Overcoming the Fear of Failure: Strategies for a Maxed Out Life | Ed Mylett

Summary

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THE ED MYLETT SHOW

Episode: Overcoming the Fear of Failure: Strategies for a Maxed Out Life

Date: June 6, 2026
Host: Ed Mylett

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Overview: Main Theme & Purpose

In this special extended episode, Ed Mylett focuses on the pervasive impact of fear in our lives—how it costs us our dreams, influences our identity, and keeps us from realizing our true selves. Ed brings together some of the most influential voices in personal development, such as John Assaraf, Robin Sharma, Jen Gottlieb, Tom McCarthy, Rachel Hollis, and Lewis Howes, to share tangible strategies for overcoming fear, reframing our stories, and living a life that’s truly “maxed out.” The episode dives deeply into actionable tactics, personal reflections, and powerful stories for transforming fear from a crippling force into fuel for growth.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What Are Your Fears Costing You? (Ed Mylett: 02:00–21:00)

- The Price of Unaddressed Fear

• Ed prompts listeners to consider: What are my fears costing me?—highlighting that the cost of not pursuing your potential is far greater than the discomfort of growth.
• “The price you will pay to become the person you’re worthy of…is infinitely smaller than the price you’re going to pay if you don’t.” (04:40)
• Fear often feels like an invisible anchor: toxic relationships, bad habits, regretful memories. These keep us from meeting our “real” selves.
• Many of us are living “walking dead”—alive but not truly living, due to fears and patterns we’ve inherited or developed.
• Emphasis on evaluating life not by what something costs, but by what it’s worth.
• “Cost vs. worth is a subtle difference. Is it worth it to change? Is it worth it to grow? You bet it is—a million times better.” (14:30)

- Stories We Tell Ourselves

• Ed explains that our ongoing negative emotions are tied to stories we repeat about past events.
• “An emotion cannot exist long-term without a story attached to it…the story is just the meaning you took from the event.” (17:05)
• Encouragement to change those stories: reframe past events as sources of strength and empathy.

- Becoming Acquainted with Your True Self

• The idea that true fulfillment comes not from accumulation, but from “finally meeting you, the real you.”
• “You have to start—make a bold move in your life because you’re worth it. The world needs you.” (20:11)

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2. Overcoming Biological Fear: Innercise Strategies (Guest: John Assaraf | 22:29–27:43)

- Understanding the Brain's Fear Response

• John introduces the concepts of the “Frankenstein brain” (fear-driven) vs. the “Einstein brain” (creative/thinking).
• Fear is a biological alert—it can be used as a trigger for action rather than paralysis.

- Actionable “Innercises”:

• Take 6, Calm the Circuits: Six slow inhalations (in through nose, out through straw), which deactivate the stress response and re-engage the creative brain. (24:30)
• AIA (Awareness–Intention–Action):
  • Become aware of thoughts/emotions without judgment.
  • Set a clear intention for the next few minutes.
  • Take one small action toward your goal.
• “Awareness is what actually gives us choice, and choice is what actually gives us freedom if we make the right choices.” (26:54)

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3. Debunking Fear Myths & Dancing with Fear (Ed Mylett: 27:43–41:00)

- Fear Is Real—And That’s Okay

• Ed pushes back against “false evidence appearing real”—sometimes fear is very real and reasonable.
• “Let’s get real about that. Fear is not false every time. Sometimes it’s real evidence appearing very real.” (29:50)
• Athletes, speakers, and high performers still experience fear; it’s not about eradicating it, but using it.

- Shifting from Fear to Excitement

• Physiological responses to fear and excitement are almost identical.
• “You don’t have to eliminate all fear. You just need to get to 51% excitement and 49% fear to act.” (33:07)
• Reframe the feeling as a “butterfly moment” and chase those moments in life—they usually precede greatness.

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4. Hug the Monster: Brave Practices Against Fear (Guest: Robin Sharma | 42:29–48:16)

- The Power of Leaning into Fear

• Robin shares his “Hug the Monster” concept, reframed through a story of a Himalayan grandmaster facing scary dogs with calm, boldness, and even dance.
• “The discomfort of growth is always to be preferred to the illusion of safety.” (44:39)
• Encourages “micro bravery”—doing something a little scary or uncomfortable every day builds courage as a habit.
• “The things that all of us are scared about, that’s where your growth lives and your freedom lies.” (45:25)

- Ed’s Take:

• “I actually do what I call ‘feared things first.’ The more you familiarize yourself with facing monsters, the smaller they seem and the more momentum you build for the rest of your day or month.” (46:20)

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5. Distinguishing Fear from Intuition (Guest: Jen Gottlieb | 49:25–53:36)

- Whose Voice Is That?

• Jen offers a practical tactic: When you’re not sure if it’s “fear” or true intuition calling you away from something, ask: Whose voice is telling me not to do this? If it’s someone else’s (parents, partner, strangers), it’s likely fear—not intuition.
• “The person you become through uncomfortable moments, the wins, the losses—that growth is permanent.” (53:16)
• At the end of each day, Jen checks: Did I squeeze all the juice out of the lemon today? Meaning: Did I honor my true self, or let fear dictate my actions?

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6. Identity & Confidence—Preparation, Faith, and Authority (Guest: Tom McCarthy | 55:15–67:03)

- Identity Drives Reality

• Our identity—the story we tell about ourselves—shapes how we see and interact with the world.
• “You don’t hear with your ears; you hear with your story…if you don’t like your identity, you can change it.” (57:01)
• Growth comes by carving away at old identity, not in a single moment but through continual progress.

- Action Over Over-Preparation

• Don’t wait to be “perfectly prepared”—successful people have a lower threshold for what’s “enough” to leap.
• “People that struggle have too high a threshold for what they need to know before they leap.” (61:27)
• Celebrate “unearned confidence”—sometimes you need to act before you’ve fully earned the right.
• “The highest form of confidence is something you’ve earned. But let me tell you, unearned confidence is a pretty damn good substitute.” (65:02)

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7. Women, Approval, and Programming (Guests: Rachel Hollis & Ed Mylett | 67:03–75:58)

- Seeking Approval and Internal Confidence

• Rachel shares her struggle of seeking approval as a woman, rooted in childhood programing and family expectations.
• “Our addiction to other people’s approval is often a symptom—the disease is not having our own self-approval.” (67:33)
• Self-confidence comes from keeping promises to yourself. Love yourself enough that external validation becomes less necessary.

- Trusting Your Inner Calling

• “If God put this desire on my heart, and if he called me for this, then I can’t be wrong at my core.” (70:36)
• Encouragement to honor your true self—whatever your calling—and to create space for reflection and listening to your heart.

- Resourcefulness Over Excuses

• “If you really want something, you’ll find a way. If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse.” (73:34)
• The tools to change (health, marriage, business) are out there—don’t let ignorance be your excuse.

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8. Vulnerability, Masculinity, and Removing Masks (Guest: Lewis Howes | 76:29–100:30+)

- Masking Pain and the Journey to Openness

• Lewis recounts his childhood traumas (being picked last, sexual abuse at five, family upheaval) and how he masked pain by chasing athletic success and outward achievement.
• “My self-worth and my value was tied to winning or losing.” (80:09)
• Despite business and athletic success, Lewis describes being unfulfilled and angry until he confronted his past, eventually breaking down in an emotional workshop.
• “The thing I was afraid of people knowing about me the most was actually the thing that, when I shared it, people connected with me even more.” (88:20)

- The Power of Vulnerability

• By sharing his story (first with family and friends, later publicly), Lewis found profound healing—and gave countless others permission to address their own pain.
• “When I talk about it, I quiver. It still owns me. I don’t want this thing to own me anymore. I want to own it.” (95:46)
• Authenticity and realness draw people in far more than any “mask” of perfection—applies to all, not just men.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Ed Mylett: “The price you will pay to become the real you is infinitely smaller than the price you’re going to pay if you don’t.” (04:40)
• John Assaraf: “Awareness is what gives us choice, and choice is what actually gives us freedom if we make the right choices.” (26:54)
• Robin Sharma: “The discomfort of growth is always to be preferred to the illusion of safety.” (44:39)
• Jen Gottlieb: “Whose voice is telling you that you should or shouldn’t do it? Is it actually yours?” (50:00)
• Tom McCarthy: “You hear with your story…if you don’t like your identity, you can change it.” (57:01)
• Rachel Hollis: “If God put this desire on my heart…then I can’t be wrong at my core.” (70:36)
• Lewis Howes: “The thing I was afraid of people knowing about me the most was actually the thing that, when I shared it, people connected with me even more.” (88:20)
• Ed Mylett: “You can’t afford to get to the end of this life without meeting you. Only then will you love you.” (63:18)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Time | Segment / Guest | Focus | |-----------|-----------------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------| | 02:00 | Ed Mylett Intro | What are your fears costing you? | | 22:29 | John Assaraf | Innercise for fear—Calm the circuits (24:30) | | 27:43 | Ed on Debunking Fear Myths | Reframing fear as “butterfly moments” | | 42:29 | Robin Sharma | “Hug the Monster”—Lean into fear | | 49:25 | Jen Gottlieb | Fear vs. Intuition | | 55:15 | Tom McCarthy | Identity, confidence, action vs. overprep | | 67:03 | Rachel Hollis | Women, self-approval, internal confidence | | 76:29 | Lewis Howes | Masks, childhood trauma, story of healing |

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Conclusion & Next Steps

Ed and his guests collectively encourage listeners to re-examine their relationships to fear, to change the tired stories that keep them trapped, and to move forward with courage, faith, and boldness. The episode offers not only hope and inspiration, but also highly practical tools for anyone ready to “max out” their life, drop old anchors, and finally meet—and love—themselves.

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Remember:

• Start by acknowledging your fear—what is it truly costing you?
• Reframe the story you’re telling yourself.
• Lean into discomfort, one small “brave” action at a time.
• Know that growth and true self-acceptance lie on the other side.

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For more, follow The Ed Mylett Show on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube for these and all future episodes.

Transcript

[A]

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This spring, give yourself the kind of comfort that lives with you all day. Head to cozyearth.com and use my code mylet for an exclusive 20% off. And if you see a post purchase survey mention you heard about Cozy Earth right here on the Ed Mylett show. Cozy Earth comfort lives here. Here. This is the Ed Milet Show. Hey everyone. Welcome to my weekend special. I hope you enjoy the show. Be sure to follow the Ed Mylet show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now, on with the show. Welcome back. So good to have you with me here today and I'm honored to spend this brief time with you. I. I think I have something important to ask you about and for us to visit about today. So let's get right into it. What are your fears costing you? I think it's time to evaluate that like you and I right now. What are your fears costing you? You know, we have these weights that weigh us down in our lives, these burdens, these fears that we have. You ever stopped to think about what it's actually costing you to have these anchors and these weights wearing you down? These fears. You know, people ask me all the time, ed is making your dreams come true. The work you put in, the sacrifices you made, the people that let you down, all the dark times in your life, all the times you went broke both financially and emotionally. Is it worth it? It's a very interesting question because they always phrase it that way. Is it Worth it. Yet in our lives, we spend most of our times evaluating and contemplating what it's going to cost us. So let me say something to you up front. The price you will pay to become the person you're worthy of. The price you will pay to become the real you. The price you will pay to make your dreams come true and your vision a reality, and the people around you blissful and happy. That price, and there's a severe price, is infinitely smaller than the price you're going to pay if you don't. And that others around you will pay. You know, I don't think God gave you another day in your life because you needed it. I think he added another day to your life because somebody needed you. But here's the thing. They need the real you, the authentic you, the one who's playing all out in their life and pursuing their dreams. I can tell you the answer to that question is as good as you think it'll be to make your dreams come true. And dreams that you can't even imagine right now. Visions of your life. But maybe even more importantly, as good as you think it would feel to meet the real you, the one you were born to be. And remember this, you were born to do something great with your life. But to finally get introduced or reacquainted or reintroduced to that person. Maybe you years ago knew them very well, that version of you. But things have happened. These anchors, these fears, these toxic relationships, whatever they might be, these disappointments in our life. We've moved so far away from that person that we're capable of becoming that we don't even recognize them anymore. As good as you think it'll be to meet that person for the first time, or once again, it's a million times better. Now, here's the hook. You have to start thinking like a rich person. And I don't mean just financially. I mean rich in spirit, rich in emotions, rich in relationships. And for many of you, including me, we want to be rich financially. People ask me all the time, ed, why do you put out all this free content? I mean, you put out the best content in the world. Everybody else charges for inferior content. You put out the best stuff. And I appreciate when people say that. And you don't really charge for it. This is free. I do that because I believe in the law of reciprocity. I also want to make the world better, and I believe I put out enough good stuff. If someday I asked you to come to an event or participate in something, you probably want to come. But I want to pour into you because I don't think God gave me another day because I needed it. I think he gave me another day because people need me and they need you. And you need to remember you were born to do something great with your life. My brother, my sister, you were. And I want to remind you of that today. But I think it's time to evaluate what. What are my fears, my patterns? A toxic person in a relationship that I'm in with right now that's weighing me down. What's it ultimately costing me? Because it's just your life. That's all we're talking about, is just you, just your life. And by the way, you're not getting out of it alive. You are not getting out of this alive. So all these things that are weighing you down are truly silly, because at the end, we all end up in the same situation where our body eventually ceases to exist and hopefully our soul goes to heaven. But in your case, you got to stop thinking like a poor person. And I. I'm talking to me as much as I am you. Let me tell you what I mean by poor. Poor in spirit, poor in emotion, and poor financially. See, when I was broke financially, when I would go into a store and I wanted something, I wouldn't get what I wanted. I would get what I could afford. Sound familiar? So I was a guy who would flip price tags over, oh, it's this, it's this. And I would evaluate what it would cost me, not what it was worth. And so oftentimes in life, you ask me, ed, was it worth it? But in their life, they spend most of the time contemplating the cost. It's going to cost me this, it's going to cost me that. You know, maybe I want to become the person I go to. Cost me losing this person in my life, It'll cost me time. It'll cost me my hobby that I like spending so much time in. It'll cost me pain and emotion and whatever it'll cost me, I'd have to let go of my fears. I have to let go of my patterns. And these invisible things that weigh us down in our life, they kill us. And so there's a lot of walking dead in the world. There's this old saying that they say it about men, but it's people. Most people die 75 or 80 years old, but they really stopped living at 21 or 22 or 23 years old. We just don't put them into the ground until they're older. Too many people are Walking around like this. And maybe you relate to it, maybe you relate to a percentage of it. These fears, these relationships, these things we worry about, these invisible boogeymen, what are people going to be thinking about me? Do you want to get to the end of your life? And if someone asks you honestly, how did you live your life? Do you want to answer truthfully? Scared. I lived afraid. Afraid I wasn't good enough. Afraid I wasn't worth it. Afraid of what other people would think about me. Afraid to lose people around me that didn't even love me or care about me or want me to be my best. I lived my life afraid. Or at the end, you want to say, man, I maxed out my life. I got all the emotions, all the memories, all the achievements, all the richness in every area out of my life. I maxed out my life. Well, I could tell you this. If you hold on to these anchors much longer, it's going to keep costing you. And the longer you do it. See, even these things, sometimes what holds us back is are feeling bad about things we've done in the past that we're not proud of. And we use these memories as weapons against ourselves. We stab ourselves with it over and over. Or someone who's cheated on us or made a mistake, we use them as weapons against ourselves. And it. That's what you need to be asking yourself, whether it's worth it. Is it worth it to make your dreams come true? Is it worth it to change? Is it worth it to grow? You bet it is. A million times better. Because when you make your original dreams come true, you don't understand the ripple effects of all these other things you can't even think about right now that happen. When you meet the real you, it's spectacular. You have to remember this. You can't love yourself. Everyone here, man and woman, macho man and every single buddy, listen to this, okay? You can't love yourself if you don't even know yourself. And you can't know yourself if you're not truly being yourself. And these anchors cause us not to be us. I'm personally haunted with the thought of getting to the end of my life and never meeting me, never getting introduced to me. I want to meet that man. I'm interested in who he is. And I want to do the things every single day. Because once I got wealthy and I was rich and I went into a store, I didn't look at price tags anymore. I looked at whether it was worth it. And I got what I wanted. And our Lives are a perfect metaphor of that. We're constantly evaluating the cost instead of whether or not it's worth it. Cost versus worth is a subtle difference. Is it worth it to change? Is it worth it to let go of these memories? Is it worth it to drop your fears you will never meet you otherwise. Some of us are held back by crappy programming our parents installed in us when we were young. Remember this. Most things in life are caught, not taught. We catch a way of thinking. We catch a way of having emotions. And we have to ungo. We have to unleash ourselves and let go of those things in our life. So what's the thing for you? What's the thing? Is it a person you need to let go of? Is it a fear you need to let go of? Is it an operating pattern? Is it a memory as a weapon you're using against yourself? Is it just. You're just not sure? You got to remember who the hell you are. And if you've never met them, you need to get introduced and you need to get acquainted. Because I could tell you of all the jets and islands and cool stuff I've accumulated in my life, all the accumulations are wonderful. And I want you to accumulate the things you want that will provide memories for your family if they matter to you, the donations you can make, the people you can be there for, all the different things you can do when you get financially secure. All those things are incredible, but they don't bring us fulfillment. They can bring us temporary happiness. And there's nothing wrong with temporary happiness, but fulfillment. All of that stuff doesn't add up to meeting you, finally meeting you at some point in your life, don't you want to meet you or get reacquainted because you once knew her? There was a time in your life where you knew her or him. You'll never meet them otherwise. And so I have to tell you something. You have to start. You have to start to make a bold move in your life because you're worth it, your family's worth it, and the world needs you. You were born for a reason. You were born to do something great in small ways and in big ways in your life. And oftentimes in our lives would hold us back. Sometimes is the stories we tell ourselves. See, it's not the events of our lives, circumstances that define us. It's the meaning we take away from those events. And those meanings create an emotion. And that emotion drives our behavior. That emotion of fear, that emotion of anxiety, that emotion of sadness, or it could be an emotion of bliss, of confidence, of increase of belief, of being guided, of being protected. But you have to ask yourself that question. See, it's not the event. It's the stories we tell ourselves. And listen to me. An emotion cannot exist long term without a story attached to it. You've had a lot of things happen in your life that were emotional, but the story didn't stick, or you didn't take away the wrong meaning. And so that emotion doesn't stay. If you're feeling one of those emotions, it's attached to a story. It's a story you're telling yourself. The emotion can't stay without the story. And the story is just the meaning you took from the event. It's just a meaning you took from an event. So sometimes the story you're telling yourself is, I don't want to be alone. So I'm hanging on to this person that still weighs me down or where I'm at is good enough. Because I don't want to risk what I've got. And that's a story. Or I've made this mistake before or someone hurt me. And what it meant was xyz and you have a feeling about it. These anchors are actually lies we tell ourselves that are anchored in a story that doesn't serve us, that causes an emotion that sticks. So if we change the story, either we take a different meaning from an event and say, could it have meant this? See, when I was a young man with my dad's drinking, I thought, this means our family's less than and we're dysfunctional. And all these things I attach to the. To the. The meaning I attached to that story that was happening. And then at one point I realized, no, what was actually happening was God was using that to teach me how to learn to be present with people and read people and be empathetic with people and believe in people. And that God was using that story for me. When my baseball career ended, I was injured. It probably ended a career that would have ended anyway, quite frankly. But I was a pretty good player. And when I got injured, I remember thinking, man, this is my only dream of my entire life, right? God doesn't answer prayers, right? This was my prayer to do this right. The meaning of this is I just was never good enough. The meaning from it was it just wasn't meant to be. I wasn't meant to be somebody. I wasn't meant to do something great with my life. And I attached all these meanings to what was a pretty traumatic event. But I could have attached the meaning of that time, that God's got something bigger in store for me, that there's something bigger and bolder for me. And that Ed Milette I thought I was was not going to be a baseball player. But the Ed Milett I thought I was could be this other person who contributes to millions of people's lives. So once I attached a meaning to it, that what God really did was I probably would have played three or four or five more years and then been released and then bet in my mid to late 20s, and maybe I wouldn't have taken advantage of a lot of the opportunities that came along. So that career ended right when it was supposed to, so that I could start to redirect my life in a direction. And from there, I got a job at an orphanage. And that orphanage changed my life. Because of that orphanage, I met these young boys that looked just like me. These boys were all wards of the court. They were taken from their families or their families were incarcerated or dead and had molested them at some point in their life. And so baseball ended. I'm finding myself making $6 an hour at an orphanage, and I'm thinking, God, you took multi million dollars playing in front of hundreds of thousands of people a year, 50,000 people a night from me to be with eight children in a cottage making six bucks an hour. And that's exactly what he was doing. Because what I needed to be was I needed to be connected with people. I needed to love people. And what's even crazier about it is the way I connected with those boys is they had grown up with all this pain and suffering and dysfunction in their homes. And that's what I grew up with in a different way, with my father being an alcoholic. When I was young, my career had to end that exact day it ended so that I would end up in that exact house with those exact boys. And they could have someone who understood them, who could see them and knew who they really were, because I was just like them. I recently said to Jesse Lee on my podcast, I said, all people that go through any pain in their life, especially when they're young, we have different eyes. We just have different eyes. Our eyes. Just say, please love me, please protect me. Please be good to me. Please be kind. Please be gentle. Please believe in me. We have these different eyes. And I remember when I walked in there, they had my eyes. Not the same color eyes. My boys were of every ethnicity, every background. We had those eyes. And when I meet someone who's gone through Pain in their life. I see those eyes. But I found out something. We don't just have the same eyes. We actually have the same heart. We have the same heart and every single human being has that heart. It's whether or not they'll unleash it. Unleash the real them, release the real them. Or will they continue in their life to suppress the real them and settle for this less than version of them? Because they've created a bunch of stories and a bunch of fears and a bunch of relationships in their life that they hide in these stories, they hide in these emotions and they never unleash the real them. I figured this out. All I've ever wanted to do is change how I feel. I didn't like how I felt. I wanted to change how I feel so I would accumulate and achieve and do things to change how I feel in my life. And as I've gotten older, I've realized if I can change how I feel, I can get all those things the easy way. And that's what I've started to do in my life, maybe from 40 to right now, 52 years old. So I want to challenge you today. Evaluate this thought. Evaluate what are your fears costing you? What are these anchors costing you? I want you to really pray about it, really think about if you're on a walk right now, you're driving in your car, just what's it costing me and what would my life look like potentially? And by the way, you don't even really know. Just so you know, it's going to be so much bigger, so much more beautiful, so many small things that are going to happen along the way of you meeting you. And by the way, what's great is you continue to meet new versions of you. See, when you start to live your life without all these fears, without all these people anchoring you down with all these patterns and stories, what's great about it is there's a new you that shows up every couple years and there's this new version of you, an improved version of you every year. One of the things I'm excited about is to meet the 55 year old me. Because I didn't die at 21 or 22 like most people getting around to bury me at 85 or 90. No, no, no, no. I'm reborn all the time. I can't wait to make the 55 year old me. I'm chasing that guy when I get there. I can't wait to meet the 60 year old me. You know, one of the things that Frustrates me. Bank fees and banking fees. 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Chime is a fintech, not a bank. Banking services for my pay and Chime card provided by Chimes Bank Partners. Optional products and services may have fees or charges. So I was just doing a podcast the other day and my guest complimented me on my blue shirt and I said, well, guess what? That's quince, brother. He said, what's quince? And then I told him what I'm about to tell you, which is number one. I said, hey, summer's changing and so I want pieces that feel lighter and more breathable. And that's easy, but it's not easy if you can't pull it together. So that's why I keep coming back to Quints. Think like breathable linen and soft organic cotton. But they've got all kinds of stuff, well made basics without the luxury markup. And there's a rare balance where everything feels elevated but still effortless and it's affordable. Quinch European linen pants and shirts are the perfect warm weather upgrade to add to your rotation. Listen to this. Starting at $34, their tees are soft and easy to wear. Had one on the podcast yesterday. So elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quints.com ed for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com ed for free shipping and 365 day returns, quints.com/ed. But the 25 year old me was nothing like the 30 year old me. I mean, it was similar character, but different life, different contribution, different thoughts. Too many people are exactly the same person they were two or three years ago. And that's what it's really costing you, isn't it? And the reason you're not happy or as happy as you could be is you know this isn't you. You know this isn't you. You know there's more in you. Deep down in your heart and your soul and your spirit. The reason you're not happy isn't these other people, isn't your boss, isn't your job, isn't your body, isn't your lack of money, isn't any of it. It's that you know this really isn't you. You know this really isn't you. And it's time you meet him. It's time you meet her. It's time at least you get reacquainted if you once knew them. I want to challenge you to do that today. I want to challenge you to step out and drop whatever that anchor is or multiple anchors or these weapons you're using, these mistakes you've made, these choices that you. Blah, blah, blah, Stop it. That's not who you are. Your destiny is now. It's in the future, it's moving forward. And there's something great waiting for you. And is the price worth it? Absolutely. Is the cost worth it? 1000%? Because eventually you start getting what you want, not just what you can afford in your life. And here's the truth. You can't afford to get to the end of this life without meeting you. Because only then will you love you. When you're being you, you can meet you. And when you meet you, you can truly love you. It's time for you to step up. Remember, once again, I'm going to tell you, he didn't add another day for you because you needed it. He added another day because some other person and the world needs the real you. Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Now on to our next guest. All right, welcome back to Max out, everybody. What an honor it is to be with this gentleman here today and to share him with all of you. I guess probably the thing I admire most about him is that he came to this space. I think similarly to how I did. Which is that almost reluctantly, he was a person building businesses and becoming successful in the real world, applying the things he was learning from personal development and making those things a reality in his life. And then after he had business success being sought after enough, he decided to start to teach the things that had helped him become successful. And I love that there's a track record behind the incredible things we're going to cover today. Multiple time New York Times bestseller company called Neurogym that you're going to fall in love with Everybody. Bunch of different books. His recent one I read in two days called Inner Size. I highly recommend you all get this. Most of you are probably familiar from him for the first time from the Secret. He's one of the stars, if not the star of the Secret. Bunch of different books. The answer, so many great things. And it's an honor to have him today because I consider him on Earth one of, if not the greatest expert on the brain, on the inner mechanics of the brain, mindset and peak performance. I know it's what all of you want to talk about. So I have John Assaraf here with me today. John, thanks for being here.

[B]

Brother Ed, it's so good to be here. And thank you for giving me the honor to be here with you.

[A]

Pleasure is mine. As you know, we're going to go right into the good stuff here with this man. There's too much gold there to kind of go to generalities. Well, we were doing this during the COVID pandemic and people will watch at any given time. It could be two or three years from now. But I want to talk about fear to start. A lot of people are afraid right now and whether they've lost a job and they're afraid it's not coming back, they've lost money, their business is going potentially backwards. Maybe they've lost the fitness they achieved and some of the weight they had lost is return possibly. And in Inner Size, you teach these first two exercises. And if you could talk about take six, calm the circuits, if you would start, we're going right to the good stuff. Plus everyone's going to want to get the book after we do this. So could you talk about fear and some help that you could provide people in that regard?

[B]

Sure. If everybody could imagine for a moment you're driving a car and everything is going great and all of a sudden a light pops up on your dash. Now, the average person won't take a hammer and hit the light to turn it off. An average person will take a Look at. What is that light? Am I low on windshield wiper fluid? Am I low on air in my tires? Is my back trunk open? What's going on? So, just like the signal in a car is meant to make you aware, fear is a trigger in our subconscious mind that real or imagined danger has percolated in our brain. And so fear. There's nothing wrong with fear. We can actually use fear as fuel. Now, I like to give people visuals. So imagine if you have two parts of your brain, there's many more, but imagine these two. We have the Einstein brain, and we have the Frankenstein brain. And when fear gets activated, let's assume that that's our Frankenstein brain going, what if. What if you get hurt? What if you lose money? What if you die? What if you get embarrassed, ashamed, ridiculed, or judged? And so why does Frankenstein even get activated? Because we're not born with those fears. And so if we're not born with those fears, that means that something in our brain is triggering this reaction automatically, without our thought. And that is what we call the fear response. And we also know that that fe response causes something called the sympathetic nervous system to activate, which causes us to want to fight, freeze, or run away. That's just the absolute reaction at a biological level of what is happening now. When we want to deactivate that sympathetic nervous system, there are several, what I call our inner sizes that we can do. That actually gives us more control, more power, and the ability to reactivate the Einstein part of the brain. So inner size number one is really, really simple. It's called take six. Calm the circuits. So as soon as you catch yourself in a state of doubt, fear, worry, anxiety, stress, that means that Frankenstein's activated. If you just took six deep breaths in through your nose as slowly as you could, and then you exhaled as if you're exhaling through a straw in your mouth. If you just did that six times, that very simple inner size would deactivate the Frankenstein brain and allow you to reactivate your thinking, imagination, Einstein part of your brain. And then you can do the second inner size, which puts you right back in control. And that one I call is Aya a I A, which is now a matter of awareness. Awareness of my thoughts, emotions, feelings, sensations, or the behaviors that I've just taken, or the one I'm afraid to take. And in a pure state of awareness, without judgment, blame, shame, guilt, or justification. Let me repeat. Without any judgment, blame, shame, guilt, or justification of the feeling or the thought of the behavior. Now I'm empowered again. Because now I can observe. And now in this observational mode, I could say, okay, what's my intention? Let's say for the next 10 minutes. Well, my intention is to be happy. Great. My intention is to be productive. Great. My intention is to take action on this one thing that's going to help me towards my goal and dream. So in the awareness and in the intention, then if I say, what's one small action step I could take towards what I want instead of what I don't want? So all of a sudden I've interrupted a fear pattern. I've created this state of awareness, I've set an intention and now I'm taking action towards what I want versus being paralyzed by what I don't want and a fear that may or may not be real. So awareness is what actually gives us choice, and choice is what actually gives us freedom if we make the right choices.

[A]

Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Welcome back to the show everybody. So every once in a while a topic keeps coming up in the questions. [e-mail] we get a lot of questions. Ed, please cover this topic. Instagram, we get a lot of DMS and the number one topic easily the last 90 days has been fear. So many people are scared right now about their lives, about the economy, about the world, about not making their dreams come true. Just fear in general. And there's so much BS out there in the personal development space on this topic that I want to look at right in the eyes and I want to deal with it today and I want to give you some strategies that can help you like real ones. And also just discuss the topic in general. You know, one of the things that frustrates me, especially in self help personal development entrepreneurship, is people say fear isn't real. You ever hear that before? And immediately your BS meter goes off. Of course fear is real. You ever heard that analogy? They love to give you this one. The old school, right? False evidence appearing, real fear. What a crock. Like totally wrong. Fear is very real and if you've ever felt it, it's visceral. And if you've had a really deep fear, you know, absolutely it's real. And by the way, some of the things we're afraid of, nobody's going to tell you this. In personal development, you're always was. You can overcome every Fear. You ever heard that before? You can overcome all of it. Listen. Some fears are there for a reason. They're wired into our DNA, into our neurobiochemistry, for a reason, which is to help us focus, which is to warn us of threats, of things that could be very, very real. If you ever had somebody trying to break into your home and you feel fear, that's real, and they're trying to break into your home. Now, there's a difference between hearing a noise in the middle of the night and beginning to imagine someone's trying to break into your house and someone really trying to do that. It's imagining something that's not true, that's dangerous. But many fears are real. And fear is not necessarily a bad thing. It's not a fun thing almost ever, but it's not necessarily a bad thing. So it's not false evidence appearing real every time. It just isn't. Sometimes it's real evidence appearing very real. And you have every reason in the world to feel scared or have fear. So let's just get real about that. Number one, let's get that off the top, this bs, that it's false evidence appearing real. So the question is, what do we do with fear when it rears its head? What is it? How does it work? It's really interesting thing, because here's how real fear is. As soon as you recognize fear, here's what happens. The amygdala, which is a really small organ in the middle of your brain, it goes to work immediately. It alerts your nervous system, sets your body's fear response in motion. Stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline are pumped through your body. Your blood pressure and heart rate increase dramatically. That's what happens to you. Matter of fact, you know what else happens to you? All the blood begins to move from your heart to your extremities, to your hands and feet so that you can fight. It's literally what's happening in your body. And so sometimes fear is very real. My fighters, my UFC fighters that I work with, my boxers, people ask them all the time, do you get scared before you come into the octagon? People think all the time, these. These men and women are bulletproof. They're just different than us. They're freaks. They're never scared. You know what most of them say? And by the way, 100 of the honest ones, yes, I'm scared. And if they weren't scared, they wouldn't perform as well. Ironically, fear does not always cripple performance, especially in athletics, because, like I said it moves the blood from your heart to your hands and your feet so that you can begin to act and punch and move faster and stronger now. But thinking, critical thinking, processing information, that's a whole different story altogether. And when you're pumped full of adrenaline, you're pumped full of cortisol, right? You don't think as clearly. So we need to really look at this fear thing in its eyes. Now here's the good news. Fear and excitement are cousins. They're related. What actually goes on in your body when you're enthusiastic, you're excited, call it even, anxious, you're pumped up right? In your body, from a biochemistry standpoint, is almost identical to fear. The difference is what you're thinking and what you're processing and your ability to process information. But your body really moves the same way. And so the question is, can we shift ourselves from a completely fear based state into an enthusiastic, pumped up, excited state? And by the way, you don't have to move all the way there where you've eradicated fear completely. Here's the misnomer. And this is why most people never take action. They think, if I can't eliminate fear altogether, I can't start that business. I can't get up there and do public speaking. I can't go overcome my fear of heights. I can't ask that person out on a date, I can't write my book. They think I have to eradicate all fear, right? It's actually not true. You have to get to 51. That's all it is. 51, excitement and enthusiasm. When 49 of its fear, you can take action in that state. This notion that you have to have this threshold of you've eliminated your fears, you, you're going to live a long time before all of those are gone. Have you noticed your sheets slipping off the corners lately? Or maybe your pillows just don't feel supportive like they used to. You want to get a better night's sleep and be healthier, replace your bedding. That's why I upgraded our bed with Bolen Branch. They make everything your bed needs. Their signature organic sheets, pillows, blankets and comforters are all designed to be breathable, incredibly soft, and they actually get better over time. Bowl and branch bedding, from their organic cotton sheets to their breathable pillows and comforters, is made with the ultra clean materials that are gentle on skin and free from harsh chemicals. Their fabrics are breathable, soft and temp regulating so you're not overheating or tossing or turning too much. So upgrade your sleep with bowl and branch, get 15 off your first order plus free [e-mail] mylet with code mylet that's bowl and branch B O L L a n d branch.com mylet code mylet to unlock 15% off exclusions apply. So guys, the last eight weeks or so I have not been feeling on my game and I'm like, what the heck changed? What is it? Then I remembered we switched from one of the places we live to another and I stopped taking iM8. I'll never do that again. IM8 is unbelievable. IM8 is the way to simplify your supplement routine once and for all. It's got 16 supplements. It replaces with 90 ingredients across nine major organ systems in one drink. That's why when you're on it, you feel great. And if you stop, you feel the difference. IMH Daily Ultimate Essentials has 16 supplements in one drink for $2.61 a day though. Go to im8health.comed right now or click the link in the description here and use code ED for a free welcome kit. Five free travel sachets plus 10% off your order. That's code [e-mail] ED these statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, prevent any disease. People ask me all the time before I speak in public. They'll say to me, you know, because I, you know, I speak 80 nights a year. Do you get scared? Are you afraid? My answer is always, yeah, I do have fear. I'm afraid I won't serve to the level that I can. Maybe I'll forget a story or something I want to cover. I don't want to let people down. I don't want to embarrass myself. My biggest fear of my life when I was young, in college as a dramatic introvert, is public speaking. And now it's one of the things I do 80 times a year, and I'm in front of a camera probably 100 more times a year. That's not true. Probably 200 more times a year. So it became something that could cripple me if I didn't learn to face it, but I didn't learn to dance with it, which is what we're going to talk about today. I'm not trying to eliminate it. So what I normally will say is, I'll say, yeah, I have fear, but it's a little bit more like excitement. It's a little bit more like I'm anxious. It's a little bit more like kind of looking forward to what's going to happen in that magic moment. So I try to get at least a 51% excitement of my thoughts and 49% fear. Now, I'll be honest with you. The more and more you do something that becomes 60% excitement, 40% fear, a little bit longer, a little bit more reps, it can be 80% excitement, 20% fear. You might even get to a point in your life where you're no longer afraid and you're just excited. But the reason I point this out to you is this notion that you have to have a hundred percent of the fear gone or dealt with it to take action is really one of the most misunderstood, really detrimental thoughts that's been sowed into society and culture. You got to overcome your fears. You're not going to overcome every single fear. Maybe you need to face them, maybe you need to dance with them. I'm going to give you some strategies in a minute. Maybe you need to deal with it, maybe you need to run it all the way to its conclusion in your mind, but it's really a matter of changing some of our thoughts. And by the way, that's not easy to do either. But I'm going to show you some of the ways. How you ever have somebody say, hey, calm down, calm down. Does that help you calm down? You know, hey, man, just think positively. Think positively. I'm afraid of heights, and we're up here in the mountains. You think positively, right? So what ends up happening is your physiology overrides your thinking. So thoughts can impact physiology, right? And action, but physiology can override a thought. Most times, not all the time. But most of the time, physiology will be the driver. Okay, so we got to change what we think, but we probably need to do a few things deeper than that as well. So calm down. Doesn't work. Think positive. Doesn't work. These are not things that work. So really what fear is, it's an alert to your nervous system. You know what I say, let's listen to our fears all the way to the end of the story. You know, when I was a little boy, I. I was always afraid there was a boogeyman in the house. That wasn't a completely unfounded fear. I mean, someone could do that. But I remember my dad would come in and he'd open my closet. He'd go, eddie, look, there's no boogeyman in the closet. There's no boogeyman in the closet. But then he said something more important than that. He said, and if there was, Daddy will handle him. Daddy will handle him. And that gave me some comfort. What he did is he reframed the story. So the first thing is we did a little BS check. Is this a real fear? And a lot of times the boogeyman you're afraid of isn't real. But he could be, or they could be, or it could be. But then he took me to the end of the story, basically saying, everything will be okay. Everything will be okay. It's not that bad. And when you begin to stare the boogeyman of your life in the face almost every single time, you will find out it's not as bad as you think. And that's how you learn to shift to excitement, anticipation. See, I call it that Friday night feeling. Before I speak, now, before I do anything I'm afraid of. I call them butterfly moments. I wrote about butterflies in my first book called Max Out. And I've learned after 50 plus years on this planet that all great things in my life have been preceded by butterfly moments. You know those butterflies you get, like when you're dropping down in a roller coaster, you get the butterflies. I call it that Friday night feeling. If you were a high school football player, if you were a guy, you know, or you were a lady and you played soccer or softball or you were a guy or a lady before a high school prom or a dance or your first date, you get those butterflies in your life, those butterflies. That's your chemistry changing, your biochemistry changing, your neurobiology changing. And what that is, is it's fear. It's fear. But it's a lot different when you don't call fear fear and you reframe it and name it a butterfly moment. A butterfly moment. And by the way, think about your own life. All of the butterfly moments of your life, all the great moments of your life were preceded by the butterflies. That beautiful first date, your wedding day, the birth of a child, right? The starting of your business, even things that didn't work out. The best memories of your life were preceded by butterflies, which means they were preceded by what you call fear. But butterflies, I believe, are that beautiful mix of fear, anxiousness, excitement and enthusiasm as one package, reframed, not eliminating fear, dancing with it, facing it, knowing that without fear, without fear, there's no great moments of our life. Almost none of the great moments of our life didn't come with some kind of butterfly moment. So I actually chased the butterflies in my life. And the more that becomes your pattern of not running from the butterflies but chasing them. The more that becomes, the more familiar you become with butterfly moments, the more it's reframed into a butterfly moment as opposed to terror, complete fear. And I'm going to show you how to make it a butterfly in your life where it's excitement and enthusiasm. It's basically just slightly different thinking with the same chemistry going on in your body. And it's not a trick. Doesn't mean the fear isn't real. It doesn't mean I couldn't mess up the speech. It doesn't mean you couldn't fall off the mountain. Doesn't mean that. Doesn't mean there isn't a boogeyman in the closet. It doesn't mean that the person's not going to reject you. It doesn't mean that you couldn't mess up your vows on your wedding day. All these things that are fears, what I'm saying to you is it's the entire juice of life. That was a great conversation. And if you want to hear the full interview, be sure to follow the Ed My Let show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Here's an excerpt I did with our next guest. Welcome back to the program, everybody. I'm so excited to have this man here today. I've wanted to do this with him for a long time, but it was the universe's timing, I think that we did it now. He's incredible. He's constantly ranked as one of the top three, four or five leadership experts in the world. But when I watch him speak, I think he's one of the most gifted orators in the world today. He's an author of a whole bunch of different books. We're talking 20 million plus copies sold of his books. He's also a recovering lawyer, which I didn't know until I started to do my research on him. And you know what? There's a bunch of people that endorse his work. I mean, people like Nobel Prize winners Desmond Tutu, Jon Bon Jovi and me. I endorse his work. And so he's got a new book out called the Everyday Hero Manifesto, which is Incredible. It's about 10 books in one book. So, Robin Sharma, welcome to the show.

[C]

Real blessing. Ed, nice to finally meet you.

[A]

Yeah, pleasure. It's mine. I got to tell you, I told you off camera, I'm just a big fan of the work you do and the way that you do it. So you strike me. It's interesting. You have the most. You have such modern information you give, yet you are sort of counterculture to the modern world in the sense that you. You do live. I do sense this about you, that you do live a simple life, that you do take time for yourself, that you aren't chasing every shiny thing that comes your way. I think that makes you very, very unique. So you actually hit on one of the questions I had to ask you before we leave, because I think it holds so many people back from becoming this hero, from revealing their genius, which is fear. And so just talk a little bit about how you do lean into fear every single day.

[C]

So there's a chapter in the Everyday Hero Manifesto called Hug the Monster, and it starts with a story. And there's a grandmaster walking up a Himalayan mountain, leading a crowd of people, and they're going to this great temple, looking for great answers. And as they go higher and higher, more people start to follow the grandmaster, and they go higher and higher, and more people start to follow this little movement up the mountain. Once they get to the temple head, they notice there's a courtyard. And before they can get into the entryway to meet the supermaster, they see there's three violent dogs on leashes. So the group starts to move into the courtyard, but all of a sudden, the dogs break free of their leashes and they start running towards the group. They start to run faster, and all the other people start running down the mountain, terrified. The Grand Master does, who is leading them, does something very interesting. He starts to smile, and then he yawns. And then he starts running towards the dogs, and dogs start running even faster. Grandmaster picks up his space, his pace, looks at them, starts running even more quickly. Yawns again for good measure. Dogs run even faster. He runs even faster. Now he starts to dance a little dance a little TikTok dance along the way. Eventually, these dogs get frightened because they feel his power and they run away. And I think as human beings, we construct a reality of these straw monsters that have been taught to us. If you love too deeply, you will be hurt. If you build a great business, you will be attacked. If you try to change the world, cynics will laugh at you. I mean, our job is to take the stones that people throw at us and build monuments to mastery that stand the test of time. I mean, that's what the Troll Deconstruction is about. I mean, you know, you're doing very well when you're being laughed a lot. Every visionary was initially ridiculed before they were revered. So the point is, you know, someone said to me the other day, but this all sounds so hard. And you know what? I went back to my hotel room. You know, what I thought about? Misery and unfulfilled promise is a lot harder. And I think the discomfort of growth is always to be preferred to the illusion of safety. So what I would say is, the things that all of us are scared about, that's where your growth lives and your freedom lies.

[A]

Very good.

[C]

And I think, you know, it starts with awareness, and then it begins with daily bravery practice. Let's call it micro bravery practice. But consistently doing difficult things, getting good at consistently leaning into the things that make our palms sweat and our hands shake, and that becomes a practice. And if you practice it long enough, you get brilliant. Like, it just like being a chess master. So it's almost like every day, you go down the steps to the cellar, you turn on the light, and you hug the monster. And if you hug your monsters, guaranteed, you'll realize they were much smaller than you thought they were.

[A]

So damn good. That is absolutely a billion percent right. Oh, my gosh. The price you'll pay for not becoming the hero you're capable of becoming is far smaller than the one that you will pay if you never become that person. It's worth hugging that monster every single day.

[C]

How do you do it?

[A]

I lean into it. I actually do what I call feared things first. And it is a habit that I do. I like to get something done early in my day, habitually, that I'm a little bit afraid of, that I'm a little bit uncomfortable with, that I have some anxiety with. I find that once I hug that monster, it was usually smaller than I thought, and it creates unbelievable momentum for the rest of my day, oftentimes for the rest of my month. And so I do do that. I also have become familiar with these monsters. And the more you familiar I think you become with hugging them on a regular basis, the more they sort of lose their power over you. I've seen this guy before. He's not so bad. I've seen this one before. So the more you face them and you do these difficult things, the more you become familiar with them. It's just like, I think it's someone in the NBA who's got to hit a shot with two seconds left. The first time you do it, there's a lot of work. Kobe Bryant hit a whole bunch of them. By the end of it, he was pretty comfortable hitting that shot under that pressure. And I think the more you put yourself under pressure or duress, you become comfortable in it, and you find What I call equanimity in those moments, which is the ability to be calm and to function at a high level in it. So I love it. That's one of my favorite conversations ever. I was going to be honest with you. I've loved today and I know everybody else has. I think you're a remarkable man. I really enjoy your company as well. You got to. You have this thing that I just, I love about most of my good friends, which is that I think they have this nuance between real confidence and presence about themselves, but yet combined with a huge dose of humility at the same time. I think people that have a ton of confidence, more that humility, sometimes it's off putting and they're not curious enough to keep growing and learning because they think they know everything. And then our friends that have this tremendous humility, but they just never step forward with some confidence and build that hug the monster mentality in their life, sometimes they're tough to be around too. But that combination is what you really. You nuance that so well.

[C]

I sense you're a good person.

[A]

Thank you. Thank you.

[C]

You know, and that really comes through in the conversation.

[A]

Thank you.

[C]

And that doesn't come easily. It's like hard won, hard won effort to get to a place where you're living your values the way it's. It feels like you're living your values.

[A]

I appreciate that, brother. And that's mutual. Thank you. Before we start the interview with my next guest, just want to remind you all that you can subscribe to the show on YouTube or follow the show on Apple or Spotify. We have all the links in our show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now on with the show. All right, welcome back, everybody. Gosh, I got to tell you something. I wish we'd been recording our pre show conversation here because it's been so, so good. And I kind of knew in having this woman on the show that today would be special. And I already have a sense that it's going to be based on our conversation before we started recording. I told her before we started if she was a stock and I could buy her, I would be going all in because I just think she's remarkable. She's already done so much in such a young life, but she's on the rise. She's got something really great going in her life and she really changes people's lives. Her content is outstanding. Outstanding. I watch it, I listen to it and I got a chance to read her book cover to cover last night. I finished reading it. Her new book is called be find your voice, build you'd brand, live your dream. We're gonna have a remarkable conversation today with Jen Gottlieb. Jen, welcome to the show.

[D]

Ed, I am so excited about this. I don't think you have any idea.

[A]

No, I am as well. I gotta tell you something, you know that. And by the way, you know, behind the scenes stuff, Jen and her dude Chris help a lot of other people be seen. And she's been very good to me and so many other people in the industry. I just think she's awesome. So you had a piece of content I think it was this week. That's brilliant. I want to ask you because I think people. This is a fair question. How do you distinguish between when something is fear and your intuition talking to you saying, you should not do this? So how do you know it's not intuition instead of fear?

[D]

This is a tough one because fear is really sneaky and it's a really, really, really good liar. And it'll come in and it'll convince you, like, oh, no, no, no. This is your intuition. You really shouldn't do this. What has helped me and this has helped me every single time I heard this from somebody and I don't even remember who it was. I wish I could quote them. I don't remember who told me this, but I was really battling through. Is this in my intuition? Is this like my gut telling me that I should do this thing or I shouldn't do this thing? Or is this fear? And the question is that I ask myself now is whose voice is that? Whose voice is telling you that you should or shouldn't do it? Is it your voice or is it your parents voice? Is it your husband's voice or your wife's voice or your parents voice or the random people on the Internet's voice? You don't even know who they are. A lot of the times it's that for people, what they will think. And we don't even know who they are, right? It's like, what will they think? Or it's Suzy from college, right? Or you know, my cousin from ages ago, like, what they're gonna think of on the Internet. And we care so much about that. And it's a normal human experience to care what other people think. We want to be liked, we want to be approved of. We want people to say, good job, we do. And that's okay. And if you're sitting here listening like, oh, that's a bad thing. I don't Want to care what people think. We're going to.

[A]

Yep, I do.

[D]

Yeah, we all do. But here's the thing. We don't want to wake up. I love how you talk about. You think about death often. I don't want to wake up on my deathbed one day, my hundredth birthday, and say, oh, I let all the random people on the Internet or people that I didn't care about dictate my actions. And I let the fear of what they would think of me override my gut intuition of what I knew I was meant to do on this planet. And so I ask myself, is it my voice or is it the voice of somebody else? And when I hear my own voice in there, you know. You know your voice. But when I hear, like, oh, that's my husband Chris's voice, you know? And even though I love Chris and I care so much what he thinks, and this is for everybody with a partner out there, like, I've done it before where I have made lots of decisions based on somebody that I was in a relationship with and what they would think of me. But now I know better, and I'm like, that's Chris's voice. Chris, that was your voice telling me that I shouldn't. But my voice. Who I will be proud of myself at the end of this night, when I get in my bed and I look up at the ceiling, I'm like, did I squeeze all the juice out of the lemon today? Did I do it all? Did I lay it out all on the field? Or did I phone it in today? As long as I listen to my voice and I stay true to who I am, I'm always okay with myself at the end of the night.

[A]

So good. Jen. I love this idea. If we're gonna get into the bed at the end of the day, well,

[D]

so I have time on my wrist. So I tattooed this on my wrist. Not cause I wanted a tattoo. It's my only tat. And it's actually fading off, which is crazy. I don't even know how that happens. But I tattooed this on my wrist to remind me that no matter what, time never stops. Discomfort is only temporary all the time. No matter what. We're both gonna end up tonight in our bed. This interview is gonna be done no matter what. No matter if it was amazing or if it was bad or if it was scary or if we were uncomfortable. No matter what happens today, this too shall pass. You will end up in your bed. But the person that you become through the uncomfortable moments, through the wins, through the losses, through the hard times, through the ice baths, through the firewalks, through all the stuff, the hard con you have to have or maybe, oh, my God, the face plant that you made in front of all those people. No matter what, you being able to withstand all that stuff and get into your bed at night and understand, wow, I can do this. No matter what, I'm gonna end up here. That's what powers me through. That's what makes you who you are. And that growth that comes with that, that's permanent.

[A]

Okay, if you're driving your car right now, just check the miles per hour because you're going too fast. I can just tell you, you get that fired up, listen to somebody. So just slow down a little bit so that you don't run off the road. That's so good. You're such wisdom for such a young woman. It's like, I wish I had it when I was your age, because it's profound what you're saying. That was a great conversation. Be sure to follow the Ed Mylett show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Okay, guys, welcome back to the show. You know, the reason I do this show, and by the way, it's precious to me because we only do one a week. We're the number one show in the world, and that is not easy to do when you do one a week. And you're sort of ranked up against shows that come out every day or three or four days a week. And so that seat that this man is sitting in means the world to me because I only get to share one person a week with each of you. And so I take it as a great responsibility to make this time we have together every week so profound and so valuable in your lives. And I know so many of you get value out of it, and that's why you share the show. So I wanted to thank you. Today in particular is really an honor for me because I'm going to introduce somebody to you that some of you will know, but many of you will not know. And I wanted him on the show today solely because of how good his work is, how solid his content is in helping people change their lives and perform at a higher level. I'd call him like a peak performance expert. There's all kinds of different terms I could come up to describe this man, but he's got a book called the Breakthrough Code that is outstanding, and I like the way it's written. He was a Wall street guy. For a while, then went to work to train in Tony Robbins companies. He's been training top athletes and corporations for many years, and he's just great at changing people's lives. Tom McCarthy, welcome to the show today.

[E]

Yeah, it's an honor to be with you, Ed. And I'm just amazed at what you've done in such a short period of time.

[A]

And it's incredible. Well, thank you. Well, you help people do that in their own lives. You help people do great things in their lives. And sometimes in identity. We both talk about identity a great deal, and I think it's almost invisible to most people. So, you know, when you really listen to someone or you watch them, you can begin to hear their identity. I'm working with a couple new athletes right now, and people ask me all the time, what do you work with when you're with athletes? Or what do you work with when you're with a CEO of a company or an entertainer or whatever it might be? Say my name. Say my name. Which I think might be Beyonce. I'm not completely right. Am I right about that? Probably I am right about that. The fact that I know that is pretty bizarre. And if I'm wrong, it's close enough, everybody. But it was rattling in my head. So anyway, I might be right. It's close. But what I work with, usually when I'm talking with athletes or working with them, there's all kinds of different techniques. But at the end of the day, if I distilled it down, it's both their confidence and their identity. At the top levels, people still struggle with confidence. When you see an athlete go in a slump is that they don't know how to hit anymore. Yeah, no couple negative results happened. They started to move towards that story and all of a sudden they're lacking confidence. And so if you have to work on your self confidence or your identity, welcome to being a human. And I'm talking about people that have led big countries, run big companies, are the top athletes in the world. I think a lot of people think, well, I struggle with my confidence, so I'm not like these other people. It's natural to them. Yeah, right. Until they have a big setback and then it's not so natural. Or they just have this amazing identity and they just have more. Yeah. Until they don't anymore. Until the success is stripped of them. So how does one begin to build a new identity and how important is it?

[F]

It's everything.

[E]

You know, your identity is your most critical story that's inside of you. That shapes everything. You see. Like, we think we see the world with our eyes, right? We think we hear things with our ears. But you really don't. You hear with your. Your story, right? You see, with your story. And identity is like your truest, most precious part of your story, the one that you're gonna, like, stand up for day after day. And a lot of people do have identities that are not supporting them. You know, they have identities or belief systems around. Like, I've written a couple book speaking, public speaking, right? I've been speaking all around the world for years and years and years. And so we'll train somebody and they'll go, you know, I always get nervous right before I speak, and. And I. And what I try and do is like, that can't be the way you think about this. And they go, well, now they get over it. I go, yeah, but nervousness, you're either in one of two emotional states. I'm going to generalize here a little bit. When you do anything, you're either in a protective state. You're walking in, like, if I come in here and I'm all right, I don't know this guy, what's he going to ask me? You know, I'm in a protective state. I'm not going to be as good. Words aren't going to flow. The mind's not going to work. Or I'm in a growth state, right? Like, I've already flubbed some words, made some mistakes. I don't even worry about that when I'm speaking. I don't even worry about that. I probably made like 84 mistakes already.

[A]

I don't think so, right?

[E]

If we've been counting. Yeah, I'm just kidding. I've been counting, but it doesn't bother me, right? Because I'm not worried about that. My identity is. Is not that I've got to be perfect every single time. My identity is just. I give everything I've got. I'm going to just pour everything I have into this, and we're going to have some fun. But my identity, and I'm sure yours, has shifted a lot. You know, from childhood, I was that person that thought life was hard. I thought I was that person that thought life wasn't fricking fair, man. How come I don't have a dad? I had to shift that. I had to shift that. And at the core of who we are is our identity. And when you really get clear on what that is, you can. And if you don't like it, you don't have to stick with it. Right. You can shift it and change it. I love what you were saying earlier. It's. To me, it's like carving away at something so I don't look at it as, like, one and done right, you know, I know there's some lag time, but I'm just gonna carve away today. Carve away, carve away, carve away. And then it does start feeling more and more real, and then you're living it, and then life is so much easier because you're not even seeing the same world you used to see.

[A]

True.

[E]

It's a completely different world you're experiencing, and that may be hard for people to imagine. Like, what do you mean it's a different world? Like, everyone sees the same thing. No, they don't.

[A]

Yeah. I had a friend.

[E]

I was in a car accident. It wasn't bad, but we were in Hawaii. This friend of mine, CEO of a company, was driving. His daughter was in the back. She was like 6 years old. And somebody hit him in from behind. So his experience was he's pissed off, like, gets out. You know, he's kind of angry. And I'm sitting in the car, his daughter in the back. You know, she called me Uncle, Uncle T. She goes, hey, Uncle T. He goes, can we go out and look? She goes, this is so exciting. Right? You know, this is so. I've never been in an accident before, so. People don't see the same thing.

[A]

They do not.

[E]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah, brother. That is such a good example on identity. There's little pieces of ourselves that we begin to realize. Like I used to hear people say, give you one little subtle thing that might help everybody. I was just thinking of it when you said it. Why here? And I say this often, too. Like, my. A lot of my. The separation is in the preparation, I say. Or, like, you know, a lot of my confidence comes from how prepared I am.

[E]

Yeah.

[A]

It's a real fine line with that, though, because years ago, it. It drifted into something dangerous for me. So, yeah, I do think you need to be prepared. But I think a lot of people. What holds them back is the threshold of what they think they need to know before they act. Yeah. You agree with that? Absolutely. So, like, they. They get this preparation thing conflated where they go, yeah, and so I'm just preparing.

[F]

Yeah.

[A]

And if I just knew a little bit more about it, if I was a little bit more prepared, if I had a little bit more knowledge, if I went to one more seminar, if I read one more book, if I Just had one more exercise, then I take action. What I find is the identity level of people that do find bliss, do find success, is their threshold for what they think they need to know before they leap is lower. And the people that struggle, the threshold of what they think they need to know or be prepared or capable of is so high that they never quite meet that threshold to take a leap. That was just a subtle thing for me to change.

[E]

That was such a great point, because I. You know, there's people in life that whatever they do, they just seem to get the ball in the end zone.

[A]

Yes.

[E]

Right. And, you know, were they more prepared? Maybe, but a lot of times they weren't. And then there's people that. And they're good people, but they always need that extra little thing and that, you know, they're never quite ready and everything looks good, and then it doesn't work out. I do a little test with this stuff on me, and I'm sure you do it on you, too. But I do some crazy things, right? Like, I was asked years ago. Actually, it was 2005, so as many years ago, I was asked to play in this poker tournament. Now, I'd played poker exactly one time in my life, and it was back in college, so it was 20 years before. And. And these guys are saying, you know, come on, it's gonna be great. There's gonna be some World Series of

[A]

Poker

[E]

players that play in the world championships that are going to be there. And I'm like, guys, I don't even know how to play. Like, I don't even remember anything. They go, oh, yeah, come on, you're going to be fun. So I said, all right, I'll do it. And I said, you got to spend. I told one of the guys, you got to spend 10 minutes with me and. And just show me the hands, like. And remind me of the rules. Like that.

[A]

Yeah, exactly.

[E]

Exactly. But I didn't watch. And, you know, because I'm not. I don't play poker. I haven't played since. But I didn't watch tutorials. I didn't read books. I only had, like, a week to prepare. But here's what I did every time, because my identity was. At first, it was like, I'm gonna suck at this. I'm gonna embarrass myself. I'm gonna lose early. And I'm like, no, stop that. Stop. I said, put a new thought process in. Put new belief system in. And literally. This is crazy, but I told myself over and over again that I made great decisions. And I found a way to win. And every time I thought of it and I didn't, you know, I didn't proactively think of a lot, but every time I thought about all that things coming up. Yep, I made great decisions, found a way to win. Now, when I said it, though, I was like in a confident state, right. I made sure I matched what I wanted to this. The emotional state that I wanted to have. And I literally believed that I was gonna win the damn thing. Right. And so I remember I'm getting ready to leave, and my. So my wife knew I'd never played before or played once. And she. I said, hey, I'm getting ready to leave, go to that poker tournament. She goes, what time does it start? I said, 6:30. She goes, I'll see you at 7. And so anyways, I went. I didn't even let that. Right. You have the naysayers. She was just playing with me. We've married 30 years. You just met her. Yeah, but. And. And I just, you know, I had this confidence, like, unearned confidence. Yeah, totally unearned confidence. But people are making mistakes, and I'm. I win my table, and then I get, you know, finally the championship table. And now I have one guy left. I had like this huge pile of chips, and he didn't have as many, but he was like, you know, one of these really good players. And people are saying, oh, you're. This guy's beating you, doesn't know how to play. And the guy's getting pissed off. And he goes all in. I go all in, and, you know, I win.

[A]

And that's awesome.

[E]

My friends are picking me up, and I got this, you know, big, huge trophy.

[A]

I.

[E]

And bracelet and all this kind of stuff.

[F]

I love it.

[E]

And so I come back, it's like two in the morning. I open the door of the bedroom, my wife's long asleep. Turn the light on. Guess who you're sleeping with tonight. Now that. I'm not saying, I could have done that 10 times in a row, but literally, I consciously burned all the boats. I did not allow a thought that was going to lower my confidence in any way. And I did it for about a week. Right. So great. Yeah. But that's what happens, right? You know that even if I wouldn't have won, I know I would have played a heck of a lot better because I had done that. That's the thing that most people don't get. Well, I didn't win. Well, were you better?

[A]

Yeah.

[E]

Okay, then do it.

[A]

That's the Whole point. By the way, I love that term unearned confidence. Obviously, the highest form of confidence is something you've earned. But let me tell you something, unearned confidence is a pretty damn good substitute. It's a whole lot when you gotta go. And by the way, what most people think, this is what they'd say to themselves. I've earned lack of confidence. And so you think you have to earn this confidence thing all the time. It is absolutely not true. And not enough of you give yourself credit for your intentions either. You don't give yourself enough credit just for your intentions to serve, your intentions to contribute. And it's a huge, huge thing. I love that story because, you know, for me, where's it come from for me, often? I had two friends the last week say something to me. I had a couple things I'm ill prepared for. Like, I have no life experience preparing me for a couple things. Kind of like this poker tournament for you. Really good friend of mine, John Gordon said, by the way, I've talked a lot about energy today. I'm also a Christian. So I'm both and John, and he's a good Christian friend of mine, he goes, ed, faith over fear. Choose faith over fear. I'm like, yeah, it feels good, man.

[F]

Man.

[A]

And then like three days later, my next door neighbor at the beach, Jerry. Jerry, if you're listening to this, thank you for this gift. He's like, hey, man, I've just owe my life. I've chosen faith over fear. Yeah. And it just. I was like, wow, now that's that vibrational frequency thing, right? Like, like all of a sudden both of these messages were being directed to me. For me, that applies to my Christian faith, but for some of you, it might be, I'm gonna have faith in the work I've put in. I'm gonna have faith that, you know, that everything always works out for me. But sometimes it's just a matter of taking a leap and going, I'm gonna choose faith over fear because what is holding you back is the fear. So I just wanted to share that with everybody.

[E]

One thing on that too, Ed, is turn fear into faith. Because fear is energy. But use that energy, shift that energy and turn it into faith. I used to sometimes, you know, way back in the past, be a little bit jealous. Hey, how'd that person, you know, accomplish that or do that? Then I'm like, hey, that's not a good use of energy. And I turn jealously, jealousy into prosperity. Right? You know, I just, whenever I go, you know, See someone doing well, I'm like, whoa, great. Hey, this is proving that I can do even more too.

[C]

So good.

[E]

And literally just shifting energy into another form.

[A]

Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Now on to our next guest, awesomeness day. Right now, this lady to my left, been working so hard to get her on my show. This is Rachel Hollis, everybody. For those of you that don't know who, she has been living under a rock. And so I'm gonna give her a proper introduction. I'm so glad you're here. I'm so excited.

[D]

Oh, my gosh.

[A]

I just love it.

[G]

Oh, my gosh. Of course. This is like a dream.

[A]

It's gonna be awesome.

[G]

Yes.

[A]

I have this philosophy, too. I don't know if you share this or not, because I want the women to hear this. I think the symptom oftentimes is our addiction, other people's approval. I feel like the disease sometimes is we don't have our own. We don't feel like God has our own, and so we seek it outside of us. Now, what you said, that takes it a level deeper for me is that this is programmed since I was little, Right. I didn't just become this way. It was sort of. I was told that my value is if other people approve of me. Right. So I think it's an internal game. I think the way you change that isn't just deciding, I don't care what other people think. I think that layer past that is I need to begin to think better of myself. I need to begin to build my self confidence. I'm a big believer that self confidence comes from keeping promises that you make to yourself. That if you can start by just keeping the promises you make to you, you begin to build a reputation with yourself of, I can trust me, I like me. I'm good. Right. I can achieve. How can that apply for a woman in any. In any area? What would be some of your recommendations of how to change that? It's a hard question.

[G]

Yeah, no, we'll see.

[A]

What are some practical ways somebody can begin to change?

[G]

So I'll tell you, for me, the big realization was it all comes down to, I want love, I want approval, I want notice, I want all of these things. And I was drowning. This is where the anxiety came from. I had this desire in my heart to be an entrepreneur and build something big and write books and do these things. And. And our family, our extended family on both sides wanted me to be a stay at home mom. And they really, really struggled and were very vocal about the fact that I wasn't because that's what their lives looked like. And so for me, I was just drowning in that feeling of, I think I'm called to do more. So I will pursue this version of more, but I'll do it kind of in secret, incognito, almost. I'll work really hard, but I won't ever talk about it. And it was. I was being pulled in too many directions. And when I finally, I had this realization, like, oh, I'm going to choose to be so full of love, to love everybody else so well, that I don't seek it out in other people.

[A]

Exactly.

[G]

Like, I'm gonna love you so hard. Everybody, Even the people that disapprove of me.

[A]

Very good.

[G]

That I don't need your love because I've got enough for both of us.

[A]

Very good.

[G]

Like, it's sounds a little cheesy, but that really was what changed it for me was you don't have to keep chasing this thing. It was also the understanding that God made me this way.

[A]

Yes.

[G]

And for the longest time, I felt shame because I didn't want to be. I'm like, I respect the crap out of stay at home moms. It's a hardest job in the world. I know you do, but it's just not my thing.

[A]

Yes.

[G]

And so I had shame about that. Like, massive shame about.

[A]

Don't you think the reverse is also true? There are some stay at home moms who feel shame that that's their calling. Neither one of those should be shameful. Go ahead.

[G]

Yeah. So for me it was, oh, if. If God put this desire on my heart and if he called me for this, then I. I can't be wrong at my core.

[A]

Of course not.

[G]

Like, certainly you could. That could manifest in unhealthy ways. Or you could, but. But maybe this is for a reason. Like, maybe that, like, I said this all the time on stage to women. Like, man, maybe that, like, you keep feeling that tug on your heart that's there for a reason.

[A]

You got it.

[G]

That's God. That's your potential. That's like trying to say to you, step into this. Like, that is your heart, like, begging your mind to, like, get out of

[A]

the way, get out of the way.

[G]

Like, come on, man. We were called for something. So for me, that understanding was like, you know, you are loved and worthy and enough, like, as you are, that's beautiful. And that means you don't need to become someone else. That means, like, who you are at your core. You're doing okay.

[A]

Yeah. That is so beautiful. It's amazing. You say I made a. I just want to acknowledge a few things. Like, I love that. And no one's ever said that to me, ever. And some of the stuff you say gets me, girl. Just so you know, over these years of seeing all these precious, beautiful women in the crowd and them struggling with feeling guilt, like, men don't have that. Like, men, whatever we want to chase, we have no reason to feel guilty about. And men listening to this. Let me say something to the men listening to this. Would you stop once in a while and just start to tell your lady how amazing she is and how much you love her and how beautiful she is? I'm talking about your sisters, your mother, your wife. Not just your wife, right?

[C]

Tell.

[A]

Tell the women in your life how spectacular they are. Acknowledge them a little bit more. They're always acknowledging us.

[G]

Yes.

[A]

So proud of you. You look so handsome. You're doing so well. Thank you for all you do. And we very rarely acknowledge our women. Let's make sure we're doing that. Men. But the other piece of it that struck me in what you said right there was, you know, women, I think, oftentimes never give themselves any quiet time where they. They have kids or noise or their job. And, like, if you would just get quiet. For you and I, it's prayer. For other people, it's meditation. For some people, it's just solitude. Like, if you'll get your head out of the way, as you said. I made a post about this today. People win with their heart, not their head. You're going to be happy in life with your heart. And the more your head begins to take over and convince you of your deficiencies, what your setbacks are, what you're not good at, what your liabilities, what people will think. The more your head takes over your life, even though you got to be smart and execute and all that, the more your head takes over, it kills your heart. And when your heart stops beating, you're dead. And so you could be living, but you're really dead. And so what you're really saying is, get quiet, listen to your heart, and don't be ashamed of it. I love it. Okay, let me give you a couple more things. You've said that this is kind of hard. Our society makes plenty of room for complacency or laziness. We're rarely surrounded by Accountability. We're also rarely surrounded by sugar free vanilla lattes. But when I really want one, I somehow find a way to get one. What did you mean when you said that?

[G]

You know the idea that if you want something, it's like, if you really want something, you'll find a way. If you don't, you'll find an excuse.

[A]

Yes.

[G]

Yeah.

[A]

Yes. You gotta get resourceful. Yes.

[G]

And I think there is this. I feel like the tide is shifting and I hope that this is true. But so often I feel like women especially, like, it feels like their life is living them. It feels like life is. It's all just happening to them. They're sort of getting pulled along with the tide. They're not making any choices. They're not taking control.

[D]

So.

[G]

And it. And it's the norm, right? It's normal to go, you're exhausted because you were dealing with kid a. Kids all day, and then you're gonna go watch, you know, Netflix all night and drink too much and numb yourself to what's going on and then wake up tomorrow and do the same thing again. And it. Because they don't ever have that space because they never take a step back and look at their life from like 50,000 foot view. They don't even understand that they have control of how to change it. And you might not have the tools. I'm gonna quote your podcast to you again, or I think it was yours, but Joe Dispenza.

[A]

Yes.

[G]

Said, in an age of this much free information, ignorance is a choice.

[A]

Correct.

[G]

So you might not know how to change things. You might not know how to get healthy, you might not know how to change your marriage, but it all exists on the Internet right now for free.

[A]

So true. Like, you didn't. Gosh, you're good. So, like, no, but I want to say this to you like, you didn't know how to blog when you started a blog. People say, man, how'd you build this giant podcast that I have? Let me tell you how this actually started. I went, you're gonna think I'm crazy when I say this, but I want to validate what you've said. Okay. I've never said this before either. People ask me, how'd you get this big podcast? I said, I didn't even know what a podcast was. And I googled how to start a podcast. Here's how stupid I am. I'm like, how does what I'm saying get into the machine?

[G]

Yes.

[A]

And how does that machine put it on the Internet? How do people get like I was that basic.

[G]

Yeah.

[A]

And I googled how to start. Start a podcast. And there was. The first search was Tim Ferriss his toolbox for how to start a podcast. It said, go to Amazon and buy this equipment. I bought the equipment and I started talking into the microphone. He told me to buy.

[G]

I love it.

[A]

And then. But he didn't tell me, how do I get it out of the machine onto the Internet, so. But I'm just resourceful. You just start taking the steps. Men. Do me a favor. Ask your woman what she'd like. Yeah, ask her, babe, what do you want? What would make you happy? Is there anything we should be doing together or you should be doing to fulfill you? More like just ask her, because they ask us all the time.

[G]

Yeah.

[A]

That was a great conversation. And if you want to hear the full interview, be sure to follow the Ed Mylett show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Here's an excerpt I did with our next guest. All right, welcome back to Max out with Ed Mylett. And I am really excited about today. Before we get going, I want to remind you all, we do this for free. And so all I ask from you is that you rank and review the podcast there on itunes. Do me that favor, please. My guest today, I was thinking about it coming over here today. I think he's the most. I think he's the Dos Equis man of personal development.

[F]

I like that.

[A]

I do. He's the most interesting man in personal development and he's. I did this survey with you all and I asked you who were the guests that you wanted on my program, and Lewis's name kept consistently coming, so I've got them here for you today. Louis, thank you for being here, brother.

[F]

Appreciate it.

[A]

So good to have you here. So Louis, as many of you know, has a School of Greatness podcast, which is a top 100 podcast in the world. He's written a couple different best selling books, including the School of Greatness. But the one I want to talk about today, if we can, is the Mask of Masculinity. It was such a great read, brother. I've never read anything like it before.

[F]

Thank you.

[A]

Yeah, it was so good. So one of the masks that Lewis talks about in the book is mental, you know, with their masculinity, wearing the masks of different types of people, whether it's the material mask or the athlete mask or the stoic mask. And it's such a fascinating read. It is for men. But to be candid with you, I think it's a fascinating read for women to understand.

[F]

Exactly. So many women are telling me that they finally understand their husband, why their father never showed them the affection, why their sons don't look them in the eyes. So it's like trying to understand men a little bit better.

[A]

It's brilliant, man. And so there's this story in there that stuck out to me. And I could picture you as a little guy when this happened. But you talk about. And it's interesting, it could be a non event for some people, but it must be this dodgeball game.

[F]

It's defining, man.

[A]

It was because you end up being. Remember, this guy ends up going on to become a college and professional athlete. Right? And if you draw back all the way where that mask started, it started

[F]

in a damn dodgeball game in elementary school. You know, I was still trying to find my way and just have a couple friends just try to fit in. And one day, the teacher of our class, there's probably 30 kids in the class, about 50 men, 50% men and boys, boys and girls. They say, okay, during recess we're going to play a team dodgeball game. And we're going to split it up into two teams.

[A]

So everybody's had that game at school, right?

[F]

Right, yeah, everyone's played dodgeball or something. Right. And he said, okay, I'm picking you two boys as the captains. Pick one at a time. I don't think it was his intention to do this. He was just like, yeah, you guys split up the teams.

[A]

Okay.

[F]

So we're all waiting to be like, called out, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[F]

And these two popular kids, one at a time, start picking each boy. And I'm thinking to myself, I'm one of the taller kids. I feel like I'm pretty athletic already. They've got to pick me, one of the first people. So I'm standing up there in front, like, waiting to be called, and they pick all the boys one by one until it's me and the last boy. And this boy, like he was not athletic at all. Essentially, I'll keep it at that. And they pick him. And so now I'm the last boy to be picked. However, as you know, in the story, they pick a girl next and then they pick another girl, another girl until it's me and the last girl. And I'm like, there's no way. I'm gonna be like, they're gonna pick this girl before me. This girl is like zero athletic ability. Right. She can't even walk. And they pick her. And then I'm not even picked I'm just by default, you know, just go on the next team. They didn't even pick me as like,

[A]

what's going on here? Are you raging? Are you still. I am raging.

[F]

I'm already a kid that feels neglected, that feels like the youngest who doesn't get any attention. You know, I didn't have any friends, so at this point I said, I'm going to destroy everyone on this team. Like, give me the ball. I'm just like slamming in people's faces.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[F]

And I'm just like destroying people. And I go, and never again will I be picked last. You can see in me right now, never again will I ever get picked last in anything.

[A]

Right.

[F]

And that's what I told myself. And I just become a training machine. Every day after school I would go to the playground, go to the gym, go play basketball and train until my mom would have to call me in at like 9 o' clock and say, you got to come home.

[A]

And you think that game has something to do with you end up being professional athlete.

[F]

I think it, I think it was one of the triggers of just like always feeling like I was abused, left behind, not good enough. It was just one of those triggers, your face change.

[A]

Even when you just said that.

[F]

It's just like, it's one of those moments that I can remember many moments like that, but that was a moment where I was like, okay, I just never want to feel this again.

[A]

Yeah. It literally defined part of the, your whole identity. It was one of these masks. You're like, I wear this one well.

[F]

And so I put, yeah. So I put the athlete mask on and I said, never again am I going to lose. And I also needed to be right. You know, for me, like being wrong was losing. And so I was like, I need to win at all costs. I need to be right at all costs. And anytime I lost in a game, I was the worst loser because my self worth and my value was tied to winning or losing. And even when I won, sometimes I wouldn't be happy because I would beat myself up about how I could have been better. So I couldn't appreciate the journey. We just always got to get better. Got to get to the goal. Got to get to the goal. Yeah.

[A]

Everybody that's listening, including me, frankly, a lot of us relate to that.

[F]

Yeah.

[A]

And we're going to talk about some solutions that too. Or those of you that are watching this, you certainly know someone like us.

[F]

Sure.

[A]

And it's interesting because you have that event, you have a brother who goes to prison. I didn't know. But you go to a boarding school. When you were 13, you had a. It's amazing that you end up becoming one of the most sought after people on the planet to improve people's lives, and yet you have these events that you didn't allow eventually to define who you were. There's a significant one, though, as you know. I think it's the genesis of the book, probably. But if you don't mind taking them through this, you had some sexual abuse happened to when you were a very young boy. I mean. I mean, very young. So you had the 13, you have the brother go to prison. You have the dodgeball game. But the biggie.

[F]

Yeah, when I was five. Yeah, I was. Here's the thing. When I was five, I was raped by a man that I didn't know. And for 25 years, no one knew about it.

[A]

I want to ask you this because I have not heard you answer this. Are you telling me literally, you didn't tell anybody?

[F]

I didn't tell anyone.

[A]

Not your.

[F]

I told a sociopath. Y' all, a professor. My freshman year in college. I said, you know, something happened to me, but I didn't tell him what.

[A]

Wow. So mom and dad definitely did.

[F]

Parents didn't know, friends didn't know. I never told anyone exactly what happened. I was too afraid to let people know. And so for 25 years, I'm 34 now. When I was 30, I went through a bunch of different challenges in my life with intimate relationship. I was in a business partnership. I was in. And just everything looked good on the outside, you know, people were like, man, you're crushing it, Louis. But I was suffering on the inside, and I didn't know why. And I don't know if you've ever felt that when your business took off or you're like, why am I not fulfilled?

[A]

I absolutely do. Yes.

[F]

You felt that before, of course. And for me, I was taking all of this. I was just angry, constantly angry. I was doing great in my business, but angry because I couldn't figure out how to cope and understand my emotions. So I took all this frustration out on the basketball court. Every day I would go play basketball a few blocks away, and every day it was like I was looking for a fight. You know, in college, when you're like. You're just like, I hope someone looks at me.

[A]

Yeah, look, slap.

[F]

You run into me the wrong way, like, I'm gonna beat you up, you know, I was just looking for a fight. And I think that was the only Way I knew how to express myself was through physical aggression.

[A]

So many people are relating to this right now.

[F]

That was my life. Football was my ability to just destroy people in a legal way without getting in trouble. I could get it out every single day. So when you don't have that anymore, it's like, I need to go play basketball and like rough it out. Because I didn't know how to cope with my emotions or what I was going through. I just didn't have the skills or the tools. So every day I would go out and play basketball and I just constantly. Someone would yap at me and it was like I had to step to them like I was the alpha dog and like shove them and scream at them and just show them that they weren't going to mess with me until they backed up.

[A]

Just to tell you, because being in your presence and being around.

[F]

Not that way.

[A]

Yeah.

[F]

Our mutual friends, no one would describe this way exactly.

[D]

Right.

[F]

And you know, I'm typically, I was typically not that way either. Like, I'm always a very loving, like, happy person.

[A]

But there's a trigger thing.

[F]

There's a trigger. Like if you cross the trigger.

[A]

Yeah.

[F]

It was like you're gonna go down.

[A]

Yeah.

[F]

Or I was gonna go down or something. And so every day it was like waiting for someone to hit me. And they wouldn't hit me. I would like push at them. I would scream back at them. I'd be like, don't talk shit to me. Don't do this. Don't like, whatever. To a no stakes pickup basketball game in West Hollywood. It's not like anything's on the line. Yeah. It's like. And one day after a few months of this, I'm guarding a guy who's much bigger than, than me, older than me, and we're getting in a heated battle back and forth. He's fouling me hard. I'm fouling him hard. Like. But it's kind of like this, what you do in the street. Ball, right. You're kind of fouling each other hard. But it's all good. It's fair game. He's calling it. I'm calling it. It gets down to the last point. Game point for both of us, both teams. He gets a ball down, getting ready to shoot a layup. I foul him hard. You know, I grab his arm down so he can't score.

[E]

It's.

[F]

The game would be over. I guess it was enough, was enough for him. And he came at me and headbutts my. Now this was the trigger that Put me over the top and said, incredible Hulk is coming out.

[A]

Snap city, Snap city.

[F]

It was like, I can't even remember because I just put him in a headlock and just started ufc, pounding him, throwing him to the ground on top of him, just, like, unleashing all this anger. It had to come out somewhere.

[A]

Yeah.

[F]

And this was the moment it exploded because I didn't know how to let it come out any other way. Now, after, afterwards, I remember was shaking so much because he got up and there's blood gushing out everywhere, all over the court. The police station is right across the street. It snaps back into me, like, I have everything to lose here. I could go to jail. Like, what if something happens? What if I actually hurt him really bad, whatever. Like, what if my whole life could be over from one moment, I know what happened to my brother going to prison from one drug deal, that he was involved, involved in one thing. He got caught, which put him into prison. Sentenced six to 25 years. He got out in four and a half in good behavior. So all of a sudden, I'm like, how stupid can I be to allow my emotions to get the best of me to react? After that point, my friends were like, you know, you need some help, man. Like, you need some help. You know, it wasn't that bad, but they were like, why are you doing this?

[A]

But that shouldn't happen, right?

[F]

Why are you allowing this to happen?

[A]

Did you know why then? Do you think you knew?

[F]

I think I was just, like, angry at everything.

[A]

No matter how successful you're still there's this angry piece of you.

[F]

Because I would achieve all these things that I wanted, but then I was, like, angry, right when I achieved them, like, it didn't fulfill me.

[A]

Yes. Yeah.

[F]

So I was like, I need to get bigger. I need to make more. I need to, like, get more goals. I need to do this. Like, maybe then I'll feel good. And none of it made me feel good. I don't know if you felt that way. Like, I need to get 10, 10 million, then 100 million, then I just sell my company, and then I'm gonna feel great. And maybe it felt great, maybe not.

[A]

But if it does, it's temporary. And you're exactly right. Everybody watching this that's had any level of achievement that thinks once I get something else or I get to this place, then I'll be happy, then I'll be happy, then I'll be happy. And it does. I don't know anybody. And you and I also both know lots of Very wealthy people who are completely unhappy. They're like Tony Robbins talks about all the time. Success without fulfillment is completely failure. Right? And so I relate to that level of failure. So do a lot of people. And those of you that are chasing your dream, you've got to find a way. And we're going to talk about this in a minute to, to enjoy you now. Celebrate you now, because when you get to these different places, guess who arrives there? You. And if you're there with the same damage, with these same masks on, the amount of money you have just sometimes frankly magnifies the pain that you're in, I think, because you can act out different ways. So go ahead. So you have this event.

[F]

So my friends start saying. And I kind of come to an awareness of like, I remember running back from those courts, like up into my room up here, like looking in the mirror, shaking because I've got like blood all over me. And I'm like, what am I doing? The last fight I was in was when I was like 15 or something. And I'm like, why am I doing this? Look at myself in the mirror. Literally, like, why? Why are you doing this? Who are you?

[A]

Okay.

[F]

And who do you want to become? I was just asking myself this over and over and I started to say, okay, I need to take a deeper look at why I'm so resentful, why I'm so angry, why I'm so frustrated, and why I'm triggered. Why am I triggered when someone steps to me or says something to me or leaves a negative review online or why do I always have to defend myself? So I started calling some, some therapist friends of mine that I knew, some spiritual coaches that I knew. I started going to work and I went to this one emotional intelligence workshop that similar, like what Tony does, where I had us address kind of our past, past with our parents, past with girlfriends, past with friends, like childhood, and just kind of addressing it all. We recreated and reenacted situations to face ourselves in those moments and, and, and recognize why we become that way. And after I was in this five day workshop and after the third day, we had done a lot, you know, addressing our past. I'd cleared with my parents internally. I cleared with like relationships. And the facilitator of this workshop, there are about 50 people in it, he said, okay, we're moving forward to focus on our vision for our future. The things you want to create, the person you want to become. We've addressed everything in the past, but if there's anything you have in a Dressed yet. Now's the time to talk about it. Otherwise, we're moving forward, like, get on the ship. Okay. And so I'm going through in my mind at this moment, like, it's a pause in the room and I'm going through. I'm like, my parents getting divorced. Yeah. Like, pretty much everyone has done that, right? Okay. I went through that feeling bullied and picked on. I talked about this feeling, like, insecure in school, my brother in prison. Like, I talked about all these things and I was like, what about the time I was right? Raped by a man? It just kind of came in my mind. And this was always in the back of my mind, you know, every week I would think about that moment. It would come up, like, just kind of randomly pop in and out of my head and I would just push it to the side. And I remember thinking to myself, if I don't say this now, I'll probably never say it to anyone. Like, the setting was perfect. I'd gone through enough challenges, challenges and breakdowns in my life where I was like, I'm willing to figure out whatever it is, I'm going to go there. And so I just stood up, walked to the front of the room. I didn't even ask for permission or anything. I just stood up, walked to the front of the room. And I remember Ed, that I couldn't look anyone in the eyes. So I was staring down the entire time at the ground. And I walked through for the first time just looking down. You know, when I was five years old, I was at the babysitters. The babysitter had a son who was a teenager. And I just walked through the entire thing and I couldn't look up because I was so embarrassed and so ashamed of people knowing this about me. And when I was complete, I said it pretty calmly, you know, I just kind of said it very calmly. And when I went to walk down, it's like almost the moment I sat down, it's like I erupted of tears that I've never had in my life. And I just couldn't stop crying. I was just like crying over and over again. Thankfully, there were two women on either side of me that were holding me. They were crying. I was crying. I was embarrassed and ashamed of what I just said, of people knowing this about me because I wasn't perfect looking anymore. I wasn't this like all American guy who had it figured out anymore. I remember running out of the room outside. It was in a hotel conference room. I ran outside because I just needed some fresh Air. I had my head up against a wall. Wall outside. And one of the most beautiful things that ever happened to me happened next. One by one, the men who were in the room came up to me outside and just gave me a big hug, looked me in my eyes, and told me that I was their hero. One by one, they said different things like that. And the crazy thing, the thing that I was afraid of people knowing about me the most was actually the thing that when I shared it, people connected with me even more and trusted me more. And people kept saying that, like, wow, I thought, like, something completely different about you, but now I trust you. Now I'll follow you anywhere. Like, they said these things to me, and I was like, what? That makes no sense. You know, Everything that I was afraid of, that I was taught not to be, a little bitch, a little girl, a little pussy, little fag, whatever the words were, that made you wrong, that made you different, that pushed people away from you. I was taught to, like, fit in by, like, being manly, having it figured it out, you know, winning, like, talking bad to people, whatever it may be. And none of those things served my heart. And it started to awaken everything in me. Like, when I finally opened up about that, I just said, you know what? I'm gonna open up about everything. How? Because the freedom it gave me to realize, wow, you still accept me for who I am or the things I've been through, and you still. You still like me. You actually like me more. You trust me more. I was like, what? This concept of, like, being real.

[A]

Yeah.

[F]

You know? Yeah. Not that I wasn't real.

[A]

Yeah.

[F]

But I think I was always, like, had a little bit of layer of a mask hiding behind.

[A]

We all do. It's amazing. Sorry, I'm getting a little choked, but of all the. I mean, I read all these personal development books. I listen to all these guys. It's the most compelling story I've read. I'm just gonna tell you. No, it is, brother. Because the courage. I think it takes courage when you're five, but to carry it and carry it and carry it and carry, and then release it like this massive. That takes a gargantuan amount of courage, right? It does. And I think for those. The people that are listening to this, because this is corny to say, but like often in our life, our greatest test is actually our defining testimony of our life. Like, that was the greatest test of your life, and it's really the testimony of your life. Everything you're becoming was unleashed because you finally took your Mask off. That was the big mask.

[F]

You were huge for me. The secret I was carrying around my whole life that I didn't want anyone to know. And here's the crazy thing, you know, the people in that workshop were like, you should tell your family. And I was like, there's no way. Even after that, I was still scared to let anyone. I was like, this is a safer container. You know, it's like, confidential. Like, no one's gonna hear about this.

[A]

Yeah.

[F]

But I was willing to explore and see what I needed to let go of, to see what I could create in my life eventually. I was like, okay, I'm gonna tell my family one by one. And it was terrifying. But again, when I.

[A]

You told.

[F]

Told them, they opened up to things about me that I didn't know, and we built a stronger relationship as a family. Then they were like, you should tell your friends. I was like, no way. My family has to love me. You know what I mean? But my friends, they're probably not gonna accept me anymore. But I started doing it one by one.

[A]

What was that like? Did you go into them?

[F]

Like, I think I went back to, like, just being terrified as a kid. Like, what if they don't accept me?

[A]

Same thing.

[F]

Same thing. It was like the fear of, what if people don't accept me? But one by one, people accepted me even more and they trusted me even more, and they were there for me more and had compassion. You know, humanity is a powerful thing when you show vulnerability. I truly believe that other people who have a deep hearts, like, are gonna open up.

[A]

So do I.

[F]

You know, there may be some people who are gonna be so guarded they can't receive it, but usually most people have a great heart.

[A]

You're right.

[F]

And my friends started saying, you gotta share this publicly. And I was like, no way.

[A]

Now you're right. Right.

[F]

Like, you should tell us on your podcast. I was like, no, it's gonna hurt my business. Like, what? People are really gonna think weird about me.

[A]

Yeah.

[F]

But after six months of me just saying, you know what? I need to continue to talk about this, because it still has power over me. Because when I talk about it, I quiver. I palpitate my heart like it still owns me. And I don't want this thing to own me anymore. I want to own it. And so. So I finally had enough courage to just kind of tell all the close people in my life, my friends and family, and it wasn't a hard thing anymore to talk about it. You know, it's still a moment that I Wish no one to go through, but it doesn't take over my body. And so I said, you know what? I need to do this publicly. Because I felt like I'd never seen another white, straight, male jock looking guy open up about this. Yeah, I've never seen it. Maybe it's happened, but I just. Nor have I. I can't think of like some personality or athlete or business leader who has opened up about it. And one in six men have been sexually abused in some way. One in six. And yet it's not acceptable to talk about it, whether it be, you know, to friends and family or publicly or whatever. It's just. I'm not saying everyone should publicly talk about it.

[A]

Sure.

[F]

But I felt like for me, I

[A]

love what you said about it still owning you.

[F]

It was owning.

[B]

Not.

[F]

Yeah, yeah. And I was just like, I felt a duty, a responsibility to continue to talk about it because. And here's the thing happened when I put it on my podcast. I talked about it on my podcast and did a whole episode about it four years ago. I shared it out. And at night, I posted it out at night. Like 11 o', clock, I was right here in this room. I posted it out and I went out and sat on that patio right there and I sent out one tweet and I just said, I'm gonna leave it up to the universe to see what happens. I didn't promote it anyway, I just put one tweet out and I was like, I'm gonna go to bed and see. Hopefully no one watches this. You know, I was like, hoping that no one saw it.

[A]

You wanted to, but you don't.

[F]

And the crazy thing is, I went outside and it was like it was 11 o' clock at night, but it felt like it was daytime. It was the largest moon in the last hundred years that happened that night. It was a supermoon. And it was like, I didn't know this was happening at that time. I just decided I needed to post it then. It kind of gives me chills thinking about it. And I was looking up the definition of like, what's a supermoon mean? And it's like supermoon, like, shifts the world. And like, I was like, this is crazy, right? And over the next couple of weeks, I was getting hundreds of emails from men, sending essays, telling me, I've been married for 35 years. My wife doesn't know this is what happened to me. I've been in this relationship for this long. I've never told anyone. You know, this had this Happen to me for years. When I was a kid, this, you know, the craziest stories I've ever heard made mine look like a Disney movie compared to some of the stuff that men were emailing me. Yeah, but it's like I gave these men who listened permission for the first time to talk about it. Because if a big jock looking guy

[A]

like me, you're right, good looking, big jock, athlete, success.

[F]

I talk about it, then maybe someone else can talk about it. And the healing that started to happen from within of these men, where they finally started to talk to their partner about it, where they finally started to address it, where they finally started to not be so stoic or so driven by sexual mask or the material mask to make themselves feel better. They started to communicate in healthier forms and just show a little bit of emotion, show a little bit of vulnerability and heal from within. And they got healthier physically. Their businesses grew, their relationships thrived because they were able to communicate. And I think as men, we've been conditioned not to share certain things, to be tough, to be these things, to not be weak, to not be soft, to not show emotion, to not show affection. You know, as a kid, I was always like pushed away from my friends when I would be like, so good to see you. You know, I would like put an arm around a guy. Yeah. Not in a sexual way. Just like, buddy.

[E]

Buddy.

[F]

Yeah. They'd be like, get off me. What? Are you gay?

[A]

Yes. It's interesting. I was going to tell you something because I'm that way too. I have touchy feeling especially. It's funny, especially with. It's like when I see my buddies,

[F]

I touch them, you know? Exactly.

[A]

I want to say something about what you said there because it was just. I think we all want people to like us, you know? And I think that when we wear these masks, I think the more honest we are about who we truly are, the more people actually love us. Yeah, the real us, you know? And I think what I love, I want the men listening to this know this is a real man. A real man is vulnerable. A real man is honest. A real man's transparent. And not all of us have big muscles and are big guys like that. But I'm attracted to people and I think everybody is who are their. Their on their authentic selves. Right. And you have this big, big story. And I love what you said about more men came to you. And I just want to acknowledge it, man. Like, I think it's made a huge difference in the world.

[F]

Thank you.

[A]

And I think those of you that are watching this. I always advocate for somebody on my program, but I think there's a. I know when I'm with a genuine, good person who cares. And, like, I think if Lewis is this honest about this, imagine the kind of transparency honest you get if you were reading, reading his books, if you were. If you were part of his podcast, become a part of his community. Because I think when you're like this, I think you get this out of your guests. I think you get it out of the people that you interview, too.