Become The Leader You Were Born To Be | EP 914

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

0:09There are two big things happening at one time that I've never done before. I'm going on a book tour for my new book, Make Money Easy, and I'm doing a podcast tour at the same time. It is going to be big, and I'm going to seven cities in 10 days. Get your friends, get your family, bring everyone you know to these cities. I'm coming to Austin, Texas, New York, Boston. We're going to Nashville. Then we're going to Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco. Make sure to get your tickets right now. Go to lewishouse.com slash tour. Again, bring everyone you know if you're looking to create more financial freedom and abundance in your life.

0:49And you want to see a massive guest live on the School of Greatness show. Get your tickets. I can't wait to see you there. I worked so hard to get my business off the ground. And I was often working seven days a week. you know not just coaching like that was a portion of what i did but to keep a roof over my head it was bartending it was waiting tables it was like being a personal assistant cleaning people's toilets whatever i needed to do in order to pay my rent put food on the table and actually continue to grow the business so i basically developed a habit of working non-stop and former etv oh yeah like getting the business off the ground like i worked side gigs like a fitness coach you did like dance instructions.

1:29You did everything. I was a Nike elite dance athlete. I, you know, taught anywhere from like three to seven classes a week at crunch fitness. Some of them were choreographed. Some of them were basic fitness. I had the coaching clients. I was doing the content and I was bartending and waiting tables. So I had developed this habit of nonstop work because that was what was necessary at that time. But as Josh and I, you know, got together and eventually when I let go of the bartending and the waiting tables and even the dance and fitness as a revenue stream, I didn't let go of the habit of working non-stop and that created some real problems in the relationship where it was to the point that him and I had been together for seven years and never taken a vacation together like we had traveled because either he had something for his work or I had something for my work but it was always work related so it wasn't actual just together time just him and I and our relationship was almost over like he was kind of done with me Wow.

2:26Because you were just, I want to work. I got to build my business. You don't understand me. This is my dream. I was operating, too, out of a lot of scarcity and a lot of just habit, like feeling like if I didn't work constantly, that it was all going to fall apart. My stepson, Zane, was going off to college, which that was a really big thing in terms of Josh processing that, you know, having your kid go off after you raise them. And then me working all the time. There was this confluence of stressors that put us in couples therapy. And I had to really change a lot about how I was living, what I was believing, and really putting things back into perspective, which, you know, saved our relationship.

3:05What were you believing? Well, I was believing that if I didn't work constantly, that I wasn't a worthy person, that I wasn't doing enough to make my business successful, that I was perhaps letting people down. And so I had to really shift that and understand that I don't come from a wealthy background. So the work ethic in my nuclear family is very strong. Like my dad owned a small business. My mom, although she stayed home with us, she was constantly doing stuff, constantly working, constantly fixing things, constantly doing things that took care of the family. That's the kind of DNA I grew up with was like, no, if something needs to get done, you get it done.

3:45It's not like you sit around all day and eating bonbons and watching TV. We need to work in different rhythms. You know, often when you're getting something off the ground, it's kind of like a rocket ship leaving the atmosphere. It takes a lot of inertia to break free from gravity, right, to get into that upper stratosphere. So there's a lot of work required in the beginning, but then you have to adjust as you move on. And I just needed to learn that lesson. So there's two points I want to make here. In terms of my personal relationship, Josh and I look at the calendar at the top of the year and we set non-negotiable adventure time.

4:20He doesn't accept work. You know, I tell the team like, this is the time we're going to be away. No matter what's going on, we're just offline. That's it. And then there's other kind of smaller adventures that we plan, like adventures with friends, where, you know, have a bunch of friends up for a couple of days around a birthday or around a holiday and like put these bumpers in place so that both him and I know that there are these solid connection moments throughout the year that no matter how busy everything else gets, that we have these things to look forward to. And that's been a game changer.

4:52One day I was in New York and I was having like a really bad craving for carbs. And there was this great little French bakery around the corner that I'd never been to. And I'm like, I'm going to go get my croissant right now. So I roll up to this little French bakery and on the window, there was like this handmade sign that said, you know, offer vacation back July 18th. And it was like this two week thing. Wow. You're like, what? And I was like, wait, wait, what? Your business, you need to be here. Yes. And yet there, it was empty. And this simple little like hand-drawn sign. And in that moment, Lewis, I had this notion.

5:26I was like, wait a minute, I'm running this digital company. I have all of these amazing, beautiful, gorgeous souls that I work with. And we're producing content once a week, every week, nonstop. When do we ever take a break? And the advantage for me, like Josh, who works in entertainment, like series, sometimes they'll have, you know, you watch your favorite series. Like I love Handmaid's Tale. I love Stranger Things. You see 11 or 12 episodes and wait a year. And yes. And then they're off for a little while. Right. And I thought to myself, why do I not have downtime built into my business? And this was about the time when also there was just a cultural uprising with like, you know, hustle 24 seven and you have to work nonstop and like never take a break.

6:08And I'll, I'll sleep when I'm dead. And And I'm like, those are horrible messages for your health. So after I had my croissant craving, I told my director of operations, I said, starting right now, we're going to close the company down for two weeks in the summer and two weeks in the winter. In addition to people's already having their vacation time. So our company goes dark twice a year. And now the company's at a place where not everyone in customer service takes off those exact same two weeks. So they stagger so that we can take care of people. but everyone has two weeks of dark time. And what's great about that is that you don't get FOMO, thinking that you're off and there's all these other things happening and there's projects moving ahead and there's these things that you want to be in on, but you're like feeling that tension because the rest of the company is moving ahead and you're trying to relax.

6:57So it's been a game changer for us as a team. When everyone comes back from break, they're A, so excited to get back from work. It's almost like a little joke. They're like, oh, my God, I miss you guys so much. And they talk about how they spent time with their families, like the adventures that they had, how they got a chance to refresh and renew themselves. And they come in with all these ideas. They didn't work on those ideas while they were away. It came to them because they had a chance to step away. It is space. Yeah. You know, it's such a strange environment that so many people that work for companies feel afraid.

7:33Like they feel. Afraid of what? Expendable. There's no sense of loyalty. And we were talking about someone that we know collectively who's like super talented, but in an industry where things are shifting fast. And there's always this undercurrent of not knowing whether or not they're going to be let go because budgets or this, that, or the other thing. And there's not necessarily a connection between employee and employer. And many people may, well, that's just the way that business works. That's how it must be. And I don't agree with that. I want the people that work for me and with me to feel a sense of safety and security.

8:10I mean, nothing is guaranteed for someone to feel like if they're contributing their top gifts and their talents and their time to an organization, that that organization is also as equally invested in their health and well-being, their sanity, their ability to show up fully for their family, to have time, to have flexibility.

8:42Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description. That will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on The School of Greatness. And if you are loving the daily motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

9:32Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.