4 Pivotal Decisions in Life We Make Daily & 3 Ways to Approach Conflict Resolution in Relationships

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As a dedicated part of the on purpose community, I wanted to do something special for you this year, so I'll be playing a hand picked Daily Jack during each of my Friday podcasts this week. We're talking about your relationships and how to create the most meaningful connections with the people that matter to you. Of course, if you want to listen to the Daily J every day, you can go subscribe to Calm. So go to calm.comj for 40% off your membership today. With Think Like a Monk. It was good to have my face on the COVID because it had elements of my story. And while I do tell stories about me and Radhi in this book, this book is not about our relationship or about our experience. It's about relationships. And so I didn't want this to ever feel like a book of I've mastered relationships. Look how perfect my relationship is. Learn from me. That's not what this book is. This book, like all my other work, is me studying something, me coaching clients, working with people and then trying to extract the lessons and saying here's what I learned by watching, observing, coaching, researching. And I felt that I wanted something bold and beautiful on the COVID that almost felt like you were part of a movement as well. And I thought how beautiful would it be that millions of people across the world, billions of people, are going to see the word love every day in a very bold, beautiful way? And even if that just even if they don't buy the book, but it injects some love into the world. I think that's a good thing.

Yeah. I was curious about why a book on relationships and love. I mean, you could have done so many different things after, you know, your first book and then the second book of quotes. But why love and relationships?

What could I have done? Tell me. I want to know. What should I have written about?

Best hair, how to crush entrepreneurship? I feel like it makes sense, but you know, when I think about love and relationships, it's like a very kind of narrow focus when you usually are so broad your life, you're a purpose coach. You could it on purpose.

Yeah. So I have no. And I really appreciate that. And I think for me, I've always talked about how there are four important decisions you make in life. And this is something that I developed a few years ago. The first decision is how do you feel about yourself? That is one of the most important decisions you make every single day. When you look in the mirror, when you wake up, when you're talking to your partner, when you're talking to a friend. What do I feel about myself? The second most important question or the second most important decision we make every day. What we do is who we choose to give our love to and who we choose to receive love from. The third most important decision we make in life is what do we do for money and how do we make money? And the fourth most important decision we make in life is who do I serve and how do I serve? How do I contribute back to the world? And so I am working through writing a book on each decision and after answering Think Like a Monk answers the decision of how do I feel about myself? That's what it's dedicated to. I was just sitting down with so many friends, so many clients, so many people where their relationship was the cause of their greatest pain and suffering. So I knew people who are incredible entrepreneurs, but their relationship was on the back burner and they didn't feel fulfilled. Or I knew people who were starting something cool up, but because they didn't have a partner, they didn't feel complete. Or I knew people who'd got divorced and broken up and they had a beautiful relationship with their kids, they had great friends, but they still felt inadequate because they weren't in a relationship. And so I just saw relationship as like the core of so much human happiness. And When I interviewed Dr. Robert Waldinger, he talked about how this 75 year study at Harvard, he's the fourth professor to complete the study, I think he just told me it's now 85 years. They've been looking at humans and watching humans lives for 85 years. And the number one thing that human happiness came down to was the quality of our relationships. And so I felt as someone who loves serving and supporting people, I couldn't avoid this topic. And I think I was drawn to it because of my own mistakes in the space, my own successes in the space, and looking at both those around.

Me, something you and Radi have talked about that I thought would be a beautiful way to sort of start the conversation was kind of understanding the landscape for how we understand love today. So I know you talked a lot about Bollywood culture and sort of like happily ever after. And I've been thinking a lot about that too. As far as the programming around relationships, you know, I remember my life was once you get married and have kids, it's like, bye. You know, there wasn't any other resources or support. And I. My parents separated and now I have so much compassion for them. Cause I'm like, oh my gosh. Like, now I understand what it takes to build a healthy relationship. And it's not just happily other after. So I'd love to talk a little bit about your upbringing, the experience, and sort of where we are today as far as our understanding of love.

Yeah. So for anyone who has never watched a Bollywood movie, Bollywood is like Hollywood on romantic steroids. Right. So if you take a rom com and then you add music, dancing, more color, more color over dramatic stories of love and sacrifice and surrender, you get Bollywood. And I grew up on Bollywood and Hollywood movies. And. And to me, I loved rom coms growing up. Like, I love rom coms. And I think that's a big impact of my mom, like watching rom coms at home and, you know, us getting together and watching them and me wanting that kind of fairy tale love. And I can definitely admit openly that I wanted a fairy tale kind of love. I wanted a rom com kind of love because you start to realize that that's the only images of love that you see. And then I started to think about other images of love I saw my family didn't have great relationships, so there were no good images of love there that I could say. I want that. If anything, I was saying, I don't want to repeat that. And then if I looked at my friend's parents or I looked at extended family, I didn't see any great images of relationships there either. So the only happy relationships I saw were in movies. So then that became my image of that's a good love story. And I think I pursued that and chased that a lot, only to feel really disheartened every time because you couldn't recreate a movie in real life. It just wouldn't work. And so when I talk about my upbringing, I found a lot of habits that I didn't want to repeat in my own life. I saw a lot of things that I would never want to replicate. And I started almost making a mental note saying, I don't want to argue like that. I won't behave like that, I won't speak like that. Anything that I saw that was hurtful or damaging, I almost made a mental note saying, I don't want to be a part of that in my life. I don't want that to be my behavior. And then everything I saw in the movies, unfortunately, I wrote a list going, I want that, I want that, I want that. So I was like, I was getting 50% right, and then I was getting 50% wrong. And, you know, you have to let life humble you. I think that's what's so beautiful about this whole journey, is that life shows you what reality is. And I think a lot of us are thinking, how do I get my relationship right? Or what did I get wrong? Or how do I find the right person? Or I just met the wrong person. And I don't think it's about right and wrong. It's about reality. And reality is right in the middle of right and wrong. And so if you just go, what is the reality of what I'm experiencing? What is the reality of what's possible? Reality is a much healthier metric than right or wrong.

Yeah. And I think so. In addition to the media programming in Bollywood, there's also social media, and that can also portray a certain type of love. So people nowadays are figuring out relationships from social media or looking at social media as kind of like the new tv. How do you think that impacts people and their relationships? And do you have any advice for how people should sort of navigate social media if they're looking for relationship advice or expanders?

Yeah. Wow. What a great question. And you're right. Social media is the updated version of rom coms or Bollywood movies or whatever it may have been. So there's two sides to this. Everyone's allowed to share and show whatever they want to share and show of their own relationship. It's up to you to decipher and learn to create distinctions in what's reality and what's an image that you're seeing. And I think I like to take that responsibility on myself because I don't think you can expect everyone in the world to change how they communicate. And at the same time, when you take that responsibility for yourself, now you're in a position of strength. And if you're someone who has real relationships and you're spending time connecting with real people, you will know that every couple argues. You will know that every couple goes to sleep sometimes not talking to each other. You will know that people wake up angry next to each other. You will know that people wake up the day after their wedding and have the worst argument they've ever had. You know, people who are about to get married and are fighting the day before they get married because of all the pressure and stress. If you have real friendships and real relationships, social media actually doesn't get as much of a hold on your mind as it could. Whereas I find that if we're not investing in real friendships and real relationships, and no one ever tells you, like, I've been really fortunate. I've always had friends that are older than me, and I think that's been one of the biggest techniques of growth that I've life hacked is that I've always had friends who are older than me. And having friends who are older than you meant that they made mistakes before you. They were able to share their learnings with you, they were always ahead of you in life decisions so they could come back and share their notes. And so I had so many friends who would say to me, hey, Jay, like, I got married for this reason. I think that didn't work out for me. Or, hey, you know what? I think I rushed having kids. I wish I slowed that down. Or, you know, I wish me and my wife had that conversation up front. We should have talked about it then, not 10 years later. And so I was almost collecting all of these great pieces of insight, and then I was able to use their hindsight to help me. And so, again, if you have these real friendships and real relationships where you're vulnerable with each other and you talk about these things, you're not using social media as your frame of reference. You're looking at real life, human experience as your frame of reference in the same way as if I see a picture of Bali on Instagram or I talk to my friend who just went to Bali, who's going to give me a better insight on what that experience was actually like. And I think if you have a friend who just went to Bali, that's who you'd Go to. And that's why I think our relationships, our depth of connection, our vulnerability with our friends and the people we love saves you from using social media as a frame of reference.

That is like, the biggest facts I want to talk about in the book. Kind of moving from the dating period to relationships and then even breakups. So in the book, I really loved this part about solitude, and solitude being the antidote to loneliness. I'd love to talk about that because most people will listen, and they're like, those are the same thing. So how are they different?

Yeah, it was Paul Tillich who talked about how there's a difference between being alone and being lonely. And he talks about how. Or being alone is like the strength of being alone, but loneliness is the weakness of being alone. And it's really interesting that in the English dictionary we have two words for being alone, one's alone and one's solitude. But we never use the word solitude. So we always say, oh, I'm going to be alone tonight. Right? We say, oh, no, I'm just going to stay in and be alone tonight. Or if you were at school and lots of people didn't come to your party, you'd always be considered less popular.

A loner.

A loner, exactly. If you're the person at the lunch table who's sitting alone, you're the loner. If you turn up to a wedding and you don't have a plus one, it's like, oh, poor you. Like, when are you going to get married? Like, when's your turn? That's 100%. And of course you know. And so that's the language. We've made being alone an enemy. We've made being lonely the enemy. And we all know this. This is common wisdom today, that we can all feel surrounded by so many people and still feel disconnected. That's what we all experience pretty much every single day. So being alone doesn't mean being alone is not defined by your physical proximity to people. Being alone is defined by how well you understand yourself and how well others understand you. If you don't feel understood by your friends, you will feel alone. If you don't feel you understand yourself, you will feel lonely. So solitude is a space you create to take the time to get to know yourself. And I know that sounds strange. It's like, what do you mean, I need to get to know myself? Shouldn't I just know myself? Don't I just know myself? And I equate this to something I learned during my time as a monk.

I was gonna Say this is Monk Vibes.

Yeah, it is Monk Vibes. It is full on Monk Vibes. And the book starts with that. Because I do feel like the only reason I'm able to have a healthier relationship with Radhi today is because she's the only person in the world who's experienced me after living three years as a monk. So she's the only person I've been with after that experience. And anything that I'm trying to get right in my current relationship comes from what I learned during that time. And so there's this beautiful experience that I had where on my first day when I became a monk or monk school that I see a 10 or 11 year old teaching like 6 year olds how to meditate or they're doing a class and I'm wondering what's going on. And so I'm, you know, peeking and trying to figure it out. And then I go up to the teacher who's, you know, 10, 11 years old afterwards, and I'm like, what did you just teach them? And he said, oh, that's their first day of school. And I was like, amazing, what did you teach them? And he said, well, what did you learn on your first day of school? And I was like, ABCs and 1, 2, 3, maybe, like maybe I don't, I can't even remember. And he said, well, I was teaching them how to breathe. And I was like, what do you mean you're teaching them how to breathe? Like we just breathe. And he said, well, think about it. He said, the only thing that stays with you from the moment you're born to the moment you die is your breath. Because when you're happy, what changes your breath? When you're sad, what changes your breath? When you're ecstatic, what changes your breath? When you're nervous, what changes your breath? He goes, your breath is interconnected to every emotion in life. So when you learn to navigate your breath, you learn to navigate life. And I was just thinking that just blew my mind at the time and it still does today. And even now I think about how every emotion we say, well, that's breathtaking. You just took my breath away. Like everything is related to the breath. So similarly, everything is related to the self. So just as simple as it sounds of like, you should learn how to breathe, that's how I feel when I say you should spend time alone. It sounds really basic and obvious, but, but there is a whole wisdom behind it. And the reason I say it is because when you get into a relationship and you don't know yourself. What ends up happening is 10 years later, you blame that person for taking away who you were. You argue with them three months later and saying, you made me lose who I was. But you never lost who you were because you didn't know who you were in the first place. So you adopted all of their behaviors, all of their beliefs, and you accepted whatever love they gave you and then started to discover that it didn't live up so you could save yourself from so much pain and so much suffering. If you started out knowing what love meant to you, how love felt to you, what love looked like to you.

Yeah, I think so. I guess even going on that, like, how can people really think about that? Because I've thought about this a lot where I don't know how much people really understand what true love is like. Unconditional love is so rare. And I'm even someone that I just did a darkness retreat last week, and, oh, so cool. It was so cool. Very psychological. But in it, I was like, do I know unconditional love? Like the love of the Creator? Yes. But still, sometimes love feels conditional. So how can people really figure out what love is for them and how love feels?

Yeah. I break it down into three key areas, and my. And I recommend everyone defines love. I think what was beautiful about ancient traditions, and when you look at the word, we only use one word to describe love, Love. And what's fascinating about that word is someone could say, I love you, and it means they want to spend their life with you. And someone could say, I love you, and it means I want to spend one night with you. Like, literally. It can be that extremely different. And so the challenge is, when someone says, I love you, you don't stop to ask them, hey, well, what do you mean? Do you mean tonight? Do you mean today?

Do you mean for the first time I love you?

You're like, hold on. Yeah, yeah. What do you mean? Jay told me to ask you what you mean, and we don't do that. And I'm not asking you to do that in that moment. But it is interesting that when someone says, I love you, you accept their words, but you're really accepting your meaning of love. Right. If someone says, I love you, you're actually saying, oh, I think they mean what I mean by love. And now they love me. And then you say, I love you back, which means you're projecting your definition onto them, and you never had a conversation about what it meant. So for me, I've defined love, and I share this in the book and I share exercises innate rules of love of how to answer each section. I define love with three key areas. One is you like their personality. It's the most obvious basic form of love, is that I enjoy their company. I enjoy being around them. I genuinely appreciate spending time with them. I maybe admire some qualities that they have now that you could feel for a lot of people. So that in itself is not love. And I think that's the challenge, Krista, that the challenge we have is that we see attraction as love or we accept validation as love. So we're almost taking payments in attention, pretending that it's love. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

And so the receipt doesn't says love. The receipt says attention. But we got paid as if we were like, oh, no, no. But that person loves me because they give me attention. They gave me validation. They complimented controlled.

It's like they're doing everything I want.

Exactly. I love that.

Only when they're, like, doing everything I want, saying what I want, do I love them?

Yeah. Or. Yeah. Or ownership. They take care of everything. I don't have to think about anything. I accept that as love. And so that in and of itself is not enough, but it is a pillar. And I think what happens is, Krista, is that we want to accelerate attraction or liking someone into love so fast that we don't want to do the unsexy, uncool, uninteresting work of actually falling in love with someone or building love with someone. The second part of my definition is that you respect their values. Now this I'll go deeper because everyone always hears about respect. What I mean by respecting their values is you don't want to change them. You actually respect why they live their life the way they do and how they live their life the way they do. You're not trying to change or transform what they care about. You love what they care about because you see, it brings them joy in mind. And my wife's relationship, it took me a while to understand. So my wife's number one priority is her family. Family is her biggest value. And you've. You've interviewed her and you know, you guys know each other. And my value is my purpose. Like, it's very clearly my purpose. Very clear, Very clear. And I've always. I've always known that. My wife's known that from day one and I've known hers from day one. So it helps. But my wife has never tried to make my number one value family, and I've never tried to make her number one value Purpose. It just won't work. Her family is her purpose. That's how she would see it. And I would see my. My work is my purpose. And so the point is that you have to respect each other's value in order to truly have love. And I find most people like someone's personality and they don't respect their value, so they're trying to change their values. They're like, I want your value to be me. I want your value to be my family. I want your value to be travel. I want your value to be this. Like you're trying to control someone's values, not love. And then the third and final step of my definition of love that I share in the book is wanting to help someone towards their goals, wanting to support someone towards their goals. That is real love. Like, I may. Like a lot of people, I may respect what they value, but there's very few people in the world that I'm going to say, I'm going to stand with you and I'm going to make sure you get to where you want to go, whatever that may be that requires the greatest commitment to someone in saying, not just like a friend, like, I'll help you out, network and I'll connect. Not that kind of thing. I'm dedicated, My life is dedicated to helping you get to your goals. And I know you're going to help me back to mine. I still recommend everyone comes up with their own definition of love. I talk about in the book how the Greeks. The ancient Greeks had seven different words for love. They have family love, they have affection. They have passionate love. They. They define it. But today we just put it all into one. And so if someone pays us a compliment, they're kind. We're like, oh, they love me. They're really great. They're wonderful people. And we Halo effect qualities. So we take one quality that someone has and we blow it up and go, they must be great at everything.

Yeah, I think with love, too. It's like in the social media world, you're like, love you, love. And I think it's a girl thing, too. We're like, love you, love you, love you. And it just kind of.

I'm like that, too.

I mean, we're all. It's like, we do. And then I'm like, but I want to love everyone. But how am I saying this to my husband? And then like, person online. But I think it's interesting listening to what you were saying because you could really see how clearly it's. Or how important it is to Know yourself, because if you don't know your values, if you don't know your goals, you're going to get really lost within trying to find a definition. I'm curious what you think about this, and I don't even really have an answer. But for people that are dating, what do you think about the spark? Like, do you think there needs to be a spark when people start, or do you think there needs to be butterflies?

Yeah. So I really looked into this because I've been fascinated by this a lot. And I've also been friends with guys who feel the spark every week with a different person. So I've had a ton of guys that I've mentored and worked with who literally would come back to me every week, every month and be like, I just felt the spark at the gym. You know, I just felt the spark at the bar. And they just find a new person to have a spark with. Is that similar with women?

With women, yeah. I think we romanticize things a little bit more, and I think it's interesting. Cause I'm sure men. Is that physical attraction, you know, really like that testosterone, or maybe there's like a biological component. But I think for women, it's like the spark and then the story.

Yes.

Kind of the fantasy goes. So I think they're very different in the way that they go. But I don't think women feel the spark as much as the men.

Got it. Okay. Yeah. And that was my. I wanted to get that sense because I have a similar.

Speaking for every single woman on Earth.

Of course not. And I'm not trying to make gender stereotypes either. I'm just saying, from my experience of speaking to people, there's been a lot of people who I've met a lot of men who feel that way.

Yes.

And so I was really interested and I started looking into it. What the science showed, which I do find fascinating, was that when you meet someone that you feel that spark with or chemistry, there is actually something chemical happening. And what's happening is that your excitement level is high. Oh, that's a new person. But your stress level is high. Do they like me? So you're experiencing excitement and stress at the same time. So you're like, they're hot. Do they think I'm hot? Excitement, stress, yes. Oh, my gosh. Like, are they coming over here? Excitement. Oh, no. What do I say? Stress. Oh, no. I have their number. So exciting. Oh, wait, they haven't messaged back in two hours. Right. Like, it's. So you're feeling excitement and Stress and what ends up happening. This really, really at least blew my mind and it was very fascinating for me. So you're feeling excitement and stress now. As you get to know that person, they give you a sense of comfort. So what happens is the stress decreases. Now you don't get that same spark anymore because your stress levels have gone down around them because they actually help calm you down. Because you have a relationship now and then we think the spark just went away, but actually the stress just went away. So I just want you to think about that for a second. Anytime you have thought the spark went away, it didn't. The stress went away of meeting someone new. And actually, if your stress has gone away, chances are that person's good for you because they've helped calm you down and because now you feel safe around them. When you're first attracted to someone and you don't know whether they like you, you feel unsafe. Right? Everyone knows what it feels like to go out on a limb and text someone and wait a day to have it back. You feel unsafe, but that feels exciting. Whereas now, two months later, you feel safe with them. You lost the excitement. So it's not about whether you feel a spark or you don't feel a spark. Whether you feel a spark or you don't. It has to be followed up with skills in a relationship. And I think that's where people go wrong. People think if we have the spark, we don't need anything else. And if I don't have the spark, it doesn't matter how many skills this person has, this can't work. And I think it's both. I think there's a need for chemistry, compatibility and connection. And often we just take chemistry and hope that that's going to last and chemically that's not going to last. And therefore. Yeah, and therefore, from a feeling point of view, it won't last. And so I think the more we focus on compatibility and connection, the healthier a relationship can be. Now if someone just says, all I want to feel is sparks, then great. You should move from lots of three month relationships consistently and that will fulfill you. But if you're someone who's saying, I want a long term relationship, please focus on the skills and the tools because that's what's really needed. It's. It's almost like the difference between saying, I'm really attracted to this apartment versus I'm attracted to it, but I can also vision where this could go. Right. Like I have a vision for how this could be.

Yes. On the Flip side of that. Do you think that people should marry their best friend?

Ooh, that's a good question. I've never been asked that before. I don't think you can just marry your best friend category. Yeah, I mean, just being straight up, like, I don't think that that's again, a good enough reason. Because being friends and being in love are two very different things. Just like being friends and being in business are two very different things. When you add the energy of money or you add the energy of love, there's different expectations, there's different commitments. If you don't talk to your friend for a couple of weeks and you catch up, you feel like you had the best conversation ever. In a relationship, your partner may need more attention than that. In your friendship, you may be more forgiving because at the end of the day, you don't have to wake up next to that person every single day and sleep next to them every night. When you're in a relationship, you're seeing that person all the time. It's different expectations. So again, I think what we like to do is simplify and go, okay, well if we got this part of our life right, we can get this part of our life right. And it doesn't work that way because you're always infusing a new energy when you add an element to your relationship. And it truly applies in business, it truly applies in love. And I think a friendship can be a beautiful foundation for a great relationship. But I think assuming that it already is is where we go wrong. Does that satisfy you or do you want to dig into that?

No, I agree with you. It's like, yeah, it's again, I think thinking about how do people define it? Because for some people, they might define best friends as, you know, it might be something where they want the comfort of that and they actually don't want that sparky chemistry part. So thinking about how people define it, but I'm not exactly, you know, sure. The truth, I was thinking about this before and I think it's something that a lot of people in my life have been experiencing is like the growing apart of being in a long term relationship. And two people that come together at a different period in time in their life and then they find themselves after however many years being like, what the heck? Like we're so. We've grown apart and there's like a beauty in that. And then there's also can be really scary because you're like, okay, what are we going to do? Are we going to choose to Grow together. So I'd love to talk a little bit about growing apart versus growing together.

Yeah, I have a whole section in the book called, you know, almost like you have to make that choice to either elevate or separate. And I think that couples that want to last the test of time. And first, actually, let's, let's take it back a little bit. First of all, I don't think length of time should be used as a metric of success of a relationship. I think that's a really unhealthy way often of gauging the success of a relationship. I knew someone who was married for like 14 years, and then when they got divorced, everyone was so shocked. But anyone who knew them closely knew that they were struggling for 10 years already. And so really it was a four year relationship, 10 years of pain, and then there was a divorce followed by that. And so everyone's like, oh my God, they were together for 14 years. I never thought that would happen to them. And it's like, well, no, it wasn't 14 years. It was four years and 10 years of pain. And so I think we have to start looking at how long was an actual relationship and a connection versus how long is a marriage or a partnership, which are often wildly different. Now, if someone does want a long term relationship with someone, if that is your definition of love and success in a relationship, you're going to have to grow together multiple times. And here's the hardest part. You always grow at different times. So everyone grows at a different time, at a different pace in their own way. And it rarely happens that you're growing at the same time, at the same pace, in the same way. So now you've got one of your partners going off on their journey. So I'm someone who, you know, was very aware about my passion, my purpose, what I wanted to do in the world. And when I met Radhi, she was extremely talented. She's always been extremely gifted, but she didn't necessarily know what her purpose was or her passion was. And so it's been really interesting for me watching her in that discovery. And that requires patience on my part. It requires support and it requires openness because she has to find her own path now. She's had to do the same with me. When she met me, she was already healthy. She ate well, she worked out, she puts in the hours. I was like staying up late to work.

I was, I love this, Jay.

Yeah, I stayed up late to work. I was, I love eating fried food. I love, like sugar. I was addicted to Sugar when I met her. And so it's like I was also learning in a different part of my life. Just because I figured out my purpose and my mindset doesn't mean I figured out everything in life. And so she had to be patient with me. So Riley's given me so many insights on how to improve my health and how to have better, like, work hygiene and so many other things that I've gained from her. And I think that the challenge that most people have is ego. We don't want to learn from our partners because it almost makes us feel weak, and it puts them in a position of superiority, not realizing that when you can trade. And I have a whole section in this book, a chapter called you'd partner is your guru. And it's this idea of, if you really love someone, chances are they have something to teach you. And if they can teach you in a way that isn't preachy, isn't projecting, and isn't critical. And if we can be that for our partners, you can grow together endlessly. Now, if you feel you've grown together, you've learned everything you possibly can from your partner. Now there's no more learning to do. It's wonderful to grow apart, but that should also be celebrated as a success. I think we often use words like divorce ended. Like, these words are so aggressive.

Split.

Split. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It was over forever. Like, you know, these words are so aggressive. And they put this. Paint this picture of animosity, of, you know, of. Of enemy kind of feeling, not realizing that someone could have a really healthy. As the. As the. You know, the famous book, like a conscious uncoupling. Like, the idea of uncoupling is so much more of a healthier idea for people. And. And I think that's the language we need to trade that. Yes, you could have a wonderful relationship, and you could have a wonderful afterlife from that relationship if you both wanted that. And that doesn't mean the relationship failed. It did its part. It's like, you don't go to college for three years, and if you don't become a professor, it's like, no, you failed. You failed. Like you should have become a professor. No, you did. It served its path. Even for me, when I look at, I lived as a monk, I didn't become a monk for the rest of my life. It served its purpose. And I think relationships have to be seen in that way of, like, did it serve its purpose? And if it's done, it's done. And let's not make people Feel bad about that, you know?

Yeah, it's. It's again, the. The happily ever after vibe, you know, if you're not together and everyone's like, wow, your parents are still together, and it's like they're miserable or don't talk and they're not in communication and they're not engaging and they're not connected. So it's like, what's the point? Yeah, but it's. It was interesting. Like, just watching you and Roddy, it's so beautiful because it's like when you're talking to one another, you are listening to each other as if you are the guru. There's an openness to being taught by each other that I feel like sometimes can get lost in relationships. And I don't know if it's because there is a point. And the book is. It could be Conscious Loving by Gay Hendricks, or it could be getting the love you want, but it talks about how you sort of make the person your parents, and then you kind of project all the pain. So I'm wondering if that's what happens with folks where they are making the person their parent, and then when you're telling them what to do, you're like, no mom or dad.

You know what I mean? Yeah. So. So in this book, I talk about how there are different relationship roles, and we all slot into one of these. And I have a test in the book that helps guide you to figure out what you are and what your partner is. And so these are the three roles. Everyone who's listening, you can figure out which one you're in. And if and when you get the book, you can do the test to make sure of it. So the first is fixer, the second is dependent, and the third is supporter. So some of us are fixers. We get our value in a relationship by trying to fix the other person's problems. If the person, we see them as broken, and we think we can fix them, and that makes us feel good. So we like to find projects. We like to find people who need help, and we go and make a relationship with them because we want to feel really powerful and strong that we help them. What ends up happening is that a few years down the line, we get exhausted, and then we go, oh, stop acting like a kid. You just. You don't do anything. You're not really involved. You're not engaged. But we set them up to be that way because that's what we wanted in the beginning. The second is the dependent. The dependent is someone who wants to be the child, they walk into a relationship looking for mom and dad. They want the other person to fix everything. They want to find someone who's going to take care of all their needs, provide for everything they need, take care of them mentally, emotionally, maybe even financially. And we go therein like a little kid. What ends up happening, you drain the other person. That doesn't end so well. And the third one is the supporter. The supporter goes, real love and real support is, I'm going to help you develop the skills you need to take care of yourself. I'm not going to take care of you. What is care? Is care me saying to you, I'm going to take care of you? Or is real care, I'm going to help you learn the skills to take care of yourself? That's real love. That's real care. Like, I believe in you so much that I want you to have the tools and skills. And I'm going to help you, I'm going to guide you, I'm going to introduce you to things, whatever you need so that you feel safe whether I'm here or not. That's love. One day I may die before you. If you only feel safe when I'm alive next to you, that's not love. Love is, I'm going to protect you by helping you protect yourself. That's safety. Don't we want that for our kids? Don't we want that for our partners? Like if my kid, I don't have any kids, but if I had kids and if they only felt safe when I was in the room, that wouldn't be a win, that would be a loss because you can't always be in the room. So I think we do that with our partners. So a supporter says, I'm here to help you develop the skills you need to take care of yourself. And I'm ready to develop the skills I need, whatever you need to teach me to take care of myself. And so I set that up because the fix is almost like the parent, the dependent's like the child. And then the supporter is the collaborative one, the one who recognizes that the only person who can take care of me is me. And the only person who can take care of you is you. And so when I help you take care of yourself and you help me take care of myself, that's real care. That's real love. Let's be real. Your best days start the night before. Hatch believes small, intentional rituals at bedtime can completely change how you show up in life. Here's the thing. Self care doesn't start with doing more, it starts with resting. Better sleep is the foundation of emotional, mental and spiritual well being. That's why Hatch created Hatch Restore, a smart sleep clock designed to help you reclaim those moments around bedtime. It's all about removing distractions and creating calming routines. Think gentle audio, science backed sleep sounds and a sunrise wake up that makes mornings feel good. 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How can people watch when they're slipping into that? Because that's kind of like people go into that unconsciously. And I've seen it in relationships with myself, I've seen it relationships with friends where you don't even realize it's happening. And then you're like, wait, whoa.

Yeah.

Is there a way that we can be more conscious about that journey so that, you know, because it's, it's an opportunity for healing. That's why we do it, to bring it up for healing. So it's important that it comes up and you could even work through it together. But how can we work with that energy?

Yeah. So I think the first step and the reason why I put it in the book Is. Is this level of awareness, like, even knowing. So I'm a classic fixer. I have that natural ability whenever anyone's working in coaching or. Like, it's a natural element of wanting to help people that way. So I'm a classic fixer. And for so many years in so many relationships, I tried to solve all of my partner's problems. Whoever I was with, I was just trying to fix their problems. And I wanted to be the knight in shining armor, and I wanted to be the savior, and I wanted to be that person only to realize they were never satisfied, no matter how much of a savior I was, because there was always more saving to do. And they never really fully saw me as a knight in shining armor. Because now you think you're a knight in shining armor, but literally you're a person with a stretcher, right? Like, it's like you want to be this idolized version of a savior, but really you're just in the emergency room every day, and now there's no knight in shining armor, right? You just. You're like a person who's bad at their job in the. In the medical department. And so what ended up happening was having tested it out, and I think people can relate to that. And that's my experience. I realized that being a fixer didn't set me, the other person or the relationship up for success. It set us up for failure. So how do you become vigilant of it? Which is your question? The way you become vigilant of it is when someone asks for help, what's the first thing you say back? If your partner asks for help and you go, oh, I'll take care of that. Don't worry. And we do that at the start of relationships because we again, think, are they going to think I'm so nice and they're going to think I'm so likable? As opposed to that saying, it's different if someone says, oh, can you grab some milk when I'm. When you're out? And you go, no, I'm not going to do that. You should do. It's not that kind of thing. But like, a good example is when me and Radhi first started dating. Radhi would also ask me, and this is going to annoy so many people. But I promise you, it works. Radhi would always say to me, like, how do you feel I look in this? And I always be honest with her. But one of my favorite responses after I'd be honest with her is, how do you feel you look in this? And she'd always be like, no, you just tell me, do I look good or not? And I'm like, I think you look beautiful, but I want to know how you feel you look in this. And when we'd be out picking furniture for our apartment or whatever it may be, we'd look at the piece of furniture and she'd be like, oh no. You just decide. I'd be like, no, what do you think? Like, what's your taste? And so what I find is that when your partner is trying to outsource something to you, you may feel like doing it for them makes you more likable, but actually you're setting themselves and yourself up for always having to answer that question. And when you rather say, well, what are your thoughts? Like, I want to know what you really care about, I want to know what you believe in, you actually are strengthening their inner voice. So one way to be vigilant is when you're asked for to solve a problem first. Take a second on becoming the fixer. If you're a classic dependent and you want someone else to solve your problems, that can be a lot harder because you already don't feel you have the confidence to fix anything. So actually can be really hard. When you feel like the dependent, the anxiety is really hard being a dependent because you want the other person to deal with it. And now if they're not dealing with it, you don't feel strong enough. What I'd say is that anyone who feels weak or has that self doubt, it comes from not a lack of belief or a lack of quality, it comes from a lack of ability and abilities can be trained and learned. And I always say this to people, if something makes you nervous, if something makes you unconfident, if something makes you scared, you can't just believe in yourself. And I think a lot of people talk about self belief and really it's about self respect. And self respect comes from doing hard things. And so if you're dealing with something that you don't feel you're good at, go and try and get decent at it. Go and take a course, get a coach, get a mentor, go out there and read a book about it. Listen to this podcast, right? Like when you're, when you're searching for the answer, all of a sudden your skill starts to develop and now the problem starts to feel easier to solve. And so as a dependent, especially if you're single, start solving problems yourself and guess what? You're going to feel so much self respect and now your self doubt goes Away at the root. And so those are two ways to be vigilant. And there's plenty more that I explained.

Yeah, I love those examples. So I was talking to our community before you came and this is something that comes up quite a bit with women. And I think a lot of our community are people that identify as women and they're finding that in the dating world or out in their relationships that they're growing, you know, perceived to be growing more than their male partner and that there's a discrepancy between the growth rates. And I'm curious about how much you're seeing that trend where women are deeply interested in personal growth, self development, all of these things. And there for me is a part of that that's self hate led and actually not self love. But then there is that moment where they're doing a lot more work personally than the men. Are you seeing that as a trend? And what would you suggest?

And I love the distinction you just made about the reason we work on ourselves too. Like it's, it's almost like. And again, I know we're both not making broad generalizations. We're trying to based on what we've experienced. If society has set up women to doubt themselves. Yes, society has set up men to pretend they're strong and they're both opposite sides of the same coin. So men feel they have to be the protector, the savior, the provider to have the answers. To have the answers. And so they're trying so hard to present that facade that they don't want to be vulnerable and they don't want to do the work. Because if you have to show you have to do work, that means you're not done. And they're scared that if I show a woman I need to do work, then maybe she won't respect me and love me. Because isn't that what they want? And regardless of gender, whatever you identify as, I think we all feel this about anyone. You may be with someone and think they're with me. It's a corporate example, but it's true. I was working with a CEO recently. CEO of an extremely successful company, very highly regarded, achieved so much in the world. And I've been working with him on his mental health and we're seeing a lot of progress. So I said to him, at your next off site, I said to him, I want you to tell your team the journey you've been on with your mental health. That's all I want you to do, just share with them this journey that we've been on together, just with your direct team, not the whole company or some press article, just the people you work with daily, your C suite, the C level. And he said to me, he said, jay, I don't think I can do that. And I said, why? He said, because they see me as the strong one. He said, they see me as the powerful one. They see me as the one who has it all together. If I tell them that, they won't see me that way. And I said to him, I said, what's more powerful than you sharing your truth? What's more strong or courageous than you being honest with them about what you've been through? Isn't that what real strength is? But the challenge is that. And so transferring that experience into relationships. A lot of people are feeling, well, if I showed them that I'm vulnerable, aren't they with me? Because I'm also, I'm all sorted, right? And so I think that's the issue. And then of course, the other way around, it's like, oh, well, I'm working on myself. I'm showing that I'm building myself up. But then I'm scared my self. Doubt will actually push a good person away. If we have this conversation with the genders that we were talking about, if women are feeling, oh, no, but if I doubt myself too much, he'll run away. And then he's thinking, well, if I show her that I doubt myself, then she'll run away. And so we're at this, like, tension. And I think that requires. That's why the tools in the book of, like, why actually, if both people, regardless of gender, regardless of identification, if both people have compassion for each other, have empathy for each other, understand that this is another imperfect human. That's where we go beyond gender and beyond expectation and beyond all of this and actually can deal with each other. But that only comes when you've gone through your own work, of when you've seen the deepest, darkest parts of your own soul. You're comfortable when someone's exploring theirs, but if you haven't done that, it's very uncomfortable to watch someone else. The other thing I'd say is if you feel you're growing at a faster rate than your partner, that should result in more compassion, more empathy, and more patience. That's actually a result of more work. The result of more work is not more judgment, more critique and more spotting of weaknesses. That is not. And I think that's the challenge. Sometimes in, in early spiritual circles or early self development or personal growth, you start thinking, oh, I can see everything clearly, and I can see all these faults. And now we start to critique. I've worked with so many couples where men and women have come to me and said, my wife criticizes me daily. My wife has changed my entire diet. Radhi has changed my entire diet, my workout plan, and so much in my life. And yet I've never felt criticized or judged. And that's genius. Like, it's unbelievable, the level of coaching she's given me in an area of my life that I was negligent about. And I've never felt criticized. I've only felt encouraged. And she's always set the example because she's doing it regardless of whether I do it or not. So it's not like, oh, you have to do this with me. Oh, look at me. Look what I'm doing. Oh, look what all these other guys are doing. Why don't you do this? Why don't you look like this? Like, how does that make anyone change? Like, how does it make anyone change? But that's the kind of stuff we say to the people we supposedly love. And so for me, if you genuinely believe you're growing spiritually, that's more compassion, more empathy, more love. Not more criticism, judgment, and fault finding.

Yeah, that's what I'll see oftentimes where it's like, I'm becoming more spiritual. I'm doing the work, and then the focus becomes everyone else is not. It's like, then you turn to everyone. You're like, and I just realized that my mom's a narcissist, and they're codependent and all these things, and then they turn and label everyone with everything. It's just. It's kind of heartbreaking because you're like, okay, that's, again, you know, not the point. It's kind of like part of the path.

Yeah. And, hey, I'm compassionate to that person, too. Going back to this whole conversation, like, the reason why I'm compassionate to the person that labels is because we're doing that for our own security in the beginning. So when you can finally see and you're like, okay, and I'm not pointing at you for real. But, yes, narcissist. Like, whatever. Like, when you start labeling people, really, you're doing it to show yourself. I am learning. I know. I'm understanding. So I also have compassion for that, because in the beginning, you have to protect yourself. It's like when someone first makes a big shift in their life, they have to cut other people out, and they have to look at the difference and be very black and white because they don't know how to do it otherwise. Right. If they don't cut that group of friends out, they won't be able to stop drinking. If they don't cut that group of friends out, they won't be able to disconnect from Instagram or whatever it may be. And that's an early stage of change. So we don't want to be. We don't want to hate on them either, because we understand it. But I think when you are that person, you want to be aware of it so that you don't push people away.

Yeah. It's like, how is it leading you to more separation?

Yeah.

You know what I mean? It's like, let's be mindful of, like, what? Again, it's always coming back. What is more separation? What is more separation? In the book, it talks a little bit about purpose, too. Like, purpose as it relates to love and relationship. So what is that correlation? Because I think sometimes people think about them separately.

Yes. Yeah. Before we dive into that, I wanted to touch on one more nuance, because you've. The questions you've asked have been so great, and I'm like, I want to make sure that we touch on that. There's a nuance also of, like, when someone's starting their journey. And I deeply mean this. And it took me a while to learn this, even as a coach in this space was, not everyone's going to learn from the same books you read, from the same podcast you listen to, and from the same teachers and guides and coaches that you found your truth through. And I often say to people I work with, one of my favorite things I get to do is my podcast. And I sit down with so many different people from so many different walks of life. Some of them are neuroscientists, Some of them are athletes. Some of them are actors, musicians, models. Some of them are philanthropists and professors. What I'm hoping is that that allows multiple different people to come on their journey of personal growth. Like, I remember when I first sat down with Ray Dalio, who's. Who's become a dear friend at this point. Ray Dalio is the founder of Bridgewater Associates, highly sought after in the financial world. If anyone has a partner or a friend who's well known in finance, Ray Dalio is like. And I didn't, even when I first met Ray, I did not know that about him. And it was really funny because all my investment banker friends and hedge fund manager friends, after that episode they were like, jay, you're so cool. Like, we love you now. I was like, what?

You're like, Kendall Jenner was on last week.

But it's like, for them, Ray Dalio is like their person. And so when they hear Ray talk about meditation and Ray does meditate. Ray's been meditating for years, and he credits meditation as being one of the most successful parts of his success. All the hedge fund managers, investment bankers, going, oh, my God, I need to meditate.

Right?

And they could have heard about it, about meditation from me for, like, years, and it didn't move them. So people have to hear about it through a voice that affects them and not my voice doesn't affect everyone, and that's okay. And, you know, it doesn't work that way. So I feel like when you're watching your partner not progress on the journey, it's often because you're trying to get them to go on your journey, not theirs. And so if you can open and broaden your mind and think, maybe they're not going to read the same book as me, maybe they need to listen to this episode of this podcast. Right. So anyway, I wanted to touch on that.

Yeah, I love that because it is. I. And again, I said it before, but it's like, I think for women, there's, like a communal aspect to what. Who we are and what we do. Even with Radi, it's so interesting hearing your guys's values because it's so masculine, feminine. If we're looking at just the archetypes of the energetics, yours is purpose focused, hers is family. But it's like, for women, we're like, okay, we're doing this thing. Come on, everybody, join us. Join us in this thing. But again, there's that moment, and I think a lot of women are going through this where it's almost like personal growth, self development, work fatigue, because we've just been inundated with so much of it. And I just also want to be mindful, like, how much is this personal growth work or information supporting you and loving yourself more?

Yeah.

And that's the period of it. You know, this needs to support you in a depth of love for yourself and acceptance that goes beyond really being concerned about what everyone else is doing.

Yeah.

In their world, too.

Yeah. That's so beautiful. And I. I couldn't agree with you more. And I. I deeply. I mean, I was raised by a mom who did everything for me, so, you know, I have a lot of. I've had a lot of perspective on that from Day one where my mom woke me up, got me ready for school and for my sister too, made us breakfast, dropped us to school, made us pack lunch, went off to work all day. She learned a new career so that she could be flexible for me and my sister. So she quit her full time job, took exams in a whole new career path so that she could be self employed to set up her own work from home situation so that she could pick us up. And she didn't, you know, she never did exams beyond 16 years old. Like she didn't get to go to college or anything like that. But she did all of that just for us. And then she'd pick us up from school, make dinner for us, help us with our homework and then we'd go to bed. And so I saw, I saw like superwoman and at the same time I saw someone who, you know, didn't have enough time to love herself or didn't have enough time to do things for herself. And, and that pains me now looking back because Obviously as an 8 year old, as a 12 year old, there's very little understanding you have of the.

Full picture or like mom, what's your self care?

Yeah, I wish, I wish, I wish and I do it now as much as I can, of course, but at that time I didn't have that. And I look at that, I'm like, wow. My mom gave everything for me and my sister to be, to be set up. And I know that I'm fueled by that love and I know that the love I try to give out in the world is my mom's love that she filled me up with. Like you know, the book, she's one third of the dedication of this book because she literally taught me how to love endlessly. And so when I look at the pressure that she had and the fact that she never made time for herself and she did set me up, I, I really feel that. And we'll go back to your purpose question afterwards and it's kind of linked to this, but I do feel that the point of all of this work is to lead you to being happier, healthier and more healed. And the path to being happier, healthier and more healed is not beautiful in the external sense. It's difficult. And so just because your life looks tough or difficult, it doesn't mean you're on the wrong path. Chances are you're on the right path. But I think what you brought up, Krista, which I love, is that there's a spirit of self love that kind of underpins all of it. And really that comes from self forgiveness and grace. And that is a cultivation in and of itself. And so actually what I would say, based on your thoughts, which I appreciate and I agree with, most people's self development work, should actually be aimed at developing self forgiveness and grace because that becomes a path to all of this. Because, hey, whether you want to learn how to meditate or whether you want to work out more, or whether you want to eat healthy or whatever you want to do, I promise you self forgiveness and grace are going to be a part of the process because you're going to miss a day at the gym, you're going to miss eating that healthy meal, you're going to not want to meditate for three days in a row. And the skill that helps you with all of that is self forgiveness and grace. And so I encourage you all to make your personal growth journey about self forgiveness and grace to assist what you said, which I think changing who you are, Correct?

Yeah, I think that's the goal, you know, for a lot of people is how can I change who I am? How can I make myself different instead of accepting where you're at? Yeah. The purpose piece on relationships and purpose.

Yeah. The reason why I bring it up is kind of related to this. And it's the idea that Albert Einstein once said, if you want to be happy, like focus on a goal, not a person or a thing. And. And it's like the idea that I think a lot of people make people their purpose. And when I've worked with people, especially people who've been in relationships for a long time, maybe your partner was the entrepreneur, so you sacrificed your journey to help them. Maybe your partner was the breadwinner, so you put everything you cared about aside and went all in for them. That's fine for a bit, but when someone's done that for 10, 20, 30 years, what I found is a lot of people come out in their 50s and then feel like they didn't achieve their potential. So I've seen people who potentially look happily married or in relationships for 10, 20, 30 years, and then one person comes out and says, we worked for your dreams, not mine. And now they feel misled. And so what I do in the book is I create a scenario based support system, regardless of your financial position or where you are, to help you make sense of how do we decide? How do we consciously make an effort to decide how we both help each other focus on our purpose of where we're at? And again, it's a consciousness thing. What happened in these relationships that I'm talking about is the person who was the breadwinner. They assumed their partner should help them, and they never talked about it. And so what ended up happening 30 years later, they hate each other. Well, one of them hates the other one for saying, you took me away from my purpose. And they're like, no, I didn't take you away. I was just taking care of the family and you were helping me. And so it ends up being this awkward thing where it's like, we just never talked about it. And so I feel like when you have a healthy conversation and you're like, well, I think, you know, if you can give me 12 months to experiment, could you hold it down for 12 months? Okay, we experiment. Okay, I got somebody. Can you do this? And I think having that conversation up front just saves you so much stress and hassle. And I think we avoid that conversation because we want to be the supportive partner. We want to be the partner who sacrifices everything because look how much I love you. And I think that just misleads us and the other person. So I would encourage you all to make the pursuit of purpose a healthy pursuit in your life. And I call it a pursuit rather than finding your purpose, because the pressure of finding your purpose again stops you from loving yourself, because you're like, I don't have it. I don't know what it is. I don't have it. I don't know what it is. And all I'm saying is, hey, just have stuff you care about and don't let go of it. That's all I'm saying. Have something you care about and you don't let go of it. It could be something as simple as going for a coffee with your friend every week. It could be as simple as helping out at a homeless shelter or a soup kitchen. It could be as simple as working on your creative pursuits of art or sport or whatever it may be, but just don't give it up because you think now you have to grow out of it. And I think that's in the book I really Give. Step by Step focuses on how no matter what your situation is, how you both don't have to sacrifice, but there's a way of figuring it out.

Yeah, that's huge. I think also, too, it's what I found during that. And I've learned this over time, just even watching my parents or other relationships, so much can be remedied or supported by talking about it. You know, even with a lot of the. A lot of my women friends Are the breadwinners, like, I think almost more than half now are breadwinners. And it's like there's a dynamic, there's a power play happening within the relationship where they're the breadwinners. You know, the husband or partner or boyfriend might not be. And so there's this like power struggle, but there's not an actual conversation of like, hey, if I'm making more money, what's your contribution? Or how are we going to work with this energy? How are you feeling? You know, there's so much can be remedied by communication. It's so wild.

Yeah. And I guess that's why we've always had communication. Communication, communication. But, but the challenge is that we want to talk about how people behave or their actions, but we don't want to talk about our intentions. So we'd rather talk about like, you did that wrong, you should be doing this, or I expected this from you rather than, this is what I'm feeling, this is what I'm thinking. How are you thinking about it? And that's because we're scared that if we say it out loud, the other person doesn't have the humility to hear it. We're scared that if I tell my partner, hey, I'm the breadwinner, I really need your support, that they don't have the humility or the lack of ego to say, yeah, I think you're right, that's what we should do. And that's why what we have to realize is it doesn't have to be about winning and losing. The reason why ego gets involved is because we want to win. And the way I see in relationships is if I win and you lose, we both lose because we both are on the same team. And if you win and I lose, then we both lose because we're on the same team. So we have two choices. We either win together or we lose together. There's no third option. Whereas we think there's a third option of I won and you lost, you both lost. And so my encouragement is in a relationship, if you're genuinely committed to working it out with someone, first of all, bring up conversation in a non confrontational, non aggressive way. Talk about things when they're not heated, we wait till things are heated to say how we really feel rather than doing it when it's cool and just saying, hey, you know, like I'll often ask Radhi, I'll be like, and this is when we're not, not having a fight or not in a, in a disagreement. I'LL say, is this going. Is this relationship going in the direction you want it to go? But that relation, that question has to be asked in a safe space. Because what I don't want her to think is Jay thinks it's going in the wrong direction, which is not what I'm saying. I'm asking a question because if we're both going to be in this, I want to know if it's going in the direction you want. And I want it to go in a certain direction. And then I want a safe space to say, hey, you know what? It's. It's not quite going in the direction I want. Here's why. But it's like it needs to be a safe space where I don't feel that person's going to destroy me for raising a concern. And I think we've created conversations in communication where anything that's uncomfortable to talk about or anything that's difficult to talk about, you never talk about it. We saw our parents do that, we saw families do that, we saw friends do that. And now we only talk about uncomfortable things when we're screaming at the top of our lungs. And that pushes the other person apart. So I think humility, I think presenting things properly. I mean, there's this beautiful research that shows that when you give feedback to someone, if you're walking together in the same direction, the other person's more likely to digest it. If you're sitting at a round table instead of opposite each other, it's less confrontational, it's creating less animosity. But if you're sitting opposite each other at a table, it feels like I'm against you. It doesn't feel like we're together. And so the idea of, can you create that environment externally and internally, that if I really want this person in my life, we're going to solve this together. If I really want them in my life, it can't be about getting one up on them like that. That can't be where we go.

Yeah. And conscious loving, they say that most arguments when they're unconscious are a fight for the victim position.

Yeah.

So you're like, who's the. Who's the victim? When me and Lindsay have a confrontation, or even me and my husband, it's. We'll usually go to the beach, and if I have something that I want to talk about or she does, it's like you'll kind of massage the first part of the conversation to be, like, normal.

Yeah.

And then you'll bring it up because it's like okay. We're regulating in our nervous systems together. And it's nice to have the walking in the same direction because not only is it like that same symbol of we're walking together, but it almost gives your eyes and your body a little bit of a break.

Yes.

To just be, okay, I'm looking ahead, I'm not. We're not face to face. Like there's a face off element.

Yeah.

And so being in nature and finding the right environment is really important. You know, being outside, being at the park, kind of breaking the pattern of potentially being in the home or being in the bedroom or being on all these things, I think is so nice.

Absolutely. Yeah. And I love that you do that. And it's such a valuable skill. And, you know, I think learning how to fight, I talk about in the book about fight styles. And the reason why I brought up fight styles is I was a huge fan of, you know, Gary Chapman's five Love Languages. And I think that's beautiful. But I was looking at all the Gottman Institute research shows that learning how to fight, learning how to deal with conflict is core to a long lasting relationship. And if you look at our weakest skill in a relationship, it's communicating during conflict. Why do people struggle in a relationship? Because we don't know how to talk about hard things. We don't know how to have a conversation about things we disagree on. We like, literally you can ruin the whole night because you disagreed about what to watch or what to eat. Like, everything can go. Because we don't know how to talk about things that we could debate on. And so I created this and inside the book, there's a test that you can do that helps you figure out what your fight style is. And there are three fight styles you have. Venting, hiding, and exploding. Venting is, I want to talk it out and I want to talk about it right now. Let's solve this. Let's figure it out. Hiding is, I need a break. I need to go somewhere by myself. I need to let myself emotionally regulate and then I'll come back when I'm ready. And exploding is like, you know, like, maybe I'm like, I just burst into tears. I, like, just like, I need to blame you. I need to just like be aggressive. Maybe even it can be aggressive and it could just be like, I just feel, I just don't know how to control anything. Hiding is like, at least I know where to go away. Venting is like, but sometimes we explode. And we all experience all of these three, obviously, but I Hope you find your one. And it's important to know that because otherwise you're a kickboxer and your partner's doing MMA and it doesn't, you know, you can't fight accordingly. And so in our case, I'm a venter. I want to talk about it. I want to talk about it now. And rather a hider. She wants to. To go and reflect on it. And in the beginning of our relationship, I often said to Radhi, I felt she didn't love me because she didn't want to talk about it right now. I was like, you obviously don't care because we just had a big argument. And if you need to walk away from this space, that means you don't care. That means you don't. You're not invested. That's just not true. Her way of investing is taking out time. My way of taking investment is showing. I want to talk about. And so I think knowing your fight style and being aware of it and being aware of your partner's fight style, I realized Radhi needed two days. I wanted it now. So we're talking one day. Let's meet in the middle. Let's give you some time, but let's not leave me in anxiety. Let's create a space where we can safely connect. And so when we communicate about our fight styles, when we communicate our relationship roles, when we communicate about all these things, we start getting tools and skills and abilities. When we don't talk about any of these things, we just create the story in our head. You're not here. That means you don't care. You're late. That means you don't care. You never turn up. That means you don't care. But those are just stories that we're creating without letting that person tell us their story. And we never know what their story is after many years.

I'm so excited about the book. I'm so excited. Last question from me.

Yeah.

What is one hope that you have for people when reading it or when having it?

My hope for people when reading it is that it's not about completing the book. It's not about finishing a book. I think a lot of people today, it's like, I can finish a book. I completed a book. I listened to it.

Of course.

Yeah.

This is such a funny concept.

Yeah. And. And my hope is that you use it as a consistent guide, a consistent companion, a consistent workbook. There's activities, there's exercises, there's tests, there's quizzes. There's. There's just a lot of material. It's not meant to be read just to finish it. It's. It's there to help you at any point in your life when you're struggling and you flick to a page and go talk to me. I want people to have a slower, longer, deeper love. And so I hope that your process of moving through the book is slower, longer and deeper because that will lead to that type of love.

So grateful you're here.

Thank you. This was beautiful. You asked me so many. You're such a brilliant interviewer. You asked me so many questions I haven't yet talked about, haven't been asked. I really hope everyone who's been listening, like, I really hope this serves you. I want you to have a beautiful love story in your life. I want you to have the most fulfilling, powerful, abundant love in your life. But I want you to have the skills in order to create it. I don't want you to hope and wish and wait and want for it. And so, Krista, thank you so much for sharing this with your community and your audience. I'm so grateful to you. Thank you.

We love you guys. We'll see you soon.

Each year around the holidays, I do a Secret Santa gift exchange with my team. And I get so caught up in finding the perfect gift for my Secret Santa, I almost forget that someone else is doing the same for me. If only we could treat all our relationships this way. If we could give with such enthusiasm without thinking about what we'll get back. And that's what the next seven minutes are about. Relationships, expectations and where we can get into trouble.

I'm Jay Shetty.

Welcome to the Daily J. Let's start with a few mindful breaths to get centred in this moment. Breathing in and breathing out. Expanding with the inhale, releasing with the exhale, settling in to right now.

And.

Sinking into right here. When people think of monasteries, love is not the first thing that comes to mind. But believe it or not, the biggest lessons I've learned about relationships came from my time as a monk. The ashram works like a big extended family. We're taught to love and look after.

Each other, lend a hand whenever possible.

And generally show kindness towards each other. After months of giving my all, I.

Began to feel like I wasn't getting.

All my giving back.

So finally I went to one of my teachers for advice.

I'm upset, I said. I feel like I'm giving out a lot of love, but I don't feel like it's being returned in kind. I'm caring and looking out for others. But they don't do the same for me. I don't get it. Then he said something that forever changed my relationship with relationships. Love is like a circle. You assume the love you will receive will come from the person you gave it to. But it doesn't always come from that person. The problem, he told me, lies in our expectations. We tend to think of relationships as transactions. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.

We keep scorecards in our minds. We go tit for tat.

But love and relationships don't always work that way. Or at least they shouldn't. A tat for them doesn't always equal a tat for you. You know, this makes me think of my mom. Caring, loving, always there for me. In fact, if she had her way.

We'D be FaceTiming all day long.

And don't get me wrong, I love my mom. I'm eternally grateful for her and I.

Try to show it.

But even if I don't pick up her call or give her the same attention back, her approach to me doesn't change. She never expects anything in return. I think we could all use that lesson to focus on what we're giving out. Let go of the scorecard, scratch your.

Back without worrying about the itch on.

Ours, and give without expectations. We should give love purely to give love.

No other reason.

It's as simple as that. And let's reflect on that now. Begin by thinking about how you tend to view relationships. Do you look for reciprocation? Do you keep a tally? Who has shown you kindness or consideration without expecting something equal in return? How could you be that person for someone else? For everyone else? See what happens if you let go of your expectations and join into the feedback loop.

Love.

So for today's meditation, we're going to do a loving kindness practice to work on giving with no agenda. Start by getting comfortable. Feel free to close your eyes if you want and bring your attention to your breath. The natural flow of air in and out. Now let's send some love. Bring to mind someone that's easy to feel kindness towards. It could be a family member, a friend, even a pet. Think of their positive qualities and just send them love. Simple as that. You can silently repeat these phrases if it helps. May you be happy, may you be healthy, May you be peaceful, Showering them with well wishes. Nothing in it for you. Now extend this out a bit and include a group of people or even the whole world. May you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be peaceful. This practice of sending love can help open our hearts. And a famous quote by Katharine Hepburn sums it up, love has nothing to do with what you're expecting to get, only with what you're expecting to give, which is everything. Thank you for trying something new with me. Go ahead and share this message with someone else who could use a little love today. I love you all and I can't wait to connect once again tomorrow.

Success starts with your drive, and American Public University is here to fuel it. With affordable tuition and over 200 flexible online programs, APU helps you gain the skills and confidence to move forward. Whether you're changing careers, starting fresh, or pursuing a lifelong passion, our programs are designed for people who never stop you bring the fire. APU will fuel the journey. Learn more at Apu Apus Edu.

Hey, it's Joel and Matt from how to Money. If your New Year's resolution is to finally get get your finances in shape, we've got your back prices, they're still high, and the economy is all over the place. But 2026 is the year for you to get intentional and make real progress. That's right, yeah. Each week we break down what's happening with your money, the most important issues to focus on, and the small moves that make a big difference. Kick off the year with confidence. Listen to How To Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wali.

And I'm Hari Kundabolu.

It's a new year, and on the podcast Health Stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health, which means.

Being honest about what we know, what.

We don't know, and how messy it can all be.

I like to sleep in late and sleep early.

Is there a chronotype for that or.

Am I just depressed?

Health stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone.

Listen on the I Heart Rate Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed human.