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The School of Greatness

7 Habits That Separate Truly Happy People from Everyone Else

24 Dec 2025

Transcription

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

0.031 - 25.495 Lewis Howes

Is it just me or is everyone really unhappy in the world right now? Everywhere I seem to look, I see sadness and stress. I've spent years sitting across from the world's leading psychologists, neuroscientists, spiritual leaders, teachers, athletes, billionaires, and some of the happiest, most fulfilled people on the planet. And you know what I've learned? Happiness isn't an accident.

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25.976 - 39.64 Lewis Howes

It's not something you stumble into. It's a practice. And the people who seem the most genuinely joyful, they're not lucky. They're intentional. So today, I want to break down the seven habits of truly happy people.

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39.62 - 62.907 Lewis Howes

habits that have transformed my own life and i want to share these with you let's dive in habit number one they take responsibility for their life happy people don't hand their power to someone else they don't wait for a partner or a job or a circumstance to make them feel okay they say my joy is my job and they show up for it every single day.

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63.188 - 87.629 Lewis Howes

So the lesson I'm going to share with you is that agency is everything. The moment you stop seeing yourself as the victim and start seeing yourself as the author, your life begins to change. When you start seeing yourself as writing the words on the page of the book of your life, instead of someone that is reacting to what other people want for you, everything in your life starts to change.

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88.169 - 107.887 Lewis Howes

And for years, I would just blame people. I would blame coaches, teachers, you know, partners that I was in relationships with, friends, parents. I was just blaming everyone. I thought blame would protect my pride, but it only made me angry, resentful, more guarded, a people pleaser, and honestly, just feeling stuck in my life.

108.047 - 132.199 Lewis Howes

And the day I started taking responsibility, my confidence started to return. I could feel a weight emotionally, physically, literally lifting off my chest. there was like a ball of pain that sometimes would come and go. And it's almost like it just disappeared. It wasn't about how everyone else was affecting my life. It was about actively choosing to not let them.

132.618 - 154.373 Lewis Howes

An action step I want for you is to pick one area where you feel stuck in your life. Maybe it's in your finances or relationship or your health or whatever it might be. And I want you to ask, what can I do today to take ownership of this situation? And then I want you to take one brave step in actually taking that ownership. It might be having the conversation. It might be...

154.353 - 159.884 Lewis Howes

discerning something and not taking action on something you know is not good for you. It might be doing something, making a change.

Chapter 2: What are the seven habits of truly happy people?

160.365 - 169.843 Lewis Howes

I want you to take that brave step today. And that is the end of habit one. They take responsibility for their life. They don't react to it. Habit number two is a big one.

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Chapter 3: How can taking responsibility for your happiness transform your life?

170.224 - 190.271 Lewis Howes

They practice gratitude every day. You have probably heard me talk about this over and over again. You might think this is like a broken record. You might have heard me say gratitude or have me talk about gratitude in my books. It is something that I live by. And here's why. You can't be grateful and miserable at the same time. You just can't.

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190.732 - 212.309 Lewis Howes

It's almost impossible to be grateful and miserable or grateful and angry or grateful and upset at the same time. You can only hold one of those in your hand at that moment. Now, it doesn't mean you might feel grateful for a moment and then you switch into sadness, but it's so hard to be grateful and miserable at the same exact moment.

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212.71 - 235.447 Lewis Howes

So the more you focus on gratitude, the more abundant you'll feel. Happy people make gratitude a practice, not a reaction to something. They look for what's working even on the hard days, even when they're struggling, even when things are not working their way. They look for what's working. Because when you train your mind to recognize the good, you create more of it.

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235.968 - 256.735 Lewis Howes

Gratitude shifts your focus from what's missing to what is actually in your life, what's present, what is fueling you, something in your environment, someone in your life that's bringing you joy. Gratitude shifts your focus from what is missing in your life to what is present. And when you focus on what is present, the good, more good will start to happen.

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256.976 - 279.974 Lewis Howes

I always say that gratitude and generosity are the gateway to abundance. And when you lean into being generous with your time, with your attention, with your words of affirmation to people, with your resources, More good things, more joy, more happiness will come to you. Every morning, I start my day with gratitude. I wake up and I say, thank you, God, for another day.

279.994 - 302.292 Lewis Howes

Thank you for another day of life. Because 150,000 people die every single day, and I'm not one of them. Thank you, God, for another moment. Thank you, God, for another opportunity to see the people I love. Thank you, God, for another opportunity to express myself, to be artistic, creative, to be loving, to be generous. Thank you, God, for the blessings that I get to receive today.

302.793 - 325.079 Lewis Howes

Thank you, God, for getting to live this long with a healthy body and a conscious mind. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Man, you wake up every day and you start praising the things that you're grateful for. You start intentionally speaking those things. You create more of those things in your life. It's just how things work. And it is so powerful.

325.4 - 343.703 Lewis Howes

When you start to do this, everything starts to shift. You will be one of the happiest people you know if you do this every single day. And every night, my wife Martha and I share three things that we are grateful for and appreciate from that day with each other. We talk about it, and we reflect on them.

344.124 - 360.484 Lewis Howes

So we start the day in gratitude and appreciation, and we end the day in gratitude and appreciation. And throughout the day, I'm stringing those two things together. I'm tying them together and pulling the morning and the evening together and connecting them.

Chapter 4: Why is practicing gratitude essential for happiness?

712.709 - 735.902 Lewis Howes

Your peace is so important. And you can't buy peace, but you can create a boundary and have courage to speak up, to create a boundary of peace, to create a safe space within yourself. And I want you to keep it simple, make it small and specific, like not answering work texts after a certain time.

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736.203 - 757.418 Lewis Howes

like limiting conversations with a draining person to only a few minutes, as opposed to waiting until they're done with the conversation. Like saying something like, I can't commit to that right now, instead of over-explaining why you can't commit to something. I know I've done that for a long time. Another example is taking one evening a week for yourself with no obligations.

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759.119 - 784.519 Lewis Howes

No over-commitments. Just one evening for you every week. Then communicate it calmly and clearly once and honor yourself. Boundaries become powerful the moment you follow through on them. If you say you're going to do something and you don't do it, again, you're going back to disrespecting yourself. You're limiting yourself on that scale of 1 to 10 on the self-respect scale.

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784.499 - 813.951 Lewis Howes

So if you want to gain self-respect, you need to honor the commitments you make to yourself. Habit number four, they move their body daily. You can't think your way out of stress. You have to move your way out of it. And Harvard researchers show that just 20 minutes of physical activity can reduce depression by up to 40%. A strong body creates a strong mind. And movement is medicine.

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814.432 - 831.023 Lewis Howes

Happy people don't wait to feel motivated. They move first. And the motivation follows. And during some of the hardest moments of my life, when I was depressed, when I was broke, when I was broken on my sister's couch for about a year and a half, trying to figure out what do I do with my life? How do I get out of this credit card debt?

831.424 - 839.481 Lewis Howes

How do I pay off the student loans when I have no money coming in? How do I get healthy? How do I do all these things? I was just like broken, right?

839.461 - 866.127 Lewis Howes

during one of those hardest moments movement literally saved me the gym became a sanctuary a happy place and it wasn't about getting a six-pack or looking good it was about feeling grounded moving the energy that was stressing me out out of my body regaining confidence creating structure in my life creating boundaries in my life and gaining control and it was a powerful shift the action step for you is

866.107 - 889.077 Lewis Howes

Move today. Move your body. We sit so much. Move. Walk. Do a workout. Stretch. I don't care. Throw your hands in the air a few times. Do something where you're just getting energy out of you. Moving it is going to make you feel better. Do something and do it consistently because that builds confidence. And confidence builds happiness. So big.

890.069 - 911.722 Lewis Howes

Habit number five, they surround themselves with supportive people. Oh, my gosh. Is this a lesson I needed to learn the hard way over and over and over again? I wish I learned it sooner. The happiest people in the room are not the most popular. Happy people choose their circle intentionally.

Chapter 5: How do boundaries protect your peace and foster happiness?

1729.749 - 1746.228 Lewis Howes

Literally, the moment I just say, ah, I'm feeling overwhelmed right now, I start to feel less overwhelmed just by getting it out. That's why moving your body every day also helps you get your emotions out if you've ever worked out, feeling stressed, and you're like, oh, man, I feel so much better after I worked out for 30 minutes.

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1746.828 - 1766.554 Lewis Howes

Yeah, because you're moving that energy, that emotion inside of you, and that's what you need to do. Speak your emotion. Write it down. Move your body. Acknowledge them. Don't hold on to them. Feel them, let them go, and recommit to your vision. Happy people give themselves permission to experience the full range of being a human being.

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1766.574 - 1789.595 Lewis Howes

I'm not saying you dump your emotions on every person around you and you just unload on people and say, I feel better. That's not consciousness. But it's finding a way to consciously communicate your emotions so that you can express them and let them go. They process emotions instead of numbing them or instead of just drinking or drugs to just like numb the emotions. They process emotions.

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1789.876 - 1809.57 Lewis Howes

They find ways to do things consciously. And instead of numbing themselves, they talk about what they're going through with people that they trust. But they do it in a conscious way. And they choose expression over repression. And that's a big one. That's why they feel lighter. That's where they're like, man, I feel so happy. There's no weight on my shoulders. I don't feel stressed.

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1809.59 - 1832.39 Lewis Howes

They feel way more grounded. And this is why they feel more authentic. And this is huge. If you're not being authentic to yourself, you're not going to be a happy person. You're just not. Because emotional honesty builds self-trust. It builds self-respect. It's huge. And self-trust is one of the deepest foundations of lasting happiness.

1832.851 - 1862.489 Lewis Howes

Because when you trust yourself to handle your feelings, to handle your emotions, you stop fearing them. You stop running from life. You stop running from everything that's scaring you and you start actually living life to the fullest. So the action step for you right now is once a day, once a day, morning or night, take a few minutes to ask yourself three honest questions.

1862.749 - 1884.664 Lewis Howes

This might be one of the most powerful things you do because you'll actually be speaking something out loud, naming it or writing it down. Number one, what am I feeling right now? And listen, you know, I come from the world of being a guy growing up, you know, playing sports where we didn't talk about feelings. We didn't talk about these things. It wasn't manly.

1884.684 - 1906.761 Lewis Howes

It was just kind of like, don't be a wuss. Don't be lame. Just like, whatever, man, just suck it up. Don't cry. Like this was a conditioning of don't cry. You're fine. Everything's okay. Toughen up. Who cares what you're feeling? Move on. But just find a way to write it down if you need to. Here's what I'm feeling. I'm feeling sad. I'm feeling hurt. I'm feeling lonely. I'm feeling misunderstood.

1906.822 - 1931.274 Lewis Howes

I'm feeling a little bit overwhelmed. I'm feeling like nothing I do is ever enough. I'm feeling whatever the emotion is. Write it down. Name the emotion. Write it down. But do it without judging yourself. Do it without making yourself wrong or saying, ah, I should be doing better. No, none of these shouldas, no blame, no judgment. Just write it down.

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