769 DeVon Franklin: Relationships, Love, and Lust

This is episode number 769 with New York Times best selling author Devon Franklin.

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Week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness.

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James Baldwin said, love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and no, we cannot live within. In Leo Bascalgia said, what love we've given will have forever. What love we fail to give will be lost forever, all eternity. Welcome to today's episode all about relationships, love and lust with my good friend Devon Franklin, who is a Hollywood producer, best selling author, renowned preacher and motivational speaker. He's best known for the films Miracles from Heaven, Heaven Is for Real and the New York Times best selling book the Weight which he co wrote with his wife Megan Good. He's got a new book out we're going to talk about and also we're going to share how Devon teaches men to think beyond sex when sex is typically a lot of what men think about, the difference between love and lust and how to know how to lead with love, the power of acknowledging feelings versus suppressing them. And this is something that a lot of men in general have faced for a while now and Devon's keys to a successful relationship and thriving marriage. That and so much more in this episode. Make sure to share this with your friends. Lewishouse.com 769 super pumped about all the wisdom you're going to gain from this episode.

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Big thank you to our sponsor today. I'm so excited about this episode. So let's dive in with the one, the only, Devon Franklin.

All right, welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness podcast. We've got my friend Devon Franklin in the house, man.

Super pump.

That was a good pop, right? Love it. You are one of the most inspiring guys that I know. I love following your work. You do work that is just authentic to you and you don't care what people think. That's what I love about it. It may be unpopular, maybe different. It may be unique, but it's you. And it's just true and authentic.

Yeah.

You know, that's what I love about you, man. Thank you, man. Likewise.

We've only hung out like three times, but I feel like I really know you. I feel like I can trust you and I feel like you're just a great voice.

Thank you, brother. I feel the same way.

Yeah.

You know, hopefully we get to hang more.

Now I'm gonna have to get up at 6am and start training with you.

Let's.

But you've got this book out called the Truth about Men, what Men and Women need to Know. And I'm excited about this because every time I do an interview or topic on relationships, it just seems to go crazy.

Is that right?

Because people are struggling in relationships in general. I feel like. I feel like a lot of people are stressed out more than ever today of first finding a partner. Dating is just stressful for people. Then when you're in a relationship, okay, what about marriage? Then when you're married, how do you stay happily married?

Then when you get divorced, you say.

Well, I'm a failure. The last 10, 20 years, I've been a failure. This was all for nothing. What's wrong with me? And I have to repeat the cycle. How do I find the right person? And I think it's stressful because there's so many options in today's world with social media, there's so many options. Everything looks yummy, everything looks tasty. Everything looks exciting, fresh and new and interesting. So this is what I loved about this. You've got these questions on the back. I just want to read some of them.

Okay.

Some are for women and some are for men. And I think I want to talk about men first. Because if you say these questions, men, have you ever asked yourself, why does one woman not seem to be enough? Why does one woman not seem to be enough? Why can't I ever be satisfied and will I ever find peace? These last three questions I feel like resonates with a lot of men.

Yes.

And I've asked myself those questions.

In.

Previous relationships and also being single at different times. And I'm curious, you know, why does it seem like a struggle for so many men to be okay with one relationship?

Yeah, you know, I mean, listen, this is really.

Especially today.

Totally.

I mean, today is like you said, it makes it even harder because really because of just the popularity of social media, I would say that that's what's kind of amplified the challenge. The challenge has always been there. But I think with social media, I mean, it really takes that challenge to another level for any man. And so one of the reasons why I wrote the book is to help articulate and hopefully answer some of these questions. And so why I believe that it's really hard for one man to be comfortable sometimes with just one woman. It comes down to me to what the book is really about, which is love. And I believe that love is selfless. Love is sacrificial. It's not just love of self, it's love of the woman in our life, love of family, love of our calling, love of our destiny. As men, we're never really taught to feed or cultivate love. What are we taught to feed or cultivate? Lust.

Sex.

Yeah. So to me, the two things at war within a man are love and lust. I define lust as a selfish impulse for personal, professional, financial or sexual fulfillment by any means necessary, even if those means are detrimental. We live in a culture that almost feeds on the lust in men and also encourages us as mental to feed on that. So what does that look like with.

The media promoting just half naked women everywhere?

Everywhere.

Everywhere.

Sex everywhere.

And it's okay. Boys will be boys, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to date. Don't even worry about one. Have multiple. That's what we're taught as men growing up, that the more the better. So in a dating sense, what happens is, if our appetite grows to such a place where we're not feeding the love, we're feeding the lust. What is lust? Lust is selfish. It wants what it wants, whenever it wants it, however it wants it. So as men, especially as single men, when you're in a situation where that's what you feed constantly, that's what's going to be the strongest. And so when it comes to a world where things are not on your terms, that almost feels like a foreign experience because you've cultivated an appetite where the more women, the better. And guess what? If this woman doesn't suit what I want, I just get rid of her. I move on to the next. And so what happens is, as men, we sometimes consciously and subconsciously allow that lust to run and potentially ruin our life. And so when a man decides, you know what, I want to get married, I want to get serious, I want to get committed. Saying I do is not a magic wand. So if you go from having no discipline in your dating life, no discipline in your sex life, you've had as much as you could possibly stomach, you've had as many women as you could possibly have, and then you meet the one that really captures your heart. She taps into the love inside. But prior to her, and even sometimes with her, you have not practiced discipline as a man. When you say I do, there's nothing magical that happens on the other side of it. So if you have an appetite and you have no discipline, marriage doesn't just automatically give discipline. So why does it become hard for men to just commit to one? Because they never had much practice with it. And I believe that, you know, if we date better, we marry better. If we marry better, we family better. If we family better, we parent better. If we parent better, we community better. Right. So it all goes back to how we date. And if there's no discipline there, as a man, we're setting ourselves up for a massive challenge. It doesn't mean we cannot be successful. We can, but sometimes as a man, we think, why is one not enough? Because we've been conditioned to more. And so the idea of just one becomes four.

Drop the mic. Just end it right here. Let's end it right here. So how do you know what's the right way to date someone? Let me ask this question first. When you're in a relationship.

Yeah.

And you say, you know what? I'm gonna be disciplined. I'm gonna work hard at this, even when you know it's not the right Fit. You've put in time, you know, six months, a year, two years. And you're like, you know what? I'm just going to keep going and make it better. I'm going to try my best to cultivate the love. But for some reason, that relationship, you know deep down, isn't the one. And you say goodbye to that relationship. Is that you just saying, well, on to the next. There's another option out there. How do you know when it is the right one?

Well, that's a good question. I think a couple things. One, when you're in a situation, the one premise of the book as it relates to love is really, we got to start telling the truth. And a lot of times, especially in a relationship sense, it becomes the place where we tell the least truth.

You hide the truth.

You hide the truth because you don't.

Want to hurt someone.

You don't want to hurt someone. You may have feelings or thoughts. You may have things. And also sometimes in a relationship, you can be afraid. If I tell this person the truth, it doesn't even mean the truth that I'm not into them. It could be like, I'm really into you. Or it could be like, here are some things I'm thinking about. The question sometimes is where the fear comes in is judgment. If I tell this person my truth, will they judge me? Will they still like me? Will they still love me? Will they still be there for me? And so a lot of times we, whether you're a man or a woman in a relationship, you bring that fear into it. And so as a result, sometimes that fear works against being truthful. So a lot of times in a relationship, you're more truthful with people outside the relationship than you are with the person in the relationship telling other people outside.

Everything is happening, you know, and you're.

Not telling your partner. And this is why, as men and women, we got to start communicating with one another instead of at one another. And so I really wanted to write this book to help foster more truth. So to the point you're bringing up, if you're in a situation where you're with somebody and you're not sure it's the right fit, here is the number one way to begin to identify if it is operating in lust or if you're operating in love, it's peace. Our peace.

You feel peace.

That's right. Our peace is the strongest barometer. It's our compass. So it tells us we're going in the right direction, we're going with the right person in the Right direction or you know what, I'm going in the right direction. But something about, doesn't feel like this is the person that's supposed to go with me. Right? It's really about peace. That's where I. And everyone has the opportunity to define what that means for them. But to me, that's a great way to identify is this the right person I'm dealing with? So then let's just say, let's say you don't have peace. The truth is I need to tell that person as soon as possible, here's what I'm really going through. Here's why, especially as a man, as.

Soon, no, don't wait.

Don't wait six months. Why? Because here's what happens as a man. The moment you start to know. This ain't it. I don't. This ain't it. Here's what happens. The more you do not tell her the truth about how you're feeling either. She's going to cry now, she going to cry later. And when she cries later, you've inflicted more pain. I believe as a man, we're going to be one of two men, men that heal pain or inflict pain. And that truth, as hard as it may be, and as much as she may not want to hear it, it's better for her to hear it early on before she could have more emotional investment than to hear it later. And you knew six months ago you were out of there. Part of telling the truth is to say, listen, I love you. When I operate in love, I put someone else's needs over my needs. I'm thinking about someone else's thoughts. Even sometime before my thoughts, someone else's well being. So in a dating sense, as a man, you're like, hey, I need you to know what I'm really feeling here so that we can just have an honest conversation. Like, I don't want to feel this way. I don't know why I'm feeling this way. But you know, some. I don't know if this is just the right fit. And I don't, you know, and do your best to articulate that. It's better to put it all out on the table. Then there you go, six months later, seven months later, something happens. And then we. And then sometimes I've been there when I was single, you wait for something to happen then to use that as the excuse, of course, to say, oh, well, it's because this happened. Well, no, that's not because of that. Because if there was really love and there was a long Term plan there. You could work through that. Right. But too often, I feel like as men, we hold on to what we think, and I think women do that too, because they're afraid. So I think when you go into this idea of, like, okay, well, how do you date in love? How do you date in mastery? It doesn't mean you can't explore. It doesn't mean you can't find the right fit. This is all about a journey. So love. When you're trying to find the compatibility, you're searching. Right. We all find that journey. However, it's dating with more intent. It's dating with more intent. So what does that look like? It looks like. And again, this is just what I believe will help us as men, especially in a dating sense. Think beyond sexual. Think beyond sex.

How do you teach men to do that when that's all they've been conditioned to think?

Well, here's how. Because again, instead of looking at that woman as an object for your pleasure, look at her as an individual. Look at her as someone's sister, someone's mother, someone's daughter, someone's friend. Humanize her in your mind. It doesn't mean, listen, if you, you know, choose not to wait until marriage and have sex with that person, that's. That's your business. But so often men look at women first as a sexual object, not as an individual. And as a result, when a woman most of the time says, hey, you know what? I don't want to have sex, you know, or I want to wait, or whatever, a lot of men say, all right, well, I'm moving on to the next. If a woman does not want to have sex or share her body with you because she does not trust you, she does not know you, she does not love you, that's a sign of a great woman, not a woman that should be discarded. Wow. And so as a man, when you're single and you're discarding women because they don't want to share their body, that's a warning sign to me.

Hey, about you as a man.

That's right. What's going on with you, bro? Why are you on such a path for personal, selfish, lustful fulfillment that you are discarding potential women that could help make the difference in a positive way in your life?

Wow.

So for any man, it's about, hey, let me look in the mirror for a minute and just stop. Why? Because look at what's going on in the world. There's so much news about, you know, the challenges that men are facing and why Are so many men facing all these challenges? Because I believe most men have given themselves over to lust. They've given themselves over to this selfish fulfillment where they want what they want, whenever they want it, however they want it. And as a result, they become the sum total of what that lust makes them. So as a man, no man can turn a blind eye towards what's going on with men in the world. So if anything, allow what we're seeing in the world to then be a motivator for every individual man. Who do I want to be? Am I inadvertently living in a way where I may meet the same fate of some of the same men that I'm seeing in the world? Right. Because it's not like, oh, point the finger. Oh, look at them. Oh, I would never become that. Wait a minute. The moment any of us as men say, oh, I would never, you might set the watch right. Because all of us have the same struggle. All of us struggle between love and lust. And the issue is getting control, getting discipline, getting mastery to the degree where I don't believe we could ever eradicate lust. I don't believe that. And that's a truth most women don't want to hear. Right? But I believe that is the truth. Lust is in every man, no matter who that man is, no matter how faithful you are, no matter how faithful, it's there. It's not even a reflection of the woman in his life at all. However, as men, when we learn to get control of it, when we learn to put love in control of lust, that's when we position ourselves to not allow that lust to destroy us.

Couple of things I want to ask from this. Yeah, you are a successful man in Hollywood. You've been married for how long now?

Seven years?

Almost seven years. Two part question. The first part is, do you know any successful men in Hollywood who are not married and who have multiple partners? Do you see any of them that are successful in their career but also have that inner peace that you talked about a few minutes ago?

I don't see many successful men that are living according to how you just outlined that are that have the peace.

They might have the fun.

Yeah, they have the fun. They have the money, the position, all of that. But I would not say that the men that fit the description that I've been privy have that peace where there's just a sense of, okay, you know what? I'm cool, I'm competent, I'm here. This is what it is a lot of times. And I believe that if any man is really Honest with themselves. I don't believe the more women you have, the more peace you get. I think it actually.

More chaos.

More chaos. Think about it, you know, it's like as a man at the end of our life, when you think about how much time you spend, you know, with, with women, chasing women, spending money on all those things, you gotta ask yourself, what, what do we have to show for it? Yeah. So for me, prior to getting married, I had to ask the same question. What do I have to show for all this? And I wasn't like when I, Megan and I started dating that I was like all of a sudden ready to get married. I wasn't. But what I did was a friend of mine encouraged me. Don't be afraid. Don't allow your fear to mess this up.

Afraid of what? Commitment.

Marriage.

Marriage, all of it. Committed the unknown, you know.

Cause you were dating other girls before then. You were having fun, you were, you know.

Yeah, but I was dating with intention. You know, I was dating saying, hey, yo, here's where I am in life, here's what I'm looking to do so that there was no lack of clarity with anyone that was dating me, where I was, you know. And I talk about this in the book. It's so important. And I'll talk about from the male side and the female side. For men it's important because what happens is lust makes us a part time manipulator in a single sense.

What does that mean?

What does that mean? It means that you're dating multiple women. Those women don't really know that there's as many other women as there are. And they don't even know that you're not as serious as you seem to be when you're with them.

Because your intention is for sexual desire.

Sexual desires, companionship. In that moment, whatever your pleasure is. There's the long term, there's no long term. And at the same time there's no regard for their real feelings. It's like, this is a woman that I may date on Tuesday. Here's someone I may date on Thursday, here's a woman I may date on Saturday night. And none of them really know the other one exists. So that's what I mean about not dating with intention. So when you're dating with intention, you're letting everybody know, listen, here's where I am, here's what I'm doing. Very, very important as a man. I encourage any single man to, if you really want to get, become successful in life. And success to me is nothing to do with happens in the world success is, to me, peace, inner world. It's inner world success is who is the person that looks back at you in the mirror. And there is where success starts and where it stops. We see a lot of men who have public success but no personal success. And there used to be a time where that was okay, but now real success starts, you know, with who's looking back in the mirror. So I would ask any man, if you are finding yourself dating multiple women from multiple women's sake, why just stop there? Ask the question, why are you doing it? And what is the real value that you're getting out of it? Do you find yourself with this insatiable appetite that no one person could ever quench, and as a result, there's no peace within your spirit? Super important. The second part of that is that if you find yourself saying, hey, you know what? I am going to get more discipline here, but I still want to explore. Okay? Explore with intention. Let the woman know what your intentions are so then they, as an adult, can make the decision if they want to engage with you. That, to me, is what real honesty and transparency looks like. Now, for a woman, if you're dating a man, you've got to get out of the gray area. You got to get out of the gray area. And what does this mean? That's right. But that gray area is the area where you are most liable. Because in a relationship sense, the one who has the knowledge, the most knowledge has the most power. And a lot of times men have more power because they know what they're really serious about and what they're not. And the woman that they're dealing with does not know. That's a gray area. He may text you all the time. He may talk to you all the time. You may go out on a date. You may have met his parents, but never has he told you, we're together. Right.

Or he's thinking about the commitment.

That's right. And so for a woman in that situation, she's in a gray area, and I encourage her. In the book, you got to get out of the gray. You got to ask clear, direct questions. Wait for clear, direct answers, so that the man that you're dealing with, you get a sense of, are you dating anyone else? Are we committed? Are we exclusive? What are your plans? Where are you going? Don't be afraid to ask the questions. Because so often when women come to me for advice, they're afraid, well, what if I ask him these questions and he leaves? Well, he was gonna leave anyway.

That's good.

That's great, right? That's great.

I mean, here's the thing. I've dated women in the past who, they're almost so honest in the beginning. It's like, oh, my gosh. You're, like, pushing me away because I'm like, this is not where I'm at in my life. Like, you're talking about kids in the first five minutes. I'm like, I just want to have fun right now. But then there's other women who are that honest, where you're like, wow, I'm actually really interested in you.

I'm.

This is kind of scary that you're so honest.

Yeah.

But I'm gonna, like, keep exploring because I like you and I'm that interested in you, and I want to learn more.

Yeah, no, I think.

I think the more honest you are in the beginning, maybe you don't have to say, in five minutes, I want to have five kids. But I think almost the more truthful you can be earlier on, the better because you can start to eliminate those people or know exactly where they're going to be at.

Well, yeah, you get a better sense of what's what. And I also encourage women, I say, listen, have an observation period and data.

What's that mean?

Meaning, don't just rush into. When you're dating somebody, telling this particular man all of the stuff you want, all the. Like, you don't even know if you're going to like this person.

Right.

And sometimes it's like, just on that, like you said, on that first date, they're, like, telling, oh, here's what I want to do. No, no, no, no.

Chill.

Observe. Yeah. See if this man is even worthy of knowing what you think. See if this man is even worthy of knowing your plans and what you. How you see your future.

How will you know if he's worthy of knowing?

Because you're going to spend time, you're going to evaluate, you're going to see who he is. And this is why. Listen, I know in this modern world what I'm getting ready to say is just uncommon, but I don't care. I'm going to say it. This is why. This is why it's so important. I'd say in this book, like, I believe it's important to wait until marriage for sex, but most people aren't going to do that. I say, in this book, at least wait until you're in a trusted, committing, loving relationship before you have sex. Why? Because when you have sex with someone and you do not know them and you do not trust them, it becomes hard to really get clear on who they are and what they're about. So important. So as a woman, I'm like, listen, if I was a woman and I was dating, oh, you ain't getting nothing from me. Why? Because I don't know you.

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The code of your passcode?

Yeah. And most of them said, oh no, there's no way. Are you kidding me? I said, okay, now listen, I'm not trying to get in your business. I'm not going to judge you. I said, but in that same period of time in previous relationships, how many of you in that same period of time have already given him your body?

90%.

I mean, so if you don't trust him enough to give him the code to your phone, why would you give him your body?

Wow.

You don't give a man your body. Right. It gives you a better opportunity to observe and evaluate. What does he really want? Is he even really interested potentially in who I am, what I think? Or is he just interested in what my body can give him? That's what I say about an observation period so that you can really see who this man is, what he's about and really where he's going. And I believe that women have a lot more power in dating than they realize. But a lot of times they give it away.

So much power.

But they give it away. They give it away to men, you know, like, oh, yo. And it's like, no, no. Hold on to that power. Evaluate. Make decisions, even. Don't. Even if you want to be in a relationship super bad, don't allow your flesh and your desire to then make you so desperate that you lower your standard to the degree where you're allowing men entry into your life that really are not qualified for sexual.

What if the woman just wants to have fun and they're not looking for a committed relationship either?

Then, you know what? Listen, I'm not gonna judge what consenting adults wanna do. If that's her point of view, that's her point of view, you know, and that just is what it is. And at a certain point, you know, when she's doing the same thing and wants a different result, it'll require looking at what she's doing to get the result. Same for any man. You know, when any man gets to a place where he's like, you know, I keep doing the same thing, I get a different result. Maybe I have to change what I'm doing.

Yeah, I might be having fun, but I feel soulless inside. Or I feel like I'm not having true intimacy or.

Yeah, exactly.

Lacking the partnership that I really want.

Totally, totally.

By having this fun.

Exactly.

Now, are there any men in Hollywood. Again, I don't want you to say names or anything, but are there any men in Hollywood that you know who've been married for a long period of time that are just so happy? They've been married for 10, 15, 20 years, and they're just, like, so happy that they. They feel zero desire for other women? Do you know any of that?

Well, now, hold on. I don't. I see. Again, I'm gonna say something that's probably crazy that most women don't wanna hear. I don't believe there's any man on this planet in a marriage that has zero desire for another woman. I don't believe that. It just becomes a question of managing that desire.

The discipline.

Yeah, totally. And saying, yeah, there's a desire here. But whatever, you know, it is what it is. It'll pass. I love my wife. I'm not gonna do that. Boom. But in terms of Hollywood, I think that there's no exception there. But I do know men. Yes. That are married, that are happy, happily married, that are. Yes, happily married. Love their wives, love being married. Even with all the challenges that. That there are and the temptations, that is not. There are a lot of men that I know that fit that description where they have not fallen into temptation, no matter what desires they may have, because they love their wife and they love their life so much.

And from your point of view, you think that these men who've been married for 10 plus years, who've been faithful and committed, or maybe they've had some slip ups or whatever, but they're in the marriage, they're happy, they're committed. You believe that those men are going to be more successful in life than men who are not married or not committed in relationship. Because the people that are not committed are lacking the inner peace as much.

Here's what I feel. I feel like going back to that battle between love and lust, right? And love being selfless. And I believe as men, one of our biggest challenges is we don't know how to love. We don't know how to love ourselves. We don't really know how to love the women in our lives. We don't know how because we don't know how to give love, we don't know how to receive love. And this is an area where most men struggle. And it's actually the area, no matter how successful in the world or publicly a man may be without love, I do feel that that man is deficient because love is the name of the game. Love is what this is all about. It really is. It's what life's about. It's not about the money, it's not about the power, it's not about the fame, it's not about the success. It's about love, period. Because at the end of the day, you can pass on to your children or pass on to the next generation money. You can pass on influence. But if you don't pass on love, those children will be deficient, right? Those children will become dysfunctional. It's love. And so as a man, when I decide I'm not going to open myself up to love, I don't believe I can ever reach my fullest potential as a human being. So it's not so much that the institution of marriage makes men better in and of itself. It's that institution which fosters that love and vulnerability. Because I believe our vulnerability leads to our victory, not the opposite way. And so as men, we have to really work against the training that we get, which is like, oh, growing up. Love makes us weak. Oh, you're soft, right? You know, the whole box that we're taught as men to live in. And when we don't live in that box, you know, we're either met with violence or put Downs and whatnot. So most men growing up, if we don't fit the box of every man is strong and every man has the answers and every man has women, every man has power. If we don't fit that box, most of the time growing up, we're told, stop crying, stop being a wimp. So the box breaks us. So what do we as men do? Anything that does not contribute to our survival, we suppress. So we may want to say, yo, what's up, bro? Man, love you, man. You good. But we don't do that because we're taught growing up, yo, you don't say that. I love you. Are you crazy? So we hold it in, right? And then we just try to do everything we can to survive. So we try to subscribe to everything in the box, but secretly we know there's something off. So to me, when you have a man that is choosing not to open himself up to love, I would argue because that's happening, because that man has had a deep hurt in his life that he is not yet willing to process and face and get healing over, right? It's like, okay, either it's something with a parent or a previous relationship, you know, I think that's also one of the truths about men, is we're more sensitive than most people realize.

Yeah, very.

You know, and there's a lot of times men have gotten their heart broken so bad. At one point in time, it was so painful, they have no desire to ever go do that again. But I believe we are naturally predisposed to love. But as men, we have to work against the cultural and societal conditioning in order to do that. And I believe when we do it, we are happier, we live longer, we are more peaceful. So I do think a man certainly can adjust to life without a woman, without love. But do I think the fullest life is when we find the right person we can walk life, walk through life with. I do.

Yeah.

Because I think love is what it's all about.

That's true. I do too.

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It's interesting, you see, said that men can go through extreme heartbreak. And I think I'm going to generalize this, but I feel like men in general have not learned how to deal with their emotions. And so when an extreme emotional attack is against us, it's like a bomb explodes.

Totally.

Where it can be horrible for women too. I mean, it can be heartbreaking. It could take a year or two to like recover in a breakup. It could hurt it really bad. But I feel like in general, women are able to express their emotions with other girlfriends, more their family members and at least talk about their feelings. Whereas men, when you get heartbroken, it could break you physically.

Because we don't talk about it.

That's it.

We hold it in. We suppress it.

That's it.

Oh man. I talk about this in the book. You know, anything we suppress, we empower. We empower it to destroy us. Really seriously. And that's one of the reasons why I wrote this book. We got to start talking. We gotta start being honest. We gotta start communicating. We gotta start. I have a whole chapter in this book called Create a safe space where we have at least one other person that we can talk to that we can tell what's really going on. And we can. And we can do it without fear of judgment. Because as men, I remember my early 20s, you know, I got my heart broke. Man, oh, man.

Oh, it's like life was over.

Forget about it. I'm done. Okay? And a lot of. But then you don't want to go to anybody and tell them that, you know, yours messed up because. Because people are gonna judge you and suck it up, suck it up and all that stuff.

Get back out there.

That's right. There's plenty of fish in the sea. Well, no, I wanted that fish. I didn't get her, right? And so I talk about in the book, it's important for us to no longer suppress, because that suppression, it builds that pressure within us. And why do we feed lust? Because then lust becomes an outlet. Lust becomes a relief to the pressure that we're not acknowledging and the stress that we're really feeling internally, we find a vice. There's a whole chapter in the book called the one you feed, you know, so either you're feeding love or you're feeding lust. And vices feed the lust, virtue feeds the love. And so as men, think about how much of this world is designed to feed vice, to feed men vice.

Everything.

Everything.

Every time you turn your phone, oh.

My goodness, Drive down the street, oh, my goodness. It's everywhere. It's everywhere. And so as men, we then have to practice mastery, which is the. The practice of love, where we become smarter. We become. To realize, oh, got it. This world is actually not predisposed for me to become as successful as I can be. So I have to look at things through a different lens. So I have to say, oh, got it. There are traps set up every day for me to fall into vice every day. Every man. I'm not pointing the finger. I'm saying every man, just open up Instagram good.

And you.

Yeah, yeah.

You know what I mean? It's like, yo, okay, man, listen, if I don't manage Instagram, Instagram's gonna manage me, all right? So. So I got to get control, all right? Because there's vice everywhere. And we have to make the decision about, okay, I have to consistently seek out virtue. So things like this podcast, you know, self help books, reading the Word, you know, going to church, if you're spiritual, listening to the right music, putting things in our spirit that remind us of who we are, that remind us of whose we are to remind us of where we're going. Because if we don't consistently nurture and feed ourselves virtue that vice is. I mean, seriously, it's like junk food, man.

It's an attack your body.

It's going to attack our body, it's going to attack our spirit. It's going to take us to a place we don't want to be. No matter how healthy we may want to live. If we don't go and put healthy food in our. In our refrigerators, if we don't make a decision to eat that way, we're going to eat whatever's close. And whenever we are impulsive and we eat whatever's close, it's always going to be the worst thing. And the same thing goes in life. So it's so important to cultivate this lens of identifying, okay, here's where the vice is, here's where the virtue is, and making ourselves committed to consuming as much virtue as we can.

How does your wife support you in staying virtuous? In your thoughts, your actions, your.

Yeah, you know, I mean, I would say just her encouragement, you know, even her encouragement to write this book. When I first told her, she was like, oh, yeah, you got to do that. And I would read her chapters of the book and passages as I was writing it, and so she was just, you know, completely on board. And I was like, okay, cool. That really help me because, you know, writing this book and being honest and being transparent and being vulnerable in front of people that I may never meet, and they're going to know all this stuff about me, that was hard. But her encouragement really, really did a lot. And then also just that support system, you know, that support system of knowing no matter what happens in the world, I got somebody who's there with me, someone that I can come home to and she can come home to me. And that in and of itself is very. Is virtuous. And that really helps lay a great foundation for feeling comfortable doing everything that I'm called to do and also becoming everything I'm called to be. You know, when home life is settled, it really helps feel there's a freedom there. And so I think both of us, you know, really try to give each other enough support and an environment where we both can become who we're called to be.

When do you feel the most loved?

Going back to, like, the five love languages, you know, I'm one love in action, right? That's my thing. So I really feel the most love when I see the support. That support could be as simple as, like, oh, babe, you know, I know you were gone, you know, but here's what I did while you were away. Just little things like that. That's when I really feel the most loved that. Like, oh, okay, got it. You know, she's in it with me. We're in this together. You know, I'm not out here fighting this battle by myself. She's not out there fighting her battle by herself. But we are in it and connected where I'm understanding. Oh, got it. She's doing, da, da, da, da, da. She's probably gonna need this. Let me think ahead and plan ahead so she knows I'm thinking about her in the same way. That's when I feel the most love.

When do you feel the most hurt?

I feel the most hurt when I feel like I'm alone, you know, where it's like, oh, yeah. It's like, oh, man, I'm just doing this on my own. This is hard. Yeah. You know, it's a blessing to be able to do all the things that I do. But there's some moments, man, where it's like, yo, I'm just one voice shouting in the wind, man. And so, man, that's when it can get really, really hard. And I think also, all of us struggle with what we can see in our head. Where we would want to be and sometimes where we are. And there's sometimes a difference between the two. There's things, dreams, ideas, thoughts we want to see manifest for our life, and when they aren't yet manifested, we're still reconciling the present that we have that doesn't really align with our future. And I'm no exception to that. So there are moments when I'm like, yo, what am I doing? This is crazy. Am I really. Oh all the time. Am I on the right path? Am I really making a difference? What am I? You know, this is crazy. I'm just gonna stick to producing or whatever. Like, I'm gonna stop doing all this. Like, you know, there are those moments.

Why am I praying on Instagram?

There we go. No, for real. It's like, what am I doing? Why am I doing these things? But then I get back to a place of like, okay, I just can't allow where I want to be to disrupt where I am and to really just take a minute and appreciate. Anytime I get in that headspace discouragement, I try to practice just moments of gratitude. You know what? Thank you. You know what? I woke up today. You know what? Thank you, God. You know what? Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you that, you know, I said something that someone appreciated. Whatever. Like, just practicing those quick moments of gratitude just helped me get focused. Because sometimes when I'm not in that. That's when I feel the most alone.

Yeah. So you've been married for seven years?

Yeah.

Together for eight, nine years.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

About eight years.

A little over eight, eight plus years. You know, there's always those people who say, gosh, perfect couples online. They always have this perfect videos. They always look amazing together. There's never any challenges. You know, it's the person who's not in a relationship or went through a bad divorce. They're just like. They just hate watching people who look perfect. Yeah, yeah. Like, how could they be so perfect? They've got to have some challenges.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Could you share maybe the biggest challenge you face while being married?

Yeah.

That you're open to sharing?

Sure, sure. Yeah.

I think either as yourself or as a couple.

Sure, sure, sure. You know, I think the biggest challenge of being married is, you know, you're taking these two individual entities.

Yeah.

Different people, different people, different thoughts, different expectations, different experiences, different realities. And you're consistently, constantly trying to merge the two into one. And that is one of the hardest experiences in life, period. You know, even in physics, when two atoms come together, there's fusion, there's tension, there's heat, there's friction, pressure. There's pressure, there's conflict. And it's the same thing when two people are coming together. So in marriage, you know, it's that same thing of that consistent negotiation of like, okay, my thoughts versus sometimes her thoughts versus our thoughts and what's good for us, what's good for the marriage, what's just good for me, what's good for her? So there's this consistent dialogue and debate and dance around trying to find the sweet spot. And I think that's one of the beauties of marriage, is that it's constantly challenging us to become our best self and to expand who we think we are. Marriage is really about compromise. And, okay, how do we find the common ground here? And where is that? And also, as a man leading in love, one of the challenges sometimes in leading in love is like, man, okay, I want to say this, but you know what? I shouldn't say that. Right. Okay. How do I. How do I get my attention across in love? And that is hard. So I would say one of the hardest things in marriage is just the coexisting, you know, and living together. Living together. And. And also it's like finding that common ground of the things that she wants to do, the things that I want to do, and the things that we then commit to do together. And there's no rule book on how to do it, but this is where the love comes in. And so, like, even when people see us on social media, you know, like, oh, man, I think what you're seeing is even in the midst of the challenges, you're seeing the reality of what's really there, which is, oh, these are two people that genuinely love each other.

Even if you're going through adversity or challenges or arguing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Totally, totally. I mean, I think that what you see or anyone that sees us on social media, some moments, I think what's coming through is the truth. The truth is that that love is really there. But even in the midst of that love, we still cultivate, still coexisting and negotiating and what's right and what's not. And all those things happen all the time. Really, all the time. Oh, yeah. But because, you know, you love, you know, I know I love her and she loves me and we are in love. It's what allows us, the environment, to still work through so many different things on any given day.

You know, what's the thing that you believe you can improve to get to the next level individually, for the marriage to thrive even more.

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Where I can improve, you know, I think it's the area where all men struggle. Communication.

Really?

Yeah.

You're this excellent communicator, speaker, executive movie producer, author, writer, freaking pastor. You know, you are the communicator. So if there's a struggle for you, it's like, what are the rest of men? We're screwed. You know, it's like you're the best communicator there is. The rest of men have no chance.

But there's a difference between communicating publicly and then communicating personally, you know, so the public communication is actually the easier communication.

It's easy for you to write the books.

Oh, yeah, yeah. That's. I mean, it's not, don't get me wrong, there are still difficulties, but in terms of that interpersonal communication, that's an area where I absolutely want to get better, for sure. And what I'll tell you is writing this book has really helped a lot. It has helped me tremendously work on that. And not being afraid to be honest and not being afraid to speak my truth and not being afraid to say what I'm thinking and doing it in love. And it's been hugely cathartic and very liberating because as I was saying when we first sat down. So it astonishes me how little we really operate in truth.

Wow.

It astonishes me how little real communication there is in a relationship or even a marriage, for that matter.

Or to yourself.

Or to yourself. Because a lot of times we feel things, but we suppress. I don't want to think that about myself. No, I can think about it. Well, guess what? Any suppressed thought does not go away. It persists. The only way to get a suppressed thought to go away is to acknowledge that it's there. Hey, you know what? I'm feeling this. I don't want to feel it, but it's here. So now that I'm acknowledging it, I have a question. What am I going to do about it? But if I don't acknowledge that it's there, guess what? It's only going to get bigger. It's only going to get worse. So what I've been learning is the more I communicate and the more I'm honest and the more I'm truthful and the more I work on those things, the better I become as a person. And I think that also lends itself to the marriage and the healthy the marriage becomes.

Do you believe that you can over communicate in a relationship?

Yes. And I'll answer it this way, without a doubt. You can. When I'm making a movie. So like my new movie is called Breakthrough. It's a true story of a mother who prays her son back to life after he dies falling through a frozen lake. And Chrissy Metz from this Is Us stars as the mother. And so, and I do a lot of true stories. You know, one of the last true stories I did was Miracles from Heaven with Jennifer Garner. And so whenever I'm developing a true story and I sit down with the real person or the family that the movie is based on, I say this very thing. I say, listen, I'm excited to tell your movie. I'm excited to bring it to the world. I said, but I want to be really clear about something. There's a difference between the truth and the facts. I said, the facts are for the documentary, the truth is for the movie. So I'm going to help develop a script and produce a movie that will tell the truth of your story. But if you want every fact to be told, that's where you can write a book and go get a documentary made. Because the movie is to try to articulate the truth. So when it comes to communication, I think it's important to articulate truth. But sometimes when you're dictating every fact, that can feel like over communicating. People want to know the essence of what you're feeling. But you know, it's not like, okay, so at five o' clock I did this and da da da da da da. That's when it's like, wait, it's just Too much information.

Yeah. Just tell me the truth.

The truth. The truth is like, you know what? I'm really happy right now, and the reason why I'm happy, I had a great day. Or, you know what? I'm really sad right now, and the reason why I'm sad, I had a bad day. That's the truth. Over communicating can sometimes be over communicating so many different facts. And so that's how I articulate that. And I think that anybody wants to know the truth, but not everybody always wants to know every detail of the fact.

Yeah. You've been sharing a lot more truth in this, and it sounds like a lot more with your wife recently, in the last year with this book being out and working on this, is there any truth that you have yet to share with yourself personally to your wife, with the world, with your brothers? Sure.

You know, I think that.

Or that you need to share more of.

Yeah, Yeah. I think that that's a question that's evolving. You know, I think that there's always truth in us that we aren't always aware until certain circumstances come up and you're like, oh, wait a minute. Hmm. I didn't know that was there. I didn't know that feeling was there. You know, so in this moment, I feel pretty resolved around my truth. And however, I don't let that produce an arrogance that, oh, yeah, I'm owning my truth. I'm fine. No, no, no. Something could happen right after I leave this interview and I realize, holy crap, there's some truth in me that I didn't even. I wasn't even aware of. There's some stuff I gotta be honest about. Wow. I didn't know that feeling was still there. So I say with an asterisk that in this moment, I'm owning my truth. But I have to be in touch and sensitive to each moment because I think so often, especially as men in the public eye, to a degree, there's a tendency to want to portray we have it all together or portray that we have it all figured out. And that's one of the reasons why I wrote this book, is to dispel that I don't have it figured out. I don't. I work on it every day. I struggle between love and lust. And I do my best to become the man that I really want to be and lead in love. And that's a struggle at times. It's a challenge at times. But I'm committed to the work because the work is fulfilling. But I wanted to, in this book, really close the Distance between a Persona and a person. Right. Because a lot of times when we're trying to portray this image, it gets exhausting because the Persona isn't really who the person is. So with this book, it's like, okay, let me bridge the gap. So here's who I am as a person, here's who people may think of me as a Persona, and here's the reality. So that there's not a distance between the two as much as humanly possible. And as part of walking that journey, I think we all have to be open to. There are certain things that we have gone through in life. There are certain things that are still buried in our subconscious that we aren't even aware of. There's pain, there's trauma, there's tragedy. We all have gone through and we've compartmentalized some things, we packed some things away. And we do our best to operate with the consciousness that we have. But at any given moment, something can trigger us and we're like, I didn't know I was still harboring that hurt from my mother or that pain from my dad or whatever it may be. So that's a long answer to your question. But I, again with an asterisk, say, hey, I feel good about the truth. I'm only now. But I'm just sensitive to know that there's other stuff in me that only over time will reveal the areas I still have to work on.

You mentioned trauma. What's the biggest trauma you've had in your life that has taking you the longest to heal, but also define who you are in a positive way at the same time.

Sure.

Like it's driven you to be the man that you are in a positive way, but also driven you into darkness and taking the loss to heal, man.

You know, I would say it's the loss of my father, you know?

Cause you were young when that happened.

Yeah, I was nine years old, man. I mean, you know, that was the most. It was just traumatic. I mean, I remember my mother, you know, walking me and my brothers into the morgue at the hospital. Yeah. And there was my dad.

You saw him on the morgue.

She asked us to go kiss him goodbye.

No way, dude.

That's heavy, dude.

I remember as a 9 year old.

I was 9, my older brother was 12, and my younger brother was 6 years old. And she said, go kiss your father goodbye. And I mean, I will never forget kissing his forehead. And it was the cold. Oh my gosh, dude. It's like you've never. You. You don't Know, cold. You don't know cold until you have experienced that with someone that's passed away. And it wasn't that. That moment itself was traumatic. It was the. The realization that he's gone, he's not coming back. Like, this is not like, oh, maybe things will turn around. Like, it's. It's over. So, you know, make your peace with this, because this is not going to change. So that trauma for me, I think, has driven me. It's driven me in many different ways. Some positive, some negative. On the negative side, I think what it has done is, like, it's always put me on a path to, you know, I gotta prove something. You know, I gotta prove something. I gotta show that either I'm not him in that he was a great man, but he had his flaws. You know, he was an alcoholic. I even talk about the book, how I found out my teenage years, he had an affair on my mother and all these things. So, you know, he was great, but he was flawed. And so sometimes I'm driven to, like, prove that I'm not him. I'm also driven to prove something like, okay, I'm gonna make something of my life. And sometimes when that becomes your driver, you operate in lust, you know, because lust is more than just sex or women. Lust can be power, lust can be fame, Lust can be success. And so sometimes I found myself being driven by those things. To prove myself to an imaginary person. Who do I have to prove myself to? Who outside of the person looks back at me in the mirror and, God, who do I have to prove anything to? But I think losing my dad and that trauma really put me kind of, even in my teenage years, a rebel in reverse. I wasn't rebelling in a way where I was out drinking, a party. I was rebelling through achievement and trying to find my value in achievement. And what I discovered. And what I discover is that anytime, as a man or a woman, when we have an internal hole, a pain, a trauma, and we're trying to find something external to heal, it doesn't work. Doesn't work because what's internal has to be healed internally. So anytime I have this internal pain, I'm trying to find my value in how I do and what I do. I'm trying to find my value and making the money and all the achievements, it doesn't satisfy because there's something on the inside that still says, you're not good enough.

So how do you heal internally?

By being honest, by accepting, you know what? I don't feel good enough. Why Don't I feel good enough? Where does that come from? And because I don't feel good enough, what are the negative things that's causing me to do? And so once you're aware, you know, and even for me, like, saying, okay, well, shoot, where does that come from? Oh, God. That comes because a lot of it's from the death of my father. Okay, all right. So how do I just begin to process that, you know, and heal from that? And so some of the positive things have come through this through, like, okay, saying I don't always feel good enough, but I'm doing things that actually contribute to the feeling don't heal the feeling. So me accepting that the feeling is there, then I can say, okay, what are the facts based upon my feelings, right? Because sometimes my feelings are actually completely not based in fact. So my feelings. My facts are saying, well, you are good enough. God created you good enough. You are exactly who you need to be when you need to be where you need to be. And sometimes it's really just repeating that and owning that in a moment, that helps begin to feel it, you know, that helps me begin to say, okay, yeah, that's cool that you're right. And even now. So, like, you know, we were talking even before the camera started rolling, and I was in the Bay Area this weekend, and the message that I taught on, I was talking about going from discouragement to determination. Because a lot of times when things don't pan out, we get discouraged. And so I was encouraging people to get determined. Determined to go after. Don't stay in a season of discouragement. Whatever you hope didn't happen, acknowledge that it didn't happen. It's okay to be upset about it, but use that being upset for fuel to become determined to do whatever you're called to do. And so I was talking about this book, this book coming out, not hitting the New York Times, but seller's list, man. And I was. Oh, man. Oh, I was discouraged. Yeah, I was discouraged. And then I had to ask myself a question. Why? Why are you so discouraged? And a lot of it was, oh, well, I find my value. Oh, I'm a New York Times. There you go. That man. That's. What. What more prestigious achievement is there as an author, right? I was challenged again, this wound, going back to the wound trying to do versus be. And I talk about this in the book. As men, we gotta learn how to be. Not just do we need to find our worth in who we are, not in what we do. And so I was challenged. I was Discouraged, I didn't get the list. Even though I had, you know, the sales and all that kind of stuff in the media didn't hit the list. So I was discouraged. So I had a decision to make. Am I going to be determined to just do what I'm called to do and not worry about the list, but focus on the person? And literally, what began to happen is as I transitioned from discouragement to determination and no longer putting my value in a list, which, I mean, what does it even matter at the end of the day? Is the content, the message touching people? When I began to change my focus, I began to realize, oh, wow, we're good, man. People would come up to me, oh, man, I got your book. Oh, wow, you're changing, man. As men would come to me and say, you're changing how I think about my life. Women would come up to me and say, oh, I'm getting information. I walk through the airport. People say, oh, I have your book. There was one time I was in Chicago, I'm sitting down, and one of the stewardess, one of the flight attendants, she walks right by me. She's like, I got your book.

Wow.

Can you sign it for me?

That's cool.

So what it did was it just reinforced. Let me stop trying to do to prove my value. Let me just own who I am, share what I know, and find the value in that. And that is how I consistently work on still healing from the wound and the trauma of losing my father, because I still veer towards wanting to do versus wanting to be.

Where do you think he'd be if he was still alive, man?

That's a good question. I have no idea. Sometimes I think about that, you know, and it's like. I mean, I think I would be where I am. I might be more whole. I might be more whole because having that father figure and having that support is like everything. You know what I mean? It was like, not having a father is a really deep wound that I don't think anyone who doesn't have a father ever gets over that for whatever reason that you don't have a father in your life, whether, you know, he's just not around or he passed away or whatever the reason may be. So I think if he was here, I think I would be where I am. Like I said, I'd be more whole, and it'd be awesome to share these experiences with him.

Do you not feel whole right now?

No, I don't feel as whole as I think I would if I had. No, no, no. Because there's nobody I can look to above me that's a man that I came from, that can tell me about who I am. Right. You know what I mean? So, yes, my mother and my grandmother, when she was alive, and I and my aunts and my family do a great job. But there's no experience that can replace sitting across from somebody that is your father, or if you're a woman, that is your mother, you know, or even as a woman, if that's your father. You know, if you lose a parent man, there's no. There's nothing that can replace that. And as a young man trying to figure out manhood in the world and doing that without your father, that's a very challenging proposition, which I do think for me, it doesn't mean that I don't practice wholeness. Right. It doesn't mean that I don't practice healing. It just means that I recognize there's still a brokenness in me relative to losing him.

Wow. What should women know about dating a man who's lost her father?

I would say a woman dating a man that's lost his father and I talk about this in the book, that it's important to know, to go beneath the surface. And here's what I mean by that. If you're dealing with a man in that situation or in some men that are not in that situation, go beyond. How are you doing? Oh, I'm good. Because so often when you have a wound, the thing that you try to do is hide it. I don't want the person that I'm with to know I'm in as much pain as I am. So I want to present an image of. I got it all together. I'm good. I'm cool. I'm calm, I'm collected. I. I'm successful. Nothing phases me. It's just not true. So I would encourage any woman to go beyond. How are you doing? Oh, I'm fine. No, no. Ask that man. What's worrying you right now? What are you anxious about? What are you afraid of right now? What are the things that are. That may be making you a little insecure right now? When you start asking those questions, then you start to get to the heart of the matter. Wow. And what begins to happen is that man starts to feel more connected to you than he might any other woman. Because most women are not asking those questions. They're not going beyond the service. Oh, he's good. Okay, great. You're good. Great. So what are we going to do tonight?

Right?

Oh, what's Our date tonight?

Yeah.

Yeah. Cool. We can go on a date. But I want to know how you really doing. What's going on on the inside? I think that's some truth. And those are some things that a woman can do, especially with someone who's lost their father or the father's not around. And I would, I would argue that those are tips. Know you just good in general.

General, yeah.

Those are great.

Yeah.

I want to ask a few more questions.

What's the process?

If you could do these things every single day in your marriage or in a relationship to continue to make it thriving and growing, what would be the few things every day that would be non negotiable for you? I know that when I do these things, it's better and sometimes I forget, or maybe you do it every day. But what are those things that you think if, if people did these things every single day in a relationship, both sides, it would thrive or support the cultivation?

Yeah. I think first and foremost, start the day in love. And really all that means, you know, like, let's just say if you're in a dating sense, let's say you're not living together, communicating your love and your appreciation to that person. When you start the day, hey, babe, just want to let you know I'm thinking about you. Just woke up. I want you to have an amazing day. Just something simple. Just something simple where you communicate like yo, you know, or here's a thought for the day, you know, or here's an affirmation I just read. I want you to have, here's a scripture, something where you are communicating your desire for their well being. Wow. That. Oh my goodness.

Powerful.

Oh yeah. Because it's like, well, oh my goodness.

They got my back.

Where I can't get this. They got my back. Yeah, they got my back. They're thinking about me in a way that is, it goes beyond anything that anyone's ever done. So just, just something that small.

In the morning.

In the morning. Start the day letting that person know how much you love and appreciate them.

I like that.

And you know, and like let's say you're married, you know, or you're living with somebody, you do it the same way. You know, it's like not just like, okay, I'm getting up, I'm, you know, checking Facebook or whatever. I'm rushing to get to work. Just take a moment, take a moment, plug into them, you know, hey. Hey, we woke up. It's good to see you.

Hi.

We made love you. Yeah, you know, anything you need Me to do today. Okay, cool. All right. Just that can. Just that. That little bit of consideration, it sets the tone for the day. Because sometimes in a marriage or in a relationship, things get so busy.

Yeah.

That the other person, no matter how supportive they may be, can start to feel like they're not a priority and they don't matter as much. And that happens on both sides. And so just those little things that communicate.

No, no, no.

I'm thinking about you. I care about you. You're important to me. And doing that as a level set, I think is awesome. I think also it's more than just checking in during the day sometimes. This is my experience. People have come to me for help in this area, and the only thing they're really interested in is what their partner can provide to them, what they.

Can get out of the relationship.

Yes.

How they can feel better.

Yes. Not always interested in even what their partner does. Right. And what's going on. I believe. I think success is in the opposite. And everyone has a different philosophy on this. But I think be aware enough of what that person is going on in their profession, what's going on in their life, so that you can even ask questions. Hey, you know you were having that meeting with Bob today. How did that go? Right. Not just like, oh, you're home now. Let's go eat, or what are we going to do? Like, no, no, because there's. Because what happens when you start to have. When you start to have separate lives? We all have separate lives. It's important to maintain individuality, even in a collective sense. But when you start to have separate lives and your partner has no idea what's really going on in it, this is when your relationship is liable for somebody to step out. So I have a whole chapter in the book. Here's how you save proof for your relationship. Here's how you claim your territory. You got to start plugging in. So during the day, it's okay to say, hey, how'd that meeting go? Or, you know, hey, baby, you know, I know you were gonna go to the store. How did that go? Did I go okay? So that way, both of you feel like you're invested in what each person is doing. These are small little tips and tools. They're small things.

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Me, you know, I'm not a. I'm not a captain of a ship. I know nothing about nada. I know nothing about it. But somebody told me that if a ship is one degree off from where it ultimately wants to be, by the time it gets where it's supposed to be, it becomes way off. Every great relationship that ultimately does not work, every great marriage that ultimately falls apart, I believe starts with the one degree. It's the one small thing that you don't look at every day, but then over time becomes so massive you can't bridge the gap. So that's what I would just encourage anybody that's in a relationship marriage, just practice on the small things, the little things that let the person know, I hear you, I see you, I love you, I'm for you. If you do that, everything else take care of itself.

Wow. What about a woman who's dating a man? Who knows, could be a great man in a relationship, but maybe they're living in fear. They're not fully sharing their truth. They're doing things that are a little.

All over the place.

They're a little messy. They're still acting like a boy, not becoming a full man yet. But they know, man, this guy has great potential to be this incredible partner, this great loving father, this thriving man in society. Is there anything a woman can do to call that man forth to being more of a man? Or does it have to be the man's decision to say, okay, I'm ready to step up?

Okay, so this is good. I talk about this in the book, so I use it and I use an anecdote to articulate the answer to this question, which is. So there was a great preacher, old preacher, that said, in every man, there's a king and a fool.

Yeah. And Terry Crews talked about this on my show.

Oh, dope.

You're probably going to tell the story better.

Well, I mean, this is a quick anecdote. I don't know. I don't know how extensive he went, but this preacher said that his wife, whenever he would act a fool, she would talk to the king. And she said. And he said what that did was it helped him put aside his foolish ways.

Wow.

Because she Would talk, she would talk to the king in him. She would bring the king out of him. So in my book I talk about love represents the master, right? So in every man, there is that master. And so in a dating sense, if a woman is dating a man and she knows that there is great potential or power there, I do think it's important to help cultivate that love in him, to help call that master out, to help, you know, affirm the goodness that is within him. However, here's what's so important. So the answer to your question is that both, if that man is not open to doing his work, there's nothing that that woman can do. A woman cannot do a man's work for him. As a man, I have to commit to doing my work. And when I have a woman in my life that I involve in the process, then I allow her to even speak to the master and me to bring that master out, to bring that love out. But some men are like saying, hey, no, I don't want to become better. I don't. So you can call the master all you want, he ain't coming, right? I'm not ready. So in this situation, here's what is so important. And this is where one of the reasons why I wanted to write this book, so women can have information why? So they can take the power back in a relationship. When you're dealing with a man, and this book will give you tips and tools to know what kind of man you're dealing with. When you're dealing with a man who is not willing to do his work, who's not willing to lead in love or operate in love, or not even open to what you're trying to do to bring love out of him, the biggest thing you can do is leave. Why? Because the pain of your absence, talking to a single woman now, the pain of your absence is sometimes the only thing that can convince him to change. It's true. And sometimes when you're a man and the woman is with you, walking with you, sometimes men take that for granted. The presence, her presence for granted.

Absolutely.

I know it's hard to do, but sometimes you got to say, you know what? I'm out. I love you too much to stay. And if you choose to change, and maybe I'll still be around, but I can no longer accept living life less than what I know I'm actually qualified to live.

And that's taking women to be called to their own self worth.

There you go.

And acceptance of being alone.

There you go.

Potentially, yeah. And being okay. Being alone and not having that partner or that person by your side.

Because here's the reality. To me, it's like, I don't believe you have to choose between love and being respected. And so often I think that, you know, the culture wants women to feel like they have to make that decision. Well, at least I have a man in my life. No, I'm not respected as much as I might like. No, I'm not valued as much as I might like. But I still have that companionship. But what's that companionship worth? If you as a woman can't be your full self, if you can't be the 100% of who you really are, is it worth it? I'd rather you be alone and single and be whole then to be in a situation where you never feel like you can be all that you want to be just because you want the companionship. And I do believe that if you are whole and you are single and you're going to find the right, it's going to happen. Just give it time. And don't lower your standards just to have companionship. Because most of the time, the person you're lowering your standards for is not going to value anyone but the person that has to work and you keep your standards high for they say, wow, man, this. I value this. I value her, man. As a man, I had to step up to her, you know, like that. For men, that matters versus sometimes when you're dating and, you know, the woman has kind of compromised. It just. It's not. It's not the best situation.

Yeah, this is powerful, man. We'll have to have you come back on soon and talk more about relationships because I'm just getting started, Just getting started here. But this question is called the Three Truths. I think I asked it to you last time.

Okay?

See if it's changed.

Oh, boy.

So imagine you've achieved everything you want in your life.

Yes.

For the next hundred, 200 years, you're around for as long as you want. But then one day you gotta say, all right, it's time for me to go from this physical body.

Right. Okay.

Okay.

And you've created all the books, the movies. You've done everything you could imagine.

Yeah.

Any dream, it's come true. The most beautiful family, marriage, everything. But for whatever reason, you gotta take all your work with you when you go.

Okay?

So your message isn't in the world physically anymore.

Yes.

But you get to write down on a piece of paper three things you know to be true about your entire Life's experience. These lessons that you know to be so true that you would want to pass on to the world. And this is all the world would have to be reminded of you, except for their memory of you. So three things that you know to be true that you would share with the world. What would you say are your three truths?

Man? Okay, I would say love will, love works, and love wins. That's what I would say. Love will always find a way. Love absolutely works. And at the end of the day, love will win.

Wow.

Period.

Powerful.

Yeah, it's powerful. Thank you.

We can get your book online right now at bookstores. Make sure you guys go get this book, the Truth about Men. What men and women need to know. This is going to be really powerful for you. I recommend getting this whether you're single, whether you're in a relationship. Read it with your partner. Get it for a girlfriend of yours, because we know that women are going to read this more than men probably. So get it for a few girlfriends of yours. And let Devon know what you think about it. Make sure you share this episode out. Let him know what you enjoyed most about this interview. Before I ask the final question, I would acknowledge you, Devon, for, again, just constantly doing the work. I love that you said that you shared your truth, but you continue to be humble with an asterisk and say, you know what? But there might be more stuff that I uncover later today or next week or in a year that I haven't been truthful about. So that you continue to do the work that you're honest about, your relationship of not being perfect, like on social media all the time. There's constant challenges, but you've created a safe space for that relationship. I acknowledge you for constantly producing inspiring work. I feel like you're in an industry that people can get caught up with the wrong things and you continue to create meaningful work, your movies around, ideas that inspire the world. And for me, that's you're living in truth and the work you do and the relationship and the man that you are. So I acknowledge you for that, my brother.

Appreciate that, man. Of course.

Of course, man. Final question is, what's your definition of greatness?

What's my definition of greatness, man? Lord have mercy. I really think greatness is mostly found in humility. I think that the greatest people I know are the most humble. They're not the strongest, they're not the richest, they're not the most dominant. They are the most humble. And that humility, when I've been around them is like, oh man, you're great because you don't have to be humble. But when I'm really in the presence of greatness, I'm absolutely in the presence of humility. That's how I define it.

Devon Franklin, thank you. Appreciate it. Appreciate it.

Yeah, you got it. Thank you.

There you have it, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Devon Franklin is the man. He's got so much wisdom around this topic of love, lust, marriage, relationships. So I hope you enjoyed this.

I hope you got a lot of.

Wisdom out of it. Make sure to tag Devon over on Instagram. Let him know what you thought about this. Tag me as well. Take a screenshot of this while you're listening and post it on your Instagram stories so we can reply back to you and connect over there as well and spread the message of greatness. If you want to help someone who might be struggling or or just want to continue inspiring the friends in your life, then send them this link. Lewishouse.com 769 or you can just take the link from your podcast app or on Spotify or wherever you're listening to this right now. You are an amazing human being. You have so much love inside of your heart. And James Baldwin said, love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and no, we cannot not live within. And Leo Buscalia said, what love we've given will have forever. What love we fail to give will be lost for all eternity. Stop holding back the love in your heart for the friends and family and people around you. Start giving it away more and more every single day and watch your life unfold in a beautiful way. I love you so very much. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.

Hey everybody, it's Rob Lowe here. If you haven't heard, I have a podcast that's called Literally with Rob Lowe. And basically it's conversations I've had that really make you feel like you're pulling.

Up a chair at an intimate dinner.

Between myself and people that I admire like Aaron Sorkin or Tiffany Haddish, Demi Moore, Chris Pratt, Michael J. Fox. There are new episodes out every Thursday, so subscribe please, and listen wherever you get your podcasts.

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