The 7 Ways To MANIFEST Abundance & SUCCESS | Lewis Howes
Lewis Howes spent hours daily in a meditation dome visualizing his goals after learning from Dr. Joe Dispenza that manifestation requires feeling the outcome, not just thinking it. He built five core habits—early rising, meditation, clean diet with intermittent fasting, gym work, and biomechanical correction—tracking every metric to compound improvements in confidence and energy.
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Abundance is holistic. It's a holistic experience. You got to feel it right here. Like I am. It's all I am. I am. I am in my dream home. I am in my dream relationship. And then unpack what that looks like.
But most importantly, how important is visualization in abundance? But then also how important is taking action?
Right.
So I have five visualization exercises in that book. Just because it's so important. Visualization is A gift to your heart and your soul. It's a gift. Because if the idea is the seed, visualization is the fertilizer. It's the fertilizer because when your thoughts are connected with an emotion, see you would visualize yourself winning and you would feel all the emotion that came with that. And all you're doing now is you're not chasing a foreign emotion. You know the feeling and now you're just doing what's necessary to get back to that feeling in real time. Exactly. And so, what a good friend of mine, Vishen, the CEO of Mindvalley, who you know, I did a visualization with him. We were in Bali and he said to me afterwards, I never get emotional.
I can't get emotional. He doesn't get emotional.
Right, right, right.
He was like, I cried. I got emotional. He goes, I figured it out. It's visualization, a good visualization brings in emotion. He was like, that's how you do it. And so, I love doing visualizations because, and it's real important in the visualization, you can't see it over there. You have to see it right here. You gotta feel it right here. Like I am, it's all I am. I am, I am in my dream home. I am in my dream relationship. And then unpack what that looks like. But most importantly, unpack what it feels like. And when you have that, that emotion in this moment, all of a sudden, you stir up something that I don't think will ever go back to sleep. It'll go, okay, let's go get that. And what it really does is it sets up a state of cognitive dissonance. And cognitive dissonance is when you see something in your mind and you see yourself in a way that your behaviors are not currently leading to us. So your mind becomes disrupted and it goes, okay, can we get there?
Right? Because I'm not there right now.
I'm not there right now. And that's not comfortable. Your mind wants to literally be congruent. What it thinks is what you're doing, what what it thinks is what you're doing. And so when you set up a constant and abundant thinkers like you and I, we do it unconsciously. We, we're constantly keeping ourselves in a state of cognitive dissonance, meaning, okay, what else? And I'm seeing Lisa over there and I'm going, okay, let me go. While, while being grateful for my now. Yeah, it's not in that. I'm going to be whole and complete when I get over there. I'm whole and complete now. I just know I'm supposed to be over there. So let me do what's necessary to get over there. And let me evict any behaviors or characteristics that are stopping me and let me adopt any new ones that I need.
Right, right. How does someone discover their unique calling? Because you talked about that in the book, discovering your unique calling. What if people are like, I don't even know what I want. I know I want to be out of the place I'm in. I want to be abundant, wealthy, healthy, great relationships.
But I don't know what my purpose or calling is right now. I think that people put too big of a notion on purpose in that they think that it has to look like a Nelson Mandela or a Mother Teresa or Oprah or a you or I. And a lot of times what you're really good at is right in front of you. What you're really great at is right in front of you. And to recognize that your calling and your purpose can change. That it can change. You have a long lifetime. It's not going to be the same calling the whole time. And so allow yourself to evolve. Allow your purpose to evolve. What's that thing you do effortlessly that you you give no credit to because you're, you're just looking past, oh, it can't be that because it's not hard. Well, how about it doesn't have to be difficult? How about the fact that you're a great listener? How can you take that and use that and expand it and, and don't compare yourself to someone else. Comparison, I think Benjamin Franklin said, comparison is the thief of all joy. It's all, when you look left or right, you know, people are always comparing me to Oprah Winfrey or Iyanna Van Zandt or, or Les Brown or Tony Robbins. I said, listen, I will, if you want me to give you Oprah or Iyanla or Tony or Les, I'm always going to 1000% fail you. But if you're ever interested, I do a damn good Lisa Nichols. I do a good Lisa Nichols. And so when you look at what are my gifts, what are my unique gifts, I knew very early on I was a gifted speaker. I wasn't certified as a gifted speaker. I haven't passed any courses as a speaker. Matter of fact, the last time I took a speech class, I got a D minus, and my speech teacher told Miss Nichols, I recommend you never speak in public that you get a desk job. That was in my freshman year of college, the last speech class I took. So a lot of times your gift and your purpose, you've discounted it, either because someone else discounted it or what's more common is you don't know how to monetize it. And sometimes the greatest gift you have to give is not for fee, it's for free. You watch people like you and I and go, well, why can't I get paid for it? Well, not every gift you're supposed to get paid for. Nelson Mandela did not get paid for leading 27 years. When he got out of prison, he got paid after that, but he was a great leader while he was in prison. And Martin Luther King, he was a, he got paid from the church, but his fight for civil rights, that was a free one, and he paid the highest cost. And you can go on and on and on to some of the greatest leaders, Mahatma Gandhi. They weren't a paycheck. Right. And so, and I'm not, and I know we're scaled down to our version.
But don't get attached to having to get paid for your gift. Right. Yeah, I started this podcast as a way of I'm gonna do this for free for a year. I'm not gonna take any sponsors. I'm not gonna do anything. I'm not gonna sell anything. I'm just gonna create and facilitate great conversations. And that's it. And now the money is coming in.
Because of how it's impacted people's lives.
And your intention was in the right place. Yeah, but I wasn't like how can I do this right now to make money?
It was how can I serve the maximum number of people? That right there. That when people live in a place of servant leadership, my grandmother said when I was 24, if you leave and how you, how can you serve the most people? When I sit with my team, I go, how can we serve more people? How can we serve? Last year we were able to touch 30 million people. How, and that's all our question now as we serve, our platform gets broader, but how can we serve? Don't tell me how we can make more money. I'm not interested in that. I'm going to show how can we serve more? Because if I do the right thing for the right reasons, everything I need will be a byproduct of that. Exactly. So I think we get caught up in, you know, Society allows us to have us, has us looking at possessions. and so we begin to measure our joy and our abundance on possessions. I have a friend who's worth, he's worth $14 billion. How do you even write that? I had to write it down so I could see it.
How many zeros is that?
Right, right, a lot. He's worth $14 billion. I checked my email on my phone before we started and he's on my phone asking me, Please come visit me, because he's lonely. He's rich. But he's not abundant. Yeah, he flew from Canada to come to my house for New Year's just to be around people who were celebrating and wanted nothing from them and so don't pursue the things pursue the acts of service and everything you need will come. I promise you.
Yeah, that's powerful. Let's talk about the four E's. What is this principle of the four E's that you talk about in your book?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so that I like to break up my life in quadrants and I help my students. I do a lot of coaching. I do personal development and professional development coaching. And no matter where you come to me, whether you come to me for personal development or whether you want to turn your passion into profit and this professional development and business development for entrepreneurs, we go over the four E's because abundance is holistic. It's a holistic experience. So the first is enrichment of self, that you are only going to go as far as you think you're worthy. I can push, you can push, you can have the greatest product, but if you don't feel worthy, you will work hard to sabotage that relationship because your self-worth says they weren't gonna stay forever anyway. Or self-worth around money, you have a cap that you feel like you're worthy of a million dollars. You will always get to 999,000 and you will stop because your self-worth says it. So enrichment is number one.
What's a good exercise or process that we can follow on a daily basis, maybe something simple, to enhance our enrichment and worthiness.
Absolutely. I did this for six months, every single day, right after I brushed my teeth. And it's the I See youe Exercise. And you get in the mirror. Now, it's not necessarily simple, because you're dealing with yourself. Of course. And as complicated as you are, will be the degree. Well, the mechanics of it are simple. The mechanics are very simple. Yes, I appreciate that distinction. You get in the mirror and you complete three different sentences. You want to write this down. the first sentence, you look at yourself and you say your name. So you say, Louis, and you complete this. This is I'm proud that you and find seven different things every day to celebrate yourself for seven different each day. You can do the same thing you did the day before, but each day do seven different things to be proud of. The second sentence is going to knock you down a little bit. It's going to come from your gut. Louis, I forgive you for and cut the shackles to blame, shame. guilt, regret and anger. In that sentence, you cut those five shackles. Not the first day, maybe not the third day, but by the 21st day, by the 13th day, you'll feel some relief. So, Louis, I forgive you for and go back five years, 15 years, 20 years, do that, forgive you for that thing don't nobody know about, but you go ahead and cut those shackles. Because if you can still think about it, it's still in your energy space. And then the third sentence is, Louis, I commit to you that Before you make a commitment to anybody else throughout your day, you make seven commitments to you. So the first sentence is, I'm proud that you, you're celebrating yourself first. We are under-celebrated as a society. We look for acknowledgement. They interviewed 100 executives that all made over a quarter of a million dollars and said, Would you like a 5% raise next year or would you rather be told thank you more often? 100% said, Keep your money. I'd rather hear thank you. So we're under celebrated. But first, celebrate you. Be the example. When I was on Oprah, when she said, what do you do? I said, I recognize that I'm the example of how the rest of the world is supposed to treat me. And it's my job to give the world the best example of how I like to be treated. So celebrate yourself, forgive yourself, cut the shackles, and then commit to yourself before you commit to anyone else. That right there, powerful.
That right there will begin to fill your cup up.
To get to your sausage.
I love that. Where did you start to learn that process? Was that something you just started to practice yourself and started looking in the mirror and trying different things?
And you, boy, you asked the question. I was in a relationship engaged to be married, and it became abusive. I was emotionally abused. And then he picked me up and threw me three feet across the room and choked me until I passed out. I don't tell a lot of people that. And I was suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder. And my mother asked me to go to the doctor, strongly recommended. I go to the doctor, drug me to the doctor. And after the assessment of me in Manhattan Beach, my doctor said that I was clinically depressed. And I said, How did I get here? Me? That don't even fit with my name. I was head cheerleader in my high school. I was the captain of the track team. I'm always the person to get people going. It didn't fit. How did I get here? I don't know if you've ever found yourself saying, how did I get here? I was sitting on the table in the doctor's office saying, how did I get here? And when she wrote me the prescription, she handed me the prescription and I read the prescription and it said Lisa Nichols Prozac. It was like I was looking at a foreign statement, my name and Prozac. and I asked her, I said, can I try something for 30 days? Because I realized I was just sad. I lost me. I had lost me in him. I had lost me in being a mother. I had lost me in being the mother of a son whose father was in prison and trying to hide that shame and then trying to make this man happy and then beginning to fend for my life. I lost me. So I needed to discover me. I needed to remind myself who I was. And so I just realized I didn't celebrate me. I was beating myself up. I was really mad at me and I was showing up for everyone else. So I just made up these sentences and I did it to rescue myself, to turn my crawl into a walk. And I ultimately was able to turn my crawl into a walk and my walk into a run and my run into a soar. But it started out as a crawl. So I don't offer the how I got to that exercise often unless someone asks.
Thank you very much, darling. Thanks for sharing.
Yeah, I'm glad you're opening up. I've long since learned four things. To me, this is the road to true freedom. I have nothing to prove. I have nothing to protect. I have nothing to hide, and I have nothing to defend. that your perception of me after I tell my truth is actually none of my business. My perception of me that I go to bed as whole and complete as I woke up before I check how many likes I have on Facebook that I like me first and every other like is bonus.
There you go.
Like it. That was a long road to get to long road.
Sure.
Long road.
Yeah, we probably have to constantly be reminded of it, you know, and then when I get in that place and.
Then when I when I live like I'm forgetting youg have to have accountability partners stashed in the corners of your life and you have to give them assignment on your high day youy have to give them an assignment on your high day if I look like I'm.
Slipping well my ego's in the way.
Get in my face get in my face right get in my face and remind me of the man of the woman I see said I wanted to be. Don't let me off the hook for the 2020 version of me.
Because we're humans, it's gonna happen. As long as we're breathing, we're gonna.
Be out of integrity at some point. Come on. Your humanity's gonna get in the way.
Your ego, our ladies, your she-go is going to get hooked.
Exactly. Absolutely. Your resentment, your smallness, your everything. Just smallness. It all fits in smallness. I'm human. And so the best thing I do is to keep people around me to.
Hold me accountable to the woman I said I want to become. Sure. That's great. I love that. That's why I have a lot of people from the Midwest who work with me on my team, support me, keep me grounded.
Right, right, right, right, right. Like, don't get too Hollywood. Exactly.
Don't get caught up in the lights and the cameras and the daggon headset. Exactly. Exactly.
Absolutely. Okay, enrichment. That's the first part. The second part is enchantment. Relationships are going to define the quality of your life. When you're on your bed on your last days, you're going to want to know who's going to be around you. Bottom line, you're not going to care about another podcast. You're not going to care about another sponsor. I'm not going to care about another book or the freaking New York Times best. It matters to us now. But the relationships in your life are going to determine the quality of your life. And so mind your relationships. And so in the book Abundance Now, I teach you how to, how to heal broken relationships that matter to you, how to get back level set. I give you this great, this great tool called, it's a, it's a, it's a, a conversation to heal a broken experience. So it's called a communication charter. I use it in my company, I use it at my house. And so just is about how do I keep great relationships? And then the third area is engagement, work engagement. You're gonna spend so much time in work and we're so emotionally attached to our work. And most of the time people are attached in such a dismal way that why would you have that dismal energy around something you're going to spend so many hours in? So I teach you how to shift your energy towards your work so that you no longer look at it as your work now, it's no longer your JLB. Like everyone in my community, everyone in my tribe, they no longer say they have a job. They say, I have an investor. And when you look at your job as your investor, you really rename it as your investor. And it's investing in your breathtaking future. It has the capacity to buy anything you want for your future. If you mind your money, right?
Right.
It can buy your freedom. And all of a sudden, you start treating your investor better and you're more excited about going. Matter of fact, you're grateful. You're grateful for your investment. I feel like work. Man, my investor, was LA Unified School District. That was a hard place to be when it was a job. I'm just telling you, but as an investor, for three and a half years, I wrote myself a check and I put in the memo line, funding my dream. I didn't even know what the dream was. I wasn't even clear. I just knew whatever my dream was, it was gonna cost some money and I needed to pay and I need to have some money to pay and that if I was gonna ask other people to invest in me, I had to be my first investor. Who am I to ask someone to put money my way when I didn't put money my way? So I wanted someone for them to match, just match my investment in me. I got 10 in, can you put 10 in? I got 20 in, can you put 20 in? And so when you look at your job, your work engagement as an investor into your breathtaking life, all of a sudden there's a different energy around it. And then the last one is money endowment. And to recognize more than the Dr. Seuss family and the Disney family and the McDonald's family and the Lawrence Welk family has a right to an endowment. When you get the understanding, and I really unpack it here where you kind of go, what? Like, I'll make you do a couple of Scooby-Doo looks in the book.
Roll, roll, roll.
When you look and go, I can do an endowment, like I, like, because we think it's for them. Remember, I started this conversation with abundances for those people over there, especially when it comes to an endowment or a living legacy, like in your book and be creating a legacy to recognize that, wait a minute, there's a Lewis endowment and a Lisa endowment and a Don and John and Tanya endowment and fill in the blank here endowment. And I need to live my life. to set up my endowment. All of a sudden, you become responsible for generations to come, responsible for changing the trajectory of your family's life. That's some bold stuff. When in your lifetime, you do a needle point move for your family. In my lifetime, I was able to do a needle point move for my son. Like he's a Nichols child. He's one of many Nichols men. But that's a Nichols man who now knows what it feels like to cook in Italy and in Tuscany and in Florence and in Venice and in Rome. That's a Nichols child who knows what it feels like to go surfing on the Gold Coast of Australia. That's a Nichols child who understands what it feels like to stand on the tallest mountain in Africa, like his life. I asked him this morning, I said, Jelani, can you, when you get married and have children, can you stay in California so Mommy can really see her grandchildren? He goes, well, Mom, that's kind of restrictive. It's restrictive to stay in big California. He's like, Mom, it's kind of, because he knows the world. Yeah. His paradigm shift has occurred. He won't ever live like another and he'll take everything he's learned and expand the Nichols male child experience. So in my generation, in my lifetime, I was able to change our family experience for him. And so I believe that we have a right to look at our legacy and create a living legacy and then create a legacy.
Are we stressing our minds? No, there is an entire, there is a mind across the this body. What is it that you call as a mind? A certain combination of memory and intelligence is mind.
It's our whole body is mind. Yes.
In yoga we see physical body, mental body, energetic body, etheric body, bliss body like this, everything is body. Because it is right across, it is not in any one place. Only intellectual activity is here. Okay? Right now, because modern societies, particularly Western societies, have become such slaves of their intellect. Because of that, they think everything is here. Intellect works only with the data that you have gathered. You cannot function beyond your data. That means you will remain so small. Because even if you have read the libraries on this planet, what you know in terms of data is minuscule compared to what this cosmos is. With that minuscule, you think you are very intelligent because you are analyzing and processing. Anyway, all these people who think they are intellectually very smart are going to feel dumb, stupid in the next five years because your phone will be far more smarter than you. Already people are calling it a smartphone. See, why would you call somebody or something smart only because it's smarter than you, right?
Right.
Yeah. Yeah.
Otherwise you wouldn't. All right. So right now, too much dependence on intellect because our education systems are crafted like this, not exploring other dimensions of intelligence at all. See intellect, if I ask you this simple question, would you like your intellect to be sharp or blunt? Choose quickly. I'm going to bless you.
Yes.
So essentially intellect is like a knife. If you want to dissect something, it's very good.
Yeah.
So now the only instrument that you have is a knife in your hand. You want to stitch your clothes. If you stitch your clothes with the knife, what will happen? You will be in tatters. This is what is happening to people's lives. They are trying to fix everything with their intellect. The harder they try, the more tatters they have become. With all this education, tell me, uneducated people are more unhappy or educated people are more unhappy in the world.
It depends what type of education.
Generally illiterate people in the rest of the world, tribes and this and that, even in India, many, many people.
Whenever I visit, I go to Guatemala almost every year and I visit small villages and the kids seem so happy.
Yeah. So they didn't go to school like me.
They don't have much, but they have family, they have community. What do you mean?
They don't have much.
I mean, they don't have much in terms of material things.
They are not environmentally disastrous. That's what you were saying.
Right, exactly.
Yeah.
They don't have a lot in the material side of things, but they have a lot in their hearts, richness, connection, community, love, and they seem very happy.
Uneducated people or illiterate people are happier than the educated people. With education, your life should have become better, isn't it? Unfortunately, they are becoming unhappy simply because They only have sharpened their knife and a sharp knife in your hand and you're unconscious, you're cutting yourself all the time. All the time cutting yourself. You don't need any outside help.
You can stab yourself.
See, people come to me and say, Sadhguru, my boss is horrible, my mother-in-law she's not even human, my wife she's such a pain, my husband like this. I say, you, come here to the Yoga Center. I'll make sure your boss, mother-in-law, wife, husband, nobody enters this place, just you. I'll give you a nice place to live, good food to eat, nothing to do. Just be happy, that's all.
Yeah.
You must be just joyful. I'll make random checks on you. If I find you unhappy or miserable, then I won't feed you because I don't believe in feeding misery. If you remain joyful, I will feed you for the rest of your life and take care of you like you're my prized guest. But if you show misery, we won't feed you. Well, you leave them in one room for twenty-four hours. You will see in how many ways they'll twist themselves out is unbelievable. Because when you are alone, if you are miserable, obviously you are in bad company, isn't it?
Right?
I'm with you. I'm miserable. I think it's because of this guy I am miserable, this guy I am miserable. I am sitting here alone and miserable. Now who?
Right.
Who is causing misery?
How do we get out of that though?
No, essentially one must understand human experience is caused from within, not from outside.
Right.
What we do, arrangements we do outside in the form of home, family, automobile, this, that, These are arrangements to facilitate our activity. They are not going to make you happy or unhappy, but right now the car sellers are telling you only this is joy, this car... I'm sorry, I'm not against any brand. I like the brand. They say, this car is joy. Another somebody else says, this car is love. Oh, all the best.
This is power, this is... yeah.
Power is okay car has power. But where is love extruding from the engine or joy extruding from the engine?
All right?
Power, all right. But right now, if you, you know, this is something I have been noticing, it's only in recent times, probably last 10-15 years. If you look at any car advertisement, I look at every advertisement, whether they're selling an automobile or a machine or a crane or an earth mover, because I'm interested in anything that works, not that I'm going to buy them. So, when I look at it, car adds, nobody is telling you what's the engine, what's the transmission, what's the power, what's the torque, nothing. They're talking about the leather, they're talking about the wood paneling, they're talking about the stereo. Are you buying a sitting room? You want to buy a drawing room or do you want a car? If I want a car, I would look at the engine, how it is made, what does it do, No, nothing. Only... Why is that? Because they are buying a car for neighbours envy. They are not buying a car because they love to drive a good machine. It's always about being better than somebody else.
Why do we obsess over that in general? And is that mostly in America or do you see that all over?
No, no, it's everywhere. America kind of setting the, you know, path breaking.
The standard. We're the best at trying to be the best.
So this is unfortunate cultivation that is happening from kindergarten. If you are going to school, what your parents will say, you must be number one. If you are number one, what about all the other 30-40 kids who are there? They must be below you.
They're losers.
They're losers. So your joy is only in other people failing. When your joy is about other people's misery, That's not joy, that is sickness.
Phew!
Right now whole world is invested in this. It's not just America. America kind of displaces it like that. Not that it's not there everywhere else in the world, everywhere it's there, but here it's being shamelessly displayed. They are little shy everywhere, rest of the world, but still they got it.
Yeah.
What would the world look like if we chose to lift everyone up and celebrate other people succeeding or being happy or whatever it looks like for them to succeed, what would the world look like?
See, I see in America, everybody keeps talking about family, family, family. But you've forgotten just maybe a century ago, yeah, maybe a century ago or even 70 years ago or 50 years ago. If you said family, it crime.
Why?
Because the families were running the crime. Oh, wow.
The family crime. Gotcha.
Yeah.
They always refer to crime as family. Because family is a crime.
Really?
Let me come to that. I know this will get me into trouble. See, there is only one crime and there's only one evil in the world that is limited identity. How much crime you will commit? Simply depends on how empowered you are.
Say one more time, how much crime you...
Commit. Simply depends on how empowered you are.
How empowered you are?
Yeah.
So do I want to be...
If you are highly empowered and your identity is very limited, you will do terrible things. So the most important thing is to enhance or to expand one's identity.
How do we do that?
See, for example, traditionally in the yogic culture in India, before we start education for a child, the first and foremost thing is that he must take a cosmic identity.
A cosmic identity?
Yes. He has to take that.
What does that look like? So if I'm a child in your.
Teaching, so the thing is, one thing is there is a mantra which says that, that he has to say it again and again. He has to look at the sky and say it, he look at the earth and say it, look at the air and say it, look at the fire and say it, all the elements of water and say it, because these are all the composition of the cosmos. You look at empty space and say it, you look at water and say it, you look at fire and say it, you look at earth and say it, so that you understand your identity is limitless. Why this is being done is Why this is being done is education is seen as an empowerment. You should not empower a person who has a limited identity because he will cause havoc. I'll take the worst example which will get me into trouble.
Sure.
See, everybody talks about you're not even supposed to mention this name, Adolf Hitler. Well, many people have been there who caused enormous pain to other human beings.
Human beings.
But I don't think anybody managed to organize it, mechanize it and really deliver it like a factory of misery, like this mandate. All right? It's a factory.
Yeah.
Literally a factory of misery, manufacturing misery, properly organized. But do you think there aren't thousands or hundreds and thousands of people with the same mindset in the world?
Absolutely.
They are. Only thing is they are not empowered like him. Competence is the only thing that's lacking. Tyranny is there in people's mind. They are as much tyrants as Adolf Hitler. You may find them in a school teacher, you may find them in your parents, you may find them all around you in your neighborhood, only fortunately they are not as potent as that man. That man is super competent, that is what the problem is. So right now human competence becomes a terrible problem. Simply because you have a limited identity. So, you invest your identity in a family, you invest your identity in a community, race, religion, nationality.
Your relationships, your Tell me, in the.
Name of nations, in the name of race, in the name of religions, in the name of communities, how much terrible how many terrible things have we done in this world?
It's still happening today.
No, the most terrible leave what's happening today. Just look back in the last 100 years.
All for someone's identity, pride, country, city, state, religion, all these things.
How you just take 20th century, okay, one century past, 21st century is just progressing now. 20th century take it in the name of race. What all have we done to each other?
Yeah.
In the name of religion. What have we done to each other? in the name of nationality. What all have we done to each other? Just look back and see. We have literally killed half the world's.
Population in 20th century because of identity.
Yes, of a philosophy, of an ideology. People have killed, all right?
Right.
So limited identity and empowerment is a disaster. But we are continuously cultivating this all the time. So I said family is crime because family is First identity that you take. After that comes community, after that comes maybe race or religion or nationality. Right now, nationality is reasonably the largest identity you're taking. Within this nation, it looks nice that you are committed as an American to the well-being of America. But just see who is fighting who in this world. A good Indian is fighting a good Pakistan. A good Hindu is fighting a good Muslim, a good American fighting just about anybody. Because you never fought a war here, you go out and fight all over the world. Well, you will find reasons as to why you fought that war and the heroic nature of it. I know people who lost their lives believing that they're doing the best thing in their life. Yes, but I want you to know that man that you think is horrible, that terrorist, that miscreant, that militant or whatever you want to call him, that guy also like a suicide bomber, see anybody for every human being or even for an ant, its life is precious. You try to catch him, see he'll do everything possible to save his life. So somebody to throw away their life like this, Obviously, what they believe in means much more than their life.
Crazy.
Right?
It's not crazy. See, if they do it your way, it's heroic. If they do it their way, it's crazy. I'm not trying to support terrorism or something, I'm just telling you it's limited identity. Genocides have been committed because of limited identity. Nations have been raised down because of limited identity. evil things we have done to each other on individual level simply because of limited identity. So this is what yoga means. Yoga means union. That means you consciously obliterated the boundaries of your individual nature and your experience of life expanded. Once you sit here and you experience everything around you as a part of yourself, after that you do not need any morality, you do not need any commandments. Thou shall not cut that tree, thou shall not kill this man, thou shall not rob this. This is meaningless to you when you have experienced something as a part of yourself. So the entire system of yoga, when I say yoga, I mean yoga, all right, not the yoga that's happening in Los Angeles studios.
I have nothing against them.
But I'm saying we've reduced it to.
Something just to build an identity around.
Yes, still twisting and turning your body. It's good for you, you'll become flexible. flexible and maybe healthy. That's good for you. But I want you to understand, would you not wish that Adol Fittler was a sick man instead of a healthy man?
I would not wish that.
Yeah, I wish he was a healthy man. I would wish he was a healthy man. He was healthy.
That's the problem I'm saying.
You wish he was a sick man?
Yeah. Would you. Wouldn't you be happy if he got cancer at 25 and he wouldn't kill all these people, wouldn't set up this factory.
Yeah, I wish they wouldn't have died.
I am saying health becomes a curse, competence becomes a curse, intelligence becomes a curse.
Why?
Because you have limited identity. It's in that context I said family is crime. Family is a wonderful place where people are supporting each other.
Although you cannot change conditions or circumstance, you don't have to let them control you. We can't control what's going on outside, but we can control what's going on inside. And unfortunately, I don't think many of us have been raised to really understand that. And it's a lack of understanding that's causing all our problems.
But how can you say that to someone who's like, well, I don't feel like I have control on the inside when it seems like everything has power over me? What's something they can shift?
You see the truth is for that person that would be true, that they're being controlled by outside. Look at it this way. We are the only creature on the planet that's totally disoriented in our environment. All the little squirrels, the birds, all the animals, are completely at home in their environment, they blend in. You and I are totally disoriented in our environment. We've been given the mental faculties to create our own environment. However, we go right through school and we've never learned that. We have higher faculties and the average person has no knowledge of how to operate with them, how to develop them. We have perception, the will, reason, imagination, memory and intuition. Now, those mental faculties, they're not just words, they're actually mental faculties that we can use to take control over our world and to create the environment that we want. But unfortunately we grow up, we don't know that. We've been raised to live through by what we see, hear, smell, taste and touch, our physical senses. And we've been raised to be controlled by what's going on outside. As little kids, will you listen to what I'm telling you? Will you look at this? And so it's all outside. We get our report card and that tells us what kind of student we are. But it really tells us where our mind was at for a few minutes three weeks ago. Got nothing to do with who we are. So I think we're raised in ignorance actually. There's a very small percentage of the population that have a reasonably clear understanding of who they are and what they're capable of doing. But the ones that do are in the minority. Our whole company has been dedicated to teaching that to people for the last 50 some years.
Powerful. You talked about the five faculty, the five mental faculties. And I even touched on this briefly in our previous interview. But I'm curious, I have a new question for you. Which of the faculties typically is the hardest to, I guess, master or become efficient in, to use to your advantage in a positive way, and which is the one that you feel like hurts us the most when we don't master?
Well.
I think reason is probably, it's the one that's spoken about by almost all the great leaders.
Yeah.
They've all been complete unanimous agreement that we become what we think about, It's our reasoning factor that enables us to think. Ford says thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason so few people engage in it. Dr. Ken McFarland is gone for a long time now, but he was a great educator down in Kentucky. He one time said 2% of the people think, 3% think they think, and 95% would actually rather die than think. Now, you know, that sounds cute, But it's true. If you stop and listen to what most people are saying, it's going to be fairly obvious they're not thinking. If you stand back and watch what most people are doing, it's fairly obvious they're not thinking. Or they would never say or do what they're doing. Most people today have their television on the news and they're just soaking up all the stuff that's going on that's dominating the media right now. So they've become a play thing for what's going on outside. And that's why they're living in such fear.
By consuming the media of whether it's true or accurate or not true, you're being manipulated in a sense.
It's not a matter of whether it's true or not. Is this how you want to spend your life just listening to that? That doesn't mean you should deny it. It doesn't mean that you should say, well, that's all false. I don't know whether it's true or false. It's just bad news. I don't want to be involved in it. Am I aware that it's there? Well, you'd almost have to be dead not to be aware that it's there. But that does mean you have to spend your time thinking on that. I would much rather activate some of my creative faculties and do something that's constructive.
In a time under crisis and worry and fear for a lot of people, what should we be thinking about? How should we be using our imagination in different ways as opposed to fixating on the bad news?
Well, I think a good idea right now would be spend some time thinking about how are we going to adapt when this is gone. Yeah. Because we're going to live in a different world. We're not going to be in the same world when this is all blown over than we're in right now. It's going to be quite different. Yeah. People are not going to be rushing out to big events where there's a lot of people. They're not going to be rushing to restaurants. I think they're going to be very careful about what they do, where they think, where they're going. I was listening to Senak and he said, If you're a public speaker, don't look for a stage for a little while because you're not going to have one. This also presents great opportunities. It's for us, for my company, we're going online, you know, full speed ahead. Now fortunately we built the studio four or five years ago.
So you're prepared.
We're equipped and we're ready. Yeah. We can. We can broadcast. We were. We had a training class going in here just last week with about 300 of our Consultants from all over the world. We had a three-day training program for them, and it was very effective.
Online.
You have to come together.
Yeah.
Yeah. We did it from right here.
Yeah, I mean, you're known for doing these powerful transformational workshops in person. So for someone, I mean, it's very inspiring for me, for someone at your age where would be the excuse of most people your age to say, well, I don't understand this technology thing and I've been doing this way of business for so long, it's always worked this way and I'm not going to try to reinvent or evolve and pivot and grow in this way. So it's really inspiring to see someone of your age with your your level of experience and say, you know what? I'm embracing it. Maybe I don't like it. Maybe you do like it, but you're embracing it and making the most of it as opposed to resisting. Because what happens when we start to resist in our life? What truly happens?
Well, well, we resist it, we create it in our mind. That's all we think about. You see, I guess my age really has nothing to do with it, but I formed that attitude a long time ago. I didn't like the idea that when you've lived for so long, you've got to cut out, you've got to stop. I thought, I don't like that idea at all. First of all, I think we're, I believe we're here to do God's work. God's work is creation, you know, expansion, fuller expression, greater goodness. and if we're going to do that, we're going to be working at it all the time we're here on this planet. We never stop. So age should have no bearing on it. I had a couple of people ask me when we started to build this place, we put a couple of million dollars into this and somebody said, how old are you? And I think I was probably 83 when they started to break ground. They said, you,'re 83 and you're going to spend $2 million building a studio? I said, yeah, like, why not? I mean, you see, we let things that really have no concern. We let them bother us. We let them control us. Age is a dumb thing to let control you. It's our thinking that controls everything. That's the one point every great leader agreed on. We become what we think about. Well, what's a person thinking? I'm thinking if I get old, I gotta stop. Well, then you'll stop. Or I'm thinking, well, if I've been here a long time, I've got a lot of experience. I want to utilize that experience to keep me going as long as I am here. I mean, anybody had their head screwed on right a few years ago would know that this thing is going to take over.
Yeah.
And if we don't learn how to use it, we're toast. So, you know, I was doing seminars on my iPad because I can run it right onto a monitor and out through to the universe.
Yeah.
What should we be thinking about the most right now in your mind?
If so, I think we should be thinking about our future. I think we should be thinking about the greatness like it's the school of greatness. I think we ought to be thinking about the greatness that we've got locked up within us. and bring it to the surface. Everyone has deep reservoirs of talent and ability within them. And they can bring it to the surface to accomplish anything they want. Now to sit in fear and wonder what's going to happen, that is a dumb waste of your talent and your time. And unfortunately, that's what most of the media is promoting right now. To believe in fear is to believe in something you can't see. To believe in faith is to believe in something you can't see. Well, if you have a choice, I think I choose faith over fear.
Absolutely.
I think I believe where I can really see something happen. I believe we're going to have a phenomenal year in our company. In fact, I have business partner Sandy Gallagher, and a very bright lady, was a securities attorney prior to joining us. She ran a program this morning for our entire company. We have about 70 people in the company. She was teaching masterminding to them all and saying how this is important that every one of us get involved in this, that we learn the basics of masterminding, that Napoleon Hill brought to the world, let's say, way back in the 30s. Now, I think that's what we should be teaching people. Sandy was on the right track there. So I think we ought to be thinking about what we're going to build, how big are we going to do it, where are we going to do it, when are we going to start? Our goals have not changed. They're very big, they're very ambitious. and we're not letting this virus slow us down one bit. As a matter of fact, we're trying to figure out how can we use this to speed it up.
There you go.
You can't get rid of it. Use it to your advantage. There is a way we can use it to our advantage. People are more dependent upon the phone. I've got a computer here. They're dependent on their phone, their computer, more than they've ever been. we can reach them anywhere in the world through those mediums.
Yeah, use them to your advantage. You talked about fear for a second. I'm curious, when we live in a state of fear, what does that do to us? And the second part to this, when we feel that fear and we become aware of it, what should we be thinking or doing or acting on in order to shift into a more positive state?
You know, that is one of a good question. And it's a question most people are not able to answer. First of all, the cause of fear is ignorance. That is the cause of fear. And so if you follow the ignorance, it doesn't start out as fear. The ignorance starts out in a conscious level as doubt and worry. That's on a conscious level. We're doubting or we're worrying. Then we take whatever image comes into our consciousness of the doubt and the worry and we turn it over to our emotional mind, that's what causes the fear. Well that fear then has to be expressed through the body, through the only instrument it can be expressed through, our physical body. It sets up a vibration known as anxiety. Anxiety is not expressed, anxiety becomes suppressed. We suppress it. And the suppression then turns to depression, which turns to disease, which turns to decay. You see, you're talking about a track a person gets on, it's a very negative track. It's ignorance, don't worry, fear, anxiety, suppression, depression, disease, disintegration. Now the polar opposite of all that, the opposite of ignorance is knowledge. There's only one way to get to knowledge and that is to study. Now unfortunately.
School.
Didn'T do the job that it was designed to do for most of us. Schools should teach us to love to study.
Not to dread studying and homework and tests.
They should teach us to love it. Because study leads to the opposite of don't worry, which is understanding. See, it's study that leads to understanding. We understand how to handle the fear. It's understanding that enables us to cause us to understand where the fear starts. The understanding, then, we want to say, what do we understand? We want to understand this whole universe operates by law. One of the laws is the law of opposite. The opposite of don't worry is understanding. Now if the don't worry leads to fear, what's understanding leads to? Understanding leads to faith. The faith leads to expression, well-being and expression. It's not depression. It's not suppression. It's not anxiety. The faith leads to well-being. The well-being then is expression, acceleration, because we're at ease. There's not disease. So you're dealing with polar opposites. There's two different sides to things. and when we understand that, our world starts to change. It's by understanding that we learn how to deal with these pandemics when they hit. And they will hit. There will be others. There always has been, all down through history. If you look back, there's been things like this happen in the past. And unfortunately, the masses are sort of paralyzed by it. Yeah. And as a people, we add to that paralysis by feeding them more of what scares them. What we should be doing is helping them understand what the hell is going on.
Why do we do that as people? Why do we feed people more of what scares them as opposed to what you and I do, which is- Because.
That'S what people want. That's what they buy. People don't buy good news. People buy bad news.
Why though?
Can you imagine if everybody that tunes into CNN, tuned into the School of Greatness every week?
It'd be amazing.
Can you imagine if everybody that tunes into Fox tuned into your School of Greatness every week? Have you any idea the impact you could have on the world?
That's what we're trying to do.
It'd be enormous. It'd be enormous. People want bad news. It resonates with where their mind is programmed. They're programmed with negative information. Their paradigm is all bad news. It's what we're programmed with. Now, is everybody new? There's a small select group of people that don't fall into that category, and they are always working diligently trying to lift everybody up. It's not an easy thing to do. But every now and then, a Lewis Howes would come along and start a school of greatness and he'll call in different people that feed into that concept that are in harmony with that, that resonate with that. And so it makes it interesting for the listener. And then that's how it goes. Yeah. And that's what you're doing. And that's what I'm doing.
Yeah.
And it's not a losing battle. It just appears like it is. I'm winning. Yeah. I think you're winning. Now we're not. We're not drawing the numbers that CNN's drawing. But the ones we draw are saying, absolutely. You got it.
You got it. We're making an impact on them for sure. I'm curious, I want to ask you more about self-doubt because this is something I've been fascinated with for the last few years as I spent most of my life dealing with trying to understand how to overcome doubting myself and achieve the sports goals, business goals, to relationship goals that I had throughout my younger years. And I became obsessed with learning how to eliminate doubt. And I've been researching this more and just trying to learn from people like yourself on how you have dealt with self-doubt over the years and how you think anyone who feels like they're doubting themselves, what can they do to go from doubt into confidence? What do you think is the path?
Okay, that's a good question. It ties in with the previous question. Yes. What do we do with fear? Fear comes from the doubt. So the doubt becomes the cause of the fear, which is the cause of the anxiety, etc. The doubt is the cause, fear is the effect. What is the polar opposite to doubt? Understanding. It's understanding. That's the opposite of doubt. So what is it we want to understand? Well, if it's me that's entertaining doubt, Why am I entertaining doubt? If I were to find out who I really am, and I believe everything that's been taught down through the centuries, I would have no doubt. I would be realizing that I could do anything. And the only thing that's causing a doubt is a lack of understanding. So I'm going to keep studying, I'll gain a better understanding. I don't doubt myself. I don't doubt what I can do. Does that mean that I can do everything? No. When doubt appears, I'll eliminate it and I'll eliminate it fast because I'm going to figure out how to do whatever it is I'm doubting. And you see, if it's me that I'm doubting, it's because I don't understand me well enough. I did a broadcast the other day, it was all over the place, we had thousands into it, on self-image. We've got to get a better image of ourself. We have to get a true image of ourself, understand who we are, how our mind functions. Realize this physical instrument we're living in is nothing but an instrument. It's the instrument of the mind. The mind expresses itself within through this thing we call our body. Well let's understand that better. This thing, you've got enough power in your one hand to light up that building you're in for probably a month.
Wow.
There's about 11 million kilowatt hours per pound potential energy locked up in the electrons and the atoms of the body. Well, that's the invisible power that's in me. I want to understand that better. How what? That's the physical side. What's the higher side? Higher side is my intellectual side. And that is the intellectual factors that I run through earlier. perception, the will, reason, imagination, memory and intuition. There's six of them.
And.
As I understand those more, as I understand my intellectual factors, I'm using the things and I'm utilizing and developing the things that separate me from all the rest of the animal kingdom of which I'm a part. Then I can tap into the spiritual essence of who I am because we're spiritual beings and that's where the greatness lies. It lies in understanding the spiritual essence of who we are. You see, our spiritual DNA is perfect. It requires no improvement. It requires no modification. Our spiritual essence is perfect. And that perfection is within us. So the trick is figuring out how to express it in a greater way.
Yeah, and not get trapped into a different type of expression through bad news or friends or parents beliefs or whatever it is that tries to Shut us down, correct?
Exactly. So, and they will try and shut us down because we're coming up and we're saying, I'm going to do this. They'll say, you got to be out of your mind. You're going to quit that good job. Are you crazy? We got to be strong enough to.
Say, I'm going to follow my dream. What is happening when we are in the field in our mind and the grass, we start walking over the grass and then we start putting, you know, then it's muddy, then you put stones down and then you have a, a paved road, what is happening to your brain when you start to learn something new that is challenging and you get to a level of mastery or close to mastery on this? What is happening to the brain? What is happening to the body and everything else?
So what's happening to the brain is that you had a pathway that was established either from childhood or later in life. And the Brain is obviously a small percentage of your body weight, like 2 to 5% for most generally, but it's a very energy hungry organ. So it's using up 20 to 30% of what you eat.
Wow.
And again, yeah. And so, you know, I think, you know, having been a sportsman, you would think about what should I eat so I can have big muscles or, you know, what should I eat so I have lovely skin or whatever. but actually you should be thinking what should I eat so I can make the best decision today.
Wow, interesting.
So when you're asleep your brain is using up 20% of the glucose that you have ingested that day. When you are focused on a task it's using up 25% of your dietary intake. When you're stressed it's using up 30%. So you know in terms of, you know I sort of like to live in a brain first kind of way because if you're doing that everything else fall into place, your cardiovascular system, your gut. So, you know, hydrating foods, good fats, all that kind of thing is going to feed your brain. And so, you know, what's happening in your brain and body is that you are creating the pathway, that dirt road into the paved road, that should become the default pathway for your brain. So your brain is going to go down the most energy efficient route because that's that's easiest and what it knows and what it likes and it's using up less glucose. So what you have to do is build the pathway so that it's so strong that it's stronger than the pathway that's been there since childhood.
How do you do that?
Okay, you're not going to do that with Spanish because you're never going to be better at Spanish than you are at English, right? But in terms of things like emotional regulation, if you were the person, and there's so many people like this, who would cry and yell and slam the door and walk out and then come back. You can actually change that. You can become somebody who's got good boundaries, who's got self-worth, who feels that they deserve love. And you do that through neuroplasticity and building the pathway, giving yourself the examples and acting like that in life until you do believe it. And just going back to the two things, I remembered what the other one was, which is what I have found personally is that when you have no choice but to do the thing that you have to do, you do it. So I would say, I would ask you, have you gone to a Spanish-speaking country on your own? To a village where nobody speaks English?
I mean, I have been on my own in Mexico recently. where my girlfriend speaks Spanish. And so I'm like, I practice with her, but this is the thing. When I go to Mexico with her, she's a crutch for me. Yeah. Right? 'Cause I'm like, I gotta order this thing. And then I'm just like, I just want the chicken and vegetables. Can you let us... And there was some days where I was alone 'cause she was off working and I was like, okay, this is an opportunity for me to practice, to mess up, to be embarrassed, you know, and be okay with it. And just, and by doing it, I felt like I was getting way better because I was forced to practice and try and ask questions and listen intently and not just speak in English and translate it.
Exactly.
It's powerful.
I mean, at your age, you will always, the way that your brain will speak Spanish is to translate it from English. So there's three types of being bilingual. And one is, you know, if you're bilingual from the time that you start speaking. And one is if you learn it, so for me, the Indian language in English, and then the second one is a language that you learn as a child, but you're not, you already speak another language, so that's French for me. And then my adult languages. And so I learned Afrikaans when I was about 25, which is like Dutch, and then Danish when I was a bit older. And I was saying to my friend, who's a professor of neuroscience in London, that when I tried to recall a Danish word, and I'm struggling to recall it, I always think of the Afrikaans word, but never the French or the Indian. And he said, isn't that fascinating that your adult languages are stored in a different part of your brain? And, you know, so for a neuroscientist to understand that my adult languages are stored in a different part of my brain to my childhood languages, that At a certain point with Danish, I reached that tipping point where I wasn't tired and hungry from trying to do it. And I'm gonna admit that I then gave up Danish because it was just too hard.
Yeah, yeah, you're like, yeah, I was.
Like, but I've changed my brain. And that's actually what I wanted. That's why I was doing it.
Sure, sure.
So, yeah, and with so many things in life, like when I gave up the regular paycheck of being a doctor in the NHS, A lot of people said to me, you could just go and do a locum for one weekend and you'd be able to pay your rent and your bills.
A what? For a weekend?
A locum means when you just do like a temporary job. You know, you just go and like sub in for a weekend or a.
Day or a night.
But for me, that would have meant failure because it was going backward. And I had to force myself to make the new business work.
You had to burn the boats.
Yeah.
You had to burn the ship that got you there so you couldn't go back into the old, you know, the land.
And that's not for everyone. I'm not saying that if you want to start up your own business that you shouldn't have another job on the side. But for me, I had to burn my books.
I was watching this TED Talk recently of a guy who was teaching about how to be fluent in a new language as an adult and why it's so challenging and things like that. He said, listen, the reason why most people fail is because they keep speaking their native language so frequently. and you take a 50-minute class three times a week, you're not going to become fluent. And he's like, the only way that I was able to do it, he's like, I tried this for years and all these things. And so I finally went into a program where I think it was three months, something like that, where you get kicked out if you speak any other word other than the language you're trying to learn.
Yeah.
And he's like, if you say a word in English at all, you're gone. So it's like total focus on, okay, I just need to learn how to survive. And this is not even allowed. And if I'm doing this for three, and he was like, I was completely fluent in three months or something quick like this, three, maybe six months, but it was like a full immersion program. You can't translate anything. Maybe the teacher is able to, but you're not allowed to say anything in your language. And he was like, it's because I was forced, like you were saying, to go to this other country essentially by myself. I had to learn how to survive and it was faster because I couldn't just go back to the place where I was comfortable. So, I don't know, I haven't had the time to do that yet, but I still need to use my language.
But, yeah.
But I'm sure it'd be, it's amazing what the brain can do under these types of conditions, I'm assuming.
Yeah.
And, and I think that sort of, you know, speaks to what we were saying earlier, which is None of us want to go through hardship. We don't want to see the people that we love and care about go through hardship. But it can be taken as an amazing opportunity. And even with the hardest thing that I've ever gone through in my life, there has to be an opportunity that comes out of it. Otherwise, it was for nothing.
Right. What is the thing you're learning this year? What's the new thing?
So, yeah, I've been sort of navigating a personal journey, and I want to do some different things with work. So, you know, I was a. I. I had a break, and it's so tempting to go back to doing the keynote speeches and taking on the high net worth clients. And, you know, I've been tempted. I have sort of, like, done a little experiment and gone down a keynote and, you know, sort of met a new coaching client. But I think this, you know, belief that I had for a long time that I'm not creative, it's really important for me now at this stage of my life to live that dream and be the creative person I've always wanted to be. So I've actually co-written a song with some of my colleagues in a music studio.
Look at you, look at you.
And the CEO of the business said to me, you know, I need you to sign a document because you're a songwriter now. And that was like, I never ever thought I would hear those words. You know, when you go to medical school when you're 18 and the arts.
Are not in your cards. Yeah.
And, you know, I get why, and I'm very, very grateful for my education. But my parents were immigrants from India to England, and they wanted me to get an education and be professional. I never had the luxury of being creative or doing sport. You know, I was like always in my sports clothes once I was an adult, but that wasn't something that was valued by my parents. So it wasn't a big thing for me at school, at high school. So yeah, art, creativity, sport, I'm the trustee of a charity for gynecological cancers. That's, you know, again something that I sort of thought, that, you know, you have to be a very privileged person to be able to do that. So, yeah, I think this constant journey of reinvention, of really being like the maximum that I can be. And in my book, the Source, I talk about the six ways of thinking, which are logical, emotional, intuition, physicality, creativity and motivation. You know, trying to have, trying to build all of those pathways in my brain and not And I think it really comes back to where we started with you saying about the woo-woo, which is that my logical pathway is well built. I don't need to build that pathway anymore.
You got that. How do we get back into manifestation mode when we have zero control in our life?
We have to use the circumstances that we're living in as an opportunity to go further in our own personal development.
What does that mean?
Period. Let me unpack this for you. To truly manifest means that you feel good. Feeling good means your energy is free, you are inspired, you are receptive, and therefore attracting towards you what you desire. So if we are in a place now where we feel like we are out of control, we are trying to get control, we are in the opposite of that manifestation state, which I refer to as being a super attractor, we are no longer to that power. So the way back to that power is to put our personal growth first, to get back, not go out and try to force anything or do anything out there to find control, but to turn inward, to go deeper and identify what's unresolved, work out what needs to be healed, bring forth to the surface the truth of what's up so that we can show up for it. and get back to a baseline of feeling safe, a baseline of feeling joy, a baseline of connection, rather than thinking that I have to go get control over something, we have to return to who we are. And it's a lot of language, but I can further that too.
-And what happens when we try to control our environments on the outer world? people on the outer world, schedule, food, working out, whatever it may be, when we try to control everything on the outside, but we're constantly in trigger mode. Things affect us so deeply what's happening on the outside internally. Will that give us a sense of control if we have everything under control, but we're still triggered by everything?
So, when we're triggered, we try to find control because it's a way of staying safe. Being triggered in any form is really just an activation of a sense of being unsafe. So what we're going to do in that moment is go try to control our relationship or go try to control our food or go do something to feel safe. And that also can come in the form of addictive behavior, like overeating or drinking too much to anesthetize and numb out that feeling of being unsafe, that Being in a place of fear ultimately. So what we want to really begin to recognize is the reasons that we get triggered and then find tools, self-soothing tools, self-help methods, breath practices for self-regulation, regulating our own nervous system, our energy, our field in those moments so that we don't live from trigger to trigger to trigger to trigger to trigger. During COVID man, I mean, the whole f***ing world has been triggered.
So.
We'Ve been in this constant state of hyper arousal, fight, flight, freeze, reactivity. And I said very early on, I said this in March of 2020, There's two ways you can show up for this. You can numb out and drink and use and anesthetize yourself in whatever way you do, or you can show up. And when I say show up, show up for yourself. Show up for the unresolved parts of yourself. Show up for the painful stuff. Show up in your therapy. Show up on a show like this. Show up in a self-help book. Show up through a 30-day contemplative practice, whatever it is that you are guided to, to actually take action with it. So we had two choices, and we still have that choice. Even if it's been a year of numbing out, you can choose again right now.
Yeah.
What's been the biggest internal trigger for you that still affects you today that you haven't fully gotten over the hump? Or do you feel like you've kind of mastered that part of your life?
I am in the mastery process, but I think that I will be for the rest of my life in mastery. But I'm really, really a year ago now, a year ago today, I was in a much more triggered state than I am fast forward 12 months, a little more. Because like everyone else, COVID activated unresolved parts of me, feelings of feeling out of control. That's a big one for me. Like you said, feeling out of control. feeling unsafe, feeling not cared for, feeling like I have to do everything. So while I've spent the year really, really in full-blown recovery mode, saying, Hey, I see this head on, the you know what hit the fan, I'm gonna show up now. I've shown up with every ounce of my being and have really come out the other side. But to your point, it's still there. So it's not that I'm completely healed and I have no triggers. The difference is, is that I'm so aware of those triggers. I said to my executive team today, I said, listen, guys, I said to our HR director, I would like you to go, we've been doing a lot of educating ourselves on how we want to have our company structure and team communication. And I was like, the exec team, which is our CEO and our COO and myself, Kind of in our old habits, but our energy isn't there anymore. We're not those people anymore, but we are still falling into these old habits. So can you help us create the structure through which we can have boundaries and proper communication so that we can step into the new patterns of who we are? So some of it is that we have to catch up with our own growth, in a sense. And I think I've seen that personally and professionally. so it's fascinating when you make a commitment to your inner life, what can change and then the discomfort along the way too.
Right. What would you say is the what's been the biggest trigger for you in general in your life?
Feeling inadequate and unlovable.
Really?
That's the feeling. What triggers that feeling? is feeling out of control, feeling like people aren't showing up for me. Because the thing is- and when people.
Don'T show up for you or you don't feel like they're showing up for you the way that you want them.
To- I feel inadequate and unlovable. I feel something is wrong.
Even though they might be showing up for you fully in their capacity, if.
You don't feel in certain- I can't do everything. No one can take care of me.
Wow.
Man.
I'm sure a lot of people can relate to that.
Mm-.
So how does someone, how do you learn to overcome that on a daily basis when that's been so embedded for so long?
One of the tools I've been using and studying and I plan to get trained in is IFS Therapy Internal Family Systems, founded by a new friend of mine called Dick Schwartz, who I will introduce you to because I'd like for you to have him on the show. I'm his new pro bono publicist. But he, he's truly an amazing man and he's created a system that is one of the most profound therapeutic systems for any human, but especially those of us who have had trauma. And, and the internal family system simply put is the belief system that we have many different parts of who we are. And we have these protector parts that protect these inner child parts like that he refers to as exiles. And so the inner child part is I'm inadequate, I'm unlovable. And the protector part is whenever that inadequacy or that fear of not being good enough or not being cared for shows up, the protector part is I'm going to control everything around me. So that's the part I call the controller, right? Another one of my protector parts is knives out, right? So that's part of me that's like, if you mess with me, the knives are out. Don't.
Right.
Right?
And another protector part could be for somebody even numbing out could be a protector part, right? Or drinking or addiction can be a stream protector part. So there's no bad parts, as Dick says, but the work is to really get to a deep connection with what IFS refers to as self-energy. Self could be considered, in my words, source, inner guidance system, the universe, God, the part of you, the all-knowing, loving, caring, parental part of you, really the part of you that can care for those more extreme parts. Does that make sense?
-Absolutely, yeah.
-Yeah, it is a pretty dense idea and it is quite the opposite of what we have been brought up to believe in. But I am very clear that one of my intentions, because I have been practicing IFS for eight years with my therapist, and it has had a profound impact on my wellbeing. and my experience of other humans and my ability to witness people with compassion, even people who are really in bad ways or people who have done harmful things, but to see them with compassion because I can see them in all of their parts.
Right.
And when someone's being aggressive or angry or in knives out mode or addiction mode, When you can see it in yourself, you can see it in other people. And when you can have that's right. Compassion in yourself and the way you've been now or in the past, then you can start to look at other people and say, well, I don't agree with this, but I'm not going to scream at them and yell at them or get angry at them. But I can have compassion and learn to communicate in a way that they.
Could connect with and resonate in this moment. I love that you just nailed that so perfectly, which is what is your gift? Because you just said you, when you see it in yourself, you can see it in other people.
Yeah.
That is such an important point to make because when we start to do our own personal growth work, one of the greatest benefits, one of the greatest gifts is that we start to have a greater sense of compassion for others because we recognize that we're all suffering. Wow, if I can suffer that much, then I can imagine what that person's going through. We are all in this together.
-Mm-.
Judgment's been something that I've been working with a lot with myself and other people, especially during the last year where politics and cancel culture and right and wrong communication is constantly being talked about on social media. And I've constantly tried to check myself and say, okay, I don't agree with this, but I don't need to judge this person for their beliefs or where they're at. and when I come from a place of non-judgment when what's happening in the world, I feel more at peace. When I'm judging, I feel lower sense of energy. I feel angry. I fixate on something like a dog trying to get a bone as opposed to thinking more abundance and thinking about my vision, I'm focused more on like right and wrong. I love your book. about, you know, judgment, having a detox from judgments. And I'm curious, where do you still judge the most today in your life, whether it be with yourself, the world, your environment, where is today prevalent for you, even though you're the expert in this? Sometimes the people that write the things that they need the most. So, what's the part that's for you?
Oh, yeah, man. Listen, I I wrote a book called Judgment Detox. It's very brave to put your face on the COVID of a book with that title because, you know, whenever I'm caught out judging a friend or they look at me like, what? It's not the Girl with the All the Judgment Detox, right? Like, what the hell is she saying? Just yesterday, I had a, I was faced with a very big moment of, is this my opportunity to be radically honest? Because I'm trying to practice radical honesty.
And not judgmental at the same time.
But how Can I be nonjudgmental in my assessment of this radical, honest moment? It was because the friend that I was in this dialogue with was, she's like, I just feel so judged by you. And in my head, I'm like, and my radical honesty part said, I am really judging you, but this is why. And when I got into the why, the why is backed with, data. The why is backed with concern for others. The why is backed with overarching care for the world. So I felt really grounded in the why.
And.
When you practice radical honesty and you tell someone the truth, the biggest way that it is the most effective is to say it from a non-judgmental place.
To say- so how could you skew that up? If you don't like something about your partner or your family member or friend, a coworker, what can you say to them in a non-judgmental way?
Here's how I would have liked. Here's how I would have liked to have said it to her. I was still heated when I said it, so it came out as judgment. She wasn't wrong about that, but I would have liked to have said to her, by the way, just I want you to see the slippers that I'm wearing right now.
I love it.
I love it.
Party on the top, slippers on the bottom. So I, I would have liked to have said to her, I have no intention of changing you. I welcome you to tell me whatever it is that you need to say. I just want to be able to tell you the truth first, and then you have every right to tell me exactly how you feel. I want to be honest with you so that I do not hold on to it, and so that we can clear the air. And it's important for me to let you know my opinion about this matter. So here it is. And then when expressing it, speak about it honestly. I am then using nonviolent communication, which would really imply, I'm noticing this. It makes me feel this way. I think a resolution could be this. How about that? And just coming at it from a place of human to human connection rather than trigger to trigger. So if I could do it over, I would have done it that way. Maybe she'll watch this.
Exactly.
I'll send it to her.
And why do you think most people are blocking themselves in general from having what they want? whether it be the relationship or the financial abundance or the peace that they want, internal peace, what is the main blocker? Is it judgment? Is it anger and frustration? Is it their childhood traumas? What is the main thing?
It is all of the above. But the root cause of our blocks is unresolved programmed belief systems about ourselves that we repurpose and replay and project onto the future every single waking moment of the day in every area. When I say every area, there may be some areas of your life where that belief system does not have a hold on you. Whereas, let us say, maybe your finances are are flowing, everything's cool, you do great at work, but in your relationships, you're just blocked, like it's just constant. So these unresolved areas have a root cause condition that have tentacles, and it can be in all areas, or it can be in some areas, or can be in a specific area. And the blocks are the result of a energetic disturbance that is on repeat. The way out of that, the way to get unstuck is to change our internal nervous system, our belief systems, and all the energy that's wrapped up around that. That's not easy. Yeah, you're gonna say, how do you do that?
Well, I mean, say someone listening is 30, 40, 50 years old, and they've had a belief for that, you know, for decades of their life, is it as easy as being aware and conscious and the belief shifting in a moment? or do things really take a long time to shift a belief?
I think I believe in quantum shifts, but I, I do believe that quantum shifts often come with a lot of practice and.
Yeah, it's like you spend years of working on it, and then all of a sudden it works.
It was funny. I was talking, when I was talking to Dick Schwartz, the founder of IFS, I said to him, I said, you know, Dick, it feels like it's been 10 years of hard work for overnight relationship to self, you know? And he's like, yeah, I've heard that before. Because that there was this, you know, I had been in IFS therapy for eight years, eight years, eight years. And then all of a sudden, one day it clicked. I was like, oh my God, my internal resourced self can care for the controller and can care for the little girl and can really navigate the system internally and get those parts out of their extreme dream roles and she can be so loving and compassionate. And she's not always gonna be there, but she's gonna be there more often than not. Holy crap. That was eight years in therapy doing IFS and then 15 years of hardcore recovery.
Right, right. So.
It isn't that, but here's the good news. We may not have that click aha moment overnight, But we have to recognize that every moment of relief along the way is a miracle. The more we add up those moments of relief, the more we live a miraculous life. So the idea that growth is hard and we have to do so much and it's so heavy, we can unpack that by really witnessing that we can have fun along the way.
-Yeah.
-You can celebrate the small wins. You can, enjoy the moments of relief. You can even enjoy the process of personal growth, which sounds insane, but I do.
No.
Yesterday, I felt like. I feel like the last few months have been emotionally challenging. Ups and downs, ups and downs. I haven't felt a sense of, like, stable emotions with certain people in my life, and I've been like, man, can I just have one day? where it's not, you know, wondering what's going to happen next. And yesterday was that day where I was like, man, this is a peaceful day. And even though I don't feel like I've had a lot of peace consistently for the last few months, I was like, I can really appreciate the full day. I can journal, I get to journal about this and reflect back like what was happening and how can I do that one more day?
Great.
How could I do that one more day in my life and not think about the rest of my life, but just today. What can I do to show up for myself for peace, for my environment, for the people in my life and continue to be in progress, like you said, and continue to work on it. And it's a beautiful thing when, when we can, I guess, reflect on those moment to moments and, and build the miracle over time. It's not going to happen overnight, but it's like, build it over time, like you said. And when can we, how can we, is there an exercise or a process you have about evaluating our beliefs and figuring out which ones truly support us and which ones are tearing us down, and then how to replace a belief that's been so ingrained in your psyche for so long.
I have a wonderful method from my book Super Attractor that I often say if it's the only method from the book that somebody applies, they can experience A miraculous shift from that alone. It's called the choose again method. The first step is to notice the negative thoughts that you have on repeat and notice how they make you feel. So in the moment, if you can catch yourself, you can't always catch yourself, but if you start practicing this often enough, you'll get good at it. Notice, oh, there's that thought again. Oh my God, and how is it making me feel? Step one. Making me feel tight in my chest is making me feel anxious. It's making me feel like I want to go punch the wall. It's making me feel X, Y, Z. So you can even write it down. You can just think about it. Step two is really important. It's to forgive yourself for having the thought. When you forgive yourself for having that thought, what happens is that you no longer identify with it. You just see it as a thought that you keep thinking.
You just see it.
Oh, there's that freaking thought again. So it's not, this is my thought.
This is a thought that I'm thinking in the moment. Yeah. It's just that thought that I've thought again and again.
There it is. There's that thought again. I'm not good enough. There's that thought again. I'm, I'm, I'm bad. There's that thought again. No one loves me. There's that thought again. I can't, can't handle this. Oh, it's just there again.
Right.
Just notice the thought. Notice the thought. Oh, forgive the thought. Forgive yourself for having the thought.
And wow.
What happened? Abraham Hicks says that a belief is just a thought that you When you forgive yourself for having the thought, you no longer believe that that thought is you. You see it as a thought that you keep thinking. -The third step is the fun part. That is when you can choose again, where you can reach for the next best feeling thought. So, in the moment, you would reach for the next best feeling thought being something that you believe in. So I always use the example, if your thought is, I'm broke, I'm broke, I'm broke, I don't want you to choose again with, I'm a millionaire because the ego part of you, the fear part of you is going to be like, yeah, freaking right. Nice try. You want to reach for the thought of, I have that job interview next week and I'm excited about it. I have LinkedIn, which is an incredible resource. I can reach out to that friend who knows so and so. I have the skill set that I am really proud of. I have this education behind me. I have this resume, whatever it is that you can lean into, that you believe in, that empowers you, that makes you feel good. And once you start to get into a momentum with feeling better, you reach for more.
Your life is a physical manifestation of the conversation going on in your head. I'm gonna start with that.
Can we just speak for, like, 24 hours on this? I love this.
Right. Your life is a physical manifestation of the conversation going on in your head. So if you said nothing but thought everything your life is going to show up to make your thoughts true. So you have one job. You have one job in your life for you to make what you think about life true so that you're not wrong. You don't want to walk around wrong.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
You want to be right about the life you see. So you're going to work hard, work hard to produce the life that you talk about in your mind. Whether that life is no one loves me, I'm all alone. You can be in a group of people and you will think, I'm so alone. And you will feel alone and things will show up to co-sign your loneliness just because you're looking for that. And so, if you start with, I'm gonna say the mind, like the mind is that thing. The mind is the core engine. It starts all things. It shuts all things down. When I start thinking something different, I'm like, Hold on, stop. I want to think something. I shut down that behavior. I shut down that outcome. When I birth something, I birth it in my mind. I focus on my mind. I see myself there in my mind. Before I got on with you, I was doing guided visualizations. I'm recording them. So people, and I mean, they're juicy, and I'm saying, see yourself here, because if you can see it, and then the key is evoke the emotion as if you were there.
Yep. Right?
And that's why people are, who are sad all the time are sad. because they're thinking of things that make them sad. And then the emotion follows the thought. So I'm gonna say everything starts with your thought, Louis. But let me just say this, when you speak, you speak your future into the world. You speak your future, whatever you say, whatever falls off your tongue, when you say, I am, right? The unconscious mind says, and you are so, whatever comes on the other side of that. And so you ask me a hard question, which one is most important? It starts with the thought. I think the thought is that that's where everything originates. And then you add a whole lot of turbo boost to it with your tongue.
Yeah.
When you align the two, and then you add to it, like the B12 of action. Action is like, action is like, that's the nitro. That's the nitro. Like, Right. And I see so many people they think it they write it they journal it they talk about it and they do no action and I go you understand that the action is that that's like that's like putting the flower in the sun because it requires sun and.
So yeah, yeah, I had this is a beautiful explanation and I had a navy seal on 6-7 months ago his name is Chad and he he talked about as a seal. He used the tongue as a rudder in a boat. He said, what you speak is going to lead you down, you know, the ocean or the river or wherever on the boat you're on. And so he never says anything negative out loud because it's so powerful. And the Navy SEALs, you talk about how powerful it is. No matter how much pain they're experiencing in hell week and all this stuff they're dealing with, they never allow the tongue to speak something negative. Otherwise, they'll ultimately quit and give up.
Right, right, right, right.
Too painful. to deal with what they deal with.
Right.
To then say, oh, I'm hurting, I'm tired.
I can't do it.
Right, right. Don't, don't, don't speak that. Don't speak that into the universe. You just. Because whatever you speak feels like it expands.
Of course.
Right.
Energy grows where energy goes. It expands. So speak life, speak possibility. There is not one dark situation that doesn't have a glimmer of light. It doesn't mean it's going to be convenient to see.
That's true.
Most of us are looking for convenient light.
Yes. Oh man, I want to speak for like five more hours with you, but I want to try to finish with a few final questions here.
Yes.
Even though I don't want to finish this. We'll have to come back on. Yeah, we'll bring it back on.
Let's do this again. I promise it won't be as challenging to get me in the future. I promise, my friend.
I want to talk about for a moment purpose, because I feel like right now we're seeing a lot of people with scattered purposes, especially with everything that's happening in the world over the last three months, six months. I'm seeing so many big influencers go through divorce who are publicly had great relationships. I'm seeing people's businesses go under because of they were in the events business or whatever, and they weren't able to adapt and shift. I'm seeing people scattered with their purpose and unclear.
Right.
How can people let's speak to this because I think it's two different questions one is how to truly figure out what your purpose is because I think it's seasonal youl know what your purpose was when you were 10 is different now. I agree it's seasonal so it's hard for it's a very broad question and I don't want to set you up with that because I think it's unfair when people ask you that for me, but if you know you think I know my purpose is like I know I'm meant to go do this thing I think I'm supposed to go after this. I feel like maybe I should try this thing, but I'm afraid. How would you coach someone who knows what they're supposed to do, or at least they think they do until they figure it out and it's not it or it is it? How do you coach people or encourage people to actually do it, to actually overcome that final hurdle of fear, whether they're afraid of failure, afraid of success, afraid of judgment, whether they've got a really good life and a really good job, but it's just not there, it's not pulling them to their ultimate Purpose. Where do you, where do you share in that line?
So one of the first things I do is I ask them to please let's quantify and give life to what does it cost you to stay still? Oh, so, you know, I'm a, I'm a straight no chaser kind of girl.
Right?
I'm a, I'm a, I'm, we're not just going towards something. We also have to realize that to the same degree that you ask the weight loss. Why did I do it? Because what would it cost me with all my success? What would it have cost me to stay in that 220 pound body? What's the cost? And so when I saw that, that's why I responded. If I didn't give myself this, right, I was very clear with the cost. So number one, I would say, what does it cost you? And my students know me. I do this in my workshop, my trainings for my My platinum level students and my coaches and students that are getting certified to be a Lisa Nichols trainer. And I asked them hard questions. What does it cost you to stay in that mindset? And they have to list it. And I say, what part of the price have you already paid? And they just get visceral. They're like, ah. And I say, so how long?
I don't know.
Whatever you want. How much longer do you want to pay that price?
Right.
Two years, 10 years, two months.
Or are we PIF? are we paid in full now?
Are we PIF?
I paid in full and I'm keep paying.
Exactly.
And so I use this metaphor that.
If you went to the store and bought a dozen eggs and you went home and you scrambled all the eggs and you cook the eggs and then you took the empty carton back to the grocery store and you said, I'd like to buy these again. The cashier was going, but you already bought them. Why are you buying it? Why are you paying for it again? That's what we're doing. We're paying for the same behavior over and over again. And so one get clear that you're PIF, that you're paid in full for not being in action. Like, I've already paid it. I've done three years of wanting a dream and not having whatever your reasons are, right? Number two is let's talk about everything that happens if you fail. Let's just unpack that.
You go back to where you're at now.
Yeah, you'll-- actually, you never are back to where you are now because now you got some kind of lesson that you didn't have.
Experience, yeah.
Right, you got some kind of experience. So what happens if you fail? Okay, great. So what lessons can we pull out of that? So now let's agree to if we fail, let's fail forward. So then let's define what does failing forward look like? So then we get very descriptive on what does failing forward look like? What will I do with the lessons? What will I, I'll document four to six things I did right. And I'll document two to three things that I can improve upon and I'll implement them all on the next go round. So then we take out all the possibility. And I even go as far as saying, so what if people judge you? I unpack it. What do people judge you? Let's say they talk really bad about you on social media for like three days. Like it goes a while. Well, then what happens? Well, on the sixth day, I get up and do it again. So all of a sudden, I take all the juice out of the balloon of all-- we just deep dive into the darkness of your illusions. Deep dive into the darkness of your mind. So, like what? Okay, well, my. I'll lose this money. Okay, you lost how much?
Forty thousand.
Okay, all forty thousand gone.
So now what?
I don't know. Okay, well, let's. Let's. Let's figure out a plan. Because you already lost the money. We lost the money. Let's. Let's. Now I can start saving again. I can do whatever. Okay, great. So then every. All these big possibilities are now just situations. Then I go to. So what can we do? to eliminate the possibility of that occurring. So now we go into strategy. So I'm real big on strategy. I'm real big on milestones. I believe that you should not set a macro goal without setting several micro goals. So I live in micro goals. Like my number that I want to generate this year, I don't ever look at that after November of the year prior. After November 2019, I don't really look at it. I look at every monthly goal. 'cause that's my milestone. I know that goal and I know that goal is tied into my annual goal. So I don't have to worry about it. So I'm seeing if I'm on track, all track, all track, 'cause I can handle that. That's palatable, right? So then a lot of times entrepreneurs set like big bodacious goal and you have a release of endorphins when you first set it, but then it goes.
Away because you don't even know how.
You'Re gonna get there. Yeah. And so I'm real big on my, like just on my campus, I'm real big on three things, a strategy, right? Milestones and accountability. By when dates, by when, by who, right? And so make it doable, make it so you can see it, set it up in 90 days. And so I think that purpose comes with a plan. And oftentimes we leave purpose so big and so ambiguous that it feels difficult to touch. and so if you're supposed to inspire millions, okay, great. So for August, how many you gonna touch toward that million? We're gonna get to millions. We're gonna get to millions. But are we touching 5,000? Are we touching 50,000? And then by November, did you grow your social media platform by 3% or by 30%? Like less something trackable and measurable so that you can see that purpose being fulfilled. so you can trust your picker. So many of us haven't had enough indicators, haven't had enough evidence that we've done it the way we thought we would do it or better, that now you're starting to pull back on trusting your picker. Well, you need evidence. If the court of law sends a man to prison because of evidence or lets a woman walk because of lack of evidence, then why not use evidence in your life that you're ready for such a time as this? But you have to set it up in such a way where you can see the trackable evidence.
What do we say to ourselves when we don't do self-care? What are we saying about how much we are worth to ourselves when we don't, when we delay that for months and years of taking care of ourselves?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not important enough to put at the front of my own line. You always are going to have a line of people to serve, things to do. and you got one job to stand at the front of your own line. You're saying that you're training other people how to treat you by the way you treat yourself. And so you are saying, you're saying that I still need to heal in the area of feeling important enough to prioritize my self-care.
Yeah.
You also may be saying and can be saying, I still need to learn how to fall in love with myself enough to take care of me the way I take care of others. And that's so many people. You take care of those around you far better than you take care of yourself.
Yeah.
Yeah. This is beautiful. You, you shared last time. I want to see if your three truths are the same. So at the end of every Interview, I asked people what their three biggest truths are if this was their last day on Earth many years from now. And all of their content was I had to go with them to the next place. And there was no more videos or books or anything of your message, but you could share three lessons to the world or three truths. I'm curious if your three truths have changed in this season. So I'll ask you, what are your current three truths?
You are greater than your circumstances. It's your birthright. It's your birthright to have joy and abundance and love and fairness. And it's your responsibility to leave this planet a better place than it was before you came by your contribution.
My final question, what's your definition of greatness currently?
Being willing to lift others as you climb. Being willing to lift others as you climb. Being willing to speak even if your voice shakes.
How you hypnotize yourself for success, what that was like, and I guess just that process.
Look, I think the vision at a young age wasn't, I wouldn't call it as much, it was, it was was the early development of manifestation. And it was drawing, I have a self-portrait of myself from when I'm 14 years old where it's me, this is no joke, it is me in a matching hat and shoes like with a skateboard on the side, all of these like this art easel and then just stacks and stacks of money.
Really?
You drew this? I hand drew it, right? the most fascinating aspect is it's this bizarre matching hat to shoes combo, you know? And to me, like I always could feel intuitively the law of attraction.
Really?
And so even when I look at like I needed, I was lost at 25 years old when I was like searching for some sort of way to I was like a fix to help like redirect me and get me, remotivated and refocused. And that's why I was looking for a hypnotist, right? And then I found a hypnotist who was at the Scripps La Jolla Hospital. And like, and so to me, I'm like, okay, this is a, this is like a clinical psychologist hypnotist. This is real.
Right.
And so when I got in, not some stage performer.
Yeah. And so to me, it was like, like when I got in there, I was like looking for like, you know, give me, make me focused on skateboarding so I can win contests, like, you know, whatever my vision was. And he immediately did this test and said, you don't believe you were meant to be successful at your subconscious level.
And so that's what he discovered after doing these tests.
And then the initial hypnosis was just reinforcing at the subconscious level level that I was meant to be successful. Right. That I believe that.
Right.
How do you believe, how do you learn to believe that if you hadn't believed it until then?
And look, I, I would say that I, I had, I, I grew it and built it at an early age and was starting to lose it.
Okay.
And then you got it, which made.
You a professional at 16 and kind of go to the next level, but then somewhere you lost it.
Right.
He reinforced it and then boom, you know, and most recently, I went to his house, you know, like a year ago. Really? Yeah, I went to his house. He's like this hypnotist now, his lifelong friend. You know what I mean? I found him in the yellow pages. It was the great Dr. George Pratt. And so, you know, I will, you know, I've sent friends there. I go see him all the time, you know, on my five-year anniversary, he presided over the five-year anniversary of our, when we renewed our vows. But I'm like, hey. Can you just give me a check real quick? I just want to verify that I'm going to be a billionaire. He's like, Come on in here. He's like, Come on, stop it. You know that's going to happen. Wow. His like psychological power, he's like, Stop it. And it's just like, you,'re right, Dr. George. But look, I think even, you know, we were both in Think and Grow Rich that I had, we had shot before we did the initial interview together, too.
He was in the movie?
No, no, you, me and you.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Gotcha, yeah.
Right?
And it was even back then, like, now I'm evolving and getting more intuitive of things being attracted to me. But it wasn't till 2018. I was in a bit of a, you know, like a bit of a pit of chaos, right? Because here's these great plans that I have built that were unfolding 2016. It was all coming alive, right? Our interview was at peak youthful energy of like, the world is mine. I just moved to Beverly Hills. I'm having my first child. Got my new office in Beverly Hills, like my forever estates. Just launched the machine that month, right? I remember all of these things. Like, I'm gonna build and sell all these companies. Still had never done it. Just the vision, the hope, everything. The energy of what was going to become and so But in 2018, things got sideways. The energy got sideways.
How so? Was this the NBC show that didn't work out?
No, this was them talking about ridiculousness going away. Really? And I had built Super Jacket for it to be acquired, and it was just like, wow, it's like this entire thing that I've got built up, and this is the first company I'm building to sell. is going to kind of drift away here. And my wife suggested, like, why don't we just watch the Secret? Wow. And so I'm like, you know, like, what? You know, and I kind of remember the secret. You know, I sort of, like, remember the secret. And then, I mean, the first 15 minutes, it just shifted my being.
Really?
It shifted my being in ways of, like, like, stop it. Like, look at who you are, what you've done, and look at, like, like, the good that has constantly, like, found its way to you. Don't lose sight of that. Like, and I began to practice belief, and literally, like, a month later, my. My internal medicine specialist is talking about meditation, and I'm like, I have to meditate. And she's like, oh, I. In my office, we have this new company that has these meditation pods, the Soma Dome, right? And I'm like, Can I try it out? And inside this Soma Dome, it's a guided meditation about manifestation. Really? And so what I started doing in 2018 is I was like, I'm not going to like hope for the law of attraction. I'm going to begin to practice it. So I would go to sleep every night watching the secret. So it was the last thing I went to bed. And then when I would get up in the morning, I would get in my Dome, right? And I would just, like, think of all the things I wanted to happen, right? And so instead of thinking in 2018 when they were talking about ending Ridiculousness and I was in season 12. I wasn't, I wasn't, I decided I wasn't going to manifest. last season 13. I was go, I kept manifesting, walking on the stage, introducing season 30.
Holy cow. So you weren't thinking about the next season. You were thinking about 20 seasons away.
Right, right.
And, and so for me, like, like it then evolved and, like, it literally began, it was like the, the, the Seas began to part.
Right.
Because what happened is because I own the production now, I was able to negotiate directly with the head of the network on the unit economics of the show rather than talent and producing fees. And so we got to a place where we decided from a business perspective what was best for the network and the ever-changing landscape of linear cable. And I gave him the problem. I'm like, give me the price you want, and then let me go and try to make it happen.
Because you used to have a talent feed that was bigger and then you said, let's work on it.
Somebody else would produce it. Now, I produced the entire thing, owned the entire production, so I understood where all the opportunity was to get it to his cost. And that, it's a nuance now, right? So I negotiated with him on the unit economics where most, like, even big celebrities and producers are still like, like, it's You know, like you don't have the ability to get in that into depth because you don't you don't understand or own the production company at that level. And so it goes from right there. I got it to his number. We negotiated and I was getting 30 episode seasons at a time back then. And I said, I can only do this price if we get to 42 episodes and you got to pick up multiple seasons. Wow. I was hoping for two, he picked up four. And so it went from thinking that it was completely like, I'm gonna have to regroup and television's over here to now you're shooting 186. And the beauty of it was, is I had built the company up to that point. You needed three years of EBITDA. to take it to market and sell it. The entire plan was like, we got to get through the third year and take it to market. And on the third year, they were like, we don't think the show is coming back. Basically like, okay, that means the production company is going out of business after I was getting ready to take it to market and be my big first win. And instead, that 186 order, I took it straight to market. Now I took it to market. Here's the three years in EBITDA, and we have the biggest order in the the history of cable television, right? That's the biggest order? One of the biggest ones, right? And so that is how huge that changed. And then what happens? Now they have more episodes, they air more. It gets this new, entirely new life. Then they're like, can we get more? Really? Then by the following year, you know, and keep in mind, in that time, I sold the company.
When was this now?
The company was acquired in 2019. right?
So.
And then it was like it had this explosion. So then it's like, how many can you give us? And I'm like, so I went through all time management, all aspect, because keep in mind, I'm still doing all of this while living super balanced, happy normal life. So I could do 250 Max. 250 in a year.
Yeah.
And then I was like, but in order to do that, like, can you pick up two years? And then they were like, what? No-brainer let's do it. So they then ordered 500.
500 EPS. Yes. In two years.
And two years. And that put me to 30 Seasons, right? So it's like, so, you know.
Oh, my goodness. So you're visualizing 30.
Visualizing 30. And I'll tell you one thing, you know, I I I. I actually spent some time with the great Dr. Joey Despenza, right? And the one thing I heard from him is this idea of don't try to think it, try to feel it. You know, don't, when you're trying to tap into the quantum field and generate energy in the law of attraction, the things that you are thinking about, think about the that's why I thought of, I like went through the feeling of like what it feels like to be on stage, welcome to season 30, right? So it's a much more richer sort of existence. So now, now it's like I practice it every single day. I am in, you know, that Soma Dome meditation pod, like, feeling what I want to happen seven days a week. Almost never miss a day, right? And I track it super extensively and like literally it's like 97, 97, like almost every like, like 97% of this entire year I have been in there just visualizing what I want to happen.
I gotta get one of these domes.
Look, keep in mind like that's, think how hard it is to just meditate every day.
That's so hard.
Right?
Think about how hard it is to just do anything healthy every day.
For five, 10 minutes.
You know what I mean? It's a, I didn't do it overnight. I had to grow into it. It's a muscle. Getting that level of discipline, being able to commit to it, you need to do it over and over. You go through your highs and lows. You stop for a little bit. You go back to it. You stop like it. It goes like that till you finally grow the muscle. soul of the consistency and the discipline to where it turns into a way of life. Yeah. I just don't, now I can't even imagine not doing it. If I don't do it in the day, I'm like, oh, like, where are all my dreams?
How important is it for people to feel their, what they want to manifest on a daily basis then, as opposed to once in a while?
I mean, look, I'm living proof that you can exponentially accelerate towards if it's part of your focus.
Where do you think you'd be if you didn't do that on a daily basis? It's hard to go to sleep almost every night watching the secret.
I mean, look, but I look, I have been falling asleep to a lot of Jim Roan, this old Jim Roan, this old school sort of his sort of philosophy that's also super sharp because what I've just found is, is like you're like this, you know, I'm gonna fall asleep instantly, right? Like, I sleep pure and quick, but it's like, like, let me be in this, like, sort of growth mindset as I'm, like, drifting off asleep to, like, set the tone, right?
For.
For what it is.
So I I don't know. And it's, again, I think with a lot of stuff that I do, it's extreme, right? It's, like, so extreme.
Like, you track every minute of your life.
Yeah. Like, tracking all. Every minute of my life, having the qualitative data. of every single day asking myself how I feel about my life 0 to 10, right, and of life work and health. The beauty of that is it is a clear indication of the quality of your life.
Yes.
And I see direct correlation to my discipline on my quantitative stuff. Did I get up at five? Did I brain train? Did I meditate? Did I get in the gym? Did I a clean diet that I not drink. You could look straight up the line and look at the qualitative numbers and they are one for one. And at scale, you see you've gamified your discipline. And in a sense, you've gamified driving the quality of your life. Which, what does that do? What are all those things actually delivered to you? You're just happy you're more fulfilled, you feel better about yourself, you have more confidence, you have more belief, right? Like all of these things. But again, I started it in 2015. I was never able to do an entire year until 2020. It took me five years to do an entire year. Now in 2021, I set my goals in 2021 based off of having an entire year of this data. to be like, I'm going to average 20 points above on the quality of life qualitative data, and I'm going to be 80% on my health balance quantitative stuff. And that's what I committed to. Only I am currently at like 21 and like 95. It just, wow. It like once I gamified it and now I'm playing the stats, like it made me even that much more disciplined and excited guided and energetic to stay more disciplined, which in turn gives you more energy, more discipline and more self-belief, more self-belief, more success, all these things that compound on top of each other. Because that's, you know, it really is a compound effect in all aspects of your life. If you're, if you see your life as all of these different systems that have the ability to expand, right? Because as they expand and they're harmonious, you get this extraordinary energy and build this great foundation that you grow into the ideal version of yourself. Because that's ultimately everybody's goal.
If you could only do five things on a daily basis, that would set you up for freedom, success, abundance. What would those five things be?
I mean, to me, I with, you know, it is my, the core five that I do. I'll skip brain train because that's just more like a discipline thing for fun. But you get up early, you know, like, like lately I've been getting up at 4 and 4 30 because it's like you, you get so much out of being highly organized and having time to get a ton of stuff executed before. the chaos starts, right? Because I don't care who you are, the chaos starts, you know, in my case it starts at seven, the moment my kids hit up. So everything that I can get done ahead of then is essential, right? And including free thinking and ideating and all these things that get lost when you're just going from thing to thing to thing and exhausted and then like veg out, get up, go thing to thing, right? Like you, the the life force is constantly recalibrating and, and getting clarity on where you're headed as part of it. But one for sure, get up, get up early, meditate, you know, and everybody does it in a lot of different ways. But like, I don't, meditation for me isn't get quiet and breathe. It is, I put headphones on, I get in a dome and I listen to a guided meditation. That's like basically dry, like reinforcing my drive and ambition and hopes and dreams rather than trying to like bring peace. And it's a different style, but I think anytime you just take that like 20 minutes to be outside of your body and ultimately the reality, if you will, is a great reset. And you know, I think, you know, number one far, you know, far and above is diet, man. I just don't care. I don't, there is, if I could boil down the core of my happiness, the core of my execution, the core of it is literally clean diet, right? And it also compounds, right? And it goes it compounds back and forth, right? Because, like, you, you can get clean and get a big momentum and you can just start to eat lightly bad and you just level off. You know what I mean? You definitely can't go a layer deeper. But it is, of course, the hardest one to maintain. It's the battle between the upper self and lower self, right? That, that, that pure battle of, like, you know, you know you shouldn't be doing it, but, like, you just. can't stop it. Then once you start it, here's the problem for someone like me. I have to create all this discipline and gamify it to protect me from me. Because I will start to dip down.
To justify, ah, just, yeah, yeah.
I'll dip down and then I'll do like fake health for a while, right? And then I'll be like, after my wife's birthday, then I'm gonna get focused again. You're always like, you're always like, like, breaking that battle between. my upper and lower self. It is, is, you know, I would say even this year is probably the, the only year. And I was committed to it again because I had the data and, and, and, and, like, now seeing, like, gamifying it is, like, I just want my body composition. This, you know what I mean? Like, because, no, I swear, like, normally it would, it would, like, literally summer dip back old back up in the starting over January 1. It's almost like in December, it's just pizza and wine and cheese and cookies.
Ice cream.
And to me, it's like-- so how.
Do you do an 80-20 approach to that? Do you have a cheat day? Like how do you make sure you're not this disciplined freak of nature all day long and not also enjoying moments.
Of-- yeah, I try to like, like not put a-- I just try not to lose control.
Yeah, right.
And.
And then I keep a foundation of. And my Foundation is just chicken, vegetables, right. And intermittent fasting. That's it, right? So I just. No rice, no bread, no snacks, chicken and vegetables at, like, 10 or 11, chicken and vegetables at, like, three or four. And. And.
And then.
Okay, it's date night. Like, I'm gonna go with the wife, and we're gonna go movie. I'll have popcorn. popcorn, right? Like, it's. It's your Baseline.
Yes.
That you can commit to. And then it's. You're now it's a battle between your upper and lower self. Where do I lose it?
I.
In the spring when I went on vacation. So I had to. And I got back into that same mode where I, like, I. I dipped so quick, and it was a five-day trip to combo, and I'm in a dog fight. It felt like I was. fighting to like get back to that extraordinary discipline, right? And even with this much discipline, I was still fighting it, you know, and wavered throughout the summer, but stayed committed to like, let's be this year. Look at how disciplined, how much better you feel about life, all the things that are happening to you. Like, let this be the beginning. in at year five, I finally had like a pure year that I envisioned in 2016 that I was trying to sell to you that I was going to develop and be. And it took five years. And I just think that's another testament of like, you're talking, I'm so disciplined, I'm so committed, yet I still highs and lows and chaos. Like it took me five years before I. Well, really, four years into the fifth year before I really got there. You know what I mean? Which is. Is just a testament to, like, having a plan and knowing that, hey, it's a. You're gonna grow into this over the next 25 years.
Yeah.
Not try to do it over six months.
Yeah.
One year, two year, three years.
Interesting.
Okay, so that's number three, nutrition.
And then, of course, getting into gym and moving.
Yes.
You know, I don't forget about, you know, another big thing that I sat in here was talking about my passion for biomechanics. And now after years of abusing my body, I have a doctor come to my house five days a week.
Wow.
And all I want to do is re-engineer by biomechanics. When I came in here, I was one year and a half into fixing my biomechanics.
It was still messed up though.
Yeah, thought I had probably another six months to go, eight months to go. I am now into year six.
He still comes in five days a week.
And it's like now I have this extraordinary, I know every single muscle in my body. I know the relationship between every single muscle, every single bone, all of the fascia, all of the nerves, all of the neurology. have had to slowly fix it all and created a system triangulated three different systems that allowed me to do quantitative muscle testing and muscle pattern correction that I could quantitatively test. And I would to simply describe it, your body winds, puts a layer of compensation on every time you add another movement dysfunction and there is literally thousands. And they essentially turn your body into these Chinese handcuffs where you try to treat one area and it goes to another one and locks it, then that one starts to pull and pulls back into it's your in unwinding all of those Chinese handcuffs. It has taken me, you know, almost three years. And right now I sit on the precipice of like testable flawless biomechanics, right?
Really?
And another beautiful thing about it is I was getting getting internal blood work the entire way through, right? So I have my blood test for the entire way through. And so this latest blood work came back, and, you know, you're no longer. You have no more inflammation markers. You no longer have leaky gut. All of these things were. And, you know, my internal medicine specialist is like, you know, you know, I don't know. I don't know. Like, what about your diet? I'm like, my diet hasn't changed. All I'm doing is fixing the relationship between my muscular structure and my skeletal structure, which then is releasing pressure on my internal organs and my gut and the functionality of my body and all this stuff. So I digress. Extraordinary, because now I'm like, wow, you're going to, you're going to not only have a flawlessly functioning system, but now you have all this data to show that it's flawlessly functioning, that you'll be able to use as your baseline till you die. Till you die. To attract a goal to you. The new book you want to write, your soul mate. But all of these go in a particular sequence. Now, when you forgive yourself, you typically forgive past judgment. And past judgment on yourself can sometimes cause illness and disease.
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