The School of Greatness - 273 8 Mindset Principles of Champions with Aubrey Marcus

Episode Date: January 6, 2016

"Who is in control of your mind? You are." - Aubrey Marcus If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes and more at http://lewishowes.com/273

You know, people say, oh, it's not your choice. These things happen. You're this way because of this reason, you know, and they rob us of our birthright, which really is choice. This is episode number 273 on the eight characteristics of champions with Aubrey Marcus. 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. Welcome everyone to this episode. I'm very excited. My friend Aubrey Marcus has graced us with his time to come on and share some of his wisdom. Now Aubrey is the CEO and founder of Onnit.com, which has been a sponsor of mine and a big supporter of mine as an athlete. But also they've sponsored the show, The School of Greatness, from the early days.

And he has just been a great friend. We work out together. We hang out together. I see him in Austin when I'm out there. He comes out to LA. We'll go hang out on the beach or just go out to dinner and get some sushi. And it's always great to connect with him. He's got a brilliant mind in business, but a great philosophical mind as well.

And he hangs out with champions all day long. He's got a fitness company and he's constantly training and hanging out with champions. So I thought this would be a great one to get ready and an early one in the year, because I know that so many of you want to become a champion in your own life. I know you want to be a champion in your business, in your relationships. You want to have great teams around you and you want to win in your life, whatever that is. You want to be successful. You want to be great. I know that's why you're here. You want to learn these things. So I asked Aubrey, I said, hey, put together your top eight characteristics of champions that you witness every single day from these top extreme athletes and break it down so

we can apply it in our own lives, whatever we want to apply it to in our lives. So in this episode, we break down the eight characteristics of champions, how we get into a serious relationship with our body. What are the three or four rituals that most champions do in their daily life? How do you cultivate a 100% belief in yourself? Because I know a lot of you are always wondering, how do you believe more in yourself? We're going to talk about that in Aubrey's new book that he's working on. We're going to dive in a little bit about the philosophy of his new book.

I think you guys are going to love this one. Make sure to share it out with your friends because this is going to be powerful and it's going to be very useful and helpful for so many people. And again, the show notes will be at lewishouse.com slash 273 if you want to share that link out right now. Without further ado, let's dive into this episode with the one, the only, Aubrey Marcus. What's up, everyone? Welcome back to the School of Greatness podcast. Very excited about today. I've got my man, Aubrey Marcus, in the house. How's it going, brother? What's going on, my man? How are you? Doing good. You're out here for a month in L.A. writing your book.

Yep. Right? And let's talk about what it is, the overall principle of your book. That's probably not going to come out for a year, but I'm excited to always learn about these things. Yeah, it'll be a little while. I mean, basically, what the book is about is about finding your ideal future, your very own, not what society says, not what everybody says. Oh, you got to be rich and you got to have this and you got to do this. What is your ideal future? You know, like what do you really want? And then all the tools you need to both see that and find it, then the tools you need to train for it so

that you're ready to actually follow that path. And then the resistance that you'll encounter once you're walking that path and the demons that'll come up in your own mind, the internal and external forces that you're going to have to battle against. So it's kind of like a personal guide to get to your ideal future. I love it. That's cool, man. This is stuff that I love talking about. So for sure, we both geek out on stuff like that. Exactly. We'll have you come back on whenever that comes out. Hell yeah, I'd love to. To talk about that. But for those that don't know who Aubrey is,

he's the founder of Onnit, and it's been a sponsor of mine for essentially three years, so thanks for supporting the show. For sure, man. A lot of people on the tour were like, I love taking Onnit supplements and products, so people love you. And it's all about total human optimization,

and that's what the show is about. You've got some new, cool products out. One that's called Instant AlphaBrain, right? Yep. You want to tell people what that is? Yeah. So our flagship product is our clinically studied brain supplement called AlphaBrain. And we basically took that out of the capsules and put it into a really, really good tasting actually drink mix so that

you don't have to take the capsules. It dissolves instantly and then absorbs much quicker than the capsules. Just put it in water, right? Just put it in water and you have a drink that's not only tastes good, but it's going to activate your neurotransmitters and show all the, you know, clinical benefits that our regular alpha brain did, which is memory, focus, processing speed, all things we showed in double-blind placebo-controlled studies. So it's definitely a cool product and a cool way to get probably my favorite supplement, what I got right here in this water bottle as I'm here for the school of greatness because I got to be in my own greatness here, Lewis, and Alkabrain helps me get there. There you go. And if you guys

want to check that out, you also have a new quiz. I like this. You were telling me about it. What's this quiz that people can take? Yeah. We have so many products that can help optimize your life and a lot of information as well on the Onnit Academy, but especially with the products, it can get confusing. What should I take? What's the most important thing? So we developed a self-optimization assessment. So you go through and you really try and narrow down to what's the most important things that you want to improve about yourself. So the quiz kind of guides you to that and then guides you to the products and the advice that can help you the most. What you should be doing for your body, your mind, or whatever it may be to optimize your

life. I like it. And that's a free quiz, right? Free quiz. Yeah. Check it out. So if you guys go to onnit.com slash Lewis, Aubrey said he'd put the quiz up there and you can check out everything else.

Again, onnit.com slash Lewis. So take the quiz. Let, and you can check out everything else, again, onnit.com slash Lewis. So take the quiz. Let me know what you think, and we'll have it all linked up here on the show notes afterwards. Today we're talking about the principles or characteristics or attributes of champions. And I asked Aubrey to come on since he was here for the month, I said, hey, let's do a podcast about champions mindset because I want everyone listening to have the right frame of mind and rituals and habits going into this year. It's a brand new year, and I want you guys to be set up for success, to be a champion in your own life, whatever that looks like for you in every area of your life.

Aubrey works with Aubrey and Onnit. They sponsor a lot of the top MMA fighters in the world of the UFC. But do you sponsor other fighters outside of the UFC or is it mostly UFC? Mostly the UFC. I mean, mixed martial arts is where we have our foothold. Of course, the partnership with Joe Rogan is pretty significant. But there's some other fighters, some boxers and kickboxers and different people that we support as well. Who are the main UFC fighters you support?

Well, we had a long-term relationship with TJ Dillashaw and then kind of more behind the scenes, we're supporting just really countless fighters, you know, who have maybe other endorsement deals that are paying them big money. But when it comes to what they're actually putting in their body, it's on it stuff. Like even Carlos Condit, who had an amazing fight last night, you know, we support him in every way possible with training and supplements and different things. And so there's a lot of fighters beyond what we show on our page that we're supporting and we're just interfacing with on a daily basis. Right.

But you're always around these guys. You see them training, you see what they go through and you were with TJ, TJ Dillashaw is his name, right? You were with him for, he's been with you for a year or two, right?

A couple of years. Yeah. Yeah. He had to make a business decision to, to move out to Colorado and do a few things, but TJ's family, you know, he was training with a business decision to move out to Colorado and do a few things. But TJ's family. He was training with you.

Yeah, and using all our supplements. I don't want to call him out here, but I would be very doubtful if that was ever going to change, no matter what's on his shorts. Right, right, exactly. So, yeah, not only him, but it's not only the fighters. He's a champion, too. Yeah, he's the bantamweight champion, defended it. He actually was one of the largest upsets before Holly Holm defeat Ron Rousey. He was one of the largest upsets to win the belt.

He was like an 8-1 underdog against Henning Rau. So I'll tell a bit of that story in there. And he's defended it since twice. Wow, that's pretty big. And that really makes you the champion. You can't just win it. You've got to defend it as well. But the company was founded with a champion, Bodie Miller as well,

who's been one of my longtime friends and one of the most decorated skiers in U.S. men's alpine history. Olympic gold medalist. World champion several times over. Yes. So a lot of these principles, you know, I've been around champions in many, many sports and man, you can learn a lot from these guys. You know, I never tire of hanging out. I don't care what you're a champion of. You'd be a champion of hopscotch. I tire of hanging out. I don't care what you're a champion of. You can be a champion of hopscotch. I'm going to listen. I'm going to pull up a seat, and I'm going to listen to what you've got to have to say

because there's going to be something that I can learn and absorb. Aren't you working with the champion racquetball player too? Kane Wasilentuk, yeah. We'll talk about him. Isn't he like hasn't lost in 10 years? Yeah, he's the most dominant athlete I think in any sport. He hasn't lost a match in. Yeah, he's the most dominant athlete in any sport. You know, he hasn't lost a match in seven years. How is that possible?

He's so much better than everybody. And I'll tell this story too. Even the best, the second best can't even get close. Yeah, he's so much better than everybody. He can't even practice with people because it would only make him worse. It would only make him worse. He practices by himself against the wall. What?

And I'll talk about that. And number five, when I talk about the champions that have rituals, he has a practice ritual because he just can't train with other people. He's too far ahead. Because the thing is, whenever we play games and you're a competitive athlete, basketball, what other sports do you play? Basketball was primary, but I played everything. Volleyball, martial arts.

You know basketball as much as I do. Whenever we played against teams that are worse than us, we played down their level. For sure. And we play against teams who are better than us, we played down their level. For sure. And we play against teams who are better than us, we'd play like out of our minds. Yep. And so, you know, as this guy, the racquetball player, it's like he can't afford to play down ever. No, iron sharpens iron. Exactly.

You know, that's the classic rule in mixed martial arts and many other sports. And if you're in there with a rock and you're a samurai sword, you sword, there's only one way that that's going to go. You got to iron sharpens iron. Amazing. So you came up with eight core principles of champions from all the lessons you've learned from working with these top athletes. I looked it over beforehand, so we're going to go back and forth on this to kind of talk about it. But I'm excited about this because I think everyone could benefit from this. So let's, we're going to talk in descending order. Is that right? Yeah, we're going to go up leading up to

number one. Okay. And it's a loose order, but I do think that number one is the most important. So we are building towards something. At least one of them is set in the right order. Exactly. Okay. So these are the eight characteristics of champions. And number eight, what do you got? And this is something, number eight is something that really, you know, talking with you is something that, you know, we both know is incredibly so I think it's good to mention that right off the bat because all you see these, these names and lights, and then you don't often see the dynamic that happens behind them. And when that team is faulty, you know, that's when you see these champions fall. Messing with your mind, messing with your habits, everything. Exactly. Yeah. And it could be your domestic team. It could be who's in your, you know, nuclear family. It could be your coaches.

It could be all of that spouse. Exactly. And I think we saw, I think we saw a little bit of that and not to throw anybody under the bus, but we saw a little bit of that with, uh, Rhonda Rousey in her last fight when she lost the Holly home, which was kind of the fight that was heard all around the world at that point, because Rhonda is a great champion, has a lot of these attributes of a great champion, but there were some holes in her team. Her head trainer was going through bankruptcy right at the moment when she was in her final training camp. And then you listen to him in the corner and he's given really questionable advice saying, oh, you got this champ, you're doing the right thing, when he should have been going, whoa, change strategy here. Holly is too good on the feet.

So the team really let her down in a lot You know, Holly is too good on the feet. So the team really let her down in a lot of ways in that fight. And you see the results. Contrary, you see someone like, you know, TJ Dillashaw, who we mentioned and his trainer, Dwayne Ludwig, who's one of the best striking coaches in the universe. And you see how they work together and how TJ kind of latched on to him as his primary mentor and just absorbed all of that information, has a solid support team around him. But then we'll see now because TJ's moved away from his former team, Team Alpha Male, and he has a huge fight coming up against Dominic Cruz without that team structure. So we'll be able to see, is that going to affect him or is he strong enough just with his coach to make it happen. But all athletes, all business people, anybody who's a champion, they have a good team.

Yeah. I mean you can't be an entrepreneur and build past seven figures really on your own. No. It's kind of hard. Unless you're like a phenom that's just getting like, I don't know, $100,000 speaking gigs a pop and you do 12 of those a year or whatever, then you're making more than that. But if you really want to build something and build a movement on it, you couldn't have done this on your own. You've got a team of however many employees now and you're growing every year and you're adding new elements to the team to continue to grow and become a champion in your niche, in your field, to make champion products,

things like that, champion information. Otherwise, it would be average. Absolutely. And it wouldn't be high quality. Yeah, I mean, it started with the founding team, Joe Rogan, Bodie Miller, both champions, you know, in their own right. So you start with that, and then you start to build your own internal champion team, you know, and we've just been improving that. We've got 85 employees now. Right. employees now. And you start to find the champions in their particular niche, the general counsel,

the marketing, chief marketing officer, the graphic designer, the chief technical officer, all of these people come into play. And when you get champions all in their own right, that's when you can really take it to the next level. I was having Josh Bozzone on a few weeks ago. And he talked about how for years, he was making like eight to 10 million a year in his company for like 10 years and then all of a sudden he jumped up to 100 million in one year when he decided to do a few things different and he said i hired the best a players i could find and i didn't look for them in my city i found them all over the country and we work remote so he said i looked for talent they didn't need to move here if they didn't want to, but I just needed to have the best players. And he said, it's hard to win the Super Bowl with JV athletes.

Totally. Yeah, and when you're looking for these people, if you are in that position, where do pro teams look for their players? Well, they look to the minor leagues. They look to somebody doing the same thing, maybe at a slightly different scale, or they look to parallel teams and they trade for those players. You know, I think all too often we run the risk

of saying, oh, this person's interesting. He could be this thing, or she could be this thing. And sometimes that works out. Sometimes you get lucky. You know, I have a few examples of that, but more often than not, the people who are going to be great are already great somewhere else doing something very, very similar. And that was something that, you know, Tucker Max, actually, when I was out to eat with him, that was something he really impressed upon me. And that's helped me in my hiring practice. That's for sure. Yeah.

So team is important. Get a great team this year. Make sure you don't do it all on your own, whether it's your health, your relationships, your business. Make sure you're building a quality team. And you don't need to build a team that fast. It can be one person at a time. Make sure you go at your own pace, but build a team around your vision and your goals. That's what champions do. They find the right team. So that's principle number eight. Principle number seven. Yeah. Principle number seven is champions are in a serious relationship

with their body. And I say a serious relationship because I think we often have turbulent and casual relationships with our body, you know, where it's sort of like an arm's length gentle truce where we don't really trust our body. Our body doesn't really trust us. We don't really know, like, what the hell's going on today? I don't know. I'm tired. This thing is going on. demand performance on all aspects and they demand like unified performance from their but their body's got to support what their mind is doing no matter what's going on and their mind has to support what their body's doing right so i've noticed with these champions they know their body

it's like it's like that long-term 25 year you know relationship where these people know each other inside and out and champions have that relationship with their body. And I noticed that when I started hanging out with Bodie Miller. And Bodie Miller, you know, he does all of the different tests. He'll test his lactate level. He'll check his ketone level. He'll check his heart rate. But he's done that so many times that he's like a human biometric.

He's like, yeah, you know, I'm pushing lactate numbers around. I'm like, what are you talking about, dude? I'm just gasping for like yeah you know i'm pushing lactate numbers around like eight i'm like what are you talking about dude i'm not just gasping for air you know and he's like yeah i've been in this you know heart rate band of about you know 200 to 220 for this which is optimal for this and he just knows his body that way like he knows when it's time to go on a ketotic diet and do do this kind of he does like a ketotic cleanse every now and then. And he's just so amazingly in tune with his body that it actually allows him more slack than a lot of other people because he likes to party. He likes to hang out too. I mean, that's part of the Bodie Miller legend. But he knew his body so well.

He knows when he can push his body in all aspects. He knows when he can take time off and when it's time to go because he just has that kind of relationship where he can ask his body, like, we're going to be all right here? Like, how much sleep do I need, body? And body would be like, well, man, I mean, six would be great, but if you got four, we'll do it. And he's like, okay, body, I got you. So they have that kind of intimate relationship. How can we start understanding how to have that relationship with our own bodies? What can we do? What tests? On a basic level, so we feel like we have a general understanding, maybe some of these extreme things we won't be able to do right away. What can we do? Well, it depends on your field.

If you're an athlete, yeah, lactate numbers are going to be important, knowing your heart rate, knowing these different thresholds, but knowing different central nervous system markers and things like that. But for most of us, it's going to get a lot more simple, like knowing what creates those energy resources, what causes the brain fog. You know, so really understanding on a fundamental level how the input equals the output, what you're putting in your body, what kind of foods. You know, paying attention to like when you have that kind of foggy, tired feeling, diagnose it. Like, okay, what did I do? What was different? Was my sleep different? Was my food intake different? into like when you have that kind of foggy tired feeling diagnose it like okay what did i do what was different was my sleep different was my food intake different did i eat something that perhaps

caused the inflammation which then traveled into my bloodstream and is clogging up my brain when my my digestion working too hard you know so really that's a big piece of what the total human optimization picture is it's just identifying these different correlations between the input and output in your body. And it can also be mental too, like what kind of frame of mind is best for my body because so much evidence is out there that mindset is crucial to physical health.

Yeah, and Aubrey actually has an exercise we put in the School of Greatness book. So for those listening who have the book and the chapter on mastering your body and your health, there's an exercise at the end to find out what's missing in your health to figure out how to optimize it. So you guys can also go through that chapter and that exercise and figure out what's missing in your health right now to optimize it, to take it to that next level.

Yeah, our bodies are like cars. We got to look at them more just objectively it's like your car is going off like anytime you're tired or anytime something's weird think of that like an engine light and then you're the mechanic though so you got to go fix that shit sometimes a doctor you know those are like the master mechanic but for daily maintenance it's on you buddy like you got to figure that you got to figure this shit out you got to go make sure you're putting gas in the engine the right right type of fuel. Yeah, get the right gas, the oil change. Exactly.

Doing everything you need. Everything. Yeah, all of it. I love it. I love it. Okay. So they have an extreme relationship with their body, right? Yeah, serious relationship with their body.

Okay, perfect. Number six. Yep. So number six, champions are absolutely relentless. And this is something I've noticed from a variety of champions. We live in Austin, Texas, and the world champion wake surfer, female, is there, Ashley Kidd. And Whitney's been out with her a bunch of times on the boat. Whitney's a wake surfer as well.

And one thing she said about Ashley, if she's working on a trick, she will just do that same trick relentlessly for hours and hours and hours until she gets that trick right and now what's interesting about that obviously that's relentless most of us would get bored doing that same thing over and over again it's like you hear these stories of these basketball players that just dribbled for nine hours in a row you know they're they're relentless and and for her not only is it relentless with her own time and her own patience, but you've got to imagine she has somebody that every time she messes it up has to circle the boat around, circle the boat around, pick her back up, tow her back up. And a lot of us at that point would be like, man, I can't keep doing this because this is miserable for this other person. miserable for this other person but champions know what their goal is and they you know they understand that if they have a good team once again going back to a good team that team will support them so if you're shooting hoops you know you got that person that will rebound for you

until your arms exhausted and their fingers are bloody from grabbing the ball like you have the team that'll support that and you're not afraid to utilize that you're not afraid to utilize your resources to the most because you got to be relentless i used to run so many routes in the summer and just go hours and hours until it was dark yeah you know throwing 40 having someone throwing 40 yard darts down the field until their arm fell off and uh that's kind of when you go to until they can't throw anymore yeah you know that's like your limitation you got to find another quarterback to step in exactly it's just this relentless mindset. I know, you know, Jason Ellis is another good friend and he was working on this trick and he was telling this story. He's working on this trick where he's holding onto the back of a motorcycle, right? And he's on a skateboard

and this is giant 60 foot ramp, right? Crazy. And his goal is to jump on the skateboard, then ditch the skateboard and jump on the back of the bike and land on the bike. So it's a skateboard to bike transfer. And you can look it up online. And what you see online is the success of the trick. But what you don't see is all the fails, right? And these are not minor fails because he's going 60 feet into the air.

And when he wasn't sure that he could get on the bike without tipping the bike because he didn't want to crash the bike, because then. Because then that's even more gnarly. He would just bail on the trick and then hit the ramp on his, like, flak jacket, right? Oh, man. So just slide down on his ribs. And he had, like, broken ribs, like a busted ankle. I mean, he was just falling over and over and over. But he just kept doing it.

You know, they had the cameras there. They built the ramp. And he was relentless and willing to pay the price in his own body, in his own everything to get that trick. I don't know if you saw this video on Facebook probably about a month or two ago of this. It was like so miserable watching this. But also at the same time, this skateboarder who was probably not a pro, but I don't know. He seemed like he was trying to be a pro. Did the same trick on like this ramp over and over.

It was like in a sewage area where he like jumped from one skateboard to the next and he tried it i think it was like 20 something times and just saw him like hitting his head and falling over and over like screaming it was so like heartbreaking but then he finally gets it he like throws his hands in the air with victory but it's true it's like you just got to keep you got to get committed and i think i i talk about obsession people obsess about it talk about relentless it's true. It's like you just got to keep committed. And I think I talk about obsession. People obsess about it. Talk about relentless. It's like they are obsessed with doing it until they get it right. And it doesn't matter how late it is or what they have to sacrifice to make it happen. They are obsessive about making it happen. So I think it's true. And a lot of

people today talk about entrepreneurship. I get emails a lot from people saying, well, how do I make this happen? I'm not getting the results I want. It's because they're not relentless or obsessive about doing whatever it takes, gaining the skills, doing it over and over until they perfect it. They're just like, well, it didn't work. How do I make it happen? Yeah, it's like they go for the first attempt at the trick and it didn't work. Duh.

Every champion fails on the first attempt of the trick. You're trying a new move, a new dribble, a new, you know, a new shot, a new trick, a new anything. You know, you got to just stick with it. You got to understand that failure, every time you fail, you're going to learn a little bit. Right. You know, so there is no failure. This is just the education process. That's it.

You know, I love it. That's all that takes. I love it. That's number six. Okay, number five. Number five, champions have rituals. And this to me, we talked a little bit about Kane Wasilinchuk, one of the most dominant athletes,

maybe the most dominant athlete in the world in any major sport. And racquetball may not be a major sport, but it's enough of a sport to count. It's a hard sport. It's a hard sport. It's physically demanding. Yeah, and the dude just hasn't lost in seven years. And so, as I said, he doesn't have anybody that he practices against because it would only make him worse. But his ritual then, because then you would think, man, how do you even practice?

What causes him to, what does he do at that point? And he has a very specific ritual. He grabs six racquetballs, brand new. He gets as many racquetballs as he wants. It's not a matter of cost. He doesn't have a good spot to get there. So he gets six racquetballs. Brand new. He gets as many racquetballs as he wants. It's not a matter of cost. He does have good spots to get there. He gets six racquetballs. He puts on his headphones and he puts on his headband and he comes into the racquetball court. We have a racquetball court and on it. I've watched him do this. Has he been there? Oh, yeah. Many, many times. He's like,

racquetball court's going to be out for a couple hours. I don't know how long. He plays and he just hits corner shots full speed and practice serves until all six balls are popped oh my goodness he does not stop until all six balls are popped so sometimes that takes two hours you know sometimes that takes four hours but he will not leave that court until all six racquetballs are popped and that's his practice session he just comes out dripping sweat you know after and watching him just hit the same shot bang and again it goes back to relent bang corner bang corner kill kill kill same thing over and over again until all the balls have popped then he walks out big smile on his

face like all right practice is over for today it's insane man it's insane it's unbelievable you'd think other athletes in racquetball would start trying the same thing. Yeah. I mean, you know, that's the thing that separates though. Like would you be really willing to do that for four hours a day? By yourself. By yourself. There's not that much money in the sport either, you know. I mean, he's not like – he's doing well because he's the best of the best.

But, you know, you really have to want it and you really have to create some kind of ritual that will get you there. You know, you really have to want it and you really have to create some kind of ritual that will get you there. And, you know, I think a lot of athletes, every athlete has these certain rituals and certain things. I was no champion in the grand scheme by anything, any means of basketball, but I had a good career, particularly in high school and got a lot of honors. And I remember I had even a little ritual where I would not, if I touched a ball, if I touched the ball, I wouldn't leave the court until I hit three three-pointers in a row. Like I would just wouldn't do it. It was like, that was my ritual. And so what ended up happening is, you know, through sophomore and senior year, I was one of the best three-point shooters in Central Texas. That ritual created a result. And it was just like this, this thing, this code that I didn't break. And that's the beauty of these rituals. It's,

you don't have to think about it anymore.'s no mental fatigue associated with it it's like right okay now it's the three three-pointers that's what i gotta do so i can leave this court i don't care how hungry or thirsty or you know some girl i'm supposed to meet it doesn't matter i don't break the ritual exactly doesn't leave the court until the balls are busted it's crazy you know so i think that's an important attribute of a champion. What do you think are maybe three or four rituals that all champ, most champions do in their daily life that we could apply as normal human beings to get there?

Yeah. Yeah. I think you got to come up with like the most important health ritual for you, for sure. You know, like what is that thing that you, that you must do, you know, ritual for you for sure you know like what is that thing that you that you must do you know every day and you know for me that's a that's really been a focus on mineralization you know so i know that every day as a ritual i'm going to wake

up and i'm going to drink lemon water with salt you know like that's himalayan sea salt himalayan sea salt yeah to get the mineral get my mineralization and alkalization going at the start of the day. And that becomes like a health ritual. And I think all athletes will have their kind of specific thing. And all entrepreneurs, everybody who really wants performance, have something where they know that that's how they're going to get things going. Okay. So that's one.

That's one, I would say. Health. And I think there's certain practice rituals that all of them have. Okay. So that's that you do every day i think is pretty crucial um but you know honestly i could do more myself with rituals so i'm wondering you know if you have some some insight into some of the rituals that you do i make with a bed every morning yeah for me that's like a must yeah for my mind and like clearing the space energetic accomplished i heard that's like accomplishing that very first task exactly you day. It's like setting positive momentum, going to that positive lean of check one thing off the list. And then keep it going.

Yeah. I most days have like a green juice or a smoothie. Yeah. So your health. With some on it. Your health ritual. Yeah. Some hemp forest in there.

Yeah. My health ritual. And then my ritual this year, it depends what I'm training for something, but this year I'm committed to working out for at least 30 minutes every single day

and not missing two days in a row. So six days a week and not missing two days in a row. Yep. I think that's crucial. And just try and, you know, you can kind of deconstruct this

from your goal. Like what is your goal and then what rituals will help support it what are these infallible things yeah that you just don't break and you just don't think about them anymore just do it you know and it's almost like you know how much easier it is to work out with a personal trainer yeah like a ritual is a surrogate for a personal trainer because it's something that's just it's inflexible you know it's the spartan code of never retreat like it's

like this thing it's this ethos that's like oh that's the spartan code of never retreat like it's like this thing it's this ethos that's like oh that's the thing i don't i just just do it i just do it you know you just turn your mind off you zombie your mind out you go somewhere else like this is my ritual yeah and that's super super helpful because we're always negotiating with ourselves and if you take a few things off the negotiation plate it's going to be a huge event. And I think when you learn to make your ritual pleasurable as opposed to painful, then it becomes enjoyable and you don't want to miss out on it. You're like, I want to make my bed. I love the process and the details.

Or I put the music on when I do it and I, whatever, open up the blinds and it makes me feel good about myself. Something that may be painful, you turn into a pleasure. Eating broccoli every day, whatever it is, you know? Yeah. Yeah, I agree. And I think that comes with a lot of the pain comes from this kind of resistance. Like, oh man, I can't believe you're doing it. And you're kind of negotiating the whole time. Like I recently had to go to FedEx to pick up a package, you know, and it was super painful because I had to go to the office and I was thinking about all the other ways that I could get somebody from my office to get the master account number and have them deliver in this.

And if I would have just gone and just said, this is my thing. I'm doing this right now. And not negotiated constantly a thousand other ways that I could avoid this mildly painful thing. It would have been a lot more pleasurable. But instead, I drove myself crazy thinking like – You could have put a podcast on and gotten there. Yeah, exactly. So I think once – as soon as you take that negotiation piece out, that resistance,

things become a lot more pleasurable, even if they're innately not that fun. I love it. I love it. So rituals. Okay. That's number – Number five. Number five.

So number four. Number four is champions master their mind and this is now we're getting into really kind of important important attributes that i see across the board um you know and i think one of the first times i got really exposed to this was again bode miller one of my longer longer standing friends and i remember i mentioned to him one time that you know i had a song stuck in my head and he goes, oh, well, get it out, get it out of your head, get it unstuck. I was like, well, dude, that's the point. It's stuck in my head. I got a song stuck in my head. Obviously,

if I could get it out, I would. He's like, no, do it, do it now. I was like, what do you mean? Like, no, do it now. Force your mind to get that song out of your head. And he, and he stuck with it. And eventually I was able to do it. It's hard because your mind is like squirrely but for him that was like one of the ways that he trains his mind to be in complete control of that mind because whenever it's stuck on something yeah whenever these whenever these things that we think are out of our control but they're actually our own mind like a song stuck in your head well that's your mind it's stuck in your one well that's your mind it's stuck in your one put it in your head who's in control of your mind you are like really and and he he takes

that to the ultimate level and he explained it like if i'm in the starting gates and i have some thought pattern that i don't like in my head or yeah and i and i give it the power to say oh that's just in my mind for now i'm not in control i'm not going to be able to perform my best. And that could mean death. You're going 80 miles an hour down a sheet of ice. I cannot afford to have my mind running itself without me being in control of the starship. So he is one of the most extreme examples of mastering your mind and just saying, I am the driver. Especially when the stakes are that high, you've got to have your mind and just saying like, I am the driver. Yeah. You know, especially when the stakes are that high, you've got to have your mind.

No doubt. Right. The whole time, one minute thinking about something else for how long is he going down the hill? About a minute, two minutes, 80 miles an hour straight down with the curves and everything. Yeah. Race car drivers, all of these different people. One moment off, you're dead.

One moment off. Or you break your leg. Exactly. But, you know, even, even in podcasts, in podcasts, I've noticed that there'll be times where in a podcast, you could start thinking about, oh, man, what are the people thinking about this podcast now? Or where is it going? And if you allow yourself to indulge that, then you're down this squirrely rabbit hole where you're out of the moment. So you've got to harness that back in and just go mental override and just say, no, no, no, no. We're in here.

We're in the present moment. You just choose the present moment. And that's crucial for anything you're doing in a meeting. When you're writing, so many people talk about how writers block and these different exotic things that they do. But I think you really listen to people like Steven Pressfield and some of the great writers I know. It's just they just sit their ass in that seat and they write. You know, it's like, they just commit to it. All of these things in the

mind, the voice saying, oh no, do this. Maybe more coffee. Check your phone. They're like, no, no, no. Nah, bitch. I own you. I'm in charge here. And that's one of the things. Another great example of that is I ran into champion John Jones, who's a light heavyweight champion or was at least.

This guy broke his leg in the fight or whatever? No, that was Anderson Silva. John Jones, he had some legal issues when he was partying too hard and crashed and got his money. But before that, he's a great champion, hadn't lost in a long time. Austin a long time. And he was about, he's on the eve of his biggest fight ever against Daniel Cormier, who's now the current champion, uh, after John, you know, uh, let go of the belt. But anyways, right before that night, that night I was with, uh, Joe Rogan, we're eating dinner and John Jones happened to be next to us. And John comes over to talk to us and he was explaining something and he was saying, I've gone through every worst case scenario in my head.

Everything that Daniel Cormier can do to destroy me. I've seen him get on my, you know, get me on my back and grind me out. I've seen him hit me in every different way. I've seen all of the worst case outcomes and I'm okay with it. I'm at peace with all outcomes. And I remember that triggered something in my mind in my mind because the old, the samurai had a very similar approach and it came also, you know, on the Roman side, the Stoics had a very similar thing called premeditation where for, you know, for the samurai, they realized that

in battle, if they were afraid of anything, even for a moment, if they had a little bit of flinch in them, you know, that was weakness. That was an opportunity that their enemy could kill them. So they would go through in their mind all of the worst-case scenarios. You know, an arrow piercing them in the neck, a sword cutting through their belly, and their entrails spilling out onto the ground. They would go through every worst-case scenario and go through it so many times that it no longer carried the fear.

It was like watching, imagine watching a scary movie a hundred times. By the time you've watched that scary movie a hundred times, there's no flinch left. You know where, you know, when the monster's coming around the corner, you know, no matter what the music is, no matter what's going on, you've seen it. And so you're no longer afraid of it. You know, and I think that's another way that you can master your fears, which is obviously one of the greatest detriments to anybody's mind is mastering your fears. Go through. Go through all those worst case scenarios and realize that no matter what happens, you're going to be all right.

And that's going to release you from the grasp of those fears. Uncertainty, the fear of it happening. Sure. So how do you get a song out of your head? Yeah. those fears uncertainty the fear of it happening sure so how do you get a song out of your head yeah that's a it's really just boils down to choice and i think so many so many things and so many people try to relieve us of choice because when you when we get relieved of choice we're relieved of responsibility you know people say oh it's not your choice these things happen these you're this way because of this reason. And they rob us of our birthright, which really is choice.

And at the very fundamental level, getting a song out of your head is about choice. It's just choosing like, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to allow that chorus to go. No, no, no. No, no, no. And it's like training a wild dog. It's going to take a lot of time. But every time it barks, you got to jerk the choke chain, you know, and do it with love.

You know, you're not trying to be mean to your mind. You got to love your mind. It's very useful. It's a great calculator. It's great at making your personality. But, you know, you got to be a stern master that, you know, has the respect of that wily force that is your mind. And it's just about choice. I love it.

Okay. So that's number four. Number three. Number three. Well, let's recap. What's that? Mastering your mind, number four? Number four.

Champions, master your mind. Okay, perfect. Number three. Number three, champions are tough. And that's not just in games, but in practice. And I think that's an important distinction. Because we've all seen people get tough when all the lights are on and everything. tough and that's not just in games but in practice and i think that's an important distinction because we've all seen you know people get tough when all the lights are on and everything and and that's a

of course an attribute of champions but they're not just that way in the games they're that way in practice as well they're that way in training and again i gotta go back to my man bode miller who really you know to me exemplifies so many of these characteristics because I've been able to actually train with him and see what he goes through. I've seen some of the videos, yeah. And, you know, he's not one of those guys that is in shape all season long. Like, you know, I met a lot of the other skiers out there like Svendal and these other different monsters and they're constantly in shape. Bodie is not that way.

He has a clearly defined off season, you know, because he knows that when it comes time to train, he will push himself so much harder than any other human being in that is that's his competitor that he'll catch up, you know, that he'll be able to make up that ground. And then when things get really tough out on the hill, you know, when you're deep into anaerobic glycolysis, your muscles are burning and you just want to lay up a little bit instead of taking all of that G-force right on your quads anymore, you know. He's tough enough that he won't do it. And he's trained that through practice. So, I mean, I've seen him climb these steep, steep hills with like a 75-pound weight vest.

And he sprints to the death. And he sprints to the death. Like he sprints to the death. Like he, when he finishes, there's, there's absolutely nothing like retching, you know, he'll push himself so much into so much more pain than any other human being I've seen. It's just remarkable. Even if you have a coach just yelling at you, like he will go that much farther than that scenario all on his own. Wow. You know, he will just, he's willing to take that much pain. And I've noticed that with all of these different champions from fighters to everybody else, they will push themselves way deeper into that pain hole than, than anybody else that I that i know and that's what's going to yield

those amazing adaptations that the body can have so that when you need to draw on that you know when you need to rely on that last very last thing that you're pulling from the depths of your spine like come on you've trained that yeah you know you've worked that. Yeah. You know, you've worked that. And it forms this kind of toughness where, you know, in those ridiculous scenarios, you can just smile. There's a sports psychologist I've had on a couple times, Dr. Jim Afirmo. And I'm forgetting the name of his book. I think it's like Train Like a Champion or Think and Train Like a Champion, something like that. It's up on my shelf somewhere. And he talks about the whole concept

of practice as well. He says you should get up for practice like it's a game and almost come down a little bit during game time. Because sometimes when you're too high during a game, it's like you can't get in the flow. He's like, you come down a little bit game time, you get up big time during every practice like it is a game. He said that's how champions really make it happen when they get up for that. No doubt. I definitely agree. And then one of the famous things that you say in any fight camp is you make the fight camp so hard that the fight is easy.

Easy, yeah. And then you can see it in other sports too. Michael Jordan, a lot of basketball players would fade towards the end of the season because strength and conditioning had fallen off and you got all these games and you're not actually at your best you're getting ground down well jordan formed this little group we called the breakfast club where him and pippen would go in every morning of the game and weight train resistance train like that's crazy to think like you're in this skill sport where you're relying on touch you know his famous fadeaway jumper is all touch and he's lifting weights the day of

nobody was doing that, but it formed this kind of, it allowed him to keep strong throughout the season so that when playoff game time came, you know, nobody could touch him. Did he lift in the mornings during playoffs too? Yeah. Lifted every day during, during game day, you know, and that's just, it's a sign of just being tough. You know, people were, man, me on game day, I'm nervous. Exactly. I'm thinking about what I'm eating. I'm just trying to rest. Just take your mind off the game.

Yeah, he's out there just pumping iron. Wow. And that's a sign of a champion. Impressive. Okay. That's number three. Yeah. Number two, champions are great students.

And that's something that I've seen across the board, every sport, every profession, champions, they're humble and they're always ready to learn. And it doesn't matter where that source is. They're not so cocky to think that they know everything. They realize that they're still a student. They're always there to learn. And I've gotten to hang with Jonathan Taze and Duncan Keith of the Chicago Blackhawks, and they're obviously three-time Stanley Cup champions, a lot of individual awards as well. And that's one thing that really impressed me about them is they're just sponges for knowledge. We'll just sit for hours and talk about something for either mindset or health.

And they're just eager and ready to learn i don't know shit about hockey i love it right you know but i can't give them any advice there so for me they're just willing to absorb as much information as possible and they carry that along with you know the books they read and the information they're searching and same with aj hawk i was just gonna mention aj hawk was absolutely the same way it's a super super bowl champion you know he's just always learning and always ready to do that. And, you know, you see that in MMA as well. Like, you know, George St. Pierre, one of the most dominant champions of all time.

You watch the video of him where Joe Rogan's teaching him the turning side kick or the spinning back kick. I saw that video. And GSP is so interested in learning from Joe. You know, even though he's one of the greatest champions of all time, has an amazing spinning back kick. Most times you'd think, oh, this is a commentator. What is he doing teaching me that? But Joe knows that one thing really well.

And he's such a good champion that he was able to realize, I'm going to learn this from this guy. It doesn't matter that I'm a champion and he's the commentator. He's got something to teach me. And I think that's something that you see just across the board. Yeah, that's cool. I love it. And they also say in business that earners are learners. Yep. So the more you want to earn, the more you got to learn. Yep. No doubt. I mean, I'm constantly learning from every single person that I encounter,

you know, and I think if the minute you get so arrogant that you think you can't learn something from someone, you know, it all, you need to check yourself because everybody has something to teach you. Maybe it's that something that, you know, what not to do is what you're really learning, you know, but if you're observant and humble, you know, even the people who are the most aggressive online, you know, talking crap about you and attacking you, you can learn something from them. A lot of times there's some little kernel of truth that got wildly exaggerated you know sometimes it's complete nonsense and i've certainly had that but you can learn from that as well but you know a lot of times they're your best allies there's

like a little bit of a little bit of truth there a little bit of way that you did something that you could alter for the future you did something that you could alter for the future, you know, something that you could learn. And, um, so just saying like, you know, you're never out of that position of being a student. A master is always great student. I love it. That's number two. This is the final one, the big final one, the big one. And, um, this is by far the most important. And you get this right, you know, you can achieve pretty much whatever you set your mind to. And that's champions utilize belief to their advantage.

And I think, you know, in the great champions, belief becomes more than just something, oh, yeah, I believe in myself. It becomes a weapon. And I think, you know, no more can that be seen than with Conor McGregor. And it's really interesting. It's really interesting with fighters because fighters is a one-on-one contest, you know, and it's direct competition. There's not a lot of rules. There's not a lot of things in place, just the bare minimum. It's not like five on five. Yeah. And it's not like there's a ball that you're, you're, you're at war, but we're actually just trying to get balls and nets or cross lines or something like that it's a lot more like just a direct physical primal confrontation and so i think one of the things that you're doing leading up to the fights because you know who you're going to fight which is

incredibly terrifying i mean i've gotten in fights but i've never known that i was like i gotta fight this guy in this amount of time yeah is we. We're very adept at detecting other people's belief. We have great belief detectors because belief is such a powerful force in determining whether you'll be a success. As a biological evolutionary advantage, those people who could detect other people's belief certainly would have an advantage. So I think we're better at that than we realize. So when you're squaring off with someone and you have someone like Conor McGregor, whose belief in himself is at flat a hundred. Yeah. It is at flat a hundred. It's crazy.

Like there's no wiggle room. So you're coming in and let's say you're pretty good. Your belief's at 98.5. You know, you're like, you have a little bit of doubt. It's just like a little tiny little bit of doubt. But that's usually better than almost anybody you see. And then you're looking over at this guy, Connor, and you're thinking, okay, where's your 98? Where's that 2%?

Where's that 5%? Oh, shit, it's at 100. It's at 100. And then it starts to get you to question more. And then your belief number drops, and then you're down to 95. Man, you're still at 100 over there? Okay, damn. So your number starts to go down a little lower to 90 and then then the fears start to creep in and then

doubts about your performance start to creep in but connor uses that and he knows that and he uses it as a weapon and it's not only against other people he's so good at believing in himself he tells people exactly what he's going to do that's's why they call him Mystic Mac because they say, oh, against Chad Mendes, he said, within two rounds, I'm going to knock his head clean off. Well, obviously, that was an exaggeration. Nobody knocks their head clean off out of a video game. But basically, he's going to knock him out with a punch to the head, right? And what happened?

Chad got him down in some brutal positions, had him on the mat, was bouncing elbows off his head. His head was pinned to the canvas. He's bleeding. What's Connor doing the whole time? Just talking to him. He was just talking to him the whole time. Oh, is that all you got, Chad? I'm going to get up. I'm going to knock your head off. Oh, is that, you know, in his ear the whole time, his belief never wavered. So Chad's doing the very best he possibly can, crushing him ostensibly for all to see but connor's belief never wavered and then they pop up with like a minute left to go in that second round connor predicted he was going

to knock him out in the second he's talking again and what happened the ko wow you know and even in in the interviews chad's like man that guy never stopped talking the whole fight so that belief just wore him down wore him him down, wore him down until finally the skills, you know, caught up and were able to execute that. And I think, you know, getting that belief to a hundred, that's going to be hard. That's going to take a lot of hard work because you're not going to be able to believe, you know, people say, oh yeah, what if I believe I can beat my Tyson? Well, you're never going to believe that because you haven't put in the work. Right. You're not that caliber. You haven't got the results.

You haven't got the results. Close to him or whatever. Yeah. So belief is a really good belief system is supported by evidence. And then there's that little bit of Delta. There's that little bit of, I'm a little bit crazy. I believe this no matter what. And a lot of that is that mental override, that ability to tell your mind, like, I'm not going to indulge any doubt.

I'm going to do this. This is happening. This is the future. I'm going to do this. This is happening. This is the future. I am going to be a millionaire. I am going to have a bestselling book. I am going to start a company that's going to change the world. I'm going to do this. And just believing that, and it's a characteristic you see across the board from athletes, entrepreneurs, their belief is the most unwavering. And people follow that belief. If you have that belief and you want people to line up and join your team and be part of that cause, work on your belief. Do the small steps to get you that belief and then really believe that.

Yeah. I mean, think about in the politics, which I don't even care about really or follow much, but the politicians that believe in themselves and have the most confidence usually get to the last final one or two that's, you know, in the race for the presidency or whatever. Yeah. Look at Donald Trump. Like that guy's got so much belief in himself, whether you hate him or love him or whatever.

It's like he is getting the most attention in the world or in the U S I guess for the news in the world. And he just doesn't waver. He doesn't care what anyone thinks. He believes in himself that he can make it happen. Yeah. And he's building a movement around that belief and staying true to whatever it is that he believes.

So no doubt, no doubt, you know, and politicians, you know, they're, I don't have the highest respect for most politicians and I've noticed them playing games with belief.

They all say now at a certain point, it shifted in the debates. Everybody started saying, when I am president. Really? Like, if you ask them, when I am president is what they'll all say, right? Smart. But it doesn't read authentic for most of these guys because they've had someone coaching them to say that. And they don't really believe it.

Like, that's what people call the bullshit detector. You know it's like that thing's going off there's gears flying off that one yeah when ben carson is saying when i'm president when you have three percent poll ratings or whatever yeah exactly when i'm president really jeb bush really you know like i don't think so buddy yeah like you don't believe that i don't believe that what kind of game are we playing here exactly you know so you know you got to be careful. There is a little bit of that fake it till you make it, but it's got to be genuine because people will detect if you're just putting on airs. And that's that line where it becomes cocky. Like Ronda Rousey. Yeah, cocky.

She was super cocky and talking trash in a negative way. It's hiding some kind of insecurity. Then that insecurity was probably that, shit, my team may not be really that good. Or maybe she can beat me. Or maybe she was a better striker. Maybe there are matchups that are different. And the great thing is this gives an opportunity for her to learn. And I have immense faith in Ronda because she is a great champion.

But she'll figure it out. And she does have some good people on her team. Mike Dolce is on her team. So she's got some good pieces to that. She's just gotta, you know, sort out these other pieces and, you know, a great champion will adapt. And, you know, I think that's obviously there's a lot of other things that we could add on there, but another thing is great champions adapt, you know, like you put them in uncomfortable situations, they'll figure it out. And a lot of that is belief, belief that, oh, this is a weird spot. I'm in like Conor McGregor. Oh, this is bad. I have a, you know, partially torn knee and I'm on my back and this dude is bouncing elbows off my head and I have blood trickling on my face.

Not optimal. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. It's all part of the plan wow you know so i i think that's important and you just adapt and you get up and and you figure out the way to do it you know belief leads and then you know you just have to have faith that you'll find a way yeah i love it is rana gonna come back and fight again yeah i think i'm sure she will you know i i think she's uh she's such a great champion in both not only MMA but in judo prior. Yeah. That she'll be back. She'll find a way.

But it's, you know, this creates the drama. You know, it's just one of the reasons why the sport is so compelling. And what about when you do lose? Because there's some champions that fight back and get back to that place of belief. But other champions don't have, can't get the belief back when they lose that big. Yeah. That's something you see very, very common. I mean, you could even see it with Tyson. I mean, Tyson was that belief machine. His belief was so strong. He was so scary that people believed that they were going to get knocked out. Sometimes even

grazing blows would knock people out. He would barely touch them. They were so, oh, Tyson hit me. His glove touched my head. That means I'm going out amazing you know so so it worked such a weapon but then you know buster douglas beat him you know even though there was that questionable standing standing eight count ten count or whatever um but he beat him and then from there things got a little squirrelier that belief instead of being at 100 was down somewhere in the 90s and then there was a gap and then other people had belief you know and then that's a difficult thing to recover from but a great champion will you know once again realize that all outcomes are possible but i believe 100 that this is going to happen and being okay with the fact that if you believe 100 and you're wrong oh i was wrong that's cool i learned some things that's why you, you know, and, and, and being

humble about that, that loss, like, it's not like I have to be this to be the champ. I have to win every time I have to be at a hundred to be the champion. You know, it's just like, how do I get back there? How do I get back to this state where I really believe my best? And it's not that they don't have fears or don't have doubts, but they work through them like John Jones did. They get to that point where, you know, for John to have his belief where it was for that fight, he had to indulge all of these fears and he had to indulge all of these doubts and not push them away like, ah, fears and doubts, that's going to take me down. No, no, no. Go into that. Like push towards those resistances, push towards those obstacles. You know, like Ryan's book will tell you like, oh, what's the obstacle. You know, like Ryan's book will tell you.

Like, oh, what's the obstacle? You know, go through the other side of that. Don't be afraid of that. Yeah. That's what's going to build your belief. Sure. I love it. Well, a couple of final questions before we get into them.

You got a new site coming out yourself? Yeah. Just completely redid AubreyMarcus.com. So there's a bunch of cool different things on there. Some binaural beats which is a cool technology helps with brainwave entrainment so it can get you into like deep meditation or hyper focus just from these auditory cues um got a guided meditation up there now so you know meditation is one of those things it's really hard for people to get into because it's

like going someplace you've never been before without a map. You're like, what the hell? Just not think about things for a while. Like, I don't get it. So a guided meditation has really helped me. And I put together some of the best, you know, best techniques that I've found from a variety of different sources, put it together in one that's free on the site and just, you know, different information and videos, podcasts, the whole thing. So yeah, definitely check out aubreymarks.com. Cool. We'll have that linked up. Um, also check out on it.com slash Lewis to check out the quiz and all the other products that on offers. And I don't know if I asked you this the last time you came on, you came on, it was like probably a

year and a half ago or something, right? Yeah, it was. Wow. So last three final questions. Um, ago or something, right? Yeah, it was. Wow. So last three final questions. Um, one is what are you most grateful for recently? Oh man, I've had, I've been more filled with gratitude recently than ever in my life, you know, and it's, everything has come together. It's so, I would have to say I'm grateful for the universe, just grateful for this opportunity to apply knowledge and skills and and to play in this grand video game you know it's like we all got together and put together the most awesome video game possible you know and it's a video game that's so cool that in the video game we can create other video games that are actually video games you know it's like it's just this amazing amazing experience here and i get to lead this beautiful company with 85 beautiful people that I show up at work with.

I got a beautiful partner, amazing friends. I mean, I'm just so grateful for everything. And it's one of the things that really, you know, inspires me to do what I do is just absolute gratitude. Love it. Second question is, if you had three things you could write down, it's your last day and everything you ever created was erased from time. All your work, your podcast was gone. The new book you have coming out, gone. And there's a piece of paper that said, Aubrey's three truths to life. One, two, three. And this is what you got to share with the whole

world, your family, the three lessons that you would pass on. And that's all that people would know about you. What would you say? Wow. That's a, that's an interesting question there, my friend. I like it. I appreciate that. You know, we're boys. You can give me a heads up for this question if you knew it's coming, but you can always edit it later, but off the mind, what's what you're feeling right now? Well, I think one of the most important life lessons is that the future is always unknown. That's a fact. It's unknown. So we're faced with a binary choice about how to approach that future.

You can approach that future with fear or you can approach that future with faith. And it's a simple binary choice. You know, the future is unknown. You can do your best to prepare and premeditate and think about all the ways to put yourself in an advantageous state. But at a certain point, you just have to realize things are out of your control. And your attitude toward that will absolutely color the enjoyment of your life. It'll color how much love you feel. It'll color how much happiness you have.

And it's a simple choice. Again, that mental override. I'm going to choose to have faith that it's going to work out. Everything's going to be all right. No matter what happens. No matter what happens, it's all going to be good. Because guess what? We're all here right now.

We're all listening to this. And we're all right. No matter what, we're all right. And most of these terrible things, we look back and say, you know, I'm pretty grateful for those terrible things because I learned something from it. But despite that track record of batting 1,000, you know, hitting everyone and having something valuable, we'll still look at the near future with fear, you know, like, oh man, I'm afraid of this. I'm afraid of that. And that closes down the heart and that sucks away our joy. So just choosing to have faith, doing your work, preparing for all the outcomes and letting it go with faith, like no matter what, it's going to be all right.

That's number one. That's number one. I would say number two is, you know, we talked about it a lot, and that's cultivating mental override. You know, the ability to take control of your mind and utilize choice. And it goes, again, faith over fear is one of those choices. But that ability to just do the things that you know are faith over fear is one of those choices, but that ability to just do the things that you know are going to benefit you the most, you know, and, you know, whether that's something for your health or whether that's something for, you know, whatever that might be,

let's say it's an addiction that you have, you know, a lot of times it feels good to shuck the responsibility of that and say, oh, that's a disease. I need to go to this program. And, and all of those things are great. And I realize the challenge they're in. But if you've cultivated your own mental override to such a degree, you can override these impulses. You can override these rationalizations. You can override all of these things that are coming up. I mean, to smoke a cigarette, you have to put flame to the cigarette and put it to your mouth. mean to smoke a cigarette you have to put flame to the cigarette and put it to your mouth who's in control of your arm and your hand like you are right like there is a certain point where we can take back mental override and just say uh-uh uh-uh i am in control i am not i am not a victim to all

of these other forces i'm not a leaf in the breeze i'm an oak and my roots go deep and I decide, you know, and I think that's a real key to getting the most out of life is just decide, you know, taking back our ability to choose. That's two. That's two. And number three would be find your way to access your higher consciousness you know whatever that thing is that transcends the mind that essential you that the highest self the thing that in my belief system survives beyond this life and beyond death like access that force the force that animates life itself and there's a ton of ways to do that but um i think that's one of the most important things and that's at the root of spiritual practice and that can be religious or it can be not religious but really it boils down to consciousness accessing that that part of you because that's as much a part

of our birthright here is to be spiritual beings in this physical body so find your way meditation float tanks fasting binaural, shamanic breath work, holotropic breathing. You can find out more information about this on my site if any of these things are foreign. The plant medicines have been big allies for me. There's all kinds of ways that you can get there. Or the simple one of, you know, being out in nature, just allowing yourself to be still, you know, accessing that, the greatest part of yourself. I think to me, those are the, those are the three most important things that come up with. I love it.

I love it. Okay. One final question, which I think you answered before, before I ask, I want to acknowledge you, Aubrey, for coming on and sharing your wisdom of these principles. Thank you. And I also want to acknowledge you for speaking your truth. And, you know, we talk a lot about this, but you're always speaking your truth, even when it's scary and uncomfortable. And I acknowledge the fact that you lead the way and you follow your heart with whatever that is for you. And you don't try to do what everyone

else tells you to do. And you really see the world and the way that you want to make it. And then you go out and do it. So I want to acknowledge you for that gift of being a leader for so many people with following their truth. Thank you, brother. You know, I feel like when you're as blessed as I am and you're as grateful as I am, that's the greatest service that I can be to everyone else is to genuinely express what's going on for me, my own struggles, my own successes, you know, allow these things that it'll be breadcrumbs to a trail that somebody else can take to help optimize them. It's, it's the only thing that makes sense to me. And it's

the overriding mission that I have, par el bien de todos, for the good of all. And to, to really be part of that mission, you just got to lay it out there. You know, even if you take some arrows, even if, even if some things get weird, you know, to really be of service and be willing to just, just lay it out there and say, this is what's worked for me. And, um, you know, to really be of service and be willing to just, just lay it out there and say, this is what's worked for me. And, um, you know, I hope some other people get some benefit from that. I love it, man. Final question. What's your definition of greatness? You asked me this before. It'll be interesting to see like what, how this definition has changed. But, um, my definition of greatness is absolutely accessing our own inherent potential. You know, like there is no external definition of greatness.

Greatness, you know, one of the greatest people I know is the person who cleans the office for Onnit. His name's Jaime and his wife. And they, yeah, that's not an illustrious job. That's not the CEO seat. That's not the chief marketing officer. But he's doing something and he's doing it with passion and he's doing it with love. And he's doing it with the full force of what he's able to do. So he's great.

That is a great actualization of a human being. And there's no external thing. Yeah, he's cleaning toilets. He's cleaning shelves. He's doing laundry. He's doing these different things, sweaty mats. Yeah. He's doing all of that stuff. And you don't usually equate that to grow. You think, Oh, athlete or CEO or whatever. But for him, he's accessing, you know, a potential that he has to be great at that thing. And somebody has to do that. And most people do it as like, oh, I'm not really that into it. But for him, he just embraces it fully and just goes, all right, awesome. And maybe that'll change.

Maybe some other thing will allow him to access an even greater potential. But for each person, like really accessing what their own potential is for happiness, each person like really accessing what their own potential is for happiness optimization whatever that is and forgetting the external forgetting the external ideas there's no number there's no amount of likes on social media there's no amount of dollars there's no amount of accolades from friends and family and certificates you put on your wall that create greatness it's just about are you doing what you're capable of doing with your mind, with your consciousness, with your body?

And if you're on that path, it doesn't mean you have to be perfect, but if you're on that path, to me, you're great. And I'd love to take a seat and learn from you. Aubrey Marcus, thanks for coming on, man.

For sure, my brother. Always a pleasure, Lewis. There you have it, guys. Thank you so much for joining me today. If this was your first experience on the School of Greatness podcast, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for joining me today. If this was your first experience on the School of Greatness podcast, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for listening.

I would love for you to go to iTunes right now and click the subscribe button. We've got so many great previous episodes, and we've got some incredible guests coming up. That's right, some big names that you're going to want to make sure to listen to. This is all about how to achieve greatness in your business, your life, your relationships, your body, and every aspect of life, giving back, spirituality. That's what we dive into, the deeper questions, the curiosity of life on how we can apply this for ourselves to be great. I hope you guys enjoyed this one. Make sure to check out the show notes at

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