The School of Greatness

Four out of ten people can't put their hands on $400 in an emergency, and almost none of them know why.
David Bach, who spent nine years at Morgan Stanley and co-founded an advisory firm with more than $7 billion on its platform, sat down with Lewis and made the case that budgets fail everyone while automation quietly works. His book The Latte Factor tells the story through a broke travel editor in Brooklyn who works 70 hours a week and never goes anywhere. He also explains the Rule of 72, why a new car payment eats three months of your year, and how selling a home you live in can hand you a quarter million dollars the government never touches.
The part that will stay with you has nothing to do with money. His grandmother was broke at 30, saved 50 cents a week in a coffee can, and helped him buy his first share of McDonald's stock when he was seven. On her deathbed at 86, he asked her about regrets. Every single one was a fork in the road where she chose the safe path.
Then Lewis puts his own finances on the table and gets told what he's still missing. David talks about sitting in a hospital waiting room days before this conversation, sure his wife was having a stroke, and what that did to his sense of what actually matters. His last piece of advice is about forgiving someone you stopped speaking to.
You will pull out your phone and look at your subscriptions. You may also call someone you've been avoiding for years.
The Automatic Millionaire, 20th Anniversary Edition: A Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich
The Latte Factor: Why You Don't Have to Be Rich to Live Rich
Debt Free for Life: The Finish Rich Plan for Financial Freedom
David's Website
David's Instagram
In this episode you will:
Automate your wealth so money grows while you sleep, instead of relying on a budget you will abandon within a month
Discover the Latte Factor with David Bach and see how small daily spending quietly costs you a million dollars
Apply the Rule of 72 to know exactly how long your money takes to double
Escape the paycheck to paycheck trap that traps seven out of ten Americans who cannot find four hundred dollars in an emergency
Reject get rich quick thinking and build real wealth over decades by owning quality assets you never touch
Forgive the people you resent before that stored pain turns into the regret you carry to the end
For more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1988
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The questions you ask on autopilot might be the reason you feel lonely in a room full of people.
Vanessa Van Edwards, a behavioral researcher who has studied master conversationalists for two decades, sat down with Lewis to talk about why so much of our talking leaves us empty. One in six people worldwide are affected by loneliness, and she believes the way we talk to AI is quietly changing the way we talk to each other.
In her book Conversation, she lays out three levels of connection, from basic facts all the way up to the private story you tell yourself about yourself. She explains why “Been busy?” is the single worst question in small talk, and why asking for stories beats asking for facts every time.
The most honest moment comes when Lewis asks what she still struggles with. Her answer is charging for her own work, a belief she traces back to her early twenties, and you get to hear a level three conversation happen live.
You will walk into your next dinner or team call ready to say “tell me more” and actually mean it. Pick one person you love and ask them a better question tonight. You might be surprised how deep your relationships can go.
Pre-Order: Conversation: How to Connect with Anyone & Make Every Interaction Count
Cues: Master the Secret Language of Charismatic Communication
Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People
Vanessa on Instagram
Vanessa on YouTube
Vanessa's Website
In this episode you will:
Replace dead end small talk like “Been busy?” with questions that invite stories instead of facts
Discover Dr. Dan McAdams’ three levels of connection to move any conversation past surface chatter
Become a dream builder who adds energy to other people’s ideas instead of poking holes in them
Signal warmth and competence through your body language and voice so people believe what you bring
Rewrite the self narrative holding you back by shifting from contamination stories to redemption stories
Break the loneliness cycle by practicing real conversation skills that AI can never replace
For more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1987
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Every stage you never took is the only real failure. The rest is just data.
Jo Koy, the comedian who has sold out SoFi Stadium and won Showtime at the Apollo, sat down with Lewis and told the story of driving Vegas to LA with a broken taillight for a $40 set, getting a ticket both ways. He rode a Greyhound nine hours home from an unpaid audition. He walked to the front of a line wrapped around a building with a fake resume and a headshot his dad took, and asked a promoter for five minutes she did not have to give him.
She gave it to him anyway. Three weeks after crawling through a curtain as an unannounced warm-up act at Def Comedy Jam, he won the Apollo. Years later, when Netflix passed on him, he paid for the special himself, shot it, and brought it back to them. They bought it, and then he broke Mariah Carey's attendance record in Hawaii with 22,000 tickets.
He still prints flyers. Ten thousand of them, for sold-out shows, put on windshields by hand. He talks about his mom rolling lumpia to sell at work during her divorce, about his stepdad teaching him that a messy bed is a messy head, about hugging his son on stage in the same arena where he watched Eddie Murphy at fifteen.
This one will make you uncomfortable in the best way, because you will start counting the lines you did not walk to the front of. Jo's definition of greatness is doing what you love for absolutely nothing, and he says he is still asleep, still dreaming the thing he dreamed at nine.
Mixed Plate: Chronicles of an All-American Combo
Jo's Website
Jo's Instagram
Jo's YouTube
Watch Jo Koy: Blue in the Face
In this episode you will:
Hear how Jo Koy talked his way backstage with a fake resume and turned one stolen set into a career
Reframe bombing as proof you showed up, because you win the moment you accept the challenge and fail
Overcome the insecurity of broken teeth and hair loss that shadowed him for decades
Bet on yourself the way Jo Koy did when Netflix passed and he funded his own special anyway
Redefine greatness as doing what you love when nobody is paying you a dime for it
For more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1986
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You already know where to start. What scares you is finding out you might not be good enough once you do.
Lewis goes solo here on the fear that hides inside preparation. He read every page of a 500-page book before his first Tony Robbins interview and still walked in nervous, and that nervousness never actually went away.
Then there was Kobe Bryant. A 5pm phone call the night before, an interview the next morning, 20 minutes, a publicist handing over a list of banned topics, other crews waiting in the hallway. With almost no prep time, it became one of the best conversations Lewis has ever recorded, because he stopped performing his homework and just stayed present and curious.
He gets honest about launching The School of Greatness with an iPhone and no idea what he was doing, asking questions he thought were basic and dumb. Confidence came after the action, never before it. Perfectionism and procrastination wear the same costume, and self-trust only gets built by surviving the attempt.
Ask yourself the uncomfortable question: are you still preparing because the work requires it, or because preparing feels safer than beginning? Whatever you have been circling for months, you will want to take one real step on it today.
Make Money Easy
The School of Greatness
The Greatness Mindset
The Mask of Masculinity
In this episode you will:
Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects.
Spot the moment preparation quietly turns into a sophisticated form of procrastination
Move through the terror of not feeling ready by understanding that confidence arrives after the action, not before it
Steal the mindset that let Lewis turn a Kobe Bryant interview booked the night before into one of his best conversations ever
Answer the question underneath your stalling: what are you actually waiting for
Build real self trust by proving to yourself that failure never gets the final word
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What if your body is already telling you the work you do every day is wrong for you?
Jonathan Fields, founder of Good Life Project and a former securities lawyer, sat down with Lewis to answer the question so many of us carry around: what should I do with my life? He shares how 100 hour weeks at a big law firm ended with an infection eating a hole through his intestine and a trip to emergency surgery.
From there you hear why burnout keeps climbing, why an existential crisis is really a crisis of meaning, and how collapsed boundaries between home and work make it worse. Lewis opens up about eczema that cleared within days once he stopped abandoning himself in his relationships and career.
Jonathan walks through the ideas in his book Sparked: Discover Your Unique Imprint for Work That Makes You Come Alive, and Lewis learns he is a Maven who hates Essentialist work. You also get Jonathan’s blunt question for finding purpose: what should I just stop doing entirely?
You will finish this one ready to take the free Sparketype assessment and finally chase the work that makes you feel alive.
Sparked: Discover Your Unique Imprint for Work that Makes You Come Alive
How to Live a Good Life: Soulful Stories, Surprising Science, and Practical Wisdom
Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt into Fuel for Brilliance
Career Renegade: How to Make a Great Living Doing What You Love
Jonathan's Website
Take the Sparktype test
In this episode you will:
Discover your Sparketype to uncover the unique imprint for work that makes you come alive
Recognize the physical warning signs your body sends when your work or relationships fall out of alignment
Break free from burnout by rebuilding the boundaries between work and home that have collapsed
Question the hidden assumptions that keep you stuck in a rut using Katie Byron's The Work
Eliminate the tasks that drain you so you can focus on what truly matters
Close the gap between your felt and expressed potential without sabotaging yourself once you finally align
For more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1985
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