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You’re Not Stuck: How to Overcome Your Fears and Rewrite Your Identity with Lewis Howes · The Jasmine Star Show

• 0:13
  Welcome to another episode of the Jasmine Star Show. I am thrilled.
• 0:17
  Y'all have to let you know that this right here, this is an early copy of a book that has now just been released for the world to see. I am very honored to say that I got this from a very good friend, a mentor, a brilliant mind, and somebody who we are gonna be speaking about something that I'm passionate about, and that is mindset. Welcome to the show, Louis House. Mm, thank you very much. Appreciate you.
• 0:35
  Oh, let's thank you for being here.
• 0:39
  Of course. Thanks for having me. Ah, okay.
• 0:40
  So I know we're gonna get into the book and we're gonna talk about all those other things, but like, I wanna always start with, when I bring people on the show, it's because I know them. Mm-hmm.
• 0:48
  , and this is like a protective space, and I want it to be a conversation.
• 0:49
  And so I'm gonna let you know, I don't think we've ever talked about this before, but how are Orbits intersected?
• 0:53
  And that was in Cabo San Lucas, and know it's not that kind of story. Okay. I was like, so this one crazy weekend, let's days what happens to Cabo stays in Cabo ? No, no, no. Um, I was gifted School of Greatness, Uhhuh .
• 1:07
  I had no idea what this book was about. I'm on vacation, I pick it up, I take a stack of books because your girl's cool.
• 1:13
  Like my weekends in Cabo probably look very different than your former weekends in Cabo. I was in with a pile of books, and I take this book and I start flipping through the first couple pages, and then I'm hooked. Mm-hmm.
• 1:21
  , I don't but I'm reading this book and I finish it in a day and a half, and I was like, I'm undone. Like whatever happened, I, there was like a big personal shift in my life. I took a picture of it, I put on Instagram. I mean, like, I was that girl, like the toes in the sand, like the basic, I like it. Okay. I was like, look at me being smart on the beach. That's great. Uh, and it was at that time that I started going deeper in your podcast, following what you're doing.
• 1:44
  And it was about two years later that I joined your mastermind mm-hmm.
• 1:46
  . And so that's where Art has formally connected. But you and I, we went back two years before that.
• 1:52
  And so I kind of just wanna start the conversation by, uh, letting you know that the person who wrote the book is the person who shows up in real life. And if anybody has a thought or opinion, it's like you're better in real life than you are in written word You. And so, uh, on that note, I got your book.
• 2:08
  We hung out in a mastermind group in Napa, and, and it was in January and I got this book and I get a lot of books, Louis on the flight home, and I already have a book in my purse cuz you know, your girl's a nerd. Yeah. And I start reading this book and JD is like, you gotta get your nose outta the book. And I was like, I can't.
• 2:25
  This is School of Greatness times 10. Mm-hmm. .
• 2:29
  And so I wanna say congratulations. Thank you mean, I let him know I went through like the book, I went through the exercises, I called my sister, she's a writer. I was like, what? He just did. I was like, this is the book. Mm-hmm. , there are exercises, there's stories, your narrative is part of it, but more as a narrator instead of a main character. Mm-hmm. .
• 2:44
  And you highlight other people and the book is just tied together so Well, thank you. And so thank you for writing it. Thank you. Thank you.
• 2:50
  Thank you for being here.
• 2:50
  Thanks for reading it.
• 2:52
  Thank you for chatting about all things.
• 2:53
  And so we have this process and our paths intersected in Napa and we get a chance to, to chat and catch up, but what I wanna do is make it less about me or you and make it about people who are listening mm-hmm.
• 3:03
  . So, uh, we, we focus a lot on business owners.
• 3:05
  And, um, I, I wrote a few notes, if you don't mind, from my book Of course. And, uh, kinda wanted to dive in.
• 3:12
  So we talk about our identities and we talk about how people show up.
• 3:15
  And a lot of people who listen to our business owners, and they have big dreams, but a lot of them feel stuck. And on page 20, so you hit the ground running mm-hmm. on page 20. Uh, you said that there's a mindset shift that a person needs to make to actually start moving towards what they want. So let's start there.
• 3:30
  Somebody right now is listening and they feel stuck.
• 3:32
  They could have a business or they're just starting a business.
• 3:34
  What's the first mindset like thing to get out of? Like, I'm feeling stuck.
• 3:39
  Is to reflect on your identity. Mm-hmm.
• 3:41
  And you reflect on your identity through asking a set of questions, but really just paying attention to what you say to yourself consistently and what you say to others consistently.
• 3:51
  And whatever we add after I am is who we believe we are.
• 3:57
  And if we could record the narration we have inside of our head on a daily basis and play it to the world, they'd probably put us in a mental institution. Yeah.
• 4:08
  Say nasty things about ourselves Yeah. To ourselves internally, and then also to others around us. Mm-hmm.
• 4:14
  And if you said these things to your best friend or your partner or your spouse, or your mom or dad, they wanna wanna be in your life. Mm-hmm. , if you spoke to other people the way that we spoke to ourselves, not everyone does this, but typically a lot of us have a negative identity around how we speak about ourselves. When I was growing up, I used to say all the time, I'm such an idiot, I'm so stupid. I'm, I'm same man, I'm worthless. Even when I achieved something, it still wasn't good enough. Mm-hmm.
• 4:36
  , right? So it's like, ah, but I'm still made that mistake. What a dummy. I would say these words.
• 4:42
  And I used to, when I was a teenager, physically punch myself in the face and in the head and beat myself up physically.
• 4:49
  A lot of us just do it emotionally and psychologically and verbally, but I would do it also physically. Mm-hmm. .
• 4:55
  So for many years I was driven by an identity that did not serve harmony inside of me. It created external results, but left me feeling in harmonic internally, which again made me feel I'm not enough, I'm stupid, I'm not worthy, all these things. So this identity drove me, but it also hurt me at the same time. And 10 years ago, I started the journey of healing and it's been an ongoing journey. Mm-hmm.
• 5:23
  , in no way am I still a, a perfect human being and I'm a flawed human being that makes mistakes all the time. But over the last 10 years, it's been an incredible journey of awareness, reflection, responsibility, and healing, which has given me so much peace in my heart.
• 5:40
  I've never felt this much peace and calm.
• 5:43
  Now it doesn't mean that there's not challenges, stress and adversity in my life, but I don't internalize it the way I used to. Mm-hmm. .
• 5:52
  And 10 years ago, I decided to create a different identity with myself.
• 5:59
  And before I used to be, I was a fun loving, pretty happy guy, but there was a wound inside of me, multiple wounds.
• 6:06
  And whenever those would get triggered, someone would touch it. Boop, someone would cut me off in the street, I'd get angry, someone would say something to me on a basketball court, I'd react, uh, you know, someone would get mad at me or say something they didn't like.
• 6:19
  I'd shut down. So I would get angry and frustrated.
• 6:25
  I would get in stages of, I wouldn't call it depression, but states of sitting in my apartment for days not knowing what to do. Hmm.
• 6:34
  So I wasn't like depressed, thinking I wanted to commit suicide, but I was in depressed emotional states where I was just like, what am I doing? Mm-hmm.
• 6:41
  and beating myself up.
• 6:44
  And I also would tell myself all the time, man, you're such an idiot.
• 6:47
  You're so stupid. You're not smart. You're just a dummy.
• 6:50
  I would say these things internally and externally. So my identity, based on my own narrative of my own story, was causing a lot of suffering.
• 6:59
  10 years ago, I decided to break that identity belief within myself by literally creating a contract with myself. Mm-hmm.
• 7:08
  a written contract where I wrote down a new identity and signed it. I had this framed on my wall for a long time, and the contract is still the same today. Instead of being angry, frustrated, depressed states and dumb, I became a loving, passionate, wise man.
• 7:29
  And that is my identity today.
• 7:29
  Mm. Whenever I feel off, whenever I feel frustrated, whenever I feel like, uh, I'm having an off day, I lean back into my own personal contract. I am a loving, passionate, wise man.
• 7:43
  And I had to create a contract that I could actually believe, not like, you know, something that was completely false, because then I wanna be able to believe, and I think that's fake and it's a false identity. Mm-hmm. .
• 7:55
  So we have to create an authentic integris congruent identity with self first. And I knew I was loving, but I just had to let go of the anger.
• 8:05
  I knew I was passionate, but I had to let go of the mental stress and depression that I would cause that would cause me to be less passionate at times. And I didn't believe I was smart.
• 8:14
  So I couldn't put the word smart in my contract, but I did believe I was wise.
• 8:19
  I believe I had a lot of wisdom and experience.
• 8:21
  I had gone through a lot of adversity, suffering. I had, I'd done a lot of different things to overcome that created wisdom within me.
• 8:28
  And wisdom was a word that I could actually step into and embody.
• 8:31
  I couldn't step into intelligent, smart.
• 8:31
  Mm-hmm. , uh, high iq, any of these things because I actually didn't believe that it shifted over the last 10 years now. But wisdom was something I couldn't and I create new meaning around the identity.
• 8:46
  So I created the contract with myself where again, I wrote it down, I embodied it. I, and the contract was I am a loving, passionate, wise man. And you know, some people call, you can create a mantra for yourself, but this has to be a, a signed contract with self, something that you agree to.
• 9:08
  Agree to new terms.
• 9:09
  New commitments. Mm-hmm. , non-negotiable. Mm-hmm. , this is who I am becoming and who I am. Okay.
• 9:16
  Can we pause here for a second? Yes.
• 9:16
  So, um, the, you 10 years ago mm-hmm.
• 9:20
  , somebody cut you off, somebody pissed you off on the basketball court and you had a reaction and you would get angry. Yes. Or you would shut down. Yes.
• 9:26
  Now the man that you are today, somebody cuts you off or people get really tough or somebody says something that like presses on a wound.
• 9:31
  Mm-hmm. , what's the reaction in relation to the new contract?
• 9:35
  What, I mean, I, it's rare for me to react. Very rare for me to react.
• 9:39
  Even if someone's doing something that I don't like, I'll just say like, come on buddy, let's go. You know, someone's like cutting me off of like, come on buddy. But I'm not reacting from a wound anymore. Mm-hmm. , I'm not reacting from like an impatience or frustration or like someone's abusing me or abandoned me or taking advantage of me, which was my viewpoint on the world that everyone was abusing, abandoning, or taking advantage of. Hmm. Um, or trying to do something to harm me based on my previous memories of all the painful memories that I've ever had.
• 10:13
  I had to curl back and heal and create new meaning from each memory that caused me to have a wound that was still open.
• 10:19
  Because when we react emotionally or mentally, whether it be from anger or frustration, anything that isn't at the highest conscious state, when we react in a different way from a suffering state, a hurt state, a fear state, it's not right or wrong, good or bad, it's just is that useful and effective to serving a meaningful mission in your season of life right now? Mm-hmm.
• 10:42
  And so I start the book with really defining in one sentence, what is the meaning of the mission that you're on for this season?
• 10:50
  That season could be three months, three years, 10 years, doesn't matter to me what season you're in, but can you define in one sentence what you're up to right now in your life?
• 10:58
  Most people aren't clear in one sentence. For me, it's very clear to serve and impact a hundred million lives weekly to help them improve the quality of their life. It's clear on the mission, the mechanisms may change the, the actions may change, but it's all serving towards a mission.
• 11:12
  So it's easier for me to make decisions, yes or no, of what energy to put out into the world every day based on will it support and serve this mission, will it help others?
• 11:21
  And will it give me energy and peace?
• 11:26
  How does your mission, um, correlate with the contract now, the clarity and the contract?
• 11:31
  Is your contract still the same or over the last decade? It's changed.
• 11:34
  It's still the same. My contract will never leave my contract. Right. But.
• 11:37
  Other terms, like the, uh, the compassionate loving, I'm.
• 11:40
  A loving, compassionate, wise man.
• 11:40
  Yeah. That's who I am. And that's.
• 11:43
  That's the contract stayed the same. Yes.
• 11:43
  And the mission has become what it is, but.
• 11:48
  I've had to learn how to heal. Ah, step one is, step one is, I mean, identifying first and facing yourself in the mirror. 10 years ago, right before I created this contract, I looked at myself in the mirror and I didn't recognize myself in a bad way.
• 12:03
  After I had a, a pretty bad fight on a basketball court and I was just having breakdown after breakdown, after a breakdown in intimate relationships, business partnerships, friendships, and just life, I was just not showing up the best version of myself.
• 12:19
  And I remember after this fight I got and I looked myself in the mirror and I was like kind of shaking and trembling and I just didn't recognize who I was.
• 12:26
  I was creating out of fear, resentment, and anger, not from love, ab, abundance and empowerment. Hmm.
• 12:36
  And I realized, okay, this way of being, this way of thinking got me certain external results and at the same time left me feeling extremely sad alone and suffering internally. So it, it was a false sense of working.
• 12:53
  It worked in terms of success, I guess externally, but it's not the way I wanted to feel internally.
• 12:58
  So I had to kind of fully look myself in the mirror and say, what are the things that are working and not working? And again, healing is a journey. It's not a one-time moment. It's not like, okay, you're, you healed overnight. Once you're aware.
• 13:10
  It is a journey of facing yourself consistently until your nervous system truly is not triggered by emotional reactions. Mm-hmm. , and I'm not saying don't be prepared if there's a fight or something you gotta do to protect yourself, but when it's psychological and emotional triggers, that means there's a wound inside of you that something is boop is poking you.
• 13:33
  Whether you see something on TV or someone says something or someone forgot to do something and it triggers you, that just means there's a wound inside of you.
• 13:40
  It doesn't mean you're good or bad, right or wrong, it just means there's something inside of you that is still hurting you.
• 13:45
  Where did that come from?
• 13:47
  So I had to face every memory on my phone for a long time.
• 13:50
  I don't have it anymore, but on my phone for a long time I used to have a screensaver.
• 13:53
  Now I have it off my, my girlfriend Martha. But I used to have a, yes, I used to have a screensaver can. Was it you as a child? It was a five-year old.
• 14:00
  Yeah. Yeah. I remember this. He's a five-year old.
• 14:02
  I used to have me on my screensaver.
• 14:02
  This was about two years ago.
• 14:05
  As I really started to dive in deeper, I started the healing journey 10 years ago and continued to approve.
• 14:13
  But there were still things inside of me that I was repeating that I wasn't conscious of until a few years ago when I realized, okay, I'm still entering committed relationships that are not aligned with my values, vision and lifestyle because of a wound.
• 14:29
  So I had to face myself and ask why am I repeating and attracting certain types of people? They're not right, wrong, good or bad, it's just we weren't in alignment.
• 14:39
  But why am I choosing and then why am I staying when I know it's not the right thing? What is inside of me that is wounded, that is causing me to abandon self constantly, that is causing me to give in to please to, to buy peace as opposed to being peace, as opposed to aligning myself as peace in every environment.
• 15:02
  And that was, you know, six months of intensive therapeutic healing modalities to support me in creating new meaning around other memories from the past that I still hadn't mended. Mm-hmm. .
• 15:16
  And when we can create new meaning around these little traumas, big traumas, painful memories that we've suppressed for so long, or just try to block or just not think about and we heal and then we can face those things, really it's about the awareness of it and then integrating it as it comes to you being able to sit with the uncomfortableness, the the stress and calming your nervous system in the face of it.
• 15:41
  It's not running away, it's not removing yourself in the situation because Right. So it's learning how to, how do I navigate my emotions when someone is doing something that I don't like?
• 15:53
  Or when I'm in a situation that is scary or vulnerable or upsetting or hurtful to me, how can I learn to create new meaning so that my mind and my heart are incoherence That when this happens in the future, cuz it will happen again.
• 16:08
  I can navigate it with harmony and peace.
• 16:11
  It doesn't mean I have to stay in these situations, but I can navigate it without being so reactive and frustrated and, and you know, in consumed by what other people are doing.
• 16:21
  Okay. So we're gonna go back to the original question mm-hmm.
• 16:26
  , and I'm gonna repeat back what I heard. Yeah.
• 16:27
  A distilled version, somebody stuck, and I put it in terms of professional, but we could be stuck in Yeah.
• 16:34
  Familial relationship, finance business.
• 16:37
  And first things first was to create a new contract.
• 16:40
  It's to decide the person you're going to become.
• 16:43
  And in the process of deciding who you're going to become, if you're experiencing the same pitfalls, the same gaps, the same triggers mm-hmm. , there are some work that is to be done mm-hmm. .
• 16:51
  And when you realize not, and maybe not everybody has to experience this, maybe some people like the new contract becomes a new contract and I haven't gone through enough or different things in my life to affect it so I can move forward. But for those of us like myself who decided just like you, and maybe not in the terms of like a formal contract, but something did happen very similar and I'm gonna decide to become this type of person and what I experienced as very much what you experienced, a lot of triggers and a lot of depressive states. Yes. And a lot of, uh, what if and I too had to do the work.
• 17:19
  So if there are people who are listening and you realize you're stuck and you decide you're gonna create a new contract that speaks into the mission and you realize there are similar pitfalls, it's time for us to do the work, it's time for us to get outside help.
• 17:30
  Yeah. But it, it's always time to do the work.
• 17:33
  Always.
• 17:33
  Yes. You know, just because I feel like I'm in a beautiful state internally doesn't mean I don't keep going to an emotional coach.
• 17:43
  That that's.
• 17:43
  Right. For, for, uh, that's right. Prevention for.
• 17:46
  That's right. Atuna for.
• 17:47
  Growth for Yeah. I go a couple times a month, same thing. Not be, not because I need it, but because I want to stay in this state. You know, I think it's interesting when, when we look at the world's greatest athletes, uh, who are some of the top athletes, I don't know if sports is your thing, but who are some of the top athletes who can think of like the world champions, the best of the best in their sport for.
• 18:07
  Those people? One, one of the best interviews that I had ever seen mm-hmm.
• 18:10
  From somebody who I really respect, two people I really respect.
• 18:12
  You're a phenomenal podcast host.
• 18:14
  And when you had conversations with Kobe mm-hmm. , I thought it was some of the best conversations I had seen.
• 18:18
  I'd seen him in a different way. I'd followed his career. Yeah. Big, big, big fan of who he is. So yeah. Let's, let's talk.
• 18:23
  About Kobe. Kobe, okay. So Kobe, um, when he won his first championship, he had a coach. Right? Right.
• 18:32
  He had a coach. And at the end of that championship season, he didn't say to himself, you know what coach, I'm good.
• 18:39
  I'm gonna go win the next one on myself. Exactly. Like, I don't need you.
• 18:42
  Thanks for getting me here.
• 18:43
  I figured it out how to win and I'm gonna go coach myself. Right.
• 18:47
  He actually hired more coaches. Yes. He did. Specialists, experts. And he said, how can we become better? Give me more feedback, help me improve my game more.
• 18:54
  That's right. And I think when we are specifically navigating life with a lot of different human beings around us and we don't have support, I agree emotionally, mentally, on how to navigate the world of humanity and all of the beauty and the mess that comes with it, I just think it's hard to do it on our own. Mm-hmm.
• 19:19
  and hard to be peaceful and conscious and say the right things mm-hmm. and not be reactive on our own consistently.
• 19:26
  I'm not saying we can't do it on our own , but I just think it's harder mm-hmm. .
• 19:29
  And I think we can be elevated if we have support.
• 19:32
  I'm not saying you need to hire a coach or a therapist, uh, but find a mentor or guide or a personal advisor in your life who's doing a great job and ask for support once a month. Say, Hey, can I jump on a call?
• 19:43
  Or can you gimme feedback and just get that guidance?
• 19:46
  And I think that's really powerful.
• 19:48
  Uh, so before we started recording, uh, Luis and I were having a conversation.
• 19:52
  I said, Louis, when I dropped my podcast, I reached out to you and I said, I have this idea for a podcast. The podcast hadn't dropped. And I'm like, I want you to be one of the first five episodes. And like, now that I have a podcast, I was like mm-hmm. Louis did me. Okay.
• 20:06
  I knew at the time you did me a solid, I just didn't know the gravity of this solid that you gave me. Because like, nobody wants to be in the first five episodes like nobody's listening.
• 20:12
  And you're like, all right Jasmine, I'll do that. So, um, I, the reason I'm giving a shout out to that particular episode is because when you had said right now, um, even if you can't afford therapy, and what I wanna do in the show notes is offer different forms of therapy, ways that could be like either subsidized or help people afford therapy. Um, but one of the things that you taught in that very first episode that was one of the best of the first 12 months of the podcast was learning how to ask for what you want. Mm-hmm. .
• 20:35
  And it's such a foreign concept.
• 20:37
  So when you're like, ask for somebody meet with somebody for once a month, I hear this, the, the old version of me would hear that and be like, who's ever gonna meet with me once a month? Like if I can't afford it?
• 20:46
  And after met people like you, you don't get what you don't ask for. Mm-hmm.
• 20:50
  and having like the bravado, the audacity, the hutzpah Yeah.
• 20:52
  The gunness to ask for it.
• 20:52
  Like they people say yes. Yeah.
• 20:55
  And you so live that valiantly.
• 20:55
  So I wanna reiterate that.
• 20:59
  So we'll add those to the show notes.
• 20:59
  We'll add a link to the previous episode.
• 21:02
  Mm-hmm. .
• 21:02
  We'll also add a couple other resources for people who maybe can't sure.
• 21:05
  Immediately say, oh, I can't afford that. So.
• 21:06
  Yeah. But I, I'm just a big believer that healing is the path. You know, it's the way to constantly face yourself.
• 21:12
  I wish I would've looked myself in the mirror sooner. Hmm.
• 21:15
  Because I would look in the mirror, but I didn't truly see myself before, you know, I would do my hair or I would check myself out and, you know, pose to see what, what do I look like in front of a photo or something.
• 21:26
  But it wasn't seeing myself authentically. Well what I.
• 21:30
  Wish I would've you see yourself.
• 21:31
  All the breakdowns I had. Yeah. See, I mean me being like shaking after this fight I got in, coming back and kind of shaking with bloody knuckles and being like, who am I?
• 21:42
  You know, who am I? What am I doing? How have I gotten to this point in my life?
• 21:46
  Mm-hmm. , what if, you know, I could have gotten really hurt.
• 21:49
  What if I really hurt this other person? What if someone stabbed me?
• 21:53
  I don't know. Like what if?
• 21:54
  And I just started to really look in the mirror and be like, man, I'm not liking the person I'm becoming internally mm-hmm. .
• 22:01
  But I thought I was figuring it out externally because of the results, because of the money, because of the platform, because of the accolades.
• 22:08
  I thought I was doing what I was supposed to do to feel better about myself, but I still didn't feel good.
• 22:14
  And so the mindset is really tied to our emotional belief about ourselves and others. And if we don't learn to heal our past pains, if we don't learn to heal our relationship to self, then our mind will always be powerless.
• 22:29
  Mm-hmm. Okay.
• 22:29
  So that was actually a great lead into the next question because um, people are listening right now. And then you had said, what if something had happened to the other person?
• 22:39
  What if something would happen to myself?
• 22:40
  And so there's a lot of people right now who are asking what if, maybe not in relation to the person that becoming, but like, what if the thing I want to do doesn't work out? What if? And so, um, on page 2 0 3 of the book, you talk about courageous questions. Mm-hmm.
• 22:54
  , when somebody's asking those types of questions, what if I could have hurt somebody?
• 22:56
  Or what if this doesn't work out?
• 22:58
  Or what will they say?
• 22:59
  What kind of courageous questions can we start asking ourselves to change? I.
• 23:02
  Mean, what if it does work out? You know, what, what and what would need to happen in order for it to work out?
• 23:09
  Not asking what if it doesn't work out?
• 23:11
  And then how would people think about me? Or what will they say about me?
• 23:14
  Or I'll feel like a failure and then I won't try again.
• 23:17
  But more so in a world of possibilities, if this could work out, what would I need to create, do, come ask for in order for it to happen?
• 23:27
  Maybe it doesn't happen in the timeline I want, but if it had to happen, who would I need to be?
• 23:32
  Mm-hmm. .
• 23:33
  And I think when you ask who you need to be, um, that's when you face a lot of your fears.
• 23:38
  And I have a whole section in the book about creating a fear list and writing down an entire list of all your fears and insecurities.
• 23:44
  When have these fears that are consuming your energy, that are holding you back from taking action. Again, this is not a conversation of you're good or bad, right and wrong. It's just, is it useful for you? That's right in life to have these fears holding you back.
• 24:01
  If it's not useful, then it's gonna take courage for you to act on them consistently until you overcome them. You cannot outthink your fears.
• 24:10
  You cannot out strategize your fears.
• 24:13
  You must face them emotionally, psychologically, and physically and deal with the pain of failing on the way because you will fail.
• 24:21
  One of my biggest fears was And I met a mentor who was a professional public speaker and I was like, I have no clue how to speak in front of a group of five people without stuttering, stumbling, sweating, forgetting what I was gonna say and feeling like an idiot.
• 24:39
  Cuz I just felt like everyone was smarter around me. And he goes, if you want to be impactful in the world, whether you get a job and you wanna speak in a boardroom or you want to influence a partner of yours in a moving way, you want to speak in front of a crowd, whatever it is, you've gotta be able to enroll people in your vision.
• 25:01
  And if you wanna enroll people in your vision, you must learn to communicate what your vision is effectively.
• 25:07
  It doesn't mean you have to become the best public speaker in the world, but you've gotta learn how to have some, some skills, some tools on how to just communicate.
• 25:14
  And I didn't have that skill except for one-on-one, but I couldn't do it in group cause I was so afraid of judgment.
• 25:20
  That was my biggest fear.
• 25:22
  There's three main fears that caused us to doubt ourselves.
• 25:24
  Self-doubt is the killer of dreams.
• 25:26
  It's what holds us back from acting courageously. When we doubt ourselves, we don't ask the girl out. You know, we don't get out of the toxic relationship.
• 25:35
  We don't ask for the raise.
• 25:36
  We don't make a bigger offer in our business to get bigger clients.
• 25:40
  We are afraid and we doubt ourselves. And so we just don't act.
• 25:44
  We think we wait, we analyze.
• 25:44
  Mm-hmm. , we don't act.
• 25:48
  It's not bad. It's just, is it getting you the results you want in your life?
• 25:52
  And do you feel good about yourself when you are crippled by fear? I never did.
• 25:57
  I just felt insecure and not enough.
• 25:59
  And so when I learned to say, all right, I'm gonna go all in on this fear of public speaking and he told me exactly what to do and I just followed it like an athlete, okay, give me the the steps.
• 26:11
  I will do everything you tell me. He said, you need to go every week for a year to Toastmasters, which the public speaking course, and you need to fail.
• 26:18
  You need to fail and experience the humiliation of what it feels like.
• 26:22
  And then you need to realize you're still alive, you're still o you're okay. Maybe some people thought of you in a certain way, but you get back up, you do it next week and then you're gonna fail again.
• 26:34
  But maybe it won't be as bad cuz you'll learn one thing to improve and do this every week for a year and come back to me and tell me what happens.
• 26:41
  And this is what I did.
• 26:41
  Every, the first speech I did, I wrote out word for word this five minute speech and I thought to myself, I have no idea what to say for five minutes. It felt like a lifetime.
• 26:53
  And I wrote out and I, and I got behind a podium and I spoke and I didn't look up one time at the crowd of about 20 people.
• 26:59
  Now this is safe space, this is like an environment where you're supposed to give good feedback and people are there to help you. It's not like they're gonna laugh at you.
• 27:08
  How old are you at this time?
• 27:08
  23. Okay. 24. Okay. Somewhere 23.
• 27:13
  I also had a full arm cast on, so I had a cast from here to here just kind of standing as I'm reading this paper with a cutoff shirt, a backwards cap, baggy jeans just got done playing football. And uh, everyone's in suits and they're all professionals, and they're all incredible speakers.
• 27:29
  And I get up there behind the podium, stuttering, stumbling, just feeling like the biggest loser.
• 27:35
  And I looked down and read word for where the whole thing would flip the page, read the whole thing.
• 27:39
  And then I finally looked up the end after these five minutes speech and you know, people clap and I kind of see some mixed, uh, faces.
• 27:48
  And then three different people are supposed to give feedback.
• 27:51
  This is the whole part of it.
• 27:52
  You're supposed to give feedback in coaching and they're supposed to give like criti, you know, positive and you know, uh, critical feedback as well.
• 28:00
  And all of them said like kind things like, Hey Lewis, great job for having the courage for getting up here. Um, next time just try to look up once or twice in the speech and just connect with us, connect with the audience.
• 28:11
  So I remembered that. Okay Lewis, great job again. Um, you, you had a great story in there.
• 28:17
  Just make sure to add a couple pauses cuz you just went really fast. Okay.
• 28:22
  So I got the feedback and then next week I said, I literally wrote the script again,, word for word. And I put pause, pause and look up. And so I went there and I look up and I went back down.
• 28:34
  And again it was, I was fumbling my way through this mm-hmm. , it wasn't like I was mm-hmm.
• 28:37
  doing a great job, but I was practicing. And at the end of the year, I was able to be in front of the audience, give a speech, not need a podium, not need note cards, not need notes, and give an effective speech where I got a standing ovation.
• 28:53
  And then within six months after that I made my first thousand dollars at a, at a speaking event, which a year and a half before then I would've never thought anyone would ever pay me to speak in front of an audience. And now today speaking, I'm not the best in the world, but it's become one of my superpowers.
• 29:11
  Whereas before is the thing that made me feel more, the most powerless.
• 29:15
  I faced the fear by going all in on it until it disappeared and now it's a superpower. So I did that one by one by one.
• 29:23
  I had a lot of fears and I just went down the list and started doing this. Okay, salsa dancing, this is terrifying for me. I did the same thing.
• 29:30
  I went every week for a year and threw myself into humiliation.
• 29:34
  And I realized, okay, at the end of the day, maybe there are some people laughing at me, maybe this is very uncomfortable.
• 29:39
  Maybe I do stand out. And the more I show up and the better I get, the more confident I become. Not just in this area of my life, but every area.
• 29:49
  Because when you overcome one thing that's a, a fear of yours that cripples you, that causes you to doubt yourself, it expands your ability to be confident in every other area of life. Mm-hmm.
• 30:00
  , these things I did in my early twenties allowed me to have take so much action and business in my mid to late twenties where I had no place Yeah.
• 30:10
  Of doing the things that I was supposed to do. And everyone was like, Lewis, how are you growing so fast? I was like, I'm just not afraid of failure.
• 30:17
  I'm not afraid of it. And I was afraid of judgment, but the fear of failure did not hold me back from taking action. Now, I still would get reactive when people were critical or would leave nasty comments online or all these things. I still had that wound, but I was driven to succeed.
• 30:37
  And so I wasn't afraid of failure or success, but it was the fear of judgment, which was making me feel not good inside.
• 30:44
  Most people are afraid of failure and success. Those weren't my fears.
• 30:48
  Judgment was mm-hmm. .
• 30:48
  And it wasn't until I, 10 years ago when I started to face the wounds where I was able to do the things that I love and not worry about the criticism anymore.
• 30:59
  It doesn't mean I don't pay attention and I take what's useful and I say, okay, how can I improve this for myself?
• 31:05
  But I don't react to all the criticism that I used to 10 years ago.
• 31:11
  So I'm gonna repeat back.
• 31:13
  What I heard is for anybody who's asking what if the courageous question, the simplest, courageous question that you could ask is, well what if it does work?
• 31:21
  Could we not just hold space for the best case scenario? And.
• 31:24
  Who would I need to be.
• 31:25
  And who would I need to.
• 31:25
  Be and what would I need to let go of in order to make it happen?
• 31:28
  And then once you have answered those questions, it is to step into the uncomfortability and it's to do it again and again.
• 31:34
  I have to tell you though mm-hmm. , we had a conversation a few years ago and you had given me a challenge and that was to, it's so stupid now that I say it out loud, but still it makes me a little pasty mouth when I talk about it.
• 31:44
  Cuz you had said you should ask for, uh, hotel upgrades. And I was like, mm-hmm.
• 31:49
  , what are you talking about? I'm like, I paid for a hotel room.
• 31:51
  Like, no, always just ask for an upgrade. Yeah.
• 31:53
  I thought it was such a foreign consumable. I was like, wait, what?
• 31:56
  And you're like, just ask for the upgrade. And I thought it was ludicrous.
• 31:59
  I talked to JD and I was like, I could never, and JD just loved the idea because of how uncomfortable it made me.
• 32:03
  And so he's just like, okay, we're checking to hotel, you can ask mm-hmm.
• 32:06
  . And I was like, um, Nick, Kim.
• 32:08
  deal. Did you get it? Um, yeah. Exactly.
• 32:10
  Not every time, but more than if I had not asked.
• 32:14
  Almost every time I go to a store, almost every time I ask for a discount, , we were, we were furniture shopping and my girlfriend are moving, doing new home and we were furniture shopping this last couple weeks and we went to all the stores, all the fancy stores, all the, you know, everything here in LA And every time I said, okay, what's the price on this?
• 32:37
  And they would tell me, I go, what's the chance you can give me a half off? Uh, I can't give you a half off.
• 32:41
  Okay. Can you gimme 20%?
• 32:44
  Well lemme go ask the manager and see what we can do for you. Okay, cool.
• 32:48
  But were they expecting anything in return? Like did they know who you were?
• 32:51
  Like.
• 32:51
  Would you, no. Why did they need to know who I am?
• 32:53
  I'm buying something from them. And.
• 32:54
  You just ask, can I get a.
• 32:56
  Discount? I ask every time.
• 32:56
  And not all the time it works, but a lot of time it does.
• 33:00
  Or you know what people do?
• 33:02
  They're just gimme something for free. , it happens so often and it's a practice of dealing with rejection. Yes. Embarrassment.
• 33:09
  Humiliation. Comfortability. Yeah.
• 33:13
  And putting myself out that, but the more I do it, like my girlfriend kind of laughs now because she does it all the time now too.
• 33:18
  She's always like, oh, can we get a discount? Can we get this?
• 33:21
  And it's not that I'm, you know, trying to be a discount buyer.
• 33:25
  It's a practice of getting what I want.
• 33:29
  It's a practice of putting myself out there and exploring a world of possibilities. Right. And life is a game of enrollment.
• 33:36
  You're either enrolling people in your vision or you're unenrolling them and they're enrolling you on why they don't believe in it.
• 33:42
  So if you make a strong enough case with your energy and your way of being and say, Hey listen man, I kind of did this with like buying the, the home that we're buying.
• 33:49
  Right. You know, buying right now.
• 33:52
  We got it for like a million and a half off of like asking price.
• 33:55
  And I just said, here's my vision, I'm not paying more than this.
• 33:59
  They came back and we negotiated and I just said, I'm not paying more than this.
• 34:03
  And if we don't get it, we don't get it. But my vision is this.
• 34:06
  And I kept speaking my vision in the.
• 34:08
  Universe. Did you literally say But my vision?
• 34:09
  So you're talking to the realtor and you're like, and.
• 34:11
  My vision with, with Martha, this is my vision. Yeah. Okay. Got it.
• 34:13
  And with our realtor, not with their realtor. Right. Got it. It's like, this is the vision, this is what we're standing in this.
• 34:18
  Use your voice and enroll the other realtor. And they're, you know, the owner.
• 34:23
  So first, first, first you had to enroll Martha because I spoke to her a couple weeks ago.
• 34:27
  Mm-hmm. And she loved the house. Like she was just like, oh, I love it.
• 34:29
  Dream house. It is for her that that's what she had said. Mm-hmm.
• 34:32
  And so as a woman, when you see your old dream house, we're just like, and you don't.
• 34:36
  Hap you not, but then you can't, and.
• 34:38
  Then you had to say, I gotta enroll you in the No, this is the vision.
• 34:41
  So we're not paying more than this. Okay.
• 34:43
  And this thing was a million and a half more.
• 34:44
  JD is not listening to this episode.
• 34:44
  Fyi. I'm like, you bann .
• 34:48
  No, but it's uh, it's just creating a different culture with yourself and with the people in your life that here's what I'm about.
• 34:57
  I don't wanna overspend on everything.
• 34:59
  I'm willing to on some things that I'm like, I just wanted, I'll pay whatever it takes, but it's just a practice and art of trying to get uncomfortable in every situation. Or if I'm selling something, I'll try to sell for more. Uh, you know, at my event I announced the book, uh, the Sum of Greatness and I said, Hey guys.
• 35:15
  At the summit, the greatness, the.
• 35:17
  Sum of Greatness. I announced the book.
• 35:17
  Your book. Yes. And I said, Hey guys, um, we love for you guys to buy one copy, but if you can buy one, you can probably buy two. So don't buy one, buy two. I said, if you can buy two, you can, you probably can buy 10 . So buy 10.
• 35:32
  And then I enrolled them in.
• 35:34
  Are there anyone in your life that might feel stuck or might feel they want to like let go of something?
• 35:38
  Like think about the people in your life that you could support and be a champion for by giving them this wisdom. And this wisdom is not about me, it's about all the neuroscientists, therapists, brain surgeons, doctors, world-class athletes, billionaires who overcame self-doubt and their sharing their tools and the research and the science backing it.
• 35:58
  I'm just showing myself fumbling through life and making all these mistakes to back it as well. But they're the ones telling the story.
• 36:05
  So if you care deeply about people in your life, get 10 copies and give it to 'em, you'll be a champion for them.
• 36:12
  And so it's speaking into a vision of what's possible.
• 36:17
  Not everyone bought 10 copies, some people bought a hundred, some people bought 500. But if I don't ask, it's not gonna happen.
• 36:24
  And you know, people ask me all the time, Hey Lewis, I wanna do a book buy for you.
• 36:26
  Um, I wanna buy some in bulk.
• 36:29
  How many should I buy?
• 36:29
  And some people might say, well maybe like just buy 20 or 50 or a hundred. I'll say, can you get a thousand? Is it possible for you to get a thousand?
• 36:37
  What would it take for you to get a thousand?
• 36:39
  What would you need for us to do together for you to get a thousand and get it out to your entire audience? What would it take? Maybe they say no, but maybe they say yes. And if they say no, I'm like, well what could you do?
• 36:49
  Could you do 500 mm-hmm ?
• 36:49
  Is that a possibility? If not, okay, I'm still gonna appreciate whatever you do, if you buy one, I'm happy. Right.
• 36:56
  Um, so what is possible, and speaking into that, being courageous towards this kind of mindset of enrollment and the ability to sit in a no is huge. Mm-hmm.
• 37:09
  and will set you free in a lot of ways.
• 37:11
  And it starts to unlock abundance in ways that you didn't even know were possible when you can ask these questions.
• 37:17
  And sit in the no. Mm-hmm. , that's one of the reasons why I had invested pretty significantly to, uh, go through the mastermind because I feel like when I get closer to a particular light, it forces me to shine in a different way. Mm-hmm. .
• 37:29
  And one of the things that I just found so appealing was that you were so okay sitting in the No, you were so okay asking for everything you wanted without attachment. And like, I need to learn how to like master that.
• 37:41
  And so there are people who are listening and maybe they feel like, well, I've tried it and it didn't work. Or maybe I'm too old. Like, there's so many stories in the book, specifically chapter 14, how you were talking about challenges and we face challenges at any point in, in our career, our lives, our relationships. So now what does your mindset now tell you that is different than what it once was?
• 38:05
  Like let, okay, let's just say let's play it out. Let's play it out. Mm-hmm.
• 38:07
  , can I spill the tea?
• 38:08
  Like we got here and you shared good news to me. You're like, we're we're closing on the house. Yeah. Like, and I spoke to Martha like maybe a month ago. So this has been a.
• 38:15
  Process. It's two month process. Yeah.
• 38:17
  Yeah. So it's been, it's been a minute.
• 38:17
  So what happens if they said said no?
• 38:21
  I mean obviously we're not even putting up there cause you guys already Yes.
• 38:23
  Yeah. But let's play it the other way.
• 38:23
  How does the new Lewis say, this was my.
• 38:26
  Vision. I'm, I'm unattached, I'm unattached the way it needs to look.
• 38:29
  And I would create a new meaning around it. I would say, you know what, this wasn't meant for us and there's a better home environment for us that's gonna come in three months, six months, nine months. Yes. Son's.
• 38:40
  And maybe there is something, it's like if I get stuck in traffic, if I'm late, I'm like, my initial response is to be frustrated to say, ah, I don't like being out of integrity. I don't like being not on time and not, I don't wanna not be my word, but I also say, okay, let me renegotiate.
• 38:55
  Kinda like what that did with you.
• 38:55
  I was like, Hey, here's my e t a, I'm not gonna be there on time. I'm gonna be there at 1104, not at 11.
• 39:01
  And so it's renegotiating or communicating if you're not gonna be on time, it's just not being late and then saying my bad. Right.
• 39:07
  It's communicating beforehand to renegotiate and also not beating myself up. Right.
• 39:13
  And not being frustrated at the people with the construction or the traffic or whatever. And and also saying, it's all gonna work in my favor. You know, maybe I had to take this detour because I would've gotten an accident.
• 39:25
  So it's creating new meaning around if the home didn't work out, we would have something better suited for us. Mm.
• 39:31
  That would actually unlock more abundance.
• 39:34
  So I think holding on to one thing of like this idea, in my mind, this is kind of interesting to speak about this in terms of even just the book and, and launching a book because this is my third book and the last two books, I had more of a tie to the result mm-hmm. when I launched it.
• 39:51
  And a more of like a letdown from an expectation, right? Cause I wanted certain things, certain sales numbers, certain number on the list, all this different things. Um, certain press.
• 40:04
  And I had more of a let down after those books, even though they both did great.
• 40:10
  It's like this expectation on results.
• 40:13
  And I'm a driven human being that cares about results. Mm-hmm. , you know, I've gotta survive, I've gotta provide for my team, I've gotta pay my bills. All these things. So I need certain results.
• 40:24
  But this is the first time, and I can honestly say this, this is the first time where I, I feel like I've done my best with the book in terms of writing a great product.
• 40:35
  I feel like this is the book I wish I had when I was 16 for myself to read when I was 21 and struggling when I was 30 and stuck in life five years ago.
• 40:43
  This is the book I'm glad I have now and I'm glad I'll have in 10 years for myself. Cause I feel like I needed something like this.
• 40:51
  And so I know I'm proud of the result of the message and the product and I know that I've got a incredibly solid game plan of taking action towards launching the book, right? Mm-hmm. .
• 41:03
  So I planned six months ahead, if not before then.
• 41:07
  And it really enrolled my team in here's how we're gonna execute it and fill my schedule with these top 100 interviews. Um, I'll do, Hey.
• 41:17
  You know what I , hey.
• 41:19
  And I'll do, I'll do three interviews a day Monday through Friday.
• 41:23
  If I need to do some on the weekends, I'll do it on the weekends.
• 41:25
  Cuz this is a season of the playoffs, right? Mm-hmm. .
• 41:28
  So I know it's a two and a half month window. It's not forever, it's not sustainable forever.
• 41:31
  But when it's go time, you gotta show up and give your full effort.
• 41:36
  And I don't want to go into this thinking, um, I slacked or I didn't do everything I could have and therefore the results didn't happen. So me knowing I'm giving everything I can Yeah.
• 41:47
  While also taking care of my health while also, uh, feeling peace inside mm-hmm.
• 41:53
  under the challenges and stresses and moving and by a home and the loss of two friends of mine, the death of two friends of mine, and dealing with ceremonies and all these things and travel and yeah.
• 42:02
  Navigating people on my team who are going away and, and just all of it.
• 42:06
  I'm at peace knowing that the results are gonna be whatever the results are.
• 42:12
  And it feels beautiful for really the first time to be able to be peaceful in the effort.
• 42:18
  And now I'm giving everything and the results are gonna be what they are.
• 42:21
  Mm-hmm. I can't control the results. I can influence the effort, I can show up fully and I can influence and be aware of how I feel about myself in the efforts. Mm-hmm.
• 42:32
  But if I tie my peace and harmony to results that's right.
• 42:36
  Then I'm gonna be let down every time or I'm gonna get excited when it happens and then need to rely on that for the future.
• 42:43
  So I'd rather just rely on me being the best version I can be daily, take care of my health, be there for the people I care about, and show up for the message the best way and let go of the results.
• 42:53
  I have to say, Louis, um, I'm naturally a skeptic just how I'm hardwired.
• 42:58
  I've learned to accept it as just me being me.
• 43:00
  And so there are other skeptics who are listening mm-hmm.
• 43:03
  and he's like, well of course he's selling a book about mindset, so he's gonna be ultra zn, but I have to sit here and just like testify. Uh, we sat next to dinner happenstance.
• 43:10
  Mm-hmm. mm-hmm.
• 43:13
  at an event.
• 43:14
  And you were talking to a gentleman by the name of Jay Shetty mm-hmm.
• 43:18
  .
• 43:18
  And you guys were engaged in a conversation and there going on. And I never thought I was gonna admit this. And like, here I am spilling the tea, but I was just eating to myself and listening to your conversation, , we.
• 43:31
  Were in the conversation.
• 43:32
  Like, oh, what, I have the conversation here.
• 43:34
  I get to hear two New York Times bestselling authors having conversations about doing the work. Mm-hmm.
• 43:41
  and the holistic approach that you both took was my jaw. Mm-hmm.
• 43:46
  Like how it was a place of the hardest work, the greatest discipline. Yeah. The biggest joy, the truest dedication.
• 43:54
  And so to hear that conversation happen in real time, in a hundred percent auth authenticity, it's going to be hard.
• 44:00
  And we are going to do the work. Yeah.
• 44:00
  And we're going to have the book, like we're, our books are gonna change people and people change the world mm-hmm.
• 44:08
  . And to hear that conversation and then to know that, um, I am part of 100 interviews. Yes. Um, and then to know that you are flying to Austin to do interviews and then that night you're gonna fly to Nashville and do three other interviews, and then you're gonna fly home to honor a mutual good friend's passing.
• 44:24
  It's a lot. Mm-hmm. .
• 44:25
  And to see that person of authenticity then now and in the future has been really, really amazing. Mm-hmm. .
• 44:33
  And so as we kind of like close it, um, what are some of the things that you see as trends, right? You see very, you are a person of influence and you are around people of influence and so of these situations and people and things, and you get a behind the scenes look at that mm-hmm. , what are common things that pop up amongst people who are influential, hard workers and successful that are the same things that appear to other people who don't have those, whatever, perhaps questionable, visibly remarkable indicators of success.
• 45:00
  What are the things that commonly pop up in both segments, but the reaction between the two are different? What let's just dismantle this idea that some people go through sudden things and other people don't and they're the lucky ones.
• 45:12
  What is like the mindset you kind of see as like, oh, this is a similar pattern?
• 45:15
  Well, I.
• 45:15
  Mean, I think it's interesting because I'm gonna be mindful of what I say here, but No.
• 45:19
  Don't, are you kidding me?
• 45:20
  Well, I don't, I'm not, I'm not gonna say people's names. Oh, right, right.
• 45:23
  But I wanna be mindful of how I say this because we were at a, uh, you know, a mastermind together and I was noticing that here are some of the most, I guess, successful people in our industry who have done a lot of the things that people wanna do. Number one, New York time bestsellers, big shows, big businesses, big impact, big platforms, audiences, et cetera.
• 45:45
  And I wasn't there for the second part of the, the masterminds.
• 45:48
  We had to come home.
• 45:48
  But for that first day, it seemed to me like a lot of people were struggling.
• 45:53
  I don't know if you noticed this, but it seemed to me like a lot of people were stuck.
• 45:56
  Was blatant.
• 45:57
  Living in fear, unsure of their next move. Yes. Uh, were afraid to fail. Yes.
• 46:02
  And what if it doesn't work out? Yes.
• 46:02
  And I was just noticing it. Again, this is not like a judgment or anything like that because I've been there many times before. Um, so I don't think there's anything different from a it or are doing it and people who haven't made it and are doing it.
• 46:19
  I feel like both types of communities struggle with insecurity, self-doubt, 1%. And what happens if it doesn't work out?
• 46:27
  And I think it's the only thing that's different is when you've had some type of platform or success. A lot of people don't wanna fail afterwards. Mm-hmm.
• 46:36
  . They don't wanna be like, okay, amplify, she did this, he did this in a good way, but now this thing didn't work out, so how do we think about them? Or have they lost their touch or something?
• 46:45
  So I think people are afraid once they've had some success. Not everyone, I'm not saying ing when there was, but I think that happens where, okay, I've gotten here and now the weight, the responsibility, the pressure, the logistics, the people that on my team, I gotta pay for.
• 47:01
  And the weight of gold is a heavy weight for people.
• 47:06
  There's a weight of responsibility that I think, um, once you've achieved success, a lot of people are afraid to then lose it.
• 47:12
  Or they're afraid of, again, the opinions of others, the judgment or what if I can't repeat it right then? Am I a failure?
• 47:20
  I could get here, which took a lot of effort, but how do I stay here and how I stay at the top mm-hmm.
• 47:25
  or at the top of whatever I think is the top. And I think that's, the practice never stops of loving and accepting who you are.
• 47:35
  The healing journey doesn't just finish once you've got some result or a New York Time bestseller. It doesn't mean, okay, now I'm worthy and deserving.
• 47:42
  It is a constant art of accepting and acknowledging who you are, taking full responsibility for your life and saying, I want to improve and grow constantly and consciously.
• 47:54
  And I think the difference between a lot of people is just the people in our group we're willing to act courageously to get to where they are. And again, what holds everyone back is the fear of failure, success or judgment.
• 48:08
  These three fears that cause us to doubt ourselves. So in that room, again, not everyone was this way, but a lot of people were doubting themselves, okay, I've done it once, but can I repeat it Right?
• 48:20
  And so the doubt is the biggest killer of dreams.
• 48:23
  So we have to get to the root of doubt.
• 48:25
  Am I afraid of failure of success or judgment? And in the book, I talk about how to analyze that and assess within yourself which one holds you back the most. It doesn't mean you're good or bad, right or wrong.
• 48:34
  If you have a fear, it just means is this helpful towards accomplishing your meaningful mission?
• 48:40
  And once you're clear in your mission and your identity, these fears are gonna be the enemy of you being great. Mm-hmm. .
• 48:45
  And at the root of each one of these fears is, I am not enough.
• 48:49
  I'm not smart enough, pretty enough, talented enough, good enough, old enough, credentialed enough, whatever it is worthy enough.
• 48:57
  And that's why we must change.
• 48:59
  I am not enough into a new contract that are empowering things about yourself and stepping into those things on a consistent basis.
• 49:08
  And we have to not tie really our self-worth to our results.
• 49:13
  We need to tie it to our efforts and our attitude and our energy towards others.
• 49:18
  I try to, in my best way possible, and again, I'm a broken, imperfect human being, but I try to, in my best way possible, spread generosity to strangers, to people.
• 49:28
  When I'm at the store asking for half off, I'm still trying to bring generosity, smile, attitude, energy and effort to people in a good way.
• 49:37
  And again, it's a practice.
• 49:37
  It's not like I'm, I'm doing it perfectly all the time. Uh, but that way of being allows me to attract and manifest more in my life.
• 49:47
  And loving and accepting who I am and every part of my past pain and shame and insecurities and accepting it. I don't have to like it.
• 49:56
  I don't have to say I wanted to experience it, but I gotta accept it. Mm-hmm.
• 49:59
  , if I don't accept everything I've been how can I accept receiving what I believe I wanna be worth?
• 50:06
  I must learn to be worthy through the acceptance of the past pain so that I can receive more or experience more love or more joy.
• 50:14
  And I think that's the practice. And, um, the people who are struggling at the top, I think just need to keep practicing that reminding themselves that they're worthy. And that's what helped them get there.
• 50:27
  I think it's a good place to close the conversation because, uh, when it was your time to speak and your girlfriend, Martha was there with us and she had just a positive impact, and the two of you guys together were just such a good, good force. Um, when you stood up and you spoke, it was like you commanded the energy in the room and you sat and what everybody had said, these are people who had been with you for the past five or six years watching your journey and being a part of it.
• 50:54
  They had looked at you and they didn't talk about your books and they didn't talk about your accolades and they didn't talk about your podcast and they didn't talk about your cool experiences and contracts, and they didn't talk about anything that other people would attribute the 1% to.
• 51:06
  What they said was they saw an entirely different person standing in front of them and they saw somebody who has been broken and they saw somebody who's done the work and they saw somebody who's just trying to help others get there.
• 51:15
  Mm-hmm. And I think that's a testament to who you are. And I've seen that.
• 51:18
  And so I am just so thankful that you spoke into my life and I just wanna sit here and speak into yours. You're an entirely different person.
• 51:24
  It's so incredible. I'm so happy for this book. I think people need to read it.
• 51:27
  It's so well done. Thank you. This is School of Greatness times a hundred.
• 51:31
  There are actionable steps that people can take.
• 51:34
  Thank you for stepping into your mission.
• 51:35
  Thank you for speaking so generously into a group of people who are all destined to do great things. If we have the courage to ask those questions mm-hmm.
• 51:42
  and the courage to do the work and the courage to sit in it and to make different decisions to indicate an abundant future. Mm-hmm.
• 51:48
  Louis, hows, thank you. I appreciate it.
• 51:50
  Appreciate it. Appreciate you. I gotta question you for you before we stop.
• 51:52
  Oh, ever The pod ever the podcaster, unless you, unless you.
• 51:56
  Need.
• 51:56
  To stop. Oh, oh, oh, oh. No, let's do it. Let's do it.
• 51:59
  What do you think is the thing that holding you back from everything you want internally?
• 52:03
  Fear, failure.
• 52:04
  That's the thing. Yeah.
• 52:04
  More than success. Gosh.
• 52:08
  Easy.
• 52:09
  Easy. So you're more afraid of failure than success. Oh.
• 52:11
  Yeah. I'm unafraid of success.
• 52:15
  I'm unafraid of success.
• 52:17
  But if you know that failure is the only path to success, then why are you afraid of failure?
• 52:21
  Uh, because of what it means.
• 52:21
  Like d d done the deep dive work, the fear that I am not enough.
• 52:27
  But if you know that that's the path to success, then, and what would it take for you to create a new meaning around failure and not call it failure? What.
• 52:36
  Would it take for you? Oh, that's, that's been the work. Yeah.
• 52:37
  It's just lessons that I am worthy of the success.
• 52:40
  I'm worthy of the f like not worthy. I deserved the success.
• 52:44
  I deserved what people called failures, but I now look at them like, ah, that was preparing me for the thing. Mm.
• 52:50
  And every time I always felt like it was a rejection, not of myself, but a rejection of an idea, a rejection of certain terms, a rejection of certain measures of success. Um, what I realized that what I was looking at as a rejection was a hundred percent a redirection. Mm-hmm. .
• 53:06
  And it was the time and it was all the mistakes, and it was all those things that I, I look back and I'm like, oh, that's why that happened. That's why that person did me dirty.
• 53:13
  That's why I signed a contract without fully understanding what was going on.
• 53:16
  That's why it took us four years for our daughter to find us. Mm-hmm.
• 53:19
  , everything was always a good thing.
• 53:20
  And so now I look back and I'm like, okay, if you're sitting in this suck now, could you not apply a different story mm-hmm. and be like, oh, this is the good part. Mm-hmm.
• 53:30
  the good parts.
• 53:33
  The good part is getting us to the great part. Yeah.
• 53:35
  And so that's been the work for the past year and I feel like I'm in a different place now. What.
• 53:39
  Are three things in the past 10 years that were extremely challenging for you to experience or you didn't understand?
• 53:46
  Or there maybe they felt like big breakdowns or failures.
• 53:49
  Mm-hmm. . That looking back now, you're like, wow, that was extremely, I needed to go through that so that I can be here.
• 53:55
  Can you think of three specific instances?
• 53:57
  You don't have to say like long stories. Yeah. But just this moment.
• 54:00
  This moment in this moment. Mm-hmm.
• 54:01
  where it was like painful for a year or six months or two years.
• 54:04
  Mm-hmm. .
• 54:05
  But it actually was the most beautiful thing that needed to happen for you to be where you're at.
• 54:10
  A hundred percent. Um, being placed with her daughter for adoption, waiting for that. And it just felt like it wasn't gonna happen. Mm-hmm.
• 54:16
  best thing to ever happen. Really? I was, uh, dragged early social media days.
• 54:19
  Getting dragged is never fun and.
• 54:23
  Dragged.
• 54:24
  Yeah. That's like, I think that's what the cool kids call it on TikTok. Was it, you know, it's like where they just.
• 54:27
  Like canceled you mean? Or like Yes.
• 54:28
  Oh, okay. Yes. I think dragged is the new word.
• 54:30
  Or maybe it's the old word before.
• 54:30
  Never. Maybe it predates, never canceled.
• 54:33
  Like, lemme just, lemme school you in the cool, gimme.
• 54:35
  The.
• 54:35
  What's happening.
• 54:36
  Dragged. So people were like.
• 54:38
  It, like canceled. Yeah, definitely.
• 54:38
  When was this? Uh, this was mm, 2010, 11. Okay. Yeah. So, but that was a thing that pushed me, escorted kindly out of an industry that I would've stayed in forever. Mm-hmm.
• 54:54
  . That's cool. Okay.
• 54:54
  And so what's the point of being a big fish in a small pond? Right.
• 54:57
  I'm so happy being a guppy in the ocean. That's okay. Okay.
• 55:00
  What was the third thing? And uh, the third thing was having, um, launches or businesses ideas that you thought were like a shoe-in and they just fell flat. Mm-hmm. And you think, oh, like I just bet the farm, I'll never come back from this.
• 55:13
  And every single time it was, the stripping was never a stripping, it was just a pruning came back like, you know, wow. The walnut turns into a tree.
• 55:21
  That's cool. Yeah. So I think there's something that, uh, I went through a few years ago, it was like four or five years ago that was kind of one of those moments where I was like, man, I don't like this feeling.
• 55:31
  And I was meeting with Robin Sharma at the time.
• 55:34
  I just interviewed him and I was like, man, I'm kind of going through this thing.
• 55:36
  It's kind of frustrating. Um, and he goes, this is a spiritual purging and you've gotta cleanse your ego and you've gotta be willing to like let people think certain things about you and have opinions about you. Even if it may just be gossip circle.
• 55:53
  It's a good thing to purge your ego and go through a spiritual cleansing who, and he said, you're gonna look back and this is gonna benefit you one day in a big way.
• 56:05
  And after that moment I was like, God, I started thinking back, like on my injury and like not being able to have my dream of playing football anymore and being on my sister's couch and kind of all these things that happened where I was struggling, the different breakups I went through, just all the different stuff that I went through.
• 56:21
  Sexual abuse that I experienced, brother being in prison, my parents getting divorced and just, uh, you know, feeling like unsafe in, in the household growing up.
• 56:28
  Things like that. Emotionally.
• 56:31
  I remember saying to myself after this, you know, four or five years ago when this happened, I was like, I really need to start having future hindsight now. Hmm.
• 56:41
  Because I always talk about hindsight's 2020. Like, yeah, we can look back on these three things in the last 13 years since 2010 that happened to you. They were like, this is actually the best thing that happened.
• 56:49
  Yeah.
• 56:50
  And if we can be in the mess and in the stuckness and in the frustration and the confusion and the unfairness and say in five, 10 years this is gonna be the best thing gonna happen to me.
• 57:00
  And I don't know what it's gonna be right now, but it's going to be the best thing.
• 57:03
  And when we create that new meaning around it, that's what actually got me through the last kind of like frustrating time mm-hmm. Of dealing with stuff. I was just like, this is actually gonna be the best thing for me.
• 57:13
  So I should be excited about this time because it's gonna give me the tools, the lessons, the the whatever I need to break through the next level.
• 57:21
  And so that future hindsight now is a great exercise in practicing and allowing you to say, this isn't fun. I don't want this, this sucks, but I'm gonna claim it and I'm gonna make the most of it.
• 57:34
  And I think when we start shifting that it can help all of us.
• 57:37
  Hmm. Ladies and gentlemen Lewis, how the greatness mindset.
• 57:40
  Unlock the power of your mind and live your best life today.
• 57:43
  If you love supporting small retailers, small local bookshops, y'all, let's support them local Barnes and Nobles. I still wanna walk into a Barnes, I just don't wanna walk into a Barnes and Noble love it. Buy your books.
• 57:53
  But if you are near your phone and that's what you prefer, you can go to Target, Amazon, any online retailer. This book is actually, let me practice.
• 58:00
  If you can buy one book,, you could.
• 58:02
  Probably buy, you buy too.
• 58:04
  If you could buy, could buy two, you could buy 10. And you're not buying a book, you're buying a way for somebody to get unstuck and change their life.
• 58:09
  They didn't. Let's go. Lot of these gentlemen. How'd I do? It.
• 58:12
  Was great. I love that. I love that.
• 58:13
  Hey Louis, thank you. Thanks so much.
• 58:13
  So much love for you. Thank you.
• 58:16
  Appreciate.
• 58:16
  You. I appreciate, appreciate you.
• 58:18
  Thank you.