LeAnn Rimes

Lewis Howes:                 This is episode number 719, with the incredible LeAnn Rimes.

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.

Oprah Winfrey said, “Turn your wounds into wisdom.”

I hope you’re having an amazing day today and no matter what challenge, adversity, or difficulty you’ve been through, you always have an opportunity to heal and overcome it. And you have an opportunity to share your story with others, and today we’re going to dive into that.

But if you guys don’t know who our guest is, she is amazing! LeAnn Rimes is a powerful singer, songwriter, actress, and author. She rose to stardom at age thirteen, following the release of her version of the Bill Mack song, Blue, becoming the youngest country music star since 1972.

She has won so many awards, including two Grammys, three ACMs, a CMA, twelve Billboard Music Awards, and one American Music Award. She’s sold over 37 million records worldwide, with about 20+ million album sales in the United States. And Billboard ranked her the 17th artist of the 1990 to 2000 decade.

She has also written a number of books, and her hit song, How Do I Live, was ranked as the most successful song of the 1990’s by Billboard Magazine.

That’s right! “You can try to resist, try to hide from my kiss, but you know, but you know that you can’t fight the moonlight. Deep…” Alright, I will stop singing for the moment but, man! She is an incredible talent and I’m so excited that she’s on here.

We dive into a lot of things in this episode that go pretty deep, but also, I think she shares a lot, and reveals a lot of how to overcome these different adversities. And when you’re faced with something at such a young age, like LeAnn was faced with, how she came out on the other side in such a powerful way.

We talk about how she was able to have a successful career, from the very beginning, all the way to this part of her life. Also, how to keep your ego from getting the best of you. We talk about the power of self-awareness to reach your goals and how important it is to surround yourself with the right people.

And we learn some of these incredible routines that LeAnn practices to love herself and her body through meditation, and she shares a mantra that she’ll actually sing with us and for us at one point, so be aware of that, because it’s a very powerful moment. And she’s never done it publicly, so you’ve got to give her some good feedback on that.

I’m very excited about this, guys! Make sure to share it with your friends, lewishowes.com/719. Make sure to tag @leannrimes on Instagram as she’s over there a lot, so tag her while you’re listening, and let her know what you enjoyed most about this.

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Again, a big thank you to our sponsors, and I’m so excited about our guest today. Again, she’s someone that I’ve been connecting with over the last couple of years and finally had a chance to interview, after a few times of meeting and really just diving into the greatest life lessons that she’s learned.

And I wanted to bring you those life lessons today. So, again, share this with you friends, tag @leannrimes over on Instagram, and let your friends know all about this.

So, without further ado, let me introduce to you, the one, the only, LeAnn Rimes!

Welcome, everyone, back to The School of Greatness Podcast, we have the lovely LeAnn Rimes in the house! Good to see you! I’m so pumped you’re here!

LeAnn Rimes:                  Hi! Nice to see you, too! I’m so happy I’m here.

Lewis Howes:                 I’m so grateful, we’ve been working on this for, like, almost two years.

LeAnn Rimes:                  I know, it has been crazy! First off, I was like, “Who is this dude?” and then I totally fell in love with you and what you do, and then we met for lunch, which was so great and it’s just good to get to know you.

Lewis Howes:                 Yeah, it’s been great!

LeAnn Rimes:                  You’re good people.

Lewis Howes:                 Thank you! I appreciate that. Anything you need, I’ve got your back. You’re constantly travelling and touring you’re in Vancouver, you’re in L.A., you’re doing movies, you’re doing music, all that stuff, so you’re a busy individual and you’ve had a busy life.

LeAnn Rimes:                  I’ve had a busy life, yeah.

Lewis Howes:                 When you were twelve, thirteen, you came on the scene and became a superstar in the country music world, Billboard top charts, you know, all these different awards in your teens. I think I read over 37 million records, worldwide, sold.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Something like that. I haven’t kept up with it.

Lewis Howes:                 Billboard ranks you as [one of] the top seventeen artists of the decade from 1990 to 2000, I mean, you’ve just done so much.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Oh!

Lewis Howes:                 Did you read that one?

LeAnn Rimes:                  I didn’t know that! Awesomeness!

Lewis Howes:                 It’s pretty cool, huh? So, so many things that you’ve created, but we were just talking about this before, is that there have also been a lot of struggles you’ve faced in the last twenty-plus years of your shining career.

What would you say has been the biggest challenge you’ve had to overcome in the last twenty years? While everyone is praising you, and all the success, and millions of records, and top artist in the world, but what’s been the biggest challenge?

LeAnn Rimes:                  Well, the first thing that comes to mind – since I can be really honest here – my ego. Because I started so young – I mean, an ego, first off, we all have to have it to live and be human. But there is a healthy way of being in that and also a very unhealthy way.

And I guess, when I talk about it, I started so young, and I’m in a business where I have to care what people think, and how many people are buying my albums, and how many are coming to the shows and the whole deal , so it’s a very people-pleasing kind of way of being, and especially when you start that young.

That’s all I knew, so having to – and, I have to still do this daily – it’s like having to disengage [from] trying to please everyone and be everything to everyone, and make everybody happy. It’s like, “What, ultimately, do I want? What do I feel?”

And I started so young that I naturally had that. I naturally knew what I wanted. And my first song that I recorded, I was eleven, that actually ended up coming out when I was thirteen, but at eleven you’re still so creative and there’s no boundaries and you’re just creating from your heart.

And I had just this magic about me at that age, and then you start to lose that when so many people get in your ear, and then you’re trying to keep up with the success that you’ve had, and there’s so many levels to it.

So I guess, when I talk about ego, it’s really from that space of having to allow the LeAnn Rimes that was created to kind of fall away, to figure out who the real LeAnn Rimes is, to continue to move forward.

Lewis Howes:                 Wow! Do you feel like you kind of had to destroy yourself at one point?

LeAnn Rimes:                  Totally. Totally!

Lewis Howes:                 To then say, okay, everyone’s built this up, this image of you.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yeah! Yeah, and you do it – I did it – I was so unconscious of the fact that I was doing it.

Lewis Howes:                 That you were destroying yourself?

LeAnn Rimes:                  That I was destroying it. But I needed to, I really needed to figure out who I was, without all the whoopla around me, and people’s expectations, and I did it just enough. I did it just enough so I still, I mean, I’ve had a great career and I’ve had so many fantastic fans.

I’ve been in this business for so long, people still care. It’s kind of crazy, because most people don’t have that. But I did it enough so I could find – well, I found my humanity again – there was just this piece of me that never got to be human. You know, they put you up on a pedestal from the time you’re a kid, and it’s like, “Don’t fall.”

Lewis Howes:                 You can’t do anything wrong, yeah.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Right! “Don’t fall!” So, I guess, in a way it was kind of inevitable that something like that was going to happen.

Lewis Howes:                 Did you feel like you were unconsciously sabotaging things? Like, in your early twenties, where you just started sabotaging a lot of things?

LeAnn Rimes:                  I just started doing it out of sheer rebellion, in a way. But it wasn’t a bad thing, I don’t think, necessarily. I needed to find all of these pieces of me that I felt had been fragmented and pushed to the side, to be LeAnn Rimes.

So, the journey of it all was really inevitable, and I honestly think my greatest accomplishment is that I’m still alive and that I’m still standing.

Lewis Howes:                 Really? Do you feel like, at one point, you almost were going to die, or something?

LeAnn Rimes:                  Well, I don’t know, I started so young, I never thought I’d live past twenty-one, for some reason.

Lewis Howes:                 No way!

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yeah! It was a weird thing. And then I didn’t think I’d live past thirty. Now I feel like I’m going to live for a really, really long time. I’m all good!

Lewis Howes:                 That’s good.

LeAnn Rimes:                  No, but, I don’t know, I think starting so young you just like, had this weird feeling about me, with all the craziness around me and I never really had anonymity, it was always like everybody was always in my face and it was…

Lewis Howes:                 In your business and knew everything about you,

LeAnn Rimes:                  Constantly.

Lewis Howes:                 Relationships.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Everything. I mean, there was nothing that could be hidden.

Lewis Howes:                 This was pre-social media.

LeAnn Rimes:                  This was pre-social media, which is crazy to think about, but I think about people in my position who started so young, and most of them are not here any more. And I think that’s probably one of the biggest things that I feel like is an accomplishment, is that I’ve actually worked through some really dark days.

And I pretty much, there’s a rare day when I feel like I don’t have myself, but that’s very few and far between any more. Where I know that it can really, really dark, and I’m going to be okay.

Lewis Howes:                 So, you know, like, “Okay, I’m going through a lot of stuff right now, but I’m going to coming out the other side.”

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yeah, “There is another side.”

Lewis Howes:                 But there was a time where you thought, “There’s no way out.”

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yeah. There was a lot of pain. I went through a divorce, publicly, with my mom and dad. [I] was fourteen when [they] divorced, and I went through a lawsuit. And then I went through a lawsuit with my dad publicly, and then I went through a lawsuit with my record label; all of these things.

Eventually, what I’ve learned about the body and the nervous system and the whole deal is my nervous system was just on stun all the time, so it was constantly in fight or flight.

Lewis Howes:                 So much adrenaline, constantly, yeah.

LeAnn Rimes:                  So much.

Lewis Howes:                 That’s not healthy.

LeAnn Rimes:                  No, and only over the past three years have I really been able to understand that and calm down. The anxiety, and the things that were stored in my body and the pain and the trauma, it’s all trauma and to know that. I think I was afraid to go into it. They always say, “The only way out is through.”

So, I knew I had to go through it, but I was so afraid, because I had been avoiding it for so long.

Lewis Howes:                 When did you start to go through it? The trauma, the pain, the suffering. How old were you then?

LeAnn Rimes:                  Well, I was in my early teens, my mid teens, when I started to feel the pain of it all, but I would push it away in every way that I possibly could. I would work…

Lewis Howes:                 Did you ever do drugs or drinking?

LeAnn Rimes:                  I had my moments, here and there, of different things, but it wasn’t like… I was one of those kids – thank God there was no social media around – I was one of those kids that I would bring the party to me, it would be in the house, it would be super safe, you know?

It was safe in my sixteen-year-old mind, like, “Whooo!” but, yeah, I wasn’t ever one to get so dark into that. It was more of emotionally just disengaging. I closed myself off, big time.

Lewis Howes:                 From the world, or from friends? From parents?

LeAnn Rimes:                  From everything. From everything.

Lewis Howes:                 From what age?

LeAnn Rimes:                  I started definitely around seventeen. It was just a protection mechanism, you know?

Lewis Howes:                 Was it just because everyone was trying to get something from you, or they were manipulating you, or they were taking advantage, or what was the feeling?

LeAnn Rimes:                  It was always, I think, it was a constant grabbing, needing something, feeding off of who I was, at the time, and you just, yeah, I think back then and there was just a lot of pain this kid was going through. I see it in such a different place, now, you can really witness it from a different side, and this kid was in a lot of pain.

And so, there was definitely a moment where I was, like, “If I go into that, I’m really afraid I’m not coming out of it.”

Lewis Howes:                 When you dive into the trauma, the pain.

LeAnn Rimes:                  If I get into it, like, if I allow, yeah, to feel that, it’s just going to overtake me and I won’t be able to come out of it.

Lewis Howes:                 And you were seventeen when that started?

LeAnn Rimes:                  Seventeen, eighteen, yeah. It really kind of culminated when I was thirty. I just decided – I had actually gone through a lot of, long story short, I had gone through a lot of dental surgeries, and I had been put under many times, and it was just not fun. It’s not fun.

And it’s starts to mess with all of you, and I hadn’t really dealt with the whole nervous system thing, and I hadn’t dealt with all the trauma in my body, and everything just kind of went. And finally I was, like, “I want to check myself in somewhere. No one needs to,” and I was terrified to do it.

I’d never been alone before. There was always someone around me and, after my thirtieth birthday – I think it was the day after, actually, or two days after – I literally checked myself in somewhere for 28 days, and I went to deal with trauma and anxiety and depression and all of those things that people are, like, “Oh, she must have gone in or something! Like, eating disorder, drugs, something like that.”

And I was just, like, “No, you don’t understand, this is just as serious!” Anxiety and depression are things that a lot of people deal with that we don’t talk about enough. And it is enough at some point to…

Lewis Howes:                 To kill you.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yes! To kill you! It is!

Lewis Howes:                 Yeah, to harm you, to cause a heart attack, a stroke, or whatever.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Totally.

Lewis Howes:                 So you checked yourself into a facility somewhere here in L.A.? Or near here?

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yeah.

Lewis Howes:                 Did someone inspire you to do this? Like a friend of yours who had gone through something? That they came out on the other side and you saw the transformation?

LeAnn Rimes:                  No, my husband, and my friends, at the time, they were just super worried about me, because they saw I was on a lot of medication at the time, and I was going through, like I said, just being under a lot.

And they were, like, “Look, can we help you find some sanity in all of this?” and I was more than willing to. So it was just a simple conversation that was had, and I was terrified when I went in. I was, like, “I’ve never been alone! What’s going to happen?”

Lewis Howes:                 Without your phone, without this, yeah.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Something, yeah! And I just had such great support, and I think that that’s, when I finally had the right support system in place, in my life, it allowed me to kind of just surrender into feeling these things.

Lewis Howes:                 People aren’t going to take advantage of you, or whatever. So what was the greatest lesson you learned? So, you were thirty when you went in. What was the greatest lesson you learned from that 28-day experience?

LeAnn Rimes:                  Oh, wow! I guess that I thought I was pretty messed up when I went in, and I realised, after I started sifting through everything, I’m like, “You know, this is not so abnormal.” I was around other people who were going through similar situations, if not worse, than I was, at the time.

And I was like, “I don’t feel so alone, any more.” And then you realise, outside of the six or seven people that were with you, then you start talking about it, publicly, and then you realise how you really aren’t alone, because there’s so many people out there…

Lewis Howes:                 Because everyone starts reaching out to you and saying, “I feel this way.”

LeAnn Rimes:                  Oh, yeah, “I’ve been through it.” And that was the beginning of realising that I could connect through humanity and not just through this voice of this child that everybody looked up to. There became a different voice that I found.

Lewis Howes:                 Do you feel like that was the moment you were able to kind of process all of this stuff from childhood and actually start to grow up?

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yeah, yeah, totally. And I still go through my days when there’s a real line for me where I feel like a woman, and where I can tell I’m slipping back into a child’s space. Awareness is an amazing thing.

Self-awareness is an incredible, incredible tool that a lot of us just want to run from. I mean, I did for so long.

Lewis Howes:                 It’s not fun, sometimes.

LeAnn Rimes:                  It’s not fun. I have actually made it fun. I’ve actually started to like finding out these strange, quirky, odd things about myself. I’m like, “Oh, so that’s what’s running me in this situation,” because then it becomes, for me, now, I’ve become obsessed with how do I, not overwrite it and not get rid of it, it’s more like, how do I heal it?

Lewis Howes:                 What’s ‘it’? The conversation you have?

LeAnn Rimes:                  It can be anything. Yeah, it can be the story that I’m telling myself, it can be all of a sudden that something that’s completely in my subconscious becomes conscious, and I’m like, “Oh, that’s what that is. That’s why I’m sabotaging myself in this area or that area,” and it becomes, it’s interesting to me now.

And I find it all fascinating that we actually can change that. That’s what’s so amazing, is that we actually have the choice to do that. And I know people talk about that all the time, ad it sounds so simple, and it is, and it isn’t.

Lewis Howes:                 It takes work, it takes practice.

LeAnn Rimes:                  It takes work, but it also is as simple as choosing.

Lewis Howes:                 Deciding. That’s it!

LeAnn Rimes:                  Deciding, yeah.

Lewis Howes:                 I feel like you have a fascinating mind. I feel like you’ve been through so much. Again, it’s someone at, like, twelve, thirteen, eighteen, having that type of acknowledgement and awareness and hype and all for good reason, but having that at such a young age, I can only imagine what conversations you might be having.

Positive and negative. Like, what’s in your mind? And I’m curious, what were the stories and the things that your mind told you that supported your journey? And what were the conversations that made you suffer?

What were both of those? Because the positive stuff continues your rise and continues to be successful in your career, but the negative stuff probably held you back in certain ways as well.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Oh, yeah, completely!

Lewis Howes:                 So I’m curious, what were both those conversations that your mind had, whether you were conscious or unconscious about it?

LeAnn Rimes:                  Oh my gosh! We could talk about this for hours! So, I remember – I’ll give you bits and pieces that are popping up in my head. So, I remember my dad constantly telling me I could do anything that I wanted to do.

Lewis Howes:                 That’s nice.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yeah, he was. He was always, “You’re the best!” and I was. I was different than most kids my age. You know, you heard kids sing that were my age, and it was very different.

Lewis Howes:                 It was very amateur, young.

LeAnn Rimes:                  It was very different. And so, I believed that this one side of myself was the best and it clearly paid off, with that belief. But it was also a belief that was kind of bred into me by my dad. It wasn’t my own self-belief, is what I realised.

Lewis Howes:                 Outside belief.

LeAnn Rimes:                  It was outside belief. And so, when my dad and I went through all of our stuff, it was almost like I felt like I couldn’t do it without him.

Lewis Howes:                 Wow, because he was the one instilling the belief in you.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Totally.

Lewis Howes:                 So, you had to kind of ‘divorce’ your dad, it sounded like. Right?

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yeah in a way, yes. And I mean, I didn’t have him around in my life like that, telling me constantly, like, “You can do this.” It was an outside voice.

Lewis Howes:                 So, did you not have that belief any more?

LeAnn Rimes:                  No, I take that back. I did have that belief, but it came from an unhealthy place, I think. It wasn’t like I believed deep down in myself, I loved myself, and I could make a mistake and still have that belief. I’ve always been super hard on myself.

My dad was, I mean, I have to say, my dad instilled some amazing things in me, and also, there was a work ethic, and I think there’s always a fine line to all of those things.

Lewis Howes:                 Where did it come from, the outside belief, if it wasn’t from your dad? Was it from a relationship or the media?

LeAnn Rimes:                  Oh, outside everything, it as people; if it wasn’t my dad it was, like, how many people were interested in what I was doing and in my music and the whole deal.

Lewis Howes:                 How many records did it sell, and this, numbers.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Exactly, it’s always numbers and the whole thing. And I’m still on the journey of literally finding the inner voice that is kind, that allows me to be a human that makes mistakes. I think I’m approaching, like I used to approach, my performances from a very perfectionistic kind of place, of every note had to be right and I’ve gone through a journey of knowing that that’s there.

But now it’s like, “How do I express and how do I show up in love, and how do I show up with my heart open?” And when you start – for me, now that I’ve started coming from a different place, that perfectionistic side of things, kind of gets softer. I’m showing up for different reasons.

I’m not showing up to prove myself in any way, which I think, as a kid, you’re constantly competing; you’re competing with outside world; you’re competing with the last number of records you sold. And, for me, now, it’s like, we always say, “You’re competing with yourself,” but it’s true.

When that finally clicks, and you actually embody that, you start here first, and then the outside starts to come into play, instead of looking at the outside to validate the inside.

Lewis Howes:                 What age were you when you started to believe in yourself on the inside and realise, like I don’t need my dad, or numbers?

LeAnn Rimes:                  Didn’t I say that? Three years ago. No joke, like, three or four years ago I would start to say that I’ve started to realise…

Lewis Howes:                 So, all of our twenties, you still didn’t believe in yourself, on the inside.

LeAnn Rimes:                  I believed, but there was always…

Lewis Howes:                 You needed other people.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yeah, I needed the outside validation and there was always, like, I grew up with psoriasis, really bad, all over my body from the time I was super young. And so, that being into play also played into my self esteem.

Lewis Howes:                 Insecurities.

LeAnn Rimes:                  And then having my face out in front of everyone in the world, and knowing that I was always hiding this piece of me.

Lewis Howes:                 Was it on your face, or on your back and your stomach?

LeAnn Rimes:                  It wasn’t on my face, it was everywhere [else], like, yeah.

Lewis Howes:                 I dated someone many years ago. She was beautiful, and so kind, but she had it all over her chest and her stomach and her back, and it would come and go every couple of weeks when she would have anxiety and stress, right?

And there was nothing I could do to support her, besides be there for her, but it’s hard, I can only imagine how hard it is, having this on your body and still loving yourself, and still feeling that, “I’m beautiful, and I’m this.”

LeAnn Rimes:                  Right, well, that didn’t happen. That didn’t happen.

Lewis Howes:                 You just beat yourself up and you cause more stress and create more psoriasis, right?

LeAnn Rimes:                  Totally! It’s just such a cyclical thing. But, yeah, there was also that that played into it, so I had this one thing that I put so much – that was the one thing that could validate me, as a human.

Lewis Howes:                 Your voice.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yeah, my voice.

Lewis Howes:                 It was your identity.

LeAnn Rimes:                  It was everything.

Lewis Howes:                 And what happens if you don’t have that any more?

LeAnn Rimes:                  So, I’ve gone through moments in my life where I’ve lost my voice or had to cancel shows or whatever, because I’ve lost my voice and didn’t have one, and it is the most terrifying thing. Now, it’s a little different when I do lose my voice. I still go through the stress of it, but I’m like, “Okay, I’m going to chill. It’s telling me something.”

Like, I need to go basically sit down, shut up, go chill out. I’ve noticed that my voice, when I lose it it has nothing to do, really, with overusing it, probably underusing it. It has to do with me not actually, there’s something that’s not coming out.

Lewis Howes:                 Ah, emotionally!

LeAnn Rimes:                  Emotionally.

Lewis Howes:                 Wow! Really? When you lose it, you feel…

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yeah, it’s definitely an emotional thing.

Lewis Howes:                 It’s like you’re holding onto something, you’re not saying what you need to say, you’re afraid to say something.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Totally. I mean, growing up in this business, I would be told, “Don’t have an opinion about certain things. Don’t state your views politically; don’t state your views this way, because people won’t buy your records.”

And so, from early on, I was like, “Oh, I have to hide all of these things,” whether it be my skin, my opinion; there’s a lot of layers to that, too, of how that affects you, especially starting out so young. So, I’ve kind of had to peel away all of these layers of…

Lewis Howes:                 Decades of trauma.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Decades of trauma, and decades of programming, outside programming. So now I’m reprogramming myself most of the time.

Lewis Howes:                 And so this has been the last three-year journey.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yeah, to four years I’ve been doing this.

Lewis Howes:                 To four years, since you did this 28-day therapy time that you had for yourself, you’ve been reprogramming. What are the things that you’re saying to yourself through this reprogramming? Are there certain things you say in the morning? Throughout your day, or in a moment of doubt, do you flip it and say something else to yourself? How does that work?

LeAnn Rimes:                  Well, I have come to learn that we really operate out of two places and that is love and fear, and the fear is a lie, and so every time something like this comes up, I really recognise it as old programming.

It’s like, “Oh, that’s just that piece that’s old. I don’t have to believe that any more.” And I also spend time with myself – I know this sounds crazy, but I literally spend time with myself sometimes, touching every part of my body and telling it I love it.

Lewis Howes:                 Wow! I don’t thin that’s crazy, I think that’s beautiful.

LeAnn Rimes:                  And feeling it, like actually feeling it. I think that’s the one thing that I’ve learned, listening to Joe Dispenza and all these different people, who are fantastic. The one piece that we leave out is actual body, the somatic experience of the feeling of what we’re going through in our mind, whether it be affirmations, or whatever we’re doing, meditation.

When we can feel that, and actually feel the love that we have for ourselves, it changes everything. I can’t always call on it, it’s not – like we were talking earlier – it’s not like I’ve figured it all out. I have a long way to go; I don’t think it ever happens.

That’s been the new piece for me, to really wake up every morning – I wake up, and I read somewhere people who wake up and literally stretch, with their arms out into the world, it starts their day in completely different ways.

So I started doing that, and I have a meditation practice I usually do for an hour a day.

Lewis Howes:                 An hour?

LeAnn Rimes:                  An hour to an hour and a half, yeah. I try to get it in.

Lewis Howes:                 Wow, that’s impressive.

LeAnn Rimes:                  I love it. I’ve fallen in love with it. It becomes my time. I think my time has always been given away, and so it’s like taking a piece of it back.

Lewis Howes:                 So, you have feeling time, where you feel your body, and embrace and love every inch of your body.

LeAnn Rimes:                  I do, yeah.

Lewis Howes:                 I think it’s a beautiful practice for, especially people who are insecure. People who don’t think they are pretty, who are the most beautiful human beings alive.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Totally, and it’s amazing how we all see ourselves, so opposite of how everyone else sees us. So, I was on this biologic drug for my psoriasis for twelve years.

Lewis Howes:                 Like a steroid type of drug?

LeAnn Rimes:                  Not a steroid, but it’s an injection that would block certain things from developing, basically, certain antibodies, but it would lower my immune system and I accidentally stumbled off of it. I would stretch out for however many weeks I could, before I saw something and then I would take it.

So, I realised I was, like, four months off of it. And I though, “Whoa! Nothing!” I’m like, let’s just see.” I was actually in a great mental space. Usually I would freak out, I’d be, like, “I can’t get off of this, I can’t do it!”

And I was just in a place where I’m like, “You know what? Let’s just see.” And so, I’ve been off of it for about a year and it’s good! And I’ll have places that come up, and I’ll use topical stuff, but the one thing that I’ve learned is, whatever arises, whether it’s an emotion, or it’s psoriasis, or it’s a few pounds, whatever it is.

If I can just sit with it and be, like, “Okay, I see you. You’re there,” and allow it to be for a moment, and then, literally, I will sit with my psoriasis and be, like, “I love you. It’s cool, you can hang out for a while, if you want.”

And once you really start meaning that, it changes everything. When I get anxiety, I’ll literally go, “Okay, you’re here again. How’s it going?” and just allow it to be for a moment. And it, literally, within minutes, starts to completely shift. I mean, I wake up the next morning, after I’ve done that with my psoriasis, and it’ll be gone.

Lewis Howes:                 Yeah, as opposed to resisting it, just allowing and acknowledging it and saying, “It’s okay, let me be mindful of why am I stressed out, why am I anxious? Let me sit with it and the let it go, come and go, and breathe through it,” right?

LeAnn Rimes:                  Totally.

Lewis Howes:                 When did you start to learn about accepting challenges that you’re facing emotionally or physically and falling in love with them as opposed to rejecting them?

LeAnn Rimes:                  The falling in love with them once you start shifting that perception, you start becoming whole, you start feeling whole, which is so beautiful.

Lewis Howes:                 Because you accept yourself, all of you.

LeAnn Rimes:                  All of you. And you realise that those are actually – and I know it’s so hard to do this when it’s popping up in your life – that those are gifts, those are true gifts that are leading you down one way or the other. Leading you away from something or leading you toward something.

And, sometimes our deepest fears and pain and trauma is really, we’ve experienced it to share. We’ve experienced it to help people. I mean, we talk about a life of service and what better way to be of service than to share the darkest moments that you’ve been through? Because you’re so not the only one who has done it.

I’ve actually – I guess it was probably about four years ago – I started working with a breathwork teacher named Ashley Neese who is incredible.

Lewis Howes:                 Here in L.A.?

LeAnn Rimes:                  She’s in L.A. Well, she’s actually in Oakland, now, but she lived here in L.A. at the time.

Lewis Howes:                 This is before the 28-day episode?

LeAnn Rimes:                  No, after. So, I’m thirty-six now, so we went through a couple of years where we were, like, still trying to just figure out what the hell’s going on.

Lewis Howes:                 You didn’t really have a practice, it sounds like it.

LeAnn Rimes:                  No, I didn’t. And I was on Instagram and I was looking on Cameron Diaz’s, ‘The Body Book’, thing and I found Ashley, and then she started popping up randomly. Thank God for the Instagram algorithm. It threw her in my face all the time.

And it was about five months into it, and I was, like, “You know what? I know this is crazy, I’ve never contacted anyone on Instagram, but I’m going to.” And something just told me to call her, and my assistant set up a time with here, and I had no idea what I’m going to be doing.

And she, literally, from the moment I sat down with her, she started teaching me breathwork and she’s, I swear, my therapist at the same time. But there was such a spiritual aspect to it. I had gone through so much therapy that I was sick of talking about everything, and I wasn’t shifting anything.

Lewis Howes:                 You were still in the same conversation.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yeah, I just didn’t want to have that any more, and so she helps me shift out of that, and to really work through the trauma in my body. She did a lot of somatic work, and I was always here, and never here.

I mean, obviously there were so many reasons why I constantly wanted to run away from my body, so my practice has been, literally, coming back into myself.

Lewis Howes:                 Wow. Dropping into your heart, dropping into your body.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Totally. Dropping into every part of me.

Lewis Howes:                 It’s fear. This is where the fear lives, the anxiety, stress, overwhelm, worry. It’s up your head, it’s this story, and then when we drop into our hearts, we get back to love. We get grounded.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Completely. Yes, and that’s such a huge piece. And gratitude, I know people talk about, “Oh, make a gratitude list.” She was one that really, finally got me into that. It is so key.

Lewis Howes:                 It’s the key! You can’t be grateful and angry at the same time, or stressed.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Totally. And why can’t we, why is it the simplest of things that we cannot get into our heads? I think we all want to think it’s super complicated, and breath, like, the deep breaths, deep breaths and gratitude are the two – the things I keep coming back to are love.

It comes back to the heart and gratitude for everything, going back to gratitude for even the, quote, unquote, what we’d label ‘negative’ pieces showing up. How can I be grateful for the totality of it all?

I’ll get away from my practice every once in a while, and the first thing that my intuition just brings me back to, “Where’ your heart and where’s the love? And how can I wake up and get into that space every morning?”

Because, once you get into that space it’s like, the whole world changes.

Lewis Howes:                 If you wake up in reaction mode and anxiety mode, it’s hard to get out of that for the rest of the day. You kind of stay in that, unless you break the system and take an hour break and breathe and meditate or do a gratitude practice. But that’s why I think it’s important to do it first thing.

I do it first thing, and then last thing at night. My girlfriend and I will talk about what we’re grateful for from the day, and it just allows me to just sleep. I’m just, like, “Hah…” It’s like you live in gratitude at night, it’s like, “Okay, I feel at peace,” as opposed to, I used to always be anxious at night.

It would take me hours to fall asleep. I was always living in anxiety and fear and insecurity. Then, when I said, “Well, here’s what I’m grateful for,” even the smallest things, it brought me a lot more peace. But that’s powerful.

So you’ll do about an hour of breathing, meditation in the morning? Some stretching, some opening up?

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yeah, I do, I am one of those people who still reaches for my phone, I have to say. It’s so hard!

Lewis Howes:                 Who doesn’t? Unless you’re a monk.

LeAnn Rimes:                  I know, right? I try to, but I’ll go down and have coffee with my husband in the morning and then I’ll go in my little meditation room that I have at the house and I’ve been doing Joe’s…

Lewis Howes:                 Dispenza. Did you guys connect?

LeAnn Rimes:                  We did connect. I love him, he’s super.

Lewis Howes:                 Did you guys get on the phone?

LeAnn Rimes:                  We did get on the phone. I want to dig into some further stuff with him.

Lewis Howes:                 He is amazing, isn’t he?

LeAnn Rimes:                  He is amazing. And I have a zillion questions I [want to ask him]!

Lewis Howes:                 With him, it’s just been blowing up, and so many people have read his book and are using the meditations.

LeAnn Rimes:                  He’s incredible, he really is. So I’ve just been doing his meditation for 30 to 45 minutes in the morning, and then I’ve been chanting, actually. So, I was doing some chanting for a while and I got away from it, I was doing some kundalini yoga and just stepped away from it.

And a friend of mine was talking to me the other day about the power of my voice and she was saying that you don’t use your sound current for yourself.

Lewis Howes:                 Right, you share.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Right, “You use it and it’s always projected out.” But, she’s like, “Moving energy; that’s one of your greatest tools to move energy, is your voice.” And a lot of the time, when I sing, it’s always structured. I don’t allow myself – this is one of the new loving things…

Lewis Howes:                 You’re allowing yourself to do that.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Allowing myself, yes, I mean, it’s taking that voice of, “You have to be perfect and you have to… You can’t wade through the crap to get to the pretty piece.” I have to be able to sit in stuff that doesn’t sound good or whatever it is, to get to the gift underneath. I mean, that’s just a life lesson.

But, for me, playing around with it, with my voice, just allowing sound to come out. And I keep my phone with me, because sometimes something really good will come out, and I’m like, “Wait, that was really good! We have to write a song off of that!”

Lewis Howes:                 What is this chanting like? You’re just making stuff up? Can you demonstrate  a little five seconds of what a chant is?

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yes. So, what chants am I doing right now? So I do this one chant, it’s for protection and projection. It’s a kundalini meditation, but it’s… Hah! You’re putting me on the spot!

Lewis Howes:                 Exciting!

LeAnn Rimes:                  I know, my husband said, the other day – I said, “I want you to chant with me,” and he’s like, “No, I just want to hear you chant.” But it was really sweet, because he was, “Really, I just love to hear you chant.”

So he sat with me, and it was the first time I ever chanted in front of someone. That was two days ago, so hold on, wait…

Lewis Howes:                 Oh! Okay, so you’ve got to practice now?

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yes. So, usually I would do this and my arms move and everything. So, it’s… [Chants] There you go.

Lewis Howes:                 Wow! Yeah! Alright! I don’t know if you’re supposed to clap? But it’s beautiful, though.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Thanks! And that’s, like I said, for protection and projection and it’s an open heart kind of thing, so I try to get into my heart as much as possible. So I do that in the morning, and it’s a new thing.

Imagine knowing your voice for as long as I have, and it’s like, “Oh, wait, there’s this other piece! There’s this other level to the gift, unwrapped.”

Lewis Howes:                 That you can access, yeah. You should do a weekly chant session for people at your house, or the studio. I know the meditation studio owner, Suzie, over here, if you want to do it, I’m sure…

LeAnn Rimes:                  I’ve been wanting to do that! I’d love to!

Lewis Howes:                 They have the bowls, they have the room, they have the whole set-up. It would be amazing.

LeAnn Rimes:                  So this is my new thing, I want to learn the whole shindig.

Lewis Howes:                 Can you imagine, ‘Chanting With LeAnn Rimes’? It would be incredible! I’d be there!

LeAnn Rimes:                  That’s the thing, too. I love my sweet husband; he’s like, “I want to hear you.” And that’s wonderful, but I want people to find that sound current in them, because when I’m doing this, when I come back to my heart, it’s vibrating. You can feel them when you’re speaking, but when you’re singing…

Lewis Howes:                 It’s electric!

LeAnn Rimes:                  It is, it’s…

Lewis Howes:                 It’s powerful. It’s healing.

LeAnn Rimes:                  It’s powerful. Everybody has that in them. And that’s what we’re so focused on: What everything sounds like, and what things look like, and I think part of my journey right now is stripping away all of those ‘shouldn’ts’ for myself, but also, hopefully, as I do for myself, somehow, along the way, helping others to strip away those pieces, too.

Lewis Howes:                 You have to promise me, in the next four months – I know you’ll be on tour soon…

LeAnn Rimes:                  We’ll do it!

Lewis Howes:                 We’ll do it. I’ll set it up for you, if you want?

LeAnn Rimes:                  Okay, let’s do it! You chanting with me, then?

Lewis Howes:                 I’ll chant with you. I’ll be in the back row, but I’ll be there!

LeAnn Rimes:                  Oh, no! Come on!

Lewis Howes:                 No, seriously! I think it would be powerful! Even just to do it once, to just see, and create your own little one hour chanting session.

LeAnn Rimes:                  I love the universe! This is the universe! Two days ago is the first time I ever chanted in front of someone, and now look at what I’m doing!

Lewis Howes:                 Let’s just do this! ‘Chanting With LeAnn Rimes.’ It’s going to be a whole Spotify playlist, you can create meditations for people, this could be a level of service, to give back in your own way.

LeAnn Rimes:                  I, in the last 48 hours have gone through this – it came to me in meditation today, of what I wanted to create.

Lewis Howes:                 I see it, we’re here for a reason.

LeAnn Rimes:                  We’re on the same wavelength.

Lewis Howes:                 I see it! You have my support.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Thank you!

Lewis Howes:                 This is your second marriage. You went through a [public divorce]. You were married for about a decade, is that what it was?

LeAnn Rimes:                  Seven years.

Lewis Howes:                 Seven years, and now you’ve been remarried for a while now. What’s the greatest lesson you learned in the relationship or the marriage that didn’t work out? And what’s the greatest lesson that you’ve learned in this current marriage?

LeAnn Rimes:                  I think I’ve learned, as a whole, that we are all here to teach each other something. My first husband, I’m incredibly grateful for everything we both taught each other. And we were fantastic friends and super, uber close as friends.

Lewis Howes:                 Today.

LeAnn Rimes:                  No, not today.

Lewis Howes:                 You were.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Unfortunately not.

Lewis Howes:                 You were then.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yeah, I mean, who knows what the future holds, but we were then and I think, with everything that happened, obviously there had to be a lot of separation there, for people to heal.

But I realise what we were for each other, and what we taught each other, and I’m very, very grateful for that. So, I think the easiest thing to do is look back and blame and say, “Oh my gosh, I wish that never happened.”

And I think, for me, I totally see why, and I’m very aware of it all. And the biggest lesson, for me, in learning how to handle a relationship , first off. I mean, you never know how love is going to come at you, how it’s going to hit you, how you’re going to react to it.

And I really have learned to speak truth, I think, more into my relationships; to know that I can be okay alone, al of those sorts of things. I think those are really powerful to have. I mean, as we were saying earlier, I was always around someone, or there was someone always around me.

Lewis Howes:                 You were never alone.

LeAnn Rimes:                  No, I was never alone. I was never out of a relationship in the way of living alone and that kind of thing. So, I now know those are things I’m fully capable of, but my latest relationship with Eddie, and hopefully my only one, with Eddie it’s been quite the ride, because we went through so much publicly together; we’ve had to blend a family; I have two stepsons who are eleven and fifteen.

He’s taught me a lot. They have all taught me a lot. And that’s one of those things…

Lewis Howes:                 Who has taught you more? Your husband or your stepkids?

LeAnn Rimes:                  Oh, wow! Both, in completely different ways, and I actually have to say, my husband’s ex-wife has taught me a lot, too. You know, it’s one of those things where you all want to hate each other at the beginning and then, like I said, these gifts that I realise are right in front of me that don’t look like gifts, but are, which is this whole situation of so many things I’ve learned.

From the ego falling away, to people who used to love you, hate you, and you’re like, first off, you’re just gut wrenched, when you’re depending on that kind of outside love. And then you realise it’s the best gift that could have ever happened to you, and then you realise having to make amends with people and having to blend personalities that are not gelling, and having to extend love in places where you’d never thought you’d have to extend love.

Lewis Howes:                 Like where?

LeAnn Rimes:                  Just to people, when you’ve all hurt each other so much, and then you all continue to hurt each other, having to get past all of that, and finally extend love. That’s been the most huge weight off my back, I think, is to come into this realisation that we all are gifts to one another.

Even my parents, where I’ve wanted to blame them in the past, realising that was a gift also. All these things are true gifts. And when you start to really love who you are, you realise, “Oh, these are all the things that created me,” you know? You can’t look at it any other way.

So, yeah, we’ve all taught each other, I know we’re all in each other’s lives for a reason, and it’s still a challenge, but It’s one that I have such a different perception on than when I first stepped into this.

And my husband’s amazing, he really is. He’s love me through a lot of pain. And I’ve always felt that people run away from it. I’ve always felt there was something wrong with me, like I have all this trauma and I’m in so much pain that I can’t show this side of me to people, because they run away.

Lewis Howes:                 You can’t show the pain?

LeAnn Rimes:                  I can’t show the pain, people can’t take it.

Lewis Howes:                 So you would hide it?

LeAnn Rimes:                  I would hide it and he has just always been someone that I could – he’s been there, through it all. He’s ever turned away from me, and he’s such a blessing. I mean, I still can’t believe, I still test him at times. Still!

Lewis Howes:                 Throw something at him every now and then.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yes! And I’m like, “Wait, but you still stayed again?” I think it’s just when I felt, I felt so abandoned at times in my life, so early on, that there’s been that wound, and so I didn’t believe that he existed. I’m still, like, “Wait, you really do exist!” He’s been in it with me. He is a true, true blessing.

Lewis Howes:                 Wow. He sounds like a special guy.

LeAnn Rimes:                  He is a good dude, he really is.

Lewis Howes:                 That’s amazing! Have you been able to heal from your experience with your parents?

LeAnn Rimes:                  Once again, we talk about layers. Yes, I have.

Lewis Howes:                 To a certain level.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yes, to a certain level, absolutely. And you know, the hardest thing is, I think, on this journey, for me, has been getting to a certain point and – anybody in your life, whether it’s your parents or… – you want to bring them along with you and you want to help them. And you can’t do that unless people want to change.

Lewis Howes:                 They’re willing to, yeah.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yeah, and sometimes we just don’t see eye to eye. And I think we’ve healed a lot of the past, and it’s the present that I am so desiring for them to be happy and have joy in their life, and all of these things that I’ve now been able to feel, and overcome the places that they’ve been in.

And so, sometimes I think that that’s now the hard part, for me.

Lewis Howes:                 To surrender that. To let it [go].

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yeah. That’s the next level, for me, in surrendering that. And just loving. I mean, that’s the thing with everyone in your life. And that’s something my husband has taught me, is loving people in the place that they’re at, and not expecting them to change, and he’s done that for me.

Lewis Howes:                 It’s hard.

LeAnn Rimes:                  It is, it’s hard, because I don’t do it for myself. It’s very difficult to love myself, sometimes, in the places that I don’t want to show, or that I don’t like. And I’m finding that when I start to really become tender with those places, then I become a lot more tender with everyone else around me.

Lewis Howes:                 Wow! There’s so much I want to talk about with you, and we only have a limited time left, so I want to make sure we cover a few of the things, because I think there’s so many layers I’d love to dive into, but maybe we’ll get you back on, next year.

LeAnn Rimes:                  When I’ve figured some more stuff out next year, I’ll come back.

Lewis Howes:                 I’m curious about this side of things, because there are a lot of musicians and actors and dancers who listen to the show, those who are trying to make it in their art and craft. And I think a lot of them struggle with, 1, making it, and then the second thing is, once they make it, “How do I stay relevant? How do I keep making it? How do I not be a hit for a few years and then fade away?”

How have you dealt with this, because you’ve had success for so long, and you still have a lot of success, but do you struggle with trying to stay relevant, where there’s always new artist and new sounds, and you feel like you have that pressure?

Or, how do you overcome the pressure of being relevant constantly?

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yes and no. I mean, of course there’s always that pressure in a career. I guess I don’t look at it any more as relevant as, “How can I keep creating and still be interesting?”

Lewis Howes:                 Interesting to other people?

LeAnn Rimes:                  Both. I know what you were about to say there, but both. And I think when we start to focus on what’s interesting to me… Look, when you start to pull yourself out of the ‘what everyone else thinks is relevant’ and ‘how to play the game’, you’re going to get some pushback, and you’re going to maybe have things that aren’t as successful, commercially.

But then what did you get from it? That’s where I had to shift things. “How did it make me feel? Did I really enjoy this process this time around? Did I not cut songs to please other people and really did things that I love to do? Where am I singing from? Is this coming from my heart? Is this coming from the need to be relevant?”

These are questions that I constantly am asking myself.

Lewis Howes:                 To make a hit, to do whatever, to sell records, whatever, yeah.

LeAnn Rimes:                  And when you start focusing on that, it’s just a race that you’re just never going to win. You never are. And so, I keep coming back to this place of what feels good to me, now. I mean, granted, I’m in a position where I can do that.

Lewis Howes:                 Yeah, because you’ve still got a lot of opportunities, no matter what you’re doing, right?

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yeah, but I still, when I was younger, so I started on country music and then my record label released my first pop hit, which was ‘How Do I Live’, to Pop Radio and at the time…

Lewis Howes:                 Is this Coyote Ugly time?

LeAnn Rimes:                  No, that was after this. How Do I Live was the first one.

Lewis Howes:                 It was a huge hit.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yeah, How Do I Live was the first one.

Lewis Howes:                 It was a huge hit! Mega!

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yeah, at the time, no one really crossed over.

Lewis Howes:                 From country to pop.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yeah, that was a no-no, because it was like you’ve kind of abandoned…

Lewis Howes:                 Now people are doing it.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yeah, people do it all the time. Back then it was like people were kind of abandoning the format. I was fourteen, keep in mind.

Lewis Howes:                 You’re like, “I’m just trying to…”

LeAnn Rimes:                  “Wait, I’m just trying to enjoy music!” Like, I didn’t, you know, there was no real, I had no idea that anything like that would be a bad thing.

So, I think, ever since that happened, I’ve just loved music and, for me, it was like, “Wait, why is someone trying to put me in a box?” And so I’ve really rebelled against that my whole life, of constantly pushing on the walls of every box anyone could put me in.

And maybe that was the reason why I stayed relevant. Maybe it was the reason why people were constantly wanting to hear what I was doing, because it was a little bit different every time. But I think the one thing that people always connected with me was that I connected with my heart and my heart came through my music.

And I think that that’s really what people connected with. I’m finding that more now than ever. I was, like, “Oh, wait, the voice is just the avenue of the other gift that’s underneath it.  And so, when I talk about peeling back the layers, and unwrapping this gift that I have, it’s like I’m really now just discovering, the voice is just kind of like the surface of what else is underneath it.

And I think really connecting – we live in a world where we all try to fit in. It’s the worst thing we can possibly do for ourselves. You know, I remember a time in my life, in my mid teens where I wanted to be normal so bad.

Lewis Howes:                 You wanted to fit in.

LeAnn Rimes:                  I so wanted to fit in! I wanted to be normal so bad, it’s like, the worst thing I could have asked for. Don’t do that! Because you do, you lose these unique pieces of yourself and we all are so unique and I can easily get into thinking this.

I started a blog called ‘Soul Of EverLe’, and when I started the blog, I was like, “Why am I starting this?” Everyone’s got a blog, the whole deal, and it’s so easy to think, “Oh, everyone’s doing this kind of music or, there’s so many people doing that, or making that product,” but the thing is, we all have such a unique way of seeing things, and a unique way of being and creating.

We can’t think that way, that’s just so not true. There are people out there who need your truth, in the way that you present it and your creations. And so I think that’s been a big lesson for me, is to just continue to create without expectation, and for the joy of it.

I think that’s one thing I lost for a while, because you start focusing on the business side of it, and you lose the joy. It’s really, really connecting with yourself. I think your intuition, man, my intuition tells me to do something sometimes, where I’m like, “Really? You want me to create that? I should do that, now?”

I mean, I’m going  through that right now actually, I’m starting to work on a new record and I’ve been sitting with it for about a year now, because it’s like one piece of me will pull me one way, the other piece of me will pull me that way, my intuition will pull me that way, and I’m like, “Wait! Which one?”

I had to start discerning which one really is the intuition, and rolling with it. Because it’s…

Lewis Howes:                 It’s risky, it’s scary.

LeAnn Rimes:                  It is risky! It is also fun! I’m now realising I’m having fun doing that, and that’s probably where I should be going.

Lewis Howes:                 More into that, yeah.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yeah.

Lewis Howes:                 I think your greatest hits are ahead of you, still.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Thanks!

Lewis Howes:                 I think, you know, in all areas of your life.

LeAnn Rimes:                  In chanting!

Lewis Howes:                 In chanting, in music, in relationships, in the message you have for the world. I think your level of service is just beginning, and I’m really excited to see what you’re going to create, whatever you intuition tells you to do.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Thank you. Yeah, it’s going to be fun! I’m excited!

Lewis Howes:                 Gosh! I want to have you come back on another time, but I want to respect your time. This is  question I ask at the end, it’s called The Three Truths. I’m going to ask you in a different way.

So, imagine you’ve sung every song you’ve wanted to sing. You’ve created every piece of music, it’s all been out there, all your weird, intuitive ways that you’ve gone into, you’ve made the music you’ve wanted.

But, for whatever reason, you’ve got to take your music with you. And this is your last day, many years from now, and you choose the last day for your life. You’ve done it all! All the crazy dreams, it’s all happened. You’ve impacted the world the way you wanted to, you’ve loved deeply, all that stuff.

But your music has got to go with you, so no one has access to it any more, can’t listen to it any more. But you’ve got a microphone connected to you right now, and the whole world puts headphones on. Everyone in the world gets to listen to you one last time.

And you get to share Three Truths, or three lessons that you would share with the world, that they would have to remember you by, and to have access to. What would you say with your voice, while everyone is listening?

LeAnn Rimes:                  Dude! This is intense!

Lewis Howes:                 It’s called The School of Greatness.

LeAnn Rimes:                  This is so good!

Lewis Howes:                 So, again, everyone’s putting on headphones right now, 7+ billion people, and you got to share three things you know to be true about your life’s experience, that you would share, these lessons, with the world. Putting on the headphones, we’re about to listen, LeAnn Rimes comes on the mic. What would you say?

LeAnn Rimes:                  Wow. The most painful thing you’ll ever experience in your life is the closing of your heart. And when you’ve closed it, you will know when you’ve opened it, because it will feel like you just started breathing again.

And you’re going to make me cry! This is so true , though. Because I oscillate between the two, all the time. I think we all do, but when you’ve really closed it and it opens, it’s just so powerful. So that would be the first thing, is to, as much as you can in his lifetime, try to keep your heart open.

Lewis Howes:                 Number one. What’s number two?

LeAnn Rimes:                  That’s number one. Number two, there’s so much power in us that we have barely touched on. We have the power to change anything about ourselves. And, I think, for me, what I’ve learned is that it comes in the form of creativity.

I think we don’t give ourselves enough credit for the creative beings that we are. We look to much to the outside, and don’t connect enough with the inside. And in that connection, what I found, going to intuition, is that, usually, the first thing that comes to mind – like, I’m sitting here thinking about a zillion things I could say, but I’m like, “Okay, heart, intuition, go to these things,” the first thing that comes, it’s like, “Okay, I need to speak on that.”

The first thing that comes, go with it. You might not know where you’re going, but go with it, because there’s such a plan, so much bigger than us than we could ever, ever fathom. So even in the smallest of choices, every little thing we do, falls into that plan. I truly believe that. So, yes, intuition.

Lewis Howes:                 Two.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yes.

Lewis Howes:                 Okay, and number three? The world is listening.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Number three. There is a God. I do believe. The synergy that creates us is just an amazing thing. But, let me see, I don’t know if that would be number three. But, yes, that is definitely, it’s definitely there.

Number three. I know we talk about self love a lot, it’s become this kind of buzz-word, or this buzz-phrase, but true self love is the key to life in my opinion. Because what is that saying, “You can only meet someone as far as you can meet yourself.”

And so, the deeper I find, the [more tender] I get with myself, the more that I can sit with all the facets of me and truly be with those things, the more I can serve the world in those ways. So I think, for me, self love is key.

Lewis Howes:                 Yeah, wow. Those are powerful.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Thanks. That’s probably one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done, because there’s so much!

Lewis Howes:                 There’s so much, so much. I’m curious, I’ve got a couple of final ones. This just popped up for me: What was the hardest year of your teenage years? What year was the worst year for you?

LeAnn Rimes:                  They all ran into each other at one point. They seemed like one long year. Probably seventeen.

Lewis Howes:                 Seventeen. If your seventeen-year-old self was right in front of you, right now, going through that, and you had something you could say to her, what what you say?

         LeAnn Rimes:                       The first thing that came to mind was, “Fall apart. You don’t have to hold up the world for everybody else. It’s okay. Everybody else can take care of themselves.”

Lewis Howes:                 Wow. I like that. You’ve got a movie coming out right now. What’s the movie?

LeAnn Rimes:                  The movie is called, ‘It’s Christmas, Eve’, on Hallmark Channel. I just did a Christmas movie for them. I wrote three original songs for the film, which there’s a soundtrack that’s out right now, also. I executive produce the film, from the ground up. I had so much fun doing this movie.

There’s a lot of heart in it, of course; it’s Hallmark. There’s a beautiful love story.

Lewis Howes:                 Sure, it’s always good Christmas movies on there. There’s always good stuff. I’m excited to watch it.

LeAnn Rimes:                  It is!

Lewis Howes:                 So it’s on the Hallmark Channel?

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yes, November 10th.

Lewis Howes:                 November 10th, through the Christmas season, they’ll be playing it every few days I’m assuming.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yeah.

Lewis Howes:                 But you can search on your DVR or whatever to find out when it’s happening. Watch it, take a screenshot, post it on Instagram, share it with your friends. What’s the title of it, again?

LeAnn Rimes:                  ‘It’s Christmas, Eve.’

Lewis Howes:                 It’s Christmas, Eve. Watch it, share it, tag LeAnn as well. The music is out, where can they get the music? Spotify or iTunes?

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yeah, I mean, everywhere, yes, absolutely. You can stream it everywhere, hallmark.com, leannrimeschristmas.com. Actually, I have a Christmas website.

Lewis Howes:                 And you’re going on tour! For how long?

LeAnn Rimes:                  We’re on tour for, like, three weeks, basically. This is our sixth holiday tour, and it’s really fun.

Lewis Howes:                  I want to hear you sing O, Holy Night.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Okay.

Lewis Howes:                 Do you do it at your tour, or no?

LeAnn Rimes:                  I don’t.

Lewis Howes:                 Silent Night?

LeAnn Rimes:                  I don’t do either of those, but if you come to a show…

Lewis Howes:                 Maybe you’ll do Silent Night for me.

LeAnn Rimes:                  I’ll for sure do one or the other. You’ve got it. Yes.

Lewis Howes:                 Yes!

LeAnn Rimes:                  But we’re playing the West Coast this year. We’ve got to pick a place to play in the United States every year, and we’re doing West Coast again. We did that a few years ago.

Lewis Howes:                 West Coast, you can go to leannrimes.com to see the tour dates, I’m assuming.

LeAnn Rimes:                  leannrimesworld.com.

Lewis Howes:                 leannrimesworld.com, or on Instagram I’m sure.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yeah, it’s everywhere. You can’t miss it.

Lewis Howes:                 What else? We’ve got the movie, ‘It’s Christmas, Eve’, the music, the tour, social media, you hang out on Instagram a lot, Twitter.

LeAnn Rimes:                  I do, yeah, definitely on Instagram, and then soulofeverle.com.

Lewis Howes:                 soulofeverle.com is the website, we’ll have it all lined up. How often are you blogging?

LeAnn Rimes:                  I usually blog once or twice a week, and then I do a little thing called ‘ChalkTalk’ that I put a quote either that I’ve written or some of my favourite ones and kind of expand on it. It’s very soulful, obviously, Soul of EverLe, very soulful little place for me to play around. So it’s just kind of an extension of my music in a completely different way.

Lewis Howes:                 Check out all this stuff. I want to acknowledge you, LeAnn, for being more than just a beautiful voice, but a beautiful soul. Because you’ve gone through so much in your life and your career and relationships publicly, and I can’t even imagine the amount of stress and anxiety and overwhelm that could cause someone.

And for you to continue to show up with a beautiful voice and a beautiful soul, and give to the world, the way you do, is just, it’s a breath of fresh air. So I really acknowledge you for your kindness, your generosity, our friendship, and everything.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Lewis Howes:                 And the greatest hits that are still coming.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Thank you.

Lewis Howes:                 So, I acknowledge you for all of that.

LeAnn Rimes:                  And thank you for being so, you’re just so kind and open and it’s so wonderful to be on here. I appreciate it.

Lewis Howes:                 Of course, of course. The final question is: What is your definition of greatness?

LeAnn Rimes:                  What is my definition of greatness? I would think I would go with this: For me, it’s someone who is willing to take risks, it’s someone who is willing to fail, it’s someone who realises that failing is not the end of the world, but it’s only a stepping stone to success.

It’s someone who keeps persevering, and learning from every bump in the road, only to come out of that with more wisdom and knowledge of clear vision of where they want to go. So it’s someone who doesn’t give up.

Lewis Howes:                 LeAnn Rimes.

LeAnn Rimes:                  Yes!

Lewis Howes:                 Thank you. Appreciate it.

LeAnn Rimes:                  There you go!

Lewis Howes:                 Amazing, amazing!

There you have it, my friends! I loved this interview, and if you enjoyed this episode as much as I did, then please share it with two or three friends. You can text them right now. Just text them the link, lewishowes.com/719 or you can grab the link from your iTunes app or the podcast app that you’re listening to, over on Spotify, and you can share this with your friends right there.

Take a screenshot of this and tag myself, @LewisHowes, and @leannrimes over on Instagram, so she can see what part you enjoyed the most about this, so, again, go ahead and tag both of us, take a screenshot while you’re listening, and post it over on Instagram.

Send her some love and check out all of her new stuff; her music, her movie, check it all out, and we’ll have it linked up at the show notes, at lewishowes.com/719. You can watch the full video interview over there as well, or on our YouTube, youtube.com/lewishowes, where we’ve got hundreds of incredible interviews and videos that will inspire you, educate you, and help you unlock your greatness.

That’s what this is all about: unlocking it! And Oprah said that, we’ve got to, “Turn your wounds into wisdom.” So, whatever it is that you might be going through today, realise that that’s an opportunity for you to inspire someone else, through your story, through your wounds, through your adversity.

So, make sure you continue to lean into your wounds, and then heal them. Be aware of them and start to heal, start to forgive, start to let go, and start to move forward. And use those wounds as a story, looking back, to inspire other people around you and inspire yourself for how far you’ve grown and how much you have overcome.

That’s what this is all about. We’re always reaching new levels of opportunities and obstacles at the same time, because once we graduate one level, guess what? New challenges are going to come our way, no matter what!

So have an open mind, have an open heart and lean into those obstacles with positivity, and with a presence and peace of mind, knowing that you will overcome them one day.

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As always, I love you guys so very much! I’m so inspired by the people that I get to interview. LeAnn Rimes is an incredible human being, love her mission! Make sure to go check her out, check her music out, check her out on tour, watch her movie, all the good things! Follow her on social media.

And, as always, you guys know what time it is: It’s time to go out there and do something great!