If my videos have had any impact on you, if you have gained insights from my podcasts that have supported you in your life, if you've been inspired by my reflections on Instagram or Facebook or YouTube, then my first ever book, Think Like a Monk, will take you to another level. I follow my heart and soul into this book to present to you the path of transformation. I dive deep into how you can let go of anyone or anything that's holding you back, how you can find your passion and your purpose and live it every single day, and how you can make an impact in the world through mastering your mind.

I promise you that this will help you use your gifts to make an impact on the world. I love. If you could preorder my book right now, it's called Think Like a Monk book Dotcom. And when you preorder now, you get access to my free workshop for steps to train your mind for peace and purpose every day you get it. As soon as you preorder the book, you'll be sent access to my free workshop that has been developed just for the book.

So preorder right now from Think Like a Monk book dot com. You can preorder from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and all other great bookstores, but you can find all the details on things like a monk book dot com. A global pandemic uprising across the country, a nationwide recession so far, 20, 20 is felt like 10 or 15 years wrapped up in one. And Sam Sanders thinks we should talk it all out. Sam Sanders from NPR hosts a podcast called It's Been a Minute.

Every week, Sam Sanders and his guests make sense of the news and the culture without overwhelming you joins Sam Sanders every Tuesday and Friday listening. Subscribe now. It's been a minute from NPR, the healthiest relationship I've ever been in.

And I'll tell you why. She's the woman of my dreams.

Yet if we broke up tomorrow, I'd be OK, because I'm such a peace knowing that this is happening for me and she's in my life for a reason right now, and hopefully it lasts a long time.

But if it doesn't, for whatever reason, we weren't supposed to force it.

Hey, everyone, welcome back to you on purpose. I love that you come back every single week to listen, learn and to grow. And you know that I'm always trying to connect with incredible guests, incredible minds that can share insights to transform our lives. Now, today's guest is probably one of my closest friends. I'm so excited to sit down with him because it's his first appearance on the show. I've been grateful to be a guest on his podcast Twice The School of Greatness.

But this is the episode where we're going to dive into his extraordinary life, extraordinary mind, and how he's created an extraordinary world of making an impact, making a difference and making people find their own greatness. So for those of you who don't know or need a reminder, Lewis Howes is a New York Times best selling author of the hit book The School of Greatness, and his latest book, The Mask of Masculinity. He's a lifestyle entrepreneur, High-Performance business coach and keynote speaker, a former professional football player and two sport all-American.

He's a current USA men's national handball team athlete. He hosts a top 100 iTunes ranked Apple podcast, The School of Greatness, which is over 250 million downloads and over nine hundred ninety episodes. Coming now to the 2000 episode, Lewis was recognized by the White House and President Obama as one of the top 100 entrepreneurs in the country under 30. Details magazine called him one of five Internet gurus that can make you rich. And this Fort Lewis is a contributing writer for Entrepreneur and has been featured on Ellen Good Morning America, The Today Show, The New York Times, People, Forbes, Fast Company and so many more.

His interview style is probably one of my favorite. He's had some incredible guests on the show. And today we get to dive into his mind, none other than one of my favorite people in the world. Lewis How?

Man Let's go. Did I, man. Literally, this is like I talked about this for years. It's like we got to get to do together more and do more stuff together on audio. So I'm pumped.

Man, I've been looking forward to this for so long because I think the last time I interviewed you was the first day we met.

It was October thirty. First, I believe was Halloween. Yes. Twenty seventeen. Yes.

And you were you were still like pretty unknown. I think you had like maybe one hundred thousand two hundred thousand fans on Facebook. You were doing a video a week. No one really knew who you were. But I remember seeing your stuff as I got pitched to go on the show and I was like, oh, let me research this guy a little more. I was really inspired. I was just like, you got it. I was like, you're going to be massive.

I don't know, you'd be this big this quickly. But I was like, you going to crush the world? And it's been amazing to watch.

Man, did I was I was such a fan when I reached out to you and I was such a fan of so many people in the industry and what was happening. And what I loved about you is that as soon as I reached out to you, I heard back we'd booked you to do a show at Nasdaq. So I do a show called Nasdaq Greed's and interview people there. And you reached out. And then this is the amazing thing about Lewis that I want people to realize.

And it's good that he gave you the context of where I was in my career.

So we do this interview and it's the day of his book launch.

Write this book, this beautiful book here, The Mask of Masculinity. And he's doing it. And I interview him about it. And it's fascinating. It's it's a brilliant book which will dive into and Lewis goes to spend the rest of the day with me. And I'm like, this guy's got a book launch.

And he's asking me in New York City whether I want to spend the rest of the day was like, cancel everything on your schedule. That's how you always walk around the park. And I did. And I literally canceled my whole day. I was fine, man. And we spent the day together and we became instant friends. And then I think I met you once in L.A. before I was moving here, but before I even knew I was moving here.

And, you know, you were the one of the big reasons where you were just like, no, you should move.

You should definitely move to come across. And yeah, man, you've just I think we managed to see each other every month.

We try. Yeah, maybe there was a couple months, but it definitely slowed us. Yeah. Almost every month we see each other talk, do something together in the last three years. Yeah, but it's been fun man.

Your journey, your journey has been unbelievable to see how and this is what people need to know is like, you know, even if you've been working for ten years on something because you've been working on your craft for a decade as a monk and then just teaching in schools and then corporate life, and then have people like you've been working behind the scene for ten years, it can take, you know, a few pieces of content or one piece of content.

That will be the thing that sets you off with momentum. You know, someone like Rachel Hollis, who spent ten years writing books and doing events with a few hundred people, Max, and then one piece of content, a book launched her. And you had these videos that just they all launched and it took you to another level. So in this book you have now coming out, it's going to be a game changer. I was just reading through it again before I got here.

I was just like, there's so much great information in this, but it's wisdom from the years of. Practice and years of experience, so that's why I think people need to know is like if you're a creator, if you're someone who's got a gift inside. All it takes is one piece of content for you to really pop. So just keep creating. And that's what you've done beautifully. You keep showing up.

Thank you, man. And that's and today, I want to go back into your journey because, you know, we've known each other for some time and I know parts of your story, but I really want my community and audience today to realize everything you've been through that has made you who you are today because you've been through some incredible transformations and transitions in life.

Still doing a man every day, every day. I got to grow a transition, man.

But let's take it right back to the beginning, because I think that there was obviously when you took out the mask of masculinity and you started talking more about your childhood and experiences you'd been through that had formed your life today and you started to get discouraged to be able to share it, which took so much vulnerability and humility and so much from you.

Yeah. Tell us about how that and coming to grips with that opened up more growth in your life?

Well, I think we all have some type of trauma that we've dealt with where there may be neglect or abandonment, sexual abuse, emotional trauma, something or someone just said something to us that we felt like we've held on to for decades, that we can't forget some kid, a friend, a parent that said something to us. And so I don't want to minimize or maximize anyone's trauma because everyone has their own stuff they've been through. Personally, I grew up in a small town in Delaware, Ohio, which is as middle America as it can get.

And my third memory is being raped by a man. So I have very few memories from my childhood before five. But when I was five years old, I was raped by a man who was probably 16 or 17 year old guy who was the son of a babysitter that I would go to after kindergarten.

My mom was working. My dad was working the I was the youngest of four. And so they were always working until later at night. So I would go to babysitters every day.

And that was one of my first memories is this experience, except for twenty five years, I never told anyone because I was so ashamed that if people actually news about me, they would not love me, they would not like me, don't want to be my friends.

They would look down on me all this stuff. I would be less than a human if they actually knew that I was sexually abused.

And I think that was a lot of the conditioning of just growing up in the 80s and 90s, especially in Ohio. And I think in the Midwest in general, not everyone had this. But I think where I grew up, I wasn't allowed to put my arm around a buddy of mine. You know, when we hang out, it's like we hug each other. I pick you up with like we put our company. I like I loved it.

But that wasn't acceptable as a kid growing up for me. Like, I wanted to put my arm around people and, like, hug my friends. But in school they would push me off and call me names. Don't be a little girl. Don't be gay. Don't be this. Don't be that.

Like it wasn't cool to be affectionate even in a non-sexual friendship way. And so when I saw that I was I was eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, that other boys didn't accept me for putting my arm around them as a friend.

I was like, if they actually knew about me, what I'd gone through, they would disown, they would reject me from society was kind of the story I told myself.

And I also just didn't have examples of I was in sports and I never saw athletes opening up about sexual abuse. I just never, ever saw it. I never saw him opening up about mental health issues, what which was what was happening now, more doing that.

But as a kid, I never saw that model. So I just said, OK, I got to act like this didn't happen. I got to be as tough as I can so no one can hurt me again. I have to be as big and strong as possible to make sure that no one ever abuses me again. And that was kind of the the story of my life for twenty five years. My brother then went to prison when I was eight until I was twelve.

He he got caught up in the war on drugs in America and in the 90s for selling drugs to an undercover cop.

So in a small town, there wasn't a lot of people in the neighborhood whose kids went to prison that I knew of. He was the only one. And on my block, everyone knew that my brother was in prison. So that meant the other parents wouldn't let their kids hang out with me for four and a half years, essentially.

So now I have this time where I'm not hanging out with people. I'm essentially trying.

I remember one time I, I had to spend money to hang out with a couple of kids who had a club in their basement. They had like a little private club. And I had to either answer a couple of questions that they asked me. And if I got it right, I could be in the friend club or had to give them money. And they asked me a couple of questions, which I still don't know the answers to today. And I remember Phil.

Like, OK, I'm so dumb that because I'm not smart, people don't want to hang out with me and I went home and begged my mom for money, she put it in a little shoe box, all the change she had to give them so I could hang out with them. And remember, after that day, spending time with them, I was like. I felt really low. I felt really sad and depressed. I was like, man, I'm just like a nothing like no one cares about me.

If I have to pay money to have friends, how horrible of a human being am I? I think those moments, like, really shaped me. And I said I'd rather be like isolated and alone than being around people that don't care if I'm like, you know, that I'm so dumb they don't hang out with me or if I can't provide them with money, I was like, I'd rather be alone.

So I spent a lot of time alone observing people and dealing with my own insecurities for pretty much throughout my teens.

And I really like look at my life in four phases, like pre-teen teen to twenty to my twenties and then 30 to now, which is thirty seven, has been kind of like four phases, which has been very confusing up to the last seven years.

And it wasn't until I finally opened up about sexual trauma and sharing it out loud, first with a small group of people, then with my family and friends, then to my platform into the world.

It's still the most downloaded thing I've ever shared out on my podcast. You know, it's it's still something I get every week from people where they're sharing in about how they're opening up for the first time, because I didn't have a model growing up and I felt like once I started to share my shame about sexual trauma. It no longer had power over me. It took some time to heal, but it no longer became a thing that crippled me and made me insecure.

It's kind of like, you know, an eight mile. He's like, this happened to me and they cheated on my girl this and I shot myself and whatever it's like once I started to share a lot of vulnerable things that I didn't want anyone to know about me, then I learned who my real family, who my real friends were, and I could start to fall in love with myself more. And I don't think I ever loved myself fully.

I love the mask that I wore. I love like that I'm a jock, that I'm an athlete, that I'm successful in business. But I didn't love the inside.

And I think it's a hard life to live if we don't learn how to love ourselves.

So that's that's been the journey. And, you know, I was also in the special needs classes. I almost flunked out of English senior year.

So it's just a challenging I just remember remember really happy times growing up because I never learned how to love myself.

You have great videos that say, you know, they teach us how to memorize things in school, but they don't teach us how to deal with failure. They don't teach us how to deal with a broken heart. You know, those are the things that I struggle with the most. Like, I was always failing in school. I know girls like me. You know, I was always heartbroken, all this stuff.

And I didn't know how to lose gracefully because my whole identity was tied around winning and gaining acceptance from people when I won in sports and when I broke a record.

It was like people acknowledged me and they saw me for the first time because I had a talent, whereas I never felt seen as a kid, you know, my parents saw me and they were there for me. But I the story I said is people don't care about me even when they did.

And I think I just never learned the skill of loving myself until seven years ago, really the process. And if people could fully love themselves and be proud of themselves, there just be a lot less mental and emotional suffering. So that's been kind of the journey in a nutshell.

His response to that is the definition of giving back and being of service, small train treats, clefs by sponsoring surgery and essential care for children whose families can't afford it. It's so important that you understand that clefs aren't just cosmetic. Children with cleft lips or palates are often malnourished, and 75 percent will die before age 10 without treatment. These complications, and not just medical but educational, emotional and many psychological issues associated with it. In most parts of the US, this is something that is treated right away.

But there are so many low income families that do not have the means to afford this life altering surgery. I urge you to please help give someone their happy new forever. Smile, Smile Train pioneered a sustainable model of partnering with local medical professionals in more than 90 countries, providing them with the state of the art equipment and training they need to make safe and quality care possible for those who need it most. It's how they've supported more than one point five million safe surgeries in just 20 years.

I love that model of empowering people to learn how to best serve their communities. This is seriously the most important gift you can give someone this year. If you can, please help out. A baby is born with a cleft every three minutes. You can help provide them with the treatment they desperately need. Go to smile, train dog forward, slash J today and donate twenty one dollars a month enough to cover the cost of one lifesaving cleft surgery each year.

You can save a child's life for just 70 cents a day. That's less than I spend on coffee now. That's truly something to smile about. Smile train dog forward slash jr visit smile train dog forward slash Jay September's National Life Insurance Awareness Month. So I want to take this time to introduce you to policy genius. I know you may have so much going on in your life that getting life insurance is probably something you don't put too much time or effort into because you think it's a long and difficult process.

But here's the thing. Not with policy genius. Life insurance in my eyes isn't a luxury, but a non-negotiable for me, especially if you have a family that relies on you right now, you could save 1500 hundred dollars or more a year by using policy genius to compare life insurance policies. Remember, these policies can go over a decade, so any savings are truly significant. Policy Genius is an insurance marketplace built and backed by a team of industry experts.

They're on your side and want to get you the best deal without any headaches. It's simple to get your quote to first just visit policy genius Dotcom. Look at how much coverage you need and compare quotes from top insurance. Apply your lowest price and let the policy genius team handle all the paperwork and red tape. Policy genius works for you, not the insurance company. So they'll take care of any obstacles. You may run into people use them because their service is unmatched and in this space.

And that's why they have five star ratings across over sixteen hundred reviews on Trust Pilot and Google. They put people first and find you the absolute best policy. So if you need life insurance, head to policy genius dot com right now to get started. You could say fifteen hundred dollars or more a year by comparing quotes on their marketplace policy genius. When it comes to insurance. It's nice to get it right.

I mean, that's phenomenal, man.

Like, it's, you know, when when I know you as you now over the last three years, you have one of the most kindest hearts I know you're one of the most open and loving people I know. You're without a doubt one of the most generous people I know. And to me, it's like I can't ever imagine you not being those things. Yeah. Because you do it so effortlessly. In one sense, it can appear that way.

So if I would have met you ten years ago, I probably wouldn't even recognize it. Right. It's like, yeah, you're a completely different person, but I do see that life I've seen only the last three years of you being like this incredible source of wisdom for the world that's gone viral and a great heart and a thoughtful mind. But I think a lot of us go through these challenges. Yeah. You know, and we're we're in the public.

So we're talking a lot about our our life. And so it's it can be very scary if we haven't accepted ourselves to then say, this is who I am. I know Michelle Obama talked about my depression, I think was a couple of days ago or recently based on this podcast comes out where she's like, I'm struggling. And she shared it publicly for the first time, which I think is really courageous. But when people in the public eye, it's almost like we're forced to tear down our our mass and our walls.

Otherwise, we're being inauthentic to ourselves. If I'm only putting out this perfect image and for years I put out a perfect image or this ideal of like who I wanted to be in the world. And I was afraid of what if people really saw who I was?

Was they would never accept me, kind of like when I was a kid, if they truly knew what happened, I want to have friends.

And again, when I and I realized, like, a 30 enough was enough, I was dealing with so much pain or suffering on the outside. Everything looked great, making great money, sold a business for seven figures, you know, had girls that were interested in me. I had cool stuff. I was playing sports. People were admiring what I was accomplishing on the outside, but I was never proud of who I was on the inside and what I was afraid of.

I had such deep insecurity that if anyone knew who I was, no one would ever love me.

And I think once I got to a place of fully accepting myself, starting a healing journey and sharing it with people and realizing I'm not dead, I'm not going to die here, and people still love me and people still care about me even more. They like me because I'm being more real. It creates a deeper connection. And that's when I started to realize, like, oh, there's this thing called vulnerability that is actually probably the biggest superpower in the world that most people don't use.

And that's kind of all I've just done. It's just been more and more open, more and more real. And it's still hard. You know, it's like it's still hard to do sometimes, but I feel like it's the only way.

And there are certain things I'm not saying.

You should just publicly talk about everything of your fears and your insecurities. I think it's a time and place for everything. I just felt like a responsibility seven years ago to open up about these things because I didn't see another model. I didn't see another, you know, Jack White man opening up about stuff. And now when I see guys like Kevin Love talking about having mental breakdowns on the court and actually writing articles and speaking, being an advocate for this, I'm like, great.

Now there's more athletes that look like him who might feel comfortable opening up at ten. At twelve. At 14, I saw a young NBA player forgetting his name recently, like shaved his head on Instagram and said he's doing this and he feels free because he was sexually abused over and over as a kid. These are rookie NBA basketball player. And I'm like, this is amazing that someone is posting this on Instagram who has a platform because he's starting to heal.

And maybe there is it is a young black guy.

I'm like, maybe there's other young black men who would never open up about this.

And now they have the permission to to share. And I think that's incredible. So I felt like a responsibility to to start opening up publicly about these things.

And I think you do such a great job on your videos of, like, addressing all these scary things that are hard for us depression, mental illness, cheating, relationship breakups, divorce, like all these things that people are scared to go through, you're addressing. And I think that's what's helping heal the world. And when you when I hear you say. Every example that you're sharing right now, it's almost like you had to choose to do the hardest thing, the scariest thing is like the way you know, whereas Ryan holiday is the obstacle is the way like your greatest fears is the way.

This is something I've been doing as a kid since my teens of realizing, OK, what are my fears? Because these are holding me back from being the greatest version of myself. So every year I create a list of my biggest fears. I remember when I was a teenager, it was girls. I think every teenage boy is afraid of talking to girls, getting rejected by girls. Like all that stuff is very scary.

And for me, I remember I was like, I don't have confidence around girls.

I don't know what to say. I'm stutterer. I don't have anything funny. Like, I just stumble over my words. And I said to myself, OK, this summer when I was 16, I said, every day when I see a girl that I'm interested in or is attracted to, I'm going to run not in a creepy way up to them, but I'm going to run towards them and start a conversation when it gives me little butterflies. Like, I don't care if I'm at the pool or the gym or the walking down the street, I have to go up to them.

It was a challenge. I love it for 90 days to do this.

You should have video that I should have, I wish. And for 90 days I did this. And I tell you what, the first couple of weeks I was just humiliated. It was the worst feeling in the world because I faced my greatest fear, rejection, humiliation, not being enough.

They don't like me, whatever it is. And by the end of the summer, I kid you not. I must have had, I don't know, fifty phone numbers and just lots of fun. You know, I'm not acting on any things.

I'm just like having fun and overcoming a fear. And I think if human beings were able to create more contained challenges for themselves to overcome their inner insecurities, that's the greatest game you can play. Like I used to play a lot of physical sports, but this is the greatest inner sport that you can play, is writing a list of your biggest fears and then giving yourself parameters and a time frame. So I did this with girls and I was like, oh, it worked.

I feel confident I can say hi to people without being afraid. Then when I was twenty three, I did it with public speaking. I could not stand up in front of three people and say anything without sweating, without trembling. It was that crippling. And I know public speaking is a big fear for a lot of people. And I met someone who was a professional public speaker and I said, tell me what I need to do to overcome this fear.

You said you need to join Toastmasters. You need to go every single week until you're not afraid. So I gave myself a year. I said, I'm going to do this every single week. I would fill my speeches. It was horrible. But I every week I'll get better. And at the end of the year, I remember being on to speak in front of this group of fifteen, twenty people in the club and speak without notes, you know, remember my speech, give it with poise, give it with everything I needed to do.

And I was like, wow, I'm not afraid anymore. And I've done that with salsa dancing, you know, for salsa dancing. I spent 90 days all in on salsa dancing. I was terrified that I could not dance. But I did the same challenge for myself. And I constantly do that. You know, I did this with opening up about sexual abuse. I was like, I'm terrified for twenty five years. No one knows this except for me.

And I never thought I would tell anyone. But I knew I was cheating myself by not at least processing the healing because it was something inside that was holding me back. And every year, luckily, I'm faced with challenges every year that forced me to address my fears, forced me to level up to own my mistakes, to take accountability and responsibility and improve. And I think that's a beautiful thing of life is like I never want to be not afraid of something because then I'm done.

So I always want to have something. I'm like, right now it's Spanish. I have been wanting to practice to learn Spanish for twenty years.

Now you have to I've got a I've got a Mexican girlfriend and even the first year of our relationship, I said, OK, I'm going to do this.

But I put it off like I keep making excuses because every time I jump into a new app, a new class, whatever it is I get, my brain hurts so much from learning something that's challenging this. Why I didn't do well in school because I was just like, I can't do this. I give up, let me go play a sport.

And I was just like, this is going to suck for a couple of years.

It's not going to be easy, but I'm going be so much more proud of myself from accomplishing it in a few years. And what I'm going to learn about myself in the process is can be greater than actually being fluent.

But I just keep thinking back to, like, if I died today, what I regret not going after this fear. What I regret that I didn't share this with my girlfriend, my husband, my wife, my kids, that I didn't go back to school, that I didn't write the book, launch the podcast, whatever it is, what I regret it. And for me, I just never want to regret, so I'm like, OK, I've now found a process.

I've hired someone to do three days a week. I'm fitting in in my calendar. This is a priority every day.

And it sucks right now because I feel like I'm not learning any I'm I can't speak still, but it's like it's going to take years and I just need to trust the process and appreciate all the little wins. And they'll try to be fluent right away. Just be like, OK, I know a couple more words today.

And that's what I think if people could do that, their life would be that much more magical if you wrote down your biggest fears and you started tackling them every year. Yes.

Your fellow man, this is amazing stuff. This is a record back at.

In today's current situation, I know that a simple trip to the store can be a stressful experience for many. This is something I no longer deal with since I started shopping online at Grove Collaborative. My wife and I shop there for a lot of our home essentials, which makes life just a bit more easy and convenient. Here's a fun stat. You guys know I love data. 70 percent of people say that they want to use natural products, but only two percent do.

Why? He's the sad truth when they sell. A lot of local stores are usually from some companies and the focus isn't on the best stuff. This is why I love spreading awareness when it comes to growth collaborative, the owner of a healthy plant based non-toxic cleaning products that actually work. Another thing I want to highlight is that there are always enjoyable to use. You don't feel sick and lightheaded when spraying their products. Most of us understand the importance of eating healthy, but using natural products in our homes is just as important.

Don't add any more toxins to your home shop at Growth Collaborative Grove is the online marketplace that delivers healthy home, beauty and personal care products directly to you. Every product at Grove Doko is guaranteed to be good for you, your family, your home and the planet. Join the over two million households who have trusted Grove Collaborative to make their homes happier and healthier. My wife just ordered the Mrs. Meyers hand soap seventh generation laundry detergent to times concentrate and antiblack bathroom cleaner.

There's so much more we still need to order, but those are just a few staples that we always stuck up on for a limited time. When my list is going to grow Dico Che, you will get a free cleaning gift. That plus free shipping with your first order. Go to growth dot seo forward slash to get this exclusive offer. That's Grove Seo Forward Slash Jr.

This is amazing stuff. I would average listening and watching right now to do what Luis is saying right now. I literally want you to get out a piece of pen and paper if you're not, and take a screenshot of where we are right now.

Come back to this later on and do this because what he's saying is so powerful, like literally it's so profound. Like, I love the fact that you've just consistently challenge and challenge and challenge and it just starts with writing down your fears and finding one thing you can do for 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, whatever it is for you. And just doing that one thing every day. And it's doing it's acting. It's not just thinking about it.

And so does your next book is going to be acts like a monk and it's going to be the actions. But what would you say is your over the last three years. Yeah. What were the biggest fears you had that you had to conquer or and what's the biggest fear you have right now that you haven't caught him yet?

I think that the first thing that came to mind was after my first video went viral. Yeah. So we had a million views. So, yeah, the first one got to go to movies like seven days. The second one got like a million views in twenty four hours and then ended up getting like a total of 160 million views across pages. This is when the Huff Post was sharing it. There's twenty, seventeen, twenty sixteen, twenty sixteen mid twenty sixteen.

And my first fear became, I don't want to make any more videos. What, because I was scared that they wouldn't do as well. Oh my gosh. And this is the crazy thing is the fear of see when you, when you're starting your fear is a failure and then when you kind of have a break through, your fear becomes of success is I mean, it's like who said this?

I think Liz Gilbert says something like, well, I'm never going to be as successful as my last book that's sold like ten million copies of Eat, Pray, Love. And it's like, how do you live life knowing that you may never hopefully you keep creating stuff. But but that didn't happen with you. You've been making videos that have had three hundred million views and beyond, right?

Yeah. So that was the first fear I had to overcome, was like the fear before that was, well, who's going to care. So that was the biggest fear before starting. But you talked a lot about that. So yeah, I see the opposite end of the fear of you've had your little breakthrough, you've got a little taste or a glimpse of people now carrying and now you're like, well, what if they don't care the next time?

So did that cripple you from wanting to create more or less?

I made less. I think at that time I was making one video per month because I was so scared.

When I met you at Nasdaq, were you still only doing one a month at that time? I had just started getting more. One or two weeks? Yeah, probably. Yeah. It wasn't I when I met you, I, when I after that I was like you maybe doing three a week. It's like you need to go hard like all in on this because you were like yeah, maybe I'll start a podcast and write a book down and go wait and go all in on video right now.

Tunnel vision on just how can I. This was your gift. I think people get distracted too early. Well, it's like, OK, this is my gift. It's working and let me do this, this and this because it's cool.

But you went all in and you you. And crushed, yeah, so that was that was one of the fears, the other fear was, you know, when we were in New York and we've talked about this before, me and Rodney had moved there six months ago, I decided that I had to venture out into creating my own thing. And I was four months away from being broke. We had four months left to pay rent and groceries. That's it.

That's literally what we had left.

And you were like, OK, I'm going to go leave half power the part time and then go create more, which takes money, time and energy. Yeah.

And I realized that I had to make that journey to start building and creating because I wanted to create stuff that I really wanted to create and put out. But at the same time that came with the risk of, hey, we just got married a year ago, we moved here six months ago. I know no one in New York, no one really knows me. And now I'm trying to create something from scratch in a city where I was full of unknowns.

Right. So that fear came out. The only solution to that fear was literally I woke up the next day and I emailed just like you did, kind of with the with the girls at that time. But I emailed every bunch of girls.

No, no. Can you imagine? I emailed every person I ever had any interaction with that may need a video. And I said, I will edit your videos, I will shoot your videos, I will create videos for you.

And so I just started creating on hussle scrapie mode literally just to survive.

Yeah, just to survive. What happened when after like a week of sending those out. What happened? I was getting a few people emailing back and I realized that it was all a game of odds that I got back as much as I put in. So if I sent one hundred emails, I got ten responses. If I sent a thousand emails, I was getting one hundred responses and I was literally trying to find any way through to like seeing people who retweeted me on Twitter and reaching out to them and more like just any damn hate.

You need some video work.

I don't like just looking at someone's job title and linked in and going, like, who's this person? Because I wanted to build something for myself, but I wasn't sure that people were going to allow me to create what I wanted to create straight away.

And also, there wasn't like a monetization plan three years ago on Facebook or I guess maybe YouTube, but it wasn't like a way to make money with your content. You were just I'm impacting the world. And that's why maybe I'll do a book and this and that to make some money.

But you kind of monetize really that, you know, and it was monetization has never been my goal. Like in the beginning, the goal was simply to make an impact. And then I realized that without money, you can't scale the impact. It's true. And that was the clear decision that I had to rewire my relationship with money.

I had to rewind. I really got a big fear.

That was a big fear. We've talked about this a bunch before, but why was money a big fear for you?

Well, I think I grew up in a family where we always had just enough. So the language around money was, we have just enough. We've just enough. We have just enough. And almost there was not necessarily to my parents, but there was a negative kind of narrative that I grew up with that to be rich or wealthy, you had to backstab, lie, cheat, steal or do something dodgy or not be there for your family or, you know, sacrifice time totally like it couldn't be done in a healthy way.

You couldn't become wealthy in a healthy way. Right.

So that was always a switch for you then when you realized, oh, no, like money is a good thing to make more of an impact. And I actually need to focus on this or, you know, overcome this fear.

Well, I think being in a place where you're four months away from being broke, you're like, I did make some money.

You realize that fear doesn't help you be creative. So your creativity actually shrinks when you're under immense pressure and fear.

Yeah, because creativity, of course, creativity also comes from pain, but creativity also needs abundance to to really flourish.

That's true.

You have a great partner. You have a great chapter, a section in your book that says Follow the pain in your heart. And it sounds like you had a pain in your heart, like I got to pay for rent and I've got this creative endeavor that I really want to take on. And so you went all in on that.

Yeah, exactly. The fear now that I think that I'm I'm really I theoretically understand, but I'm still working on. You haven't done that.

I haven't done yet is I wish I could talk to every person that followed me on social and share my heart with them like I wish.

My fear is that people don't understand my heart and theoretically, I know that no one will ever fully understand me. And so I have to be able to let go of that. But I think it's hard, like you said, when you're living a public life and you want to be able to share your truth with people and you want everyone to understand you, like, for example, if you are talking.

We can give each other the time of day to understand each other. Yes, context, conversation and back and forth. Yeah, depth and like reflection.

But when you have even if you have a video or you have a podcast, speaking to someone, one on one is a totally different experience.

That's why podcast work, because even though we know other people are going to hear this, really it's a conversation between us. What is the thing that you really wish people understood about you, about your heart? If you had 60 seconds to two minutes to share that, you're back to your audience yet. What would you say? That's I don't really want them to hear.

Yeah, I'd say that I'd want people to know that my intention has always been to serve. It always will be. That's the place I come from and that I try my best every single day to do what I love in a way that can help other people grow. Yeah. And that. I am not perfect, I I'm I don't have it all figured out, but I'm learning along the way and I'm sharing what I've learned. Yeah. And that to me is, you know, that to me is probably in 60 second version.

Sure. Sure. What would you say yours is? What would you say?

I think it's a lot of pressure for me, especially since you're a monk. You probably have more pressure because people assume that, like you're supposed to be this perfect spiritual. I don't know. I'm just making an assumption. But that might be part of the pressure. And I think people need to understand that we're all human beings just trying to figure it out. And and I know your heart and I know what you've been through and I know the challenges and things you've overcome.

And I think it's it's unfortunate that anyone with any sizable audience has a pressure to be perfect with everything in their life. And there's so much happening in the world right now where they're just canceling everyone where it seems like it's exhausting, but you have to be perfect. That's why people are more afraid than ever to be vulnerable, because it's just another thing to knock people down.

Yeah, well, that's I was going to ask you, has there ever been a time where you felt you were vulnerable and open, were actually found people took advantage of it or distanced themselves from you? Or have you always found that vulnerability has acted in the superpower and there's no right or wrong answer? I really want to know, like, have you always found that vulnerability? And then and then what is that vulnerability? If that's the case, how was it done?

That's the first thing that's coming up is. I was really worried, I didn't think people would receive me for opening up about sexual trauma, I didn't think they would. I thought they would like say nasty things or whatever distance themselves. But it was like the complete opposite where that vulnerability really and again, I wasn't doing it for some type of marketing strategy. I was just like, I need to get this off my chest. And I wanted to share it that I'm trying to think of like being vulnerable a time where to work.

I feel like it always works out. I think, you know, a year and a half ago, I was going through a breakup and that was a very vulnerable time for me because I had people that didn't have the full context and weren't actually reaching out to me to ask me questions.

They were just making assumptions. And that was more of a painful challenge to go through of realizing, oh, here's who my real friends are and here's who people who have just like always taken for years. But when I'm going through something where they don't really know what's going on, they make assumptions and they don't become vulnerable. Me.

So that was like a moment I was like and that kind of sucks that. You know, but it was also great in the fact that I learned who my friends were. Yeah. And so it was like I got to purge a lot of people. And you were really instrumental and helped me like, you know, people are going to come and go.

You can't hold on to relationships and you don't want to hold on to a relationship if they're single sided or if they're judgmental or if they're whatever righteous about something without actually taking the time to be thoughtful, ask questions, listen with an open heart and hear what's actually really going on.

And I think that was a there was a time where I was like, it's hard in a moment and you're in it. But I kept saying to myself, I'm going to have hindsight now, hindsight now, hindsight now.

But the end of this year, it's New Year's Eve. Like, I'm going to be in a completely different place and this is all going to be half as possible. It's all going to be happening and serving me in a much greater way.

That's going to set me up for something that I would never been able to do in the future.

And I feel like the adversity that we go through sets us up for incredible things, but it's so hard to see it and go through it in that moment.

But by the end of that year, I was with a woman, the woman of my dreams.

I was purged relationships that were taken of me for years, just wanting me to promote them and help them and make introductions who are only single sided. I purged these judgmental people in my life. I developed deeper relationships with the people I had who were there for me, you being one of them.

And I freed myself of the need to please other people. Yeah, and that was that was another fear of mine, which was like, I want everyone to like me. I want everyone to understand me kind of like you.

It's like, yeah, but they actually knew what was really happening. They would know what's going on in my heart and all these things. But and so when I freed myself of that, it was like. I'm in a I'm in the healthiest relationship I've ever been in. I'll tell you why. She's the woman of my dreams. Yet if we broke up tomorrow, I'd be OK. Because I'm such a peace, knowing that this is happening for me and she's in my life for a reason right now and hopefully it lasts a long time, but if it doesn't, for whatever reason, we weren't supposed to force it.

And it's setting me up for something that I learned to to use in the next relationship or the next part of my life.

And I've never been and I'm getting chills right now because I've never been in a relationship where I've been able to say, like, I'd be OK if it didn't work out.

And that's why I stayed in relationships too long, because I was too afraid to let it go and feel alone and feel insecure. And now I'm just like, if she broke up with me or if we decided it wasn't the right fit, I'd be at peace because I'm not attached.

This is something you taught me is about really being unattached to the outcome, like being unattached to whatever it looks like and knowing that if I keep focusing on my heart, I keep focusing on giving.

If I keep focusing on growing up, I keep pushing on loving people and loving myself, then I'm going to reject and attract the right things in my life, whether it be my relationships intimately, business partnerships, friends.

You're going to repel people that don't want to be in that energy and you're going to be a magnet to beautiful things. And that's why the first time in my life, in my mind, I'm like, my mind is calm and my heart is at peace because I'm not attached to something needing to look a certain way. It feels beautiful. What a beautiful place to be.

I listen, I don't want to end the relationship, I guess, to be like, OK, I'm sure to be some grieving. But I just like I feel like I've been through so many hard things in my life emotionally, internally, that I'm like, I'm fine, I'm OK, I'm alive, I'm here. And it's actually it's almost like that thing that didn't work out pushed me up higher to the next greater thing.

Yeah. And that relationship taught me this lesson that's allowed me to do this thing. And this person is getting me to actually learn Spanish, which has been something I want to do for 20 years. And this person got me to open my heart and talk about sexual abuse. And it's like it's all helping me and serve me to then serve and give more energy to the world. And I think that's what people need to look at, is like the challenge that I'm facing right now, that adversity you're facing, whether it be cowbird, a relationship, your you lost your job like you needed to look at.

This is the greatest gift of your life, because it is if you look at is the greatest adversity, then you'll stay in that space for much longer until you realize this is a beautiful gift and it's serving me.

Where do I find the lesson and how can I lean into the lesson and grow from there? That's beautiful, man, well said, like that is really, you know, you're speaking of hearts right now, like that is such a beautiful place to live. It sounds like. Yeah, because it is a complete relationship with yourself. Cash first, which is what you started with. I think the most interesting relationship we have is the relationship we have with ourself or source or God or higher or higher power.

But I think the the self-image we have, like I remember looking in the mirror as a kid and not loving myself.

And if you can look in the mirror without narcissism, but actually like pure love for all that you've had to overcome, all of you've been through, all you've accomplished, your way of being, how you've been kind of human beings and kind yourself and you can fully look in the mirror and say, I love you and I'm grateful for you and I'm proud of you.

Those are three of the most incredible things that a person could say because most people can't say those things today. I bet if you're listening or watching this right now, that there's a lot of people that can't look themselves in the mirror, take their clothes off down to the underwear and say, I love you, I'm proud of you and you matter. Those three things are probably things that it's hard. Maybe love some things, we don't love everything, and I there's a lot I want to work on, I'm not perfect.

There's a lot of flaws, but it's like the end of the day, I ask myself that I show up and do the best I could like you. Did I give to the best that I could?

And am I following my mission, my purpose, you know, and things like a monk, you give a clear outline of how to discover and follow your purpose without a purpose. We are really feeling lost. We're going to feel like we're never enough because we're chasing a bunch of things that aren't the mission. So that's why I keep going back to your book, because I think it's really like the The Handbook for Living a great life for people that if, you know, I got an early copy.

So I feel blessed to like, learn this stuff now and apply to my life. But, you know, it wasn't until a few years ago when I really was able to look at myself in the mirror and say, like, I'm proud of you and I love you and your matter.

And I think that's sad. But also. Exciting at the same time, because I think if people can learn that quicker, there's that much more peace in their heart and that's what we all need. Lewis has man, this is literally everything you're seeing today is just like it's hitting the hot. Yeah, like I'm hearing you speak today and we speak often, so I'm used to having conversations with you. We always have like three or four hour conversations, whether we're walking or sitting with everything you're saying today is like going straight to the heart, like it's just de cluttering for me.

And so I'm hoping that everyone is listening or watching right now. You're listening to Lewis going, I need more of this guy in my life because he's so clear, so crystal clear. And I can tell that it's because you've done the work over the last few years. Like, this isn't just C saying those things. They just say, yes, it's pretty hairy. And it's also not just reading the lines. Right. You're not just saying that to yourself in the mirror to say it to yourself.

Yeah.

You're doing the internal work to be able to say that to yourself in a genuine, authentic way with the understanding still that you want to grow.

And listen, I'm not in front of the mirror every day, sanitising to myself not no, I'm not like I'm not like in my underwear, but but I've done it before. And I think you need to ask. It could be a reflective question. Could I stand in front of the mirror and look at myself? And every day I, I think about something every day that is, you know, I don't meditate every day, although I try to, you know, I wish I was as discipline as you two hours in the morning, but I, I do about a fifteen minute meditation almost daily called the Soul Sink.

That's really worked for me. But every day it might just be a few minutes, but every day I think about the greatest version of myself, what is like the greatest version of Louis House look like. And if he was from a distance walking towards me. If I could soak that in for 10 seconds, the way he walked, his posture, his energy, his aura, his love, what would I be feeling? What would I be experiencing?

I try to imagine myself the greatest perfect version of myself walking towards me and then staring me straight in the eyes. And I try to imagine what are the things that I'm not doing. That are not getting any closer to that right now. How can I eliminate those things? One of the things I am doing that's going to get me closer. How can I do more of those things? And I'm a big visual guy. So for me, visualization allows me to paint a picture in my mind and then and hopefully apply it in the real world by taking action.

But I try to that's my meditation. It's like what's what's holding me back, what's missing and what does that greatest version of me have when he was so close to me? And I think if we look at our lives like that, where we start to imagine what could I do, not that I'm ever going to reach that, but what could I be doing better? And am I closer every single day to that great image of myself that I want to be the thing that makes me proud, that makes me feel like I matter, that I love myself.

And I think it's a it's a powerful technique that I use daily to to help me get there. Do that's so powerful.

It's fun. That's so powerful one, because visualize it.

Most of us are visual thinkers or at least the ones of us that are in all of us love visuals, whether it's movies or music videos or and you're so right that when you start to see it clearly in your mind and you've always talked about this, about you talk about this on Ellen, I've heard you talk about this on multiple interviews where you always talk about like it starts with the dream.

Yes. But it's like the dream is something you have to see first. Right.

And that is what a dream is when you go to sleep and you dream. I mean, you saw something and that's where it starts. And I want to start here by talking about something that you've got that started as a dream, that started as a visual in your mind that now is about to reach its one thousand episodes. Yeah. Which is your podcast, A School of Greatness, which is what the first book was based on. For those of you who haven't read it, this is Lewis's first ever book, New York Times best selling author of this book, The School of Greatness, but only a thousand episodes.

Crazy man. Yeah, I want to you know. I remember. As I started to go through my healing process seven and a half, eight years ago, I had an idea I was like, I just want to interview great minds because I'm learning from so many great people. I was a great networker and I would. Get a seat at the table and I would get a one on one call with them and I was like, man, I just wish everyone could hear the information that they're sharing.

And I always thought I was asking the dumbest questions when I would talk to them, like the most basic dumb questions. But for whatever reason, they were like so grateful that I asked them.

And I was like, but I just feel like everyone to make fun of me if I ask these questions.

So I had you know, I was like, I feel like I'm doing a disservice by getting all this knowledge and not sharing with other people my dumb questions. Right. And I was like, I just want to launch a show. This is way before a podcast was popular 2012. I had the idea and I was like, oh, I launch a show. I want to do it once a week. And I had one episode with one listener to start and now our 250 million downloads, a thousand episodes in.

And I didn't know what would what would happen from the dream.

It was just like, I want to create this thing and start it and I want to do it for a year.

It was an experiment, just like everything else, because I wasn't a polished interviewer.

I didn't have radio skills. I wasn't like an on camera host. I was none of that.

But I was like, this is an experiment to overcome fears, to put myself out there and allow people to hear me ask dumb questions. And hopefully based on me learning, they can learn. And I think a lot of people that have a dream of doing something, they're they're just wrapped up in so much fear that if you could just get it started and be consistent, you'll see so many beautiful things that come from it. I never knew I would launch a book from the podcast or the second book or a live event or coaching or like I didn't.

They all stem from people saying, we want more. Can you create something else? Yes. Same thing with you. Yeah. We never knew when I want to do these videos once a month and inspire people. You never knew that you would have this book. That is going to be a number one New York Times bestseller seller, international phenomenon. I'm calling it now before it comes out. You didn't know you'd have a podcast that's now one of the top 50 in the world on iTunes.

You didn't know these things would come come from it, but you had a dream of like I just want to create videos and inspire people. And because you leaned into your your talent, your skill set up, being like a great learner from your education years to Monck life to then being a great teacher and your love for movies and creativity and putting it into your creation and a unique and different way. You have the trifecta, the perfect storm that allowed you to share your gift with the world.

And it worked. And so you've got leaning into it. And then because of that impact, OK, you're going to have this book, the podcast, TV shows, movies like whatever you want to do is going to happen. But if you never overcame the fear of putting out that first video and then the fear of success of doing it consistently, you wouldn't have the rest of this. I think about that all the time.

I consistently think about what my life would be if I listen to the rejections and the failures and didn't put that first video out. And I wonder how you would feel. And by the way, anyone who's listening, watching right now, you can tell that Lewis is a really good interview because he keeps making it about the other person. And that shows you why he's such a brilliant interviewer. Like, it's like, why are we talking about me again?

Why do you love me? And I'm not trying to make it about me at all. But this is Lewis. This is why he's such a great interviewer. And when I you know, me and Lewis, we've interviewed a couple of people together or been at tables where Lewis is asking question, I actually believe that you ask the best questions. Like when you ask a question, it's often a question I've never even thought of. And I definitely don't think it's stupid.

But but there's a depth to the way you answer because you really want to hear the you really want to learn. Yeah. And you have to.

And I remember my one of my young teachers teaching me that he said that if you ever feel you gave a good class or if you ever failed, that you feel that you gave a good sum, another election, he should you should always remember that it is because of the sincerity and eagerness of the audience. And he said that if you felt that you delivered it because that audience was so receptive to hear, it's like we've both been at conferences where we've spoken, where the audience is, we're not engaged.

And you might have been like, I'm up here dancing like a monkey frickin sweat and jumping around telling the best stories ever. And it feels like cricket still. And everyone's on their phone. And you're like, but when you go into a room where it's just like they're just sitting on the edge to see because they're just excited to hear you, whatever reason the context was set up, you're just like you can say whatever they laugh. And it's partly like a comedian where it's like, you know, you go into a comedy club and if they're not receptive, you've got to work.

Yeah. It doesn't matter if you do your best stuff. It's about the audience. You're that guy. You're that receptive audience always.

I love to learn from everyone. I think you have a chapter in your book on how to learn from everyone. And it's I've been I as the this is one of my guess as I reflect back like every adversity is for us, if we find a lesson in it. I just felt like, why am I so stupid? Like every year in class I never got above. The bottom for an hour an our great cards, so they used a rankest I decided to do this in London, but they used to rank our great cards and I never dropped our never got past the bottom for ever, ever, from what my memory.

And I remember just it was just a confirmation of how stupid I am. It was just like, well, you suck. It doesn't matter how many tutors, how many special needs classes you're in, you're never going to be smart. It was like the story.

But I was like, but I feel like if I observe people differently and if I learn to connect with people in a different way and if I asked different questions and I just observe human behavior. People still want to connect with me, not based on how smart I am or my grade card, but because I just care.

And I remember hearing the quote was from Roosevelt, that was people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

And I heard that as a teenager. And I was like, I have a chance like in this life because I'm never going to know as much as anyone else.

I'm always going to be the dumbest person in every room. And in fact, I try to be. And yet it's not a competition of who's smarter, who's not, and it's not a competition of who cares more or not, but just showing that you do care is always going to be to your advantage. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, man, absolutely, but I want to do a quick activity with you with the Thousand podcast. OK, I'm nowhere near, so I can't imagine.

What do you want right now?

I think we're on, like, what would reach one and a half years or so. And we do two a week. Yes, 750.

Yes, 70. OK. A little like 10th or a fifth of what you've done. Yeah. So when you look at a thousand episodes and I really do want to focus on this because, you know, you wrote a whole book about the podcast with interviews. Yeah. I want to focus in on a few and I know it's not going to be an easy exercise because you know what's coming. But but the reason why I'm going to ask these questions is because I want to hear how much these are not just questions for you.

They're really like you're in your own classroom. Yeah. Like, you know, we're in Lewis's class, which is the school of greatness, which is what's so beautiful about the name, because it's almost the school.

You didn't have the school? I didn't have in the school. No one has school.

I wish I had. Exactly. And so you've created that.

So let's start with who do you think in your podcast would have made a brilliant school teacher, which I guess would have made like the best school teacher that you would have?

I mean, that's pretty easy. I think you would have been the best because you were a teacher and you say, I'm not just saying this because you're here. You're probably the first one I thought of, even if you didn't say that.

But because you just know how to structure challenging things into easy concepts. And for me, that's what I'm always trying to bridge the gap from. This is a challenging idea. Concept. I don't understand this. So we find the expert who can make it simple and then I can ask a question to dissect it and say, OK, so you're telling me that if we just do this, this and this. We'll be happy, right, it's like, how can I solve these problems?

And so I think you do such a brilliant job of showing it through visual and through quotes and through your own experience to make it something we can see, feel and experience as a teacher.

So I think you're you're one of the best. I mean I mean Birnam Brown, because she is a teacher. She's a professor. Yes. Yes. So I think she is great of of that. This guy just had on Dr. Ivan Joseph, who's a sports psychologist, professor, I think he's brilliant. I've had a lot of professors of Harvard and stuff like that. But the non teacher thing, you know her name, but she's a teacher.

So the next question is, who has taught you the most and what is it? The most fascinating relationship lesson?

So you have you had on that's really giving you a relationship is the first thing that comes to mind is Rob Bell, who is a I don't know if you know who he is. He's like a spiritual pastor. I know who he is, but I've never met him. I've had him on a few times. And every time he comes on his feet, speaks to my heart.

He told me about relationships and marriage will probably be a butcher it. But he was like, you create love in the space between when you guys are together.

It's not one you're together where love is created. It's the space to talk between when you're thinking about the person now.

And it may remind me of a quote by I think it was Yo-Yo Ma who said, like, Harmony is in between the notes, like in music.

It's like I said, but the harmony is made in between the notes. Right. It's like that's what the music is actually heard in between the notes. And I think when he said that it connected me to that, I was like, yeah, it's interesting that love is like the space.

You have a part and that might be like 30 minutes or days, but it's a space in between that was really insightful and I'm probably butchering it. But it was so beautiful. And I remember when I had Matthew Hussey, I'd have had him on a couple of times. He said, you know, the key to finding someone great, someone you love, like your soulmate, the person you really want to be with is to write a list of all the things that you want in that person and then go become all those things.

So it's like in order to find the person of your dreams, become the person of your dreams and you'll attract them. Yeah. So I thought that was really cool, just like taking accountability for your own life.

And you see, like, all these people talking about online dating, like the profiles people put on there, like you need to be this and talking about the other people, like what they're looking for and don't be this. But it's like, are you those things? Are you just expecting someone else? Yeah. So always becoming a better version of yourself in relationships.

I love that these are already great ones. I mean, that both of those are beautiful. But that first one, especially about how love is created when you're not together, a space between I mean, that that's that's really like I'm going to have to take that and meditate on that. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. My girlfriend's at home right now. She's not here and she's in Mexico right now. And you learn about like, how deep is your love?

Are you getting distracted because they're not there? Are you paying more attention? You know, are you proud of yourself for the actions you take when they don't see you? So I'm I'm thinking of those things more and more.

And I think it could be easy to be excited when you're together.

But then when you have time apart, out of sight, out of mind, do you still care? And think about that person.

Do you still show up with details and attention and love and commitment and compassion because it tests you when you have a lot of time?

Yeah. And so it's yeah. It's a yeah. What it says to me also in agreement with everything you said is, is also like I feel like real friends, people that even if you don't see them for some time, maybe years, it could be years, you just pick up where you left off because the relationship is so strong in the in between. The spacing between didn't affect it because you care about that person, you get their heart.

And I have friends like that back in London that I know that even if we don't talk for months and right now I haven't been back to England for like seven, eight months. Right back up. But you just pick it back up. And I love that steam. And I think there's so much truth in that.

OK, one more thing. In relationships that you want to cut me off. Yeah, I just did an interview with a guy named Steffon Speakes who who shared his stuff, who shared a concept that I believe you shared something very similar and one of our interviews where he said.

He said three things I asked about three things I said chemistry, connection, compatibility, and you've talked about chemistry and compatibility before and I think chemistry. But I said, can you be in a relationship? Can it work long term where you're truly fulfilled without one of these things?

And he said, yes, compatibility. You don't need compatibility to be fully like magnets.

He's like, but you can't do it with just connection and compatibility alone. You need chemistry. Otherwise, it's a different type of relationship. It's just like you need the chemistry because connection. He was like, connection can be like you can get a group of people, a sports team together. They may not like each other, but you can teach them how to build a connection bike to work together.

They may not be compatible, but you can teach that and they can be successful.

But in an intimate relationship, you need chemistry. You need to be drawn to each other. You can't just say and this is why you hear all these people say, these girls say, gosh, you look great on paper. Like he checked every box off my list. He was the perfect guy.

But there was just something missing that spark, that chemistry.

And it's you can make it work, but you're never going to be truly like this is the person I want to be with. Yeah. Because of chemistry. So that was interesting of of his perspective on chemistry and connection. You don't necessarily need compatibility because sometimes the opposites attract. And you can if you have chemistry, you'll sacrifice and go to the ballet. If you don't want to, you'll you'll watch a movie in Spanish because you love your partner.

If you don't have chemistry, you're more resentful of trying to do more for that person just because you don't have the chemistry. You're just like, OK, well, I have to do this right.

As opposed to of course, I would love to do this because I love it with so much chemistry. So that was his perspective, which I thought was interesting. I love that this is great, by the way. OK, now the next one that I want to ask you is who has given you the best money in finance masterclass advice?

I know you've had some incredible like. Yeah, I like to meet in cash, man.

It's the first thing that came to mind is Sara Blakely and Grant Cardone.

There's a lot of them, but those are just part of my mind.

Sara Blakely says something interesting to me. She said, For years I think I was seven years she was working as a door to door. Fax machine or copy machine salesperson, where she would go to offices, knock on the door and say, I'm selling you this fax machine, seven years, I think it was, how long was she had an idea to do this legging thing for women called Spanx and.

She said the idea would have never happened without my dad asking me a question every day when I come home from school and at the dinner table, and she she said, my dad asked me, what did you fail at today? And she wouldn't really be celebrated unless she failed at something.

And her dad, instilling that in her, said, I would not have gone and kept failing at this idea. I would have kept my job and been door to door for probably 30 years or whatever. But because I had this idea of it's it's all learning. It's not failure that allowed me to grow. And now she's a self-made billionaire. So that is kind of a mindset thing. And I would say I think money is all about mindset. Greencard down.

When I had him on, he had a fund that was like one hundred million dollars fund that he turned into one point three billion, I think in the next year and a half when I had him on again and I challenged him, I said, why are you not at a billion dollars when you had one hundred million? And I said, what would it take for you to get there if you needed to get there in the next few months?

He's like, it's just not possible. It's not possible to go that fast, that big, that fast.

And I go, but what would it take if you had to if your life is on the line, your kid's life or whatever? Like if there was a way, what would that way be? I remember sitting there just being like kind of frustrated that I was asking that question, but also like because like, OK, well, and he starts thinking he's unlocking his mind.

Like, if I had to do it, what would I do?

Well, I would find this person. I would do this. And he just started unlocking something new.

And it was almost like he never thought of that.

It would be possible that quick that he didn't allow his mind to imagine the possibilities.

So I. I truly believe that money is all around imagination and mindset because I never was never thought I'd be an entrepreneur. I never thought I would make any money. I was like, I'm going to get a job and I'll just take whatever people give me. I was like, why would anyone ever give me money?

A lot of it was I just didn't believe in myself and I didn't think I had skills that I could package and sell.

And once I shifted that, I just started learning about money more and what it really is, I was like, OK, this isn't that hard.

Once you get past that initial, like someone giving you one hundred dollars, then I was like, oh, I can do this over and over again and how do I multiply?

So I say those two ideas, there's a brilliant and this is great.

Everyone's getting recommendations. So we've already had recommendations of Matthew Hussey. Rob Bell, Stephanie Speaks episode Grant Cardone, Sara Blakely. These are all great recommendations. If episode's going to listen to right now anyone who's listening or watching and is asking questions about relationships, money, for me, it's like I always think of like the three biggest decisions we make in our life, how we feel about ourselves, who we give our love to and what we do for money.

Like there's a three biggest decisions. You're going to see you.

Just a great way of framing everything. You know, it's like what we what was the first one? The first one is how we feel about ourself. Like what you said. Yeah, that's one of the biggest decisions you make. The second one is who you give your love to and who you get love from. And the third one is what you do for money.

And and the and the fourth one is how you serve the world.

Who have you interviewed that you think is really found a unique or different way? Because I know you've interviewed like philanthropies and charity people like is there been anyone who like I would say I would add a fifth one to that. Yeah. What do you do to take care of your health? Yes. Like mental and physical health. How are you taking care of your physical body to have the energy to then. Absolutely give love and receive love. But sorry to cut that question.

No, no, no, that's good. No, it's good. So actually, let's do both those questions. So who's given the best advice on service and making a difference in the world, not just advice, but someone who may be doing something really amazing. Adam Braun for me is someone I think of instantly. He had the idea to honor his grandmother, who was a Holocaust survivor and say, I wanted to do something good in the world.

I want to build a school for kids. I want to help kids in need. I want to honor my grandmother by having it named after her, the school. He built one school. And now I think they've built, I don't know, three or four hundred schools.

And when I interviewed him, just his way of thinking about service was so much greater than me at the time. I was just like, man, his life is truly on purpose.

Like this is the essence of our purpose is Adam Braun and his commitment to serving his cause, which was education for all, because he believed that education were educated.

We can make better decisions. We can have better tools, resources, we can help our family help ourselves. And as so many people that aren't educated in the world. So and you've been out to Guatemala? I've been to Guatemala four times.

I've been to Ghana once, have been a lousy wants to build schools and just be a part of it. And I've been doing it for seven, eight years now, so. You know, we can't solve every problem in the world, there's a lot of causes that we could, sir, and I think we have to find out what lights us up, like the pain in our heart. I go back to your book like you find the pain in your heart and lean into that.

For me, being in a school that didn't work for me is painful. Like school is a painful thing. So how do we make it fun as the podcast?

And how do I give back to kids who just don't even have a structure or a teacher in their setting like who don't speak my language, how can I serve in that way? And so that's why I was drawn to pencil promise and Adam and how he just like such on a mission for it.

So for me it's pretty inspiring.

I love them. And then you added the fifth one, which I agree with. Who's given you the most interesting, like physical well-being insight? Because you've been an athlete, you are an athlete, you've consistently you understand your body really well. You know, you you love taking your body to the extreme. Yeah. Who's on your mind to who in the podcast has given you, like, physical health advice or insight that kind of change the way you saw someone recently and Dr.

Ronder Patrick, who is really inspiring.

She's been she's like a human guinea pig. She wears like I think it's a glucose meter or something where she everything she eats, she tracks like her blood levels to say like, OK, she's studying food and nutrition all day, looking at every research paper. So Rhonda Patrick was really inspiring. Mark Harmon I've had on a few times. He's great. I think you're getting married to him just two days ago. Oh, you did? Yeah, he's great.

So, Dr. Gounder, he's great. There's a lot of great experts out there. Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing.

What I love about your podcast is a thousand episodes is no small achievement, like genuinely like. I'm glad that we're celebrating it together and I want this to be a celebration. Like, I want everyone who's listening to this podcast to go and listen to an episode of Lewis's podcast. Everyone's listening to this one. Go and listen to an episode of this, the one that we did the recent one.

You can see it's pretty amazing because I feel like I get the best out of you from I mean, you got more of me that day and we're doing around two. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing. And it was such a weird day too. But it's crazy.

But but no, I really feel like the reason why I Louise, these questions that I wanted you to hear, the breadth of guidance and the depth of audience and the fact that you've done a thousand episodes and you still remember insights and you do well at school, shows that you've built the school that you needed.

Right. Because when you're interested in topics and you find the right teacher and it inspires you, you're willing to retain more information.

And I trust me, I've forgotten way more than I've remembered. But but that's what it's about.

Yeah. I think it's I think something that I learned from you is like we should always be learning, should always be learning from everyone. We should always be learning from ourselves on what's working, what's not working. And we should always be seeking different ways to learn whether it be like I'm going to discover, I'm going to listen to something new that I wouldn't normally do. I'm going to read a chapter in a book that I normally want to read.

I'm going to go schedule a meeting with someone that I normally is not in my industry. And I think if we can learn in those ways, we're always going to be full of life.

It's when we stop learning and start thinking, we have it all figured out in our space or in our life and relationships.

That's when we start to lose our life or we become full of life when we have more knowledge and richness to it.

So, yeah, you're a you're a great mentor in the fact like you have dedicated her life to learning.

You know, you went you you went away to essentially stop normal life, to go be a lifelong learner as a monk.

And then you came back and you continue to do it and then you share with the world, which is a beautiful life man. Oh, no.

I thank you for paving the way for podcasts like mine. I genuinely like without the School of Greatness being such a legacy podcast, like podcasts like mine that I knew I wouldn't. You know, you you're part of creating the community, an audience of people aspiring to learn these things. Right. Like you've been a part of that. And that's not, you know, and whether you like hearing or not, I want you to know that I appreciate it because, you know, I used to watch you do your thing before we even knew each other.

So I had seen your books. I had seen your work. I followed you on social media. I you know, for me, it was like you were and are a leader in this space and have paved the way for so many more people to do it. Yeah. And, you know, you've interviewed everyone, like you said, from doctors to health experts to Kevin Hart and Kobe Bryant, Mike Tyson.

I said, you know, the breadth of the people that you've interviewed and the depth, the Bernie Browns and, you know, so many incredible guests, Brendon Bouchard and so many other of our mutual friends, like, I just feel like it takes a lot to keep going for something for this long. And I know it's not easy. Yeah, and I've you've been doing it for a year and a half now, you know how much work it is just for.

I mean, the podcast is potentially some of the hardest work.

It's so much energy time, so much energy and time and longevity is something that. You know, it's not easy, it's so easy to run and I've heard you say this before, like you started podcast for like six episodes and no one listens to people. Close it down. You make videos for ten and no one likes it. So you close it down and, you know, to keep going for a thousand episodes and to keep growing. Like you just said to me, you know, we just had I was saying to you, we just had our biggest month last month on the news that you just had.

And it's like the fact that after a thousand episodes, you're still having your biggest month shows that you're doing something right.

It's crazy, man. I just feel very grateful because it's something I still enjoy. And the moment I stop enjoying it is the moment I have to shift when I'm doing because I think or have someone else host or whatever it may be. But I see myself wanting to do it for another five years because. I was asking questions, dumb questions as a five year old, 15 year old, twenty five, thirty seven now and I don't feel like I'm ever going to know the answers.

Yeah, I'm going to know some answers and I want to have some tools.

There's always got to be a different tool or different way to look at things. And as our society evolves, I mean, look at everything that's happened in Black Lives Matter and political world.

And as things just our health with the coronavirus, like as things evolve and information becomes more accessible, we need to learn these things to evolve as a society.

How can we be better human beings? How can we strengthen our bodies and our immune system? How can we heal ourselves when there's so much seeming trauma in the air?

How do we protect our own inner thoughts? There's always going to be something we need to learn. And that's why I'm I'm always going to be a humble student and servant. I love the man. The perfection, perfection of life.

That's the prevention of life. The humble servant man and a humble student. Yeah, I love it. Lewis, I want to give you your final five, which the final five questions that we ask on on the bus. And these are the first five. The questions usually answered with one word or one sentence, one word or one sentence. Correct.

OK, we'll probably go into a few of these answers because I know I'm going to love them and be interested. What are the top three questions that you think you ask a lot of guests that give you their heart? And how can people choose to ask those questions in their own life? It's usually before the interview I ask everyone, is there anything off limits? And if they say no, then I say, then do I have permission to go anywhere and everywhere to make this the most powerful conversation you've ever had to ground them?

So asking people for permission, I think is a great question. Do I have permission to ask you some challenging questions that are going to help me and help us connect more to information to maybe about stuff you would never talk about, like asking for permission? I think it's a powerful question. Second question that I. I'm such an against the question of what do you do? Where did you go to school? What's your work?

I'm just like over that question because I've been in so many networking events and that's what I get all the time that I try to just ask a question that most people would never think to hear or get when they meet someone new, which is. Simple stuff like what are you most grateful for right now? What are you most excited about in your life right now? What's something you wish you were doing that you're not doing right now that would excite you?

Any one of those three gets people to, like, stop, pause, and they almost always look up. Yeah, because I have to search for it, yeah. It's not a quick response.

So I'm in marketing, I'm in this it whatever it's let me connect to like a higher source to my heart's like a dream for a second. And if you get people to dream and connect to the heart, they're always going to get deeper into the relationship and deeper into the conversation that by the end of this five, ten minute conversation, they're going to go away saying that's the most interesting person I've met today. And you didn't have to say anything.

You don't have to show off. You don't want to talk about yourself.

You just have to ask a better question. So that would be the second one, the third one. What are you most proud of in your life? I think people really like to think about the things they're proud of and also things about what they're not proud of. So get some focused on how they can become better.

So those three things. I love those men, OK? The number one challenge for everyone watching right now, I want you to ask those three questions to someone in your life because they're such easy questions to ask.

And actually even the permission question is so beautiful because it's going to allow that person to open up to you to be more vulnerable.

Yeah, I love that. Yeah. Yeah. It's going to it's going to improve vulnerability in your life. Yes. So, everyone, I want you to find one person this week that you're going to ask those three questions to because they're beautiful. OK, great. Second question for you is what d what is something in life that you're certain about that you think other people would disagree with you on?

I mean, something I grew up in, which is a a philosophy, a religion, a mindset that two things.

One, I grew up in a religion called Christian Science, which is actually the same religion that Alan grew up in.

Her dad passed away a couple of years ago and he was a Christian Scientist till the day he died. She did a nice little memorial on TV talking about it.

But Allen had some challenges in the religion because extreme Christian Scientist, I would say, do not support like same sex relationships. So I think there was some challenge there that was really like struggling for her. And I'm no longer, let's say, in the religion, per say, but I believe in some of the philosophies that have taught me early on.

I don't believe with all of it, but there's some of it. No one is. We are just an idea. We are thoughts and we.

Our spiritual thoughts. And we can heal the physical body through spiritual thought, so that's one thing idea that I think people will say, well, I don't agree with that because we're matter this and the right.

And my grandfather used to tell me. That Christian Science also stands for.

The letters also stand for common sense and that if you are in pain, if you've broken something, you know, go to the hospital, get a set, take medicine if you need to, so you can get back to a place of a peaceful mind and then heal yourself with your thoughts. Yeah. So it's funny coming back and doing the podcast now, hearing guys like Joe Dispenza disappear and all these other great and yourself talking about like it's all in the thought is in the mind.

It's like how you think about yourself and how you reflect about yourself and your imagination that I'm like, this is all stuff I heard growing up in the stage.

And so I truly believe that we are spiritual ideas, even though I wrestle with it sometimes when I feel physical stuff and I'm in a physical body.

But we are led by our spiritual thought. The second thing. There is a lesson my dad taught me as well. He never celebrated my birthday, and I think you've seen a video of me talking about love this year. And I remember when I was like nine or 10, I was upset around my birthday time and I was like, Dad, why don't we celebrate my birthday?

Do you not love me? And my friends have the kids in school have like birthday parties and this and that. They get cake and balloons and presents. And I never got anything. And I was like, do you not love me?

And he said, I love you very much, but I, I love you so much that I don't want to celebrate your age because I'd never want you to be limited by how young or how old you are, because so many people that he knew would always say, I'm too old to do this, I'm too young to do this.

I could never do this. My time has passed.

And I was like, you can still buy me a cake. Dad gave me out ice cream, but he did. He just celebrated me in other ways.

But that lesson has stuck with me because it was painful and it hurt me that it didn't happen for many years. But when I learned the lesson, I started to really appreciate and say, you know what, you're right. Like I was an early teenager was like, screw it. I can be a varsity as a freshman. Like, who cares if these guys are four years older than me? I've been working harder for the last four years. I can play with these guys like I never doubted myself, my abilities to have a shot at something.

And I think it was like this.

I don't know, just I just didn't have a programming that limited me early on and certain things, I'm sure I'm limited in other ways, but it wasn't holding me back from going after what I wanted.

And I think that never has held me back from, like launching a book or a podcast or events like things I'd never done in my life. I didn't know how to do it, didn't stop me from trying. So I was grateful for those ideas.

Those are amazing. Yeah, those are big ones. That deep ones I love.

It's interesting what you were saying about your father and and it's really about understanding why he did it, which is what makes it so interesting and and why they didn't explain it for years until I came to him and said, do you not love me?

And I felt that was OK with my parents, too. Like, we never really celebrated my achievement. So we always celebrate my birthday. But if I achieved something, we didn't really celebrate it. So if I got good grades, I was like, OK, if I got straight A's, there was like it was expected, it was expected that I would do something like that, not because I always did, but just because it was kind of taken, not taken for granted, but expected is the right word.

And so. I don't think they did this consciously, but what it did for me, and this is partly why I think it's always about how you perceive something, the way I took that is it stopped me seeking their validation because they never had a big response to what I was doing. I just started having my own response to what I was doing. So I stopped wanting them or needing them to be proud or to be excited for me or anything because I was just going to give that to myself.

So that was was that a good thing, that they did not acknowledge your accomplishments or.

I think for me, I took it as a great thing. And then the other thing that it gave me was I always stopped being complacent because because we didn't overexaggerate a celebration, I could always gradually go, OK, what's next? What am I going to build next? What am I going to focus next? And I think my wife definitely has more of a celebratory aspect in my life. You've been to me. Yeah, we do need to.

I mean, you were like, OK, it's done. Go. Yeah, bigger. Better. It's not good enough. Like, we need to like. OK, let's take a moment. Yeah, exactly. You were at my surprise party two years ago, by the way. If you want to get out, Jase, good side. He loves birthdays, so send him a nice gift or something or just a nice card and he will remember it for.

Yeah.

Meaningful, meaningful. Ask me something that I like. My, my, my definition of a gift is something that I wouldn't get for myself right now.

And so it doesn't have random card is a meaningful game Tony, because I thought to myself to say to myself, you know, I appreciate birthdays because my parents always did a big thing on birthdays.

But yeah, you've been to my parties and my wife has really brought celebration to my life because she comes from a family where they celebrate a lot. But anyway, OK, that is question number two, going back to OK, number three is a question that I know people would love to hear from you if someone. Wants to start reading, what, a three books that you would recommend that have had a big impact on your life?

I mean, I've only read about 15 books in my life from cover to cover. So the ones have been in part for me is the alchemist, which I think is one of your favorite love. If the alchemist, I think, you know, comes back to like the treasure in our heart and what started within us and like just discovering that and finding that.

And I think so often we get comparison game, we get off track, we get distraction game where we don't remember, like, what's our true legend inside of us? That's that's one I would say.

I'm not I mean, I'm not say this because you're here, I think you're both things like a monk is seriously just like an amazing like I want to keep going through it because it's just like every two pages has an example, a model of framework where you can apply to your life. So I think that's the modern version of probably like 10 to 20 books of the past in the personal growth space and in this kind of mindset space that I think is going to be the standard for the next 10 years.

So I'd say that one and I would say there's a book that just popped in my mind called Influence by Robert Cialdini. Oh yeah. Which which I just believe. So much about life is understanding human nature and human psychology and human behavior. You and I study human behavior a lot. And so much of this is it doesn't matter how talented you are, you can't influence someone to see your talent or to buy your talent or to watch your talent or read your talent.

It doesn't matter unless you learn how to influence in an ethical, moral way other people to desire something that you can create, whether that's influenced people to desire you in an intimate relationship, a friendship, you know, your family members. So they desire, like all these things, understanding these are the seven areas of how to influence people on anything.

And I learned this back when I was learning online marketing, when I was making no money. I read this book and it gave me the tools to then say, I have an idea how do we get people to buy into this idea? It's the same strategies that politicians use. And, you know, when people are trying to build a campaign.

So Amazon uses these strategies like every big company uses these kind of seven or eight key factors of influence. And so I say that book, it's a much more dense, kind of like research based stuff that you would like.

It's not an easy read, but it's like it tells all the research behind it.

Also those three. All right. Thank you, man. I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Question number four and five four is what's the biggest lesson you've learned in the last 12 months, trying to think of the right word?

I think it's I think it's patience.

It's it's probably patience. Coupled with. What's the word? Just not trying not to react and constantly put myself in another person's shoes, it's just like a lack of patience and perspective and not reacting when someone else is trying to come at you. Yeah, so it's been really challenging, but it's like teaching. I've been learning how to do that better to just breathe, make sure. And when I react it's like, oh, I didn't follow the meditation in the morning, I need to meditate words like.

So just having patience and more perspective, it's been the big lesson.

I love them. OK, and fifth and final question, if you could create a law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be? Cash, the first thing came to my mind was, you have to believe in yourself, because I believe that I believe that self doubt is the killer of every dream and so many of us die with our dreams in the graveyard. We don't have dreams that we have imagination. We don't manifest the imagination.

We don't become the alchemists of our life and create something beautiful, our talent, our gift, our purpose because of doubt.

And if we believed in ourselves more, we would be ruthless in our actions on creating it or at least going for it.

So I'd say the law of believing in yourself and that there is no such thing as self-doubt. That's a first and kind of mind.

But I would also say like just loving and having more compassion, like the law of love and compassion, because that would end every war and every fight and political issues like just having that law of love would be amazing.

Yeah, I love that. Lewis has everyone if you want to read more from Lewis, of course, The School of Greatness, which is his first book, his second book, The Mask of Masculinity. I'm excited for the next one. I felt like a man you could take like anything you said in this podcast, go straight into a new book, some buzzing for that one.

And I just want to say to everyone listening and watching, go and check out the School of Greatness reaching its thousandth episode, which is an insane achievement. I want to celebrate Lewis. I want to celebrate this incredible legacy that he's created and leaving as well and continuing to build. I'm excited to see who else is coming on the show. And I just want to say a big thank you to you, man. This has been so much fun.

It's great. Yeah. One hundredth of one hundred percent.

You need to come back and think of, like, catchphrases for us, like the athlete in the brain or the the mind in the heart or something like got to come together. Yeah. Know for sure. For sure. I love this man. This is so fun. And more than that, I really appreciate you sharing and opening up your story, being vulnerable, because it doesn't matter how many times you've shared it, it's it's always vulnerable. And so it always requires you.

And today, the way you shared it, I fought so. Coached by you through it, that every time you were sharing so many practical insights for us that we can actually do so. Anyone who's listening and watching make sure you go back to the episode and do the activities that Lewis is saying. It's not good enough to just know them and hear them and think, oh, that's cool, actually go and do them and experience the difference in your life.

But, Lewis, thank you, man. Thank you so much. Tagore's both on Instagram with any insights and wisdom that stuck out at Lewis House and at Jayshree Tagus, on Instagram, on Twitter. Tell us what you learned from today's episode, what you're testing, what you're trying. And stay tuned for so many more episodes coming up on purpose. And a big thank you again, Lewis. Thank you so much for doing this.