The School of Greatness - 505 Justin Baldoni: Redefining Masculinity and Overcoming Ego

Episode Date: July 3, 2017

"Ego exists so that we can overcome it." - Justin Baldoni If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/505

This is episode number 505 with actor, director, and social entrepreneur, Justin Baldoni. 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. Try not to become a man of success, rather become a man of value. Albert Einstein.

I'm so excited for our guest today. His name is Justin Baldoni. He's an actor, director, and social entrepreneur focused on creating and effecting positive change. He is best known for playing Raphael on CW's award-winning phenomenon, Jane the Virgin. And in 2012, Justin created the most watched digital documentary series in history, My Last Days,

which has gone on to help raise over $1 million for various families and charities, and has directed documentaries, commercials, music videos, and films through his compassion-fueled production company, Wayfair Entertainment. So pumped to connect with him today, we dive in deep, guys. Some of the main things we cover are how Justin threw a carnival for the homeless community in Los Angeles. Also, how to use your audience for the maximum good.

The balance between our lower and higher nature and where ego comes into play here. This is a powerful part, guys. The connection between being relevant and owning our self-worth. Dang, this is going to be good. And also how Justin's definition of masculinity has evolved over time as he's now become a father. I am pumped.

Get ready. Make sure to take down notes. Share this with your friends. LewisHowes.com slash 505 as it's about to go down. Before we dive in, I want to give a shout out to the review of the week. This is from the Freddy D over on iTunes, who says, I was introduced to Lewis's podcast a little over a year ago. While I was skeptical at first, it's simply one of the best podcasts out there. The

diversity of guests, the interviews, and what's impressed me is Lewis has gotten better as an interviewer himself. Thank you so much. I'm impressed with the energy he brings to every podcast and inspired me to start my own. A must listen for anyone who's lacking motivation, needs a kickstart creatively, or has a desire to learn because that's what Lewis brings. So the Freddie D, thank you so much, my friend, for being the iTunes review of the week.

And if you guys want to leave a review and be a potential review of the week, then make sure to leave your review at iTunes.com and search the School of Greatness podcast. All right, guys, get ready for an incredible interview and episode with the one, the only Justin. Don't he?

Welcome back everyone to the school of greatness podcast. We have the man, Justin Baldoni in the house. Good to see you, brother. What's up, my man? How are you doing?

I'm so happy to finally be here. I'm pumped. We've talked about this for so long. I'm pumped. We got connected be here. I'm pumped, man. We've talked about this for so long. I'm pumped. We got connected through, well, originally, I think Rain mentioned you when I had him on, which was probably about a year, year and a half ago or something. Then we had Andrew Grammar on, and he mentioned you as well. And then you reached out to me, I think, on Instagram, and I missed it.

And then I think Aubrey texted me. I was like, this guy. This little. This guy. Yeah, yeah. He gets so many DMs. I was just at the bottom with all these fan mail, all these girls that are like, oh, I love you.

But then our mutual friend, Aubrey Marcus, connected us or told us to connect and finally made it happen. So I'm glad we made it happen because I think I first heard about you when you were doing the Skid Row event, which you do a carnival every year for homeless on Skid Row. And I think you had a thousand volunteers show up for more than 2000 homeless people. And what do you do with that? What is that? Yeah. This year we actually had 2000 volunteers show up. 2000 volunteers. Yeah. So the Skid Row carnival, by the way, I love that that's how we're starting this conversation because that is one of my favorite things to talk about um so yeah i had a crazy idea three years

ago to throw a carnival for those who are experiencing homelessness a festival yeah it's like you know a carnival if you think about what a carnival really is, it's like, it's a traveling event that comes through oftentimes towns that are, you know, that are not doing that well, where there's not a whole lot of activity happening, where the people kind of need inspiration and they come through, it's a pick me up and they come through and their whole, the whole idea of the carnival is like bring joy for a day or a week or however long. And, uh And Skid Row doesn't have anything like that, man.

We have 57,000 homeless people in LA. And I think only 5-10% are on Skid Row. But it all started about 9 years ago. I started going down to Skid Row to celebrate my birthday.

Because I didn't have a lot of friends. I've never been like a birthday guy. I was never, I don't drink. So I was never, let's go to a club and like, let's go come celebrate me. Right. I just always felt weird to like invite people to come out to celebrate me. And that's my own thing. I got my own baggage around that. It's probably, it has to do with being young and not having friends. So nobody would come to my birthdays anyways. So like, as I got older, I felt weird about having them. So I decided to go down and have my birthday on Skid Row. So I'd invite friends and we'd make, we'd make like, you know, little bags of food, you know, we'd start with like six or seven people and we'd pass them out. And the goal was always like, we're not going to put a, we're not going

to put a dent in the homeless, you know, epidemic or stop people from being hungry. But if we can go down and connect with 20 or 30 people and let them be seen, then like that was a day well spent. Um, and it comes, you know, I'm a, I grew up in the Baha'i faith and in the Baha'i faith, we're told that our work has to be our service. Um, and that the whole purpose of life is really being of service to humanity. And this was my way of being of service on a day that was normally about me. Flash forward seven years, more and more friends started coming. I kind of got my feet. You started getting friends.

I started making real friends. And they're like, hey, what are you doing? And it grew from 20 to 30 to 40 to 60 people. And then when Jane the Virgin hit and I fell back into acting, this kind of idea of mini celebrity started to happen. And suddenly, and you know how it works, suddenly you do something that the industry thinks is kind of cool and then you would get more friends, right? Or there's more people that want to be a part of it.

And so for me, the question was, well, how do I take that illusion of popularity and turn it into something that's good? And one day I was driving and I just was like, let's throw a carnival. And that was all it was. So it was an idea. And I just called everyone and said, we're throwing a carnival. Um, so, uh, so basically what it was the first year was, it was about 75 of us, um, coming together and it it was it's all about one-on-one connection so people would line up so our friends who are experiencing homelessness would line up outside of this uh this parking lot and all of us would line up and we'd have like food and we'd have carnival games and we'd have clothing sections and we'd have toiletry sections and

book sections and feet washing and these things the first year, but it was really about taking and creating an experience for one person. And it was both for the person who's experiencing homelessness and also for our volunteers who are giving, because it works both ways. And you know that as a teacher, you learn more than the student. And there is no teacher in this situation. The whole idea was let's come together and for four hours, let's not be able to tell who's homeless and who's not, who's sick and who's healthy, who's black and who's white. Like, can we all just be one human race for three or four hours? And that's exactly what it turned into. We had a dance party. Everybody was doing like the Macarena and like the electric

slide and everybody's dancing. And we realized after that first year that there's something really here. Flash forward to this last year in January, we had 2,000 volunteers show up. Before the carnival started, the local police told us we were already over capacity. So we had to ask 500 volunteers to leave. Because it makes no sense to have a carnival for those experiencing homelessness if they can't get in. But what we found was that the capacity for young

people in this city that want to be of service is massive. They just haven't had an outlet before. So the carnival is really a Trojan horse of sorts. We want to bring in and make volunteering sexy and cool, but really it's a way to say, do not forget about these souls that are in your backyard that every single night don't know where they're going to sleep or have to sleep next to the rats or have to drink themselves to sleep because they're sleeping on the pavement.

Do not forget about these kids that live in these housing units where there's, you know, next to cocaine addicts and, you know, and prostitutes and pimps. Like there is a whole population of people down there that are forgotten. And this is a day that brings us all back together so that we remember. And we had medical professionals, we had legal services, we had the DMV handing out ID cards. We had Starbucks trying to, you know, teaching people how to do interviews so that we could get people off the street and do jobs. You know, and we served 4,000 people that day. And really it's about teaching them and empowering them through the gift of vision and sight to, you know, hopefully get off the street one day.

So it was pretty cool. And we're going to be launching a winter version of the carnival this year. Yeah. So we're going to do a winter wonderland. We're going to... I had another crazy dream. I want to bring real snow to Skid Row. Shut up. And I want to let kids experience real snow.

And I want to have a Santa that looks like them. Because I think that's really important. And this year the volunteers will be elves. Wow. And I want all the kids to have presents. Because they don't get to experience these days that we all take for granted. Sure.

So that's something we're working on this year. Are there a lot of kids down there? There's an insane amount of kids. Really? It's unbelievable how many kids there are. Yeah, there's a lot. And there's kids that sleep in tents, man. I met a father the other day who was in Beverly Hills singing, trying to make money, that he takes back to his two young boys that sleep in a tent with him.

No way. Because he couldn't get into a shelter because a lot of the shelters are for women and children. And you can't let in a man because, unfortunately unfortunately there's been a lot of issues around that. So him and his two kids were sleeping on the street. And he was just trying to get up. He recently got off. We checked back in with him, but yeah,

there's a lot of kids. That's cool, man. There's not many people who are, once they get an audience who are giving back in a big way. So I think it's really cool. What's the point of an audience? It's true.

I always ask that question. what is the point of having all of these people that are looking at you and looking to see what you're gonna do next if you're not gonna do something good what the hell's the point I agree like I just I mean and you get it but in general I just like I look at these people have millions and millions of followers and again I'm not judging but I'm just like all oh, the potential. The potential that exists. To make an impact.

To make an impact. Because our world is hurting so badly. Yeah. Anyways. Well, that's what I love about your account and your page. We were looking at this earlier. If you guys follow. The Instagram?

Yes. Follow Justin Baldoni on Instagram and you'll see. He's got 90% of the people that are following him are women, which blew me away. We were just laughing about that. Yeah. But the cool thing is every post has a meaning to kind of be thought-provoking. Maybe not everyone, but lots of them I'm looking at right here have a meaning to get people to think differently and have a different conversation about their relationships, about their parenting, about their health, about their body image, about their relationships, about their parenting, about their health, about their body image, about their spirituality, about their mission, their work, their service.

And I think that's what I love about you and what you're up to in the world is that everything you do is meaningful. And again, obviously there's some fun posts on there or whatever, but it seems like there's always a question. There's always something that's like, okay, are you thinking about your life this way? It's intentional. It's always a question. There's always something that's like, okay, are you thinking about your life this way? It's intentional. I think it's really cool because you have a platform that's,

yes, you're trying to make money and thrive and achieve things and you're an actor on shows and director and all these other things but you're also trying to create a platform that gives back which I think is really powerful and a great example.

Why do you think 90% of your following is women? Besides the fact that you're extremely attractive. I think... How come men don't like you? Yeah, that's been something I've been asking myself since I was a kid. I've been asking myself that since I was a kid. Do you not like me, Lewis? I do like you.

Okay, good. So we're good. I feel good about that. Because you're really manly. I'm curious though, why don't men follow you? It's really interesting. Look, I think my Instagram grew on accident. That was not intentional.

I didn't really know. I'm not really savvy when it comes to social media. I post far less than I'm told by people that are looking at my socials, like, you're doing this all wrong. You need to be doing this way more and this and this and this. And it's never been that thoughtful in that way. It hasn't been manipulative in that way. It's been intentional in what I say. But I haven't really- Did it grow from the show? So I think it's a combination of it grew from the show um which again that's a big reason why it's a lot of women because jane the virgin is

is really aimed at women it's a feminist show got it so it's aimed at women um i it also started growing when i started to be intentional about the messages to my wife and my daughter and i think that you know men like men follow really manly men like men follow men I think they want to be more like they follow men that like you know have their shirts off

and are super ripped and they're like here's my diet and you know get 25% get 25% off this product and like I'll hook you up

they follow super hot chicks that wear nothing they follow you know and then they follow like the chicks that wear nothing. They follow, you know, and then they follow like the guys that fly around the country in their private planes and like have like, you know, they're on yachts with like chicks that are wearing nothing. And they're like, this is the life, you know. And I think that there's a part of men that want to live that way. And my social media is a little bit different. It's like you and your daughter. It's me like, what's up?

This is me and my daughter before daycare. But I don't know. So I proposed to my wife six years ago now. It was like an epic proposal. It was. They called it that. And then other people called it the worst thing ever. But it was a gift from me to my wife

that we eventually put on YouTube reluctantly. We actually put it on YouTube after we were married. A lot of people proposed to their partners and then before they just, this is, it's done. They said, yes, it's on YouTube. Let's go on Ellen. Like it's kind of like this thing

that's how, it's like a goal, right? It's like, if I can have the best proposal ever. Most epic choreography and crazy stuff. Then maybe I'll become famous and it'll be great. And we did not want that. And so we, in fact. Even though you guys are both actors. Well, and that was the thing.

And it was interesting because it was kind of before social media was massive. And I didn't want to be the proposal guy. I wanted to be known for my work. And I was really directing. I wasn't even acting then. I was only directing. I'm going to get back to the man guy. I wanted to be known for my work. And I was really directing. I wasn't even acting then. I was only directing. I'm going to get back to the man question. So after the proposal went viral, men started coming up to me and thanking me. But it was a quiet thank you. It was like, hey, man, I cried last night. That was you're right uh you know that was awesome and they would like

fist bump me but they were they were almost embarrassed to tell me and generally men come up to me and they're and they're like yo my girlfriend showed me your stuff or there's this barrier between them being okay being vulnerable with me because it's not the norm so it always has to do with their girlfriends or their wives or their daughters. And I find that really interesting. So I think that men are a little hesitant to follow because you can see who you follow. Like I can look and see who you're following. And I think that men want to like be more manly. And here I am not, you know, look, I was an athlete. I was a great athlete. You know, I'm in decent shape. Like for, for all intents and purposes, I fit a stereotype

of what a man would look like. Um, but I don't talk about the things that normal men talk about. And I think that men are a little sensitive around that because we're so afraid of like, God forbid someone thinks less of us or someone thinks this, or my men, my, my boys think that I'm weak or whatever that is. So yeah, so that's a long answer to you. Sure. When did you start, how come you don't have the conversations or how come you have different conversations and share these other things, these vulnerable or more real or just authentic things that are happening in your life? How come you share those things? And when did you start putting that out there as opposed to this is me with my shirt off and

rolling backstage or, you backstage or in my trailer? It's so funny too, man. We talk about this because I could probably double my audience if I did that. And that's something that when you're on our side of the business, I mean, look, followers equal revenue to a certain extent. Because at the end of the day, we are in a business. So it's a moral choice for me to do it this way. I think that I'm a seeker of truth. Truth is everything to me.

Honesty is everything to me. Integrity is everything to me. And I think I grew up feeling like I was living in a world where nobody was being truthful. And even early conversations with my parents, I have the best family. Like my mom and dad are the best. But even they struggled with having real, uncomfortable, authentic conversations. And I was a very young kid growing up.

And I was always wanting to like burst through that like glass facade, whether it was friendships or whether it was family or whether it was anything. And at one point, I think in my 20s, it was like that feeling. It's like when the Hulk kind of becomes like this. He rips off his clothes. That's how I felt about the world. And I was like, why are we not communicating? Why are we not saying what we really believe in? Why am I not telling you how I actually feel? Why? And I couldn't figure out an answer. So I just kind of went on my own journey to, I'm just seeking truth

in everything that I do. Like I, you know, in my faith, Baha'u'llah, who's the founder of the Baha'i faith, he says to ornament our souls with honesty, right? Like a Christmas tree ornament. And that the foundation, the foundation of all spiritual virtues is truthfulness. But yet that's the thing that we lack the most, right? And you can't build anything on something with a weak foundation. You can't build anything. But yet we enter into relationships and transactional relationships of all kinds off of a misrepresentation of truth. So like you enter a relationship from the start, if you're not honest, that's not gonna work.

You enter a friendship, if you're not honest, that's not gonna work. And honesty has so many varying degrees. When I think about honesty for me, it's just I wanna be honest in every situation because we're only here for a short amount of time. We're not here for that long. So what's the point of not being honest?

If I have a feeling, why would I not talk about that feeling when the time is right? Of course, there's always a time and a place. It's not just let me just be honest all the time about everything. And I've been exploring this with my daughter who has no filter. She's two. She's turning two on Tuesday. She has no filter. So when she feels something, she must cry. She must yell. She must throw a tantrum on the floor because she doesn't have that. She doesn't have years of learning how to repress those things, but she also gets over things instantly. She's not- It happens and then she moves on.

She cries. She yells. She screams. She throws a tantrum in the middle of Whole Foods. And 30 seconds later, she's the happiest child in the world. She felt it, she experienced it, she released it. I think we just need to find a balance as grown men, as grown women, as adults, of how do we take these things in that we feel? And then when the time is right, allow ourselves to experience them, to talk to each other, to talk to men about things that we're experiencing and to just be a seeker of truth in general. And I do think that Gen Z, millennials to a certain extent, that's why so much of the media landscape is changing because we are seeking truth.

We're tired of all the crap we see in the media of telling us we need to be this way or look this way or feel this way. We want authenticity. The problem is that now millennials and Gen Z are in charge of the media. So now what we're gonna start having and what we're experiencing is the illusion of authenticity.

Which is fake. Which is not real. It's filtered, right? So you have like, oh yeah, I love that commercial. That's real. real it's filtered right so you have like oh that's oh yeah I love that commercial that's real but it's a commercial

or you see some of the most followed people on Instagram it's all photoshopped or it's oh don't get me started on that filtered in other it's right physical ways

I just found out that they had apps that retouched your Instagram photos I was like no excuse me yeah

yeah that's a real thing, evidently. Or they just go to the doctor and retouch everything. That's another thing. But that comes down to body image and security. And again, I don't judge any of that. Sure, sure. But I just think that there's a, for me,

it's just that I just believe in truth and openness and vulnerability because we're all humans having the same experience. So why aren't we sharing it? Right? We spend too long dividing ourselves based on what you're feeling or this, or this is the other, and this person's black and this person's white, which again, these are real things, right? But why aren't we sharing our experiences as those people so that we can then start to build compassion and empathy and relate to each other? Wow, man. I love it. Sorry. I'm not supposed to talk this much.

You are. This is your show, man. Am I supposed to talk this much? This is your show. This is your show. No, this is your show. You're the expert. Let's talk about you. Well, let's talk about, I wasn't going to dive into this this quickly, but I think we're on the topic of manhood and masculinity. Where do you feel like is your biggest challenge to step in the man you've always wanted to be? Is there something you're challenged with right now that you feel like you still get to overcome or embrace

to help you become a better version of the man you want to be? Yeah. I don't think there's one thing. I think there's an endless number of things that I'm challenged with. What's the biggest you know i think the one of the biggest challenges for me is the control of my ego it's hard man got all these followers all these likes all these opportunities it's interesting billboard what's your but a billboard recently? I think I saw something. Thank God I didn't see it if I was.

I think you were up on Sunset, a big billboard of you. Justin. Yeah, I don't think so. Justin. Yeah, that must have not been real at all. It was real. Ever. I think it was you with Jay the Virgin.

It was probably, yeah. One of seven people. It was three, maybe. But I think part of our journey as human beings is the balance between our lower and higher nature and learning how to control it. So you obviously have spirituality, religion, divinity, things that are designed to help us come into our higher nature. And then you have everything else in the history of existence that's attacking our lower nature. Right, right. Our ego. And our ego, that whispering voice is strong. It's really strong.

It's strong in men. It's strong in women. It starts with children. And for me, it's definitely always been my ego. And my ego can also be something that cripples me. Because when my ego is hurt, or when it's bru bruised or when it feels attacked, then I don't function from my higher nature. I function from my lower nature. And that happens in all sorts of ways. And then of course, there's the idea of success, which is relative, right? Because it is a, it is a never ending journey search because there's no such thing as true success. Like what, when would you be successful enough when you're George Clooney? Okay. George Clooney, are you successful enough or something else he wants? Right. Find me someone who's happy with

their success. You can't, but you can find me someone who's happy because they're content with where they are and what they have because they're grateful. Um success is also interesting because where I am, so much of what I do also is dependent on other people validating it. Coming to watch it, buying a ticket, whatever it is. Exactly. And especially in our town,

in this business, relevancy is like the delta that is everything. Are you afraid of that, not being relevant? I'm not afraid of it. What's interesting is that I've mostly never been relevant. The fact that even anybody wants to hear what I have to say

is interesting and really cool. But what I am is aware of it. So I'm aware of the fact that I have a short window called Jane the Virgin that is interesting to people. After we're done in five years, I might not be relevant. Who knows? Who knows? So I look at it like

I have this amount of time to say what I want to say and then maybe no one's going to want to hear what I have to say again. Unfortunately, that's just the way it works. You have your 15 minutes and then it's on to somebody else. And the other night,

we were just talking about, you know, my wife's shooting a movie right now and she's shooting a movie with a woman who was nominated for three Academy Awards in the 60s. And we know when you get nominated for Academy Award, your name is everywhere, right? But I had no idea who this woman was. She had experienced tremendous success.

She's in her 80s now, right? So you just look at like, you know, the chart of being in the moment and feeling success and then getting to a place where you no longer have that. And then you have to realize that, well, do people not care about me? Because I'm not doing a podcast with Lewis, does that mean I'm not valuable to the world? Does that mean I'm not relevant to anybody just because I'm not relevant to the media or to the world or to social media right now? If I didn't have any followers, would that be a reflection of my self-worth? So these are things that are important, and they affect us on both sides of the spectrum. They affect us when we don't have any success, when we're trying and we're struggling and we're like, we're, you know, we're getting off the ground, trying to be relevant, which is, which is really something that I struggle

with. Cause it's like, are we trying to be relevant? And like, and why are we doing that? Or are we just fulfilling our purpose and it's going to happen. So on one side you have that struggle. And then on the other side, when you have it, you have that struggle because then you have the fear of losing it. And then you have to decide, and this is where the ego comes in.

And this is something that I battle with is, am I doing this out of love or am I doing this out of fear? And if I'm doing it out of fear, then I'm doing it from a place of lack because I'm afraid that I'm going to lose it. Or I'm afraid that if I don't do it right, that someone's not going to respond or I'm not going to get enough likes or this many people won't watch my YouTube video, or whatever it is. And the same thing goes for writing a television show and being on a show. So your ego creeps in everywhere. Your ego creeps in relationships, and mine creeps in in my marriage. It creeps in absolutely everywhere.

And so one of the struggles that I think we'll always have is figuring out the balance between a healthy ego and an ego that's managed. And for me, the only way I've found to be able to manage my ego is through spirituality and it's through prayer. It's through commuting with God. And really it's through service because the second year of service, the goal is to take yourself out of the equation we have a phrase we like to call it we call it secret service would you still do it if nobody knew you had done it and that's and that's kind of your measure like it's service if you will do it and you don't care if anyone knows yeah so oftentimes i'm gonna go do something i will practice intentionally not telling anyone I did it

because it's a muscle like we go to the gym, we work out we don't go to the gym and work out just because it's fun, it sucks but we need it the same thing goes for service, the same thing goes for spirituality, it goes for whatever it is we do

so yeah, so it's a practice it's like building the muscle that fights the ego. Because the ego is strong. Christians call it the devil in some ways. It is the devil. It will take us down to places that you never, ever want to go to. Unless you're using it for a bigger purpose to serve others, I guess. Or serve something else.

Yeah, and your ego can drive you. I mean, there's a reason we have it, right? It's a necessary evil. If none of us had an ego, we'd be living in utopia and there'd be no reason for us to like, why are we here? There'd be no reason, but why are we even alive, right? We're alive to experience a journey, to start somewhere, to go through hardship and eventually hopefully to learn lessons and come out on the other side. So if there's no journey, like if there's no ego, if there's no taking us into the darkness, then there's no light, right? So ego exists, I think, so that we can overcome it. Yeah. I think if we're living in service every day,

whether it's, you know, I do a lot of little acts of service, little acts of service where no one knows about, where I'm just opening a door for someone. Don't tell me. In general. I'm not telling you specifics. No, I'm joking. But I think also just smiling at people down the street is an act of service as opposed to having your head down and being disconnected. I think showing up with an open heart

is of service. And those are the things I have a battle with this sometimes because we, I'm going to announce it, we build schools for kids all around the world who need support, right? And I've always been like, I never want- Is that Pencils to Promise? Pencils to Promise, yeah. I love it.

And I remember when I first got into it, I was like, I don't want to let people know because I don't want to be like, have my ego involved like I did something. But then someone told me one time, they were like, you're doing a disservice by not letting other people know because you're not inspiring other people to do the same thing. There's a balance. Okay, yeah. There's a balance. And that's the struggle.

Yeah, it is. And that's the struggle that nobody talks about. Yeah. Because I can go do the Skid Row Carnival and not tell anybody and have a carnival with myself. Right, exactly. Or you can say, hey, we're doing this. But how many people can I affect?

Yeah. The challenge becomes, and this is, again, it's controversial, but you can look at a lot of these proclaimed life coaches and spiritual guides and pastors. You look at people that are in positions of power where their job is to influence and help people become enlightened, inspire people, and you can see how and help people become enlightened, inspire people. And you can see how quickly that can become self-serving.

Absolutely. When everyone's looking at you. Because everybody then is looking at you. Everyone. And what happens is we forget that the only reason you're there is because you were in a clear channel from God to them, right? So then as a man, we suddenly go, oh. It's my idea. It's me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? I had this carnival idea. Well, the truth is, dude, the idea came through me. Absolutely. The absolute was not my idea. It was just crazy enough that I did it. Yes.

So that's where it can get dangerous is we start to think it's about ourselves. So even service is a test of the ego, right? So it's like, how do you stay pure and true and honest and authentic in service it's knowing and it's checking that like yeah you're going and building those schools you might build five schools and not tell a soul but you're gonna on the sixth school you're gonna go tell everybody because you need the money to go build more schools the challenge is when lewis becomes more important than the school. Absolutely.

And that's why it's important to have friends that are like right in there with you, that check you like your boys, like I know you have here, like your account, you know, your best friends for females to have their girlfriends or guy friends. I mean, whatever, to always kind of keep us authentic and grounded because it'd be very easy for me to make the Skid Row Carnival about me. Right. I'm the creator of this thing. I did this thing. But what we realized through the process,

and by the way, I tried at one point to not make it about me, is that it needed me. It needs a spokesperson or a someone. It needs an entry point. A story. It needs something to galvanize people. And I was okay being that,

but it comes at a cost. Let me tell you why. I don't get to enjoy the carnival like everybody else. You're making sure it's all working out and everyone's in their place. I'm doing interviews or I'm doing this or I'm making sure it's running. But all I desire, honestly, is I want to sit down and wash people's feet. Three years I've done the carnival. I haven't gotten to wash one person's feet and that breaks and it breaks my heart. Carve out 30 minutes. That's the goal. That's the goal. But by the carnival, I haven't gotten to wash one person's feet. And that breaks, and it breaks my heart. Carve out 30 minutes.

That's the goal. That's the goal. But by the time I, and by the time, and again, it's something that we've, that we're working on. But so my carnival experience isn't the same as someone else's.

However, my experience is necessary. But the second it becomes about me, the carnival will die. The nonprofit will die because that's not what it's for. And that's where the ego comes in. So all these likes,

all these posts where there's now instant feedback. It's like, oh, great. They got 5,000 likes in two minutes. I did something right. I better do that again. That's the ego versus I'm happy that people responded to that. And we don't have that healthy dialogue with ourselves right now because we're so like minute to minute Versus I'm happy that people responded to that.

And we don't have that healthy dialogue with ourselves right now because we're so minute to minute with our phones. Anyways, that's a long answer to your question. We could talk about this forever. You did a project. You have to tell me what it was called again where you interviewed people who are about to die, right? My last days. My last days. You interviewed people who are about to die, right? My Last Days.

My Last Days. Yeah. How many people did you interview, and what was the biggest lessons you learned about these experiences? So My Last Days was a documentary series that started on YouTube. It aired actually on Rain's Soul Pancake channel on YouTube. It was their first show. Really?

And everybody said it was crazy. No one will ever choose to watch a show on YouTube about people that are dying. And I, from the beginning, fought everyone and said it's not a show about people dying. It's a show about people living. Because we are all so afraid of our own mortality that we don't know that it could actually be one of the greatest gifts ever to become friends with

it and to be aware of it so that we can start to live a purposeful life. So the show was really my attempt at holding a mirror to an audience to say, you are going to die, but what are you choosing to live for now? What are you choosing to do with your time today? And it's something we don't think about. So if you wake up every morning and you don't know if you're going to live tomorrow, you're going to live your day differently. And so I wanted to go find people that had this mentality that were told they were dying and were making a conscious, intentions choice, intentions isn't even a word, a conscious intention to live in the present and to truly experience their lives. So I did the

first season. I did seven episodes of the show on YouTube. Um, we had no money. I lost my house. My house went into foreclosure while I was shooting the show. I built my company Wayfair from the, um, living room of that foreclosed house. I quit acting to focus just on this show and basically pay for the show with SoulPancake and make no money. And it was the best thing I ever did in my entire life because for one full year, I got to be of service to build relationships with these people and to create something that had never really been done before. An inside look at life told from the eyes of people who were dying.

And the seventh, the last episode of that season was a young man named Zach Sobiak. He was 17 and he had osteosarcoma and he wrote a song called Clouds. And Zach said in his My Last Days that he wants everyone to know that you don't have to find out you're dying to start living. And that documentary went on to be one of the most watched documentaries online ever. It's been seen 20 something million times. His song hit number one on iTunes. And we've raised nearly a million dollars

or over a million dollars for osteosarcoma from the song and from the success of the documentary. And now we're shooting the show for CW. So now we're shooting season three and season four right now of My Last Days, which will air once a year as a three-night special on the CW. So to date, I've done about 20 documentaries

of people who are dying. And I would say the thing I've learned the most, to go back to your question is, um, is to not sweat the small stuff and to really tell the people in your life, your life, how you feel about them. Um,

and to just be present. And I think that goes back to my kind of mission statement of being a seeker of truth and wanting to know truth. Because when you find out you're dying and I'm sitting across from you and you're choosing to give me your most valuable asset, which is your time. I know you have three months to live and here you are with me for three days. You've just given me a significant percentage of your life and when we sit down there is no room and there is no time for inauthenticity there is no room for keeping anything back or hiding are we allowed to say bullshit on this sure there's no room for bullshit um it's all here because their intention is to leave something behind for their family and to say something to the world.

And it's been one of the hardest experiences of my life. I've lost very close friends because again, these people become family. They're all in my phone. Two of the, two of my friends from the last season of my last days are struggling badly right now. Claire has cystic fibrosis and she has a sepsis infection. And my friend Jessica has got brain cancer and her lymph nodes are

attacking her and she's waiting on her results from her MRI. And this is a constant thing. And my wife and I struggle with this a lot because we've invited this into our lives, which causes us to reflect on our own mortality all the time, which is a good and a bad thing. One, you walk around being terrified because you know how precious life is. And on the other hand, you're in the moment and you're saying, I'm going to live fully, fully, you know, and if you imagine if we did that, right, it's like, what are the things in your life that you're waiting to do that you're not doing? Who are the people in your life that you're waiting to call that you haven't called? When you find out you're dying from my experience of watching these people, then those things are gone. Suddenly it's not about seeing how many likes you got on your phone,

but it's about posting something that makes people feel a certain way. And it's about having a conversation with people that you love. So like I've seen these human beings transform and become like – they're like gurus. And it's amazing what – it's amazing that like being on death's door, what that can do to your – to you becoming like a pure channel. Yeah. Yeah. It's powerful stuff. How can people find that or watch it online? Is it online right now still?

Yeah. So you can watch last season of My Last Days on uh the cwtv.com the cw website and you can watch the first season where zach's episode is on soulpancake.com cool yeah and how has getting married and having your first child giving you a new perspective about being a man, your purpose, your mission? That's a good question. So being married and fatherhood, how has that changed anything, your perspective about being a man? You know, I used to think, I went through a period where I was mad at my dad because I didn't think that he was manly

enough. Really? I didn't think that my dad taught me enough how to be a man. And, uh, because I didn't learn how to camp or fish. I didn't learn how to like hunt, you know, how to hunt. Didn't learn how to fight. Um, I didn't learn those things. And didn't learn how to fight. I didn't learn those things. And I took that into my marriage a little bit, wanting to like, struggling with my identity of masculinity. Because my dad was a businessman who made financial mistakes. Like I watched him make mistakes.

And I think when I was younger, I judged that because I saw my, we put, we grew up part-time in Oregon and I saw like all of their, my, my friend's friends were camping and hunting and fishing and like, you know, they're like masculine dads. My dad was on the phone. My dad was doing business. Making sales calls or whatever. Yeah. But he was also showing up to all my soccer games.

And he was also there for my wife or for or for my mother, who's his wife. Always there for my sister. And so I kind of grew up grappling with this. And when I got married, I realized how much he actually taught me. And that my dad was the exact definition

and example of what it is to be a man, in my opinion. Because marriage taught me that there is no such thing as a perfect happy ending. That there is no such thing as a perfect marriage or a perfect relationship. That love doesn't just happen to you. That it's actually a choice that you make daily. And you can wake up and choose to not love the person you're with and choose to not find them attractive that day or choose to be annoyed at the way they answered that question or the fact that they didn't do the dishes or do your laundry. Or you might not be able to have a conversation with the person you're with that

day because there's just nothing to talk about. So you can choose to not love the person. Or you can make a conscious choice to focus on the good and to love the person. And to me, that's what being a man is. And that's what my dad taught me that I didn't realize until I got married. And then I watched him constantly wake up and choose to love my mom, no matter how crazy she was.

My mom is the best woman on the planet, but she's nuts. She's a feng shui master. She's an artist. She's a free spirit. She lives in another dimension. But it's the greatest thing ever. Everyone loves my mom.

But he woke up every day and he made a choice. They never got divorced. They went through difficult times. but he woke up every day and he made a choice. They never got divorced. They got hot. They went through difficult times. And he told me that he chose to love my mom. And when I got married, it like hit me. Like it really hit me how much we have to be proactive.

In love and in relationships and friendships and how much we have to choose our own happiness and choose to be present and vulnerable and hold space for the person that we're in a relationship with. And I didn't realize that before I got married. And the same thing goes for my daughter. Because what happens to a man when you enter a marriage and then when you have a child is then suddenly you don't become, you're not the most important person in the relationship. Suddenly, you're not going to be number one.

Your child becomes number one. Your wife is your number one. She was and then you have a child and your child's your number one. Then there's this whole other thing and then you have to really check your ego. Being a man is about learning how to balance all those things and still wake up every day and choose. Because it's very easy to choose to not be present. It's very easy

to choose to just be like, yeah, okay, you got it, baby. You go do that thing. But it's harder. It's the harder choice to choose to show up every day in love while also providing for a family, while also trying and working on all these things and struggling and going through your life tests and all the things that we all go through as human beings. It's part of our experience. But it's that choice. It's that choice that my dad taught me

that I really learned when I married my wife. And that is, it's not perfect. There's no such thing as perfect. But you can choose. You can choose your perfection. You can choose your love. You can choose your love and it's important and it's crucial to any successful, happy life or marriage to choose that happiness. I agree. That's powerful, powerful lesson. He taught you. Yeah, he did. And it was

not angry at him anymore. No. And it's so interesting because, you know, and I struggle with a lot of things with our parents because I think that we all do. And that's part of life is healing half of the trauma that you went through as a child. But as I've been on my journey to kind of to redefine what it means to be a man, I've realized that my father was exactly the man that I needed him to be. And he never, he never ever strayed with his love for me or with his love for my mom and for our family. And he always showed up. And my idea of what it was that I thought I needed

was not real. And he was everything that I needed. So my dad was the exact definition of what I feel masculinity is. And I didn't realize it until I went on my own journey. And I, uh, I hope he's listening now. Um, and I'll make sure he does. Uh, cause I think it's really important that he knows that. Um, yeah, that's cool. What do you think is missing in your life right now to get you to the next level for your career, your marriage, your relationship with your daughter, relationship with your parents? I don't think anything's missing. I don't look at life that way.

I don't think anything's missing. I think if I were to think something was missing, then I'd be looking at my life from a place of lack. I choose to look at life from a place of abundance, but not in the way that I think a lot of people do. Like this, think it and the universe will provide for you. I just think that God gives us everything that we need when we need it, even if it doesn't look the way that we want it to. There's a quote, Baha'u'llah says, nothing save that which profiteth them can ever befall my loved ones. And it's this idea that nothing that happens to us happens to us except

that which will benefit us or profit us. And what I have in my life right now, I've worked very hard for. Is it perfect? No. Am I where I want to be? Of course not. Because I have an ego. And I'm a man. Right? And I can see, like,

right over there, there's a nicer house. And that guy's got a nicer car. And that guy's got more success and more money in the bank. And Lewis has a book. I want a book. Lewis has a cool podcast in this room.

I want a podcast. I can a cool podcast in this room. I want a podcast. I can do that all day long forever. But I don't think that abundance comes until we are content with what we have and grateful for the opportunities that we've been given and are detached from the outcome. And in my faith, that's a big part of it. In my faith, we talk a lot about

dying to the world. This idea of being so detached from all these things, these transitory things, that it doesn't matter if we have nothing or if we have everything. Because,

and this is another great quote, Baha'u'llah talks about how poverty is followed by wealth and then wealth is followed by poverty. And eventually in the end, we leave with nothing. So what's the point? So the only thing missing for me,

I'd like to pray more. I'd like to make more time to pray more and be more intentional with my prayers. And I'd like to do better with balancing the time I spend working versus with my family, and I'd like to do better with balancing the time I spend working versus with my family, and I'd like to do better at shutting off technology at certain points, and it's going to be harder with two kids, and I'm learning the battle of the fight between technology and success and money,

because it is, it's a form of income, but also the line between family and being present and making sure I have time for my friends. Right. So that's, that's a tough line that would, that can be blurred in our business. How are you going to do that? How are you going to manage it all? Yeah. Well, it's something I struggle with now. I mean, that's why, that's what I was saying was it's, it's, it's not something that I would say is missing, but it's something I'm working on actively. I have a quote here on my arm says where there's love nothing is too much trouble and there's always time and it's a quote from abdul baha and to me this is my reminder always is that as where when i start something with love then i'll always find the time

and the things i love the most are my family and my friends of course and i love my job i love what i do but that's it's transitory it's not this goes back to the ego thing like if i am not relevant in a couple years i will be okay right yeah i'll be okay ego might be a little hurt sure it will sure it will but it's nothing it hasn't dealt with before and guess what i had my moment even if it wasn't as big as someone else's moment, what else do I need? Right? It allowed me to get a home for my family, to take care. Like I've gotten a chance to do amazing things. I'll be okay. And if God wills that I stay relevant to a certain extent, then I'll continue to be of service with what I have. But to me, that's what it's all about. And then finding the time and the balance between family and work.

As long as your intention is pure, right? The person that you're with knows your intention is pure and they know that you're working for your family or you're working for the betterment of humanity, then there'll be a middle ground and you guys will figure it out together. It looks different for everyone. For me, I just need to be intentional about it. Yeah.

You're working a lot about redefining manhood. I see you talking about this a lot. You're working on some about redefining manhood. I see you talking about this a lot. You're working on some other projects we don't even get into, which I don't think you've made public. No, we can talk about it. Okay, yeah. We can make it public on your show.

Yeah. You've got a project you're working on called The Men's Room. Yeah. And you're talking about redefining manhood. And I think that's why we connected because Aubrey wanted us to meet and we're talking a lot about similar things. Yeah. And you got a book coming out about it.

I do. The masculine masculinity. Yeah. I'm excited. You're going to sign the copy for me today, right? I will. Yes. Yes. Um, but why are you so committed to this message of redefining manhood masculinity and sharing it so much and so passionate about it? Why that topic? Why now? So I point a lot of things back to my faith as you can. It's for me, it's my foundation. It's the, it's, it's the soil from which everything in my life grows. Um, we're told explicitly in our faith that we are moving out of an age where masculinity, the toxic masculinity that we're used to, the ruling by force and power, we're moving out of that phase into an era that will be more feminine in nature. Your faith talks about this.

Our faith talks about this. Out of necessity. Because it's very clear where we will keep going if we continue on the path that we're on. Because ruling by force and oppression- It's very destructive. It's destructive. And these are the things that are wrong with masculinity. And again, if you think about the qualities that man has,

that we think about strength, power, like reason is one that, which is, I don't know why we get. But you think about these things that we place on men, you think about things we place on women, compassion, empathy, kindness, right? Well, Jesus, don't you think we need more of that? Yeah. It's just so simple, right? I know a lot of very analytical thinkers that before they make a decision, they weigh the pros and the cons.

Just real simple chart. What are the pros? What are the cons? If I date this person, what are the pros? What are the cons, right? What do you think about our world? And you line up all the qualities

that men are known for and all the qualities that women are known for. I would argue that if you shifted them around and you had the women qualities leading and the man qualities supporting, we would have a much healthier, happier, more fruitful, equal world. It's that simple.

As a man, I think it's my job, when I had that moment of kind of shedding my skin of like all my old clothing, right? Getting rid of the mask that I've been living in and going after truth, I realized I was kind of this middle ground between both, right? So I look like what a man should look like. Got the beard, shredded.

Now I got the beard, not as shredded as I want to be, but that's a different topic. But I look like what a man might look like. Got the beard, shredded. Now I got the beard. Not as shredded as I want to be, but that's a different topic. But I look like what a man might look like. But in many ways, I act like a very feminine man. Which is, again, it's a label that society has placed on me, right? Of course, of course. And maybe that's my mission.

Maybe my mission is to be in the middle to show that moderation and balance could be a good thing. Like what's wrong with being in shape or, you know, appearing manly and having a beard or having, you know, clothes, cool clothes and a beautiful,

like what's wrong with that. And also being open and willing to be vulnerable and having compassion for people and, and doing things not just for yourself, but for others and like talking about the empowerment of women. Like, can you have both? I also think that we're, I think it's a,

we're living in a time where it's, it's not just, it's not just important, but it's needed. It's needed in like a, an urgent way. Yeah. Like we're going down

a dark path um we is in the world we is in the world we is in the world yeah i mean you can say we want about america but i would say that i would argue that in general we're you know the world is not in the best shape um i i would i believe that if women were ruling our planet, we wouldn't have hunger. How could mothers, women that have been mothers, understand what it's like to have a child cry because they're hungry? How could we let millions and millions of people around the world not just cry but die because of hunger? They wouldn't let it happen i believe that might be controversial but i believe that you think if women were ruling let's just say the world would they shift into a more masculine points of views and their well i think i think there just needs to be balance i think that first of all i'm not

saying women are without egos right right and I'm also not saying that women are not masculine. So there's a whole, because there's no, like women can absolutely have masculine qualities. There's nothing wrong with that. Just like men can have feminine qualities. I think we need balance. Yeah. And I think right now we need men to start having the kind of conversations I'm praying that we start having so that they can be open to empowering

women. I'm not saying that men just need to roll over and not be leaders anymore and say, okay, you think you can do it better than me? Take it. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that we need to start having conversations that open up the hearts of men, that allow men and give them permission to be vulnerable and to be open and to start to exercise some of these more perceived to be feminine qualities so that they can also start to see women as equal. And not just, because at the end of the day, look, I'm a feminist, right? But who's holding the glass ceiling? Like, it's one side of the, it's important to do the work for feminism.

But until men are doing the work that support women, how's the glass ceiling going to be broken? Like we're just going to either force women to become more masculine so that they can break through it themselves, or we can do it with them, which seems easier, right? The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. So why don't we just work together?

So my work with men is simply about opening up hearts and creating conversations so that we can all just simply realize that like, we can do it together. Why did God create man and woman for it not to like, like, where was it ever said that women are not equal to men? Right. And where was it ever said that like men have to be a certain way? And that's changed. I believe that's changing. So with what my faith teaches me, with what I'm seeing and witnessing, with the conversations that I'm having independently with men, I see that there is a desire and a thirst and a hunger for men to be vulnerable and open up. And it's happening in silos all over the country and the world. My intention is just

to make it more mainstream and to have that conversation in a bigger way. That's really all because man, we need role models. I mean, who did you have?

Who did I have? Really? Like athletes? Yeah, Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger? Athletes, yeah. And God bless Schwarzenegger.

Schwarzenegger is awesome but what are the examples of masculinity? This is a guy who cheated on his wife with his maid and had a child at a wedlock. Right?

Like, is that a good role model? Like, if we're just thinking, if we're stripping it down all the way, he's made amazing business decisions. He's done a lot of good in the world. But I'm talking about straight up, who do you want your child or your son to grow up to be like an emulate? Yeah. And who are those men?

Now, there's nothing wrong with doing that and then coming back because I also think that masculinity is about redemption and it's okay it's important for men to have those experiences and to screw up and then to come back and say I screwed up I'm sorry I was wrong I learned from my mistakes that will never happen again

that's a part of masculinity yeah because we're not going to be perfect we're never going to be perfect and we can't hold ourselves to perfection. And I will always fail if you think I'm going to be perfect. But we still need role models. We need role models that are open and honest and vulnerable and that are willing to, if they've made those mistakes, to come back and say they did. And this is what I learned from it. So I can teach you instead of just living the perception of what you think I am in my perfect life. Yeah. I think a role model for me is actually someone who's made a big mistake and come back and owned it and then said, here's what I'm committed to creating

moving forward. And that's being a man. Yeah. To me, I would say that that's part of redefining what it means to be a man. I love having one of my best friends. And he's probably the one guy I go to when I really need advice. He's been married three times, cheated on his first two wives. Wow. He's about to have his fourth kid, has had tremendous hardship and struggle. And I know that that man has true wisdom. He's been through it all. He's been through it all. And guess what? He's open. He's vulnerable. He has a healthy sense of shame for what he's done. And he wants to make sure that his friends don't repeat his mistakes. That's a man, right? These are the men that we need to strive to be like. It doesn't mean we have to be perfect. It doesn't mean we have to... And it doesn't mean

we have to go that far either, right? And we don't have to look for mistakes to get into. No, no, no. You don't have to look for mistakes, but it's about where in our own lane can we learn from the mistakes that we've made and then help each other, right? Because there's a brotherhood. Having a communication, open communication with one another where most men in general, again, aren't freely sharing their fears, their pains, their concerns. Why do you think that is? Why do you think? I'm going to flip the table. I think it's a level of comfort. You know, they don't feel comfortable sharing their vulnerabilities because they don't want to be judged or they don't want to be, you know, known as not man enough or they don't want to feel like made fun of by other guys. You know, just not being accepted. I think it comes down to is someone going to like us? You know, are they going to love us for who we are?

And do I need to have a certain mask on for them to like me? A certain level of I know enough or I'm smart enough or whatever it is. It's freaking scary putting yourself out there. It's really scary. But I think the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Whenever you have a problem, you don't hold it in. You just say, shoot, I need to talk to my buddy and be like, hey, man. My buddy Matt, who you met, we'll go on runs.

And I'm like, this is what I'm going through. I'm going through a struggle with my relationship or with one of my family members or whatever, something in the business. And just having someone to share and connect with and be like, did I really mess up? Am I messing up horribly right now? And you're so lucky you have that because most men don't. Yeah. And most men go

at it alone yeah and they think they can't share it with anybody so they don't go on runs with anyone they go on runs by themselves and they try to figure it out themselves and they don't have that accountability they don't have someone to look at them objectively and say yeah i don't know if that was the right move did you think about how that made her feel? Or like, what are you doing with your family member? You don't have that. Men don't have that because we're so uncomfortable like just having real conversations.

It's our responsibility to create it too. We have it. The opportunities are there. We don't create it. Yeah. Well, that's why we're more comfortable

talking about like football or sports or- Making money. Like men get together to watch sports and to root on you whoa and you know talk about girls talk about girls locker room talk you have that stuff but how often do we get together to just check in with each other and see how we are yeah that's why

i think it's cool what you're you're doing with the men's room to be able to have these conversations and then hopefully inspire more conversations groups of men around the world to be like hey maybe we can create our own men's room. That's exactly the point of the show. Get together, whether it be two guys, eight guys, 20 guys, and just having conversations. I love these. There's different men's groups in LA. I don't know if you've been invited to any of these. Yeah, I have.

Some of them are Christian-based or faith-based or whatever, and I think that's really cool. It doesn't matter what it is, how it's based. It's just having open conversations. More men open conversations. I think they do it once a month. They get together and they bring in a guy speaker to talk about a topic and I think it's powerful to be able to, even if you need that once a month to go somewhere,

even if it's comfortable for you once a month, at least start there. You have to. And then try to incorporate daily in your life if you need to. Yeah, because you can't just sit with it. When you sit with it and you just – it becomes cancer. It does. It does. I appreciate this conversation, man.

I'm really glad. Yeah, me too, man. I'm really glad you came on. And I want to ask a few final questions. Before we get to the final questions, where do you like to hang out the most online where people can connect with you and learn about everything you're up to? Obviously, the show. You've got a lot of documentaries you're doing, you know,

everything. I think, uh, your company site, all that, all my social is the same. It's at Justin Baldoni. So Instagram,

Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, um, most active on, most active on Instagram and Facebook. Yeah. Um,

so come hang out. And, uh, he needs some more guy followers. So any of the guys listening. Yeah. You got exactly 50% men and women, which is beautiful. Yeah.

And that's a beautiful world. I try to connect the world. But that's a beautiful testament to you, man. Yeah. Thanks. That's amazing. So you're equally attractive to both sexes, and that's fantastic. I try.

You know. Yeah. You're doing a good job. But yeah. So yeah. Come hang out. Come hang out. Come on, man.

And women. And women. I think, yeah hang out. Come hang out. Come on, man. And women. And women. I think, yeah, people have a lot to learn when they follow you. And I have a lot to learn from them. Absolutely. And then your website, if people want to learn about Wayfair. Yeah, my company, wearewayfair.com.

Wearewayfair.com. Wearewayfair.com. Create contentfair.com create content of purpose purposeful intentional content our joy is our goal is to create disruptive inspiration and that can be joyful that can be

painful that can be all kinds of things but we want you to feel something and then do something and yeah we're doing all kinds of cool stuff right now

I love it I love it man final few questions for you am I missing any of the questions you want me to ask no okay see I'm incorporating them since you asked before Final few questions for you. Am I missing any of the questions you want me to ask? No? Okay. See, I'm incorporating them since you asked before.

This question is called the three truths. And we're going to tie it in two ways. Imagine this microphone is connected to the entire world right now. And everyone's put headphones on. And there's 60 seconds. You get to share your three truths with the world and everyone can understand you in English. Oh man, I should have prepared more. Right. And, um, from all the lessons you've learned from again, growing up to creating

content, to being a father, having a child, to everything. Um, what would you say are your three truths that you would share with the world? I'd say my first truth is that our life is not our own. Your life is not just yours. It's shared. And I think that we are here for a very short time. There's an analogy in my faith that talks about the journey of the soul. And in the span of the journey of the soul, of how long the soul lasts, the time we're here on earth is like a bird flying through one end of a bird cage to the other. It's a millisecond of how long the journey of our soul is.

So do not spend your entire life living for yourself. There are 5 billion people on this planet and you have a unique gift to be of service and to contribute to the betterment of mankind in a way that only you were destined to. So that's my one. My second is to become friends with dying, to make death an ally,

to be scared of it and also have it motivate you to live in the present, to live purposefully, to live truthfully, and to not procrastinate because none of us know our end date, but we all know that we have one. So being aware that you are immortal and that you are not immortal is my second truth. And my third truth is to not be afraid to love. Because love is the foundation of life itself. I think love is the secret of the universe. The thing that scientists will never find that is actually what's holding the molecules and the atoms together and that everything in this entire world is

made with love and to not run from it when it comes to you and to learn how to always have it be active in your life and have it move through you and to look in every situation for a way to love. And that can look like a lot of different things. It's not just romantic love. It's friend. It's strangers. But love is a feeling and as a way of being,

I think is something that if we all remembered, the world would look a lot different. So those are my three truths, which I've never thought of until you just asked me. So I hope that was okay. You're powerful, man. So powerful. Well, before I ask the final question,

I want to acknowledge you for a moment for redefining what it looks like to be a great man. Because I feel like you're setting a great example on a daily basis from the actions you take, the words you speak, and how you show up. Your way of being, your love for men, for women, for the planet is infectious in a positive way. And so thank you for leading the way. Thank you for having the uncomfortable conversations,

even when it may not be the popular ones, and for having a beautiful heart that spreads to so many people. I think you're doing an amazing job. So I acknowledge you for that. Thank you. And thank you for seeing me. Of course. That means a lot to me, brother.

Of course, man. Thank you. Of course. Final question me. Of course. That means a lot to me, brother. Of course, man. Thank you. Of course. Final question. What is your definition of greatness? Humility. Justin Baldy. Thank you.

Thank you, man. Appreciate it. Appreciate it so much. There you have it, my friends. If you felt this was powerful and inspiring, make sure to share this out with your friends. lewishouse.com slash 505. I try to connect with as many people who share it out

over on Instagram stories or your Instagram page. Just tag me at lewishouse and make sure to tag Justin Baldoni as well so he can see who is listening and the response that it's getting for him also. Tweet at us at Lewis Howes, Facebook at Lewis Howes. Get this message out there. If you're a fan of him, if you're a fan of this message, please share it. That's what helps us spread the message of greatness. And the only way we grow is if we create something powerful for you, it's meaningful

to you, and then you share it with your friends. So thank you so much again, lewishouse.com slash 505. You can watch the full video interview there as well. And all the other highlights and resources that we talked about in this episode are at those show notes. And in conclusion, the great Albert Einstein said, try not to become a man of success, rather become a man of value. I encourage you to be a human of success. Rather, become a man of value. I encourage you to be a human of value. Whether man, woman, or anything you like to call yourself, you are a human being. I love you. I appreciate you.

And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. សូវាប់បានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបា Thank you.