 Hello, Psych2Go viewers. This is Michelle Rivas and I'm the host of Psychology Roundtable. Our amazing guest for today's live stream is Lewis Howes from the popular YouTube channel and podcast, The School of Greatness, which has amassed over 3 million followers and a dedicated fan base. Welcome, Lewis. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Thank you. And then I just wanted to mention that your background and story of success is so inspiring. So I just wanted to start off by you having us have you telling our viewers a little bit about that and how your past experiences shaped your success. Oh, man, well, there's a couple of things here to dive into about this. One is most of my life I wanted to be successful because I was very wounded. I had a lot of inner pain and challenges and struggle that I was facing. I wanted to be successful so that I could be liked, seen and loved. And that pain, that wound drove me to take a lot of action. And those actions helped me get extreme results in sports and then later in business. The challenge is being driven for success out of a wound never brings anyone peace, harmony and happiness. And so I was accomplishing this success, but I wasn't feeling good. I wasn't feeling fulfilled and I still didn't feel enough. And what I learned is, is that success is really about me and greatness is about going after what you want to pursue in the service of others, inspiring, lifting up others, entertaining others, helping others in some way. And so I was achieving results, but I want to call myself successful because I wasn't fulfilled, I wasn't happy until I learned how to switch the success into more service and greatness mindset. That's amazing. And I just wanted to ask, so you mentioned a wound and where do you feel like maybe that will stem from? Was it like a feeling of like maybe unrealistic expectations being brought onto by your parents or maybe like trauma? I mean, a combination of everything. I mean, when I was a kid, I was sexually abused by a man that I didn't know when I was five years old. So there was an abuse, an abandonment wound. My brother went to prison as well when I was eight for four and a half years. So there was another abandonment wound there. My parents were always arguing and fighting. And even though I knew they loved me and my siblings, they didn't have a good love for each other. So there wasn't a good model of healthy conscious parenting. And it was either, you didn't know what you were to get each day. And so there was an abandonment or a lack of safety and security there. I was picked on and made fun of all through school for being dyslexic and being in the special needs classes. I couldn't read and write until I was, I don't know, 16. So just a number of different layers of things that made me feel like I'm not enough, I'm insignificant, I don't matter. What's the point of me being here? And again, that wound or those layers of woundedness, abandonment, abuse, neglect, and how I interpreted it as a child with an undeveloped brain and undeveloped emotions and feelings. I interpreted things to be extremely painful. And they were because I didn't have the skills or the tools to heal. It wasn't until I turned 30 where I started to learn those tools of healing and inner transformation to create meaning from the pain, to create meaning from the suffering, to create meaning from the sadness, the sorrow, the abandonment, the abuse, sexually, emotionally, physically, all these different things, to create meaning as Victor Frankl's man search of meaning talks about how to find meaning in that mess of our life. And to really transform it into harmony. It doesn't mean it was, any of it was okay. It just means, and it doesn't mean it was your fault, but it means it's your responsibility how you interpret it moving forward. And we can either allow our past to continue to haunt us and suffer until we die, or we can choose to turn around and face these pains that caused us from breakups or bullying or sadness or let down our expectations that weren't met. We can face them and we can have a new relationship with those pains. And we can thank them for the lessons they taught us. As tragic and horrible and bad as some things are, we can hopefully find meaning in those messages. And if not, then we'll just suffer until we die. And so it's just a choice. How do we want to live our lives today? Wow, that's so inspiring. And even at a young age, you were able to transform pain into power. Even if you mentioned that you were doing it because you felt insecure and all that, but still that's really inspiring. There's a lot of people, if they witnessed things that you witnessed like your brother going to jail, they don't turn that into power. They end up going to jail or they end up just following that. So that's amazing. Thank you. Appreciate it. Yeah. And so in your opinion, what is the root cause of a person feeling unmotivated or even worthless? I mean, there's a number of different things, but one of it is is not having a meaningful mission. And if we have no clear direction of where we're heading, we're going to feel like, why am I here? What is my purpose? What's the point of my existence if I don't know where I'm going? And it's just one thing. One of the root causes, I think lacking a meaningful mission and something I talk about in my book about how to create that for yourself. And there's different seasons of life that have different missions, you know, just because you're not clear if you're 22 years old on what you want to do for your rest of your life, that's OK. But figuring out what do you want to do for the next six months and just having a clear direction of where you're heading will support you not feeling like you're worthless and unmotivated. They'll give you direction to be motivated to overcome a challenge and search for a goal. I think another thing that a root cause of us feeling unmotivated or worthless is the identity we choose to believe in about who we are, about our past and about our current identity. And our identity, as Tony Robbins talks about, is everything. It's the way we view and shape ourselves in the world. And if we have a negative thought about self and we constantly think and speak negatively about how limited we are, we're going to have limited feelings and emotions. Those are going to be very draining. They're going to pull us down. And those feelings and emotions are going to create behaviors that are not positive, empowering, courageous behaviors or actions. They're going to create cowardly actions. They're going to create a lack. They're going to create diminished, scarce, insecure actions because we think and we feel we are less than. And there's three main fears that cause us to doubt ourselves. And I believe that doubt is the main thing that holds us back from having everything we want, self doubt. And we either have the fear of failure, the fear of success or the fear of judgment, other people's opinions about us. And at the root, each one of us has one of those fears that we're constantly overcoming or transforming at a different stages, seasons, missions in life. And if we are not overcoming this fear by being aware of it, embracing it and taking extreme actions by facing it and overcoming it, then the root of those fears is I am not enough and that identity that I am not enough will always keep us in a limited state. It won't attract abundance. It won't attract the right healthy relationships in career, business, intimacy. We'll have breakdowns with family members and friends constantly because we feel we are not enough and therefore we will not create boundaries with self. We will have limiting boundaries. People will walk all over us. We'll feel like doormats. We'll feel like we're getting taken advantage of and abused. We'll feel like we're people pleasing everyone just for people to like us and accept us. And all this is a downward spiral of holding us back from our true essence and our ultimate greatness. Absolutely. And how do you feel like this ties into men's mental health? Because I feel like a lot of the times it's not something that we talk like as a society we talk about. But the unrealistic expectations put on men that men have to be a certain way. They have to be the provider. They have to be this. And I do think it affects men more. It affects their ego and their pride. So how do you feel like it ties into that? So, man, I could go down along a rabbit hole here. I wrote a whole book called The Mask of Masculinity, which is about the masks that men wear to try to fit in and belong in society, the pressures. There's pressures from both men and women. Obviously, we all have certain pressures and things that we get to live up to based on society standards. There was a book, gosh, I'm forgetting the name of this book, but there was a book about 10 years ago. I think it might have been called like a man's world. I can't remember. But it was a woman who decided to become a man for, I think it was a year or two years. And I'm forgetting the name of this book. And where she she dressed like a man. She identified as a man. She got a career at a high sales position, you know, an executive sales position. She would only hang out in men's groups. And she was able to look like a man enough to where no one knew the difference, right? Yeah, based on her physical characteristics. She would go on dates with with women. And she and she would have a life as a man, right? She transformed the way she looks, you know, she she kind of neutral was a neutral looking human anyways. And so, OK, she had short hair. She had the characteristics that would make it look like a man. Yeah. And in her book, it was a New York Times bestseller. I'm going to get the name of it later for you. But in her book, the New York Times bestseller, she did interviews about this afterwards, it was fascinating. And she said the pressures that men feel were overwhelming. When I was a man for a year, I felt suicidal. I felt extremely depressed when I would go on dates with women and they would look at me with one look. They could cut through my heart and my soul and make me feel like nothing with one stare. And she was like, I can only imagine what men go through constantly in career and home life and all these different things. Now, you could say the same thing for women with different standards and pressures. But when when men in society in general don't feel like they have a place to heal, don't feel like they have a place to talk about their feelings, don't feel like they have a place to share with another guy, friend or in a group setting, it just means they're bottling up their emotions and they're suppressing and therefore wearing a mask to try to act like everything's OK. Whereas more common in society, women gather together as friends over lunch or breakfast or go for walks and they talk more about the challenges. They allow themselves to release through communication. And so when men don't release through communication, they release in other ways, more harmful ways, alcohol, addiction, drugs, pornography to try to feel a sense of calm, to feel a sense of let go of this pressure. And that usually ends up into bad things happening for them and the people around them when they get addicted to things that are not good for them. So again, and I'm not saying one is has, you know, worse than others, but there are certain levels of pressures and demands that if men aren't able to take responsibility for them in a conscious way to find support in a healthy way and not feel shameful about it because they get shamed a lot for talking about these things. And when they can feel supported, then they can transform that as well. And it's again, I'm not saying men are victims or anything, but they are responsible for it. And it is helpful to have society stop shaming men for wanting to be vulnerable. And that's the main difference, right? Like both women and men have struggles. They have pressures put on them. But the difference is our society has taught us that like women can cry about it. Women can have emotions. Women can talk about and go to therapy. But sometimes women and societal and cultural expectations tell you men aren't allowed to do that. Exactly. Yeah. And like as if emotions or talking about your feelings is a weakness. Yep. And that's just kind of been the society standard for a long time. So my goal is to support people by by showing them it's OK to be vulnerable by talking about these things openly. And on the topic of just feeling like, you know, maybe like worthless or not feeling like you're meeting expectations, how do you feel like social media perpetuates this? Because I feel like in this age of social media, women and men see things on Instagram about now they see, they don't have enough followers or their life isn't as luxurious and glamorous. And how do you feel like this perpetuates the feelings of worthlessness that many may feel? Two things, one comparison is the thief of joy. I can't remember who said that, but that's that is definitely when you're constantly desiring something you don't have, you're not going to feel happy and happiness is really about appreciating what you have and really enjoying what you have and not being completely unhappy with what you lack. And I'm not saying we shouldn't be striving for more opportunities, experiences, trips, things like that. But some of the greatest things that I've experienced, joy, we're completely free. We're just dancing, we're playing, we're being with friends, we're, you know, free activities. And so it's allowing ourselves to not be fooled by the material world so much and find peace and harmony in play, fun, connection and things that are mostly free. That's one thing is just not getting tied up into your self worth determined by your net worth or your physical things. There's a lot of people I've met who have lots of money who I don't really want to hang out with because their their self worth, they lack kindness and just decency. They lack the ability to be generous, kind, fun human beings. So just because they have physical things and a lot of money doesn't mean they're valuable as building fun relationships with. They might be also, but it doesn't mean it's exclusively mutual. So that's one thing. The second thing is, you know, if you're going to play a game in social media, you're going to get criticized and shamed no matter what you do. And the bigger you're following, there's going to be more pressure for shame and criticism. I've seen more people be shamed and criticized over the last three years than I've ever seen because global crisis happens and people's emotions get so extreme from the last few years alone from COVID to what's your opinion about COVID and vaccines? You know, and to every four years, a political election and you're right and wrong and you should be doing more of this to any social justice movement, to anything that's happening bad in the world, to any war that's happening. And if you have any type of platform, if you have 1,000 followers or 10 million followers, you're susceptible for being shamed and judged and criticized by lots of different people on lots of perspectives, wanting you to say the right thing and say it every single day and make this your full mission as opposed to who you are and what you're doing in your life. And you're going to be criticized and shamed no matter what you do. If you write a book, you're going to be criticized and shamed and get people saying good stuff and negative stuff. And you're going to get criticized by people that don't even read it or don't even reopen the book one time. And you're just going to be, you know, this will happen. This is human nature to criticize and complain about other people, what they're doing. Even if they have the best of intentions, you will get judged and shamed. And if you have low self worth, if you have low self value, then it will hurt you extremely. I remember when I was getting online, I don't know 15 years ago, maybe longer than that 2004 2005 kind of starting when Facebook was coming out and I was just getting into this space. I remember in Twitter in 2008 2009, I remember taking things so personally when people would give me negative criticism. And I realized, wow, I have a lot of work to do. And it's a journey. So learning to not take things so personally, by knowing who you are, your identity and making sure your identity is clear, will give you more peace when people are attacking you. Exactly. But how does someone find the inner power to not seek validation from others? Because that's really hard. And I mean, I feel like social media is built on that, right? So how do you what has helped you not seek validation from others or self acceptance? Don't post things about your, your looks, your body, your bank account. Don't post things about outwardly things. Post things about service, post things about your character, post things about how you show up in the world, post things that are in service to others that are helpful to others, people are still going to judge and criticize. But when you, you're showing self constantly, and you want validation on how you look or, or something outward, physical, it's just never going to attract the right validation you're looking for. And you're always going to be self critical. Oh, why didn't this perform well? Oh, maybe I didn't look good, or maybe I wasn't the right angle, or maybe I need to do more of this, then we filter more and more things to get more validation, because we still don't have that love for self that we need. And so when we have that love and self care, I mean, in that inner care, we don't care as much what other people think that are not our friends and family in our inner circle. And when you have a grounded inner circle of close friends and community, that means you've got to invest in those people, you've got to show up for them, you've got to be generous to them, you've got to be a good friend to others and be a good friend to yourself. And not needing to be friends with everyone in the world, but the right people. You don't need the validation of thousands or millions, when you get the validation of yourself for doing hard things consistently and being your word consistently to yourself and others. And you get validation from the people around you. Exactly. And you attract what you are right. So if you develop a strong sense of empathy, compassion, kindness, then eventually you will attract that. Exactly. Awesome. And so that brings me to our viewer segment where we answer your audience questions for our amazing experts. Are you ready, Lewis? I'm ready. Awesome. Okay, so first question is from Clark. Clark asks, Lewis, I'm having trouble in school, and I'm even having trouble getting a girlfriend right now that I'm in college. What are some strategies to eliminate negative thinking and intrusive thoughts about failure? Because I honestly feel worthless. Wow, Clark, thank you for sharing that. I mean, Clark, I remember in elementary school, middle school, high school, feeling completely insignificant, like no girls liked me. I felt like I was six feet four inches when I was 12 years old, super skinny and like, six foot four. Yeah. And and I was, but I was, but I was a foot taller than everyone at 12 years old, but super skinny, bony, big ears, you know, big teeth and just goofy. And I was in the special needs classes. I'll give you a story, Clark, when I was in fourth grade, my teacher, we had probably had a classroom of like, I don't know, 40 kids, let's say. And my teacher said, okay, we're all going out to recess and we're going to play a dodgeball game. And I'm going to pick two captains in the class to pick the teams. And then we're just going to have fun and play dodgeball. And the two captains went around and picked all the guys one by one first. And then they skipped me and they started picking all the girls one by one. And then I was the last pick. So this was I was a fourth grader. I was a pretty athletic kid. But I was just picked last after all the girls. And I remember just thinking, man, no one likes me. No girls like me guys don't like me. I'm a loser. I'm stupid in school. Like what's the point of this? And here's what I can say, Clark, is that if you don't focus on the hurt from girls rejecting you or feeling less than or whatever might be, but you focus on the good that you're doing every single day to improve and overcome the challenge that you're facing, you will be rewarded 10 fold very soon. So one of the things you can do is say, how can I optimize my health? My health should be number one priority. What can I do every day that makes me proud that I'm taking care of my health? Can I go for a walk? Can I go for a jog? Can I go to the gym? Can I do it consistently? By being my word when you do that, you're going to start attracting more healthy things in your life when you neglect health. Because when I was stressed out and overwhelmed, all I wanted to do is eat sugar and buckets of ice cream every day. Oh, yeah, in there. Good. Yeah, that doesn't attract good energy, right? It feels good in the moment. But it doesn't attract what you want as well. So we've got to learn to have discipline, which is extremely hard when you feel insignificant. It's one of the hardest things to do. But we are all tasked with a challenge in life. There is no good story without a good challenge that the hero eventually overcomes. Absolutely. You've got to think about yourself as okay, I'm the hero in a story of my life. And this is the journey that I'm on right now and here are all my obstacles in my way. And it seems overwhelming and daunting and like I'm never going to find a girlfriend and no one's ever going to love me. But I'm telling you, at 38 years young, after failed relationships, struggles and heartache year after year, I'm finally engaged and I have a harmonious loving relationship, one that I could never even dream of. But there were things that I needed to let go of. And as a slow learner, it took me many years to overcome them and learn them. So Clark, be patient with yourself. I'm telling you, I remember as a 20 21 year old feeling like this is never going to work out for me. And it shouldn't take you another 20 years like it took me. But I'm telling you, good things are going to come to you if you're willing to address the challenges and overcome them. We need to get that quote on a shirt what you said, we need to be the own our own heroes in our life. That's amazing. That is so true. Only you can save yourself. Yes, I love that. Okay, our next question is from Christie, he asked, psych to go if you're reading this, can you ask Louis if he has any advice for CSA survivors? Because my story is very similar to his a CSA survivor. I'm not sure what that abbreviation is. Well, let me let me look it up. I want to answer this question for Chris, because he he asked that so CSA sexual abuse, sexual abuse, I'm not sure received. Yeah, I believe it's child sexual abuse. Oh, yeah, child sexual abuse. Well, I wrote a whole book about, you know, again, again, called the masculine masculinity, which is kind of tossed a little bit more about this because when I was 30, I opened up for the first time about being sexually abused as a five year old boy. And I remember for 25 years having a lot of pain in my heart. And this kind of memory would always flash through my mind. And I would feel taken advantage of an abuse throughout life. And it would kind of go back to that as one of the stories that was an anchor, because I never learned to heal or talk about it in a healthy way. And each person who has been through childhood sexual abuse, has their own unique story and their own unique pain and challenge to overcome. For me, the thing that has supported me the most is having therapy and therapies and therapeutic experiences to allow me to release it from my body. Because there's a great book called the body keeps the score. It's it stays that trauma those wounds stay trapped somewhere until we allow it to meal and amend and heal. And being able to talk about it allows you to release it and start the process of releasing it. Now I'm not saying you should talk about it publicly. I don't actually advise that unless you feel like you're called to do it and you're ready to do it. But find a therapist find a spiritual counselor or a priest, someone that you can be guided by to support you in your process. I actually wouldn't recommend being vulnerable publicly until you feel like you have some stability with the conversation with yourself privately or with someone else. Because you know, it's just a very sensitive emotional traumatic experience for anyone who's been sexually abused. And I feel peaceful 10 years after talking about it and processing and healing it. But healing is a journey. It's not this destination that you're going to have one conversation and feel healed forever. It's a it's an ongoing process and journey. So take it easy on your heart. Forgive yourself. And and find a trusted individual who has experience in this and be guided in that process. Thank you, Lewis. And thank you Chris for asking that question. Our next question is from Amber. She asks I lost both my parents last year while being a caregiver. For them I'm still having a hard time grieving feeling like I didn't do enough for them. How do I get past this? I'm sorry Amber my condolences. Yeah, I lost my father last year as well. And it's it was definitely a very sad year of learning how to grieve. And there's still moments today where it's again there's a lot of sadness, especially with the holidays coming up. It's it just sucks. There's there's nothing that I can really do for it not to suck for myself. However, the things I focus on first off, I would recommend the grieving process to go through with a counselor, a therapist as well, someone who can walk you through that process. There's an amazing there's a couple of amazing books out there. Gosh, I'm trying to remember the name of it. I'll think of the grieving one that I found before. But it's a couple of great books that can help guide you with these different step by step processes of journaling and reflection and and healing for yourself. But I just think finding someone to support is always the best thing to do and not doing something hard on your own will support you. So having friends, family, people you can talk to that you trust to support you in that guidance. And grief is a journey. I don't think it's supposed to be you know, one month and I'm okay. It's an ongoing journey of processing and acknowledging. So that's what I would say. Thank you for that, Lewis. And then looking for a few questions to ask. So I do have something while you're looking for questions, I do have something from that I think might be helpful for people just in general as a framework. And and and I'm hearing more people asking questions about how to kind of process grief and heal through these different traumas. And I have kind of a framework that I want to walk people through from my book, The Greatness Mindset, which, which is all about healing. This whole book that I recently wrote is all about healing. What is it called? It's called The Greatness Mindset. It was a New York Times bestseller this year. And the first third of the book is all about healing. I'm always doing a Trojan horse for people. I say you want greatness, but you've got to heal first. There's there's on page 201, there's a framework. So I'll just explain what this framework is. And there's two different types of mindsets. There is a powerless mindset. And let's call it more of a limited mindset, you know, underneath and then there's a greatness mindset. Greatness is not about success. But greatness is our highest self. So we have a lower self mindset, which is feeling more powerless. I feel helpless. I can't find a girlfriend. No one likes me. I'm stupid. I don't, you know, I have all these traumas and triggers. And I feel like, what's the point? I don't have clear direction. That's more powerless. That's more limited. So if you're feeling any of that right now, I'm going to talk about how to transform that to feel more empowered and be in your highest self, be that hero on the journey and overcoming challenges. So there are six things that make us feel powerless or limited or not enough. And those six things, based on 10 years of research from all the top experts that I've had on my podcast, The School of Greatness comes down to these six things that hold people back from feeling more powerful. Number one, people lack a meaningful mission. And when we aren't sure of the direction we're heading, it doesn't mean we have to know who we're going to be for the rest of our lives. But if we're not sure where we're headed, at least in the near future, we're going to feel limited and powerless. You might have lots of skills, you might have lots of options, or you might have no options. But if you're not clear where you're heading right now this season, you're going to feel limited. The second thing is if we feel like we are controlled by fear. Again, I talked about the three things that hold us back that make us doubt our self the most is the fear of failure, the fear of success, and the fear of judgment, other people's opinions. So we are controlled by this fear, we're going to feel powerless and limited. So we must learn what our fears are, and how to overcome them. I talk about all these things in this book. The third thing is, when we conceal past pains. So if someone has gone through CSA, childhood sexual abuse, for 25 years, I concealed that pain, that wound was trapped inside of my heart, my soul and my body. And it made me feel powerless. It made me feel like I was worthless. And it, it caused me to act and react based on a wound. It caused me to get angry and scream when I was a kid, when I was frustrated. It caused me to do things that I wasn't proud of. It caused me to be out of integrity or try to fight people, all these different things in my 20s, because that wound was there. So if you conceal past pains, you're going to feel powerless. If you're crippled by self doubt, if, sorry, I already said that one, if you are defined by the opinions of others. So this goes back to your question in the beginning about social media, when we are defined by people's opinions of us, comments of us, criticisms of us, we're going to feel powerless. So don't put stuff out there. Unless you're okay with people criticizing, don't be defined by that. We feel limited. And the last thing is when you drift towards complacency, this kind of connects to not being clear on what your meaningful mission is. But if you have a mission, and you're just drifting, if you're not focused on it intentionally, consistently, you're going to feel limited and powerless. And if you want to transform this and step into your higher self, your more unlimited self or your greatest self, then we've got to be driven by a meaningful mission, not something that's to hurt people or to look good, but something that is of service of others as well. We've got to learn to turn our fears into confidence. Because a lot of us feel like we lack confidence. And it's because of the fears that define our identity, we go back to identity. And when you can become a person who overcomes your scariest fears, you feel like the most confident person in the world, you can take on anything. So we've got to learn to identify our fears. I talk about creating a fear list and how to go through those in the book as well. When we overcome our self doubt, again, one of those three big fears, when we overcome that doubt, we step into greatness. When we heal past pain, that means we're not wounded from the past, we faced it, we've done something challenging that has held us back. We feel lighter, we feel harmony inside, and we can take action. When we create a healthy identity, you know, a lot of people speak so negative about self. And we, and we say horrible things to us, to others about us, and don't allow positive things to come to us. So learning how to shape our identity in a healthy way and taking action with a game plan. Again, a lot of people drift towards complacency, they don't have a game plan. Just creating a list of here's what I'm going to do today, or this week or this month, gives us that game plan. So I've got the whole process on page 201 of the book for people. It's amazing. And the power is within us, right? You know, I think that's the gist of it, right? I think it is. And I also think we shouldn't be doing trying to do anything alone. You know, I have a lot of coaches, I have a lot of people that I lean on that mentors guides that I seek wisdom from. Yes, the wisdom is within me. And I also know that to accelerate, you can't do it all alone. So I find a lot of support. And that means also seeking treatment and a therapist if needed as well. No shame in that. Yeah, absolutely. And so I wanted to address Carmela's question. She asked, how can you help a friend who is suicidal? I think you got to make a recommendation to send them to suicide line to a suicide specialist. There's treatment centers of people who are going through suicide. I think the best way you can support them is to love on them, to support them, to show up for them, for tell them, you know, to check in on them, to say, Hey, call me if you're ever feeling anything that's going to hurt you or anything like that, call me, let's stay connected. There is also something to feel, you know, I know people who have unfortunately lost people to suicide. And I have two family members who committed suicide, two uncles actually committed suicide when I was younger. And there can also feel like a burden or weight if you're always showing up for someone who's in fight or flight and in suicidal thoughts. So there's, you've got to also protect your energy and create boundaries while also being a friend, and being there for them, but also making sure they have professional support. They have professional counseling of someone who can guide them to to get out of that, because it can feel daunting. So make sure you're taking care of self while you are showing up for others and getting them the support they need. Thank you, Lewis. And then I'm not sure if I'm butchering your name, but Bodum has asked, and I think this is an amazing question. It's funny, you mentioned support, I feel like my support system is very sporadic outside of a therapist, I see every few weeks, how do I build a more consistent support network? This is a great question, because sometimes people don't know how to build that strong support system. I think you've got to show up for others just as much as you want them to show up for you in a lot of ways. And you can't just ask everyone to support you and you not support others. You can just say I need support. I'm helpless. Everyone help me. You've got to be willing to put yourself out there and have the courage to give to others, to be generous, to be a kind human being and say and check in and text someone and say, Hey, let me know if I can help you with anything or say, Hey, I'd love to catch up and hang out. You know, if you're just asking for support, but you're not giving, you're being more of a taker rather than a giver and a taker. And I think, you know, putting yourself in communities and activities that are fun for you, that surround or surrounded by other people as well, whether it be hobbies, activities, games, you know, different things in your town or online or whatever it might be that you enjoy. When you're living in joy, you find and attract other people who like similar things who find joy in that as well. And joyful people want to be around other joyful people. No one wants to be around someone who's dragging them down. Yeah. So you've got to support yourself by doing things you enjoy and love, attracting others who enjoy those things as well, finding commonality and being a support for them the best that you can. Absolutely. And that concludes our audience segment. And so I just wanted to leave our viewers with this last question. Lewis, from your experience, how can a positive outlook transform your mental health? I look at life as not good or bad, but neutral. And someone might say, well, how could you say that when there's a lot of horrible things happening in the world, when there's wars, when there's injustices, when there's extreme suffering? And when you're in that suffering, it's hard to have that perspective, because all you feel is pain, sadness and loss and unfairness, extreme unfairness. When you're able to get out of that and see how that could potentially give you some type of insight, lesson, wisdom, or something in the future to benefit you. You know, again, again, I go back to Victor Frankel's man search for meaning. He somehow found a way to find peace from the sadness of millions of lives lost in the Holocaust that he was in that he endured, and he somehow found a way to love and appreciate his life and reflect on it, all the pain and all the sadness and all the loss and suffering in injustice. And he chose to interpret things differently after it happened. He chose to interpret the memory so that it could benefit and make a positive impact in the rest of his life, as opposed to him suffering and the people suffering around him even greater. And I think when we have a positive outlook, it doesn't mean we should just say, oh, everything's fine all the time. We should acknowledge where things are at currently in our personal lives and our friends' lives in the world when there is pain and suffering and and face it and do our best to overcome it. But also when we look at life as the blessings that we have currently, even in this extreme sadness that could be happening, that I just think it gives you more harmony and more peace. And we can either be stuck in a negative mindset or negative outlook or a positive outlook. And when we choose to focus on a positive outlook, not bypassing the pain, but reflecting on the pain and still finding a way to find peace or something that's good in some area of life, then it brings us more harmony internally, which allows us to manifest more what we want in our life currently. So practicing gratitude to an extent. 100%. So, well, thank you so much, Lewis, for your amazing, brilliant insights and a big thank you to our amazing viewers at Psych2Go. We just appreciate you so much and thank you for asking Lewis these amazing questions. I hope everyone has an amazing week. Bye. Thank you.