Good Life Project - A Radically Holistic Take on Greatness | Lewis Howes

Episode Date: March 2, 2023

When you hear the term “greatness,” what do you think? For most people, images of world-class athletes, innovators, performers, leaders or industry or arts come to mind. The best of the best in any field. Those who push harder than anyone and everyone else and succeed on a scale most can only dream of. But, what if that’s not actually greatness at all? What if greatness was more about how you show up in your life, and lead with service and humanity? That’s the argument that my dear friend, New York Times best-selling author, keynote speaker, industry-leading show host, and former pro-athlete, Lewis Howes, makes. "Greatness,” according to Lewis, “is about service to other people in the pursuit of your dreams, making sure that everyone else wins around you while you're winning and empowering people around you while you grow and succeed."He believes that success alone will not bring joy, but we must also fulfill our inner peace, free ourselves emotionally and mentally, and have clarity on what direction we want to go in. Only then can we live our highest version of ourselves and be the best version of ourselves. Many of these ideas are detailed in his new book, The Greatness Mindset: Unlock the Power of Your Mind and Live Your Best Life Today. We dive into key elements in a powerful and revealing way in today’s conversation.You can find Lewis at: Website | The School of Greatness podcast | The Daily Motivation podcastIf you LOVED this episode you’ll also love the conversations we had with Chase Jarvis about reimagining success.Check out our offerings & partners: My New Book SparkedMy New Podcast SPARKED. Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I know there is no perfect life and I know that there's going to be adversities and challenges. And my intention is how can I show up when challenges arise in life or in the world or in societies or my team and being poised and courageous to take on the challenges from a state of peace and freedom, not from a state of scared, not enoughness and needing to look good because that causes me to be tight and tense under those stressful situations. So that's the goal, is to keep refining who I am internally and emotionally so that I can execute externally. So when you hear the term greatness, what do you think about? For many people, images of

world-class athletes, innovators, performers, leaders of industry or arts come to mind. You know, the best of the best in any field. Those who push harder than anyone and everyone else and succeed on a scale most can only dream of. But what if that's not actually greatness at all? What if greatness was more about how you show up in your life and lead with service and humanity? That is the argument that my old friend, New York Times bestselling author,

host of the School of Greatness podcast, and founder of greatness.com, Lewis Howes makes. Greatness, according to Lewis, it's about service to other people in the pursuit of your dreams, making sure that everyone wins around you while you're winning and empowering people around you while you grow and succeed as well. So driven to fill an inner void, Lewis spent much of the first 35 years of his life on this relentless quest to be the best in the world at whatever he said yes to. And I've known Lewis for something like 15 years now. So I have seen that part of both his journey and his struggle. He was so driven to succeed and did in fact end up performing at astonishing levels, building a tremendous business representing the United States on the global stage as an athlete and checking all those societally ordained

success boxes until he realized he was being driven almost entirely by his own sense of woundedness and pain and all the external accomplishments weren't healing any of it. In fact, it was making him feel worse than he wanted to feel, which led him on a quest to find out how to not just pursue, but also really reimagine and reclaim the very notion of greatness as something profoundly more rooted in expression and generosity and service. After years of attempts to fill that void, he learned about what he calls pursuing holistic greatness, which is about service to others and growing in a meaningful mission. And he has been dedicated to understanding and studying, living and embodying it ever since.

Lewis really believes that success alone by society's standards, it won't bring joy, but we must also fulfill a sense of inner peace, free ourselves emotionally and mentally, and have clarity on what the direction is we want for our life. Only then can we live our highest version of ourselves and the best version of ourselves. And many of these ideas are detailed in his new book, The Greatness Mindset. We dive into key elements of his powerful framework and revealing ways to really pursue and reimagine greatness in a deeply meaningful service-oriented way in today's conversation. So excited to share it with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. Whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch.

Getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun.

January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight Risk. Lewis Howes, you and I go back a really long time since both of us were sort of like noobs in the world of social media, online media, all this other stuff. We have both been through a lot of changes and shifts and

evolution. I feel like in the time that we've known each other, it's just wide about, it's gotta be 15, you're going on 15 years now. Close to it, 2008, I think. Yeah. It's like we've lived multiple lifetimes and it's been just so much fun to see the evolution. And for you in particular, you have been studying this thing called greatness as pretty much a full-time devotion for over a decade now. Yes. And we've talked about it on and off. I've seen you evolve so much, accomplish so much. And one of my underlying curiosities, I don't think I've ever asked you, is why do you actually care so much? Why do you care about this particular topic so much? Why has it burned

such a place in your heart and your soul that you've literally made it your primary devotion for over a decade now? Yeah, that word, the word of greatness. Well, I think I'll start with a story where I was driven to succeed, to fulfill a hole inside of me where I didn't feel like I was enough. And I thought success in sports and then in business would make me feel a sense of wholeness, a sense of love, a sense of acceptance, a sense of self-acceptance and enoughness in the world if I accomplish success. So I was very driven to accomplish that for many years. And I would make it happen.

I did it in sports. I did it in business. But I didn't fill the hole or the void of not enoughness, of not feeling good enough or smart enough or loved enough or worthy enough. And it was about 10 years ago, a little over 10 years ago, 10 and a half years ago, where I was going through a transition. One of many transitions that I continue to go through, but I was going through a big eye-opening transition where I was just kind of like, huh, this idea of win-lose doesn't work. The idea of me winning and succeeding in order to prove something and needing there to be a loser

because I win does not work. And I really didn't understand the concept of win-win until about 10 years ago. I was just like, win at all costs, do whatever it takes, work harder than anyone and succeed. And it didn't feel good. I remember after I would accomplish, I didn't feel fulfilled. And so I was like, well, I need bigger goals. I need bigger dreams and go after those things. And then I'll feel enough. And that started to learn about this idea of greatness being much different than success, where greatness is about service to other people in the pursuit of your dreams. So it's making sure that everyone else wins around you while you're winning. You empower people around you while you grow and succeed. And that became this

kind of eye-opening thing where I was like, I don't want to be successful. I want to be great. And great is not being perfect. It's not being the best. It's not being number one. It's about pursuing and growing and progressing towards a meaningful mission, something that inspires you every day and making sure you're impacting the people around you. And that's why I've been so dedicated to understanding it, studying it, living it, embodying it, messing it up, overcoming it, all these different things, and redefining it over the years for the season of life that I'm in. And I think we can all define success or greatness based on the season we're in. When I met you, I was on my sister's couch. Success and greatness looked like making enough money to get off my sister's couch.

That was as far as I could really see at that time. And then there was a new season once I accomplished that. And I'm in a season of service and impact and growth. And that's just where I'm at right now. But that's the difference between success and greatness for me. So why does it matter that much to you now that you've devoted so much of your life to it? Well, I think it matters because most people are chasing success or they want success. And that alone will not bring them joy and inner fulfillment and peace. And I think a lot of it, what we want is peace. We want to feel like where there is a sense of peace and fulfillment and love in our heart.

And just chasing those things and just having success as a part of your identity, I don't think is all of it. I think it's part of it, but you'll end up being resentful, angry, or not feeling enough. If that's all you create, if you don't create a deep sense of inner love and inner peace with going on the healing journey, something we talk about a lot, being on the journey of healing, which means really mending the memories of the past, accepting ourselves for who we've become, what we've done in the past, what we haven't done, the things that have happened to us, the things we've done to others, the hurtful words we've used towards ourselves and others,

and coming to a place of acceptance and mending those memories of the past. I think getting to the baseline of peace by first acknowledging and accepting the past and taking responsibility will allow us to start saying, well, what is it that I truly want? If the goal is to figure out why I'm here, what is the point of all this in this three-dimensional world? Why am I existing? And if that's really what a lot of us are trying to figure out is why me? Why do I have this experience? Why this unique upbringing? Why these parents? Why these siblings? Why am I grew up in this area? If that is part of our journey to discover why we're here, I think we need to know where we're going as well. And if we're living in the fears and the pains and the blocks from the

past, which is what I did for most of my life, and I've had to continue to let go of and evolve year after year, then I just think there's more suffering to be had than peace to be had. There's just more of it. I'm not saying that we're not going to face adversity and challenges, but if we can minimize suffering, reclaim our energy so we can move forward and take action in a more peaceful, positive way, I feel like we can get more done. We can be more loving to the people in our lives, which is what this is all about, is being more present and loving to our friends and our family and our communities.

And we can have more energy to be of service to what our mission is for this season. And I think there's a lot of people suffering, a lot of people going through pain, and a lot of people who are insecure and living in doubt. And I believe self-doubt is the killer of all dreams. It's the killer of greatness. And when we doubt ourselves, we limit our abilities to take action. We're afraid to act on what we want. We're afraid to take a step forward. We're afraid to write the book or launch the podcast or ask the girl out or have the uncomfortable conversation with our father or mother that we've been neglecting for many years. We abandon our needs because we doubt ourselves and we doubt a lot of these fears that hold us back. And so for me, I don't want people to live in insecurity anymore.

I don't want people to live in doubt anymore because I know that's the thing that will hold them back. It's what held me back for a long time. It's what caused a lot of inner pain for me. And I want to rid the world of self-doubt. When we can learn the tools and master those tools, I believe we can create a beautiful life for each other. And I believe we'll have a lot more patience and peace when people are triggering us around the

world or in our communities or in our families. We'll have more understanding, more compassion. And that's why I'm committed to understanding, mastering, and then sharing greatness with others. Yeah. So it's interesting. Had I asked you the same question when we first met, you would have answered it in a radically different way. And I think I probably did like some variation. I remember like, it's really what you were focused on. What occurs to me is that it's sort of the way that you're framing greatness. Now you're kind of hiding the broccoli a little bit, you know, it's almost like a

reclamation of this word. Most people associate it with peak performance, like massive accomplishments, sort of like the best of the best in the world. And that I would say is a popular idea of what greatness is. And what you're saying is no, like what if we reimagine this as you getting crystal clear on who you are, what matters to you, the values that you bring to the world and closing the gap between who that is and what is fully expressed as you move through each day. And like that gap closing

is sort of like the moving towards greatness. Does that make sense? A hundred percent, man. Yeah. And again, creating inner peace, feeling free emotionally and mentally and having clarity on what direction you want to head in, I feel like is half the battle. And a lot of people don't feel free mentally and emotionally. They're triggered by outside events or environments that cause them to react emotionally. wound that they haven't learned how to heal or mend or create new meaning behind, or they lack a tool to help them navigate stressful situations in life that cause them to guard themselves. And again, obviously, we want to protect ourselves and be discerning in situations, but when

it's always triggering, when everything is a trigger because of a wound, that holds us back. And I think, you know, I can train with the best of them at the gym. I can work out as long as I need to. I can do all these things to get results. But if I still can't sleep peacefully at the end of the day, if I still get emotionally triggered in intimacy or with my family or friends, that just means there's something I get to take a look at. It doesn't mean I'm bad or wrong or anything like that. It just means, okay, there's something that's holding me back from truly living my highest version of myself

and being the best version of me as often as I can. This is not about being perfect, but just being aware of it. And so the goal is to give people those tools. And I've had to learn the hard way many times. You've seen me make lots of mistakes in 15 years. And I've had to learn the hard way about, okay, I tried other things that didn't work out and they caused me a lot more pain and suffering internally. And so the game for me is staying in a state of inner peace, feeling emotionally and mentally free and being clear. And that may not always happen all the time, but if I can get there more frequently and consistently, I believe I'm going to give my best work, best efforts, and best self to whatever I do. Again, if I'm launching a business or writing a book or doing

a podcast or any activity, if I'm playing a sport, I'm going to give more fully with energy, with peace, with clarity, as opposed to anger, fear, or frustration. And I think that's the goal. If we want to get to peak performance, we've got to step into flow more. And to get into flow, you've got to free yourself. You've got to free yourself mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually in order to be present and not live in the insecurities or fears. Whenever we doubt ourselves, we tighten up and we can't get into flow. So we must learn to bridge that gap as frequently as possible from insecurity and self-doubt into flow. If we want peak performance, if we want great relationship connection, all these things.

And again, when we can get to the root of understanding the three fears that cause us to doubt ourselves the most, that's when we can start to say, oh, at least now I'm aware of this. Now, what are the steps I can do to help me overcome it and get into flow more frequently? And I want to dive into those three fears a bit, but before we get there, I feel like we need to actually close the loop on what you've been talking about because this was recently talking to somebody who's wildly accomplished, you know, 20 years in their field. And just like over the last five, they become, you know, like super well-known and artists, commercial artists doing amazing things. And for the first three quarters of this person's career, their main motivation to become so good at what they were doing

was to prove like the bullies from middle school and high school wrong. And I think this is what you're talking about when you're talking about so many of us devote so much of our waking hours, so much of our effort, so much of our attempts to be the best of the best or like to be known or to make a ton of money because we're trying to prove someone wrong or we're trying to heal a wound. And then we get there. We don't feel the way we thought we would feel. And then what? Then what? Then you go for something bigger. You transition into the next bigger, better thing, and it's never enough. And I've lived that from sports accomplishments to business accomplishments, and it never felt enough. And that's really at the end of the day is like this enoughness.

I don't feel enough is one of the day is like this enoughness. I don't feel enough is one of the main drivers that causes us to doubt and have these fears. The root of that is I'm not enough. I'm not smart enough, talented enough, good looking enough, whatever, hardworking enough. And therefore, I don't deserve the peace, the love, the freedom that I want. I don't deserve the connection that I want, the intimacy that I want, where I'm not able to create it. And I think for many, most of my life, I was the guy, similar, where I was trying to prove people wrong. I was looking to prove all the critics wrong as opposed to prove my creator right of why I'm here. What's the reason I'm here? And that's the mystery of life. We don't always know what the reason is, but for that season of life, as opposed to proving everyone wrong by doing something in spite of

doing it to prove my creator, right. You know, and the reason why I'm here in this three-dimensional world, and that's part of greatness is discover using your, you discovering your unique talents and gifts to pursue a dream where you can impact others around you and inspire and empower others around you. And you may be in a season where you don't know what it is you're supposed to do. And that's part of it. Also, you know, there's Tom Brady just retired. He may not know what he's going to do next. My identity, his identity has been 20 something years of being the guy in football. And yes, he's going to have opportunities, but his identity is still tied to that potentially. And it might take a year or two to transition and find the next

identity and the next flow. But that's what it's about, is bridging that gap and getting the flow more frequently in whatever activities that we're doing. The Apple Watch Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X.

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Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him! We need him! Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. Part of what I hear you saying also is thinking about greatness as not compartmentalizing one part of your life and saying, I'm going to achieve the most of the most of the most here

and everything else can crumble. So I think a lot of people say like, this person is the best violin player in the world, the best athlete in the world, the best writer in the world, the best actor in the world. You won an Oscar and yet every other part of your life is in shambles. It sounds like what you're also saying is you're taking a more holistic approach to the way you're defining the term and saying like, it's all got to come along for the ride. for them, whatever activity or skill or craft they're going after and doing the best they can, but also staying very healthy physically, mentally, emotionally, and having beautiful, intimate relationships. For me, that is someone I respect and look up to and appreciate because they've got a handle of creating a wholeness to all these areas of their life, as opposed to being excellent or skilled in one area, but being fallen behind

in other areas. The other thing that really resonates with me about the way that you're sort of re-imagining this phrase is that we all go through moments or sometimes entire seasons of life where things are just hard. There are circumstances, some with our control, but some that we literally cannot control that are bringing just suffering to us or bring hardship to us or bring struggle to us. And while we're moving through those, I think by the traditional definition of the greatness, if you told somebody to aspire towards greatness,

when all they're trying to do is not cry through every day, it's almost like you're then saying to them, you're layering shame on top of whatever their suffering is by saying, well, you should be able to pursue greatness. When you reimagine greatness the way that you're saying it, what you're saying is effectively that person can still aspire every day to just get through the day, to breathe as easily as they can, to reconnect with themselves as much as they can. And they opt into the way that you're actually casting like the shadow of greatness still in those moments. Yeah. It's not about excellence in some pursuit of a goal. It's about a way of being and a consistent way of being, you know, it's not about, Oh, he was great in some sport for a playoffs, but then he's horrible in other areas. I think it's truly about a way of being, of being peace, being clear, and being free internally. Because then we can make better decisions on our day-to-day life, and we can have the energy to pursue what are the great endeavors

academically, financially, career-wise, things like that out in the world, to then be a member of society. But if we are unable to create peace, freedom, that out in the world to then be a member of society. But if we are unable to create peace, freedom, and clarity on the inside, we're going to be taking actions for the wrong reasons. We're going to be doing things for the wrong reasons. I saw, I can't remember who this was, but I saw a clip from an interview of a guy in his late 70s or early 80s with some like, you know, probably a billionaire or close to a billion dollar business or something like that. And someone asked him like his definition of success. And he said, winning at the right things, like making sure you're doing the things you're

supposed to do and being successful at those things. Cause the worst thing is to win at the wrong things. You know, you're pursuing something you don't really care about, but it's good money, but it's not what you're meant to do. And it's successful. You go, that's wasted effort, winning at the right things where you're meant to do. And also he was like, winning looks like your kids still want to hang out with you. Like in your sixties, seventies and eighties, when you're old, they want to spend time with you. He was like, that's success. And it's interesting because he seems, you know, based on that clip I saw, he seemed very peaceful and he felt loved.

And I think that makes a lot of sense. If the people that you raise still want to hang out with you after they're gone in terms of like, they could go out and leave the house and they want to come back and hang out with you. That means you did something where you were present. You were connected. You cultivated love. You cultivated love. You cultivated a safe space and an environment.

You taught good lessons. You taught good values and morals. And they want to come back and be around you. They're not afraid of you. They don't want to get away from you. They want to be around you. I feel like you're showing up as a great human being. And for me, that's beautiful.

Yeah, I love this take. You mentioned the three fears. Let's walk through those a little bit because I think they play into why some of us don't show up in the way that you're describing in slightly different ways. And I think you were one of the first people I talked about this too in terms of the fears. I think we're at SoHouse in New York. It might've been like six, seven, eight years ago. Because I've been studying this and asking all these billionaires and world-class athletes

and New York Times bestselling authors and neuroscientists and therapists about overcoming doubt for essentially a decade now. Because I knew I wanted to find the answer to this, of why I doubted myself so much, why I was so insecure most of my life, the things that gave me negative fuel to take action and drive me forward, but left me feeling unfulfilled and how I could find more sustainable energy consistently from a place of peace, freedom, and clarity. As I was kind of workshopping this with a lot of different people early on, 10 years ago, eight years ago, seven years ago, I remember I was like, man, there's

really only a few key fears as I was asking all these people questions about what holds them back, the fear of failure. And when I speak in front of a room of, I don't know, hundreds of people, I'll ask people, raise your hand if you've ever been afraid of failure. And that's typically the number one fear. People are afraid to fail and it causes them to not act. So tons of people that have had an idea for a book for 10 years and they keep holding back because they're afraid of failure or they want to launch some project or a side house or whatever it might be, but they're afraid of failure and it holds them back. That's number one. I learned through sports that that's the only way you get to success is you must fail every day to improve.

That's part of the process. So I interpreted it differently. I didn't like it, but I was willing to do it because it would get me to success. It was feedback and information. So that wasn't my main fear. Success is the second fear for a lot of people. If you ask the same amount of people who here is afraid of success, almost the same amount of people who here is afraid of success, almost the same amount of people raised their hand. And this was always a shocker to me because I was like, you're at an event to learn about how to succeed, but you're afraid of it. Why would success come to you if you're rejecting it, if you're afraid of it, if you're pushing it away, if you're not stepping into it and embracing it, why would it come to you? Things don't come to you if you're resisting it. And so you might

sabotage it or you might have opportunities and then you just don't take action on it because of this fear of success. I didn't understand it 10 years ago because that's all I cared about getting. But as I started to study it, I realized that there is a weight to gold. There's a responsibility to success. And there's an amazing documentary called The Weight of Gold, which is about Olympic gold medalists who within six months or a year after they win the gold, they pursue this thing their whole life, either go and overdose or commit suicide. There's a bunch of Olympians who have done this after they won the medal within a year or two from this. And when they studied it, it's like this pressure, this weight.

We've never been taught about how to handle more and more and more responsibility, more press, more fame, more money, more people thinking you're this godlike person because you have more success. And the weight and responsibility hasn't been taught in schools necessarily and hasn't been taught on how to effectively step into. So I started to understand that more and more of the pressure. And as I started to make more money, get more well-known, build a platform, I started to see more and more people reach out from the past out of nowhere, asking for help, asking for money.

Can you promote me? Can you do this? Oh, Lewis, you're my best friend. And I'm like, you haven't spoken to me in 5, 10, 20 years. What are you talking about? And so you start to question, like, are people really caring about me? Or is it because I have success now they want to be in my life? So I started to understand there is a pressure and there is a concern.

And also the fear of leaving the community, the tribe, your circle, your friends, your family. When we go on the call to adventure and go on our hero's journey, when we see something we're supposed to go after, there's a lot of times people that try to pull us back and stay safe in the community from school, friends, family, not all the time, but that happens to a lot of people. It's the crabs in the bucket story. When a crab tries to get out of the bucket, the other crabs try to pull them back down and stay down at the bottom. And so there is just a number of obstacles to getting to success.

And then the weight, when you're there, a lot of people sabotage and they go back down because there's a pressure. So I understand a lot more fear number two and why a lot of people are afraid of success. Those weren't the things that necessarily held me back. Mine was the third fear, which is the fear of judgment. And this fear crippled me for many years, really up until the last couple of years where I had to learn how to keep moving beyond it, keep healing, mending it, going beyond it, having the courage to go beyond it consistently in different areas of my life. Whereas 10 years ago, I thought I got a handle on it in one way. And then two to four more years went by and I was like, oh man, I'm

still really insecure and still afraid of what people think. As I became more successful, more criticism. I don't like criticism. Let me defend myself. Okay. I'm still afraid of judgment. I'm still afraid of this insecurity. And I realized that I had to master, and I'm still in a process of mastering how to overcome that fear of judgment in every area, in intimacy and love, friends, family, career, business, press, all these things. And it's a process and it's an ongoing journey of healing and recovery and acceptance. And at the core of the fear of failure, fear of success, the fear of judgment, but the center is I'm not enough. This is the root that holds a lot of us back based on what these fears, the meaning of them to us. I'm not enough. I'm not smart enough, talented enough, good enough,

whatever it might be. And when we can just go back and mend those memories of where we've realized we're not enough, the belief that we're not enough in whatever category of life that's caused us to believe that, and we can create new meaning, new stories about how those things have actually helped us in other ways. Or maybe we were ashamed of that, but we can start to forgive ourselves, create new meaning and move forward and accept it. That's when we can have the courage to act and move forward beyond these fears. And I think, again, self-doubt is the killer of dreams. And if we allow these fears to hold us back now and don't address it,

they will continue to hold us back in different seasons of life. And so that's what I wanted to give people is a clear roadmap of identifying which fear that is for you and how to take action to overcome it. I mean, it's interesting. The fear of failure, fear of success, fear of judgment, I almost see them as they're overlapping circles. They each play into each other. So like, why are we actually afraid to fail? A lot of the reason we're afraid to fail is because we're afraid of what, how people are going to judge us if we do fail. If they're like, oh, you do that, you know, you're going out to do this thing and it's risky and it's uncertain and it's high stakes. And then they're like, why would you ever do that? Why would you put yourself at risk, your family at risk,

your business at risk, your health at risk? And then you go and do it and you fail. You may even feel like, oh, I can recover from whatever the last loss of money was, but I'm terrified of being sort of like outcast or judged by those people who already told me that this is a terrible decision because now they're right. But there's something else I want to ask you about here. And it's around the fear of judgment. And that is, how do you tease out the emotion of judgment or the emotional hit of judgment with the wisdom that might be contained within the words that somebody is offering? And a very specific circumstance comes to mind between you and me from years back. Tell me.

So this is the one, I don't even remember how long ago this was. You, me, and like a handful of friends, I think five or six of us were in New York City. We're in this sort of like three-day intensive speaker training thing. And at some point we each have to get up and it was like, okay, so give us your best five minutes. And we're all sort of like, we prepared the night before and we go around and you get up and you're like, you give us your best five minutes. And as people are going around giving you feedback, a lot of people were saying good things. And you and I got into a little bit of a thing because you kept saying to everyone, don't tell me what I did right.

Tell me what I did wrong. That's all I care about because it's the only thing I want to focus on because that's how I'm going to improve. For some reason, that moment has stayed with me. The question is you were seeking, you were in a small, and I'm guessing like part of what was happening was we all knew each other. You weren't a safe container. You weren't really caring about us.

You kind of knew whatever was going to come out of our mouths weren't because we were trying to take you down or criticize. So you were just like, just bypass the niceties, man. Just go there. Because there's information in what might be perceived as judgment that I want to know to get better at this thing that I want to know to get better at this thing that I want to be good at? Well, I practiced this a number of times.

One, I practiced this in 2008, almost the entire year of 2008. I went to Toastmasters and almost every week I would give a five-minute speech and they would give you feedback. And they had a format of telling you what works and then what doesn't work, right? It's like, well, here's what really worked from your speech. I really loved your presence, the way you connected or your pause or your tonality and all these things. And here's what you can improve on, right? They had kind of this approach. But 10 years ago, when I started diving into the healing journey, I went to a pretty intense

emotional intelligence workshop that for the first few days was all about feedback of your ago when I started diving into the healing journey, I went to a pretty intense emotional intelligence workshop that for the first few days was all about feedback of your way of being. It was just like direct feedback. It wasn't, here's what you do well, and here's what you do right, and how amazing you are. We got to that later. But it was about every part of your essence, your being, the way you look, the way you connect with people, the way you communicate. If someone feels like you're guarded emotionally, mentally, physically, it was just direct feedback. Here's how you show up to me. You show up to me as, and this is everyone else's interpretation. And you can't defend yourself on how someone is interpreting you. They are interpreting you based on their stories, their life lessons,

what they've experienced, someone that looks like you, that talks like you, whatever it might be, that's their interpretation. And trying to defend yourself doesn't do any good in those situations. And so I'm just looking for ways, what's useful? What is useful feedback that it may not all be useful. Like people can give me feedback and I can say, okay, that doesn't support me. That's not useful. But what is the feedback that's going to help me make a greater impact? That's going to help me be more effective in my communication as a speaker or in whatever scenario I'm looking for feedback as an athlete or as a boyfriend or, you know, a family member,

like give me feedback on how I can better serve you. And the more I can think about being of service to others or each other's individually and meeting people where they're at, the more I can just think about that the next time I'm communicating. And it doesn't mean I'm always going to get it right or I'm going to always be perfect for each person, but it's just seeing are there common themes from like if 10 people were there giving me feedback, did they all say the same thing? Or was one person kind of out there and

everyone else didn't agree with them? Okay. But maybe that feedback isn't relevant, but if everyone's saying the same thing, I should probably take notice and realize I'm not as impactful or effective in this way of being. How can I improve that? What can I shift or adjust in order to be more effective? And that's what I look at. I can receive all the beautiful feedback, but when I'm trying to improve in a specific setting, then I want the stuff that's going to make me better. Yeah. I mean, that makes a lot of sense. Also, I think there's this human thing that we do where sometimes the people who we know and trust and have a safe relationship with, when they give us feedback, we're more open to it. And there's this odd quirk, if a total

stranger who has no relevance to our life, who we don't know in any way, shape, or form personally, actually then says almost the exact same thing, it rattles us. Yeah, I know. And that's why I think a lot of us, including myself, I resisted feedback for most of my life. And when I started to practice it and said, give me more, tell me more, what else can I do? And not take it personally. It was one of the hardest things I had to learn how to do, which is like killing the ego of needing to look right and be right and all these different things, as opposed to, it's not about right and wrong. It's about what is most effective, what is most useful, and can I be more useful in my way of being, in my effectiveness on how I show up in my life, one-to-one, one-to-many,

in my speaking, in my writing. It's about what is most useful and not taking it personal. It's challenging, though, because sometimes you taking it personal. It's challenging though, because sometimes you're like, well, this is an attack on who I am and my character and my identity and they don't like what I do and my work. And when we can remove our ego from that conversation and just say, well, okay, this did not work for this individual, but it doesn't mean it's not going to work for others. So don't take it personally, but just keep growing and improving the way you know how to. That's the way I look at it.

And when I have a clear, meaningful mission, which for me is to serve and impact 100 million lives weekly, to help them improve the quality of their life. So when I'm clear on the direction I'm heading, then I get to ask myself, well, what is working that's serving me and getting there faster? And what is not as effective. And when I just eliminate this, it's not about me or my self-worth or my identity, but it's just something that I haven't mastered yet to get me closer to the mission. Then I can not take it as personally. Again, I'm a human being.

So some things are going to hurt when people say stuff, but it's practicing that art, releasing the ego, focusing on the mission and service and growth. And I think that's been a beautiful thing. And it's not like, you know, the people closest to me aren't saying nasty feedback to me every day. They're saying nice things. So I get a lot of the good of how I'm showing up consistently. But if I want to serve my mission faster, I've got to learn other skills and strategies

to get there. And that requires feedback, constant feedback. I did this last week. It's funny you're talking about this because on Friday, a part of my team was at a workshop, the same workshop I did 10 years ago. Some of my team went to it. And there's a couple of days of extreme feedback. They give it to you in lots of different ways.

It's part of the training to help you essentially drop down your walls and be open to how you're showing up, right? Your energy, your way of being, is it effective and to not take it personally. And so me and a couple of guys in the team who'd already done this years ago, we talked to each other for like 30 minutes and we did the same exercise. Hey, how am I showing up as a leader? Give me tough feedback. Like, don't tell me all the good things I'm doing. Like just what can I do to be more effective as a leader? And three of us guys did that. And it's powerful. It's just like, it's a good reminder to say, Hey, you've been kind of showing up this way and it's been ineffective. You know, I think you need to soften up here or tighten up here or whatever it might be. And I just think if we don't sharpen our tools and feedback being one of them, then we're just going to stay more

stagnant. Yeah. Because there is information. If part of the reason that we're here is to grow, no matter what your specific aspiration is, as human beings, part of what makes us flourish is growth, the process of growth. This is something you talk about all the time and you write about. It's almost impossible for us to gather all of the insight that we need to grow internally. We can get a lot and we can tune into our intuition, we can run our experiments, but to have the input from others whose opinions we trust and come from an informed place, it's just super helpful in the process. But like you said, you have to have the skills of mind to be able to actually receive that and not immediately put up a shield or melt down. And this is part of what you write about, your fear conversion toolkit. Basically, you're like, here's a set of skills and questions and exercises that are going to help you because you do want,

you want the wisdom from these things, but you also need to be able to breathe through the process of receiving and integrating it. 100%. And one of the things is we did a, we were at a mastermind recently with a bunch of people in our industry, went around and shared a bunch of stuff in the mastermind, right? Each one of us went around and talked about what we're grateful for, what we're excited about, what we're working on and what we need support with. And I remember thinking, okay, I felt so peaceful and clear about all these things. And I got up and I stood and I shared, you know, here's what I'm excited about, what I'm grateful for, what's working for me, what I'm working on and what I need support

with. And I was looking for feedback. I was honestly like, I hope people can give me some feedback in terms of what's not working for me. And all I heard was more like the positive stuff, like, Hey, you're doing the right things. Keep going. You know, no feedback here. And I was like, I was wanting it. So I was asking people afterwards, what else can I do? How can I be more effective? And maybe if there's times where people don't have any feedback for you to grow because they see you're in the process. And if you're in the process of acting and being in a certain way towards that growth, then there's really not like more feedback.

Okay. You're self-aware that you need to work on these things. You're actively doing it. You have support around you, helping you get there, and you have accountability consistently. And that's what I've created for myself is a system of support and accountability to hold me high, to hold me to a higher version of myself consistently with my nutrition, with my fitness, with my emotional coach, with my business coaching, with my friends, family, and team around me.

But I've developed a system that I say, give me what I need to be more effective. Essentially, give me feedback. What else can I do? Let me know if I'm hitting the mark, if I'm not on the mark today. Give me that awareness. And I'm often asking for it, often. And I'm saying, okay, well, time to tune it up and take responsibility and accountability. And all right, let me try to make it better the next day. And I think that just gives me more peace around the direction I'm going, more peace and acceptance about who I am, knowing that I'm not perfect, that I constantly make mistakes, but I have a game plan and I have a path forward as opposed to saying, I don't know what I'm here, what I'm doing next.

I don't know what to do. And I'm afraid if it doesn't work out, then what I've already gone down all those scenarios. And I know there is no perfect life. And I know that there's going to be adversities and challenges. And my intention is how can I show up when challenges arise in life or in the world or in societies or my team? And being poised and courageous to take on the challenges from a state of peace and freedom, not from a state of scared, not enoughness and needing to look good because that causes me to be tight and tense under those stressful situations. So that's the goal is to keep refining who I am internally and emotionally so that I can execute externally.

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getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time We've kind of moved the conversation without just laying it out overtly into the role of those who surround us along the way, whether it's family and friends who support us or folks who provide accountability, our immediate community, those who provide feedback, who we feel safe with and trust and actually want to receive it from or are open to receiving it from. But you also kind of hinted at something else here, which I think is important. And you write about this also in the greatness mindset towards the end. It's the notion of what I would call discernment. And it kind of speaks a little bit to the older person that you were talking about earlier about like, how do you know what

is the right thing to actually invest your energy in? Life is short. It's fragile. We don't know, like we're made no promises to the extent that we can use our time wisely, not just productively, but fully present and engaged with the time. How do we discern what actually to say yes to and no to? And I think the people we surround ourselves with can sometimes be really valuable mirrors in that process, right? I think sometimes they can reflect back to us and help us make those decisions, but there's also gotta be some sort of internal process that helps us with that. Yeah. I mean, this is the question a lot of people have, like, what should I be doing? What is my purpose? What is my mission? You know,

how do I know I'm on the right path? And is this the right steps for me? A lot of this is discernment. And a lot of this is inner listening. When I ask a lot of the, you know, the wise seasoned individuals that I know, uh, who've got a lot of experience, they spend a lot of time listening. They're alone. They reflect and they clear out the noise so they can hear their inner voice of what they're supposed to do, what their intuition is telling them and guiding them to do. I've created some other kind of parameters for myself. One is getting very clear on my mission in one sentence. I feel like that helps me say yes or no to things. Because I used to say yes to everything when I wasn't clear. And it came from a place of needing to people please. I didn't want to be judged. I wanted to be liked. That was my fear of judgment. I wanted to say yes to everyone so no one was mad at me.

I wanted to make sure everyone was taken care of so no one was mad at me. I wanted to make sure everyone was taken care of. So no one was mad at me. I would abandon and give in. So no one was mad at me. And it left me feeling exhausted, anxious, and not feeling enough. And when I said, okay, I'm going to get clear on my meaningful mission in one sentence, then I created a list of yes and no's. Yes, I will say yes to things that will serve this mission

at this level. So, okay, getting the word out there about the podcast, the book, my content, whatever it might be, the projects I'm working on, there's a yes and no list for press. There's a yes and no list for size of a podcast that I'll do. There's a yes and no list for whatever might make sense. That's going to be the best use of my time to get that mission out there. Same thing with like taking meetings. I'm pretty much a no at this stage of my life. Earlier when I needed to meet people, I was a yes to lots of them. So it's learning about which season I'm in as well, the yes and no list, and all based on a meaningful mission where I feel called forth to do. Now, if the mission is not clear and you're saying to yourself, well, how do I know what I'm supposed to do right now and my purpose or my mission or the direction?

I created the three Ps in the book that I think can support the guidance of discovering this. And we've also got to understand that our meaningful mission will evolve over time. You know, 20, 30 years ago, you were in law school, then you did a yoga, you had a yoga space, and you continue to evolve into different seasons of life based on a new mission that comes to you. You accomplish one thing and you move to the next. And so we've got to be mindful of that season we're in and be reflecting and asking, is the mission still in alignment with who we are this season?

So that's another thing to take care of. But the three P's really start with this. One, what is the passion that makes me curious or interested or excited about? And thinking about the first P, the passion, is really leaning into curiosity, excitement, and interest. Because I feel like those three things will guide us and help us overcome when it is stressful, hard, and challenging more than if we have zero curiosity, zero excitement, or zero interest for the thing we're going to. So leaning into those threes around the first P, the passion,

will support us in seeing if we're on the right track and sustainable when things get tough. I'm 10 years in the podcast. I think you're 11. I was curious, excited, and interested about asking people questions from the beginning, and I'm still curious, excited, and interested in that. So that's a passion of mine. The second P is your superpower, your powers. These are your talents, your gifts, or the invisible gifts that you might have within you. But also that goes these are your talents, your gifts, or the invisible gifts that you might have within you. But also that goes along with your talents is the things that make you feel powerless.

And I think we should all create a list of our biggest fears at different seasons and start asking ourselves, how can I make these fears that hold me back an actual superpower of mine? Public speaking was a big fear of mine. I learned to make it a power and a gift after a year and a half of just diving in every week and practicing it for the last 15 years. Now it's a superpower that allows me to be effective with my message and my mission, whereas before it felt like that would be impossible to do. So that's the power, figuring out your talents

and also figuring out the fears that hold you back. And then the third one is, I think this is where it all comes together, is figuring out the problem you want to solve. My friend Rory Vaden says, we are perfectly positioned to help the person we once were. So if you were struggling, losing 50 or 100 pounds and you're overweight and you did it and you got healthy, you're perfectly positioned to help someone struggling right now with that same problem. For me, I was consumed by self-doubt and it crippled me in a lot of ways. But I've been on a journey of healing and overcoming that. And I feel that this is the perfect timing to help others struggling with self-doubt in their life. And I feel like I'm

in a space where I can support others in overcoming that. So whatever the problem is that you want to solve, using your passion and your power to serve that problem can guide you in seeing if this is the right mission for you and getting clarity around that. By way of example, how would you lay out your answer to those three? Like what's your answer to the first P? Well, the first P, I mean, for me, I'm curious about people. I love people. I'm excited about people. And I'm curious about what makes people tick. I didn't know I was going to be interviewing people, but I love to ask questions. So I'm curious about asking questions. And so then I was like, okay, well, but I love to ask questions. So I'm curious about asking questions.

And so then I was like, okay, well, there's this podcast thing out there. Maybe I was already kind of interviewing mentors and coaches, but I just wasn't recording it. And I was like, man, this has really helped me in my business career. Get this wisdom. Maybe I can record it and put it out there and see if it helps others as well. So that was the first one. I was fascinated and curious about people. So I leaned in my interest and curiosity around people. The second one, the power is I felt like I was really good at getting information out of people.

So in however I was asking questions or connecting with people or the excitement or the joy I had around meeting people, I would get them to open up pretty intimately, pretty fast. And so I felt like that was a power of mine. The power of really setting goals and accomplishing them. I was like, I'm going to be so consistent. I'm going to do this every week. I can follow through. This is another power of mine. I also had great relationship skills. I was just good at building relationships. And so when I would build a relationship with someone on the show, they would want to promote it out, which helped the success of the show, all these different things. So I became really fascinated by marketing also and studying

marketing and started leaning into marketing. So having the skill of marketing to promote the skill of interviewing that helped the success of the show. And then the problem was I'm struggling as a human being. And there's a lot of fears, insecurities, and doubts that I have that I grew up with that I thought I had already overcome. You know, I want to solve the problem that I wish I had earlier in life, which is, I wish there was a school that gave me the lessons about overcoming insecurity, that gave me lessons about overcoming fear of that gave me lessons about overcoming fear of failure, success, judgment, how to manage relationships, how to manage breakups,

how to manage money, all these things that I wish I understood. So here's the problem. Let me go and solve this problem. Yeah. I mean, you and I align in a lot of those things. Yeah, yeah. And I have to spend more time with this, but I want to actually sit with how I think I would answer them because they're sort of like, I'm curious whether you feel like this comes up. I feel like when I start to think, okay, so passion, power, problem, I immediately get flooded with sort of like answers. And then if I just pull back, if I zoom out a little bit, I'm like, those feel kind of

surface level. Like there's something in me that's saying, yeah, there's something underneath that. Like, let's sit with this. Let's actually see what's really underneath that and keep asking, well, what's driving that? 100%. And originally I had a mission that was like, in the very beginning, it was like, I want to help people make a full-time living doing what they love. That was like the 10-year-ago kind of mission. And then it evolved eight years ago into what it is now. I think it was about eight then it evolved eight years ago into what it is now. I think it was about eight, seven, eight years ago it evolved into, okay, it's not about

making a full-time income. It's about improving the quality of their life. Because if they make a full-time income, but they still don't love themselves, they still have bad relationships, then they're only solving one thing. But if you learn to accept and love and have peace and harmony in yourself, you're going to be doing, have more energy to do the thing you love and figure out how to make money or your career or whatever it might be. And you're just going to treat people better,

which is really what it's all about. But we typically don't treat others better around us. If we don't learn how to treat ourselves better, we don't learn to fully accept and love and honor who we are. All the pain and the shame we've gone through will typically be more defensive or guarded or less loving and open to others. And for me, that's the deeper thing I want to solve is human interaction, connecting people with love and intimacy and support rather than pain and anger and competition and resentment and all the, and judgment and lack of compassion.

So that's ultimate end goal. And I'm just doing it through this mechanism. And you know, what we're, what we've been circling around here also is you were kind of dipping into in different places in different ways of conversation around identity. And again, this is something that you've spoken about for years and you're right about. And it's this notion of really getting clear on who we are, but not just right now. And it's also holding it lightly, right? You referenced Adam Grant, his work on identity foreclosure, which I think is really interesting, which is like, you know, like don't lock yourself into this thing and say, this is me and this is me for life. And it's not changing. You know,

I think there are certain things that kind of are fairly consistent throughout our lives, certain things that are just really base and primal to us. But a lot of other things, we shift and grow and change. And it's this notion of let's go there and figure out who are we really at the deepest, truest level, even if we don't want to tell anyone but ourselves. And then also, how do we allow for space for that to evolve as we evolve? Exactly. That's the key. others or without judging yourself and without allowing the judgment of what others expect us to be and how they expect us to show up without taking that in and letting it shape who we choose to show up as. Absolutely. Well, my friend, it feels like this is also a good place for us to come full circle in our

conversation. I've asked you this question before, but it was years ago. And as we evolve as human beings, I'm curious how the answer bubbles up this time in this container of Good Life Project. If I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? I mean, waking up in peace and love is a good life. For me, waking up next to my partner, feeling peaceful, feeling loved and excited about the day, about what I'm up to, is a really, really good life. And I feel blessed and grateful to experience that every day. Feeling peace and love in my heart and excited about this day. Thank you. you to go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app. And if you found this

conversation interesting or inspiring or valuable, and chances are you did since you're still listening here, would you do me a personal favor, a seven second favor and share it maybe on social or by text or by email, even just with one person, just copy the link from the app you're using and tell those you know, those you love, those you want to help navigate this thing called life a little better so we can all do it better together with more ease and more joy. Tell them to listen. Then even invite them to talk about what you've both discovered. Because when podcasts become conversations and conversations become action, that's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off

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