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Lewis HowesJohn Assaraf on Unlocking Your Brain's Full Potential with Lewis Howes
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Chapter summaries
From entrepreneur to personal development teacher: how Assaraf entered the field
Lewis Howes and John Assaraf open by tracing Assaraf’s path from building companies to sharing personal development tools publicly. Assaraf explains he spent decades learning from “masters,” then began teaching after retiring and realizing people wanted his guidance.
- •Lewis introduces Assaraf’s background and reach, and Assaraf shares his goal of impacting people through those he connects with
- •Assaraf describes spending years studying personal development while primarily building companies
- •He recounts retiring, writing a bestselling book, and deciding to share what he learned—good, bad, and embarrassing included
- •He explains how early interest from others pulled him into coaching and events
Building a coaching business from home: the first event and early clients
Assaraf tells the story of hosting an intimate paid event after repeated requests, then converting that momentum into coaching clients. He frames the appeal as doing meaningful work from home while helping others grow their businesses and lives.
- •He describes proposing a small home-based event with limited seats and a premium price
- •The event fills quickly, validating demand for his teaching
- •He starts coaching clients remotely or by having them come to him rather than traveling
- •He identifies this period as the true start of his personal development career
What holds people back in business: fear, conditioning, and competing inner voices
Assaraf says fear is the initial limiter for most people, often operating as a hidden, non-conscious force. He explains how internal “voices” and early conditioning shape what people believe is possible, and why beliefs drive behavior more than willpower alone.
- •Assaraf lists multiple fears (failure, success, embarrassment, shame, losing money) as common blockers
- •He emphasizes the non-conscious brain’s role in shaping thoughts, emotions, and behavior
- •He attributes much conditioning to parents’ scarcity-based beliefs and inherited limits
- •He argues changing results requires changing beliefs that drive behaviors, not only trying to ‘act differently’
Discipline as a trainable skill: start small and build self-trust
Assaraf breaks down discipline into tiny, immediate actions that prove to yourself you can follow through. He connects repeated follow-through to neuroplasticity, identity, and self-esteem—creating a pattern of being someone who does what they say.
- •He contrasts wanting something with having the willingness to practice, drill, and ‘fail forward’
- •He suggests giving yourself a simple command and doing it immediately (e.g., one push-up)
- •He describes hourly “reset” check-ins using breathing to regain control and refocus
- •He says each action ‘votes’ for or against your self-worth and self-trust over time
Interrupting habits: detours, 66 days, and the 100-day focus rule
Assaraf recommends choosing one change and working it long enough for the brain to automate it. He explains habit formation as repeated pattern interruption, then shares his personal “100 days” approach and examples around sugar and hydration.
- •He recommends picking one thing to move forward to break the cycle of repeating patterns
- •He cites a neuroscience-informed timeline of about 66 days for patterns to become more automatic
- •He prefers committing to 100 days to ensure the change sticks
- •He uses his sugar struggles and a water-drinking practice (with environmental support) as examples
- •He emphasizes that early on, the habit matters more than intensity
Handling ‘bad moments’: meditation, the pause, and reframing reactions
Asked about bad days, Assaraf reframes the issue as emotional processing that starts non-consciously. He explains meditation and mindfulness as tools to create a pause between stimulus and response, and he demonstrates reframing with a traffic example.
- •Assaraf distinguishes between events/behaviors and the feelings produced by non-conscious processing
- •He says meditation builds a pause of awareness that reduces reactive behavior
- •He describes the brain’s priority as ‘safety and comfort first,’ which drives quick reactions
- •He offers reframing scenarios (e.g., someone cutting you off may be rushing due to bad news) to shift feelings
- •Lewis shares how sports visualization helped him stop reacting and avoid penalties
Visualizing outcomes and obstacles: training the brain for real-world challenges
Assaraf describes a shift from visualizing only ideal outcomes to also visualizing obstacles and overcoming them. He argues that acknowledging obstacles reduces “neural tension” and builds self-confidence by rehearsing resilience.
- •Lewis explains pre-visualizing provocations in games to prevent reactive penalties
- •Assaraf connects this to cognitive behavior therapy-style rehearsal
- •He says newer goal research supports visualizing obstacles in addition to outcomes
- •He frames limiting beliefs (“not smart enough,” “too young/old”) as obstacles to be practiced through
- •He links repeated obstacle-overcoming imagery to stronger confidence and habit formation
Assaraf’s morning routine: meditation methods, breath, and altered states
Assaraf shares a consistent morning meditation practice and explains different meditation styles he uses. He discusses sound, mantras, breath, and entering altered states of awareness, describing how calm physiology supports deeper observation and control.
- •He meditates 20–30 minutes daily regardless of location
- •He uses different approaches: observing thoughts, ocean sounds, mantras, chanting, breathing, open/closed eyes
- •He explains rhythm and breath as ways the brain ‘entrains’ and shifts into calmer nervous-system states
- •He describes becoming sensitive to how thoughts create bodily sensations that influence action or avoidance
- •He speaks about accessing deeper layers of awareness and feeling interconnectedness
Why he’s driven: childhood language barriers, gangs, and meeting a mentor
Assaraf shares early experiences of feeling ‘dumb’ after moving from Israel to Montreal without English or French. He recounts joining street gangs, then meeting mentor Alan Brown, who introduced him to personal development and belief change.
- •He describes feeling inadequate as a child due to language barriers and being mocked
- •He says this contributed to gang involvement from ages 12 to 16 and serious trouble
- •He identifies meeting mentor Alan Brown at 19 as a turning point
- •He credits that mentorship with exposing him to belief change, habits, and inner potential
- •He emphasizes that ‘how-to’ information isn’t the main problem—taking action is
Beliefs in business performance: the RE/MAX story and brain retraining results
Assaraf describes scaling real estate operations and discovering people hit ‘upper limits’ tied to belief and habit. He recounts a paid brain retraining program for agents and connects those results to his later deep dive into neuroscience and brain mechanics.
- •He recounts buying RE/MAX franchising rights for the state of Indiana at 26 and setting a $1B sales goal
- •He says the goal was reached within five years, then growth stalled due to belief-based limits
- •He describes a six-month brain retraining program for agents and claims it increased sales significantly
- •He explains this experience pushed him to study neuroscience, neuropsychology, and related fields
- •He discusses why affirmations can trigger inner resistance and how systems can be overridden
Future of brain training: VR immersion, faster learning, and NeuroGym’s vision
Assaraf predicts rapid change in how experiences are ‘uploaded’ into the brain through virtual and augmented reality. He shares a lab experience where he felt embodied in a baby’s body and describes using immersion to reduce fears and build new patterns faster.
- •He expresses fascination with technology, including VR/AR, nootropics, and brain stimulation
- •He predicts dramatically accelerated mental rehearsal using non-conscious processing capacity
- •He describes a VR lab experience with sensors that made him feel like he was in a baby’s body
- •He envisions simulations for fears (public speaking, heights, failure/success) to rewire the non-conscious brain
- •He links confidence to reinforced neural patterns and positions NeuroGym as a ‘gym’ for building them
Family roots and formative lessons: belonging, cheating the math test, and parents’ influence
Assaraf expands on why he sought belonging with misfits despite a loving home, then tells a story about cheating a math final with help from a classmate he later reconnected with. He reflects on his parents’ contrasting qualities, including his father’s decisive quitting of smoking and his mother’s emphasis on love.
- •He says he didn’t feel like he fit in and was voted ‘most likely to fail,’ reinforcing his path
- •He tells the story of a classmate providing exam answers, helping him graduate, and reconnecting decades later
- •He describes his father as hardworking and happy, with a powerful lesson in decision and conviction
- •He shares his mother’s long-term manic depression and her lesson of love and family values
- •He explains his parents stayed together until the kids left, then separated
A major business setback, health changes, and the meaning of commitment
Assaraf describes a difficult business collapse involving a close friend’s health issues, financial losses, layoffs, and legal disputes over intellectual property. He shares lifestyle changes and explains how pre-commitment and mentor-driven ‘committed vs interested’ framing shaped his ability to follow through.
- •He recounts a company crisis: partner’s severe diabetes, stroke, heart attack, and cascading business failure
- •He describes losing money, laying off a large team, and dealing with lawsuits and IP being tied up
- •He says meditation and awareness helped him rebuild a new company over several years
- •He lists personal health choices: becoming vegan, stopping alcohol, and committing to no refined sugar
- •He explains pre-committing and mentally rehearsing challenging situations to make follow-through easier
- •He recalls his mentor’s distinction between being ‘interested’ and being ‘committed’
Daily focus systems: ‘attention units,’ goal review, and cognitive priming
Assaraf introduces “attention units” as a way to describe limited daily focus capacity and how stress consumes it. He outlines a routine of meditation, exercise, smoothie, and reviewing goals to prime the brain toward desired emotions and behaviors and to make focus automatic over time.
- •He defines ‘attention units’ as the capacity to stay focused, consciously and non-consciously
- •He argues background stress drains mental resources like unused programs draining a computer
- •He describes reviewing goals daily (from long-range to today) using a laminated ‘Exceptional Life Blueprint’
- •He says priming the brain tells it what’s important amid tens of thousands of daily thoughts
- •He frames repetition as the path to automaticity—training the brain to conserve energy by locking in focus
Breaking financial ceilings: set points, belief alignment, and error-detection self-talk
Assaraf explains financial ‘set points’ as learned comfort zones similar to a weight ‘set point.’ He says breakthroughs require aligning conscious goals with non-conscious beliefs through repetition, visualization, and managing the brain’s error-detection system that triggers negative self-talk when you leave the comfort zone.
- •He describes financial, relationship, and other ‘set points’ that shape evidence and behavior to match them
- •He says set points form through conditioning, experiences, and repeated stories and perceptions
- •He emphasizes beliefs—not knowledge or skill—drive behavior most strongly
- •He explains ‘neural dissonance’ as conflict between conscious goals and implicit beliefs
- •He describes the brain’s error detection mechanism that generates negative self-talk when goals feel ‘not true’
- •He discusses using repeated affirmations, feelings, and visualization to build non-conscious reinforcement and coherence
Closing reflections: gratitude, three truths, Brain-A-Thon, and defining greatness
Assaraf shares what he’s grateful for, a skill he wants to improve, and his ‘three truths’ for life. He and Lewis close with resources for NeuroGym and the Brain-A-Thon, then end on Assaraf’s definition of greatness as using life fully and reframing fear as fuel.
- •He expresses gratitude for health, spiritual connection, his wife and children, and having both parents alive
- •He says he wants to improve persuasion and storytelling to better touch people emotionally
- •His three truths: love yourself, you can achieve what you set your mind to, and be a go-giver as well as a go-getter
- •He shares where to find NeuroGym and details the Brain-A-Thon and its featured experts and client stories
- •He defines greatness as being proud you ‘left it all on the field’ and used fear to push forward rather than backward
