The School of Greatness with Lewis Howes

80% of people feel stuck in their own lives right now, and it has nothing to do with willpower. Dr. Katy Milkman, author of How to Change and professor at Wharton, breaks down why status quo bias and sunk cost thinking keep us glued to relationships, jobs, and habits that stopped working long ago. She explains the fresh start effect, why moments like Mondays, birthdays, and new zip codes actually rewire our motivation, and why waiting for a bigger breakdown might be costing you years. You will hear how she turned a dreaded gym habit into something she craved just by pairing it with Harry Potter audiobooks, and why a Google experiment on exercise proved that flexible backup plans beat rigid discipline every single time. She also gets honest about her own struggle with work life balance, choosing late night work over time with her five year old, and what she is doing to change that pattern right now. If you have ever broken a promise to yourself and felt the confidence drain out of you a little more each time,

The version of you who thinks debt is the enemy has never heard it explained this way. Sharran Srivatsaa went from dumpster-diving for food his first week of college to running Acquisition.com alongside Alex and Layla Hormozi, and the money rules he lives by now would sound insane to the kid who once got mugged for $100 within seven hours of landing in America. He talks about the ratchet clause that quietly shrank a $47 million payout down to under $5 million, and why that single contract mistake sent him to business school and Wall Street to learn the language money is actually written in. You will hear why he thinks money loves speed but wealth loves time, why every goal needs an actual plan instead of a wish, and why the four money monsters (inflation, taxes, interruption, fees) are quietly eating your future more than any bad investment ever could. He also gets honest about losing a million dollars to a con artist who vanished three days after cashing his check, and the four questions he now asks before t

That chest pain you can't explain, that anger that fires before you can think, that heart you've quietly sealed off since someone broke it. There might be a reason it's still there. Dr. Bradley Nelson spent 38 years as a chiropractor before realizing something wild: about 90% of the physical pain he saw in patients traced back to emotions they never fully processed. Anger, grief, and guilt don't just disappear when we bury them, he says. They get trapped in the body, distort its energy, and quietly run the show. He talks about the “heart wall,” an invisible barrier that around 93% of people build without knowing it, and how taking it down has helped people fall in love, heal from depression, and let go of pain they'd carried for decades. Lewis shares his own story too, a years-long ache in his chest that finally released in a single, almost electric moment during deep therapy work. This one will make you rethink every “unexplainable” symptom, every instant overreaction, every wall you've built without realizi

Your body is talking to your brain constantly, telling it either 'I'm safe' or 'I'm not safe.' The posture you default to when no one's watching might be the thing keeping you stuck. Amy Cuddy, the social psychologist behind one of the most-watched TED Talks ever, sat down to unpack what actually builds confidence when the world feels unstable. She talks about the difference between faking it and becoming it, why imposter syndrome hits 75-85% of people, and why the bullies who came after her post-TED fame taught her more about personal power than the research ever did. You'll hear about the exact breathing pattern she uses before high-stakes moments, the simple writing exercise that beats any pep talk, and why she thinks reframing anxiety as excitement changes everything. There's also a story about a nurse named Alex Wubbels who got thrown against a wall for doing the right thing, and what that taught Amy about the kind of bravery that has no glory attached to it. This conversation will make you rethink every

That feeling when a small comment ruins your entire day? There's actually a name for it, and it's not a character flaw. Dr. Sasha Hamdani is a board certified psychiatrist and ADHD specialist who spent years thinking something was fundamentally wrong with her before she connected the dots between her emotions and her ability to function. She was diagnosed with ADHD in fourth grade but her parents never told her, calling her medication a “vitamin” until she found out by accident in medical school, mid breakdown, after a grade crash she couldn't explain. In this conversation she breaks down why ADHD is genetic rather than trauma driven, why women are diagnosed on average at 35 instead of childhood, and why so many get handed antidepressant after antidepressant for the wrong diagnosis. She also opens up about rejection sensitive dysphoria, the moment her father's sudden death taught her that unregulated emotion can shut down your whole life, and the years she spent secretly dating her now husband while terrified

You can't manifest a new life while you're still living inside an old identity. Transformational coach and hypnotherapist Jim Curtis has worked with entrepreneurs and public figures on the pattern behind their stuck points. He calls it release, align, become, a framework built to break the subconscious programming running your life. It starts with forgiveness. Not the version where you forgive everyone else. The version where you look yourself in the mirror and say I'm sorry first. Your subconscious can't build a life it doesn't believe you deserve. Chase the money or the relationship hard enough without changing the belief underneath it, and it finds a way to hand it back. This episode gets into imposter syndrome in high achievers, the Three Gs of grounding, giving, and gratitude, and the exact prayer Jim uses to settle his own fear. You'll want a mirror by the end of it. Pre-order Jim's New Book: The Book of Possibility The Stimulati Experience: 9 Skills for Getting Past Pain, Setbacks, and Trauma to Ignite

The reason your kid melts down over a puzzle has nothing to do with the puzzle. It's about whether they've ever been shown that frustration is survivable instead of something to run from. Dr. Becky Kennedy, a clinical psychologist who spent years teaching parents the textbook model built on timeouts and sticker charts, once stopped mid-session with a paying couple and told them she no longer believed what she was teaching them. That moment of honesty became the seed of Good Inside. She walks through the three lines she leans on with her own kids in almost any hard moment, starting with letting them know she's glad they came to her at all. It sounds small, but she says it might be the single most healing thing a parent can offer a kid who's struggling. Boundaries come up too, and she reframes them completely. A boundary isn't a threat or a punishment, it's what lets a kid feel like someone calm is actually flying the plane, even while they're the one melting down in the back. By the end you'll understand why s

There's one reason your new habits never stick, and it has nothing to do with willpower. Peter Crone has spent decades coaching PGA Tour golfers, Major League Baseball athletes, and top executives on the subconscious wiring behind their results, and he breaks down why force can override a habit but never an identity. He explains why most relationships start as attachment and codependency instead of real love, why hatred is a wound you carry inside yourself, and why the story you keep telling about your pain is the thing keeping you stuck in it. You'll hear why the mind isn't the brain, why you can't heal from the same level of consciousness that created the problem, and why chasing certainty is the exact thing keeping you anxious. This conversation will change how you see the parts of yourself you've spent your whole life trying to fix. Sign Up For Peter's Mastermind: Website Peter on Instagram Peter on Facebook In this episode you will: Discover why willpower fails to create lasting change and what actuall

You could hand two people a million dollars and one of them would be broke again within a year. The other builds a legacy. The difference has nothing to do with luck. Anthony O'Neal, author of Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck, walks through the five phases that took him from borrowing money for car speakers to building a real estate portfolio he pays for in cash. He breaks down why 48% of people earning over $250,000 are still living check to check, and why your credit score might be lying to you about your actual wealth. This conversation gets honest fast. You'll hear what it actually felt like to write a will in your 30s, why his family assumed something was wrong the moment he brought it up, and the real reason his bank account resets to zero every few months even now. There's a moment near the end where Anthony explains the difference between being rich and being free, and it will change how you think about your next raise. You'll walk away with a completely different definition of what winning with money

You've been taught that YES means you won. Chris Voss says it's usually the moment you get played. The former lead FBI international kidnapping negotiator built a career proving the opposite of what most of us believe about persuasion. NO isn't rejection. It's the moment the real conversation starts. YES, more often than not, is a counterfeit answer people give just to get you off the phone. Voss is the founder of The Black Swan Group and the author of Never Split the Difference, and in this conversation he breaks down the exact language that turns a stuck negotiation into a done deal. You'll hear the calibrated questions he used to save hostages, and the same questions people are now using in boardrooms and car dealerships. He also gets specific. What to say when someone dismisses your price. How to ask for an upgrade without ever demanding one. Why the words you choose in the first nine minutes of any conversation decide how the rest of it goes. This one will change how you hear the word NO for the rest of

You've been running on a program installed before you could even talk, and you had no say in writing it. Cell biologist and former medical school professor Bruce Lipton spent his career studying epigenetics and quantum biology, and he says your subconscious recorded almost everything about how to live before age seven. That program runs 95% of your day on autopilot, and you're the one person who can't see it while it's playing. Stress hormones don't just make you anxious. They shut down your immune system and reroute blood away from your gut, which is why kids get sick right before exams and adults get sick the moment a hard season finally ends. Quantum physics says the material world you're so sure of is an illusion, and once that clicks, the way you see your relationships, enemies included, changes completely. Bruce lays out the myths keeping humanity trapped in a cycle of self-destruction and the honeymoon shift that rewired his entire life after 40 years of running the wrong program. This is the science b

Your grief is not the thing keeping you stuck. Running from it is. David Kessler spent years working alongside Elisabeth Kubler-Ross before everything he taught got tested against his own life, when his son died unexpectedly and the grief expert became the one who needed help. He talks about sitting in a grief group with his own books on the table and still not being able to say the words out loud. About discovering there is a stage past acceptance, one built on meaning instead of just getting through it. You will hear why anger is often just pain wearing a disguise, why your triggers are actually a map back to what needs healing, and why the people who seem to have it all together are usually the ones running the hardest. This conversation will change how you think about every hard thing you have survived and every hard thing still ahead. David’s books: Finding Meaning: the Sixth Stage of Grief Workbook: Tools for Releasing Pain and Remembering with Love Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief You Can Heal

Some feelings get labeled good. Others get labeled bad. That single belief might be running your entire life. You'll hear why chasing happiness on command wears you down instead of building you up, and why the fastest path to resilience runs straight through the emotions you've been avoiding. Susan David, the psychologist and researcher behind the book Emotional Agility, has spent over two decades studying why some people bend under pressure and others don't. She breaks down the difference between having an emotion and being owned by it, using a simple image you'll carry into your next hard day. You'll hear about the notebook she started writing in as a teenager that nobody else could read, and how her father answered the one question she couldn't stop asking him. Susan and Lewis get into why negativity isn't always the enemy, how self bias quietly convinces you that other people were right about your limits, and what it actually takes to stop reacting and start responding. You are not the feeling that showed

He slept in his socks on a garage floor because it was too filthy to touch. That was Jesse Cole eight years ago, broke, sleeping on an air mattress, betting everything on a wooden bat baseball team nobody wanted. Jesse is the founder of Fans First Entertainment and the man behind the Savannah Bananas, the "Find Your Yellow Tux" author who turned a dying college summer league into a movement that now plays in front of millions. He explains the moment he realized baseball itself was broken and why he studies Walt Disney more than any business book. He also opens up about the night his wife got a text from a birth mother on Mother's Day that changed their family forever. You'll hear how a bat trickster became a starting first baseman and how a Broadway A-lister ended up pitching in front of 80,000 fans. Jesse still signs autographs until the very last fan leaves, every single night. This conversation will change how you think about customers versus fans, and about what it actually costs to build something the wo

A calm, healthy relationship can feel more dangerous to you than the chaos you grew up in. That's hypervigilance. It hates the absence of a threat, so it manufactures one, even when you're finally safe. Patrick Teahan, a clinical social worker and childhood trauma educator, breaks down why your body still reacts like it's protecting a nine year old. You're not overreacting. You're replaying. Teahan explains how most people experience the present entirely through the lens of childhood, filtering every text and every silence through wounds that happened decades ago. This episode gets into inner child work, re-parenting, and the murky question of when going no contact with a parent is healing versus when it's avoidance. You'll hear what real boundaries look like when love and abuse get tangled together. By the end, you'll understand why healing isn't about proving your parents wrong. It's about finally believing you were a good kid the whole time. Patrick's Website Patrick's Instagram Patrick's YouTube Patrick's

A clinical hypnotist told him the problem in one sentence. You don't believe, at a subconscious level, that you were meant to be successful. That was Rob Dyrdek in his twenties, long before the professional skateboarder turned MTV star turned venture studio founder built a portfolio of brands and walked away from a run of exits. He tracks every minute of his day. He rates his life, his work, and his health on a scale of zero to ten, every single night. What the data told him is not what you would expect. The discipline is not the reward. It is the entry fee. He calls what he built the Machine Method, and he applies it to everything. Companies, relationships, health, a hundred-year plan for a family that does not exist yet. The part that will stay with you is what he says about luck. He refuses to pretend he earned all of it, and he is unnervingly clear about what makes it show up more often. You are already designing your life. The only real question is whether you are doing it on purpose. Rob on Instagram In

You're manifesting every single day. You're just doing it the wrong way. That's according to Dr. James Doty, a Stanford neurosurgeon and neuroscientist who has spent decades studying what actually happens in your brain when you set an intention. His new book, Mind Magic, breaks down the neuroscience most manifestation advice leaves out completely. Here's the block nobody talks about. It's not a lack of belief. It's fear. It's shame. It's insecurity running your nervous system without your permission, and it's keeping you stuck in survival mode instead of the state where real change actually happens. Doty grew up in poverty with an alcoholic father and a mother who attempted suicide multiple times. A stranger in a magic shop taught him a technique that rewired how his brain worked, and decades later he's the one teaching it to brain surgeons and first responders. This conversation gets into the exact mental shift between wanting something and needing it, why self criticism sabotages your relationships, and the

There's one childhood question that's secretly running your whole adult life. Aaron Doughty asks it straight: who did you have to be as a kid to receive Mom or Dad's love? Whoever that was became the role you're still performing, the pattern you keep mistaking for your identity. Aaron built a YouTube following of over a million people teaching exactly this kind of subconscious pattern work, and in this conversation he walks through his SHIFT framework for breaking free of people pleasing, self reliance, and the need to be liked. You'll hear why the dark side of people pleasing is buried anger, why setting a boundary can make you look like the bad guy before it makes you free, and why someone else's tension was never actually your job to manage. Aaron also opens up about losing his mom, the message she sent him two hours before she died, and what he now believes real freedom actually feels like. Aaron's Instagram Aaron's YouTube Aaron's Facebook Join The Shift Academy In this episode you will: Learn the SHIF

Your body can't tell the difference between anxiety and excitement. The only difference is the story you tell yourself. Kelly McGonigal has spent her career at Stanford studying that story, and how the way you think about stress can quite literally change your biology, your relationships, and how long you live. She will show you why the fear of stress may be more dangerous than stress itself, and why one built in instinct can stop you from burning out completely once you know how to trigger it. You will learn why depression lies to you, why receiving support feels harder than giving it, why your body has a built in brake pedal for temptation, and what a rescue animal can teach you about earning real connection. There is a reason movement changes your brain chemistry more than almost anything else you could choose, and this conversation will make you rethink every hard moment you have ever tried to avoid. Kelly's Website Kelly on Instagram The Joy of Movement: How exercise helps us find happiness, hope, connec

What if the story you keep telling about yourself is the only thing standing between you and everything you want? You will hear the real difference between fortune and luck, and why one of them is completely in your control. Dr. Tina Seelig, a Stanford professor and neuroscientist, breaks down the framework from her book What I Wish I Knew About Luck and explains why the wind of opportunity might be blowing right past you. Tina grew up terrified of things most people never think twice about. She rebuilt her entire risk profile from scratch, one uncomfortable moment at a time. As did Lewis. You will learn why the words other people say about you can become a program running your whole life, and how to finally overwrite it. This conversation will make you rethink every excuse you have ever made for staying small. Tina's Website Tina on LinkedIn What I Wish I Knew About Luck: A Crash Course on Turning Aspirations into Achievements Amazon Audiobook Creativity Rules: Get Ideas Out of Your Head and into the Wor