The School of Greatness - 884 Successful Women Leaders on Mental Toughness and Building Confidence

Episode Date: December 4, 2019

USE YOUR PAIN AS AN ARROW. None of us like to feel unpleasant emotions. Whether it’s pain, anxiety, or stress, we numb them with food, alcohol, and overscheduling. But there’s a lot we can learn from discomfort. Instead of drowning your feelings, get curious about them. Your envy can lead you to your passion. Your anxiety can show you your authentic self. And your pain might be asking you to comfort something in your past that is keeping you from your future. Unless we embrace where we’re from, we’ll never get where we’re going. On today’s episode of The School of Greatness, I talk with some of the most inspirational women on the planet: Elizabeth Gilbert, Rachel Hollis, Sarah Blakely, Glennon Doyle, Mel Robbins, and Lisa Nichols. Elizabeth Gilbert is the author of Eat, Pray, Love. Rachel Hollis is the bestselling author of Girl, Wash Your Face. Sarah Blakely is the founder and CEO of the massively popular women’s apparel brand SPANX. Mel Robbins is the author of the 5-Second Rule. Glennon Doyle is the creator of the online community Momastery. Lisa Nichols is a bestselling author and motivational speaker. These women share their experiences in overcoming limitations from their past to become the powerhouses they are today. Like Elizabeth Gilbert says in this episode, if your only goal is to be at the very top, you’re going to be disappointed. So get ready to learn from these vulnerable, powerful women on Episode 884. Some Questions I Ask: How do you follow your passion? (11:18) What’s the biggest challenge for moms? (16:30) How did Oprah help you succeed? (25:00) How has the 5-4-3-2-1 rule helped you the most? (32:00) In This Episode You Will Learn: The danger of only wanting to be on top (10:00) Jackhammers vs. Hummingbirds (14:00) What causes anxiety (19:00) How Sarah went above and beyond for Spanx (24:00) How Sarah’s dad encouraged her to fail (28:00) About the 5-4-3-2-1 rule (29:00) About the transformative yoga class Glennon Doyle took (37:00) How suffering is a choice, and what we can learn from pain (39:00) Why it’s important to be non-negotiable (48:00) If you enjoyed this episode, check out the video, show ntoes and more at http://www.lewishowes.com/884 and follow at instagram.com/lewishowes.

This is episode number 884 on five successful women leaders on overcoming fear and building confidence. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. I love this quote. Dolly Parton said, if your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, then you are an excellent leader. Michelle Obama said, you may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always

be able to solve all of the world's problems at once, but don't ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own. And Mother Teresa said, do not wait for leaders. Do it alone, person to person. Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies. I'm excited about this because we have had some incredible women leaders come on this show and share just tear-jerking stories of overcoming extreme obstacles and how they grew into who they are today. And one of them is Rachel Hollis, who has taken off in the last couple of years. She's a number one New York Times bestselling author, top motivational speaker, book Girl, Wash Your Face, was one of the most popular books of 2018. And she has just continued to take over the world. She's a mother of four, and she's got a lot of

inspirational work that she does. We've got Sarah Blakely. Gosh, this woman is just fierce and compassionate, loving and kind, and one of the smartest business leaders in the world. She created Spanx, which sells undergarments, leggings, and swimwear for maternity wear in 65 countries. And she is one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people. We've got Mel Robbins, who's one of the most booked female speakers in the world, New York Time bestselling author, creator and host of three number one audio books on Audible. She's got her own talk show right now, one of the top TED speakers in the world. She's crushing. Glennon Doyle, activist, thought leader, and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Super Soul 100.

She is just an inspiration in doing so much good for the world. Liz Gilbert, man, this woman, I love this woman. I don't get to spend enough time with her, but when I'm around her, I just love giving her a hug. I love soaking in her energy and learning from her. She is best known for her book, Eat, Pray, Love, which was a massive hit. She's, again, Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in the world. She's been on tour with Oprah, all that stuff. And Lisa Nichols, an international motivational speaker, bestselling author, philanthropist, and founder of Motivating the Masses. She is one of the most inspirational speakers I've ever seen as well, and she just does so much good for so many people. And in this episode,

I wanted to break down what is it that these female leaders have that makes them so successful. Some of them have four or five kids. Some of them have multiple businesses. Some of them have been through divorce. Some of them have gone through extreme hardships, overcome challenges in their childhood. So many different things. How did they rise to the top? How do they impact so many people? How do they lead with love? And in this episode, we talk about reframing failure so that you seek to fail. We talk about how taking action, both big and small, is the only answer to changing your life. Not thinking about something, but actually taking the action. The inner wisdom that every single person has and how to tune into our inner wisdom,

even when there's a lot of stress and chaos and noise around us. What successful people do to keep moving ahead, no matter how they feel, how choosing pain, vulnerability, and stillness will empower you. Now, if you are a woman listening to this, please share this with your other female friends because I think this is going to transform the end of your year and set you up for a new decade on how you want to lead your life moving forward. And to be honest, for all the men listening, I learn more from women than I do from men a lot of the time. Now, I might get some hate on a bunch of guys for saying that, but I just feel like women have this intuition, have this inner wisdom and power that, in general, I feel like I lacked as a kid, and I can learn so much from the power of women

and what they have, their qualities, their values, their level of service to humanity is at a whole nother level in a lot of ways. And I learn a lot. So guys, listen up. We got to listen to this as well. Share this with your friends and share it with a girlfriend

who you think might enjoy this also. The episode is lewishouse.com slash 884. Again, successful women leaders on overcoming fear and building confidence. This is going to be a game changer for you. And make sure to message me and let me know the biggest thing you took away from this while you're listening. All right, everybody, I'm super excited about this episode with these powerful women leaders. So let's dive in. My friend, Sarah Jones, who's a performance artist who's won, you know, Tony's and she's fantastic. She has a beautiful way of expressing this that she said at the beginning of any creative endeavor, there's a highway that I have to be on. This is her words, not mine.

I'm paraphrasing. She said, there's a highway that I have to be on to do this work. And along that highway, there's any number of detours. And any time I find myself asking questions such as, am I going to be able to win a Tony with this? Is my agent going to be able to sell this? Are people going to want this? Is the audience going to respond to this? Is this agent going to be able to sell this? Are people going to want this? Is the audience going to respond to this? Is this the right kind of work?

Is this what the market is calling for? She said, all of those questions are detours off the highway that I need to be on. And any of those questions that I start asking myself at the beginning of a creative journey is going to take me right off that highway and into the same neighborhood every time. And that's a ghetto where they're going to take the hubcaps off my car and beat me and leave me for dead because it's going to leave me asking the wrong questions. And the only question at the beginning of this creative endeavor is, does the thought of making this illuminate me, ignite me, make me feel like I can't wait to get up in the morning and give meaning to a life that is otherwise often very difficult? If the answer

is yes, then I'm on the right road, you anything else and any other reason also puts you in, I think, hungry ghost category, which is when is it enough? I was number one New York Times bestseller for a year. If all I cared about in my life was being at the top, there was a day that came when I wasn't that anymore. And that would have been a very bad day for me. Instead of me being like, this journey is amazing. And now what am I going to make? You know, when I wrote the book that came after Eat, Pray, Love, my book Committed, which I still really like, that book sold one one thousandth of the copies of Eat, Pray, Love. If I were somebody who only had to win and I saw that chart, that's a plot. You would have committed suicide.

That is a bad chart. That's the opposite of up and to the right. That's like a stark. And instead I was like, I like that book. I still like that book. And now what? Now what do I want to make? Because I think you can't stay there.

You can't even get there. I had this woman write to me, this young woman who said, Um, because I think you can't stay there. You can even get there. You know, say you're, I had this woman write to me, this young woman who said, I don't think I should be, be made to feel ashamed that I want to be, don't just want to be an actress. I want to be a great actress. I want to be a famous actress and I want to win awards. And I said, no one should make you feel ashamed for that. I wanted to all those things in writing, but just know that if that is your only motivation

for doing this, satisfaction will never be in your hand. Because even if – let's take it to the top. Even if you win an Oscar, what happens the next year when someone else does? Yeah. Right? So let – sure, be ambitious. Want everything. No problem.

But if you don't have a sole reason to do it, you only have an ego reason to do it, then you're setting yourself up for a life of suffering where you will never have enough. And someone will always be on your neck, coming up behind you, and you will never know when to rest in contentment. And that just sounds like hell to me. Yeah. It's interesting. I was listening to your interview with, or not interview, but your super soul sessions where you talked about discovering your passion and how you live the life of passion you used to tell people passion passion go find it go follow it go pursue it and you said that there was a woman that wrote you a letter talked about how she didn't just know her passion yeah or her passion changes or you know it comes and goes

can you talk about that in regards to what we were just covering? Yeah. I mean, I've always had the great good fortune of knowing what I love. And I love writing. And so my life has been really simple. That's all I do. Yeah. That's kind of a definition of a passion, right? It's nice. I know. It makes your life really easy. You knew what you wanted. I knew what I wanted. I liked it. I didn't really like anything else. You worked in magazines, right?

Yeah. Wrote short stories. Very clear. Yeah. It's like, this is it. Movies. Here's the path. Yeah, yeah. Everything else can take a number, right? Like, that's always been really obvious anything else. You worked in magazines, right? Wrote short stories. Very clear. It's like, this is it. Here's the path. Everything else can take a number, right? That's always been really obvious to me.

And so it's also been very obvious to me to go around telling people, just do that. Like, you know, that thing that you love more than anything, just do that, right? It just seemed like the easiest, it seems like good advice and even kind advice, right? And so after Eat, Pray, Love came out, I started kind of professionally saying that, going on stages and telling people, just find your passion,

do your passion, passion, passion. And then one day I did an event in Australia. And when I got back, there was a long letter on my wall on my Facebook wall from a young woman who said, you know, I came, I came to your event looking for inspiration. And I have to tell you, I'm sitting alone in the dark in my room and I've never felt worse about myself than I feel right now because all I've been doing is trying to figure out what that thing is that you're talking about and I'm telling you I don't have one in the way that you define it as that thing that makes you feel like your hair is on fire that you would sacrifice anything for and it's not for lack of looking it's not for lack of people and people like you are constantly saying to people like me that this is the answer and i and i just feel like a loser and a failure and

i'm interested in a lot of things but nothing that i would die for nothing that i would give my whole life for so i know you didn't mean to but you just made me feel like the biggest failure and loser in the world and it was was such a head turning thing for me, Lewis, because I was like, how many people have I done that to? You know? And I started thinking about all the people who I know and love and asking

myself how many of them could truly say as I can, that from the time they were like basically six, they had no question about what they were supposed to be doing zero base statistically zero maybe a couple but very few yeah and everybody else i know including people who i admire and who i go to when i'm broken down and i want advice like i everyone else's path has looked like a path through a carnival fun house you know like trick mirrors and trap doors and like um and and trying this and it not quite working and trying that and doing this and so i was realizing like we preach this passion thing in an almost fundamentalist way you know but and i'm a

jackhammer when i there's something that i care about and want to do i'm fully focused but what if what if everyone was what a weird and boring world that would be. And so I've now sort of distinguished my mind between what I call jackhammers and what I call hummingbirds. And the hummingbirds are people who cross-pollinate the world by just moving from field to field and pursuit and pursuit and taking ideas from one place and bringing them to another and mixing it up. And they don't get as much attention and credit as jack hammers because they're not as loud as us lewis nothing louder than a jackhammer that's true like once we get going we sort of don't shut up you know and hummingbirds they're beautiful and they're so it was just this idea there's other ways to be yeah you don't have to be the way that i am in a box or fit in one yeah and don't let if you don't look if you have a passion of course do it if you don't happen to if you don't, look, if you have a passion, of course, do it.

If you don't happen to have one, don't worry about it. And maybe there's a gentler answer, which is follow your curiosity, which is a smaller impulse and a lighter one and a less high stakes one than passion. And you don't mortgage your whole house to go follow your curiosity. You just try it for a weekend. Maybe you like it. Maybe it's something. Maybe it's not. Maybe in the end you kind of embroider a very complex beautiful patchwork life for yourself and at the end of your life maybe you're not at the top of the heap but you're able to say i did the most interesting

thing a human being can do which is to to follow the slight pollen trail of my inquisitiveness for the entirety of my life and through that i cross-pollinated the world and created a beautiful work of art of my own existence. That's not so bad. But it doesn't get a lot of credit in a really competitive, passion-fetishizing society. I get it. Like, it's no wonder that women struggle so much

with their perception of themselves or other people's perception of them because we've been taught that that's our value. So of course you don't think there's any value in you being part of show choir on weekends, because you've been taught that what he wants for you is more valuable than what you want for you. Man, if you have something on your heart, if there's something that keeps showing up that you think like, this is like, I'd really like to do that, but what if they laugh? I'd really like to do that, but what if I fail?

I'd really like to, but I'm going to have to find childcare. I'd be like, dang it, sister, listen to that. Listen to that voice in your head. Listen to that voice in your heart. That is the real you begging, begging you to step into who you're called to be. Yeah. Do you think that's the biggest challenge for women is that they are, let's say moms that they, that you see is that they're not stepping into who they're supposed to be? Absolutely.

They don't believe they have the capacity to, or they're not allowed to. Is that the challenge? I think it's a lot of everything comes back to other people's opinions. People pleasing. Yes. They are drowning. Women, myself included, drowning. I used to drown inside of what other people thought I should have for my life. It starts with parents, right?

Yeah. Like I didn't come from a society and I didn't marry into a family where it was super normal for a woman to be an entrepreneur for a woman to be a writer for a woman to be a speaker that we both Dave and I came from really traditional backgrounds were like dad worked mom saved home and raised the kids and so it was um I had navigated that for years of I really wanted to um build a company I really wanted to build a company. I really, I was really, it still excites me, like trying to figure out, okay, how do we scale this? How do we grow here?

And it was fine. People thought it was fine when we needed the money. When we needed the money, when we were newlyweds and we needed the money, everyone was supportive of like this cute little thing that Rachel did. And then when he started to make enough that we didn't need that and we had kids, everyone immediately like, when are you quitting? When are you going to stop?

And I was like, I just worked so hard to build this business. So I didn't want to stop, but I also didn't want to bother anybody. I didn't want to put anyone out. I didn't want anyone to be mad at me. And so I spent years and years building this thing. I don't want to say like in secret, but I would never talk about it. If I went to an event with Dave, we worked in the industry, and if I went to an event and someone asked me what I did, I'd be like, oh, I'm a blogger. I like had a staff, full-time staff of five. We're doing really good revenue, working with some of the biggest brands on the planet, and I would be like, I'm just a blogger. A little hobby on the side, yeah. Yeah, my little side hobby, my little thing.

You were playing small. Absolutely. We'd go to family parties. I wouldn't talk about my business at all because I knew that it would make people uncomfortable. Like, I just, and simultaneously, and I can call this out in women when I see it all the time now,

is that when women do this, the number one symptom that happens when you do this is anxiety. Like when women tell me that they're suffering with anxiety, I'm like, who are you trying to please? Because it, like it always, if I keep digging, it always comes back to that. It's like you're living, it's almost like you're living a double life. Your heart is telling you you're one person and your brain is telling you, but you've got to fit into this box over here. And so for years I did this. And for years I suffered from anxiety attacks and it took a ton of therapy and a ton of work to get to the other side of it, to be able to have the courage to be like, no, this is who I am. And not this is who I am,

like middle fingers up, like a Beyonce song, like get out of here. You can't. No, like I am going to be so full of love with myself that I don't need to beg you for it with the way I live my life. You don't need approval from anyone else because you can be happy alone or full of love alone. Yeah, totally. I like making people uncomfortable. I like either making people uncomfortable to get them out of their situation and get them to rise to their greatness, or I just spend time with people that support my dreams. It's either one. And if you're not going to be on board with what I'm doing, because I'm on board with what you're doing. Yeah. Whether you want to play small or not, I'm going to be on board with your life. Yeah. And excited for you and wanting to push you to do more.

But don't try to pull me down in any way. Well, but see, the flip of that is I think that's accepted for a man. Is it? Yeah. And I don't think that it often feels like that for women. Interesting. I feel like we sort of raise men to like be ambitious, chase your dream, do the thing, be yourself. And we raise women to chase men.

Really? Yeah. Everybody that I grew up with, everybody that I grew up with, that was your goal, was you're going to get married and you're going to have babies. That is why you are here. And I know that's not every culture, but it's a lot of cultures. Even subconsciously, maybe. Maybe you're not saying that, but it's like you feel it. Yes. And I mean, I hope, God, I hope, you know, I have a daughter 18 months old. Like, I refuse to teach her this narrative. I refuse to teach her this narrative. And I hope

in this next generation, I hope that in a younger generation, I hope the girls on my team who are in their 20s, I hope they would tell you something else. I hope they would say, no, I was raised to go to college. I was raised to build a career. I was raised to build my dreams. Like, I hope that's the narrative. But I'm 35, and I can tell you that for the friends that I know and the women I interact with online, that was the goal. And it's so hurtful. What if you're gay? What if you're not interested in men? Or what if you don't want to get married? Or what if you don't want to have

babies? So then you have no value because you're not the way that society says you should be. So I think that it's a really hard thing to come out from underneath. I think of it too, like when you're a little girl, the value that you have a little girl is how other people perceive you as a daughter for your parents. It's like, oh, she's so cute. She's so funny. She's so precocious. She's so, so you learn at a very early age that, oh, oh, when I please other people, that makes mom and dad happy. Like when I do, okay, so I'm going to keep. And so we are taught to live our lives for how other people perceive us.

And then you hit 35 and you're like, well, I don't know who I am. Who am I? Yeah, I don't know who I am. I've lost myself along the way. Once I started running out of money, Oprah called and put it on

as her favorite product of the year. How long was that for until the time was in New Marcos to Oprah calling? Like a month. It just happened that quick? A month or a month and a half. How did she even hear about it in a month and a half? I sent it to her in a gift basket. And her Andre who dresses her put it in her dressing room and she put them on and has basically worn them every day since.

Shut up. I'm not kidding. It was so unbelievable. I had no money to advertise. I'm in the back of my apartment. I was selling fax machines like a month before that. But I have to say I was working every night and on the weekends for two years quietly trying to get this made.

Building this thing. Yeah. Building it. Yeah. Did you have a relationship at this time? Yes. Really? Yeah.

My boyfriend at the time quit his job as a healthcare consultant because he started helping me ship the Spanx out all night, every night. So he was fully in support and- Yeah. He was like- He came on board and was on board for like the first maybe six years of the company, six to seven years. Wow.

He was amazing help. Wow. If Oprah didn't pick it up within the first couple months. Like if you had a year of trying to do this on your own, do you think you would have got other press or you would have got the money to build it? I do because I was so determined. I mean as soon as I got the order, I was so committed. You weren't just interested in seeing if this worked. You were committed and doing whatever it takes.

I was in it to win it. You have to remember, right? I was selling fax machines to order to be thrown out of buildings. I had no option in my mind. I was like, I am scripting a new life for myself. Was this movie about you that came out a year ago? Joy? Yeah.

Is that about you? My dad called me and goes, Sarah, I just saw a movie. It's basically your life except for the dysfunctional family part. Right. I was like, yeah, right, Dad. Okay, sure. Yeah, but I could really relate to her. I'm sure. All the hustle, dad. Okay, sure. Yeah, but I could really relate to her. I'm sure.

All the hustle. Yeah. That's crazy. But when I got Neiman Marcus, I think a lot of people think that's when you've arrived. No. That's when I double-timed. I got on a plane and was gone for two years straight. And I went to every department store in the country that sold Spanx, every Neiman Sachs, Nordstrom, and Bloomingdale's.

And I would go before the store opened and do an all- store rally and tell them what my product was, explain it to them, do a demo, give out free product, and then stand there in the department for eight hours a day and tell customers what it was. Because I didn't have any money averages. I was selling it for them. But what I didn't realize I was doing was I was building a sales force, not on my payroll because all these people started to become so- Ambassadors. Ambassadors. And they were rooting for me and they loved the product. And so that was a really important part of the formula. And then I learned what my next products were going to be because I was standing right there with customers and all these-

Let's say what they need, what the challenge is. I can't do this. They told me what they wanted. Amazing. Yeah. This is unbelievable. You were like willing to do whatever it takes, above and beyond. Totally.

So when Oprah had you on, or she didn't have you on, she had the product on, you didn't go on, right? I didn't go on, but they called and they said, Sarah, it's her favorite product of the thing. She doesn't have people on this, but she loves that you're taking on this billion dollar industry and she wants to film you and kind of just show a little bit of B-roll. So they landed in Atlanta and came to my apartment and they had all this official stuff and they go, we discussed on the plane we want to film you in your headquarters. Oh, my gosh. Headquarters is like my living room.

Yeah, I'm like, you're here. And then they wanted to film me having a staff meeting and I had no staff. So I called Connie. Did you go to the factory and you're like, call up Sam and- No, listen, I called Connie that I had met at Mailboxes, et cetera, because she'd been FedExing pantyhose for me. And she left work and came with three other friends of mine and that was my staff meeting on the Oprah show.

Amazing. What did the sales do after that? It was amazing. I mean, I went from, you know, when I saw somebody order that wasn't my mom's friend, I was dancing around my apartment and then to all of a sudden 30,000 orders. Like it was just. Was this online at the time? Yes.

It was on spanks.com. Wow. Yeah. 30,000 came in and what type of time? Yeah. Pretty quickly. Like a week? Yeah. 30,000 orders.. And what time frame? Yeah. Pretty quickly. Like a week? Yeah.

30,000 orders. Like in a week or two. Yeah, it was crazy. I was up all night, every night shipping. I had friends coming over helping me pack and ship them. And this is how clueless I was. I was sending everybody's product in regular mail. So then I started getting all these emails and phone calls from people going, my product never showed up and I didn't have any way to track it. I was like, oh, okay. I guess they're supposed to be tracking with this. So then I, you know, that's how I did the whole thing. I stumbled through it. I always tell people what you don't know can be your greatest asset if you let it because it ensures you're going to do it differently. Absolutely. And when I landed Neiman Marcus, all these people came up to me and said,

I have been doing this for seven years, 10 years, five years. How did you land Neiman Marcus? And I said, I called them. And they just looked at me and I was like, why? What do you do? They're like, well, I go to trade shows and I set up my booth and I'm waiting for the Neiman Marcus buyer to come by. And we've been doing it every year for seven years. I didn't even know there were trade shows. Wow. So sometimes just not knowing how it's supposed to be done. You have to have the courage though to say, even though I wasn't trained in this, because a lot of people think, well, I didn't go to school for this.

So how could I possibly know? But you know, it's inside of you. Yeah. How could I possibly know? But you know. It's inside of you. And you're willing to be creative and risk failure in a way that most people aren't. You put yourself out there in a major way.

And you said, hey, come to the bathroom with me. Right. And I'm not going to do anything weird. It's amazing. It's an incredible story. My dad used to encourage me to fail. So at the dinner table growing up, he would ask my brother and me what we failed at that week. And if we didn't have something to tell him, he'd be disappointed.

And I vividly remember being a little girl and saying, I tried out for this dad and I was horrible. And he would high five me. And he'd go, way to go. So he's reframing my definition of failure. So failure for me became about not trying, not the outcome. We've heard from more than 100,000 people in 90 countries that have written to us that are using the rule in ways big and small to change their lives, to change their marriages,

to change their thinking patterns, to grow their businesses. We know of 11 people that have stopped themselves from killing themselves. In the moment, there's a gentleman that we talk about in the book and you can see his social media posts in London. He was a veteran and he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and he boarded a ferry with the intention of jumping overboard. And he got to the railing and he was standing there and his inner wisdom kicked in. And this is another thing I want everybody watching to understand. I don't care what you're facing or how low you get. Your inner wisdom is always there. It is. And the thing is, is that we often don't listen to it.

And so he's standing there intending to kill himself and that inner wisdom kicks in and he remembers the five second rule and he goes five, four, three, two, one, and he turns and physically moves away from the railing and finds the first person working on the ferry and tells him that he's suicidal. Saved his life. He saved his life because he listened to the inner wisdom. And this is the other thing I love about this rule. It's not something to think about. It's a tool to use. So the part of the problem with a lot of the advice that I've found for me personally is that a lot of advice is all about kind of doing mental battle. And if I go upstairs, I'm behind enemy lines,

and I tend to get hijacked. So I love this tool because 5-4-3-2-1 interrupts those patterns. It actually prompts the part of the brain that I need in order to change, and it makes changing easier because I've now got my mind working for me instead of against me, and it gets me out of my head. And so I'm super excited to share this rule with people because I now know not only that it's working, just not for me, it's working for people around the world. And in the book,

it took me three years to write it. It's all the science behind the rule. It's got more than 150 social media posts in it. So you see stories from around the world of people using it to end procrastination, to build confidence, to deepen their relationships, to launch businesses, to explode the sales. Why does it help with sales? I'll tell you why. Why does it help with sales? I'll tell you why. Because you can't sell by thinking. Selling is about action.

We have groups from companies around the world, sales teams that put 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 up on the wall. I'm sure they hate me. That's cool. Yes, because cold calling, it's a momentum thing. If you stop and think, the phone is not getting, the dialing is not happening when you're thinking. Yeah. If you're thinking about all those no's you've been getting,

you're not going to want to do it again because it doesn't feel good. Yes. And if you're in the middle of a negotiation or you're in the middle of a really difficult conversation, and again, remember what we said earlier? You cannot control your feelings that rise up, but you can always control how you think and what you do. So if you're in the middle of a difficult conversation and you feel those feelings come up that normally trigger you to start editing yourself or to censor yourself or to silence yourself or to think sabotaging thoughts in like a business negotiation, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Awaken the prefrontal cortex. Get back in the game. How has this rule helped you the most in what area of your life with your marriage, your business, and being more productive and not having to take drugs when you're worried so much? Or on stage, what's the area where you're like, wow, this has really had the biggest impact?

And I'm sure all of it, but. Well, the most important thing in my life is my marriage. So my relationship with Chris is like the thing that brings me the greatest joy. I mean, I'll just start crying thinking about it. And, um. How many years have you been married? 20, 20 years. We've been together for 22 years.

Wow. Three kids, 17, 16, 11. Um, it has given me mastery over myself. Like I get so choked up just thinking about this. Like I used to feel out of control and this rule allows me to be the best version of me and to interrupt like all the garbage that can trigger you to behave in a way that's inconsistent with your values and your dreams. And so that has been the single greatest gift. That and also, you know, I think the other thing that's super cool is that it is a tool that

certainly prompts you to act, but it is also a tool that helps you tune in to your inner wisdom. Like you're not only going to start waking up, you'll be so in tune with those signals that come from your instincts, not emotional, not instinctual, like instinctual, that you get a direct line to your inner voice. You get a direct line. You know, all those people. One of the things that's always struck me. So if you list all the people that you admire, right? Yeah, Richard Branson, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates.

Like everybody's got kind of this. Yeah, well, whatever. Lewis, for sure. If you list all those people, Jay-Z, like everybody. Everybody that you admire is doing the exact same thing. They actually listen to their inner wisdom. They have figured out how to tune out the critic up here and trust the instincts. And, you know,

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

your experiences and your inner wisdom is a gift to the world. And every time that you tune it out because of the habit of hesitating or the habit of self-doubt or the habit of worrying or the habit of overthinking, you are robbing the world of that gift that you have to give to everybody. And you can use this simple, stupid, silly tool to train yourself to not only hear it, but also to develop the skill of courage to act on it. to develop the skill of courage to act on it. So I'm somebody who avoided pain completely the first 25 years of my life, right? Because I just thought I couldn't take it. So whatever it took to hide from the pain, right?

Food, booze, whatever. Recently, I figured out, oh my God, I think that everything that I need to become the woman I'm meant to be is actually inside of that pain. So sitting in this hot yoga class, right when everything went crazy and miserable and just so, and I, um, I ended up just sitting still for 90 minutes because I couldn't move. I wasn't too depressed. And, um, I had this crazy experience where every single fear and pain that I'd ever have were just like popping up in front of me. And I had nothing to, I'm so used to like doing whatever it takes to avoid the pain, you know? Um, it was like a game of whack-a-mole where there's no, um, there's no mallet and all your,

all the moles are like your deepest fears and pain. And I was crying through the whole yoga class. And at the end of the yoga class, the yoga instructor comes around. And it was like she knew it was happening. She goes, that was the journey of the warrior. And I was like, what the hell? Yoga is so weird. So I get in my van. And I'm driving home.

And I have this deja vu experience. So I get to my house. And I driving home and I have this deja vu experience. So I get to my house and I open up this book that I've been reading. And it was by Pimma Shadron's Buddhist monk. And the paragraph said, if you can sit with the hot loneliness today for 1.6 seconds, when yesterday you could only sit with it for one, then that's the journey of the warrior. And I realized, oh my God, this is what I've been doing since I was 10 years old. Like when I was 10 years old, I started having these feelings of fear, pain, like uncomfortable feelings, like

fear and envy and loneliness and otherness. And since we only talk about shiny, happy feelings, I thought there was something wrong with me. You know, I thought that these feelings were something to be ashamed of, something to numb. So the amazing thing is that right when you start feeling your hot loneliness, the world starts showing you all these easy buttons, right? So like mine was food. The second the hot loneliness would start bubbling inside, I'd numb it with food. Then it was booze. Then it was drugs. Some people's is, you know, other people's bodies, sex, shopping, unkindness. Like all of these things are easy buttons that we use to transport ourselves out of our pain. To not feel.

To not feel. But the problem with transporting is that you miss all your transformation. Because all the lessons that we need to know to become the people we're meant to be are inside the pain. And I was like, oh, my God, this is, I am like a butterfly, like a caterpillar jumping out of the cocoon right before I would become a butterfly. Because we think of pain as like a hot potato. You know, like the second we feel it, we need to get rid of it. Like unkindness.

Every time someone's unkind to you, it's just that they just felt the hot loneliness. But they thought it was a hot potato. So instead of feeling it, they pass it on to you. Rejected it, yeah. But pain is not a hot potato. So instead of feeling it, they pass it on to you. Rejected it, yeah. But pain is not a hot potato. It's like I think of it now as like a traveling professor. Like it comes and it knocks on everyone's door. And the wisest people I know just say, come in and don't leave.

So that's why I have this beast. I have beast still tattooed on my wrist because I think that being able to be still inside of pain and just letting it come and know whatever it is, fear, anger, loneliness, envy, just letting it come and knowing that it's a teacher and it'll leave you with what is the opposite of addiction, the opposite of compulsion. So, God, I think pain is not only – no, I don't think it's a choice. I mean suffering is a choice.

Suffering is what happens when we try to avoid pain. Yes. Like suffering is what happens when we numb, when we – God, we all know addicts who – I mean I ruined my family for 20 years. That's suffering because I chose not to feel my own pain because it doesn't just disappear. It goes somewhere. So if I don't deal with my own pain, then it goes on to my family. That's suffering. So if I don't deal with my own pain, then it goes on to my family. That's suffering. So that's optional.

But pain is just, I mean, I think we could learn so much from it. Like envy. So that's like a hot potato, painful emotion that people just get rid of all the time. So for me,

envy looks like, so I read an awesome article that someone's written, like a woman that's written, and I read it and I'm me, envy looks like, so I read an awesome article that someone's written, like a woman that's written and I read it and I'm like, oh my God, this is so freaking awesome. And it just gets better and better. And by the end of it, I'm like, I never liked her. I just don't like her. She might be a good writer, but, and that's a lovely way to live, you know, with envy. But when I think about envy closer, so when I was drinking all the time, if someone handed me a book written by a woman and they said they loved it, I wouldn't

read it. Really? Because I was like looking straight at the sun. It was like, there was like a part of me that knew that a braver, better version of me could do that. Like I was meant to do that and I wasn't doing it. And there's nothing more painful than seeing someone doing something that you feel like you were meant to do. Right? So maybe, and maybe we're only envious of people who are doing what we're meant to do. And also that you're not taking any steps towards doing yourself.

Exactly. It's even worse. Yeah. But, but, but if we use it as an arrow instead of a hot potato, but like this is the, every time you feel envious of someone, don't let it go. Look closer because maybe it's an arrow pointing you towards what you're meant to create. That's interesting. So I don't know.

I'm just so – I feel like for someone who wasted her pain for so long, I'm just curious about it now. Like what is this here to teach me? What is this here to teach me? That's cool that you're doing that now. I mean as an athlete, i experience pain all the time you know just emotional pain physical pain through my sport through the transformation of practice you know constantly getting broken down by the coach or by whatever the game the situation the opponent being broken down mentally physically emotionally and being in it you can't just like leave the game or leave the practice you know sticking it

out to the end and seeing what's possible on the other side has always been powerful for me as an athlete. And it's something I talk about in my book is experiencing pain every day as a way to train yourself to be prepared for the bigger, scarier moments of life and not shy away from them, but to be ready and show up and face the journey like a warrior. Yeah. And so I was bankrupt in all of my excuses. So if you ask when, it was probably about three hours after I told my son we'll never be here again on day two of being wrapped in a towel in 1994. And then I said, how? The next question was how? If I'm done with this, I'm not even sure what that looks like. I just know over there are a bunch of abundant thinkers living an abundant life, having abundant memories with a surplus of everything. Because abundance is to be an overflow a surplus of everything you need.

Because abundance is to be an overflow of the things that you have. Abundance is just about overflow. It's about overflow. That means that if there were a saucer under this cup, abundance would be everything. This tea flows over into the saucer and I can feed you from my saucer because I have filled my cup up enough. I use my cup for me and I feed you from my saucer because I have filled my cup up enough. I use my cup for me and I feed you from my saucer. And abundance is saying, I have a saucer in my relationships filled with great experiences. There's a saucer in my health and wellness. I have so much bountiful health and vitality that

I can show up for you. There's a saucer with my spirituality that I can pray for you. I can forgive the perceivably unforgivable and love the perceivably unlovable. And then there's a saucer for my finances. And that in every area, because abundance is a 360 experience. See, wealth is singularly focused. Wealth is about your money and your possessions. That's wealth. Okay. But abundance is 360.

I have a lot of very, very wealthy friends. Who are miserable, unhappy, bad relationships. Who are not abundant. They're wealthy. They're wealthy. Who are not abundant. They're wealthy. They're wealthy. They're not abundant. And they understand that. And they come to me and go, Lisa, help me with my relationships with my family or whatever.

And so I had to learn something different. Lewis, I didn't know what I didn't know. And so that became the moment when I said, what do I need to know to have something different? What do they know that I don't know? And how can I get it? And I became a hunter. So what was the first discovery? That there's a mindset that comes with abundance, that they think differently. They don't just do something different.

There's not a hookup. First of all, there is no such thing as a hookup. I am still waiting on mine. And if you know where it is, my phone number is. So there was no hookup. There's no hookup. Like, it's not true. Like, you got a 297 million chance in one to win the lotto.

And within five years, the people who won the lotto are in more debt than they were before they won the lotto. So that ain't even a hookup, right? And so I realized that I needed to change my mindset. I needed to learn something different and I needed to know it at a cellular level. All that stuff I just told you about my color, my gender, my, I had to unlearn people are, we're, we're information junkies because we got all kinds of access to information online and we're learning all this stuff, but we're not implementing anything. I'm sorry. I might step on a few toes. That's what I do. And so I realized that I had to, at a cellular level,

first, before I went to get any more information, I had to be willing to divorce and evict some belief systems that I already had. That they had taken me as far as they can take me, and now they're holding me back. It's almost like you wear a size 11, you have 11 foot and you tried to fit it back in a size seven shoe. You passed that a long time ago. And that's going to be a very uncomfortable day. I was in discomfort. I was very uncomfortable with my thinking. And so I started diving into books. The first book I dove into was Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and it disrupted me. It disrupted everything.

I didn't know. It was like a double door opened up, and then a wall opened up. I'm like, what are they? They know that? Why nobody told me that? I felt like I was out of a club, and really you are. I'm just going to tell you. Abundant thinkers think a certain way, and they don't go around trying to convert you.

People like you and I go, let's open it up to everyone. But here's what I know about the human spirit, is that the human spirit has a power of choice. Most people don't want to choose this kind of thinking because it costs you something. What's the cost? The cost is you've got to get up earlier. You get up earlier than the average guy. Your day, what you do in a day is what some people do in a week.

What you do in the morning is what some people do in a week. What you do in the mornings is what some people do in a 12-hour day. You got to be willing. What you're willing to do on your book tour to get on the New York Times, some people say, I got to do all that? I don't want to do all that. That's a lot of work. Okay, great. Then have your life. You sign up for your life experience. There's no way. When I realized that I was a culmination of all my decisions, that's like straight with no chaser. That's like getting it with no cookies and milk. You're a culmination of all your decisions.

And then when you up-level your decisions, and that's even hard at times when you go, God, why am I always single? You're a culmination of your decisions. You're a culmination of your actions. Why can't I keep any money? You're a culmination of your decisions, your life. So I wanted to make better decisions because my son being wrapped in a towel, me having $11.42, me being overweight, me, my son's father being in prison. I couldn't shake it. I was a culmination.

My life experience was a culmination of all my decisions. And it was undoubtedly a hot mess. And so I went, well, let me go learn from somebody whose life don't seem like it's a hot mess. And then let me adopt some of their behaviors. When I began to hunt, I went to conferences. I was scared the bejeebies out of me, these conferences. I'd never been to conferences before. I went to entrepreneurial conferences.

I was one of four women at an 800-person conference. And I was the only woman of color. So it was all older white men and me. And I was like, okay, well, they're not afraid of money, seems like. They're talking money and business and corporations and ROIs and PPMs and term agreements and no habla espanol. I don't know what that means, but I am not leaving until I figure this out. And I went to the same conference. When I say do what other people won't do and you'll have what other people don't have, I went to the same conference those 42 times. I told you I was a C student, so it took me a minute to get it. And I kept getting sponsored back.

I didn't even have the money to go to the conference. I started volunteering at the conference. I would be on stage teaching because they loved the way I spoke. Then I'd get off and I'd help clean up because I had to pay my dues to be there. I was okay. I ate my slice of humble pie every day because I was bankrupt. See, some people, you haven't pushed non-negotiable yet. You're still optional.

I really would love to be successful. I want to be successful. I want to be successful. I want to make money. I want to make money. I want to be healthy. I want to be healthy, but it's not non-negotiable yet because the moment the rubber meets the road and you feel a little skin and it gets a little tender and a little blood may show up and you don't want to give blood.

You don't want to give sweat. You don't want to give tears. Let me just tell you, you can't take the elevator to the top. It ain't nothing but stairs. Okay. For all the ladies listening, what did you think? Did this inspire you? Did this give you some insights on what you can change or switch up in your life, in your business, in your relationships?

If it did, send me a message on Instagram, at Lewis Howes, and tag me and let me know what you thought about this. Share it with a few girlfriends. I'd love for you to share with some girlfriends to help empower them with their day and their decade moving forward. love for you to share with some girlfriends to help empower them with their day and their decade moving forward. So text it to a few girlfriends, send it to them on a WhatsApp group chat, Facebook messenger, whatever you do to communicate, make sure to send it to some girlfriends and ask them, hey, what do you think about this episode with these successful women leaders on overcoming

fear and building confidence? And for the men who are listening, I want to know what was the biggest lesson you took away that you're not adding to your life right now? What could you do to improve your situation in your business, in your career, in your health, in your relationships? Send me a message as well, because I'm probably going to get more messages from men saying, you're right. There's a lot I can learn from women. And that's why I love having powerful, successful, vulnerable women on to teach us all how to improve our life. So again, just message me. And if this is your first time here, please subscribe to the School of Greatness podcast over on Apple. I'd love to see more people subscribing and leaving us reviews. Tell us what we can do to improve this. Tell us about your biggest challenges and how we can support you.

Take your greatness to the next level because it's within you. You have all of the greatness within you and you've just got to be able to understand how to tap into that inner wisdom that, again, these women leaders know how to do. They can tap into it better than anyone, it seems like sometimes.

Again, I love this from Dolly Parton. If your actions create a legacy that inspires others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, then you are an excellent leader. It doesn't matter how big of a following you have. It doesn't matter how big your business is or what level of your career you're at right now. It doesn't matter if you're dating or single or married or divorced. It doesn't matter. If your actions create a legacy that inspires others

to dream more, learn more, and do more and become more, then you are an excellent leader. You've got that in you already. You are a leader right now. You just gotta step into it one person at a time. Mother Teresa said, do not wait for leaders. Do it alone, person to person. Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies. You are a powerful leader.

You just need to step into that power and own it day by day, little by little. And those little steps will build into something bigger and more magical for you if you desire it. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thank you for all your love, all your support. I love you so very much. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Hello