Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.
I think that people put too big of a notion on purpose in that they think that it has to look like a Nelson Mandela or a Mother Teresa or Oprah or a you or a I. And a lot of times what you're really good at is right in front of you.
What you're really great at is right in front of you.And to recognize that your calling and your purpose can change. You have a long lifetime.It's not going to be the same calling the whole time.
And so allow yourself to evolve, allow your purpose to evolve.What's that thing you do effortlessly that you give no credit to?Because you're just looking past it.Oh, it can't be that because it's not hard.
Well, how about it doesn't have to be difficult.How about The fact that you're a great listener, how can you take that and use that and expand that?And don't compare yourself to someone else.
Comparison, I think Benjamin Franklin said, Comparison is the thief of all joy.When you look left or right, you know, people are always comparing me to Oprah Winfrey or Yonla Van Zandt or Les Brown or Tony Robbins.
I said, listen, if you want me to give you Oprah or Yonla or Tony or Les, I'm always going to 1,000% fail you.But if you're ever interested, I do a damn good Lisa Nichols.I do.I do a good Lisa Nichols.
And so when you look at what are my gifts, what are my unique gifts?I knew very early on I was a gifted speaker.I wasn't certified as a gifted speaker. I haven't passed any courses as a speaker.
Matter of fact, the last time I took a speech class, I got a D minus and my speech teacher told me, Ms.Nichols, I recommend you never speak in public, that you get a desk job.That was in my freshman year of college, the last speech class I took.
So a lot of times your gift and your purpose, you've discounted it either because someone else discounted it or what's more common is you don't know how to monetize it.Yes.
And sometimes the greatest gift you have to give is not for fee, it's for free.Not every gift you're supposed to get paid for.Nelson Mandela did not get paid for leading 27 years when he got out of prison.
He got paid after that, but he was a great leader while he was in prison.And Martin Luther King, he got paid from the church, but his fight for civil rights, that was a free one, and he paid the highest cost.
And you can go on and on and on to some of the greatest leaders, Mahatma Gandhi, it wasn't a paycheck. And I know we're scaled down to our version, but don't get attached to having to get paid for your gift.
When people live in a place of servant leadership, my grandmother said when I was 24, if you leave and how can you serve the most people?When I sit with my team, I go, how can we serve more people?How can we serve?
Last year, we were able to touch 30 million people. And that's all our question.Now as we serve, our platform gets broader.But how can we serve?Don't tell me how we can make more money.I'm not interested in that.How can we serve more?
Because if I do the right thing for the right reasons, everything I need will be a byproduct of that.
So I think we get caught up in, you know, society has us looking at possessions.And so we begin to measure our joy and our abundance on possessions. I have a friend.He's worth $14 billion.
I checked my email on my phone before we started, and he's on my phone asking me, please come visit me, because he's lonely.He's rich, but he's not abundant.
He flew from Canada to come to my house for New Year's just to be around people who were celebrating and wanted nothing from him.Don't pursue the things.Pursue the acts of service, and everything you need will come.I promise you.
You are only going to go as far as you think you're worthy.I can push.You can push.You can have the greatest product.But if you don't feel worthy, you will work hard to sabotage that relationship.You don't know what you're doing.
You don't know what you're doing.You think, these are the things I need.And you're driving that guy away.You're driving that woman away.Because your self-worth says they weren't going to stay forever anyway.Or self-worth around money.
You have a cap that you feel like you're worthy of a million dollars.You will always get to 999,000 and you will stop because your self-worth says it.So enrichment is number one.
I did this for six months, every single day, right after I brushed my teeth.You get in the mirror and you complete three different sentences.You want to write this down.The first sentence, you look at yourself and you say your name.
So you would say Lewis and you complete this, I'm proud that you. and find seven different things every day to celebrate yourself for.Seven different.
Each day you can do the same thing you did the day before, but each day do seven different things to be proud of.The second sentence is going to knock you down a little bit.It's going to come from your gut.Lewis, I forgive you for...
and cut the shackles to blame, shame, guilt, regret, and anger.In that sentence, you cut those five shackles.Not the first day, maybe not the third day, but by the 21st day, by the 13th day, you'll feel some relief.
So Louis, I forgive you for, and go back five years, 15 years, 20 years, do that, I forgive you for that thing don't nobody know about, but you, go ahead and cut those shackles.Because if you can still think about it, it's still in your energy space.
And then the third sentence is Louis, I commit to you that before you make a commitment to anybody else throughout your day, you make seven commitments to you.So the first sentence is I'm proud that you, you're celebrating yourself first.
We are under celebrated as a, as a society.We look for acknowledgement.They enter, they interviewed a hundred executives that all made over a quarter of a million dollars and said, would you like a 5% raise next year?
Or would you rather be told thank you more often? 100%. 100% said, keep your money.I'd rather hear thank you.So we're under celebrated, but first celebrate you.Be the example.When I was on Oprah, when she said, what do you do?
I said, I recognize that I'm the example of how the rest of the world is supposed to treat me.And it's my job to give the world the best example of how I like to be treated.So celebrate yourself.
forgive yourself, cut the shackles, and then commit to yourself before you commit to anyone else.That right there.Powerful.That right there will begin to fill your cup up.Relationships are going to define the quality of your life.
When you're on your bed on your last days, you're going to want to know who's going to be around you.Bottom line, you're not going to care about another podcast.
You're not going to care about another sponsor, but the relationships in your life are going to determine the quality of your life.And so mind your relationships. The third area is engagement, work engagement.
You're going to spend so much time in work.And we're so emotionally attached to our work.And most of the time people are attached in such a dismal way.Why would you have that dismal energy around something you're going to spend so many hours in?
So I teach you how to shift your energy toward your work so that you no longer look at it as your work.Now it's no longer your JLB.Like everyone in my community, everyone in my tribe, they no longer say they have a job.They say, I have an investor.
And when you look at your job as your investor, you really rename it as your investor.And it's investing in your breathtaking future.It has the capacity to buy anything you want for your future, if you mind your money right.It can buy your freedom.
And all of a sudden, you start treating your investor better, and you're more excited about going.Matter of fact, you're grateful.You're grateful for your investor.Man, my investor was LA Unified School District.
That was a hard place to be when it was a job.I'm just telling you.But as an investor, for three and a half years, I wrote myself a check.And I put in the memo line, funding my dream.I didn't even know what the dream was.I wasn't even clear.
I just knew whatever my dream was, it was going to cost some money. And I needed to pay.And I needed to have some money to pay.In that if I was going to ask other people to invest in me, I had to be my first investor.
Who am I to ask someone to put money my way when I didn't put money my way?So I wanted someone for them to match.Just match my investment in me.I got 10 in.Can you put 10 in?I got 20 in.Can you put 20 in?And so when you look at your job,
your work engagement as an investor into your breathtaking life, all of a sudden there's a different energy around it.And then the last one is money endowment.
And to recognize more than the Dr. Seuss family and the Disney family and the McDonald's family and the Lawrence Welk family has a right to an endowment, when you look and go, I can do an endowment? Because we think it's for them.
Remember, I started this conversation with abundances for those people over there, especially when it comes to an endowment, our living legacy, like in your book and creating a legacy to recognize that, wait a minute, there's a Lewis endowment and a Lisa endowment and a Don and John and Tanya endowment and fill in the blank here endowment.
And I need to live my life to set up my endowment.All of a sudden you become responsible for generations to come, responsible for changing the trajectory of your family's life.That's some bold stuff.
When in your lifetime, you do a needlepoint move for your family.In my lifetime, I was able to do a needlepoint move for my son.Like he's a Nichols child.
He's one of many Nichols men, but that's a Nichols man who now knows what it feels like to cook in Italy and in Tuscany. and in Florence, and in Venice, and in Rome.
That's a Nichols child who knows what it feels like to go surfing on the Gold Coast of Australia.That's a Nichols child who understands what it feels like to stand on the tallest mountain in Africa.
I asked him this morning, I said, Jelani, can you, when you get married and have children, can you stay in California so Mommy can really see her grandchildren?He goes, well, Mom, that's kind of restrictive.It's restrictive to stay in big California.
It's like, well, it's kind of, because he knows the world. His paradigm shift has occurred.He won't ever live like another and he'll take everything he's learned and expand the Nichols male child experience.
So in my generation, in my lifetime, I was able to change our family experience for him.And so I believe that we have a right to look at our legacy and create a living legacy and then create a legacy.
I am so excited for you to finish the rest of your day strong.If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description and it'll take you to the full episode of my other show, The School of Greatness.
Make sure to come back tomorrow for another episode of The Daily Motivation Show.
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