The 7 HARD TRUTHS About Making Your Dreams COME TRUE | Lewis Howes

We all know that obstacles arise at all turns of life. There's always going to be something that could potentially stop your progress if you let it. And that's why it's so important. I think you got to have a dream.

The school of greatness.

Really?

Yeah.

Please welcome Lewis Howes.

For today's episode, I wanted to give you a little tough love. And we're going to discuss the seven hard truths about making your dreams come true. Now, these truths come from the themes and patterns that I've gathered from countless conversations with some of the world's top athletes, bestselling authors, billionaires, investors, and more. And I'm calling them the hard truths because over the years, I found that not everyone is ready to hear these things. And I'm curious, are you ready to hear them? And some of you might be putting off a certain truth or avoiding them altogether, thinking there's a way around them. And I can't speak for everyone in the world, but I found that realizing and accepting these seven is. Is absolutely essential to achieving your dreams and reaching your full potential. And I also want to make these actionable. So during the show, I'll walk through each one, and then I'll discuss what you can do to make sure that you don't fall into the traps that come from not following that truth. So no matter where you are at in your journey, whether you're just starting out, you're starting over, or you've already seen massive success in your life or something in between, I hope you'll find these truths as valuable as I do, as I need these reminders as much as anyone. Now, get out a piece of paper or notebook and a pen or pencil, and let's go ahead and dive in and get started. The hard truth, number one, your network matters. Now, I like to say that one relationship can change your life forever. And I've seen it happen time and time again for myself and so many others. You're only one relationship away from accomplishing almost any dream that you have or setting you up for that. Who you know can have a massive impact on your success in the business world specifically, but also in the professional marketplace and anywhere else, maybe even your love life. And this is where I hear some people complaining about how someone doesn't have the talent necessary to be where they are in their career. And I usually challenge their thinking, because you don't just need only talent. Sure, maybe the person isn't as naturally gifted as someone else in their field, but they might have worked their butt off to make the Right connections. They might have flown all over the country or all over the world to get their foot in the door with the right people. Or there might just be really amazing person who brings joy to everyone they interact with and they attract quality individuals. The reality is people tend to work with who they know and who they like and who they trust. So talent isn't the end all, be all. Who you know often matters more than what you know. And if you play your cards right over time, then hopefully down the line you you'll be on top of mind when someone in your circle needs to hire a person with your skill set. And that could be design work. If you're a graphic designer or a marketing consultant, if that's your area of expertise, a choreographer or anything, you name it and it's possible. And if you don't know anyone who's well established in your industry or who's got a big network, there's no need to get discouraged. Luckily, there are plenty of other ways to connect nowadays. And it used to be that you needed to live in one of the big cities somewhere to meet the right people. But today we have the Internet and social media location doesn't hold as much weight as it used to. We've got so many tools like LinkedIn and Instagram or YouTube to start getting noticed by anyone around the world. Because of this. I was connecting with high profile people in my industry when I was living in Ohio in much the same way as I am out here in la because I was using social media to connect with people. Despite this accessibility though, I see so many people approaching networking in a horrible way. And this usually boils down to the person making everything about themselves. They approach connecting with someone in a transactional way versus trying to find ways to add as much value as possible to the other person. And that's why it's important to remember what the great Les Brown said. Help others achieve their dreams and you will achieve yours. People are busy, so when you're trying to make connections, bring the conversation back to the person you're talking to. When you can, don't make it about you. So in marketing we call this the you principle. It's human nature for us to be self motivated and self interested. So changing the language you use to include more you's rather than I will go a long way. And now I want to share with you a handful of tested strategies you can use to begin networking the right way to produce better results over time. The first strategy in this process is to develop a relationship action plan and this is simple, but a powerful idea that I picked up from my friend, serial entrepreneur and best selling author Keith Ferrazzi. To make a relationship action plan, all you do is you simply write down a list of the top three to five goals you have for this year. These can be related to your business, your love life, fitness or anything in between. Then next to each goal that you write down, write down three to five people who can help you achieve that specific goal. For instance, if your goal is to run a marathon, then search through your contacts and see if anyone in your circle, or even a friend of a friend has completed one. From there, reach out to them asking for pointers, advice, game plan, things like that, and just make sure to be upfront and clear about why you specifically reached out to them. A relationship action plan will also make you come across as being vulnerable and humble when you which is a trait that helps build trust and make people feel comfortable letting their guards down and in return trying to support you. So really come up with that action plan and make a list of those quality people. Number two Keep in touch between your asks. This is a big one. Don't just reach out to everyone and say hey, can you help me with this and here's what I need help with. Instead, really think about how you can reach out to people and help them. In between asking. This is something that I've been doing for a long time. I try to never ask for anything unless I have a big ask and in between that I'm just reaching out and saying hey, hope you're doing well. I see what you're up to over on Instagram, I see the success you're having here. Let me know if I can support one of anything. Shoot them a message on their birthday, whatever it might be. Stay in touch. And if you're only reaching out when you have something to promote, you'll come off as self serving. And this can make other people you're reaching out to feel like they're being used. Or even if you're trying to build a real bond with them, they still might feel like you're taking advantage of them. So think about that. Number three Be vulnerable and genuinely curious about what the other person has going on in their life, what their goals are. This goes back to what we just talked about. No one wants to feel like they're being used or taken advantage of. No one wants to feel like the only reason you're being nice to them is because you'll get something from them. So it's important to be authentic and Genuinely curious about whatever the person you're reaching out to is doing in their own life. Show them you actually care about their passions and the journey they're on. And something I like to ask people when I reach out to them is, what are you most excited about lately? What is your biggest passion right now? And how can I be of service to you accomplishing those goals? When you focus on the other person first, they really feel like you're caring more about them and you should be caring about them. It's not about just getting something. Focus on caring, caring, caring. And I'm telling you, good things will come around to you in the long run. Number four, Conduct cold outreach using the Greatness Trifecta. Now, my team and I developed this three step framework to help people be more effective with their cold outreach on social media. But you can use it in other areas of your life as well when it comes to building relationships. So the first step is to research the person you're reaching out to and see what they're up to. Really get to know what they're doing, what products they've worked on recently, what companies they've worked with, what are some of their interests outside of work, their hobbies, their passions, who they're connected to, et cetera. Step two is to find at least two points of mutual connection between the two of you. For instance, maybe you both went to the same college or, or you've lived in the same city at some point or like the same sports teams. And the final step is putting all that together in a short, to the point direct message or email or however you're contacting the person, whatever social media platform or email you're messaging. So an example could be like this. Hey Jane, this is Tony and I noticed you went to school at Ohio State and that you play the violin. I'm actually from Columbus, Ohio myself and I played the cello growing up. Also saw that you're in the photography industry. I took a peek at your portfolio and I'm really impressed with your style of work. I'm looking to connect with other creative professionals in the Denver area. That's where I live now. Do you have a few minutes to chat sometime? Soon as I'd love to learn more about you and your goals. That's it. It's short, it's sweet. Most of all, it comes off authentic. And that's the key. You don't want to come off salesy or sleazy here. Don't let anyone tell you different. Who you know matters. So take the time and Learn how to effectively build genuine, lasting relationships with others in your industry. Friendships and relationships have been the cornerstone to my success and so many other people that I know and who have seen grow their businesses and lifestyles. Doing the same will pay dividends for you in the long run. And here's the thing. I really think about each individual as a meaningful relationship, as a meaningful connection that I truly want to see succeed in whatever their goals are and help them overcome their challenge. So if you go into the mindset of every person I'm interacting with, how can I learn more about them? How can I find out what makes them tick? How can I find out their biggest pain points, the things that brings them the most joy, and then speak into that, show them opportunities that can help them accelerate overcoming those challenges in their life. If you can bring that to someone, even if you feel like you've got no skills and nothing to offer, I'm telling you, if you can bring joy to someone's life and just give some inspiration, it will support you for a long time. So think about that when you're building relationships. Hard truth number two, your attitude matters. So when I had him on the show, Bert Jacobs, co founder and CEO of the Hundred Million Dollar clothing company Life Is Good, he told me that he thinks optimism is a superpower. And I couldn't agree more. Your attitude, your behavior, and the way you approach your work and your life, it matters. And when we're hiring here at School of Greatness and Greatest Media, I always look for three things above everything else. Attitude, energy, and effort. Now, don't get me wrong, their ability to do the task. The job is a requirement as well. But I've always found that these three traits to be way more important than just talent. Nobody wants to work with someone who drains all the joy out of a room or someone who's always negative. And I'll be the first to admit, though, this is hard to screen during the interview process, or at least at the beginning of any sort of business relationship, it's difficult to tell how someone will actually react to tense situations, stress, adversity before they're actually thrown into the fire. Now, we all have our bad days, of course, and I'm not perfect. I can be negative at times. But if you're constantly negative, there's a good chance you might be unhappy with yourself internally. You might not be addressing an area of your life that you need to work through. When I had a celebrity speaker and entrepreneur, Lisa Nichols, on the show, she told me that our lives are all a Physical manifestation of the conversations going on in your head. So if you're constantly engaging in negative self talk or putting yourself down, you're bound to show up in the world negatively to other people as well. This is a mental test that you've got to put yourself through. That's why we have to guard ourselves against negative self talk. Throughout the day, monitor the conversations you're having with yourself. Write down how many negative and how many positive times you're talking and thinking about these things and what those thoughts are about. This will give you a solid snapshot of the area of life you need to focus on improving or figuring out how to overcome that challenge. And you can work through this by yourself with positive affirmations and other strategies, or you can get professional help like I like to do. And I'm a huge advocate of therapy and it's helped me in so many ways in my life. And if you're in a financial position to afford therapy, then I highly recommend doing so. If you, if you're not, there are some more affordable options on the market today. Just do a little bit of research to find out what works for you. But I'm telling you, emotional accountability has been so massive for my life and it's been powerful. After you address the things that are holding you back from unconditional self love, you're much more likely to eventually bring joy to the work you do rather than negativity. And when you're positive and passionate about the work you do, other people will naturally be drawn to you as a result. This all goes back to an idea that I live by and have come to known as fact. For me, the world makes room for passionate people. If you love what you do, if you're following your mission, if you're living in a purpose filled life or on that journey, you'll attract other incredible people who are also following their own dreams and skills. And when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it. A positive attitude is one of the first steps to making your dreams happen. And it's so crucial. I'll leave you with one final thing. I remember seeing Elon Musk in an interview saying one of the biggest mistakes he made in building his businesses is hiring talented people who are negative. He said he's fallen in this trap time and time again. It's one of his biggest mistakes is hiring super talented people that were negative that that hurt the culture and the mission of what he was building and in return caused a lot of negative stress for him. As well. And he mentioned this in an interview one time, and it made me realize that talent is important. We'll get to that as well. But attitude, energy, and effort is everything. Hard truth number three, people don't care as much as you think they do. Now, there's a mantra that goes like this. The people who matter don't care, and the people who care don't matter. And this is true. So many people are worried about the opinions of strangers online who will criticize them for following their dreams. And I get it. It can be painful to read some of the hateful comments on social media. Online bullying is no joke. It's happening all the time. All that said, I hear a lot of people talk about blocking out the haters, tuning out the noise. But the truth is that most people don't care either way. Their lives won't be different. Whether you follow your dreams or not, your family, your friends and loved ones will care that you're pursuing your dreams, hopefully in a good and fully supportive way. Not always. And as for other people, though, not so much. They don't all care, really. Now, you might hear me say this and think it's a negative or discouraging way to look at things, but I actually think it's liberating since most people don't care either way. And the ones who do care are actually just unhappy with themselves. What's stopping you from pursuing your actual goals, Your actual dreams? Not the dream you made up as a backup plan or the dream your parents gave to you, or the dream you're settling for. I'm talking about the thing that lights you up, the thing you were created to do. What's stopping you from going after that, or at least creating that on the side as you build up revenue in the meantime? And I'll wrap this section up with a story that taught me this principle firsthand. Now, when I was in my early 20s, I lived above a salsa club, and they had live music almost every night. And once a week they had salsa dancing. And I remember going down and being mesmerized and just amazed at how talented and how talented difficult this looked for people to salsa dance. And I would go down there almost every week for months, and people would ask me to come dance, come on the dance floor. And I would not dare to go out there even one time because I was so intimidated by people making fun of me, by people laughing at me, by looking silly, by messing up and really just making a fool of myself. But eventually I got enough courage to go on the Dance floor. A woman dragged me out there, and I was resisting it. I finally went out there, and I remember she said, I'm just going to teach you the basic step. Now, this was a packed dance floor. I'm sweating. I'm terrified, I'm nervous. And she said, just follow this basic step. And I was looking down at her feet the entire time for probably five to 10 minutes. And I remember thinking, oh, my gosh, I'm messing up. I'm stumbling. I'm stepping on her toes. I'm off rhythm. I don't understand the music, the language. Everyone is way more talented around me. I shouldn't be out here. I'm making a fool of myself. And after a few minutes, she said, louis, look up. Like, you can smile. You can have fun. It doesn't need to be stressful. And I looked up and I looked around me, and it was a liberating feeling. No one was looking at me. No one cared that I was messing up. Everyone was having fun around them, and no one was laughing at me. And even if a few people maybe were smirking and kind of smiling, laughing at me from the side, I didn't see it. And even if I did see it, it doesn't matter. Because what matters is you overcoming the fears, the insecurities that hold you back from ultimate freedom, from ultimate joy. And it's going to take you going through that challenging obstacle in order for you to be free on the other side. That takes courage. But the opinions of other people don't really matter. So what if they laugh at you and make fun of you? It's not their life. It's your life. Make sure you go out there. Be willing to embarrass yourself for a few minutes or maybe a few days or a few months, until you overcome the fear, until you develop a skill so that you are good enough to be out there in the future. But don't let this stop you. And that's hard truth number three. Hard truth number four. You can never stop. We have a saying here at Greatest Media. You can go as slow as you want to, but you can never stop. And I mean this wholeheartedly. People ask me all the time for advice about launching a podcast, growing a business, developing a personal brand, building on social media. And I always go back to the simple principle. One of the things that separated the school of greatness from other shows in the space is our consistency. My team and I release three shows every single week. No questions asked, no compromises, no wiggle room. Even if the world was Collapsing, the show gets published and Today we're over 1200 episodes and, and I feel like really we're just getting started. This is the foundation for the next level. Remember that the power of consistency compounds over time. It's like a flywheel. And your competitors will begin to fall out of the race when the going gets tough, when things get hard. In fact, when you really think about it, you aren't competing with as many people as you think you are if you're dependable and consistent. And this goes for anything that you create. And really, you shouldn't be competing with anyone at all. You should just be running your own race. Sure, there might be hundreds or thousands or even millions of people who say they want to write a book, but how many people actually sit down and actually write it? Out of that number, how many people actually sit down and make edits and rewrite the second draft of the book? And out of that smaller number, how many of these people actually reach out to a book agent and market their book effectively and connect with influencers in their space and make sure that the book launch goes smoothly. If you're consistent and committed, the number of people you're competing against is a whole lot smaller than you think it is. And again, you shouldn't be competing. You should be running your own race and focused. Now I don't want you to get confused here. The principle doesn't mean you always have to hustle and grind 247 for years to achieve your dreams. That can lead to burnout if you aren't careful. And plus, when it comes to forming good habits and being as productive as possible, studies have shown that giving yourself flexibility as opposed to being super strict and rigid about your goals, leads to better output over time. I'm all for taking breaks, I'm all for pausing, but not stopping completely. And one of my recent guests, the world leading psychologist and best selling author Katie Milkman and her research goes deep into this topic, she's found that flexibility is key, key to forming life changing habits and achieving massive goals over the long term. The example she used to illustrate this idea was forming healthy exercise habits. Now if a person makes a strict, non negotiable commitment to going to the gym every single day at 6am or doesn't get it done at all, they're putting themselves in a corner because life gets busy, challenges and complications come up, unexpected things happen, and instead it's a much better long term approach to just have the goal of working out at some point during the day. Maybe on Mondays, it's the mornings and Tuesdays, it's the evenings or at lunchtime. The most important thing here is to be flexible. Not give up on working out, but be flexible on when. And I put this to use in my own life as well. Sometimes I'm traveling or have an interview or something last minute comes up, so I'll need to switch around my workout or Spanish lesson that I'm committed to or coaching session to make room for it. By being flexible and not so rigid with your routines, it'll be easier to make sure your responsibilities and commitments always get done, no matter what gets thrown your way. And that's the key. The last thing here is this. If you haven't found a dream that makes you excited enough to be consistent over the long haul, then maybe you haven't found the right dream yet. And that's okay. Maybe you're not being fully honest with yourself about what you truly want. As the number one decision maker in your life, it's your job to create a mission that gets you excited, that makes you really want to jump out of bed in the morning and be consistent when things really get challenging and tough. Because they will. If this sounds like you or you're beginning to feel uninspired with the path you're on, one way to turn things around and find something that lights you up is a principle that Simon Sinek talks about starting with why Oftentimes, we start with what we want. I want a nicer car, I want a bigger house, I want a fancy pair of shoes. Or I want to have a million Instagram followers. Being excited about a milestone like that isn't always a bad thing, but it's not an effective long term strategy and it won't keep you motivated over time. Instead, Simon explains, it's way more effective to start with. Why? Why do you want to start with that podcast? Why do you want all those followers? Why do you want to launch that startup? Maybe it's to impact the lives of people in your community, or give back to a cause that's near and dear to your heart. But by asking yourself why, you'll gain clarity on what it is you truly want in life. From there, you'll be able to easily create a mission that supports it and then also excites you. I'm not saying this is going to be an easy mission to accomplish, but you'll be able to get clarity around what the mission is. And clarity is key. Hard Truth number five Challenges are not going to disappear anytime soon or next year. This is a big one, guys. And I hear this from a lot of people at all different stages of their journey. I just have to handle this one thing first, and then I'll get to writing my book or launching my dream business or now is not a good time because I have this commitment that I need to handle first right now. And when that's done, then I can get started. Sure, unexpected things come up and derail progress for all of us. We've all had moments in life where we need to put something on the back burner. But I want you to ask yourself this. Why aren't your dreams important enough to prioritize? If you're someone who's always putting things you want on hold, why do you think so little of your dreams? Why aren't they worth 30 minutes of your time each day? Why isn't your happiness a priority in your life? And I want you to really dig deep and answer this for me. Remember, every time you say yes to something that isn't aligned with your values, your vision, or your dreams, you're saying no to the things that are. If you keep prioritizing other people, other jobs, other tasks, and deprioritizing the thing you were created to do, then that's a challenge. That's an issue. And I want you to commit to changing it or start getting on the path to evolving it. Because the truth is, your challenges aren't going to disappear this year, next year, or 10 years from now. We all know that obstacles arise at all turns of life. There's always going to be something that could potentially stop your progress and if you let it. And that's why it's so important to get used to the stress or challenges that are coming and become comfortable with overcoming these challenges sooner rather than later. And there are a couple ways you can accomplish this. And one comes from a friend of mine in health psychologist named Katie McGonigal. And when I had her on the show, she explained the psychology and importance of reframing the way we view stress. Now, Katie said that physiology and biology between the feelings of anxiety and excitement are almost identical. She brought up a study that examined people's body chemistry before and after skydiving. Some felt anxious, while others felt excited. You might think those feelings are a lot different from one another, but the study found that the only real difference was the stories that people were telling themselves about the event they were experiencing. Their body chemistry and cells and everything else were almost exactly alike. But one group viewed skydiving as terrifying, and the other group was excited about it. This is why the language we use to describe stress is so crucial to begin the reframing process and getting comfortable with discomfort in moments of high intensity and pressure. Katie told me she doesn't even say I'm anxious or I'm scared. She simply says my heart must be in this thing. The fact that she's so amped up means she cares about whatever it is she's going through at that moment. And the same can go for you when your body feels anxious or excited or you feel stressed out. All it means is your mind is interpreting that thing as high stakes. So reframing these situations can have a huge impact on your ability to navigate the adversity you're sure to experience. And I'll end this section with this point. I want you to remember that discomfort isn't a slap on the wrist or something bad. It's actually a pat on your back. It's a sign that you're doing something right, that you're going in the right direction and challenging yourself to push past some limiting belief that you might have Again, challenges won't stop coming this year. The sooner we can rethink how we approach these difficulties, and the sooner we begin to prioritize ourselves and our goals, the sooner we'll be on our way to accomplishing our dreams. Now again, if you have a career, a job, a family, you've got responsibilities. You've got to take care of those things right now and make sure that you're in alignment with what you want, with the mission that you're on in all those areas of life. But you can always do something on the side to get things going and build it during the same time. Hard Truth number six Talent matters. Now don't get me wrong, like we touched earlier on, talent isn't the most important thing. In fact, I found that it's usually the most passionate, hard working people who outlast more talented ones over the long run. And I've seen this in many areas of my life. But I'd be lying to you if I said talent didn't matter at all. It does. It's massive. With the Internet and so many people being able to launch a business nowadays, most industries are more competitive than they've ever been. So you either have to be great at whatever it is you want to accomplish or you have to acquire that skill over time or you have to find someone who is great at it, who can help you. And that's really the key. You've got to have the talent or have the humility to hire someone who does? Who's more talented than you? This is where self awareness comes into play. Productivity expert and best selling author Benjamin Hardy was on the show recently and he explained that he tries to outsource any and all tasks that don't align with his strongest skill set. And I'm doing the same thing here by building out team greatness. There's a lot of brilliant people on my team who are way more talented than me and I've hired people who are experts in their fields to handle all the things I'm either not that good at or just don't have the time to learn it myself. We've got incredible video editors, marketing managers, audio engineers, copywriters, graphic designers, you name it. There's so much power in effective delegation and empowering others to be on board with the vision and the goals that you have to help you propel your dreams faster than you ever thought possible. That's why I'm such a huge proponent of finding your superpower and going all in on them. And if you don't yet have the superpower that you need to meet your goals, then find someone who does or take the time to acquire that skill with online courses, tutorials, podcasts and more. Now, some of you might be listening to this and saying, but Louis, I don't know what my superpower is. Or you might even think you don't have one at all. And this is where you can lean on the people you know and trust the most. Make a list of five to 10 people who you know well and ask them one by one what they think your superpower is. What are the things that they think that you're really good at and what are the things that they think that you could improve on? Make it clear to the people that you ask that it's important. They're 100% honest with you. You may not even like what they're saying, but it's valuable to get that honest feedback. And the best selling author and illustrator Charles Macassie says that asking for help isn't giving up, it's refusing to give up. So being self aware enough to know what you're good at and where you need others to step in is critical to accomplishing your dreams. Never be afraid to ask for help. It only ever speeds things up. It doesn't slow down your journey to success. And I'll leave you with this. Talent does matter. But years ago I didn't know what my talent was as I was transitioning from football into the online business world and figuring out how to Be an entrepreneur. I didn't know if any of those skills were transferable. So what I did is I spent about a year and a half learning and mastering new skills that I was not good at. I was not good at public speaking. I was not good at copywriting or writing in general. I was not really talented on social media yet. So I learned and mastered those things. Things as skills that could be transferable into helping me build my business and something that I could monetize over time. So the first thing is I took the time to figure out where my deficiencies were and I went all in on developing a skill set in those deficiencies. That took time, energy, and really it was challenging. It wasn't easy because I was failing over and over again. It's not comfortable learning a new skill sometimes, but it's hugely valuable and important when you master new skills. The next thing I did is I realized I do have a lot of skills. I just didn't know how to transfer them yet. I really loved interviewing people and asking questions 15 years ago, but I was like, how could I ever make money just asking people questions? Now that's all I do is I ask people questions through an interview show, through a podcast and YouTube and an interview show. So that skill set really was something that curiosity about human beings. I was able to finally figure out ways to build community, add value to people, and then monetize it. I didn't think that was a skill though, at first, but it was a massive superpower that later has helped me in big ways. So even if you don't feel like you have any talent, I'm telling you, ask your friends, your family, what you are most skilled at. They'll tell you lean into that and also develop some new skills by taking time to be willing to embarrass yourself and fail over and over until you develop those skills as well. Hard truth number seven, your confidence matters. And I'll be honest with you, there aren't many skills that you absolutely need to have in order to achieve success in your business, in your relationships and beyond. Like we just talked about, you can find someone else to do the job for you if you're not the best at a certain skill. But that said, confidence is something that I found to be essential when it comes to achieving your dreams. And you build confidence by overcoming challenging things, learning new skills. Now, I'm not saying that you need to be this super charismatic salesman or saleswoman type of a person. I'm actually saying the opposite. Confidence is about being comfortable with who you really are. It stems from a deep, genuine sense of self love, self acceptance. You can be a confident introvert, an unconfident extrovert, and everything in between. We're all works in progress and have insecurities we need to address. But believe me, confidence will help make everything so much easier no matter what your goals are. By having confidence you'll be able to more easily enroll people in your products and services. You'll be able to attract higher quality people to join your team. You'll more than likely have higher quality relationships in your personal life as well, because no one wants to be around an unconvident person. And the list goes on and on. Confidence is one of the fundamental building blocks to success and can be a catalyst to making everything else fall into place for you. So it's never a waste of time to work through your insecurities in order for you to gain more confidence. And whether you lack the confidence or you're just looking to develop more of it, there are a number of strategies you can use to help get you there. One of them comes from the high performance coach, Dr. Ivan Joseph. He says we should all write ourselves a self confidence letter that lists out all the big wins we've experienced in life. And this could be you graduating from college, the time you came in first place at a track meet, or any big challenges you've overcome. Try to get as specific as possible with this letter. Then in times of self doubt, take out the letter and read it to yourself. I know this might sound a little weird, but Dr. Ivan said he had to read his own self confidence letter every day for months when he took out a job as a college athletic director. So I'm sure we could all benefit from creating one ourselves. And over time this practice will help you develop self confidence and the belief that you can overcome whatever new challenges comes your way. And David Goggins we had on the show talks about this with his cookie jar concept as well. And there's also a similar practice I've done called the rainy day notes. Whatever you choose to call it, the important thing is having a bank of wins that you can reference time and time again whenever you're feeling self doubt start to creep in. Another tactic comes from social psychologist and best selling author Amy Cuddy who we had on the show. She thinks one of the most important steps to developing unshakeable confidence is having clarity around your values and personal beliefs. By having a firm grip on what we believe in and the things we hold in high regard, we'll know that no one will ever be able to take those things away from us. For instance, if you know that you're the kind of person who's passionate about making movies, no matter if you experience rejection or go through struggle, you can always return to your self affirmation during those tough moments. Like, I'm a kind person who loves to make movies. Through the ups and downs, through thick and thin, you'll always have those qualities of kindness. And the research shows this actually helps calm down us in high stakes situations too. And when she was on the show, Amy Cuddy brought up how one study showed that college students who consistently practice saying these types of self affirmations perform better on midterm exams than those who didn't. This makes sense to me because once you know you'll come out of the other side of something unscathed, you'll feel a sense of freedom that helps you relax and then perform better under pressure. And the more you throw yourself firsthand into the fire, the more confident you'll become, the more certain you'll be that you'll survive through even the harshest criticisms and gut wrenching rejections that come your way. This is why I'm such a big fan of social experiments and challenges. If you're afraid of speaking to strangers, challenge yourself to speak to a new person every single day for a month. If you're afraid of public speaking, challenge yourself to sign up for local Toastmasters class and practice weekly. Whatever fear is standing between you and having incredible self confidence, I challenge you to face that fear head on until the fear disappears. And there you have it guys. The seven hard truths about making your dreams come true. Now in this episode, I wanted to really dig deep into the most common objections and excuses I hear from all different types of people when it comes to putting their dreams on hold and then hiding their gift from the world. And then I wanted to share ways in which you could make sure you don't fall into these same traps. So I hope this has been helpful and I want to leave you with this thought. Over the 1200 plus interviews I've done and episodes we've done here, I've learned that success is different for everyone, but it's possible for anyone. There's a blueprint to follow and timeless lessons from people who have been to the mountaintops of whatever it is that you want to go towards. So why learn everything from scratch? Why do everything on your own? All you need to do is have a curious mind, a genuine heart, and the grit to never stop reaching for your dreams. And now I want to challenge you to answer this final question. If not now, when? Whoever you are and wherever you might be, it's time to get out of your own way. And it's time to face all of life's truths head on. Even the hard ones. Especially the hard ones. It's time to approach the journey ahead of you with a sense of joy, a sense of wonder, curiosity. Your dreams, your happiness, and your gifts are worth it. Let me know some of your biggest takeaways in the comments below, and make sure to share this with someone you think needs to hear it. And stick around for more inspiring content coming up. Right now, I think one of the.

Most important things a human being can do is press the pause button each morning while the rest of the world is asleep and ask yourself, how can I fortify my mindset? How can I insulate my heart set? How can I optimize my health set? How can I escalate my Soul? Set the four interior empires that I've introduced in the 5am club so that when I walk out in the world, I'm creative, I'm productive, I'm compassionate, I radiate positivity, and I have resilience in case I get knocked down. And so I think one of the best ways you can do that is this 202020 formula that I've been teaching to the billionaires, the NBA stars, the film icons, and many of the most successful people on the planet for, as I say, 24 years and very high level. Louis the 202020 formula is simply this. You get up at 5am and anyone can get up at 5am One of the gifts of a human being is neuroplasticity. We are built to change. So please I would encourage, you know, if we recite our excuses long enough, we actually believe they're true. We are built to change. We are built to grow. We are built to own our heroic nature. And so according to University College London, if we do any practice or habit for 66 days, we reach a point of automaticity where it becomes easier to do that new habit than not do the new habit. Once you wire in the new habit for the first 20 minutes, 5 to 5:20, you move because you can release BDNF, Brain Derived Neurotrophic factor which promotes neurogenesis. It optimizes your brain. If you move first thing in the morning, you release serotonin which makes you feel good. You release dopamine which sets you up for inspiration. Second, we can get into it more deeply, but second pocket from 520 to 540 is reflect. While the rest of the world is asleep, there's such quiet. This is where you can pray, you can meditate, write in a journal, sit in quietude so that you're focused, living your life and your priorities through the day. And then the final pocket of the 202020 formula that I talk about in the 5am Club is grow. You'll never get old if you grow. You'll never become obsolete in your business. Even in a time of great volatility, if you're growing, you'll always stay happy if you grow. So 20 minutes at the end of this victory hour. That's what I. What I call it. You spend some time listening to a podcast like Lewis Howes on the School of Greatness, a man adored by the majority of humanity. You listen to an audiobook, you read a book, you study your battle charts. Anyway, that's a really rough general way to explain the 2020 formula that is currently helping millions of people navigate this hard time.

Does it matter? The sequencing of 2020 20. Do you need to move first? Can you meditate first? Do you grow? Or is that a process that is proven scientifically?

The process has been proven in the trenches of elite performance for a long time with my clients. And having said that, I would say the 202020 formula is minimum viable morning routine. And you're a biohacker. I'm a biohacker. I'm a productivity hacker. I'm a life hacker. And so I would say do what's right for you. You know, it's like this whole field of personal mastery and leadership that we inhabit. I'm not one to say you must do this, because we all have different learning types. We're all on different journeys. Someone might be right now upgrading their spirituality so they connect with their crusade and their higher power. In this time of house arrest, other people are creating their masterwork right now. So I think we have to find the routine, the morning routine, that works best for us.

What about people that say, you know what? I'm just a night person. You know, I like. I think at night, I work out at night. That's when I meditate. You know, I strategize the next day at night. And I just.

I've tried the morning.

It just doesn't work for me. What would you say to that?

I've had a lot of night owls.

That's a great excuse, isn't it, to be a night owl?

I've had a lot of great. A lot of Night owls who have said, you know, I could never be a morning person. I've had a lot of people who've said, you know, grandma couldn't get up early, grandpa couldn't get up early, my parents couldn't get up early. I don't have early rising genes, you know. And what I would say is, if you don't read that book you've been resisting because you don't think it's for you, you might just miss your new favorite book. If you fall in love with your most closely cherished beliefs and you're not open to trying new things, you might miss trying your new favorite food. If you say, well, here's the kind of friends that I hang out with and I'm not open to anyone else, you might miss that new friend or that new mentor who will transform the way you run your craft and live your life. And it's the same for the morning routine, the 5:00am Club. I mean, it's just I've had so many people read the book, run the models in the book, live the message and achieve what they never thought they'd achieve. And so what I would say to a night owl or a lot of people say shift workers or whatever, I would say, give it a try. Don't just give it a try for a week. You know, give it a try for three weeks, four weeks, the 66 day minimum. And then judge, then judge by your results.

Yeah, so it's okay to sleep in once a week or to miss the routine once in a while. It's not going to affect your overall results or process. Is that what I'm hearing?

Yeah.

I think if you want to commit to the 5am club, you want to commit to a world class morning routine. Because the way you begin the day profoundly sets up the way your day unfolds. And this again, this is not anecdotal. You get up in the morning and you run the 20, 2020 formula. Explain in the book, you will create the flow state. You will release serotonin, you will release dopamine, you will release pdnf. You will increase your metabolic rate, you will boost creativity, you will increase your willpower. You know, all those things. I mean, we want, we all have the ability as human beings to arrive at our own original form of greatness. We have not been schooled, we have not been taught. A lot of us have not been mentored on the mindsets, heart sets, routines, rituals that will create and allow us to live our personal genius. But if you look at the greatest women and Men who have ever graced the planet. These were so called ordinary people who just set up their lives in such a way that their native gifts saw the light of day.

It's funny how no one ever teaches this stuff unless you had a parent or an older sibling. That's that you were able to model and mimic. Like, oh my, my dad gets up pretty early, or my brother gets up and does his violin or practices sport, whatever it may be. And I want to be like that and I want to try that. It's, you know, we're not taught this in school.

You know, Louis, when I was a kid, I wasn't believed in by a lot of people. I marched to my own drumbeat. I had a different way of seeing the world. I was very sensitive. I was very creative, very much a dreamer in many ways. And I didn't fit in with the cool crowd. And in grade five, I had a history teacher and her name was Cora Greenaway, and she was one of the first people in my life who believed in me. And we all meet a Cora Greenaway. And may you and I and everyone listening from around the world or watching from around the world, may we be a Cora Greenaway to someone else. What I'm suggesting is all it takes is that one person who coincidentally shows up in our life, and maybe it's a book, maybe it's a podcast episode to introduce us to a new frame of reference and a new way of living. That's why I love reading so much. You know, it's. It could be one idea in a 300 page book, and that idea opens you up to a new galaxy of possibility. And the hand that puts down the book is a fundamentally different hand. I mean, all it takes is one new insight to change the way you see the world.

That's very true.

Yeah.

And that's why I'm on such a mission. I've been on such a mission for 24 years to remind people of who they're meant to be. Martin Luther King Jr. Said, if you have not discovered something you're willing to die for, you're not fit to live. And I believe we all need to find our mighty mission and our crusade. It doesn't have to be lofty. It could be delivering pizza by ubereats. It could be a, you know, a teacher. It could be a lawnmower. It could be a coder. It could be a grave digger or street sweeper. All labor has dignity, but, you know, there are no extra people on the planet. And I think, you know, that's why I appreciate the work you do so much. I mean, we do have greatness within us and society has brainwashed us and heart washed us into thinking that the great ones are cut from a different cloth. And it's not. It's not true. As a matter of fact, in the 5M club, I say, you know, genius is less about genetics and much more about your daily habits.

Wow.

That's true. That's. I mean, that resonates with me because growing up a kid that was, you know, dyslexic and still struggles with reading and writing today and was in the special needs classes, I never thought I was going to amount to much. And I didn't have belief in myself until I found a spark and belief in myself. And then I started leaning into that gift, which was sports, and started to realize, oh, I have some vision and I have some coordination and I have some speed. Even though I was never the fastest or strongest, I had some height. And so let me lean into this gift that was here and see if I enjoy this gift and see if I like this gift and see if this brings me joy. And it did, and I continued. And then I built routines and habits around that gift and kept pursuing it as far as I could pursue it until it was no longer a dream or until the gift was no longer there, until I wanted to pursue other things. And I think, you know, even if whoever's listening or watching, even if you didn't think you were talented or smart enough at some point, there's something inside of you that is talent. You've just got to keep trying things and see what brings you that joy and that uniqueness. At least that's what I would say.

Well, you know, just to hitchhike off of that. Louis, I think no one will believe in you until you believe in you. And, you know, as I'm writing this new book I'm writing, I've been looking at people like J.K. rowling, for example. I mean, everyone laughed at Harry Potter. You know, no one will ever read this. And she believed in this character about a child wizard who had all of these adventures. And she was a single mother and she was suffering and she had no money and she wrote. The whole idea for the Harry Potter concept came to her on a delayed train ride. And then, I believe in Edinburgh, she wrote the first Harry Potter, and it was rejected. And we all know this, but, like, you know, just a gentle, respectful, loving reminder for everyone who's. Who's tuning in here, which is every visionary is initially ridiculed before they're revered. Look at Jonas Salk, look at Elon Musk right now. I mean, look at Shakespeare, look at Oprah, look at Martin Luther King Jr. Look at Nelson Mandela, look at Mary Curie, look at Edison and Einstein, look at Galileo. These were all ordinary people who followed their joy, who came up with a vision. And the very nature of a great vision means you're going to disrupt the status quo. So you're going to scare people. I mean, if your idea is really good for that new business or that new relationship or that new fitness routine or morning routine, it's going to scare people who are card carrying members of the status quo. And so it's much easier to shoot the messenger than to embrace the message. And so it's much easier. It's much easier. I mean, I'll tell you completely candidly, I spent four years writing the 5am Club. I put my heart and my soul in the book. The models and the art that was done by this amazing artist and every line I wanted calibrated. And you know, people didn't understand what I was trying to do. And when the book first came out, I looked at the Amazon reviews and they were terrible.

Really? Why?

Well, and I just want to say now it's one of the best selling books in the world and it's almost as if the tide shifted once enough people read it and the narrative changed. It was the most interesting thing. But I've actually that really hurt when the book came out. It's like holding your baby out into the world and you know, everyone's looking at it going, you know, just want to tell you your baby is really.

Ugly.

Not so pleasant to look at. Yeah. And you know what I would say is J.K. rowling again, she said for some to love you, some must loathe you. I would say also Bob Dylan, don't criticize what you don't understand. And so if you do anything that's disruptive and also if you put out work that challenges people to leave their comfort zone, to wake up to their genius, if you challenge people to be more loving, to stand for love on a planet that has too much hate, if you challenge people to get up at 5am to spend one hour working on your mentality, purifying any toxicity within your heart set, upgrading your health and longevity, mining your spirituality in a world, selfies and dancing cat videos and.

A.

Lot of superficiality and a culture of comparison, you're gonna, you know, I mean, it's easier for people to shoot you down Versus to embrace the message.

Mm.

Does when we're on unusual times right now, does the 5am routine in the 202020 shift. If things are, there's an excuse, I'm tired, and then there's a shift in the world. Does the 5am club shift at this time? Do people say, you know what, let me really take it easy for a few months, or is that an excuse for too long to get back into your vision?

There are times, for example, as an artist, when I'm writing and it's flowing, and I just know this. Trust your natural cycles, because your higher power, call it your instinct, call it your intuition, call it your artistry, knows what it's doing. So there are times to be productive, and there are times to rest. Now, I very much believe in the 5am club in the 202020 formula. I very much believe that it will create a pharmacy of mastery within your brain. It's been proven by science. You know, even just the simple idea of starting your day with some sweaty exercise. Why sweaty exercises? Because sweat reduce. When you sweat, it'll release the bdnf, which John Ratey at Harvard calls miracle grow for the brain. But just that idea of exercising first thing in the morning will help you become more resilient, peaceful, strong during the day. So, yes, do your morning routine. Yes, run the 202020 formula, and then judge by results. Having said that, if you've been up at three in the morning because you've lost your job, because you're just picking up on the energy of the world right now, where there's so much fear, you're dealing with COVID or you have a family member you've lost as a result of the pandemic, self love, personal care requires that you rest, recover, and do what you need to do. And I think that's one of the things. I say this with great respect, but when I read the books or see people saying, you must be like a robot and follow a morning routine or nightly ritual or whatever your. Your best habits are, I believe there must be room for the hard seasons of life. And you know when my heart has been broken, when I've gone through my periods of suffering, I haven't been as disciplined. I haven't been as rigorous. I've had the inopportune pizza night. And here's what I would also say is my ego. Because a bad day for the ego is a great day for the soul. My ego says, robin, you're not being productive. You're not on your A game. You're Not a warrior. But you know what I've realized I might not be creatively productive according to the definition of society during those cycles or seasons of suffering. But am I not spiritually productive? Am I not emotionally productive? I mean, when does a human being crack the shell of the ego that covers their hearts and learns the human virtues? I mean, Nelson Mandela learned how to be Nelson Mandela in his Robben island season. And so I think we learn honesty and compassion and vulnerability and creativity when things are falling apart, not when they're not in the seasons of sunshine.

Are you a believer that creative people are born with a creative gift or talent more than, let's say, less creative people? Or can any type of creativity be.

Learned over the years?

Yeah.

So thank you so much for setting me up for this. Okay. Number one, almost nobody is talented. Talent is completely overrated. I would argue that you were born with certain physical talents that enabled you to excel in sports that I could never have acquired no matter how hard I tried. Even that said, though, Larry Bird was not born with the kind of talent that Michael Jordan was. Larry Bird just grounded out and shot more practice shots than anybody else. That's a skill.

And hustled.

Yeah, yeah. But the good kind of hustle.

Yeah, exactly.

And so it feels to me like talent is a betrayal. It is undermining all of the people who put all that work into skill. Don't call someone skillful talented, because they're not. They're skillful. So we can agree that playing the piano is a skill in the sense that if you work at it, you get better at it. But I would like to believe that being enthusiastic is a skill, and then so is being creative. It's a skill. You can get better at it. You can choose to put in the work in whatever form it takes. We're not talking about graphic art here, unless you want it to be graphic art to gain the skill. And if that's true, that's really good news because it means you're not stuck where you are. It means you can go to where you want to go. And it's really good news because skills can be acquired. And that fills me with optimism about so many things in our world. You know, we can point to the human condition and say people are just doomed to hate each other and to undercut each other. But I can point to a culture where that's not happening. So how did that happen? Well, it's because it's a skill.

What are the three biggest skills you think all human beings should acquire? Whether it Be creativity or some type of attributes that just make them better human beings. Happier, more, quote unquote, successful, richer lives with relationships, health, everything. What are those three skills? Whether you're 20 or 60, what three skills should we acquire to live a better life?

I love this. Okay, how about this? Number one is the skill of possibility, of seeing that things could be better. Number two, the skill of empathy, practical empathy of understanding. People don't know what you know, don't want what you want, don't see what you see, that they have a noise in your, their head that's different than the noise in your head, and that's okay. And then the third one is the skill of learning how to learn, of being open, to saying, I see possibility. I see people who need to be served, who aren't who I am. And I, if I put enough into this, can figure out how to make a contribution. Those, I think, are three skills.

Yeah, it's really just understanding, emotional intelligence and people and stepping in other people's shoes and having compassion. Why did you choose those three skills over copywriting or.

Well, I got, I have personal finance. There's some, there's some next level tactical ones like decision making is a skill. And almost every western human is terrible at it.

Why? Why are we terrible at it?

Because sunk costs are something that are probably hardwired into us. What a sunk cost means is the harder you worked to have something, the harder it is for you to give it up. And we see this mistake happen all the time. The example I'll give is pre Covid. You've got two tickets to the movies and they were really hard to get. And you told your girlfriend that you were going to go to the movies together. On your way, you bump into a friend who says, I got two front row seats to see Hamilton. Do you want to go? That means your tickets are worthless and a lot of people go. Well, no, no, there's no well, it doesn't matter how much those tickets cost you. They're sunk. You already made that decision. You can't unmake it. And so we stick with the job longer than we should, or we stick to a way of thinking about the world longer than we should because it cost a lot. We went to law school. So now I have to be a lawyer. No, you don't. The law school degree is a gift from your former self. You don't have to take it. You could say, no, thank you, and go do something that gives you joy instead. So sunk cost is a, is a giant skill based area. And then what goes right next to that is the skill of saying, that was a good idea, but I have a better one now.

Ooh.

And that takes practice.

Explain that. So I launched this idea and it started going and I built momentum for a few years, but now this is actually a better idea for the time or for my life or whatever. And so I'm going to let go of that thing and move into this.

Well, it's not that. That's definitely true. That's sunk cost, but then beyond it. Okay, I'm the boss and I built this organization and this is how we do our expense reports. But now we're going to do expense reports this way because it's better. But usually what happens is someone says that problem solved, I don't have to revisit it. So if I think about the car industry, the car industry said, took us 90 years to develop the internal combustion engine. That was a lot of cycles, a big sunk cost. And someone shows up and says, why don't we make electric cars? And you go, because internal combustion isn't broken. Because I can show you that if we look at an early electric car, compared to a state of the art Lexus, the state of the art Lexus is better, not a problem. Whereas what would have transferred billions and billions of dollars of assets away from Elon Musk is if they had said, nope, you're right, we're just going to copy all the things you're doing that are working and make it even better. Because we have an improvement ratchet in place, a dealer network in place, we're trusted, we could go to the races. But senior executives making seven figures said, nope, nothing could be better than this.

Yeah, I tell you what, I got a Tesla a few years ago and it's hard for me to think I'd ever want to go back for a day to day car that's not electric. Personally, it just.

But let's think about Tesla for a minute because Tesla made a whole bunch of decisions a few years ago that they refused to reconsider. Right? That the inside of the car should have no cup holders of a certain kind. That the inside of the car should have these things on the dashboard, but not these things that the service needs. So they're as guilty of the same thing. They took a LEAP, they hired 1,000 people and now they're stuck on their sun costs.

Right? That's true. And they'll be stuck until they innovate or continue to open up. Why do we need reassurance? Why does it Seem like a lot of people need this reassurance. Just every day we need some type of reassurance. And why should we avoid reassurance?

That's the second side. Reassurance is futile. Reassurance feels really good, right? So we get off. We get off this call, the phone's ringing, and Kai comes to you and says, hey, Louis, great job, It's Oprah. And Oprah was listening. She just wants you to know what a great job you did. You're flying for like two hours, maybe three. And then you need to hear it from somebody else. Because what it means to get reassurance is that someone is telling you that the future is going to be okay. And it feels good because we would like the future to be okay. But deep down, we know that that person doesn't know that the future is going to be okay. So as soon as reassurance shows up, it reminds us that we are confronting an uncertain world and we want more of it. We want to be held safely. And it doesn't scale. You can't get enough of it. So what's the alternative? The alternative is to refuse reassurance.

So when someone says, you did a great job, Seth. It was amazing, that was the best thing I've ever seen in my entire life. How do we refuse that?

Well, that the answer is, thank you. I appreciate you being present and giving me that feedback. But it's reassurance if you then say, and your book launch is going to go great, because that you can't know, right? That's the second half of that's what's implied, is that I'm going to tell you about tomorrow. And what's the alternative? The alternative is to say nobody knows about tomorrow, and looking for external validation that I'm going to catch that fish, that that thing I am hoping for is going to work, that other people will get the joke. Not only doesn't it help me, it undermines my trust in myself. It undermines all of the things that I need to merely do the work. So, you know, you've been seduced by, like, me and everyone else with the just do it thing from Nike. And the problem with the word just is that some people think it means, what the hell, do whatever you want. Doesn't matter, just do it. And I think it should be changed to merely do it. Do it without commentary, do it without drama. Simply show up and do the thing. Focus on the practice, not hoping and wishing for the outcome that you need to be reassured by, but the practice. The best you can do it. Because what could be better than the best you could do it? Nothing. So do that. Learn from what works and then do it again. But seeking reassurance is distracting you from doing a better job of what you set out to do in the first place.

I saw somewhere, I don't know if it was an article or video about Oprah talking about almost 100% of her guests. Not everyone, but I think a lot of them at the end of the show would all say the same thing. And I think, you know what I say? It's like, did I do okay? Was that good enough for you?

Yeah.

Did you like that? And it's this kind of reassurance mindset, right, of like knowing that we got approval from the person who's interviewing us or working with us or our publisher. Were the numbers okay for you? Did the sales go okay? How do we gracefully remove that from our way of being moving forward so that we don't have to ask if we did an okay job? And we learn to just say, thank you so much for having me or I'm grateful and whatever else. How should we finish a project like that?

Well, I'm really afraid of the word should. I think should and shame go right next to each other. So I will just tell you that there are practices that you can engage in to help you insulate from feedback that isn't going to help. So here's an interesting story. A bunch of years ago, a famous electronics company did a focus group. The way focus groups work is you set up a trailer next to a shopping mall. You pay people some money, they come in for an hour. There's hidden glass windows, and the client can watch people touch the product. And they had a clock radio, and it had all these gizmos on and everything else. And they got eight people in there, and they're all looking at the clock radio, and they're all talking about how much they love the clock radio. And at the end, the organizer says, thank you so much to thank you for being here. Either you can get the $20 we promised you or the $100 clock radio. Which would you prefer? And every single person took the 20 bucks.

Why?

Because that was the truth. That was the moment that they were actually telling the truth.

Oh, so they thought the clock wasn't as worth as much as A$20?

Yeah. And so what I have found is I got an ego as much as anybody, maybe more. I like it when the people around me say, you did a really good job. When Oprah says, that was Good, for sure. But I want to see, three years later, are people still talking about this idea? Or I just want to see in the afternoon after a blog post, did someone engage with it in a way that changed them when they didn't know that I would notice. Right. Because it's not a performance in that moment. It's did you have an impact? So if you go to Diabeacon in upstate New York and watch what happens when people walk into a Richard Serra sculpture which weighs 2 million pounds, I hope Richard has seen that happen, because that's genuine service. He made this. The curator doesn't matter. The dealer doesn't matter. This person had their breath taken away. That's what was supposed to happen. And it did. And so we play this game with everybody around us, do I look fat in this dress? Et cetera, et cetera. And some of that is totally legitimate. It papers over our momentary insecurities, and there's nothing wrong with that. But when it comes down to the practice and the art that we seek to make, I think it makes sense to surround ourselves with people who say, I respect you. You're onto something. You can do even better. And for us to start a cycle of what happened when this went into the world, because when it's in the world and people had choices, what did I learn? How can I help a different group of people or this group of people make a different choice? And in the workshops that I do, I get to watch all of it, because I'm, like, up here, and you can see all the interactions. That's different than looking at the test scores, because you're watching how people are going back. Yeah.

I think I heard our good friend Gary Vee talking about how when he started in his dad's wine business, he would sit there and watch people walk through the store and say, okay, what if I move this this way? And what if I put this in the front? Did people go and pick it up.

Or do they walk right past it.

Observing the results and the impact that you create on people, whether that's an experiential design or a physical design, whatever it may be. I'm curious. I'm going to try to be mindful of the word should. Is it more powerful for creatives to have goals and deadlines, or is that destructive to the creative process?

Right.

So deadlines are a weird word because they have the word dead in them.

Finish lines or launch lines, whatever you.

Want to call it. I am super disciplined about deadlines. I have never missed a deadline because I Just decided that some people need that tension that comes from being five minutes late. I abhor that. I want to go nowhere near that. So for me, it's fuel. For other people, it might be turbo fuel because they need that five minute over thing, but there are other people who. It completely destroys their work. So you've got to figure out how do you engage with that. But goals is a different thing. So I was talking to somebody, I wish I could give them credit, who was explaining to me that goals are externally focused. And this is one of the things that led to me writing about it in the book. Meaning if you say, my goal is to be a millionaire, that isn't up to you. It's only partly from you. And the rest of it is luck. And so if you're going to say I'm a good person because I'm lucky and I'm a bad person because I'm unlucky, now you're really in trouble. Instead, what we need are practices that we call our thing. That thing we call our goal is I'm going to be the kind of person that ships this much work each day, that gets out of bed at this time, that manages their expenses. So they're always one third of. I mean, you can make a list of things that are completely under your control, call those your goals, and wipe out anything that involves fish, anything that involves something external happening that makes you feel lucky.

So I'm hearing you say focusing more on the things you can control daily. The habits, practices, the actions, your energy, way of being, your compassion daily, as opposed to the end result.

Right? And let's get back to where we started, which is the reason people don't do that because they don't want to hear from their other voice. They don't do that because they don't want to be on the hook. It is easier to catastrophize. It is easier to say I'm distracted. It is easier to say, oh, the world is way too whatever. All those are external things that let you off the hook. And what I remember is I was born a year and a half before the Cuban Missile crisis, right? The world is really in trouble in 2020, but the world was 10 minutes away from being gone in 1962. And so the question is, how did we get from that to Neil Armstrong walking on the moon seven years later? We didn't do it by saying, well, we can't, because Russia could end everything at any minute. We said, well, if Russia is going to end everything in any minute, we might as well send someone to the moon. And my friend Ros Zander helped me learn the difference between but and and. So here we go. If you go on a long planned vacation and it's raining, you could say, I'm on vacation, but it's raining. Doesn't that suck? Or you could say, I'm on vacation and it's raining and the and leaves room for you to say so I can take a cooking lesson so I can have some quiet time with my spouse, so I could figure out how to work for social justice. All of those things happened because it's raining. And so, yeah, it's raining right now. It's really bad. And you can do something. You can't fix everything, but you can make one person better.

What are the habits that you believe would support more creatives if they did these habits on a daily basis? From your 30 plus years of experience of what's worked for you and what you've seen other people you've studied do, what are those few habits you think could really help them further their inner happiness and hopefully accelerate the luck on the outside as well?

Yeah. So we have to not fool ourselves into getting hooked on the external that we'll pretend we're not, but deep down we are. So, you know, Chongyung Trungpa Rinpoche said, the bad news is we are falling and falling and falling. And the good news is there's nothing to hang on to. And as soon as you acknowledge that there's nothing to hang on to, it gets so much easier to fall.

You just let go and you don't.

Have to keep trying to grab for something.

Right. And so it's the grabbing is the biggest thing. I write in the book a little bit about Julia Cameron's morning pages. Most people don't really understand how they work. You're not supposed to get up and write three pages of good prose. You're not supposed to write up get up and write three pages of interesting things. You're simply supposed to get up and write three pages, period, about anything. Junk, garbage, crust, get it off your chest, doesn't matter, just put it down. Because as soon as you do for the rest of the day, if you try to bring it up again, your subconscious. I already wrote that down. I don't need to revisit that. It's taken care of. I wrote it down. I've discharged that. And so part of what it means to have a practice is the practice defines who you are. If you want to be a runner, the best thing to do is go run every day. If you run every day for 30 days, you're a runner. You don't have to subscribe to Runner's World. You don't have to have fancy equipment. You just have to run every day. If you want to be a writer, you have to write every day. And you don't have to show it to anybody. You simply have to do it. And not showing it to people lets you off the hook at some level, but at least you can see yourself as that kind of person. And then the step after that, which I'm a huge fan of, and the Internet makes this easier than ever, is publish it anonymously. I think you should have a daily blog, but don't put your name on it. And after you've written 30 or 40 entries of your daily blog or made five or six episodes of your podcast, you're going to want to put your name on it. And then you can but begin with, and if your name's not on it, it's so delicious because there's no upside and there's no downside. So you're simply doing it. And that's all you're going to get out of it, is that you did it.

Yeah. I want to ask you about money for a second because I think it's a topic that a lot of creatives shy away from. And I think this will actually be. Might be some of the most powerful stuff people hear is around the topic of money. You've been financially successful. You launched a business 30 years ago that you sold and exited. You've had, you know, many hits in your books and businesses. You've made money as a creative. Fair to say that.

How can.

What should creators be thinking about in terms of what do they want to create great work, but also they want to be rich, they want to make millions. They want to for the heck of it, to support their family, their lifestyle. They want to make money. What should they be thinking about in terms of art and money and marrying the both without it feeling bad or icky or I'm selling myself in a bad way to make money? How can they approach it mentally so that it doesn't cripple them, but they achieve the results they want?

My answer may surprise some people, but here we go. The odds that you will make a lot of money doing exactly what you want are zero to a rounding error.

Zero.

It is possible to make a lot of money. It is easier now for people of privilege to do it than most any other time in history because of the network effect, because of the power of software because of tools that give you reach to millions of people. The way you make a lot of money is you figure out what people with money want to spend that money on to solve their problem now, and you go solve that problem and then over time you amplify their need and you let them do it again. That is how everybody, with few exceptions, who has made a lot of money has done it. Those people don't get to say, oh, but I also have this idea and I need to express it because I think it's generous. Those are different things. And only in the last hundred years has it even been conceivable that you could get paid money to do what you love. This is brand new idea. So I am in favor of doing what you love and charging for it if you can, because it holds you responsible, puts you on the hook, creating tension, serving people you want to serve. And maybe you'll get paid a little bit. But if you want to make a lot of money, listen to the market and show up to the market with something the market wants to buy, because you don't get to insist that the market is wrong when you're asking the market to pay you something.

So what are some of the habits.

Then that you learned over the years that the millionaires have that the rest.

Of people don't have?

So this is going to sound, this one's going to sound crazy, but this is one that I, I shouldn't say it sounds crazy, it sounds too simple. But this one has been a passion of mine for the last, probably two years more than ever. Last six months especially. I told you before, with, with being a dad, you know, you always want to be able to look in the mirror no matter how much money you're making and what you're doing for a living and look at that person and say, are you good with you? Like, are you compromising who you are? Are you going against your values to be successful? But you know, you just, you have to have that conversation with the man in the mirror, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

But when you have kids, it compounds times a thousand. Anybody watching who knows exactly what I'm saying? Kids don't do what you say, they do what you do. So you have somebody watching. If I want to be the best dad possible, I want to, I need to keep evolving and faster than ever. So I would say a morning routine, this is just one of them that's been huge in my life, is setting my day up for success. And you know, in an interview like this, there's so many different directions we can go. But I want to give some really strong takeaways here. Is everybody watching? We suffer on all different levels of suffering. We. Some people suffer on a high level. Some people suffer because is the job going to get done? Is the. Is the deal going to come through? Like, we have these moments of suffering, no matter if it's five minutes of suffering or an hour suffering or months of suffering. Some people lose a relationship and they suffer for years. Some people have a partner, take their money, they suffer for years and they're stuck in this net. And if you can limit the time you suffer, the more you can work on the solutions to better your life. People stuck in suffering are stuck forever. And we know right now I'm saying it, and you're thinking of friends that you have that are stuck. Some they went. Found some suffering and they just crippled.

Or moments where I was suffering and I didn't let go of it.

You can't let go of it. Right.

Or I held onto it for too.

Long and it hurt me.

Right. And if you hold on to it, there's not enough energy or focus to keep moving forward. That's when you still. Right.

Yeah.

So what I've been on this obsession and literally Tony Robbins flew out him and I got really close, he flew out and him and I had lunch about nine months ago. And he's on the same thing, like eliminating, like complete suffering gone. Like, instead of hours or weeks, it's moments that you catch it. So morning routines help me more than ever. And I'll tell you mine. Anybody wants to steal this? This works for me because I want to set my days up for least amount of suffering, feeling grateful and ready to, you know, just rock at the day. Like, nothing can get me off now. Everybody knows gratitude is a key to success, happiness, joy. You can't be grateful and depressed, grateful and sad. You just can't do the two together. But it's hard. Sometimes I feel like the Roadrunners before your time. But when I was a kid, remember beep beep, the roadrunner, there was the Tasmanian Devil.

Yep.

So most of our lives with Facebook and social media and cell phones and tech, we're like the Tasmanian Devil. There's so much dust around us, it's hard to, like, see through it. Right. Like, it's like, I just got to get through this storm and then I'll be okay. How do I. You want me to set a goal and be grateful? Like, get out of this dust storm. Right. So I just obsessed on how Do I start my day to make sure it doesn't happen? So one thing I do is at night, put your. I put my phone on airplane mode. And for the last year, especially when I wake up in the morning, I do not check email or texts because I can't if I check email or.

Text, especially in bed. Right?

Right. And who. And I've done a few years. I'm not telling something I haven't done. But the great text put me in a good mood. Bad text, I become the anxious. Yeah. If you're like, you know, I should get this done. I should just get this out of the way. Right. And you become the thermometer of life. Life just grabbed ahold of you and they're going to tell you how your day is going to be. I don't know if I'm going to adjust you on the heat, up the ice cold or stressed or anxious or. So I leave my phone on airplane mode. And the first thing I do is I feed my soul. Right? And that's not this. I'm just being honest. I don't chant. I don't do hours of meditation. What I've done is I've lowered the bar of gratitude. Now, these are habits that you think, oh, this is revolution. These are the habits that I look, have made me successful, make me keep going forward, push through the negative times, keep reaching for the next thing. So I find gratitude. But I've lowered the bar and I just said this. But I'll wake up some mornings and be like, damn, these sheets are amazing. You know, I mean, 150,000, you can Google it. 100. 150,000 people die every day. There's some days I just wake up and go, damn, I'm not one of them. I'm here. And when you can find gratitude on the lowest level, not I conquered, I did. Look, I see your wall. You've interviewed such amazing people. You got to be so proud of yourself. I look at it, I admire it. That's amazing goals. But sometimes we just set ourselves up until you get the next one of those pictures up there. The rest of stuff is just mundane. It's not. We're in this beautiful world. We're blessed every day. We're learning every moment. Even an interview like this, take, take all the stuff I say. Throw most of it away. If you get one thing I say today, it was worth your time with us being together. Just. Just one thing, right? So I find a way to be grateful in, like the first few moments. I wake up by lowering the Bar, no big special thing. Or sometimes I'll open a book like, I just read the Untethered Soul for the second time. Love that book. I'll read two sentences out loud, and then I feed my body. So I immediately get up and I do. I mean, it's just my personal thing, but I do a glass full, big glass of water with a lemon, a green juice, some essential oils, and I down that because I feel like I'm feeding my body. And then I go move. Whether it's workout, run, exercise, and someone isn't working out, I just move. And those three things set me up for a successful day. And then when I get back, this is something I've been doing for a year. And I'd say, rob this because there's things that, listen, you're in business. There's things that you love to do. It's your core competency you were put on this earth to do. It's interviewing, it's meeting people, it's networking. Whatever you have is meant to be. But there's some things that you do. It's like, I don't want to do that conference call. I don't want to sit with my accountant and go over numbers, whatever it is, right? And I used to think, man, I have to do that today. And I just switched that in the mornings. I write a quick little list every day of what I get to do. I just put that word, what I get to do. When I think about that, I used to. I used to literally live in a bathroom with my dad and I in my teens. I worked on cars every day and smoked, you know, smelled fumes because I was like, the rooms were always smoky. I was the only one painter in our collision shop. And I'd have headaches and, like, I could be doing that. So I have to do conference calls on Tuesdays, and I don't like conference calls. I'm not a victim anymore. Right. And again, on every level, it's. It makes a difference.

I love it.

Any other hab or any other thing.

In the morning that you.

You do?

No, that's it. That's my morning routine.

Are there any non negotiables every day for you besides the routine?

No, not really. Yeah, I'm pretty flexible.

Yeah.

Okay, cool. There's a part, actually that I wanted.

To go over in your book called the Seven Levels Deep.

Is that what it is?

Yeah.

And this is an exercise that you do, right? And what is this exercise for?

And how does it go?

Okay, so seven Levels Deep was probably the biggest Impact. The biggest thing in the impact of my life ever.

Really?

Yeah, one. One day. So I hired a guy named Joe Stump. Do you know Joe Stump?

No.

Great guy. He's in the marketing world. But I hired him because I want more engagement with my students. So it's. It's all about if you can get somebody to digest some of your book. If somebody will read 30 pages of your book, they'll read the whole book. How do you get them to the first 30 pages? So I'm always obsessing and trying to create ethical bribes, whatever get you to take action. Right. We know books work. It's the books and the action. So I was always. So anyway, so Joe comes in and he. I said, I want to do whatever I can. And he said, have you ever done the seven levels deep? I don't know where he got it from. This is probably about eight years ago. She was two. So about eight years ago. And I said, if it's good, just give it to me.

Right, Right.

I'll take it. And he's like, I want to go through it with you. I'm like, listen. And I paid Joe ten grand for half a day of consulting at the time. And he's like. I said, I want to go through. I just want it. He goes, I won't give it to you unless you do it. So we sit there and what the steps seven levels deep is finding. Everybody wants to know your purpose and what's this meaning of life and what's my why and all that I get. And it's kind of played out, but I don't know if anything really gets to the heart of it as simple as this. So what it basically was, he's like, why would you give me ten grand for half a day? And I said, because I want to create a company that stands out from everybody else. I want to engage more students, change more lives. And he basically said to me, that's a really great answer. So I asked you why I'm here, and you said, you want to engage more students and get more people to change your life. So why is it important for you to engage more students and change people's lives? And I remember saying, you know, there's a lot of people in this industry that shouldn't be here, and there's some great people. I want to help rise all boats of the good and push the rest down. I want to leave a legacy for my kids. So he said, okay, I asked you why you pay me ten grand. I'm not gonna go through this. Whole thing. And he's like, you did this. You know, you said you wanted to stand out and you wanted to leave a legacy. So why is it important to leave a legacy? And the whole point is asking. Asking the previous question seven times I took that that day. By the time I got to the third question, what happens is the third. When there was three questions left, I should say he asked me four times. It switched from my head to my heart, and I felt my physiology change. I felt my emotions change. I felt like tears welling up. And when he asked me, and I don't even remember what the fourth thing I said, but the third thing I said was, I never want to go backwards. And he got me thinking about things I haven't thought about in years. I didn't like being the kid with hand me downs, and I'd make my parents drop me off down the street with their junky car and I'd go to lunch. And this is not a poor me. I. My life was designed to be exactly the way it was or I wouldn't be the man or the father I am today. But there was days I'd go to school without lunch money and I just tell my buddies, I'm not hungry because we didn't have a buck, right? So I never want to go back there. And I felt that emotion and it hit me so hard. I'm like, that's what it is. And he's like, well, there's two more left. So he said, dean, why is it important that you never go backwards? And I'm like, I don't know. And it hit me and I thought, my kids, I just want to give them options. I don't want to raise entitled kids or brats, but I want to give them options that I didn't have. And I'm like, that's it. So he's like, well, that's not really it, because it's seven, it's not nine, it's not five, it's seven levels deep. And by now I'm crying because I'm thinking about my kids, literally. And I got half my staff there and I'm like, just weeping. And it came to me. He said, why is that important? And it just hit me. And I never knew why I worked so hard since I was cutting firewood in high school and did all this stuff. I said, I need to be in control of my life. And these emotions flooded in my parents. Everybody's got their thing, right? But for me, and I'm saying this because I want you at Home to be or when you're watching this, listen, I realized that my parents were married nine times when I was a kid, so I moved 20 times by the time I was 19. Different stepbrothers, stepson.

Both parents were married.

Five for my dad, five for my mom, four for my dad. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, it's crazy. Always moving. Like military kids know what that feels like, right? So I'd be in a cul de sac with a new stepdad, stepbrother, stepsisters have the bike, come home one day, and my mom's like, we're moving again. And then I move in. My dad move in with my grandmother. So I had this crazy hopscotch.

My whole child certainty.

There was no certainty. So what I realized at that moment, literally, I'm bawling loose. I mean, like, literally crying. It's like, I don't want anybody to ever tell me when to move, how to dress, how to live, how to work, who, how I'm going to raise my kids. Definitely not going to kiss somebody's ass for money, right? And I realized at that moment, my why was I don't want to be a control freak. I just want to be in control. When I was 27, I retired both my parents. I stopped worrying about them. I took care of my grandmother. I take care of some like. So I got those problems out of the way and why anchored that in. And you watching at home, it's like, if you think you're watching this because you want to be an entrepreneur, you want. Or you already are. If you're watching, watching this, you've already had great success in your life. You want that next level. Or maybe it's income or. Or better health or better diet or better physiology, whatever it is you want. So many times we think it's because I want to get out of that job. I want this freedom. I just want more money. I want to take the better vacations. And it's seven times deeper than that.

Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. Thanks for being here. Make sure you click the subscribe button below on YouTube or subscribe over on audio on Apple Podcast and Spotify, leave a comment below as well. Let me know what you enjoyed most about this and I'll see you guys next time. If you feel like you aren't deserving of a loving relationship, a loving partner, you're most likely going to attract the wrong type of people in your life. And if you're focusing on how much money you don't have in your life right now or how your business could fail. You're not going to be able to focus your energy on the right clients.