If A Man DEEPLY LOVES YOU, He Will DO THESE Things! | DeVon Franklin & Lewis Howes
DeVon Franklin and Lewis Howes discuss what deep love looks like in relationships. They talk about vulnerability, jealousy, and how masculine and feminine energies show up when a man truly cares.
Chapters
Why is this so hard for us, this trap of love?
Right.
Why don't we get out of it sooner?
Right? I mean, there's so many. There's so many reasons. The reason it comes to mind is worth, self worth.
We don't believe we're worth or we're afraid we won't find something as good or.
What do you mean, all of it? What I mean is that it can take a while for you to come into a revelation of what you're worth and that you are worthy to be happy and pursue happiness on your terms and come to the revelation that, you know, this dynamic is no longer, you know, making that contribution to my life.
Not that they're bad and wrong.
There you go. Right? Right.
Not that it's all their fault.
There you go.
Just wasn't the right fit.
And for me, you know, when you're in that situation, it can take a long time for you to get to the place where you feel enough worth, where you're ready to say, you know what? I'm going to endure the fear, I'm going to endure the challenges to make that kind of move. So when you talk about love, love cuts to the core of our word because we all need it. And when I say love, we all need love. I don't mean just romantic love. I'm just saying we all need to love and be loved. I think it's just part of our humanity. It's just part of how we were created. It's part of our divinity, right? God is love. We are. God is in us. We love, right? And we serve. And so part of that love is, oh, man, I want so much of it is focused on giving. Because think about again, think about how we're socialized, right? Oh, you do the right thing. Oh, Mommy, Daddy loves you. Oh, you know, oh, I want to, but it's not like, do you love you? Do you know you're worthy? Do you know that you are worth it? Do you love who looks back at you in the mirror? Do you love who looks back at you when you take the selfie? Because at the end of the day, love becomes complicated because when we never actually get there with our worth and who we really are, and so we go into the relationship and we haven't really done the work. We kind of feel worthy. We don't quite feel loved. And we bring all of that. That's a recipe for this, you know? And here's the thing. It's okay, right? We're all. Love is like a rocky sea, right? You Know what I mean? You want, hey, we're on the boat, man, it's going to be right. That's okay. Because we all have our stuff. So it's not about finding somebody who don't have stuff. You want to find somebody who can help you with your stuff, who's willing to help you with your stuff. So that as you bring things that are difficult, they're like, hey, it's cool, let's work this through. But you both find a healthy way to do it. Yes, but one of the reasons why I think people stay in things is because of worth. And you need time to get to a place and some people never get there where you realize what you're worth. But because at the end of the day, I go back to happiness. It's like in peace and joy. You know this. We only live this life once. You know, I'm a Christian, I believe in heaven, I believe in that. But I also believe that this is this earth, this life, this particular existence. We only get it once. So when you really put that in the broad scheme of things, you think, okay, am I living right now according to my choice?
Yes.
Am I doing the things that bring me joy, bring me peace, or am I allowing things in my life that are working against it no matter what they are? It could be a relationship, it could be a job, it could be a living environment, whatever it is, I have to take control and do this assessment and then make the decision, okay, from a relationship standpoint, if my relationship isn't everything I wanted, okay, what do I need to do to fix it? But first I gotta fix me.
Yeah.
And I gotta work on me and I gotta love me. And as I love me, it will then help me learn how to love others and make the assessment, okay, you know what? Maybe this person is gonna be able to walk with me and I walk with them. Great. Maybe not. But let me not just point the finger and do the work. The other thing I want to hit is we talk about setting expectations. That second part of setting expectations is communication, right? Is it spoken or unspoken? And we talked about this earlier, you've got to actually ask the question. So even in this situation, when you talk about difficult relationship, this scenario, instead of making the assumption, whatever your area of frustration is, sit down and frame it as a question. You know what? I was expecting that in this relationship that we would sit down and eat every night at seven o', clock, right?
Because this is what we did with my family, right? So I just assumed.
That's what I just assumed you would.
Do the same thing.
Is that your expectation? Is that. Is that something I can expect from you is. And let them say yes or no. Oh, okay. So for you, like, you don't ever expect to be home at 7.
You're going out to dinner, you're going out there, right?
Oh, okay. Got it. Okay. Okay. All right. Okay, great. Wow. Now we're actually having a real adult conversation, right? We're having an adult conversation because we're taking accountability and. And we're communicating. And so when it comes to setting expectations in any area of life, you got to know, is it realistic or unrealistic vis a vis control? And you got to ask, is it spoken or unspoken vis a vis communication? And when we start to do these tools, you know, it does free us up. Because the reason why I wanted to write Live Free is because so often we're not. And when I say live free, what I mean is that when you and I live free, when anyone lives free, it means they are not under the mental, physical, or emotional control of anyone or anything. That's what living free is. Living free means. So when we get into a situation and we start to feel like, ooh, this. This person is starting to feel like this person is making me mad or contributing to my discontent, then I would say to that person, okay, pause for a minute. Pause for a second. It's super easy just to turn all your attention to what they're not doing, right? No, no, no, no. How do you want to feel in the situation? What would give you more power in the situation? What would give you more peace? Okay, you know what? I'm identifying that there are some things in my relationship that are incompatible.
Yes.
I am going to spend some time observing what those things are and identifying if there are certain things I can live with and what I can't.
Right.
And communicating about that and communicating those areas that I can't to see if it's possible we can set our expectations together.
The biggest challenge you'll find is when you communicate those things out of expectation or anger or frustration, the other person's probably not gonna be able to receive it. If you're already making someone wrong for what they're doing or not doing, it's very challenging to have an adult conversation, bro. And this is.
I've been there before.
I've done that, and I've received it. Yes. And it's. It's challenging to do. But when you come from a place of 100% responsibility, accountability, and figuring, why is this triggering me? Why is this really affecting me. Dude, dude, then you can come from a calmer place of like, okay, I didn't like this, but I don't need to make you wrong for this in this moment, because we can talk about it, come up with an agreement that then moving forward, we can either live up to or not, and then we can make a decision if this frustrates me.
Correct. I mean, it's challenging, but it's good work. And for me, you know, I. That's. You talk about flaws. Like, that's an area that I have been, you know, outside of identifying what my needs are and being okay to admit those needs, One of the flaws, man, is that, you know, I have a really strong sense of right and wrong.
And if someone's not doing that, according to me, that's wrong.
Right, right, right.
So.
So if something happened, right, Dude, I'm. I'm like, that's wrong. You know, so when Megan and I have had moments of disagreement, you know, I have at times mishandled it completely because I have in my mind, made the decision that on that particular thing that she may have done that I didn't like. She's wrong.
Yeah. For you.
For me.
Right.
But no, no, no, I didn't. For me came as I evolved and as I grew, initially it was like, no, that's wrong.
Yeah, wrong in the world.
Not just wrong for divine.
Wrong in the world. So here's the problem with that. The problem is when I make the decision and judge her action as wrong, the moment I bring it up, I bring it up in a way of attack. And anyone, when they feel attacked, it's gonna. They're gonna get defensive.
You can't do that in a relationship.
You can't do it. You can't do it. But. But it happens all the time.
It does, man.
And, dude, what would happen is I would, you know, get on my self righteous, you know, soapbox.
I can't believe we did this.
There you go.
There you go.
What were you thinking?
There you go. Judgment, you know, what's she gonna say?
Oh, you're right, Devon, I'm a bad person. Everything you say is truth, right?
No, dude, listen. I learned the hard way what that did was it pushed her further away.
Right.
It doesn't mean that the point of what I was bringing up, whatever we were dealing with didn't have merit. Didn't mean that. It just meant that the way I went about it was wrong and my intent was not being realized because I came at it from judgment. And I'm right. And you're wrong. And dah, dah, dah. So as I bumped my head, I realized. Oh, got it. The way I see the world is. Is the way I see the world.
Yeah.
It's not exactly how the world may be. So when I use how I see the world as the way that she has to see the world, I am the one with the problem.
Yeah.
Because I've got to understand and take into account the two different perspectives. So what I had to learn to do is express it from here. My love.
Yeah.
When this happened, here's how it made me feel. Mm. Here's. Here's. Here's was my takeaway. Is that the way. Is that the right way to think about it? So instead of doing like this, I had to do like this. Oh, yeah. When that. When. When you said that I felt this way about that, you know, I. Man. And is talking. How can we. You know? And that approach, bro, that approach is what then brings the communication. Right.
Then she wants to be contributing in.
A more supportive way and also just talk it through. Right. Because it's not a pointing the finger. I'm not pointing the finger at her. You know, she's not pointing the finger at me. We're actually talking about. So she'll say, hey, you know, there are certain things that you do that make me feel this way. I was like, oh, okay. Now here's another hard truth. There's some situations I'm like, I'm not responsible for those feelings.
Right.
Doesn't mean you have to change who you are.
No. Maybe. I love you. I understand what you're saying. And, you know, I love you, period. I understand you feel a certain way about certain things. That's not my responsibility.
Right.
So the same way that I feel about certain things, you're like, hey, that's not my responsibility. Right.
Yeah.
I still got to go do my work. I still have to go on my journey, and I still have to continue to get to that place of peace and healing and contentment inside the journey, if that makes sense.
On a scale of 1 to 10. Yeah. Of jealousy, 10 being extremely jealous. Human being, 1. Being not jealous at all. Where would you say you lie in life or, like, relationship in relationship?
Oh, man, I'm not jealous. I'm lying. It's like a one for me.
Did you ever used to be jealous in relationships?
Never. And I'll tell you why. Because I love me, okay? So I'm like, yo, listen, I ain't jealous of no other dude.
I ain't.
I'm not and in the reality is, if any woman that I was with found, you know, for whatever, more comfort or, you know, like, hey, I want to go over there and experience that person. God bless you. God bless you. Not the right fit.
Yeah.
You know, and, and if I was a jealous person, I couldn't be married to my wife. You know, my wife is one of the most successful, I mean, versus she beautiful. But she's also one of the most successful, you know, women, you know, actors in Hollywood. You know, she's an icon. She's known around the world, you know, I mean, she got, man, she's got men, you know, I mean, literally, you know, and men all around the world, you know, desire her and would probably do anything for her. And that's who she was before we got married. So if I was the jealous type of work, I couldn't. I'd be miserable, miserable, miserable. Because right now she's in, you know, New York on a TV show, I'm here in la. You gotta have trust and gotta have trust, right? So if I, if I'm a jealous man, oh, man, I.
What is jealousy saying about us?
Insecurity. Massive insecurity. I don't feel safe with me. So I don't feel safe with you.
What do you mean? I don't feel safe with me.
Meaning if I am secure with who I am and I feel good being alone, right. I feel safe in my isolation, I feel safe in my loneliness or periods of time when I'm by myself, then I trust that you're going to feel safe and you're going to honor whatever needs to happen. But if I don't feel safe, like, I don't really like being alone much and I don't really like being by myself, I. Then you don't feel, what are you doing? What's the problem? What's happening? So that insecurity and not feeling safe with self, you transfer onto the other person. Because if you're content with your personal time, you tend to be more content when others have personal time independently.
You're not worried.
You're not worried. And then also one of the things that could happen is that you got burned in the past. Someone did you wrong, they violated your trust, and so fear has crept in and, and so that fear is driving your jealousy.
Yes.
You know, I'm afraid that what happened before is going to happen again. And so as a result, I'm transferring that previous pain onto my present situation. And that's always a recipe for disaster. Right? Because the person you're dating is not the person you dated.
You can't expect them to repeat the same thing.
Exactly. Now, but here's the other thing. Because life is a mirror, right. And whatever we put out, we get back. If you keep putting that out, if you put it out on the last situation, this person you're dating may not be a cheater at all. But if you don't trust them and you keep getting mad at them, you're.
Push them away, they're going to want to cheat.
It's like, you know, again, everyone still has to be the key person.
I'm saying it's okay. Yeah, Right.
But that energy that you're putting out is sometimes the energy you get back, even from somebody who may not be predisposed to do those sort of things.
Not saying it's your fault that someone breaks out their integrity.
Correct.
But you might have influenced it.
Correct.
In a way.
Correct. And so the person that's jealous has to, one, get control of that security and two, get control that fear. And also, also say, you know what, Listen, if that person I'm dating is foolish enough to step out on me, that's on them. That is on them.
That's on them.
Because they don't even realize what they just did. They don't even realize what. Who they're missing out on.
Right.
Period. End of story.
So.
So on the other side of that jealousy is a. Is this idea that's not ideal in your head. That's just not true.
So I feel like maybe until five or six years ago, I was probably in my twenties, I was probably a seven on the jealousy scale.
Whoa.
Then in my very insecure, I had false confidence, but very insecure.
Yep.
Maybe I was like a 5 into a 7 in that range. And then in my 30, early 30s was more of a 3.
Right.
And then when I hit 30, probably 3 or 34, I was like a 1 or a 0 and something switched inside of me where I was like, okay, exactly what you just said. If someone cheats on me or is flirting with someone or whatever, texting someone, that's on them.
Yeah.
It's not on me. And okay, goodbye. Like, I love you and I want the best for you.
Right.
And I don't know if that just took me time and maturity, but you, it sounds like you had this at birth.
I don't know if I had a birth, but jealousy was never my issue. You know, I was never. I've just never been the jealous, the jealous type at all, you know?
What was your biggest issue?
My biggest issue has been and continues to be vulnerability, being vulnerable. Very, very hard. Very hard expressing what I feel.
Why is it challenging for you to express exactly how you feel in a vulnerable, non frustrated way?
I'll tell you why. Because I go back to, you know, Mr.
Perfect.
Mr. Perfect, for sure. I mean, that. That area of time, that period of time, you know, that. That wound, you know, losing my father, you know, this is devastating. I mean, you know, it was. It was. And I talk about this in the book, you know, when my father. So my father was an alcoholic. He was in and out of the house pretty much my whole life. And so when we would see him, most of the time, my memories of him were, you know, him being drunk. So he was like, I think when we were. And I was like, man, maybe five years old, he left and, you know, was just out. Like, for him, alcohol was like somebody being on, like, hardcore drugs. And so he was intermittent for from between five and nine when he passed away, Right before he passed away, he'd gotten clean. He got a job. He had a place. We went and saw him. You know, we were like, hey. He's like, hey. You know, he worked at this restaurant. Remember, we went to the restaurant multiple times on a Sunday night. We got the word that he had a heart attack. He went to the hospital that Monday after school. Me and my brothers and my mom, we go to the hospital. We see him, you know, he's up in the bed just like this, having a conversation, you know, and he said, listen, I'm so sorry for what I've done to you all. He said, I want to get back in your life. I want to get my family back.
Wow.
I'm coming back to church. That's what he said.
Wow.
You were like, wow, okay, maybe dad has changed. The next day, we're getting ready to go to the hospital. The phone rings. Mother picks up. Hear this screech, this yell, you know, I'm nine years old and I was literally sitting on the couch reading the Shel Silverstein book Where the Sidewalk Ends, because we were reading that for class. My mom yells, and we knew what that meant. She's crying profusely. She rushes, she gets us in the car, we go to the hospital. One of my aunts is there. She is with us in the waiting room. My mom goes away for a long time, and then finally she comes and she says to me and my brothers, I want you to come with me. Didn't know where we were going. We go what I now realize was the morgue. And there's my father.
Wow.
Laid out on a cold, you know, steel slab. And she said, kiss your father goodbye. Wow. So we walk over, man, and I'm telling you, you don't. You don't know what cold is until you. You. It's the cold. So I remember to this day, kissing him on his forehead. And in that moment, I'm like, what the heck is this? I don't. I don't. I don't know. I don't know how to. I. I'm feeling stuff I don't even know how to deal with. So I'm just gonna shut that down. All the emotions, I'm shutting it down. I can't survive like this. I'm shutting it down. So, you know, hey, I'll lean into Mr. Perfect and all these things. And so as I. And so as that achievement started, you know, I mean, from that age, you know, I'm just going to drive. I'm going to. I'm going to put all my. My focus on succeeding, and I'm going to get straight A's, and I'm going to do this, and I'm going to be on student council, and I'm going to play basketball. I'm going to do. I'm just going to work my way out of. So I never have to focus on how I feel. Never have to do it. So as I did that, you know, again in the public. Oh, successful, you know, successful at school, successful at college, all this. But where I failed the most was in my personal relationships because I couldn't express how I felt. Okay, Devon, you've taken me out on a date, but how do you feel? No, I'm good. I'm good. No, no. What's going on? Like, how do you really feel? Like, you know, like, what are you thinking?
Oh, no, I'm thinking great.
No, that vulnerability, man, it was like a lock. And as I've been married, you know, I've had to, even to this day, work on expressing the things that are hard to express and not want to talk about a problem. You know, it's easy to talk about problems.
Oh, I don't like this.
That's easy. But, like, oh, this makes me feel really good. I really like when you do that. You know, I really love this. Here's how I really feel about it. I'm really afraid about that.
You don't say those things as frequently as you.
I don't say those things as frequently as.
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And I realize the, the especially, you know, with us being the position that we are to be able, we've been blessed to be able to help people. The, the only way that we can continue to grow in that help is to grow here and to grow in that vulnerability, you know, and that's something man, that I work on because in some instances, man, it feels very uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable. Like ah, like it's, it's, it's easy. I can, I can stand up in a stadium full of 20,000 people and speak much easier than sometimes one on one me telling, you know, my wife how I feel about certain things?
Why do certain women get into a relationship like that where the man isn't providing necessarily for himself or for the relationship and then stay with men like.
That as we, it's like we talked about earlier. It's leverage, it's control, it's power, you know, it's, he has to value me. It's also listen, if she's having a hard time dating men of a higher stature, well, it just becomes easier to date that guy. Not to mention in her defense, that woman, if she's not, if she's walking more in a masculine energy, she's going to attract men who don't have much going on for themselves.
Why is that?
Because again, we attract that balance. It's a natural thing. You're not going to see a feminine woman being drawn to a very feminine man. It doesn't happen like that. And that's the same way, you won't see a very masculine man be drawn to a masculine woman. He may want to have sex with her. He may want to enjoy some things with her.
He's not going to want to live life with her.
Exactly. That's interesting because those energies conflict. We need balance. So what happens is that woman that's giving off more masculine, she attracts that man who. He needs her. He needs her to stabilize his life. He needs her for the resources. He will tolerate that energy because he does not possess it within himself or.
He doesn't want to go out there and work hard or.
Exactly. So it's easier for him. And so, yes, she's getting more of those guys coming her way than the establishment. And again, in her defense, after a while, you know, you start to say, well, maybe I should give one of these guys a chance. Maybe I should try this out. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad. Yeah, you know what? Some of them are not even good guys. They're just guys who are willing at that time to put in more effort. So here's the thing. Like, I was speaking to Jay, Jay Shetty, and he was saying when he first got with his wife, he didn't have a job, so he was able to spend every day with her.
Right.
And she kind of got accustomed to this. And I bring his example to say a lot of times that guy who doesn't have anything going on for himself right now is more available to chase, to pour into, to do whatever she.
Can, especially quality time with her.
Yes. So that also allows the woman to fall into the trap of being with this guy, even though he's not really a great guy for her because he's not doing things to provide for her and make sure she's good.
But he's keeping her attention.
Yes, he is feeding her the attention that she desires and in return, taking her resources. In a lot of cases. In a lot of cases.
So with this 50, 50 thing, why do you think this is such a big topic? Let's say in the last probably 10, 15 years, where it seems like it's 50, 50 in the relationship, 50, 50 spending, 50, 50 taking care of all, all responsibilities, 50, 50 taking care of the kids when the woman needs to get up and nurse, the husband needs to get up and be emotional support during that time, share the time, taking the kids to school, changing diapers, whatever it is that society is saying. Why is this 50, 50 thing been so prominent? And why does it not work for both men and women?
All right, so as far as why it has risen to prominence is, again, I think it's this fight for equality. We were fighting so hard and we're losing sight of the bigger picture of balance. Balance is what we need for success, not equality in the relationship. And I would argue that equality in the relationship does not actually exist. Because if you were to examine 5050 relationships, what you will find is, over time, if you is going to shift to one person doing more than the other, and I would argue 90% of the time, it's the woman doing more than the guy. Because think about this. The mindset of the man who wants to do 5050 is very different than the man who's so in love with this woman that he wants to provide for her. His willingness to even accept 50 50, he's going to be reluctant to do that. It's kind of like going on a date with a guy and one guy is down to pay Dutch, and the other guy is like, don't take your card out. I got this. They already have a very different mindset. So that guy who's opened the 5050 from the jump, the chances that he's going to change later on and want to take on more is not likely he's going to get comfortable in that 5050 or do even less. Also consider this. Even when we say 5050 on the bills, 5050 on the bills, in my opinion, would be 20% of your income. 20% of their income. That's not what a lot of people do. The mortgage is, let's say, 1,500 and we split it 750, 750. But the guy, let's just say, makes $80,000. The woman makes $40,000. That's not equal. You see what I'm saying? He's making a much bigger sacrifice than he is. So that alone eliminates this idea that it's 50 50.
What about the whole raising the kids thing of like, you gotta, you know.
Exactly. Raising the kids. Now, of course, are there scenarios where sometimes it's the man who ends up doing more?
Absolutely.
But in most cases, the woman naturally gravitates to being the one who handles the kids more. That's what you're going to find. So again, you're going to start to see it get skewed in certain areas to where you're not maintaining this 50 50. But then if we go deeper into why this doesn't work. So one, it doesn't work because it doesn't. It's not really sustainable in the vast majority of cases. I'm not saying no one's ever pulled it off, but in majority of cases it doesn't work. Number two, you know, there was a study that shows, I believe it was a study that said egalitarian relationships are like the most sexless marriages or the most sexist relationships.
Egalitarian, meaning like equal.
50.
50 equal. You know what I'm saying? Sexless, yes.
Why is that?
Because basically you're neutralizing the masculine, feminine polarity. Polarity, exactly. It's now just neutral. Yeah. It's flat. It's not. There's no excitement there. There's nothing there. It kind of reminds me of this guy. I don't want to put him on, but I don't know his name, so I guess I could say it. There was this guy on Twitter, I think it was like late last year and he posts that he how his wife just came home from like a 16 hour shift or something crazy like that and here she is shoveling the snow in the driveway and how he's so proud of her. Let me get her coffee ready. And the commenters ate him up like they went in. But you know, in his mind it's we're equal, we're 50.
50.
Look at her doing all these things. But in reality, if a woman has to come home to a man that puts her in that position all the time, doesn't step up, she's going to start to lose attraction. And you're again overburdening the woman. What a man has to understand, and it's actually mentioned in the book the way the superior man, where he says, don't make your woman your everything. I think what men underestimate is that women are in their head a lot. They're constantly thinking, constantly processing. So if too much is on her plate, she becomes mentally exhausted, mentally worn down. Yes. So when the woman says I'm too tired for sex, the man thinks, well, you weren't doing nothing all day. Her mind was a million different places all day by the time she got to this moment. She does not have the energy. When the mind goes, the body goes with it. So when you put too much in front of her, you are taking away her ability to thrive in certain areas. So as the book mentioned, you want to identify as a man. What do I need most from her? What's going to be most important for me? Let's now hone in on those things and find someone else to take care of the rest.
What are the things that men need most from women in general?
What are some of the things?
What are the things that you think men need most from women in general?
I think in a relationship, yes. Support. Support. And let me add to support by saying a belief in that man. You know, I think we need a woman that believes in us, that kind of reveres us, so to speak, has that respect for us and views us in a great light. Because again, as men, we're going to have moments where we may question ourselves, we may feel down. And if that woman that we're with can't pour into us in that way, in that moment with a genuine energy of, I believe in you, I. I support you, I love you, that's going to be tough to deal with. All right. I think also sexual satisfaction for most men is extremely important. I think women underestimate how serious of a need sexual satisfaction is for a man. Yes. And again, it goes back to not understanding. We are wired very differently by biology. Looking at it from a biological standpoint, we have more testosterone than they do.
More sex drive.
Exactly. We naturally have more libido. Part of the reason why is because, and I hope I'm saying this correctly, the DNA's main primary objective is reproduction.
Yes.
It has to keep us ready all the time. And so because of that, that's why. I'm sure you're familiar with semen retention.
Tell me.
Okay, so semen retention is basically the practice of going without any sexual release over a period of time. And people have reported where over time they've developed like men. They've developed deeper voices, more muscle mass, more confidence, more focus.
All these things by holding on to the.
Yes, by holding on to that life force, so to speak, and not releasing it in any way, shape or form. What is happening? Based on my research, what is happening is the body saying, oh, you're not reproducing.
We don't need to.
You're not mating with anybody. And I need to make you more desirable.
Really?
Yes. Because I need you to go do something. Wow. So that's why I'm going to raise your testosterone. I'm going to deepen your voice. I'm going to let that masculine energy pop out. You're going to get more confident. You're going to be more comfortable around women. This is what happens. So that's why men who kind of bury themselves in constant sexual release through their own means, they don't understand. They're robbing themselves. Now, some people don't believe in it. I'm a huge believer in it. I believe it's absolutely real and. And it's extremely beneficial. But back to the Point of men and women being so different again. And it doesn't mean that there aren't women who need sexual satisfaction as well. And there are women who may be just as sexual as a man. But in general, on average, a man needs it way more. Biologically speaking, he needs it way more. So to neglect him of that, it causes a lot of freaking problems.
What happens if a man doesn't have the sexual release and experience and expression in an intimate, committed relationship long term?
Well, I think another thing that it can do to you is raise aggression because again, with the increase of testosterone, aggression also increases. So there was a woman on TikTok who mentioned that we need more monogamy because as monogamy decreases and less men have a partner that they can mate with and be, you know, be sexually engaged with, you'll start to see a rise in rape, you start to see a rise in sexual abuse, you start to see a rise in crime. There's all these negative things that start to happen because you have a group of men who aren't getting any action, who start to get frustrated and it starts to pour over into negative ways. Now granted, I don't think we can solve every man getting it or not, but it just speaks to what's happening within a man when he goes without for so long unless he learns. I will say this because it is possible to also, I believe, to channel that energy into other ways.
Yes.
So as I mentioned in Superior man he talks about.
Yes.
And think and grow rich talks about it. Sexual transmutation. Yes. So I do believe we know about it.
So I do believe the fight of all men have to deal with like managing this energy.
Exactly, exactly. And so now what happens is if you are not an ambitious man or you're not a man that has created avenues for you to release that energy into something more productive. Well, it's getting trapped. And now that causes a problem. You see what I'm saying?
Yes.
So you've got to find a way to release it somehow. But I think over time, like we can only sexually transmute so much.
It'll release at some point.
So that's really hard.
Hard.
But again, there's some men who have conquered it better than others. So I'm not going to act like men can't do it. It's just not that easy.
What do you think is the best way for a driven, confident, alpha, masculine man, healthy, conscious, masculine man to eliminate distractions or temptations when they're in a committed, intimate, long term relationship from wanting to think about Other women, or scroll on Instagram and dream about what that could be like and be tempted to say, I need more partners. Okay, you know, what is the. You know, what is the best way for men who might feel like, gosh, I just. It's hard for me to hone this in and stay fully, like, present with my woman and think about, can I be with this person for 50 years and only be with one person? What is the best solution for those men who might be. Maybe women are so attracted to them because they are a desirable man, they have a great partner, great life, great relationship, that women are just trying to come in and steal them. How does a man stay fully present in their relationship, fully integris, fully committed for the long term? Vision while being present.
Now you have to cut off everything that feeds the struggle. So if, you know, looking at Instagram puts you in that place, you can't be on Instagram. Now, I know that's easier said than done, depending on a person's profession and all these different things. But literally, you have to cut off all influences that push you on that path. Because it could be Instagram, it could be the music you're listening to, it could be the TV that you're watching, depending on what you're watching. And I know it's. It's tough because you get to a point where it's like, well, I got cut off everything almost. But, yeah, yeah, the more you can remove these outside influences, the easier it is for you to be present with your partner. I remember one time, there was a guy, his wife had got pregnant. I don't know if they were married at that time. Either way, his partner was pregnant, she put on some weight. He found himself left as attracted to her. They weren't having sex as much. He went to get some help. They suggested stop looking at porn, stop looking at Instagram. He stopped for three weeks. He looked at pretty much no other woman unless he passed a woman in the street. He said after three weeks, he found himself more attracted to his partner.
Wow.
Even without the weight loss now, it doesn't mean he still didn't want her to lose weight, because sustaining that, it was still going to have to make some adjustments. But it did help.
Interesting.
Because he didn't have these other influences constantly being put in his face that makes him question, okay, what's going on here? Like, I don't like this, or, you know, dang, I could have this too.
Or, you know what that would be like.
Exactly. So it's just, we've got to Know our weaknesses and where we fall short and just cut it off at the root as best as possible.
I think it goes back to also communicating your needs, you know, your agreements, your roles, responsibilities in the relationship and making sure your needs are met as a man.
Yes.
If your needs are not met and it opens the door, you're like, okay, if I can't get it here, then I wonder what that would be like. Or this would be like. Yes. That's why I think it's really important to have these real honest conversations before you get committed about what your needs are.
Absolutely.
Maybe there's a man that's like, I only need to have sex a couple times a month and I'm happy. For me that doesn't work.
Right.
You know, maybe in 20 years it changes, I don't know. But it's like, you got to be realistic and say, you know, I've had conversations with Martha where I'm just like, this is what I'm going to need, this is what I'm going to need. And are you able to provide this? If not, I don't want to push you on something that you don't want to do, you know, and same for you. What are your needs and can I provide those for you?
Absolutely.
And if I can't provide for your needs, you shouldn't be with me. We shouldn't be together if it doesn't naturally align. Yes, right. We should be naturally aligning, not. You have to change three things about you in order to please me and I have to change everything to please you. I don't think that's the right match.
No, it's not.
There might be sexual attraction there. Might you maybe have fun, you could be friends, whatever. But I'm talking healthy, long term commitment with the least amount of pain. You know what I mean? It's like there's going to be challenge, there's going to be adversity and pain that causes by living life. But if you can minimize stress and anxiety within the relationship, I think that's the best approach.
Absolutely.
And talking about needs is key up front. So I'm hearing you say men need to eliminate any temptation or distractions that might get them thinking about another option.
Yes. And I do agree with you 100% as the next thing would be making sure we lay out those needs and desires and make sure they're being met on both sides. Because I'm a firm believer you can't expect this person to meet all your requirements if you're not going to do the same. For them. But I do think that there's a lot of men who, they don't take it as far as they need to. As far as expressing what is it exactly you want from this?
Even the weird, crazy, sexual like nuances.
You got to go there. Yes.
Even if it's uncomfortable, you feel like, man, this is. They're going to judge me or they're going to think this is weird. But if you don't get that, going to resent it in a year, two years, six months.
Exactly.
And you'll be thinking about where can I get this met?
And that's, and that's the key before.
The interview continues, if you feel like you're not living your most authentic life, not leaning into your purpose, and not living the life that your future self would be extremely proud of, I've written a new book called the Greatness Mindset and I think you're going to love this. Through powerful stories, science backed strategies and step by step guidance, the Greatness Mindset will help you overcome all the different challenges in your life, to design the life of your dreams and then turn it into your reality. Make sure to click the link below in the description to get your copy today. Okay, let's get back to this video.
If you can honestly say, if I don't get this, I'm good. Like I would like this, but it's not a big deal to me. I can go without it. Cool. But if you know going without this is going to disturb you and be a huge struggle for you. Yeah, you're asking for problems.
Why do you think it's so hard for men to only be with one women or one woman? Or why do you think that's the struggle for men when they think about it like, can I only be with one woman for the rest of my life? And they're like, well, if I could just have like a threesome once a year, like it would all be hear these conversations. But why is it challenging? And from the men that you've met who are extremely sexually satisfied with their one intimate partner for decades, what is it they're doing differently? Or how they shifted that thinking that they need more women?
So here's my current theories and beliefs that I'm not going to lie to you, I still struggle with in some points, not because I don't believe what I'm about to say, but because if true, it's a hard pill to swallow. So I'm of belief that the majority of men can actually be happy with one woman, no problem. I view it in the same way I view business, all right? There's the bosses and the workers, and neither label is a negative to either side. Okay? It's just a reality that there are men who. They don't need a bunch. They don't need a lot in their life. If they're making a certain salary, they. They have a roof over their head, food on their table. Needs are being met. They're good. They don't have this extra gear of ambition that says, go out and do more. That kind of guy can have his one woman. Again. Key is, needs are being met.
In the relationship.
Yes, in the relationship. I think he's fine. He can do that for the rest of his life, no problem.
Live a happy, fulfilled life.
Yes. And understand, because that man doesn't even have the desire in him or. Or the energy to go out there trying to mingle with other women and all that kind of stuff. Exactly.
A lot of effort.
Yes. It takes a certain kind of mindset and energy to be able to do that. A lot of guys aren't like that. They just want to be happy and have their needs met, and that's it. But then there's the smaller percentage of men, which we could argue are the more desirable men of society, who tend to be more ambitious men. Like, I remember reading somewhere, if I'm correct, people like Einstein, Steve Jobs, all these geniuses, high sexual energy, there seems to be this connection, this correlation between these ambitious men, these very unique individuals that do big things in life, and them having this very high sexual energy. And again, they probably had to learn to transmute some of that to accomplish what they accomplished. Where these types of men, there's a greater struggle now to just be limited to that one woman, because it's the same thing that they struggle with being limited to one invention or one business. You know, I'm saying they just have this mind and this. This desire for more. I got to keep going. I got to keep going. And so I think that guy is the guy that. I don't know if it's. Maybe his testosterone is higher than normal. I don't know who. I don't know what is it in the man that causes that. But I do believe that every highly ambitious, successful man I know, the vast majority. So let me not say every, but the vast majority of them have that struggle or don't even believe in monogamy, period.
All right, okay. Finish what you're saying.
Yeah, so. And I will say some of the ones who have, like, I feel for me personally, the thing that Helps me is my relationship with God. If I take that away. I'm not gonna lie to you. I don't know.
Yeah, you're a dog. Without God, you're a dog.
And let me just be clear. Not dog as in I would never be a liar. I'll never be playing women taking advantage of none of that. But would I be all over the place eventually? Yeah.
Devon Franklin talks about this in one of his books about there's a dog in every man. Right. Again, not like a. A mean dog, but like a dog that has like a desire to go get another bone out there. Yeah, it's like, just like. And it's learning how to fight the dog within you that has that desire. Right. What happens? Have you ever met a man who's been in a. A marriage, let's say, or a long term relationship with one person as a constant, but has other sexual encounters with other women and the relationship works long term with that one person still open relationship or hall passes that are aware of this, the partner is aware of this. Where you still have this really happy, intimate, connected partnership between the man and the main partner. Have you met anyone like this? No. Honestly, what typically happens when a man is with someone but also is with other people?
Yeah. So I think one, we have to make sure we define what work means. So to some people it's working because they're still together.
I mean, happy, healthy.
Exactly. That's the key. So for that to be the standard of what we call. It's working. No, you haven't seen that. I haven't seen it. I can never say it doesn't exist 100%. But what I think is, what I believe strongly is that the woman accepting that is already kind of killing off a piece of herself. That piece that wants to be number one in his life, that wants to be fully loved, to feel like he doesn't need anyone else but me. And I argue that kind of going back to masculine and feminine to show you another difference between men. Women need love at a level or in a way that men don't. Meaning that if you went to a woman and you said. Or if you went to a man and you said, I will give you this woman, she will give you everything that you need, fulfill all your desires, but she cannot say she's in love with you. Will you take it? There's a majority of men who will take it because, hey, I'm getting my knees met.
Yeah, yeah, I'm good.
Who cares, right? If you go to a woman with the same deal he will fulfill all your needs, he'll be everything that you want, but he cannot say he is in love with you. There's a lot of women who can't take that deal.
Really?
Yes.
Why is that?
Because again, they need that aspect of love, that energy that it takes things to a different level. That speaks to who they are. I believe that speaks to the feminine in the woman. The feminine and woman craves that love. We are more. You can call it the more logical mind or whatever you want to call it, but we just want. As long as we get what we need, it's easier for us. Yes. We feel respected and. And we're being satisfied. A lot of guys are like, I'm not passing that up.
If their entire story about the relationship that just ended is about what the other person did wrong to them, something is missing in the story.
Yeah.
That doesn't mean that the other person may not have done things that were hurtful to them. But add to it. Who were you in this relationship?
Absolutely.
What role did you play? What did you see that you didn't want to pay attention to? What things do you wish you had done differently? What pieces do you wish that your partner had seen and accepted from you differently? Where did you wish you would have said less? And where did you wish you would have said more? What do you learn from this relationship? And if when you say what you learn, it's just that I want to make sure that the next person is.
Gives me what I need, you know.
Or is less of this or more of that, you know, who do you want to be in the next relationship?
How are you going to add value?
A relationship is a story of many people. It's not even a story, just of two. Who was too involved in your relationship? Who was not involved enough? So there's a cast of characters in a relationship and it's all those questions that you want to ask when you are in transition. I think that's it. But there are both directions. If you find yourself with a spotlight only on the other person and you in a passive receptive stands, you're missing a whole pan of the story.
Yeah. And you're probably more of the problem than of the relationship than them. If you're just focusing on them, probably.
A relationship is not about this person and that person. The relationship is what happens in between. This is my view on relationships. It's not an essentialist view. This is this personality and that personality. It's the dynamic. You can have a dynamic with a certain partner. You've had Dynamics with certain partners. And of course, it was just the right fit between the match and the ignition. And so you had enough inside of you to react with a certain kind of, let's put your jealousy. But you may meet another person who acts differently, and you may still have a little bit of that jealousy inside of you, but it doesn't get activated because this person is responding very differently to you. And when you say, where were you? They don't say, why do you always have to ask me that question? They just say, I just want to do this. It's all good, darling, I'm right here. I've got you back. And then you don't go into your chest pain, you know, pain. So this is very important to understand. We are not the same person with different partners. We may have certain things that come out depending on what is being sent over to us. So the relationship is a figure 8. It's what I do that makes you do something, that then makes you react to me a certain way, that then draws that out of me, that draws that out of you. And each one actually creates the other. And when you get that view of relationships, when you come out and you're in transition, you say to yourself, let's say I was with someone who completely disconnected. Okay, they're disconnected. Did I push them away? Are there ways in which I contributed sometimes to the disconnection? And that is not self blame. That is understanding the dynamic. You can take responsibility about things without blaming yourself and you can hold the other person accountable without blaming them. It's not a blame dance, but it is an understanding of what did I do that made you do what you then did to me that then made me. That's the relationship.
Yeah.
And if someone's like, you know what, they're listening to you, Esther. They really want to have an amazing relationship. They want to have a rich life, knowing it's not going to be perfect, but they want to create beauty and adventure and play and go through life, through the sadness and the adversities and all the things that happen in life. And they're thinking to themselves, how much should I pour into myself for my dreams, my health, my friends and family? How much should I pour into the other person, into their life that I'm creating a partnership with? And how much should I pour into the relationship itself? What would you say to that?
But you asked me. It's different questions, right? How, what keep. What keeps a relationship alive is one question. How much do you invest in a relationship? Is a different question. So I'M going to go to the one about what keeps it alive because it's part of. And I'm suddenly watching the box and thinking this. It is what I'm mostly interested in because I work on eroticism. What keeps us alive, what keeps us hopeful, what keeps us engaged with possibility.
Not physically alive, but connected alive, connected.
Alive, Life force, life energy. Why? Because I think everybody understands relationships that are not dead versus relationships that are alive, teams that are not dead, companies versus companies that are alive. What is flourishing versus surviving. And because it is part of my personal history and I come from a background of survivors, of parents who were in concentration camps. And I wanted to understand how do people stay alive when they spend five years in a concentration camp. So that's why I've got interested in eroticism. Sexuality is a piece of this. But sexuality is not eroticism. You can have sex and every day and feel nothing. Eroticism is the poetry that accompanies it. It's the meaning we give to it. Yes, right. It's the story that's attached. So eroticism in a relationship is the quality of imagination, curiosity, playfulness, mystery, risk taking, novelty that people bring to their relationship. Those are the things that I think bring life to a relationship. So in the research of Eli Finkel, it means doing new things together, taking risks beyond your threshold, out of your comfort zone. Because if you do pleasant things that are familiar, it's cozy, it's friendship, it's love. But it's not exciting, it's not erotic, it's not necessarily desire, it's calibrating your expectations so that you have. And that means diversifying your intimate connections or your deep connections. For me, intimacy doesn't mean sexual either. It just means people that are important to you, that accompany you through the life stages and through the big events in life. These three things, expectations, calibrating expectations, diversifying your social connections and taking risks and doing new things is the research of Eli Finkel for thriving relationships. But then in that piece, I think play is essential. Playfulness, it's huge. And it is actually the quality of emotions that is the least talked about.
How often are you playing in your relationship?
All the time. Humor is essential. It's an essential salve and bomb in my relationship. I can be in the middle of an argument and then I start to laugh and then I just get perspective and we just kind of ground ourselves back again. It's flirting, it's teasing, it's making fun of. It's that whole realm of we're not really serious and we don't take ourselves that serious.
And what happens when relationships are taking themselves very serious and they're not playing?
Look, I had a teacher who once said to me, if a couple comes to you for therapy and there is absolutely zero humor left, it is diagnostic, really. Now, is it true? You know, nobody has proven that scientifically, but what you know is that humor. And if you listen to my podcast, if you listen to the sessions on where should we begin? Or on how is work, you'll see in the middle of talking about trauma, painful event, major fight, strife, I laugh with them. I manage to see if they can see themselves, if they have a bit of distance, of perspective, if they understand sometimes the absurdity of the things that we get into, the things over which we fight, the way we do it. And even if it's just a glimmer, a smile on the side, on the corner, I know they know that. I know that we know. And it creates. Creates that complicity, and it invites a new possibility.
Some people may be resisting the humor. They're like, no, they want to hold on to the seriousness.
Yes. If you want to hold on to righteousness, to I am right, to victimization, to I have the view that is the right only view that matters, and only my perception and my experience is the truth, then you are in a polarized system that is rigid and unyielding. Humor and play is possibility. Possibility invites change. Change invites healing.
Yes. I want to ask you a few more questions, then I want us to play your game for a little bit. Over the last two years, was there anything that came up for you personally in your own inner world that you noticed? Oh, there's something. Like we talked about it. It created a lot of pressure for people. If there were things that came out, when was there anything for you that you were like, huh, there's something I still need to work on myself or need to continue the healing journey of that came out in the last couple years with being at home and, you know, not doing things the way they used to be.
I will answer this in two ways. The way that I experienced the pandemic. So in the first, in the beginning, right after I left you, I went back to New York and I went in lockdown. And basically it was in the. You know, we suddenly kind of. I got gripped with a bit of a panic, and primarily because I thought, I can't catch this thing, because if I catch it, I am now suddenly considered elderly. I'm past 60 plus.
We're 35.
Yeah, yeah. For the pandemic it changed. It suddenly shifted overnight. I became elderly. And that meant I wasn't sure if we entered the hospital, me or Jack, that we will pass the triage.
Interesting.
He's older than me. And I got really, really scared. I had a lot of post traumatic stress symptoms that are very much connected to the Holocaust and to my family experience that sense that overnight this whole life I have built could just disappear like this. And it was irrational. I was terrified that Jack would die. To the point you wanted to know about humor in my relationship. So we are in the middle of construction at the time. And then workers. And at day point he comes to me and he says, I asked the workers to dig a hole in the garden. I said, oh yeah, why? He said, so that when I die, you can just roll me right in.
Oh my God. Wow. Talk about humor.
But I cried, cracked up, because he showed me, girl, you gripped in fear. And I just started to laugh and I just realized, no, no, no, he's not dead. Because I was ready to stop construction. I said, we're not making this.
No one can come here within a thousand yards of no, no, it's more.
Like, we will not survive.
No way.
I was. I really. When it's post traumatic, it's trauma is the worst, right. So I really was very, very, very scared. And his humor is diffused it for me and just brought me back and said, we're continuing to build. We're going to live, we're going to survive. Don't worry, girl. It's like, so this was one. And it slowly, you know, I entered into the long term of the pandemic and it dissolved. And that's when I understood this came out of that. I missed my friends, I missed my dinner parties, I missed intimacy. And I created a host of different group experiences pods. I had a movie club on Zoom on three continents.
That's cool.
I had a book club. I had a yoga group that met four times a week still till now, that is over two continents.
Wow, that's cool.
And I had a hiking group. I had a swimming group in the summer. And then one day I said, I need to play and I need to continue to have conversations where I learned something new. I was so freaking tired of talking about the pandemic.
Sure, sure.
And I said, I'm going to create a game. Not having any idea of what this thing was going to become and what it represented, I just thought, I want to do something creative and I'm going to. I want people to be able to talk about something that isn't just like, you know, when you live six months like this in lockdown, you begin to.
Have the same conversations.
Of course. Yeah. Yeah, of course.
So I just thought, how am I going to make couples have fun? Get energized, you know, be curious about each other, talk about something else. And I thought, we need to play because play is a container. Play gives you the possibility to take risks, to talk about things that you would otherwise not talk about. Because it's under the guise of play. Play allows you to ask questions that you would otherwise not ask, certainly not to your partner. Because we get more shy with the people that we live with than with strangers sometimes.
Interesting. Yeah.
You know, you're more daring to ask sometimes questions to strangers you're never going.
To see again or people you've just.
Met than the person you live with for decades on end.
That's interesting.
I just. So play became very, very central. When you play, you still are able to lift yourself from the ground, and it means you can enter the world of imagination and where the rules are different. And every child at this moment, you know, around the Ukrainian crisis, you can see when kids are still able to play. It is the moments when they are not in hyper. Vigilance. It is an essential survival skill.
Yes, yes.
Underrated. And from that place came.
That's correct.
Where should we begin?
It's one of the key things in relationship and in life is what I'm hearing.
It's essential.
It's essential.
It's essential.
I'd say the number one skill to master love in relationships is to remember that in every relationship there are three relationships. The one you have with yourself, the one your partner has with themselves, and then the one you have with each other.
That's good.
And I think so often we only think about the one we have with each other.
We.
We don't realize that so many of the challenges in our relationship are because of our relationship with ourselves and our partner's relationship with themselves. We think, I'm doing everything, but they don't feel better. But that's because they're going through something internally. We think, I'm giving them everything I'm doing, everything they need, I'm here supporting them. But if they've got something going on internally, they can't even receive any of that. And so often we look at it through the lens of it's just, just me and them. That's just not true. And so you have to remember that there was a you before, there was a you during, and there's a you after every relationship. And there's a them before, a them during and a them after every relationship. And when you accept and understand that you can actually solve problems easier because now you have three things to look at rather than just one.
So.
So you can start to understand. Okay, well, is that their internal thing? Is it my thing? Let's check with them, let's communicate. Let's figure that out.
You just gotta really become a master of human dynamics.
Yes.
It's like understanding human dynamics and all that stuff. It's interesting. When I was playing sports, I remember a coach asked us at one point, he said, there's always three teams on the field.
Wow.
Your team, the team you're playing against, and then the refs. Wow. There's always like, know you're never just playing against the team. You got to be aware of how the refs are calling the game, how to influence the game in certain ways. You know, how to show up differently. But there's. It's never just you versus someone else or you with someone else. It's always like your interpretation to yourself, their interpretation, outsiders. There's always so much else going on. But I think, yeah, that skill of understanding there's three relationships in one and navigating those, I really think of that as like just learning how to master emotions, you know, learning how to be the master of your emotions, understand someone else's emotions and the emotion that you're creating together. Speaking of creating together, you mentioned this a little bit before about conscious love having agreements, principles, boundaries and rules, which I think is a great thing. Most people don't have that. They just have assumptions and expectations that goes more into toxic love.
Yeah.
A friend of mine, Ryan Holmes, told me this years ago when he got married. I was like, what has made this, like a healthy relationship for you? He was like, you know, we created a. What did he call it? Like a family vision. We created. We actually sat down and we created like a family crest, like a sign, a symbol of what we wanted to mold together to build our family. Something like they used to do in England, like five years ago. It's like he said, doing that allowed us to get clear on our principles, what we wanted to really step into, how we wanted to serve each other and our communities, our families in the world. And I thought, that's cool. Is there anything that you have around building kind of like a relationship motto, you know, crest vision? Is there anything you talk about around that?
Yeah, I talk a lot about how there's. There's three things You've got liking someone's personality, you've got respecting their values, and then you've got a commitment towards helping them get to their goals. Right. So that's my definition of love. My definition of love is when you like someone's personality, when you respect their values and you're committed to helping them towards their goals. Which means you have to know what your values are and theirs. And you have to know what your goals are and theirs. And someone asked me the other day, they're about to get married, and they said, jay, what's your advice? And I said, do you know your partner's top three values? And they struggled.
I think so, yeah.
And they were friends and family. Yeah, exactly. Like very, very broad things. And I was like, well, what does that mean? Like, what's the hierarchy? Like, what's the order? And then I said, well, do you know your partner's goals for the next 12 months? And they struggled again. They were like, oh, I don't know, like they're just settling into a new job. And I was thinking, if you don't know who your partner is and where they're going, then how are you meant to be their partner? And so to me, check ins about these three things.
That's good.
Regularly and consistently give you a full vision of who your partner is and where they're headed.
That's so good. Liking their personality is what you said first.
Right.
If you don't like someone's personality, you're going to spend 10,000 meals with them. You better enjoy their personality.
Personality, exactly. And that's the study that shows that to make some and me and you are great friends because of this. By this definition too. And I've really thought about this. So to make someone a casual friend, you should have spent 40 hours with them. 40 hours for a casual friend. If you consider someone a good friend, you have to spend 100 hours with them. And if you consider someone a great friend, you should have spent 200 hours with them. We've definitely spent more than 200 hours together. But that's the question I would ask when you say, like, their personality, can you spend 200 present hours together? Not just 200 hours watching TV or the movies, present hours.
So that's the, like no distractions. With no distraction, you and the other person. You know, I heard this, I think it was a year ago about, like, you're gonna spend 10,000 meals with someone that's with them forever. You know, can you sit across the table and have 10,000 meals and enjoy the Meals. Yeah. You know, for the most part.
Yeah.
So I love this liking personality, respecting values. I think, you know, with Martha, I got so clear on my values and communicating it effectively. And she asked me early on. I've told you this before. She asked me earlier on the what are your priorities, Louis? Question. I don't know, maybe a month into dating, like, what are your real priorities? Right. That, like, every man fears answering. And I said, ooh, do I step into courage here, or do I shy back to keep it comfortable and not stir the boat? And I remember saying, well, I want to be very honest and authentic with you, but I don't know if you're going to like it, and I don't know if you're going to want to hang out in this way anymore.
Yeah.
She was thinking that I'm going to say something like, horrible. And I was like, do you want me to be fully honest? And she looked at me and said, yes. I said, are you sure? Because I've been honest in the past, and people don't like it. Yeah. Are you sure? And she said, yes. Take a deep breath. I'm like, okay, I gotta have this courage, because I just know that I thought that she wouldn't like what I.
Was about to say.
I said, okay, here are my three main values in order in life. Number one is I value my health, and that needs to be, like, my top priority, because if I'm sick, I. I can't do really anything, So I need to take care of health first, and you need to support me in making sure that I use my energy to do that on a consistent basis. You can't pull me away from my health or healthy activities or make me feel bad for going to the gym or whatever it is. Number one. Number two. Priority. Number two is my purpose, my mission, like in the season of life, the mission that I have right now, and that's being all in focused on that and not feeling bad about it, not taking time away from it, you know, not being resentful of it, any of those things. That's priority number two. And I was like, no woman wants to hear from their man or potential man that they're not their number one or number two priority. And I said, then number three would be my relationship. You know, if we're going to end up dating together, it would be us.
Yeah.
And. And I said, that doesn't mean you want to be like, I would never have time for you.
I'm not going to choose the gym.
Over here, but I need to make sure Those first two priorities are set in stone so that I can actually give to you more, so that I can be more present with you, so I can give you fully, abundantly. And we can do all the things you want to do. You're going to feel like number one, but you need to know that number one and two, I have to do these first.
So good.
And you will feel like the most important person in the world. But if I don't feel healthy, if I'm being pulled away from my purpose and my mission, I'm not going to be good for you.
So good.
And she looked at me, she goes, this is amazing.
And she goes, I can imagine.
That's amazing.
I love this. And I go, really? Because I'm thinking, like, I've experienced, and I've heard other people experience that if you're not making your woman your number one priority.
Yeah.
You don't put me first over everything. Then it's like a stressful experience.
Yeah.
And for me, that goes back into toxic love. And it's not about, you aren't my top priority. It's prioritizing health and purpose and service. Whether you want to call it the same level or just above.
Yeah.
So that you have the energy to be present to your relationship. At least that's for me, what I feel like a man needs to be in their relationship. They're on. They got to be on purpose. Right. And she told me, I love it because I've never been with a man who had a purpose. They always made me their purpose. And after a while, it doesn't feel good. You're like, go out and do the thing you want to do in life. Like, I don't care if you want to, you know, serve two people a day, but go do something that you're excited about, not just make it about me. Yeah. And so give me your thoughts on this, you know, this. This idea or this philosophy. If you think that's in alignment with your Eight Rules of Love, or if you think that's I'm crazy. And I got. I just got a lucky one who just accepts me for that.
I love it. So it's really interesting you say you did that, because inside my book, Eight Rules of Love, I actually talk about how I gave a client that same exercise. So I asked them to rank their top three priorities in order. And I was coaching the couple, so. So the man wrote you, the kids, Me. And she wrote me the kids, you.
This is so funny.
He was so upset. Like, he was.
Oh, go ahead. This is funny. Because I want to unpack this. Because I went to Cesar Milan, the dog whisperer, and I took my team to do, like, a full day leadership training, which you got to take your team one day.
So cool. I always scared Caesar's gonna give me a dog. That's why I don't go.
I know, right?
I'm so scared.
And he. And he talks about the dynamics, at least in America, of married couples, where if he asks most women what's the priorities in the relationship, it's like, mom, kids, dog, then the husband. This is what he says. A lot of women say it's like the husband is last because they get this unconditional love from the dog. But that's after the kids.
Oh, my gosh.
And then husband. And he's like, we've got it all backwards.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, we need to be the parents, need to be leading the pack.
Yes.
Together, side by side.
Yes.
Right. So anyways, I don't want to.
No, no, no. I love that. That's a beautiful point.
Yeah. So. So you said he had one thing, which was her the kids and himself, and she had herself, the kids and then the man.
Exactly, exactly.
So what happened from that dynamic?
What.
And what happens when you enter or in a relationship like that?
Well, he was distraught, and he was really upset because he was just like, how can I be third on your list? And even more than that, he was actually upset that she put herself first. That's what he was more upset about. He actually wasn't that upset about being third. He was more upset about, how are you first for yourself?
How is it not the kids or the kids?
How is it not the kids? And her response was similar to yours, that I want to be present, energized, and my best for you and the kids. I don't want to give my leftovers to you and the kids. And I often say this to people, like, if someone is emotionally and energetically dead, how can they keep you alive? It doesn't make any sense. And so what we have to understand is someone's not being selfish by focusing on themselves. If they're doing it with a selfless spirit. That's the key.
Yes.
So you may meet a man who's not like Louis and says, yeah, I'm first for me, I'm first. And they're only doing that because they think they're first. There's no, I'm going to take care of myself so I can be better for you.
Yes.
That's the spirit you're looking for. So you're looking for someone who's selfish with a selfless spirit, not just someone who's selfish. And there's a difference. And it could sound like the same thing, it could even look like the same thing. You could meet someone who says, I'm dedicated to my purpose, I'm dedicated to who I am, but it's not anything to do with you. And I think that's the difference. People who prioritize self care in order to serve, that's the self care we want in our lives. And so that's what I encourage in people, that you should always take care of yourself so you can take care of your partner, so you can take care of your kids. You're not just taking care of yourself just like it has to go somewhere.
And being lazy about everything else.
Exactly.
But do people even really want to stand out to have a committed long term relationship? Or they more just they say they want the commitment but their actions don't back it with just constantly being surface level or constantly being a part of the noise as opposed to trying to stand out like they might try to. Especially with guys. It's like, okay, maybe it seems like more women want to be committed than more guys want to be committed.
I, well, that's a tricky one. I, most people I believe who think they are evolved enough for a relationship or not.
Right. And when do you know?
A long time. By the way, I count myself in that category where I thought I would. I really thought, there were times in my life where I really thought I was a great, I was a great guy. I wasn't, I was a, it wasn't that I was ever a nasty person. I was never a mean person. I was never a, that wasn't the great partner I thought I was. It's not like I, you know, there are times in my life where I thought, God, I'm just, I'd just be a great partner to someone. And I was not ready to be a great partner to someone. Because I think the first time you really give yourself to something, really commit yourself to not just your own happiness and your own needs. Because that's what most people talk about when they talk about a relationship is their needs, their happiness.
Right.
How good it feels to be in a relationship, it's about them. But it's not about seeing someone else, truly seeing someone else and understanding who they are and understanding what their needs are and supporting them and their happiness and their goals.
It's a great relationship when you stop thinking about your needs and you just say, I'M gonna give to this person and look at them from a place of understanding and want to bring them so much joy and fulfillment and not expect in return, but hold. Hopefully the other person is saying the same thing to about you.
Well, yes and no. There's a lot of. There are a lot of people who, on that idea, that ethos, have lived a very masochistic life for a long time.
Really?
That, by the way, what you just described could describe one of two things. One beautiful, one terrible. What you just described could either be an extraordinary relationship of two givers, or it could describe unrequired love. It could describe the person who is giving, giving, giving, giving, giving to someone and playing the martyr in their own relationship. They keep ignoring me. They keep, you know, not meeting my needs. They keep being selfish. They keep. But I am just gonna show up.
And be my best partner and love.
Them and give my all, and one day they will turn around to meet me. In that many, many people have caused tremendous suffering to themselves and wasted a lot of good years.
So is it both give to yourself, make sure you're asking for what you need, but also giving?
It's a combination of respecting what your core needs are. What do I need? Like, when it really comes down to it, what's my standard for what I need now, how exactly someone meets that standard? That's where the messiness of relationships comes in, because. Cause you say, I want to be respected. And then someone does something and you go, I don't feel respected. But they go, but that doesn't mean a lack of respect to me. So now we have a whole conversation on the execution of a standard.
Oh, my gosh.
And different definitions of what meets that standard. That's where the confusion comes in, and that's where we have to have some really loving, cooperative conversations to figure out, am I. You know, am I being. This is one of the hardest parts of relationship. Am I being reasonable in asking for what I'm asking for? Or is this my insecurity speaking? You know, am I. Which one is talking? And sometimes we're so close we don't even know that's the danger. That's. By the way, I see one of the most valuable jobs I can do for people in my work is not to be a smarter voice than they are. Because people. People can be great. They can when it comes to their friends or people around them or whatever, they can be very smart. But to be an objective voice outside of their drunken haze, because we're so close to something, we get. We we're not sober, and now we don't have logical answers to questions because someone's. We get to the point where arguing about something.
I don't need to.
I don't even know if I'm right. I don't know if the thing I'm saying is if I'm being the insecure one or if I'm being the reasonable one. And sometimes we leave a situation, we go, God, I was insecure. Sometimes we leave and we go, I can't believe I let someone convince me I was crazy.
Right.
They were the one that was doing the wrong thing, and they convinced me that I was nuts.
So how do we step out of that emotional feeling where we're feeling overwhelmed or disrespected or hurt or sad or like the relationship didn't meet an expectation or communication was off and we're in it and we're communicating and we're both frustrated? How do you step out and look at it from a different point of view so that you just don't keep repeating that conversation over and over? I mean, don't hurt it further.
Yeah, I think there's a. We have to have a really healthy combination of always questioning ourselves and saying, where is this coming from? For me, and would it really hurt me to compromise on this standard is. Would it be the more loving thing to do to understand this about my partner? But in order to. That needs to be combined with a simultaneous respect for ourselves and what we need. And to, I think, go to a situation and say, okay, I want to be the most understanding, compassionate, loving partner I can be who doesn't inhibit or limit my partner, who supports them, wants them to do great. But I also need to recognize that it's not. What was I saying? I lost my train of thought. I need to be the person that can be understanding. What was I saying? Be understanding of my partner.
You want to be the most understanding of someone else, but you also have to know your own needs.
Be understanding of someone else. But, oh, that's right. I need to be the person that is understanding of the needs of my partner and what they want. But at the same time, what was it? Loves my. I need to be understanding of my partner's needs. Ah, that was it. I need to be understanding of my partner's needs. But the context of me being super compassionate and understanding needs to be that I am that this is happening in a loving environment where my partner wants to be my teammate. If we're in a situation where our partner isn't showing empathy for Us and isn't true. Like if you feel they're not trying to. That we're always coming to that side. That's a problem.
That's tough.
That's a problem.
There should be seeing. I see where you're coming from as well. Type of energy and communication.
Exactly.
Not just I'm not getting what I want. You did this wrong.
You need to feel you have a teammate.
Yeah.
And a lot of people feel like they're constantly being understanding but they don't have a teammate on the other side. I'm constantly trying to grow and understand your position. But I don't feel the same from your side. That then becomes a problem.
How do you have the conversation so that it switches or becomes more of a equal partnership and teammate. If you feel like you're the only one being on the team, how do you get the other person?
I think we need to communicate a lot. About what? About the spirit of the relationship. You know what I mean?
Like not keeping score.
Yeah. Like pride is a very hard thing to give up in a relationship because we become competitive often very quickly. When we feel threatened, when we feel vulnerable. When we throw. Our partner's done something to hurt us. Now I'm. Now how do I score a point or how do I. And that's. That's a. Just once you get into that cycle it's like you're just. It spirals. It has to. One person has to be prepared to break that cycle. I'm not going to do that game. And I do believe that we have to love the way we want to be loved. And we have to constantly educate our partner on what it is to love. Not from an arrogant place. But we're all. In a sense. Both partners are always educating each other by you do something I don't like. And if I have a loving, compassionate response to that, I'm also showing you what I want this to be in reverse. When I do something you don't like.
Right.
Here's the response I want.
I'm not attacking you.
Not a game playing response. Not a. You know, like if you see a partner, you're in the early stages of. Of relationship and you feel your partner was really flirting with someone over there. Having a conversation about something that made you feel uncomfortable. But from a loving place and from a kind place and from a place of. That made me feel, you know, it hurt me to see that and not. I'm gonna blame you and I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna get angry. But that, you know, that made Me feel uncomfortable bringing an energy like that. Most people aren't used to that in a relationship. We're not used to that standard of communication. We're used to doing something and then someone attacks us.
Reacting.
Yeah, exactly. So I think it's educate. We're constantly educating.
What's it going to take for us to not react to a situation where we feel hurt or like we are? An expectation wasn't met from our partner and come from that place.
God, it's so difficult because why do.
We react so much Sometimes?
Sometimes it's just space. Like how I need to take a moment to process something so that I can say I can have a more.
Evolved response and not react. It's funny. I've been, you know, the relationship I've been in, which is newer in the last five months. I want to talk about something right away and address it. She doesn't want to talk. She wants to have space. So she doesn't react. And she'll say, like, I don't want to get angry at you. I don't want to yell at you. That's not the type of person I want to be. So I'd rather just not talk. And then I'm in limbo and I'm like, I just want to. I just want to, like, get resolved this thing. Let's at least communicate and then we can move on as opposed to holding on to something for half a day or a few hours.
Yeah.
That.
Here's the thing. Space is easy. When you get a text you don't like, you know, or when you see something you don't like from afar and you're not going to see that person for a few hours or till tomorrow. Now you have space to go through. You know, I'm angry. You know, I'm really, really angry. I'm upset, I'm sad, I'm hurt. I feel rejected. I don't feel enough. I. You know, you can kind of cycle through those and then have a couple of sensible conversations with people whose opinions you respect. You and I have done this.
It's not that big a deal. Take a break.
Okay. This thing, I'm feeling this and I'm hurt, and I'm this and I'm that and I'm that, and you have a couple of smart voices, either that come.
From in here, which is hard to.
Do, which is very hard to get that objectivity and. Or that come, you know, from just one or two people whose opinions you really respect, who aren't going to tell you what you want to Hear.
Yeah.
Who aren't going to tell you. You're so right to be. To feel that way, get angry. Someone who is brave enough and close enough to you and smart enough sometimes to recognize. I'm concerned that you're overreacting to this and that this. This reaction is not going to serve you.
Yeah.
And I think you need to bring this energy to the conversation that is extremely valuable. What's hard is when you get information in real time and you're with the person and you're in the same room and now you're dealing with, trying to process and create that. You know, okay, I need to. I'm trying to get to a more positive place here while being asked to communicate in real time. Well, real time elicits reflex responses. And reflex responses are often very harmful to a relationship. It's the reflex responses are often based on instinct. Instinct is very dangerous.
False instinct.
You're so often told, you know, trust your instincts, and that's just not often great advice.
If you're not emotionally intelligent and if you're jealous all the time, then having a jealous instinct isn't necessarily the best thing.
But some of these instincts are just kind of hardwired. Right. What we're doing with a lot of our better nature is overcoming certain programming that we have. You know, in a riptide, you get pulled out to sea. Your instinct tells you in that moment to swim back to shore against the current. Ignore the riptide. I just need to get back to shore. Which is stronger, you or the current?
The current.
And it will drown you. You will exhaust and drown before you get back.
True. So until it washes you to shore. Just like.
Right. So in that moment, fighting harder won't save you. Thinking clearer will. And thinking more clearly means I need to swim sideways, I need to swim parallel, let it take me out, swim further away, parallel. Because I've actually, I'm giving myself a longer journey. But then when I'm out of the current, then I can swim back to shore. Now, that's not. Instinct won't get you to do that because that requires thinking clearly. Instinct will drown you in that moment and in a relationship, in dating, your instincts will get you killed.
That's true.
You know, your instinct says a woman goes on a date with a guy and has a great time and says, your instinct says, clear the calendar for the next three months. We found him.
Right?
We did it, guys.
We had an amazing night.
Clear the schedule.
We were connected on every level.
He's awesome. We have a great connection Clear the calendar. This is what we're doing now. Even if I'm not even saying someone hates the rest of their life. You can like your job and still be so caught up in the chemical rush of this was amazing that this is all you want to do now. Right. Well, this isn't good for what you want to happen here. What do you want to happen? Well, you want to get to know this person better, spend more time with them. Invest at an organic pace based on the level of investment that's going on.
Right.
Thing I've said for years, don't invest in someone based on how much you like them. Invest based on how much they invest in you. People don't do that. People invest on instinct. I really like them, and my investment is proportionate to how much I like them, not how much I'm seeing there's a mutual investment.
Do you think one. A relationship can truly thrive if one person is developing and working on themselves and processing and learning new skills and the other person is not?
It's very hard, you know, because people. I think growth is very important. I also think that everyone grows at different speeds and they grow differently. So whereas therapy has been very impactful for you, for someone else, it might be something. Something different. Right. There's many paths of doing something, doing something. Right. And I think that people grow at different speeds. And I do think that you have to love someone as though they would never change, though. The funny thing is, it's like we want everyone to. To sort of to evolve. But what it. But we have to.
It shouldn't be on their terms. Right. That's why I told her. I said, listen, I'm committed to my own growth. I'm going to continue to grow and evolve. Yes, but you've got to accept me where I'm at.
Yes.
And if you don't accept me where I'm at now, that. And you want me to change right now into something that's going to make you happy. This is not going to work.
Or fall in love with potential, which is a trap.
Cannot do that.
No, you cannot do that. And also, what defines growth? How do you know that you're growing? You know, because some people will say, they'll go on like, you know, a retreat or do ayahuasca or do something and be like, oh, my God, like all of this, you know, and the other person's like, whoa. And then that doesn't mean that the other person's not growing. So it's like, what really? I think growing as a couple Is really important.
That's why I said we've got to do. Whether you call it coaching or therapy, I love that. Committing to it together, I love that. Individual on our own and then together, I love that. And she was like, yeah, I'm down. So she has her own coach that she works with every two weeks for an hour, an hour and a half to work on her own stuff. Individually, I do that as well. Individually. And then we do it together.
I love that.
And from the beginning. From the beginning, been huge for us.
Oh, I think it should be non negotiable.
That's why I said. I was like, this is non negotiable for me.
Yeah.
It's not something you want. Then find someone else and I'll find someone else or whatever.
Yeah.
Because guess what? No matter how much work we do on ourselves, we're gonna be triggered and that inner child is gonna come out screaming and we're gonna be like, you know, a total ass sometimes. And, you know, we're gonna have to apologize. I mean, being in a relationship means that you have to know how to forgive and forgive often, because oftentimes we will make mistakes with the person we love. And we don't. We didn't even realize that we were doing that. I mean, how many times have you hurt someone's feelings and that was not your intention?
Yeah, so many.
So many.
Yeah.
So many times. So I love, you know, if more people. Because the problem is that most people enter couples therapy when it's too late.
When probably not going to work out.
Yeah. When there's just too many problems and too many things to unpack. I mean, yes, it can work. You know, it can help. But if you can do this stuff preemptively, it's huge.
Anything to prevent resentment and pain and suffering and frustration.
Anything, you know, to foster honest conversations. You're gonna. You're gonna win. Even if you end up breaking up, you're gonna still win because at least it won't be the kind of breakup that destroys you.
Yeah, this.
Like that traumatizes you. Exactly.
Hurtful back and forth.
Yeah. And that's. You know what? That's trauma.
Oh, yeah. Huge.
Yeah.
And that will hold people back from opening their heart in the next relationship.
I see it all the time. People are walking around so wounded and so closed.
What is the most un unpopular thing or truth about relationships that most people don't want to know?
I'll tell you straight up that every relationship you've ever had had one thing in common, and that was, you Just like every relationship I've ever had has one thing in common, that's me. It's not that all, all of them cheat is that you keep cheating, you keep choosing cheaters. It's not that, you know, all of them are narcissists. It's that you're choosing the narcissist.
Right.
It's not that, you know, all of them are this or that you're choosing them, you're part of that. And it's such an uncomfortable truth because, you know, people don't want to see that in themselves, but it is the path to your freedom. 100%. Every, every relationship we have ever had has been a mirror. And it shows us where. Sometimes it reflects back to us where we've done a lot of work and it's lovely. Sometimes it reflects back to us how wonderful we are. And oftentimes in our past, if it hasn't worked out, it's going to reflect where our self worth is, where our immaturity is, where our trauma is. Every relationship we've ever had will reflect back to us the relationship we have with ourselves. Period. End of story. And if you can't, if one cannot actually accept that, they're just going to keep repeating patterns. Guaranteed. Yeah, guaranteed. If your picker is off and busted.
Because mine was off for years.
Yeah. Because, you know, like, whatever, you're addicted to the chaos or daddy did this or mommy did this. It's of course it's familiar and this is very real. I don't mean to say it cavalierly. I mean it's real. But then you better, you have to recondition yourself to understand what a healthy person is and go for that and become healthy yourself. Because most toxic relationships, of course there are abusive relationships where there is actually a very clear victim and a very clear perpetrator. But most of the time what people refer to as toxic, which is just an overused term and you know, the current zeitgeist. But when people refer to toxic, it's two people with consistent. Because we get unregulated once in a while. That's called being human. With consistent unregulated emotional states. Blaming each other for each other's pain and not taking responsibility.
You did this to me. You made me feel this way. What you did hurt me.
And they're constantly unregulated. That's, that's toxicity. Now, I was when in my 20s in a horrendous relationship. Talk about chemistry. Because once, once you have chemistry with someone, you're screwed. You're screwed.
Screwed. You feel this chemical connection. You're like this feeling.
It's a wrap. And the thing is, if you haven't done work on yourself, you're gonna have that chemical explosion with the one person who's bad for you. And oftentimes the person who's the best in bed is the person who's the worst for you. And usually they're just. You find the sex is amazing with them because there's a danger and they. Then there's also a familiarity. I mean, we can.
It's like a trauma.
Bonding.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So I remember in my 20s, I was in a relationship with someone for about a year who without question, is toxic. Like, there's just.
Right. You could feel it. You knew it.
Everyone knows it.
They're like, what are you doing with this guy?
Yeah.
I mean, he's treating you this way.
And everyone knows it. It's just, It's a fact.
Right, but why did you stay then?
Exactly. Where's the toxicity in me and the low self worth and all of that? Because the thing about being in a very unhealthy relationship is two people really bringing out the worst in each other, not the best. Yeah, definitely not even close to the best. To the point where that, that when that relationship ends, part of getting over that relationship is trying to overcome the shame that you feel for like even going there.
Yeah.
I was there. How long of a life did I have with this person? The time and the energy and why would I. How could I do this? And what was I thinking? The shame, the guilt. Right.
Yeah. And also just some of the things that you did that that's like, how did I do?
How did I react this way? Yeah.
Like that boundary that I do or like that thing that I said, like.
Yeah, this is interesting. I ask people this sometimes and I asked my younger self this. Now I'm like, if sex was off the table, what? I have stayed in certain relationships and there's no way.
Yeah.
Zero chance I would have stayed. After a year or two years of feeling like I'm abandoning myself or getting screamed at every week or whatever, I've been like, what am I doing this for?
Like, yes.
Why would I stay in this thing?
Yes.
Whatever reason that chemical bonds you for a moment and it's so strong. And then you're like, okay, well, let's have a few good days. And it goes back into chaos. You're like, yeah, well, yeah, let's get back to that feeling. Right.
100%.
But if you took that off the table or if you just waited as long as you could.
Absolutely.
I'm not saying to wait until marriage, but if you wait until you get to experience someone over and over and over again in lots of scenarios and you felt safe and peaceful, then maybe, okay, you can start in that sexual interaction, but you can veek out. Yeah, of course. I'm just talking about intercourse. Right.
Yeah.
But if you took it off the table and you asked yourself, would I be in this if we didn't have sex for a year? Probably. You wouldn't.
Yes, exactly.
If I'm not gonna have sex for a year with this person, would I put up with this behavior?
Yeah, exactly.
Screamed at? Would I be yelled at like.
No, exactly.
I don't need this.
Yeah, I don't need this. Exactly. And people, they don't want to wait. And I always say build that emotional intimacy first. Well, what if the sex is bad? You know what, you can work on it. And when you're making out with them, you know, anyway, you can have some idea if there's, you feel a connection.
Yeah.
If there's, you know, there's chemistry from a kiss period.
Exactly.
So you don't have to go there.
And some. I, I've heard this a lot lately. They're like, if someone is boring, you should run towards them, not away from them. You know what I mean?
If all you know is chaos, it's chemical chaos. Right.
Should run to. That's a safer environment. It doesn't mean he's the one or she's the one.
Right.
To be with for you. But start looking at people that make you feel comfortable and safe.
Yes. Where you can. I tell people all the time who have that pattern of always just dating emotionally unavailable people or people that have been wrong for them. And usually what that person doesn't have the self esteem necessary to be in a relationship with someone who is going to respect them and love them. But I tell them, just practice. Go towards boring. Exactly. Go towards that person so that you can have an experience of being in the presence of someone who you could potentially date and you can just be.
Totally yourself, 100% yourself.
Yeah. No errors, no strategizing to get someone to be more interested. Yeah, you can flirt and do all that fun stuff, but no strategizing to get someone to be more interested in you. Just you. And that is, I mean, that's like revolutionary for some people.
What happens when we don't show our 100% authentic self to someone in the beginning and we reveal that 612 months later, what happens?
They're really shocked. I didn't know you were like that. I had no idea. Because they've fallen in love with a version that you showed them that isn't even you. And we forget the truth. Vulnerability is the basis of friendships and indeed relationships. When you're vulnerable, you know, people love you for you when you're sick, when you have a bad day, they would say, then you know who your friends are. But if you pretend you're okay. I see that a lot with people who run a business. Always pretend everything's fine. They never tell anyone they're lonely. And then we realize, like, that great DJ who killed himself, was it Avicii?
Avicii, yeah.
Who.
Who never told anyone, I'm falling apart here. Was it not Bon Jovi? Who was it? Van Halen. Eddie Van Halen. There's so many people in the media who think, I've got to pretend I'm great. I can't say I'm lonely, I'm sad, I'm lost. They often let you know through their songs. Look at Prince. I mean, that's so sad that he was so lonely.
Yeah.
But they feel that if they tell us, we'll see them as weak and needy. When, in fact, the basis of friendship is if you're vulnerable. And I am. I like you because you're showing me who you really are. And I can love your very soul because I know you. But if I'm in love with an illusion, then it can't work because I don't even know who you are.
Wow.
How old were you when you started to realize that. That you were lovable?
I think in my 20s, a long time, maybe. I remember when I was 18, I had this really lovely boyfriend. But it was saying, I love the way you look. And I'm gonna say to my mum, I haven't got a personality. I really believed I had no personal because I love your hair, I love your body. But I heard that I didn't have any character whatsoever, and that really bothered me. So I think, you know, it's so weird because when you change so much, you can hardly recognize the person you were. Looking back, I'd say, say, really? My 20s, maybe even later than my mid-20s. It was only working with my clients over and over again and seeing what was wrong with them that I began to realize, oh, that's what's wrong with everyone. Interesting. Yeah. And I began to see all of my clients. They could only ever have one of three things wrong with them.
What's that?
Well, the first one Was I'm not enough. That was the biggie. I every client I saw, whether they were a nursery school teacher or they worked in a store, or they were a billionaire CEO or a movie star, they all had the same thing. I'm not enough. And so I've got to earn love or buy love or keep being a bigger, better deal to get love. And that's so easy to fix. You just go, you just take the not out. I am enough. I always have been, always will be. And you have, you see, the lie is every day you tell yourself, I'm not enough. You don't know you're doing it. You get up and go, look at me, I don't look right. I messed that up. I didn't leave enough time to get here. My kids aren't perfect. Our client is annoyed. So every day over and over again, you're telling yourself you're not enough. And you just have to take out the knot and go, I'm enough. If I'm prepared to lie to myself every single day over and over again, why not have a better lie? I'm enough. It doesn't have to be true. People say, you know, my legs are the size of tree trunks. Well, clearly that can't be true. This is killing me. This is making me crazy, this is driving me and say, none of these things are true. But if you're prepared to lie, at least have a better lie. I have great coping skills. This is a challenge, but I've got it. I can rest at the weekend. I've got this, I've got great, great. I have great coping skills. Is a great lie because if you say enough, it actually becomes true really fast. Something I say a lot. You're never given anything that you can't cope with. Or if I got a lot on, well, I'll rest at the weekend. I can deal with this. I've got this. This is fine, this is okay. So the first thing wrong with people is always, I'm not enough. And if you feel like that, remember you weren't born with it, you're in great company and just let it go because it's not true. The second thing wrong is this belief that I'm different so I can't connect. And that's kind of a modern day illness. You know, if you're in a tribe, you would connect because you'd know that you're all interrelated, you look the same. But this belief, I'm different so I can't connect is, is it, I can't connect.
Or people don't understand me?
No, you connect by being the same. You know, we're primitive people. We connect by being the same. So if you're different, it's very hard to connect because you feel different. And when you feel different, you can't connect. But then you have to remember the truth. If that's your greatest fear. It's most people's greatest fear. So if you look at E.T. he connected to Elliot, but he couldn't connect and he had to go home because he had to be with his people.
So why is there such a big fear for people of connecting? Yeah, I'm different, so I can't connect. Well, isn't different good in a lot of ways, like being unique and being different?
Well, the answer is yes and no. When you're a little kid, you go, I like SpongeBob SquarePants. I like green pasta. I like Dr. Seuss. And we connect by being I got a friend, friend. And they like what I like.
Gotcha.
So when we're little, we connect by being the same. And our. Our DNA understands that we are hardwired to find connection and avoid rejection, because that's how you make it. As a child, you find connection, whether it's your little kitten clinging onto your leg, your dog wanting you not to leave the house, a baby holding on so tightly to mum. You understand the truth. If I'm connected, I will survive. And if I'm disconnected, I will die. Because, you know, imagine 100 years ago, you couldn't produce milk for your baby. Or 500 years ago, we understood that connection was what made us live and disconnection killed us. Why? Every culture would practice banishment or isolation or marooning or casting out. So connection makes us survive, especially as adults. Yeah.
Okay. So we need to feel connected.
Yeah. And if you listen to all those songs, I'll die if you leave me My world is empty without you I can't live with. I can't breathe without you okay. And to this day, you know, schools understand that someone trolls you, someone ostracizes you. Kids, you know, cut you out of the group. They don't speak to you. So our greatest fear is, if I'm different, I can't connect. But if you go back to that, everyone's fear is being different. So if you have that fear, it actually means you're the same. And connection is a choice. You can connect to anyone all over the world, whatever their race, religion, creed is. The problem is that we don't see that. We still disconnect people, you know, we saw that a lot with the Boston bombers. They were so disconnected from society that that turned into hatred. And it's really important at schools to look at these disconnected kids and to bring them back. You know, if you look at the whole jail system in Finland, it's all about reconnect. We don't put them in isolation and then send them back out into the world crazy and full of anger. We reconnect. And so our greatest fear as humans is to be disconnected.
So how do we reconnect if we feel like our friend group has pushed us away, our family has sent us away? How do we feel connected if we are.
Well, sometimes you've got to find a new group. I mean, you know, your family are just what I call your original family. You can have an, you know, first of all, you have your nuclear family, mom, dad, brother, sister, auntie, uncle, grandma. But then when you get married, they become your extended family. And so you can always create a family. So. So don't go back to the old tribe that hurt you and expect them to get better. I think a lot of our problems is I expect my mom suddenly to become wonderful. She was always mean and hostile, but I expect her to be kind and lovely. She's got old now. Aren't old ladies sweet? No. Sometimes they're still cranky. A bitter, cranky person doesn't become sweet when they're 80. And often the belief is I gotta go back to my family and make them love me. When there's a whole world out there to love you. And if people hurt you, not always intending to, and you keep going back to them, but they can't always make it better. It's like, you know, if your family had that capacity to love you a cup. But my capacity is an Olympic swimming pool. I can't expect that to fill me up. I can fill them up. They can't fill up me if I have a little. If my parents have a shot glass capacity to give me love and I've got the ocean capacity, how can a shot glass fill up the ocean? Stop going back to people that hurt you and find there are people all over the world that will love you and fill you up, but we keep going back to the hurt is expecting them to make it better. They're often so hurt they can't. And they often do things like, well, you know, people like us, we don't have that. And look at those people. We're not like that. So it's. I feel different, you know, if your dad was the town drunk, if you didn't have a dad and everyone else did, if you had money and everyone else didn't, or vice versa, we buy in very early to this. I'm different. I'm different. And you're not different, you're the same. So you have to stop looking for what makes you different. Because that's the confirmation bias. Whatever you look for, you're going to find it. I mean, I was a principal's daughter. I felt different the day I went to school and my whole child because my dad was the headmaster. And that was actually horrible. I realize now that was not a good thing. But I was always looking for what made me different. And then it became a self fulfilling prophecy. I kept looking for it. Plus, you know, I could hypnotize people and that made me feel even more different. And I had this kind of ability to work out what wrong with someone really quickly. And that's both good and bad. It's actually good. But whatever you look for, you will find whatever you are moving towards, you'll get more of. If you look for why your head is killing you, or say, I'm a bit dehydrated, I'm going to drink some water, rub some lavender on my head, I'll be fine in 20 minutes. You've got to decide where you're going. And if you look for what makes you different, you will find it over and over again. But if you say, well, why don't I look for what makes me the same, we're all the same somewhere, then you'll find that too. And it can be very hard if you're dealing with someone who's violent or aggressive or acting out. But if you can look for what makes you the same and not different, it really changes your life because then you can't be disconnected. And you can go all over the world, you can hang out with tribes. You know, my friend was in Rwanda with the gorillas. And actually, if you think you're like them, I did this thing of walking with wolves. And the first thing you must do is you have to crouch down, you mustn't bare your teeth, you can't wear wool. And the wolf comes up and decides that you're a wolf. And then you go for a walk and it keeps rounding you back up. If you walk away, it takes you back into the wolf pack because it thinks you're one of them. And if you can make a wolf think you're one of them or a gorilla, then of course you can do it with pictures. But you have to start from, I'm like you, you're like me. I'm the same as you and I can connect with you somewhere, somehow.
Yeah.
Stop looking for what makes you different and look for what makes you the same, because it really is life changing. The third thing that's wrong is such a sad belief. It's what I want isn't available. I want love, but I was abandoned when I was a baby. I want wealth, but I come from a family that never had wealth, so I can't have that. I want health. My whole family are overweight, diabetic, so that's not going to happen. And if you want it while believing it's not available, that will block you. And so you have to decide, it is available, it's available with bells on. Whatever you want is available. But we have blocking thoughts and limiting beliefs that really get in the way, and you have to go back again to the thought and change it.
As women and as men, we grow up thinking, oh, my God, I want that love story. You know, where's my guy? I need to find him. And then when you meet him, you do feel like, oh, my God, he completes me, or you make the other person my whole world.
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