Lewis Howes (@LewisHowes) is New York Times best-selling author, keynote speaker, industry-leading show host, and former pro athlete. He joins Chris Van Vliet in Los Angeles to talk about his new book, The Greatness Mindset which is now available for purchase at https://lewishowes.com/gmbook and wherever books are sold. Follow Lewis on Instagram and subscribe to his podcasts “The School of Greatness” and “The Daily Motivation Show”. Lewis talks about how to develop a mindset for greatness, the biggest lessons he learned from interviewing Kobe Bryant, the difference between success and greatness, what his 3 truths are, and much more!
What makes greatness so attractive:
“Well, because I was driven by success. That was what I wanted my whole life. I wanted to succeed, but I was driven to succeed based out of a wound, based out of a need, which was a need to be liked, to be accepted, to be seen, to be acknowledged, to be loved, to fit in, to belong. And it was coming from an unhealthy need. It was coming from a wound, there was a wound inside of me that needed something to feel safe and protected, because I didn’t know how to protect myself emotionally and mentally. So therefore, I would work so hard to accomplish my goals, but most of it was to prove people wrong or to fit in. And when I would accomplish it, 20 30 minutes afterwards, I would be kind of let down and have an expectation hangover and almost get angrier after I would accomplish these goals. And I would spend 5, 10, 15 years on a goal until it happened. So I was willing to do whatever it took, but I didn’t get the feeling I wanted once I accomplished it.”
What is the common greatness goal:
“They’ve got a clear mission, and I call it a meaningful mission. You know, and there’s no Olympic gold medalist that just said, Oh, I did this by accident. You know, there’s no world champion that gets there by accident, they’re very clear on what their meaningful mission is. It’s the first thing I talked about in the book, where if you don’t know in one sentence what your life’s mission is, for this season of life, then you’re not going to get there. So again, when I was on my sister’s couch, I don’t know 15 years ago, or something I couldn’t think of beyond that season, which was, I just want to make enough money to get my own apartment. And that’s all I could think I wasn’t like, I’m gonna change the world or make a tonne of money. I was like, I just need to get my own apartment. What can I do during this season, in order to make that happen? I was clear on my direction. Now I have a different mission. It’s to serve and impact 100 million lives weekly, to help them improve the quality of their life.”
What has been the biggest struggle:
“Learning to heal my past. I think there was a lot of pains, and wounds and insecurities and doubts that I was afraid to face and look at. And so I would compensate by trying to be a better athlete, by trying to be a better entrepreneur, by trying to make more money or do certain things I would compensate to project, an image that I wanted people to see. But I was living in shame and insecurity and doubt around what I knew about myself, thinking that if anyone knew these things about me, they wouldn’t like me, they would unfollow me they want to buy from me, they wouldn’t accept me, they wouldn’t love me. And so it was the fear of facing all the shames from the earliest memories. Up until now, the things that I was most afraid of insecure of and ashamed of. And once I started to face all those things, and address them, and process them in a healthy way through different therapies and modalities, it literally, like I had a pain in my chest off and on for most of my life. And it went away a couple of years ago when I truly said I’m going to face this fully, when I’m going to go all into the darkness, and create new meaning around the pain that caused me to feel this way. And when I did that, that’s when everything started to unlock in a whole new way, it started to flow. My relationships, because I had peace inside of me, and I still have this peace and it’s beautiful. It doesn’t mean I don’t, you know, deal with stressful moments, or there’s not challenges to face. But I face it from a place of peace inside of me and calm, versus pain inside of me and reaction. And that has been the hardest thing to do over the last decade. And it’s been a journey of creating new meaning around memories that used to hurt me.”
On having no money to start with:
“When I started out, I didn’t have the money, I was on my sister’s couch. But I found these personal advisors and mentors who, they believed in me, and they believed in me, because I was willing to do whatever they said. The worst thing you can do is reach out to someone and say can you give me some advice, that’s the worst thing to do. Instead of that, reach out to someone and say, it’s amazing what you’ve done and what you’ve accomplished, I’d love to hear your story of success and how you overcame your biggest obstacle. People love to talk about their success, but they don’t want to give advice, because giving advice to someone who doesn’t take action is exhausting. So I found some great mentors early on, and I just said, I will do whatever you tell me to do. And then I would report back when I did it, I would not ask for any of their time, I would not check in with them unless I took extreme action, and typically failed a lot. And figuring out okay, I did these things, here’s what I figured out. What do you have next to me, what’s the next step I should do? And then it would tell me, and I would just go do it every single week on repeat, and then I’d come back to them. And that was a powerful relationship for me. Because I got wisdom from older men who had had success in different areas of life that I was looking for. And they were able to share wisdom of what worked for them and see someone actually take action. The worst thing you can do is waste someone’s time and not take action.”
On why the podcast does not have an intro:
“I realised, you know, I was looking at the data on YouTube, and I was noticing that people just drop off the longer if you didn’t get into the content right away. It’s just like, people don’t care. So I started testing that and saying, let’s cut this, the intros out on YouTube, and just get right into the first question. And we’ll put people’s names up and they’re kind of bio up on the video overlay. We’ll have it in the description, so all you have to do is click drop down and you see like a whole intro and a bio. And the same thing with the audio experience, but it was just kind of like, let’s test it out. And it started to work well, just by getting right into the hook. What do people need? Let’s ask this question right away, and then I can go back into like, backstory and who they are. But let’s, let’s give as much value upfront as possible.”
Lewis Howes’ dream podcast guests:
“I mean, it’s funny, I was thinking about this this morning. I’ve, when I launched the podcast, for whatever reason, I had like a top five that I wanted, and I haven’t had any of them still, which is, you know, so it’s still a journey. But The Rock was on there, Sylvester Stallone was on there, Oprah was on there, Jim Carrey was on there, and Barack was on there. It was part of that kind of my top five.”
On the LA journey:
“Mine is Interesting. I moved here for a girl, and the day I land. So I was living in New York living the dream, I was playing with the New York City handball team. I was running my business virtually from there. I was doing webinars and online seminars back then, LinkedIn, and then doing marketing with webinars and creating courses. So no one really knew what this was in 2010, right. Everyone now knows with Zoom and webinars and things like that now in 2020, but I was doing it 10 years prior. And so I could travel around, I just needed a laptop to make money, and build my business and I could be anywhere. And I was in New York City, living the dream, just like in awe of the city and like every day was magic meeting people having fun. I moved there to go play with the New York City handball team to pursue my goal and dream of playing with a US handball team and making it to the Olympics one day. Long story short, never made it to the Olympics, but did make the USA team, was with the team for about eight years, haven’t played in a couple of years with them. Anyways, meet a girl and she had just moved to LA, and we’re kind of dating long distance at the time for I don’t know, four or five, six months. And she is like I really want to date someone like in my city, and I don’t want to do long distance anymore, and she had done that in the past. And I was like, Well, I can come travel here like two weeks out of the month. I can work from my laptop, but I want to stay in New York. And she was like, No, I really think we should do it, like, a trial. And I was kind of like resistant and frustrated, because I told myself I would never move for a girl. And I was like, You know what, I don’t want to regret this, let me at least like give it a shot. So I let go of my place in New York. I hadn’t, didn’t have much anyways, I had two suitcases, a guitar and a laptop. Got on a flight one way to LA I had no place to stay. I was just renting an Airbnb for a week, no apartment yet. I land, she break ups with me the minute I land. And I’ll go what is going on? I just moved through my life across the country for this girl that I said I would never move for a girl for, this is why. And we ended up getting back together I think the next like day or two or whatever. But it was just like this emotional roller coaster for the first six months. And I hated LA because of that. I was like man, why did I do this? I should be in New York. But it was a beautiful journey for me to rediscover myself, reinvent myself, and start kind of mending and healing some things that were breaking down in my life. So that first year was a big eye opening journey, and a reflection for me to start opening up in different ways. You know, the girl didn’t work out. But being in LA eventually worked out. And now I love it here”
On the happy accident of moving to LA:
“I started the school of greatness because of the breakdown. Because of all that was one of the things along with other a business breakdown I was having, other relationship breakdowns I was having, and just like LA not working for me at the time. I realised I was the common denominator of all the breakdowns in my life. So it was a perfect opportunity to step back, look at the mirror, look at myself in the mirror and say, Well, who are you? Why are you causing these things to happen? If you’re the source of your life? Why are these things showing up in your life? And I really went down a journey for the next year and a half of working on myself healing, developing, going to workshops, coaching, therapy, just reimagining what life could be. I hit 30 Around that time. And I said, Okay, I’ve got to learn, I have a lot to learn, whereas I thought I knew a lot. I was successful in sports and then in business, but emotionally I was breaking down, mentally I was breaking down. And I was making decisions without the best wisdom, right? And so I was causing a lot of breakdown. And this journey, the first year and a half being in LA was beautiful, where I was stuck in traffic in LA, kind of like on my way here, that’s why I was a few minutes behind, unfortunately, I apologise. But I was stuck in LA traffic during this time, and I remember just feeling like everyone in the cars around me were like screaming and honking and flipping people off or cutting them off. And I was like, this is kind of how I feel my life right now, stuck. And it was literally no joke during the time when I was in traffic, going two miles for an hour where I was like, man, there’s got to be something I could do with my life right now where I’m feeling like stuck in transition, that I can help me improve. There’s something I’m missing, there’s something I don’t know. I thought I knew what to do, it got me certain results, but I’m still not feeling fulfilled or happy or peaceful inside. I go, maybe I could start this podcast thing. I just started hearing about podcasts, this was in 2012, this was the early days of podcasting, 2012 end of 2012. And I I knew two people that had a podcast. So I called both of them during this car ride, stuck in traffic, and I just asked them about it. Hey, what’s this? How’s it going for you? They just started it maybe six months prior. Both of them said they loved it, it was a thing they enjoyed doing the most, they’re having the most fun. And they love hearing the responses from people listening. And I go, well maybe I could reinvent myself by going on a personal journey by reaching out to the people that I know and some business and sports and, and all these different areas and have them kind of teach me how to get unstuck. And maybe people would listen in traffic, like driving around LA or whatever in the world, stuck in traffic. And it helped them in their life as well, and that is where the idea came from, feeling stuck and trapped and broken down in my life. And it’s been a just hit 10 year anniversary a few weeks. It’s been a beautiful journey of doing a show for myself to learn and improve and then saying, hey, hopefully others want to hear it. And it works for them too, and it’s been a beautiful ride.”
What is Lewis Howes grateful for:
“For meeting you in this moment, my health and my girlfriend.”
Featured image: Hollywood Reporter
