Manifest Success With These Daily Affirmations EP 1373

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Love is being disagreeable. Love is saying no. Love is standing up for yourself. So love is risking being likable, you know, like a little cross it.

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.

I didn't write a book as a love guru. I wrote this book as the guy at the front of the class taking all the notes, trying his best to understand this and sharing it with everybody.

So what did you discover?

I discovered that if I love, you don't find love, you don't win love, you don't earn love. you can only realize love. So going back to analogies, love is a breeze. The only work you have to do is opening your sales. And if you can't open your sales to receive love, it doesn't matter how many people love you. It doesn't matter. You can have somebody worshiping the ground you walk on. You can't receive it. You can't receive it. So that was one of the biggest lessons, which was there, you know, realizing that, oh, I don't have to do or be anything to have love in my life. I have to do the work to receive the love that's literally, I'm being flooded and surrounded by it. And I think that was a big thing where instead of me thinking, oh, I'm not with the right person, I just need another person. I need another person. It's like, no, you have to address your root issues. And if you don't address your root issues, you're gonna have this problem forever.

What were your main root issues for you?

My main root issues, insecurity, unaddressed, not addressing racism I had growing up, so now overcompensating, trying to be as desirable as possible and only being able to measure my desirability through how many women were sliding in my DMs, value who validates me, you know, but then realizing that, okay, there's so many places I'm in the in club, but if I don't feel like, you know, like after polling, the amount of millionaires that DMed me saying, how do I get in on this?

Sure, sure.

It was a moment where I was like, wait a minute, did I just. fall into the in club because it doesn't feel any different. So maybe I need to, the issue isn't who accepts me, who invites me places, it's how I feel about myself. And so I think for me, working with myself, having the relationship with myself, keeping promises to myself, voluntarily doing hard things, like sitting in the ice, taking cold showers, and then at the same time choosing love over being likable.

What's that mean? What's the difference between being loved over likable?

Being likable is not disappointing anybody. Being likable is being accepted by everybody. Being likable is feeling included. Love is being disagreeable. Love is saying no. Love is standing up for yourself. So love is risking being likable, you know, if you cross, love is having boundaries, telling you you're crossing, these are my boundaries. You have to respect them and not being afraid of being like, oh, that's going to reject a romantic partner or a friend or a business opportunity because I have, I have rules and I have a code and I have boundaries. So I think these are a lot of things because so often when we feel like we're in competition, the first thing we'll do is we'll reduce our boundaries to be more accepted. like, I'll work around Lewis's schedule, whatever he needs, just so he'll hang out with me. That's me reducing my boundaries to be life. Right. But now what I'm doing is I'm chasing self-esteem and I'm reducing my self-respect. But the more self-respect I focus on, the less self-esteem I need. And we all know those people that don't care to impress anybody and then we want their acceptancy. Right, right. So I think for me, that's been a really big one, which is like, okay, I have been outsourcing when I feel alone, I've been outsourcing that. Not understanding that loneliness is not a circumstance, it's a feeling. Because what's the difference between loneliness and solitude? Solitude, when you're by yourself, solitude is what it feels like when it's rewarding. Loneliness is what it feels like when it's a punishment. What's the difference when I enjoy my own company?

Yeah.

Why do you think so many people don't enjoy their own company?

Because We have spent so much time understanding ourselves in relation to everybody else. And I think, you know, my parents grew up in a village, so I think for me, it hits closer to home. It's not like multiple generations ago. My parents grew up in a village of 50 people max. What everybody in the village said about them mattered. It probably directly impacted their actual survival.

Right.

So they were very mindful of like, what will people think? What will people say? that's not as relevant in a major city, but that stuff's still etched in our DNA. It's like it's old software.

Survival software.

Survival software that doesn't serve us in these environments. And I think from that standpoint, that's why we care. And I think on top of that, you know, understand, like, okay, I said, I told Lewis the story, but then while I'm telling him the story, he I can see his eyes gloss over. Those are the subtle things that we used to think about. Do people like me? Do people not? Now there's a number attached to it. I posted a picture. I got this many likes, this many comments. Oh, then I posted another picture with a Lamborghini and I got this many likes. I should do more of that. And I think we're getting these subtle pushes and pulls by all these different platforms and societal kind of tools that tell us, this is who you need to be to gain more acceptance. And we're not doing it to feel better, we're doing it to feel less anxious. 'Cause we have this constant anxiety of we're gonna be rejected, we're gonna be pushed out. And I think that's, you know, our environments have evolved quicker than our bodies. Right. So it's old software on the phone that we can't delete. And we just, the only thing we can do is be aware of it. And I think so for me, that's been this journey of being like, okay, well, do I need to be a bestselling author? Do I need to make a bunch of money? Do I need to make sure I'm included in the cool getaways and discovery groups? And I need to make sure I'm with all the cool kids in the wellness group and then all the other people who are looking at it from the outside see me as the cool kid. Like, do I need that or do I need to say, hey, you're waking up at 6:30 a.m. and you did it. You took a cold shower and you did it. you promised so and so that you were gonna show up to their event and you were super tired and you're stuck in traffic and you want to flake, but you're gonna make- you- showed up, yeah. 'Cause you showed up 'cause you said you were gonna show up. Right. All of these things are dramatically more important and they're going to reveal much more love in your life for yourself. And now you're the source of love instead of something that's thirsting and chasing love and trying to find it from everybody from every different situation. and I think that's been a huge situation. Because I've also realized that I've had so much external validation, and it's great. You have the moment, and then there's a day after. There's a day after the one night stand, there's a day after the award, there's a day after having an event where you're the center of attention, and then what? There's a day after getting recognized on the street, there's a day after all of these external things, you just want more. It just leads to you wanting more. They're delicious, but they're not nutritious. And I think for me, that's been a really the awareness of it. And in the last chapter of this book, I specifically say, Look, all this book is, is me explaining the difference between French fries and broccoli. That's all I'm doing. And while I'm writing this book, I'm eating French fries and broccoli. I'm not better than anybody else. And I'm saying maybe there's a world where a plate can have French fries and broccoli in it, and we can have a little bit of both. Recognizing that one is way more delicious than the other. but one is way more nutritious than the other. And when we know the differences, that'll help us make better decisions. And here's why we were fooled to believe certain things. 'Cause the most exciting couples we've ever seen on TV and in the movies are gonna be dysfunctional. They have to be dysfunctional. You know, when you're in a good relationship, it's probably not worth filming 'cause it's not the most eventful. It's not super highs, super lows. I have a friend who produces reality shows and they just produce somebody's wedding on a reality show. and it's a happy couple. And she goes, I had to figure out how to make a dramatic without making it toxic. So I'm like, so what did you do? She goes, well, we didn't force them to fight. All we did was we made everything they ordered for the wedding. We made it all get lost. Oh, my gosh.

There had to be some frustration.

Had to be drama, but at least they didn't allow it to be between the people. They're just like, oh, you ordered your wedding dress from this country? We sent it to the wrong location. So now the episode will be about chasing that. So we have to realize that we've been socialized to think that our relationships have to have drama because drama makes for good television or good movies. But relationships should be peaceful and uneventful.

Peaceful, loving.

Yeah, kind. And which makes us, which should make us question this idea of the spark. Everyone's chasing the spark. And there's that great book attached that says, we're not saying soul mates don't exist. We're saying you probably passed your soul mate because you thought they were boring.

Mm-, that's a good one.

And there are studies that prove that the spark isn't something that many long-term couples ever had.

And also you hear from a lot of therapists saying like, if you feel that exciting spark when you meet someone, run.

Yes, run away. Run away.

It's like run away because there's probably some trauma bonding or some type of thing that you're needing that this person might have or may not have.

They remind you of your earliest trauma. and we all choose nostalgia over health. If it's familiar, we're gonna choose that more than we're gonna choose what's good for us. And we all do that, whether it's the sugary cereal that we grew up with or having people, 'cause in our households, when we were younger, we internalized everything like it was our fault. If our parents had a bad day at work and came home and were in crabby moods, we didn't know the context as to why they were that way. We thought it was our fault. So then we, a lot of us made earning love are default. So we find ourselves attracted to people who make us feel like we have to earn our love. And then if it's easy, we don't want it. I saw a funny video today of a guy explaining all his green flags, and then another dude in the back had a big red flag, and the girl was like, I gotta go, and she chased after the guy with red flags. So funny. And it's making fun of this idea.

But we've been conditioned to think we have to earn it. But love isn't something you earn. Why is that? Why do we go out, why do certain people go after individuals with all the red flags trying to earn or change them or be deserving of that person. Why is that?

I think it goes back to our upbringing. I think our first models of love were the people who raised us. They weren't perfect, but we had developing brains. We could only look in life in terms of black and white. If you're like 9 to 12, your brain's not even fully developed in any capacity, it can still develop until 25, 26. And then we're gonna look at that and be like, okay, I had to earn their love. I had to earn their attention. I had to compete with my siblings to get them to notice me. I had to do all of that. That becomes a coping mechanism that never gets revisited when they become an adult.

And then that's what feels right.

It's familiar. It's familiar. It's familiar. And it's like, it's no different. If there was two identical pairs of shoes and one was $90 and one was $100, I can logically say I'm gonna pick the $90 shoes 'cause they're $10 cheaper. But I can't logically tell you why I'm picking vanilla ice cream over chocolate. It just feels right. So that's when we chase people, it just feels right. But we don't know why it feels right. It feels right 'cause it reminds you it matches the flavor of the trauma that you had growing up. And you're still feeling that trauma and it feels like a safety blanket, even.

Though it's the exact opposite. And you talked about in the beginning about learning how to open your sales and receive love. When we chase after unhealthy relationships, whether it be friendships or societal relationships or intimate partners, do you think that we're not able to receive love in a healthy way if we're chasing an unhealthy individual? And how do we learn to receive love in a healthy way?

I think receiving love means being open to it. And I love the Frida Kahlo idea of creating pathways to love. You can't say, I love you. You say, you show me where love is. And you create a pathway because chasing somebody is more so we're chasing things that are facsimiles of love. You know, like the bootleg version of love. Attention, affection, adoration, success, power, control, validation. All of these look and feel like love. But they're not and they're quick fixes they're fast food versions of it you know, you can eat a bunch of fast food and feel full, but you're not gonna feel any nutrition and you're gonna get hungry a lot quicker and you're probably not gonna feel so good But it's addictive. It's extremely salty and there's nothing wrong with any of us being addicted to that yout know, the subtitle of this book is going easy on yourself I'm pointing these things out not to judge you but to be like look we're all all of us can't have just one potato chip, right? And if you're chasing validation from somebody and you spent your whole life chasing validation from people and I understand how it's addictive. And addiction often can come when the rewards are unanticipated. So when people gamble, they don't know when they're going to hit it big. That's why they do it. When people are in abusive relationships, they don't know when they're going to have a good day. That's why they stick with it. When we're on social media, we can scroll for an hour and see things that make us sad, see things that trigger our emotions, see things that make us compare ourselves to other people. see things that make us feel depressed, and then all of a sudden a cute puppy, and we're like, oh, it was all worth it. It's always these unanticipated rewards that make us feel addictive. And I think that's the same thing with these relationships. Where it's like, you know somebody is in a good place, they're gonna compliment you every morning, they're gonna say all the right things, they're gonna take care of you. There's almost this lack of excitement that comes with it. It's not as salty, and it's not a potato chip. It's healthy, it's nutrition, it's broccoli. and that's what we need in the long term. So I think, as I said, my only goal is to help people become more aware of that. Be like, look, this is why I'm chasing this person because they remind me of my dad. Or I'm chasing this person because they criticized me the way my mother used to criticize me. And it feels comfortable, but if I want to have a different life, I'm gonna have to do different things.

On a scale of one to ten, two years ago when you were engaged and ending the engagement, Scale of 1 to 10, how lovable did you feel to yourself? 10 being like totally love, you love yourself 100%, totally lovable. You believed you were a lovable person, one being unlovable. Where were you on that scale to yourself?

Probably a 3.

3.

I was probably a 3. I think there were definitely parts of my life where I wasn't as insecure as maybe other people. I've never really experienced imposter syndrome, for example. Like, I quickly understood that, oh, I'm just as capable as anybody else in that capacity. I know I can write. I know I can do the things I can do. I know I deserve to be in the rooms that I'm in. But in terms of receiving positive feedback from people, receiving, feeling seen by people, that was a very weird situation. And I think also my upbringing had taught me unintentionally, without blaming anybody, that vulnerability was a weakness. And I didn't realize that vulnerability is the only way to connect with other people. And you know, when we were in Poland, that was a wonderful example of everybody being vulnerable, me knowing a bunch of guys for five days and developing lifelong relationships. Powerful. Till this day. But it was through vulnerability. It was through us being scared as crap to go on the ice, through us sharing stories and crying together and holding each other. and these aren't things that I ever realized was a thing when I was in a long-term relationship because I always thought I had to maintain a level of protection. And I didn't realize that the fortress I was building was a prison. And what I thought I had to do to protect myself because I had a few negative experiences as a child and I was thinking very simply were not serving me as an adult. So my ability to receive love isn't there. And I think a lot of people A lot of people can't, even today, can't receive compliments. They don't know how to accept compliments. And I think that's a good sign right there that we don't know how to be open and receive love. And I think that's the first step to understanding that there's not a lack of love in anybody's life.

It's a lack of receiving love.

It's a lack, yeah. Again, the breeze can be there. If your cell is closed, then you're not going anywhere. And it's more about doing the work to open yourself up to this. And it's scary. and it will blow up in your face sometimes and you may be vulnerable with the wrong person and it may totally feel like you just dumped your heart in a situation and nothing came out, but it's not about what you got from it, it's what you become through doing it. And I think that's been the journey for me realizing it's like, it's being more and more uncomfortable every single day and realizing that I'm only entitled to the work. What comes from the work that's not my concern.

The results you don't know, yeah.

The results I don't know.

What were the two or three things you did over the last two years to create more lovability within yourself, the ability to love and receive love more?

So, what I learned through, and I believe it was potentially Jordan Peterson in one of his interviews, was the definition of sin, the actual word sin, the definition is to without aim. And it helped me realize that I was actually avoiding setting concrete goals and concrete directions to anything I wanted. So one of the first things that I did was realize that I need, you know, if you want to get in better shape, you hire a trainer. If I want to be a better writer, hire a writing coach. So I went and I got into therapy. And again, that's the dating process in itself. Took a few therapists until I found the right one. And once I got a therapist, one of the things we did when it came to romantic relationships was she had me relive my entire romantic life.

Oh, all the relationships you were in.

I mean, even the little ones when you were like seven, eight, the little crushes.

How long did that process take to relive those?

That was probably two full hours of just storytelling. And she paid attention to my face and whenever my face got bright, she was write that down. and what we ended up doing was we ended up becoming aware of what qualities actually make me, you know, excited or actually make me want to be more vulnerable or actually, because I think.

Feel more loved. All those things.

Yeah. Feel more love. And I think also what I'm actually enthusiastic, because I think everybody will have these generic, like, this is what I want in a partner or this is what I want in a friendship. And they'll all be the same answers. And I think what that did was it really pointed out to me the unique. that actually mattered. You know, remembering the very first person that I dated that had said to me, you know what? The world needs to hear what you have to say. Like the world needs to hear humble a poet. Like you need to stop doing all this other stuff and like thinking about, okay, versus dating somebody in the future when I was telling them my plans and they're like, but what if that doesn't happen? Like can't we have a plan B? You know? And realizing that, okay, the two very different directions that people can take me in their influence on me. so I need to be with somebody who's gonna constantly push me out of my comfort zone, who constantly wants that for themselves. And then also learning that, hey, not only are we just discovering qualities in a person, we have to relate how do those qualities make you feel?

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Of saying I want someone attractive, the question is, first off, what is attractive to you? Because beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And what does that do for you? Is it you want someone attractive because you want a piece of arm candy to impress your friends? Or do you want someone attractive because you want somebody's symmetrical face that you can look at? Or do you want someone attractive because you have a commitment to beauty and you want to enjoy being around beautiful people, or you want someone attractive because they smile a lot? There's different definitions of that. And I think forcing me to go deep made me become very specific with who I wanted to be around. And even this morning, I had a therapy session and she was explaining to me people either fly, fight, freeze, or fawn when they're nervous. And she goes, fawners are people who start to manipulate the situation to be more likable. She goes, listen, when you discover a fawner, run the other way. Don't be around any women who prioritize being likable over communicating clearly or conflict resolution. Be around people who can communicate successfully. and in a straight line to you. And she goes, Don't spend time and energy around those other people. And that's a tricky thing because we want to be liked by everybody, but this requires you to be like, okay, you're not somebody I can invest time and energy in. And again, not just romantically. This also means work relationships and friendships. So being clear with what works for me and what doesn't work for me versus wanting everyone to like me, I think was a very important step into revealing and realizing more love in my life. Because being like, okay, everyone listening to this interview may not like me, and that's okay. You know, let me be around the people I need to be around with. Going through this process of selling a book, we're playing the attention game.

Right.

You know, there's endless things I can do to catch people's attention on social media. But a lot of those things might, you know, might not be things that are in line with my core values. So reminding myself, like, even though your career and your paychecks matter and relate to this, ensure people find you for the right reasons. You know, I might not be able to play certain games or make certain type of content, but then I'm also not trapping myself on that journey if it works.

Yeah, you're not doing dancing videos all day or something that doesn't work for you or make sense for you, right?

Completely, or even relying on controversy and relying on, you know, polarization and saying.

Things for news or whatever it is.

Yeah, whatever topics or whatever. And we've had that conversation before, too, where you've had people over here where you could, you know, ramp up the controversy, but you don't because that's not what the School of Greatness is.

Right.

And I think there's a beauty to that, and it may make the growth slower, but it's more sustainable. Right. And it's healthier. It's way healthier. And I think that is, it's choosing health, the slow, long-term over the fast and media. And it was you who said to me, and it's always stuck with me, good things happen to people who defer gratification. And I think about that all the time, because in front of me is always this gratifying option. And then there's the long, hard road. And I was like, okay, Lewis, let's go.

I know. And you also have a tattoo that says, Remember the Future, right?

Which I got watching this show. Joe Dispenza said this on your show, and I remember. hearing it over the pandemic and being like, I love it. And yeah, I think it's thinking about.

Our future self, you know, as frequently as I can. It's funny, I had a therapy conversation last night with my coach, and I'm gonna be 40 in a few months, right?

March.

And I never really pay attention to birthdays, right? I acknowledge them. I'm like, I have my lessons and I reflect on it, but I don't really do big things because I try to celebrate every day.

Right?

Anyways, not the point. But she was kind of like bringing it up and saying, you know, what's your vision now moving forward? Like going into this new decade, kind of like what's the dream? What's the vision? What's the aim? And I was like, I want to look, I want to be talking, talking to myself now as my 50 year old self. And coaching myself on all the challenges or fears that I'm faced with. and seeing all the actions I know I can take that I feel like are going to be scary, but then when I'm 50, I'm going to say that was nothing.

Good job.

I'm glad you went through those fears. I'm glad you conquered that. You got us here, but really that wasn't that big of a deal. It wasn't that big of a deal. It just feels like a big deal before we do it. But it's funny, I was having the same similar type of conversation about remembering the future.

Yeah.

Cause I'm trying to make a few big decisions in my life and she was like, is this gonna feel like a big decision 10 years from now? I'm like, no, it's gonna feel like a small decision 10 years away. But it's something I need to do in order to feel it now as opposed to delaying it in order to feel that later. So, it's interesting. What's the biggest thing that therapy has taught you?

Therapy has taught me and I think this is a great way to to define therapy. Therapy has taught me that a lot of our challenges come from our black and white thinking. We think it's either this or it's that. And I think a lot of that comes from childhood when we had less developed brains and that's how we could think. We couldn't think in terms of the complexities. So we thought, Mom's mad, she's mad at me. You know, it's either that or she's not mad. And I think as we get older, we're like, oh, that person might have had a hard day. You know, we can see the complexities, we can see all the gray in between. and I think it's oftentimes we've made so many decisions when it comes to our personality, how we're going to handle conflict, how we're going to handle challenges when we were young, and we don't upgrade that software. We don't upgrade those choices. So for me, it's having these conversations with my therapist and arguments. Me and my therapist, she says, we, I love to argue. And she says, i'm one of her favorite clients for it. And she wins every time, which is, which is funny, which is why I keep her around, because i'm, i'm a very stubborn individual. She's right. She, there's a lot of Those moments, she catches me all the time. And very often she'll simply be like, why is it only this or that? Why are those the only choices? Why can't there be other options? And it's really interesting because it makes you discover the root. I'm the child of an immigrant. I grew up in scarcity mindset. The vast majority of the emotions that human can feel are leaning in the negative side because negative emotions keep you alive. But I don't live in scarcity. I'm doing okay. I don't have to. But I think, you know, I think the way my mom raised me, you know, which is if you can make it, don't buy it. Not realizing that making it takes way more time than buying it. Yeah, I have a puppy and I still use a leash my mom made for me. You know, because it's a sentimental value to it, but that's how her upbringing was. But none of us, you know, my parents don't have a mortgage. They don't have bills and I'm the youngest and I'm doing very well. So it's a mindset. It's like, why does this have to be this or that? It could be this and that and something else. We can live in contradiction. We all do live in contradiction. We don't have to play these games. So I think therapy, that's been the most important thing for me. It's helped me realize how often I've created a cage for myself because I'm looking at life through duality and life is beyond that. And what I've also realized is in terms of love, Love is what exists beyond duality. When we stop looking at the world in terms of duality, what's left is love. Because love is everything and nothing. You know, when you are in love with somebody, that's when pretty much your ego boundaries start to melt and you view them as you. There's no I, there's no you and me, there's we. And so you cease to become something, but at the same time you feel everything. And there's that beauty there and it's kind of like the center you know, it's not on the outside looking in, you're not on the inside looking out, you're in the middle looking everywhere. Right. And I think there's a beauty to that. So I think having that realization in therapy has been amazing and I don't always catch myself doing it. So having these stories, having these conversations with the therapist and then having her quickly realize like, okay, well, what are your choices? And I say the two choices. She's like, why? I'm like, well, what else is it? She'll be like, you tell me what is the other choice. Right, right. And so often like, well, I didn't consider that an option She's like, why not? And they're like, oh, it's because I was raised a certain way. Sure, sure. You know, I was raised to think that I can only live at one place at one time. And I can only pay rent at one place at one time. And I can only, I would only pay rent if I'm actually living there at that time. Why would I have a place in this city and in this city? I have to pick between the two versus why not live in both? And I think that concept has been really important to me, and it's helped me with friends who have reached out to me. I can quickly identify too that they're just living in black and white mindset. And again, there's nothing wrong with that. We all made these decisions when we were kids and I used to be a school teacher. That's how kids think. They can't think in terms of complexity because their brains are still developing. So I recommend everybody see a therapist and if you can't afford a therapist, journal every day. Because even the process of journaling and getting these thoughts outside of you and getting them on paper, will help you start to realize there's way more options than what I just thought. And this wasn't as heavy as I thought it was. I want to go back to people pleasing.

Yeah.

Because you mentioned about trying to be liked with everyone and I think a lot of people have lived that at some point in their life or are still living that. Yes. What would you say is the mantra or the strategies that supported you from moving away from people pleasing? Because I feel like it's a spectrum probably. It's like, okay, I used to want everyone to like me and now it's like, less of the time and then it's just I have my friends and I don't care what people think or whatever. But what is the mantra and the strategies you've used to move away from needing to be a people pleaser to everyone? Towards reclaiming your energy and loving yourself.

Completely. I think the first one is realizing that people can only receive you where they're at. If I'm not in a good place and let's say something's not going well in my career and then I see you post something about something wonderful in your career, I'm going to interpret that as negative. You know, and if I'm not in a space of self-awareness, I might even take it as an attack. So you start to realize that even when people leave mean comments on your posts, they're telling you their story, not yours. I've also had to make peace with the fact that, and there's a line in Sikhi that says, you know, a saint is unimpacted by praise or slander. So it's not just caring about when people say negative things to you, you have to be equally unimpacted by the positive things. Because you have to realize that these are, especially if you're a public figure, these people have a limited view of you. So they think you're amazing, they're wrong. And if they think you're a piece of garbage, they're wrong. Because they're sitting in the nosebleed sections of your life and have a very small view of who you actually are. So not all opinions are equal and we can't chase the praise and ask ourselves to be unimpacted by the or the negative sides of it. Right. So for me, it's become, I'm unimpacted by, if you don't know me, I can't give a lot of value to your words, even if you're saying things I like, you know. So chasing likability from that context is not there. And also realizing that I don't like everybody. That's, you know, you can, you know, you can be the juiciest peach in the world and some people just don't like peaches. And I think that's, I don't like peaches.

Yeah.

So you don't like peaches.

Yeah.

I can show you, you know, the most expensive, beautiful piece. I like it. Yeah, exactly. I think for me it's caviar and it's like, I don't, I don't get this. I don't get the expensive stuff for the cheap stuff. And it's like, so being okay with I'm not everybody's cup of tea, everybody's not my cup of tea.

Right.

So spending my time in this arena is not something I need to do. And instead I have 10 to 15 years now of friends who have been there for me, given me couches to sleep on, put money in my pocket, have made introductions for me, have put me in positions to really realize my potential. These are people I care about. Doing work with the motivation of proving them right has always been something that has really given me something to be proud of. You know, I never want someone to put me in position and feel like they wasted their energy or time or reputation for doing so. So that's been something that's been really important where it's like, focus on the people in your life. And it was actually a musician who taught me, said, listen, when you make music, music. 10, you know, 1% want to know everything about you. 10% will listen to everything you do. And he goes, you know, the other 89%, your background music while they're studying. Wow. You know, and if you don't give them what they want, they're gonna move on. He goes, focus on the 1 to 10%. Focus on them. And it's not about, you know, when we all start out, the people who support us are our friends and family. Create more friends and family. Create these deeper, meaningful connections. and doing all of that. And I think for me that's been a big thing. And being out here, especially in Hollywood now, it just starts to see the correlations between the city and politics, you know, where a politician's job is to keep everybody happy because that keeps them in power. Right. And they'll say everything and do everything and make a bunch of promises until they get the power, and then they break the promises, and then they do it again. But it's this idea of the people pleasing. That's the only job where you actually have to be be a professional people pleaser. And for the rest of us, we have to say something. And to say something means having a group of people to disagree with you. And that's- and being okay with it, yeah. Being completely okay with it. So I think for me, that's been a really interesting journey. And also the reminder that, again, it's not reward or punishment. You know, it's not either I'm being rewarded by social media for participating or I'm being punished. either I'm being rewarded by society or I'm being punished. It's really, you can be rewarded for doing certain things or just being left alone.

Right.

You know, so if I don't play the social media games, I may not grow, but that's not a punishment. Nobody's making it hard for me to still log into my phone and be on social media and do all the other fun stuff. I just may not be rewarded with growth, but that's not a punishment. It's the same thing if society has its own agenda. Society wants us to work certain hours, contribute to the economy, buy a bunch of stuff. This is what society is built upon. If we don't participate in that, society doesn't throw us in jail. It may not reward us with nice things. It may not give us cool opportunities or cool experiences, but that's not a punishment. So I think for me is that reminder of not going to the event is not a punishment. you know, if Lewis wants me somewhere and I couldn't go, it may result in him not inviting me again. That's still not a punishment, you know? That's just, I'm not going to get the rewards of that. Sure. And I think that was an important thing for me to understand because I only have so much time, energy, love, focus and attention in my wallet, and I should be mindful of how I spend it. And making everybody happy is an impossible task.

So hard.

It is impossible. Yeah, and it feels good.

Making yourself happy is hard.

Extremely.

It's like trying to make yourself happy and everyone else around you is challenging.

Nipsey Hussle said it really well. Do you want to be at war with the world or do you want to be at war with yourself?

Yeah.

You know, and it's picking one over it, because you're at war with yourself to make everybody else happy or to keep yourself happy is going to potentially cause some conflict with people around because people want you to meet their expectations. They want you to be who they think you are based on their limited view. And I think for me, that's been a really interesting thing to really pay attention to. And sometimes it's as simple as if I needed to turning off comments or downsizing my lifestyle, if it means I can't go further and make a bunch more money. And I think that piece is way more valuable than this constant growth and chasing if it requires me not to be my authentic self. 'Cause if I'm not my authentic self, then there's not gonna be a lot of self-respect.

And then now I'm just chasing it on the outside. Right. What do you feel like is the next level of self-love and growth for yourself after this few year journey, the discoveries, the book, the coaching and therapy, and reclaiming your ability to receive love, what's available for you next?

I think recognizing, one of my favorite quotes in the book, and eventually I'll put it on a t-shirt, is love is fuel, not the glue. Love doesn't keep us together. Love is what keeps us working at it. So really recognizing love as the verb that it is. And when I say, instead of sounding kind of pie in the sky and saying I'm committing my life to love, committing myself to service.

Say it again. Love is fuel, not glue.

Love is fuel, not glue.

What does that mean?

So a lot of people, the assumption is when you love someone, that's enough to keep you together. or when you love your job, that's enough to keep you going to work. Love is fuel. It's what gives you the energy to put in the effort to keep two people together.

But love is not enough.

Love is not enough.

It doesn't hold it together.

It's the gas in your tank. It's not the car. So don't think I love this person and because we love each other, we'll be together forever and we're fantastic. No, I love this person, so I'm gonna get up an hour early and we're gonna go to therapy together. You know, that fuel, you know, I love this job. So those days I don't feel like I want to do it, I'm gonna give myself that extra push and make sure it happens. So for me, I'm realizing that I want to live a life of love, but it's not this again simplified life of I love everybody. I think what I'm realizing is love is service. The more love you try to share and provide with other people, the more love is realized. I'm creating more pathways of love with people. and learning that service isn't simply giving everybody what they want. Service is just leaving people better than you found them. And if somebody needs something from you and you can't give them everything, you can still give them something. And again, and for me specifically growing up in an immigrant household where we had a lot of scarcity mindset, I need to push myself into this mindset of abundance, meaning I can. help as many people as possible, but I can also respect myself to be like, hey, I know you asked me for X, Y, and Z. I can only give you X. But that's what I can give you, and I want to give you that versus getting really nervous and just ghosting you, you know, or overextending myself and giving you everything because I don't want you to stop liking me. And I think that's been a really interesting thing for me, because when you do that, it also puts you in one of the darkest places that I believe humans can be in is resentment. When you don't establish your boundaries, and I have a chapter in the book called Love is Showing youg Teeth. If you don't show your teeth, if you don't establish your boundaries, what ends up happening is you end up living in resentment, which is such a dark place. It's a place where love can't be realized. So often, and you know, I have another chapter in the book that says, Love is saying no. You know, saying no to people is an expression of self-love. I can't do that. But again, we don't live in a black and white world. If you ask me to help you move on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, I can say, Hey, I can't do Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, but I can be there all day Wednesday. And I think that's the important process of this, was setting those boundaries, letting you know. Setting boundaries isn't pushing you away. It's teaching you how we can exist in a good harmony. And when we're in a good harmony, we're in peace. When we're in peace, we do less things to chase pleasure. Pleasure now for most people is a medication from a lack of peace. It's not an enhancement of the peace we're in. We're just trying to get back to zero. You know, we're just, are people pleasing, isn't even making people like us, if we're working to make people not hate us. You know, we're trying to avoid somebody's criticism. We're not even trying to seek their praise. We're trying to get them off our back. So we're doing so much energy and effort and time and focus spending just to try to get ourselves to a default, keep our lips above water, that we're not pushing ourselves forward and growing with people.

In the sports world, they call that playing to not lose as opposed to playing to win. You're playing just to like, I don't want to lose. As opposed to risking and going all out and playing to win and whatever that might be. And when you play to win, you might lose. you might fall on your face, you might, you know, do whatever.

So it's interesting. I just got back from England yesterday, and they were asking me about baseball. They're like, what is the sport? And why is it so long? And I'm like, it's the only. The beauty of the sport is it's the only sport you can't run out the clock. You can't run out the clock. You can't. So you can't play to not lose. Every. Every single. I'm like. And there's a beauty to the spirit of that. which means you got to stay till the end because anything can happen. And that's how we have to play. We have to play knowing you can't be on the defense. You know, you have to continually, you know, either you're growing or you're not, you know, or you're shrinking. We're moving in these different directions. And I think that's a really important idea to understand. And we can't just try to maintain friendships.

Yeah.

You know, we can't, you know, simply keep people off our backs. we have to grow with people, evolve with people. And I think there's a beauty to that. And I think, you know, just going back to how we met, like our entire relationship has always had this foundation of our love lives, talking about them.

Whether we're going on hikes, talking about it, or going to Poland or whatever it is, yeah.

Soho House, wherever we were at, it was always talking about it from different places. And I think, you know, that's been the common story. But it's like, that's what creates the growth. It was like, okay, I remember Lewis when, he was on a high. I remember when he was on a low. I remember when he was trying to figure things out and vice versa. And I think that's a really important section to this where it's like we're not maintaining, it's not maintaining a friendship. And I mean, again, like the simple fact that I went up the last hike, I said, I'm frustrated being in the city. I don't have artist friends. Yeah. You connected me with Reuben.

Yeah.

And the next thing you know, I'm doing the COVID of the book. He ends up doing the COVID of the book. And it was, you know, the organic beauty of this, I think, you know, for me, I just want to honor you for that. Of course, man. you know, as I said, you know, I tattoo stuff that I hear on your stuff. And again, like, the amount of lifelong friends you helped me make going to Poland. And I remember when you texted me about Wim Hof, I didn't even know that was a person's name back then. And it was, you know, these experiences of just continually being uncomfortable is more important than playing it safe because discomfort finds us. And we've all learned that since dealing with the pandemic.

Did I see you at Thanksgiving with Hussie?

Husky has become my, my puppy's babysitter.

Oh, it's amazing. Because Audrey loves dogs.

He loves dogs. And he loves the idea of having a part-time dog.

Yes.

But we're also learning. Yeah, we're also learning that he, he won't admit it, but she has told me that he tries to bribe my puppy to get extra attention, so he'll I'll give him a bag of treats for two days and the treats will be all done. And I realized Husky's bribing her to sit with him. Oh my gosh.

So he loves dogs. I'm sure he loves it. It's the idea of having the dog 24/7 is a lot. But maybe this is gonna help him.

Get a dog one day. Well, yeah, and you know what? I honestly don't mind them co-parenting. And my puppy has realized that she.

Can get away with so much more with them.

Yeah. Because I got there and she's barking at them and she's like, what's wrong? What do you want? I was like, you can't let her bark at you. She's like, yeah. So she likes it 'cause it's a.

Place with less rules.

Yeah, duh. They got a nice house with a backyard. They got all this stuff. I live in an apartment, so she loves, and she's the center of attention all the time. But it's a great thing. But it's, yeah, developing these friendships beyond just what they could have been had you met somebody once, like, oh, let's stay in contact. And no, you don't. Yeah, spending things. That was my first Thanksgiving ever, too. That's cool, man.

I didn't grow up in a- you-.

Had your first American Thanksgiving with some British people. With all British people. I love that. Yeah, my first time having turkey on Thanksgiving. That's great. I'm Canadian, we have a different Thanksgiving. We never celebrated that. But it's, yeah, having these new unique experiences and continually, again, as I said, pushing to grow relationships with people. I think that matters more so than kind of this being a social butterfly, maintaining relationships. and not letting them go anywhere. Yeah.

I'm curious, in the book you talk about small love and big love, or little love and big love. What is the difference between those two?

So that's an idea from another one of our friends, Aubrey Marcus. Me and him have had some great conversations. And small L love being this kind of validation love. Again, what feeds your ego, the pleasure love. pleasure love, you know, and then big, big L love being the, what fills your soul love, you know, like small L love being chocolate ice cream, you know, after a long day, big L love being a hug from your grandmother, you know, and seeing that. And, and again, I'm just encouraging an awareness and encouraging people to see that there can be a difference in what we chase and sometimes the immediate This stuff holds us back from the long-term, more sustainable stuff. So realizing that not all of the things we consider love are actually love. And the way he framed it so beautifully is just big L love and small L love.

That's great.

And I think that, chase the big L love, because that's not immediately gratifying. But that's the stuff that's gonna keep you going, keep you energized, keep you full of nutrition and life.

And so do you still feel like the need to please people today? Is there like this thing that pulls you back sometimes? And if so, do you have like a mantra or a saying that you say to yourself to keep you like grounded and peaceful in that people pleasing.

Yes, yes. I am constantly catching myself being a diplomat and a politician. And I think there's a reminder of A, you know, the people who are around you, they care about you. Everybody's super busy not hearing from somebody that doesn't mean anything has changed. They haven't, not speaking to Lewis for six months doesn't mean his opinion of you has changed. He's on his journey, he's on his mission. You're on your journey and your mission, make time for each other. That's a big one, and I think it's also a reminder of if you go down a road to make more people like you and that road isn't authentic to you, you're building another prison. And I'm always reminded of my friends when I first started coming out here, I first came out here with Lily Singh, and when I came out, I was staying with her, and she explained exposed me to this world of YouTubers. And what I was meeting was, I was meeting certain people who had very successful YouTube channels that they made in their teenage years. You know, and they might be doing goofy, right? You know, prank videos or whatever, stuff that makes sense for a teenager. But now they're in the mid to late 20s, and they couldn't change what they did because that's what they built an audience of. And it almost felt like this prison. Wow. That they were stuck doing, you know, like, you can imagine yourself at 80 still talking about greatness.

Yes.

This is authentic to you.

Yeah.

But I think they, you know, when they were younger, and I don't hold it. I don't, I don't think they did anything wrong, but I, I quickly realized that they had created a prison where now they were in their late 20s still trying to make prank videos, and it wasn't feeling authentic, and it didn't feel real, and they weren't enjoying themselves, but they created Lifestyles and had bills that required them. keep doing this. And I think that was something I always remind myself of. Like, you definitely have an entire dictionary of options that you have never explored to make more money, to grow your, to grow your readers, to grow your exposure, to get more famous. But once you start that, you're gonna have to keep doing that.

Right.

And do you want to keep doing that? And if you do keep doing that, how are you gonna have to, how are you gonna create harmony with that? Now all of a sudden you're gonna have to take more vacations or turn to substances or do different things like that. And right now I'm in a good situation where it's like, okay, I write for a couple of hours a day. I go for nice long walks. I have good friends who are my actual friends that I can trust and believe. And I have childhood friends that I still have in my life. And I measure my success and how long have I been doing this without losing anybody that mattered to me. me in my life. And I can, you know, live, you know, and I can always have more, as we all could. And the higher we go on this journey, you start to meet people with more, and it does make you think and identify gaps in your own life. But I think choosing that piece is, I think, the first step to ensuring that I can realize more love. And I feel like everyone's definition and motivation for why they do the things they do is to receive more love. Right. And again, we're, it's not our fault. You know, we, in order for people to sell us stuff, they have to make us feel like we're not enough. You're not enough. You need to own more than seven pairs of shoes. You're not enough. You need to own five cars, even though you can only drive one at a time. You're not enough. You need to take pictures of you in business class or on a private jet. Like, you're not enough as you are. But the truth is, there is no such thing as enoughness when it comes to a person. There's no measure, enoughness isn't a measurement for people. Worthy isn't a measurement of people. You know, these aren't things when we think about the people we love, the people we authentically love in our lives. We know all their imperfections. None of those imperfections disqualify them from us loving them. We've also fallen in love with our nieces and nephews when they were babies, held them for the first time, and we were flooded with love. We have no history never had a conversation, they might have pooped in our hands. And none of that disqualifies them and makes them unworthy of love. Because love doesn't require worthiness, doesn't require qualification. These are ideas that have been given to us because we live in a world that requires us to buy stuff. And the only way you're gonna buy stuff is if you feel like you need stuff. It's like you're separate from it. You're separate from it. It's like, oh, you need the latest this, you need the latest that. And if you don't have it, then you're feeling you're left out. And remember, feeling left out is triggering our ancient feelings of being, you know, unaccepted by society that feels like death. And if we're not in a situation of awareness, then we're gonna clamber to that and we're gonna line up outside the building and spend endless amounts of money to get the newest gizmo, gadget, shoe, car, whatever, to feel like it matters. And I think it's a really interesting thing, especially as I said, social media puts an exact number on it. You're like, okay, I want people to see me in the latest. I want to see people see me with the coolest. And then, you know, the. The invisible they will accept me. And that's the big one. You know, Khalid always says it. You know, they don't want you to win. God did. It's like. It's like, Khalid, man, who's they?

Invisible.

Yeah.

And why did. Why did they get so much attention and validation? Whereas, you know- why do you put.

All your energy on they?

When they aren't even a thing. They are the people that comment on you. They are not individuals and whoever they are, they're telling their story through their pain with what they're going through. And also, you know, I'm sure for the next week, if I left mean comments on your Instagram post, even with us being friends, I would get more attention.

Probably. You get validation for it.

Yeah. I would get out External validation.

If you posted and you get followers and you get all this attention.

Yeah, if you post something and I said, congratulations, brother, it would mix in with the 9,900. Congratulations.

Yeah, but you sucked here.

Yeah, yeah, but if I said, oh, yeah, of course Lewis did this, I heard he paid off someone to get it done. And then it would create an argument and we create, you know, polarity and all of that. And that, you know, it's like it's creating a car accident. for people to notice you. But then I would be dooming myself down that journey forever.

You'd have to keep doing that to get the attention.

And we've seen, and look, man, I've seen that a lot. We've seen that a lot, and it never lasts. Controversial creators and artists, you can only.

Be controversial so long until people will be like, oh, okay, I'm used to this. I think it sucks at your soul too, right? It's got to.

It has to.

You're just constantly trying to attack others or create controversy. I feel like it's gotta eat at you in some way. Yeah, and I think also just if you have a position on something, that's enough. You're gonna find people who disagree with you anyways. And I think, you know, people, as it going back to the original conversation, people can only meet you where they're at. So if we start talking about relationships, there might be someone listening right now who feels attacked because this may apply to them being in an unhealthy relationship. And that may motivate them to lash out because that's a lot easier than correcting their situation. And I think, again, that's not something that I need to internalize for myself. But as I said, I'm I'm grateful that I have a lot of friends in this where I see the prisons that they built for themselves and try to encourage them not to be in those prisons because it's a slippery slope that you're going to be trapped in forever. And again, we're not politicians. We're people here trying our best to share. And as I said through writing this book, I'm not an expert on love. I'm just a guy who is so desperate to figure out why his situation that didn't work, that he read all the poets, all the philosophers, all the science-backed research, all the people who've written the dating books, watched all the interviews, did all the research possible, and this is me sharing my notes. And I used to be an elementary school teacher, so I don't use any words bigger than mayonnaise, when I'm talking about stuff. And every chapter is two pages, and the goal here is to help people become more aware of what love actually is, and what may look, feel and come across as love, but actually is a waste of our time and energy, focus and efforts.

We side with you, man. How do we love? Is it how to be loved or how to be loved?

Well, that's the interesting part. So I think, you know, I actually learned it from Hus. I learned from Hussey. You know, you have to meet them where they're at. So I think a lot of us want to be loved and you- you-.

Need to be loved first.

The only, well, to be loved, you won't want to, you don't, you won't need to be loved. at that point, when you realize you're a source of love, true, now your cup is full of love and you want to devote your life to sharing all the extra love you have, then you're not, you don't need to seek it from others. And again, we have these relationships in our lives. If you take care of a child, you're not getting anything in return for taking care of them. That doesn't make you feel resentful. That makes you, you know, the service is what creates the love. We can serve others, we can love them. Love is not a, it's a gift. it's not alone. I don't have to love you wanting it back and keeping track of how much love I gave you versus how much love you gave me. I should be giving you love because I'm a source of love and I have so much of it. I want to give it. And I think so for me, it's understanding the only way for me to feel any love is to be love. And that's why it's how to be loved with the D in there. So that's the big spoiler is I'm not teaching you how to find love. I'm not teaching you how to craft a text message. I'm not teaching you how to pick up girls at the mall. I'm teaching you how to realize the love that's always existed, how to clear away the blockages that have prevented you from opening your sales. And a lot of that has to do with our relationship with ourselves, revisiting our past from a lens of understanding trauma and coping mechanisms, and prioritizing our future and realizing that, hey, so often I'm trying to be liked by everybody that I'm denying myself realizing love and experiencing love. And I don't require anything other than the ability to enjoy my own company, to feel this love that we all crave. We all crave it. And for some people, it's wearing expensive clothes and peacocking to get noticed because they think attention is love. And then for other people, it's having admiration or power or control. So we have very wealthy people. getting into politics because all that stuff didn't do it for them. Now they're like, I need influence, I need power, I need control. But love is surrender. It's almost. It's the opposite. And some of the best stories ever told, I. I was very lucky and fortunate to sit down somehow with George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars. And he explained to me that Darth Vader lost the only thing he loved. so he wanted to control the entire universe. He goes, you can't. What he never understood is you can't control everything. It's like trying to pick up a river with your hands.

Right.

And that's how you saw things get deeper and darker for him. He kept trying to control more and more and more because when he was in love, he was able to surrender. But the moment he lost it, he wasn't in the situation where he could love anymore. And I think that's a really important idea for us to start to see with certain individuals that we see that we're taught to look up to, the extremely wealthy, the extremely powerful, the extremely influential, taking that route is actually showing that they're lacking in their life. And they think just a little bit more, just a little bit more, just a little bit more. And they keep doing it versus the people who are content and at peace. And again, they wouldn't make for good media. They wouldn't make for great television. They wouldn't make for a great reality show, but those even killed individuals who have found peace, who instead of having everything, they want less every single day. That is authentic love. And we've all had those experiences when we're so madly in love with a person, with a project, with an activity, we are completely present and we're not thinking about what else we need. We're not thinking about what happened yesterday. We're not what's happening tomorrow. We're in the here and now. And I think making more choices to create that for ourselves without needing anybody else will put us in a position to attract more like-minded people and beautiful people to have a significantly more abundant life.

How does someone heal after they lose love? How do they get back to that place? Like Darth Vader, he lost love and then he went darker and darker. But how do you how do you get back to a sense of love.

If you've lost it? It's so ironic that you asked that question. One of my favorite lines is from Jay-Z, you can't heal what you don't reveal. Tonight, I am booking my ticket to go back to Trinidad, which is the place I got engaged. Wow. And realizing that I initially was like, oh yeah, you know, we used to party there every year. And realizing that I'm not framing this as a journey to a party. I'm framing this as a challenge to go revisit a place that I, you know, I could easily avoid because it's going to trigger so many negative emotions and pain. And I'm voluntarily doing it. And it's beautiful. 7 p.m. tonight, we're booking our tickets, and it was something I wanted to avoid. I was. I was. I had written out 12 paragraphs. to my friend who was organizing the trip, saying why I couldn't come. And then I realized that fear is a compass. I should definitely go. And I should make more wise decisions. I might not party as hard as I normally party when I'm there, because I'm not at a place of peace with this. So I'm not going to medicate my lack of peace, but I'm going to go there. I'm going to face it. And I think that's important. That's beautiful, man. Many, many, many years ago, I was violently robbed in New York. and I don't think the healing in the PTSD was ever addressed until I went back to the spot. And I sat there and again, the negative feelings aren't the enemy. The anxiety isn't the enemy. We have issues with mental health when we try to suppress the anxiety. And I mean, Dr. Leach spoke about that at the Summit of Greatness and it was such an eye-opening idea. Whereas when we go to these places and we revisit these pains, feel what we feel and as men, I think we feel that as a big challenge. I think that's one of the reasons men are problem solvers. When someone comes to us with a problem, we want to solve it. Not because we want to solve it, it's because when people come to us with their problems, it makes us feel pain and we don't want to feel pain. So we want to shut them up by solving the problem. But empathy is feeling it. Attunement is being in their skin and saying, I know what you feel like and I'm going to feel it with you. sit in this pain together. So in order for us to heal, or I think a better word would be integrate, integrate the learning that comes from these. We only, you don't learn when you're happy. You learn from unpleasant experiences. So integrate the learning that comes from these situations means visit them. I had to go back to that dark alley where I got beat up and robbed, and I had to sit there with feeling my body shake from the pain of it. but that's a step. And doing that repeatedly is what's going to help you integrate the learning. Because there's things that I needed to learn from that experience. You know, it was done for me. It wasn't done to me. And I think it's the same thing, you know, going back to Trinidad, it's going to be the exact same thing. I opened the book with that story about the engagement, and it's, if that's the, I know the exact spot where, you know, everything happened, and I know.

I have to go back there.

That's good. And I'm not going to say it's gonna be a triumph. I'm there and I healed, but it's gonna take me, and this is the big idea that we talk about in the book too, I'm not looking for perfect, I'm looking for progress. I'm gonna make more progress by taking this trip. I'm not gonna be completely healed and unimpacted by seeing her on social media or running into her in person, because we have so many mutual friends. I'm not going, I'm not promising myself that. I'm promising myself progress. And I think when we prioritize progress over perfection, and we're able to make small moves every day. This is, you know, we set New Year's resolutions, but we set these goals like, I need to lose 10 pounds. I need to make this much money per month. And then we're subconsciously telling ourselves we're not good enough until we do. But instead, instead of doing that, let's set intentions. I need to live healthier. I want to wake up earlier. Every single day, I'm going to wake up five minutes earlier. Or this week, I'm going to wait five minutes. five minutes earlier or I'm going to just go to the gym whether I do anything or not this week. And then let's focus on progress. Okay, I got there every day this week. Now I'm going to go there and do at least five minutes on the treadmill or something. And that progress adds up instead of us saying, oh, I didn't hit my 10 pounds. I'm a piece of trash. Right. You know, and because the truth is you could have hit that 10 pounds. The next voice in your head is going to be like, what's next? I need more. I need more. So instead, let's just focus on the progress, steadily making progress. So I think for us, I don't want to minimize what people have gone through in their life. And I don't know if simply revisiting a space or being in therapy or writing in a journal will make it all go away. But it will make progress. And progress is better than nothing.

100%, man. I love this man. How to be loved. Simple truths for going easier on yourself, embracing imperfection and loving your way to a better life. And I think one of the biggest things is going easier on yourself. I think a lot of people are so hard in demanding on themselves. And I think it's one thing to be disciplined and organized and also be easy on yourself.

You don't have to be perfect. So it's definitely surrender. And going easy. As I said, pointing out why we make mistakes. Yeah. It's not to judge you and be like, stop chasing after unavailable men because that's what you're used to. No, just realize it. Because being nice to ourselves, I have a chapter in here saying, love is being your own nurturing parent. When you revisit your past, you're gonna realize that the people that raised you, whoever they were, were flawed human beings. Instead of just going back to them and being like, you messed me up, realize that now you have the capability of filling in the gaps. you know, there's an activity called self havening, which is hugging yourself. Yes. You can do it. We don't need to find a romantic partner to be this for us. We can be our own best friend, which is our biggest cheerleader and also the person that kicks us in the butt when we need it, the person that tells us what we need to hear because they're on our team. We can be this for ourselves. These things that we lack sometimes, create them for ourselves now that we've realized it. It doesn't require us to go back and be like, I'm a victim of my past. But like, okay, I learned that, you know, these people who raised me weren't perfect. My parents had to go to work every single day. They could have been sleep deprived. They could have been stressed out. And if they yelled at me, I completely understand it. And I mentioned this in the book, how my mom raised me versus how I see her as a grandmother. And I'm like, who is this woman compared to who raised me? her context and her circumstances are different. She's retired. She can spend all day following around.

My niece and nephew.

Loving on them, yeah. Loving on them, not being the disciplinary, feeding them all the food that they're not supposed to eat, because it's not her responsibility. And I think that's important. So for me now, I need to be the nurturing parent for myself, which means, and even as a self-employed individual, and you know this, when you work for yourself, you have the best and worst boss imaginable. Because you'll say things to yourself you would never let anybody say to you. You would say things to yourself that you would never say to anybody else. And I think from that, but that doesn't lead to more productivity. That's not efficient. So saying, oh man, we were supposed to write a thousand words today and we didn't. You piece of garbage, what's wrong with you? Why'd you watch TV all day? That's not what you would say to an employee. you gotta be like, look man, we had some goals today, we didn't hit them, what can we do? What can we do to do better tomorrow? And speaking to ourselves with love, 'cause we're still speaking to an inner child. And that's what going easier on yourself is. It's not just that, like this is what's wrong with you. The goal here is to figure out where the gaps were, address those gaps, we have to do it effectively. And doing it effectively means with love. And speaking to ourselves kindly and tenderly, and again, Sometimes love is a kiss on the cheek, sometimes it's a kick on the butt. You know what you require. You know, it's not these romanticized ideas that we've seen in the films and on television. That's not what it is. We know what true love is because we all have true love in our lives. And all we have to realize is we can multiply that with ourselves. And as we become the biggest source, and if we give love and express love without requiring anything in return, in return, then we'll be very surprised to see how much more love we can realize. 100% man.

Well, I'm excited for you and the book. Again, make sure you guys get a copy, check it out. Very powerful, inspiring stuff. Share with friends. I acknowledge you, Humble, for revealing this and for going through this. I know it's not easy to talk about these things and to talk about, I guess, the lessons or the failures that you might think you have had to get to where you're at. and start reclaiming the love that's always been inside of you. So I really acknowledge you for creating it and using your artistic expression as a poet, as a leader, as a creator to provide this for us as art for ourselves too. So I really acknowledge you for that man.

I appreciate it.

Where can we follow you and support you with the book, the best place?

So the book is available everywhere books are sold. You can find me on Amazon easily. you can find me, you know, all major retailers, Barnes & Noble, if you're out there in the UK, Waterstones, you know, your local bookshop should definitely have it. You can find me at humblethepoet on all socials. And humblethepoet.com/love is the easiest way to find all the links for the book.

Yeah.

Love it, man. This is a question I asked you before, but I'll ask it again. It's the three truths. We'll see if it's true. imagine it's your last day on earth, and for whatever reason, you've accomplished everything you want to accomplish in your life. You live as long as you want, but you got to take all of your works with you. This book, every book you've written, your poetry, your music, everything, for whatever reason, it's got to go somewhere else. It's no longer here on this earth. But you get to leave behind three lessons to all of us, three truths, and that's all we have to remember you by. What would be those three truths? the newest truth for you.

The newest truth that I've adopted for myself is I have divorced myself from chasing happiness and success. And I now chase fun and hopefulness.

That's cool.

So I want to. And hopefulness I Define as having something to look forward to.

That's cool.

I think everyone needs something to look forward to, realizing that we. We gain more from wanting less. Mm-. It's okay that there's so many things around us to want, but the happiest moments that we have is when we are in this position of not needing or desiring anything and to put ourselves in that situation. And it rarely comes from taking off boxes. It comes from internal work. And I think lastly, There will be so many obstacles when you try to help yourself. There are next to no obstacles when you try to help others. And as somebody who grew up in Eastern philosophy and has seen a lot of Eastern philosophy kind of move into across the ocean and become kind of packaged here in North America.

A good.

Litmus test of spiritual practice should be service. If the spiritual practice doesn't include this idea of serving outside of yourself, then you're probably in a pyramid scheme.

I hear you that man.

Whatever your spiritual practice is needs to involve living a life beyond yourself. That's good. And whatever your definition of service is, for me it's just living a life beyond myself, realizing I don't live in a universe of one. I am a piece of a system. and love is an essential service and serving people in any capacity that you feel. You can go to the food bank, go to the food bank, if you can spread the word on social media, spread the word on social media, if you can give to the homeless, whatever serving people means to you, make it a priority, put it in the calendar. And I think the quality of your life and how much love you reveal will definitely supremely grow more than doing some of the other external stuff. I agree, man.

That's beautiful. Final question, what's your definition of greatness?

I want to talk about the summit. This is, listen, as I told you, it's a, I've been to so many cool events. I've been to Google Camp, look that up if you want to know what that is. That's one of the most exclusive events on this planet. And it was cool. It was fun. I've been to Google Zeitgeist. I've been to TED Talks. I've been to the World Domination Summit. these are all wonderful. I am a think tank geek. I'm a think tank groupie. Anywhere where there will be speakers and there will be learners, you will see me there. And then I visited your summit of greatness this year for the first time. And what I realized was a commitment to not cutting corners, a commitment to giving it everything, sometimes not finding the most efficient way, sometimes not maximizing profits, sometimes it's about creating the best experience within your capabilities. And I think when I went there and I saw it just, you structured it perfectly, just two speakers. You know, I've been to events with like 17 speakers and I'm tired and the best ones at the end and I'm just like, I'm, my brain's already shot. The way you did that, I thought was beautiful. The way there was this theme, and I don't know if this was intentional, you were making fun of the speakers and they were making fun of you. So, you know, if I didn't, Know who you were, I thought you were a stand-up comedian because you were in between the speakers and it was a beauty to that. And I know I can't share this stuff publicly, but some of the footage I have of your after party was bananas. And I'm not talking about my unique experiences, I'm talking about when I was up top, watching you, watching this stuff. Why not? It was, some people aren't wearing clothes. But I looked at it, it was, it was be great in your learning, but be great in your celebrations. So I think, you know, greatness isn't what the outside world sees. It's seeing the effort. You know, and I'm an artist and people say art is subjective. I disagree. When I see effort, you know, when we see Ruben's work, it's like, okay, he's writing the word love over and over. First off, him doing it consistently is energy and effort. Him getting to that position, him committing his life, There's energy and effort there. So I think when it comes to greatness, it's only you know if you gave it your all, irrespective of the outcome. You know, you can play certain, you know, you played sports, there's certain games you played, gave it 70% energy and you guys won. There's games you gave it 110% and you guys didn't win. The outcome isn't as, to me, the outcome isn't as important as the energy and the labor, because that's what builds the self-respect. That's what builds all of that. So to me, that's what greatness is. Greatness is what you put into it. And I think the summit for me was that because I feel I've been to so many. They've been on autopilot. And then the way I saw and then knowing the speakers and having them speak about their experience, what their hotel rooms look like, having the experiences of, you know, the speaker's dinner, having the, the after party, being like, okay, somebody, all I know is somebody cared every step of the way. Yeah. And then being in the audience, finding people that were coming back there, not just the events because they made lifelong friends and being like, oh, I'm here because this is the only time I get to see so and so. We've been coming for the last three years, and then, you know, hearing all of this being like, okay, this is a beautiful situation. And I think the way greatness was defined through that was this energy, effort of love. And I'm sure it could have been, you could have overextended yourself and made it bigger. I'm sure you could have charged more for the tickets. I'm sure you could have done a whole bunch of different things, but you didn't. You kept it the way to maximize it as a beautiful experience. And I think for me, you know, I'm proud to know that, you know, as Ruben's been affiliated with the word love, you've been affiliated with the word greatness. Because when these cameras go off, you are just as wonderful, if not more. And I think I want your audience to know that. I've known you for years. You're just a dope dude. Everyone we speak to knows you're a dope dude. And, you know, so greatness is just putting in that energy and effort and doing things for love. I appreciate you.

Thanks, Hubble. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and.

It inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I wanna remind you, if no one has told you lately that you are loved, You are worthy and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.