Transcript of Lewis Howes: Break Free From Fear, Shift Your Mindset, and Stop Sabotaging Success | Mental Health | YAPClassic

If the life you're building looks successful on the outside but still feels heavy on the inside, this YAP Classic is for you. Today we're bringing back my conversation with Lewis Howes, a self-made entrepreneur and the host of the hugely popular podcast, The School of Greatness. Lewis shares how he went from sleeping on his sister's couch to building a global personal development brand, but his biggest transformation wasn't external. It came from confronting the fear, shame, and past pain that kept him trapped in what he calls a powerless mindset. This conversation is honest, deep, and packed with timeless wisdom. Without further delay, here's my YAP Classic with Lewis Howes.

Lewis, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast.

Holla holla. Thank you so much.

I'm so excited for you to be here, Lewis. Young and Profiters, we have self-made entrepreneur, bestselling author, and the host of hugely popular podcast, The School of Greatness, Lewis Howes. In today's episode, we'll talk about Lewis's new book, The Greatness Mindset, and what he's learned from hundreds of conversations with some of the most inspiring and successful individuals on the planet. And before we dive into your new book, Lewis, I'd love to talk to you about your story and your own journey towards greatness and what you've learned along the way. And from my understanding, when I was doing my research, a major piece of your story occurred when you were sleeping on your sister's couch in Columbus, Ohio at the age of 23. You had an injury that abruptly ended your professional football career, and your dad was recently in a car accident and was put in a coma. You were also pretty broke, and it seemed like the walls of your world were basically caving in on you. So I'd love to understand what were the aha moments or the series of moments that got you off of your sister's couch?

I, I think I had, uh, something inside of me calling me for something more, and it, in a moment of or many moments, many months of breakdown and sadness and kind of grieving, grieving the loss of my dream of playing football, grieving my father who was in the hospital for many months in a coma, and just kind of grieving loss in general, emotional, mental, physical loss. And having a lack of certainty. I didn't have certainty. I didn't have clarity about my future. I didn't know what The point of all this was, and so it was just very confusing time, and I didn't have any resources. I didn't have any money. I was in debt from my college loans. This was in 2008, 2009 when the economy in the U.S. was essentially tanking. The housing crisis was tanking and everything, and I didn't have my father who was kind of my you know my backup big bank account. If I needed money, he would give me like fifty bucks here and there. Like it was like a security blanket almost. Most. Like, okay, go chase your dream. When you're done, you can come and you can— I'll hire you for my company type of thing.

So I didn't have that anymore. So I had to learn like how to be resourceful. I had to learn how to kind of fend for my own really, and how to tap into a network of people that I didn't know, but I felt like I needed to know. So that's when I started reaching out to mentors, coaches, guides. I started consuming as much as I could in terms of resources and books, going to conferences and just trying to meet people, learn from people, and take action. So that was kind of that journey then.

Hmm. So something that me and you both have in common is that we leveraged LinkedIn as a launchpad of our careers and our podcasts. Um, so I did the same thing 5 years ago. You did it, uh, 10 years ago, right? And so I'd love to understand how you leveraged LinkedIn to get your foot in the door and start in the world of online business.

Yeah, I started on LinkedIn at end of 2007, actually. I think there was only about 12 million people on the platform at the time. And, um, I wrote a book about LinkedIn in 2009. There was one other book about it, but I think there's probably hundreds of books about it now. But I was one of the first that wrote a book about LinkedIn, and I became obsessed with it early on because a mentor said, why don't you check it out? Maybe you can find a job there. And I was just trying to, to network on there originally. LinkedIn was not as robust as it is now. And so after about 5 years, I kind of gave up on LinkedIn because it, it was so powerful in the beginning for me, but then they weren't innovating like other social media platforms were.

Hmm.

And they didn't, and they did not connect with creators, influencers. They didn't have, they didn't have any support for someone like me back then. So I really felt like they neglected the community, in my opinion. And then I guess about 5, 6 years ago, they started to innovate their platform and add more tools and, and resources for, for creators. And, uh, I slowly got back on because I kind of got burnt out from LinkedIn because it, it just was, it was so challenging to work with the platform and the, the team at LinkedIn wasn't responsive as they are now. But, um, it was a launching pad in sense of, building powerful connections early on for me. And I met some incredible people that I networked with on the platform that I'm still friends with today, back in 2007. Uh, there's a friend— there's a friend of mine who is a mega billionaire now that I met in 2007 by just sending him a direct message on LinkedIn and us building a friendship over the years and going to events together and watching each other grow. And I just saw 'em a, uh, a couple months ago and it's like all because of LinkedIn, the power of connection.

So it's been an amazing platform in general. Um, but I wish I would've, I wish I would've used it when I had my podcast launch, cuz I actually didn't use LinkedIn that much when I launched the show.

Interesting. And so I'd love to understand what gave you the genesis and the idea for starting your podcast, because you were pretty early on. 2013 at that time was still really early.

Yeah, I, in 2012, I was going through a transition in my business at the time. I had an online marketing company and I was kind of getting burnt out by what I was doing. And I just didn't feel like it was meaningful to me anymore. It was still like powerful. It was making money, but it wasn't like a deeper meaning, sense of purpose.

Hmm.

And what I was doing though, is I was using LinkedIn before then to connect with coaches and mentors and leaders. And I would meet with a lot of them in person. And I was getting so much wisdom and knowledge from them when I would ask them questions. I was just like, I should probably record these. And I've heard of this thing called podcasting. No one really knows what it is at the time, 2012. But I was like, I feel like it might be big one day. And I said, alright, I'm gonna— I called 2 friends that had a podcast. There was probably only 50 people at the time that had podcasts, and I called 2 of 'em. And, uh, they told me, they told me they loved it. They loved the experience. They loved the connection with, uh, the community. They felt like it was the most engaged type of content they were able to create with people in the community. So I said, I think I could do this. I have no clue what I'm doing. I've never done this before. I didn't go to school for this, but I feel like I can figure it out.

Let me try it for 1 year. I'll do it once a week for a year as an experiment. And if it doesn't work out, then I'll stop. But, um, I fell in love right away. And now 10 years later, 1,400+ episodes later, almost a billion downloads later, it's, it's still going.

That is absolutely amazing. You've been crushing it on your podcast. And after I've looked at your story and learned more about like how you came up, I realized that you were an early adopter in so many things. So you were an early adopter in LinkedIn, then you were an early adopter in podcasting, and now on YouTube you're crushing everybody in the podcast game because you were one of the first ones to take the full step in, in becoming a video podcast. So I'd love to understand from your—

Yeah, it was almost 8, almost 8 years ago after, maybe it was 2 or 3 years into the podcast, I started to see probably the third year in, I was like, oh, okay, this is a thing. And there's lots of other people starting to jump in. I would say I was like the second wave of people that jumped into podcasting. If Joe Rogan was like 2 years before me. And then there was just like some underground tech podcasts. That was essentially it.

Yeah.

There were no bigger shows. Um, there were some big shows at that time in the small ecosystem, but it wasn't mainstream. Then there was guys like me and, um, Pat Flynn and Rich Roll kind of all—

Yep.

Came in around, came in around the same time, maybe within a 6-month window. And, um, in 2012, 2013. And so we were kind of like the second wave of people, you know, jumping in and trying to figure it out. And then probably 2015, I think that was probably around the time when Serial came out and it, it became more mainstream podcasting. And then there was— that's kind of the third wave. And now it just keeps— the waves keep coming. But, um, I remember around that time I was just like, I don't know, I feel like this is just gonna keep getting bigger. And it's hard to innovate audio, or at least it was at the time. And I still think it is kind of hard to innovate audio at this time. It's not viral, it's not really shareable that well. It's, you can only do so much with the editing. There's only so many things you can do. So I was like, I feel like I need to film these and just put 'em up on YouTube and, and use it as a promotional tool to promote the audio. And so for 5 years, that's what I did.

I, I put them on YouTube. I would cut up clips, put it on social media, but I never monetized the, the YouTube or the video until 2 years ago, 2 and a half years, 2 and a half years ago. Then I turned monetization on because I didn't want guys who were running ads to be in front of my content, um, selling their Ferrari courses or whatever it was. So for me, I just wanted to add value and serve and just give for free. So I invested for 5 years, you know, uh, a videographer, an editor to do it without monetizing it at all. And it was probably one of the best decisions I did because now we have over 1,000 videos on YouTube that are constantly searchable and shareable and, and, uh, adding value to people.

Yeah, that's amazing. You're doing amazing things on YouTube and you may not know this, but I have a podcast network, so I represent like 20 different self-improvement and business shows and I just presented at the IAB Upfronts and my whole presentation was about the fact that podcasts are not audio only. They're multi-channel now. You shouldn't focus audio first, even for your ads. You should be promoting across YouTube, podcasts, live streams, even paid live events, which I know that you also do as well. So, uh, really cool to see you pioneering once again in the podcast space. So I'd love to understand, when did you first start getting traction with your podcast? Like how long did it take you to get traction with your podcast?

My first year going all in, promoting every single week on every channel of marketing efforts that I had, I got only 750,000 downloads total in my first year. And that was every day promoting everywhere. Um, second year I had 1.5 million downloads. Third year, I think it was like 3.5 or 4 million or something like that. And so I feel like it took like years really for me to get certain types of scale. 2 years ago, I think we had a few hundred million downloads in one year, but it took many years for that to scale up. And, um, it, it takes time. And I think I, that's why I tell a lot of people like, don't do a podcast unless you're committed to doing it without getting any downloads and any results for years. Um, if you think you're gonna make money and get millions of downloads right away, it's just not gonna happen.

So, No.

You gotta do it because you really enjoy it. You really love it and you feel like you, you're called to, to share something in the world and in your unique perspective. And so it took, it took time. Um, and, um, yeah, it was a struggle, but at the same time, there was traction in the sense that the community loved it and they were talking about it and they were raving about it. So there was a small community that was really growing. It just wasn't this mass scale. For years.

Yeah. I mean, $750,000 in the first year is still today in today's standards now is really good. So it sounds like you were doing good from the start.

Um, but now we get that in like a couple days, you know?

So, yeah, it's totally different now. But 10 years later, right?

It's been a whole year. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Um, okay. So like you said, your podcast reaches hundreds of millions of people now every single month, and you've had a lot of inspiring individuals. We've had a lot of crossover and guests. Your guests are even bigger than mine, and you launched a third book. recently where you included some of the learnings that you got from these guests. It's called The Greatness Mindset. And so now that you, you're 10 years into your journey, uh, or more, you know, in terms of being an entrepreneur and a podcaster, what is your working definition of greatness?

It's really discovering the unique gifts and talents that are within you. Uh, and in that discovery, pursuing your dreams and goals. And in that pursuit, making, uh, an impact on the people around you.

Hmm.

And, uh, that's what, that's for me what it is. It's like, what's the unique talents and gifts we have? Figure those out over our journey. Try to help as many people as possible on the pursuit of our, our dreams and goals.

Hmm.

And I know a big, uh, key point in your book is finding a meaningful mission. And so I'd love to understand what your meaningful mission is and how you went about developing it.

It's to serve 100 million lives every single week to help them improve the quality of their life. And how I came about that was probably 3 years into the podcast as I was building and growing it. Um, I didn't know what it was for me. I was like, why am I doing this? What's the purpose? What's the reason? What's the, you know, why am I getting up every morning and working hard on this thing? And then I, I got clear on it. I was like, well, what do I wanna accomplish? What do I wanna, how do I wanna serve people? And how many people do I wanna serve?

Mm-hmm.

And, um, I would ask other people this question. I would say, what do you want? They're like, I wanna change the world. I wanna make billions of dollars and all these different things. And I was like, okay, changing the world. Everyone says, I wanna impact the world. And I was just like, all right, that's hard to quantify. And so for me, I was like, what is something that I could quantify? And then I would hear people say, I wanna impact billions of people. And I'm like, okay, yes. And you're just getting started. So it just seems too far away. And so I said, I wanna reach 100 million lives. Um, and then we did that in one year and I said, okay, I wanna do it every week. I wanna reach 100 million lives a week. And so I was like, all right, that's, that seems like a big stretch, but it's a quantifiable number and it will force me to get creative, get resourceful. It'll force me to overcome my fears and insecurities that hold me back. It'll force me to develop new skills and talents to think beyond where I'm currently at so that I could potentially achieve that goal one day.

And so it just excited me.

Yeah.

And it seemed far away, but, um, you know, it gives me something to measure and it, it gets me something to be excited about every day.

Yeah. So it's not too unrealistic, but it's still pushing you and pushing your boundaries.

Absolutely.

So in terms of this mission, I noticed that you didn't say I'm a podcaster who does this, or I'm an author who does this, or any other label that I could stick on you. Why's that?

When I focus on the mission, which is service. There can be different mechanisms that can do it. If podcasting dies tomorrow, then I don't want to be, well, I'm only a podcaster now. I can't, I can't service the mission anymore, um, with this mechanism because the mechanism's gone. Uh, and there's always a message within the mechanism to serve the mission. And so the message will continue to evolve and expand as I, whether it's packaging content in a book and storytelling in a book and giving tools and resources so people can consume it this way, whether it's audio, whether it's video, whether it's AI, it's always going to evolve and expand. But there's a mission, and then you gotta figure out what are the mechanisms that will serve you in accomplishing the mission's goal, which is 100 million lives weekly. And then there's a message. What is the message that you're going to use and share? Am I sharing the message? Is it audio? Is it video message? Is it a written message? Is it other people's messages? And how can I distribute that message through the mechanisms to serve the mission?

Mm-hmm.

And so I'm just trying to think of what are the things that excite me, that I'm good at, that I'm talented at, that I, that I enjoy doing. Those mechanisms, sharing the message through those mechanisms to get to, to, to the mission faster. That's what I think about. And I'm not, yeah, I haven't mastered it. I'm not, I don't feel like I'm close to figuring it out, but we have something we can measure every single week to support us in getting there faster.

Yeah, I think that that makes a lot of sense. I, I know when I think about myself and my mission, I always say I wanna be a positive voice for my generation, and my voice can be on podcasts, on livestreams, in a book, wherever it is. That way I don't have to, pigeonholed myself to one thing as things evolve. Cuz like, you know, podcasting might not— is already evolving so much. It's not really what it was even like we were talking about 10 years ago. Um, so let's talk about something you speak about in your book called sweet spots. And you say this can help you figure out what your meaningful mission is. What is a sweet spot exactly and how do we discover it?

Yeah, it's really figuring out the, the, the talents that you have, the skill sets you have, um, it's figuring out what makes you unique. And then how can I go profit from these, these talents? How can I go monetize these talents? What are the tools and the things available for me to, to do these things? Um, when we figure out those 2 areas, I feel like there's a sweet spot there in between that, that we could take action on. And for me, again, it was, I didn't think I had a lot of talent. I didn't think I had a lot of skill, but I was curious. And I go, how can I use this talent of curiosity? Is this a talent? I didn't think it was, but I was like, there's a hidden talent of curiosity there. So how can I use this to make money and to make an impact? Okay. I don't have to be the voice. I can interview people. I didn't know how to use video or how to use audio at the time, but I was like, these are tools available out there. How can I use these tools? And ask questions.

Can I make money around this? I have no idea. But the more I did it, the more I showed up and was of service to people, I was able to monetize these things. And so for me, I didn't know the path. But I started to ask myself, what are my talents? What are the things I'm really good at? What are some mechanisms out there that I could start tapping into? And then how can I just take action consistently around this, so that I can figure out how to make a living doing the things I enjoy doing?

I love that. I think that is really great advice. And another piece of advice that I really liked in your book is this idea of the perfect day itinerary. And this will really help us get into what you call a greatness mindset. So first of all, what is a greatness mindset? And then can you go over this exercise of a perfect day itinerary?

Well, on page 204, I have a graph, I have a chart, and I don't know if we got you a book or not, but there's a, there's a graph here for people. Um, let me see. Sorry, 201. And I show the difference between a greatness mindset and a powerless mindset. And so a lot of people live in a powerless state, and it doesn't mean they're in a powerless state all the time, but they might have one or two areas that make them feel more powerless than powerful.

Mm-hmm.

And so I'll just share these 6 categories of a powerless mindset versus a greatness mindset and use this as an assessment. So if you're listening or watching, just ask yourself, okay, am I doing any of these things? If so, it may feel like you are powerless in your day-to-day or your decision-making, or you feel like there's a weight on your shoulders. It's probably cuz of one of these 6 things are happening. So a powerless mindset, uh, occurs when you lack a meaningful mission. So when I was in living on my sister's couch for a year and a half, and I was in a, uh, a cast and had a surgery and didn't know what I was gonna do for, in my life. I lacked a meaningful mission, and I felt powerless. I didn't. I was like, "Who am I? What's the point? What am I doing here?" I felt very powerless, and I think people think they need to get it all figured out, like for the rest of their life. And it's really season by season. Like what is the mission of this season? This season can be for the next 6 months, the next 6 years, the next whatever.

We don't have to define. I need to know what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. It's what is this season's calling? And getting clear on the meaningful mission will make you step into a greatness mindset versus a powerless mindset. So when you lack a meaningful mission, you're gonna feel powerless. You're not gonna feel as courageous, as, as strong. You're not gonna have belief in yourself when you're in this state. The second thing is you're controlled by fear. A lot of people are consumed by fear, and there's 3 types of fear. That cause us to doubt ourselves. The first one being the fear of failure. The second one being the fear of success. Believe it or not, almost 50% of people are just as afraid of their own success as they are their own failure. And the third main fear that causes us to doubt ourselves is the fear, the fear of judgment, people's opinions. And this causes us to be crippled by making decisions, by Acting courageously on our dreams. I don't know, Hala, if you've ever asked someone, what is your goal and what's your dream? And they say, I wanna launch my own podcast.

I wanna write a book. I wanna do, start a business. I wanna get, get into a relationship, whatever it is. And you ask them, how long have you been thinking about this? And people say, uh, 5 years, 7 years, 20 years. I've been wanting to write that book. And one of those 3 fears holds them back. The fear of failure, the fear of success, and the fear of judgment. Well, what if it's not perfect? Then I'm gonna get criticized. And so these are factors that cause people to hesitate to not take that step forward. And so we gotta understand what's the root of one of these 3, these 3 fears that we all have faced at different times. There's a root underneath those fears, and typically the root is, I am not enough.

Mm-hmm.

And when we believe I am not enough, we are going to allow one of these 3 fears to Run our lives as opposed to us running through them and beyond them. So when we are controlled by fear, we are powerless. We are in a powerless state. We're saying this has power over me, so I'm not taking action. The third thing is crippled by self-doubt. Fear and self-doubt play hand in hand. When we are crippled by controlled by fear, we usually have an insecurity. I'm not going to be enough, so my self-doubt is holding me back. I am therefore. powerless to these opinions, these beliefs. The 4th thing, I don't think a lot of people talk about this in the different, uh, habit mindset success books of the world. Uh, the 4th thing is that they conceal past pains.

Mm-hmm.

So for 25 years, I held onto a pain and secrets that no one knew about me. I was sexually abused when I was a kid and no one knew it. And I was terrified. I concealed this past pain. It was like a poison running through my psyche, my body, my heart, my energy, everything, because I was ashamed. And I thought if people knew this about me, no one would accept me or love me, and I'll die if they actually knew this about me. That was the, the story running through my, my mind constantly. And I was afraid of the opinions and judgments of others. That was my biggest fear. I was not afraid of failure or success. But people's opinions crippled me because I had this shame and guilt inside of my soul. And when we conceal past pains, I'm not saying you need to say everything publicly to the world, but when you're holding on to something that is a poison inside of you, it will make you feel powerless. You will not be stepping into the greatness mindset with this inside of you. So we've gotta learn to heal. Most of my book is about healing.

It's a Trojan horse for processing, healing, and getting out the poison inside of us so that we can thrive at the highest levels. Most of these books don't talk about revealing past pain, but I just, from all the research and the 10 years of doing this, this is the path. It is the path to achieving greatness is by setting yourself free emotionally and psychologically. The 5th thing is being defined by the opinions of others. This is something I mentioned already a couple of times. When we are defined by people, they have control over us. They control our decisions and our actions because we're so concerned about their opinions. So therefore, you are powerless if someone else is controlling you. And the sixth thing is you drift towards complacency. I'm not saying you need to be striving to be, you know, making more and doing more all the time, but I just feel like when we are drifting, when we are wanderers and we aren't improving or growing in some area of our life, we feel powerless. These 6 areas of your life, I would ask everyone to do an assessment, a self-assessment, and say, is there any one of these things that's happening for me right now, or maybe causing me to doubt myself more?

If so, there's a way to break through them. You have the awareness now. Then we've gotta make a decision and a commitment to break through, to get into the greatness mindset. And the greatness mindset is the 6 opposite. It's driven by a meaningful mission. You heard mine, impact 100 million lives every single week. I'm driven by that, and it's meaningful for me. Gives me a direction. It gives me a place to go towards that I can measure. That excites me. Doesn't mean it's not challenging at times. It doesn't mean I don't go through pain and hardships and, and certain Agony at moments, but at least I know where I'm heading. Second thing is you turn the fears into confidence, and fears are gonna come at different stages and seasons. As we unlock new potential, there's gonna be a new fear and uncertainty. So we have to keep driving into the fear, turning into confidence. You overcome self-doubt is number 3, as opposed to letting it cripple you. Number 4, healing past pains, not concealing them. When we heal, We become greater than our past powerless self. The fifth thing is creating a healthy identity. Most of us, Hala, say a lot of negative things to ourselves unconsciously and outwardly.

When someone compliments us, at times we diminish it. We say, no, it's not me. We put ourselves down, and our body remembers, and our body listens to the words and the thoughts that we have. So we must shift that into a healthy identity. And the sixth thing is taking action with a game plan. I'm not I'm not saying you're gonna accomplish all your dreams and goals if you do these things, but you're gonna feel a lot greater when you do, and you're gonna have a deeper sense of peace, harmony, and alignment inside of your soul when you step into these things as opposed to being in the powerless mindset.

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Hmm.

That was an amazing recap. So I wanna dig into some of those ideas. We can put a pin in the perfect day itinerary. We can get back to it. So let's talk about overcoming fear. So I know you were an athlete. And so, you know, fear and failure, the fear of failure was something that you have to deal with all the time. When you, when you play a sport, you either win or lose and it's basically a 50/50 chance every time. So how did being an athlete help prepare you in business when it came to fear of failure?

I never was afraid of failure because in sports I was taught that failure is the pathway to success. So for me, I knew that. Missing a shot didn't make me a failure. It just meant I needed to practice better technique. I need to learn better. I need to become bigger, faster, stronger. So it was all information. It was all feedback. Failure was always feedback, information telling me what's not working yet and how to get better at the thing. So for me, it wasn't about failure because I understood through coaching and through sports that you, you have to fail in order to succeed, that there's no way to not fail in order to succeed. So if you want success, this is the pathway. It's about, I, it's about reshaping what it means to you. A lot of people have a deeper meaning. If I lose or if I miss the shot or if I failed, then I am a failure. And I never identified with that as me being the failure. I was just like, oh, I wasn't prepared enough. Oh, I need to get faster. Oh, I need to get stronger. I need to have better technique.

I need more reps. I didn't like the feeling of failing or losing. I hated it. But it also drove me to get better. Success was not something that I was afraid of either. But most people are afraid of success. And I didn't understand this when I started doing the research 10 years ago. And asking people in large rooms, I'd say, how many people are afraid to fail? Most people would raise their hand, right? And I'd say, how many people in the room are afraid of success? And over 50% of the room would still raise their hand. And I was always like, what? This doesn't— you're here cuz you wanna be successful, but you're afraid of it. So why would success come to you when you're afraid of it? You're resistant to it, you are scared of it, and yet you want it. You sound like a clingy, girlfriend who wants to be in a relationship but's anxious and scared to be open and emotional and vulnerable, but is needing your attention all the time, or whatever it might be. Like, if you want to be successful, you cannot be afraid of it.

Mm-hmm. You—

and, and I didn't understand, it didn't make sense to me, but then it started to make sense the more I asked people questions over the last 10 years. And really, When, when people become more successful, unfortunately, there's usually a couple people in their family or their close friend circle that is not accepting. Some people are like, you're amazing, keep going, high five, you got this. But there are some people close to us that start to pull away, that think, huh, what are you doing? Are you better than us? Come back here. Come be comfortable, safe. Don't keep learning and growing and expanding beyond your reach. That makes me feel uncomfortable. So you, when you leave the tribe to go for success, not always the tribe is supporting of that journey you're going on. And that is a big factor for a lot of people like who are married or their parents don't want them to do that or whatever it might be. When you wanna grow and go beyond something, it can be scary for others.

Mm-hmm.

And you want community and love. And if you're leaving to go after something, or if that's what it looks like, then you may not get that love and attention and affection anymore. So it made sense to me. And over my journey, I lost a lot of friends, a lot of friends that I thought we were going to be friends forever, just stopped returning my calls, just, you know, weren't as supportive or, you know, jealous of my success or whatever it might be. And it was sad. And it hurt for a long time, these different stages. But I learned that's part of the process if you're going to grow and others aren't in alignment with your journey. And so it's important to find people in your friend circle who support your success so they can grow with you as well. Another, another fear that success has with a lot of people is the weight. There's an amazing documentary called The Weight of Gold, which is about Olympic gold medalists who commit suicide, go through extreme depression, become addicted to drugs after they win the gold medal, and about all of the suffering that gold medalists have afterwards.

They were happier before they won the gold medal.

Wow.

And it documents the lives of all these people that have committed suicide within a year or two after winning gold. Going after the goal they had their entire life. They win it and then they die. They commit suicide, they become drug addicts, they suffer and they lose it all. And there is this, in the documentation, there's this immense pressure that if you were not prepared to handle the fame, everyone talking about you, the success, being at the top of the mountain and now needing to maintain that level of success. is an extreme pressure. And that's why you see a lot of people go bankrupt after they make a lot of money. That's why you see a lot of lottery winners who make a lot of money, uh, go through death or go bankrupt as well within a couple of years. And you see people that exit big companies sometimes losing it all quickly, because if you're not emotionally and mentally prepared for the success, you will sabotage it. That's why healing past pain.

Mm-hmm.

is so important. Because you can win and succeed and make money. But if you have pain in your chest, guilt, shame, insecurity, all these things, that doesn't go away until you heal it. And if you heal it on the journey, you're going to be able to sustain the success in a different way and maintain it. So I wasn't afraid of those things, because I wanted to be successful. I wanted the weight, I wanted the pressure. It was challenging at times, but I wanted it. For me, it was the fear of judgment. That was the thing that, that crippled me. So when I was successful, or growing or whatever, and I would get nasty comments online about stuff, it was almost as if I had to defend my life with these comments and had to reply to everyone. And I was so worried about what they would think about me. That's the thing that got me in trouble or crippled me until I learned to heal past pains. Until I learned to realize I am enough. It's okay. People are going to have opinions about me. I can't please everyone. I'm not going to conform to everyone's opinion.

And, um, that was part of the process for me.

Yeah, I love that. Um, this is really, really interesting stuff. I feel like I haven't really heard any material about this fear of success the way that you described it. So I know you mentioned that judgment was something that really got to you. And I know personally for me, when people like doubt me or say anything bad about me, I tend to take like, oh, I'm gonna like, I'll show them, right? I, I'll do this. I'll become, you know, a famous podcaster. I'll, you know, start a million-dollar business and prove them wrong. And I kind of use this underdog chip on my shoulder as a way of motivation. Um, but I understand from you that that can be pretty unsustainable, right? So talk to us about how we can— yeah, go ahead.

It can be an ama— it can be an amazing driver and it's what I did my whole life. It's cuz yeah, I was picked last on sports teams and so I said, I'll never be picked last again. I'm always gonna be the most valuable person on every sports team. And it drove me to train 6 hours a day as a kid and not play video games, but go outside and play sports all night until I had to come home. Because I was like, I'm never gonna experience this pain again.

Mm-hmm.

And I'm gonna prove everyone wrong. And I did it. I proved people wrong and I felt empty, unfulfilled, and I felt like exhausted, drained, emotionally frustrated, resentful. I had all these anger emotions inside of me that continue to drive me until 10 years ago. I realized this is not sustainable. It got me external results, but left me feeling completely emotionally bankrupt. And it can only last so long until things fall apart— your relationships, your business, something— which everything fell apart for me 10 years ago. And that's one of the reasons why I got into this show, starting this, because I was like, I need to learn how to heal. I need to learn how to not be driven by my ego. It's one of the reasons why I called it the School of Greatness. I didn't call it the Lewis Howes Show. I was like, my ego needs to die. I'm so worried about other people's opinions and proving people wrong, and that's what's causing me pain. Sure, that chip got me results and got me credibility and got me on stages and helped me make money, but why am I emotionally exhausted. The ego must die.

And 10 years ago, I started to kill my ego and not make it about me. And I started to put the light on everyone else, shine the light on everyone, make it less about me, be of service, not about me being successful. And it started to shift. And by no means did I do it perfectly. And I still made mistakes and stumbled along the way. But that intention of letting go of my ego allowed me to thrive. Now, it's a dance because in a world of personal branding and being a host and being an author and writing books and being on the COVID of magazines and stuff like this, you've got to learn to build a brand but not believe that you're the best thing in the world and how to continue to be of service. And that's why I try to focus constantly to remind myself this is not about me and my success. This is about us and the service we have on the world. And when I do that, I feel a lot more harmony and peace than when I say it's all about me. So there's a dance because in marketing you've got to promote things.

You've got to promote yourself. You've got to promote your name. You've got to promote your brand. But I think internally you've got to remind yourself This is about service.

Yeah, I totally agree. I always say, uh, especially for anybody who wants to get into the podcast world or, or develop a per— a personal brand, you've really gotta be of service and have pure intentions. It shouldn't be about making money. It shouldn't be about being famous. If you have these pure intentions of helping other people, everything sort of falls into place as long as you take the actions, right? Um, so I wanna talk about identity, uh, for a minute. So you talk about this, this idea of establishing an identity. I know, I think we've both interviewed Benjamin Hardy and he talks about this idea of future self, and that was one of my favorite conversations that I've had all, all year. And you know, you're not your past self, you're not your future self. You just have this current moment to take action and close that gap between who you are now to who you wanna be, your, your future self. So talk to us about this idea of identity that you bring up in your book and what your thoughts are around that.

Yeah, just last night I was doing a session with my therapist. And the conversation was, what do I want my 50 and 60-year-old self, 90 and 100-year-old self to say to me right now about the decisions I've been making on a daily basis? Because I've been very focused on my health and almost making it a full-time job, not in the sense of I'm spending 10 hours a day on my health, but I'm thinking and intending it to be optimized on a level that I've never fully done in the last 10 years. Now, I've also been a professional athlete and I've trained hard and all these things, but just being very intentional about nutrition, sleep, recovery, working out, and tracking and measuring it in a different way than I have before.

Hmm.

And I was having a conversation with my— I'm 40 now, and I was having a conversation with myself as my 50-year-old. So I don't know if you can go— stay with me for a moment, but I was in the future. I was in the future having a conversation with my current self at 50 today.

Mm-hmm.

Then I went in the future at 60 and had a conversation with myself today. Then I went to 90 and 100, and I told myself, and I imagined the feeling that I had as a 50, 60, 90, and 100, and the appreciation I was telling myself today for how I was taking care of my health.

Mm-hmm.

Because at 50, at 60, I'm still able to work out like a 30-year-old, and I'm flexible, and I'm strong, and I'm running marathons, and I'm lifting heavy weights, and I've got muscle, and I'm flexible, and all these things. I've got all the capacities as a 30-year-old at 50 and 60. At 90 and 100, I was saying thank you for taking care of me at 90 and 100 today at 40 by making these decisions. Because look at us, there's sadness all around us, unfortunately, because your friends are dying, your friends aren't able— are getting hip replacements. But you took care of us when it was uncomfortable, when it was challenging, when it was hard, when it wasn't easy. You said you were thinking about me and us at 90 and 100. So I was having these conversations with myself last night, doing these exercises, which allows me to be intentional about my decisions today, to not be so strict and hard on myself, but to be really intentional and deliberate about how I want to feel in the future. And I was having this multi-time dimensional conversation with self. from the future and now all last night.

And I just think that's an important strategy or exercise. Mm-hmm. That we should be thinking about our futures and making decisions today based on what will make our future self proud.

Yeah. I think, I, I can't remember who just came on. They said it was something like the Nana exercise or something. Imagine you as a grandma. So I, I think that's a really great exercise. Okay. One more last question about your new book, and that's how you recommend to get over trauma. trauma and heal yourself. So I know that you went through a lot of personal trauma. Uh, you were bullied a little bit when you were younger. You had some sexual abuse that you mentioned. Your dad was, uh, got into a bad car accident, probably things we don't even know about. Like everybody has had traumas in their life, right? So how did you actually rewrite the script of your life? What are the things that you did to heal your past trauma?

I feel like I keep doing Lots of different exercises, events, workshops, therapies. I'm willing to try lots of stuff because— and what I originally did was 10 years ago, I just started opening up about it. You know, I started talking about these things. And that's, I think, the first step is finding a safe environment and space to be able to share. I'm not saying you need to post about things on social media. I don't, I don't I don't think that's wise until you feel like, oh, I'm— I feel like I really want to do this for whatever reason. But finding spaces and people that you trust to talk to about your shames, and that's the first step, is, is allowing it to get out of you, allowing the poison to, to get out of you. And then there's lots of different somatic and physical healing therapies and things like that, and emotional therapies and retreats and workshops, and they're all great. I think like everything, anything you do, if you go all in on it, I think you'll get some results. If you've seen other people do it that recommend it, and they've gotten results, as long as you go all in on the therapeutic experience, I think it will be serving to you.

I've never personally done drugs or psychedelics. I've never been drunk or high in my life. So I don't prescribe to something that I haven't done. But I have friends that swear by psychedelics. I'm more afraid of the side effects the brain chemistry has based on the people I've interviewed who are experts in the brain that I get worried about that stuff for long-term. But I think if you have tried everything and you feel like you're not getting any results, then that might be a last resort to, to allow your mind to relax and open up. But I think there's a lot of things you could do and it's worth exploring different things.

Hmm. Okay. So just circling back on the perfect day itinerary, you say this is a great way to ensure that you have a greatness mindset throughout the day. Can you tell us about it?

Yeah, there's really 2 parts to it. It's one, imagining and visualizing what you would like to experience on a perfect day. If you could close your eyes and think about it at some point in your life, what would this look like? What would this feel like? A day in the life that you feel like, wow, when you shut your eyes to go to bed, you said that was a perfect day. From every moment to moment, from the morning you wake up, where are you waking up? What do you see first thing when you wake up? What area of the world are you living when you wake up? Is there someone next to you? If so, what does that feel like? So putting yourself in an emotional state of all 5 senses, imagining that perfect day scenario. And obviously, if you did the same thing every day, it wouldn't be perfect anymore. But just imagine what that experience that feeling would be like.

Hmm.

And then writing it down, writing it down, what that dream is like, that experiential feeling is like, writing it down in just detail and description is part 1. Part 2 is flipping the page over and scheduling it. You know, something I learned early on when I was 15, I joined the football team for the first time. Day 1, in my locker was a piece of paper hanging up on my locker and every kid's locker that was the itinerary for practice. And I'm thinking, aren't we just going to go out there and kind of run around and just— we got drills. But every 5 minutes was scheduled from putting on our pads to water breaks, to coaches giving us, you know, talking and giving us speeches, to stretch breaks. To offense, defense, special teams, to individual practice time. Every minute was detailed, and it's—it made sense because it allowed us to prepare and put attention on all the things to become great as a team and have the perfect game to excel in the perfect way when game time happened at the end of the weeks. And so. I think when we get intentional about our schedule and our time and we marry it with the vision, the experience of the senses, we can take action on the perfect day almost every day.

And it's just figuring out how to work into that, how to work into that experience and that feeling. And there's, again, different seasons and stages of my life that didn't feel perfect. I was a truck driver for 3 months, driving 8 hours a day. Uh, I did a lot of different odd-end jobs at different times, but it's, it's figuring out, okay, how can I build into it? How can I use my gifts and my talents at this time to enjoy this, to experience something beautiful? And then if this is not for me right now, what can I step into next? What's the next season to get closer to that perfect day? And that's what it's about.

Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Lewis. This was such a great interview. I end my show with 2 questions. The first one is, what is one actionable thing our young and profiters can do today become more profitable tomorrow?

Focus on gratitude. I just think that gratitude is a universal energetic law that allows you to open the doorway for abundance. Mm-hmm. When we are grateful and we experience gratitude continuously, our energy shifts around us, our attitude, our perspective, our way of being shows up differently. And people are attracted to others who are positive, who are kind, who are generous, and who are grateful. We aren't attracted to people who are ungrateful and frustrated and negative. That's not an attractive quality. When you express gratitude from the inside out, people gravitate towards you.

Mm-hmm.

And you will create more opportunities Whether it's in your career, you'll advance farther, or if you're starting a business, it will be more effortless feeling and, um, you'll attract more abundance in, in the journey.

I completely, completely agree with that. And the last question is, what is your secret to profiting in life? And this could be beyond financial, beyond anything we talked about today.

It just goes back to healing because, mm-hmm, I know a lot, I know a lot of wealthy people who are miserable internally, or who are sick, or who are physically overweight and struggling because they have yet to heal. And you could build the business and make all the money and have all the, the, and know all the celebrities and get in all the press and have the biggest following. But if you are sick emotionally, or unwell, and you have yet to heal, the things that cause you the most pain, then you're really living in a powerless state. And having it all but feeling powerless internally is one of the greatest prisons we can be in psychologically, because you don't know what else to do. You've done everything to become more successful and make more money and accomplish, but you still don't feel enough. And for me, that's a, that's a, that's a prison sentence psychologically. And until we heal, we will never feel enough.

Mm-hmm. And anybody who's feeling that way, Lewis basically wrote the playbook of how to get outta it with his new book, The Greatness Mindset. So make sure you guys go get that. And where can our listeners go learn about everything that you do?

Just Lewis Howes anywhere on social media and the School of Greatness podcast.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time today, Lewis. It was a pleasure.

Thanks, Hala.