 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. We are here at LAX recording this intro. So normally, we would do a trip like this. We would get back, and Doug would have to go through everything, and probably Monday or Tuesday we'd record an intro. But we had so much fire this fucking weekend. We have to get it out, man. It's like a burning hole in my pocket. We are sitting in the airport right now. Tons of people are staring at us. We look like a bunch of weirdos. People are wondering what we're wearing. I don't care. I don't want to wear headphones on. I embrace it. And we're recording this intro. But we're going to drop Lewis Howes. What a great interview. Very self-aware, very smart man, successful podcaster, successful businessman. Wrote a new book, The Masks of Masculinity. Excellent, excellent book. Definitely for men, also excellent book for women. Talks about the different roles and the different masks that we wear as men to cover things up or to protect ourselves. And we dive into it a little bit in this episode. So we touch on it towards the end. But, man, we went all over the place with Lewis. I love talking business with him. We got into personal. We got into insecurity. Got into his life and what happened to him growing up. He's successful for a reason. So his book is Masks of Masculinity. His podcast is The School of Greatness. His website is lewishowes.com. That's L-E-W-I-S-H-O-W-E-S.com. Well, actually, link the book below, too. So you guys would go direct link in the show notes. You can go right to it if you guys are interested in the book. So we'll have that all. Yeah, we'll have a link where you could grab that book. But anyway, without any further ado, here we are talking to the great Lewis House. Spitfire. There's that crazy myth that has been perpetrated that says that the emotional self is separate from the physical self. It's all the same. It's all the human organism. And it's funny because science literally proves this. We could see all the neurochemicals and hormones as stuff change from simple thoughts or feelings. Or emotions. Or emotions. It's crazy that we would even separate the two and think that they're completely different. And now it's insane. So you talk to Dr. Josh Axe. Yeah, and you guys got to get him on and have him talk about this as well. But we were talking yesterday about how even if you did everything right with your body and nutrition, you worked out, you slept right, you ate right, if your emotions felt trapped, if you felt like you were a prisoner to your own heart, then you'd still get sick. You'd still have disease. You'd still have challenges. And so really, I think it's combining emotional health and physical health on one, if you want to have an optimal life. It's all part of it. It's funny too, because when they do some of the best studies on longevity and health, come from places in the world called Blue Zone, just areas like, you know. There's one over here, I think. Yeah, Loma Linda. Yeah, the Seventh Day Adventists, I believe. And what they did when they did these studies is they said, okay, they thought they'd find some silver bullets. Like, oh, for sure, everybody's going to find this one food or this one. It's all their saiyi berry. Yeah, exactly. They really didn't find that. But one thing they found that was consistent was these, that they all had this kind of tight, knit group around the community, family community, whether it's religion or whether it's their, you know, their, their significant other or their, the, you know, the people around them in their town, grandparents were around, whatever it was. Yeah, and if they find that consistently, that consistently leads to not just a longer life, but a healthier life. Yeah, and especially in Europe too, you know, they're, Dr. Josh Jax was talking about how, you know, they don't eat that well. You know, the stuff they're eating is not as good actually as it should be, but they're happy because they're always together. They're always connected and they, you know, they don't have these sicknesses as much. Yeah, and we see this in fitness where, you know, the fitness industry, the industry that we work in is so heavily focused on the, you know, macros and calories and training that we see obsessive over Oh, absolutely. Orthorexia, there's a term for it now, right? Orthorexia, what is that? Orthorexia is like anorexia, except it's like this obsession with eating perfectly. Think of all your competitors, right? They compete. So, and we talked about this on the show. I competed for three years and I did it first to just use it as a platform to catapult the virtual business. So that was, I've never had this idea of wanting to get on a stage and compete, never wanted to wear a speech. Never once wanted to do that. But when I did it, I'll tell you though, I remember coming back to these guys cause we were already friends and we're talking and we were already working on Mind Pump. I said, dude, you guys are going to trip out because I went there. The idea was, okay, use that. Use the league and MPC IPB as a platform. Get your name out there. Get a little bit of recognition and we'll use that to gather people and so listen to the show. And I come back and I'm telling these guys, holy shit, dude, you guys, I have seen, so between the three of us, we've trained thousands of clients over all the years. And I saw more eating disorders, poor relationships with food and exercise and body dysmorphia in the competitive world than I ever had seen in the thousands of people that I trained. And that just blew my mind. I remember sitting backstage with this at the amateur level and talking to all these guys and girls that were getting ready to compete and they were just kind of sharing their diet and their exercise and what they've been doing. I'm going like, what are you doing? Like that's crazy. And that's what I want. You thought they're in like peak condition. Like these are the top athletes, right? Well, when you go down, if anyone walks down a grocery aisle and you go to the magazine section, every single cover of a magazine is pretty much all my peers. It's all the women's bikini, all the men's physique and the bodybuilding guys are what are on the cover of magazines. And it's who are providing the information for the masses on how you should diet and exercise. Meanwhile, I'm backstage talking to all of them, going, holy shit, these guys don't know what they're doing. Not only they know what they're doing, they have so much work they need to be doing on themselves before they should even be in a position telling others. So super fascinating. Yeah, it's, you know, when I tell people that sometimes a glass of wine or a piece of cake or whatever, it can be very healthy. I mean, you should see the looks on their faces. But if you understand that food can provide not just, you know, the physical nourishment, right? Like, you know, there's nutrients and all that stuff that's good for the physical body. There's also the emotional health that can come from at the spiritual health, the fact that we're sitting with friends and we're connecting over a glass of wine and we're enjoying each other's company. Well, that can be very healthy as well. And that's how you develop that, that good relationship with these types of things. So very, very fascinating topic. Yeah, we love talking about that. So, so Mr. House, how did you get started in this? Mr. House, tell me about yourself. How did you get started in this world of podcasting and, you know, kind of what you do now? Like, what brought you here? It's funny because 10 years ago, I retired playing professional football. I mean, I didn't play in the NFL, so I called professional because I got paid $250 a week to play and beat myself against the ball. And when that was over, I was devastated because my entire identity was wrapped around being an athlete. And so when I couldn't be an athlete, I was like, well, who am I? This is what I've always got my worth from, my value from my peers is being like this great athlete. And so when it was over, I was on, and my dad had just gone through a really bad accident where he got in a car accident and the car came on top of his car and the bumper hit him in the head. Oh, shit. He was in New Zealand and they had to cut the car in half, airlift him out into a hospital and for three months he was in a coma. So during this time, I didn't know, we didn't know if he was gonna make it or not. We were just like, had no clue because the swelling was so bad in his brain that we didn't know if he was gonna come out of it and either side. He eventually woke up, got back to the U.S. But it was kind of like my dad died at that day when he got home. Like he didn't really recognize me. You know, he couldn't speak. He couldn't, he just wasn't himself. Now were you close to him? This is 10 years ago? 10 years ago. Now were you close to him? Did you identify strongly with him? Very close. Yeah, very close. This is about actually, this is about 12 years ago when my dad, 10 years ago I got done playing football. Very close with him. He was kind of like, you know, the first, it's funny the first half of my life too, I was 13. I was terrified of him. Like he was like this angry kind of, just wasn't ever fully happy with himself. I think he, you know, he and my mom got married early when they were like 18 and they had their first kid and then they had three more. So there's four of us and he had to work three jobs right away just to kind of provide. So I think he never got to do what he wanted to do in his life, like his dreams. And so I think he was just kind of resentful always. It was very stressful. Got how many people are like that though? Yeah, a lot of people, right? But he stayed, you know, they stayed married when they shouldn't have, they finally got divorced. But it was just kind of like dealing with this passive aggressive energy every day when they would come home and, you know, it just wasn't fun. So when I turned 13 though, he started to finally kind of make more money in his business. He did life insurance. He started to finally make more money and all of a sudden like, it was like a new person. He and my mom had gotten divorced and they were both fully happy, it seemed like. And I was like, wow, okay. He was making more money and then he was like the best dad ever. He was at every game. He was at everything, like fully supportive, always happy, always giving like super compassionate. And he said, you know, I want you to make sure you always go for your dreams and if it doesn't work out, you can come back and work with me. You know, kind of like the family business type of thing. So I always had in the back of my mind, like if it doesn't work out, my dad's got my back. Yeah, like he's gonna give me the business, you know, one day like he'll teach me and then that'll be that. So you have a parachute now. Yeah, I kind of had like a landing pad or whatever. And so when he got in his accident, I was like, oh shoot, what do I do now? I went to go continue pursue my dream of playing football. Then I got injured. And at that time he was kind of recovering. We had to teach him how to write, how to talk, how to, you know, read again, how to just like, you know, we had to clean him, everything, you know, I had to help him go to the bathroom. And so for me as like a 23 year old, this was very challenging to see my father in this position. I bet. And for him to, when he was able to talk, it was like, tell me again what you did, you know, when you were 16, like tell me, he always had, he couldn't remember. Right. And still today, it's kind of like a broken record. He's like, didn't you used to play football? So we can have a conversation, but it's just not fully what it used to be. And so when that happened, you know, I got injured. He was recovering, but he wasn't really emotionally there for me. I didn't have like his backup plan. He had to sell his business to his business partner based on their, their buyout clause. Because if someone got injured, then that's that was what was happening. So I didn't have access to that, which is what I really didn't want to do anyways. Right. So now I'm on my sister's couch for a year and a half, trying to figure out, cause I had a surgery, I broke my wrist, I had a surgery and they took a bone out of my hip, put it in my wrist. So I was in a cast from here to here for six months. And then it took another year to just recover. So I'm on my sister's couch for a year and a half, cause I didn't have any money. I didn't have a backup job. I didn't have anything and I'm recovering. During this time, a mentor said, why don't you check out LinkedIn? Maybe you can find some job opportunities there. So I get on LinkedIn for about six hours a day and I'm just emailing people, influential people in Columbus, Ohio, where I'm living, reaching out to people to try to build these relationships and ask them for advice. No one's getting back to me when I say, I need some advice, I need some help. So I'm like, huh, why aren't these people getting back to me? Let me optimize my profile. So I look more credible and then try to approach them in a different way. And so I optimize my profile to make it look like I had some results or something playing arena football. I start emailing people in a different way and all of a sudden, everyone replies to me. Anyone from like top CEOs to millionaires to leaders in the community to big names in the industry, everyone's replying to me. And I'm like, huh. You got a talk of conception there, huh? Yeah, you have to share in depth about that because we get a lot of questions I feel like with people that are wanting to build a business around social media and they don't realize the importance of this piece right here. Yeah. So I started to just think about what would I want if I was in that position? If someone's reaching out to me, what would I reply to? Would get your attention. Yeah, what would get my attention? And right away, I was just like, you know what, they kind of feel like they, you know, I didn't really read like the business books or anything like that, but I was just like, we've got to have mutual things in common. So I started reviewing their LinkedIn profile and seeing everything they would talk about. And then I would go research them in depth. Anything I could find, I would research them. And I would see how we're connected through mutual friends right off the bat. So I would reach out to someone and say, you know, I saw that we're connected to Jeff and Sally and I just talked to Jeff about you last week. That'd be like the first thing. Then I'd be like, I saw you grew up in our Wintelhouse State University and I'm a big Ohio State football fan. And then I would say one more thing. Well, there's an N right there. I'd say, right, right, he's actually, well then I would say one more thing. I'd find three things to connect on that we had like mutual connection. And if you have at least one mutual friend that it always was more valuable. And then I would never ask them for anything. So I'd lead with like the three layers of mutual commonality, right? Now when you're doing this, are you like putting this formula together? Did you read it somewhere? No, I had no idea. No idea. I was just kind of trying to figure it out. Well, first I was like, oh, let me just make like, I was building my audience on LinkedIn. So I had all these like secondary connections to these bigger names. So I was just like, hey, I know that we're both connected to so-and-so. And then sometimes that would work, sometimes it wouldn't. And then I'd be like, I know we're both connected to so-and-so and I see you play college football. So did I. I played in the arena league. And sometimes that would work, sometimes not. So I was like, okay, let me just add more things to it. I see that you were like a sports management major. I see that you were this. Whatever I could do to relate to them, I would probably put that out there. And I found that like if you find three things, then that was pretty, it was kind of like the formula for me. And then I would do something else that most people never do, which I would never ask for advice, never ask for help, never ask for introduction. I would make it all about them and find something specific that they had done in their career, whether it be like a jump in their career, something where they accomplished something based on their LinkedIn profile. And I'd say I'm so fascinated by how you went from a marketing person to the COO. And I'd love to learn that story. Would you mind sharing your story of success and making that happen with me? Now, when you're asking that question, are you thinking podcast? Yeah, I was gonna say, this sounds like podcast. No, no, no, this is 10 years ago still. This is all 10 years ago. Okay, so this is still just- I didn't even know what a podcast was. All right, right. But I was just like, here's what happened. I started getting all these people, these leaders in Columbus, Ohio who were like, yeah, I'll give you 10 minutes. Like let's join, let's meet up for coffee or breakfast or lunch. So all these people were meeting with me before they wouldn't meet with me at all when I would ask for advice or ask for help. Or can I have 10 minutes of your time and pick your brain? How often do you guys get that? And when I said, I'm just fascinated by your story. I wanna hear your story of how you did this. They were like, yes. I think everyone wants to share their story. And so I was meeting with these individuals in person. And now this is when I was broke. So I couldn't afford lunch already. And they would pay for my breakfast or lunch already, which was like amazing. They were like, let me get it. Thanks, kid, for calling me for lunch. But they were like, you're actually doing me a favor. For allowing me to share my story. Oh, yeah, they're like, I insist. And I was like, you sure, I can take it, but I was like, I don't have anything. So I was like, thank you. And I was like, wow, I'm building some unbelievable relationships. And at the end of all these meetings, people were like, what can I do for you? And I would never ask for anything. I was like, I just wanna help you and I wanna figure out what your biggest challenge is right now. And they'd be like, well, I need a new person in sales. I need a new marketing person. I don't understand this LinkedIn thing, how you've done it, can you help me there? And so I was just trying to solve people's biggest problems. Whether they needed investment, they needed a connection, whatever it was, I was just trying to be the matchmaker. And that was what kind of helped me initially. But in these conversations, I was like, man, these are fascinating what they're sharing with me about their story. And I was like, I wish my peers could hear this. Cause I'm getting some unbelievable information. Now I didn't know five years later. So that was five years later when I started the podcast. So I was just doing this for myself. And I started building my own business through first LinkedIn course and a book that I wrote. And I started doing LinkedIn networking events around the country. Yeah, so I did 20 networking events where I- And this is early on, like, it's 2008. Yeah, LinkedIn's just really starting to rock and roll around. 2008, I think there was like 20 million people on, 16 to 20 million people when I was getting on. And so this was around the time when Twitter was kind of blowing up and people were doing tweet ups. I don't know if you remember this back in 2008. Twitter meetups. So I would get out, they were called tweet ups. He's like, yes. So I would go to these tweet ups and I was like, this is fascinating. Like there's 300 people here. And they just met up from like just sharing it on Twitter. And I go, there's a real need in 2008. There was a big need for the economy was in a bad place. I don't know if you guys remember this. Economy had a big hit. People with masters weren't getting jobs, right? Now I didn't even graduate college yet at this point. And I said, there's a need here. I'm gonna bring people together that I'm connecting with on LinkedIn. Cause they're all looking for more leads or looking for jobs. I'm gonna bring them together. So I did my first event, 350 people showed up. And I was 24. I had like one suit jacket. I tried to show up like looking professional and everyone else is like in their 30s and 40s. And I was like, what am I doing? I have no clue what I'm doing. But I acted like I had done an event and just like greeted everyone and shook everyone's hand who came there. 350 or first event. Now you're charging for this people are paying to it. This first one I just did free cause I was like, I don't know if people are to show up. But I got four table sponsors to pay 250 each. So I made $1,000 from like the sponsorships. And then I was like, huh, I wonder if I'd charge at the door if people would show up. And so the next one I charged $5. And I was like, I don't know if people would show up. More people showed up. And they were more qualified, right? Cause what a great lesson that is right there, right? Yeah. And then I was like, oh man, I wonder if I charged $10. They still show up. So I charged 10. I charged 15, 20. And then I was like, okay, I've got the sponsorship. I've got the door commission. I wonder, I'm building these relationships with these kind of restaurants and bars where I was hosting them. And I was, I would reach out to them and I'd say, what's the deadest night for you? Like what's that? And it's like a Tuesday or Wednesday night. And I go, okay, I'm going to bring three or 400 people. Oh, they love you for that. They love me, right? And they're going to buy drinks and food. And I go, can I get a commission from the food and bar? Can I get 10%? And they're like, yeah, if you bring in this much money we'll give you 10%. And then I was like, okay, I did that a few times and I get an extra few grand. And I was like, can I get 15%? I just kept asking for more. So ask it, yeah. Like I'm going to bring you this. You're not going to have it. You're going to, I'm going to go take it next door. It's a win-win. Win-win. And then I was like, people started asking me for like consulting on LinkedIn. So I started doing one-on-one teaching them. They were like, how are you doing this? I'm like all through LinkedIn. And then I met a guy who helped me write a LinkedIn book. He was like, you need to kind of scale this message. Otherwise you're doing one-on-one forever. So I wrote a book and I'd sell those books at my events. And so I was figuring out everywhere I could monetize one event through one platform. Now, what do these look like? So are you standing up and you're just talking to everybody? How to utilize these tools? What do you teach you? I was just bringing people together. I wouldn't even talk at all. What? So they were just like networking? They were just networking. It was just networking event. Oh, wow. And I would have like, you know. Even better. I had like kind of boost set up with like little tables like this where people would like put some of their products or whatever like services. So it'd be like five to seven boosts per event eventually. And then I would make like an announcement for five minutes like, hey, make sure you guys are like tipping the bartender. Make sure you this, make sure you this, like dropping your business card. I was just like building my own email list at the time through business cards. And I still was just like, I just needed to make some money because I was on my sister's couch. Now at this point in your life cause you're only like what? 23, 24. 24 years old. Do you recognize kind of the brilliance in what you're doing right now? Are you just? People told me they were like, this is fascinating. They're like, how are you doing this through LinkedIn? And I realized like, wow, there's a real need here. No one's really talking about this one platform. They're all talking about Twitter and other stuff at the time. So I said, I'm going to be the LinkedIn guy. Like I'm just going to go all in and be the expert on how to use LinkedIn because no one else was doing this. It's so funny we're talking about this cause literally in the car on the way over here I was talking about LinkedIn. And yeah, I just finished the book, The Four, which was an incredible book if you haven't read that book. And it's Amazon, Google, Facebook, and... LinkedIn or Apple. And Apple. Thank you, Doug. They're the big four. And they're talking about, they're the big four horsemen who could be the potential fifth one. They get into Microsoft and they talk about how Microsoft 10 years ago was so huge and then they've pivoted to like a consulting and then they bought LinkedIn. So I'm super fascinated in the direction they're going. Do you still, are you still paying a lot of attention in the thing? Here's the thing. I was like literally on there all day long, 24 seven for years. And I just got kind of burnt out. You're so bored of talking about like how to add your like bio and your profile picture. And I was just like, I'm over this. So I haven't even used LinkedIn in years. I mean, we'll like post our content up there in the news feed or whatever cause I've got a huge audience there. And I've got these massive groups that I haven't even tapped into in years cause I've just been, it's just not fun for me. That's awesome. Now is that what got you to pivot out of that into podcasting where you just bored and you had to do something different? So I started with LinkedIn and then I created my first course. This is how I got into online market and I did my first training course on LinkedIn. It was like a hundred dollar course teaching people how to use LinkedIn video training. And I made $6,200 in my first webinar teaching this. And I didn't have the course done yet. So I said, hey, buy this and you'll get it in a couple of weeks. And I made 60. So get it when I finish it. And it was like a janky progress. I didn't want to make a sales page. I didn't know to do anything. So I just said, like, here's a janky PayPal link. Like type this in. It was like 27 characters, you know, pound, star, seven, six, you know, slash whatever. And I was like, go here and then trust me that you'll get something in a couple of weeks essentially. Wow. And I made $6,200. And it was like, it opened my mind to like, it would blew my world. I was like, wow, I've been scrapping around doing these events around the country for a year making three to four grand, you know, an event, but like really hustling to get people there and like managing it, it was like, it was like, I'm burnt out from these events. That to make $6,200 in an hour. I was like, this is my life. Here we go. I'm going to figure out whatever it is to like master what a webinar is, like how to optimize this. And I was like, I will do it every day for the rest of my life. If it's going to make this type of money. Because at this time I'm paying $250 a month to live at my brother's house because my sister after a year and a half got like pissed off that I wasn't like giving anything or contributing anything. She was like, you either need to get a job and start paying or you need to get out. So I was like, all right, let me go to my brother now and ask him if I can stay for free. And his wife made me pay $250 a month. And that's when I made this money at their place. And I was like, okay, time to go get my own apartment. I found an apartment for $495 a month and I was terrified to pay it. I was like, I don't think I'm going to be able to do this for months. And I was like, but leveling up made me like level up my mindset as well and take action, right? And so I started on this LinkedIn course. And I was like, okay, let me optimize this LinkedIn course, this video training course and figure out this webinar thing. And I did that. And then that did really well. And people were like, okay, you've taught me LinkedIn. Can you teach me how to use Facebook? Can you teach me how to use Twitter? Can you teach me YouTube? So I started creating these other programs because it's what people wanted. And I found experts to teach them, the top people. And I was like, okay, we're going to create a product around you, we're going to create a publishing model. And that kind of blew up there. And so I got that business to a $2.5 million a year business within the next two years. Wow. After I like- And how old are you now that you're at? I'm like 26, 27 maybe. Yeah. And I had a business partner at the time. So I was splitting everything. And I just had no clue really what I was doing in business. I was never taught in this stuff. I was just like, all right, I'm going to do webinars. I'm going to build relationships. I'm going to teach and I'm going to sell. Where did all the self-belief come from? I think it came from the sports. A couple of things. Sports was a big factor for me because I was just, you guys played sports, right? So for me, it's just like- Justin and I did sales. Sal has two feet. The mindset of just playing sports at a high level with the pressure constantly, really developed me. I feel like it gave me that edge. So I always believed. What my dad taught me just really encouraged the belief in myself. Do you think there was a party that was driven because of that and because of what happened to him? I think, I don't think I'd be here. I don't think any of this would be happening if he didn't get in his accident, to be honest. Yeah. And I actually don't talk about it that much, but I think it was supposed to happen for me to be able to do what I'm doing. That may sound a little egotistical, but I truly believe there was the night before he left for his trip to New Zealand. He'd never missed a game, a football game. He would fly all the country for me no matter what. And he was going to miss one game, my senior year. And I was like, why are you missing this game? I had a bi-week, so he was going to miss that, which was fine, but then the next week he was going to miss because he was going to be gone for two weeks in New Zealand with his new fiance. And I was like, why are you missing this? He goes, I feel like I need to go on a spiritual journey. And it was like, gives me chills thinking about it because he was like, I just really want to go on a spiritual journey and I want to go. I've never been to New Zealand. I really want to go there. This is what he's saying to me the night before he leaves. And we're at a family camp. We would go to this like YMCA family camp, either Memorial Day or Labor Day weekend. We would go for three days as the whole family. And he's sitting by himself on the couch. I don't know if I even shared this, but he's sitting by himself on the couch in like the mess hall area. And I just see him looking weird. He's like looking out at everything just kind of weird. So I go sit by him, because he's just kind of looking like, I don't know, something's going on. I go talk to him. I go, you know, what's going on? Excited about the trip? Why are you leaving? Are you angry right now? Are you kind of bitter as a kid? No, I'm just saying no to fuck. Well, I'm kind of like, I had transferred to come back to Ohio my senior year so I could be closer to him. So he didn't have to travel as much. So I went to a school closer to him because I was always gone from Ohio. So I was kind of like, man, you know, my first week I was like broke school records. I was like, you know, all conference. And then the second week he was leaving. And I was like, why are you leaving? This is like senior year. Like let's do this together, you know? And he was like, I just feel like I need to go on a spiritual journey. And it was just weird. The way he said it, it was just very weird. And so the game he missed the night before, I got to call it 1130 at night from my sister. I see it on my cell phone come up. And right away I'm like, something happened because my family knows not to call me like that late that night before game. Yeah, yeah. So I pick it up and I go, what happened to dad? And she's just like, she came and speak. She's like in tears, right? Yeah. And I just had a feeling. I was like, otherwise nothing would have been wrong, you know? And she said the story, you know, he got in an accident. We don't even know if he's alive right now. He thinks he's getting airlifted. We have limited communication. And so I'm like, what do I do? Do I play tomorrow? Do I not? And my brother was like, you got to play because we have no clue what's happening, but he would want you to play, so he might as well play. So I did. And the second to last play of the game, I break three ribs and then we lose the game in the next play. And so at the end of the game, I'm walking off hobbled, broken three ribs. We lose. And I'm like, is dad alive or dead? I'm like, I don't even know. You know, I'm like, we don't even know. And so it's fascinating that moments like this, the most challenging moments of our lives are the ones that propel us into what we're supposed to do. Yeah. And so I believe that like, because I didn't have the backup plan anymore to go work with him, because I didn't have his emotional support, his mentorship, like I didn't have any of that. None of it was there. Like he couldn't communicate, he couldn't give me advice, he couldn't support me. It's almost like he didn't care anymore. Right? And at that time, he's probably at that age, where you're at in your life, he's probably at least one of the top, if not the top mentor, probably. No, he's brilliant, he's brilliant, man. Wow. Brilliant. And so for me, I was like, okay, I gotta figure this out. I gotta find other mentors. I gotta, I can't let this be my excuse and just like sit here in Ohio and just be miserable on my sister's couch for a longer time. Like I've got to step up now. Dude, where does this awareness come from? That level of awareness at that age. I think I always, when I was five, I knew that I just had big dreams. I was just like, I'm here for a reason. You had a purpose. Yeah, I just knew when I was five, I was just like something magical was gonna happen because I was in so much pain and insecurity growing up, that I just felt like that my sensitiveness was really like a superpower. And, but it wasn't at the time because I didn't have any friends growing up, but I felt like someday this is gonna matter, it's gonna mean something. And so, yeah. Did you feel like you didn't fit in growing up? Absolutely, yeah, I didn't have any friends. Yeah, I was like the tall, gangly, goofy kid. I was picked last in sports teams. I was made fun of a lot. I was in the special needs classes. I couldn't read out loud. So the teachers, I don't know if this ever happened to you guys, but they would like have us read aloud in class and it would come to me and I would just stutter and stumble and just stop and sit down because I couldn't do it. So yeah, I just knew that though. I just knew that I had to figure something out. Like this wasn't what my life was supposed to be. I wasn't supposed to like not make it to the NFL and like get injured and be done and now what? Like go work a job that I don't love and just be miserable. Was that your ultimate vision was to get into the NFL? Yeah, yeah. It was like your dreams as a kid. The Olympics in the NFL. I wanted to be an Olympian and I'm still pursuing that actually, which sounds kind of crazy. Oh shit, what? I play with the USA Handball team right now. Oh good deal. So I'm on the Olympic team. No way. They just didn't qualify the last Olympics. I know that about you. Yeah, I didn't know that. That's awesome. Here's the thing, if the Olympics were hosted in the US, I'd be an Olympian because it's an automatic qualifier. Oh shit. The host country is an automatic qualifier for every sport. So you just have to, they only take one country from North and South America for team handball. And you've got to win that tournament in order to go. How the fuck do you get into team handball? Yeah. From football to team handball, I mean. 2008, again, the same time, 10 years ago, I was on my sister's couch and I watched the Olympics. I was watching during, when I just got the cast off. If you're like that handball, that's perfect. I saw handball for the first time. I'd never seen it before. It was like 3 a.m. Oh wow. And I watched these highlights and I was like, what is this sport? I was like, this is my sport. Oh wow. And so I started obsessively researching. I was like, this is my chance to make it to the Olympics if I can't make the NFL. Oh wow. And then I researched like handball clubs in Ohio and Columbus, there was nothing. And then, as I say, how do you even practice to get good at that? Yeah, exactly. So there's club, it's an amateur sport in the U.S. Okay. This is handball where it's like water polo on a basketball court. This is not a handball where you hit a ball against the wall. Oh, that's what I'm thinking. That's what I'm thinking right now. So describe this. Do you know what I'm talking about or no? No, I'm- Team handball is imagine water polo. Okay. Without water. Okay. Where there's two teams throwing a ball. That's kind of cool. And it's dribbling and it's on a bigger basketball court. That's really cool. And it's like a small soccer goal where you're throwing it behind a goalie. So imagine a soccer with your hands. Okay. On a smaller field. Oh wow. You're dribbling, you're passing. But it's very aggressive. Can you tackle people? You can't fully tackle them. It's like you can hit the other one. Oh, I was almost in. Like field hockey kind of, right? Kind of like lacrosse with your arms. Yeah. Right. And it's fascinating. It's unbelievable. It's one of the fastest sports in the world. It's huge in Europe. You know, 20,000 people come out to watch these games. It's like, it's unbelievable. And so I moved to New York City two years later. I said, when I make enough money, I'm going to go to New York City because that's where the national champions were for handball in the US. After I did a lot of research, I found like, okay, New York City is the place to be if I want to learn this. Two years later, when I made this money, I moved to New York City, walk into practice and say, I'm going to be an Olympian. I'm going to make the USA team. And they all laughed at me. I'm the only American. It's all Europeans that have moved to New York for other reasons. And you've never really played this sport. Never played in my life. That's how I'm gonna make the USA national team. I'm going to the Olympics. They laughed at me. They wouldn't even speak to me. They wouldn't even speak to me. They wouldn't even speak to me in English. They would just speak in their other languages. Probably mocked me. Making fun of me. But I showed up every single practice for that year and nine months later, I made the USA national team and started competing against Olympic teams in Brazil and Argentina and South America with the USA team. And this is seven and a half years ago now, seven years ago. And I can't remember where we're at in the first place, but did I think I'd be doing this? When my dad went through all these things, I was just like, I believe that there was just more for my life than what I was doing. I just believe like, I had an opportunity to find a meaning of why all these things happened and make the most of it for the gifts and talents that I have and figure it out. And so I kind of had that vision eight, 10 years ago. Well, this kind of leads me to talk about your newest book right now and you talk about how different masks, kind of the same way that I talk about our greatest strength is your greatest weakness. So I say that a lot on our show and you kind of talk the same way. And also your greatest weakness is your greatest strength. Absolutely, right? So it's inverse related. And I think that the way you talk about the masks are very similar and that could be a situation right there where it is an example in your life where you're looking to play this sport. These guys aren't talking to you. I'm sure that the mask, your athletic mask that you probably wore was also what drove you to be so great at it. Can you expand on that a little bit? Yeah, the athlete mask is a powerful one because when I was in third grade, I got picked last on a team. Oh, self can relate to this. Right, yeah. So the teacher said, okay, we're going to go out to recess and we're going to play like a class game where we're going to play dodgeball. And he picked two people to be like the captains to pick the teams. And he's like, okay, you get to pick one person at a time and you trade off. The stuff that you can't do in school anymore, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But probably built great character right now. Exactly. And so there was like the two popular guys that he had like pick. And I'm thinking I'm one of the tallest, I'm pretty athletic. They're going to pick me first. A shoe in, yeah. Right, yeah, I'm in. So I'm kind of like standing close to them like they're going to pick me, you know. And they start picking one by one all these other boys in the class. There's probably, I don't know, 40 kids in the class, 20-ish boys or something. And so they're picking all these guys until it comes down to me and like literally the guy with two left feet, right? The nerdy looking guy. Get dead to sour. It's your sour now. The guy with like the glasses, like the skinny like kid who was like a little, Looks like he's never seen a ball in his life before. Exactly, who can barely walk, right? And I'm like, there's no way they're going to pick this kid. It's no chance. Like I'm a good athlete, right? That's what I thought to myself. And then they pick this kid and he starts like walking over to the team. And I'm like seriously on the last boy picked. But then something interesting happens. They pick a girl before me. And I'm like, what? Like instantly like I felt like so humiliated that there was a girl picked before me. Then they pick another girl and another until it's all come down to me and one girl left. Now this girl is like, can't even walk times a million, right? It's even worse than the like the nerdy guy. And they pick her before me. And so now I'm the last, and then I don't only pick me just because I'm like the last one on the last team. They're like, okay, well, you go over there. Yeah. Like they didn't even pick you. You had to go there. You just had to, right? And so again, I was like a third grader. I'm thinking to myself, I'm humiliated. Like this is, I'm less than a boy. I'm less than a girl. Like what am I? Right. And I'll tell you what, I was like dominating in this game. I was like, all this anger and it was like slamming you into his face. I was like catching everything. I was like, I'm gonna prove you guys wrong, right? Yeah, oh yeah. And I continued with that anger for many years. I said, I'm gonna prove you guys wrong. And I was training like a machine after school every day. I was like, I'm never gonna get picked last again. Oh, that was some brutes. Oh, I was like, I'm going to be the most dominant athlete I can be. I'm gonna get so big, so fast, so strong that people have to pick me first. And that's what I did. And it worked. The athlete mask worked for me. And that's why it's so difficult. That's why it was so tough to take off. So challenging because it drove me to be all state and multiple sports, all American, you know, play pro football. It drove me to achieve. And I got a lot of value from that. You know, I learned a lot of great things. People accepted me. They wanted to be around me. I had friendships now because I was like accepted in the group. I wasn't just like the awkward kid anymore. And the challenge is when I come from a place of needing to win at all costs, needing to be right at all costs at all times, not just on the sports field, but in life. It's very, it's a lonely place. And, you know, I was always competitive in everything with my girlfriends and just like a little game of like Flip Cup or something, you know, or whatever, just like heads and tails or like thumb war. It's like I had to dominate. And people are like, gosh, you're so aggressive. Like, take this so seriously. Yeah, why is it so serious? Why can't we just have fun? Like your girlfriends would be like, gosh, this is like, you're not fun to be around. You're not fun to play sports with it all. Right. It's like, but I had to win at everything at all costs no matter what. Well, it's tough because when you, when you've learned to switch that on and you become ultra competitive and then you have success with it and you have repeat success with it and you get rewarded and you get all these things. Acknowledge. Make money. People like you because of it and all that stuff. Absolutely. Until you're forced. Until you're forced to take that as you would say, mask off. Exactly, exactly. And the rewards were high, but so were the prices I paid. The price in like feeling alone, loneliness, feeling like it was never enough. Like even though I'd win at all these things or I'd achieve at all these things was like, how come I didn't feel good still? How come like it wasn't fulfilling me? How come I wasn't satisfied? And it was just never enough because I was still trying to prove people wrong in my competition. I was still trying to prove like my worth to people as opposed to just owning it and not trying to make people wrong for what they think about me, but lifting others up and then trying to do it for inspiration. Now do you think through trying to prove other people wrong or prove your worth that reality you were trying to prove your worth to yourself? Absolutely. I mean, to everyone and myself, you know, the world. Now you talk about that's one of the masks of masculinity that you identified. There's nine, I believe that you said that are in there. Do you feel that masculinity is at a crossroads right now? Do you feel like there's a bit of a crisis? I think so. We were talking about this before, you know, everything we see in the media every day, it seems like is there's one common thing that we see and starting back six months ago, just this year alone, you know, we see Charlottesville. We see men marching angry. We see all the political dis-ease that's happening, just the constant conflict that's happening. A lot of anger. We see a lot of sexual abuse and harassment happening in Hollywood right now. And just with like Uber and NPR and all these executives and companies, Amazon, we see every three days, it seems like a new shooting, a new killing from Vegas, just like unleashing anger into the world too. When I was in New York City a few weeks ago, the guy who just drove through New York City and killed a bunch of people in the van in the truck to the church last week, where the guy went into the church to up in Northern California, I think a couple of days ago, whatever happened up there. I mean, just seems like every day there's something happening where the common denominator is a man that doesn't know how to express himself in healthier forms. A man that feels like I need to be, where the sexual mask, I mean, every year we see athletes who are beating their wives or domestic violence or something like that where they're just punching them in a elevator and watching the door slam on them. There's all these different masks that we see in the media that men are wearing. And the conditioning is hard to break from what happened when you were a kid to your teen years, when these things are rewarded for us, when these things are rewarding. It's hard to break it and turn off the switch and say, well, I'm gonna express myself and communicate from a loving way or just open up and have a conversation as opposed to that's not acceptable sometimes. It's not acceptable to open up and express ourselves that way. We get made fun of as guys. We get ridiculed, we get pushed away. So we say, fuck it, I'm just gonna be angry then. If you want me to talk this way, then let's go. Let's fight, let's do this. I'm gonna dominate, I'm gonna win. And it's hurting our humanity, I believe. I think what a lot of what we're seeing is, for millennia, men have felt like they've had an important role or important place in society. And as societies evolved and grown, we're sitting here thinking, well, what do I do now? Like, they don't need me to protect them because it's pretty safe. They don't need me to make money. What is our role? School is punishing to boys because we tend to be more rambunctious. So we're not really doing well there and statistics show that girls do a lot better in school. I can't show vulnerability. I can't show emotion because- I'll make fun of my peers or my dad'll hit me or doesn't know how to communicate with me. That's right, it's interesting. I watched this very fascinating video on how men make up a majority or a large percentage of both ends of the spectrum where you have a majority of people in prison, a majority of people with mental illness, a majority of all the issues are suicides are men. And then on the other end, inventors and artists and creators, it's almost as if the male gender, if you will, or sex or whatever was evolved to be that kind of outsider. But with modern society, it can be quite frustrating. And so I think it's a perfect timing to write something like this. Would you mind going into some of the other masks? You talked about the- Before you go into all the masks, I want to know personally with you, because I know you and you expressed this, I've heard you talk about it, that we all have multiple masks. Would you say that the athlete one in you is the deepest rooted one? Or do you have another- The athlete and the aggressive are the deepest probably because I talk about this openly, but I was raped when I was five by a man. And my brother went to prison when I was eight until I was 12 and a half, four and a half years. And so during that time, I didn't have friends because the neighborhood, you know, I was grew up in like a middle-class, white suburban neighborhood. So to have someone in your family go to prison was unheard of in my community, in like the white neighborhood, right, or whatever. And so the parents of the kids my age were like, you can't hang out with Lewis, you know, if his brother, you know, as long as he's in prison, you can't hang out with him. So I didn't really, I mean, I was already awkward and didn't have friends. And then that was like, oh, now I have less friends. You know what I mean? It was like, no, he's a bad kid now. And so what was the question? The athletic mask. Oh yeah, the aggressive mask. So for me, I took defense to everything. Like if anyone said anything to me, I was like, I need to defend myself. Building your protective shell. I need to defend myself. I need, and I need to fight back. And like no one's gonna talk bad about me. No one's gonna make fun of me. Like, I'm gonna, again, I'm gonna get so big and strong that like it doesn't matter. Like if I was just very like aggressive, I was very loving because I just wanted friends. But then when it didn't go my way, I was like, okay, fuck you. It's almost like the masks that you talk about are just unhealthy over expressions of natural masculinity. Yeah. You know, like aggressiveness. Like we tend to be a little more aggressive, which had it's, you know, there's a reason for that. But it's that unhealthy expression of it. Absolutely, yeah. I mean, some of the other masks, those are the main ones that I had, maybe Alpha a little bit as well. I mean, I wore them all and I still wear them all from time to time. And so it's not like I've elevated to the mountain tops and I'm like aware now. Right, we never do, right? I mean, you're always gonna be working towards that. Exactly. But I'm very conscious of it when I am defensive. Even yesterday, I've, well, Matt, my COO, he, someone I felt very taken advantage of. And when someone, when I feel like someone's stealing money from me, it's even like a whole another trigger for me. Cause I'm like, don't try to like take advantage of my name or my money. And someone did both, right? I won't get into the details, but essentially I was just got very frustrated and I just started sending like nasty emails. And I was like, you need to do this now. Like I've been very compassionate for the last couple months. You haven't responded. You haven't gotten back an answer of how you're gonna make this right. So it's time to do it now. Otherwise legal action taking place. And I was like, and this woman was like, why wish you'd be more compassionate and speak about like what you're doing in your book right now and continue this. I was like, I have been compassionate. And now I feel even more taken advantage of cause you're not communicating. And Matt was like, I wish you wouldn't send these emails. He's like, I know it feels good for you, but it's not good cause she could just screenshot. It wasn't like I was swearing. We call that picking up the brick. It's like, don't pick up the brick. Exactly, right? Don't pick up the brick. I just wouldn't be like, fuck you. But I'm like, okay. Now when he was telling you that, were you defensive? Like we were talking about, I'm defending myself. No, because I'm like. Saw it right away. Right when I posted I go, fuck, I hope he doesn't see. He's putting a CZ in it. So I'm like, I wanted to just say, hey, hey, I just posted this. I know what you're gonna say. Yeah, yeah, here it comes. It's just like, it's all good. I'm not gonna reply again. I just need to get this out there. So it's still happening, but I'm much more calm and like aware of it. Now do you think there's anything therapeutic about allowing those masks sometimes or situations like that? Absolutely. I think, you know, if we're angry, I don't think we should just be like, you know what, I'm just gonna be loving and okay. I think we need to find our own mechanism that's healthy as opposed to, well, I'm angry at this person. So I'm gonna unleash it on them. That's not a healthy, but talking about it with a friend or talking about it with my business partner and like communicating my anger and expression in that healthier context is healthy. Sometimes it's warranted. Absolutely. You're allowed to be angry. You know, I'm all for having a room of like a punching bag room to like get your anger out as well. As opposed to, okay, I'm just gonna breathe and always bottle it up and never express myself. And then when someone crosses me the wrong way, I'm gonna unleash it on them. Which I've done as well. You know, and so for me it's like, okay, what are those things that are, I think getting a pillow and screaming in a pillow is a great form of expression. You know what I mean? It's like good to let it out, but find the context where it doesn't hurt other people and it doesn't hurt yourself. Now, how did you start identifying, because you know, you use masks, other people may say ego or insecurities. How did you first start identifying this? I started working with psychologists. I'm just doing research. And I was like, what are the characteristics that I have? What are the masks that I wear? Were you in therapy when you were younger? Never was in therapy. I've done a couple therapy sessions since I started kind of like diving in, since I started opening up about being sexually abused. That's what I'm alluding to. Four years ago, I started opening up about it. Because everything in my life, the reason this all happened is because everything in my life was working on the outside. I was making more money than I'd ever made in my life. I had hot girlfriends in my 20s. I had this girlfriend at the time who people were like, oh, she's super hot. So I was like, okay, cool. I'm cool. I made it. And I had a business. I had the athletic achievements. I had the awards. I had it all. Tom Brady formula. Right? People were like, you're crushing it. Everyone was like, you're crushing it, Lewis. It was four years ago. And I was like, well, why am I suffering? I'm still empty still. Why do I still feel like it's not enough? Why do I still feel empty? Why do I still feel like I'm lonely all the time? I just felt constantly lonely. And then I started to, like things just got really bad in my business partnership, in my relationship with my health, like everything started going wrong. And I was like, why is everything else going right? And everyone looks, everyone says it looks good, but I feel like it's shitty. And I didn't understand until a lot of things happened where I got into a fight on a basketball court. I had to send a guy to get stitches from this face. And it was like blood all over the court to just like almost beating up my business partner in the middle of Times Square. Wow. And this is after you've already been successful. You, you did some shit like that. Absolutely. This is like when I was at the top of everything. Wow. Got in this fight. He goes just like this massive. Yeah, so crazy, man. I just, I was so like, I was so defensive towards everything. Like anytime someone looked at me in the weird way or said something to me that was like aggressive, I had to defend myself, whether it be online or in person. It was like I had to defend myself at all costs. No, you have such a great story with something like that. Do you, do you have things that you practice now where you, cause obviously that has to resurface, right? There's gotta be moments where you, those triggers happen. Absolutely. It's funny. I mean, how much time do we have? We all day, bro. It's funny. I'll give you an example. Three weeks ago, I'm going to the airport to get on a flight cause I gotta go somewhere right before this book launches. And I get out of the car and I check my back pocket to check for my wallet. And I don't have my wallet. So I'm freaking out like checking the car where's my wallet, where's my wallet. Realize I left it at home and I've never left my wallet back. So I'm thinking, fuck, like what, how did this happen? How did I forget my wallet? This never happens to me. I'm like, you know what? I'm still gonna make it on this plane cause I've always figured out a way. That's the way my mind said, I'm gonna figure out a way. Is that self-belief? I was like, there's always a way. Or delusion. But I just believe, I'm like, I believe in the power of enrollment. Like if there's something I want, I believe I will get it. Create for yourself. And so I was like, okay, door shuts in 15 minutes. I'm gonna make it on. Right, cause I always get there about 15 minutes before like the door. Cause I've got TSA pre-check. I know the line I'm going into. I know how fast it is. I've got one bag. Like I don't have any water bottles in there. Like I know what it's gonna take to get through. And I've done it so many times. So I get there and I go, okay, I don't have my ID. I have no identification. I need to get on this plane. I'm a Lewis house. Yeah. They're like, do you have any identification? I was on bills, anything. I was like mail, I was like nothing. They're like, okay, you need to go over to this other line and talk to someone else. So I go over there. There's like a hundred people in line trying to get through. I just go right to the front. I go, sorry everybody. I gotta get on this plane. I don't have my ID, this and this. They're like, I'm gonna find someone else. They bring someone else around. They're like, do you have anything? I go, I have my book. I go like this. I go, I have my book. This is work. It's got your face on it. I go, I was like, I was like, here's social media. Here's all these things like, no, it doesn't work for us. It's like, fuck, okay, well, what do we need to do? I need to get on this plane. Well, we have to get someone else to do a phone call where they have to answer a bunch of questions. On your background, I go, okay, let's do this. Now I got 15 minutes. So they get, they take their time. They're good old time. We go outside, we get on the phone call. I have to fill out a bunch of paperwork. I'm like, just do the call, let's do this. I'm filling out paperwork. I answer the questions like my cat's first name, like my mom's maiden name, like my car from 10 years ago, like addresses, I have to verify everything. Finally get through like this first test and like, okay, we need to go do the screening. I'm like, cool, TSA pre-check, right? They're like, no, you gotta go through the normal line now to like do the full screening. I'm like, okay, let's do this. But they get me through, they pretty much have to like strip me down naked. And the guy is like, okay, sir, I'm gonna put my hands on the back like this, but I have to cover like your- Dude, the way they do that now is crazy. It's like I have to go all the way down and like feel you. This just happened to me. Ever since you grew a beard. Yeah, exactly, right, exactly. And I'm like, okay, just grote me, strip me down naked. I was like, I gotta go. I've got like three minutes now, right? This is whole process down to like three. I'm checking my phone. I'm like, the door closes in three minutes. Let's go. Do whatever you need to, like tickle my balls. I don't care. Let's go. And they have to take every item out of my bag to swab each item and put it through the machine. And I'm like, guys, like, let's just do this as fast as we can, please. Shoes off everything. And they're roping me. They're taking stuff out. I'm like, can we hurry this? I'm trying to be calm. Cause I don't want them to like frustrate. I'm like, it says I have two minutes now. Can you guys, is there any chance we can speed this up, please? You know, I'm trying to be nice. And they're like, the gate is right here. Like you're gonna be fine. You're gonna make it. This is what this woman said to me. I was like, ah, that's the first time in my life. I feel like I'm not gonna make it. You saying that? It was like a bad sign. I go, okay, I'm trusting you. And she's like, you'll be fine. We get everything together. They're like, okay, you're done. I grab it all. I just start sprinting with like shoes and handbag, with clothes hanging out, running to the gate. Door closes right as I go around. I go, can you open the door? I gotta get on. They go, sorry, once the door is closed, it's closed. I go, there's gotta be a way. Can you open it up? Can you sort of supervise it? You can unlock it. Can you do something? Can you call the pilot? I was like, anything. They're like, sorry, once it's closed, it's closed. It's policy. And now I'm talking to this customer support woman, looking at the plane through the window. People are still boarding the plane through the thing. It's still connected. I go, the plane is right there. It's not leaving. Can you just let me on? And she's like, there's nothing we can do. I was like, and so at this moment, I am pissed at myself for forgetting my ID. I'm pissed at the TSA pre-check people, because they're like threw me around everywhere. They took a good old time. I'm like, these people lied to me. They say they make it on here. I'm thinking all these things. I'm trying to blame everything else. And there is a trash can and a pillar holding up what it seemed to be like the entire airport right next to me. And all I wanted to do was punch through this pillar and break down the airport. And then kick this trash can and watch it explode in front of everyone's faces. And all I wanted to do was scream at this woman. I didn't do any of that. I just stared at the airplane and was like huffing and puffing. And the woman was like, sir, what would you like us to do? And I was like, if I say something right now and look at her, I'm probably gonna regret what I say. And all of a sudden, the awareness pops in. I go, how funny is this that I am going somewhere to talk about my book about masculine vulnerability. And all I want to do is punch someone in the face. And so I just start smiling to myself. And I go, okay, this can go one of two ways. I can walk out of here humiliated and in handcuffs or I can walk out of here with my head high and let it go. Meant to be. And so I just like looked to her and I start talking a little more calmly. I'm like, okay, is there anything we can do for another flight tonight? She's like, sorry, there's no other flights. So I'm like- More lessons, more lessons, more lessons. Okay, surrender to the process. And at the end of it, I walk out of there calmly and not in handcuffs. You know what I mean? I get out of there and I'm like, okay, you know what? This was a lesson. This is a moment I get to take, be aware to. Like, sure, I could have handled it better, but I still didn't break a wall down or something like I might have in the past. And so it's just being very mindful of these moments. And what I do now is in the morning, I actually think about all the things that I want to manifest that day and create. But I also think about like, what are all the things that could happen today with my triggers? You know, I'm in LA traffic. So if I drive today, I'm gonna be triggered because someone's gonna cut me off. Someone's gonna be slow. Something's gonna honk at me. It happens. My old way of being is like to always be right and to show that driver like, you should never cut me off because I'm gonna cut you back off now. And I'm gonna always be a little bit ahead of you. Right? So I think about like, what happens if my girlfriend says something that triggers me? In the morning, I'm like, okay, how do I want to respond? With defensiveness and anger or with love? And so I think about that in the morning. Meditation really helps me to just be mindful of like staying focused on two things. And what this book and this whole process has helped me with is realizing that there's two things that we should be thinking about at all times based on our actions and our reactions in any situation. And that is one, does my response support a purposeful vision for my life? If me responding right now and punching this wall, is that going to help me achieve my vision for my business, my health, my relationships? No. And the second thing, does it support my inner peace? No. I call it desired outcome. That's what I tell people. Desired outcome. Before you say open your mouth or do anything, think desired outcome. What's your true desired outcome from the situation? And when you really think that forward head, like what is punching or kicking the trash can getting to get you? Nothing. It's not gonna reach your desired outcome for sure. And so does it support my vision and my inner peace? And if it doesn't, then be aware of that and don't do it. And I think that's helped me gain a lot of clarity in everything. It's like just saying yes to this commitment that someone asked me to do whatever, an interview or a meeting, does it support my inner peace and my vision or does it make me stressed out? So now when you have those moments, do you stop and breathe? Do you do something to? Yeah. No, I breathe. Shut that off. I breathe and I don't respond until I've asked myself that what's my reaction gonna be? Is it gonna help these two things? And like sending this email yesterday didn't help my vision or my inner peace. It felt good in the moment to be like right, but if I really went there and swore and did all these other things, it could have been probably, she could have screen shot that and put it online and like said, Lewis is like a hypocrite and isn't do what he says he does. You know, all these things like, again, it would have been more challenges. And the irony is all the things that we do that we think protect us and shield us are actually the things that do the exact opposite. Absolutely. That's the whole irony of it. You know, Eckhart totally talks about the ego and learning how to become the observer. And it's the ego that reacts and stopping and observing really makes a massive difference, but it's a practice. Yeah, huge practice. It's a practice you gotta do every day. I talk about it, you know, with friends and family. It's like exercising. It's like working out like, you're not gonna work out once and all of a sudden become strong and fit. It's something you need to do every single day and sometimes your workouts are better than others. And it just doesn't work where you just do it once and like, here I am. I'm, you know, evolved and I get it. It's something I gotta practice every day. And looking at these moments like lessons, it's like looking at your workouts, you know? That's absolutely. Let's speculate a little bit. I love when I have another really intelligent mind to add to this group and someone who is self-aware as you are. And you also mentor a lot of young entrepreneurs that are coming up. Where do you see with the generation coming up right now, what do you foresee the challenges that them dealing with with social media and everything going on? What do you use? A lot of it is the comparison mode that I see with social media, like everyone's comparing themselves to everyone else, especially in the fitness space. It's like, well, this person has more followers by doing this, so I need to do this. This person looks a certain way, so I need to look a certain way. And what was the word you guys talked about? The intuitive? No, the anorexic thing. Oh, orthorexia. Yeah, and so I feel like it's a lot of orthorexia for everything. It's like trying to be perfect in all these areas. Do you see it getting worse or better? I see it getting worse first and then people realizing like this doesn't work. They have to go through their own lessons, unfortunately, unless people are so aware to be like, oh, okay, I'm gonna hear someone else's story, whether it's mine or someone else's, and be like, oh, they had everything and it wasn't at all. I love the quote from, I think it's Jim Carrey, where he's like, I hope everyone in the world becomes rich and famous, and they realize it's not the key to what happens. How funny is that guy goes off in the woods, does a bunch of mushrooms, and comes back totally enlightened. I think exactly, yeah. So I think the challenges people are driven to achieve and to make a lot of money and to be successful or whatever, but it doesn't bring the fulfillment. It just doesn't. I feel like a lot of the generation coming up too is in search of this purpose, right? They wanna find this purpose. And when I hear a story like yours, I feel like there was so much heartache, hard work, failures, things that had to happen for the success. And even when you had the success, it wasn't the success that you wanted. Can you elaborate a little bit on the importance of that and that whole process, you feel? You know, it was all to prove my worth in the world. The achievements that I wanted to achieve were to show people like I was valuable to be here in the world and to prove them that they were wrong about me. And it's just, it's negative fuel is the most powerful fuel in the world, but it will never last. It's not sustaining. Like I got to where I was based on negative fuel and I was so disciplined and committed. Like I would not say yes to go to parties. I didn't have a sip of alcohol in college because I was like, I'm gonna prove everyone wrong. I'm gonna be so disciplined and achieve my goals to prove them wrong. And it worked. It got me great results on the outside, but I was like, man, I'm so empty still. And once I learned that, I said, okay, I'm shifting everything to not make people wrong, but to make others right and to not bring others down, but to lift others up. And that what I do, it needs to come from place of inspiring myself and be an example for inspiration for other people. Otherwise, I don't wanna do it because I did that for 25 years of my life and it was miserable. It got results, but I still wasn't fulfilled. Are there things that you've turned down recently like that that you people think- I turn down money all the time. Speaking gigs, business deals, opportunities that are big money-paying opportunities all the time because it doesn't feel good to me. I'm like, I don't wanna just make money as a transaction. Unless it's something that I feel inspired by or something I feel like it's gonna help people or something that excites me. And when I do take those jobs, I'm like, okay, 50 grand for an hour speech. Like something I don't really care about though. Like sure, it's nice and sometimes it's needed. Like if I'm poor, I'm gonna take those jobs. Like it's not like I'm not gonna do that, but if I have the option not to right now, I'm like, I'd rather put this energy and time into something more meaningful into my mission. What is that right now? What excites you right now? What are the things you like putting your energy into? I mean, my podcast excites me. I just like connecting with people in general. So whether it's my podcast or this right now, I just love connecting and hearing stories and telling stories. My mission right now is to serve 100 million people a week and to reach 100 million people a week to teach them how to make a full-time income doing the thing they love the most. Because I believe when we make a full-time income, doing something that we are filled with joy and passion, we're gonna treat ourselves better. We're gonna treat our friends and family better. We're gonna make better choices for our health and we're gonna live happier lives. We're not gonna be killing each other in the streets if we're doing something that we're inspired by. It's funny, as a personal trainer, towards the end of after I'd been doing this for so long, I realized, because people would come to me and say, I wanna lose weight. Essentially, I wanna lose weight so I could be happy. And eventually what I learned to teach them was, first you gotta be happy and then you lose the weight in a real way and you said you were always seeking the value or finding value. When did that happen? I need to achieve and then I'll feel value. When did you finally realize that you are valuable? When I started to heal the process of everything from my past, four years ago I started sharing with everyone the things that I didn't want anyone to know. Sexual abuse was just like the biggest thing, but just all my insecurities, all my fears, I started talking about them to my closest friends, my family, and then I was encouraged to talk about it more publicly, which I didn't want to at first, but then after many, many months of people saying, I think it's more of a responsibility for you to open up about this because of your platform, I was like, okay, I'll do it. And the more I talked about these things, the less these things had control and ownership over me and the more I owned them. And it was like, I don't have to react or make decisions based out of this fear, this insecurity to prove myself anymore. I'm like, everyone already knows my shit. Everyone knows my biggest fears and they're my biggest insecurities, the shit I've been through, being the less, being all these things, feeling stupid, they know the worst of my worst. So freeing when you're there. And they all still like me. And they all, they like me even more. They like, people were like, I've always judged you and now I'll trust you and I'll follow you anywhere. Isn't that funny? I'm like, what? That was something I wanted to ask. Transparency. I'm like, what? That was something I wanted to ask. Men were like, you're my hero. They're like, you're my hero, I've been married for 20 years, my wife doesn't know what happened to me still because I don't have the courage. How much of your life have you gone through, because being a tall, good-looking athletic guy, white male, how often do you get judged when you walk into a room? Instantly, especially, I mean it's challenging and I get it because especially with women, it's like so many women have dated a tall, white, jock-looking guy at some point in their life and were probably had a bad experience with them. And so it's like instantly like, you're that guy, you're the guy who hurt me when I was 18, the guy that cheated on me, the guy that like broke my heart, the guy that, whatever, manipulated me, you're like the example. And so listen, I get that white male privilege is a thing. I get that I had certain opportunities that other guys didn't have. I get this and just being a man, I had different privileges, I get this. But it also comes with a lot of judgment and a lot of, you know, it's people constantly putting you in this like box, right? It's like, well, you're this way just because you look this way. And that's just who you are. So it's constantly trying to break that mold. And part of this, you know, everything I try to do is to kind of try to break that mold. And this book is like very unexpected for a lot of people because there's not many tall, white, jock men opening up about vulnerability in general who are saying, yeah, this is what I've been through. This is my flaws. This is my challenges I've been through, but they don't own me anymore. And I'm gonna work on being better and I'm still not perfect and I still make mistakes. So call me out on it when I do. Let me know. You know, that word privilege, I have a, when I hear it, it makes me upset and I'll tell you why. It's because who determines what is privilege and what isn't for you, brother going to jail, dad, you know, almost dying, terrible, terrible things. But you could look at them and you said that you look back at those as moments that drove you to what you're doing now and all your success. So it's almost like what we do with it can make it a privilege or make it. Listen, I understand that, you know, being white, there's a lot of like less prejudice, like walking down the street, I don't have to worry about a certain thing. So another race might have to worry about, I get it. But I think when it comes to women who are just like, oh, you don't know what you're talking about, like white male privilege. I hear this all the time. Like, I'm not even gonna like look at your book because you're just white male privilege. They just automatically assume. And I'm like, if you would, I see what you're writing about on Facebook, about like equal opportunity, about vulnerability. If you read one paragraph, open up anywhere. I pretty much have copy and paste and say the same thing that you say. So I'm, we're on the same page. I'm on the same side as you. Like, I'm speaking the same language. Yeah, let's connect. Let's like, let's talk about it. Like I don't, you don't need to, whatever. I mean, you don't need to buy my book, but I'm saying the exact same thing that you're saying. I bet that was a major disadvantage, but I also bet it's a major advantage for you. We talk about this with the three of us that people probably, you're unassuming. You think that I'm gonna get this dumb, cocky guy and I'm like, oh shit, this guy is super empathetic, super friendly. And then I'm sure that totally wins people over once you finally get inside. Yeah, yeah, I mean, eventually. But people are still like, people still are very strong minded to like, well, you look this way and so you're, and you talk a certain way. So you're just, this is who you are. The irony is the judgment on how you look and they're talking about don't judge people. Exactly. It's so funny to me. Yeah. There's a group, I mean, like, I don't need to like harp on this or go too deep, but there's a group of like these women online who are just really negative towards me right now, really aggressive, like just saying a lot of nasty things about me in these private groups and now publicly like writing full articles about me. Wow. And they still won't even read like one paragraph. And I'm like, guys, you're telling me that I'm all the things that are wrong about men and white male privilege. But I'm like, I'm here like saying, let's have a conversation. Like I wanna talk and hear, like tell me how I can be better. Tell me what I'm saying that is hurting you or hurting women or hurting this. And they're not even, they're like, no, I will never read anything you do. I will never buy anything you do, like because they hold onto something from the past of maybe. Why, because you're talking about how masculinity has these masks and the difficulties and all that stuff. Exactly. And as if there could be any difficulty in that. Here's the thing, that's funny. I did an interview with Marie Forleo on her show. This is so funny. It's like, do you guys know who she is? Yeah, I do. She's got a pretty big female audience, like very influential. And so it was a great interview. And it's like probably 90% women who are watching and listening. And I'm just like talking, I'm opening up about everything. I'm opening up about my past. I'm opening up about like how men get to heal and like how men get to come together and help humanity and all these things, right? That like women are talking about as well. And then I say one thing that I say, you know what, something about like, I think this is a great opportunity for women to go through this. And at the end of every chapter, I talk about how women can understand the men in their lives and come from a compassionate place of like what they've been through from the past just so they have an awareness. Without realizing you just jumped on a third rail. Right, right. But I was like, you know, and having an awareness and be able to communicate to men in a way that they can hear it and resonate with them so they don't feel defensive. And so this one woman was like, so you're telling women that we need to do the work. Men need to do the work, not women. And I'm like, and you're like, that's why you're wrong about everything because they were like, we shouldn't have to do any work with this. It's all about the men doing the work on themselves and being responsible. And I go, yes, I sail those things. But if you want to live with men and human beings, you get to understand them as well. It's like the playbook I'm handing it to you. It's the keys to the kingdom. So it's just challenging. It's like, it doesn't matter how much I'm like, you know, equal rights for women. Like don't hurt women. Don't do anything. It doesn't matter what I say. If I say one thing that could be taken the wrong way, it's like a whole group of women are like, you're just this jock, white male privilege screwed you. And I'm like, again, is that judgment? Where does it say about you? Exactly. What does it say about you? When you're attacking me, isn't that what you say you're not supposed to do? There's a lot of anger right now surrounding these topics. And it's a result of a lot of different things from politics to, you know, politicians put a lot of money in fostering and creating this divide to help, you know, get themselves voted in or whatever. And you have social media that amplifies voices. And so it makes things seem worse than they really are. And when the reality, things are a lot better than they ever have been to the point where, you know, if something does happen and get caught on camera, the reason why it goes viral is because people find it, you know, disgusting. Otherwise nobody would even pay attention. But I think these are all good signs. Because when you see real change, right before you see real change, it tends to get kind of this, yeah. Super dark. This feverish, you know, like out, you know, just people going crazy with things before things really start to change. But I think what people need to realize, and I say this all the time on the show, is people are inherently good. Most people are inherently good. It's not the other way around. And if it was true that people were bad, society wouldn't succeed. You wouldn't be able to walk down the street without something happening to you. The reality is most people are good. Most of us all want the same thing. We want to be loved. We want to be accepted. We want what's best for our children. And we want to feel fulfilled. Doesn't matter if you're a man, woman, black, white. Yeah, gender non-informant doesn't matter. It doesn't even matter. Everybody kind of wants the same thing. And if we just listened, if we just listened and tried to understand or seek to understand before seeking to be understood. Yeah, or judgment or whatever. Oh, I think we'll go so much further. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think a book like yours is perfect for that. So. Excellent. Excellent, excellent. Thanks for coming on the show. Yeah, yeah. We're gonna talk about how I got into podcasting again. Oh, maybe we get there too. That's another show, dude. Welcome to Mind Pump, brother. This is what happens. We just start talking about some shit in all different directions. Yeah. I would love to hear that story. You wanna hear it? Yeah. Yeah, let's hear it. So to kind of get back to the original question. The first question. To get back to the very first one. Why do you get into podcasting? I don't even remember. So after my business, you know, kind of, I got to a certain level with my business. I got in this fight with my business partner and I was like five years ago and in the middle of Times Square and I was like, okay, we just need to like figure out a way to like split this up and move on. And I was kind of over just like teaching about like LinkedIn and like Twitter and things like that. I was like, this is not really what I wanna do anymore. It served a purpose to help me get off my sister's couch, make money and like not feel poor anymore but it's not like my passion right now. So I sold it to him and then for about a year I just kind of was like evaluating what I wanted to do. And I realized like, I just still love connecting with people and asking these stories. And I remember I'd moved to LA. I was driving in LA traffic and I was stuck one time trying to go like one mile. It took like an hour. And I was like, I'm so pissed off right now. This is like so frustrating. And everyone else around me was frustrated in their cars. And I was like, there's gotta be a way to bring inspiration to people's lives when they feel like trapped in traffic or just stuck in life. And so I thought about like radio, okay, podcasting. And I called two buddies of mine who had a podcast at the time, Pat Flynn who has smart passive income podcast. And I called Derek Halpern who has a social triggers podcast. I called them both and go, tell me about this podcasting thing. Is it powerful? Is it helpful? Does it help your business? And both of them were like, it's our favorite thing to do. It has the most qualified leads we have for our business. People say unbelievable things about the feedback. It's amazing. And they love it. And I was like, oh, okay. These guys can do it. I think maybe I could do it. I had never listened to a podcast. And I told myself, I'm not gonna listen to any because I'm gonna create the thing that I'd want to listen to and not be influenced by like, oh, this is how they do their intro. And this is how they do their ad read it. This is how the music, I was just like, ah, I just don't even want to deal with that. I just want to like, what's the thing that would fire me up? That's crazy. It's a lot like us. That's how exactly we do it. And I called up another buddy of mine in the same car ride. And I was like, I'm thinking about doing this podcasting thing. Like, what do you think it should be? And he was like, why don't you do like a business show because everyone comes to you for business and marketing. And I was like, eh, it's just not what I feel like I want to do. I was like, yeah, maybe I could be effective, but it's not what I want to do. I want it to be broader. I want to be able to like interview like Olympic gold medalists and like billionaires and then spiritual leaders and like all these different people. And he was like, it's probably not going to do as well. Unless you like niche it down. That's what everybody wanted us to do the same thing, dude. He was like, just do one niche, right? Not that he's wrong. I think I would have done well if I did like the business marketing show out of crush. Of course, right? Initially, but then it's hard to go out of that. Yeah, exactly. And I was like, and he's like, do it like, you know, maybe do it like the Lewis Howes podcast. And I was like, eh, I was like, I'm not Joe Rogan. I was like, I'm not trying to do that thing. And I want it to be bigger than just me. And so I was like, what I really want to do, I started talking about it. I was like, what I really want to do is this, this, and this, and this. And I was like, God, I just wish, you know, these conversations that I get to have with all these friends of mine who are influential from every different industry. I was like, I wish people could hear these because it's unbelievable what they're saying to me. I want them learning, but I'm the only one learning it. And I was like, I wish this is the stuff that I was been taught in school because it was so challenging for me. And everything was very hard reading these textbooks and like just not understanding things. And I was like, this is the stuff that's helped me get to where I am in business and relationships. So I was like, I want to create a new school. Like a school of something. And I was like, God, I just want to be fucking great. Like a school of greatness, baby. And I was like, that's it. He was like, that's a great title. I was like, school of greatness. And it's just like from that, you know, that frustrating moment created an opportunity. You know, my weakness that I was facing created a strength. So it was like, make me think clear, get me out of the box. And so school of greatness happened. And then, yeah, almost five years ago, we launched it. And it kind of took off. Like, I remember saying to myself, I was like, I'm going to do this once a week for a year. See how it goes. And I'm not going to take any money. I'm not going to try to sell anything. I just want to do it because I'm excited about it. And I think that mentality really helped me because within like six months, the sponsors started coming and people are like, I want to be on this and I want to promote, you know. And I was like, oh, we have like a real thing here. When you first got going. And then of course you mentioned Joe Rogan obviously was kind of, he's like the Oprah of podcasting right now. Who, other than Joe Rogan, like, who are you kind of looking at? I know and you were doing your own thing, which is just like us, but were you watching others? I wasn't, I still wouldn't listen to anyone's. I, it wasn't until a couple of years after, I was like, all right, let me listen to a few podcasts. And I watched a couple of Joe Rogan's, but I was like, man, these are so long and like, super long, super long. And it was like, some of the conversations were like, I've yet to finish one. I've watched, I've watched like 40 and I've never finished one. People love it. I know. I love it. They eat it up. So it's all good. I mean, it works for people. It was inspired by him. And then, yeah, you know, I don't know. I'm always like watching the rankings and seeing what's happening, but I'm never like listening that much because I'm just creating so much, you know. Do you, when you look, when you look back or listen to your old episodes, how good do you think you were? I don't listen to any of them. None of my episodes. Did you never or did you stop at one point? Cause we listen to the beginning a lot. I never listened to it. Oh, wow. I actually, we critiqued ourselves a lot. It's funny cause I went and I drove yesterday. I almost never drive anywhere, but I drove to see Rob Dierdeck's new show and it was about an hour drive. And so in the drive back, I was like, let me just check out like Oprah's podcast cause it was like the first thing up there. So I touched on Oprah and I actually listened to Eckhart Tolle's things. Oh, did you? Starting like the ego in the day. Fantastic, right? It's fascinating. And I listened to Shonda Rhimes and I was like, this woman's powerful as well. So I listened to a couple of them and I was like, oh man, now I remember why it's so addictive, like listening to podcasts. Cause I was like, this is really powerful. Like I never listened to it myself. But I was like, wow, I just like got through the whole drive an hour and listened to two episodes and I feel like I learned so much and the time flew by. So I was like, yeah, now I know. Yeah. What was the question? Did you, were you good? Oh yeah. And then my podcast, well, my podcast came on like right before, like it just autoplay goes on the app, right? And I was like turning it on to the car. And I was like, gosh, I just feel like I sound stupid. Even like this is like a couple of months ago. We all think that. I was like, man, I just thought of it. I feel like I'm stuttering. I feel like I slur my words. I feel like I'm lazy. And I'm like, gosh, I just hope I don't sound it. I hope everyone doesn't think I sound this stupid. So I think part of it is like, I just don't want to feel insecure about myself. I don't know, like what listening to it, but I think it's good also. It's a game film, you know? It's good to listen to or watch. I know we do a good episode when I'm listening to it and I'm listening to it like it's another show. When I get into it, if I'm sitting there critiquing it, I know it's not that great of an episode. When I get into it and I start listening to it, I go, oh, okay. We're in the flow. Yeah, we were in the flow. It was really good. I find podcast. Have you interviewed Stephen Collier yet? Yeah, twice. Oh yeah. That's awesome. It's great. I find podcasting to be the most therapeutic thing I've ever done. It's like therapy. Listening or? Talking. Talking on a podcast. It's very powerful. Extremely powerful. Being able to share our stories and whatever to all these people or whoever's there. It's amazing. I mean, and you keep talking or alluding to it. I mean, I always talk on the show that your true net worth is your net circle. And we have this ability now with podcasting to meet all these other brilliant minds. I mean, I've grown more in the last three years than I did the previous 35, dude. It's crazy how much we've grown. It's like an incubator. When you're just meeting all these brilliant minds from different walks and different, I think it's just, there's nothing else like it. There's nothing that I remember like being a kid that where I could, I would have killed to have our podcast to have reached out to. So when you talked about like the way you thought when you're creating, that's exactly how we created was, you know, what would we want? If we were just getting into this industry, fresh green trainers, don't know anything about health and fitness. Yeah, what would I need? What really works and what out there is bullshit. Right. And that's what we addressed. Like first thing we had. How long have you guys been doing it now? Three years. Yeah. How many episodes you had? Oh, 600 or something. 600. Oh yeah, we go, we go play. We like to talk. I'm at 560, I think. See, we passed you up already. He's competitive, man. Calm down. I'm poking at your competitive aspect. Don't put the mask on. Who's got a higher ranking? Yeah. Here's your, here's your humble pie. I just had Rob's ear deck on. Yeah, we haven't had him yet. No. Yeah, no, it's been, what's been the biggest lesson you guys learned from? Oh my God, the biggest lesson? Having a podcast. You know what? We learned more about ourselves. Like individually. I can name a couple. I can definitely name a couple. For us, this is a personal lesson. For us as a group was that we are our best when we're in our flow state. And the way we get in our flow state is we just go. Because in the beginning, we would try to kind of produce and okay, here's what we're going to talk about. Or we would start the show by saying, hey, welcome back to Mime Pump or whatever. And it just, it didn't. Yeah. And when we didn't have the mics on just the three of us would go like nobody would shut up and it would be these great conversations. And so that was the first lesson for us was our superpower is we can just go. Let's just push that, which is why we do so many episodes. Well, especially with interviews too, because we weren't able to really get into that flow with other people. It was like, we had this flow and this chemistry, but it's like, how do we bring them in? And we realized we had to cut this whole formulaic intro that we would do with them. We're just like, no, pssh, get rid of it. Do it later. Yeah. And that totally helped. That was big. That's cool. That was a big game changer. I think that was one of the biggest game changer was the interviews. When we, when we first started, we did the first hundred episodes, pretty much just the three of us. Yeah, that was no interviews. It was just us talking about fitness. We had so much to talk about and our backgrounds are so different in fitness that each guy had something to put and we would openly debate things and topics and read different studies that were coming out and then openly discuss them. And we had great conversation and people loved it. And then we'd bring a guest on and it'd be our worst episode. Oh, you're like, yeah. So we're like, shit, do we not bring guests? And at that point, when you're first starting, they're not like, what's going on? Right. We're bringing like our friends, you know, that like have some cloud or something like that in there. We're not huge guests yet. And so, you know, we were like, man, do we just do this by ourselves? And we're kind of going through the same thing you're talking about where you're like, you know what? We're not going to do a podcast just because everyone else does interviews. Maybe we'll never do interviews. Yeah. And we went through a time where we're we're just doing just the three of us and said, you know what, like people are the feedback is they love hearing us talk. We bring a guest on and it wasn't until and it took a year before Mind Pump reached a total of a million downloads. And then we started doing a million a month. So it really took. Yeah, it took a long time to get to the month is big. Yeah, it's not. What are you on now? So we're right. We're right around there. So we one point two, one point five, depending. Yeah, so it took. It's hard once you kind of hit this. Like it's hard to keep growing. You get to grow really fast and it's like you slow down and it's almost kind of like flattens out. And you're like, how do I break through that? And that's kind of where we've been now. So a lot of the even like, you know, getting to interview you and going to drama next. And we're really trying to branch out because when we named just like you did the School of Greatness, we were like Mind Pump. We did not want to pigeonhole ourselves to just fitness. You know, we wanted to talk about other topics with other people on the show. And so this last year or so, I'd say we really are starting to stretch that more and brand. Yeah, branch out beyond just health because there's so many other things that we're into. I'd say the other thing, the other big thing that we really learned was just being driven by our ultimate purpose, which and what I mean by that is there's times when we sit there and say, okay, we want to drive this part of the business or we want to reach this many people so we could do this many programs. And every time we do that, we're not our best. But when we sit down and really feel passionate about our purpose, which really our purpose for us is to help people, help people find their health, their longevity, their fitness, growth. We're all growth-minded and growth-oriented. And when we go in with that purpose, everything else falls into place versus the strategic business type of thing. We also have, we have massive egos and we think we're gonna actually change. We actually believe we're going to change the fitness industry. Self-belief is high. We believe that it's... It's a big shift, but we think we're turning it. Yeah, if you don't believe it, it's not gonna happen. Right. And I think each of us 100% believe that. We believe that we're making moves that direction. It's slowly happening. I think the timing of our message too, we're very transparent. We share insecurities. We talk about all the stuff that drove us to working out and three meathead bodybuilder looking guys, no one was really saying that message. It's all around motivation and beast mode and no days off and it's the complete opposite message. I feel like it's tough because I love saying like, prove them wrong and all these little memes and these quotes, I love that shit too. It's like, do whatever it takes, prove them wrong. All that stuff like Gary Vaynerchuk style and all these other people and I'm like, yeah, I love that. I just wanna do that. But then it's not sustainable. No, it's not. It's freaking exhausting. It's a tool. It's a tool. Well, what it really is, is a spark. But it's not sustainable. No, it's not. Motivation is bullshit. Self-belief is everything is bullshit. And it's what's marketable. Because it's that instant dopamine rush. You turn it on and you get that mastery. Yeah, let's go. Yes, and it hypes you up and it's that initial surge but it's short-lived, because it's artificial. It's not real. It's not intrinsic. It's not something that you feel compelled to do. It's somebody else motivated me, which it's no different than in fitness. And this is what we talk about when people come in to wanting to get in shape. When you're driven by your insecurities, it'll only take you so far. Like if that's what's driving you to be- Take it pretty far, but it's not right. Hey, you know, work out and eat right because you love yourself, not because you hate yourself. And it'll take you, not only it would take you far, but it'll take you forever. Because that's a true feeling. That's one that we like. You can only hate yourself for so long. At some point you get sick of it and you jump off the wagon or on the wagon or off the wagon. I hate myself and now, fuck that. I don't want to hate myself anymore, so I'm just gonna give up. And then you create this false sense of loving yourself where you're like, I don't care what I look like. I don't care. I accept myself, which is just another false way of loving yourself and you still hate yourself. Well, and it's perpetuated by the people at the top right now in our space that are on the cover of magazines that are getting most perpetrated and jacked. And meanwhile, behind the scenes, they're the most dysfunctional, fucked up, out of balance people out there. You know how I said earlier that it's gotta get really bad before it gets good? Social media is doing that. You have at the moment, like girls in particular have been targeted by fashion and fitness and makeup and you got to look a particular way with magazines, but it's gotten so much worse today because now you can go on Instagram and you can flip through a thousand pictures in an hour and our primitive minds don't know that you're, you know, we compare ourselves to the things around us and that ends up becoming the norm and now we're super unattractive or we're not smart enough or not whatever and it makes us feel terrible and people are feeling so bad now that I think the tide is starting to turn. You're starting to see advertising campaigns actually try to capitalize on this where people are coming out and saying, here's what I look like when I'm relaxed and here's what I look like without Photoshop and they're trying to capitalize on it, but it's a movement that's happening kind of on its own, we're grabbing onto it, we're pushing it, adding fuel to it because we know that the real path to long-term health, wellness, feeling good, whatever you want to call it is in truly caring and loving yourself and the truest sense when you get to that point, the rest of it's easy, but getting there is hard. I think the biggest challenge for this generation coming up is gonna be, you know, because there's, the social media can be such a tool. I mean, you're a perfect example of someone who built this empire starting through LinkedIn, pivoting over in the direction that you did, is how do I use this as a tool and I don't become consumed with it? Absolutely. I mean, that to me is some days I'll be on Instagram for four hours and I'm like, what did I just do? Right. Right. Where'd my day go? That's how I know it's a big deal because I catch myself. You know, a guy who didn't even have any social media just seven years ago, I mean, I catch myself getting sucked into it. I'm like, man, if this happens to me. Strictive man. Right. The irony is people who built their business through it were telling people how to employ. I know, we justify it because it's business related, right? Yeah. How often do you meditate? If I was lying, I'd say daily, but I want to do it daily. There have been months, you know, I went to India last year for two weeks and did like a deep dive meditation all day long for two weeks. So after that I was every single morning for like six months. And then I was like, man, I just feel so good. Maybe I don't need this as much. You know, I don't need it every day. Like I'm, I'm good. Like, why should I keep doing this every single day? I can take a few days off or like I'm busy. And then it'd be like a few weeks off and I'm like, I go back to it. And I'm like, oh man, I start to feel a little stress again when I don't do it. So when I do do it, I'm like at my best. And it just keeps reminding me of like, okay, all I need is 12 to 15 minutes a day. And I feel it when I do that consistently, it's like lifting. It's like when you do it consistently, you're like, you stay strong. If you like take a week or two off, like I took two weeks off from doing pretty much any working out during my book launch. And I felt like it's total shit. Start all over. Crap. I was like, I stopped eating well when I was eating so good. And I stopped training hard. And I was just like, man, I feel like crap. And so I gotta pick it back up. Same thing with meditation though. It's like when I take off too much, it's like, notice, it's totally not a small. Right, no, I feel the same way to sleep, everything. You know, looking at your wall, I know it's impossible to ask you who your favorite person is. I'm not gonna ask that. What I'm gonna ask you, as I know everybody asks that shit, right? What I'm gonna ask you, is who surprised you the most? Who surprised you the most? Being a guy as self-aware as you are and socially probably aware, you probably got all these guests coming in, who came in and you're like, oh shit. They were Caesar Milan. Caesar Milan. Caesar Milan. The dog was for a walk. The dog guy? He surprised me because it was powerful about just like relationships and spirituality and other things. And I wasn't sure where it was gonna go with him, but it was very insightful. Did he show up and go? Shh. Right when you go to talk, shh. No, he didn't. It was very powerful. I mean, talk about insightful. He was. That's cool. More than just a reality star, I'll tell you that. Who else? That's great. I'll tell you what, the one, Chris Voss, never split the difference. This guy is fricking really powerful. Don't have his book here. He was probably one of the top 15 episodes I've done. What's his book about? The name's called Never Split the Difference. He was the lead FBI negotiator for like hostage situations. Oh, shit. So he talks about like when someone is crazy and giving you demands, how to like navigate that situation when something's online. You know, he talks about that, but he applies it to like, okay, when you're doing a real estate deal, when you're like getting a new client, how do you negotiate? Oh, interesting. It's very fascinating. He was powerful. They were all, I mean, they're all amazing. So yeah, when you look at the wall, that's why I said I didn't ask you your favorite. But Rob Dyrdek, obviously, for me, he was actually one of the most powerful as well because you think of like a skateboard MTV like host, but this guy is brilliant. I mean, he is fucking unbelievable. And have you followed him for as long back? I mean, I followed him for 10, you know, 10 years I've been following since Robin Big, you know, like you said, for me, it's why you have two bulldogs, right? I was watching him back in college, you know? And I was just like, this guy has the life. And he was from Ohio, so I was like, I was even more connected to him because I'm from Ohio. So I really resonate with what he's built and his mind is, and the way he's done it, all the things. His mind is fascinating. He is very diligent and disciplined and with every area of his life, he tracks every area of his life with a system that he built for himself, tailored to his needs, and it's just mind blowing. Super unassuming. So unassuming. Just a brilliant branding mind, design mind, like just very creative. He's got his hands in so much stuff. He seems like he's very humble. And here's the thing, I watched him do a show. He's got a new show called Awesomeness. And so I was like, I wanted to go watch and support him. So I went and watched drama, who you'll see tomorrow, and Rob. I'm talking to them before in the green room, we're hanging out backstage or whatever. And then I go and it's like a full-on set. There's probably, I don't know, a couple hundred people in the audience, like in a circle, cameras everywhere. It's just a lot of moving parts. There's a panel of people. There's teleprompters. There's people clapping. There's lights. There's like different acts happening for the show. And he has got to be, I understand what it's like, you know, reading from a teleprompter and like managing all this other stuff that's happening. And you've got to be like so focused and in the zone to like read these takes, because people are there like clapping and trying to hit everything on the mark. And it's just like, it's a lot to navigate. And the reason why I believe he's successful is because he allows himself to play and have fun through it all. On set, he's doing exactly what he did in Robin Bay. He's like singing songs. And he's like reading something. He's reading it as a song, like prepping for it. He's talking to the crowd. He's like just goofing around and playing. And like, he's loving it. He's just like trying, he's being himself. And that's why he delivers. Like when he was like, he gets in the zone and he's got to read the prompt and he's like, fuck, okay, I want to do this in one take. But he's just like playing around and trying to keep himself loose. And not just like trying to be all professional, whatever. He's like, he is himself at all times. And I think that's why he crushes it because he can go into a boardroom with executives, wear a ball cap, and he just like is himself still. I think people resonate with that and it comes off on camera too. So we are gonna be with Drama tomorrow and you know them. So what should I get him talking about? He should talk about Drama's experience from like Ohio growing, or I think he grew up in Ohio as well. But yeah, talk about Drama growing up and if he thought he'd be doing this like fashion brand. And yeah, I'm really interested in the story of while Robin Big's happening, where is he at in his life? Is he watching, is he watching Rob? What's he thinking about? He was like the assistant or whatever, right? For Robin Big. He was like, oh, so he was already, he was in the show. Oh, he was. Yeah, he was in the show. What? I don't even remember. He became like a sidekick. Every episode was good. Drama's in the show is like, oh, I'm bringing in my cousin to like help out and he made a shit, pick up dog shit and do this. Yes, you're right. So he was like the little bitch that. You had to clean up after the mini horror. That's right, he did, he brought him in with like the third or fourth season. Yeah, maybe, yeah. I think it was only around a couple of seasons. It went four. No, I thought it went four. I have them all. I own them all. Maybe. Maybe you're right. It's funny because I went on his show the day after Big Black died. Oh, wow. It was like the day before that happened. And it was like, so it was an interesting episode. I didn't really share much. I just asked him questions a little time about how he went through that. How was he? Yeah. So I would talk about that. I mean, his brand is like evolving so much and just talk about his vision. Yeah. What's your, what's your dream moving forward? 100 million. Again, I want to reach 100 million every week, but I want to be, I don't need to be like the guy or the expert or any of these things, but I want to be the facilitator of everyone. So I want to facilitate conversations and be the curator of greatness where it's like I have my own show. I get to interview the biggest people in the world and talk about the ideas, the stories, the products, the things that are happening and curate and facilitate this and make it about other people, not necessarily about me, but be the center curator of it. So that's the goal. Excellent. You're on your way, man. Yeah. Definitely. Definitely. Well, thanks for coming on. Yeah, I appreciate it. We will absolutely do this again for sure. Yeah, for sure. To come up to San Jose next time. Yeah, man. Yep, come check us out. Yeah, we'd love it. Excellent. All right, so go to mindpumpmedia.com, enroll in our 30 days of coaching. It's available for free. Also, check us out on YouTube, Mind Pump TV. There's a new video every single day. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes Maps Anabolic, Maps Performance, and Maps Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30 day money back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is Mind Pump.