The School of Greatness - The $0 to $1M Blueprint | Lewis Howes

Episode Date: March 11, 2026

Lewis opens with a truth most people avoid: you will never make the money you want until you believe you deserve it. Through his own journey from couch-surfing ex-football player to eight-figure media entrepreneur, he walks through the five steps that transformed not just his income but his entire relationship with money. The painful part most people skip is not the strategy, it is the internal work of recognizing your own value when everything around you tells you that you have none. Lewis also tackles the "work harder" myth head-on, explaining why grinding alone will never get you to the next level and what wealthy people actually do differently. Whether you are just starting out or you have hit a plateau you cannot seem to break through, this episode gives you a concrete, actionable path forward. Make Money Easy: Create Financial Freedom and Live a Richer Life The Greatness Mindset: Unlock the Power of Your Mind and Live Your Best Life Today The Mask of Masculinity: How Men Can Embrace Vulnerability, Create Strong Relationships, and Live Their Fullest Lives The School of Greatness: A Real-World Guide to Living Bigger, Loving Deeper, and Leaving a Legacy In this episode you will: Hear Lewis's exact 30-day game plan for going from zero to $1 million using only skills and relationships Discover how to identify the skills and strengths you already have that you are overlooking right now Learn the "What's the Chance?" framework that rewires how boldly you ask for what you want Understand why your financial thermostat is capping your income and how to raise it Build a personal brand and packaging strategy that makes your value visible to the world For more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1900 For more Greatness text PODCAST to [phone] More SOG episodes we think you’ll love: Brendon Burchard Vivian Tu Daniel Priestley Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy!Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

If you're looking to make more money in your life, there is one core belief that you need to shift in order to create that abundance for yourself. Because people only value you as much as you value yourself. And until you change your mindset around money and around your own personal value, you're never going to make the money you truly want and you're never going to feel free with the money you actually have. So today I'm here with a member of Team Greatness who's going to be asking some questions that you've asked me personally online to help you figure out how to go from zero to a million and really how to set yourself up for financial success. So what is some of the questions that we're hearing that you'd like to share? So can you talk about how people can really recognize

their value? Yeah, I think it's first like you have to, you know, if you're just chasing a career of you're chasing money and you don't believe that you have value within you, you're not going to have the confidence. So if you're going into an interview or if you're trying to sell something and you don't believe that you're valuable or that you've created a certain amount of skill sets or that you have worth, then it's going to be hard to get someone to give you money. It's going to be harder to sell something because you internally don't believe that you're deserving of it.

So I think we need to do a couple of things is do a skill assessment with yourself first. When I was starting out, I didn't think I had to do a couple of things. any value to give anyone because I was a football player. I struggled in school. And I didn't really study for the real world in school. So I didn't develop skills. The only skill that I really had was typing. That was kind of like a skill set. I took one class that I really focused on because I thought maybe I need to learn this skill. So I can actually type really fast. But I was like, how am I going to make money with typing? And I didn't think I had any other skills that would actually be valuable in the marketplace.

But what I started to do, someone told me this earlier on this, they said, create a list of all your skills. Even if you don't think you have anything worth value. And I just started writing down stuff like, I'm a good person. I said, you know, I'm good with people. I like asking questions.

You know, I'm courageous. I can try stuff and fail. But none of these things made sense to me of how they would make money. But it's everything. thing I'm doing now with the school of greatness. Like I ask questions and that's how I make money. Like I try new things and I make mistakes and I'm good with people. But that, I just didn't see that there was value there because I saw all of my limitations. I saw all the things that I struggled in. Struggled in school. You know, I couldn't keep a job in school, whatever it might be. So I looked at all

the things that I struggled with and I put emphasis on the lack of value rather than these kind of invisible valuable skills that I had, that I eventually learned how to make them more into money. And so I think first creating an assessment, and if you still, at the end of the day, can't think of anything that you find valuable about yourself, I would ask the people closest to you. I would ask your friends or your partner or a family member and say, hey, I'm struggling with figuring out where I'm at value. where do you think my skill sets lie?

You know, what am I good at? What am I talented at? What would you come to me for advice for? And I think if you can self-assess and also get an assessment from the people around you, you're going to start to say, okay, here's some of my value. Now, you have to also figure out how to turn that value into money eventually. How do we make money from our value? Again, I didn't know the School of Greatness was going to come from being curious,

not having the answers to anything and being good with people. I didn't know I could build an eight-figure media business around that. And so I think it was being okay in the first step with not knowing how you're going to make money and first collecting the skills, the knowledge that you have first and being aware of your talents first.

That's the first key. It's just being aware of the value you already have. Can you explain the cross-section? of skills and passion? If you can do something that you are or have value and really enjoy, then I think you've like won the lottery. I think it's like the best thing ever. It still doesn't mean, you know,

I love doing what I do, but I still have challenging days. I still have hard work to do. I still have work that I don't like doing. I still have things that I need to take on that maybe aren't the most fun and joyful moments. But because I'm excited about the mission that we have, I'm willing to do whatever it takes.

So if you can have both the things you're passionate about and excited about or be in that space that excites you and be around people that are good people. Because you could also be working on something, but have people around you that are draining your energy and it not be fun or enjoyable anymore. So it's like you want to be around the people that are fun or enjoyable to be around. You want to be working on something that is enjoyable for you. And using your skills and talents to making money, I think that's kind of like the jackpot. but you know we're all human beings so we have flaws and we have good days and bad days and so you just have to navigate life that way um but that's really the the sweet spot but there were many times where i had jobs early on before i kind of got into this space i was a truck driver and it wasn't

like this thing i was passionate about i was driving a truck six hours a day and i was making two $450 a week driving six hours a day. So I wasn't making a lot of money. It wasn't a skill that I was excited about to use. I wasn't around people or asking questions. And I think sometimes we need to be willing to try certain things also that we don't like to realize like, okay, I tried that. I don't want to do that. But at that time, I just needed to make money. I needed a way to make money. and that was a season of life where I was making money as a bouncer at a nightclub on the weekends. Even though I don't drink alcohol and never drank, that was the job that was available. The truck driver job was the job that was available.

You know, the odd jobs that I would do is like, whatever was available for me to make money, I still had to go make money. That's maybe the least desirable thing is just being completely broken, having no job, no opportunity. The second least desirable thing is making money doing something, that you hate. And we want to work our way up to like, okay, how do we find a job where it's like we can use our skill sets, our talents? We can also grow as individuals and develop skills while making money. We can be around people that are hopefully good people overall, maybe not perfect, but hopefully good overall, a good environment, and then doing something that we are inspired by

with a bigger mission behind it as well. And I think if we can find that eventually, and it may take time, that that's the sweet spot. What's the next step after identifying your value? You want to be thinking about the skills that can make you more money. And again, in the beginning, I had an assessment of my skills, but I didn't know how to monetize them. And I thought I really needed to learn how to develop different skills where I could maximize the original skills I had.

Good with people, curious, courageous. willing to fail, like those skills I had, but I needed some other skills to marry them with, to partner them with that could actually help me make money. So early on, I read a book called The Four Hour Work Week, and it was teaching a lot about how to build an online business. This was in 2008 and 2009 when I read this. It was actually Christmas of 2007, but I started kind of researching more in 2008, 2009. At that time, I was learning from a lot of these thoughtlies.

about copywriting. They were like, if you want to sell, if you want to make money, you need to be able to sell. And you can sell through the spoken word or the written word. And at the time, I didn't know how to do either.

I could type, but I didn't know how to communicate, right? All I did was ask questions. I didn't know how to sell myself. And so I was, I was afraid to speak in public still. I had courage to try things, but that's something that held me back.

And so there were two things I did. I started studying copywriting like a maniac. I started reading copywriting blogs, teaching about headlines, teaching about hooks, intros, you know, but more from a marketing standpoint, not from school, you know, five page essay structure standpoint. Like, how do you persuade someone to buy? And that became a fascination of mind, is learning persuasion, reading the book influenced by Robert Chaldeenie and reading all these books and blogs about copyrighting and persuasion gave me skills by practicing it.

I was writing then almost weekly newsletters, blogs. I was creating landing pages for webinars. I was trying all these things to see what would work. And through that repetition and through the study of copywriting, that became a superpower of, of mine, you know, building an email list, getting people to buy products and courses and coaching from me, getting them buy books, whatever it might be. And so I learned that you don't have to be good on camera to make money, but you do need

to learn to develop these other skills. So that was one skill was the written word. Then I also realized that a big fear of mine was speaking in front of other people. And I didn't want that to hold me back anymore. So I started going to Toastmasters every single week for a year to learn public. speaking, and this gave me more skills, more tools that increased my value, right? So I had original value based on assessment and what other people told me. Then I saw where I was deficient in my skills that if I really want to make money, I need to grow and expand my value. So copywriting was one thing,

just consuming more knowledge. So I had knowledge and information was another. Learning how to do public speaking was another. Then I started creating webinars and doing online presentations, the more confidence I got, I started doing these weekly webinars teaching what I was learning. So it was just like practice rep, practice rep. Let me see what's working. Are people responding to this? And those practice reps gave me more confidence based on the feedback I was getting, right? People were like, wow, that was really helpful. You know, do you have any more information? I was like, yes, I do. So it was, okay, let me learn, develop new skills. Let me practice. And now I'm expanding and growing my value internally and externally.

And I was building an audience in that process. And another skill that I was expanding on was just learning the value of building a personal brand, making content, doing photography, doing videos, you know, doing social media back in 2009. It was kind of the early days of personal branding on the internet. And it was something I was leaning into, even though I didn't know what I was doing. But all these things, it's like marrying the innate skills that I had with developing money-making skills and then fusing them together and saying,

okay, now how can I really make money? And that's where the school of greatness eventually was born from was like, okay, I had years of these reps from learning these new skills. And now let me launch this show as well. And I was already making millions doing online courses, coaching membership sites, events, books, retreats, all these different things. before the school of greatness through these reputations, the repetitions of building and growing my value. And I think that's a lot of times people are so afraid to try something new or they'll just learn a skill, but they won't apply the skill because they don't want to fail.

And so you hear this all the time from people saying, you know, I've had a dream of writing a book for 10 years, but I have just been waiting for the right moment. or they've always wanted to launch a podcast, but they haven't done it yet. But they've been thinking about it for years. What does what are the chances actually mean? I heard this at a mastermind early on. I think it was 2009 or 2010.

One of my first masterminds I went to, a guy named Paul Evans said this. He said, these three words will change your life. What's the chance? And then he was giving these examples. And I was like, huh, I'm just going to start trying this. And I guess it's been 17 years now since that. I heard that. And I've used those three words, what's the chance? I don't know, thousands of times over the last 17 years because it works. And you can use it with yourself. You can use it with others. I did it as a game and an experiment early on just at like, if I was going to a coffee shop, I would just say, what's the chance? You can give me this for free. I was just like, what are they going to say? Maybe they say no. Maybe they laugh and say no way. But what's the chance? they'll give me this coffee for free, this $5 coffee for free.

And sometimes people would. Or I would just say, okay, what's the chance you give this to me for free? And they wouldn't. And then say, what's the chance you can give me 20% off? Come on. Really? You can't give me 20% off the store discount? I know you have that employee discount.

Can you give it to me? What's the chance? Can you just break the rules a little bit today? And almost every time people are like, yeah, I'll give you 10% off. Like people have the power to do so much more for you than you think if you're willing to risk looking a little silly or embarrassing yourself or people saying no and I think it's just the willingness to be audacious enough to ask for things that most people are afraid to ask for. And I don't look at it as like a bad thing. I look at it

as and listen, I can afford you paying for my own coffee. That's not what it's about. It's about developing the skill of feeling uncomfortable asking for something that most people never asked for. Because when you can do that with a $5 thing, and then you're asking someone for $50,000, and you're building up to that, or you're asking for a 20% raise or you're, whatever it is, it's like you're developing an inner value, you're expanding that value inside of you and externally through results

and you're showing your value to the world. Again, whether that's in a career, whether that's to your audience online, if you're building an audience and selling a product, it doesn't matter where it is. We need to expand our value. And you can expand your value through skill sets, results, and the perceived value that you have of others,

which is your personal brand or how people perceive you around you. It's what they think about you based on the results you're getting. And if they see you're getting results for other people, they say, wow, Lewis is, he's coaches a lot of top entrepreneurs and he helps them get clear on their mindset and get a, exponential results in their business, huh, maybe I should sign up for his mastermind, his coaching, maybe I should get his book, maybe I should listen to his show. It's the perception. You know, hopefully real perception, you don't want to lie to people because if you have fake

results and you're perceiving that, you're going to get found out. But if you have real case studies, real results for people you've worked with or people, you've had a product and people have gotten results there, then those testimonials become a perceived value as well. They become, your brand, what people say about you when you're not around. And all of that plays into developing skills, knowing your value, and expanding your value. Are there ways outside of buying courses to grow? It's not about buying courses. I think whatever, you know, I've invested in a lot of money into individual coaches, courses, softwares, but also, you know, I've invested in a lot of money into individual coaches, but also just kind of like experiences where it takes time to learn.

You know, I'm investing in, I'm not spending a lot in learning Spanish right now. That's 100 bucks for Duolingo or something. I don't know, a year. I don't even know what it is. It's not a lot of money, but it's a time investment. And the time investment in public speaking,

you can't fake the reps. I showed up every single week in front of an audience and humiliated myself. It's time investment. it's embarrassment investment. It's like the emotional pain that you feel from not being good at something, being a beginner, and trying something new.

It's not enjoyable to suck at something. And this is why a lot of people don't develop a skill because they're not good at it. But that's how you make more money or that's how you add more value and expand your value by developing skills. You develop skills in a relationship. if you learn how to navigate your emotions and consciously communicate, that relationship will expand.

There will be more love, more joy. It'll feel like there's a depth to the quality of the relationship rather than a surface level because you have expanded your value, your skill set about how you communicate. And I just, I don't think we can put a price on how much we should be spending either financial, or time in developing skills that bring abundance to our life. And it doesn't need to be around making money. Specifically, I know this is about making money. But it should be about creating a richness of life.

And with relationships, you know, I'm investing in my health. I'm investing in my relationships. I'm investing in coaching. I'm investing in courses. I'm investing in retreats, all these things. Because it's only going to help me for the future by developing more skill sets. And I think it's based on the season you're at right now.

You know, if you're just starting out, the skills, you may not have a lot of money to invest in things, but you have time to invest. And you can spend 50 bucks a year to do Toastmasters or you can go through free courses online and invest your time in getting reps and practicing. But the more skills you develop that help you make money, the easier it will be to make money. What else could be holding people back from financial freedom? Based on our mindset and our belief system, we get comfortable with the amount of money we believe we deserve making. So it's like a thermostat, you know, we get comfortable.

It's 68, 69 degrees in here. For me, it's comfortable. If it was three degrees less, it would be too cold. If it was two or three degrees more, it would be uncomfortable. this is a comfortable setting for me in this stage, right? And when people are just getting started out, making money, if they're making $10 an hour, and that's all they're used to, they're comfortable.

They may not enjoy it, but it's a comfort level. It's what their mind believes they're supposed to make. Unless they believe they're supposed to make more, then you need to figure out, okay, do I have skills and inner belief that I deserve to make more, is my comfort level up here or where it's at now? And if I'm not developing confidence, if I'm not developing skills or shifting the belief

that I am deserving of more, and if I can't showcase that to the people around me or find people that believe in that value, that want to invest in that value, then I'm going to stay where I'm at. So for example, at this season of my life, I'm investing in, you know, I've brought in a money, a family office, which is essentially a team of money experts to help me continue to elevate to the next level of financial abundance. I've made a lot of money over the last 20 years in business.

And at the beginning, I was trying to figure out how to do it all myself. Then I've had different financial advisors over the years to help me. but it's I've kind of grown at a certain level of comfort now there's a lot that I don't know at this level there's a lot of tax planning and estate planning and strategies and insurances which I've done it all on some level but there's a whole other level of the financial wealth that I have that I don't understand and it's not comfortable it's a little uncomfortable it's a little like I don't sound like I know what I'm talking about when I speak about this maybe I'll just stay my comfort zone and I won't do it. Gosh, what if I lose this money? What if this investment?

I made a mistake here and I lost money. Like, I don't want people to know this. It's a comfort level around what is known instead of speaking into the unknown. And we all have that, whether you're starting in your career, you're not sure of what you're supposed to be able to get. You try to ask for something, but then people say no. Then you have to prove your value and then you can get more money. It's like a process of growing and believing what is possible. So for me, you know, I'm at a stage where it's like, okay, I'm married now. There's a new level of money conversations that they've had when you're merging money with someone else and their belief system. So how do we navigate this together? How do we get to the next levels together with our financial goals? All these different

things. It's an uncomfortable new level, which I know that's where the greatest growth comes because it means I have to learn new skills to be able to push my comfort level to a new place instead of, this is what is known, so it's comfortable here. And I love that the AC just kicked on. So it makes it a little bit colder, right? So it's like, okay, I have to increase my temperature, uh, comfort level inside of me to feel okay at a different temperature, to feel comfortable, peaceful, okay. And it's developing these skills, expanding the value inside of me,

expanding my knowledge base, having conversations that I don't understand so that I can start to understand them better. And in that process, my financial abundance will continue to grow faster than at the level that I've been currently at. And so there's not a right or wrong, good or bad way of doing this.

It's just thinking, is my mindset and my belief around money supporting and the value that I believe I have with myself and the skills I have around money supporting the goals that I want to have around money as well of making the amount of money what I have. And like I said in the intro, do I feel peace with the money that I have? And you can feel peaceful with very little money and you can feel extremely stressed out with very little money. You can feel peaceful with a lot of money and you can feel extremely stressed out with a lot of money as well. In fact, most people I know with a lot of money have a lot more stress.

And it's learning how to have peace at all levels. That's where we talk about and make money easy. How do we have a relationship with the money we have currently that is harmonious so that as it expands and grows, it stays harmonious. Because having lots of money, but being. Being suicidal is not the solution. It's creating financial freedom and abundance inside of us so that the money is a new tool to serve us and impact our lives in a beautiful way.

And I think that's where we need to get to. And I think scarcity can come, even when you have money, you can still feel scarce because you don't know the next level. Yeah. And so it's, you have to constantly overcome that scarcity mindset, even if you've created more financial abundance for yourself. How do you package your value? I had a mentorship early on.

I was working for a guy named Chris Hawker, and he's an inventor, and he had a lot of different inventions. And I was working in his kitchen closet, because that's the only space they had. So people were coming in and out of the kitchen, and I was in the closet, and they'd come right behind me. And I was working there like three days a week, and I learned all these different skills.

I was working for free for about six months. And one of these skills was around packaging and design of literal physical projects. And he was like, I have this idea for an invention. How do we package and brand this? And I learned from his graphic designer and from his team of marketers of like how they packaged and designed products that if you walked in front of a shelf, you walked by it, what would make you stop and look at it? And I just started, it was a new skill that I hadn't learned. So I had to learn this idea of packaging and presenting an idea. And you can do this through the spoken word, through the written word, through images, through video.

It's all through book covers. All these things are packaging of ideas. How you present yourself, what I'm wearing right now is a packaging of an idea. I could be wearing a T-shirt instead, which would have a different present. presentation and packaging. But I decided to wear this essentially black button-up shirt daily almost because of consistency of content to make it more evergreen, to be presentable at some level, but not in a suit because that's not the style of packaging I'm looking for at this moment. But if I was in a suit right now, it would have a different presentation. You would perceive me

differently. Now, if I was talking out of my ass constantly, but I was wearing a suit, you might be like, Hmm, he's trying to look a certain way, but the words don't match the packaging. So I don't believe him. I don't trust him. He seems a little like untrustworthy. Something is off about that guy, right? And we've all seen those guys or gals in suits that maybe say something. You're like, hmm, that doesn't sound right.

Something seems a little fishy. It's when the packaging like doesn't match the actual substance of the messaging or the product. The product could be the person wearing the clothes. is the packaging representing the product. And, you know, when I'm thinking about a book, a book is just words, but each chapter has a structure, has a packaging to present an idea of a concept of the words. The storytelling is the packaging as well.

The cover, the design, everything is very specific on how we design things for people to see it on a screen and also on stores. So we want them to see it. We want to know it's different, it's unique. There's a packaging of uniqueness. The school of greatness design is a packaging. It's a specific design for a reason. Make money easy is a different packaging as well.

And there's there's all these different things that we should be thinking about when we are putting messages out there online or in person, specifically our self as a product is our packaging. And it all matters. And so for me, your personal brand is your packaging. What you post online is your packaging and how you present your ideas. How we edit our videos is a style of presenting our product. It's our packaging so that people know when they're watching the School of Greatness or listening,

they're going to get something they know of value based on how we put it out there. And a lot of people don't think about their own themselves of the product as a packaging, as a presentation. And they get sloppy with it. I'm not saying you're going to be perfect every day on what you do and say. And it's like you don't have to be uptight constantly. But I think we should be aware of how we present ourselves to the world. And you can always upgrade your packaging or your presentation or through developing more skills.

How do you remain consistent with your brand as you evolve? You know, for me, when I, when I got into this kind of online world, 2007, 2008, 2009, when I was studying and learning it and getting into it, I was a former professional athlete. I was packaging and presenting myself as this former professional athlete, because that's all I had. It was like, okay, I just finished school and I was playing arena football trying to go to the NFL and it didn't work. So I was presenting that story as a packaging. Then I started to learn LinkedIn as a tool to try to find job opportunities. But that tool led into people saying, Lewis, can you teach me how you've learned how to use LinkedIn for my business?

Because I had built a massive audience on LinkedIn. I started hosting events through using LinkedIn in person. I was getting 500 people to show up to these events. And people are like, how are you doing this? And so people started paying me. to coach them how to use LinkedIn. I didn't even know I could make money doing that. Then I was like, oh, let me package brand myself as a LinkedIn expert.

I did that for many years. But then I wanted to upgrade my personal brand. I didn't want to be known as that anymore. So what had happened is I started doing speaking every single week on webinars, teaching LinkedIn, because everyone was asking me to present to their audiences. So I was doing that consistently. And I said, oh, I don't want to do this anymore, but everyone's asking me how I'm selling so much online and how I'm using webinars and how I'm using presentation skills. And these are skills that I was developing for years from postmasters, from copywriting, from online marketing, anyways, things.

So then I started to rebrand myself as a online webinar expert because people were asking me for that information. So I saw a new level from LinkedIn to webinars. Then people said, hey, can you just teach me more about all the marketing you're doing with social media and all the online marketing or stuff you're doing? So it became LinkedIn, webinars, social media, but then just online marketing in general. So I started positioning and packaging my personal brand to a new level, a new thermostat, something that was more uncomfortable. but I had to go beyond my current comfort zone. Then after years of doing that, I built a multi-seven figure business doing that

and got a lot of opportunities from speaking on stages, et cetera, from that personal brand. But I was like, I don't want to be known as the webinar guy. It's not what I want to be known as. And it's not something that it's a season right now where I'm good at it. I have a skill set and I can make a lot of money. But is it really like my mission moving forward?

And we don't always have, the luxury of saying, I'm going to go for my mission, but I had been really good at saving almost all my money. So I was like, I have the luxury now that I've worked really hard for about five, six years to make money, saved it. So I have a few years of a runway. Like, I'm single. I don't have responsibilities. No kids yet, not married. If I wanted to do anything, what would it be? Then the school of greatness came to me. And that was over 13 years ago now. And I was like, I think I just want to go back to my original skills of being curious and asking questions with people that inspire me and see if I can make money in the future.

But it was like, all right, I just want to do this for one year and see how this works. This is really what I want to do. And I tried something. It may, it could have failed. It could have been like not worked. And then I would have tried something else. But it worked. And so I kept doing it.

And I developed skills to continue to grow it. And that has led me into a new. personal brand, a new packaging of, you know, launching the school of greatness and being that guy. In over 13 years, that personal brand has evolved within that space, right? From then writing your time bestselling books, speaking, doing bigger masterminds, all these things that allowed me to expand it within this space. And so I'm always looking to upgrade my personal brand. It doesn't matter if I'm doing the same thing or doing something new.

how can I elevate it with where I'm at? I mean, I was doing it on my iPhone. I was like putting down my iPhone and recording audio, just sitting next to someone. Then I had just a couple of mics on a table like this in my kitchen for about eight months. And it's funny because Sean Johnson, the Olympic gold medalist in gymnastics, she texted me recently about a book that she's launching. And she goes, I still remember when I was, when I did an interview of you in your apartment

I had a studio apartment in your kitchen, right? And just me and Sean Johnson in my kitchen table with little headsets, had I stayed at that level of packaging without scaling and upgrading it, it wouldn't be as successful as today. You know, from a kitchen table or an iPhone to we have, what, five or six cameras in here that have all upgraded over 13 years. This was not after year one. It was like, okay, year zero through three was a certain packaging.

Then it continued to, I continues to invest in team and equipment and processes in my own health, in my own skills over the last 13 years to scale this. And I, and you scale it also through thinking of two things, you know, your, product and your distribution. If you're a personal brand, you are the product. And you have to figure out how do I reach audiences? How do I get distribution? If your book is the product, you need to be thinking about how do I write a better book? How do we make the book the best book possible, the product, improving it, then how do I get more distribution? Okay, we're in a digital world. Distribution is podcast, getting on press, being on TV, getting in newsletters,

blogs, getting in retail stores, and thinking of all the levers of distribution that you can scale your personal brand or your products or services and eventually scale your money. And I think that's what you need to be thinking about. How can I scale my product? Whatever it is, if it's you are the message, if it's your books, if it's your content, if it's a service, a course, a ticket to an event, your music, your art, whatever you're selling, that's your product. You need to make it better constantly to add more value to people

and then you need distribution channels. What are those distribution channels? Who are the people that you need to learn how to collaborate with that have audiences, that have distribution, that you can either sell or market your product to? And that is a process of developing relationships. You need to learn the skill or the art of being a good human being and reaching out to people and also

adding value to other people and saying, hey, how can I help you? And also saying, hey, what's the chance that you would have me on your show and talk about my product? What's the chance you'll promote my book? What's the chance you'll put this out there to your audience? And it's a, it's a skill in an art of, which is hard to do to improve your personal self, to improve your product and improve distribution. But that's how you scale your money. And if you're working for someone, then you have to say, how can I continue to learn more skills to be more valuable at the company on that?

It doesn't matter if you're here at the School of Greatness or you're working for Amazon or Google. You need to say, how can I make myself a better product and add more value to this mission or to the team that I'm working with so that I can make more money. And if I make the company more money, then I can show my value. I can scale my value and bring in more money for myself. So it doesn't matter if you're working at a company or you're working for yourself. Either way, it's hard.

And you have to figure out how to develop your value, show that value, that perceived value, scale that value, and then capture that value. Do you need to work harder to earn more money? I hear a lot of people say this, too, like, really rich people don't work hard or something like that. I just feel like 99% of people who have generated a lot of money work extremely hard. Now, with that said, they have learned a skill set where they have learned how to expand their plate of what is on their plate and to be able to navigate and delegate and choose wisely what is the most important things to work on in the moment.

to scale their sales, their audience growth, their team, their distribution, um, and build their wealth. And so in some ways, like when I was starting out, I felt like I worked so hard to the point where I was not sleeping well because I was up all night just constantly working. But it doesn't mean that was smart just because I was working hard and I was getting results. I was limited to how much I was able to generate in revenue based on how, how hard I was working. So working harder wasn't going to make me more money,

maybe a little bit, but it was burning me out emotionally, physically. You know, I'd gained a ton of weight. They started calling me fat Lewis. Like I used to be like, they called me fluis for fat Lewis. They did.

I had like, that was like the Michelin man. You know, I was like fat Lewis. And, you know, my wife was like, she'll see photos of me from 15 years ago.

She goes, you look way younger and healthier now. Then when I, I was 15 years younger. And it's because I was up till 3, 4 a.m. Just like, I need to grind. I need to work hard. I need to work harder.

And that got a certain type of results, but it didn't give me emotional peace or freedom or harmony. And when you're launching something or developing a new skill, there's got to be friction. There's going to be seasons where you're working harder to build something and to launch with momentum. A rocket doesn't take off without a lot of force pushing down so that it can actually launch.

Then once it's finally in the atmosphere, it starts to cruise and it doesn't have to work as hard. When you're launching anything, it takes a lot of effort, a lot of a thought process, people supporting the launch of something happening. And then it's figuring out how do we continue to build systems to scale and grow the thing we're launching. But I feel like really wealthy people that have figured out how to have harmony with their wealth and not overwork and over stress, they figured out how to have a problem. bigger plate. Like, I feel pretty at peace. And I have way more going on than I did 15 years ago. Right. I, and I just had, I just bought a handball team while in the same couple of weeks having

twin girls while having this team here, while just getting married, launching a book, doing a book tour, having family in town over the holidays, navigating so many different things. happening my wife in and out of the hospital, trying to keep a business going, renegotiating a new podcast deal, like all these things on my plate that would have probably crippled me 10 years ago while trying to train, while pursuing the Olympic dream, while doing all these things like I'm just able to have a bigger plate and it not overwhelm me as much. And I'm able to have a plate that everything got to fit on, as opposed to a smaller plate

where all this stuff is trying to piling on top of it and just you can't even see the plate. Now my plate is so much bigger that all these things can be on there and I can still see space in between them. I can still see them all. And I can move things forward that are the most,

the highest level of priority each day with my time. And I have different levers I can pull and I can empower different people to get certain things done at this scale. So I think it's learning how to, but people might think I'm working harder in some ways I'm just working differently.

You know, I'm thinking strategically in a different way. And I'm developing the skill set of not doing everything myself, which is what I used to do, and empowering others in training and teaching others to do certain things so that we can scale all of it. And that's a hard thing to do. When you start out, you do everything yourself. Unless you've been taught how to just delegate everything.

Like, I was never taught that. So you have to learn leadership, which is how you scale anything. You develop the skill of leadership within yourself. You create boundaries. You have tough conversations with people. You say no to certain people. And you stop people pleasing everyone. And I think you stop trying to get everyone to like you and instead to have everyone see you as someone who's a credible leader.

And they may not like you. It doesn't mean you have to be a negative bad person for them to not like you. But it's about developing leadership skills within yourself. At what point can you consider yourself financially free? The number is different for everyone, I think. My level of financial freedom 15 years ago, 17 years ago, I was just like, man, if I could man, if I could man, if I could man, make five to $10,000 a month. Like I am rich. It was like, I am like beyond rich is what I thought, you know?

In my first time I made $6,200 in an hour webinar. Before that, the most I'd made was like $3,000 in a month, like hustling, like working so hard, running events around the country, doing this LinkedIn stuff. And then in one hour, I made $6,200 in 2009. and I was like, this is unbelievable. I was like, I'm the richest man in the world. I'd never seen or had that much money in my account ever. I think like, you know, I was just like, this is unbelievable.

I was like, I could do this every single week. And if I can make $6,200 every week, holy cow, my life is forever changed. That's why I started to do. But it started making a lot more than that. And that's why I saved a lot of my money because I didn't need it at that time. I was like, I don't want to be broke again, so let me just save this for a while. But I lived in an apartment that was $495 a month for almost a year and a half. And I was fine.

I had no car and I was fine. And I lived well below my means. And I was a happy human being. Now, I was thinking about my future in terms of I want to keep making more so that my future is set up. but at this season of life of anyone watching as parents or as kids and their parents you know the expenses the uh the just the just the cost of having kids is just it's just I'm like where's this money going it's just going to everything every day it feels like and so the level that I'm at now with investing in a lifestyle of buying a home of having

different expenses there's a there's a comfort level that I would need now that is way different that 15 years ago. Being married, having kids, having other priorities, having a team. It's like, I need a lot more to cover everything to feel comfortable. So I'm in a new level of like a thermostat of comfort level. And if it starts to drop below that in my, my monthly revenue in the business, I feel uncomfortable. I'm like, ooh, I don't like this feeling. And so it's learning the skill set of things being able to go higher and lower without it, hurting you. How would you make $1 million in 30 days from scratch? Even if I had no audience, let's say, if I had no social media, like social media was gone, podcast was gone. Yes.

And no money was coming in. And I had to make a million dollars in 30 days. I actually feel I could be easier than it is right now to do that. Because I would have no. nothing to lose. Like, I've already, everything's gone. And so, and if I had 30 days, I would have such a timeline. And I would say, if you have to make a million dollars in 30 days, I would have a timeline. And I wouldn't have a lot of distractions. I wouldn't have all my responsibilities that I have to do or get to do on a weekly basis, because it would all be gone. And I would literally call people one by one, the wealthiest people I know first, and say, will you hire me for a million dollars? That's what I would start.

with. I would say, I will coach you for the next year for a million dollars. And I would create a package for them, whether it's a weekly coaching, whether it's some type of mindset, health, relationship training, whatever it might be. I would create a $1 million offer. And I'd probably just call 100 people and I'd make the offer. I'd create a one page presentation. And I would, I'd probably create a survey to them and say, where's your biggest pain? Where's your biggest struggle? Where's the thing that you're struggling with the most in your life or in your business? And what is your biggest goal? What do you want to accomplish? I would survey them in some way and I would get the intel and I'd say, okay, how do I make a million dollar offer

and sell it to one person? And if that, if I didn't see that I was getting traction, then I would say, okay, how do I get 10 people to pay me $100,000? And I was like, and I'd create my own mastermind. and say, I'm going to bring together 10 of the wealthiest people in the world who struggle with this other stuff. Or maybe they don't have the freedom emotionally or the abundance or the relationships or they've lost to spark. Like the money has numbed them. And I want to get them back into being of service to humanity. I just funny, I just had a conversation with a doctor who came out to me at the gym three days ago. who he's a famous surgeon in Beverly Hills,

you know, works with all the biggest celebrities and all, you know, helps a lot of people. And he came up to me about six months ago, maybe, and I just saw him again a few days ago. And he came up to me six months ago,

he goes, you know, I've made so much money. You know, it's like, you know, he's a very specialized surgeon. So he makes a lot of money with his, specialty. So he has developed a skill set that very few people can do. He gets people results

that are very hard to get. So people are willing to spend a certain amount of money for the skill set he's developed and he knows his value. So he's done all five of these steps. And he's at the point now where he says, what do I do now? Like I've done these things. I've scaled this. I'm making so much money. But I've kind of lost this like spark, like this sense of what's the point? and that's where people that I think need to think about like most people love to have that problem and make so much money

that you've lost the spark of life but we all have different challenges at different levels and maybe this was six or nine months ago when he came up to me and he said he was a big fan of the show he's been listening to the show and he goes, what do you think I should do?

I said to be honest man you've got to give back you've got to do surgeries for cases that really need them that don't have the money where you can actually transform someone's life that maybe had some type of physical challenge or some type of accident, car accident that disformed them in some ways, that you could give them their life back.

Like, do that once a month for free and document and talk about it if you want to. Like, just give back. That's what you need to be leaning into. And he goes, that's a great idea. And I saw him a few days ago. And he goes, Lewis, how's it going, man? I go, good, man. How are you?

Have you done this thing? We were sitting, standing right over here six and nine months ago. And he goes, man, you got a good memory. And I go, have you done this yet? And he goes, no. And I go, are you fulfilled with your life yet? And he goes, no. I said, what are you waiting for?

If it's not that, find something else. It doesn't have to be this thing that I came up with. Be something where you are of service in a bigger level beyond making money. Because money alone can only bring you so much joy if you're using it only for you and your family. It can bring you lots of joy, lots of fulfillment. But I really feel like once you've mastered money and you have an abundance of it beyond your means, and beyond traveling and the lifestyle and the nice homes and the nice clothes and the cars,

all the things you want, you got them. Great. And you have excess money. Great. You've got to find a way to serve. And if you can bring service in your life from the beginning when you have no money, then it will grow with you when you start making more money. So something we've been a part of since before the school of greatness is building schools with pencil of promise since before that because I started to have that feeling early on.

I was making millions of dollars and I wasn't doing anything to give back. I was like, huh. Okay, I'm just going to keep making more money now. Like, okay, cool, but I'm okay in a $500 apartment. I don't need tons of money. Like, I need to find a way to use this. And I don't care about cars and fancy things. So why don't I use my time?

talents and gifts to serve people. And it doesn't mean I give all my money away, but use some of it to find meaning and impact as well. And I think that has been, that has allowed me to feel like I've had a really fulfilling life, is being in service and generating a way to give. It doesn't mean you always have to give money, but finding ways to give of your time and talents as well. And so I reminded this doctor of this a couple days ago and I said, you know, when are you to start being of service? Yes, you're being of service to your clients, but you need to have a different level of service, different level of impact.

And if you're just doing the same things every single day, you need something new and fulfilling in your life. So find a way to serve. And hopefully he'll start doing that. We'll see. But I think that's what I would do. I would find 10 of my wealthiest friends. I would get them to give their money away through serving causes they care about.

and then teaching them how to create a more rich and fulfilling life with the lives they have. And I think that's what a lot of really wealthy people want. They want to be healthier and happier and have better relationships. And I would create an offer and sell either one person a million dollars, 10 people, $100,000, and I would do it pretty fast. Yeah, I would do it within like a week or two because I'd be like, I got to move. So I would have unlimited time because everything would be gone. and I'd just be on the phone constantly calling people saying,

will you give me a million dollars? If not, will you give me $100,000? If not, will you give me $50,000? I would just keep going. What would, what result would you need to give me a million dollars in the next year? Okay, cool. I'm going to go give you that result. I'm going to make something that will give you that result,

and I would just sell that. That's what I'd do. If you guys enjoyed this format of Caroline asking me the questions, And if you have a specific question around any topic, feel for to add that question in the comment below. Or you can email us over at greatness.com. You can find the email there and email us. But if you're looking for more information around how to emotionally

and psychologically and mentally believe that you're deserving and worthy of more money, and then other tools on how to do this, make sure to grab a copy of Make Money Easy. We'll link it up below in the description, whether you're watching on YouTube or listening on audio platforms, And again, what questions do you have for me that you would like Caroline to ask in the future? Go ahead and leave it below. We'll see you guys in the next episode.

I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.