Ego vs. Self Esteem

Becoming Rooted in the Formless

EXPERIENCE

Do Shit That's Difficult

London is the sixth track off the Meet Me Outside EP, a collection of soundtracks composed by Mankind for the Meet Me Outside short film.

Meet Me Outside is a new Arts new Audiences (nAnA) grantee under the British Council's East Africa Arts programme.

London

JUST KEEP GOING.

There are three fears we struggle with the most:

The fear of failure

The fear of success

And the fear of judgment.

The center of all of those fears is “I am not enough.”

When we get past that, we can step into anything.

People-pleasing is an issue a lot of us face.

It’s crazy how we can allow one person’s opinion of us to hold us back.

That’s why I really enjoyed my conversation with a bestselling mom who overcame her need to make other people happy: Rachel Hollis.

Rachel had been working for over a decade on her career, her marriage, and her brand before her career took off. She wrote six books that hardly sold any copies. Her seventh book became a hit. 

Her life changed with one viral post that created the momentum for her bestselling book.

Girl, Wash Your Face has over a million copies sold and is growing every week. She is host of the RISE Podcast and co-host of the RISE Together podcast. She is a mother of four who was named one of the "Top 30 Entrepreneurs under 30" by Inc. Magazine.

She is an amazing example of the power of not giving up.

So learn how to follow your dreams and live for yourself (even if you’re a mom) on Episode 697.

The School of Greatness

On Apple Podcasts

Rachel Hollis: How to Build Confidence, Believe in Yourself and Become Your Best Self

We all want to maintain our youth. Our goal is to be attractive, healthy, and energetic as we age.  What if there were ways beyond basic diet and exercise regimens that could literally reverse aging? But what if we could defy our own biology? There are many ways to stay young and live a healthy, productive life. But maybe those methods aren’t enough. Maybe if we lived at the intersection of technology and health we could actually live forever. On today’s episode of The School of Greatness, I talk about the things you can do to maintain your health with a master biohacker: Dave Aspery. Dave Asprey is the creator of the widely popular Bulletproof Coffee, host of the podcast Bulletproof Radio, and author of the New York Times bestselling book, The Bulletproof Diet.  Dave was described by Men’s Health as a "lifestyle guru” and his body-hacking gym, Upgrade Labs, has more than 15 different technologies in two signature locations dedicated to improving mental and physical performance and recovery. His new book Super Human: The Bulletproof Plan to Age Backward and Maybe Even Live Forever is out on October 8th everywhere books are sold online. So get ready to learn how to maintain your health and energy as you age on Episode 860. 

Some Questions I Ask:
What is the BulletProof diet? (12:45)
What are the seven things that make you old? (17:25)
How do you get a better ROI on your workout? (46:50)
What are five things you can do for better health and less pain? (55:30)
What are the five health killers? (01:09:35)
 
In This Episode You Will Learn:
How to get to your ultimate fitness level (9:27)
How to keep your body young (16:55)
Key steps on maintaining your health and energy as you get older (40:17)
The power of your immune system and “killer cells” (52:00)
Five simple tips to improve your overall health (55:45) 
Why fried food is worse than cigarettes (1:02:40)
The incredible benefits of intermittent fasting (1:03:55)

If you enjoyed this episode, check out the video, show notes and more at http://lewishowes.com/860 and follow at instagram.com/lewishowes

Age Backwards, Biohack Your Life and Be Super Human with Dave Asprey

We typically don't think much about how we structure a conversation. We just sort of wing it and hope for the best. But my guest today argues that all conversations -- even the small and mundane -- can impact our ability to lead, influence, and connect, and ought to be approached with thoughtfulness and intention. 

His name is Daniel Stillman, he's a consultant, author, and podcaster, and in his book Good Talk: How to Design Conversations That Matter, he draws on his background in design to show how we can use the principles of design thinking to improve the quality of our exchanges. Daniel and I kick off our discussion by unpacking the defaults of conversation people often fall back on. Daniel compares the structure of conversation to an operating system, and we turn to how we can improve this conversational OS, beginning with the way we invite people into a conversation with us, and why we shouldn't just ask, "Can we talk?" We then get into how we can improve the "interface" of our conversations, by recognizing the influence that space and place have on them, and choosing the right environment for a particular dialogue. We end our conversation with the options you have for responding when it's your turn to talk and how to deal with the gaffes we all make during conversations, and the feelings of regret that frequently follow.

Get the show notes at aom.is/conversationdesign.

#634: How to Design Conversations That Matter

Anyone who's ever tried to lose weight, curb their temper, quit smoking, or alter any other habit in their lives knows that personal change is hard. Really hard.

Most self-help books out there treat people like machines, blitzing past this difficulty and offering mechanical 5-step formulas for changing your life.

My guest today says such simplified solutions hugely miss the mark. He argues that if you ever want to change, it's more fruitful to understand why you don't, than figure why you do, and to understand that, you've got to go deeper, existential even.

His name is Dr. Ross Ellenhorn, and he's spent his career facilitating the recovery of individuals diagnosed with psychiatric and substance abuse issues. In his latest book, How We Change (And Ten Reasons Why We Don't), he's taken what he's learned in his work and applied it to anyone trying to change their lives.

Ross and I begin our conversation with some of those reasons we don't change, including the existential pressure of feeling like you're solely in charge of making change happen, a dizzying amount of freedom and number of options for what to do with your life, and day-to-day factors which influence our level of motivation. From there we turn to the role of hope and faith in psychology, and how these forces can both boost and restrain your ability to change. We discuss the way a fear of hope can constrain your life, why you sometimes need to embrace staying the same in order to ever change, and the difference between good faith and bad faith. We then discuss the idea that you don't develop hope, but can develop faith, and how you build your faith in yourself through embracing humility and taking small steps. Ross then explains why he doesn't really give advice on how to change, beyond finding the good in a bad habit, but how patience and your social environment can also help.

This show's got some counterintuitive advice that will help you see your struggles differently. Get the show notes at aom.is/change.

#657: Why You Don't Change (But How You Still Can)

JBPWAVE: AESTHETIC

You're Oppressed

When you were a kid, you not only went to school, where you did academics, art, and PE, but you probably also took extracurricular lessons in music or sports, and likely even taught yourself things like how to do magic tricks.

Now that you're an adult, can you think of the last new skill you learned?

My guest today explains why there's a good chance that you'll struggle to answer that question, and how that's a tragedy you ought to do something about. His name is Tom Vanderbilt, and he's the author of several books, including his latest, Beginners: The Joy and Transformative Power of Lifelong Learning. Tom and I discuss why his daughter's desire to learn chess inspired him to spend a year learning the game himself, as well as to take on a project of learning other new skills. Tom explains the reasons adults give up learning, and why, while it is harder for adults to learn new things than it is for children, it's still worth becoming a novice all over again. We then explore how to harness the beginner's mind, using Tom's experiences in learning how to sing, surf, juggle, and draw as examples. We end our conversation with Tom's takeaways from his experiment, and how becoming a lifelong learner is really all about pushing through the mental barriers that hold us back from the many possibilities for growth that remain in adulthood.

Get the show notes at aom.is/lifelonglearning.

#677: The Value of Learning New Skills in Adulthood

Rucking, that is, walking with a weighted backpack, started as something that soldiers did to carry the gear and equipment needed for combat. In recent times, rucking has become an increasingly popular form of exercise, and if you've wanted to try it, or have already started but would like to improve your practice, my guest today has some advice.

His name is Josh Bryant and he's a strength coach and the author of multiple books on fitness, including Rucking Gains. Josh explains how rucking got its start in ancient armies, the kind of loads modern soldiers carry today, and why civilians should consider adopting this military-born modality. After unpacking the benefits of rucking, we get into how to walk with proper form, at the right pace, and choose what terrain to traverse. We discuss how to program your rucking workouts, how to make them progressively more challenging, and how to integrate them into your fitness routine without having it interfere with the strength gains you're developing in the gym. We end our conversation with exercises you can do with your rucksack besides humping it.

Get the show notes at aom.is/rucking.

#682: Get Rucking

We all make many decisions every single day. From little ones like what to eat for breakfast, to big ones like whether to take a new job. Given how regularly we're deciding, we certainly have a vested interest in getting better at this skill. But how do we do so? How can we get better at making big choices, and spend less time dithering over the insignificant minutiae that often overwhelms our mental bandwidth? And why didn't anyone teach us how to do this stuff to begin with?

My guest today has written a book that offers an education in a subject matter many of us missed out on. Her name is Annie Duke, she's a former professional poker player and decision-making expert and strategist, and her latest book is How to Decide: Simple Tools for Making Better Choices. Today on the show, Annie shares many of those practical tools, beginning with how to overcome hindsight bias and "resulting" -- our tendency to judge decisions based on their outcomes -- by doing something called "knowledge tracking." We discuss how to figure out the probabilities for things that seem difficult to predict and the importance of embracing an "archer's mindset." When then get into when you should make decisions slowly, when you can speed up, how to employ the "only option" test when making a choice, and why when a decision is hard, it’s actually easy.

Get the show notes at aom.is/howtodecide.

#677: The Value of Learning New Skills in Adulthood

The Art of Manliness