The School of Greatness - 763 A Spiritual Path for Success with Erwin McManus

Episode Date: February 25, 2019

“WHY” IS NOT AN EVOLUTIONARY QUESTION. Growing up, I had more imaginary friends than real friends. I would play games with myself to keep myself happy. I was very lonely. I felt insecure. But as I got older, I was able to find meaning and purpose. That allowed me to feel connected to the people around me. We need to have hope and meaning. It’s what makes us human. On today’s episode of The School of Greatness, I dive deep into why humans are always searching for a “why:” Erwin McManus. Erwin is an iconoclast, artist, and cultural thought leader known for his integration of creativity and spirituality. He is the founder and Lead Pastor of Mosaic, a Los Angeles based church of faith recognized as one of America’s most influential and innovative churches. Erwin says that people who have false hope are actually better off than people who have no hope. He became the person he is today when stopped using his imagination to hide from the world and started using it to create a better world. So get ready to learn all about man’s search for meaning on Episode 763. Some Questions I Ask: Why do most conservative churches tell people to not express themselves? (7:27) Did you grow up believing in God? (9:00) If love is what we want, why do we suffer so much? (15:30) What does it mean to be alive? (20:00) What questions are you still seeking answers for? (29:00) Why do we care so much about meaning? (39:00) What are your core ideals and do they evolve? (58:00) In This Episode You Will Learn: Why many churches are stuck in the past (8:00) The thing that sets humans apart from other animals (14:00) How gratitude can help with depression and anxiety (22:00) Why humans need hope and purpose (31:00) Why you need to have a “psychologically diversified portfolio” (45:00) How to take control of your inner world (50:00)

Episode number 763 with Erwin McManus. 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. Charles Dickens said, reflect upon your present blessings of which every man has plenty,

not on your past misfortunes of which all men have some. And Eckhart Tolle said, acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance. Welcome to a special episode of the School of Greatness podcast, where we have Erwin McManus, who is an artist, a cultural thought leader known for his integration of creativity and spirituality. He's the founder and lead pastor of Mosaic, which is a thriving church based in Los Angeles, recognized as one of America's most influential and innovative churches. And in this episode, we talk about how Mosaic came to be and Erwin's up and down relationship with religion, the difference between just surviving and truly

being alive and thriving, and how you can tap into that thriving mentality in a moment, the power of gratitude and how it benefits your attitude and thinking, the big three beliefs that we all share, and so much more. This one I did not want to end, guys. I'm telling you, I was captivated the entire time. I didn't look at any notes. I was just so excited to dive into this. For whatever reason,

when I have these types of conversations on spirituality, the meaning of life, why are we here? What is the reason for our life? What is our purpose, our mission? I just go down a rabbit hole and love the discoveries that I find. And I think you're going to love this as well. Make sure to share this with your friends. lewishouse.com slash 763 with Erwin McManus. I'm telling you guys, this is a game changer. Tag me on Instagram at lewishouse. Tag Erwin McManus as

well. Let us know what you liked about this. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Big thank you again to our sponsor. And I am so excited about this interview, guys. This is someone that I didn't know about before until about a few weeks prior to interviewing him. And now I want to interview him all the time. I want to meet with them. I want to hang out with him. I'm telling you, you're going to love this. Without further ado, the one and only Erwin McManus. Welcome, everyone, to the School of Greatness podcast. We've got Erwin McManus in the house. My man, good to see you. Oh, it's so good to be with you. It's great to meet you in person. I've heard about Mosaic, the church that you are the founder of here in Hollywood. Since I moved here, because I would go by it, and there's a beautiful church on the corner over in Hollywood.

And there was always people outside doing things. And they're always the most attractive looking people. They're always smiling. They're always very fashion forward, young. And I was like, there's some energy here. You belong there. Right? Yeah, I belong there. And I've had a lot of friends go there who love it and rave about it. And a friend of mine, Joel Marion, is like, you've got to interview this guy. And I didn't even know who you were, but I knew the reputation of the church. And as I started doing research about you, I really said, okay, this is someone I gotta interview.

Even though I've never heard about you personally, I've heard about your work. That actually makes me really happy. No, the fact that you knew about the church, but you didn't know about me, because really the church should never be about a person. It's true, that's true. And you grew up in El Salvador.

I was born there and I went back to Fort Tillers around 10 years old. So you were 10 years old. You were a filmmaker as well, right? You got into film, fashion. Which means I couldn't hold a job. Exactly. Same here.

Same here. But I love your fashion, man. You walked in here, I was like, I need you to style me. I wear the same black shirt every day. It's a good black shirt. Just simple. But I was like, man, this guy's got style. And it seems interesting.

All these, I guess, pastors now have churches they have they have like this style it seems like there's a trend of a lot of guys and ladies who are like leading a message or a messenger but they're leading with a fashion forward innovative approach you've done that with the music at your church with the the aesthetic the design it's not just like your 1990s church anymore, right? Yeah, I would say one of the differences is that I'm 60 years old. And so I was doing this 40 years ago.

I think some of it is a lot of pastors grew up in church and they grew up in really conservative environments and they grew up with almost like a narrative that you should be against culture. And so they really were not connected and they grew up with almost like a narrative that you should be against culture. And so they really were not connected to the world around them. I grew up irreligious. I had never walked into a church in my life.

And so when people were asking, well, how did you become more whatever fashion for, how did you become more creative, more edgy? I'm going, no, you don't understand. I was actually normal. This is what normal looks like if you haven't been told you shouldn't express yourself and be creative and be imaginative. Yeah. Why do most, I guess, traditional conservative churches tell people to hold back from expressing themselves? Or maybe they don't say it,

but it feels that way. You kind of feel that judgment, like walking in, if you have something nice on, it's kind of like looked down upon yeah I think if you're just objective look at historically religions tend to attract people who are late adopters people who are afraid of change people who really hold on to the past And so whether it's a synagogue or mosque or a church or a temple They tend to reflect the past rather than to create the future really why is that? I think people are oftentimes driven by fear. And for me, it was the opposite.

See, I grew up irreligious. I didn't have any of this framework. And so when I became a person of faith, I felt that I was liberated to create a future, to imagine and to dream and to risk. And that if there was a God, He is the most creative being in the universe since He created the universe.

So how in the world would I hold on to the past when He's the one who's supposed to be creating the future? And so it's just a very different view of reality for me. Like I always tell people at Mosaic, the church should be the epicenter of human creativity. It should be the epicenter of imagination and beauty and wonder. And so, yeah, I love film. I love art. I love film. I love art. I love fashion.

You know, I feel as alive when I'm directing a film than I did when I was, you know, when I'm speaking on Sunday. Yeah. And I think we've created this unnecessary divide between what happens on Sunday or on Saturday or on Friday, depending on a person's faith, what happens every day in life. To me, everything is sacred and everything is beautiful.

And it's all an expression. Sure. Yeah. Sure. Wow. So did you grow up believing in God? I was an off and on kind of person. Sure, sure. Some days you're like, okay. Yeah.

And the best way I can describe it is my grandfather was an atheist who believed in reincarnation. Interesting. So I remember him driving us to a house, telling us a little boy had died, and that was him. And so he believed he was reincarn and saying a little boy had died and that was him. And so he believed he was reincarnated from that young boy that died. But a lot of times people don't realize

that Buddhism is actually a form of atheism. It's spiritual, but it's atheistic. And so my grandfather was like that. My grandmother was Roman Catholic, but we never went to mass. So it was like so many people were- Christmas maybe or something. Yeah, that's right.

And then my mom, she was always on a spiritual journey. And so I remember one time she brought home a Buddha. And so in my mind, we became Buddhists. And then she was reading the writings of Rabbi Kirchner on why bad things happen to good people. And so then I go, okay, now we're Jewish. I could tell she was always processing and trying to figure things out. And my stepdad, he was just a good, solid pagan. I don't think he ever had a belief system in his life.

He worked in what we would call creative underground economies. And so he had an alias, and he had many different aliases and many different families. Creative underground economies. Yeah. Are we talking drugs? Are we talking guns. We're talking We're just talking guns. We're talking a lot of non-traditional

forms of economic development That was that was the world I grew up in and so I started reading Two things that really affected me. I read every mythology book in the library before I was in sixth grade Wow And I'm not sure why but I thought maybe in mythology I could figure out who I was and why we were here. Because I was really young when I began to feel a sense of disconnection and angst from probably the age of nine or 10. And so I ended up in a psychiatric chair when I was a kid. I was in and out of a hospital. I remember hearing my mom said, Dad, we need to send those psychiatrists. We don't know what's wrong with them. I was in and out of a hospital. I remember hearing my mom said, dad said, we need to send those psychiatrists who don't know what's wrong with him. I had nightmares for years and years and years and just some of the stuff everybody goes through

that leaves you broken and shattered and disconnected from the world. And I found these writers, Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asanoff and Andre Norton. They're all science fiction writers who are physicists. I found these imaginary worlds and dimensions you could travel to and worlds you could go to and species you could find. In my own heart, I began hoping that I was from another world and that this was an accident. Wow. I know that sounds really bizarre, but probably by the time I was 10 or 11 years old,

I'd convinced myself that I must be like a social experiment from another species. Oh, my gosh. And so I was a really troubled kid. But you know what I've discovered is, I don't know who said this, it's almost like every story is true, but they're not all real. I had to create a story inside of myself just to try to survive. And a huge part of it for me has been this realization that even when people search for God, they're really just trying to search for themselves.

Interesting. You know, they're trying to find who they are, if their life matters, if they have significance, if their existence has meaning. And so I never deluded myself. I was never really trying to find some abstract reality. I was trying to make sense of me. I think a lot of us try to do that at times.

Yeah. Right? I think that's a search we're all on. Yeah. And that became a part of the mix of it all. So when I became a person of faith, I didn't. Everybody talks about things like heaven and hell. That was so irrelevant to me.

Why even think about anything after this life when you can't even survive this life? You know? I wasn't looking for something that helped me after I took my last breath. I was trying to figure out how to live a life that would leave me breathless. Ooh. You know?

Wow. So what do you think is the reason we're all here? I know this is the school of greatness. You know, I actually do believe that there's greatness inside of every single person. I think that every human being is created in the image of God. And because every human being has intrinsic value and that we're created to create. I wrote a book years ago called The Artist in Soul, and it's in anthropology. And what I argue in that book is what makes humans different than every other species is that we can actually materialize the invisible.

There's no other species that can imagine a reality that is not existent and create it. And we don't even realize it's what humans do because silkworms just create silk. They don't wake up in the morning and decide what they're going to do. You know, honeybees just create honey. It's just intrinsic to who they are. And I think that humans create futures. And that we're intrinsically created to create the good and the beautiful and the true and I look at it I think I

think human ideals are the best evidence of this like for me one of the best evidences of God are human ideals because there's this phenomenon called phantom pain where if you lose an arm you feel the pain of the arm for years and years and years and you have psychological memory, not of that arm, but that arm is still there. But you cannot have phantom pain if you don't lose something that wasn't once there. If it wasn't there, you cannot have phantom pain. And I look at the world and I think we struggle for human ideals like peace. We've never known peace.

Human history has never known peace. But we have the ideal of peace. We've never known peace. Human history has never known peace, but we have the ideal of peace. We have the human ideal of a world without poverty, a world where no one is hungry, a world where every child is loved, a world without violence, a world without abuse. We have these ideals, but we've never known that reality. And a lot of people say, I can't believe in God. And it's like this ideal. And I'm like, you believe in ideals every second of your life. And so every time you do a school of greatness, you're actually experiencing phantom pain. You're saying there's something inside of you that there's no physical evidence of, but I believe it's there. We have to pull it out of you.

You have to awaken it. I'm convinced that human ideals are our soul's phantom pain. That somehow we remember what it's supposed to feel like, to be like, to be human. I think humans were created for love. We're created for beauty. We're created for goodness. We're created for community. We're created for intimacy. Otherwise, why would we long for these things that are so difficult to attain and sometimes seem almost unattainable?

Why do we suffer so much though? If love is what we want, intimacy, connection, why does it seem like a lot of times people are going through so much anxiety, depression, disconnection, uncertainty, lack of focus, lack of mission, and they're not experiencing love on the deepest levels they could. Yeah, I think that's probably the most fundamental human question, is how is it possible the thing we need most is the thing that's most elusive? We long for intimacy, but we fear it. Yeah. We sabotage it. We mess it up. I think love is one of the reasons I have a hard time believing in a pure evolutionary theory. Because if we were just the outcome of evolution, we would have eliminated love a long

time ago because love makes you vulnerable. Love is what gets you killed because a saber tooth is going to eat this woman that you care about more than yourself. If you're just interested in her, then it's different. You're not trying to protect it. You know who gets the girl? The girl who doesn't love her. The guy who's still alive. That's true. Mr. Lifer. I'm going, how many times have you failed at love, been damaged by love, been betrayed by love? Then you wake up in the next morning and you're going, I need to find love. I need to be loved. For me, it is probably the most powerful, driving, intrinsic proof that there's more going on than meets the eye. Because we can't seem to extricate love from us. You remember Star Trek, right? The Vulcans were

supposed to be like the evolution of human development, where we're finally emotionless. And yet somehow we know that that's not life. That's just existence. Because if humans are at their core longing to be fully alive, what I know is that you feel most fully alive when you're most fully loved. That's the truth. And if you have all the success that the world measures, and you feel as if you've not found someone to love and someone to love you, you'll feel as if your life is a failure. Wow.

So now I'll wrap it all back to this little statement that Jesus says that God is love. And so I think that a lot of us aren't searching for God, we're searching for love, and we crash into God. Say it one more time. I said, we're not searching for God. We're searching for love. But while we're searching for love, we crash into God.

Wow. I think that's what happened to me. I wasn't searching for Jesus. I wasn't searching for a relationship to some guy who lived 2,000 years ago who died on a cross. It wasn't on my radar in any way. I was searching for love. I was searching for meaning. I was searching for intention. And in that journey, I found myself in an encounter that I would have never imagined. I still get on the platform at Mosaic. And a lot of times I'll get up and I'll go, I still can't believe I'm up here.

Really? Yeah, I just had these moments where I just go, do you guys know how unexpected it is for me that I believe? Because you didn't believe. No, I'm like that person who, you have a lot of voices in your head, I know you do. And I have so many voices in my head that you have to figure out which one's you. Yeah.

Right? And I think that when we're at our worst, all the negative voices become our identity. Loud. Yeah, loud. But a huge part for me was, like, I have these voices in my head. They're always questioning. I've never been a person human today. Oh.

Which is why I think my message works on the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and La Brea. Oh, which is why I think my message works on the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and La Brea. This is not a conversation from someone who doesn't wake up in the morning asking questions about everything. I wake up every day and I'm haunted with endless number of questions. I'm never under the illusion that I found all the answers but what i do know is that in some odd way without all the right answers or without all the complete answers i experienced what it means to be alive and that matters more than being right wow what's it mean to be alive you know when you're alive okay when you're in love sorry this excites me you know when you when you're in love, sorry, this excites me. When you're in love, everything gets heightened.

This is what it means to be alive. Because one time this secular journalist asked me, what does it feel like to believe in God? I go, you know, have you ever had that moment in your life where the food tastes better and the rumors are more clear and distinct and and the colors are just brighter and i remember when i was driving when i was younger and i didn't know i needed glasses my friend and i were playing this game where you're doing this alphabet thing you have to find the letter abc in words and he kept winning and i thought he was cheating and then as we're driving he goes wait a minute okay tell me as soon as you can read that sign and he he could read it way before me. That's how I just, I only discovered I needed glasses. I only discovered I couldn't see clearly when I was with someone who could see clearly.

And the first time I put on glasses, I realized leaves were distinct individual pieces on a tree. Not just blurs or shadows. I always thought they were beautiful. I didn't know that they were astonishing. That's the difference between surviving and being alive. When you're alive, you see the details and the beauty and the wonder. You know, a person who's just existing, every day they struggle with depression and fear and anxiety. They see everything that's missing.

They are haunted by all their disappointments. And they have not one more disappointment than the person that's missing. They are haunted by all their disappointments. And they have not one more disappointment than the person that's fully alive. And not one more challenge or struggle or hardship. But the person who's alive somehow sees beauty in everything, sees wonder in everything. And that's what I know I'm alive. When I'm going, man, you cannot bring enough difficulty in my life to steal from me the wonder of taking this next breath. Wow. When someone's going through this feeling of not feeling alive, just surviving, depression, anxiety, seems like the world's against them, whatever, what's the first question they should ask themselves to help move them out of that

position? Yeah, I think when you're in that space, one of the most difficult things to do is to actually get perspective. Because when you're in that space, one of the most difficult things to do is to actually get perspective. Because when you're already depressed, when you're feeling anxiety, when you're overwhelmed with fear, that means that you've been in there so long that your world is now being consumed by every negative factor around you. So I would say is pick one thing that you can identify that's worth living for. Just pick one thing that you can identify that's worth living for. Just pick one thing that you can be grateful for. It probably was over 20 years ago, I actually wrote about gratitude, which seemed to be almost like, I don't know, cute philosophy or, you know, lighthearted anthropology. But now, and neuroscience is, and I actually have this phrase from a neuroclinic, that gratitude is the oil to the brain.

It's a lubricant to the brain. That now neuroscience is finding that gratitude has this uncanny ability to keep our brain pliable, adaptable. And we are able to imagine and create when we're grateful. When we're ungrateful, we actually lose our capacity to think creatively and we lose our genius, we lose our brilliance, we lose our greatness. We don't usually connect gratitude with greatness. So when a person's struggling with fear or anxiety or panic attacks, I would say the first thing you have to do is you have to find something

to be grateful for and then step into that gratitude. And if it's a person, go thank them. Whatever it is, find somebody to express that gratitude. It'll begin to lubricate your brain. I remember one time years ago, my son Aaron, he's 30 now, but my wife was an orphan. And I never knew my dad and, you know, grew up in that kind of combustible kind of family system. And so we knew our first kid was like an experiment. We're like, he's a social experiment. Let's see if we can create a functioning human being.

And at one time we were in New York years and years ago, and we went up to Eastchester and we were going back to Manhattan. And when we got into the taxi, I didn't have a lot of money I realized I left my wallet. My son said, dad, I got you covered. He was like being a man, you know, he's like, I got you covered. You don't need to get your wallet. My wife was going to bring it later. So we took this taxi to Manhattan. He paid for the taxi, and then he left his wallet in the taxi. So we're in Manhattan like one in the morning and with no money, no ID, no credit cards, no phones. We have nothing.

I think he might have had his cell phone. And he started panicking, because we were probably 45 minutes walk to our hotel, maybe an hour. And as we're walking, he was getting a little panicky, a little nervous, and he goes, I'm so sorry, he was so upset that he made this mistake. I'm like, it's okay. But don't worry about it.

And I said, OK, you're being fearful right now. Because it looked intense where we were. And I said, all right, buddy, you have this part of your brain. It's kind of like the reptilian part of your brain. And right now, it's on. You're afraid. You're angry.

You're protective. You have almost like this cute sense of danger. You're afraid, you're angry, you're protective, you have almost like this cute sense of danger, you're hypervigilant. And I said, you can't solve the problems right now because that part of your brain is taking over. And if you can't let go of the fear and let go of the anxiety and let go of the stress, you can't access the part of your brain that unleashes imagination and creativity. So as we walk for for this hour we spent the time talking about how to solve problems like who do you know anywhere in the country that could help us who do you know how what what are what are the unforeseen materials that we have of human relationships our resources that we have what can't you see what can't you see it it's funny

as we're walking goes is there really such a thing as a reptilian brain he goes because i'm going to use this i want to make sure you're not just making this up. But I think there's this kind of dynamic when a person is under duress. The part of, I don't even want to use brain, the part of your essence that you activate is the part that leaves you paralyzed. that leaves you paralyzed. And if you can actually step away from that fear and that anxiety and begin to see that there's wonder and beauty and opportunity all around, it begins to activate the part of your brain

that's full of imagination and creativity and beauty. Wow. And I made a decision when I was around 12 because I could feel myself disappearing into my internal world because I created an imaginary world inside of me that I felt was safer than the world outside of me. And and imagined a world inside of me that I felt was safer than the world outside of me. And I created a world inside of me

that was much more interesting, and a world that I fit in better. And I felt like I was having a hard time coming out. Of that world. Of that world. Stepping back out. So I would go to school and I would disappear and the class would be gone.

The teacher would just give up on getting my attention. Because you were in another world. I was just literally in another world. And every year I'd go to school and go, this is the year I'm going to make A's. This is the year I'm going to do well. And by the third or fourth day, I couldn't remember my classes. I just really couldn't connect to the outside world. And so I was a straight D student first through 12th grade. And I lived in this internal world and I couldn't explain it. And I tell my wife to this day, I was so comfortable in that world

that the characters in that world are as real to me as the characters that you interact with every day. But I made a decision that I was either going to get lost in this internal world. I was going to use my imagination to hide from the world

or I could use my imagination to create a better world. And that's a part of what shifted in my life. Because everything that you have is really your resource to either try to be self-protective or to create something more beautiful for other people. Wow. Man, that's powerful. I feel like a lot of people can relate to that maybe not as deep

into a world that you were in but i remember being like you know people have like imaginary friends they're like have dolls that they like want to hang out with more than real people you know i used to have played games all the time with myself because i felt very insecure and alone as a kid and struggled in school as well i couldn't't really read and write. It was just like a struggle my whole schooling. I was just like, I always played games with myself to just try to keep myself happy. Try to find some sense of meaning and purpose. I remember I used to get in trouble a lot in school

and I would go to the principal's office and I would just say over and over, I wish I were dead. I would just say it to the principal over and over, I just wish I were dead. I never just say it to the principal over and over, I just wish I were dead. I never felt like I had a meaning or purpose. I think a lot of people struggle with the sense of meaning and purpose. And I'm curious, you've been through so much in your life,

and you said that there's these questions that haunt you still today. What are those three big things that haunt you every day? Or on a consistent basis basis those questions that you're constantly like seeking the information towards yeah i mean i think as human beings we ask an endless number of questions rooted in some very core fundamental issues years ago i i wrote in a book called soul cravings that every human being has three intrinsic cravings that unite us all together. And a lot of it's because, you know, I was studying Freud and gestalt therapy and

transactional analysis. And, you know, I was watching, you know, reading Jung and Atler and all these guys and going, okay, wait a minute. Everyone's trying to understand what motivates human action. And everyone had different answers, but I thought the question's really important. And so when I became a person of faith, I was really not, most people study the Bible for theology. I studied the Bible for anthropology and sociology. People want to understand all this stuff about God, and I'm like, I really want to understand

all this stuff about us. And I think what I came to is that there are three intrinsic drives. Every human being has an intrinsic need for love. There's an endless number of words around it. Intimacy, connection, belonging, you know. Every human being has an intrinsic need not only just to be loved but for hope. And every human being has to believe that tomorrow can be better than today.

The moment you stop believing that tomorrow can be better than today. The moment you stop believing that tomorrow can be better than today, you actually move to despair. There's this, so it's odd if you look at it, every one of us have this need for intimacy, to connect, to have human contact, to be known and to know someone. Why is that? See, I think these are proofs of God.

See, I think this is because you're designed in a certain way, just like you're designed to drink water, to eat food, and to breathe air. But we just happen to, you know, because of some mathematical probability, we just happen to need exactly the air that we have. Exactly. You know, we just happen to actually need the liquid that this earth is full of, that comes from the sky. I mean, it sounds like magic. The alchemist.

Yeah, the aqueduct gets filled because the heavens open up and drop water on us. No wonder people dance to rain gods. And we just happen to be able to eat the food that's on this planet. And I think it's the same way with love, that every human being is driven for love. And I think almost all of human history can be understood through love and hate and the way that we interact with each other.

And so the great wars in history are not by people who are different from each other, but people almost exactly the same. And so you have the Hutus and Tutsis. You have the Protestants and the Catholics in Ireland, you know. And, I mean, you have the North and the South and the Civil War. You would think that we would be so fundamentally different. That's why we couldn't get along. It's because we're fundamentally the same. So if we're the same, why can't we get along? See, those are the questions we have to deal with. That's the question I wake up with every day. And then we have this also, this intrinsic drive for progress. Like every human being has to believe

they can become more. I mean, think about this. Your school of greatness is a declaration of a human intrinsic because you can't pull out of people anything that isn't in them. And I think this was, for me, a fundamental problem with faith. A lot of faith was trying to shove something down people's throats, to cram something into people. And I pretty much know if I can't pull it out of a person, then I shouldn't be trying to put it into them. Because to me, that's coercion. That's manipulation. You want to pull out of a person what they're longing for, what they're searching for.

Because then you don't have to worry. There's a difference between giving a person something to drink and drowning a person in a waterboarding dump. Right, right. Forcing it. Trying to control them. A lot of religion feels like waterboarding, not being given a cold drink.

And that's one of the reasons why a lot of people have stepped away from religion. And think about this for a moment. When you talk about, like, faith. Yeah. Hope only exists in the future. Because a person is— Something that's better, a potential better than what I have now. Yeah.

Because if hope is in the past, it's called regret. Because you can't change the past. And oddly enough, this guy named Paul in the Bible actually says that when something gives you hope, once you attain it, it's no longer a source of hope, which is a really profound anthropological insight. And so hope actually causes humans to be connected to the future. And this is one of the things that was so odd for me when I became a person of faith, the way that Christians especially thought about the future. Like, it was so fatalistic, so deterministic, that might as well have been atheists.

Yeah. You know, because if you look at deterministic atheism, it says that the future is already set through mathematical probability. And I'm like, that's the same thing that a lot of Christians say. The future is already set. And Christians. And I'm like, that's the same thing that a lot of Christians say. The future is already set. And when Christians and atheists have this in common, they feel like they have no creative power to affect the future. See, I would never accept that level of powerlessness in my life. And I think the future is dynamic, and we affect the future. And so when I look at hope, it means that humans are designed to be connected to the future.

And if you are connected to the past and disconnected from the future, you actually lose all hope. And one of the reasons I know these are intrinsics is that humans function best when they're loved. They function best when they have hope. And then there's this other dynamic. We function best when we have meaning. And it's a human intrinsic. It doesn't matter if you come up with a different conclusion than me. and they have hope. And then there's this other dynamic, we function best when we have meaning. And it's a human intrinsic. It doesn't matter if you come up with a different conclusion than me. Right. Right. We all have different answers to all life's problems and life's situations and, you know, reality and our worldview, but we're all the same in that we're all trying to answer

the question why, which I think is so interesting that children ask the question why when it's the least relevant question for survival. The questions that matter for survival, the evolutionary questions are what, when, where, how. Like, okay, how did you get away when he got eaten? Yeah. How do I put a fire when I'm freezing to death? Yeah. And the question why is not an evolutionary question. Then why do we ask it so much? See, I think it's because you're created with eternity. Inside of you, just like there's an electrical circuit

that's catalyzing your heart to beat, and it sounds like magic that your electricity being formed into flesh and blood. I think that your spirit, and your spirit's telling you, you need your why. You need to know why you exist and you know why you're here. Because really, if all we have is these 80 years, why would why matter at all? And then I look at humans and I think, we are meaning machines. We not only give meaning to meaningless things, we make meaningful things meaningless.

I think a huge part of your podcast is trying to align meaning for people. Stop wasting your life on the things that are meaningless and start spending your life on things that are meaningful. Absolutely. Think about it. It's like right now we're communicating. This is what we call it, right? We're transmitting meaning. Yes.

But all we're actually doing is creating sounds. And we, as a species, learned how to create sounds that were able to transmit complex and detailed images into another person's brain. It's crazy. And of a feeling, an emotion. Yeah. And all this is seeping through us. And we're actually transmitting something real. I mean, what's more real?

We're passing to each other or me handing you a book or passing you a fork or giving you $1,000. Because if I give you $10,000, that's always outside of you. But when I speak into your life, it goes into the essence of your soul. When you affect me, it changes me, and it becomes a part of who I am So something really powerful going on here and we humans are meaning machines. I mean think about there are tribes in Africa They talk by clicking. I hope I didn't say anything profane or anything like that, you know But if I change the language that I'm speaking to you, you can't understand me Because the moment I change my language in which I'm speaking to you, you can't understand me.

Because the moment I change my language, it no longer translates meaning to you. And we humans have this incredible way of creating meaning in everything. So colors have meaning. I mean, behind me, you write love. But it's not just that it's the word love. It's how love is written. Isn't it interesting that love tends to always have soft, round feeling? Yeah, because you're not going to write love with hard angles, with triangular images. You're going to write love because it has this kind of feel, because we give meaning to everything. And then

you have all these different colors, and the colors have meaning. We humans create meaning every second of our lives. And that for me is the fundamental question. Not, okay, not what you're doing to try to get love, not what you actually believe is bringing you hope. Because you know, it's odd. A person who has false hope is actually doing better person who has no hope. Right. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, they have something yeah i'm going are you out of your mind you actually believe that's going to happen and they

do and it drives them forward and it gets them up there's a purpose they work harder they're more happy seeing this i'm really pragmatic i'm going wow this is how powerful hope is even false hope works then you can actually find something you should be hopeful for it changes everything yeah and then all of us have this drive to find meaning or to create meaning or to make our lives meaningful. Why do we care so much about meaning? See, that, again, it's an intrinsic proof that you are not time-dated, that you have something eternal within you.

Because meaning is an eternal question. It's not a temporal question. It's not a question that survival demands. And I think this is a part of what makes us fundamentally unique as human beings. And I think it's part of what drives us almost to madness, too. Because I've thought things were meaningful that were not. Like what? You know, when you're young, right?

I mean, I played sports, right? And I'm from Los Alamos. I should have been playing soccer, but my stepdad insisted I play football. I'm not physically really creative for football, but I thought football was the most meaningful thing in my life. And when I stopped playing football, my mom actually called the college to make sure I was not so depressed that I wouldn't do something harmful because it was the most meaningful thing in my life right and uh I mean I broke a bunch of bones in the back of my hand I played four more games while those bones broken without going to the doctor but the same thing because I thought football was so important it was life what position you play I played running back yeah

where'd you go to school? I didn't play in college. I just played in high school. Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, yeah. But I thought it was the most meaningful thing in the world, right? Yeah. And then all of a sudden, one day I realized, why am I doing this?

Like, there's no meaning in this. In fact, it's almost tragic to think that I thought it was so meaningful when it wasn't that significant. I was coaching my son. He was playing hockey when he was like 10 years old. I know nothing about hockey, but I was his coach, you know. But he was the best player on our team. He really wanted to be a good teammate. And the other kids started getting upset because he was scoring all the goals. And he's very empathetic in that way. So one game, he said, hey, Dad, I'm just going to pass the puck. I'm just going to pass the puck. I'm not going to score because I want other parents to like me.

So we're playing, and he's passing the puck, passing the puck. We're getting killed because our kids just couldn't score. And I brought him over. I said, Aaron, I need you to score. He goes, no, Dad, team game. It's the other way around. And he goes, yeah, team game, when they pass you the puck, score.

And I said, Aaron, take the puck and score. I got a little tense. And he looked at me. He was 10, and he said, Dad, in 20 years, this game isn't going to matter. That's crazy that a 10-year-old had that perspective. He's been listening to the wrong messaging. He's been listening to what

I say to adults, not what I say to children. And I remember looking at him and said, well, could you go out there and pretend it matters? He goes, oh, I could do that. He said, right, you know, and he goes out there and pretends, but he knew intrinsically that this wouldn't matter. But that was a gift in that moment. Most of us, we give ourselves ourselves wealth and fame and power. I mean, how many times have people just given their whole life to be famous rather than to build their life to be not known but be worth knowing? Right?

And how many times have people mistaken greatness for fame and fame for greatness? And I think in this book, I actually talk about how fame is what you do for yourself, but greatness is what you do for others. It's powerful. You know, and so when you ask like, how do you give yourself sometimes the wrong thing and think about it, have you ever made a mistake in your life and just felt like your life is over? Yes. See, I've had moments like even I remember in high school and junior high thinking, I don't want to wake up tomorrow. I just want to die. And I would have to tell myself then in, thinking, I don't want to wake up tomorrow. I just want to die. Of course.

And I would have to tell myself then, in 20 years, this isn't going to matter. I never had that perspective. I was just so deep in the pain and suffering that I was like, what am I going to do tomorrow to survive? It wasn't until much later, in the last 10 years of my life, where I started to learn this isn't going to matter. This is going to pass. Everything's going to be okay in six months, a know, in the last 10 years of my life where I started to learn, like, this isn't going to matter. This is going to pass. Like, everything's going to be okay in six months, a month, whatever. But most people, I think, struggle with perspective and finding something to be grateful for what you talked about.

For me, gratitude is one of the cornerstones of my life, especially when things are wrong or seeming wrong. Yeah. When a lot of it is just an illusion or the story we give it, the meaning we give this experience. And I've started to look at more and more challenges in my life as beautiful experiences, as lessons to make me stronger for the future. And they actually give me more hope.

I'm like, okay, this is happening for a reason, for me to learn something so that when someone wants to commit suicide in 10 years, I have the courage to be able to know how to stand in that fear with peace and grace and love and not freak out or whatever it is, just probably what you've been through. You've been able to stand on your church or any stage and connect through experiences of pain and struggle and the crazy world that you were living in as opposed to everything has been perfect.

Yeah, it is an ironic kind of almost like a psychological dynamic of putting all your eggs in one basket. And we don't oftentimes realize that we may be the basket we put all the eggs in. See, if our whole life is about us being loved, and our whole life is about us having a future and a hope, and our whole life is about us having meaning for us, then all the eggs are in one basket. But when you say, no, my focus is going to be loving people, and just the love that I need is going to come my way,

but I'm just going to focus my life on loving people. I'm going to focus my life on giving other people hope. I'm going to focus my life on helping other people find meaning, and I'm going to find my meaning in serving others, not in having others serve me. Then you've actually diversified. So if you're looking at it from an economic perspective, a lot of us don't have a psychological diversified portfolio.

Interesting. Our whole lives are about ourselves. And the way I look at it is that every day of my life, someone I love is doing well. Every day of my life, someone I love is moving forward. Every day of my life, someone I love is doing something awesome. And so there isn't a day in my life there isn't something to celebrate because it's not all about me. Wow. It's interesting. When I'm going through hard times, it's really hard to have the perspective,

to not think of like, I need help right now. I need to get out of this feeling, this experience. Like someone throw me a bone, right? That's the time. I think when you feel the most challenged, the most insecure, the most doubt, anxiety, overwhelm, the best thing you can do is call three or five friends that you care about.

Just like you said, like call five people that day and tell them what you appreciate and acknowledge about them. Like be a listening person to them. Give them love, hope, inspiration. Tell them they're doing a good job. Like get out of yourself and serve other people and you're going to feel a thousand times better

Yeah That's such a good nuance that you have there because a lot of people would call three to five friends To tell them what they're going through give me Yeah, rather than calling them to give them support I love that we still want to talk about challenges We're going through because that makes us human and allows us to like process and express certain things So I don't think you should just mask all your feelings and emotions, but I don't think you should sit in

for too long and focus out. Like the more you can just give to other people, smile at strangers, the more you can just help people. I think it was Zig Ziglar or someone like that in the personal development space says, if you want to achieve all your goals, help everyone else achieve their goals. And it's like, just focus out as much as

you can and you'll attract the love. You'll attract the meaning. Yeah, absolutely. So what's the biggest question then that you wrestle with the most? Is it, because you connected with me when I said, if we're so similar, why do we always fight in the world? Is that one of the biggest questions you wrestle with? I mean, sometimes it's very practical. It's just the everyday stuff of how do I help people I love move from a deep sense of inadequacy to a place where they have this internal strength to know that they have everything they need to live the life they're created to live. I wish every day I was just trying to answer the big questions of life, but a lot of times I'm just trying to help people I care about. How do you help people you care about who maybe always seem to be a victim or are struggling or that never seem to get a hold of

like their purpose or their mission and you just want to see them thrive, but they continue to suffer year after year? Yeah, I think one of the things that you have to realize is when a person is in a perpetual pattern, negative pattern, that they almost can't hear you right away. Like wherever you and I agree, communication happens easily and naturally. If we disagree, we have a more difficult time

understanding each other. If we violently disagree, you will distort what I have said, and I will distort what you've said, and turn it into a more violating response. Yeah. Does that make sense? Of course. You know, so when a person's in a really bad place, you can make the mistake of thinking

they're unteachable because they don't respond well to what you're speaking into their life. And you have to realize that a lot of it is that they're in a really, almost in a distortion zone where they're reinterpreting everything in the negative. And it takes a little, you have to be patient with people and help them through. And there's this interesting place in the Old Testament with this guy named Elijah, I think it was. And he has a great moment than he has a horrible moment when he goes running for his life and he goes out into the wilderness and he hides under a bush and he just like Just want to die and it says the first thing that happens is that an angel came and said it brought him food and drank I said just eat and sleep Yeah, and I think sometimes we just are too hard on each other. Yeah, we demand a lot from each other

Yeah, you know and I'm like, hey, just get some food, get some sleep, because you're inside of this body, and if your body's not doing well, you're not gonna do well. You're not gonna think clearly. Yeah, so a lot of times I ask people, look, just realize that you have to stop and take care of yourself.

Just eat and sleep. Like, I'm a person who doesn't sleep hardly at all. I mean, I don't sleep very much. I've never slept. I mean, in my whole life, I've been like that. And so I have to like work at sleeping. Practice every day, yeah. You know, and getting to sleep and things.

And a lot of it's because I process so much stuff. And I do all my work in my head, so it's hard to not be at work. And you're running all that stuff down. So I know it's like to not be at work. And you're running all that stuff down. So I know what it's like to be in this space. And my wife says to me, it's too loud in bed. I can hear your brain. Wow.

And she's, just turn it off. I can't just turn it off. So I think I'm empathetic going, I know that I can't just go, boom. It's all shut down. I'm not worried anymore. I'm not stressed out anymore. I'm not anxious anymore. I realize there's a process that I have to go through.

anymore. I'm not stressed out anymore. I'm not anxious anymore. I realize there's a process that I have to go through. And some of it is really almost like a praxis where you have to go, okay, I just need 30 minutes or I'm just quiet. I'm just alone. I just decompress and I just get into my own space. And I do think this is why historically things like prayer and meditation are so important. Whatever you choose to do, you just got to find some way to block out the outside world and get in touch with what's going on inside of you. Because I think some of it is when you're not paying attention to your inner world, it's almost like it's parliament out of control. Everyone's screaming and yelling. You have to step in and say you're in charge. This conversation is a conversation that I am the head of, and I'm going to take on this conversation.

Yeah, and I think when you're not in control of your inner world, every little thing in the outer world becomes amplified, like you said. Everyone who's stopped at a green light, you get mad at and you react to. Everyone that honks at you, you want to flip off and fight. Everyone that says something to you, you respond with a sense of fear and anxiety. And by the way, that is actually why I wrote The Way of the Warrior, was that I don't write books going, what will sell? I write books based on what are the real things that we're grappling with. And I found it even in my own life with a 27-year-old daughter, a third-year-old son, me being 60, and knowing that they're struggling through some of the same stuff that I

struggled through. They face crises and challenges, and they have moments of deep internal angst. And my kids are really thoughtful and intelligent. And sometimes I envy people who don't seem to spend time thinking about life. They're peaceful. Yeah. But if you are at all introspective or reflective about life, you're gonna find yourself sometimes tormented and in turmoil. And a huge part of the process of moving toward peace

is slowing yourself down. And allowing your inner world to be organized the way that you want to express it in your outer world. And it's funny because my kids always tell me like I'm like zen, because I just don't lose my temper. I just, you know, I mean, it's probably been 60, 40 years since I've lost my temper.

But when I was a kid, I had a violent temper. All the time, yeah. I was the guy that punched the walls. Me too. Okay. Every moment I felt like defensive. Yeah of the fight or scream or yeah I was that guy you know and I realized was that anger rage was me proving I was powerless so powerful that powerful people are never out of control it's powerless people are never out of control.

It's powerless people who are out of control. So when you see that person being physically violent or expressing a rage or cussing that person out or, I mean, I see people stop their cars in the streets and get out. Oh, my gosh. All right. Here's a person. I've been that guy before. They're not just out of control. They're powerless.

Yeah. And that's their out of control. They're powerless. Yeah. And that's their powerlessness manifests. Wow. And what I decided in my life was that I would not allow any circumstance to be more powerful than my internal world. And I will not allow the external world to be more powerful than my internal world. And if my internal world is stronger than the world around me, then nothing in the outside world can affect me. That's why people say, I don't know what got into me. I said, nothing got into you. It got out of you. Wow.

And just the circumstance, it pierced into your soul and it led up what was really there. I think Viktor Frankl talked about that in his book about when he was in concentration camps, people would do all these horrible things to him and he just kept a sense of peace and focused on his reactions. That's Man's Search for Meaning. Man's Search for Meaning. Which originally was called Death Camps and Existentialism. Wow, interesting. But that's not a selling title. That's not. And then, you know, I heard stories about Mandela where he was just treated horribly in prison. And yet, from what what i understand always responded with a sense of peace and love and in fact after he got out like welcomed those guards into his home and dinners

and things like that so for me and then martin luther king talks about you know never getting angry at someone's hate towards you you know because you lose your power around that you give someone else the power when you react. Something around that he said. So you're creating a human metanarrative. Whether you realize it or not. Yeah, yeah. You're talking about Mandela.

Uh-huh. And- Viktor Frankl. Viktor Frankl. Martin Luther King. Martin Luther King and Gandhi. Uh-huh. All right.

And you're just naturally painting a picture of human ideals. Yeah. This is what humanity is supposed to look like. Or that's what's possible. Right. Yeah. But if there is nothing beyond the material world, then they're not in any way different than Mussolini and Genghis Khan and Hitler. Mm-hmm. Mussolini and Genghis Khan and Hitler.

But yet nothing in your soul tells you that those are the aspirations of what it means to be human. Think about this just from going back to this earlier conversation because I thought about it like, have you ever seen some act and you thought that it was inhumane? But the only species that can commit an inhumane act is a human. When you look at a tiger eating a gazelle, you don't think it's an animal, you know, or a killer whale, right? Eating a seal, that's just life. But when a human does something that an animal does in the wild,

we intrinsically know it's inhumane. How is it possible for a human being to be so self-aware that something a human does seemingly naturally would be, oh, unnatural? And that's why, Lewis, I think there's a divine narrative in us that our souls actually keep whispering to us, there's more inside of you than you know. Gosh. Point that out. You just don't realize you're preaching the gospel. I know.

You got to meet people where they're at, to the masses. No, you believe this. Of course. You've made it your whole life. Of course, yeah. Yeah. And what I would say is you're exactly right.

You are aspiring for the great, not just your greatness. You're aspiring to pull the greatness in all people. That's my mission. So then you believe there's this thread throughout the human spirit that interconnects us all together. Yeah. That it's more than math. Yeah. You talked about

ideals and beliefs in the beginning like this belief system and these ideals what would you say is like a core ideals that you think is the most aspirational ideals and beliefs and how often do your beliefs evolve over time? That's a good question because I think that. Because when you were 10, you had a belief system and then it evolved. Yeah. And then when you were 20 or 30, maybe you're like, oh, I thought this was the truth. But maybe there's something else here. Yeah.

I think a part of it is so oftentimes we put data and truth in the same category. Or information and truth. And I think I had the other, I'm the opposite. I was a person who didn't find it easy to commit to truth. So I wasn't, I was never a dogmatic person. So a lot of people who are highly dogmatic, they go through dramatic shifts of I believe this, now I believe this, now I believe this. I was always more fluid. I was like, I don't know.

I could see value in everything. Again, studying Norse and Greek and Roman and Egyptian mythology and never read them with any level of judgment. I never thought to myself, this is less valuable than this and less valuable than this and less valuable than this. I always was just looking for what, where's the story that I'm in and what makes sense to me.

And it's kind of odd. Like every mythology seems to have the good guy, the bad guy, and the dad who's trying to, you know, work between them, right? You know, and isn't that what seems to work between them, right? And isn't that what seems to be going on inside of us? There's that part of us that aspires to be great and good, and the part of us that just wants to consume and take. And then there's almost this other voice

trying to call us to who we were created to be. And I don't think my beliefs changed in terms of in a dogmatic way. I think my beliefs were always growing and evolving and changing. I think some of my beliefs were hopes. You know, like I didn't have a lot of proof growing up that the world was good. But I believed the world was good, that there could be goodness to be found out there.

In fact, a lot of it, before I ever had any belief in Jesus Christ, I had this aspiration to end poverty in the world. I had an aspiration to do something truly humane in the world. And that's why it was odd for me when I would hear Christians say, oh, no, no, there's nothing good in you unless you give your life to Jesus. I'm like, I don't think you got that one right. I think that every human being aspires to do something good unless they've been so broken and corrupt. I don't think it's the way humans are intended to be.

I think that's the deviation. I actually think we're created for good in that good just feels right. Yeah. You know? Good feels good. It does, you know, and you're healthy when you're there. I mean, obviously, coming to faith in Jesus was a huge, both psychological and worldview shift for me. I remember studying philosophy in college. I was one of those guys who had no reason to be in school to study philosophy, right? And we studied Christianity for like five minutes. My professor would get up there.

I mean, we spent so much time on Socrates and Plato and Aristotle and Locke, Hume, Descartes. I mean, virtually everybody got a lot of time. But Christianity got like three minutes. The guy said, this is the book that says that God is love. And he read this passage about war in the Old Testament. He said, isn't that ridiculous? How in the world could this be the God of love. And he read this passage about war in the Old Testament. He said, isn't that ridiculous? How in the world could this be the God of love?

And he laughed and I laughed. And in my mind, I thought, yeah, that's not a viable option. So it took me about two or three minutes to decide Christianity was not a viable option for my life. And so when I began to encounter more this message of Jesus, it was destructive. And I would argue with people who believed in God, and they were terrible at arguing. Bad at it. It's just so bad, you know. You just kept justifying why you were right. Yeah, no, it's exactly right. So in college, I would just go, okay, if they believe in God, I'm going to argue that there is no God. And if they don't believe in God, I'm going to argue there's a God. I'm just going to work this thing through. And really a lot of it for me was I keep losing the argument.

I mean, I keep winning the argument. But I like them better than I like myself. You like the Christians. I did. I just happened to meet some good ones. You know? They seemed like they were kind and filled with joy. And so I wish I could say it was intellectual and rational and all academic, but a lot of it wasn't. A lot of it was essential. I thought,

what kind of human do I want to be? And at that point, I was pretty much a, gosh, I would rather believe the wrong thing and be the right kind of person than believe the right thing and become the wrong kind of person. Because I met a lot of people who believe in God who are so judgmental and dogmatic and condemning. But then I knew a lot of people who believe in God who are so judgmental and dogmatic and condemning. But then I knew a lot of my atheist friends who were arrogant and judgmental and condemning, and it was just both. And that was a huge shift for me. But I don't know why, but it didn't feel like a shift in belief because I always wanted to believe that humans had intrinsic value.

I wanted to believe that we mattered. I wanted to believe that we mattered. I wanted to believe that we're not specks of dust. So maybe I was predisposed to believe, if you could look at it like that. Because when I would study scientific determinism, I'd go, all right, wait a minute. This means that there's no creativity. There's no free will.

That future's completely set. That choice is an illusion. I'd go, yeah, if that's right, I'd rather be wrong. And so some of it's really pragmatic for me. I look and go, what's the view of reality that makes me most fully alive and allows me to do the most good in the world? The most beautiful and creative and expressive. And then when I believe that you've been imagined to imagine

and created to create, that you're both a work of art and an artist at work, it's just changed my whole view of reality. And that's why I started Mosaic. I mean, Mosaic, the name is just an art form. It's an art form of broken and fragmented pieces that are brought together to create something beautiful,

especially when light strikes through it. Wow. So I said, hey, look, we're going to be straight up. We're all broken and fragmented. We're the irregular pieces of the world. And we're going to come together and we're going to believe that God's going to create something beautiful, especially when he strikes his light through us. Just got the chills.

You know? That's beautiful. That was why I started Mosaic. And I said, look, if you need to pretend you're perfect, this is not the place for you. If you need to pretend you got it all together, you're just going to feel really uncomfortable here. If you need to follow someone who pretends they're perfect, this is not the place for you. You're not the guy. My wife would always say, could you quit telling people that you don't know what you're doing or you don't know where you're going?

And I go, no, I'm always going to tell them the truth. That way, when I actually know where I'm going, they'll know I'm telling the truth. And I think it's really helped because all the brokenness that my life came out of gives people hope. I don't write about ideals that I've never experienced. I write out of the essence and struggle and reality of my own life. And I've needed peace in my life. And then I'm so angry about the condition of our culture right now. And how people just attack each other and they just destroy each other.

And social media has become such a negative space. Bullying. And we want to find everyone in their worst moment. We've got to change the narrative here. We have to be for each other. Yeah. And I think it's funny. There's this woman in the Bible called Rahab, and she's a prostitute.

And she makes one choice that changes her life. And there are four women in the genealogy of Jesus, and one of them is a prostitute. Wow. People don't talk about that. Yeah. That's why I tell people, look, you're just one choice away from the life you've always longed for. Don't let anybody tell you that you've trashed it for 40 years and it's too late for you. All you need right now is just one good choice.

And that one good choice is going to get momentum in your life and just keep moving forward. So I was a straight D student, first of 12th grade. I couldn't get into college. My English teacher my last day of high school said, you will never make it. Wow. Million copies later of the books. So I'm going, I just want to be a metaphor that it's never too late and everyone has something of value inside of them. Yeah, I love that.

I feel like I can connect with you a lot on your story and your life and your experiences. And you've got this book. I have a few questions final for you, but this book is called The Way of the Warrior, An Ancient Path to Inner Peace. And the reason I'm attracted to this, when Joel told me about it, I said, okay, I got to read this and interview Erwin,

is because for my whole life, I was focused on success and accomplishment and achievement to gain love, right? Because when I would win in sports, I would get acknowledgement Friends would like me, you know parents everything. So I just said I have to win at all costs Everything I do that translated into relationships and that's never a good thing Business everything I came from a very loving compassionate place until something was on the line and I really needed to win. Then it was just like nothing else

matters. We are winning at all costs, right? And up until I hit about 30, I'm 35 now, almost 36, I was so accomplished but never felt a sense of inner peace. And then I went on a journey for the last five, six years of reinventing myself and rediscovering what is greatness, what is success. And I told Maria Shriver when I had her on, I was like, for me, you can't achieve greatness without inner peace. It doesn't matter all the money and the success and accomplishments. If you feel a lack of inner peace, I don't think you're living a great life.

And if you're not living a life of service, if your mission isn't attached to helping other people, I don't feel like you can find that inner peace as well. I'm not saying you need to save the world and hunger in the world, but there's gotta be a part of your life that is on a mission to help the people around you. I think that helps you bring more inner peace.

So for me, greatness is really around cultivating the gifts that we have within us, bringing them out to pursue our dreams. And in that pursuit, making the maximum impact we can on people around us, but also finding that inner peace. And so I love that you talk about being a warrior is finding inner peace. And the back of your book here, just everything you talk about resonates with me. So I'm excited about this. And I want everyone to go get a copy because I think it's going to be very powerful for you. So the book's out now. You guys can go get it at bookstores, also where online. What's your website for this you go to earlmanis.com or

amazon yeah it's up everywhere i want to make sure you guys go get this book get one for a friend as well and i love this at the top it says in order to be ready for a battle you must first know peace and i think that's the thing we are seeking the most you know where we're facing daily wars around us whether it be trying to find a new job or career, build our business, the relationship struggles we're in. And we're always going to be struggling if we don't know how to find peace within us first. Would you agree or no? Absolutely. Yeah. No, I just got to say on a personal level, Lewis, one, you're really both really fascinating person and just like almost incredibly immediately likable. It's really beautiful. By the way, when I wrote the book, it's crazy. I was driving down Hollywood, down Vine,

and I was with my wife. I have a vivid imagination. I heard this voice, and I heard the first line of the book. It was, The warrior's not ready for battle until they have come to know peace. This is the way of the warrior. And I looked over at my wife and said, I have my next book.

And I love Japanese culture. I used to go to Japan a lot and love all the Japanese films. And it was- Last Samurai. Oh my God. I have a Last Samurai poster in my house. No way. Oh, that's cool. A Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon signed by Ang Lee. Oh my gosh. And I wrote this book as if it was an old samurai writing to a young samurai. Wow.

Passing on the wisdom. And I think the problem is that we have people who are at war, but they're not at peace. And so I want to answer an individual and a global question because the world will never know peace until we have inner peace.

War rages across the world because war rages within our hearts. And the only way we're going to have world peace is through inner peace. And so this is a battle for world peace one life at a time. Amazing. I love this, man. I'm so excited for this. I didn't even get to any of the questions I had here.

I'm sorry about that. It's all good. I was just so fascinated by everything. It's actually good when I never have to read a question off of here because it means I'm sorry about that. It's all good. I was just so fascinated by everything. It's actually good when I never have to read a question off of here because it means I'm just so enamored by the message. We didn't even get to like, you just had cancer a couple of years ago. You went through surgery and now you're cancer free. I'd love to know what cancer has taught you about life. And I don't know if we have time for this now. I don't know if you have to run. I'll give you my quick answer because when people say to me, are you cancer free? I always tell

them I was always free of cancer because it never owned me. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, that's great. Real quick answer then. What has that experience, the illusion of having cancer, taught you about? No, not an illusion. It was a reality. But we're all dying. But some of us are gripped by the fear of death. And I think the only reason we're afraid of death is because we're actually afraid to live. And what I discovered when I was told I had cancer and I didn't know how long I would live was this beautiful realization that I was not overwhelmed with regret because I felt like I'd lived every day of my life as fully as I knew how. And I can tell you that my family confirmed this to you. I never felt afraid. I never felt angry. I never felt bitter. And I gave myself permission to feel

all of it because to me, it's like to be human is permissible. I don't need to pretend. You know, being a pastor or starting Mosaic. They don't need me to pretend. They need me to be real. And so I took them through the process with me. And I started wondering, why am I not afraid? I thought maybe there's something broken inside of me, right? I could, you know, some people can't feel love or empathy or whatever. I thought there's something broken. And I realized there's a difference between being sad because you might lose something. Like I want to see my kids grow up, get married, have kids. I want to see the world become a better place.

I still believe humanity's best days are ahead of them. There's so much I want to experience to do. But I didn't feel fear because I didn't wake up one day going, oh, no. I don't have time to live the life I was created to live. Yeah. And I think most of us are actually afraid of death because we realize we've only existed. And we haven't truly lived.

Yeah. Wow. So this is called the three truths. Imagine you get to pick the day when it's the last day for you on earth. Let's just say there has to be a day and you have to leave the body and move on to whatever's next.

And it could be 100 years from now, it could be whenever you want it to be and let's say you've accomplished everything and your imagination is one to create in the world you've done everything good you want to do you've seen your kids do everything you've had the life but for whatever reason time's to go it's time to go and you've got to take all of your work with you. So all of your writings, your books, your content, video, any content you put out there, you've got to take it with you. So no one has access to that information anymore. But they give you a piece of paper before you take your last breath. And you get to write down three things you know to be true from your whole life experience.

From all the crazy worlds you were living in, all the questioning, all the experience and the lessons, you get to write down three final lessons or truths that you would share with the world. What would you say are your three truths? I would say that the motive of all things is love and that people are the only true value that exists in the world. And that when everyone else thinks you're gone, you've just gotten started. Wow. Interesting.

That's a good third one. Okay. Make sure you guys get this book, The Way of the Warrior, An Ancient Path to Inner Peace. It's going to change your life, I already know. How can we connect with you online personally? Where do you hang out the most on social media? I love Instagram because I love taking photographs.

And of course, right now, my son and his little media team are helping me get the book word out. But we're going to put a lot of video content on erwinmcmanus.com. So we've gone through and we've shot like 10 to 15 minutes for every chapter of the book to carry people through. And it's all content that's not in the book. Great. Because in a book, I might have 10% of my content. Wow. You know, 90% of the content doesn't make it in the book.

And so the best place to go is erwinmcmanus.com or go to the Mosaic app because our church, all my talks are there. So I guess you guys have like 2 million people on your podcast. It's incredible. We have a podcast. I have two. One, it's my talks every Sunday at Mosaic Daughter. And my son and I have a podcast called Battle Ready that came out of when I had cancer. That's cool. Yeah, so that became our theme was Battle Ready when I had cancer. When I told him I had cancer, I said, hey, look, you just need to be battle ready. Wow. So we've been doing that podcast and it's

so raw and honest and I'd love for people to join us there. That's cool. Okay. I want to acknowledge you, Erwin, for being just a fresh breath of air, for bringing so much love into this moment and so much soul and spirit and giving people a sense of hope who maybe don't feel it right now. Because there's a lot of people listening that are succeeding, but I still feel like are missing that moment of inner peace and hope of like, is there going to be a better tomorrow, even though I'm succeeding? Yeah.

Am I going to feel something better? Am I going to have that love? Am I going to be able to get out of this toxic relationship. So I acknowledge you for being battle ready and for continuing to have a positive attitude through life-threatening experiences and constantly being in service to humanity. I feel like that's the greatest measure of a human is how much they continue to want to serve. So I acknowledge you for all that and for just showing up today, man. This was powerful for me, and I'm very excited. I hope to play basketball with you one day. I hope to hang out more, and I'm going to come check out Mosaic.

Hey, this is a bucket list. I've wanted to be on your podcast. When I first heard about the School of Greatness, I thought one day I would just love to have a conversation with you. So I want to thank you so much. You've made my year. I appreciate it, man. I appreciate it. This is the final question.

It's what's your definition of greatness? Well, I have a whole chapter in the book on greatness. And I would say that the definition of greatness is what you've done for others. Erwin, thanks, man. Appreciate you. Thank you, brother. Thank you. There you have it, my friends.

I hope you enjoyed this one all about love, spiritual progress, and the way of the warrior with Erwin McManus. If you enjoyed it, share with your friends. Tag me on Instagram, at Lewis Howes and at Erwin McManus over there as well because this needs to go far and wide. Do yourself a favor and help someone today. Send them this podcast,

send them a message, send them a text, copy this link from the podcast app or Spotify or wherever you're listening to this and send this to a friend who you think it could inspire. Tell them to listen to this. Tell them to ask you what you got out of this the most. And you guys have a conversation about this. This is all about progressing together. Don't do it alone. Share it to a friend, a spouse, a partner, a family member. Send this to someone that you want to see grow in their life as well.

We are just getting started, guys. This is episode number 763. I'm so excited about everything we have going on. We had an amazing interview the previous week, the previous two interviews with Terry Crews talking about toxic masculinity his rise to success

and everything else he's been able to create we had Bubba Watson, two-time Masters Champion on go check out those last week's interviews we've got so many great interviews as well in the past and coming up I'm so excited for who we have, and I can't wait for you to see them. So if this is your first time here, subscribe to the podcast, leave a review over on the Apple Podcast. Let me know what you think, what you got out of this.

And yeah, leave us a review. Leave us a rating. Let me know what you think. Follow on Instagram, follow on the website, all the good things, guys. And as we started out at the beginning, Eckhart Tolle said, acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance. If you fixate on what you lack, you will continue to create more lack in your life. If you focus on what you are grateful for, you will attract more good things in your life to be grateful for. Remember these simple principles and apply them to your daily life.

As always, guys, I love you so very much. You matter to so many people in the world. It's time for you to step up and start mattering to yourself. And as always, you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great Outro Music Bye.