The School of Greatness

Have you ever felt a tug inside — an awareness that you’re capable of something extraordinary, but unsure how to bring it to life? In The School of Greatness, Lewis Howes contends that every human being possesses the potential for greatness. But greatness, he argues, is not some rare genetic gift or spontaneous achievement. Rather, it's a lifestyle — one forged through consistent learning, self-awareness, discipline, and service.

Drawing from his own journey — from broken athlete to millionaire entrepreneur and best-selling author — as well as from interviews with Olympic athletes, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders, Howes presents a practical roadmap. He invites you to enroll in his metaphorical “School of Greatness,” a lifelong education built on eight principles: creating a vision, turning adversity into advantage, cultivating a champion’s mindset, developing hustle, mastering your body, practicing positive habits, building a winning team, and living a life of service.

Greatness Begins Within

At the heart of Howes’s philosophy is the belief that greatness resides inherently within you. Most people search for success outside themselves — in titles, money, or recognition. But true greatness, he explains, is unearthed from within through self-discovery. Early in his life, Howes thought greatness was defined by athletic milestones: becoming an All-American, playing professional football, being extraordinary on the field. However, when injuries ended his sports career, those external markers collapsed — and so did his identity. Sleeping on his sister’s couch, broke and lost, he realized he had pursued goals, not purpose. This painful revelation led him to redefine greatness as something deeper: striving every day to move mountains and serve others by using one’s gifts.

The “Professors” of Greatness

Howes frames his book around lessons from mentors — his “professors.” Olympic gold medalists, bestselling authors, CEOs, and spiritual leaders like Shawn Johnson, Angel Martinez, and Tim Ferriss each contribute a teaching. They're not defined merely by fame but by their relentless pursuit of mastery and contribution. Like Plato’s Academy, this “school” isn’t about grades or diplomas. It’s about transformation. Howes himself became the messenger: “I’m just lucky enough to share their lecture notes,” he writes, echoing how students preserved the teachings of classical masters such as Aristotle and Epictetus.

Why the Eight Lessons Matter

Each chapter corresponds to one lesson, forming a complete system for personal excellence that can be applied to any field — sports, business, parenting, or art. First comes vision: defining what you really want and who you want to be. Then adversity, the crucible that builds strength and shapes perspective. The champion’s mindset follows — emotional clarity, belief, and focus, taught through athletes like Shawn Johnson and thinkers like Steven Kotler. Next are hustle, physical mastery, and habits, which turn purpose into consistent action. Finally, greatness expands beyond self: building teams that amplify your reach and giving back through service to create enduring impact.

These principles form a cycle. You begin by dreaming, then act, face obstacles, refine your mindset, maintain your health and habits, collaborate, and ultimately pay it forward. Each reinforces the other. Hustle without vision becomes burnout. Vision without habits stays fantasy. Mastery without service becomes emptiness.

Greatness Is a Lifestyle, Not a Destination

Howes insists that greatness isn’t achieved once; it’s lived daily. Like choosing to eat well rather than dieting temporarily, you adopt greatness as a lifelong practice. It’s about showing up consistently — even when you’re tired, afraid, or in pain. He recounts his own adversities: injuries, bankruptcy, rejection, and emotional trauma. Each one, he says, became an advantage when reframed through purpose. The essence of greatness is learning to turn setbacks into fuel.

“Greatness is not what you attain at the podium,” gymnast Shawn Johnson tells him. “It’s about being proud of yourself, knowing you’ve done all you could.”

That humility and pride coexist in Howes’s worldview. Greatness excites love, interest, and admiration, as the poet Matthew Arnold said, but its proof lies in inspiring others to feel those same emotions — a ripple from personal growth outward. So, you’re not meant to simply chase fame or success. You’re meant to embody a spirit that uplifts others.

Why This Message Matters Now

We live in an era overflowing with information but starving for wisdom. Howes’s argument resonates because he offers not more data, but a framework — practical disciplines that convert knowledge into fulfillment. His insights echo timeless sources: Aristotle’s Ethics, Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations, and the Stoic idea that “the impediment to action advances action.” Yet his message is distinctly modern. Using stories of social media entrepreneurs, Olympians, and everyday heroes, he shows how greatness today means aligning our internal purpose with external action.

Ultimately, The School of Greatness calls you to see yourself as both student and teacher. The world needs your talent, resilience, and kindness — not someday, but daily. Whether you're starting from defeat or success, you can live a life of vision, service, and greatness. That’s the education Lewis Howes offers: the art of becoming fully alive, grounded, and ready to move mountains.

Lewis Howes begins his “curriculum” with vision because without a destination, no journey can succeed. Vision, he argues, gives your life direction, meaning, and identity. It’s not the same as a vague dream — a vision pairs your deepest desires with actionable goals. Most people fail to achieve greatness because they can see what they don’t want but not what they do.

Be Specific

Angel Martinez — CEO of Deckers Brands, and a founding employee of Reebok — teaches this principle. As a young immigrant growing up poor in the South Bronx, Angel dreamed of owning Converse Chuck Taylor sneakers. He didn’t just want shoes; he visualized the black canvas, white laces, and the texture beneath his feet. That specificity made his dream tangible. Years later, that same clarity turned him into a footwear empire builder. His $6.99 sneakers became a symbol of vision turning into destiny.

Howes mirrors Angel’s story with his own: as a six-year-old watching Ohio State football, he decided he’d become an All-American. His vision wasn’t random; it was concrete and visual. Seeing success clearly makes your brain believe it’s attainable — a principle echoed by neuroscientists and performance coaches worldwide.

Let Vision Become Your Identity

Dreams without goals remain fantasies. To live your vision, you must tie it to who you are becoming. Angel’s story illustrates this: he fought to reclaim his Cuban name, Angel (not Angelo), as an act of identity. His vision wasn’t just about success but self-definition. Likewise, Howes warns that people, like his friend Steve — a confused physical therapy student — often describe what they could do, not what they want to do. True vision demands confronting desire without apology.

“Successful and unsuccessful people do not differ greatly in their abilities. They differ in their desire to reach their potential.” — John Maxwell

When you embrace your vision as your identity, every step you take becomes a reflection of who you are. You begin to align daily actions with your ultimate purpose. That’s the heartbeat of greatness.

Turn the Telescope Around

Angel discovered that many people fail because they stare at their dreams from the wrong perspective — through the small end of the telescope, making their vision appear distant. When you look through the wide end, everything feels within reach. “You become what you envision yourself being,” he says. To master this, Howes encourages visualization exercises, like writing a Certificate of Achievement — a framed statement declaring your goal as already achieved.

This technique transforms abstract goals into physical reminders, triggering what psychologists call the “implementation intention.” The mind begins acting as if success is inevitable. Howes himself used this exercise to overcome his fear of public speaking, eventually earning $25,000 per speech — all from declaring his vision before he was ready.

Plan the Perfect Day

To live your vision practically, you must imagine your Perfect Day Itinerary — what you’d do, whom you’d meet, how you’d feel. This process shifts visualizing from fantasy into structure. It forces you to address the micro-level actions necessary to make dreams real. (In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey calls this “beginning with the end in mind.”)

Lewis’s own perfect day combines athletic training, connecting with his team, creating impact, and expressing gratitude each night. He shows how visualizing both macro goals and daily realities keeps your purpose grounded in routine.

Live Your Principles

Finally, Howes instructs you to write a Personal Principles Declaration: five values you’ll embody no matter what — such as love, service, abundance, or integrity. These act as anchors during adversity. Angel’s principles include truth, perseverance, and humility — a reminder that character sustains vision when conditions change.

Creating a vision is not about predicting the future; it’s about declaring who you’ll become. Whether it’s framing your goal, scripting your ideal day, or defining your principles, you transform vision from a dream into an identity. The first lesson of greatness is clarity — seeing the life you’re meant to live and daring to believe it’s possible.

Every great story requires struggle. Lewis Howes argues that adversity isn’t an obstacle to greatness — it’s the training ground for it. The people who achieve mastery don’t escape hardship; they learn how to use it. Athletes, entrepreneurs, and artists turn setbacks into superpowers by reframing failure as feedback.

The Power of “Doing” Over “Wishing”

Kyle Maynard exemplifies this lesson. Born a congenital amputee, he faced unimaginable physical limitations. Yet he became a champion wrestler, MMA fighter, and mountain climber — summiting Mount Kilimanjaro on his elbows. His message: life changes not in wishing, but in doing. As a teenager, his first football tackle erased his doubts; action built confidence where fear once lived. “We are our greatest ally in getting past adversity,” he told Howes.

Through Kyle’s lens, adversity stops being personal tragedy and becomes universal training. The discomfort we resist is the very muscle that strengthens us.

Internal vs. External Adversity

Howes distinguishes external hardship (injury, loss, poverty) from internal adversity (fear, shame, insecurity). Nicole Lapin, a financial journalist, illustrates the internal kind. Growing up with immigrant parents who never used credit, she entered Wall Street bewildered. “Finance is just a language,” she realized. Like Kyle learning the language of athletics, Nicole mastered the vocabulary of money — transforming embarrassment into empowerment. Adversity, she discovered, often hides behind ignorance or fear of looking foolish.

Both Kyle and Nicole show how mastery means fluency — learning the “language” of whatever once intimidated you.

Failure as Feedback

Howes’ own story reinforces this. His dream of becoming an All-American football player was crushed by injury. Instead of giving up, he applied that setback to another sport — the decathlon — and became an All-American there too. Later, he reclaimed his football title. His pain literally doubled his reward.

“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” — Marcus Aurelius (as quoted in Ryan Holiday’s The Obstacle Is the Way)

Obstacles don’t block the path — they define it. Stoic philosophers like Aurelius and Seneca saw adversity as the forge that makes greatness possible. Maynard’s bear crawl up Kilimanjaro embodies this truth: pain plus persistence equals power.

Gratitude Amid Challenge

Surprisingly, grateful people endure adversity best. Kyle told Howes he was thankful for being born without limbs because he never had to mourn losing them. Gratitude reframes suffering from deprivation to privilege. “What stands in the way becomes the way” because it reveals who you truly are.

Learning from the “Don’t Stop” Rule

Angel Martinez echoed this lesson through running. As a frail teenager barred from baseball, he learned endurance instead. His team had one rule: “You can go as slow as you need to, but you can’t stop.” This became his philosophy for life and business. Later, when his own son finished a race with a broken leg, it proved that persistence defines greatness more than comfort ever could.

Howes translates that into practice: when setbacks hit, don’t avoid or suppress them. Notice, record, and share your challenges. Then convert frustration into fuel. Through awareness, expression, gratitude, and action, adversity transforms into advantage. You don’t conquer adversity by fighting it — you rise by embracing it.

What separates champions from everyone else? Lewis Howes discovered the answer through both sports and life: mindset. Champions aren’t merely more talented — they think differently. They live in focused “flow” states where belief, discipline, emotion, and presence align.

Finding Flow

Howes’s own glimpse of flow came during a record-breaking football game with over 418 receiving yards. Time slowed down; distractions vanished. He later learned from author Steven Kotler (The Rise of Superman) that this was the scientific “flow state” — a neurological cocktail of dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins that makes you five times more productive. Flow isn’t limited to athletes. It’s what entrepreneurs feel during creative breakthroughs or what writers experience in deep concentration. Cultivating flow requires preparation, challenge, and full immersion.

Belief and Humility

Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson embodies mental mastery. At 16, she won gold and three silvers at the Beijing Olympics, then turned her skills toward winning Dancing with the Stars. Her success came from unwavering belief in herself — tempered by humility. “It’s not about winning,” she told Howes, “but about knowing I’ve done my best.” This paradox is vital: self-belief fuels excellence, while humility keeps it sustainable. Ego blinds you to learning; humility invites growth.

Rewriting Limiting Beliefs

Leadership coach Chris Lee taught Howes that most failures stem from outdated belief systems — “I’m not smart enough,” “I don’t deserve success,” “I always mess up.” Redesigning these beliefs begins with awareness. In his workshops, Chris encourages participants to surface old, hidden stories that shape their identity and then consciously replace them with empowering ones. Belief, he says, forms the central lever of mindset: “You bring who you are into what you’re doing.”

Mental Tools of Champions

Howes offers practical exercises for cultivating a champion mindset:

• Visualization: Mentally rehearse success as though it’s already real. Howes visualized his speaking career long before earning his first $5,000 speech — picturing applause and connection until his body followed.
• Meditation: Practice the 15-second centering breath — inhale 5 counts, hold for 2, exhale for 8.
• Mindfulness: Keep a gratitude journal to track daily growth and awareness.
• Emotional Intelligence: Know your emotions, regulate them, and use them consciously rather than reactively.

Confidence Through Vulnerability

Paradoxically, emotional presence — even vulnerability — builds strength. Howes likens mindfulness to salsa dancing: being fully connected to the moment and your partner, aware and responsive. Champions aren’t detached machines; they are emotionally alive, embracing fear as fuel and joy as strategy. “Be water,” Bruce Lee said — fluid, adaptable, but unstoppable.

Your mindset determines your limits. When you believe you can’t, everything collapses; when you merely believe you can, you become unstoppable. Greatness starts as a thought but lives through daily emotional practice — breathing, focusing, and visualizing until excellence becomes reflex.

If mindset is internal fuel, hustle is outward movement. Lewis Howes defines hustle as doing what others are unwilling to do—with urgency, action, and perseverance. It’s not about endless work; it’s about purposeful effort. Hustle turns vision into reality.

Learning from the Bottom

Howes’s lesson in hustle begins with his brother Christian Howes, a jazz violinist who went to prison at 18 for selling drugs. Instead of surrendering to shame, Chris used prison as a classroom. He practiced daily, learned gospel and R&B from fellow inmates, and vowed to make music his life’s redemption. When released, he played anywhere—restaurants, dive bars, hotel lounges—often promoting himself shamelessly with “no shame in my game.” That same drive led him to Carnegie Hall and international success.

Action Beats Fear

Hustle thrives when fear is reframed as motivation. Howes recalls cold-calling thousands on LinkedIn from his sister’s couch, broke but relentless. “The irony is, we’re all making up for lost time,” he writes. Every hustle is survival — reclaiming time wasted on excuses. Marie Forleo, entrepreneur and creator of B-School, embodies this. Even as a cocktail waitress, she hustled with excellence: making cappuccinos so memorable they earned her a Wall Street job interview. Excellence invites opportunity.

“If you want to be the best, do the things others won’t.” — Michael Phelps

Work Smarter and Harder

Howes introduces “The Curse of David”—the underdog mindset. Like Tom Brady, a 6th-round pick turned champion, hustlers channel disadvantage into dominance. The defining rule: outwork, outlearn, outlast. Hustle means combining intelligence with sweat. A Japanese proverb summarizes it: “Vision without action is a dream. Action without vision is a nightmare.” The key is balancing both—anchoring grit in purpose.

Master the Hustle Muscle

Hustle functions like a muscle: consistent repetition builds strength. Howes outlines four domains to train daily—body, mindset, relationships, and skills. Push your body through discomfort; feed your mind new knowledge and questions; nurture relationships through giving; and learn new skills every season. His personal journey underscores this: mastering LinkedIn, coaching, podcasting, writing, and handball all emerged from relentless practice.

Fear is inevitable, but you turn it into faith by acting anyway. “The guy who hustles hardest,” actor Will Smith once said, “gets that loose ball.” Hustle isn’t about being busy—it’s about being bold. The world rewards those who move first, stay late, and never stop improving. Greatness requires sweat.

Your body, Lewis Howes insists, is the engine of greatness. You cannot pursue your vision or serve others if you are physically depleted. Health, fitness, and rest aren’t luxuries; they are the foundation for sustained success. “Your body is your home,” he writes. “Keep it clean and free of clutter.”

The Wake-Up Call

Howes introduces Rich Roll—a burned-out lawyer who rekindled his spirit through radical physical transformation. Near forty, overweight, and exhausted, Rich quit junk food, adopted a plant-based diet, and within two years ranked among the world's top ultramarathoners. He proved that energy, clarity, and fulfillment begin with treating your body like a temple, not a trash can.

Brains and Bodies Work Together

Dr. Daniel Amen, a psychiatrist and author of Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, expands this truth: your brain regulates every decision, emotion, and habit. Poor nutrition and lack of sleep don’t just harm your physique—they shrink your cognitive capacity. Howes admits he experienced “mental fog” from overeating and stress, feeling sluggish despite business success. When he switched to organic foods and balance, his performance improved dramatically.

Sleep and Stress

Sleep, often overlooked, is greatness fuel. Ameer Rosic and Shawn Stevenson, both sleep experts, show that insufficient rest mimics diabetes in its hormonal chaos. Entrepreneurs brag about all-nighters, but sleep debt destroys clarity and creativity. For champions, rest isn’t weakness—it’s recovery, restoring energy and adaptability.

Mindful Movement

Howes moves beyond fitness aesthetics into intentional movement. Exercise cultivates discipline, presence, and confidence. He recommends daily physical discomfort: sprints, pushups to failure, long walks, stretches—anything that expands your limits. Completion breeds confidence. Each session becomes a small act of mastery.

Finding What’s MISSING

Health expert Aubrey Marcus identifies seven pillars missing from most modern lives: minerals, inflammation control, stress regulation, sleep, breathing, nutrient density, and gut health. Balancing these transforms vitality into momentum. When you nourish your body, you empower your mission.

Mastering your body isn’t about perfection; it’s about stewardship. You cannot serve your future or your community if your body collapses. Treat it as your greatest ally—it’s the vessel through which greatness is expressed.

Habits define who you become. Lewis Howes explains that success is simply the compound interest of small, deliberate actions repeated over time. The athletes, creators, and entrepreneurs we admire aren’t uniquely gifted—they’ve mastered routines that align with their vision.

From Talent to Discipline

Graham Holmberg, Howes’s former college teammate, had raw talent but poor habits — partying, procrastinating, cheating himself. When his cousin died in an accident, it jolted him awake. He quit drinking, trained obsessively, and rebuilt his life around structure. His transformation led him to win the CrossFit Games and earn the title “World’s Fittest Man.” His story proves that discipline outlasts talent.

Habits Build Identity

Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do.” Howes adds: “Excellence is a lifestyle.” When we make our bed, exercise, eat clean, and express gratitude daily, we don’t just do actions—we become the kind of person who lives those values. Even the smallest rituals, like Admiral McRaven’s military habit of making your bed, can set the tone for resilience. Gretchen Rubin calls this “outer order, inner calm.”

The Habit Manifesto

Howes borrows from habit researchers and offers his own routines: wake early, pray or meditate, review goals, train your body, eat well, connect, express gratitude, and learn daily. Good habits reinforce clarity; bad ones multiply chaos. He encourages writing a personal Habits Manifesto — statements like “What we do every day matters more than what we do once in a while.” These create behavioral boundaries that support long-term purpose.

Replacing Negatives

A critical step is replacing destructive habits with productive ones. Howes lists his own: swapping staying up late for rising early, messiness for organization, judgment for gratitude. Progress doesn’t require perfection; it requires vigilance. Journaling, accountability partners, and mastermind groups help sustain good routines. Habits work in clusters—success in one area flows into others.

Consistent positive habits are the architecture of greatness. Character is not built in leaps, but in daily acts of intentional excellence. Discipline creates freedom—the power to live on purpose.

No one achieves greatness alone. Lewis Howes insists that success is a shared process. Whether in sports, business, or activism, your dreams need a team. The right people magnify your potential; the wrong ones drain it. Building a winning team means cultivating relationships guided by trust, positivity, and shared purpose.

Learning from Leaders

Scooter Braun, the talent manager behind Justin Bieber, embodies this principle. As a young promoter inspired by NBA coach Phil Jackson’s Sacred Hoops, Scooter learned that greatness stems from team chemistry, not individual ego. His company, SB Projects, runs on close relationships — many with lifelong friends — unified by common vision. His formula: recruit those who share your energy and values, not just credentials.

Curating Your Inner Circle

Sports author Don Yaeger taught Howes, “You’ll never outperform your inner circle.” Coach John Wooden reminded him, “Show me your friends, and I’ll show you your future.” Greatness grows from the company you keep. Step one: take inventory. Identify who energizes you and who drains you. Keep those who elevate your purpose; distance yourself from those who diminish it—with compassion but firmness.

Find the Right Mentors

Just as missiles need guidance systems, people need mentors. Braun relied on leaders like Jermaine Dupri and David Geffen. Howes credits mentors such as Chris Hawker, who supported him when he was broke and directionless. Mentors provide course correction. Alone, you risk hitting walls; guided, you stay on target.

Positivity and Empowerment

The secret to strong teams lies in empowerment. “Delegate and trust,” Scooter says. “They won’t do it like you, but they’ll do it like them.” Positivity spreads energy, while ego poisons culture. Teams win by collaboration, not competition. Jack Welch emphasized that winning teams communicate openly, know the game plan, and celebrate each other’s wins. Families, companies, and communities flourish under the same principles.

Building your team starts with being a great teammate: humble, communicative, and generous. Surround yourself with dreamers and doers — people who seek greatness within you even when you doubt yourself. Together, you go farther than you ever could alone.

The final lesson completes the cycle of greatness: service. Lewis Howes learned that success without contribution feels hollow. Greatness, he concluded, is not about accumulating wealth or status but using your gifts to improve others’ lives. As Gandhi said, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”

The Braun Brothers: Two Paths, One Purpose

Adam Braun, brother of Scooter, transformed privilege into purpose. After meeting a child in India who said his greatest wish was “a pencil,” Adam launched Pencils of Promise—a global education organization that has built hundreds of schools. His journey shows how small acts of compassion spark massive impact. He combined business discipline from Bain Consulting with humanitarian passion, pioneering what he calls a “for-purpose” model—run with efficiency, driven by empathy.

Redefining Success

Adam’s approach mirrors Howes’s larger philosophy: giving back is not a retirement plan, it’s the path to fulfillment. Service aligns your work with meaning. Angel Martinez, CEO of Deckers, tells his teams: “Greatness is about being there for others.” This truth applies everywhere: businesses thrive when they serve employees and customers; communities thrive when people serve one another.

The Physics of Giving

Research supports this wisdom. Studies show that givers live longer, happier lives. As writer James Clear summarizes, “Those who contribute tend to keep on living.” Service reverses the toxic pull of consumption; it shifts attention outward. Lewis demonstrates this through his podcast: each interview and insight becomes a gift of learning to millions. Giving multiplies joy rather than dividing it.

Acts of Service

You don’t need a nonprofit to serve. Shawn Johnson mentors girls through sports; Kyle Maynard motivates injured veterans; Ron Finley grows gardens in Los Angeles; Howes mentors entrepreneurs through his podcast. Service starts with small acts—smiling, volunteering, mentoring, donating. The point is consistency and sincerity, not size.

Putting Others First by Caring for Yourself

Howes emphasizes self-care first — “Put your own mask on before helping others.” When you are full, giving becomes natural. True service flows from abundance, not depletion.

In the end, living a life of service transforms success into significance. You enrich not just your own story but the world’s. Greatness grows when kindness becomes your daily practice.