The School of Greatness - 193 Turn Your Life into a Champion's Journey with Dan Millman

Episode Date: June 24, 2015

"If we have no destination in mind, there is no journey." - Dan Millman If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes and more at lewishowes.com/193

This is episode number 193 with international best-selling author Dan Millman. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro-athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. I am very excited about today's guest. He is a hero of mine, someone I've looked up to for years.

His books have inspired me. His movie inspired me that his book was based off of. His name is Dan Millman. He's a former world champion gymnast, Stanford University coach, Oberlin College professor, and martial arts instructor. He is the author of 16 books and published in 29 languages, including his classic Way of the Peaceful Warrior, which was adapted into a film in 2006. Now, Dan's keynotes and seminars has inspired people from all walks of life, including leaders in the field of health, psychology, education, business,

politics, sports, and the arts. And for me, this was a really inspiring conversation to be able to sit down with Dan and, and really dive into a lot of the different things, the journey that we all go along, whether you're an athlete, an entrepreneur, it doesn't matter where you are. We all go through our own journey. And I think you're going to get a lot out of this episode. So without further ado, let me introduce you to the one, the only, Dan Millman.

Welcome everyone back to the School of Greatness podcast. I'm very excited and delighted about today's guest. His name is Dan Millman. Thanks so much, Dan, for coming on. Glad'm very excited and delighted about today's guest. His name is Dan Millman. Thanks so much, Dan, for coming on. Glad to be here and talking with you, Lewis. We have a lot of mutual interests, I would say, or connections, and I want to go over a few of them really quickly. One is that you are a former Olympic gold medalist.

Is that correct? No. Actually, I was a world champion on the trampoline, but it was in London. A trampoline wasn't yet an Olympic event. Gotcha. Okay, cool. I didn't actually win anything. I didn't actually go to the Olympics, but I was an athlete.

Trampoline. Gymnast and a gymnast all around, yeah. You're an All-American gymnast, right? Yes. Gotcha. In the vault gymnast all around, yeah. You're an All-American gymnast, right? Yes. Gotcha. In the vault? Most every event, yeah. Most every event.

Okay, cool. I think where I saw was gold medalists in gymnastics and some other world games or something, but it wasn't the Olympics, correct? Well, the important thing is that sports and training is part of my past and it's helped to keep my work grounded and realistic rather than drift off into abstract concepts. Sure. Sure. You also from your Wikipedia page, I'm reading, you joined the faculty at Oberlin college in Ohio. Is that right? Yes.

And I'm from Ohio. I'm from Delaware, Ohio. I don't know if you've heard of that city and it's close to Columbus. So I think Oberlin, I believe is only an hour or two away from Columbus. Right. I drove to Ohio State once down in Columbus, and I think it was about an hour and a half or so. Right, right. Okay, cool. So you're a former world-class athlete.

Currently, I play on the USA men's national team for a sport called team handball. So I've played in the Pan American Championships a number of times. And we did not qualify for the Pan Am Games coming up next month, which my goal is to go to the Olympics. But we haven't qualified yet since 96, since it was in Atlanta. So I'm still on the path to try to get there. But we're both athletes turned authors. You've written a number of books, but one is that really impacted my life because I read your book and watched the movie around the time where I felt like I was and had my own story of coming and find meaning in my passion.

So I appreciate inspiring me and millions of people around the world with your work. Well, thank you. And, you know, your story underscores that truth that sometimes difficulty and adversity, some dislocation in our life, in your case, an injury when you were an athlete like mine, it can shake us upward. I'm pointing up right now and lend perspective, which is the better part of wisdom. We become a bit more compassionate, a bit more realistic about ourselves. And the whole idea about letting go of our ego, I don't even know what that means. The ego has, that word has gotten a bad rap in spiritual circles and psychological circles. But Freud coined the word from the Greek. It just means

I. It's a practical way of organizing experience around this person we name ourselves. It wasn't meant to be a pejorative or a negative term, but so many people I meet along the path say, I'm going to get rid of my ego, but who wants to get rid of their identity? We're here to transcend it, not get rid of it and see ourselves in a more realistic and maybe compassionate way. And that's what I teach. It's not about getting rid of the ego. I just thought I'd offer that. Yeah, no, I appreciate that correction and adjustment there. I mean, I guess I would think when I think of the ego in that terms, it's more the things

in the ego that doesn't serve you and others. So that part of the ego. So I'm curious, you've authored a number of books, I believe 16 or 17 in my offer. Have you done more now? At some point I stopped counting, but I think it's around 16, yeah. Okay. I'm curious, is The Way of the Peaceful Warrior, is that the most popular book? And if so, why do you think it is the most popular one of all your books?

Well, it is my signature book. It's the one I'm best known for. In terms of sales, there's another book called The Life You Were Born to Live, which has captured the imagination of many people. It's sort of a fascinating system for clarifying one's life path. And it's been quite useful to many people also. But every book, you know, I didn't write strategically, Lewis. It wasn't like I planned a sequel. In fact, I didn't write another book after Way of the Peaceful Warrior for 10 years. But no, not for 10 years. I just felt I'd said what I had to say. The book came out, it died, and then it came back, another publisher put it out, and then word of mouth

started. And that's truly the only thing that can keep a book alive for over 30 years now. It's still doing very well because people just pass it along among families and friends. There was something in that book and I wish I could have, you know, I wish I had a pill to be smart enough to know what that factor is. But it just happened to touch a chord in many people, as you know. Sure. Yeah. There's only a few books that I really – it's challenging for me to complete books. And there's only a few books that I could really finish and finish with ease.

Yours was one of them. Another one that I recommend to a lot of people is The Alchemist, which is a very similar feeling to me that I get when I read both of your books. It's kind of a similar find your journey and your path story. But that one's done extremely well over the time also. Yeah, I enjoyed Coelho's book, The Alchemist, as well. There's another one, if you haven't read it, I'd recommend, which is Siddhartha by Herman Hess. That's a classic, S-I-D-D-H-A-R-T-H-A, Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. That's a classic. S-I-D-D-H-A-R-T-H-A, Siddhartha. And it's a little book, and it's one I used to read once a year. It's a beautiful book.

Now, I'm curious. When the movie came out, I believe that was, I don't know, five or seven years ago. It might be longer or shorter. But what happened to the book and to your brand and your message when that movie came out? Did it impact you in any way or not really? Well, as an author, of course, I'm grateful when someone's willing to spend millions of dollars to adapt my book into a film. That was really quite a nice thing. It took about 18 years after someone bought the rights to the option and bought the film, the film rights, to actually make it into a movie.

And it's a winding path, I can assure you. A long story I won't tell now. And many, often the case is if there's a major movie release for a book, the book sales go up. People know about the book and they put it on television and all that. the book and they put it on television and all that. And book sales did take a bump and more people attended my seminars because they'd seen the film. So that was nice and refreshing. And some people who might not read the book were able to get at least a taste of some

of the spirit and content from the book. So – Do you feel like they did justice on the movie? You know, there's – the book is the book. Do you feel like they did justice on the movie? You know, the book is the book. The movie is the movie. I didn't expect them to put every word, every idea up on the screen. The movie is very accessible. It's like a two-hour meal for consciousness in a finite time.

It's easy to see, whereas the book takes a little longer for some people. But most of the time, the book is better than the film in terms of depth and impact. So both, I think, serve their own uses. Gotcha. Now, when you were, you know, a world-class athlete in your early 20s and beyond, did you ever visualize yourself impacting the world in a way where you were writing books and doing seminars and selling millions of copies and having movies about your work? Did you ever think that was a possibility or were you only focused on being an athlete at the time? Well, even when I was an athlete, I never ever believed I was

going to be a world champion, but I never really believed I wouldn't either. I just trained. I loved doing the trampoline, which led to gymnastics and other things. I just maybe it's best to have no expectations, just to recognize the truth that we can't control the outcomes in our lives, but we can control our efforts. And by making a good effort, we increase the odds of getting the outcomes we might desire. So I just made a good effort and the stars seemed to align. I could tell the story about just – when I was a freshman in college, they flew me because of politics and different gymnastics associations. They decided I'd represent the fledgling USA Gymnastics back then and they flew me. They didn't want to spend any extra money, so they flew me in the night before the competition. I got there at about midnight. My luggage was lost, so about 2 in the morning, I was able to get to my hotel.

The competition started in London at 8 a.m. So I got very little sleep. I was totally jet lagged out. The other athletes had their coaches there with them. I was alone, 18 years old. And I opened the door to Albert Hall where the competition was held, and I saw one of the competitors doing a move I'd never done, bouncing higher than I'd ever jumped. So I wasn't filled full of confidence going into the competition. But somehow, when the smoke cleared, I ended up winning the championships. I just had a good moment.

It doesn't matter who wins the warm-up, right? Exactly. And were you jumping higher than he was? No, but he just made a mistake, and I happened to come through under the pressure. I was always pretty good at that, kind of hardwired to do that. And all the past led me to that point. And then after that, you know, that was nice. But I moved on back to all-around gymnastics with aims of the Olympics.

But then, as you know from The Way of the Peaceful Warrior or the movie, I shattered right leg in a motorcycle crash, put a damper on that for a while, maybe forever. I didn't know, but I just kept training and made a pretty strong comeback. So, you know, that's my story. But each of us, I emphasize every person I know, everyone listening to this podcast has a story. It's their treasure because there's not a single story on the planet exactly like their story. And we're each, we don't just have a story. We're a story in the making. We never know what the next chapter is going to be. Yeah. And a friend of mine, Gary Vaynerchuk, said that we are one piece of content away from, you know, our entire life changing forever.

You know, you were one book away when you wrote The Way of a Peaceful Warrior that probably changed your life in a big way in terms of platform, visibility, and impact. So it's interesting. We never know what could happen after one thing we do. Well, speaking of impact, that motorcycle crash changed my life in a very positive way too, only I didn't fully appreciate it at the time. Yeah, exactly. Same with my injury. When I got injured playing professional football, I was extremely depressed and down for months.

I was in a cast for six months and then another year of just trying to rehab my arm. And I remember thinking my life is over. That was my whole identity. I didn't have a backup plan. But without that, I wouldn't be impacting people the way I am with my message and my podcast and books and things like that. So I'm extremely grateful and blessed for that experience and the lesson. Now you say it might be good to have no expectations. And I'm curious, when you were training so hard

and you were focusing on just giving your best effort and not focusing on the outcome, did you have big goals or dreams? Well, sure. Sure, I did. You know, in the Peaceful Warrior movie, my character, Dan, has kind of a revelation when he and Socrates hike up to the top of that hill or mountain. And Dan realizes, you know, he said, it's the journey that brings us happiness, not the destination. And that's a nice thing to contemplate. But the fact is, if we have no destination in mind, there is no journey. We just wander around. So to our point A, we have to have some point B. So it's been said that the purpose of life

is a life of purpose, of finding a goal we'd like to move toward, whatever that may be. In the moment, one know, one of my books is called The Four Purposes of Life. So I definitely, and another book is called Living on Purpose. So I have dealt with among, you know, people know me as the reminders about living in the present moment and why that's useful and helpful, but also living a purposeful life. So I'm certainly a believer in having some goal to move toward, yes. Gotcha. What's the goal for you right now to move towards?

Well, professionally and something, you know, part of what I'm here to do, it's very aligned with my purpose, is I'm working on the third and final book in the Peaceful Warrior Saga. Each of those books stand alone. People can read one and not the others, but they are part of a trilogy. It's called The Hidden School. So that's a book I'm working on. It's right up on my computer screen in front of me right now, and I'm working hard on that book.

They say a difficult writing make for an easy read. I like that. So I'm putting the effort out. I just finished the manuscript on my book. Oh, great. It's been a seven-year visualization journey and a year-long in-depth writing process. So hopefully that makes it an easy read.

Well, that's fantastic. You know, a book I wrote with my daughter called The Creative Compass, writing your way from inspiration to publication goes into that five-stage creative process. Every creative event, whether it's writing music, a painting, a sculpture, or particularly a book, it goes through those phases you'll recognize. First, the dream phase where you're coming up with ideas and what we call sticky ideas that stay with you. Then from that goes into the draft stage where you bring it into reality. You start to do the work of typing,

speaking, whatever it is, to bring it from the idea realm, the dream realm, into the world. Then comes the important development phase where you really have to rewrite, shift, take a fresh look, get feedback. And that goes into the refinement phase, the refined stage. And the last one is the sharing stage, which you're now approaching. Yes. But what you do and what happens in the sharing stage really depends on what happened in the earlier stages and the quality that you put into it as you can appreciate.

Yeah. Well, I'm excited for the destination, but the journey has been a pleasure as well. So it's all been fun. Curious about the book, The Peaceful Warrior. What were the biggest lessons that opened up for you when writing the book? in what were the biggest lessons that opened up for you when writing the book? And what's the biggest lesson that's opened up for you since in the decades it's been out? The best way I can answer that is to say that I was a pretty self-absorbed young athlete,

like many young people and athletes, you know, individual sport. Being centered, the downside of being centered tends to be self-centered. And I was very much into self-improvement. And I learned juggling and I was playing guitar and I was doing gymnastics and I was taking memory courses and speed reading. You get the drill. And one day I realized that no matter how much I improved myself, only one person benefited. But if somehow I could influence other people, and I know you felt this calling too, because look what you do. If I could influence other people, that made my life more meaningful and to reach out to those larger aspects, facets of myself, the larger world. So I started just kind of putting ideas

together. There was something about improving what I'd written, making it shine and sparkle and polishing it. I like doing. And it took about seven years to congeal ideas based on experiences I'd had and some insights. And it took many, many rewrites over about a seven-year period, starts and stops. I was also influenced by – you know that old Kung Fu TV series? David Carradine played this character, Kwai Chang Kane. You might be young for that. But it was a very big TV series. Bruce Lee wanted to play the role, but Carradine did a good job. But Carradine did a good job.

And it was about this Shaolin monk who was a peaceful monk, nonviolent vegetarian, but he knew how to fight if necessary. And that archetype, not just the warrior, but the peaceful warrior impacted me. So I ended up putting this book together and calling it Way of the Peaceful Warrior, describing adventures with this old gas station attendant I named Socrates because he wouldn't tell me his real name. And that's how it took shape. And so it wasn't some revelation that happened all at once. It was just this book. And the book actually was subtitled when it first came out, A Basically True Story. Well, the bookstores were not amused.

They didn't know where to put it, so they didn't even want it. It got into very few stores. The book died. Really? Yeah, no. The book just went out of print very quickly. They gave me the rights back. My agent said, write another book because it's a failed hardback. Wow. But then this old fellow who was a retired publisher found a copy somewhere and said, I love this book. I'm going to put it out again.

And he put it out as a paperback. And then just the word of mouth happened and it started building. And it's sold many millions of copies over the last 30 years. And it's out in about 20, I don't know, 27, 28, 29 languages. So it was one of those things. I wish I could give people a trail of breadcrumbs or stardust to follow.

But nobody can guarantee success. You just put it out there. And if your book, if the particular captures the universal lessons and many people can relate to it, then you make a contribution to many people. Yeah, and timing is everything it sounds like too. Yeah. Now, did you ever find out Socrates' name? Do you still keep in touch?

Well, I wrote a book, probably my best writing, a novel I called The Journeys of Socrates. And it's about his life growing up as a little boy in a military school in Russia and what happens, how he became a man, why he became a warrior and how a warrior finally found peace. So that's the journeys of Socrates. And my daughter, the same one who wrote the writing book with me, has adapted it to a screenplay. And we'll see again, timing and luck and fortune, whether it ends up a movie down the line. Gotcha.

And so what's his name? Do you have his name? Well, in the book, his name is Sergei Ivanov. He came from a Russian background. But there's more to the story I'll tell one day in my final book. Okay, cool. tell one day in my final book. Okay, cool. How much of it was fiction and how much of it was made up? Yeah, that's a fair question because people are used to something being either a novel where it's fictional or a memoir, which is not supposed to have any fiction, but just memory.

And from the start, I let people know that the book is autobiographical. A lot of it really happened about my life, but there are fictional elements woven into the story. And for those, I don't want to do any spoilers for those who haven't read the book, if they're curious about it, but there are elements. And at my website, peacefulwarrior.com. I have a question and answer page there where I go into more about how much is fact, how much is fiction. But I will say this, Pablo Picasso once said, art is a lie that helps us to see the truth. I like that. That's a great quote. So I'm curious about your visualization process as an athlete and how you've translated it into your career with writing and with the workshops you do and all the work you do. Is there a process that you follow when before you're about to write, before you start your big competition, you said that you always seem to perform well under the pressure, under the bright lights.

always seem to perform well under the pressure, under the bright lights. What was your mindset process like, your visualization process, your strategy to prepare yourself for those big moments and today still? Sure. And for any athletes or musicians or people who are going to do public speaking and they're a little nervous about it, it does help. Visualization, it can be a powerful tool simply because our subconscious mind doesn't really differentiate very much between what we see with our physical eyes and what we can see in our mind's eye. So it becomes real when we can vividly picture certain

things. It's not a magical solution that will make you successful and rich and all that. But it is a useful tool and I used it in a practical sense when I was trying a new movement in gymnastics. And there's a certain level of risk because I didn't really like being held in belts, you know, these overhead spotting belts that hold you up in the air. I got tangled up in that. I found them too inhibiting and they didn't have the foam pits and all that you can land in that they do today. So it was just careful progressions and throw and go and hope it works out. So I would always visualize in the sense of feeling myself going through the movements before, many times before I actually tried it. And so I felt like I'd already almost done it successfully a number of times,

even though it was the first time I was physically doing it. So that was helpful to me. And it's based on a study that was done some years ago of people. They had three groups of people. They were all college students. And they were all beginners in shooting baskets. They hadn't really done basketball much. All beginners in shooting baskets.

They hadn't really done basketball much. And they had one-third of the people actually practiced a set number of free throws in basketball each day for a period of time. And they improved because they practiced. And the second group just visualized themselves. They imagined themselves standing there bouncing the ball a couple of times and then shooting. And they saw the ball go into the basket and so on. A third group just watched television and did some unrelated task. And the study found that the people who visualized shooting the baskets vividly improved almost as much as the ones – they did improve. And they improved almost as much as the ones who were physically shooting the ball.

They did improve, and they improved almost as much as the ones who were physically shooting the ball. So it's not equal, but it's extremely helpful to visualize or mentally rehearse for certain events. It doesn't mean they're going to turn out exactly the way you think, but it just puts you in a mindset where you're kind of more used to it. I don't do those sorts of things today as much. I kind of live in the moment. I show up and see what's in front of me and just present because I speak all over the world. You're a seasoned pro now. Yeah.

You've got it down. Well, competence breeds confidence. There you go. I like it. For me, I remember in college, I was also a decathlete and was an All-American. And I remember being very challenged by the pole vault. And I don't know if you ever did track and field, but the pole vault. I tried pole vault, yes. Oh, my God.

As a gymnast, pole vault is probably the best event for you. And I remember it was just so challenging. It took me six months to really learn how to bend the pole and be comfortable going upside down and just putting it all together. There's so many moving parts to the pole vaults. And I remember I watched videotape of highlights of the best pole vaulters in the world with inspiring music behind it every night before I went to bed. I would watch this for about 30 to 60 minutes just on replay over and over. And I started to see that by putting in the actual work and training every morning at it and doing the visualization every night that I felt like it accelerated my learning curve and prepared me for those big moments as

well. So I found it very, very helpful. I'm not at the level where you are where I can just show up without visualizing and preparing that well, but hopefully one day I'll be able to get there. I'm curious about, do you still do martial arts? I do. In fact, two weeks ago, I flew up to Toronto, Canada, in that Toronto area. The most recent art, I started when I was nine years old. I did martial arts before I did gymnastics. I started with judo, then different styles of karate, including Okinawan style.

Then I got pretty decent, pretty quick moving and so on. But then I had a 10-year latency period, no more martial arts while I was training in gymnastics. After I started coaching in gymnastics at Stanford University, I decided to take up Aikido. So I did Aikido. It's a veryviolent, flowing art. And then later I learned the long Tai Chi form, more Chinese art, and later a little bit of a screamo, Arnis Kali movement, knife is the Russian martial art, quite a clever art based on combat in all terrains. And I was up in Toronto doing some Sistema breathing work and precision movement work I found quite interesting. So, yes, I'm still involved with the martial arts. I'm still involved with the martial arts.

What's the biggest thing that someone could take away who hasn't done martial arts that you've learned that could vastly improve the quality of their life? Would it be breathing techniques? Would it be something else? What's something someone could take away? Well, I would make a clear distinction between martial arts as arts, movement arts in different forms and styles and cultures and self-defense. Practical self-defense doesn't look like the fancy martial arts you see in the movies or even in the schools. And the best self-defense course I've ever come across, and I've been trained as an instructor in that, is called FAST Defense. And one can look it up, FAST, F-A-S-T, defense.com.

FAST stands for Fear, Adrenal Stress Training. And it's very practical. It has boundary setting, de-escalation, how to get out of situations, not have them get worse, and verbal defense, which is a very practical thing. But finally, if it's on and there's no way you can avoid an attack, how to disable a knockout. And a single unarmed assailant, they have weapons training as well. So, and it's just very, very useful.

See, the martial arts has a different lineage. In sports, we win or lose a match, win or lose points, get a better or worse time depending on our sport. But in the martial arts, it comes from a lineage of life and death. So even though we're not probably going to die doing a martial art today, there is that seriousness, that earnestness, that knowing we have to train body, mind, and spirit. The physical skill alone you can learn, but that's not really enough. That may not prevail. You have to know something about mental focus and living in the present and how to really get into that flow state. So whether we call it martial arts, yoga, sports, it's all about movement, stillness, breathing, attention. So, it's like a master metaphor. Anyone who's trained in a sport

or who has done dance or played a musical instrument, anyone who was trained in any field can view that as a metaphor of their life and transfer some of those skills, those general strengths into whatever they do. You know, one of my books, I don't know if you've read it, Louis, but it's called Body Mind Mastery. And that is my gift to athletes. And that can be quite helpful to anybody who trains. I'll check that one out. Yeah, Body Mind Mastery. Okay. Yeah, I like that. When you experience any type of stress or any type of a breakdown in your life, whether it be minor or major breakdowns that occur, what is your practice for overcoming those breakdowns or those minor

moments of stress? Do you have a practice or a ritual that you follow, a breathing technique, a way of being that you shift into? There are techniques one can learn. But at some point, and believe me, I've had them coming out of my ears. I've learned so many techniques over the decades for this or that. But let me just address stress. Stress is part of everyday life. If I can tell people two things about stress, I can say stress happens when the mind resists what is. In other words, whatever is arising in life, if we resist it, it creates some stress, psychological stress, maybe translated to physical stress as well, blood pressure and so on. So when we learn to flow with life and kind of dance with it the way any good martial artist would do, not fighting the force but learning to use it, getting out of the way, we experience less stress, first of all. But the second thing is stress is a

normal part of life. The only way to avoid stress is don't care about anything. But most of us do care. So we're engaged with life. So sometimes we get the elevator. Sometimes we get the shaft, as the saying goes. And things happen, changes, disappointments, and we feel stress. A flat tire on the way to an important appointment or a date. These things happen. But there is a big

difference between stress plus tension or stress without tension. So we can't really control this abstract idea we define as stress, but we can control our degree of tension. Any of us can, right now, any listener can tense their body. We have that ability, tense all our muscles. And if we can tense, we can relax. Just the opposite. Let go, shake, take a breath. And you know what? Relaxed stress is a very different critter from tense stress. So whenever a stressful element happens in our lives, we can use that as just kind of a signal to take a deep breath, let it out, shake loose, and see how relaxed we can be, even as we face the stress. And you know, this is especially true in the stress if you're ever attacked by multiple attackers.

That's quite a stressful situation. And that is exactly when you need to learn to move and relax. Because most people don't get beaten up because their techniques aren't good enough. It's because they get too tired. And so by staying relaxed and moving and flowing, which this martial art that I'm studying now, Systema, emphasizes, it really, really helps us prevail in everyday life and everyday stresses as well. Yeah. Or they just stop breathing with ease. They start shortening their breath. Yeah, that's typical. Yeah, that's typical.

If you can't breathe, it's hard to do anything. You know, the only difference between fear and excitement is whether we're breathing. Interesting. I like that. What did you find was more fulfilling for you competing as an athlete a world-class level or coaching world-class athletes you ask such interesting questions um i enjoyed both in their time i never actually um felt like i was competing it's an irony because my coach said I was one of the strongest competitors he ever knew. But I didn't feel like I was competing because in gymnastics,

it's different from boxing or running track against another. If somebody's next to you and you're trying to get to the finish line first, that really feels like a competition. But in gymnastics, all they do is give you a number and compare the numbers to see who was best. But it's more about performing. So I always viewed myself as performing. And it was like, I had a routine, how well was I going to do it? That's what counted, not what everybody else was doing. I couldn't control what someone else was doing. I could have the best day of my life, but they might have just had a better day. So I just focused on what I could control, which is what am I going to do here and now.

So I did enjoy that. It was quite stimulating, exciting, and satisfying because having a goal to move toward and train for and having teammates, that was fun too. for and having teammates, that was fun too. But I don't think it even touched the satisfaction of being a coach and reaching out into all those lives. No, I just loved coaching. And in fact, what I loved even more than coaching elite athletes, and I did coach at Stanford, the top US Olympian at the time. And the team went from the bottom of our conference when I started coaching there to one of the top three teams in the nation three years later. But what I loved was coaching beginners because they loved it so much. And I still – in fact, this month, I'm teaching once a week. I go to a place called the Circus Warehouse in Queens,, um, and I teach an adult trampoline class.

Nice. So, yeah, I love, I love teaching because it can touch the lives of other people and see them going through changes and having a great time. So, yeah,

I really, uh, I do love teaching. I've done some, uh, I've done some acro yoga. Uh, yeah.

My girlfriend at the Brooklyn zoo, which has a nice trampoline. I don't know if you've been there. No, no, I'll have to look it up. my girlfriend at the Brooklyn Zoo, which has a nice trampoline. I don't know if you've been there. No. No. I'll have to look it up. It's called the Brooklyn Zoo. It's kind of like a parkour gymnastics trampoline facility.

It's really creative looking inside. Thanks for the tip. Yeah. They have a big foam pit. They have mats, everything. So it's called the Brooklyn Zoo. You should check it out. I will.

That's cool. That's interesting to know that you are enjoyed and are more fulfilled with coaching beginners over competing yourself or performing yourself and coaching elite athletes. If everything that you've ever written was erased, let's say, all your works, everything was, for some reason, it was all erased. Everything was erased in the world. And you had a piece of paper and a pen, and you got to write down three truths. Everything that you know to be true about life, the world, and what you want to really

leave behind as your message, the three sentences or truths to give back and no one else would have any other work you've ever created. What would those three truths be? Well, I'm making notes now because one is tough enough. Everyone wants to know what is the one thing? Well, you've got three. Wow. Wow.

It's like a genie. I'm like, yeah, you know, they say you teach what you need to learn, and I must have needed to learn a lot with 17 books. So you're saying, Dan, would you please distill your 17 books down to three sentences? Who was it that said anything that can be put in a nutshell ought to be best left there? But I will see what comes up. But I will see what comes up. One of the things that I emphasize in this approach to living that I teach my seminars and workshops, obviously in much more depth, but I would say because there's so much emphasis today in fixing our insides and finding inner solutions. I mean the right thoughts, positive thinking, clear mind, and visualize this and that, and having the right feelings to be motivated and courageous and confident. There's so much emphasis on that that I actually would like to suggest that the main force that shapes our lives are what we do over time.

If we look back on our lives, it's really what we've done. The horse I'm betting on is effort over time, not laws of attraction and visualizing positive outcomes, but just questioning what we will do moment to moment. In fact, one of the quotes I'm known for, and I picked it up from a former mentor as well, but to progress toward our goals, we need to choose one of two following methods. We can find a way to quiet our mind, create empowering beliefs, raise our self-esteem, and practice positive self-talk in order to find our focus and affirm our power to free our emotions and visualize positive outcomes so that we can develop the confidence to generate the courage to find the determination to make the commitment to feel sufficiently motivated to do whatever it is we need to do. Exhausting. Or we can just do it. And that's what it's always going to come down to.

And that's a lot of words for just three points. But the first one is our lives are shaped by our actions over time. That's the first one, if you want a sound bite. The second one, I just remind people to trust the process of your life unfolding. Because we second-guess ourselves so much, Louis. I should have done this. I could have done this. If only I'd done that. I don't have enough willpower.

And we're just constantly doubting and second-guessing ourselves. If we can come to trust the process of our life, that in some sense, some transcendental sense, it's unfolding perfectly, including the accidents and as you and I know, it just directs us like a boulder rolling downhill, bouncing off different trees. We end up being directed to where we're going. So that's the second thing. You want the third thing too? Yes, please. Okay. Well, let me end with a story then. And the story is this. It's a true story. Aldous Huxley, famous author who wrote a book called Brave New World, was in hospice care. He was dying.

And he was visited by his friend, Houston Smith, who wrote the book literally on world religions. Houston's still alive, but he's getting pretty frail. And Houston asked his friend Aldis, he said, Aldis, you have traveled the world for decades, studying in depth, practicing every spiritual and religious tradition, doing all these inner practices, various kinds of meditation and insight training and models of reality. And he said, is there any way at this time in your life that you can summarize all that you've learned. And Professor Huxley said, I'm a little embarrassed to say that I can probably summarize it all in about six words. And those six words are try to be a little kinder. And, you know, maybe it all comes down to that. Nice counts. In fact, for those who follow

me on Facebook or Twitter, just search for Dan Milliman, I put quotes, a couple of quotes a week. I usually contribute to people. They seem to like these quotes. And I've got a couple of quotes a week. I usually contribute to people. They seem to like these quotes. And I've got a lot of followers. And I just did a quote last, well, a couple of days by Barbara Bush. And she said, be yourself. She said, oh, but make that a little bit nicer self. And, you know, that's the third thing I might offer.

Just that simple reminder, when we can remember to do so, a little more courtesy, a little more compassion, a little more kindness. We don't have to feel compassionate. We don't have to feel peaceful or happy or loving or confident. But we need to learn to behave that way. Just as someone who is feeling afraid learns to behave with courage. I love that. I've got a couple final questions for you really quickly. One is, what's the thing, what's the one question that most people never ask you that you wish they did? Oh, I could probably come up with some clever quip, you know,

but I don't really wish people would ask me something different from what they ask me. I would offer it freely, even if they don't ask it. So I think it's good for us to continue to ask questions of ourselves because that's how I've come up with these 16 books, asking myself certain questions. Like I ask myself a question, what is personal growth? You know, we talk about that all the time. What is it? We use the term personal development, personal growth.

And I ended up, boom, the answers came, 12 areas of life, which I've used in various books. One of them, yeah, one answers came. 12 areas of life, which I've used in various books. One of them, yeah, one of them was called Everyday Enlightenment. In my little book, The Four Purposes of Life, I also summarized these 12 areas of life. 12 courses in the School of Life. We're here to master.

But it all came from that one question. What is personal growth? The book Body-Mind Mastery came from the question, what is talent? We use the word talent a lot, but maybe we misunderstand it. We see someone who's very good at what they do. We say, boy, are they talented? They may not be talented at all. They may just have used a lot of effort over time to develop their expertise. Often, we think we're not talented at something because we try it and it doesn't come easily, but it takes time to nourish talent.

So just asking ourselves questions and waiting for the answers, that's quite a great process. Is there any question you have yet to answer yourself? Yeah. How's this next book going to turn out? Perfect. I never know. Well, I'll be happy to promote it for you when it comes out. Thanks.

So let me know. Before I ask you, actually, okay, two final questions. One is a quick one, but this one is if you had three books to leave behind besides your own to the the world what would those three books be well you know i'm sort of a piscean dreamer um and and i like stories there are many wonderful non-fiction books and documentaries and histories but um what captured my imagination it was a little embarrassed to say but i love the book book Once and Future King about Arthur and the round table, maybe my idealist part. And I also, of course, am a big fan of Lord of the Rings. Before the movies came out, I loved the trilogy.

You like the movies? Yeah, the movies were great. They were a terrific adaptation. I loved them. But anyway, you know, and I could mention 50 books or I could mention just a third to satisfy your question. But I'd rather say that the next book

maybe hasn't yet been written. I like that. Okay. Well, a final question I want to ask before I do, Dan, I want to take a moment. And you're a Pisces as well, right? Yep. Yeah, I'm a Pisces also. That you're a Pisces as well, right? Yep. Like we said. Yeah, I'm a Pisces also.

That's why I'm even more connected to you. I want to take a moment just to acknowledge you, Dan, because you've been such a huge impact in the world, like I said earlier on. And you've impacted my personal life in such a powerful way without me ever even getting to know you or talking to you just by the art that you put out in the world and the performance you put on paper and which was created into movies and how you've created a ripple effect in the world for me. Because you're able to show me and so many others like me how to overcome adversity and obstacles when it doesn't look like anything else is possible to come from those moments. You really create possibility for people like me. So I acknowledge you for the gifts you've given to the world, your consistent commitment to excellence and giving your best effort and everything you've created over time. So I want to acknowledge you for that, Dan. Well, it's gratifying. Thank you very much. Yeah. And the final question is, what's your definition of greatness? It has nothing to do with being great in the eyes of the world. I believe celebrity is a form of

adversity personally. And that's a whole subject of a whole other podcast sometime. But to me, it's, as I said, since we can control our efforts, not the outcomes, it's giving our best effort. And I see daily life as a form of spiritual weight training. We don't have to seek adversity. It's a part of life. And I think greatness, everyday greatness, is when we roll up our sleeves and tackle what we need to.

I think daily life is a training ground for greatness, depending on how we approach it. Dan Millman, thank you so much for coming on and we'll talk to you soon. It's my pleasure, Lewis. Great talking with you. Thank you guys again so much for listening to this episode. I loved connecting with Dan and I was so grateful to hear his responses. Make sure to head back to lewishouse.com slash 193, where you can get all information about how to connect with Dan online, all of his social media, his website, his books, etc. Again, if you enjoyed this episode and you want others to hear about it and you want to inspire greatness in others, then spread the message and share this forward. Go ahead and share this link, lewishouse.com slash 193 with your friends on Facebook and Twitter and social media to get the word of greatness out there and inspire others who want

to get to the next level in their life. Thank you again so much, everyone for being here for supporting this mission to inspire 100 million people around the world and teach them how to make a full time living doing what they love and step into their own greatness. You guys are incredible. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Outro Music