that, because I didn't know the whole context of it, but that's, the whole thing's incredible because I think a lot of times we think the things that we should, the things that, it's kind of like the phrase, shame breeds in the dark, where it's like when you bring it to light, it has no more power over you. And, like, your mess is your message, and it did become this thing where you allow other people to heal, but it's so, hard for us to be vulnerable, especially about the things that we have the most shame around. And so the thing that I like to said is that you said there has to be some context with it and your therapist kind of helped you with that. For anybody who's out there that has gone through something that they want to share with other people, can you even kind of like the steps of what that would look like and how it helped you?

The thing that she told me, because I was like, I'm really afraid. I was like, I opened up about this in this workshop. But I felt like it was a safe environment because we all went through stuff and we were all opening up about everything, right? so. And I may never see some of these people again, although I built great relationships with them, so it became different. But. But I was like, my friends and my family is very close. And what if they don't accept me? What if they don't love me? Then what? And she said, ask the question for each one of your family members before you tell them this and make sure you feel good about their response. when you ask them this question. And the question was, you know, first setting some context. So I called each one of them. I wasn't in the same city as in at that time, so I called each one of them, my family, and she said, set the context first and say, hey, listen, there's been some, some Reflections that I've been going through in my life that I've been thinking about and some realizations I've been having. And I realized there's some things that I'm ashamed of, that I want to tell you about, but I'm really nervous and I'm scared to talk about them. And I wanted to ask you a question first. Is there anything I could ever say or do that would make you not love me? So that's the question. Is there anything I could ever say or do that would make you not love me? Then wait for the response. And if a friend or a family member is kind of like joking or kind of like, well, I don't know, it depends. Then maybe you don't tell them right then. So make sure you set the context of what you've been experiencing and your feelings and where you're at. Ask them the question, is there anything I could ever say or do that make you not love me? And then see how you feel based on their response. And then, you know, if they say, no, there's nothing you could ever say or do that can make me not love you, then they're opening up the door for you to talk about it. Now you have to have ultimate courage and share something you've never shared or share something you're afraid of. And depending on their emotional awareness or their emotional intelligence, they may not give you the response that you want. They may not know how to handle the response also. Like there's some deep, dark stuff that people go through. And their initial response may be, oh, I'm so sorry, they may not know. So you've got to be willing to sit with them also. in their discomfort and be okay with it and being want to sit in the mess of the conversation. But if you set up the context, if you ask the question, then they've given you permission to talk about it. Now you've got to accept the challenge and lean into that courage. And every time I did it with a family member, every time I did it with a friend, it was terrifying, but it gave me more and more freedom on the other side. and I think that allowed me to start healing my nervous system to feel more at peace, at least with those individuals. And I felt after like six months of kind of tiling my friends and family in the right time and moments, I felt like, okay, I feel a lot better, but I'm still worried about what my audience thinks about me. I'm still putting on a mask where I have an image in front of my community. and I just didn't feel right about that. So that's what made me say, gosh, I may lose everything, but if I can help one man heal, it's worth it because I still have my friends and family. Yeah. So that's been the journey.

That's incredible, man. And so what was for for people that are out there and they're afraid of it? What was the responses like? Like how many how many people did you do you think you shared it? Like what was was it different than you thought it would be? Did you feel like like more free after each conversation? because that's what people are afraid of, is the response from someone else.

I think I felt more love than I'd ever had in my whole life. Yeah. With each interaction and family had a different interaction. Like the thing with my family, my siblings had been through some each had been through some dark stuff, like just, yeah, we've all been through some of our own dark stuff. My brother went to prison and had a lot of dark stuff that happened in jail for four and a half years. You know, my sisters went through their own different challenges. I don't want to go into it too much because it's their story. But the thing that made it special is they opened up about stuff that I didn't know about, each one of them. I didn't ask them to. It gave them permission to be like, you know, there's something that's been on my mind actually that I've been afraid of and ashamed to talk about to the family. And so they started opening up with me because I opened up with them. And that vulnerability between both of us brought us brought us all closer together. And so it created a very special moment, a very special bond that I was like, wow, we would have never had this moment if at least I didn't start with vulnerability or you weren't willing to share in return. And I just felt more love and acceptance because of that vulnerability and that connection. You know, friends were a little different, but they were all very accepting. Some people opened up about certain stuff, but I wasn't, again, I wasn't asking them to. Sure. I think the family, we just all been through stuff we were ashamed of or stuff that happened to us or things that we felt bad about that, that allowed us to clear, you know, clear a little bit, let things go, confess whatever you want to call it. And that sets you free.

So crazy, man, because as you, as you decide to step vulnerably into something, which is probably the scariest thing, to be vulnerable for other people and and to be courageous. It's like you give permission for other people to also share the thing that they're most afraid of.

Yeah.

And so I think it's interesting because even though you're sitting there and you're wondering, like, will people still love me? Then you open up, they then open up, and now you have an even tighter bond than you've ever had and felt more love you've ever had in your life. I'm curious with that because one thing I told you I really want to talk to you a little bit about is, like, just relationships in general, because there's been since I've known you over the past few years, since the first episode we did, we spent a lot of time talking about relationships and stuff like that after the episode. And your life has changed immensely over the past three years in relationships.

Yeah.

I'm curious, do you feel like after this happened, you started to change in relationships or. Or is that just a completely different Journey for you after. You're opening up.

After opening up. Yeah. Everything started to shift in relationships after opening up. Now, I still had Three failed relationships. I'm a slow learner sometimes.

Not failures, you know.

They taught me a lot. There you go. And that didn't work out, but it ended up working out. I still had a lot of fear around intimacy in relationships. Although I started healing that element and I started closing the loop around that, I thought, oh, I'm good. I was like, oh, this is the thing I'm most afraid of. I'm good. And so I spent a number of years learning and constantly growing, but I still hadn't healed my nervous system around intimacy and around boundaries and around people pleasing in love. So I started to, you know, let go of some of that old wound and trauma. I started to build more confidence in myself. I started to drop the walls of anger and resentment and things like this. But I still lacked the ability to fully create boundaries in relationships. And my wound was, I was still making decisions out of desires, not out of, I guess, A dream of a healthy conscious relationship.

And by desires, what do you mean by that?

Sexual desires. Okay. Yeah. So still allowing sexual chemistry to draw me in versus having courage of asking the right questions about the future. Are we in alignment of our values, our vision and our lifestyle? Does our dream life line up? on how we want to live our lives, how we want to interact in our lives, who we want in our lives, the lifestyle we want to create, our values, vision, everything. And most of those things never lined up. And so I was always connected through desire, not through consciousness. And then I would try to, I don't know if fix is the right word, but I'd try to heal the wounds of my child, my parents relationship. in the partner that I was choosing.

How so?

You know, I would pick partners, I would choose partners that had really poor relationships with their fathers and who were kind of emotionally unavailable. Like in the three relationships I was in, I always was the one that said, we should do therapy together. And the people that I chose, they never wanted to do it. And I always kept thinking to myself, how is this possible? Like, what woman would not love a man to say, let's go to therapy together? Like, that never happens. But somehow I chose the people that never wanted to go. They didn't want to face certain things within themselves. And I'm not saying I was perfect. I was like, I want to go and take responsibility and learn and grow and develop, and I didn't feel the willingness from them. They eventually did, but it was kind of like kicking and screaming. It was like the reverse of, like, the man kicks and screams for months until he finally has to go. And so almost each one of those relationships, they were about to end. And I was finally like, I can't do this anymore unless we do therapy. Like it's not working. It's been a year, it's been a year and a half of just this fight and this struggle. It's not working and I want to work on it. I want to make it work. They, at the moment, they weren't willing to face certain things or we just weren't the right match, right? So I'm not trying to blame them because I chose certain people. but they were unwilling to do the work. And for me, that should have been a sign from the beginning. If you weren't willing to be in a place of personal growth, and I'm willing to do that, then we're just not in alignment. It doesn't mean you're wrong or bad. It's just like, okay, this is a value of mine, but it wasn't a value of theirs. So I should have known that early on, but I tried to stay, I tried to fix things, I tried to do whatever it took, I tried to change myself to make them happier, But they were never happy with me. No matter how much I changed for them, they still didn't accept and love me for who I was. And then I lost who I was to please them and they still weren't happy. Yeah. So that was a pattern that I did because I was afraid of loving someone and them not loving me back for who I am. And then I forced it to try to help them grow and heal in some way. so it was just out of alignment everywhere.

Yeah.

And then I finally, in the previous relationship, I finally felt like I was able to heal in the relationship. Went to therapy together after about a year and a half of just every week, emotional up and down, struggle, fights, all this different stuff. Finally was like, it's over unless we do therapy. For a year, she didn't want to do it. Finally started going. and just realizing like, wow, why have I stayed in this? And why have I stayed in every relationship for years after I knew something was off? And a lot of it came back from like childhood. We talked about the patterns of childhood from the episode I did with you. And a lot of it came down to, if I'm gonna start something, I wanna make sure it works out. I'm gonna give my all, I'm gonna give my best, I'm gonna do whatever it takes no matter what. A lot of the sports mindset as well was in there and it was just like, as opposed to, well, I never chose the right path in the first place. So I was choosing something that wasn't in alignment and trying to make it work and doing whatever it took to make it work, but it just wasn't the right alignment. So I need to choose alignment first and then be willing to work and improve and grow, and it's going to expand it even more. So with Martha, my fiance, we did that from the beginning. I did everything completely opposite with her. Things that I've never, ever done before.

And.

I was just like, I don't, and I was also just like, if this doesn't work out, it's okay, you know, at least you know now. If we're not in alignment, it's okay. If you want something else in your life, cool, then we can be friends, as opposed to, well, we have this chemistry, so we should try to make this work. I really allowed it to flow differently, and I was almost kind of like, hey, This is 100% who I am. This is my mission. This is what I'm up to. This is what I'm doing. And if we're gonna date, you need to know this is who I am and I'm not gonna change to make you happy. I'm going to improve and grow as a human for myself, but I'm not gonna change to make you happy or to please you with something. If you're not happy with who I am, we shouldn't be together. And so for months we dated, and I told her before we started, you know, before I like asked her if we can be together committed exclusive for months we were dating. And I said to her, okay, there's a couple things that I want to create if we're going to start this relationship and be exclusively committed to one another. The commitment I'm going to make, number one, I'm going to commit to you that I'll never get angry at you. I'll never explode, I'll never yell at you, I'll never scream at you. I'm never gonna get angry for who you are.

And is this different than past relationships?

Yeah, I mean, I wasn't like, no, I wasn't really explosive or angry. I was never that. The other partners I chose were, which was a pattern. Yeah. But I would change to try to meet, to try to keep the peace.

Right, right.

So they were a lot more like this. And so I would be like, what do you need? How can I, what's wrong? Okay, I won't do this anymore. So I just said, I'm creating a boundary. I'm not gonna change who I am to make you happy. You're either a happy person or you're not with me. And if you're not happy with me, don't be with me. If you can't accept who I am, then we shouldn't be together. And so that's why I said, I will never get angry at you. I've been frustrated in moments, but I'm not getting angry or exploding or anything like that. And I said, I'm never going to try to change you. I've been asking you so many questions for the last few months. We've gone on experiences, we've traveled, I've met your family, we've done all these different things. I've gotten to know a lot of your personality. I've seen you in different settings. Obviously you're gonna continue to get to know someone forever, but I've gotten to see a majority of your personality and your way of being over a long period of time. And I said, if this is who you are, then I'm choosing to accept and love you for who you are. And if these are your dreams that you're telling me now, although some might change and evolve, but I've known her past, like she's an actor, She's done movies for the last 20 years. She's done kissing scenes with guys on set. And so I said to myself, would I be okay with her continuing to act in this way if this is who she wants to be? And I had to choose to say yes. Like, okay, if this is who she is, I can't choose her and tell her to change to make me happy. I need to accept who she is and be with her or Accept her who she is and not be with her. Either way, if I'm trying to change her, she's not going to be happy and I'm not going to be happy. And so I said, I will never get upset with you. If you talk to her now, you can ask her, I've never been upset with her in almost three years. It doesn't mean we've had disagreements. We have, but I haven't been lashed out at her or told her, you need to change or anything like that. That was the first thing that I said. I'll never get upset at you in this way. I may not agree with you, but I'm not really upset at you. Second thing was, you have to fully accept and love me for who I am. You can't get upset at me. And otherwise, this isn't gonna work, 'cause we're gonna be in fights and conflict, and I'm not gonna feel like I'm enough for you. You're gonna feel like you need a change. We're just gonna be unhappy people. I've seen this play out many times. So we both had to be in acceptance of each other. the next thing was, because I, you know, just like you, I speak, I travel, I have an audience. There's people around me and previous relationships that made people partners insecure or jealous or questioning or where are you or who's hitting on you? Like, you've got to accept me. This is a lifestyle that I have. The second thing was we needed to start the relationship in therapy because every relationship that I had before ended in therapy, and then it ended poorly. And I said, I don't want that this time. I want to start in therapy to know that we're both have a coach or a therapist individually, which she already had, and we're both working together in the relationship from the start. She was like, I think that's a great idea. I think most people might get afraid of that early on. Why should we do this early on? Everything's great.

There's something wrong with us if we go to therapy.

Exactly. And there was nothing wrong, right? It was like, We had an amazing dating experience starting out, but I said, I want to know and have a better feeling within the first year of dating that we are in alignment with our values, our vision and lifestyle. Because typically when you get into a relationship, chemicals take over, you know, love is more blind. You don't ask the questions about the real deep, intimate stuff, and you allow the chemical desires to keep you bonded physically. And it just feels so good. Right. Just like, oh, it feels amazing. and you don't want to see, oh, he's doing that, or, oh, she's doing this weirdo, that's a red flag. You kind of let those things go to the side once you start bonding chemically. And so I said, I want to start in therapy so we can talk about everything, talk about all the subjects, talk about our values, our vision, our lifestyle, the future, agreements, boundaries, roles, responsibilities, everything. And most people would say, man, that seems like a lot of work early on, and it seems like, oh, it's kind of It's kind of heavy, but I was just like, you know what's heavy is going through years of relationships that don't work, spending time, energy, hours, sleepless nights, dealing with emotional turmoil from someone who wants you to change who you are. Yeah. Someone screaming at you constantly. That is heavy.

That's way heavier.

And it's, I'd rather go through the first six to 12 months of getting clarity, and doing the deep work early on and having years of peace and freedom on the other side of it, then three to six months of pleasure and then years of pain on the back end because you never had those conversations. So for me, her willingness to say, yes, I want to continue to grow on my own separate of you. And yes, I want us to grow together as a partnership, working together. was an incredible decision that we made together early on.

Yeah.

And I highly recommend it for, for anyone starting a relationship. I just think, you know, that the stats are undeniable. 50 of marriages end in divorce. Probably 70 of people that stay married are unhappy, who don't get divorced. People are cheating on each other all the time. They're lying to each other just because they stay together for a long time doesn't mean it's a successful marriage or relationship. There's not peace, there's not freedom to express your true authentic self. And that's not the life I want to live anymore. I lived that for 20 years in relationships. And I felt like a prisoner to people pleasing, the people I was with to try to keep the peace and make them happy versus both of us being able to express who we are and be our higher selves in the relationship. And for the first time, I feel that in this relationship, and it's the greatest gift I've ever had. Yeah.

And I mentioned this to you when I saw you last time is you actually just feel different to be around. Like you feel like your energy is way lighter, you know? And I think it's is a lot of us, what we do is we think, all right, well, yeah, like it's happening at home, but I can put on a face and I can go out and do my work and do what's supposed to be done. And I think that we don't understand that people are always feeling our energy in some sort. So if you just had a fight and now you got to go on stage or you've got to go and talk with someone, they're feeling something's a little bit off in your your nervous system. They might not have any idea what it is, but they feel in their nervous system, something's a little bit different. Exactly. And I told you when I was at your event up in Columbus where I was like, man, like you just feel different to be around. Like it seemed like it was it was there. It was taken a lot from you. The previous relationships were. And it's awesome to see because you guys just got engaged right a couple of days right after that.

Yeah.

And so I'm curious. I have a question for you. I'm curious on because I know my answer with my relationship with Lauren, my wife, But it feels like a lot of people talk about relationships have to be hard, they have to be work, they have to be strenuous. I'm curious your thoughts on that and if you think that it's true or if you're finding that it's false with the one that you have.

Well, I feel like all of my relationships before were hard work and they were exhausting. Now, there were moments in the first three months that were fun and interesting and exciting, but then it started to get more tiring and exhausting. and it was always like, how do we get back to that beginning few months of fun or excitement? Like, how do we get back to that? We never did. Right. You know, and here's the thing. I'm not a parent, so I know there's gonna be a lot of parents in the comments right now that say, well, wait till you have kids and wait till this and wait till life happens in bigger ways and wait till you've got to take care of your parents and wait till you get death happens and all these things. Then your relationship is tested. Right. So I understand and have compassion for that because I don't have kids. But I, you know, had a father who was, you know, essentially had a. In a coma for many months from a brain. A brain. A car accident that I was in that had a traumatic brain injury for 17 years. He was not the man that he once was, and he had to be taken care of 24 7. So I was in relationships where, you know, this was happening to my father. I wasn't his primary caretaker, but I experienced that. I don't have kids. And I know dynamics shift and change when you have kids. I know that. And I know some people don't have the luxury of maybe getting a babysitter or having support or having parents around to support them. And there might be more pressure and weight to take care of those kids. So I get that too. But I think if you set the foundation of your relationship before having kids about roles and responsibilities, about guidelines and boundaries, about agreements, then I feel like it should be extremely peaceful based on these last three years with Martha, almost three years, two and a half years. Because we did the uncomfortable work upfront by going to joint counseling and addressing any little fears or concerns that we might have. And there were some uncomfortable sessions where each one of us had to face insecurities and fears or doubts from our past. and address them and face them. We couldn't keep running from them. We had to turn around and face them. Because we leaned in that uncomfortable conversations early on, and we created agreements with one another, it gave us clarity. That clarity has given us freedom. It's given us peace. I have peace. You know, if this was, you know, three years ago, seven years ago, 10 years ago, and the relationships I was in, I'd feel anxious being like, I gotta check in. I gotta tell them what I'm doing, or they're gonna be calling me saying, who you with? Who's at the house right now? What's going on? Why aren't you checking in with me? Like, that was kind of my history. Yeah. And I don't have to do that because we have agreements. We've had these conversations up front about, this is my lifestyle. This is how I work. This is what I need. This is what I'm willing to do. This is what I'm not willing to do. Do you accept that? Do you need something else from me? and getting clarity on both sides so we're in alignment. And that has set us free. And I'm sure there's going to be new agreements and commitments we'll need to make when we get married, we're engaged now. So there'll be new agreements, when we have kids, there'll be different agreements. There's gonna be different things to agree to at different seasons of life. But because we both say we are independently growing and have coaching and counseling independently on our own, to deal with our own stuff. So we don't have to dump everything on each other and have the responsibility of another person making us happy. We are responsible for our own happiness individually. We each have a mission and a purpose in life that we're pursuing. And we each have friends and communities that we can lean on as well. And we have counseling together. So there's like multiple layers of support for each one of us to overcome and navigate challenges, which doesn't put all the burden on me to have to fix something or rescue or be this perfect conscious person to listen nonstop to whatever challenge someone might be having. And I know she can handle her own emotions. She's able to deal and navigate with them. And yes, because she does that, I want to be there to support her even more when she's in those challenging moments in her life. So that has been, that has given me a lot of peace knowing that she's fully committed to her own happiness and to her own coaching and she's committed to the relationship coaching as well. Yeah. And it's just incredible peace when both partners are willing to grow together and separately.

Yeah, man. I think that's real important. As you're speaking, you're talking about how you started early. I shared on, we right before this episode, we recorded an episode for your podcast, the School of Greatness. and I was talking about how I had a friend who I had met through a poker tournament, sat next to me, and he was a relationship therapist. And we started connecting stuff. He's like, Hey, it'd be great for you and your girlfriend to come in. And it was just like two years into our relationship. And there was nothing wrong, right? There wasn't like we were trying to fix something. But we went in and we spoke with him and we learned about, like, how I am. He had said something to me that was really eye-opening that I never thought of before. And I was, I was talking to him. about my relationship with my father and where my father was. And he goes, yeah, you were neglected as a child. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no. I wasn't neglected. Because in my mind, I'm thinking food.

Water, shelter, clothing, right?

Emotionally, you were neglected. That's exactly what he said. He said, you, were emotionally neglected. And I was like, oh, God, that feels true. I felt it. And I was like, oh, yeah, there was emotional neglect there. And so he reflected to me something I never knew, but I started learning how Lauren's love style was, how my love style was, and I left that first session, and we had gone a couple times to him after that, feeling like, number one, I understood myself more than I ever had, but I also understood more her more than I ever had. But I felt like she understood me more than she ever had. And I think that that's important where it's like a lot of times I have a friend who's, who really wants to go to therapy with his, with his parents, and they just don't. His dad's hardcore resisting it because in his dad's mind, he thinks that that means he failed. he did something wrong. And in reality, it doesn't have to be that way. Just 'cause you go to therapy doesn't mean there's something wrong. It just means, hey, I kind of want to mirror it. I want to have someone tell me something about myself that I might not know about. I've been in, at that point in time, personal development for like 12 years, and I had no idea I was emotionally neglected. And then I started realizing that about myself. And so I think it's really important for everyone out there to think about this. Like, if you can do it, if you can afford it in some sort of way, It would be really good for you to go and talk with someone on your own, but also talk with someone who is if you're in a relationship with someone where you could start to understand each other a little bit better.

Yeah. And to go back to the question of, you know, do relationships need to be hard? I think relationships are extremely hard if you're unwilling to have courageous conversations. And they are going to be hard and they're going to be exhausting because you're going to expect someone else to understand you when you're not communicating with courage to them about your needs. your wants and desires.

For sure.

You're expecting them to just get it, to understand you, to just know what you want as opposed to saying, actually, I'm feeling a little scared here, a little, I've got some stuff I'm still working on. I want to talk through with you. And most of us are unwilling to have the courage to open up. And therefore we're resentful, we're angry, we're frustrated, we're insecure, we're needy, all these different things. And so it feels hard and complicated. But if you're willing to start opening up courageously and make sure that the other person is willing to receive that, if they're not, they may not be the right match for you. You may just be out of alignment. If one person is willing to be courageous and the other is afraid, do you want that as a partner? And I think that's hard because a lot of people get chemically bonded early and they think about the dream life of this person, the fantasy of this person in the future. They like me and I have this chemical feeling when I'm around them or when I think about them, and they don't want to lose that feeling of chemicals. And I think that's where you get trapped. That's where you get in a really scary place of staying in a relationship for too long, making excuses for the person who is treating you poorly or not giving you what you need based on what you've requested or who's doing things out of alignment with your values, your vision, or your lifestyle. And then you Keep abandoning yourself and what you truly want for the hope that one person continues to give you this chemical feeling. And that's why early on, I was just like, I'm blocking all the chemical connection. I'm not going there. Sure, I felt attracted, but I was not willing to go there chemically for months. And I said, I just want to get to know your personality. And I never done that before. and I want to get to know your values, your vision, your lifestyle. I want to see you around your friends. I want to see you around your family. And I think people are so, myself included in the past, are so willing to give of themselves chemically and sexually without actually knowing who the person is. And then they're bonded for a long time. You're bonded, you're connected, and you want that rush, you want that feeling. It's an addiction. And that makes you blind. And so you got to do things differently if you want peace and harmony in a relationship. And that may mean you're dating someone for a while and after three to six months, you realize, man, we're not in alignment. Like we don't want the same things in the future. We don't have the same values, vision or lifestyle. They want to have kids. I don't want to have kids. They don't want to be married. I want to be married. They, I can't deal with, I can't accept them for who they are. if you can't accept the person for who they are right now, you shouldn't be with them. Yeah. And I was like, that's why I said that there's really two main conditions. One, I'm going to accept you for who you are, and I need you to accept me for who I am. That's number one. Otherwise, this won't work because I'm not changing for you. I'm going to evolve. I'm going to grow for me, and you've got to accept who I am. Yeah. And I'm going to fully accept who you are, where most guys would be like, okay, you're never doing a kissing scene again. You're never doing this with this actor. You can't do this. You can't do this. Now you're gonna stop acting and just be a stay-at-home mom because it makes me feel safe. I said, no. You're gonna do you, and I'm gonna trust you to make good decisions that.

Are good for you. And she's been gone for a month.

Because she's shooting in a different country right now.

And she's doing kissing scenes. She's doing sex scenes.

She's doing kissing scenes in another country.

For a month without you. Exactly. And I feel at peace.

Yeah, I was gonna say, so in another relationship, would that have just driven you crazy? I think 10 years ago, I wasn't as emotionally involved. and I think I would have been angry that this person is choosing to do something that would hurt me. Oh, yeah. It's all about us.

We're all thinking about ourselves. Exactly.

I'd have been like, how could they do this to me? Are they not thoughtful about me? What do they. How. What do you mean? Why are they gonna do a kissing scene in the movie? Can't they just not do this movie?

Yeah.

I would make all these things up and say, why are you doing this? And who is this guy? And let me talk to this guy. You know, I would have to do all these things, and I. I. put myself in scenarios weeks before we got like committed. I said, okay, can I fully accept who she is? I'd seen some of her previous movies where she'd done kissing scenes. But I also understand like when you're on a set, there's 50 people watching. It's not intimate at all. Is that romantic? No, it's not. But you know, you have to let your ego down. You have to like let your ego die and say, okay, this is who she is. So is this the type of person.

I want to be with?

Am I able to accept her and love her for the choices she makes and be happy for her and her choices? Or am I so insecure that I need her to change to make me feel safer? And I made that decision. And it's funny, when you make those decisions, the universe or God tests you and says, okay, you said you could do this. So we're gonna put some extreme cases in front of you right quickly afterwards and make sure you really say you're gonna do what you're gonna do. and, yeah, I've been super calm and peaceful, and it's just been like, okay, you know, maybe I don't want to watch these scenes, but, you know, I accept you. And let's. You're making great art. I'm just looking at it as you're making great art, and that's. That's cool. I've chosen to accept her. Otherwise, I shouldn't be with her. Right.

That's interesting. And I think the. The main part that. That is really, like, coming to light is the communication side of it. Whenever I hear people that have trouble in their relationships, usually there's some breakdown in communication. Someone's not saying something or both of them are not saying something. And it's actually interesting because I learned something from a coach of mine years ago, which is similar to actually what your therapist had told you when you were talking about the sexual experiences, is how to actually go and have a really tough conversation.

It's hard, man.

It's super hard. And what makes it easier though that I have found you know, there's times when we've all been in a situation where, like, you know what? I'm going to tell this person about this thing. And then we say it, and the person gets triggered. They blow up on us. And now we're like, I can't. I'm not safe to. To say this to them because our walls immediately go up. Exactly. And the. The tactic, I guess, the, you could call it a tactic, if you want, that he taught me is to disarm them. And the way to disarm somebody is to go to them and tell them how you feel and. And before you do anything else. So it's like, Hey, Louis, there's something that I want to say to you. If I'm being fully transparent, I'm terrified to share this with you because it's really on my heart and I'm not sure how you're going to accept it. And so I started doing this with my wife and I was like, Hey, because the way that I always thought that the pattern that I always had is that if she got mad, she was going to leave. And so my brain would always go to, There's something I did wrong, she's probably going to leave me. She's probably going to leave me. She's probably going to leave me. And even though it never happened, luckily, it always kept popping up in my head. And so what happened was, as things would happen, I would say, Hey, listen, Lauren, can I talk to you? We're not in a moment where things are heated, anything like that. And we're sitting, it's just normal day, and I'm like, Can I share something with you that's been on my mind? And if I'm being honest, I'm terrified to say it. Yeah, that's good. And when you do that, usually they're like, oh my God, yes, I would love, and so the walls don't go up. It's like, I'm inviting you in. and then allowed to communicate with that person. Now, I think that's important because you can then usually communicate vulnerably that person's reaction. We can't really, we can't, we can't control anybody else's reaction.

Yes.

But like you're saying is, I've shared it with you. I've gotten off my chest. Your reaction is in a way going to show me how open you are to making some shifts in this relationship.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And also, if someone if someone can't accept you for you being vulnerable and courageous and opening up about who you are and they are going to leave you, let them leave you. They're not aligned with you. Yeah. And the challenge is we get too chemically bonded and too invested in this person that we were afraid for someone to leave us. But if they're not right for you, they should leave you. You should leave them. If they can't receive your emotions or receive a vulnerable conversation from you, Is that the type of relationship you want to have for the rest of your life where you're walking on eggshells? Probably not. And people are too afraid to be left or that they've invested too much time that the person's, now they've wasted all these years. But if you're not in alignment, you can try to communicate to get in alignment and go to counseling and therapy, but eventually, if it's not working, why make it this hard thing to go back to your question? should relationships be hard work? I think they should be conscious conversations continuously. Yeah. Maybe that's hard to do at the beginning, but over time that should bring you closer together and make things easier.

Right.

Because you're having conscious conversations about roles and responsibilities, about agreements and boundaries, and about acceptance of who each individual is. And when you can get clear on all those things along with your values, your vision and your lifestyle, and be in agreement on these things and accept them, then everything else is a lot easier. And you just look at each other and you say, wow, what a beautiful life we have. And that's what we do in our relationships. We just look at each other and say, what a beautiful life we have. But was because we're willing to have the conscious conversations. Some people might call that hard work. It's uncomfortable at times, but man, to have you know, a few months of conscious conversations for a lifetime of peace and gratitude.

It's worth it. Yeah, for sure. Well, I'm curious with you, man. Like, what? I've known you for a while, and you've gone on this journey. You've gone through, you know, the. The sharing of the sexual abuse, the things that have happened in relationships. It's 2024. Like, what is. What is Lewis houses at 40 years old? Mountain that he's climbing or thing that he's working on where he's like, this is a thing that I want to work on with myself in my life. Where are you at right now?

I think it's. I mean, it's the. There's three things that came to mind. The first two are, you know, stepping into preparing myself for marriage and then stepping into preparing myself to be a father. I think those are two big milestones that I've never experienced.

So what does that preparation look like?

I'm working with my, you know, my coach and my therapist. and walking through any type of fears or uncertainties or like, what do I need to keep communicating or addressing to make sure that I'm saying everything I need to say? It's just kind of walking through a reflection of stepping into the greatest version of me that is married, the greatest version of me that is a father, and bringing him closer to me now. How can I draw him closer to me now and what is in between me now and where I want to be? any fear, insecurity or doubts that I might have around anything and being willing to have courageous conversations. It all goes back to courageous or conscious conversations to bring it to the light, to address it, to, you know, feel anything out. And so stepping into that. So that's one process that I'm on right now. Another one that I have with my therapist and coach is you know, individuals like me and you who have big platforms and big communities and audiences have bigger demands and responsibilities, right? We've got to show up in different ways. We've got to lead in different ways, which is not ways I was when I was 10, 15, 20, 25, 30. Like I had to continually step up and evolve. And so one of the questions I ask my coach often in the last six months is, What are the men who are in their 50s and 60s and 70s struggle with the most that she coaches? She works with a lot of high profile leaders. Big CEOs, billionaires, you know.

You want to be able to navigate them now.

And so I'm saying, what are the biggest challenges that 50 year old men, 60, 70 year old men who make it deal with? And a lot of it comes back to their ego. You know, it's not it comes back to their ego of, you know, younger women come into the picture or they've neglected their marriages or whatever it is, and that gets them. You know, their ego eventually gets them if they're not constantly working on it. And I think I'm trying to prepare myself now to eliminate that stuff in the future, you know, to prepare myself or to be as ready as possible, knowing that I'm never going to be some perfect human being. But how can I make sure that I'm dealing with or navigating things now so they don't catch up to me later. And part of that is also like, okay, I've chosen this year for 11 years, I've kind of made everything about others on my show. I've interviewed everyone else. I've done very little solo stuff. I've written three books, but a lot of the books are about examples from other people and then some of my stuff. But it's never like, I'm the expert, here's all my wisdom, and look at me all day. I've never wanted to be that guy. And it's not who I want to be necessarily, but I also know in order for me to take my audience, my business, my brand to the next level, that I'm going to need to step in front more and share more of my thoughts. So this year, I'm going to be creating more individual content, more solo stuff, more, you know, social media content of just me teaching, educating, inspiring, and entertaining. and with that, I believe it will expand my impact and draw people back in more, but it also leaves you open for people criticizing you more and people judging you more and people saying, oh, you know, and okay, just preparing myself for abundance and expansion and making sure that my ego doesn't get the best of me as it grows abundantly. The audience, the community, the wealth, all these different things. and so it's just preparing for all that and just knowing I'm stepping into this level of leadership in a different way and making sure that I'm in alignment with myself and my soul so that I don't, you know, get into things that I shouldn't be getting into. That's what I'm preparing for. Yeah.

I'm gonna ask you the same question you asked me in your episode, because I thought it was so good, and it's a perfect transition.

Yeah.

Because you had already asked me the final questions that you do at the end of episodes and the last time I was on your show, which everyone should go back and listen to both of them. With this last one, you asked me a question which just made me think. I was silent for a while, right? And so the question was though, and I think it works perfectly when you're talking about your coach and your therapist talking 50, 60 years old. Let's say that 50-year-old Lewis walks down these stairs, sees us. He's got everything he's ever wanted. He's got this amazing relationship, amazing children. He's a great father. What do you think that he would say to you right now to help you on the path to get there sooner?

I think he'd be really excited for me. And he would say, I'm so grateful that you decided to commit to cautiously growing so consistently. because look at this beautiful life we've created together.

And what do you think would be some of the steps to have gotten you to where he is compared to where you are now?

It's the consistency of working on myself, like, you know, making sure I show up every month for coaching, therapy, making sure that I'm, yeah, I'm working on the things that I know I need to get better at, which is patience and allowing to trust other people to handle things, to allow myself to feel more peace and freedom in my business or my life. But I think he would say a number of things. One, look at this beautiful family you've developed because you healed your heart and you continue to be on a healing journey. You committed to it. Look what we've created because you committed to healing. Thank you. He would say, he would say, he would say, thank you for continuing to make your life about serving other human beings and using your story to be in the service of others. And so he wouldn't give me the advice to do that because he would say, thank you for being consistent in that. He would say, thank you for choosing health every single day. Because at 50, we're still jumping around, dunking, we're running, we're fricking lifting heavy weights. And he would say, I'm so grateful for you for making decisions to be committed daily to health and prevention and mobility and strength. because look what we're able to do at 50 with our kids. Thank you for taking care of your health. And the thing that he would say, which is the lesson I've been getting this last month, is the only way for you to grow into where you need to be is to creating the right partnerships with people and not doing it all on your own anymore. For the last 11 years, I feel like I've done it all my own. And so it's still another evolution of healing in that area of business around, you know, expanding with the right partners team to allow me to expand as opposed to me doing it all on my own. Yeah. So that's what he'd be saying to me to keep evolving. But I've been listening to that version of me already and I've been stepping into it slowly. So that's what's going to allow the impact to expand through the right aligned Partnerships. It's awesome. That's why you're part of the network, baby.

Let's go.

You know, greatness Network. How do, how do people find you, Lewis? School of greatness.

Podcast. Podcast.

Yeah. And Lewis House, anywhere on social media. Yeah. Appreciate you, man.

Excited for this. Yeah. We had a great conversation on ours so they can listen to ours on.

Our show and check it out.

Some really good questions. So, yeah, go to School of Greatness if you want to listen to that episode. And appreciate you, man.

My man.

Thanks, brother. I think that people just need to be aware of like, all right, being in this, around this person, do I get more energy? Do I feel like they're sucking energy from me? Doing this task, do I get energy from it? Do I feel like it's sucking energy from me? Like one of the things I had a podcast episode come out the other day about how ADHD is a superpower. And this is one thing I think, like, I hate.