Joel Osteen On Thriving In Relationships, Marriage & Love EP 1197

This is episode number 1197 with Joel Osteen. Welcome to the school of greatness.

My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today.

Now, let the class begin.

Welcome back, my friend.

Today's guest is Joel Osteen. He is the pastor of the Lakewood Church, which is the largest church in America. And after becoming the senior pastor in 1999 after his father's passing, he's grown the weekly attendance from 5,000 to over 50,000. His sermons reach millions of people each week across television, radio and online. He's the best-selling author of over 12 books and he's published a new book called youd Are Stronger Than youn Think. And this is the second part of our conversation with Joel. So if you haven't listened to the first part that's focused around having a strong mindset, make sure to check out that one@lewis-howes.com/1180. In this episode, we discuss the biggest reasons it's so hard to find meaningful relationships these days. The three things you and your partner have to be aligned with. The key to having a thriving marriage. How to grow with your partner over the long term and so much more. I was so inspired by our conversation and Joel's outlook on relationships that afterward, I felt called to do a little solo part myself on a few of the biggest questions and themes that I'm seeing come up from you guys around relationships. So make sure to stick around for that with my opinions and my thoughts on relationships at the end of this conversation. If you're enjoying this at any moment, please spread the message of greatness forward. You can post about this on social media, tag me, tag Joel, text a few of your friends. You can message them on WhatsApp or email, wherever it may be. Send this out to a few people that you care about that you think want to have better relationships in their life. And I want to give Shout out to the fan of the week from Joe, who left a review over on Apple Podcast and said, More valuable than a college degree, this show is a masterclass for all areas of life. I've been listening since the beginning and the show never disappoints. So big thank you to Joe for being the fan of the week. And if this is your first time here, click the Subscribe button over on Apple Podcast right now. Leave us a review at the end of this episode for your chance to be shouted out as a fan of the week as well.

Okay, in just a moment, the one and only Joel Osteen. You have an amazing marriage, an amazing relationship. You guys do events together. You're, you know, supporting each other. I'm curious, it seems like in the modern world, from my point of view, it's hard for a lot of people to find love. What do you think is the biggest reason that people aren't able to find true authentic intimacy, love and connection in an intimate partner?

Man, I wish I knew Lewis. I don't know, something I'm not an expert on, but I don't know. I do believe, okay, I gotta go back to what I know. Yes. I do believe that God has the right person picked out. He has divine connections for us. And I think maybe, again, I'm not an expert, but don't settle for something that you know or someone that you know is not the best for you. And I don't mean to be too picky to where you're never gonna find anybody, but I do think sometimes I have people tell me, well, if I don't, I don't know necessarily I feel good about this person, but if I don't date them, I don't know if I'll find anybody. But I believe this, that what's supposed to be yours is going to come to you. So if you keep honoring God and doing the right thing, I believe that nobody's going to get your spouse, nobody's going to get your, you know, your business and things, it will come to you. So I don't know. I think you have to, you know, pray, believe, do your part and you know.

Do you guys have values that you live by in the relationship where you're like, these are our core values and this is what we live by and you know, talk about them frequently or is it more just an understanding?

I think it's more of an understanding. But it is love and friendship and being good to people and honoring God and being respectful and you know, I can't if I can speak to the relationship. One thing, Victoria and I, we still have fun together. And I think that's important. I mean we've been married 34 years. but I think what happens sometimes, Louis, is you get the stress of life happening, and you're raising kids, and you've got the bills to pay, and all of a sudden you don't have any time to just breathe and have fun and laugh. I don't mean we're laughing every minute of the day, but I think we can bring the stress from the outside into our relationships, and I'm worried about work, and that wasn't right, now I'm no good at home with my kids, and I think you have to leave that stuff the best you can at the door and keep your home a place of peace, a place of love. And what Victoria is so good at is she loves to laugh. And so all through the day, she'll be on the phone and I hear laughter going through the house. And I love that because I think it creates an environment that says, everything is good. Yeah, we have challenges. Yeah, we're dealing with stuff, but you know what? There's still joy, there's laughter. And I think the, you know, again, the atmosphere of our home is critical. That's our safe place. I think for some people, and I know it's not easy, struggling in a relationship because there can be tension and strife, but I'm talking about maybe some preventative measures is that we still go for bike rides, we still go for walks at night, we still, you know, we'll swim together, we go to sports events together, and together, and I don't know, you have to cultivate it. There's different seasons, but I think one thing is keep that joy in the home.

Keep the joy in the home. Yeah, I mean, I've definitely struggled in my previous relationships and felt like I told you before, I had to learn the hard way. how to get into alignment of, you know, not settling and just not settling for what I want. And all these people have been great individuals in my life, but just weren't the right match moving forward. When did you know that Victoria was going to be your wife? When did you know this is the person I want to spend, you know, my time with?

You know, I'm probably odd in this, but let me go back to me. I'll give you, so Louis, so I grew up playing sports, probably like you, but I was just playing sports all the time. Even when I got out of high school and In college, I was still playing softball four nights a week and tournaments on the weekend. So I never really dated anybody. I was more quiet, shy and small and I thought, oh man. But anyway, I got my nerve up. I met Victoria in her mother's jewelry store and I asked her out on a date and I don't know, there was just something about Victoria. She was so beautiful, but she was so fun. I never met anybody like her. So I just think after a couple of months, I thought, I'm not gonna let this girl get away. There's no way. and we just had, I spent every minute I could with her, we just laughed and had fun. So I think that's where, you know, maybe mine's a little odd, I didn't date, well we dated a year and a half, but I knew early on. I didn't tell her, but I thought this girl is amazing. And so I liked everything about her, so I don't know. That's why I say I don't have good experience there about, you know, I've been gone through four or five, and she's only 22.

You didn't struggle as much as I did. You found one early on. I know. What is the thing you love about her the most after 34 years?

Well, I don't know if I can say one thing. Just her kindness, her spontaneity. I'm so routine. Better word than that.

Discipline.

Yeah, or boring. She would say boring, 'cause I just, you know, it can be very machine-like, but Victoria's spontaneous, and she just says, Come on, Joel, let's go have fun. Let's go do this, or let's go travel somewhere. she keeps that and it's a good balance, you know? And so I love that part about her and just she's just a fun girl.

That's true.

And so I feel blessed and you know, I pray everybody will get somebody that they love and just have fun with.

If you could coach people, maybe they're been dating for a year or they're just starting to date, if you could say, you know what? You should really figure out these three main important things. Like you should ask these three questions and make sure you're aligned on these three things before you move forward in your relationship, before you even, you know, keep going. What would you say those three questions or three things you should really be aligned on are for people?

Well, off the top of my head, and I hope I'm giving good advice.

-You'Re good.

This is great. I love it. -I think, you know, what is, comes from my point of view, what is your, what are your values in faith? I mean, you know, if I, if, like me, I'm going to be a person that honors God, that's going to live by Scriptural principles, probably not gonna be perfect, but I think where we go in there and I think just overall values, where do you want to go in life? What are your passions and what are you excited about? I think those are a couple that I would think of. I think another point I'm getting off, another thing would be, you know, does the person have the drive that you want or do they have too much drive or, you know, I just, I'll go back to some of the friends I've been dealing with and the things they've been dealing with, as there's people, but are your goals aligning? Like one friend that they want to go do big things in New York. Well, he doesn't have that kind of goals. He wants to be here and do other things. And so I think those are important things to... Something Victoria's father told her and I think is good is the person you marry, don't marry a person expecting them to change. and I don't mean to be negative, but meaning that the things that you don't like about them now, don't think, okay, I'll fix them later. Now, I don't mean you have to find somebody that's perfect because nobody's perfect, but I do think sometimes we get into a relationship, oh, I don't mind that he has this addiction, because, you know, I'll help him get over it, or I don't mind that he's a little disrespectful, because he'll change when he meets me. I think that's the kind of stuff that you can't sweep under the rug. And again, I know there's a balance with everything, because I don't want you to say, well, they said one wrong thing, and I think you have to find that balance. But I believe too, Louis, you can check your heart. Every time I've, I would think every time I was going to make a major decision, if it wasn't right, I'd feel this unrest about it. And I've learned not to ignore that now, because I have ignored it. I've ignored that in the past.

I've stayed with it. It just, you know.

I've ignored it, and it doesn't go away for a long time, but it's like an alarm. If you keep turning it off after you know, after whatever, after a couple months, you're not gonna hear it. You're just immune to it. So I think that's God leading us. And I know, hey, I've ignored it too, 'cause I wanted my own way. But, you know, God's merciful. He'll help you get through it. But I've learned now just, okay, why do I feel this unrest? I mean, this, whatever, this business still looks perfect. Why do I feel this unrest? And I think it's a fine line 'cause this is a question I get is, well, I'm nervous about a lot of things. Well, it's not necessarily nervous 'cause I was, I was nervous about stepping up to pastor. It was more down in here I felt a peace. It is not in my mind, but I call it down in here. So if there's just an uneasiness, and sometimes women are better at this. I mean, Victoria, I can meet somebody. I think they're the greatest guy in the world.

No, that guy's off, yeah.

I don't feel good about it.

Isn't that interesting?

Why is that?

They have a greater perception or discernment, maybe?

Intuition. Intuition, yeah. And sometimes, you know what I've learned though now, as much as I don't like to hear it from Victoria, I think, okay, I gotta pay attention. Because, you know, three years later, I.

Told you that guy was not the right guy.

Why are you doing business with him or this? Yeah, so I think you have to, you know, listen down in here and if there's an unrest, but again, I will go back to the positive side. God has somebody great for every person. Don't settle. And I believe that when I say they're gonna come to you, it's gonna happen.

Yeah, man, 34 years, you got a lot of wisdom in there. what do you think has been the key to thriving year after year, adversity after adversity, were you guys keeping the peace within the home, keeping the fun like you said, she's still laughing. I mean, I feel like some men feel like, I want to, you know, they've taken the joy out of their wife because of the pain and the adversity and the hurt and the lack of forgiveness. How do you cultivate the environment of peace and laughter in home? I feel like everyone wants that. I know. 34 years. are the things you guys do on a yearly basis where you reflect and say, what are we doing right? What could we be doing better? Are the things every night you guys talk about before you go to bed to just keep it on track? Is there something like that you guys do?

Not officially, but we do from time to time. I do think one thing I should throw in here too, maybe along those lines, is we've done our best to keep respect in the marriage. Because, you know, Louis, we're people. All of us are people. We're going to say things we shouldn't. We're going to feel times that we feel offended or discouraged or, but we've done our best to, to not say things. Say hurtful things to each other.

Yeah, yeah, because it's easy in the.

Heat of the moment.

I use this, I use that.

Yeah, you've never done that, you never did. You know, it's easy, but you know what, it's important to bite your tongue and keep it respectful. Because, you know, I heard that saying, you know, people are, you know, takes just a second to stab somebody, but that wound can last 10 years. You know, and you, you know, what, are we stabbing them with their words and think, oh, I didn't really mean it. But so, and again, I don't mean to make people feel condemned because we've all said things, but you can start now, but we've just done good to, I think, keep respecting part of that was just, you've heard that we just many times or sometimes we'll just agree to disagree.

How often is that? How often does that happen?

Oh, it happens, you know, because we're running the church together in the ministry. So I was going to say it happens every month, but I don't know if it's that often, but there are, major things that just say, Victoria, I feel passionate about this. I feel good about it. And she just, let's just agree to disagree and keep it respectful.

What do you do in that moment when both of you have a different vision towards something, whether it be because it's small or it could be a big decision, how do you agree to disagree and then which way do you move forward? You know, what's next?

Yeah, it's a good point. Who gets their way? I don't know. It goes both ways. But I do think that Everybody has natural gifts. Well, I don't argue. I don't raise my voice and I don't, and I'm not saying I'm not trying to be a saint, but I just, it takes two to argue and I think I've just learned to walk away and again, I'm not bragging on me, I just, I think we have different personalities and mine is real, I can be, you know, aggravated or concerned and just say, okay, you know what, let's talk about this later and let's just come back and I'll research it more or something like that. I don't know. Sometimes if she feels very strongly about it, I probably don't do it, you know?

I probably strongly not to do something.

Yeah, I would probably go with her way. If it was hiring somebody or, I don't know, something with her kids, I say, Victoria, you know, I'll tell her this. I said, I'm not gonna do anything. I'm not gonna go against what you want, but that's not, I don't agree with that. And I think that, you know, we're missing it or something. And you know what? It seems to always work out.

That's beautiful.

But, you know, you have to give and take. If I felt very strongly about it, she's real good about, you know, she'll trust me in certain things.

That's great. Now when you got married 34 years ago, you were not in the position you're in now. You were more of a behind the scenes production person, right? You weren't like, oh, this is my dream one day, I'm gonna be this person that has the largest church in the world that's reaching millions of people every day on TV and in their homes. that wasn't a part of the vision originally.

Exactly. Exactly.

So how do people, when things happen later in their marriage that weren't expected, a part of their vision, that maybe one person gets more opportunities or abundance or a platform and the other person didn't think that was going to happen for them, how did you guys stay connected and aligned and teammates as opposed to, I don't know, jealousy or insecurity or, oh, now these women are flirting with you and these, can I trust you when you're alone? How did you navigate all that?

Yeah, it was an interesting time because you're exactly right. Even Victoria said, Joel, I didn't marry a minister. And all of a sudden she's a minister's wife and she's certain things expected from her. But a couple of things I think you have to be willing to change and to reinvent yourself. I do think that it's what you said is true. You face new challenges. I think ours, we were able to come together in that we believe this is the hand of God, our faith part of it, that we've been given this opportunity and let's go for it full force together. But when my dad died, our daughter Alexandra was three months old. So we had a son that's five too. we had a lot going on, meaning that we still had to raise our children and not had to, but got to raise our children and had this little baby. So it was an interesting time. It's a good question and it's just there were times that we would be out to eat over the years and then all of a sudden people were coming up to me now and I was becoming known and that was very different with our family. And not that Victoria didn't mind it or didn't was offended by it, but just, it was just different.

A chain.

There was a chain. Yeah, we went to Disneyland one time and we had to, you know, I couldn't really, couldn't really go with my kids then. I'm not saying I'm that well known. You know, I'm just saying there's just certain times it was happening. So it was, you know, I think it's time, it's, didn't happen with us, but I think it's easy to resent some of that, like you're saying. But I think you have to go back to say, okay, this is, this is the hand we've been dealt. With every blessing, there's a burden. The blessing is we get to help. you know, many, many people and we get, you know, there's a favor on our life and a blessing. The burden is, okay, you've got critics, you've got, you know, I'm busier now than ever and, you know, certain things like that. But I think one thing, too, if I can go back.

Yeah.

Victoria and I, we've always had goals of doing something together, meaning that we've, we've, we've, when we got married, we, we bought, we bought an old townhouse and we fixed it up and lived in it. We, we flipped it. and then we did it, we did about six of them. So we were always doing projects together. And it wasn't, we weren't, I wasn't in the pastoring part yet, but it was just something we were, we were this team. We were doing it together. She'd find a house, Joel, we can do this. We'd fix it up and all. So I think sometimes there's no camaraderie with the husband and wife in that we're doing, you know, the husband's doing great things in business, wife's doing something.

But maybe there's something they can do together. I like that. Because you're building this teamwork, and that way when there's a new opportunity that.

Arises, hey, how can we be a team together on this? Exactly, and see before my dad died, two years before we got a construction permit for the last four power television station in Houston. And it was like, I mean, I love TV and I love production. I thought, oh wow. And we were able to put that station on the air. So we did that together for the last two years, you know, before my dad died, like I said. So, you know, we had to find a studio, we had to find a tower, we had to get programming. So I think we could do that because we built all these houses together, remodeled houses together. So we had this teamwork. And so, Again, it wasn't, we didn't always see eye to eye, but we had enough respect that we've given, taken all. But it's a big thing. Yeah, I see it as a team. Even the, you know, we do things called Nights of Hope. It's always with Joel and Victoria. You know, in the church, if you go to the church, you see the sign, it says Joel and Victoria. I want, Victoria can reach people I can't reach. She has wisdom and insight. I tell people this, Louis, and it's the truth. I wouldn't be half of who I am. without Victoria.

Wow.

Because 10 years before my dad passed, we would sit on the front row at church Sunday nights when I wasn't up in the TV area. And she had said, Joel, one day you're going to pastor the church. 10 years before he passed, I used to think, Victoria, I got you so full because I had nothing to say and all that. But I think because she had told me that so many times. In other words, she saw things in me that I didn't see in myself. And I think it's a great principle in that, you can call out the seeds of greatness in other people.

That's so good.

And I think sometimes, see, I felt limited. I felt shy and reserved and nobody's gonna listen to me. I didn't know why she would say that. My dad saw it, but I think when daddy died, I'd heard her say that a thousand times. Not pushing Midge, Jewel, one day you're gonna pastor the church. Well, what if we all called out seeds of greatness? I found sometimes we can see things in people that they can't see.

Mm.

And you know, A blessing is not a blessing until it's spoken. And so I can think something, I can think, wow, man, Louis is really talented. Or I can tell you, man, Louis, you're talented, you're changing the world. But that's what Victoria did. And I think when we call it out for others, then God will have people to call it out in us. And I think it's in this society that we're living in, it's, you know, a lot of people want to demean and push down. We got enough of that happening. How can you be someone that lives someone else? And just sometimes it's a simple word of encouragement or simple man, you are good at that or man, you can pastor that church one day. Who knows what that's gonna do.

Is there any non-negotiables you guys have on a daily basis? Like every day we say we love each other, every day we pray together, every day we give each other a hug. Is there anything you guys do every day that has been consistent?

Well, every day we tell each other we love each other. I think it's a It just happens. I don't think it's like, you got to do this. Every morning when I get up, I tell her it's gonna be a great day. And she's telling me the other day, she said, you know what, you've been doing that for 20 something years. But you know, and every day is not a great day, but I think it's just setting the tone for the day. I think it's just, I think it's a lot of times it's these simple things. And again, we don't have a formality of just saying good morning, saying, I love you, will you leave the house or saying, hello when you get back in. It's just taking time to, hey, we're speaking to you. Let me just tell I'm back. And just, I think it's just the simple things of staying connected. Because it's, it's easy in life. And I'm not telling people anything they don't know to get disconnected, to get busy. I mean, anybody traveling for four days and all of a sudden you're doing your life. She's doing hers. But I think it's important to stay connected. So we talk a lot.

I'm not a small talker, she'll tell you.

So, but, but you talk a lot. She's, she's, I know, but it's, you know, I don't really talk. politics and all that stuff, but we'll talk, we'll have fun. But I think Victoria is much deeper than I am. I'm much more, you know, surface, meaning I just, you know, what's going on today? And here's some sports and let's go for a bike ride. And I just, but you know what? She respects that part of me as well. And I think sometimes we try to get something out of people that they don't have to give.

And, like what? What do you mean?

Well, like she doesn't try to make me into being a, deep talker. Let's spend two or three hours communicating, talking about how much we love each other each night. And I do love her. It's just different strengths. Absolutely. And, you know, but I think she has not tried to make me into something that I'm not. She accepts what I am. Now, I try to grow. I'm not going to say, you know, you can just put everything, you've got to communicate, but I try to grow and do better at things. But I think it's important to accept someone's strengths. and celebrate their strengths and don't necessarily focus on the weaknesses.

Yeah, it's beautiful. Okay, I got you off the hook there on the relationship talk. I've got two final questions for you before I go into those. You have so many amazing books. The latest one, you, Are Stronger Than youn Think. Unleash the Power to Go Bigger, Go Bold, and Go Beyond what Limits yous. It's all about waking up to your greatness, which I'm all about. So you have an incredible message here. I want people to get a few copies of this book Give it to a friend or two buy for a family member. You know, the thing I love about the way you write it works well for me. I'm a yeah, it's hard for me to read a lot. So you use simple analogies simple stories that I can connect with They're quick reads and they get right to the point of like how to step up. So I love the way you create your content your podcast is a It's such a staple for so many people around the world. So if people haven't subscribed go subscribe to the podcast. You're also a I think SiriusXM, it's 24/7. Your message is out there, right? What's the channel in Sirius?

128.

128. So any moment you're feeling insecure or doubting yourself, go to channel 128. Your website as well has everything. You're massive on social media, Joel Osteen, but joelosteen.com has got all the stuff about coming to see you in church in Houston and all this stuff, right?

Yes, that's right. Thanks, Louis. Thank you.

You don't have to do all that. Of course, of course. Well, people need to know, people need to be empowered, in my opinion. You've got a great way of reaching people and connecting to people's hearts that's different than me. And so I think people need to be aware of this. And I love listening to your stuff, and I think people should at least check it out. If they have never heard about you, at least check out one 30-minute podcast. Just click on one of them and see what they think. So, I think they'll love it. These final two questions are questions that I ask people. Is there anything else I should mention about this or where people can go to get more?

No, it's good, it's good, thank you.

Okay, of course. The final two questions, this one is called the Three Truths. So I ask this hypothetical question at the end with every guest. So imagine it's your last day on this earth, many years away, and you live as long as you wanna live, and you accomplish your goals and your dreams, and you keep serving the world, you have great relationships, all that. But it's the last day and you got to turn the lights off in this world. And for whatever reason, hypothetical scenario, all of your written work, your videos, your content has to go somewhere else. So, we don't have access to your content anymore. Unfortunately, hypothetical. But you get to leave behind three lessons to the world. Three things you know to be true that you would share with the world as your message. And this is all we would have of your message. what would you say would be those three truths?

Those three truths. Well, I'm going to make it good, Louie. I think first off is honor God with your life. Be a person of faith. Keep in first place. I think the second thing would be stay positive. Stay hopeful. Stay grateful. You know, keep that attitude of faith. And the last thing I would say, be a blessing. Lift up other people. help the lift the fall and help the hurting. You know, that's that's in a very short nutshell. Beautiful man.

I love those. Honor God, stay positive and be a blessing. Yeah, it's powerful.

That's what I'd want to be known for.

It's powerful. Before I ask the final question, Joel, I want to acknowledge you. You know, when you walked in here, I was just so glad to see you and meet you because we've been, you know, trying to make this happen for a couple of years. I know my team's been connecting with your team. I've been trying to see when am I doing a speech in Houston so I can come see you and you happen to be here for the book tours, which is great. And I just want to acknowledge you for the gift you are in the world. For the way you continue to show up. You continue to rise above negativity, nasty things that might be said about you. You continue to come from a service mentality. How could I... You use your gift to create something that can help other people. Whether it be through your books or your sermons or your talks or your events, you're serving people. And for me, that's an inspiration that you keep showing up consistently to serve. You don't have to. You could stop and say, you know, I've done my part, but you keep showing up and serving. And I think that's, for me, I really acknowledge you for that. It's an inspiring thing to watch. I'd love to watch you sometime in person down in Houston. So hopefully when I come down next, we can hang out, we can play some tennis. We're both not that good, so hopefully.

We can match each other well. Awesome.

I'd love to have you. Thanks for saying that about me. Of course, of course. Thank you.

The final question, what is your definition of greatness? My definition of greatness would be becoming all that God created you to be. So I think greatness is different for each one of us, but it's just reaching your full potential, you know, just becoming what God created you to be, taking the limits off of yourself and stepping up.

There you go, Joel. Thank you so much, man.

Appreciate it. Awesome to see you.

So I wanted to do my recap about what I learned from Joel in his relationship theory, strategy, philosophy. And I'm always inspired by successful men or men who have a driven mission to serve people and to create something meaningful, a purposeful driven life. I'm always inspired to learn about their intimate relationship because I've just found over the years that it's hard to find a man within a big purpose, a big mission where they stay focused decade after decade doing it on their own without a great partner by their side. And so I'm always curious to ask these questions and to learn, you know, how do you make it work? How do you know it's the right person? How do you keep things interesting year after year? All these different stuff. So I was fascinated by what Joel talked about because he is a big personality. He's got a massive personal brand. He's got a big audience that follows him online, offline, he gets a lot of attention and there could be distractions for someone like that. And so one of the things that I really loved about his conversation was he said one of the things is you got to find the right person. You know, he talked about keeping the joy in the home, making sure your goals and values are aligned, which is something I want to talk about. He talked about how important respect is, which I couldn't agree more. And why you shouldn't say hurtful things to one another, because it's hard to take those things back. So just really watch. your tongue, watch your language with your intimate partner because those things could really affect someone and they could carry that with them if you don't have a clearing conversation. And one of the things that I really respect about a lot of these men that I've interviewed who have been in marriages for 20, 30, 40 years and had successful sustainable careers and are healthy and happy. It's not about just staying together with someone for the sake of being together for a long time. It's about can you generally feel like you're in a good attitude, you're a positive person, you're happy a majority of the time? Obviously there's going to be adversities and challenges and struggles that any relationship faces. The longer you're alive, you're just going to face these things naturally in life. But if the relationship is solid, are you joyful and fulfilled most of the time? I think that's the key for me. 80-90% of the time, can you turn back into a happy place? Can your foundation be joy, happiness, kindness, love? For me, that's what really excites me about the future of a possibility. And if there isn't that possibility, if the foundation is misery, stress, resentment, lack of respect, then that's not the relationship I want. And I wouldn't want to stay in something for decades if there wasn't a foundation of peace, love, joy and respect. For me, that's so important. And one of the things that Joel was talking about with his wife Victoria is, you know, it's finding the right person up front. And something that I really lean on with that, he said, make sure you find someone with values in the same faith, certain passions and things like that. For me, it's values, vision and lifestyle. The more and more I talk about this, you could have the same values, but if one person loves to be traveling and going out all the time, another person loves to at home all the time, your lifestyle is going to be different. And obviously lifestyle can evolve and change over time, but you want to be somewhere aligned on values and vision and lifestyle. It's important to make sure you find the right person who has those three things upfront. And not everything is going to be the same and perfect and all these things. I'm not saying that, but I'm saying is there alignment? Is there alignment on values, vision and lifestyle? It doesn't mean everything has to be 100% accurate. but do you have that? I love that he talked about finding the right person and making sure that you line up with those things. So I wanted to reflect on some of these questions that some people have for me about this. And one of them is how important are values in your relationship, whether it be intimate business or with friends. For me, it's everything. It's something we talk about when we bring people on Team Greatness with School of Greatness and Greatness Media. We share with people here is our list of values. and here is our mission. If you're not about being of service to the world and creating meaningful content that inspires, that educates people, that entertains people to help them improve their life, if that's not your mission, then this is not the place for you. If we try to force that on someone who doesn't have that same value and mission, it's just not gonna be a good fit. Just like in a relationship, an intimate relationship, if you say, this is where I'm heading in my life, this is my vision for the future, here are my values. And someone has a completely different vision and values, it doesn't matter how much attraction you might have. And this is where I learned my lessons from previous relationships where I was more attracted chemically, sexually, physically, as opposed to attracted values and vision and lifestyle wise. And I had to learn, you know, the hard way by getting into relationships that weren't the right fit for me and probably weren't the right fit for them quite honestly as well because we weren't aligned with our values, vision and lifestyle. And there's no one right or wrong here. It's just about are you aligning your life with someone, friends, business relationships and intimate relationships. For me, I hang out with people, my friends, who are into similar things like me. where we can have certain conversations that line up with our missions in life. People that are creators in the world, entrepreneurs in the world, who we can share the similar ideas and talk about challenges we're facing and reflect on these things. And people that I believe in their missions as well because they're living a life of service. They're creating from service, trying to help people. That's the baseline for me. If someone's doing that, that's great. I don't care what profession you're in. As long as you're doing something that you enjoy, and you're trying to do it to the best of your ability and you're trying to help people in that process. It doesn't have to be helping millions of people. It can be one person. I'm cool with that. And that's what excites me. I want to hang out with those people. I think about this in my relationship currently. My partner and I, we're constantly talking about our vision. What is her vision? What is my vision? Our lifestyle. We're so grateful that our lifestyle, our values and our vision are aligned. you could have alignment and still not work out. But I'm telling you, it's that much harder when you don't have alignment to try to make it work. And this is why divorce rate is over 50% now. And probably a lot of people who are married for many decades are not as happy as they could be. And so it comes back down to that. And it's finding the right person at first who has those things. relationships, friendships, intimate partners, business friendships as well. Can you align on these things? Again, everyone's going to have their quirks and personality traits that are different. But can you align on those things? And I think that's the key. So much struggle in relationships come from not being aligned first with the right person. You're attracted to someone not for the wrong reasons, but I would say for not all the best of reasons to start. And there's nothing right or wrong with that, but it's having those challenging conversations upfront. which will save you time in the long run if you can have those conversations. Something to think about. Are you aligning yourself with your values or vision and your lifestyle with the people in your life? Here's another question. What difference can you see in those who share your values versus the ones who didn't that you tried to keep a connection with? It's just hard to be excited. It's hard to want to invest time and energy consistently. You know, I can be friends with anyone. I can talk to anyone. I can ask questions to people that have completely different values and different lifestyle, different religion, different backgrounds. I can have a conversation with anyone. And I could be friendly with anyone. But it doesn't mean I want to spend all my time with them and invest an hour a day of my life with that person. You know, there's over 7 billion people on the planet. You only have so much time. with so many people you can spend dedicated time with, intimate time with. So I'm really focused on who are people who are just, I feel like it's more effortless because we can talk about similar things, because we have shared visions, values, lifestyle, because we like doing same activities, things like that. So again, I love bringing people on the podcast that maybe I wouldn't normally be best friends with. And sometimes I want to be their friend and hang out with them more. because they have a different perspective. And for me, that's interesting. I like people who are also bring a different perspective. But the value of being a good person, being kind, being generous, being respectful, like those basic values for me need to be there. And if someone is more of a victim mentality, if someone is constantly stressed and they're not willing to work on finding solutions or improving and they're just blaming others, It's hard for me to really relate. I can empathize, I can have compassion. But for me, it's like people have got to be responsible for their lives and seek support and look for resources and do the work to find that base level of joy, of commitment to growth. For me, that's exciting. For me, a growth mindset, not a fixed mindset. So if someone's more fixed in their mindset, it's just challenging because you're always like kind of butting up against each other. you're trying to pull them up, they're trying to bring you down. And I think if that's happening in an intimate relationship, that's a real struggle. And it's just exhausting. You want to be there for someone who fully accepts and supports you with who you are, your personality, all your quirks, and your mission in life, your goals. You've got to be supporting that partner and you want to find someone who fully supports you. for your unique character and quirks, for your personality, your goals and your dreams. And I think I've experienced many times in previous relationships, not every relationship, but in previous relationships, where I didn't feel fully supported for who I was and I felt like people wanted to change me to make them feel safe or fit into their lifestyle. And at those moments when someone tries to change you, I personally think that you're out of alignment in that relationship. And if someone's trying to force you to change to make them happier, if they're not happy because of something you're doing, then you shouldn't be together probably. Maybe it's not the right match early on. And so you have to think about that. Obviously people are going to evolve and change, but it's hard to force someone to change. It's really that they come from within. So that person's got to want to change, otherwise they'll resent their partner for forcing them to change. and making threats. No one wants to be told what to do, especially in an intimate relationship. And so I think it's important early on to say, this is who I am. This is where I'm at in my life. This is my vision. This is my goals. I'm gonna change on my own pace, but you gotta fully accept me for who I am right now, and I need to, in return, look at you and fully accept you. So this goes both ways. You can't expect someone to constantly be evolving, but them not wanting you to evolve and being okay with where you're at, you've got to be on the same page and say, I fully accept you, you fully accept me. We don't try to change each other. We elevate each other in seeing the greatness that we both have. We encourage growth. We become a stand for what someone made a commitment to and say, Hey, I'm encouraging you to do this. I'm happy to do this with you. I'll support you. Yes, do those things. But making threats or playing the passive aggressive game or getting mad at someone for the way they're being, if it doesn't break an agreement that you've made early on or boundaries that you've created early on, then I feel like that's where resentment starts to build when someone's trying to threaten or push the other person to change who they are. So for me, that's important. Another question is, what are the biggest reasons you feel like people are struggling to find lasting relationships today? I mean, I'm not the poster child for this because I haven't been in a lasting relationship. I've been in, let's see, three long-term relationships in the last 10 years. I've been a very committed person in long-term relationships. One was about a year to a year and a half. Another was for four and a half, five years, kind of with off and on. previous one was two to two and a half years. And now I'm in a new relationship. So in the last 10 years, that has been my journey. So again, I have been improving and growing through reflection, through making mistakes and stumbling along the way, and through taking full accountability and responsibility by going to therapy, getting coaching and saying, you know what? what do I need to heal? How do I get to improve? What actions can I take to grow? Because that's what I'm seeking. That's what I'm looking for, growth and healthier long-term relationship. So I think one of the biggest reasons why people are not creating long-lasting relationships, healthy relationships, it comes back to what Joel said early on, is finding the right person. And there are, in my opinion, there are four Elements of a relationship. There is the spiritual element, there's the emotional element, the mental and the sexual. These four key elements. And I'll just share with you my personal experience. You know, these are realizations that I've had in the last year where most of my relationship started with the complete opposite it should start on the sexual element. as opposed to the spiritual element. The spiritual element for me should be the first element. What are our values? What is our vision? What is our lifestyle? And who are you and who am I? And do we align and accept each other for where we're at in our lives right now and where we say we're going? And are we consistent in these actions that we say we are creating in our life and these values in this vision? And so I've always in the past leaned towards sexual chemistry and connection first and built a foundation there. And that's probably the worst place to build a foundation. I'm not saying you can't have a great relationship with that as a foundation, but I think you've got to be willing to get to the mental, emotional and spiritual side quickly. So if you can flip it and say, okay, I'm going to get on the spiritual side first. and one of the biggest challenges that it's going to face is, in my opinion, removing the sexual element for a period of time. This could be, you know, many months, this could be as long as you want it to be. The longer you can sustain from sexual intimacy, the better. Because then you go into straight conversation. You hang out with each other, you spend quality time together, and you communicate about values, vision, and lifestyle. Now, I'm not saying you need to do this on day one and the first three dates, you have to go right into who are you and tell me about your soul and your values and your lifestyle. You don't have to go into this right away, but you want to delay the sexual element for as long as you can. For me, this has been what's been extremely effective in seeing clarity, seeing the whole picture, and creating a safe environment and creating an environment of this is fully who I am. And I'm going to act accordingly. And I'm gonna show up as I am. I'm not gonna show up with some type of trigger or some type of fear or anxiety. I'm gonna go all in obnoxiously myself. And if someone can accept me for obnoxiously being myself 100%, doing everything I love, all the things, my friends, everything that comes with me or everything that comes with you, and you can just be friends and date. Of course, you can hold hands and hug and kiss and things like that, but I'm talking about eliminating the deeper sexual elements for as long as you can. My friend, Devon Franklin, wrote a book with his wife called the Wait, and it was about waiting for sex until marriage and about how they were able to build a stronger foundation by waiting. I'm not saying you need to do that. We had Irwin McManus on as well who talked about this. He was a pastor over at Mosaic. And I said, okay, listen, you know, with where culture is at these days, most people are not waiting till marriage to have sex. And I said, I know that's what you believe in, but if you could give some advice to someone to when would be a proper time to have sex in an intimate relationship? what would you suggest? And he was like, listen, I wouldn't suggest anything about waiting until marriage because I think it's very sacred. I think it's, you know, it shouldn't be something that's thrown around early on. But he said, if you're not gonna wait till marriage, then the best thing you can do is wait till you're fully committed to each other. Wait till you're fully committed to each other and you love each other. Because if you're just having sex without love, then you're not laying the bricks of a strong foundation of the spiritual element, the emotional and the mental element. And so if you dive into a relationship where sex is the foundation, you're going to be constantly chasing that chemical desire, that chemical feeling of, man, this feels really good, this connection, this chemistry, this sexual element feels great. And this person's amazing. They make me feel this way. And you don't talk about all these other things. You look beyond those things. You look past it. And those red flags start coming up. And you lean back on your foundation, which is the sexual element. and then a year, two, three years goes by and you start having problems and challenges because it wasn't the alignment with the right person early on. And then you work on fixing something that never had a foundation from the beginning. So for me, those four key elements, spiritual, emotional, mental, and sexual are really the core foundation of building a lasting relationship, a healthy, authentic, lasting relationship. And again, you're not speaking to the poster child here because I'm not married. I've been in three relationships in the last 10 years. I've been in committed relationships, but I felt like I wasn't comfortable having those conversations early on in the relationships. I was with great people. I wish them all the best. I had amazing experiences and times. but we just didn't have the alignment. Neither of us in all those relationships were willing to have the courage to delay the sexual element and to dive into values, vision, and lifestyle. And if we would have done that, I probably wouldn't have been with most of the people I was with because those things didn't line up. And so it became very clear later in the relationship because I went to therapy with, in every relationship in the last 10 years, I said, I want to go to therapy to figure out how we can make this work. Each one of those partners, I wanted to go, I wanted to improve them, I wanted to be with them, I wanted to make them all work, because that's kind of my come from. And we had so many things that just the foundation was not solid. In therapy, we realized that and we realized it just we weren't, we're not aligned. So we had the hard conversations later in the relationship when there was challenge and frustration and struggle on both sides. And I highly believe that if I would have done those conversations earlier, and that's all my responsibility, and I take the full ownership from those. But if people today were willing to have those conversations, again, I'm not saying you need to do this in the first weekend, just get to know people, but then really start sharing values, vision, and lifestyle, and if you can do that, I think it's massive. Another question, what are the biggest realizations that you've had when it comes to relationships? And one of them for me is that love is not enough. And I have loved so many different people in my life, from friends to family and intimate relationships. And I realized love by itself is not enough. Authentic love is enough. Love where you accept the other person for who they are. You're not judging them, you're not trying to change them, you're not trying to fix them, you're not trying to control or manipulate them. But you're here to accept them and support them is enough. Now, I'm not saying you've got to fully commit to the first person that walks by you and fall in love with them and then just accept them for who they are. No. Take time to get to know someone, date someone, and ask them the tough questions. And ask yourself the tough questions. Am I interested in this person because I'm super sexually attracted to them? Because they have this really cool job or this talent or this gift, or maybe they've got this position at a business that is enticing to me and it's seductive because maybe they could help me in my career or they're a celebrity or whatever it is. If you are jumping into a relationship because of one of those things, as opposed to the foundation, finding the vulnerabilities within each other and being fully accepting of each other and being excited about it. It's funny because my girlfriend Martha, she's like, Is this how you've always been? I go, yeah. She goes, Wait a minute. So this is who you are? After a few months of dating her, she was like, this is who you are. and I was like, this is who I am. This is how I've always been. She goes, Everything you do, I love. I wish people I was with in the past did these things. And I always wanted them to do these things. And I said, this is how I've always been. And it just comes down to finding that alignment and making sure that it feels more... I don't know if the word is effortless. I don't know if the word is peaceful. I think that's what it is. It feels peaceful. because there is acceptance on both sides and both parties are taking accountability. And it's just like, I like what she does, she likes what I do, but we communicated those challenging things early on in the first few months while eliminating the sexual element. And that's hard to do for people these days, I think, who are more into instant or quick gratification. I'm to blame for being one of those people for many years. and it just gets you in trouble. Maybe it works out, maybe it's you found an aligned partner and you had the sexual element early on and it's still great and it still works out because you were just the right people. But I think you can discover that easier when you eliminate it. If you said, if I was not able to have sex with a person, would I want to hang out with them for a year and spend all this quality time with them? Would I be mentally and emotionally excited around them? Would I accept them for who they are, their career, their choices, their family life, their parents? Would I want to spend quality time with this person consistently if there was no sexual element? And I think a lot of people might ask that question after six months or a year and be like, nah, like if there was no sex, I don't know if I'd want to spend quality time with this person as much. or maybe that's what's keeping the relationship together. It's like every time you get in a fight, you come back to the sexual element and it lasts another week or two and it keeps you together. Again, I've been there in all these scenarios in the past. And so for me, I speak from experience on what not to do. I speak from experience on feeling pain and stress in my chest consistently and not feeling peace. And so if the foundation is peace, again, not every moment is going to be peace. I'm not saying this is going to be some utopia, but if the foundation that come from, the common ground is peaceful acceptance, peaceful love and joy, then that's a beautiful thing. And it's hard to create a lasting relationship when your foundation is stress and chaos. Another question, how important is having your own identity outside of relationship? I think this is everything for me. And I remember, I mean, again, I take full responsibility for every relationship I've been in. And I chose to allow myself to lose my identity because I wanted to keep the peace. My therapist talks about this with me. She was like, you were trying to buy peace in previous relationships. you were trying to shift who you were to make someone else happy and buy peace. Not going out with your friends, not doing the workouts you wanted to do in certain places, not going out salsa dancing, like doing the activities that brought me joy, that brought me an identity, not traveling in certain ways. I stopped doing those things outside of the relationship to try to make partners that I had happier or feel more safe or whatever it might be, that they didn't like about that within my lifestyle. And losing that identity, I resented them, I resented myself, because then I was abandoning who I was, my true identity, my nature, my authentic power. I was abandoning that inside of myself. Those things wanted to come out and I didn't let them. So it wasn't their fault. It was my responsibility for choosing to try to buy peace to not be who I wanted to be, to try to make them happy. And then I believe that, again, this goes back to the right person. The right person wants you to be fully yourself. They are confident, they are a secure person. They're not insecure around you. And that takes healing and doing the healing work from previous relationships or childhood, which is not easy to do. It's not easy to heal our past, our traumas, and to look at that stuff. this is stuff that I've been working on for many, many years. And it takes time and it's a journey to fully work on that integration process of healing that past trauma. But I think it's the more you start letting go of your identity. Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't be creating mutual commitments and sacrifices on, you know, I'm not gonna go out every night with my guy friends or whatever, but making sure you have that time and energy to do things you love. and scheduling that time in your life. It's so important. I think that's what attracted you to your partner in the first place, is them being themself in the world. If you were attracted from a healthy space, you saw what they were doing. They had confidence, they had an aura about themselves with the activities they did. They put themselves out there. And then if you start to make yourself smaller, you start to hide yourself and neglect the core parts of your identity that you expressed before, then you're gonna resent yourself, you're gonna resent your partner, and you're gonna resent the relationship. So I think it's highly important to have that identity. Another question, how does not loving yourself first affect your relationship? Oh my gosh, this is a big one. It's learning how to heal and learning how to fully love and accept yourself. I'll be the first to admit that for many years I didn't know how to fully love myself. And I think a lot of us don't know how to love ourselves. I'm not talking about the ego, overly confident, I'm the best loving yourself type of energy. That's not really loving yourself. That's a false sense. I'm talking about having acceptance for who you are, believing yourself and knowing that you are worthy and you're enough. And I didn't know how to fully embrace that until I really started doing more healing work in the last eight years and really in the last year and a half, two years, integrating it more and more and more. And if you don't love yourself, you're going to neglect your identity. You're gonna neglect the things that you love expressing about yourself. You're gonna find resentment there. If you don't love yourself, you're gonna give in. Every time your partner wants something that you don't wanna do, you're gonna give in. You're gonna abandon yourself over and over again. Loving yourself means creating healthy boundaries. creating standards, creating agreements, and having uncomfortable conversations that may feel scary and messy, but bring you a lot more peace in the long run than just neglecting those conversations. In my current relationship, we've had many uncomfortable conversations. I was just like, Man, I really want to talk about this right now. But on the other side, we gain clarity. Okay, are we in alignment. Are these things in alignment or not? So loving yourself looks a lot like 100% honesty of this is who I am, this is where I'm heading. And it's not a take it or leave it conversation or nothing. This is authentically who I am. And I don't need to be in a relationship with someone who doesn't see that. And I also want to make sure I'm in a relationship with someone that I fully accept. I'm not trying to change. So this is a standard for both parties. but you got to be willing to love yourself first. And it's hard to fully love someone else if you're constantly abandoning yourself. If you constantly shame, doubt, and secure yourself, how can you fully give to someone else if you don't believe that you love yourself fully first? And that's going to say, I'm not deserving of love as well. So you've got to come from that whole healed place. And my therapist says healing is not an event, it's a journey. this is you have a healing moments and you're consistent in the practice of healing over a journey. That's where you continue to grow and having that growth mindset. The next question is how has healing your trauma from the past affected your relationship? Again, I've been kind of already talking about this, but it's really, I think, necessary for both parties to be thinking about Is there anything from my past that I haven't worked on yet? Is there events, moments, relationships that I've been affected by in intimate parties, friends, family, parents, any which way, are there moments and scenarios and events of my past that have wounded me that I have yet to start mending and healing and repairing those wounds? and if you know you will have a wound from the past that you haven't healed yet, if you are reactive, if you're defensive, if you get angry and frustrated easily, if you are passive aggressive, if you give the cold shoulder and you don't talk to someone for a few days, if you blame other people all the time, if you're doing some of these things, if you're manipulative, if you're gaslighting, if you're doing some of these things, it's probably signs that you have a wound and you haven't started to heal yet. Because a healthy whole person, a person who is in a healing journey and who has processed their pain and has let those things go and not saying they haven't affected them, but they've learned how to heal those things so it's not a constant wound, they are peaceful. They are non-reactive. It doesn't mean they don't get angry still. they're just not reactive towards their anger. They learn how to process it in a different way. And maybe you've seen some of these people before that just seem like, man, they just had some horrible things happen and somehow they're able to process it with kind of a grace, kind of a poise about them. It doesn't mean they're still not affected and they're not in pain and they're not hurting. It doesn't mean that, but it means they realize that coming back with anger and reaction only hurts them more. more and you're speaking again or you're listening again or watching again to a guy who was angry and reactive and defensive and all these things for many, many years in my 20s and I would say some of my early 30s. And in no means am I perfect still, but it's a place of consistent growth and healing journey that allows me to be, you know, minimize those things a lot. And if you talk to my closest friends that know me, they'll tell you from 10 years ago to today, it's like night and day of the reactions that come from me. And so you want to ask yourself if this person is always in reaction mode, if this person is constantly frustrated, defensive, if they're guarded, if they're not willing to express themselves and open up after a period of time. You know, people guard themselves in the first few weeks or months, I get it. But after a period of time, if they're still not willing to open up about something, that means there's a shame, there's an insecurity, there's a doubt, there's a pain that's inside of them. and they lack the confidence to express it to you because they're so afraid, they're afraid of that pain. But someone who has created that healing process, that whole human experience, they can talk about everything from their past with peace. Maybe the memory still makes them a little sad and it can bring up some emotions, but they're able to communicate everything from their past, maybe not like a Zen monk, but they're able to talk about these things and really just be like, you know, this is something that happened and it was really sad for me and it still sometimes affects me, but I'm working through the journey. I'm working on the process. That is someone that you can trust more and know that, hey, they're open to this. And some people are less likely to open up than others. And I'm not saying you should not spend time with these people, not be friends with them, kick them out of your life, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is when you're looking for your intimate partner, you've got to be asking yourself, are they on a healing journey at least? Are they working on it? Or are they completely saying, no, I'm not going to go there, I'm never going to talk about these things. They're always going to be in reaction mode. They always think the world is out to get them and they're going to be angry and resentful for the rest of their life. If you feel those signs and that's not your vision, If you say, you, know what? I really wish I could be with someone who's defensive and reactive and wounded and isn't working on their healing journey, then cool. Maybe you'll keep attracting those individuals if you haven't done that work as well. So it's something to think about when you think about your own trauma from the past. My friend, Stefan Speaks, says in a lot of his books and the content we've done on our show here on YouTube and podcast, He says, step one to any relationship is number one, heal. Heal yourself first. Focus on the healing journey first. Because if you don't learn to heal your own stuff from your past, you will keep manifesting and attracting a partner that will be chemically exciting in the beginning, but will be usually not a good fit long term. I'm not saying you can't always figure out a way to make it work.

You could.

But you both got to be doing that work together in that healing journey. Or you're just accepting each other for being in a fixed mindset. And maybe you're okay with that as well. But I want peace. And I think most people want peace in their life. Some people are addicted to drama because that's what they know. That's what they grew up in. That's what their parents and their previous relationships were. But most people who are addicted to drama really just want peace. They don't know how to handle the peace because they haven't healed yet. But most people in this world want peace and that comes from acceptance, that comes from respect, that comes from a shared values, vision and lifestyles here. Have alignment on your life. That's what it comes down to. Again, they say opposites attract. There's going to be differences in your relationships and that's that's part of the magic as well, is not having everything like the same. But it's being in alignment with your values and vision, with the unique differences that you both have. And so these are some of the things that opened up for me as I was interviewing Joel about his relationship. Again, he's got a book called Unleash the Power to Go Bigger, Go Bold and Go Beyond what Limits yous. Because you are stronger than you think. So I want to make sure you guys check out this book. Check out the other episode we did with him as well that goes more into that. And one more thing that I'll say about my thoughts on the relationship side of things. If you go back to those four elements of relationships we talked about earlier, the spiritual, the emotional, the mental and the sexual, just ask yourself in your previous relationships, out of those four things, maybe write this down, Ask yourself on a scale of 1 to 10, where were you at in your spiritual connection, your spiritual relationship? Without sex involved, where was the spiritual relationship at? 1 to 10. Where were you mentally? Were you on the same wavelength mentally? Did you guys think in a certain way? Did you guys have a similar philosophy about life? 1 to 10, where were you? And be brutally honest. Don't just look back and think about the best moments, think about all the moments. Were you brutally honest with yourself when giving this kind of ranking 1 to 10 mentally? Think about the emotional side of things. Did you guys gel well emotionally? Were you always in trigger and reaction in defense mode or aggression mode or passive aggressive mode? Were you in that emotional state? Was it heightened when something happened? Did you feel triggered emotionally? Where was that at? Let's say on these scales, 1 to 10, 10 being the best, that it could be 1 being, it was always up and down. So you'd be a 1 if it was like extreme drama emotionally. It'd be a 10 if there was peace, 99% of the time. It'd be a one if there was no spiritual connection at all. Everything was surface level and there was talking about, you know, it was talking about people, drama, gossip, news, as opposed to talking about greater ideas and spiritual concepts. And then sexually, where were you at? One to ten. You know, maybe you never really had sex. You didn't have a good sexual connection and your the sexual energy was dead. It's a 1. 10 would be, you know, it's thriving. You feel connected. You can connect with one another and really create these magical, sexual, spiritual moments together. That'd be a 10. So I want you to look back at your previous relationships and just, you know, this is not making someone right or wrong, good or bad. This is just taking inventory so you can start to see how have I shown up in my past relationships? And where can I take responsibility and never putting the blame on someone else, but how can I hold myself accountable for choosing these relationships, for staying in these relationships, and by not having the uncomfortable conversations early and really evaluating these four different elements of a relationship? And I want you to start thinking about, okay, was there any of those relationships where we are at 10? on all four elements. And if not, what was missing from you? Not from them, what was missing from you? How can you continue to show up with responsibility in your previous relationships? And moving forward, if you're in dating right now, if you're in a single season of your life, what can you do to create from a spiritual standpoint of building a foundation with people to begin and making that in the 7, 8, 9 or 10 range early on. I think if you do that early on, you're setting yourself up for better relationships with all people. If you're dating someone and it doesn't work out with the other elements, then maybe you have a friend. Maybe you didn't need to commit to that person because you learned that you didn't have those other elements in alignment. But you came away with a friend or at least with a good experience. without any type of sexual bonding and chemicals that are bonding you without a foundation of the spiritual, the mental or the emotional elements in a relationship. This is something that I want you to reflect on, take inventory on and ask yourself, how did I show up in previous relationships? And what can I do moving forward? Whether I'm in a relationship right now, how can I start to shift these four elements to make sure that I'm going from a one range towards a 10 range and ask yourself, what can I do to improve these four things and reflect on the things you did in your previous relationships? If you enjoyed this and you want more relationship content from me, more from me sharing my ideas, my thoughts, my experiences, my mistakes, my flaws, all of it, because you know we keep it real here on the School of Greatness. If you want more from me, then leave a comment below on this video over on YouTube or if you're listening to this over on Apple or Spotify, message me over on Instagram and say, Louis, please do more relationship conversations with yourself. And if that's something you're into, then maybe we'll do more of this personally. I'm always a fan of bringing these people on who've got, again, Joel's got decades of experience with his marriage and his relationship. He's really in a different level, in a different category than me. I bring the real messy stuff of what not to do and what I've learned from all my mistakes in the past. But if you want more from me, feel free to please let me know. And you guys are amazing. I appreciate your constant support for showing up for what we're doing here at the School of Greatness. And I'll see you in the next episode. Thank you so much for listening.

I hope you enjoyed today's episode and inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's show with all the important links. And also make sure to share this with a friend and subscribe over on Apple podcast as well. I really love hearing feedback from you guys, so share a review over on Apple and let me know what part of this episode resonated with you the most. And if no one's told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.