Mike Tyson: How To Overcome Your Ego To Stop Suffering In Silence & Sabotaging Your Relationships

24:40My, I'm nothing but just a junkyard, gutted kid, right? But I had nothing. I had nothing. This old Italian man gave me an ego, right? And he gave me everything I wanted. The ego gave me everything I ever wanted. There more. But it took so much more in return. What did it take? It took everything. Wow. It took everything. Been in prison. Took everything. Family, love. Yeah, well, you don't care no more. You're almost an animal. Wow. You know. Oh, I don't ever want to go there again. Wow, man. Why do you want to live like an animal when you can just say, give it up? Hey, I don't want to do it no more.

25:15I love you. Wow. That's amazing. Crazy. That's awesome. What's the thing, the lesson you have still yet to learn for yourself to get to that next level that you want to be at? Is there a lesson or is there a challenge that you're struggling with, a question inside that still keeps you from more love, more fulfillment, impact? What is that? Why me? Who the f*** am I? Why do millions of people know me and think of me in nice ways? Why me? Why did I have to meet this guy? He had nothing. He has died broken. But how did he give me the tricks that he had to give me what I want? You know, why me? How did he know I was the guy for this job?

25:58Wow. I never had a boxing club all my life. I never thought about sports. I never played sports in my life. How did he know I was the guy? The universe. Yeah. How does the guy know? That blows me away. How does this guy know? Crazy. What do you think the world needs more of right now? What's it missing? um listen i don't know i can't say no i can only say love kindness um passion patience you know among each other look at each other as equals you know everyone can't succeed in one particular way we could all put we could all succeed if we work together in any way so true you know anyway no one wins unless we all win.

26:49Exactly. And the conduct of one is the fate of us all. And there's billions of all in it. The conduct of one is the fate of us all. Say that one more time. The conduct of one? The conduct of one of us is the fate of all of us. What does that mean for you? What does that mean to you? That we all have to be in sync with one another. One guy robs a store and murders some people. That's the fate of all of us. One guy kills a guy because he's a different color a different religion that's the fate of all of us

27:24some powerful he always this this yeah insightful yeah he is man i mean and that's just really to me why i think i've connected with mike so much is you know through my career in the nfl and coming out of it this dissolution of ego that's taken place for me over the last four and a half years you know ego is just it crushes you really at the end of the day because that's the thing that ties you into all of your desires and ideas about who you are and what you're supposed to be in this manufactured realm and it chases everybody that loves you away exactly you only have around you it's never enough your ego can never have nobody you love around you it won't work Why is that?

28:14If somebody loves you and your ego's acting up and it's controlling you, you can't have them. You push them away, yeah, yeah. You slammed them away. No matter how much they try to love you, you're just like. You can't do it. You can't do it. It won't work. Because you're never satisfied. Yes. You're never filled. That hole is never full, you know? Not enough women, not enough cars, not enough money, not enough. Accomplishments, press. Not enough. Consumption, there's not enough to just consume and feed that thing. Feed that beast. And that kind of sickness, if you can't have it all, you'd rather have nothing.

28:53Because it's not enough. If it's not all of it, I'd rather have nothing. Is that what happened to you? I'd rather have nothing. If I can't have every one of everything, every girl, every drug, every movie star, if I can't have every one of them, all of them, I'd rather have nothing. Really? Yeah. How many women do you think you've been with? I don't know. I'm not proud of it, though. Yeah, yeah. That's stuff that I'm proud of. Because I don't even know why I did it. I didn't know what was the purpose of it. To try to fulfill something that we were missing. No, it wasn't. Listen, I wanted those women to love me.

29:26Why? Because I didn't love myself. Wow. Did you let them love you? No way. How can I not love myself? I can't let them love me. My love was to make me. Right. Or to tell me I was great or tell me that was the best you ever had. That was my ego. Yeah. You know what I mean? That was my fulfillment. I would pay you up out of your house or car. I'm the best on her. Wow. Woo.

29:56How long have you been together with your wife? No, well, more than 10 years. I married 10 years. What's the greatest lesson she's taught you in the last 10 years? That I don't own her. Did you used to feel like you owned the relationship? I owned everything that was in my presence. Wow. You're around me. You're your work. I own you, mother. You're around me. You're a fan. You're around me. I own you, mother. Wow. I own you, mother. You're around me. You're in my presence. You want anything. You accept anything from me. I own you. You owe me. I own you. Yeah. Yeah. So when did she say, you don't own me?

30:30What was that like when she confronted you and said, hey, you don't own me? Listen, let me tell you. Have you ever been married? No, I've never been married. Let me tell you something. I'm going to tell you something. Marriage is something that, it's like a roller coaster, right? And it's really scary because the roller coaster goes up and it gets to the top and it's making a lot of noise. And that's the beginning. We're making a lot of noise about being in love. And then we get to the top and then we come down fast. And you can't grow, you can't learn this stuff. You got to grow with this stuff.

31:00Yeah, you got to go through it. You can't get ready for this. You can't prepare for this. You know what I mean? You got to find out if you and this person really care about each other. Love is out of the question now. We're married. Love. Now, how determined you are to make this work for the betterment of your children, your name, God. You know what I mean? How tough are you now? You're a tough guy. I want to see how tough you are. You beat up a lot of people. Let's see how tough you are with this. Wow. You know what I mean? This is for God. Let's see how tough you did this. For money. Let's see what you can do for God.

31:35What's the greatest? It's awesome. What's the thing you love about her the most now? Right now? That she puts up with me. I can't believe we're still married. Ten years, yeah, wow. And then I ran into the toad. Wow. Oh, man. Toad life. Toad life up in here. Toad life. You really have to cultivate a marriage, man. You have to work at it. You've been married? You're married right now? You got two kids, you said? One kid. Two-year-old? Seven-year-old. Seven-year-old, wow. Why don't you reach that spot where you understand, hey, we have to take care of ourselves. We have to make sure our side of the street is clean.

32:13I can't worry about her side of the street. I got to make sure my side of the street is clean. That's a key. That's an absolute key. I'm not married. I've never been married. But give me the keys to getting into a marriage that's happy and staying in a happy one. Give me your top three each. I want to hear. Don't take anything personal. Never personal. If she says things that make sense. How do you not take it personal? It takes a lot of practice. It's not wrong because it's triggers. When they're attacking you. We have triggers from other relationships and other lives. They hit those triggers and we blame them for the trouble that everybody else caused us.

32:49Because they press those buttons that put that pain back up. So how do you not take it personally when they're like, you mother. It takes a lot of practice. You learn not to take it personally. And you say, and you just tell them, I love you. It doesn't just happen. It disarms them. Always coming back to I love you. I love you. please i love you remember how much you love them and remind yourself of it and for me it's

33:15it's about taking the energy that i bring into life because we can take our families for granted yes you know and we fall into just autopilot uh you know programmed mechanisms with our family especially with an intimate relationship. And so over that time, like what Mike was saying, when that love or that lusty, super hot sex time wears off, because it's going to, because we are, as human beings, we are chemically programmed into that, especially men. You are biologically, evolutionarily programmed to procreate and spread your seed. So this is something that we have to battle, or at least learn how to hone and control.

34:04And listen, this is what I found out too. Remember when you said it comes a time when you still want to do it no more? You still like to do it, but it's not like it used to be. That's because God prepares you. Sometimes when you're younger, it has to go. And when you get older, it's not that important. You don't care as much. That's why God made it feel good. Because even when you're older now, it's not that important, but it still feels good. I feel like feeling good right now. you know so you have to come home and you have to create that romance and that love again you know you have to remind yourself she would lose she'd pick something up you know why are you not being this way you with somebody else this way women pick things up they're very sensitive they pick up things you have to be um consistent the same thing all the time all the time stop one time or something they pick up something consistency with women i learned that late to be consistent You have to be consistent.

34:58Consistent. Never change your colors. Wow. Because they would pick that up quick. That's the first thing they picked. One day you change? One second. Well, that's why communication. One second she picks it up. They're different than we are. Communication. You see a whole bunch of people in here? If my wife was in here, we're all talking. My wife would remember hearing only my voice. Everybody's talking. She remembers everything I said. Everybody's talking. She's going to hear my voice. That's how women are. They get tuned into your voice, everything about you, your characteristics. They want to know you.

35:27They want to be the puppet master. They just want to know what it's. They don't want to be the puppet master. They just want to know every move you make. Yeah, wow. Yes. And communication. Communication. That's the third for sure. Communication. Don't take things personally. Yeah. And just remember how much you love them. Yeah. Listen, please communicate because something that happened six months ago, you won't know it until the outbursts come out. And you say, what the hell happened? That's six months ago. What? Always communicate. is everything okay baby sure nothing's on your mind you don't want to talk about anything every day yeah oh i've learned that late i started doing that recently like a year ago yeah that's pretty new for me wow you too communication is just that's a constant practice evan my whole life once i've been mad man all i did was throw money at my problems yeah buy a house buy your mother a house buy some cars you know get away i can't deal with no children today i don't want hear what the teacher said today.

36:27Yeah. That's not what your partner wants from you. They want you to listen and be a partner. Yes. Yeah. They want to know how the money's building. They want to know everything. You know what I mean? And then when you realize you don't have the money like you used to have and you throw the money at the problem, you have to deal now. Deal with the problem. Deal with the problem. That's almost like death. I'd rather almost die than deal with the problem. I wish I had some money I could give a lawyer to deal with the problem. I definitely confronted that coming out of the NFL. Oh. With my wife. Yeah, fool.

37:02It was like, oh, wow. Now I'm here in this marriage. There's nowhere to go. You have all this free time. You're not just at a job all day. Absolutely. Remember one day I was in the NFL, I said, why is it that men and women have to be married? Why is it that we look for a mate? And I tell you, a man needs a woman to make sure that he's a man. because she'll make sure that we're a man because she'll test us and try us and push us to the extent until they see us. Yeah. Breaking point. Yeah. You know? Yeah, absolutely. By being a man, you have to control yourself. And that's what they teach us. Once you control yourself, you control your feelings with a woman.

37:37I don't want to say submit, but she understands I can't get to her. Once you control your feelings because we don't have the emotional intelligence to control our feelings with the woman because in our mind, our macho mind. We want to react. Oh, she's making her look like a ****. She said that. No man would ever say that to me. Well, it's about when your woman confronts you with something. She's challenging your kingdom. She's challenging your masculinity. Big time. She's saying there's something. Every man go for it. Every man. I don't get big, strong, biker, gangbanger, tough killer. With a woman, you're going to have to deal with that.

38:17A lot of people think, I'm going to beat love. I'm going to get all these. I ain't going to marry. I ain't going to get caught up. You've met a ton of guys. Yeah. Billionaires, celebrities. You've met the biggest influencers in the world, right, over the last 30, 40 years. I'm curious. Is there a man that you know today or in the past who's maybe passed away who feels so much love in his heart and feels like he made it without having a great partner? Like, can he do it alone and just sleep with a bunch of girls, you know, take what he wants? Be that guy. Can he be that guy and still be, like, peaceful and loving his heart, or is he unfulfilled?

38:58Yeah, great. My experience. Good question. My experience, a guy that did a lot of stuff with women and stuff, I'm not proud of, like, the more women you, you know, you would think the more women you have, the more crowning achievements you will receive from people or whatever the situation, to play a world. But the more women you... The more women you be with, the more you feel like you're being taken apart that's away from you. The hole is getting bigger. Yeah, it feels like you're dying. The more they're taken from you, you feel like you're being taken. You're being torn apart. You're feeling empty.

39:32You're feeling dark. You just don't feel good about yourself. Wow. You're just... You all these people, and you've got nothing from them but a... You know? And what did you get from that feeling? Why did you want to have that feeling? What was the cause of you having that feeling? Nobody had no, you know, maybe three people had babies. But it was like tons of people. What was the purpose of that feeling? I don't feel that way no more. I don't move like that no more. And I said, what was the purpose for me to be that way? What did I get out of it? No one got any babies. We got some diseases. You know what I mean?

40:07Nobody got any love from that. What's that perceived as love? What was that? I tell my wife, what was that all about? You think I would meet all these people in the afterlife and stuff? What's the afterlife? What about the people that watch me fight? Would I ever see them again, all of them, collectively? If all this stuff goes back, where do we all go? What you're thinking right now, what am I talking about? That feeling, that energy, where does that go when we die? You're not even talking, but you're talking to your heel. Where does that go when we die? That can't die. Where does it go? I'm just thinking, did that just black out?

40:40You pull out a plug socket? What happens with that? goes back into the circulation. But imagine if it go into a bug or a rock or a tree and we become that. Yeah. I'm not sure how reincarnation works. You know? Do you come back as another human being? What, you know, and why what person you come back as? I was telling my wife, my wife hates bugs. Every now and then a bug gets in the house and she freaks out. I said, listen, That's probably your grandmother coming back and re-incarnation. She wants to see you so bad as soon as you come back. Water. Wow. You know, I think it's probably stuff like that.

41:20You know what I mean? I think these are people that we love. Absolutely. And we see them and we hate them so bad. And they say, Mike, look, it's me. But they're so bad. I'm back. I thought I was dead. Hey, Mike, it's me. Boom. I kill them. I know, man. I have a new practice. Any bugs, I bring them outside. Because my wife is the same. She's like, get the spider out of here. I'm like, babe, that thing. I tell my wife, I'm not killing nothing. I tell that right there. I'm not killing you. You're going to kill it. You're going to kill it. I'm going to kill it. Anything. That might be my new policy.

41:52When do you feel the most loved, Mike? When I feel the most loved? When do you feel the most love in your heart? You know when? When I'm around watching YouTube, and I hear my kids running around, and my wife comes up and down after feeding the kids, maybe come from work and I'll come upstairs and get in the shower maybe sit on the bed or sit on her chair electric chair puts electric vibes to her body and I'm very happy everybody's in the house all my kids are here and that's when I'm the most loved wow we're all together all my oldest kids the youngest we're all from school from home they're all back together in the same house I feel one love at all that's awesome why do you think that that experience makes you feel the most loved and not something else?

42:39Because everything that I love is, um, I feel secured. I feel like, listen, this is a false sense of security. I feel like I can protect them right now. I can't do nothing. Somebody can come in there and do something. Somebody can come in and kill us all with a bat. Forget it, right? But just the fact, I think that they're safe now because they're with me. Boy, that's the eagle. Yeah, it is. I think they're safe because they're with me. Isn't that sick? And I know that's ****, but it just makes me feel good. It feels good, yeah. It makes you feel loved. They're grown, too. It's an interesting breakdown of that, Mike.

43:12You took it all the way through that. Yeah, you love them so much. I don't want them to ever, and I see, they never experience anything I experience. They're the kind of people, and they get to things, and they've been in prison, and got bad records and stuff. They're very clean. They got good stuff. They got good beginning. I don't got to **** with them, you know? That's awesome. Well, my brother, I don't know how much time you guys have. I'm just asking some questions. But when I was, how old was I? I was eight years old. My brother went to prison for selling drugs. So when I was eight until 12, we would drive, you know, a couple hours on the weekend.

43:45And the guards treat you like... It was crazy, man. Yeah, we'd drive the weekend, you know, take like an hour to get through the security every time. And then I'd sit in this, you know, big room with all the convicts and my brother. And I was eight years old until 12. And I remember just hearing these stories about prison that blew my mind as an eight-year-old, nine-year-old, just like what happened. I'm curious, what was the biggest thing you learned about yourself from being in jail? What I learned from jail. This is what I learned from jail, which is going to be a trip. There's beautiful people in this world.

44:20Beautiful. Yeah. There are. There were so many nice people there. So many beautiful people in this world. They just had hard luck or bad times and stuff. It's beautiful people. And they may be killers. Yeah, they may have done some really horrific shots. People did some stuff. Drug deals and bad stuff. But they have a human quality about them. They're kind. We have a different look. We have a different perspective of a drug dealer. We're looking for a drug dealer. He has some guns. He's coming with his pack. And a bunch of guys got their guns ready for people for action to come. And they come across a big bag, sadistic people.

44:53But that's not what it is. These are people on hard times. And our government's not doing nothing. They're not getting no welfare out anymore. You know, this is the company where if you're not doing well, if you don't make it, fuck you. That's the country we live in. I know you don't know what I like to hear, but if you're not doing good, you don't have a good family, you don't got good education, you don't got good working skills, you're not a big, strong buck, fuck you. You come back from the Army, you're paralyzed, you got shot up, fuck you. You're old, you can't work, can't do nothing, fuck you.

45:25You're emigrate, you don't got no skills. How your girlfriend, how your wife looked, they're beautiful. Can I fuck them? No, I can't fuck you. Wow. Yeah, but people, there are some, I've been up to Lancaster, to the maximum security prison up there, and done some workshops. And I did a workshop for five hours with a former NFL guy, Steve Weatherford. I don't know if you. No, Steve. Punter. We played together in Jacksonville. There you go. Yeah, a good buddy of mine. So we went up there. I took a few guys. and there was about a room of 25 murderers, right, that were all murdered. Or they were, like, on the scene when it happened and they got in there for life, whatever, right?

46:04And they were someone like the most lovely, kind men. Now, they'd been in there. They'd been doing the work. They'd been working on themselves, transforming, you know, forgiving themselves. They've been in the work for years, decades. But there's some lovely people if you're willing to change and do the work. Yeah, I know that. But listen, how do these beautiful people that we're talking about, how do they get a good break when they come out there and they got these stripes on their back? They want to read your photo and they sell this prison shit. You got the highest, some of these guys got the highest form of education from Ivy League schools online in prison and can't get a job.

46:41That's true. They got Ivy League stuff. There's a guy in Stanford from there, yeah. Yeah, Ivy League stuff, man. These guys are geniuses. They just went the wrong direction. These guys are geniuses. These guys are brainiacs. the reason why we can't have radios and stuff in prison is because one of these little crazy intelligent baskets are turning into a phone where they can hear in the warden's office you know what I mean so that's why we can't have the things no more, the walkmans no more, the radios because these guys turn it into devices where they can hear in the warden's office when they're going to send the people up for searches and lockdowns and all that stuff.

47:17These guys are geniuses you can't believe it. They're like Einstein they're in there for murder I believe it. Drug them. These guys are so smart. They'll blow your mind, man. It's wild. I'm curious. They pass every state that the school requirements have for college institutions, and they pass them with flying colors like they were cheating. Do you think they're cheating at scores that they get? Wow. It's wild, man. I'm curious. Hypothetically, let's say you could pick the day you get to die. How old would you want to be if you could say, okay, I can choose any day, any year. Would you want to be 100, 200 years old?

47:56Like, how old would you like to live until? I wouldn't live long because I wouldn't want to see my children die. Wow. Okay. I wouldn't live long at all. Wow. That would kill me if I, you know, see them growing old. I lost the daughter at four, but imagine me with the relationship I have with my children now. I would probably handle it, but I wouldn't want to deal with it. I wouldn't want to see it, so I would want to die a lot earlier. Right. Well, say it's your last day and your family was still alive. Yeah. And you died. Say it was 100 and your family was still alive, right? What do you think you would want people to say about you in 50 years from now if that was when you died?

48:36What would you want people to say about you at your funeral or just in life after you pass? I don't know. I used to tell my kids to say my daddy took care of us. That's just more important, my daddy. You know, the other people are going to have their opinions, their individuals, whatever it is, you know. And that's the bombardment. I used to tell my children because I've always been up in that department. You know, my children have to come visit me in my birth. They always have to see me in prison all the time, you know, everything. I went through that part of my life. My kids always got to come through the glass, got to hang out with my kids.

49:09The worst, right? Yeah. Wow. That's a good question. I'm always asking myself this stuff, you know? That's what we are as people. We want people to think something about us. That's our ego. I'm telling you, people's egos are so big. They're mad they can't be at their own funeral. They want to see who came. I think I would want something similar, which is like I would want people to know that I really cared about humanity and I had a big heart and I wanted to help people as much as I could. And just that I was a kind human being. Yeah, absolutely. I tried my best to do as good as I could to help people.

49:52And then you have to deal with this. Your best wasn't good enough. Oh, man. Imagine that. Well, you're dead then anyway, so you don't have to hear it anymore. But listen, how do we know? Maybe death is another form of life that we go to. It's another part of life. You know, how could life be glorious and death not be glorious? You can't have death if you don't have life. You walk through the hall and do it all over again. No doubt about it. Wow. But I say to myself about that, too. I say, listen, is this an illusion? People are born every second. What is the big deal? Why would God need me to come back?

50:27He gets somebody, other people keep coming. Why do we need my energy back anymore? We already dealt with your energy. We're doing some new shit. You die. let's see the come on your stadium, we don't wanna talk to you about you. We may bring you up in some history class, but you don't wanna get this work, okay? Well, I think that's a part of our ego, believing that we're gonna continue to live and we're gonna be reincarnated. No, you're finished, you had your attorney. Come on. Yeah. You know? It's possible, but you think about like your question, Mike, of Alexander the Great and the thousands of followers, hundreds of thousands of followers he had.

51:05And you think about everybody knows Alexander the Great's name, but they don't know Joe Schmo from there. And the case is still that way. There are a handful of individuals in the grand scheme of civilizations that leave a mark that perpetuates on and on. And so what you might think is, why does the universe want me to? Why does spirit, why does God want me to come back or need me to come back? and it's because you carry with you this knowledge that you spread that like a virus wisdom yeah a flow of water over humanity may touch and affect and inspire others to dream and think in this way you know and that's why you come back because for the souls that are here for maybe the first time need to hear this type of stuff because it takes a lot to wake up in this day and age of technology, you know, hyper accessibility and...

52:08Comparison, everything. Comparison. Judgment, insecurities, everything. So tell me this, right? How does somebody that lived in the Stone Age connect with somebody that lived right today? He died during the Stone Age, and now somebody, do they intertwine one another? The energy intertwine one another? Hey, you're my cousin from 10 million years ago. Do we find things out? Do we receive knowledge from my death? Yeah, because in our DNA, it's all encrypted, encoded into our DNA, into our cells. All of this ancient knowledge of who we are. For my brief investigation about the toad and all this stuff and the universe, it's just hard to believe that so many people are born and what happens to all these people.

53:01And like you say, say a Chinese emperor at one time, he led billions of people. And those billions of people accomplished great things. The Great Wall of China and all the great temples and all this stuff, right? Where are their names? Where are their names? Go on. That's a crime. Every million of them, their names should be mentioned. That's when they found the territorial soldiers. They had thousands of them, but it was just too many of them. But they put their names on every one of them with different characters of them with different soldiers, and they put their names on them. That's cool.

53:38And that's the closest that ever came down when the whole crew got the recognition from China. He made a clay statue of everyone, and the lifestyle of every one of his soldiers. Wow. And the soldiers' horses and stuff, and the guns, and all this stuff. Wow. Well, in that same token of the, what did you say, Mike? The actions of one of us. The conduct of one is the fate of us all. Yeah, so in the same vein, the conduct of one, Alexander the Great, is the fate of his entire community, his entire tribe. Exactly. So he is the embodiment of all of those people. It's true. He represents it. Nobody ever went that far before.

54:31Nobody ever went that far. That must have been crazy. Imagine marching for 10 years. Imagine 10 years just keep going. Not ever thinking about home. Well, you think about home, but you never know when you're coming back. They went mutiny on them when they got to India. They said, man, we're not going home. We've been gone for 10 years. We lost a bunch of people. we got children by other women from other tribes that in our group now you know it's just that's crazy yeah Louis what do you have going on these days man what are you doing right now you writing any new books I'm working on a new book that I'm just started writing it's about eliminating self-doubt I think self-doubt is the killer of dreams and I think it holds us back from everything when we doubt ourselves listen why do we have doubts.

55:18We, human beings are the only species that make doubt up when it's not there. Isn't it crazy? That's wild. It's crazy. That's what I'm going to be writing about. Yes. How do we overcome that self-doubt that keeps us back? And it doesn't matter. You know, I've, you've probably seen some talented athletes over the years who maybe they were more talented than you or something. I don't know. Um, and you were like, but they didn't believe in themselves and you had enough energy to put yourself out there and believe. I met a lot of guys, maybe you did on the football field. I was not the best athlete, but I made it past a lot of the guys that I played with.

55:52And I was always like, man, you're so talented. You're a mutant. You're a freak of nature. But when it comes to the game, you get scared. And I didn't understand it. Yeah. I never understood it. Yeah. And the thing is, it doesn't matter if you're the baddest person in the world. And if everyone believes in you and says you're the greatest, you can achieve it all, If you don't believe, you'll never do anything. This is something I always wanted to find out. Like I have some sparring guy partners. People that I sparring. And when I'm sparring, I'm vicious. I'm not the limit. I'm not the cold, break your jaw, your eyes.

56:25And there's some guys in there that kick my ass, right? And you're like, what? But you put them in the ring. They're nervous. You put them in some popcorn there, and they're in panic. Won't throw a punch. I said, fight him like you fought me. It's fighting the same way. Please, this guy's going to be there. You'll kill him. And they freak out. this panic. I think part of it is this is something I'm going to be researching and going down. I think part of it is our ego and opinions of other people. We care so much about the opinions of other people if we, the way we look, if we fail, if something happens we're not proud of.

57:00We're so scared of what our friends, our family, the media thinks of us that it holds us back from actually being in flow and giving our all. Absolutely. That's true too. There's other things that I think In that realm, there's some guys that don't got and got nothing. Talk, talk, talk. And this guy that got the world, they don't do nothing. They're shy. They're introverted. They don't think much of themselves. They're scared to talk to girls. Now, why is that? Now, if you talk about self-doubt, you got the world. The insecurities, yeah. You're scared to talk to a girl. I know. I would buy one.

57:33No, forget to. Take this money. I think it's a, yeah. Get the car. Get the house. I got trillions. Take the car. Take the house. I think the fear of rejection. It's like the opinion of what that person thinks of you. If they say no to you, then it means you're not worthy. And at the core of all of our fears is us not being enough. It's saying, I am not enough. And therefore, I'm afraid of putting myself out there. Because what if this person says, you are not enough to me? I'm rejecting you. Then we get scared. And our ego takes over. And we don't want to be put in that situation. In some cases, people killed other people for saying that.

58:08Absolutely. People freak out. And isn't it interesting that you could have the world saying, you got this, you're the greatest, and you not believe in yourself and not take up the opportunity. And in the reverse, you could have the world against you. And everyone says, no, there's no way you can do this. There's no chance. You're not good enough. And all it takes is one person to believe, and that's yourself. And you can be against the world. But if you have the belief, then you can go and create it. and so that's what I want to this book is about developing self-belief and eliminating self-doubt because I think self-doubt is the killer of dreams I used to have a mentor and he used to say that confidence applied properly will supersede a genius oh yeah genius without confidence isn't going to do anything doesn't matter you should interview Mike for it dude I'm going to I'm going to yeah for sure I've got that.

59:08I've got a documentary I'm looking to launch here soon that's about, it's called Chasing Greatness. It's all about discovering what greatness is. I'm excited about that. My podcast is called The School of Greatness. We interview people like Mike, who's going to be coming on soon. Tell us I'm going to say something that John Kennedy Jr. said. I've known him well before before he died, right? And he said this, I met a lot of great men. But in all those great men I met, I never met there were no good men. And he said, after meeting all these great men, I decided I wanna be a good man. And that's what I said, I said, I wanna be a good man.

1:00:01People told me I was great for a long time, but it didn't give me you know as I got older it didn't mean anything to me you know what I mean and then I realized that being a good man you know what I mean it's worth more than being a great man all great men are not good men but most good men could become great men yeah it's true so true because that doesn't give you anything all of the material success it doesn't do anything for your soul. You may get five minutes, five years of gratification for your achievements, but it's not going to fill the hole unless you're at peace with yourself, you are in love with yourself.

1:00:47Listen, we're human beings. We're, you know, we're human beings. Imagine, how do you take, you're a great man, how do you take that? What do you say, I'm a bad man? How do you take that? From a perspective of Yeah. Humanity. How do you take it? You're a great man. I just try to say. I don't even know what that means. If someone says that to me, I would just say thank you. I'm trying to do my best every single day. I'm learning every day. I'm growing. I'm not perfect. And I just want to help and serve. So I just try to focus on service. And I say thank you. I'm just trying to serve as much as I can.

1:01:20My idiotic word. I thought of a great man as a man like Gandhi, a man that gives up all his money, gives everything or something. But that's what makes him a great man. That's what makes him a great man. That's what makes him a great man. But that's not make him a good man either. He has a price, but his price is not money. It might be sex. It might be liquor. It might be drugs. It might be his happiness. You know what I mean? And all happy people are not good people. You know what I mean? Yeah, you could be doing bad things and feel happy about it. All happy people are not good people.

1:01:54Good stuff, man. This is fun, guys. It's really good when you see somebody that's in a bad situation and you try to make that situation better. That's a good person. That's a good person. You don't have to know him or anything, but to make a situation better. You can simply smile. You don't have to do a lot to change someone's energy and make them feel better. You can smile. You can say, how are you? It's just your energy, your way of being, how you show up. There's a lot of homeless people around L.A. You live in L.A.? I live in West Hollywood. Downtown L.A. West Hollywood, there's a lot of people, too.

1:02:27Yeah, and on my side of town in NoHo, North Hollywood. See, in Hollywood, but Hollywood, they got the functional homeless people. They're still clean. They're still not talking. They got cell phones. Yeah. These guys downtown don't have nothing. They're going to die there, man. Yeah. It's really bad. But, you know, I try to acknowledge them at least. That's good. You know, I feel like those people are so beaten down that if another soul can just acknowledge their existence, that lifts them up to some extent. Yeah, that's true. Just smile and say, hey, I hope you're doing well. Amen. You know, God bless you.

1:03:04Good luck to you. I don't understand. Listen, it's funny you say that. It was a story about Alexander the Great, and it was this guy, I forgot, the genius. I forgot his name, but it was a homeless guy. And he never complained. He was always happy. And Alexander was the king of Greece or something. He said, hey, listen, I noticed you. You have nothing. You're always happy. I have everything. What can I do for you? And the guy said this. He said, for once, if you can please just get out of the way of the sun so I can get my pants. And Alexander just couldn't understand why this guy had nothing, but he was happy.

1:03:37And he had everything, and he wasn't happy. That was confusing. It's interesting. I've been a part of a charity called Pencils of Promise where I'm actually tonight, I'm flying to Guatemala. Wow, dude. Every year I go on a trip. We go to Guatemala, Laos, and Ghana. Laos is interesting. It's cool there. I like it there. But we go and build schools. I've been doing it for seven, eight years. A guy named Adam Braun founded it. Scooter Braun. Yes. That's part of his brother. I don't know if you know Scooter Braun. We do. Justin Bieber. Yeah, yeah. So I'm going tonight, and every year I go on a trip for about four days, and I see these kids that have nothing.

1:04:13They're in the middle of... They're so happy, man. They have nothing. They have no schools. They have no... They have a hut, but then they get like a little sandwich, and they're just hanging out with their family, and they're kicking a soccer ball on the dirt field with, you know, trees in the middle of the field, and they're, you know, they're so happy kicking a rock around. Well, they don't expect anything. In this country, we were taught to expect things. Even if we don't work, we expect to have that beautiful girl. We expect to have that house. We expect to have that money. Someone to give us money, yeah.

1:04:43Someone to give it to us. They're so happy. And so when I'm there for four or five days, and I come back and I drive through Beverly Hills to get to West Hollywood and I see the material abundance and people honking in their$400 ,000 Bentleys or whatever and getting mad. And I'm like, these people are so happy with nothing. They've got family, they've got laughter, they've got health and people in Beverly Hills, not everyone obviously, but I see people that are angry and I'm frustrated. It's a cosmic joke, man. Isn't it crazy? No, this is crazy. People are so fragile. Life is fresh. It's hard living life.

1:05:16You see people, they say they make a bad mistake, they think it's over, and they may kill themselves. Life is hard to live. By making them say, oh, God, I'm no longer getting no money. I'm no longer getting my girl. Let me know if I ever love me. Boom, I'm dead. It always passes, though, right? You've been through some crap. Yeah, but you have to go through it. Some people can't go through the rain. It's a lot of pain to go through. They have to deal with that pain. It's a lot of pain. Deal with that pain. And you have to be willing to always see the light. It's so hard when you feel like you're cultivating.

1:05:44They're suffocating, though. But it's just your mind playing tricks with you. It is. It's all mind game. It's on your mind too with you. It's a mind game. Human beings are so drama-filled. We're movies in our own self. That's it. Stories we take. We listen to it. It's not even true when we're playing. We got the emotion to cry. It's cool. It's all right. It's over. It's gone. It's cool. Good, man. Well, this is fun. What do you think, dude? We have a ball in here. This is a great conversation. It's a great time, though. I'm excited to have you on soon. and just talk more about this stuff. Hell yeah, dude.

1:06:17Do you ever think about that? Where the f*** am I going to go when it is over? I know you don't think it's a blackout. Boom. Yeah. I know you know something's going to happen. I think about it every day. Yeah, you do. Because it's kind of exciting, too. Let's be honest. What's next? It's exciting. Because, you know, God didn't make us for us to blank out. Do you think God made us for us to say, hey, it's over, blank out, we don't exist anymore? Come on. I don't think so. I'm interested. The galaxy is so big. I think sometimes that we're in somebody's dream no way in somebody's system with guts with cells we're cells we're living inside somebody that's just so big we can't even stazen it why not no why not we'll stop being afraid we're ready to die is that crazy even when you're young we no longer afraid you see die you know interesting fear keeps us alive fear is a friend of ours you You have some realization.

1:07:10Yeah. And then you go. Should we wrap this up? Sure. Why not? Do you guys have a special ending too? No. Oh. Dude, thank you, man. This is powerful. This is awesome. This is beautiful. Big Mike. Hope to see you again. Appreciate you, man. Thank you. This is a beautiful meeting you, man. Mike, amazing episode, brother. Hey, wait. Where can people find you? Yeah, tell us. At Lewis Howes. L-E-W-I-S. H-O-W-E-S. And on Instagram or wherever. and then School of Greatness podcast. Awesome. Check it, y 'all. Why do you think we put greatness and wealth in the same category? I don't do that. We know most people.

1:07:49Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I think it's. That's what I thought too. I think they think of like wealth and success. The reason why for me it wasn't called School of Success because I think that word is, I don't know, it's just not used that well. It's tied around like money and accomplishments where greatness for me is not about money and accomplishments. It's about service. It's about how can you use the gift. Sacrifice. Stepping into your highest self. Yeah, it's about how can you use the gifts and talents that you were given, that you were born with, to cultivate them and pursue a dream that you have.

1:08:20And in that pursuit, how can you impact the people around you, the maximum number of people? For me, that's greatness. What do we do about homeless people? What do we do about having homeless hotels? Imagine a hotel like Vegas, like the MGM Grand, a 5 ,000-room hotel. Imagine something like that for the homeless. And as they go in the hotel, they learn how to take care of the hotel. They learn how to handle it, take the people. They learn how to bellhop. They learn how to administration. They learn all that. And then they build more hotels all over the world for homeless people to learn how to live their life.

1:08:48I think it's a great concept if they have the responsibility and want to do the work and want to show up and work. That's the challenge. Man, well, we'll have you on again and we'll go deeper on success and greatness. I think it's awesome, man. I appreciate it, man. Appreciate you. I 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.

1:09:28Share 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. And 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.