it's about being honest and integrous with who you are what are you hiding what are you afraid of what are you ashamed of what are you insecure about what are you proud of be honest about all of it I think that builds connection and connection is what will move your mission forward you're in conversation today with Lewis house Lewis house is an entrepreneur author and former pro-athlete host of the school of greatness podcast when I launched my episode talking about sexual abuse 10 years ago I remember thinking to myself my business this is over I'm
going to have to find another way to make money everyone's going to unfollow me but if it helps heal one man it is worth it to me when someone tapped in that part of my soul that was an open wound the psychological and emotional wounds that I had were deep when I started to invest in emotional healing everything took off my business took off my content took off opportunities started to come to me really abundance started to flow when I started to heal the psychological and emotional wounds welcome everyone I mean I feel like I
don't even need to do an introduction with all the yelling that's already happening but just in case we are in conversation today with lwis how mastering media impact the power of positive media now I'm Swan I don't everyone all clap at once no no we're going to give you the full introduction I'm going to give them the massive introduction but yes let's do a huge round of applause for LS house and I'm Swan sit I used to be in Corporate America as the head of digital at companies like Nike Revlon Estee Lauder and thanks to
clubhouse it changed my life and now I'm a Creator I'm on public company boards I'm a business adviser now I get a lot of flak because my background is let's just positively call it diverse I don't know anyone else who has a more diverse background than you right so I'm going to admit I cheated a little bit I used chat GPT to write an intro for you and it said Lewis house is an entrepreneur author and former pro aete host of the school of greatness a popular podcast that features interviews with successful and influential individuals
this podcast has garnered a large following due to its focus on success stories personal growth and inspirational content pretty good but it fails to mention lots of other things about you that I think are equally if not more important you're not just an expr aete twox All-American you played with the Olympic handball team so sorry that Becon got in the way of your Olympic planning in Paris but it also lists other things you had a learning disability you were sexually abused when you were 5 years old your brother went to prison when you were eight
you didn't have a lot of friends when you were little and you even paid two people to be in their Club when you were seven there's a lot in there and normally I think a 90minut podcast guys we would walk this journey we don't have that time we have 25 minutes and you guys are a smart audience you know who this incredible man is so what we're going to do is assume that Baseline of knowledge of somebody who's been vulnerable honest and inspirational to Millions hundreds of millions around the world and we're going to actually
jump off those topics if that's okay with you nothing's off limits you told me that okay so let's start with why you're different because there's a lot lot of inspirational speakers out there um you have top 10 I know it moves sometimes top 25 or let's say top 10 podcast in the world inspiring people You're vulnerable you're honest but a lot of people have had trauma why do you think yours hits people in the heart gets them to feel and motivates them to change well I think getting an early helps I think you know I've
been doing it for 11 and a half years every single week for 11 and a half years and I think when you are that consistent and you keep seeing how you can get better every week um good things should happen to you after 11 and 1/2 years so I think the consistency I'm very curious I just care a lot about learning about people and what makes them tick and what makes them unique as well so I really enjoy listening and um having a great team you know I've got an amazing team at Team greatness that
care about a mission we're on a mission to serve a 100 million lives every single week and so with those with the mission and kind of the metrics we have every single week of trying to improve to reach more people and getting feedback every day I get feedback all the time on how I can improve I think just showing up consistently after 11 and a half years good things tend to happen I think you're also being modest though because being early and consistent is part of it but the vulnerability I mean the podcast that you
had that I think um talked about sexual abuse you recorded it and didn't release it for 6 months that is and you you were open about like that I thought people were going to hate on me drop me not follow me my business would crash I thought I would lose my business yeah this was this was I don't know nine or 10 years ago when I did this podcast and it's still I think the most downloaded episode I've ever done was when I kind of opened up about that and I think 10 years ago people
weren't really being vulnerable online like I didn't see others talk about things that had happened to them I felt more called like if I didn't do it I would be dis counting my Creator I was like felt pulled to talk about it but at the same time I thought my business would be over I thought everyone would unfollow me and I thought I'd be you know broke but I felt like I would be doing a disservice to my my mission to God if I didn't talk about it and when I released it it was the
opposite like I I grew exponentially and I think I realized people were craving that because a lot of people were afraid to talk about their challenges my challenge that I dealt with for 25 years was holding on to the shame of being sexually abused I'm not saying you should talk about your past publicly I felt called I felt like I was supposed to because I had a platform I felt like I I was listening to my inner voice and it was telling me to but I also felt terrified I felt like I'm done like everything
is everything I've worked for is over when I do this but it I have to do it and so listening to that voice made it made me do it but I held on to not posting this episode for six months like you you mentioned and um I had a big emotional hangover for a couple of months because I got hundreds of emails from men opening up to me for the first time about their sexual abuse experience thanking me because they didn't have the courage to talk about it themselves and now they went and talked about
it with their wives and with their families and got therapy and I think people crazy um just someone being honest you know it's not about being authentic I think it's about being honest and integrous with who you are we're talking backstage about divorcing the identity of a past that we hold on to and I think when we hold on to having to look a certain way based on our titles or our corporate success or follower account or whatever it might be we hold on to that identity as as opposed to just being honest about who
we truly are um that will hold us back until we release it and so that was a starting point for me and I think once I opened that door I couldn't go back I wrote a book about releasing the masks that of how we all wear different masks at different times you know and we're all flawed human beings I'm extremely flawed and it's a constant reminder we were talking backstage about why I have an emotional coach not because something's wrong with me or because I'm going through breakdown but because I want to keep elevating who
I am and being prepared for pressure because the more stages that we're on the more followers we gain the more content we put out there I think I was hearing Bobby talking about how she reads the comments and it's like it still affects her there's pressure at every s single level of of life right and being prepared for new levels of pressure new levels of emotional weight new levels of potential drama that could come our way I have a coach every month that I work with to help me regulate my nervous system to keep me
in alignment with being the most Integrity that I can be even though I'm flawed and I'm out of Integrity uh from time but just staying on that track and I think by doing that it gives me more peace it makes me feel more calm um with pressure and I don't want to seem like I'm glazing over the abuse right um the reason I'm not getting into it is because he's spoken extensively about it the first time I heard the story I literally cried so that is out there for you guys to see but what came
from it is such vulnerability and I want to pull on one thing you just said because you said there's a difference between honesty and authenticity and all we do is talk about social and brand and authenticity but they're different help us understand why I think authent I didn't say authenticity because I know that's a word that's been thrown around in this community for the last decade it's like authenticity is the word but I think it's more honesty is the new level of what anyone in business or creators or content individuals should be thinking about I
think authenticity could could be looking like well this is my personality I show up with this authentic personality and I the slice of it yeah it's like your personality is your authenticity I guess but it's like what are you hiding what are you afraid of what are you ashamed of what have you insecure about uh what are you proud of like be honest about all of it and again don't puke your vulnerability into the world every week because you get validation from it I don't think that's authentic I think it needs to be out of
a place of service and it needs to be saying I'm doing this to serve one human being who listens consumes reads this thing that I want to share of my honesty and the way you tell your stories through your content or you're messaging I think reveals who you are story is everything and when you can be honest in your storytelling in a moment it doesn't have to be this long vulnerable message it can be just a moment of honesty I think that builds connection and connection is what will move your mission forward absolutely I want
to little talk a little bit I want to talk a little bit about this Giver mentality that you have um because you talked about from all the things in childhood you wanted to be the biggest the strongest the most successful so no one could hurt you and you were driven by this but at some point there was a an inflection point where you started to be driven by giving and being of service versus the darkness do you remember what that point was or what triggered it uh I mean yeah I got in a fight in
the basketball court here in Los anges pick up basketball and um my best friend who's in the audience Matt he was there and he said I don't want to be friends with you anymore if you're going to be like this if we could all have friends like that and I was it really like shook me emotionally because I was like oh this a guy who's known me for at that point 10 years and when he said that I go oh something like something's off inside of me if my best friend doesn't want to hang out
with me if I'm going to keep reacting in life this way with anger and so there was a wakeup call that made me say let me look Within and ask why I'm angry I wasn't angry all the time I'm a loving joyful guy but I got I reacted in moments where someone pushed my button and we all have a button and so when someone tapped in that part of my soul that was wounded that hadn't healed that was an open wound that when someone pokes a wound if you got a wound in your leg and
someone pokes it it's going to hurt but the psychological and emotional wounds that I had were deep and we all we all probably have some type of psychological emotional wound that is deep for us for me I didn't want anyone to know about it and I didn't want to look at them I didn't want to address them but they just kept showing up in movies in my mind every single day from my history and so that was a wakeup call where I I really said I've got to invest in the emotional healing Journey it's not
going to heal overnight and it's been an 11year journey of evolution and um that's why I continue to get coach in to get feedback on how I can continue to evolve in different situations in my life and I share these moments where I might get triggered still in different different ways and so that was the the starting point of it and when I started to invest in emotional healing the Journey of it um everything took off my business took off my you know content took off opportunities started to come to me and again there's been
different ups and downs and breakdowns in my my life in the last 10 years but it really abundance started to flow when I started to heal the psychological and emotional wounds and instead of saying how do I become number one how do I become the biggest the best the most well-known I started to say how do I be of highest service to humanity and in business it's challenging because you have to measure metrics and you need to make money and you need to make sure your team is in alignment with your mission and you need
you know you've got to still run a business and you got to manage Egos and all that stuff um but I made a decision from that point when I launched my podcast uh just to show a hands how many people have heard of the school of gradness just so I'm aware of school greatness okay cool when I launched it I made a conscious decision cuz some of my friends were like just call it the lwis house show and I go that's what my ego wants but that's not what you know my soul wants to serve
and if I really want to transform from the inside out again I'm not going to be perfect but if I want to be in service it can't just be me so I've almost had a challenge in the last year because so many people on my team are like Lewis people want to hear more from you you've put everyone the spotline on everyone in the show for the last 11 and a half years it's the school of greatness with Lewis house it's not the Lewis house show not saying that it would be bad to make it
the Lewis house show I'm not saying that but I knew in that moment it needed to be bigger than me and it needed to not be about me so that I can continue to heal and by making it about others it elevated me and them not just me and I'm when I focused out on saying how can I get the most out of the person in front of me and serve them to serve a community that's what supported it as well so it's been an ongoing Journey of releasing the ego while at the same time
my team is like leis you have to put more personal content out so I've been in this game of social media and content for I don't know since 2007 2008 on LinkedIn and I so I understand personal branding with the best of them right I understand it but at the same time my soul wants to serve by elevating others up but now my team is like if you want to serve at a great level you've got to put yourself out there so I still get a little I don't know if self-conscious the right way but
I don't want my ego to be the focus with me on camera if that if that makes sense so it's just a dance of like making sure when I am doing personal content of me how can I not make it about me but serve others but lisis the people who wonder if their ego is too big are never the people who have the big egos right you got to always be in check though the ego ego will creep up the EGO will constantly try to say oh it feels pretty good to be on that cover
of that magazine oh man you you figured it out right oh man you just hit 4 million followers like H that's pretty cool you figured it out like that's pretty you know it's always going to creep in this is why I have an emotional psychological coach to keep me focus on a vision of service and it doesn't mean you can't celebrate self for the accomplishments I think it's knowing that sure take a moment take a day to like be like wow what a great moment you know we've hit these Milestones we've got this opportunity I'm
on stage at vcon cool like all these things are cool but don't always make it about the accomplishments make it about the impact and the results of the community that you're engaging with I want to Circle back to this point because we talked backstage and you brought it up about your identity and even your selfworth tied to achievement right and you just said right now it's of service to the people it's the impact it's not the numbers but we love the numbers right I'm not going to lie sometimes when I look at a post and
I'm like oh my God that got half the amount of Engagement it used to isn't me is it right we that's as high performing humans were wired that way but you know I got the stream job at Nike and I struggled I was out in a year and a half and when I left like my immigrant parents I was born in Hong Kong like my whole selfworth was professional achievement so I went to Harvard then I went to Columbia then I worked at all the right companies like Bane and Nike and Estee Lauder and then
when I had nothing to tell people my world crashed right not just my identity but my entire selfworth was like what am I worth in this world and as much as we say it doesn't matter it kind of matters a little right so what tools would you recommend for helping people we say it doesn't matter we should divorce it what can you do is it daily practice of gratitude which I know you're big on you do a lot of work every week or every month with your coach but like we tell people it's important to
do we don't give them steps to do that and one of the hardest things when you're trying to build online is to is to not need the validation of the followers the comments and I needed it for a long time um I still probably do sometimes and again it goes back and forth from like business metrics and we have you know every week we have metric check-ins with our team and so it's one thing is getting feedback for the business growth the other thing is not letting our ego get in the way if we aren't
validated online the way we'd like to be and I think um it's putting the focus back on the feedback of results for the business versus am I getting the followers the views the engagement that I'm used to getting or whatever um for whatever reason you know when I started I needed the validation of everyone and in the last three years years I really only need the validation of you know a couple of people if that I mean it's really at the end of the day myself and my fiance Martha that I need acceptance from and
God the rest is wanting respect from my friends and making sure that we're in Harmony and we have alignment as friends you know having alignment with my team and making sure there's Harmony there um but I have pulled back my Rel I used to want to be friends with everyone but in the last three years I have very little friends and it's because it just feels better to not seek external validation and know that as long as I'm living in service I'm focused on my mission every single week and I'm trying to give my best
whenever I do an interview or create content that's what I focus on and again going back to business metrics the team has got to hit certain result results and I'm here to coach and I'm here to support and I'm here to give feedback and guide and it's always going to evolve what results look like online every week things are changing with algorithms but algorithms can be one they can be one if you learn the strategies it's why we're here at vcon right it's like they can be one if you're willing to keep trying and testing
and so I'll never let someone say oh it's we had a down month because it's not working anymore and we're just going to accept it that doesn't work for me because I know if you just put a little bit extra effort in in researching and testing new things you will get better results it may not happen right away that's why we constantly look to test things and they will always be different a month in the future a year in the future what works now isn't going to work in the future and so it's it's not
needing the validation of the audience growth but also focusing on how we can innovate constantly to get results to serve the business vision and Mission and again if it comes down to it we want to serve a 100 million lives every single week in the last few weeks we reached 50 million people weekly as one of our highest weeks and years but I also have to remind myself that if I put out a piece of content if I put out an interview and if one per I swear to you that I think this way if
it doesn't get a million views it's going to be like okay it's not the end of the world right sure it's great if everything gets a million views but if it doesn't happen my soul I swear to God my soul is still okay if one person is deeply impacted and if they send me a message or if they send our support team like hey this one video this interview helped me me get out of a toxic relationship help me heal my relationship with money help me have a deeper relationship with my mom or my dad
or my partner whatever it is help me quit smoking it's worth it for me it's worth it and it's hard I mean it's hard but it's worth it and when I when I launched my episode talking about you know sexual abuse 10 years ago I remember thinking to myself my business is over I'm going to have to find another way to make money everyone's going to unfollow me but if it helps heal one man it's worth it to me my life made a difference to that man it is worth it to me and I you
know I'm just I don't know I feel like I'm blessed to be in this position I dreamed as a kid to be in this position that I'm in to be able to help people I dreamed of this moment I was talking with my fiance Martha this morning I dreamed of the house we have right now growing up like we have a sanctuary that we've worked so hard to build my younger self my inner child I is living his dream and it it really doesn't matter if we reach 100 million lives every single week that's my
goal that's our mission but if we can serve people daily and be of help be useful that's what I think matters you know we didn't talk about it but but that's the way I approach it too right I slogged in Academia in the corporate world and uh you find purpose when you get that dopamine hit when you feel like you've helped someone yeah like there's no better feeling in the world and that's how you know you found purpose right and we can get you know we can get easily distracted um going through the motions of
creating content or doing tasks in the business or whatever it might be that's why every Monday on our team calls we really focus on community impact we read each individual reads A testimonial based on their platform of how they made a difference in someone's lives and again there's some days I'm probably a as a boss and I'm probably could be better in a lot of ways but if we focus on how can we impact lives there's nothing else I'd rather do even if someone offered me all the money in the world to sell my business
I'd be like what do I want to do I just want to go help someone else in another way and just like serve serve how can I serve through my uniqueness through my talents through my gifts through my skills that I'm developing how can we serve at a greater level I just think that's a meaningful life I'm going to ask you a question that I've been asked and I am stumped for an answer and I'm hoping you can help you've talked a lot about men not being taught to deal with their emotions talk about their
feelings to confront shame and guilt and you even wrote a book on that and you've inspired so many men to go on this EQ Journey what do you think now about this faction that think men have gotten too soft they're not Alpha enough they're not big protectors I mean is this Goldilocks it's too hot too cold like where is the middle how do we actually help people get to the right barometer because if you just follow the noise on social you would think that we're completely 180 now it says we have 10 seconds are we
allowed to go I'm I'm I'll get in trouble they can yell at me please cuz this is one that actually multiple men have asked and I don't have an answer oh man this is where should I be authentic or honest in this moment I mean honest that's an [Applause] honest no honest honest I just I just really think as as a man I'll speak for myself I really think as a man I'm supposed to [Laughter] I really think I really think as a man I'm supposed to become the best version of myself and that means
um being 100% courageous with my words 100% courageous with my body and my health and 100% courageous with my ability to make a difference in people's lives and I'm going to continue on with my honesty in this but I want to set the context I just think a lot of men don't have a purpose and I'm not saying what type of purpose you need but I think men a lot of men don't have a Clear Vision for their lives and they react to a lot of things those who don't have a purpose they're re reactive
and a man who is not willing to fully commit to being on a healthy Journey so they can be as mentally emotionally spiritually and physically fit um is doing a disservice to their friends their family and their future self and I think your future self will thank you when you have the courage to fully take on your life physically financially emotionally spiritually and saying I'm here to protect and serve the inner child inside of me first and most men lack the courage to protect and serve the healing journey of their inner child and when they
do that when they lack that they wear a mask they wear a mask to try to fit in to try to hook up with as many women as they can to try to make as much money so they can look good whatever it might be they try to do to deflect when they get feedback as opposed to saying thank you for the feedback I'm going to take a look at that and see if I can improve in some way not meaning all feedback is is right or wrong but how can I take a look at
that and and not take it personally but Elevate myself in becoming a better human on a consistent basis and I think men with a lack of purpose um are dangerous men for themselves and for them around them because they're wandering they're aimlessly wandering as opposed to this is my mission whether it's right or wrong at least I'm clear on my mission and when a mission is focused on something besides you even if it's your dream even if it's like I have a gift or a talent that I want to go pursue something and accomplish something
that's fine if you also have I want to do it in the service of inspiring or impacting others in that journey and process and when it's just about me looking good I think that's weakness but when it's about me becoming the greatest version of me to serve and Elevate Humanity around me I think that's greatness you said ask you anything so I went with a hard one okay we are out of time I'm going to get in trouble even though we would all love to sit here and pick your brain for 10 hours cuz we
don't often get you in the hot seat but I'm just going to ask you one last question and you get one sentence as a response fast forward to the end of your life you've achieved everything you want you and Martha have an incredible life Incredible family you're reaching a billion people a week what do you want to be most remembered for that I cared deeply that I had a big heart and that when people were around me they felt loved ladies and gentlemen Lou house thank you thank you so we just had a a fun
conversation on stage and I wanted to answer some more questions that came from this talk uh so this is a little ask me anything got a few questions that came from some of the audience that I wanted to expand upon from this conversation at Becon and I just thought it was a a beautiful interview um on stage and I'm just so grateful for that opport opportunity that I got to experience make it make sure to check out more of what Gary randuk is doing as well and uh he's doing some amazing things but this is
a question that came in after this because I talked about honesty versus authenticity for many years the last decade we've heard the word authenticity thrown around a lot and I think it's important to be authentic um but someone asked me could you go a little bit deeper between honesty and authenticity how can being honest about things we're not proud of or even ashamed of help our business or our personal brand and I'll give you a a very intimate example of this uh a little over 10 years ago I open up on my podcast and on
my platform about my experience of dealing with sexual abuse as a 5-year-old and how that kind of shaped me and scarred me and hurt me and really made me driven to achieve and to try to prove people wrong and also driven to be great in sports so that I could protect my self again from anyone trying to harm me in the future and I thought that my business and my life and my career was over if I was going to share this but I also felt called I felt like I was being dishonest if I
wasn't opening up about it seeing that I did have a platform and I don't recommend everyone share their biggest pain or shame or traumas publicly I don't think it's for everyone to do that but I felt like after time of of doing my own healing work and my own journey of healing and speaking with people one by one and a professional therapist and then family and then friends I felt more of a Call of like a Duty or responsibility to really speak up about it and to share about it on my platform and I just
kind of kept hearing this voice like if you can help one man overcome the pain the shame the trauma that they've experienced if you can help one human start to heal then it's worth it now who knows maybe it wouldn't have been worth it if I would have been you know broken on the streets and my business would have crumbled but my business by being more than authentic because authentic is really about expressing your personality and being yourself but being honest is really kind of being willing to share and reveal things about you that in
my mind I used to think if people actually knew this about me no one would like me no one would love me no one would accept me no one would follow me no one would buy from me and I can never share these things if I have that fear if it consumes me that ah if anyone knew this about me no one would ever accept me that thing in definition has power over me it is controlling me it's consuming me it's holding me back from being more than authentic but being honest and I think Honesty
is another level of authenticity it's it's revealing the layers where the personality you can be your playful self you can do your bag of tricks and express your personality and use all your talents and and things that are your personality that's authentic but I think Honesty is is diving into a different level of opening up and just expressing yourself in a deeper level so for me um you know how can being honest about things we're not proud of or even ashamed of help our business our personal brand again I don't think we should share every
trauma or every traumatic thing or everything we're ashamed of I don't think that's something that you need to do but I think there are some things if you keep hearing a voice if you keep hearing like a PLL or calling like huh maybe there's an opportunity for for me to be more real or honest around this thing um and by actually doing so I can actually serve more people actually actually help more people and connect uh deeper to an audience that could ultimately support my personal brand now I think if you're doing it as a
gimmick to say hey I'm going to open up about this and be honest about stuff from my past and it's going to help me grow my personal brand that's not that's not being authentic that is being gimmicky or that is being a strategic and saying let me share certain things that you know are trying to pull at people in a certain way to build audience I thought the opposite I was like if I share this things are done for me um I'm done but I felt like it was more important to do it and lose
everything and hopefully help a few people than to to be inauthentic and therefore dishonest and not open up about these things again you don't have to do these things I felt the pull and in return I think because I was willing to do it not because I wanted to grow an audience but because I wanted to serve people and I wanted to help other men who had been struggling with this um things started to really grow in a big way after that and I started to feel more comfortable within my skin no I wasn't perfect
overnight I still struggled with things but year after year I felt like I was able to step more into who I am turning honesty into true authenticity and I think we can merge those two powerful things can happen for your brand another question that came in from you all is do you have any tips for building genu genuine connection with an audience there was um I used to be really afraid to speaking in public I used to be afraid to be on stages whether it be 10 people in a room me standing up in front
of a group of people it was terrifying or me in front of a hundred or thousands of people it was terrifying and I would get nervous for weeks before knowing that I had to present it would just crippled me and it really terrified me I went to Toast Masters every week for a year in Columbus Ohio Shout Out Columbus Ohio Toast Masters and there was some credible leaders men and women in those rooms that I was able to to watch them present effectively different styles and then I was able to get up there a weekly
and practice a three to five minute speech and get feedback from all the members of the group and they really lifted me up in a big way they welcomed me in I was 23 or 24 years old I was one of the youngest people in the group everyone was 10 15 20 years older who were leaders of companies in Columbus Ohio that were sharpening their skills and I went in there and I was just horrible I was really bad and I was nervous and I was just very uncomfortable because I didn't have the skill of
connection with an audience whether it be a small group or a bigger group so you need to train yourself to develop the skill you need to be in front of people and I recommend finding a format or a platform like Toast Masters where you can go we weekly or even once a month and practice the skill that is step one overcoming the fear by putting yourself in the situation and practicing and developing the skill of communication to an audience unless you have that naturally because you did that in school and you were always it was
always easy for you to stand in front of a room of your peers and you just have that skill already I didn't have that skill I was terrified so I needed to learn how to develop that skill I did that every week for a year and I remember I started actually after that year I actually started getting paid you know $500 for a speech and local workshops I started putting on my own workshops I started getting speaking gigs at bigger events I started making thousands of dollars right within a couple years after that and I
wouldn't have been able to earn that type of money had I not gone all in on the fear to develop the talent of practicing every single week and really trying to master that craft and I still haven't mastered the art of being in front of a crowd there's different levels of execution of connection but I got to a pretty comfortable place where I could uh bring a crowd together and communicate a message and enroll people in Vision but I remember this one thing that really helped me after years of of doing this I still felt
nervous in front of an audience I still felt anxious before a big event and there were two things that I got from friends and mentors who coached me up on this one was from a a leader and a professional who had a bunch of big New York time bestselling books who spoke in front of 15 20,000 people at massive conventions and he is a leader in an industry that I remember asking him a question I go what happens if you're at an event 15,000 people and you get nervous what do you do or like what
if you're forgetting something you want to say like how do you make sure you stay top of your game and really Captivate an audience still and he told me something great which I which I still hold on to today he said if I ever get it like I'm thrown off or I'm not sure or I forget something or I'm feeling nervous or scared I focus on someone in the first few rows and I literally just look at one person and I speak as if they're the only one in the room and I speak to them
what they're going through what I think they might be experiencing I I judge their you know appearance and kind of their age and I I read their energy and I just try to speak to that one person I'll only look at that one person and I might be there for a minute or two and I'll speak to them and really try to Captivate them and by doing so it's almost like I speak to the entire 15,000 people at the same time when I'm able to connect to one person so if you ever feel nervous or
insecure or something's off bring it to one person and just see if you can be with that person really connect with them look them in the eyes be present with them and think about how can I show up for this one individual not how do I make sure the entire room is connected to me but connect to one that was a great piece of advice I got that I've used and another one was from a coach and friend of mine it was about an hour before a big gig that I had I had a big
event this is I don't know six or seven years ago I think there was about 10,000 people in the audience it was one of my biggest events at that time remember saying gosh I've been like at this point 8 to 10 years I've been speaking on stages I've made a lot of money speaking on events and I was feeling nervous and insecure and I was like and I called them about an hour before and go why am I still feeling nervous shouldn't I feel more confident shouldn't I feel like this is easy for me now
and he said something that I'll never forget he said you know you're making this about you you're focused too much on how you look how you're going to try to make people laugh trying to memorize certain things that are going to make you look good and you're focused on being perfect you need to throw that out the window you're you may make a mistake you may forget that joke you may stutter and stumble on stage from time to time and you need to accept that you need to own it know that that's probably going to
happen you're not going to be the best speaker in the world but if you can make it not about me but about service how can can I just show up with my energy to give my best to serve this audience knowing that I'm not going to look perfect knowing that I'm going to make a mistake knowing that it's not going to be 100% what I want it to be and knowing that I could always make it better how can I show up to serve this audience in this 30 minute 60 Minute window how can I
just add as much value and when you focus on the audience rather than looking good then you're going to win you're going to win because you're making it about other people and not about yourself and I thought that was a great piece of advice so those two things when you're thinking about building a genuine connection with an audience another one that I uh question I got come through says you spoke about emotional and psychological wounds what are some warning signs that one is getting activated that needs healing I think anything like feeling heart palpitations feeling
stressed feeling anxious feeling headaches anything in your body where you feel like man I'm feeling something's off in life and it might be a response to an uncomfortable conversation or feeling stressed at work or maybe a relationship has crossed a boundary that you haven't communicated yet any of those type of physical reactions that you feel in your body something doesn't feel peaceful something doesn't feel calm there may be something there I'm not saying there's always something there but you you might have something there your body is responding physically it's reacting to a response a stimulus
in the world in your environment in your conversations and when you can first not notice those responses within you then you can say why am I feeling anxious why am I feeling stressed why am I feeling overwhelmed is there something to look at that I can work on to start to heal are there memories from the past that are causing me to feel reactive and stressed and overwhelmed in this relationship and this career that I'm in and in this social Dynamic and and when you can take a look at those things and start to heal
that journey and go on that healing journey I think you can start to respond to things differently and again don't you're always going to experience some type of stress in life but do you need to hold on to that stress for so long when you feel anxious Can you feel it for a shorter window of time and get back to a place of peace and calm and Harmony and I think that's the real goal is to figure out where these triggers are coming from start the healing journey and create skills and tools to support you
in being responsive with peace and calm in situations versus reactive and overwhelmed and uh I've done a lot of work over the years in many different types of therapies and I think you can go down the path of figuring out which therapies or therapeutic experiences could be best for you in that healing journey and I think uh there's a few more questions here but I think that will wrap up today's conversation I hope the you enjoyed this interview that I had on stage I really enjoyed being able to be authentic and honest at the same
time I hope uh there was some value in there in some of the conversations we talked about and I hope these additional questions that came in support you in your journey as well if you have other questions for me if you want me to do more solo conversations where I'm answering questions from you directly feel free to uh email us at support greatness.com or you can tag me on Instagram or social media again make sure to subscribe over on Apple podcast Spotify on YouTube and stay up toate on the latest and greatest from the school
of greatness podcast and and self-awareness has becomes the gateway drug to self-love once you can see it in yourself like I didn't see the lack of cander and I'm my my superpower is self-awareness this is why I was so good I was like I'm this but I'm not this and I'm this and I'm not this and I didn't Envy or have jealousy towards that I wasn't 63
