Lewis Howes - The School Of Greatness

Full transcript: Lewis Howes on London Real

3:52 This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Lewis Howes, the former pro athlete turned entrepreneur, author and broadcaster. Your podcast, The School of Greatness, has over 100 million downloads with guests like Tony Robbins, Kobe Bryant, David Goggins and Terry Crews. You’re the author of two books: the New York Times bestseller of The School of Greatness and your most recent, The Mask of Masculinity.

4:12 Lewis, welcome to London Real. Thanks, Brian, appreciate it, man. Great having you here. You know, I was thinking right before you got here that you and I have probably shared the lives of more key people of influence, you know, than anyone I’ve ever met. You know, we’ve really shared space with, like, all these kind of great, powerful people, powerful people, and that’s, like, really interesting.

4:30 And then I, I love to talk about that. First of all, how does London feel for you? You’re coming from kind of the West Hollywood vibe. What’s this place like? It feels cool.

4:38 I used to date a girl in London, actually, in 2010. I was living in Columbus, Ohio, in a small apartment for 495 a month, and I was dating this girl who I met at a blogging conference, actually, who was a part of, like, a tech startup company. She was a New Zealander that had moved to London, so I would come here for, like, two weeks at a time. Okay. It was in Stockwell, which I think isn’t the best part of town.

5:02 Yeah, but maybe it’s better now, but I would, uh, I would stay in this little apartment with her with three roommates and I would kind of adventure through town, so it’s cool to be back. Okay. I’ve been back for the Olympics as well, but it’s, uh, it’s always interesting. I feel like I’ve found a right time because the sun is out, right? So it feels good.

5:17 Okay. But the weather in California has sold you. It’s amazing. You’re from there, you know what it’s like. So it’s amazing, but I lived in New York City for a year and a half back in 2011 and I fell in love, and this reminds me of New York a lot, especially right here.

5:31 Yeah, like the grungy East Village feeling. So I love this. Yeah, this right around here has kind of the East Village vibe. It’s actually really close to the financial district. It’s kind of the center of tech because rents used to be low.

5:43 It’s still got some graffiti, but it’s changing. And what about New York, why didn’t you stay there? I moved to New York for a dream that was to learn U.S. handball. I saw handball in the Olympics in 2008. I just got done playing professional football and my dream was kind of crushed.

5:59 Being an athlete, that was my identity, right? And I saw handball, for those that don’t know what it is, it’s like water polo on land, and I saw this and I was just like, where’s the sport been my whole life? I was designed to play this sport. The typical build, the strength, the speed, it was like my type of athleticism, and there was no professional league in the United States, and there still isn’t now, but there were club teams around the country, and so I started researching and I found that New York City had the national championship club team, and I said, I gotta go play with the best if I want to be the best.

6:34 So I moved to New York to go learn this sport, to try to make the USA handball team, to try to go to the Olympics, and I was there for a year and a half and then I moved to LA for a girl that didn’t work out. So, wow. And your time in Europe was good? It was amazing. I felt like my life was blowing up in a positive way, everything was working, my business was thriving, I was meeting powerful people, inspiring people, I was getting healthier, everything was getting better, and then I moved to LA and everything crashed really fast.

7:06 Interesting. The day I landed, the girl who wanted me to come out there and be in a relationship in the same city, because she was in LA, we’re doing long distance, she broke up with me the day I landed. Wow. I didn’t have a place to live yet, I got rid of my lease in New York, I just had a couple bags, my laptop and a guitar, and I was like, I told myself I would never move for a girl, and this was the reason why. But I said, I’m gonna try to figure this out.

7:31 Let’s try to figure out this relationship. Let me not try to run away from this and go back. And the next six to seven months was really challenging, up and down. It was kind of like my ayahuasca experience. Everything bad in my life happened.

7:47 I went through this very emotional breakup and this relationship that was just kind of up and down for six months. I went through a business partnership breakup, which I think you might have gone through a partnership breakup back in the day, and that was really tough because we were building this multi-million dollar business, but then our visions started to go in different ways and our egos clashed, and then, um, I was getting in a lot of just arguments and fights with everyone. It was kind of like I was looking to pick a fight.

8:18 You know, like when you used to walk into a bar, you got mad, you just wanted to bump into someone because you were looking to pick a fight. I was doing that in all of my life, and so I got into a couple fights playing basketball, and I remember just saying, like, what is wrong with me? You know, why am I so aggressive? Why am I so angry? Why is, why is the common denominator me in every situation in my life that things aren’t going well?

8:41 And you could see that though, a lot of people don’t see that. No, I didn’t see it for a while until my, I got in this fight on a basketball court, and it was a really scary moment for me because I didn’t realize how strong I actually was when I kind of let go of everything and got into a fight. It was a dark place. You didn’t have a history of fighting? I got in one fight when I was 13.

9:00 Okay. And I was some other teenager, but that was my two only fights. I was able to get this out in football. You know, I was able to legally destroy people, right? Because you grab them and throw them in the ground, you hit them hard, body slam people, head butt them as hard as you want to, full speed tackle, whatever you need to, and, um, I got all my aggression out for two hours a day in practice.

9:20 So when I had no more football and when everything was going against me, I didn’t know how to express my emotions. I didn’t know how to communicate them in a healthier version. I didn’t know how to get it out, so I would play sports and I’d still want to fight. And this, this pickup game happens, pick-up game, and you’re being physically, you, you play physical anyway. Play very physical.

9:44 I was playing against a bigger guy, so it was five on five street ball, playing against a bigger guy that I’ve never met before. He was older than me, bigger than me, and it was getting very, it was a tie game, both teams were tied, and for people that aren’t from America, also on the West Coast, there’s a lot of smack talking. Street basketball, all it is is you suck, your mom this, you’re horrible, you’re weak, you’re soft, everything, right? So if you’re already triggered emotionally, and like I was at the time, I took everything personally, everything was an attack against my life.

10:19 Didn’t matter if they, like, elbowed me a little bit, said something, I wanted to destroy people. That’s the place I was out in my life, and we were both fouling each other pretty hard, you know, we’re playing down, uh, in the pivot position, we were both fouling each other hard, but it was okay, we were both fouling each other, and it was going back and forth, it was a tight game, we were both talking smack, but it got down to the last point and I fouled him pretty hard when he was going up for a layup, so he didn’t score to win the game, and he just snapped and he headbutted me. Headbutted you?

10:51 Headbutted. That’s no joke. So this wasn’t like a foul, this was, he turned around and straight up head-butting me, like in the nose and the head, right in the head, and I remember just saying, it was just like everything in my life that I was frustrated about just came in a moment, and I just went like Incredible Hulk, just like, and just started pounding this guy UFC style on the ground on the court. Blood everywhere, and it was just like the most adrenaline I’ve ever felt.

11:20 I was so angry and I just unleashed it on this moment, and luckily my friend, uh, was playing with, on my team, he grabbed me and pulled us apart pretty quickly, so didn’t get too crazy, and I remember being so angry in that moment, and he looked at me and he goes, Lewis, you need to leave because the police station is right across the street. And as I go back, I go back to my home, I remember thinking to myself, like, what is wrong with me? I look myself in the mirror, I’m shaking, looking in the mirror myself because I don’t recognize who I am, you know, my knuckles are bloody and I’m just like washing the blood off my, my knuckles.

12:01 I’m like, I’m a 30 year old man getting in a street fight playing pickup basketball. There’s nothing at stake here. This is supposed to be fun, this is supposed to be enjoyable on a Wednesday night, and I’m getting upset over stupid little things, and I was getting upset at everything in my life, yet I was making millions. I had all these accomplishments and awards, you know, people wanted to be my friend, all these things were happening on the outside that looked really good, but on the inside I was suffering and felt so alone and I didn’t know why.

12:33 And afterwards my friend who broke up the fight, he talked to me and he said, I don’t want to play basketball with you again and I don’t want to hang out with you anymore. This is a friend of mine for over a decade that I played college football with, who is, you know, part of my life in a big way, and when my best friend says, I don’t want to be your friend anymore, that was a big wake-up call. Like, I could lose all the money and all these other things, but when your closest friend says, I don’t like the person you’re becoming, it’s like, whoa, something’s, I need to change.

13:07 And it was huge for me, he really stood for me by, by saying that. Yeah, and some of the best gifts he could give you. Amazing. Yeah, it was amazing. School of Greatness hadn’t started yet?

13:16 Um, or just a little bit? No, it hadn’t started yet. So my question is, what do you do with all that info? So I remember saying, okay, I need to look within, like, I need to look within and see what’s going on. I didn’t know what was going on, I just thought this was who I was, that I was an aggressive person.

13:35 I thought people didn’t understand me and this is who I was. So I started to reach out to all the therapists, friends I knew, asking for people who I should talk to. I started going to Tony Robbins events and other emotional intelligence workshops. I was like, I’m willing to try anything, and I tried it all. I didn’t do ayahuasca, but I tried a lot of stuff, everything but, everything but drugs, right?

13:58 Okay. And there was one workshop I went to where it was a five-day experience, full days, 10, 12-hour days. It was essentially a small group, about 50 people, and the first half of the workshop the facilitator was having us address everything from our past, like all the things that frustrated us, that, that we defined as, like, a frustrating moment, the stories we told ourselves. So we would address things about our parents. It was a lot of role playing, a lot of exercises, games to kind of reenact your past so that you could be aware of how you showed up and how it affected you.

14:37 It was a lot of a realization for that, and we went through, we went pretty deep on everything, you know, we went, we went there, and about the halfway mark of this five-day workshop, the facilitator says, okay, we’ve addressed everything from your past and now we’re going to get clear on what you want for your future, for your relationships, your finances, your career, how you want your life to be moving forward. We’re going to let go of the old and create the new. And I said, great.

15:04 And he said, but if anyone has anything to share that they have not yet shared yet, now is the moment because we’re moving forward. And so I’m thinking to myself, I talked about, you know, my parents going through their divorce and always being in a toxic relationship and facing that as a kid and what that was like, but most of the room had, you know, parents who were divorced as well. I talked about my brother, how he was in prison for four and a half years for selling drugs to an undercover cop when I was eight years old and I wasn’t allowed to have friends during that time, for four years, and how that affected me.

15:35 I talked about being in the special needs classes, having a second grade reading level in eighth grade and being picked on at school the whole time. I talked about all these things, breakups that I went through and all this stuff, and for whatever reason that moment flashed in my mind of something that happened when I was a kid that I’ve never told anyone, and I just said, why have I never talked about this? Why is this haunting me my whole life, but no one’s ever heard about it?

16:02 And I just think it was because the moment, and I was willing to do the work and discover what was, you know, what was going on with me, that I was like, I just need to get this out. So I stood up in front of everyone. I remember I couldn’t look anyone in the eyes, so I just stand up and I’m staring down on the ground the whole time because I’m so ashamed of what I’m about to say, and I look down at the carpet and I, for the first time, open up and tell the story about how I was sexually abused when I was five by a man that I didn’t know.

16:31 And I remember just explaining everything, the details, from the, the way the room looked to the smell, the taste, the experience, the feel, everything. I just shared it all, and it was 25 years after the event happened, and I remember walking back to my chair and right when I sat down it was just like I erupted with tears. I couldn’t control the feeling, the emotion, I was bursting, it was like I was just howling. Thankfully there was, like, two women on each side of me that were just, like, they were hugging me and they were crying.

17:07 Everyone was kind of like in shock because I don’t think they’d really seen a guy look like me talk about being sexually abused. You know, for those who don’t hear in person, I’m 6’4″, I’m a big athlete-looking guy, and I look like the high school quarterback. Exactly, right. Yeah, and I look, you know, I’ve never seen other people open about this on TV or on social media, I’ve never seen other men who were tall, straight men, athletic guys, open up about these things, and so I just felt my whole life that I was the only one.

17:41 No one ever talked about it, so it must be only me, so there must be something wrong with me. So I was really ashamed and felt like I was always being abused. I didn’t know that was one of the main reasons until I started to open up and, and go through it all, but I think it’s why in every relationship I felt like I needed to be right, I needed to win every argument, in every sports game I had to win at all costs, and if I lost I was the worst loser in the world.

18:11 It was like an attack on my identity, everything was a personal attack against me. That’s what I, that’s what I felt. And when I started to open up about this, everything changed, everything started to change because it gave me a sense of peace and freedom that I never felt before. I used to always be up at night laying in bed for hours and I didn’t know why, I just felt like, I guess I can’t sleep, and it wasn’t until after I started to really process these emotions and start to heal from the trauma, it’s like I can go to bed in a few minutes and I just have a sense of inner peace that I’ve never felt before, and it’s been an incredible journey in the last five and a half, almost six years now, once I started to share the darkest secrets that I didn’t want anyone to know because I was ashamed of, and once I started to go through it and address it and talk about it with every one of my family members and every one of my friends, that’s when I started to heal.

19:09 And I remember telling my friends and being really afraid of what they were gonna think about me, like they weren’t gonna love me anymore, they weren’t gonna accept me, and one by one I told my family and one by one I told my friends, and it’s like people trusted me even more, they loved me even more, and I always felt like, man, that’s so crazy because you were always taught as a, as a boy, at least in America, to not show your emotions, to not be affectionate with other men, to not put your arm around a man, otherwise you’re looked at as gay or weak or soft or whatever word they want to use, and so I was always conditioned to be more aggressive and be less loving when all I wanted to do was be more loving all the time. And it’s been a, it’s been a beautiful journey, and I remember being very scared before I would talk about it with friends, and start kind of like my heart would pump, I was like trembling and just very nervous and insecure before I would tell them, but I knew I needed to tell them.

20:07 And eventually my friends were like, you need, you should. So now my podcast has come out, it’s been out for about five or six months during this process of discovery and everything happening, and my, my friends go, you should open up about this on your podcast, and I go, there’s no freaking way I’m going to tell the world about, you know, these experiences. Like, my family has to love me, my friends hopefully accept me, the world, that’s a scary subject.

20:35 Isn’t that weird because you haven’t met the world? I know, but it’s crazy, and I was like, well, if this ruins my business, my reputation, I was so worried about what people think about me, the opinions of other people, and a few months go by and I realized, like, hmm, because I’m scared I need to do this, because I’m terrified of what people are to think, that’s why I need to do it even more, and it became a mission and a duty of mine. And it sounds like this is something for your documentary as well, that it’s become more of a mission and a duty to open up about stuff you went through 20, almost 20 years ago that you never shared with anyone, the shame, the insecurity.

21:13 And I remember recording an episode, the episode was actually five years ago, I’m in the five year anniversary next week, and, um, I open up about it and it takes me about three months to publish this because I’m still so nervous. I record it, I wait, and I remember publishing it, finally feeling like, okay, I’m ready, I publish it. at, like, 10 o’clock at night, I send out one tweet. I wake up the next morning with hundreds of messages from men sending me essays about all their sexual abuse experiences, and I was just blown away that it’s happened to so many men.

21:53 Right, it’s less frequent with men, but men don’t have any form to talk about it. Zero form to talk about it. Now there’s some places you can talk about, reign.com106.org. One in six men have been sexually abused, I think, at least in America, um, compared to one in four women. One in four women?

22:08 Okay. And, um, I think it’s just a topic that people don’t talk about because there’s so much shame, especially with men. Yeah, it’s a lot of baggage. So much baggage, so much shame, and how do you talk about it? You know, when I was five it wasn’t like I really knew what was happening, and it wasn’t like you go up to your parents and say, you don’t have these intelligent conversations as a five-year-old.

22:30 I just knew something really weird happened and it affected me, and I didn’t know when do you open up about it? You know, your parents aren’t really asking you like, hey, if you’ve ever been touched, let me know. It just wasn’t the thing we talked about. Yeah. So I think it’s been, uh, it’s been an incredible journey because I look at my life before I was 30 and after 30, because I never had peace inside before I was 30.

22:54 And now I cultivate it every day. And it was because you understood that moment in your life and you came out and you could talk about it and start to process it. I think it was that moment, in every moment, because there was a lot of things I was holding on to. I wasn’t forgiving a lot of people, I was angry about a lot of people from my past. You know, I did everything to prove people wrong and I was driven.

23:15 Got you a long way. Anger is the second most powerful fuel in the world, I think, because I would sacrifice my body, I would sacrifice sleep, anything to prove people wrong, and yet it was never enough, right? It never made me feel good inside. Maybe for a moment I felt like, yes, I proved them wrong, and not always be angry afterwards. I was like, I still need a bigger goal to reach, I need more money, I need bigger accomplishments.

23:41 It was never enough to make me feel fulfilled, and that’s what I started to learn about after I, I forgave and healed everything from my past, of all the people that I felt took advantage of me or hurt me or said something or whatever it may be, whether it was accurate or not, I just said, I’m forgiving everyone. I wrote everyone letters, uh, I didn’t send them to them, but I just wrote them letters. I journaled, I did ceremonies, I would burn the letters, I would bury them to start something new.

24:08 I was doing my own spiritual ayahuasca, you know, experiences to really process and grieve, and then the most important person I had to forgive was myself. You know, I would beat myself up over and over again constantly about that situation, number five, or just everything, everything that I’m stupid, that I’m not enough, that I’m horrible. I didn’t accept myself. I wish I were dead constantly, I would say that all the time. I wish I were dead, I wish I would.

24:33 You said that when you were a kid, right? All the time, seven, eight years old, all the time, saying that to the principal, I wish I was dead. That’s it. And I just feel like, I don’t know, I felt like once I started to process it all and heal it all, then I could have peace. Okay.

24:49 And that was, that was key. Have there been bumps along the way in that integration process, or has it been, no, I’m a perfect human being, but it’s been mostly positive. It’s been mostly positive. I mean, listen, I think relationships are our greatest teacher, and, uh, you know, I still go through experiences with family and friends and intimate partners where I get triggered, but I’m much more aware of everything that I do and I’m quicker to acknowledge the mistakes I make and take full ownership for everything that I do.

25:21 I just say, you’re right, it’s my bad, I made a mistake, I apologize, you know, let’s move forward. Yeah, well, I appreciate you talking about this, and I know you just dropped a podcast, like, today, where you go, like, you to the microphone for, like, under an hour, just about an hour, talking about all this, because until I started digging into you, I didn’t know, you know, I knew, I’ve watched all, you know, many of your shows if not all, but I didn’t know this detail about you because there’s a lot of other stuff to focus on, you know, athlete and all these other things, and you’re on Ellen, you’re doing the Facebook show, but I, and I was like, whoa, and I appreciate you talking about it because again this kind of, uh, and let’s be honest about the image, I mean, you do have a certain image of this all-American guy, successful former athlete, and when you can talk about it, it opens the doors up a lot to a lot of other men and women around the world, and I know this for a reason.

26:09 So last year a guy came on my show, John Joseph, right, former lead singer of the hardcore punk band the Cro-Mags, right? It doesn’t get more kind of alpha than that, whatever that means, right? Uh, ten-time Ironman finisher, right? Um, also former Hare Krishna monk from the streets of New York, like really lived on the streets, right? And so he challenges me to do an Ironman race, and in the process of training for that in New York City, a lot of my past comes out, and it was really helpful that John had spoken openly about his own sexual abuse when he was in foster care as a kid, and he wrote this book called The Diary of a Crowmag Nun in 2006, and he said, Brian, he said, I must have wrote this chapter over and over, six months in a row, crying, crying, crying again.

26:50 Hard street New York guy having to talk about the stuff that, you know, that he had to talk about, some of the stuff you talked about, and that was really hard for him, and just open up about that was a really big deal. And so for me, having John being able to talk about that stuff, it helped me talk about it. So there’s a point in the movie where we’re at New York City, my crew, we’re at this Airbnb, I’m in the bedroom crying, John’s about to come over and we know this is the time where I’m going to tell John all about this.

27:16 Wow. My crew doesn’t know about this. They saw me the day before on a, on a bike test, uh, sweating, which turned into tears on this bike, and they’re like, what the f*** happening? But I’ve never seen you cry, Brian. They’ve been with me for six years, and, um, I had all these bad memories of New York City because New York City is where I failed, it’s where I threw everything away, it’s where I overdosed, it’s where all my dreams, everything went to s***.

27:37 I let all my friends down, my girlfriend left me four years, my best buddy from MIT fired me, never talked to me again, all these triggers, and I’m just getting triggered. Oh, man, I hated going back there, I didn’t want to go back, and I think John knew that. He’s like, why don’t you come to New York? So I sit on the sofa with him and it’s two guys talking about their traumas, and if John hadn’t had talked about the sexual abuse, I don’t know if I would have told him about it.

27:58 Now of course there’s cameras watching and now, you know, millions of people know, but it was really helpful. And again, I had some of the same reaction. So we have the footage in the can, we come back and we’re like, all right, what do we do with it? We decide to do a weekly series about me training it, and then, like, what do we do, do we just say it’s an addiction, do it? And then I’m just like, guys, we have to come all out.

28:17 And then I remember my wife, you know, I actually, I actually brought the crew over to her and I had to tell her. Of course I filmed her while I’m telling her, she’s still mad about that, but I said, look, babe, because she didn’t know. She didn’t know, and I was 16 years, it was inside because, like, it’s a shameful thing, you know, heroin is the street drug, not this MIT graduate banker guy and not this together guy. Again, what’s it going to do for my business, London Real and everything?

28:41 And then I went, I remember I went to the studio Saturday night and I wrote this four page email about it, title, My Heroin Overdose, and just, like, came out, and of course we were dropping the episode the next day. Wow. But again, same thing you said, and I preach vulnerability, I talk about it, all my great guests on London Real, you love them because they’re vulnerable. Yeah, right, and I appreciate you being vulnerable, right out. It’s almost a hallmark of our show, and yet for me it’s hard to take your own medicine.

29:05 But again, again, the emails I got, just like you said, like pages and pages and pages of people with, you know, objections, addictions, problems, friends, fathers, successful people, and it, it’s opened up so much stuff, and now I almost lead with it. I’m now so comfortable talking about it. Sometimes I make my guests uncomfortable. Before the show I’ll be like, I did a movie last year about my Ironman race and my heroin overdose, and they’re like, what?

29:29 I’m right there with you though, this is my life. So, right, you say now you’re with me, but it’s really empowering to talk about, so I appreciate you talking of course. Um, your book, The Mask of Masculinity, I guess it was kind of born out of a lot of this stuff. It was okay. I felt like the more I, when I talked about it on my podcast, and it’s the second most visited, uh, link on my site still today, you know, that podcast, that episode, and I think I got the response from so many men who said, I’ve been married for 30 years with five kids, no one knows, my wife doesn’t know, my kids don’t know, this is what happened to me when I was seven, when I was 11.

30:05 So men just opened up to me and I was just like, I was on an emotional, I don’t know, it was just hangover for weeks because of the letters I was getting. I’m not a trained therapist, I don’t know what to say to people, all I can say is what’s worked for me and what I went through. So I felt the weight of the world from all these men who were brave enough to just email me, let alone all the men who didn’t say anything but maybe felt pain and didn’t know how to communicate it, and that’s when I felt like, okay, what I do next needs to be for humanity at the biggest level.

30:39 It’s not going to be sexy, it’s not going to make me money, it’s not going to be the popular thing. Everyone told me not to do it, but I said, this is something that I need to do for me and to serve men and the women who are with men who maybe might be guarded all the time or might get angry or might feel like they never open up. How do you get through to the men like that? Yeah, how can we understand the men in our lives, our fathers, our brothers, our uncles, our husbands, you know, the women who are with them?

31:05 I just felt like it was a duty of mine, and then so for the next year and a half I was like, I’m not gonna make money around this thing, but it’s gonna bring me the most enjoyment and fulfillment ever, and if I can serve a thousand people, ten thousand, fifty thousand people in a deep, meaningful way, then it’s worth it for me, and so everything stemmed from, from that space of trying to continue to share my story, share other people’s stories in the book, and give men tools to kind of break free to be more vulnerable and give women tools to understand the men in their lives better. Yeah, yeah, big conversation these days about masculinity. Oh, man, it’s crazy.

31:42 Let’s talk about that a bit. Crazy. I mean, we both had guests on, I’ve had Jordan Peterson on, so if you have had Elliot Holson recently, who’s gone really big into the masculinity thing, um, I had Rose McGowan here. Yeah, yeah, she talked about that, everything, the Me Too movement, and I, and I also, I asked her about collateral damage with the Me Too movement. You know, I had Neil deGrasse Tyson, one of my first guys on the show, big guys at the time, five years ago, um, he’s in my TED Talk, and I was telling her, I’m like, it feels like there’s collateral damage here because his Cosmos 2 show was put on hold, and, like, I didn’t know the details but when I looked at it, it just, it looked thin, and I was just like, okay, Rose, what about that stuff?

32:21 And I felt like I had to ask her, and she said, you know, you’re right, Brian, she’s like, that’s not okay, the collateral damage, but she’s like, I had to talk about this stuff and talk about my feelings. And so you just see a lot of people these days talking about male, female, good, bad. How do you jump into that discussion or how should we look at that discussion because it’s very emotional as well? Yeah, it’s very emotional. I think it’s tough too for I suffer a lot of people, you know, and even for me, like, I’m a very loving guy, I feel like I’m very nice to everyone, but even when that happened, the basketball court, exactly, but that was, that was the old me, but even when I wrote that book and came out with it, there was, like, women who were like, yeah, but you hugged me too long, and I, you know, I’m like, well, I don’t know, don’t hug me when you come up to hug me, you know, it’s like, and then they try to pose, if they get upset with about you, they just want to say whatever they want to say, and people can say anything and it looks like it’s true but there’s no proof, so that’s the thing that’s challenging.

33:14 There’s some men out there, uh, nothing’s happened to me, but I mean there’s some men out there where there’s a lot of allegations, but it’s like, well, maybe that woman was just upset with you, didn’t like what you did or didn’t do, and they’re gonna say something. Yeah, and they can kind of smear them without any proof of it actually happening, and maybe it didn’t happen, I’m not saying it did either way, but it’s like the court of public opinion is taught, it’s really tough, tricky, and so I think that’s the collateral damage, that, like, a lot of people can just say what they want and people judge and trust it really quickly without actually knowing what’s true. I think it’s just messy, and I talked about this last night in the speech I was giving, we got to get back to just being human beings and just understanding that we’re all human and sometimes things aren’t perfect.

33:58 Yes, there are boundaries and those should never be crossed, but I don’t know, it’s just like there’s some silly stuff, like, I don’t know, it’s like I think it, it, it all has to be, like, a nuanced conversation, and, like, you know, um, I know, you know, Jack Dorsey’s been making the rounds lately, and overall Twitter is a beautiful thing but it also is horrible because it sets everything down to a sound bite and an image and a meme, and you can’t understand someone like that, and you know even Rose McGowan, I mean, you got to spend an hour and a half with her and you understand what she’s about, you’re like, okay, I get it. Um, otherwise it’s easy to see her as the short-haired woman that just wants to kill everybody. Exactly.

34:34 And, um, it is all about a nuanced long-form conversation to understand who we are as humans. Yeah, and there’s, like, you know, there’s also, like, the double, double stigma too, like I interviewed a very influential, powerful, famous, uh, older woman, uh, one time, I’m not gonna mention who because for me it wasn’t a big deal, but right when she walked in, she’s a big TV personality, like, people would know her name, right when she walked in she goes, wow, you are beautiful, you were stunning. She’s like, I like them tall and hung.

35:05 Like, she was saying things that I was like, this is funny to me, right? This is like, okay, no big deal, whatever, we’re, she’s friendly, but if the things was reversed, if a man said that to a woman and she didn’t stop, she went on and on for the next hour, very flirtatious, very, you know, would make someone feel very uncomfortable if they weren’t confident with who they were. I remember thinking to myself, like, this is fine, like, I don’t really care because it’s harmless, but if I was saying this to a woman right now, it would be spread around the world as, like, I’m the most horrible man ever for just saying something, and that’s what’s tough, there’s, like, a double stigma, you know.

35:45 So, yeah, and your career would be over, over for, like, five, ten years, right, unless I did something to come back. So I think it’s, it’s challenging because you have to be so sensitive and careful. I’m very careful about what I say because everything’s recorded. I’m very careful about the questions I ask, my responses, because that’s the time we’re in. I think it’s unfortunate, but I think it’s also good to make sure that people are held accountable, and that’s what is important.

36:10 I think at some point we got to get back to being human beings. Yeah, you know, what about then social justice and the Twitter wars and the mania, like, what do people do about that? I mean, you’re on these mediums. I am. Yeah, we’re publishing content.

36:23 Okay, we’re publishing longer form content, but still, like, what do you do to not be a part of that or how do we address that? It’s tough because, it’s tough because it seems like the world is judging people sometimes on one thing that’s happened as opposed to their career work, you know, from one thing that you said and then discounting everything you’ve done in the last six, seven years of the show if you messed up, right? It’s like, and that’s what’s challenging.

36:48 I’ve tried to distance myself from social media by allowing my team to have a criteria to post things everywhere for me just so I’m not going to react ever or slip up in any way. It’s like, let me step back and allow my team to have a structure and format, which maybe is less personal, I’m still, like, responding to comments, whatever, but I’m just not posting. Right, but we don’t want the vanilla version of Lewis or me. Or, exactly, exactly. But I mean, I think right now you’ve got to be a little vanilla, I think, unless you’re Jordan Peterson, he can get away with it or something, you know, or, uh, um, gosh, what’s his name, Ben Shapiro, it’s like, yeah, Joe Rogan, I feel like these guys can, they’ve been this way the whole time.

37:27 True. And so I don’t know, like Donald Trump, he can kind of get away, like, anything he says. Yeah, in a sense, but it’s like they’ve been this way, this isn’t who they are, but if I’m coming from a place of positivity and inspiration and I say one thing off that, um, my whole work is criticized, but this is kind of the new normal, and so crazy, you know, used to be court of law and things had to be proven, now that doesn’t really matter. Well, I mean, even with Neverland, Leaving Neverland, did you see this documentary?

37:54 Yeah, yeah. What did you think of that? Because, all right, all right, this is crazy, man, because we know, this is crazy. So I watched this last week, this is why I redid this episode of my show talking about my whole journey. Was it hard to watch or decide to watch it?

38:07 It was so hard to, I mean, it was beautifully shot, so I was admiring the work. Okay. And the storytelling, it’s unbelievable. I mean, the storytelling, it’s beautifully shot, it’s four hours long, but I, I could have watched another four hours. There are two men who were allegedly sexually abused for many, many years by Michael Jackson.

38:32 I believe them fully because everything they were saying, you can’t make that stuff up, about the feelings you have, the emotions, how you felt during this time. I was just nodding my head every time they were talking, I was like, wow, that’s how I felt. So I just believe them based on, there’s proof that they were sleeping in Michael Jackson’s bed for many nights, for many years, and all the things they said after that, I was just like, wow, that’s, you can’t just make that up.

39:00 So it was, uh, it was really sad. It was very sad for me because I’m a big fan of Michael Jackson. Right, of course. But now I’m just like, this really sucks. Okay.

39:10 Really sucks because these kids were, here’s the thing, you know, in the, in the documentary both the kids were like, well, they said that Michael Jackson and these boys that God brought them together and this is how we show our love together, this is how we express our love for each other, so it’s never like Michael Jackson like forced them to do anything, it’s not like he’s slamming him up against walls or whatever. It was a manipulation, and when you’re a seven-year-old and God is telling you this is how we show our love for each other, and God, who’s Michael Jackson, is giving you attention, it’s really sad to, um, to know that that was happening for, for many, many years for lots of kids. Um, so I’m just sad by it.

39:54 Okay. Really sad. All right, made you angry too? Maybe angry because there’s so many boys that are facing this and they don’t know how to talk about it. Lots of boys, and these are 25, 35 year old men now talking about it, right, and how it’s affected every decision of their life, their relationships, their careers, everything has been affected because one man decided to sexually abuse them, and I looked at myself and said, wow, my whole life was shaped by these feelings, these emotions, by this action that happened.

40:26 I didn’t have control. I’m now able to process it and take full ownership and responsibility for my emotions and my feelings now, and I’m actually grateful that it happened to me because I feel deep sense of love and compassion for people and I feel a deep sense of wanting to inspire and impact humanity in the biggest ways possible. That brings me the most fulfillment, so I don’t think I would be this person without that experience, and I’m grateful for, so grateful that I was sexually abused because I, I feel like it gives me a superpower of caring and a desire to lift humanity up and make sure that this stuff doesn’t happen to people, or if it does, to support them in healing faster.

41:10 Otherwise I don’t know what I’d be doing. It gives me a deeper mission and a purpose, and I’m grateful for, for those lessons. I don’t wish it on anyone. Right, but I’m grateful. Because you were in that less powerful position and now you have empathy for anybody that was like that.

41:23 Absolutely, from men and women, all people, you know, I don’t want to happen to anyone. Right. I just can only relate to, to men who aren’t, who feel like they’re unable to express themselves, and I think the statistic is 45 or 48 percent of men in America said that they don’t have one male friend that they can open up to about everything. They might have a guy friend that they can go to the bar or watch a game with or have a beer with or whatever, but they don’t have one male friend.

41:53 Almost 50 percent of men say that they can’t open up about everything in their life. For me that’s really sad. Yeah. So when I go and do speeches and talk, and did talks about this, the rooms were usually 50-50 men and women, and I’d ask the men of the room, raise your hand if you know, once a month, you talk to your guy friends about your emotional challenges, your marriage challenges, your insecurities, your fears. Maybe, like, one or two guys would raise their hands, and I’d say, are you guys in a church group that it’s like scheduled and forced and, like, given to you guys?

42:27 And they’re like, yes. Most of them were in a church group where you meet with a group of men once a month to start to talk, like a Bible study. And I say for the ladies in the room, raise your hand if you do this every single day, you have lunch with a girlfriend, a group of girls, you talk about your marriage challenges, your body issues, challenges, your insecurities. Almost everyone raises their hand for every day or every week that they have girlfriends that they can talk to, right?

42:51 So it’s just not as success, accessible and acceptable for men. I’m not saying men do do this, but I think less men are willing to open up, and that for me, I just want men to know that they’re allowed to open up and find some, a safe place they can do that for anything going on. How can we get more men to do this, and is it about identifying some of those masks, to see which mask you’re wearing, uh, or how do we do that? I think it’s, well, I think most of, I think most of us men just don’t want to address that there’s anything wrong with us.

43:21 I thought I was perfect. I had such a big ego. I was just like, this is just who I am, don’t try to change me, you know, it’s not working. We’re taught we’re aggressive, we’re independent. Exactly.

43:29 I mean, look at the Hollywood movies, Rambo. Yeah, all that stuff. Well, and also look at the results I was getting. I was two-sport All-American, I was a professional athlete, world record holder, I was making millions of dollars, I was with beautiful women. Look at my results, my results speak for themselves, right?

43:48 Everything is based on results. So I was like, why do I need to change anything? Everything’s working, everything’s getting better on the outside, but I was suffering and always alone on the inside, and so I think I just was unwilling to address my inner feelings, my inner emotions, because the anger was fueling me to drive me to get these results. Second most powerful fuel in the world, the most powerful is inner peace and love. Okay.

44:12 And when we come in and we come from a place of love and a pure vision to lift others up as opposed to be at the top and make sure everyone else is below us, we flip the script and everything comes in our favor. Everything works in our favor to, to serve others, so that’s when everything changed, when I started to say, I’m no longer going to need to be right in every situation, need to win every game. I was so competitive. I still am very competitive, but I don’t need it for my identity to feel okay.

44:46 When I was no longer willing to be right and prove everyone wrong and win at everything, and I said, you know what, I’m gonna lift everyone up, I’m gonna make everyone else around me better, I’m gonna serve everyone’s needs and put them above and make sure that they’re being met as well. Once I started to do that, everything changed. The level of fulfillment I felt was unbelievable, the level of love, abundance, more things started to come my way, more opportunities came my way, and I just feel like when we live a life of service, it’s a beautiful experience, then when we’re only trying to serve ourselves and no one else.

45:22 It’s a tough message to put out there when it competes with the American dream both of us grew up on and capitalism and the bling and all of that stuff. I know, but you will make more money trying to help other people achieve their goals. I know that now, but it took me a long time to figure that out. And we, short term, don’t reward that, and anger in the short term gets more results, doesn’t it? It fuels you.

45:44 It feels good for a second. Yeah, and a lot of the success we see is anger, you know. Yeah, look at our president, you know, people. Yeah, some people say he’s pretty angry. It looks like it, I don’t know, and again it looks like he’s getting things done.

45:55 I don’t know. Big results, right? Right, right, that’s what it looks like. Is there a place for anger in your life? Should you dance with anger?

46:02 No, there’s definitely good, there’s good to have anger, that I’ve learned in small moments. There’s a book, what is it called, The Dark Side of something, which is about the power of, like, these negative emotions. Okay. So I think anger can trigger us to make a different action, you know, if you’re not happy with your life, get angry about it and start doing something. I think it should be like the starter fuel, but it shouldn’t be the fuel that you keep running on, you know, on the cross-country trip, you got to burn out.

46:29 It can get you started, it could just say, I need to make a change, I’m angry that I’m 100 pounds overweight, I should get angry, I should be angry with myself, now what am I going to do about it? Let’s get started. I was coming from a positive place on how I’m going to sustain this. Same thing about your career, I’m angry that I’ve made these decisions in my career, that I’ve stayed at this job that I don’t like anymore, I’m angry about it, let me move out of it, let me focus on my vision.

46:53 What does the most beautiful career life look like for me? Let me focus on that loving experience and work from that place, so I think it’s powerful. Same thing with a relationship, I’m angry I’ve been this way in a relationship, I’m going to make a change, I want to get better, what are the steps, right? But if you stay with it, it’ll burn you out. I think it burns really.

47:12 Yeah, it’s hard, I mean, you know, yeah, you know, it’s like, it’s hard to be healthy from a place of anger. It’s hard to love people when you’re angry. You can’t be grateful and angry at the same time, and gratitude for me is a place of where I bring abundance and love and opportunities. Yeah. And peace, when you’re angry you’re not in peace.

47:37 About your abuse, if that didn’t happen, how different would you be now than, than without it? Would you still be a driven guy? Would you still be the, the, I don’t know, pro athlete? I would say dawn now. Okay, I guess we’ll never know.

47:49 Yeah, we’ll never know. I think, um, I think there was two moments in my life, really three moments of my life that shaped me from being very driven. One was sexually abused, two was my brother going to prison, and my family, we would visit him almost every weekend, we would drive two hours to go to the prison to visit. Intense. And so I would sit in a big waiting room.

48:11 You’re eight years old? Eight to twelve. Yeah. Okay. And so I would, I would sit in a waiting room with, I don’t know, 30 other convicts and their families, and I would walk around and, like, talk to people, and I would ask my brother, what did he do, what did that guy do, and hear all the stories about the things these men did, but yet when I would meet them they seemed pretty nice, like they were friendly to me, so it was weird, it was this paradox.

48:33 I was like, this murderer was kind and smiling, this rapist was kind and smart, like it was a paradox. So I got to see humanity in a very interesting way at a very young age, and I was like, my brother is a loving, kind guy but he just made a mistake, he sold some drugs to an undercover cop, and in the 90s it was the war against drugs and, you know, the Midwest or whatever in America, and they sentenced him for six to 25 years, he got out in four and a half in good behavior, but I was like, my brother’s a nice, loving guy, should he be in here? I don’t know.

49:10 So that was a moment that shaped me, and I told you before I’ve never been drunk or high, and so it was a moment where I was like, man, I just never want to go to prison because the stories I heard were just so dark and so sad. From your brother? Yeah, and just, like, from convicts, and I’ve done some workshops and prisons over the last year as well, I’ve done different stuff with inmates, and it’s just sad. You just, it’s really sad. The funny thing is about prison, there are some inmates who are, who are emotionally free, who have forgiven themselves, who have, like, forgiven their past, everything they’ve done, taking full ownership, and they’re emotionally free but they’re behind bars, and there are people in the outside world who have all the money in the world, who have the dream life and are free physically but emotionally and their hearts are behind a prison.

49:59 It’s interesting, right? We can choose how we want to feel in any moment no matter what is happening in our physical situation, so that moment was very powerful for me to experience that for years. And then the third moment was when my, my father got into an accident. I was 21. He was in a, he was on vacation in New Zealand with his fiancee at the time, and he got in a car accident and we didn’t know if he was gonna live or die.

50:26 It was in the middle of my senior year playing football, and he was in a coma for three months, so this was, like, my hero, my mentor, my coach, my, you know, the person who funded everything, the person was there for me spiritually, everything, he showed up at every game, traveled the country to watch me, and then he decided to go take a trip and he was going to miss a couple football games my senior year, and he got in this accident and was going to coma my whole season, and when he woke up, he woke up on Thanksgiving, and he came back home and he’s never been the same person. So he’s still alive today, but for years we would try to get him to get back to that place of who he was, but the brain trauma was so, so much that it just kind of took his personality, it could took his identity, and he just doesn’t have a passion for life, he, you know, has amnesia, so he forgets a lot from the past, he says the same things over and over, so it’s very sad to see my dad in that position, and it’s like I lost my dad that day, you know, he’s still here physically but he, he’s kind of dead emotionally, with, with the connection-wise, and he was always my back-up plan.

51:37 I went to go play professional football probably six months after that and I got injured really quickly, and so I was on my sister’s couch, I had no money, I was living off, uh, I had student loans I was paying off, I was living off three credit cards, and I didn’t have my dad to reach out to for advice, for, you know, financial. I was going to work at his place when his company, when I was done, but he had to sell the business because of his injury, and so I didn’t have that backup plan and I didn’t have my father who was my mentor, who was like the counselor for me, and that was a really dark period for me because I just didn’t know what to do. So for about a year and a half I just kind of sat around and was depressed for a bit.

52:21 Self-esteem drops, drops everything. I mean, I was out of shape, I was in a cast for six months because I had the surgery, I was, my whole identity was wrapped around sports, and now I can no longer go be the guy to score the touchdowns in front of 10,000 people anymore, so who was I, who was I in the world? And although it was probably like one of the darkest moments for me, was losing my dad in that way emotionally, I also don’t think I’d be here without that experience because it was like the back against the wall moment for me where something snapped, where I was like, I’ve got to figure out this way, I’ve got to figure out how to be an entrepreneur, to live life on my own terms, I’ve got to figure out how to make, I never knew how to make money before that, I was making 250 a week playing football, so I was like, how am I going to make money?

53:10 I’ve got no skills, I didn’t have a college degree, who would ever pay me for anything? And I don’t know, something about being that low in that moment and not having that kind of financial backing or resource that I was used to, it just tapped into something inside of my soul, some type of creativity, some type of drive that was like, I’m going to make something of myself, I don’t know what it’s going to be yet, but I’m going to figure it out, and I’m never going to be broke again. So if my dad was in that, in a healthier place, I don’t think I’d be serving humanity the way I am.

53:44 Right, he’d be working for his company, and you’re doing that. Maybe I’ll be doing something else, but I wouldn’t be as driven to make an impact. Right. And to, to make sure that I’m always financially free, I don’t think I would be, so it’s like, again, the paradox where I wish he was still around, I wish I could have conversations with him, I wish I could hang out with him, you know, I wish I could do these things, but at the same time, the impact I’m able to make because of that experience, I don’t think would be happening.

54:15 I don’t think I would have opened up about sexual abuse, I don’t think I’d be writing books, I don’t think I’d be doing my show, I wouldn’t be chasing my dreams in this way, and, um, so those three experiences really shaped my drive. Those are big ones. Yeah, you said you reached into your soul and that pretty much describes probably what you did because you got no background in any of that stuff, nothing. Do you think everybody has that, where they can reach in there and pull out a lot of it out of the hat?

54:41 I think so. You know, when I was five I would actually sit and watch football with my dad, actually, and that’s when I had my first dream of being an All-American athlete because he was like, man, those All-American athletes on, on the, you know, on the Ohio State football team, he was always talking about them, and I was like, I want to be whatever he’s talking about, you know, I wanted to, like, impress my dad. And one of my first memories is being sexually abused with a man, it was my first sexual experience with, with a man, even though I’m straight, and I remember from five until, I don’t know, 18, I just always felt like I was created for something bigger because I was always lonely, I didn’t have many friends growing up, I was in the special needs classes, I was just like, I wish I were dead, but I’m not going to kill myself because I think I’m creative for something more, so again that paradox was like, I wish some, you know, I wasn’t feeling this, but it’s supposed to be happening because something greater is going to come from this, and luckily I didn’t do anything stupid when I was younger, and I think I made a lot of dumb mistakes, but I’m still here and I’ve learned a lot from those mistakes and that’s what I’m really grateful for, but there was always that call that I’m created for something greater, and I think a lot of people have that, they’re just not willing to listen to it and they don’t believe it, and I think I allowed my the belief inside of me to take a hold of it stronger than the, the hatred that I had towards myself,

56:11 And I just listened more to the belief. Now, School of Greatness was created on that sofa, I guess. Yeah, as a means of lifting you up off of it, you creating your own university to take you to the next level. I remember school just being this horrible time for me and I couldn’t wait till the bell would ring so I can go practice the sport I was playing. That was the only reason I was in school was to play sports, and I just kept saying to myself, I wish they were teaching me stuff that was valuable, because all these other things I could care less about, sports was a valuable skill.

56:42 There’s teamwork, there was leadership, there was responsibility, there was commitment, there was goal setting, it was everything that you need in life. And so when I was on my sister’s couch I remember thinking, what am I going to do now? How am I going to figure out how to make money, all these things? And I said, I need to go learn the things that I wish they would have taught me in school my whole life. So I’m gonna go find the most successful people.

57:04 I started using LinkedIn at the time to research, like, who are the leaders in Columbus, Ohio, which is where I was at, who are the business leaders, the thought leaders, and I started emailing them all and then I started taking one-on-one meetings and interviewing them, but I wasn’t recording these at the time. Okay. I was just interviewing people and I was like, wow, you did this, you did that, that’s incredible, and they started telling me everything, and I would never ask people for advice because the worst way to go about it, so if you’re looking for a mentor, never ask for advice from someone, don’t ask them to be your mentor.

57:34 Exactly. Don’t say, can I just have five minutes of your time, and ask, you’re asking for advice, or pick your brain, will you mentor me? Don’t ask for that. The best way to get into the door if you want someone to mentor you is to say, I’m so inspired by your story, I’d love to hear the moment that everything shifted and how you got out of it to get to where you’re at, I’d love to hear your story of success and how you did it. People are much more inclined to share their success than to give you five minutes of their time to give you advice.

58:03 They’re giving you the same thing, but you’re just reframing it a little differently. How did you figure that out? I don’t know, I think I just intuitively, I think I probably asked for advice early on and, and it didn’t work, no one would respond to me, and then I was just like, I need to do better research. I started researching all their career on their LinkedIn profile, I remember being like, how did you get the jump from, like, an associate executive to, like, VP of this company?

58:27 And I was like, what happened in that gap? I’d love to hear your story about that. So I started researching better and asking different questions and people were willing to share. Oh yeah, that was a really challenging time and, here’s what, people love to talk about themselves, you know, and, um, especially the moments where there were game changers for them. So I started to do that for years, I was just interviewing people from all walks of life, from my successful athlete friends, business leaders, spiritual thought leaders, because I was on a journey to discover who was I in the world.

58:58 And you were recording one? I wasn’t recording, that just interviewed, like, writing them down or just sitting with them and meeting with them, calling them on the phone. Okay. And just, like, okay, okay, I’m gonna take this in and I’m gonna take action. And they thought it might be published or no?

59:12 They didn’t know it’s gonna be recording, it was just like, I wanna learn about your story. Okay, wow, no recording. I should have recorded them. And I remember saying after about two years of this, three years ago, gosh, I’m learning so much and it’s helping me make millions of dollars, it’s helping me get in the best shape of my life, it’s helping me have better relationships, the world needs to hear these things from these people. When I said I need to start recording them and I’m going to create the school I wish I would have attended growing up, so I want to call this The School of Greatness, all the things I wish I would have learned growing up, and that’s where it started, six years ago, six years in a couple months, 750 plus episodes, over 100 million downloads, and it’s just, you know, it’s like you, it just keeps growing, man.

59:56 We’re trying to do the same thing, just impact people. It’s weird how you see different people from around the world doing it in their own signature way. Yeah, and it becomes very personal, isn’t it? Yeah, interesting. You know, basically it’s two people, two mics, uploaded to iTunes and YouTube, and yet you have completely different experiences.

1:00:15 Yeah, and I love what you’ve done here, man, this is really inspiring because I think the world needs your point of view and you have a different experience and different life perspective and you bring so much out of people that truly transforms lives, from this content to the, uh, the eight week master classes you guys do to the documentaries, so it’s really inspiring. Thank you, man, appreciate it. Of course. How has School of Greatness changed over the years?

1:00:40 Did it become something you never thought it would be? Dude, it’s been crazy, and probably the same thing with you, you never thought you’d be at this place, probably. But I remember after six months of doing the show, you know, started with one episode and one listener, right, and now for people to understand that, and now it’s, yeah, six years and a hundred million listens and, you know, almost a thousand episodes or whatever. Um, I remember after six months, maybe it was the six or nine month mark, somewhere around there, is when I dropped the episode of being sexually abused, and after that I really started to interview differently.

1:01:17 I had a lot more empathy and compassion and I cared deeper about the people I was interviewing. It’s funny, the first six months was all about, like, how do we be the best in the world, how do you win at everything, it was like much more competitive sounding, and then people just started to email me and say, there’s something different about what you do, there’s something different about your questions, about how you’re, you listen better, you’re more compassionate, you ask these, like, deeper, intimate, vulnerable questions, and it’s because I started to transform myself from the inside out and started to see the world differently once I started to open up through this workshop experience, and I think it’s been a much beautiful experience for everyone since I started to change and evolve.

1:01:58 Isn’t that interesting how you could have even the same list of questions, the same guest, and that you, your, you reflect. Yeah, on the guests. Absolutely, and I’m sure even for you, in the last year since you’ve opened up about everything in this documentary, your episodes have probably gotten even bigger, you know, bigger views, bigger downloads, bigger audience, everything, because you started to shift, even though it may not seem, I don’t know, like that crazy of a shift, but you just opening up about that has transformed probably the whole culture of this place, the way people feel about you, the trust people have for you, the love people have for you, in the show sometimes I think it even presets the show up to where the guests, when they come in, they’re like, oh, now this is the place where I talk about this, it’s real.

1:02:45 Yeah, and it’s really, maybe they’re like, oh, this is where we go to talk about this, so now is the time, it’s real, to be real in London Real, you know. So, and so you started becoming a different person, would you pull out different conversations? Yeah, then everyone started to cry on my show. Really? Yeah, it’s probably for you too, it’s like, it was like the Oprah show, you know, today I interviewed someone, she cried four times, and it’s not like I’m trying to make someone cry, yeah, but it’s just like we are getting to place that’s gonna help people, and that’s what’s fun.

1:03:14 Yeah, yeah. How has everything else changed, like, you know, two years ago, four years ago, I mean, you must see. Oh man, I’m still evolving, man, I’m not perfect, that’s for sure, you know, I’ve made, uh, I’ve learned a lot, man. I think relationships are our biggest teacher. For me, I just got out of a relationship, a four-year relationship, about three months ago, three and a half months ago.

1:03:33 I learned a lot about myself because I think I’ve learned that I’m a people pleaser and I want people to like me still, right, and a lot of that has shifted the last few months because I got out of a relationship that, that was on and off for years that I should have gotten out of a year, two years prior. We went to therapy, it was off and on, and I just never felt peace and she didn’t either. We loved each other but we knew we weren’t the right fit, but we were both too weak and didn’t, we lack the courage to, to get out of it, both of us, right?

1:04:07 So I take full responsibility for that, and I think even when you were talking about this from your experience, you’re like, you know, I thought I was always going to be the ultimate bachelor and never really fully commit, and I was with my, my girlfriend who’s now my wife and I decided, like, I’m going to fully step into this and we’re going to move in and we’re gonna get together and we’re all these things. So I think I’ve kind of just started experiencing that in the last year. It’s like I was really scared in relationships, I was scared to hurt someone or have someone not love me that I invested time in, and I’ve learned a lot just in the last three, four months about being very clear about relationships moving forward.

1:04:47 And yeah, and just going more all in on things. Are you scared to lose your independence? Absolutely, man. I mean, you’re the same way probably back, like, when you, you made the switch. It’s like, yeah, I think the temptation is strong, especially in this time and age.

1:05:04 You know, I, I kind of grew up in the social media world. Yeah. And, um, and as my presence and platform has grown, you’re talking to a kid who no girls liked before I was 20. Like, it was hard for a girl to, like, talk to me, and now I’ve just developed and grown so much, I’ve overcome so many fears, I’ve taken on so many skills and talents because I was afraid and felt insecure my whole life, that I was like, I never want to be afraid again, so I’m going to write a list of all my fears, I’m going to master them all, and I’ve just evolved into a better human being in the process and I feel very confident and, you know, I’m a caring guy, all these things, so the temptation is, you know, oh, I mean, I get hit on a lot.

1:05:48 I can’t imagine, I get better than West Hollywood, you’re a salsa dancer, you’re world famous and you’re a guy who talks about his emotions, are you kidding me? Let me take you home tomorrow. I know, right? And I’m very, I’m very kind, I’m very nice to people, right? I want the best for people, and so women just message me, it’s easy for people to message people on DM, so I get messages all the time from women saying, will you marry me, will you do this, like, I want to take you out, all these things.

1:06:12 All the time women are messaging me, which is kind, it’s nice, it’s flattering, it’s also tempting for, like, the 10 year old who never had any girls attracted to him. So I have to constantly just remind myself, like, this is an illusion, this is only surface level stuff. Like, I’ve dated multiple girls, you know, in a few month period, and it’s never fulfilling, it’s actually exhausting, it’s actually something that just drains you and you hurt people, you get hurt, it’s just messy.

1:06:41 So the temptation side of me is like, this looks really fun and interesting and, oh, what could that be like in that person, but it’s not, at the end of the day it’s a lot of work. Yeah, so I think I have to manage my ego all the time, I have to put myself in check every day, all the time, to figure out, like, who do I really want to be in the world, not saying, like, one way is right or wrong, but what is my mission, right? What’s the impact I want to have, and what are my relationships going to look like to help me have the most energy and the most peace inside so I can impact the most people?

1:07:15 I think that’s what I’m learning a lot right now, it’s like making sure that I’m with the right partner for my relationship moving forward, making sure that I feel a deep sense of home and peace when I’m with that person so that I can go out and take on the challenges of the world. Yeah, and you have big challenges. What is the mission? What does School of Greatness or Lewis Howes look like 10 years from now? The mission, one day from now to 10 years, 20 years from now, is to impact 100 million people a week.

1:07:45 I believe that, you know, this school that we’re creating has content in different formats, whether that’s video or audio or books or documentaries or speaking. I want to reach 100 million people a week with our message. It doesn’t have to be me talking, just like the, the message that we’re creating, the people that I promote, all these things, I want us collectively to reach 100 million people a week, just because I think that’s a big goal to reach, and, uh, it’s also something I believe I can hit.

1:08:12 So what’s the message? What do you want people to get out of a interaction with you or your products? The message is that you matter. You matter, and most people don’t believe they matter, that they’re worth it, and they’re worth it very much, they matter very much, there’s a reason why they’re here, and we all go through different challenges and obstacles in our life, and they’re natural, we need to face these challenges, they’re here to teach us something about ourselves and why we’re here.

1:08:39 So listen to the challenges, listen to the obstacles, don’t run away from them and focus every day on how you can improve just a little bit of your life so you can feel better and make someone else better around you. 100 million a week, I think that sounds very doable. Trying to catch you. Oh my gosh. Um, lately you’ve been branching out into other forms.

1:08:58 You got the show on Facebook. Yeah. Really interesting, interactive audience. Um, tell me about that. What’s that experience been like and why do that?

1:09:05 We did one season, uh, it’s called Inspiring Life. I did the first talk show for the, the new Facebook Watch platform for them. It was an experience, experiment. I felt like I wanted to try something new and I wanted to reach 100 million people faster. They’ve got a 2 billion person audience and I said, I want a part, if I’m gonna do a talk show, I want to partner with someone who can get in front of that many people right away, so I know my goal and I said, who’s got the biggest network?

1:09:29 Facebook. Uh, great experience, they were an awesome partner, but there’s also some, there’s a lot of work when you do a show with a bigger network. It took about a year and a half to produce five, five episodes, there was a six practice episode, and there’s tons of cooks in the kitchen, you know, you have this, this is your show, you get to do what you want, when you want, how you want, you can put it up when you want. You know this because you get to do that.

1:09:54 Exactly, right. So, um, it was a great experience because it was, you know, a live studio audience the whole time, there’s producers everywhere, there’s executives, there’s teleprompters, cameras, so it got me out of my comfort zone as opposed to just three camera, one person turning on the camera and done. So I wanted to continue to evolve as a leader, as an individual in this space and try something new for me. I wanted to try to create something that can impact 100 million people quicker, so it was a great experience for, for learning, for growth for me, but the format wasn’t right for the platform.

1:10:31 They were trying different stuff and so we moved on and now I’m doing other things. Okay, and what other things do you want to do? Stuff like, I want to do more documentaries, I really like what you’ve done as well with all your documentaries. We just filmed and finished our first documentary about six months ago, I’m very excited about, now we’re doing it. Can you tell us?

1:10:49 It’s called Chasing Greatness, and it’s all about, it’s kind of like The Secret but on steroids. Do you remember that documentary? Yeah, of course, I had one of the guys from there, I forgot his name. But yeah, Joe Vitale. Yeah, yeah, it’s kind of like that but shot beautifully and more mainstream feeling.

1:11:03 Okay. Uh, we kind of want to upgrade that, so I want to create transformational, entertaining content. Okay, you know, are you in it? I’m in it. Okay, yeah, feature of this.

1:11:13 I’m in it. Yeah, okay. Are we gonna talk about your past and history? And yes, you’re gonna hear everything, but it’s got documentation from my childhood to my father being in his accident to, you know, I was vlogging 18 years ago before it was a thing and I found all this footage of everything that I’ve talked about, and so it’s interesting to kind of go back and see it all. It’s so powerful.

1:11:34 Yeah, it’s funny. Um, well, keep doing that because it’s been one of the most difficult things, the most rewarding things that we’ve done, and you make no money from that. Yeah, I mean, it’s just, it’s a connection in branding, actually, but I mean, you know, like, you make no money from the shows technically, you know, it’s like if you try to think of it as a product and an individual money making experience, you’ll always fail, just like people who try to get on YouTube to make money mostly fail.

1:11:57 Yeah, of course, if you think about it as a way of distributing passion and love, ideas. And it’s funny how you go back to those vlogs because, like, we’ve made five in our six documentary now and some of the best stuff are my vlogs. It’s like whenever the guys are going through a tough moment or having a tough time telling the story in this beat, they literally just go and look what I was vlogging at the time or go back two years or three years and they find a really personal moment that can tell the story much better than any interview or anything else because it’s so genuine and it takes you back to with a person at the time, so that’s really cool you found that stuff.

1:12:31 It’s fun because it tells you, I started the story of who you were. I’ll have to ask you more questions afterwards, but yeah, yeah, we’ll give you the whole download of that. And, uh, what else? There’s rumor is you might be taking over Ellen’s show, is that correct? No, no, no, no, no, no, twice I’ve been out a few times.

1:12:45 What’s that, right? And what’s happening, that was one of the most nerve-wracking experiences for me, the first time I think because I had such a big dream about 10 years ago, when I was on my sister’s couch, I would watch the show and I was like, one day I’m going to be on this and I’m going to dance with Ellen. It was just like a wild dream, I was like, I don’t know how it’s going to happen but I’m going to make it happen, and so I just remember being like, wow, this is a full circle moment, and reflecting on all the things that I had to become and all the things I created and what I learned about myself over the last decade.

1:13:19 Was a nice milestone of just like a full circle moment, it wasn’t like everything, but it was like, wow, this is really cool. Yeah, I’ve come a long way as a human. And, um, but you’ve got eight minutes. I know. What do I say?

1:13:31 It was nerve-wracking, man, it was pretty nervous because the producers call you, for, you know, every day for the week or two before, and they run a whole script through you, they’re like, here’s every question she’s gonna ask, tell me your answer, and so they kind of want you to script it a little bit. And so I get there, for the first question that she’s going to ask me and it’s not the question that the producer said, so you’re like, well, what do I do? Do I say what the producer told me to say, do I just go with the flow, you know?

1:13:58 And she didn’t ask any of the questions that were pre-scripted, questions, because she’s Ellen. Yeah, exactly. So, but it was a great experience, and, um, it was fun, man. Yeah, it was fun. Yeah, and she had you back on again.

1:14:09 We’re back on. Yeah, she obviously feels your vibe. Yeah, she’s great. That’s awesome. She’s like created this crazy thing, it’s amazing, man.

1:14:16 I mean, if you would have said that this woman could do this 10 or 15 years ago, there’s no way, no way, no way, no way. So anything’s possible for any of us, I believe. Yeah, and she also, she, um, she’s almost like, in weird way, she kind of embodies what the beauty of new media is because she’s this woman who doesn’t take any of the boxes, she’s got these weird quirky attributes, you know, she’s more and more honest lately about who she is and what she wants, and sometimes she doesn’t want to run a talk show, and she said that.

1:14:44 Yeah, you couldn’t say that 10 years ago but she can and still hold an audience because she’s kind of real and she’s embracing the realness, I guess, of new media. That’s the way I see Ellen. Yeah, she’s great. It’s kind of cool she’s doing that. So, all right, so documentaries.

1:14:57 Yeah. I’ve got a couple of books I’m working on right now too. Okay, so a lot of fun things. Tell me about some of your favorite guests on the show, and I mean, I know you’ve been asked this bunch of times but we share a lot of guests. Yeah, we do.

1:15:08 And so, you know, just guests that had weird impacts on you, strong impacts, things that happened, people. Yeah, back on, I’ll say three, three names that just popped in my head. One was Tony Robbins, I’ve had him on three times, I’m supposed to interview him again potentially next week for the fourth, and the first time I had him on was kind of like a full circle moment for me because I saw him when I was 16, my dad got my, myself and my mom tickets to watch him at an event, and, um, he kind of, like, has this, I don’t know if you’ve met him or you interviewed him.

1:15:38 Yeah, I, I, I was actually, he taught me how to break a board when I was 11 years old. There you go. Yes, he went straight up. Yeah, there you go. He was weird, he’s got a huge presence.

1:15:47 He’s big, right? Big. And I remember him standing over me at this event, there’s 15,000 people, and he, like, walked up next to me at one point and just kind of stood over me and shared a message. I don’t remember what he said but I remember the way he made me feel, his presence was so magnetic. In that moment I was like, I want to be able to have that energy for other people one day.

1:16:10 I want to be able to, not like him but in my own way, magnify someone’s belief in their self, amplify the vision they have for their life, and set them free from the things that are holding them back. And so he was, uh, when I interviewed him, I kind of told him that story and it was a great full circle moment for me, from 16 to whatever, I was 32 at the time, or 33. Uh, so he was very profound as one of those big early on interviews. He interviewed him in his jet as well, and her name was jet as well.

1:16:41 It’s crazy. Yeah, it’s like, what am I doing, what is this, crazy, but it was awesome. And then, um, the second interview would be a guy named Rob Bell. Rob Bell’s, uh, was Time magazine’s most influential people in the world top 100, years ago, he’s been on tour with Oprah many times. He started a large church in the U.S. and then left his church, it was like with the fastest-growing church in the country, then left because he started to have different beliefs himself.

1:17:10 Um, he still speaks all over the world, he’s very spiritual minded and he’s kind of been like a spiritual compass for me, so I’ve had him on a few times. His name’s Rob Bell. And then the third person recently was probably Kobe Bryant. Yeah, had Kobe on a few months back and that was a game changer because he opened up more in that interview than probably any integrity interview he’s done, and it kind of just went viral online, you know, ESPN picked it up and shared it everywhere, Sports Illustrated, Slam magazine, like Olympics.com, like everyone was sharing it because of things, the stories he was sharing.

1:17:46 Why do you think he opens up to you? Um, I think I was able to relate to him in the three minutes we had before the interview started in a very powerful way. Wow. I listened to his heart, and this is what I do with everyone in that interview, I listen to their heart beforehand to see what I’m going to say, and I did my research, you know, I did my research so I, I knew what’s important to him, and I talked about the Olympics right away and I said, thank you for how kind you are to other Olympic athletes who are there for their dream because I’ve heard so many friends who are Olympians who say that he was like the nicest person, would take a photo with everyone, he’d go watch people’s events on his downtime when he was at the Olympics, and I just said, thank you for that, and I said, you know, I’m a big, I play with the USA handball team but I’ve never been to the Olympics, and he said, I love handball, you know, growing up in, in Italy I would play it, I would watch it, it’s fascinating.

1:18:51 We talked about that and then I just said, you know, we had some mutual friends, Novak Djokovic, and I was like, I’ve interviewed some of your friends on the show as well, and he was like, Novak’s my little brother, I love Novak. Yes, so we just connected on things that I know would resonate to his heart, right? And I think he knew I was just a real guy, I was another athlete, so I think he could trust me as being another athlete as opposed to, like, this journalist or something, so I think he knew that I could relate to him as an athlete.

1:19:19 Yeah, and he dropped his guard in a big way. I bet there’s some other sixth sense going on as well, Lewis. I bet there is, though, because otherwise it doesn’t make sense, you know, the people would just drop into that gear, you know, you know there must be something because, you know, you got three minutes, he probably didn’t research you, he probably didn’t know about your passions. Yeah, so I mean, I’m just saying, I think I’m just a kind person, I smile, I’m very generous, I’m very grateful.

1:19:44 Yeah, I think gratitude goes a long way. I think also running your own show goes a long way because I think you and I forget that even these important famous people a lot of times get set across someone who’s doing basically their nine to five job. Exactly. And they don’t care and they’re not going to produce it and they probably hate the questions they’re asking and blah blah blah blah, aren’t going to care about the edit at the end of the day, and they’re just like, let’s just get this one out, get the selfie.

1:20:07 Exactly. Yeah, respond, right? Maybe. Yeah, I think we care. Maybe.

1:20:12 Yeah, yeah, we care deeply. Wow, okay, so that was a big game changer. Um, Cardone’s. Oh yeah, how’s it, how’s that for you? It was crazy, you know, I mean, he’s great.

1:20:21 Yeah, Grant’s amazing, I mean, he’s very controversial. Yeah. Is he? Yeah, I think so. I got a lot of flack for having him on.

1:20:28 Okay, but he’s a friend of mine so I don’t care. Okay, is that because of your audience or the business? Because I have a very female-centric audience. Okay, so there were some females who were like, he’s such a, you know, I don’t know, he says negative things about women, he says all these other things. We still do that, I don’t know.

1:20:46 Okay, you know, when I’m, whenever I’m around him he’s always very good, very kind to me, like, yeah, nice guy, so I think he’s just like a personality on stage and on his videos where he rubs people the wrong way because he’s very aggressive, but, um, I challenged him in that episode. Yeah, yeah, the 10X, bit more, right? He’s like, why are you only making 100 million? You should be making like 400 million, something like that. Yeah, I can’t remember what it was.

1:21:11 And he kind of, like, stopped and he was like, he kind of got frustrated for a second, definitely, but I was like, you gotta, you gotta go bigger, you’re playing small. I called him out big time. Yeah, it was good. And Elena was in the room, wasn’t it? I was like, you’re playing really small, man, and he kind of got frustrated, he’s like, you’re right, I’m gonna accident, and then he’s doing that now, he’s doing that with Cardone Capital and his Growth Con and all that stuff, just amazing.

1:21:33 Yeah, I was really glad you did that, and that’s a strong point again, that’s what a good friend does. I don’t think people challenge him enough or other people like a Kobe or someone like that because it gets scared. And I was just like, I want to see the best out of everyone, so I wanted to challenge him, even if he was like, screw you, I’m already making 100 million dollars, like, I don’t need more. So, you know, yeah, yeah, no, they’re an interesting force to be reckoned with.

1:21:57 Um, you know, Grant dropped right in and in eight minutes in that chair he’s talking about, you know, drug abuse and his brother dying and, like, I was not what I expected, anyone expected, and, like, again, I’m media biased against Grant, first time on him on her, I didn’t even, if I wanted him in the chair, I’m like, this guy sits on his own jet, but, um, but once he got real, he’s got a very fascinating story and he’s evolving a lot of the last few years. I mean, really getting in touch with that part of his personality. Yes.

1:22:23 Yeah. Um, and then same with the second time, he went even deeper and, and, um, Elena as well, a great chat with Elena. She’s awesome. Yeah, she’s awesome, and it’s good to see her stepping up and writing that book. And yeah, and they’re funny as well.

1:22:35 When I, when Elena was in here, Grant changed my Instagram handle when, when he was, she wasn’t here, I went out and my Instagram was changed from London Real TV to The Real Brian Rose. Yeah, he just, and he was posting things on it. So yeah, so yeah, it’s all about taking action now, man. Yeah, he’s good. No, they’re fun.

1:22:51 Uh, you had a Portal on as well. Yeah, movement guy. You really enjoyed talking to him. Powerful man. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:22:57 And, uh, Jordan Peterson as well. Yeah, you had him on once. Once, yeah, he was profound. We actually made a video, like a little three-minute video that did, like, 20, 25 million views on Facebook, it just kind of blew up, but again another controversial guy, but I didn’t ask him anything about the controversy. I don’t try to get people to open up about controversy, I’d get them to share about their best self and how can the information they have serve the maximum people.

1:23:22 That’s why I really don’t go into politics ever or anything like that, because I’m just about focusing on how can we be better, not about the issues but how can we be better around the issues and how can we focus on making our lives better. So yeah, tell me about you, what are some, what’s a daily habit for you that’s just non-negotiable, besides not drinking or smoking? The simplest thing I could say is gratitude, because it may sound very simple and basic and boring and not sexy, but it’s, again, it’s really hard to be angry and upset when you’re grateful, and I think life is about perspective.

1:23:55 We could have the worst day but people would kill to experience that day of ours, you know. You could have a horrible day where YouTube shuts down and everything’s not working and you’re, everyone leaves the office and you, you know, they, everyone quits and, I don’t know, you lose all your money and something bad happens and you’re sick, you’re into your arm, and people would still kill to have your life. People somewhere in the world say, I would love to have those first world problems.

1:24:26 So I just try to put my life in perspective as much as possible and just say everything I’m grateful for in the morning, throughout the day, and that night journal it. How do you do it? I just verbalize it. Okay. No, I think journaling sometimes but it’s mostly verbalizing, say it out loud.

1:24:41 Say it out loud, just like with, to yourself when you’re walking around, to people. Really? Yeah, I ask people all the time what are they grateful for and then I’ll tell them what I’m grateful, and at night I always say three things. I’ll ask the last person I talk to, share three things you’re grateful for, and then I share three things. I’ve found when I started doing this around five, six years ago, when everything, I started to process everything, the trauma, healing, all that stuff, is when I started to sleep better, and I noticed sometimes when I don’t say what I’m grateful for right before I go to bed, it takes me like 30, 40 minutes to fall asleep.

1:25:13 So I don’t know, maybe you want to call it prayer, meditation, but I just feel like it’s a simple gratitude. It allows me to be like, yeah, it brings peace in my heart if I’m frustrated and allows me to rest. Okay, that’s strong. Gratitude, man, and you ask people what are you grateful for, what are the three things you’re grateful for today? Wow.

1:25:30 Simple, it doesn’t have to be like this big thing in life. Try with your wives at night, say, what are three things you’re grateful for, just right before you go to bed. It could be, it could be 20 seconds, you know, I’m grateful for my health, I’m grateful that our boys, you know, had a good day, and I’m grateful for you, done, and then you go and you reverse it. I’m so totally trying to try stealing that from you. Try it tonight, it’s gonna transform.

1:25:52 Try for, like, yeah, a few weeks. It’s like the Maharishi effect. I used to do transcendental meditation and he, he said that if one percent of the world meditated that the whole place would change because it would get this vibe going, so maybe same with that thing. You just, if everybody was asking people all the time, what are you grateful for, you know, it could really change the vibe of a city, everything. Imagine all the negative people walking around town or in the tube or whatever that are just upset, if you got them to shift and say, what are you grateful for today?

1:26:19 Is there anything that’s good that’s happening? And they start to think about it, you’ll see their energies change. Yeah, actually, I’m really grateful that my dad called me and I had a great conversation, and you start to see them smile and light up and the thing that they’re upset about starts to fade away, it’s just a simple shift. Yeah, that’s a non-negotiable. Okay, I love it.

1:26:38 You can’t be angry and grateful at the same time. Very, I think it’s very hard. I had people focus, I, I’d had people do with this exercise on gratitude last night at this event I was speaking at, and I said, was anyone grateful or was anyone angry when they were expressing gratitude during this exercise? Like two out of a few hundred hands rose up and I was like, maybe it was in between what you were sharing, because it’s really hard to say this is what I’m grateful for right now and at the exact same moment be angry.

1:27:05 Yeah, but who knows, if you try really hard, I don’t know the exact science of it, but yeah, no, I’ve heard Tony Robbins say that as well. Um, what was the best day of your life and worst? I think today is the best day of my life because I’m alive, and, uh, every day gets better and I get to meet you, so today is the best day, because I just feel really loved, I feel very loved and a piece of my heart, and I know I didn’t used to feel that all the time, I would accomplish a lot of things but I didn’t feel loved and peace and accepted.

1:27:44 I think I’ve, I’ve learned how to accept myself recently more and more and that’s, that’s been powerful. Worst day, you know, I have everything in perspective, I would say, like, the day my dad got in his accident was probably a pretty bad day, but with perspective I’m grateful for it, you know, I’m grateful for everything, so I can’t be upset at the same time, it’s all part of the process. Yeah, yeah, it’s hard for me to be upset at my overdose, as angry as I was and shameful, but it’s like it brought me here and, I mean, he kind of created the show in a weird way, so it’s hard.

1:28:25 You want to be on a journey of discovery and trying to help people. Yeah, yeah. Um, if I were to ask five of your friends and say, what’s, what’s Lewis’s superpower, how does he get all this stuff done? I like this question, right? The superpower was good.

1:28:36 What would they say? I should start using that question. I like that. Yeah, you can grab it, I think it gets passed around. Is it between all of us?

1:28:42 That’s a good, that’s a good one. What would they say, what’s that thing about you that actually makes it happen? I think people, like in my very inner circle, they just, I think they would say, like, I can just make anything happen. They’re, they, they, they use this hashtag Charm Life, like my closest friends, like, whenever something happens they’re just like, of course, Charm Life, because I just seem to manifest my dreams, everything I want I somehow get it to happen, and they’re just like, that’s your superpower, you just attract what you want.

1:29:19 You get, you find, you meet the right people, the right things happen, they just kind of fall on your lap, but they know it’s through, like, a process that I bring. So that would be my superpower, I guess, uh, manifesting anything I want. Okay, there’s probably a method to that somewhere. Yeah. Um, excuse me, what scares you?

1:29:46 Every year I write down a list of the things I’m afraid of and then I, I go out and do those things. So I’m trying to think of what I’m afraid of. I’ve been taking, uh, singing lessons this year. Cool. I’m not afraid to sing but it’s like singing in public is a whole nother thing.

1:30:02 Yeah, just like feeling comfortable doing it. Um, I think I’m, I have to, I think here’s what I’m afraid of, I think I’m afraid of finding, of choosing the right partner long term, because I believe that your joy and happiness, a lot of it comes from the person you choose to be with the most. So I think I’ve always been afraid of being in committed relationships long term because I never felt like they were the right person, but I was always a people pleaser and I didn’t want to hurt people, so I would stay in them too long and I didn’t have the emotional courage to get out of them quicker, even though when I knew it wasn’t the right fit, and so I’ve had that paradox as well.

1:30:40 So I think I’m going to time it out, I just turned 36 and I, and I want to, I see my, I can’t see myself without a family in the future. Yeah, but I also, I’m not ready for it, and I guess they say you’re never ready, but I’m like, I want to feel at peace and at least know that I’m, like, confident in that moment that this is the right person to be with and feel super peaceful in my heart and making the decision, not making it out of fear or some other crazy emotion, but, like, yes, this is certainty, it makes sense, at least right now. I think that’s what I’m afraid of, choosing the wrong person long term.

1:31:17 Yeah, it’s a church terrifies me. I think also because I grew up with parents who were very, they didn’t express love, they shouldn’t have been together, they stayed together for the kids, it was fighting all the time, and I don’t want to recreate that experience that my parents had. Right, who are miserable together. Right, it’s like that’s not what I want for my life, I want to feel love, I want to give love, I want to feel peace in my heart, create magic with my partner, all those things.

1:31:43 Do you think that makes you sabotage relationships sometimes because they have the possibility of ending out bad? It just makes me fearful, especially because this last, this last relationship, uh, just didn’t end well. It just did not end well, and, um, I took, you know, we both made a lot of mistakes in the relationships and we went to therapy and talked about these things, and then when it ended I just said, I’m going to take full ownership for everything, I’m going to take full responsibility.

1:32:14 I was really at peace about it because the end, the relationship needed to end, it just didn’t end the way I wish it would have liked to, but I said, I’m going to take full ownership with her on everything that I’m accountable for, and the whole time I was doing this she just kept blaming me and she never took any responsibility and ownership herself, which kind of frustrated me, and then she decided to kind of blast me on social media to her following, which was very hurtful. Yeah, very hurtful for me because she was not saying the truth and wasn’t taking any ownership, and there’s also this is our private stuff that I took ownership with and apologized for, and this is another thing, it’s like there’s four beautiful years that we did have, even though it was challenging for both of us and even though both of us made mistakes, there was a lot of love and I just choose to focus on the love and the things that we did for each other in a positive way, and she just chooses not to, she doesn’t see any of the good that I did for four years with her and helping her with everything, and that’s what’s hurtful, and it makes me, does make me fearful, it’s like, okay, if I’m going to invest four more years or 10 years with someone else and it doesn’t work out the way they want it to, are they going to try to sabotage my life?

1:33:33 Are they going to try to take everyone, take me down to everyone I know? I mean, she did some really nasty stuff where she was messaging and calling all my friends, trying to just say I’m this horrible person. I’m like, wow, are all women this way? Is this how it’s going to be in the future? Like, so it makes me fearful.

1:33:49 Yeah, it does. Yeah, and it’s something I’m processing of, like, I need to make sure I feel at peace, and the whole time we’re in the relationship I wasn’t really in peace, and I think I wasn’t trusting my instincts, so I need to trust myself better and have more emotional courage. So it’s at the one point I wish it never happened and the second point I’m grateful because it’s making me have emotional courage and have clarity moving forward, right? So I just take it with gratitude.

1:34:16 It’s such a big decision, you know. Huge, man, that’s huge, the rest of your life. For the rest of your life, yeah, and I mean, I’ve got two kids with your wife, I mean, I do kids, I mean, I had, you know, parents divorced when I was a kid and I was again big in, on this, you know, oh, it’s, it’s all in on this thing, it’s forever, and I mean, I used to tell my dad that I couldn’t buy a dog because there’s too much commitment, and he used to laugh at me just like you did.

1:34:38 I don’t have a dog right now either, too much, you know what I’m talking about. I’m totally with you, you know, I was a bachelor for life, I was like, no, no, no, I can’t. How were you when you got married? I mean, look, when I moved in with all my stuff together and all that, I was like early 40s, you know, and so I’ve got time. You got time.

1:34:54 I’ve got, you got time. I can’t wait. I was 45 when I had my first kid, so, and again I think you’re right, I mean, wait until you, you’re, you’re much more calm with it, you know, still, I mean, still it was tricky for me and I was like, oh, we’re gonna have kids and all that, but now in retrospect it’s, it’s been a great thing and a wonderful thing. That’s good, and I, I’m glad you mentioned that because I can’t imagine you not being a father, really. I think that’ll be a powerful thing for you and a great transition point in your life as well.

1:35:20 Just say that, what’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned from being a dad? Oh my god, I’ll tell you what it is, and I mean, I probably shouldn’t say that because it’s probably going to come back to me, but this boy, my boy Kaden, he’s turning three next month, but I am so in love with him, I am madly in love with him, I told my wife to say that, I’m like, I’m so, I’m head over heels in love with this boy. Wow. And he doesn’t necessarily always give me a hug when I want one and getting a kiss out of him is hard, but I’m just so head over heels in love with them, I’m sure I will be when my younger one gets a little older too, that I never felt like this in such a long time, and that’s the weirdest thing, that I can just be so in love with another human being, it’s just like crazy, and I just, he just lights up my life when he walks in the room, and no one ever told me that fatherhood might be like this, and I don’t know if it’s like this for everyone but it’s just like, ah, I’m like, like this, and so that’s the thing, no one explained to me.

1:36:08 Oh man, that’s cool. I didn’t know that would be there, not to mention all the other cool things that are happening, and I got to hold both of their hands the other day and we just, we just walked like 100 feet with one son in each hand. I mean, this is from a guy that was sworn bachelor, 40 some years old, no chance, no, whatever, and then just to have this, like, future and this responsibility but also this incredible love and making me step up and all that, so that’s been the biggest surprise.

1:36:34 Wow, so I’m wondering, he’ll hear this sometime and hold it over me, that still needs you to do your homework and all that. Exactly. But right now that’s, that’s, that’s cool. So yeah, so wishing you well on that journey but also watching you and just saying, we need to see some babies in the next six to seven years. Okay.

1:36:49 Yeah, six, seven hundred. Yeah, but I hear you, and look, with, with, uh, with, with you being an influencer and social these days, it makes everything more complicated, you know. I look at someone like the Cardones and look, I’m sure they have tricky times, but I would also argue that they are probably made for each other, but without each other they would probably both be a mess somehow. He wouldn’t be a successful, no way in business either without that partner.

1:37:12 Definitely not. And so I’m so glad that they took so long to find each other, and they’re always like an inspirational vibe of, wow, look what, look what happens when you do find the right person, they make you not only that but more. Yeah, and I think, I know, I think there’s not many men that I know who are single after 40, 45 that have this mega successful business and feel fulfilled also. Yeah, so it’s like, I feel like you’ve got to have a partner at some point.

1:37:43 You can’t do it all on your own, you know, an intimate level. You can have your team, your business team and friends, but I feel like that’s some way you’re gonna want a partnership. Yeah, in your life to support the acceleration of everything you’re doing too. Yeah, and you and yours becomes trickier because you have, like, the whole world as your family kind of. Yeah, you know, so does Uncle G a little.

1:38:02 Yeah, I’m, I’m happy being single too, it’s like, I love, I’ve got tons of friends, I can go anywhere and have that intimacy, but and you got all the girls flirting with you, it’s like how do you decide? But I feel like that’ll be a right time. Yeah, it’s a little crazy there. Yeah, it’s a little crazy. Um, what’s, uh, something we’d be surprised to learn about Lewis, guys?

1:38:22 Funny, weird thing. Um, surprised, I mean, I talk about a lot of stuff, I’m a very passionate salsa dancer, I’ve been salsa dancing for, I don’t know, 12, 13 years now. One time I, I tried to pitch a show where I would travel the world as a tall white salsa dancer going into Latin communities and going to the best clubs and kind of experiencing that from my perspective. Um, that sounds like a good joke. Yeah, yeah, handball’s big in Latin America, it’s big in South America, it’s big in Europe.

1:38:55 Yeah. Um, I, I care more about something interesting, I don’t know, I talk about all this stuff, I build a lot of schools every year for kids all around the world. For me, how do you have time to do all that charity work? Just because the first time I did it seven years ago it just transformed the way my perspective, even more my gratitude heightened even more. I went in and helped build these schools, I was in Guatemala the first time and these kids were five, six, seven years old, I’m playing soccer with them with a half pumped up ball that’s broken on a rock-filled field and there’s just so much joy.

1:39:38 They had one meal that day and they were so happy, they were showing me in their little, like, huts, you know, they sleep on the dirt and little hut, and they’re just joyful and I was like, how are these kids so happy and they have literally nothing, but they have family and they had education, and they were just so happy, and I remember flying back to L.A., driving through Beverly Hills, like one of the most expensive zip codes in the world, and seeing all these people with these huge homes, from, like, a hut to these massive mansions, and I was like, a lot of these people are not happy and they have it all. And so I just made a commitment, I was like, every year I want to go on a trip to remind myself of the joy that these kids have when they have nothing except for love and education, and I want to continue to cultivate that so they have greater opportunities in the future.

1:40:33 So I just feel like it’s part of my mission as well. That’s really powerful. Yeah. What scares you? No, I asked you that.

1:40:38 What keeps you awake at night? Seeing if I’ve given enough that day and if I’ve, uh, if I’ve given enough, and if I, what keeps me up, if I don’t say what I need to say, like if I haven’t, like, confronted someone I need to confront, if I haven’t forgiven someone, if I haven’t, like, if something’s lingering in my life that keeps me up, I want to resolve things. I don’t want people upset or I don’t want to, like, piss people off unless I’ve resolved it, and that keeps me up.

1:41:17 Yeah. I don’t like that, unresolved issues with people that I care about. And are you hard on yourself for, like, getting stuff done? No, I just know that, you know, Extreme Ownership, I’m looking at over here, it’s just like, I think of that and Goggins and it’s like those guys are just pushing it to the limit every day, and I just ask myself, if I don’t wake up tomorrow, that I give everything that I’ve got, because tomorrow’s not guaranteed, you know, and so I think I just want to make the most of my life.

1:41:46 I want to make sure that any day if I die, I don’t regret that I, that I gave everything. You mentioned Goggins, what did you get from that time with Goggins? Not many people get one-on-one time with him. He just inspired me to push a little harder. He’s a little too extreme for me but he was also very inspiring because I’m just like, you know what, I do, even though I train hard, I’m still soft, like, I can push harder every time, and so he’s, like, triggered me to be like, get even more in that warrior spirit of, like, just pushing a little farther than what I’m comfortable with, even if I’m uncomfortable still, you can go farther.

1:42:22 I don’t have to do 100 miles to prove myself but it’s like I could push that sprint farther, I could go an extra mile at least, and that’s what really inspired me, it’s just to, like, be even more disciplined, but, um, I’m just a joyful guy too, so I want to make sure I’m bringing joy in my life and with discipline, so that’s, he might be this one. But you don’t want to be him. Exactly, right. Yeah, I mean, he’s very inspiring. I mean, yeah, he’s super inspiring, I love his Instagram account, million followers, follow zero, it’s zero, right?

1:42:47 Yeah, he got a million, like, a few months, but he’s also evolving because, I mean, when I first saw him on Rogan three or four years ago before the book, he was so no emotion, just like, yeah, and people were like, you shot him on your show, and I’m like, okay, I will have on the show, but, like, he’s also like, he’s, he’s really angry, but I think writing that book definitely has transformed him a bit and taken the edge off to where he’s having those conversations and opened up a lot, of open up, and I think he’s feeling the love from the rest of the world, and I think he’s going through a lot of trauma himself, some of it self-induced or self-prescribed or whatever it is. Crazy. I mean, some of that SEAL trauma is crazy.

1:43:23 I mean, you know, they watched a guy die in front of them in SEAL training. I mean, dead. Crazy, that’s crazy. You know, I mean, that’s trauma, that’s trauma, that’s, and that’s probably not even training, that’s like a war. I know, I know, I heard that it was like three quarters of the way.

1:43:37 I was like, wow. And I’ve been around, you know, Jocko a few times too, and those guys are, those guys, I mean, we look at them as the elite and the great soldiers, and they are, but there’s a price to pay for that. Huge price. Yeah, huge price. Yeah, and I just don’t want to pay, I mean, I just want to live with joy in my heart because I’ve lived with so much anger and pain in the past, and then the other side is just much more beautiful.

1:44:01 Yeah, we’ll keep putting that joy, they’ll get, I just wanna, I just wanna, I just wanna, yeah, I just wanna feel loved. I just feel like you can create so much more value in the world from a place of love. Look at Mandela, the guy was joyful all the time and he inspired the world. He, like, freed a nation, right? He was just, like, brought the joy, he wasn’t in a place from anger and, like, sternness, he was from a place of joy and freedom, and you attract what you are, and I think that’s, that’s the result, that’s the example that I want to lead by.

1:44:33 Yeah. But I still want to have discipline and wake up early and work out and follow, you know, my practices, but I think you got to bring, bring the joy a lot too. Yeah, definitely, and I’m going to keep that in mind. Um, I want to finish with our last few questions, uh, the one I’ve been asking for almost eight years, picking up the phone, calling up 20 year old Lewis, what would you tell him? I guess he’s in college, playing ball, probably the man, chasing girls.

1:44:58 I was the man, the man, my ego was big then. What would I say? Yeah. God, knowing everything you know now, I would, I wouldn’t even say anything at first, I would just give him a hug, I would put my heart on his heart, feel him, feel his heart beating and just breathe with him, I would breathe in and breathe out, and I would say, it’s time to let go of everything that you’ve been holding on to, it’s time to let go of the past, it’s time to let go of the anger, the fear, the resentment, frustration, it’s time to stop proving everyone wrong, it’s time to start lifting others up, because this isn’t supporting you and it’s not going to support you moving forward.

1:45:42 It might help you accomplish certain things but it’s not going to help you feel loved within your heart, that at the end of the day that’s what matters the most. So start accepting yourself, start letting go of the past, heal, and move forward in a beautiful way. It’s good advice, man. I’m thinking about that conversation I’m having with my son in 15 years, right? You know, because as young men, you know, we’re all going to go through some versions of that, you know, that’s why we need older guys around us.

1:46:08 Exactly. Uh, on that same note, best advice you ever received, and it could have come from a coach or your dad or a guest on the show, Joe maybe, I don’t know, but somebody or something. This is gonna, yeah, what just came to my mind is something that was recent. My dad never carried, never carried a watch but he was always on time. He, and he never celebrated my birthday, I remember after a few years, I had one birthday when I was, like, five maybe where I had, like, a, a cake, and then after that I never got a cake or presents, and when I was, like, eight or nine or ten, I asked my dad, like, why don’t you, why don’t we celebrate my birthday?

1:46:52 Why don’t you acknowledge me on the day I was born? Do you not love me? And he said, of course I love you, that’s why I tuck you in every night and tell you I love you. That’s why I take time to play catch with you in the backyard when I’m done with work, that’s why, you know, we do all these things together, but I never want you to be limited by your age. And I see too many people that focus on being too old to start the business or write the book or do the thing they want to do and they fixate on how old they are and that it’s too late, and I see so many young people that say they’re too young and people won’t take them seriously, they don’t have the experience yet to be able to do that thing.

1:47:32 And he said, I just want you to be able to always go after your dreams without focusing on being too young or too old or too inexperienced, and never let age hold you back, never let the illusion of time That’s nice. Yeah, so there will be more birthdays. Yeah, I think so, because there’s no numbers on this.

1:48:17 It was fun. Yeah, yeah. Okay, that’s really powerful. Yeah. Uh, last part of that, to that, to that 20 year old that’s out there watching or listening right now, advice to them, new generation, a little trickier out there.

1:48:30 This is, yeah, this is what I would say: look forward to the full circle moments. You know, the moment where I met Tony Robbins and dreamed about being on stage in front of 20,000 people when I saw him doing that, the moment where I was on Ellen, you know, 10 years after I said, like, one day I’m gonna be there, but it was took me 10 years, the moment I wrote my New York Times bestseller, like the moment that happened, but when I was a senior in high school failing English, I was telling my, my friends, like, one day I’m gonna be a famous author. All these things that were full circle moments took 10, 15, 20 years, like they’re just not going to happen overnight.

1:49:15 So if you’re 20 and you’re watching this, realize that you should have these big dreams and big goals, but I never appreciated each day that took me to get there. I always waited for that 10-year moment, that 15-year moment, and when the moment came I was never happy, and I realized I missed out on a lot of little celebrations. So take the victories every single day and celebrate them, celebrate them like you would the big moments by just expressing gratitude, like, I’m so grateful for what I learned today, I’m so grateful that I got three people to opt into my email list today, I’m so grateful I got one page written on my book, I’m so grateful that I closed one client today, I’m so grateful that 10 people said no to me because it means I’m getting better and I’m getting closer to it.

1:50:02 Yes, like, embrace and celebrate every day because it’s going to make the whole journey sweeter as opposed to just one moment. Gratitude, I’m going to start using a lot more of that, and I just realized on Monday morning here, every day, every week we stand around in a circle and we all say two things, what we’re grateful for and then one affirmation. Sounds good. I guess we’re doing this, start doing every night with your, every night, and then three things with your boys too.

1:50:29 Yeah. Okay, that’s really powerful. Start embedding gratitude in them now, it’ll be a game changer. Okay, and when they can talk. Yeah.

1:50:35 All right, and now I want to finish with a Lewis Howes signature move and acknowledge you. Bring it. And this is something I saw you doing years ago and I realized I was always doing little tiny versions of this when I would just acknowledge my guests. So I just want to thank you for everything you’ve been doing. You’ll never know the number of lives you’re changing out there, and it was minute 42 of the Cardone podcast or minute 49 of the Peterson podcast or minute five of the Marianne Williamson podcast that changed someone’s life around the world, and you’ll never know, but it literally did, and with the numbers that you have on the board, I mean, so many millions of lives you’ve changed, so thank you for doing the hard work and putting that content up there.

1:51:13 I’m not going to turn this into a show where two guys who interview people for a living talk about their problems, but trust me, folks, we make it look easy but there’s a lot of challenges behind the scenes and sometimes getting people in the chair and getting things out, so totally acknowledge you for doing that, brother, and all the other projects you’re doing in the background, the books, the documentaries, the Facebook show, I mean that obviously takes a lot of hard work and you’re obviously doing stuff right and people really feel your energy and it shows on the show, so thank you for that. Um, always watching your stuff. Um, we have massive crossover people and I’m always looking at what you do and studying what you do and it’s just great to see people putting out the positive energy.

1:51:50 I can feel what you’re doing and I think we all can, so thank you so much. I’m glad we made this happen, it’s great. Uh, and I’m looking forward to the documentary and all the other stuff you’re gonna do, and, uh, invite me to the wedding. Perfect, I will, I will. Thanks, appreciate it.