The 7 Keys To Thriving After A Breakdown with Chris Lee

High-Level Overview

Recorded late in 2020, this episode brings transformational trainer Chris Lee, the most frequent guest on The School of Greatness, back to walk Lewis Howes through a seven-step method for handling what he calls breakdowns: the moments when life throws a curveball, when people do not act the way we expect, or when we fail to keep a promise to ourselves. With the pandemic, political tension and money, health and relationship strain all piling up, Lee says he has spent the previous nine months coaching almost nothing else, and he wants to give people something simple to follow.

The tone is that of a seminar leader in full flow: direct, upbeat, repetitive in a deliberate way, and personal. Lee draws on his own history, including childhood sexual abuse, a father who left when he was six and a friend's betrayal, and the two men trade stories from their long friendship. The conversation moves through the seven keys in order, pausing for Lewis's questions about why each one is so hard, and ends on trust, faith and the choice to interpret events in an empowering way.

The Discussion Explores:

• What a breakdown is, and how a small one snowballs into many
• Key one: getting out of denial and naming the breakdown
• Key two: taking responsibility, which Lee separates sharply from taking blame
• Key three: processing guilt and resentment in healthy ways instead of stuffing or venting them
• Key four: forgiving others and yourself as a daily, deliberate choice
• Keys five and six: a new commitment with an intention word, then an action plan backed by support and accountability
• Key seven: celebrating results, and looping back to step one when you fall short
• Trusting the process: Lee's case for turning fear into faith

Deep Dive into Main Ideas

What a breakdown is and why it snowballs

Lee defines a breakdown three ways: life throws you a curveball, someone acts in a way you did not expect, or you promise something and do not deliver, like vowing to lose 20 pounds and gaining 15. The danger is the boiling point. We go into reaction, a small breakdown becomes a large one, and soon we are no longer dealing with the original problem but with new ones it has set off, pulling other people in along the way. He believes the pandemic amplified whatever was already there: money problems exploded, couples who used to see each other now and then were suddenly together all the time, and people who had coasted on poor health were panicking.

Key one: get out of denial

The first key is to accept that you are having a breakdown. Most people, Lee says, sugarcoat it, sweep it under the rug, distract themselves, numb out with food, work, drugs or alcohol, or simply pretend. Others beat themselves up or lash out and blame. His analogy is the cavity you ignore until it becomes a root canal. Acknowledging the breakdown, ideally by writing it down, gives you power over it, because denial drains energy: part of you already knows. He goes as far as to say insomnia is unresolved stuff. In his words, "what you resist persists."

When Lewis asks why acceptance is so hard, Lee says we are conditioned to blame. Pointing at the government, a parent or a partner is easy, and it takes us off the hook.

Key two: take responsibility, which is not the same as blame

The second key is to own it by asking how you created, caused or allowed the situation. Where it truly is not your fault, the question becomes how to interpret it in a way that empowers you. Lee's example is a spouse who cheats: not your fault, but you can still ask what signs you ignored, what you allowed and what the lesson is. "We could dive or we could thrive," he says, and thriving starts with refusing to be a victim. He also notes how often people break down over an interpretation and not a fact, such as deciding an unreturned call means they are not loved.

Lewis presses on cases that seem plainly unjust, such as sexual abuse or a drunk driver killing someone's children. Lee answers that this confuses blame and responsibility. He shares that he was sexually abused and blamed himself for years; taking responsibility meant choosing what to learn from it. His conclusion was that his body was abused but he himself was never touched: "My spirit is untouchable." Without that step, he says, people become defined by the event. He holds that "events are neutral" and that we attach the meaning.

He illustrates with a singer friend who called him in tears after being rejected at an audition for The Voice, ready to quit show business. Once she accepted that she could not change what happened, she admitted she had not prepared and had chosen a song she could not sing, and decided something bigger was ahead; Lee says she went on to film West Side Story with Steven Spielberg.

Key three: process the emotion

Lee says this is the step everyone skips, himself and Lewis included. People want to be superheroes who feel nothing, so they stuff the emotion, and stuffed emotion creates what he calls an implosion. The two emotions we most often fail to process are guilt, the anger turned on ourselves, and resentment, the anger held toward others. "Guilt is a cancer," he says, and he claims a lot of disease, which he breaks into dis-ease, is unresolved emotion lodged in the body. He adds that others know more about that than he does, and points to what doctors say about stress and health.

Healthy outlets he lists: journaling what you feel guilty about and who you are angry with; calling someone who will listen without judging; a hug (he describes hugging a woman who said it was her first in seven months); music (Enya is his go-to); meditation; a movie that makes you cry; or screaming in your bedroom. The unhealthy route is using someone as a punching bag or blaming a boss, the economy or a politician. Lewis observes that blame brings temporary relief but resolves nothing, so the same issues repeat. Lee adds that when you talk to someone, the goal is to let it go, not to complain.

On why words hurt so much, Lee says we are the ones interpreting them; you can only control how you respond. It is also worth asking why the button is still there, and what part of you feels unworthy. With a boss he calls abusive, he chose not to quit and not to let the words land.

Key four: forgive

For Lee, "forgiveness equals freedom." It is a conscious decision to let go of negative energy, and if he stays upset with someone, that person has his power. He says he forgave the person who abused him and the father who walked out when he was six, and that it is not a one-shot deal: he forgives the driver who cuts him off the same day. As he puts it, "whether they deserve it or not i deserve it." Forgiving yourself matters most, since nobody is harder on you than you are. People who never forgive live in a self-imposed prison and end up angry at people in the present who merely remind them of someone from the past.

At 55, he credits his energy to this routine: "I am a constant self-cleaning oven." He isolates each breakdown instead of letting them accumulate. The hardest one for him to release was a friend he had helped build a career who, he says, betrayed him and stole from him. It triggered old feelings of being abused and worthless until he shifted his attention to the good he had done. His line for it: "for every breakdown, there's a thousand blessings." He stresses that none of this depends on mood: "These steps are choices, not feelings."

Keys five and six: a new commitment and an action plan with support

With a clean slate, the fifth key is a new commitment: a vision for the area that broke down, an intention captured in one word (understanding, peace, discipline, wisdom), and a specific goal, such as releasing 25 pounds. The sixth is an action plan that includes new attitudes as well as new behaviors, and the resources and people who can support it.

Lewis says support is the part that makes or breaks follow-through and recommends what he calls a personal advisory board of experts and role models. Lee agrees that every result he has had in 30 years came from action plus a team, because we cannot see ourselves in action and at six in the evening, tired, the ice cream wins. His definition: "Accountability is love." He recalls Lewis sitting him down when he was 30 pounds heavier and telling him what nobody else would; he cried, he says, because he felt how much Lewis cared. Lewis also suggests listing your biggest breakdowns of the last three months and working on the most stressful one first.

Key seven: celebrate, and trust the process

The last key is to celebrate results, which Lee says most people skip, moving straight to the next project and invalidating what they did. He suggests listing five accomplishments you are proud of and why, and doing something kind for yourself. If you fall short, go back to step one. Lewis mentions psychologist Dr. Ivan Joseph's "brag list," and Lee tells of a performer who had lost her confidence before an audition until she wrote down ten things she was proud of.

Lee closes with trusting the process. He quotes a line he attributes to Rumi and heard from Arianna Huffington, "life is rigged in my favor," and describes faith as knowing things will turn out well, where fear expects the worst. He cites the scene in the movie Hook where Peter Pan can fly only once he thinks happy thoughts, and Viktor Frankl's account in Man's Search for Meaning of meaning keeping people alive in the camps. Lewis adds that trust has to be backed by the steps, not by sitting and waiting.

Conclusion

Lee's seven keys form a loop: accept the breakdown, take responsibility for it or for how you interpret it, process the emotion, forgive, commit to something new, act with support, and celebrate. The thread running through all of them is interpretation. He insists that events are neutral, that responsibility is different from blame, and that each step is a choice made regardless of how you feel. Some of his claims, especially about emotion and illness, are offered as personal conviction and not as science, but the method itself is practical, and Lewis's additions about advisory boards and accountability give it a way to stick.

This is a summary of "The 7 Keys To Thriving After A Breakdown with Chris Lee" from The School of Greatness, giving you the GIST so you can decide if you want the REST.