The School of Greatness

You keep making the same mistake because you haven't failed enough yet. That sounds harsh until you hear the reasoning, and then it feels like relief.

Shi Heng Yi, a 35th generation Shaolin master who has practiced kung fu since age four, sat down with Lewis and explained why manifestation stalls for most people. You can touch the hot plate five times and it still hurts, he says, and one day you simply stop. Lewis admits he touched it about 100 times across 15 to 20 years of relationships before he changed.

Then he gets practical. He walks through RAIN, his four step method for a restless or doubting mind: recognize it, accept it, investigate it, and stop identifying with it. He also teaches you to build a skill in focused cycles, 7 days for skin and 30 days for muscle, with more time the deeper the change goes.

The cup is the part that stays with you: you arrive empty, and then your parents and your teachers pour their ideas in until you are chasing a life that never came from you. His mindset advice is simple: learn to empty the cup.

You will finish this one wanting to pick a single skill to practice and asking which of your goals are actually yours. And you might sit with gratitude a little longer tonight.

Shaolin Spirit: The Way to Self-Mastery

Shi Heng Yi's Website

Shi Heng Yi's Instagram

Shi Heng Yi's YouTube

In this episode you will:

• Break the cycle of repeating the same painful mistakes before they cost you another decade
• Learn Shi Heng Yi's RAIN method for moving through doubt, restlessness and other inner hindrances
• Empty your cup of borrowed expectations so you can pursue a vision that is truly yours
• Build lasting skills through focused cycles of practice matched to how deep the change goes
• Cultivate gratefulness as a daily embodied practice instead of something you only talk about

For more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1993

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Stress can give you a real heart attack even when your arteries are perfectly healthy. Doctors call it broken heart syndrome, and it can follow losing someone you love or even winning the lottery.

Dr. Tara Narula, a board certified cardiologist and chief medical correspondent for ABC News, sat down with Lewis and shared what her patients say when she asks how they are. Almost nobody mentions blood pressure. They tell her they are overwhelmed, and many of them cry.

She knows that fear from the inside. At 22, in medical school, she lost vision in part of her right eye and spent the first weeks reading every stumble as proof of something worse. A note card from her mom with the Serenity Prayer pulled her out of the spiral.

In The Healing Power of Resilience she lays out eight tools, and she walks Lewis through acceptance and flexible thinking, then makes the case for purpose and real social connection. She also explains why burnout is the final phase of chronic stress, and why a study across 52 countries found chronically stressed people are twice as likely to have a heart attack.

You will finish this one wanting to call a friend for coffee and start practicing resilience before you need it.

The Healing Power of Resilience: A New Prescription for Health and Well-Being

Dr. Tara's Instagram

In this episode you will:

• Learn Dr. Tara Narula's eight resilience tools for turning a stress response into a resilient one
• Discover how stress alone can trigger a real heart attack, even in people with perfectly healthy arteries
• Recognize when your fight or flight dial is stuck on high before burnout makes you sick
• Reframe a frightening diagnosis as a trauma you can accept and build a meaningful new life after
• Build resilience before you need it, using the daily practices that help your body heal faster

For more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1992

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A marriage can end over a bag of granola, a full year before anyone says the word divorce.

James Sexton, a divorce lawyer for over two decades, sat down with Lewis and told the story of a client whose husband always quietly restocked her favorite granola. One day the bag ran out and he never noticed. She knew right then that it was over.

He calls marriage a technology that fails about 53% of the time, and says most couples put more thought into the wedding cake than into what they are signing. In his book If You're in My Office, It's Already Too Late: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together, he shares what works: send the hard email while the hurt is still small, and get a prenup even when you feel certain. He also explains why infidelity usually starts with lost connection long before anyone cheats.

The line I keep repeating to people: the opposite of love is indifference. And he still believes in marriage. He compares it to the lottery, where the prize is so good that it is worth buying a ticket.

You will finish this one wanting to do some small, kind thing for your partner tonight without asking for credit. If you care about relationships and honest communication, you will probably start a conversation you have been putting off.

How to Stay in Love

If You're In My Office, It's Already Too Late: A Divorce Lawyer's Guide to Staying Together

James on Instagram

James on YouTube

Better Call Sexton Podcast

In this episode, you’ll:

• Rethink the prenup as a conversation about caring for each other, not a bet against your marriage
• Understand the Go Without or Go Elsewhere dynamic behind infidelity, and why sharing desires openly protects your connection
• Discover why James Sexton treats marriage as a technology, with trade-offs to understand before you sign up
• Learn the Hit Send Now habit for voicing what bothers you while it's still small enough to fix
• See how small, unaddressed disconnections erode a relationship long before anyone calls a divorce lawyer
• Get the Yours, Mine and Ours approach to money, so financial stress stops turning into resentment

For more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1991

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People tell you the truth when they feel safe, and one raised eyebrow can shut them down.

Brad Beeler, who spent 25 years as a US Secret Service agent and polygraph examiner, sat down with Lewis and explained how he got a couple thousand people to open up about the worst things they had ever done. His rule is simple: never punish the disclosure. He once watched a suspect go silent the second a flash of contempt crossed his face.

You will hear why a neutral face reads as a threat in first impressions and why lie detection is close to a coin flip, with people getting it right only 54% of the time. Brad watches your feet to see how comfortable you are, and he treats every cue as a check engine light to follow up on later. He also shares the cases he got wrong, including the day he fixated on a 6 foot 4 biker while the quiet man in front of him kept saying “that's not it.”

His book, Tell Me Everything, grew out of those mistakes, and the lessons carry straight into your relationships and your parenting. Swap “why did you do that” for “help me understand” and give the other person an off ramp to save face. Lewis admits how hard that is when someone has hurt you, and Brad admits he lost his cool with his own son's coach.

After this one, you will catch your own face in the next hard conversation. And you will probably ask one more question before you say “me too.”

Tell Me Everything: A Secret Service Agent's Proven Strategies for Earning Trust, Revealing the Truth, and Communicating with Anyone

Brad's Website

Brad's Instagram

In this episode you will:

• Discover why a Secret Service polygraph expert says spotting lies from body language barely beats a coin flip
• Create the judgment free environment that makes people feel safe telling you the truth
• Learn the Buddy framework for giving someone an off-ramp to confess without excusing what they did
• Build instant rapport with Brad Beeler's FEEL method: family, education, employment, leisure
• Treat first impressions as a hypothesis so horns and halos stop steering you wrong
• Protect your face from flashing contempt and shutting down a hard disclosure

For more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1990

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You can win four Super Bowls and still spend every game afraid of losing.

Terry Bradshaw, a Pro Football Hall of Famer and longtime host of Fox NFL Sunday, sat down with Lewis and admitted he was never confident as an NFL quarterback. Fear cost him his throwing motion, and he completed just 51.9% of his passes. Underneath it all were his mother’s words when he was eight: you’ll never amount to anything.

He talks openly about depression and ADHD, which he didn’t learn about until after football. He also talks about three divorces, and the moment it hit him that the common factor was him. Three years of counseling and a hard look in the mirror later, he married his best friend, a woman who makes him talk about what he’d rather bury.

In his memoir Looking for Terry, and in this conversation, he explains why he sobbed over his dog but not his mother, and how his wife taught him to say no. He also shares how his faith held through cancer twice in one year, and why he cares more about kindness than greatness.

You’ll come away gentler with your own fear, and maybe ready to ask for the help you’ve been putting off.

 Looking for Terry: A Memoir

The Bradshaw Family Cookbook: Our Favorite Recipes for Game Days, Weekdays, and Any Day

Keep It Simple

It's Only a Game

Terry on Instagram

Terry on Facebook

In this episode you will:

• Discover how Terry Bradshaw turned childhood criticism and harsh coaching into fuel instead of letting it define him
• Break the relationship pattern that repeats when you finally admit the common factor is you
• Practice mirror evaluation, the self-honesty exercise Terry uses to see himself clearly without inflating or tearing himself down
• Recognize depression and ADD as manageable conditions by talking them out rather than hiding them
• Build a marriage grounded in friendship, where saying no is allowed and hard conversations happen
• Redefine greatness around kindness and hope rather than trophies or money

For more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1989

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Four out of ten people can't put their hands on $400 in an emergency, and almost none of them know why.

David Bach, who spent nine years at Morgan Stanley and co-founded an advisory firm with more than $7 billion on its platform, sat down with Lewis and made the case that budgets fail everyone while automation quietly works. His book The Latte Factor tells the story through a broke travel editor in Brooklyn who works 70 hours a week and never goes anywhere. He also explains the Rule of 72, why a new car payment eats three months of your year, and how selling a home you live in can hand you a quarter million dollars the government never touches.

The part that will stay with you has nothing to do with money. His grandmother was broke at 30, saved 50 cents a week in a coffee can, and helped him buy his first share of McDonald's stock when he was seven. On her deathbed at 86, he asked her about regrets. Every single one was a fork in the road where she chose the safe path.

Then Lewis puts his own finances on the table and gets told what he's still missing. David talks about sitting in a hospital waiting room days before this conversation, sure his wife was having a stroke, and what that did to his sense of what actually matters. His last piece of advice is about forgiving someone you stopped speaking to.

You will pull out your phone and look at your subscriptions. You may also call someone you've been avoiding for years.

The Automatic Millionaire, 20th Anniversary Edition: A Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich

The Latte Factor: Why You Don't Have to Be Rich to Live Rich

Debt Free for Life: The Finish Rich Plan for Financial Freedom

David's Website

David's Instagram

In this episode you will:

• Automate your wealth so money grows while you sleep, instead of relying on a budget you will abandon within a month
• Discover the Latte Factor with David Bach and see how small daily spending quietly costs you a million dollars
• Apply the Rule of 72 to know exactly how long your money takes to double
• Escape the paycheck to paycheck trap that traps seven out of ten Americans who cannot find four hundred dollars in an emergency
• Reject get rich quick thinking and build real wealth over decades by owning quality assets you never touch
• Forgive the people you resent before that stored pain turns into the regret you carry to the end

For more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1988

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The questions you ask on autopilot might be the reason you feel lonely in a room full of people.

Vanessa Van Edwards, a behavioral researcher who has studied master conversationalists for two decades, sat down with Lewis to talk about why so much of our talking leaves us empty. One in six people worldwide are affected by loneliness, and she believes the way we talk to AI is quietly changing the way we talk to each other.

In her book Conversation, she lays out three levels of connection, from basic facts all the way up to the private story you tell yourself about yourself. She explains why “Been busy?” is the single worst question in small talk, and why asking for stories beats asking for facts every time.

The most honest moment comes when Lewis asks what she still struggles with. Her answer is charging for her own work, a belief she traces back to her early twenties, and you get to hear a level three conversation happen live.

You will walk into your next dinner or team call ready to say “tell me more” and actually mean it. Pick one person you love and ask them a better question tonight. You might be surprised how deep your relationships can go.

Pre-Order: Conversation: How to Connect with Anyone & Make Every Interaction Count

Cues: Master the Secret Language of Charismatic Communication

Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People

Vanessa on Instagram

Vanessa on YouTube

Vanessa's Website

In this episode you will:

• Replace dead end small talk like “Been busy?” with questions that invite stories instead of facts
• Discover Dr. Dan McAdams’ three levels of connection to move any conversation past surface chatter
• Become a dream builder who adds energy to other people’s ideas instead of poking holes in them
• Signal warmth and competence through your body language and voice so people believe what you bring
• Rewrite the self narrative holding you back by shifting from contamination stories to redemption stories
• Break the loneliness cycle by practicing real conversation skills that AI can never replace

For more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1987

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Every stage you never took is the only real failure. The rest is just data.

Jo Koy, the comedian who has sold out SoFi Stadium and won Showtime at the Apollo, sat down with Lewis and told the story of driving Vegas to LA with a broken taillight for a $40 set, getting a ticket both ways. He rode a Greyhound nine hours home from an unpaid audition. He walked to the front of a line wrapped around a building with a fake resume and a headshot his dad took, and asked a promoter for five minutes she did not have to give him.

She gave it to him anyway. Three weeks after crawling through a curtain as an unannounced warm-up act at Def Comedy Jam, he won the Apollo. Years later, when Netflix passed on him, he paid for the special himself, shot it, and brought it back to them. They bought it, and then he broke Mariah Carey's attendance record in Hawaii with 22,000 tickets.

He still prints flyers. Ten thousand of them, for sold-out shows, put on windshields by hand. He talks about his mom rolling lumpia to sell at work during her divorce, about his stepdad teaching him that a messy bed is a messy head, about hugging his son on stage in the same arena where he watched Eddie Murphy at fifteen.

This one will make you uncomfortable in the best way, because you will start counting the lines you did not walk to the front of. Jo's definition of greatness is doing what you love for absolutely nothing, and he says he is still asleep, still dreaming the thing he dreamed at nine.

Mixed Plate: Chronicles of an All-American Combo

Jo's Website

Jo's Instagram

Jo's YouTube

Watch Jo Koy: Blue in the Face

In this episode you will:

• Hear how Jo Koy talked his way backstage with a fake resume and turned one stolen set into a career
• Reframe bombing as proof you showed up, because you win the moment you accept the challenge and fail
• Overcome the insecurity of broken teeth and hair loss that shadowed him for decades
• Bet on yourself the way Jo Koy did when Netflix passed and he funded his own special anyway
• Redefine greatness as doing what you love when nobody is paying you a dime for it

For more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1986

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You already know where to start. What scares you is finding out you might not be good enough once you do.

Lewis goes solo here on the fear that hides inside preparation. He read every page of a 500-page book before his first Tony Robbins interview and still walked in nervous, and that nervousness never actually went away.

Then there was Kobe Bryant. A 5pm phone call the night before, an interview the next morning, 20 minutes, a publicist handing over a list of banned topics, other crews waiting in the hallway. With almost no prep time, it became one of the best conversations Lewis has ever recorded, because he stopped performing his homework and just stayed present and curious.

He gets honest about launching The School of Greatness with an iPhone and no idea what he was doing, asking questions he thought were basic and dumb. Confidence came after the action, never before it. Perfectionism and procrastination wear the same costume, and self-trust only gets built by surviving the attempt.

Ask yourself the uncomfortable question: are you still preparing because the work requires it, or because preparing feels safer than beginning? Whatever you have been circling for months, you will want to take one real step on it today.

Make Money Easy

The School of Greatness

The Greatness Mindset

The Mask of Masculinity

In this episode you will:

• Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects.
• Spot the moment preparation quietly turns into a sophisticated form of procrastination
• Move through the terror of not feeling ready by understanding that confidence arrives after the action, not before it
• Steal the mindset that let Lewis turn a Kobe Bryant interview booked the night before into one of his best conversations ever
• Answer the question underneath your stalling: what are you actually waiting for
• Build real self trust by proving to yourself that failure never gets the final word

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What if your body is already telling you the work you do every day is wrong for you?

Jonathan Fields, founder of Good Life Project and a former securities lawyer, sat down with Lewis to answer the question so many of us carry around: what should I do with my life? He shares how 100 hour weeks at a big law firm ended with an infection eating a hole through his intestine and a trip to emergency surgery.

From there you hear why burnout keeps climbing, why an existential crisis is really a crisis of meaning, and how collapsed boundaries between home and work make it worse. Lewis opens up about eczema that cleared within days once he stopped abandoning himself in his relationships and career.

Jonathan walks through the ideas in his book Sparked: Discover Your Unique Imprint for Work That Makes You Come Alive, and Lewis learns he is a Maven who hates Essentialist work. You also get Jonathan’s blunt question for finding purpose: what should I just stop doing entirely?

You will finish this one ready to take the free Sparketype assessment and finally chase the work that makes you feel alive.

Sparked: Discover Your Unique Imprint for Work that Makes You Come Alive

How to Live a Good Life: Soulful Stories, Surprising Science, and Practical Wisdom

Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt into Fuel for Brilliance

Career Renegade: How to Make a Great Living Doing What You Love

Jonathan's Website

Take the Sparktype test

In this episode you will:

• Discover your Sparketype to uncover the unique imprint for work that makes you come alive
• Recognize the physical warning signs your body sends when your work or relationships fall out of alignment
• Break free from burnout by rebuilding the boundaries between work and home that have collapsed
• Question the hidden assumptions that keep you stuck in a rut using Katie Byron's The Work
• Eliminate the tasks that drain you so you can focus on what truly matters
• Close the gap between your felt and expressed potential without sabotaging yourself once you finally align

For more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1985

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