The School of Greatness - How I Went From Broke To Achieving My Dreams EP 1383

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

Today’s episode marks a day that I could have only dreamed of when first starting this show. We’re celebrating our 10-year anniversary here at Greatness Media and I wanted to get the amazing individuals who make up the Greatness community, our loyal listeners, involved in the celebration.In this episode you will learn, The three fears that are holding you back in life. How to overcome the ‘dreamkiller' that is self-doubt. The hidden power of consistency. The significance of developing a meaningful mission for your life. Plus much more...For more, go to lewishowes.com/1383 

If you feel like you're not living your most authentic life, not leaning into your purpose, and not living the life that your future self would be extremely proud of, I've written a new book called The Greatness Mindset, and I think you're going to love this. Through powerful stories, science-backed strategies, and step-by-step guidance, The Greatness Mindset will help you overcome all the different challenges in your life to design the life of your dreams and then turn it into your reality. Make sure to click the link in the description to get your copy today. What's the biggest mistake, failure you wish you could have avoided? So many mistakes I've made in my entire life. Here's the thing. I don't know if I would take back any of these things because I wouldn't have the wisdom that I have now without those mistakes and the lessons and the learning.

And so when I launched the School of Greatness 10 years ago, I was in it. 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. Hey everyone, welcome to this special episode today.

I'm very excited to connect with you on something meaningful me, because today's episode marks a day that I've only dreamed about when I first started this show, The School of Greatness. Today, we are celebrating our 10-year anniversary here at Greatness Media and The School of Greatness show. And I wanted to reflect back on the past 10 years on a lot of different things, what I would have done differently, and also answer questions from you, the fans of the show who have been here for 10 years, because we got a lot of questions submitted for this specific episode on business life, what I would do differently, and things like that.

Before I get into Q&A on all these questions that you guys have sent me, which I'm excited to dive into, I wanted to reflect a little bit about the past. And I've been thinking about the overall journey of myself, about Greatness Media, where we started, where we're heading, and where we're at today. There's been a lot of ups and downs for me personally over the last 10 years with the business. Some years have been up, some years have been down. We've tried a lot of different things based on just seeing here are opportunities, let's go jump into that opportunity. That worked or it didn't work. There's been a lot of different things that have

happened in 10 years, but we are kind of now finally in a place where I feel like we're actually able to accelerate. I kind of feel like we're just getting started for the first time because it's been 10 years of trying, testing, and building, and now we're ready to ramp things up. And people have asked me over the years, you know, Lewis, what are the secrets to launching a podcast? What are like the ways you could hack it faster? If you were going to launch, Lewis, what are the secrets to launching a podcast? What are like the ways you could hack it faster? If you were going to launch it today, what would you do? And there really aren't that many things you can hack your way to accomplishing what you want. There are obviously things you could accelerate. There are things you can do a little bit better. But I have realized

that there are really only three things that I have done consistently that have supported me to getting from where I was with one show and one listener using my iPhone. When I first started out, I literally recorded in my living room on an iPhone to where it is now over half a billion downloads later, over 1,300, 1,400 episodes deep, multiple bestselling books, and just an incredible growth overall for me personally and with the business, all from having a dream and curious about asking questions to people. And when I launched back in 2013, I realized I had a gift

in terms of not being afraid of being perfect. And I think a lot of people are concerned with launching something or getting started with something and needing it to look perfect and be perfect. And for me, it was never perfect. And it's still not perfect today. You know, Mike is in here producing the show. We still are finding ways to optimize and deliver better performance on the way we produce it, pre-produce it, film it, you know, audio, video, all these different things. It's still not

perfect today. And I think perfectionism is a distraction and it holds us back from actually launching the thing and actually giving our best. And I don't think you can be great if you're trying to be perfect. I don't think greatness is about being perfect. I think that, again, holds us back from getting into flow. So I want to talk about three key things that I've learned in the last 10 years. If you were to ask me, Lewis, how has this really been successful for you in getting to where you're at?

There's really three key things. Number one, I never missed a week. You know, I never missed a week in 10 years. I showed up. I was consistent. And again, it's never been perfect. I've never had the perfect episode, the perfect video, the perfect audio, the perfect soundbite. It's never been perfect. There's always something I could improve. And some weeks I showed up when I didn't want to. Some weeks I didn't feel my best. Some weeks I thought I did a horrible job preparing and a horrible job being present and asking the wrong questions. Some weeks I felt

like the guests didn't really show up the best of their ability also. And some weeks I was burnt out and overwhelmed. But at the end of the day, I kept showing up. So for me, consistency has been the number one thing. I was telling a friend this recently, a person who has made a ton of money in their life, exited a massive business, and they were telling me that they wanted to launch a podcast. And they said, do you have any advice?

And I said, yes. Do not do a podcast. Do not launch a podcast unless you want to do it for a minimum of five years. You'll do it consistently. Even if no one shows up, even if no one watches, no one listens, and if you make zero dollars. If that excites you and you still would want to show up and do it, then launch a podcast. Otherwise, it's just a lot of energy, a lot of work, and you got to know why you want

to do it. So for me, I've been and I've done it consistently, even when I didn't want to do it. I just kept showing up consistently. That was the first overall foundation. But I want to talk about kind of three key things that have supported me on this journey. But if you're not willing to be consistent, then it's just not going to work. It's not going to be successful long term. So go into it thinking, well, can I do this consistently? Whatever it is, if I'm going to write content, if I'm going to launch a podcast, I'm going to do anything, start a business, can I show up consistently

with all the world challenges, with all my inner world challenges, with all my friends and family challenges, with financial challenges that are going to come up, can I be consistent? That is the baseline and foundation. But here's the thing. Something I did from the beginning, I knew I could be consistent from playing sports and doing the business that I had before

where I was showing up weekly for myself doing webinars. I knew that I could be consistent because I was excited about it. And I knew that I was going to do it for at least a year without making any money. I made that decision I wasn't going to try to make money. So I went into it with the right reasons. That was the foundation. But if I was going to give you three keys to really focus on if you wanted to launch your own show or do anything great at a high level, this would be the key number one. I've

had a lot of reflection over the last 10 years, interviewed some of the greatest minds in all different areas of life, done a lot of research on their science of what works, what doesn't work. And I'm super pumped about the greatness mindset. If you haven't picked up a copy yet, make sure you get a copy of this because I've created the entire framework with my team in this book that will support you in figuring this out.

And in chapter three, chapter three, I give the first key of this episode, and it's about developing a meaningful mission. Now, again, in this chapter, I break down the entire framework on how you can create this for yourself. When I launched this show, I was very clear on the meaningful mission, which was to serve 100 million lives weekly to help them improve the quality of their life. I didn't have a fuzzy target. I didn't say, I just want to do this because I think it'd be fun. I had a very clear target and bullseye

on which I was aiming at and trying to strive towards. I didn't know how long it would take. We still haven't accomplished that goal in 10 years. Still on that mission. It's a meaningful mission. And there's a difference between success and greatness. Success is about our goals, our dreams. It's about me, me, me. It's about what we can accomplish. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's fine. We can all have goals and dreams that are geared towards us and what we want. And we should have those things.

But I think, again, there's a difference between success and greatness. Greatness includes success, but also supporting the people around you on that path of accomplishing your goals and dreams. It's about we, not just me. And so when I launched the School of Greatness 10 years ago, I was in a transitional point in my life, from wanting things to be about me,

to then saying, okay, this hasn't been working fully. It's accomplishing things. I'm making money. I'm getting people to pay attention at what I'm doing, but I still felt unfulfilled. And it wasn't until I said, I'm going to shine the light on everyone else. I'm going to make a show about others. I'm going to make it about them, not about me. I'm going to lift them up.

I'm going to be curious. I'm going to support their books, their programs, their events. I'm going to push them up. I'm going to be curious. I'm going to support their books, their programs, their events. I'm going to push them and serve an audience. That's when everything started to grow and the fulfillment internally was also there. And this is one of the things that I think people lack the consistency and the discipline, which has been the foundation of the success of the School of Greatness, is the ability for me to be excited about it consistently, even when there's a lot going on in my life, even when I don't feel like it, even when I feel like I need a week off. I still have the excitement to show up because there's a deeper, meaningful mission beyond just me. That is a renewable, sustainable energy.

That is something that charges on its own. It doesn't require me having extra discipline and motivation and only helping my life. It helps other people around me and it never gets old. It never gets old when you message me, when you reach out to me, when you say hi to me on the streets and you say, man, I listened to this one episode that you brought this person on and it changed my life. That never gets old for me. If you just said, oh, thanks, Lewis, for having all the answers and teaching me these things, you're so smart. That wouldn't be as rewarding as thank you for providing a platform and a place for us to learn. Thank you for putting yourself out there and being the guinea pig and being vulnerable and looking like a fool sometimes and making mistakes so that we can learn from your mistakes as well.

That is more rewarding for me than me being the guy with my name plastered on everything and making it all about my show. It's about our show. It's about you, the audience. It's about the guests we bring on. Yes, I'm going to share things as well from what I learn, but it's always been about we, not just me. And I wanna continue to make it that way to the best of my abilities. Now, I know a lot of you guys want me to do more solos.

You want me to share more of my wisdom, and that's why we did this in the book, and we'll be doing more of that this year and beyond. But it's always gonna be about we with the intention of service first. So in this book, I talked about again in chapter three, building your meaningful mission. And so many of you, I would guarantee if you ask yourself right now in one sentence, what is my meaningful mission? I bet most of you don't know

what it is for your personal life, for your career, or if you're building a business for your business. I am clear. It's not fuzzy. It doesn't mean it's easy to accomplish. It doesn't mean, again, I've been working on it for 10 years. It still hasn't happened. But I'm clear and allows me to make clear decisions and allows me to measure things and allows me to feel fulfillment because I know that my goals include a lot of other people.

It's not just about me accomplishing, it's about us improving and growing. And most of you, I would bet, that you don't have a clear one-sentence meaningful mission. Again, I talk about it in chapter three of this book on exactly how to get this figured out. The science and the research behind why it's so important. And if you don't have your meaningful mission,

how it's going to continue to make you feel in fear, insecurity, doubt, uncertainty, and why you feel like I'm not just clear on what I'm supposed to do. So that is number one. Get clear on your meaningful mission. And it must include more than just your goals and dreams. It must include others. Now, again, there's certain nuances to this, you know, depending on what season and stage of life you're in. So I want you to get clear on that understanding and not feel like you're a failure. If you don't have this figured out right now, it's okay. There's different seasons of life. We can change this meaningful mission at different times. So if you don't feel like you haven't figured it out right now, it's okay. You can continue to improve in this process. But that is step number one,

getting clear on that. Step number two is really about being clear on investing in yourself continually. There are three main fears that cause us to doubt ourselves. Three things that hold us back from doing anything, whether it be having meaningful relationship with someone we care about, having the courage to have conversations with people when we feel like there's a misunderstanding, going after the career or building something we want, whatever it is, there are three main things that cause us to doubt ourselves. Three fears. And I'm a big believer that self-doubt is the killer of dreams. And if we have self-doubt inside of us and we don't know how to recognize it, manage it, and master it, we will continue to feel stuck, continue to feel insecure at the different stages of our life.

So again, in the book, I break down how to figure out which one of these fears holds you back the most. how to figure out which one of these fears holds you back the most. But for me, I feel like over the last 10 years, I've been willing to invest in embarrassing myself consistently, putting myself out there and saying, I don't have all the answers. I'm willing to try workshops and try meditations and do therapy and talk to friends about challenges I face and hire coaches or whatever it might be, I've been willing to be vulnerable to put myself out there and try stuff. Some stuff worked for me, some stuff didn't work for me. Some stuff I was resistant to, other stuff I was open to. But the more consistent that I've said, I got to continue to work on my inner world, my belief in myself, overcoming fears and insecurities,

the more powerful the process has been. And I'm never going to be a finished product. It's always going to be a journey of growth and transformation. But I can honestly say that at this stage, I feel more peace in my heart, more calm about who I am than I ever have in my life. I feel more peace in my heart, more calm about who I am than I ever have in my life. And it's because I've been consistently working on me, improving me, and going to the emotional gym. If you want to stay in great shape and stay physically healthy, you've got to be consistent in your health, your physical health. If you want to have great relationships and you want to have great confidence in yourself, you've got to constantly be emotionally evolving, emotionally transforming, and be consistent in it. You can't stay stuck in the

old patterns that won't support you in getting to the next level of your emotional life as well. So for me, that's been a big thing. And I think as a man growing up, that was never something that was talked about. That was never something that was supported, that was celebrated or seen. And it's been a big transformation in my life for the last 10 years, being willing to invest in overcoming my insecurities and fears that I wasn't even aware of. And I was so driven by ego that I thought I had it all figured out before 10 years ago. And now I'm open to exploring and trying new things. Even if I don't feel like it may not work for me, I'm still open to it. And that has been a massive factor in the success of the financial growth of my business, the success of my health, the success of my

relationships, all these different things that I've been able to create. I can honestly say that investing in my emotional belief, emotional healing, emotional environment internally has been the key to so much abundance in my life. And so again, we talk about this in the Greatness Mindset on how to recognize which fear holds you back because we all have a dominant fear between failure, success, or judgment. And if you can identify it first, lean into it, and start to embrace and overcome it, it's going to unlock a lot of different things in your life. So we've created that whole process in the Greatness Mindset book. Again, I want you to go get a copy so you can have access to that information

on how to do this to be more successful in this. And the third thing is team. This is extremely simple that there's no way that I would be able to do what I'm doing without an amazing team, without people on this team who are clear that they are aligned with the mission as well. They are on the same mission of we're here to serve. We're here to create something meaningful to help the people in this community. You who's listening, you who's watching, you who's reading and consuming. We are here to create meaningful media that serves you

in improving the quality of your life. That's what we're all here to do. And they join the team with that intention. They know what this is about, and they are all in on that process. And I think it's finding great people who want to be a part of that same mission. But if you're not clear on your meaningful mission, you're going to attract the wrong people because you're not clear. So finding great people, investing in your team, celebrating your team, supporting them, being there for the team to help them flourish, to help them grow is something that has been really a key factor for me. And I'm not saying you're going to do it right all the time and know what to do all the

time, but really saying, how can I find the right people on my team? This can be your friends, your family, your relationships, those things as well. It doesn't have to be people on your business team. But in every area of your life, who is on your team? Who is supporting you and who are you supporting and investing in those relationships? Again, the school of greatness would not be where it is without the people on Team Greatness who make it great. on Team Greatness who make it great. They're the ones driving everything and they're the ones with talent supporting you, listening to you, finding all the stuff

that's gonna support you and unlocking the content to help you as well. So those are the three things. And my team has reached out over on social media in our newsletter and asked for you guys to submit questions. And so what I want to do is kind of do some Q&A, some coaching and diving into answering some of the biggest questions you guys have around this and more things right now. But again, to recap that, number one, you got to have the foundation of consistency with all things. So if you don't

go with the mindset, I'm going to do this consistently for many, many years, whatever it is you wanna do is not gonna work out, period. After the foundation is set, you gotta have those three factors. Those three factors are gonna support you in really developing the thing you wanna create, putting it out there consistently, and making it successful.

The first one is creating a meaningful mission. And again, chapter three of The Greatness Mindset walks you through the entire process of creating that. Make sure you get the book so you have access to that. Second part is building belief in yourself consistently, overcoming those fears, identifying them so that any time anxiety, overwhelm, stress, insecurity shows up,

you've already faced it and addressed it. So that's not going to be the thing that holds you back. Again, self-doubt is the killer of all dreams. If you don't believe in yourself, you will not take action. So you've got to master that thing. And when you can do that, then you can focus on, okay, how can I get people on my team, friends, family, accountability buddies, if I'm investing in people in their livelihood, in their lives, how can I invest in them knowing that they're going to be a part of this meaningful mission? Those are the three things that will support you in facing the challenges that are to come no matter what you do when you launch your

thing. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. When you're at your best, you can do great things, but sometimes life gets you bogged down and you may feel overwhelmed or like you're not showing up the way you want to. Working with a therapist can help you get closer to the best version of you. And when you feel empowered, you're more prepared to take on everything that life throws at you. There are moments when life is so good and everything feels like it's fallen in the right place. And I'm keeping up with good habits and it's just all going well. In the past, I've been guilty of feeling like I don't need to continue my therapy sessions during those high moments. But now I know how much better it is to go to therapy through all the highs and some of the lows. And when I do that, then I'm way more ready for when things

start to go downhill. And life is about ebbs and flows. So it's in our best interest to keep a constant in your life like therapy. And if you're thinking of giving therapy a try, BetterHelp is a great option. It's convenient, flexible, affordable, and entirely online, making it easier to stay consistent with your therapy sessions no matter what. Just fill out a brief questionnaire and get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists anytime for no additional charge. If you want to live a more empowered life, therapy can get you there. Visit betterhelp.com slash Lewis today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com slash Lewis. You will face challenges and adversity and adversity reveals character. It reveals all these different things that are going to happen

for you personally and the people around you. When anyone on your team or you individually feels resistance, faces adversity, you're going to get to know who these individuals are and it's going to give you power and information on how to support them and empower them to be elevated for your mission. That's what this is about. And what I want to do now is I want to dive into these Q&As and answer some of these questions. Congratulations, Lewis, on 10 years of the School of Greatness. Amazing achievement and wishing you lots of years ahead. So my question to you is, what would you say to yourself of 10 years ago when you were starting out based on everything that you've learned, all of the amazing guests you've had on your podcast. What would you say to yourself back then 10 years ago? All the best. God bless. I think I would probably just say that get ready for a wild ride.

Get ready for a wild ride. And if I could go back and give myself advice, I would say don't get too distracted. In some ways, I feel like it was a good thing for me to try lots of different stuff in the first five to seven years because I wasn't educated still. I still needed to try things. I brought on a lot of different things in my business. But at the end of the day, if I could go back knowing what I know now, I would say just do a few key things at a really high level. Do them to the best of your ability and stay focused. I think I got distracted and tried so many things and they were fun opportunities and they were great for a while, but I think I would be farther along had I been focused on a few key things that I was

really excited about as opposed to trying lots of different things. Hi, Lewis. I guess my question for you is, I want to know what brings out the excitement in you, the thing that makes you want to jump up? You know, what, what, what is it that really just makes you want to go all in on something? want to go all in on something. That's what I want to know. You know, for me, it's, I think I'm wired in a certain way where I just really care about people. I really care about people. And I think in a lot of it, if I'm psychoanalyzing myself from childhood, I think I just went through so many different experiences that made me feel like what's the point of all this? Like, you know, does any of this matter? Why am I here?

I think I questioned these things a lot as a kid. And I really want people to feel supported in this journey. Because I didn't feel the support that I felt like I wanted and needed at different stages of my life. And it wasn't because my parents weren't good parents or anything like that. I just didn't have the tools. that I felt like I wanted and needed at different stages of my life. And it wasn't because my parents weren't good parents or anything like that. I just didn't have the tools. And I felt like school was extremely challenging for me. And I wish they would have given me these tools on emotional intelligence, on how to lead myself better, on how to deal with failure better,

on how to deal with being insecure and deal with heartbreak. I just didn't have the tools. And it left me suffering in many different ways. So I really get fired up and excited about supporting other people and having those exact same tools that I feel like I had to learn the hard way when I hit 30 years old. That's when I really started to dive in and say,

okay, I gotta learn these things. Certain things have worked for me, but in other ways, I'm struggling and suffering. And these tools have given me a lot of peace and just being able to manage things better. Again, in no way am I perfect. I'm still a completely imperfect human being that makes mistakes and has challenges, but I feel way more at peace through all the constant inner work and growth that I do for myself and the accountability. So that's what gets me excited. Hi, Lewis. Thank you for all your hard work and your dedication to your podcast for the past 10

years. I'd like to know how after you feel more well with yourself to take the first step into really embodying and taking action in your greatness. Thank you. It's all an inner game. I feel like from interviewing a lot of the great athletes, they talk about the inner game and mastering the inner game and finding stillness inside so that they can perform

at the highest levels in their craft when the stakes are at the highest. They've got to be calm and still on the inside so they can master and manage what's going on around them. And again, in the book, we break down the exact science and the research of how to figure out what's making you feel unwell, what's making you feel insecure, flustered, resistant to what's happening in life. Why are you resisting having those conversations, you know, flustered, resistant to what's happening in life. Like, why are you resisting having those conversations that you know would help mend relationships? Why are you resisting looking at the scale, you know, when you know you haven't been eating as well as

you should be? Why are you resisting getting out, you know, ending an addiction, something that's been hurting you? Why are you resisting it? And there is a root cause to a lot of these things that make us feel unwell. It took me about 25 years to figure that out because I was masking, trying to project feeling good and confidence, false confidence in the world. And it wasn't until I said, okay, I'm willing to open up internally and face the things that I was struggling with. And I didn't even know that I was really struggling with something. I just knew that I felt stuck and I felt like I couldn't sleep at night, but I don't even face the things that I was struggling with. And I didn't even know that I was really struggling with something. I just knew that I felt stuck and I felt like I couldn't sleep at night. But I didn't think anything was wrong with me. And there's not something wrong with me or with you, but just what's the thing that's

holding me back? And once I was able to dive into that and be in a process of upgrading that belief that I had, it supported me in a lot of different ways. So again, in the Greatest Mindset, we exactly walk through that entire process if you're feeling that way it's an absolute pleasure submitting this question for you Lewis my question is over the last 10 years you have asked your guests what are their three truths if they could wipe everything out and they only have three things for us to know about them I'm asking you over the last decade, what are your three truths and how did they evolve over the last decade? Talk to you soon.

Great question. I've answered this a few times over the years because people ask me sometimes, but what's coming up for me right now is three key things. One is health. And, you know, I'm not 30 years old anymore. It's been a decade since I've launched this show. And I've seen people that I've interviewed pass away based on being unwell or being sick. I've seen friends pass away. My father passed away last year. And, you know, with COVID happening, a lot of people struggling in their health, the most important thing for us to face first is health. With good energy, spiritually, physically, and emotionally, we have more clarity, peace, and space to create, to show up, to play,

to have fun, to do all those things. and space to create, to show up, to play, to have fun, to do all those things. And so first is to focus on and be responsible of taking care of your health. Don't hurt yourself. Don't be a critic to yourself constantly. Be a positive coach. Don't constantly eat bad foods. Try to make better choices there. And really set yourself up to take care of your body. It's the only body you've got. So make sure you take care of it. That's number one. Number two is having a gratitude practice,

a gratitude mindset, whatever you want to call it, but being in gratitude. There are a lot of things that you'll face and that you have faced in your childhood and to now that are challenges. And some of us face a lot of really bad things. And we can't change what happened, but we can create meaning on what happened and try to create perspective and try to have gratitude for how it's made us a better person and trying to become better from

the different challenges that we face. So practicing gratitude for me is the thing that unlocks abundance. It unlocks peace. It unlocks love. It unlocks joy, all those things. So being grateful. It's hard to be grateful and angry at the same time. But when we're angry, usually we don't have gratitude. And when we start to make that shift, we can go from anger to gratitude and have more peace. So focus on gratitude. The third thing is be in service in life. And most importantly, be in service in your relationships. I just, you know, after interviewing all these successful people, the ones that I respect and admire the most, specifically the men who are more seasoned than me, let's say, the ones who have more years, more experience,

they live in service to the people in their lives, to the missions they're on. And they really care deeply about relationships. So be in service in your life and be in service in your relationships to improving the people around you. Those would be my three truths and I hope you enjoyed them. Okay, so here's some questions that were submitted over on Twitter. This is from Nadia Karta. What is your vision for the next five to ten years as you continue to pursue your wonderful purpose? Again, we talk about this in the Greatness Mindset. I've talked about this on this episode so far

that the meaningful mission for me is to serve 100 million lives weekly. That's what I'm up to in my life. That's what gets me out of bed. That's what gets me excited. That's what gets me motivated when things are tough. That's what allows me to put in long hours, all these different things.

But at the same time, the thing that I'm focused on is my health, my relationships, not just like work and the same time, the thing that I'm focused on is my health, my relationships, not just like work and the mission alone, but it's how can I have great relationships? How can I continue to have a great practice with my health and have the energy to live a long, good life? I want to have a lot of fun in my life. I believe that every day we should be laughing. I believe we should be playing. Even if it's for a few minutes, we should be doing those things as often as possible. So I wanna keep my childlike joy,

my childlike expression, and have fun. You know, life doesn't have to be so serious and overwhelming and daunting, even when there's a lot of darkness. So that's something I think about. This is from LinkedIn with Newton Chang, who said, what's the most important life lesson you would share with the Lewis Howes of 2013?

And the game, I just keep coming back to peace. The highest currency in life, I think, is peace and inner peace in your life. It doesn't matter what's happening externally around you. You don't have control on the world's environment. You can control kind of your space and your physical environment most of the time, but learning how to master peace internally is the key. I just think that allows us to be less reactive,

less stressful, less overwhelmed, less triggered in life when we can have that currency of peace. This is from Elaine Lloyd on LinkedIn who said, My main question is, what is your mission and how do you stay grounded, focused, and committed to your mission? Here's the next 10 awesome years. Again, I want to repeat this. It's to serve 100 million lives weekly to help them improve the quality of their life. That is my meaningful mission.

How do I stay grounded in my mission? This comes to having really good people around you who keep you humble, who keep you grounded in terms of not trying to hold you down, but remind you to stay humble as you rise in power and success and accomplishments. And so I really have quality people around me. I have really good friends who grew up in the Midwest like myself. I have close ties with my family. My girlfriend is amazing at supporting me in so many ways and coaching and inspiring me, but also just reminding me that I'm a human being and, you know, I'm just a man. So this is a journey.

We're all in this experience together. I'll be here for a period of time and then it'll be over and I won't be here. Reminding myself of the fragility of life. Dara Mills on Instagram said, I'm working on launching my own podcast now and I'm having trouble keeping consistent with creating content. How do you stay consistent in the early days of SOG? I'm not sure if you're clear on why you're doing what you're doing. If you're clear on it, then you'll just say, okay, I'm going to do whatever it takes because

I'm clear. And it's something bigger than just you making money. It's bigger than you trying to have a big show. It's bigger than all that. There's an end in mind. There's a mission in mind. There's a reason in mind beyond just personal success and accomplishments and all these different things. I think it's hard to stay consistent. It's hard to be creative when it's just about me, me, me. When I focus on others, when I focus on service as our mission, it allows me to have energy and stay consistent.

Another thing would be making sure you find the right people around you to support you in staying consistent. You know, we've got great producers and editors and people on our team that have structure that allow us to create content ahead of time, plan ahead of time, as opposed to just, let me wing this last minute

and just figure out what we're going to do. It's really planning and organizing ahead of time, scheduling and having that structure. This is from Isidro on LinkedIn who said, I want to know when the next book will drop. Will there be a decade of wisdom and self-optimization? The greatest mindset is dropping. Make sure you get your copy right now. How to Unlock the Power of Your Mind. This is our best work. This is something that we as a team worked on together. From 10 years of interviews and content, we said, how do we create the perfect structure, the perfect system, if you're struggling, stuck, and overwhelmed, on how to get unstuck and get into peace and create the thing you want to create in your life. It is here in the book, so make sure to pick it up right now over on Amazon, or you can go to lewishouse.com slash TGM for the greatness mindset and get a copy right there.

Amy Anderson on Twitter said, how did you find and establish your niche so that you could stand out above the rest in the motivation and self-help space? When I started 10 years ago, podcasting wasn't a thing. I was kind of entering a new frontier, if you will, in this industry because there were very few podcasts at the time. I had a decision to make. Do I go smaller and niche down and build an audience around a niche or do I go broader? And I wanted to go broad, which a lot of people told me not to do because it takes longer to get an audience. It takes longer to create results typically if you go broader from the start. But at the time, I was just so clear that this is what I wanted to create for the future. I wanted to be able to talk about relationships,

health and wellness, sports mindset, champions mindset, money. I wanted to talk about all these areas of life as opposed to just one niche. And I feel like it took me longer to build, but more sustainable and really allowed me to do the things that I was curious about. Sometimes people create a niche and after two to five years, they get burnt out in that niche and

they want to recreate something. You've got to relaunch something. So I created the thing that I wanted to have for a long time and built a meaningful mission that would support the long road. This is from Carrie Lee McCleland on LinkedIn who said, what has been the most profound yet simplest thing you have learned and from who? I mean, there's so many lessons, but the simplest thing is gratitude. I think a lot of people want to manifest, they want to have abundance, they want to be prosperous,

they want to feel good. Gratitude is the simplest key. Whenever I feel frustrated or stressed or overwhelmed, I lean into that. And if I don't lean into it, I feel more stressed and overwhelmed. So it's just a key. It's something that unlocks as part of it. Rhonda Byrne, who wrote the book, The Secret, talked a lot about this in the interview that we had. And she talks a lot about that. So if you haven't watched that interview or listened to that interview,

we'll have it linked up in the description where you can hear and watch that with Rhonda Byrne from The Secret. This is from Mikala on Twitter who said, what's the biggest mistake, failure you wish you could have avoided in business and personal life? Oh my gosh. There are so many that I,

so many mistakes I've made in my entire life. In business, here's the thing. I don't know if I would take back any of these things because I wouldn't have the wisdom that I have now without those mistakes and the lessons and the learning and the humility and the frustration and everything that comes with the mistakes. But if I'm having to answer the question, I think I would have, I think I launched too many programs early on in the first five years that just didn't work out. But again, I learned, they were like little mini PhDs because I learned how to become a better at a course creator or being better on video. I did a talk show for Facebook that only had one season and didn't continue. And that, it didn't work out.

But it was a year and a half of my life, but I learned so much from it. So there's certain things that I don't know if I would take them back because they were also great learning things and lessons for me to improve. And on the personal side, man, there's too many personal things for me to mention of mistakes I've made. But I would say not abandoning myself. I abandoned myself too many times to please others and make others feel happy. And that would make me change who I was to make them like me. So I would never abandon myself. Sammy Adari on Twitter said, what are the top three moments,

top three breakthrough moments that massively changed your journey towards greatness? Which I'm sure you had an emotional time building these, the bumps and bruises along the way. So the top three emotional moments, one with a workshop that I did 10 years ago that was about leadership and emotional intelligence that helped me see myself differently. Another one was when I went to Poland with a group

of guys that I took to do a five-day journey with Wim Hof, doing breathing, breath work, ice baths, jumping in frozen rivers, climbing mountains half naked in the snow, and facing fears. The third one was probably a recent one where I did a Dr. Joe Dispenza seven-day meditation. And I also went to India for two weeks to do a meditation as well. Those kind of deeper dives where I disconnected from my phone, computer, work, and I took a look at myself. And I took a look at what was working and what wasn't working. And I said, how can I see if there's any room for growth? How can I continue to grow? Those deeper dives really supported me in kind of unlocking the journey

and keep me, again, grounded and reflective on how I can keep growing. Alejandra on LinkedIn said, congratulations on the wonderful 10 years. I recently saw you on a billboard in Times Square. Was this a goal of yours when you started the podcast 10 years ago, and how did you celebrate? I don't know if it was like a specific goal, like one day I'm going to be in Times Square, like up on a billboard, but I'm sure I've thought about it. I remember in 2009, before I launched the podcast in 2013, I did a magazine shoot with Gary Vaynerchuk, Seth Godin, and a few other people in Times Square. And I remember this being kind of like one of the biggest moments of my career at the time in 2009. And I remember looking around and seeing all the advertisements with all

the people on the billboards. And I was like, it seeing all the advertisements with all the people on the billboards. And I was like, it would be kind of cool. That was like a seed planted. And I was like, this would be kind of cool if this happened. But it wasn't like, I have to do this. This is my dream and goal. But it was definitely a seed planted. How did I celebrate? I ran the New York Marathon the day that it was up in Times Square. So I put myself through pain, adversity, challenge, and then I had a pizza that night afterwards because I probably burned like 7,000 calories. So that's how I celebrated, by running a marathon

and facing a challenge and a fear of mine and having a pizza. Joaquin Chase on Instagram said, "'In what ways do you think creating a mission for Greatest Media has helped the company and how has the mission evolved over 10 years? I think it's what has allowed me to attract people on the team, what has allowed me to attract community and audience because it's focused on a clear mission. And that allows for people to get behind that mission who are interested and excited about it. Without a clear mission, people come and go and they don't know why. People know why they're here. And if they're not aligned to the mission, then they'll leave. And it's clearer on why they're here. So that's really helped me. Has it evolved over the last

10 years? It hasn't really evolved. It's been the same meaningful mission since the beginning. So I think maybe in ways it's evolved, it might've been more focused on like early on as I was, I was, I was defining and developing it. It might've been more about helping people like be successful, but then it became more like, okay, let's help people just improve the quality of their life in all these areas. So that's how it's evolved. Patrick Miller on Instagram said, you recently launched the Daily Motivation Show and I love the show and I listen in daily during my workout, my morning workout. In revisiting those clips from the past School of Greatness episodes,

are there any moments that have stuck out as powerful? So many moments. I listen to the show almost daily. Sometimes I'll listen to five in a row from the whole week if I'm on a workout or a long run. And I'll listen to them on repeat. I just love it. Because again, it's not me talking. It's all the great guests we've had on. And I love listening to their messages in these moments. When I'm in some of these interviews, guys, I'm taking notes. And I'm like, gosh, this is so powerful. I want to take this note. When I'm in some of these interviews, guys, I'm taking notes and I'm like, gosh, this is so powerful. I want to take this note and I want to go listen to it again.

But sometimes I don't have that time to go and listen to it or find it. And that was one of the reasons for starting this. I was like, there's so many powerful moments. Let's just make a show out of this. So they've all been great. And a lot of them I listened to over and over. And there you have it. Thank you so much

for joining me on this 10-year journey that for me feels like, again, we're just getting started. None of this would have been possible without you guys, without you showing up and consistently supporting the School of Greatness. So I'm so grateful for you that you show up, that you listen, that you share each and every week. And wherever you're at, thanks again for listening. Thanks for showing up. And I'll see you in the next episode. I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness.

Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me as well as ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcast. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend. Leave us a review over on Apple Podcast and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels at Lewis Howes. I really love hearing the feedback

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