The School of Greatness - 268 What 2015 Taught Me About Achieving Big Goals

Episode Date: December 23, 2015

"Only put your energy into one to three big goals per year." - Lewis Howes If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes and more at http://lewishowes.com/268

This is episode number 268, the year in review episode. 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. What is up, everyone? Thank you so much for joining me on the School of Greatness podcast. This is the year in review episode. This is the first time I've done this,

and it's the third year, and I thought I'd do a recap of everything that happened this year. Now, I am very excited. We have had an incredible year, and I'm just so grateful for everything that's happened. I mean, all of the incredible successes. There's been some incredible emotional times as well, some down moments, definitely some down times, but I'm grateful for all of it, all the lessons and everything. And I just want to give you kind of an overview recap. Last year, I'd sold the rights to my book to Rodale at the end of October. And so this was the year, 2015 was the year of my book. It was all setting up and getting ready for the book launch, which was the end of October this year. So everything for me was focused around one thing, becoming a number one New York Times

bestseller. That was the goal. That was everything I wanted to achieve this year. And I put all my energy and focus into that. And one of the things, guys, is I want to let you know that I get this a lot from a lot of entrepreneurs or people listening. They'll email me and say, I've got all these ideas. lot from a lot of entrepreneurs or people listening is they'll email me and say, I've got all these ideas.

I've got like 10 great ideas and I don't know which one to do and which one to start next. And here's the thing. I've got a lot of great ideas as well, but you got to get really clear guys on your vision and you've got to really clear on what you want for 2016. And then you can really only pick one to three big goals. There's got to be one main goal that you put your maximum energy in. And then it's going to be maybe one or two other goals that you put energy in as well. But you can't try to do 10 things right now, especially if you don't have the

resources or the money or the team to do it. If you have limited resources, limited time, limited money, limited team, you got to focus on one to two big things and put all your energy into that. Otherwise, you're going to be doing 10 different things all half-assed and not going to get great results on any of them. So you might as well go all in with one or two big things this year. So get clear on what it is you want, why you want that. That's something I want you guys to think about. Okay, that's something I want you guys to think about. And School of Greatness Academy, if you guys are members or if you've thought about signing up, make sure to go to schoolofgreatness.com and sign up for SOGA 5.0.

It's going to kick off January 4th, and it's going to be big, all about setting 2016 up to make it your best year ever. So for me, this year was all about prepping for the book and setting the stage for press. I've always been building relationships for the last seven, eight years for this moment, for this book. I've been doing favors for people, giving to people. And at the beginning of this year, I ramped it up even more. I was doing two episodes a week last year on my podcast. And I said, okay, I'm going to ramp it up to get more subscribers, more more listeners and keep the content on top of mind and fresh all year round leading up to the book launch. So I was doing a lot more video content. You guys noticed my YouTube channel on Facebook. I was

interviewing people and I hired a video guy to do the interviews on camera as well. So I could use that and leverage it. The podcast at the end of last year, turned two years old, and it's about to turn three years old in January coming up. So we're about a month away from the three-year mark of the podcast. I can't even believe it. It's nuts. Now, some cool things that happened. I hired some new people on my team.

For me, I've really been learning a lot from all these interviews I'm doing. I get to connect with some of the most inspiring a lot from all these interviews I'm doing. I get to connect with some of the most inspiring people in the world, and I'm so grateful. And I try to pick up one key thing from each person and apply it to my life, my health, my relationships, my business, and apply it and use it. And for me, I started doing weekly staff meeting calls. So every Monday, I started doing calls. And I realized that before it was kind of like scattered. We were just on email. Some of them are virtual. Some of them are local. And I said, you know what? We got to connect at least on the phone once a week.

So I started connecting with my team once a week and really leading a 15, 20-minute kind of gratitude session, gratitude and intention session. What are we most grateful for? And what are we creating this week that we're excited about? And that was about the format each time. And for me, I felt it really valuable to connect with my team on that level. So if you're an entrepreneur who's thinking about expanding your team, make sure you find a way, whether it's a Google Hangout or a phone call or something where you connect at least once a week for 20, 30 minutes. I think it's going to be really powerful and let everyone go around, especially if you have a team that's under 10 people.

Allow everyone to go around and just connect about what they're grateful for, what your intention is this week. Make sure to cover any things that you need to cover and stay connected. I felt like it was very powerful for me to do that. I also brought on a few new people, a few new hires. I brought on a COO that's really been helping me manage my team a lot better because I realized I was spending a lot of time managing my team as opposed to doing what I do best, which is coming up with the ideas and creating content and building relationships and doing the interviews

and doing the business deals. I felt like I was getting a little overwhelmed when I was bringing on more people and then I was the one managing them as well. So I brought on a COO who's a buddy of mine. He's been a buddy of mine for a long time and he's done an incredible job. Brought on some customer support. We brought on a bunch of agency teams, some Facebook ads, book marketing, PR, design teams. We brought on a bunch of other teams kind of outside of in-house. And that was great as well to be able to expand but not have them full-time in-house. So a lot of great things with my team and my business that I learned that I've continued to grow. And I've got a long way to grow to become where I really want to get to in my business. But it was a great, great growth, great learning experiences, lots of great lessons there.

But I recommend next year doing a once-a-week call, even if it's for 20 or 30 minutes on Mondays, to, again, talk about gratitude and intention for the week. A cool moment, I got to salsa dance with Julianne Hough, world champion ballroom dancer. That was pretty cool. Julianne Hough, who's the host, not the host, but one of the judges on Dancing with the Stars. Got to connect with a lot of great people on the podcast. I mean, so many powerful people. Jack Canfield to Ariana Huffington interview to so many great people that we had on.

Alanis Morissette just came on recently. Some incredible people. I mean, the names go on and on and on. And when I look back at my stream of all the people I've interviewed, I'm like, wow, there's just been a wealth of information and knowledge that have come through this podcast this year. You know, Neil Strauss, seven-time New York Times bestselling author. Phil Rosenthal, a guy who created Everybody Loves Raymond, you know, so many, John Maxwell to John Chu, who, you know, is director of multiple movies in Hollywood to, you know, people, reality stars like Josh Altman, right?

Burt Jacobs, who has a hundred million dollar brand, Life is Good brand to all these incredible health leaders and relationship leaders and business leaders. Casey Neistat, a big YouTube star and movie director. So many cool people from Laird Hamilton talking about breathing and extreme sports to Gabby Reese, his wife. Eric Thomas, right, from one of the most inspiring guys on YouTube right now. So many great people. Olympic gold medalist to, you know, Tom Bilyeu from Quest who runs a billion dollar brand. You know, the list goes on and on and on. And I'm just so grateful for all the people that said yes, that committed to saying yes.

You know, Gretchen Rubin, number one New York Times bestselling author. saying yes, you know, Gretchen Rubin, number one New York Times bestselling author. So many inspiring people that gave their wisdom, that taught me and taught all of us how to live a great life. You know, Rob Bell, spiritual pastor, who is, you know, one of my favorites as well, who came on and just blew the lights off me, right? So many great people. And it's been an honor. It's been a privilege being able to facilitate these interviews and these questions and facilitate education for everyone listening. So it's been incredible. You know, I also got to go to Asia. I went to Asia for the first time on a Pencils of Promise advisory board trip and built another school this year.

And for me, it continues to be reminded by everyone I interview the power of giving back, the power of giving back. And if you're not giving back in your business and in your life yet, figure out a way in 2016, what am I going to do to give back this year? What am I going to do to give something? What am I going to create? What am I going to do to give something? What am I going to create? What am I going to add value to beyond my business, giving service to the world? So think about that in your life. And I'm going to continue building another school this next year. And I'm going to

Ghana doing another advisory board trip. So I'm very excited to continue to explore different parts of the world and see how people live and how they view things differently and see what I can pick up. You know, everything I do is a learning experience and it's an education for me. And I want to continue to be a part of a school of greatness where I'm learning every single day from other people and experiences in life. You know, I got to give one of my, uh, you know, a speech at world domination summit. I remember when world domination summit started, I think it was five years ago. So much people, so many people talked about this event and how inspiring it was and how, you know, these great speakers were on stage. And I remember thinking

to myself, I'm never going to buy a ticket to that event until they asked me to speak in this year, they asked me to speak. And so I said, I got to do something that I've never talked about before if they asked me. And I opened up about, you know, my sexual abuse experience as a kid and really being a vulnerable man and what it means to be a vulnerable man in today's age, talking about pulling back the mask of masculinity, taking it off and showing yourself fully authentic for who you are and everything you've done. And so for me, that was a powerful experience in front of almost 3000 people talking about that in public for the first time. So cool. And it made me think about, you

know, some of the work I want to be doing in the future and how I want to be impacting men and women for that matter with that topic. So that was a great experience. In 15 years, I've probably had my cell phone on me every single day for 15 years since I got it. And I decided that enough was enough. I needed to take a digital detox. I was inspired by my friend Baratunde Thurston, who essentially took a 30-day no social media detox. And I said, I got to go somewhere

and not even take my phone or computer. So I went to Hawaii for four days, Kauai, the island, and I left my phone and computer at home. And it was terrifying the first day. I forgot what, I didn't write down the information for my rental car. So I was like going from rental car place to car place to like ask if my reservation was there. I didn't know how to get directions. I was like pulling over the side of the road, asking people old school how to get to certain places. And then I would get lost and ask people again at gas stations. And it was just a great experience. It was so freeing. You know, I was in the ocean, laying there in the ocean all the days, looking up and not wondering who was texting me and not wondering what I need to post and how do I need to stay consistent.

I just allowed myself to be free. And that was a great lesson for me. And next year, I'm going to do the same thing. I'm probably going to do it twice next year for five to seven days, a really long weekend or a week where I go no phone, no computer somewhere and disconnect so that I can reconnect to nature, to people, to my values, to my mission. And I urge you to take a digital detox next year. Try it for a few days. Then we had the book launch and the book tour. And man, everything was building up to the book launch and the book tour. Again, everything I did was strategic to get ready to launch this book. And the goal was number one, New York times.

And I was like, man, this is going to be tough because I don't have the audience of the Tim Ferris and the Gretchen Rubens. My blog doesn't get a million downloads a month or 2 million downloads a month like these people. So I'm going to have to really be strategic and think creatively. So I was doing everything, Periscope launch this year, and I was doing daily Periscope sessions, selling books two months prior to my book launch.

I was setting up the whole game plan, which I'm going to do an episode here soon that kind of recaps the entire launch and everything that I did, what worked, what didn't work, how many sales, all that stuff. And we did the launch, right? We did the launch. We got tons of press. That first week I was on like every Fox show there was. I mean, I was hustling like a madman, leveraging every relationship to get on Fox, to get on TV, to get on radio, to get on Periscopes, to get on Instagram, YouTube shows, anything I could think of. I got the cover of Experience Life magazine. My first

physical cover of a magazine was just out this last month. And that was a cool experience. So there's so many things. Then I did a 15 city book tour all around the country. I also went to Canada for a city in Montreal, and that was an incredible experience connecting with people one-on-one, feeling the passion and the love from so many listeners. You know, if you're listening now and you came out in the tour, thank you, thank you, thank you. And for all the people that asked me to come to other cities that I know wanted to meet up, you know, I almost died doing 15 cities in five weeks, so I apologize. I did my best to get everywhere I could, and I'd love to continue traveling next year towards the end of next year to do more of those because I love doing these Q&As, these workshops, these speeches, and these events.

It was a blast. It makes me want to go be out in person even more and connect with all of you. And then we hit the goal. The goal was number one, New York time bestseller. We hit number two for the entire month. So we didn't hit the exact goal, but I'll tell you what guys, it felt really great to even make the list and to get that high and to beat out some big names like Elizabeth Gilbert that, that week and to, you know, urban Meyer, the coach of Ohio State football, which I'm a big fan of. I beat him out. There were so many people, celebrities that I beat out in the book

ranking. It was just a great experience. It was a great gift to know that collectively with a vision, I was clear on my vision, what I wanted, and I rallied the troops. I did everything I could to get my audience, you guys, to support and buy books. I got all my friends who were influencers to help promote it. So many people stepped up to support. It was a lot of fun. I also learned about who my real friends were during that time. When we really want something and need something, and we ask for support, and people commit to something, and then they don't follow through follow through and they give some excuse and they just never actually do it.

I actually learned, you know, who I can rely on and who, you know, I can't rely on as much. And so that was interesting for me to experience that as well. You know, when I thought everyone was going to support me, there were some people that said they would and committed to it. And then I didn't hear from, you know, multiple occasions. said they would and committed to it. And then I didn't hear from, you know, multiple occasions. So it's kind of interesting to, to learn about myself and how to connect with people and what people say and what they actually do. It was interesting. Then I went to someone at sea. This was a conference I went to years ago, a cruise ship or some of the most influential

and inspiring people in the world. I went to that during my book launch, which was great because I met incredible people, but I was also exhausted and I got sick for like the next week on my book tour after that. So it was a whole lesson in like making sure if I'm going to go all out in the playoff mode that I got to sleep. I got to sleep. Otherwise I'm going to get sick. And that was a good lesson there for me that, uh, you know, I hit my threshold. The podcast. The podcast, so far this year, we've done 8 million downloads. You know, it's almost 12 million downloads. It's about 11.7 right now, 11.7 million downloads. And we did almost 8 million downloads this year.

So the downloads have been going up like crazy this year. And just it's insane, the growth. downloads this year. So the downloads have been going up like crazy this year. Um, and just, it's insane. The growth, you know, the first two years, only like 4 million downloads in the 8 million in the third year. So it's really cool to see the growth. You know, it's, uh, it's been in the top 50 multiple times. I think it's been in the top 20, a handful of times. I think it got as low as like 22 for a few days and stayed in the top 20 a handful of times. I think it got as low as like 22 for a few days and stayed in the 20s for a while, especially around the book launch because so many episodes I was on and everyone else's podcast. Then it was in the top 50 a number of times and it's been consistently in the top 100 many, many months. So it's been in the top

in the health category. It's been number one in health for, you know, many weeks throughout the year. And it kind of goes up and down in the top three, top four, things like that. But it's been consistently at the top, which is really cool because it tells me that you guys are listening. You guys are promoting. You guys are sharing. You're leaving reviews. And the word is getting out there. People want to be great.

They want to listen to these type of interviews. So it's a great confirmation. And for me, I want to quadruple this in 2016. I want to figure out a way to quadruple the views, the downloads, the traffic for the podcast. That's the vision for next year. And I'm working on that. And, you know, I'm working on some big interviews.

I've got some big dreams for people I want to interview next year. I want to interview Tom Brady. I want to interview Giselle, who I just recently met both of them at a Patriots game, and it looks like that might be happening in the new year sometime. I want to interview The Rock. I want to interview Will Smith. I want to interview some of the most inspiring people. Jim Carrey.

People have created incredible careers and done it through inspiration, come from nothing and created incredible results from an idea, from a dream. I want to interview some of those people. So if you know some of those people or know their agents or things like that, reach out to me, email me at my website, lewishouse.com on my contact form and let me know. I'd love to get the support from you guys if you can help me with that because I think that we could create some great content with those individuals. That's in a nutshell, a year in review. And so many things happened in between, you know, lots of incredible things have happened, but that's just kind of like the brief overview. And I wanted to just connect with you and say, thank you. It's been an incredible year.

I'm going to be doing a recap here soon from the entire book launch and really how I launched New York Times bestseller and everything that worked and didn't work. So if you're interested in hearing that, then make sure to stick around, you know, because that's going to come out in the next couple of weeks. And then we're going to get back to things as usual starting next year. You know, this is the holidays right now. It hasn't been as frequent recently because I've been spending some quality time with family, but we're going to get back into it in January. And I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do, how many posts I'm going to do, how much video

I'm going to add. I'm still figuring that out. So if you guys have a recommendation, if you guys have a suggestion, in the first year, I did one episode a week. Second year, I did two episodes a week. Third year, I did two interviews on Monday, Wednesday, and then on Friday, I did a five-minute inspiration. And so many of you have loved the five-minute Fridays. So thank you for listening and your feedback there. What do you guys want to hear for the next year? Do you guys want the same format of Monday, Wednesday interviews, and then Friday, five-minute Friday?

Do you want more interviews? Do you want less interviews? Do you want more solo rounds from me? Do you want less from me, more from me? What do you guys want? Do you want more business, health, relationship, inspiration? Share with me what you want. Leave a comment on this page in the show notes.

Again, it's lewishouse.com slash 268. Let me know what you want for next year, what you're thinking, what you're feeling, who you want on. Leave a suggestion of who you want on. If you have a contact as well, let me know if you have that in the comment section at lewishouse.com slash 268. This is everything I do is for you guys. I want to continue to build this out to support and serve you to the best of my ability.

So thank you guys from the bottom of my heart for everything that you do to support the School of Greatness podcast, for making it what it is, for giving it legs, for sharing the message. I couldn't do this without you. And it means the world to me. Thank you guys so much. I'm super pumped. Again, check out and leave a comment, please, at lewishouse.com slash 268. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great Outro Music