"If You Want To ACHIEVE Your Goals In Life WATCH THIS!" | Priyanka Chopra Jonas & Lewis Howes

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 0:00 If I sat down to think about the glass ceiling that was built for me, I would never have a trajectory powerful enough to break it.

Lewis Howes 0:08 Wow.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 0:09 Your worth comes from how you react after you fail, or how you react after you're hurt.

Lewis Howes 0:16 I think you gotta have a dream. The School of Greatness. Really? [laughs] Yeah. Please welcome Priyanka Chopra Jonas. You're one of the most recognizable, uh, women in the world, one of the most recognizable actors, personalities, and you've done so much good with your branding, with your following. I'm curious, is there ever a point where you feel, [clears throat] excuse me, not sure of yourself going into a big meeting, a big opportunity, a big, a big role or moment in your life?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 0:41 Um, definitely. And I can give you an example that I kind of wrote about in my book because I remember [laughs] it so clearly. Um, this was, say, 2014, right? So it's not, like, really far away.

Lewis Howes 0:53 Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 0:53 Um, I had a talent deal with, um, ABC Studios to do a show with them, and it was my step into America. It had taken me a- It was a lot of lamenting that took me into, you know, saying, "All right, I..." Because it would take time out of my Indian career, and that means I couldn't do as much work, uh, in... You know, so it was a large risk. Like-

Lewis Howes 1:16 Mm-hmm

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:16 ... w- was it, what if it doesn't pay off? What if it's a waste of my time? So all of that was playing in my head. [laughs] And, uh, anyway, I took the decision. I had this amazing talent deal, and I loved this one show called Quantico, and I had to go in and audition for it. Um, now, w- I had had a prolific career in India for almost eight, nine years by then. I-

Lewis Howes 1:38 You never had to audition.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:40 Audition was, auditioning-

Lewis Howes 1:41 [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:41 ... was far behind in my life.

Lewis Howes 1:42 That was 2020. That was-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:44 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:44 ... Miss India days, yeah.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:46 I was like, "Yo, bro, everyone does it here. You're gonna do it. You're starting out, and it's new." I knew that. My practical mind knew that. But [laughs] I remember when I walked into the studio where the audition was, and, you know, there were a couple of chairs outside, and there were two other girls, and they were beautiful, and they were everything that this character was. And I was like, "Why would you do that? Why would you let the other actors..." [laughs] ... see the other actor? So I was thinking about all of these things, freaking out in my mind. Um, and I went to the restroom, and I was like, all right. Thankfully, it was empty. It was great. There was only two stalls. I checked. There was nobody else. And I just had one of those moments that you have in romantic comedies. You know, you look at yourself in the mirror-

Lewis Howes 2:32 [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 2:32 ... and you're, like, checking yourself. You're like, "Yo-

Lewis Howes 2:35 You got this

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 2:35 ... you're gonna... You have done 50 movies. Do you know how many movies that is? 50 movies." And I gave myself a whole pep talk. Um, and I was like, "You know your job. You're not new at this. You have experience. You have way more experience than those girls sitting outside. Use that. Use what you know." And I really, like, empowered myself. I strutted down that hallway into that room and got that job. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 3:01 Wow.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 3:02 But it took talking myself into doing it.

Lewis Howes 3:06 What is the self-talk you do internally? If you don't have a mirror-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 3:10 Yeah. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 3:10 ... if you're not alone in a bathroom, what's your process that you say to yourself? What are the reminders? What are the mantras, meditations that you think about before that?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 3:19 It always helps me to voice it, um, whenever I'm insecure. I either, I'll write about it-

Lewis Howes 3:26 Mm

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 3:26 ... um, somewhere, or I'll speak to s- somebody who I trust: my mom, my husband, my best friend. Um, but I find it easier to talk about it, so that's why I have a healthier relationship with my insecurities-

Lewis Howes 3:42 Mm

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 3:42 ... because I take away their power by discussing them. Um, I choose not to live with them alone in the dark recesses of my mind, because then they become monsters, and then they become really, really large, and, um, and they're usually not real.

Lewis Howes 4:00 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 4:00 So it's always been very helpful to me whenever I'm feeling crazy or insecure or afraid, or even if I feel like I've made a mistake. My dad told me this when I was very young, when I was, you know, 16, the first time. He sat me down and he gave me a glass of champagne, and I was like, "What?" And he was like, "Yeah, you're 16. You know, you're gonna have a glass of champagne with me. You're gonna do it anyway." [laughs] I was like-

Lewis Howes 4:26 Huh.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 4:26 He was like... And he told me, he was like, "Whatever happens in your life, you should feel free to be able to do it with your parents. There's nothing to hide, um, from us. Um, I'll always be in your corner." And, you know, he told me that about feelings. I always had the freedom to talk to my mom or my dad as a kid about anything I was feeling. I just, at, at least to my father, I wouldn't discuss the boyfriends, but with my mom, she was like my best friend. She knew about every, um, you know, object of attraction that I ever had, [laughs] you know? And I think that that sort of gives you, um, the sense of confidence to be able to talk about it, and I just think it's a great first step to get rid of insecurities.

Lewis Howes 5:12 I'm just a big believer, I love everything you're saying, and I'm just a big believer that if people really listen to this and understand and take it in what you're sharing, that it's hard to achieve anything without confidence. You could have the greatest experience-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 5:26 Totally

Lewis Howes 5:26 ... you could have the greatest degree, the skills. You could have the family. You could have the money. Like, you could have good looks. Well, whatever it is, you could have the stuff, but if you don't know how to build confidence when it matters, it doesn't matter if the world believes in you. If we don't believe in ourselves, nothing's gonna happen. And the reverse-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 5:44 But the world won't believe in you-

Lewis Howes 5:45 Exactly

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 5:45 ... if you don't believe in you. And I, I think, like, a- as, as someone in the public profession, you know, my job is to be entertaining and be confident and in every step that I take and in every move that I make. But I think recognizing that confidence is not something- We are born with. It's, it's a skill. It's like, you know, it's a muscle almost. If you think of it like going to the gym and, you know, to, to have muscles and to be in shape, you gotta work at it. Just like the vocal cords. People, the greatest musicians in the world, they use, you know, their, their vocal cords. They do riyaaz like we call it in Hindi, but which is, um, warmups and stuff like that. So confidence to me is like that. You start u- using that at a very small level. Um, everyday life, you know, when you're in school. There were times when I was in school where I used to take the other hall- um, hallway because I didn't wanna bump into someone else when I started high school. By the time I was in 11th grade, I was walking in the middle of the hallway.

Lewis Howes 6:52 [laughs] You strut around. You get people moving away, yeah.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 6:54 I was like, "Excuse me. Excuse..." [laughs] I didn't even have to say that. I was just walking. Because, and that's the same person. But I think that in any profession or any aspect of life, confidence is, perception is reality. Most people believe that, right? You know that how people perceive you is what they think reality is, so give them something perceivable.

Lewis Howes 7:15 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 7:15 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 7:16 Amen to that.

Lewis Howes 7:17 What would you say are three things on a daily basis that you do to build confidence that you think anyone could apply for their life, even if they feel like they have no confidence?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 7:26 When I wake up in the morning, I take time in the bathroom. Like, I, I shower. I will, you know, pick the outfit that I'm feeling today. I will, um, you know, sort of doing my makeup and my hair sort of helps me, um, or my skincare routine actually at night helps me be sort of introspective. Otherwise, through the day I'm very erratic. I have, you know, multiple balls in the air. Um-

Lewis Howes 7:51 Mm

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 7:51 ... professionally I'm doing a lot of things. I'm always behind on time. I'm always playing catch-up. So at the end of the night and the beginning of the day, I really give myself some silence. I play music and, you know, um, I put my creams on and I really think about what the day is going to be like and how my first step outside my room is going to be. When I take that first step outside my safe space, it sets the tone for my day. So I try not to have it be erratic or scary or, like, you know, if I'm late and if I'm running, that always sets the tone for my energy through the day. So I try to really, you know, start my day on the tone I wanna have and the confidence I wanna have. And at every given step during, um, the day, I remind myself of the things I have instead of the things I don't have.

Lewis Howes 8:43 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 8:44 Like, insecurity comes from, a lot of it sometimes I think comes from, "Oh my gosh, I don't have this. It's not good enough," or, "I'm not good enough" for particular scenario or a particular situation or, you know, we start judging ourselves and this was another lesson actually and activity that my mom and I used to do is we used to count our blessings. And, you know, me and my husband do it too whenever we're feeling crazy because our schedules are insane. We're, you know, always in different parts of the world. Um, we do that. We count our blessings about just five things that whenever you're feeling sort of crazy and unstable that, um, you know, you have that you're really grateful for. And I'm not even saying this superficially. This was, um, like truly an exercise. No matter how badly off you are, someone else is worse off than you. That makes it so easy to count your blessings.

Lewis Howes 9:37 I mean, especially watching this, uh, this latest movie that you're in. I mean, The White Tiger.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 9:43 Right?

Lewis Howes 9:43 It, I've been to In- I've only been to India once. I went there four years ago and studied meditation in Chennai, uh, for a couple of weeks, but I went to Delhi and, you know, kind of traveled around a little bit. I didn't see everything, but I saw a lot of, uh, dark things and a lot of things that were constantly reminding me, wow, I have a lot to be grateful for every moment. So I think it's important to have that perspective in our lives that we always have something to be grateful for. Even when it's the darkest time, there's something to be grateful for.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 10:11 Absolutely, and that's so empowering. That to me is my greatest mantra is, you know, truly and tangibly do it, on your fingers do it. Like, just five things. Um, and it's, it's a great exercise to do with someone as well, your kids, your family, you know. Um, anytime, i- it's just, like, five things, then you have to just say it, rattle it out, um-

Lewis Howes 10:32 Yeah

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 10:32 ... the five things that you can think of at that point. But, um, you know, the, the crazy part about The White Tiger is that it's based in India, and you probably reacted to it because it's, it's shot so authentically.

Lewis Howes 10:45 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 10:45 But if you think about it, the majority of the world lives in those conditions, you know? And, um, the socioeconomic divide that exists right now is only increasing.

Lewis Howes 10:58 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 10:59 Like, even the sustainable development goals have been set to eradicate extreme poverty because it's such a big problem. There's such a large population of the world, and we as privileged society, we as privileged people, anyone who has a roof above their head and meals, um, on their table is privileged. And as privileged people, like, that's something that's our concern. Um, you know, there's a large generation of children who don't have a choice in their future or in their lives.

Lewis Howes 11:31 Yeah.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 11:31 They don't know if they can have aspirations or dreams. And, um, how desensitized can we be? When last time, you know, you've driven past a homeless shelter and you've not even looked at it, or a homeless person and not even looked at them. It's the desensitization that we as people who have, um, and that's the differentiation between the have-nots.

Lewis Howes 11:54 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 11:54 But it's also a reality, and it's a reality every s- everywhere in the world.

Lewis Howes 11:59 I don't wanna give away the whole movie. I want everyone to watch it 'cause it was really powerful and, uh, and inspiring to see, uh, someone come from, you know, poverty to ... essentially become, uh, you know, an entrepreneur and be successful in their own way, and the, the story is really powerful. But you took on a role that is, uh, I found fascinating because that's probably not, I don't know if that's what, how you would react-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 12:20 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 12:21 ... in real life, because I know you have such a giving, grateful heart, caring about humanity, but your character does something that's very controversial. And, uh, you essentially, from my opinion, don't take accountability.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 12:34 No, yeah.

Lewis Howes 12:35 Uh, and, and how, how did you feel doing a role that is probably against your morals, your values, and the way you live your life right now?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 12:45 I never judge my characters. Um, you know, like I never judge people.

Lewis Howes 12:50 Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 12:51 Live and let live. Each person is individual to their decisions. And if I started j- judge, I would never be able to play bad guys, and I love playing bad guys. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 13:01 [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 13:03 But, um, I think what was most interesting for me when I was playing Pinky is she's an American, you know? She, sh- and I am an Indian who's grown up in India and understands the complexity of the diversity of that country. There is no one India. There is multiple Indias, and you can spend your whole life trying to get to know it, and you'll still never know her.

Lewis Howes 13:26 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 13:27 So this is one aspect of India that is showcased in this movie, but it's also, it's more than that. It's the story of this one man and everyone else from his perspective.

Lewis Howes 13:39 Yeah.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 13:39 So it's not us looking at him or the country. It's him looking at all of us saying, "Oh," you know? And especially with my character, she's woke, but she's fake woke, right?

Lewis Howes 13:51 [laughs] Right, right, right.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 13:51 She's one of those girls who's like-

Lewis Howes 13:52 [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 13:52 ... "Why don't you pull yourselves out of your circumstances? I, my parents worked in a bodega, you know-

Lewis Howes 13:59 Yeah, yeah

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 13:59 ... and I pulled myself out. Why don't you do it?" He doesn't have a roof over his shoulders. His par- his family doesn't have food. It's a completely different complexity that most woke people don't have the ability to understand, including me. I lived there, and I can't claim to understand it because, you know, I, um, have had, um, you know, basic lively life rights, um, since I was a child. I've been to school. I've had an opinion, um, about where my future is going to be, choices. Um, and that's what's so amazing to me about this movie was that I, I leaned into playing a character that was fake woke and, you know, pivoted when it wasn't convenient. Me and my husband both-

Lewis Howes 14:42 Mm

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 14:42 ... uh, in the movie, not my real husband. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 14:45 Right, right.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 14:45 Um, my ca- the character in my, um, in the movie, both of us sort of like were like, "This is not the right thing," but, you know, when it wasn't, when it was inconvenient, we kind of stood back and watched. And that's a very human testament.

Lewis Howes 14:59 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 14:59 Which is why this bo- this movie, which was originally a book by Arvind Adiga, um, which came out in 2008. It was a Man Booker Prize winner. It was a Ma- um, New York Times best seller. When this book came out, that's exactly what it did. It w- was such a human sort of transcript, human behavior. You know? Flawed.

Lewis Howes 15:21 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 15:22 Not black or white, living in gray. All of them living in gray, which is truly how we live, and it's sort of self-reflective. It's in, it, it should make people feel introspective and think about the last time we behaved like that.

Lewis Howes 15:36 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 15:37 Um, plus it's clever and it's sarcastic. I, sarcasm is my favorite language, so I [laughs] really enjoyed the tone of the movie as well.

Lewis Howes 15:46 [laughs] Speaking about sarcasm, was it pretty easy for you to, to, uh, [laughs] to step into that character living in LA then with all the, uh, woke, fake woke people here?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 15:56 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 15:57 [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 15:58 Um, I mean, I will say that I, I may have been inspired by my surroundings just a little bit. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 16:05 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 16:06 I'm curious, [clears throat] excuse me, I'm curious about, um, your evolution as a, a woman in this industry. Typically, younger women are more desirable for opportunities in their late teens, early 20s, and it's like when you're 26, 27, it's almost like you're old as a woman and you may not be the young sexy one anymore or something in this industry. How do you feel after [clicks tongue] getting into your late 30s now, how have you evolved ch- personally to not allow that stigma to hold you back from being who wan- who you wanna be, from accepting yourself, from loving yourself, from innovating and reinventing yourself that you've done so many times? How do you not let that stigma hold you back?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 16:48 I can't say that I don't. I just am hoping that it doesn't happen to me. [laughs] You know? We live in a world where anything is possible right now, as we've seen in the last few year- or few months, years as well. Um, and I, I think that, I remember when I was, uh, in my, when I was 28, um, my mom sat me down one day and she said, "You know, um, you, y- [laughs] girls have a shelf life, and you're reaching that where, you know, the older boys, um, they're always looking for the younger girl to act with. And-

Lewis Howes 17:24 Wow

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 17:25 ... even if they're in their 50s, you know, they're still gonna be working with 20-year-olds, but you're gonna be old, and you need to think about a business, um, if acting opportunities stop coming your way." That's how I actually started my production house.

Lewis Howes 17:38 Wow.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 17:38 Because I was like, "You're right. What if I'm... Like, I need to be financially independent in my life." But at the same time, while this was happening to me, I recognized that innovation and reinventing who I am, even for me, is so important, and being true to the craft that I'm doing and the, the service that I have to provide, which is my job. So- I started trying new things. I started wanting to grow. I didn't wanna stagnate into doing the same kind of roles. I didn't wanna stagnate in, you know, similar kind of parts or even languages and borders. And I did music. I was signed as a rec- recording artist to Interscope, [laughs] Premak Bose.

Lewis Howes 18:21 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 18:22 Um, I pivoted from that into television, that I had never done, English language TV. Then I moved into features in America. Now I'm producing in India and America, and acting in both these countries, which are two of the greatest movie industries in the world. But if I sat down to think about the glass ceiling that was built for me, um, I would never have a trajectory powerful enough to break it.

Lewis Howes 18:46 Wow.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 18:47 'Cause I didn't make that glass ceiling. So I don't wanna think about where it is. You know, it's been made by other people. So you just kind of have to have, you know, speed and run towards your end game and, you know, have a goal and be ambitious and fuel that ambition-

Lewis Howes 19:03 Mm

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 19:03 ... every single day.

Lewis Howes 19:04 What is the end game?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 19:05 [laughs] To have a legacy, I think. I want my, um, children to be proud of, you know, the, the legacy that I've had. I wanna be hopefully, you know, part of, um, you know, the history books of entertainment, where I may have contributed to the arts in some way, um, with the work that I have done or the work that I create or the work that I will do. So I wanna be able to, as a woman, you know, um, leave a better world for the girls after us-

Lewis Howes 19:40 Mm

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 19:40 ... like the women before me did for me. I don't think about voting today, I don't think about driving today, I don't think about aspiring to have the same job as a man. And all of those fights, um, were fought by women that came before me.

Lewis Howes 19:53 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 19:53 So it's my responsibility, and our responsibility as a generation, to leave it better for the next one.

Lewis Howes 19:59 Yeah.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 19:59 So those are broad strokes of my end games. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 20:05 And what, I mean, I'm sure you get this question a lot, I'm just curious because my audience is a lot of high achievers. They, they're big dreamers. They're going after what they want. They're learning the skills, the tools to become more confident, more, more giving, all those things. It sounds like you're doing everything all at the same time. How do you navigate intimacy, connection, love with, you know, you know, your husband, your family, your friends, the people that matter the most to you?

Lewis Howes 20:29 How do you navigate relationships with such a busy, full plate?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 20:34 It's not easy. Um, you know, there's not as much face time as you would possibly want. But I, when I made the deal with the devil about [laughs] you know, running at this fast pace many years ago, I realized that there would be sacrifices that are required. And, um, you know, when you have... There's no free lunch in the world, and when you have ambitions, you've gotta sort of pay for it. And-

Lewis Howes 20:58 Mm

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 20:59 ... um, but I overcompensate, or I c- try and compensate, um, with making sure even if I don't have face time or if I've... Like, for a very long time in my life, I missed, um, you know, birthdays and Diwali and New Year's, and I would always be working. And all I could do was apologize. And my family always understood because, you know, I was, I was working at something. But, um, I think that, uh, I, I, I made sure that I always call. I never forget birthdays. I will always call on a birthday. If I go to a city, even if I can't meet someone, my family, my friends, I'll make sure we FaceTime, we'll ca- I, I'm very... It made me very thoughtful about the people I love. I love loving the people I, um, that I care about. I love making them feel special. And I love being empathetic. And I, I, I think it's very important, um, to leave the baggage of the job behind when you walk into your house, and just be true to what you're feeling. I, I think it's, it's important to choose relationships when you're really busy, because we can all be caught up-

Lewis Howes 22:10 Mm, mm

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 22:11 ... in life. And, you know, life is like a really fast river, you know? You don't know what the currents are going to be because it's just moving. You don't know what you're gonna bump into 'cause it's just moving. But you have to choose to hold onto something when you wanna take a breath, right?

Lewis Howes 22:27 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 22:27 Just like that, you have to choose to hold on to a relationship, whatever that might be, with your children, with your family, with your parents. You have to make the time. And you have to tell the people you love that you love them.

Lewis Howes 22:40 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 22:40 Don't just assume that they know.

Lewis Howes 22:42 You've got some wisdom, Priyanka. I love this.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 22:43 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 22:44 Uh-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 22:44 Aw, thank you

Lewis Howes 22:45 ... I'm, I'm curious about, I know how, uh, meaningful the relationship was with your, your father, and he obviously got to, uh, experience a lot of your success. A- and I'm sure he was extremely proud of you for, you know, the 3,000 movies and all the projects you worked on. Um, but I'm curious, what do you think personally he would be most proud of that you've done in your life since his passing?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 23:10 Mm, that I didn't give up. Um, you know, that I didn't rest on my laurels. He used to always push me. He would always push me to never be satisfied with what I have. He pushed my ambition. He flamed my ambition. He was always like, "What's the next thing? What are we doing?" He loved hearing stories about the next movies that I was doing. I used to literally narrate them, them to him in, in the hospital bed as well, "This is my character," and I used to break down my characters with him, or movies that I wanted to make. Um, and, you know, there were phases in my life like that, a little bit of a dark phase, especially after my dad died, where I felt like I don't know if I could keep up with the life that I had built, um, and what was expected of me by then. Um, because I personally took a hit, and I personally was feeling sad. And, you know, sadness sort of- Sadness is strangely seductive.

Lewis Howes 24:11 Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 24:11 You know? It kind of sucks you in, and you're... It's like it, it feels comfortable. It feels like you're floating, and it's easy. Light might be harsh a little bit, but the joy that you feel when you choose light, when you choose to let go of the seduction of sadness, um, I think my dad was afraid that because I'm very sensitive, that I would have been seduced by [laughs] sadness for a long time. He was very afraid of that. Um, even before he died, he used to always talk to me about, "Don't be sad. Do not be sad."

Lewis Howes 24:47 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 24:47 "That's n- I'm not going away. I'm always with you," you know?

Lewis Howes 24:50 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 24:51 But I was. I was tremendously sad. And, but it, it take, it takes choosing yourself, and I've done that multiple times, um, in my life. And I think it's such a powerful tool, 'cause the longest relationship you have is with yourself.

Lewis Howes 25:06 I read somewhere that about you sharing that you come into this place alone, you leave this place alone. You've gotta-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 25:11 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 25:11 ... you know, build that relationship with yourself. I love that you keep saying, "Choose yourself." Uh, a friend of mine wrote a book called Choose Yourself. His name is James Altucher.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 25:20 Oh, really?

Lewis Howes 25:20 And it's a really-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 25:21 That's amazing

Lewis Howes 25:21 ... powerful book. Uh, it's about, you know, going after you want and choosing yourself and not allowing someone else to dictate what you can and can't do and all that stuff. But I love that you keep using that phrase, 'cause I think it's important for people to re- to be reminded that we need to choose ourselves when no one else will choose us. We need to be there for ourselves when we're sad, when we're-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 25:41 And it's no one's job. It's no one's job to choose someone else. You know, your parents will do it for a while. Your spouses will do it for a while. Maybe your children will do it for a while. But y- you are no one else's responsibility but your own. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 25:56 Yeah.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 25:56 And what you do with your life and the choices you make dictate the sum of your life. It's, it's such a s- it's such simple math, actually. We are the sum of all our choices. And, you know, if you want to achieve something and if you wanna achieve greatness, and I'll give you a small example. Um, The White Tiger, the movie, I was never attached to it. I was never approached for it. I read about it on Twitter that it was being made. I read in a trade magazine, I read in, um, you know, Deadline, actually, [laughs] that, um, The White Tiger is being adapted by the director Ramin Bahrani and, uh, for Netflix. And I was like, "I have to be a part of this movie."

Lewis Howes 26:39 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 26:39 I called the agents. I called my agents. I made them call the producers. I chased Ramin from Mumbai to New York to LA. I met him three times. I auditioned with him three times. I offered my services as an executive producer because I wanted the material, because I wanna align myself with good content, and I believe that would be good content. And that's such an example of, what's the worst that could've happened? They would've said no, and, and that's happened to me multiple times, but it's not stopped me from trying again. That's choosing yourself.

Lewis Howes 27:15 So three times you went after him. Did he say yes?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 27:18 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 27:18 He didn't say yes the first two times?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 27:19 He didn't say yes, no.

Lewis Howes 27:21 Really? But you're Priyanka Chopra.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 27:22 Maybe he was he- well, he asked me if, he asked me would I, would, would I, "Is it okay if you read with me?" And I was like, "Of course. It's my job. I'm an actor. I mean, you know, whatever [laughs] you think I am, but at the end of it, I'm, that's literally my job." So I read with him twice before he eventually said yes. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 27:39 How does he not say yes? I mean, you're, you know, the biggest name.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 27:42 You gotta ask him that question. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 27:44 That's like a true, when someone says no to you, they're like a true artist. They're like, "It needs to really fit and feel the way my vision is," as opposed to just going after, you know, the power that you have, I'm assuming, which is-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 27:56 But can you imagine how much that made me want it even more? [laughs]

Lewis Howes 27:59 I know. He was like, "Yeah, you're running around the world. I need this." [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 28:03 I'm like, "I need it now." [laughs]

Lewis Howes 28:06 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 28:07 I'm curious, what would you say, uh, looking back, you know, nearly 20 years ago, uh, to when you were just getting started in this space, this industry, what would you say to young Pri about what she's about to experience? Is there any advice or wisdom you would, would, you would offer?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 28:25 I would say don't sweat it. I stressed out so much. I was tied up so tight in my early 20s and, um, you know, I, I wanted to please everyone, and I wanted, um, everyone to love my work and love me. And, you know, I, that's what I thought being an actor was, is to be loved. That's not what it was. I, I got so caught up in the glitz and glamour of it when I was so young and I was just starting out in the business, that it took me a couple of years to realize that actually it's not about any of that. That's a byproduct of the job, you know, that people know you or know of your name or love you, hate you, um, or have an opinion of you. But the job really is the art and the craft of it.

Lewis Howes 29:14 Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 29:14 It's, the one thing, as we've seen when we've gone into this pandemic, that people have done is consume content. Content has been a friend. It has been a companion, and that's my job. That's what I'm creating, and I take immense pride in, in being able to provide that service in a way to, to people, um, as a producer, as an actor, just as a creator, as an entertainer. And when I realized that, it became such a fun job for me. I started finding characters. I started infusing life in them. What's written on paper is, you know, the writer's vision, but what happens between action and cut is where I come in.

Lewis Howes 29:56 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 29:56 And it was so much fun to be able to take what's on paper and convert it into people. Um, and I just love the magic of my job.

Lewis Howes 30:06 And it sounds like the more you focus on the magic of the role and the creativity of it and less on- ... pleasing people and doing something-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 30:16 Totally

Lewis Howes 30:16 ... to make people like you, you're gonna attract and be a magnet to all the best opportunities.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 30:21 To all the best opportunities, to support, to l- affection, love, um, for sure. But, you know, because you're, um, the reasons for doing the job need to be right. Um, and my reason for doing my job is nothing outside of the joy I feel, you know, when someone watches my work and feels something, and is moved or is affected. And that gives me the greatest joy. And-

Lewis Howes 30:47 Mm

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 30:47 ... that's the, you know, those are the footsteps I wanna leave behind as an artist. Um, it's not gonna be about, you know, how many followers I had or my bank balance or, you know, where I live. It's going to be about people remembering my work and-

Lewis Howes 31:06 Mm-hmm

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 31:06 ... you know, being moved by the work that I have done. And, um, yes, I take myself seriously, and, uh, yes, I take my job seriously. [laughs] Um, and I'm proud of that.

Lewis Howes 31:15 What do you connect your self-worth to? What do you tie it to?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 31:20 Um, hmm. I think I tie it to-

Lewis Howes 31:22 From here, I'm hearing you say it's not about, it's not about the number of followers, the bank account.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 31:26 No.

Lewis Howes 31:26 What, what do you-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 31:27 No way.

Lewis Howes 31:27 Yeah.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 31:28 It, it's very actually clear to me. I tie it to, if I am doing tangible work, say, for example, I go to set and I'm acting in, um, a movie, The White Tiger, or I'm writing my book, which, um, my memoir, where I put pen to paper or fingers to keypad. S- whatever I have done tangibly or a business that I am, you know, invested in, when that works, when that succeeds, that's my self-worth. Because I've created it with my hands, with my mind, with my ability. Not with the way I look, not with, you know, how, how much of dinner conversation I was for somebody else or what I tweeted, but because of something I created and something-

Lewis Howes 32:13 Hmm

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 32:13 ... that I hand m- had my hands in. Um, when that's successful, that's my self-worth.

Lewis Howes 32:20 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 32:21 What happens... A- again, you've done, you know, more movies than anyone I know. Uh, what happens when you put your life into your work? You know, maybe it's two months, three months, however long creating a project. You have big expectations, and for whatever reason, it's not received the way you want by an audience or it doesn't do as well in the box office or whatever. How do you navigate those emotions after the effort, the energy, the love that you poured into something that maybe doesn't get the results you're looking for?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 32:53 I've had so many of those. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 32:56 [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 32:57 I can give you a list of how to deal with that. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 32:59 [laughs] 'Cause I think a lot of people get defeated. Uh, they'll do one thing, and then it doesn't work the way they expected, and then it's like, "Why try again?"

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 33:08 Absolutely, and that's a very human feeling. But, um, when you wanna create a legacy, it's what you do after failure that matters.

Lewis Howes 33:17 Hmm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 33:18 Everyone's going to fail. You're definitely gonna fail if you're trying a new thing, you know? And if you don't try a new thing, you're not gonna evolve. So if someone has put all their eggs in one basket and is like, "You know, this is everything I know and it's going to work," you're setting yourself up for failure and for God to laugh. Um, you've gotta take a risk, and you've gotta know that there's always going to be a risk that it doesn't work out, and it's gonna suck. And, you know, you lock yourself up in a room and eat pizza for five days-

Lewis Howes 33:49 [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 33:49 ... and get over it, you know? And pull your big girl pants up and go back to work and create something else. Um, I think it's very entitled to expect that the first time or every single time it's always going to work out. It'll never always work out. The person you are, your worth comes from how you react after you fail or how you react after you're hurt. That's being a person of integrity.

Lewis Howes 34:18 Hmm. Man, you're just speaking some truth today, Priyanka. I love this.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 34:22 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 34:23 I had a-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 34:23 You're doing it, you're getting it out of me. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 34:25 [laughs] What do you think about in terms of, um, creating and cultivating happiness for yourself? I think a lot of people find happiness in a lot of the wrong things, whether how many likes they get or what someone says to them or what their partner does for them to bring them joy or whatever. What- whatever expectation. How do you cultivate happiness for yourself to the point where it's not reliant on other outside factors but it's within?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 34:51 I think it goes back to what we were speaking about a little bit earlier, that, um, you're born alone and you're gonna die alone. This is your journey and yours only. So now, if for this journey we're expecting, you know, someone else to contribute to your trajectory, it's, it's skewed. That's never, that's not the truth. It- that's like some utopian, um, illusion that people live in. No one can contribute to your happiness. It's only you that can contribute to receiving what you're receiving.

Lewis Howes 35:27 Hmm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 35:27 So if we receive, uh, from somebody else, that when they give me a gift, it validates me, or when somebody writes great comments, it makes me feel better about myself, you're receiving, um, validation instead of having it within yourself and creating your own validation, which comes from, like I told you, my self-worth comes from seeing the successes out of things that I have worked towards creating, that I've, you know, I have my hands and feet into, my movie, my job, my book, my business, the things that I have done. And if I was, you know, um, a carpenter, it would be my bedpost, or if I was a tailor, it would be my dress. But I think taking pride in who we are and what we bring to the table is, I think, the, the- The greatest joy of them all.

Lewis Howes 36:19 Yeah.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 36:20 And it cannot be compared to what somebody else does, whether that's the best partner in the world, um, you know, the m- most number of followers or, um, you know, sycophants that'll always say you're amazing. That- that's not the truth.

Lewis Howes 36:35 Yeah.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 36:35 When you sleep at night, do you have a fitful sleep, or are you content? Do you wake up anxious? Are you stressed because you need someone else to do something for you? I think the, that's the journey we all have to make, is to come to a place of, "What can I do for myself today-

Lewis Howes 36:53 Mm

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 36:53 ... that's gonna make me smile?"

Lewis Howes 36:55 Amen to this. I'm loving this. What about when people say nasty things about you? They're, you know, all the negative comments, the way you look, the way you act, the projects that flop, and it's just hate online-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 37:08 Oh, God

Lewis Howes 37:08 ... or in the newspapers. How do you respond-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 37:10 People-

Lewis Howes 37:10 ... to that, and how do you-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 37:11 I-

Lewis Howes 37:12 How do you not let it affect you personally?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 37:15 I have, uh, uh, and only on social media, please don't get me wrong, not anywhere else really. Some people love to hate me. Um, and it almost seems like it's their favorite thing to do is-

Lewis Howes 37:26 [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 37:27 [laughs] you know, just hate on me and spew venom. And it just shows how small they are and how much free time they have, honestly. Um, and that their self-worth comes from berating me when I don't even know you, and you don't even exist in my world. So yes, I get pissed off sometimes, especially when it's, like, personal things, you know? Attacks on my family, my integrity, my country, my, um, ethnicity, my, you know, gender. Um, when it's, like, personal things. My job, you can have an opinion. If my movie is , you can say it. If my movie is great, you can say it. That's totally fine. But you don't know me. No one really knows me except my family and my friends and the people I choose to have around me. It may seem like you know me, um, but you really don't. So when people make commentary on my integrity and me as a person as if they know the intentions behind my actions, that's tough. But the only way to sort of deflect from it in my mind, because just like everyone else, I could go down that rabbit hole and live there and be like, you know, combat with people. But it's, it's not worth it because when I look at, you know, my social media, I see so much love and affection as well. I see so many people who are like, "Yay, your movie." You know, this movie that I just had released on Christmas called We Can Be Heroes is the number one most watched movie on Netflix ever. And I was like, "Sorry, what is the statistic?"

Lewis Howes 39:05 [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 39:05 And people have watched it multiple, multiple, multiple times. And there's so much love that came at me-

Lewis Howes 39:11 Mm

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 39:11 ... for this movie, even though it's a great movie, and it's Robert Rodriguez and these amazing kids. So how do I focus on these trolls when there's so much joy being thrown at my, at, at me? And maybe I have the luxury of having that kind of support. If I didn't have that kind of support, and if I didn't have people who maybe were saying, you know, good things or wanting to be kind, then maybe I would have gone down the rabbit hole of feeling really bad about myself, too.

Lewis Howes 39:40 Yeah.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 39:40 But-

Lewis Howes 39:41 Yeah

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 39:42 ... at least for me, um, I choose to focus on my support.

Lewis Howes 39:46 There's a, there's a famous speech by Matthew McConaughey when he won the Oscars, uh, where he said he's chasing his 10-year future self who's his role model.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 39:56 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 39:56 Something like that. I had, I, I, I don't know.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 39:58 Yeah. And he can never catch up with him.

Lewis Howes 40:00 And he can never catch him. He's always-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 40:01 Yeah

Lewis Howes 40:01 ... 10 years ahead. "Ah, I got there," and he's always the next step.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 40:04 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 40:04 Uh, I got to talk to him, uh, a couple months ago about his book, and I asked him a question. I said, "Okay, if your, your 10-year self now, looking back at who you are, uh, y- at this age, what would your 10-year self be proud of that you're doing, and what would your 10-year self give advice to for you right now?" And I'm curious, the same question for you. If you're 10 years out from now, if you can imagine all the things you've created and accomplished and the way of being you've shown into the world, the impact you make, what would-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 40:34 10 year before or 10 year after?

Lewis Howes 40:36 10 years later.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 40:37 [gasps] Ooh.

Lewis Howes 40:38 Your 10-year future self.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 40:40 Okay. Um-

Lewis Howes 40:42 How, you know, think of all the accomplishments, all the movies, all the impact you make on the world, everything you've created with your marriage and your relationship, whether you have family, whatever it may be. What would that 10-year ahead Priyanka say to you now that she is proud of, and what would she say for advice on how to navigate the next 10 years?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 41:03 I feel like I'm at Miss World again. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 41:08 [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 41:09 Um, I think the one thing I hope my 10-year ahead self would be proud of is the path that I was stepping on, you know? The, um, of wanting to create, um, stories of my own, not just for me, but you know, people like me. When I started working in Hollywood, there weren't really the kind of parts that I wanted to do that were written for me or coming to me. And again, I'm not someone who's entitled to expect parts to come for me. But they were just not being written. I wasn't seeing them when I was watching content either. Um, and it was a little bit of a struggle to, you know, say that I wanna play a mainstream part. I don't always wanna be a stereotype that an Indian girl should be in, um, a Hollywood show or a movie. And that was a struggle, and it really inspired me to sort of start creating content. A- and I was seeing so many other people do it around me, Mindy Kaling, you know, Reese Witherspoon, so many women. And, um, I hope that my older self would say that that was, that's the step in the right direction for you because it takes a lot of confidence, and it takes, um, a lot of, uh- Sort of credibility in yourself to ha- to have garnered credibility, and it took me 20 years to do it.

Lewis Howes 42:30 Wow.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 42:30 Um, to be able to garner enough credibility in yourself, in my work, to now be able to create content not just for me, but for other people who I think deserve a platform and representation. South Asians are one-fifth of the world's population, and when you look at global entertainment, you don't see one-fifth of the world's movies being South Asian, right?

Lewis Howes 42:51 Yeah.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 42:51 Um, so I feel like I, I wanna be in a s- a step in that direction and, um, tell cross-pollination of stories. I'm an amalgamation of two of the greatest, uh, movie industries in the world, right? And there's something really powerful about that. Today we're consuming all our content on, like, streamers, you know? And the pandemic has shown us that we're not going to theaters, but we're watching everything on our TVs, and there is an audience for everything, and I wanna be able to, you know, create diverse content, female content. Um, so I hope that it... And it's, I'm just about stepping in that direction, so I hope my 10-year-older self would be like, "Good girl."

Lewis Howes 43:33 Way to go, yeah.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 43:33 "Glad you did that." And the advice, I think, [laughs] would be, um, to take more time out, you know?

Lewis Howes 43:42 Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 43:42 Um. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 43:46 [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 43:47 I'm always-

Lewis Howes 43:47 Good luck. [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 43:48 I know, I know. I'm always, like, going from one job to the next. I'm always, like, I've planned. I know my next two jobs. You know, I have to have my next two jobs ready while I'm doing one, so there's just never any time. And ever since I'm married, um, you know, people, people are constantly like, "You know, we want babies." And I'm like, "Nobody's asking guys about, nobody's asking any of the guys that question." Um, but it's gonna require me taking some time out to be able to do that. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 44:15 Yeah.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 44:16 So my older self is definitely giving, telling me, you know, "Smell the roses. Just take a second and enjoy your new house and, you know, your dogs and your family and..." [laughs]

Lewis Howes 44:28 With all the opportunities and ambitions that you have, do you feel like that'll be your greatest challenge for the next 10 years? Which is to say, "Okay, I'm just gonna take two weeks off here, a month here, you know, or, or six months off." I mean, do you think that'll be your greatest challenge?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 44:41 I think to say no would be my greatest challenge. I'm just really greedy.

Lewis Howes 44:44 How do you say, how do you learn to say no with every opportunity coming your way, except for White Tiger that you had to, you know, beg and, and scratch for?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 44:52 No. I, I mean, even when opportunities don't come my way, I'm a beggar. I'll go after it.

Lewis Howes 44:56 [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 44:57 I'm, if I, if I like something, I'm a dog with a bone. Like, you know, I've created my own opportunities and there have been opportunities that have come to me. America wasn't easy. It was not easy to navigate. This is 10 years of me pounding the pavement, doing music here. Um, you know, this is 10 years later that I'm at this place where you're saying to me that I have opportunity coming my way. But it took me that long of being in America to get here. And, um, so it's, it wasn't easy, but, you know, I think that I'm just glad I finally made it here. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 45:35 What do you think about in terms of, uh, the law of attraction and an abundance mindset? Are you a believer that, uh, you know, what we think about, we can truly start to manifest when we start to take those actions? Is that something you practice in terms of-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 45:51 No

Lewis Howes 45:51 ... thinking of abundance?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 45:53 I've never practiced it. I've read it. I've read The Secret, I've read all the books, but, um, I'm just trying to catch up with my day.

Lewis Howes 46:01 [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 46:02 You know? I, [laughs] from when I was a kid, I, I, I don't have the bandwidth to think so far. So I, I have this mathematical formula that I think that I, my life goes by, right? Like, so for example, in school when you have, we used to have this thing called annual exams. Um, which at the end of the year you have this one exam which is final examinations and that, like, sort of determines if you're going to the next class or not. But there are smaller little, like, midterms and small little tests that also contribute to your grade, right? So if I make sure that I get an A in all the little, little, little, little, little tests, by the end of it my report card is always going to be excellent. So why spend so much time thinking about excellence that I may or may not achieve with, you know, fate and destiny? Who knows where life is gonna go. Um, I believe life is short, and I believe if you aim for excellence every day in every job that you have, your life is bound to be full of excellence.

Lewis Howes 47:09 Dropping gems all day. I'm loving this.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 47:11 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 47:11 I, I've got a, I've got a few, few-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 47:12 By me saying no to the law of attraction, oh my gosh. Now what is, what is that gonna attract? [laughs]

Lewis Howes 47:18 [laughs] No, I think you're, I mean, I think the law of attraction is really living in a gratitude mindset, in a, in a grateful, in a grateful place. Thinking about-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 47:27 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 47:27 ... the, the vision of yourself that you wanna become and acting on it. Which sounds like you're doing that by saying, "How can I be great today? How can I continue to evolve and innovate?"

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 47:35 Right.

Lewis Howes 47:35 So, um, what is the question you wish more people would ask you that they don't ask?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 47:41 God, I don't want people to ask me more questions than they already do. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 47:45 [laughs] What is the thing that you wish they would talked about or would-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 47:50 Um-

Lewis Howes 47:50 ... were more cur- curious about in terms of your-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 47:51 Actually, I, I, I do wish people would be a lot more curious about, um, my ambitions and dreams, um, rather than, um, you know, uh, my love life-

Lewis Howes 48:03 Your personal life

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 48:04 ... or-

Lewis Howes 48:05 Yeah, yeah

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 48:05 ... or my, you know, future children or, um, trivial stuff like that. But I'm also part of pop culture and I recognize that the consumption of pop culture is pop, and so it's okay. Like I said, I've made the deal with the devil a long time ago.

Lewis Howes 48:23 [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 48:24 But I would, I wish, and I get very excited when I have conversations like this, honestly, Lewis, because I get to talk about- ... you know, my feelings and my beliefs and how I have, my journey of how I've become the person that I am today, the woman that I am today. Um, and it's, it's not been easy. Uh, I, but I built walls as soon as I became a public person about, you know, it's no one's business to know if it was easy or not. I'm not someone who rests on my laurels, and I'm definitely not someone, you know, who washes my dirty linen in public or, uh, or like, you know, sh- shows off my weaknesses. I just, I've, I've had to learn to be strong at, in the face of adversity at every given moment. One, because I'm a woman. Second, I'm a woman of color. I'm always, um, trying to achieve more than my circumstances. I've always been that. Wherever I was, whether I was in school or my profession, I always wanna be more than what the hand that has been dealt, um, to me. And I think those traits require you to be sort of an anomaly, you know?

Lewis Howes 49:31 Yeah. The white tiger, right? You know, it comes around-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 49:33 Right

Lewis Howes 49:33 ... once in a generation. You're, you're a very global citizen. You travel around the world. You've lived in multiple countries. You've experienced a lot of different people in your life, and you've seen a lot, especially being in this industry, in the entertainment industry. What do you believe, uh, from everything you've seen in the last four to five years that's happening in the world, on all the different types of topics? And we don't need to talk specifically about politics or anything, but what do you believe that... I just feel like it's been very confusing and hard for everyone i- in different ways, for men and women and all people.

Lewis Howes 50:04 What do you think we should expect more from men moving into, you know, this year and beyond in kind of this new generation? What should we expect men to give more, to be more, and what do you think we should expect women to be more of to create more healing in the world together, to create more connection, uh, together? What, what do you think we can both do?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 50:26 Um, one thing I feel like parents in general can teach their sons to be vulnerable-

Lewis Howes 50:36 Mm

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 50:36 ... and can teach their sons to respect women. Um, I think that is a responsibility of the world in a big way, is, you know, when we're talking about sexism or we're talking about gender equality or, um, feminism even for that matter, the largest thing that is required is for men to be in our corner and for men-

Lewis Howes 50:58 Mm

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 50:58 ... to respect their sisters, wives, daughters, friends, because you have been given the torch for eons, and it's, and it's important for you to share it. It's important for you to recognize that you need to create that opportunity for women. I mean, honestly, congratulations, by the way, on your first female VP. I come from a country that has seen, you know, several females in governance, and that's an opportunity that needs to be created, you know?

Lewis Howes 51:26 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 51:26 Um, I, I also think that as what men can truly do is that, is create opportunity for females and, um, you know, give credence to their intelligence, give credence to our, uh, abilities and, um, you know, recognize it for being a peer, um, and being an equal in as, as different as we are-

Lewis Howes 51:51 Mm

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 51:51 ... um, you know, in our physiologies, in our i- ideologies, in our behavior, and, and all the other complex things. But when it comes to merit and when it comes to, um, op- opportunities, we should be creating more for women. Men should be.

Lewis Howes 52:07 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 52:07 And for women, if we're talking about creating healing, to find it in our heart, because women have really large hearts. We're forgivers, right? We forgive. Um, but to find it in our h- in our hearts to forgive, um, patriarchy that came before us and n- to fight, uh, towards creating a world which is inclusive of both genders, which is respectful of both genders, which gives opportunity for both genders. Women have for eons been treated like second-class citizens, and they're bound to be angry. But, you know, the only way to create healing is to forgive existing and previous, uh, misogyny and patriarchy and fighting for your rights so that we leave, um, a easier sort of, uh, world and male-female dynamic for our children. They shouldn't-

Lewis Howes 53:05 Mm

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 53:05 ... have to inherit this, this problem, this inequality. They shouldn't.

Lewis Howes 53:10 Oh, I, I agree with what you're saying there, and I'm curious, what's been the hardest thing you've had to forgive?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 53:15 Do I forgive, though, after I gave that advice? [laughs]

Lewis Howes 53:18 [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 53:20 That's why I'm imploring women-

Lewis Howes 53:21 [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 53:22 ... 'cause it's hard for us to forgive. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 53:25 Oh.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 53:26 We pretend like we do. Um, look, uh, forgive, I can forgive anything after I've given myself enough time to get over it.

Lewis Howes 53:34 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 53:35 But usually it's really hard for me to forgive. Uh-

Lewis Howes 53:38 Really?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 53:38 ... I, I don't forget. Definitely don't forget. Um, but after there's been enough time that's passed, you know, time is the greatest healer-

Lewis Howes 53:49 Mm-hmm

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 53:49 ... then it doesn't matter, and then I'm easy to forgive. But when, you know, when the pan's hot, uh, I don't know [laughs] if, if I'm a forgiver very much. Um, if-

Lewis Howes 53:59 What's been, what's been the thing that's been the hardest for you to let go of or forgive, whether it be when you were younger or now or anytime in between?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 54:06 I think it's, it's harder for me to, like, more recently, like, forgive, forgive, say, remarks that dismiss the work that I've done or, um, you know, the life that I've built and, um, that, um, are sort of devaluing of everything that I've worked towards 'cause, you know, it's been brick by brick for me.

Lewis Howes 54:31 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 54:31 And it's all been my own. So, um, I think to push my buttons, those, those things are, I haven't been able to forgive yet. I remember

Lewis Howes 54:41 Yeah. Well, I'll, I'll make sure I never push those buttons on you.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 54:43 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 54:44 Who was the most influential person in your life growing up, and what was the greatest lesson that you still hold onto today from that person?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 54:51 I would say I was very influenced by both my parents. Um, and I'm very close to both of them. Um, I, I think the deepest influence that I've had from both, and if I can take a second to tell you about that, um, from my father was, um, you know, a sense of adventure. Um, he said, "Be like water." You know? Water sort of adjusts into wherever it has to go. It can be a mighty waterfall. It can be a teardrop. It doesn't matter. Just be like that. And why he said that to me was, um, because he was in the military, and my parents were in the military. And, um, you know, I may have been four years old when I remember the first time he came and said that, you know, we have to move. And we moved every two years, and I hated it at the beginning. Um, so I think to give me a sense of adventure, my dad, like, said to me that, you know, "Every time you go to a new place, you're gonna have a blank slate. No one's gonna know where you're coming from. So whoever you want to be, you can be." And that was very exciting to me. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 55:57 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 55:57 So, um, that was influential on my dad's end. And I think from my mom, she always told me that, "You, make sure you're always financially independent. It doesn't matter whose daughter you are. It doesn't matter whose wife you. It doesn't matter where you go, you have to stand on your own feet." And, um, you know, that was really, really, uh, pivotal advice at a very young age that she instilled in me, which gave me a, a really large sense of self.

Lewis Howes 56:29 Yeah, I love the photo of you, the throwback photo of little Pri.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 56:33 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 56:34 Uh, i- I think you're four or five years old and, like, your, your dad's military or-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 56:38 Yeah

Lewis Howes 56:38 ... army outfit or something.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 56:39 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 56:40 And he's talking about, uh, having this sense of adventure and wonder, uh, in everything you go. This curiosity, I think you said, in that photo-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 56:47 Yeah

Lewis Howes 56:47 ... which I think is pretty cool. And, uh, that's interesting. When you moved to the USA, um, did you feel like you could shed off old identities, or did you create a new identity when you came to the USA, uh, because of that?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 57:01 When I was a kid? As a teenager?

Lewis Howes 57:03 Yeah. Because your mom w- uh, kind of sharing that with you, or what was that like?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 57:07 Um-

Lewis Howes 57:07 Or did you stay who you were when you moved?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 57:10 Well, as a teenager, first of all, you know, when... It's not like going to a new school. I was changing countries at 12.

Lewis Howes 57:18 Cultures, everything, yeah.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 57:20 Everything. Like, I'd, I'd never traveled abroad before. I'd gone to Nepal, but that's a neighboring country, you know? Um, so this was a whole new experience. And the America that I was familiar with was, you know, from Saved by the Bell or-

Lewis Howes 57:36 [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 57:37 ... you know, the shows that my mom watched, like-

Lewis Howes 57:39 Yeah

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 57:39 ... Bold and the Beautiful, Remington Steele. And I was like, "Ah, everyone has soft hair and is wearing glamorous clothes, and everyone's white." And then I landed to America, and that's not true. [laughs] Um, America's diverse. America's bustling. I was shocked with the space, um, America had. A- and my 13-year-old mind, or 12-year-old mind at that time, I didn't know who I was, 'cause I was so busy trying to figure out who I wanted to be in this new world. But by the time I left the US a- as a 16-year-old, um, I'd had a few, you know, tough situations with, um, America. [laughs] Um, she and I kind of may have gotten into a row, and I left, and I said, "I don't wanna be in this country." I went back to India at 16, um, and, you know, took back the, the character that I'd created within myself. I was confident. I was, um, you know, aware of myself as a teenager, as a girl. I was suddenly aware of vanity and the clothes I wear. Uh, when I left, I was a 12-year-old tomboy.

Lewis Howes 58:52 Right. [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 58:52 Um, [laughs] I'd grown in not just my mind, but in my measurements as well. So for my dad, when I came back, it was a huge shock, 'cause, you know, I went as a kid and I came back as a woman, in a way. And, um, so after that, I think that's why I feel like I'm an amalgamation of India and America, because my most formative years were spent in both.

Lewis Howes 59:18 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 59:18 And by the time I came into my profession, which was at 17, I'd been influenced by both countries in a big way. Um, so I'm, I think, a mix of both, in the best way.

Lewis Howes 59:30 What was the biggest challenge you faced during those, you know, 12 to 16 years in America? What did you love about America, and what did you not like?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 59:38 Well, high school was the biggest challenge. I mean, high school is hard, man.

Lewis Howes 59:42 Yeah, it is.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 59:43 That's not easy. It's hard for everyone, especially, like, a girl who's come from a different country. Um, and I, it, it was, like, ninth grade. It was Cedar Rapids, Iowa. And, um, I didn't see anyone that looked like me. I didn't know how to, you know, get from one class to the other, even, because in schools in India, teachers come from, to different classes. The students, because there, there's, like, 60 students in a class, can you imagine all these kids trying to get to different classes? That would never fly. So [laughs] teachers go to different schools. From something as basic as that, uh, navigating a cafeteria. In India, we carried our own lunch. Navi- like, little things like that was, high school was a whole new planet for me. And then the social culture of trying to make friends, and, you know, kids who had known each other from middle school and had grown up together, and you're trying to, like, navigate that. Also, at the same time, you're just about becoming a teenager, so I was aware of boys, of that whole thing.

Lewis Howes 1:00:47 Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:00:48 It was just so much drama in high school. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:00:52 [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:00:54 Um, and you know, I was doing teenage things of just, uh- It, that, that itself was very hard. I didn't have time to think about the big stuff. I was just navigating high school. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:01:04 Did you have big dreams, uh, when you were in India before then or in the USA about who you wanted to become, or did that come later?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:01:12 I kind of decided to be a different person every year.

Lewis Howes 1:01:15 Re- [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:01:15 Whoever I was fascinated with, you know?

Lewis Howes 1:01:18 Right.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:01:18 I could never stick to one thing. Uh, by the end of it, I had kind of narrowed it down to engineering. I was, you know, and I loved, um, I love science. I still love science. I love tech. Um, I wanted to, you know, study physics and planes and aeronautics, and I was really good at math and physics, so I was like, "You know what? Maybe that's where my vocation is." Especially coming from an academic family. My, my aunt- my parents are both physicians, and, um, I just always knew I was never gonna be a doctor. I mean, I faint at the sight of blood.

Lewis Howes 1:01:51 [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:01:51 Um, so [laughs] that was not gonna happen. So this was my chosen profession, but I never had the chance to sort of, um, take it up. But before that, like, as a kid, every year I would be like, "Oh, I wanna be a dancer," or, "Oh, I, I, I wanna be, um, a pilot," or... It was never an actor. I never even-

Lewis Howes 1:02:12 Really?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:02:12 ... thought I could [laughs] ever... I didn't even think it was a choice. I don't know why. It was just never something anyone in my family thought could be a choice.

Lewis Howes 1:02:21 So it was never even a fantasy, a dream, a choice. Y- you weren't ever-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:02:25 It never was.

Lewis Howes 1:02:27 When did you realize that this was something you enjoyed, and who was the person that in- either encouraged you or said, "You know, this is a, a possibility. You could go do this and be really successful"?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:02:37 After I was thrown into it. Um, when I was 17, my mother and my brother sent in my pictures for the Miss India pageant, because when I came back to the, to India after, you know, me and America broke up, uh, [laughs] we- Um, it was hard in high school in India, because unfortunately, American high schools, um, and the standard education is not very comparative globally. And when I went back to India, kids were studying integration and, um, you know, all of these crazy, crazy maths that I hadn't even, like, seen. I was supposed to see it at senior year. So I was really behind. I was feeling really stressed out. So, and my, my mom gave me my brother's room when I went back, and he was, he was 10 years old, and he was kicked out of his room. So he made this master plan of trying to get me out of the house.

Lewis Howes 1:03:33 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:03:34 And I had taken these, you know those mall shots where you, like, sit with your-

Lewis Howes 1:03:38 Yeah, yeah

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:03:38 ... hand on your head and you're soft focused?

Lewis Howes 1:03:39 The cheesy... Yes.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:03:40 Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'd gotten some of those pictures taken. And, uh, my brother-

Lewis Howes 1:03:45 You, you hit those poses well. I mean, you went right back into the 17-year-old Pri, you know. You were like, "Boom."

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:03:50 Oh, yeah. I did, I did this thing.

Lewis Howes 1:03:51 "Boom. Boom." Yeah. [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:03:52 [laughs] I was like, and then I even did one of those. [laughs] So dramatic.

Lewis Howes 1:03:57 [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:03:58 Um, and those pictures leaked on the internet a couple of years ago. I was so mortified. But, um, my brother, you know, implored my mom and said, "You know, Didi is really pretty," and didi means elder sister. "She's pretty, and she's tall, and, um, she has these photos. Maybe you should just send these pictures in." And, I don't know, my mom, maybe to appease him, maybe just for as a lark, sent those pictures in. And really, I got selected for that. I went just to sit my exams, 'cause I was like, "Great, I have a great reason to not sit these exams now." Um, and I won. And then when I won Miss India, I suddenly realized that I was thrown into the deep end a little bit, you know? I had people taking pictures and people asking me my opinion on politics and, um, you know, my opinion on intercu- intercultural relationships. And I was like, "Wait, what? I'm, like, 17 years old."

Lewis Howes 1:04:55 [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:04:55 "I have no idea." [laughs] So I had to learn so quick, because-

Lewis Howes 1:04:59 Mm

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:04:59 ... you know, it was sort of thrust upon me at that point. Not saying that... You know, when, when it came to sink or swim, I was always gonna swim. I'm just that cat, you know?

Lewis Howes 1:05:12 Yeah.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:05:12 Um, I can't help it. So I just had to, like, figure it out really quickly. And, uh, then I was sent for the Miss World pageant. And the same thing, I've never been a pageant girl. No one in my family had ever even modeled, um, forget, like, [laughs] having those aspirations. And, you know, suddenly I was trotting in heels, and I was doing it well. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:05:32 Do you think that you would've won, uh, Miss India and Miss World if you didn't have an experience in the USA and didn't have influences from the USA? Do you think it would've happened?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:05:44 I think it would have, for a couple of reasons, that I was always a very confident girl, and that was inculcated to me through my parents' parenting. Um, you know, they raised me to have an opinion in a room. They raised me to raise my opinion in a room, even if people disagreed with it. Um, so when your parents don't tell you that you're making wrong decisions or berate you, I mean, whose parents would be okay with their 12-year-old moving countries just on a lark? So, but my parents were like that. They never thought that my dreams were crazy, so I always had confidence. And I feel like in my experience in, uh, a pageant, and even in the entertainment business, in our business, confidence is your greatest weapon.

Lewis Howes 1:06:31 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:06:31 It's, it's, if you have confidence in your backpack, I mean, you're gonna have a large trajectory. And confidence really isn't something you're born with. You have to teach yourself confidence. I teach myself confidence every day. Um-

Lewis Howes 1:06:44 Really?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:06:44 But, you know, eventually you kind of make friends with it, and you're like, "All right," you know, "Confidence, I need you today. Confidence, you can have a day off." You know, you kind of [laughs] figure it out.

Lewis Howes 1:06:55 When, when is the moment in the last 20 years that you've been the most insecure or lacked confidence the most?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:07:02 The most? I've had many of those in my career. Um, you know, I, I mean- ... whatever, when you have a trajectory that you're looking for in a career, and I always want my trajectory to be going up just like everybody else, right?

Lewis Howes 1:07:15 Mm-hmm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:07:15 We all wanna win. Um, but that doesn't just happen by thinking about it- [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:07:22 Mm

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:07:22 ... or wanting it. You've gotta take the steps to get somewhere. And I feel like when you're taking those steps, especially in our jobs, which is so transitory, right? Like, three of my movies don't work, or, you know, I, I won't have a job. And it's not like nine to five where you know a check is coming in. Um, the consistency of that doesn't exist in my profession. And it's kind of like you've gotta just go with the time, you've gotta evolve, you've gotta keep moving. You know, it's a constant hustle. And, um, so there's a large part of insecurity because it's an insecure business.

Lewis Howes 1:07:59 Yeah.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:08:00 How long are you going to survive in this business? What are you gonna pivot to? How are you gonna evolve? What is the evolution of yourself in the, even as a human being in the next couple of years? And I think that I, I, I just have learnt how to be insecure when I'm feeling, allow, allowing myself to be insecure-

Lewis Howes 1:08:19 Really?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:08:19 ... sometimes.

Lewis Howes 1:08:20 So when you're, when you're feeling uncertain or insecure, you, you allow it to come out?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:08:23 I allow myself. I indulge, because I know, um, you know, I, I like my life, and I like my mind, and I like the person that I am. And sometimes each person can be vulnerable and emotional, and it's okay to allow yourself to feel that. When we're hungry, we eat, right? When you're thirsty, you drink water. So sometimes you need to give your body and your mind what it's asking for. So if it's hurting, and this is not something I always knew, by the way. This is on the other side of 35 is when I-

Lewis Howes 1:08:55 [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:08:56 ... learnt this. [laughs] Um, but it's okay to just take a second and feel insecure. You know, the best way of dealing with that, at least for me, is talk to someone you love and just admit the fact that you're feeling insecure. And somehow, you know, it takes away its power when you voice it and when you discuss it. As soon as you think about everything you have versus the insecurity you were feeling, it's just, it's not powerful anymore.

Lewis Howes 1:09:25 Mm. How long will you allow yourself to experience it, to indulge, to drink it up, the insecurity, until you say, "Okay, Priyanka, enough is enough. I gotta b- I gotta build my confidence back in me right now"?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:09:38 I mean, I've had phases of it being a couple of hours to it being a couple of years. You know? Um, it just depends on how quickly you can deal with it. But I know that each and every time, there has been a point where I got bored of feeling insecure.

Lewis Howes 1:09:53 [laughs] Right. You're like, "Okay, I'm tired of this."

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:09:56 I was just, "All right, I've done it. How much do I wallow in self-pity? Come on now. Now I'm bored. I don't even know where else to pivot in my self-pity." Um, and then you just kind of, you know, like Aaliyah says, dust yourself off and try again. Um-

Lewis Howes 1:10:09 Yeah

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:10:09 ... but that's the only way, I guess. But I, I definitely feel there's merit in allowing yourself.

Lewis Howes 1:10:16 Yeah.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:10:16 But also checking yourself into seeing, okay, I'm being indulgent or do I need it?

Lewis Howes 1:10:22 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:10:22 There's a difference between the two. You can be indulgent for a really long time, and I was for a couple of years, actually. Um, but when I got bored I was like, "All right, I forgot how to get out of it." So I was like, "Okay, we need to teach ourselves how to not be insecure and invest and choose myself."

Lewis Howes 1:10:40 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:10:40 "And how am I gonna do that? I'm gonna feel good about myself. I'm going to do things that I want to do." I'd become very, um, solitary. I had become sort of, you know, I didn't meet people. I just moved to America again for, um, uh, for, um, for a TV show that I was doing called Quantico, and, you know, new country, on a show which is like every g- every day. This was 11 months, so five, six days a week, you know, 15, 18 hour days. It was crazy. Um, no time for anything, and I kind of became very solitary, and I started feeling really insecure about who I was, and I was doing this new job. I was moving from a country where I had a very solid career, and I'm, I'm starting all over again, you know? Um, I've had 50 movies that I've done, but here I was saying, "Hi, guys. My name is Priyanka, and I'm an actor." [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:11:37 And people are like, "Who are you?" They're like, "Who are you?"

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:11:39 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:11:39 Yeah. [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:11:39 Exactly. And that was okay. Um, I knew that if I wanted to explore outside of the boundaries that I had worked in, and if I wanted to try something new, I'd have to start from the beginning. And, you know, I, I spoke with myself. I talked to myself.

Lewis Howes 1:11:57 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:11:57 I therapized myself, and I said, "Let's work backwards." Whenever you have a goal, say for example, you wanna buy a car. What do you have to do? You have to figure out, all right, this is the price of the car. These are my savings. This is how much liquid cash I have. How can I spend it? Can I buy it? What is my mortgage? You can figure out everything. And if you just work backwards and say, "All right, I have this much money, and I need this much money," then you work towards making that much money.

Lewis Howes 1:12:24 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:12:24 So in the same way in life, if you wanna reach a goal, which is greatness, say for example, in your case, um, in, the way I tackle that is just working backwards. You know, backwards about if I want to, you know, be at this place, I need to... What, what, what should be the step before that, and what should be the step before that? It sort of breaks it down for you to a very micro level.

Lewis Howes 1:12:48 You've got a, a, th- this movie I want people to watch. I watched it last night. Fascinating movie. You do an amazing job. Uh, they can go watch it on Netflix now, once this is out. Uh, The White Tiger. Make sure you guys check this out. It's really inspiring. Watch it with your friends virtually. Uh, you know, share it with your friends, all that good stuff. And you've got a book coming out, which I'm very excited to, to, to check out more of. I haven't been able to dive into it fully, but I wanna really dive in more now after hearing about-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:13:14 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:13:15 ... your heart on this deeper level, because I think, um- I haven't been able to hear a lot of this stuff from you, the stuff you're sharing today, so I'm really inspired by your generosity, your heart, your, your critical thinking, your creativity, all this stuff. And I'm excited to, to go through the book.

Lewis Howes 1:13:29 But why did you wanna write a book now at this stage of your life and really talk about these things?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:13:34 Um, I was approaching 20 years of being in showbiz, you know, and I wanted to commemorate that, um, in some way. And I thought that, you know, maybe writing about... It, it initially started with, I was gonna call it Letters to My Younger Self. Um, but it was too long a title, so I was just-

Lewis Howes 1:13:52 [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:13:52 I scrapped that. [laughs] But, but that's the tone of, of the book. It's sort of me, I, I've been running so fast at such a fast pace, you know, for the last, I think, 30 years of my life, since I can remember. I've just never sat down to take a breath. And, um, the pandemic, like, it false- forced all of us to take that breath. I was gonna write the book anyway, and it was going to be, like, essays or thoughts. But when I ra- when I was at home for these six months during quarantine, I really dived in deep and I realized that I don't remember much in my life. So I was like, "Oh my gosh, what has happened to all my memories?" And I started writing the milestones that I remembered, 'cause that's how I remembered my life. I was like, "Oh, this school. All right, I moved this country." Like, I didn't remember little things.

Lewis Howes 1:14:40 Hmm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:14:40 And then I started filling in the blanks. And when I started doing that, it just flowed out of me. It was almost cathartic. It was almost, like, regressive memories that I didn't-

Lewis Howes 1:14:52 Hmm

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:14:52 ... think about, advice that I would give myself. You know, things I'm appalled by that I did, or things I, you know, may have never addressed because I just had to keep moving. And I've done all of that in this book. I'm terrified of, you know, exposing an extremely vulnerable side of me, which I've always, like, sort of been a little, you know, have a wall up. But I don't know, the, the defenses just fell when I was writing this one and I'm, I'm [laughs] really scared of-

Lewis Howes 1:15:19 What, what are you most afraid-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:15:21 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:15:21 What are you most afraid of? Is it people seeing certain aspects of you that they haven't seen? Or what's the biggest vulnerability?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:15:26 Seeing my vulnerabilities and my struggles. I've never really spoken about specific struggles, like, you know, in instances and, um, situations and telling real stories, like, of things that have happened to me which I've never, ever spoken about. I really call this the in-between interviews book, 'cause I give so many interviews my whole life. But I've never really talked about what happened in between them. I've kind of been very protective of my privacy. And, um, now, like I said, with time, you know, I, I reached a place where I'm self-assured, on the other side of 35, sort of comfortable with the career I have built-

Lewis Howes 1:16:07 Hmm

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:16:07 ... um, and the career I want to build, and the life that I have. But it took me... It gave me a second to take a breath and introspect. And, um, this is a reflection of my introspections. I've dissected my failures. I've-

Lewis Howes 1:16:23 Hmm

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:16:23 ... dissected my emotions. Um, and those are terrifying things.

Lewis Howes 1:16:29 Yeah, and you're sharing it with the whole world to-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:16:31 The whole world

Lewis Howes 1:16:31 ... to look at.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:16:32 Ah. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:16:32 Oh. Well, I'm ins- I'm inspired by you, uh, for putting this out there, and I want everyone to make sure they go pick up a few copies and give them to their friends. Uh, it's gonna be a massive, uh, a massive hit. I'm very excited because the more we reveal and, and become vulnerable, the more, the deeper we become connected to other people, from my personal experience-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:16:50 Absolutely

Lewis Howes 1:16:50 ... of, of not being vulnerable. Growing up, told I wasn't allowed to be vulnerable as a-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:16:54 Right

Lewis Howes 1:16:55 ... young m- young man growing up in Ohio, uh, in the Midwest. And you probably experienced a lot of that i- in, uh, in Iowa, seeing just, you know, boys have this kind of mask on. Uh, it's, it's-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:17:06 And generally, boys that are told that, you know, "You're crying like a girl," or, "Don't cry because you're not tough enough." Of course, and that's what I was talking about. W- we have to let... Everyone needs to feel and allow themselves to feel, including boys. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:17:22 Yeah. It's, uh, it's interesting. I, uh, I wa- I got a couple final questions to wrap up with you, but just since we're on this topic, I, uh, when I was 30, I opened up about being sexually abused, uh, when I was a five-year-old boy, and how it shaped my identity and put up walls, uh, and made me very angry and resentful, just, and triggered a lot, and defensive.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:17:44 Right.

Lewis Howes 1:17:44 And I ended up doing a lot of work over the last eight years, you know, researching s- healing, studying about this, uh, and, and meeting with the experts about how men can heal their trauma from the past that they have never talked about. And just like what you said in the beginning of this interview, you know, talking about your insecurities even allows you to take the power away from you. It gives you your power back. And I, when I opened up about being sexually abused, it was the most terrifying thing ever, but it also set me free and I took the power back. And it was a, it was a process of many years to kind of feel that confidence and, and really let go and heal. Um, but it's, it's amazing when, when we can heal as human beings, men and women, but I feel like men have a lot of work to, to let go of certain things that they're holding onto. And when we become vulnerable, then we can truly connect, in my opinion. So I'm, I'm so appreciative of you for sharing all this wisdom on, on, on these insights, 'cause I think it's, you're speaking my language, so I appreciate that.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:18:44 Of course. And that's so inspiring and brave that you did that. That's amazing.

Lewis Howes 1:18:49 Oh, I appreciate it. And, uh-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:18:50 I'm so sorry you had to go through that.

Lewis Howes 1:18:52 You know, we all have to go through, we all go through different life challenges.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:18:55 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:18:55 Uh, this was, this was my path, my journey. And I-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:18:58 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:18:58 ... I look at it as a massive blessing, and I'm very grateful for it today because it allowed me to dive deeper in helping men heal. And just, uh, having compassion and empathy for when I see it, m- men who are angry or defensive or reactive-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:19:12 Right

Lewis Howes 1:19:12 ... because that's the way I was my whole life.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:19:15 Absolutely.

Lewis Howes 1:19:15 And, uh, and I didn't know how to change. I just thought, "This is who I am. Don't try to change me." But, um- You know, and I'm still not perfect. I got a long way to go, but it's a, it's a constant process and journey, and I think-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:19:27 I mean, no one is really. I mean, if-

Lewis Howes 1:19:28 Yeah

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:19:28 ... we're striving for perfection, it's like playing golf. You're never gonna be good at it.

Lewis Howes 1:19:32 [laughs] I saw you swinging though on your Instagram. You had a good little shot the other day, out a couple months ago or something.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:19:37 I'm trying. Um-

Lewis Howes 1:19:38 You're pretty good. [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:19:39 Apparently, I have an aptitude for it, so I'm- I'm excited to be able to-

Lewis Howes 1:19:44 Yeah

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:19:44 ... take it up. But it's, it's like, you know, it's futile to achieve-

Lewis Howes 1:19:48 Yeah

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:19:48 ... you know, to try and be a perfect golfer. No one can.

Lewis Howes 1:19:52 Yeah. Uh-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:19:52 I realized that really quickly. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:19:54 [laughs] You look good though. You had good form.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:19:57 Thank you.

Lewis Howes 1:19:57 Uh,

Lewis Howes 1:19:58 this question I ask everyone at the end of my interviews. It's called the three truths.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:20:02 Okay.

Lewis Howes 1:20:02 So I'd like you to imagine a hypothetical scenario that it's your last day on earth. It's many, many years away. It's your last day, and you've accomplished every goal, every dream, family, ev- everything you want, it's happened. You- you've impacted the world, you've got the foundations, all the stuff you can think of, you've done it. Uh, but for whatever reason, all of your content has to go with you to the next place, wherever that is. It's gotta go with you. So your books, your movies, this interview, anything you've ever done has to go with you. So no one has access to your content anymore. Except you got a piece of paper and a pen, and you get to write down three lessons that you would share with the world. Uh, this is all we would have to remember you by. What would you say are those three lessons, or what I like to call your three truths?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:20:48 Wow. Okay. Um, I think the first one would be, like I said, to invest in yourself.

Lewis Howes 1:20:58 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:20:59 To choose yourself. Um, that's my truth. Whatever I left this earth being was because of my relationship with me, and the fact that at every given step, I chose what was best for me. And by that, I don't mean, like, by being selfish, but by, um, choosing for my validation and my self, um, my self-worth to come from my actions and my achievements. Um, that would be one truth.

Lewis Howes 1:21:36 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:21:37 The second one is the only way to love is completely.

Lewis Howes 1:21:41 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:21:42 Um, whether that is, you know, the love you have for your husband, your child, your parents, your friends, the world, Earth, the environment. But there is no being careful in love.

Lewis Howes 1:21:54 Mm.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:21:54 And there's... Don't be careful in love. Just give it and, you know, flow like a stream, a waterfall. Um, it's so joyous. Um, my third truth would be family. You know? Um, the family you're born into, the family you choose, and the family that chooses you. You know, there are so many people in your life that come into your journey and leave, you know, s- for a long duration, for a short duration. Um, but the, the memories of respecting and of honoring family is, is very important. Those would be my three truths.

Lewis Howes 1:22:39 Mm. Love those. I've got one final question for you.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:22:45 Okay.

Lewis Howes 1:22:45 But before, before I ask that question-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:22:46 You should really write questions for pageants, by the way.

Lewis Howes 1:22:50 [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:22:50 I, I think you could have an alternate profession there.

Lewis Howes 1:22:52 I'll, I'll be the ho- I'll be the host, yeah. [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:22:54 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:22:55 Um, [laughs] before, before I ask that question, I wanna again remind people that The White Tiger is out on Netflix, and it is amazing. Uh, great movie. Love it. It's a captivating and inspiring story of overcoming a lot of different challenges, so make sure to watch that. You also have your book out, which is gonna be a massive hit, called Unfinished. And I want people to go and get this right now. Buy it. Did you get it on, uh, is... Did you read it also? Is it on audio?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:23:26 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:23:27 Uh, oh.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:23:27 It's in an audiobook too.

Lewis Howes 1:23:28 So if you wanna listen-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:23:29 That was even more terrifying, by the way. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:23:31 Oh my God, that's so hard to do. I've done that twice with my books. It's so ch-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:23:35 It's so hard to do

Lewis Howes 1:23:35 ... it's like four and a half days of repeating myself over and over. I'm stuttering. Yeah.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:23:39 I'm on my 10th day right now.

Lewis Howes 1:23:41 Oh, no.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:23:42 'Cause it's the first time I'm doing it, and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I'm actually having..." This is an opinion I have on a really crucial part of my life, and I have to say it right. It's so terrifying.

Lewis Howes 1:23:52 It's so challenging, yeah. But anyways, Priyanka's reading it, so you can go download that and listen to it. Uh, so make sure you get it on Audible or wherever it is on audio. Get the, uh, get the hardcover as well and support that over on Amazon or anywhere that it's, uh, being sold. You're all over social media, Priyanka Chopra everywhere, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. Uh, and where- how else can we support you? How else can we serve your mission-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:24:17 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:24:18 ... what you're up to, follow you? What else can we do?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:24:21 Um, I think just, um, just the work that I'm doing. I have some really interesting work that's coming out now, um, you know, uh, with The White Tiger. I've, I've just finished, um, two movies during the pandemic actually, which will be releasing soon. And just, you know, follow my work, be curious about the artist that I am. Um, I would love if that's, that's the, you know, kind of support that I get for, you know-

Lewis Howes 1:24:50 Mm

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:24:50 ... the, the work that I'm going to create hopefully.

Lewis Howes 1:24:53 Yeah. I love it. Well, I'll be following, I'll, I'll be supporting for a long time. Hopefully when you're back in LA we can connect sometime. Uh, and-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:25:01 For sure

Lewis Howes 1:25:01 ... I know that, I know that all the people that I know who know you well are very, uh, supportive and proud and have been standing by you for a long time. So I know that, uh, you're just a quality human being based on what people say about you. I know your, your father would be extremely proud to see everything that you've created and the woman you're becoming. Uh, I know he'd be amazed to watch everything that you're up to. And I wanna acknowledge you, Priyanka, for the gift you bring to the world. You constantly show up, you constantly inspire women, you constantly inspire all human beings about what's possible. For going through, uh, the different challenges you've gone through, and constantly choosing yourself and paving the way. You're an inspiration to so many, so I acknowledge you for-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:25:44 Mm

Lewis Howes 1:25:44 ... constantly showing up and doing your best. Again, not perfect, but you're doing your best, and it's, and it's inspiring to watch. My-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:25:50 Thank you so much, Lewis

Lewis Howes 1:25:52 ... this is my final question. Yeah, of course. Of course. This was leading up to the final question.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:25:55 [laughs] Yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:25:56 Uh, which is, what is your definition of greatness?

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:26:00 It's so funny. I don't really have a definition, but I, um, I think Bruce Springsteen said this. "I don't even wanna be rich, I don't want to be famous, I don't even wanna be happy. I just wanna be great." And I think that, um, when I read that, it sort of explained to me what I felt. Because it's intangible, you know? Greatness, it- greatness can be in the smallest things of, you know, when you wake up in the morning and you're aware. Awareness of being kind to people, being empathetic, saying good morning. Even telling your parents you love them when you haven't done it. That's greatness. That's a great kid. That's a, you know, being a great spouse, being a great daughter, being a great, um, you know? There's greatness in everyday moments, and then there's also greatness in achieving your dreams. So I think being able to go to bed at night knowing that you have spent a good day on this earth is, um, the most important form of greatness. And that c- that you can achieve by setting your own goals. My goals are, okay, my movie's released, my, I've written my book, I've done a press d- tour and a book tour, and a, and I sleep at night knowing that I've achieved my entire day. It could be that, or I could be in sweats watching, you know, Netflix all day, and be smiling with my family and playing Scrabble. That would also be greatness to me. But going, you know, living your life, I truly believe that there's gotta be a reason, right? That we are born on earth. And the most simple and logical thing to me is your, probably our purpose of life is to live it well, and to live it happily. Um, so if you go to sleep at night being happy with what you've achieved in the day, I think that's the greatest of them all.

Lewis Howes 1:27:53 Mm. Priyanka, I appreciate you. Hopefully sometime in the next few years when you're back in LA and, and people are able to see each other in person, I can give you a hug and say hello. And thank you for your time today.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:28:03 For sure.

Lewis Howes 1:28:04 I appreciate it. Appreciate everything, and I'm, uh, I'm excited for all the great things to, uh, to lie ahead for you. So thank you so much.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:28:09 I'm so excited to have been here. This was such a great conversation. Thank you, Lewis-

Lewis Howes 1:28:13 Yes

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:28:13 ... for being so insightful.

Lewis Howes 1:28:14 I have the dream of being a pageant question writer now because-

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:28:17 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:28:18 ... of you, so.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:28:18 You must. It's an alternate profession-

Lewis Howes 1:28:20 [laughs]

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:28:20 ... I promise you. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:28:23 If you're looking for more greatness in your life, make sure to check out this video right here. And also check out our free PDF, The 3 Secrets to Unlock the Power of Your Mind to Help You Change Your Life. Download it right here.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:28:36 Really helped with my sanity, to have that sort of-

Speaker 1:28:38 Yeah

Priyanka Chopra Jonas 1:28:38 ... that sort of something that was so clear to me that was black and white. I needed that at that time in my life