The School of Greatness - 171 Be Yourself

Episode Date: May 1, 2015

How are you holding yourself back from giving to the world and what are you going to do about it? If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes and more at www.lewishowes.com/171.

This is 5-Minute Friday! Welcome everyone to episode number 171 of 5-Minute Friday. Thank you for joining me today. I'm about to head on a flight to Laos to spend some time with a charity that I support, Pencils of Promise. And then I'm speaking at a conference in the Philippines. It's going to be a fun adventure. And today I wanted to talk about being yourself. Now, I've learned a lot over the last 10 years

about what it means to be yourself in business, in relationships, and in life. And I'll start with this, in business, when I am being myself and following my passion, and that's what I really mean by being yourself, it's following the things that give you the most joy and doing those things as much as you can. So as often as possible, throughout the day, throughout the week, throughout the year, doing the things that bring you the most joy, that's being yourself. Now in business, I remember

when I first started out in business about seven years ago, I was doing things that I loved, but then at one point I just wasn't loving them and I wasn't enjoying them anymore. And there was a lot of money to be made doing them still. And I had this conflict for like a year, year and a half because I was making a lot of money and that was fun, but I wasn't creating the things that were really enjoyable to me. I wasn't talking about the things that I'm really passionate about. And it wasn't bringing me a lot of joy.

Again, the money was fun. It was giving me the freedom, but I wasn't coupling it with the joy from the things I was doing in my day to day, the things that I was taking action on. I didn't feel like I was serving in the way that I could in an optimal way. And I think that's one of the reasons where I really started to shift in my business model. I sold my company. I really started to dive into being more of service, then working with Pencils of Promise more and finding other organizations that I could serve and support that were really fun for me and brought joy to me. And now I feel like I'm much more aligned to who I truly am in the ways of my business.

You know, I'm creating this podcast. I'm creating other programs that I enjoy, online courses that I'm passionate about that are serving people. You know, I'm writing a book right now that I'm so pumped about that comes out later this year. I'm speaking on the topics that I like to talk about now as opposed to the ones that just made me money because I was good at them. And everything feels so much more effortless. When we aren't ourselves, when we're not being our truest self, it tends to be a lot

more stress because it's harder work. It's not this effortless flow. And when I feel like I'm being myself, I feel like I'm literally like a little kid. I feel like I'm able to play. I'm playful all the time. And things are very flowing and are less stressful. So I want to talk about, you know, making sure whatever business you're in right now, make sure you're following that passion of yours that brings you the most joy, where you get to fully be yourself and express your true gifts to the highest. And I think a lot of people get caught up in especially entrepreneurs that are in my online School of Greatness Academy or people that just follow me online. They'll ask me questions about what's the right business to start this and that.

And I think the answer is the one that brings you the most fulfillment and joy where you can make money at the same time. Now, you know, some people say money is and everything, but really money does a lot of things for you. And it gives you a lot of freedom to make choices and decisions. And it really can relieve a lot of stress. If you're doing the things that you love to do, if you're, if you're just making a lot of money, but you're doing things that you don't like doing, then you're going to be in a conflict place a lot of the time. And you're going to be saying, yeah, I'm making great money and this is awesome and I'm supporting my family, but there's going to be something empty inside where it's not fulfilling another part of you. And it's because you're not fully being yourself. So I want you to focus on and

think about during this episode and during the next week, what are the things I'm doing in business and in my career that are allowing me to be my fullest expressive self? Is my boss holding me back from my gifts? And if so, maybe I need to make a decision or talk to them about, you know, I want a different position. I want to be able to express myself where I can add more value to the things I'm doing. You know, think about your business. Are you really creating a business that you're excited about? Or are you just doing it because it's going to make you a lot of money? And again, you can have both. You can have the excitement

and the thing where you get to create from a place of being your fullest self, and you can make a lot of money doing the thing you love. In fact, I believe that when we do come from a place of being ourselves fully in the workplace and the business place, that's when we can actually make the most money because it's effortless for us. It's not hard work. It's not stressful. It's effortless because we're in the flow and in the zone.

So I want you to think about that. You know, I've been thinking a lot about in relationships and personal relationships. I, uh, you know, when I'm not able to fully be myself in the, in previous relationships, it's the most hectic and draining and stressful relationships ever. And I don't know if anyone can relate to this when you've been in the relationship where you don't feel like things, things, you get to be yourself. You feel like you're on edge. You feel like you have to be quiet for, you know, you can't say certain things. You can't do certain things without some type of reaction, without a negative reaction.

And it puts you into this place of you have to guard yourself and hold back and not fully express yourself. That's a challenging experience. And it's not fun. And I've been through many of those experiences. And I take full responsibility for staying in those relationships. But it's a time, you know, you get to really ask yourself the question in every area of your life.

Am I fully being myself? Is this situation giving me the opportunity to express my greatest gifts and be myself? And again, just like in business and in relationships, those are very valuable. And if your business, you're doing the things that you love and you're being yourself there, but your relationships are, you're not able to be yourself, then your business is going to suffer and other things will suffer as well because you're not fully expressing who you are. and other things will suffer as well because you're not fully expressing who you are.

And I'll make one more point here is, you know, recently Bruce Jenner came out and did this interview about he wants to be a woman, right? And that's who his full expression is. That's who he feels like he is. He should be a woman. He's going to change, and he's now a woman. And, you know, if this was 10 years ago and I was in college training for the decathlon national championships at the time, I would have been really confused because Bruce Jenner was this hero for me as a decathlete, someone I followed and followed his work and his films and things like that to watch how he was doing it. And I would see interviews about him from when he was in the Olympics. And he was, he was a hero for me because here's a guy who was

an Olympic gold medalist in something that I was doing that I was passionate about. And so for me, if it was 10 years ago and this happened, I would have probably been really confused, really judgmental because my ego would have been in the way and I wouldn't have understood it. And I can't say I fully understand it now either because that's not what I'm trying to do. I'm not trying to change in that way for my own personal life. And I'm not saying that I agree with it or disagree with it and that I can understand it, but I can honestly say that I believe that if he believes, if Bruce believes that what he is doing is true to himself and it's fully being his expressive self, then for me, he's going to have more joy in his life. He's going to have more freedom in his life because he's able to make that decision.

And again, I'm not saying if I agree with it or disagree with it. I'm saying that I'm grateful that he's able to fully express himself in the way that he wants to moving forward. And I think that's what we need to do. We need to really think about, are we doing the things that allow us to give the most to the world, allow us to create the most in the world, allow us to serve the most in the world. And when we aren't being ourselves in our business, in our personal relationships, and in our lives, when we're not fully expressing ourselves and being ourselves in every situation, then

we are holding back our gifts to the world. And we're holding back our potential to the world. So I just want you guys to think about this today, this week, with everything you're doing. today, this week, with everything you're doing, am I fully being and expressing myself? Is this situation giving me the most freedom to express myself? And if not, what changes do I want to make in order to be able to give fully to the world? I hope you guys enjoyed this five-minute Friday. Thank you so much for joining. Go back to lewishouse.com slash 171 because we've got a very special gift for you guys. We've got a five-minute Friday ringtone. That's right.

One of the listeners created a ringtone for her phone and we have a bonus for you guys there. If you go to lewishouse.com slash 171, you'll be able to download this five minute Friday intro ringtone, which a lot of people enjoy listening to. And you can hear that every time your phone rings. You can hear my intro there. Very excited, guys. We've got some incredible guests coming up. Again, this means a lot to me that you continue to listen, that you continue to share the message of greatness with your friends. And I'm going to continue to bring on incredible guests

and facilitate these conversations with them so that you can have access to some of the brightest minds in the world and the way they think. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Thank you again for joining lewishouse.com slash 171 for the show notes and the bonus ringtone. You guys know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Thank you. Outro Music