10 Lessons of Greatness: How to Live Bigger, Love Deeper, and Leave a Legacy

0:00The greatest people in the world didn't start confident. They built confidence and there's a difference. They weren't handed opportunities. They created them. They didn't wait for the right moment. They became who they needed to become in order to create the moments in their life. Greatness isn't a gift. It's a choice. And it's a choice you make every single day to achieve greatness in your life. And when I lost my identity after playing sports, I wasn't confident at all. I was completely broken. But that breakdown became a foundation for my life. And that's when I learned that greatness isn't about luck.

0:39It's actually about building powerful habits. It's showing up when you want to quit, believing when you feel empty. It's creating a vision so big that it scares you. And becoming the person who can handle it is all you need to do. And that's why I started this experience, this show, this podcast called The School of Greatness. to study how the greatest minds in the world, the greatest thinkers, the greatest athletes, the greatest business leaders, the greatest artists in the world, how they think, act, and live when no one is watching them, when no one's cheering for them, when no one's watching them do a performance or build anything, how are they thinking about building the life of their dreams, about creating the art that they love, about launching a business to impact millions of lives when no one is watching, no one is cheering, and even when everyone's criticizing them.

1:36Because greatness isn't about something that you're born with. It's something you turn into by developing and training yourself into it. I'm gonna be breaking down 10 different strategies to unlock greatness in your life. The same principles that helped me rebuild my life when I was down and out can also help you live bigger, love deeper and leave a legacy that lasts. That's what this is all about. The first strategy is to create a vision. If your dream doesn't scare you, it's probably too small of a dream. There's a quote that I like that says, create the highest, grandest vision possible for your life because you become what you believe.

2:23Now, Oprah Winfrey said that. And in my book, The School of Greatness, I say, you become what you envision yourself being. This is in my book that just hit our 10-year anniversary on the School of Greatness book. And this is a book that I wanted to really capture some of the key lessons that I'm talking about here. And I distilled it into the book from some of the great minds that I had on this show. You become what you envision yourself being. Now, some of you might know my story. And if you're new here, you probably have no clue what had happened to me. But when I was in my young twenties, I had a dream of playing professional football.

3:02I actually accomplished that dream by going to the arena football league. And I was working my way to try to get to the NFL. But in an early game in that season, I broke my wrist. I was in a lot of pain. I played the entire rest of the season with a broken wrist. And afterwards I had surgery. That surgery left me in a full arm cast from my shoulder to my fingertips in a 90 degree position for the next six months. But I took a bone out of my hip, put it into my wrist, and it took a long time to heal. Now, I got the cast taken off of my wrist and my arm after six months, but it took me another year just to be able to straighten my arm, to be able to use it, to build the strength.

3:45And during that year and a half time, I was living on my sister's couch, trying to figure out what am I going to do with the rest of my life? My dream of playing sports is over. This was the only thing I had planned to do growing up in school. I didn't have a backup plan. I didn't do well in school. I struggled. I didn't have a lot of friends growing up. I didn't know how I could become anyone else than the identity that I built myself into being, which was an athlete. and going to play professional. Now playing in the arena football league, I wasn't even making that much money. So I was only making$250 a week.

4:21This is not enough to live off of for months a month, let alone have savings for the next year or two. So I'm on my sister's couch. I'm struggling financially. I'm in credit card debt with three credit cards. I've got student loan debt that I have to start paying off. I have no job. This is in 2008 when the economy crashed, The housing crisis crashed and they weren't hiring people with a master's degrees, let alone someone who barely graduated college. And I didn't have any skills. I didn't know how to develop skills. I had zero confidence and I wasn't sure what my future entailed. I can tell you right then that I wasn't clear.

5:06I wasn't confident and I didn't know what to do next with my life. and every day felt scary. Eventually, a few things happened. I started finding mentors. I started seeking wisdom and advice from people who had overcome challenges and obstacles. I started reaching out to people in the community in Columbus, Ohio, where I was living on my sister's couch and trying to find professionals who had accomplished certain things in their careers or their businesses. I started trying to find a way to add value to people. And little by little, I started to build some relationships with some key individuals in my life that gave me some wisdom that essentially became coaches to me in a time where I felt hopeless, helpless, and really I didn't have any competence in myself.

5:52But that competence that I lacked, those coaches also saw potential in me. They saw potential for me to want to learn. They saw potential for me to work hard. They saw potential for me to create goals and work towards steps to accomplishing those goals. And because I had that willingness to learn, the willingness to be coachable, the willingness to work hard, to set goals and try to overcome these challenges, they were willing to give me some time to coach me up, to help me and inspire me a little bit. And all I did was start taking action. But early on, all of them said, what's your vision? What's your vision?

6:32What's your dream? What's your goal? and the key is you've got to have a clear vision. And once I started getting clear on this vision, things started to unlock for me. And you don't have to have a vision for the next 40 years of your life right now, but you need to figure out what you want to do for the next season of your life. And so for me, that vision was, how do I make enough money to get off my sister's couch? That was one dream, one vision. And I started getting clear on, okay, I want to get off my sister's couch. That was a vision. It was a goal and it was a dream. I also, in 2008, saw handball on the Olympics for the first time during the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

7:12And that planted a dream in my mind, a vision. I want to go learn handball. I want to play handball at the next level. I want to make the USA national team and I want to go to the Olympics. That has been a 17 year vision and dream and journey that I've been on that I'm still working towards and still on today. So that vision and dream and goal, I didn't accomplish it overnight. I got off my sister's couch, thankfully, in the next year, but I didn't accomplish other goals or dreams overnight. All these things take time, take time getting clarity on of what you want and why you want it, and then taking time to creating a game plan to taking the steps to accomplishing those goals and dreams.

7:53I'm still taking steps. I'm still on the path for the Olympic journey, which has been a 17-year journey. But I got off my sister's couch much sooner. But again, I didn't have the clarity on how to get off my sister's couch. And you don't need to know how right now to accomplish your dreams, but you do need to know what you want and why you want it. So I was clear that I wanted to get my own apartment. I was clear that I wanted to make a certain amount of money. And then I got clarity on why I wanted those things. So the action step for you right now for this first part is to write your dream in one clear sentence.

8:28what is it that you want? And it can be a dream for the next few months, the next few years, or even longer. Write it down one clear sentence and why. Set a specific timeline to make it real. You know, for me, I wanted to get off my sister's couch within the next year. So I wrote the date of when I wanted that to be, wrote it down, and I was like, okay, what do I do next? Same thing for the Olympics. I wanted to get there within four years. That didn't happen. So I re-imagined the dream. Every four years, I set the goal for the next four years. It's been 17 years later, and I'm still excited about that dream.

9:08So I keep reinvesting to find ways to make it happen. The next thing is to create a vision board or a phone wallpaper that reminds you daily of who you're becoming. This is so easy now with AI. We used to cut out newspaper clippings and magazines, but you can literally create a vision board through AI right now within moments. You can say, use this one photo of me and put it in this way and this way and all these different things. And it can make this beautiful wallpaper for you in minutes. So create a vision board or a phone wallpaper that reminds you of who you're becoming and want to become on a daily basis.

9:49This is like a visual mantra for yourself. It's like you see it and it psychologically and spiritually triggers you into taking the actions to building the habits, to setting the boundaries, to creating who you need to become by visualizing that future version of you. And then the next thing is to spend a few minutes each morning visualizing how it feels to already live that vision. Because here's the interesting thing. From all these interviews of almost 13 years of doing the School of Greatness every single week, interviewing the most inspiring people in the world, we have learned over and over again through neuroscience, through research, through inspiring stories, through anecdotes on this show, that when you live a joyful, happy life and you are just grateful for your life, you're excited, you bring joy, enthusiasm, positivity, and you act as if you have won the gold medal, you have accomplished the business success, you're in the marriage of your dreams.

10:52When you act as if it's happened already now, the vision you dream up is already you're living it and you wake up with joy, man, do you attract that thing so fast to your life? I'm telling you, it is like this magic tool that when you just show up fully expressive, excited, grateful. It's like you already won the lotto. It's like almost as if life people want to be attracted to you. They want to find opportunities for you to get that even more, your goals, your accomplishments, the things you're looking for. It's like the, the world starts putting it in your place and starts providing it for you faster.

11:35One, because you're clear on what you want. And two, because you're so grateful and excited to be alive so everyone around you says, let's give it to them now. Let's get them there faster. And it is an amazing feeling. You can practice this daily of just, I am grateful to be alive and visualize how it feels to already have the vision in your mind. You will get there faster. And it is a powerful thing that I try to practice every day. That is end of strategy one. Create a clear vision for your life. and that can be a season, years, and decades. Strategy number two, this is a big one. Turn adversity into your advantage.

12:18Your struggles aren't curses, they're courses. Storms make trees take deeper roots, said Dolly Parton. And I love that because none of us really enjoy being in the adversity. We don't like going through this challenging breakup that feels like you're dying or your heart is like jumping out of your body. No one likes losing money or getting fired from a career. No one likes their business falling apart and having to go bankrupt and being so scared of where you're going to find money to pay for rent this month. No one likes being sick or having an injury or feeling like they went through some type of physical accident.

13:02No one likes these feelings. This is not fun for us. And I am not welcoming more challenges in your life. That's not what I want for you. But every time I look back at my life at some of the hardest challenges, the sadness, the suffering, the depression, the sexual abuse that I went through, my brother being in prison when I was younger for many years, my parents going through divorce, feeling not emotionally safe at home, going through the ups and downs of relationships, struggling financially for years and not having any money and being in credit card debt, being so insecure of who I was in the world, not feeling accepted, all these different challenges, being sick at different times, going through injuries, losing my identity from sports, having surgery, whatever it might be.

13:48We've all had some type of pain, problem, sadness, challenge we've had to overcome. and I don't welcome any of them for you or for myself. I don't want these things anymore. But when I look back and I look at the time where I had to, you know, take a bone out of my hip, put it in my wrist and be in a cast for six months, unable to move my arm and essentially just lay there on a couch, feeling completely useless for many months. I look back and I realize that's when I started to develop. That's when I went into Rocky training mode. That's when I went into learning mode. That's when I went into, okay, it's time to develop.

14:31It's time to become, it's time to learn and get out of this funk. It developed me. It shaped me and gave me a sense of courage that I laughed before then. When I went through breakups, multiple different breakups, and I felt like I would never be in another loving relationship again. And I felt like, ah, you know, who's ever going to love me and all these different things I went through. I would never be in the moment that I am now in a beautiful marriage with a beautiful woman where we're growing our family and I feel peace and harmony in a relationship for the first time in my life. I would never have that appreciation.

15:09I would have never been able to know what to look for having gone through, having not gone through those challenges, whatever it might be, whether appreciating and taking care of my health now because I've gone through accidents and injuries and really doing my best to eat better. All these different things, making sure that I'm clearer on my finances and managing it better since I've lost a bunch of money in the past and felt like, man, all that time and energy and hard work gone in moments from losing all this money, all this different stuff. For me, it's really looking back and realizing, man, these, these challenges aren't curses, they're courses, they're opportunities for growth.

15:50And the more I reflect on them and gain wisdom through the challenges, man, that's when I can really appreciate them. Again, I don't want to go back and relive them. It's not that I want that, but I can look back and say, man, they've helped develop me into becoming a greater person today because I chose to make the most out of those challenges. So my action step for you right now is to list three challenges in your life that have shaped you and the strength each one gave you. So you can leave this in a comment below on YouTube. You can write this in a journal or a piece of paper or your notes in your phone.

16:30List three challenges that shape you or maybe, you know, create a lot of sadness or suffering inside of you. Three different challenges. and now looking back, what's the strength, what's the tool that each one of those gave you? And I can tell you, for me, you know, all those challenges have shaped me in an empowering way because of what I learned from them and how I've become better after going through them. So I want you to reframe every hardship with this specific question. What is this preparing me for? What is this preparing me for? Or what did that prepare me for? What did those heartbreaks prepare me for?

17:12What did that physical sickness prepare me for? What did that challenge of going through career after career set me up for? Whatever it might be for you. What did that financial season of struggle set me up for today? What did it teach me? What did it prepare me for? write that down and then the last thing use your story to inspire someone else who's currently where you once were i was just speaking at a google event two days ago and a woman came up to me and said lewis i've been listening to your podcast for years and every time i hear your story that you're on your sister's couch and you're injured and every about a year and a half you weren't sure what you were to do with your life and you had no money and you weren't sure what to do next that gives me inspiration.

18:00It gives me hope. And it helped me overcome the challenge that I was faced with in my life. And we may think that our story is not that interesting. Like I've said this story a ton of times, right? I've been on this show for 13 years. I've been telling my story for a long time. And I think, ah, people are sick of hearing my story. But then I get a reminder. Someone says, Lewis, your story inspired me. I'm telling you, your story will inspire other people around you. Whether it's one person, whether it's a hundred people, millions of people, keep sharing your story. Be open about it, be vulnerable about it, and you never know who you're going to inspire with your story.

18:40That's the end of strategy number two, is that we've got to be willing to learn how to turn our adversity into our advantage. because if we don't turn it into an advantage, then we'll always be a victim to the adversity in our life. Strategy number three, champions aren't fearless, they're relentless. It's a quote I like that Ryan Holiday talks about, and it is the impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. It's from Marcus Aurelius, but it's through Ryan Holiday, where I saw him talk about that. And the challenge is that most people don't know how to build a champion mindset.

19:24When challenges arise, they just get weaker. They don't get stronger. And we need to be thinking about, and you need to be thinking about what is the pain, the problem, the challenge that I'm faced with in my life right now. And instead of saying, why is this happening to me? You need to say, how can I become so good at this? So confident, so strong, and face this, face this emotion, face this fear, face this challenge. How can I face this head on so that I can expand my abilities beyond it? So this does not limit me. Champions look at their adversity and they don't run from them. They actually lean into them.

20:02They run towards them. They face them. And a lot of people just get stuck because they say, I don't know how to overcome this problem. This is so painful. This is so hard. They complain. They get frustrated. They ask, why is this happening to me? Why can't this be easier? Instead of saying, how can I get stronger? And I want you to start asking yourself, how can I get stronger right now on the thing that's holding me back? And this is what makes champions great. They lean in. They say, I don't understand this. I don't know how to deal with this. And it is hard. And that's what they put their time and their attention to mastering.

20:40They master it by focusing on it, by getting support from others, by getting coaching, feedback. They learn, they develop, they start to study it. I'd been afraid of so many things in my life. I was afraid of public speaking for a long time. And instead of saying, I will never be able to speak in public, I said, I'm going to go all in on my fear of public speaking until this fear no longer has power over me. And so I went to public speaking class through Toastmasters every single week for a year. I got a coach. I filmed myself and I'd watch myself cringing of how horrible I was speaking in front of a group.

21:23And I would give feedback to myself. I would get feedback from others. I would rehearse. I would practice. I invested time into overcoming the fear instead of saying, I'm never going to be good at this, so I'm never going to try it. And I want you to think about what's that one thing in your life. What's that one thing that's holding you back that you can go all in on instead of running away from? So start to ask yourself each morning, how would the best version of me show up today? How would I show up today going into these fears, these challenges, and these pains? and I want you to replace I can't with I'm learning to.

22:01Instead of saying I can't do this, I'm learning to do this day by day. I'm investing my time and energy in overcoming this. So stop saying I can't. And this is something I struggled with around Spanish, learning Spanish. I say I'm learning Spanish every day as opposed to this is really hard and I can't do this and it's taken me 20 years and I'm still learning. It's just, I'm improving a little every day. I'm investing time and energy every day. And it's finding ways to make it more enjoyable and fun when it is challenging for yourself. And then after every failure, all you got to do is extract one lesson and immediately apply it.

22:39You know, I used to beat myself up a lot when I'd make mistakes or I'd fail. And I'd be like, man, you're such an idiot, Lewis. You're so stupid. How could you do this? You should know better, I would do all these things that would confirm of how bad I was and how I'm not good enough. But that doesn't help me and doesn't help you emotionally, spiritually, or psychologically. So instead, when you make a mistake or you're not perfect at something or you're fall behind at something, just say, it's okay. What's the lesson I learned from this and how can I start applying it today? So that is the end of strategy number three is to cultivate a champion mindset.

23:17it. Strategy number four is to develop hustle and discipline. Now, I'm not talking about hustle culture where like every day you have to hustle and burn yourself out. But when I would play basketball, I remember I would hustle after loose balls all the time. And if there was, you know, a loose ball that was fumbling around, I would dive or I would sprint after it. I would jump kind of hustle mentality in certain moments. And for whatever reason, I was always on the court because the coaches said, I like the way you hustle when the ball's in the air. And again, it doesn't mean all day, nonstop, you have to be hustling.

24:02I don't think that's sustainable, but there is a mindset around a hustle mentality and really just being disciplined. and the more you can lean into, I'm willing to do what it takes. I'm going to step up and I'm going to do the little things. I'm going to do the extra things. I'm going to go a little extra harder from time to time. Those things really matter and opportunities start to open up for you because motivation is a feeling, but discipline is a choice. And we are what we repeatedly do. excellence then is not an act, but a habit. I've said by Aristotle. And again, I used to think that hustle meant you had to grind 24 seven, but that is not sustainable.

24:46I tried it for a couple of years when I was broke on my sister's couch. I started making a little money and I was like, I need to keep making money because I don't want to be broke again. And I just burned myself out. I got exhausted. I didn't sleep well. I ate a bunch of junk. I gained a ton of weight. I didn't feel good. And it's not healthy to lose yourself for one goal if you're going to just burn yourself out by hustling 24-7. Real hustle is consistency. It's just showing up when no one's watching. And this has been 13 years of the School of Greatness every single week. And I realized that I can be consistent and disciplined and get exponential results.

25:28And I didn't have to be always hustling 24-7. Now that doesn't mean there aren't days or weeks or months where I'm scrambling for loose balls left and right and throwing them back in the court. You know, there are those seasons, but the greater level of hustle is just being consistent and disciplined with good habits. So one action I want you to think about is to pick one habit that aligns with your vision and make it a non-negotiable. This could be around nutrition. This could be around movement for your body. This could be around sleep. This could be around something around meditation or prayer, something spiritual, something around your relationships, whatever it might be.

26:11Think of one habit that aligns with your vision, a vision of you becoming greater and make it non-negotiable. The next thing is to schedule focused time on a daily basis and treat it like an appointment with your dream. Again, when you have this kind of vision wallpaper, when you write down your goals, when you reflect on them and you see them, when you look at them and you're imagining them, and then you're living as if it's already happening, you're going to be creating an environment essentially 24-7 where you're in a relationship with these goals, dreams, and visions. But if you can schedule time first thing in the morning, at lunch, and at night, for a moment, to just look at them or to connect with them again, it's going to allow you to stay focused when things get distracted in your life.

27:04And then track your progress. This is not about being perfect every day. This is not about accomplishing the goal overnight. This is about tracking your progress and not trying to be perfect every single day. And again, at the end of each night, ask yourself, did I keep my promise to myself today? Did I keep my promise around the two or three things I said I was going to do to support me in getting closer to my goals? And that's the end of strategy number four, develop hustle and discipline. Number five, again, this is all, I break all this down deeper in my book, The School of Greatness. This is the 10 years of this book being out.

27:41It was an instant New York Times bestseller. There's a link below. You can grab a copy if you want to get this copy. I also have a couple of other amazing books, The Greatness Mindset, Unlock the Power of Your Mind. This is all about healing your relationship with yourself and unlocking it to a whole nother level around greatness in your life. And then if you're looking to really create financial abundance in your life, you want to make sure you get a copy of Make Money Easy. This is about creating a new relationship around money with yourself. So if you feel like your relationship with money might be off a little bit, this is the book for you to start creating that inner freedom and financial peace.