How To Fulfill Your Potential | Emmanuel Acho EP 221

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

0:10I firmly believe that taking charge of your mindset allows you to be in the driver's seat of your life and unlock your potential. And that's why I'm thrilled to share that my new book is out right now. It's called The Greatness Mindset. In it, you'll learn how to build a plan for greatness through powerful exercises and toolkits designed to propel your life forward. This is the book that I wish I had 20 years ago. It's everything I've learned in the last decade with the research and the science to help you unlock your mind. Make sure to go to lewishouse.com slash 2023mindset to pick up your copy of my book, The Greatness Mindset, today.

0:50The biggest struggle is trying to ascend to the mountaintop. I think the mountaintop is different for everyone. Is that a goal? For me, the mountaintop is checking boxes. like it's checking boxes give me an example an example okay great now i host my own show on sports speak for yourself check oh okay great now i partnered with oprah on a book oh another book oh a third book yeah check okay but the book has to best sell check it's just trying to ascend trying to do and not being dejected when you don't and then bro i also think trying to figure out our place on this earth. When we remove the masks and the makeup, figuratively speaking, of our life, we're all trying to figure out what value am I providing to the people I'm interacting with?

1:44What value am I providing to society? Where is my place in life? And my biggest struggle the last couple years is trying to really figure that out. And now that it appears I've figured that out, trying to sustain the heat and the hate that comes with that. Criticism is the cost of praise. We don't realize that enough. For those watching sports news, Naomi Osaka, number one tennis player in the world just a couple years ago, she tried to stop a tennis match because somebody said, you suck. And at the end of the postgame press, her tears came into her eyes for different reasons, and I was just like, criticism is the cost of praise.

2:22If you don't want criticism, don't play the game. Don't play, don't show up. You can't play if you don't want criticism. Yeah. It's not even like you were advising Donuts. Like, yo, criticism comes with it. Here's the funny thing. You're going to be criticized at the top or criticized for doing nothing. So you might as well do something you enjoy. Because if you're sitting on the couch and you have all this potential, but you don't do something, the people closest to you are going to say, this person has so much potential. Give me their potential. I could do something great with this, but they're just sitting on their couch depressed, worried about people's thoughts or opinions.

2:53There's a price either way. You can't call for attention and hang up. And whether we intentionally call for attention or we don't, you can't call for attention and hang up like the boy who cried wolf, like us in our friend groups. If you're at the grocery store and then you get upset and then you get emotional and then you get into it with the cashier emotionally fouling out. If you're talking to a friend and then you get into it with your friend and then you say something you shouldn't have emotionally fouling out relationship oriented. If you're talking to somebody and you're dating and then you get into it, everything starts with the mind.

3:26Both our greatest limitations and our greatest accomplishments, to me, it's all up here. Absolutely. You were already really successful. I mean, you're an NFL player and had a career in sports TV and all these things. But broken through to a different level, what is now the greatest fear? My biggest fear is becoming complacent. My biggest fear is not realizing I'm living inside of a box that is around me. My biggest fear is not realizing, hey, there's a door you haven't yet opened and what you think is a world is actually just a locker that you are inside of. Not pushing beyond a boundary because I don't even realize the boundary is set because I didn't set it because somebody else set it.

4:10And I've been living inside of somebody else's box or somebody else's boundary. The reason we don't achieve our highest highs, bro, isn't because we're not skilled. It isn't because we're not talented. It isn't even necessarily because we don't want it. It's because we don't realize how high we could achieve. One of my favorite stories, if not my favorite story, story of Roger Bannister. Scientists believe it's physically impossible to run a mile in under four minutes. May 5th, 1952, it had never been done in 2 ,000 years, but by May 6th, Roger Bannister, Oxford, England, runs a mile, three minutes, 59 seconds.

4:44Within two years, 10 people ran a mile in under four minutes. Now, the world record for the mile, three minutes, 43 seconds, and roughly 1 ,800 people have done so. Why? Because one man, Roger Bannister, removed the barriers that other people set around him. One man said, you know what? I'm not going to subscribe to that barrier. One man said, I'm not going to subscribe to goals. One man said, I'm not going to subscribe to that. And he broke the dam open for everybody. And after that dam was broken for everybody, the whole rest of the running world proceeded to run through. So if you don't have goals to break or reach, what are you reaching for?

5:27For me, I'm reaching for movement. Okay. That's all it is. I'm ready for progress. I'm moving forward. I'm moving forward. So it's not reaching an end goal. No, it's moving. It's moving forward, man. Like you, you're going to do another episode tomorrow and hopefully it's better than today and then the next tomorrow and hopefully it's better than that day. And then you're just gonna keep moving like let's not get so bogged down by but I didn't get this oh but I got that just keep moving forward when you go to a beach and you end up standing in the ocean eventually after about five minutes you'll look back like yo I drifted way far away and you just drifted further than you ever thought that's where I'm at now let's keep moving forward yeah we get so caught up in.

6:13I want to be married by 26 and I want to have two kids and I want to have bought my first home by 29. And by 35, I want to be done having kids and I want to have four kids, two boys, two girls, preferably twins, because that would be easiest. Forget all that goal setting. Goals lead to failure. I want to live the most impactful and significant life I can possibly live. And if I happen to live that life with somebody else, great. And if I don't, great. And at 35, I want to see where I am. And at 30, I want to see where I am. And I want to just continue to move forward and make progress as a human being.

6:49But at the end of the day, bro, the reason we have these goals isn't even because of us. It's because of other people. We often debate LeBron James, Michael Jordan. Let me blow this Michael Jordan, LeBron James debate open for a second. For those that claim Jordan's the greatest basketball play ever, they claim it primarily for this reason. He went to six NBA championships and he won six. But outside of those six NBA championships, Jordan never went back to an NBA finals. He won six times and he won all six times. LeBron, on the other hand, has gone 10 times and he's only won four. Now, let's talk about the same exact sport, basketball.

7:30Let's talk about the same exact result, first place and or second place, Jordan and LeBron. But now let's talk about a different measuring system, a different metric system, the Olympic Games. In the Olympic Games, Michael Jordan would have six golds, no silvers. LeBron would have four golds and six silvers. On an Olympic scale, four golds and six silvers is abundantly and clearly greater than six golds. So the question simply comes down to whose metric system are you using? Right. And the problem is we let other people's metric systems dictate the happiness in our life. Because in the NBA, you finish in second.

8:06and you leave the court crying and weeping, devastated. The Olympic Games, you finish in second. To a degree, you're elated, depending on what country. Why? Because somebody else dictated how we should feel about a certain situation based upon their metric system, not even our own. Absolutely. And I'm just done subscribing to other people's metric systems.

8:35Thank 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.

9:26Again, have an amazing day, and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.

9:41Thank you.