The School of Greatness - 249 Bring Life Full Circle

Episode Date: November 3, 2015

"You can't be great without being grateful." - Lewis Howes If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes and more at http://lewishowes.com/249

episode number 249 you've got to bring your life full circle what's up guys thank you so much for tuning in today this is greatness week and this is the last day of greatness week because this is the final day for the launch week of my new book before we get the information back about the New York Times bestseller list. So they do a week-long recording and routing and tracking, and then they make the announcement tomorrow. So I'm very excited. This is the full week. We're bringing the week full circle, and I want to talk about why it's important to bring your life, your vision full circle as often as possible. I was in Columbus, Ohio tonight, and it was incredible. I had a huge launch party the last night here, the other night on Sunday night, and then Monday night,

there was a VIP dinner. So one of the members of the community, Daniel Fox here, had said, hey, I want to bring people together in a big way to come support you. So he had 20 different people, influencers in Columbus, come together for a private dinner at an amazing restaurant in town that they opened up just for us. And they all bought a bunch of books to come and have a seat at the table. And it was incredible. In the beginning, we did some mingling, hanging out, networking. It was great to see so many people that I had known from the past. Some people I'd met 10 years ago that I haven't seen in 10 years who showed up. There were some other people that I was closer with, mentors, friends, family members.

My sister was there, Heidi. And then people who have been listening to the podcast and who have been impacted by the message of the podcast and by the guests that I've had on and their lessons and their stories. And it was just so moving for me. And after connecting with people, we sat down and then I said a few words and I just said, hey guys, what I want to do is I want to create a great experience tonight. So go around the table in about 30 seconds and I want you to tell me your name, tell me what you're most grateful for, because again, I like to take everything with gratitude. I'd like to express gratitude as often as possible. That's part of my daily ritual, my daily routine,

because you can't be great without being grateful. So I try to incorporate it as often as possible. So I said, give me your name, what you're most grateful for, and then the vision for what you want to create in the next year. And we went around the table, again, 20 different people going around the table, speaking into their vision, what they're most grateful for. About halfway through the table, people went through and about the 10th person, I literally just started losing it. I started losing it.

I was in tears. I was crying. Half of it was probably because I haven't slept in a week and I've been so full on committed to my vision and playing full out, giving every ounce of energy that I can muster to give it all and lay it all on the field. Because I believe that we must be willing to risk it all and to lay it all on the field in the moments that matter most, especially in the fourth quarter of life, in the fourth quarters of life, right? When you're in the championship game and it's the fourth quarter, it's the last couple days, last couple hours, you've got to be so fueled by your vision to go all out.

So I literally have not slept that much at all this week. go all out. So I literally have not slept that much at all this week. I've tried to, but I've just been so excited and wanting to do everything I can so that I don't leave anything on the table. I don't leave any ounce of energy left. And in the final hour, I give everything I've got. And then I can say, you know what, no matter what the results are, whether we hit the New York Times bestseller list, whether we hit the numbers we wanted to hit in terms of sales and orders, whether we impacted the amount of people we wanted to impact, no matter what the final result is at the end of the game, I laid it all on the field. And I did it with as much passion and integrity and pride and passion that I could.

And as people were going around the table and talking about their gratitude and their vision, I was just moved. I was moved. My sister was sitting next to me. She was rubbing me, you know, on my back and kind of just gently putting her hand on me. And I was overwhelmed by the love and the support. I was moved literally to tears when people were talking about how much they appreciated and what they were grateful for and what their visions were.

And I was just so inspired to see people stepping up and speaking into their vision. And as I realized it, one of my friends and mentors, Chris Hawker, was there, and he started to cry as he was talking about how eight years ago, this jockey, ego-driven kid showed up at a bar where he was at and said, Hey, I want you to mentor me. And he was talking about the story of how we first met and how it's changed his life forever as well and what we've been able to create together. And it was just, again, I was blown away. And by the time it came to me, my sister said some

incredible things and so many people said some moving, loving things. I just really received the love. And when you put your heart and soul into something and then you get acknowledged for it, it's, it's overwhelming. And again, I got up to speak at the end to say my name and what I was grateful for and my vision for the next 12 months. And I was again, moved by the love, the inspiration. But the thing I really want to talk about is how I was moved by bringing it full circle. Being in my hometown, literally a couple blocks away from where I moved into my first apartment ever for $495 a month, struggling to try to make ends meet, to try to buy my own food and afford the next

month's rent and figure out my path and figure out how I was going to get a new identity because I'd lost my identity as an athlete. And as I was speaking into it, I was talking about all the people there who really guided me and inspired me from the guy who I saw on the dance floor salsa dancing 10 years previously and told him how his movement, his energy, his passion back then 10 years ago was an inspiration for me to want to learn how to salsa dance. And however, the last 10 years, literally I've traveled the world and experienced life in a different, more powerful, magical way by being able to dance and being able to express that creativeness inside of me and feel my heartbeat on the dance floor and feel the rhythm. I didn't know I had rhythm before because I was so terrified to dance because I was clumsy and I looked bad

and didn't want to make anyone else look bad. And to be able to have that gift, to be able to feel the rhythm of my heart beating and be able to move to that beat is so powerful for me. It's so, I'm so blessed and grateful to, there were people there who were there for Toastmasters. Again, eight, nine years ago when I joined Toastmasters because I knew one day I wanted to be able to inspire and move people with my words. I had no clue what I was going to be doing, but I just knew that if I wanted to impact and inspire people, I needed to be able to communicate my message clearly from stage, from the audience, from a microphone. And it was just, I was moved to tears as I was talking because I was expressing how grateful I was to be bringing it full circle, bringing it home to the place that started it all for me. You know, my home city in Ohio with the place that started it all for me, my home city in Ohio, with the people that really moved

and inspired me to become a better human being. And I think it's important for us to bring our visions full circle. That's why I talk about writing your vision down, pointing a specific date on your vision, and building a team, a support system around you to bring that to fruition, to make it happen, to support you, to lift you up. We cannot achieve greatness on our own. It's impossible to achieve something magnificent, magical on your own. You can get a certain place, but it's going to take a team of people to support your mission, to support your vision, to support your dreams along the way. And when we bring something full circle, like I did tonight, again, an eight-year vision, an eight-year dream,

and I got to bring it full circle and celebrate with the people that matter to me, to the place that matters to me, my home, where my heart is, to be able to celebrate that was just so awesome. I mean, I feel like the luckiest kid in the world. It feels like so cool. And what that does for me and what that does for you guys is it builds confidence that, okay, you had a vision set out for yourself and now you've brought it full circle. You've completed the vision. I was able to complete it and say, listen, guys, this is something I wanted to do eight years ago when I was here.

And I joined Toastmasters and I did this and I did this and I had a mentor and I worked my butt off. And each step along the way, I was able to take my life and my business to the next level to become the human I needed to become in order to have this vision come true. And it took eight years, but it happened. And it happened in a powerful way. You know, we hit top 10 on Amazon in the world, top 10 books in the world on Amazon. That's incredible. And I'm so grateful for that. And we're about to discover, you know, the New York Times bestseller list and all these other lists that are about to come out, Wall Street Journal, USA Today. We're about to see, you know,

how our effort collectively paid off in those results as well. And I'm just so blessed and grateful for everything. And I want you guys, a lot of you have been tagging me on Instagram. Thank you for all the photos you've been tagging me. I see so many people going out to Barnes & Noble and local bookstores. Please keep going out and buying copies. If you haven't got your copy yet, I would love for you to go buy one,

take a photo and then tag me on Facebook or Instagram so I can say thank you and reply over there as well. And if you guys do one thing this week, if you do one thing, I'm going to give you a challenge. I want you to step up into your greatness. And the challenge is something I've been giving a lot of people who I've been meeting in person at all of my events that we've had so far. We've had three events, and we've got a bunch more. We've got Cleveland tonight. We've got Denver this week and then Montreal.

So make sure to go sign up for the events that we're having, lewishouse.com slash events to get registered. And a challenge that I'm giving so many people when I meet them in person, and I would love to meet all of you in person, is to complete the exercises at the end of the first chapter on vision. I believe this is such a powerful thing. It's so simple to follow, but so challenging for people to complete because they don't know what they want. They don't know what their passion is. They don't know what their vision is. And I want you to get clear because when you get clear on your vision,

life changes forever. I'm telling you, your life will be, you'll talk about your life before you figured out your vision and your mission and to talk about your life, how it was after you discovered your vision and your mission. And I want you guys to start shifting into a different way of being with your life. I want you to start living in a powerful place, a passionate place, a place where you are excited every single day because you are on a mission. It's when you don't have a mission or a vision, you're going to be wandering through life, wandering through your career, frustrated, resentful, angry, upset that you're just living a decent life, you're going to be wandering. You're never going to be reaching your full potential until you have a mission, a vision, a purpose, a why that you're living for. Not just, oh, I'm here to show up and live a decent life.

That's not what we were born to do. We were born for greatness, and it's inside all of you. So I want you to go through the first chapter minimum, go through the first chapter this week, complete the exercises at the end of the first chapter, take a photo of it and send it to me, whether it be on Instagram or Facebook, send it to me online on social media,

post it with the exercises that you complete at the end of the first chapter. I am so excited for you guys to start diving into this information. And again, I'm so grateful for all of you who have been coming out to the events to say hi to me. Make sure to come out and give me a big hug. I just want to meet all of you and tell you how much I appreciate you because from the bottom of my heart, you're the reason my dreams are coming true with this book. And you're the reason my dreams are coming true with this book. And you're the reason

it's coming full circle. So make sure to create your visions and bring them full circle. I don't care if it's a three month full circle or eight year full circle experience. The more you bring things full circle, the more belief you're going to have in yourself, the more confidence, the more love, the more momentum you will build and create. This is episode number 249. We are in greatness week. I've been doing an episode every day during the work week and I'm very excited for what's to come.

There's going to be a big announcement here in the next couple of days when all of these lists come out. So I'm going to be letting you guys know what happens by what we all created together because this is not my doing. It's your guys' support and all the things that you guys have been doing

to support to get this message of how to be great in your life out there. So thank you guys so much. Please share this with your friends. lewishouse.com slash 249. If you have yet to subscribe to the podcast, make sure to subscribe over on the podcast app on iTunes or on your phone. Leave a review of the book. If you have the book, we've got, I think, 195 star reviews.

I'd love it if you leave a review over on Amazon. It would mean the world to me. Share this with your friends, lewishouse.com slash 249. You guys know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Thank you. សូវាប់បានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបា Thank you.