Why The LAW OF ATTRACTION Isn't Working FOR YOU... | Lewis Howes

How do we finally transition into abundance?

It has everything to do with our mind and what we believe. And that's the biggest, biggest thing, is to, to create a physical world and material world. And then the greatest secret takes that to a whole new level, actually. And so then you really get to see that, oh, my gosh, it's super easy. Create anything I want, like, really so easy. Because if we have a belief it's hard, then it's gonna be hard, you know? And so, and so. so it has everything to do with our mind and what we believe. And so if we believe a thought, it will manifest. End of story.

So if we believe we are deserving of great love, then we will manifest. If we believe we are going to be poor, we're going to stay poor. If we believe we don't deserve something, then it's not going to come to us.

And, you know, it's interesting because, because for all of us, you know, and we've been conditioned, you know, I mean, you were very fortunate because you, you had a A childhood where you were mind was opened and you were opened and your heart was opened. And that's the biggest, biggest thing is to open yourself to the possibility that everything isn't the way it appears to be. And so even if you can just open yourself to that possibility just for a moment, you can pick up it all the next day. You can take it all with you the next day that it's all real and everything that you're seeing. But if you just for a moment open to the possibility, that things might not be the way that you think they are, then you have the greatest opportunity to really discover something incredible, how incredible you are. So with the secret, yeah, I describe it really, and so I really simplify it and the law of attraction because I would say to anybody, if you would just think about what you want, that's all you'd ever get in your life.

It's as simple as that.

But.

A lot of people think a lot of negative things. Consistently, it's on a loop that just holds them into this negative pattern. So how do we break that negative thought pattern?

Right. So, I mean, the mind is like a computer program. And the fact that it's on a negative loop is because we programmed it on a negative loop. But, you know, we could have been influenced when we were children and things like that. so one of the things that the mind loves is loves repetition. I mean, loves it. You know, if you really watch your thoughts, this is the same old thoughts over, over again, you know, it's just kind of dishing up the same old thing. So it loves repetition. So the way you can override a program is to put in the opposite, you know, and when you start out, you know, you feel like you're lying, you know, you'll say something like, you know, you might be really broke. Gee, I was when I was making the secrets. so you might not have any money and you're trying to instill, you know, wealth and prosperity and riches. And every time you say it, you feel a contraction in your body because you know you don't have it. But, you know, truly, because I did it myself, after a while you change it, you really begin to change it and you don't quite have that contraction anymore. And then you start to see money coming in, you know, in, in different ways. And, and, and, and, or you can be given things that you were going to buy and now you don't have to buy it or. so you begin to see, you start to see signs of land, you know, is one of the great, one of the great new thought thought writers would say, talk about a sign of land. So you start to see sign of land. Now, that's what I did in the secret. You can do gratitude. That will turn everything around. That will make you feel good. That will get you off the negative rant. But those negative thoughts are coming from beliefs held in the subconscious mind.

Right.

That's where do the beliefs stem from?

For most of us, they stem mostly.

From our childhood conditioning. Yeah. Somebody's, our parents said something to us. We just swallowed it. Pork, line and zinker. You know, we're like, right, that's a belief. And, and so we take it in and, and then we have all these beliefs that, that, and you can hear, you know, if you, if you're talking to somebody like, if, if if somebody says, oh, I believe, or because we say that all the time, or somebody says, I think behind those two, behind those two statements are going to be a belief. And so the really interesting thing, they're hard to spot because you believe they're true.

They seem real. Yeah.

So you don't think they're a belief. You think they're real, you know, and so they can be hard to spot. But if you start to listen to yourself, you know, I believe or I think or especially look at the things that you have really strong opinion about. Because where you have a really strong opinion is a belief that's underneath that. So, so one of the things that in the latest book is that I show how to show how to dissolve those, those beliefs and just really by some of the things that I've just mentioned. and, and, and you can dissolve them and you just feel free. Every time a belief goes out, you feel completely free. You know, it's an, it's amazing, amazing feeling to, you just feel as light as a feather. And actually you feel invincible. Yeah. Because can you imagine, like, if we have the, for example, the, the feeling of doubt, right? Doubt and uncertainty. Now, doubt and uncertainty play a big part in most people's lives, and that can be paralyzing those two things. so just imagine living a life zero doubt, zero uncertainty. I mean, incredible.

How do we get to a place of not doubting ourselves?

You can because you need to know who you are. You need to know who you are so that you don't doubt yourself because the one that is doubting is the ego, the one that is doubting is the mind and it's not who we are. So then you've got to become very aware of your thoughts. That one that is doubting, the negative thoughts, they're all coming from the ego. Right? All of them. Because who you are would never have a negative thought ever, ever. Who you are would never judge who you are doesn't have, who you are is allowing and accepting. And so you, so all of those things are coming from the ego and they are not who you are. And that voice in your head that you hear, that voice that's, you know, so familiar to you and seems to know an awful lot about you and sounds like you, that voice is not you. That voice is just a program.

What was the voice that was in your head consistently pre-secret that you had to overcome that belief? And then. And then what's been the.

The program?

Because I feel like every new Evolution of us is going to be some type of thing to overcome. So has there been something you've had to overcome in the last 15 years post secret to get to the next level?

Definitely negative thoughts. Definitely.

Before the secret, you had a lot.

Of- oh, before this, oh, heaps. I was like, everybody. I was like, everybody. I was just like, oh, I was pointing out all the things that were wrong. And somehow I was kind of brought up and I think a lot of us are that you're a good person if you point out the things that are wrong, you know, you have to speak up and say, that's wrong, you know, that shouldn't be happening. And, and, So I was kind of brought up with that too. And so that's brought up with judgment. And that does not help us at all. Judgment, we need to put it in the trash because that does not belong with us. And the one who is judging is the ego. That's, it's the ego. It's judging. The one that has negative thoughts is the ego. So I had all of that going on. You know, I had doubt, I had uncertainty, I had feelings of unworthiness, I had heaps of stress. Oh, my God. Heaps of stress.

I was like, pre the book.

Pre-secret, yeah. Living on the edge, you know, I was like this with life, like white knuckles, you know, what's going to happen next, you know, something bad's going to happen and being really afraid, it's, you know, something's going to happen to somebody I love or so, I mean, I live my life like that and, and I think everybody does and, and they just kind of keep it all squashed down, you know, and, but most people live their life that way and, and I mean, you know, in the last year, if you've been terrified, you know, in the last year and really fearful in the last year, you know, all of that fear has been given to you as this lovely gift. You know, when you're maybe a child, and it's like, here's a whole lot of things to be fearful about. And, and then we go through fear. And, I mean, it's very easy to see that there's no pandemic that is Fear, a fear based pandemic. Why do we know that? Because there are many people who are not afraid. And so if the pandemic was, you know, in the world was actually a real fear manifestation, then every single person on the planet would be fearful. And while there are a lot of people fearful, there are still a lot who are not. So that just shows you that the fear was already here with us, you know, before the pandemic came along.

Right.

What was the belief that you still had to overcome post secret? Because you overcame a lot to be able to create something like that. There was this incredible movement. But then were there other negative beliefs that still held you back?

Oh yeah, the biggest one was that I was abundant. That was the biggest one.

That was your limiting belief?

That was the one I had been brought up with, we can't afford it, we don't have enough, and money would come into my hands, it would slip through my fingers. things would break down. The universe would do all these things to get the money out of my hands. It was just like, take it away.

Yeah.

Because I had this belief that I did not have an abundant amount of money and that I was always in struggle. And that came from my parents. Bless them. You know, they're beautiful. But that. That came from them. You know, we can't afford it and all of those things. So I was brought up with that, as many of us are. So the one that I had the biggest thing to overcome, the belief, the biggest thing to overcome was the belief in lack of money. And I knew I needed to overcome that for the secret to sweep the world.

To be able to attract and bring you.

Yeah, because if I didn't overcome that, how could it possibly... Why would money.

Come to you then?

Exactly.

Yeah.

So I had to overcome it.

How did you over, how did you overcome that? I mean, how do you overcome the fear of lack of the not having enough? Never. I'm not worthy of money. How do we finally transition into abundance?

I did that by many, many things. I tried many things. All kinds of I was experimenting with it. So, I mean, I would just walk down the street and say, there's prosperity. I do. I'm breathing in prosperity. I do all these affirmations, you know, I'm breathing. in prosperity with every breath I take. I am. My substance is Prosperity. I am abundant. I am worthy, you know? And so I would say all these affirmations. I would have them all pinned up around the apartment that I was staying in, and so that I would see them and read them every day. So that was just one thing I did. Then what I would do, the biggest thing was because at the time I was in incredible debt, I was making the secret. and I just didn't have the money to make it. And I started out $2 million in debt, mind you, because of a whole lot of shows that went really wrong.

And so- Because you were producing TV shows at the time.

Yeah, I was. And so, I mean, $2 million in debt makes it sound like I had a lot of money. I never had anything like that money. But these particular movies that we're making, they ran over budget. And so I started with $2 million in debt. I remember I discovered the secret and I went to my accountant and I said, you have to do whatever it takes to keep my company afloat. I'm going to make something that's going to change the world. I'm going to make it. You keep my company going. And so, and, you know, and he just said, he just said, okay. And, and so I took out, oh, my gosh, I maxed every credit card I had to the limit. I, I mortgage my home to the absolute limit. I took overdrafts out on my company so I could make the documentary.

Wow.

And so I had crushing debt coming in on me and I needed more money to keep making it. So it was a journey of absolute luck, you know, and the luck was just an expression of what I'd been brought up with. So I had to turn that around. So one of the things I did, like the, when I would go and get used to get, then you would get your bills or accounts in the mail, you know, it wasn't all online. And so I'd go to the map. you know, and straight away, my stomach, my stomach would like. And if anybody's been in that situation where you just don't have enough money and you've got all these bills, it's a horrible feeling, you know, and my, my whole body would contract. And I would know that is attracting a lack of money and that's not attracting abundance. So I used to do this thing whereby I would do gratitude and, and I would listen to music and I would do all of as many things as I could until I felt really, really good. And I would just say to myself, I am abundant and nothing would object. No thought would object. And I'm like, right, now's the time to open the mail.

Right.

I'm feeling really, really good. And so then I would open the, the bills and I would look at each one as though it was a check. I would imagine it's a check.

Wow.

Not a bill.

So you played a game in your mind and you're like, it's a hundred thousand dollars.

And I would go, wow, look at check server today. And so I would do that, you know, and then I'd open them up and I'd be like, wow, a hundred sixty dollar check and, you know, a 2, 300 check. And then I felt like it wasn't, I was, I would add them all up and that's how much I received today. And then I would think, you know what? I need to be receiving more money than that. So I would add zeros to the, to the bills. and I would pretend that they were instead of $160, it was $16,000 check that was coming to me. And so it added all up and I've received all this money. So that was one of the other games that I played. And then I did something quite radical. It was an experiment and test and all of these things I did so that I could tell what worked and what would work for people. and, and so I thought, what's the way that I can feel really good about money? Because when you don't have enough, it's really hard to feel good about really hard. Really hard. And so I thought, what's the one way that I can feel good about money? Okay. The way that I can feel good about money is if I give some away. And so what I.

Well, what about if you have no money to give away?

I took it out on my credit card.

Wow.

I took, I took out these 20 $20 bills on my, on my credit card. I think I could access $100 or something. So I took out all of these $20 bills and I thought, right, I'm going to walk down the street. And I said to the universe, show me who to give it to. And so I would walk down the street and I was looking at everybody's faces. And I don't know if you've ever done that in your life is just so silently walk down the street and look at people's faces like, with a heart wide open. And I was just melting, looking at all these people's faces. And then it was just amazing because the universe would just show me who to give it to. Like these kids walked out of a store and they're like counting their money, I don't have enough to get that, you know, they're wanting to get something in the store. And so just, you know, gave them $20 and they're like, thanks lady, and ran back in the store to get, you know, the ice creams or whatever they wanted. it was an ice cream store I think they were out the front of. And so, so, yeah, I just went down the street giving away this money. And, and in fact, there were two, I think there was two or one 20 note that they, it just like stopped. It wasn't clear anymore who to give it to. And so I just stopped. Do you know that that was on a Friday and on the Monday I received $25,000 in my account from a place that I never, ever, ever could have expected.

Wow.

Yeah.

It's so powerful.

Right?

It's crazy.

Isn't that something?

Was there any of the other tests or games that you tried to, you know, change your thoughts and play with your mind to start seeing yourself as abundant and in profit?

Yeah, I did. I did lists of all of the things that I was going to get, all the things I was going to buy, you know, when the money came in. so I did all of these lists, and I imagined that I had those things already. And, yeah, and I wanted. I remember it was like, I want a house on the ocean. I really went all out. You know, that was just some list. One of the things I remember is that I'd always wanted a Range Rover all of my life, and that was just beyond anything I could afford. And especially in Australia, like, they were crazy prices, so. But still, I put it on the list, and I put all these things on the but, you know, interestingly enough, like, I did that because that was a way to turn money around. But when the secret got released, I didn't care about any of it because. And I didn't even care. All that mattered was that I had got it out into the world. And now it was in the world. It could never be taken away. And that is what mattered to me more than anything, is that that was going to get into people's hands.

How you hypnotize yourself for success, what that was like, and I guess just that process.

And look, I think the vision at a young age wasn't, I wouldn't call it as much, it was the early development of manifestation. And it was drawing, I have a self-portrait of myself from when I'm 14 years old where it's me, this is no joke, it is me in a matching hat. And shoes, like with a skateboard on the side, all of these like this art easel and then just stacks and stacks of money.

Really?

You drew this? I hand drew it, right? And it's like the most fascinating aspect is it's this bizarre matching hat to shoes combo, you know? And to me, like I always could feel intuitively the law of attraction.

Really?

And so even when I look at like I needed, I was lost at 25 years old when I was like searching for some sort of way to, I was like a fix to help like redirect me and get me re-motivated and refocused. And that's why I was looking for a hypnotist, right? And then I found a hypnotist who was at the Scripps La Jolla Hospital. hospital and like, and so to me, I'm like, okay, this is a clinical psychologist. This is real. Right? And so when I got in, not some stage performer. Yeah. And so to me, it was like, like when I got in there, I was like looking for like, you know, give me, make me focused on skateboarding so I can win contests, like, you know, whatever my vision was. And he immediately did this test and said, you don't believe you were meant to be successful at your subconscious level.

And so-- that's what he discovered after doing these tests.

And then the initial hypnosis was just reinforcing at the subconscious level that I was meant to be successful, right? That I believed that, right?

How do you learn to believe that if you hadn't believed it until then?

And look, I would say that I grew it and built it at an early age and was starting to lose it.

Okay.

And then-- you- got it, which made.

You a professional at 16 and kind of go to the next level. then somewhere you lost it.

Right. He reinforced it and then boom, you know, and most recently I went to his house, you know, like a year ago. Really?

Yeah.

I went to his house. He's like this hypnotist now, his lifelong friend, you know what I mean? I found him in the yellow pages. It was free internet. The great Dr. George Pratt. And so, you know, I will, you know, I've sent friends there. I go see him all the time, you know, on my five-year anniversary, he presided over over the five year anniversary of our, when we renewed our vows. But I'm like, hey, can you just give me a check real quick? I just want to verify that I'm gonna be a billionaire. He's like, come on in here. He's like, come on, stop it. You know that's gonna happen. Wow. Him, like, his like psychological power. He's like, stop it. And it's just like, you're right, Dr. George. But look, I think even, you know, we were both in Think and Grow Rich that I, We had shot before we did the initial interview together, too.

He was in the movie?

No, no, you, me and you.

Oh, yeah, yeah, gotcha, yeah.

Right? And it was even back then, like, now I'm evolving and getting more intuitive of things being attracted to me. But it wasn't till 2018, I was in a bit of a pit of chaos, right? Because here's these great plans that I have built that were unfolding. 2016, it was all coming alive, right? Our interview was at peak youthful energy of like, the world is mine. I just moved to Beverly Hills. I'm having my first child. Got my new office in Beverly Hills, like my Forever Estates. Just launched the machine that month, right? All of these things, like, I'm gonna build and sell all these companies still had never done it. Just the vision, the hope, everything. The energy of what was going to become. and so, but in 2018, things got sideways, right? The energy got sideways.

How so? Was this the NBC show that didn't work out?

No, this was them talking about, like, ridiculousness going away, right? Really? And I had built Super Jacket for it to be acquired, and it was just like, wow, it's like this entire thing that I've got built up, and this is the first company I'm building to sell. is going to kind of drift away here. And my wife suggested, like, why don't we just watch the Secret? Wow. And so I'm like, you know, like, what? You know, and I kind of remember the secret, you know, I sort of, like, remember the secret. And then, I mean, the first 15 minutes, it just shifted my being.

Really?

It shifted my being in way of thinking of, like, like, stop it. look at who you are, what you've done, and look at, like, like the good that has constantly, like, found its way to you. Don't lose sight of that. Like, and I began to practice belief. And literally, like, a month later, my, my internal medicine specialist is talking about meditation, and I'm like, I have to meditate. And she's like, oh, I In my office, we have this new company that has these meditation pods, the Soma Dome, right? And I'm like, Can I try it out? And inside this Soma Dome, it's a guided meditation about manifestation. Really? And so what I started doing in 2018 is I was like, I'm not going to like hope for the law of attraction. I'm going to begin to practice it. So I would go to sleep every night watching the Secret. So it was the last thing I went to bed and then when I would get up in the morning, I would get in my dome, right? And I would just like think of all the things I wanted to happen, right? And so instead of thinking in 2018 when they were talking about ending Ridiculousness and I was in season 12.

I.

Wasn'T, I decided I wasn't going to manifest Season 13. I was go, I kept manifesting, walking on the stage, introducing season 30.

Holy cow.

So you weren't thinking about the next season? You were thinking about 20 seasons away.

Right, right.

And, and so for me, like, like it then evolved and like, it literally began, it was like the, the, the Seas began to part. Right. Because what happened is Because I own the production now, I was able to negotiate directly with the head of the network on the unit economics of the show rather than talent and producing fees. And so we got to a place where we decided from a business perspective what was best for the network and the ever-changing landscape of linear cable. And I gave him the, I'm like, give me the price you want and then let me go and try to make it happen.

Because you used to have a talent feed that was bigger and then you.

Said, let's well, somebody else would produce it. Now I produce the entire thing, own the entire production, so I understood where all the opportunity was to get it to his cost. And that, it's a nuance now, right? So I negotiated with him on the unit economics where most, like even big celebrities and producers are still like, it's fees. You know, like you don't have the ability to get in that into depth because you don't understand or own the production company at that level. And so it goes from right there. I got it to his number. We negotiated and I was getting 30 episode seasons at a time back then. And I said, I can only do this price if we get to 42 episodes and you got to pick up multiple seasons. And I was hoping for two. He picked up up for.

Right.

And so it went from thinking that it was completely like, I'm gonna have to regroup and like, like, television's over here to, like, now you're shooting 186.

Right?

Like, and the beauty of it was, is I had built the company up to that point. You needed three years of EBITDA to take it to market and sell it. The entire plan was like, we got. through the third year and take it to market. And on the third year, they were like, we don't think the show is coming back. Basically like, okay, that means the production company is going out of business after I was getting ready to take it to market and be my big first win. And instead, that 186 order, I take it straight to market. Now I took it to market. Here's the three years in EBITDA. And we have the biggest order in the history of cable television, right? Like, what's the biggest order? One of the biggest ones, right? And so, that is how huge that, that, that changed. And then what happens now? They have more episodes. They air more. It gets this new, entirely new life. Then they're like, can we get more?

Really?

Then by the, by the following year, you know, and keep in mind, in that time, I sold the company.

What year is this now?

The company was acquired in 2019. Okay. So. and then it was like, it had this explosion. So then it's like, how many can you give us? And I'm like, so I went through all time management, all aspect, because keep in mind, I'm still doing all of this while living super balanced, happy normal life. So I could do 250 Max. 250 in a year.

Yeah.

And then I was like, but in order to do that, like, can you pick up two years? And then they were like, no brainer. Let's do it. So they then ordered 500.

500 EPS.

Yes.

In two years.

And two years and that put me to 30 seasons, right? So it's like, so, you know.

Oh my goodness. So you're visualizing 30.

Visualizing 30. And I'll tell you one thing, you know, I actually spent some time with the great Dr. Joey dispense.

Right.

And the one thing I heard from him is this idea of don't try to think it, try to feel it. You know, don't, when you're trying to tap into the quantum field and generate energy and the law of attraction, the things that you are thinking about, think about the feeling. That's why I thought I went through the feeling of like what it feels like to be on stage, welcome to season 30, right? So it's a much more richer sort of existence. So now, now it's like I practice it every single day. I am in that Somadome meditation pod, like feeling what I want to happen seven days a week. I almost never miss a day, right? I track it super extensively. intensively. And, like, literally, it's like 97, 96. Like, almost every, like. Like, 97 of this entire year, I have been in there just visualizing what I want to happen.

I gotta get one of these domes.

Yeah, look. Keep it in mind. Like, that's. Think how hard it is to just meditate every day.

That's so hard, right?

Think about how hard it is to just do anything healthy.

Every five, ten minutes, you know what I mean?

It's a. I didn't do it overnight. I had to grow into it. It's a muscle. Getting that level of discipline, being able to commit to it, you need to do it over and over. You go through your highs and lows. You stop for a little bit. You go back to it. You stop like it goes like that till you finally grow the muscle of the consistency and the discipline to where it turns into a way of life. I just don't, now I can't even imagine not doing it. If I don't do it in the day, I'm like, oh, We're all my dreams.

How important is it for people to feel their, what they want to manifest on a daily basis then, as opposed to once in a while?

I mean, look, I'm living proof that you can exponentially accelerate towards it if it's part of your focus.

Where do you think you'd be if.

You didn't do that on a daily basis?

It's hard to say.

And go to sleep almost every night watching the secret.

I mean, look, but I look, I have been falling asleep to a lot of Jim Rome. This old Jim Rome, this old school sort of his sort of philosophy that's also super sharp because what I've just found is like you're like this, you know, I'm gonna fall asleep instantly, right? Like I sleep pure and quick, but it's like, let me be in this sort of growth mindset as I'm drifting off asleep to set the tone for what it is. so I, I don't know. And it's, again, I think with a lot of stuff that I do, it's extreme, right? It's like, so extreme.

Like, you track every minute of your life.

Yeah.

Like, tracking all, every minute of my life, having the qualitative data of every single day, asking myself how I feel about my life, zero to 10.

Right.

And of Life, work and health. The beauty of that is it's, it is, it is a clear indication of quality of your life.

Yes.

And I see direct correlation to my discipline on my quantitative stuff. Did I get up at 5:00? Did I brain train? Did I meditate? Did I get in the gym? Did I have a clean diet? Did I not drink? You could look straight up the line and look at the qualitative numbers and they are one for one. And at scale, it's you see, you you've gamified your discipline.

Yes.

Right.

And in, in, in a sense, you've gamified driving the quality of your life. Right. Which. What does that do? What are all those things actually delivered to you? You're just happier, you're more fulfilled, you feel better about yourself, you have more confidence, you have more belief. Right. Like all of these things. But again, I started it in 2015. I was, I was never able to do an entire year until 2020. it took me five years to do an entire year. Now, in 2021, I set my goals in 2021 based off of having an entire year of this data to be like, I'm going to average 20 points above on the quality of life qualitative data, and I'm going to be 80 on my health balance quantitative stuff. And that's what I committed to. Only I am currently at like 21 and like, 95. It just, it like once I gamified it and now I'm playing the stats, like it made me even that much more disciplined and excited and energetic to stay more disciplined, which in turn gives you more energy, more discipline and more self belief, more self belief, more success, all these things that compound on top of each other because that you know, it really is a compound effect in all aspects of your life if you're if you see your life as all of these different systems that have the ability to expand, right? Because as they expand and they they're they're harmonious, you get this extraordinary energy and build this this great foundation that you grow into the ideal version of yourself, because that's ultimately everybody's goal, you know?

If you can only do five things on a daily basis that would set you up for freedom, success, abundance, what would those five things be?

I mean, to me, it is the core five that I do. I'll skip brain train because that's just more like a discipline thing for fun. But you get up early, you know? Lately, I've been getting up at 4:00 and 4:30. because it's like you, you get so much out of being highly organized and having time to get a ton of stuff executed before the chaos starts.

Right.

Because I don't care who you are, the chaos starts, you know, in my case, it starts at seven the moment my kids hit up. So everything that I can get done ahead of them is, is essential. Right. And including free rethinking and ideating and all these things that, that get lost when you're just going from thing to thing to thing and exhausted and then, like, veg out, get up, go thing to thing to thing.

Right.

Like you're the, the life force is constantly recalibrating and, and getting Clarity on where your head is as part of it. But one, for sure, get up, get up early, meditate, you know, and everybody does it in a lot different ways. But, like, I don't. I. Meditation for me isn't get quiet and breathe. It is. I put headphones on, I get in a dome, and I listen to a guided manifestation meditation that's, like, basically dry, like, reinforcing my drive and ambition and hopes and dreams rather than trying to, like, like, bring peace. And it's a different style, but I think anytime you just take like 20 minutes to be outside of your body and ultimately the reality, if you will, is is is a great reset. And, you know, I think, you know, number one far, you know, far and above is is diet, man. I just don't I don't I don't care. I don't there is if I could boil down the core of my happiness, the core of my execution, the core of it is literally clean diet. And it also compounds. And it goes, it compounds back and forth. Because you can get clean and get a big momentum and you can just start to eat lightly bad and you just level off. You know what I mean? You definitely can't go a layer deeper, but it is of course the hardest just one to maintain. It's the battle between the upper self and lower self, right? That. That. That pure battle of, like, you know, you know you shouldn't be doing it, but, like, you just can't stop it. Then once you start it, here's the problem for someone like me. I have to create all this discipline and gamify it to protect me from me because I will start to dip down to justify.

I just.

Yeah, yeah, I'll dip down and. then I'll do fake health for a while, right? And then I'll be like, after my wife's birthday, then I'm gonna get focused again. You're always like, you're always like breaking that battle between my upper and lower self. It is, you know, I would say even this year is probably the only year and I was committed to it again because I had the data and and, and, like, now seeing, like, gamifying it is, like, I just want my body composition this. You know what I mean? Like, cuz, no, I swear, like, normally it would, it would, like, literally summer dip back. Oh, back up in the winter, starting over January one. It's almost like in December, it's just pizza and wine and cheese and cookies, ice cream. Oh, it's in, in, in to me.

It'S like, so how do you, do you do an 80 20 approach to that? Do have a cheat day. Like, how do you make sure you're not this disciplined freak of nature all day long and not also enjoying moments of.

Yeah, I try to, like, like, not put a. I just try not to lose control.

Yeah.

Right.

And.

And then I keep a foundation of. And my foundation is just chicken, vegetables. Right. And intermittent fasting.

That's it.

Right. So I just. No rice, no bread, no snacks. Chicken and vegetables at like 10 or 11. Chicken and vegetables at like three or four. And then, okay, it's date night. Like, I'm gonna go with the wife and we're gonna go movie. I'll have popcorn, right? Like, it's your baseline that you can commit to. And then now it's a battle between your upper and lower self. Where do I lose it? In the spring when I went on vacation. So I had to, and I got back into that same mode where I like, I dipped so quick and it was a five day trip to combo and I'm in a dog fight. It felt like I was like fighting to like get back to that extraordinary discipline, right? And even with this much discipline, I was still fighting it, you know, and wavered throughout the summer, but stayed committed to like, let's be this year. Look at how this disciplined, how much better you feel about life, all the things that are happening to you. Like, like, let this be the beginning in at year five, I finally had, like, a pure year that I envisioned in 2016 that I was trying to sell to you that I was going to develop and be. And it took five years. And I just think that's another Testament of, like, you're talking, I'm so disciplined. I'm so committed, yet I still highs and lows and chaos. Like it took me five years before I, well really four years into the fifth year before I really got there. You know what I mean? Which is just a testament to having a plan and knowing that, hey, it's a, you're going to grow into this over the next 25 years and not try to do it over six months, one one year, two year, three years.

Well, I think the Law of Attraction and Manifesting are the same thing. So Law of Attraction, for everybody who has not read the Secret, is simply your thoughts become things. And it's true. We've talked all about how when you have a negative self-talk, it tends to draw more of that to you. I think about it like lint in a dryer. Once negative stuff starts collecting, it collects a lot more. We can also talk about your brain filter or something called the Reticular activity system and how it is a live network that filters the brain. We'll dig into that deeper, but let's do surface level right now manifesting law of attraction. So here's what everybody gets wrong about manifesting. Everybody, at least kind of in the mass market, what you're trained to think about when you think about manifesting is vision boards. And when you hear the word vision boards, you think about the big stuff. Should you have big dreams? Of course you should. Should you dream of building a mansion on the ocean if that's your thing?

Yes.

Should you dream of the log cabin? Yes. If you want a Lamborghini or the new Ford Bronco, should you buy? Yes, yes, yes, yes. If you want the family, if you want the body, should you think about? Yeah, absolutely. Here's where everybody goes wrong. You dream about the end. You make this gorgeous collage of all this stuff that has nothing to do with your current life. That literally, as you're sitting in your studio apartment with the cat box that hasn't been changed in two weeks.

No food in the fridge.

No food in the fridge, and you're looking for a job, and you're staring at a mansion going, Someday. It's gonna make you feel like a loser.

Yeah.

Because the gap between where you are and where you wanna go seems insurmountable. And so what happens based on the research is when you only visualize the end game, Louis, it's demotivating. At first it's really fun to like have a bottle of wine and make your like collage and I'm gonna visualize. I'm gonna slap this up. There's my vision board. It's fabulous.

Law of Attraction, baby.

Come on.

I'm gonna think about it. It's gonna come to me. Okay, I've been doing this for two days. I'm still in this apartment with the cat box that needs to be changed. The way To visualize properly is to visualize the bridge between where you are and where you need to go.

The bridge.

Yes, and particularly the horrible stuff. So let's use your example of the marathon. The vision board would be Lewis crossing.

The arms up at the-- the arms.

Up at the-- the medal.

High fives, yes. I did it.

Yes, I did it. Exactly. That will not help you. Because when you hit mile 13 on the actual race, and it is sleeting rain... You're saying, why am I doing this? Yes, and it feels nothing like that thing on your vision board. You're going to start a negative dialogue. I can't do this, my knees hurt, this is not what I thought it was gonna be, I'm not ready for this, I didn't train for this, I'm running New York, I trained in LA, are you running in New York?

LA.

Okay, good. Well then at least you trained in the right weather. Yeah, yeah. So on and on and on, and you are going to tank yourself. What you do by visualizing the bridge is you train your nervous system and your mind to do the hard work. So you should visualize not crossing the finish line, but what is it like to be at mile 12 when your batteries run out on your earbuds?

Yeah.

No, I'm serious. And you keep going. What's it like when your shoelace breaks, and now your heel is lifting, and you're starting to get a blood blister at mile 17? what's it feel like when you wake up and it is pouring rain and you visualize yourself running anyway? That way when you visualize the work, you are preparing your body for it so you're not resistant to it when it comes. Isn't that cool?

I think it's great. It's a story that I had, George St. Pierre, who's one of the greatest UFC fighters of all time. He said that he always puts himself in the most uncomfortable situations in practice leading up to the fight. The most, you know, the hardest situations to get himself out of. When his arms are behind his back and he's facing against the mat in between the fence and he's just getting punched in the face, he's like, how do I get out of this?

Right, right.

He's like, visualize that and seeing how can I get through this?

Yeah, yeah.

Where it seems like I just want to tap out.

Yes.

Instead of tapping out, what's the process for figuring out how to get through it?

Yeah.

To then raise my hand at the end victorious.

Totally. And so you are literally building up almost like this resilience and this muscle inside of you to do the work to get the thing. So yeah, create the vision board, but make sure in addition to crossing the finish line, you have somebody running in the rain. You have somebody who, you have an alarm clock that says 5:13. you have these images that show the stuff that you don't want to do. So like for people who want to launch a business for example, like a lot of people that I'm sure follow both of us are dying to launch a business or interested in being an influencer, social media, or making money online and what you visualize are the checks or you visualize the money you're gonna make or you visualize how cool it's gonna be when you're a lifestyle entrepreneur or whatever the hell Don't do that. Visualize working a day job and telling your friends that you're not going to go out tonight because you're working on something. Visualize making cold calls and being told no. Visualize not going to that party because you're staying in on a Saturday and not going to the barbecue because you're putting in the work. Visualize sitting in a seminar and learning from other people. Visualize watching YouTube videos. Visualize your first ever course failing Miserable like literally that's the sort of thing that you want to visualize yourself doing and pushing through because that's gonna help you do the work. Yeah, isn't that cool?

I think that's great.

Yeah visualizing so in order to manifest what you want Don't just visualize the good things happening visualize the bridge all the things it's gonna take to get there.

Yes, and and the hard parts of the bridge because then you're ready for it.

Mm-.

Then you're like I didn't expect this to be this hard. I mean it's still gonna be hard, right? But you're less likely to quit.

Yes. So what have you done in the last five years to help you manifest after the first book? Were you doing this as well or kind of once you get on a rhythm and build momentum, does it become easier to manifest in your opinion?

Well, so I am constantly training my mind to work for me. And there's this little trick that I talk about in the book that is all sort of the beginning of having a high five attitude. A high five attitude is the ability to catch yourself when you're going mentally low and to flip yourself back up into a high five attitude.

Okay.

The thing that I know to be true is that you cannot control the things around you. You can't control what's going to happen. You can't even control how your nervous system might respond or what thoughts might pop into your head. But you can always choose what you do next and what you make it mean.

Right?

And so that's where all the power is. And so I do this thing where I, this is again, it's gonna sound so dumb, but it's a way for me to introduce you to the power that your mind has to change in real time. We've talked a lot about negative self-talk and part of the reason why negative self-talk is so crippling is not only because you've repeated it for so long and now it's a pattern, but it's also because you have a filter on your brain called the reticular activity system.

Okay?

This puppy is the keys to everything. And it's remarkable that most of us have never heard of it. We've experienced it, but we don't know how to use it to our advantage. So, first let me tell you what the RAS does. Then I'm going to give you an example of when you've experienced it in your life. And then I'm going to explain to you how to use it to get what you want in life. This is like the super attractor manifesting and it also works for interrupting negative self-talk. Like it's going to supercharge all the work you're doing with the Mirror and interrupting thoughts. So, first let's talk about the RAS. So the RAS, imagine a hairnet on your brain. Only it's like electric, meaning it's alive. Okay? Now, the RAS has one job and the job is block out 99% of what's going on and let in 1% of what's going on. Our brains at this moment in history are having to process about 34 days worth of cell phone data in one day.

Crazy.

It's crazy. And so your RAS has a monster job. It's like a bouncer at a bar. You're not coming in, you can come in. And you've experienced this. So have you ever shopped for a car?

Yes.

Okay, so what's the last car you bought?

Tesla.

Oh, Tesla. Oh, fancy, Louis house. I like that.

Well, I never had a nice car until three years ago. I had a $4,000 car for five years before that.

Yeah, yeah.

And then I was like, you know what? I have no Bluetooth. I have no-- it's like, I just needed an upgrade. Yeah, I love it.

It was a 1991.

Dude, you deserve it.

I had a 1991 Cadillac, and I was like, okay. You deserve it. I bought a car. So I bought a Tesla, yeah.

Right.

And so before you thought about buying a Tesla, you drive down the road, you don't really think about it. The second you're like, you know, I think I'm interested in a Tesla. What do you see everywhere? Teslas. Yes, everywhere. Everywhere. My husband just bought a pickup truck. I never even noticed him. Now I'm like, there are baby blue pickup trucks everywhere. What is going on? That's the bouncer in your brain. And let me tell you how this works. There are only four things that automatically get through the bouncer in your brain, the RAS. Number one, your name. So you've experienced being in a crowded place and somebody's like, you think you hear Louis and you're like, huh? Somebody call my name? That was the bouncer in your brain. The second thing that always gets let in is any threat to your safety. So there are loud noises all over all the time, but only ones in close proximity make you go like this. that was the bouncer in your brain letting it in.

Okay.

The third thing that gets let in is when you sense that your partner is interested in sex with you or somebody else. You're like, Chris, you know what I'm saying? You kind of pick up on the signals. That's the bouncer in your brain. And the fourth one, and this is where, this is the billion dollar thing that everybody needs to know. no. The bouncer in your brain lets in whatever you think is important to you. So when you get intentional about telling your brain what's important to you, like, I'm interested in a Tesla, your brain's literally like, oh, let's let all the Teslas in. Come on in. Here's the downside to this. If you have told yourself that you are a bad person, for the last 10 years. Guess what your brain thinks is important. Examples that mean you're a bad person.

Right.

So I'm going to give you a very specific example. So I personally don't think I'm a bad person. I don't think I'm perfect, but I know I do my best. I mean, well, I don't have that story about myself at all. I used to, but I don't. And Let's say I oversleep and I miss the dentist. I miss the dentist appointment. I'm like, ugh, I gotta pay the 25 bucks. I gotta reschedule that thing. That kind of blows.

That's all I think.

And then I go on. My daughter, who constantly beats herself up and says she's a bad person, this is a real example, by the way, she oversleeps, misses a dentist appointment, and it becomes, See, I always screw everything up. I'm a terror. I'm always messing things up. I'm a bad—like, everything that gets gets let in, confirms that you're a bad person.

She finds proof and evidence.

Yes, that's the bouncer in your mind. I'm here to tell you that when you get intentional about what you want to think about yourself, it changes in real time what your brain lets in and what it doesn't. That helps you with the other things that you're doing, the high five in the mirror, the I'm not thinking about that, the pathetic draw. Hey, you know, just because I missed the dentist appointment doesn't mean I'm a bad person. I'm doing the best I can here. Give myself a break. High five. You know what I'm saying? Shake it off. Get back in there. It's true, right?

Right.

Because it's these little things. Somebody cuts you off, somebody reaches for the last thing of cereal that you wanted to buy at the grocery store. You think it's like a sign that the world's out to get you. This is all your story and your mind skewing the world. to prove all of the stuff you keep repeating. And the only way to get a handle on it is to start acting the opposite, like high five yourself, even though you don't feel like it. Interrupt the crap that you keep saying. Put your hands on your heart and settle your body down. All of these things are things that somebody does when they care about themselves, when they think they deserve to be treated with kindness. when they think they deserve support and when they realize they need it. And when you start to build yourself back up, you'll show up very differently in other relationships.

Absolutely.

You know, if you tolerate this kind of treatment from yourself, you'll tolerate it from other people. It does begin with you.

And when you create boundaries and you don't abandon yourself, then you won't abandon yourself with other people either. You won't let them cross the boundaries.

Correct. Like if you stand in front of the mirror every single morning and you're like, I look like crap, I am not good enough, I'm unhappy with my life, and then you step into a relationship and somebody leaves you on red and they ghost you for three days, like you come to expect that because that's how you believe you think you deserve to be treated. When you stand in front of a mirror and you're like, hey, You're awesome. We got this. I got you. I know it's hard. We're gonna go do this. Or, Hey, this is a big day today. I've got this huge presentation. I am going to destroy this. You know, like, you get into it, you're excited. Then you're creating momentum for yourself.

Otherwise, what?

You're gonna stand there and be like, oh my God, I'm gonna screw this up. I'm not prepared. It's like the negative morning routine. It leads to negative actions.

Absolutely.

So this training thing, training your RAS. So here's what I want you to do. Starting tomorrow, after you wake up and make your bed and kind of settle your nervous system and high-five yourself after setting your intentions. So now you're like sending yourself into your morning routine in a totally different way with a calm down nervous system and intention and this boost of feeling supported and loved and celebrated. I want you to find one naturally occurring heart shape as you go through your day.

I saw this in your book.

Yeah.

It could be a stone, it could be a leaf on the ground, it could be a cloud shape, it could be a coffee stain, it could be an oil stain on the floor of a garage, it could be a spot on a dog walking by. I want you to tell your mind, let's find a heart. Let's see if we can find our heart. And something weird is going to happen. You're going to see something. And then I want you to literally supersize what's going on in your brain. And what you do is when you see the heart, I want you to then take a moment and literally congratulate yourself. Feel like, oh my God, I found it. Whatever you believe in, God, the universe, greater connection, you put that there for me. and I found it. And I want you to feel this kind of wave of that's kind of cool.

Yeah.

I just saw a heart. And then that positive thing. Remember how I told you the bouncer in your brain pays attention to what's important to you. When you get your nervous system celebratory involved, that makes your brain really pay attention. Just like trauma makes your brain pay attention.

It does.

So you. supercharge the experience by celebrating it and then look for another one around. I see hearts all day long. And what happens when you start to play this game is you will start to realize you are walking by an entirely different world every single day because you're not looking for it. There are opportunities, there are signs, there are mile markers, on your path that you are literally tuning out.

Yes.

And we can all sit in this moment, Louis, and look back and see how the dots of our life connect us here. The coolest thing about practicing the high five habit, this training of finding hearts and the high five attitude is that you start to ground yourself in the idea that this too is a dot on the map of your life. and it is leading you somewhere incredible. And when you start to have that kind of high-five attitude that there are signs whether it's the little hearts that you're now seeing or it's your ability to catch guilt or people pleasing or insecurity or the negative self-talk and be like, Nope, not going down. Not thinking about that 5-4-3-2-1. Let's get that high-five attitude back. I can do this. I can have my own back. It's not going to be perfect but.

I can keep going. And you were just talking about how you never truly learned how to love yourself in your own skin. And you started this daily ritual, this habit of high-fiving yourself in the mirror. You've lived a pretty full life right now, but you feel like really you've never truly learned how to love yourself, but now you feel like you know how to?

Yes, I do.

Why did you not know how to love yourself in the first place?

That's a big question. I think that most of us are not taught how to love ourselves just for being alive.

For existing.

For existing, thank you.

It's always like we have to accomplish something, then we can get love.

Yes, it's the same thing with happiness. Like you're chasing it and you think that if you achieve something, you're gonna get it. And you also, or at least I, felt the most loved when I was little, when I was achieving something. And, you know, I think that most parents kind of fall into this camp. And it's really interesting to write a book about this and sort of trace back how we go from being little teeny babies that would crawl up to a mirror and put our hands up and kiss ourselves and love the sight of ourselves to being a self-loathing adult that stands in front of a mirror and either ignores or criticizes your very existence. And I believe that a lot of this has to do with the fact that so much of what you learn as a kid is if you do what I tell you to do, then I'll like you. Then I'll love you. And so much of your existence becomes complying, fitting in, not making people angry. You learn how to sort of go in and out of spaces belong to groups, make sure people like you, and you stop focusing on how you were born, which is looking in a mirror and liking yourself.

Although you cannot change conditions or circumstance, you don't have to let them control you. We can't control what's going on outside, but we can control what's going on inside. And unfortunately, I don't think many of us have been raised to really understand that.

Yeah.

And it's a lack of understanding that's causing all our problems.

But how can you say that to someone who's like, well, I don't feel like I have control on the inside when it seems like everything has power over me? What's something that could shift?

You see, the truth is for that person, that would be true that they're being controlled by outside. We look at it this way. we are the only creature on the planet that's totally disoriented in our environment. All the little squirrels, the birds, every, all the animals are completely at home in their environment. They blend in. You and I are totally disoriented in our environment. We've been given the mental faculties to create our own environment. However, we go right through school and we've never learned that. We have higher faculties and the average person has no knowledge of how to operate with them, how to develop them. We have perception, the will, reason, imagination, memory and intuition. Now those mental faculties, they're not just words, they're actually mental faculties that we can use to take control over our world and to create the environment that we want. But unfortunately, we grow up, we don't know that. We've been raised to live through by what we see, hear, smell, taste and touch, our physical senses. And we've been raised to be controlled by what's going on outside. As little kids, will you listen to what I'm telling you? Will you look at this? And so it's all outside. We get our report card and that tells us what kind of student we are. But it really tells us where our mind was at for a few minutes, three weeks ago. It's got nothing to do with who we are. So I think we're raised in ignorance actually. There's a very small percentage of the population that have a reasonably clear understanding of who they are and what they're capable of doing. But the ones that do are in the minority. Our whole company has been dedicated to teaching that to people for the last 50-some years.

Powerful. You talked about the five faculty, the five mental faculties, and I even touched on this briefly in our previous interview. But I'm curious, I have a new question for you. Which of the faculties typically is the hardest to, I guess, master or become efficient in, to use to your advantage in a positive way, and which is the one that you feel like hurts us the most when we don't master?

Well.

I think reason is probably, it's the one that's spoken about by almost all the great leaders.

Yeah.

They've all been complete unanimous agreement that we become what we think about. It's our reasoning factor that enables us to think. Ford says thinking is the hardest work there is. which is the probable reason so few people engage in it. Dr. Ken McFarland is gone for a long time now, but he was a great educator down in Kentucky. He one time said two percent of the people think, three percent think they think, and 95% would actually rather die than think. Now, you know, that sounds cute, but it's true. If you stop and listen, to what most people are saying, it's going to be fairly obvious they're not thinking. If you stand back and watch what most people are doing, it's fairly obvious they're not thinking. Well, they would never say or do what they're doing. Most people today have their television on the news, and they're just soaking up all the stuff that's going on that's dominating the media right now. So they've become a play thing for what's going on outside. And that's why they're living in such fear.

By consuming the media of whether it's true or accurate or not true, you're being manipulated in a sense.

It's not a matter of whether it's true or not. Is this how you want to spend your life just listening to that? That doesn't mean you should deny it. It doesn't mean that you should say, well, that's all false. I don't know whether it's true or false. It's just bad news. I don't want to be involved in it. Am I aware that it's there? Well, you'd almost have to be dead not to be aware that it's there. But that doesn't mean you have to spend your time thinking on that. I would much rather activate some of my creative faculties and do something that's constructive.

And a time under crisis and worry and fear for a lot of people, what should we be thinking about? How should we be using our imagination in different ways as opposed to fixating on the bad news?

Well, I think a good idea right now would be spend some time thinking about how are we going to adapt when this is gone.

Yeah.

Because we're going to live in a different world. We're not going to be in the same world when this is all blown over than we're in right now. It's going to be quite different. People are not going to be rushing out to big events where there's a lot of people. They're not going to be rushing to restaurants. I think they're going to be very careful about what they do, where they think and where they're going. I was listening to Senak and he said, if you're a public speaker, don't look for a stage for a little while because you're not going to have one.

Yeah.

Now, this also presents great opportunities. It's for us, for my company, we're going online, you know, full speed ahead. Now, fortunately, we built the studio. four or five years ago.

So you're prepared.

We're equipped and we're ready. We can broadcast. We had a training class going in here just last week with about 300 of our consultants from all over the world. We had a three-day training program for them and it was very effective.

Online.

You didn't have to come together. We did it from right here.

Yeah.

I mean, you're known for doing these powerful transformational workshops in person. So for someone, I mean, it's very inspiring for me, for someone at your age where would be the excuse of most people your age to say, well, I don't understand this technology thing and I've been doing this way of business for so long. It's always worked this way and I'm not going to try to reinvent or evolve and pivot and grow in this way. So it's really inspiring to see someone of your age with your your level of experience and say, you know what? I'm embracing it. Maybe I don't like it. Maybe you do like it, but you're embracing it and making the most of it as opposed to resisting. Because what happens when we start to resist in our life? What truly happens?

Well, well, we resist it, we create it in our mind. That's all we think about. You see, I guess my age really has nothing to do with it, but I formed that attitude a long time ago. I didn't like the idea that when you've lived for so long, you've got to cut out, you've got to stop. I thought, hell, I don't like that idea at all. First of all, I think we're, I believe we're here to do God's work. God's work is creation, you know, expansion, fuller expression, greater goodness. and if we're going to do that, we're going to be working at it all the time we're here on this planet. We never stop. So age should have no bearing on it. I had a couple of people ask me when we started to build this place, we put a couple of million dollars into this and somebody said, how old are you? And I think I was probably 83 when they started to break ground. They said, you,'re 83 and you're going to spend $2 million building a studio? I said, yeah, like, why not? I mean, you see, we let things that really have no concern. We let them bother us. We let them control us. Age is a dumb thing to let control you. It's our thinking that controls everything. That's the one point every great leader agreed on. We become what we think about. Well, what's a person thinking? I'm thinking if I get old, I gotta stop. Well, then you'll stop. Or I'm thinking, well, if I've been here a long time, I've got a lot of experience. I want to utilize that experience to keep me going as long as I am here. I mean, anybody had their head screwed on right a few years ago would know that this thing's going to take over.

Yeah.

And if we don't learn how to use it, we're toast. So, you know, I was doing seminars on my iPad because I can run it right onto a monitor and out through to the universe.

Yeah.

What should we be thinking about the most right now in your mind?

If so, I think we should be thinking about our future. I think we should be thinking about the greatness like it's the school of greatness. I think we ought to be thinking about the greatness that we've got locked up within us. and bring it to the surface. Everyone has deep reservoirs of talent and ability within them and they can bring it to the surface to accomplish anything they want. Now to sit in fear and wonder what's going to happen, that is a dumb waste of your talent and your time. Yeah. And unfortunately, that's what most of the media is promoting right now. To believe in fear is to believe in something you can't see. To believe in faith is to believe in something you can't see. Well, if you have a choice, I think I choose faith over fear.

Absolutely.

I think I believe where I can really see something happen. I believe we're going to have a phenomenal year in our company. In fact, I am business partner Sandy Gallagher. and a very bright lady, was a securities attorney prior to joining us. She ran a program this morning for our entire company. We have about 70 people in the company. She was teaching masterminding to them all and saying how this is important that every one of us get involved in this, that we learn the basics of masterminding, that Napoleon Hill brought to the world, let's say, way back in the 30s. Now, I think that's what we should be teaching people. Sandy was on the right track there. So I think we ought to be thinking about what we're going to build, how big are we going to do it, where are we going to do it, when are we going to start? Our goals have not changed. They're very big, they're very ambitious. and we're not letting this virus slow us down one bit. As a matter of fact, we're trying to figure out how can we use this to speed it up. There's a chair and you can't get rid of it. Use it to your advantage. There is a way we can use it to our advantage. People are more dependent upon the phone. I've got a computer here. They're dependent on their phone, their computer, more than they've ever been. We can reach them anywhere in the world through those mediums.

Yeah, use them to your advantage. You talked about fear for a second. I'm curious, when we live in a state of fear, what does that do to us? And the second part to this, when we feel that fear and we become aware of it, what should we be thinking or doing or acting on in order to shift into a more positive space? state.

You know, that is one hell of a good question. And it's a question most people are not able to answer. First of all, the cause of fear is ignorance. That is the cause of fear. And so if you follow the ignorance, it doesn't start out as fear. The ignorance starts out in a conscious level as doubt and worry. that's on a conscious level. We're doubting or we're worrying. Then we take whatever image comes into our consciousness of the doubt and the worry and we turn it over to our emotional mind. That's what causes the fear. Well that fear then has to be expressed through the body, through the only instrument it can be expressed through, our physical body. It sets up a vibration known as anxiety. Anxiety is not expressed, anxiety becomes suppressed. We suppress it. And the suppression then turns to depression, which turns to disease, which turns to decay. You see, you're talking about a track a person gets on, it's a very negative track. It's ignorance, Don't worry, fear, anxiety, suppression, depression, disease, disintegration. Now the polar opposite of all that, the opposite of ignorance is knowledge. There's only one way to get to knowledge and that is to study. Now unfortunately.

School.

Didn'T do the job that it was designed to do for most of us. Schools should teach us to love to study.

Not to dread studying and homework and tests.

They should teach us to love it. Because study leads to the opposite of don't worry, which is understanding. See, it's study that leads to understanding. We understand how to handle the fear. It's understanding that enables us to cause us to understand where the fear starts. The understanding, then, we want to say, what do we understand? We want to understand this whole universe operates by law. One of the laws is the law of opposite. The opposite of don't worry is understanding. Now if the don't worry leads to fear, what's understanding leads to? Understanding leads to faith. The faith leads to expression, well-being and expression. It's not depression. It's not suppression. It's not anxiety. The faith leads to well-being. The well-being then is expression, acceleration, because we're at these, there's not disease. So you're dealing with polar opposites. There's two different sides to things.

Things.

And when we understand that, our world starts to change. It's by understanding that we learn how to deal with these pandemics when they hit. And they will hit. There will be others. There always has been, all down through history. If you look back, there's been things like this happen in the past. And unfortunately, the masses are sort of paralyzed by it.

Yeah.

And as a people, we add to that paralysis by feeding them more of what scares them. What we should be doing is helping them understand what the hell is going on.

Why do we do that as people? Why do we feed people more of what scares them as opposed to what you and I do, which is- Because.

That'S what people want. That's what they buy. People don't buy good news. People buy bad news.

Why though?

Can you imagine if everybody that tunes into CNN, tuned into the School of Greatness every week?

It'd be amazing.

Can you imagine if everybody that tunes into Fox, tuned into your School of Greatness every week? Have you any idea the impact you could have on the world?

That's what we're trying to do.

It'd be enormous. It'd be enormous. People want bad news. It resonates with where their mind is programmed. they're programmed with negative information. Their paradigm is all bad news. It's what we're programmed with. Now, is everybody new? There's a small select group of people that don't fall into that category, and they are always working diligently trying to lift everybody up. It's not an easy thing to do. But every now and then, a Lewis Howes would come along and start a school of greatness and he'll call in different people that feed into that concept that are in harmony with that, that resonate with that. And so it makes it interesting for the listener. And then, and that's how it goes.

Yeah.

And that's what you're doing. And that's what I'm doing.

Yeah.

And it's not a losing battle. It just appears like it is. I'm winning.

Yeah.

I think you're winning. Now, we're not, we're not drawing the numbers that CNN's drawing. But the ones we draw are saying, absolutely. You got it.

You got it. We're making an impact on them for sure. I'm curious. I want to ask you more about self-doubt because this is something I've been fascinated with for the last few years as I spent most of my life dealing with trying to understand how to overcome doubting myself and achieve the sports goals, business goals, Relationship goals that I had throughout my younger years. And I became obsessed with learning how to eliminate doubt. And I've been researching this more and just trying to learn from people like yourself on how you have dealt with self-doubt over the years and how you think anyone who feels like they're doubting themselves, what can they do to go from doubt into confidence? What do you think is the path?

Okay, that's a good question. It ties in with the previous question you asked. what do we do with fear? Fear comes from the doubt. So the doubt becomes the cause of the fear, which is the cause of the anxiety, etc. The doubt is the cause, fear is the effect. What is the polar opposite to doubt? Understanding. It's understanding. That's the opposite of doubt. So what is it we want to understand? Well, if it's me that's entertaining doubt, why am I entertaining doubt? If I were to find out who I really am and I believe everything that's been taught down through the centuries, I would have no doubt. I would be realizing that I could do anything. And the only thing that's causing a doubt is a lack of understanding. So I'm going to keep studying. I'll gain a better understanding. I don't doubt myself. I don't doubt what I can do. Does that mean that I can do everything?

No.

When doubt appears, I'll eliminate it and I'll eliminate it fast because I'm going to figure out how to do whatever it is I'm doubting.

Yeah.

And you see, if it's me that I'm doubting, it's because I don't understand me well enough. I did a broadcast the other day. It was all over the place. We had thousands into it on self-image and we've got to get a better image of ourself. We have to get a true image of ourself, understand who we are, how our mind functions. Realize this physical instrument we're living in is nothing but an instrument. It's the instrument of the mind. And the mind expresses itself within through this thing we call our body. Well, let's understand that better. This thing you've got enough power in your one hand to light up that building you're in for probably a month.

Wow.

There's about 11 million kilowatt hours per pound potential energy locked up in the electrons and the atoms of the body. Well, that's the invisible power that's in me. I want to understand that better. How what? That's the physical side. What's the higher side? Higher side is my intellectual side. And that is the intellectual factors that I run through earlier. perception, the will, reason, imagination, memory and intuition. There's six of them.

And.

As I understand those more, as I understand my intellectual factors, I'm using the things and I'm utilizing and developing the things that separate me from all the rest of the animal kingdom of which I'm a part. Then I can tap into the spiritual essence of who I am because we're spiritual beings and that's where the greatness lies. It lies in understanding the spiritual essence of who we are. You see our spiritual DNA is perfect. It requires no improvement. It requires no modification. Our spiritual essence is perfect and that perfection is within us. So the trick is figuring out how to express it in a greater way.

Yeah, and not get trapped into a different type of expression through bad news or friends or parents beliefs or whatever it is that exactly tries to shut us down, correct?

Exactly.

So.

And they will try and shut us down because we're coming up and we're saying, I'm going to do this. They'll say, you got to be out of your mind. You're going to quit that good job. Are you crazy? We got to be strong enough to say, I'm going to follow my dream.

Amen to that.

I'm a big believer. Martin Luther King.

I have a dream. And what happens if we create, try.

To create from survival emotions? It just takes a long time.

You just, you'll.

Force it.

Little steps at a time.

You'll force it, you'll force it, you'll fight for it, you'll compete for it, and you'll manipulate, you'll cheat, you'll lie. You'll do anything to get what you want because that's what matter does when it's trying to change matter. And everybody's playing that game, right? Everybody's trying to accumulate the most amount of things. Okay, so that's what abundance means to certain people. Get as many things as you can. Okay, you want that? Not a problem. But let's learn the formula of how to create.

Right?

So then you'd have to feel those emotions before the experience occurred. And if you understood that you could dissociate all of your attention from this three-dimensional reality and have no attention on anything known and understand that it's the field that creates matter, not matter that emits the field. And if you could get to that place and change your energy with a clear intention, and elevated emotion, your heart starts beating in this beautiful rhythm like a drum. We've measured it so many times and when that occurs, the next thing that happens, the heart informs the brain it's safe to create now. So the person relaxes into the present moment and then we see this, like if you took a big sheet, you know, a blanket and you went like that, the energy of the heart actually informs the brain to move into these beautiful elegant states of alpha. coherent alpha. And that's saying, what's the next dream? What is it? What's the next opportunity you want to experience? That's a state of creation. So now you have a Wi-Fi signal. You got a coherent brain. That's a directive. That's a signal out. And you got this coherent heart. That's what draws it to us, right? You combine those two. And if there's a vibrational match between your energy, and that potential in the quantum field and you're feeling abundant and whatever your brain associates with being abundant, that's your call. That's what the creative process is. This is the creative center. The brain frontal lobe actually says, what would it be like to be creative or abundant? I don't know what it'd be like to be abundant. We'll then go read a few books on people who actually became abundant and realize it wasn't a glorious process. They failed miserably. They got betrayed. They learned a lot of lessons, but they persevered. And what are the qualities of that person that you could embody? That's the key, right? Because it's not about wealth. It's who you become, right? Because people think it's about their wealth, but it's the becoming process. It's the overcoming... You attracted that, right? Of course.

So.

Then you've got to turn the battleship around because Most people say, I can't feel grateful for my wealth because it hasn't happened yet. That's the hypnosis, waiting for the experience to happen to feel grateful. Well, that's Newtonian, that's three-dimensional reality, that's cause and effect. In quantum, you've got to feel it in order for you to experience it. So this heart becomes like an amplifier and it sends that signal out and that frequency can carry the thought of your abundance. Suffering cannot carry the thought of your abundance. Lack cannot carry the thought of your abundance. It's a different frequency, right? We feel different feelings like suffering. We think different thoughts, right? So people can say, I'm abundant, I'm abundant, I'm abundant, I'm abundant, all they want, but that thought is never making it to the body because it's stopping at the brainstem because the body's saying, I'm miserable, I'm unhappy, I'm in lack, right? So the affirmation doesn't work, right? Okay, so let's go one step further.

Yes.

So if you practice this, and you actually understood, you know, well, we teach this pretty well, but if you learned it just like learning how to play handball or learning how to hit a golf ball, learning how to dance the salsa, so if you just practiced the form, you got really good at it. If you were doing it properly then, what would be the outcome? The experiment of being abundant would be that you would have to feel that feeling, it's so good at doing it with your eyes closed. you got to do it with your eyes open. Now, why? Because if you're feeling the feelings of your emotions of your future, you're no longer looking for them.

Because you're in the future now.

Your body is so objective that it's believing it's living in that reality where you are abundant. And as long as you feel that emotion, you're not separate from it any longer. You're no longer in lack. You're no longer looking for it to occur, say, why hasn't it happened yet? If you're feeling abundant, why would you look? Right? We wouldn't. So then our job then is to be able to maintain that modified state of mind and body. So, okay. So does that mean like you should check your bank account tomorrow and see if there's a half a million dollars in it?

No.

You keep tuning into that potential and then here come the synchronicities. What's that? That's feedback in your environment. The universe saying, Hey, Louis, whatever you're doing, all of a sudden, we are starting to create, right? And I think it's so important for people to remember that they're the creators of their lives instead of the victim of their lives, right? So the victim is saying, I'm feeling this way because that person or that circumstance or I don't have any money is causing me to feel this way. That's my relationship with money. What that really means is, I'm using my lack to reaffirm my dependency, my addiction, my conditioning. That's my relationship with money is that I put my attention on money because I don't have it. So the relationship with money is of course built on lack and so when they don't have it, they feel bad. And what they're really saying is my outer environment, my reality is actually controlling the way I feel and the way I think. LewiS, why are you in a good mood today? Things are going good. Why are you in a bad mood? Things are going bad today. So this unconscious program of victimization is saying that we're allowing our environment to influence the way we feel and the way we think. Isn't that what victimization is? And the stronger the emotion we have to our lack, the more we put our attention on the fact that we don't have it. So then the person has forgotten that they're creating reality. because what they're creating is lack. And they're creating more of it. And then they try harder and they.

Force harder and they can't get it.

And they're more exhausted and their body's tired and they're breaking down. And they're breaking down. Right. So the experiment then is let's try it another way. Let's create from the field instead of from matter. Get a coherent heart, get a coherent brain, relax in the heart and energy moves right into the brain. We've measured this a thousand times and all of a sudden the person moves into these beautiful, elegant brainwave states. where they're super creative, right? So the longer you're conscious of that energy, the more you draw that future to you. So then what does the synchronicity mean? It means whatever you're doing inside of you is producing that effect outside of you. Pay attention to what you did. Keep doing it again. So generate a little bit more abundance. Just do it for an experiment. Now, when the synchronicity happens, do you think you feel suffering or do you think you feel a little excitement? You feel inspired, right? So then that synchronicity is saying, use this energy, use this feeling. It should be easier for you to feel this now and go back and do it again. Keep the experiment going. Then here comes the promotion. Here comes the email. Here comes the person you meet at the right time. Whoa, we have something happening here and then that becomes the momentum. So then we generate abundance. That's how we do it. And the relationship— It doesn't just happen.

By accident, we generate it.

We generate abundance, right? So then if you have an hour meditation where you're tuning into your abundant future, but then you're spending the other 15 hours a day in lack, don't expect anything to change. You defaulted. You're back to the old energy. And if you say it's that person or that circumstance or that bank account, I'm gonna say you're back to the unconscious program of being a victim, right? So then So then let's go a step further. If your personality creates your personal reality and it does and your personality is made of how you think, how you act and how you feel, then the present personality who's listening to this podcast has created the present personal reality called their life. Nothing big there. Which means if you want to change your personal reality, you're going to have to change your personality.

Right.

Nothing changes in your life until you change. So then 95% of who we are is on autopilot. It's programmed thoughts, hardwired thoughts, beliefs, perceptions, unconscious habits and behaviors, and really emotional responses that tend to be really knee-jerk and automatic. If 95% of who we are is a set of unconscious programs, and the first step to change is becoming conscious of those unconscious thoughts. Now people think when they sit down to do the work and make their change, that they're doing something wrong. No, those thoughts have to come up. I can, I'm not worthy, it's never going to work. But a person who's truly persevering towards their abundance realizes just because they have that thought doesn't mean it's true. They're curious on what's on the other side of that thought. Ah, well, that's just the thought, right? And nerve cells that no longer fire together, no longer wire together. So you keep moving past that thought. It has less and less power over you, right? Now you have power over it or better yet, you're using your brain in the proper way instead of being a victim to your brain. If you complain about money, if you judge people who have it, if you rush when you're in lack, if you cheat when you don't have what you need. An abundant person doesn't do that. You got to look at that and say, I got to break these habits. Oh my God, if I truly want to be abundant, I can't act this way. Now here's the big one. If I truly want to be a new personality that's in a new personal reality, I can't take lack with me. I can't take unworthiness. I can't take a story that goes along with it with my parents or my grandparents or my ex or whatever. That story has to end, right? I mean, if not now, when, right?

How do people end those stories?

Well, of course. Well, how many times do we have to forget until we stop forgetting and start remembering? That's the game, right? That's the game called change. How many times we have to go unconscious and default to that personality when we catch ourselves and stop doing that and get conscious. That's the moment of change. So the problem is, is that most people wake up in the morning and they think, let me think of my problems, right? The brain is a record of the past, right? So they think about their problems. They don't have enough money and those problems are usually connected to certain people at certain places with certain objects and certain things.

What didn't work out or who screwed me over?

So the moment they wake wake up, the moment they remember those problems they're thinking in the past. So now they're firing and wiring the memory. They're keeping the memory of past alive in their mind. The problem is every one of those memories has an emotion associated with it because we've experienced it. So when they feel the lack, when they feel the unhappiness, when they feel the anxiety, now the body's in the past. Thoughts being the language of the brain feelings, being the language of the body, how we think and how we feel creates our state of being. But the conditioning process starts because conditioning only needs a thought and a feeling, a memory or an image and an emotion and a stimulus and a response and you're conditioning your body to become the mind of that emotion. And now the memory is not in the brain. Now the memory is buried subconsciously in the body and the body becomes the mind of that emotion. so the body is living in lack and it's believing.

It's like the body is. Is that through the nervous system or.

Is that through neurochemical cells? Everything. So the body's so objective that it does not know the difference between the real life experience that's creating the lack and the emotion that you're creating by thought alone called lack. The body's believing it's living the same past experience every day. Why? Because the end product of an experience is an emotion. Well, if your life is changing but you're still feeling lack, don't expect anything that you won't even see it. You'll walk right past it. You're viewing your life through the lens of the past. Okay? So then the person realizes that all their friends are making money and they're doing stuff and they're like, wow, I'm really feeling lack now. So then when it no longer becomes about your abundance and it becomes about your change, That's a valuable moment when it's no longer about your healing, but it's about your change. I paid attention to a lot of people in the last couple of years tell their story. The people who heal in this work from cancers and all kinds of chronic health conditions and Parkinson's and strokes and paralysis and all kinds of things. It's rare genetic disorders. It never was about when they really got in the game, it was never about their healing. It was about what do I need to change in order to heal? When the game goes like that, so then the person who's feeling lack on some level or another, it's not just in the mind, it's in the body, right?

Let me hear what you say that again. When someone's looking for abundance, it's never about the abundance, it's about the change they need to make. for healing?

No.

I'm using healing as an example.

Yes.

But let's use abundance as an example. When you understand that you cannot get abundant, when it's no longer about the game called abundance, it's about the game called change. What do I need to change? The more I change, the more I'll be abundant.

Yes.

So then it's no longer, why haven't, how come it hasn't happened? That's the old personality separate from the experience. lack asking that question.

Which is creating your current reality.

Which is reaffirming it because that's the lens you're perceiving it through.

Okay, so we should be focusing more on what we need to change every moment as opposed to the abundance or the healing.

Well, the word meditation means to become familiar with. Sit with yourself long enough and not turn on your cell phone, not scroll through your social media and do no TikTok, no emails, none of that stuff. Just sit and close your eyes and watch the thoughts that come up. That's the exact reason why you're not abundant. Watch what you want to do when you're feeling lack to take away the lack and there's always something you do to take it away. But sit with the lack and be curious on what's on the other side of it, right? Because the body's programmed into lack now subconsciously, right? So the emotion of lack drives our thoughts and drives our behaviors. So it makes sense then that if an emotion is a record of the past then we're doing things habitually from the past. We're thinking in the past, right? So lower the volume to the emotion every time you notice lack comes up and just like breaking any addiction, there's gonna be cravings, right? So the body's going, Hey, Louis, it's been about two hours since you last ate.

-You'Re so used to doing it.

Yeah, you've been thinking lacking thoughts about 150,000 times a day and you're just gonna stop. The body is gonna start influencing the mindsets. It's not gonna work. You're a loser. It didn't work before. It's too hard.

Everybody else... That's why it's so hard for people to lose weight or get in shape. You might try it for a few days and then the cravings or I'm tired and I want to go default.

Back into the old. Right, because why? Because the body which has been conditioned the mind. the body is the unconscious mind. So the body's got used to the familiar feeling. They don't even know it's lack. It's just how they feel. It's not guilt. So let me finish. Okay, so the hardest part about all of this is making a different choice. And the moment you decide to make a different choice, get ready, it's gonna feel uncomfortable. It's gonna feel unfamiliar. Your body's all of a sudden saying, Hey, Louis, why don't you start thinking those same exact thoughts? Do the same make the same choices, demonstrate the same behaviors, have the same experiences. So you could feel that feeling of lack, complain again to somebody, call somebody up and say, How miserable your life is. And that's the known. So the body is always influencing the mind to.