The School of Greatness

​I had the good fortune to see Lewis Howes in person last summer. He gave a workshop at the World Domination Summit, and it changed lives. I know because I stayed in contact with several of the people I met at the workshop, and they couldn't stop discussing it. The School of Greatness includes several exercises that have the potential to be just as transformative as those in the workshop, if you are willing to take them seriously.

This is the ideal time of year to read a book like The School of Greatness. Hopefully, we're still in Resolution Mode and remembering that we want to do impressive things this year. We're hanging on. It's still January! Half of people with New Year's resolutions have quit by June, though, and if we want to fulfill our potential, we have to plan. The more we dive into HOW and WHY, the stronger our commitments. Workbooks can be really helpful in posing questions and presenting examples that we never would have thought of ourselves.

I sat down with my journal and started with the Perfect Day Itinerary. By the time I had finished it, several things had clicked with me about the projects I want to do this year. I wrote out a schedule and started following it before I had even read the next chapter in the book. Suddenly, these huge intimidating goals I had set for myself during a fit of optimism on New Year's Eve seem... fairly straightforward. As I read through the book, the material helped to reinforce why I'm doing what I'm doing.

A chapter that I particularly enjoyed discussed the daily habits of successful people. It turns out that successful people do a lot of the same things every day, even when the areas of their expertise are wildly different. Howes suggests comparing your own daily habits with these keystone habits and seeing where they match and where they don't. I do almost all of these things myself, and can easily remember a time when I didn't! Average people will argue against a habit like making your bed every morning, or argue for a habit like watching hours of TV every night. No, that's not me. That won't work for me. This is how I roll. Then we wonder why it's so easy for all these wealthy, famous people who get everything, and why it's so hard for us. Two of those answers are HUSTLE and SELF-DISCIPLINE.

What makes Lewis Howes great, and he knows it, is that he spends most of his time with fascinating and successful people from all walks of life. He interviews them on his podcast to figure out what makes them great. What do they know that we don't know? What do they do that we don't do? What was it like for them back when they were average? How can we absorb this information and use it to make ourselves better? The School of Greatness is the place where we find out the answers.

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