Stop Waiting for the Perfect Moment, It Never Comes | Kier Gaines

24:19You know, I don't think I will phrase it like that. I don't think I would phrase it as why they like to be a victim in their lives. Or where they choose to be a victim or say they're a victim. Yeah, I would say sometimes the idea of self-victimization is the most salient and grabbable thought to them. It's because it's very... When someone else does something to you, I think it's more obvious to the brain what happened. It's not your fault. Yeah, it allows you to step back and take yourself. It allows you to exonerate yourself from any wrongdoing. It allows you to, you know, in the book I talk about fault versus responsibility, blaming versus accountability, how accountability says, hey, this right here is mine.

25:07This is mine right here. I did it. I contributed to it. It's not my fault all the way, but it doesn't matter because now it's my responsibility to handle. And this is how I'm going to do it. I want to process everything that happened around me. I want to allow my feelings to exist somewhere outside my head. And this is mine. Blame doesn't do that. Blame is a heat seeking missile and it just needs to hit something. And I think that the blame allows you to offload a great deal. or as you characterize it, the victimization, it allows you to offload a great deal of the responsibility on to an event that's outside of yourself.

25:48But don't get that confused with not acknowledging the fact that you've been victimized. There's a difference. There's a difference between acknowledging that something bad happened to you that was completely out of your control. I think that's incredibly healthy. versus holding victimization essential to your identity again, where it's the launch point by which a lot of your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

26:11Lewis Howes:So what's the difference between acknowledging that you have been victimized versus acknowledging that you are still a victim long after the event happened? Got to be careful with that because it depends on what we're talking about. Let's just say it's something like, let's give a specific example. um let's and more so using it as like the reason why you're not able to do something the reason why i don't go into a relationship is because i got cheated on and i'm never going to trust anyone again the reason why i'm not going to go apply for the job is because i got fired and wrongfully fired so i'm never going to do that again or whatever it might be you know something where it's like i was victimized something happened that was shouldn't have happened whether it's true or not like let's just say it shouldn't have happened and then i hold on to that identity and it holds me back from taking responsibilities to go create what I want.

27:05I like that contextualization. So I think the difference there is if you sit in that framing of it, it gives you the opportunity to not have to challenge your longstanding beliefs. We do not like challenging our beliefs. There's just a very, it's like a warm blanket. it's comfortable, it's predictable, you know the ins and outs of it. And again, you don't have to take fault in it. You can completely offload that and say, no, that's all on you, you did that, I had nothing to do with it.

27:42Lewis Howes:But even if it keeps you from financial freedom and love and abundance and health, it's a blanket that keeps you in the familiar instead of putting yourself out there and trying something different. That's right, because if I put myself out there and I try something different, It's gonna hurt even more. I give myself the opportunity to fail. And it just reinforces all these negative things that are on the periphery of how I see myself already. It's it's it can be incredibly challenging, especially as a therapist. Lewis, can you imagine you're sitting with someone who is adhering to that perspective of life?

28:17And I mean, just right on the other side of that is greater love, growth and opportunity. and as a therapist, we don't tell people, I don't tell you what to do. I could just, I guide you with breadcrumbs and I ask you questions so we can chip away at it. And if I tell you, no, this isn't how it is. Let me explain this to you. Well, now you're just a doc. I've loaned you my reality. You didn't come to that idea by yourself. So once you're not in my vicinity anymore, Or you're relegated to whatever tools that you grew yourself. You know, it's like you eat what you kill. Once you don't have my influence anymore, what are you going to do?

28:57What are you naturally going to think? How are you naturally going to come to those conditions and challenge yourself? Yeah. That's very difficult. And I think the trap is the should have trap. I should. I shouldn't think that way or, man, I should be able to look past that by now. but should doesn't matter when you can't and should is a gigantic t-shirt that it doesn't fit your body at all like yeah you're still you're still covered it does the job of a shirt i guess kind of but it does not fit you it doesn't it's it doesn't fit your expectations it doesn't fit your lived experience it doesn't fit your bandwidth nothing you you you're adhering to what you think should be the existence that lands on you without really paying attention to where you actually are.

29:52So you don't recruit the help you need. You probably won't accept the help if it's offered to you. And it really puts you at a disadvantage. It's the antithesis of growth. It can be extremely growth prohibitive, man.

30:07Lewis Howes:I want to go back to something we were talking about before, which is around beliefs and self-talk. from your experience as a therapist, do you believe that people get tied into devices, numbing addictions to escape their own internal thoughts and feelings or to escape the thoughts and feelings of others around them on them? It depends. I think it could be a little bit of both. I think it depends on who you are. Um, you know, addiction is tricky and I'm not going to pretend to understand the ins and outs of the neurochemistry of addiction because that's not my ministry as a therapist but we don't like to feel pain and discomfort and the things that distract us from pain and discomfort give us relief uh they give us relief sometimes we get that relief at the expense of our long-term health and wellness and it's attractive and And even when you talk about devices and phones and social media, there's there's a other side of that.

31:15These things have hacked the brain. Your phone is, my goodness, a billion dollars worth of technology, research, development and engineering. Power in your hands. Everything is right there, even the way it feels, the devices. So it's the right weight. It's the right smoothness. like the snacks that we eat, a bag of chips. I don't know who sponsors your pod. Salty, sugar, all of it, man. It's like. But they do so much research to figure out exactly what the perfect amount of crunch is or the perfect shape of the snack so that it feels just right in your fingers or the perfect saltiness where, I mean, I don't know about you.

31:54I've definitely had snacks where I take one bite and I say, oh, that's the last one I'm going to have. And I blink and the bag is gone. Yeah. That's not just by happenstance. It's developed that way. So while we're thinking about these things that we gravitate towards, I think it's important to remember that they were developed to keep us engaged with them. It doesn't exonerate you from the responsibility of detaching from it, but it just proves how difficult of a job it'll be to separate yourself from these things.

32:29Lewis Howes:if you were sitting across from yourself as a therapist to yourself, what's the one piece of advice that you would give you today with all the tools and knowledge that you have to support you in your personal growth and achieving a better level of health, peace, abundance, freedom internally? What's the coaching you would give you? I think I'm going to ask myself a question. What's the question? I ask myself two questions. How much is enough? And what does satisfaction look like? How much is enough? I'll tell you when I get there. What if you never get there? I know. That's the scary thing, right?

33:17It can be. I'll tell you, Louis, real talk, man. If nothing ever happens, if my career never advances past where I am now,

33:27Lewis Howes:would you be satisfied? Absolutely. Absolutely. Would it be enough? Absolutely. Absolutely. Then why do you need to ask yourself those questions? Because it still challenges what I believe. I think that self-interrogation is a powerful tool. I wrote this book on the premise of self-interrogation, interrogating your immediate thoughts and beliefs away from shame, blame, and guilt. Mm-hmm. And even though I feel that way in my heart, Anything that makes me reevaluate my philosophy, I think can be helpful because perhaps with deeper thought, I realized that this isn't enough or growth. Growth goes hand to hand with impermanence.

34:10I may feel this way right now today as I'm sitting in front of you. I may not feel this way in three years. I may have a completely different mindset. So I don't think it's just I will ask myself that question. I would continue to ask myself that question periodically. Check in with yourself. Check in with yourself. It's one of the things I like about journaling. When we think about journaling, we think about just being able to express ourselves or dump all of our thoughts in one place. But journaling does more than that. Journaling gives you a concrete place to be reflective. And what I mean by that is if you were to write 15 years ago all the things that you're most worried about, all the things that you're most excited about, what your immediate apprehensions are in the moment, and then you would look at it 10 years later, you would be able to see the things that are completely different.

35:12Some of those things might be minuscule comparatively, but you might also realize that you've been worried about the same thing for 10 years, just in a different font. Now, imagine instead of just journaling once over that 10 year span, you have journal entries incrementally every month and you're able to see the changes and the differences. That type of tracking is invaluable. And that's what I would hope I'd be able to give myself if I was sitting across the room.

35:40Lewis Howes:Mmm. Just checking in on the philosophy, man. How has it changed? How is it different? Where's your heart? Where's your head? What are you excited about? What do you love? What motivates you? If you could give your 15-year-old self three tools that you've learned as a therapist, and only three tools, what would you give 15-year-old you when you were going through a very challenging time and all the friends around you were getting in trouble or going to jail or passing away in a rough neighborhood. What would those three things you would say? I think those three things, I think one would be being different is a gift.

36:22I think Gen Z, they're really comfortable with being different. We were different. Being different was an indictment on your ability to gain community and your ability to fit in back in my day. Being different is a gift. lean into it. I would tell myself that anger, it captivates all of your awareness, but it's a terrible motivator. And I would tell myself that as long as you keep your feet moving, you have a chance. Do not stop. How angry were you and what made you angry? Looking back, I was tremendously I think it was environmental. I think that I lived in an environment where a lot of people were frustrated because they couldn't ascend to their highest potential.

37:18And they took it out on the people around them. And I think when you live in an environment full of angry people, when you're still young and impressionable, it can turn you into an angry person. And I also thought that I deserved a different life than I had. You know, our apartment, man, it was something. We used to have roaches and mice really badly, really badly. And I couldn't understand why we lived that way. We seemed to be good, hardworking people, and we couldn't get out of the muck. And I didn't understand why. And I think that confusion in the mind of a child was converted into frustration and anger.

37:59And that's why when we were talking and you asked me if I played a sport, I was like, yeah, for a little bit. And then I had to start working in high school. I just started paying for my own prom. I think that the anger and frustration came from the inability to be a child that was allowed to be a child, if that makes any sense.

38:16Lewis Howes:You didn't feel like you were able to be like a kid or have kid experiences. Not at a certain point. You kind of have to grow up quickly, assume responsibility. Start working. Yeah, start taking control over the life you want. Yeah. That's tough. Yeah, it is tough. And I used to do this thing where I would say, you know, it's tough, But, you know, other people had it worse. It's like, no, it was tough. Period. You know, other people have challenges that are tough for them. And I had my challenges that were tough for me. That's right. That's right. And I think that I thought that at some point when I was past it, it wouldn't affect me.

38:57It still did. Oh, yeah. The shadows live long. It lingered. Yeah, it lingered. And I've come to the point where I'm fine with that because I know it's something that I'll have to constantly remind myself for the rest of my life. It's not a one and done thing. That's something that I'm going to have to cope with and overcome for the rest of my life. And I'm thankful I have the tools, man. Yeah. Otherwise, you'd still be angry. Otherwise, I'd still be angry. And now I live a life where there's nothing to be angry about. You know, I get frustrated sometimes, but I live a wonderful life that I created for myself.

39:33And anger can be much like victimization. There's a comfort. Oh, yeah. In sitting inside. It feels good for a while. Oh, man. Powerful. Oh, yeah. Especially when it's an identity. You know, working with youth, when I ran my youth program, there were so many young men who didn't feel heard in the house that they lived in. They didn't feel seen. You know what gets you heard and seen really quickly? Destruction. anger anger if i flip the table over oh yeah oh now you hear me see me and you yeah yeah um but it also invites a kind of attention toward you that isn't very helpful nourishing

40:11Lewis Howes:my friend i hope you're enjoying this episode and the school of greatness drops new conversations every monday wednesday and friday around money mindset healing manifestation and relationships And if you're not yet following the show, then you're missing all of them. Please tap the follow button right now and you'll get notified the moment every new episode drops because the next one might be exactly what you need. Now, let's get back to the conversation. The best habits are the ones you can actually stick with. And nutrition is no different. If every healthy choice feels like a sacrifice, it gets harder to stay consistent.

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41:30Lewis Howes:Pick up a box during your next Target shopping trip. The most successful leaders, experts, and bestsellers would tell you the same thing. There's no expiration date on growth. That's why Southern New Hampshire University offers more than 80 online graduate programs. With career-focused courses and low online tuition, SNHU's master degrees are designed for your next move. And if you're choosing between a few schools, SNHU is a clear frontrunner. It's flexible, affordable, and career-focused. Progress doesn't happen standing still. Take one step forward at snhu.edu slash greatness. How does someone dismantle anger if that's all they've ever known?

42:20Lewis Howes:If they'd never felt heard, seen, loved, or valued, and anger is their response, how did they learn to let that go? I think one of the ways is getting out of the environment that arouses those feelings. Getting away from the people, spaces, the environments. The influences, the culture. Anger can become a culture. Really? Oh yeah, the culture of anger. Some people have families that are very angry. That's the innate response is to respond with anger. That's always around you, and that's always your influence. It's going to be hard to take a half step back away from that. I think you have to detach from the things that kindle that feeling in order to see something different.

43:06You said that you grew up pretty angry, right?

43:09Lewis Howes:It had a point in my life I was angry, yeah. Is this like teen years? Yeah, teen years. Okay. Okay. But you grew up in D.C. and you're still in D.C., correct? Well, I'm in a suburb of D.C. Okay, so you're not in like... I'm not in the same apartment. You can still be in the same city, but not in the same home or same kind of environment. You can still move a little farther, not too far away, and be in a different space. Yeah, which to my point, the environment's completely different than the influences. I wake up next to my wife, who's the happiest person I've ever met in my life. So nice, right?

43:39Every single day I wake up to kids that are excited to see me and they love me. That's a dream. And I'm snuggling with them. I got a pimple growing on the side of my head because their hair oils are all on my face from sleeping on my pillow every night. That's nice. Yeah, it's a beautiful life and it'll be profoundly unfortunate to have that reality all around me but not have the awareness to see it and experience it fully.

44:11Lewis Howes:When did you feel like you were able to start letting go of the anger? When I consciously realized that it wasn't helping me. It wasn't helpful. It wasn't doing anything for me. It went from becoming my sword. It went from being my sword and my shield to being my anchor. How old were you around that time when you became aware? Early 20s. Okay. Early 20s. I started to move into like a corporate America type space. and one of the, you know, one of the things that happens to people that happened to me is the things that you thought were, the things that protected you, you know, anger protects you in a tough neighborhood.

44:49It keeps you from being a victim, keeps you from being bullied. But when those, when the behaviors you have aren't helpful for you anymore, when they're not protective when they just become prohibitive um either you can keep leaning into them and do more of what's not working or you can put your foot in the ground pivot and decide to change something and the latter took me a solid i'd say maybe seven or eight years and in those experiences i went to undergrad you know i lived in a different place in the city where people were completely different. And I was with young professionals. I got to see something different, like different influences.

45:34I got to see the world. I traveled a little bit more. I realized how much more to my identity was uncovered outside of just anger and frustration. As long as it made me feel something

45:53that I would describe as meaningful at the time, it was easier to hold on to. But when it felt like it started holding me back from love and relationships, connection and community, it became painfully obvious there's something needed to change. Really? Oh, yeah, absolutely, man. I didn't know how to change or where to start, but I felt it inside, and I felt it deeply, and I saw everything as a constant reminder.

46:19Lewis Howes:That this anger does not serve me. No, it's not serving me. And it's destructive. Very destructive, right? So what was the aha moment that allowed you to start healing the anger that was inside of you? I think it was a series of moments. I'd be lying to you if I said there was just one definitive turning point where something happened and it just dawned on me. It happened so gradually that I can't tell you when it turned on. It's like glaucoma. Glaucoma is one of the leading causes of blindness. Glaucoma is so tricky because it slowly takes away your peripheral vision. But you can still see. You can still see, but it slowly takes it away to the point where you don't realize that your vision is becoming more and more narrow until one day it's too late.

47:11And in a more positive way, that's kind of what happened with the anger. It just dissipated slowly. as I gained more in different friends, as I found different interests, as I started to get academic success, as I started to get different types of love in my life, different experiences, as I started to learn how to receive different types of love in my life, it just slowly dissipated to the point where it wasn't there anymore. Wow. Which isn't everybody's experience. It's not.

47:39Lewis Howes:Yeah, it's not. So I'm very thankful for that as well. was there a um but how did you learn how to let it go because for me i accomplished a lot of my goals and success and made money but i still had anger inside of me and it wasn't until i realized oh this energy this frustration or anger accomplishing the goals doesn't remove it from my heart. No. Which seems like it would, right? You're like, oh, I should be happy now, but I still wasn't. I still had anger inside of me. So it took therapy, workshops, self-awareness, reflection, retreats for me to start learning how to let it go and how to start healing those wounds that anger was a tied to, that I was attached to.

48:30Lewis Howes:And so once I started healing some of those wounds or stories or beliefs around events, then I could have more grace for myself, have more self-love and acceptance and start to release some of that frustration, those triggers, right? So were there any, like, did you learn this from anyone? Did you go to therapy? Did you have a workshop? Did you read a book? Like, where did you learn the tools to let go of anger and heal? I think it was the feedback from my environment, really. Yeah. It just things started feeling different for me. And I think it unlocked parts of my identity that I liked a lot better.

49:09And there is this indescribable, but certainly palpable feeling that you get when you. So I think self-love is packaged and sold in a very weird way. But when you begin to like yourself in a different way, I like who I am when I am not angry. I like how people treat me when I am not angry. I like how I treat myself when I am not angry. My quiet moments are more peaceful. I have more clarity. In terms of goals, my goals are more diverse now. It's not just about surviving and making more money. It's about doing things that please me. And then it expands. Oh, I really enjoy working in a community and working with other people and helping them.

49:53I found more purpose. and that purpose, the more you find your purpose and you lean into it, you realize that that purpose has subgenres and pockets and other categories that you can lean into. And life just feels better. And I like that.

50:08Lewis Howes:Yeah. I like that. Just started feeling better. That's great. Yeah. For someone who's done the reading, done the journaling, done the meditating, done all these, all this work on themselves, but they still feel stuck. They still feel like, I'm not getting the breakthrough. I'm not creating the results I want. What do you think is the next thing for them? Take a look at your goals. What is it that you're trying to accomplish? And is it reasonable for who you are in this moment? Sometimes it's not, I need to try harder. It's not, I need to recruit more of these programs and I need to learn more.

50:51And no, sometimes we just need to reflect. What is it that I'm trying to do? And if these obstacles are in my way, perhaps they're not a statement of my capability. Perhaps the obstacles in my way are a warning sign that perhaps I'm moving too fast or I'm moving in a direction that I'm just not ready for. Your goals, goals are beautiful. Goals, they're wonderful. Set all the goals you can and try to achieve them. But if you are knocking your head up against a wall, Lewis, I think that it is indicative that you need to stop and probably go in a different direction. The analogy I use a lot is just about a newborn baby.

51:32If a newborn baby just had the capability to walk fresh out of the womb, I don't know if those tiny legs and that weak muscle nature would be able to support the weight. You have to do one thing at a time. First, you learn to hold your head up. Then you learn to scoop. Then you learn to crawl. Then you learn to get up and fall down a bunch of times. It's a gradual process, but there are waypoints in between that are developmentally appropriate. It's obvious when we see a baby. It's not always obvious when we see ourselves. Ooh, that's true. So what points are, what are you skipping? Like, let's reverse map and deconstruct this thing.

52:11Maybe there are things that you need to work on in between where you are now and where you ultimately want to be and deserve more of your time, attention, attunement, and awareness. What are they? And let's get more comfortable with understanding that we need to spend more time there. It's okay.

52:27Lewis Howes:Yeah. What would you say is a self-sabotaging pattern that's become so normalized in today's society that most people don't even recognize it as self-sabotage? Oh, my goodness.

52:45I think just piggybacking off of what we just talked about, I think it's trying to be in too much of a hurry to be over something. In the book, it's one of the uncomfortable truths I talk about. I'm ready to be over something that happened to me. It's like when people put the E.D. at the end of Hill as if it's a destination. Then you know that. No, it's forever, man. Nah, it's forever. He's like a journey. It's a forever journey. Even when you say that, it doesn't really encapsulate all that that encompasses. But I think that it's when we're in too much of a rush to be over something. And as opposed to just sitting in it and recognizing what the hard moments are here to teach us.

53:32recognizing what the hard moments are indicating about where we are on this road we're ready to just zoom past it we're ready to say you know i'm unbothered or i'm not worried about that thing anymore and it's something that we verbalize and we say but we don't feel deeply yeah and that causes an incongruence because your inner experience doesn't match your your presentation You should know your outer experience. And when your inner experience is one thing, but you have to present something different, it creates a gap. And in between that gap moves a lot of inauthenticity. Yes.

54:07Lewis Howes:You're out of integrity. You're out of harmony. You're out of alignment. That's right. Right. You're trying to project something that's not true. Yeah. And you know that is not true. So then you get stuck in the cycle of performing because you're not the thing. so you have to project the image of being the thing out into the world you're playing a character you're playing a character and at some point it gets exhausting exhausting then what because i think as a younger person you know playing the character might be a fun game but as you accumulate life and life experiences and if you find a partner oh boy finding a partner is different because you can't hide from the person you live with they will see you and then you start building and this life and things will start collapsing because you can't, you can't, the easiest thing to do, the easiest move to make if you want to destroy everything is to not be the thing, but to perform the thing.

55:06Lewis Howes:Oh yeah. Because the second that you're tired or you let your guard down or you, you really walk in a space of authenticity, all these things that are pillared by you moving the furniture around in your mind in order to do the things that you think the world needs you to do or be the person that you think the world needs you to be. As soon as you're compromised even a little bit, it becomes a house of cards. Everything falls down one by one. It does. Playing a character is exhausting. I wrote a book called The Mask of Masculinity nine years ago now. And for me, it was about the masks that men wear.

55:46Lewis Howes:and it was my own reflection of the mask that i was wearing most of my life to try to fit in to try to belong it was all strategies to survive psychologically emotionally right um which felt like physical survival but even though it wasn't and you can only wear those masks for so long before they all before it just all crumbles down you know before it's so exhausting so overwhelming It's so daunting. Yeah. And you lose yourself in a mask, and you're like, who am I? You have more practice being who you are. That's exhausting. You haven't reinforced it. You've been playing the character the entire time.

56:23It's exhausting, man. Once the character leaves, what are you left with?

56:27Lewis Howes:It's scary. Yeah. It's scary if you don't know who you are, how to trust yourself, how to like yourself, like you said. It's scary. You have to practice those things. Yeah. It's not something that just, you know, dawns on you out of thin air. You have to continuously practice that. Absolutely. In the book I talk about if you want to be who you say you are, prove it to yourself. Practice it. You think you want to be a genuine person? Make sure that the relationships that you're open and vulnerable in, in your words, that you're open and vulnerable in your actions. Even when it's scary because on the other side of vulnerability is possible pain.

57:08Practice it. You say you're a generous person? What do you provide for your community? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go donate your time somewhere. You know, you say that you are a family-oriented person. Close the laptop and you don't have to play with the kids for three hours, but spend some time with your family doing the hardest thing that any human can do, and that's being present. You have to, when we think about things that we have to prove, we think about proving things to other people. trust. I trust you when you prove to me who you are over time and consistently. But we have to have that same relationship with ourselves.

57:46I trust that I am who I say I am when I prove it to myself consistently throughout time.

57:52Lewis Howes:What do you think is going to be the biggest challenge for people going into the next few years of their lives with where the economy is at, with where AI is at, with where social media is at, with the uncertainties of the world, financially, politically, wars. With all the uncertainty coming, what is the biggest challenge that human beings face as a therapist's perspective? Knowing what to believe. What's real. Knowing what to believe, what's true, what's in my best interest. I think that there is a comfort. You just talked about surviving. There's a comfort and certainty. And the newness of our evolving world gives us a profound sense of uncertainty.

58:37How are you going to be okay? What does your future look like? What do your future economic opportunities look like when a computer can take your job? You know, it's, we, I saw a joke on Instagram where it's this guy and he's playing his dad. And he says, when my dad is trying to figure out whether or not AI is real, he's like, son, is this real? and he takes the phone and you see what he's watching and it's a guy on the pier and he's fishing and an alligator comes up and then the alligator jumps out of the water puts up his dukes and he's like jeez dad like my goodness but with the proliferation of technology and ai it's going to become harder and harder to decide what's real and what's not just what i had my first phone was a nokia 5190 you know the big brick joint the only game i had on it was snake and tetris and now just in what 20 something years i have unlimited possibilities on my cellular device this technology is only going to get better i think knowing what to believe is going to trickle down into knowing what to trust and that is going to dovetail into not only trusting things but trusting people and if you marry that with taking away third spaces where people don't mean a person anymore, where even romantic relationships are a hotbed for skepticism and distrust.

1:00:06What happens to humans when we lose our desire for connection?

1:00:12Lewis Howes:I don't know. I'm not going to pretend to know.

1:00:20But I still think that there's great hope. I don't think it's doom and gloom. I read this magnificent book called Sapiens. And in the book, it said if you took somebody from the 1600s and planted them in the 1700s, the world wouldn't be that remarkably different. But if you took somebody from like the early 1900s and you transplanted them a thousand years later, they would have no idea where they are. Yeah. For a hundred years later, maybe. Even still. You know, technology, it changes the way advancements go. We think it advances like one, two, three, four, and it feels like it's starting to advance like one, two, four, eight, 16, 24.

1:01:01Like the quantum leaps are becoming more and more obvious. So it does give me a lot of consternation around where we're going and what we're doing. But I think a lot of the answer is going to be around tapping back into our humanity. developing actual community face-to-face communication yeah that's it man yeah in person it's gonna be key i feel like it's already starting man did you see the thing the gen z kids they're getting rid of the smartphones and they got like the flip phones i like that

1:01:37Lewis Howes:yeah i like that yeah i think i think we're i think we're collectively kind of over it man i don't know it'll always pull you back in though it's uh i mean hopefully hopefully there's a way create balance with it. You know, that's the goal. Yeah, I hope so. Balance and harmony. I surely hope so. And in terms of just mental health, you know, more people deciding to be practitioners. We don't have enough of us for the need. It's just simply not enough of us, man, for the needs of the world.

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1:02:53Lewis Howes:Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. If you could wake up tomorrow and be better at one thing, I'd choose being more present. Putting the phone down, getting out of my head, and giving the people in front of me my full attention. Better doesn't have to come from major victories. It can be the small habits you create and how you honor your needs on a daily basis. Better is a feeling defined by you. And for BetterHelp, it's a BetterHelp therapist who really gets you. It's a focus on global emotional well-being with thousands of therapists and millions of members in over 100 countries.

1:03:35Lewis Howes:It's progress. And sometimes getting better means handling stress differently, communicating more clearly, or simply taking better care of yourself. Haven't tried BetterHelp yet? Well, it's easy to get started. Just answer a few questions and get matched with a therapist online. Sign up and get 10 % off at betterhelp.com slash greatness. That's better, H-E-L-P dot com slash greatness. How many therapists are there in America right now? Do we know? Oh, who knows? I don't know. Not enough. Not enough, huh? Yeah, not nearly enough. I think there's a severe shortage. And imagine if people could learn to be their own therapist in a sense, where they could learn certain tools and skills about their emotional understanding and start.

1:04:19I'm always going to be wanting support, mentorship, therapy, coaching,

1:04:25Lewis Howes:even though I have a lot of the tools. But imagine learning to be with the tools yourself and practicing them. If you can't afford it or if you don't have access to someone right away, just people would be better people in general if they had these tools, like what you're talking about in your book. Yeah, but I think it's starting though. Of course. I think it's starting in a way. Just think about the parent, the father that your dad had in terms of emotional capability, emotional bandwidth, just his aperture for how he sees life. Think about that versus the kind of dad that you are. How different that is.

1:05:05Lewis Howes:Oh, so different. Night and day. Yeah. So those things are already happening. It's just not been, not enough time has elapsed for us to see the fruits of that labor. What do you think your kids are going to say, or maybe your grandkids are going to say, you know, our dad didn't have what we have now. Like, you think they're going to keep saying that? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. What are they going to say in 50 years that like, you know, my dad was as great as he was and this and the therapist, but he didn't have what, you know, I need to break generational trauma still? Like, what is that generational trauma that our grandkids are going to need to break?

1:05:39That is such a good question, man. The way I think of it, the way it's phrased in my mind is, what are my kids going to have to forgive me for? Oh, what is that? Yeah, I think it's going to be. And you can be the best possible dad you can be. Yeah, we'll keep your kids out of therapy. Why is that? Just because challenges occur. Your kids don't just survive the worst parts of you They have to survive your personality. There are parts of your personality that are just going to create gaps and divots. And one of the most frustrating parts about being a parent is that we do not fundamentally understand the needs of our children.

1:06:19It's impossible to keep up with. Wow. Yeah. And so those gaps are going to be where need exists and they're going to be things that you simply can't see. I think with my kids it's going to be resilience.

1:06:31Lewis Howes:You don't think they're going to have the resilience that we had? No. It's been so easy and comparative. Did you hear me talking about that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't have AC and now my house doesn't go above 68 degrees. I can't go to bed without a 69 at least. You see? It's too hot at 69. I'm like, dude. Resilience, huh? It's going to be resilience. Because things are too easy, too fast, too much convenience, instant. We're too protective. Uh-huh. Interesting. Your kids ain't going down the street by themselves to go play at the neighbor's house. Yeah. We're always there. They don't get to develop those parts of their personalities without us around.

1:07:07Interesting. Yeah. And I think it's going to be a resilience thing. I think we spend a lot of time giving our kids what we wish we had. And then we, yeah. But they need some of what we had. Yeah, they do. And we give them as much of what we had as we can. But we have to understand that our children's realities and our children's upbringings, they're not our upbringings. You know what's funny?

1:07:31Lewis Howes:and I'm sure there's gonna be a bounce between me and my wife but I'm like this morning like my you know I have twin girls that are 10 months old and I'm noticing that one of them it's gonna be hard because one of them is starting to crawl more than the other and I'm like stop baby I'm like I'm like stop babying the other one like let her fall a little bit let her crawl yeah she's like but she's a baby you're like it's like she's a baby I'm like okay yes i get it but you can't hold her all day you know as sweet as they are you can't carry her everywhere all day not that she's doing that i'm just making a case for us you can't hold them all day and make sure everything is perfect you don't want to make it's not perfect but let them crawl and struggle let them you know what i mean and she's like but when she's making this uh starting to cry you should kick i'm like no let her let her struggle yeah and let her feel a little pain It's not like it's, I'm not hurting her.

1:08:29Lewis Howes:She just can't get her arm up to move right now. And that's okay. That's, but that - Give it five seconds. That's the great big wilderness though. Lewis, that's the wilderness because as parents, especially as parents within our age range, we see our kids struggling as our own personal failures. Yeah. Your inconvenience is my, and not to say your wife is - Yeah, yeah, yeah. But a lot of parents can bounce through this. I've done this before. So I can identify with it. Yeah. Your struggle is my personal failure. You're uncomfortable. That's my personal failure. You're hungry. You should struggle.

1:09:01Lewis Howes:Yeah. Right. Absolutely. How else will you learn how to navigate that? Self-resilience, you know. I said on Instagram one time, you know, my job as a parent isn't always to make you feel better. I know that's going to sound crazy to someone. You know, my daughter felt really guilty about something. And I wanted to swoop in and just be like, no, don't feel guilty. It's okay. I said, ABC, I let her know that she wasn't a bad person, but I allowed her to feel those feelings. How can you navigate something that you never had the autonomy, the leash, and just the space to fully navigate? It's okay to fully navigate guilt within the confides.

1:09:42Let's say confides. You need to have parental guardrails, of course. But it's okay to feel bad about something that you did. Yeah. And then figure out and then realize you don't like that feeling and figure out what you can do to self-soothe and quiet. Climb your way out of it eventually. You know, of course, there's a limit to allowing your kids to struggle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That resilience piece is integral, man.

1:10:05Lewis Howes:Healthy, safe struggle, you know? Create the healthy, safe struggle, but allow them to struggle, right? Mm-hmm. So we'll see. I could see myself. I think I saw Steve Harvey say, like, I ruined my girls. Like, my sons I was hard on, but my girls, I just gave them everything. I spoiled them constantly. He's like, I screwed them. I ruined them. Dats do that a lot. You know what I mean? It's like, and I could see myself potentially going down that route because they're so sweet. They're so cute. They're so innocent, all these things. But it's like, I feel like you've got to create some type of, even if it's a game, even if it's an activity, creating struggle and adversity in a safe context.

1:10:43Lewis Howes:Otherwise you're robbing people of a potential future of greater gain. Yeah, absolutely. You rob them of the ability to figure it out themselves. My daughter, my youngest daughter, she, man, immediacy is a thing for her. She wants it now. Now. Or stop. And I was realizing that when she wants it now, she gets it now. So now we practice waiting. Even if I can do it right now. Say, okay, give me a second. Daddy is doing something. I will get this for you in a couple of minutes. And she's old enough to be able to know she has a concept of time. So say, hey, it says 5, 10 on the clock on the oven. When that last number says 20, I'll get up and do it, okay?

1:11:23You have to practice waiting. You have to practice waiting. Because her inability, I mean, she's four. Reasonably, she's, it's the fundamentally appropriate for her. She doesn't have that, yeah. But if we don't practice it at four, she becomes a seven, eight, nine-year-old. you definitely have the ability it only becomes harder it gets harder so we've been practicing waiting that's good and then at the end i give her the affirmation baby you did such a good job waiting thank you so much what did you want to get show me go to the pantry show me the thing that you wanted or explain to me the thing that you were trying to tell me my wife and i trying to have a conversations and the kids are little buddinskis they come in they want to have a full conversation in between us conversing wait a minute mommy and daddy are talking i see you right there I see you give me a second when I'm done talking to mommy I will talk to

1:12:09Lewis Howes:you and you have to practice waiting well it's beautiful man your new book is called it all starts when you do how to do the real work of self-healing that's right I want to make sure everyone gets a copy of the book if you're looking for tools to help you improve the quality of your life heal transform and understand the emotions that seem overwhelming make sure you guys grab a copy two final of questions for you, Kier. This one is called The Three Truths. So imagine hypothetically it's your last day on earth. Many years away. Thank you because you put a cap to my life. You're like 50 years. You said daddy was.

1:12:45Damn Lord, someone's gonna live in 90.

1:12:48Lewis Howes:You get to live as long as you want, but it's your last day on earth. And you get to create and accomplish and experience all the beauties and joys of this world. But on your last day, you have to take all your work with you. It's a conversation, your book, your content, gone. Hypothetical. Okay. However, you get to leave behind three lessons to the world. They're called three truths. What would those be for you? Give me a second. Let me process that. And this is all that we would have access to your content, these three truths. These are the only three things that I leave behind. I only care artifacts.

1:13:24I got you. All right. So I think the first one is, they could be instructions. Anything.

1:13:32Lewis Howes:Okay. Lessons, instructions, thoughts. The first one is always tell the truth to yourself, even when it's uncomfortable, especially when it's uncomfortable. Always tell the truth to yourself. But not to others. Well, when you practice telling the truth to yourself, it becomes easier to tell the truth to others. So one bleeds into the other. The second one will be being present is a lifelong practice. Continue to practice being present. And three, just want to cover the book. It all starts when you do on the title of the book. Don't get good at waiting. Even though I tell my daughter to wait, that's something completely different.

1:14:20Right. Don't get don't get so good at waiting that you miss opportunities. Yeah. Absolutely deserve. Yeah. Don't rob yourself of the beauty of life. That's beautiful. Waiting for something that is not promised to you.

1:14:33Lewis Howes:That's beautiful, Q. And I want to acknowledge you, man, for putting yourself out there. I know this has been a journey over the last five years of you creating content and sharing with the world. So keep doing it, man. Thank you. Inspiring a lot of people. We need your work. So keep it up. Thanks, man. And I'm going to give you your flowers, too, because I watch a lot of your podcasts and you do something that I inspire that not inspire, but I beg clients to do all the time. We talk about it. This is the one thing. If you don't do anything else, do this. Be curious. A curious mind is a catalyst to greatness.

1:15:08That's beautiful. Every single time. Yeah, man. So thank you for being curious and putting that version of masculinity out into the world. Yeah, man. because it's well needed. And there's so many young men, not just young men, but especially young men that can benefit from having an example like you out there. So thank you for existing, man.

1:15:26Lewis Howes:Yeah, man. Thank you. I appreciate it. Final question. What's your definition of greatness? Oh, man. The definition of greatness to me is closing the gap between who you say you are and how you show up in the world. Narrow the gap. snap gear gains my man i appreciate it appreciate you thanks brother absolutely man powerful my friend i hope you're enjoying this episode right now because we are on a mission to impact 100 million lives every single week and every follow here on this podcast helps us reach more people make sure to hit the follow at the top of this show's page right now it's the single biggest thing that you can do to support the show and the impact of us reaching you every single time we have new episodes.

1:16:14Lewis Howes:I appreciate you and I can't wait to see you in the next episode. 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. 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.

1:16:51Lewis Howes:I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I wanna 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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