3 Success Habits That Will Guarantee Powerful Results EP 1472

In short

Podcast Notes: The School of Greatness - Episode 1472

Episode Title

3 Success Habits That Will Guarantee Powerful Results

Host

Lewis Howes

Lewis Howes is a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur and a New York Times best-selling author.

Episode Overview In this episode, Lewis Howes interviews prominent figures in personal development, including Bob Proctor, Tony Robbins, and Robin Sharma. They discuss critical success habits, mindset shifts, and the importance of personal growth. The discussion emphasizes the necessity of setting challenging goals, overcoming self-imposed limitations, and nurturing a positive mindset.

Key Guests

Bob Proctor
Well-known author and speaker on personal development.
Discusses the importance of faith over fear and goal setting.
Emphasizes that realistic goals can hinder growth; instead, we should set hard goals to challenge ourselves.
Shares insights on reprogramming the mind and breaking free from limiting beliefs.

Tony Robbins
Renowned motivational speaker and life coach.
Shares three habits he wishes he had adopted earlier in life.
Highlights that self-love is not the secret to success. Instead, it's about “stacking the positives” in life and relationships.
Discusses common parenting mistakes in today's society.

Robin Sharma
Leadership expert and author.
Focuses on the importance of recognizing and leveraging individual gifts for personal and professional success.

Key Takeaways

Personal Narrative: Your self-story can hold you back. Transition from a victim mentality to one of empowerment.
Success Habits: Many people avoid building the hard habits necessary for growth. Persistently practicing good habits is crucial for continual development.
Faith Over Fear: Embracing faith and the unknown is essential for success.
Intuition and Awareness: Trust your intuition; it informs decision-making. Awareness of your mind's capabilities enhances personal growth.

Important Concepts

Repetition and Learning:
Daily study and reflection are essential to internalizing key principles of success, as exemplified by Proctor’s long-term study of "Think and Grow Rich."
Developing persistence as a character trait is crucial for achieving long-term goals.

Overcoming Self-Doubt:
Self-esteem stems from personal experiences and achievements rather than external validation.
Understanding one’s mind and higher faculties (perception, will, imagination, memory, reason, intuition) can contribute significantly to building self-worth.

Emotional Management:
Physical states influence emotional states; thus, managing one’s physiology can lead to better emotional outcomes.
Practicing gratitude and recalling positive memories can enhance overall well-being.

Morning Routine:
The 2020-20 formula proposed by Sharma, which emphasizes a structured morning routine (20 minutes of movement, reflection, and growth), is essential for setting a productive day.

Mindset Shifts:
Moving away from blame and victimhood toward personal responsibility is essential for growth.
Developing a mindset of contribution can lead to fulfillment and happiness.

Closing Thoughts

Lewis ends the episode on a motivational note, reminding listeners of their inherent worth and potential for greatness, urging them to take actionable steps toward improvement in their lives.

Additional Resources

For more information, visit [www.lewishowes.com/1472](http://www.lewishowes.com/1472).
Tickets for the Summit of Greatness can be purchased at [summitofgreatness.com](https://www.summitofgreatness.com).

Call to Action

Listeners are encouraged to share their thoughts on the episode through social media and leave reviews to facilitate community engagement and support.

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This episode emphasizes the power of mindset and intentional personal growth habits, showcasing insights from influential figures in the field of personal development.

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Transcript

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0:01Calling all conscious achievers who are seeking more community and connection. I've got an invitation for you. Join me at this year's Summit of Greatness this September 7th through 9th in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio to unleash your true greatness. This is the one time a year that I gather the greatness community together in person for a powerful transformative weekend. People come from all over the world and you can expect to hear from inspiring speakers like Inky Johnson, Jaspree Singh, Vanessa Van Edwards, Jen Sincero, and many more. You'll also be able to dance your heart out to live music, get your body moving with group workouts, and connect with others at our evening socials.

0:44So if you're ready to learn, heal, and grow alongside other incredible individuals in the greatness community, then you can learn more at lewishouse.com slash summit 2023. Make sure to grab your ticket, invite your friends, and I'll see you there. Get some good habit patterns and live with them all of your life. You're either going to grow or you're going to die. It's create or disintegrate. There's no such thing as leveling out and staying where we are. And so if you have good habits, you're going to keep growing. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur.

1:23And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

1:39Welcome to this special masterclass. We brought some of the top experts in the world to help you unlock the power of your life through this specific theme today. It's going to be powerful. So let's go ahead and dive in.

1:57When you control from the inside, like we're in control of ourself, we're in control of our world. So it doesn't matter what happens, you figure out how to get to where you're going. The goals don't change. Sometimes the methods of getting there do. But I have never, I think probably I had great teachers. I had a half a dozen phenomenal mentors. And I think I was raised the right way. You stay in control regardless, you know. Yeah. What would you say are some of the habits that you have that people wouldn't expect that you would have? Maybe they would expect certain things like waking up early or journaling or, you know, getting eight hours of sleep.

2:43But what are some habits that you do differently that maybe are unexpected in the personal growth space? I study every day. Every day. I've studied every day now for 60 years. I started to study this book in 1961, and I read it every day. Same book, Think and Grow Rich. I have just here behind me. I've got the laws of success, the original ones that Napoleon Hill wrote in 1928. And then he came up with this in 1937. And the man that gave it to me, he said, if you'll study this every day, he said, you're going to have a wonderful life. And he pointed out Napoleon Hill spent his whole life studying the lives of 500 of the world's most successful people.

3:33He was mentored by Andrew Carnegie, who at the time was the wealthiest man in the world. And he said, since he spent his whole life putting this together, he said it would be a prudent move on your part if you spent the rest of your life trying to understand and apply what he was teaching. And, you know, that just seemed to make some sense to me. And that's what I started to do. And I've never stopped. if there was only one principle inside of think and grow rich that you could only live by and only talk about and you want to be able to talk about anything else inside the book what would that one principle be persistence he said there he said in the book he said there may be no heroic connotation to the word but the quality is to the character of the human like what carbon is to steel See, I think the trick, Lewis, is get some good habit patterns and live with them all of your life.

4:32Because you're either going to grow or you're going to die. It's create or disintegrate. There's no such thing as leveling out and staying where we are. And some people think they can just hold it where they're at, but they can't do that. You're either going to go ahead or you're going to go backwards. It's create or disintegrate. And so if you have good habits, you're going to keep growing. Way back, I think around 1938, 39, Albert E. N. Gray worked for the Prudential. And he wrote The Common Denominator of Success. It's a great article. And he said the common denominator of success is informing the habit of doing things that failures don't like to do.

5:19and he was speaking one time a young guy said why do successful people like doing these things and he said they don't that's why they've turned them into habits i thought that was beautiful because that's why they've turned them into habits they don't like doing them you see and of course i have what do you think well a habit is something we do automatically without any conscious thought we just it's part of our paradigm we're programmed what do you think are the three most difficult habits to develop uh that actual actually will support us for the most growth long term if we can take these habits on one of the i think the most difficult is repetition of studying the same thing i have a a book here on my desk It's in a book holder.

6:14And when I went to visit Earl Nightingale way back 1968, no, it was earlier than that, it was around 66, and I saw he had this book stand on his desk, and I asked him what it was. He said it was a book holder. And I said, why do you have it? He says, because I want to read those two pages every day for the next month, maybe two months. I said, really? The same thing. And he said, yeah. He said, then they'll become a part of me. And he said, that's really the secret of success is the repetition of an idea. You see that in sports. You play ball. I mean, it's definitely part of your game. You know, how many plays would you have in your head?

7:07who um well a lot of different plays but in football there's really only like nine different routes a receiver can run yeah that's part of the tree of running a route but there's so many different variations within plays that that one receiver could run and then another person could run in tandem with that yeah so you have to there's a massive playbook that you go through at the beginning of the season, and you've got to remember a lot of different things. But if you typically know the route you need to run and what other people are doing around you, then you can figure it out. But it's repetition that enables you to do that, isn't it?

7:44Over and over and over and over again. Same route over and over. That doesn't just apply to football. I think that applies to life. And if a person will really understand that, it's through repetition that you program your subjective mind. and it's your subjective mind that controls your behavior. It doesn't make sense to some people, but if they would study it and start to understand it, they would start to do it. What's the most important thing on those two pages that you have up in front of you? Most important thing? Here. Read it to you. The lesson to be learned from the practical aviation of the present day is that of triumph of principle over precedent.

8:29of working out of an idea to its logical conclusion in spite of the accumulated testimony of all past experiences to the contrary. With such a notable example before us, can we say that it is futile to inquire whether by the same method we may not unlock still more important secrets and gain some knowledge of the unseen causes which are the back of external and visible conditions. And then by bringing these unseen causes into a better order, make practical working reality of possibilities, which at present seem but fantastic dreams. They're talking about the Wright brothers. He said there was a secret.

9:14They got off the ground because nobody knew how to fly. And neither did they until after they got it in the air. But he pointed out that it was principle over precedent. And we let precedent control us too often.

9:34What's the difference between principle and precedent? Well, precedent, you're letting something that has happened in the past control you. The principle is that there's always a better way. Doesn't matter what you're doing. Better is a beautiful word.

9:58what's something in your life that took a long time where you were holding on to the precedent of something for a while maybe it was months maybe it was years decades that eventually the principle finally started to fly and you had a breakthrough is there an area of your life you can think of oh absolutely absolutely just soon as you said it yeah you see when i started in this When I first got this book, I was such a loser. And I mean, in every way you look at it, I went to high school for two months. And I didn't quit. They kicked me up. They didn't want me there. And I was kind of happy because I didn't like it there anyway.

10:44I held dumb jobs. I never had a half-decent job. The idea that I could even get a good job never entered my mind. I had such low self-esteem. I didn't understand that at the time. I didn't even know what self-esteem was.

11:02And letting go of the fact that I didn't have a formal education, that I never had any business experience, the man that gave me the book, he said, none of that matters, Bob, that's the past. He said, let it go. Well, I had a difficult time letting that go because we're programmed that if you don't go to school, you can't get a good job. That if you're going to earn a lot of money, you've got to be really smart. Well, you see, I didn't think I was very smart and I didn't have any formal education. That's a hard thing to let go of. but through the repetition of studying this over and over and over as he pointed out to me Edison had grade 3 and he pointed out different people that had no formal education and I finally made a break left it behind I'm not quite sure exactly when but I let it go So what would you say are some deciding factors that can help someone with their self-esteem?

12:19Because you and I are very similar where my childhood, I didn't have much confidence in myself or esteem because I was in the bottom of my class in school because I was, you know, had tutors and special needs classes because I just wasn't able to understand it and comprehend that well and felt awkward and goofy in my life. what are some some things you think people that in their teens or even in their 40s and 50s who don't have confidence yet what are the things we can be doing differently to gain confidence to build self-esteem because i think this is one of the key factors of success is believing in yourself it doesn't matter if the world believes in you if you don't believe in you yeah what can we start to do to change that well i think a person has to start to study themselves most people know very little about themselves.

13:03They think they're their body. You're not a body. You have a body and you have a marvelous mind. And when I first started to study this, I thought, you know, studying the mind, that's for psychiatrists, psychologists, behavioral scientists. And the man that told me, he said, no, it's not. He says that's for anybody. That's for little kids. And so I think as we start to understand something about our mind and something about our higher faculties. See, we're all programmed to live through our senses. We go by what we see, hear, smell, taste, touch. Well, I've got a little dog at home that you can see, hear, smell, taste, touch.

13:45All the animals in the world, they're completely at home in their environment. They blend in. They operate by instinct, which is perfect. we had instinct removed and we had higher faculties put in our place in the place and if we would study these and gain an understanding your self-image would automatically start to improve you have perception the will reason imagination memory and intuition those six faculties will give you the ability to create your own environment. See, we're totally disoriented in our environment where all the other little creatures are completely at home in theirs. And we're disoriented in ours because we can create our own.

14:35But we don't know that. School doesn't teach us that. School is more interested in the development of your intellect than in the development of awareness.

14:50Like a person doesn't earn$100 ,000 a year because they want$100 ,000 a year. They earn$100 ,000 a year because they're not aware of how to earn$100 ,000 a month. Awareness is really the key. And when we become aware of who we are and what we've got working for us, you know, marvelous things start to happen to us. and that's really what happened to me. I never went back to school.

15:22I built a very successful company. It operates all over the world. I didn't do it myself. I have a tremendous team of people. I've got just an absolute genius of a business partner, a woman who's an attorney. I mentioned to you before, you should have her on sometime. You'd be fascinated with her. She's that interesting. But there's a group of people. We've attracted a phenomenal group of people in our company. And we're operating now in 91 countries. Wow. Teaching this information.

16:01I don't know another company that teaches what we teach. like I think Tony Robbins has probably done more for our industry than any individual The Secret has probably done more for it as much as Tony has the movie but there's I don't know anybody else teaching what we're teaching and what we're really doing is teaching people how their mind functions and how to expand their understanding of how it operates. What are the six faculties again? You shared this before, which I love. And I think if people really understood this, it could help them build their self. There's perception, the will, imagination, memory, reason, and intuition.

17:00Which one is the hardest for people to... I don't think any of them are. Awareness. They're all equally valuable. You take your imagination. Think of this for a minute, Lewis. Nothing is created or destroyed. Look here. Here's a little cell phone. What you can do with this almost blows your mind when you think of it. Yeah. Well, when I was a kid, we didn't have a phone. We didn't have a phone because we didn't have any money for the first reason. But the second, not everybody could have a phone. We were not aware that there was an infinite number of frequencies. Today, there's, what, a zillion phones because there's an infinite number of frequencies.

17:52This phone is on its own frequency. Yours, it's on its own frequency. If I have your number in here and I hit send, you and I connect. We're on the same frequency. It won't matter where you are. We can see each other. We can communicate because we get on the same frequency. Well, the good that we desire is already here. It's on a frequency. The way to build this has always been here. We weren't aware of it. But somebody took their imagination and went off into no place. what they were really doing is going on to a higher frequency. And if you'll stay on that frequency, you'll attract everything that you require.

18:34That's why Dr. Warner Von Braun, when President Kennedy asked him what it would take to build a rocket that would carry a man to the moon and then bring him back safely to Earth, Von Braun said the will to do it. The will is the mental faculty that gives you the ability to hold one idea on the screen of your mind to the exclusion of all outside distractions. See, if you take your imagination, do it. You have goals. Take your imagination and then take yourself there. See yourself already have completed the goal. And then hold that picture with your will. when you go there with your imagination, there is a place.

19:25Whatever it is you want, you went there with your imagination, there is a place. You stay there in your imagination. You will attract everything that's required for the manifestation of that picture. You saw Brady doing it last Sunday. Yeah, as a machine. Yeah. Absolutely phenomenal. So holding the imagination, the picture that you want in your mind, and then attracting it on the steps to get there. You see, we don't work toward the goal. We work from the goal. You get the goal in your mind. Our problem is we measure everything on the physical. And you look at the physical and you say, well, I haven't got it yet.

20:14If you think your conscious mind, if you get an image there of your goal, you've already got it intellectually. If you didn't have it, you couldn't share it with me. But if you have it, you can share it with me. You can share with me the idea that you've got in your mind. So you've already got it there, haven't you? Right. As you get emotionally involved with that idea, you've got it also on an emotional level. You've got it there. You've got it intellectually. You've got it emotionally. The only place you haven't got it is physically. Now, there's a period of time must elapse for that idea that you have intellectually and emotionally for that idea to move into physical form.

20:59We understand. How much time? Pardon? How much time does it usually take? We don't know. We don't know. That's the only thing we don't know is the gestation period for an idea. We know what the gestation period is for wheat. We know what it is for a carrot. We know what it is for a baby. Moment of conception is about 280 days. We didn't always know these things, but we do now. We don't know what the gestation period is for a spiritual seed, and that's what an idea is. But it grows by exactly the same law. And so if we hold that idea in our mind, it must, by law, manifest in form. It moves into form.

21:40Now that is called the perpetual transmutation of energy. It's one of the laws of the universe. There was something that you shared just a moment ago that reminded me of an interview I did with Joe Dispenza recently, where he said, we're really good at remembering the past and actually building a story in our mind about something traumatic that was actually way worse in our mind than it actually probably was in person. And we're really good at remembering these stories. But what we need to do, he said, is to remember the future. And when he said that, it kind of triggered something different. It's like what you just shared.

22:19It's like have an idea of the future of what we want to manifest and hold on to that idea and remember the memories of the future as opposed to holding on to the memories of the past. So we can move into that as opposed to be stuck in the past. That's what I love what you shared there. That is, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's holding the memories. Why is it so hard? Why is it hard for us to hold on to or maybe not hold on to, but keep in our minds and imagine the idea of a greater future for us as opposed to constantly being stuck in the past? Why is that hard for so many of us? Because we're programmed to go the other way.

22:58You know, what language do you speak? I barely speak English. How about Russian?

23:09That's all I know. Well, the point is, you were raised with the English language. Yes. You don't know another language. I was raised with the English language. I don't know another language. I was working with people over in Kuala Lumpur a number of years ago, and they had a little boy four years old. That little boy could speak four languages. They thought nothing of that. There's people speak many more than four languages. because that's the way they're raised. We're the product of our environment from the time we're born. But prior to that, genetically we're programmed. You're genetically programmed at the moment of conception.

23:51You get all mom's DNA and all dad's DNA. And God knows how far it goes back on either side. Well, that is programming. That's in our subconscious mind.

24:05and that's called a paradigm. That's what it is. It's a program in our subconscious mind. Now, here's the crazy part. You have programs in your phone or in your computer. The people that write the code for these programs are really smart when it comes to writing code. They really know what the hell they're doing. The people that wrote the code for our bio computer had no idea what the hell they were doing. They don't. They did not. They were writing a code for my subconscious mind and for yours. That's our paradigm. And that probably controls our life to an enormous degree. It did with me until I was 26.

24:48Now, I was fortunate when I met Ray Stanford and he got me into the Think and Grow Rich book, and that led me into God knows what else. I have been working at changing that program since I was 26. I'm 86 right now. So I've been at it for a long time, and I work at it every day. Most people don't even know that they have the problem. So they stay stuck their whole life. Listen, you interview some pretty interesting people. I watched the interview here a billionaire a while ago. Which one? I forgot. I forgot who it was. Ray Dalio, Charles Koch. It was a pretty interesting interview anyway. But the point is, anybody can become a billionaire if that's what you want to do.

25:43You say, well, wouldn't everybody? No, everybody wouldn't. I wouldn't want to put all my energy into that. Now, does that mean I don't want money? No, hell, I earn all kinds of money. And I probably want to earn more. But that's not my focus. We are programmed to live a certain way.

26:05And rarely do we change that. Now, I change it, and I teach people to change it. But most people don't. Stop and think of how few people are really well off. Three, four, five percent maximum, if that. and 95 % are struggling. And some of these are really bright people. You've got people that have a doctorate degree in commerce and finance, and they're broke. How the hell could that happen? Well, they never learned how to earn money. They learned how to count it, invest it, and what to do with it. They never learned how to earn it. School doesn't teach us how to earn money. It's absurd when you stop and think about it.

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26:54Was there ever a moment where you didn't unconditionally love yourself? And if so, when did that shift where you stopped that and you started saying, okay, I appreciate myself because of my contribution and my service and who I am? When was that shift? I don't think it was ever I just didn't love myself. There were times, obviously, being angry with yourself or frustrated with yourself or thinking, you know, I'm not doing enough. I mean, I can remember my birthdays, to be honest with you, probably up to my 40th birthday, including my 40th birthday. You know, you have a birthday with a zero on it once you're over past 30, you know, 35, sometimes five years on it as well.

27:29People look at their life differently culturally. And I used to think it was bulls**t. But sure enough, I would do it. And I remember turning 40, and I was really, really unhappy. I was like, Jesus, I've not done enough. I've not helped enough people. I helped tens of millions of people at that point already. I've already done all over the earth in 100 plus countries at that point. but it was still kind of stuck in my head. So I would earn the love by over delivering, change somebody's life. Like I don't get it. Cause somebody says, Oh, I love you, Tony. I mean, I appreciate that. Oh, you're the greatest.

27:58It's gotta be my standard. My standards higher than their standard for me. Right? So when I get up and someone's going to kill themselves and it's they're suicidal and boom, turn around, they're no longer not going to kill themselves, but they're transformed. Their life is there. You know, that's when I'd go, okay, you know, now we've hit the center of what I'm made for now you know I deserve to feel this euphoric feeling within myself and appreciation even then I still know it's God coming through me I don't have the delusion it's just me but I think sometime after 40 I finally saw the stupidity of it I accumulated enough that I looked at life with fresh eyes and I can say by the time I turned 60 a year ago I noticed it was interesting because my birthday I didn't have an ounce of it I was just like you know how could I at this stage of my life when I've had the privilege of serving so many humans in so many contexts, you know, from turning around, you know, guys are going to kill themselves with PTSD to helping kids turn around to getting kids off cocaine or adults to, you know, help people build multi billion dollar businesses from nothing.

28:58And when I've lived this long, I can't go by without hearing half a dozen stories a day or a dozen stories a day from people telling me how something I did changed their life. So it's not that I'm so smart now. It's just I stacked it. By the way, though, stacking is the way you can do things. most of us stack the negative. If you are really angry, it's not usually because it's just the moment. It's that it happened again. You know, it's like if you've ever lost it or overreacted to your kid or to a friend or a business or even within yourself, it's because it happened again. We hit this one, two, three, many point, and then our nervous system overreacts.

29:32But what I've learned is you can stack the good. But, for example, if you go into a state of really strong anger for more than five minutes, your immune system is suppressed. between an hour and a half to two hours. That's a physiological fact. But knowing that any study, I started stacking good. Like, okay, let me stack a dozen great memories, feel them, see them, experience them. And I felt this biochemical change that didn't just last a half hour, an hour, or 10 minutes. It went on for a day or two. And so I think I've learned to stack the good. So just having the experience is not enough. You gotta stack the good to be able to appreciate it.

30:07But I think, just come back to the main point here from my perspective, which could be completely full It's just my perspective. So I want to point that out. I think the more you find unconditional love for others, the easier it is to find in yourself. And I think the focus is serving and loving. And that's what will get to the point where you start doing it. But if you want to speed it up, stack all the good you've done, you'll feel great about yourself. I already know all the comments that have come through. Thousands of comments tell me, but what about my family that's toxic? What about my partner who is toxic?

30:38And how do I love someone unconditionally when they don't respect me? I can't trust them. What about situations like that? All those reactions are natural human reactions from ego. Because it's all about you, me, me, me, what I'm not getting, what I'm not doing, and that's why you're in pain. And so I'm not telling you like I haven't done this, I've done it too in the past, but it's an old pattern I don't really do anymore. And it used to affect me. Now, not a dominant one, I wouldn't have become who I'd become. Early in my life, I developed this belief that life is calling not to give me something.

31:12Life is calling for me to deliver things, for me to bring something to life. And I felt the joy that came from not getting but giving. And I got hooked on that core pattern and then the pattern of learning so I'd have something to give, which I know one of the things I respect about you, Lewis, is that you have that same pattern in you. You're always trying to learn more because underneath it all, you also want to give it. You want it for you, but you want to share it, right? And so those patterns help me not be in what they're not giving. And all this language. Language, today, people don't understand the power of their language, like toxic.

31:47What the hell are you talking about? You've been reading too much social media and thinking about yourself, or somebody raised you to constantly judge everybody else. We live in a culture now where people, you know, you're evil or you're like me. That's basically how it is, right? The whole world, everybody else is immoral unless they do what you do, think what you think, experience what you think. I mean, being a liberal, I was a liberal, right? Being a liberal growing up meant I would fight for your ability to say and believe whatever you want different than me. Today and now, everybody wants everybody to think the same thing.

32:18Otherwise, they're evil or otherwise they could hurt me. Whatever happens, sticks and stones will break your bones. Words will never hurt me. We have this whole thing that words are evil, words are action, it's bullshit. And all it does is make you incredibly weak as a human being. And you're more than that. We all are more than that. But you know what? Like a kid that's never broken their bones, definitely afraid of breaking the bone. But if you're a kid and you're rough and tumble, you broke multiple bones and they healed, you don't have any fear of it. There's so many kids that have been raised to be safe and secure every moment.

32:50Anything that's insecure or unsafe, they don't want to be a part of, including language. and what it does is make you incredibly weak and fearful and that's why there's so many people that are abundant that are angry all the time because they're angry because they're not growing so don't get me wrong i know some people are not a good influence i'm not denying that i'm just saying you're more than somebody's influence unless you obsess about it every moment and make them wrong so you can make yourself feel superior morally psychologically or spiritually that's bullshit stop the pattern we've all done it kept yourself because if you want joy happiness and freedom and extraordinary life, it will not come from blame.

33:26Never. There's no pride that comes from blame. I don't mean fake pride where you make up to feel good. I'm talking about real pride. Pride is something you earn. Like people tell me, oh, I have no self-esteem because my parents used to say this or they'd say that. I'd say that's such bullshit. I'm not saying it's bullshit. They didn't say that. I said it's bullshit. That's why you're doing self-esteem. Self-esteem does not come from what people say about you. Self-esteem comes from what you experience about yourself. See someone tell you your whole life you're a piece of crap and a part of you go you're full of it I'm going to show you.

33:57Lots of people have done that. They never bought it or someone tell you you're beautiful your whole life you go I'm not really beautiful. So what people tell you doesn't matter at all it's what you stack, it's what you assemble, it's what you create, it's the habit of what you put in your head and today I don't blame you because we got a whole culture that's always blaming somebody else for something in their life but blame is not a strategy for pride that's why you listen to these blaming people they're all angry all the time listen if i wanted to blame i grew up in an environment i didn't even share it to my mom past and even then i didn't share i grew up in a pretty rough environment my mom was a beautiful soul but when she drank alcohol and she mixed it with prescription drugs it was a different creature and it was a violent creature and i have a younger brother five years younger and a younger sister seven years younger and my mom would get nuts and i didn't want them to get hurt so i was 5-1 in high school she grabbed me by the hair and smashed me against the wall till i bled now i never shared this and i'm not denigrating her in any way i only shared it like four or five years after she died um because i was talking a group of kids in new york city um all without fathers um 80 african American, about 20 % Hispanic out of their group, roughly.

35:12No white kids. And I'm talking about your biography is not your destiny. And it doesn't matter what you've been through. What you decide now is what's going to control your life. What you decide each day going forward is going to decide your life. And I can look at them seeing me. I can read their minds. This big, tall, white, rich guy is going to tell me biography doesn't matter. So I said, you know, let me tell you my story. And I told them the whole story way more than I'm telling you. And every one of them crying their eyes out when they're done. I said, look where I am right now because I wouldn't assemble the story that my past equals my future.

35:43The past only equals your future if you live there. If you're using a rear view mirror to guide yourself, you're gonna crash. So what you've been through is horrific. What you've been through is unjust. I'm on your side. But if you hang on to it, you have no future and you have no one to blame but yourself. And these kids, to their credit, man, they just responded to the challenge because they first cried their eyes out hearing all the stories. My mom would think I was lying and I wasn't lying. She poured liquid soap down my throat till I threw up and I wasn't lying. So it's not the physical abuse.

36:13It's the fact that this is the person you love most that's trying to hurt you that messes with your head. So I could have been messed up for life, but I didn't because something inside me says I'm responsible for this life. And part of that is because I started reading when I was 13, 14 biographies of people, the greatest people in history and reading their lives and finding out guess what their lives were far from perfect some of them had worse lives than i had but when you have no reference and all you do is go online you talk to other people making everybody else toxic and i'm like this and they didn't do that then you get to have this life just like those other people why are they online so much because they don't have a life right don't be one of those free yourself from the chains of your past i'm not saying your past doesn't matter.

36:59But listen, my mother, I tell people this all the time and it's the truth. If my mother had been the mother I wanted her to be, the mother she should have been, I would not be the man I'm proud to be today. Because I had become a practical psychologist way before any schooling, figure out when she's going to go in the mood. How do I change her state? How do I protect her from the kids? I mean, it was life and death and it was to some extent. So I developed skills at such a young age. Then when I learned things, I just added to my skills. But I had a core sense of certainty that I could turn anybody around because it started with my mother.

37:35And thank God for her. And she encouraged me in so many ways. She did so many great things. And she loved me, even though it didn't look like it at times. But if your parents, if the people around you said all the things you thought they should have, if they had just not been toxic, if they'd encouraged you, you wouldn't have any muscle. And right now you don't have any muscle because you're using that as an excuse, if you're thinking that. And I'm not attacking you, brothers and sisters. I'm calling to you because I know you're more. Otherwise, I'd just keep my mouth shut. You've been hypnotized by a culture of weakness.

38:07Now, having said that, I'll say one last thing. I know you haven't got other questions, but it's so important what you ask. Yes, there are people that you don't want to hang out with that will not serve you. But then move on. Don't sit there and talk about it constantly. Don't waste your time. And you say, but what if it's family, Tony? Mine was family too. And you learn to grow. You go, they're in my life. Someone can get your goat. If someone can piss you off. If someone can make you feel less than, that's God coming to you saying, grow. You need some spiritual growth. There's got to be some change in your perception, your belief, your emotions, your spiritual look of life.

38:45So that can't happen anymore. And when it happens, like at 61, I've been through so many of those things. And I like to do things in mass. I took on big challenges. just so I'd have to grow more. But then life throws them at you too. When they come, you just go, okay, it's going to have me until I grow. What needs a shift in me so that no longer has an impact? But, you know, Jim Rohn used to say, my original teacher, he used to say, Tony, what happens if I've got a cup of coffee here? And he'd say, what if your worst enemy drops sugar in your coffee? What's going to happen? And I'd go, well, you'd have sweet coffee.

39:17And he goes, what if your best friend, your mother, your father, your brother, your sister, your loved one drops one drop of strychnite? I said, you'd be dead. He goes, that's right. Life is full of sugar and strychnine, so watch your coffee. His whole thing was stand guard at the door of your brain. But some people take that and go, oh, my God, you can kill me. It was a metaphor. These people are not so toxic. They're toxic because you give them energy. So if your mom's crazy and constantly criticizing you and it drives you nuts, just go, that's my mom. That's her way of showing love. And I find a new perspective.

39:46And no matter what she does, just stay in a beautiful state and love on her and think, boy, think of all that she cares and feels for, all that she's frustrated in life, or all that she's going through that's made her this way. And thank God I don't have to go through this. I can love her. It's like your growth is the only limit to your happiness. If you're not happy, you're not growing in some area. And usually it's a place where you're blaming, you're pointing the finger. I don't care if it's government. Don't get me wrong. People can be unfair, unjust. That's for sure happens, but you can't control that.

40:18You can't make it not happen. What you have to do is become stronger than any of it so you're free. Freedom comes from growth. Freedom does not come from control because control is an illusion. You can't control everybody no matter how hard you try. You can't control what they think or feel and not everybody's going to be fair and just. And you, my dear friends, and I have not always been fair and just whether we admit it or not. It's just the nature of being a being a human being but we can't make the largest pattern fair and just and loving and powerful and serving and growing until it becomes the dominant thing inside you and then you experience life as being great not you're great life's great because you're living a great path it seems like what I'm seeing and hearing from a lot of people that this past year everything has fallen apart for them their health their relationships their finances their mission or purpose and their spiritual awareness.

41:13Every area of life has been in breakdown mode for some people. Not everyone. Some people have had incredible lives and have stepped up to the occasion and broken through on all these things. But I'm seeing a pattern of a lot of people breaking down in many areas. Hypothetical scenario. Let's say you could only focus on one thing to get you started. You only had the time and energy to focus on one of these areas. Your health, your relationships are all breaking down, your finances are failing everywhere. Where should people lean into first to kind of create that foundation so that everything else can start to rise as well?

41:45I think before you answer what to do, you've got to answer why you're there. It is not because of the pandemic. I remember when 9-11 happened and people said, oh my God, my life was destroyed because of 9-11. And there were people in the same building who turned their life around, grew spiritually, grew closer to their family, made their businesses larger, and the same building burned down, right? I know in my case, you know, 9-11 comes, if you can imagine, you know, I'm fortunate enough to have now more than 80 companies and all these different industries, and obviously, you know, I've done pretty darn well by most people's standards of business and life, but my core mission is what I do for a living.

42:25It's why I'm here talking to you right now. It's getting people to be free and alive and have the level of fulfillment that they deserve to have i know they desire but i also believe they deserve to have but to deserve to have it you got to do certain things right and so you're not in the place of being overweight because you lost your job so stop the blame blame is not a strategy for a meaningful life blame is not a strategy for greatness so you got to resolve that number one and then your question was what's the one thing to focus on if you only focus on what i think it's smart to focus on one thing primarily focus on too many can be overwhelming other people it's it's good to focus on multiple things It depends on your personality.

43:02So I wouldn't presuppose. But then the answer would be whichever thing you're most desirous of changing. Whatever thing is giving you the most pain. So if it's your relationship, I'd go full force on that. Now, in the world we're in today, you know, you don't usually have the privilege of going, okay, I want to work on just being happy. Well, I can train you to be happy while hell's breaking loose. You can sit in this chair and be totally euphoric. But if you do that in a Western culture, people come and take your furniture, right? So you probably have to work on both your business or financial side and some personal side.

43:34I would be working on both. And to me, the way to attack that, if you're not sure which areas to start with the body, and I know you can relate to this, Louis, because you and I both share this in common. It's like, I always teach physiology first, as you well know. If you change the body, you'll change the emotions. If you change the emotions, you'll change your decisions, you'll change the quality of your life. Because the quality of life is your emotions. It's not what you get. You have a billion dollars and commit suicide. People have done it. right you can have beautiful relationships and commit suicide you can have people loving you and be sad all the time our pattern of emotion is our home and you have to upgrade your home you have to train it and one way to train it is the emotion comes the way you move the way you breathe the way you speak so if i said to your listeners uh there's a depressed person behind the curtain over here and i'll give a hundred thousand dollars to their favorite charity if they had to describe their body their posture and they're depressed you tell me i'll just use use the example what does that person look like they're they're slunched down they're looking down at their feet they're not looking upward their their shoulders are over there are they breathing full or shallow do you think they're shallow are they talking fast or slow they're talking probably if they're depressed they're probably talking fast because they're not calm.

44:49Well, no, that's usually stressed. Depressed is different than stressed. They're probably talking low volume, slower than. And all those physical characteristics change your biochemistry towards this feeling of being depressed. And in a depressed state, you won't do anything. When I used to be depressed, I don't get it anymore. I just took it out of my life. I even took the language of it out of my life because the words you create, create a biochemical response. But when I did that decades ago, because I was like having those thoughts, like, is there a reason to still be here that kind of crazy in your head i got out of it by using anger originally i'd much like sometimes if somebody's really sad or depressed i'll make them angry and be like what's he doing he's making him angry because angry is much more resourceful than depressed from anger i can get you the laughter i can get you know taking action so and then gradually i got where i didn't need anger it was about growth it was about contribution was about meaning so there's like stages to go through but to answer your question they should work on both their business side of the life in personal one of each and in order for either one of those the work you need to be in a strong emotional state and if you start with your body like you know i started every morning in my cold water starting with my workout i started every morning on feeding my mind right so there's certain things you got to do physically so you're strong enough to remember the truth because remember fear is physical you feel your throat or your gut so it's courage courage doesn't mean you're not afraid it just means you're strong enough you push through in spite of the here right and courage feels different in the body so when you go lift or you go for a sprint or a strong run or you jump in that freezing water when you push your mind you go beyond what's comfortable you feel a strength inside you and that strength will help you to change your body your emotions your relationships whatever but then the other thing i'm going to say is model someone who's successful don't just do this by trial and error like find somebody who has what you want ideally maybe more than one person two or three and figure out what are they doing different than you in their relationship?

46:37What do they believe different than you about relationship? If it's their body, what are they doing different? They're not lucky. They're doing things differently. You might be slightly biochemically different, but there's patterns there that you can see. And so instead of learning by trial and error, which can take decades, you may never learn. Jim Rohn taught me success leaves clues, man. Find someone's got what you want, study what they do, every aspect of it, and then add yourself to it. And that's the pathway to speed of transformation. So now like, you know I've done it I'm not the only person there's so many companies that went from worse off than they've ever been in their history to the best off because they found a way to pivot.

47:16One of the most important things a human being can do is press the pause button each morning while the rest of the world is asleep and ask yourself how can I fortify my mindset how can I insulate my heart set? How can I optimize my health set? How can I escalate my soul set? The four interior empires that I've introduced in the 5am club, so that when I walk out in the world, I'm creative, I'm productive, I'm compassionate, I radiate positivity, and I have resilience in case I get knocked down. And so I think one of the best ways you can do that is this 20-20-20 formula that I've been teaching to the billionaires, the NBA stars, the film icons, and many of the most successful people on the planet for, as I say, 24 years.

48:10And very high level, Lewis, the 2020-20 formula is simply this. You get up at 5 a.m., and anyone can get up at 5 a.m. One of the gifts of a human being is neuroplasticity. We are built to change. So please, I would encourage, you know, if we recite our excuses long enough, we actually believe they're true. We are built to change. We are built to grow. We are built to own our heroic nature. And so according to University College London, if we do any practice or habit for 66 days, we reach a point of automaticity where it becomes easier to do that new habit than not do the new habit. once you wire in the new habit for the first 20 minutes 5 to 5 20 you move because you can release bdnf brain derived neurotrophic factor which promotes neurogenesis it optimizes your brain if you move first thing in the morning you release serotonin which makes you feel good you release dopamine which you know sets you up for inspiration second we can get into it more deeply but second pocket from 520 to 540 is reflect.

49:16You know, while the rest of the world is asleep, there's such quietude in the air. This is where you can pray, you can meditate, write in a journal, sit in quietude so that you're focused living your life and your priorities through the day. And then the final pocket of the 2020 formula that I talked about in the 5am club is grow. You'll never get old if you grow you'll never become obsolete in your business even in a time of great volatility if you're growing you'll always stay happy if you grow so 20 minutes at the end of this victory hour that's what i what i call it uh you spend some time listening to a podcast like lewis how's on a school of greatness a man adored by the majority of humanity um you listen to an audio book you read a book, you study your battle charts.

50:08And anyway, that's a really rough general way to explain the 2020 formula that is currently helping millions of people navigate this hard time. Does it matter the sequencing of 2020? Do you need to move first? Can you meditate first? Do you grow a lot? Or is that a process that is proven scientifically? The process has been proven in the trenches of elite performance for a long time with my clients. And having said that, I would say the 20-20-20 formula is minimum viable morning routine. And you're a biohacker, I'm a biohacker, I'm a productivity hacker, I'm a life hacker. And so I would say, do what's right for you.

50:56It's like this whole field of personal mastery and leadership that we inhabit. I'm not one to say you must do this because we all have different learning types. We're all on different journeys. Someone might be right now upgrading their spirituality so they connect with their crusade and their higher power in this time of house arrest. Other people are creating their masterwork right now. So I think we have to find the routine, the morning routine that works best for us. What about people that say, you know what, I'm just a night person. You know, I like, I think at night, I work out at night.

51:34That's when I meditate. You know, I strategize the next day at night. And I just I've tried the morning, it just doesn't work for me. What would you say to that? I've had a lot of night owls. That's a great excuse, isn't it? To be a night owl. I've had a lot of great, a lot of night owls who have said, you know, I could never be a morning person. I've had a lot of people who've said, you know, grandma couldn't get up early. Grandpa couldn't get up early. My parents couldn't get up early. I don't have early rising genes, you know? And what I would say is if you don't read that book, you've been resisting because you don't think it's for you.

52:12you might just miss your new favorite book. If you fall in love with your most closely cherished beliefs and you're not open to trying new things, you might miss trying your new favorite food. If you say, well, here's the kind of friends that I hang out with and I'm not open to anyone else, you might miss that new friend or that new mentor who will transform the way you run your craft and live your life. And it's the same for the morning routine, the 5am club. I mean, it's just, I've had so many people read the book, run the models in the book, live the message, and achieve what they never thought they'd achieve.

53:01And so what I would say to a night owl, or a lot of people say shift workers or whatever, I would say, give it a try. I don't just give it a try for for a week you know give it a try for three weeks four weeks the 66 day minimum and then judge but then judge by your results yeah so it's okay to sleep in once a week or to miss miss the routine once in a while it's not going to affect your overall you know results or process is that what I'm hearing yeah I think you know if you want to commit to the 5 a.m. club you want to commit to a world-class morning routine because the way you begin the day profoundly sets up the way your day unfolds and this again this is not an anecdotal you get up in the morning and you run the 2020-20 formula that I explain in the book you will create the flow state you will release serotonin you will release dopamine you will release the DNA you will increase your metabolic rate you will boost creativity you will increase your willpower you you know all those things i mean we we want we all have the ability as human beings to arrive at our own original form of greatness we have not been schooled we have not been taught a lot of us have not been mentored on the mindsets heart sets routines rituals that will create and allow us to live our personal genius.

54:30But, you know, if you look at the greatest women and men who have ever graced the planet, these were so-called ordinary people who just set up their lives in such a way that their native gifts saw the light of day. It's funny how no one ever teaches this stuff unless you had a parent or an older sibling that you were able to model and mimic like, oh, my dad gets up early or my brother gets up and does his violin or practice a sport, whatever it may be. And I want to be like that. And I want to try that. It's, you know, we're not taught this in school. You know, Lewis, I, when I was a kid, I wasn't believed in by a lot of people.

55:13I marched to my own drumbeat. I had a different way of seeing the world. I was very sensitive. I was very creative, very much a dreamer in many ways. And I didn't fit in with the cool crowd. And in grade five, I had a history teacher and her name was Cora Greenaway. And she was one of the first people in my life who believed in me. And we all meet a Cora Greenaway. And may you and I and everyone listening from around the world or watching from around the world, may we be a Cora a green way to someone else. What I'm suggesting is all it takes is that one person who coincidentally shows up in our life.

56:03And maybe it's a book, maybe it's a podcast episode to introduce us to a new frame of reference and a new way of living. That's why I love reading so much. It could be one idea in a 300-page book and that idea opens you up to a new galaxy of possibility. And the hand that puts down the book is a fundamentally different hand. I mean, all it takes is one new insight to change the way you see the world. That's very true. And so, yeah, and that's why I'm on such a mission. I've been on such a mission for 24 years to remind people of who they're meant to be. Martin Luther King Jr. said, if you have not discovered something you're willing to die for, you're not fit to live.

56:43And I believe we all need to find our mighty mission and our crusade. It doesn't have to be lofty. It could be delivering pizza by Uber Eats. It could be a teacher. It could be a lawnmower. It could be a coder. It could be a grave digger or street sweeper. All labor has dignity. But, you know, there are no extra people on the planet. And I think, you know, that's why I appreciate the work you do so much. I mean, we do have greatness within us. And society has brainwashed us and heartwashed us into thinking that the great ones are cut from a different cloth. And it's not true. As a matter of fact, in the 5M club, I say, you know, genius is less about genetics and much more about your daily habits.

57:33Wow, that's true. That's, I mean, that resonates with me because growing up a kid that was, you know, dyslexic and still struggles with reading and writing today and was in the special needs classes, I never thought I would amount to much. And I didn't have belief in myself until I found a spark and belief in myself. And then I started leaning into that gift, which was sports and started to realize, oh, I have some vision and I have some coordination and I have some speed, even though I was never the fastest or strongest, I had some height. And so I would lean into this gift that was here and see if I enjoyed this gift.

58:13I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward.

58:50And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.

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