The School of Greatness - 749 Lindsey Stirling: The Power of Your Truth

Episode Date: January 23, 2019

WHERE YOUR FOCUS GOES, YOUR ENERGY WILL FLOW. How do you define yourself? Do you use words like “ugly,” “fat,” or “shy?” Social media and advertising like to tell us that we’re not enough. But you don’t have to live by anyone else’s definition-you have the power to create your own. Write your own view of yourself. Right now. Do it. What you believe you will be is what you will become. On today’s episode of The School of Greatness, I’m sharing a powerful presentation from The Summit of Greatness from a musician who redefined a genre and herself: Lindsey Stirling. Lindsey Stirling is a violinist, dancer, performance artist, composer, and singer who presents amazing choreographed violin performances. Stirling was second place on last year’s Dancing With The Stars, has been named Forbes magazine's 30 Under 30 In Music, and was a quarter-finalist position on America's Got Talent season five. Billions of people have now watched her videos on YouTube. Lindsey struggled with depression and anorexia. It wasn’t until she decided to change her thought patterns about herself and about her future that became the powerful musician we know today. So get ready to learn how to create your own definition for your life on Episode 749. Some questions asked: How do you have the courage to speak about your faith? (7:30) What did your dad do to encourage you throughout your life? (10:29) How do you handle the pressure? (12:32) In this episode you will learn: How she tells her truth and story (7:48) How her dad is her biggest fan (10:42) The tools she used during recovery (12:57)

This is episode number 749 with Lindsey Stirling. 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. Gandhi said, you must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean. If a few drops of ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty. It is a beautiful day today.

I am so grateful for life. And the universe is working in mysterious, magical ways to bring you everything you need to live the life that you desire, to bring you goodness, to bring you love, to bring you peace, and to bring you abundance. And today I am excited because we've got my friend and one of my favorite people in the world, really, Lindsay Sterling in the house.

Now, why is she one of my favorite people in the world? She is a world-renowned violinist, incredible dancer, performing artist, and composer. And she does these incredible choreographed violin performances both live and in her music videos found on her YouTube channel, which has about 11.5 million subscribers. She is a New York Times bestselling author, and she's been named in Forbes Magazine 30 Under 30 in music. And I've seen her perform live

in person at a concert on one of her tours, and I was blown away. Why was I blown away? Because I've watched her videos for years. I've listened to her music, always listened to her stuff. I've interviewed her in the past. And the first time I saw her live, I was just in awe. I was like, wow, this is a friend of mine and she's so inspiring. It was amazing to watch. We had her come and speak, give one of her first ever speeches at the Summit of Greatness last year, and she blew us away. She performed a song there and then spoke for about 30 minutes as well, and it was just so raw and real with her story. It had the room captivated. At the end, we did a Q&A, and in that

Q&A, we talked about how Lindsay knows her truth by the power of believing in something greater, about using faith for an extra push towards your dreams, and also the power of visualizing your wins and the life you want to live. And right in this episode, we're covering what she talked about in the Q&A at the Summit of Greatness Live. And if you guys haven't got your tickets for this year,

we are rapidly selling a ton of tickets. It's going to be incredible. So make sure to go to summitofgreatness.com to learn more and get your tickets for this year. All right, my friends, I'm so excited about this episode. Without further ado, let me introduce to you the one, the only, the inspiring Lindsey Sterling. only the inspiring Lindsay Sterling. Gosh, I'm so excited. I'm so grateful you came and performed. Thank you for having me. You shared your speech. Thank you so much. I got to watch Lindsay perform about a month ago in LA, and I'd seen your videos many times, but there's something different when you watch a video of you. And then when you watch you perform and you're dancing around like a crazy fairy, it's unbelievable.

It's unbelievable. It's so inspiring. That's my style of dance, fairy. Crazy fairy dance. Yeah, crazy. Some people do hip hop. I do crazy fairy. It's amazing. So I'm just so inspired by you, everything you've done to overcome, you know, the America's Got Talent thing.

What's the guy's name, the, the America's Got Talent thing when, what's the guy's name? The judge? Piers Morgan. Bless his little heart. Bless his heart. Cause what did he say to you on stage when you performed? And he like exited out. He was like, you'll never do anything or something. Didn't he say something like, he did. He just said that you don't have what it takes. And, uh, and then he told me, it sounded like rats being strangled. That hurt. Rats being strangled? Rats being strangled. I mean, you listen to it, it really doesn't sound that good. So you're like, well, you didn't have to be mean about it, but. Wow. And he said you'd never do anything or never be any good? He just said you don't have what it takes. That's pretty much his words. You

don't have what it takes to fill a theater. And look at you now. I think this is fun. Yeah. Let's do some questions. We've got about five minutes for questions. So let's start over here on this side. If anyone's got a question, go ahead. I see in the back with the hand up. Go ahead and stand up here. Yes, you.

Name what you're grateful for and the direct question, if you can. I'm Jordan. I'm from Denver. And I'm just really grateful to be here. The energy here is insane and rubs off. And so my question is, I'd first of all commend your ability to talk about your faith in front of crowds of people. And so my question is around that. I think there's a lot of judgment around expressing our faith, whatever it might be.

How did you find the courage to talk about that openly in front of people and push away some of that judgment that comes around yeah on faith you know I think um people always say like tell your truth and your story and it was actually interesting as I was working on what I was going to say I was like uh trying to work around it and I was like you know what that's my story that is who I am and you know and I think the most powerful part about it is everybody's truth is different. Like, but believing in something greater than yourself is so powerful. And, you know, in my story of like dancing with the stars, it's like, well, what was my other

option? You know, I can either turn to something greater than myself, or I could be like, well, I'm broken, done, you know, and just rely on something that I didn't believe I could do. And so to me, it's, I don't know, faith gives me extra power. It's who I am. I want to give a big thank you to a sponsor of ours that I've been using for years now that has probably saved me a ton of time, a ton of energy. It just transformed using for years now that has probably saved me a ton of time, a ton of energy. It just transformed my life. And that's Postmates.

Postmates is your personal food delivery, grocery delivery, whatever you can think of delivery service all year round. There's no more trips to the store. You don't even have to know where the store is. Postmates will deliver anything to you. You just download the app for free on iOS or Android, browse local restaurants and businesses, and track your delivery. It's so simple. It's so easy. 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, Postmates will bring you what you want within the hour,

guys. Anything that you're craving, Postmates can deliver. For a limited time, Postmates is giving our listeners $100 of free delivery credit for your first seven days. To start your free deliveries, download the app right now and use the code GREATNESS. That's code GREATNESS for $100 of free delivery credit for your first seven days when you download the Postmates app. Get anything you need, anytime you need it. Download Postmates and save with code GREATNESS. I'm Mark from Columbus. Yeah. Yeah, what's up? The way that you talk about your father is so beautiful. It made me tear up so much. I have two daughters.

And the greatest impact I know that I'm going to make on the world is how I raised those two daughters. And if they turn out to be similar to your story, I would just be the proudest dad. So I want to ask you, you know, what did your dad, the way that you talk about him, what did he do to encourage you throughout your life from all your challenges and through all your successes? Yeah, my dad, I'm going to cry, was my biggest fan. And I remember really formative memories from my childhood of, well, my dad made time for every one of us individually, and I don't know how he did that. But one of my special memories was I loved to eat cereal. And as a little kid on... Lucky charms? All of it. Okay. But I would wake up my dad early.

Saturday was his one day that he could sleep in, and I would wake him up early. And he would sit on the floor with me, and we'd have a serial picnic in our living room. And, um, it was during those moments that he told me stories about his life and he would tell me the places he'd been in the people he met. And I, he would even, he told me when I was older, he's like, used to tell me, dad, I want to live a life like you. I want to go places. I want to meet people. And the fact that my dad, he wanted to be a screenplay writer and he never quite made it there, but he tried and he was better for it. And it made him a better person. He told me all the stories about how he tried. And it made me realize that I could chase my dreams. And if at the end of the day, that

wasn't my path and it didn't come true for me that it was okay and I could still feel great about myself I could still live a happy life and I think that example from my father and the fact that he wasn't afraid to tell me about those things and yet he also told me about you know the good and bad in it so I think yeah the fact he took time for us and that he told me his stories you got a mic up top still or no your name what's your great where you're from what you're grateful for my name is Ramses I'm from Miami and I'm just grateful I'm grateful to be in here with such great energy people listening to great people like you and just learning and expanding myself and my question would be how do you find like when you said you were doing

dancing with the stars and touring how do you handle that pressure sometimes I find myself trying to do so many things at once and I could get overwhelmed and I get stressed out and I just want to know any tips that you might have to deal with that and just get better at it and be able to do everything I want to do at once but still still be successful at the same time? Yeah. You know, it's funny. I ran out of time, so I wasn't able to go in depth to it. But the same tools that I used when I was trying to go through recovery, I now use in daily practices, especially when I'm extra stressed or when I'm going through something hard. You know, the visualization I talked about, I used to be visualizing myself walking into a room confidently, I used to be visualizing myself

walking into a room confidently, you know, and visualizing myself being the kind of person I wanted to be. And then it turned into visualizing my way through routines on Dancing with the Stars. You know, it went from looking myself in the eyes and saying, I love you, when I didn't believe it. It now turned into, when I was on Dancing with the Stars

and when I was injured and exhausted, I would look myself in the eye so many times in the mirror and say, you can do this. You've got this. And I would say it until it was said with confidence. And that is really powerful, just the simple act of looking yourself in the eye and saying, you can do this. And also just taking it one step at a time, like not worrying about the vast big picture. You have to worry about that sometimes, but sometimes when it is literally,

let's make it through this next hour and then let's make it through the next. Thank you. That's it. I love it. Lindsay, you're amazing. Thank you. We really appreciate you being here.

I acknowledge you for just your joy, your spirit, and overcoming so much and speaking your truth. So let's give it up one more time for Lindsay Sterling. Give it up. Give it up. Give it up. Thank you, guys. Thank you, Lewis. There you have it, my friends i hope you enjoyed this one powerful insights powerful conversation with the talented the inspiring the legendary the loving the incredible lindsey sterling and i

hope you guys enjoyed this one if you did please share with your friends tag me at lewis house tag at lindsey sterling over on Instagram. Share it on Twitter and Facebook. And send a text to a couple of friends, this direct link, that you think would enjoy this conversation. We're all about spreading the message of greatness. If you want to help someone's day, you can always send them one of these podcasts. Let them listen. Let them be inspired and move forward in a powerful way.

We have some incredible episodes coming soon, guys. If you didn't hear the last episode with Michael Beckwith, it is taking off. Make sure to listen to that one because, wow, blew me away. Some big guests coming up in the future. And I'm just so excited about this year and all the magic and abundance that is unfolding for all of us. It is going to be magic for all of us. I feel it. This is our time. It's our time to step up and achieve everything we want. And to bring us back

to the beginning, Gandhi said, you must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean. If a few drops of ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty. I love you all so very much. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Thank you.