The Confidence Trick Nobody Tells You About with Lewis Howes
In a Nutshell
The core message is that confidence comes from having a mission bigger than yourself, not from eliminating problems or knowing exactly how to succeed. Instead of starting with the "how" (which triggers fear), begin with a clear "what" and a compelling "why"—then take action, serve others, and expand your identity through repeated uncomfortable experiences like public speaking or firewalking. Real growth requires pushing past your current comfort zone and updating your self-image, because lasting change only happens when your identity expands to match your new goals.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Problems are the fuel for growth. The biggest problem people have is they think they're not supposed to have any problems. Anyone who doesn't have problems is either totally asleep at the wheel or they don't have much of any kind of life, no responsibility, nothing they're building. The misnomer that if you have a problem there's something wrong with you or your life is incorrect.
Success is defined by most people as getting what you want, but fulfillment is living what you're made for. The biggest challenge people have is they're just thinking about themselves. It's not that hard to meet your own needs. Phones constantly condition you to instantly get what you want, but that's not how human relationships work and that's sure as hell not how you build a business. In nature, you will not see a straight line unless a human built it. Everything grows a little up and down like a stock, but it's a winding process.
People don't have something they're wanting to serve more than themselves. Energy comes from serving something greater than yourself. Having 105 companies creates problems, but if you thought life was supposed to be problem-free, you would be really stressed out. If you were just doing it for yourself, you would have stopped a long time ago.
The lack of confidence is actually a lack of mission. Having that sense of mission is what creates confidence. People think they have to know how, which is called the tyranny of how. When you start with how, you're screwed.
Martin Luther King had no idea how when he did his "I Have a Dream" speech. His wife was the one that pushed him because he was uncertain. He got up and gave his vision of how it can be done. He talked about what needs to happen and why. If you can figure out what you want and why you want it and get strong enough reasons, reasons that'll drive you late at night and get you up early in the morning, you'll figure out how to do it. If you start with how, the small brain, the fear brain goes, "Oh, I don't know what to do. I don't know where to go."
Know what you want and get a big enough why, then you'll figure out how to do it. Start with the what and the why, not the how. 90% of the time, you don't know what to do either. You know what and why, then try something, and if it doesn't work, try something else. Speed it up by learning from the best.
You get confident by doing stuff. Public speaking is the second biggest fear people have. Focus on how to serve them, what they need, what they want, how you can serve. When you're focused on others and how to serve them, there's no lack of confidence in you because if it's not working, you just change your approach because it's all about serving. People that are scared to speak are thinking constantly, "How am I doing? Am I good enough? Am I strong enough?"
Michael Jordan makes a thousand shots before you take a break every single day, 6 days a week. People who are the best in the world at what they do are doing things, practicing in private things that make them certain in public, and they get rewarded for what they do in public.
Public speaking was the most terrifying thing. Wasn't able to speak in front of five people without stuttering and forgetting what to say. Took a year of public speaking class with Toastmasters to get reps in a safe environment. After seven years of speaking on stages, still got nervous a day or two before. Called coach Chris Lee who said, "You're thinking about messing up, missing the joke, forgetting what you're going to say in the first line, you're thinking about how you're looking as opposed to serving people." When you know you're going to mess up and it's not going to be perfect, just put all the energy on the audience and everything starts to change.
The biggest mistake people think they're supposed to walk out and be good at it. If they're not, they don't want any part of it. We live in a social media world where people compare themselves to people that are bullshitting. A friend owns a gym and people come out, lay out all their stuff, take a million pictures of themselves, and leave. They didn't do any workout whatsoever. People compare themselves to not other humans, they compare to people in this story. That's why so many people get depressed when they spend more time on social media, usually the greater levels of frustration, anger, and depression.
If you don't use a muscle, it gets weaker and weaker. The minute you start making demands on it, you see real muscle growth. If you constantly live in fear, your world gets smaller and smaller and it tends to get more fearful. Who's more fearful? Someone who has broken 10 bones in their body and healed them as a kid or someone who never broke a bone? The kids that are overprotected are fearful all the time. If you've gone out in the street and gotten in a fight and busted your arm or your hand or finger, played football or boxed, you're not afraid of that crap because you've lived it. A belief is a poor substitute for an experience.
Almost everything is giving someone an experience. Did the firewalk for so many years. Used to do skydiving but it's hard to get 15,000 people above the sky in New York in the middle of the night. The firewalk was giving you an experience of something that seemed difficult or impossible and then you get yourself to do it and your brain goes, "Wait a second, if I can do that, what else could I get myself to do?" That psychological shift is the most important shift that people can make. It's a shift in your identity.
Identity is your comfort zone. It's not your goals. Most people's identity, their labels for themselves, who they think they are, has been based on their past and often many years ago. They don't update it. If you took a temperature in the room and said 68 degrees is my comfort zone physically, emotionally, financially, you want more in your relationship, more physically, energy-wise, more financially in your career, but this is what you're used to. When something happens and you drop down to 62, 61, 60, the heaters kick on and go, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, you're a 68 degree or what the hell are you doing?" All of a sudden you go, "I'm not going to live like this anymore. I'm not going to be in this relationship. I'm not going to be fat like this." You get this drive and you start to change.
It happens on the upper end too. You get momentum, start crushing it, start doing even better than you think. You go from 68 to 78, you're at 98 degrees, and then your brain goes, "Who the hell you think you are? You're not a 98 degree. Get back to 68." The heaters stop, you lose your drive, and that drifts you back. The air conditioning can kick on, you start to kind of sabotage yourself till you get back to your comfort zone. Unless you expand your identity, change is temporary.
When someone says they stopped smoking, it's been 8 days, and you ask why they're counting, they say so they can tell people how long they lasted this time. If you went to somebody and said, "Hey, Lewis, you want a cigarette?" they're not going to say, "What brand is it?" They're going to say, "No, I'm not a smoker." Notice how people say, "I'm not one of those. That's not my identity." Identity is the strongest force in the human personality. Unless you expand your identity, you're going to basically keep where you are. You might improve a little or not, go up and down a bit, but you're going to stay within a realm. If you're going to have an explosive breakthrough to another level physically, mentally, financially, spiritually, then we got to not only give you the tools, we got to shift that internal sense of who you really are and have you find that you are more than anything that's ever happened to you. That you can handle whatever shows up, even if it's incredibly scary or uncomfortable.
Keep Tony Robbins in your library
Save the videos and channels worth coming back to, and find them again in one place.
