The School of Greatness - 635 High Performance Habits from Master Coaches

Episode Date: May 2, 2018

TO BE THE BEST YOU HAVE TO LEARN FROM THE BEST. This week I wanted to bring you something new. I’ve recorded well over six hundred episodes at this point. There’s been so much knowledge and wisdom from the brightest minds on the planet shared on the show. I know it can be overwhelming to try to take it all, so I'm bringing you a recap of some of the strongest wisdom I’ve received over the years of doing this podcast. For this episode I wanted to concentrate of high performance habits that I’ve learned from such amazing people as Brendon Burchard, Michael Gervais, Tony Robbins, and Mel Robbins. Each of these guests has reached the top of their game, and the biggest factor in that has been their habits. They set their mind to achieve something big and found a way to persevere even at some of the worst times. So what makes them different than you? Nothing. They aren’t super human and they aren’t luckier than you. If you take their words of wisdom, you’ll find how to overcome what’s holding you back. I hope you enjoy these nuggets of information I hand selected so you don’t have to dig for them. Please let me know what you think of this new format on social media. Now get ready to learn high performance habits from the masters, on Episode 635. Some Questions I Ask: Why do so many of us just focus on our strengths? (10:05) What’s the habit you take on with clarity for your life? (14:44) What’s slowing people down from being their best? (18:53) Why do we fear not being good enough? (19:37) How can we train our minds to overcome fear? (22:05) What are your personal philosophies? (22:47) How does someone continue to stay hungry? (31:42) In This Episode You Will Learn: What’s really correlated with high performance (4:40) 6 most important habits for high performance (6:00) Why you can’t just focus on your strengths (12:03) What your relationship with fear should look like (18:02) How to get to your personal best (21:38) Why you need to be clear about your philosophy (25:00) What makes us grow and what makes us change (27:18) The one common denominator among all successful people (30:00) What you can count on in life (32:41) The two states of life we live in (33:48) Two of my most significant life experiences so far (36:01) What happens during our highest experiences of life (37:28) The thing everyone you admire does (40:31) Plus much more

This is episode number 635, the high-performance habits from the masters. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a 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 can predict the long-term outcome of your success if you show me your daily habits. John Maxwell said that, and this episode is a little different. We're trying something new. We've got over 620 plus episodes on the School of Greatness podcast.

And for some of you who are just joining us, it could seem daunting. Like there's 600 of these episodes out there. You've got some of the greatest world leaders, world changers, world-class athletes, rock stars, celebrities, influencers, doctors, revealing some of their greatest insights, the wisdom from the biggest mentors in the world. It's all here in these episodes. But what do I do? Where do I start? And if I've listened to all of them already, what's a great recap for me to sharpen my mind and move forward into action to create extraordinary results in my life? So I wanted to start featuring

some of the biggest nuggets of wisdom that I've heard that maybe you heard as well, but you might've forgot, or maybe you missed out on because you just didn't hear that specific episode. And I wanted to get you the best support in your life right now to help you get to the next level with some amazing coaches and wisdom that's really going to support you. So this first episode on this series is a mashup of some of the best wisdom I've heard on creating and keeping the habits that turn you into a high performer. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. I think it's mind-blowing and powerful what these individuals are about to share with

you because we've got some featured moments from people like Brendan Michard, Tony Robbins, Mel Robbins, and Michael Gervais. These are going to be some powerful nuggets right here. So make sure to take a screenshot while you're listening to this. Tag me on Instagram. Send a tweet on Twitter. Let me know the thought or the quote that you enjoyed the most. LewisHowes.com slash 635 to share out all the information that's on the show notes there.

Before we dive in, I want to give a big thank you to the fan of the week. This is from Steven Boma, who said, Choosing to listen to The School of Greatness is one of the best decisions I've ever made. I listen to the podcast almost every day and I'm filled with positivity. Louis is an awesome human being who has meaningful conversations with other human beings for the purpose of our learning. Thank you so much, Louis, and keep being great. So Stephen, thank you so much for your support and you are the fan of the week. Again, if you guys haven't shared your review on iTunes yet, we've got almost 3,000 five-star reviews over there.

So go ahead over there. Leave us a review for your chance to be shouted out as the fan of the week. Again, every day is a new opportunity to increase our level of production, our performance, increase our mindset, our positivity, and our impact in the world. And this episode is all about how to increase that high performance in our life and to inspire those around us to do that as well. So without further ado, let me introduce to you the masters of high performance habits. Creativity is not strongly correlated with high performance. And if you told me that seven years ago, I would have fought with you for like two or three hours.

But then in one interview with one of the world's largest CTOs, chief technology officers, he said, Brendan, they're a top 10 brand in the world. He said, my team, he said, I'm not creative. My team's not creative, but we know how to execute and scale. And execution and scale is really important to long-term high performance. Creativity might get you in the game, but a lot of people are creative, but can't work their way out of a bag. And I was like, I would argue that forever because I'm a creator, I'm a writer and a coach. I would have never thought that. Age, nationality, ethnicity, and here's a big one,

compensation. Here's a big one, personality. Here's a big one, strengths. They are not correlated strongly with high performance. Some of them have weak correlations. And all those things, by the way, because if academics are listening to that, they're like, no, he's wrong. And this is tied towards high performance. It's not that those aren't important.

Those things can shape your mood. They can shape lots of important life outcomes, well-being, health, happiness. But when we're talking about high performance, those are less important than these six. And what I keep telling people is, I'm not saying those aren't important. These just happen to be more important.

So the six habits, you want me to do those? Sure, yeah, yeah. So the personal habits, and these are the ones that move the needle the most. Number one, high performers, you'll like this one, high performers seek clarity more often than their peers. And what that means for them is every situation they go into, they're seeking clarity and setting intention. And it's not like once in a while, they're doing it way more often.

It's like, you know, I've been blessed to work with Oprah Winfrey. When she has a meeting, at the start of every meeting, she asks, what's our intention here? What's the intention of this meeting? Not what's the agenda? What's the intention? That's every meeting. So she's seeking clarity at the beginning of every meeting. That's why she's so amazing, right? If you think about her whole career, she was always trying to have people seek clarity on who they were so they could be themselves. That's what high performers are doing. They just do it more often. They seek clarity before they shoot that video, before they have the podcast interview. But specifically, we found three practices help you get better at

seeking clarity. Number one, they are seeking clarity in what we call the future for. So you've probably heard that successful people are more future-minded. It's true. And specifically what they're looking at, if you talk to a high performer, they're more clear about who do I want to be in this upcoming situation. And by the way, it's not about who I am. It's about who do I want to be.

They're more future-oriented. They're more intentional about who they want to be in social situations. So it's like, I want to have this type of interaction with Lewis today. That's intentional. They're more clear about what skills they need to develop to reach their next level of success.

Here's how you really know an underperformer. Open up their calendar and look for any evidence that they have planned their own curriculum for greatness. If they don't have classes or courses, if they're not actively skill building, there's no chance of high performance. I mean, maybe they can dumb luck into it for initial success, but high performance is long-term success.

You got to be building your skill sets. Constantly growing, constantly learning, constantly growing. Being aware of that. And the last of the future four is, I know the service I want to provide in the future. Talk to any high performers. I'm sure you've interviewed. They kind of know the service and the difference they want to make.

Maybe not precisely, but they're asking the question. So that's some of what we know. They, they seek clarity. Um, and that's kind of the first practice is asking questions in those areas. And the other two real fast is when you're seeking clarity,

they're more clear about the feeling they want to have. Like an Olympic sprinter who's won gold is more likely to have said before he went or she went on the track, how do I want to feel out there? Not like just the result, like when the foot's in the block and I'm arms down, like what do I want to feel out there. Not just the result. When the foot's in the block and I'm arms down, what do I want to feel? They're very aware of the feeling they're trying to get. Yeah. I don't want to feel nervous and stressed. I want to feel calm and clear and smooth. Yes. And they're doing that self-talk, which is seeking clarity. And then the last one, which is really important, they're clear about what's meaningful to them now and what might be different in the future, which is something I didn't know until we did a lot of the interviews or the conversations.

A lot of people kind of know what I like now. They know what their passion is. But it's like, what's going to be meaningful to you later, like in five years? They've thought about that. I would say they've done the work. So that's just the first habit. And so the book kind of opens with that story of finding what's – we all have to decide who we are and what we want

and how to get it at this stage of our life. And when we don't know that, reaching high performance can be really hard. Yeah. It's all about clear vision for me. It's the first chapter in my book is the greatest leaders in the world have a clear vision. Love that. Yeah. That's it.

And they got that vision by seeking clarity. Yes. That was the habit that gave them the vision. They were consistently seeking, like, how do I, what do I? I mean, they asked themselves more questions. That's one of our findings. They literally are doing more of the self-talk, asking more of the questions, which is so important. Yeah. Awesome. And I love how you talked about this. You say the world cares less about your strengths and personality than about

your service and meaningful contributions. Then why do so many of us focus on our strengths and personality? Yeah. Oh, that was a huge finding. And I would, that's another one. I would have completely freaked out on anybody. Strength finders, all these other books out there. You know, it's like. Yes. Focus on our strengths. And unfortunately, one, that's, in the history of personal development, that is the greatest

false dichotomy there has ever been. Focus on your strengths or it's like, you have to do both. You have to do both. But what we found in our research, which surprised me, high performers do not report working on their strengths any more than regular people. So that's not what gives them the edge. One of the chapters opens up with this guy. He wrote this email, really highly successful guy.

And he wrote this email to me. He says, and I'd put him through all this. I put him through StrengthsFinder, the Berkman, the Colby, the Myers-Briggs, put him through everything. This was one of my first coaching clients ever. I knew everything about him. We knew all his background. He did all the homework.

Had his peer review, his 360 assessments from work. And then I watched him fail for two years. And he wrote me this email and he said, Brendan, stop telling me what successful people are like because we know my strengths and I'm not getting ahead. And start telling me what they do. And that's what this book became. I was like, what do you need to do? Because in this email, he wrote this, which is where that finding came from. He said, this was so good. Listen to this line. He said, as a leader, I have to be honest with myself that my mission and vision should never be made to bow down

to my limited human strengths. I should have to rise up to my mission or vision. The strengths aren't the relevant thing. The question is, what is necessary for me to develop into to reach that mission? It's like, your strengths are great. And it's like, yes, of course do your strengths. But that's kind of like what I tell people is like, let's imagine you have a bear and that bear wants to go on top of this cliff over here and it's never been on the cliff

and it wants to get that new honey up there, right? Telling the bear to focus on the strengths, to go somewhere it's never gone before and do something it's never done before is stupid. It's like saying, hey, you know what? Just try being more of a bear. If I just, you say, Brent, I got this big new vision. I just say, just try being more of Lewis.

I mean, it's a spiritual level that feels good, but you and I both know you're gonna have to develop far beyond your comfort zones and strengths are typically comfort zones. We got to overcome that and go to the next level. And develop new skills and overcome certain fears and all these other things that are going to help us get to the next level. Is that right? Yeah. The whole conversation of beyond the comfort zone really requires us to go beyond our strengths. It really requires us- That is our comfort zone. That is our comfort zone.

We already know what we're good at. And the problem with the Strengths Finder and all of the strengths-based movement is the assumption, and they're all written academically this way, based on what are called innate strengths. And innate strength is the assumption that you had that from birth and that those innate strengths are what you focus on. And I'm like, well, if you had it at birth, you probably had it when you were 15 years old too. So if it's innate, you had it at 15. Are the strengths you had at 15 sufficient to serve you at 50? Hell no. You need to develop beyond what's innate and go to a whole other level. And so I take on strengths in the book in that way, but I also say it almost doesn't matter

because a lot of people have strengths and they suck at work because they're not doing these habits. I mean, how many people do you know who are amazingly strong and their strengths finders are amazing and they don't do anything all day? That's it. Yeah. A lot of people. I mean, in the sports world, there's a lot of great talented people who had the greatest gifts, but they still weren't able to win or they were lazy or they wouldn't, you wouldn't hustle or sacrifice their body because they just relied on their talents, their strengths. And so they were never able to get to the championship game

or get on the best teams. And they had all the talent in the world. And you're just like, if I was as gifted as this person, I would be incredible. That's the whole thing about the talent code or a lot of newer research and performance. It just says, what's more important is what you do with what you got to develop into the vision of the mission you need to serve. And so the book kind of lays out a lot of the science behind that and then goes into, you know, obviously most of it's oriented towards the six habits. Obviously, most of it's oriented towards the six habits. So in terms of clarity, what is that habit that you take on on a daily or monthly basis with clarity?

What do you think about? You're like, every morning, what am I clear about? Or how do you apply that habit to your life? I apply it in a couple ways. First, for me, every situation I go into, I'm consistently asking, what's the feeling I want to have here? If you ever see me teach, it's often I would say, bring the joy. So I have joy triggers that I've set up in my mind that makes me more intentional about things. So for example, a doorframe trigger. Whenever I walk through a door, I say, bring the joy. So when I walk through that door right there, it's like, bring the joy into this room. It's just a mental trigger that I've set up for myself.

bring the joy into this room. It's just a mental trigger that I've set up for myself. Every morning in the shower, I ask myself three questions. And not that I shower every morning, but the first question I say, what can I be excited about today? So it forces me to be clear about what's going to draw joy and enthusiasm from me. Number two, I say, what might trip me up today? Because usually I know what's going on in the day. I'm like, what might mess me up? Where might I not perform well? What might

bother me? And number three, I say, what can I do to surprise somebody today, to give a gift of appreciation or acknowledgement today? And so I think through that in the morning. So I think that helps me begin my day pretty clear. Then when I sit down before I do work, I literally look at my calendar of the day. This is morning. And I look at whatever's going on in the day and I think about it for 20 minutes. It's one of my 20-minute routines in the morning.

I literally think about my calendar for 20 minutes a day. People think that's crazy. But what I'm thinking through when I'm looking at the calendar, I'm like, okay, I'm going to have that call. What do I want to happen on that call? What's my intention for that call? What's my goal for that call? What's the feeling for that call?

How do I want to end that call? I'm going to have that time with Lewis. How do I want to be there? And how can I make sure I enjoy it? Because it's a big deal. I love your show. I want to do a good job. I want to share something good job. I want to

share something good for the people, even though I have no idea what you're going to ask. I want to be present for that and make sure I'm really there, even though maybe I have a head cold today. It's like just thinking through it. I think that helps me. It keeps me asking questions. Every Sunday, I do a life arenas assessment. That just means I think there's 10 areas of our life, and I score myself in them. And this is about my 11th year of doing this. Wow. So each area of my life, from emotional quality, to happiness, to relationships, to time, to hobby, et cetera, I just give myself a score of one to 10. And one means I suck. And I was horrible

in the previous week on that. 10 means I did a good job. And then I ask, how can I do better? It's my Sunday routine. And it just keeps me clear. And it's not like I don't sometimes like everyone else,

you know, wonder what's going on or what I'm doing. But those habits, those were my habits. You have to establish your own for seeking clarity. But when you have them,

you weaponize your life if we get the fear thing right we have a relationship with fear and we look for moments to challenge our relationship with fear i can talk a lot i love to talk about that with you and the other is getting the fatigue thing right And we've come in modern times to believe that we need to do more to be more. And it's broken, right? It's fundamentally broken. The idea is that we need to be more and let the doing flow from there. Be yourself, be your authentic self, be here now, you know, be grateful, be present present and let the doing flow from those, that orientation is a completely different model that, you know, it's like, I, I've, I'm spending my life efforts, I think, working to share that and to help the, some of the best

doers and thinkers in the world to reorientate what got them good, but is slowing them down from being their absolute personal best. What's slowing them down? Fear and fatigue still? Yeah. Well, the idea, the framework, the psychological framework that I need to do more to be more, and that's born out of anxiety. Not doing enough. Yeah. Could be doing more.

And the trick- Stressing about that. Yeah, flat out. And the trick though there is that that that'll get people good i need to do more damn i miss that jumper how am i gonna miss that jumper let's keep it like you know drive them to be practice more to yeah it's like just enough anxiety will get you good but it will slow you down for being your absolute best at some point but why do we fear so much about what could go wrong? What other people think about us? Who are we going to let down? That we're not worthy enough, good enough. Why do we fear that?

It's a great question. So much. Yeah, it's a really great question. For our whole life. Yeah. So there's some biological things we can take a look at, and then there's also psychological, right? And then, so it's the interaction of those two. Biologically, our brain, as best as we think, and it's three pounds of silly putty that sits in our skull that's more complicated than, you know, like the brightest minds in neuroscience are still amazed by how our brain works. to scan the world and find what's dangerous, right? And so our ancestors passed that gift onto us. Your lineage passed that gift onto you that they were able to survive. And so how survive? Way back in ancient times

that they could scan the world and easily discern how to be ready between, now let me say it more eloquently, they could scan the world and find what was dangerous or what was threatening so that they wouldn't be eaten eaten by the saber-toothed tiger as the story goes right or they want to eat something bad or they want to whatever protect themselves that's right so and then not only was nature

dangerous and all the elements in nature but other humans became dangerous to each other so now what we've created is the ability the heightened ability to read micro expressions and micro expressions are the small squinting of the eyes the frontalis muscles between the eyes and when those squint or don't move it's a sense of threat right because we don't know what's happening to that from that person and so if you got this ancient brain that's programmed beautifully to find what's dangerous and we scanned in an undisciplined way, our environment around us, we're going to find dangerous things. And in modern times,

we're not chased by saber tooth anymore. The new modern saber tooth are other people's opinions. And so we're well conditioned from an early age. And this next generation is going to be even more well conditioned, you know, with Insta highlight reels for everything. My is better than yours i'm going to show you via a snap picture is that um you know so we've got this real challenge that to pursue a path of our personal best we have to override our dna that's that's hard to do that's really hard to

do it requires deep commitment to training. And that's what psychology, the optimal opportunities that psychology offers us is just that. How to train our minds to override our DNA and to use the smaller parts of our brain to scan the world and find opportunity. How can we train our minds every single day throughout the day to do that?

Overcome this fear. What are the things that we could be doing i could i'll i will not i could i will rattle off as many as you want to hear like tactics and then i also want to put a small little asterisk next to this is that the tactic alone is not enough right it's the stitching of the tactics it's the stitching of the mental skills training to each other and to one's personal philosophy. So without a personal philosophy, it's like we end up just trying all these different things to get better, but what are we getting better at? What other people want us to be? So there's a fundamental piece of work first.

Got it. So what would be your personal philosophy? I'll share mine. I've spent a lot of time with it. And if I could tell a story of how it worked, I think it will harden it a little bit. So I needed a mentor when I was growing up. And I'm thankful. What's up, Gary? I'm thankful for Gary. He helped me out in so many different ways, even currently today. And so one day he says, hey, Mike, I want to introduce you to my mentor. Oh, great. I didn't know there was such a thing as like a grand mentor. Like, am I ready? And so it was this moment I said, okay, here we go. And it was this, but to my surprise, it was this small, you know, two, three bedroom, two bedroom, three bedroom, two bath home.

three-bedroom, two-bath home. And it was well manicured. And it was this pleasant, like, 78, 82-year-old woman comes out. And I was just so pleasantly surprised, like, okay, this is going to get good. Because she just had that sense of wise woman. And it's the setting that you would imagine. The shag carpet was a little bit long. The drapes were just a little bit outdated. And so, we sat a little bit, you know, outdated. And so we sat at the table and she's pouring me tea and she says, you know, welcome. And so interested to meet you. Then we sat down and she said, so tell me what you're about. I said, okay, well, well, okay, let me start this way.

And she looked at me and she looked at my mentor and she said, I thought you said he was ready. I am ready. Wait, wait, wait. No, no, no. I want to answer that. And she grabbed my tea and she said, you know, when you're ready, sweetie, I'd like to share this tea with you. Yeah. So I was like super embarrassed in that moment. Like I thought I let my, my mentor down and you know, it was like this really intense experience. Wow. How old were you? I was at that point. really intense experience. Wow. How old were you? I was at that point, it was like 26, 27, somewhere in that range. And so I didn't know what to do. And so it was this awkward moment, but I knew that I was not prepared to even answer the most basic question, who are you? I just want to anchor that because I think that that captures what most of us feel

like a lot. Most people don't feel like they know who they are. Yeah. And so I had this dramatic moment for me, but I think it's a really important process to go through. So let's call it a personal philosophy, but then let's extract one level out from that. The greatest and the most influential people across the globe are very clear about their philosophy. The greatest and the most influential people across the globe are very clear about their philosophy. The greatest movers and shakers and change makers are spiritual leaders and political leaders for the most part. And now we're starting to see business leaders to do that. What was Confucius' philosophy? What was Buddha's philosophy? What was Jesus' philosophy? They're really clear. Jesus was, and I want to oversimplify a beautiful set of traditions, but Jesus was more about love and service.

Buddha was more about, you know, that all people are suffering. And then so let's work through compassion to live with love and kindness. What was Martin Luther King Jr.'s? Dr. King Jr.'s was about equality, you know. Malcolm X, equality, totally different tone, totally different approach. Mother Teresa, Helen Keller. What was Helen Keller? She's like, okay, I'm going to go for it.

I deserve to be educated as well. She changed the educational system. So the most influential people were very clear. Why? Because they lined up their thoughts, their words, and actions to the thing that matters most to them. And that's what a philosophy is about. Everybody already has one. You have one, I have one. Whether we could articulate it at knife point, a dark alley, totally different element, right? And so, I think that that's a nice litmus test. Like, could you get it out in front of a deranged

person who's got a knife to your throat? Are you that clear what you stand for? And do you have your personal philosophy? So that's the litmus test for folks I work with. And I'll share mine. Every day is an opportunity to create a living masterpiece. And so there's optimism embedded in there. There's creative juices embedded in there. And then there's this idea of a living masterpiece. And so when I met Coach Carroll, head coach of the

Seattle Seahawks about six years ago, six, seven years ago, one of our first conversations, it was over dinner, a mutual friend put us together, and we had this really wonderful conversation. And it was born out of like, what is your philosophy? So he had been on the same, similar journey, I should say, where he was fired from two head coach jobs in the NFL. And on the second time he was fired. So from pain creates change. Uncomfortableness is how we grow, but change is how we, I'm sorry, uncomfortableness is how we grow, but pain is why we change. So he experienced pain and said, if I get another chance, I'm going to do it exactly the way that is authentic to me.

But I got to figure out what that is. So he just went and scratched down on multiple pads, old school spiral notebooks, just wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote. Took a second pass at it and said, what are the words that keep showing up? Circled those words, wrote more about those words. And that's how it eventually spilled out of him. His philosophy is always compete. Always compete for what, you say? Always compete to be a great dad, to be a great coach,

to be a great friend, to be a great partner. Like, always compete. And so he says at his core, he's a competitor, and he's always trying to become better. And so he's built his whole life around that, including the Seattle Seahawks and USC before that. So yeah, so philosophy is really important to us. And so that would be the most significant investment first. Hey guys, I wanted to take a quick break from this episode to tell you about one of the best sources I've found for running your business online. Again, if you want to expand your horizons in the online world, I know it can be crazy.

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the most successful people. You know, Richard Branson's a good friend of mine and Peter Guber, Steve Wynn, all these guys, they've never lost their hunger. Most people are hungry to achieve a certain amount, make a certain amount of money, and then they get comfortable and relax. Or to get a certain level of fitness, and then they relax. But, you know, Richard is as driven today as when he was 16 years old starting. I mean, he's like on fire, and he's 65 years old. Warren Buffett is 85 years old. He's as driven today as when, you know, he began the journey, right?

And so people that have that hunger, I believe intelligence. I love people that are wickedly smart, and I work to be wickedly smart by educating and training myself and so forth and training my brain. But there's a lot of intelligent people who can't fight their way out of a paper bag, right? Hunger is the ultimate driver. Because if you're hungry, you can get the strategy. You can get the answer. If you can't model it, you can find it. So hunger, modeling would be maybe the next best skill, knowing that success leaves clues.

Like, why reinvent the wheel? skill, knowing that success leaves clues, like why reinvent the wheel? If someone took this plane, it was Mickey's plane who owns the Miami Heat and owns Carnival, right? I mean, you can learn so much from them. Like, Mickey, blow your mind what this man has been able to do in his life. And so why would I go learn by trial and error and maybe take 10 or 20 years when I can learn from somebody in a few weeks or a few months or a few hours, something that can save me a day. That's what it is.

That's why I read 700 books in the first seven years because I was like, if somebody takes 10 years of their life, they pour into a book and I can read that in an hour or two or three or four, why wouldn't I? So how does someone continue to stay hungry or rediscover what they're hungry about? The best way is get around where it's better and things will hit you. Who you spend time with is who you become. So, you know, when I started coaching all these billionaires, there's a part of me that said, I'm as smart in certain areas as they are.

I got to step my game up. It's not about the money. It's about how can I take the invisible and make it visible? How can I find a way to add more value to other people to such an extent where economics are not a question whatsoever? And then I can take those economics and do even more where I'm not there. I look at money as portable power. I can leverage my money to do things for people even when I sleep. Now, I love doing these for people and I work 18, 20-hour days still, but it's really nice to have the leverage of that as well. The most important decision of your life is deciding whether you're truly committed to

being happy no matter what, because life is going to throw all kinds of curveballs at all of us. The one thing that's in common in this lifetime is extreme stress. You're going to experience it if you haven't already, and even if you have, you will in the future. I like this positive thinking, but it's just true. Someone you're going to care about is going to die. Someone's going to experience it if you haven't already. And even if you have, you will in the future. I like this positive thinking, but it's just true. Someone you're going to care about is going to die. Someone's going to take advantage financially. If you're not careful, you're going to find yourself in a position. The government might change the rules and you can't do what you're doing before. Somebody call, like I've gotten a call saying you got a tumor in your brain.

Those days alter you. And if you decide that you're going to live in a beautiful state of mind, that doesn't just mean happy. It means, uh, people say, Oh yeah, I'm committed to be happy, but my wife left me. Well, then you're not committed to being happy. You're committed to be happy unless your wife leaves you and you can't control that. You can certainly influence it, but you can't control it. Or I'm going to be happy except my friend died. Your friends are going to die. Your family going to die. So the greatest gift you could give yourself besides making this life about love

and making this life about giving because to give you have to keep growing is I believe to make that decision and say life is too short to suffer. And most achievers like you and I, we never use the word suffering, but we get stressed, we get pissed, we get overwhelmed. Some people get sad or depressed. And those are all forms of suffering. And all your entire life, you live in one of two states, states of suffering or beautiful states of being.

In beautiful states of being, it doesn't matter what happens. You're going to find something to enjoy and appreciate. And, you know, you and I both interviewed people, I'm sure. I'm sure you have that have born with no arms or legs or they've been, they've lost their sight and they're happy. And then you meet billionaires or people, families, they got beautiful kids, beautiful husband, beautiful wife, and they get miserable over anything. I really believe you have to make that. That's the most important decision of your life is that no matter what happens, I'm going to live in that state. And then you have to do the

work, which is I got a 90-second rule. When I get pissed off or frustrated, suffering comes up. It always shows up. But what I decide is within 90 seconds, I kill it because in that suffering state, I'm not going to be there for my wife or my kids. In that suffering state, if I solve it, I'm going to be miserable even though I solve it, right? I realized I would give away my happiness so easily because, look, I got 1,200 employees plus in 18 companies on multiple continents and multiple industries. What are

the chances that today somebody is going to screw up something? It's a hundred percent. And so I would be like, Oh, I was so happy. And then John did this or this person, what were they thinking? Or he opened the door in the middle of the interview or whatever. There's always something, right? And so I decided that's the shit that's going to happen. That's part of, you know, having multi-billion dollar companies and lots of industries. So I'm going to enjoy it. And when something doesn't work out, we'll learn from it. We'll grow.

It's all small stuff, right? You don't sweat the small stuff. It's all small stuff. So I've really experienced in the last year, that's probably the greatest growth for me, is not letting that suffering last and calling it suffering because it's inconsistent with my identity and probably yours as well, right? So I'd never do that stuff, so I don't. And I call a spade a spade. Pissed off is suffering.

Worried is suffering. Stressed out is suffering. And so I know it sounds esoteric because we're doing this in two minutes. I usually take people now through like a day of experiences where they uncover this. I ask people, if I asked you, what are two of the most magnificent experiences of your life so far? The first two things that came to the top of my head was visiting a third world country and building a school for kids and seeing their joy and being in that experience.

And then two others was achieving a dream of being an All-American athlete when I wanted to early on, when I worked for it for so long. And then also not to pitch myself, but writing a New York Times bestselling book and having a dream and creating that dream. Now there's a pattern to those examples. I'm not just listening to the content. I'm listening to tell me what you felt. What did you feel when you helped build that school? Incredible joy. It was like I was able to give.

I was able to use what God had created for me to give back and support other people. That contribution, that service for me was a major thing to see what I was capable of doing for so many other people beyond myself. And when you became an All-American, what did you feel? I felt a sense of, well, actually the first time I was an All-American, I was really happy and then I was really sad. I was really upset because I was driven by anger to prove people wrong that I would become it. So I made it happen by this willing it and this commitment to like proving everyone wrong. And all the people that screwed me over, like, here's why you're going to accept me and why you're going to love me. And it didn't work completely.

It wasn't fulfilling. It was for a moment. And then I was like, this sucks. What's the point of this? So you just so beautifully demonstrated what I want to get across. Whenever we have our highest experiences of life, two things are involved, some form of growth within ourself and some form of contribution beyond ourself. I could ask a hundred people as I've done this with thousands and they always tell me something that where they would face the fear overcame something, but also in doing it, it benefited their family or benefited somebody else or like what you did with the

building. Whenever I ask people the worst experiences of their life, they will tell me something and it was all about them. What happened to them. Yeah. So one of the reasons you valued that experience is there was growth in that experience to become the All-American. But because you did it all just about you, it wasn't fulfilling.

Exactly. That's when I say life's not about me. It's about we. And that's also why when people are suffering, it's always because you're obsessing about yourself. You're obsessing that something happened and now you have less. You think you have less. Right. Or something happened and you've lost something, lost love, lost money, lost significance, lost attention, lost something, or because you did this or said

that, or because I did something myself, I'm never going to have something. Lost less never are the sources of suffering. And when you say, no, I'm suffering because my children aren't doing well. No, you're suffering because you failed your children in your mind. It's about you still. When you get that all suffering is obsession with self, you can snap out of it. And all you have to do is stop expecting and start appreciating. You look around and appreciate things outside yourself, the people around you, your friends sitting across here, anything of that nature, and then starting to enjoy something. If you start to learn or grow from that, if you love, which to me is an action, if you love, if you give, if you're grateful, suffering disappears instantly.

But you have to tell yourself the truth. The only suffering is in your mind. It's because this brain is not designed to make you happy. It's 2 million years old. It's designed to make you survive. Happiness is your job. And happiness is a decision. And it's a daily set of practices.

And the difference for me from before, if you said, do you have a beautiful, magnificent life? Is that kidding me? I mean, it's like, I have this incredible mission. I work with millions of people. I have this beautiful family. I love my wife. I'm physically strong and healthy. But it's like a business.

If you measure the business annually, you're good about the business, but you're going to have some bad years. If you measure it monthly, the worst you're going to have is bad months. Daily, when I take over a company and turn it around, I find usually a dozen elements of that business, and I'll measure five times a day in the beginning. Wow. Because the more you measure, the better you can adapt and change. I make everybody have to focus on it. Well, what I've done with this area of my life is instead of saying, is my life beautiful?

Of course it is. Of course it is. I now measure it moment to moment. Wow. So if I feel that, that suffering, that frustration, that whatever's coming up, I go, this is the mind. I breathe in my heart. I find something I can appreciate. I become entertained by the experience and go, you know what? I'm going to live in a beautiful state no matter what, because not everything can I control and the things i'm most upset about they're fleeting anyway everybody that you admire is doing the exact same thing they actually listen to their inner wisdom they have figured out how to tune out the critic up here and trust the instincts and you know i have this saying about confidence that I've only

recently kind of stumbled into as I've been digging into more research around the science of confidence and the skill of confidence. Because a lot of people think that confidence is a personality trait. It's not. It's actually a skill that you build through action. And a lot of people think confidence is a state of belief. It can be, but that's not where it begins. And so I say that confidence is the willingness to try. That's all that it is. Knowing that you may succeed or survive, but you'll still try. And to me, all those people that we admire most, that's what they're doing. They have the ability

to tune into those instincts that are true for them. Because the fact is there's only one you. That's it. And you matter because there's only one you and there's only ever going to be one you. And your instincts and your experiences and your inner wisdom is a gift to the world. And every time that you tune it out because of the habit of hesitating or the habit of self-doubt or the habit of worrying or the habit of overthinking, you are robbing the world of that gift that you have to give to everybody. And you can use this simple, stupid, silly tool to train yourself to not only hear it, but also to develop the skill of courage to act on it. There you have my friends, powerful wisdom from the top performers in the world on high

performance habits. And again, your life is a direct result to the habits you have, the results you create in your life, the feelings you have, the relationships you create, the income you create, your health, your energy levels. All of these things are a direct result based on how you show up in your habits, the habits you choose to do, the ones you choose not to do. So if you want to increase the level of the quality of your life, make sure to increase your habits and the quality of them. Again, check out the full show notes over at lewishouse.com slash 635. Let me know what you thought of this.

Share out the tweets over there on your Twitter, on Instagram, on Facebook, and tag me on Instagram and tag me on all these places letting me know who you enjoyed the most, whose wisdom or habits you enjoyed the most, and what you're going to apply to your life based on what you learned today. Again, John Maxwell said, I can predict the long-term outcome of your success if you show me your daily habits. You know what time it is. Increase your habits, make them better, tweak and test things, continue to optimize your life. It's time to go out there and do something great. Thank you.