--:-- Mel Robbins: Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to a very profound episode of the Mel Robbins Podcast. Welcome, I'm Mel Robbins. I'm a New York Times bestselling author and one of the world's leading experts on change, motivation, and habits. And I am really proud to share this conversation with you today.
--:-- Mel Robbins: When I sit here and think about what you're about to experience, I can honestly tell you, this is one of the deepest conversations I've ever had with someone that I recorded. And so I'm glad that my guest today agreed to let me share this conversation with you because I want you to experience this. I want you to be a part of this conversation.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So many of you write to me from around the world every single day about how you feel discouraged because you're starting to realize that you deserve more. And that means that there's work to do. There's work that you need to do in order to face and heal your past, to create better habits, and to experience more happiness and love in your life.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Well, my guest today, he has put his head down and he has done the work in his own life. Ultimately, the episode today is about learning how to heal, how to be less reactive, calmer, clearer, more confident, and how happiness and that power inside of you will flow back into your life when you do that kind of work.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And I am talking to someone today who has impacted the lives of hundreds of millions of people, none other than New York Times bestselling author, Lewis Howes. You may know Lewis because he is the host of the award-winning podcast, The School of Greatness, which just celebrated its 10-year anniversary with over 500 million downloads. That's pretty incredible.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And I'm absolutely thrilled that today we're going to dig into Lewis's healing journey. And we're also going to cover his latest book, The Greatness Mindset, which is a playbook based on what he's learned after 10 years of interviewing the brightest minds and biggest brains in sports, business, and entertainment.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Now, I do want to give you just a little bit of a warning. There is a lot of intimate and deeply personal topics that we cover. So if you're someone who's in a very sensitive place in your life today, maybe you bookmark this and you come back to it when you got your sweats on and a mug of tea. And if you got little ones running around, please be mindful of the little ears when, you know, Lewis shares about his own past and about men and trauma in particular, it's unlike anything you may have heard before, particularly heard a man talking about.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Now, I can't wait for this conversation. So let's go. Lewis, I am so glad that you're here.
--:-- Lewis Howes: Thank you for having me. I'm so grateful. Thank you very much.
--:-- Mel Robbins: What is your definition of greatness?
--:-- Lewis Howes: For me, it's going on a journey to discover your unique gifts and talents. And in that discovery, figuring out what your dreams are. And on the path of going after your dreams, making the maximum impact on the people around you. For me, that's greatness.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Wow. So obviously, your book is a roadmap to that. But can you just talk to somebody who's like, yeah. And how do you tap into that knowing that you are meant for greatness, especially when the shit has hit the fan and your life feels like a disaster?
--:-- Lewis Howes: I'm very grateful that I had a voice inside of me that was keeping me going. And a lot of times when I was in elementary school, I used to say, "I wish I was dead" a lot. I would get in trouble, get sent to the principal's office, and I'd say, "I wish I was dead. I wish I were dead. I wish I were dead." And I don't know if anything relates to that feeling. I never felt suicidal, like I actually was going to do it, but I remember saying essentially, "Why am I here? Am I enough? Am I lovable? Will I ever matter?" That was like a thing that was just a constant theme inside of me.
--:-- Lewis Howes: But there was a voice that was also like, "Just keep going." It was like, "You got this. Just keep going." So I'm really grateful that I was able to hear that voice even though I was so distracted. And the loudness of insecurity was crippling my mind. It was so loud and so overwhelming that it felt like I was drowning emotionally.
--:-- Lewis Howes: And so if someone feels that way now, what I would say is two things. Number one, hold on to whatever voice that says, even if it's like a second a day, that's like, "Keep going." Hold onto that voice. Because that is the thing that has allowed me to overcome so much.
--:-- Lewis Howes: And I wish I would have learned sooner what I talk about in the book, which is allowing myself to heal all the memories and pain from the past. It really wasn't until I started that process 10 years ago of healing past memories where things started to unlock, where I started to feel free internally. And then externally, the things that I was accumulating or creating or developing was more meaningful because I was successful. I was accomplishing, accumulating, but it didn't feel enough because I didn't feel enough. I didn't feel like I was worthy of receiving. I didn't feel like I was deserving of love because I didn't accept me.
--:-- Lewis Howes: And it really wasn't until the last two years when I went even deeper into healing that I was like, "I'm going to create a loving relationship with any shame or guilt or insecurity that I once had and just have a new relationship with it." It doesn't mean it wasn't painful. It doesn't mean I wish things didn't happen. It doesn't mean I didn't do things I'm ashamed of, but creating a new relationship with it so it doesn't hurt me today.
--:-- Lewis Howes: And those two things of listening to the voice inside of me telling me to keep going and being on a journey of healing has given me such a sense of emotional freedom and peace that I never felt in my life. And it allows me to not abandon myself anymore. And I think for many years, I would abandon myself to fit in, to belong, to be accepted. And the more I would do that, I would feel shameful because I was doing things that I knew weren't in alignment with who I was or my highest self.
--:-- Lewis Howes: And so once I started to heal, I could stop abandoning myself, create barriers or boundaries in my emotions or my life so that I could stay in peace and be okay with disturbing things around me by standing my ground in certain situations. And that has been the biggest gift I've given myself.
--:-- Lewis Howes: Someone was asking me on the phone when I was driving here, "How did this book come about?" I said, "I had the idea for it for years, but I didn't have inner peace. I didn't have the energy to create it. And once I got clear on my inner peace, this just came out." And I'm already just creating so much because I have clarity. It wasn't until I was able to get full clarity and ownership of accepting who I am that I was able to start doing these things authentically. So it's been a journey.
--:-- Mel Robbins: There is so much to unpack in what you just said, and I'm so happy you went deep. You remind me in many ways of somebody I love more than anybody else in the world, and that's my husband, Chris. And one of the things that I love about you is you're this big, masculine, super successful, professional athlete dude, and yet there's this incredible quiet softness, strength, and vulnerability to you. And you often say a lot without saying much.
--:-- Lewis Howes: Thanks. Appreciate it. I think it's interesting that you say that because I didn't feel like I had a lot to say when I was growing up because I felt very insecure in school. So I was always in the bottom of my grade all the way through middle school, high school, and then it took me seven years to finish college and graduate.
--:-- Lewis Howes: In middle school and high school, I would be in the special needs classes. And a lot of times during recess, I would have to do extra tutoring when other kids were playing or having fun, or I'd have to do a short lunch break and then go right into reading class. Because in eighth grade, I had a second grade reading level. So it was just very challenging for me to read a page of any book and comprehend it. It would take a long time to read it. And then by the time I'd finish it, it was almost like it was so long that I don't remember what I was reading, that I'd have to go back and read the page over and over again. So I would get through a couple pages in what would seem like 30 to 45 minutes. And I would just be tired and like, "I don't have the focus." That's why I started using my energy in sports.
--:-- Lewis Howes: And when I was asked to speak aloud in class, specifically in high school, I just felt insecure because I knew I wasn't the smartest. I knew I was always in the bottom of my class because they used to rank us on our grade cards. So I would always be in the bottom four. And a lot of times I cheated my way through quizzes and tests and homework to just pass, to stay not the bottom one.
--:-- Lewis Howes: So I just felt very unsure of myself.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I mean, when you talk about the 500 million downloads of the award-winning podcast, the School of Greatness, which is one of the top podcasts in the world, I'd say that's not bad for the bottom four of your middle school. It's one of the reasons why I love your story. Because you had to figure out how to be successful in a world that was telling you that you weren't. And it starts on the couch.
--:-- Lewis Howes: This was September 2007. I hadn't graduated yet. I left to go play arena football. I tried to make the NFL, didn't make it. So I played arena football for a season to try to get more practice and then go to the NFL. In my rookie season, I get injured. I dive for a football into the wall. It's indoor football. So imagine a hockey rink football. That's what it was. So I dove, I snapped my wrist into the wall.
--:-- Lewis Howes: So I just played through the pain. And at the end, the surgeon said, "Every catch, every block, it was just grinding the bone and disintegrating the bone in my wrist." And so that's why he said, "We have to take a bone out of your hip." That hurt more than the wrist surgery.
--:-- Lewis Howes: And so I'm like, "I'm gonna heal. I'm gonna be fine." My ego is so big that I'm like, "I feel like I'm a superhuman." And then every six weeks I do a checkup with a doctor thinking I'm gonna be fine, right? And they keep saying, "Another six weeks. Another six weeks. Another six weeks." We're supposed to be three months. Turns into six months with a cast on. So it takes about a year and a half just to rehab my arm.
--:-- Lewis Howes: So I went through a phase of sadness, denial, depression. I don't know about depression, but it was just extreme sadness.
--:-- Lewis Howes: This identity that I had when I originally thought, "I am going to be a professional athlete. Nothing can hurt me." I realized quickly, "Oh, things can hurt me and they can take away from my dreams."
--:-- Lewis Howes: And right before this, my dad gets in an accident where he has a traumatic brain injury from a car accident. They have to airlift him out of the car. He's in a coma for three months. After months in a coma in a hospital, he was physically alive, but emotionally dead. So he wasn't able to really communicate. He was my dad, but I couldn't have a conversation with him. I'd see him and he'd say, "What's your name again? What sport did you use to play? Where'd you go to school again?" That was the conversation every time I'd visit my dad. And he was at every football game. He was my biggest fan. And he loved to see me succeed. It was like he was gone. He was physically there, but he wasn't my dad anymore.
--:-- Lewis Howes: So I'm on my sister's couch for a year and a half in this phase of sadness about my dad, sadness about my identity, my injury. It's also 2008, which felt like 2020 with the economic crisis. I don't have a college degree yet. I'm trying to figure out how to get my degree and finish it while I get a job, but no one's hiring people without degrees at that time. So it was just kind of like, "What am I doing in this world? Why are these things happening?"
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yeah. And I think I just want to say that there's a lot of times in life where things happen and you can feel like that, whether your marriage didn't work out and you never expected to be divorced, or you go all in on a business and it goes bankrupt, or you end up struggling with an addiction after surgery and painkillers. And so I think this moment is really important for us to unpack. And so I want to have you read a part of your book. So that highlighted section, I'd love for you to read because it takes us right back to the moment of what you were feeling when you were on that couch.
--:-- Lewis Howes: [Reading from his book] "I felt like all I could do during those dark days was flip through TV reruns and infomercials with the remote as I felt my chance at greatness not just slipping away, but sprinting as fast as it could go. I didn't know what to think, how to feel, or how to process my own emotions. And on top of that, I hadn't even finished college at the time. I was financially, physically, emotionally, and spiritually broken. I wondered what to do next. And from my perspective, I was now very much alone, but I knew this couldn't be how the story of my life went. I knew there had to be more to my story. There had to be greatness inside of me, but I didn't know where or how to get started. Yet deep down, I knew I would eventually figure it all out."
--:-- Mel Robbins: Thank you so much for sharing that. We got to take a short break for our sponsors, and we're going to continue this when we come back.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Welcome back. It's Mel, and I'm here with New York Times bestselling author, Lewis Howes. He's a very close friend of mine. He's also the host of the School of Greatness podcast, and we are talking about healing. So, Lewis, it's been a journey from being the 23-year-old lost, former professional football person to really realizing that chasing success got you so far, but you had to fix what felt broken on the inside.
--:-- Lewis Howes: 100%. Yeah. And, you know, growing up, I wanted success. The thought of success was like the answer, right? And that was maybe, I don't know why that came about, but it was always about how to be successful. And I achieved success on my terms, but I didn't feel fulfilled. And I didn't feel like it was enough. So then I would have to achieve more and more and more to fill something up where I didn't feel enough.
--:-- Lewis Howes: And I think there's a difference between success and greatness where success is more selfish about me and greatness is about we. It's going after your goals and dreams, but making it about impacting others in the process and them being celebrated and them accomplishing as well or improving as well. And it's much more rewarding that way.
--:-- Lewis Howes: So I feel like I want to create more, but I'm also happy with where I'm at. There's a sense of peace. Yes, I'm always going to be striving for more, at least in this season of life. Maybe when I'm 90, I'll just be like, "Okay, I don't want more. I want less." And that'll be a different season. But for now, I want more. And I'm also just peaceful with where I am because I accept who I am. And I didn't know that that was the game, accepting yourself. It's accepting, but also saying you still get to improve. You still get to grow. You still get to transform, but also accepting and loving where you're at.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Okay, so let me unpack this a little bit, because I think there's so much wisdom that you just dropped. If you're sitting here going, "But, but, but, but, but, hold on a second. I don't even know how we went from 23-year-old broke, on the sister's couch, lost for a year and a half, dad having this, to now all of a sudden this crazy successful business and podcast and millions of, like, how did he do that? And wait a minute. But Lewis Howes, are you telling me this inner peace bullshit? Like, I need to pay my bills. Like, don't be talking to me about that."
--:-- Mel Robbins: And so I want to say a couple things. Yes, we will get to the story of how he went from the couch to building what he built. But there's something much bigger in terms of the master class that is being offered to you in this moment. Where Lewis is going to save you two decades or whatever of pain that he put himself through to get to the wisdom and the greatness that he has unlocked in himself.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Because I've known Lewis for five years. He is a different human being, a different human being than even just a year ago. And I think that it is possible, and Lewis will tell you this, to be a competitive motherfucker and to compete at the highest levels, which he does.
--:-- Lewis Howes: I still like to win. Hell yes.
--:-- Mel Robbins: But it's a win-win. It's a different type of win. And to be a calm, cool, and confident person because you have peace with yourself as you are doing those things.
--:-- Lewis Howes: And even just to comment on what you said about paying bills, I don't think you can have financial peace unless you have inner peace. Because there's so many people that you know that have lots of money who are overly stressed.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Right.
--:-- Lewis Howes: And more money doesn't always solve every problem. It solves lots of problems, but it doesn't always solve the problem of accepting and loving yourself.
--:-- Mel Robbins: That's true. And I'm going to add something to that because both Lewis and I have been in moments of our life. And ironically, it was during 2007 and 2008 where neither one of us were able to buy groceries. We did not have any savings. We did not have any income. We were relying on other people to help us get through. And the stress that you feel when you cannot pay for your basic needs is a toxic level of stress that can consume you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: But what I also want you to consider is the added stress and shame and mental beatdown that you add on top of that reality doesn't help you pay your bills either.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And so whether you are at a point where you've been wildly successful, but you're deeply unhappy, or you're at a point where you're having trouble paying your bills, cultivating a sense of peace inside yourself, an assuredness that you can rely on yourself, a steadiness so that the world around you does not trip you up emotionally, that that is a superpower. That's part of this greatness mindset that you're talking about. And Lewis has been on this profound healing journey. And so I want to go there.
--:-- Mel Robbins: The game is healing. The game is healing. The game is healing in order to create anything in my mind. What does healing even mean, Lewis?
--:-- Lewis Howes: I used to feel a lot of pain in my chest or tightness in my throat or disturbance in my stomach. I used to feel like I couldn't sleep at night because I was up for an hour and a half, ruminating and thinking and stressed. I used to be very reactive when my nervous system was triggered.
--:-- Lewis Howes: I feel like that's the opposite of healing. Healing is learning how to overcome all those things. So your nervous system is in peace when there's chaos around you. It doesn't mean I'm not going to feel triggered momentarily or feel like, "Oh, I don't like that," or react to a thing or feel disturbed. But it's learning how to recognize it much faster and from a place of integrating healing and lessons, be able to respond differently when there's a disturbance as opposed to based on a wound.
--:-- Lewis Howes: So most of my life, I was just reacting, responding based on wounds that I was unaware of, or maybe I was aware of them, but I was just like, "This is who I am. Don't mess with me."
--:-- Mel Robbins: How many of us have heard that?
--:-- Mel Robbins: "This is who I am. Don't try to change me. Don't mess with me. There's nothing wrong with me." That reaction. Can you give people a sense of some of the things that needed healing?
--:-- Lewis Howes: So I'm going to just point out one of them. You and I both have dyslexia. Yours more profound than mine. Even reading my own words, I trip up sometimes because I still have to practice reading slowly and with a cadence.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So what was that like for me to pass the book to you? I was even going to say it. I was like, "You know, this is like, I get to practice my insecurities all the time." I have to read on a teleprompter all the time. And I'm always like, "Just take a deep breath and know that I'm not going to be the best reader in the world and that's okay."
--:-- Lewis Howes: And so I just say, you know, I accept myself when I stutter. I accept myself when I stumble. I accept myself when I have to redo a sentence over and over again because I wasn't able to see what's coming next and it just didn't sound right. It probably takes me twice as long to read my audiobook as you do.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Right.
--:-- Lewis Howes: And I used to hate myself for that and beat myself up. And now I accept and love myself. And when I do that, I notice I read a lot better and I flow a lot better. And it's not perfect or anything, but I'm like, it's just I save a lot more time. I'm more relaxed. As opposed to I used to beat myself up and be the biggest critic. Now I'm just a positive self-coach in those moments. I'm just like, "Oh, you got this. It's okay."
--:-- Mel Robbins: Can we unpack that for a minute? Because I think it's a really relatable example. So every one of us has something that we're self-conscious about or that we beat ourselves up about, whether it's our weight or something about our skin or our hair or height, or for you, you mentioned stuttering and stumbling and reading out loud or being slower at something. And you so beautifully talked about how you used to just beat the hell out of yourself. You hated that about yourself. How do you, or how did you, Lewis, learn to accept something you hated? How do you fucking do that?
--:-- Lewis Howes: There are many different modalities of healing. And I feel like over the last 10 years, I was telling your husband, Chris, about this. I was like, because he was asking me about these different things. And I was like, "I feel like I've tried lots of different stuff because I got a lot of work to do. So I'm willing to dive in and take a look in the mirror and say, 'Tell me what to do and I'll try it.'"
--:-- Lewis Howes: And I did workshops, emotional intelligence, leadership training workshops 10 years ago that helped me unlock and open up about sexual trauma. That was kind of stage one. It was one of my biggest shames that I didn't want to talk about. I didn't want anyone to know about because if anyone knew that I've been sexually abused, I thought no one would ever love me. So it was a huge protection that I was a shield that I was putting up on myself to show people that I was strong, to show people that I was confident, to show people that no one could mess with me in sports or whatever it might be.
--:-- Lewis Howes: And that supported me in accomplishing certain results, but hurt me in feeling love and harmony and alignment within myself. And so it was exhausting. It's draining. It's an emotional train wreck because you're kind of living a double life. Inside, you know the truth. Outside, others don't know the truth about you. So you're hiding something.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And, you know, I want to point something out about this because we've been doing a whole series on trauma and nervous system repair. And you talked earlier about how your lived experience, even though you're super successful on the outside, is like not in the stomach, tightness in the chest, something in the throat. You don't even have to be conscious about the fact that you're hiding this thing. It's not like you're walking around thinking about the fact that you were a victim of sexual abuse. It's that it's stored in your body. So your body operates in a state all the time as if something bad's about to happen.
--:-- Lewis Howes: I wasn't even aware that I wasn't telling people. I was just trying to block it and cover it up constantly. But it was always in my mind. Maybe every few days, the memory would come up in some way. It was just like a movie that was repeating on repeat.
--:-- Lewis Howes: And when I did this first workshop, a lot of things started to happen in my life where I was having breakdowns in intimate relationships, business partnerships, just life. I just felt like, "Man, stuff is breaking down all around me. Although I'm successful, why are all these things breaking down?" The common denominator was me.
--:-- Lewis Howes: I actually got in a fight on a basketball court. This was kind of the tipping point, the perfect storm. And a friend of mine who was there was like, "I don't want to hang out with you anymore if you're going to keep reacting in this way." Because I was the same fun-loving guy, but when I would get triggered, this reaction would come out of me. I would get super physical, like a linebacker. I would just try to defend myself energetically. But if someone was physically trying to attack me, which in a basketball game is kind of part of the game...
--:-- Lewis Howes: ...I would take it so personally. So when it was a cheap elbow, it'd be like, turn around and be like, "Let's go, let's fight." So I didn't have the filter because I felt like someone was always trying to abuse me or take advantage.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Exactly.
--:-- Lewis Howes: And so this was the last thing that happened. I got in this fight and my friend was like, "Hey, I don't want to hang out with you. I don't want to play basketball anymore with you if you're going to react like this." And it was a tendency that was happening for many months, more and more until this fist fight.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Fist fight?
--:-- Lewis Howes: Fist fight.
--:-- Mel Robbins: On a basketball court?
--:-- Lewis Howes: On a pickup basketball court.
--:-- Mel Robbins: There was no stakes on the line.
--:-- Lewis Howes: It was just like a friendly game in the mean streets of Beverly Hills.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yeah. And how old were you?
--:-- Lewis Howes: I was 10 years ago.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So how old are you now?
--:-- Lewis Howes: I'm 39.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So when you're 29 years old.
--:-- Lewis Howes: And I remember there was a police station right across the street. It was in West Hollywood, 10 minutes away from here. And I remember seeing the guy's face when it was done and being really scared of what I'd done. Meaning his face didn't look good. I'll just say that.
--:-- Lewis Howes: And I always had this rule that I'll never hit someone unless they hit me first. That was kind of like my thing, but I'll get in someone's face. I'll talk trash, whatever. But I was like, "I'll never hit someone unless they hit me first." He ended up headbutting me because we were kind of in each other's faces. And he headbutts me. And then I kind of just go blank and I turn into like the Incredible Hulk in that moment. This guy hit me, there's no rules.
--:-- Lewis Howes: And afterwards, I had so much adrenaline because I don't think I'd gotten in an actual fight since I was like 13.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Right.
--:-- Lewis Howes: So I played football to get my aggression out, but then I no longer was able to hit people legally.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Right.
--:-- Lewis Howes: And so this was a point where this happened. And I remember going home and looking at myself in the mirror and being like, "Who are you?" I did not recognize myself. And I was really kind of shaking because I was like, "What am I doing? Who am I? What are you? Why are you reacting?" I started to ask myself this question.
--:-- Lewis Howes: And I remember thinking, "I have too much to lose now to allow my anger, my fears, my wounds to be in control."
--:-- Lewis Howes: Because I had built a business and I was like, "What if someone had a knife or a gun? Or I injured myself in a worse way, or I hurt someone else? What if something really bad happened?" He ended up fine. We were fine. But I remember thinking, "Okay, this could really get out of control." And this was nothing. This was like a little incident. And I was so reactive.
--:-- Lewis Howes: So that's what got me down the path of saying, "Let me take a look in the mirror." I asked some friends for some suggestions on what I could do. I went to some workshops. The first workshop I went to got me to a vulnerable enough state to talk about sexual abuse for the first time.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Out loud?
--:-- Lewis Howes: Out loud. First time I spoke the words.
--:-- Mel Robbins: What was that like?
--:-- Mel Robbins: The most terrifying moment of my life, to be honest, because I never thought that this had happened to any other man. So you have to imagine if you think that what has happened to you has never happened to anyone else, then you think you are wrong, broken, and the worst human being alive.
--:-- Lewis Howes: Right.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Now that's just, it was my interpretation.
--:-- Lewis Howes: Right. And I got to a place during this workshop where it was a five day experience. A lot of people were going through a leadership workshop, but we had to go into our past and mend things to get clear on what we want for the future and then move towards the future. So it's kind of like a process, a journey of your personal life to help you have more tools of leadership.
--:-- Lewis Howes: At one point during this workshop, people were opening up about different stuff. It was a vulnerable state, but it was after the third day. The trainer goes, "Okay, we've gone into these different past experiences, parents and this and that, and breakups. We're not talking about the past anymore. We're moving on. We're going into what you want to create for the future. We're done. We're moving forward. But if there's anything you haven't shared, now is the time. If there's anything you haven't shared from the past, now is the time, or we're moving on and you're going to miss your moment."
--:-- For whatever reason, that voice came back out and was like, "Okay." During this time, I started to address all these different things from my childhood. My parents, they probably should have never been married in the first place, but they went through a divorce eventually. Just the fear of their arguments and fights as a young child, that was stressful. My brother went to prison when I was eight for four and a half years. So I didn't have friends for four and a half years because in a small town, the moms wouldn't let their kids hang out with me. So that was just a lonely time. And it was traumatic to go to a prison every weekend and watch your brother in a room full of convicts and their families. It was a traumatic experience for the whole family. Being picked on in school and special needs classes and all these different things, breakups, heartbreak. I was like, "Okay, I've already addressed this stuff. I feel fine here. But what about this thing that I've been thinking about almost every day for 25 years?"
--:-- Whatever inside of me just said, "You have to stand up." I remember just standing up and getting out of my seat and walking to the front of the room. There's probably 30, 40 people in the room, kind of in a semi-circle. I stood up. This was interesting because I couldn't look anyone in the eyes. I stood up, I looked down at the carpet, went in front of the room, and just said, "When I was five, I was sexually abused by the babysitter's son." I went through the entire story of the entire event. It was almost like I was in the bathroom again, reliving it. I shared this, but I could not look up because I was so ashamed of what I was saying. I was just thinking to myself, "Everyone's laughing at me. Everyone's thinking I'm a loser. Everyone's thinking I'm unlovable." All these things came up for me. I was like, "My life is over."
--:-- I remember sharing this, staring down, walking through the whole thing. Somehow I was semi-calm. I was standing there, maybe because I wasn't looking in anyone's eyes, but I was pretty calm and able to just get through it. I wasn't crying or anything. I was just getting through it. Then I went and sat down. There were two women sitting on either side of me. When I sat down, I remember just looking at one of them and she was weeping. The other one is holding me, they're crying. Now 25 years of pain just kind of erupts. I start crying and they're holding me. They're kind of jumping and shaking, crying uncontrollably. I'm just like, "I have to leave." So I run out of the room. It was in a conference room of a hotel. I run out of the hotel to get some fresh air. I'm in the back alley behind this hotel by LAX. There's a wall. I kind of just put my hand against the wall and I'm just sobbing.
--:-- A few minutes later, I feel a touch on the back of my shoulder. It's this guy who's bigger than me, probably in his late fifties. He turns me around. He's crying. He looks me in my eyes. He says, "You're my hero. You're my hero. I will follow you anywhere." I vividly remember this. He goes, "I have three kids. I've been married for 20 something years. My wife doesn't know. My kids don't know. This happened to me when I was 11. This happened to me multiple times. And I've lived with shame and doubt and insecurities my whole life. Thank you for being the first person to open up in front of me. You've given me the courage now to go and tell my wife."
--:-- Lewis Howes: All these men from the room started coming out. There were only two or three guys who had been sexually abused who told me that for the first time, by the way, they hadn't opened up either to anyone in their lives. And then other guys were just like, "I've never heard anything like this. This happened to me. I feel really insecure about this in my life or this thing I'm ashamed of." It was so powerful because I was thinking everyone's going to make fun of me, but in fact, it made them trust me and respect me more and love me more. The thing that was the scariest thing for me was actually the thing that brought me closer to people, and people could actually see me for the first time fully, at least in that regard. That was the start of 10 years of lots of different healing modalities, which I'm happy to talk about some of them. That was the start of processing the healing. The next step is integrating the healing, which is where all the work is.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Yeah, that's true. I want to just say that this is yet another one of those areas where you and I have a parallel path. I had a very similar thing happen to me when I was in the fourth grade. And I buried it. I knew in the back of my mind, somewhere in the back of my mind, that something had happened. It wasn't until I was at a leadership seminar.
--:-- Lewis Howes: Really?
--:-- Mel Robbins: Well, what happened is somebody else shared. They shared about how they had been molested and they had forgiven their parents and forgiven the babysitter, but they couldn't forgive their sister because while this was happening to them in the bathroom, similar to their story, their sister was watching TV. As she said that, I had a very vivid memory of the moment that it happened to me in the middle of the night. When I kind of rolled over, because I was scared that this person was on top of me, the first person I saw was my brother. He was sleeping on the bunk bed right across. I thought, "I don't want this person to hurt him." So I was just quiet like a mouse. But it was the sibling connection. Like you, it just flooded in and I was like, "I got to share this." For a minute, I questioned whether or not it happened. Was it a bad dream or was it a reality? Did I block it? Was it real?
--:-- Mel Robbins: But that voice, that knowing, that flood of emotion made me, like you say, just have to say it out loud. What happened when you said it out loud? I just collapsed, sobbing. Same thing as you. So many people come up. It is such, unfortunately, a very common story. One in four women, one in six men have experienced something like that. But it's in either the denying that it's real and questioning it, or the shame that you feel around it as if somehow it's your fault or it somehow is damaging to you. Carrying that inside, which really is damaging. I think it's an important thank you, first of all, for sharing that story.
--:-- Lewis Howes: Of course.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I think speaking the things that you hate or are ashamed of is a form of acceptance. If you keep this stuff silent, if you're unwilling to talk about it, it's going to continue to haunt you. Lewis, I want to just hit the pause button for a second so we can hear from our sponsors. Let's pick up this topic when we come back.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Welcome back. It's Mel, and I'm here with one of my very close friends, New York Times bestselling author, Lewis Howes, who's also the host of the School of Greatness podcast. You've been on this incredible journey of healing. What has it taught you about greatness?
--:-- Lewis Howes: You can't be great without having peace and without going on a healing journey. In my mind, you can accomplish a lot, you can achieve a lot, you can get a lot of awards and make a lot of money, but if you feel like you still aren't enough, then you're not great. I don't think it's the enoughness. The thing that you're chasing is outside of you. It is outside of you. I was chasing them to feel better about myself, to feel like, "Okay, I matter and I have value," because I didn't believe I had value. Once you believe you have value, then you're creating from a space of love and win-win and service, as opposed to "I need to do this for me and look good and fill something up inside of me." You're doing it from a more healing journey place. Then you're able to give more, you're able to create in a better place.
--:-- A lot of my life was doing things to prove people wrong that I felt abused, abandoned, made fun of by. It's like, "Let me go create, succeed to prove people wrong." So when I would lose, I was a bad loser because I was like, "Oh, I didn't prove them wrong. I lost. They were right." It was just a different energy of creation, the fuel of anger and not enoughness. You can go nonstop for years trying to prove your enoughness from that state, but it is exhausting energy. It's draining. So many times I accomplished things in sports, biggest dreams after 10 and 15 years of thinking about them, working hard and accomplishing it, and feeling so angry after I accomplished it because I thought I would feel something different. I still didn't feel good enough. So I was like, "I need to go create more and accomplish more." And then I would do it, and I was like, "Why am I still feeling alone inside?" It's because I didn't have a good relationship with me internally. Once I started to shift that, I just feel such a good sense of peace. And because I have a meaningful mission that is not about me, it's about others as well.
--:-- Mel Robbins: That's the foundation. It's like getting clear on a meaningful mission. How do you do that? I mean, you've got the framework in here. But I'm thinking about the person.
--:-- Lewis Howes: It depends on the season of your life. If you were trying to pay your bills, you can't think about a meaningful mission. You got to think about protecting yourself, safety, and getting to a place of financial stability. Well, that's a meaningful mission, right? That is a meaningful mission for this season. When I was on my sister's couch, that's all I could think about. I was like, "How can I make enough money to get off the couch?" That was the mission for that season. But once you complete that, you got to think about something bigger that includes others. I was still including others in that by adding value to people in order to get money from them. Essentially, "I'm going to give you a service. I'm going to help you and you're going to pay me." So I'm helping them overcome a problem. I was using my passion and my power to solve a problem. That's what I started to do. Once I overcame that mission or accomplished it, I was like, "Okay, now I can see a little bit farther. Now what do I want to create?" Same thing happened with the School of Greatness.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So hold on, I just want to tell everybody. Lewis basically, in looking for a job, figured out how LinkedIn worked and then realized, "Whoa, I can teach other people how to use LinkedIn like a pro." So he became wildly successful being an expert on monetizing and utilizing LinkedIn and one platform. Tell everybody how you came up with the School of Greatness idea.
--:-- Lewis Howes: After four or five years of teaching LinkedIn and then expanding it into social media and marketing in general and courses, I realized I had enough money for maybe two years to live.
--:-- Mel Robbins: That's pretty damn good.
--:-- Lewis Howes: When you're broken, poor, from my point of view, the holy grail. I didn't spend anything. I was like, "I just need to stack everything" because I was in scarcity mode. So I wasn't spending anything. I had enough. I also didn't have a car. I was living in an apartment that was only $495 a month. I was living in the lowest amount I could. I was taking trains places, not flying anywhere. I was like a squirrel, putting nuts in my back pocket.
--:-- Mel Robbins: That's right.
--:-- Lewis Howes: Once I realized, "Oh, I can actually survive now. I'm thriving. I'm surviving. I got out of this scarcity mentality," I was able to think beyond that. I was able to think beyond this need to just make money really quickly. I realized I didn't want this anymore. This season of life, I was like, "I don't want to do what I was doing in this business anymore." So I sold it to a business partner that I had. I was like, "Okay, I've got about two years of cash if I don't make any money to survive." This is the exact moment when I got into the fight on the basketball court. I was going through a breakup in a relationship that I moved to LA for, and I was just having breakdowns in life.
--:-- I was literally stuck in traffic in LA a little over 10 years ago. Tuesday next week is my 10 year anniversary for my podcast.
--:-- Mel Robbins: No way.
--:-- Lewis Howes: Tuesday next week. So a little over 10 years ago, maybe 10 years three months ago. I'm stuck in LA traffic. All this stuff had just happened. I'm just thinking to myself, "Man, I don't have it all figured out. I thought I did. I thought my ego knew it was right. I thought I accomplished stuff. It's featured in the White House and all these others. I was like, 'Man, I should be the man, but I feel like a loser.'" I was stuck in LA traffic. We were literally on the 405 and we were not moving. All these people around me in cars stopped, screaming and honking and flipping each other off. I'm honking. I'm like, "Man, I'm stuck. We're stuck. Everyone's stuck." I was just like, "Okay, if people are stuck in traffic and it's taking them so long to get places, what if I could offer value and solve a problem for them to get unstuck?" This was literally what I was going through. I was like, "I need the solution myself."
--:-- I just started hearing about podcasting. This was 2012. I started to hear whispers, "Podcast. What is this thing?" I literally called two friends in the car. It was a long drive, things stuck. I called two friends. I go, "I know you have a podcast. Tell me about the podcasting thing." They're like, "I love it. It's the coolest thing ever. The audience I'm connecting, the building, the relationship. It's the best thing ever. I don't make any money, but it's the best thing ever." I was like, "Okay, cool." I was like, "Man, I think I could do this" because I had started to just interview people for myself, recording it for me, like business leaders and sports athletes and all these people for years leading up to that. That's how I got into the LinkedIn space. I would network with people, I'd interview them. I was like, "Man, I've learned so much from these people, which got me here in my business results. So let me take it a step farther."
--:-- They were both telling me, "Well, you should just make it about marketing and entrepreneurship because that's what you're doing." I was like, "It just doesn't resonate with me. I feel like I'm supposed to do something more." They're like, "Well, don't go too broad because it probably won't work."
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh, you mean like greatness?
--:-- Lewis Howes: Yeah. And I was like, "And who are you? You're still just getting started. You're like an internet marketer. You don't have a big audience. You can't go too broad. You just beat somebody up on a basketball court. You're breaking down everywhere in your life." I was just like, again, that voice kept saying, "I just feel like this is what I want to step into though. Even if it fails, I'm going to make it an experiment. I'm going to do it for one year, one episode a week for a year, and just see if I like it." So I discovered the mission by exploring something, by being curious and trying it. I gave myself some parameters. I'm not going to try to make money. At that time, I had money for two years.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Got it. Some people may not have that luxury when they're figuring this out in terms of making money. You might have to make money really quickly.
--:-- Lewis Howes: If I needed to make money, I could have.
--:-- Mel Robbins: You also don't have to go all in. What I loved about what you said, did you hear what Lewis said? Experiment. He gave himself permission to experiment with something for a year. Number two, he took the pressure off and said, "I'm not going to make this experiment generate money." If you can, whether you're on the couch or you're working a job, if you can give yourself the grace of an experiment and take the pressure off of money, you now are walking in the footsteps of greatness here. So you set out on this experiment and you didn't know anything about how to do it. You have two friends that—
--:-- Lewis Howes: I had an iPhone that I used to record in the beginning. I had no clue what I was doing. I was trying to do what I thought I was supposed to do. I was just trying stuff. It's funny because my assistant listened to the first episode last week. She goes, "I went back and listened to the first episode and you're a completely different person." I'm like, because it was more about success, more about achievement and winning and results.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh, I have to go back and listen.
--:-- Lewis Howes: Now it's like you lose. Then after that, I went to this workshop a few months later, the one where I spoke for the first time about sexual abuse and all these things. I actually learned the concept about "you don't win unless everyone wins around you." That concept didn't make sense to me as an athlete. I was like, "No, there was one winner. Everyone else must lose. Otherwise you're the loser." That was the mentality that I was trained with. It was the programming that I was conditioned to have. This workshop taught me that you don't win unless everyone wins.
--:-- Mel Robbins: You embody that.
--:-- Lewis Howes: Thank you. It's about winning can look differently for everyone around you, but there must be a win-win experience. Otherwise your win doesn't mean as much if others aren't improving and growing and succeeding in whatever it is they're doing as well. It doesn't mean it has to be equal winning. That's why I was like, "This podcast can't be about results. It should be about elevating others and about improvement and how we can all win together." That's when it started to shift. I started to be a little softer and be less like, "Let's just get results." It was beautiful.
--:-- There's so much that happened in that first year of the experiment where I started to try something and it wasn't perfect the first hundred times. I just said, "How can I make it better every time? How can I listen to feedback and make it better every time? How can I find my voice in this process? Even if I'm not comfortable sharing my voice, how do I find it by practicing it?" After the first year, I remember being like, "Man, I just really loved this and enjoyed it." So 10 years later, here we are. I still love it. I still enjoy it.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Wow. When you think back on literally probably thousands of people that you've interviewed, what's one interview that you reflect on the most?
--:-- Lewis Howes: I was going to say Kobe because he was my favorite interview. But when you said this, there was an interview the first year that I had with a guy named Chris Lee, who is the actual coach and trainer of the workshop I went to when I opened up for the first time. He had such a massive impact on me from that experience that I ended up hiring him as a coach for a couple of years just to coach me personally. I had him come on the show. I was single at the time. I go, "How do you find the dream partner?" He put me through a guided meditation where he had me close my eyes. He walked me through a scenario and a scene of my future self. He said, "I want you to imagine waking up next to this person. I want you to imagine what they look like, what they sound like. I want you to imagine when you open the windows where you are in the world, what your view is. I want you to imagine the feeling, the experience you're having with this person."
--:-- The reason I'm talking about that is because I said to myself during that, my eyes were closed, I was like, "I don't know if this is weird," but I was like, "I wake up next to the woman of my dreams. When I opened my eyes, she looks at me and she's smiling at me every morning." I remember saying that. I don't know why that came to me, but I was like, "She looks at me. She's smiling at me because she's so grateful and happy that we're in this relationship together." Essentially eight years later, I'm in a relationship with a person that wakes up, literally opens her eyes and looks at me and smiles. This is no joke. It happens every day. She looks at me. She hugs me. Some days she wakes up crying. I'm not kidding, because she's just a grateful human being, not just because I'm in her life, but she's just a happy person. I dreamt of this.
--:-- For me, that was a powerful, powerful episode because I had two other relationships before her. After this conversation, those things didn't happen. I realized that it only happened the moment I started to fully heal a lot of the emotional things that I still wasn't ready to face in intimacy. So I healed one element, but not all the other elements. It wasn't until I, literally there was a pain in my chest for still for years from other things, not the sexual abuse pain, because I could talk about that freely and be in peace. But other things that I still wasn't willing to face. It wasn't until I faced those things two years ago. There was a pain in my chest for many years that would come and go. It disintegrated after about five months of intensive therapy, integration, healing. It finally disintegrated in my chest. I felt this ball of pain go throughout my body into complete freedom. It hasn't come back since.
--:-- Lewis Howes: It took five months of intense reflection, exercises, practicing of healing the nervous system to where that went away. That is literally a month or two later, I met her. It's been a game changer ever since.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Have you talked publicly about what that thing was that you faced?
--:-- Lewis Howes: I just started. I haven't really talked about it publicly. I just started kind of telling people that, because I don't know if other people feel a pain in their chest. I don't know if you've ever felt like a ball that's kind of like this, not palpitations, but just a nagging pain.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I feel it more kind of like right above the stomach.
--:-- Mel Robbins: That's sort of where my, and I know when it's coming because it hits the ankles first and then this clenches.
--:-- Lewis Howes: Like wobbly legs or something?
--:-- Mel Robbins: No, like I feel literally that when I get triggered, I literally feel it start. And it comes to your stomach.
--:-- Lewis Howes: Yeah. But I think you want to know why it's because that's how the person approached me.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh, wow.
--:-- Lewis Howes: Yes. It used to be the throat and the chest for me. I just felt like I couldn't speak. There was like a pain here. I wasn't like I felt like I was having a heart attack or anything like that, but it's just a nagging pain. It would come and go. I couldn't figure out how to get rid of it or how to eliminate it. I went to five months of intensive every week therapy, sometimes five, six hours on Saturdays, where I was just like a maniac on a mission to create peace, clarity, and freedom. The first day I stepped into therapy with my coach, I call her an emotional coach because I think we should all have one. She said, "What's your intention for starting this process?" I said, "I want peace, clarity, and freedom." Because I didn't feel like I had any of those.
--:-- Mel Robbins: It was my inability to not abandon myself.
--:-- Lewis Howes: What does that mean for somebody who's never heard that term?
--:-- Mel Robbins: It was my inability to not abandon myself in intimacy with one person, the person that I was choosing to be in a committed relationship with. Because I wouldn't abandon myself in other areas. I would stand up for those like, "No, I'm not going to do that."
--:-- Lewis Howes: Oh, for you like a nice guy doormat type in relationships?
--:-- Mel Robbins: I was more trying to buy peace. Whenever my relationships in the past would be upset at me, "You didn't do this." "I'm sorry. Okay, I'll go do it now." Whenever there was disturbance emotionally, or the environment, or they were screaming at me, or they were cold shoulder, or they wouldn't speak to me, I was like, "I don't like this feeling." I didn't know how to navigate my inner world when that would happen. I didn't know how to be peaceful under chaos emotionally. So I would do things to buy peace. I would say, "Okay, I'll stop doing this. Even though I don't want to stop doing something, I'll stop doing it to make you feel comfortable. Okay, I'll give in here. Okay, I'll come home five hours early. Okay. I won't go on that trip because you don't feel comfortable with me going alone."
--:-- Lewis Howes: See, I don't think people understand how much men struggle with this.
--:-- Mel Robbins: No, I mean it. You're, this is why I said, you remind me a tremendous amount in ways of Chris. Same thing. Just would shut down.
--:-- Mel Robbins: And or give in and not capable of expressing what he needed because his experience as a kid was, it didn't matter anyway.
--:-- Lewis Howes: Exactly. A lot of men were never trained on how to navigate uncomfortable emotions through their highest selves. They would defend, protect, and show that everything's okay. I didn't have the tools, the training, the knowledge, the experience, the wisdom on how to navigate stressful emotions in love, in an intimate, loving relationship. I could do it in business and sports and other things.
--:-- Mel Robbins: What was it modeled for you?
--:-- Mel Robbins: It was a model for me. Yeah. It was constant. It was a constant low-level stress and resentment from my parents of each other, which made me always like, "Ah, what's going to happen?" Right. But they loved me, and I knew they loved me, but I knew they also didn't love each other. And so that was stressful. And so I didn't know how to be with a woman who was like, "You can't do this," screaming at me, "Don't do this. I don't like when you do this. This is not okay." Because what they are saying is, "You're not enough, and I don't accept you for who you are, Lewis." So I didn't accept myself for who I was. I knew I wasn't enough. That's how I thought. So I said, "I'm going to do what's going to make her feel like I'm enough for her." Right. And after a year, two years, three years of doing that and just giving in and giving in and giving in, you fully lose yourself. Yes. You lose who you are. Then you get resentful, you get frustrated, you get angry. So I lacked the emotional ability to say no. And if you don't love me and accept me and you want to walk away, that's okay. And I lacked the emotional ability to just be okay with me walking away from something as well.
--:-- Lewis Howes: And that's why when I met Martha—which you've met her a couple of times now, she smiles at you all the time—I had a fully different experience. Because you were different? Because I was completely different. I just told her straight up, I was like, "This is my values. This is who I am. And I'm never going to abandon myself for anyone. You, this, that doesn't matter. I'm just never going to abandon myself." That doesn't mean I'm not going to be a flexible human being and supportive in all these other ways, but I'm not going to give up who I am to please one human being because they're not happy with me.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Dude, if you could sum up the greatness mindset, I think you just did. There's this quote that goes viral all the time. I have no idea who said it first, but it's that thing: when you put all your energy into trying to keep the peace with others, you create a war inside yourself. That is just what you described. That tension in your chest—and so many of you listening, listen with it, or that pit in your stomach—is the war that Lewis just described with yourself, because you're so much more focused and concerned with keeping the peace, making sure everybody else is okay. And until you invert that and you focus on creating peace within yourself, that's it right there.
--:-- Lewis Howes: And this is the moment when it unlocks. I remember now exactly what happens when the pain went away, because I was working on it. For five months of therapy, going in every week, I was committed. I was like, "I'm going to figure this out, and I'll go as long as it takes."
--:-- Mel Robbins: You're like a truffle pig for healing, man. You've got to root that thing out right there.
--:-- Lewis Howes: I'm doing it, man. I'm not going to stop until I'm healed.
--:-- Mel Robbins: I love that. And healing is a journey. It's not an event that happens overnight. There's an unlocking, there's awareness moments. So what was that moment?
--:-- Lewis Howes: The moment was many, because every time I would meet my coach, she'd say, "What's your intention?" Peace, clarity, freedom. I didn't feel them. So we were talking about what each one is. "When do you not feel peace? When do you not feel clear freedom?" I was like, "I've never felt free in my life." And a lot of it came down to modeling parents. They weren't free in their relationship. They both were resentful of being in the relationship. They both got married when they were 19. They didn't know any better. They had four kids. They were working their butts off, just staying together. So I don't blame them, but they stayed together not because they wanted to, because they didn't know how to navigate it as well. And so I saw them trapped. That was what it was for me. I saw them trapped, and I was afraid to be trapped because I didn't want to repeat the feeling of them being trapped and feeling miserable a lot of the time. And I was like, "I don't want to create that in my life," but I didn't know how to stand up for myself. So that was the thing. And she just kept looking at me. It was kind of like a Good Will Hunting moment. She was like, "You're not trapped. You're not trapped. You're not trapped. You're a free man. You're a free man. You're a free man." And I don't know what it was, just like all the months of practicing, integrating, opening it back up, where it just kind of felt like a rush that finally connected to me that I am a free man, that I am not trapped. She was like, "You can walk away at any moment. You can walk away at any moment. You don't have to keep working in this relationship. Especially since you're not married, you can walk away at any moment. But even if you are married, you can walk away." And that was the thing. I was like, "I'm so afraid to get married because I don't want to have the shame of getting divorced or the pain that happens after divorce that so many people go through."
--:-- Mel Robbins: Well, it's so interesting. You were so focused on not feeling trapped that you actually trapped yourself. And it's so funny because I went to a prison almost every week for four and a half years. And I watched men who were trapped behind bars, but some of them were emotionally free. Some of them were there, but I saw them as free men. Like they were in a state of complete peace. Not all of them, but some of them had so much love in their hearts, were very kind and generous. They had their families around and they were free emotionally, but they just did something that put them in there physically. And I realized for so long that I was trapped emotionally, but free physically. And I didn't know how to break free. And that was the thing where I was like, "I'm just sick and tired of feeling this pain. I'm sick and tired of repeating the pattern where I'm the common denominator in all these relationships, choosing them, staying in them, and not standing up for myself." So that was a massive game changer for me: investing in emotional coaching, showing up consistently when I didn't want to, and doing the work. I think a lot of us will get business coaches, career coaches, health coaches, but the emotional game is the game that most of us don't know how to master. And yet we won't invest in coaching or find support. I just think it's so crucial.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Well, you write at the very end of your fantastic book, *The Greatness Mindset*—you're talking about "Unlock the Power of Your Mind and Live Your Best Life Today." You have a huge section in this on healing. A whole section is healing. I feel like you cannot be great unless you heal.
--:-- Lewis Howes: The whole middle of the book is healing. I feel like it's not even "Unlock the Power of Your Mind." It's literally unlock the power of your mind, body, and spirit. Integrate it all.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Everything's a Trojan horse.
--:-- Lewis Howes: That's true. You got to bring people in. Nobody's going to pick up the healing book. So they're like, "I'm going to buy the mindset book." But guys, if people understood the art of falling in love with yourself, the world would be a much better place.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Lewis, the world is a much better place because you're in it.
--:-- Lewis Howes: Thank you, Mel.
--:-- Mel Robbins: So first of all, everybody, please go get the book. I'm not done asking Lewis questions, but please, please, please support the man that has supported all of our greatness for the last 10 years. You will love this. And it's *The Greatness Mindset*. And so I wanted to close by just saying, I want you to imagine that it's your last day on earth, and you can only leave the world with three truths, three lessons that you want to impart on the world. What are they, Lewis?
--:-- Lewis Howes: You are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. If we understood that and embodied it and truly believed it, then life is just a much better place.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Wow. And you embody it. That's for damn sure.
--:-- Lewis Howes: Thank you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: You're welcome. Thank you for being a part of my life.
--:-- Lewis Howes: Thank you. Appreciate you.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh, man. Well, and you know, before I go, I just want to make sure that you hear Lewis and I tell you something, which is: in case nobody else in your life tells you this today, I want to tell you that I love you. And I know Lewis, you probably want to say the same thing.
--:-- Lewis Howes: A hundred percent. Yeah. I love you. And I believe in you and your ability to take absolutely everything you heard today from Lewis and put it into practice in your own life. And not only develop the greatness mindset, but to go heal and to learn how to fall in love with yourself and use that transformation to change the world around you. I love you, Lewis.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Love you too. Appreciate it, man. Thanks.
--:-- Mel Robbins: Oh, one more thing. It's the legal language. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional.
