THE ED MYLETT SHOW - Overcoming the Fear of Failure: Strategies for a Maxed Out Life | Ed Mylett

Episode Date: June 6, 2026

What if the real reason most people never reach their potential isn’t a lack of talent, but the invisible patterns silently working against them every single day? In this mashup episode, I’m bringing together some of the most powerful voices on mindset, performance, and personal growth to expose what’s really holding you back and how to break through it. You’re going to hear from John Assaraf on how your brain is literally wired to keep you safe instead of successful, and why reprogramming those patterns is the key to unlocking a completely different life. Robin Sharma challenges you to raise your standards and reminds you that greatness is built in the quiet moments when no one is watching. Jen Gottlieb shares what it takes to step into your confidence even when you don’t feel ready, and why visibility is the gateway to opportunity. Tom McCarthy takes you inside the mindset of elite performers and what it really means to prepare at a level most people are unwilling to commit to. Rachel Hollis opens up about the internal battles we all face and how comparison and self-doubt can quietly rob you of your joy and momentum if you let them. And Lewis Howes brings it all together with powerful insights on overcoming fear, building belief, and stepping into the version of yourself that you know you’re capable of becoming. Throughout this episode, I’m also sharing my perspective on the hidden forces that derail people. Things like discouragement, fear, and the need for approval that slowly chip away at your confidence and pull you off your path if you’re not aware of them. The truth is, most people don’t lose because they fail. They lose because they let these small internal battles win over time. But once you see them, you can take your power back. This conversation is about waking up. It’s about becoming aware of what’s been running your life and making a decision to take control again. You don’t need a new dream. You need a new level of awareness, discipline, and belief. Because the version of you that you’re chasing is already inside you. The question is whether you’re willing to do the work to become them. Key Takeaways: Why your brain is designed for survival, not success, and how to rewire it The hidden cost of comparison and how it quietly destroys your happiness and momentum How elite performers prepare differently and why preparation builds real confidence The truth about fear and why it’s often a signal you’re on the right path How to build self-belief even when you don’t feel ready The internal “dream killers” that stop most people and how to overcome them I want you to walk away from this episode with one thing: awareness. Because once you see what’s been holding you back, it loses its power over you. And when that happens, everything in your life can start to change. 👉 SUBSCRIBE TO ED'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL NOW 👈⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠   → → → CONNECT WITH ED MYLETT ON SOCIAL MEDIA: ← ← ←  ➡️ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠INSTAGRAM⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠   ➡️⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠FACEBOOK⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠   ➡️ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LINKEDIN⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠   ➡️ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  ➡️ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠WEBSITE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hey, everyone. Welcome to my weekend special. I hope you enjoy the show. Be sure to follow the Edmylet show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now on with the show. Welcome back. So good to have you with me here today. And I'm honored to spend this brief time with you. I think I have something important to ask you about and for us to visit about today. So let's get right into it. What are your fears costing you? I think it's time to evaluate that. Like you and I right now, what are your fears costing you? You know, we have these weights that weigh us down in our lives, these burdens, these fears that we have. Have you ever stopped to think about what it's actually costing you to have these anchors and these weights wearing you down, these fears? You know, people ask me all the time. Ed, is making your dreams come true, the work you put in, the sacrifices you made, the people that let you down, all the dark times in your life, all the times you went broke, both financially and emotionally,

is it worth it? It's a very interesting question because they always phrase it that way. Is it worth it? Yet in our lives, we spend most of our times evaluating and contemplating what it's going to cost us. So let me say something to you up front. The price you will pay to become the person you're worthy of, the price you will pay to become the real you, the price you will pay to make your dreams come true and your vision of reality and the people around you blissful and happy, that price, and there's a severe price, is infinitely smaller than the price you're going to pay if you don't, and that others around you will pay. You know, I don't think God gave you another day in your life because you needed it. I think he added another day to your life because somebody

needed you. But here's the thing. They need the real you, the authentic you, the one who's playing all out in their life and pursuing their dreams. I can tell you the answer to that question is, as good as you think it'll be to make your dreams come true and dreams that you can't even imagine right now, visions of your life, but maybe even more importantly, as good as you think it would feel to meet the real you, the one you were born to be. And remember this, you were born to do something great with your life, but to finally get introduced or reacquainted or reintroduced to that person. Maybe years ago knew them very well, that version of you. But things have happened, these anchors, these fears, these toxic relationships, and everything

might be, these disappointments in our life, we've moved so far away from that person that we're capable of becoming that we don't even recognize them anymore. As good as you think it'll be to meet that person for the first time or once again, it's a million times better. Now, here's the hook. You have to start thinking like a rich person. And I don't mean just financially. I mean rich in spirit, rich in emotions, rich in relationships. And for many of you, including me, we want to be rich financially. People ask me all the time, Ed, why do you put out all this free content? I mean, you put out the best content in the world. Everybody else charges for inferior content.

You put out the best stuff, and I appreciate when people say that, and you don't really charge for it. This is free. I do that because I believe in the law of reciprocity. I also want to make the world better. And I believe I put out enough good stuff. If someday I ask you to come to an event or participate in something, you probably want to come.

If I want to pour into you, because I don't think God gave me another day because I needed it. I think he gave me another day because people need me, and they need you. And you need to remember, you were born to do something great with your life. my brother, my sister, you were. And I want to remind you of that today. But I think it's time to evaluate what are my fears, my patterns, a toxic person in a relationship that I'm in with right now that's weighing me down. What's it ultimately costing me? Because it's just your life. That's all we're talking was, just you, just your life. And by the way, you're not getting out of it alive. You are not

getting out of this alive. So all these things that are weighing you down are truly silly. Because at the end, we all end up in the same situation where our body eventually ceases do exist. And hopefully our soul goes to heaven. But in your case, you got to stop thinking like a poor person. And I'm talking to me as much as I am you. Let me tell what I mean by poor. Poor in spirit, poor emotion and poor financially. See, when I was broke financially, when I would go into a store and I wanted something, I wouldn't get what I wanted. I would get what I could afford. Sound familiar?

So I was a guy who would flip price tags over. Oh, it's this, it's this. And I would evaluate what it would cost me, not what it was worth. And so oftentimes in life, people ask me, Ed, was it worth it? But in their life, they spend most of the time contemplating the cost. It's going to cost me this. It's going to cost me that. You know, maybe I want to become the person.

It'll cost me losing this person in my life. It'll cost me time. It'll cost me my hobby that I like spending so much time in. It'll cost me pain and emotion and whatever it'll cost me. I'd have to let go of my fears. I'd have to let go of my patterns. And these invisible things that weigh us down in our life, they kill us. And so there's a lot of walking dead in the world.

There's this old saying that they say it about men, but it's people. Most people die 75 or 80 years old, but they really stopped living at 21 or 22 or 23 years old. We just don't put them into the ground until they're older. too many people are walking around like this and maybe you relate to it. Maybe you relate to a percentage of it. These fears, these relationships, these things we worry about, these invisible boogeymen, what are people going to be thinking about me? Do you want to get to the end of your life?

And if someone asked you honestly, how did you live your life? Do you want to answer, truthfully, scared? I lived afraid, afraid I wasn't good enough, afraid I wasn't worth it, afraid of what other people would think about me, afraid to lose people around me that didn't even love me or care about me or want me to be my best, I lived my life afraid. Or at the end, you want to say, man, I maxed out my life. I got all the emotions, all the memories, all the achievements, all the richness in every area out of my life. I maxed out my life. Well, I could tell you this, if you hold on to these anchors much

longer, it's going to keep costing you. And the longer you do it, see, even these things, sometimes what holds us back is are feeling bad about things we've done in the past that we're not proud of. And we use these memories as weapons against ourselves. We stab ourselves with it over and over, or someone who's cheated on us or made a mistake. We use them as weapons against ourselves. And that's what you need to be asking yourself whether it's worth it. Is it worth it to make your dreams come true? Is it worth it to change? Is it worth it to grow? You bet it is a million times better. Because when you make your original dreams come true, you don't understand the ripple effects of all these other things you can't even think about right now that happened. When you meet the real you,

it's spectacular. You have to remember this. You can't love yourself. Everyone here, man and woman, macho man, and every single buddy listen to this. You can't love yourself if you don't even know yourself. And you can't know yourself if you're not truly being yourself. And these anchors cause us not to be us. I'm personally haunted with the thought of getting to the end of my life and never meeting me, never getting introduced to me. I want to meet that man. I'm interested in who he is. And I want to do the things every single day. Because once I got wealthy and I was rich and I went into a store, I didn't look at price tags anymore. I looked at whether it was worth it. And I got what I wanted. And our lives are a perfect metaphor of that. We're constantly evaluating the cost

instead of whether or not it's worth it. Cost versus worth is a subtle difference. Is it worth it to change? Is it worth it to let go of these memories? Is it worth it to drop your fears? You'll never meet you otherwise. Some of us are held back by crappy programming our parents installed in us when we were young. Remember this. Most things in life are caught, not taught. We catch a way of thinking. We catch a way of having emotions. And we have to undergo. We have to unleash ourselves and let go of those things in their life. So what's the thing for you? What's the thing? Is it a person you need to let go of? Is it a fear you need to let go of? Is it an operating pattern? Is it a memory as a weapon you're using against yourself? Is it just you're just not sure? You got to remember who the hell you are.

And if you've never met them, you need to get introduced and you need to get acquainted because I can tell you of all the jets and islands and cool stuff I've accumulated in my life. All the accumulations are wonderful. And I want you to accumulate the things you want that will provide memories for your family if they matter to you. The don't. nations you can make, the people you can be there for, all the different things you can do when you get financially secure, all those things are incredible. But they don't bring us fulfillment. They can bring us temporary happiness and there's nothing wrong with temporary happiness, but fulfillment. All of that stuff doesn't add up to meeting you, finally meeting you.

At some point in your life, don't you want to meet you or get reacquainted because you once knew her? There was a time in your life where you knew her or him. You'll never meet them. otherwise. And so I have to tell you something, you have to start, you have to start to make a bold move in your life because you're worth it. Your family's worth it. And the world needs you. You were born for a reason. You were born to do something great in small ways and in big ways in your life. And oftentimes in our lives would hold us back sometimes is the stories we tell ourselves. See, it's not the events of our lives circumstances that define us. It's the meaning we take away from those events.

And those meanings create an emotion. And that emotion drives our behavior, that emotion of fear, that emotion of anxiety, that emotion of sadness. Or it could be an emotion of bliss, of confidence, of increase, of belief, of being guided, of being protected. But you have to ask yourself that question. See, it's not the event. It's the stories we tell ourselves.

And listen to me, an emotion cannot exist long term without a story attached to it. You've had a lot of things happen in your life that were emotional, but the story didn't stick or you didn't take away the wrong meaning. It's so that emotion doesn't stay. If you're feeling one of those emotions, it's attached to a story. It's a story you're telling yourself. The emotion can't stay without the story. And the story is just the meaning you took from the event.

It's just a meaning you took from an event. So sometimes the story you're telling yourself is, I don't want to be alone, so I'm hanging on to this person that still weighs me down. Or where I'm at is good enough because I don't want to risk what I've got, and that's a story. Or I've made this mistake before. Or someone hurt me, and what it meant was XYZ, and you have a feeling about it. These anchors are actually lies we tell ourselves that are anchored in a story that doesn't serve us that causes an emotion that sticks. So if we change the story, either we take a different meaning from an event and say,

could it have meant this? See, when I was a young man with my dad's drinking, I thought, this means our families less than and we're dysfunctional and all these things I attach to the meaning I attached to that story that was happening. And then at one point, I realized, no, what was actually happening was God was using that to teach me how to learn to be present with people and read people and be empathetic with people and believe in people and that God was using that story for me. When my baseball career ended, I was injured.

It probably ended a career that would have ended anyway, quite frankly. But I was a pretty good player. And when I got injured, I remember thinking, man, this is my only dream in my entire life, right? God doesn't answer prayers, right? This was my prayer to do this, right? The meaning of this is, I just was never good enough. The meaning from it was it just wasn't meant to be. I wasn't meant to be somebody.

I wasn't meant to do something great with my life. And I attached all these meanings to what was a pretty traumatic event. But I could have attached the meaning of that time that God's got something bigger in store for me, that there's something bigger and bolder for me. And that Ed Milet I thought I was was not going to be a baseball player, but the Ed Milet I thought I was could be this other person who contributes to millions of people's lives. So once I attached a meaning to it, that what God really did was I probably would have played three or four or five more years and then been released and then been in my mid-dil,

late 20s and maybe I wouldn't have taken advantage of a lot of the opportunities that came along. So that career ended right when it was supposed to so that I could start to redirect my life in a direction. And from there, I got a job at an orphanage and that orphanage changed my life. Because of that orphanage, I met these young boys that looked just like me. These boys were all wards of the court. They were taken from their families or their families were incarcerated or dead and had molested them at some point in their life. And so baseball ended. I'm finding myself making $6 an hour at an orphanage. And I'm thinking, God, you took multi-million dollars playing in front of thousands of people a year, 50,000 people a night from me to be with eight children in a cottage

making six bucks an hour. And that's exactly what he was doing, because what I needed to be was I needed to be connected with people. I needed to love people. And what's even crazier about it is, the way I connected with those boys is they had grown up with all this pain and suffering and dysfunction in their homes. And that's what I grew up with in. a different way with my father being an alcoholic when I was young. My career had to end that exact day it ended so that I would end up in that exact house with those exact boys and they could have someone who understood them, who could see them and knew who they really were because I was just like them. I recently said to Jesse Lee on my podcast, I said all people that go through any pain in their

life, especially when they're young, we have different eyes. We just have different eyes. Our eyes to say, please love me. Please protect me. Please be good to me. Please be kind. Please be gentle. Please believe in me. We have these different eyes.

And I remember when I walked in there, they had my eyes. Not the same color eyes. My boys were of every ethnicity, every background. We had those eyes. And when I meet someone who's gone through pain in their life, I see those eyes. But I found out something. We don't just have the same eyes. We actually have the same heart.

we have the same heart and every single human being has that heart it's whether or not they'll unleash it unleash the real them release the real them or will they continue in their life to suppress the real them and settle for this less than version of them because they've created a bunch of stories and a bunch of fears and a bunch of relationships in their life that they hide in these stories they hide in these emotions and they never unleash the real them i've figured this out all I've ever wanted to do is change how I feel. I didn't like how I felt. I wanted to change how I feel so I would accumulate and achieve and do things to change how I feel in my life. And as I've gotten older, I've realized if I can change how I feel, I can get all those things the easy way.

And that's what I've started to do in my life, maybe from 40 to right now, 52 years old. So I want to challenge you today, evaluate this thought, evaluate, weight, what are your fears costing you? What are these anchors costing you? I want you to really pray about it, really think about if you're on a walk right now, you're driving in your car, just what's it cost to me? And what would my life look like, potentially? And by the way, you don't even really know, just so you know, it's going to be so much bigger, so much more beautiful, so many small things that are going to happen along the way of you meeting you. And by the way, what's great is you'll continue to meet new versions of you. See, when you start to live your life without all these

fears, without all these people anchoring you down with all these patterns and stories, What's great about it is there's a new you that shows up every couple years. And there's this new version of you, an improved version of you, every year. One of the things I'm excited about is to meet the 55-year-old me. Because I didn't die at 21 or 22 like most people, getting around to bury me at 85 or 90. No, no, no, no. I'm reborn all the time. I can't wait to make the 55-year-old me.

I'm chasing that guy. When I get there, I can't wait to meet the 60-year-old me. So I was just doing a podcast the other day, and my guest complimented me on my blue shirt. And I said, well, guess what? That's quince, brother. He said, what's quince? And then I told them what I'm about to tell you, which is, number one, I said, hey, summer's changing. And so I want pieces that feel lighter and more breathable.

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on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash ed for free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com.com. slash ed. Have you noticed your sheets slipping off the corners lately? Or maybe your pillows just don't feel supportive like they used to. You want to get a better night's sleep and be healthier? Replace your bed. That's why I upgraded our bed with Bowling Branch. They make everything your bed needs. Their signature organic sheets, pillows, blankets, and comforters are all designed to be breathable, incredibly soft, and they actually get better over time. Bowling branch bedding from their organic cotton sheets to their breathable pillows and comforters is made with the ultra-clean

materials that are gentle on skin and free from harsh chemicals. Their fabrics are breathable soft and temp regulating so you're not overheating or tossing or turning too much. So upgrade your sleep with bowl and branch. Get 15% off your first order plus free shipping at bowl and branch.com slash my let with code my let. That's bowl and branch, B-O-L-L-A-N-D branch.com slash my let, code my let to unlock 15% off. Exclusions apply. The 25 year old me was nothing like the 30 year old me. I mean, it was similar character, but different life, different contribution, different thoughts. Too many people are exactly the same person they were two or three years ago.

And that's what it's really costing you, isn't it? And the reason you're not happy or as happy as you could be is you know this isn't you. You know this isn't you. You know there's more in you. deep down in your heart and your soul and your spirit, the reason you're not happy isn't these other people, isn't your boss, isn't your job, isn't your body, isn't your lack of money, isn't any of it. It's that you know this really isn't you. You know this really isn't you. And it's time you meet him. It's time you meet her. It's time at least you get reacquainted if you once knew them. I want to challenge you to do that today.

I want to challenge you to step out and drop whatever that anchor is or multiple anchors are these weapons you're using, these mistakes you've made. These choices that you regret, blah, blah, stop it. That's not who you are. Your destiny is now. It's in the future. It's moving forward. And there's something great waiting for you. And is the price worth it?

Absolutely. Is the cost worth it? A thousand percent. Because eventually you start getting what you want, not just what you can afford in your life. And here's the truth. You can't afford to get to the end of this life without meeting you. Because only then will you love you when you're being you.

You can meet you. And when you meet you, you can truly love you. It's time for you to step up. Remember, once again, I'm going to tell you, he didn't add another day for you because you needed it. He added another day because some other person and the world needs the real you. Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Now on to our next guest. All right, welcome back to Max out, everybody. What an honor it is to be with this gentleman here today. to share him with all of you. I guess probably the thing I admire most about him

is that he came to the space, I think, similarly to how I did, which is that almost reluctantly, he was a person building businesses and becoming successful in the real world, applying the things he was learning from personal development and making those things a reality in his life. And then after he had business success,

being sought after enough, he decided to start to teach the things that had helped him become successful. And I love that there's a track record behind the incredible things we're going to cover today. Multiple time, New York Times bestseller, company called Neuro Jim that you're going to fall in love with everybody, a bunch of different books. His recent one I read in two days called Inner Size, I highly recommend you all get this. Most of you are probably familiar from him for the first time from The Secret. He's one of

the stars, if not the Star, the Secret. A bunch of different books, the answer, so many great things. And it's an honor to have him today because I consider him on earth, one of if not the greatest expert on the brain, on the inner mechanics of the brain, mindset, and peak performance. So I know it's what all of you want to talk about. So I have John Asaraf here with me today. John, thanks for being here, brother. Ed, it's so good to be here and thank you for giving me the honor to be here with you. Pleasure is mine, as you know. We're going to go right into the good stuff here with this man. There's too much gold there to kind of go to generalities. Well, we're doing

this during the COVID pandemic and people will watch as any given time it could be two or three years from now but I want to talk about fear to start a lot of people are afraid right now and whether they've lost a job and they're afraid it's not coming back they've lost money their business is going potentially backwards maybe they've lost the fitness they achieved and some of the weight they had lost is returned possibly and in inner size you teach these first two exercises and if you could talk about take six calm the circuits if you would start we're going Right to the good stuff, right?

Plus, everyone's gonna wanna get the book after we do this. So could you talk about fear and some help that you could provide people in that regard? Sure, if everybody could imagine for a moment you're driving a car and everything's going great. And all of a sudden, a light pops up on your dash. Now, the average person won't take a hammer

and hit the light to turn it off. An average person will take a look at what is that light. Am I low on windshield wife fluid? Am I low on air and my tires? Is my back trunk open? What's going on? So just like the signal in a car is meant to make you aware, fear is a trigger in our subconscious mind

that real or imagined danger has percolated in our brain. And so fear, there's nothing wrong with fear. We can actually use fear as fuel. Now, I like to give people visual. So imagine if you have two parts of your brain. There's many more, but imagine these two. We have the Einstein brain and we have the Frankenstein brain. And when fear gets activated, let's assume that that's our Frankenstein brain going,

what if, what if you get hurt? What if you lose money? What if you die? What if you get embarrassed, ashamed, ridiculed, or judged? And so why does Frankenstein even get activated? Because we're not born with those fears. And so if we're not born with those fears, that means that something in our brain is triggering this reaction automatically without our thought. And that is what we call is the fear response.

And we also know that that fear response causes something called the sympathetic nervous system to activate, which causes us to want to fight, freeze, or run away. That's just the absolute reaction at a biological level of what is happening. Now, when we want to deactivate that sympathetic nervous system, there's several what I call our inner sizes that we can do that actually gives us more control, more power, and the ability to reactivate the Einstein part of the brain. So inner size, number one, is really, really simple. It's called take six, calm the circuits. So as soon as you catch yourself in a sense.

state of doubt, fear, worry, anxiety, stressed. That means that Frankenstein's activated. If you just took six deep breaths in through your nose as slowly as you could, and then you exhaled as if you're exhaling through a straw in your mouth, if you just did that six times, that very simple inner size would deactivate the Frankenstein brain and allow you to reactivate your thinking, imagination, Einstein part of your brain. And then you can do the second inner size, which puts you right back in control. And that one I call is AIA, AIA, which is now a matter of awareness, awareness of my thoughts, emotions, feelings, sensations, or the behaviors that I've just taken, or the one I'm afraid to take. And in a pure state of awareness,

without judgment, blame, shame, guilt, or justification. Let me repeat. Without any judgment, blame, shame, guilt, or justification of the feeling or the thought of the behavior, now I'm empowered again because now I can observe. And now in this observational mode, I could say, okay, what's my intention, let's say for the next 10 minutes? Well, my intention is to be happy. Great.

My intention is to be productive. Great. My intention is to, you know, take action on this. one thing that's going to help me towards my goal and dream. So in the awareness and in the intention, then if I say, what's one small action step I could take towards what I want instead of what I don't want? So all of a sudden, I've interrupted a fear pattern. I've created this state of awareness, I've set an intention, and now I'm taking action towards what I want versus being paralyzed by what I don't want and a fear that may or may not be real. So awareness is what actually gives us

choice and choice is what actually gives us freedom if we make the right choices. Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Welcome back to the show, everybody. So every once in a while, a topic keeps coming up in the questions. So at Edmylet.com, we get a lot of questions, Ed. Please cover this topic. Instagram, we get a lot of DMs, and the number one topic, easily, the last 90 days has been fear. So many people are scared right now about their lives, about the economy, about the world, about not making their dreams come true, just fear in general.

And there's so much BS out there in the personal development space on this topic that I want to look at right in the eyes and I want to deal with it today and I want to give you some strategies that can help you, like real ones. And also just discuss the topic in general. You know, one of the things that frustrates me, especially in self-help, personal development, entrepreneurship, as people say, fear isn't real. You ever hear that before? And immediately, your BS meter goes off. Of course fear is real. You ever heard that analogy?

They love to give you this one, the old school, right? False evidence appearing real. Fear. What a crock. Like, totally wrong. Fear is very real. And if you've ever felt it, it's visceral. And if you've had a really deep fear, you know,

Absolutely, it's real. And by the way, some of the things we're afraid of, nobody's going to tell you this in personal development. You can overcome every fear. You ever heard that before? You can overcome all of it. Listen, some fears are there for a reason. They're wired into our DNA, into our neurobiochemistry for a reason, which is to help us focus, which is to warn us of threats of things that could be very, very real.

You ever had somebody trying to break into your home and you feel fear, that's real, and they're trying to break into your home. Now, there's a difference between hearing a noise in the middle of the night and beginning to imagine someone's trying to break into your house and someone really trying to do that. It's imagining something that's not true that's dangerous. But many fears are real, and fear is not necessarily a bad thing. It's not a fun thing, almost ever, but it's not necessarily a bad thing.

So it's not false evidence appearing real every time. It just isn't. Sometimes it's real evidence appearing. very real, and you have every reason in the world to feel scared or have fear. So let's just get real about that, number one. Let's get that off the top. It's BS that it's false evidence appearing real. So the question is, what do we do with fear when it rears its head?

What is it? How does it work? It's a really interesting thing because here's how real fear is. As soon as you recognize fear, here's what happens, the amygdala, which is a really small organ in the middle of your brain, it goes to work immediately. it alerts your nervous system, sets your body's fear response in motion. Stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline are pumped through your body. Your blood pressure and heart rate increased dramatically. That's what happens to you.

Matter of fact, you know what else happens to you? All the blood begins to move from your heart to your extremities, to your hands and feet so that you can fight. It's literally what's happening in your body. And so sometimes fear is very real. My fighters, my UFC fighters that I work with, my boxers, people, ask them all the time, do you get scared before you come into the octagon? People think all the time. These men and women are bulletproof. They're just different than us. They're freaks. They're never scared. You know what most of them say? And by the way, 100% of the honest ones? Yes, I'm scared.

And if they weren't scared, they wouldn't perform as well, ironically. Fear does not always cripple performance, especially in athletics. Because like I said, it moves the blood from your heart to your hands and your feet so that you can begin to act and punch and move faster and stronger. Now, but thinking, critical thinking, processing information, that's a whole different story altogether. And when you're pumped full of adrenaline, you're pumped full of cortisol, right? You don't think as clearly. So we need to really look at this fear thing in its eyes. Now, here's the good news.

Fear and excitement are cousins. They're related. What actually goes on in your body when you're enthusiastic, you're excited, call it even anxious. you're pumped up, right? In your body, from a biochemistry standpoint, is almost identical to fear. The difference is what you're thinking and what you're processing and your ability to process information. But your body really moves the same way. And so the question is, can we shift ourselves from a completely fear-based state into an enthusiastic, pumped-up, excited state?

And by the way, you don't have to move all the way there where you've eradicated fear completely. Here's the misnomer, and this is why most people never take action. They think if I can't eliminate fear altogether, I can't start that business. I can't get up there and do public speaking. I can't go overcome my fear of heights. I can't ask that person out on a date. I can't write my book. They think, I have to eradicate all fear, right?

It's actually not true. You have to get to 51%. That's all it is. 51% excitement and enthusiasm. When 49% of its fear, you can take action in that state. This notion that you have to have this threshold of you've eliminated your fears, you're going to live a long time before all of those are gone. So, guys, the last eight weeks or so, I have not been feeling on my game.

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Optional products and services may have fees or charges. People ask me all the time before I speak in public, they'll say to me, you know, because I, you know, I speak 80 nights a year. Do you get scared? Are you afraid? My answer is always, yeah, I do have fear. I'm afraid I won't serve to the level that I can. Maybe I'll forget a story or something I want to cover. I don't want to let people down.

I don't want to embarrass myself. My biggest fear of my life when I was young in college as a dramatic introvert is public speaking. And now it's one of the things I do 80 times a year. And I'm in front of a camera probably 100 more times a year. That's not true. Probably 200 more times a year. So it became something that could cripple me if I didn't learn to face it. If I didn't learn to dance with it, which is what we're going to talk about today.

trying to eliminate it. So what I normally will say is I'll say, yeah, I have fear, but it's a little bit more like excitement. It's a little bit more like I'm anxious. It's a little bit more like kind of looking forward to what's going to happen in that magic moment. So I try to get at least a 51% excitement of my thoughts and 49% fear. Now, I'll be honest with you, the more and more you do something that becomes 60% excitement, 40% fear. A little bit longer, a little bit more. reps, it can be 80% excitement, 20% fear. You might even get to a point in your life where you're no longer afraid and you're just excited. But the reason I point this out to you is this notion that you have to have 100% of the fear gone or dealt with it to take action is really one of the most

misunderstood, really detrimental thoughts that's been sowed into society and culture. You've got to overcome your fears. You're not going to overcome every single fear. Maybe you need to face them, maybe you need to dance with them. I'm going to give you some strategies in a minute. Maybe you need to deal with it. Maybe you need to run it all the way to its conclusion in your mind. But it's really a matter of changing some of our thoughts. And by the way, that's not easy to do either, but I'm going to show you some of the ways how. You ever have somebody say, hey, calm down. Does that help you calm down? You know, hey, man, just think positively. Think positively. I'm afraid of heights and we're up here in the mountains. You think

positively, right? So what ends up happening is your physiology overrides your thinking. So thoughts can impact physiology, right, and action, but physiology can override a thought most times. Not all the time, but most of the time. Physiology will be the driver. Okay, so we got to change what we think, but we probably need to do a few things deeper than that as well. So calm down doesn't work. Think positive doesn't work. These are not things that work. So really what fear is, it's an alert to your nervous system. You know what I say? Let's listen to our fears all the way to the end of the story.

You know, when I was a little boy, I was always afraid there was a boogeyman in the house. Now, it wasn't a completely unfounded fear. I mean, someone could do that. But I remember my dad would come in and he'd open my closet and go, Eddie, look, there's no boogeyman in the closet. There's no boogeyman in the closet. But then he said something more important than that. He said, and if there was.

Daddy will handle him. Daddy will handle him. And that gave me some comfort. What he did is, he reframed the story. So the first thing is we did a little BS check. Is this a real fear? And a lot of times the boogeyman you're afraid of isn't real. But he could be, or they could be, or it could be. But then he took me to the end of the story, basically saying everything will be okay. Everything will be okay. It's not that bad. And when you begin to stare the boogeyman of your life, in the face almost every single time you will find out it's not as bad as you think and that's how you learn to shift to excitement anticipation see I call it that Friday night feeling before I speak now before I do anything I'm afraid of I call them butterfly moments I wrote about butterflies in my first

book called max out and I've learned after 50 plus years on this planet that all great things in my life have been preceded by butterfly moments you know those butterflies you get like when you're dropping down in a roller coaster you get the butterflies. I call it that Friday night feeling if you were a high school football player if you were a guy, you know, or you were a lady and you played soccer or softball, or you were a guy or a lady before a high school prom or a dance or your first day. You get those butterflies in your life. Those butterflies, that's your chemistry changing, your biochemistry changing, your neurobiology changing. And what that is is it's fear. it's fear but it's a lot different when you don't call fear fear and you reframe it and name it a butterfly

moment a butterfly moment and by the way think about your own life all of the butterfly moments of your life all the great moments of your life were preceded by the butterflies that beautiful first date your wedding day the birth of a child right the starting of your business even things that didn't work out the best memories of your life were preceded by butterflies, which means they were preceded by what you call fear. But butterflies, I believe, are that beautiful mix of fear, anxiousness, excitement, and enthusiasm as one package refrained. Not eliminating fear, dancing with it, facing it, knowing that without fear, there's no great moments of our life. Almost none of the great moments of our life didn't come with some kind of butterfly moment. So I actually chased the butterflies.

in my life. And the more that becomes your pattern of not running from the butterflies, but chasing them, the more that becomes, the more familiar you become with butterfly moments, the more it's refrained into a butterfly moment as opposed to terror, complete fear. And I'm going to show you how to make it a butterfly in your life, where it's excitement and enthusiasm. It's basically just slightly different thinking with the same chemistry going on in your body. And it's not a trick. Doesn't mean the fear isn't real. It doesn't mean I couldn't mess up the speech. It doesn't mean you couldn't fall off the mountain. Doesn't mean that. Doesn't mean there isn't a boogeyman in the closet. It doesn't mean that the person's not going to reject you. It doesn't mean that you couldn't

mess up your vows on your wedding day. All these things that are fears. What I'm saying to you is it's the entire juice of life. That was a great conversation. And if you want to hear the full interview, be sure to follow the Edmilet show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Here's an excerpt I did with our next guest. Welcome back to the program, everybody. I'm so excited to have this man here today. I've wanted to do this with him for a long time, but it was the universe's timing, I think, that we did it now.

He's incredible. He's constantly ranked as one of the top three, four, five leadership experts in the world. But when I watch him speak, I think he's one of the most gifted orators in the world today. He's an author of a whole bunch of different books. We're talking 20 million plus copies sold of his books. He's also a recovering lawyer, which I didn't know until I started to do my research on him. And you know what? There's a bunch of people that endorses work. I mean, people like Nobel Prize winners, Desmond Tutu, John Bon Jovi, and me. I endorse his work. And so he's got a new book out called The Everyday Hero Manifesto, which is incredible. It's about 10 books and one book. So Robin Sharmer, welcome to the show. Real blessing, Ed. Nice to finally meet you. Yeah, pleasure. It's mine. I got to tell you, I told you off camera, I'm just a big fan of the work you do and the way that you do it. So you strike me, it's interesting. You have such modern information.

you give, yet you are sort of counterculture to the modern world in the sense that you do live. I do sense this about you, that you do live a simple life, that you do take time for yourself, that you aren't chasing every shiny thing that comes your way. I think that makes you very, very unique. So you actually hit on one of the questions I had to ask you before we leave because I think it holds so many people back from becoming this hero, from revealing their genius, which is fear. And so just talk a little bit about how you do lean into fear every single day. So there's a chapter in the everyday hero manifesto called Hug the Monster. And it starts with the story.

And there's a grandmaster walking up a Himalian mountain leading a crowd of people. And they're going to this great temple looking for great answers. And as they go higher and higher, more people start to follow the grandmaster. And they go higher and higher and more people start to follow this little movement up the mountain. Once they get to the temple, Ed, they notice there's a courtyard. And before they can get into the entryway to meet the supermaster, they see there's three violent dogs on leashes. So the group starts to move into the courtyard,

but all of a sudden the dogs break free if they're leashes and they start running towards the group. They start to run faster and all the other people start running down the mountain, terrified. The Grand Master, who is leading them, does something very interesting. He starts to smile and then he yawns, and then he starts running towards the dogs.

And the dogs start running even faster. Grandmaster picks up his space, his pace, looks at them, starts running even more quickly, yons again for good measure. Dogs run even faster, he runs even faster now. He starts to dance, a little dance, a little TikTok dance along the way. Eventually these dogs get frightened because they feel his power and they run away. And I think as human beings, we construct a reality of these straw monsters that have been taught to us. if you love too deeply you will be hurt if you build a great business you will be attacked

if you try to change the world cynics will laugh at you i mean our job is to take the stones that people throw at us and build monuments to mastery that stand the test of time i mean that that's what the troll deconstruction is about i mean you know you're doing very well when you're being laughed a lot every visionary was initially ridiculed before they were revered so the point is You know, someone said to me the other day, but this all sounds so hard. And you know what? I went back to my hotel room. You know what I thought about?

Misery and unfulfilled promise is a lot harder. And I think the discomfort of growth is always to be preferred to the illusion of safety. So what I would say is the things that all of us are scared about, that's where your growth lives and your freedom lies. Very good. And I think, you know, it starts with awareness and then it begins with. daily bravery practice, let's call it micro bravery practice, but consistently doing difficult things, getting good at consistently leaning into the things that make our palms sweat and our hands shake. And that becomes a practice. And if you practice it long enough, you get brilliant like it,

it's just like being a chess master. So it's almost like every day you go down the steps to the cellar, you turn on the light and you hug the monster. And if you hug your monsters, guaranteed, you'll realize they were much smaller than you thought they were. So damn good. That is absolutely a billion percent right. Oh my gosh. The price you'll pay for not becoming the hero you're capable of becoming is far smaller than the one that you will pay

if you never become that person. It's worth hugging that monster every single day. How do you do it? I lean into it. I actually do what I call feared things first, and it is a habit that I do. I like to get something done early in my day habitually that I'm a little bit afraid of,

that I'm a little bit uncomfortable with that I have some anxiety with. I find that once I hug that monster, It was usually smaller than I thought, and it creates unbelievable momentum for the rest of my day, oftentimes for the rest of my month. And so I do do that. I also have become familiar with these monsters. And the more you familiar, I think you become with hugging them on a regular basis, the more they sort of lose their power over you. I've seen this guy before.

He's not so bad. I've seen this one before. So the more you face them and you do these difficult things, the more you become familiar with them. It's just like, I think it's someone in the NBA who's got to hit a shot with two seconds left. The first time you do it, there's a lot of work. Kobe Bryant hit a whole bunch of them by the end. of it, he was pretty comfortable hitting that shot under that pressure. And I think the more you put yourself under pressure or duress, you become comfortable in it. And you find what I call

equanimity in those moments, which is the ability to be calm and to function at a high level in it. So I love it. I was one of my favorite conversations ever. That's going to be honest with you. I've loved today, and I know everybody else has. I think you're remarkable, man. I really enjoy your company as well. You have this thing that I just, I love about most of my good friends, which is that I think they have this nuance between real confidence and presence about themselves, but yet combined with a huge dose of humility at the same time. I think people that have a ton of confidence,

but that's humility, sometimes it's off-putting, and they're not curious enough to keep growing and learning because they think they know everything. And then our friends that have this tremendous humility, but they just never step forward with some confidence and build that hug the monster mentality in their life. Sometimes they're tough to be around too, but that combination is what you really,

you nuance that so well. I sense you're a good person. Thank you. Thank you. You know, and that really comes through in the conversation. Thank you. And that doesn't come easily. It's like a hard, hard one, hard one effort to get to a place where you're living your values the way it feels like you're living your values.

I appreciate that, brother. And that's mutual. Thank you. Before we start the interview with my next guest, just want to remind you all that you can subscribe to the show on YouTube or follow the show on Apple or Spotify. We have all the links in our show notes. you'll never miss an episode that way. Now on with the show. All right, welcome back, everybody.

Gosh, I got to tell you something. I wish we've been recording our pre-show conversation here because it's been so good. And I kind of knew in having this woman on the show that today would be special. And I already have a sense that it's going to be based on our conversation before we started recording. I told her before we started, if she was a stock and I could buy her, I would be going all in. Because I just think she's remarkable. She's already done so much in such a young life, but she's on the rise. She's got something really great going in her life, and she really changes people's lives.

Her content is outstanding. I watch it. I listen to it. And I got a chance to read her book, cover to cover. Last night, I finished reading it. Her new book is called Be Seen. Find your voice, build your brand, live your dream. We're going to have a remarkable conversation with Jen Gottlieb.

Jen, welcome to the show. Ed. I am so excited about this. I don't think you have any idea. No. I am as well. I got to tell you something. You know that, and by the way, you know, behind the scene stuff, Jen and her dude, Chris,

help a lot of other people be seen. And she's been very good to me and so many other people in the industry. I just think she's awesome. So you had a piece of content. I think it was this week. That's brilliant. I want to ask you because I think people, this is a fair question. How do you distinguish between when something is fear and your intuition,

talking to you saying you should not do this. So how do you know it's not intuition instead of fear? This is a tough one because fear is really sneaky and it's a really, really, really good liar. And it'll come in and it'll convince you like, oh, no, no, no, this is your intuition. You really shouldn't do this. What has helped me, and this has helped me every single time,

I heard this from somebody and I don't even remember who it was. I wish I could quote them. I don't remember who told me this. But I was really battling through, is this in my intuition? Is this like my gut telling me that I should do this thing or I shouldn't do this thing or is this fear. And the question is that I ask myself now is, whose voice is that?

Whose voice is telling you that you should or shouldn't do it? Is it your voice or is it your parents' voice? Is it your husband's voice or your wife's voice or your friend's voice? Or the random people on the internet's voice that you don't even know who they are? A lot of the times it's that for people, what they will think. And we don't even know who they are, right? It's like, what will they think? Or it's Susie from college, right?

or my cousin from ages ago that they were gonna think of me on the internet. And we care so much about that. And it's a normal human experience to care what other people think. We want to be liked. We want to be approved of. We want people to say good job.

We do, and that's okay. And if you're sitting here listening like, oh, that's a bad thing. I don't want to care what people think. We're going to. I do. Yeah, we all do. But here's the thing.

We don't want to wake up. I love how you talk about, you think about death often. I don't want to wake up on my death. bed one day, my 100th birthday, and say, oh, I let all the random people on the internet or people that I didn't care about dictate my actions. And I let the fear of what they would think of me override my gut intuition of what I knew I was meant to do on this planet. And so I ask myself, is it my voice or is it the voice of somebody else? And when I hear my own voice in there,

you know, you know your voice. But when I hear like, oh, that's my husband, Chris's voice. You know, and even though I love Chris, and I care so much what he thinks, and this is for everybody with a partner out there. Like, I've done it before where I have made lots of decisions based on somebody that I was in a relationship with and what they would think of me. But now I know better, and I'm like, that's Chris's voice. Chris, that was your voice telling me that I shouldn't, but my voice, who I will be proud of myself at the end of this night when I get in my bed and I look up at the ceiling. I'm like, did I squeeze all the juice out of the lemon today? Did I do it all? Did I lay it out all in the field? Or did I, did I, did I phone it in today?

As long as I listen to my voice and I stay true to who I am, I'm always okay with myself at the end of the night. So good, Jen. I love this idea if we're going to get into the bed at the end of the day. Well, so I have time on my wrist. So I tattooed this on my wrist, not because I wanted to tattoo. It's my only tat. And it's actually fading off, which is crazy.

I don't even know how that happens. But I tattooed this on my wrist to remind me that no matter what, time never stops. Discomfort is only temperate. all the time. No matter what, we're both going to end up tonight in our bed. This interview is going to be done. No matter what, no matter if it was amazing or if it was bad or if it was scary or if we were uncomfortable, no matter what happens today. This too shall pass. You will end up in your bed. But the person that you become through the uncomfortable moments, through the winds, through the losses, through the hard times, through the ice baths, through the fireworks, through all

the stuff, the hard conversations you have to have or maybe, oh my God, the face plant that you made in front of all those people, no matter what, you being able to withstand all of that stuff and get into your bed at night and understand, wow, I can do this. No matter what, I'm going to end up here. That's what powers me through. That's what makes you who you are. And that growth that comes with that, that's permanent. Okay. If you're driving your car right now, just check the miles per hour because you're going too fast. I can just tell you. You get that fired up, listen to somebody. So just slow down a little bit so that you don't run off the road. That's so good. You're such wisdom for such a young woman.

It's like, I wish I had it when I was your age because it's profound what you're saying. That was a great conversation. Be sure to follow the Ed Mylett Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Okay, guys, welcome back to the show. You know, the reason I do this show, and by the way, it's precious to me because we only do one a week. We're the number one show in the world, and that is not easy to do when you do one a week,

and you're sort of ranked up against shows that come out every day or three or four days a week. And so that seat that this man is sitting in means the world to me because I only get to share one person a week with each of you. And so I take it as a great responsibility to make this time we have together every week so profound and so valuable in your lives. And I know so many of you get value out of it. And that's why you share the show. So I wanted to thank you. Today in particular is really an honor for me because I'm going to introduce somebody to you that some of you will know, but many of you will not know. And I wanted him on the show today solely because of how good his work is.

is how solid his content is in helping people change their lives and perform at a higher level. I'd call them like a peak performance expert. There's all kinds of different terms I could come up to describe this man, but he's got a book called The Breakthrough Code that is outstanding. And I like the way it's written. He was a Wall Street guy for a while, then went to work to train in Tony Robbins companies. He's been training top athletes and corporations for many years. And he's just great at changing people's lives.

And so Tom McCarthy, welcome to the show today. Yeah, it's an honor to be with you, Ed. I'm just amazed at what you've done in such a short period of time, man. It's incredible. Well, thank you. Well, you help people do that in their own lives. You help people do great things in their lives and sometimes in identity. We both talk about identity a great deal.

And I think it's almost invisible to most people. So, you know, when you really listen to someone or you watch them, you can begin to hear their identity. I'm working with a couple new athletes right now. And people ask me all the time, what do you work with when you're with athletes? or what do you work with when you're with a CEO of a company or an entertainer or whatever. It might be say my name, say my name, which I think might be Beyonce. I'm not completely right. Am I right about that?

Probably, yeah. I am right about that. The fact that I know that is pretty bizarre. And if I'm wrong, it's close enough, everybody. But it was rattling in my head. So anyway, I might be right. It's close. But what I work with, usually when I'm talking with athletes or working with them,

there's all kinds of different techniques. But at the end of the day, if I distilled it down, it's both their confidence and their identity. At the top levels, people still struggle. with confidence. When you see an athlete going a slump, is that they don't know how to hit anymore? Yeah. No. A couple negative results happened. They started to move towards that story. And all of a sudden, they're lacking confidence. And so if you have to work on your self-confidence of your identity, welcome to being a human. And I'm talking about people that have led big countries, run big companies, are the top athletes in the world. I think a lot of people think, well, I struggle

with my confidence, so I'm not like these other people. It's natural to them. Yeah, right, until they have a big setback and then it's not so natural. Or they just have this amazing identity. And they just have more, yeah, until they don't anymore, until the success is stripped of them. So how does one begin to build a new identity and how important

is it? It's everything. Your identity is your most critical story that's inside of you that shapes everything you see. Like we think we see the world with our eyes, right? We think we hear things with our ears, but you really don't. You hear

with your story, right? You see with your story and identity is like your truest, most precious part of your story, the one that you're going to like stand up for day after day. And a lot of people do have identities that are not supporting them. You know, they have identities or belief systems around like I've written a couple of books on speaking, public speaking, right? I've been speaking all around the world for years and years and years. And so we'll train somebody and they'll go, you know, I always get nervous right before I speak. And I, and what I try and do is like, that can't be the way you think about this. And they go, well, no, I get over.

And I go, yeah, but nervousness, you're either in one of two emotional states. I'm going to generalize here a little bit when you do anything. You're either in a protective state. You're walking in, like if I come in here and I'm going, all right, I don't know, this guy, what's he going to ask me? I'm in a protected state. I'm not going to be as good. Words aren't going to flow. The mind's not going to work.

Or I'm in a growth state, right? Like, I've already flubbed some words, made some mistakes. I don't even worry about that when I'm speaking. I don't even worry about that. I probably made like 84 mistakes already. I don't think so. Right? If we've been counting.

Yeah. I'm just kidding. I've been counting. But it doesn't bother me, right? Because I'm not worried about that. My identity is not that I've got to be perfect every single time. My identity is just I give everything I've got. I'm going to just pour everything I have into this.

and we're going to have some fun. But my identity, and I'm sure yours, has shifted a lot from childhood. I was that person that thought life was hard. I was that person that thought life wasn't freaking fair, man. How come I don't have a debt? I had to shift that. I had to shift that. And at the core of who we are is our identity,

and when you really get clear on what that is, you can, and if you don't like it, you don't have to stick with it, right? You can shift it and change it. I love what you were saying earlier. To me, it's like carving away at something. So I don't look at it as like one and not, right? You know, I know there's some lag time, but I'm just going to carve away today.

Carve away, carve away, carve away. And then it does start feeling more and more real, and then you're living it. And then life is so much easier because you're not even seeing the same world you used to see. It's a completely different world you're experiencing. And that may be hard for people to imagine. Like, what do you mean it's a different world?

Like, everyone sees the same thing. No, they don't. Yeah. I had a friend. I was in a car accident. It wasn't bad, but we were in Hawaii. This friend of mine, CEO of a company, was driving. His daughter was in the back.

She was like six years old. And somebody hit him in from behind. So his experience was, he's pissed off. Like, gets out. You know, he's kind of angry. And I'm sitting in the car. His daughter in the back, you know, she called me Uncle T. She goes, hey, Uncle T.

He goes, can we go out and look? She goes, this is so exciting, right? I've never been in an accident before. So people don't see the same thing. They do not. Yeah. Yeah. Dude, brother, that is such a good example.

On identity, there's little pieces of ourselves that we begin to realize. Like, I used to hear people say, here you one little subtle thing that might help everybody. I was just thinking of it when you said it. Why hear people, and I say this often, too, like a lot of my, the separation is in the preparation, I say. Or, like, you know, a lot of my confidence comes from how prepared I am. Yeah. It's a real fine line with that, though, because years ago, it drifted into something dangerous for me.

So yeah, I do think you need to be prepared. But I think a lot of people what holds them back is the threshold of what they think they need to know before they act. You agree with that? Absolutely. So they get this preparation thing conflated where they go, yeah, and so I'm just preparing. And if I just knew a little bit more about it, if I was a little bit more prepared, if I had a little bit more knowledge, if I went to one more seminar, if I read one more book, if I just had one more exercise, then I'd take action. What I find is the identity level of people that do find bliss, do find successes, their threshold for what they think they need to know before they leap is lower. And the people that struggle, the threshold of what they think they need to know or be prepared or capable of is so high that they never quite meet that threshold to take a leap.

That was just a subtle thing for me to change. That is such a great point because there's people in life that whatever they do, they just seem to get the ball in the end zone. Yes. And, you know, were they more prepared? Maybe, but a lot of times they weren't. And then there's people that, and they're good people, but they always need that extra little thing and that, you know, they're never quite ready and everything looks good and then it doesn't work out.

I do a little test with this stuff on me, and I'm sure you do it on you too, but I do some crazy things, right? Like I was asked years ago, actually it was 2005, so as many years ago I was asked to playing this poker tournament. Now, I'd played poker exactly one time in my life, and it was back in college, so it was 20 years before. And these guys are saying, you know, come on, it's going to be great. There's going to be some World Series of poker players that play in the World Championships that are going to be there. I'm like, guys, I don't even know how to play. I don't even remember anything. They go, well, yeah, come on. You're going to be fun. So I said, all right, I'll do it. And I said,

you've got to spend, I told one of the guys, you've got to spend 10 minutes with me and just show me the hands like and remind me of the rules and things like that yeah yeah exactly exactly but i didn't watch and and you know because i'm not i don't play poker i haven't played since but i didn't watch tutorials i didn't read books you only had like a week to prepare but here's what i did every time because my identity was at first it was like i'm going to suck at this i'm going to embarrass myself i'm going to lose early and i'm like no stop that stop i said put a new thought process in, put new belief system in. And literally, this is crazy. But I told myself over and over again that I made great decisions and I found a way to win. And every time I thought of it,

and I didn't, you know, I didn't proactively think of a lot. But every time I thought about all that things coming up, yep, I made great decisions, found a way to win. Now, when I said it, though, I was like in a confident state, right? I made sure I matched what I wanted to, uh, the, the emotional state that I wanted to have. And I literally believe that I was going to win the damn thing, Right? And so I remember I'm getting ready to leave and my, so my wife knew I'd never played before or played once. And I said, hey, I'm getting ready to leave, go to that poker term. She goes, what times is it start? I said 630. She goes, I'll see you at seven. And so anyways, I went. I didn't even let that, right? She got the nays there. She was just playing with me. We've married 30 years. You just met her. But I went and I just, you know, I had this confidence. Like, unearned confidence. Yeah. Totally unearned confidence. But people are making mistakes. and I win my table, and then I get, you know, finally the championship table.

And now I have one guy left. I had, like, this huge pile of chips. And he didn't have as many, but he was like, you know, one of these really good players. And people are saying, oh, this guy's beating you. He does you know how to play. And the guy's getting pissed off. And he goes all in. I go all in.

And, you know, I win. And my friends are picking me up. And I got this, you know, big huge trophy and bracelet and all this kind of stuff. I love it. And so I come back. It's like two in the morning. I open the door of the bedroom. my wife's long asleep, turn the light on, guess who you're sleeping with tonight?

I love that. Now, I'm not saying I could have done that 10 times in a row, but literally I consciously burned all the boats. I did not allow a thought that was going to lower my confidence in any way. And I did it for about a week, right? Great. Yeah, but that's what happens, right? You know, that even if I wouldn't have won, I know I would have played a heck of a lot better because I had done that. the thing that most people don't get. Why didn't win? Well, were you better? Yeah, okay.

Then do it. That's the whole point. By the way, I love that term unearned confidence. Obviously, the highest form of confidence is something you've earned. But I'm going to tell you something. Unerned confidence is a pretty damn good substitute. It's a whole lot better. When you got to go. And by the way, what most people think, this is what they'd say to themselves, I've earned lack of confidence. And so you think you have to earn this confidence thing all the time. It is absolutely not true. And not enough of you give yourself credit for your intentions either. You don't give yourself enough credit just for your intentions to serve, your intentions to contribute. And it's a huge, huge thing. I love that story because, you know, for me, I, where's it come

from for me often? I had two friends the last week say something. I have a couple things I'm ill prepared for. Like, I have no life experience to prepare me for a couple things, kind of like this poker tournament for you. Really good friend of mine, John Gordon said, by the way, I've talked a lot about energy today. I'm also a Christian, so I have both. And John's, and he's a good Christian friend of mind he goes, Ed, faith over fear. Choose faith over fear. I'm like, that feels good, man. And then like three days later, my next door neighbor at the beach, Jerry, Jerry, if you're listening to this, thank you for this gift. He's like, hey, man, I've just all my life, I've chosen faith over fear. And it just, I was like, wow. Now, that's that vibrational frequency thing,

right? Like, all of a sudden, both of these messages were being directed to me, for me, that applies to my Christian faith. But for some of you, it might be, I'm going to have faith in the work I've put in. I'm going to have faith that, you know, that everything always works out for me. But sometimes it's just a matter of taking a leap and going, I'm going to choose faith over fear. Because what is holding you back is the fear. So I just wanted to share that with everybody. One thing, one thing on that, Ed, on two, Ed, is turn fear into faith. Because fear is energy, but use that energy, shift that energy and turn into faith. I used to sometimes, you know, way back in the past, be a little bit jealous. Hey, how that person, you know, accomplish that or do

that. And I'm like, hey, that's not a good use of energy. And I turn jealousy into prosperity. Right. You know, I just, whenever I will, you know, see someone doing well, I'm like, whoa, great. Hey, this is proving that I can do even more, too. So good. And literally just shifting energy into another form. Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Now on to our next guest. Awesome this day. Right now, this lady to my left, been working so hard to get her on my show. This is Rachel Hollis, everybody.

For those you that don't know who she has been living under a rock, and so I'm gonna give her a proper introduction. I'm so glad you're here, I'm so excited. Oh my gosh, I'm so, oh my gosh, of course. This is like a dream. It's gonna be awesome. Yes.

I have this philosophy too, I don't know if you share this or not, because I want the women to hear this. I think the symptom oftentimes is our addiction to other people's approval. I feel like the, disease sometimes is we don't have our own. We don't feel like God has our own.

And so we seek it outside of us. Now what you said that takes it a level deeper for me is that this is programmed since I was little. Right? I didn't just become this way. It was sort of, I was told that my value as if other people approve of me, right? So I think it's an internal game.

I think the way you change that isn't just deciding. I don't care what other people think. I think that layer past that is, I need to begin to think better of myself. I need to begin to build my self-confidence. I'm a big believer that self-confidence comes from keeping promises that you make to yourself. That if you can start by just keeping the promises you make to you,

you begin to build a reputation with yourself of, I can trust me, I like me, I'm good, right? I can achieve. How can that apply for a woman in any area? What would be some of your recommendations of how to change that? That's a hard question. Yeah, no. What is some of practical ways somebody can begin to change that?

So I'll tell you for me, the big realization was it all comes down to, I want love, I want approval. I want notice. I want all of these things. And I was drowning. The sort of the anxiety came from. I had this desire in my heart to be an entrepreneur and build something big and write books and do these things. And our family, our extended family on both sides, wanted me to be a stay-at-home mom.

And they really, really struggled and were very vocal about the fact that I wasn't because that's what their lives looked like. And so for me, I was just drowning in that feeling. of I think I'm called to do more. So I will pursue this version of more, but I'll do it kind of in secret. Incognito almost. Like I'll work really hard, but I won't ever talk about it.

And I was being pulled in too many directions. And when I finally, I had this realization like, oh, I'm going to choose to be so full of love, to love everybody else so well that I don't seek it out in other people. Exactly right. Like I'm gonna love you so hard, everybody, even the people that disapprove of me.

that I don't need your love because I've got enough for both of us. Very good. Like it sounds a little cheesy, but that really was what changed it for me was you don't have to keep chasing this thing. It was also the understanding that God made me this way. Yes. And for the longest time, I felt shame because I didn't want to be a, I'm like, I respect the crap out of say, oh, moms, it's a hardest job in the world. I know you do. But it's just not my thing.

Yes. And so I had shame about that. Yeah. Like massive shame about. Don't you think the reverse is also true? There are some stay at home moms who feel shame that that's their calling. Neither one of those should be shameful. Go ahead.

Yeah. So for me it was, oh, if God put this desire on my heart and if he called me for this, then I can't be wrong at my core. Of course not. Like certainly you could, that could manifest in unhealthy ways or you could, but maybe this is for a reason. Like maybe that, like I said this all the time on stage to women, like, man, maybe that, like, you keep feeling that tug on your heart, that's there for a reason. You got it. That's God.

That's your potential. That's, like, trying to say to you, step into this. Like, that is your heart, like, begging your mind to, like, get out of the way. Like, come on, man. We were called for something. So for me, that understanding was like, you know, you are loved and worthy and enough, like, as you are. That's beautiful. And that means you don't need to become someone else.

That means, like, who you are at your core, you're doing okay. Yeah, that is so beautiful. It's amazing you say I made up, I just want to acknowledge a few things. Like, I love that. And no one's ever said that to me ever. And some of the stuff you say gets me, girl, just so you know. Because I, over these years of seeing all these precious, beautiful women in the crowd and then struggling with feeling guilt.

Like, men don't have that. Like, men, whatever we want to chase. no reason to feel guilty about. And men listening to this, let me say something to the men listening to this. Would you stop once a while and just start to tell your lady how amazing she is and how much you love her and how beautiful she is? I'm talking about your sisters, your mother, your wife, not just your wife, right? Tell the women in your life how spectacular they are.

Acknowledge them a little bit more. They're always acknowledging us. Yes. So proud of you. You look so handsome. You're doing so well. Thank you for all you do. And we very rarely acknowledge our women.

Let's make sure we're doing that, man. But the other piece of it that struck me in what you said right there was, you know, women, I think oftentimes never give themselves any quiet time, whether they have kids or noise or their job. And like, if you would just get quiet for you and I, it's prayer. For other people, it's meditation. For some people, it's just solitude. Like, if you'll get your head out of the way, as you said, I made a post about this today. People win with their heart, not their head. You're going to be happy in life with your heart.

and the more your head begins to take over and convince you of your deficiencies, what your setbacks are, what you're not good at, what your life is, what people will think. The more your head takes over your life, even though you've got to be smart and executing all that, the more your head takes over, it kills your heart. And when your heart stops beating, you're dead.

And so you could be living, but you're really dead. And so what you're really saying is get quiet, listen to your heart and don't be ashamed of it. I love it. I love it. Okay. Let me give you a couple more things you've said that this is kind of hard. Our society makes plenty of room for complacency or laziness.

We're rarely surrounded by accountability. We're also rarely surrounded by sugar-fee vanilla lattes. But when I really want one, I somehow find a way to get one. What did you mean when you said that? You know, the idea that if you want something, it's like if you really want something, you'll find a way. If you don't, you find an excuse. Yes.

Yeah. You're going to get resourceful, right? Yes. think there is this, I feel like the tide is shifting and I hope that this is true, but so often I feel like women especially like it feels like their life is living them. It feels like life is, it's all just happening to them. They're sort of getting pulled along with the tide. They're not making any choices.

They're not taking control. So, and it's the norm, right? It's normal to go, you're exhausted because you were dealing with the kids all day. and then you're going to go watch, you know, Netflix all night and drink too much and numb yourself to what's going on and then wake up tomorrow and do the same thing again. And because they don't ever have that space, because they never take a step back

and look at their life from like 50,000 foot view, they don't even understand that they have control of how to change it. And you might not have the tools. I'm going to quote your podcast to you again, or I think it was yours, but Joe Dispenza said, in an age of this much free information, ignorance is a choice. So you might not know how to change things.

You might not know how to get healthy. You might not know how to change your marriage. But it all exists on the internet right now for free. So true. Like you didn't, gosh, you're good. So like, no, but I want to say this to you. Like, you didn't know how to blog when you started a blog? People say, man, how did you build this giant podcast that I have?

Let me tell you how this actually started. I went, you're going to think I'm crazy when I say, but I want to validate what you've said, okay? I've never said this before either. People asked me, how did you get this big podcast? I didn't even know what a podcast was. And I googled how to start a podcast. Here's how stupid I am.

I'm like, how does what I'm saying get into the machine? Yes. And how does that machine put it on the internet? Yeah. How do people get it? Like, I was that amazing. And I googled how to start a podcast. And the first search was Tim Ferriss, his toolbox, not a start a podcast.

It said, go to Amazon and buy this equipment. I bought the equipment. And I started talking into the podcast. the microphone he told me to buy. I love it. And then, but he didn't tell me, how do I get it out of the machine onto the internet? So I, but I'm just resourceful. You just start taking the steps. Yes. Men, do me a favor. Ask your woman what she'd like. Yeah. Ask her, babe, what do you want? What would make you happy? Is there anything we should be doing together or you should be doing to fulfill you more? Like, just ask her. Yeah. Because they ask us all the time.

That was a great conversation. And if you want to hear the full interview, be sure to follow the Ed Myelette on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Here's an excerpt I did with our next guest. All right, welcome back to Max out with Ed Milet, and I am really excited about today. Before we get going, I want to remind you all, we do this for free,

and so all I ask from you is that you rank and review the podcast. They're on iTunes. Do me that favor, please. My guest today, I was thinking about it coming over here today. I think he's the most, I think he's the Dose Echies man

of personal development. I like that. I do. He's the most interesting man in personal development. And he's, I did this survey with you all, and I asked you who were the guests that you wanted on my program. And Lewis's name kept consistently coming up.

So I've got him here for you today. Lewis, thank you for being here. My man. Thanks, brother. Appreciate it. So, Lewis, as many of you know, has a School of Greatness podcast, which is a top 100 podcast in the world. He's written a couple different bestselling books, including the School of Greatness.

But the one I want to talk about today, if we can, is the mask of masculinity. It was such a great read, brother. I've never read anything like it before. Thank you. Yeah, it was so good. So one of the masks that Lewis talks about in the book is men, you know, with their masculinity, wearing the masks of different types of people, whether it's the material mask or the athlete mask or the stoic mask. And it's such a fascinating read.

It is for men, but to be candid with you, I think it's a fascinating read for women to understand their men. Exactly. So many women are telling me that they finally understand their husband, why their father never showed them the affection, why their sons don't look at them in the eyes. It's like trying to understand men a little bit better. It's brilliant, man. And so there's this story in there that stuck out to me. And I could picture you as a little guy when this happened.

But you talk about, and it's interesting, it could be a non-event for some people, but it was for this dodge ball game. It was, because you want to be, remember, this guy ends up going on to become a college and professional athlete, right? And if you draw back all the way where that mask started, it started in a damn dodgeball game. Yes. In elementary school, you know, I was still trying to find my way and just have a couple friends. just try to fit in.

And one day, the teacher of our class, there's probably 30 kids in the class, about 50% men and boys, boys and girls, they say, okay, during recess, we're going to play a team dodgeball game, and we're going to split it up into two teams. So everybody's had that game at school, right? Right, yeah.

Everyone's played dodge ball or something, right? And he said, okay, I'm picking you two boys as the captains. Pick one at a time. I don't think it was his intention to do this. He was just like, yeah, you guys split up the teams. Okay. So we're all waiting to be like called out, right? Yeah.

And these two popular kids, one of the time, start picking each boy. And I'm thinking to myself, I'm one of the taller kids. I feel like I'm pretty athletic already. They've got to pick me in one of the first people. So I'm standing up there in front, like waiting to be called, and they pick all the boys one by one until it's me and the last boy. And this boy, like, he was not athletic at all. Essentially, I'll keep it at that.

And they pick him. And so now I'm the last boy to be picked. However, as you know in the story, they pick a girl next. And then they pick another girl, another girl, until it's me and the last girl. And I'm like, there's no way I'm going to be like, they're going to pick this girl before me. This girl is like zero athletic ability, right? She can't even walk. And they pick her.

And then I'm not even picked. I'm just by default. You know, just go on the next team. They didn't even pick me as like, oh, what's going on here? Are you raging? Are you sad? I am raging. I'm raging.

I'm raging. I'm already a kid that feels neglected, that feels like the youngest who doesn't get any attention. Yeah. You know, I didn't have any friends. So at this point, I said, I'm going to destroy everyone on this team. Like, give me the ball. I'm just like slamming people's faces. You're already being here.

Yeah. And I'm just like, destroying people. And I go, never again will I be picked last. You can see it in me right now. I can see it in your physiology. Never again will ever get picked last in anything, right? And that's what I told myself. And I just become a training machine every day after school.

school. I would go to the playground, go to the gym, go play basketball, and train until my mom would have to call me in at like 9 o'clock and say, you got to come home. And you think that game has something to do with you end up being a professional athlete? I think it was one of the triggers of just like always feeling like I was abused, left behind, not good enough. It was just one of those triggers. You face change even when you just said that. It's interesting. It's just like, it's one of those moments that I can remember. You know, there was many moments like that. Yeah.

But that was a moment where I was like, okay, I just never want to feel this again. Yeah, it literally defined part of your whole identity. Absolutely. It was one of these masks. Like, I wear this one well. And so I put the athlete mask on and I said, never again, am I going to lose?

And I also needed to be right. You know, for me, like being wrong was losing. And so I was like, I need to win at all costs. I need to be right at all costs. And any time I lost in a game, I was the worst loser because my self-worth and my value was tied to winning or losing and even when I won sometimes I wouldn't be happy because I would beat myself up about how I could have been better so I couldn't appreciate the journey yeah we just always got to get better got to get to the goal

got to get to the goal yeah everybody that's listening is including me frankly a lot of us relate to that yeah and we're going to talk about some solutions that too are those you that are watching this you certainly know someone like us sure sure and it's a it's interesting because you have that event you have a brother who goes to prison I didn't know but you go to a boarding school when you're 13 you had a it's amazing that you end up becoming one of the most sought after people on the planet to improve people's lives and yet you have these events that you didn't allow eventually to define who you were there's a significant one though as you know yeah I think it's the genesis of the book probably yeah but if you don't mind taking them

through this you had some sexual abuse happened to and you were a very young boy I mean I mean very young so you had the 13 you have the brother go to prison you have the dodgeball yeah but the big yeah when I was five yeah it was here's the thing when I was five I was raped by a man that I didn't know and and for 25 years no one knew about it is it I want to ask you this because I've not heard you answer this are you telling me literally you didn't tell anybody I didn't tell anyone not your I told a social a professor my freshman I said you know something happened to me but I didn't tell them what well so mom and dad definitely did parents didn't know friends didn't know I never told anyone

exactly what happened I was too afraid to let people know and so for 25 years I'm 34 now when I was 30 I went through a bunch of different challenges in my life with intimate relationship I was in a business partnership I was in and just everything looked good on the outside you know people were like man you're crushing it Lewis yeah I was suffering on the inside and I didn't know why. And I don't know if you've ever felt that when your business took off, but you're like, why am I not fulfilled?

I absolutely do. Yes. You felt that before. Of course. And for me, I was taking all of this, I was just angry, constantly angry. I was doing great in my business, but angry because I couldn't figure out how to cope and understand my emotions. So I took all this frustration out on the basketball court.

Every day I would go play basketball a few blocks away. And every day, it was like I was looking for a fight. You know in college when you're like, you're just like, I hope someone looks at me. Yeah, I'm going to slap you. Running to me the wrong way. Like, I'm going to beat you up. You know, I was just looking for a fight. And I think that was the only way I knew how to express myself was through physical aggression.

So many people are relating to this right now. That was my life. Football was my ability to just destroy people in a legal way without getting in trouble. I could get it out every single day. So when you don't have that anymore, it's like, I need to go play basketball and like rough it out. Because I didn't know how to cope with my emotions or what I was going through. I just didn't have the skills or the tools.

So every day I would go out and play basketball and I just constantly, someone would yap at me. And it was like I had to step to them like I was the alpha dog and like shove them and scream at them and just show them that they weren't going to mess with me. It's amazing. Just to tell you, because being in your presence and being around you. I'm not that way. Yeah. And our mutual friends, no one would describe you this way now. Exactly.

Exactly. Right. And, you know, I'm typically, I was typically. Not that way either. Like, I'm always a very loving, like, happy person. But there's a trigger thing. It's a trigger. Like, if you cross the trigger, it was like, you're going to go down.

Or I was going to go down or something. And so every day, it was like waiting for someone to hit me. And they wouldn't hit me. I would, like, push up them. I would scream back at them. I'd be like, don't talk shit to me. Don't do this. Don't like, whatever.

To a no-stakes pick-p basketball game in West Hollywood. It's not like anything's on the line. Yeah, it's like. And one day, after a few months of this, I'm guarding a guy who's much bigger than me, older than me. And we're getting in a heated battle back and forth. He's fouling me hard. I'm fouling him hard. But it's kind of like this is what you do in the streetball, right?

You're kind of following each other hard, but it's all good. It's fair game. He's calling it. I'm calling it. It gets down to the last point, game point for both of us, both teams. He gets a ball down, getting ready to shoot a layup. I foul him hard. You know, I grab his arm down so he can't score.

It's the game would be over. I guess it was enough was enough for him. And he came at me and head butts me. Now, this was the trigger that put me over the top and said, Incredible Hulk was coming out. Snap City. Snap City. It was like, I can't even remember

because I just put him in a headlock and just started UFC pounding him, throwing him to the ground, on top of him, just like, unleashing all this anger. It had to come out somewhere. Yeah. And this was the moment it exploded. Because I didn't know how to let it come out any other way.

Now afterwards, I remember I was shaking so much because it got up and there's blood gushing out everywhere all over the court The police station is right across the street It snaps back into me like I have everything to lose here I could go to jail like what if something happens? What if I actually hurt him really bad? Whatever like what if my whole life could be over from one moment I know what happened to my brother going to prison from one drug deal that he was involved in One thing he got caught which put him in to prison sentenced six to 25 years he got out in four and a half on good behavior so all

the sudden I'm like how stupid can I be to allow my emotions to get the best of me to react um after that point my friends were like you know you need some help man really like you need some help you know it wasn't that bad but they were like why are you doing this that shouldn't happen right why are you allowing this to happen did you know why then do you think you knew i think i was just like angry at everything No matter how successful you're still, there's this angry piece of you. Because I would achieve all these things that I wanted, but then I was like angry right when I'd achieve them.

Like it didn't fulfill me. Yes. So I was like, I need to get bigger. I need to make more. I need to like get more goals. I need to do this. Like maybe then I'll feel good. And none of it made me feel good.

I don't know if you felt that way. Like I need to get 10 million, then 100 million. Then I need to sell my company. And then I'm going to feel great. And maybe it felt great. Maybe not. If it does, it's temporary. And you're exactly right.

Everybody watching this has had any level of achievement that thinks, Once I get something else or I get to this place, then I'll be happy, then I'll be happy. Then I'll be happy. And you and I also both know lots of very wealthy people who are completely unhappy. They're like Tony Robbins talks about all the time. Success without fulfillment is complete failure, right? So I relate to that level of failure. So do a lot of people.

And those of you that are chasing your dream, you've got to find a way. And we're going to talk about this in a minute to enjoy you now, celebrate you now. Because when you get to these different places, guess who are. arrives there, you. And if you're there with the same damage, with these same masks on, the amount of money you have just sometimes, frankly, magnifies the pain that you're in, I think, because you can act out different ways.

So go ahead. So you have this event. So my friends start saying, and I kind of come to an awareness of like, I remember running back from those courts, like up into my room up here, like looking in the mirror, shaking because I've got like blood all over me. And I'm like, what am I doing? The last fight I was in was on, I was like 15 or something.

And I'm like, why am I doing this? Look at myself in the mirror, literally like, why are you doing this? Who are you? Okay. And who do you want to become? I was just asking myself this over and over. And I started to say, okay, I need to take a deeper look of why I'm so resentful, why I'm so angry, why I'm so frustrated, and why I'm triggered?

Why am I triggered when someone steps to me or says something to me or leaves a negative review online? Or why do I always have to defend myself? So I started calling some therapist friends of mine that I knew, some spiritual coaches that I knew, I started going to workshops, and I went to this one emotional intelligence workshop that, similar to like what Tony does, where I had us address kind of our past, pass with our parents, past with girlfriends, pass with friends, like childhood, and just kind of addressing it all.

We recreated and reenacted situations to face ourselves in those moments and recognize why we become that way. And after I was in this five-day workshop and after the third day, we had done a lot, you know, addressing our past. I'd cleared with my parents internally. I'd cleared with like relationships. And the facilitator of this workshop, there are about 50 people in it. He said, okay, we're moving forward to focus on our vision for our future. The things you want to create, the person you want to become.

We've addressed everything in the past. But if there's anything you haven't addressed yet, now's the time to talk about it. Otherwise, we're moving forward. Like, get on the ship. Okay. And so I'm going through in my mind at this moment. Like, it's a pause in the room. And I'm going through, I'm like, my parents getting divorced.

Yeah, like pretty much everyone has done that, right? Okay, I went through that. Feeling bullied and picked on. I talked about this. Feeling, like, insecure in school. My brother in prison. Like, I talked about all these things. And I was like, what about the time I was raped by a man?

It just kind of came in my mind. And this was always in the back of my mind. You know, every week I would think about that. that moment. It would come up, like just kind of randomly pop in and out of my head, and I would just push it to the side. And I remember thinking to myself, if I don't say this now, I'll probably never say it to anyone. Like, the setting was perfect. I had gone through enough challenges and breakdowns in my life where I was like, I'm willing to figure out whatever it is, I'm going to go there. And so I just stood up, walked to the front of the room. I didn't even ask for permission

or anything. I just stood up, watched the front of the room, and I remember, Ed, that I couldn't look anyone in the eyes. So I was staring down the entire time at the ground, and I walked through for the first time, just looking down. You know, when I was five years old, I was at the babysitters. The babysitter had a son who was a teenager, and I just walked through the entire thing. And I couldn't look up because I was so embarrassed and so ashamed

of people knowing this about me. And when I was complete, I said it pretty calmly. You know, I just kind of said it very calmly And when I went to walk down, it's like almost the moment I sat down It's like I erupted of tears that I've never had in my life And I just couldn't stop crying. I was just like crying over and over again.

Thankfully, they were two women on either side of me They were holding me. They were crying. I was crying. I was embarrassed and ashamed of what I just said of people knowing this about me because I wasn't perfect looking anymore. I wasn't this like all-American guy

who had to figure out anymore. I remember running out of the room outside. It was in a hotel conference room. I ran outside because I just needed some fresh air. I had my head up against the wall outside. And one of the most beautiful things that ever happened to me happened next. One by one, the men who were in the room

came up to me outside and just gave me a big hug, looked me in my eyes, and told me that I was their hero. One by one, they said different things like that. And the crazy thing, the thing that I was afraid of people knowing about me the most was actually the thing that when I shared it, people connected with me even more, trusted me more. And people kept saying that. I'm like, wow, I thought something completely different about you, but now I trust you. Now I'll follow you anywhere. Like they said these things to me.

And I was like, what? That makes no sense. You know, everything that I was afraid of, that I was taught not to be a little bitch, a little girl, a little pussy, a little fag. whatever the words were that made you wrong, that made you different, that pushed people away from you. I was taught to, like, fit in by, like, being manly, having it figured it out, you know, winning, like, talking bad to people, whatever it may be. And none of those things served my heart. And it started to awaken everything in me. Like, when I finally opened up about that, I just said, you know what, I'm going to open up about everything.

How? Because the freedom it gave me to realize. Wow, you still accept me for who I am or the things I've been through and you still you still like me. You actually like me more You trust me more. I was like what? Wow This concept of like being real. Yeah, you know yeah not that I wasn't real. Yeah, but I think I was always like had a little bit of a layer of a mask hiding behind We all do and what's amazing. Sorry, I'm getting a little Joked, but of all the I mean I read all these personal development books. I listen to all these guys it's the most compelling story I've read.

I'm just going to tell you. I appreciate it. No, it is, brother, because the courage, I think it takes courage when you're five, but to carry it and carry it and carry it and carry it and carry it and then release it, like this massive, that takes a gargantuan amount of courage, right? It does, brother. And I think for the people that are listening to this,

because this is corny to say, but often in our life, our greatest test is actually our defining testimony of our life. Like that was the greatest test of your life, and it's really the testimony of your life. Like everything you're becoming was unleashed because you finally took your mask off. That was the big mask you were. Huge for me. The secret I was carrying around in my whole life that I didn't want anyone to know. And here's the crazy thing.

You know, the people in that workshop were like, you should tell your family. And I was like, there's no way. So even after that. I was still scared to let anyone. I was like, this is a safer container. You know, it's like confidential. Like no one's going to hear about this. But I was willing to explore and see what I needed to let go of to see what I could create in my life

Eventually I was like okay, I'm gonna tell my family one by one and it was terrifying But again when I told them they opened up to things about me that I didn't know and we built a stronger relationship as a family Then they were like you should tell your friends. I was like no way my family has to love me But my friends are probably not gonna accept me anymore But I'd started doing it one by one What was it like? Was it was it was it was you go into him like I think I went back to the thing to like just being terrified as a kid like what if they don't accept me

Same thing. Same thing. It was like the fear of what if people don't accept me. But one by one, people accept them even more. And they trusted me even more. And they were there for me more and had compassion. You know, humanity is a powerful thing when you show vulnerability. I truly believe that other people who have a deep heart like are going to open up. So do why. You know, there may be some people who are going to be so guarded they can't receive it. But usually most people have a great heart. You're right. And my friends, started saying you gotta share this publicly and I was like no fucking way. Well now you're right right right you should tell this on your podcast I was like no it's

gonna hurt my business like what people are really gonna think weird about me yeah but after six months of me just saying you know what I need to continue to talk about this because it still has power over me because when I talk about it yeah I quiver I popitate my heart like it still owns me and I don't want this thing to own me anymore I want to own it and so so I finally had enough courage to just kind of tell all the close people in my life, my friends and family. And it wasn't a hard thing anymore to talk about it. You know, it's still a moment that I wish no one to go through. But it doesn't take over my body. And so I said, you know what, I need to do

this publicly because I felt like I'd never seen another white, straight male jock-looking guy open up about this. Yeah. I've never seen it. Maybe it's happened, but I just, nor have I. I can't think of like some personality or athlete or business leader who has opened up about it. And one in six men have been sexually abused in some way. One in six. And yet it's not acceptable to talk about it. Whether it be, you know, to friends and family or publicly or whatever. It's just, I'm not saying everyone should publicly talk about it.

Sure. But I felt like for me... I love what you said about it still owning you. It did... It was owning it. Yeah. Yeah. And I was just like...

I felt a duty of responsibility to continue to talk about it. Because, and here's the thing that happened. When I put it on my podcast, I talked about it on my podcast. I did a whole episode about it four years ago. I shared it out. And at night, I posted it out at night, like 11 o'clock. I was right here in this room. I posted it out and I went out and sat on that patio right there.

And I sent out one tweet. And I just said, I'm going to leave it up to the universe to see what happens. I didn't promote it anyway. I just put one tweet out. And I was like, I want to go to bed and see, hopefully no one watches this. You know, I was like, hopefully no one saw it. You want to do what you don't. And the crazy thing is I went outside and it was like, it was 11 o'clock at night, but it felt like it was daytime.

It was the largest moon in the last 100 years that happened that night. It was a super moon. And it was like, I didn't know this was happening in that time. I just decided I needed to post it then. And it kind of gives me chills thinking about it. And I was looking up the definition of like, what's a super moon mean? And it's like, a super moon shifts the world. And I was like, this is crazy.

crazy, right? And over the next couple of weeks, I was getting hundreds of emails from men sending essays telling me, I've been married for 35 years, my wife doesn't know. This is what happened to me. I've been in this relationship for this long. I've never told anyone. You know, this happened to me for years when I was a kid. This had, you know, the craziest stories I've ever heard made mine look like a Disney movie compared to some of the stuff that men were emailing me. Yeah. But it's like I gave these men who listened. permission for the first time to talk about it. Because if a big jock-looking guy like me...

Yeah, right. Good-looking big-joc, athlete, successful. If I talk about it, then maybe someone else can talk about it. Wow. And the healing that started to happen from within of these men, where they finally started to talk to their partner about it, where they finally started to address it, where they finally started to not be so stoic

or so driven by sexual mask or the material mask to make themselves feel better, they started to communicate in healthier forms. and just show a little bit of emotion, show a little bit of vulnerability, and heal from within. And they got healthier physically. Their businesses grew.

Their relationships thrived because they were able to communicate. And I think as men, we've been conditioned not to share certain things, to be tough, to be these things, to not be weak, to not be soft, to not show emotion, to not show affection.

You know, as a kid, I was always, like, pushed away from my friends when I would be like, it's so good to see you. You know, I would like put an arm around a guy. Not in a sexual way, just like, buddy buddy. Yeah. And be like, get off me.

What are you gay? Yes. It's interesting. I was going to tell you something, because I'm that way too. I touchy feeling. Yeah, yeah. Especially with, it's like when I see my buddies, I touch him. Yeah, exactly.

I want to say something about what you said there because it was just, I think we all want people to like us, you know? And I think that when we wear these masks, I think the more honest we are about who we truly are, the more people actually love us, the real us, you know? And I think what I love, what I want the men listening to this, this is a real man. A real man is vulnerable. A real man is honest. A real man's transparent. And not all of us have big muscles and are big guys like that.

But I'm attracted to people. And I think everybody is who are their authentic selves. And you have this big, big story. And I love what you said about more men came to you. And I just want to acknowledge it, man. Like, I think it's made a huge difference in the world. Thank you. And I think those of you that are watching this,

I always advocate for somebody on my program, but I think there's a, I know when I'm with a genuine, good person, who cares? And like, I think if Lewis is this honest about this, imagine the kind of transparency honestly you get if you were reading his books, if you were part of his podcast, become a part of his community because I think when you're like this, I think you get this out of your guest. I think you get it out of the people that you interviewed too.