The Key to Abundance and Success: Lisa Nichols and Lewis Howes

[Music] Welcome everyone to the School of Greatness podcast. Very excited about our guest today, Lisa Nichols. Thanks so much for being here.

I appreciate it. I'm excited you got a new book out. I'm just going to show it to the camera really quick. Make sure you guys check this book out; we'll have it linked up. It's called *Abundance Now: Amplify Your Life and Achieve Prosperity Today*, and I'm very excited about this. I was just going through it, and I love your message, I love your insights, I love your wisdom, and I also love your story. And I want to dive into it before we begin the process of how to be abundant, because you didn't start out abundant, right?

No, not at all.

No. What we're—and you're also a track star, from what our agent tells me.

I know, how'd you know that? That's like back in the cut; that's not in the book. He's like, "You need to talk about your track days," cuz I was—I was a decathlete All-American.

Yeah, come on!

And uh, yeah, so I'm a state champion.

There you go! All right, what events?

Uh, I ran the 110 and 330L hurdles.

Wow!

The 4x400, 4x100 relay, that's—and the open quarter.

Okay. M-co, what was your favorite event?

The 330L hurdles.

3—and I held the record at my high school, just got to say, for the 330L hurdles for 18 years.

Boom! Get it, girl!

Boom! I—I found out in the 15th year that I held the record, so I only had three years of brag and rice before someone broke it.

I love it! I love it. Okay, cool. Uh, I'm curious, now growing up, who was the most influential person in your life, and what was the biggest lesson you remember them teaching you?

My grandmother, my father's mother, my grandmother Bernice. And she taught me that—she said she prophesied over my life, meaning she spoke life into me when I didn't see it for myself. And she said several things, but one of the key things was she said, "Baby, as you grow up, you're going to impact lives, and they're going to write about you." I have no idea how she knew. "And many people are going to talk about you," she said, "Do yourself a favor: take everything they've written about you and put it in a file cabinet. Don't read it," she said. "And when you get old, then my age, sit in your favorite rocking chair, grab a cup of tea, and be entertained by who they thought you were, while all the time you knew whose you were." And she just instilled this sense of humility, like, "You are a servant leader, and I don't care what they call you—expert, guru, master—you are a servant leader. You remember that, cuz they'll say a lot of things." And so she has been my anchor. You know, she's long since deceased, but she's been my anchor. And that was just one of the most powerful things. And then she also said, "Baby, you can get all the knowledge in the world," she said, "but only time will give you the wisdom that I have."

Wow! Like, whoa! I was like, I think she just Grandma-checked me, you know? And so I still, to this day, with all the knowledge that I've acquired from great books like yours, and great books like Stephen Covey, and great books like from Phil Jackson, *11 Rings*, and Howard Schultz, *Onward*, you know, all these great pieces of work, I still sit at the feet of seniors. I still—my spiritual mentor, I sit at her feet once a quarter. I sit at people's feet when they're 20 years older than me or more, cuz they have something I don't have, which is wisdom—time.

Yeah.

So she anchored me in two things, which both leave me in humility.

Wow. Okay, what's the wisdom you have from all your time so far?

Um, don't count the number of times you've been knocked down; get attached to the number of times you get up.

All right, I'm going to get these truth bombs all day. I gu—

Right, right. Boom, boom, boom, boom! I love it. Um, I'm curious now, cuz you didn't start out, you know, with a lot of money and with a lot of abundance mindset, did you?

Right. Um, it wasn't just not a lot of money. You know, it's one thing to be fiscally broke; it's another thing to be emotionally broken. Two very different things, and I was broke and broken. And um, in 1994, I had to go get on government assistance just to feed my—my newborn baby. Um, I had to get on WIC—Women, Infants, and Children—uh, and I still say it, and you know, I say it often. I was interviewed 155 times in 5 months for my previous book, *No Matter What*, and it still hits me in the same place. I—I was—ashamed to stand in line with all the other mothers, some fathers, to get free butter, free cheese, free milk, free pasta. But at the same time, I was grateful that there was such a service to help people like me. That I knew this wasn't where I was going to stay, right? But it was where I was in that moment. I wasn't committed to take up real estate there, but it was my current address. And broke and broken, it kind of hit the—I—I—I felt like I hit the bottom. Like, I think that's the bottom, right?

Um, and then there's always a deeper.

Right. Right. Right. Right. So when I was getting uh—uh—when I was getting uh food stamps, I thought I was at the bottom.

Mhm.

And then you would—right—uh, I went to the ATM. I ran out of Pampers for my son, Gilani, and I went to the ATM to get money to go buy Pampers, and it said insufficient funds. And I had $142 in the bank. What's the minimum you take out?

20 bucks. On an—exactly, you need 20 in to get 20 out. And um, I had $142, and so I went home, and I had to wrap my son, Gilani, for two days in a series of different towels. That—that was my rock bottom. And that was cuz as a parent, all you want to do is provide. That's it; it's simple. I just want to provide safety and food for my baby. Somebody else was providing my food, and I didn't even have Pampers. And I remember on the second day of wrapping my son in the towel, Louis, I put my hand over his stomach and I said, "Don't worry, Gilani," with tears streaming down my face. I said, "Don't worry, son, Mommy will never ever be this broke again." And so um, you talk about um having financial resources. I realized that I needed to first believe that I could do something different; that wherever my mindset was, my bank account was going to follow. So I needed to change my mental zip code.

What was your mental zip code then?

Scarcity, lack. I was born and raised in South Central LA. I grew up between the Harlem Crip 30s and the Rollin' 30s. I had three fights a week to get home from school. My highest grade in school was a C+ in 12 years of school. My highest grade was a C+. And so if you ever tell this story to anybody, don't forget my plus. Don't y'all—don't forget my plus. It's very important to a C student—to a student. I was a—I was a C, D, to an A student. It doesn't matter, like, plus, plus, whatever. But to a C student, the plus matters, man.

I get it. So—so I struggled. Everything in my life was about a hustle. Mhm. Everything—nothing was easy, except the love for my family; that was easy and effortless and graceful and bountiful. And but everything else outside of that, it was a hustle—get or get got. It was the environment I grew up in, and I'm not saying that you have to grow up in that rough environment to have an amazing future. People always say, "Well, Lisa, I didn't have it rough. Could I have a—" Listen, I would have traded my background in for anybody. Like, don't think I chose that so I can have this. And so I didn't know abundance. I didn't know abundance existed. I didn't know abundance could happen to people who look like me—a woman, geographically from my neighborhood. I didn't know abundance can be—that—I didn't see it around me. I didn't know abundance can be for someone that—that was in my culture. Everything was about survival and hustle. So so many things. And spiritually, I didn't know that someone who loved God, who had a spiritual foundation, can also have prosperity without being perceived as greedy. I mean, everything in my environment said, "Not me." Everything said, "Not me," if I listen to the sound effects, right? And sometimes you got to turn the volume down and just listen to your heart, right?

So what was the conversation you would tell yourself during this time, when you're in this scarce zip code?

"Someone like me can't have it." Them over there, that—that guy right there, he comes from the right family. That girl right there, her skin color's the right complexion. That I'm full-figured, a—a—a mocha-skin, full lips, round hip, kinky-hair girl? Nah, not me. Not—no. I get other things. I get—I get a—a bountiful family. I get—I get children if I want. I get closeness to God, but I don't get abundance. And—and—and I realized that so much of that conversation was embedded in me before I was—I was five. I mean, it just comes with the territory. I would watch my grandmother make a dime go 20 different directions, and I never wondered about having 21 dimes. I just wanted to grow up and make my dime go in 20 different directions—to be like Grandma. And so so much is cultural—inherited, gender—inherited. As a gender, as a woman, you're not raised to make millions; you're raised to either get a good job or get a man with a good job. You know, especially in the 80s and 90s.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's how we were raised. Spiritually, you're taught—you know, in my background, my religious background—now I'm spiritual, I'm not attached to a religion at all—but growing up in the Mount Tabor Missionary Baptist Church, it was, you know, "Money is the root of all evil." Well, who would want a lot of that?

And that—good people. Exactly. Who wants evil? And if that's what you say, then I learned that I don't need it. And Sister Brown—I watched Sister Brown, and Sister Brown was the most godly woman in the church, and she was always selling fish dinners and—and barbecue dinners to make sure she had enough money. And so unconsciously, I wanted to be like Sister Brown, because that woman can pray the heavens down. And so then again, I'm looking at that, and then in my neighborhood, it was the moment you get a little extra, you give it away. You give it away. Still, to this day, I kid you not. I—one of my last opportunities—I call—I don't call them challenges, opportunities—is um, I'm in the top 1% earners in America, and I say that humbly. I'm grateful. And my job now is to learn how to keep it and grow it, cuz I love to give it away. And I know it's a learn—behavior; it's a learn—and I—and I give it away to good things. I just put $882,000 and revamp my grandmother's whole house, cuz I knew she wasn't going to move; she going to live—she going—that's what she going to—rest in peace—she's going to stay right there. She's been at that house since 1968; she's not going anywhere. So I just redid the entire house, gutted out the entire house, and—and—and put—spent close to $100,000 doing it. And I'll do that over and over and over and over again, because I also was taught, "Give it away." So now I'm going to—people who are more powerful in money, in terms of—I know how to make a lot; I know how to keep a lot now; I learn how to grow a lot. You know, and being willing and being humble enough to say that's where I am. I got the first two down, because money is three levels: how do—how do you earn it, how do you keep it, and how do you grow it? And so, you know, um, I had a conversation for a long time in many different ways. And then it's the—ation as a woman: if I make so much, it's going to be hard to be dateable. That big D word, you know? And so as an African—

Exactly. And men are taught—as I'm taught as a woman about money—you're taught as a man, "Be the provider." Well, you know, it's kind of hard to provide for a G like me, you know, when I come in. I go, "How about we just put it together, because I'm kind of cool on the provision thing," you know? And so I realize that men have to also feel comfortable with the fact that—that—that's an 80s conversation. And in 2015, she might make millions, right? 2016, right? Book tour—still—still last year I started the book tour, and I have like—you have to at every moment tell me the date that we're—we're living inside right now.

I feel you. I feel you. Right. You know, you just—you just—I'm just recovering. I'm finally just like—"Tell me there's something on the other side."

Recovery is true, right? There's a clear voice; there's a—there's a healthy body.

Right. Right. Uh, there's your freedom of time. Um, so I'm curious, what was this moment then that you realized, "Okay, I need to shift the way I'm thinking, the conversations I'm having, uh, how I'm showing up, who I'm being in every moment, from living in this scarce environment that I've lived in for 20-something years to all of a sudden shifting into an abundance mindset and way of being." What was the moment? To experience the—the thought, the idea, the catalyst that broke—I like how you say, "A moment." Like, I got a—the ceiling opened up, and the lights came in, and the angels came.

No, maybe it was over time, right? It was—there was a moment when—there was a moment when suffering became too painful.

There you go. So mine didn't necessarily come in a glory moment; it came—$142 and watching my baby wrapped in a towel—a towel. I—I felt like I was being unfair to him.

See, because 30 days before the tow—really tell my stuff—4—30 days before the towel, his father called me, and when I answered the phone, I never forget, I said, "Hello." He said, "Lisa, I'm in LA County Jail." Well, I don't do jail, and I don't do people in jail, and I don't do people who have a possibility of going—so how did you get there? Cuz I met you in corporate America, and you were a professional. How he got there, as his business—I don't know—but now I'm a single mom of a son whose father is now in prison. Boom, boom! Rock bottom! Rock bottom again. So 30 days later, when I would have my son wrapped in a towel, I was done. I was just done. You're sick and tired of being sick and tired. I was done. So you know the concept of bankrupt—is there's nothing left. That's the concept of bankrupt. So I like to explain it—I was bankrupt in my mess; I was bankrupt in my chaos; and I was bankrupt in every—sexy, cuz my excuses are sexy, by the way. I've been a linguistic specialist for years. I talk my teachers into doing things, right? I mean, that's just been my gift. My father used to say, "Lisa, please promise me you will use your powers for good." And so I was bankrupt in all of my excuses. So if you ask when it was, probably about 3 hours after I told my son, "We'll never be here again," on day two of being wrapped in a towel, in 1994. M—and then I said, "How"—the next question was, "How? If I'm done with this, I'm not even sure what that looks like. I just know over there are a bunch of abundant thinkers living an abundant life, having abundant memories, with a surplus of everything you need, because abundance is to be an overflow of the things that you have. Abundance is just about overflow; it's about overflow. That means that if there were a saucer under this cup, abundance would be everything this tea flows over into the saucer, and I can feed you from my saucer, cuz I have filled my—filled my cup up enough. I use my cup for me, and I feed you from my saucer. And abundance is saying, 'I have a saucer in my relationships filled with great experiences; there's a saucer of my health and wellness; I have so much bountiful health and vitality that I can show up for you; there's a saucer with my spirituality that I can pray for you; I can forgive the perceiving unforgivable and love the perceiving unlovable; and then there's a saucer for my finances,' and that in every area, because abundance is a 360 experience. See, wealth is singularly focused; wealth is about your money and your possessions; that's wealth, okay? But abundance is 360. I have a lot of very, very wealthy friends who are miserable, unhappy, rela—bant—who are not abundant; they're wealthy—scy—they're wealthy; they're not abundant. And they understand that, and they come to me and go, 'Lisa, help me with my relationships, with my family,' or whatever, right? And so um, I—I—I had to learn something different. I—I—Louis—I didn't know what I didn't know. And so I—I—that—that became the moment when I said, "What do I need to know to have something different? What do they know that I don't know? And how can I get it?" And I became a hunter.

So what was the first discovery?

Um—that there's a mindset that comes with abundance; that they think differently; they don't just do something different. There's not a hookup. First of all, what camera do I look into? Is it that one? Anyone? Anyone? There is no such thing as a hookup. I am still waiting on mine, and if you know where it is, my phone number is—

So there was no hookup.

Yeah, there's no hookup. Like, it's not true. Like, you got a 297-million-to-one chance in—to win the lotto, and within five years, the people wi—the lotto are in more debt than they were before they won the lotto. So that ain't even a hookup, right? And so um, I realized that I needed to change my mindset. I needed to learn something different, and—and I needed to know it at a cellular level. All that stuff I just told you about my color, my gender, my—I had to unlearn—people are—are—we're—we're information junkies, cuz we got all kind of access to information online, and we're learning all this stuff, but we're not implementing anything. I'm sorry, I might step on a few toes; that's what I do. And so I realized that I had to, at a cellular level, first, before I went to get any more information. I had to be willing to divorce and evict some belief systems that I already had, that they had taken me as far as they can take me, and now they're holding me back.

Mhm.

It's almost like you wear a size 11—you have 11-foot—and you tried to fit it back in a size seven shoe—you—you passed that a long time ago. And—and that's going to be a very uncomfortable day. I was in discomfort; I was very uncomfortable with my thinking. And so I—I start diving into books. The first book I di—I dove into was Stephen Covey's *Seven Habits of Highly Effective People*, and it disrupted me. It disrupted everything. I didn't know. It was like—it was like a double door opened up, and then a wall opened up. I'm like, "What? Are they—they know that? Like, why nobody told me that?" Like, I felt like I was out of a club.

And really, you are. I'm just G to tell you—abundant thinkers think a certain way, and they don't go around trying to—trying to convert you. Like people like you and I go, "Let's open it up to everyone," but here's what I—I know about the human spirit is that the human spirit has a power of choice, and most people don't want to choose this kind of thinking, because it cost you something.

Mhm.

It cost—what's the cost? The cost is you got to get up earlier. You get up earlier than the average guy. Your day—what you do in a day is what some people do in a week. What you do in the morning is what some people will do in a 12-hour day. You got to be willing—what you're—will doing your book tour—to get on the New York Times—some people say, "I got to do all that? I don't want to do all that. It's a lot of work." Okay.

Great. Then have your life like you have to. You sign up for your life experience; there's no way like you were a… when I realized that I was a culmination of all my decisions, that’s like straight with no chaser. That’s like getting it with no cookies and milk. I was a culmin… you’re a culmination of all your decisions. And then when you uplevel your decisions—and now that’s even hard at times—you go, “God, why am I always single?” You’re a culmination of your decisions. You’re a culmination of your actions. “Why can’t I keep any money?” You’re a culmination of your decision. Your life. So I wanted to make better decisions, cuz my son being wrapped in a towel, me having $142, me being overweight, me… my son’s father being in prison… I… I couldn’t shake it. I was a culmination… my life experience was a culmination of all my decisions, and it was undoubtedly a hot mess. And so I went, “Well, let me go learn from somebody whose life don’t seem like it’s a hot mess,” and they let me adopt some of their behaviors. And I began to hunt. I went to conferences. I… and was scared the be-jibbies out of me; these conferences! I’d never been to conferences before. I went to entrepreneurial conferences. I was the only… I was one of four women at an 800-person conference, and I was the only woman of color. So it’s all older white men and me, and I was like, okay, well, they… they’re not afraid of money. Seem like they’re talking money and business and corporations and ROIs and PPMs and term agreements and… no blah espanol. I don’t know what that means, but I am not leaving until I figure this out.

And I went to the same conference… when I say, “Do what other people won’t do, so and you’ll have what other people don’t have.” I went to the same conference… 42 times. I told you I was a C student, so it took me… took me a minute to get it. And I kept getting sponsored back to the… I didn’t even have the money to go to the conference. I started volunteering at the conference. I would be on stage teaching because they love the way I spoke. Then I get off, and I’d help clean up cuz I had to pay my dues to be there. I was, okay, I ate… ate my slice of humble pie every day cuz I was bankrupt. See, some people, you haven’t pushed non-negotiable yet; you’re still optional. I really would love to be successful, and so you… I want to be successful; I want to make money; I want to be healthy, but it’s not non-negotiable yet. Because the moment the rubber meets the road and you feel a little skinned and it gets a little tender and a little blood may show up, and you don’t want to give blood, you don’t want to give sweat, you don’t want to give tears… let me just tell you, you can’t take the elevator to the top, right? It ain’t nothing but stairs, right? Yeah, boom. Sorry, I got excited. I don’t know where your questions… what was this event you went to? You know what? I… I’d rather not even tell it cuz people begin to think the event was everything. You know, I’m going to say there’s a conference you know about… there’s a conference you know about… find like-minded people in your tribe that’s going to make you stand on your tippy toes. So I… you know, with no disrespect to it, but people start saying that’s the next light… that’s no… it’s not. It was me hunting, cuz the conference didn’t give me a whole lot other than the people there. I kept pulling from… you know what I mean?

How important… you know, I’m a big believer in visualization and obviously in “The Secret.” That’s something that was talked about. I haven’t watched “The Secret” in 10 years when it came out, but I mean this is something I practi… as an athlete, to visualize my results before the game would happen… to see myself scoring the touchdown in the track meeting. I’m sure you did a lot of similar things. How important is visualization in abundance? Um, but then also how important is taking action, right? So I have five visualization exercises in that book, just because it’s so important. Visualization is a gift to your heart and your soul. It’s a gift because if the… the idea is the seed, visualization is the… is the… um… it’s the fertilizer. It’s the fertilizer because when your thoughts are connected with an emotion… see, you would visualize yourself winning, and you would feel all the emotion that came with that. And all you’re doing now is you’re not chasing a foreign emotion; you know the feeling, and now you’re just doing what’s necessary to get back to that feeling in real time. Exactly. And so what… what a good friend of mine, Visan… who… of the CEO of Mind Valley, who you know… um… I would… I did a visualization with him; we were in Bali. And um, he said to me afterwards, “I never get emotional; I cried.” He do… he doesn’t get emotional. He like… right, right, right. Yeah. Well, he was like, “I cried; I got emotional.” He goes, “I figured it out; it’s visualization. A good visualization brings in emotion.” He was like, “That’s how you do it.” And so… um… I… I love visualizations because… and and it’s really important in the visualization; you can’t see it over there; you have to see it right here; feel it. You got to feel it right here, like I am… it’s all I am. I am… I am in my dream home; I am in my dream relationship. And then unpack what that looks like, but most importantly, unpack what it feels like. And when you have that… that emotion in this moment, all of a sudden you stir up something that I don’t think will ever go back to sleep. It’ll go, “Okay, let’s go get that.” And what it really does is it sets up a state of cognitive dissonance. And cognitive dissonance is when you see something in your mind and you see yourself in a way that your behaviors are not currently leading to, and so your mind becomes disrupted and it goes, “Okay, can we get there? I’m not there right now. I’m not there right now,” and that’s not comfortable. Your mind wants to literally be congruent; what it thinks is what you’re doing; what it thinks is what you’re doing. And so when you set up a constant… and abundant thinkers like you and I, we do it unconsciously. MH… we… we… we are constantly keeping our… in a state of cognitive dissonance, meaning, “Okay, what else?” And I’m seeing Lisa over there, and I’m going, “Okay, let me go…” while being grateful for my now. Yeah, it’s not… in that I’m going to be whole and complete when I get over there; I’m whole and complete now. I just know I’m supposed to be over there, so let me do what’s necessary to get over there, and let me… let me evict any behaviors or characteristics that are stopping me, and let me adopt any new ones that I need. Right, right.

How does someone discover their unique calling? Because you talk about that in the book, discovering unique calling… what if people are like, “I don’t even know what I want. I know I want to be… out of the place I’m in; I want to be abundant, wealthy, healthy, great relationships, but I don’t know what my purpose or calling is right now.” I think that people put… too big of a… a notion on purpose, in that they think that it has to look like… Nelson Mandela or Mother Teresa or Oprah or a you or a… I. And and a lot of times what you’re really good at is right in front of you. What you’re really great at is right in front of you. And to recognize that your calling and your purpose can change, right? That it can change. You have a long lifetime; it’s not going to be the same calling the whole time. And so allow yourself to evolve; allow your purpose to evolve. What’s that thing you do effortlessly that you give no credit to because you’re… you’re… you’re just looking past it? “Oh, it can’t be that because it’s not hard.” Well, how about it doesn’t have to be difficult? How about the fact that you’re a great listener? How can you take that and… and use that and expand it? And don’t compare yourself to someone else. Comparison… I think Benjamin Franklin said, “Comparison is the thief of all joy.” It’s all… when you look left or right… you know, people are always comparing me to Oprah Winfrey or Yan La vanzan or… or Les Brown or Tony Robbins. I said, “Listen, I will… if you want me to give you Oprah or Yan or Tony or Les, I’m always going to 100% fail you. But if you’re ever interested, I do a damn good Lisa Nichols.” I do… I… I do a good Lisa Nichols. Yeah. And so when you look at, “What are my gifts? What are my unique gifts?” I knew very early on, I was a gifted speaker. I wasn’t certified as a gifted speaker; I haven’t passed any courses as a speaker. Matter of fact, the last time I took a speech class, I got a D minus, and my speech teacher told me, “Miss Nichols, I recommend you never speak in public; that you get a desk job.” That was in my freshman year of college; the last speech class I took. So a lot of times your gift and your purpose, you’ve discounted it, either because someone else discounted it, or what’s more common is you don’t know how to monetize it. Yes. And sometimes the greatest gift you have to give is not for fee; it’s for free. You watch people like you and I and go, “Well, why can’t I get paid for it?” Well, not every gift you’re supposed to get paid for. Nelson Mandela did not get paid for leading 27 years… when he got out of prison, he got paid after that, but he was a great leader while he was in prison. And Martin Luther King… he was a… he… he got paid from the church, but his… his fight for civil rights, that was a free one, and he paid the highest cost. And you can go on and on and on to the… some of the greatest leaders… Mahatma Gandhi… it wasn’t a paycheck, right? And so… and I’m not… and I know we’re scaled down to our version, but don’t get attached to having to get paid for your gift, right? Yeah. I started this podcast as a way of… I’m going to do this for free for a year; I’m not going to take any sponsors; I’m not going to do anything; not going to sell anything; I’m just going to create and facilitate great conversations, and that’s it. And now the… the money is coming in because of how it’s impacted people’s lives. Your intention was the right place, yeah, but it wasn’t like, “How can I do this right now to make money?” It was, “How can I serve the maximum amount of people?” That right there… that when people live in a place of servant leadership… my grandmother said it when I was 24: “If you leave… how can you serve the most people?” When I sit with my team, I go, “How can we serve more people? How can we ser…” Last year we were able to touch 30 million people. How…? And that’s all our question now… as we serve… our platform gets brought up, but how can we serve? Don’t tell me how we can make more money; I’m not interested in that. I’m… how can we ser… serve more? Cuz if I do the right thing for the right reasons, everything I need will be a byproduct of that. Exactly. So I think we get caught up, and you know, society allows us to have us… has us looking at possessions, and so we begin to measure our joy and our abundance on possessions. I… I have a friend who’s worth… he’s worth $14 billion. How do you even write that? I had to write it down so I could see it… zeros is out, right? Right, right, right. A lot… he’s worth $14 billion. Do I… checked my email on… on my phone before we started, and he’s on my phone asking me, “Please come visit me cuz he’s lonely.” He’s rich, but he’s not abundant. Yeah. He flew from Canada to… to come to my house for New Year’s just to be around people who were celebrating and wanted nothing from them. And so don’t pursue the things… pursue the acts of service, and everything you need will come. I promise you. Yeah, that’s powerful. Let’s talk about the four Es. What is this principle… the four Es you talk about in your book? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So… so the… I… I… I like to break up my life in quadrants, and I help my students… I do a lot of coaching; I do personal development and professional development coaching. And no matter where you… where you come to me, whether you come to me for personal development or whether you are… want to turn your passion into profit… in this professional development and business development for entrepreneurs, we go over the four Es because abundance is holistic; it’s a holistic experience. So the first is enrichment of self… that you… you are only going to go as far as you think you’re worthy. I can push… you can push… you can… you can have the greatest product, but if you don’t feel worthy, you will work hard to sabotage that relationship. You… you don’t know you’re doing… right? You don’t know you’re doing… you just think these are the things I need, and you’re driving that guy away; you’re driving that woman away because your self-worth says they weren’t going to stay forever anyway. Or… self-worth around money… you have a cap that you feel like you’re worthy of a million dollars; you will always get to 999,000, and you will stop because your self-worth says it. So enrichment is number one. What’s a good exercise or process that we can follow on a daily basis? Maybe something simple to enhance our enrichment… absolutely… and worthiness… absolutely. I did this for six months every single day, right after I brush my teeth, and it’s the ICU exercise. And you get in the mirror… now… it… it’s not necessarily simple cuz… you’re dealing with yourself, of course, and as complicated as you are… will… will be the degree… the mechanics… the mechanics are very simple. Yes, I appreciate that distinction. Um, you get in the mirror, and you complete three different sentences. You want to write this down. The first sentence, you look at yourself, and you say your name. So you say, “Louis,” and you complete the… “I’m proud that you…” and find seven different things every day to celebrate yourself for; seven different… each day. You can do the same thing you did the day before, but each day do seven different things to be proud of. The second sentence is… going to knock you down a little bit; it’s gonna come from your gut. Um… “I… I forgive you for…” and cut the shackles to blame, shame, guilt, regret, and anger in that sentence. You cut those five shackles. Not the first day, maybe not the third day, but by the 21st day… by the 13th day you’ll feel some relief. So, “Louis, I forgive you for…” and go back five years, 15 years, 20 years… do that… forgive you for that thing… don’t nobody know about, but you go ahead and cut those shackles because if you can still think about it, it’s still in your energy space. Yeah. And then the third sentence is, “Louis, I commit to you that…” before you make a commitment to anybody else throughout your day, you make seven commitments to you. So the first sentence is, “I’m proud that you…” you’re celebrating yourself first. We are under-celebrated as a… as a society; we look for acknowledgement… they interviewed 100 executives that all made over a quarter of a million dollars and said, “Would you like a 5% raise next year or would you rather be told ‘thank you’ more often?” One hundred percent… 100% said, “Keep your money; I’d rather hear ‘thank you.’” So we’re under-celebrated, but first celebrate you; be the example. When I was on Oprah, when she said, “What do you do?” I said, “I recognize that I’m the example of how the rest of the world is supposed to treat me, and it’s my job to give the world the best example of how I like to be treated.” So celebrate yourself, forgive yourself, cut the shackles, and then commit to yourself before you commit to anyone else. That right there… powerful. That right there will begin to fill your cup up to get to your saucer. I love that. Where did you start to learn that process? Was that something you just started to practice yourself and started looking in the mirror and trying different things, and you… boy, you asked the question… um… I was in a relationship, engaged to be married, and it became abusive. I was emotionally abused, and then… um… he picked me up and threw me three feet across the room and choked me until I passed out. I don’t tell a lot of people that… and I was suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder, and my mother asked me to go to the doctor… strongly recommended I go to the… drug me to the doctor. Wow. And after the assessment of me in Manhattan Beach… my doctor said that I was clinically depressed, and I… I said, “How did I get here? Me… that don’t even fit with my name.” I was head cheerleader at my high school; I was… I was the captain of the track team; I was… I’m always the person to get people going. It didn’t fit. “How did I get here?” I don’t know if you’ve ever found yourself saying, “How did I get here?” I was sitting on the table in the doctor’s office saying, “How did I get here?” And when she wrote me the prescription… she handed me the prescription, and I read the prescription, and it said, “Lisa Nichols, Prozac…” It was like I was looking at a foreign statement… my name and Prozac. And I asked her… I said, “Can I try something for 30 days? Cuz I… I realized I was just sad. I lost me. I had lost me in him; I had lost me in being a mother; I had lost me and being the mother of a son whose father was in prison and trying to hide that shame and then trying to make this man happy and then beginning to fend for my life. I lost me.” So I needed to discover me; I needed to remind myself who I was. And so I just realized… I… I didn’t celebrate me; I was beating myself up; I was really mad at me, and I was showing up for everyone else. So I just made up these sentences, and I did it to rescue myself… to… to turn my crawl into a walk. And I ultimately was able to turn my crawl into a walk, and my walk into a run, and I run into a sore, but it started as a crawl. So I don’t offer the… how I got to that exercise often unless someone asks. Thank you very much. My daring… thanks for sharing. Yeah, open… I… I’ve… I’ve… I’ve long since learned four things… to me… this is the road to true freedom. I have nothing to prove. Mhm. I have nothing to protect; I have nothing to hide, and I have nothing to defend. That your perception of me after I tell my truth is actually none of my business. My perception of me… that I go to bed as whole and complete as I woke up before I check how many likes I have on Facebook… that I like me first, and every other like is a bonus. There you go. Like it. That was a long road to get to… long road. Sure, long road. Yeah. And we probably have to constantly be reminded of it, you know. And then when I get in that place… and then when I… when I live like I’m forgetting… you have to have accountability partners stashed in the corners of your life, and you have to give them an assignment on your high day. You have to give them an assignment on your high day. If I look like I’m slipping… well, my ego’s in the way… get in my face! Get in my face, right? Get in my face and remind me of the… of the… the woman I said I wanted to be. Don’t let me off the hook for the 2020 version of me, cuz we’re humans; it’s going to happen. As long as we’re breathing, we’re going to be out of integrity at some point. Come on… your humanity is going to get in the way; your ego… or ladies… your sheo is going to get hooked. Exactly. Absolutely. Your resentment… you’re about… your smallness… just smallness… it all fits in smallness. I’m… I’m… I’m human. I… and so I… I’m… the best thing I did was to keep people around me to hold me accountable to the woman I said I want to become. Sure. That’s great. I love that. That’s why I have a lot of people from the Midwest who… who work with me on my team… support me… keep me grounded. Right, right, right, right, right. Like, “Don’t get too…”

Hollywood exactly don't get caught up in the lights and the cameras and the dadgone headset exactly exactly absolutely okay. Enrichment that's the first part. Uh, the second part is enchantment.

Relationships are going to define the quality of your life. When you're on your bed and your last days, you're going to want to know who's going to be around you. Bottom line, you're not going to care about another podcast; you're not going to care about another sponsor; I'm not going to care about another book, the freaking New York Times best—it matters to us now—but the relationships in your life are going to determine the quality of your life. And so mind your relationships. And so in the book Abundance Now, I teach you how to how to heal broken relationships that matter to you, how to get back level set. I give you this great um this great tool um called um it's a it's a it's a a conversation to heal a a broken experience. So uh it's called a Communication Charter. I use it in my company; I use it at my house. And um so just is about how do I keep great relationships.

And then the third area is engagement, work engagement. You're going to spend so much time in work, and we're so emotionally attached to our work, and most of the time people are attached in such a dismal way that why would you have that dismal energy around something you're going to spend so many hours in? So I teach you how to shift your energy toward your work so that you no longer look at it as your work. Now it's no longer your JLB like everyone in my community, all everyone in my D, they no longer say they have a job; they say I have an investor. And when you look at your job as your investor and you really rename it as your investor, yeah, and it's investing in your breathtaking future, it has the capacity to buy anything you want for your future if you mind your money right, right, right. It can buy your freedom, and all of a sudden you start treating your investor better, and you're more excited about going—matter of fact, you're grateful, you're grateful for your inv—feel work, man. My investor was LA Unified School District; that was a hard place to be when it was a job, I'm just telling you—but as an investor for three and a half years, I wrote myself a check, and I put in the memo line, “funding my dream.” I didn't even know what the dream was; I wasn't even clear; I just knew whatever my dream was, it was going to cost some money, MH, and I needed to pay, and I need to have some money to pay, and that if I was going to ask other people to invest in me, I had to be my first investor. Who am I to ask someone to put money my way when I didn't put money my way, right? So I want to—Ma, I wanted someone for them to match, just match my investment in me. I got 10 in; can you put 10 in? I got 20 in; can you—to the end. And so when you look at your job, your work engagement as an investor into your breathtaking life, all of a sudden there's a different energy around it.

And then the last one is money endowment, and to recognize more than the Dr. Seuss family and the Disney family and the McDonald's family and the Lawrence Welk family has a right to an endowment. When you get the understanding—and I really unpack it here—where you kind of go, “what?” Like, I I'll make you do a couple of Scooby-Doo looks in the book, like when you look and go, “I can do an endowment,” like, I like—cuz we think it's for them. Remember, I started this conversation with abundance is for those people over there, especially when it comes to an endowment or living Legacy, like in your buck and be—creating a legacy—to recognize that, wait a minute, there's a Louis endowment and a Lisa endowment and a Don and John and Tanya endowment and and fill in the blank here endowment, and I need to live my life to set up my endowment. All of a sudden you become responsible for generations to come, responsible for changing the trajectory of your family's life. That's some bold stuff. When in your lifetime you do a needle point move for your family—in my lifetime I was able to do a needle point move for my son—like he's a Nickels child; he's one of many Nickels men, but that's a Nickels man who now knows what it feels like to cook in Italy and in Tuscany and in in Florence and in Venice and in Rome. That's a that's a Nickels child who knows what it feels like to go surfing on the Gold Coast of Australia, MH. That's a Nickels child understands what it feels like to stand on the tallest mountain in Africa. Like his life—I asked him this morning, I said, “Galani, can you—when you get married and have children, can you stay in California so Mommy can really see her grandchildren?” He goes, “Well, Mom, that's kind of restrictive. It's restricted to stay in big California,” because he knows the world. Yeah, his his Paradigm Shift has occurred; he won't ever live like another, and he'll take everything he's learned and expand the Nickels male child experience. So in my generation, in my lifetime, I was able to change our family experience for him, and so I I believe that we have a right to look at our Legacy and create a living Legacy and then create a legacy. Right, right.

I want to talk talk a little bit more about relationships because I feel like for my success, my growth has all been about um relationships and building quality relationships. In the process, I've lost I would say a lot of friends, from college to after college. You know, it's like a lot of people don't understand it; they don't get it, right? And when you try to connect with them and educate or or just lift them up and say, “Hey, this is possible for you,” to 11, it's almost scary for them, and a lot of judgment happens, a lot of negative talk behind your back, jealousy, things like that. Have you lost a lot of relationships over the years, from family to friends? Um, and how do you handle a situation when someone that you're very close with no longer um wants to grow, wants to learn, wants to be in this abundance mindset? What do you do in that situation? Do you just cut them out? Do you add new people to your life? How does that work? So I know you have great relationships, and you're constantly connecting with people.

I do, and I nurture them. Yeah, and there's there's probably just a few few years between us, just a few um, but they've taught me something. Yeah, and um I'm happy you asked that question because I've been looking at that lately. And so um they there are three types of—I talk about this and I deep dive this in the book—there are three types of relationships. There are um lifegiving relationships. Now I'm going to speak to friendships, and I'm going to speak to romance. May I?

Sure, of course, because yeah, what we talk most about are relationships; what many people think most about is money. Those are the two anchors that just kind of consume a lot of energy. Yeah, right. There are three types of relationships; there are—and I'm happy to answer the friendships that I've lost and what I've done, but I want to kind of give this context, cuz I think this is going to be a liberator for someone—someone came to this podcast just for this; like this is your nugget; everything else is bonus; this is it. There are three types of relationships: there's a lifegiving relationship, and that's the friend or the romance that lasted one day to two years, and it was—they were in your life just to remind you you still got it, MH, that you were—and you know that friend you made, and it was like fire, fire, fire for like six months, and then they're gone, yeah, and you—cuz you can't even sustain it; it's it's it's too combustive; you know, it's too demanding; it's too chaotic; it's too—it's the the turbulent, the the joy is high, and the turbulence is high. Exactly. And and so it was—it can't it can't exist past two years, but that's called a lifegiving relationship, and some are only last for one day; there's a stranger that passed in your night, and it was delicious; it was one good night, right, or two, and and and with no judgment on that; that's that's just life. They're lifegiving; they're there to remind you, “stay in the game.” That fire you had in your belly when we played or skated or made love or sang, keep that fire in your belly. That's a lifegiving relationship. Number one. Relationship number two is a lifetime; no matter what you do, someone's going to bury the other person, friends, Rel, Roman; it's just meant to be lifetime; they can get on your last nerves; y'all ain't going nowhere, right? And then this third type is the type that there's the most disruption in, the most chaos in, the most sadness in, the most Discord in, and it's the relationship we're in the most of; it's 80% of 80% of our relationships are in this category, and probably about 99% of our chaos and Discord is in this category, and that's called a purposeful—I hope y'all are writing is down by now—that's called a purposeful relationship. And a purposeful relationship is a relationship that was brought together to serve a purpose, whether the purpose was to birth a business, to grow each other up, to have children, to learn how to love madly; there's a purpose, and that relationship lasts anywhere from three years to 15 years to 25 years; it it can be a long time. However, where the Discord comes in, where the sadness comes in, where the disgruntled comes in is that—once you know what I'm going to say—once it's a purposeful relationship, full of purpose, purposeful, MH, once the purpose is fulfilled, the relationship will forever take a shift; it won't necessarily be over, but it is in the beginning of its decline. Now can you stay together for a lifetime after the purpose is fulfilled? Yes, you can, but it will have a flat line, M; it will just have a flat line. And then most people, a lot of people, the relationship ends because something just isn't right, cuz someone's saying, “Why can't we just go back to the way it used to be?” Right? Well, we—us—learned it; we used to be serving and fulfilling the purpose; it's already for—is that beautiful, juicy great content? It didn't even come from me; I learned it years ago, and I adopted it to save my own life. Um, and so in that context, I do have friends that have been with me for years, and and I have friends that have moved on, MH, and they were purposeful, and that was the only thing I could give it to find peace, because there is this Gap; there's this hole; there is—I wish I would have got them—but let me share something with you, Lis: I realize that my job in my friend's life and in my family members' life is not to rescue them. Now this is where the distance in our years comes a little bit. I realized that I can have all this information in your beautiful book; I can have all this information in what I wrote in mine, and when I show up to them with them, they just want their girlfriend; they just want their home girl, right? They just want their niece; they just want their cousin; they just want their daughter; they don't want me to rescue them, right? That I had to retire from the converting business cuz I suck at converting people. They are going to be who they want to be, and that's—to no disrespect to them—but no one drugged me to this place of awareness, so who am I to drag them? And I know we get excited cuz we we see the light, and the reality is—all we—all your job, all my job, all your job, all your job is to be the light, not try to pour it on people, but to be the light so that we get to serve them again from our saucer, and they pick up on it. Last night I had a book signing, but they've got to want it, and when they're ready, in their time. Last night—night I had a book signing, and I don't know if my family's going to be watching this, but if they are, I'm grateful. More people from my family showed up to my book signing last night than any other event in the history of my business. I've been doing this for 21 years. Wow. Any other—I've been inviting them—why, why now? I don't know; I didn't ask him; I was just grateful. Yeah, I didn't even ask. And today I got a text from my cousin who I grew up with, six months difference, my ride or die. She's the one I got in trouble all the time with, right? Ride or die; never interested in coming to my work, and it would kill me to see her life, kill me to see her suffering, kill me to see her struggle, kill me to see her not happy. And today she sent me a text, and she said, “I'm going to read your book because I'm ready for a change.” I I read it like three times, and then I text her back, my friend, my cousin, my first cousin, and I I I text her back, I said, “Nothing would make me more happy to support than to support you in your journey. Let me know what I could do.” That's awesome. When you're ready, when you're ready. Yeah. And so I stopped trying to convert my friends because I was driving our friendships away. I it was a hard lesson learned, MH. Um, and then I started thinking my work was so big and so so so meaningful that they would understand, understand if I didn't have time, and I realize people don't care about what you're doing for the planet, right? You need to nurture this friendship, of course. So I let some die on the vine. So there are relationships that you've let die on the vine because you didn't invest enough in it; you thought the plant would live without water. I thought the plant would live without water because I was watering everyone out here, but I forgot to turn the water back around to my friendships. And so if they died away, I am 100% as responsible as my friend. Yeah, of course.

What do you think is the most purposeful relationship you've been in? The one that's—are you going to turn around and ask me the most lifegiving one, too? I got to check; I got to check this question out. Right, right. Both of them. Um, purposeful relationship that I've been in um I'm going to tell you three uh um so one is uh with a girlfriend of mine who taught me to to trust other people. Her name is Denise. Did you not trust people before? Um, I don't know if I distrusted—I didn't just didn't try to trust. I I was I was Queen of “I could do it; yeah, I could do it; don't worry about me; I'm good; don't worry about me,” which we don't think that's lack of trust; we just think that's “I'm a superhero.” You see this? I much—just I got this. I realized if I don't—I think it was a part of no TR, but it was unconscious. I I would never say I don't trust people; I just said, “I got it; I got it; don't worry about me; you're good; don't worry about me; I'm good; I'm good; I'm good.” Sure. So she taught me how to trust. Um, and my ex-fiancé who abused me uh taught me how to fight for my life without fighting with words. I fought without fighting; I fought—I I grew up like this; I grew up like this—and I had to learn how to fight with uh uh strategically. He made me realize how much I wanted to live and how much I had to live for and how willing I was to go out of my Norm to make sure I was around. So. And um my son doesn't fit in purposeful because he's a lifetime, but my son has taught me—I had a consultant come in my company and fraud my company—that's the worst—cost me several hundred thousand dollars, but that's money is just dirty paper; that was that that was the easy part; the feeling of betrayal, the emotional part, yeah, the ego in the way, the resentment. When I told my son—and I'm crying; I couldn't fake it—my son knows him so well; he's 21 now; he can look at me and go, “Mom, something's wrong.” And um I I I was trying to fight it off, and he's like, “Something's wrong,” and I just started balling and crying, and my son took my hand and said, “Mom, let's just pray.” And we're not religious; we're spiritual, but we we we—he was raised praying—and my son started praying for us. And then then he did something that rocked my world: he started praying for the guy. I never—I thought about doing a lot of things to this man; praying was not one. I'm just telling you; my son prayed for him, and my son prayed for his children. Interesting. My son C—C—my cracked my compassion wide open. I started balling even more, but I started crying for a different reason; I started crying cuz I had no compassion; I had no forgiveness in my heart at that moment. It's hard to—when you feel like someone deliberately—inally, we do hard things every D day; we're athletes on top of Life athletes; we're athletes; athletes sign up, get dressed, and go out to hurt. Exactly. I mean, there's many days—play football—I was allowed to physically hurt people, man. There are many days I made a personal phone call to Earl on the side—Earl on the side of the track—I knew when I did 800 breakdown I was going to make a direct line call to Earl. Yeah, exactly. And I signed up for it. So we know hard, MH. I I didn't—as hard as that was—I wasn't entertaining it. So my son is the other person; he's a lifetime relationship, but he taught me—like in that moment—and that was recently; that was in the last 12 months—he taught me, “I don't care how much you're hurting; still open up your heart to compassion; don't ever stop forgetting where they might be that would cause them to live in that kind of dark place. Mom, it's not your job to leave them there; Mom, shine your light on them, even if they don't know it's your light; even if they violated you, you still live in the light. Living in the light is not optional; when you choose the light, stay in the light; you never ever take the train down to Darkness because someone betrayed you; you don't ever leave the light.” That's what he said, basically. That that was powerful, at 21. You know, “Mom, let's pray,” and I'm like, he's praying for him. So amazing. And then—I'm not telling you—life—lifegiving, lifegiving relationship. Um, you know, it was romance for me; it was romance; it was um it was at a time where—is this PG or is this R? What is this? What is—13—Mom, share this with their kids? All all right. All right. Yeah, man, I'm good; I'm I can do PG-13; I wasn't going to do hard—well, thank you. We can bleep stuff. Right, right, right, right. No, no, no, no. I think not—maybe. Um, there was someone in my life, and and still is; he's a great friend, and um it was at a time that um I didn't see myself through the lenses he did; like he saw me far more beautiful than I saw myself, and it and it speaks to a bigger picture that sometimes you have to borrow someone else's lenses and look at your—herself—through their lenses. Um, he was significantly younger than me, and that was a big thing for me cuz I felt like—and he was phenomenally beautiful; he was—it's African-American and French—just a delicious blend; that's all I'm gonna say. Everyone over 21 knows that look and what it means. And um I would look at him and literally lose my breath. Wow. I would lose my breath when I would look at him, and I would watch him look at me and lose his breath, and I kept wondering what he saw. It was the craziest thing; I kept wanting to go—go behind him and look at me, like, you know—I don't know if you understand—but I just wanted to see what he saw. Sure. And I was I was 78 pounds heavier than I am now. I haven't been in this body long, so I'm still um I'm still getting used to being under 210. Wow. So for him to see me so beautiful then—where'd my napkin go? Where'd you sit it? I'm here. We go. You got me there; you got yourself there. Yeah. Well, you you…

Open the door now. I'm curious. I want you to stay in this moment because, uh, you know, I'm curious. How, for it sounds like to me, for a long time now. This is our first time connecting, but it sounds like to me, for a long time. Yes, I hope not. Sounds like to me for a long time you were living in abundance in a lot of areas of your life, but in except the health category.

Absolutely. Absolutely. 100%. 1,000%. And how were you able to navigate that process? The conversation with, I don't see myself the way this man sees me. Other people see me and my body isn't showing who I'm being. Right. It was incongruent. I'll say it; it's a Grown Folk conversation. It was incongruent with who I knew myself to be. It was what I call my kryptonite. We all have it. It was my kryptonite. We all have. Right. Right. Right. A lot of people's kryptonite you can't see. You could see my kryptonite, and I wore it well. If you well, sometimes I had some bad outfits. I mean, even in the book cover, you don't even look like yourself right now.

Right. Right. I I kept I was still in the work. I, you know, they needed a cover shot, and I'm like, okay, I'm in this work of transformation. You can take it now, but that's not who you're going to see when the book comes out. And I was committed to keep going. You've never been this weight. I mean, in the last 20 years, or when I ran track. Literally. Literally. At my book signing last night, I had five people from my high school, and they said, "You are back in high school." Right. Hello now. What? Right. Right. Right. What? So so I it's all over Facebook now with my high school, my high school track members. They're going, "Lisa, this was you running track." I was like, "I know." I mean, actually a little smaller than I was when I, you have to change all the videos on your side by the way, cuz I looked at the videos from before, and then there's a video like you party in the background. I was like, "Wait, who is that? Who that lady that like a f girl?" I was like, "Oh, wait, that's her." Right. Right. Right. You can say fan, fine girl. Um, so you know how many videos I have out on YouTube? So many to replace. No one's going to recognize. No one's going to recognize me. And so, um, appreciate the question. How was I able to navigate through it and and and feel like cuz I was congru-- I know what you're going to say-- congruent. Feel like liar or were like, well, what I said was still in the journey with my health. I'm not G man. I don't want to. Now is that a like a mask or something that you just continue to say for 20 years? Like, no, it was uh, it was it was it was I I thought my weight was just weight. Just I'm not saying it's bad or wrong.

No, no, no, no. I I appreciate the question. No, I I'm I love the question. I I I didn't know what I didn't know. That's number one. MH. So my truth was my truth based on what I knew up until that moment. Yeah. So for years I would say I don't know how to lose the weight because I couldn't be consistent. But for years I just made it about what I ate and what I did, and I never let it be emotional weight. Like when I realized, I don't say I lost weight as much as I say I released it because I wore a a jacket, a 78b jacket, and I didn't know why I was wearing the jacket. 78 lbs. Yeah. Why would you? Oh, you mean I thought you meant literally. No, that was a wait. I thought you meant literally. I was like, literally. I did, but I didn't mean top of the we-- No, no, it was the weight. Like this is who I am. And and but you lost 78 lbs in the last-- I I released 78 lbs, and it took me 11 and a half months to release it. That's great. And so um, but what I didn't realize was that there was an emotional weight that preceded the physical weight, and I put the jacket on 21 years ago for a reason, and I never looked at the reason. What was the reason? You are all in my business, like for real. For real. For real. Absolutely. So I told you my son's father went to prison. MH. And when he went to prison, I put the jacket on. I never acknowledged that I was wildly madly in love with him and that I saw myself with him for a lifetime. And so I put a jacket on almost immediately after he went in. I didn't put all 78 on immediately, but it slowly came on because I actually didn't want to be attractive to anyone else, and I wanted him to come home. And after 10 years, it was a 10-year mark. I realized I'm not going to date him again, cuz in my in my opinion, he was institutionalized or whatever, and I I was I was never a fan of prison. Never fan of people in prison. Never fan. My brother was in prison for four and a half years. Right. Right. I never was a fan. I I didn't go visit him for the first eight years. I only went to visit him when my son said, "Mom, I want to touch my dad." Now I let him talk to his son every single week. Every week. I I was all about fostering the connection. And um, I realized that I unconsciously was trying to hold myself and stay unavailable. Protect yourself. Protect myself until he came home. And in on December 12th of 2014, I called him after leaving the Steve Harvey Show. And on the Steve Harvey Show, I was supposed to coach a woman on relationships, which I got I could do that. Relationships, money, got it. Got it. Got it. At the last minute, she didn't show up or she cancelled, and the woman to replace her, they asked me to coach her on weight loss. Oh, zing. And to drive home the point that you open with, I sat in the Green Room keenly aware that I wasn't qualified to coach her. MH. I would be incongruent if I did so. In the green room, I'm having a slight meltdown. Not good for the couple couple million people are going to watch me be inrent. Well, not good for the expert coach to have a-- Exactly. And I wasn't willing to be incongruent. I wasn't willing. I wasn't willing. I never opened up health and wellness as a deep dive conversation. I never. I said there four quadrants of your life that you need to master. I talked about all four, and I said in the fourth quadrant, I'm in that I'm living that I'm working through that now, the health quadrant. The health quadrant. So here we are. I have to only focus on this quadrant. And and so I committed to her that I would take the journey with her. Oh, interesting. I I I I I put myself out there. I bust myself out. I expose myself. I said, "I can't coach you." Talk about accountability. Oh, I said, and Steve sitting there, Steve Harvey sitting there looking at me like this, "Are you sure what you're about to take off?" She's over there, and he's looking at me like, "What are you doing?" Yeah, and I said, "I can't coach you. I'm I'm I'm over 200 lbs. I don't qualify to coach you, but what I do qualify to do is walk with you." And I said, "So let's do it together. Every Sunday I'll meet you on the phone," I said, "And how about we come back here in 5 months, and I commit in five months I'll be 47 45 pounds lighter." Wow. That's a ballsy commitment. I you know, play bigger. Go home. Of course. And so I did that, and I went home, and I sat still, and I said, "What do I do?" And I started sitting on, "Why did you put the jacket on?" And it and I tracked it back. Track it back. Oh my God. Cuz before then I was an athlete. 13 years. I mean, I was I did track. I swam competition. I was a state champion and City champion and and and freestyle and swimming. I did water ballet for f five years. And so why did I put the jacket on? I looked at it, and so it was because of him and because of my emotions around him. So I called him, and we talked for an hour and a half, and I told him everything. I told him how much I loved him, and I waited on him. I told him that I released him at 10 years, but I didn't know how to release the weight, and that I've been waiting, you know, I just said everything. He cried. I cried. We cried. I I sat with my son. I told my son. I cried. He cried. We cried. And then I was okay to take my jacket off. And then people ask, "What did you do?" Then I did everything I've been hearing for the last 20 damn years. Do I just did it better. You work out. Right. Right. I was consistent. I ate smaller meals. I didn't work out for an hour a day. I didn't do that cuz an hour a day would cost me two hours a day in time, and two hours a day would cost me around about $40,000. Money and time. Time was my highest commodity. Right. And so I made I I consistently agreed to work out 15 minutes a day. And cuz 15 minutes I can do. And every win built on the next win. Every day I completed my goal, which built momentum. I did it. It was just 15 minutes, but I did it. So I was consistent. The length of time wasn't my big deal. It was the consistency. Traveling on planes. I was on the road 321 days. Goodness. The same year I lost the weight. Wow. The same year I lost the weight. It's not easy to lose weight while you're traveling, eating all the junk food. No, no, no. And so I I ate smaller meals. I made my meals in the morning while I was at home. I stayed home for 90 days. I didn't travel. Wouldn't travel for 90 days to jump start my weight loss uh cuz I had to get all 45 PBS before month in five months. And so um, I was radical. I made all my meals, small meals, and I set them the side. I look like all the Little Athletes like you all athletes made meals. And and then I worked out. I slept in my sweat. Sometimes I took a shower and got in my sweats so I can get out of bed. That's the old track days. High school, college workout days. Hard W up. Right. I I can't even think about getting dressed. I'm going to wake up dressed. And then I didn't use any weights, and I didn't go to the gym. I used my body weight. I used my CIO. You had enough of it at the time. I had enough of it. I jump jump Jacks. Jumping Jacks and lunges and crunches. I just said everything I have. I just believed what every trainer said. Everything you have is right here. So that when I did start traveling, I was okay. I conditioned myself. You have the tools to use in the in your hotel room or ever. Oh, listen, let me tell you, I got radical. I was lunging through the airport. Sure. Yeah. I don't care if people see me. You can call me crazy. 15 minutes. You got to get it in. You call me crazy. I don't care if you call me crazy. Do you understand? I'm fighting for my life now. And so um, I went back to Steve Harvey in five months, and I wasn't 45 lbs lighter. I was 57 lbs lighter, and she was 56 lbs lighter. W. And then it became a big conversation. Like thousands and thousands of women began to follow me. Interesting. And so I ize my workouts. I I wasn't trying to be a workout Guru. I'm not that. People still tell me, "Let's do a program." I'm not. I'm not. I'm not the teacher. I'm the student. Yeah. I'm clear. Y'all go follow that person. 10 years after you mastered it. Then I don't even need to do it. I I just need I I'm the student. Watch me as a student. I got ugly workout pictures of me online. Still on Facebook. I got, you know, early morning, you know, crazy shots. And then people want to do shows with me, television shows with me. I don't want to make any money off of it. This was for my liberation. This is so I can tackle all all four quadrants. Do you know how powerful I feel today? Very. Do you know? Right. I'm I'm completely in the line. Thank you. Amen. And hopefully humble and grateful. You know, but now now now game on. Yeah. Game freaking on. Now. Now game freaking on. Now I'm going. Man, I I I built a multi-million dollar business, wrote seven bestsellers, travel the world, all of that carrying two over 210 lbs. All of it. Almost as big as me. All of it. Right. Now. Now what do I do? Now watch out. Now it gets interesting. Now I got to watch out because like young men now don't know quite my age anymore. Like and with my braids and the auburn hair and they like I they're hollering at you. Oh, like you know. And then I'm hanging out at the the Mind Valley conferences and where all the young, you know, amazing entrepreneurs go. So it's funny. I'm tickled all the time. I just laugh and go, "This is funny. This is really really funny." I was walking out. I got to just tell you this. I was walking out of a a a little hole in the wall restaurant in LA, and this guy comes running out behind me, goes, "Excuse me, cutie. You cutie." And I didn't turn around. Like it's been a long time since since my walk has called me cutie. Excc excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. C shorty. Cutie. Call me short. He goes, "I'm a producer, and we're doing a Bone Thugs and Harmony vid uh video." Wow. And we're doing it with fine sisters. Fine sisters who are what did you call it? Mature fine sisters. That's the old that's the old folks f. And I said, "Oh, old lady." She goes, "No, no, no, no. Mature women like in their like late 30s." I smiled. I was like, "Oh, you're so cute." He goes, "Would you be interested in being in a video?" No, baby, but thank you so much for asking. You have made my day. So anyway, it's a it's a new season. Yeah. I'm I'm enjoying it. Loveful. I love it. I want to ask you a few three more questions. Yes. Um, before I do, want to make sure everyone goes and picks up the book. Make sure to check this out. We'll have it linked up also below this and the show notes, but go get Abundance now. If you want to have an abundant life, it gets spicy. Now I got to tell you, it's great. There's there's a lot of stuff I wanted to ask you in here, but you shared so many great stories. I had a lot of things marked off here that I liked. Balance is a myth. Harmony is a must. Rich people think differently. All the different topics you talking about in here um to create Prosperity must create a new relationship with money. I think that's going to be powerful for a lot of people. So make sure to get this book to learn these principles. Where can we connect with you online before ask the final three questions? Yeah, so um, I'm in a season where people ask me what how how did I go from public assistance to going public. My company two years ago went public. Yeah. And so the big conversation, you're the second what is it? The second African-American woman to go of a public company. Is that right? Congratulations. And the only person in the self-development industry today to be the founder of a public health company. I'm grateful. Thank you very much. And so the big question is, how do you go from welfare to Wall Street? How do you go from public assistance to going public, which is a big leap? And there's two big things. One, I I changed my mindset. I picked up a book, which is why I love this book cuz I wrote it. Modeling kind of like the seven habits. Like how did I what did I give them? What did I get? Okay. Then the second thing was I went and I joined a tribe of people that made me stand on my tippy toes. And so I'm uh I'm doing something kind of well not kind of crazy. My CFO says it's very crazy. I've invested over $200,000 to put on two free conferences where you just come. Wow. Like no, there's your book is your ticket like this to get in. And so the way you find out about me online, I would say go to joinLisaFree.com. Okay. joinLisaFree.com. And there it'll give you access to my website, access to you know my programs, how you can be coached if you want to. But I think first and foremost, it gives you access to come and be in my presence at no cost. Like you bought the book, for you bring the book asz your pass. Hold it up. I'm a love on it. And then for nine hours, we're going to talk about bringing concept into action. Like what do you do? That's the benefit. That's the beauty of that day that we're going to come get in action. Like I said, I went to this conference over and over and over again. I want to get you into the same process I did because it worked. But what I what I also love about is that I've gathered some of the best people on the planet to come together in the right mindset of movement to set you up with an accountability Community because I know that when you have an accountability Community, you are 80% more likely to follow through with the dream you said you have. Of course. And so accountability gets me everywhere. And so we're going to have accountability pods, accountability communities that we set up that day. It's going to be so juicy, so delicious. It's going to be confrontive. It's going to be edgy. It's going to be spicy. It's going to be liberating. We're GNA have breakdowns and breakthroughs. It's going to be one of those days. I'm coming for your breakthrough. I am not coming to entertain you, though I can be quite entertaining. I'm coming for your breakthrough. And so I just want to give people what I got. You know, someone said, "Oh, it's like your it forward." And I thought, I never thought like that. I just feel like I'm being responsible with what I know. And someone blessed me with this information and then blessed me. People people poured into me. Louis. People loved me. People saw my light and said, "I'm going to help you, young lady." I mean, white people, black people, men, women, young, old, more older, more older people who had made so much money, had so much success, had such great relationship. All they wanted to do is help somebody else, and I was the beneficiary. That's great. And so this is just here. Let me show you what they gave me. I don't know if you going to meet them, you know. And then come come play with my tribe cuz they're pretty awesome. And so I'm excited to be able to allow 2500 people to just come. I love it. What was the link for that? JoinLisaFree. Okay. Cool. Keyword awesome. We'll have that L we have that linked up as well. Um, okay. Final three questions. What are you most grateful for in your life recently? Oh, when you say most, you make me have to pick one. Um, I am most grateful for my new found health. Amen. I love it. Congratulations. I'm most grateful that my body can now keep up with my life purpose. It's great. It's beautiful. And I'm I I I just have to say this. I would be remiss if I didn't. I'm grateful for my 86-year-old grandmother who was sitting in the audience last night cheering me on, who accompanied me to Jamaica to see me speak, who's coming out tonight to see me speak again. That she's in her right body, her right mind. Able body, a right mind, and she's in my life, and she's able to witness what she helped created. I love it. Thanks. Um, I'm actually going to add one more question. What's something you do every single morning? A ritual that you do no matter where you are, what's happening? What's something you must do? Non-negotiable. Um, I find 10 things to be grateful for before my feet hit the ground. 10 things. And they can't cost money. They can't cost money. Perfect. Do you write them down or you just think about them? Acknowledge them? Yeah, I think about them. I say them out loud. Um, I I speak to them. Some days I a lot of days I do 25, but I won't let myself move.

Until I've done 10 every day, no matter where I am. Sometimes I do it on the plane, cuz I get up really, really early. And so, if I'm at a crocod--down flight, I, I, I, and especially if I'm feeling strained and stressed, I go over my gratitude's list, because gratitude will reduce stress all day long. Of course, I believe in it. Every morning I do three things; maybe we have to step it up to 10. But every night, I always speak it out loud and ask someone what their three things they're most grateful for for the day, and then I'll repeat my three things. So I think it's really important. Amen.

Every six months, I ask my son to measure our relationship. That's power. Every six months, I ask my son, on a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being amazing, one being it doesn't exist, Mom, how do you measure our relationship? And when he measures it, the next question is the most important question. I say, "Son, what would take it from an 8 to a 10? What would take it from a 9 to a 10? What would take it from an 8 to a 10?" Every six months, that's a ritual, powerful, very powerful.

Um, this is a question I've been asking a lot recently: It is the last day for you, sometime way in the future. Yes, all your books have been erased; every video has ever been on YouTube's been gone; everything you've said, the secret is long gone; it's been a race from time, the secret is a secret. Exactly, yeah. Um, and you have all the people that you wanted to be there by your side; you're healthy, happy, but it's your last day, and they say, "Hey, Mom, sister, lover," um, everything's a race that you've created, but we have a piece of paper and a pen, and you get to write down three truths, the three things you know to be true about what you've experienced in this beautiful world. This will be what we, the only, only thing we get to remember you by. I love this question: Three truths by Lisa Nichols. What would you say? What would you write down? I love you. Three truth. I'm not putting you on the spot; I apologize. So what's opening up for you right now?

First of all, I love the spot. I love the spot. I love organic. I love non-rehearsed. It's non-rehearsed is so much richer, juicier. Three truths. Um, my three truths would be that you get a thousand second chances, and every time you get to 9.99, you get to press reset. You get a thousand doovers. That would be truth number one. You get a thousand doovers, and every 9.99 you get to press reset. Mhm. The second truth would be the most valuable possession, commodity, investment that you could ever make and have would be to nourish the people around you that are loving you. Because if it's my last day, then these faces are the ones that matter the most, and these are the people that I somehow invested enough in and gave enough value to that you would bless me with being here on this special day. And then third, make your dash dance. Make that dash between your birthday and this day. M, make that dash dance. Make it rock this planet. Make it unapologetic. Take no prisoners. Play full out. If you're going to run, run fast, run hard, even at the risk of hitting the wall. Make your dash dance. I love it. I love it.

Um, final question before I ask Lisa, I just want to acknowledge you for a moment for coming on and sharing your wisdom and opening up and being present and being loving and committed and for the constant work you've done over the years to not only develop yourself but also develop so many others who are ready for that type of information and transformation. And I acknowledge you for your ability to show up and be honest over the last couple years about, uh, the things that aren't serving you, the things that are holding you back or weighing you down and taking them full on and being committed to all areas of your life, always understanding that it's a work in progress and you're never going to be perfect; neither am I. But for acknowledging it and taking the action, even if it is after many years when people wanted you to do it, it's, it's amazing that you took it on now, and and it looks, you look amazing, you look beautiful, and thank you. Always have been. So I acknowledge you for all the work you continue to do to support so many. Thank you.

I receive that. I appreciate that acknowledgement. And a final question is, what's your definition of greatness? My definition of greatness is living with intention to leave people better than how you found them; to allowing your, your breath to show up and possibly be a change agent moment for someone else; for giving yourself permission to illuminate your light so brightly that if someone is in your presence and they might be in a dark moment in life, that your light brightens their life just long enough for them to see their own possibility again. Greatness is about being willing to be used to your highest level of possibility, even when it's uncomfortable, even when it's unpopular, even when you're alone, even when it's inconveniencing you; you're still willing to lead. E. Nichols, thanks for coming out. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me. This is awesome. Thank you. Hey guys, thanks so much for watching this interview. I hope you enjoyed it. Make sure to share it with your friend, leave a comment and a like below, and also we've got a lot of previous interviews on this channel, so click right here to go watch the previous interviews. And each week we come out with more episodes, inspirational videos and interviews, so if you haven't subscribed yet, click right here to subscribe to this channel. Again, thanks so much for being here, and I'll see you guys soon.