Aubrey Marcus

Interview With Aubrey Marcus

TSOG – Ep614 – The School of Greatness with Lewis Howes

Lewis Howes:                      This is episode number 614 with Aubrey Marcus.

Welcome to The School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro-athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur and each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now, let the class begin.

Oh, my beautiful friends, thank you so much for being here. I’m so glad you’re here, and I know that you are seeking more in your life. I know that you are a demand for greater things in your life. And if you are, then you’re in the right place, because that’s what we’re all about here at The School of Greatness.

And I have the pleasure, today, of interviewing my good friend Aubrey Marcus. We did this as a live podcast interview. I’ve never done a live podcast interview with an actual audience. It’s always just me and the guest and my producer and videographer and maybe a publicist in the room, but I’ve never done a live audience, so this was interesting.

And a big shout out and a thank you to Express! for hosting this, Express! clothing line, they did an incredible job putting on this event at South by Southwest and they had me come in there and host The School of greatness podcast live for their audience at home and for the people who were there. We had probably about a hundred people there and pretty interesting set-up.

So, if you hear any background noise, you shouldn’t hear too much, but if you hear any, then just know we were outside and there was music playing at different places around at South By, but we actually got into some powerful stuff. I was kind of worried, seeing as it was a live audience, how we would do, but man, we got in the flow, we got in the zone, and it was powerful. We really dove in to a couple of key things that he believes you should do every single day that will drastically improve the quality of your life.

He’s got a new book out called, Own The Day, Own Your Life. It’s optimised practices for waking, working, learning, eating, training, playing, sleeping and sex. And throughout we talk about what are these key strategies on how to optimise your day? And this is a man who is done that in his business, in his life, in his fitness, in his health, all these different areas of his life and he’s studied it with the masters.

And he’s gone to the deepest darkest places in his mind and practiced a lot of different things that I don’t have the courage to practice and has found some true wisdom on the outside. And for those who don’t know who he is, he is the founder and CEO of Onnit, a lifestyle brand based on holistic health philosophies he calls, “total human optimisation”.

He hosts the Aubrey Marcus Podcast, which is another motivational destination for conversations with some of the brightest minds in business and science and relationships and spirituality. It’s got over 10 million downloads on iTunes as well, and his book is called, Own The Day, Own Your Life. And we really go there.

And at the end we open it up for live questions. It’s the first time I’ve had live questions on the podcast as well. And a former guest showed up and asked a question. Esther Perel, asked a question about sex and open relationships and boy did we go there. So, get ready for some juicy, powerful stuff. And, as always, take a screenshot of this and tag me on Instagram, @LewisHowes and @aubreymarcus, let us know what you thought about this. The link is lewishowes.com/614 and I am super pumped for this one!

Before we dive in, big shout out to the fan of the week, who says, “The School of Greatness is exactly that! Lewis has the most amazing humans on the show. Each episode is basically an audiobook. It’s absolutely invaluable. Thank you so much, Lewis and team, for creating this. YY Tiffany Lake.”

So, Tiffany Lake, thank you so much for the shout out, you are the Fan of the Week. And, as always, if you guys want to be shouted out on the podcast, make sure to leave us a review for a chance to be the Fan of the Week, and get that chance. You can do it over on the podcast app, just go to The School of Greatness, leave a review right there, and we check them out each and every day.

Also, a big thank you to our sponsor, Shopify. Do you have an online store for your business, or are you thinking about creating one? If you do, if you’re looking to launch a business, I’m telling you, Shopify is a game-changer. I used them for one of my online brands and here’s why I love it: It’s efficient, it’s easy for my customers, I can control everything in the process as well. That’s why I use it for one of my online brands.

They’ve created an amazing system that is easy for the business owner and a great experience for the customer. I recommend Shopify, because selling online has never been easier, faster or more scalable. And these guys have made the best option out there to support you for your business online.

So, if you’ve been thinking about getting an online business going, then make sure to check out shopify.com/greatness and get started on it with a free 30-day trial. That’s right! A free 30-day trial. Tweet me your store link, because I’d love to see what you’re working on as well. Make sure to go to shopify.com/greatness for a free 30-day trial, today.

Again, a big thank you to Express! Make sure to check out express.com or go to a local express store to check out some of the latest sweet deals on shorts, Tee’s and warm weather essentials right now, and other great clothes to help you increase your style and increase your confidence. Check it out, express.com

Alright guys, I’m pumped for this one, and without further ado, let me introduce to you my good buddy, my friend, the one and only Aubrey Marcus.

Welcome to, again, the Express! Lounge. Thank you guys so much for being here, appreciate you guys! We’ve got the local legend, Aubrey Marcus here who’s got a company called Onnit, and his own podcast as well, the Aubrey Marcus Podcast. So we’re excited to have a conversation with you guys for a little bit, and thanks for sticking around with us.

I’m excited because I’ve known Aubrey for… five years?

Aubrey Marcus:                  Yeah, as long as your podcast has been running man!

Lewis Howes:                       Five years. When I launched… Let’s just have a show of hands, how many people have listened to The School of Greatness Podcast? Just so I’m aware, The School of Greatness Podcast, if you’ve listened to it? Awesome.

So, I started it five years ago, and he reached out like within the first three months. We’ve been pretty close for about five years now. And we’ve been through a lot together, in the business world, in the podcast world, in health stuff we’ve gone through, in personal stuff we’ve gone through. We’ve gone through a lot. And so I wanted to have a conversation with Aubrey today.

He’s also got a new book out, next month, called Own The Day, Own Your Life. I love the tag line: Optimise practices for waking, working, learning, eating, training, playing, sleeping, and sex. So I’m excited about this, because Aubrey’s got a unique approach to living, and living an optimal life. And he’s all about how can we constantly learn ways to improve our mindset, our health, our personal relationships and figure out this crazy thing called life.

So, welcome, man!

Aubrey Marcus:                  Thank you, brother! I appreciate that.

Lewis Howes:                       I’m excited about this!

Aubrey Marcus:                  Yeah! Me too, man. I kind of feel like we’re all born into this biological machine and we don’t really have an instruction manual so we’re just trying to figure it out, and the more external pressure that’s out there, the more responsibilities you have, the more family responsibilities you have, the less time you have, the more you have to do, the more it puts pressure on the machine.

And a lot of things you think you have to sacrifice, a lot of things kind of slip, and so trying to put together the definitive instruction manual for the human machine to live a fully expressed life, was kind of the idea behind that.

Lewis Howes:                       Fully expressed life. The challenge is, we were just talking about this beforehand: even though you have this successful business that is crushing it, you’re super in shape, you know, you’re one of the fittest human beings I know, you’ve got all your creative projects that you’re working on, you’ve got a great intimate relationship, you’ve got great friendships.

You know, from the outside looking in it might look like that you’ve got a lot of things figured out, but we were just talking about how you still struggle with certain things. You’re like, “I’m going through a challenging patch.” Even though he’s launching his own clothing line, he’s got a book coming out, he’s got his own charity foundation. You’re doing everything, creatively, that you could probably think of. There’s nothing limiting you from doing something, is that right?

Aubrey Marcus:                  No, that’s true.

Lewis Howes:                       But, we still face these inner challenges, these inner battles that we all struggle with, I think.

Aubrey Marcus:                  I think it’s a fallacy, it’s a mistake, any time you look externally and you think, “Oh, man! If I only had that person’s life! If I was only in there,” because everybody has their own relative experience of what they’re going through, and the harder you push, the more you drive yourself, from whatever starting point you had, however hard you pushed, resistance is going to push back, and resistance is going to find the cracks in the foundation. It’s that weight.

And different things that are out of alignment will start to be painful, like putting pressure on a fracture on a bone. The more you push on that bone, the more that nerve ending’s going to shoot up a signal and say, “Hey, you better fix this, or you’re going to increase in pain.” So, you have the choice then, you either numb it out, distract yourself, you know, have some drinks, do whatever else you want to do, or you get to the root of the problem, which is somewhere in the psyche.

Lewis Howes:                       Do you think we’ll ever be able to get to the root of the problem? When we always face a new level of challenge, so you might conquer the problem, but then you’ve got to go out there’s something new, something greater, something bigger, or a different challenge in an intimate relationship. Can you ever just, “I’m happy, and I’ve figured out how to be happy and I’m good to go now.”?

Aubrey Marcus:                  I want to believe that’s yes! I really do, and I think you can get closer, I think the lighter pressure reveals the bigger cracks, the heavier pressure reveals some of the deeper, smaller cracks, and then you keep working your way down, and I believe there is a solid foundation under there, and that solid foundation is typically love.

And if you can get all the way back to love because there’s no cracks in love. It can’t crack, it can’t break, it can’t be divided and if you can get back to that state of love and gratitude and forgiveness for yourself, appreciation for the world, if you can get there, then you can be happy, truly, through and through. But it’s not going to be any of the external s**t that you accomplish that does that, it’s going to be the external s**t putting pressure on you internally that’s going to allow you to reach that next level.

Lewis Howes:                       Right. So what’s the biggest challenge you think you’re going to face and everyone’s going to face in maintaining that level of happiness, or inner fulfilment?

Aubrey Marcus:                  I think the ego is the motherf**r, man. It’s the thing that really limits out happiness, because the ego is a fear-based organism, it’s always judging itself based in relative position to other people, and other things. It’s only happy when it’s doing something compared to something else. And so, it’s always afraid, it’s always lacking. There’s always someone doing it better.

Lewis Howes:                       Comparison, too. A lot of comparison.

Aubrey Marcus:                  Yeah. All comparison, all comparison. And, it’s a slippery thing, the ego. It’s hard to get a handle on what it is and where it is, and it’ll retreat to the places that you’re strong. And this is something I’ve found out. You think about the ego being vulnerable in the places you’re weak, like maybe if you’re a small guy and maybe your ego would be concerned about your physical strength, but if you know that you’re small and know that that’s your weakness, that’s not where the ego retreats to.

But if you think of yourself as really smart, you know, that’s where your ego’s going to have the stronghold. Like, if the barbarians are at the gates, the ego retreats to your intellect, and then when something challenges your intellect and your ego gets threatened on your strong part, that’s when your whole system starts to get really, really shaky.

And so, that’s been an interesting journey for me, is, it’s easier to surrender the parts where, “Oh, yeah, I know, I’m not good at that,” but the things that I think I’m really good at, when I find out, “Oh, maybe I suck at those too, relatively,” when that’s under attack, then you really, really get tested.

Lewis Howes:                       What’s a ritual or something that we can do to try to maintain a level of not allowing that to be under attack, and when it is under attack, what can we revert back to so that we stay grounded or stay humble or stay fulfilled? Because I think a lot of us face that challenge.

Aubrey Marcus:                  Yeah. It’s something that you talk about a lot, man, because it’s taking the focus off of yourself and [putting] the focus on the rest of the world.

Lewis Howes:                       Service.

Aubrey Marcus:                  Service. Because if you’re focussed on yourself and trying to repair that ego, if it’s under enough of attack, you’ll never be able to repair it. It’ll squirt around, it’ll try to build itself up, it’ll buff itself up like a bird who’s fanning its feathers out, it’ll strut around, it’ll make different manoeuvres, it’ll try to hide in a different spot, it’s all different ways to know hell. You know, it’s never going to be really, really satisfied.

But if you focus on service, “What am I bringing to the world, what can I offer?” and then have that kind of warrior ethos, where it’s, “I’m here to be of service. And if I fail and if I die in battle being of service, so be it,” and out on my shield I go.

Lewis Howes:                       Not literal battle, but yes.

Aubrey Marcus:                  Yeah, exactly, but let’s say you’re trying to help somebody and you fail. You’re trying to raise money, you don’t get any. That, to me, is going out on your shield. If you gave it everything you had, and it didn’t quite work out, you know, okay. Especially if that motivation wasn’t yourself, it was for someone else, then die that metaphorical warrior’s death, where you’ve been slain on the battle field in service of your country, in service of the people you love.

Lewis Howes:                       What do you think we should be thinking about more often, throughout our day, whether it be in the morning, or just throughout our day to support us in achieving that level of inner peace and fulfilment, but also, helping us achieve the things that we’re striving to achieve out in the world?

Aubrey Marcus:                  That’s a good question, because I think, kind of the premise of the book is that it’s the accumulation of a lot of little things. I think all too often we focus on that one thing, like, “What’s the one thing I could do? Alright, well, sacrifice carbohydrates for healthy fats.” That’s a good thing, but you’ll also need to be focussing on getting still, finding moments of mindfulness, connecting with friends and family and lovers and your tribe. And getting some sleep and having good sex and moving your body. Everything’s connected.

Lewis Howes:                       Everything’s adding up, yeah. What’s the thing that you are not doing enough of that you know would support you?

Aubrey Marcus:                  Honestly, a big thing that makes a good day, vs not a good day, is exposure to cold. Like Wim Hof style.

Lewis Howes:                       You mean it’s not a good day if you’re not exposed to cold?

Aubrey Marcus:                  It’s not as good a day. There’s something about that, not only pushing yourself. I do it early in the morning, and you can either do it in the shower, by start with a warm shower, start doing the Wim Hof breathing, which starts to hyper-oxygenate the body, also has a lot of health benefits, and then turning that shower nozzle cold.

Lewis Howes:                       For how long?

Aubrey Marcus:                  For about three minutes is what you want to do. All the way cold. And if you have a cold pool or a cold bath, you can do that. But it’s twofold. One: it’s going to reduce your chronic stress, so norepinephrine goes up, adrenaline goes up and it drops your cortizol, so it drops the baseline of stress that we all carry all the time. But the other thing is, it’s that moment right before you turn that nozzle, where every part of you is like, “Nah, not today.” You know, fear! You’re like, “I don’t want to do this!”

Lewis Howes:                       “I don’t want to do that!” You turn it off suddenly like, “Ha! It’s cold!”

Aubrey Marcus:                  Exactly, exactly! Even though you know it’s not going to hurt you. Even though you know it’s going to benefit you. It’s going to develop cold shock proteins, it’s going to help your immune system. You know, people exposed to cold get 43% less respiratory infections. It’s opposite of the old wives tales that we’ve heard, like, “Don’t go out in the cold, you’ll get sick.” Regular, mediated exposure to cold is actually going to help your immune system. So, with all those benefits it’s going to boost the immune system. The more you do it.

Lewis Howes:                       Yeah. Maybe if it was, you know, you’re here and then you went out into the cold, and you were there for a long time and you’re not wearing clothes, you’re going to get sick, but three minutes at a time, over time, is going to support it.

Aubrey Marcus:                  Acute stress, rather than chronic stress. Like if you’re chronically cold all day because you’re freezing, it’s too much burden, too much energy burden on your body. But if you do… We’re built for acute stress, short periods of dealing with hard s**t, so that really, really helps.

But it’s also that mental thing. You get over that first bout of fear and you start to think of yourself a little bit differently that day. “Oh, I am kind of a superhero!”

Lewis Howes:                       I can take it. I’m just going to ask the audience really quickly, if you’re on Facebook or here, how many of you expose yourself to cold on a daily basis? Just raise your hand if you do. A few people in the back. The few crazy, extreme people in the back, yeah.

That’s interesting. You know, I’ve studied the stuff of Wim Hof and I’ve had him on and I’ve exposed myself to cold, ice baths, I’ve done those trainings, but I don’t do it daily. You think that if we do this daily, between one to three minutes, I’m assuming, even a minute of this is probably helpful. It will give you a better day. That one thing.

Aubrey Marcus:                  Unequivocally. That’s the thing, to me, that I’m always riding on the edge. I mean, I do a lot of the other things in the book, obviously getting movement in, getting some sunlight in. There’s a ton of things.

Lewis Howes:                       Yeah, stretching, everything.

Aubrey Marcus:                  Yeah, but that one particular thing is the easiest thing and the biggest lever for me, that changes the game. Mentally, physically, emotionally, across the board.

Lewis Howes:                       What happens when you don’t do it in the morning, when you’re just rushed and you forget to do it?

Aubrey Marcus:                  Well, if I don’t do it in the morning, not only do I not get the benefits, I’m generally a little bit more stressed. I generally have a little more inflammation. It’s great for chronic inflammation, too. So, I’m a little more tired, I have a little more brain fog. But I also know, somewhere in the back of my mind, I wimped out today.

Lewis Howes:                       You went short on yourself. You sold out.

Aubrey Marcus:                  I went short. That pool was nice and cold and ready for a few laps. That shower ready to pour that cold water on me. What did I say? “Ooh-hoo, no! I’m not ready for that today!”

Lewis Howes:                       “I want to be comfortable today. I want to be relaxed, I don’t want to deal with the stress.”

Aubrey Marcus:                  Yeah. So, it’s that double action of both the physical and the mental/emotional.

Lewis Howes:                       So, you believe, when we have the discipline to put ourselves through controlled stress for a few minutes, it’s going to give us extreme benefits the rest of the day.

Aubrey Marcus:                  No doubt. Because it’s the same thing, like when we’re thinking about whether we want to work out or not, right? Or sitting around thinking, “I really should go out and take that run, or really should go out and take that workout.” We know we’re going to feel better when we do it. We know we’re going to be better.

But what is that part of ourself that’s going to turn that little bit extra over to the yes column? You know it’s something I call mental override and I talk about it in the book. It’s the ability to use your mind to give you that little extra to push you into, “Yes!”.

Lewis Howes:                       Mental override?

Aubrey Marcus:                  Yeah, and it’s the same thing that you would use if you need to start that project or if you’re screwing around on e-mails and actually need to get to the meat of the problem at work. It’s that same mental technique that’s going to allow you to kill it, but you get to practice that in the morning and you get to have that small win, so that the next time you’re facing that, “Ah, I really should start that big project,” or, “I really should work on this,” you just have that same attitude, like, “Alright, I’m going to do it.”

Lewis Howes:                       Yeah. I think these little habits that we build up every day, the little stuff, even if one minute at a time, for me, that, for me, is making my bed every day. It’s like, the thing I don’t want to do, because I never wanted to make my bed.

How many people here make their bed every single morning? A show of hands if you make your bed? These are the winners in the house! Nah! I’m just kidding!

Aubrey Marcus:                  I’m a loser, then! I don’t make my bed.

Lewis Howes:                       My whole life I didn’t make my bed, and I think this is my ice shower, right? This is like my cold shower. And it’s the last thing I want to do. I just want to get up and put clothes on and just go eat, or whatever, just get out. But I know, when I take 90 seconds or two minutes to really be thoughtful and be intentional about pulling the sheets back, making it nice, putting the pillows in perfect place, I feel so much more productive. I am a superhero! I made my bed!

I feel like I can do anything, as weird as that sounds. But I’m like, “Man, this looks good!” I feel confident, when I come back at night, l’m like, “Ah, I can get into this nice, made bed,” and I was like, “I did that!” As silly as that sounds, I know, it might sound silly, but, for me, it’s so meaningful to be able to do that, but I think these little things that we can do, every single day, to support us, you know, making our bed, the ice shower, or just a cold shower.

What’s something else we can do that you think will drastically benefit your day and help you be more productive?

Aubrey Marcus:                  I mentioned some other things, but I want to talk about that again, real quick. Because it’s not only doing the thing, it’s how you do the thing. You know, if anybody’s ever read any Zen philosophy, and like, Zen and the art of archery, or Zen and the art of anything, there was a variety of different practices the Zen masters would use. Flower arrangement, swordsmanship, archery.

Lewis Howes:                       Gardening.

Aubrey Marcus:                  Gardening, all kinds of different things. And the idea was to put your entire presence into the activity as the sword of mindfulness. It was a moving meditation. And, I think, if you not only make your bed, and like, “Ah, I got to make my bed,” ruffle the sheets, thinking about a million things. But what if you make your bed with the full intention to have your entire presence towards making the bed, towards smoothing the wrinkles, towards getting the pillows in the right spot, and you put all of your attention into that, then not only are you making your bed, you’re also Zen meditating as you’re doing it.

And I think we have that opportunity, no matter what it is. It could be pouring this Topo Chico over ice cubes, and pouring it in just the right way that the bubbles splash against the ice and it comes up, and if we put our entire attention into that moment and that thing, that’s mindfulness, that’s meditation, that’s getting still, that’s clearing the clutter of our mind for a moment.

And that’s something I talk about a lot in the book as well. It’s [that] meditation doesn’t have to be the only thing you do in a dark room with the right incense and your perfect music and your favourite cushion and your little altar. I got all that s**t too, but you can meditate by being present and being mindful, doing a million different things during that time.

Lewis Howes:                       Yeah, you know, I think in sports they call that deliberate practice, and I think it’s just being prideful of your work as well. It’s being a proud artist, you know, a chef is like more of an artist when they really are intentional about the experience, the look of the food, the look of the plate, how he wants it to smell, like, everything, the texture. And being deliberate in your practice. I think that’s really cool.

What’s the biggest fear that you’re facing right now? Again, Aubrey’s a guy who’s got a successful business, successful relationships, healthy, he’s able to be creative, he’s flexible, he can travel anywhere at any time he wants. He’s got financial resources, he’s got abundance of friends and he can take on any creative project that he wants. So I’m curious, what’s the fear that you face, with so much available at your fingertips, what’s the big challenge or the fear?

Aubrey Marcus:                  I think that the challenges come to the ego, always. You know, it’s always some way that I identify myself, and then something that threatens that identity. If I identify too much with my company and my creations, the threat to that company and my creations, triggers my ego.

Lewis Howes:                       Attacks your identity.

Aubrey Marcus:                  Yeah. If I am identified with my physical fitness, then maybe I’ll throw my back out and I won’t be able to work for three weeks, and then that identity piece that has given me strength and bolstered me is now taken away temporarily and I have to deal with myself as not being physically capable, or, you know, I’m also in an open relationship, and that challenges so many things about my security as a man and as a lover and as all of these things.

So a lot of the challenges come in that way, but you have to look forward to those challenges. You have to meet them head on and say, not, “Oh, woe is me! Why did this happen to me?” You have to look and say, “Thanks, universe, I appreciate you doing that for me, because now I get the chance to reflect upon this thing that I’ve been using to build my identity and to draw strength from, when, really, I just need to draw strength from my heart, I just need to draw strength from who I am here in this world, and what I’m hereto do. Period. Those are the constant lessons that are kind of batting me on the head every day.

Lewis Howes:                       If you could eliminate these fears and these challenges from your life, if you could just flip on a switch and say, “You know what? Fear is turning off, challenges are leaving me, and I don’t have to face this inner turmoil or this inner pain or conflict of my identity or my ego, any more,” would you flip the switch off?

Aubrey Marcus:                  That’s like asking if you have a favourite video game. It’s like your favourite video game and you’re like, hot on zombies, and you love going through and every new level has different zombies and boss monsters and you ask that person, “Hey, would you like for me to take all the zombies out of your video game? You’ll just cruise around!” I’ll be like, “Na! The game wouldn’t be the game any more!”

And so, while it’s appealing at certain points, like if I could be selective, I’d be like, “Oh, I’ll remove this one, please. I’ll remove this one.” You can’t remove all the challenges, it’s why we’re here. It’s what makes it interesting, it’s the contrast. It’s something to strive for. How do you be a warrior if there’s no dragons to slay? How do you express yourself through adversity if there’s no adversity? How do you lift weights if you’re on the moon and there’s no gravity?

We need that external pressure, but we need it in the right proportion. Too many times, we’re carrying this all too heavy backpack that we never let off, rather than occasionally sprinting up that mountain with a weighted pack, and then laying it off, hanging around the stream, going fishing, laughing with our friends and then putting the backpack on and running.

We don’t do that, we just carry it around with us, 24/7, all the time, medicating up and down, with caffeine and sugar and whatever things that we use to distract ourselves. And that’s the difference. We’re built for short periods of acute work and longer periods of rest, recovery and relaxation. And that’s the rhythm. That’s the biological rhythm of all life. You know, a tiger who hunts and then lazes around with the pride. We need more of that in our life, rather than a constant hunt, constantly starving, constantly on the grind. We need more balance.

Lewis Howes:                       You feel like you have that balance figured out, because you…?

Aubrey Marcus:                  No! No, I don’t! I’ve been on a hellacious sprint. I take little moments to rest.

Lewis Howes:                       And I think people here can probably relate to that, because a lot of people at South By are focussed on building their business or getting new clients or getting their message out or launching an app, or getting the awareness out. And you’ve been doing that with Onnit. Onnit’s, what, seven years old now?

Aubrey Marcus:                  Yeah.

Lewis Howes:                       And it started here in Austin as just one supplement that’s now a whole wellness, nutrition brand that’s now at Whole Foods all around the country, and making tens of millions of dollars a year and just keeps growing. And is now built into yoga studios and certifications and clothing line and everything, it keeps growing.

You know, as a business owner, your goal is to generate a profit and grow, it’s not to stay the same or go down. So, how do you grow your business, grow your team, manage your company, acquire new customers, be unique in your industry, but also find peace? And when is the sprint over? Seven years into this, if you slow down is your business going to slow down, so when do you start to slow down?

Aubrey Marcus:                  Well, you got to pass the baton to able runners, you know, and really trust that those runners can run. And be constantly looking and selecting, so that as you’re going, you’re looking behind you, like, “Come on! I’m ready, I’m ready, I’m ready!” and then as soon as someone is at your speed, you hand that thing off. You don’t let your ego say, “No! I gotta do this! It’s gotta be me!” you know?

So, there’s a lot of people running behind me. We’ve got a hundred and eighty employees now. And I passed a lot of batons off and I’m still holding on to a few batons, but not nearly as many as I used to, and so that is the progression towards more and more freedom and ability.

I mean, if I hadn’t passed a lot of batons, no way in hell I would have been able to write that book! You know, it was because I passed enough of the daily workload off to other people, and that’ll just continue. There’s going to be more and more capable people who come behind that I can pass that baton to and they’ll take that and run with it and that’ll be their sprint.

Lewis Howes:                       With everyone who’s here, who’s got similar brands or companies that they may be facing competitors here at South By, you’re in a very competitive space, the nutrition, wellness, supplements space. How does a brand that’s here at South By, differentiate themselves from all their competitors? Again, you’ve got so many competitors in your space. How do you set yourself apart and really attract the right customers for your brand?

Aubrey Marcus:                  I think we can get in kind of marketing speak, and we can talk about a brand, and we can think about how cool that brand looks, we can think about the other associations that we can draw from it, but I think there’s an authenticity and a truth to the movement behind that, that I think everybody really needs to focus on.

Like, we can do all of the different techniques and the tools, and that’ll generally work, but how real is the message that you’re putting out? How authentic, how valuable is the product that you have? Like, if you scratch the layer of your scratch off ticket that’s your company, is it more of the same? More of the same, more of the same?

Every different layer of the onion that you cut through, all the way to the nucleus. If you’re the entrepreneur, you’re the nucleus of that onion. Are you expressing yourself through that brand, as fully, authentically, passionately as you possibly can?

Lewis Howes:                       The CEO, you mean?

Aubrey Marcus:                  Yeah, the CEO, or the founder or whoever, you know, whoever is at the centre of that business.

Lewis Howes:                       Are they expressing the message?

Aubrey Marcus:                  Yeah. Is it real, all the way through to the bone? And I think that’s something that a lot of people kind of skip over. “Let’s create a brand! It’ll have this ID, it’ll have this design spec, it’ll have this market,” but what is the real thing behind it?

Lewis Howes:                       What’s the mission? Yeah.

Aubrey Marcus:                  What’s the mission? What’s the meat of it? What’s the heart of it? Get that thing right and you’ll just start attracting people. That creates gravity, and then that creates satellites that’ll start orbiting you othere people and then all of a sudden you’ll be at the centre of a solar system, because you had a dense gravity of truth at the heart of whatever you started. That would be my advice.

Lewis Howes:                       I like that, yeah. What’s something that you guys do as a culture, whether it be in a team meeting once a week that you guys do, or every single day, that you think separates you from other businesses? Or, better question, what’s the thing that you must do on a weekly or daily basis as a company, that if you didn’t do, you wouldn’t be as successful?

Aubrey Marcus:                  I think you really have to look at every interaction you have with reciprocity in mind. And understand that you want to be giving more than you’re taking at every single interaction, no matter what that is. And trust your employees. If you’re trying to control your employees by vesting schedules and by time that you’re tracking at their desk, and the money that you’re giving them and it’s all about a control game, that’s not really going to work.

You want people who you can give to and keep giving to, and as much as you give to them, they recognise the reciprocity and they want to give back. So, you don’t have a certain number of vacation days, you don’t have these really tight controls, but you just trust that the more opportunity for them to thrive the you give them, the more they’ll give back to you. And I think that’s what’s been the overriding vibe that we’ve been having at Onnit, and one of the reasons why people show up, people say, “Wow, man! Your people are so happy!” Happy do great work.

That’s a big piece of it. And whenever that gets off, whenever there’s a disproportionate amount of load going to someone and we’re not supporting that person, that’s the only time we find turnover in a position, you know, it’s when we’re not reactive enough to realise when one person is carrying to great of a load and we haven’t supported him.

Lewis Howes:                       They feel overwhelmed, they just feel wound up, like, “Get me out of here!”

Aubrey Marcus:                  Exactly, yeah.

Lewis Howes:                       Is there anything you guys do that is a takeaway other than being generous, being kind, giving back, supporting, making people feel happy? Is there something you guys do? It could be a small thing, even?

Aubrey Marcus:                  I think corporate wellness is something that I think a lot of companies check the box with, like, “Oh, yeah, we’ll offer this program through this big service and whatever, it’s just part of what we do.”

Lewis Howes:                       But no one’s really doing it.

Aubrey Marcus:                  No one’s really paying attention to that. Like, at our HQ we have a café that serves Ketogenic smoothies and chia pudding parfaits and all kinds of, you know, we have a Kombucha On Tap for help with pro-biotic cultures in the gut.

Lewis Howes:                       Free for everyone at your office? Wow!

Aubrey Marcus:                  Free for everybody, free for everyone. And then we have a gym and an HQ where the memberships are all free and they can take classes and roll jiu jitsu and all that. And so, we have a unique opportunity with that, but it’s that vibe and that ability to continue to employ the practices of a health and wellness company that creates a lot of the strongest relationships and inter-departmental relationships.

We also have a volleyball court inside, so, you know, we’ll get people from the warehouse playing with people from marketing, and all of a sudden, instead of launching a marketing initiative and thinking, “Oh, warehouse will figure it out,” it’ll be like, “Ah, no, I better let Roger know, that’s my volleyball buddy, you know? I better let him know, if I launch this, he’s going to be staying overtime.”

So it creates this kind of dynamic where different groups are mingling and intermingling and connecting. So, it’s not just like, “My department, their department, they’ll figure it out.” I send him a slack. You know, it’s like, “I know that dude, I’m going to talk to him about it.”

Lewis Howes:                       Yeah, it’s bit of a deeper community.

Aubrey Marcus:                  Totally.

Lewis Howes:                       A deeper mission about being with your community as well. Do you think, that if you didn’t have wellness as a main thing for your business, that your company would be as successful? If they didn’t work out as much or just have the ability to train and have healthy foods, do you think that plays into effect?

Aubrey Marcus:                  Oh, a hundred percent! Because I’ve worked in other companies, I had a marketing company before and I would be in house with a lot of different brands who didn’t put that as a focus, you know, had some plan available but didn’t utilise it.

And those people were just waiting for five o’clock to come and it was straight to happy hour and they didn’t show up, a little bit hung over and they’d get started after a few cups of coffee at 11h00 and then they’d hit a long lunch, eat a bunch of carbohydrate, come back sleepy after lunch and then wait till five. Like, there wasn’t s**t getting done.

If you’re living a more optimised lifestyle you show up a little fresher,. Maybe you went for a walk on the trail before work, which a lot of people do. Maybe you ride your bike to work. Maybe you get that morning workout or hit the kryo before you get in there. And people are already in gear earlier, and then, by offering them the ability to train during the day, they’re staying later, because they still feel good and they still have a lot of mental energy and because they love the place where they work.

Lewis Howes:                       Yeah. I want to open in up in some few minutes to a Q&A, so if you guys have some questions, just be mindful of that, and maybe we got to get a mic out or maybe we can have a mic in the front, if you guys want to come up and ask a couple of questions to either me or Aubrey, so let’s just cue that up if we can?

What do you do at night, that you think sets you up for success the next day.

Aubrey Marcus:                  Sex.

Lewis Howes:                       Sex.

Aubrey Marcus:                  Yeah. I mean two people got excited. I mean, we have so many miracle drugs at our disposal, light is a miracle drug, it sets our circadian rhythm, it gives us vitamin D. Water, hydration is a miracle drug. It helps detox the system and helps nourish our body. It helps our mental attitude. As little as 2% dehydrated and we start to show signs of mental fatigue. Sleep, another miracle drug, like taking a nap.

All of these things are free. Training, working out, helps with depression, anxiety, productivity, inflammation, across the board, all of these things. And sex is another one of these things. It’s just a panacea. It’s a universal miracle drug that I think we can all utilise a little bit better. All of these things are absolutely free. You don’t have to buy them and if you do buy them, you’re probably an asshole. They’re all available and free and I think that we need to utilise all of these free doctors that we have a little better.

Lewis Howes:                       You know, I’ve interviewed a few monks that lived this monk lifestyle where they don’t have sex, you don’t touch anyone. Maybe you hug a person of the same sex. But they live in this lifestyle and they seem such at peace, and so much inner fulfilment and there’s not much conflict in their mind, because their training is all day long, for years, right? Do you think sex complicates our lifestyle or adds to it?

Aubrey Marcus:                  I think it’s one of the reasons we’re here. And it’s not just sex with other people, it’s sex with life, it’s sex with food, it’s sex with friends, it’s sex with everything that we’re experiencing. Sex with music, sex with dance, sex with all of the aspects of life that we’re here to have intercourse with, and, you know, I respect the monks for their choice. They focussed on one aspect, which is the spirit, which is cool. But to me, that’s not a life well lived, that’s not a life fully expressed, that’s just narrowing your options.

You know, to me, if you’re a recovering alcoholic, the strongest recovered alcoholic can sit in a bar, with your friends drinking, and have a blast. The person who has to stay away within a square mile from anything that has alcohol, you’re probably a little shaky, you know, so can you be a monk and be in a relationship? Can you be a monk and have sex and have all the things.

I believe you can, and I believe that’s the more challenging route, but I believe it’s the more rewarding route, because the resistance doesn’t define what you’re able to achieve. You can use that resistance, to actually make you even more enlightened.

Lewis Howes:                       Do you think people that are in relationships or married, that have sex very little, once a month or once in a blue moon, you think they’re missing out on something greater?

Aubrey Marcus:                  I think they are, you know, I think that’s… It depends, maybe they’ve expressed that in a different way. Maybe that love and zest and intercourse, the physical love of life isn’t genitally expressed. And I can understand that, like if they’re a foodie and they love that and they get out and they dance and they do these other things that really nurse that part, but if you’re closed off to all of the physical expression of touch and love and joy, then at that point I really think you’re missing out.

And that’s what I talk about in the book, too. We define sex so narrowly. It’s the act of penetration, you know? And we put so much pressure on it and we get stuck in our head about it. I mean, expand the whole thing. What does it smell like, what does it touch like. Sex starts from that very first look that happens when you go through the door and you see your partner and that little smile and that first smell when you give them a hug. That’s when it starts and it doesn’t end till later.

Expand the definition. Have a broader definition of physical love and really enjoy it. And find a way to enjoy it. And if you don’t enjoy it, really take a look at that. What’s stopping you? Maybe you’re not communicating enough, you know? Like, the mouth is the greatest sex organ of all and it’s not to be used in physical, manual stimulation, it’s for f**ng talking. Talk about it. Figure out what’s going to get you excited, figure out what pushes the boundaries a little bit and gets those butterflies going again. Have fun.

Lewis Howes:                       Yeah! Sex it up! So there’s a mic over here if you guys have a question. Just go ahead and come up to the mic, if you have a question, go ahead and come up to the mic.

Rory (Audience):                Hey guys! I’m Rory, I was born and raised in Austin, so you’re welcome for South by Southwest. And, Aubrey, I have a question for you. You’ve been publicly open for a good while.

Lewis Howes:                       Open relationship.

Rory (Audience):                Open relationship, yep. Do you still face any kind of negative opinions on that and, if so, how do you deal with it?

Aubrey Marcus:                  I think any time that you’re doing something that’s contrary to the norm, you’re going to face a lot of headwinds. I’ve had a lot of names thrown at me, a lot of lables that they’ve tried to throw at me, but I know the truth of the experiment that I’m in. I know the truth of the relationship that I have, and you can’t get really side tracked by all of those other ideas, which are generally based in fear. This is something that triggers a lot of fear in a lot of people.

And that fear is going to cause an attack. You know, we attack because we’re scared. Any kind of anger is because we’re scared, and the idea that we might be able to express love to multiple people is scary as s**t. And I get it. Because it’s been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.

I don’t recommend it for everyone, but it’s a challenging thing, and I think having an open mind is, of course, the first step to listen to what’s good about it, what’s bad about it, what’s going to be hell about it, what’s going to be heaven about it.

Rory (Audience):                Thanks. Thank you.

Lewis Howes:     Yeah, I think any time our beliefs are questioned, I mean, I grew up in a Christian religion, and I believed so wholeheartedly about something specific in my religion because that’s what I was taught. It’s what my parents taught me, it’s what my church taught me, it’s what my friends did, and when I started to learn, “Oh, maybe there’s another way around that, or maybe there’s a different point of view or a different belief,” it started to shake me and I started to question things and attack back, and say, “No, I know the answers. This is the truth because this is what I was taught. And this is what I was taught was good. And this is not good.”

So I remember getting very defensive whenever my beliefs were questioned, growing up. Now that I interview so many different people, it’s amazing, because I’m opening my mind to so many things, but I’m also like, “What do I believe?” sometimes. I don’t know what’s good and what’s bad and everything in between. I think we’ve got to figure out what works for us.

And Aubrey’s figuring out what’s working for him for now.And maybe this will work forever and maybe you’ll change your mind and have a different belief at a different time, and I think that’s what’s beautiful about life, that we all get to experiment with different things that work for us. And I think it’s one of the most challenging things to have your own belief that’s different than most people.

Aubrey Marcus:                  Yeah, I mean, it’s a lot easier to kind of fit in with the norm and blend in and not stand out in any way and kind of ride with the tide, but, for a lot of us, that’s not going to be expressing ourselves authentically. That’s going to be sacrificing some element of who we are to fit in with somebody else’s ideals. And guess what? The world doesn’t have it right, you know? We’re not supposed to eat f**ng pop tarts for breakfast. We’re not.

Lewis Howes:                       I did that every day.

Aubrey Marcus:                  I know, me too. I did cinnamon. Cinnamon was my jam. But, I mean, just because everybody’s doing it, that’s not the right way. And we have to think outside of that and in every aspect, take a fresh look and realise that the momentum of what’s happened before, just because it’s happened before, doesn’t make it right.

Lewis Howes:                       Yeah. I think there was a book, or an article, that talks about the regrets of the dying. And you see these different articles out there about The Five Regrets of the Dying. And one of the, I’m paraphrasing, is that they wished they would have lived a life on their terms. Like, lived their truth and not tried to just live by what everyone else wanted them to do, but what they really wanted to do.

And I think that’s something I think about a lot. I turn thirty-five next week, and I’ve never focussed on birthdays, or put emphasis on my age, but thirty-five’s like, I don’t know, it’s not forty yet, but it’s like, “Huh! I’m not a twenty-year-old or something. I’m not in my early thirties. Okay, I got to start thinking differently.”

And I really think about, if I die tonight, or tomorrow, or this year, or whatever, am I going to be fully happy that I did everything I wanted to do? Or was I trying to please a lot of other people around me. And for me, personally, I just want to make sure that I don’t die regretting that.

Aubrey Marcus:                  The Lakota Sioux had a saying, and the saying was, “Today is a good day to die.” And really when you unpack what they meant, that meant that, for them, when they said that, at the morning of that day, “Today is a good day to die,” as they put on their warrior gear and painted their face and went out for hunting, for battle, for whatever they were doing, when they said, “Today is a good day to die,” that meant they had lived so fully, expressed themselves so truly, not left any bit of love, expression, anything behind, they’d done the things, so that if today was their day, they would go smile to the great spirit and say, “Today is a good day to die.”

Lewis Howes:                       But not regretting anything.

Aubrey Marcus:                  No regrets. Their house is in order, they’ve lived their life to the best they possibly could. Hoka hay, today is a good day to die, and that’s, to me, that ideal that I want to express and be to. So, if you’re in that plane and that turbulence comes, that fear isn’t like, “Oh, my god, not now! I haven’t even started to do what I wanted to do. I have so many people I didn’t express to how much I loved,” and then if you feel the other way, then you say, “Oh, wow! If today is our day, I’ve lived a damn good life!”

Lewis Howes:                       Yeah. Let’s… Oh! Esther Perel is in the house! Good to see you Esther!

Esther Perel:                         So, Aubrey, question for you.

Aubrey Marcus:                  Yeah!

Esther Perel:                         Especially because you talked about the attack when you break a convention. Do you think that the experience and the pressure of opening up the mind, the conversation and the relationship is different for men and women?

Aubrey Marcus:                  Well, first of all, it’s an honour to even receive a question from you. I’m a big fan of your work.

Lewis Howes:                       For those who don’t know who Esther Perel is, give it up for Esther Perel. She was a keynote speaker at South by Southwest yesterday, has an incredible book that has transformed people’s lives and their relationships. She was also one of the top ten most viewed podcasts on The School of Greatness.

Aubrey Marcus:                  Yeah. So, I’ll unpack that a little bit, because I think the sheer weight of the pressure, I don’t think is different, but it applies differently. The attacks come at different angles, the stress comes in different ways. And when I express this to different sexes, about the open relationship, and typically it’s a conversation that me and my fiancé have together, and different sexes have far different reactions to that.

The men that I express it to, “Oh, man! You get to have sex with other women! That’s incredible, that’s awesome!” But then I look them in the eye and say, “Yeah, but how would you feel if the woman you love more than anyone else, was having sex with somebody else and really enjoying it? Would you love her and love the person who is giving her pleasure? Could you handle that?”

“Oh, hell, no, man! Oh, hell, no!”

And then their own fear, instead of saying, “Wow, that would be hard to have that conscious perspective and have the perspective of anyone who’s making someone I love happy as my friend rather than my enemy,” like, doing the work to do that, they’ll make those assumptions, like, “Oh, you’re just a cuckold, ” or, “This is what turns you on. This is just a fetish of yours,” blah, blah, blah, “You’re weird, something’s wrong with you.” I’m like, “No, it’s really hard,” but this is a choice that I made and I believe, from a conscious perspective, this is how love can be expressed and I can love two people who are enjoying love even if I’m not a part of it.

And then, on the female side, it’s more the pressure is also different. There’s this idea surrounding marriage and how you kind of get one man, and that’s your man, and if he’s sleeping with anybody else he’s going to leave you and there’s a lot of other fear about the security of the relationship that comes up, and I think they have to deal with that. Like, “How could you let that happen? How’s he not just going to run away with somebody else?”

Lewis Howes:                       “You deserve better than that. You should have him just looking at you.” All these things, right?

Aubrey Marcus:                  Yeah, exactly, yeah. So, similar weight of pressure, but just different expression on what the attacks and lines of attack are.

Lewis Howes:                       Do you, I mean, you’ve been in this open relationship, and you guys talk about it openly for the most part, so it’s okay to talk about it. You’ve been in this open relationship for two years, now?

Aubrey Marcus:                  Four years.

Lewis Howes:                       Four years? And has it gotten easier, now?

Aubrey Marcus:                  Oh, a thousand percent. I mean, the first time Whitney had another lover, I spent the entire day virtually pausing every five minutes to dry heave. The emotions in the pit of my stomach were so hard to deal with. That feeling of, “Oh, my god, I can’t believe it! That’s my girl!” I would literally have to take a knee and, like, heave, for an entire day.

And that was day one, and then, you know, there’s times where it goes up and down, but considerably it’s gotten easier till now there’s often points where it’s just sheer love, like, “Ah, I’m glad both of y’all had fun,” and I’ll have my experience, “Oh, I’m really glad both of y’all had fun,” and she’ll send me a bottle of wine to where I’m going with some other female.

Lewis Howes:                       No way!

Aubrey Marcus:                  Totally. And I’ll set up some kind of cool surprise for her and another person that’s there. So expressing love to both people, and fully. Now, it doesn’t mean there aren’t horrendous challenges that still come up, and I won’t go into the details of those, they’re too gnarly, it’s like, we’re not ready for that yet, but there’s still things that come up.

But none the less, the steady progress of just loving the people who love the people you love, and recognising that we’re all just the same. We’re all just looking for love and whether you find it from me, you find it from somebody else, as long as you’re experiencing love and it’s not manipulation, and it’s not psychological damage, it’s just love and pleasure, then go for it, you know? Live this life. And that’s what it teaches you.

Lewis Howes:                       And that’s just the way Aubrey’s decided to live his life. So, thanks Esther, for the question. Thank you again to Express! for having us here. I want to finish with one final question, but make sure you guys check out the new book. It’s called, Own The Day, Own Your Life – Optimise practices for waking, working, learning, eating, training, playing, sleeping and, best of all, sex, by Aubrey Marcus. So you can check it out, it’s out next month so you can pre-order it now. Own The Day, Own Your Life.

Final question for you: It’s called, The Three Truths. If this was your last day, many years from now and you were able to achieve everything you could imagine, you brought it to life. Every experience, every dream happened. Every business, every book you wrote, you made, but you had to take it all with you, and no one else could experience it any more, you had to take it with you when you die. All of it.

But you got to leave the world behind with three truths, three lessons that you knew to be true about your experience, that you would want the world to remember you by. What would be the three lessons, or The Three Truths, for you?

Aubrey Marcus:                  That’s a really good question. I think the first is that heaven isn’t some place that we’re going to later, heaven is available to us right now. And it’s going to take going through hell to find it, usually. And it’s going through the hell of dealing with your own ego, dealing with your own s**t, but there’s a way to enjoy this life so that it is heaven and to really feel that, and that’s what I think our birthright here is. And it’s great to help other people do the same thing. So, for one, experience that, really, truly experience life as heaven, find the ways for you to do that.

Number two, help other people find the ways to help see this as heaven, because we’re all in this together, and the other one is, I think, let’s recognise that fear is the one true virus that we all carry, and be mindful that no matter what we do, if we’re engaging in fear, if we’re indulging fear, and this is not just self-preservation or danger, that’s something else, but if we’re allowing fear to exist, we’re spreading the virus.

So, be mindful of all of the ways we create contagious fear, because that’s going to really take away from the first two truths of experiencing this as heaven and helping others. Be mindful of the fear we carry ourselves, and be mindful of the careless ways of how we spread fear ourselves.

Even me, I had an interesting revelation, you know? A lot of science has come out about hand washing, and that it was just an example of fear, and that actually hand washing doesn’t make you less sick, unless you work in a hospital or doing something where you’re actually exposed to germs. The microbiome from the dirt and from other people actually strengthens the immune system over time, right?

So, not only is hand washing probably not going to keep you well, what you’re really doing when you’re doing that is, you’re washing your hands with fear. You’re saying, “I am vulnerable. I might get sick at this point.” And so, be mindful of the trade that you always make whenever you do something in fear.

Because as soon as you indulge in fear, you’re already infected with that virus. Okay, maybe every once in a while you’ll knock off an actual pathogen on your fingertip, but if you’re washing yourself with fear, twenty times a day, what’s the effect of that virus that you took on?

So, I think recognising the good, and then recognising that other thing that can affect that.

Lewis Howes:                       You’ve been a great friend, man, I acknowledge you for living your life on your terms.

Aubrey Marcus:                  I’m doing my best, man.

Lewis Howes:                       It may not be popular, it may not be what other people believe in, but you’re constantly striving to be a better human being, you’re constantly trying to help others around you. You’re trying to live the best life you can, and for that I acknowledge you.

Thank you, again, to Express! for hosting this and for having us here. Let’s give it up for Aubrey Marcus. Thanks everybody! Own The Day, Own Your Life! Thank you guys again, and we’ll stick around and hang out for a little bit afterwards, but thanks for being here.

Aubrey Marcus:                  Thanks everybody!

Lewis Howes:                       There you have it my friends, I hope you enjoyed this one and what a juicy ending! I know, right? Kind of interesting! Let me know your thoughts, lewishowes.com/614. We’d love to hear your thoughts. Take a screenshot of this, tag me on Instagram, with a photo of this on your Insta Story. Tag @aubreymarcus as well, because we’d love to hear from you and learn more.

And, as always, the full show notes an video interview back at lewishowes.com/614. And subscribe to us over on YouTube, if you haven’t yet. We’ve got almost a quarter of a million subscribers over there. We post a video a day to help you, again, reach the greatness within you.

You were born for greatness. It’s all about finding the tools, the information and the inspiration to support your daily action and daily growth. I hope you enjoyed this one, and a bit thank you to our sponsor, Express! for hosting this at the Express! Lounge at South by Southwest. Make sure to check them out. You can go to a local store or got to express.com for some of the latest and greatest men’s and women’s clothing to support your lifestyle and make you feel more confident, sexy and all the good things, my friends.

And also, to shopify.com/greatness. Get started, right now, with a free 30-day trial. When you want to launch a business online, there’s no better place than shopify.com/greatness. I recommend it because selling online has never been easier, faster or more scalable, and these guys have the best option out there to support you and your business idea: shopify.com/greatness.

Again, so excited for the journey ahead! We’ve got some big things coming up! Let me know how you’re feeling, are you on the path to achieving your own greatness? Are you doing what you need to do every single day to stay consistent on your dreams, or are you falling behind?

If you’re falling behind, I recommend checking out one of my books, The School of Greatness, or The Mask of Masculinity, one of our programs, The School of Greatness Academy really guides people with accountability and coaching, or anything else we have going on at lewishowes.com.

As always, I’m here for you, I believe in you. We’re just getting started. And you know what time it is: It’s time to go out there and do something great!