The School of Greatness - World’s TOP Productivity Experts: 3 HABIT HACKS to Crush Anxiety & Reach Your Full Potential

Episode Date: June 28, 2024

Today, we dive deep into the secrets of peak performance and productivity with three of the world’s leading experts - Dr. Michael Gervais, James Clear, and Robin Sharma. They uncover the psychological and practical steps to achieve high performance, form powerful habits, and integrate personal philosophies into daily life. Dr. Gervais shares the importance of being present and conquering anxiety and fatigue, while James Clear breaks down the stages of habit formation and the role of identity in sustaining those habits. Robin Sharma offers heartfelt insights on finding joy in personal growth and the beauty of living authentically and spiritually aligned. Now, let’s dive in!In this episode you will learnhow to embrace the present moment and make every moment count for peak performance.effective strategies to combat anxiety and fatigue, removing barriers to your potential.the importance of starting small and staying consistent when forming new habits.how to integrate habits into your identity to ensure they become a natural part of your life.the value of regular reflection and review to stay focused on what truly matters.For more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1634For more Greatness text PODCAST to [phone]Full episodes featured today:Michael Gervais – https://lewishowes.com/podcast/high-performance-mindset-training-dr-michael-gervais/James Clear – https://link.chtbl.com/1542-podRobin Sharma – https://link.chtbl.com/1223-pod

Hey everyone, this is Lewis Howes and I am so excited to invite you to the Summit of Greatness 2024 happening at the iconic Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California. This is more than just an event. It's a powerful experience designed to ignite your passion, boost your growth, and connect you with a community of other inspiring achievers. Join us Friday, September 13th and Saturday, September 14th for two days packed with inspiration and transformation from some of the most incredible speakers on the planet. Don't miss out on this chance to elevate your life, unlock your potential, and be part of something truly special.

Make sure to get your tickets right now and step into greatness with us at the Summit of Greatness 2024. Head over to lewishouse.com slash tickets and get your tickets today, and I will see you there. What do you think is the main thing that holds people back from high performance when it matters the most? Well, I think there's two parts to that question. You add the when it matters the most, and that's a really important, nuanced, esoteric phrase. esoteric phrase. And I love this phrase, when it matters most, because if you listen to ESPN, or you listen to Fox Sports, or you listen to any of those types of shows, they'll say that big game, defining play, defining moment. And there really isn't such a thing.

And so when it matters most is now. It's not later. It's not the Super Bowl. It's not your Everest. It's not the pitch that you're going to give to a VC firm. That's not later. It's not the Super Bowl. It's not your Everest. It's not the pitch that you're going to give to a VC firm. That's not the moment. The moment is now. And it's always now. And it's now again. And if we are present, it's now again. And it's always now. And so the idea is that there's no such thing as a moment later that's more important than the one you have now. No such thing as a moment later that's more important than the one you have now. Because, again, this is very esoteric. If we were to strip away your ability and my ability to live in this present moment, then we don't have life. It's the absence of life.

But what happens for most of us is that if you think about this moment a little bit like a raindrop, it's moving. And eventually it'll crash. Death, if you will but like this raindrop that's moving we can be on the edges of the raindrop or we'll be right in the center we don't ever leave our raindrop our unique raindrop but when we go to the edges of the raindrop um it's like we are not fully in the present moment and so what gets in the way anxiety you know worry what do they think of me? What if it goes wrong? Do I have what it takes? Am I going to embarrass myself? Am I going to let people down?

You know, so that anxiety is a real condition. It's estimated that, well, the research suggests that 15% of Americans suffer, and that's the word from anxiety. The estimate is probably more like 30% suffer, and it's a mental disorder, and anxiety by definition is the excessive worry about what could go wrong. So that's at the root. That's at the center. What's the opposite of anxiety?

Groundedness, a sense of poise and presence. Focusing on what could go right? Yeah, well, not even that, but like yes, right? So if anxiety is worrying about what could go right? Yeah. Well, not even that, but like, yes, right? So if anxiety is worrying about what could go wrong, an anecdote for that experience is focusing on what could go right, what could be fantastic. Living in gratitude. That's right. Yeah.

Which obviously you're familiar with. But the essence of it is coming back to the center of that raindrop, that esoteric thing I'm talking about, like that falling raindrop to time your ability to be right in the center. And what, what does that mean? That you're grounded, you're present, your, your mind is on time with what's happening. And so you've heard great athletes talk about the game slows down. It doesn't slow down. That's not what happens is that our mind becomes fully syncopated at the speed of life and we're on time. And so when we're finally on time, it's such a, like a relief, like, oh my God, this is, this is the speed of life. This is amazing. And so we don't have ever have the power to slow down time. We just have the power to increase our

ability to be on time. Right. On this moment, then the next moment, then the next moment, the worried mind is behind time or ahead of time, right? And so there are times to do, there are moments where we need to think about the future, don't, I mean, for sure, but it's the excessive worry about what could go wrong. And I think that that would be, so it's fear and fatigue are the two kind of cripplers of potential. And so if we get the fear thing right, and we have a relationship with fear, and we look for moments to challenge our relationship with fear, I can talk a lot. I love to talk about that with you. And the other is getting the fatigue thing right. And

we've come in modern times to believe that we need to do more to be more. And it's broken, right? It's fundamentally broken. The idea is that we need to be more and let the doing flow from there. Be yourself, be your authentic self, be here now, you know, be grateful, be present and let the doing flow from those. That orientation is a completely different model that, you know, it's like I I've I'm spending my life efforts, I think, working to share that and to help some of the best doers and thinkers in the world to reorientate what got them good but is slowing them down from being their absolute personal best. What's slowing them down? Fear and fatigue still?

Yeah. Well, the idea, the framework, the psychological framework that I need to do more to be more. And that's born out of anxiety. Right? Not doing enough. Yeah. Could be doing more. And the trick.

Stressing about that. Yeah. Flat out. And the trick though there is that that'll get people good. I need to do more. Damn, I missed that jumper. How am I going to miss that jumper? Let's keep it like, you know.

Drive them to be, practice more to, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's this, um, you know, it's like just enough anxiety will get you good, but it will slow you down for being your absolute best at some point, you know?

So it's tricky. Yeah. Right. There's an edge. Cause you need to be driven to train and practice with that edge. That's right. In order to be great at something. That's right. Yeah. You know, if you're just doing it for fun, it's different, but to be order to be great at something. That's right.

Yeah. You know, if you're just doing it for fun, it's different. But to be a winner, to be a champion in sports, let's say, or to be a great performer on stage, musician, whatever, you've got to put in the time. Yeah. Deliberate time, right? Well, yeah.

It's nauseatingly how truly challenging it is to focus deeply. And it's rare. You know, the natural state of our mind is like a drunk monkey. And for some people, it's double-fisted. It's all over the place. It's, you know, so emotionally erratic. Good thing I don't drink,

otherwise I'd be messed up. Did you have a run with that? I've never been drunk in my life. Stop it. Never been drunk. Is there a reason for that? I have like a Bailey's on ice every now and then, like a couple of times a year, but I've never felt like a buzz or anything. Um, I think when I went in high school, first off, I went to a private boarding school,

so there was no, you weren't allowed to drink. And I was just kind of like, I don't really care. Some kids were, but I was in the dorm and didn't really have access to it and didn't care. What were you focused on sports? I mean, my vision was to be the best athlete I could be and to go get a college scholarship, play professionally. And so when I went to college, I remember when I graduated high school, all my siblings were like, you're going to be this drunk jock. Like, we already know it. And I think out of spite, I was like, I'm going to bet you

I'm not going to have a single sip of alcohol my entire career in college. There you go. So I didn't have a single sip of alcohol my entire career in college. There you go. So I didn't have a single sip. I went to so many college parties after football games, just crazy drunken parties. I was never even tempted. I think because I just had in my mind, my teammates are losing their edge. The more they drink and the sloppier they are, they weren't recovered for the next day. And it was holding them back the whole week and, you know, performance.

So for me, I was just like, I need every edge as just a, I didn't have the speed, the strength, the skill as everyone else. I was like, I need the mental edge. Yeah, there you go. And you know, if being hung over is a significant problem to be consistently great, like that becomes problematic. And so I had

a similar experience too. Right. And mine was born a little bit differently that I had a family of addiction. Right. So it was in my family and I saw it and I said, I'm not going down that path. Yeah. So it's easy to repeat that when one feels like it's not enough, one drink feels like it's not enough, but a thousand, you know, no, what's the saying? One's too many, a thousand's not enough. So there's like this craving that I felt early on to it. And I said, wow, I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you know, which I'm so thankful that I had, um, such dysfunction that I was able to witness. Sure. But I knew that if I'm doing what my boys are doing, that I'm not getting up in the morning and surfing. Yeah. So forget about it. No, you're sleeping in here. Yeah, I love it. Exhausted, yeah. Yeah.

So fear and anxiety, so. No, fear and fatigue. Fear and fatigue, sorry. Why, so it's hard to perform if we're fatigued physically and emotionally, right? Mm-hmm. But why do we fear so much about what could go wrong? What do the people think about us? Who are we going to let down that we're not worthy enough, good enough.

Why do we fear that? It's a great question. So much. Yeah, it's a really great question. For our whole life. Yeah. So there's some biological things we can take a look at, and then there's also psychological, right?

And then so it's the interaction of those two. Biologically, our brain, as best as we think, and it's three pounds of silly putty that sits in our skull that's more complicated than you know like the brightest minds in neuroscience are still amazed by how our brain works and so um but we think that our brain is designed to scan the world and find what's dangerous right and so our ancestors passed that gift on to us your lineage passed that gift on to you that they were able to survive and so how survive way back in ancient times that they could scan the world and easily discern how to be ready between now let me say it more more

eloquently they could scan the world and find what was dangerous or what was threatening so that they wouldn't be eaten eaten by the saber-toothed tiger as the was threatening so that they wouldn't be eaten, eaten by the saber tooth tiger as the story goes, right? Or they wouldn't eat something bad or they wouldn't whatever, protect themselves. That's right. So, and then, so then not only was nature dangerous and all the elements in nature, but other humans became dangerous to each other. So now what we've created is the ability, the heightened ability to read microexpressions.

And microexpressions are the small squinting of the eyes, the frontalis muscles between the eyes. And when those squint or don't move, it's a sense of threat, right? Because we don't know what's happening from that person. And so if you got this ancient brain that's programmed beautifully to find what's dangerous, and we scanned in an undisciplined way our environment around us,'s programmed beautifully to find what's dangerous and we scanned in an undisciplined way our environment around us we're going to find dangerous things and in modern times we're not chased by saber tooths anymore the new modern saber tooth are other people's opinions and so we're well conditioned from an early age and this next

generation is going to be even more well conditioned, you know, with Insta highlight reels for everything. My life is better than yours. I'm going to show you via a snap picture is that, um, you know, so we've got this real challenge that to pursue a path of our personal best, we have to override our DNA. That's, that's hard to do. That's really hard to do. It requires deep commitment to training. And that's what psychology, the optimal opportunities that psychology offers us is just that. How to train our minds to override our DNA and to use the smaller parts of our brain to scan the world and find opportunity. How can we train our minds every single day throughout the day to do that? Overcome this fear. What are the things that we could be doing?

I will. Not I could. I will rattle off as many as you want to hear, like tactics. And then I also want to put a small little asterisk next to this is that the tactic alone is not enough, right? It's the stitching of the tactics. It's the stitching of the mental skills training to each other and to one's personal philosophy. So without a personal philosophy, it's like we end up just trying

all these different things to get better, but what are we getting better at? What other people want us to be? So there's a fundamental piece of work first. Got it. So what would be your personal philosophy? I'll share mine. I've spent a lot of time with it and i'll tell if i could tell a story of how it worked i think it it will yeah harden a little bit is that um so i needed a mentor when i was growing up and i'm thankful what's up gary like i'm thankful for gary he helped me out in so many different ways, even currently today. And so one day he says, hey, Mike, I want to introduce you to my mentor. Great. I didn't know there was such a thing as like a grand mentor. Like, am I ready?

And so, you know, it was this moment. I said, okay, here we go. And it was this, to my surprise, it was this small, you know, three-bedroom,, three bedroom, two bath home. And it was well manicured. And it was this pleasant, like 78, 82 year old woman comes out. And I was just so pleasantly surprised, like, okay, this is going to get good. Cause she just had that sense of wise woman. And it's the setting that you would imagine. The shag carpet was a little bit long. The drapes were just a little bit, you know, um, um, you know, outdated. And so we sat at the table and she's pouring me tea and she says, you know, welcome. And so interested to meet you.

And then we sat down and she said, so tell me what you're about. I said, okay, well, the things that are most interesting. Well, okay, let me start this way. And she looked at me and she looked at my mentor and she said, I thought you said he was ready. I said, oh my, I am. I am ready. Wait, wait, wait. No, no, no. I want to answer that.

And she grabbed my tea and she said, you know, when you're ready, sweetie, I'd like to share this tea with you. Yeah. So I was like super embarrassed in that moment. Like I thought I let my, my mentor down and you know, it was like this really intense experience. Wow. How old were you? I was at that point. Um, it was right after it was like 26, 27, somewhere in that range. And so I didn't know what to do. And so it was this awkward moment, but I knew that I had, I was not prepared to even answer the most basic question. Who are you? And so that's where, that's where I just want to anchor that because I think that that captures what most of us feel like a lot. Most people don't feel like they know who they are. Yeah. And so I had this dramatic moment for me, but you know, I think it's a really important process to go through. So

let's call it a personal philosophy, but then let's extract one, one level out from that. The greatest and the most influential people across the globe are very clear about their philosophy. The greatest movers and shakers and change makers are spiritual leaders and political leaders, for the most part. And now we're starting to see business leaders to do that. What was Confucius' philosophy? What was Buddha's philosophy?

What was Jesus' philosophy? They're really clear. Jesus was, and I want to oversimplify a beautiful set of traditions, but Jesus was more about love and service. Buddha was more about, you know, that all people are suffering. And then, so let's work through compassion to live with love and kindness. What was Martin Luther King Jr.'s?

Dr. King Jr.'s was about equality, you know, Malcolm X, equality, totally different tone, totally different approach. Mother Teresa, Helen Keller. What was Helen Keller's like? Okay, I different tone, totally different approach. Mother Teresa, Helen Keller. What was Helen Keller? She's like, okay, I'm going to go for it. And like, I deserve to be educated as well. She changed the educational system. So the most influential people were very clear. Why? Because they lined up their thoughts, their words and actions to the thing that matters most to them. And that's what a philosophy is about. Everybody already has one. You have one. I have one. Whether we

could articulate it at knife point in a dark alley, totally different element, right? And so, I think that that's a nice litmus test. Like, could you get it out in front of a deranged person who's got a knife to your throat? Like, could you, do you, are you that clear what you stand for? And do you have your personal philosophy? So, that's the litmus test for folks that I that i work with and i'll share mine it's every day is an opportunity to create a living masterpiece and so there's um there's optimism embedded in there there's creative juices embedded in there and then there's you know this idea of a living masterpiece and so um when i met coach carol head coach of the seattle seahawks about six years ago, six, seven years ago, one of our first conversations, it was over dinner, a mutual friend put us

together and we had this really wonderful conversation and it was born out of like, what is your philosophy? So he had been on the same, similar journey, I should say, where he was fired from two head coach jobs in the NFL. And on the second time he was fired. So from pain creates change. Uncomfortableness is how we grow, but change is how we, I'm sorry. Uncomfortableness is how we grow, but pain is why we change.

So he experienced pain and said, if I get another chance, I'm going to do it exactly the way that is authentic to me. But I got to figure out what that is. So he just went and scratched down on, you know, multiple pads, spiral, you know, old school spiral notebooks, just wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote, took a second pass at it and said, what are the words that keep showing up? Circled those words, wrote more about those words. And that's how it eventually spilled out of him. His philosophy is always compete. Always compete for what you say? Always compete to be a great dad, to be a great coach, to be a great friend, to be a great partner, like always

compete. And so he says at his core, he's a competitor and he's always trying to become better. And so, so he's built his whole life around, you know, that, and including the Seattle Seahawks and USC before before that so yeah so philosophy is really important to us and so that would be the most significant investment first how can someone create their own philosophy the three ways to do it okay so not now we're into some tactics right which i think is really important as well so the tactics there's three ways to get clear be around wise people and have conversations about philosophy and wisdom, right? Be around them. If you don't know one, go try to. They're rare, but maybe pray about it. Maybe talk about

like find wise people in your lives or become one. Yeah, yeah. Or you can watch videos of them or read their books to get started. Yes, start down that path nice nice job you know and and there's something about being in their presence if you can that that is different of course you know okay and there's you know synagogues and churches and there's there's folks that you can find these people and they don't have to be spiritual they can be secular as well so be around wise people write journal you know there's something about forcing words out of your native tongue all the words of your native tongue to write down the words and to have a forcing function to choose words that matter. There's something about that.

And then the last, the third is, and all of them are equally important, is listening. So mindfulness practice. So listening to, it's one of the most ancient mindfulness traditions, is asking yourself, it's called contemplative mindfulness, is ask yourself the question, who am I? And just go down that path, who am I? And you'll learn. You'll learn some ugly things, you'll learn some wonderful things, and you'll really learn who you are. And so those are three ways, right? And then there's another easy way, I don't know if it's on our website or whatever, but we've developed a philosophy primer, you know, and I don't think it's up on our website, but those would be the three tactics that get closer, you know? And then if I, if I, do you want me to go one click deeper? You know, if mechanically what I would suggest you do is write

down a list of all the people that really inspire you. Like, who are those people? Just write down that list and you don't have to know them. Then write to the right of that column for each person, write down the characteristics that, that, that they embody, that, that inspiration comes from. So if it was like, so let's say Martin Luther King Jr. And you say, you know, courage or intelligence or people, person or conviction. Okay. Those words matter. And then as you go down your list, you'll start to see some characteristics. You'll start to see some stuff. And then once you're clear, I don't know, we talk about going from clarity to conviction. And that's the entire arc of mental training is first, you got to get some clarity and then invest in your craft and invest in your mind

so that you can live a life of conviction yeah in any environment you can be about you in any environment and as humans there's only three things we can train everything falls within one of these three buckets we can train our body you know that professional sport you know and and has done great to show us what that looks like you can train your craft and we all have a craft, right? Like athletics or arts or music. It's easy to see that, you know, your, your craft of interviewing and writing, um, and many more probably, but there's also other crafts that you have and that we all have. It might be things that we're not paid for, but we're passionate about. Yeah. Okay. So it could

be parenting. It could be a guitar. It could be a lots of different things. Okay. So it could be parenting. It could be a guitar. It could be lots of different things. Okay. So you can train your body, you can train your craft and you can train your mind. That's it. Those are the only three. So we don't see training the mind as being extra. Who's got extra time nowadays? There's no extra. There's it's fundamental to becoming your very best is training one of those three elements. And if you train all three of them, it's an accelerated path. That's, you you know what's the best way someone could train their mind on a daily basis they have 30 minutes a day yeah good so start with your philosophies that's that would be mental training right get clear down your philosophy

that's the first part of that out yeah and that's lonely deep deep work and that might take years or could pop right spill right out of you you know right so start now um yeah the dial-a-lama has something or it was actually a former dial-a-lama said um enlightenment takes lifetimes or the next moment so pay attention here exactly yeah so that's the first and then the second i would say the second largest pillar would be to invest in mindfulness i'm happy to talk about that but you can train confidence you can train calm you can train your ability to be focused in the present moment. You can train optimism, which is an accelerant to mental toughness. I know that you have great value for training gratitude. And so Martin Seligman did a wonderful piece of research out of UPenn that just writing down at the end of the day, three amazing things that you

experienced has a significant impact in life satisfaction. It can impact your relationships with others. If you are depressed, people that came into his study stabilized their depression. People that were not depressed that came into this study after, I think it was one month, three month and six month follow-up, they had a significant overall increase in their overall life satisfaction. It's as simple as writing down three amazing things. Right. And so that's one way to train optimism and gratitude. So there's lots of ways to do it. And I don't know if you want a specific tactic or mindfulness. Do you mean meditation or you mean other type of practice? So mindfulness, um, yeah, you can, you could substitute the word meditation for mindfulness. Meditation for us conjures up a term that there's a lot of stigma attached to.

And that stigma is changing. But I spend most of my time in very rugged and hostile environments. And to talk about mindfulness in those environments is a stretch. You know, although, no, I'm sorry, to talk about meditation is the stretch. Mindfulness feels like, okay, mindfulness training, what is that? What's about increasing your awareness? Oh, yeah, that's important.

Meditation has that all other baggage. So is it the same thing? Close. Mindfulness is a state and a skill. Meditation is the skill training mechanism for it. And so let's just for simplicity call it mindfulness training. And I mean, do you want to go deeper than that? Well, if the definition of mindfulness is the ability to be here now, to be where your feet are without judgment, without the noise, the idea is to get to the signal, and the signal is always now,

and to gate out the noise. I mean, engineers right now are going, yeah, that's what it's about. Signal to noise ratio. But that's what it is for our minds as well. And remember, our natural state of our mind is like a drunken monkey. So a disciplined mind, a still mind, is rare.

And mindfulness is increasing your ability to recognize when your mind is away from the present moment and bringing it back. And it's not about not having thoughts. That's an old thought that most people are recognizing that that's not the case. But mindfulness is really about once you recognize that your mind has wandered from a particular state or there's judgment around it, to gently bring it back to now. And that now can be a breath. It could be the next thought, whatever, right? And so there's two types of mindfulness, single point mindfulness training, and then the contemplative style. Single point mindfulness is

as simple as focusing on one thing for an extended period of time. So master the inhale, then the exhale, and then master the inhale again, and then the exhale. So that's just focusing on your breathing, right? One breath at a time for, let's call it six, seven, eight minutes. That's the minimal effective dose to get some therapeutic effect from it. And then the optimal dose is 20 minutes a day, according to research and science. Focusing on single point. Just single point.

And then so on your inhale, your mind will wander, right? And an inhale takes about four seconds. So just the inhale, your mind will wander. And then once you notice that it's wandered, great. That's the moment of awareness. Bring it back. And then just bring it back gently, swiftly, quickly. And so you're training the skill of refocus.

You're training the skill of awareness. That's single point mindfulness. It could be a dot on the wall. It could be a mantra. It could be a sound. It could be your breath. It could be lots of things, right? That's single point. And then the other is contemplative, which is, it involves some sort of relaxation strategy to relax yourself,

just like the single point. And then just watch. Just watch what happens. Watch your thoughts. You know, watch where thought A, how it transforms to B, to B1, to B2, to B3, to maybe over to C. And just watch without critiquing or judging and just go on that ride. And that's kind of the second tactic to mindfulness. Who are some of the most impressive performers you've worked with that you're allowed to talk about? Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that.

There's so many that I would love to share with you. Yeah. Well, I'll, I'll do one that's nameless right now. And then I'll do a couple that, um, I've been public about it. And this is one of the challenges of being licensed as a psychologist is that we create an environment between client and myself. We create an environment that is unlike anything else where the sanctuary of trust and the depth of the conversation that we go in are like no other normal conversation. So out of respect and trust for the code that we've established that I don't share names in that way.

But some have been public and they've shared names. And so I'm happy to talk about within scope of what I can talk about there. But there's an artist that I'm working with right now and a musician producer that has had, when he, he, he worked last year, 50 nights and every night that he books, it's 1.6 million a night. So a significant global influencer from a music perspective. Oh, no, no, no.

You know his music. Everyone's listening. But what's impressive is that it seems like they are from a different planet, but they're not. They're just like you and I. They're humans that have the same exact ambitions, the same exact fears and worries, the same relationship struggles that we both have.

And they have just figured out how to be more attuned to the signal than the noise. The signal meaning what? The present moment that is aligned with his philosophy and also matches the vision of how he'd like to see himself in the future, the vision of what he'd like to see. And one of the great psychologists of our era, his name is Dr. Albert Bandora. And Dr. Albert Bandora introduced so many really influential theories about how the mind works and optimization. One of his theories is self-efficacy.

Efficacy is a word for power. And part of being an efficacious or powerful person is that we have clarity of how we would like our future to be. It doesn't mean it's going to happen now, right? Like, because you got to back into incredible work, but right. Imagination of having a vision of what that is. And then back into how to make that happen. This sounds so like, it sounds so simple and, you know, psychologists and folks for years have been talking about this. It really is powerful though. It's a really powerful tactic to do. How long does it take to actually form a habit

and is dependent on what habit you're trying to create? And are there also, also are there different stages of building and forming a habit that's interesting the stages part's interesting people don't usually ask that um okay so very popular question how long does it take to build a habit um it does depend on the habit you're building so there are a variety of studies that show you know if you pick an easy habit um you know might only take a couple weeks if you pick something really difficult maybe it takes six or seven or eight months like you know who knows but it also depends like the same habit can take very different amounts of time depending on the context imagine one person who's trying to build the habit of doing yoga every day and they live with a bunch of athletes or people who go to

yoga studios or whatever and then the other person is trying to build a habit of doing yoga every day and they live with nobody who works out and they kind of get criticized or poked fun at if they do it in front of them. Well, same habit, but very different situations. And so the environment's going to influence how much friction you're feeling associated with that. And obviously that will influence how easy or difficult it is. So I don't really know that the timing tells you anything. You know, there's all these kinds of popular myths, 21 days or 30 days or whatever. And there's not really anything back that up. But there's also a couple of studies that say on average, it's like 66 days or something like that. But again, the range can be quite wide, depending on the habit. answer, the honest answer to how long does it take to build a habit is forever. Because if it stops, if you stop doing it, it's no longer a habit, you know, like, and what I'm trying to get at with that is habits are not a finish line to be crossed. You know, they're a lifestyle to be lived. It's

something to integrate into your new normal. It's not like, Hey, let me just do this for 30 days or 66 days. And then I'll be a healthy person or then i'll be productive or whatever you know i won't have to think about it anymore it's like no like what we're looking for is a change that you can integrate into your new normal something you can make part of your lifestyle and then once it's part of your daily life great you can start to look at the next happen try to integrate that one and it's a it's kind of this endless process and maybe that encourages you a little bit more to look for a non-threatening change or a sustainable change rather than just trying to flip a switch. Yeah.

And it also sounds like a habit is only a habit, and correct me if I'm wrong, if it becomes and is your identity on a consistent basis. And if it's not your identity, then you're not doing it if it's not your identity, then, and you're not, then you're not doing it. If it's not your identity. I don't think most researchers would define it that way, but it speaks to this question you asked about stages. And that, that was kind of the first thing that I thought about when you mentioned that question. So like, let's say for example, let's just take like a classic habit, like going to the gym and we're working out. early on, going to the gym is kind of uncomfortable. You know, you're worried about like, are people judging me? Do I look stupid? I don't know what

exercises to do. You know, like, I don't know where to put my stuff. Do they have a water fountain at this gym? Or do I need to bring a water bottle? There's like all these like stupid little questions that you're thinking about when you're getting started. And it's definitely not part of your identity. You haven't shown up enough to be comfortable there and feel like, Hey, this is just part of who I am. And so early on the kind of the first stage when you're practicing it, I think the number one thing you need to do is scale it down, reduce the scope and try to make it as easy and as frictionless as possible to show up each day. So that's probably like stage one is how do I make this the opposite of what people try to do

when they're like, I'm out of shape, I'm going to go every day for the next year. And I'm not gonna miss a day. And I'm gonna eat chicken salad every day. Well, and you know, what's interesting is, especially for ambitious people, it's really interesting, or really easy to fall into that pitfall. Because when you sit down and you think about the changes you want to make, yeah, it's easy to get

excited about that. I think implicitly, you kind of even though people don't say it, with the thing that's kind of in the back of their mind is, what can I achieve on my best day? Like, how can I get to peak performance, you know? And instead, I almost think it's more useful to ask yourself, what can I achieve even on the worst days? Like, what habit could I stick to even on the bad days? Because then if you start there, now you can start to build some momentum. You can show up consistently, you can establish the habit and, you know, you can keep going. So that's maybe the first stage is scale it down. The second stage is you start to get some like other rewards associated with it. So you've been

going to the gym for a few months and then maybe you start to see a little bit of a change in your body, or maybe you start to develop some friendships there and you look forward to seeing your new buddy there and you guys fist bump and you chat a little bit. And it's just like kind of more engaging and fun to do it, to go there and, you know, work out. And so these are like other benefits, things that make the habit feel good and they kind of help you show up more and more. So you're starting to get these external benefits that are coming along the way. then ultimately the maybe the final stage or a later stage is now it feels like it's kind of part of my identity i go like this is where i would say so i've been working out for a while now and it's probably like the habit that i care most about like my in terms of personal habits it's the one

that feels like it centers me or it's the only time I really get for myself. And so I want to work out now. Yes, of course I want the benefits of it and the, you know, the physical changes and all that stuff. But what I really want is I just feel good when I do it. You know, I feel like I'm being me, I'm being the kind of person I want to be. And it makes me feel like, yeah, this is the identity I want to have this kind of person I want to be. And so I can get that satisfaction instantly. Like as soon, as long as I'm doing one rep, I, you know, I get that feeling. And so, um, that's a reward that comes maybe later. You got to show up a lot before you get to that place mentally. But I think ultimately that's where you're trying to get to. Now there is, there is maybe one more stage after that, which is the tighter that you cling to your current identity, the harder it

becomes to grow beyond it. And so this is kind of an endless process. You know, like you, we all can sort of think about like, uh, let's say you have a surgeon who they've been doing an operation a certain way for the last 20 years. And they have a bunch of successful patients and cases from that operation. And they just are like, yeah, you know what, I know it works well this way. And then a new technology in this way. Yeah, yeah, a new technology comes along. And they're like, you know, hey, you can do this with robots now, or you can do it laparoscopically or whatever. And they resist it because they're like, no, I have a lot of evidence for doing it my old way. They cling to that current identity

and it's harder to grow. And five years from now, they find themselves behind the curve. Or you've got a teacher who they've been doing their lesson plan the same way for the last 10 years, and they don't want to integrate YouTube or some new learning modality or whatever. And five years from now, they find themselves behind the curve. And so the tighter you cling to your current identity, the harder it becomes to grow beyond it. And it's kind of this endless cycle in the, in the early stages, what you want is to foster the identity to like reinforce being that kind of person. Cause it helps you show up. But then eventually a couple of years from now, the world changes and you need to adapt. couple of years from now, the world changes and you need to adapt. And so it's kind of like evolve or die. And you need to continually be retouching or optimizing or refining that identity and your

approach. And so that's, those are, there are some various stages there, but those are kind of some of the big ones that I, that stuck out to me. Yeah. And it's like people who are stuck to whatever fax machines. And then it's,'s you know then from faxing to email and then email to you know cell phones and whatever it is it's like our grandparents don't keep up with the technology and then we can't call them on facetime because they don't know how to turn it on or whatever so that's interesting there it sounds like there's different stages to these habits and it sounds like when you become successful the habits that got you here may not necessarily get you to the next stage or season of accomplishment,

fulfillment, success, health. Is that right? Yeah. It's interesting because I would say there's kind of like two categories. Their habits are like timeless that you, and we call those the fundamentals of whatever your domain is. You know, like in my case, reading and writing are probably always going to be habits that will serve me as an author, you know, but then there's other stuff, you know, the way that I executed the book launch for atomic habits. You know what, like, if I launch another book in 10 years, a lot of those strategies probably be outdated. And so you need to upgrade and improve, you need to evolve and change. And so there's, there's both the fundamentals that you always need to stick to. And there's just this continual growth and, and learning process that you also have to be

committed to. What's the habit you think you're going to need to innovate over the next one to two years in this season of life that supported you to getting here, but won't support you to the next level? Yep. My biggest fear is that I know how to write a good book, but the way that I know how to do it doesn't work for me anymore. So I had a period, the last like six to nine months of writing Atomic Habits, where it was just all that I was doing. It was like I would wake up, I'd write for 12 hours a day or edit for 12 hours a day.

I'd go to sleep. I'd dream about it. I'd wake up again and do it all over and that was just like it was this kind of i don't know to call it a dark period is probably too extreme but it you know it's just like this very intensely focused period and um i can't do that anymore uh because i have kids i got a family and like it just it doesn't work so i know that if i can force myself to go through that, which by the way, like that was a difficult thing. My little mantra for that period of life was Elaine de Botton has this quote where he says of many books, the reader thinks this could have been truly great if only the author was willing to suffer a little bit more. and I just kept telling myself that I was like, it's kind of true though. Yeah. So I just, that was like my little mantra was like, this can be great, but you just have to be willing to suffer a little bit more. And so I just told myself that like every day. Um, and you know,

I just, uh, it can be true and it can not, it's also not true. You know, it just kind of depends on how you create, you know, for sure. I, uh, I just can't, I can't do it that way anymore. So I have to go back to that little thought experiment that I mentioned earlier, where I've got this new constraint. And so now I have to ask myself, okay, if I can only write for one hour a day, how could I write a book that's even better than a topic than atomic habits? How can I write something even better than atomic habits? If I can only write for one hour a day. Now you got a good question. I don't know. I don't know the answer yet, but that's my little, that's the, that's the thing I'm noodling on for right

now. That's the better question that hopefully that is a, that is a great question. I mean, again, it goes back into, maybe you didn't think it was possible with your newsletter because you had to do whatever, 10, 15 hours a week on it. And now you're doing two and it's impacting people, you know, in, in a potentially a greater way with the results is getting. So it's impacting people, you know, in a potentially greater way with the results it's getting. So it's, I think there's a world in which you could write two hours a week and write a better book. It's got to be possible. You know, I mean, the obvious answer is like, well, it'll just take longer, you know. But I also don't want to do that.

But if you had to do it in the same time, if you had to do it in one year, I bet there's a way. So that's where the question gets really interesting. If you throw another constraint and you say, okay, you can only write for one hour a day and you only get two years. Can you write something that's better than Atomic Habits? I think you would. I think you would because, again, you've got 10, 15 years of experience writing now. You know what works. You can do it faster. You can pull into your archives of memory better, you have all the documentation from

the previous, you know, you've got this skill now that it should flow more effortlessly if you allow it to. But we'll see. I appreciate your your enthusiasm and encouragement about it because I'll need it. But I don't know. We'll see. That's that's my little task is to see if I can find an answer. I'm curious.

It's another personal question for you. When I interviewed Liz Gilbert about, you know, she did Eat, Pray, Love, which I think did 10 or, I don't know, 20 million copies, whatever it's done. It's done over 10 million copies, right? And I remember her talking about, you know my best selling work behind me yeah and kind of that is it you know the fear or the worry or the just the the thought about it i'm curious for you in your opinion what are three to five non-negotiable habits that every human being

should and if they could do on a daily basis, it would improve their lives and everyone's life around them. What are those non-negotiable habits on a daily basis we should do? Yeah. Three habits that would improve everybody's lives on a daily basis. It's so hard to give an answer like that because obviously everybody's, you know, dealing with different stuff. But there are a few things I think I do genuinely think most people would benefit from. So the easy answer would be, or the easy way to frame this would be reading, but I don't think it actually has to be reading books. I think it just is the habit of learning something new. So if you, you know, listening to podcasts, reading a book, watching a good YouTube video, whatever, it doesn't matter what version of that it is. But if you go to bed a little bit smarter than you were when you woke up, that's going to improve

your life. And just having this thirst for lifelong learning, having an eagerness to learn or discover something new each day, it's going to pay off in a huge way in the long run, no matter what topics you're interested in. So a habit of some small habit of daily learning, let's just call it learn something new for 10 minutes each day. Some sort of physical activity. You know, this is, I think, an important realization about all habits, which is in most areas of life, there might not be a thousand ways to do something, but there's almost always more than one way. And, you know, I like working out in the gym, but not everybody wants to train like a bodybuilder and that's fine. You know, like you can kayak or go running or rock climbing or

ride a bike or whatever. There's like a bazillion ways to live an active lifestyle and you should choose the version of your habits that is most exciting to you. Like in a way, that's the first biggest hurdle to clear when building habits is have you selected a habit that you're genuinely interested in, that you're actually engaged with? Because if it's something that you actually care about, there are going to be like endless opportunities for improvement. If you're not actually care, if you don't actually care about it, if you're just doing it, cause you kind of feel like society's encouraging you to do it, or your parents want you to do it, or your peers are kind of subtly saying, Hey, this is something you should do. Then even the obvious improvements are

going to feel like a chore, you know? So let's call it a 10 minutes of learning something new, some sort of physical activity, whatever is exciting or interesting to you. And then I think the other one is a process, a habit of reflection and review. So it's very easy in life to be so busy or working on stuff heads down or just have the next task come up, whether it's things you got to do for your kids or responsibilities at work, that you never take even five minutes to step back and just breathe and ask yourself, am I working on the right thing? You know, am I directing my attention and energy to the highest and best use? And, boy, there is nothing so wasteful as

working hard on the wrong thing. You know, like so many people work really hard, but are you directing your energy and attention to the best spot? And so the only way to discover that, like, I know I'm not smart enough to figure it out on the first time. Like I can't, I can't just sit down, give me five minutes and be like, oh, this is exactly what I should be focused on. It takes iteration. It takes refinement. It takes a process of reflecting and reviewing and looking back on the previous day and be like, hey, was that a good way to spend my time? Like, did I live a good life today?

And the more that you do that, the more you start to course correct. And the other tricky thing, and the reason this needs to be a habit that you revisit consistently, I don't necessarily think it needs to be daily, but consistently, is the answer changes over time. You know, like what you want shifts over time, the situation you're in or the resources you have or the time you have shifts over time.

And so you need to keep coming back to this. Maybe it's every week, maybe it's once a year, but whatever it is, you need a chance to reflect and review and to try to ask yourself, is there a better way to do this? Am I working on the right thing? Am I working on what actually matters? Am I directing my attention and energy in the highest and best way? Yeah. And how important is accountability then in your mind when we are taking on these new

habits for ourselves? Is it important to have self-accountability, buddy accountability, coach accountability, you know, social accountability? Do those support habits, forming these consistent habits? And what are the factors that are in play there? They definitely support them or hinder them, potentially, depending on the people you're

around and the group that you're a part of. Ultimately, the form of accountability that matters the most is self-accountability. It's almost impossible to exceed the standards that you have for yourself. Like that almost always sets the baseline. You know, if your beliefs or your standards are almost always going to be the limit on what you allow yourself to do or what you accept. Now, it's easier to stick to high standards in a supportive environment than it is in an unsupportive one. So there are a lot of things that can influence whether you want to maintain that standard.

But ultimately, the standard you hold yourself to is going to be the most important thing. ultimately the standard you hold yourself to is going to be the most important thing. Now, having said that, I do think that the social environment, the tribes that you belong to influence your habits in a really dramatic way. So if I had to pick one topic that I think is even more important now than I realized when I was writing the book, I would probably say the social environment. You know, we're all part of multiple tribes. Some of those tribes are like really large, like what it means to be American or what it means to be Australian. Some of those tribes are small,

like what it means to be a neighbor on your street or a member of the local CrossFit gym. But all of those tribes, large and small, they have a set of expectations. You know, they have a set of social norms. They have a set of beliefs that, hey, this is how you act in this group. This is what's normal and expected. And the more that your habits align with the expectations of the group, the easier it is to stick with them. The more like appealing and attractive they are because

they signal to the people around you, Hey, look, I belong to, you know, like I'm part of this. And the more that they go against the grain of the tribes that you belong to, the harder they are to stick to because you start to get criticized for them. And if people have to choose between, you know what, I have habits that I don't really love, but I fit in, I belong, I'm part of something. Or I have the habits that I want to have, but I'm cast out, I'm ostracized. I'm criticized. I mean, the desire to belong will often overpower the desire to improve. You know, belonging will, the loneliness will lose to belonging. And so you need to get those two things aligned and join groups where your desired behavior is the normal behavior.

It is so true. And it doesn't mean you can't make it happen. There's a great example that came up this week. Someone on my team on our team call said, I asked everyone on the call, I said, what is one thing you want to let go of next year for your life? Like what's one thing that's not serving you right now that you want to let go of? And this person said, I want to let go of drinking, drinking alcohol, like, or at least drinking as frequently as I do with the social circles that I'm in. And, um, I thought that was interesting because I've never been drunk in my life. I don't drink. It's not, it's not a part of my identity, right? I never did it from sports. And then after sports, I was just like, why? It didn't make sense to me.

Nothing good or bad about it. It just wasn't fitting my values personally. I have other problems, which is sugar, right? It's like, I've got that. That's my vice, right? So no judgment here. But I was just like, this never stopped for me, you know, in every until maybe the last four or five years, where anytime I'd go out in college after college, then the business world, restaurants, in college, after college, then the business world, restaurants, networking events, like all that stuff, people would always try to influence me to drinking. And so I had to be, I had to be so firm in my beliefs and really just not even care at all about it. I just knew that people were going to try to influence me, they would try to say a joke, they'd be, I can't believe you never drank all these different things, try to get me to drink for the first time, all this stuff. I knew

what happened every single week. And I just realized, okay, this is going to happen no matter what type of circles I'm in, unless I find people that do not drink, which is very rare. And which is one of the reasons why with my girlfriend, when we started dating, I was like, listen, it's not going to work. If you like to drink, I don't think I can date you. Like, it doesn't mean you're a bad person. I just don't want to be in that environment for the rest of my life with the person I'm choosing to be with. And so I had to make a conscious decision. And she was like, well, I don't really need it.

Like, maybe I'll drink a glass of wine once a month. I'm like, okay, that's fine. But if this is a weekly thing, like, it's just not going to work because I've chosen this to be a high priority of my value for my life. And it's, it's very challenging, if there's something you want to do, and the people around you are influencing you the other way, in terms of accountability. So I think it's, it doesn't mean you can't do it. But choosing to be around people or groups or tribes, like you mentioned, that are supportive,

even if it's the local CrossFit gym or whatever it might be, find those communities as much as possible. You know, if your family isn't as supportive, find these other micro tribes to support you in that habit form. So I think it's really powerful. It's so much easier to stick to a habit if you're in an environment that supports it and there's this whole chapter in atomic habits it's called the secret to self-control and one of the surprising things that I came across when I was researching the book is a lot of these self-control studies we typically will like kind of the standard story we all tell is oh man I wish I had the discipline of that person or I wish I was you know as consistent as this professional athlete or whatever but in fact um the people who exhibit the highest self-control are often the people who are tempted the least.

That's like the predominant pattern that is common across those different contexts is that they are just cookies in your house. You're not going to eat them. Yeah. And so, you know, you want to stack the deck in your favor and design an environment or join groups and tribes where your desired behavior is normal, where your desired behavior is easy. And if you do that for yourself, sure, you'll still have to put effort in, but it's going to be so much more productive and easy to stick to the habit because you're in a space and a context that's designed to support it. And that's maybe one of the biggest hacks or strategies for building better habits is worry a little bit less about having superhuman willpower and worry a

little bit more about designing an environment where you don't need willpower at all. You did something really smart, which I think a lot of people aren't willing to do. You spent 10 years writing every week in an incredible article or articles that were so detailed, so thought out, so researched. And you said, how can I serve the maximum number of people in my niche and then start branching out in the space as well and do it consistently over a decade without really making a lot of money, you know, selling other things.

And then you came out with a book. And now this doesn't happen for everyone, but then you came out with a book and it became, you know, one of the best selling books of the year, of the most selling book of last year on Amazon, like you said, top five, I think this year as well. And it just continues to add value to people.

And I think it's a testament to what you created for a decade plus of adding value. So congratulations on everything, man. Yeah, thank you. That's very, very nice. You say it's been a wild ride. I there are a couple things going on there. Like I do try to operate with this core value of always give value before you ask for value. And if you think about in any business, but like in my business at writing books, the amount of what it costs a reader or what it costs a customer is not just how much they have to pay for the book. It's also how much time they have to spend reading it or finding it and so on. And whatever that total cost is time plus money. That's like the amount they have to pay. And then whatever I get paid, um, is what I make, but what they get in return should be like well in excess of that.

So like the value they get minus the time and money they spend, there's some surplus there and we could call it whatever, but I like think about it as like goodwill. And I always want to have a surplus of goodwill. Um, and so everything that I create, whether it's an article or a newsletter or the book, I want people to be, to have this feeling that it's like, oh my gosh, I get so much out of this. Of course I would want to open the next email. Or of course I would want to buy the book. It's like such an obvious win for me. So I always try to give value before I ask for value. And I don't think that there's any one way to do this. Like you could start with the book and not have an audience, for example. But the way that I did it is I wanted to focus on building the

audience first, building the platform first, give as much value as possible, get the audience as large as possible. And then I was able, you know, I didn't have any credentials, right? Like I don't have any background for it. And there was no reason for me to get a book deal. I was just a guy with a blog. And the only reason that any of the publishers in New York met with me is because I spent that time building the email list and developing the audience. And then that got my foot in the door and got the book deal. And then of course you have to execute well on that and create something valuable. And then, you know, ultimately the book being a hit was sort of just all this potential energy that had been built up for two years or five years or whatever. And then it being released

when, when the book came out. So I, in a large, to a large degree, I kind of think that's the hardest thing about writing books is all the work is up front. You have to build the audience and write it and edit it and make the marketing plan and start to record interviews and execute on that. You have to do all of that stuff before you sell a single copy. And most people are just not willing to delay gratification that long. I mean, it's probably, depending on how you measure it, atomic habits took somewhere between like three and six years. Definitely at least three years, because that's how long it was from when I got the book deal. But I was doing a lot before I even got the book deal. So, you know, it's just a long time to work on something without making a cent from it.

And so if you're willing to do that, then you can get a great result. And what some here's the challenge, though, sometimes you're willing to do that, then you can get a great result. And what some, here's the challenge though. Sometimes people are willing to do that and they don't get the result that they're looking for. You know, they go all in, they take two years or four years working on the book and it's not maybe a flop, but it doesn't get the expectation they might have of like, oh, it's going to sell 10,000 or 20,000 copies or a hundred thousand copies. And they realize actually how hard it can be to sell books. And that can be discouraging for people too and say, well, okay, this didn't work. I'm not going to do it again. But I think that's not the way to look at it. It's like, whenever I do any project, and I remember I'd started this with my podcast

10 years ago, and it'll be 10 years in January. I said, if this impacts one person in a positive way, it's worth it for me at the time, right? And I think about that with my, my books and my work where it's like, if this can, yes, I have goals. And yes, I want to do certain things. But if it can impact a few people and really support them, and getting out of a lot of pain, or overcoming some challenge that's been a hurdle for a long time, then it'll be worth it for me. You know, yes, I want to make money. Yes, I want to make, you know, return to my investment, all those things. But I think when we get caught up in that focus, we lose sight of the true purpose of it, the mission of why we're creating something. Well, the two things are

connected. You know, part of it, like I was just saying, if you do a good job of delivering value to people, solving their problems or helping them in some kind of genuine way, then it tends to be the case that those sorts of products sell better and spread wider. I mean, Atomic Habits has sold over 10 million copies. My audience, my email list now is 2 million people, but like, where are those other 8 million coming from? And not, you know, and I'm not even saying that everybody in my audience bought it. Right. So it has far outpaced my ability to promote it. And the only way that that happens is if the product is good enough that other people feel like, oh, I have to tell somebody about this. You know, it was like, it was been so useful for me that I have to share it. And so ultimately it always comes back to creating the best possible product.

And I like Seth Godin's little like measure for this, which is if you want word of mouth, then you need to create something remarkable. And that means that it's worthy of a remark, you know, that it's worth talking about. And so ultimately it comes back to word of mouth. And the only way to really get that is to actually deliver on your promise to actually create something super valuable. Now that said, there are tons of people out there who pour their heart and soul into a product or to try to their best to deliver value and maybe still don't see the outcome that they want.

And so you do need that. Like that's kind of the first hurdle to clear, but there's a lot of other stuff going on behind the scenes with a product like Atomic Habits. There's obviously my ability to promote it in my audience. But again, that's not enough on its own. I think a couple of things that are really like working in my favor. So the first is the frame of the book or just the topic that you choose. The example I like to give is there's a chapter later in Atomic Habits where I talk about deliberate practice. Now, it could have been a book about deliberate practice where I talk about habits. But instead, it's a book about habits where I talk about deliberate practice. And the difference in how those two books would sell is enormous because I don't need to convince anybody that habits are important like you just

kind of get from growing up in society that having good habits is favorable and having bad habits is unfavorable and so it taps into a desire that people already have and what I have to do is to say hey this is the best possible solution for that problem. This is like the, if you want the most comprehensive guide on the topic, if you want to see all the tools and strategies laid out in an easy to understand way. And if you want these strategies to be easy to apply, this is the book that'll help you do it. But I'm not trying to convince people that it's worthwhile at all. And I actually think even though most authors don't think about it that way, a lot of the time they are kind of fighting an uphill battle. They're trying to

convince people to care about a topic or a framing or a positioning that they're just not naturally interested in. So I think that's just one of many things that you can look for is like, yes, you need to try to provide excess value, but you also need to position the product in a way that you're swimming with the current rather than against it. You know, like it's so much easier to promote something if the wind is at your back. For those that aren't growing on a consistent basis

and they're more on autopilot, what happens to majority of those people? And what about the people that are are saying this seems like a lot of work robin and you're tiring me out with all this growth talk and you know i just want to live a simple life and you know i'm happy with where i'm at what would you say on the pushback on that i would say are you really happy or have you seduced yourself into thinking that you're happy as a way to survive. The truth is the truth is the truth. If someone comes up to me and says, I am a gardener and I am chasing my bliss and I've got the life I'm handcrafting, I will get down on my knees and salute them for their honor because all dignity has labor and who am I to judge someone else's journey? If they are truthfully happy,

judge someone else's journey. If they are truthfully happy, they are far wiser than I am. But if it's a mask, if it's I'm happy, but they're not really happy, unconsciously, perhaps their heart is broken and they've just given up on life, then I would say, yes, this sounds like a lot of work, but actually, if you do it, it's incredibly fun. Yeah. I mean, here's my experience. It might not be all your viewers' experiences, but getting up in the morning and running the 5M Club Protocol is fun. You know, like dopamine pulsing through my brain is fun. Serotonin is the antidote to unhappiness.

It's fun. Reducing your cortisol is fun. Being fit is fun. Reading amazing books brings me alive. Following my craft is fun. Serving people is fun. Getting to travel is fun. And on the point about,

well, what about when you just want to watch Netflix? What about when you just want to eat a pizza? What about when you just want to rest? So much of the Everyday Hero Manifesto is so disruptive against the hustle and grind culture. Netflix? What about when you just want to eat a pizza? What about when you just want to rest? So much of the everyday hero manifesto is so disruptive against the hustle and grind culture. I believe live your life in seasons. There's a time to be super productive and there's a time to just enjoy the fruits of your labor. John Lennon said, time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. And I think that's a great way to be versus 24-7 on. Absolutely. When has been the time in your life where you needed to go through a big spiritual purge? And what was the lesson you learned on how to get through that?

I think it's a brilliant question. First, I'd say I'm really happy for the place that you're at. Thank you. And yet the place that you were, were you once were had great magic to it as well absolutely bad day for the ego is a great day for the soul oh that's good and i think you know we are closest to our greatest power when we are on our knees and if you look at the mandela's and the mother traces the book is the everyday hero manifesto those are the celebrated heroes right but if you look at the great ones they have one thing in common they suffered more than most people so suffering you know khalil jabran in his wonderful book the prophet lewis he said your joy is simply your suffering unmasked suffering unmasked unmasked so your joy really flows from your pain yes our greatness really flows from our our disconnection to who we are and so i'm really happy to see you

so peaceful and you're so clear yeah and you're just radiating this great vibe i wish everyone could could feel it sure and yet the place where you were is, I would respectfully suggest not to be discounted. It's okay to not to be okay. And it is the times in the valley of darkness that teach us the great virtues that make us heroic. You know, it's our suffering that teaches us how strong we are. It's our pain that teaches us how strong we are. It's our pain that teaches us our true power. It's our difficulties that birth our creativity. It's the tragedies that give us wisdom and teach us love. So enjoy your time in the sun and I hope no more valleys of

darkness for me. Yeah, exactly. You know, it's interesting? I'm sure you're the same way. Whenever someone has gone through a lot of pain or challenges or suffering or events that occurred in their life that seemed overwhelming in their life, if they look back 10, 20 years later, if it's 10, 20 years has passed, a lot of people say they want to change that darkness. I know for me, I wouldn't have changed all the things that happened in my life because I don't think I would care as deeply about human beings as I do. I wouldn't want to serve and create something to help others.

I'd probably be just more into myself. I don't know, like what can I make for me? What can I gain for myself as opposed to how could I create to serve? When you look back on the most painful valleys of your life, do you wish you could change them? Absolutely not. It's the old question I get asked a lot, which is, do you have any regrets? And of course not. When I look back at my life, I see it almost as a set of invisible hands creating a magical orchestration and a life school perfectly designed to carry me kicking and screaming into

the human being destiny wants me to be. And I'm very practical. The Everyday Hero Manifesto, it's part playbook for exponential productivity. I talk about the seven threats to world class. I share a lot of the methodology. I've shared with billionaires, sports superstars, threats to world class. I share a lot of the methodology I've shared with billionaires, sports superstars, and empire makers. And having said that, the book is also a call to arms on being a spiritual heavyweight. Because what's the point of being top of the mountain, but losing your soul in the process? And what I want to bring to as many people as possible is you can be uber productive. You can be an empire maker. You can dominate your domain. You can materialize your primal genius. And at the same time,

you can be so loving to people and you can care about the earth. You can care about service. You can care about becoming the person your higher power wants you to be and if you can marry those two universes then i think you've done you've done your job yeah and so my difficulties and i've gone through a lot of them there's a chapter early on i mentioned before we went on that time 10 years of my private journals were were were vanished. And Lewis, I'm a daily journaler and I've been doing so for going on 22 years. And so I had in those journals, I had my dreams, my hopes.

The times that I was heartbroken, I wrote about my difficulties, my weaknesses, my fears. I wrote about my travels. I wrote about my difficulties, my weaknesses, my fears. I wrote about my travels. I wrote about my learnings. I wrote about my struggles. Everything was in those journals because that's what journals are for. And one sunny Friday, I went into the cupboard and they were all gone. Where'd they go? Well, you know, i'm going to protect the unpresent because we all do our best based on the place that we're at and i'm not going to judge and there's i have no uh i have

absolutely no bitterness or anything because it served me again yeah it was a platform for possibility because that taught me one of the most powerful lessons I think a human being can learn, which is the ability to let go. It's okay. So what? Someone sees them. One of my favorite movies is a Jeremy Renner movie. And in it, he says, you know, you look inside every person's life and what you see, the movie is called Kill the Messenger. And he said, look inside anyone's life and what do you see?

A three ring circus. And so what are they going to do? If they look inside my journals, they see a man who has dreams and ethical ambitions and aspirations and wants to live beautifully. And they see a man who's flawed and scared sometimes and has things to work through and has struggles like anyone. And that just makes me human. What's the biggest fear or insecurity you had about what people might know about you from those journals

or what people might know about you now of fear and insecurity that if people knew, that would make you feel, I don't know if they really want to know this. I think just how much pizza and chocolate I eat. No. No. I would say, well, there's another thing I write about in the book, which is the whole idea about being good enough. And we all have our own struggles based on our own ancient wounds. But one of my core themes that I've been working on for many years is just not feeling – it's not imposter syndrome, but it's just not feeling good enough. Like no matter what I achieve, what's the next mountain top? How long have you felt that? Probably since I was a little kid.

Really? Yeah, and it's served me well in the sport that I'm in. Yeah. Right? Because you just keep on pushing. And I think if you look at the great ones, the Michael Jordans and the Kobes and the Muhammad Alis and the Bobby Fishers and the Hedy Lamarrs and the Mandelas, I mean, I think they all share a similar wound. I think what can be a curse can also be a blessing. I think what can be a curse can also be a blessing.

But for me, you know, just because you've asked, it's that feeling like no matter how many books I write, no matter what I do, what's the next mountaintop? And that can lead, I think I'm a very happy, content person, but it can lead to a frustration. I mean, 20 million copies sold of your books. How many books do you need to sell in order to feel like you're enough? Well, ask James Patterson and Paulo Coelho. No, I'm joking. And that's where... I'm asking this question for you, but also for everyone listening. It's like, okay, if people haven't written one book that they've been trying to do,

if they haven't done a fraction of what you've created, how can they feel enough if you can't feel enough? I think part of our neurobiology is progress. Yes. So I think, you know, when you look at the healers and the emotional pundits, they say heal the wound. And I understand that. And there's a very powerful tool in the everyday hero manifesto that has served me dramatically as well as my high level clients it's called the afra tool and it allows you to move through micro and macro trauma in very profound

ways how do you use it it takes a while to explain it but basically you go into the body you get very very present you look you let's say it's a situation where you get activated you get jealous or you don't feel enough you're triggered you're triggered or activated and you literally go in the body and afra is a you find the awareness so you're located in the body where's the pain where's the tightness the tension it is because what i mean it's such a long conversation but we are taught in our society not to feel. So what do we do? We become machines. And that's why we hurt our brothers and sisters. And that's why we become selfish versus giving to the world. We become machines. So we live in our minds. We get disconnected from our hearts. When we are disconnected from our hearts, we are disconnected from our truth. And our truth is creativity. Our truth is heroic productivity.

Our truth is decency. Our truth is to serve the world. When I was growing up, my dad said, "'Robin, when you were born, "'you cried while the world rejoiced.' He said, "'Son, live your life in such a way "'that when you die, the world cries while you rejoice.'" This is all our truth.

But through the micro and macro trauma that we pick up and then swallow we develop what i call in the book a field of hurt and i think this is really powerful because we all read books on productivity elite performance we all want to be less distracted but i think the missing link to personal mastery is not in the head. It's not a new technique. It's doing the emotional healing that releases the blockages that build intimacy with who we truly are. And as you do that through the Afro tool and the other tools that I talked about, each day there's a payoff.

And it's that there's a metaphor I start off the Everyday Hero Manifesto with yeah and it's that there there's a metaphor i start off the everyday hero manifesto with and it's and i actually saw this monument but i was in thailand and and i i heard about this golden buddha and um long story short there was this incredible priceless golden buddha incredibly towering and the monks loved it and the the nationals of the country loved it and then they heard there were going to be these warriors coming in so they had to protect their national monument and their treasure so one monk hatched a plan and he said let's cover it with layer upon layer upon layer of soil so they said that sounds good and they did it eventually the invaders came in and they walked right by it. Many years later, someone was passing by and he

saw a glimmer of gold shining out from this mountain of mud. And he started digging and he started moving through the layers. And every time he moved through the layers, there was more and more and more gold that began to shine. And he got very excited and he brought his friends together and they started moving through the layers and layers and layers of golden Buddha until eventually there was this magnificent monument that was gasp worthy. And I cannot think of a more honest metaphor for us as human beings. You know, we are born into genius, but many of us get resigned in apathy and mediocrity. And it's these layers of doubt, disbelief, fear, the programming that we are taught that create these layers over our gold.

But this work, whether it's the Afro tool, whether it's meditation, whether it's prayer, whether it's sweat lodge, whether it's acupuncture, whatever it is, these modalities allow us to move through the layers if the teacher is right and the discipline is good. So we reclaim that golden Buddha, which is really what the everyday hero is about. We all can be heroic. We just don't know how to get there. And then we're not willing to pay the price to stay with the program. What's the biggest thing that gets us in the

way of getting to our heroic adventure? Is it fear, doubt, insecurity, shame, pain, hurt? What is it? Self-forgetfulness. What does that mean? What it means is from the moment we are born, the world does a con job on our greatest self. our early caregivers, well-intentioned as they are, start messaging their programming, their scarcity, their belief system onto us. We also pick up this micro and macro trauma. You're in grade five. You don't get invited to your best friend's party. You remember it for years. You remember it for years. You're singing loudly in biology class or whatever, and someone says,

you sound terrible. You carry that wound for a lifetime. You say, I want to be a billionaire or an astronaut or a movement maker. I want to change the world, mommy or daddy or teacher or best friend. And they laugh at you and they laugh at you for the next three weeks. And then a story gets set up about your undeserved ability. And here's something that any great psychologist will tell you. Your daily behavior is always matching your deepest beliefs. Lewis, it is our story. Our story that we can't be in the NBA. Our story that, well, you know, obviously you need certain physical attributes, but your story that you can't build a startup, your story that you can't change the world, your story that you can't find love because your daily behavior, if you can't build a startup, your story that you can't change the world, your story that

you can't find love because your daily behavior, if you don't think you can find love, you're not going to ask the person out for a date. That's right. If you don't think you can launch the startup that will be the next billion dollar or trillion dollar unicorn, you're not going to pick up the first book. And so I think what it is, it's we forget who we are and then we buy into a story that was taught to us. And then we keep rehearsing the story intellectually, emotionally, physically, and spiritually daily until it creates a brainwashing and a heart washing. And we hypnotize ourself against us for who we truly are. And then we walk out in the world and we see the Mandela's, the Mother Teresa's, the Rosa Parks's, or the kind people on the street, or the startup

entrepreneurs, or the great artists, or the amazing bakers. And we say, but they are not cut from a cloth that I can wear. And then we resign ourself to average. Self-forgetfulness. Forgetting who we are and the stories we tell ourselves what were you saying it's the deservedness like the behavior the daily behaviors are are what you're saying something around that deservedness our daily behaviors reflect our deepest beliefs and our income and impact are always aligned with our self-identity. Our income and impact are aligned with our identity. Can you share more on that? It's this inner story.

So if you don't believe you are deserving, then you won't find great love. If you don't believe that you have been infused with talent and power because you've been put down all your life, then you have a self-identity of apathy and victimhood. I think a through line through the Everyday Hero Manifesto is you walk out in the world every day and you have a choice. You can subscribe to being a victim or you can subscribe to being a hero. You've got a whole chapter on that, victim to hero leap. So growth is one of those habits on a daily basis. You feel like 95% of people aren't doing consistently that they could be adding. What would you say are two more habits that the 95% are doing?

Well, again, you know, even the question makes me feel like to answer it would be almost like I'm disrespecting people because I don't want to sound like I'm talking down. But I'd say for me or the people that I mentor, growth is a key habit. I call it the 60 second student, like at least 60 minutes student, at least 60 minutes of learning every day is very, very powerful. I think another great habit is the five great hours rule that I talk about in the book. It takes most producers two weeks to do five world class hours of work because we haven't set up our ecosystem, because we're not getting into flow state and transient hypofrontality, because we're constantly checking our phone. If you look at the great geniuses, they all had one thing in common.

They spent long periods of time alone in their work lab thinking about solutions to their biggest problems. So this five great hours rule, it's set up your workplace so you cannot be distracted. Set up your devices so you can do real work versus fake work. And do five sweaty, intense, flow state hours versus playing around. And then after that, you get the rest of the day off. You know, if you start at 8, you finish at 1.

You can go mountain biking, be with your family, enjoy your life, do all those kinds of things. So that, I think, is a great habit. You know, I'm going to obviously get it saying getting up early and installing the 5am club method. It takes 66 days, according to the research of University College London to set, install a new habit. Imagine getting up at 5am, doing your morning protocol of exercise, supplementation, journaling, prayer, meditation, et cetera. Sounds like a lot, but learning chemistry the first time sounds like a lot. Learning Italian the first time sounds like a lot. Falling in love when you're clueless sounds like a lot until it becomes easy.

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 if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel exclusively on Apple podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. 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.