The School of Greatness - 353 Beyond Your Comfort Zone

Episode Date: July 13, 2016

"What we most want is just a little bit outside our comfort zone." - Lewis Howes If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes and more at http://lewishowes.com/353

Episode number 353, and you're entering the solo round. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. I just got back from my hometown, Columbus, Ohio, O-H-I-O, and had an incredible time.

You know, I was walking around the city looking at some of the venues for the Summit of Greatness. And if you don't have your ticket yet for the Summit of Greatness, make sure to go to summitofgreatness.com right now. We're bringing 12 of the most inspiring leaders and speakers from around the world to Ohio to help you unlock your inner greatness and bring it to life. Man, I am so pumped about this. And this solo round is about getting beyond your comfort zone. And one of the reasons I'm so excited about this is because I've never done it before. I've never done this big event with a theater that holds a thousand people and bring in these top speakers from around the world and

design an experience. I kind of want to design the alchemist journey for each person. And each person is going to be at a different journey along the way. And one of the opening venues is going to be at a place that I used to bounce at about eight, nine, 10 years ago. I was living in Columbus, broke. Broke is a joke. Didn't know where my life was headed. Didn't have a real clear vision. I was just trying to make enough money to get by that month.

And one of my good friends who works with me right now, we used to live together above this venue called the Columbus Music Hall in an apartment that was $250 a month that we split $125 each. And that was a lot of money for us at the time because we were both a little broke. And it's just crazy to walk around the town where I grew up but also struggled so much and was so uncomfortable 8, 10 years ago. When I was trying to figure things out, I was trying to find my way. I was trying to figure out what my purpose was, what my passion was. My dream of playing football was over, and I'm living at $250 a month. It's just crazy.

It was cool to be there, to really see the venue that I used to be a bouncer at. And on the weekends, I would go work there. During the week, I was a truck driver. I was driving Napa car parts, Napa auto car parts from Columbus to Cincinnati and back every single day. And that wasn't fun for me. Driving a truck every day was lonely. It was boring.

This was like pre-cell phone Bluetooth, right? So it was like I couldn't drive with speaking on the phone. The radio wasn't working. You know, it was always loud in there. And I had my foot to the pedal to the metal the whole time. And it would only go 55 miles an hour. So no matter how fast I wanted to get there, I could only go a certain speed. And I remember this was a time where I was just really struggling, trying to figure things out.

And this whole episode is about getting beyond your comfort zone because what you want most is just outside of your comfort zone right now. And you have to be willing to consistently push yourself beyond it to make the progress of your dreams and get closer towards your dreams. Now, there are a lot of people that come to me and say, well, how do you do this? And how do you do that? And how'd you get to this place? And it wasn't always this like pretty easy looking thing.

Even now, I go through my own struggles along this journey, but there has been a lot of work and a lot of pain that I've experienced emotionally, mentally, physically over the years in order to get to this place. And what I want to talk about in this beyond your comfort zone kind of solo round is really the three main things that are going to help you get to that next step in your life, that next level to get you on the path to making the dream actually come true. And the first one is gratitude. Man, gratitude. I just did a workshop in Columbus the other day as well with a group of people who are

just doing some amazing things. And I shared this message about gratitude. This is something that is so simple and such a basic foundational principle that everyone's heard of, yet we so often forget gratitude every single morning and every single night, express what you're grateful for. Share three things with someone in the morning and at night and ask them three things that they're grateful for. I'm telling you, it will ground you in such a way that changes your perception, changes the way you think and feel about where you're at

in your life. And everything is perception. Things are happening around us, to us, for us, for the world, right? Things are happening. And it's our decision. It's our perceived decision and choice of how we feel about it that is either going to move us forward or put us in a negative spiral that will hold us back. So the first thing is gratitude, being grateful, even if you're not happy with where you're at, even if you're not reaching the financial success you want, you don't have the relationship you want. I talked to a lot of people this weekend, and some of the ladies were really looking for the man of their dreams. They really wanted the relationship.

And this one woman in particular, incredible heart, incredible human. She's a leader in business. You know, she's making all the money she wants. She's got good friends, all these things, her health. You know, she's in great shape, but she can't attract and find the quality man. And one of the things I told her was like, you know, you're great at all these other things, but you're not able to get beyond your comfort zone emotionally to open up and be vulnerable, loving, supportive, you know, passionate in the ways that would attract

the man that you're looking for. You're attracting certain men that aren't what you want because of the way you're being, how you're showing up and the energy you're putting out in the world when you are around these men. And if you're looking for a partner who is driven and successful in his own right, and he's healthy, and he's got great relationships, and his career is on track, things like that, he's not going to want a woman who is emotionally unavailable, or who's cold, or who's guarded, or who's untrusting. He's not going to want a woman who is emotionally unavailable or who's cold or who's guarded or who's untrusting. He's not going to be attracted to that. So if you want that,

then you get to show up as that. And things started to shift for her in our conversation. But I said, why haven't you been willing to be emotionally vulnerable and emotionally real and put yourself out there? And she said, you know, I've just always been afraid. I've been afraid of getting hurt. I've been afraid of this. I've been afraid of that. And I've been afraid of wasting my time. And I'm like, I get it. I mean, none of us want to go into a relationship, business or personal or intimate and waste our time, right?

But when we're aware of the people we're meeting and when we are open and allowing ourselves to be real with those people and be our expressive, joyful, loving selves, our true selves, our real authentic selves, not the image we're putting out there, not the front, not the masks we wear out in the world, not the cold self, but the real selves, the childlike self that we all sometimes forget how to be. We start to attract those things we want. how to be, we start to attract those things we want. And we're also able to, we're aware of the people that are coming in our lives that maybe we don't want to have in our lives that aren't the right fit as partners. And we won't go down that track. So the thing is, we need to be willing to get out of our comfort zone in order to get anything we want.

If we want something new, this is the only way to get it. If we want to make more money, then you've got to be willing to work harder than anyone else to start generating that income. You know, I was talking with a friend today from Columbus, actually over a Facebook video call, and we were talking about Grant Cardone, how this guy is just a machine at making money, right? He is so good at it. He just sells and sells and sells. And he is shameless in his approach on putting himself out there. I love his energy. I love his passion. And

he has a quote. And some people are really turned off by him. And some people don't like him for certain reasons. He's aggressive or whatever it is. And one of the quotes he says, I'm going to probably butcher it, but he says, the first week the first week they hate me, the second week they love me, both weeks I still get paid or something like that. He is not thinking about what people think about him. He's not focused on his image or his, I don't know, what people are talking about behind his back. And so many people are analytical in their approach towards business or towards anything

that they're worried so much about what people think about them. And man, that'll keep you in your comfort zone if you're worried constantly about what people think about you. That will hold you back. That will keep you from creating and from producing. from creating and from producing. You know, it's funny because my author friends, we talk about this,

that creators in the world are unable and really don't have the time to leave negative reviews on other people's books on Amazon. When I think about it, I don't think I've ever spent the time to go on Amazon after I've read a book and read the book in completion and then go, I'm going to spend five minutes of my life to go critique someone and give them a negative review over on Amazon. I just don't do it. There's no point.

There's no point giving someone a bad review on Amazon for their book. The energy is not even worth it. The thing is, when you look at people who leave negative reviews, I leave positive reviews for authors all the time. I'm always leaving positive reviews because I know how hard it is to put out a book. I know how the energy, the commitment, the sacrifice, the passion, the dedication it takes, the getting out of your comfort zone, how much you have to do of that to actually produce a book, the fears that you have to overcome to put that out there and

create something and say, this is my mark on the world. What do you think about it, world? It takes a lot for an author to put a book out there. And when you look at all the people who leave one, two, three-star reviews even, it's funny. A lot of them don't even put their names, or if you look at their names and you go research them, they haven't done anything. They haven't created anything. They don't have any work online. They're, you know, just unhappy or they're jealous.

And it's because they're not creating something and they wish they could create something. So in their lack of making a mark in the world, in their inability to step outside of their comfort zone, they do so by bringing other people down and critiquing them in a negative way. And that's the way they make them feel better. So you need to look at this. When you put yourself out of your comfort zone, you're going to get people that say shit about you and critique you. And things aren't always going to work out. Things are not always going to get people that say shit about you and critique you and things aren't always going to work out. Things are not always going to work out, but the gratitude exercises every single day will change your perception when these things happen. When things aren't going as planned or

as you would like them to go, your gratitude practice will be there to support you and lift you back up and give you perspective. Another thing that most people aren't doing in order to achieve their dreams is they're not giving enough. You know, a lot of times we are so fixated on what's in it for me. What do I get to get out of this? What is this relationship going to give me? What am I going to get?

What can I, you know, how much money can I get out of this business deal? As opposed to what can I, you know, how much money can I get out of this business deal? As opposed to what can I give? You know, Tony Robbins says the key to living is giving. And the more I give, whether it be financially or emotional support or my time or energy or, you know, creating the free content that I give to the world in this podcast is a platform for me to give. And actually, right before this, I was, to be completely transparent and honest with you, I was waiting for like two and a half hours to record this episode because I was kind of bummed out. I had another interview that didn't happen today that got rescheduled. I just got back from my trip and I had a lot of email to go through. And I just wanted to kind of go through my email and make sure I was getting back to

everyone on time. And I was waiting to put this out there and waiting to record this because I just had a lot of other things going on in my mind. And it was uncomfortable for me. You know, I was uncomfortable. I wanted to be comfortable. I wanted to be able to just relax and kind of catch up today and not have to give, right? And then I switched.

I said, you know what, Lewis? You receive a ton. You know what? And you're going to continue to receive, and it's because you give. But when I stop giving, when I stop contributing to the world, when I stop thinking about others and only think about myself, then it starts to hurt me. Now, listen, we all need time for ourselves. We all need to give to ourselves. We can't just give 100% of our day to everyone. Otherwise, we won't be able to fill our tank up. So you get to look at, is my tank full?

And when it is, cool. Then I get to give and give and give and continue to fill it up. But the challenges were most people that I see who have challenges are not grateful daily. They're not grateful for where they're at. They're ungrateful. And therefore, they bring more in their life to be ungrateful for. And then they're not giving enough. They're analyzing. Now, if you're an analyzer and all you've, and you've been thinking about launching a product or a course or a service or starting a new job for years or even six months,

but you haven't actually taken action on it, then it's time to shift. It's time to like say, okay, enough is enough. I'm not going to get the result I want by being uncomfortable by doing the same thing. It's just not going to happen, people. It's just not going to happen. So you get to look at your life right now and say, am I being grateful? And am I giving? Am I giving of my time?

Am I giving of my energy? Am I giving of my money? Am I giving of my resources? Am I supportive of my energy? Am I giving of my money? Am I giving of my resources? Am I supportive to my friends? Am I there for my family? Or am I making life about me? Am I making it all about what I'm not getting? So are you giving?

Ask yourself that question. What areas of your life are you giving? Go ahead and write them down. And the areas of my life that I am giving are, maybe it's your personal relationship. Maybe it's your business or your career, your are? Maybe it's your personal relationship. Maybe it's your business or your career, your job. Maybe it's your friends. Maybe it's community service you're giving. Maybe it's family. Whatever it may be, write down the areas of your giving and write

down the areas where you're not giving that much. Are you contributing to other people than yourself? You know, the key to fulfillment in life is growth and service, growth and contribution. And if we're not, in order to grow again, you've got to get out of your comfort zone. That's the only way you can grow is when you push yourself to grow. When you learn something new, when you try something new. But if you don't try something new, then you stay in the same comfort zone. If you want to be fulfilled in life, you've got to be willing to grow. And the moment you stop growing in life is the moment where things get stagnant, where

things get unfulfilling because you're like, what's the point now? I'm starting to slowly die. You start slowly losing skills. You start to slowly die and fall off. Your energy goes down. If you're not growing your health, then your health is going backwards. If you're not growing your mind, your mind is going backwards. If you're not growing your emotions, your emotions are going downwards. You got to think about this is a simple principle. This is nothing new, but so often we forget that we must grow. How can we

grow? Well, you guys are doing a great job right now by listening to the podcast. And so many of you have emailed me and messaged me on Facebook and Twitter and in person and told me that, Hey, you know, I had a guy email me the other day and said, Lewis, I just want to say, thanks. I've lost 90 pounds in the last seven months because of your podcast. It got me out of my rut. I started getting motivated because I listen to you every day. And I work out when I'm listening to you. And I learn and I stay focused in my health because of you. And for me, that's awesome.

It's because you're learning, you're growing, and then you're committing to yourself, to your results, to what you want to create in your life. Growth and contribution is something we should always be focused on if we want to be fulfilled and happy. If you're not happy right now, if you're not fulfilled, if you feel like, I don't know what to really do in my life, ask yourself, am I growing anywhere? Or am I just doing the same things that I already know? Have I learned a new skill? Am I picking up a new language? Am I salsa dancing? Am I playing a music instrument? Am I playing a sport that I haven't learned before? language? Am I salsa dancing? Am I playing a music instrument? Am I playing a sport that I haven't learned before? What am I doing to grow? Am I learning communication skills? Am I doing public speaking? You know, I take on different classes and workshops and hire coaches to teach me things all the time. If you're listening to podcasts, this podcast on a consistent basis, then great,

keep listening to this. You know, it's my goal. It's my mission to bring the best educational, inspirational information on the planet from the most inspiring human beings alive to you. Absolutely for free. That's my mission. I want to continue to give and give and give so that one, selfishly, I can learn and grow, but two, that you guys can all learn and grow as well. That's the mission. The next thing I want to talk about here is something that as an athlete and as athletes in general, I feel like have the upper hand in some areas where not all the time, but in some areas they have the upper hand, especially this one. And it's conditioning yourself to experience pain every single day. This will force you to grow, whether it's physical

pain where you're working out and you do something that's uncomfortable that will force you to grow. Whether it's physical pain where you're working out and you do something that's uncomfortable, that will force you to grow when it's painful. Whether it's, again, picking up a new skill that makes you uncomfortable, whether it's doing dancing classes where it makes you uncomfortable, something that's painful. You want to experience pain. The more pain that you put yourself into, the more you will feel less pain long term. The more that things are thrown at you in your life, it won't affect you as much because you'll have the pain threshold built up. You'll be able to let it bounce off your energy, your body, your mind, your emotions.

You won't be in pain as much and you'll be embracing the pain in the future. Any challenge that comes to you, you'll have the fortitude to move forward towards the opportunity and the challenge. And you'll turn that challenge into a greater opportunity for you, whether that's getting a new job and an interview or whatever it may be, any pressure situation,

speaking, whatever it may be, doing a webinar. You know, there's moments of pain emotionally, mentally, and physically. I condition myself daily to experience it, whether it's a painful conversation with someone you care about or your family member or a friend or a loved one, anything you can do. What have you been resisting in your life? What have you been holding back? What have you been hiding from because you know it will be painful to do. Maybe you get to forgive someone. Maybe you get to forgive yourself. Maybe that's something that you haven't done yet about something you've done in

the past to someone else or even to yourself. Maybe you haven't forgiven yourself for the thing you did or the thing that you didn't do or the dream you had that you never went after, now's the perfect time to let that go, to experience the pain and let it go. You know, before I was an athlete, before my dream of playing in the NFL was over, all I focused on in my life was trying to be the best that I could be. And I

really wanted to inspire other people. I really wanted to inspire people through my craft. And that was sports at the time. That was the only tools that I had. That was my only gift was playing sports that I felt could inspire people because I didn't feel confident or comfortable to speak in front of other people. I was always the youngest in my family. I was always the youngest in my class. I was always the youngest on the sports teams until I was a senior, obviously. And I never felt confident enough in who I was to speak in front of people and share my voice. And the reason why I do this podcast and speak so much and do workshops and write books now and you know go on webinars consistently is because this was my biggest

fear and it was my biggest pain was to share my voice I was so terrified to mess up in front of people I was so terrified of what people thought because I always felt like the dumbest person in the room I always feel like the most ignorant I I always got the worst grades. And for me, it was terrifying to be critiqued. I hated the thought of people saying that I wasn't good enough. It made me feel less than. It made me feel not worthy. It made me feel like I didn't belong. And I think all of us want to belong. We all want to have a community. We all want to feel special. We all want to feel wanted, desired. Without that, it's challenging. Life is not as fun if no one wants us. No one wants us around, right? It's

scary as hell to feel isolated and alone. And I've been there for many, many years of my life. And it's definitely not fun. There's a comfort zone there, but it's not fun. And the uncomfortable thing is to improve your life and learn skills that are going to be scary because you're going to mess up and you're going to be challenged with it. That's the scary thing about it. But I'm telling you, when we condition ourselves, when I conditioned myself in sports to experience pain every single day, I was able to say, okay, I'm still alive at the end of this two-hour training session. I made it, and I built confidence. And the next day, I was able to do it again and duplicated it and did it every single day. After 10 years of experiencing pain

every single day, physical and emotional and mental pain through sports, it gave me the opportunity to go out there and say, okay, I'm going to try these things in the real world. I'm going to try public speaking. I'm going to try salsa dancing. I'm going to try learning guitar. I'm going to try building a business, which I've never done. I'm going to try speaking in front of people on webinars. I'm going to try workshops, which I've never done. I'm going to launch a podcast, and it's going to be a top 100 podcast with millions of downloads a month all around the world. All these things I was terrified to do, but I knew I had a vision and a dream, and it was to inspire the world. And it was to have a better life for myself. And it was to have

deeper, richer relationships. And it was to be able to call upon and be friends with my heroes, people that inspired me. I wanted to be able to say, hey, you know what? I can call and text these people at any time. The most inspiring people in the world I'm now friends with. That's what I want to create for myself, to have access to more information, to more tools, to more experiences that are rich and full of life and once-of-a-lifetime type experiences.

That's what I've wanted to create for my life. But it wasn't always this easy thing. It didn't come to me easily or naturally. I struggled for many, many years and felt very alone and isolated and in a lot of pain. But what we most want is just a little bit outside of our comfort zones. And it's one of the reasons I wrote The School of Greatness. For a lot of you, you've read The School of Greatness or you've purchased it. And my book, for me, is a great guidebook that talks about the principles of achieving what we want in order

to get out of our comfort zone and the exercises we can apply every single day. If you guys don't have a copy yet, please go get a copy right now. It's at lewishouse.com book. It'll take you right to Amazon and you can buy a copy there. It's a New York time bestseller for those that are new to the podcast. It's sold over 55,000 copies worldwide and it continues to sell every single day. And people tell me so much about how it's changed their life when they read the book. So I hope you guys pick up a copy, lewishowes.com book. All of our dreams are just outside of our comfort zone and it's the process, it's the journey that is the reward. We must focus on

the process if we want to get the prize. I was so blessed and grateful to go back to Columbus, Ohio. Again, a place where I struggled for many years during my start, trying to figure out what I was going to do after my football career was over. And again, I'm getting out of my comfort zone right now by doing something I've never done. You know, all of our dreams are outside of our comfort zone to the places we've never been to. I love you guys very much. This was a solo round. I've been getting asked to do more and more of these.

You guys asked me to share more of my stories and insights. So I'll keep doing these hopefully once a month for you. And I love you guys. You guys mean the world to me. This podcast has been an incredible ride and journey. And I would have never in my wildest dreams imagined everything that would have happened in the last three and a half years by starting a little podcast that I had dreamed about called the school of greatness and you guys make it possible.

So thank you from the bottom of my heart. I love you very, very much. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Outro Music