The $0 to $1M Blueprint | Lewis Howes

to shift in order to create that abundance for yourself, because people only valued you as much as your value yourself. And until you change your mindset around money and around your

own personal value, you're never going to make the money you truly want, and you're never

going to feel free with the money you actually have. So today I'm here with a member of Team Greatness, who's going to be asking some questions that you've asked me personally online to help you figure out how to go from zero to a million, and really how to set yourself up for a financial success. So what is some of the questions that we're hearing that you'd like to share? So can you talk about how people can really recognize their value?

“Yeah, I think it's first like you have to, you know, if you're just chasing a career of your chasing”

money and you don't believe that you have value within you, you're not going to have the confidence. So if you're going into an interview, or if you're trying to sell something, and you don't believe that you're valuable, or that you've created a certain amount of skill sets, or that you have worth, then it's going to be hard to get someone to give you money. It's going to be hard to sell something, because you internally don't believe that you're

deserving of it. So I think we need to do a couple of things, is do a skill assessment

with yourself first. When I was starting out, I didn't think I had any value to give anyone because

I was a football player, I struggled in school, and I didn't really study for the real world in school. So I didn't develop skills. The only skill that I really had was typing. That was kind of like a skill set. I took one class that I really focused on, because I thought maybe I need to learn this skill. So I can actually type really fast, but I was like, how am I going to make money with typing? And I didn't think I had any other skills that would actually be valuable in the marketplace.

But what I started to do, someone told me this early on, they said, "Create a list of all your skills." Even if you don't think you have anything worth value. And I just started writing down stuff like, "I'm a good person." I said, "You know, I'm good with people." I like asking questions. You know, I'm courageous. I can try stuff and fail. But none of these things made sense to me of how they would make money. But it's everything I'm doing now with the school of greatness.

“Like I ask questions, and that's how I make money. Like I try new things, and I make mistakes.”

And I'm good with people. But that, I just didn't see that there was value there, because I saw all of my limitations. I saw all the things that I struggled in. I struggled in school. You know, I couldn't keep a job in school, whatever it might be. So I looked at all the things that I struggled with, and I put emphasis on the lack of value, rather than these kind of invisible, valuable skills that I had, that I eventually learned how to

make them more into money. So I think first creating an assessment. And if you still, at the end of the

day, can't think of anything that you find valuable about yourself, I would ask the people closest to you. I would ask your friends or your partner or a family member and say, "Hey, I'm struggling with with figuring out where I'm at value." Where do you think my skill sets lie? You know, what am I good at? What am I talented at? What would you come to me for advice for? And I think if you can self-assess and also get an assessment from the people around you,

“you're going to start to say, "Okay, here's some of my value." Now, you have to also figure out”

how to turn that value into money eventually. How do we make money from our value? Again, I didn't know the school of greatness was going to come from being curious, not having the answers to anything, and being good with people. I didn't know I could build an eight-figure media business around that. And so I think it was being okay in the first step with not knowing how you're going to make money and first collecting the skills, the knowledge that you have first, and being aware

of your talents. First, that's the first key. It's just being aware of the value you already have. Can you explain the cross-section of skills and passion? If you can do something that you are or have value and really enjoy, then I think you've won the lottery. I think it's like the best thing ever. It still doesn't mean, you know, I love doing what I do, but I still have challenging days. I still have hard work to do. I still have work that I don't like doing. I still have things

that I need to take on. That maybe the most fun and joyful moments. But because I'm excited about the mission that we have, I'm willing to do whatever it takes. So if you can have both the things you're passionate about and excited about, or be in that space that excites you and be around people that are good people. Because you could also be working on something but have people around you

around the people that are fun or enjoyable. It'll be around. You want to be working on something

“that isn't enjoyable for you and using your skills and talents to making money. I think that's”

kind of like the jackpot. But, you know, we're all human beings, so we have flaws and we have good days and bad days and so you just have to navigate life that way. But that's really the sweet spot. But there were many times where I had jobs early on before I kind of got into this space. I was a truck driver and it wasn't like this thing I was passionate about. I was driving a truck six hours a day and I was making $250 a week, driving six hours a day. So I wasn't making a lot of

money. It wasn't a skill that I was excited about to use. I wasn't around people or asking questions. And I think sometimes we need to be willing to try certain things also that we don't like to realize like, "Okay, I tried that. I don't want to do that." But at that time, I just needed to make money. I needed a way to make money and that was a season of life where I was making

money as a bouncer at a nightclub in the weekends. Even though I don't drink alcohol and never

drank, that was the job that was available. The truck driver job was the job that was available. You know, the odd jobs that I would do is like whatever was available for me to make money, I still had to go make money. The least desirable thing is just being completely broken, having no job, no opportunity. The second least desirable thing is making money doing something that you hate. And we want to work our way up to like, "Okay, how do we find a job where it's like,

we can use our skillsets, our talents. We can also grow as individuals in the bell-up skills, while making money. We can be around people that are hopefully good people overall, maybe not

perfect, but it's hopefully good overall, a good environment. And then doing something that we are

“inspired by with a bigger mission behind it as well. And I think if we can find that eventually”

and it may take time, that's the sweet spot." What's the next step after identifying your value? You want to be thinking about the skills that can make you more money. And again, in the beginning, I had an assessment of my skills, but I didn't know how to monetize them. And I thought I really needed to learn how to develop different skills where I could maximize the original skills I had, good with people, curious, courageous, willing to fail. Those skills I had,

but I needed some other skills to marry them with, to partner them with, that could actually help me make money. So early on, I read a book called The Four Hour Work Week, and it was teaching a lot about how to build an online business. This was in 2008 and 2009 when I read this, and there's actually Christmas of 2007, but I started kind of researching more in 2008, 2009. At that time, I was learning from a lot of these thought leaders about copywriting. They were like,

“if you want to sell, if you want to make money, you need to be able to sell. And you can sell”

through the spoken word or the written word. And at the time, I didn't know how to do it either. I could type, but I didn't know how to communicate. All I did was ask questions. I didn't know how to sell myself. And so I was afraid to speak in public still. I had courage to try things, but that's something that helped me back. And so there were two things I did. I started studying copywriting like a maniac. I started reading copywriting blogs, teaching about headlines,

teaching about hooks, intros, but more from marketing standpoint, not from school, five page essay, structure standpoint. How do you persuade someone to buy? And that became a fascination of mine. It's learning persuasion, reading the book influenced by Robert Chaldini and reading all these books and blogs about copywriting and persuasion. Gave me skills by practicing it. I was writing then almost weekly,

newsletters, blogs. I was creating landing pages for webinars. I was trying all these things to see what would work. And through that repetition and through the study of copywriting, that became a superpower of mine. Building an email list, getting people to buy products and courses and coaching from me, getting them to buy books, whatever it might be. And so I learned that you don't have to be good on camera to make money, but you do need to learn to develop these

other skills. So that was one skill was the written word. Then I also realized that a big fear of mine was speaking in front of other people. And I didn't want that to hold me back anymore. So I started going to toast masters every single week for a year to learn public speaking. And this gave me more skills, more tools that increased my value. So I had original value based

That if I really want to make money, I need to grow and expand my value. So copywriting was one thing,

“just consuming more knowledge. So I had knowledge and information was another learning how to do”

public speaking was another. Then I started creating webinars and doing online presentations. The more confidence I got, I started doing these weekly webinars teaching what I was learning. So it was just like practice rep practice rep. Let me see what's working. Our people were responding to this. And those practice reps gave me more confidence based on the feedback I was getting. People were like, wow, that was really helpful. Do you have any more information? I was like,

yes, I do. So it was, okay, let me learn develop new skills. Let me practice. And now I'm expanding and growing my value internally and externally. And I was building an audience in that and that in that process. And another skill that I was expanding on was just learning the value of building a personal plant, making content, doing photography, doing videos, doing social media back in 2009. It was kind of the early days of personal branding on the internet. And there's something I was

leaning into, even though I didn't know what I was doing. But all these things, it's like marrying the innate skills that I had with developing money-making skills. And then fusing them together and saying, okay, now how can I really make money? And that's where the school greatness eventually was born from was like, okay, I had years of these reps from learning these new skills. And now let me watch this show as well. And I was already making millions doing online courses,

coaching membership sites, events, books, retreats, all these different things before the school greatness, through these repetitions, the repetitions of building and growing my value. And I think that's a lot of times people are so afraid to try something new or they'll just learn to skill, but they won't apply this skill because they don't want to fail. And so you hear the solid time from people saying, you know, I've had a dream of writing a book for 10 years, but I

have just been waiting for the right moment. And or they've always wanted to launch a podcast,

but they haven't done it yet. But they've been thinking about it for years. What does what are the

“chances actually mean? I heard this at a mastermind early on. I think it was 2009 or 2010 and one of my”

first masterminds I went to. A guy named Paul Evans said this. He said these three words will change your life. What's the chance? And then he was giving these examples. And I was like, huh, I'm just going to start trying this. And I guess it's been 17 years now since that I heard that. And I've used those three words. What's the chance? I don't know, thousands of times, all the last 17 years because it works. And you can use it with yourself. You can use with others.

I did it as a game in an existing experiment early on just at like, if I was going to a coffee shop, I would just say, what's the chance? You can give me this for free. I was just like, what do they get said? Maybe they say no, maybe they laugh and say no way. But what's the chance? They'll give me this coffee for free. This $5 coffee for free. And sometimes people would. And I or I would just say, okay, what's the chance to give this to me for free? And they wouldn't. And then say, what's the

chance you can give me 20% off? Come on, really? You can't give me 20% off of the store discount. I know you have that employee discount. Can you give it to me? What's the chance? Can you can you just bring the rules a little bit today? And almost every time people like, yeah, I'll give you 10% off. Like, people have the power to do so much more for you than you think. If you're willing to risk

“looking at this little silly or embarrassing yourself or people saying no, and I think it's just”

the willingness to be audacious enough to ask for things that most people are afraid to ask for. And I don't look at it as like a bad thing. I look at it as, listen, I can afford your paying for my own coffee. That's not what it's about. It's about developing the skill of

feeling uncomfortable, asking for something that most people never ask for. Because when you can

do that with a $5 thing, and then you're asking someone for $50,000 in your building up to that. Or you're asking for a 20% raise. Or whatever it is, it's like you're developing an inner value, you're expanding that value inside of you and externally through results. And you're showing your value to the world. Again, whether that's in a career, whether that's to your audience online, if you're building an audience, and selling a product, it doesn't matter where it is. We need to

expand our value. And you can expand your value through skill sets, results, and the perceived value that you have of others, which is your personal brand, or how people perceive you around you.

getting results for other people, they're saying, wow, Lewis is he's coaches a lot of top entrepreneurs,

and he helps them get clear on their mindset and get an exponential results in their business. Huh, maybe I should sign up for his masterminds, coaching, maybe I should get his book, maybe I should listen to his show. It's the perception, you know, hopefully the real perception, you don't want to lie to people because if you have fake results and you're perceiving that, you're going to get found out. But if you have real case studies, real results for people you

worked with, or people you've had a product and people have gotten results there, then those testimonials become a perceived value as well. They become your brand,

what people say about you when you're not around. And all that plays into developing skills,

“knowing your value and expanding your value. Are there ways outside of buying courses to grow?”

It's not about buying courses, I think, or whatever, you know, I've invested in a lot of money into individual coaches, courses, softwares, but also just kind of like experiences where it takes time to learn. You know, I'm investing in, I'm not spending a lot in learning Spanish right now. That's 100 bucks for a dual, and go or something, I don't know, a year, I don't even know what it is. It's not a lot of money, but it's a time investment. And the time investment in public speaking,

you can't fake the reps. I showed up every single week in front of an audience and he

milleted myself. It's time investment. It's embarrassment, investment. It's like the emotional

pain that you feel from not being good at something, being a beginner, and trying something new. It doesn't, it's not enjoyable to suck at something. And this is why a lot of people don't

“develop a skill because they're not good at it. But that's how you make more money, or that's how”

you add more value and expand your value by developing skills. You develop skills in a relationship, you learn how to navigate your emotions and consciously communicate that relationship will expand. There will be more love, more joy. It'll feel like there's a depth to the quality of the relationship rather than a surface level, because you have expanded your value, your skill set about how you communicate. And I just, I don't think we can put a price on how much we should be

spending either financially or time in developing skills that bring abundance to our life. And it doesn't need to be around making money specifically. I know this is about making money, but it should be about creating a richness of life. With relationships, I'm investing in my health, investing in my relationships, I'm investing in coaching, I'm investing in courses, I'm investing in retreats, all these things, because it's only going to help me for the future by developing more

skill sets. And I think it's based on the season you're at right now. You know, if you're just starting out, the skills, you may not have a lot of money to invest in things, but you have time to invest. And you can spend 50 bucks a year to do toast masters, or you can go through free courses online and invest your time and getting reps and practicing. But the more skills you develop that help you make money, the easier it will be to make money. What else could be holding people back

from financial freedom? Based on our mindset and our belief system, we get comfortable with the amount of money we believe we deserve making. It's like a thermostat, you know, we get comfortable. It's 68, 69 degrees in here. For me, it's comfortable. If there was three degrees less, it would be too cold. If it was two or three degrees more, it would be uncomfortable. This is it comfortable setting for me in this stage, right? And when people are just getting started out

making money, if they're making $10 an hour, and that's all they're used to. They're comfortable. They may not enjoy it, but it's a comfort level. It's what their mind believes they're supposed to

“make. Unless they believe they're supposed to make more. Then you need to figure out, okay,”

do I have skills and inner belief that I deserve to make more? Is my comfort level up here? Or where is that now? And if I'm not developing confidence, if I'm not developing skills or shifting the belief that I am deserving of more, and if I can't showcase that to the people around me, or find people that believe in that value, that want to invest in that value, that I'm going to

in a family office, which is essentially a team of money experts to help me continue to elevate

to the next level of financial abundance. I've made a lot of money over the last 20 years in business and at the beginning, I was trying to figure out how to do it all myself. Then I've had different financial advisors over the years to help me, but it's, I've kind of grown at a certain level of comfort. Now there's a lot that I don't know at this level. There's a lot of tax planning and estate planning and strategies and insurances, which I've done at all in some level, but there's a

whole middle level of the financial wealth that I have that I don't understand. And it's not comfortable. It's a little uncomfortable. It's a little like, I don't sound like I know what I'm

talking about when I speak about this. Maybe I'll just stay in my comfort zone and I won't do it.

Gosh, what if I lose this money, what if this investment? I made a mistake here and I lost money like, I don't want people to know this. It's a comfort level around what is known instead of speaking into the unknown. And we all have that, whether you're starting in your career, you're not sure of what you're supposed to be able to get. You try to ask for something, but then

“people say, no, then you have to prove your value and then you can get more money. It's like a”

process of growing and believing what is possible. So for me, you know, I'm at a stage where it's like, okay, I'm married now. There's a new level of money conversations that they've been

ahead when you're merging money with someone else and their belief system. So how do we navigate

this together? How do we get to the next levels together with our financial goals? All these different things. It's an uncomfortable new level, which I know, that's where the greatest growth comes because it means I have to learn new skills to be able to push my comfort level to a new place. Instead of, this is what is known. So it's comfortable here. I love that the AC just kicked on. So it makes it a little bit colder, right? So it's like, okay, after increase my temperature

comfort level inside of me to feel okay had a different temperature to feel comfortable, peaceful, okay. And if developing these skills, expanding the value inside of me, expanding my knowledge base, having conversations that I don't understand so that I can start to understand them better. And in that process, my financial abundance will continue to grow faster than at the level that I've been currently at. And so there's not a right or wrong good or bad way of doing this. It's just

“thinking, is my mindset and my belief around money supporting and the value that I believe I have”

of myself in the skills I have around money, supporting the goals that I want to have around money as well, of making the amount of money I have. And like I said in the intro, do I feel peace with the money that I have? And you can feel peaceful with very little money and you can feel extremely stressed out with very little money. You can feel peaceful with a lot of money and you can feel extremely stressed out with a lot of money as well. In fact, most people I know with a lot of

money have a lot more stress. And it's learning how to have peace at all levels. It's what we talk about and make money easy. How do we have a relationship with the money we have currently? That is harmonious so that as it expands and grows, it stays harmonious. Because having lots of money, but being suicidal is not the solution. It's creating financial freedom and abundance inside of us so that the money is a new tool to serve us and impact our lives in a beautiful way.

And I think that's where we need to get to. And I think scarcity can come at even when you have money you can still feel scarce because you don't know the next level. And so it's

“you have to constantly overcome that scarcity mindset even if you've created more financial”

abundance for yourself. How do you package your value? I had a mentorship early on. I was working for a guy named Chris Hawker and he was an inventor and he had a lot of different inventions. And I was working in his kitchen closet because that's the only space they had. So people were coming in and out of the kitchen and I was in the closet and they'd come right behind me. And I was working there like three days a week and I learned all these different skills. I was

working for free for about six months. And one of these skills was around packaging and design of literal physical products. And he was like, I have this idea for an invention. How do we

of like how they packaged and designed products that you walked in front of a shelf. You walked

“by it. What would make you stop and look at it? And I just started it was a new skill that I hadn't”

learned. So I had to learn this idea of packaging and presenting an idea. And you can do this through the spoken word, through the written word, through images, through video, it's all through book covers. All these things are packaging of ideas. How you present yourself? What I'm wearing right now is a packaging of an idea. I could be wearing a T-shirt instead, which would have a different presentation and packaging. But I decided to wear this essentially black button-up shirt daily

almost because of consistency of content to make it more evergreen, to be presentable at some level.

But not in a suit because it's not the style of packaging I'm looking for at this moment.

But if I was in a suit right now, it would have a different presentation. You would proceed me

“differently. Now, if I was talking out of my ass constantly, but I was wearing a suit, you might”

be like, "Hmm, he's trying to look a certain way, but the words don't match the packaging." So I don't believe him. I don't trust him. He seems a little like untrustworthy. Something is off about that guy, right? And we've all seen those guys or gals and suits that maybe say something or like, "Hmm, that doesn't sound right. Something seems a little fishy. It's when the packaging, like, doesn't match the actual substance of the messaging or the product. The product could

be in the person wearing the clothes. It's the packaging representing the product. And, you know, when I'm thinking about a book, a book is just words, but each chapter has a structure has a packaging to present an idea of a concept of the words. The storytelling is the packaging, as well. The cover, the design, everything is very specific on how we design things for people to see it on a screen and also on stores. So we want them to see it. We want to know it's different as you meet.

There's a packaging of uniqueness. The school awareness design is a packaging, specific design for a reason. Make money easy as the different packaging as well. And there's all these different things that we should be thinking about when we are putting messages out there online or in person. Specifically, our self as a product is our packaging and it all matters. And so for me, your personal brand is your packaging. What you post online is your packaging and how

you present your ideas, how we edit our videos is a style of presenting our product. It's our packaging so that people know when they're watching the school of greatness or listening, they're going to get something they know about you based on how we put it out there. And a lot of people don't think about their own themselves or the product as a packaging, as a presentation. And they get sloppy with it. I'm not saying you're going to be perfect

every day and what you do and say and it's like you don't have to be a tight constantly.

“But I think we should be aware of how we present ourselves to the world. And you can always”

upgrade your packaging or your presentation or through developing more skills. How do you remain consistent with your brand as you evolve? You know, for me, when I got into this kind of online world, 2007, 2008, 2009 when I was studying and learning it and getting into it, I was a former professional athlete. I was packaging and presenting myself as this former professional. I think because that's all I had. It was like, okay, just finished school and I was

playing arena football trying to go to the NFL and it didn't work. So I was presenting that story as a packaging. Then I started to learn LinkedIn as a tool to try to find job opportunities. But that tool led into people saying, Lewis, can you teach me how you've learned how to

use LinkedIn for my business? Because I'd built a massive audience on LinkedIn. I always started

hosting events through late-using LinkedIn in person. I was getting 500 people to show up to these events and people are like, how are you doing this? And so people started paying me to coach them how to use LinkedIn. I didn't even know I could make money doing that. Then I was like, oh, that made package from brand myself as a LinkedIn expert. I did that for many years. But then I wanted to upgrade my personal brand. I didn't want to be known as that anymore. So what has happened is I

me to present to their audiences. So I was doing that consistently. And I said, oh, I don't want to

do this anymore. But everyone's asking me how I'm selling so much online and how I'm using webinars and how I'm using presentation skills. And these are skills that I was developing for years from postmasters, from copyrighting, from online marketing, or things. So then I started to re-brand myself as a online webinar expert because people are asking me for that information. So I saw a new level from LinkedIn to webinars. Then people are said, hey, can you just teach me more about

all the marketing you're doing with social media? And all the online marketing you're stuff you're doing. So it became LinkedIn webinars, social media, but then just online marketing in general. So I started positioning and packaging my personal brand to a new level, a new thermostat, something that was more uncomfortable. But I had to go beyond my current comfort zone. Then after years of doing that, I built a multi-seventh figure business doing that and got a lot

of opportunities from speaking on stages, et cetera, from that personal brand. But I was like, I don't want to be known as the webinar guy. It's not what I want to be known as and it's not something that it's a season right now where I'm good at it. I have a skill set and I can make a

lot of money. But is it really like my mission moving forward? And we don't always have the

luxury of saying, I'm going to go for my mission, but I had been really good at saving almost all my money. So I was like, I have the luxury now that have worked really hard for about five six years to make money, saved it. So I have a few years of a runway like single, I don't have responsibilities, no kids yet, not married. If I wanted to do anything, what would it be? Then the school

“of greatness came to me. And that was over 13 years ago now. And I was like, I think I just want to”

go back to my original skills of being curious and asking questions with people that inspired me and see if I could make money in the future. But it was like, all right, I just want to do this for one year and see how this works. This is really what I want to do. And I tried something it may, it could have failed. It could have been like not worked. And then I would have tried something else, but it worked. And so I kept doing it. And I developed skills to continue to grow it. And

that has led me into a new personal brand, a new packaging of, you know, launching the school of greatness and being that guy. In over 13 years, that personal brand has evolved within that space, right, from then writing your time bestselling books, speaking, doing bigger masterminds, all these

things that allowed me to expand it within this space. And so I'm always looking to upgrade my

personal brand. It doesn't matter if I'm doing the same thing or doing something new. How can I elevate it with where I'm at? I mean, I was doing it on my iPhone. I was like putting on my iPhone and recording audio just sitting after someone, then I had just a couple of mics on a table like this in my kitchen for about eight months. And it's funny because Sean Johnson, the Olympic gold medalist in gymnastics, she texted me recently about a book that she's launching. And she

“goes, I still remember when I was, when I did an interview in your apartment, I had a studio apartment”

in your kitchen, right? And just me and Sean Johnson, in my kitchen table with little headsets, had I stayed at that level of packaging without scaling and upgrading it. It wouldn't be a successful at this today. You know, from a kitchen table or an iPhone to we have what five or six cameras in here that have all upgraded over 13 years. This was not after year one. It was like, okay, year zero through three was a certain packaging. Then it continued to a continues to invest

in team and equipment and processes in my own health, in my own skills over the last 13 years to scale this. And I, and you scale it also through thinking of two things, you know, your product and your distribution. If you're a personal brand, you are the products.

“And then you have to figure out how do I reach audiences? How do I get distribution? If your”

book is the product, you need to be thinking about how do I write a better book? How do we make the book the best book possible, the product? Improving it. Then how do I get more distribution? Okay, we're in a digital world distribution is podcasts, getting impress, being on TV, getting in newsletters,

That you can scale your personal brand or your products or services and eventually scale your money.

“And I think that's what you need to be thinking about. How can I scale my product?”

Whatever it is, if it's you are the message, if it's your book, if it's your content, if it's a service course, a ticket to an event, you are music, your art, whatever you're selling, that's your product. You need to make it better constantly to add more value to people and then you need distribution channels. What are those distribution channels? Who are the people that you need to learn how to collaborate with? That have audiences,

that have distribution that you can either sell or market your product too. And that is a process

of developing relationships. You need to learn to scale or the art of being a good human being

and reaching out to people and also adding value to other people and saying, hey, how can I help you? And also saying, hey, what's the chance that you would have me on your show and talk about my product? What's the chance? You'll promote my book. What's the chance? You'll mess it. You'll put this out there to your audience. And it's a skill and an art of which is hard to do to improve your

“personal self, to improve your product and improve distribution. But that's how you scale your money.”

And if you're working for someone, then you have to say, how can I continue to learn more skills to be more valuable at the company I'm at? Doesn't matter if you're here at the school of greatness or you're working for Amazon or Google, you need to say, how can I make myself a better product and add more value to this mission or to the team that I'm working with so that I can make more money. If I make the company more money, then I can show my value. I can scale my value

and bring in more money for myself. So it doesn't matter if you're working in a company or you work with yourself, either way, it's hard. And you have to figure out how to develop your value, show that value, that perceived value, scale that value, and then capture that value. Do you need to work harder to earn more money? I hear a lot of people say this too, like really rich people don't work harder or something like that. I just feel like 99% of people who have generated a lot of money,

work extremely hard. Now with that said, they have learned a skill set where they have learned how to expand their plate of what is on their plate and to be able to navigate and delegates

“and choose wisely what is the most important things to work on. In the moment to scale”

their sales, their audience growth, their team, their distribution, and build their wealth. And so in some ways, like when I was starting out, I felt like it worked so hard to the point where I was not sleeping well because I was up all night just constantly working. But it doesn't mean that was smart. Just because I was working hard and I was getting results, that was limited to how much I was able to generate and revenue based on how hard I was working. So working harder wasn't

going to make me more money. Maybe a little bit, but it was burning me out emotionally, physically, you know, I gained a ton of weight. They started calling me fat Lewis. Like I used to be like, they call me Fluis for fat Lewis. They did. I had like, that was like the Michelin man, you know, it was like fat Lewis. And my wife is like, she'll see photos of me from 15 years ago. She goes, you look way younger and healthier now than when I was 15 years younger. And it's

because I was up till 3, 4 a.m. just like, I need to grind, I need to work hard, I need to work harder. And that got a certain type of results, but it didn't give me emotional peace or freedom or harmony. And when you're launching something or developing a new scale, there's got to be friction, there's got to be seasons where you're working harder to build something into launch with momentum. A rocket doesn't take off without a lot of force pushing down so that it can actually launch.

Does then, once it's finally in the atmosphere, it starts to cruise and it doesn't have to work as hard.

When you're launching anything, it takes a lot of effort, a lot of a thought process, people supporting the launch of something happening. And then it's figuring out how do we continue to build systems to scale and grow the thing we're launching. But I, I feel like really wealthy people that have figured out how to have harmony with their wealth and not overwork and overstress, they figured out how to have a bigger plate. Like, I feel pretty at peace and I have way more going on

than I did 15 years ago, right? And I just had, I just bought a handball team,

married, launching a book, doing a book tour, having family in town over the holidays, navigating

“so many different things happening my wife in and out of the hospital, trying to keep a business”

going, renegotiating a new podcast deal, like all these things on my plate that would have probably crippled me 10 years ago. While trying to train, while pursuing the Olympic train, while doing all these things like, I'm just able to have a bigger plate and it not overwhelm me as much. And I'm able to have a plate that everything got a fit on as opposed to a smaller plate where all this stuff is trying to pile on top of it and just can't even see the plate. Now my plate

is so much bigger that all these things can be on there, and I can still see space in between them.

I can still see them all, and I can move things forward that are the most the highest level of priority each day with my time. And I have different levers I can pull and I can empower different people to get certain things done at this scale. So I think it's learning how to, but people might think I'm working harder in some ways I'm just working differently. You know, I'm thinking strategically in a different way. And I'm developing the skill set of not

doing everything myself, which is what I used to do and empowering others in training and teaching others to do certain things so that we can scale all of it. And that's a hard thing to do when you start out, you do everything yourself unless you've been taught how to just delegate everything.

“Like I was never taught that. So you have to learn leadership, which is how you scale anything.”

You develop the skill of the leadership within yourself. You create boundaries. You have tough conversations with people. You say no to certain people. And you stop people pleasing everyone. And I think you stop trying to get everyone to like you and instead have everyone see you as someone who's a credible leader. And they may not like you. It doesn't mean you have to be a negative bad person, them to not like you. But it's about developing leadership skills within yourself.

At what point can you consider yourself financially free? The number is different for everyone. I think my level of financial freedom 15 years ago, 17 years ago, I was just like, man, if I could make $5 to $10,000 a month, like I am rich, it was like I am like beyond rich is what I thought, you know. In my first time, I made $6,200 in an hour webinar. Before that, the most I'd made was like $3,000 in a month, like hustling, like working so hard, running events around the

country, doing this LinkedIn stuff. And then in one hour, I made $6,200 in 2009. And I was like,

this is unbelievable. I was like, I'm the richest man in the world. I'd never seen or had that

much money in my account ever. I think like, you know, not just like, this is unbelievable.

“I could do this every single week. And if I can make $6,200 every week, holy cow, my life is”

forever changed. Yeah, that's why I started to do. But I started making a lot more than that. And that's why I saved a lot of my money because I didn't need it at that time. I was like, I don't want to be broke again. So let me just save this for a while. But I live and in the apartment that was $495 a month, we're almost a year and a half. And I was buying. I had no car, and I was fine. And I lived well below my means. And I was a happy human being.

Now, I was thinking about my future in terms of, I want to keep making more so that my future is set up. But at this season of life of anyone watching as parents or as kids and their parents, you know the expenses, the, the, just the costs of having kids is just, it's just great. I'm like, where's this money going? It's just going to everything every day. It feels like. And so the level that I'm at now with investing in a lifestyle of buying a home of having

different expenses, there's a, there's a comfort level that I would need now that is way different than 15 years ago. Being married, having kids, having other priorities, having a team. It's like, I need a lot more to cover everything to feel comfortable. So I'm in a new level of like a thermostat of comfort level. And if it starts to drop below that in my, my monthly revenue of the business, I feel uncomfortable. I'm like, oh, I don't like this feeling. So it's learning

$1 million in 30 days from scratch? Even if I had no audience, let's say, if I had no social media

was gone, podcast was gone. Yes. And no money was coming in. Now I had to make a million dollars in 30 days. I actually feel like it would be easier than then it is right now to do that. Because I would have nothing to lose. Like, I've already, everything's gone. And so, and if I had 30 days,

“I would have such a timeline. And I would say, if you have to make a million dollars in 30 days,”

I would have a timeline. And I wouldn't have a lot of distractions. I wouldn't have arrow all my responsibilities that I have to do or get to do on a weekly basis. Because it would all be gone. And I would literally call people one by one, the wealthiest people I know first

and say, will you hire me for a million dollars? That's what I would start with. I would say,

I will coach you for the next year for a million dollars. And I would create a package for them, whether it's a weekly coaching, whether it's some type of mindset, health, relationship, training, whatever it might be, it would create a one million dollar offer. And I'd probably just call a hundred people. And I'd make the offer. I'd create a one-page presentation. And I would, I'd probably create a survey to them and say, where's your biggest pain? Where's your biggest

“struggle? Where's the thing that you're struggling with the most in your life or in your business?”

And what is your biggest goal? What do you want to accomplish? I would survey them in some way.

And I would get the intel. And I'd say, OK, how do I make a million dollar offer

and sell it to one person? And if that, if I didn't see that, I was going to be traction. And I would say, OK, how do I get 10 people to pay me a hundred thousand dollars? And I was like, and I created my own mastermind. And I'd say, I'm going to bring together 10 of the wealthiest people in the world who struggle with this other stuff. Or maybe they don't have the freedom emotionally or the abundance or the relationships or they've lost the spark.

Like the money has numbed them. And I want to, and I want to get them back into being a service to humanity. I just funny. I just had a conversation with a doctor who came out to me at the day of gym three days ago, who he's a famous surgeon in Beverly Hills, you know, works with all the biggest celebrities and all, you know, and helps a lot of people. And he came out to me about six months ago, maybe. And I just saw him again a few days ago. And he came out to me six months

and he goes, he goes, you know, I've made so much money, you know. And it's like, you know, he's a very specialized surgeon. So he makes a lot of money with his specialty. So he is the valetase skill set that very few people can do. He gets people results that are very hard to get. So people are willing to spend a certain amount of money for the skill set he's developed. And he knows his value. So he's done all five of these steps. And he's at the point now where he says, what do I do now? Like I've done

these things. I've scaled this. I'm making so much money. But I've kind of lost this like spark, like this sense of what's the point. And that's where people that I think need to think about. Like, most people love to have that problem. It makes so much money that you've lost the spark of life. But we all have different challenges at different levels. And maybe it's with six or nine months ago when he came up to me. He said he was a big fan of the show. He said,

listen to this show. What do you think I should do? I said to be honest man, you got to get back. You've got to do surgeries for cases that really need them that don't have the money. Where you can actually transform someone's life that maybe had some type of physical challenge or some type of accident car accident that disform them in some ways that you could give them their life back. Like do that once a month for free. And document it. Talk about it if you want to.

“Like just give back. That's what you need to be leaning into. And he goes, that's a great idea.”

And I saw him a few days ago and he goes, Lewis, how's it going, man? I go, good man. How are you? Have you done this thing? We were sitting standing right over here at 69 months ago and he goes, man, you got a good memory. And I go, have you done this yet? And he goes, no. And I go, are you fulfilled with your life yet? He goes, no. I said, what are you waiting for? If it's not that, find something else. It doesn't have to be this thing that I came up with. Be something where

you're a service in a bigger level beyond making money. Because money alone can only bring you so much joy if you're using it only for you and your family. It can bring you lots of joy, lots of fulfillment. But I really feel like once you've mastered money and you have an abundance of it, beyond your means, and beyond traveling in the lifestyle and the nice homes and the nice clothes and

to find a way to serve. And if you can bring service in your life from the beginning,

when you have no money, then it will grow with you when you start making money. So something we've been a part of since before the school of greatness is building schools with Penn State Promise. Since before that, because I started to have that feeling early on, I was making millions of dollars and I wasn't doing anything to give back. And I was like, huh, okay, I'm sure to keep making more money now. Like, okay, cool, but I'm okay in a $500 apartment. I don't need tons of money.

Like, I need to find way to use this. And I don't care about cars and fancy things. So honey, one of my use my talents and gifts to serve people. And it doesn't mean I give all

“my money away, but use some of it to find meaning and impact as well. And I think that has been”

that has allowed me to feel like I've had a really fulfilling life, is being in service in

generating a way to give. It doesn't mean you always have to give money, but finding ways to give

of your time and talents as well. And so I reminded this doctor of this a couple of days ago. And I said, you know, when are you going to start being of service? Yes, you're being of service to your clients, but you need to have a different level of service, different level of impact. And if you're just doing the same things every single day, you need something new and fulfilling in your life. So find a way to serve. And hopefully, I'll start doing that. We'll see. But I think

that's what I would do. I'd find 10 of my wealthiest friends. I would get them to give their money away through serving causes they care about. And then teaching them how to create a more rich

“and fulfilling a life with the life they have. And I think that's what a lot of really wealthy”

people want. They want to be healthier and happier and have better relationships. And I would

create an offer and sell either one person to million dollars, ten people, $100,000, and I would do

it pretty fast. Yeah, I would do with a week or two because I'd be like, I got a move. So I would have a limited time because everything would be gone. And I'd just be on the phone constantly calling people saying, will you give me a million dollars? If not, will you give me a hundred thousand dollars? If not, will you give me fifty thousand? I would just keep going. What would result would you need to give me a million dollars in the next year? Okay, cool. I'm going to go give you that result.

“I'm going to make something that will give you that result. And I would just sell that. That's what I do.”

If you guys enjoyed this format of Carolina asking me the questions, and if you have a specific question around any topic, feel free to add that question in the comment below, or you can email us over at greatness.com. You can find an email there and email us. But if you're looking for more information around how to emotionally and psychologically and mentally believe that you're deserving and worthy of more money. And then other tools and how to do this, make sure to grab a copy of

make money easy. We'll link it up below in the description, whether you're watching on YouTube or listening on audio platforms. And again, what questions do you have for me that you would like Caroline to ask in the future? Go ahead and leave it below and we'll see you guys in the next episode. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode

with all the important links. And I want to remind you of no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.