The School of Greatness

What if the dark stretch you're in right now is proof your faith is about to pay off?
Katt Williams, a comedian with 14 stand-up specials, sat down with Lewis to talk about leaving home at 13 and the moment around age 20 when drug dealing could turn $100 into $700. He asked God for another way to make a living, and comedy showed up.
Door-to-door sales taught him that 300 no's buy 30 yeses, and he still tells a joke to himself 35 times in the mirror before any audience hears it. To him the crowd is never wrong, so every silence is feedback he can use.
His years as a teenage missionary in Haiti come up too, where he watched starving families choose joy and pride. His memoir, “Nine Lives, No Wives, and 69 Concubines,” lays out his whole life so you can decide for yourself whether any of it was luck. His new podcast, According 2 Katt, is on the way to Netflix.
You'll come away treating rejection as information and seeing every hurdle as a chance to jump higher.
Nine Lives, No Wives, and 69 Concubines
Katt's Instagram
Katt's Facebook
In this episode you will:
Discover how Katt Williams walked away from a $700 drug hustle by asking God for another path
Treat every rejection as feedback so your self-worth never hinges on a yes
Trust that your darkest season has a limit before the light breaks through
Reframe obstacles like a hurdler who sees each one as a chance to jump higher
Welcome opposition as proof you are on the right path
For more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1996
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People with psychopathy still feel, just differently from everyone around them.
Dr. Patric Gagne, a diagnosed sociopath who went on to earn a doctorate and work as a therapist, sat down with Lewis and told the story she tells in Sociopath: A Memoir. As a kid she learned that saying “I don't care” out loud got her in trouble, so she lied, and lying made her feel safe.
She talks about the pressure she called a vice, which she relieved by breaking into homes just to sit in the quiet, and the first grade day she stabbed a classmate with a pencil. Then she explains why secondary psychopathy, which may touch 5% of people, is treatable when kids get caught early.
You will hear why a therapist who doesn't absorb your pain can be the best container for it, and why stopping someone from crying can stop the brain from healing. She also gets into the shame under people pleasing and narcissism, and the question she asks her own kids: how does it feel when you feel?
You may come away a little gentler with the people you never understood, and with the kid you used to be.
Sociopath: A Memoir
Dr. Patric's Instagram
Dr. Patric's Website
The Society for the Prevention of Disorders of Aggression
In this episode you will:
Become a calm container for someone's pain without needing to empathize
Raise emotionally aware kids through boundaries, apologies and positive reinforcement instead of punishment
Learn why awareness is 80% of the work in changing destructive patterns
Discover why psychopaths can feel emotion and what actually separates them from everyone else
Spot the warning signs of sociopathy in dating, relationships and business partnerships
Break free from people pleasing by choosing honesty over curated, falsified emotions
For more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1995
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What if your anxiety is a smoke alarm, and your body is working perfectly?
Dr. John Delony, a mental health expert with two PhDs, sat down with Lewis and said the thing most of us dodge: if you are awake at 2:30 in the morning, something in your life is on fire. Numbing it with a drink or a screen is like duct taping a pillow over the alarm while the house burns around you.
Then he got personal. While he was writing Building a Non-Anxious Life, his wife walked into his basement gym and told him, “I'm watching my husband die,” and then, “John, we have enough.” His little girl would not hug him, and in counseling he could not put a fist to his chest and say “I love this guy.”
Back then he would have rated himself a zero out of ten on being enough. Now he says nine, and his daughter uses him as a jungle gym. He and Lewis also talk about why “me over us” hurts so many relationships and how paying off debt let him grieve a cousin without a single worry about money.
You'll finish this one wanting to put your phone down and ask what your own alarm has been trying to tell you about your marriage and your kids.
Building a Non-Anxious Life
Own Your Past Change Your Future: A Not-So-Complicated Approach to Relationships, Mental Health & Wellness
Redefining Anxiety: What It Is, What It Isn't, and How to Get Your Life Back
John's Instagram
John's YouTube
John's Facebook
In this episode you will:
Hear how Dr. John Delony went from 0/10 to 9/10 on believing he is enough
Use neuroception to understand why your kids pull away when you stop feeling safe to them
Discover why anxiety is a smoke alarm proving your body works perfectly, not a flaw to silence
Break the common male lie that your only value is your utility
Build an antifragile life where hard seasons bring grief without spiraling into anxiety
Replace rigid beliefs with shared values so your relationships choose us over me
For more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1994
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You keep making the same mistake because you haven't failed enough yet. That sounds harsh until you hear the reasoning, and then it feels like relief.
Shi Heng Yi, a 35th generation Shaolin master who has practiced kung fu since age four, sat down with Lewis and explained why manifestation stalls for most people. You can touch the hot plate five times and it still hurts, he says, and one day you simply stop. Lewis admits he touched it about 100 times across 15 to 20 years of relationships before he changed.
Then he gets practical. He walks through RAIN, his four step method for a restless or doubting mind: recognize it, accept it, investigate it, and stop identifying with it. He also teaches you to build a skill in focused cycles, 7 days for skin and 30 days for muscle, with more time the deeper the change goes.
The cup is the part that stays with you: you arrive empty, and then your parents and your teachers pour their ideas in until you are chasing a life that never came from you. His mindset advice is simple: learn to empty the cup.
You will finish this one wanting to pick a single skill to practice and asking which of your goals are actually yours. And you might sit with gratitude a little longer tonight.
Shaolin Spirit: The Way to Self-Mastery
Shi Heng Yi's Website
Shi Heng Yi's Instagram
Shi Heng Yi's YouTube
In this episode you will:
Break the cycle of repeating the same painful mistakes before they cost you another decade
Learn Shi Heng Yi's RAIN method for moving through doubt, restlessness and other inner hindrances
Empty your cup of borrowed expectations so you can pursue a vision that is truly yours
Build lasting skills through focused cycles of practice matched to how deep the change goes
Cultivate gratefulness as a daily embodied practice instead of something you only talk about
For more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1993
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Stress can give you a real heart attack even when your arteries are perfectly healthy. Doctors call it broken heart syndrome, and it can follow losing someone you love or even winning the lottery.
Dr. Tara Narula, a board certified cardiologist and chief medical correspondent for ABC News, sat down with Lewis and shared what her patients say when she asks how they are. Almost nobody mentions blood pressure. They tell her they are overwhelmed, and many of them cry.
She knows that fear from the inside. At 22, in medical school, she lost vision in part of her right eye and spent the first weeks reading every stumble as proof of something worse. A note card from her mom with the Serenity Prayer pulled her out of the spiral.
In The Healing Power of Resilience she lays out eight tools, and she walks Lewis through acceptance and flexible thinking, then makes the case for purpose and real social connection. She also explains why burnout is the final phase of chronic stress, and why a study across 52 countries found chronically stressed people are twice as likely to have a heart attack.
You will finish this one wanting to call a friend for coffee and start practicing resilience before you need it.
The Healing Power of Resilience: A New Prescription for Health and Well-Being
Dr. Tara's Instagram
In this episode you will:
Learn Dr. Tara Narula's eight resilience tools for turning a stress response into a resilient one
Discover how stress alone can trigger a real heart attack, even in people with perfectly healthy arteries
Recognize when your fight or flight dial is stuck on high before burnout makes you sick
Reframe a frightening diagnosis as a trauma you can accept and build a meaningful new life after
Build resilience before you need it, using the daily practices that help your body heal faster
For more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1992
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