Unlock Inner PEACE & Master Your Thoughts | Yung Pueblo

My friend, I am such a big believer that your mindset is everything. It can really dictate if your life has meaning, has value, and you feel fulfilled, or if you feel exhausted, drained, and like you're never going to be enough. Our brand new book, the Greatness Mindset, just hit the New York Times bestseller back to back weeks. And I'm so excited to hear from so many of you who've bought the book, who've read it, and finished it already. and are getting incredible results from the lessons in the book. If you haven't got a copy yet, you'll learn how to build a plan for greatness through powerful exercises and toolkits designed to propel your life forward. This is the book I wish I had when I was 20, struggling, trying to figure out life 10 years ago at 30, trying to figure out transitions in my life, and the book I'm glad I have today for myself. Make sure to get a copy at lewishouse.com/2023 mindset to get your copy today. Again, lewishouse.com slash 2023 mindset to get a copy today. Also, the book is on audible now, so you can get it on audiobook as well. And don't forget to follow the show so you never miss an episode.

I just started very actively avoiding my emotions and wanting to double down on the fact that there was nothing wrong. That took me to the end point where I almost lost my life. I was on the ground for like 2 hours. I felt like my heart was going to explode. In that moment, I knew if I keep doing this, I'm gonna die.

Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. I wanted to ask you if you would read one of your short poems real quick. and the way forward, this book that you have out. I think it's the first one. Yeah.

There are times when all you can do is survive, moments when growing doesn't even seem like an option, and healing feels hundreds of miles away. The trauma and old hurt can weigh so heavily that all you can do is try to stay afloat, to endure another day. If existing takes every ounce of your energy, then that alone is heroic work.

When it seems like a lot of people are just trying to survive and exist right now, especially in social media culture, and when people see everyone else seeming to have great, perfect lives, but they don't have it, it feels like they're just existing or surviving. How can we know when we're in a survival or existing mode, and what are some steps we can do to get beyond that, even though it's a heroic thing to survive and exist.

Totally.

But most people don't want to stay there. What can we start to do?

Yeah.

That can help us.

I think the first thing is one, you need to give yourself credit. Like, if you're here, you're doing as best as you can, you're living to your maximum capacity, which for different people, it's a very different state. Like, some of us can, you know, run multiple businesses or, you know, do all these different activities and and get as much possible done in a day, but then others of us have incurred so much trauma, so much heaviness that all we can do is get through the day, right? So to me, both situations are powerful. So that's something that should definitely be acknowledged. And I think you can realize when you're in a survival state, when you're living from a reactive perspective, when things are sort of happening and the reactions are coming up so quickly and Everything that you're perceiving immediately reminds you of a past situation and you're assessing the present moment through the lens of the past constantly. And that's when you can really kind of tell, okay, I'm living from a survival perspective. And the way to get out of that is it's tough. You have to be able to be with your emotions. You have to be able to turn that lens inward and literally just challenge yourself to be with what's coming up. And I think Sometimes people can do that as is, naturally, or they need different modalities to be able to help them engage with those emotions. But if you can't face what's inside of you, then you're just going to keep repeating what's inside of you over and over again.

Yeah, you're going to keep reacting as opposed to responding. Exactly. You have a poem here, I'm trying to find it right now. Trauma reacts, intention responds. The intensity of your reaction reveals how much of the past you are holding onto. There's another saying, I'm not sure who said this originally, that if someone is hysterical, it's historical.

Oh, that's fantastic.

If they're reacting out of hysteria, there's history to that reaction. There's a trigger, a wound, that has still not been healed. And so that's why there is this over-the-top reaction.

I'm glad you're pointing that out because it's important to realize that throughout human history, especially recorded human history, Human beings, when they take the time to look inward to reflect on what's happening in their mind and in their emotions and in their body, they come out with similar wisdom, right? So when we're writing our perspectives today, most things about love have already been written, but your perspective on love is quite unique. How you've experienced it, how you've sort of experienced these emotions through your daily life, And that's why I think a lot of people who feel like, oh, I don't know if I should write or I don't know, you know, everything's been said. It's like, no, a ton of things have been said, but never from your perspective. So that's why it's so valuable to still put your story out there and put something that could potentially help tons of people.

Yeah, there's probably millions of poetry style books in the world, and you could have said, oh, it's already been out there. And things that I'm saying are already been out there.

Right.

But not from your perspective.

Exactly.

Not from your unique experience.

That's the value that you're giving to the world. Right.

I love that. Yeah. Trauma reacts and tension responds. Did you feel like you were reactive in a lot of part of your life?

Oh, absolutely.

Really?

Absolutely. I think it happens like the mind moves so fast. The mind is so quickly cognizing, perceiving, evaluating. And, you know, you'll feel that in your sensations. You'll react to those sensations. And it's happening at lightning speed. And it can feel like you have no choice. But that's the beauty of this moment that we live in today, where there are this astounding number of modalities that have, you know, grown from Eastern roots, Western roots, but many of them have become quite global that can actually help you start reframing your minds. Like, you know, for me, when I started meditating, I was like, oh my gosh, like I've been living this extremely reactive life my whole time, like the whole, my whole time. But I was fortunate to enter this mental gym, you know, 'cause that's what I think of as meditation. Meditation is literally like you're putting yourself into a mental gym. You have these qualities, right, muscles of awareness, non-reactiveness, compassion, but they're super weak. You've never put time into making them stronger. And the same way you need to work out your core and work out your biceps or whatever it is, you need to work out your mind or else these important qualities that can make your life better, easier, happier, make you more skillful, they won't be well developed.

And I think some of the most influential people in the world have a level of emotional awareness and emotional maturity or flexibility. and it's hard to have that if you don't master your thoughts as well. It's almost like you have to do two things in the gym, master your emotions and your thinking. And figure out ways to perceive things differently because we could both watch something happen in an environment around us and I could have a big reaction and you could have a calm reaction. And it's in our interpretation of the event, of the thing that happened. which is our thinking and our perspective, and it's in our emotional maturity or flexibility or lack thereof on why we react so quickly.

Right. So you can ask yourself, what is perception? Perception is memory plus evaluation. And you'll literally look at something and you'll be assessing it not only with your past emotional history, sort of like the major points of tension that have occurred throughout your history, but also through that current emotion. So not only if you had a heavy past, but if you woke up feeling like crap that day, then whatever you're perceiving is gonna be tilted towards the negative. And if you're not aware of that, then you're constantly gonna be sort of like coloring the world in a particular way, as opposed to learning how to observe reality objectively, right? To be able to observe a person, a situation, or to even be able to listen without projecting anything onto it, to just receive it. Like that's a skill that's quite difficult, but it's worth cultivating.

Yeah. What do you say? The perception is around memory and something else.

What was the second one? An evaluation.

An evaluation. How can we learn, you know, our brains are an artifact of our past, right? They store memories. How can we learn to reframe painful past memories into actually benefiting us for our present and our future?

Yeah, that's a beautiful question. I think it's tough. One thing is you have to accept that you're just not gonna erase the memory, right? The memory is gonna be there, especially if it was a sharp one that became quite vivid and vibrant in your mind. But what you can do is release the tension that's around that memory. So if that memory in particular comes up and it makes your body feel so tight and tense and heavy, there are modalities that you can learn. Like, we were talking earlier, talking about therapy and how much value that you've gotten from therapy. And I've gotten so much value from meditation, but these, in both, you get toolkits, right? Toolkits that can help you, like, okay, what do I do in this moment of difficulty? What do I do when this tension is arising? Every time you practice and accept an emotion in the present moment, you're actually healing your relationship to the past. -Wow. -'Cause like if you're trying to heal the past, you're not gonna go back there to fix it. You're not gonna do any-- and all that stuff is emerging repeatedly in your present. So if you can be with what arises with a new sort of peace and acceptance, then the past kind of loses that heavy tension that it carries.

So is it a lack of acceptance of our past that keeps it hurting us in our present?

Yeah, but the magic happens in the present moment. In the present, you set up a beautiful future and you release the tension of the past.

How do you do that?

I do it by sitting, meditating twice a day, one in the morning, one hour in the morning, one hour in the evening.

Two hours a day.

Two hours a day. I've been doing that for about I think eight years. Yeah.

Oh my goodness.

Yeah.

What was your life like before two hours a day of meditation? And what is it like now eight years later?

It was a hot mess. Really?

Yeah.

No, I was, so the backstory is that I was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador, right? So I was born in South America. My mom and dad, they realized that they needed to try to find a better situation for us, right? So they decided to roll the dice and come to the United States. and for the chance, right? I'm not talking, there's no certainty when you come to the United States.

Zero certainty.

For the chance at a better sort of economic social situation. And we moved to Boston when I was four years old. The difficulty of that was that not only were we away from like all my aunts and uncles and all of my, you know, I have like 40 plus cousins, but we were in this, like stuck in the mud of American poverty. Like it was so, you know, that time period was so difficult. I think difficult for myself and my brother, my little sister was born a little later, but especially difficult for my mother and father because they were navigating a new world and they were trying to figure out how to pay the rent every single month. Like constantly, you know, I would hear them arguing about money, trying to figure out and trying to figure out just how to make ends meet. And I would, experienced that sort of like, you know, watching them and being worried about them, but also like, you know, not feeling always full, like, you know, being hungry sometimes and trying to make sense of this new reality that we were in. But seeing all of that, I think, imprinted a lot of sort of anxiety in me, 'cause there was so much scarcity when I was growing up and also a lot of sadness to be able to, you know, to watch them fight. And it's funny now, like now I can see that they genuinely love each other and that their problem was actually structural. like they didn't have anyone else to share their stress with because it was just the two of them as adults.

So they're kind of dumping on each other every day. Yeah.

They didn't know what else to do. And now that their money problem isn't there like how it was before, they're chilling. You know, they're- yeah.

They love each other. They love each other. They're happier. Yeah.

Wow.

So when they moved here, were they both working like two or three jobs, not getting much sleep, or how was that?

They were both working. They each had one really hard job. My mom cleaned houses. and my dad worked at a supermarket.

Wow.

And they were working a lot. And it was just, you know, it was a classic American poverty trap. It was, you know, this is where you were, and hopefully the next generation figures it out. And we were fortunate enough, you know, my brother and I and my sister, we all went to school. You know, we have jobs, and now as a family unit, we take care of each other.

Really?

Yeah.

So for what, 15 years, they're kind of stuck in that same economic state while you guys are just kind of growing up, while you're going to school until you go to college and get a job.

Exactly, exactly. So when my brother got into his early 20s, that was like the first big major shift. Like, I mean, I remember when I was 14, I was like, that's when cell phones were like first really coming out. And I told my mom and dad, I was like, my mom, I was like, hey, I really want a cell phone. And my mom looked at me and she was like, you,'re gonna have to figure it out on your own. You know, there's no way that I can help you with that. And then I was like, whoa, like it just like hit me. And then I went out, I got a job, painting porches at the local church. And then I ended up finding another job working at a nonprofit and started making my own money. You know, as a 14, 15 year old, got my own cell phone and all of that. And, you know, was able to also, like, help my parents occasionally. And it was interesting just like, I think in some ways that was really difficult, but I was also glad to be introduced into my own power at such an early age.

Right, so it's like, okay, we can't give this to you, so you've got to figure it out on your own. You gotta, if you want something, you gotta go work for it. You gotta be mindful of your money. You gotta be intentional about what things are really meaningful for you to have, as opposed to wasting it on things that don't matter. So you probably valued money in a certain way because you were working on 14, 15, 16?

Totally. I remember vividly the mad dash of trying to pay my phone bill. I had a Nextel back then for my i90. It's like, how am I gonna pay this every month? And I'd figure it out because I.

Had no other options. You had to, right? Yeah, man, 14. I think I was 17 when I got my first cell phone. Even then, I remember being like, oh, this is a big deal to have a cell phone in high school. Yeah.

You know? Oh, yeah.

That's crazy. So essentially, they were probably, your parents were probably thinking, unless it's food or clothes that they really need, they can't. We can't afford it.

We can't give you. Yeah, no extracurricular, nothing special, no vacations. Like, you know, it was literally like the family was in an economic survival mode, like just what's most important and what's possible.

So in your, you know, early, mid, and late 20s, what were you doing before you got into serving people with poetry?

So I went to Wesleyan University in Connecticut, and while I was there, I was incredibly happy to go there, 'cause I got a great education. But simultaneously, I was dealing with my own sort of inner sorrow, right?

So, I- Is this a private school?

It's expensive.

You must have gotten either a scholarship or something.

Yeah, I got a scholarship to go there. And when I got there, though, I was so far removed from my environment, so far removed from being in the diverse inner-city Boston, my old high school, where it's one of the most diverse schools in the country. And then I go to Wesleyan, where every person, I felt like every person besides me went to an elite private high school, best schools in the world type stuff. And not only was I far behind them academically, but socially, it felt like we grew up in a very different world.

And they all probably came from money or their parents had money.

Totally, totally. So definitely a lot of them did. And what was challenging about that was I think because I didn't have any more of my sort of safety net, social safety net, it made all that sadness and anxiety that I started picking up through childhood, it just all bubbled up really intensely to the surface. the way for me to mediate that was drugs and alcohol. You know, like I just started drinking a lot, smoking constantly. I was smoking like five, six times a day and just constantly just being high the entire time and partying way too much. And I just started, you know, very actively avoiding my emotions and wanting to double down on the fact that there was nothing wrong. And that took me to the end point where I almost lost my life, you know? Like, yeah, the summer of 2011, a year after college, I just, you know, did way too many drugs at that point and was so physically unhealthy, so mentally unhealthy. And I, you know, was on the ground for like two hours. I felt like my heart was gonna explode. And in that moment, I knew I was like, if I keep doing this, like, I'm gonna die. You know, like, there's my body can barely hang on in this moment. So in that moment, I was like, I gotta turn things around.

Holy cow. So you're 22, is that right?

Yeah, about 22-23.

And so you were numbing, you had the pain inside you, but you were numbing it. And that was your, I guess, flavor of numbing, which was smoking and alcohol and partying and not facing your emotions. Do you feel like we can as human beings find peace If we have pain, sadness, or darkness inside of us and we're always running away from it or numbing it?

No, there's no way. I think you're just, it's almost like you're being hunted. You know, like you're running, but like your emotions are hunting you. They're trying to like find you in some way or another to get you to acknowledge them and try to process them because how can you walk around with such a heavy load? And I mean, that was like the, fast forward a year later, I stopped all the hard drugs, started changing my habits, started eating a little bit better, started exercising, started examining my relationships. And it was sad because I started noticing how shallow all of my relationships were. But when I started meditating and I even more so had to practice being with my emotions, I went through that. It was a silent 10-day meditation course, first one I had ever done. and it was so difficult.

Like, I can imagine.

But at the end of it, I felt like my mind had lost like 100 pounds.

Holy cow.

You know? And I was like, how do I like, my mind feels better. And even though like I barely finished this course, but it was, that's when it showed me, I was like, oh, you can actually heal yourself. And that, that's, I think the reason why I'm here now.

Wow. What, what do you think? happens if we never process and acknowledge our emotions?

I think repetition. It's that you keep repeating, you keep sort of living through, going through the motion, and you end up slowly just accumulating more and more density because you're just repeating the same reactive habit patterns over and over again. And we don't realize that every reaction, it creates an imprint on the mind and it predisposes the mind to react in the same way, to perceive in the same way. So you can just get denser and denser and denser.

Yeah, and I think these reactions also cause our nervous system to then follow suit and react and be on more high alert, which causes chronic stress, chronic illness, and disease in the body as well, when our mind is not able to address the pains of the past and process it correctly. So, you get into meditation, then you do a 10-day silent meditation retreat, and then afterwards are you all in two hours a day or do you get away from it from a while and come back later?

Yeah, it took me a while. It took me like two years to start meditating two hours a day where I didn't understand what was happening in the meditation course. I didn't quite understand why it was working, but I knew I felt better, right? I was like, do my best to follow the instructions, the meditation instructions. And I said, July of 2012 was the first one. And when I realized that I felt better, I ended up signing up for another one two months later.

A 10-day one.

Yeah. So I signed up. Silent, 10 days silent again. Wow. And then the second one was September of 2012. And I got the same result. I was like, Shoot, I feel better again. You know, like I feel better.

Dang it. This thing works.

Oh man. It was tough. It was tough going back into it the second time how hard it is.

It's demanding.

Yeah, it's really demanding. I mean, you're there, you're meditating like 10 plus hours a day.

You can't speak to anyone.

You're not speaking to anyone. If you have questions to the teachers, you can ask them questions, clarification and whatnot, but you're really there almost for that 10-day period practicing living like a monk. You're not gonna become a monk or anything like that, but it's a monk type life. And it was grueling because you get yourself away from all of the distractions. There's no phone, no email, no social media. No social media, no nothing. It's just you and yourself and this practice that's going to help you engage better with everything that arises.

That's crazy, man. Okay, so that's 11 years ago when you did this, I guess 10, 11 years ago when you start this.

Yeah.

And you were in a relationship with your now wife before then, I guess for probably four or five years.

Yeah, yeah. So we were together about six years before the first meditation course. And so that first six year period, like we got together young, like she was 18 and I was 19. We met in college. Immediately there was a connection there. Like immediately we, you know, became great friends, were hanging out alone all the time. and there was no like, you know, we were like friends first for a while. And I think after three months we realized that there were feelings there and we got together. But there was just connection and there was there's just there is probably zero emotional maturity between the two of us. We didn't know how to process our own emotions. We didn't know how to argue in a manner that would be productive. We, you know, all we knew was blame. was, you know, the battle to win arguments. Really? And really, like, I, you know, now that I think about it, it's really like, it's dominance. Like, if you want to win an argument, right? It's, it's, what are you trying to do? It's, it's, you want to dominate the narrative.

Yeah.

And we would just, it was a rough, we were like in this tough hurricane for six years together, and we'd, you know, we'd break up, get back together, and, and, and, but we never could really, pull fully apart because the connection was just so undeniable. So we kept trying to figure out, how can we do this better? And it wasn't until we started meditating that ever so slowly harmony started arising in our relationship. And now, I mean, we're in a far better-- there's nothing perfect about the picture, right? But we're in a far better place because healing has happened inside of both of us as individuals. Self-awareness has developed. so there's less projection between us. And we've developed that calmness so that we can have patience when we have to talk through more serious things.

I mean, it sounds like you both had your own wounds or your own past pains or whatever it might be. When two people get together and they haven't healed their past, what typically happens from experience that you've seen over the last 10 years of couples you've met or stories you've heard?

I mean, you just see... So this is the thing that I find really often is like, whenever two people are in close proximity, whether they're in a relationship or not, an intimate relationship or not, you literally have two egos. And these two egos, when they rub up against each other, sometimes there's going to be friction. Like egos are rough, right? It's almost like two rocks. You rub the right rocks, and there's gonna be fire, right? So these egos, I think when we carry that past pain, they're dense, they're super rough. And when you do that healing work, you smooth out that roughness, you decrease that density that you're carrying so that you can have more self-awareness when points of friction happen, 'cause those are undeniable. You're not gonna like heal yourself and then never more will you like have arguments or anything like that. That's unrealistic. but you can sort of maintain your inner harmony or try your best to while something difficult is happening.

I love that you're kept using this word harmony because that's what I feel like I've been developing within me for the last few years in my healing journey at this stage of healing. Because I feel like healing is a journey. You're to keep healing forever. But at this stage of healing, it's been the word and the theme has always been a harmony. and developing it within me.

Yeah.

And really not worrying what's happening around me, but as long as I create that within me, I'm going to have more peace in my external world. And when two people in relationship develop, cultivate harmony, cultivate a beautiful garden inside of them, as opposed to a desert or a rocky mountains inside of them, it's easier to navigate challenges in life.

Can I ask you, so what does like harmony feel like for you?

Peace.

Peace. Peace.

Like laying on a calm beach and just hearing waves gently grazing the sand.

That's so good. It's funny, 'cause I'm thinking to myself when I was listening to you talk, how do I perceive harmony and it's clarity and peace?

Yes. Yeah. You talk about this on page 154 of the Way Forward. When your self-love increases, you become far less willing to harm others. Why? Because real self-love slowly opens the door to unconditional love for all beings. And it sounds like the more I'm talking to you about this, it sounds like when we have hurt or sadness about something in our life, whether it's a recent hurt or sadness or past that keeps coming up, we don't know how to fully love ourselves for the pain, the shame, or the feelings we have towards that memory.

Yeah.

And so we have guilt, sadness, anger, resentment, a lack of forgiveness of others, of ourselves. And therefore we harm self and probably others more frequently when we do that. -Totally. -But you said again, when your self-love increases, that is when you are more in harmony with yourself and less reactive to others is what it sounds like.

-Totally, totally. I really believe that. I think if you were literally to wonder, what is the missing piece? And we're talking about both words, like a peace in a puzzle and peace in the earth. Like what's missing, it's self-love. And I really genuinely believe, and I've seen this process not only happen inside of me, but others. And as that, we're talking genuine self-love, like not commercial self-love, not like, what are you buying yourself and all this stuff? Not that. We're talking about how you engage with yourself in an accepting manner, right? The energy you put into your personal transformation. the sort of the willingness to engage with your own emotional history. That's what I really think is genuine self-love. But once you're able to engage with yourself and activate those parts of self-love so that you can better know and heal yourself, then that sort of reactive pattern to lash out on others, to, you know, wish harm on others, all those things just decrease. They melt away. and even for people you don't like, you're just like, I wish them the best, but may they be over there, but I wish them the best.

Exactly.

And I think it's pretty across the board. I think as people really develop that quality and can just engage with their past better, I think they're less likely to want to harm others.

It's so fascinating because there was definitely decades where I was extremely reactive or combative or defensive or emotional, right, in certain moments. Not all the time, but like when I was triggered, when the wound was triggered in me, I had this, okay, I want to win, I want to be right, I want to defend. And I always felt like people just don't understand me. People don't get me. And I was like, why don't they understand me? Why I'm so angry or why I'm frustrated about these certain moments. Now, after being on a healing journey, I can witness other people doing it and say, wow, I remember that because that was me for a long time.

Yeah, for sure.

And have compassion for people, but also know that the only way I was able to have more calm and inner peace was doing the healing work. That's the only way I was able to get there because I tried it from other ways, making money, being successful, having, you know, attractive women around me, trying all the things that you think are going to bring you more peace. They didn't bring me peace. Yeah. And it was until I did the inner work and I turned around and I faced the pain.

Yeah.

As opposed, you know, the thing that was hunting me and haunting me, I faced it and started to work with it. Yeah. As opposed to run away from it. That's when over time it started to have more, you know, calming reactions. It's still not perfect, but it definitely improved over time. You know, your four life lessons in your book, you say the first one, build inner peace or fall to outer chaos. this is like the missing piece in the world, but also the peace within you. Number one life lesson of these four life lessons is build inner peace or fall to outer chaos. Second one you say is be flexible. Being flexible does not mean giving up. The third, appreciate the closest friends in your life. And the fourth, challenging times do not last forever. The only thing is challenging times may last forever if you don't face them.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, these painful memories will keep coming up.

They keep haunting you, yeah.

Unless you face them and find a way to build inner peace. Yeah, right?

No, it's really true. And I think it's interesting because you can look at it from different perspectives where challenging times, you know, ultimately everything that arises ultimately passes away. So something that may be difficult may disappear and then it may come back. Right? So in that sense, it doesn't last forever. But in the other sense that you're talking about, it's totally true where there will be particular difficulties that you carry within you that will just keep popping up, popping up. They'll get triggered by a certain thing that your memory is like, oh, this again. Danger, danger, danger. And then you feel the reaction again. So these things have to be addressed. And I love that you're pointing out too, you know, the fall to falling to outer chaos. Because that's something that I feel like I, you know, as people who care about personal transformation, people who really want to build peace within themselves, the challenge is, can you maintain your energy the way you want it to be? Because human beings, we are often in this system of like osmosis where if I have a particular emotion, whether it's anger or joy, right, whatever it may be, I'll usually want we'll want another person to join us in that emotion. Right.

Right.

So it's like bad ones. Yeah, exactly. Even the bad ones. So like if I'm angry, I'm like, please, please join me in my anger. And either by making you angry or by being like, let me tell you a story about this thing that happened that pissed me off. Please join me in also being angry. -Sure. They did this. Yeah.

Right.

But the same thing with the lighter emotions, right? We want to partake in them. And those are beautiful. Like those happily, yeah, let me join you in your joy. Like maybe I would love to be happy for you. But when someone is inviting you to join them in their anger, whether by pissing you off or by telling you what pissed them off so you can be angry with them, I think those moments are where the real sort of like, this is a test, right? This is like, I don't need to join you in this anger. Actually, I'm okay. Like, I don't want that heaviness. I could even practice, like, especially if it's a dear loved one, I could even practice listening to you and seeing you, but also just maintaining my peace while I'm trying to see you. and it's really difficult, right? It's not like a, you know, get 100% type test, but you can do your best to just keep your energy as it is, especially as you're moving through different environments, you know, moving out of the work environment, you know, different, different situations that you're in. Because I think being able to manage your own energy, I think it's just a sign of Mastery.

It is a huge sign of Mastery and. when you are in reaction mode, something else has power over you.

Oh, yeah.

Something else is more powerful than you are.

Yeah.

And it's when I learned that it me off because I felt like I was always in control. But when I was reacting or defensive or guarded or frustrated, I realized later, I was like, man, I allowed that person, that. That moment, that thing to have power over me to get into a negative state.

Yeah.

That'S not fulfilling. That's not fun. Yeah. And so I had to learn how to deconstruct that and have more mastery over my emotions. And it doesn't mean I'm perfect and I still get frustrated and I still have moments of, you know, anger. But I'm aware of it quicker. And I'm like, yeah, let's shift out of this. This isn't serving my vision. Yeah.

It's not serving me. You know, when you're in a group in a situation like that where maybe the whole group is getting upset by a particular situation, if one person is able to put their head above the water and they're like, oh, actually we're okay. You know, this sucks, but we're gonna be fine. And then everyone kind of can, you know, gets another opportunity to kind of wake up a little bit and they're like, oh yeah, we're good. You know, we don't have to just roll in anger right now together, 'cause people don't quite get, like, you can be skillful without creating all this immense tension in your mind. So you can still assess the situation and be like, oh, this situation needs my attention. I need to solve it. without producing so much stress in the process.

You talk about focusing on four fundamentals that can massively change your life. I want to see if you can read the I've been reading your book, but I want to see if you can read these four.

Oh, so I wrote this one after finishing a 45-day meditation course. It was like the first thing I wrote. Focusing on a few fundamentals can create a massive change in your life. Number one, make your healing, personal transformation, and well-being top priorities. Number two, refrain from harming yourself or others. Three, create mental space for gratitude. Four, be kind and generous to others.

Yeah, this is, if everyone on the planet made these four things their top priority, the world would be a more harmonious, peaceful place. And it starts with making healing, personal transformation and well-being your focus.

Yeah.

Because when we don't make it our focus, it's not present. It's not in us. And we become sick, we become sad, we become cynical, all these different things. And that doesn't create positivity in the world. It doesn't move things forward in a powerful way.

Yeah.

So making your healing, personal transformation and well-being a top priority, that alone, most people aren't spending the time like you talked about to create mental space for that to happen. They're not living in gratitude even for a moment throughout the day. They're not creating 10 minutes to just think in peace without being on a distraction or a phone or a TV. and really think about where can I invest my time in well-being? And if people could spend one hour a day on just well-being, whether it's calm mind, whether it's meditation, whether it's walking, whether it's working out, going to therapy, one hour a day on their well-being, it will drastically improve the quality of their life.

It totally does. I've gotten so many messages from especially like mothers, you know, mothers who like have so many responsibilities and so many things they're doing and, you know, hearing stories about how they were inspired to just take like 10, 15, 20 minutes to themselves to just like do whatever it was that they needed to recalibrate, right? To whatever practice, whatever tool they had to just like get back into a certain degree of balance. And it's fun, it's, you know, you know it's good for you, but it's until you practice it, until you do it, until you see the results, you see the payoff of the investment. And until you see the payoff of the investment, you're not like, then that's when you double down. And I think that's what happened to me personally when I would go to these 10-day meditation courses, like I told you, I was doing that for two years, and I think I did four, about five of those courses before I started meditating two hours a day. And I had seen, I'm like, this is, completely changing my mind. Like, I'm not fully healed, not fully wise or anything like that. I got the inspiration to start writing, but then I knew I was like, if I bring this into my everyday life, the results would be even bigger.

Not just a weekend at a time.

Right. Not just like going away for a little bit, but it's like bringing it into my daily life. And I think what inspires me and so inspires me to this day is like, I know how when I put this time to be silent on my own every day that it affects my marriage positively, my relationship with my parents and my siblings, my relationship with my wife's family, my, you know, the relationship with all of my friends, all of my work is affected positively. So if I don't do this, everything, every part of my life is gonna just, you know, not be as great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Here's a question for you, because I'm sure someone watching or listening is thinking of this. You know, Diego, this all sounds great. But your parents immigrated here and there's millions of immigrants that don't have time. Because they're working whatever jobs they can get, probably two or three jobs a day to provide for their kids. There's a lot of single moms. that the husbands or their partners left.

Exactly.

And they've got kids and they don't have time because they got to work full time. And take care of their kids. They don't have that 30 minutes a day, 15 minutes a day to focus on their well-being. What would your current self say to your parents before they moved, the day before they're about to move to America? What would you say to them knowing everything you know about the 20 years that they went through of not having time to focus on well-being. How would you coach them or set them up for success?

Ah, that's such a wonderful question. I've never thought about it, especially in regards to my parents, because I know we live in a world of tremendous difficulty, and a lot of people are literally trying to just keep their head above the water in the economic situation. But in regards to my parents, I think I would tell them that they like, I would try to give them the advice that my wife and I now follow because it's not in regards to meditation or not, but it's what we practice daily where we are constantly checking in about where we are in our emotions. So when we wake up, we tell each other, like, this is, you know, I'm feeling tough or like, I feel. I feel heavy, and it doesn't necessarily need a reason. It's just. Sometimes you wake up, you didn't get enough hours of sleep and you just feel like crap, right? And being able to know, like when I know what my emotion is and I am accepting of it, and then my partner also knows what my emotion is and we know where each other is at, then we can actually, that creates a situation where there's information that wasn't there before and we can move forward in the day where, you know, being cognizant of how that emotion is affecting what we're saying. And I think we found that a lot in our relationship, my wife and I, where when we know how we feel, it just creates less possibilities for unnecessary arguments. And I think if my parents were, you know, put that into practice, especially back then, that could have become a long-term habit where it's like, oh, now I know my wife doesn't feel good today, so let's be cool. Let me try my best to support her. And similarly, I think when conflict arises, don't try to win. Winning when you both try to win, you both lose automatically. Try to focus on understanding. And I'm glad that this is becoming a much more popular thing that more people are talking about because it's needed. Like, if an argument arises, I need to do my best to understand things from your perspective, and then you take the time to understand things from my perspective. how did this series of events move for me? You know, what emotions was I going through as this was transgressing? Same thing for you. When there's more understanding, then there's a possibility for love. And I think that's something that, you know, hopefully as a society we can start shifting towards because when, and granted, sometimes there may be times where one of us needs to apologize or whatnot, but overall trying to understand each other creates more opportunity for love. And those are things that whether you have time to meditate or not. If you try to put them into practice in the way, you know, when you're interacting with another human being, I think they could be really helpful.

I mean, you know the experience you grew up with your parents in terms of how much stress they were facing or just kind of, I'm assuming, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but a kind of like a tension, a constant kind of low level tension of, like, anxiety, fear, of lack of scarcity, of, like, nervousness of kind of like a rush, not enough time, not enough to catch up, like always behind feeling. And I don't know if anyone else can resonate to that. But what practical things could you say or what could someone in that situation do who feels like I don't have time to take care of my wellness because I've got three or four kids, three jobs. I can't even think about the feelings of my husband or my wife. I can't even think about that because I'm in such survival mode myself. Yeah. What would be the difficult thing to say to your mom and dad that they would really need? If they could have done that differently or anyone in that situation now, if they could just do these three things, even if they don't have the time to do it, what would they do?

I think the reality is like, right, we want to especially if it's someone that you're close to, like I would remind them, I'm like, dude, you're thinking the whole day, right? You're thinking constantly. So you're thinking, but what are you thinking about? You're thinking about things that are sort of rotating that wheel of misery, like rotating that reaction. And I think trying to interject moments of positivity even in the mindset can be incredibly powerful. Like, you know, finding time to, not finding time, but like even as you're going through the moves, of whatever it is that you're doing, whatever it is that you're working on, whomever you're helping, thinking about moments of gratitude, putting into mind, what am I grateful for? What's there that I'm so, even though I'm in this hardship, I'm so glad that this is there, where this person is there. Also moments where you can reflect, even intellectually, about impermanence. Because I think this is incredibly helpful, understanding that a moment of difficulty, like, right, life may be hard throughout, but it's not always going to be at the same intensity. So understanding that everything is always changing and letting that inspire you to be more present in the times that you do have, you know, because even interspersed with all of the, like, difficulty that I had with my parents that we all had growing up as a family, there were definitely still beautiful moments, like on a Sunday or, you know, when they would both have a day off. and we'd be together as a family, you know, and we'd be enjoying each other's company. And I think being like really, you know, letting the fact that things change, inspire you to be there, to be with the person that you love. I think it's incredibly valuable and can bring a lot of joy into life. And I want to, you know, I love that you're hitting at the reality of how, you know, where so many, you know, hundreds of millions of Americans may be and people around the world, like the world is rough. and I think when we talk about this, it should inspire us to try to make a better world. I really fundamentally believe that, and I know people have very different ideas of how the world can be better, but whatever the idea may be, whatever the structure we may implement in the future, it needs to be something that's centered around compassion. And I think it's just so critical that we can try to let love design the world. 'Cause I feel like we think so often in terms of right and left, but we never go up. We never are like, how can we elevate this situation? And I think it's my hope is that we live in a historic time. We live in a time where there are not only these tremendous challenges that are in front of humanity, right? We have this incredible income inequality, poverty around the world, so many diseases that should be eradicated. There's so many different challenges that we're facing, especially over this 100-year period, that are pushing us to mature as a collective humanity. So to me, what can we do is try our best to heal ourselves while we're dealing with these global societal issues, because our healing will actually create more creativity in our minds and help us see different solutions that weren't once there. So instead of just repeating the same solutions over and over again and them not working, It's like you clear heal your mind and you'll be able to look at a situation and be like, oh, I see something that I didn't see before. Let's try things a different way. And this is we're talking a long game, right? Long arm of history. But I think it's so to me, it's so inspiring and kind of it creates a lot of awe in me that the same time that there are so many challenges, there are all these healing modalities that are becoming more and more accessible than ever before. Right at this time, can you get access to so many different forms of meditation, so many different forms of therapy, psychiatry, so many, you know, and there's tons of other healing modalities that I'm not even mentioning, but people can actively try to find something that can heal them. And, you know, for those who have time, definitely try to heal yourself. For those who don't, like we need to support each other, and we need to create a better world.

Yeah. Speaking of healing modalities, have you ever done like ayahuasca or like plant medicines or anything like that?

No, never done ayahuasca. I've tried like mushrooms, LSD and all that, and I found it to be helpful to an extent, but once I started meditating, it just kind of blew everything out of the water. It was like, you know, when you're meditating and you're sitting there, you're literally, it's almost like you're getting a degree in universal law. Like, you're just like, you're understanding how the universe works, but within the framework of your body. And you get this sample size, and you just start observing it. You can make your awareness so sharp that it literally can feel like your body is this like flowing river of atoms. And you can so crisply feel and, you know, attend and observe to this ever-changing impermanence that layers every fabric of existence. Like it happens at the atomic level, the cellular level, the mental level, the, you know, cosmological level, everything is always changing. And we struggle when we have a combative relationship with change, right? But we feel peace when we embrace change. So to me, it's like meditating is just like, it's opened the world to this. I mean, it's opened these doors to this incredible learning that, you know, every time I go, every time I sit, I'm like, I'm like, wow. Got a lot more to learn. Right.

Do you think if you, I mean, I've never done plant medicine. I've never been high or drunk in my life. Cool.

And your brain must look great. I just saw Doc Eamon. Yeah, you did it with Doc Eamon. Yeah, you did it with him as well. Yeah.

But I have like some trauma from football.

So you fixed the dents?

It's getting better. Okay. It's improving.

Yeah. But I had some definitely like some.

Oh my God.

Deeper dimples from like football trauma. I fell once when I was, I fell down the stairs once when I was 20 intoxicated. He was like, that's where you hit your head. Also, you hit the back of your head. That's from 15 years ago. -That's crazy.

-It'S still there. -There's still the trauma there, right? -Yeah. -It's crazy, man. I'm curious your personal thoughts on using healing modalities that include external medicines, drugs or stimulants, hallucinogens to put you into different states of being versus internal medicine through meditation, silence, and using the chemistry within your own body as opposed to the chemistry outside of your body. What do you think is more effective? I know lots of friends that swear by how powerful ayahuasca and things have been for them, but I also see a lot of challenges and struggle within them. after they swear by this. Yeah. So they get like this awakening or awareness or like insights, which I'm like awesome. But I still feel like it doesn't solve everything. So I don't know because I haven't done it, so I can't speak into it, but you've done both, it sounds like, or some of it. Yeah. And it sounds like you're not doing the external medicines anymore.

No, not at all. Yeah.

Why? and what do you think has been more effective?

I can speak to it in two different ways. So one is from my personal experience, I found that when I would do psychedelics, they were incredibly helpful because they were eye-opening. They were showing me the interconnectedness of the world in a way that I couldn't quite see before. But after they were done, it felt more like an intellectual understanding as opposed to a knowledge that was fully mine and I could permanently live in.

So, -Integrated understanding.

-Yeah, fully just part of my being.

Interesting.

When I would do psychedelics, it felt like I was opening a window to a door. I mean, you know, I was opening a window and looking outside and looking at how the world really is. And it was beautiful. But when I started meditating, it was like I would open the window and then I just walked outside the window and just started, like, living in this world. -That's interesting. -Yeah, it became, and to me, and now I want to say this, right? I think it's really important to understand that like, right, meditating works wonderfully for me. I have this, you know, very specific, I practice Vipassana in the Goenka tradition, the same style that you all know Harare practices in, and a bunch of other great people. And it's difficult, but it's for the people that it works for, you know, that connect with it, it's like, It's like you struck gold. Like you found this thing and you're like, Whoa, now you can just accelerate your growth and really develop and move on this path that leads out of suffering. But with that said, I really believe that individuals have to find modalities that meet them where they're at. So there are some people who have experienced so much trauma, so much heartache, so much pain that that they might need something that's either a little more external or might need to speak to another person as opposed to just closing their eyes. Because when they close their eyes and they feel it's like too much, they're just like they can't, right? So each individual has to find something that meets them where they're at. Like where is their conditioning and something that clicks with their intuition, although it should be something that's challenging, right? Because in the challenge you're gonna build new strength. But you also don't want it to be overwhelming. And I think that's a lot of things. And that's why some people, you know, will either stay away from ayahuasca or, you know, just the different things that they themselves might find overwhelming. Because then if it's overwhelming, it's not productive. You might want to stop the healing process.

You won't stick with it. Exactly. You won't stick with it. Yeah. I think that's really interesting to talk about too.

It's finding the thing that meets you where you're at. And maybe you gotta try a bunch of stuff. Exactly.

Until you figure out what that thing is. A lot of people have to try the sort of like spiritual buffet.

And then they find like what actually works for me.

Yeah. I remember when I first started meditating, it was really hard for me to sit still for like five minutes.

Yeah. Nice.

I was like, okay, I need something else.

Yeah.

And so I went into, you know, different modalities. I was like, I'm gonna go extreme heat therapy. I'm gonna go extreme cold therapy, like more physical, feels like a workout.

Yeah.

And see how I can let my mind process and heal and work through these things in a different way.

Yeah.

Then it was, okay, let me go back to meditation and doing a two-week meditation retreat. -Nice. -I actually became a meditation instructor, I don't know, seven years ago or something, and then going back to different things. And so it's, I think it's a.

Process of discovering and figuring it out. -I love that you tried it again too, because a lot of people are like, they sit down, they meditate, and they're like, I can't do this at all. And it's like, of course we all suck at it. -Right. -When you first start, you're gonna suck. -Yeah. So it's something that you won't get like, like I said before, it's a mental gym. You're not going to be able to bench press like 300 pounds on your first go. I know.

Right.

So you need to train the mind and, and to help it develop Focus. That takes determination and the ability to just be like, I'm going to try again. Yeah. Gonna try again. Exactly.

You keep trying, and then the quality develops. Yeah, that's it. We're talking about the way forward. We're with young Pueblo. Diego is your, your real name, but young Pueblo is your your author name. And we're talking about a lot of beautiful things here, man. I have a couple of final questions for you. This has been really powerful and inspiring. But I want people to follow you, @youngpueblo on Instagram, Twitter, social media, and also on Substack. You've got a great newsletter over there, youngpueblo.com, but make sure you get this book. I mean, every page, I've got so many markings on this book already. Every page has got wisdom, truth, insights, that is going to give you more peace, more harmony and more love in your life. So make sure you get a few copies of this book and all your books, which are amazing as well. Thank you so much. We'll have all this linked up and make sure you guys get a few, get them for friends as well. This is a question I ask everyone towards the end of our conversations. And maybe you've already said what you're going to say here, but I'll see if something else opens up for you.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah, this question is called the Three Truths. So imagine a hypothetical scenario. You get to live as long as you want on this life. and accomplish everything you want to accomplish, but it's the last day and you have to take everything with you. So all your books, this conversation, all your content, anything you make in the future, it goes with you. And we don't have access to your information anymore or your wisdom. But you get to leave behind three lessons to the world. And this is all we have to remember you by.

Oh, so all the content gets erased. Everything is gone. Go on the year three thing. That's dope.

You can only leave three lessons behind. I called it three truths. What would be those three truths for you?

I think the number one thing is that healing is possible. Number two would be the way that you heal is not necessarily the same way those around you heal. So that truth highlights that, and I see this within my own family, within my own friends. Like, meditation has worked so beautifully for me. other friends might meditate in other traditions. Some family members have benefited so much from a great psychiatrist or a great therapist. So I think don't expect just because you found your thing that it's everyone's thing. And I think third is that there is no inner peace without kindness to others. So if you are solely cultivating yourself and he trying to heal yourself, but still being rude and unkind to all those around you, then it's not possible to find peace. So kindness, gentleness towards other human beings is critical, critical.

Talking about the way forward from number one New York Times bestselling author, Yong Pueblo. Make sure you guys get a copy of this. I want to acknowledge you, Diego, for having the courage to take on your own healing journey, even though you grew up in a state of stress, anxiety, scarcity, trauma, all these different things that you dealt with, and feeling other than people, feeling different, feeling not in the right space or place all the right times, and having the courage to say, how can I continue to grow and develop and be kind to others, as well as learn to be kind to myself? So I acknowledge you for the the commitment to two hours a day in saying, no longer is generational trauma going to continue. No longer is scarcity going to continue in my family. I am going to be the one that breaks this generational feeling. And that takes a lot of courage to do. And I acknowledge you for not only taking it on, but being consistent for the last decade when It's hard to take it on. It's even harder to be consistent.

Yeah.

And follow through on your practice and your principles daily, man. That's a lot of commitment. So I acknowledge you for doing that. And you deserve all the success from the work you do, the books you have because of that commitment to you and your healing and peace. So I want to acknowledge you for that. And again, I want people to follow you, get the book. And I have one final question, and that is, what's your definition of greatness?

Oh, that's a great question. My definition of greatness is a life that embraces the wisdom of impermanence. Because I've found that the more that I am able to embrace impermanence and allow that truth to inspire every single aspect of my life, it just helps me show up as a better version of myself. I think if I wasn't constantly feeling the impermanence in my own body, understanding that truth of impermanence, I would waste a lot of moments.

Yeah. There you go.

Yeah.

My man.

Thank you, brother. Thank you so much, man.

I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me as well as ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcasts. If you enjoyed this, Please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend. Leave us a review over on Apple podcast and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels @lewis howes. I really love hearing the feedback from you and it helps us continue to make the show better. And if you want more inspiration from our world class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter. And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.