← In Search Of Excellence
In Search Of Excellence
Lewis Howes: The Trauma That Fueled My Success, And How I Finally Healed | E183
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- [00:00]
A
The pain of being picked last, of being sexually abused, of being made fun of for being stupid, of my parents going through the divorce, my brother being in prison, all these different challenges, it gave me this fuel to succeed. I'm gonna make so much money, I'm gonna become so successful that no one's ever gonna make fun of me again. I have this passion and have this commitment to excellence, like doing whatever it took to excel at everything you've done, to prepare so intently that people are gonna know your name. Different men just came up to me and said, I'm holding onto this shame. I did this thing that I wasn't proud of. And all of them talked about it for the first time with me.
- [00:37]
B
I appreciate you sharing your emotions because it allowed me to cry as well. In sure. Mine.
- [00:42]
A
Yeah, beautiful. It's worth it. It's worth.
- [00:58]
B
Foreign. Lewis Howes. Lewis is a lifestyle entrepreneur, high performance business coach, keynote speaker, bestselling author, former professional football player, and host of the incredible School of Greatness podcast, which has had more than a billion downloads since he started 13 years ago. Lewis's mission in life, which is the same as mine, is to help a hundred million people live their dreams. Louis, thanks for being here. Welcome to the search of excellence.
- [01:27]
A
Thanks for having me, Randall. Appreciate it.
- [01:28]
B
So you grew up in a small town in Ohio. Delaware. Ohio. Your parents married when they were very young. They had you and you had three siblings as well. I want to go Back to your 5 year old here in kindergarten. My mom also was a single mom. I was raised. We had babysitters. You know, my grandmother. Tell us about. You had a 40 year old babysitter who had a teenage son who's playing Nintendo.
- [01:54]
A
Yeah, I mean, for me, I've talked about this many times, but one of my first core memories was. I don't know if it's a core memory, but one of my first memories was being sexually abused by the babysitter's son. And it was kind of like it was a challenging time because I was so young and I was so confusing what was going on. And for 25 years it was like I relived this movie in my mind of what happened. And I didn't tell anyone because I was so ashamed of what happened. So I lived in this insecurity, this fear, really just this kind of self doubt of am I enough? Would anyone ever love me if they knew this about me? Am I even supposed to be alive? Like with these things happening? That was just kind of one memory. My brother went to prison a few Years later. For a few years, I wasn't allowed to have any friends during that time. So it was like the sexual abuse. My brother was in prison and being in a small town, I wasn't allowed to have friends because my brother was in jail. And my parents just struggled. They struggled to show love and affection with each other. They loved us. We knew they loved us. But they were young and they had four kids and they didn't have the emotional tools to make us all feel emotionally safe. And I think just with the combination of the sexual trauma, my brother in prison, and me visiting a prison as an eight year old every weekend and not having friends and feeling like I was just insecure and stupid because I was in the bottom of my class, I just didn't understand what the point of life was. Like, why am I supposed to be here? Why did these things happen to me? Why are my parents not okay? Why is my brother in jail? Why was I sexually abused? It was like all these things, it just didn't make sense. It was like, life shouldn't be this challenging. That was most of my childhood. It was figuring out, why am I here? Why did these things happen to me? What's the point of my life? And I think once I hit 25 years later, I started to be driven to accomplish, to feel loved and accepted and enough. And 25 years later, I had kind of accomplished the sports goals, the financial goals, you know, and I had like a personal brand and I was getting some attention online and kind of like had these things that people thought were cool and I still didn't feel enough.
- [04:01]
B
Right. We'll get into the step by step process. I think you've only talked about exactly what happened one or two times. Do you mind going into some of the details in terms of what happened in the bathroom?
- [04:14]
A
Yeah, I mean, I was. I would go to the babysitter's house. Like, I can't remember. It was three days a week or five days a week right after school for a few hours. And I was just going to be like playing in the backyard or doing whatever games or activities that the babysitter had for us for a few hours until my mom could pick me up. But one day, I don't remember seeing the babysitter's son that often, but one day he was there and he was playing video games, Nintendo. And I really wanted to play. And he's like, you can play, but you have to do something for me first. I was like, okay. And that's when he took me in the bathroom and sexually abused me. And I just, again, it was like it was only happened one time.
- [04:52]
B
Oral sex is what you've talked about before.
- [04:54]
A
Yeah, it only happened one time, but one time was enough, you know, it like scarred me for life and it took me a long time to be able to speak about it without feeling shame, without feeling like it had control over me anymore. And so that was. I felt really bad for that five year old for most of my life, you know, it was like, there's a five year old boy inside of me that has something really crappy happen that I don't wish on anyone. I didn't know how to give myself the love and the connection that I, that I needed when I was younger because I didn't have the emotional tools on how to deal with this.
- [05:38]
B
Right.
- [05:39]
A
And it was. Yeah, it was very painful.
- [05:41]
C
I hope you're enjoying this video so far, but before we jump back in, I want to know if you've ever thought about what you need to do to reach the next level of success in your life. Over the last 25 years, I've been an advisor to more than 50 companies. I've invested nearly 100, including Google, lift and Seagate. And I also co founded a company that today is worth more than $15 billion. I've been incredibly blessed in my journey and at this stage in my life, I want to give back. I want to share the lessons I've learned so you can reach incredible success way faster than I did in my own journey. I've learned that having the right mentor is a massive advantage to achieving our goals. I'm hugely passionate about mentoring others. I'm looking for a few hungry entrepreneurs who are excited to take action on their journey to incredible future success. So if that's you, I've got an opportunity. In the description of this video, there's a link where you can apply to work with me. All you need to do is answer a few simple questions. And if you're a good fit, my team will reach out so we can build a game plan together. All right, now let's get back to the video.
- [06:34]
B
One of the things we hear all the time from sexual assault victims is they don't tell their parents.
- [06:38]
A
Yeah.
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B
They're afraid. Or friends.
- [06:40]
A
Yeah.
- [06:40]
B
And then we'll talk about Chris Lee in a minute. But first, you told your sociology professor.
- [06:45]
A
Yeah, when I was in college, I told my sociology professor, freshman in college. I was like, yes, something happened. I didn't tell him exactly what, but I was like, he was talking about like, you know, rape or sexual abuse or something. It was the first time I was like, oh, maybe this person understands, like, because I didn't think it happened to anyone else, right? I didn't hear anyone else talking about sexual abuse or rape or any of these things. And so I just thought I was the only one who had dealt with this, you know, and especially specifically the only boy had dealt with this because I was like, oh, maybe it happened to girls or something, but not to young boys. And so in college I was like, yeah, something happened. But I never fully, like, told him what. I just still felt a lot of shame. But I was like, yeah, you know, I went through some stuff and he kind of created a safe space for me to just like be with me. But other than that, I never told anyone. I didn't tell girlfriends or my parents or anything like that until later.
- [07:39]
B
So the question is, and we'll get to Chris in a minute, but at the time, you had a lot of years going by. And when it happened, five years old, I mean, I've got a five year old. It's tough to communicate with your parents. And I can't even think about what you would say at that point. I mean, emotionally, intellectually, not developed properly, but at some point growing up, I think the question people want to know is, why not tell your parents? Then what's your advice for people out there?
- [08:06]
A
Why not tell him? I didn't know how to tell them. I really didn't know how to tell them. And I didn't know what I would say. I didn't know. I knew something was off, but I didn't know it was bad. You know, I didn't know what was going on. And my parents never told me, like, hey, if anyone, someone ever does this to you, if someone ever touches you or has you want to do something where you're touching them, that's not okay. Like, they never said these things, right? Maybe they did, but I don't remember hearing them if they did. And I think it's. They didn't have the tools or the other educator. I mean, my parents. You grew up in Michigan, right? Like, I don't know if it was a small town, but you're in Detroit area.
- [08:40]
B
Yeah, Detroit area, probably outside Southfield and then Birmingham, Michigan.
- [08:43]
A
I mean, small towns. My dad, we never locked our doors in our house. I don't know if that was like you're growing up, but the door is never locked. Day and night it was unlocked, but there was bad stuff happening in the neighborhoods. But for whatever reason, he didn't lock the door because he trusted everyone. He trusted everyone was going to be like, doing the right thing. And he would. He just cared about the community. He was a giver in the community. And so I kind of had this, like, naive trust in people as well. Like, people are just inherently good. You know, they never talked about this. I think that was probably one of the challenges. Maybe if they did, maybe I would have spoken up, but that never happened.
- [09:19]
B
Our pediatrician, when we go for the checkups, she always reminds the kids, so who's allowed to touch your private parts? And it's, it just, it's been happening since they were four years old. And then at some point I, you know, kids know. I don't know if it's seven years old. She stopped saying that a year old. But I think at this point, they know. Now they know. I mean, it's just a thing because, you know, the stat show, one out of every six or seven kids at some point have been sexually assaulted. I mean, the numbers are just static.
- [09:47]
A
One in six women and one or one in four women, one in six men have been sexually abused or assaulted or some type of misconduct.
- [09:53]
B
Yeah, I mean, most people don't think about as men being sexually assaulted either.
- [09:57]
A
Yeah, I mean, it's. I feel like obviously it hurts psychologically what other gender you are, but I think with men, there's less of a space to talk about. There's less of a room to feel like you're still a man if this has happened to you. So they're still extremely painful for. For anyone. But I think culturally and psychologically when it happens to men, I feel like it's. It really traumatizes men if they don't create a healing space to share and talk about it in a healthy way. Foreign.
- [10:32]
C
This video so far, but before we jump back in, I want to know if you've ever thought about what you need to do to reach the next level of success in your life. Over the last 25 years, I've been an advisor to more than 50 companies. I've invested nearly a hundred, including Google, Lift and Seagate. And I also co founded a company that today is worth more than $15 billion. I've been incredibly blessed in my journey and at this stage in my life, I want to give back. I want to share the lessons I've learned so you can reach incredible success way faster than I did in my journey. I've learned that having the right mentor is a massive advantage to achieving our goals. I'm hugely passionate about mentoring others I'm looking for a few hungry entrepreneurs who are excited to take action on their journey to incredible future success. So if that's you, I've got an opportunity. In the description of this video, there's a link where you can apply to work with me. All you need to do is answer a few simple questions and if you're a good fit, my team will reach out so we can build a game plan together. All right, now let's get back to the video.
- [11:27]
B
Right. We're going to talk about vulnerability a little later in the show, but let's go to. You were at Emotionally healing conference in LA.
- [11:33]
A
Yeah.
- [11:34]
B
With a guy named Chris Lee. There's 40 or 50 people there and you know, out it came.
- [11:39]
A
Yeah, it came out for the first time.
- [11:41]
B
And so, so what, what happened? You know, you're in a group of people.
- [11:46]
A
Yeah, there was a, it was two different weekends and the first weekend was kind of teaching about the basics of emotional intelligence, kind of more light hearted stuff, games, exercises, having you reflect, life of like scenarios, but not too deep. But the second weekend was like, okay, let's really open up and see who's willing to go deep. And after it was probably a five day workshop. And halfway through the workshop we'd done a lot of stuff, talking about, you know, going internally on like issues you had with your mom and dad and trying to heal those things and start processing them, different stuff from school or childhood or relationship stuff. And at one point in the workshop he said, okay, we have covered enough of the past. Like we've addressed all these exercises and gone deep in the past and now it's time to move forward and create a vision for your life to get clear on what you want without holding onto this baggage. And sure, it takes time to heal, but now we've addressed it, let's get clear on what you want. And he said, but before we do, we need to make sure you've gone everywhere, in all places in order to know that you can go forward with freedom. And so he said, this is the moment for anyone, if you haven't yet talked about what you need to or address it like the floor is yours. And I went through every scenario in my head. I was like, okay. I talked about my parents going through divorce, I talked about the challenges we had, my older siblings with them, my brother going to prison, being picked on and bullied and picked last. And all these different things just kind of ran through my head, the movie of my life. But I was like, why is this one thing I've Never been able to share this, like, moment of being sexually abused. And for whatever reason, I was like, if I don't stand up now and talk, this may stay with me the rest of my life. Because even though I kind of mentioned it to my sociology professor, I didn't really. And I never talked to a therapist about it. Nothing. And I was just like, man, if I don't do this now, it may never happen. And I just stood up and I walked in the front of the room, and I just. I was looking down at the carpet. A carpet kind of looked like this. Actually. I was looking down on the carpet because I was too afraid to look people in the eyes of how shameful I was of what I was about to share. And I just walked through the whole scenario, everything.
- [13:53]
B
And in front of everybody.
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A
In front of everyone, did you raise your hand? You got stood up and walked over there. And I was kind of, like. I was kind of calm, but I was very nervous. I wasn't like, shaking or anything like that, but I was. Because I wasn't looking people in the eyes. I think that's how I was able to get through it. Yeah, I think if I was looking some of the eyes, I would have been. I wouldn't have been able to do it because I didn't want someone to see how disgusted I was with myself or how shameful I had been living and, like, the. The pain that I'd felt for most of my life. If I didn't have that environment, that context, that setting, and that's kind of safe environment, I don't think I would have. Probably would have shared it. Maybe I'd have waited till I was 40 or 50 in therapy after I'd, like, ruined my life or something. Right. It's like maybe I would have gotten to the core of it, but that was a beautiful time for me because. And I remember sharing it. And then. Then I walked back to my chair and I sat down. And it's like I looked. There was two women sitting next to me, and I looked over, and they were, like, bawling by hearing the story. And I didn't think it was, like, that impactful for them, but they were weeping, and they kind of just grabbed me and squeezed me, and they're both bawling, and I'm. Then I start bawling, and then I'm kind of ashamed of what I shared. And I ran out of the room, and I went outside of the. There's kind of a conference hotel room area, and I went outside of the hotel into this back alley, and there was, like, a brick wall. And I put my. My head up on the wall, and I was just kind of crying. I was just like, I'm not going back in there. Like, I'm done. You're like, this is. I'm done. You know, my life is over. I was like, I can't go back in there. And then I get a tap on my shoulder, and it was a. It was a big guy who's probably in his 50s, and I was 30 at the time, so I was 13 years younger. And this big guy, my size, but bigger and my height, he taps me on the shoulder, he turns me around. He's crying. He looks me in the eyes, and he goes, you're my hero. And I was like, you know, I was just so confused. He's, like, holding me, and he's like, you're my hero, and I'll follow you anywhere. And he goes, I've never told anyone this, but this happened to me when I was 11, and I've held on to this my whole life.
- [16:02]
B
Wow.
- [16:02]
A
I've got five kids. My wife doesn't know. My kids don't know.
- [16:07]
B
Wow.
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A
And I get chills thinking about it.
- [16:08]
B
Right.
- [16:08]
A
I was just like, I've got chills. Yeah. I was just staring at him crying. And it was like the first time I felt accepted for who I was and what had happened to me and my experience. It was the first time I felt emotionally safe with someone knowing, like, this trauma, this shame, this. This fear of mine. It was probably one of the most beautiful moments of my life, because one BY One, like, 10 or 15 men came and kind of did something similar. Not everyone had gone through sexual abuse in that room, but a handful of guys did. And different men just came up to me and said, I'm holding on to this shame. I did this thing that I wasn't proud of. Another guy talked about his sexual abuse experience, and all of them who had been sexually abused talked about it for the first time with me. And I was just like, this is so strange because I'd never heard men. Other men talk about this. In some ways, it was very humiliating and scary, but other ways, it was like the freest day of my life because finally I could reveal something I was so afraid of.
- [17:18]
B
And.
- [17:18]
A
And people didn't say, you're bad and wrong and get away from me. They actually embraced me, and what a. What a gift it was. But I. It took unbelievable courage for me that I didn't have my whole life to be able to be in that setting. And the only way it happened is because my life was kind of going down a darker path and having kind of all these challenges and relationships and a business partnership and an intimate relationship and a friendship. They were all kind of like falling apart. And I was the common denominator and I was like, something's wrong, something's off with me. Even though I was pointing the finger at everyone else, it was like really was something wrong with me. I think the core of it was the traumas and the shame that I was holding on to from the past.
- [18:00]
B
So we talked a little bit before the show. I'm getting divorced right now. Yeah, never a good thing, lots of pain.
- [18:06]
A
Have you talked about it on your show yet?
- [18:08]
B
Yeah, I've talked about it a little bit. And someone said you got to go to, to the Hoffman Institute.
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A
I don't know if you're familiar with Hoffman. This is what I did was similar
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B
to the Hoffman Institute, right?
- [18:17]
A
Similar context.
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B
So I figure, you know what it's. Did you go? Yeah, I, I needed to go. I was just not doing well. I got, I started November 8th really of, you know, just a little while and I wasn't doing well just emotionally. I wasn't leaving the house. I was having trouble focus at work. And you know, people have said for years it's just amazing how many people have gone. So for those people who don't know what the Hoffman Institute is, it's a, essentially a seven day program where you go away, no phone, no email, no Nothing. You're with 40 people and you're working on yourself dealing with your emotional problems from 7:15 in the morning to often 10:00 clock at night. And the range there was from a river rafting guy, 23 years old to CEOs that people would all know.
- [19:01]
A
Yes.
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B
And it is raw, as raw it could be. Everyone said it's life changing. So I get up there the first day and I'm just bawling, just. I could hardly see day one, day one. I mean, you know they call you and you know, people are like I got this, I got this. I have problems with my parents and I've never been able to get up. I've been insecure. I'm afraid, whatever the case. And I just got up there, oh my God, my life is falling apart. Just could hardly speak. And the whole time whenever I got called out I was just not well. I was crying and at the end of it, similar to yours. I mean I was bullied when I was a kid. I stuttered emotionally you know, had a lot of difficulties, didn't have a lot of friends. And so I was carrying all that baggage, which has affected my life as well. And, you know, People would come up to me and say, you know, I appreciate you sharing your emotion because it allowed me to cry as well and share mine.
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A
Yeah.
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B
You know, and everyone said at the end, you know, have you been or not been?
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A
I haven't been there, but this is a similar experience.
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B
Yeah. So. And it's like everyone wanted to support you, whatever the reason, you know, you're emotional and. And it really. Everybody told me all. More than 30 people came up and said, you know what? Your vulnerability made me more vulnerable and it made me heal more.
- [20:26]
A
Yeah.
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B
So that's beautiful, you know?
- [20:28]
A
Yeah, that's beautiful. It's worth it. It's worth going and.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Healing process.
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B
Yeah. I mean, life changing.
- [20:35]
A
Yeah.
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B
You know, you come out of there a different person.
- [20:37]
A
What was your biggest lesson from going through that?
- [20:42]
B
You know, like. Like you, you know, you beat yourself up. Right. For all the mistakes you've made in life. And it's hard to, you know, we've all done things we shouldn't have done. And you look back and one of the biggest ones is, you know, you learn to forgive yourself. Right. And move on.
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A
And is there anything you haven't forgiven yourself for yet?
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B
No. Because at the end of the day, we are who we are because we've all made mistakes. Right. And we learn from our mistakes. So, you know, one of my questions for you at the end is, what's your biggest regret in life? And when people ask me that, I don't have any, because I wouldn't be the person that I am today without the mistakes that I made. Yeah. The other thing about the Hoffman Institute, it's. Is they really help you identify negative patterns that you've had your whole life and they call something negative. Love syndrome, where there's 10 hours of homework to fill out this whole form beforehand. And there's part of it is having to relive childhood trauma that I just buried for years. Right. Everyone. And so it's like, you know, you're writing these things and you're crying. It's like, God, fuck, I didn't want to. I didn't really want to talk about that.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And then I have to put it down and come back five hours later or two days later because it's like, so it's intense.
- [22:06]
A
What was the thing you were most scared to talk about?
- [22:09]
B
Just, you know, being bullied as a kid. Stuttering people making fun of you. And then things that happen. Just divorced parents, they didn't like each other very much. You're caught in the middle. You're in the middle, you know? And my mom married three times. And, man, you know. You know, one day, coming home and being an unhappy marriage to take us out of not a good financial situation, and coming home and said, all right, I was 16. And says, pack everything up in garbage bags. We had an hour to leave and just moved into a small apartment.
- [22:38]
A
You were 16?
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B
Yeah. Holy shit.
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A
He left or you. Your mom?
- [22:41]
B
No, my mom left. Yeah. You know, she talked to us before, you know, you happy? You know, my brother and I, we are not fucking happy.
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A
You and just one brother.
- [22:48]
B
Yeah, and one brother.
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A
And you were never happy with, like, your parents, that.
- [22:52]
B
That situation? Well, it was a stepdad, and he had three kids and, you know, all merged together. Yeah. The honeymoon, the three kids made me fight my brother.
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A
Oh, my God.
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B
I was like, what? Yeah, like seven, you know, six years old. So it was not. It was just not. Not a good situation.
- [23:06]
A
Oh, man.
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B
So. But.
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A
But it drove you.
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B
It drove me.
- [23:11]
A
You know, that pain drove you to be like, I'm gonna prove you.
- [23:14]
B
Yeah.
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A
I'm gonna prove all of you.
- [23:16]
B
Yeah. I mean, the bullying really helped. Two people call me. I mean, we'll get into some of yours as well.
- [23:21]
A
Yeah. Special needs classes.
- [23:23]
B
Yeah.
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A
Stuff, man. It was not fun.
- [23:25]
B
Yeah. But I said, okay. And my mom kept saying to me, growing up, she said, all the popular kids are not. Be popular when you're older, but you'll
- [23:32]
A
know that when you're right there. It seems like.
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B
Yeah. Coming home from school, crying every day, you know, it's not. Not, not fun. It's not fun. My mom, grandmother, who is my hero, who was hanging out. My mom was working two jobs as legal secretary. And, you know, my first memory as a kid is my mom not being able to pay rent.
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A
Yeah.
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B
You know, it's a brutal memory.
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A
It's your first memory.
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B
Yeah. It's not brutal.
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A
It's not fun.
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B
No. So we'll get into money in a little bit. Just a couple questions, but, you know, you had a hard childhood, and whenever you get in trouble, you tell the principal they want to kill yourself.
- [24:04]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I don't want to be here. I wish I was dead. I would say that often. You're like five, seven, nine. You don't know what that means. But I was just. I didn't feel accepted. I didn't feel loved. I didn't Feel like I had friends. I was like the bottom of my class. Special needs classes. I was in tutoring all the way through college.
- [24:22]
B
Yeah.
- [24:22]
A
As early as I can remember, I had a tutor. I had to go to a tutor during recess. Like everyone else is going on playing and lunch breaks and I had to be with someone learning how to read. I had a second grade reading level in eighth grade and I just, I still struggle reading today. As a 42 year old going on 43, it's like I still can't read that well, basic stuff without messing it up when I speak. When I have to read ads like for my podcast, I still have to reread them over and over again because I mess up. Even though I've done it so often, it's not. It doesn't come naturally to me.
- [24:54]
B
I had a weird relationship with money because of kind of the way that I grew up and then.
- [25:00]
A
Because you didn't have a lot growing up.
- [25:02]
B
No, I mean, my dad was very supportive of us. You know, again, it was just very, very tough. And I didn't have a lot of money. And as I said, she remarried to take us into a new situation. But your brother, as you said, Chris, 11 years older than you.
- [25:19]
A
Yeah.
- [25:19]
B
Dealt drugs to an undercover cop while he was in College facing a 6 to 25 year sentence.
- [25:24]
A
Yeah.
- [25:25]
B
You were 8 years old like you said, and no one want to hang out with you. And so you had no friends. I had no friends for a while too, you know, for different reasons. Didn't have a brother that went to prison. But tell us about the, the five Dollar Club.
- [25:37]
A
Oh, man. Yeah, this was a tough one because I didn't have. I wanted friends so desperately and friends came from school or the neighborhood. At that time there was no, like, I guess I was in sports teams like T ball and soccer, but it wasn't really like school teams yet. It was like outside stuff. And I remember like everyone in the neighborhood had rollerblades, but I didn't have rollerblades. We couldn't afford rollerblades. And so I was playing roller hockey and sneakers, but I was the only kid just like running and everyone else was rolling around playing rollerblades in parking lots. And I remember I just wanted to have a couple friends for whatever reason. These two guys said, hey, we have a club. Like I heard about. They had this special club. And I was like, I want to be a part of the club. They said, okay, there's two ways to get in. You can either answer questions or you can pay. And I Was like, well, I don't have any money, so what are the questions? And they asked me the questions that I didn't know the answers. So I felt dumb just by not knowing these answers. And they said, if you want to join, you have to pay $5. And I went back home and I asked my mom for $5 to join this club. And she was kind of like. She was a little sad. She was like, a little sad, but she was like, okay, let's figure this out. And she didn't have the money. So I was sad that she didn't have the money. And she said, let's go in the couch and open the cushions and see if we can find change. And she went her dresser drawers and found some change. She put it together in a shoe box and gave me $5 worth of change, essentially, and said, here you go. And so then I ran back to this kid's house and I brought them this money. And they said, okay, you're in the club. But that whole next whatever hour or something, we were in their basement, you know, and they were hanging out by themselves kind of in the corner. And I was just left alone just to be there. And so even though I paid for friends, they still wanted to hang out with me. So I never went back after that to that club. And I just remember living with that shame again. It was like, shame stacking. It's like day after day of why I wasn't good enough, why I wasn't lovable enough, why I wasn't smart enough, why I wasn't talented, whatever. And it's really hard. You know, my parents did their best, but it was like the evidence only reassured me that I wasn't enough. It didn't assure me that I was going to be better than or going to improve. It just confirmed that I was stupid, essentially, and I didn't have the tools on how to develop and grow at that point. So there's just like, another thing, another reason why I wasn't supposed to be here. If I can't even pay for friends and have them hang out with me, then how am I going to survive in this life? When you're seven, eight, nine, like, you can't think beyond, wow, in 20 years you're going to be like, okay, Like, I wasn't able to rationalize that because all you have is in your little world. So it's just another thing that. That made it challenging.
- [28:27]
B
We have a lot of similarities in our background in general. One of them was getting picked last for dodgeball.
- [28:34]
A
Yeah. Did you get picked last.
- [28:35]
B
Dodgeball lasted everything really. So, you know, four hockey draft and everything. You know, I mean, everything. Everything, yeah. And so how did being picked last? The teachers picked the captains. The captains picked you last? Well, they're sitting there.
- [28:49]
A
Well, here's the thing. They didn't pick me last. They didn't even pick me. So it's like the two boy captains who were like the cool kids in the class, they chose all the boy kids first. Then I thought, okay, I'm going to be the last boy picked. Then they start picking all the girls one by one. Then by default, I was on the team that just had the last pick. But they didn't even say, okay, Louis, you're with me. It was just, all right, we're done with all the men and all the women. Okay, now, Louis, like, I guess you just go over here. I remember having so much anger, so much rage, and I was just like, I'm going to destroy these kids. You know, I was just like throwing the ball everywhere, catching everything. I was just like a machine. And for whatever reason, something sparked inside of me that day. I was like, I'll never be picked last again. Never. And probably something with you where you were like, I'm going to make so much money, I'm going to become so successful that no one's ever going to make fun of me again. I'm going to be able to laugh at them if I want to. Whatever drive that you had early on, that drove you to be creative and, you know, have this passion and have this commitment to excellence, like doing whatever it took to excel at everything you've done, to prepare so intently that people are going to know your name. Like, whatever it was you had that firing you, just like, I've had it in me. And probably through the Hoffman Institute. I'm not going to interpret what happened for you, but for me, When I was 30, I realized that that fire drove me to succeed, but it didn't give me fulfillment. It drove me to accomplish, to make money. I didn't make as much as you, but I made more than I had growing up. And I was like, okay, I made my first million and I felt more financially secure at least. And I was able to accomplish great things in sports and business and platform and all these things. And I still wasn't happy. I still wasn't fulfilled. I still had anger, shame, rage, insecurity, self doubt inside of me. So I was like, what is wrong with me if I've gone so hard? I've been willing to do Whatever it takes to accomplish. And I still don't feel enough. Something is wrong. And that workshop and the process over the last 13 years of the journey of healing, which has been ongoing, has given me so much more peace than I ever had when I was growing up. Like, I have an incredible amount of inner freedom that I never knew was possible in my life. And it's a constant journey of remembering how to create that and having the boundaries and the structure to create that. But the pain of being picked last, of being sexually abused, of being made fun of for being stupid, of my parents going through the divorce, my brother being in prison, all these different challenges, it gave me this fuel to succeed, but that fuel eventually burned out. It wasn't sustainable. Like, it went a long time to get me started and build momentum and accomplish, but it didn't bring me love, fulfillment, and peace. And it wasn't until I started healing when I started to create more of a renewable energy that has been more sustainable, that has created a. A rich and beautiful life, not just a successful life.
- [31:58]
B
You're listening to part one of my incredible interview with Lewis Howes, one of the most successful podcasters ever. School of Greatness has had over a billion downloads. Louis is a successful entrepreneur, coach, professional athlete. This is one of the best interviews I've ever done. Be sure to check out next week part two of my interview with the incredible interview with Lewis. I think there's two kinds of motivation. When you're bullied, have no friends ever making fun of you. Call me Ruhber, Tartar River, Randy, and feeling so low. And there's the I'm going to prove you wrong.
- [32:28]
A
Yep, I had that. So did you.
- [32:30]
B
There's negative, negative motivation. And later on realizing, you know, I'm doing it for myself at the end of the day.
- [32:35]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [32:35]
B
Which is a lot more healthier.
- [32:37]
A
Yeah, way healthier. Well, it's. I learned that, like, I was doing everything for selfish reasons. I wanted to look good, I wanted to prove people wrong, I wanted to be picked first or whatever. These things I wanted to, like, impress as opposed to I want to serve. And when I turned 30 is when I realized, oh, I. I've been living a life, not a bad life. Like, I've been doing good as well. I'm still, like, a good guy and, like, kind to people. But the motivation behind it was to prove people wrong. Even if I didn't say that inside of me, I was like, I want to prove everyone wrong. It's me versus the world mentality. That's just A big weight to carry. It's exhausting, and it can make you accomplish it. But I think it's hard to sustain long term. Healthy love, healthy relationships, healthy mind and body. Like, it's just hard to sustain it long term. And I know, maybe you can tell me, at this season of your life, you're how old enough? 50.
- [33:30]
B
57.
- [33:30]
A
57. I'll be 43 in a couple months. And you've got a lot more wisdom and, you know, success and life lessons than I do.
- [33:38]
B
A lot more failures, too.
- [33:40]
A
You've had more time to try stuff,
- [33:42]
B
make them every day.
- [33:43]
A
But I just feel a sense of peace that I never had the ability to feel. And it's because I continually do the emotional healing work constantly. And it's not fun. It's not fun to constantly look in the mirror and say, what can I do to improve? Am I doing this out of ego or am I doing this out of service? Am I doing this because I want to improve a scenario or just because I want results for me and I want to look good and the balance, Because I have goals and dreams that I want to accomplish. But when I turned 30, I said, if I'm only doing these to serve me, I shouldn't do it. But if I can do it in service of others as well, then that is more sustainable. And that's how I've been living my life for a while now.
- [34:32]
B
At the end of the day, we all want to make it on our own. So at 23 years old, I'm in law school in Northwestern. I had a girlfriend named Tracy, parents very wealthy, go to Aspen with them. And I was. I didn't have money. And she would vet a house in south of France. And her mom, one, you know, said it was snowing outside. Let's take a walk. All right. You know, we're taking a walk.
- [34:56]
A
You're in Aspen?
- [34:57]
B
Yeah, with. With her. You know, Tracy was not there. I don't even know where she was at that moment. Okay, this is great. Your mom wants to take a walk. And she said, randy, how much is it gonna take for you to stop dating my daughter?
- [35:08]
A
Shut up. She did not say this.
- [35:10]
B
She did say this. We're walking around the block. And I. I didn't know. But I remember, like, a day before, there was a party at Red Mountain. So for those people who know, these are huge mansions in Aspen. I didn't have the right clothes. I remember going to a bedroom. There were no cell phones back then. And calling my mom and say, gosh, I was I was basically crying. Louis, I don't have the right clothes. I'm insecure. I. I'm in. You know, she go back out there. You know, you're highly educated. And. And it was interesting because we ran. I ran into somebody who was involved. This is arcane, and most people have to look this up, but there was a econ class I took in high school my sophomore year, and we would study corporate mergers, et cetera, et cetera. So there was some Detroit company involved with Martin Marietta, and it was a conglomerate, and they sued one another, and randomly, the CEO of that company happened to be there at the party.
- [36:02]
A
You studied this him in high school or something?
- [36:03]
B
I knew everything about the case. And he said, you know, where do you know all this? I went from, wow. I felt like a loser, uneducated, I don't belong to suddenly. Wow. You know, you're very impressive. What. What are you doing? What's your name again? And that made me feel really good. So you just never know. Kind of how things can flip in one conversation.
- [36:23]
A
Wow. Did your mom see this?
- [36:25]
B
No. I mean, my mom's in Detroit.
- [36:27]
A
Did her mom see this? No.
- [36:29]
B
Not, not, not. Never even told her about it, by the way. Tracy was there.
- [36:34]
A
That would have been interesting if this guy, the CEO, was like, wow, this guy's incredible, right after that conversation. So that'd be cool.
- [36:41]
B
So we never want to rub in. You know, we talk about doing things for ourselves.
- [36:44]
A
You don't have to rub it in. But he could have just organically. Wouldn't that have been amazing?
- [36:48]
B
I'm talking about rubbing it in when our company went public and had a $35 billion valuation, like so. So that's so. So Tracy and I are still friends to this day. She's amazing, you know, she changed my life in so many ways. She's just so optimistic and positive and. How long.
- [37:05]
A
When did you exend it?
- [37:07]
B
In law school. So this was over 30, probably 32 years ago.
- [37:11]
A
But how did the conversation end? Did you say million dollars?
- [37:14]
B
When? Well, Yeah, I said 10 is my number, so. Well, we only have nine in cash. Nothing. Nothing happened that way. And I said to her, I'm not for sale.
- [37:24]
A
Wow.
- [37:24]
B
Okay. So our company goes public, and this
- [37:28]
A
dating your daughter, dating her daughter part, you mean this?
- [37:30]
B
This is. So it ends. For whatever reason, in law school, Tracy and I kept in touch. We're still friends, you know, to this day.
- [37:37]
A
Her mom was like, yes, when it ended.
- [37:39]
B
Right, I'm sure. I mean, you know, she didn't call me or Anything. But I'm sure she was very happy about that because I wasn't a Rockefeller. You know, she mentioned all these names and you're not good enough for my daughter. Gosh. But when our company went public and people. 30 years later, our company went public in 1999. So this was. I graduated in 93, probably six years later. Yeah. So. So six years later, I'd made something of myself.
- [38:01]
A
$35 billion valuation.
- [38:03]
B
Yeah. I mean, my, My paper wealth is very high. And as we know, paper wealth is now.
- [38:07]
A
You were the founder of the company.
- [38:09]
B
Four founders. Akamine Technologies.
- [38:11]
A
Years. It went to 35 billion valuation.
- [38:13]
B
Well, it went to 35 billion 463 days after we started the company. Holy. With $3.2 million in revenue.
- [38:21]
A
Holy cow.
- [38:21]
B
It was crazy. We invented a new way to serve web traffic. But we can. We can talk about that and the craziness of that. And our stock dropping 99.8% of value to going to a. A 99 million dollar market cap and how good that feels. High to the low. Yeah.
- [38:37]
A
Then you feel, oh, do I matter at all?
- [38:39]
B
I mean, everyone loves a winner, right? You got all these producers in Hollywood coming up to you and shaking your hand. And then I, I saw the same producer who came up to me at lunch. I'm like, oh my. Like, really? He's coming up to me to say hi. And then I'm in Aspen years later, at the same Regis getting on my car, like, hey, Steve, Randy Kaplan, you remember? Like, do I know you?
- [38:57]
A
Really? Because your valuation wasn't up there anymore.
- [39:00]
B
No, it's like, yeah, everyone loves a winner, right? At the end of the day. But going back to Tracy's mom rubbing it in, and it's like, if I ever wanted to do it, and I would never do it, by the way, it's just not classy. I pride myself on being a humble person. And hopefully people consider me a humble person. I didn't do it, but Tracy knew about it. So I talked to Tracy, maybe because there was some press about it, and this kid in Detroit grew up and there were a couple of hers.
- [39:32]
A
They heard about it.
- [39:33]
B
Yeah, yeah. It was a thing back then. Having a unicorn and a billion dollar valuation was not a huge thing. But to have a $30 billion valuation was a huge thing. Yeah, it was totally unheard of. So I said to Tracy, a year later, I said, by the way, does your mom know about Akamai? She said, yeah, she knows about it. So ask her about the Rockefellers now. So that was. That was the end of that. But again, you know, it feels good to overcome our obstacles when we're bullied, when no one believes in us except our parents. Yeah. And the. The four most important words other than I love you in the English language, I think are I believe in you.
- [40:22]
A
It's powerful.
- [40:23]
B
I think it's really powerful.
- [40:24]
A
Yeah. Do you still believe in yourself?
- [40:27]
B
Oh, I believe in myself every day.
- [40:28]
A
That's good. Did you believe in yourself when you had the $35 billion valuation?
- [40:32]
B
You don't believe it? It's even happening? You know, I remember I was friends with woman, Robin Neustein, who is the chief of staff at Goldman. She was a female partner there. And we become friends in the tech world. She was involved, I was involved. We were co investing together. And I said to her on the phone when the lockup was there, I said, robin, this doesn't even feel real. And she said to me, randy, it's real.
- [40:56]
A
Wow.
- [40:57]
B
I was living in an apartment next to the Jack in the Box, and I remember going down to the dumpster one day, throw away the trash. And our company had gone public, so I was well known. And this guy in the apartment building said, hey, I just read about the thing and your company going public. And he said, what are you doing here?
- [41:17]
A
This is the part, right?
- [41:17]
B
Yeah. Yeah. What are you doing? Oh, you know, I'm still here. And I was building my dream house at the time, but obviously I'm not gonna. Yeah, you're not gonna mention that.
- [41:25]
A
Yeah.
- [41:26]
B
Ran into that guy a year ago, by the way, at some random bar.
- [41:29]
A
Really?
- [41:29]
B
Yeah, it was actually. Oh, yeah, it was. He's. Yeah.
- [41:33]
A
26 years later or something.
- [41:35]
B
Yeah.
- [41:35]
A
Five years later.
- [41:36]
B
Yeah, it was crazy. Let's go back to school. Because you were having a hard time and you cheated on a lot of tests.
- [41:43]
A
Pretty much everything.
- [41:45]
B
Everything.
- [41:45]
A
So, I mean, there's probably, I don't know, years where I would cheat on homework, quizzes, tests in some way to survive. Like, I. I just didn't know how. No matter how much I studied, no matter how much my mom would tutor me, we'd have tutors. I would just try to focus. I couldn't focus and I couldn't remain remember and retain information. I would read a page, the first page of a book, and I just felt I had to read it over and over for 15, 20 minutes. And then someone asked me what happened, and I couldn't tell them what happened. Just was. Something was off. And I was like, man, I'm. I'm messed up. Or something was wrong with me, and it's just not. I just didn't learn and retain information well, the way school was structured, you know, I'm sure there's a lot of good things about school, but the school system just wasn't structured to support me personally. And that's why I excelled very well in sports, because I felt like I was able to retain information by movement, by visualizing something, by having someone empower me. So. But, yeah, I cheated a lot on school. And I don't. I don't say that with, like, pride or something, but, yeah, I got away with it until I didn't, you know, until I got caught. And then I got suspended a few different times, and it was just like. But I didn't know how to get through the next grade without doing that. So I was like, what do I do? Just sit behind and take, you know, get held back year after year or cheat to just get through?
- [43:11]
B
I didn't know. There's a lot of people listening today with learning disabilities, and they have tough time in school. You met some positive kids from St. Louis.
- [43:22]
A
Yes.
- [43:23]
B
And you went to boarding school. You asked your parents, begged your parents to go, and they. They go. My dad sent me to a private school, Detroit Country Day, because I went to a public school. Anti Semitic, I believe. People called me. I'm not going to mention the word here.
- [43:38]
A
Sure.
- [43:38]
B
And I excelled academically, and I wanted to be more challenged. So he was very generous. Yeah, it was a local school, but this school changed your life.
- [43:47]
A
Country Day is what it was.
- [43:48]
B
Yeah. Detroit Country Day.
- [43:49]
A
Yeah. Yeah, it was a country day in my. In my. In St. Louis that I played, like, sports against.
- [43:55]
B
Yeah. People think they're all connected, but they're not. I think just Country Day is just like. I don't know. It's like.
- [44:00]
A
It's not like Harvard, where they're all connected.
- [44:02]
B
Yeah, no, it's not like that.
- [44:03]
A
Gotcha.
- [44:04]
B
So. So you. It changed your life?
- [44:06]
A
Changed my life, yeah. I mean, it just was a different way of, like, growing up in public school in. In Delaware, Ohio again, I had some good friends, or there were some friends eventually in middle school, but it wasn't, like, empowering friends. They were good kids, but we were just doing stupid stuff. And then when I met these kids at a Christian Science summer camp in Missouri, it was actually like Lake of the Ozarks area. A few of them went to this school in St. Louis, and I was like, man, I just want to be around this energy. It was so positive. The mindset was about giving and generosity. It was about service. It was about all these things. And I was like, man, these kids are just nicer, and I want to be around them. So I begged them to send me there. And it really changed my life. I was in eighth grade. I was 13 when I went. I was in a Dorm with, like, 15, 20 other eighth graders. And it was hard. It was challenging. It was not easy, because academically it was more challenging, and I wasn't ready for it. And I was just. You know, high school, I think, is challenging in general. You know, even though they were more positive and empowering and there was less bullying there, I still had insecurity. I still had all the traumas of the past that no one knew about, that I was carrying all that weight that I was carrying every single day. And I wore masks to try to fit in. You know, I tried to be cool and popular and whatever. Funny, all these different things. You try to fit in and get friends to like you. But overall, it was. It probably saved my life because I don't know where I'd be if I stayed in public school.
- [45:33]
B
In Ohio, you graduate. Barely.
- [45:36]
A
Barely.
- [45:36]
B
And then you go to Principia College, which everybody knows in Elsa, Illinois. 330 kids in the school.
- [45:45]
A
Yes.
- [45:45]
B
And you set the D3 record for wide receiver. 17 catches for 413 yards.
- [45:50]
A
418.
- [45:51]
B
418.
- [45:52]
A
I'll take that five yards away.
- [45:53]
B
Okay. Okay. I think it's still a record. I mean, I. Look before the show, but. So what. What was that like? I mean. Well, we'll talk about trying out for professional football. Yeah, A second.
- [46:04]
A
It was awesome, man. I. We lost the game. This. This game that I broke the NCAA record for, and I still have the D3 record. I had the all division record for about 10 or 15 years. Someone broke that by, like, five yards recently, I think. But I had the. I didn't even know what was happening. I was having a great game, but at the very end, we lost by a few points. And I had a chance to go and score at the end, but I got tackled on a fourth down. So it was a turnover of downs. And then we lost the game. So I just remember feeling I was the last person to leave the locker room. I was in the shower, kind of just like. I don't know, in there for like 30 to 40 minutes, just kind of like moping around. I was. I was a bad loser. I didn't like to lose at anything. Right. Because losing felt like I was a failure. And if I'm A failure. I'm not enough. And I'm not gonna get value, right? And I'm not gonna have friends, and I'm not gonna be loved. And it was like, the fear just so I wanted to win no matter what. And so I was kind of just in there moping around, you know, I guess I'm 19 at this time. And I was in the locker room last, just kind of depressed. And it's funny because I'm like, naked in the shower and our coach comes in and I, you know, I liked the coach a lot. So it wasn't. It wasn't a weird thing that he came in the. He came and just, like, peeked his head in the shower. We're all in there showering, but he comes in and he said, hey, Lewis. He's kind of like, down also, because we lost. But he goes, hey, Louis, like, I just wanted to let you know you just broke a world record for the most yards in a single game. I was like, really? I. And I. In my head, I knew I had a good game, but the failure, the loss, like, stung so bad that I didn't know my stats. And he said, yeah, you had 17 catches for 418 yards. Let's go get them next week. And I was just like. I was so confused because I was like, my ego was kind of happy that I kind of broke this record that no one else had done. But we lost the game. So I was kind of sad at the same time. But that broke something inside of me in a good way, because for many years I was going to a small school and I didn't know what I was really capable of. And that kind of put me on a national stage because Sports Illustrated did a feature on it. And like, okay, I'm getting local news and attention, and all of a sudden I'd done something that no one else in the history of college football had ever done, and we lost. Yes, it was a Division 3 school and this and that, but it was like, okay, it was showing me what was possible. At 19. I was like, man, I've worked really hard for many years to become better in sports, and now I break this record without even trying to. What's possible for me then maybe there's something possible that set me out kind of really, in taking on sports to the next level. I was a two sport All American later in my college career, and then played arena football and played with the national team for USA Handball for many years. And now I'm pursuing the Olympics for the next two years as well, that's amazing. Yeah.
- [48:58]
B
So you went from Principia to Martin Luther College.
- [49:01]
A
I played against them in that game. We lost in that game to Martin Luther College.
- [49:06]
B
And I went to.
- [49:06]
A
Went to Capitol University. I went to Southwest Minnesota State my first year.
- [49:11]
B
And it took you seven years to graduate?
- [49:13]
A
Yeah, I left early to. Well, not early. I left after five years to go trying to pursue arena football. The NFL didn't work arena football, and then went back and finally finished.
- [49:25]
B
So much has been written about whether college is necessary. We're going to Talk about your LinkedIn education and going online today, and people are saying, well, do I really need to go to college? I think the average student today graduates with over $44,000 in student debt, and it takes over 20 years to pay it back. And now there's a big push by President Trump to start collecting on that debt. There's over a trillion dollars of student debt that people are not paying back. Is college necessary today?
- [49:50]
A
I think it's necessary at all. I think I had a great experience through sports. I don't think I could have gotten that experience, that sports and athletic experience, playing for, like, club. There's no club football. There's no, like, club track. Really, Like, I. I got the experience that was needed for my personal development. Now I. I had to pay off student loans for, like, the next eight years or something, which wasn't fun. And I didn't use my degree to, like, build my business. So in that regard, I. I don't know what I would do with my kids. I don't think I would send them to school. I think I'd. I think hopefully I would create education for them, but maybe not send them to a school. I don't know. I don't know. I don't think it's worth investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in something that you're gonna have to take 40 years to pay off without a guarantee of getting a job to pay that off right after college. So what's the point of that investment?
- [50:45]
B
Right? You've done them all financially very well. We live in Los Angeles. Everyone says that education is the best investment we can make in our kids. I believe that my dad believed in that. So I sent my kids to private school, starting in kindergarten. LA kindergarten then was, I think, 38,000. Say it's 52,000.
- [51:05]
A
Oh, my gosh.
- [51:05]
B
And I remember being at their high school graduation, they went to Brentwood School on the west side of Los Angeles. And I remember one of the parents saying, you know, by the time we spend this money and our kids graduate college. And again, this is west side of LA. Things are very expensive from 5 to 22, right? 1, $1.3 million. Come on. Yeah. And I started doing the math and I said, gosh, is that investment worth. That's a lot of money. How much money you have to make $2 million to, to do this. And that includes, by the way, the support of the school that you're supposed to make as well, all the donations. There's a, there's a, you know, donation expectation, of course. And so that, what, what if you
- [51:45]
A
put all that money every year into an index fund for them for 17 or 18 years? Right. Until they were 22.
- [51:52]
B
Right.
- [51:53]
A
How much would they have with those 22 years? If you're putting 50 grand a year or whatever, 100 grand a year into that, what would their, what would it be after 20 years?
- [52:00]
B
I'm going to do the math because I have a spreadsheet. I advise people on this because no one beats the s and P500. The average return over the last 25 years is basically 8.7% tax efficient. Dividends reinvested. No one beats the index over the long term. So it's.
- [52:16]
A
What would it be in 20 years?
- [52:17]
B
In 20 years they're 25.
- [52:19]
A
They're 25. Yeah. On five you start. And at 25 they get.
- [52:23]
B
Yeah, but don't forget, it's not all in at the same time. So you're stepping it up, you're stacking it. It compounds but, you know, you're compounding. So 50k a year for 20, 20 years. Right. I mean, the numbers really get very, very high. When I was, when our company was doing really well and I had a billion dollars of paper wall for two days. Oh, I mean, it's crap like you, you don't believe it's happening. I mean, you know, you're just walking, you know, please car, don't run me over today. I mean, that's what, that's what you're thinking. It's, it was just crazy.
- [52:53]
A
Let me enjoy this.
- [52:54]
B
Yeah, right. And so I'm going all. I was looking at four private wealth managers, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, DLJ and Merrill lynch at the time. And so I was going back to meet all the CEOs of this firm. Everyone's kissing your ass, by the way. And you know, you know, five, five years before, six years before, had three legal jobs in eight months, was a loser lawyer. Right. Things turn around and now. Yeah.
- [53:18]
A
And now you're the guy.
- [53:19]
B
Well, I Don't know if I'm the guy. I'm the guy until I wasn't the guy. But I remember meeting with the CEO of Goldman Sachs and he said, you know, do you get the value of compounding? I said, well, I kind of get it, yeah. I mean, that's how you create real well. So he said to me, you have a penny on the first day of a 31 day month. It doubles every day how much money you have, like, you know, trying to do it. And you know, you kind of lose Track, you know, 20, 48, kind of, you know, thinking about it and then, you know, you lose track quickly. So I probably said something like $600,000. I'm thinking about, I think, all right, I'm going to guess high because I know the answer is skewing high in the way that he's answering the, you know, asking the question. $10.6 million, come on. Yeah.
- [54:01]
A
That's crazy.
- [54:02]
B
It's 2 to the 30th power.
- [54:03]
A
That's crazy.
- [54:04]
B
Yeah. Interview question, by the way, for those people interested in finance. Can, can they answer the question? Wow. All right, so that's, that's a. Yeah.
- [54:12]
A
So what if you just said, I'm going to do my own private homeschooling and bring in a teacher or bring in teachers to do specialized classes and I'm going to just put 50 grand a year into their index fund and they can take it out of 25 or they can take it out at 45 and they will be, they won't have debt. Right. Why don't, why don't we just do that? Or is that a bad thing to think about?
- [54:34]
B
Well, we don't know. I mean, the issue is, and the same thing as college, do your kids lose out socially by not being in school with all these other kids?
- [54:42]
A
Because by not suffering in school and being made fun of and picked on and being picked last and being like humiliated and sitting in line all day and like, how much education are they really getting versus systematic, like structure building around what the system wants.
- [54:58]
B
Right.
- [54:59]
A
As opposed to why not hire the best teachers and come to your house and say we're going to teach you a music class with the best teachers? Or this. I don't know. That's what I'm thinking with my 3 month olds.
- [55:07]
B
All right. I was just having this conversation with a friend of mine this weekend who told me that, that she homeschools her daughter two days a week so she gets kind of the best of both worlds. And the question is always, how do you know, that you're learning the same things at home that you are in school. And the question is also, are you as good of a teacher as a teacher in school? And are you going to retain and learn as much as well? And, you know, there's no way to a B test that either.
- [55:31]
A
Gosh, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, dude, we. I didn't feel like we got socialized in school. Like, I struggled, you know, it's like it almost made me, like, fear people more. I had to learn how to undo that.
- [55:42]
B
Right.
- [55:42]
A
I guess late, like in my early 20s, I had to do my own social experiments in life to feel comfortable in my own skin.
- [55:48]
B
But I don't know, you know, it's interesting.
- [55:50]
A
It was different with boys and girls, too. I don't know.
- [55:52]
B
I mean, looking back, you still keep in touch with friends from, you know, up until sixth grade. I think my closest friends are in high school and grad school.
- [55:59]
A
Yeah. Yeah. Even college. I don't have college.
- [56:02]
B
High school, college, one or two.
- [56:03]
A
I have one good friend that I'm still friends with, very close with my best friend. But the rest are maybe a few guys I'll talk to once or twice every couple years. But it's not. I feel like my closest friends have come after school from, like, the pursuits of my life and, like, the service of my life and meeting people. I heard someone say one time, like, man, you haven't met some of your best friends yet at 40. Like, you're still gonna meet some of your favorite people after 40. I'm gonna. If I take my kids to school or not, whatever I'm gonna do. I don't know. But. But you're gonna be around, like, other school parents that you're probably like, oh, I'm around them every weekend because our kids are in class or they're going to sports, and you become good friends with them and you go on trips together and all these. I'm sure you did that too, right? It's like, yeah.
- [56:45]
B
I mean, that's who your friends become later. It's. It's your kids, Parents. Yeah. And. And the other thing, too, is I'm divorced now or getting one. And the therapist that I would say is like, all right, what am I going to do now? My friends are all married, and I really don't. My best friends don't live in Los Angeles. Right. We're all doing different things. New York, Palm beach, up north, and. Well, yeah. Mexico. Shout out to Nauka and Nayarit if anyone's buying a home there, please make me the referral source, Ellie Pacino. Shout out to Ellie for, you know, for getting me down there. But I'm talking to my therapist and here I am, 57 years old and who are my boys to go out with? And she said it's very interesting. Interesting, Randy, because I have a lot of clients in their 50s. Successful men who don't have friends. It's very hard to make friends in your 50s. My friends were all of these couples friends. Not that I'm not going to go out with them, but you're not going
- [57:44]
A
to go together with them.
- [57:45]
B
Work my ass off. Right. I'm tired at the end of the day and then I don't want to go out.
- [57:51]
A
I don't go out anymore also.
- [57:52]
B
Right.
- [57:52]
A
I mean, I go home with my kids and my wife.
- [57:54]
B
Right. I mean, I'd rather stay home with my kids. I'd eat dinner, I put them to bed, I read to the kids. And I don't want to go out at 8:00'.
- [57:59]
A
Clock. No.
- [58:00]
B
And so it's exhausting.
- [58:01]
A
It's exhausting when you get up early and you train and you work hard all day.
- [58:04]
B
It's like, I mean, now I'm going out on these dates, Louis and I think I had three in a row past 3 o' clock in the morning.
- [58:10]
A
Really?
- [58:11]
B
Yeah.
- [58:12]
A
That's exhausting.
- [58:12]
B
I mean, you know, there's a cool place on the west side for a
- [58:15]
A
while, but then it's time.
- [58:16]
B
Yeah. The Golden Bull is this really cool place on the west side of Los Angeles. And you know, that place gets rocking at 11 o' clock at night. Music's jamming and it's really fun. I couldn't stay up that late right now. Too late. Yeah. Just for the people who are listening today. I mean, those were not all, all dates. Just, just want to clarify that with some friends.
- [58:34]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [58:34]
B
Don't want to get any trouble here.
- [58:36]
A
Sure, sure.
- [58:37]
B
So let's. So I think every boy who plays sports, even throwing in the backyard, wants to be a professional athlete. Yeah. So here you are. He set the record.
- [58:47]
A
Yeah.
- [58:48]
B
NFL is, is your dream. I mean, there's so many. There's stories about people cut. Making all pro and the. Look at Brock Birdie, you know, the like, you know, last person taking. Making, you know, 50 million a year now.
- [59:00]
A
Yeah. Kurt Warner was a big inspiration of mine because he was playing for the St. Louis Rams. I was living in St. Louis.
- [59:06]
B
Yeah.
- [59:06]
A
Near St. Louis at this time. So hearing his story of playing arena football and then getting selected and winning a Super bowl is like, wow, maybe that's possible.
- [59:14]
B
You're making 250 bucks a week.
- [59:16]
A
Yeah.
- [59:16]
B
So you got the dream there.
- [59:19]
A
Yeah. And then I was living the dream. Making, like, 250 bucks. Felt like I was rich, though, even though I was living in, you know, we had a, you know, apartment that they were paying for, and we had food stamps for the week. 250. I was like, to catch a football and call myself a pro athlete, even though it was arena football. I was like, I'm still a professional athlete. This is the childhood dream. I was like, the inner child of me, was so excited to go play every single day.
- [59:49]
B
Sa.