JP Sears

Lewis Howes:                       This is 5-Minute Friday!

Welcome, everyone, to The School of Greatness, today. I hope you’re having an amazing day. We’ve got JP Sears in the house, and he is known for his hilarious videos on YouTube and Facebook, called “Awaken With JP”. He is a holistic coach, practitioner, hundreds of millions of views all over the place online and they continue to just blow up.

JP Sears:                                   I think our growth in happiness is also related to our willingness to be afraid in stepping into the unknown, into mystery. Because growth doesn’t happen in our comfort zone, it happens in our uncomfortable zone, the mystery of it, and I think it’s human nature to be afraid of the unknown, but it’s kind of like, “Wow! If I’m not willing to be afraid, and go forward anyway, then I can’t grow, and if I can’t grow, then I can’t be happy.” So I think it’s paradoxical: a willingness to be afraid is directly proportional to the amount of happiness we can get, and I think a lot of us are too afraid to be afraid. So it’s like we’re afraid squared. We’re afraid to be afraid, so we don’t move. But I think true courage, which equals growth, which equals happiness, true courage is: “I am afraid. And I’m the warrior going forward anyway.” I think, archetypally, the warrior is not fearless. I think that is just a fairytale BS. I think the warrior is the one who is connected to his or her heart. And feels the fear, yet has the courage to do his or her task anyway. To hear the call to quest and abide by the mission.

Lewis Howes:                       Uh-huh. It’s got to be scary, going into battle, you know, with other people, like, charging at you with guns and knives.

JP Sears:                                   For sure! And especially in the light of those guns and knives, that are charging at us, come from our own freaking psyche! Self-doubt and self-critique.

I love that infinity is always bigger than we think it is, and I think infinity is the capacity we have to grow. And I know that sounds a little cliche, and airy-fairy, and abstract, yet, I think it’s freaking true. And to me, it’s so inspiring to not play it safe in life. And I think one of the great curses that someone with success could have is: “Wow! This has worked for me, so I’m going to keep doing exclusively what has worked for me.” But there’s no risk in that, there’s no growth. And is there happiness? Ugh…

Lewis Howes:                       There’s comfort.

JP Sears:                                   There’s comfort, for sure. From my delusional point of view, I think a lot of people, when they’re talking about their pursuit of happiness, they’re saying the word “happiness”, but they’re not talking about happiness. I think they’re talking about comfort. I think the direction a lot of people take when they’re “pursuing happiness”, they’re pointed toward comfort. They’re trying to achieve a sense of comfort…

Lewis Howes:                       Or trying to achieve something, right? They’re trying to achieve or acquire a certain sense of money or freedom or something. They’re trying to have it.

JP Sears:                                   For sure.

Lewis Howes:                       And then they’ll be happy.

JP Sears:                                   But playing it safe, for the comfort, for the status, acquiring… It’s, like, wow. I think that’s the repel of a great life. Even though it’s what we crave, I think self-preservation, we want safety, self-realisation, we want risk. Safety equals death of our self-realisation, and safety equals life of our self-preservation. But I think the purpose of life isn’t to survive life. I think the purpose of life is to live life, and I think that if we’re not willing to scare ourselves to death then, paradoxically, we can not live our life. We’ll survive our life, at best. And maybe not even that.

Lewis Howes:                       That’s powerful.