Lewis Howes

I tell people you're only going to grow to the level of embracing of the hero and villain.

So if you can embrace this much hero, but only this much villain, you're only going to grow to that level.

You have to be able to be liked and disliked by the same number of people.

And if you can do that, I mean, Donald's a good example of that.

Donald's got a billion people liking and disliking him, at least, maybe 4 billion liking and disliking him, who knows?

So because of that, he's probably on every newspaper in every country every single day, his influence.

How well can you embrace and own all your parts?

Any part you're disowning is emptiness.

Any part that you could ever imagine in anything that you don't own is your emptiness.

41 years ago, I was about 30 years old.

And at the time, as I mentioned earlier, I went to the Oxford English Dictionary.

And I went and identified every one of the traits inside me because that was my attempt to try to own the parts and have a preemptive strike instead of having to wait till people push my buttons and react with hindsight.

I'd rather have foresight and identify it.

So when I saw that and people would say things about me, I'd go, okay, that's true too.

You know, somebody says, you know, you're this or that.

If I can honor that and see that, I don't have a reaction.

They can't control me.

But if I try to disown it, they can manipulate me.

And I can be influenced by them for fear of losing or gaining or something and get attached one way or the other.

These are the Buddhist attachments that stop people from being themselves.