Transforming Behavior and Cultivating Healthy Habits [MASTERCLASS] EP 1444

Calling all conscious achievers who are seeking more community and connection, I've got an invitation for you. Join me at this year's Summit of Greatness, this September 7th through 9th in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio, to unleash your true greatness. This is the one time a year that I gather the Greatness Community together in person for a powerful, transformative weekend. People come from all over the world, and you can expect to hear from inspiring speakers like Inky Johnson, Josie Singh, Vanessa Van Edwards, Jen Sinchero, and many more. You'll also be able to dance your heart out to live music, get your body moving with group workouts, and connect with others at our evening socials. So if you're ready to learn, heal, and grow alongside other incredible individuals in the greatness community, then you can learn more at lewishouse.com/summit2023. Make sure to grab your ticket, invite your friends, and I'll see you there.

When you realize like, hey, life is already short and fragile. If I'm spending my time cowering in fear or worrying, what you're actually doing.

Is, welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome to this special masterclass. We've brought some of the top experts in the world to help you unlock the power of your life through this specific theme today. It's gonna be powerful, so let's go ahead and dive in. if there were three things that everyone could take away from the Stoics to improve the quality of their life right now, first, what would that be?

I got some good ones. So one of the questions we ask ourselves when we're like afraid of something, when we're thinking about, we go, but what about me? What would I do if, right? Like we're worried. And Marcus Aurelius goes, you'll meet that with the same weapons you've met all your other problems. So remembering that like, hey, you've been scared before and you're still here, right? So we often what our fear is really doing is underestimating or undercounting how good we actually are at what we do. Like you're not suddenly tomorrow going to be a helpless loser. You're the same person you are today. And what will you do? You'll figure it out. Just like if you quit your job, you'd be like, I'm quitting and I'm going to go find a new job. But if you got fired, that suddenly feels like disempowered, whereas the other one feels very empowered. So remembering what you're capable of to me is really important.

Okay, that's one.

Number two, the Stoics say that we should always be training. So one of the reasons I think it's important to have like a physical practice One of the reasons it's good to seek out adversity and difficulty is so when stuff happens, you're right. Epictetus, one of the early Stoics, he's actually a slave and he says, you want to get to a point where when stuff happens, you're able to say, this is what I trained for.

Right.

You knew this could happen and you did the work.

Yes.

Before you go into the next one, right when the pandemic happened, I was like, this sucks, and yet I've been training for this for the last 12, 13 years of my life.

Yes.

Because in 2008, well in 2007 I got injured and had surgery, and then 2008 the housing crisis and there were no jobs for someone like me without a college degree that was ignorant from school. I was like, I better develop myself so that when this happens again in 5, 10, 20 years, I'm ready to take on any adversity. Maybe it's not fun and it's still challenging, but I'm prepared and ready. And I spent 13 years training for that moment. And I felt a sense of, kind of weirdly, I felt a sense of peace that gave me the energy and the clarity to take action and shift where I needed to and lead from a place of courage as opposed to, and I wasn't perfect, but lead from a more calm, peaceful place as opposed to a frantic, fearful place.

Well, look, preparation makes you brave, right? You prepared so you were ready. And then I think also because you remembered what you felt then, you were also in a position to lead and understand what people who were not as prepared, what they're experiencing.

Yeah, what they're experiencing. It sucks. So you can have empathy like you talked about, you can connect with people in that way. Okay, so always be training, always be learning something new, training yourself physically, mentally, emotionally.

And the third one would be this stoic exercise of momento mori, which basically means remember, you will die. I actually carry a coin in my pocket that says this. But I think when you realize like, hey, life is already short and fragile, like I don't need to, if I'm spending my time cowering in fear or worrying, I'm acting as if I have a certain power over things that I don't. There's this famous stoic story where like the emperor sees this stoic philosopher who hates and he's like, I'm threatening you to death, or I'm sentencing you to death. And he's like, I was already sentenced to death. At some point.

Yeah.

He's like, you have no more power over me than I had, than life itself. Than mother nature.

Yeah, just like that.

Exactly. And so realizing that life is fragile, I think sometimes people can miss this. Like, momento mori doesn't mean like, oh, like, don't wear a motorcycle helmet or pretend the pandemic is not real. that's not what it's saying. But it's saying like, hey, focus on the parts of safety and concern that are in your control. But if you're wasting your time being afraid, that's something I thought a lot about in the pandemic. It's like, look, I don't know, especially early on, we don't know where this is going, don't know what it means, don't know what is ticking clock is in anyone's body, right? What pre-existing condition you might have or bad piece of luck you got, So you take it seriously, but within that, what are you doing with your time? Right? Like, what are you gonna spend your time on? So if you're spending that time worrying, stressing, watching the news all day. Yeah, what you're actually doing is rejecting the life that you have in front of you at this moment.

It's kind of like a longer eclipse. It's like there's an eclipse that's happening. We don't know what this is, but You know, you can sit there and worry and fear for those five minutes of either clips or whatever, or you can look up and enjoy it and do something with your time and make the most of this and prepare and strategize and organize your time.

Yeah, James Stockdale, who spent seven years in a prison camp in Vietnam, who reads the Stoics, he says, you know, he gets there and he goes, I never lost sight of the fact that I controlled the end of the story, right? So if he got out, that he would control the, he would decide what he said, and that I could turn this into something that in retrospect I would not have traded for.

Isn't that crazy?

That's incredible.

It's like Mandela as well. It's like 25 years or something.

So I think we have, it takes courage to say, this thing happened to me and I wouldn't have chosen it, I didn't want it, but now that it's here, I'm going to face it. I'm going to apply all my training and experience towards it. And then I'm not going to waste my life being bitter, resentful, afraid, passive about it. And I'm just going to get to work turning it into something. Yeah.

I'm not sure if this is 100% true or accurate, but I heard someone say that Bhutan is like the happiest country. I'm not sure if you've heard of this. It's because, I don't know if everyone does this or just some people do this, they focus on their death five times a day.

Interesting.

They think about their death five times a day. And so there's an app, I think it's called Croaked or you Will Croak or something like that, where five times a day, I had it for a while, it sends you a reminder you're gonna die with an inspiring quote that has you reflect on your death five times a day to remind yourself. Do you have this on your phone?

No, no, did I give you one of these?

The coin.

I carry it in my pocket.

Let me see. Oh, nice.

You should just carry that. It's like a nice way to spin it.

And the idea is- you- could leave life right now.

And the rest of that quote, so Mark says, you could leave life right now. And then he says, let that determine what you do and say and think. And so to me, the power of meditating on your death is that it puts everything in perspective, right? It doesn't make things meaningless. It actually makes them meaningful. because in it says like, if this doesn't matter, I shouldn't be doing it. And if it does matter, I should be doing it as if it is the last time that you get to do it. Right. Like, I think one of the things I don't know about you, but like, as like an ambitious or driven person, I find myself like rushing a lot, right? Like, like, gotta go here, gotta go there. This is taking too long. I don't want to wait. I haven't found myself, like my son, he often naps in the car. So it's like, you're in the car as long as he's asleep. And I'll find myself like, you're behind a slow driver. You're like, I gotta get around this. And then I'm like, I'm not going anywhere. Right? Like I'm rushing. And so what I've started to remind myself is like, what are you rushing towards? You're rushing towards death, right? Not just 'cause speeding is unsafe, but you're rushing towards As you're rushing out of a moment, you're rushing away from life. Seneca talks about, he says, don't think of death as happening in the future. Think of death as happening right now.

Really? Why?

Because the time that passes belongs to death. So when you die, you're like, you've lived 80 years. But also, that's 80 dead years that can never come back. So if you think about, the time that passing as being death happening. Like every minute you're getting closer to death. You don't want to rush through a moment. You want to fully experience the moment.

Even if you're waiting in line or behind a car or impatient.

This is life. And when you're rushing, you're rushing away from it or you're rushing toward death. And so you slow down and you go, okay, I've been alive 34 years. What do I have to sh-- Was I alive for 34 years?

Or was I rushing?

Right, or was I rushing away? to get to 35, but maybe I die at 35. You don't know. So if you just go like, the present is here, I'm going to be controlled enough and courageous enough to just, this is enough, this is it, doesn't need to be anything or anywhere else, I'm just going to be here and I'm not going to rush away. And kids have really been helpful for this because you're like, oh, not only am I rushing potentially towards death, but you're at the very least, they will never be this age again. So as you're trying to, as you're trying to get this over with, you, you have to, you have to miss those years. Yeah. And eventually you're gonna, you'll be like, oh, if only they were five again. Right? Like, you know, but you, when they were five, you wanted it to be over.

And so the screaming, the crying, the pooping or whatever it is, it's like, oh, I wish they could do this on their own, but.

You'Ll look back and you don't really want that.

Yeah.

So you want them to stay there forever? You're like, what a capture this moment.

Yeah. And that's, this is true even for the shitty stuff. Like even when you're stuck in traffic, even when you're home with the flu, even with like.

So true. It's like, I don't know if you think about this. I mean, you've always just been like talented and successful your entire life, unlike me, where I struggled and went through pain for years. But I feel like, especially the years after my dream was over playing football, and I was like, well, who am I? What is my identity? What is the value I add to the world if this was my value? How can I, you know, just survive and thrive in this world without that value or identity anymore? I remember just being in a state of uncertainty for a while and wanting to get out of it, wanting to have a job, wanting to launch a business, wanting to have money, wanting to have an audience, wanting to have a book, all these different things, wanting to have something. And when I look back and I'm like, man, those moments were really meaningful of what I was living and learning moment and day by day. The struggle, the pain, the adversity. Like, I'm recreating that in other ways just by trying to get to the next level, but I'll never live that aspect. Those moments again, the specific time, Well.

And when you got those things, was it as magical as you thought it would be? It never is.

It wasn't, yeah, I mean it wasn't as fulfilling. It was cool to see like a full circle and reflect back, but it was never like, oh, this is, I've made it, you know?

You never feel like you've made it. And so that, like, I talk about this a little bit in some of my stuff where like, what will happen is you get to the metal stand, right? New York Times bestseller, Olympic gold medal. you know, all American, whatever the thing is, right? And it, there's an anticlimacticness to it.

I remember after 10 minutes, you're like, now.

We talk about this in the School of Greatness. You're like, now. So the problem is people can learn, you can go two ways. You feel the now what? So you can go now, oh, I gotta find something really meaningful.

I gotta go bigger.

Well, no, no. So you either, either you look at that and you're like, oh, it was never about accomplishments. It was always about being present and meaning and connection and the friends you made along the way. Or you go, oh, it's that I have to do it again. Or, oh, it wasn't a million dollars, it was a billion dollars. And so you can see why that moving of the goalposts creates really successful people, but they are rarely happy people.

Happy or fulfilled?

Yes.

And peaceful inside.

Yes. And I think it's the journey I'm on, what I'm trying to do, I would like to be proof that it is possible to be world class at what you do and come from a place of contentment and fullness, not have to do, not being like, I just need this, then I will be good. Because you're never ever good.

There's always gonna be some writer better than you or someone that writes a book in a way that's different than you or some whatever. This could be Someone more talented, more.

Successful, richer, you know.

Of course.

I mean, you meet someone, there's a story about Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut. Kurt Vonnegut wrote Slaughterhouse-Five, Joseph Heller wrote Catch-22, two of the great writers of the 20th century. And they're at this party, and you've been at parties like this where you're a much richer person, right? Like one of those, you're like, why am I here? And Kurt Vonnegut is teasing Joseph Heller, and he says, Like, you know this guy made more money this week than your book will make in its entire life. And he says, yeah, but I have something he doesn't have.

What's that?

He's like, what could that possibly be? And he says, I have enough. Ooh. And it's not that that guy just wrote Catch-22 and then he sat on it. He wrote other great stuff. He did great work. He just wasn't coming at it from a place of craving. Like, you know, we had that word thirst. Like, he wasn't thirsty. He was quenched, but he was doing it because he actually liked it. I remember the first time one of my books hit number one, I was mowing the lawn at my house. And my agent, Steve, called me. And I was like, Now I have to finish mowing this lawn. You know? Like, it was like, okay, I had a 10-minute moment.

Yeah, I still hear like pushing this thing.

And then you realize like, oh, it's never gonna be, I don't know what I thought it was gonna be, but I didn't think it was gonna be that. And I feel grateful that I didn't think, oh, I have to have back-to-back number ones. That will be it. You know?

It's interesting. I remember Steve, when Steve called me, 'cause we were the same agent, and when I hit number, I didn't hit number one, but I went hit the New York Times bestseller list. And I remember for like an hour just being like, wow, this is something I dreamed about. But then after an hour, like calling everyone and being like, congratulations, I was like, Did anything change? Like nothing really changed. I accomplished-- yeah, there wasn't like opening up the gates and money dropping down or people calling me. It's like a few people noticed and a few, okay, you do one post on Instagram and then people compliment and then people move on. And time moves on.

On this book, I'm actually thinking about that because you know when you do a book, there's this whole lane of prioritization of like how do you get on the list? And it takes a lot of your time and energy. And why do you do it? Obviously there's some business reasons, but part of it is, if not ego, it's this like people said that's important. So you're like, that's as good a target as any. On this one, and I'm a little bit of a thing with my publisher where I'm like, no, I just want to like get as many books in people's hands as possible. So I'm like ignoring all that. But there is a kind of a fear there because it's like, the one benefit of that strategy is that the success is clear and objective and recognizable by other people. So like the book's going to come out, I know it's doing well, I already know the track that it's on. But like, I'm not saying I'm gonna get condolences, but there are people who are gonna be like, oh, I guess it didn't work as well. You know?

So, it's kind of been like all your books, they didn't hit right away. It's like two years later, now it's number one. And it's crushing.

Just the idea of like, hey, to determine what success is to you and to not base it on what other people... That's so hard.

That's courage.

It's hard to do.

Tell you what, for me, the last Two years, I've been working on developing a new book, but I've also been like, gosh, do I do the traditional publisher thing? And I've been having these conversations, but I'm like, I just want to let that go and just write a good book that people are impacted by. But it's like, oh, do you worry about the advance and what people are gonna ask you about it? Or do you not care about that at all? Self-publish it and just try to help as many people as possible. Is there a balance? And literally, it has been holding me back until the last six weeks the last couple of years, I've been in this limbo. I think one, because I've been trying to build my business in the pandemic and shifting, but this has been on my mind, this conversation for two years during all this. And it's not until now where I'm just like, okay, I need to get clear, I just need to take action and do it from the highest level place possible. Do things that are smart as well for business, but also just do what's gonna help as many people.

Well, it's a safety net, right? To do the conventional, like this is how it's done, is safer. Because then no one's gonna be like, what an idiot.

Or like, oh, he's falling off the wagon.

Yeah, he's a loser, it didn't work. He's on the decline. And so the decision to do stuff that you care about, that requires sort of like burning the boats behind you and just going like, I'm on this journey. And I think it's particularly hard in today's world where, you know, there's view counts and likes. Like there's so much more public quantification of what's done. And like when I talk to sports teams, I sometimes say that I'm a little bit jealous. It's like it's obvious whether they're doing a good job or not.

You're jealous? Of who?

I love the clarity of sports. Like win, lose.

Win, lose. How many points? Did you get the height or not? Yes.

But the reality is in the world that the rest of us exist in.

It'S like a committee and how many people like it.

You're running your own race. Like you have to decide what success is.

Yeah, I know.

And that means criticizing yourself when you fall short of your own metrics. And it also means congratulating yourself on a success that perhaps other people don't recognize. Right.

The success could be just, I'm proud of this chapter I wrote in this week or this month, even though no one's gonna see it. No one's buying this, but I'm proud of the work that I'm putting in, the effort, the energy, the process.

I've tried to get to, I would say that on my first book, I was 10% this is a success because I made it and it was the best I was capable of, and 90% let's see what the results are. Let's see how it does. And I would like to think that as I've gone forward, that slowly flipped and that I'm now 90, it's already a success because it exists.

Even if no one buys this, it's my best work.

I put my best work. Yeah, yeah. And then 10% like bonus, like, hey, it worked, won awards, got recognition.

But isn't it the, like we talked about in the beginning, there's kind of like three levels to like a book. There's the mastery of writing the book, which you've become one of the greatest writers of our time in distilling wisdom, ancient wisdom, and creating practical examples on how you can actually do this for today's life. And millions of people have read your books. But you could master writing the book, but you also have to master doing the marketing and promotion and now putting yourself out there and communicating it, and then master being patient. Maybe put out the great book. and no one cared about it right now for a few years, but then you'd be patient and people start buying it.

Well, I think you want to rank them. So the stoics say that their first task in life, the most important task in life is what is up to me and what is not up to me. Like separating things into the category of is it in my control, is it not in my control. So as I look at like any project or business or whatever, I prioritize based on like what's most in my control to what's least in my control. So like the first mastery of the thing itself, like is it the best album, the best video, the best, you know, live event it could possibly be? You have as much control over that as you're gonna have of anything. 'Cause that's yours. So like there you have the ability to get most of the win before it's even out. Then marketing and promotion and communicating and talking about it, that's more something you have influence over as opposed to something you control. Because it's like, what's happening in the world? How on point or trend is your thing? But it's also, are you willing to put in the time? Are you willing to... So many people just think they're better than that and so they don't do it. And then the third part is the patience or the time. It's like you gotta, the audience will like it. Imagine you're Herman Melville, you write Moby Dick. It gets savaged. Everyone's like, this is not just not good. This is horrible. We're offended that you did it. And then only towards the end of your life and after your life does it finally get the recognition you deserve. So that part's the least in your control. and you have to be somewhat detached from that. Because if you're sitting, if you wake up every day and you're like, is this the day that people finally recognize me for all my contributions? You have handed your happiness over to something that's not up to you.

It's true. It's funny as you were saying that, I grew up in a religion called Christian Science that a woman discovered this religion and wrote a book called science and health. And this is the same time back in the late 1800s when Mark Twain was around. And they were kind of like frenemies, I guess. And Mark Twain wrote an entire book trashing this woman, Mary Baker Eddy, and her findings of the science behind healing. It was essentially like the science of Jesus' healing. Here's how it works. Here's how the mind works and how we can heal ourselves. And he wrote an entire book bashing her and the religion called Christian Science, which was like this critical of her work because she kept writing the same book with expanded updates every year. Like so many different editions of the same book. And it kept hitting number one. And he had to write new books all the time. So I think he was just frustrated that this woman kept writing the same book over and over with like, here's more finding and research in science of how the mind and body is healed through the mind. And it's funny, like, she just kept going because she was focused on the work and healing people one at a time and the message spread. But I think it's interesting that.

For.

The reason that came up for me, because the more you put your work out there, the more criticized it's gonna be open to. You know, there's more people gonna be willing to criticize it. And I think a lot of people aren't ready for criticism. They're not trained to deal. No one teaches you how to deal with criticism when you have an audience.

No, no one teaches, 'cause it's a champagne problem that a lot of people never get to.

Yes.

So there's not like a lot of instructions, but it is inevitable. And like, you have to realize, I've realized a couple of things. One is like, critics are almost always louder than your fans. Like, people who dislike something are much louder than the people who are like, why is that? That's pretty good.

Why is that?

I think it's one feels more strongly than the other. Like the stuff I like, I'm like cool.

Right.

You know, but then when you really hate something, you're like, I need them to suffer how I am suffering. So a lot of times I think you're just different levels of enthusiasm.

So when was the moment then where you were able to look at yourself and realize, I have either conquered this inner rage, beast, whatever you want to call it, and you do have control.

Well, I have to go now. We go flash forward.

Yes.

Okay. My wife and I had been through, you know, first of all, in 2010, it was the end of our marriage. We had been married 20 years. Wow. And, you know, this whole time I had had an addiction to pornography and. I had never told her. And 10 years earlier, I had, you know, basically cheated on her at a massage parlor. Right. But I vowed, I'd never tell anybody. I vowed. I said, man, I'm taking this to my grave. It's not happening. But see, you got to understand another thing, too, is this competition, but also this guilt that I was always, you know, carrying creates rage.

Because of that.

Yeah, yeah, because of that.

Creates rage.

Yeah, of course. And shame.

Shame. I used to get into arguments. So she asked me questions like, have you ever Do you watch porn? Hey, don't even bring that up. What are you talking about? You know what? No, listen, I don't know who you think you are. And start an argument so she'd be like, I'm out. Just so she wouldn't bring up more. 'Cause I knew what I was doing.

Right.

And I knew that I wasn't living right. I mean, the one thing is, it's almost like, you know, you say one lie and it turns into two, turns into 10.

And it eats you inside of you too.

You're talking about 10 years now. I vowed, I would never tell anybody. And my wife was always like, she would just bring up stuff like, what is it? What are you doing, man? I don't know. You ever cheat on me? Stuff like that. And I'm like, nah, I don't know what you're talking about, you know? And angry, angry. And what you would do, and one thing that I would do is project.

Of course.

So I was like, why are you saying that? Are you thinking about cheating? You know, in turn, and again, this manipulative game. that you could play with the people you love, people who love you, or you claim to love, just so you can keep your thing together. You know what I mean? And this is the thing, Louis, is that I realized that the image of Terry Crews was more important than who Terry Crews was.

Dang.

And I had to worship that image.

Cool.

And it ran everything.

'Cause what would happen if who Terry Crews was really came out instead of the image? What would happen then?

Well, my mindset, I had a play. I was like, I'd lose everything. First of all, my wife would leave. People who knew me would be ashamed. People who knew me would be, they would run away. Everybody would be done. All of it would be finished. Every bit of who I, if people found out who I really, really was or what I was really, really thinking, and contemplating how I had done, then it would be the end of me. Wow. So I decided, and we gonna put this image up, and we're gonna prop it up. And it's like having an image on these really weak posts, you know what I mean? And we get bumped, and it's like waves swaying, and you're doing everything you can to hold, I gotta put another beam up on there just to hold it up, because it's getting rickety. And the longer it goes, the more wicked it gets. And it all fell, 2010. And my wife was like, I'm out. I'm done. And because what happened was she finally asked me, because we had just been getting farther and farther apart over the years. And she said, what is it I don't know about you, Terry Crews? And I told her. I told her about what happened 10 years earlier. Not in my head. I'm like, Hey, that was 10 years ago. But for her, it was today. And she was like, I know, wow, don't come home. And what I realized is that she had married an image. And what she realized is that she didn't know me. She was like, who are you? And I let her stay in that. And one thing about men is that what we're looking for is intimacy. Like literally someone who knows us inside and out and loves us anyway. But if you never reveal who you really are, you can never, ever have intimacy.

Amen to that.

You understand what I mean?

Yeah.

You can't. It's impossible because you have to know who you are.

Absolutely. You have to share who you are.

But the game is not to share who you are. So you can have sex all day. Lots of sex, because that's still part of the image. But it doesn't have anything to do with intimacy.

Right.

Anything to do with someone. This is why you always love your mom. Because your mom knows who you are.

Am I right? Everything.

Everything. You know what I mean? She cleaned your nose. She wiped your butt. She knows when you lie, she knows the bad to you, she knows the good to you.

Yeah.

And she loves you anyway. That's why mom, mom is queen of the world. But you didn't tell everything to this chick.

No.

To this lady.

Hell yeah.

To your wife. I'm like, oh my God. And Duke, years of therapy, I finally went in. to deal with these issues, man. Now, the thing about in my culture, where I grew up, no one does therapy. The mind was, you can't cure crazy. That was the phrase that was said, you can't cure crazy. And then you're talking about in religious circles, they were like, oh, you're gonna get them demons. The demons are gonna come if you go to that psychology. They're gonna mess with your brain and make you crazy. So my father, there was one time my father went to a psychologist to get help for his alcoholism. And a week later, the psychologist jumped off a bridge. And I was like, what?

Wow.

Huh?

Oh man.

He jumped off a bridge, man. And I said, okay, that don't work. That's not gonna work.

So, no.

And I thought these guys are gonna make me crazy. So that was the thing. Like, when that broke for me, when my wife left, I was at My wits in, like I said, man, I gotta try this therapy stuff, you know, 'cause I'd heard enough about it over the years.

What was the greatest lessons therapy has taught you though?

Man, assembly required, okay? When I say this, we all think we as men or people are as good as we are. We just take me as I am. We make songs about it. Take me just as I am. No, no, no, no, no. But the problem is this thing, it's like, It's not anybody else's job to assemble you. You are like Legos, okay? Legos come in a box. You shake the box, it's just pieces. And in a very competitive world, people tell you, you're broke. Hey man, look at your box. You broke it. But what I learned is that you're not broken. You're just not finished. You It's up to you to assemble yourself. You have to work on you. You have to take off parts that are bad or broke or that don't fit. Because nothing's broken. It just things don't fit. And you pull it off and you put it back together the right way. It's like when you go, but you got to go deep and you got to go down with computers, it's a bit. with property or the minerals, it's atoms. And with human beings, it's genes. I mean, it's down into the core. You get one little gene and you can rebuild yourself. That's what I got from therapy. I was like, holy cow, you can take the bat out. It's not automatic. You know, a lot of people have said, It's either nature versus nurture. But nurture always works. No matter what your nature started out like. You understand what I mean? Like, nurture is, you're in the wood, nature is you're born naked in the woods. But nurture is you learn to make a coat and put it on.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? You can build a house.

Why do you think it's so hard for us to be, 100% authentic in relationships.

Yeah.

If you ask somebody about your characteristics, your personality, for instance, what your strengths might be, that's what you've come across that you feel as if is a good machinery to make it in this life, right? So this is like, you know, maybe I'm charismatic, maybe I'm hardworking, maybe I'm analytical, maybe I'm, you know, competitive, maybe on these ways. somewhere along the lines of your life, you realized this would be a good thing. And this gets me a little further forward. Yeah, very good.

So.

So then there I am in life being this way. And the more successful it is, the more I'm going to be this way. So now I'm more and more and more like this to the point where there's no distinction between this thing and me. Like, we are the same now. It's this. There's no line anywhere. It's just all. how you would explain yourself now. What you also realized, though, is that those ways don't work everywhere. And so what people call imposter syndrome is basically just the realization that your shtick don't stick. Like, you're like, My stuff don't work here. And so people are like, oh, I feel like I'm an imposter. Well, you are in many ways, but not in the way you might think. You are an imposter. There's a you there doing another you. But behind that, you really is you.

So how do we get behind that you? How do we break down the thing that's been working for so long, but maybe won't continue to work in the next evolution?

If I'm, for instance, competitive, right? And it's a trait of mine, and it's stood me in good stead, and I've created a life from that and maybe some success from that, or in my case, hard working.

Right?

But it could be other things, could be analytical and it could be, and this is obviously a kind of, these are ways of being, this is an ontological element, right? Or the element of being a human being. So if I'm competitive, I can point to all the places where that's really done me, done me well, right? Sports and maybe, or maybe I'm in sales, right? Or maybe I'm, you know, like I'm building my own business, right? I mean, these are, this is a strength here, right? Yeah, try taking that home.

In relationships, it doesn't work.

It's a crap show, right? Like, it's like, this is not gonna work for me.

You know what's fascinating? I would say I define my identity, a piece of my identity, most of my life as a competitor.

Yeah.

Right. Being in sports.

Yeah.

And using sports as a tool to make myself feel better, to prove the bullies wrong from childhood, all those things, and say, I'm gonna make something of myself.

Yeah.

I'm gonna win at all costs and sports and things like that. I started early in my 20s to translate that into business and it worked in a sense.

Yes.

But it left me feeling more, I don't know, against people than it was with people.

All right, can I ask you a question?

Yeah.

Right.

So there you are and you were having an experience that this competitiveness actually wasn't working for you.

Right, it was getting results in some way, but not results in the other ways.

Right, so you're starting to see something there though that's really interesting, I mean that is, here you are being yourself, but hold on a minute, is this my self?

And why am I suffering inside and why am I going through these challenges?

Right, so what I want to know is, what's the thing that's suffering then? Like what's that?

Yeah, I guess it was the identity that this isn't working, like who I am or the way I'm being isn't working fully. It's working partially to get certain results, but it's not creating peace inside.

All right, so I would flip it the other way. I would flip it the other way, look at it from the other direction. That is, it's fine for this competitive expression, but not okay for you.

Absolutely.

And it's the you, that you that I'm interested in. I'm interested in that. Because that thing right there, what matters to that thing? And so you actually pine into it. So the thing that mattered to you then was people.

Absolutely.

But you see how like that competitiveness was now the barrier between you- Absolutely. -and people.

Each moment is an opportunity to detour into fear, and then we create a world of of fear-based perceptions. And so what we must do to live and thrive and feel good is undo those fear-based perceptions. And I believe through a spiritual path or through maybe a therapeutic path, I mean, I think spirit's in all of it, whether you realize it or not. But to make a commitment to feel better means that you're committed to returning to God. Or love, or, you know, spirit.

Whatever you call it. Yes. You also talk about how We have guides and it's funny because my girlfriend who's amazing and she'll always tell me she's like, you know, your angels are always watching. Yeah, she's the spiritual being, right?

She's like, I can see it.

I have, there's angels that are always supporting me whenever I'm in trouble. I'm like focused on my angels. I'm like, where are these angels? Like how do we know they're here? Who are these guides? Like how can we tap into this belief that there are, whether it's our ancestors spiritual beings, whatever it may be, are here with us, are guiding us.

I know we're talking about this on.

The School of Greatness. Protecting us, are leading us into a path of love.

Yeah, so what I write about in my book is what I believe, and I always have a big disclaimer that says this is an opportunity to crack you open to believing something new, and if it's not for you, you choose how you choose to perceive this. So not only do I talk about spirit guides and angels and deceased family members, but I also talk about your higher self. so if this is too woo-woo for you, start to tap into what is the voice of my higher self.

Gotcha.

Right? That voice of my inner guidance system and that wisdom that I believe in is my true nature, right? But I personally, Gabby Bernstein, I believe that we all have guides, ancestors, family members, teachers, beings of light beings, energy beings that are supporting us in a form that is is able to step in, able to channel through us when we write books, able to be there in those darkest moments, pick us up off the floor, and hold us in discomfort and guide us to business opportunities or babies or whatever it is that we're looking for. And it's always available to us, that guidance, but we just, we cut it off, we block it.

Why do we block the guidance?

Fear is the reason we block it. Fear of what? It's not even fear. It's that false based perception that we've built up around ourselves from those traumatic events, right? So we have these traumatic events early in life and they continue to build and build and build. We build up a world of false perceptions. I am this body. I am Gabbie Bernstein.

I am Lewis Howes. I've got the School of Greatness.

People are out to get me. No, I can't trust people. We create these beliefs. And you believe you're separate from others. You believe you're better than or less than. or not good enough. And all those stories, all those false pretenses are what many spiritual practices call the ego, right? And that fear-based perception of yourself is misaligned with God, with love, with spirit, with angels, with guides. And so this book is all about how to get back into alignment so that you can hear that guidance and receive that guidance and be a channel for inspiration. And when you clear and undo those patterns of fear and start to claim the pattern of love, that's when you are hooked up, super attractor, unstoppable. Unstoppable. Invisible doors open for you. It doesn't matter how low you are when you're starting this, you will go way further than you could possibly have imagined. And I am standing behind that subtitle, Methods for Manifesting A life beyond your wildest dreams. Standing behind it.

I love that. What's the difference between spiritual guides or guides and intuition?

You could call it the same thing. Your guides are your bridge from your fear-based thoughts back to your love, right? So, if you pray and say, God, guide higher self.

Angels, whatever it is.

I give this to you. Figure it out. Right? I don't know how I'm gonna get through this time, but yeah, I give it to you. That's how we surrender. People are like, I don't know how to surrender. I don't wanna let it go. I don't know how to. Through prayer. Okay? Prayer is the conduit. And then when we say that prayer or that intention, whatever you wanna call it, and we allow ourselves to give it over to a higher power of our own understanding, a guide, God, spirit, grandma, whoever, then we're taking that difficult experience we're handing it over and then we relax. Because we think, okay, it's not on my shoulders anymore.

It's like taking our ego out of ourself and putting it over here and.

Saying, somebody else is going to help me undo this. And then their job is to pay attention, what's going to show up for us. And so pay attention. How do we pay attention? Just be aware, stay calm and stay chill, right? And be conscious of how things start to speed up or the synchronicities that begin to happen around you. If you are like, you know, guides, I want to see a sign, and you're like, I need butterflies, and butterflies are everywhere. I'm getting thousands and thousands of emails from readers that are reading this book in the last two weeks it's been out, and they're just like, Gabby, every single sign I've asked for is coming to me, and like, it just speeds up. Ask for a sign today. If you're having a difficult experience, say guides, what would your sign be?

Don't think, just say it.

Just say it, don't think.

Oh, the sign itself.

Like a pumpkin or anything.

An eagle.

Eagle is your sign. That's a good one.

It's strong.

See how everybody, how he answered that. It's gonna be the first thing that comes to mind. And now, if there's an issue that's happening in your life, just say to yourself silently today at this end of this podcast, just say, Thank you, guides. Thank you, universe. Whatever you believe in, right? For showing me my eagle to remind me that I'm on the right path.

So, ask for the sign, the eagle. Thank you for revealing my eagle.

Thank you for revealing it. Before I see the eagle, Yeah, thank you for revealing my eagle to remind me that I am being guided.

Okay. Okay. And the eagle will mean whatever I give the meaning to, whether it's to.

Make a decision on something or if it's just being guided in general or being guided towards that job or that healing or that whatever, right? Sometimes I'll use a sign like, am I supposed to take this deal? And I don't know what to do, and I'm feeling so uncomfortable about it. And I'll say, show me a sign, and I'll get this. And the thing is, if you don't get your sign, that's a sign. sign too. But you absolutely will get your sign. If you're asking to be shown that you're being guided, 100% you're gonna get your sign. Who is gonna text me later everybody? It's on the eagle! My eagle!

Just have me a photo of some massive eagle.

So give me an example for people.

It could be an eagle in a photo or an eagle, you know, in the background. Any image of an eagle. Not some eagle sitting on my window, which would be amazing if that happened. Could be that too. So let's give a practical example for someone. say someone says there's a female listening or a male listening and saying, okay, should I go on a date with this person? A second date with this person, right? Just something small. Show me my sign. Show me my sign. And what if you don't see, and the sign is to reveal that you're supposed to go on this date or to give you some guidance.

And if you don't get the sign, if you don't get the sign, then, and you decide to go on the date anyway, it's okay. There's still some learning in that. It might be not. There have been times where I've done things where I didn't get my sign and they didn't work out necessarily, but I still learned something from the experience.

Has there ever been a time where you didn't see a sign and it did work out? Maybe you saw the sign later or something.

It worked out in a different way. Yeah, right. So like if I was like, I need a sign about this situation and I didn't get the sign, oh, here's an example from the book. So I was my Two weeks before I was meant to conceive, my doctor, who was like a very conservative, Yale-trained physician in my little tiny country town, was like, you,'re turning, I just turned 39. I was 38 when I was pregnant and I just turned 39. So he considered me 40. I was like, dude, I was 38 a week ago and now I'm fucking 40. So he makes me 40. And he's like, we believe that you need to deliver 40 and 40. 40 weeks when you're 40 years old. And I was resisting and resisting. And I was like, I'm not 40 and I don't want to be induced and I don't want to force the baby out. I don't want to have that kind of thing. And I so I was so torn up because he was so nervous and that was infiltrating my fear, my thoughts. Yeah. And so I was in his office and I was like, okay, universe, I can't make the decision. I need a sign. And so I said, show me a sign if following this path is the right move. and he walked in the door and he was wearing this necktie. And I said, Howie, what's on your tie? And he said, it's a cardinal. And I said, okay, in my head, I'm like, that's my sign. It's a cardinal. And so the next day, I had to make a decision if I wanted to get booked. So I didn't have an opportunity to see my cardinal before I made that, well, that decision, because I had to book him in the schedule. And he was leaving the next week. It was a mess. So I made the decision without seeing the sign. Okay. To be induced, to schedule an induction. Wow. It's not what I wanted. And so I made that decision. I was in my bath, I texted my girlfriend, I said, okay, I'm gonna be induced, this is happening. And she writes back to me, that's a great decision. I feel really good about it. And I know it's good for you because I saw a cardinal land on my window just now.

Cardinal land on my window.

No way.

Did you tell her the sign? She had no idea about the sign. Wow. But here's the thing. So I got my cardinal, It gave me the guidance that I was on the right path. I was meant to be induced on a Wednesday. On a Monday, I'm lying in my bed and I'm finishing the finishing touches of the book, 'cause I wanted to deliver the book before I delivered the baby. So I stand up to go to the bathroom and my water breaks.

No way.

And here I am and I have the most epic Beyonce birth. There was nobody at the hospital. I had rolling hills out my window and I I was the only one birthing in the maternity ward. Oh my gosh. And I had, you know, the sun setting. So the whole point is, is that my sign was saying, yeah, you're on the right track. Make the decision so that I could relax. Because if I hadn't made that decision, I wouldn't have relaxed. My water wouldn't have broke because I would have been too freaked out and tense and everything worked out. Wow. Do you see what I'm saying here? Yeah, of course.

So if you don't see your sign, that's still guidance. And then, you know, if you get your sign, even if it's something you didn't want, you know, What has been the biggest lesson of motherhood that you were unexpectedly, because you have lots of friends who are mothers.

Yeah, I have no idea.

So many fans of yours who are moms that you speak to all the time and maybe you thought you knew what they were going through or you could speak into some of their challenges, but what have you really learned? Maybe three biggest lessons so far about motherhood and what moms experience in the first year of motherhood.

So in terms of what moms experience, and what happens. And I think my son has taught me, has given me the greatest gift of healing I could ever have imagined. Amazing. Because as soon as I became pregnant, what happens for women is all your shit comes up.

And for men too.

Oh yeah. You know, when you're about to bring life into the world and be responsible for that life, your darkest demons start to come to the surface. And so many people just push it down, push it down, push it down. And so I don't push things down. I was like, let's go. Okay, I'm ready. I'm willing. Let's go for this. And so I worked on it along the way and then the postpartum, and that gave me even a greater step of healing. So his presence in my life has already put me on a massive healing path. I've had fast forward healing in the last year and a half. So that I'm grateful. My son has taught me that.

I.

Am going to make my highest priority in life to honor his feelings. People keep asking me, what's your parenting advice? I'm like, look, I've been doing this for 10 months, but I can tell you this. Honor their feelings. Imagine that was something that we experienced.

Amazing.

I mean, you'd be a different person. I'd be a different person. And if we could honor any human's feelings, any human being, particularly a child. And then I guess the third thing that I've learned as a mother, there's so much, but Is that they have their own guides. They have their own, they're not, oh, this is big. He is not my son, Oliver Rockland. He is not, you know, the son to Zach, the son to Gabby. He is his own spirit having a human experience.

Wow.

And he is a person. He's not a baby.

Wow.

Yeah.

And you're just here to guide him. You're here to guide him.

I am in a archetypal position to be a guide and a love and a support for him, but I find myself often being like, My baby's so cute. My baby, my baby. And then I have to stop myself and say, Oliver, not my baby. He's not my baby. He's him.

Wow. So when we reflect our judgment on someone else, we don't like something, we're angry at them, we're pissed off at them, whatever it is, how can we shift that to see the good in them?

Read Judgment Detox. Okay. Because I'm sitting, sometimes I'm just like, yeah, I wrote a book about it. Yeah, exactly. I get it. But I'll answer your question fully right now, which is like, when we are in judgment of somebody else, what's happening is that we're projecting onto them our own wounds. And so the second step of judgment detox is to, well, the first step.

Is to heal your wounds. Is to honor your wounds. Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. It's so hard to not judge other people, isn't it?

It gets a lot easier when you practice it. It's helped me so much. so much. And do I not judge all the time? Of course I still judge, but when I judge, I don't believe in it. And I get out of it quickly.

So what do you say when you're judging someone else?

I witness my judgment without judgment, step one. I honor the wound. Okay, oh, I'm judging them because I'm feeling insecure, I'm judging them because they're triggering something, right? And then I continue on the journey of the judgment detox, which, you know, just releasing and forgiving and seeing someone for the first time, choosing to see.

Them through the lens of love.

It's a fabulous book.

See Them Through a Lens of Love.

Yeah.

Get that book too. What is, do you think, is your greatest accomplishment in 40 years of life?

My greatest accomplishment in 39 years, two weeks away from 40... Don't age me. I can't believe I'm 40. Oh my God. So my greatest accomplishment is the freedom I'm feeling right now, today, here with you, is my greatest accomplishment. My recovering from from trauma is my greatest accomplishment. It will be the best contribution I can give to the world. I am going to help people because even just being in this state of freedom will help people watching because they will see what they are capable of.

Yeah, that's powerful. And do you feel like you'll be able to make a bigger impact in the world by being a mother or...

I've already, yeah. So I've noticed myself in my talks, I would always have a really good boundary, which you have to have as you know when we do the work we do. Because if I'm gonna get up and answer questions, people, my audience is like, you know, coming up being like, I have a brain injury or I'm suicidal or, you know, and I have to hold them in their transformation but not take it on. But as a mother now, I don't feel that I'm taking it on, but I have a way deeper level of compassion for people that I never had before.

'Cause you're experiencing all this.

I'm seeing their innocent child them. I don't see them as an adult who hasn't taken care of themselves or as an adult who's done stupid things. I see them as a wounded child and all I wanna do is just hold them into love. And that's, I mean even in one of my talks, this one woman was so wounded and I actually went as far as asking her to come up so I could just hug her and that is so against everything I've ever done in my career.

Why?

I would never touch someone or have it, it doesn't mean that I wouldn't hug somebody casually, but I I held her like an arm hug, you know what I mean? I was like, this is, and I kept holding her and I said, you,'re safe, you're safe, you're safe. And I didn't know what came over me. The other thing that's happening is I'm becoming more unapologetic about my mediumship. So we're all mediums. We all have the ability to listen to spirit and let, but I can, you know, throughout my life, I've always heard messages and, you know, now I'm just like giving messages to people. And I always have channeled throughout my talking, but now where normally I would.

Say, you know, okay, this is the guidance. If I'm hearing it as a guide.

I'll say, what I'm hearing for you is this. And I'll deliver it in a different way.

Yeah, yeah. So people can receive it, not if they don't believe in some type of medium stuff.

They can, they can receive. Sometimes I'll just tell them, like, I think, you know, your grandmother is telling me.

Tim's telling you this. Yeah, sometimes, not always. I've never had a, someone who calls himself a medium that does this practice on the show. I've been pitched, like, different mediums to come on, and I've always been kind of resistant. But lately, I'm like, you know what?

I think it'd be a fun experience. Oh, yeah. I think you should have some.

--Is there someone that you think is.

Like the best --There's so many. I mean, yeah let's talk offline because I can sit here and tell you five or six different names and I don't want to offend anybody out there. I know a lot of people --Sure --I don't want that one be like why didn't you say me on Louis's house?

So, I'll give you some suggestions.

Yeah.

--Great --All good though --It'll be fun --Yeah --What do you think is missing.

From you to get to the next level in your life? Whatever that looks like for you.

--What'S missing?

--There'S There's a little bit more trauma work that I've gotta face. It's not missing though. It's not like it's in perfect time.

Around what? What's the trauma around?

Just a lot of the sexual trauma, the shame around the sexual trauma.

Yeah, because you talked about it on our show a couple years ago, a couple years ago. And I know you've been doing a lot of work over the last few years with it, but do you feel like you're fully, you're not fully healed with those things yet? I don't think I am either. Even though I talk about it for the last six years.

You're more healed than ever before, but.

Every day- I'm at peace a lot about it, but there's still little triggers.

EMDR.

Yes, I keep hearing that.

I really recommend it to you.

Okay, I'll try that.

Yeah.

Where do you think you'll be once you have that final healing?

Freedom is my end game, right? I hope to live for a long, long time feeling free. I did talk with Deepak Chopra yesterday and I was on the plane with him coming here. And we were chatting about, you know, I was like, do you feel triggered or shut down? You know, he's like, not at all.

With nothing.

All the time. And it's because of his practice. It's because of his devotion to his practice. So that's, I'm getting closer and closer to that. It doesn't mean I'll be enlightened. It doesn't mean I'll have bad experience. I won't have bad experiences. It doesn't mean I won't be a human, but that I can feel free. Even when things are tough.

What do you think it is that he has or people like him have that allow them to have zero connection to or not allow the ego to affect them in a triggering way, in a reactive defensive way, guarded when maybe something bad happens to him. Maybe a business deal.

He's the person who grew up being taught that the divine is the direction. That, you know, God was the, I don't want to use language that's not his, but he had a very specific spiritual upbringing. So it was a foundational experience for him. And he's devoted his life to being at ease. And meditate, he's up very early, meditates for two hours, I think, in the morning. And, you know, I think it's his devotion and commitment that's let him be that way.

Isn't it amazing that when I am consistent with my meditation practice, I feel like I'm unstoppable. Like, the longer I meditate, I feel like I see, it's like the matrix. You'll see someone saying something to you and see someone cut you off.

You become a super attractive. This is what the whole book is about, baby. The more we practice being in alignment, the more that unstoppable experience occurs. But when we are just living out of alignment, we feel out of alignment.

That's right.

Things don't work. That's it.

We're pushing. What do you think is missing from your point of view as a friend of me, what's missing in my life to help me attract more of good things that I want in my life?

I think there's a little more trauma work to do. I can feel it, and you said it a few times, times. And so I'm gonna hold your hand while I say this because I love you so much and I will help you if you need any guidance and support just to be listen and be there for you because you have the potential for that same freedom that I'm talking about now. We all do, but particularly you're right there, but there's some shame and there's places to go to that I think you're ready to go now. And that it hasn't been, there's been no step along the way that's been an accident. It's all been perfect order for you and it's all all been unfolding perfectly and, you know, humbling moments and difficult times and things that come up only to get you to the place where you're ready to crack open more and face some of the dark, the darkest stuff. And you need to do that with a. So I'm hearing that you need to do that with a. With a facilitator that you trust, someone that you feel safe with, and someone that will really give you that. Hold that space for you to go to the places that scare Mmm, sounds good.

I'm in.

Because you're doing really big shit in the world, you know, big stuff, big work, and it's gonna be massive the more free you become.

Yeah, yeah. I'm excited. I'm excited to continue to work.

I'm really proud of you because the fact that you even asked that question is so major because it means you're willing.

Yeah, definitely.

I'm so proud. I love you so much.

Thank you. I love you. Yeah, and you said the first step is willingness and what? You said willingness is the key for something before in one of our interviews.

Willingness is the catalyst for change because the moment that we become willing, it's like we invite the next right action. We invite God into our life to show us where to go and what to do. The willingness that you've developed over your life over the last 36 years got you into this seat right now with me while we're talking about things that we've both been through for you to say what's next and for me to honestly and authentically say, this is what I think is next.

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