Lewis Howes’ Year-End Solo Special: Lessons of Love, Health, and GREATNESS in 2023

The magic of life lies within the leap. That is the catalyst for change, for growth, and for the platform for finding your purpose. Because you can think about your purpose all you want. You can think about what is my purpose or what if it's this, but you won't actually know until you take the leap and you start feeling if that is the true calling that you're supposed to have for this season of life. 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 to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. My friends, welcome back. It's Lewis Howes, and this is the end of the year, and this is my top 10 lessons for the year that I really wanted to share. And so many of you throughout this year have asked me to do more solo episodes, to give more reflections, to give more lessons, to jump in and share the things that I know and that I've learned. And it has been a massive year. And just like every year has its set of obstacles or challenges and things that we need to break through and typically has some things that are either minor wins or big wins as well. And it's really all about how you look at it. Isn't that interesting? It's really all about how you perceive it. And because I've been able to learn from so many great people over the last 10 years since starting the School of Greatness, I've learned the power of perspective. And I'll talk more about that in this special episode of my 10 lessons. But the power of perspective, it's That's really how you view what's happening. And there could be tons of sadness, breakdown, challenge, suffering happening in your personal life. But if you're able to take a quantum leap in time, in the future, and realize that all this stuff is happening for us. Now you might say, well, going through these horrible sufferings, how is that happening for you? A lot of you know my story, if you've been with me for a while, that I was sexually abused as a five-year-old kid by a man that I didn't know. And you could be thinking, how is that for someone? How is that actually a good thing? And I don't think that's a good thing that happened to me. There's no way that I think that was a good thing or that I want anyone to go through suffering, pain, or challenge in their life. However, if you can leap in time, take a quantum leap into the future, and see how it was made for you, how you can make the most of it, these pains, these challenges, these breakdowns, the suffering, the whatever it might you might be going through a breakup or struggle or financial burden. If you can look into the future and say, how is this going to help benefit myself and others around me? And I just got a voice message this morning on my Instagram actually, from a woman that was talking about how grateful she was for me opening up about my challenges and traumas as a child because her husband that she's been with for 25 years had a similar sexual abuse experience and has never really processed or healed it. And she said, Thank you for sharing your story because I've brought it to my husband He's starting the journey. He's starting the healing journey. He's not there yet fully, but he's been starting it. So thank you for sharing because you're allowing other men like my husband to start processing and start the healing journey. And again, we don't know why we go through the certain challenges and the pains and the breakdowns that we go through. We don't know until a later time. And if we are able to train our minds to train ourselves to take quantum leaps in time and see the future. You know, they talk about hindsight being 2020, but what if we developed future hindsight? What if we were able to leap into the future 5, 10, 15, 20 years and see how could this benefit us? If we could disassociate ourselves from the moment and bounce into the future and our future self has all this knowledge and wisdom and experience, What would they say to us about the breakdown? So that's something to think about. And I've had a big year. I've taken a lot of big jumps. And the first lesson is take the leap. That is the first lesson of the year that I wanted to share. Number one is take the leap. And I'm going to give you some reflection on this in a second. But when was the last time that you took a chance? When was the last time that you bet on you, that gut feeling that you had inside of you, that you wanted to do something that you had this burn? You said, ah, this has been gnawing at my gut, my mind, my heart for months or years. When was the last time that you bet on you with that feeling and how did it go? Did you get your best outcome or did you fall flat on your face? If we start to realize that the outcomes aren't the most important thing, but really the act of leaping, the act of courageously going after those things, that's what really matters. You build so much confidence not in the results you gain or your failures, but in the decision to make the leap and doing it. Man, that is powerful. when you have that fear, that insecurity, that doubt, and you leap after that thing, not knowing what is going to happen, not knowing if anyone's going to care or if everyone's going to laugh at you, not knowing what the results will be. That is true authentic power. The real win is in the space between thinking about taking action and then actually taking action. The magic of life lies within the leap. that is the catalyst for change, for growth, and for the platform for finding your purpose. Because you can think about your purpose all you want. You can think about what is my purpose or what if it's this? But you won't actually know until you take the leap and you start feeling if that is the true calling that you're supposed to have for this season of life. And we are biologically wired to stay safe, to protect ourselves. But at the same time, we are meant for growth and change. So what happens when we are built to seek safety and to embrace change at the same time? Well, we are left with the ability of choice. And we can choose to stay in comfort and remain in the same situation we are year after year, or we can choose to take a quantum leap, and we can choose to embrace change with open arms. and we can choose to dive in. We had an amazing interview and episode this year with Price Pritchett, who wrote the book U Squared. And this has been like a roadmap for me this year because I read this book, we had him on, I even talked about this whole story as my opening keynote at this year's Summit of Greatness. And so many people have messaged me within the months after Summit of Greatness saying, you know, I took the quantum leap in my life. And it's just such a powerful interview that we did where he talks about how to take these quantum leaps and what happens in your life when you decide to leap. And in my life this year, man, I took so many leaps. It was so scary at times. But I also had a sense of groundedness to taking the leaps. It wasn't like this, okay, let's just jump at everything and see what happens. There was strategy involved, there was reflection involved, there was calculations involved. It's not like let's jump and just fall flat in our face. It's do your research, it's listen to the instincts, it's get coaching if you need coaching, it's do those things and then leap. And you're not gonna feel ready ever. So it's not wait years until you leap. It's, yeah, do your research and think about it and reflect on it, but then when you know timing is right, go for it, take that leap. and there may never be the perfect timing. And when we are faced with a breakdown, that is definitely a time to leap because the universe is telling you something. Hey, what you're doing right now is not working. You're 50 pounds overweight, something's not working. It's time to take a leap. You just got fired from a job. Well, that wasn't working for you. It was not meant for you anymore. It's time to take a leap. You know, this relationship that you've been struggling with that you feel like is painful and challenging, but you know, ah, should we be together? Should we not be together? And then you just see more and more red flags. Well, this might be the time to take a leap one way or another. Maybe you need to dive into therapy. Maybe you've already done that and it's time to remove yourself and get aligned with your vision for the relationship you want. It's time to take the leap. I did this, you know, I got my first home ever this year. I got engaged this year. I launched another book this year. I did so many things this year that were, I moved the Summit of Greatness from a small venue to a massive venue in Los Angeles for next year. I took a leap by changing my business structure from letting go of certain programs and going all in in media and and content, you know, we've made transitions in the business and other ways. We've taken the leap on things that were uncomfortable. And I'm starting to see the payoff. And even if you don't see the payoff right away, you should feel a sense of peace on the other side because you're taking action in the things that you feel like you're supposed to take action on. So number one is to take the leap. in your life, whatever it is that speaks to you. When I say the words, take the leap, take the leap, take the leap. When you hear that, what comes up for you? Listen to your gut. Listen to your heart right now. What comes up for you? Is it something that you've been thinking about launching? Is it a side hustle? Is it a book you wanted to write? Is it a letter that you feel like you need to write to someone in your life that you haven't connected with in a while? Is it someone that you need to have a hard conversation with that you haven't forgiven or that you need to create a boundary with that's making you feel uncomfortable? Is it something in your relationships that you know you need to jump into deeper, but you've been afraid? Is there something on your heart and in your stomach that is telling you you need to do something? If so, feel free to message me. Send me a direct message. Let me know what that is. And I want you to take action on it. Reflect on it and act on it. Telling you you're gonna feel a sense of relief after you do. That is number one. Number two, prioritize your health. Who So we only have one body to carry throughout our entire lives. One body, one brain, one heart, one digestive system, all these different things. We've got to care for our bodies. I had this book launch earlier this year with the Greatness Mindset. So many of you have picked it up. I'm seeing a lot of you sharing it out over the holidays as well. and it took a lot out of me. I spent three months doing over 75 interviews. These were our two hour long interviews to promote the book. On top of that, I was doing three interviews a week for my show, the School of Greatness. It was non-stop. I was traveling, I was doing so much content, three, four interviews a day for months. and I'm down to do that from time to time because when I put my heart and soul in something, I want to give it the full effort so I know I have no regrets on the energy and the effort of putting something out there. However, I was not disciplined with my health during about four months. I got injured. I don't know what happened with my Achilles, but I strained it in some way, so I had to go do rehab on that for a number of months. I wasn't able to fully run or jog without pain in my Achilles. I couldn't jump. I could lift and do certain things, but I wasn't able to really like run and use my body the way I wanted to. Now, last year, I also ran two marathons for the first time ever, and I think maybe I just didn't train properly for those, so there might have been some residual there. And I just realized that after the book launch, I went on a little five-day vacation with Martha, and I just ate everything and kind of like just I was just, I needed a break, I needed rest, I needed recovery, and I just consumed all the things, which there's a time and a place for that, right? But I wasn't taking care of my health for the first part of the year. I was going to the gym, I was doing three, four days a week, but I wasn't consistent with mobility, with stretching, with recovery, with sleep, with the right nutrition, all that stuff. And this has kind of been my life. I could get away with it because I would work out, and I would kind of eat whatever because I was good at working out. And I realized after tweaking my Achilles, and I think I got to the biggest weight I'd ever been in March and April. I remember stepping on the scale just saying, oh, this is not good. This is not good, and I cannot let this slip away from me. and I was probably 30, 35 pounds overweight, right? Which for me as an athlete, that was a lot. And I just didn't feel as confident. When I looked at myself in the face in the mirror, I was just like, you let yourself slide. You've given yourself excuses. You've done all these other things. And so I made this year a prioritize of health. And that is lesson number two, to prioritize your health. I turned 40 this year. So I just started to say to myself, how can I measure and track these things better? How can I set up better systems for myself? So I got an online program with a coach that checks in with me every week. I've got tracking system where I measure and I weigh certain things. I've got a nutritional plan and I stick to the plan. And that has allowed me to feel more in control. And I really don't have any vices. Most of you who've been listening or watching for a long time, I've never been drunk, I've never been high, and I don't do drugs. the only drugs I've ever done is when I had surgery and I had to recover and take some pain medicine for a week or something like that. But that's, I've never done recreational drugs. And I've seen the benefits of focusing on breath work, of sleep, of learning about what to eat for longevity, of fasting. And we've had some amazing interviews this year with, on breathing with Wim Hof and sleep with Dr. Matthew Walker and eating for longevity with Dr. Mark Hyman and fasting for hormones with Dr. Mindy Pelz and so many other great examples. But when we educate on ourselves on our unique body and what our body needs, then we can create a game plan moving forward. And I'm telling you, I'm in better shape now than I've been in 10 years. My, my COO, Matt Cesarato, who's one of my best friends, been one of my best friends for 20 years almost, played college football together. He goes, I haven't seen you in this good of shape in 10, 12 years. Even when I was playing with the US national team for Team Handball, he was like, I haven't seen you in this great of shape. So I've lost 25 pounds of fat. I've built muscle and I just feel better, right? I feel more conditioned. My Achilles is almost fully recovered. and I can just do more. And I'm like, yes, this is how I want to feel. I want to feel this way for the next 30 years, right? How can I continue to build muscle, lean muscle? How can I continue to burn fat so that I can live longer, so I can live healthier while I'm alive, so that I can do more at this season of life so I can have more fun, so I can be mobile so that when I have kids, I can run around with them and feel great and alive. So prioritizing your health is a big, big lesson. And it's always been important. But this year I've dialed it in more than ever with tracking, with measuring, with goal setting, with nutrition. And a lot of that is having the right support team around me to encourage me. You know, Matt goes to the gym with me four or five days a week. You know, I've got a coach, Martha, My fiance, she helps with the nutrition side with both of our lives. She's really encouraging on the nutrition and helping me meal prep for the healthy things, all that stuff. So it's really about creating that team and that system to support you. But prioritize your health is number two. And I highly encourage you, not because it's the beginning of the year, because I started this journey in like April and May. I didn't start in January one. I started in the middle of the year. And so it doesn't matter what time it is of the year. Yes, you can start in January 1st if you want to, but be consistent with it. I'm consistent with it now, not because it was some New Year's resolution, but because it was a commitment to my future self. And I want you to take that commitment too. Number three, clean your space. Man, my friend Jesse Itzler talks about this a lot, you know, going into the new year, clean and light. And I'm all about that, cleaning up your external environment, but also cleaning up your internal environment. And there's a saying that goes, you, external environment reflects your internal environment. And if you are feeling stressed or have internal turmoil, clean your space, clean your room, clean your kitchen, clean your closets, get rid of stuff. get rid of stuff because this is going to help you feel clear. It's going to help you see things differently. But we all know when we have a messy space, we just never feel as good about ourselves. That's why I talk about making your bed first thing in the morning. This is a powerful tool to help you feel more organized throughout the rest of the day. And again, the space you are in when you clean it and take care of it, the steps to really organize externally, you'll start to feel your internal environment shifting. This will allow you to cut out toxic relationships or to set boundaries in relationships. It will allow you to say, okay, what are the things I need to do now? Do I need to start going to therapy and work on what I'm doing, how I'm thinking, how I'm feeling so I can start to train those thoughts and emotions in a way that serves me rather than pulls me down? Again, I'm just a big fan of having an organized space. I'm not perfect at this. My desk is sometimes get unorganized and a little messy. My closet can be a little messy, things like that. But do your best to clean up stuff, to get rid of things, to shed weight externally that no longer serves you. Let it go. Get rid of it. Move on. I'm telling you, you're gonna feel light. I try to do this a few times a year where I get rid of as much things that I'm never gonna wear in my closet and I give them to my family, I give them away, whatever it might be. But I don't want stuff sitting there that I'm never gonna use or I think I might use in four years. I'd rather release it. And if I need something, I can go get something. Clean your space. Such a powerful thing. The fourth lesson. Oh, man, this is big. Peace is the highest form of currency. I don't know how many times I heard someone talk about this on a podcast where peace is the new rich. And with so much going on in the world, it has become so clear that living in peace is true abundance. When you feel stressed, when you feel overwhelmed, when you feel exhausted, You're not living in peace. That's not flow. That's not abundance. You're not drawing in abundance into your life. You're not bringing opportunities of more of expansion in your life, of love, of joy, because you are so overwhelmed emotionally and internally. You're so stressed that you haven't taken care of you. The highest form of currency is inner peace. Take the steps to create more peace in your life. Again, we can be victims all day long, we can give excuses all day long of why we are so overwhelmed and stressed, and we can blame others all day long of what they are doing to us. Or we can choose to take ownership of our time, of our thoughts, of our emotions. It does not mean we have all the skills and all the knowledge we need right now, but it means we can start taking steps to learning the skills, to learning the knowledge, to releasing the stress, to help us feeling that peace. For a long time, decades guys, I felt a lot of stress in my life. And it wasn't until really I started this podcast where I started to learn and started to practice. And even then it took years for me to figure out how to fully feel a sense of peace. And a lot of that came to self-love, which came to creating boundaries in my life, creating boundaries in relationships that made me feel uneasy or walking on eggshells. creating boundaries with family members, with friends, with business colleagues, creating boundaries with the things that I consumed, things I watched on TV, the things that I listened to, the things that I ate, all these different things. I needed to create boundaries in my life. And that's a big, big thing for having and being peace. And you have the ability to heal when we feel wounded or broken, We don't feel peaceful. So when we have anxiety, stress, overwhelm, there is something in us that is broken that we have not learned how to heal or mend. And you have the ability to heal. This doesn't mean you have to do it all on your own or that you have all this big pressure to do this overnight. It just means you don't have to believe that you can't heal and live a peaceful life. We have so many great examples. We'll put some of these examples in the show notes. of these 10 lessons and some interviews that you could listen to as well, but so many great examples to support you in creating the inner peace that you so deserve. Number five, man, I'm excited about these lessons. Number five, this is about money. Money wants to be respected. Now, a mentor of mine when I was broke and living on my sister's couch back when I was 25, 26 years old in Columbus, Ohio, no car, broke as a joke, trying to figure out how to make something for myself, trying to figure out how to overcome the pain of an identity I once had as a football player and figure out who am I in this world and what am I going to do and what value can I add. I said to my mentor, I said, I'm really struggling with money right now. I don't have any and I could really use some money. And he said, money comes to you when you're ready for it. I thought to myself, money comes to you when you're ready for it. Well, I feel pretty ready for it because I don't have any. Oh, so I could use some money right now, right? So I was like, I could use some money right now, right? I don't have it and I feel like I'm ready for it. And What I didn't understand until later is that I would have blown money if money came into my life. I didn't know how to manage it. I didn't know how to master my emotions around it. And I was still living in scarcity around it. And money wants to be respected. To attract more money, more abundance, you have to welcome it. And if you don't have it yet, you have to become the person who is ready for it. You have to become that person ready. I wasn't ready at the time. I didn't have the knowledge or the wisdom or the skills or the tools to understand it properly. I was living in scarcity when I was talking about it. I didn't know what to do with it when I did have it. I spent it on things that weren't important. I wasn't using money in the proper ways. So what are the qualities of people who attract money and abundance? Well, they respect it. They learn about how to not only save it, but to multiply it. So we've got to start learning these tools. We've had so many great episodes this year around money, around how to overcome being broke, around making more money, around investing money. We had a great one recently with Patrick Bet-David where he said money is attracted to people who respect it. This episode went viral. Clips everywhere went viral. The video, the audio went viral. we had Vivian Tuan also talking about how she went from broke to millionaire by age 30 and how you can too. All these different strategies, but there is mindsets behind these things that you've got to learn first in order to be able to manage the money that comes your way. But money wants to be respected and you have to ask yourself, am I respecting the money in my life as a major tenant of life of living in this human existence, we need to learn how to manage money and master it and not let it master us. But so many people are living month to month paycheck to paycheck because they haven't mastered their debt, their expenses, their saving, their investing in their mindset around money. So money wants to be respected. That is number five. Number six, lesson. of the year. Gosh, and I wish I could hear all these lessons 10 years ago. Make agreements. This is number six. Make agreements. Relationships are never perfect. Neither are friendships, nor romantic relationships, or work relationships. They're never perfect, not all of them. And so many problems can be resolved with proper communication and setting agreements. Now, this is something, I'm gonna tell a quick story here about this because in all of my previous romantic relationships and business partnerships, I didn't have any agreements. They were kind of like unsaid expectations. And I don't know if you can relate to this, where you get into a relationship, business, career, romantic, whatever it might be, and you think to yourself, well, this person just thinks the way I think about relationships, So they're going to act the way I would act. They're going to give the way I give. They're going to be generous the way I'm generous. They're going to be kind and considerate. They're not going to overreact when something is so small and insignificant. They're not going to blow up with their emotions and scream at me the way I don't do that. All these different things, we enter relationships thinking that the other person has the exact same expectations as we have. And then we get upset and let down when they don't meet those expectations. I have done this so many times, I can't even count how many times. And every intimate relationship I've been in and family relationships and business agreements, all these different things in the past, I did these things. And I felt so much pain and suffering because I had expectations and I didn't have agreements because I was too afraid to communicate the agreements that I wanted to create. I was too afraid of rocking the boat or somebody getting upset at me or, you know, and as a recovering people pleaser, I don't know if anyone else here is a people pleaser, but as a recovering one, I was afraid to say, here is where I draw the line in everything in life. And it doesn't have to be some big, dramatic thing, but just communicating agreements in general. I just wanted people to like me. And that was a fear based on childhood wounds that I had never healed until a few years ago, really. And it took time to learn how to create those agreements and let people down. People will get upset, they will be let down. And other people that have worked on these things will say, okay, cool, I understand. And they'll be all good with those agreements. So a great example of this, you know, the interview that I did with Martha, where we talked about Relationships and things like that. I talked about how in the beginning of our dating experience, before we became committed, right? And boyfriend and girlfriend and exclusive. I said to her, Hey, before we get committed, there is one agreement for sure that I want us to make. And she was like, what's that? And I said, well, I want us to start our relationship in therapy, in couples therapy. and we were both individually working with therapists and, you know, on our own. And we both love personal growth and developing ourselves and learning, and we love feedback and getting coaching. So that wasn't a problem or an issue. In all my previous relationships, I was willing to do therapy, but no one else was willing to do it. And so it was always a challenge, but I didn't wanna rock the boat, right? 'Cause I cared about them and I wanted to work and all that stuff. this time I entered it saying, this is kind of like a big thing for me. And if she wasn't willing to do it, then I don't know if I could have gotten into the relationship with her. Luckily, she said right away, she's like, yeah, I've always wanted to do that. Let's do it. So she was down for it. She was down for that agreement of starting the relationship in therapy. And gosh, it saved so much pain and so much stress in the future because we were able to, in the first six to 12 months, go to essentially a coach that would help guide us on creating our agreements for our relationship in that first year. And it has given us so much peace, so much appreciation, so much thoughtfulness and care and love for one another because we're able to create agreements. Now, not all of these agreements were easy to make. There were some challenging sessions that there were some struggle and breakdown and sadness and having to let go of old identities and step into a new agreements and all these different things. But having the coach support us, guided us, created a safe environment, created more respect for one another, and it allowed us to create commitments and agreements that gave us clarity. And this is a thing where people get broken down in relationships. There's a lack of clarity. There's a lack of communication because there's unspoken expectations that have not been met as opposed to agreements that have been consciously created. Those conscious agreements create clarity. They create boundaries. They create understanding and they create deeper love. Now, I was in probably five long-term relationships before this that all suffered at one point or another because we never created that. Maybe you're the exception and you can have this beautiful relationship where you don't have to consciously communicate and talk about the things you want or the things you need or the things you don't want. And you can just both be on the same page because you're the, you know, you have the same way of living life. And so your expectations are the exact same and you both live by those. That's great, but we had to do that. We're from different countries, different cultures, different languages, different backgrounds, different family histories, different religious backgrounds, different financial backgrounds, different everything. And so we had to communicate about everything to create agreements around our values, our vision, and our lifestyle. And what I say all the time is that love is not enough. You've got to have alignment on values, vision, and lifestyle because love alone will not be enough if everything else is out of alignment. If you're unable to agree on those things and have calm, conscious communication and be able to really minimize the hurt that so many relationships go through without those shared values, vision, and lifestyle agreements. And so make agreements in your life. we'll link up the interview with me and Martha, where we talked about this in the description. But I'm telling you guys, agreements are going to give you so much of that inner peace that we talked about on, on number four, the fourth lesson. The agreements create more peace. When you break your agreements, you hurt yourself, you create more stress. When you live in your agreements, you have alignment. You're in ownership. and you respect yourself more. So that's number six, make agreements. Number seven. Oof, I love this line. Ah, okay. Number seven is anything that is not love in us must die. Who? Now, Dr. Joe Dispenza we had on twice this year. This is a fan favorite. So many people love Dr. Joe. I went to his workshop last year. And it was a game changer, this seven days of meditation. It was so powerful. And he said in the recent interview that anything that is not love in us must die. We are born to love. And what would love do? Again, in this episode with Dr. Joe, he said this line and it really spoke to me. He goes, Wow, anything that is not love in you must die. because you were born as love, you are love. So when you are allowing something else to enter you that is not love, that is going to only harm you and others around you. It is going to harm your most authentic, conscious, higher self. If you have hatred inside of you, you are poisoning yourself and you are doing harm to others with that energy. So that must die. You must transform that, grieve that, let it go. heal that and turn it back into love. The source of love is one of the most powerful sources that will create something beautiful. Hatred, anger, and all these other things create dis-ease. They create pain, struggle, inner conflict inside of you, and that is where healing needs to come through. Anything that is not love in us must die. Falling in love with life is falling in love with yourself. And falling in love with yourself is falling in love with life. Again, another quote from Dr. Joe. We'll have that linked up in the description because again, I just feel like so many people are in pain because they hate. They hate what's happening in the world. They hate people who have hurt them in the past. They hate themselves and they speak horrible to themselves and they struggle. and when you don't have love inside of you, there's pain that will reside. There is struggle, there is frustration. Frustration breeds arguments, frustration breeds breakdowns, all these different things. Anything that is not love inside of us must die. Let it go. This goes back to creating a healing journey within yourself. And I'm not saying I am perfect at this. There are moments where I get frustrated and angry and pissed off and have to remind myself that thing needs to die, that needs to let go. I need to let go of that because that's not going to serve my highest vision for myself. It's not going to make me make better decisions when I react out of anger versus pause, transform that energy into light and then act from light and love. Number eight, it's never too late to reinvent yourself. One of the most beautiful things about this show in the last 10 years of doing this show, can you believe it's been our 10 years of the podcast? We're about to hit 11 years here in about a month. One of the most beautiful things is that I get to interview people from all age ranges and walks of life. We've had teenagers, up to 70 and 80 year olds and everything in between. And that draws in a broad audience, which I'm so blessed for. So many of you that are just, you know, at different stages of life. You know, there's not one age demographic here, but more so a demographic of consciously minded individuals that want to grow. And that's why I love you so much, because you're seeking, you're seeking more wisdom, more learning, more tools to support your growth. And that's beautiful. You're like me. We seek out ways to improve, ways to serve greater our friends and family, ourselves, our community, our dreams, all this stuff. And it's a beautiful thing. You know, you can fall in love at 20, 30, 50, 70. Was there a show recently? It was called like the Golden Bachelor where it's like you can find love at 60 and 70. You can reinvent yourself at any age of love. If you're 30 and single or 40 and divorced, and you think, oh, I've wasted all this time. No, you have gained wisdom and you can reinvent yourself and you can have the best time of your life now because you have the knowledge and wisdom and the experience. You can take charge of your health at any age. Again, I turned 40 this year and I feel like it was actually the first year that I decided and took action on my health in a more consistent way. I was always working out and healthy-ish, but I wasn't fully systematizing it and creating a system and support around it consistently. I would do it from time to time, but not consistently. This has been the most consistent I've been this year at 40, right? It's never too late to take charge of your health at any age. you can have that tough conversation that you've been putting off for years right now. You can reinvent that relationship with a family member, with friends, with your partners, all this. You can reinvent it. I've seen this happen this year more than ever with family members, business colleagues. I have two friends who had a business that they didn't speak for like two years because they hated each other. They were pissed at each other. They had expectations that were unmet. Both of them went on their own healing journey separately. The business grew bigger than ever before. They sold it for, you know, a massive amount of money, and they came together as friends again. But it took the courage for one of them to call the person on the phone and say, Hey, you know what? I'm sorry. I was a jerk. I'm sorry for the way I treated you. It took the courage for someone to take a leap. And when that person took that leap, the other person leaped as well. They welcomed it with love and they joined together. And because of it, they created an amazing result in their business that would have not have happened if they didn't take the leap and both reinvent themselves in their 40s by allowing themselves to have the tough conversation that they were putting off for two years. They didn't speak for two years while this business was running and it was struggling and suffering. and everyone around them was suffering too. It's never too late to reinvent your relationship with your partner, to really reinvent your relationship with your kids. It's never too late. I remember my dad growing up, I kind of feared my dad. I really was like, I knew he loved me, like he put me to bed every night. He would, you know, do a prayer with me every night. He would play with me in the backyard, play, you know, baseball and he was there for me, but I also kind of feared him. He was big, he was loud, he had a temper, he would snap in a moment. And it was, you know, as a little kid, it's kind of scary sometimes. And when I was about 13 years old, I saw him transform. And he transformed internally. He healed a lot of his past. He started treating people better. He wasn't reactive anymore. I didn't see him explode anymore. and I really saw him reinvent himself at a later age. And he was never perfect. But man, it was a much different experience from, you know, I was a kid until I was 13 until 13 until I was 22 when he got into a car accident. And, you know, he never really fully recovered after that. But for about eight to nine years, he was a different man. He was a different father, at least from my perspective. And again, he wasn't perfect. He still made mistakes, but he transformed at that age. And he created a new relationship with me that I'm so grateful for that I had those years to connect with him. It's never too late to reinvent yourself. There are countless stories of this that we see all the time. And I want you to think about where do you need to reinvent yourself today? Number nine. Oh, man, this is a good one. Each one of these lessons, this is one I struggled with for years. I struggled with this one for years. And it's still a challenge. Man, I'll tell you why this is a challenge. Here's the lesson. Number nine, the joy of missing out. We all have heard about FOMO, the fear of missing out. But JOMO is the new thing, the joy of missing out. Learning to say no to make the yes more intentional, more focused and more meaningful is such a powerful thing. Letting go of commitments to make room for expansion in the things you currently have is huge. And what do you need to let go of to make more room for this year in your life? What are the things that you've overcommitted to that aren't serving your higher purpose or your mission right now. Choose what's good for you, not just what's fun and exciting and that everyone else is doing and feel like you're supposed to do. Choose what's good for you. Now, this is a tough one because when I started my career in my business, 14 years ago when I started my first business, I said yes to everything. I said yes to every event. I was getting on buses and trains and planes, literally, to go all over the country. I was staying in hostels. This is when I had no money. I was staying in hostels paying $7 a night with like 20 other Europeans in random cities around the country that was just crazy town, right? It was crazy. I was staying on friends' couches. I was just saying yes to everything to be able to show up to events, to be in the room, to meet people, to network, doing all this stuff. And I needed to do that for a season of life. then as I, you know, my career took off, my business took off, I got more opportunities. You know, I was speaking on tons of stages. I had to start learning how to say no. And it took me a long time to do this because I didn't want to miss out on something. I was like, what if this opportunity leads to the next one and this one? And I realized a couple years ago that, you know, I was over committed. I was working on too many projects. We had too many things, and they were all good, but some of them weren't great and they were all making money, but some of them weren't supporting my time and energy to build the things that were more meaningful for me. So over the last three or four years, we've let go and said no to so many different things. I've said no to so many different speaking engagements over the last couple of years that I would have said yes to that pay a lot of money. I've said said no to so many different meetings man, I used to just do meetings all day long with people because I just wanted to meet people and help them. And now I said no to reclaim that time. I said no to certain things in my business to reclaim my time, to put more energy and creativity and thought into the things that can make a bigger expansion, a bigger impact with my time and energy. And so it's learning to say no. And there's, I mean, I got invited to this incredible trip last month that was going to be this amazing experience with, you know, 30 world leaders and five nights in this exotic location with exclusive access that no one in the world has access to. And it was like, man, how can I say no to this? But there were some other challenges and conflicts that were in the way that was just like, we can't keep overextending ourselves for every opportunity. We can have the joy of missing out. We can appreciate that we got invited to this thing and we can appreciate the people that got to have that experience. And we can also appreciate that we got to rest, that we got to recover, that we got to have quality time together, all these different things. So learn about the joy of missing out. And that's another thing of like creating agreements with yourself, creating boundaries, all these different things. Like don't just say yes to every commitment that someone throws your way unless it is in alignment with your meaningful mission. and with the values you're at. And if you haven't read the Greatness Mindset yet, I encourage you to get that book. It's kind of the full blueprint of what I wish I had 10 years ago. It's everything I've learned for the last 10 years through all the great interviews about having alignment with your life, creating your meaningful mission, creating your values, and really setting yourself up for incredible inner peace and external success at the same time, which most most people never really get to create. They have one or the other. And how can you combine both the success that you want with the impact and service of the world and the inner peace within yourself on that journey? Get the greatness mindset. You can get it on Audible. You can get it on hardcover. Go on Amazon, check it out. It will give you the prompts and the guide to support you in this process. It'll make the joy of missing out the Jomo, you'll feel like, oh, you'll be excited to miss out. You're not going to feel like you're stressed that you're missing something. So check that out. That's number nine, the joy of missing out. And number 10, lessons of 2023. There's so many other lessons, but this is the 10 that I wanted to share with you all. Number 10 is the power of presence and gratitude. Man, every night, me and Martha, when we're going to bed, when we put our heads on the pillow and we connect with one another, we each share three things we're grateful for for the day. And this is a powerful practice. I'm talking about gratitude throughout the entire day, whenever I can. With my team, when we do team calls, everyone goes around and shares what they're grateful for, you know, with Martha, my fiance, with family, with friends, with business colleagues. I'm always talking about, what are you grateful for? On my voicemail, when someone calls me and it goes to voicemail, the first thing I say is, Tell me what you're grateful for and then leave your message. I'm always trying to share it and evoke it from others because I just truly believe that it's hard to be angry and upset and stressed when you're grateful. At least for that moment, you can find gratitude in something and you release the stress and the pain that you're going through when you have the perspective of gratitude. There hasn't been a theme with so many guests, whether there are experts in health, finance, relationships, they're an artist, they're an athlete, almost everyone has drawn on the incredible power of gratitude and presence. Gratitude allows us to be in a state of peace, calm, appreciation, physically, mentally, spiritually. It is all connected. Gratitude has the power to open us up for more possibilities, and gratitude can put us in a state of mind to achieve more than we ever thought was possible. We had an amazing interview with Rhonda Byrne from the Secret, the creator of the Secret, one of the best selling books of the last 15 years. It's her first sit down interview since Oprah, which was like 10 years ago she did or something. And she's done a few virtual interviews, but she came in the studio. I highly recommend you checking it out with Rhonda Byrne. She's great. She talks about gratitude and how it leads to manifestation. I had Eckhart Tolle on. This was a extremely inspiring interview for me. He doesn't do many interviews also, but we had him on. And he talks about the power of presence, the power of now, and manifesting the life of your dreams. And it all starts with the simple concept of gratitude. It starts with waking up, and instead of saying, oh, I have all these things to do today, and I'm stressed, and I'm tired, and with this thought pattern in a loop, it starts with interrupting that thought pattern. with gratitude, all the things you are grateful for, all the things that are good in your life, all the things that you get to experience that are abundant, even if you don't feel that. It's creating that for yourself and creating a new loop of thoughts and feelings that support the feeling of gratitude consistently, as most that you can. When you have gratitude in your body and on top of your mind consistently, more things come into your life to be grateful for. It's a loop of abundance that flows so effortlessly once you create a stop in a thought pattern that causes stress and into gratitude. It's an amazing thing. And man, I just, I don't know where I would be in my life if I didn't have this one simple yet powerful tool of gratitude consistently. I think I would have made too many bad decisions that would have put me in a state of pain or hurting others or doing things that I would not be able to recover from. Because without gratitude, I just wouldn't have a good life and I would do bad things, I think. So being a grateful human being and living in gratitude, allows me to serve my highest self, to serve my mission, to be of service to humanity in a better way. So, living gratitude, the power and presence of gratitude. And that is my top ten lessons of 2023. I'm so grateful for you. Again, I haven't done many solo episodes this year. If you want me to do more solos, different types of content, different, you know, things of me sharing my ideas, my thoughts. If you found this valuable and helpful, then just send me a message over Instagram DM. Just say, hey, yes, Louis, love the solo. I want you to do more. I love these top 10 lessons of 2023, whatever it is, send a message over there and let me know if you want me to do more of these. And also, do me a favor. If you enjoyed any episode this year, please click the follow button over on Apple or Spotify podcast and please give us a rating and a review over on Apple podcast or on Spotify. It really helps us get the message out to more people. It helps us inspire and reach more people with the more ratings and reviews we get. So if you're not following us yet, just click the little follow button on the top of your podcast app so you are subscribed to the School of Greatness on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen, leave a review and rating. It would mean a lot to me if you found value from this. And boy, we have a big year coming next year. I'm so excited for the content, the guests, some amazing people coming in the first couple of months alone. So get ready. And again, I'm so grateful for you guys. What is exciting about this list is that it'll probably change next year. There might be some new lessons next year, and I'm excited for all of it. And as our lessons will change with us at every stage of our journey, but hopefully what we have gained from those lessons will stick with us throughout our lifetime. I'm so grateful for you. I appreciate you. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And let's go make 2024 a great year together. Appreciate you all. Talk to you soon. 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 Podcast. if you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a 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 one 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.