1-Sentence-Summary: The Greatness Mindset offers a roadmap for defining a meaningful purpose for your life, several tools for overcoming the fears that might keep you from fulfilling said purpose, and a collection of exercises to keep you both going and in good spirits as you pursue your own unique path to greatness.
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I’ve been going through a rough patch. After 8 years of slow-and-steady growth, my website took a huge hit, and now, if I can’t figure out a new business model soon, I’m not quite sure what to do.
If you’ve ever been in an ongoing crisis like that, you know it can weigh on you. You’ll worry all the time. And yet, you’ll still have awesome days in-between. Give me some music and good coffee, for exaple, and things rarely feel too bad!
But why can’t I have this mindset all the time? After all, a struggling business is no reason not to feel great and do good work. Lewis Howes also had that question. Howes was promising athlete on track to become a pro football player. Then, a wrist injury shattered his dreams. For a year and a half, he slept on his sister’s couch, broke and depressed. But eventually, he recovered.
Today, Howes’ podcast, The School of Greatness, has more than 100 million downloads. In each interview, Lewis shows up with zest and optimism. In The Greatness Mindset, Howes provides tools you and I can use to keep our spirits high even when life is lowballing us.
Here are 3 lessons for building a forward-looking, relentlessly positive mind:
- Craft your Meaningful Mission Manifesto by combining passion, power, and a problem.
- Fight off self-doubt and 3 big fears with small daily actions.
- Develop a Greatness-Mindset-in-Motion to keep going until you achieve your dreams.
Let’s get into the mindset of greatness!
Lesson 1: Consider 3 factors to come up with your Meaningful Mission Manifesto.
What finally got Lewis off his sister’s couch was a Toastmasters event. He wanted to get better at public speaking. While Lewis was stuffing his pockets with free snacks to save money, he met his future mentor Frank Agin.
Agin helped Lewis turn his LinkedIn skills into a booming networking business. But years later, even when the money was rolling, Lewis wasn’t happy. He had jumped in too quickly without thinking. He lacked a “Meaningful Mission,” something you can only find if you are “honest with yourself about yourself,” Lewis writes.
After some reflection, Howes sold the business to his partner and moved on to podcasting. He just somehow felt drawn to it. Today, Lewis’ mission is clear: “To serve 100 million lives weekly by helping them improve the quality of their lives and overcome the things that hold them back.”
To find your Meaningful Mission, you should consider 3 factors, Lewis suggests:
- Passion: What’s an activity where your heart is always truly in it? What excites you even when you do it for free?
- Power: What are your strengths? What can you build on with the right skills to create value?
- Problem: What’s a challenge real people have that you’re uniquely equipped to help them address?
Think about your Meaningful Mission. Then, write it down. It doesn’t have to be elegant or complicated. As long as it gets you going in the right direction, it can be the first step on the long path to greatness!
Lesson 2: Take small actions daily to keep the 3 big fears at bay.
Lewis struggles with dyslexia. He was sexually abused as a child. And in sports and business, Lewis has fallen on his face countless times — both literally and figuratively. The point? We’re all afraid. We all make mistakes, and we all doubt our abilities. But only when we let that doubt keep us from taking action will we have any regrets.
Lewis says 3 fears in particular add up to crippling self-doubt:
- The fear of failure. Everyone sucks at everything when they start out. But “worse than failing is the regret of not trying,” Lewis says.
- The fear of success. Sometimes, our imposter syndrome is so strong, we succumb to it before we even reach the peak of the mountain we’re trying to climb. Take life one day at a time!
- The fear of judgment. Nobody likes being judged, but also: Nobody thinks about you as much as you do. “This is your journey and yours only,” Priyanka Chopra Jonas once told Howes on his show.
How do we keep those fears at bay? By taking small actions every day. “I’ve written 7,500 blog posts in a row,” Seth Godin told Lewis. “Tomorrow morning, which will be a Friday, there will be another post. But it won’t be there because it’s the best post ever, nor will it be there because I decided to post it tomorrow. It will be there because it’s Friday. And I haven’t reconsidered that decision in 20 years.”
Start small and stay consistent, and self-doubt will get out of your way!
Lesson 3: To develop a Greatness-Mindset-in-Motion, stay aware of your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
Nothing great happens overnight. Therefore, even if you have your long-term vision locked in, you’ll still need to show up and move towards that vision every day. One of Lewis’ top tools for doing so? The “Mindset-in-Motion Cycle.” “Mindset by itself is neutral,” Lewis writes. “It can be positive or negative. It can be messy or it can be clean.”
To consistently stay in good spirits and take action, you must align on 3 dimensions, Lewis suggests:
- Your thoughts. What’s the color of the conversation inside your mind?
- Your emotions. Can you let feelings pass through without them hijacking you all the time?
- Your behavior. In the end, only action will take you to your goals.
“The right thoughts produce better behavior and lead to better emotions,” Lewis writes. “The right emotions lead to better behavior and lead to greater thoughts. And the right behavior reinforces better thoughts, which leads to better emotions.”
When there’s tension between these 3, they can disrupt and negate one another. But they can also align and reinforce each other. Get them into a perfect cycle, and you’re rolling. You’ll move towards your vision with speed and determination, and that is what greatness is all about.
How do you do this? Awareness, Howes says. “As you learn to navigate these 3 components, you gradually move from who you were to who you are becoming.” Stay present, and may your thoughts, emotions, and behavior always work together!
The Greatness Mindset Review
The Greatness Mindset is an uplifting read. It also offers an interesting set of tools and exercises. It’s not the world’s most groundbreaking self-help book, but in sharing what he’s learned from his own journey and his guests, Howes has built a collection of ideas worth browsing. Even if you only implement 1 or 2 of them, it’ll be well worth your time!
Who would I recommend our The Greatness Mindset summary to?
The 19-year-old college athlete who is slowly realizing she’ll never turn pro, the 35-year-old creator who doesn’t know if he has the strength to start over after shutting down his business, and anyone who feels their mind is heavier than it should be on most days.
Last Updated on April 20, 2024
