Insight with Chris Van Vliet - The Greatness Mindset - Lewis Howes On How To Unlock Your Mind And Live Your Best Life TODAY!

Episode Date: March 7, 2023

Lewis Howes (@LewisHowes) is New York Times best-selling author, keynote speaker, industry-leading show host, and former pro athlete. He joins Chris Van Vliet in Los Angeles to talk about his new book, The Greatness Mindset which is now available for purchase at https://lewishowes.com/gmbook and wherever books are sold. Follow Lewis on Instagram and subscribe to his podcasts “The School of Greatness” and “The Daily Motivation Show”. Lewis talks about how to develop a mindset for greatness, the biggest lessons he learned from interviewing Kobe Bryant, the difference between success and greatness, what his 3 truths are, and much more! Podcast links:  The School of Greatness - https://lewishowes.com/podcast/#  The Daily Motivation - https://greatness.com/daily-motivation/  For more information about Chris and INSIGHT go to: https://chrisvanvliet.com If you enjoyed this episode, could I ask you to please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcast/iTunes? It takes less than a minute and makes a huge difference in helping to spread the word about the show and also to convince some hard-to-get guests.  Follow CVV on social media:  Instagram: instagram.com/ChrisVanVliet Twitter: twitter.com/ChrisVanVliet Facebook: facebook.com/ChrisVanVliet YouTube: youtube.com/ChrisVanVliet TikTok: tiktok.com/@Chris.VanVliet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All systems are good. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris. Oh, it is so good to see you, my friends. Welcome back to another audio adventure here on Insight. I'm CVV Chris Van Fleet. Thank you so much for being with us. This conversation today has been a long time in the making. Lewis House has one of the best podcasts in the world,

and he just celebrated his 10-year anniversary with the School of Greatness. That's what it's called. I've been listening to it religiously for the last five years and following Lewis's journey on social media and on YouTube. And I'm just so glad we were able to sit down in person in Los Angeles to make this happen. And it's such an inspiring interview. Lewis is also a New York Times bestselling author. He's a keynote speaker and a former pro athlete. And his new book is out today called The Greatness Mindset, Unlawful.

the power of your mind and live your best life today. And there's so many great takeaways from this. And a lot of things that you could start doing today to start shifting your mindset. So grab Lewis's book on its website, Lewishouse.com. You can also check out his podcast while you're there or you can check it out wherever you're listening to this podcast. Snap a screenshot. Let us know that you're listening to this. And tag us. It's just our names. He is at Lewis Howes. I'm at Chris Van Fleet and Vegasin 132 Hey, I appreciate you

for leaving this review on Apple Podcasts because Lewis will tell you this. Reviews on Apple Podcasts are a pretty important thing when you're a podcaster. So for someone to take 34 seconds out of their day to do this, that means a lot.

This one says, Hey, bro, I love your show and it's great that you go in-depth with the stars. Instead of talking about stuff that's, you know, just about their career, you talk about life. So thank you for that.

Love from Vegas, Christian. Appreciate you. And if you leave a review, I'll read it out on the show. So if you have left it review, and it's been a while, go in there, update a few words, out an emoji, whatever it is. It'll bring that to the top and we'll see it there and we'll shout you on the show. All right, let's do this. Please welcome Lewis, Hows. Lewis, thank you so much for coming by.

My man. Thanks for having me. Glad we're doing this in person. Yeah, me too. Yeah. Just two Ohio guys sitting here. You're from Ohio? So I'm originally from Toronto.

The neighbor of the north. That's right. Canada is America's hat. Yeah. When I first moved to America, Ohio, Cleveland was my first city. That was my first American TV market. So for me, that's like my American home. How old were you when you moved there?

I was 26. All right. I lived there for five years. That's good, man. I've moved around a lot. Yeah, it's cold there, though, man. Cleveland has got that wind and that snow. I tell you.

No, man. How long have you been in L.A. now? 11, 12 years. Everybody has an L.A. story. So what's your L.A. story? Oh, man. My, interesting. I moved here for a girl.

And the day I land, so I was living in New York, living the dream. I was playing with the New York City handball team. I was running my business virtually from there. I was doing webinars and online seminars back then. You were the LinkedIn guy. LinkedIn and then doing marketing with webinars and creating courses. So no one really knew what this was in 2010, right? Everyone now knows with Zoom and webinars and things like that now in 2020, but I was doing it 10 years prior.

And so I could travel around. I just needed a laptop to make money and build my business. And I could be anywhere. And I was in New York City living the dream, just like in awe of the city. And like every day was magic, meeting people, having fun. And I moved there to go play with the New York City handball team to pursue my goal and dream. of playing with the U.S. handball team

and making it to the Olympics one day. Long story short, never made it to the Olympics, but did make the USA team was with the team for about eight years, haven't played in a couple of years with them. Anyways,

meet a girl, and she had just moved to L.A. We're kind of dating long distance at the time for, I don't know, four or five, six months. Yeah. And she is like, I really want to date someone, like,

in my city, and I don't want to do a long distance anymore. And she had done that in the past. And I was like, well, I can come travel here like two weeks out of the month. I can work for my laptop, but I want to stay in New York. And she was like, no, I really think we should do it, like, try it. And I was kind of like resistant and frustrated because I told myself I would never move for a girl. And I was like, you know what?

I don't want to regret this. Let me at least like give it a shot. So I let go of my place in New York. I had not, didn't have much anyways. I'd had two suitcases, a guitar and a laptop. Cut on a flight one way to L.A. I had no place to stay. I was just renting a canair Airbnb for a week.

No apartment yet. I land. She breakups for me the minute I land. Oh, my God. And I would go, what is going on? I just moved with my life across the country for this girl that I said I would never move for a girl for. This is why.

And we ended up getting back together. I think the next day or two or whatever. But it was just like this emotional roller coaster for the first six months. And I hated L.A. because of that. I was like, man, why did I do this? I should be in New York. But it was a beautiful journey for me to rediscover myself, reinvent myself, and start kind of mending and healing some things that were breaking down in my life.

So that first year was a big eye-opening journey and a reflection for me to start opening up in different ways. You know, the girl didn't work out, but being in L.A. eventually worked out. And now I love it here. I'm fascinated by the idea that, like, things in life happened for a reason. Like the Rock one time told me, like, sometimes the best things in life are the things that don't happen. Right. And this is a perfect example of that.

You move out here. What if things had worked out, you know, the way they were supposed to work out? Then I wouldn't have gone on this journey. That's exactly it. I started the School of Greatness because of the breakdown. Because of all the, that was one of the things along with other, a business breakdown I was having, other relationship breakdowns I was having. And just like, L.A. not working for me at the time. I realized I was the common denominator of all the breakdowns in my life.

So it was a perfect opportunity to step back, look at the mirror, look myself in the mirror and say, well, who are you? Why are you causing these things to happen? If you're the source of your life, why are these things showing up in your life? And I really went down a journey for the next year and a half of working on myself, healing, developing, going to workshops, coaching, therapy, just reimagine. what life could be. I hit 30 around that time and I said,

okay, I've got to learn. I have a lot to learn. Whereas I thought I knew a lot, I was successful in sports and then in business. But emotionally, I was breaking down. Mentally, I was breaking down. And I was making decisions without the best wisdom, right? And so I was causing a lot of breakdown.

And this journey, the first year and a half being in LA was beautiful, where I was stuck in traffic in L.A. Kind of like on my way here. That's why I was a few minutes behind, unfortunately. I apologize. I just expect that now. It's quite all right. I apologize.

But I was stuck in L.A. traffic during this time. And I remember just feeling like everyone in the cars around me were like screaming and honking and flipping people off or cutting them off. And I was like, this is kind of how I feel in my life right now, stuck. And it was literally no joke during the time when I was in traffic going two miles for an hour. where I was like, man, there's got to be something I could do with my life right now, where I'm feeling stuck in transition that I can help me improve. There's something I'm missing.

There's something I don't know. I thought I knew what to do. It got me certain results, but I'm still not feeling fulfilled or happy or peaceful inside. And I go, maybe I could start this podcast thing. I just started hearing about podcasts. This was in 2012 at the time. You're like an OG. podcast. Yeah. Yeah. This was this was early days of podcasting in 2012 and the 2012. And I, and I, and I knew two people that I had a podcast. So I called both of them during this car ride, stuck in traffic. And I just asked them about it. Hey, what's this? How's it going for you? They just started it maybe six months prior. Both of them said they loved it. It was a thing they enjoyed doing the most. They're having the most fun. And they love hearing the responses from people listening. And I go, well, maybe I could,

reinvent myself by going on a personal journey, by reaching out to the people that I know and business and sports and all these different areas and have them kind of teach me how to get unstuck. And maybe people would listen in traffic, like driving around L.A. or whatever in the world, stuck in traffic. And it would help them in their life as well. And that is where the idea came from, feeling stuck and trapped and broken down in my life. and it's been a just hit 10 year anniversary a few weeks ago. Yeah, congratulations. Thank you, man. And it's been a beautiful journey of doing a show for myself to learn and improve and then saying,

hey, hopefully others want to hear it and it works for them too. And it's been a beautiful ride. The interesting thing about podcasting is these conversations are so intimate. Yes. And even when people are listening to them, it's very intimate. They're either listening with just AirPods in or in their car by themselves. Like listening to podcasts is not a group activity. No. It's something that it's a one-on-one thing. We're right now speaking into the eardrums of somebody listening to this. And the cool thing about that is your personal conversations that you're having and the things that you're finding out along this journey, other people are able to find those things out in real time along with you. And through this whole thing, you've become the greatness guy.

Why is greatness so attractive to you? Well, because I was driven by success. That was what I wanted my whole life. I wanted to succeed. But I was driven to succeed based out of a wound, based out of a need, which was a need to be liked, to be accepted, to be seen, to be acknowledged, to be loved, to fit in, to belong. And it was coming from an unhealthy need. It was coming from a wound. There was a wound inside of me that needed something to feel safe and protected because I didn't know how to

protect myself emotionally and mentally. So therefore, I would work so hard to accomplish my goals. But most of it was to prove people wrong or to fit in. And when I would accomplish it, 20, 30 minutes afterwards, I would be kind of let down and have an expectation to hangover and almost get angrier after I would accomplish these goals. And I would spend five, 10, 15 years on a goal until it happened. So I was willing to do whatever it took.

But I didn't get the feeling I wanted once I accomplished it. Do you have an example of like when you really chased after? Yeah. I mean, my first, I was a two-sport All-American and my first All-American, I guess, award was in the decathlon. But I remember dreaming about it when I was five. You know, I was watching TV with my dad, watching college football, Ohio State football. And the announcers on TV talking about the All-Americans on the Ohio State football team. And I'm asking my dad, what does that mean?

And he was like, these are the best in the nation. This is what you strive to become if you're going to go pursue that goal. And I wasn't really like into football at five. I was just kind of watching it. But I loved sports. I didn't know what sport I would play. I ended up playing football when I was 15. But I had the chance to pursue the decathlon in college.

And that's where I made my first All-American team. It's one of the top decahathletes in the country. And then I did it the next year in football. But I remember after DeCathlon, I was on the podium with like the award at the national championships. They call your name, Louis Howes, All American, DeCathlon. I'm like emotional, excited, getting a chill. I walk up there, I get it, and I'm really excited. And then I'm with my family and teammates and coaches at dinner an hour later.

And I'm kind of like, don't want to be around. anyone. I'm kind of frustrated, I'm kind of angry, and I didn't know why until later. I realized, huh, I thought I was supposed to feel something better, feel seen and accepted or loved, which I was by others, but I still didn't love and accept and see myself. So I said, okay, I need to go get more success. I need bigger goals. Like, this isn't enough. And I just kept doing that in sports. I was, you know, football the next year. Then I played professional football, arena, then with the USA National Handball team. And for whatever reason, like I was proud of what I was creating,

but it felt like something was missing. And I truly didn't accept and love myself for all that I was doing and everything I overcame. I just kept saying it's not enough, it's not enough, it's not enough. So there was a wound inside of me that caused me to be driven to succeed, but still not from a healthy place. Yeah. And then I said, okay, when we try this in business,

did this in business, you know, started getting awards and accomplishments and making money, building an audience, and it still wasn't enough. And it wasn't until I hit 30 in this whole breakdown in life where I realized I had been going about success the wrong way. And success, there's nothing wrong with success. Success is fine. But success by itself is typically a selfish endeavor. Right.

I want to win. I want to look good. I want to be right. I want to be number one. I want to succeed for me to make me feel good. And again, there's nothing wrong with that. But I just don't think it's sustainable long term unless we start thinking about greatness. So the difference between success and greatness, the success is for us to accomplish.

Greatness is for us to accomplish all of our goals and dreams and succeed at them and also empower and lift up others around us. Kobe talked about this when I interviewed him. It's like greatness is doing something you love fully, using your gifts and talents, but making an impact on the people around you, elevating them, lifting them up in the process. And a success mindset by itself, if we're defining it in this context, a success mindset is typically win, lose. I win, that means someone else has to lose. As opposed to greatness mindset is I win and you win. Maybe it's in different ways, but it's creating an environment of win-win with the people in your life.

It's elevating others. It's seeing others succeed with you. Now, I get it in sports. There might be a winner and a loser on the scoreboard and things like that. But it's still, how do we create the energy and the environment of win-win with our competitors and making it more about respect and things like that, as opposed to being this lonely island of success? So that's where it started to transition for me. I was like, okay, I've been wanting success.

my whole life and getting it, but it's not working fully internally. Externally, I'm getting results. Yeah. Internally, I don't feel something's off. I don't feel enough still. So let me start figuring out this greatness thing. That was 10 years ago.

And for everything for me was like, I'm going to do the opposite of what I've done. Before I made it all about me, now I'm gonna make it about others. It was the school of greatness with me, but I was always shining the light on other people. Right. I was not trying to be the expert.

I was trying to learn and humble myself in front of all the experts. And after 10 years, it's been a beautiful journey because I have continued to succeed by lifting and elevating others, by being in collaboration versus competition, and by truly being happy for when others accomplish their goals. You've been doing the show for 10 years, almost 1,400 episodes as we sit here right now. And you've talked to people who are the best of the best at what? whatever it is that they do, whether they're athletes or entrepreneurs, comedians, whatever it is, what's the one thing that they all seem to have in common in terms of achieving greatness?

They've got a clear mission, and I call it a meaningful mission. You know, and there's no Olympic gold medalist that just said, oh, I did this by accident. Right. You know, there's no world champion that gets there by accident. They're very clear on what their meaningful mission is. It's the first thing I talk about in the book where if you don't know, in one sense, sentence what your life's mission is for this season of life, then you're not going to get there. So again, when I was on my sister's couch, I don't know, 15 years ago or something, I couldn't

think beyond that season, which was, I just want to make enough money to get my own apartment. Yeah, so you were living at your sister's house, sleeping on her couch. Yeah, and that's all I could think. I wasn't like, I'm going to change the world or make a ton of money. I was like, I just need to get my own apartment. What can I do during this season? in order to make that happen. I was clear on my direction. Now I have a different mission. It's to serve and impact 100 million lives weekly

to help them improve the quality of their life. This is your one sentence right now? This is my one sentence that I've had for many years now. Yeah. And being clear on my meaningful mission allows me to say yes and no to things that either support the mission or might distract the mission. Allow me to stay focused and be excited every day about what I'm creating because there's something

that I'm that I'm pursuing. There's a direction I'm heading to. It allows me to get clear on who's going to be in my team, who's going to be in my community, who am I going to hire in order to support that mission. Again, if we're not clear on exactly where we're heading, we'll never get there. Right.

And so all of the greats in all the fields and industries out there, they're very clear on their meaningful mission. And they're also, I believe true greatness is about being. being of service. Success is for us, service is for others. And I believe true fulfillment and joy comes when you have a service mentality. It means you can go after all your goals and dreams and win and succeed, but how can we lift and inspire others up in the process around us? And that's when I really respect people and I believe they're striving for greatness when they incorporate solving problems for others, lifting others up, you know, inspiring the people around them

in their life along with their journey. And I love how you're talking about how this just doesn't happen by accident. And I think too often in the world that we're living, we see someone who's successful in social media and they go, well, it must be easy for them, must be nice to be born with that or gifted with that. And people don't see the struggles along the way that exist. For you, in these last 10 years, what has been the biggest struggle? Learning to heal my past, I think there was a lot of pains and wounds and insecurities and doubts that I was afraid to face and look at. And so I would compensate by trying to be a better athlete, but trying to be a better entrepreneur, by trying to make more money or do certain things, I would compensate to project an image that I wanted people

to see. But I was living in shame and insecurity and doubt around what I knew about myself, thinking that if anyone knew these things about me, they wouldn't like me, they would unfollow me, they wouldn't buy from me, they wouldn't accept me, they wouldn't love me. And so it was the fear of facing all the shames from the earliest memories up until now, the things that I was most afraid of, insecure of, and ashamed of. And once I started to face all of those things and address them and process them in a healthy way through different therapies and modalities, it literally, like I had a pain in my chest off and on for most of my life. And it went away a couple of years ago when I truly said I'm going to face this fully, when I'm going to go all in to the darkness and create new meaning around the pain that caused me to feel this way. And when I did that, that's when everything started to unlock in a whole new way.

It started to flow my relationships because I had peace inside of me. And I still have this peace. and it's beautiful. It doesn't mean I don't, you know, deal with stressful moments or there's not challenges to face, but I face it from a place of peace inside of me and calm versus pain inside of me and reaction.

And that has been, that was the hardest thing to do over the last decade, and it's been a journey of creating new meaning around memories that used to hurt me. So I've been listening to your show for about five years. It was pretty big at the time. when I found it in 2018. It has blown up since.

What do you attribute that to? I got a great team. You know, I got a great team that I found and invested in who are skilled beyond what I have skills around. And I tried to do it all on my own. I have a couple people. I'm the same right. I tried. For the first five years, I was doing it with like a very small team of a few of us.

And I was taking on everything. I wanted the control of, you know, I also learned all these things, email marketing, text marketing, social media marketing, content creation, interview content, creating courses, sales pages, being the one doing the webinars, creating the webinars. Like, I had to learn all these things early on. So it was natural for me to do it because I knew how to do it. Yeah. It wasn't until about really three to five years ago, I started to realize that I was, I was limiting myself. I was holding myself back from how far we could scale and the impact we could get into. And so I've always had great coaches and mentors over the years.

And all of them say that if you want to reach this 100 million lives a week, you can't do it on your own. You need to find and invest and train and build leaders around you who can support you and you doing what you do best and letting go of the rest and really empowering people, which was hard for me to do. Learning the skill of letting go, trusting when it's your name, when it's your brand, when it's your face, all those things. It's not just like some, you know, physical product without my name on it. It's my reputation also. And so learning to let go and not trying to be a perfectionist about things as well has been a transition over the last five years and building the team. That has been the thing. You know, I feel like our team is amazing.

and they allow it to reach and impact more lives. So I've had to learn, but I have a coach in every area of my life to support me. I have an emotional coach that I meet with every two weeks, a nutritionist coach, a workout coach, a business coach. I have coaches in every areas because I believe, and I'll probably have like a marriage coach when I get married and I'll probably have like a fatherhood coach when I become a father. I'm going to need one of those. Because I believe, I believe how do we expect ourselves to be great at everything?

Especially if we don't have the skills, the tools, or the training to be effective at all these different levels. And Kobe and LeBron and Jordan and all these guys, when they got to their first championship, they didn't say, thanks for getting me here, coach. I don't need you anymore. I'm going to go win one on my own next year. Don't worry about it. You don't have to coach me. You got me here, but I don't need you anymore. They actually went and hired other specialists, other coaches.

Tom Brady, same way. Hire other trainers and coaches to support them in any little deficiencies to help them improve. And they invest more. Novak Djokovic does this as well. He's got a whole team of coaches that support him in lots of different ways, and he stays at the top in a big way. So why do we think we can just enter into it? marriage, enter into fatherhood, enter into navigating our emotions on a daily basis, all on our own, and run a career, and run a business, and stay healthy. I just think it's wise.

And we don't need to invest and hire all these coaches, but finding people, a personal advisory board of people who have done it for you, finding other father figures and have them to lean on them. It's like support groups. I just think that's wise. I remember watching this docu series called Tom versus Time. Yes. Powerful. You've seen it? So good.

And it's funny because it's on Facebook watch and I don't think a lot of people have seen it. I know. It's so, so good. There was one moment that really stood out for me. He's with his quarterback coach. And his quarterback coach says, people don't come to me to get a lot better. They come to me to get one percent better.

Yes. And think of Tom Brady, the greatest of all time is trying to get one percent better. That blew my mind. It's amazing. So there's going to be people that are going to listen to what you said about finding a mentor or a coach and they're going to go, yeah, that's great for you, Lewis, if you have the money to do it, but I don't have the money. When I started out, I didn't have the money. I was on my sister's couch, but I found these personal advisors and mentors who they believed in me,

and they believed in me because I was willing to do whatever they said. The worst thing you can do is reach out to someone and say, can you give me some advice? That's the worst thing to do. Instead of that, reach out to someone and say, it's amazing what you've done and what you've accomplished. I'd love to hear your story of success and how you overcame your biggest obstacle. People love to talk about their success, but they don't want to give advice because giving advice to someone who doesn't take action is exhausting. So I found some great mentors early on, and I just said, I will do whatever you tell me to do. And then I would report back when I did it. That's huge. I would not ask for, I would not ask for any of their time. I would not check in with

them unless I took extreme action and typically failed a lot and figuring out, okay, I did these things. Here's what I figured out. What do you have next for me? What's the next step I should do? And then it would tell me, and I would just go do it every single week on repeat. And then I'd come back to them. And that was a powerful relationship for me, because I got wisdom from older men who had had success in different areas of life that I was looking for. And they were able to share wisdom of what worked for them and see someone actually take action. The worst thing you can do is waste someone's time and not take action. And I think that you can either find a way or you can find an excuse. And you can't do both. And I always have people

that hit me up and go, well, how do you start a podcast? How do you start a YouTube channel? How do you do this or that, I'm sure it happens to you all the time. And I tell people, you've just got to start. And most people won't actually take that first step to actually hit record and make it happen. And it blows my mind. Well, there's three fears that hold people back from taking these actions. And I'm a big believer that self-doubt is the killer of all dreams. When we doubt ourselves, it holds us back from acting, from taking action, from doing something and taking the step. there's so many people that I'm sure you've heard like I've heard who you know I've written a couple of books and people come to me and say Lewis I've had an idea for a book I've always wanted to do it but I just don't know what to do and I say how long have you been thinking about this idea for a book? Seven years. Ten years. I'm like what? You've been thinking about this thing. It's been on your mind for 10 years and you can't do it. Why? It's because they doubt themselves and the doubt cripples people from acting from taking that step.

And so over the last 10 years, I really wanted to study why people doubt themselves and what it's the cause of self-doubt. Because I believe if we can get to the root of it and overcome it, we can take action towards our goals and our dreams. And we can step into our greatness. There's three fears. The fear of failure is one. The fear of success is two and the fear of judgment is three.

When I go into big rooms and speak, I'll ask people, raise your hand if you've ever been afraid of failure. Most of the room raises their hands. Sure. And everybody else is a liar. Exactly, right? And as an athlete growing up, I was trained by my coaches that failure is okay. It's a part of the process. It's the, you learn from the failures. You get feedback to help you improve. Yeah. And the greatest baseball players of all time fail 70% of the time, right? Michael Jordan missed, I don't know, more than half of his shots. So you have to understand that you're never going to be perfect, even if you're the greatest in the world. And failure is a necessary part of success, but most people are afraid of it, and therefore they don't act.

Success is number two, fear. And when I ask people, raise your hand if you've ever been afraid of success, almost as many people raise their hand, which always kind of shocked me when I started asking this, because I wanted success and I was willing to do what it took to get there. And these people were coming to an event to learn about how to be more successful, but they were afraid of it. So when you're afraid of something, why would it come to you? Why would you attract something you're afraid of? You're going to resist it or you're going to sabotage success if you're afraid of it. So we have to learn why we're afraid of it, where that comes from and what the root cause is, which I'll get to in a second. But as I started to ask people like, why be afraid of success when it's something you want?

there there's an amazing documentary called the weight of gold that's about Olympic medalists that it's a sad documentary but it's amazing and fascinating in understanding the psychology of human beings it's about these Olympic gold medalists or medalists that either overdose or commit suicide or go through extreme mental challenges within a year year and a half after they win they spent their whole life for a moment to win the gold this huge dream to be be successful. They got it, but they didn't know how to manage the pressure, the weight, the responsibility, the fame, all these things that came with it.

People now coming out of the woodwork and asking for money, asking for favors. And it's, they don't teach you about that, how to navigate and how to manage it. That's why I think we need coaches to support us in these areas that are new to us in life. And there is a pressure. There's also a pressure. There's a crabs in a bucket story and analogy. I'm not sure if you've heard of this. Yeah, of course.

When you've got a bucket of crabs and one of them tries to get out of the bucket and crawling out, the other crabs will pull them down. Yeah. And sometimes they'll actually break their legs so they cannot escape the bucket. And that's a metaphor for life sometimes. When you left Canada and you went to Ohio, even small market, Cleveland or whatever, there were probably people in your life that were really supportive and were like, go for it, Chris.

You've got it. This is exciting. There were probably other people saying, what are you doing? Yeah. Like, why are you trying to go do this dream? Why don't you stay here with us? It's comfortable. It's safe.

Like, it's, who are you? Who do you think you are? You think you're better than us? Yeah. So you, you, not everyone is that way, but those influences pull you back into complacency. Pull you back from your calling. Yeah. So you've got to break through all those different barriers to getting to where you want.

But it's challenging. I was never afraid of success because I wanted it. But I wanted it to prove people. wrong. I wanted it to look good and to look like I was the man. And so when I would get it, it didn't feel good. It was inauthentic. But I wasn't afraid of it. That wasn't my fear. The third fear, the fear of judgment was my fear. What other people said about me, thought about me, and I had this deep wound that I needed the people please as many people as possible. And especially when I started launching my online business and I would get nasty comments or reviews or tweets or

whatever, it's almost like I had to defend myself at everything to get people to know me and like me. It was exhausting. The fear of judgment drained me. It crippled me. It held me back in a lot of ways from navigating my emotions once I launched things. So I wasn't afraid to launch, but I needed everyone to like it and be okay with me. And it crippled me emotionally until I started to learn the skills of healing the wound. And at the center of all three of these fears, failure, and judgment at the root cause, if you go back to what is that button that causes you to fear one of those things, it is the fear and the insecurity that I am not enough. That is at the center of all these fears. I am not pretty enough. I'm not smart enough, talented enough, good enough,

worthy enough of feeling great, of the greatness that I deserve. And that comes from the meaning we have given to different experiences, memories, instances in our life, from the first memory until now. And so we have to go back, which is extremely painful. This was the hardest thing for me was to face these things. Go back, face them, and address them and process them in a new way. Tell a new story. Create new meaning. And that's how we move forward with freedom, with power, with grace, with authenticity. Man serves for meaning. Victor Frankl is an amazing book. He went through one of the most horrific experiences

that human can go through in the concentration camps. And yet he became free, emotionally and mentally, later in his life, by creating new meaning from those experiences that he witnessed. Horrible pain and suffering. But he created a new meaning

and had a happy, fulfilling life. He could have had a miserable life if he held on to a different meaning. So we've got to learn how to do that for ourselves. and that's some of the hardest work. The United States Soccer Federation present the U.S. Soccer Podcast.

My name is David Goss, and I'm joined by my co-host, Megan Clemenberg. And now we're giving people an inside look at the World Cup. Times ticking. I think you can feel the intensity. All the guys are wanting to really stake their claimant and they want to be on that World Cup roster. There's no doubt about it.

Hosting the World Cup on the home soil comes with its pressures, but we're just really excited just as the people are. The U.S. Soccer Podcast, presented by Henko, follow and listen on your favorite platform. I'm a true believer in the quality of your life is the quality of the questions that you ask, of other people and also of yourself. And I think that that certainly works

when your job is asking questions on a podcast. What's your interview prep look like? I've got a really great team that helps me pre-produced because I'm doing like four to six interviews a week. No way. So you like bulk record them? I'm just recording all the time. You're putting out like three episodes a week.

I'm putting out four videos a week, three audios a week. And I've got a great team that helps me pre-produce. And we do a lot of work in terms of like data. What is the science of like the data saying beforehand? So I already know what the title is going to be before I interview. And I find this so fascinating not to go off on too much of a tangent. Yeah. Your episode titles don't even have the guest name in them anymore.

I know, I know, because based on data, you know, we, I don't want people to make a judgment of, I've never seen this person's name. Yeah. So I'm not going to listen to this. I don't know who this is. It may not be that good. When I know the content is incredible, right? It's the best it can be, and we make sure that it's the best we can be.

And I don't want people to be influenced that way. I'm going to be influenced based on what they need. What's the problem they're looking to solve? And they're coming to you because they know. know you and trust your judgment. So trust me that we're going to put out the best thing we can and be based more on the topic and the title. Like lean into this title.

And maybe you don't need to learn about this topic or title and that's okay, but don't make it based on the guest sometimes. That's so smart. Sometimes we will lead with the guest if it's a massive name that we feel like people, that's what's going to draw people into this and the title on top of it. So a lot of it is seeing what do people need. We're listening to our community constantly. What are the comments they're saying?

What are the feedback they're giving? What is their pain? How can we find the expert or guest to serve and support that pain? From a technical standpoint, when did you decide not to do intros for your podcast anymore? Probably, I don't know, but a year and a half ago. Which I think it's an interesting decision because the intro gives context to like, this person is known for this thing and we're going to talk about this. But I think on the flip side of it, you're not wasting anybody's time.

It's like, here we go. Why used to spend like, I don't know, five to seven minutes to just be like, welcome everyone, and here's our guest today. And, you know, hope you're having a great day. Yeah. And I started to, and then based on data, I started to realize maybe this isn't as effective. Mm. And it also just takes a lot of extra time because I would do it afterwards.

I would do the interview and then I would do the intro afterwards. You've got to write that intro, then you've got to record that intro. But I also realized, you know, I was looking at the data on YouTube, and I was noticing that people would just drop off the longer. If you didn't get into the content right away, it's just like, but people don't care. So I started testing that and saying,

let's cut this, the intros out on YouTube, and just get right to the first question. And we'll put people's names up and their kind of bio up on the video overlay. We'll have it in the description. So all you got to do is click drop down and you see like a whole intro and a bio. And the same thing with the audio experience,

but it was just kind of like, let's test it out. And it started to work well just by getting it right into the hook. What do people need? Let's answer this question right away. And then I can go back into like backstory and who they are. But let's give as much value up front as possible. So we've been talking about your book quite a bit. I got it right here, the greatness mindset.

What are three things that someone can do right now to adapt a greatness mindset? Well, there's a, you know, I think step one is to address, where you're at in your life currently, and I'll show you on. This is a great title, by the way. Thank you. I appreciate it. So there's a page on 201 that I think everyone can just start with, and I'll just read it. I love that we're going to start the book on 201.

Right? Well, you know, well, there's a thing called The Meaningful Mission, which is the first thing you actually get into in the book to ask yourself, in one sentence, it might clear on my meaningful mission. If not, the whole book is designed to support you and discovering what that mission is and what season of life you're in, which fear hold you back the most and causes you to doubt yourself because that is the killer of all dreams. When you could overcome that self-doubt, you can act, how to create a game plan, and how to create greatness goals for yourself. But there is a,

there's two types of mindsets. There's a powerless mindset and a greatness mindset. And when you understand which mindset you're living in most often, then you can start to take direction in a different way. Because if you can live in the greatness mindset more frequently, you're going to unlock more potential. So the powerless mindset, and I have like a little chart here in the book, but the powerless mindset is someone who lacks a meaningful mission. So if you're not clear on where you're heading for this period of time, that could be three months, three years, 10 years. If you're not clear where you're heading, you're not going to get there. You're going to feel like you're in no man's land.

There's going to be vultures in life coming at you and picking at you and trying to pull you in different directions. And that's not going to be fulfilling. So you lack a meaningful mission if you're in a power of this mindset. You're controlled by fear. And a lot of times I never thought I was afraid because I was kind of this big, tough, cocky guy until I hit 30. But I realized that that was a mask of a deep wounded fear inside of me. but I was acting like I wasn't afraid, but I really was. Crippled by self-doubt and insecurities is a powerless mindset,

conceals past pains. This is the most thing about mindset people don't talk about. You hear about growth mindset versus fixed mindset, but I'm a big believer if you hide your shame and your past pains, you don't have to share it with the world, but if you're afraid to talk about it with your closest friends and family, you're living in a powerless state. You're living in suffering.

It may not be extreme, but it's holding you back. Because you feel like if someone knew these things about me, they want to love me and you're living in fear. So you conceal your past pains. That's powerless. You're defined by the opinions of others. You really care what others think about every move you make is powerless,

and you drift towards complacency. That's a powerless mindset. Now, the greatness mindset, so you just have to ask yourself, do any of these things resonate with me or am I resisting any of these things? And maybe not. Maybe it's only a little bit.

that's okay. But we want to move towards the greatest mindset, which means you're driven by a meaningful mission in one sentence, are you clear what your mission is in your life right now? It doesn't have to be, I'm going to change the world, but what do you want at this season? You turn fears into confidence. In the book, we talk about strategy for creating a fear list in order to become fearless. Write down all your fears. I've done this many different times in my journey, write down your fears, and then you go all in on that fear like the Batman that you can be, and living with the fear constantly, overcoming it. Public speaking was my big fear, and I practiced it every week for a year until I felt like I had a lot more confidence. So you

want to turn fears into confidence. You overcome yourself doubt, heal past pains, create a healthy identity. Most of the time we're critiquing and criticizing ourselves internally, and that's not a healthy identity. So we talk about how to do that. And you take action with a game plan. That is living in the greatness mindset. That is stepping into your potential. That is showing up for yourself and your creator. The person, the thing, God that brought you into this life, it's showing up for yourself. And that is a difference between a powerless mindset and a greatness mindset. You've done almost 1400 episodes. What's the one that really stands out the most for you.

Kobe stands out the most. He stood out the most before he passed. And you got him at such an interesting time, too. You know, he's transitioning out of basketball, just won an Oscar. It was, I felt very blessed and grateful to have had that experience because after it, I was like, this is my favorite episode because he, he was so loving and vulnerable and generous and kind with his energy. And it really inspired me to see him talk about love.

him talk about relationships, him talk about family, him talk about greatness is service. It's not about you winning at all costs. It's really about inspiring people around you. Now, I don't know if that's what he always thought and believed, but he was in that season and transition where it was like, you know, I just want to tell great stories. I want to, like, impact people. There's a lot of times when you do these where great stuff gets captured on camera, but then you see little moments off camera when the cameras aren't really.

rolling, you go, oh, I wish people would see that. I know. Or was it with COVID? He was inspiring because I got there at, I can't, it must have been like 6.30 a.m. in Orange County at his office. And he was supposed to be like an 8 o'clock interview. So I was like, let me get there early and really set up. His assistant comes and lets me and my filmer in.

And the lights are off. So she, like, unlocks the door and turns a lights on in the office. She goes, okay, here's a place where we normally film. I didn't like the place, the location of it. We brought our own cameras. And I said, can I just, like, look around the rest of the office? So she walked me down a hallway with kind of like glass conference rooms where you could see in the offices was the hallway with rooms on both sides, into another big open space. She walked me down there.

I didn't like that space. I go, let's walk back. So we walked back, I noticed like a shadow in one of these offices. And as Kobe was in there, Kobe was in there. He didn't see me. His back was to the window. Maybe he heard us, but he didn't see any, he didn't turn around. He was just kind of like looking up like this.

The computer was off. He didn't have his phone on. He was looking up kind of in the stealing, like just staring up. And I go, was that Kobe? To the assistant as we walked past and he couldn't see, you know, he couldn't turn around anymore. I go, is that Kobe? He goes, yeah, he's been in here for like, probably at least an hour. And he's the first one in here every day.

I go, what? And he goes, she goes, yeah, he was at the gym at like 4 a.m. with his daughter, the one that passed as well. She goes to the, he goes to the gym in the morning with her, and then he comes here. And he prepares and visualizes for the day. I'm thinking, this is unbelievable. This guy just won an Oscar. He won the championships.

He just retired. And he had launched a podcast for kids. called the punies at the time. That's what I was interviewing for. And I was so inspired to see it and to hear his assistant say he's pretty much in here first every day. And I go, this guy doesn't need to be. Of course not, yeah.

He's got all the money. He's got all the success. He's got all the fame. He still shows up early. He's showing up for his daughter early. He's showing up for his business and his vision early. And I remember thinking like, okay, we actually set up right near them so I could see a corner of his office, but I couldn't see him as we were setting up. And I got an hour

and a half of like set up time. And now people are starting to come in. We're set up. I'm trying to get set up as quick as possible thinking if he comes out here, I want to be ready for him. Sure. But as people start coming in, it's, you know, 730, 745, people start coming in, you know, um, like the lights, someone goes in his office, another executive, the lights finally turn on at like 740 or something. And I'm just thinking, when's he going to come out? I have no idea. But I knew I only had 20 minutes with him based on what his team is telling me.

And he had a pretty robust team there to make sure that I was like, he had two pages of things of what I can't ask. You know, you've got 20 minutes. There's another production crew who's actually a little Wayne had a production crew setting up right on the other side of the office for something like HBO sports or some interview thing he was doing with Kobe right after me. So they were like, you've got 20 minutes. He's got to do this interview right afterwards. Here are two pages of things you cannot say. And don't go over. Like they're serious, right? Strict.

Of course, yeah. You've been there many times in those situations. And I'm thinking, okay, I got to make sure I connect with him in a way where he opens up in these 20 minutes. Because usually it takes five, ten minutes just to get people in the flow. Right. What am I going to ask him? Two questions and then it's over. Yeah. So he literally comes out three minutes before eight. And I'm telling Tiffany, my filmmaker at the time, a producer at the time, I said, Tiffany, like, make sure I mic up, make sure cameras are rolling, you know, now.

So when he sits down, we don't have to set anything up. Just start rolling it. Have the mic ready as he comes and shakes my hand, put the mic on him. Because I want to be in it as fast as we can. And I'm thinking to myself, what? What's a way that I can connect Kobe Bryant in three minutes so that I get the maximum amount of this 20 minutes? And I remember thinking I've got to connect with them on a personal level.

And so right away, I just said, Kobe, so nice to meet you. He came up, he shake my hand. He goes, hey, good to meet you. I said, Kobe's so great to meet you. And I just wanted to say, I have a lot of friends who went to the Olympics when you were there, and they all said how inspired they were most by you, showing up to their games, taking photos with them,

shaking their hand, being a part of the athlete's village. So I just want to say it's really cool that you did that. And I just think it's a cool story to hear that from so many people. And he goes, man, the Olympics are amazing. That was one of my favorite times. It was like,

oh, that's so much fun. You've opened him off. Yeah. And then I said, you know, I played, at the time, I was playing with the USA handball team.

And I go, you know, I play with the USA handball team. And, you know, I'm still trying to pursue to make it there myself. But I haven't experienced the Olympics yet. What was it like? And he goes, you play handball? He goes, dude, I played handball in Italy growing up. Wow. He goes, I love the sport.

He used to play it in school. It's such an amazing sport. That's so cool you play the sport. And I go, yeah, that's amazing. And we talked about that for 30 seconds. And then I go, by the way, we've got some mutual friends who just say that you're like such a good human and you're a great friend to these friends. And he's like, oh, who do we know? And I said, Novak Djokovic talks, talk highly of you, a couple of other people. He stops him. He goes, Novak is my brother. This guy is amazing. He's such a competitor and a great athlete. And I got it's inspiring how he is just at the top of his game and a sport. And I said, you know, I've got these, I know we've only got 20 minutes. And I've got these pages of, like what's off limits. Is there anything else that's off limits that you don't want to talk about?

That's not on here. And he looks at me to grab my leg and he goes, take as long as you want and ask me any question. Wow. And I was just like in awe. I was like, okay. Now his team's back there like, you know, but for him to say that, yeah, you know, I wasn't asking him these questions on this thing. I was going to be respectful, but he gave me the permission to be open with him. Yeah. And then You had built that rapport with them, which I think is the most important thing with an interview. Who's the guest you want to get? You still haven't got it. I mean, it's funny.

I was thinking about this this morning. When I launched the podcast, for whatever reason, I had like a top five that I wanted. And I haven't had any of them still, which is, you know, so it's still a journey. But The Rock was on there. Sylvester Stallone was on there. Oprah was on there. Jim Carrey was on there and Barack were on there.

It was part of like kind of my top five. I still haven't had any of them. I interviewed three of them. That's great, man. It's inspiring. Not for an hour. There's a big difference between doing a five-minute movie junket for Rambo, which I did for Sylvester Stallone. Although I've interviewed The Rock ten times. Yeah, no, I've seen a lot of your clips, man.

He's the best. You guys are like boys. Well, you want to talk about like a moment off camera that nobody else sees. The last time I saw him, I interviewed him for Black Adam. Right. And I happened to be at the hotel the night before, seeing my buddy, we were just about to go see the movie. And my buddy Jake goes, hey, let's hold here for a second because that's the Rock security guy, which means the Rock's going to be in the vicinity soon. So five minutes later, sure enough, Rock walks out. And I thought, oh, that's cool. Maybe he'll

wave to us. He walks over and goes, I haven't seen the Rock at this point in four years in person. Since the last time you interviewed. Right. Yeah. For four years in person, it's been since I saw him last. And he goes, Jake, Chris, how you guys been? Chris, you still living in Miami? Like, what's amazing. First of all, you didn't need to walk over at all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the fact that you remembered our names, yeah, that just speaks to who he is.

It's inspiring, yeah. I've heard a lot of stories about him from mutual friends. He makes the moment special. He's self-aware enough to know he's one of the biggest stars in the world. Yes. And you're going to tell people about this experience. Yeah. So he turns the moment around and makes it important

and memorable for you. Yeah. And it's a great moment. So I hope that it happens for you. One day, you know, if it's meant to be, it'll happen. I think so. I want it to be the right timing for both of us if that's the case. It'll happen.

Yeah. As we start to wind things down, I love the question that you ask at the end of your podcast about the three truths. Yes. Where did you develop that question from? I think it started like six or seven years ago. I was just, I was trying to think of more creative ways to ask questions for people to reflect at the end of their life, as opposed to a lot of people are asking questions like, what do you? you want on your tombstone or what do you want people to say at your funeral or things like this? And I was like, okay, that's interesting.

Yeah, Tim Ferriss asks an interesting one about like if you could buy a billboard and it could have one sentence on it. What would the sentence be? That's cool. Yeah. That's cool. I think I was just trying to, one day it just kind of came to me. I go, you know, if it's your last day and we didn't have anything to be remembered by you

and all of your work was disappeared. Yeah. Like, what are three things? And here's a pen and paper. Yeah. And this is all we would have left to remember you by. what would be those three things? And I think it brings people to a true reflection point of like,

oh, I've said a lot. These are like authors who've said a lot and written books and whatever, have a lot of videos online. And they're like, oh, there's a lot of things I've said. But if it all had to go away, what is the most meaningful things I could say? And I think it just allows people to really reflect and start to think about their life differently and what they really want the world to know and be, you know, important for them as lessons.

And so that's been, it's been a beautiful thing to hear so many people talk about these three truths. You really put people on the spot. A lot of people like, oh, I know. I don't know. What is it for you? What are your three truths? I mean, today as we sit here,

because I'm sure it shifts a lot. The first one is do whatever you can to take care of your health. I think the older I get, I just see people who struggle because of their health. This is all areas, mental, emotional, spiritual, physical health, that should be your number one priority in life to take care of your energy and your health first.

You've had Robin Sharma on your show, right? He talks about... He does, like, two massages a week, and he's done this and that, and he's like... I always mess this phrase up, but he basically says that health is the jewel on the crown of the well man that only the sick man can see.

Yeah. So basically, like, you don't even realize you have it until it's gone. until it's gone. And they're, you know, what do they say? There's another line that I'm going to butcher that it's like a healthy man has a million problems, a sick man has one, something like that, where it's true. When you're sick and immobile and you can't move.

Yes. Or you can't speak or you're in so much pain, that's your main focus. So lesson number one, truth number one, is to do whatever you can to take care and nurture your health every day on all levels. whatever is causing you pain and sickness, get to the root of it, and then be in prevention mode for the rest of your life. That'd be number one. Number two would be to express gratitude and appreciation for the people in your life as often as possible. Again, I believe that we are in a world where we want to be seen and acknowledged for who we are, who we truly are.

and yet it's hard for us to acknowledge others. There's a lost art of appreciation and acknowledgement that when done properly, can build incredible connection with friends, family, communities in the world, whoever you want to connect with. So express gratitude and appreciation for what you have and the people in your life

as frequently as possible. And the third one would be, is truly like in the pursuit of your dreams, make a positive impact on the people around you as much as you can. Again, we are in this world to experience and explore, but I really believe service is the greatest joy that you can receive, the greatest gift you can receive. So pursue what you want, but make an impact on people around you as well.

I want to acknowledge you because you always show up. And everything you're doing is in service of others. And sometimes when we're creating it, It certainly feels like we're doing this in a vacuum. I mean, we're sitting here. There's three of us in this room, meet you and Jeff over here, who's doing such a great job producing this. And I feel like it's difficult sometimes to realize that this is reaching everybody else,

but that's what all your content does. And the conversations that you have with people change people's lives when they're listening to it. So I just want to acknowledge you for that. Thanks, bro. Appreciate it, Chris. And I'm so glad that we were able to connect in person on this. Me too, man. I've been watching your stuff for a long time.

So I'm excited that we finally met and connected. And thanks for having me on. Appreciate it. The question that I end every episode with ties into your number two, actually. It's about gratitude. And I practice gratitude every day. I say out loud three things I'm grateful for at the beginning of the day and at the end of the day. It's beautiful.

What are three things in your life as you sit here right now that you're grateful for? I'm grateful for meeting you in this moment. I'm grateful for my health and the ability to move and run and jump and lift and play pain-free. and I'm grateful for my girlfriend, Martha. She truly has taught me what authentic love really means, and it's been a beautiful journey. So I'm excited and grateful for her.

I love that, man. Well, congratulations on the new book, on everything. And I can't wait to sit down with you again and do this another time. My man, appreciate it, Chris. Thanks, bye. All right, my friend. Big thank you to Lewis for joining us in studio.

And thank you for joining us in there as well. There was, man, so much value here. I love this conversation. And I hope that there's one or two things here that you'll be able to start implementing in your life right now, right as this episode is ending right now. Take a screenshot on your phone and let us know that you're listening. Tag us. Lewis is at Lewis Howes. I'm at Chris Van Fleet.

Go grab his new book called The Greatness Mindset, Unlock the Power of Your Minds, and Live Your Best Life Today. You can grab that. wherever you get your books or go to lewishaus.com to find that or find out more info about that. Brian Tracy has this great quote which I will share with you as we wrap this up. Successful people are simply those with successful habits. Be great. Be grateful. We will see you on the next one for some more insight. Jim Rome takes on sports. Why? Because I have a job to do with rapid fire takes. So I don't want to hear from you lava pigs on this notion today.

No idea what you're talking about. You're complaining more than you like to breathe air. It's like you get up in the morning only to complain and cry and moan on social media about things that you don't even understand. He's the spitfire of sports smack. Take advantage of it. Get up in here. The Jim Rome Show podcast. What should be? Follow and listen on your favorite platform.

You've been warned.