929 Esther Perel: The Quality of Your Relationships Determines the Quality of Your Life

This is episode number 929 with New York Times best selling author, Esther Perel.

Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, 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. The Dalai Lama said, the best relationship.

Is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other. Love that thought. And Dolly Parton said, the way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain. Oh my goodness, we have an incredible episode. I cannot wait for you to hear this. If you don't know who Esther Perel is, she is one of my inspirations. She is an incredible leader, writer, thinker, coach, psychotherapist, New York Times best selling author and is recognized as one of today's most insightful and original voices on modern relationships. She just seems to have the wisdom that makes you understand this crazy world of relationships and why it can be so challenging sometimes to be in intimate relationships in life and business relationships. And she is the host of the popular podcast Where Should We Begin? This podcast will change your life. If you've ever struggled in relationships, I'm telling you, it's unbelievable. She also has a new podcast called How's Work? Available on Spotify and anywhere you get your podcast. And her celebrated TED talks have gained more than 20 million views. She's that popular. And in this interview we talk about tackling the big question. Why are relationships so hard for people in business and with intimate partners? Talk about the importance of community and.

How your community reflects who you are.

The three main things for successful long term intimate relationships. And this was a shocker for me. Fundamental questions you can ask yourself and your partner before committing to a relationship. When do we ask ourselves these questions before we jump in? We usually don't. And then there's more problems. How to take responsibility in your relationship even when you don't think you need to. Ah, I know I need to do more of that. And the keys to a successful business partnership and how it is similar and how it differs from an intimate partnership. This is going to be a game.

Changer for so many people.

Make sure to share with your friends lewishouse.com 929 and make sure to tag Esther Perel over on social media while you're listening because again, the quality of your relationships determine the quality of your life. And this is giving you the keys to successful relationships and intimacy. In life and business and career. So buckle up and let's get ready for an incredible interview with the one and only Esther Perel.

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Suffering also. I mean, you could choose to be in prison and suffer with poor conditions and poor treatment. But can we also choose to be out of suffering in our mind and in our heart? Even if there's suffering, scarcity, even if there's uncertainty, even if there's physical abuse or emotional abuse, can we still try to not be in suffering? Or do you feel like there's nothing we can do?

Sometimes it's a both end, right? Men search for meaning. Basically.

Viktor Frankl, right?

Viktor Frankl, he's in the concentration camps. He tries to have a little notebook in which he writes his scientific research. The book is the proof of his existence. At one point he loses that little book and he realizes that all trace that he's ever been may forever be gone. And he does develop the notion of local therapy, right? An idea that you cannot change your circumstances, but you can change your response to the circumstances that you still have until the last moment fundamental freedom, which is the freedom to. To the meaning that you give to what is happening to you. And in that sense, no, he can't change his conditions in the concentration camp, but he is able to still maintain a sense of sovereignty and dignity over the human degradation that is happening to him on a minute by minute basis. And I think it's both ends. If you say to the people that are struggling at the borders of Mexico, you have chosen your prison, it's indecent. People are not always choosing their suffering. Sometimes within that they can still sing a song to their child, hold their loved ones, write a letter to someone that they're longing for, staying alive for the ones that are waiting for them. And that's where you are coming out of the prison or out of the suffering with a sense of freedom. And I think one has to be really careful sometimes to say we choose our pains, we choose to stay in pain. It deserves some discernment.

Sure. So suffering and pain is not a choice all the time?

Oh no. I think suffering and pain are part of life. There's three things that religion has dealt with forever. What is not explainable? Why do we suffer and why is there evil? And those three things have been the purview of where religion, from an anthropological point of view, really entered. And because of secularization, other people have entered to take the space. People explain to you what is un understandable. People are trying to help you with your suffering. And experts, gurus, teachers, speakers and all of that are trying to help you with why do bad things happen to good people?

What is the answer to that?

There is no answer to that. Otherwise we wouldn't have had religion from the beginning of time. These are not things that are answered. These are things that. These are questions, existential conundrums that we learn to live with. Nobody has ever had an answer. There's so many religions, not a single one has been able to answer. They give you a way to live with it. They never tell you you're not going to suffer. They tell you what you can do with your suffering, right?

Have faith. Have faith.

Go pray, go to rosaries, go do good things. Help other people, you know, change your story. There's lots of ways today that we're dealing with suffering, but nobody has ever said, you're not going to suffer.

So we're always going to suffer.

There is always going to be suffering as part of life on a scale. You're going to deal with loss, you're going to deal with Tortured hopes. You're going to deal with disappointments, with heartbreak, with death. I mean, those things. Nobody is going to tell you that there will never be loss. And loss is probably one of the most important sources of suffering.

Do you feel like, with your experience and wisdom, that suffering gets easier for you over time since you know what's going to happen? You know you're going to lose a friend, a pet, a sibling, a loved one? You know you're going to be disappointed? Do you have tools for yourself to suffer less or lesser time amounts? Or is it still a deep sense of pain when things happen unexpectedly that hurt or that are hurtful?

I think that you don't suffer less, you suffer differently. And the most important thing is if you're not alone. Probably the most difficult thing in all our experiences, and certainly in the experience of pain or loss or suffering or ache, is not to be alone. So that somebody else tells you, I too have gone through this. That's why we read books that inspire us from other people who have also lost and found their way back and saw the light again and created new hope and reconnected with someone and allow themselves to love again and have another child and start another business. Whatever it is, you know, you go through it, but you have a sense that there is that thing called going through it and that you can come out of it on the other side. That there is hope that you're not alone, that there is a day when it won't hurt and ache as much. That there is a day you will be able to wake up and you won't be thinking about obsessing over it, obsessing about it.

When was the last time you suffered the deepest?

I have to honestly say it's been a while. I have been in a really blessed, blessed time.

That's great. It's a while. Ten years, three years, Seven years.

Look, I haven't had loss since my parents died. I have had periods of high anxiety for things that were going on around illness, around things like that. But I have not had a major crisis, luckily, in a while, except dealing with the proximity of illness in my life, not my own, for that matter.

There's people in your life.

People in my life, people that are really, really close to me. So in that sense, I have been really blessed. It's an amazing thing. And you know what happens is that when you don't live it, you know it exists, but you forget. It's like if you've had a wound in your leg, you know where the thing was. But it no longer hurts. And you're looking sometimes with your finger. Was it exactly here, Was it exactly there? It's this amazing way in which when we are not in pain, we have the sense of what pain can be, but we can't feel the pain. That is not unless you are reminded of something and you say, I remember that. I felt that. I know. And I also had that once. And you can instantly re. Experience the moment with acute pain, but if you don't, if the story is not there, you can say, yeah, I remember, I remember, I've gone through this. But you don't feel it in the moment. And I think that form of resistance, of immunity, I think is an amazing resilient quality that we have actually, that we are able to separate ourselves from something for the time being. But I could get hit any minute. We live in such uncertain times. I think that anybody who thinks that they are immune from it are grandeur.

I know, I know. I mean, you have these two podcasts called Where Should We Begin and How's Work? Which I haven't checked out How's Work yet. I'm going to Where Should We Begin Is transformational. It's saving people's relationships, intimate relationships around the world. It's really amazing. Done. And you know, relationships seem to be some of the hardest things for people to figure out. I have my friend Matthew Hussey who helps women find men. And every girl that seems to be that I know is always like, Louis, can you help me find a good man? It seems like women are just trying to find the right partner, find great relationship partners. And then when you're in a relationship, it seems to be like people are always struggling in relationships, whether it be intimate or work related relationships, business partnerships. Why are relationships seemingly so hard for so many people when it's the thing we need the most to feel alive, to feel happy and feel connected?

This is the million dollar question. You know, I'm a relationship therapist for 35 plus years, I work with people in their romantic relationships, family, relationships, friendships, co founder, colleagues, co workers. So love and work, the two pillars of our life, as Freud said. And if I could just say, why is the simple feeling of loving or caring not enough? Because the entire human drama is really complex. The same way as nature is complex, so is human nature complex. And I spent my whole career studying what is changing in relationships. You know, are they more complicated today? Are they more painful today? You know, have our expectations changed? And that I have answers to. I don't have answers to. Why is it so you know. But I do.

Is it more complicated now, relationships than 50 or 100 years ago?

Yes, absolutely.

Why is that?

Why? For a very simple reason. For a long time we live, and we still, in many parts of the world, live in traditional societies where relationships are clearly codified. There are clear rules, there are roles, there are obligations, there's a tight structure from which you can't get out, but it tells you clearly who you are, where you belong, where you're rooted and what's expected of you. And you don't have too much questions about whose career matters more and who's going to wake up to feed the baby and who has a right to demand for sex. And everybody, every husband knows exactly what they can ask from their wife. And the wife knows exactly what she should not tell her husband. And children know their place and adults can all interact. All of this was super regulated. You know exactly that on Sunday you go to visit your family and that you have to call your grandma and that. And nobody church. And you go to church or you go to any other religious institution where you go to pray, to be with the community, etc. And you know what? Nobody needed to explain to you why it's important. You just went because I said so and because that's what you do. That's what we do and that's what we don't do. Because what will the neighbors say? And there is a community that looks over you all the time and the streets are narrow like that. And everybody knows what's going on in the neighbor's house right now. Your best friends could be breaking up and you didn't even see it coming. Nobody knows what goes on in the neighbor's house. That's where should we begin? Became, I think so powerful. It gave you back a sense of what actually goes on in other people's lives so that you're not alone wondering, am I the only one who's going through all of this? This tight structure of our society has moved into what we call today network society. Network societies is not tight knots. It's loose ends. It's loose threats with commitment that can be revoked at any moment. That's why your women are constantly writing to you. I thought we had something and the next day he disappears. I thought we had to develop the sense of trust, you know, where is the care, where is the loyalty? Where is the continuity? All these things that now are not just set, fixed, they all have to be negotiated. Everything that was a rule is now a negotiation, a conversation. Who's Going to go to work? Are we going to move you to the west coast or are you going to move with me to the East Coast? Are we going to have children? Are we ready to have children? How many children? Do we even want children? You know, on and on and on. Am I happy at work? Oh, I could do better. Should I stay a few more months? Should I leave? Should I, you know, is this what I really want to do? Is this who I really am?

Is this my passion?

Is this my passion? You know, this identity quest the whole time? Is this who I want to be? Is this? And all of these questions are rather new questions. Why? Because in the past or in other parts of the world today, you kind of know who you are. Seriously. You're the son of somebody. Even you're the son of somebody. It starts with that, Ben, you know, and you probably will even do what your father has done if you are a man and maybe not do much of any of the outside the house, if you are a woman or you may begin a charting course of working outside the house. And all of these things are very, very normative.

And now it's different.

We don't have any of that at this moment. Basically, I call it the identity economy. We spend our time trying to figure out who am I. We have an enormous industry of self help, you know, with this belief that we are self made, that we can have selfies, that we do self care. It's this self, self, self that is so focused, such the center of everything and so fragile. The frequent self has never been more fragile. We are constantly making sure that it doesn't get overwhelmed, that it doesn't get triggered, that it doesn't get violated, that it doesn't get shattered because it stands there alone like the little Dutchman with his finger trying to hold back the dike, you know, and that is the times I think we are in at this moment. And there, that's the waters I think you swim in.

Sure. Well, I think that's where suffering, inner suffering comes from on the surface is when you obsessively think about yourself, when you're obsessively self centric, thinking all the.

Time, trying to improve yourself and feeling not good enough.

Right.

I think it's the combination comparing yourself, comparing. Now I don't know that people didn't compare themselves when they all went and stood on the steps of the church on a Sunday morning. I think communities, people have always compared themselves. But there was a different type of social control, the one that we have on social media. Today, social control has always existed. So suffering is part of life, community. And not being alone is what helps us with all our experiences. Definitely with suffering. I look at the disappointments of relationships and the struggles that we have. Why are they so challenging? What is the challenge? What can you do about it? When is it you who can do something? And when do you have to realize the limitations that what you will do will not change another necessarily when it does and when it doesn't. And how does this manifest at work and at home? You asked me how relationships have changed. I think we've never had more expectations of love and work than we do today. I think we expect today from love and work many things that we expected before, from religion and from community. We want our relationships to be transformative, transcendent, meaningful, spiritual, sexual, purposeful, erotic, passionate. And we want it at home and we want it at work.

How do we get it at work too?

Oh, because we want work to be purposeful. Today, we want work to give me a sense of identity, of meaning, of self fulfillment, of development. I don't just want to go to work only for the paycheck, I need the paycheck. But I also want the paycheck to be meaningful to me. Work has become an identity economy. It's not just what am I going to do, it's who am I going to be? And it parallels, it parallels. What do we talk about at work? Transparency, belonging, authenticity, trust, psychological safety. I mean, when did the entire emotional vocabulary enter the workplace to such a degree that soft skills, what they used to be called, which are emotional and social skills, relational skills, which used to be seen as feminine skills, and feminine skills, you can idealize them in principle, but disregard them in reality. And these soft skills have very quickly become the new hard skills.

True.

And that's why I'm working in the workplace. It's not because I have changed and I suddenly am interested in work, is because work has changed and is suddenly interested in what I have been doing for decades.

I love this.

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You a question that may be hard to answer. Maybe it's easy, but you've had, you've seen a lot of intimate relationships work and fail over 35 plus years, right?

Yeah.

How many of the relationships, what's the percentage of people in your mind who are in intimate long term relationships, marriages or not married, but together are actually happy most of the time Thriving, Beautiful. I'm sure there's challenges but like they're able to work through them with semi ease. How many relationships in your mind are super happy and thriving after decades of the changes of the times, Society, work, family, all the dynamics that happen in life.

So I have two ways of answering yes. The first one is cultural. Your definition of happy and thriving and fulfilled is probably very different than many other cultures where being healthy, having enough to eat, having children, having grandchildren, having good jobs, being respected in the community.

Is happy and thriving.

Is happy and thriving. It's not about you and I are talking on the couch and I'm pouring my heart at you and you are telling me I'm the best thing that's ever happened to you in your life. And all of that. Okay, so that's one version. That's one version. You have got to look at the word happiness and thriving really in a cross cultural context. Because a lot of us, by the way, who have the new definition have parents who think about marriage and what is a happy marriage with the other definition? And I'm wondering that maybe we are so unhappy because we want so many other things that are maybe not part of marriage.

We have such high expectations.

We have super high expectations. We want everything. We want a partner to be an entire community. My best friend, my trusted confidant, my passionate lover, my intellectual equal, my co parent. And on top of it, I want with you to deal with all the vicissitudes of the everyday life and all of what we need to get to all of that. And then we should also be passionate, great lovers, fantastic travels. Exactly. You know, and very few go dancing every week. So Eli Finkel has a best answer for you on that. He's a researcher on marriage and basically what he says is that the good relationships of today are better than the relationships of history, but they're very few. Because what you call that happiness is the top of the Olympus. It's climbing the mountain. And at the top of the mountain the view is fantastic, but the air is also thinner. And not everybody can climb the mountain. The people who get to the top, their top is probably better than the tops of the past. Now what is the top? It used to be that marriage was for survival. Then it became a romantic enterprise and it became what I call the service economy. From the production economy to the service economy, you want children, but no longer just eight, so you only want two. So sexuality becomes for pleasure and connection, so it becomes a service economy. It's no longer a production. And then from there you go into identity, which is what I want to become the best version of myself. And you're going to help me do so. That's the identity story of marriage. And that goes up the Maslow ladder. Now, if I ask the question differently, I actually wanted to write that very article. About 10, 15 years ago, I set out to write in peace. What are creative couples? And do you know? Because creative was the word I was interested in. Not so much happy, passionate, but creative, meaning not stable, not solid. But what is this thing creativity, the spark? And I went and I asked almost a hundred people, do you know couples that inspire you? Do you know couples that you think have that spark still? And the frightening thing was that the majority of people could sometimes come up with one, maybe Two. And that was it.

Wow.

You know, they knew people who were very good at renovations and people who were great parents together and people who were great business partners together. But that whole that you talk about, they were very few. And I thought, that is so sad because here we are, we want something. I mean, if I say good business partners or business leaders, you would give me 10 people who you think inspire you to run a company, or authors or musicians, or we all have a long list who can say, what's your favorite musician? I mean, most of us have more than one. When it comes to intimate relationships, people have very few models. Now, maybe it is because what they want is so high that there is very few models actually. And that's probably the challenge of intimate relationships today.

So.

How do we create that in an intimate partner? Or is it setting a lower expectation for what we want so that we don't?

It's both. I think sometimes if you lower your expectations, you're much better off. No doubt. So back to Eli Finkel's research. Calibrating expectations is probably one of the most the three main things for what he calls successful relationships.

Wow.

And calibrating doesn't mean you lower your expectations necessarily, but you also diversify them. You don't ask one person to give you what a whole village should actually give you. Right.

Okay, that was the first thing. What's the second? You said there's three things.

So one is the calibration of the expectation, two is the diversification. And three, which is the one that very much speaks to me is doing new things with your partner. With your partner, that if you do the things that you enjoy, that's really nice, that's comfortable, that's cozy, that solidifies the friendship. But if you want to create intensity, it demands risk taking, doing new things outside of your comfort zone, a little bit more on the edge.

How often should we be doing new things with our intimate partner?

I think as often. I mean, look, the answer to this is very simple. Often enough, but not too often that you become chaotic and you disregulate. Right now you're asking me a systemic question. This is true for an individual, a relationship or a company. If you don't change or grow, you fossilize and you die. If you change too much, too fast, no stability. There's no stability. You go chaotic and you dysregulate. So how often? It depends on where you are at in your life. Are you, the two of you, do you have kids? Do you have little ones? Do you have aging parents? Are you taking care of somebody, what else is going on here? We'll tell you if this is a period where you need more stability or if this is a period where it's time to go and be curious and explore and discover and go into the world and launch.

Right. If you're a young 30 something female, I get this all the time from a lot of women who reach out to me who are ending relationships that were really stressful for them or they've been single for years and they're trying to figure out how do they find the right person or how do they create the right relationship for them that's going to be a long term partner. If you're a female in your young 30s, what should they be thinking about? Like should they be focusing first on themselves, growing themselves, or what are the things they should be looking for in the right partner?

I just wrote my current blog, which is a little bit of a critique of this. Taking care of yourself first.

Okay, yeah, yeah, give it to me.

Because you learn to love yourself in the context of your relationships with others. You know this idea that you go first to work on yourself here and then you prepare this little nice little package and you bring it to relationship that is completely off. Actually, it's interactive. You need a good amount of self awareness, but you also need to be in relationships because it's people who help you become more aware.

Practicing it, practicing it.

But other people let you see who you are. It's by being with others that you get to know who you are. Not just by sitting there alone and say, who am I? Who am I? But this is a relational perspective on life and I will stand by that. Read the newsletter.

I like that.

I really poured myself into that one because I'm tired a little bit of this. No, what I will say to you, I'm tired of the go fix yourself.

First, then go be in a relationship.

First and then go be in a relationship. Relationships help you to become who you are. That's what happens between children and their caregivers. The next thing is, instead of constantly thinking, who's the right person I'm going to find, why don't you ask yourself, who do you want to be? Who should the other one be? No, maybe it's on occasion ask who will I be as a partner? Who have I been till now in my relationships? How have I shown up? What is it that I do? Not just, you know, finding the right person now what does it mean to find the right person? And there I will say the simplest way of Looking at it is this. There are many people you will love, and they are not necessarily the same people that you will make a life with. Are you looking for a love story or are you looking for a life story?

Ooh, that's good.

You understand. Yeah, There are many people have had love stories. This is a whole different story. I never thought for a minute I would live with these people. Take something else. To have a partner in life with whom you're going to go through the pains, the sufferings, the challenges, the, you know, all of that.

Can you have a life partner and still have a love story?

Of course. Of course. You want the life partner to be a love story, too. But the love stories per se are not life stories. It's different ingredients. It's different values. There's some things that you don't need in order to have a beautiful love story with someone. It lives in its encapsulated version on its own. You're not thinking, can I do this with you? Can I get old with you? Can I take you to my parents? Do we share similar. It's about values, life, not just about feelings. So when you're looking for the right person, it's not just what attracts you, it's who can you build a life with?

How many values in common do you need to have with your partner? Life partner?

Because the important ones, it's not how many, but there are a few of them that are really. That are really important.

Which ones would you say that make or break based on your experience?

I think. I'm not going to say them in order of importance, but one of them that really matters is your relationship to others. If you are a person that values relationships, that sees the presence of others in your life as central, and you are with somebody who does not want community or does not know how. I mean, I'm talking not about what they would like to learn through you, but their value is you do things alone, you live alone, you rely on yourself. You know, you don't bring people over to the house. I have a couple I just spoke with yesterday, you know, and he loves to have people over. And she just. Nobody should come ever to the house.

She wants it.

Her space, her space, the whole thing. And I'm thinking, wow, this is a tough one. It's not just about the house. His whole life is about being with people, and her whole life is about not being with people necessarily. That's not how she experiences him. Now the question is, is she drawn to more of what he has to offer and is he drawn to more of what she. If these are both a little more. Yeah, then okay, different values come together and they, they mix and match. But if you have these two separations like that. So that's very challenging. One of the beautiful questions I ask in how is Work? Is were you raised for autonomy or were you raised for loyalty? Were you raised for self reliance or were you raised for interdependence? Which one would you say?

For me it was self reliance, meaning what you have.

Nobody will ever help you as well as you can help yourself. You only have yourself to count on. Don't trust people.

You're on your own body or raised for loyalty.

Interdependence, loyalty. You're never alone. There's people around you. You owe others, others are there for you. Relationships is what makes you.

I think I was both based on, like, circumstances.

Correct. Circumstances made you reliable because you were alone with mom, but the messaging was you have me.

Yeah, yeah, of course.

Okay.

So I think both.

I think that question is a fundamentally interesting question.

Okay.

That people can ask themselves when they partner in business and in love.

Raised for self reliance or loyalty.

Yeah.

Okay.

Interdependence. Are you part. Do you see yourself as connected to others and it's your. Your connections that give you a sense of anchoring, meaning, relevance, importance with all of that, or do you see yourself as fundamentally on your own? I think travel, curiosity, you often will have a complementarity between one person who is curious and eager to discover and goes on, you know, and then another person. Your question about wants to be alone.

Or doesn't want to travel, wants to stay.

But it also likes comfort, likes repetition, likes the familiar. I think the religious values, you have a person who, you know, those matter a great deal. Children, do you want family or do you not want family? If you want a family, then make sure that you find someone who wants a family.

Otherwise, what's the point of being like.

What are you going to do? Try to convince them. Now, I don't think you have to have the same values on everything. I think you have to have a similar outlook on life, which is a vision, like exactly the same as when you a vision. Do you want to own a home? Do you think that economic achievement is important? Do you want to live in an extended family? You think that living intergenerationally really is important and you have somebody else who says, you know, I don't want your parents over. You know, do you want to live in more than one place? You know, I think these are essential. You know, Money, feelings or emotions, religious beliefs, attitude toward life. It's not a specific value about something. A value is a cluster of things. It's a cluster of importance, of systems of meanings. That's a value.

And you may not find someone with everything that's the same, but someone with a similar mindset. Is what you're saying an overall feeling?

I met a husband of mine, whom I am for more than three decades, who had never left the US When I met him, really, I never knew such a person existed. Coming from Europe, that was unheard of.

He lived in Europe?

No, he lived in the States.

He lived in the States.

He was American. I came from Europe. In Europe, you travel everywhere. Everywhere, all the time. Even if you have nothing. You work one month, you get the money, and then you go to the next country, which is two hours away.

He never traveled outside of the U.S.

He had never been outside of the U.S. well, he will always tell me he went to the Virgin Islands, but, you know, for the rest. And I thought, oh, my God, how does one you know who is such a person? But I knew it was because of the circumstances of his life and that if he could, he would. And he was intensely curious. If you just said, oh, he's never traveled, then you misinterpret. You don't want to just look at the manifest thing, you know, you want to say, and behind this, is there someone who would actually like that, who just hasn't had the opportunity and is curious and just says, let's go. So don't get fooled just by what you see. Find out what is the belief behind it, the aspiration, the longing, the interest. And then you get a sense of what is the value.

Do you think it's. I want to go back to expectation. Do you feel like we should lower or should diversify expectations or what did you say the word was?

Calibrate.

Calibrate expectations. Or should we be finding someone that can reach that expectation that we want?

No, I think it's just impossible. I think you need to calibrate.

Calibrate. Always calibrate, too.

You calibrate. You constantly will be disappointed. Do you know a single relationship where you haven't been disappointed?

No.

Okay. I mean disappointment, which can lead to suffering. It's part of a relationship. The minute you have a relationship, you have an expectation. That expectation means that you want something. Love, closeness, intimacy, partnership, business, affiliation. You name it creates dependence. The moment you have an attachment, you have dependence. That dependence means that you have power, or I have power if I expect something from you, I confer power on you. You have power over me. I have power over you. By definition, there will be moments when that power doesn't go in the direction that I want.

And I'll be disappointed.

I'll be disappointed. Is there a single child that didn't have a disappointment from their parents? It doesn't exist. This idyllic thing you're talking about. It doesn't exist. The next thing is, what do you do with that disappointment? Hey, can I come tell you, I'm really disappointed. You let me down. I thought we were in this together. I trusted you. And you say, I see your point. Or do you say, what the hell are you talking about? You're just inventing this. You're delusional. None of this, you know, and everything in between. That's how you do a relationship. It's really based on the repair. It's not based on the.

It's how we heal the disappointment.

Yes. It's how you repair all these breaches.

Yeah.

Moment by moment, you come back, you know, and the repair is not. I am so sorry. The repair may sometimes be. Hey, do you want a glass of water or. Hey, did you see this article in the newspaper? John Gottman has this very interesting thing about that. He says the repair is not that you come and you do a mea culpa. It's that you do what he calls bids for connection. You show the other that they still matter. I brought a newspaper in at a time when we still had newspapers. That was one of his examples. You know, I brought the paper in like I think of you. I'm pissed at you. You just annoyed me. We just had a spat. But you're still.

I still care about you.

I still care about you.

I still respect you. So it's how we repair disappointment on a daily or weekly or monthly basis. Minutes sometimes is the success of the relationship.

And that means also how you come and you say you take responsibility. Yes. I actually think that taking responsibility is the ultimate faith. Really? I messed up. I shouldn't have done this. You know? Can I do that? You know, it really is being accountable.

What if you're. Instead of blaming the other, what if it actually, in that moment, wasn't your fault?

It doesn't matter. You don't have to agree with anything. I didn't mean to.

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Yeah, you know, we are going to sleep a lot, but it's about just saying it. And for that you have to. It's about saying it. And for that, you have to be able to see that you're a flawed person who can be accountable without that becoming a major source of shame. And I'm terrible. It's a different thing between saying I messed up and I messed up.

How I like this distinction. How do we in our mind. Because I think in the past relationships, when I messed up in a small term, right? Like a disappointment, a small disappointment feeling saying like I'm sorry or taking responsibility or saying, you know what?

That was my fault was like a humiliation.

Well, it's more like look at when I'm like, well, look. No, it's more like here's all the actions I'm doing right today. I've done this, which was an expectation, and I've done that. And I took the trash out or whatever. I'm just. And I did something kind for you and I wrote a note and I did this and I took us to dinner And I did all these things well today, but I messed up on this one thing. So for me, I used to say to myself, like, gosh, but can't you see the whole picture of, like, all the good things I'm doing? Why do I need to be an hour conversation about, like, one small thing? That's what I used to feel like. And do you feel like we should just be saying, you know what, take responsibility anyways for those moments, even if you're doing lots of good things? You know what I mean?

Yes.

I'm not a perfect human being, you know, it's like I might slip.

The story is told by you.

Yes.

The other person is the one that needs to think to tell you about all the good things that you've done. You felt, I do all of this, I do one thing wrong, and now I have to go into the dark pit, you know? But that's because you had a partner who did not enough tell you about all the good things you did. Right.

So this was about me.

If you are in a relationship, you need that other person to acknowledge all of the positive stuff so that when you have to say something about the moment that you messed up, you don't feel like, you know, this is an endless chore, if you ask me. One of the secrets, I should have probably said it like, it's definitely relationships with high degrees of appreciation. If you are flipped on the side of the criticism and what's missing, I put it in the context of distress, but I could say successful, thriving relationships have a high degree of appreciation.

Wow.

Well, I think.

Yeah, exactly. Or I think it's more like, okay, if you're going to acknowledge one thing that I didn't do, at least acknowledge something of the things I did do. Right.

That it's not. At least, it's a must.

It's a must. It's not bad if I. I shouldn't be needing that or I shouldn't be, I should need it.

Right? You should need it. You totally should need it.

Gotcha. Don't only acknowledge the bad. Also acknowledge the good.

Not also. It's a must. It's a mandate. You know what happens sometimes in distressed relationships? Because you were in a distressed relationship at that moment, and this is true, you can directly take this into the workplace. In a distressed relationship, the tendency is to highlight the negative and disregard the positive. The positive is just a given. The negative will make a big deal out of it. So the one thing you didn't do becomes the whole conversation. And then what does that person do, of course, that person says, but you disregard all the other stuff, and rightly so, because it has been disregarded. In a distressed relationship, the positive, if we get there on time, it's because there was no traffic, and if we get there late, it's because of you. The good is chance, the bad is attributed to you. Or in a different version of that is what we call negative attribution error. If I am in a bad mood, it's because I had a bad day. But if you're in a bad mood, it's because you're a nasty person who is always so cantankerous. Mine is circumstantial, yours is characterological. So when you say I was in a relationship in which when I did one thing bad, it was so overblown and I felt like everything else was being disregarded, that's a sign of a distressed relationship in and of itself.

Interesting.

The fact that because in a normal relationship, somebody else says, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Then you finally don't do something and says, oh, I really messed up there. I forgot. Sorry. And it's not such a big deal because you are seen for the whole person. If you have to make a speech about, you should see the whole person. You're not in a good relationship.

Ah, there you go. Okay.

Or you're not in. The dynamic in your relationship is not a good one. No.

Okay.

That in itself is a sign of a bad dynamic.

Gotcha. Gotcha.

You shouldn't have to say this.

So I wasn't crazy. Okay. Gotcha.

No.

Okay.

Gotcha.

No. And the interesting thing about this is how much it applies at home. And the same thing happens at work.

And at work. So is it a mandate to acknowledge team members at work as well in the good and not just the negative?

I absolutely think so. But I am not the best at it myself.

So you don't acknowledge your team the best.

It's hard.

When we're running the show, we see a lot of the things that are slipping through. Right?

Yeah. It's like my tendency is to.

But it's different because in a relationship you're not. It's not a paycheck. Right. It's like maybe there is, but it's different in terms of like an intimate relationship versus a working relationship.

How much has your team taught you? Because look, you are probably like me. We wouldn't be sitting here on some level if we were not actually more self critical people. People, of course, and very demanding of ourselves.

Of course.

And hence we Surround ourselves by people who we think we can be demanding from as well. And that is true. But it is also important that we learn to be sometimes a little kinder with ourselves and not just highlight the negative.

I know.

While at the same time asking the girlfriend to not be like that. Even though you are doing it with yourself and to also do it with our team. Yeah, I, I don't think you can go wrong, you know, if it's not just kind of fluff. I think that acknowledging the efforts of people is a good thing to learn. And my team teaches me.

They teach me a lot too. Yeah, I've grown so much in the last seven, eight years of launching this in my business just by seeing how much, you know, my words or my energy could affect someone if, you know, I'm only focusing on like what they messed up on. So we do acknowledgement all the time. Every meeting. It's like we try to acknowledge a team member and acknowledge people all the time. Because I've learned over the years just like it's not good just to focus on the negative and what's not working. Even if you're the boss and even if you're paying everyone or whatever it may be.

And have you ever connected that to the fact that your focus was on self reliance? See, they come together, autonomous people. People who were raised for autonomy need to learn what you're describing, to give those comments, to see what other people are doing. They need to learn not to just look like this.

Yeah, that's true. Now in Hal's work, I'm excited to dive in on this. I had a business partnership before the school of greatness. About eight years ago that we started a company together. I guess 11 years ago we started a company. We ran this for three years. The company took off. It started to be very successful financially. Started making millions of dollars in sales a year with a very small team. It was essentially just us. And we outsourced a few things. It did very well until the dynamics of the relationship started to change. We had both had nothing starting out and then we grew and we started to get some success, some financial stability, things like that. And things started to shift where we didn't have our values aligned, we didn't have our, I guess our work ethic aligned. And we didn't communicate about specific, we didn't communicate about expectations. We went into it quickly into a business partnership.

Were you friends before?

We were friends maybe for like six months. Like we just met. We were in a co working space. I was working on something Similar to what he was working on. We were just talking and hanging out, helping each other, giving advice. And then we worked on a project together.

Hey, we should do.

Let's try this thing. It did well. Let's do this again next week. Let's keep doing. We're making money, let's grow it. Okay, now let's build a business together. So there was not a level of communication beforehand or an agreement on, okay, if in five years you want to leave, what's the expectation if I want to leave, we didn't have that. So I take full responsibility with both of us not clearly communicating expectations. And so anyways, after a few years, I start to get a lot of resentment because I had an expectation that this person was going to be working as hard as me. I'm up till 2am every night. He has kids and a wife. I don't have that. So I can work all day, all night. And I'm thinking, let's grow this thing, let's build this thing. And I didn't communicate. So I take full responsibility. So after a while, I remember saying to myself, why am I giving up 50% of this when I'm doing 90% of the sales generating efforts that are bringing in the revenue, right? And I even had him. I was like, a lot of our stuff was based on sales from live webinars. And I was the guy who was doing the live webinars. So I even said, like, hey, why don't you try to do this webinar on your own and see if he can generate some sales? And there was zero sales when he did it. So I think he realized, okay, like, in order to generate income, he needed someone to sell for him. And where I was thinking, like, okay, I could probably pay someone five grand a month to do all the responsibilities of him, but he's generating a lot more than that. And so there was a level of resentment where I just didn't communicate. I just got angry and was resentful.

And when you get angry, what do you do?

I would be reactive. I'd be dismissive. I would be, you know, I would be distant. I would focus on my own stuff. And I started thinking of, like, how do I get out of this? Right? How do I get out of this? I was also very immature. Didn't know, like, didn't really know myself. Didn't heal my trauma from the past, like, didn't do all these things before this. And I remember, like, going through a lot of internal pain and suffering because of this. My lack of emotional Courage to have hard conversations.

Was he acknowledging the fact that. Did you have a shared sense of reality? Did he agree with what you see?

No, no, no, no.

So that's the first thing, I think.

Until he tried, like, to do a webinar himself to sell when he didn't make any money on it. I think he was like a first wake up call. Like, oh, I guess I do need Louis in a sense. Like, we needed each other until a point where I was like, I could just pay someone to do your job, but we had started this together, so it was just like trying to figure. It was just messy. And then I remember, like, we were in the middle of Times Square one day arguing, and a friend of ours was there, a mutual friend, and we were arguing, and it just got really heated. And I wanted to, like, literally fight him in the middle of Times Square because I was like, you're not holding your weight. I'm doing this. You know, it's just like an argument. We're both arguing our case, right? And I was just like, this is not working, you know, and it's not going to work. I ended up selling the company to him. I remember I ended up started going through emotional intelligence work and starting healing trauma in the past. And I approached him and I said, even though I have this, what was.

The piece that you needed to address from the past that was going to help you with this?

What wasn't the piece I needed to address, but I think it was the sexual abuse and the trauma that I faced and a lot of, like, feeling abused and taken advantage of my entire life, feeling like people are out to get me, or fairness of, like, what's fair, what should we both have, what should we both get type of thing. So I think once I started to do a lot of that work on myself and heal from past hurts from other people where I felt taken advantage of. I remember coming to him and emailing him and saying, hey, I want to meet you in person. And literally the first thing I said was, like, 10 minutes of acknowledging him and gratitude for him.

I wouldn't have started this without you.

I was just like, there's no way we'd be here right now without you. I'm so grateful. Even if there was, like, things I wasn't happy with, I was just like, here are all the things I'm really grateful about you. And I think he was in shock because for six, seven months prior, it was a lot of stress for both of us, a lot of resentment, both sides. But that mindset and attitude was able to get us to a place to find a deal where I sold the company to him. Whereas if I didn't come to him from that place of gratitude, I probably wouldn't have been able to sell it to him. And there were other challenges since I exited that we had. But I remember I needed to come from a place of gratitude. I needed to come from a place of calm and peace in order to make some resolution happen. And you have a show. I know we're. I'm actually over my time right now, so I want to be respectful. But your show, How's Work? Deals with a lot of people who are in partnerships and business that go through different challenges in business. Right.

So your story could be an episode on Housework Complete.

Right.

You know, your story says in order for me to deal with my co founder, I needed to deal with the other part of my resume, my relationship history. I needed my past, the past. The way that I had felt that people had used me, the way that I felt, that I've always had to do more. The way that I felt that even when I did more, they still thought that they did more than me. The way that I didn't know if I took them on that they wouldn't hurt me more. And so my invisible history that is right there as I'm working with my.

Co founder that he didn't know about.

That he did not know about. You know, that's an episode of housework. That's what we address, I deal with. It's where should we begin? For anybody who's ever had a job, it's co founders, colleagues, co workers, family business. 65% of startups will fail like yours because of the relationship between the co founders. Just so you know, they fail because.

Of the relationship, because the relationship, not because the economy or because of customers.

No, it's an enormous amount of good ideas that fall apart because that's Howard Massiman at Harvard. That's not a statistic here. And what you did is you first of all went and you realized, I am bringing stuff here. Of course I need to acknowledge then you went to him. You didn't just do gratitude, you actually did basic reality testing. It is true that without him, you may not have been where you were or where you stand started and all of that.

Absolutely.

It was also true that at a certain moment you no longer wanted to continue be with him. And it's the ability to not have to deprive the other of anything they've done in order to justify and to just say I know you've done all of this. Of course, when you come to me and you first acknowledge my contribution, I'm not on the defensive, then you can come and say, I would like to sell you the company. Because if you came and you talked about everything you do, I would answer to you with everything I've done and everybody's holding their card. But if you come and you tell me what I have done, then I don't have to go into that script and I can actually choose a different path. I don't have to hold on my credentials and remind you what I have done here. But this thing about two people who start together and one starts to do more and feels that they are putting in all the effort and they're the generating one and that, you know, and then the other one is still trying to tell them, you know, no, no, no, we are equal. And they feel like we are not equal anymore and it's unfair. And then it taps into. And I know that feeling used feeling. I've been there, you know, and now you have this past and the present sitting on each other, the personal and the professional, the invisible resume with the reality of the workplace. I wish you come with your partner to an episode, but I invite anybody else in a similar situation to come and do an episode of how it works. That is, it's riveting. It's riveting because you tell it now and I listen to it like that because you made the connections. But the episode is often the opportunity for people to make the connections for the first time before.

Wow.

No, with me in it for the first time.

They're stressed out.

Three hour session that then gets edited. But it's a three hour session with the colleagues and the co founders going exactly into that, you know, wow. I have two firefighter pilots in Iraq and Afghanistan together and they then create a company. The company is very successful and then at one point, one of them wants to go and do something that is other one doesn't want to do. And their whole question is, were we successful because we had a great idea? Are we successful because we had each other? I have two Brits who are college friends like you who say, let's do this thing. They start with an idea and it becomes this lucrative, successful communications company. But they can't talk to each other one word, you know, and they realize it in the session. So you're telling me the story after the fact. How is it work? Is the actual unearthing of this very.

I'm excited to listen. And where should we begin? Is amazing. So I'm excited to listen to this as well. So anyone who's got a job or entrepreneur or got a co founder with you, go listen to that right now. They're both on Spotify.

Right on Spotify. And anywhere else where you listen to your podcast.

Okay. This is a question I've asked you before, I think the last time you came on, but I want to ask you again to see if it's different. And I'm going to go back and check them. This is called the Three truths. So imagine it's your last day on this earth and you have to say goodbye and your body dies and you go on to the next place, wherever that is. And it could be any year, anytime, hundreds of years from now. But eventually you got to go and you've accomplished every dream you can imagine. You've healed millions of relationships. You've written the books, you've done the speeches. Anything you want to do, you've created it. But it's all got to go with you. All of your work, all of your message. But you get to leave behind to the world three things you know to be true from all of your work and life experiences. Three lessons that you would share with the world to live by. What would you say are your three truths?

The quality of your relationships determines the quality of your life. Hence, make sure that you have a rich life and invest in your relationships. Nobody's ever died hoping they had worked more. And then the next one is make it so that when people remember you, they smile.

Mmm, that's a good one. Never heard that one.

That they were touched by you in a way that really left them with something to cherish. I see so many people in my office as a therapist who are left with things that people left them with that are bitter, cruel, hurtful. And I just think I want to be remembered with a smile.

Wow, that's a good one.

As somebody you know, it was great to know her, to meet her, to have her in my life as my mother, as my wife, as my friends friend, as my boss. If you have that, then you continue to live inside the hearts and minds of others in a way that you.

Leave a positive impact for many years to come. Yeah, that's beautiful. Okay. And the third one?

Oh, I thought this one already 3.

The first one is the quality of life or quality relationships is the quality of your life.

The second one would have been there for you in the invest in your relationships. Nobody has ever really seriously people on every deathbed, people will talk about how they wish they had spent more time with their loved ones. And I actually have to say I don't think I will say that because I'm doing it. But if it was the third one, I think it would be something inspired by what you probably would take. If you have a dream that has accompanied you your whole life, go ahead and try it. If it's doable, it would be a pity that you would spend. I mean, there are certain things you won't do. I will never be a pilot, you know, that kind of. But there are certain things that you know you want to try one day. Just go ahead and dare it. What do you stand to lose on some of these things? And I think that's piece that I take from your work is that notion of just so many ways that you can explain why you don't go ahead and dare. Dare yourself on some things. You want to play that freaking piano? Go get yourself a music. Whatever it is, dare. And I like that. I take from you.

That's great. Thank you. I want to acknowledge you, Esther, for constantly showing up. You bring so much healing to so many people and clarity and inspiration. Every time you speak, I swear it's like sound bites of like clarity and inspiration to how to live a better life and have better relationships. So I'm so grateful for you. I acknowledge you for this. Where should we begin? Is amazing for anyone in an intimate relationship. You have to go watch or listen to it.

Season four coming out soon.

The first two I listened to were unbelievable. I remember listening to the car.

I mean you have to listen to four when it comes to three is incredible. But four is even better. They keep getting better is all I can tell you.

How's work? I'm excited to dive into. You can listen both on Apple or Spotify or anywhere. Podcasts are. Where else can we support you or follow you? Where do you.

I mean, you know I told you about the newsletter and the blog. I really write people want. I don't always want to write another book on my website on social on esther perel.com Esther perel.com Come and it's monthly. It's really what we are talking about but on a deeper level so that I can't always do another book. Of course there's the books Mating in Captivity and the State of Affairs. And there's two other things if you're a coach or a therapist. It is my training platform which is called Sessions with Esther Perel where I like you bring some of the people that I learned from the most in the field of relationships. And then if you're a couple and you feel like your sexuality has sagged and you're in a rut, rekindling desire is the place to go. It's also on the website, and it's the course that you take to kind of reconnect with your erotic self.

Esther, appreciate you. You're the best. Thank you so much. Means a lot.

Pleasure to be back. I'll come again.

Let's do it. Let's do it. I love it.

Relationships, the juice of life, bringing it all together.

What is the meaning of this life?

Why are we here? What's the purpose? And why are relationships so challenging? We talked about all of this stuff, guys, and I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, please share with your friend. Tag Esther over on Instagram. Tag mewishouse. Text a comment. Couple of friends, guy friends, girlfriends, it doesn't matter. Share this with every person you can think of that is in a relationship in their life. Because we want to help people improve their relationships and improve the quality of their life. And you can literally change a person's life today by sending them this message and saying, hey, check this out. I think it'll really support you. Again, if we can ease pain in relationships, if we can learn to communicate better, then we're going to have a richer, fuller, more loving life. I really hope you enjoyed this. I love this quote by Dalai Lama. It said, the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other. And Dolly Parton said, the way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain. You gotta drop the expectations just a little bit. You can still communicate what you want, but you can't have everything from one person, otherwise that other person is going to expect the same thing from you. And you're not perfect. I'm not perfect. We're all learning and growing and trying to be better, and, you know, we just got to be able to go through this with a little bit more ease and love for each other. But I hope you enjoy this for me. I love when I get to sit down and talk to Esther because she just has the wisdom and the experience, and she's helping so many people in relationships, both in work and at home.

Home.

Make sure to check out her new podcast, How's Work? Available on Spotify and anywhere you get your podcast. And where should we. Where Should We Begin? Will truly help you in your marriage and intimate relationship as well. Big thank you, guys. I love you. I hope you feel loved, I hope you feel supported, I hope you feel seen and acknowledged. And if you don't right now, I want to let you know that I appreciate you. I acknowledge you. I'm grateful for you every time time you show up and you listen to an episode, every time you you support this and every time you support yourself because you're really doing the self care by learning the things to improve and become a better human being in the world. Means the world to me. Thank you for your love and your kindness. Your generosity does not go unnoticed and as always, you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.

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