The School of Greatness - Russell Brand: The Power of Fame, Fighting Addiction & Spiritual Freedom in Your Life EP 1109

Episode Date: May 12, 2021

“Be of service to the thing you claim to love.”Today's guest is the wise, talented, and funny, Russell Brand! His career ranges from stand-up comedy and acting, to broadcasting and writing. He is the author of the Audible Original, ‘Revelation: Connecting with the Sacred in Everyday Life' and his new weekly meditation podcast, 'Above the Noise'.In this episode Lewis and Russell discuss why practicing your values can help you be part of something bigger than yourself, the three skills Russell wishes he knew earlier in his life, what happens when you don’t commit yourself to achieving your dreams, how Russell manages his negative thoughts, and so much more!For more go to: www.lewishowes.com/1109Check out Russell’s new book: Revelation: Connecting with the Sacred in Everyday LifeListen to his meditation podcast: Above the NoiseKobe Bryant on Mamba Mentality, NBA Titles, and Oscars: https://link.chtbl.com/691-podKevin Hart Breaks Down His Secrets to Success: https://link.chtbl.com/956-podKatherine Schwarzenegger Pratt on the Power of Forgiveness: https://link.chtbl.com/925-pod

This is episode number 1109 with Russell Brand. 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. greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

Neuroscientist Dr. Andrew Huberman once said, positive thinking is not about being delusional. It's about learning how to take control of internal processing and knowing it'll shape your external environment. And Priyanka Chopra Jonas said, what you do after failure is how you build a legacy. I am so excited because my guest today is the wise, the talented, the funny Russell Brand. And his career ranges from stand-up comedy and acting to broadcasting and writing. He is the author of the Audible original, Revelation, Connecting with the Sacred in Everyday Life, which is extremely inspiring. I just finished it recently and I loved it. And his new weekly meditation podcast, Above the Noise, is available at luminarypodcast.com. And in this episode, we discuss why practicing your values can help you be a part of something bigger than yourself.

We talk about fame and what fame has taught him in his life. The three different skills that Russell wishes he knew earlier in his life, what happens when you don't commit yourself to achieving your dreams, why self-doubt can be critical to your awareness, the reality of freedom, and how Russell manages his negative thoughts, and so much more.

I think you're gonna love this. If you do, make sure to share this with someone who you think would be inspired as well. Spread the message of greatness to a friend. Post it on social media. Make sure to tag me, Lewis How you think would be inspired as well. Spread the message of greatness to a friend. Post it on social media. Make sure to tag me, Lewis Howes, and Russell Brand as well. And if this is your first time here, click the subscribe button over on Apple Podcasts or Spotify right now to stay up to date from the latest and greatest on the School of Greatness. Okay, in just a moment, the one and only Russell Brand.

Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness. I'm very excited about our guest. We have the incredibly handsome and wise Russell Brand in the house. Good to see you, sir. Thank you, Luis. I wanted to start with a question that is around a quote that I love from Jim Carrey. And he said, I think everyone should get rich and famous and do everything they've ever dreamed of

so they can see it's not the answer. I'm curious, with all the fame, success, money, accomplishments you have, what is the truth you want the world to know about what it all means and what fame actually is well in a sense you can't really add to jim carey's quote or the theological precedents of it which are broad and varied i.e the material world is an illusion or the kingdom of heaven is spread upon the earth and man sees it not that no material thing can ever make you happy like this idea is like culturally reiterated everywhere and assiduously ignored everywhere and because let's face it we live in a culture

that is dominated by economic ideologies materialistic ideologies sort of for good and for for ill and there's no question that certain um markers of progress are worthy of plaudits i.e medicine technology but they can be to a degree false markers of progress they can mislead us they can make us i i would say sort of culturally hubristic about our achievements and whether it's sort of mongolian culture the plain people or what they called the step people who could like were equestrian archers with levels of expertise that like would you only get in a circus now that were sort of were practiced by whole armies or the uh the jesuit priests that speak like 20 30 languages you know like that

there are historical achievements moments of greatness that are beyond what our culture values now, that are now neglected, dormant and ignored precisely because they are at odds with the faith structures that currently define us. We already live in a religious society. We live in an ideological fundamentalist society that believes in materialism, wealth, consumerism and necessarily mobilizes our deeper instincts in order to facilitate the advancement of those systems i.e you know any commercial you watch on television that has like families embracing each other at an airport or like a sort of a bit of lens flare as a sort of a mother and child look at each other you know this is mobilizing what we know to be true love is everything we are all connected god is everywhere but those ideas would lead to

ultimately to the decimation of many of the cultural institutions that are beneficial to the most powerful people in institutions in society so those ideas have to be repressed, negated, reframed, diluted, and neutered. Beautifully said. I love the book, the audio book that you have, Revelation, connecting with the sacred in everyday life. And I love the moment. There was a lot of vulnerable moments for you, but I love the moment where you talked about towards the end of it, where you went to a homeless shelter, I believe it was for teens or young boys, young kids. And you were nervous to speak to like 30, 40 random strangers of people who essentially were homeless or had nothing. And you were talking about how your fame really didn't help you in that moment, except for when

you talked about, you know, a previous relationship and trying to look cool so you could calm your nerves what does fame do to people if they don't learn to manage it and have some type of spiritual guidance or some type of higher truth what does it do to people and how have you learned to manage it at this level from all the different stages you've gone through it fame kind of mimics deeper forms of greatness fame can feel like being like when if you think of like say even a few hundred years ago or even you know like say oscar wilde was kind of like a celebrity and like a legit genius and wit and in much of his writing in particular he's right for children he's talking about divinity and the sublime and sort of beautiful beautiful things and even with his sort of talk about aesthetics and you know being sort of frivolous and glib he's sort of commenting on his culture's

infatuation with superficiality and beauty detached from divinity or a figure like Byron who was sort of like a great celebrity of his age was like potently connected to the forces and powers of nature both inner and outer fame now is you know speaking generally an extension of commerce an extent an extension of commerce I'm not saying there aren't famous people that are great they plainly are greatness can be an inadvertent factor within fame but it is not a defining one any longer because greatness so frequently comes at a price um you know that a lot of people in like a corporate and commercial industries don't necessarily want to pay. And look, speaking personally,

the reason I wanted to be famous was because I felt insufficient and inadequate as I was. And who knows what choices I would have made if I'd have had access to spiritual principles as a child and as a young man. If people said, look look there's something in you that you've got gifts and stuff why don't you explore those gifts in this direction you know so i just naturally because in the absence of that i took the gifts in the dominant direction

of our culture the magnetism of our culture is you know if you come from where i come from grays essex a sort of uh ordinary suburban town a half an hour outside of london low expectation beautiful incredible people i realize that now now that i've gone back there and visited it i couldn't see that then because i was too solipsistic and lost in myself and my ambition my hunger my drive my appetites i've got big appetites drive you know like and for me what i was kind of taught look at my school if you're not good at football or fighting you're nothing and like and in the culture at large if you're not if you don't get yourself some power you're gonna get crushed you're getting crushed you're going to a factory or a call center you're not that's what that's what life has in store for you so you know for me it was the it

was the answer it was the answer to the feeling of inadequacy it was the answer that my culture offered me that's what it offers you it's what it offers all of us like and we're all bombarded with it but only a few of us are gonna get a you know gonna get them golden ticket you. It's what it offers all of us. Like and we're all bombarded with it. But only a few of us are going to get, you know, going to get the golden ticket. You know, there's just not enough golden tickets to go around. And those of us that do get it, as Jim Carrey has eloquently articulated, are going to recognise its limitations. You know, we all know there's different category of famous folk. limitations you know we all know there's different category of famous folk we meet there's people that were you know kind of like i was for a while that just sort of face first thrust into it and what is this what is this i'm going to experience this like a gargantuan appetite a stomach on legs

and then there are other people that are like you know that sort of seem a bit more circumspect like okay this is crazy i'm just going to focus on the work now i'm lucky that i'm a sort of i'm at heart a comedian and i love love comedy and i've as i've gotten older i've realized that there's some the divinity in comedy that comedy is about revelation that comedy requires that you observe that life is a joke life is a joke none Life is a joke. None of this is real. Here I am pretending to be me. You're pretending to be you.

We've all got our insecurities and our inadequacies. We know the things we've done. We know the mistakes we've made. We know what we do in the bathroom. We know what we do when we're alone. We know the sort of weird things we've said to people, you know, like all of this stuff. And we put on this mask and this facade,

fame merely being an amplification of that fame mimics greatness fame is bolted on to greatness a friend of mine said even in your pursuit of fame it was obvious that what you were after was god was a kind of like but the culture doesn't know how to give you god the culture doesn't want to give you god the culture doesn doesn't. And what I mean by God, I talk now, mate, about Sesame Street values, Sesame Street values. This is nothing complicated. Kindness, be kind to each other. If you're kind to each other, everything else is going to, it's going to melt away. You're like that, that takes care of, don't judge people for being different. Don't judge people. That all goes out the the window just if you devote yourself to the simple principle of kindness the idea of god for me the idea of god for me is the same idea as as love that there

is a magnetism towards one another yes there is a revulsion a repulsion a competition there there is everything has its shadow everything has its opposite and beyond opposites I'm sure but but there is also love there is this sense and in by love I mean and etymologists who just who studied the word love in many languages posit that what we actually mean is union connection I love you I want to be connected to you I love these shoes I've got to have them I love West Ham. I want them to do well as I would do well myself. You know, love, of course, can get confused and intermingled with lust, control, need for approval. All sorts of things can get intermixed with love. But you will know love when you are willing to sacrifice, when you see it as something you serve as opposed to something that serves you. This is, you know, I'm married and sometimes I think with my wife, you know, that my love is about I want her to take care of me.

And I recognize I'm holding me. That's not love. That's my codependency. That's my neediness. That's the part of me that's still a wounded little boy. little boy but the man in me has to take care of this wounded little boy not invite or require that other people do it love is when i'm willing to just you know again sesame street values when i'm like i i love you you're what you want is more important than i that than what i want i can't live to those values every day or even all day for one day I fall short all the time Lewis I like I like you know it becomes about me and what I want and what I care about and I'm you know and because you know like again many of us are unboundaried and we've lost we don't have enough this is why what you are doing with your school of greatness is important because

we don't have enough clear simple principles that seem universal and perennial, i.e. applicable everywhere and timeless. Applicable everywhere and timeless. I know we're all different. I know we are diverse. I know we are unique. But most of us have a heart, lungs, kidneys, blood, eyes. Most of us breathe. So is it not likely that there is a kind of universal application on a more sublime level also?

universal application on a more sublime level also that if we are the same organically is it not likely that the energies from which these organs must surely have evolved are similar to possibly even one possibly even the same energy that the same way as we know that we come from a common ancestor that we come from a common uh common energy with a common heart that our unity is more true than our separation. As the great Terence McKenna says, when the water of illusion drains away, we see that we are all connected. We are all connected. A hundred percent. And you talked about healing the childhood wound, feeling inadequate, feeling insecure, feeling not enough, or all these feelings on your kind of search or yearning for fame and

what does this experience look like, this drive to be more connected to love, to God, to that higher thing. When did you feel in your life the most insecure and when did you fully start to understand how to overcome your insecurities. Many of these negative emotions and feelings have like wisdom in them, don't they? Because even like the most ferocious forms of chemical dependency that I've experienced, crack and heroin addiction, are kind of about melting the boundary of who you are. Look at the idioms around it. Get off your face, get smashed, destroy yourself. On some level, again, using inappropriate means, you are trying to transcend

and become free of the self. It's a spiritual impulse. I may have to talk people through that more slowly because it seems sort of stupid to think of some hunched, drunk or junkie slumped in a doorway as being on a spiritual quest but when you think that spirituality is simply the valorizing of the inner life over the outer life the need to connect the need to feel something truthful and real then anyone that picks up a drink ever or smokes a joint is after a spiritual experience. They're trying to feel better. Man, I felt insecure and worthless a lot of times in my life. It happens to me again and again and again. I'm lucky that I'm an addict because the addiction shows you.

It takes you to extremes. So you're confronted with the fallibility of the choices you're making, that these choices won't work for you. I think a lot of people, and I wrote about that in you know, in like the recovery book, are able to struggle along with moderate addictions, moderate addictions to food or sex or success or whatever, never ever reaching the point of crisis that would facilitate transformation, metamorphosis, real change, real change. You know that book, Revelation, I was telling you about in that moment that you talked about going down to that place in Skid Row, the Union Mission, you know, I was doing a craft thing there with my wife. My wife does crafts and writes about craft and like creativity and parenting and mental health and stuff like that. So we went down there. So I was very much just in an assistant

role. The first time I went there, yes, it was to talk to them kids. And I felt like I didn't feel qualified and I didn't feel good enough to do it i felt somewhat ashamed i felt ashamed of the like i think i said in revelation like about you know if you're talking to homeless kids on some level like because this union mission is the only one of their missions that takes families that's what it is the others take either men or women or adults or whatever this one takes whole families there's a lot of people in there more than there should be in any civilised nation. And like when I was when you're there, you want to tell them, look, this isn't your fault. It's not your family's fault.

You're a byproduct of a economic system that simply cannot generate. Well, it can generate enough wealth, but it doesn't. It doesn't distribute wealth fairly for a number of complex reasons. And you are the arse end of that you know and i can't describe explain that to you it's patronizing and somehow dismissive and but more importantly that day that i went to do the craft i sort of saw or maybe even someone told me it maybe i didn't have this realization maybe someone said it to me they don't know they're poor they don't they don't have that contextualization they're just children they're

just children and it was sort of beautiful and amazing and since having kids as i said i don't do what i used to do a lot me i love children i've always loved children i used to get right and i didn't have kids till like i was 40 so i was very much like if i was around my mates kids or whatever really play with them and like get into characters with them and do a lot of joyful play and now i've got kids i can't be bothered with that i'm tired i'm exhausted but no i'm not interested you know um but that day like i held it down because my wife was doing this stuff with the mums and the kids and i felt the heaviness and i felt the shame of the adults and i was um lifted by the joy of the children and but i held back you know like i was just helping them they were making play-doh together and all this kind of stuff and doing these craft activities and then when that finished I let

myself off the hook a little bit I let myself be a dinosaur and a monster and be all crazy with these kids and monkey around with them you know and like there's one bit where like all these little five-year-olds and six-year-olds and seven-year-olds they pulled me to the ground and they was beating me up and stuff and I sort of looked up for a moment and all I could see my whole vista was filled with children's faces and they were smiling and they were full of joy. And this is when I felt God is here. God is in this room. Look at this. There's nothing but joy and love and play and happiness in this lowest of place where people are suffering poverty, being disregarded, neglected. And the whole room, my whole experience is filled

with love and this is just one moment in time of course, I know that those children have got whole lives ahead of them and have whole lives behind them but in that moment there was an absolute realisation of something sublime and divine and for me this is an important force, an important energy that has to be mobilised, valorised, brought to the forefront, exalted in our culture, made the emblem and the driving force and the raison d'etre of the way we live, not marginalized, neglected to the sidelines so people can plunder the earth and look at the earth as a resource and look at human beings as a resource and fortify systems of elitism. For me, the basic idea, the Sesame Street values, kindness and love,

kindness and love, instead of the values, you know, that currently dominate selfishness, greed. This is what's at play now. Yeah. I love that you talk about Sesame Street values. I'm a big Mr. Rogers, you know, values type of guy myself, which are very similar, I guess, in the fact of just be kind to your neighbor and be loving, be generous i'm curious when have you felt the most loved in your life and when do you currently feel the most love sometimes i think about my wife when i'm not with her like when you're with her she's just a person but when i'm not with her like i sometimes think oh my god found this person. I found this person that just loves me, doesn't doesn't care about anything. She's not particularly, you know, I've known people that are very impressed by aspects of my nature and behavior.

You know, I can speak fast or whatever and say a lot of stuff and I can be novel. I don't know. My wife doesn't seem to care about any of that she doesn't she just sort of sees me as i am and i feel very at ease sometimes the greed in me wants stimulation excitement plaudits fanfare the carnival of life but i recognize i've been to that carnival and I've had my turn. And it's like it doesn't work for me. There's never enough for me. For me, it's the spiritual path. It's the spiritual path.

And I think that's true for everyone. But it's not really right for a person that's lived the life I have to be. I feel like spiritual principles are for yourself, not for other people. feel like spiritual principles are for yourself not for other people you know like oh these are the things that I must do and other people have got to find their path I suppose and like maybe I can sometimes be helpful to people usually directly in an intimate way hopefully I can be helpful in a broadcast way because indeed that's what we're doing but who knows I'm not sure that I was I hope I was helped by you, people talking on the Internet or on TV. But I can't remember it ever happening.

What is the thing you love about your wife the most? My wife. She's strange in a way that you wouldn't straight away notice. She seems because she's beautiful and she's capable and competent, but she's a very unusual little person. You know, when you're married to someone and you like, you know them, you know that after dark, they turn into sort of the foulest, most impatient person, you know, and that they have little ways. What I have in my marriage is a real intimacy. You know, like I have the ability. I don in my marriage is a real intimacy you know like

i have the ability i don't have to i can tell she knows everything she knows everything about me you know and like i i need a sort of authenticity in in my connections in life lewis because uh otherwise it's very very sort of lonely so what i love about her i guess i love her playfulness her creativity her willingness to change change, her openness to conversation. There's loads of things that I love about her. She's weird and she's a laugh. She's a funny person to hang out with. That's beautiful.

For the younger audience who might be confused about their life, their direction, their purpose, their relationships, and they might be chasing something. They might be looking for fame or power or money, whatever they're looking for. What are three things that you would recommend they prioritize in their chase, in their journey, in their life? What are three things that you wish you would have prioritized that you would share with them so they don't waste their life away or make bad mistakes? Live in service of the thing you claim to love, you know? Like if you were saying that you want to be an actor,

to make sure that what you don't secretly want is, actually, I just want loads of attention and power and glory and glamour you know like make sure that you are in service of acting or music or whatever it is and that means you know like all of us have gifts and we often use these gifts like we put the gift to work like right gift get out there and make me some money come make me a star imagine if it was like a little bird or a child or something you have to look after it and take care of it you know me comedy i have always this is the thank god it sort of saved me even before i was switched on sort of spiritually or whatever i and even at my most keen and needy, I always really, really loved comedy in a geek way.

You know, I watch a lot of stand up comedy. I study sitcoms. I learn them. I love Monty Python. I love Richard Pryor. I know my heritage. I know the line that I'm walking. I studied them and observed them. So I was doing stand-up comedy which I was for years and years and years before I made any money out of it at all I was becoming practiced and I was in service of comedy of course I also wanted to be a big famous star and I wanted people to love me and I wanted to have lots of opportunities of course I did but thank you know what could I do man I had both things i had both things thank god i had both you know if all you've got if all i'd had had been the appetites the appetites for the plaudits

the prestige and the privilege i don't know where i would have ended up so firstly i say be of service to the thing that you claim to love don't think what about what it's going to give you think about what you can give to it okay that's the first one i've got to do three yeah yeah if you if you've got three yeah second one is have something away from it like that is not about it cultivate your inner life and your spirit don't allow it to entirely devalue you the fact is i think that we are spiritual beings in essence we're the only animal that we know of on this planet that have these complex in us these lives of complex inner subjectivity as far as i know my dog doesn't sort of go oh god that was embarrassing you know i mean like he just is him but it does sometimes

look a bit embarrassed thinking about it but like you know we can't spend our life in continual outward pursuit of an external goal because in all likelihood we're pursuing something spiritual anyway without knowing it. We're looking for approval or connection or power or status or whatever it is. You can't get that as we started off with this thematic idea established by your Kerry quote there, mate. So you have to have something that's separate from it. I would suggest meditate. Learn how to meditate. Practice meditation.

Practice meditation. Find a form of meditation that works for you. Don't try to change the rules and say something like, I meditate when I'm on the treadmill or I meditate when I'm gardening. Sit down with your eyes shut meditate you can have like guided meditation in fact i do guided meditations on my luminary podcast above the noise you could start there or you could do my on my side channel awakening with russell brand on youtube i do

guided meditations on there also um but you know god let's don't stop there tich Nhat Hanh Ram Das Mooji all like great great teachers great teachers available everywhere meditate meditate you have to cultivate your inner life away from it

that's the second one the third one do you want the third? yes please you're very lovely aren't you you're very sort of patient and kind person sincere and sweet.

Well, the third one I would say is make helping other people something that is integral to your life so that you don't do what I did and become so absorbed in yourself and what you want that when you get it, it doesn't work for you because it's meaningless like so like if you if part of your life is helping other people and if you want to go for the black belt in this then help other people without other people finding out about it if you can help people

privately no one knows about it no one knows about the time you volunteer down at the shelter or the thing you do for a particular person that's in need of it if you can do that then what you're cultivating there is a relationship with a higher frequency of being because of course kindness or you know virtue now virtue is itself a commodity there's not a corporation on earth that isn't putting up some flag or another to ally itself to some cause without actually changing its core behaviors and values just applying the wallpaper of virtue if you have some virtuous behaviors that are not advertised that are not known by anyone but you you know next time someone calls you out some little voice in you will go i do that thing. Nobody knows about that.

Yeah. I think it's interesting. I've always been of the mindset of like, show some of the stuff you're doing to help others so that you can inspire other people to be like, oh, okay, that's, I should do that too. Or whether it's a donation or showing up and giving time or some of your resources or talent, but definitely you don't need to show it all the time. I think it's important to show some to inspire and evoke it and evoke it out of others, to be like, hey, listen, I'm doing this thing. I'm trying to inspire you to do something in your life that's a cause for you. That's the way I've approached it as well, but I'm with you on keeping some of it for yourself or not needing to share with others to get an know an applause or validation or to be

like you're a good guy or something yeah i love that lewis because we can create sort of shared values together like you know by role modeling for one another you can inspire others and it's not something you can do alone you know this idea that sort of it like sort of fated or sainted individuals are going to save us doesn't work as well as the idea that collectively we can bring about greatness and change this infatuation with the individual is sort of part of the problem and i think all of us fall prey to it because it seems so real what's as real to you as your own thoughts what's as real to you as your own pleasure you know there's legitimate ongoing philosophical debates about whether or not other people are actually even there you know there's legitimate ongoing philosophical debates about whether or not other

people are actually even there you know the only thing we know for certain is our own existence so it's easy to fall in that but if we practice values that appear universal kindness again like you know the mr rogers or sesame street values then we're sort of part of something transcendent part of something bigger than us we're not continually furnishing our cell, ornamenting our fragile and transient egoic structures. What would you say are three skills you wish you would have learned earlier, whether it be a tactical skill, the skill of making money, the skill of meditation and managing your emotions, the skill of, you know, learning how to connect with people, the skill of speaking on stage. What skills do you wish you would have learned earlier that would have helped you?

I wish I'd learned Brazilian jiu-jitsu as a child, that would have really grounded me. Yeah. It really sort of straightened me out. Why do you think that would ground you? Because I think it gives you a respect for your body and it gives you a respect for other people as well. The thing about Brazilian jiu-jitsu is you learn what you're capable of, but you also see what other people are capable of.

So you're like, well, I'm kind of can do all this stuff. But I oh, my God, look at this guy. I would not have known that. I would not have known from looking at that person that they had those kind of resources. So it creates the perfect optimal state, I would say, of like, I would not want to be a person that is an aggressor or looks to create conflict. But neither am I so anxious about conflict that I'll bend myself into peculiar shapes to avoid it. You know, like even this is, you know, it's had a positive impact on me learning Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in my 40s. So if I'd learned it when I was 12, I think. when I was 12, I think.

And also there are affiliated values within martial arts, respect, hierarchies that are fair and just and earned, camaraderie, physical contact in a clear and consensual and boundaried way. I mean, it's just so full of great values. I think it's like the martial arts in general but brazilian judicias is one i know are like um you know are like wonderful communities and that also also as well you put aside who you are you put aside who you are when you enter into it you know i do try and use my personality sometimes on the mat like come come on, hey, charm people a little bit. But it's only moderately successful.

Okay, so that's one skill. I wish I'd learned abstinence and the principles of 12-step recovery, which, of course, encompasses quite a lot of values. The principles of recovery, because even before I was a drug addict, you know, so sort of abstinence-based recovery i wish i'd learned abstinence-based recovery because even before i was addicted to crack and heroin the way that i was eating chocolate the way i was watching pornography the way i was obsessed with girlfriends the way that i was sort of a clingy little dude you know like all of these things the idea that i can have a

connection to a god of my own understanding that i can be to a degree sufficient that i am i am not god i'm not the most important person in the world all the time but also i'm not scum i like um i don't have to bow and scrape before anybody i have values but i don't need to always as they say in the some of the great literature uh scrambling to be on the top of the pile or hiding underneath it, you know, like being happy to be just a person among people, not always seeking to sort of somehow either fate, isolate or separate myself, you know, being happy to be part of a community or part of a group or part of a family. The 12-step recovery has so many beautiful principles, the idea of god and the idea

that we all have equal access to god the idea of fellowship fraternity sorority brotherhood and sisterhood between us the idea of service of one another the idea of being honest and authentic about who we are surrender acceptance so i would say the skills of 12-step recovery, yes, that would be the second one. Okay. The third one, what would be another thing? I mean, I really sometimes, like every day I think about, I wish I spoke another language. Every day I think about it. Gosh, man, it's funny you say that because for 20 years, Russell, I've been, at the end of every year I look back and say,

okay, what am I proud of that I created and what do I regret that I didn't do that I wish I would have done? Every year for 20 years has been, I wish I would have learned Spanish. Spanish is the one I want. And for, because every year I try, every year I'm like, okay, I'm going to download the latest app. I'm going to get the book. I'm going to try this new, someone said, this is the program that'll work for you. You'll be fluent in three months. All this stuff. And it gets so hard for my brain within the first few days.

I'm like, I'm just not smart enough. I can't figure this out. It hurts. I've got all these other things going on. And I end up giving up on myself. The last one I did. Sorry. Which one?

Which app did you try? Just trying to find it. I really got quite far in. I was pretty pleased to interrupt. Which one? Which one? Which app did you try? Just trying to find it. Like, I really got quite far in. I was pretty pleased with myself. I was doing well. Is this Babbel? Babbel. Babbel.

Yeah, I was doing well. And then it got into this sort of, this area of grammar that was so complex. This is the same as saying this. I was like, what? That's so hard. I can't even, I can't find the equivalent for that in English.

And I don't know. Look, if you've been doing this for 20 years, you must be the same as me. You must be like, you know that you're going to have to go somewhere where you've got no choice. You've got to go to Argentina or Cuba or Madrid or whatever and then fully get down with it. Because otherwise. Exactly. Well, here's the thing. What I realized is I kept losing integrity with myself because I kept wanting to do it.

I kept saying I was going to do it. And then every year I wouldn't do it. And I kept feeling like less and less confident with myself. And so I either needed to kill the dream and say, I no longer care about this dream and let it go. Say that's not for me in my life. Or I needed to commit to it. And six months ago, I said, I'm hiring a tutor three days a week.

I'm scheduling the time in the calendar. I'm going to make it a commitment. And the first four months were miserable. I didn't feel like I was learning a thing. But now I'm on six. I feel like I'm still not good, but I'm like, it doesn't hurt my brain as much. And I could see, okay, in three, five, seven years, I could become a lot better. I could have a

conversation and feel proud of it. And it's tough. I get up, you know, I do it at 8 a.m. and sessions, but it's like, I don't want to feel, you know, not confident and proud of myself by wanting this thing and always putting it off. So yeah, I think it's either a full immersion or finding a tutor and just saying, okay, three days a week or five days a week, I'm doing this and sacrificing something else. But it's been powerful for me. I don't know if you're similar to this. When I take something on, I want to be the best at it within a day. I want it to be great.

I want to do things that I'm good at. And this is something that humbles me. It's like being in Brazilian jiu-jitsu for the first time, probably. It's like I'm on my back and getting pinned every moment no matter what maneuver I try to do and you just got to say okay I'm here to learn you know I know nothing and have a beginner's mind so it's been it's been a humbling yet powerful experience because I haven't been able to use the skill but I know it's helping me learn

and connecting the dots on things, and it's just, I feel proud, even if I never use it, just because I've been doing it and it's something I want to do, so. Why don't, I've got a few questions. One is how long are your sessions? They're an hour long, three days a week right now, yeah. Why don't you book some kind of trip

where you're going to get to use it? Yeah, I mean, my girlfriend's Mexican, so she speaks Spanish too. So I practice with her, and I go visit her and her family, and no one speaks English in her family. So when I'm with her and her family, I'm forced to practice. So, you know, doing more of those trips will be helpful. I've been to practice. So, you know, doing more of those trips will be helpful. I've been in love. When I was a younger man, I was in love with a woman from El Escorial near Madrid. And, like, I went and stayed with her family.

And because I feel comfortable speaking English, you know, I feel like such a moron when I can't, like, when I don't have that. When I don't have language, I feel nude and just helpless and it kills me man i like i love being able to i've got a little i've had the thing is as well spanish a bit like you i've had points where i'm like hold on i'm getting there i'm getting there and then i don't do any attributes into nothing then i had another girlfriend um who was from barcelona who just was so magnificent and she was like worked in a b-thrown i would go and see her and i would get a little bit closer to understand it i'd get all inspired I mean I love like Spanish people Latin people I

love the language and the culture and I really you know I'd love love to I'd love to be Spanish you've actually lived with a Mexican person you need to sort it out Luis I know I'm practicing but it's also you know know, you're a father. You're speaking English to your family all day. You're speaking on podcasts and interviews all day in English. So you're not – even if I went there, I'd still have to run my business and be speaking in English 10 hours a day. So it's figuring out –

Could you and your partner go to Mexico for like six months? Yeah. I mean, she wants me to live there with her. I mean, she wants me to move there. But I'm like, my team is here. You know, I like doing stuff in person and interviews. And this is my mission right now is to serve humanity. Where are you?

Los Angeles? Yeah, in L.A. And so it's, you know, I could do it. And I could go for a couple months. That's meant to be Mexico anyway. The line crossed us i know i mean i think there's 70 million people that speak spanish in the usa as well so i practice here and there but definitely full immersion would be the the fastest way i just

got to either commit to that or you know take the long road so either way i'm doing the three days a week so well done i didn't mean to sort of... No problem. I think I was deflecting from my own feelings of envy and shame because I was actually on the walk that I was having this morning. I was thinking you could get a tutor. Like I said, I struggle. I'm the same as you. If I'm not good straight away, and that's why I do deserve props for the BJJ.

If I'm not good because I wasn't good straight away and I'm still a beginner at a blue belt, I don't like it because I've got a few things that I'm competent at. The stand up comedy or acting or whatever. Like I like to stay in that. And also, I guess when I was being nourished or when I was growing up as a kid, I didn't feel confident to be not good at stuff. I felt very ashamed of not being good at football, not being good at fighting. But those kind of things felt like a big deal to not be good at football, not being good at fighting. Like those kind of things felt like a big deal

to not be good at those things, you know. So, yeah, I'm not that patient and tolerant with myself. And it's a kind of self-love, isn't it? To go, okay, we're going to gently learn Spanish. We're going to gently learn the ukulele. You have to learn how to be the father to yourself, don't you? To just go, it's okay, don't worry. We're going to take our time with this, you know.

It's not easy. My own kids, I wouldn't be going, get time with this you know it's not my own kids i wouldn't be going get on with it learn it you're useless well i love the i love the quote or the meme that i see online i reference this a lot and i'm not a parent but you might recognize this um these moments there's some meme or saying that's like you know when a child is learning how to walk who falls down a thousand times the child doesn't think to himself maybe this walking thing isn't for me the cut the child just you know figures it out and stumbles around and hits its head on the ground or scrapes its elbow and bloodies up and

smashes nose or and then it learns to hold onto the couch I'm assuming and it doesn't say maybe this walking thing isn't for me after a thousand falls. It just keeps going. So I think... Same with the language impulse. You're quite right. I'm torn, Lewis. I don't know whether to entirely give up on myself and dedicate it all to my daughters or to just have one last crack at this Spanish with the tutor method that you have described.

What are your thoughts on this? Having a dream that is inside of your soul for years that you never fully commit to. You dabble, again, like we've done so much in so many things, we dabble, but you never fully commit to. What does that do to us if we continue on for the rest of our life, never fully going all in on our dreams?

I think it obviously reinforces the idea of incompetence or it reinforces the idea that you are incapable of following through and i feel like you we have an obligation to follow that or as you say put it put it aside entirely and what's the you know look we all know in the grim economies of our lives if we were to put aside staring at some goddamn senseless social media platform and give that time to learn in spanish we'd speak spanish by now or in four languages yeah yeah so like i you have to be willing that's why someone like you know tony robbins is so sort of you think because that man he just makes those choices like if you ever heard him tell the story about how he like learned polo he's just like That's why someone like Tony Robbins is so sort of, because that man, he just makes those choices.

Have you ever heard him tell the story about how he learned polo? He's just like, that's why I decided I wanted to learn polo. Well, I'm f***ing ill. Every time I come, whenever I'm walking my dog, I feel like I'm friends with Tony and I've told him this. I say, whenever I'm walking my dog or anything, I feel like, oh, this is not, Tony wouldn't be doing this. Tony would be learning something now.

Well, you know, you could be learning Spanish while you walk the dog. You know, like, I mean, he's powerful, but he is a one-off, let's face it. Yeah, I just actually interviewed him again yesterday and it reminded me that he learned, I think, to become a black belt, like while he was on tour for two or three years.

And he was like, I did it the fastest time anyone's been a black belt like while he was on tour for two or three years and he was like I Did it the fastest time anyone's been a black belt? I had the master come on stage and like behind the scenes in between sessions I would spend 45 minutes then go back on sounds like you're an animal The commitment is unbelievable. What was that? Like what martial art is that that i think he just learned i think he learned karate i think it was what this was probably decades ago when he was like i'm gonna learn this but i'm on tour and he brought the guy with him to just teach him all day in between on stage so one of the things i most admire about him is that he's the way that he will identify an objective and then not be restricted by sort of our conditioned,

either emotional or cultural responses. Admittedly, we're talking about some of some incredible resources. Yes, we are now. But the reason he's got those resources is because of this ability that he will just go, OK, I'm going to learn that thing. Never put aside all of the, yeah, there's not time. There's not this, there's not that. He eliminates excuses. He just says there is no room and he goes all in on his desires.

It's pretty powerful. Tony, you exhausting genius. One of the things I think that holds a lot of people back, myself included, is when we doubt ourselves, when we don't believe in our own abilities or what we're capable of creating in the future. What do you think are some ways that we can overcome self-doubt in ourselves to gain that real confidence, not fake confidence, but overcome the doubts that hold us back from asking that person out or going after that career opportunity or just saying,

I'm going to go after what I want in my life. What are some ways to eliminate that self-doubt and gain confidence? Well, self-doubt can be critical, Lewis, because it can be a component of awareness. I feel that the answer must always be the embarkation on a spiritual life because it's difficult isn't it in this world of personal development that we find ourselves in for us not to take on the tropes and objectives of a culture that I think at this point we need to be querying and looking to move away from. We've all been deeply inculcated to believe that the pursuit of happiness is contingent upon the attainment of our petty trivial desires. But real happiness is contingent on being free from those petty trivial desires as long as i'm a prisoner to that like you

know see if someone's like that that doesn't know you know don't can't pluck up the confidence to ask someone out or can't pluck up the confidence to pursue their dream or whatever for me i don't feel like it's my job to operate at that that that intersection at the intersection of well come on believe in yourself you're as good as anyone else. You'll never know unless you try. I don't think that's my job. My job is like, why do you think you want this? What do you think it's going to do for you?

What do you want really? What do you really want? What do you really want? What is it you are looking for? You know, a friend of mine observed once that in the 1980s, the prominent sort of entrepreneurs were all about zipping about on speedboats and whooshing through the skies in hot air balloons. Intrepid, bold adventurers. The very same tycoons now are all about greenness and ecology and safety and helping. Responding to the trends that define a time, this time now of apparent fragility.

I think our job is to look for some truth beneath culture, that culture in many cases is not our friend. Culture is here to chain us to systems of tyranny, subtle tyranny. What is freedom really if it is only freedom to operate within certain parameters it isn't freedom at all i'm not saying i wouldn't rather be a person who's affluent in california than a person that's sort of poor in i don't know tehran or senegal or you know i'll be poor anywhere frankly it's pretty grim to be poor anywhere in the world. I've been poor in places before. But I don't feel like our job is to train people to bend themselves into a shape where they can succeed within these systems. I think our job is to train people so that they learn to challenge these systems, to create fairer systems that are not solely built upon the fulfillment of individual goals.

fairer systems that are not solely built upon the fulfillment of individual goals my friend adam curtis the great filmmaker and genius says the genius out of the bottle now on individualism it's never going back in you're never going to be able to tell people hey why don't you forget your own identity you're just a member of a community of a collective of a parish you know that's not going to happen now everyone nothing is as real to you or i as our own thoughts as our own dreams, as our own, but that's the way it is now. But perhaps through this, we can attain some meaning. And if I refer back even to my own suggestions, serve the thing you are pursuing. You know, if it's like you really want to go out of a boy or a girl, why are you looking

to serve them? Or do you think they're going to somehow solve or absolve you? You see them as some salve? Or if you're after some dream some dream why is it because you don't feel like you're good enough or you're worthy you know one of my friends said like to me that you're like someone who's been up to the all you can eat buffet table stuffed your face full of everything and then going to everyone else you don't need this stuff you don't need it this cake won't work for you but but i have had this experience so you know you know anyone that's saying well that's easy for you to say then yeah god damn it they're right well it wasn't that easy to get here let me tell you and like so but what i would say is this is i would say i would say this that you are beautiful that you are enough that you deserve to

feel content and happy but you have to be willing to surrender everything you have to be willing to surrender everything you have to be willing to accept that what you think you should get might not be right where did it come from that idea where did that idea that you know because if you are meant to be a world-class athlete if you get on and do you know i mean do the tony robbins version of get on and do the work don't let anything stand in your way believe in it be willing to suffer have the discipline make the sacrifices then that's all sort of cool but if the only reason you're becoming a world-class athlete it's because your father told you you're not good enough and that you're cheap and you ain't no kind of a man or woman or whatever, then you don't need to deal with that shit. Otherwise, you're going to end up strung up in a hotel room one way or another. people but I've having experienced the type of celebrity that I experienced I've met people that

as I'm sure you have that are in at the apex the zenith they have enjoyed it they have been to Kublai Khan they've had it they're in there drowning in riches and drowning indeed because it's not real it's not real never lose sight of the fact that we are in limitless space in every direction never lose sight of the fact that in the sub particular world, the rules of physics, as we previously understood them, are falling apart. Never lose sight of the fact that our senses are limited and we can only see 0.63 percent of the electromagnetic range that we are operating essentially in darkness. That the neural activity that we experience that constitutes our reality is only a tiny percentage of the potential of our own brain, let alone the potential brain of God. Wouldn't it be a coincidence if we were issued with all of the senses necessary to experience total reality? Isn't it more likely that we think of reality as just being the circumference of our

sensual world? So there are limitless experiences as it unheard and unhad. And many of them lay in the realm of mystery. Engage with the mystery. Meditate. Pursue these spiritual disciplines. Don't rely entirely on the material path. This is not like, you know, neglect the body or hate the body. Love the body. We are in this material world. We are God made flesh. We are having this experience in bodies. But I don't think you can take what this culture is offering you as a solution and think that it will be a solution. You'll be disappointed. The map is not the territory. The map is not the territory. When you get there, it's not like that. It's not like that. So you start where you are. Start with you now. Absolutely, absolutely.

I have about 17 more hours of questions, but I'm going to ask you about four final questions to respect our time, and maybe we can do another follow-up in the future with the next book you have. This book, Revelation, it's hard for me to finish books. It's really hard for me to finish them. Growing up with a learning disability, reading and writing was not my forte. But I finished it, and it was beautiful. It was unbelievable spoken word poetry. And I don't know how you do what you do. It's an incredible gift and a talent and people just need to listen, listen to it just to hear how talented you are as a spoken, uh, word artist. It's unbelievable. But the way you were able, we had many and many of the

people that you mentioned throughout there, I've had the fortune of knowing and interviewing Wim Hoff and all these other individuals. Yeah. I went to Poland. I took 13 guys to Poland last year and did five days with Wim and, you know, have had him on many times and had some great kind of spiritual experiences in Poland with him playing the guitar, singing and us jumping in ice rivers and climbing up mountains naked in the snow and, you know, crazy stuff that we did together. Our friend Jay Shetty connected us and and I've done many weeks in India meditating at different places. And I'm on a constant journey for myself, and that's why I really wanted to have this conversation with you. And there's many things I want to ask you,

hopefully for another time. But I grew up in a religion called Christian science. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Christian science, but it's a lot about the things you've been talking about and the things you talk about in your in your audio book on audible and one of the things that the founder her name is Mary Baker Eddy said back in the 1800s was Stan Porter at the door of thought and that really stood with me as a child growing up in this religion I'm no longer really active in the church or anything, but the foundation is still with me of the mindset. Stan Porter at the door of thought. And I'm curious, how do you manage negative thoughts when they try to enter your mind? What's your practice beyond meditation and the things you talk about in your book and your

YouTube channel, which is incredible, but how do you really navigate negative thoughts that come into mind, the thoughts of addiction, the thoughts of lust or greed or fame or whatever the things that are coming to you that you've tasted, this buffet you've tasted for years, how do you manage that? Well, Lewis, what I do is I don't try and do it alone. I think that's a really beautiful piece of language and a lovely experience you just shared with me mate and the way that like i experienced negative thoughts a lot experience a lot of fear and uh you know like all of the things that you've listed

here's a very practical way that i deal with it i'm like i felt like i was looking at social media too long in particular like you know i'm like when i do youtube videos i feel like i'm justified in checking oh how many views did it get you know and what are the comments but i work with people that can handle that i'm not qualified to handle that sort of stuff because otherwise i get i go into a point where i'm sort of numbed by it like it's not like the people saying nice things really helps me or the people saying bad things really hurts me it's like a sort of a numb dumb stare and so like i sort of you know then someone reached out to me it's like a sort of a numb dumb stare and so like i sort of you know then someone reached out to me it's like famous uh musician she's sort of told me i'm like looking at stuff

too much and i goes all right well from now on right one day at a time me and you whenever we're thinking about doing that let's reach out to each other you know and like so i start doing it with her hey i'm thinking of doing it now and we talk about the feelings that we have and what it elicits in us when we want to do it and what it feels like to not do it you know if you want to know if you're addicted to something see what happens to you when you stop doing it then you will know then you will know i'm not i could stop anytime stop then try it like then oh my god i'm ashamed i'm full of fear and then like similar with pornography if i don't want to look at pornography but you know not judgment on anyone else who does but like for me if I think oh no I don't like how

I feel how it accumulatively makes me feel then I make a choice that I'm going to reach out to someone else who's sometimes it helps specifically with that thing you know like I've done it before with someone like my mate didn't want to like eat no more bad food and i was cool with food at that time so i was like well i don't want to look at porn so if i'm when i want to look at porn i'll check you you with the food you know so we do it like and it's not even that's non-hierarchical by the way we're both sort of people that are just sort of trying it and trying to improve ourselves together i also have mentors that i know evidently you do like they're further down the path than me and like you know for me I tend to use the mentors in it with a broader, you know with a broader strokes

Like you know, this is how I'm feeling about family. This is how I'm feeling about being a man They sound feel about fatherhood work Whatever it is, you know, I check in with them and then you go listen to them Then you already like see if you you know If you have the privilege of access to people like Wim Hof or Tony Robbins And you ask Tony Robbins, what should I Wim Hof or Tony Robbins and you ask Tony Robbins what should I do and then Tony Robbins tells you do it and then like then you're suddenly you've got Tony Robbins his brain then you're running off of that you know now a lot of time what Tony Robbins tells you unachievable okay all you gotta do is become a black ball in world right now tell me something

easier like you know like or like in a sort of like with um you know with wim hof or whatever all these sort of peculiar yogis and genii we've lost sacredness broadly speaking in our culture that's what that book is about how do you reconnect with sacredness after we've sort of decided all those ideas they're old-fashioned they don't really work they're not for me or they've become compromised by their own hypocrisy or dogma or whatever it is you know like you've got like for me it becomes find it everywhere find it everywhere find every conversation what is the sacredness what is the beauty of the person that you are dealing with what is your job in this moment are you taking or are you giving like and i have to legitimately ask myself these questions all the time because and you know are you giving like and i have to legitimately ask myself

these questions all the time because and you know god the only advantage that i have over someone like tony robbins is i think that i'm still in it like you know i talk to tony robbins or eckhart toll or whoever and i think my god these people are like in their own ways transcended masters like so like it's like if you're asking you know sort of uh maradona about football like you know god rest his God rest his soul, he can't tell you what he does. He doesn't know how he does that. No one knows. That's the point of it. But some of us, it's like, look, I'm on every day.

I know, like I think I say in that book, I certainly say it places, Eckhart Tolle, he lives there. He lives in the awakened state, moment to moment, fully present, returned to the present. Like, you know, he's sort of like he says, the second he comes off the stage from talking, that experience is done. That's it. You can never be happy in the conceptual mind. Whenever you're thinking anything, whenever you're comparing or projecting, the conceptual mind will always make you unhappy.

It can't make you happy. You know, like that. And so, but for me, I go to those places, Lewis. I get there, but I come back all the time. I come back for the chocolate. I come back, you know, I feel, oh my God, we're all one. Right, I'm just going to have a bit of chocolate or have a wank. You know, like I can't get out of the mud.

The mud is in me. The monkey mind. Yeah, the monkey mind. I hear you. Two final questions, if that's cool for you. Of course. I want people to get the audio book. If you want to be, first off, you're extremely entertaining and you're wise and you're educational and informative.

So if you want to be all those things at once, then get the book Revelation, Connecting with the Sacred in Everyday Life. revelation, connecting with the sacred in everyday life. If you like the School of Greatness content and you want someone who can share these ideals in an even more funny and entertaining way, then you're going to love this book. And make sure to check out Russell on YouTube, Instagram. I mean, your stuff is really inspiring on all those places. This is a question I ask everyone towards the end, these two final questions. This is called the three truths question. And I'd like you to imagine a hypothetical situation, Russell, where it's your last day on earth many years away. You get to live as long as you want to live and you get to accomplish or be or not do whatever you want to do. But for whatever reason, you got to take all of your written and video work with you. Audio, written, video work,

all your content that you've ever made has to go with you. Movies, this podcast, everything, to the next place, wherever that is. And you only get to leave behind three things you know to be true. Three lessons that you would share with the world. Maybe these would be the lessons you share with your daughters, or maybe this would just be to the world what would you say would be those three truths oh no this is terrible i'm so devastated even by the framing of the question i can't cope anymore um i'd say that you are you know i would say you do not spend your life don't think that you can medicate yourself with anything external whether that's something as obvious or drink or drugs or relationships know that it's

within you it's within you you already have it you're there's nothing to get and you already have it i would say that you you must learn a spiritual practice and you must learn a bodily practice if this that's it if there's only three things, it's you already have everything you need, get a spiritual practice, and have a bodily practice. You know, and I think that that would be enough. And the fact is, isn't it, for all of the discursiveness,

the grandstanding and rambling, life is simple. It's simple, but there's complexity in the variation. But the fact that these universal truths continue to emerge, Lewis, to me, suggests that there is some value in them. The recurrence of archetypes in dreams and mythology suggests that there is a truth in them. So for me, yes, it would be that all myth, all story is allegorical

for the psychic journeys of the self. It's all taking place in the self. This is what's, I think, been misunderstood about, you know, in the sort of critique of fairy tales, say, is that you are, regardless of your sexual gender, you are the king and the queen and the princess and all of those are energy systems within a human being, the collaborative, occasionally competing energy systems

that make up a whole person. So everything is within you, that you get to reform yourself and make yourself and that you need a spiritual practice, i.e. that it's like a set of principles and values and my one, I suppose, I would suggest would be the 12 steps of recovery and make yourself and that you need a spiritual practice, i.e. that it's like a set of principles and values. And my one, I suppose I would suggest, would be the 12 steps of recovery and a bodily practice. So I guess I would say do the 12 steps, do jujitsu,

know that there's nothing to get. Yeah. Before I ask the final question, Russell, I want to acknowledge you for the way you show up. I think someone who's lived the life that you've lived and decided to make a change and decided to heal, decided to stand against addiction in many different areas and then be of service to how you can help as many people as possible through showing up in your work, your writing, your teachings. I acknowledge you for that shift

because I think it's easy to stay stuck in a pattern that feels good momentarily, but you continue to show up and be a stand against addiction and in service to other people. And I think that's a beautiful gift that you have. So I really acknowledge you for all you're doing right now. I hope we can have you come back on in the future and talk about many other topics that I didn't even get to scratch the surface on. So I acknowledge you for that. Thank you. Of course.

Is there anything else that we can do to support you besides getting the book and checking out YouTube and supporting you on these places, your podcast, which are amazing? Anything else we can support you before I ask the final question? Yeah, Luminary. My podcast is on Luminary. I do the final question. Yeah, Luminary. My podcast is on Luminary. I do two on there. There's Under the Skin, where I have amazing conversations

with some of the people that we've spoken about, Wim Hof, Tony, but also Jordan Peterson, Edward Snowden, Marianne Williamson. I have deep, mad chats on there. And also now Above the Noise, my weekly guided guided meditation podcast that is my monetized platform it's like 2.99 a month if you get it like annually the youtube stuff i do is obviously free that that platform is uh that's good stuff it's important to me um

but also if people can't afford it there's free stuff on youtube for sure we'll make sure to link all that stuff up and make sure you support Russell because his stuff is very inspiring and insightful. And he's just a funny guy. You know, if you can learn and laugh at the same time, I think that's a powerful thing. That's spirituality right there. Final question for you is what's your definition of greatness? Greatness, become you, become you. Don't become the obstacles. Don't become the obstacles.

Don't allow the obstacles to define you. The obstacles can be in and out. The obstacles can be your own desire, lust, fear. The obstacles can be a culture that needs you to be commodified, that needs you to be a consumer. Become you, become who you are. Greatness can't be judged by any external metric although that is where it can be most vivid we know what a great athlete looks like we know what a great singer looks like i suppose the glory of sport is that it eliminates a lot of subjectivity either you

score the goal or you don't either you beat the time or you don't. Either you beat the time or you don't. Art, dance, singing, acting, you know, we all have our favourites. But when it comes to personal greatness, become who you are. When you were talking, Lewis, about the sort of frustration around not learning the Spanish, it's like because you're not becoming who you are. There's something in you saying, learn Spanish, learn Spanish. And you're going, no, I haven't've got time i'm not going to do it you know like so but like you know but we have to be rigorous with ourselves make sure that we've not got sort of we're not got uh barnacles of conditioning clinging to the hull of who we really are we have to actualize self-actualize and

in a sense we're all going to arrive at the same place we have to be a channel of the peace and of the light we have to be of service we accept our flaws and fallibility if the entrance price is perfection then none of us can pay it but greatness truly understood and truly achieved is to actualize what it who it is that you were supposed to be that there is a teleology that there is a purpose that there we understand with a tree we would never query that a tree is going to grow into itself if it gets the right soil and the right watering like the actualize yourself as we can identify that in dna and in the fingerprints there is uniqueness actualize that uniqueness recognize where the obstacles are.

Find mentors that can guide you past those obstacles. Have a program that's not based just on the actualization of your individualization in a disconnected and remote way. No point achieving enlightenment on a mountain top and no one gets fed or clothed. Do it in service. Do it in service of a higher thing. This is greatness, I think, to become this thing. Russell, appreciate your time. Thank you so much for being here, man.

Thank you. Thank you. That was so lovely. Thank you. A lovely conversation. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, do me a favor and share this with a couple of friends right now.

You can copy and paste the link wherever you're listening to this episode or use the link lewishouse.com slash 1109. Text a few friends posted on social media, make sure to tag Russell Brand and myself as well over on Instagram on your stories while you're listening. And and again, if this is your first time here, click the subscribe button on Apple podcast or Spotify right now and leave us a review with the part you enjoyed the most from this episode. We'd love to read those reviews and we share them in our weekly greatness newsletter as well to our audience. And if you want to be inspired every week with text messages sent to your phone from me to keep you motivated and on track with your goals every week, then text the word podcast to 614-350-3960 right now. And I want to leave you with this quote from Maya Angelou, who said,

be present in all things and thankful for all things. And no matter what you're going through right now, whether you're having a season of abundance or a season of a drought in your life, or maybe you're struggling in one area, your health, your relationships, or maybe something is really thriving, no matter what's going on, be present and grateful in it all. Everything is teaching us a lesson and it's our opportunity and it's our obligation to learn what that lesson is, to apply it in the moment, continue to grow and improve our life, to be good to the people around us and make the biggest impact that we can. I'm so grateful for you. And if no one's told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And you know what

time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.