Elizabeth Gilbert on Creating Big Magic with Lewis Howes

welcome everyone back to the school of grain's podcast very excited about our guest it's not Elizabeth it's Liz Gilbert thanks for coming on Hello darling good to see you it's good to see you I've been uh emailing you for about a year now trying to make this happen so we finally I was persistent enough finally made it happen to the restraining orders exactly didn't even sign when I served you papers it's amazing I just finally gave up and here I am and I'm super grateful exactly Bell was like you got to have Liz on sometime about a year ago he was like you got to get her on and so I was like can you make the intro and so we made it happen so I'm really glad you're here in the studio in La awesome Rob is our is our shared brother I know he's amazing yep he's incredible uh and you guys are doing a workshop tomorrow actually which will this will be afterwards that it comes out but um do you guys do a lot of work together workshops and speeches no this is the first thing we've ever done I mean we've we met on to drop a name on the Oprah tour no big deal perhaps you've heard of her um and I had you know we hadn't known each other before that so we did this8 City stadium tour together where we were totally the youngest brother and sister on the family bus ride definitely Amy py was there too right uh no Amy wasn't there oh yeah am party yes of course sorry I was thinking of Amy Cy um yeah Amy was there she just I just had her on the other day fantastic yeah she's great um you know deepok was there aming um El of his a bunch of All Star no big deal it was it was fantastic and I got to watch Rob eight times in a row give a speech that just you know what he does he's amazing like just brought everyone up and then down and then back up and then it was like just watching a conductor work with people's Spirits it was beautiful it was absolutely beautiful yeah he's amazing I had him speak at my uh book launch party I had him open up for me uhuh and just at Wonder L where you guys are going to be doing a workshop actually tomorrow and it was like blew me away so so cool um and I'll be there on Tuesday night are you going to be here Tuesday for his thing no you'll be gone okay cool yeah anyways great guy um but the first question I want to ask you since you just asked me to ask you this we were talking about competitiveness right and you said um there's a difference between competitiveness and ambition right so can you talk about those yeah because you were talking about being very competitive and I'm I am actually not a compeer um I'm not a competitive person but I'm a very ambitious person it's taken me years to recognize how I discern a difference between those two words and they are sometimes overlapping but not always um I think it's rare to be one without the other um but in my case I'm definitely ambitious so to me competitive means I will beat you at everything from thumb wrestling to like who can cross the street faster to who can drink this coffee faster to who can like at whatever the thing is I will beat I must there's only one rule which is what they used to who is the um the horse that they used to say only had one rule and that was that she had to win um that's it that's the only rule of competitiveness right and ambition which is interconnected but can also be distinct means I will be the very highest possible version of myself that I can be and it doesn't have that much to do with what anybody else is doing um you know and so for me the ambition is what is the best writing that I can do and and that's why I don't spend a lot of time looking at it is nice if you can win rankings is and stuff it's so you didn't look when you were like 10 years on the New York Times list it didn't you weren't looking at the list I was so happy when it first like when it first hit there but then no I didn't spend every Saturday morning opening up the where am I now am I and and and I wanted to and it's also yes but that felt like a Personal Achievement but I don't resent the person who then took my spot um you know when my time was over and somebody else became number one I wasn't like it kills me to see somebody else at that position besides me you know um like that doesn't I have I come from a really competitive family and I think from an early age I just felt like this feels slightly dangerous to me um how much everybody cares about beating everybody at everything um I can't even join that sure sure this just feels like too much work right and too much at stake for everything like we're playing you guys we're playing old ma right like it doesn't have to be a Blood Sport you know but but it kind of was Monopoly people are like slaming the God you have no idea Louis you know like everything you know so I think I just opted out of and I was more focused on you know what do I want to be and what do I want to become and and those Ambitions extend for me Beyond just my writing career and into sort of my personal Ambitions for what kind of a person do I want to be what if it's a an athlete or someone that play you know it's great to say well just be the best version of yourself and don't focus on winning focus on whatever being the best but then you're losing all the time that's not going to make you feel that great if you're an athlete playing there's a winner and a loser you know what I mean I would imagine if you are an athlete at a level where it matters um you will not be like me right I mean I mean that's why I'm not an athlete I me and it's I mean I would not suggest that anybody who has any skin in the game in any athletic Endeavor approach life the way that I do because what you need is to I mean look I'll tell you Louis I played Sports I was not bad at sports I played Sports and all through high school I was a letter winner from freshman year in three sports like but and I loved the camaraderie and the teams I love being on the bus yeah you know I loved being outside in the weather I loved all of it except the competitiveness of it and I remember vividly being in a the end of a basketball game and just having this really existential thought I was 15 years old and I remember thinking as I'm just like booking up the court thinking I truly do not understand why it matters which one of these these teams wins I like literally do not understand and all I could think was if I went to shog high school the other school we were playing all these girls would be my friends so why do I care if I beat them because if I was if I were born there then I'd be playing against us you do not want that person on your team leis somebody who thinks like that is not a clutch player you know like that is not an athletes way of thinking you know unless you're a marathon but even then you want to win your Marathon um so would so that's the moment at which I realized that athletic Endeavor was probably not a future for me right right Artistry was probably a better place competitive writing is not either it's it's about being creating your best work that's the idea and the best work kind of Rises to the top essentially hopefully right well and I do think this too I think that um my friend Sarah Jones who's a performance artist who's W you know Tony's and and just fantastic she has a beautiful way of expressing this that she said at the beginning of any creative endeavor there's a highway that I have to be on this is her words not mine I'm paraphrasing she said there's a highway that I have to be on to do this work and along that Highway there's any number of detours and anytime I find myself asking questions such as am I going to be able to win a Tony with this is my agent going to be able to sell this are people going to want this is the audience going to respond to this is this the right kind of work is this what the market is calling for is that she said all of those questions are detours off the highway that I need to be on and any of those questions that I start asking myself at the beginning of a creative journey is going to take me right off that Highway and into this same neighborhood every time and that's in ghetto where they're going to take the hubc Caps off my car and beat me and leave me for dead because it's going to leave me asking the wrong questions and the only question at the beginning of this creative Endeavor is does the thought of making this Illuminate Me Ignite Me make me feel like I can't wait to get up in the morning and give meaning to a life that is otherwise often very difficult if the answer is yes then I'm on the right Road you know um and anything else and any other reason you know um also puts you in I think Hungry Ghost category which is when is it enough you know I was on the I was number one New York Times best seller for a year if all I cared about in my life was being at the top there was a day that came when I wasn't that anymore and that would have been a very bad day for me instead of me being like this journey is amazing and now what am I going to make you know when I wrote the book that came after love my book committed which I still really like that book sold one 1000 of the copies of e pre love if I were somebody who only had to win and I saw that chart that's a plug committed suicide that is a bad chart like that's the opposite of up and to the right that's like a stark and instead I was like I like that book that's I'm I still like that book and now what now what do I want to make you know um because I think you can't stay there you can even get there you know say you're I had this woman write to me this young woman who said I don't think I should be made to feel a shame that I want to be don't just want to be an actress I want to be a great actress I want to be a famous actress and I want to win Awards and I said no one should make you feel ashamed for that I wanted to all those things in writing but just know that if that is your only motivation for doing this satisfaction will never be in your hand yeah because even if let's take it to the top even if you win an Oscar what happens the next year when someone else does yeah right so let sure be ambitious want everything no problem but if you don't have a soul reason to do it you only have an egoo reason to do it then you're setting yourself up for a life of suffering where you will never have enough yeah and someone will always be on your neck coming up behind you and you will never know when to rest in contentment and that just sounds like hell to me yeah it's interesting I was listening to your interview with or not interview but your Super Soul sessions where talked about discovering your passion and how you Liv the life of passion you used to tell people passion passion go find it go follow it Go pursue it um and you said that there was a woman that wrote you a letter talked about how she didn't just know her passion yeah or her passion changes or you know it comes and goes um can you talk about that in regards to what we were just covering yeah I mean I've always had the great Good Fortune of knowing what I love um and I love writing and so my life has been really simple that's all I do that's kind of the definition of a passion right I know it makes your life really easy knew what you wanted I knew what I wanted I liked it I didn't really like you magazines right you wrote short stories very clear it's like this is it here's the path everything else can take a number right like that's always been really obvious to me and so it's also been very obvious to me to go around telling people just do that like you know that thing that you love more than anything just do that right right right like it just seemed like the easiest it seems like good advice and even kind advice right and so after R Pray Love came out I started kind of professionally saying that going on stages and telling people just find your passion do your passion blah blah blah passion passion and then one day I did an event in Australia and when I got back there was a long letter on my wall on my Facebook wall from a young woman who said you know I came I came to your event looking for inspiration and I have to tell you I'm sitting alone in the dark in my room and I've never felt worse about myself than I feel right now because all I've been doing is trying to figure out what that thing is that you're talking about and I'm telling you I don't have one in the way that you define it as that thing that makes you feel like your hair is on fire that you would sacrifice anything for and it's not for lack of looking and it's not for lack of people and people like you are constantly saying to people like me that this is the answer and I and I just feel like a loser and a failure and that I'm interested in a lot of things but nothing that I would die for nothing that I would give my all life for so I know you didn't mean to but you just made me feel feel like the biggest failure and loser in the world and it was such a head turning thing for me leis cuz I was like how many people have I done that to you know and I started thinking about all the people who I know and love and asking myself how many of them could truly say as I can that from the time they were like basically six they had no question about what they were supposed to be doing with their Liv zero but statistically zero maybe a couple but very few yeah and everybody else I know including people who I admire and who I go to when I'm broken down and I want advice like I everyone else's path has looked like a path through a Carnival Fun House you know like trick mirrors and trap doors like um and and trying this and it not quite working and trying that and doing this and so I was realizing like we preach this passion thing in an almost fundamentalist way you know but and I'm a jackhammer when I there's something that I care about and want to do I'm fully focused but what if what if everyone was what a weird and boring world that would be right and so I've now sort of distinguished my mind between what I call Jackhammer and what I call hummingbirds and the hummingbirds are people who cross-pollinate the World by just moving from field to field and pursuit and pursuit and taking ideas from one place and bringing them to another and mixing it up and they're not as they don't get as much attention and credit as Jackhammer because they're not as loud as us leis that's true nothing louder than a jackhammer like once we get going we sort of don't shut up you know and hummingbirds they're beautiful and so it was just this idea there's other ways to be you don't have to be the way that I am f a box or fit in a one yeah and don't let if you don't look if you have a passion of course do it if you don't happen to have one don't worry about it and maybe there's a gentler answer which is follow your curiosity um which is a smaller impulse and a lighter one and a less high stakes one than passion and you don't mortgage your whole house to go follow your curiosity you just try it for a weekend maybe you like it maybe it's something maybe it's not maybe in the end you kind of embroider a very complex beautiful Patchwork life for yourself and at the end of your life maybe you're not at the top of the Heap but you're able to say I did the most interesting thing a human being can do which is to to follow this slight pollen trail of my inquisitiveness for the entirety of my life and through that I cross-pollinated the world and created a beautiful work of art of my own existence that's not so bad you know but it doesn't get a lot of credit in a really competitive pass passion fetishizing Society I get it I get it I guess in that analogy I consider myself like a humming Hammer maybe you know what I mean like uh and I look at I look at everything as Seasons like in the Sports World there's a preseason the SE the regular season the the playoff season then the postseason right right just like in life there's Four Seasons Four Seasons to every sport right and uh you know do them again preseason there's the preseason there's the the season the regular season the play offseason and the Poston postseason okay um and I you know you I prepare myself I go all in on this sport for one season right the preseason we're training mode four or five hours a day getting ready for the regular season then grinding it out then try to make the playoffs season then the playoffs you try to win the championship then afterwards you evaluate in this moment like okay did I fully love this season do I still love this sport this be do I still love writing do I still love this career path I'm on and then in the postseason I reeval do I want to cross pollinate somewhere else and try my curiosity some another sport or another thing or do I go into another preseason right or postseason to lead up to the same sport do you leave you know it's so funny because I always talk about my writing as seasonal as well but coming from a farm background I think of it as agricultural season sure um including Seasons where you leave the field fallow um so that the ground can restore itself yeah Seasons where you don't work um so that you don't overstress sure the uh you know Rob talks about that too lot about like yeah you got to take a break you got to take a break yeah just not train so interesting yeah but I like that it's I like that you Ed that word too because I use that but now I'm going to say I'm in postseason right now from my last book go postseason is just like you're taking a break you're evaluating you're you work on your injuries you recover yeah you heal you heal that's what it is you heal because it's a lot of work you know if Tom Brady um are you a big NFL fan I am a big enough NFL fan to be able to follow along with where you're going what Tom Brady is I do know what Tom Brady is if Tom Brady was playing a SE a game every weekend for the last 15 years he'd be broken down yeah he needs that three months to recover and whatever do whatever he does with Jazelle around the world and travel and it think of new ways to be a jerk I'm met him he actually pretty nice guy pretty nice guy I met him um he's he's one of the most focused guys I've ever met yes he is he is committed to ordinary at his job so good at his job um so anyways yeah he could work on being a better sport but that's all right you know attitude we all have our personality you should talk to you should talk to them about that we all have our own personality sorry Tom if you're listening to this you're very handsome and talented man he is yeah um but it's interesting because I got a lot of people that ask me you know how do I find my passion but I like your response to it it's like maybe just find what you're curious about right now you know my thing is if you have one you'll know it right so you shouldn't if you have one you won't even be asking that because you're already doing it if you don't have one take the pressure of that word off your it's just such a pressure word and and just keep going back to the word curiosity because you do have that yeah you know um and and the thing about curiosity that I think is interesting is how underestimated it is because I think a lot of the times people are missing their their invitations there are all these invitations for transformation and for creativity they're missing them because their eyes are in the wrong place so their eyes are in the sky looking for the clouds to part they're looking for Moses to come down with like you know tablets they're looking for the voice of God they're looking for the big sign because they think that that's how it comes and in fact it's your eyes have to be on the ground looking for the almost invisible trail of breadcrumbs that's the path right and so the breadcrumbs are all around you and people aren't even their focus isn't there it's up in the heavens like where's my sign where's my sign and the other way that curi comes I think is that tiny little almost almost imperceptible tap on the shoulder that asks you if you would please turn your head an eighth of an inch and look a little closer at this thing that you're barely interested in just have the most mild little touch of interest and I feel like people are getting those touches all the time and they're brushing off their shoulders like why are they brushing it because they don't think it's for them ific because it doesn't seem big or important enough um and as soon as that little tap comes and if you even bother to turn your head and E inch and look at it more closely in that moment you're like this isn't a thing yeah this is nothing this is like so small and so insignificant but it is a thing it's the first clue on the scavenger hunt it's the first breadcrumb and the I think the foremost sort of shape of my entire creative Journey has been about being really trusting of that you know like I don't know why I'm interested in this I don't even know what this means right now but I'm going to trust that that's an invitation or the beginning of an invitation and and then I'm going to look for the next tiny little tap and the next you know breadcrumb and so it's not my life hasn't been a series of thunderous epiphanies it's been a a series of tiny whispered invitations every single one of them that I've heard I've said okay let me check this out a little more all right let's check it out and sometimes it's nothing sometimes it's not a thing you know um but it's never wasted yeah you know um so I think there's a wonderful thing I saw recently don't ask for a sign and then ignore it when it comes but I think people don't even know it is one because it doesn't look like the ones in the movies yeah or the ones in the speeches that people give yeah you know it doesn't it doesn't it doesn't have voice of God but voice of God is sometimes like hey buddy right just two inches to yeah you know um just a little flutter in your heart or your stomach just a little bit I trust that with my life I've trusted my life with that feeling what do you think is the biggest thing that holds people back then is it fear or is it pain or is it both or something else it's always fear and fear for Game of Thrones fans out there is the original many-faced God right it's fear has so many disguises that it can take and but I know it by its by its works it shall be known right here's how you know it's fear it's stopping you it's fear um so it's it's how it makes you behave that makes you know what it is so fear can look like fear as we sort of commonly and narrowly recognize it anxiety Panic insecurity fear can also look like apathy um you know a sort of deep onwe that makes a person just be like well it's better it's been done who cares but can look like s what do you mean it's been done like someone's already been there done that so why should I go yeah fear can look like snarkiness whenever I meet somebody who's really acidic and snarky I'm like terrified person right there you know um because all I can do is shred everything that anyone else is doing um because I can't even begin to have the courage to take my energies and point them toward anything fear can look like boredom um fear can look like perfectionism which I call fear in high heeled shoes and pearl necklace trying to be fancy when all it is is terrified fear can look like um self abuse I mean fear you know but but but basically it's if you're not doing it the thing or anything right it's fear has taken a disguise in your life and is blocking you and and I just if you peel off mask after mask after mask of all those behaviors when you get to the bottom of it it's just our old friend hello old friend hello feares it's always that it's always that you know I'm writing a a new book that I just uh started writing called The Mask of masculinity wow and it's about this process of how men but also women now have take on this mask of of masculinity but how men growing up have been conditioned and trained to put on this mask which is a fear-based mask a fear-based mask of looking bad of not being whatever be able to protect people or smart enough whatever it may be and uh it's been fascinating to like dive deep in the research because as an athlete you know just conditioned to never cry in front of people to never show pain or or fear or anything yeah and uh and kind of it's hard to like transition from the sports world into real life and and not carry on those masks at school or when you're relationships with your family or intimate relationships and then how that trains down to the children when men grow up and repeat the cycle so uh it's been interesting to dive into fear and and the mass that we live in yeah and I heard you know there's all those um studies on um is it called what's that fraud fraud syndrome right um the studies CEOs who when anonymously pulled how many of them what percentage of them believe that they're fraud that they're a fraud a lot of them right it's about 87% and the rest I guarantee you are sociopaths wow or lying they're either pathological Liars or so just so narcissistic and egotistical that they believe it that they're like yeah I should have this um give me the helicopter you know um instead of having any sort of fragile M Chocolate part inside that goes did I why are they trusting me with this how am I managing 20,000 people why do they think I know what I'm doing you know and um is there ever a point where we should think that we know what we're doing and be confident and be like yes I am a leader I can lead people even if it's three people to a thousand people yeah I'll tell you I'll tell you a story but it has to be done with here's the example I can give you back to the O tour just because that is how we began but this is also an illustrative story from my life is that when when Oprah invited me to come and speak to 20,000 people in sports stadiums with a Jumbotron and said you know 50- minute speech you know just Inspire everybody like got it done and done like what no big deal oh was that all um you want me to prepare or should I just get up and do my just come there so I spent six seven months working on that speech oh my goodness um because I take her very seriously because everybody who is in that audience trusts her with their entire heart and life and so for her to trust me with her people is a huge Act of trust I want to bring them something good you know and something useful to them and so I mean the way that I practice and I don't read off a teleprompter because it I find it distracting so it's a memorized sort of that's a GI speech and that well it's hours a day of of repetition so I was so and the way I do it is by walking so I walk it into me so I spent months literally months walking hours a day talking walking working on this refining it refining it um so that's part of it is are you prepared right are you preparing have you done literally all you can do right right and then the the day of the first speech came and I was backstage and I was shaking in fear Los I had like imagine you know my knees 2,000 people you know and and Miss Winfrey in the front row like introducing you and be like here over to you us like yes trusting you with you know and watching you with her people who believe in her and who trust her and and I was really like my I was shaking and my hands all those things that happen when you're really scared and I was thinking I was like 5 minutes to go on and I was thinking there are times in your life where the most gracious and Humane gift that you can offer to people is to show them your vulnerability and to let them see that you two are fragile and human and insecure this is not one of those times [ __ ] like that is truly what I thought I TR I was like not today I thought you about to be like no and it was like so clear to me Lewis and it and what I realized was oh my goodness you were not hired today to show them that to be to show like weakness or you were brought here today to model what it looks like to stand in your truth to tell your story in a in a clear voice and to Aspire to claim for yourself some sort of a warrior Heroes Heroes story right like that's what you're that's your job right now do not bring these people who paid a lot of money do not bring them what they already have what they already have is fear insecurity self-hatred un like don't bring them more of don't try to bring them what they don't have and show them what that looks like but show it to them knowing and admitting how scared you are to yourself so how do you do that just by saying I'm scared to no not to me um and I know there are people who' be like you should have just said I'm nervous was like no not today you know like I'll do that in other places but not today and I feel like everyone does that it's kind of like the cop I know that's the new thing I'm so scared right now I'm so nervous and I and I and I was like not no because show them what a steady voice is and show them what it looks like for a woman to stand in her truth and tell her story and Aspire for to create her own Journey right show that model that and but admit to yourself how scared you are because that's integrity for you right so when you say are there is there ever a time to say I'm really good at this I'm great at this I'm perfect for this what I thought was I've prepared for this as much as I can 20 years of work to get 20 years of work to get here Oprah trusted me with this she's not an idiot she thinks I can do this this is your job and you're actually capable of doing this job and it's okay that you're afraid and no you do not go out there and show that and and it was really galvanizing you know it was just like like go do your job you know but do your job without fronting that you're the greatest you know like what doesn't ever humility yeah the humility was my shaking knees were my humility and my acknowledgement of that that's all right it's okay of course you're scared you'd be you'd be a psychopath if this wasn't scary yeah you know but go do your job go do your job you can do it and you can be scared you know what I feel like doesn't work is and it doesn't work for me and some for some people maybe it does is this kind of like pumping in getting yourself up for something by pumping your arms in the there and being like I'm the greatest and the reason it doesn't work for me is because there's this very reasonable Sayan part of my mind that's like well probably not like there's all sorts of evidence that I might not be you're a human being but guess what Louis I'm not the worst either and there's a huge amount of real estate between the worst and the greatest and I'm somewhere in there and I'll take my place in there where I am you know and I'm just happy to be in the game yeah hear you it's interesting I do um you know some speaking every now and then not at 20,000 with Oprah right now but you will yeah yeah but I do a lot of it my own way yeah and um I remember about a year and a half ago just it started to pick up more and I was working with a coach on just my business stuff and I called him like 15 minutes before I was like I'm just a little nervous right now I'm like I'm just I want to do a really great job you know yeah and he's like it's all good but the thing is to focus on you shouldn't be nervous if you're focusing on them when you focus on yourself right then yeah you're going to be nervous on how you look what if I mess up what if I slip What If I Stumble what if I look bad it's all concerned about how you look how you show up instead he's like you know the easiest way to shift out of that is to focus on service and being a service you're not going to look perfect right and people are going to accept you for who you are when you're authentic and real and right and not looking so polish is going to look you know how do you yeah I mean that's the thing that I felt was like you were here to show them go do your job and help you know um serve that's it it so when we come from that place it may not look perfect but it's going to be perfect in that moment there's this poet the poet Mark nepo I was recently having a conversation with him he said something so wonderful he said we live in a culture where everybody's trying to figure out how to get more attention like how do I get more a bigger platform how do I get more likes how do I get more of an audience how do I get more sales how do I get more attention and he said that's not that that's an insignificant question but there's another question which is while you're spending all your energy focused on getting attention what are you giving your attention to you know that's the sole question like what is so worthy to you that you will actually devote your attention to giving rather than getting you know so if you're giving your attention to your audience it's a lot more Beautiful Exchange than you're like AI can I get you guys to look at me right right yes versus what can I what can I get my my friend Glenn and Doyle Melton F sheing you know she said constantly people are coming up to her and saying how can I get a bigger platform on my page how can I get a bigger platform and she says by serving the platform you already have because if all you're thinking about with your platform is how can I get more numbers you're not even paying attention to the people who are already giving you their energy serve them and the rest of it will take care of itself they'll share it they'll talk about you share or they won't and you'll still be in service which is really what is for you know so it's about that giving of attention rather than try to get it what are you focusing your attention on right now um I have a friend who's very ill and um so that is everything right now um there isn't really a lot left for anything else and it's very clarifying in a way um Rob said I called him on the day that I found out and he was like it's amazing how everybody's always looking for their purpose and meaning and then something like this happens and suddenly it's so obvious yes like this is what you're here for now is is to serve this person you know um so honestly like don't really care about anything else right now um I mean I'm sort of whatever energy is left over I'm sort of giving out sure to the world as I can but that's everything right now okay yeah awesome um what I'm interested in is you've given a I want to talking about fear in a second so remind me if I forget if I remember but um you talked about this one of your speeches and how you it might have been on Oprah or Ted Talk I think how you achieved like this this big Monumental thing this book eay love eay what now who now exactly you achieved this big Monumental thing right and and then you talked about how you're like okay my greatest work is probably behind me I think I remember you mentioning saying that yeah certainly my most successful work most most well-known maybe it's not your greatest because you're going to create great work and it may be greater but the world will look back and be like she did that thing yes my the first line of my obituary has been written right exactly yeah so how do when people you know there's these big celebrities or people that achieve like overnight success with content or books or whatever it may be right athletes superstars who win championships early on right what advice do you give to people who make it big at a certain point and realize that wow maybe I'll never win the championship of whatever I'm doing again or achieve that achievement again right Oscar whatever it may be right how do people move forward after that cuz there are a lot of high Achievers on here as well as people that are trying to figure out how to get you know turn their passion into their profit and make it a reality yeah but I think it's equally as important to figure that out so for me it's a mathematical equation which is weird because I don't understand math but I do have an I do understand oh my God but you know what this is is the only way that I could see this that made sense so you know what absolute value is absolute value numbers you remember this at all okay so you're talking to a guy who barely passed look I barely did either but I actually like so an absolute value I can't believe I'm about to try to explain a math okay so there's zero right Zero's in the middle and then there's positive numbers and negative numbers right so there's positive 10 and there's negative 10 okay right so one of them is worth positive 10 points the other one is worth minus 10 points but the distance that they those two numbers are from zero is the same well 10 and 10 10 and 10 gotta if you've measured inches they're each 10 inches away from Center yep right so that's an absolute value so they have the same absolute value as which is how far they are from zero right I can't believe I'm explaining math makes sense to me Squad goals um okay uh so what that means in our personal lives and I think in our professional lives and artistic lives and everything is that zero is where you are doing it's what I call home and my definition of home is the place where I am doing the work I love for the right reasons um beh and that's integrity that's ethics that's the devotion that I bring to my creativity that's treating the people around me correctly that's just my ethical home is at zero and sort of and my creative home is at zero writing is my home um it's where when I'm at work that is when I'm writing a book is when I feel my most authentic it's when I'm the least full of [ __ ] I'm alone in a room and it's just me and this thing that I've always loved and I'm giving it my it's what I'm giving my attention to right I'm not thinking about critics I'm not thinking about Book Sales I'm not I'm just doing me this idea alone that's my home right so failure great failure let's say isga 10 from zero right when you fail and you're shamed and you're cast off into the darkness of you know public and bankruptcy divorce you know uh addiction exposure like just any is we're going to put that at negative 10 um we don't want that we all agree that's we try to avoid that that that has we can't always avoid it right if you're in life these things are going to happen right success is positive 10 right we all want that we all want to go over there like bright lights and and and acclaim and praise and money and women and fast cars and and like attention and trophies that's all at positive 10 right but if you look at it and if you look at it just from a numerical value obviously positive 10 is a lot better than negative 10 yeah if you look at it from an absolute value they're exactly the same distance from zero and where I want to be is at zero because zero is my stable ground where I can do my work from a place of integrity and ethics and devotion and and curiosity and interest where I'm following my path right so success can seem so appealing but if you're not aware of what your zero is where your like where your steadiness is it can throw you just as far away from yourself as failure yeah and so great success and great failure are both on an absolute value scale equally dangerous right and this we know this because look at the cautionary tales of everybody we know who gets out into great success and they might as well have been flung instantly to1 because they're so far from their Center and so the work that you have to do so what happened to me after he pray love is I found myself at positive 10 positive 100 probably then yeah it was pretty crazy and so what I had to do was the same thing exactly the same psychological and spiritual work that I used to have to do whenever I got rejected in the seven years before I got published and these rejection letters that would throw me in a negative 10 right no one's ever heard of me nobody cares about me I've been trying for seven years to get this published I just got rejected again I'm never going to be anywhere I'm going to be a diner waitress forever that's Nega 10 and the work that I have to do back then is the same work I had to do at positive 10 which is come back home to zero what does that look like conversation where's your home Liz and the answer is get back to work writing get back to work get back to work at the thing that you do that makes that you care about more than you care about yourself in a way than you're more than you care about but your ego your successes and so after Eat Pray Love the only way I could break the spell of positive 10 was to go back in my room alone and write another book um knowing that it would never be and mean nothing I'm ever it's not possible l i the kind of good thing about Eat Pray Love Too is such a tsunami that it was such a Black Swan that it's like you don't even have to try to do that again I didn't try to do it the first time right I I've written every single you didn't think about that you didn't say I want this to be a big success and be a big like everything I do to be I mean you want people to read sure of course I mean if I have a choice between positive 10 and negative 10 I'll go with positive 10 but I'm not in control of the outcome I'm only in control of my state the work my work and my process and my ethics right my integrity and my ethics and when you're there as I said in that Ted Talk the Hurricanes of outcome can come and go failures the hurricane of failure can come the hurricane of success can come you just keep coming back home to what you're to be doing with the spirit that you're meant to be doing it and you'll be fine you'll be fine um and that's why I'm not doing cocaine off strippers boobs I don't even know if that's like what I would trying to think about the female equivalent that would be but that's why I'm all right you know what I mean that's why I have my old friends that's why Magic Mike's chest EXA that's why I don't have two albino tigers like my right like that's why I'm all right um just have the one many times you know I mean that's it's like come back just are you home are you home at zero at equilibrium are you doing the right work from the right place with Have You released the outcome are you serving rather than are you trying to give attention rather than getting it then you're all right did you feel like you were ready for what came after the book do you feel like the attention I mean must have been so much attention and everyone opportunity opportunity like press yeah Ridiculousness right I was as ready as I could be and the really good news was when it happened which was fourth book not first right um in my good marriage not my unstable chaotic marriage 34 not 22 you know um after years of therapy not before after spiritual journey to India not before in a way the writing of e pre love and the living of e pre love prepared me for the what happened with eay love interes um you know so that what happened after it was so interesting I've said I've tried to explain this before but I feel like people say to me God it must been so crazy for you what happened after he PR 11 and I always want to say my life was crazy when I was in my 20s you just didn't know me then I made it crazy myself because I was doing all sorts of crazy things right emotionally Mally emotionally mentally like codo relationship like all kinds of just craziness and immaturity really you know and you might have looked at me then and I might have looked like somebody who had it together or had a normal life but I was actually just a tornado right by the time me PR love came out there was a tornado going on around me because of the reaction to that book but I was not the tornado you were more grounded I was all right you know and it was and it also I mean there were things to adjust to there were parts of it that were times where I you know said yes to too many things and had to learn like okay don't do that again right right this place that you're in is not good being this stressed this tired and feeling like you're being eaten by by everybody like that's no good um but yeah you know I I was all right and I had good people around me and um I was living in a tiny little town in New Jersey which was a very safe place to be people used to come there was this period at like peaky Pray Love where people knew I lived in that town and they would come to the diner and ask the diner waitresses does where's Liz Gilbert's house and the diner waitresses would point across the bridge to Pennsylvania and be like okay so you go over that bridge and you go like 20 miles over those mountains and they would just send them out of town on my behalf wow um cuz it was such a loyal Community to me was Was it crazy though I mean it was just for a little while but it's not like Kardashian level that's crazy but um and it was also you know the there's also something that would happen that people think is crazy but I didn't experience this crazy where people would come up to me on the street and say this must sound insane to you but I feel like I know you and I would say that doesn't sound insane to me because I wrote two Memoirs in a row and told you literally everything about like the reason this feels weird is that I don't know you so that's the imbalance yeah would just say I don't know you so why don't we just go right to that why don't you tell me who you are and where you're from and what your life is because you already know you actually really do already know everything about me you know and I didn't think they were crazy to feel that way it's not their fault that I wrote two Memoirs in a row I'm the one who put it out there can't I can't you can't do that and then be like I don't want attention right yeah it's like you know I reveal some of my biggest secrets on my podcast and people listen every week that's when they meet me they say you know I feel like I know this and this this all these things about you and I appreciate you opening up yeah it's kind of like a living Memoir I guess in the podcast so and that's all right you did that yeah with your own valtion and your own agency nobody came and stole your journals and published them exactly you know um you know I decided to put that out there you decided to put that out there and um and I get it and there's people who I feel like I know um I've had that experience where I meet somebody opra right um yeah we all feel like we know Oprah right what is it about her that so many people that like gives you this energy thought about her why are so many people attracted to her why is she so different than everyone else she's better than everyone else not being competitive here no I mean she's the most impressive human being I've ever met um you know and I what is it she's she has managed I said this to her once I said you never let your greatness get in the way of your goodness um so what it starts with with her is an essential goodness and she has 360 Dee empathetic view of every room that she's in she's aware of everyone in that room and their state and um there's a story I've told before but I find it so remarkable when we did that tour there was a young girl who came with her parents and she was there as a guest of the makea Wish Foundation teenage girl so she was there with her mom and her dad her little sister was probably about nine and this girl was about 15 and I don't know what her condition was but Louis she was there with the makewi foundation right said something she's very ill you know like obviously something's not right not good with this she's a young person who's either very sick or dying right and and she her wish had been to come and meet Oprah Winfrey to come to this event so Oprah went on stage at one point and just said In This Very poised and beautiful way she took a moment and said that we have a special guest in the audience today and I can't remember her name you know just make up a name she's like you know this is Kelly she's here as a gift of the mega Wish Foundation and and can you stand up and she put the spotlight on her and everyone's like weeping because they don't even know but they know like you know everyone knows what that means and that alone was beautiful generous empathetic Humane that's Oprah right but then she did something after that that I was like oh that's why you're you and nobody else is you she said um we have another very special guest in the audience today and I was so honored to be able to meet this young woman backstage and talk to her and she reminds me of myself at her age she's loves reading and she's passionate about school she loves music and she loves to dance and she is really interested in animals and she just the most vivacious spirited young woman I've ever met and that's Kelly's little sister and she puts the spotlight on the 9-year-old who's the little sister of the girl who's very sick and I was like oh my god of course that kid gets no attention right of of course that kid gets no attention so all the focus is on Kelly Kelly's got the glamour of you know and Kelly's very ill and her probably requires a huge amount of attention because she has a serious disease of some sort but she also has the glamour of suffering around her and this kid has probably just been as much as doesn't mean her parents don't love her they just don't have time and energy they have a very sick daughter and I was like oh my God and that little girl stood up and she put the spotlight on her and she was just beaming like she just like took up the whole Arena she's like hi you know she like and for Oprah to say you remind me of myself oh my gosh you know like you remind me of myself you're just like me you're great like that's why you're opro Winfrey I mean it's good enough that you did the first step but you saw the next thing that nobody else would see and and that's again not about how am I getting attention but who am I giving attention to and I see her do that in every room that she's in you know just pick the person who isn't getting the attention and see them wow you know and make them feel seen and and that's why she's her and nobody else is and because I think after a certain level people stop giving attention and only try to hold on to the attention that they have or get more you know what's interesting as I asked Rob uh we were having breakfast the other day I said what's one question you haven't asked Liz that you've always wanted to ask her which you guys have an incredible relationship I'm sure you guys have told each other everything but I said what's one question that you'd want to ask and his question was how does she go into every room and see people for who they are and give them the most attention okay now I'm going to [Laughter] cry a so um I thought that was interesting I don't because I want to because I want to um and you know you were asking about that's so sweet of him to say that um you were asking him about he's he wants to know how you do it how by wanting to by wanting to um you know you know uh why else would you walk into a room yeah right like what other motive would you possibly have what other reason is there to meet a person than to try to see them you know um I'm interested in us yeah we're really weird we are we're really weird these monkeys these monkeys with these supercomputer brains on this planet spinning 69,000 M hour through space who have a cons of divinity what all of us are that I want to know what that what that is you know and I think actually really one of the if there was a painful thing about e pray love it was that the number of people who were in the room was suddenly so big that I couldn't do that in every room anymore without me being exhausted by it so it's taking too much of your energy I'm not a natural boundary Setter to put it mildly yeah I mean you let me pick you up right way so I first thing I said to you was who's this guy up and the first thing I said to you was use me you were like what do you want me to what do you want me to pitch you know what do you want me to promote yes on this podcast I was like I'm here to serve you and your people use me like I don't so I had for me to have to set boundaries is very painful I'd rather not I mean I really would rather that we were all just Golden Retrievers in a pile you know like so it's not easy for me to um say no to people and it's not easy for me to say I can't give you everything you want I'll certainly try um but I did this thing that was so cool when I was on tour for big magic I often find that I shut down there's a part of me that shuts down on tour because it's so much energy going out yeah and I was going on this four Monon long tour and I thought I don't want to be shut down I don't want to just be in P like autopilot I don't want to have my screen saver on I want to be awake and alert to what Rob always calls the action is here like your life isn't happening sometime in the future it's happening right now in this room with whoever you're with um and so I made this goal that every single person that I met everyone that I met on my tour I was going to ask them what are you most excited about in your life right now with this idea that amazing that this is the question I asked anyone knew that I mean really I asked them this question it's such a good question because I feel like people always ask the wrong question they ask where are you from what do you do there's no way to learn less about some than to ask people those two questions it's instant learning nothing about somebody I'll either say what are you most grateful for in your life recently uhhuh or what are you most excited about in your life right now that is so cool and I feel like that brings the most joy out of people well you get right to it the thing they're excited about or what do you yeah and right to the person that's crazy you said that that's so funny I didn't know you asked those questions that's funny cuz that's about being interested in you know what they're all about too and the answers are amazing aren't they unbelievable um like that my favorite one on my tour was this young woman doing my makeup before a morning TV show and it's exactly the kind of interaction that is normally not not an interaction um which is we we're so in David White the poet says the most interesting thing to him about human beings is that we're the only species on the planet who can choose not to show up um like can choose to not even just be there like all animals are totally where they are at all times like the hawk can't be like I'm I'm just not gonna do I'm G to be a hawk today like a fish can't just be like I have had it up to the teeth with being a fish I'm just not even going to show up like humans can do that though and be like I'm not even going to I just can't you know um and so there's all these human interactions that we have with people where there are two people who are just both not there um you know and and so for me getting my makeup done before morning TV with this young woman who'd been there since 3:00 a.m. at the studio and me on a long tour that's exactly the kind of interaction where two people can be doing this incredibly weirdly intimate thing where she's like a quarter of an inch from my face painting me and not be there and she's not there I'm not there like that is weird on your phone yeah I'm planning what I'm going to be saying and she's thinking about when she's getting off work and here she is like so physically intimate to me and we're both not in the room like that's incredible right so I said what do you can I ask you a question and she's like just sort of dead eyed tired she like I said you know what are you most excited about right now and she went they just found water on Mars like literally like that and she's like this is changing everything about the whole history of human colonialization and migration and my grandchildren are going to live in outer space and this changes everything about climate change and this and she's a total space geek wow and I was like you have no clue we could have sat here for a long time before we got to Mars you know but we just jumped right into this really weird very specific thing and suddenly we were both there like two human beings in a room together life meeting life right and it's a moment you remember I'll never forget her it was awesome and and then I wanted to know everything about her feelings about Mars and why shees and what she's all about and then I used to have a friend who was a wine maker and he used to say you know wine is alive it's a you know it's living cultures in there and when you're drinking wine it's a moment where life is meeting life a living thing is meeting another living thing and he said there's nothing better that you can do with your time in all circumstances than to create scenarios in which life can meet life and that question is a really good way for life to meet life what are you excited about what are you grateful for that's a good one too I think it CU it's the re I I mean I live in gratitude that's my life like the morning moment I wake up to if you ever call me on my cell phone I don't pick up the my voice message says tell me what you're most grateful for first then I'll reply to you to just meeting people I'm constantly evoking it because you know it's hard to be angry and grateful at the same time it's really hard to be frustrated and pissed off at life and it's impossible to be generous oh yeah without being grateful absolutely impossible I've never met a a a generous person who doesn't live in gratitude and I've never met a stingy and ungenerous person who has any gratitude in them at all right impossible it's always what's lacking what's not good enough I don't have enough so how can I possibly share yeah you know interesting interesting who taught you that or did you teach it yourself you know life just life yeah I mean I was really miserable for a long time just like inside like I was so driven and focused to achieve cuz I thought that was going to bring me acceptance yeah and I would achieve everything I ever wanted and feel so lonely and like oh so you get this you win the trophy and then and I was like then you're like what am I suppos to do the most angry nasty person like 10 minutes after like every Big dream I ever achieved when I was like my teens and 20s yeah and I was just like why am I so frustrated and angry and defensive and guarded by like achieving everything I ever wanted yeah and then I started to do the inner work and realized that's why the mask of masculinity I'm diving into this topic I love that you're doing this to talk about over the last 3 four years three four years I've really been like shifting and realize wow like I've been doing it to gain acceptance as opposed to to create what I love and Inspire and to serve wow so now everything's shifted to service it's what it's my motivation behind giving and creating and yes I want to be a New York time bestseller and Achieve these things go and you will who doesn't exactly but I want to Ser but in yeah and and in that service process after and during exactly so in the process like life is just transformed that's amazing yeah just being aware of it and then taking cuz I listened to your interview with Rob and I know you talked about that whole Evolution um that's so cool so it's been fun I mean I'm still doing a lot of the work I'm not perfect by any means but what you're not done you're still alive and you're not done still alive yeah exactly life will make sure that you're not done exactly but gratitude for me it's like uh you know it's in the morning I write it down you know during the day I just talk about it I ask people I evoke it as much as I can yeah and then uh at night I'll tell my girlfriend you know I'll ask her what are three things you're most grateful for and I'll share what I'm grateful for from just the day and I feel like it's again it's really hard it's really hard to be angry or resentful or pissed off of like a hater or whatever like if you didn't achieve what you wanted to to dat it's like still a lot to be grateful for so much good that's happening to us you know that practice of three things a day that you're grateful for has been shown to be I'm know you know this but it's shown to be one of the very few immediately concrete ways that you can totally change your life into a happier life it's like just and it can't be abstract like yeah I'm just going to try to have an attitude or gratitude it's like write that [ __ ] down write it down tell people and evoke it out of people it down cuz it makes you have to find it see it and realize it yeah be aware of it yeah um what's missing in your life right now wow what's missing that's very hard to even think of um is there anything missing yeah I mean there's nothing missing in my life there's things missing in who I would like to be who's that you know um I would love to be less judgmental I would love to be more forgiving um those two things go hand in hand um I would love to have no anxiety um so what's sometimes missing is peace and trust but less and less like less and less I have like I'm at the most peaceful and trusting place in my life now that I've ever been yeah um and I see where we can just keep going with that you know um what do you think is going to take for you to achieve that or or or be that more money isn't that hilarious I'm just joking but like do you see how dumb that sounds it sounds stupid like yeah I mean if I want to be a more forgiving person I'm just going to have to have a bigger income you know and I'm going to have to have a much much better house and then I think and then I think I won't judge others as much I think it'll make me Kinder and and softer and less you know less less self what what it's going to take I'll tell you you know I think what it's going to take is is paying attention you know keeping that at the you know bne Brown always just keep your shadow in front of you where you can see it um because you want to you know keep an eye on it if you if you if it's behind you it's going to be doing all kinds of of crazy stuff to you that you can't see um so I know that this is my shadow work um and and I think forgiveness especially um is my shadow work I can't I and the way that I want to work on that I have a lot of to come at it from many angles but one is to spend as much time around people who are really good at it I mean the thing about the thing I feel about our families and where we come from is that I realized this the other day because somebody said to me well you're really lucky because you grew up in a family where creativity was encouraged you know so lucky you you get to go be a writer cuz your family didn't squash your creativity and I thought you are absolutely correct about that you know and if I'm going to be creating a gratitude list for things that I'm grateful for one of the things I'm grateful for is that my parents did not squash my creativity and that was that's amazing because a lot of families do and I am and they my parents were good at that and they got that and there's a lot of other stuff that they got and they were good at too however they didn't get everything and there was a lot of stuff they were not good at at all they weren't perfect they were believe it or not and then you know they were also raised by people who didn't get everything and who didn't have all the pieces of the puzzle and who had serious gaps right and so my parents like all of our parents gave me literally everything they could yeah based on what they had you it is not possible for somebody to give you something they do not themselves possess it's not possible and so there were certain lessons growing up that I never saw modeled for me only because they didn't know how to do it right you know um if they knew they would have shown me the way they showed me how to be creative the way they showed me how to be self assured like there were certain things that they were really good at showing me what they weren't able to show me because no one showed them was how to be forgiving how to be at a certain level generous um because there was like a lot of scarcity anxiety in my family um they weren't able to show me how to be honest in certain circumstances that require a very brave honesty because there was a lot of conflict aversion and so there were a lot of things that were never discussed and said because they didn't know how um none of this is about blaming them you can't blame people for not giving you what they didn't have you know and what I wanted to say to that and I was sort of able to say to I was trying to explain this this woman who said you're so lucky that you were given this and I'm like yes but I didn't get like these 10 other things and what I've done as an adult is to go become a student of those things I didn't get because all over the world are people who have to offer what my parents didn't have and I've become I go sit at their feet and I say show me Teach Me model for me how to do this thing that was not modeled for me when I was a child because now I'm a grown ass adult I can go look for that thing I'm not going to sit around at my age and be like nobody ever told me how to be honest so when I'm going to go find the most honest people I know and say walk me through how you just did that interaction where you were so kind but also so straight with somebody about your truth and your feeling because I've never been able to do that so can you just take me back and just literally stepbystep like Elementary addition show me what that looks like when you do that you know and show me how you just forgave that person who I watched you talk me through it like it's tough it is tough but there are people who know things that I don't know and you can go be near them and you can ask them questions and you can learn and what I wanted to say to this woman who was like I my family didn't teach me how to be creative so I can't be creative was like go [ __ ] learn right or buy a book go to the bookstore there's a whole thing Rob always says this whatever your ailment or missing pieces are there are professionals who can help you with it like go get a creativity coach take an art class or just sit there for the rest of your life saying nobody ever let me be creative when I was a kid so hands up in the air nothing I can do about it go be a student yeah you know go be a student so these pieces that I'm missing in me my life's goals are to be a student you know like I tookan Le an 12we forgiveness class wow you know like I listened six times to Rob's podcast his four podcast in a row on forgiveness I was like I did the homework it's like I will show up and try to fill these gaps rather than being like damn it mom why didn't you give me everything I needed right you know why because no one gave her everything she needed you know but one thing my parents did teach me was how to learn so it's a great skill go learn yeah it's a great skill you know go go learn yeah you know um I didn't get all I'm assuming you got everything you needed from your family of origin everything they just filled in the whole story the thing they did give me which is probably similar to your story is they gave me belief they told me that anything I wanted to do is possible and my father and my mom were just like whatever your dream is go for it like we fully support you no matter how crazy it is that's great no matter how you know whatever is you know they also got divorced and were a lot of emotional conversations constantly growing up my brother was in prison for four years when I was eight years old so I didn't have any friends during that time because no other parents would let their kids hang out with me um and you know I was sexually abused I was raped when I was five by a man that I didn't know so there was a lot of things that you know shaped my mindset early on but my father and mom always said they always told me how much they love me and said you can do anything you want and that's a pretty good fundamental and it's still that belief in me yeah and out of all the kids in my high school and college I went to three different colleges there's so many kids that I know who were afraid of me when I went after my dream after college that didn't want to talk to me anymore and I was like why am I being like why do no one want to talk to me or hang out with me when I'm going after what I want and I realized because a lot of them didn't have that Foundation that they were able to go after what they wanted so it felt really foreign and they were just like yeah they were kind of trying to take me down or bring me back to where they are and just the comfort zone we call that tribal shaming right and I was just like powerful thing so I had to lose all these friends but I was like I'm not going to sacrifice my dream and learn what my gifts are yeah yeah to please 20 people or whatever it is you know that were my closest friends yeah and a lot of them have come back around years later and actually help ask for coaching and I've helped them with businesses and come back together but I had to have like the courage to leave and be alone again essentially wow and just believe like hey this is what my calling is do you think your being alone as a child when your brother was in prison you didn't have any friends sort of prepared you for that sense of is I mean all through elementary school middle school high school I was like very like a lot of inner turmoil just felt like alone all the time M yeah and it's what made me early on it was what made me so driven to prove people wrong like yeah I was picked last on sports teams that's hilarious Elementary you guys I'm sitting across room LS and yeah I'm just saying who did you go to school with like Goliath and Hulk who were like the first the first ones picked on every on every team I was like theall I was like the tall skinny like goofy looking kid right who was always like in the special needs classes because I didn't do well in school the reason but now you understand absolute value exactly the reason I created this reason I created School of greatness was because I didn't do well in school but in sports I loved learning and I loved like the principles of getting to the achieving your dreams so I was like what if we could create a different type of school that's so cool I love it the principles that actually help us feel the most fulfilled the most loved most worthy the most accepted School of greatness so um any we're getting off track here no we're on track we've never been more on track there is no off track I want I want to be respectful because you said about an hour we're about an hour five in all right you want to get another one more question in because then I got to go over see brother Rob I know I know I know so I was just like man I could go for another hour but I want to make sure can I ask three more all right I'll try to ask answer them quickly although that is not perfect perfect perfect I want to be respectful your time this is your last if you're good we can we can finish no we'll do it we'll do it a friend of mine just I I told her I'm going out to California I'm doing a speaking event she goes every event with you is a speaking event am I right am I right um but yes we will I will you ask and I'll try to be do lightning round perfect perfect cool okay if there was a we'll have to come you have to come back on then another time CU I have many more questions oh you're lovely next time I'm out in in LA in La perfect my new second home apparently there you go like the LA now yeah it's good good box um if there was a uh a word or a phrase that you had to Mike Tyson your face and putto on and it would had to be in Reverse so that when you walked in the mirror it would reflect and you could only you could see it essentially what would that word or saying be well I already mik Tyson it on my well it's not mik Tyson it it's the opposite of it I did it that's the literally the opposite of a Mike Tyson tattoo it's a white ink tattoo on my wrist can you read it stubborn gladness that's it that's cool stubborn gladness it's from a poem by my favorite poet Jack Gilbert in a relation um where he says we must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of the world um and I think that's everything it's not denying that the world is a furnace it's just saying you put your shoulder up against it with your optimism that's cool you're heliotropic like these Sun you turn your face to the light and you put that stubborn gladness in that's cool I like that I like that I might just go do that there you go right on the forehead the forehead reverse like ambulance you know exactly exactly I like that um this is what I call the three truths okay question now I didn't I didn't uh prep Liz for this so this will be off the cuff which I'm sure you'll be fine um let's say it's the end the last day for you many many years from now however much longer right many many years you've written many other big hits movies books anything you've wanted to create you've been able to write the story right now and create everything to Hamilton exact right right whatever it is you want to create you've created it called Jefferson uhhuh and um the last day it's a you know it's peaceful everyone knows it's the last day for you and everyone's there everyone who care about is there and uh for whatever reason everything's been erased big magic all the books everything plays whatever movies gone MH and uh your great great whatever comes up and says um here's a pen and a piece of paper Liz Can you probably call you Elizabeth they call me anti- grandma actually anti grandma Yeah I have step kids and their grandkids call me anti Grandma there you go there you go anti Grandma uh here's a pen and a piece of paper and there's nothing else to Remember You by because it's all been erased um but you can write down three truths the three truths that you know from everything you've learned all your experiences what would you would pass on to us to be the biggest lessons principles any two lips combined make a better shade number one there's only three wishes the never put water on a grease fire two and [Music] um red wine stains on a white couch are never coming out everything else can be reversed every other mistake you make in life can be reversed except that one really um uh but in but a more Earnest thing is um keep your side of the street clean um don't make yourself smaller to make other people feel better about themselves and avoid romantic entanglements when you're too young for them um it's the really like I feel like the biggest obstacle which of course it turn into you know turn into eay love but the you certainly the one piece of advice and truth that I always give to young women especially is do not be too hasty to attach your life to somebody else's life do not be too hasty to attach your life to somebody else's life and and focus on creating your own journey and your own identity because there is a terrible habit that women have the minute they are attached to somebody else is that they become that person's helper um and they live in service of that person's dream rather than their own and so just stay away from it for a while just get just back right out of that bar just like you know like if I could go back in time which I wouldn't do because I don't want to undo anything that's brought me here hanging out with you in this room right now is so good right like why would I want to take any piece of that out or else none of us are right here but in all the parallel universes I'm going back you know in 1992 on 1 Avenue in ten Street and I'm about to walk into this particular bar and I'm just picking myself up off that sidewalk and I'm putting myself in a different direction um because I'm not ready to do what I'm about to do with the guy that I'm about to meet in that bar you know um and and I'm just going to go to library instead go to the library and and learn Italian instead I'm just going to go do something else instead I'm not getting married 24 in my next life you know um so that those are those are my three Noble Truths but the thing about the lipstick is totally true I like that um very cool well I've got one final question uh and before I I ask it I want to make sure everyone goes and gets this book it's called Big magic creative living beyond fear so make sure to check this out we'll have it all linked up on the show notes here in just a second and make sure to uh follow you online where do you like to hang out the most on social Facebook Facebook um I'm Bert Liz and I'm fa a lot I have a beautiful Facebook Community perfect yeah so go hang out there tell her what you thought about this interview send her love over there but also on Instagram Twitter everywhere else too yeah I'm all over the I'm all over the social media I like it I like it um before I ask the final question I want to acknowledge you for a moment Liz uh I acknowledge you for your incredible joy for your incredible heart your spirit and for your ability to see so many people for who they are and what uh brings them Joy the world so I acknowledge you for consistently showing up even after such big wins and serving people in such an amazing loving way because you could easily write off and write people off but you have an incredible heart from this last hour just connecting with you and uh it's just an inspiration to so many so you are so lovely now I want you to pick me up again yeah I will I will I will that is so so sweet okay I know this is probably going off script but can I acknowledge you for showing people how to be a student sure you know like starting with your story of being dark and angry and disenchant disenchanted and obsessed with achievement and never satisfied and finding a way to live from a place of gratitude and now taking the mask of masculinity off which is going to be such a community service it's going to be such a community service for you to do that for so many men and women and families so keep doing what you're doing thank you I will oh I was going to fist bump you but I'm getting a full double Bill Clinton [Laughter] handshake um final question is what's your definition of greatness goodness Liz Gilbert thanks for coming on appreciate it thank youate you you are the greatest and the goodest hey guys Louis how here and thanks so much for checking out this video and this interview I hope you you loved it if you did make sure to leave a comment below and share this with your friends also I've got a huge announcement the summit of greatness is coming very soon if you love the school of greatness podcast if you love these interviews and you want more you want to connect with some of these speakers in person you want to connect with me and other people just like you who watch and listen to these interviews then make sure to sign up for the summit of greatness go to Summit ofg greatness.com to learn more you can check out more about the video that we have that we created for the summit there's a link in the description below as well it's Summit ofg greatness.com check it out right now I hope to see you there and again thanks so much for watching this video

Channel: Lewis Howes

Views: 190,844

Keywords: liz gilbert ted talk, liz gilbert super soul sunday, lewis howes, the school of greatness, elizabeth gilbert, elizabeth gilbert ted talk, elizabeth gilbert oprah, elizabeth gilbert big magic, elizabeth gilbert interview 2016, eat pray love, motivation, inspiration, interview 2016, oprah

Id: ArUgFlRBaSQ

Length: 77min 8sec (4628 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 13 2016