Your Mind Is Programmed To Stay a Victim (Here's How To Rewrite It) | Kier Gaines

Kier Gaines 0:00 Everyone has a plan until emotions come and completely derail whatever you thought you were gonna do. We have a tendency to believe that it's the negative emotions that only hijack us, but it's the positive emotions that can hijack you.

Lewis Howes 0:12 When did you feel like you were able to start letting go of the anger?

Kier Gaines 0:15 When I consciously realized that it wasn't helping me. It went from being my sword and my shield to being my anchor.

Lewis Howes 0:21 He's a licensed therapist and one of the most trusted voices on making mental health accessible. He's an author of a new book called It All Starts When You Do. The one and only, Kier Gaines. Why do you think so many people like to be a victim in their lives?

Kier Gaines 0:37 The idea of self-victimization is the most salient and grabbable thought to them. When someone else does something to you, I think it's more obvious to the brain what happened.

Lewis Howes 0:49 It's not your fault.

Kier Gaines 0:50 It allows you to exonerate yourself from any wrongdoing. Blame doesn't do that. Blame is a heat-seeking missile, and it just needs to hit something.

Lewis Howes 0:58 What is the biggest challenge that holds all people back from feeling more fulfilled and happy, in your mind?

Kier Gaines 1:03 Waiting.

Lewis Howes 1:04 Waiting for what?

Kier Gaines 1:05 That's the million-dollar question, waiting for what?

Lewis Howes 1:10 If someone is feeling stuck right now, watching or listening to this, you believe it's likely due to unconscious emotional hijacking.

Kier Gaines 1:17 Oh, yeah.

Lewis Howes 1:17 What, what does that actually mean?

Kier Gaines 1:19 [laughs] So you remember Mike Tyson had that quote-

Lewis Howes 1:22 Yep

Kier Gaines 1:23 ... where he says, "Everybody has a plan until you get punched in the face."

Lewis Howes 1:26 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 1:27 Unconscious emotional hijacking is very similar.

Lewis Howes 1:29 Okay.

Kier Gaines 1:30 Everyone has a plan until emotions come and completely derail whatever you thought you were gonna do.

Lewis Howes 1:35 Mm-hmm. Your emotions.

Kier Gaines 1:36 Your emotions.

Lewis Howes 1:36 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 1:36 Absolutely. The things that you feel, either deeply or more topically, and I- we have a tendency to believe that it's the negative emotions that only hijack us. You, you wanna go in, and you wanna be the best father that you can, but fear, insecurity hijack you, and instead of taking the kids to the park, you kinda sit on the couch, and you just ruminate. But it's the positive emotions that can hijack you as well.

Lewis Howes 2:00 Really? How so?

Kier Gaines 2:01 Absolutely. So let's say, [laughs] uh, one example that I really like is, um, if Lewis and I have a disagreement. You and I have a disagreement, and I feel like you disrespected me, Lewis. And I come in, and I, I've been washing my dishes in my kitchen, and I've been practicing all these things I wanna say to you. I wanna bring up how you've never been there for me, and you weren't that good of a friend. I have all these... I've, I've developed this script that I wanna explain to you, to tell you how much you haven't been to me, to make you feel as hurt as you made me feel. And then when I come in, you're all smiles, and you're all apologies, and you completely disarm me. You disarming me doesn't mean that I don't still have conflict with you that doesn't need to be discussed, but the good feelings completely hijack the plans that I've had.

Lewis Howes 2:49 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 2:49 And now the situation is completely different-

Lewis Howes 2:52 That's right

Kier Gaines 2:52 ... and so is the strategy that I deploy. Uh, so that, that happens a lot to us, and I think that there's a profound sense of guilt that is associated with deviating from whatever your game plan was because of the way that you feel. And the guilt is understandable, but a lot of work that I do as a therapist is helping people navigate around the guilt, to still reach, uh, to still resolve your conflicts, to still understand what the distress is between you and the other person. And so that you can still be whole, you can still explain yourself, you can still, um, move in a direction that brings you closer toward a sense of fulfillment or a sense of self-expression instead of just, you know, venturing off-

Lewis Howes 3:37 Mm-hmm

Kier Gaines 3:37 ... into the great blue yonder and-

Lewis Howes 3:39 Yeah, yeah

Kier Gaines 3:40 ... talking about the things that really need to be discussed.

Lewis Howes 3:42 Of all the clients that you've worked with in the past, and all the people that you either work with, uh, directly or indirectly online, what is the biggest challenge that holds all people back from feeling more fulfilled and happy, in your mind?

Kier Gaines 3:57 Waiting.

Lewis Howes 3:58 Waiting for what?

Kier Gaines 3:59 Good question. That's the million-dollar question, waiting for what. It depends on the person. Uh, I'm a fan... I see you got a football right there. You're like... Y'all don't know. Which, which one is my camera?

Lewis Howes 4:10 That one right there, yeah.

Kier Gaines 4:11 Okay. You all don't know, but Lewis is, like, six foot eight.

Lewis Howes 4:14 [laughs]

Kier Gaines 4:15 [laughs] So you-

Lewis Howes 4:17 Do I not look tall on, on, uh, on social media?

Kier Gaines 4:20 Just sitting down.

Lewis Howes 4:21 All right. There we go.

Kier Gaines 4:21 I can't tell. But, um, so you're a sports guy.

Lewis Howes 4:24 Yeah.

Kier Gaines 4:25 And sports guys know that you get good at the things that you practice.

Lewis Howes 4:28 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 4:28 And a lot of the times, we get really good at practicing waiting.

Lewis Howes 4:32 Mm.

Kier Gaines 4:32 We wait. We wait until we find the right kinda love in our lives. We wait until we feel ready. We wait until we feel inspired. And when you practice waiting, and you become good at waiting, it gets harder to become unstuck from that pattern of waiting.

Lewis Howes 4:47 Yeah, that's right.

Kier Gaines 4:48 And the perfect moment, it rarely comes. You don't get a perfect moment. You only get the moment that's right in front of you.

Lewis Howes 4:55 Mm.

Kier Gaines 4:56 So when people come into my office, or if I have a speaking event and I'm talking to people afterwards, that's one of the through lines, no matter where you from, no matter how you identify, no matter what culture you hail from. It's waiting.

Lewis Howes 5:09 You know, it's interesting you say that, like, the perfect moment. Let's say you waited for the perfect moment. Like, you did all the things. You got the degree. You got the website built before you launched. You got the whatever. You got the courage. You put the right outfit on to go ask someone out, whatever it might be.

Kier Gaines 5:27 [laughs] Right.

Lewis Howes 5:27 Most of the time, even if there was a perfect moment, when you did everything you were supposed to do to be ready for a perfect moment, people still don't take action when everything's perfect.

Kier Gaines 5:38 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 5:39 It's like, like you said, there's no perfect moment, and if there was, you probably still wouldn't take action 'cause you don't have the courage or the skillset of acting when things aren't perfect.

Kier Gaines 5:50 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 5:50 So why would you wait years until something's perfect to act?

Kier Gaines 5:54 Yeah, that's that internal readiness architecture. It's how ready you are on the inside, in your mind and your heart. But it's, it's two part. There's another part to that too. You develop this idea of what perfect is supposed to look like. You've drawn up this idea and it's not based on anything concrete or anything you've seen

Lewis Howes 6:12 You've never experienced perfect

Kier Gaines 6:13 You've never experienced, so how do you know it when you see it?

Lewis Howes 6:15 Exactly.

Kier Gaines 6:15 So if the moment was right on top of you right now, would you be able to recognize it?

Lewis Howes 6:19 No.

Kier Gaines 6:19 That's what's dangerous about it. What if this is the perfect moment?

Lewis Howes 6:22 Yeah.

Kier Gaines 6:23 And instead of acting in it like you promised yourself you would, you're still waiting for it to look like something else.

Lewis Howes 6:28 What are people afraid of most?

Kier Gaines 6:30 Mm.

Lewis Howes 6:31 Like, why are they so afraid to take action on whatever it is they wanna act on? What are they afraid of that they feel they need to wait for the perfect moment to act?

Kier Gaines 6:41 I think action is irrefutable evidence sometimes, and it can be incredibly painful to be reminded that you were not ready for the thing that you prepared yourself for. It can reinforce the idea that perhaps I'm not worthy of this thing or perhaps this is something that I'm incapable of maintaining.

Lewis Howes 7:03 Like, if I acted and I failed, or if it didn't work out-

Kier Gaines 7:05 That's right

Lewis Howes 7:06 ... then it reinforces that I wasn't capable of it.

Kier Gaines 7:08 Absolutely. Negativity bias can kick in and if it reinforces that, it's not just the failure that happened, it's the fact that the failure attaches a narrative onto how you think about yourself, and the failure goes from being experiential to a part of your identity.

Lewis Howes 7:26 So break it down. What is the difference between being a failure experientially-

Kier Gaines 7:30 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 7:30 ... versus being a failure as someone as who you are in your identity?

Kier Gaines 7:34 Oh, that's a good question. So a failure experi- ex- experientially is something that happened. Failure is an occurrence. It's, it is, um... it's an artifact of trying and maybe not meeting the mark. It happens. A failure, if you have that as something that's central to your identity, it's not what you do, it's not what you've performed, it's who you are. You can change what you do. It's very hard to change who you are, and the thing is, if you have that belief, beliefs are terrifying because a belief doesn't have to be true and it can, you can hold onto a belief with, I mean, irrefutable evidence right there in your palm and you'll still hold onto it. And you can not be a failure and you can have so many wins and successes, but you won't internalize that reality because you spent so much time believing it.

Lewis Howes 8:25 'Cause you don't... Yeah, 'cause you believe you're a failure or you believe you're not a failure, right? It's like... So how important is how we sh- how we view our own identity towards our level of joy, success, and fulfillment versus being a failure and being miserable?

Kier Gaines 8:42 I think, I think it's critically important because who you are is something that lives with you, not just when you're sitting on a podcast that has an audience of millions. Who you are is something that is obvious to you in your quiet moments when you're alone and you watch a TV, when you're home with a book, when you're in the shower with your thoughts.

Lewis Howes 9:05 Mm.

Kier Gaines 9:05 When there's nobody around to judge or evaluate. It's just you and your own internal messaging. That negative internal messaging can be one of the most difficult things to contend with because it's, it's always with you. It's almost unavoidable.

Lewis Howes 9:21 Mm.

Kier Gaines 9:21 And it's not always a voice in your head. It's not always words that you hear inside your mind. Sometimes it's an impulse.

Lewis Howes 9:27 Mm.

Kier Gaines 9:27 Sometimes it's just a flash. Sometimes, I talk about this in the book, sometimes it's, um, just a inkling that you have, or it could just be something that's reminiscent of what you've heard before. Maybe it sounds like a teacher scolding a child, scolding a student, or a friend who's profoundly disappointed with someone that they love, but it's you talking to you.

Lewis Howes 9:49 Mm.

Kier Gaines 9:51 It's... When people come into therapy, um, that's one of the things we try to unravel, Lewis, where that voice comes from. When is the first time you heard it? What story is it writing about not just who you are, but who you've been? Not just who you've been, but who you have the possibility to be in the future.

Lewis Howes 10:11 Mm.

Kier Gaines 10:11 You know, that type of, uh, internalized failure when it comes to happiness or when it comes to just positive possibilities, it time travels. It doesn't just live in the present. It moves-

Lewis Howes 10:23 How, how does it time travel?

Kier Gaines 10:25 Well, it li- it, it can make you obsess over the past, which is time that's already gone. It's nothing you can do about-

Lewis Howes 10:30 Is this the story that we're, we're thinking about?

Kier Gaines 10:33 Mm-hmm. Yep.

Lewis Howes 10:33 Yeah.

Kier Gaines 10:33 The story that the failure or the story that the negative self messaging attaches to your identity. It, it lives in the past where you ruminate on something that already happened, and it's not-

Lewis Howes 10:44 And you attach a meaning to that story or that event.

Kier Gaines 10:46 That's right.

Lewis Howes 10:47 Whether it's true or not true-

Kier Gaines 10:49 Yeah

Lewis Howes 10:49 ... you've made it true based on the belief of the story you've created, and so it goes to the past, but how does it go to the future?

Kier Gaines 10:56 It goes to the future because you begin fortune-telling. You begin trying to guess what's gonna happen next-

Lewis Howes 11:02 Mm

Kier Gaines 11:02 ... based on a compromised image that you have on yourself.

Lewis Howes 11:06 And it's gonna make you either, if it's a negative story, it's gonna make you hesitate on things that could be opportunities for the future, right?

Kier Gaines 11:14 Yeah. It'll make you hesitate on things that can be opportunities for the future. It can make you not really see the full scope of possibilities that are available to you if you act now. It can convince you, again, to wait, to wait until things look perfect.

Lewis Howes 11:31 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 11:31 It could just bring tremendous self-doubt where you focus on what you're not capable of doing, what you're not capable of achieving instead of reali- it, it doesn't allow you to ask, what if,

Kier Gaines 11:45 you know? I was talking to you before the show. I told you I grew up in a really, really rough neighborhood in DC and I never, ever thought that I would live to see 21 years old.

Lewis Howes 11:55 Really?

Kier Gaines 11:55 No. Never thought it. Never thought it. I'm 40 now.

Lewis Howes 11:58 That's good. You made it. [laughs]

Kier Gaines 12:00 I made it. And now my mind has to catch up to the idea of that-

Lewis Howes 12:04 Mm

Kier Gaines 12:04 ... because I spent so much time thinking that, "Oh, I'll, I'll never see 21. I'll never see 25." I never, ever thought about the possibility What if I, what if I live longer?

Lewis Howes 12:14 Mm.

Kier Gaines 12:15 What if I do see 40? What if I do see 50? What if I do see 60? The possibility, the positive possibility of what if just doesn't materialize in your mind the same way.

Lewis Howes 12:26 Do you ever feel guilty that you made it out and so many people you grew up with didn't?

Kier Gaines 12:31 All the time.

Lewis Howes 12:31 Really?

Kier Gaines 12:32 Mm-hmm. Survivor's guilt is, is a real thing. But-

Lewis Howes 12:36 How does that feel and how does that impact you?

Kier Gaines 12:39 Are you therapizing me?

Lewis Howes 12:40 How does [laughs] ...

Kier Gaines 12:40 Is that what we doing right now?

Lewis Howes 12:41 You asked me to be curious.

Kier Gaines 12:42 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 12:43 [laughs] How does it make you-

Kier Gaines 12:45 No, that's a good question

Lewis Howes 12:45 ... how do you, how do you feel like it impacts your ability to have more joy, peace, hope, and abundance versus the opposite?

Kier Gaines 12:55 It gives me gratitude. It makes me feel the exceptionality of my reality.

Lewis Howes 13:00 Mm.

Kier Gaines 13:01 Um, it makes me understand how impermanent things are.

Lewis Howes 13:06 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 13:07 So I grasp on and I hold them a little tighter. Not holding onto them tight as if I'm hanging off the edge of a cliff, but hold them securely as if I'm holding a newborn baby.

Lewis Howes 13:15 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 13:16 Um, it makes me feel very lucky. It makes me realize that the work that I do isn't just laborious. Um, it's, it's something that I get to do. It's something I get to connect with people. I get to change people's minds.

Lewis Howes 13:34 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 13:35 I get to use my, my skills and abilities to develop possibilities within folks.

Lewis Howes 13:41 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 13:42 Even my daughters, I have two daughters. I have a nine-year-old and a four-year-old, and kids, man, they, uh, they, they're not good at giving you receipts that you're a good parent sometimes, you know? They, they act up. They go against the things that you taught them, but when I see the kindness, uh, when I see where they live and how safe they feel and how different that is than the reality I experienced growing up-

Lewis Howes 14:04 Mm

Kier Gaines 14:05 ... it brings everything home.

Lewis Howes 14:06 That's cool.

Kier Gaines 14:07 Yeah, it gives me empathy for other people too, man. Gives me a lot of empathy for folks. There are so many kids from my neighborhood that probably could've been mathematicians or accountants or they, they could've had tremendous futures if their circumstances were different.

Lewis Howes 14:23 If their environment was different or situation in their homes or what?

Kier Gaines 14:27 Everything.

Lewis Howes 14:28 Yeah.

Kier Gaines 14:28 I think the environment shapes a lot. You take a-

Lewis Howes 14:30 Yeah

Kier Gaines 14:30 ... perfectly healthy goldfish, put him in a dirty tank.

Lewis Howes 14:34 Yeah.

Kier Gaines 14:34 It won't be a perfectly-

Lewis Howes 14:35 They're gonna die

Kier Gaines 14:35 ... healthy goldfish for long.

Lewis Howes 14:36 They're gonna die.

Kier Gaines 14:36 Right?

Lewis Howes 14:36 Yeah, yeah.

Kier Gaines 14:37 So that en- that environment dictates a lot.

Lewis Howes 14:39 Something you've talked about in the book is, um, it argues that real obstacles isn't your environment or your

Lewis Howes 14:47 past. It's a blindness to the truth about yourself. So what's the number one truth most people are avoiding then?

Kier Gaines 14:55 The number one truth most people are avoiding? Well, in the book I talk about uncomfortable truth. I don't know if there's a number one truth-

Lewis Howes 15:01 Uh-huh

Kier Gaines 15:02 ... because people come with a myriad of different lived experiences-

Lewis Howes 15:05 Yes, yes

Kier Gaines 15:06 ... and challenges. Uh, I, I tell you the truth that I, the uncomfortable truth that I encounter in therapy a lot, one of them is, "I can't change."

Lewis Howes 15:15 People say that to you?

Kier Gaines 15:16 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 15:16 "I can't change."

Kier Gaines 15:17 "No, I can't change. It's too late for me to change. I've been doing this my whole life. I can't, I can't change now." It's like, well, define change. And oftentimes we see change as this massive event that is earth-shattering and life-shifting. We don't see it as tiny adjustments, and our work together is typically helping you understand how little, how much little shifts matter.

Lewis Howes 15:43 Mm.

Kier Gaines 15:44 Even if the evidence isn't necessarily there, uh, you know, social media does a good job of making things very grand. You know? The, the gestures are grand. The sentiments are grand. The introspection is grand, and I think it skews our thinking. Um, little changes. What's, what's the first thing you do in the first 10, 15 minutes of waking up? Are you action-oriented-

Lewis Howes 16:06 Mm-hmm

Kier Gaines 16:07 ... or are you awareness-oriented? One of the things that I offer up to clients is just to sit on the side of your bed and notice things. What do you notice? What do you feel? Are you experiencing your body fully? Can you feel the softness of the cushion under you? Can you feel the insole inside your shoe and how-

Lewis Howes 16:27 Mm

Kier Gaines 16:27 ... bouncy it is? Can you feel your fingertips? Are you sitting in silence? Is the silence forced? How much silence do you have until you have to jump into your day?

Lewis Howes 16:38 Mm.

Kier Gaines 16:39 When you jump into your day, what are you jumping into? Is it work? Is it family? How tight is your schedule? These things we do, we're just on autopilot and we're, we're managing them as they come, and we don't really get a chance to respond. We're just reacting the entire time. Um, just a few days ago, I was sitting in a cafe and I was eating. I was eating a salad. And Lewis, I was eating the salad like Garfield the cat.

Lewis Howes 17:06 Mm.

Kier Gaines 17:07 You know how he just shoves food in his mouth, he barely chews? Uh, and I had to remind myself, hey, what you doing, man? Slow down.

Lewis Howes 17:14 My, what are you rushing for?

Kier Gaines 17:15 Yeah, what are you rushing for? Where's it going? I'm walking down the street and I'm just going and, and I'm rushing to go somewhere that doesn't have a timetable on it. Hey, man. Where you going? Look, just notice the tree right there with the flowers on it. What color are the flowers? Can you sit there and just look at it? Not judge it-

Lewis Howes 17:36 Mm

Kier Gaines 17:36 ... not evaluate it, but just notice it for two or three minutes? There was a point in my life where I felt like I couldn't change. I feel like I had to be on go. Everything has to be an accomplishment or everything has to be building. I, I have to continue to grow. Like, no, sometimes the name of the game is just sustaining.

Lewis Howes 17:54 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 17:55 The name of the game is just surviving. The name of the game is just noticing the environment that's around you.

Lewis Howes 17:59 Yeah. Yeah. In the book I saw that you're pushing back on a culture, um, or it looks like and it feels like a lot of people blame their challenges on their circumstances, right? A lot of people blame their challenges on their circumstances. But what you made, um, what you talk about a lot is around, you know- The problem is not always your circumstances, it's more how you show up in the circumstances.

Kier Gaines 18:25 Mm.

Lewis Howes 18:25 I believe that's part of what the things you're talking about. Why do you think so many people like to be a victim in their lives?

Kier Gaines 18:33 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 18:35 It's [laughs] ... and, and really think that it's everything else a- around them is why they're in their current situation.

Kier Gaines 18:42 You know, I don't think I would phrase it like that. I don't think I would phrase it as why they like to be a victim in their lives.

Lewis Howes 18:48 Or they choose to be a victim or say they're a victim or ...

Kier Gaines 18:51 Yeah. I would say sometimes the idea of self-victimization is the most salient and grabbable thought to them. Um, it's because it's, it's very ... When someone else does something to you, I think it's more obvious to the brain what happened.

Lewis Howes 19:10 It's not your fault.

Kier Gaines 19:11 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 19:12 Right

Kier Gaines 19:12 It, it allows you to step back and take yourself ... It allows you to exonerate yourself from any wrongdoing. It allows you to, um, you know, in the book I talk about fault versus responsibility.

Lewis Howes 19:25 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 19:26 Uh, blaming versus accountability. How accountability says, "Hey, this right here is mine. This is mine right here. I did it. I contributed to it. It's not my fault all the way, but it doesn't matter because now it's my responsibility to handle, and this is how I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna process everything that happened around me. I'm gonna allow my feelings to exist somewhere outside my head, and this is mine." Blame doesn't do that. Blame is a heat-seeking missile, and it just needs to hit something. Um, and I think that the blame allows you to offload a great deal, or as you characterized it, the victimization, it allows you to offload a great deal of the responsibility-

Lewis Howes 20:07 Yeah

Kier Gaines 20:08 ... on to an event that's outside of yourself. But don't get that confused with not acknowledging the fact that you've been victimized. There's a difference.

Lewis Howes 20:18 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 20:18 There's a difference between acknowledging that something bad happened to you that was completely out of your control, I think that's incredibly healthy, versus holding victimization as central to your identity again.

Lewis Howes 20:29 Mm.

Kier Gaines 20:30 Where it's the launch point by which a lot of your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors-

Lewis Howes 20:35 So what's the difference between acknowledging that you have been victimized versus acknowledging that you are still a victim long after the event happened?

Kier Gaines 20:45 Gotta be careful with that, because it depends on what we're talking about. Let's just say it's something like ... Let's, let's give a specific example. Um, let's say-

Lewis Howes 20:55 And more so using it as, like, the reason why you're not able to do something.

Kier Gaines 20:59 Okay.

Lewis Howes 20:59 The reason why I don't go into a relationship is because I got cheated on, and I'm never gonna trust anyone again. The reason why I'm not gonna go apply for the job is 'cause I got fired and wrongfully fired, so I'm never gonna g- do that again. Or whatever it might be, you know, something where it's like I was victimized, something happened that was, it shouldn't have happened. Whether it's true or not, like let's just say it shouldn't have happened. And then I hold onto that identity.

Kier Gaines 21:22 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 21:23 And it holds me back from taking responsibilities to go create what I want.

Kier Gaines 21:28 I like that contextualization. So I think the difference there is if you can, if you sit in that framing of it, it, uh, it gives you the opportunity to not have to challenge your longstanding beliefs.

Lewis Howes 21:46 Mm.

Kier Gaines 21:46 We do not like challenging our beliefs. Th- there's just a, a very ... It's like a warm blanket. It's comfortable, it's predictable, you know the ins and outs of it. And again, you don't have to take fault in it, and you can completely offload that and say, "No, that's all on you. You did that. I had nothing to do with it."

Lewis Howes 22:04 Mm.

Kier Gaines 22:05 But-

Lewis Howes 22:05 Even if it keeps you from financial freedom and love and abundance and health, it's a blanket that keeps you in the familiar instead of putting yourself out there and trying something different.

Kier Gaines 22:16 That's right, because if I put myself out there and I try something different-

Lewis Howes 22:19 It's gonna hurt even more. It's gonna-

Kier Gaines 22:20 I give myself the opportunity to fail

Lewis Howes 22:22 Yeah

Kier Gaines 22:22 ... and it just reinforces all these negative things that are on the periphery of how I see myself already. Um, it's, it's in- it's, it can be incredibly challenging, especially as a therapist, Lewis. Can you imagine you're sitting with someone who is adhering to that perspective of life, and I mean, just right on the other side of that is greater love-

Lewis Howes 22:44 Mm

Kier Gaines 22:44 ... growth, and opportunity. And as a therapist, we don't tell people, I don't tell you what to do.

Lewis Howes 22:50 Yeah.

Kier Gaines 22:50 I could just, I guide you with breadcrumbs, and I ask you questions so we can chip away at it. And if I tell you, "No, this isn't how it is. Let me explain this to you," well, now you're just adop- I've, I've loaned you my reality. You didn't come to that idea by yourself. So once you're not in my vicinity anymore, you're relegated to whatever tools that you grew yourself. You know, it's like you eat what you kill. Once you don't have my influence anymore, what are you gonna do?

Lewis Howes 23:21 Mm.

Kier Gaines 23:21 What are you naturally gonna think? How are you naturally gonna come to those conclusions-

Lewis Howes 23:25 Mm

Kier Gaines 23:25 ... and challenge yourself?

Lewis Howes 23:26 Yeah.

Kier Gaines 23:27 That's very, that's very difficult, and I think the trap is, um, the should've trap. Uh, I should ... I shouldn't think that way, or man, I should be able to look past that by now. But should doesn't matter when you can't. And should is a gigantic T-shirt that it, it doesn't fit your body at all. Like yeah, you're still, you're still covered. It does the job of a shirt, I guess, kind of, but it does not fit you. It doesn't, and it's, it doesn't fit your expectations. It doesn't fit your lived experience. It doesn't fit your bandwidth. Nothing. You're, you're, you're adhering to what you think should be the existence that lands on you without really paying attention to where you actually are. So you don't recruit the help you need. You probably won't accept the help if it's offered to you.

Lewis Howes 24:21 Mm.

Kier Gaines 24:21 Um, and it really puts you at a disadvantage. That is, it's the antithesis of growth. It can, it can be extremely growth prohibitive, man

Lewis Howes 24:31 I wanna go back to something we were talking about before, which around beliefs and self-talk.

Lewis Howes 24:36 From your experience as a therapist, do you believe that people get tied into devices, numbing addictions to escape their own internal thoughts and feelings, or to escape the thoughts and feelings of others around them on them?

Kier Gaines 24:54 Mm. It depends. I think it could be a little bit of both. I think it depends on who you are. Um, you know, addiction is tricky, and I'm not gonna pretend to understand the ins and outs of the neurochemistry of addiction, um, because that's not my ministry as a therapist. But th- we don't like to feel pain and discomfort.

Lewis Howes 25:16 Mm.

Kier Gaines 25:16 And the things that distract us from pain and discomfort give us relief.

Lewis Howes 25:21 Uh-huh.

Kier Gaines 25:21 They give us relief. Sometimes we get that relief at the expense of our long-term health and wellness.

Lewis Howes 25:29 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 25:30 And it's attractive. And, and even when you talk about, uh, devices and, and phones and social media, there's, there's a other side of that. These things have hacked the brain. Your phone is, my goodness, a, a billion dollars' worth of technology, research development, and engineering.

Lewis Howes 25:49 Yeah.

Kier Gaines 25:50 It's-

Lewis Howes 25:50 Power in your hands. Yeah

Kier Gaines 25:51 ... everything is right there. Even the way it feels, the device itself. It's the right weight, it's the right smoothness.

Lewis Howes 25:58 Mm.

Kier Gaines 25:58 Um, like, uh, the snacks that we eat, uh, a bag of chips. I don't know who sponsors your pod, so.

Lewis Howes 26:04 Salty, sugar, all of it, man. It's like-

Kier Gaines 26:06 But they do so much research to figure out exactly what the perfect amount of crunch is.

Lewis Howes 26:10 Yeah

Kier Gaines 26:10 ... or the perfect shape of the snack so that it feels just right in your fingers, or the perfect saltiness where... I mean, I don't know about you, I've definitely had snacks where I, I take one bite and I say, "Oh, that's the last one I'm gonna have."

Lewis Howes 26:21 [laughs]

Kier Gaines 26:21 And I blink and the bag is gone.

Lewis Howes 26:23 Gone. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kier Gaines 26:24 Yeah. That's, that's not just by happenstance.

Lewis Howes 26:27 Yeah.

Kier Gaines 26:27 It's developed that way.

Lewis Howes 26:29 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 26:29 So while we're thinking about these things that we gravitate towards, I think it's important to remember that they were developed to keep us-

Lewis Howes 26:36 Mm

Kier Gaines 26:36 ... engaged with them.

Lewis Howes 26:38 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 26:38 It doesn't, you know, it, it doesn't exonerate you from the responsibility-

Lewis Howes 26:43 Yeah

Kier Gaines 26:43 ... of detaching from it, but it just proves how difficult of a job it'll be to separate yourself from these things.

Lewis Howes 26:50 Mm. If you

Lewis Howes 26:56 were sitting across from yourself as a therapist to yourself-

Kier Gaines 27:00 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 27:00 ... what's the one piece of advice that you would give you today-

Kier Gaines 27:04 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 27:05 ... with all the tools and knowledge that you have-

Kier Gaines 27:07 Oh my goodness

Lewis Howes 27:08 ... to support you in your personal growth and achieving a, a, a better level of health, peace, abundance, freedom internally? What's the coaching you would give you?

Kier Gaines 27:21 I think I'd ask myself a question. Um.

Lewis Howes 27:25 What's the question?

Kier Gaines 27:25 I'd ask myself two questions. How much is enough, and what does satisfaction look like?

Lewis Howes 27:31 Mm. How much is enough?

Kier Gaines 27:34 I'll tell you when I get there. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 27:36 [laughs] What if you never get there?

Kier Gaines 27:38 I know. Well, honestly-

Lewis Howes 27:39 That's the scary thing, right?

Kier Gaines 27:40 It, it can be. I'll tell you, Lewis, real talk, man, if, if nothing ever happens, if my career never advances past where I am now, um-

Lewis Howes 27:51 Would you be satisfied?

Kier Gaines 27:52 Absolutely. Absolutely.

Lewis Howes 27:55 Would it be enough?

Kier Gaines 27:56 Absolutely. Absolutely.

Lewis Howes 27:58 Then why do you need to ask yourself those questions?

Kier Gaines 28:00 Um, because it-

Lewis Howes 28:01 If-

Kier Gaines 28:01 ... it still challenges-

Lewis Howes 28:03 Mm

Kier Gaines 28:03 ... what I believe. I think that self-interrogation is a powerful tool. I, I wrote this book on the premise of self-interrogation, interrogating your immediate thoughts and beliefs away from shame, blame, and guilt.

Lewis Howes 28:15 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 28:16 And even though I feel that way in my heart, anything that makes me reevaluate my philosophy I think can be helpful, because, uh, perhaps with deeper thought I realize that this isn't enough. Or growth, growth, it goes hand-in-hand with impermanence. I may feel this way right now today as I'm sitting in front of you. I may not feel this way in three years.

Lewis Howes 28:39 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 28:40 I may have a completely different mindset.

Lewis Howes 28:42 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 28:43 So I don't think it's just I will ask myself that question. Um, I would continue to ask myself that question periodically.

Lewis Howes 28:52 Check in with yourself.

Kier Gaines 28:54 It's one of the things I like about journaling. Um, when we think about journaling, we think about just being able to express ourselves or dump all of our thoughts in one place. But journaling does more than that. Journaling gives you a concrete place to be reflective. And what I mean by that is if you were to write 15 years ago all the things that you're most worried about, all the things that you're most excited about, what your, um, what, like, your immediate apprehensions are in the moment, and then you would look at it 10 years later-

Lewis Howes 29:32 Uh-huh

Kier Gaines 29:32 ... you would be able to see the things that are completely different.

Lewis Howes 29:36 Yes.

Kier Gaines 29:36 Some of those things might be minuscule comparatively, but you might also realize that you've been worried about the same thing for 10 years, just in a different font.

Lewis Howes 29:45 Mm.

Kier Gaines 29:46 Now imagine instead of just journaling once over that 10-year span, you have journal entries incrementally every month, and you're able to see the changes and the differences. Um, that, that type of tracking is invaluable, and that's what I would hope I'd be able to give myself if I was sitting across the room.

Lewis Howes 30:03 Mm.

Kier Gaines 30:04 Just checking in on the philosophy, man. How has it changed? How is it different? Where's your heart? Where's your head? What are you excited about? What do you love? What motivates you?

Lewis Howes 30:14 If you could give your 15-year-old self three tools that you've learned as a therapist, and only three tools, what would you give 15-year-old you when you were going through a very challenging time and all the friends around you were getting in trouble or going to jail or-

Kier Gaines 30:33 Mm

Lewis Howes 30:33 ... passing away in a rough neighborhood-

Kier Gaines 30:35 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 30:35 ... what would those three things you would say?

Kier Gaines 30:39 I think those three things. I think one would be being different is a gift. I think Gen Z, they're really comfortable with being different. We were different. Like, we... Being different was an indictment on your ability to gain community and your ability to fit in back, back in my day. You know? Um, being different is a gift, lean into it. Um, I would tell myself that, um, anger, it, it captivates all of your awareness, but it's a terrible motivator. Um, and I would tell myself that as long as you keep your feet moving, you have a chance.

Lewis Howes 31:22 Mm.

Kier Gaines 31:23 Do not stop.

Lewis Howes 31:25 How angry were you, and what made you angry?

Kier Gaines 31:30 Looking back, I was tremendously angry. I think it was environmental. I think that I lived in an environment where a lot of people were frustrated because they couldn't ascend to their highest potential, and they took it out on the people around them. And I think when you live in an environment full of angry people and you're still young and impressionable, it can turn you into an angry person.

Lewis Howes 31:50 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 31:51 Um, and I also thought that I deserved a different life than I had, you know? Our, our apartment, man, it was, it was something. We used to have, uh, like, roaches and mice really badly. Really badly. And I couldn't understand why we lived that way. We seemed to be good, hardworking people, and we ju- we couldn't get out of the muck, and I didn't understand why. And I think that confusion i, in the mind of a child was converted into frustration and anger, and that's why when we were talking and you asked me if I played a sport, I was like, "Yeah, for a little bit, and then I had to start working in high school."

Lewis Howes 32:28 Yeah.

Kier Gaines 32:28 "I had to start paying for my own prom." Um, I think the, the, the anger and frustration came from the inability to be a child that was allowed to be a child, if that makes any sense.

Lewis Howes 32:39 You didn't feel like you were able to be, like, a kid or have kid experiences.

Kier Gaines 32:42 Not at a certain point, no.

Lewis Howes 32:43 Really?

Kier Gaines 32:44 You gotta, you kinda have to grow up quickly-

Lewis Howes 32:45 Mm

Kier Gaines 32:45 ... assume responsibility.

Lewis Howes 32:47 Start working.

Kier Gaines 32:48 Yeah, start taking control over the life you want.

Lewis Howes 32:50 Man, that's tough.

Kier Gaines 32:53 Yeah, it is tough. And I used to do this thing where I would say, "You know, it's tough, but, uh, you know, other people had it worse." It's like, no, it, it was tough, period.

Lewis Howes 33:03 Period. [laughs]

Kier Gaines 33:04 You know? You had different frustration-

Lewis Howes 33:05 Other people have challenges that are tough for them, and I had my challenges that were tough for me.

Kier Gaines 33:09 That's right. That's right.

Lewis Howes 33:10 Yeah.

Kier Gaines 33:10 And I think that I thought that at some point, um, I... When I was past it, it, it wouldn't affect me.

Lewis Howes 33:20 It still did.

Kier Gaines 33:20 Oh, yeah.

Lewis Howes 33:21 Yeah.

Kier Gaines 33:21 The shadows live long after.

Lewis Howes 33:23 It just lingered.

Kier Gaines 33:24 Yeah, it lingered, and that's... And I've come to the point where I'm, I'm fine with that because I know it's something that I'll have to constantly remind myself for the rest of my life. It's not a, it's not a one and done thing. Um, that's something that I'm going to have to cope with and overcome for the rest of my life.

Lewis Howes 33:43 Mm, man.

Kier Gaines 33:43 I'm thankful I have the tools, man.

Lewis Howes 33:45 Yeah. Otherwise you'd still be angry.

Kier Gaines 33:47 Otherwise I'd still be angry. And now I live a life where there's nothing to be angry about.

Lewis Howes 33:52 Mm.

Kier Gaines 33:52 Like, I get frustrated sometimes, but I live a wonderful life that I created for myself.

Lewis Howes 33:56 Mm.

Kier Gaines 33:57 And anger can be, uh, much like victimization. There's a comfort-

Lewis Howes 34:01 Oh, yeah

Kier Gaines 34:02 ... in sitting inside of anger.

Lewis Howes 34:02 Feels good for a while.

Kier Gaines 34:04 Oh, man, anger-

Lewis Howes 34:04 Powerful.

Kier Gaines 34:05 Oh, yeah, especially when it's an identity.

Lewis Howes 34:07 Oh.

Kier Gaines 34:07 You know, working with, uh, youth when I ran my youth program, there were so many young men who didn't feel heard in the house that they lived in. They didn't feel seen. You know what gets you heard and seen really quickly?

Lewis Howes 34:20 Mm. Destruction.

Kier Gaines 34:22 Anger.

Lewis Howes 34:22 Anger. [laughs]

Kier Gaines 34:23 If I flip the table over-

Lewis Howes 34:24 Oh, yeah

Kier Gaines 34:24 ... oh, now you hear me, see me, and you feel.

Lewis Howes 34:27 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kier Gaines 34:27 Um, but it also-

Lewis Howes 34:29 Wow

Kier Gaines 34:29 ... invites a kind of attention toward you that isn't very helpful or nourishing.

Lewis Howes 34:35 How does someone dismantle anger if that's all they've ever known?

Kier Gaines 34:39 Mm.

Lewis Howes 34:41 If they've never felt heard, seen, loved, or valued, and anger is their response, how do they learn to let that go?

Kier Gaines 34:52 I think one of the ways is getting out of the environment that arouses those feelings.

Lewis Howes 34:57 Getting away from the people, spaces, the environments.

Kier Gaines 35:00 The influences, the culture. Anger can become a culture.

Lewis Howes 35:03 Really?

Kier Gaines 35:04 Oh, yeah, the culture of anger. Some people have families that are very angry. That's the innate response is to respond with anger. If that's always around you and that's always your influence, it's gonna be hard to take a half step back away from that.

Lewis Howes 35:19 Mm.

Kier Gaines 35:19 Think you have to detach from the things that kindle that feeling in order to see something different.

Lewis Howes 35:27 Wow. But you, well, you said that you grew up pretty angry, right? Or you had anger-

Kier Gaines 35:30 At a point in my life I was angry.

Lewis Howes 35:31 Yeah, yeah.

Kier Gaines 35:32 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 35:32 Is this, like, teen years or, like-

Kier Gaines 35:34 Yeah, teen years.

Lewis Howes 35:34 Okay. But you grew up in DC and you're still in DC, correct?

Kier Gaines 35:39 Well, I'm in a suburb of DC.

Lewis Howes 35:40 Okay, so you're not in, like-

Kier Gaines 35:41 [laughs] I'm not in DC proper anymore

Lewis Howes 35:42 ... not in... You can still be in the same city but not in the same home or same, you know, kind of environment.

Kier Gaines 35:47 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 35:47 You can still move a little farther, not too far away, and be in a different space.

Kier Gaines 35:51 Yeah, which to my point, the, the environment's completely different and the influences. I wake up next to my wife who's the happiest person I've ever met in my life.

Lewis Howes 35:59 So nice, right?

Kier Gaines 36:00 Every single day I wake up to kids that are excited to see me and they love me.

Lewis Howes 36:06 That's a dream.

Kier Gaines 36:07 And I'm snuggling with them. I got a, I got a pimple growing on the side of my head because their hair oils are all on my face from, from sleeping on my pillow every night.

Lewis Howes 36:15 That's nice.

Kier Gaines 36:16 Yeah. It's, it's a beautiful life and it'll be profoundly unfortunate to have that reality all around me but not have the awareness to see it-

Lewis Howes 36:28 Mm

Kier Gaines 36:28 ... and experience it fully.

Lewis Howes 36:30 Mm-hmm. When did you feel like you were able to start letting go of the anger?

Kier Gaines 36:36 When I consciously realized that it wasn't helping me. It wasn't helpful. It wasn't doing anything for me. It went from becoming my sword... It went from being my sword and my shield to being my anchor.

Lewis Howes 36:48 How old were you around that time when you became aware?

Kier Gaines 36:50 Early 20s.

Lewis Howes 36:51 Okay.

Kier Gaines 36:52 Early 20s. I started to move into, like, a corporate America type space, and one of the, uh, you know, one of the things that happens to people and that happened to me is the things that you thought were... The things that protected you. You know, anger protects you in a tough neighborhood. Um, it keeps you from being a victim. It keeps you from being bullied. But when those... When the behaviors you have aren't helpful for you anymore, when they're not protective, when they just become prohibitive-

Lewis Howes 37:22 Mm-hmm

Kier Gaines 37:23 ... um, either you can keep leaning into them and do more of what's not working or you can put your foot in the ground, pivot, and decide to change something. And the latter took me a solid, I'd say maybe seven or eight years.

Lewis Howes 37:41 Mm.

Kier Gaines 37:41 And in those experiences, I went to undergrad. You know, I lived in a different place in the city where people were completely different, and I was with young professionals, and I got to see something different.

Lewis Howes 37:53 Wow.

Kier Gaines 37:53 Having different influences. Um, I got to see the world. I traveled a little bit more. Um, I realized how much more of my identity was uncovered outside of just anger and frustration.

Lewis Howes 38:06 Mm.

Kier Gaines 38:08 As long as it made me feel something, um, that I would describe as meaningful at the time, it was easier to hold onto. But when it felt like it started holding me back from love and relationships-

Lewis Howes 38:24 Mm

Kier Gaines 38:24 ... connection and community, it became painfully obvious that something needed to change.

Lewis Howes 38:29 Really?

Kier Gaines 38:30 Oh, yeah. Absolutely, man. I didn't know how to change or where to start, but I felt it inside, and I felt it deeply, and I saw everything as a constant reminder.

Lewis Howes 38:40 That this anger does not serve me.

Kier Gaines 38:42 No, it's not serving me. And it's destructive.

Lewis Howes 38:44 Very destructive.

Kier Gaines 38:45 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 38:45 Right. So what was the aha moment that allowed you to start healing the anger that was inside of you?

Kier Gaines 38:54 I think it was a series of moments. I- I'd be lying to you if I said there was just one, like, definitive turning point where something happened and it just dawned on me. It happened so gradually that I can't tell you when it turned on. It's like, um, like the glaucoma. Glaucoma is, like, one of the leading causes of blindness, and glaucoma's so tricky because it slowly takes away your peripheral vision.

Lewis Howes 39:21 But you can still see.

Kier Gaines 39:21 You can still see.

Lewis Howes 39:23 Hmm.

Kier Gaines 39:23 But it slowly takes it away to the point where you don't realize that your vision is becoming more and more narrow until one day it's too late. And in a more positive way, that's kinda what happened with the anger. It just dissipated slowly.

Lewis Howes 39:38 Hmm.

Kier Gaines 39:38 As I gained more and, and different friends, as I found different interests, as I started to get academic success, as I started to get different types of love in my life-

Lewis Howes 39:49 Hmm

Kier Gaines 39:49 ... and different experiences, as I started to learn how to receive different types of love in my life-

Lewis Howes 39:54 The-

Kier Gaines 39:55 ... it just slowly dissipated to the point where it wasn't there anymore.

Lewis Howes 39:57 Wow.

Kier Gaines 39:58 Which isn't everybody's experience.

Lewis Howes 39:59 [laughs] No, no.

Kier Gaines 40:00 Yeah. [laughs] It's not, so I'm very thankful for that as well.

Lewis Howes 40:03 [laughs] Was there a, um... But how did you learn how to let it go? Because for me, I accomplished a lot of my goals and success and made money, but I still had anger inside of me.

Kier Gaines 40:17 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 40:18 And it wasn't until I realized, oh, this energy, this frustration or anger, accomplishing the goals doesn't remove it from my heart.

Kier Gaines 40:28 No.

Lewis Howes 40:29 So I-

Kier Gaines 40:29 Which, which seems like it would.

Lewis Howes 40:30 You think it would, right? You're like, "Oh, I'm, should be happy now." But I still wasn't. I still had anger inside of me.

Kier Gaines 40:35 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 40:36 So it took, uh, you know, therapy, workshops, self-awareness, reflection, retreats for me to start learning how to let it go and how to start healing those wounds that anger was tied to.

Kier Gaines 40:48 For sure.

Lewis Howes 40:49 That I was attached to.

Kier Gaines 40:50 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 40:51 And so once I started healing some of those wounds or stories or beliefs around events, then I could have more grace for myself, have more self-love and acceptance, and start to release some of that frustration, those triggers, right?

Kier Gaines 41:05 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 41:06 So were there any, like... Did, did you learn this from anyone? Did you go to therapy? Did you have a workshop? Did you read a book? Like, where did you learn the tools to let go of anger and heal?

Kier Gaines 41:18 I think it was the feedback from my environment.

Lewis Howes 41:20 Really?

Kier Gaines 41:21 Yeah. I, it just... Things started feeling different for me. Um, and I think it unlocked parts of my identity that I liked a lot better.

Lewis Howes 41:30 Hmm.

Kier Gaines 41:30 And there is this indescribable but certainly palpable feeling that you get when you... So I think self-love is packaged and sold in a very weird way, but when you begin to like yourself in a different way.

Lewis Howes 41:46 Hmm.

Kier Gaines 41:46 I like who I am when I am not angry. I like how people treat me-

Lewis Howes 41:50 Hmm

Kier Gaines 41:51 ... when I am not angry.

Lewis Howes 41:52 Yeah.

Kier Gaines 41:52 I like how I treat myself when I am not angry. My quiet moments are more peaceful. I have more clarity. Um, I, in terms of goals, my goals are more diverse now. It's not just about surviving and making more money. It's about doing things that please me.

Lewis Howes 42:08 Yeah.

Kier Gaines 42:08 And then it expands. Oh, I really enjoy working in the community and working with other people and helping them. I found more purpose, and that purpose, the more you find your purpose and you lean into it, you realize that that per- purpose has subgenres and pockets and other categories that you can lean into. And life just feels better.

Lewis Howes 42:27 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 42:28 And I like that.

Lewis Howes 42:29 Yeah.

Kier Gaines 42:29 I like that.

Lewis Howes 42:30 Just started feeling better. That's great.

Kier Gaines 42:31 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 42:32 Um, for someone who's

Lewis Howes 42:35 done the reading, done the journaling, done the meditating, done all these, all this work on themselves, but they still feel stuck, they still feel like, "I'm not getting a breakthrough. I'm not creating the results I want," what do you think is the next thing for them?

Kier Gaines 42:51 Take a look at your goals. What is it that you're trying to accomplish?

Lewis Howes 42:55 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 42:56 And is it reasonable for who you are in this moment?

Lewis Howes 43:02 Mm.

Kier Gaines 43:03 Sometimes it's not I need to try harder. Uh, it's not I need to recruit more of these programs and I need-

Lewis Howes 43:10 Yeah, yeah

Kier Gaines 43:10 ... to learn more and... No, sometimes we need, just need to reflect. What is it that I'm trying to do? And if these obstacles are in my way, perhaps they're not a statement of my capability. Perhaps the obstacles in my way are a warning sign that perhaps I'm moving too fast or I'm moving in a direction that I'm just not ready for in the moment.

Lewis Howes 43:29 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 43:30 Your goals, goals are beautiful. Goals, they're wonderful.

Lewis Howes 43:33 Yes.

Kier Gaines 43:34 Set all the goals you can and try to achieve them, but if you are knocking your head up against a wall, Lewis, I think that is... it is indicative that you need to stop and probably go in a different direction.

Lewis Howes 43:47 Right. Yeah.

Kier Gaines 43:48 The analogy I use, uh, a lot is just about a newborn baby. If a newborn baby, it just had the capability to walk fresh out of the womb, I don't know if those tiny legs and that weak musculature would be able to support the weight.

Lewis Howes 44:05 Right.

Kier Gaines 44:06 You have to do one thing at a time. First you learn to hold your head up.

Lewis Howes 44:09 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 44:09 Then you learn to scoot, then you learn to crawl, then you learn to get up and fall down a bunch of times. It's a gradual process, but there are waypoints in between that are developmentally appropriate.

Lewis Howes 44:20 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 44:21 It's obvious when we see a baby. It's not always obvious when we see ourselves.

Lewis Howes 44:24 Ooh, that's true.

Kier Gaines 44:26 So what points are... What are you skipping?

Lewis Howes 44:28 Mm.

Kier Gaines 44:28 Like, let's, let's reverse map and deconstruct this thing. Maybe there are things that you need to work on in between where you are now and where you ultimately wanna be-

Lewis Howes 44:38 Mm

Kier Gaines 44:39 ... that deserve more of your time, attention, atonement, and awareness.

Lewis Howes 44:42 Yeah.

Kier Gaines 44:42 What are they? And let's get more comfortable with understanding that we need to spend more time there.

Lewis Howes 44:47 Yeah.

Kier Gaines 44:47 It's okay.

Lewis Howes 44:48 Yeah. What would you say is a self-sabotaging pattern that's become so normalized

Lewis Howes 44:55 in today's society that most people don't even recognize it as self-sabotage?

Kier Gaines 45:00 Oh my goodness. I think just, just, just piggybacking off of what we just talked about, I think it's trying to be in too much of a hurry to be over something.

Lewis Howes 45:14 Mm.

Kier Gaines 45:15 In the book, it's one of the uncomfortable truths I talk about. Um, I, I'm, I'm ready to be over something that happened to me. It's like when people put the E-D at the end of heal, as if it's a destination that you-

Lewis Howes 45:26 Mm

Kier Gaines 45:26 ... huh, that you-

Lewis Howes 45:26 No, it's forever, man

Kier Gaines 45:27 ... Nah, it's forever.

Lewis Howes 45:28 Healing is a journey.

Kier Gaines 45:30 It's a forever journey. Even when you say that, it, it doesn't really encapsulate all that that encompasses.

Lewis Howes 45:36 Mm.

Kier Gaines 45:36 But, um, I, I think that it's, it's when we're in too much of a rush to be over something. And as, and as opposed to just sitting in it and recognizing what the hard moments are here to teach us-

Lewis Howes 45:51 Mm

Kier Gaines 45:52 ... recognizing what the hard moments are indicating about where we are on this road, we're ready to just zoom past it. We're ready to say, "You know, I'm unbothered," or t- "I'm not worried about that thing anymore." And it's something that we verbalize and we say, but we don't feel deeply.

Lewis Howes 46:10 Yeah.

Kier Gaines 46:10 And that causes an incongruence because your inner experience doesn't match your, your presentation or your outer experience. Um, and when your inner experience is one thing, but you have to present something different-

Lewis Howes 46:23 Ooh

Kier Gaines 46:24 ... it creates a gap. And in between that gap, there's a lot of inauthenticity.

Lewis Howes 46:27 Yes. You're out of integrity, you're out of harmony, you're out of alignment.

Kier Gaines 46:32 That's right.

Lewis Howes 46:32 Right?

Kier Gaines 46:33 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 46:33 You're trying to project something that's not true.

Kier Gaines 46:36 Yeah. And you know that it's not true, mainly. So then you get stuck in the cycle of performing.

Lewis Howes 46:41 Mm.

Kier Gaines 46:41 Because you're not the thing, so you have to project the image of being the thing out into the world.

Lewis Howes 46:47 You're playing a character.

Kier Gaines 46:48 You're playing a character, and at some point it gets exhausting.

Lewis Howes 46:52 Exhausting.

Kier Gaines 46:53 Mm-hmm. Then what? Because I think as a younger person, you know, playing a character might be a fun game. But as you accumulate life and life experiences, and if you find a partner, oh boy. Finding a partner is different 'cause you can't hide from the person you live with. They will see you. And then you start building this life and things will start collapsing because you can't, you can't... The e- the easiest thing to do, the easiest move to make if you wanna destroy everything is to not be the thing, but to perform the thing.

Lewis Howes 47:26 Ooh, yeah.

Kier Gaines 47:27 Because the second that you're tired or, uh, you let your guard down or you, you really walk in a space of authenticity, y- all these things that are pillared by you moving the furniture around in your mind in order to, you know, do the things that you think the world needs you to do or be the person that you think the world needs you to be, i- as soon as you're compromised even a little bit, it becomes a house of cards.

Lewis Howes 47:53 Mm.

Kier Gaines 47:53 Everything falls down one by one.

Lewis Howes 47:55 It does. Playing a character is exhausting. I wrote a book called The Mask of Masculinity-

Kier Gaines 48:01 Oh

Lewis Howes 48:02 ... uh, nine years ago now. And for me, it was about the masks that men wear.

Kier Gaines 48:07 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 48:08 And it was my own reflection of the mask that I was wearing most of my life to try to fit in, to try to belong. It was all strategies to survive-

Kier Gaines 48:17 Mm

Lewis Howes 48:17 ... psychologically, emotionally, right? Um, which felt like physical survival, but it, even though it wasn't. And you can only wear those masks for so long before they all s- uh, before it just all crumbles down, you know, before it's so exhausting, so overwhelming, so daunting.

Kier Gaines 48:34 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 48:35 And you lose yourself in a mask and you're like, "Who am I?"

Kier Gaines 48:38 You haven't practiced being who you are.

Lewis Howes 48:40 That's exhausting.

Kier Gaines 48:41 You haven't reinforced it. You've been playing the character the entire time.

Lewis Howes 48:44 It's exhausting, man.

Kier Gaines 48:45 Once the character leaves, what are you left with?

Lewis Howes 48:48 It's scary.

Kier Gaines 48:48 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 48:49 It's scary. If you don't know who you are, how to trust yourself, how to like yourself, like you said, it's scary, but-

Kier Gaines 48:55 You have to practice those things.

Lewis Howes 48:57 Yeah.

Kier Gaines 48:57 It's not something that just- ... you know, dawns on you out of thin air.

Lewis Howes 49:01 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 49:01 You have to continuously practice that.

Lewis Howes 49:04 Absolutely.

Kier Gaines 49:05 And you, uh, in the book I talk about, um, if, if you want to be who you say you are, prove it to yourself. Practice it. You, you think you wanna be a genuine person, make sure that the relationships that you're open and vulnerable in, in, in your words, that you're open and vulnerable in, in your actions.

Lewis Howes 49:22 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 49:23 Even when it's scary because on the other side of vulnerability is, is possible pain.

Lewis Howes 49:28 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 49:29 Practice it. You say you're a generous person, what, what do you provide-

Lewis Howes 49:32 Be generous

Kier Gaines 49:32 ... your community?

Lewis Howes 49:33 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kier Gaines 49:34 Go donate your time somewhere.

Lewis Howes 49:35 Uh-huh.

Kier Gaines 49:36 You know, you say that you, you a family-oriented person, clo- close the laptop and you don't have to, you don't have to play with the kids for three hours, but spend some time with your family doing the hardest thing that any human can do, and that's being present. You have to... When we think about things that we have to prove, we think about proving things to other people. Trust, you know. I trust you when you prove to me who you are over time and consistently, but we have to have that same relationship with ourselves. I trust that I am who I say I am when I prove it to myself consistently throughout time.

Lewis Howes 50:13 What do you think is gonna be the biggest challenge for people going into the next few years of their lives with where the economy's at-

Kier Gaines 50:20 Mm

Lewis Howes 50:20 ... with where AI is at, with where social media's at, with the uncertainties of the world financially, politically, wars. With all the uncertainty coming, what is the biggest challenge that human beings face as a therapist perspective?

Kier Gaines 50:37 Knowing what to believe. What's real?

Lewis Howes 50:40 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 50:41 Knowing what to believe, what's true, what's in my best interests. I think that there is a comfort, you just talked about survivor. There's a comfort in certainty, and the, the newness of our evolving world gives us a profound sense of uncertainty. How are you going to be okay? What does your future look like? What do your future economic opportunities look like when a computer can take your job? You know, it's... We- I saw a joke on Instagram where [laughs] it's, it's this guy and, uh, he's p- he's playing his dad. And he says, "When my dad is trying to figure out whether or not AI is real." He's like, he, "Son, is this real?" And he takes the phone and you see what he's watching, and it's a guy on the pier and he's fishing and a alligator comes up, and then the alligator jumps out of the water and puts up its dukes. And he's like, "Geez, Dad." Like, my goodness, but with the proliferation of technology and AI it's gonna become harder and harder to decide what's real and what's not.

Lewis Howes 51:40 Mm.

Kier Gaines 51:42 Just what, I had a, my first phone was a Nokia [laughs] 5190, you know, the big brick joint.

Lewis Howes 51:46 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 51:47 Uh, on- only game I had on it was Snake and Tetris, and now just in, what, 20-something years, I have unlimited possibilities on my cellular device. This technology is only gonna get better. I think knowing what to believe is gonna trickle down into knowing what to trust.

Lewis Howes 52:08 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 52:09 And that is going to dovetail into not only trusting things, but trusting people. And if you marry that with taking away third spaces where people don't meet in person anymore, where even romantic relationships are a hotbed for skepticism and distrust-

Lewis Howes 52:27 Mm

Kier Gaines 52:27 ... what happens to humans when we lose our desire for connection?

Lewis Howes 52:31 Mm.

Kier Gaines 52:33 I don't know. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 52:35 [laughs]

Kier Gaines 52:36 I'm not gonna pretend to know.

Lewis Howes 52:37 Yeah, yeah.

Kier Gaines 52:38 It's, it's, I, I... But, um, I still think that there's great hope. I don't think it's, it's doom and gloom. Um, I read this magnificent book called Sapiens, and in the book, uh, it said if you took somebody from the 1600s and planted them in the 1700s, the world wouldn't be that remarkably different. But if you took somebody from, like, the early 1900s and you transplanted them 1,000 years later, they would have no idea where they are.

Lewis Howes 53:07 Yeah. For 100 years later, maybe.

Kier Gaines 53:09 Even still.

Lewis Howes 53:10 Yeah, yeah.

Kier Gaines 53:10 You know, technology, it changes the way advancements go. It b- we think it's, it advances like one, two, three, four, and it feels like it's starting to advance like one, two, four, eight, 16, 24. Like, the quantum leaps are becoming more and more obvious. Um, so it, it does give me, um, a lot of consternation around where we're going and what we're doing, but I think a lot of the answer is going to be around tapping back into our humanity.

Lewis Howes 53:42 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 53:43 Developing actual community-

Lewis Howes 53:45 Mm

Kier Gaines 53:45 ... face-to-face communication.

Lewis Howes 53:47 Yeah, that's it, man.

Kier Gaines 53:48 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 53:49 In person is gonna be key, I feel like.

Kier Gaines 53:52 It's already starting, man.

Lewis Howes 53:53 Mm.

Kier Gaines 53:53 Did you see the thing, the Gen Z kids are getting rid of the smartphones and-

Lewis Howes 53:56 Oh, yeah

Kier Gaines 53:57 ... they, like, the flip phones?

Lewis Howes 53:57 I like that.

Kier Gaines 53:58 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 53:59 I like that.

Kier Gaines 53:59 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 54:00 I think, I think we're, I think we're collectively kinda over it, man.

Kier Gaines 54:04 Oh, no, it'll always c- pull you back in, though. It's still... I mean, hopefully. Hopefully there's a way to create balance with it, you know. That's the goal.

Lewis Howes 54:10 Yeah, I hope so. Ba- balance and harmony, I, I, I surely hope so.

Lewis Howes 54:14 Um, and in terms of just mental health, you know, more people deciding to be practitioners. We don't have enough of us-

Kier Gaines 54:22 Mm

Lewis Howes 54:22 ... for the need. It's just simply not enough of us, man-

Kier Gaines 54:26 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 54:26 ... for the needs of the world.

Kier Gaines 54:28 How many therapists are there in America right now? Do we know?

Lewis Howes 54:30 Oh, who knows? I don't know.

Kier Gaines 54:32 Not enough.

Lewis Howes 54:32 Not enough, huh?

Kier Gaines 54:33 Yeah. Not, not nearly enough. I think there's a severe shortage.

Lewis Howes 54:37 And imagine if people could learn to be their own therapist in a sense, where they could learn certain tools and skills about their emotional understanding and start... You know, I'm always gonna be wanting support, mentorship, therapy, coaching-

Kier Gaines 54:51 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 54:51 ... even though I have a lot of the tools. But imagine learning to be with the tools yourself and practicing them if you can't afford it or if you don't have access to someone right away. Just people would be better people in general if they had these tools, like what you're talking about in your book.

Kier Gaines 55:07 Yeah. I think, but I think it's starting, though.

Lewis Howes 55:10 Of course.

Kier Gaines 55:11 I think-

Lewis Howes 55:11 Of course

Kier Gaines 55:11 ... I think it's starting in a way. Just think about, just think about the parent, the father that your dad had-

Lewis Howes 55:17 Oh, yeah

Kier Gaines 55:17 ... in terms-

Lewis Howes 55:18 So different

Kier Gaines 55:19 ... of emotional [blows raspberry] , the capability-

Lewis Howes 55:23 Oh, yeah

Kier Gaines 55:23 ... emotional bandwidth, just his, his aperture for how he sees life. Think about that versus the kind of dad that you are.

Lewis Howes 55:30 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 55:31 How different that is.

Lewis Howes 55:31 Oh, so different.

Kier Gaines 55:32 Night and day.

Lewis Howes 55:33 Yeah.

Kier Gaines 55:34 So those things are already happening. It's just not been, not enough time has elapsed for us to see the fruits of that labor.

Lewis Howes 55:40 What do you think your kids are gonna say, or maybe your grandkids are gonna say, "You know, our dad didn't have what we have now"? Like, you think they're gonna keep saying that?

Kier Gaines 55:49 Oh my gosh. Oh, yeah.

Lewis Howes 55:50 Like-

Kier Gaines 55:50 Absolutely

Lewis Howes 55:51 ... what are they gonna say in 50 years, that like, "You know, my dad was as great as he was and this and the therapist, but he didn't have what..." You know, I, I need to break generational trauma still. Like, what is that generational trauma that our grandkids are gonna need to break?

Kier Gaines 56:06 That is such a good question, man. Um, the way I think of it, the way it's phrased in my mind is what are my kids gonna have to forgive me for?

Lewis Howes 56:15 Ooh.

Kier Gaines 56:16 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 56:16 What is that?

Kier Gaines 56:17 Yeah. I think it's gonna be, um-

Lewis Howes 56:18 And you can be the best possible dad you can be

Kier Gaines 56:21 Yeah. It won't keep your kids out of therapy. [laughs] Why is that? Uh, just because challenges occur. The kids don't just survive the, the worst parts of you. They have to survive your personality. There are parts of your personality that are just gonna create gaps and divots. And, and one, one of the most frustrating parts about being a parent is that we do not fundamentally understand the needs of our children. It's impossible to keep up with.

Lewis Howes 56:47 Wow.

Kier Gaines 56:48 Yeah. And so those gaps are gonna be where need exists, and they're gonna be things that you simply can't see. I think with my kids it's gonna be resilience.

Lewis Howes 56:57 You don't think they're gonna be all... have the resilience that we had?

Kier Gaines 57:00 No.

Lewis Howes 57:00 Yeah. [laughs] It's been so easy in comparative... [laughs]

Kier Gaines 57:03 Did you hear me talk about my mom earlier?

Lewis Howes 57:04 Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Kier Gaines 57:05 I didn't have AC.

Lewis Howes 57:06 Nah, man.

Kier Gaines 57:06 And now my house doesn't go above 68 degrees. [laughs]

Lewis Howes 57:09 [laughs] I know. I can't go to bed without it 69 at least.

Kier Gaines 57:11 You see?

Lewis Howes 57:12 It's too hot at 69. I'm like, "Dude."

Kier Gaines 57:15 It's... But-

Lewis Howes 57:15 Resilience, huh?

Kier Gaines 57:16 It's gonna be resilience. They're gonna have to like-

Lewis Howes 57:18 'Cause things are too easy, too fast, too much convenience, instant.

Kier Gaines 57:22 We're too protective.

Lewis Howes 57:23 Uh-huh. Interesting.

Kier Gaines 57:24 Your kids ain't going down the street by themselves to go play at the neighbor's house.

Lewis Howes 57:27 Yeah.

Kier Gaines 57:28 We're, we're always there. They, they don't get to develop those parts of their personalities without us around.

Lewis Howes 57:33 Interesting.

Kier Gaines 57:34 Yeah. And, um-

Lewis Howes 57:35 Huh

Kier Gaines 57:35 ... I, I think it's gonna be a resilience thing. I, I think as... We spend a lot of time giving our kids what we wish we had.

Lewis Howes 57:43 We had, and then we... Yeah. [laughs] But they, they need some of what we had.

Kier Gaines 57:48 Yeah, they do. And we, and we give them as much of what we had as we can, but we have to understand that our children's realities and our children's upbringings, they're not our upbringing.

Lewis Howes 57:57 You know what's funny? And I'm sure there's gonna be a balance between me and my wife, but I'm like, even this morning, like, my... You know, I have twin girls that are 10 months old, and I'm noticing that one of them [laughs] ... This is gonna be hard, because one of them is starting to crawl more than the other.

Kier Gaines 58:12 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 58:13 And I'm like, "Stop baby..." [laughs] I'm like, I'm like, "Stop babying the other one. Like, let her f- fall a little bit. Let her crawl."

Kier Gaines 58:20 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 58:20 She's like, "But she's a baby." You're like, [laughs] she's like, "She's a baby." I'm like, "Okay. Yes, I get it, but you can't hold her all day." You know? As sweet as they are, you can't carry her everywhere all day. Not that she's doing that. I'm just making a case for us. You can't hold them all day and make sure everything's perfect. You don't wanna make it's not perfect, but let them crawl and struggle. And she's like-

Kier Gaines 58:43 Let them struggle

Lewis Howes 58:44 You know what I mean?

Kier Gaines 58:45 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 58:45 And she's like, "But when she's making this aah, and starting to cry, you should pick her..." I'm like, "No, let her, let her struggle"-

Kier Gaines 58:51 Yeah

Lewis Howes 58:51 ... "and let her feel a little pain." It's not like it's h- I'm not hurting her. She just can't get her arm up to move right now, and that's okay.

Kier Gaines 58:59 That's... But that, that's-

Lewis Howes 59:00 Give it five seconds

Kier Gaines 59:01 ... that's the great big wilderness, though.

Lewis Howes 59:04 Yeah.

Kier Gaines 59:04 Lewis, that's the wilderness because as parents, especially as parents within our age range, we see our kids struggling as our own personal failures.

Lewis Howes 59:13 Yeah. It's-

Kier Gaines 59:13 Your inconvenience is my... And not to say your wife is-

Lewis Howes 59:16 Yeah, yeah, yeah. But she's not-

Kier Gaines 59:16 A lo- a lot of parents can bounce through this. I've done this before, so I, I can identify with it.

Lewis Howes 59:21 Yeah.

Kier Gaines 59:22 Your struggle is my personal failure. You, you're uncomfortable, that's my personal failure. You're hungry?

Lewis Howes 59:27 You should struggle.

Kier Gaines 59:28 Yeah.

Lewis Howes 59:28 Right?

Kier Gaines 59:29 Absolutely. How else will you learn how to navigate that, um-

Lewis Howes 59:33 Self-resilience, you know?

Kier Gaines 59:36 I said on Instagram one time, um, you know, my, my job as a parent isn't always to make you feel better. I know that sound, that's gonna sound crazy to someone. You know, my daughter felt really guilty about something, and I wanted to swoop in and just be like, "No, don't feel guilty, baby."

Lewis Howes 59:51 It's okay. Yeah.

Kier Gaines 59:52 "It's ABC." No, I let her know that she wasn't a bad person, but I allow her to feel those feelings. How can you navigate something that you never had the autonomy, the leash, and just the space to fully navigate? It's okay to fully navigate guilt within the confines, within safe confines. You know, you need to have parental guardrails, of course. But it's okay to feel bad about-

Lewis Howes 1:00:13 Yeah

Kier Gaines 1:00:13 ... something that you did-

Lewis Howes 1:00:14 Yeah

Kier Gaines 1:00:15 ... and then figure out, and then realize you don't like that feeling, and figure out what you can do to self-soothe and c- and c- climb your way out of it eventually.

Lewis Howes 1:00:23 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 1:00:24 Um, you know, I, of course there's a limit to allowing your kids-

Lewis Howes 1:00:27 Sure

Kier Gaines 1:00:27 ... to struggle.

Lewis Howes 1:00:27 Yeah, yeah.

Kier Gaines 1:00:28 But that resilience piece is, is integral, man.

Lewis Howes 1:00:31 Healthy, safe struggle, you know?

Kier Gaines 1:00:33 [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:00:33 Create the healthy, safe struggle-

Kier Gaines 1:00:35 Yeah

Lewis Howes 1:00:35 ... but allow them to struggle, right?

Kier Gaines 1:00:36 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:00:37 So we'll see. I could see myself... I think I saw Steve Harvey say like, "I ruined my, my girls. Like, my sons I was hard on, but my girls I just gave them everything. I spoiled them constantly." He's like, "I screwed them. I ruined them." I-

Kier Gaines 1:00:50 Dads do that a lot

Lewis Howes 1:00:51 You know what I mean? It's like... And I could see myself potentially going down that route-

Kier Gaines 1:00:56 Mm-hmm

Lewis Howes 1:00:56 ... because they're so sweet, they're so cute, they're so innocent, all these things. But it's like I feel like you've gotta create some type of, even if it's a game, even if it's an activity, creating struggle and adversity in a safe context. Otherwise, you're robbing people of a potential- ... future of greater gain.

Kier Gaines 1:01:15 Yeah, absolutely. You rob them of the ability to figure it out themselves. My daughter, my youngest daughter, she, uh, man, immediacy is a thing for her.

Lewis Howes 1:01:24 She wants it now.

Kier Gaines 1:01:25 Now.

Lewis Howes 1:01:26 Of course. Ah. [laughs]

Kier Gaines 1:01:27 And I was realizing that when she wants it now, she gets it now.

Lewis Howes 1:01:30 Oh.

Kier Gaines 1:01:30 So now we practice waiting. Even if I can do it right now, say, "Okay, give me a second. Daddy is doing something. I will get this for you in a couple of minutes." And she's old enough to be able to know. She has a concept of time. So say, "Hey, it says 5:10 on the clock on the oven. When that last number says 20, I'll get up and do it, okay?" You have to practice waiting. You have to practice waiting.

Lewis Howes 1:01:53 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 1:01:53 Because her inability... I mean, she's four. Uh, reasonably, she's-

Lewis Howes 1:01:57 Yeah, yeah

Kier Gaines 1:01:58 ... it's p- it's developmentally appropriate for her to want everything now.

Lewis Howes 1:02:00 She doesn't have that. Yeah, yeah. She doesn't have that, yeah.

Kier Gaines 1:02:02 But if we don't practice it at four-

Lewis Howes 1:02:04 Yeah

Kier Gaines 1:02:04 ... she becomes a seven, eight, nine-year-old-

Lewis Howes 1:02:07 It gets harder

Kier Gaines 1:02:07 ... who doesn't have the ability. It only becomes harder.

Lewis Howes 1:02:09 It gets harder.

Kier Gaines 1:02:10 So we've been practicing waiting.

Lewis Howes 1:02:11 That's good.

Kier Gaines 1:02:12 And then at the end I give her the affirmation, "Baby, you did such a good job waiting. Thank you so much."

Lewis Howes 1:02:16 Oh.

Kier Gaines 1:02:16 "What did you want again? Show me. Go to the pantry and show me the thing that you wanted."

Lewis Howes 1:02:19 Yeah.

Kier Gaines 1:02:19 "Or explain to me the thing that you were trying to tell me." My wife and I are trying to have a conversation, and the kids are little buttinskies. They come in and they wanna have a full conversation in between us conversing. Wait a minute, Mommy and Daddy are talking. I see you right there. I see you. Give me a second. When I'm done talking to Mommy, I will talk to you. Uh, you have to practice waiting.

Lewis Howes 1:02:37 Wow. That's beautiful, man. Your new book is called

Lewis Howes 1:02:41 It All Starts When You Do: How to Do the Real Work of Self-Healing.

Kier Gaines 1:02:45 That's right.

Lewis Howes 1:02:46 Uh, I wanna make sure everyone gets a copy of the book. If you're looking for tools to help you improve the quality of your life, heal, transform, uh, and understand the emotions that seem overwhelming, make sure you guys grab a copy. Um, two final questions for you, Kier. This one is called the three truths. So imagine hypothetically it's your last day on Earth.

Kier Gaines 1:03:04 Okay.

Lewis Howes 1:03:04 Many, many years away.

Kier Gaines 1:03:06 I'm, I, I thank you because you-

Lewis Howes 1:03:07 Yeah, many, many years

Kier Gaines 1:03:07 ... you put a cap to my life earlier. You like 50 years, you said, "Daddy, what?"

Lewis Howes 1:03:10 I know.

Kier Gaines 1:03:11 I was like, "Damn."

Lewis Howes 1:03:11 Many-

Kier Gaines 1:03:11 "Damn, Lewis, I wanted to live to 90." [laughs]

Lewis Howes 1:03:14 [laughs] You get to live as long as you want, but it's your last day on Earth.

Kier Gaines 1:03:17 Okay.

Lewis Howes 1:03:18 And you get to create and accomplish and experience all the beauties and joys of, of this, this world-

Kier Gaines 1:03:23 Okay

Lewis Howes 1:03:24 ... but on your last day, you have to take all of your work with you.

Kier Gaines 1:03:26 Mm.

Lewis Howes 1:03:27 This conversation, your book, your content, gone. Hypothetical.

Kier Gaines 1:03:30 Okay.

Lewis Howes 1:03:31 Uh, however, you get to leave behind three lessons to the world.

Kier Gaines 1:03:35 Mm-hmm.

Lewis Howes 1:03:35 I call it three truths. What would those be for you?

Kier Gaines 1:03:38 Uh, give me a second. Let me process that.

Lewis Howes 1:03:43 And this is all that we would have access of your content, are the, are these three truths.

Kier Gaines 1:03:47 These are the only three things that I leave behind.

Lewis Howes 1:03:49 Okay.

Kier Gaines 1:03:49 Only Kier artifacts.

Lewis Howes 1:03:50 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 1:03:50 I got you. Um, all right. So I think the first one is... They can be instructions?

Lewis Howes 1:03:58 Anything.

Kier Gaines 1:03:58 Okay.

Lewis Howes 1:03:59 Lessons, instructions, thoughts.

Kier Gaines 1:04:01 The first one is always tell the truth to yourself-

Lewis Howes 1:04:04 Hmm

Kier Gaines 1:04:04 ... even when it's uncomfortable. Uh, especially when it's uncomfortable. Always tell the truth to yourself.

Lewis Howes 1:04:11 But not to others. [laughs]

Kier Gaines 1:04:13 [laughs] Well, when you practice telling the truth to yourself, it becomes easier to tell the truth to others.

Lewis Howes 1:04:18 Yeah, yeah.

Kier Gaines 1:04:18 So one bleeds into the other. The second one will be, um, being present is a lifelong practice. Continue to practice being present. Um, and three, just, just wanna cover the book, It All Starts When You Do, on the title of the book. Don't get good at waiting. Even though I tell my daughter to wait, [laughs] that's something completely different. Don't get, don't get so good at waiting that you miss opportunities-

Lewis Howes 1:04:51 Yeah

Kier Gaines 1:04:51 ... you absolutely deserve.

Lewis Howes 1:04:52 Yeah.

Kier Gaines 1:04:53 Don't rob yourself of the beauty of life-

Lewis Howes 1:04:56 That's beautiful

Kier Gaines 1:04:57 ... waiting for something that is not promised to you.

Lewis Howes 1:05:00 That's beautiful, Kier. And, um, I wanna acknowledge you, man, for putting yourself out there. I know this has been a, a journey over the last five years of you creating content and sharing with the world, so keep doing it, man.

Kier Gaines 1:05:11 Thank you, man.

Lewis Howes 1:05:11 You inspire a lot of people, and we need your work, so keep it up. Um-

Kier Gaines 1:05:15 Thanks, man. And I'm gonna give you your flowers, too, because I've watched a lot of your podcasts, and you do something that I inspire, that, not inspire, but I beg clients to do all the time. We talk about it. This is the one thing. If you don't do anything else, do this. Be curious.

Lewis Howes 1:05:31 Mm-hmm.

Kier Gaines 1:05:31 A curious mind is a catalyst to greatness.

Lewis Howes 1:05:34 Hmm. That's beautiful.

Kier Gaines 1:05:35 Every single time. Yeah, man. So thank you for being curious-

Lewis Howes 1:05:37 Appreciate it, bro

Kier Gaines 1:05:38 ... and putting that version of masculinity out into the world-

Lewis Howes 1:05:42 Yeah, man

Kier Gaines 1:05:42 ... because it's well needed, and there's so many young men, not just young men, but especially young men, that could benefit-

Lewis Howes 1:05:49 Mm-hmm

Kier Gaines 1:05:49 ... from having an example like you out there.

Lewis Howes 1:05:51 Hmm. Appreciate it.

Kier Gaines 1:05:52 So keep persistent, man.

Lewis Howes 1:05:52 Yeah, man. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Kier Gaines 1:05:54 Sure.

Lewis Howes 1:05:54 Final question. What's your definition of greatness?

Kier Gaines 1:05:57 Oh, man. The definition of greatness to me is closing the gap between who you say you are and how you show up in the world.

Lewis Howes 1:06:09 Hmm.

Kier Gaines 1:06:10 Narrow the gap.

Lewis Howes 1:06:11 Hmm. Snap. Kier Gaines, my man. I appreciate it.

Kier Gaines 1:06:14 Appreciate you, Lewis.

Lewis Howes 1:06:15 Thanks, brother.

Kier Gaines 1:06:15 Absolutely, man.

Lewis Howes 1:06:17 Powerful.

Speaker 1:06:17 People will say to me, "Dr. K, I, I have no motivation." That's incorrect. You have a ton of motivation. You have a ton of motivation to stay home. You have a ton of motivation to play video games. There is such a powerful drive to return to the couch. So identity shapes motivation.

Lewis Howes 1:06:32 He is a psychiatrist, a Harvard-trained physician, and founder of Healthy Gamer, one of the fastest