Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Louis Howe, former pro-athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. Each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now, let the class begin. Welcome Welcome to this special masterclass. We brought some of the top experts in the world to help you unlock the power of your life through this specific theme today. It's going to be powerful, so let's go ahead and dive in. What is the greatest strategies you've discovered in the last couple of years of managing stress, overcoming it, facing it, that some people can start to learn how to implement as well? Okay.

So I happen to be, in my opinion, one of the world's leading experts on anxiety because I struggled with it for a long time. A couple of our kids have had profound bouts with anxiety, and I learned things the hard way. Everything I'm about to share is not medical advice. It is life-tested wisdom from having to dig myself out of mental holes and messes thanks to what used to be very chronic First, let me explain what anxiety is. It is an alarm in your body that is designed to agitate you. That's all that anxiety is. It's an alarm in your body that is designed to agitate you, to wake you up, because that alarm wants to get your attention so that you can focus on giving yourself what you need in that moment. I also want to This is what I'm about to teach everybody and to share with you by saying that a lot of this I have learned recently. One of my favorite experts on this subject is somebody you should bring on this show. His name is Dr. Russ Kennedy. He wrote a book called Anxiety Rx. I have, for the past two years, been in talk therapy, and I have been in guided nervous system therapy like the EMDR.

I have also done some of the psychedelic modalities in a therapeutic setting, MDMA and Ketamine, in terms of my own nervous system, and I've also started adding cold exposure. You're trying it all. I'm trying it all. Whatever it takes. Because I am so sick of living inside a body that feels on edge all the time. I'm tired of having a mind that basically is on a constant campaign for what's wrong. I made a decision that I was going to jump all into this space two years ago. So weekly therapy, EMDR, the ice cold exposure, which is learning how to tolerate basically fight or flight and calm yourself through breathing and through the exposure. I I've done the guided psychedelic stuff in terms of smoothing out my nervous system and learning how to truly, I guess, heal and reprogram my body as it relates to past trauma. And I've done traditional talk therapy. And so from Dr. Russ Kennedy, one of the things that I learned recently that is just amazing is that all anxiety comes from one source.

What's that?

It is when your original alarm went off as a child, and you probably don't even remember because it happens even in moments where you're nonverbal. It's a moment of separation from parent. The original alarm that you felt Well, because that's all that anxiety is. Anxiety is an alarm that's designed to wake your voice up, okay? Because you need something. If you and I are driving down the street, Louis, and all of a sudden a car swerves in our lane, you will feel a wave of adrenaline and anxiety. That alarm goes off to get you to wake the car up.

It's needed.

And turn the car.

To be on alert. Yes.

But when that car is no longer in a lane, the alarm disappears. For people with generalized anxiety or you feel like you're in a chronic state, what's happening is you have an alarm going off in the background all the time.

That seems exhausting.

It is exhausting. And so what's happened for the majority of the population in the past two years, because we are not designed to live with that much sustained uncertainty, is that you right now, I personally believe every human being, unless you are in therapy attacking this, or you have a massive meditation practice, I believe every single human being right now has their alarm turned on internally. Because for months on end, it was sustained uncertainty in the news and a brand new experience with the lockdown. And so, of course, you went into an alarm state. In fact, for those of you that are working in an office where you're still on Zoom calls from 7:00 in the morning till 7:00 at night, that is a company whose culture is in an alarm state. Everything's an emergency. Everything is on fire. Everything is constantly changing. And so what I've learned is this. And so that original The source is separation. Separation meaning you have an experience as a child where you feel separate from the adult and the love that you needed. There is a situation that makes you feel nervous, and then you feel like your parent is not reassuring you.

That's how it begins. This is what I learned from Dr. Kennedy that has changed my freaking life. This is actually what our episode is about, the fourth episode. It's like two hours long We unpack the whole thing. It's just one mind-blowing thing after another. So I, for years, Lewis, chronic anxiety, I would attack it in my thoughts. I would interrupt thoughts, I would reprogram thoughts, and it works. It works to attack the worries, but it doesn't get to the source.

So it's limited. It's like a service level working.

It's part of the toolkit. Yeah, it's part of the toolkit, right? And so I'd get worried about something. I'd be like, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and then I'd think about something else, or I'd reprogram it, and I'd come back. But of course it comes back because you will always have moments in your daily life that give you a wave of alarm. And by the way, anxiety is not just feeling on edge. Anxiety is anger. Anxiety can be withdrawal. Anxiety can be any friction in your body. It manifestsates differently for different people. And so it's like when you go from a state of peace and calm to a state of being in hyper alert, that's what anxiety is. And it's this alarm that's like, Whoa, pay attention. Now, most of us are afraid of it or we don't like it. And so we try to ignore it by drinking or ignore it by being busy or suppress it by just being a people. But it's like this alarm in you that something's up, something's up, something's up. I don't like it. Something is trying to wake your ears up.

What does chronic anxiety feel like?

It It feels like you're a car that's at a intersection, and the light goes green, and your feet are on the gas and the break simultaneously.Oh, man.So you're revved inside. For Anybody that has childhood trauma, it can be an experience, Lewis, and I'm sure you can relate to this, of being on edge waiting for the next year to drop. Having your thoughts be five or six steps ahead. Never being in the room that you're in because you're about what's next. It's very, very common to have very few memories from childhood or from your 20s or your 30s. If you have chronic anxiety or you have some trauma that you haven't addressed, because if you're constantly on what's next, anticipating what's coming, you're never in the room where you are to make those memories. Also, when your nervous system is in a state of alert, the cognitive functioning of your brain is impaired. You're busy looking You're looking for what could be wrong. You might be thinking about the meeting with your boss tomorrow instead of being in the room that you're in.

Yeah, and it's really hard to create from a stress state. You can't. It's very challenging to be creative and flow from stress.

Yes. Now look, it's challenging because it also fuels busyness and drive. Being worried about something can be very motivating. It was for a very long time hardwired into my success, and it kept getting rewarded and rewarded and rewarded.

Because you're getting results.

Yes.

In the external world. But in the internal world, you're still feeling anxious and stressed. Always.

That's why it's never enough. Because I'm not even here to enjoy this conversation. I'm already thinking about the thing I need to do at 2:00. I mean, I'm currently not doing that, but that was my lived reality for a long time due to childhood trauma, due to these feelings of being separate. Here's the huge aha moment. So number one, anxiety is an alarm. Number two, your anxiety is from a moment where you feel separate. You could feel separate from yourself. You could be walking into a huge presentation at a venture capital firm, and you feel separate from the people that are now going to watch the presentation. So you start to feel that wave and that on edge, that alarm go off. The alarm is designed to get you to wake up because you need something in that moment. Here's the kicker. I always thought that anxiety was about what's wrong. Anxiety is the little Louis saying, Hey, I need a little reassurance right now. Hey, I need a little love right now. That's all that it When you can teach yourself in moments where the alarm goes off, Louis, to not race up to your head and start negotiating, it's going to be fine.

These venture capital people are going to love you. That helps on some level to be like, No, I'm excited to do this. I got this, to coach yourself through it. But if you really want to transform your experience of life, go from the shoulders down. Notice nervous that there's an alarm going off, then I want you to realize it's the little you saying, I feel a little nervous right now. Could you just tell me I'm going to be okay? I've gotten to the point where I can just put my hand right here, find the spot that feels right for you, and literally give yourself a little love, as stupid as that sounds. And that alarm goes off. It's freaking nuts.

It's learning how to parent yourself, the wounded child inside of you, you being the adult in the room.

It is. And the big game changer, though, is that it's about needing love from yourself. Because if you're experiencing anxiety, you're also blocking yourself from love and from assurance and from the shit that you need and you might not have gotten as a kid.

What happens if you put your need to be loved on someone or something else?

Then you lose control of it.

Because it's always depending on, do they accept me? Do they like me? Do they invest in me?

Do they hire me? Yeah, do they invest in me? Do they hire me? How do I do? Is my podcast rating high? Every day, you are going to experience moments where that alarm goes off because every single day in life, there is something that will trigger insecurity or feeling separate. One example I can give you that's really simple is I was invited to a little party in my new community. It may It'd be odd to people to hear this, but even though I'm extroverted, I still get nervous when I walk into any networking meeting or any room with a lot of people in it where I'm going to have to introduce myself. There is an experience of feeling separate from everybody. Even walking into a small gathering at somebody's house where I know everybody, the point of which is for me to get to know better. Walking in, I could feel the alarm going off. Having just learned what I learned, I was like, Oh, that's interesting. I'm feeling this noticeable separation. All I need to do is be like, You got this. It's okay that you feel a little nervous. You can take a breath.

You can walk in there when you're ready. It's going to be good. Giving myself exactly what I needed, which was a little love and reassurance, it completely went away. It's powerful. It's really powerful because Because I think most of us that experience waves of anxiety hate it. I hate it. I'm like, I hate this. Get rid of this. Why do I have to be out? I'm going to have anxiety forever. The truth is that when I... Yes, you need talk therapy. Yes, you need to use the five-second rule and interrupt the habit of worrying. And yes, you need to reprogram a different way of talking to yourself. And yes, you need to go and high-five the mirror, which, by the way, is also neck up because you're taking a physical action that then triggers new programming up here. But it all begins with an alarm in the body. So if you want to heal this, you have to start to go neck down. You need to start to learn how to, in those moments, not be annoyed or scared of the alarm, but to actually turn toward it. So that's number one. Go toward the alarm.

Know that it's a call from the little you needing a moment of reassurance or love, and you'll start to spot it all the time now.

And not needing the reassurance from others, but yourself.

No, from yourself.

Because if you only rely on others and they don't give it to you, when you need it, you're going to feel anxious. Yeah.

Well, think I got this. If I were to start to cry right now and tell you that I'm super anxious and something's happened and na, na, na, na, na yourselves.

Or if you're alone and you don't have that person with you, how do you handle it on your own?

You hug yourself. No. Literally take a towel and go like this. It feels like a freaking hug. Put your hands on your heart and take a couple of deep breaths and tell yourself what you would tell somebody else. And the alarm disappears because it's not trying to tell you that something's wrong. The alarm of anxiety is telling you that there is something missing right now for you, and what's missing is a feeling of safety and a feeling of deep connection with self. That's all that's missing. And so when you reframe it as a way to let love in, and that it is a way to let love in from yourself, you start to change the way that your body experiences moments that trigger you from childhood. I think so much of what I am trying to put out into the world is this notion that everything needs to start with addressing these feelings that we have. For me, you want to change your life, there is a very simple formula that's not easy to do. You need to take action before you feel like it. You need to take the actions that the person that has what you really want and deserve in your life, you need to take the same type of actions before you feel like that person.

You must act first, period. That's how you change. When it comes to healing your body and when it comes to anxiety, you have to, instead of running away from it or numbing it because the anxiety feeling is triggering you to grab the alcohol. It's triggering you to get very busy and start running errands, or it's triggering you to turn on the TV or hit the vape pen or hit the joint or whatever. That feeling could be boredom. It could be a sense of overwhelm. It could be insecurity. Because think about what happens. Let's take the example of you're dating and somebody hasn't texted you in a day. They left you unread. You start to get that wave. The alarm goes off. Because what do you need? You need some love and reassurance. But what we do instead is you see that you're still on red and you grab the vape pen. That is you dealing with your anxiety in a destructive way. What do you do? You start scrolling through social media, which makes you feel insecure. That is you trying to distract yourself or numb or whatever, this uncomfortable feeling that you don't know how to deal with.

When really That feeling requires one action. Love. Love from self.

But why is it so hard for so many people to love and accept themselves?

Because when you were a child, love was transactional. You were taught that if you're doing what I want, I love you. We all do it. I did it to my kids, too. I didn't mean to. We all parent. We try to parent through connection, but we tend to correct our kids a lot. And so you learn that if I'm not doing what you want me to do, then you don't like me right now. You don't love me. And we learn that if we are getting into the or we're getting good grades or our team is doing well in sports or we are interested in medicine because dad's interested in medicine, that that's how you earn love. And it's very hard with day-to-day life, not do something that walks your kids up. Yeah.

Because there- Even if you're being conscious and healthy and all these right things, it's hard.

Of course, because you can't read your mind.

You can't- You don't know what they're perceiving and how they take it. Take your conversation and what you said, what you didn't say. Yeah.

And they are learning by observing and absorbing. And so that means that there are going to be moments where they deeply need a hug and they need a quieter tone of voice. And you've just slammed your laptop shut and you've just yelled out something because of somebody being a jerk to you at work. And your kid was standing behind you and needed something. And so I think that That's why we don't actually know how to love ourselves. You have a way that you deal with pain, because when you feel disappointed, that is a form of pain. A lot of us either withdraw from it or we try to expel it in some way, or you try to outrun it.

Yeah. Another thing I was thinking about as you're saying this is figuring out what your main currency is in a relationship, why you want to have a relationship, and your main currency in life. For me, at this season of my life, my main currency is peace, wanting to create and experience peace within me and within my relationship because the world is going to have challenges and disasters and adversities and my business. There's going to be things already thrown at me in my life, but in my relationship, I want peace. She wants adventure and exploration and fun and all these things, but she wants peace as well. I'm like, Okay, cool. I'm cool with all that as long as it's peaceful, too.

Well, one of the things that I'm working on right now, and I don't have the answer to this, is obviously, I know I married an introvert, right? Chris is the definition of peace. That's nice. The guy is a Buddhist meditation instructor. He is getting a master's in transpersonal psychology right now. He leads men's retreats. He's a yoga instructor. He works for hospice. He's about to get a certificate to be a death doula. When you talk about somebody that is deeply spiritual, grounded, introverted person, who really connects with people one-on-one, that's my husband. The thing that I'm really trying to figure out in this next chapter of our marriage, because I feel like in many ways, we are in the beginning of a our second marriage because we have done so much work on ourselves and our kids are now grown up. And there's this opportunity after 28 years to really look at each other with fresh eyes. That's beautiful. It's so beautiful. It's huge. And so there's two things that I want to share that have really helped me. One is, instead of focusing on the things that I don't like about Chris, and there are plenty of he does not like about me, but if he could wave a magic wand, I would change this about my wife, Mel.

One of the things that I've done is to say, well, what is... Describe two moments where you just felt that like, oh, my God, this is my person. And so there are two moments, and this is a great exercise to do. Just think, what are those two moments that really encapsulate just flood of peace and love and safety and connection? And one of them for me with Chris is this. We had just met and we were meeting to go out to dinner after work in New York City. I was standing in front of that flat iron building on 23rd. I love it. I looked up Fifth Ave, and I could see Chris coming. He was wearing a suit, and he had a messenger bag slung along the over his shoulders. He had Raybands on, and he was rollerblading and weaving in and out of traffic because he grew up as a ski racer, and he's a big adventurer. He had this huge smile on his face. It was like strength at play. That was what I felt. Then the second thing that came to mind is that when we first got together, we almost like a couple of months after knowing each other, we went out to Utah to meet his best friend who was already married.

Jeff and Darce live in Idaho. They're basically pioneers. They hunt, they fish, they live in a log cabin, built their own house. They're freaking amazing. We went fishing. There was a freak snowstorm that night. So literally, it started snowing as we're cooking dinner, like in June, dude. I'm thinking, what have I gotten myself into? I go back to the tent and I'm rummaging around for a sweatshirt of some kind, and I noticed my sleeping bag is warm. I flipped the bag open and Chris has filled up one of those Nalgine bottles with hot water. He had boiled on a campfire and stuck it in there like a hot pocket. That's pretty nice.Right?Very thoughtful.

Yes. Those are two memories. I came up with this He's doing an act of service for you. No kidding.

Because that's what he wants. So he's doing the thing he wants.

No kidding. Meanwhile, I'm ignoring him and telling him he's so amazing. He can't even hear it because he wants acts of service because his parents were at home, right? Growing up. I developed an avatar for the behavior in Chris that I love. I call it my trip leader. Because when we're out hiking, when we're on an adventure, Chris is in charge. He has strength at play. He is a caretaker. He's 55 steps ahead of me. I'm the yard sail in the back. That is when he shines. And so it has been super helpful for me to remind myself that he's a trip leader because it makes me take a step back, and it allows him to take a step forward into his power. That's one thing that I've been working on. The second thing that I'm working on is is this sense, you called it peace, and we've talked about this mismatch, and the mismatch being that you might speak different love languages, you might have different values or different lifestyle.Extravert, introvert.Extravert, introvert, all that stuff. That if you are going to work to close that gap somehow without changing one another, realize that your marriage doesn't have to be everything, and it shouldn't be.

For a I started to get nervous because Chris is very introverted. We live in Southern Vermont on the side of a mountain now. I started to realize, I'm actually sad here all the time. A part of me needs this spaciousness, but I have to be around people. Me too. I have to have the buzz. I need to walk somewhere and grab a coffee and see people. Yes, I need to go do something. Not every day. I started to realize, Well, wait a minute. I don't have to turn Chris into the party guy, I can have my friends be that. I can have work be that. I can fill that in different areas instead of being frustrated that this one person isn't filling everything. Really recognizing, I think, what somebody's capacity is, allowing them to step forward in certain roles, but allowing them to be themselves and step back in others and not punishing them for it.

100%.

That is something that I've been... Chris is better at it than I am. He's way more forgiving, he's way kinder, he's more patient. Sure.

He's probably creating boundaries just like you are in your area, which is key.

You know what we've spent the last three therapy sessions talking about?

Boundaries?

No. What? A new puppy.

Getting a new puppy? One of you wants one, one of you doesn't.

The whole family wants a puppy.

But you don't? Chris doesn't. He doesn't. Yes. Because he knows he's going to have to do doing all the work. Yes. He's like, I don't want this. I'm already doing all the work.

Yeah, for the dog that we got two and a half years ago.

Exactly. He's already like, 2 hours of my day is going towards the dog activities, where you guys are off working and doing this and running your lives. It's a lot of big responsibility.

Well, because the puppy is an example of bigger themes.

He doesn't want to abandon himself to please others. Yes. That's probably what he's done for 26 years. Not with everything. I'm sure it's not all like that. But this is what I had to learn in the last two years of therapy, too, is just like, okay, I was always trying to make someone else happy because they were never happy with who I was. They never accepted me, so they always wanted to change me. And so I would change who I am to try to please them. And then after months and months and years, you're like, I'm just abandoning who my real nature is for one human being and dimming my light. I'm not trying to blame anyone here. This is all my responsibility by choosing and staying in relationships. So it's not It's their fault. It's my responsibility to exit or to know this when it happens and have a conscious conversation, calmly and take responsibility and say, No, I'm not going to do this. Are you okay with who I am? But I think creating those boundaries and not abandon yourself is such a key element to healthy relationships. It takes a lot of courage after 26 years for him to start speaking up, probably, about what he needs.

As opposed to just saying, Okay, it'll make all my family happy. I'm going to do this.

Well, he was trained as a kid that his knees don't matter. Absolutely.it's really good for him.It's incredible. It's absolutely incredible. It's a huge gift to have this side of my husband showing up after all of these years. It's a huge gift to me to actually have a partner that's helping me heal and be softer. That's beautiful. And have somebody take care of me. It's just incredible. The thing is that the wrong relationship magnifies your insecurity and your emotional dysregulation. The right relationship with a lot of work helps you heal. Absolutely.

How should we manifest the dreams that we have inside of us? Okay. What's your thoughts about the law of attraction on how to apply it the right way?

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

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

No food in the fridge.

No food in the fridge. You're looking for a job and you're staring at a mansion going, Someday, It's going to make you feel like a loser because the gap between where you are and where you want to go, it seems insurmountable. And so what happens, based on the research, is when you only visualize the end game, Lewis, it's It's motivating. At first, it's really fun to have a bottle of wine and make your collage. I'm going to visualize. I'm going to slap this up. There's my vision board. This is fabulous. Law of attraction, baby. Come on. I'm going to think about it. It's going to come to me. Okay, I've been doing this for two I'm still in this apartment with the cat box that needs to be changed. The way to visualize properly is to visualize the bridge between where you are and where you need to go. The bridge. Yes, and particularly the horrible stuff. Let's use your example of the marathon. The vision board would be Lewis Crossing. The arms up, the metal. Yeah, the arms up, the metal. Exactly. The high fives. Yeah, I did it. High fives, yes, I did it.

Exactly. That will not help you because when you hit Mile 13 on the actual race and it is sleeting rain-You just say, Why am I doing this?

Yes.

It feels nothing like that thing on your vision board. You're going to start a negative dialog. I can't do this. My knees hurt. This is not what I thought it was going to be. I'm not ready for this. I didn't train for this. I'm running New York. I trained in LA. Are you running in New York? La. Okay, good. Well, then at least you're trained in the right weather. So on and on and on, and you are going to tank yourself. What you What you do by visualizing the bridge is you train your nervous system and your mind to do the hard work. So you should visualize not crossing the finish line, but what does it like to be at Mile 12 when your batteries run out on your ear buds. I'm serious. You keep going. What's it like when your shoelace breaks and now your heel is lifting and you're starting to get a blood blister at Mile 17? What's it feel like when you wake up and it is pouring rain and you visualize yourself running anyway. That way, when you visualize the work, you are preparing your body for it so you're not resistant to it when it comes.

Isn't that cool?

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

Yeah, exactly.

Where it seems like I just want to tap out.

Yes.

Instead of tapping out, what's the process for figuring out how to get through it? To then raise my hand at the end, victorious.

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

Visualize sitting in a seminar and learning from other people. Visualize watching YouTube videos. Visualize your first ever course, Failing Miserable. Right. Like, literally, that's the thing that you want to visualize yourself doing and pushing through because that's going to help you do the work. Yeah. Isn't that cool?

I think that's great. Yeah, visualizing. So in order to manifest what you want, don't just visualize the good things happening. Visualize the bridge, all the things it's going to take together.

Yes, and the hard of the Bridge because then you're ready for it. Then you're like, I didn't expect this to be this hard. I mean, it's still going to be hard. But you're less likely to quit. Yes.

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

Well, so I am constantly training my mind to work for me. And there's this little trick that I talk about in the book that is is all the beginning of having a high five attitude. And a high five attitude is the ability to catch yourself when you're going mentally low and to flip yourself back up into a high five attitude. The thing that I know to be true is that you cannot control the things around you. You can't control what's going to happen. You can't even control how your nervous system might respond or what thoughts might pop into your head. But you can always choose what you do and what you make it mean. That's where all the power is. I do this thing where I... This is, again, it's going to sound so dumb, but it's a way for me to introduce you to the power that your mind has to change in real time. We've talked a lot about negative self-taught. And part of the reason why negative self-taught is so crippling is not only because you've repeated it for so long and now it's a pattern. But it's also because you have a filter on your brain called the reticular activity system.

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

And you've experienced this. So have you ever shopped for a car? Yes. Okay, so what's the last car you bought? Tesla. Oh, Tesla. Oh, fancy. I like that.

I never had a nice car until three years ago. I had a $4,000 car for five years before that. Yeah. And then I was like, You know what? I have no Bluetooth. I have no... It's like, I just needed an upgrade. Yeah, I love it. You deserve it.It was a 1991.Dude.

You deserve it.I had a 1991 Cadillac.You deserve it.

I had a 1991 Cadillac, and I was like, Okay, let me buy a car. So I bought a Tesla.

Right. And so before you thought about buying a Tesla, you drive down the road, you don't really think about it. The second you're like, I think I'm interested in a Tesla, what do you see everywhere?Teslas.Yes, everywhere. My husband just bought a pickup truck. I'd never even noticed him. Now, I'm like, There are baby blue pickup trucks everywhere. What is going on? That's the bouncer in your brain. And let me tell you how this works. There are only four things that automatically get through the bouncer in your brain, the R-E-S. Number one, your name. You've experienced being in a crowd of places. You think you hear Louis and you're like, Huh? Somebody call my name? That was the bouncer in your brain. The second thing that always gets let in is any threat to your safety. There are loud noises all the time, but only ones in close proximity make you go like this. That was the bouncer in your brain letting it in. The third thing that gets let in is when you sense that your partner is interested in sex with you or somebody else. You're like, Chris, stop looking at her. You know what I'm saying?

You pick up on the signals. That's the bouncer in your brain. The fourth one, and this is the billion-dollar thing that everybody needs The bouncer in your brain lets in whatever you think is important to you. When you get intentional about telling your brain what's important to you, like, I'm interested in a Tesla, Your brain's literally like, Oh, let all the Teslas in. Come on in. Here's the downside to this. If you have told yourself that you are a bad person for the last 10 years, guess what your brain thinks is important? Examples that mean you're a bad person. I'm going to give you a very specific example. I personally don't think I'm a bad person. I don't think I'm perfect, but I know I do my best. I mean well. I don't have that story about myself at all. I used to, but I don't. Let's say I oversleep and I miss the dentist. I miss the dentist appointment, I'm like, I got to pay the 25 bucks. I got to reschedule that thing. That blows. That's all I think. And then I go on. My daughter, who constantly beats herself up and says she's a bad person, this is a real example, by the way, she oversleeps, misses a dentist appointment, and it becomes, see, I always screw everything up.

I'm always messing things up. Everything that gets let in confirms that you're a bad person.

She finds proof and evidence. Yes.

That's the bouncer in your mind. I'm here to tell you that when you get intentional about what you want to think about yourself, it changes in real time what your brain lets in and what it doesn't. That helps you with the other things that you're doing, the high five in the mirror, the I'm not thinking about that, the pathetic mantra, Hey, just because I missed the dentist appointment doesn't mean I'm a bad person. I'm doing the best I can here. Give myself a break. High five. You know what I'm saying? Shake it off. Get back in there. It's true, right? Because it's It's these little things. Somebody cuts you off. Somebody reaches for the last thing of cereal that you wanted to buy at the grocery store. You think it's like a sign that the world's out to get you. This is all your story and your mind skewing the world to prove All of the stuff you keep repeating. The only way to get a handle on it is to start acting the opposite. Like, high five yourself, even though you don't feel like it. Interrupt the crap that you keep saying. Put your hands on your heart and settle your body down.

All of these things are things that somebody does when they care about themselves, when they think they deserve to be treated with kindness, when they think they deserve support, and when they realize they need it. When you start to build yourself back up, you'll show up very differently in other relationships. Absolutely. If you tolerate this treatment from yourself, you'll tolerate it from other people. It does begin with When you create boundaries, you don't abandon yourself, then you won't abandon yourself with other people either.

You won't let them cross the boundaries. Correct.

If you stand in front of the mirror every single morning and you're like, I look like crap. I am not good enough. I'm unhappy with my life. And then you step into a relationship and somebody leaves you on red and they ghost you for three days. You come to expect that because that's how you believe you think you deserve to be treated. When you in front of a mirror and you're like, Hey, you're awesome. We got this. I got you. I know it's hard. We're going to go do this. Or, Hey, this is a big day today. I've got this huge presentation. I am going to destroy this. You get into it, you're excited. Then you're creating momentum for yourself. Otherwise, what? You're going to stand there and be like, Oh, my God, I'm going to screw this up. I'm not prepared. It's like the negative morning routine. It leads negative actions. Absolutely. This training thing, training your RES. Here's what I want you to do. Starting tomorrow, after you wake up and make your bed and settle your nervous system and high five yourself after setting your intention. Now you're sending yourself into your morning routine in a totally different way with a calm down nervous system and intention and this boost of feeling supported and loved and celebrated.

I want you to find a One naturally occurring heart shape as you go through your day. I saw this in your book. Yeah. It could be a stone, it could be a leaf on the ground, it could be a cloud shape, it could be a coffee stain, it could be an oil stain on the floor of a garage. It could be a spot on a dog walking by. I want you to tell your mind, let's find a heart. Let's see if we can find a heart. Something weird is going to happen. You're going to see something. Then I want you to literally supersize what's going on in your brain. What you do is when you see the heart, I want you to then take a moment and literally congratulate yourself, feel like, Oh, my God, I found it. Whatever you believe in God, the universe, greater connection, you put that there for me, and I found it. I want you to feel this wave of, That's cool. I just saw a heart. Then that positive thing, remember how I told you, the bouncer in your brain pays attention to what's important to you. When you get your nervous system celebratory involved, that makes your brain really pay attention, just like trauma makes your brain pay attention.

It does. So you supercharge the experience by celebrating it and then look for another one in a row. I see hearts all day long. And what happens when you start to play this game is you will start to realize you are walking by an entirely different world every a single day because you're not looking for it. There are opportunities, there are signs, there are mile markers on your path that you are literally tuning out. Yes. We can all sit in this moment, Lewis, and look back and see how the dots of our life connect us here. The coolest thing about practicing the high five habit, this training of finding hearts and the high five attitude, is that you start to ground yourself in the idea that this, too, is a dot on the map of your life, and it is leading you somewhere incredible. When you start to have that high five attitude, that there are signs, whether it's the little hearts that you're now seeing it's your ability to catch guilt or it's your ability to catch guilt, or insecurity or insecurity, or the negative self-taught and be like, No, not going down. Not thinking about that.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Let's get that high five attitude back. I can do this. I can have my own back. It's not going to be perfect, but I can keep going.

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

Yes, I do.

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

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

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

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

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