The School of Greatness - 671 Overcome Emotional Obstacles

Episode Date: July 25, 2018

“NO ONE FEELS 100% CONFIDENT IN THEMSELVES ALL THE TIME.” - EMILY SKYE There’s so many times where we focus on what society tells us will make us happy, and that’s all we chase. Money, a nice car, a house, and material objects that show off our “success." We always end up overlooking ourselves. You avoid exercising until the doctor says you have to. I’m sure you’ve experienced it plenty. You ignore your stress at work until you just can’t take it anymore. Ultimately your emotional state should take a priority. Without it, you can’t be at your best. At the end of the day, happiness is an emotional. All of the material items in the world can’t get you there. That’s why I wanted to do a mashup this week on overcoming emotional obstacles from some of the masters: Emily Skye, Josh Shipp, Rupi Kaur and Joshua Millburn. On this episode you’ll learn how to overcome emotional barriers that continue to hold us back. If you take these lessons from people who have come from all walks of life you’ll be able to achieve your true destiny. Please, sit down with this one and take notes. I know it’s going to help you tremendously. So learn how to keep your emotions in line to nail your goals, and feel fulfilled, on Episode 671. Some Questions I Ask: Do you still go through times of being insecure? (5:40) Why do you get insecure at times? (6:32) If something isn’t working in your business, how do you handle the inner critic? (10:26) How old were you (Shipp) when you met your final foster parents? (15:56) Do you (Rupi) think your work would be as powerful without going through pain and suffering? (19:43) In This Episode You Will Learn: What everyone needs to be responsible for (5:04) Tools you can use to overcome insecurities (7:48) How Emily stays grounded when things are going well (11:38) How Josh Shipp was emotionally removed from people who were trying to help him (14:02) Shipp’s lesson from a night in jail as a teenager (16:38) The danger of being your own worst enemy (18:41) How Rupi continues to create new things (21:03) What you need to focus on (22:34) How Joshua Millburn knows what needs to be fixed (25:17)

This is episode number 671, Overcoming Emotional Obstacles. 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. Napoleon Hill said, your big opportunity may be right where you are now. We've heard some amazing stories over the years on the podcast of people overcoming massive challenges to become incredible leaders and achieve greatness in their own industry and in their own life. And I love these stories so

much because they remind me that no challenge is too big to overcome. And I don't care where you're at in your life or what challenge you're facing or any type of emotional distress that you may have right now. We all face them and we can all get through them better and stronger. And in this mashup, we're featuring clips from the past episodes that inspire me to view obstacles as opportunities to grow. We've got incredible people on this. Some of you may have heard these episodes, but if you haven't yet, these are huge reminders to help you overcome those emotional barriers that continue to hold all of us back from reaching our true destiny and our true greatness. We've got Emily Skye in the house, Josh Shipp, Rupi Kaur, and Joshua Fields Milbourne. This is going to be a powerful one. Make sure to

share it with your friends. And a big thank you to our fan of the week. This is from Eli Kaiser. Says, Lewis, thank you for bringing your light into a place that needs it. This podcast is a beautiful reminder of the truest truths, to never give up on my dreams, to remember I am unceasingly, eternally, completely loved, and to perpetually train my mind, body, spirit to recognize the greatness within. Let's do this. Eli Kaiser, you are the fan of the week, and that was a beautiful review. If you guys haven't left a review yet, go over to iTunes or the podcast app

that you're on right now, and leave us a review for your chance to be featured as the fan of the week. It's time to overcome emotional obstacles, and let's dive into this powerful episode right now. emotional obstacles, and let's dive into this powerful episode right now. You've got to be responsible for what you're consuming, I think. It's hard to do because young kids aren't. They like looking at this sort of stuff. They love seeing perfect. They love that idea. It's almost like a romantic movie. It's romanticizing it. I think if people can take

more responsibility and if something's making them feel bad, if a particular person's making them feel bad about themselves and maybe question themselves, why are they? And do I need to have them on there? Can I get rid of them? But that's hard. I mean, you can only say to people, be responsible, don't do this.

But they're still going to do it because it's an addiction, isn't it? People love it. Yeah. What about yourself in terms of, you know, you've got this massive audience, you have all these people that look up to you that are inspired by your mindset, your body, your look, your muscles, whatever it is. Do you ever go through times of still being insecure or comparing yourself, even though you have this? Yeah. Everyone wants to be you, but you're like, well, I'm still not good enough. I don't think anyone feels 100% confident all the time in themselves. I think people always

have times where they have a bad day or they don't feel like they're as good as they can be. And I have those times. It's nowhere near what it used to be, but I think now I have the tools to be able to get through it. And I know how to, and I'm aware of when I'm feeling down. Why am I feeling this way? What's contributing to that? What can I remove to help myself move on and get past this? So being really, I guess, self-aware. Why do you think you get insecure at times? What are the reasons?

I don't know whether it's because I used to be a very insecure person so that it's always sort of I'm always fighting it. It's always sort of coming back. I think that that's a huge thing and getting on top of that and knowing that that's the type of person that I used to be as well, not going back to that. But there's a lot like social media is insane. It's competitive.

There's a lot of people out there posting things that I could look at and then go, oh, I'm not this or I'm not that. Or for instance, I'm pregnant at the I'm not that. Or for instance, I'm pregnant at the moment, obviously, and I have gained fat and cellulite. Yeah, that's what this lump is here. But I've gained fat and cellulite and changed and I've lost a lot of muscle. Stretch marks or whatever, yeah. Yeah, all these things are happening, which I am 100% embracing. I'm happy with. But I could look at these other people who are online who are fit and pregnant and they look amazing

and they're on their own journey. That a thing everyone's on their own journey and shouldn't compare but I could look at them and think well how come this person's got abs and she's a few months ahead of me and and yet her abs are there and she's tiny and I've got all this cellulite and stuff going on I could look at that and and that could affect me but I don't I think I'm at a really good place now where I'm so happy and my baby's obviously most important to me. So I don't let those insignificant things affect me. Yeah. That's good. What are some of the tools that you use when you're looking to overcome that, you know, insecurity or fear or comparison? Because I think this will be helpful for a lot of people who are constantly comparing. Yeah. To see someone like you with a massive audience,

great body, great image, great everything on how you do that. I think you've got to work out what makes you happy in life and what's most important to you. Is it really trying to be perfect and worrying about what everyone else thinks of you? Especially on social media, if you put up a photo and people say, oh, you look great here. Does that really make you happy temporarily?

Yeah, you feel good. Your ego is getting fed. But long term, I don't think it really does. And I think you need to get to a point where you do know what makes you happy and you're aware of that and you don't rely on that to keep feeding the happiness. Yeah. But when I feel down, and I've talked about this before

with my followers, but when I get in my sort of down moments, and I haven't had one for a while, which is a good thing. That's great. But last year I had a bit of a time. I think I'd been traveling a lot and I just got really run down and everything just went to shit pretty much. It's hard to keep your body healthy. Yeah, and then your mind goes and, oh.

I was feeling crappy. I wasn't training, which is a big thing. Getting moving is incredible. It does incredible things for you. The endorphins that you get from it are really, which is a big thing. Getting moving is incredible. It does incredible things for you. And the endorphins that you get from it really, it's a real thing. Yeah. And I hadn't been doing it for a while and I just, I didn't want to, I wasn't motivated. And I thought, how can I get myself back there? I know that that's what changed my life. And yet here I am stuck feeling shitty again. I thought, okay, well, I don't want to go to the gym because I'm not motivated to do that.

How can I get myself there? So I put music on and dance around the house and I started learning hip hop. I was putting tutorials on the big screen on YouTube and dancing around the lounge room like an idiot. I was no good at it but it's not the point. That's right. I felt good.

I felt happy and the music lifted my mood and I started getting outdoors, outside in the sun and fresh air and just finding that balance again and I guess grounding myself in a way so I could start to feel like, okay, what is it? What is it that makes me happy again? What is it that gives me life that makes me jump out of bed every day? So I got back there and then I'm back on track again.

So you've got to find what it is that does it for you. Maybe it's reading a book. Maybe it's walking, I don't know, ice I'm back on track again. So you got to find what it is that does it for you. Maybe it's reading a book. Maybe it's walking, I don't know, ice skating, rock climbing, whatever. Do something that makes you feel good again, but you got to find your creative. And my creative for me is training and getting outdoors and talking to people and helping people. Yeah.

It's probably not sticking on your phone, looking on Instagram all day. No. That's probably not going to do it. That can be quite poisonous. I know. Yeah. And you got to set boundaries for yourself and restrictions. When you're following and your accounts is your business and your brand, and if something isn't

working or isn't getting the results you want, how do you deal with that inner voice? When like, okay, I put a post out here. Normally I get a certain amount of results, whether traction, comments, whatever, sales, and I didn't get here. Normally, I get a certain amount of results, whether traction and comments, whatever, sales, and I didn't get that. How do you handle that inner critic? It's hard because it is me. I'm the brand. It's not someone else.

So it's hard not to take it personally. And I think you invest so much. I invest a lot into my business and what I do, and I love it. But I do take things personally because it is me. And I know it's a hard thing to do. So I've got to sort of sit back and go, okay, well, there's a lot of things coming into play here with algorithms and things.

Is it really my content that people aren't liking or is it because they're not actually seeing it because Instagram's done an update and people who follow me aren't actually seeing the post. So you've got to like step back and realize what's going on here. So it is hard. It's hard to sort of monitor what's working, what's not and whether it is you or not. But you can test and there's a lot of things you can do to work out what actually works and what people want to see and what you're following really

likes. But yeah, you've really got to think about maybe it is just the algorithm. And how do you stay grounded? Something's taking off and doing really well. You're on the cover of every magazine, you're getting brand deals, you're getting all this stuff. It is all working for you. How do you stay grounded and also stay happy with it being enough? Sometimes we'll get these big marks and then we're like, oh, but it could be more, it could be this, it's not enough. So how do you stay grounded in those times? Yeah, I think because it's taken a long time to get where I am and you could say that I started working on it when I was a teenager because that's when I started with modelling and I use a lot of things I learnt with modelling now. So I do a lot of things myself. I take my own photos on a tripod

with a timer. I edit my own videos. I write my own content. I reply to people online. I do a lot of stuff myself, which I learned when I was doing modelling. So I think in life, there's a lot of things that you can use right now. I mean, down the track when you find what it is you want to do. Because I've gone through that and I've worked really hard, it hasn't just happened overnight. I wasn't just handed it. I have a lot of appreciation for what I've got. One thing I do struggle with is really, really appreciating and being grateful for what it is that I've got right now and it being enough because I always want to be, I want to be the best. I want to reach more people, do so much stuff. And I sometimes get frustrated because I know that I'm not quite where I want to be yet. And

it's a really hard balance to really appreciate and look back on what you've done and go, yeah, I've killed this. I'm doing well. And still go, oh, there's still more I want to do. It's quite hard. And that's something I do struggle with a lot. And when I do say get a magazine cover, I've got to really make an effort to go, I achieved this because I deserve it. It's difficult. And I think I get a bit mixed up with, I don't want to sort of lose who I am through the whole thing. And I don't want people to think, and it's funny because I always say,

don't worry about what people think, but I do, I care what people think because I'm doing this for a reason. I want to help people. So I have to care what they think. Otherwise I wouldn't be doing this. I want to always stay, I guess, relatable to people and never seem like I'm full of myself which I'm

not and I'm far from it actually yeah so yeah it's finding that balance between being proud of yourself looking at what you've achieved where you've come from and then still being able to say yeah but I've still got room to grow and more to do more goals to do when I was 14 I moved into yet another home and i thought here we go yet another home and these people are going to talk you know big about how they're going to love me unconditionally and all this crap and yeah whatever let's just get this over with lewis dude i would literally keep a notebook of when i entered a home and then when i exited the home by getting kicked out and I would try to beat my high score. Oh my gosh. And I would document what technique I used. I mean, I was so emotionally removed from it. It was just like this game for me of like, you act like you care, but I know you

don't. I know you're eventually going to give up on me, so let's just get it over. But these final set of parents completely changed my life. They were consistent. They backed up everything they said with their actions, and they backed up all their actions with their words. They were tough and tender, which is exactly what a kid like me needed, was sometimes to be hugged and sometimes to be kicked. And those two individuals, the Wiedemeyers in Oklahoma, completely transformed my life, completely changed my life. And this is why one of my big and parents is to be that one caring adult for some kid, be it through a message, a book, a show, training other people to go out and do that

sort of work. That's really my heartbeat behind why I do what I do is like I had this insane childhood. And I remember how frustrating and confusing and alienating and just what a complete and total mess I felt like. And to have some caring adults who didn't put on a show but were genuine and helped me at that critical time, it's like that's what I want to do. It's my way of saying thank you to the Wiedemeyers and others like them that helped me. How old were you when you met them? 14 years old. And if you think about that, it's like, here's this 14 year old showing up on your doorstep with all this baggage and

garbage and crap that you did not cause, that was not your fault, but now you got to deal with it. And even though, again, they're like two of the finest people on the planet, I pushed them away. I tried to hold them at an arm's distance. I tried to get kicked out of there. I tried everything to, again, let's just get this over with. I know you guys don't really care, so let's just accelerate this inevitable breakup. They just wouldn't. I remember one night I went to jail because I wrote a bunch of hot checks as a teenager. They brought me home and it was certainly a rock bottom moment for me.

My mom made me stay the night in jail, although she could have bailed me out the night before, which looking back was very wise, sort of making me feel the pain of my own stupidity. And they brought me home that next morning. And I assumed they would yell or lecture, which was certainly in their right. And they just looked at me and very calmly said, you can keep causing problems. You can keep pushing us away if you want. But, and excuse my language, I said, damn it, Josh, we don't see you as a problem. We see you as an opportunity. Why don't you start to see yourself like that? And dude, Lewis, they had probably said that sort of thing to me probably a hundred times. I know them. They're just that kind of people. They probably said it a hundred times. But here I was in a moment where I was actually

really ready to listen to it. And in that moment, it's not fair to say in that moment my life changed, but in that moment I made the commitment that my life would change. You started shifting. Yeah, and then, you know, look, I've done a lot of work with young people who are at risk, and my opinion is you can't change anyone's life, but if you can get someone to make that commitment to begin to accept help. And so then came hundreds of hours of counseling, a big brother through big brothers, big sisters, being more open to my foster parents, to my social workers, to all this sort of stuff of beginning to wade through my own issues that began that life change. And man, I'm unbelievably grateful for it today as a guy who's married,

has kids, and I'm certainly not perfect. I'm certainly flawed in many, many ways, but I'm so grateful to have figured that out and that the Wiedemeyers didn't walk away because man, it would have been so easy to. it would have been so easy to. Once we experience something, and once we overcome it, we almost forget how difficult it was when you put time with that gap. And especially because my mind is like, really just blocked out so many of those memories.

But I think we go through different versions of suffering. And one thing I really have seen in the last year or two, and I do write about it in The Sun and Her Flowers, is that the idea of becoming your own enemy and me becoming that in the last little while is almost more painful than any external factors trying to attack me. And I tried not to write about that because I was like, who cares about that? But I ended up writing an entire chapter about it. And it's what I've really taught myself in

the last two years. I worked so hard on trying to really respond to these other negative factors, but then it came to a point where I became my own worst enemy and that was probably the most painful and is the most painful thing of all wow do you think you'd be able to have as much an impact without going through that much challenge pain suffering do you think your work would be as powerful um I don't know I don't even know if I would be writing if it weren't for those moments right so are you grateful for that I I am like I would say I would be writing if it weren't for those moments, right? So are you grateful for that experience? I am. Like, I would say I have no regrets. Even, like, before that there's been things and after that there's been things.

But I've taught myself, like, there are no regrets and all things happen for a reason. And a wonderful thing that I do, I don't know if it's healthy or not, is, like, anytime something terrible happens, I always respond to it with art. With art. Exactly. Anytime something terrible happens, I always respond to it with art. With art. Exactly. So going through that and ending that responded with, like I responded with that by going to my first ever open mic night and starting to do this thing on a regular basis.

I don't know if I would have done that otherwise. And I remember there was other things that happened after that. And every time things went wrong, I would just do something else. Then I started a blog and then something else went wrong. And then time things went wrong, I would just do something else. Then I started a blog and then something else went wrong. And then I was like, okay, whatever. Like I'm going to start doing this. And then I started my Instagram and then other things went wrong.

And it was like, life became so bad that I was like, forget about it. I'm just going to publish this goddamn book because that's how I kind of deal with stuff and like work through things. I have to keep myself really busy. It's like your therapy, yeah. It is is do you feel like you have to go through challenges every single year to create then do you think you'll be able to create from a place of love I think so and that was a

challenge like after the success of milk and honey like I gained a lot of stability that I didn't have that my family didn't have like Like financial stability. Financial stability, emotional stability. You know, it's interesting because I came to a place that was, there was lots of love and everything had settled finally after so long. And it was a moment that I'd been looking forward to forever. It's a moment that you would dream of. But then I was scared because I was like oh my god but like if I'm not suffering then how will I write again you know and then I would like go out and search for

suffering and create situations and you know I'd be like trying to like fight with my friends just to be like yeah like it's gonna give me something, like move me. But what I realized was like that's so not true. And that's like working from a place of trauma and suffering. And we do not have to do that anymore. And it is very possible to write from a place of love. It's just we have to teach ourselves how to do that. Because for so long, what I did, yeah, like we learned to teach ourselves to write through the suffering because that's what we're trying to write through. And now I have to like reprogram myself to write through a place of like love or happiness or whatever that is.

My mother died and my marriage ended both in the same month. Holy cow. And these two events forced me to look around and start to question what had become my life's focus. And I realized I was so focused on so-called success and achievement, and especially on the accumulation of stuff, the trophies of success. Like, look at me. I have two Lexuses and I have this, I have that, I have the bigger house and, and the golf membership or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. The racket club membership. And so I had, I had these, these things and here's, here's the thing I want to get across. So

there's nothing inherently wrong with stuff. We all need some stuff. The problem isn't consumption. The problem is this compulsory consumption, buying things because that's what we think we're supposed to do. We've been sold this meme of the American dream. If you get this, then you will be happy, as if there is a template for happiness. And in fact, I think that's one of the bigger problems is we are chasing happiness.

For the longest time, that's what I did. I chased happiness and that forced me to really forsake what was important. In fact, I was at a point in my life when I was very narrowly successful, right? Like I had the job title, but I wasn't broadly successful. And it's because there wasn't a lot of meaning in what I was doing. We all have to earn a living. I understand that. But I was so focused on just accumulating more money and status and identity.

My whole life was wrapped up in that identity. We hold on to a lot of stuff. We hold on to all these supposed memories, right? And I know that's what I was doing. That's what my mom did when I went to deal with her stuff. And I realized that, you know what? Some of this stuff actually adds value to my life, but I don't know what. And so I started small because I had attachment to so many things in my life. I had given so much meaning to my stuff. And I said, I need to try to get rid of some of this. Like some of it's in the way, I don't know what, what's actually

adding value. And so over the course of 30 days, I just started, I said, I'm going to let go of one thing a day, one item a day, each day for 30 days. What would happen if that, if, if I did that, my values aren't different. And I think that's what's important is identifying what is important in my life, what items, what material possessions are going to augment that experience and not get in the way? And so letting go allowed me to figure out the paradox of minimalism is I get far more value

from the material items I own now than by watering them down with hundreds of thousands of items. I always look back to those five values. If my health is lacking, then I need to repair that. That's the first thing. Yeah. Yeah. And I think they're all, they're all tied though. If my relationships are lacking, it means if I'm not giving to them or if I'm not getting what I need from those relationships,

then I have to question why. Right. And so if I'm not creating, you know, if I'm not passionate about this, this creativity or this craft, then I'm lacking. If I feel like I'm not creating you know if I'm not passionate about this this creativity or this craft then I'm lacking if I feel like I'm not growing or if I'm not you know giving to the world and in a meaningful way then any of those areas if any of those areas are empty right that's the weak link and I need to go back and fix that and it's constant every day I'm trying to look at how do I serve these values in my life and if if I'm not serving them, then I need to be honest with myself and find a way to fix that. There you have it, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this episode again. Don't allow the emotional obstacles to consume you and control you and hold you back in your life.

You are born to overcome these things. You have the power to withstand them, and you don't need to hold onto them. Move through the emotional challenges. Move through the pain. Move through the suffering and let it go. You were born and designed to express love and express your truest self right now. If you enjoyed this, share with a friend,

lewishouse.com slash 671. If you want to listen to any of the other clips and the full interviews with Emily Skye, Josh Shipp, Rupi Kaur, Joshua Fields, Milbourne, go to lewishouse.com slash 671 and you'll see the links for those episodes as well that you can click and listen to those full interviews, which are extremely powerful in their own right. I hope you guys enjoyed this one. Make sure to share with your friends. Let me know what you think. Tag me on Instagram at Lewis Howes. Connect with me. Let's continue this conversation of greatness and keep spreading the message to be part of one of the most powerful movements in the podcast world. This is all about unlocking your greatness. I love you so very much.

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