Lewis Howes || The Mask of Masculinity

to introduce my guest for today, Lewis Howes. Lewis is a lifestyle entrepreneur, high performance business coach, author, and keynote speaker. A former professional football player and two sport All American, Lewis hosts the School of Greatness podcast, which has received millions of downloads since it launched in twenty thirteen. Louis was recognized by the White House and President Obama as one of the top one hundred entrepreneurs in the country

under thirty. He's a contributing writer for Entrepreneur and Yahoo dot Com, and has been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, Men's Health, The Today Show, and other immedia outlets. Houses an advisory board member of Pencils of Promise and his latest book is The Mask of Masculinity, How men can embrace vulnerability, create strong relationships, and live their fullest lives. Lewis, thanks for being on the podcast today. Thanks Scott, I appreciate it. Man. I wanted you to be on here

for years, and I like that you on there. I get the sense that one of the things you're most proud of in your life these days is what you're doing in the Pencils of Promise. I noticed on the internet, like things you've been saying and the things you've been doing for them to really help them. Tell me a little bit about what that organization is and what you're

doing with him. For me, Pencil Promises helps build schools around the world for kids in need and for kids that don't have actual physical schools in kind of the poorest areas of these countries in Guatemala, a Laos and Ghana, and I think they've built over four hundred and fifty five hundred schools now and we've built five ourselves, but we built almost forty through my influence and through getting

other people to build them. It just means a lot to me because growing up I felt like I was always stupid, and I felt like I never had anything interesting to say. I feel like I wasn't smart at all, and I was in the special needs classes. You know, I was picked on because I couldn't read and read aloud. When the teachers would ask me to read from a book and open up page thirty two chapter, you know, a paragraph, one line one, it was like I would stumble over the simplest words. And so for me, I

understand the importance of education. I feel like it was hard for me to learn through the model of the school that I had growing up, but learning in general is something I'm obsessed with. That's why I created personally the School of Greatness because these are all the things that I wish I would have learned in school growing up that they didn't teach us. And so I said, I'm going to create that school, and I'm going to create opportunities for physical schools for other kids who don't

even have access to it. So that's what it's all about. I love it. And we obviously bond over people thinking we're stupid when we're young. That's something that we have bonded over for a while now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've really I think it's great what you're doing in that space. So I want to talk to you about So you have this podcast, then you published the book The School of Greatness. Yep, but something still nagged at you. Is is that right? And it kind of was rus to

writing this book? So what was that? Yeah? You know, four years ago at thirty, a lot of things happened for me. I was going through a bad breakup and I didn't have the emotional capacity to really express my feelings and I didn't have the emotional capacity to really leave that relationship. I was allowing things to happen that shouldn't have and I just didn't know how to cope

and deal with the loss of that intimacy. I started to allow this anger to come out of me, where I was getting in different arguments and fights and very aggressive in other areas of my life, to the point where I actually got a physic fight with someone and at the end of it, I mean, his face was mangled, blood everywhere, he had to go to the hospital and stitches, and after it, I was just like, what is wrong

with me? Why am I, as a thirty year old man getting into fights and allowing myself to be so triggered and emotionally charged when someone steps to me or whatever they did to actually physically want to hurt someone back. So these things first triggered me to be like, Okay, something's not working, Like I'm doing these things and I don't feel good about who I am in the world. So I said why. I just started asking why am I reacting this way? Why don't I have the ability

to cope with these things? Why do I feel like I'm always someone's else to get me? Why do I feel like I'm suffering emotionally in these areas? Why do I feel like I have a lack of inner peace? Pressure and stress? Like these things For some of my life drove me to achieve accomplishments and sports and business and other things like that. But I was so unfulfilled when I would achieve these things that I was just like, Okay, why,

There's got to be a better way. So this put me down a path of discovering and being aware of all the things that I was afraid of. It confronted me in the most intimidating ways where I started sharing my fears, my insecurities, my things. I was ashamed of the things I was guilty of and started just kind of revealing all them verbally, and I talked about being sexually abused for the first time in twenty five years.

And the more I just kind of opened up and just said, here I am, I have nothing to hide anymore. I'm not going to project this perfect image, this jock image, whatever it was, I'm not going to project I know all the answers here I am. I don't know all the answers. Here's the shit I've been through, and they've terrified me. And I've been lying to you for my whole life about these things. When I started to open up,

I felt an unbelievable sense of freedom. First I felt terror because I was worried that everyone was going to judge me and not accept me, and no one was going to love me. Once I realized that everyone loved me more, people accepted me, more, people trusted me more, they respected me more for sharing these things, for being

open and being vulnerable, it was like this freedom. It was like, for the first time in my life, I could be who I've always wanted to be, which is myself, and I could go through life and I didn't have this like fear that people weren't going to accept me anymore, and I was like, if they don't accept me for who I am, then I'll find someone who does and

I'll focus on those people. But I was I could rather have zero friends and be myself than have all the friends in the world, have everyone loved me, but me not love myself because I'm not being who I want to be. So that's how this journey began. It was like I felt this freedom myself. Wanted to dive deeper and understand the science behind why I grew up a certain way, why I put on different masks, why other men do this. I wanted to study it from psychiatrists, psychologists,

and other individuals. And then I was like, I want to write this. You know, I read a book on this for myself, for other men like me. Then I realized, like as I was writing this, like this is the

keys to the Kingdom for women. And if women could understand the husband, their boyfriend, their father, their brother, their son, what they might be going through, the mask they might be wearing, and understand it from a place of love as opposed to making them wrong, the amount of harmony and support and community and togetherness we could all form

together would be mind blowing. So it's been an interesting process and I knew that in order for this to be effective, I had to fully reveal all my crap, fully reveal like my biggest fears and embrace them, you know, and become, you know, the batman, Like I'm afraid of bats and now I'm just gonna wear a batsuit because this is the thing I'm most afraid of. So I'm going to let everyone see my fear and just put

it out there. And I'm going to be stronger by embracing my fear because I'm going to let people see it. And I think that's what I realized I needed to do. I was like, I need people to hear these stories. I need them to talk about them. I need to open up in ways that are very uncomfortable for me because it's going to bring a level of opening, a catalyst awareness to other people. Yeah, it's very brave, very brave you and you definitely have a lot of male fans that look up to you as a role model

of masculinity. So for someone like you to do that is we really should not underestimate the power that you yield to do that. Yeah, and I'm I'm a big fan of Brene Brown and Oprah and Deepak Chopra, and they talk about vulnerability and you know, sharing and expressing yourself the challenges. Most men that I grew up with would not be open to ever watching Oprah's show or listening to brand A Brown or any feminist talking about

vulnerability and what men should be doing. But I think my hope is that you know, the men that needed the most, these kind of like alpha aggressive Stowe, you know,

men who grew up not thinking that way. Maybe they can see me and maybe see themselves in me, this tall, white, physical jock male who is an athlete who's also built businesses, you know, and accomplish some things that are like cool in the masculinity world, and hopefully they can see it and be like, oh, maybe I can learn something from this guy about success in my life or you know, opportunities and then realize that I was actually much deeper

than just making money. It's about finding inner peace. So you know, that's cool. And I'm just thinking, like, is there male vulnerability and is there female do Males and females have different issues when it comes to the need

to show more vulnerability I mean, vulnerability is universal. I think men tend to be less vulnerable in certain stigmas that they face that they can't be so I can't share about certain things that have happened to me in my past because I need to be at a man for the people around me, so I can't act like

it affected me. I think women, also, especially now in our time right now, feel like a pressure of needing to look sexy and hot all the time, to be to excel at their work or and their entrepreneurial career, and to come home and cook and clean and be chill and be relaxed around their man and like and turn it on at any time and be sexual at night. Like. There's enormous amounts of pressures that women, I understand, face

and feeling like they can't be vulnerable as well. So I feel like they're different for our time and for what's happening right now. But it's hard to be vulnerable in general because it's it's fearful. It's a lot of fear that comes from being vulnerable. What if someone doesn't accept me, what if someone won't love me anymore? What if they make fun of me by being who I am? That's why we put on masks as men and women.

We wear these masks to fit in. Brenee talks about gosh, what's the quote she said, the opposite of belonging is fitting in or something like that, where it's like when you try to fit in, that's when you don't belong because you're not being to who you really are. So you know, we face different fears as men and women, but vulnerability is universal. Yeah, I like that answer. Did you find your with the fitting in thing or the

need for belonging? Did you find yourself like saying things or doing things on social media or as your business that wasn't really at the core of your authenticity of who you are, but you knew it would get you likes. No, I'm sure. Yeah, there's nothing that stands out right now that I'm like, I was never the guy that was kind of like showing like the flashy cars or I never did that, at least that I to my memory.

You know, when I take that back, when I was like in a helicopter ride in Hawaii, I was like filming from there, but it wasn't like I need to show this sense of like luxurious life. It was more just like moments of adventure. That's just not my mask as much. I live more minimal. I mean, I wear like a black V neck T shirt every day, and like, I like nice things and I like to be comfortable.

But I my worth doesn't come from the amount of money I have in my bank account and letting everyone know how much money I have, Whereas that's the material mask which I talk about where some men feel like they need to show it all the time. You know, you show your car, show your watch, to show this and this, and again, I'm not saying anything's right or wrong. I'm not trying to judge anyone who do these things. I just look at it coming from a place of

why do we do these things? Why do we need to feel the need to like show our cash or show this If it's for a reason to show an example of what's possible, or it's to inspire or something else okay, cool, or if it's to educate cool, If it's to feel like we are accepted in the world because we have this much money and we're projecting this, is that really making us fulfilled? And if all that money was gone, would you still be accepted? Would people

still love you? Something to ask yourself. So I think it's just coming from a place of why am I doing the things I'm doing? Why am I aggressive? Why do I need to conquer every woman in the world. Why do I need to have all the answers all the time and be always right? Why do I always need to use humor instead of, you know, to deflect things or use humor, And at times that could be vulnerable, but I don't know how to cope with my emotions.

Just asking why? What's underneath these things that hold us back from getting closer to our vision? That's why I ask myself. It's not right or wrong, good or bad. It's is the actions you're taking working for you to help you get closer to your vision of your life, or your relationships or your career. Is it working or not? And here's the funny thing is some of these masks, you know, the mask, the material mask. When I was broke in on my sister's couch and had no money,

I put the material mask on. I said, I need to focus on making money, I need to not be broke. I'm going to fixate on this, you know, fifteen twenty hours a day, and it worked. I made a lot of money. I built my business like those things worked, but it was so consuming that I gained sixty pounds and people started calling me fat Lewis that I didn't have any other relationships, that I was doing business deals that weren't authentic to me, and that didn't feel good.

And I felt like I kind of, you know, wasn't looking out for my audience on some of the things I was promoting or selling because I was just fixated on making the money. And I said, Okay, is this working or not working in terms of a bigger vision that I have for myself. So that's what it's all about. It's just like evaluating and being fully aware. I think, you know, the ultimate man is fully aware of his fears and insecurities and can own them with confidence and

can stand in them and talk about them. And that's what it's about. Sometimes a lot of us aren't able to share those things because we're so terrified of what other people might think. Yeah, and you make that point clear. And when you go through each of these different masks, each of those masks are a way of protecting a particular image that we want to protect. Yeah, exact image protection.

Each one of them right. I was going to wait till like the very end of this interview I asked this question, but I want to ask you right now, and I hope that this doesn't signify the end of the interview. I'd love to know, like who is Lewis Howse at his best? Because I can ask who is Lewis Howse but yet to understand like all of us are are all lots of things. But who are you

when you're at your best? Loving, passionate, joyful, graceful, non judgmental, courageous, service minded, coming from a place of win win, and always looking to lift others up. I love that, and that's how I think of you, by the way, So that's good. But let me tell you my observation of what I heard there when you said that I'm such a psychologist. When I heard that, I heard you mentioned a lot of very positive stereotypically male and female traits. So what you did is you combined kind of the

best of humanity, both male and female. So that suggests to me that you know, a big part of your message is not you are trying to change our perceptions of our stereotypical masculine image. Is that right? I think so, man, I'm trying to figure out the best way to feel at peace and feel fulfillment and meaning inside and to create more fulfillment in the world and bring humanity together.

And I realized that, you know, I have I feel like I've had an interesting life because I have two older sisters and a mom that were there and always talking about how to treat women like they would My sisters would go out on dates and they would have bad time, and they'd come back to me and be like, never do this when you grow up. Lewis like, never do what this person did. So I was kind of always trained of what women were feeling and what women were wanted, and I felt like I had this very

sensitive side to me. I was, you know, saying in a choir. I was in the school musical, I played guitar, I selsa dance. You know. I enjoy and appreciate jazz and music and arts and poetry. I appreciate these things

because my sisters grew up appreciating these things. But then on this other side, I have like a more rough, masculine side where my brother was in prison for four and a half years and I visited him in a prison cell, literally visiting room with fifty other convicts in the room and their families, and heard some of the deepest, darkest stories where I was bullied, picked on, picked the last in the special needs classes. My whole life had tutored my whole life because people said it was dumb

and used. That sense of the story that I told myself is that no one loved me, no one was there for me, and no one saw me. So I took all this anger and pain and said, I'm going to be the biggest, fastest, strongest human being I can be, and I'm going to be so good at sports and so strong that no one will ever be able to hurt me or make me wrong or pick me last ever again. I'm going to be the best so that they have to acknowledge me, be so good they can't

ignore me, right, Yeah. And so I had these kind of like conflicting I had like the extreme masculine machismo energy on the sports field, and then I had like this sensitive, vulnerable tenderness like around women and my girlfriends, you know, in the time, I would like sing lullabies to them on the guitar. I was like very contradictory and I didn't know how to balance it because I

just didn't know. And I came from a place of needing to be right and needing to win in sports, business, relationships, in life, and needing to be right all the time is extremely exhausting. And needing to win all the time is exhausting as well, because if I'm right and I'm the only winner, that means I'm isolating myself on an island where everyone else is a loser and they're wrong, and I'm alone when I'm right and I win. But when I come from a place of you know, how

can we all be winners? How can we create a win win in every situation? How can we come to a mutual agreements on things as opposed to you're right, I'm wrong, whatever it may be. I realized, like, wow, there's so much more harmony in this. There's so much more grace and love and community and fulfillment as opposed to just being right and alone all the time. There's

so much more to life than that. Yeah, so a lot of things are saying really cut at the core of a common humanity that I think a lot of people listening will recognize, And I sure do. I mean, I'm not going to pretend here that that I didn't wear all sorts of masks for the same exact reason you did, same exact reason. I mean, a lot of people who have kind of been stripped of their power as children tend to overcompensate. And I'm trying to go

down your list here of your mask. Yeah, you're the You're the no, you're the know at all masks, right, you're the one who gets all the degree one. I picked that one. I wanted to go down the list because I sure I saw a lot, not just here. I mean, here's the thing. And as you read the book, I talk about myself as an example for each mask. So it's like I've lived all these I lived them. Still it's a matter of being aware of them and being able to say, you know what, Okay, let me

take it off and just be authentic and be myself. Well, I appreciated you did that so much that I want to be vulnerable here now as well with you. Sure, sure, okay, So if I'm going down this, I see a lot of my childhood to know it all. Of course, your sports was my note at all, but joker, you know I got detention a lot because I was the class clown. Like I really enjoyed making all the kids laugh and

that was that was fun. Actually, it was probably a way for you to be seen and be acknowledged, just as someone who adds value and who wants to be around the group, right, yeah, And I still enjoy that, by the way, So of course who doesn't like that? And I have a nuanced answer to the aggression one because I think mine was like yours on the battlefield or the battlefeld, be the sports field. But I'll tell

you what mine was. I became a hacker and really yeah, it's a way to read no, no, no, Like I I created like something called a bolt and board system, Like I had a BBS. This is back like pre internet. I don't know if anyone knows what that is. I put up for free like games and things that were like I mean it's too yeah exactly, there we go, there we go, like you know, like people dabster right and all that. But this is before all that. And like i'd like Wolfenstein three D for free to people

and stuff. Anyway, some people might catch that's a rebel. Yeah, that was a true but I felt that was my way of gaining control, you know, as we all try to work out our masks and under those masks, that's you know, been trying to I mean, I think that a lot of things you're saying doftel really nicely with like the humanistic psychology movement and Carl Rogers and authenticity, and I'm really trying to work on that as well.

So we're all on our path to that. And I found your book really touching quite honestly, really it was the most raw thing I've read from you. And the humility of it is just incredible. I mean it I was ringing out. I was like, I think you're too much humility in this, Like I'm afraid you went in the opposite direction too, like you went from school of greatness to like to school said nothing. Yeah, And I'm like, wait, wait, Loise,

can humility itself be a mask as well? By the way, I was wondering, Yeah, I think if someone's just constantly, if you don't acknowledge your gifts, I think you're just then you're not stepping into your greatness. There's a dance, right, It's like, how can you acknowledge your gifts as opposed to discount them? Constantly. I think for this book, I was just making reference to like man, I made a lot of mistakes of the man and as a human being.

And I heard a lot of people in this instance when I wore this mask, and when I wore this mask, like I just suffered inside and made other people wrong, and I wore this mask, I just you know, everything fell apart of my business, and so I was just looking to you know, you look at my bio on

my side, I talk about all my accomplishments. So it's not like I'm discounting the things I've done, but I think it's recognizing, like, Okay, as much as these accomplishments have been great, or as much as I'm great at one skill or this or that, does it matter if I'm suffering constantly, or if I'm hurting other people? Does

it matter if I don't feel fulfillment. There's a story of talk about in the book with Robin Williams, who is arguably one of the funniest people ever to live, who made more people laugh and smile and cry tears of joy than any other man, maybe one of the top ten probably comedians of all time, right, and yet he was unable he took his life. He took his life. He was unable to find inner fulfillment. He wasn't able

to find that peace. And I'm not trying to make an assumption here because I don't know exactly what happened, but I could only guess that whenever he took his guard down and actually try to just be himself, which is probably just like a loving, vulnerable man, and people were like, where's the funny Robin. We want the jokes, we want this, and he's like, okay, let me bring

it up for you. La da da, And it's like he probably just felt like, you know, I always got to do this around people, or they're not going to like me or they're not going to love me. Again. I'm just making a guest here because I know how I am. When I put the joker mask on. It's like, well, maybe they don't like me if I'm not just myself. And so I can't remember where I was going with this.

But the Robin's story for me is a great example of like he had all the talent in the world, he had all the gifts in the world to make an impact, and maybe he wasn't acknowledging them. Or maybe he also wasn't just allowed to be his true self when he wanted to be because everyone expected him to wear this mask because it did make an impact, It

did bring so much joy to people. But I think you have to honor yourself the most, and if it's killing you inside that you're making this impact, then you got to find a way to shift inside so you can do both find impact inside and fulfillment and still bring your gifts to the world. Don't discount your gifts. Bring him out, and then learn the strategies to and emotionally and mentally to be yourself and to cope with certain things and to go through life with the challenges

we have. So yeah, like not just find fulfillment, but be your full self, right, Yeah, exactly exactly. You know, that's awesome. You said something very interesting that many of us have worn our masks for so long that we're not even sure what's actually underneath them anymore. I mean, how do you like For a lot of people, you know, it can actually be terrifying, you know, and then they have to see clinicals very get a lot of therapy because it can be you can't just rip a mask

off someone you know who's had it. We could just be traumatic experience. Traumatic, it can be it's going to be a transformational experience, and it's going to be a breakdown, which could hopefully create a breakthrough if you're in a safe enough environment in space and all these things happen. I think a lot of people the only way we can truly take our mask off is with some type

of interruption in our life. That may be going through a divorce, that may be going through a traumatic breakup, that maybe someone dying in your life, having a near death experience, seeing something so close to your life, a friend of yours experience something and have an experience on you, going through a therapeutic experience. You know. Some people can find these breakthroughs at retreats or workshops or emotional intelligence experience where you can finally have that moment of clarity

and awareness. But most people are never aligning themselves to feel awareness around what's really been happening in their whole life for five years or whatever the process may be, until there's an interruption something someone actually shaking them physically and saying wake up, like wake up, you've been doing this why? And unfortunately, it usually takes a big interruption in our lives for that to happen, as opposed to just someone waking up one day and saying, oh, and

I wonder why this is happening to me. You know, it's like usually there's got to be that interruption. Now. That's for sure a major theme in your book as well. I know this is this idea of perfection. Is you get it close with this line, no human being could ever successfully live up to the standard we've created if you ever even come close. You know, it sounds like, you know, there's that some Christed neft self compassion stuff

in there as well. You know, like you're saying a lot of men like have more self, like a common humanity, and not be so perfectionistic that you're like, gosh, forbid you you're imperfect. You know, like, oh my gosh, you can't. You're not allowed to be imperfect. Yeah, I mean this goes from men and women. You know. I think women feel this sense of needing to be perfect again in the bedroom, in the workforce, at home and like with the kids and always have you know, look good. It's

a universal feeling, you know. I think men have a big pressure on their shoulders to be a certain way, and to be strong and not show emotions, and to be like this perfect image for the women in their lives and family. And it's just a it's a weight. It's a pressure that we don't need to live with

because it causes emotional stress. And as I'm sure you have studied that the emotional mel tightness that we hold on to for years creates physical ailments, creates cancers, creates complications in our physical health, and our physical health then brings us more stress in the world and holds us back from again living our life with our vision and all these things. It comes back to does this work for us and work for humanity or does it not work for us and helping us bring our vision and

our dreams to life. And if it's not working for us at the best level that it can, then how can we approve it so it will work, so we can get closer to our vision and living with harmony, living with fulfillment. That's what it's about. I love that, and I love that you're trying to help women and men both. There's one mask I think does have some unique male issues, and that's the sexual mask. I think that women have different pressures. Their sexual mask might be

different than the male sexual mask. Let's zoom in for a second and on the sexual mask you talk in there you highlight Neil Strauss and you know when his book The Game came out to that five like every male, you know, we're like, whoa, you can gain amazing, you can gain the system exactly amazing. There's such a prevallege of males who go through this fees and it's almost like like enough already, Like because every generation for the end of time is male, is just going to keep

going through over and over and over again. Like is there some wisdom? Is certain wisdom our thirty five year old selves can can tell? I don't know. I think this is a challenge because you know, I don't understand all the science yet behind biology and our DNA and our makeup and our testosterol levels are higher. So I think it's just like we see something and human nature just turns on a switch and we're just you know, driven to want to conquer it or to have that

you know, woman. And so I feel like there's a lot more research and science I have to do to fully understand it. But as evolved, emotional, intelligent, human that can make conscious decisions and choices. And again, no right or wrong here, because you know, Hugh Hefner just died yesterday right from recording this, and you know he was there were a lot of people who thought he was like immoral and wrong and this and that for living the life he did. But there was I think there

was a cartoon graphic that came out this morning. The guy lived his life the way he wanted to that was authentic to him. Now. I'm sure he was marrying some masking different things, but he seemed pretty happy. He seemed pretty fulfilled. He built an iconic brand. He was always in his pajamas, Like, What's I mean for me? It seems like he was living his life that was

great to him. And there was this cartoon graphic that had Hugh at the gates of Heaven like looking up at heaven and God was there talking to him, and he said, I just left Heaven. Where am I going? You know what I mean? It's kind of like, you know, we can judge him, we can say certain things were wrong, but his truth was he wanted to live the way he wanted to and he wasn't hurting anyone the way he was doing it. He seemed very gentle, He seemed very giving and kind, and you know, he was a

support person. It seemed like, you know, I didn't know the man, but it just seemed like from the things I learned. And so there's a challenge because I think as men were more driven for sexual desires because of our testosterone and our biology to want appro creates. Again, I don't understand all the science, but it's again thinking

about what serves my vision. Does having sex with a new girl every single night and then emotionally connecting with them and persuading them to get in bed with me and then saying Okay, see you later and never talking to them again. If you're not communicating openly and being clear and being you know, you know, just not trying to persuade someone or manipulate someone to do something, there's going to be consequences. You're gonna feel the inside, You're

going to hurt people. So look at your life as like, Okay, if you want to have sex with lots of people, just make sure that you're doing it from a place of love and you're communicating so that people know clearly the intentions, what's happening. All these things, and it's just like, is it effective to have twenty women in your life that you're having sex with every other week? Can you manage a life and your vision while constantly managing all

these energies and conflicts. I mean, it just seems like a lot. You know, in a perfect world, it seems like this, maybe this has heaven. In another world, it seems like maybe it's a nightmare, you know what I mean. So it's what it comes down to. Yeah, can you give me some examples of some of your role models from a masculinity perspective, I mean Tony Robbins, Ray Lewis, Scooter Brawn or you know kind of role models of what they've done in their lives. And you know a

lot of people have any known Doctor Drew. I'm just looking at the people on my wall that have interviewed who are just you know, even Randy Catore, you know, he's in All these men have different you know, accomplishments, and they wear different masks as well what they have

in the past and they do now. And but all these guys, Yeah, let's focus on Tony Robbins, who Yeah, and you do you do mention in the book that's right, And you can trast him with Ty Lopez, who is an internet celebrity who seems to need to bring in his material successes or rentals into his videos exactly. So can you contrast the two to each other. They both a lot of wealth, But how are they different? Yeah?

I think listen, Tony's also not shy, Like he'll have a photo of him on his private jet, and there's photos of him at the Golden State Warriors games because he's a part owner of the team and things like that. But it's not like every photo is him standing in front of his jet talking about like what it takes to be successful is get rich and blah blah blah. It's coming from a place of like service and contribution

and making an impact. And you know, I think people can judge or think certain things about him, and he's made a lot of money, and maybe there's certain mass that he is or isn't living with still, but I believe that he's His general message overall is how do we give, how do we come from a contribution, how do we help heal? How do we help build strong relationships?

So his message is teaching abundance, teaching harmony, teaching, contribution, teaching these things as opposed to get his rich dra can so you can have a ferrari and a car in a house and this, Like me, I think it's just a different dance of how you share these your message with the world. And I don't see it feel like he does it to show how much money has because people are going to accept him now or think he's manly now, or think he's worthy now. I think

he's just showing his lifestyle. I'm just flying to Bali and like I wanted to connect with you guys from moment and talk about the meaning of life. You know, it's like more philosophical and heart's than money centered, even though he does have books on you know, money matter of the game. He has financial books, but again it's setting your life up for abundance, not just to get

the nice things. Can you name any male role models of yours that you think kind of illustrate this more enlightened aspect of masculinity, that of people that aren't high in social status. I noticed that like all the names you mentioned like that you really admire, they all have that tinge of high social status. And is there anyone that just like you really like. Yeah, Like there's a guy really like cool Rob Bell. Okay guy, even though he's well known as an author and in kind of

like the Christian community. He was on tour with Oprah. He's done a lot of like he's got a big audience, but he just lives a humble life. He's like a few blocks from me in just like a you know, medium moderate sized house, nothing fancy. And he's all about finding meaning and he's all about like finding your spiritual compass and living a rich life of community and connection and you know, expression and art. And he just always seems to like find joy as I think he's a

mid forties maybe late forties. He just seems like he's like always like a little kid. He's just like she finds joy in like the littlest things. And I just love his And he's a father of three kids that are just awesome, and he's just like he cooks there, he cooks for them, he hangs out with them, he plays music with them. He also lives his life and writes his books and speaks around the world. And I just find that really cool. He's like my spiritual compass,

you know. He's just like man could I be more giving and more like joyful? And I just I love being around him for that reason. Yeah. You know when you just mentioned Rob Bell and you talked about him, your face lit up and you kind of went to a different place than when you mentioned just all those other people that you mentioned. Yeah, And I think that's kind of revealing in a way. It's you know, who you really want to be as a person. It's very clear to me who you want to be and who

you know. Sometimes maybe we name drop people I do you do other people do? We don't really like aspire, we don't, you know, it's not just people on my wall. Yeah I saw that. Yeah, okay, but something about Rob Bell and those characteristics bils a man. Yeah, I just feel like, you know, I want to be more like Rob Bell for sure, He's amazing. Yeah. So I want to end here on a quote that from your book that I think really encapsulates this, this very forward view

of masculinity. For me, I look at a man as a symbol of inspiration, someone who lives to be of service along his journey, someone who follows his purpose, who experiences fears but has the courage to face them and move forward. Anyway. Someone who's loving to all people creatures in the world, including himself. Someone who can take care of his basic needs and teach others how to live in abundance. Someone who doesn't judge people but looks for

ways to lift others up. Someone who leaves this place better than the way he found it. That to me is a man. Well. Thanks h Lewis for inspiring so many men and women and making the world a better place yourself. I appreciate it, brother, Thanks Scott, Thank you so much for listening to The Psychology Podcast with Doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. I hope you found this episode just

as thought provoking as I did. If something you heard today stimulated you in some way, I encourage you to join in the discussion at the Psychology Podcast dot com. That's the Psychology Podcast dot com.