3 Ways to Become More Desirable In Relationships [MASTERCLASS] EP 1326

Of course you're feeling these things. You're not a screw up. You're not weak. You're not handling it terribly because you're having these thoughts. And what I would say to people is a really manageable step is.

Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome to this special masterclass. We've brought some of the top experts in the world to help you unlock the power of your life through this specific theme today. It's going to be powerful, so let's go ahead and dive in. It's not the amount of time, it's the quality of the time and the presence of your quality of time. I think that I find, which is most powerful, at least in my relationship, where I may only have a half hour to an hour of time a day, certain days, maybe right now, but my phone is not anywhere near me. I am looking in her eyes the whole time. I'm engaged, asking questions. How's your mom? How's your family? How's this? Tell me, what can I do for you? Can we play a game right now? Can we do something fun? Can we dance a little? It's the presence to the quality of time. And I'm sure the more time you have better, but it's got to be quality time from my personal experience. Are you finding that that's what I guess women and men want as well when you're coaching people?

Oh, these issues go both ways. You know, men can have the same insecurities as women can in these situations. And it comes down to which partner might feel busier, which one has got more to do right now. It could be like, it's a tough situation if one person in a relationship right now and they're living under the same roof feels like they've got tons to do and tons of purpose and tons, you know, like, I can lose myself in my mission and what I'm doing right now and their partner.

And be fine. And your partner has lost a job or lost this or.

Right. Or I haven't figured out what my thing is yet. I don't know what, you know, you have your mission. I don't know what I'm saying.

What do I do? I'm waiting for you to come home every day. Yeah. Right.

Yeah, I'm sitting here picking random hobbies out of thin air because I feel like everyone keeps telling me now's the time to learn a hobby.

So I'm like, should I learn guitar? Should I learn... Or worse, I'm on social media watching everyone else's perfect relationship and everyone else thriving and I feel less than.

Yeah, exactly. And that, by the way, that's really, we've got to be really careful of that right now. We're used to comparing ourselves to others on social media. through the lens of, you know, we're seeing their highlight reel of their life, you know, oh, they're traveling now, look at them sipping a beach on the cocktail, look at them doing this skydive, look at, we're seeing the highlight reel of their life. I think now we're seeing the highlight reel of people's emotions. So in quarantine, people don't have that life, right? We've not got all of these activities that we could be doing, But we're all of a sudden seeing that moment where someone's just finished their yoga workout and they post and they're like, you know, I'm, you know, I got this quarantine, just did my yoga, blah, blah, blah.

And you're like- On the day.

Exactly, but exactly. But you're not seeing, like, Matthew Hussey in the moment where he's like super grumpy and like irritable and just like, today is not this is not my day and I'm not feeling it today and I don't want to make a video today. And I've made a point of saying things like that out loud because I think it's important that people get the full spectrum of what other people are going through. Because guess what? Other people are going to dark places. Other people are having their freak outs. Other people are having those moments of depression or deep melancholy.

They're emotionally hurt and they're needing that kind of quick connection again. They're needing, they might go back to the person because they're feeling weak and they miss that feeling of connection or love or intimacy. But they know it's not the right fit for them long term. They know. But this is in a heightened state of vulnerability for them that they go back quicker. What advice do you have to someone like that? Very hard. Very hard.

I have so much. Firstly, a breakup even under normal circumstances is a tremendously difficult thing. True, true, I shouldn't say a breakup because there are many joyous breakups we go through. But a truly, when you experience true heartbreak, it is one of the most devastating feelings in the world.

Devastating.

You're a zombie.

You'Re dead inside.

It's.

And. And it's worse than you're dead inside. You act dead to everybody else inside. You feel like you're dying.

Yeah, that's true.

On Loop all day.

You can't get out of it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

In a breakup. And this is as true now. Now is no different. People need to. People need to recognize that now is just a difficult breakup on steroids. If you're going through heartbreak right now, you're just doing it on steroids. But it's just the same emotions. So don't fret that, oh my God, why did it have to happen now when this was going on? You're giving it a big story. It's still just the same emotions of heartbreak. You're just experiencing them in a very, in a heightened way.

And you don't have the ability to rebound physically with that person or a.

New person, which we could see as a gift.

Right. Why is that a gift?

Because there are plenty of things as my brother Stephen Hussey, a wonderful writer for for our website, as he says in a breakup, there are two methods of recovery. There's the athlete recovery method and there's the hangover recovery method. You're going to like this, Louis.

Tell me.

I love it.

You haven't heard it before, but you're going to love it because it's the analogy is perfect for you.

I love it.

The hangover recovery method. You think about how do people deal with a hangover? They wake up, they eat greasy foods because they're like, oh, I just need something to make me feel better. They watch crap TV, they lay on the sofa, they wake up at 2:00 p.m. Yeah. Cut all the blinds, don't let any light in, eat ice cream. Essentially, they do all of these things that are temporary kind of pleasure and comfort. but ultimately are not nutritional and are not the things that are needed to get, you know, what's needed. Massive amounts of hydration.

Water.

Go take a walk.

Sunshine.

Right.

Exercise.

Yeah. Get the metabolism moving again. Get that, like, crap out of your system. Like, that's all the stuff that's needed in that moment. But it's. If you can feel harder to do the things that. are actually going to get you out of it. Now look at the way an athlete recovers in an injury, right? You know better than anybody. You don't, firstly, you still train whatever you can train. You don't ignore everything simply because your shoulder's injured. You do what you can.

Yeah, you do some abs, you do some legs, you do something else.

Right, let me keep a hand- Swimming, yeah. Exactly. You eat well, you get tons of rest, as much rest as you possibly can. You do rehab when necessary, but you don't do so much that it injures what you're doing.

Yeah, you reset your vision. You visualize what you want and start mentally rehearsing the reps, the repetition, the action steps, you mental rehearse, you know, all those things, right?

So now if you apply that to a breakup, the hangover recovery method, is let's go and sleep with other people quickly just to get my fix, just to feel connected, just to feel like I'm worth something, just to feel like I'm still sexy. Let me go out and drink, party, let me eat ice cream, bad food, keep going to the food.

Get on Tinder and all the apps.

Or just hide away under the covers, don't engage life. It could be either or, but they're all hangover recovery. So, the methods because they don't make you feel better long term, they're just short term pleasure. The athlete recovery method in a breakup is you do the same as an athlete. You say, okay, my heart might be injured right now. My heart's offline, so to speak. But I still have everything else. So let me make sure the rest of my life is firing on all cylinders right now. Let me do everything. Let me be kind to myself. Let's maybe like put dating aside for the moment or put that Let me go and make platonic connections. Let me go and build my relationships with my friends and family. Let me eat well, let me sleep well, let me train, let me go and do all of these things that train every other muscle in my life so that when my heart comes back online, every other part of me is ready to go. So you've got one problem right now. You're in pain, right? But if that pain causes you to let every other part of your body So, if you can part of your life go down spiral, now you've got six problems.

So.

That'S the part we want to avoid.

And, only have one problem, not six.

And, you know, look, all of this is easy to say, and when you're heartbroken, you just feel like you feel so bad and so sick in your stomach and so nauseated all the time that you, even hearing this sounds like a lot of work. And what I would say to people is a really manageable step is I, you know, there's that quote where emotions are weather, let them come and go, right? And that's true, emotions are weather. I used to think that emotions were really important. A friend of mine, Jamison Jordan, who you know, who shoots my videos, he would always tell me whenever I would be in a real funk, a bad place, whatever, he, I would talk to him about it. He was one of the closest people to me. And I always remember he used to say to me like, I just think you like, think your emotions are more important than I feel like mine are.

You put more emphasis on yours.

Yeah, you like think they're really important.

You think your emotions are you?

Yeah, it would be like you just seem to like give more weight to your feelings than I do. And I, at the time, I didn't quite hear that. And over time, I've come to understand what that means. And of course, a lot of this is taught in mindfulness training, meditation, and so on. that idea that just because you have a thought, just because you have an emotion, it doesn't make it important. And in a heartbreak, just because you miss your partner, that doesn't actually make that feeling that important. Just because you feel hurt and you feel like, oh, my God, I'll never find anyone like that again. That's just a thought and an emotion that's attached to that thought, and it doesn't make it that important. And so when I was going through terrible times, when I've gone through heartbreak, One of the key lessons I learned was, okay, there's really cloudy skies right now. That's the weather, right? And it feels like that weather will never pass. But what I would begin to pay attention to is I would realize that I would realize, oh, for the last 20 minutes, I didn't think about my breakup.

Small wins.

I'd be like, yeah, and often you only notice it after the fact. 'Cause when you're in it, it could be that you're in a flow state with your work and that's taken you out of it. It could be that you're having a funny moment with a friend. It could be that you lost yourself in a movie. It could be you just had a conversation with your brother, your mother, whoever.

A workout, yeah.

For a few minutes. Even if it's just five. For five minutes, you noticed, I felt better. I felt, maybe I didn't feel amazing, but I just, For five minutes, I didn't feel like I was dying.

I didn't feel suffering.

And when that happens, here's what I would say to myself. I'd be like, well, that's interesting. Notice those things as interesting. And this applies not just to heartbreak, but to depression, to anxiety, to all sorts of different emotions that are undesirable. When you notice that for five minutes of your day, you didn't feel that 'Cause here's what happens. We have our, like, whatever is our home, whether it's depression, heartbreak, anxiety, sadness, we have our home that we go to 90% of our day. And when we feel that, we focus on it so intensely that it becomes very difficult to get out of it because we are focused on that 90% the whole time. And what we don't acknowledge is this interesting window in the day. where we didn't feel that. And that window has some clues, has some, there's some truth often in that window, that 5% of the day where you felt all right. There's some truth there that's waiting to be discovered, enlarged, held under a microscope. And what I would do is when I would feel better for five minutes, I'd go, well, okay, so what did that, if nothing else, what did that prove? It proved that it's possible for me to feel better. I had a reference point for the fact that I could feel better. And then you go, well, if I felt better for five minutes, if I even felt better for a minute, let's make more of those. What was happening? How did I do it? I might not be able to get my day to the point where I even feel good for a quarter of the day right now. Right? That might be an unrealistic goal. But if I had one good minute or one good hour, let me make the new goal not to be great or to be happy or to get over this. Just make more of those.

Yeah.

And multiply those moments. Multiply those minutes into five and ten and 20 minutes.

It's a manageable task. Suddenly getting over your heartbreak. You need to get over it, dude. You know, blah, blah, blah. It's not, this isn't, that's not practical advice for someone who's going through hell, but for someone who realizes that just for five minutes, the clouds parted and they go, oh my God.

It's like, it's like one of my favorite movies, Swingers, where Mikey is always thinking about his ex and who he left, and then now she won't come back to him six months ago or whatever, and he's constantly talking about it, obsessing about it, suffering in pain, and then he finally, learned to just put his attention somewhere else for a few minutes and then put it for an hour and then he goes on a date with someone and then he thought about her for a day and he was like, wow, I didn't talk about her at all today.

And what's so important about that because what's really interesting about that movie is he begins to do these things that slowly start to create more moments of good weather. in his day.

He goes salsa dancing. He does this, he does activities.

Yeah.

Right.

But what we have to be aware of, you have to respect whatever is the drug, whether it's your ex, whether it's genuinely a drug or booze or whether it's a situation that makes you feel bad or whatever. Often when we start to create more good weather, we start to take for granted that the bad weather can't appear now. It's like, I'm past it.

Yeah, it could come back. A storm could come raging through again.

Someone, your ex could text you and if you text back and start engaging, knowing, knowing what happens that you're, when you start in a conversation with that person again, you're going to spiral. You're not respecting the drug. You got, you might have been clean for months or years, but you got to respect the drug because it's what you don't is when you, when you get cocky and you don't remember that there are rituals and routines and practices daily that got you to this good state. You are liable to fall back into that trap because you're, because you're blind. Don't be blind. Don't be afraid. It's not about fit. You're not fearful. You're not worried because, you know, If I didn't die at the height of my breakups pain, if I didn't die on day two, I'm not going to die on day 22 or day 52 or day 1002. If I could deal with this at the height of its pain, I'm not going to die now. So I'm not going to be afraid of this, but I'm also going to respect it and know that there are certain things that make me feel better in my day and I have to consciously put them into my day because the moment I take for granted that I just feel better, that's when that thing starts creeping.

Exactly. I'm laughing so hard because we, we have a mutual friend that we've been helping. I won't say his name, but we've been helping navigate certain things in their, you know, their relationship. And, you know, it just reminded me of that, of replying to people when they text you, when you think you're good. Hey, don't go back into that. Make sure you stay true to what you want, what you're committed to by in the athlete mindset of envisioning something that you want for your future and envisioning the Relationship or the better match or, you know, how you want to be feeling and all those things.

And by the way, and just remember, and this is true, not just for people going through heartbreak right now, but people going through solitude right now, because there's a lot of people who right now are just in solitude. They're not necessarily heartbroken, but they are experiencing a deep kind of existential loneliness. And when we're on our own for long periods of time, many people, not everyone, but many people and perhaps even most, have more of a tendency to go to dark places with their thoughts. Yeah. And there's a lot of people that are there that are listening to us right now that certainly can't, that, you know, the I, you know, some people might be in a hell with someone in the house, but these people in solitude are looking at that guy and I'll take that right now over the hell I'm in of being constantly on my own and going out of my mind. I would say to people that, you know, the same weather rule applies that you might feel really kind of dark and lonely at points in your day, but there are other points in your day where you don't notice the good weather and pay attention to the good weather and what made you feel good. Did you just have a conversation with one of your siblings? Did you have a little group chat with a bunch of friends? Did you watch a life affirming movie? Did you read a book that made you feel connected to an author from some period in time? Maybe who was also alone and writing about it. By reading that author, you go, oh my God, I feel, you know, someone else is having the same experience as me. I think that's really important is if you're in solitude right now on your own, you connect to other people who have experienced that because some of the greatest figures of all time have spent inordinate amounts of time alone, have experienced the darkness that you're experiencing, and you're in good company. You may feel you're alone and oh man, we have this solipsistic attitude that we're the only one who's alone. We know it's not rationally true, we know it's not logically true, but we feel it on an emotional level. Those are moments where you have to remind yourself, I'm in good company, not just today, but throughout time. Key figures, brilliant people, people that are far more brilliant than most will ever be, have experienced the deepest, darkest, existential loneliness and in a way, there's a, there is something slightly romantic about that. I always love when I read an author and I hear that author who's brilliant and who I love. And I, you know, I was just reading Bertrand Russell and you, and then you hear about something that someone suffers with or something that they've gone through and you go, thank God, this person that I love also, you know, also, you know, there's there's that element of it that's really, really powerful. And so I think that you can adopt, yes, except that it's difficult. It is difficult. Don't look at other people and think they're handling it so well. It is difficult. I'd call my dad at times when business is hard and business was messy and chaotic and I screwed up or I'd lost money or I'd done something. I'd call my dad and I'd be like, you know, my dad's one of my big mentors. And I'd call him and say, Dad, like, I'm just so stressed, I'm so overwhelmed. This is happening, this is going wrong. I've got 10 people asking me for this, whatever. And he'd say, Matt, part of the problem is you don't think that other people's businesses are just as messy. It's almost like you think that you're struggling with all these things and other people aren't. He said, Matt, I've been in business for 40 years. Business is messy. That is the nature of it. It is messy. It is chaotic. There are always things going wrong as well as things going right.

Right.

That's the nature, that's how it is supposed to be. And when he would say that to me, it didn't take my problems away. But what it made me realize is, oh, it's all right. It's not, this is normal. I'm on top of my problems. I'm beating myself up and taking it personally that I'm doing a horrible job. Yeah.

It's kind of like your dad and Jameson are saying the same thing. Your feelings are more important. Your mess is more important.

Yeah, A, don't give it so much power and B, and don't give your feelings and emotions so much power. Not every emotion is a cue to do something. Yeah. At the same time, except that this is your view that, you know, in the Road Less Traveled, M. Scott Peck talked about, I think one of the first line of his book is life is hard. And one of the things that makes life more difficult for us is that we expect it to be easy.

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Well, that's true of relationships, it's true of business, it's true of everything. And when we have someone close to us who says, you're all right, you're at home on your own right now and you feel like it's dark and lonely and you're having these kind of existential thoughts and you're welcome, that's normal. Of course you do. You're living at home on your own in isolation right now. Of course you're feeling these things. You're not a screw up. You're not weak. You're not handling it terribly because you're having these thoughts. That is absolutely normal. And that's what makes it heroic, is that you're having all these thoughts and you're having all these feelings, but you're in the company of wonderful people throughout history who have experienced this, who have had just as bad a time, who were dealing with it no better than you. [Thx.

Is good] you know, I feel like a lot of people that I've known in the past have entered a relationship through a sexual connection, sexual chemistry, erotic experiences, fun times, things like that. And then they start dating, and then they start entering a relationship based on that Foundation, as opposed to based on what do you see for your life? You know, what are the values, the background, the culture of the religion, the money, all these different things? Do you want kids? Do you not want kids. And I feel like that ends up being a struggle for a lot of people, myself included in my past, until I started, I tried something differently.

You first had the sex and then you met the person.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And created a story about who the person would be, right? Without actually communicating in a, and giving space and time to experience who the person was, right? And same for them with me. Why do you think most people start things that way, you know, in general, as opposed to, hey, let's give it time. Let's ask deeper, more intimate questions like you have in your game. Let's get to know each other. Why do you think that is?

First of all, that only began to happen with the democratization of contraception. This is before the'68, this was not possible. So it's not, it's very recent.

Right.

You know, that we start making love first and then we find out each other's names.

Is that true all over the world or is that more in the US?

It's true wherever people can experience, you know, premarital sex, basically. In the past, you first had to marry in order to be able to have sex. When I say in the past, it's in the past here, and that's when I was a teenager. And in much of the world, it still is the case. So we are part of a very sexualized society in which sexual freedom and sexual expression has become a part of our values.

Right?

Sexuality used to be a part of our biology and now it's a part of our condition. Now it's a part of our identity. And so we have changed the meaning of sex in the culture at large and then we have changed it in our relationships. And so we start from a place of attraction. Am I drawn to you? Am I attracted to you? It's the first thing I think when I swipe. What do I do? I look at where do I get a little frisson? Who catches my attention? And it's purely physical. So it is a recent development. It's for most of the people Here, this is not their grandparents' story. So this is still in the family. It's not like you have to go into history books.

Sure. How do you feel like people could set up for a healthier relationship as opposed to what would you recommend or suggest them for people in order to have a healthier foundation? Seeing that it seems so sexualized now, everything seems so like physical swiping, looking at someone's sexual identity, attraction as opposed to, I guess, true intimacy and connection. How would you set up a relationship now?

There's so many different pieces to this. I think the first thing is, look, I am right about sexuality. I'm not going to minimize it, but I do understand that, you know, it's very important. It's a beautiful thing to have a powerful erotic connection with someone, but don't confuse the metaphors. you can have a beautiful erotic connection with someone and that does not necessarily translate into a life experience.

Right, a life story.

A life story. That said, the next thing that changed culturally, if you want to really take on the big myths, it's the notion that we are looking for the one and only. The one and only, my soulmate.

It's my everything.

Yes, my everything. Your soulmate used to be God. not a person. You know, the one and only was the divine. And with this one and only today, I want to experience wholeness and ecstasy and meaning and transcendence. And I'm gonna wait 10 more years. We are waiting 10 years longer to settle with someone, to make a commitment to someone, for those of us who choose a someone. And if I'm gonna wait longer and if I'm looking around and if I'm choosing a Among a thousand people at my fingertips, you bet that the one who's going to capture my attention is going to make me delete my apps. Better be the one and only. So in a period of proliferation of choices, we at the same time have an essential of expectations about our romantic relationship that is unprecedented. We have never expected so much of our romantic relationships as we do today in the West.

It seems like a lot of pressure.

It's an enormous amount of pressure. We crumble under the weight of these expectations because a community cannot become a tribe of two. This is a party of two. And with you and me together, we are going to create best friends, romantic partners, lovers, confidants, parents, intellectual egos.

Business partners.

Business partners, career coaches. I mean, you name it. And I'm like, Seriously? One person for everything? One person instead of a whole village? So that's the first myth. And the notion of unconditional love that accompanies this is that when I have that one and only, I have what you call clarity, but translated into certainty, peace, and freedom, you know, or safety, which is the other side of the same thing. So that to me is if you want to set yourself up, really the idea that you're going to find one person for everything is a myth. Keep a community around you. Absolutely. Keep a set of deep friendships, really deep friendships, deep intimacies with friends, with mentors, with family members, with colleagues, you know. So that's the first thing for me in having good relationships is diversify.

Diversify relationships, but not sexually.

No, no. For some people it will include that, for the vast majority it won't. But the notion that there isn't a one person for everything, and that that doesn't mean that there is a problem in your relationship when that happens. The second thing is stop constantly looking at people as a product, where you evaluate them. and you evaluate yourself. You know, in our market economy, everything has become a product we included. And so love seems to have become the moment that the evaluation of the product stops. You have finally been approved when you have been chosen and when you choose. This is Eva Illouz, a sociologist who writes about this very beautifully. It's like love finally becomes the moment you can experience peace. you're no longer looking, selling yourself, proving yourself, trying to capture somebody's attention. It's exhausting. And once you are in that mentality, you also are continuously looking for the best product. You never say, you know, how can I meet a person who? People don't often talk about how can I be a person who?

That's so true.

Okay, so it's what you're looking for in the market economy. of romantic love rather than who are you, how do you show up, what do you bring, what responsibility do you take, how generous are you, etc.

Absolutely.

Second thing for what I think sets you up for a better relationship. And the third thing is understand some of the things that are really important to you and don't get involved with someone on the hope that some things will change.

Do things ever change with a partner that you want to change?

Yes, things do change a lot. I mean, many different things can occur in a relationship, but it's different from I'm coming in here to turn things around, you know, because so much of us wants the experience of acceptance. So, with acceptance, I would say this. Another thing to prepare yourself, you can love a person wholly, W-H-O-L-L, why? Without having to love all of them.

What do you mean by that?

It means that the notion of unconditional love is a myth. Adult love lives in the realm of ambivalence. which means that relational ambivalence is part and parcel of all our relationships. We have it with our parents, our siblings, our friends, which means that we continuously have to integrate contradictory feelings and thoughts between love and hate, between excitement and fear, between envy and contempt, between boredom and aliveness. It's you continuously negotiate these contradictions. That ambivalence and living with that ambivalence is actually a sign of maturity rather than continuously than evaluating. See, in the beginning you evaluate, is this the right one? Is this the one and only? Is this the... Then it becomes, shall I stay or shall I go? How do I know I have found the one? Is the pre-marital or the pre-commitment relationship? And then afterwards it becomes, is it good enough? We continuously continue with the evaluations, right? Is it good enough? Or how happy am I? Am I happy enough? So that's the unconditional love. No, we live with ambivalence in our relationship. There are periods where we think, what would life be like elsewhere? And then we come back and then we say, I can't imagine it without it. This is what I've chosen. I'm good here. But it's a conversation, the idea that you will be accepted. Unconditionally is a dream we have for our parents when we are babies. It's not part of adult love.

Right. So unconditional love is not something that we can expect.

Unconditional love is a myth. So the one and only is a myth? You asked me how do we set ourselves up for the best for relationships up front. There is no one and only. There is one person that you choose at a certain moment in time, and with that person you you try to create the most beautiful relationship you can. But you could have done it with others. Timing is involved, lots of things are involved. So there is no one and only.

There's no soulmate.

Soul mate is God. You can think that you have a soul mate connection with someone, that you have a deep, deep meeting of the minds, of the souls, of the heart, of the bodies. But it's a metaphor. It's not a person. It's the quality of an experience that feels like soulmates. That's number two. Number three, there is no unconditional love. We live with ambivalence in our deepest love relationships. There are things we like and things we don't. And things they like about us and things they don't. And moments they can't be without us and moments where they wish on occasion they could be away from us. And that's normal. Number four, the happiness mandate. Continuously evaluating how happy I am. You know, if you continuously pursue happiness, you're miserable a lot of the time.

What should we pursue instead?

We pursue integrity, depth, joy, aliveness, connection, growth. Those things that ultimately make us say, I feel good. I'm happy about this, but I don't pursue happiness. Happiness is the consequence of a lot of things you put in. You pursue caring for someone, having their back, feeling they have your back, wanting the best for them, what the Pali people call compersion. You know, those things you can pursue.

Compersion, what's compersion?

Compersion is feeling joy for the happiness of the other person.

Is this a polyamory relationship?

It's a compersion.

Where it's like they're with another sexual partner.

But I think the word is bigger than just containing within the poly community and culture. It is the notion that you want good for the other person, even when it doesn't have to do with you. You're proud of them, you admire them, you enjoy their growth, their successes.

What about when someone says, I'm with this person, they make me happy. What does that happen when you're looking for someone to make you happy? in the relationship.

Well, the day they don't, you will say they make me unhappy or they don't make me happy, but it's they do to me. I'm the recipient of what they do. They have the power. They can give, they can withhold. I depend, I crave, I long, I yearn, I respond to them.

And what should we be thinking of instead of this person makes me happy? How should we approach that?

We give each other a good foundation from which we can each launch into our respective worlds.

Ooh, that's cool.

A home is a foundation with wings. Or I like to think a good relationship is a foundation with wings.

I think people have to look at sex not just from the stand from the perspective of pleasure but from the perspective of bonding. I believe it is an opportunity for two people to grow closer together and when two people know how to truly satisfy each other it creates an amazing bond.

Deeper connection, better balance, more attraction.

Yes, all of that.

Keeps it going.

Exactly because if you have two unsatisfied people sexually, you're going to have a problem. You can't find a relationship where that exists and they're all happy and everything's great. It doesn't work that way. People crave intimacy, people crave that level of bonding with each other. And yes, biologically speaking, we can talk about the needs of a man and a woman and all these things. But I think even going deeper spiritually and all that sex is important and we are not taking enough of mature approach to understanding and learning sex. I think people are very much behind in their understanding of it.

Especially in America, it's like we weren't educated.

Exactly.

It's a very like hush hush type of thing. It's not talked about in schools. Your parents, at least most parents aren't talking about it until it's like the moment and it's like let me say something to just get it out and then let them figure it out.

And not just that. a lot of our parents don't know either. Right. Like, people just don't take time to get more educated on their bodies, on sex, on true sexual satisfaction. There's a lot of lies going on. I tell people all the time listen, a lot of women aren't being sexually satisfied, all right. But they're lying to their friends, they're lying to their partners. So, there's a perception that everything is all good. No, it's not. There's a huge disconnect. between the reality or the perception of women's sexual satisfaction and the reality of women's sexual satisfaction. And that contributes to a disconnected marriages. Because again, if the woman is not satisfied she now becomes less willing to be sexually involved with her husband. Now, he starts to gain resentment, he starts to feel neglected.

He starts to wander.

Exactly, snowballs from there. we can't overlook that and act like everything's going to be fine. And we can't say well, you should love them enough to where it doesn't matter. Listen, we're talking about maintaining a committed relationship, that's a part of it plain and simple. And we have to learn how to make it better on both sides and how to be more honest with each other. I think if we can learn to be more honest and transparent then we can work on the things that are lacking. But people again, they feel very uncomfortable speaking about sex, speaking about their needs and constructively criticizing their partners. We have to learn how to- Because.

You don't want to hurt someone.

Exactly.

How often should we be talking about our sexual needs in an intimate relationship? Should it be like once a month we sit down and like schedule it out? Is it like pillow talk every week? Like what should be, again, everyone's different, but what do you think is an appropriate an appropriate amount of time.

Yeah, I think it depends. So, what jumps in my head I would say every three months if I had to put a number on it, all right. But I do think it depends on the couple. I think more so it's when an issue arises talk about it. The key is we have to create environments where we can have those talks. See, again, we're laying the wrong foundations in our relationships to where we can't have these open discussions about sex and other things lacking in our relationship. relationship and we're afraid to push our partners away, we're afraid to ruffle the feathers or rock the boat. But if you can't talk to them, we resent things, right? Exactly, and what happens is you hold it in and now the negative energy comes out in other ways. And now, they're confused because they're like, why are they giving me this attitude? And they're thinking like I said earlier, he's thinking it's about the towel. No, it's not about the towel, it's really about something else that you're not telling him. So, we need to be more honest and transparent and we need to create an environment where we can have this talk and you're not going to take it personally to where you're going to internalize it or allow it to now throw our relationship off because you're getting upset and you're allowing it to you know, have a negative impact. No, take it as okay, that's how you feel cool, let's work on this. How can we make this better? You know, we have to be serious about tending to the needs of our partner if we're going to have successful relationships.

There's so many divorces happening, it's higher than ever, right? I think it's the, we had a divorce attorney on who's talking about how it's higher than ever. There's also even more people who stay married who probably shouldn't be divorced, who aren't happy. And so it sounds like there's a very small percentage of married people who've been together for many years who are actually still thriving in relationship. I'm just, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there's more, but it sounds like it, right? There's a very small percentage that are having like these incredible long lasting marriages and relationships that like have the attraction and connection and balance and all these things. Why do you think that is and how can we decrease the number of failed relationships or is that the wrong question to ask?

No, I think it's a good question. I think what But one we have to understand marriage is not the issue it's marrying the wrong person and marrying for the wrong reasons, all right. And then underlying to those things is the lack of healing. Because it's the lack of healing that leads us into these wrong relationships and allows us to entertain situations we should not entertain. Because again, for example, if you're a guy or a woman if you've been through some things and now you think you don't deserve that great person, that great relationship because your perception of yourself is low. Now, you're going to just latch on to whoever comes around who says I want to be with you and willing to give you what you want at that moment.

Yeah.

And you're thinking okay, this is safe, this will work. Let me go ahead and go with it, but you're never truly into them like that. It's never going to be the relationship it needs to be, all right. But that all stemmed from your lack of self-worth because you didn't heal from.

Whatever traumatized you emotionally before. So, how do we heal first? What's that process look like?

So, it's a long process and I do plan on, I have a book I'm working on right now called Finding Love After Heartbreak and it's gonna lay out the entire process. So, I'll give a little bit right now and I'll save the rest for later. So, one thing is first we gotta get the hurt out. And so, I have this exercise I do at all my events called the who Hurt Me List. And so, you get a piece of paper, like 100 people like, oh, motherfucker, I have this. Ask yourself the question who hurt me? And now, every person who comes to mind write them on that paper. Doesn't matter if you think you move past it, doesn't matter if you think it's small and insignificant. If they came to mind when you asked yourself that question, put them on the board.

Anyone in your life.

Anyone in your life.

From a child, a friend, to your parents, to a lover.

Anyone, anyone, anything if they come to mind put them on that list. Because that's how we start to recognize the the pain points in your life. Now, we see, okay, this is where it's coming from. A lot of people have suppressed what has happened to them. And so, you can't address and resolve something that you're not willing to accept existing your life. And the reality is that just because it was 10 years ago, 20 years ago, it's still lingering within you and it's causing a lot of problems. And it causes a lot of emotional stress which then turns into physical ailments and just snowball tension and anxiety and all of this. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

A lot of these things that we go through in mental health stems from things that we have not resolved from our past, all right? And it's just all contributing to the issues that we're experiencing in the now. And some of us we may not be experiencing the issues right now but we will. It's coming. It's just festering in you and it's going to come out at some point.

Yeah.

So, write a list and think about those those moments and reflect on them.

Or what's... Well, no. So, at that point once you get the list now we can see the first person and I won't go too much further. But let's just say you're going to have to go through a process of getting things off your chest. We have not released these things from our spirit, from our system and we need to essentially emotionally detox. And to do that you've got to get it out. So, whether you speak into a recorder, write a letter, something like I said.

Scream into a pillow, right?

Yeah, but I do want like a full release. Again, we don't fully release.

Would you release each person or just everyone at one time?

So, I would say this, you want to start with let's say your top three. Now, I've had clients where they did their top three and that kind of once they got through those they were able to process everyone differently to where it wasn't necessary to do everyone else, all right. Now, if you have 10 significant experiences and 10 significant different people that need to be addressed. Yes, you may have to release with 10 different people. So, it depends on the person and that's why something like this requires a more in-depth process. We got to talk about things, we got to understand what about it is you internalize how you're seeing it because some of it is changing your mindset, changing your perception of what happened, understanding that it wasn't about you. Like we said earlier, hurt people hurt people.

People.

And so, once you understand that and understand how they behave and why they behave the way they do it changes how you look at things and how you internalize those situations. So, there's so much more we got to get into but just getting at least that list started. Yes, because now you at least get to see okay, here's where it is. Here's what needs to be addressed. Now, let me get help to address these things and start the process of healing so that I'm not ending up in more bad situations or bad relationships.

Repeating the process. Let's say you've dealt with the hurt and it takes the time that it takes you and you've gone through all that. How do you manifest and attract a partner that you want to be with that has those three keys, the connection, the attraction and the balance that you feel like is the one, could be one of the ones how do you set yourself up to attract that incredible partner?

So, one, you got to be yourself. So, finding yourself is number one, all right. You can't connect with someone if they're connecting with the fake you, all right. That's a false connection. So, you have to discover who you are become confident in that stand strong in it. Now, who is drawn to that person you know it's real, all right. And so, that's where we begin Two, you need to exude positive energy, all right. To me and this is... I think this is very important for women, all right. Because the reality is that it's men or the type of men that a lot of women want aren't going to be drawn to a negative woman.

No.

There's millions of good women but that doesn't mean they're positive women, all right. And it's that lack of positive energy that holds them back more than they realize. -Really?

-Yes. And like even just saying negative things throughout the day. They might be a good person but if they're always complaining or negative.

-Exactly. And not even just what they say again, it's how they're coming off.

-Because of their facial energy, their body language.

-Yes. It's like so, look at it like this. I tell people all the time it's not what you say it's how you make them feel, all right. So, you can say all the wonderful things you want but if in your presence they don't feel at ease, they don't feel they don't feel that positivity that's still going to throw everything off.

If you say nice things but you have a frown.

Exactly.

What's the point?

Exactly. And what a lot of women aren't realizing is that their energy is off because they have walls up. They're so scared, they're so fixated on protecting themselves.

Because they've been hurt in the past.

Exactly, haven't healed from those things. But I tell people all the time the same walls you have up to protect you to you are the same walls blocking your blessings, all right. So, you don't realize you're restricting your ability to love and be loved because you're walking in fear, all right. You can't walk in fear and expect all these wonderful things to happen. It doesn't work that way. Even in business, the ones who succeed are the ones who put the fear aside and say, I'm going to have faith and push forward no matter what. No matter how it looks in front of me, no matter how many people tell me, doing the wrong thing, get a regular job, whatever. No, you believe what you need to do and you push forward past that fear. It's the same thing with relationships, you have to push forward in faith not fear if you want to receive that great relationship. And so yes, this can happen with men as well. I don't want men thinking they can carry around a bunch of negative energy and they're going to get a great relationship. But I do think it shoots women in the foot more because here's the other thing that people don't talk about a lot and some people may not like this, but I'm just going to keep it real.

Yeah, for sure.

It pulls women away from their feminine.

Energy and when they're not positive.

When they're not positive and when they're holding on to these fears and have these walls up and it's the feminine energy that makes the woman so powerful. That is what... That's the tool that is at her disposal that can make the world her oyster, all right. But women have become very detached from their femininity and the thing is this, If you... A lot of women will say they're not feminine, they're just not that way. I dispute that in most situations. No, you become detached from it, you become uncomfortable with it due to again, a lack of healing and due to experiences in your life. Now, if you are more masculine so to speak and you are happy that way then by all means continue to live your life as you are. But if you're not seeing things work for the way that you you want them to and you're in that energy that more masculine energy or more further away from your feminine then consider making a switch. Consider at least trying it. See the difference and what I find with a lot of women is that not only is it beneficial to them as far as relationships wise, it's beneficial in the quality of their life, their health, their peace, their work, you name it. I have a client she's a doctor at big hospital. And when she came to me she was frustrated with relationships, ready to give up on men, nobody liked her at work, she was just a hard tough manager. So, we worked on her energy, we worked on healing, we got her energy, we got her to embrace more feminine energy. She will swear by it right now. In one month her whole hospital starts to love her. Now, they're all helpful whether they were women or men. Men started coming out the woodworks. All right.

Let me get your number, girl.

Let me get at you, girl. Yeah. She ended up meeting her soon-to-be fiance on the airplane two months after we started doing the coaching. So what were the shifts that she.

Made every single day? Like, what was the things that she said? Okay, I'm gonna not be this way.

I'm gonna start trying this. It was just. It was one being more conscious of your energy. I think, number one, we have to be mindful of the energy we're giving off. We become so. so distracted by our issues that we're facing in the world, by our responsibilities, we're not always in tune with what we're giving off. So, to give an example and this is just a small one even for me as a man, I work out a lot. When I come out the gym I started to notice I'm very tense, my face is you know, hard. Exactly. So, I've learned to when I walk out the gym take a deep breath, relax the body, relax the muscles, and the energy completely changes, all right. Because yes, you can become very intimidating as a man just like you can become very intimidating as a woman. And so, you have to be mindful of are you making yourself more approachable? Are you allowing people to feel more comfortable being around you? And so, that starts with being mindful of it, being conscious of it. And one great way to do that is get an accountability partner, all right. Tell someone who has the ability to be positive because you don't want to pick a negative person to be your accountability partner. It's gonna throw everything off. But you pick a positive person and you say, Hey, listen, whenever I'm being negative, whenever I'm giving that bad energy, let me know.

I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus with me personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.