EP 217 Book Club: The Greatness Mindset by Lewis Howes
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Sara Mayer: [00:00:00] Welcome to the bold goal crusher podcast for anyone looking to stop letting life get in the way and start crushing bold goals. I'm your host, Sara Mayer, and I'm thrilled to navigate this journey with you because it's time to start boldly achieving without working double time. So let's dive in.
Hello bold gold crushers today's an exciting episode because we are talking about a book and if you are watching on youtube you know that i already have tabbed up and marked up this book i'm one of those people i write all over a book so this month's book is the greatness mindset unlock the power of your mind and live your best love today [00:01:00] by lewis house and i can tell you i struggled with this book Struggle getting through it.
And it's not because it was a bad book. It's because this book is a book that you have to work through. And I spent a lot of time working through this book. So I'm very excited to break down this book. So if you haven't read the book, it's okay. We will do a summary. But spoiler alert, it will have some spoilers in it.
So I do encourage you to grab this book and spend some time working through it. So this book, obviously it's a pretty thick book. It's pretty heavy. And has a lot of activities, but the author poses a lot of questions and it just in the jacket cover. 1 of the 1st to the 1st, 2 questions really hit home. So I'm going to read those to you.
The 1st 1 is. [00:02:00] Are you living your most authentic life? Are you living your most authentic life? I want you to sit with that for a moment. This is the 1st line and just the jacket. Are you living your most authentic life? And that's why this book took me so long to get through, because I had to bust out my journal, which this is my journal, and really sit with a lot of these questions.
Question number two, just in the jacket, are you leaning into your purpose, or are you running away from it?
And question number three, Is this the story you want your future self to tell, or do you ache for something more now, right there, you drop the mic time to do some work. This book is all about divine, defining a meaningful mission and identifying those causes of self [00:03:00] doubt, transforming your mind. to end those self sabotaging thoughts and to live a rich life as well as manifesting greatness.
So let's jump in. I mentioned this is a not a quick read. So if you haven't read this book, I encourage you to pick it up. It's a really great book. So first off, I loved it. I don't rave about a lot of books often because many times it's the same thing, or it's super basic, or honestly, there's.
Unnecessary stories that I kind of tune out. So this book is not like that. So the first one is really talking about the enemy. The first chapter is talking about the enemy of greatness and chasing greatness. So he tells a story, but it hits home and he was, had an NFL career. And I love football and then that didn't happen.
[00:04:00] And then he really felt like everything that he was driving for was over. And so 1 of the things that he talks a lot about is how you can re rewrite your past to propel yourself forward. And how you do that is by taking massive imperfect action, which we've talked about. Taking action and your mindset really matters in that, but it's really the ability to move forward.
So waiting until things are perfect or hoping for your situation to change to move forward on your mission. It sets you back because sometimes those things will never happen. And so he talks about the greatness mindset. And when we read this for you, the greatness mindset will help you unlock the power of your mind by showing you how to find your own meaningful mission, overcoming your fears and self doubt, and finally accomplishing those goals and dreams that have [00:05:00] maybe felt so elusive.
For so long. So the things that are so far out, like you need this in order to do that. And he talks a lot about imperfect action and how to build the path ahead, which is so cool. So he talks about greatness is discovering your unique gifts and talents to, to pursue your meaningful mission and make you the maximum positive impact on the people around you.
And many times the reason that people don't pursue greatness is they don't have a clear, meaningful mission. So it's truly about figuring out how you can become authentic and make a unique contribution that makes people around you better and a better place. He also describes that there are really several fears that keep us from achieving our meaningful mission, the fear of failure, the fear of success, the [00:06:00] fear of what others think about you, and finally the fear of what you think about yourself.
So again, the fear of failure, the fear of success, the fear of what others think about you, and finally the fear of what you think about yourself. Really sat with those like what are my fears? What are your fears? And I think that was a really interesting journaling lesson. Again, this book took a lot to get through.
Basically. In the first chapter, he's breaking down why people are maybe not achieving or seeking greatness in chapter two. He step 1 is really breaking down and missing the meaningful mission. And basically, what he's saying here is that many times people don't have a clear path forward, or [00:07:00] they know what they want, but they don't know how to get there.
And we've talked about that a lot. So the purpose really needs to be your mission in life. And if you're not working towards that, you're just really going through that routine life. Boredom sets in. You may not be as sharp anymore. Intellectually, you're just really living to exist and. You don't have that purpose.
So what he says is that not having a clear mission fuels those fears that we just talked about. What if we're not good enough to achieve? What if we don't have what it takes? What if the problem is? What if we don't know where we're going? So when you don't have clarity, you're feeding those fears. So that was really interesting in the enemy of greatness is not having that meaningful mission and many people do struggle with this.
He talks a lot about that and it's hard to define that mission because it may seem impossible, [00:08:00] but the key to your meaningful mission for your life lies in your passions and strength. And he talks about really getting into where your heart is, and this goes back to a little more reflection. He asks a couple questions to get into your passion.
What lights you up? What makes you want to jump out of bed? If money were no object, what would you do in love? What would you do all day, every day, even if you didn't get paid to do it and what causes and experiences excite you. So that's how you really get into your meaningful mission. And he doesn't exercise called the perfect day.
So crafting your perfect day. And maybe it's a perfect week or a perfect month. If you have things that you wouldn't necessarily do every day, but you want to have in the month. And in this exercise, your. Basically going through the exercise of figuring out what that would be and then [00:09:00] adding some of those things that you can now to your daily life.
Another exercise that took a long time to do was to craft your own obituary. This took me a long time to do to really think about and sit with that. And it's about tapping into what are the things that if you don't do, you would regret, or what are the things that you're doing that you really want to highlight at the end of your life.
That was really interesting. And then he had an activity called find your sweet spot where it's really about finding your passion and finding how you would like to spend your time and what you, how you can integrate that into your daily life now. So then he talks a lot about the fears, the different fears.
So fear one failure fear to success. Many people are afraid of success and fear three judgment. [00:10:00] And then of course the dream killer is self doubt. And it was really interesting because when you look at the reasons that people fail and what their fears are, it's like a Venn diagram. You have failure, success, and judgment.
And then in the middle, it all sits in self doubt. And that's really the killer of the dreams because Once you start to doubt yourself, that's where you won't be able to achieve your dreams. So I loved this chapter, these chapters, he breaks down each of the fears. And if you're on YouTube, you can see me flipping through the pages.
I have them all like marked. And with fear, engaging greatness, as it relates to the fear of failure. He asked a few reflection questions. So to what extent do you struggle to overcome the fear of failure? How is this fear led you back from [00:11:00] wholeheartedly pursuing your meaningful mission?
And I think that's really critical that you sit with these questions. You can't just say, Oh, I'm going to get over the fear of failure today. I read this book and we're over it. That's unfortunately not how it works. I'm going to dog ear this page, because I really like those questions and come back to it.
And next they have that he has a fear of success, and he really does a great job of laying that out and. And many people wonder if it really is a fear of success, and it is it's the fear of what if I'm not enough, what if I don't know how to do this, and when he talks about this that if you only pursue growth.
Push and push past the fear and become authentic, then you can enjoy success. And so some of the questions that he asked to really sit with [00:12:00] our, do you have a fear of success is to what extent do you struggle to overcome the fear of success? How has this held you back? Hold heartedly pursuing your meaningful mission.
And so there's a lot of reflection throughout and. I encourage you to sit and do that. And then the next one is fear of judgment, and he talks a lot about ego. Ego is what can block you from the flow of abundance, you have to set boundaries. And either way you're being judged so you might as well go for your dreams and go for the thing you love is the advice he gives, and then of course sitting with those reflection questions of to what extent do you struggle to overcome fear.
Of judgment of others. And how is this held you back? And then he talks a lot about self doubt, which we know he already mentioned is the dream killer. And
he taught, one of the things is you're never truly ready. And that's where [00:13:00] he talks about how you need to get in the game in order to actually. Stomp out some of that self doubt and you can do that through a coach. You can do that on your own, but it's accelerated when you work with others. So I think this is a really good lesson that everybody struggles with self doubt, regardless of where they're at.
When I used to run and train for marathons, I'd be like, Oh, that person. Run so fast. It's so easy for them. No, it was easier for them to go faster, but they all had struggles as well. And I think that's where they're just in a different place on the spectrum. So that's what he's talking about in the fears.
And then he does a great job in chapter eight of. Your fear conversion toolkit. So he asks us to make a list of what we are afraid of. And that was really interesting. And then to [00:14:00] really formulate the fears. So to identify what are those like, write them down in I statements. So for example, I'm scared that if I speak in public, then I will stutter and sweat.
I will forget what I came to say and I'll look foolish and underprepared. But I don't learn how to embrace public speaking that I won't be able to pitch in front of investors, but I can't find investors and I'll never launch my business. I'll be stuck at this job. And that I hate forever. That's in the book.
So writing those out and then he talks about flipping it to the abundance. And so that's using your top 3 to 5 years you formulated and flipping it to. In abundance. So for example, the same example, I'm scared of public speaking say I know I have a message that will help a lot of people. I know that within me, I have everything I need to be a good public speaker with enough preparation and practice.
I can speak publicly and confidently. So flipping those [00:15:00] fear statements into abundance. And that's something. That this took a long time for me to do because, you have multiple fears and then you're writing what you truly fear and then flipping them, but it was so powerful. I truly felt different after doing that.
And then he has an extra another exercise called the magic minimization formula. And so this is when you have worry that pops up how you can minimize that. So the 1st 1 is analyzing the problem. The problem may be, I'm worried that if I don't pursue my passion, then I'll lose my job and they won't support me.
Oh, sorry. I'm worried if I pursue my passion, then I will lose my job because they won't support me doing this. And then you analyze the worst case scenario. I'm worried I'll lose my job. If I lose my job, I know other positions are available. I'll go on LinkedIn. I'll get a job. So there's a little more words there, but, and then minimizing the [00:16:00] problem is continuing from what will happen to say, this is really.
Like this one says, then I'll meet with a financial advisor and we'll work it out from there. And so it minimizes that. And so that exercise is really interesting and a different way of looking at it. And then he has a couple other exercises, like the self coaching solution. If you don't have a coach, how you may coach yourself through your fears and then the fear of sit down.
So fear isn't a boogeyman, it's human nature to avoid actions. And so as much as we want to ignore it, strike it. And so he talks about taking like quick action on your fears. So a lot of great exercises. He also has an altered ego locator, the joy conditioner. This is really a toolkit book and that's why it took me so long to get through.[00:17:00]
And then step 3 is all about healing your past. And what's really interesting he talks about in this part is that when we don't address trauma or situations that affected us. We just keep carrying it on and there's a lot of healing that needs to go on there. So he does give some great advice on how to heal your past and some actionable items like coping mechanisms.
He has the mind body check in exercise and he also has trigger your origin stories to really write down your memories and write your younger self a letter. So Really great activities in this section on healing your past. The next chapter is all about finding your identity and this one really hit home because many times people know who they are as children and then [00:18:00] they're pushed or encouraged to go different ways.
So he talks about you have to nurture your growth in the direction of your own meaningful mission or it'll never flow. It will never flow to where you want it to go. It'll just go where other people want you. And so some of the activities he has here are. Engaging greatness, your current identity, really figuring out where you're at and taking an inventory.
There's a great point is on page 159, and then writing a meaningful manifest the mission manifesto. And again, like I did all these exercises so this is a book you truly need to work. It's not something you can read and be done with, because it's definitely has a lot of worth and reflection if you want to do it I filled up pages in my journal on this.
And finding your identity and finding your mission. He has a lot of prompts on that, which is great. And then creating [00:19:00] your mantra. So he uses like the ability to create how you want your life to be, which is cool. Chapter 11, the mindset emotion cycle. In this chapter, he talks about the circle of life, and how thoughts behaviors and emotions, all flow and how you need to be able to get your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors in line in order to really pursue your mission. And he does do some great exercises in this chapter about optimizing the thought cycle. So he said, some people have emotions that influence thoughts. Some people are more analytical.
They have thoughts that influence feelings, but it's a loop and it's that cycle that we need to learn to take charge of our thoughts. And our emotions and. Get and then move forward and get unstuck. And that leads to our behavior. So that was a really interesting one. There's [00:20:00] a great exercise in there called the abundance matrix.
So I encourage you to do that one too. And then he gets into the game plan for. Greatness and picture an hourglass, if you will. So it gets thin in the middle, wide on the top, thin in the middle and wide on the bottom. And at the top is the greatness mindset, and that's driven by the meaningful mission.
And it turns fears into confidence, overcomes self doubt, heals past pains, creates a healthy identity and takes action with a game plan. And that's the goal is to have that greatness mindset. And the transformation zone, like, how you get there is really through commitment, decision and awareness. So commitment, decision and awareness will get you to the greatness mindset, but the powerless mindset, which is on the bottom is lacking the meaningful mission controlled by fear crippled by self doubt conceals [00:21:00] past pains defined by opinions of others and drifts towards complacency.
We want to get out of that powerless mindset, and we do that through awareness, deciding and making the commitment. And that's when we can step into that greatness mindset. And he has a lot of resources at the greatness mindset. com slash resources. If you haven't checked those out. And then he talks about asking courageous questions.
He actually suggests five courageous questions. This part was so powerful. So the first question is the purity question. If you were to be a hundred percent authentic to who you are, what would you do differently? If you were to be 100 percent authentic to who you are, what would you do different? Yeah, that took me a long time to work through.
And then the second one was the priority question. If you absolutely had to double your goal in the next [00:22:00] 30 days, what would be your first three moves? If you absolutely had to double your goal in the next 30 days, what would be your first three moves?
The next question, the possibility question, what would be possible for you if you could blank? And that's where you insert your goal, dream, or mission. The possibility question, what would be possible for you if you could blank?
The next is the passion question, what would it feel like if you could blank? And that's where you insert your goal, dream, or mission. The passion question, what would it feel like if you could blank? And then finally, the prosperity question. If you won the lottery today, what would you do next? If you won the lottery today, what would you do next?
Yeah, a lot to think about, right? And that's where it pulls out your true [00:23:00] passion and your mission. And so those courageous questions are something that he encourages you to keep asking yourself often. And then to give yourself permission to move forward with those. So many times people are in this prison of their own making their.
They've got their to do list, the things they create to that tie them down so they can't move forward with their goals. And he talks about giving yourself permission to get out of that and that you are in charge of you. So some of the cool exercises in this chapter are a matter of life or death, where you can think about what you would accomplish if it was life and death, and then the grant yourself permission activity, which I hope we do.
Then he gives us a challenge to accept the challenge. And that's where he wants us to accept the challenge of making the uncomfortable fun and [00:24:00] giving yourself permission to tackle what you want. And the value of this challenge of doing it in 30 60 or 90 days get you into action. So he's not saying accomplish your life goals and 30 6090 days but he's.
He's wanting you to step forward into that by defining what those are. And so he has a couple of really cool exercises pursue the impossible that helps you identify your challenge. Take action and making the uncomfortable fun. He has a 30 day game plan activity, but it all leads to really defining greatness goals.
And many times we've talked about this, people are setting results as their goals and greatness goals aren't, I want to have a clean house every week. Greatness goals are bigger. We call them bold goals. And those are the things that he wants to step. Asks you to take the challenge and step into them [00:25:00] and he does give a GPS goal setting plan.
That helps you really think about how to get into these areas. But one of the biggest suggestions is enlisting support accountability to yourself and accountability to someone else is the quickest way to throw gas on. Achieving your goals, because when somebody is waiting for you, or somebody needs something from you, it does put that feeling that you need to show up.
He talks a lot about enlisting support in some of the closing chapters, and then he talks about getting stuff done. Have you ever shot a basketball? He asks, it's a work of art and it doesn't get done if you don't do it often. He does give a word of advice, which I love. Don't let the tension between where you are now and what you want and what you don't know hold you [00:26:00] back from where you want to go or who you're becoming.
So asking people for help is a big message in this book. And he does talk about. Has a couple strategies for how you do that. And then finally, he closes the book was celebrating that you are enough that you don't need to do all these other things you truly can just focus on your mission and all the other things will.
Fall off or they'll still get done, but maybe somebody else will do them and he talks a lot about creating a black brag list to celebrate your activities. So it's a really great book. If you haven't read this book, I encourage you to read it, but please know. I have a ton of tabs here please know this is a book that you are.
going to need to work. It's buy a journal, buy something new, the, to start writing because you are going to have a ton of reflection. So I [00:27:00] hope you enjoyed this book club episode. Looking forward to the next book. Let me see here for February. You can find out the books at saramayer.com/joinbookclub
if you haven't joined yet, and once you're in the book club, there's another link that has all the books that we are reading, and I definitely encourage you to check it out. I am jumping on the website here and our next book for February. is Be Seen by Jen Gottlieb. And we're excited about that book. So definitely grab that.
And then our book for March is Your Best Year Ever by Michael Hyatt. Because March is when people start to fall off their goals. And we want to jump into that. [00:28:00] So we do have a live discussion once a month. It is the 1, 2, 3, 4, Week of the month. I think it's the January 22nd for this month. And once you sign up to book club, you'll get an email every week.
That's when we are holding the live discussions and we'd love to have you. So jump into the book club. We'd love to see you and enjoy the books for the next couple months, because it's time to crush your goals and everything that gets in the way. So let's get to it.
Sara Mayer: Thank you for tuning into the bold goal crusher podcast where we crush goals and everything that gets in the way. I always love to support my community.
Sara Mayer: I look forward to seeing you crush your goals this year.
