Kevin Hart REVEALS How To Strengthen Your Relationship After MESSING UP! | Lewis Howes

She came to an amazing conclusion. I like the fact that we have a family, that we have a household. And I like the fact that we now got a job to do to get better. And that's what you owe me.

What is the thing you admire the most about your wife that most people don't know about?

Strongest person in the world. Strongest person in the world.

And.

Her understanding for reality versus false reality is so crystal clear. You know, it's a tough seat to sit in. You know, being my wife. It's a tough seat to sit in. You know, we're, we're, it's, it's, it's crazy to say this, but there's this, there's this movie that people love to watch, and it's called the Rise and Fall. And the tickets to the rise are sold out. But the tickets to see what a fall looks like, I mean, you're talking about a sellout or a type of a sellout. I mean, it's the most watched thing ever. So naturally, when you get to a certain space or a certain level, you know, I don't know why, but there's a root against. And she experienced a lot of that, you know, a lot of that, turmoil that we went through, you know, is, girl, don't be with no man that's gonna disrespect you or don't do this or don't do that.

It's almost like a lot of people are against her for.

Yeah, it's insane. It's, it's insane. And, you know, the, the one thing we had to talk in the one, the one thing that I told my wife, I said, whatever you do, I'm. I'm here. I'm going to be supportive of, you know, whatever you do. If you decide that you want to go and leave the honey, by all means, no matter what she's taken care of, no matter what, you're the mother of my child, you know, my ex-wife now, we're not together, but she's taken care of mother and my kids. I'm not. I'm not a bad person. So I said, that's. this isn't about money. This is about you, your emotions or whatever. But understand the best company to a lonely woman is another lonely woman. And I said, look at all the advice that you're getting. Wow. And look at the lives. of the people giving the advice. And you tell me how many of.

Them.

Are in a relationship, right? That can be considered a solid household, a marriage or anything you show. And if you don't see that, separate yourself from that for a second and then make a decision. When she looked at it at the time, all of the negative energy and negative information came from people that didn't have that. So people that don't have that don't understand why you don't want to let that go. Because you have something that you're actually building and working on.

Right.

And she came to an amazing conclusion. I like the fact that we have a family, that we have a household, and I like the fact that we now got a job to do to get better.

And.

And that's what you owe me.

You owe me.

The get better and held me accountable. It wasn't a walk in the park, but it was her understanding. But we don't let. the outside world affect our inside? I credit her for setting that-- Wow. --for setting that tone.

And what's the biggest lesson you've learned from her personally in the last few years with just the challenges, the ups and downs?

If a pregnant woman went through.

What.

She went through, Delivered a healthy baby. An amazing mother to not just her child, but my two kids where she acts as a stepmother, stepped up on so many different levels while taking one of the biggest punches in life.

What?

I mean, I don't know. I don't know what's stronger. You know what I mean? Like, that's just supposed to break.

Yeah.

So you really get to see who people are when adversity fucking puts itself on display.

Yeah.

Who are you and who are we? And, you know, I've had to do the same. where I've had to really ask myself, who am I when really hit the fan? You know, when these moments hit, when these things hit, there's a reason why not many people get up after.

A lot of people don't get up.

The reason why a lot of people don't get up, these things are hard things to overcome and deal with. They're very hard.

Yeah.

So when you do make it out of those storms, and when you are an individual that can go, wow, I can't believe we experienced that, and you look back and go, oh my God, that was how many years ago? But look at us now. Look at where we are now. That's a thing. That's something to hold on to.

Yeah, and what I've noticed is you almost want to have friends who have gone through adversity because you start to learn about who your friends truly are at your lowest times, right?

Some character, I mean, my kids, me and my kids had a talk the other day. You know, they had an attitude, they're going through some stuff. I think the craziest thing is, you know, they were going through something and they were like really down about it. They were just pissed. They didn't want to do something. And I'm like, I said, Damien, it's crazy that you guys don't understand. I was like, yo, life is so not perfect. Life is so not perfect. I said, and you guys, you've only seen perfect. You haven't seen challenges. And I said, this is an example of a challenge. I said, and now in dealing with this, I'm going to use a phrase, and that phrase is cowboy up.

It's in the autobiography book. Yeah.

My son, you know, to my son and my daughter, and it's like, yo, cowboy, the f*ck. And right now, you're living in a time where if you say that, you have some people that are challenged, don't talk to kids. What does that mean? Hey, I'm gonna tell you what it means. Cowboyin' up means strap up your boots and get to work. You get it done. Whether you like it or not, you got to get it done. In this case, go through your turmoil. But unfortunately, dad can't be here to pick up the pieces. Go through it. These are the things that make you better. These are the things that give you character. You'll learn from it later. And I really embraced that moment because I'm like, this is a lesson they'll get to walk out of this. I said, it may not hit today. It may not hit next week, but eventually it's going to hit. I know my lessons have hit. I can tell you my wife has learned that acting is lessons that have hit. But if you don't embrace those moments, then you're missing out on the beauty of life.

Yeah.

You're missing out on the lessons that come with it. And I just think it's a great opportunity for me to highlight a lot of moments and give people a understanding and visual as to how I dealt with where I got the strength to move on and how, why understanding me and myself is the most beneficial thing that I've ever done in my life. You know, and this is just information. this isn't a way that you have to live.

Yeah.

This isn't a book that you gotta follow or else you're gonna lose. No, it's just information. So many people are afraid to give and share information. I'm not, I'm just sharing information.

Yeah, you got a lot of, I'm loving these stories. I really appreciate them. You have, you're very public about your lifestyle, the things you do, how you work out, you know, you're posting a lot of things all the time on social media. and you talk more in this book about the mindset of things. I'm curious if you can share the non-negotiables for you on a daily basis internally, on the inside of your mind, of your heart, of your soul. What are the things that you need to do? I know externally you're working out consistently, you're doing certain things, you're doing the hard work physically, but internally, do you say something to yourself? Do you mentally take notes about, you know, I'm gonna hug and kiss my wife and kids every morning. What are the non-negotiables on a day-to-day basis for you? that make you better?

No day starts without me working on myself, which is a workout.

Yeah.

My workouts just have a meaning and that meaning is self-improvement. It's not necessarily just about the look. It's about my mind. It's about knowing that I'm getting up and I am putting some effort and energy into me at the top of my day. making sure that my wife and my kids know that I love them on a day-to-day basis. You don't know what life has planned, so there is no day to go by without that communication. And I'll say now, really focusing and thinking on the future, but also processing the now.

How does that look?

Yeah, it's like, well, the future looks bright because I wanted to be bright. And that's the thing, like, those dreams become reality if you really do believe them. And if you put the work into them, you can't just dream just a dream. You can't just dream and expect it to show up. That's not, that's two different, you can't do that. It's, oh my God, I dream of one day having, well, what are you doing to make that dream come true? It doesn't just, it doesn't, that's not how it works. Something has to be put into execution to make a dream happen. So, and understanding that, What are my affirmations? What are the things that I'm speaking on? What are the things that I want? What's the energy that I'm putting out there to myself, to my team, to my family? What am I working on? 40 years old, what does it look like at 50? Am I done at 50? Am I working to be done at 50? if so, what should I have by that time? Where should I be at 45? Like these are the things that I just, I take a lot of pride and energy and effort into vetting out and into thinking. So a lot of the things that you see me do, these aren't impromptu moments. This stuff is well thought out, calculated. It's been on purpose for quite some time. Yeah.

What do you dream about for the next 10 years for your future?

I think the biggest one is just my business surpassing my celebrity.

You know, what is that, what does that mean in terms of revenue, in terms of, well, a lot of people.

Think it's just the money. Like I was saying, you know, I want to be a billionaire and it's not just about, the money that comes with being a billionaire, it's about the story attached to my name. You know, it's about where I come from, what I did, and about the younger kids that can go, wow, it's a. It's possible.

Right?

It's achievable. It's. It's possible. And it's something that. not many of my particular people get the opportunity to do or be a part of. It's a world that is very far few and in between. So if I can get in that world and show the blueprint as to how along the way create jobs and change lives, then that's an amazing moment. That's an amazing thing.

Do you have a date that you would like to be a billionaire buying? Is there a year, a date? Have you thought about that?

Oh, the world was perfect today at three o'clock.

But if you're dreaming of the future, what would it look like for you if you could be a billionaire? By when? I'm just curious.

I mean, look, in, in 10 years in a perfect world when I'm 50. I would like to battle with the decision of possibly retiring at 50, you know?

And what does that mean? Retiring your business, retiring comedy, retiring movies?

I think it means just sitting down. I think it means sitting down, you know, being in quarantine. And being with my family on a day-to-day, being with the wife, the kids, and the dogs, and just being here, you know? It's a nice feeling. And at some point, when you get on the other side of life, for me, I wanna slow down. To enjoy that other side, you know, the first half, come out the gates. Come out the gates and we're running. Yeah. And at 50, if we are blessed enough to get there, that's the start of the other side. So what does that other side look like? What do you want it to look like? What do you want to do? I think for me, I just wanted to be a little slower.

Did you start to have that perspective after the car accident? and you got the car accident, then you came back for a month or two, then quarantine. And in your book, you really talk about actually the importance of solitude. Did you come to that importance in the last year or is that something you've always had? Because you're this outgoing personality, but I know that your alone time is so important to you as well.

I think it was definitely enhanced and enhanced after that.

It.

Definitely was much bigger. It was this just showed you that you're not in control. And when you're not in control.

When.

You think you are, It's even a bigger mind. It's like, what was I doing? I'm tripping. I'm tripping. Like at any point in time, this can be over. It all can be over. So make sure that you just take the time to let those know or those closest to you around you know what they mean to you and how much you love them. et cetera. Like this is a it's something that you should make a priority and that you should just be conscious of. And I think there was a period of time where I wasn't where I lost that and that for that I'm glad that, you know, I had a nice little eye opener.

Yeah, you know what I mean? Of course.

It came right on time.

Now, you and the Rocks relationship is very public. You've done so many projects together. He's got a few years on you. And I'm curious, what's the biggest lesson he's taught you that is actually you've put into practice and you've seen in great results in your personal life, career, business from his teaching to you mentorship? And what's the lesson you taught him for his personal life or career that you saw help him tremendously over the last half a decade?

Well, you know what he is, man. he really is a hard worker and he's a guy that's adamant about breaking new ground, about doing the unthinkable, you know? Like he goes after it and.

I.

Can only credit him, I can only take my hat off to him because he's doing it at the highest level possible. He's still going, he's still pushing, he's still pushing. So, you know, you look, I said time after time again, we're all writing a book, man. That's what you do, we're all writing a book. And at the end of the day, when you close that book, what do you want people to know about you? What is your story? And you know, you can make it as dope as you want, or you can make it as uninteresting as you want. Some people, best book on Earth, others don't. Yeah.

Was there any, was there anything you taught him early on that you've seen him apply and actually implement?

He learned it all from me.

He's learned it all from you.

Yeah, I teach him everything. No, man, we're just, we're just you guys that, that are so, we're, we're so open one another and we really talk and we give It's not necessarily advice, we just give each other information. And we both utilize it, you know? And we are, there's a supportive competitive nature that exists there.

You say supportive competitive nature?

Yes, yes. So in other words, it's like, hey man, I'm doing this. Hey, I was thinking about doing, I think I'm gonna do it too. Hey, I just did. You know what man, that's a great idea. I'm gonna do it too. It's not within the I'm gonna be better than you and do it. It's not that. It's, you know, and this is what our world suffers from. You know, people feel like they gotta be the best of they gotta be number one. But there's so much room out here for so many. It's just information is the only thing that's limiting the opportunities.

Yeah.

Everybody wants to be keep it secret. Everybody wants to keep the road a secret or how a secret. and it shouldn't be. It shouldn't be. There is no gold standard is given at the end of the day for being the only one that knew.

So would you say you're more about collaboration over competition?

I'm about winning and winning is a bigger win when you show other people how to win. That's a bigger win. Opening up a door and allowing some people to come through the door and figuring it out so they can open up more doors. that's a win.

Yeah.

But that's my way of thinking. People just don't understand that there's a.

World.

That has space for a lot, and it's just about us being open with sharing how. And, you know, you look at now, right? The pandemic hit. How many hundreds of millions of dollars were raised for world hunger? I mean. Hundreds of millions, right? Why does it take a pandemic? Why does it take a pandemic for us to understand that, you know, starvation is real, figuring out food is real. Some people's needs are real.

Yeah.

People don't have. It takes the most drastic thing to get the attention of, When it shouldn't, this is, this could be a cycle of what you raise money for, whether it's once a month, whether it's twice a month, whatever. I mean, world hunger is a serious thing. The water in Flint, Michigan has been dirty and filthy for how long?

A long time.

And they've had a problem with fixing it. We raised 400 million or whatever. Through the course of a pandemic to fix and solve.

Yeah, exactly.

Just showing you, you can dig into the simplicity of just thinking and logic that we complicate so much.

Yeah.

A couple final questions for you, Kevin. I appreciate your time, man. I know how powerful and important your mom was in your life and you talk about her openly a lot in your series and everything. What would you say is the overall greatest lesson she taught you that you really lean on today even more so than when you were younger?

To not do anything halfway. You're gonna do something, give it your all. We don't do anything halfway. There's no value in that.

Yeah.

There is no value in doing something halfway. Either give it your all or don't do it. Don't do it.

Yeah.

Point is simple.

What's the definition of infidelity then? Or how should we be defining it? Is it thinking about being with other people? Is it flirting? Is it what's the line? What's the boundary? What's the definition?

So the definition keeps on expanding. that's the first thing. It is no longer just because you got pregnant from somebody else. With contraception today, the definition has become: is it watching porn? Is it chatting? Is it a massage with happy endings? Is it staying active on your dating apps when you're already seeing somebody more steadily? Is it reconnecting with your exes on Facebook? It is actually rather unclear and it is often left to the people to define it. But there are three major elements that I think make it very clearer for me anyway to define it. The first thing is that it usually is organized around a secret. The constitutive element of infidelity is the secrecy. When it's not a secret, when it's consensual, it's a complete different story. So the secret is at the heart of infidelity.

So when your partner doesn't know or isn't aware, that's right. Then it's...

Yes, and of course that today requires you to ask what must be shared and what is private. What is the extent between privacy, secrecy and transparency? Then the second element is a certain kind of emotional involvement to one degree or another. Even if it's hit and run, there still is an emotional involvement. It takes effort to make something mean nothing. nothing.

Right.

So the quality of that involvement with the person, with the sex, with the feelings that and then the third one which is really the most important one is that it's a sexual alchemy. The element of sexual alchemy is not sex. We know that most affairs are way less about sex and a lot more about desire. Now desire for what? Desire to be desired, desire to be seen, to feel important, to have someone's attention, someone who cares about you, desire to feel alive, desire to reconnect with lost parts of yourself. Way more important than the sex itself. The kiss that you only imagine giving can be just as powerful as hours of actual lovemaking. The mind is the most important sexual organ. Distracting secrecy, emotional involvement, sexual alchemy. Intersecting with each other are the three central elements of what makes infidelity. But today that we don't have religious institutions necessarily telling us what is the king of sins, it is left to us and our relationships to make sense of this, to define it, to know where our lines will be with our partners, to know when we cross those lines, and if it's about thinking, if it's about remembering, it's about fantasizing while you were with your partner, if it's... It is a subject that is deeply entrenched in our lives and often very difficult for us to open up. And yet we need to because we need to help people who suffer with it.

Yeah, otherwise there's always going to be so much more conflict in the relationship if we don't talk about it, right? Right?

Look, the majority of people don't talk about any of this. Their desires for others, the boundaries they want to establish with each other, what they share sexually, what is private, what is the space of their erotic freedom even in their head, what feelings are they allowed to have, what kind of friendships do they have with others. Most people talk about none of this until the shit hits the fan. In most straight couples, the negotiation of monogamy is very simple. It's five words. I catch you, you're dead. That's it. End of conversation. And then when there is a crisis, when something breaks out, suddenly people launch into conversations that they've never had and they are finally grappling with a level of honesty about this. But in the midst of so much.

Pain, that resentment and anger, yeah.

Confusion, pain, rage, disappointment, romantic fustration, you name it. Like, could we do better? Can we do it sooner? Can we have the courage to have some of the difficult conversations before we're in the midst of a crisis?

Yeah.

I love that you talked about, I've heard you say this before at a few of your speeches, but at our event as well. You mentioned how we expect our partner to be sexy and on all the time and be intellectually stimulating to us all the time and to be playful and fun and adventurous and hard-working in their jobs and take care of the kids and all these things. We expect so much of them. But it's so hard to get everything from one person.

It's a toll party for. It's a toll order for a party of two, isn't it?

Yeah, it's really challenging.

So, yeah, I'm assuming one person to give us what once an entire Village used to provide. That's what happens. You know, you used to have a community, and the community had all kinds of people in there that gave you a sense of identity, a sense of meaning, a sense of belonging, a sense of purpose, all of this. And then you had a church, you had a religious, you know, you had the realm of the divine, the one and only was called God, not your lover, you know? And now all of this has been siphoned into one relationship. So when you have an infidelity, it shatters the great ambition of love. Because what does it say? You're not the one and only. You're not the only one. You're actually replaceable. You're not nearly that unique. You're not indispensable. And it breaks you. It's a crisis of identity. It used to always be painful, but it wasn't a crisis of identity where people say, who am I? What am I? This is not me. This isn't my life. My whole life is a lie. This whole thing is a fraud. I can't recognize myself or I can't trust, not only I can't trust you, but I can't even trust my own perception. I have lost my own sense of orientation. It is a complete shattering of the self. And that has never been so acute. And it comes because we really thought, once I find the one and I am your one, this is never meant to happen. We've been looking long enough. We've stalled marriage or whenever commitment. 10 years later than we used to. By now when I pick you, we should be clear of all of this. This should not happen.

But it's still happening more and more, it seems like today, right?

Look, it happens more and more primarily because women are closing the infidelity gender gap. Women for the first time have also the possibility to choose who they want to be with. They have no full divorce. They do not risk being excommunicated from church. and they have probably in many quarters at least some form of economic independence that allows them to take care of themselves.

So they're not in fear of like making a mistake or whatever. Yeah.

Of losing everything. They used to be the possession of men. And look, infidelity has been practically a license for men throughout history all over the world.

Because they had this power.

They had the money.

They had the power.

That's it. Male privilege allowed men to do this almost with impunity. And then we had all kinds of theories that came to explain why men are natural romancers and they are the conquistadors and they're not made for monogamy, whereas women are made for monogamy. The theory suited the status quo of the power structure, but is that really the case? So we don't know if it really goes up. because it depends on the definition. What we do know is that when it comes to sex, men and women lie. Men lie by boasting, by exaggerating, by inflating because the social pressure for men has always been to pump themselves up as it comes to sex. And women lie by denying, by minimizing and by under-representing because the pressure for women has always been to protect themselves and they needed to therefore minimize it. Minimize it.

Wow.

So we don't have numbers and the numbers go from 30 to 70% depending on the definition.

What do you mean by that?

The numbers of people who cheat.

30% of women.

No, no, 30% of the gap between men and women today is three, four percent. It's not really.

It's pretty much the same.

Country. Yes.

Wow.

But maybe six, seven percent difference. It's really minor. But the interesting thing is, depending on how you define it, you're going from 30 to 70%.

Wow.

90 of people would say that it, it's terribly wrong to lie about cheating. And the same amount of people say that that's exactly what they would do if they were on the other side.

Right.

You know, people are rather inconsistent. about that stuff. What we know is it hurts like crazy. It's a violation of trust. It's a betrayal. And people need tools, how to recover, how to heal, how to love again, and how to trust again. And we need to make better sense of why does this happen, why do people do it, what does it mean, etc.

If you were advising someone that just got into a in the last month or a recent relationship they just got into and they're watching or listening, would you advise them to have certain conversations early on once they realize they're going to be committed to each other or give it a shot and be monogamous with each other? Would you tell them to start talking about these things even when it's the puppy love and it's the romance time? Is that the time to talk about it? When do you talk about it?

That's a fantastic question. question because in the beginning you don't want to talk about it because you don't want to jinx it. And then you don't want to talk.

About it because you didn't talk about it before.

And then you're looking for the right moment to talk about it. And then when you bring it up later, the person says, have you been thinking about this the whole time and you haven't told me?

Have you done anything?

So now I'm already suspicious. Why are you to look? I think the simplest thing for the difficult conversations is to have them be integrated as part of the whole thing. When you talk about previous relationships. You ask, have you been heartbroken? Have you ever left somebody in a shitty way? Have you ever lied to somebody? Have you cheated on someone? Have you been cheated on? Have you ever made up with someone who cheated on you? Have you ever been able to, you know, do you have trust issues about in general, you know, because of your mother, because of your father, not even because of your own experience? You know, infidelity is a conversation like you talk about intimacy, like you talk about other relationships. I mean, if you go in a business experience and you're with a new partner, you probably would say, what have been your experiences with other co-founders? You know, what have been your other experiences with business partners? Have you had good experiences? Is this experience sitting on the top of a bad divorce from before? In general, whoever you choose next is always chosen by default in relation to the one that preceded. Anyway, so it is right there. And then you say, Listen, this is not because I'm thinking about it or because I want to do it. It's because I actually want to get to know you and I want to get you and I want you to get to know me. Then is the conversation too. When you love, what is your experience about exclusivity? You know, many people find it is the romantic ideal makes that question forbidden because once I have found the one and only and that is the one for whom I'm willing to delete my apps and that is the one for whom I've stopped my looking. You are now the person that has so captivated me that I stopped searching. That's it. My FOMO is taken care of. Doesn't matter that there are not a thousand people out there, you got me. you know, how am I going to then say to you, you know what? On occasion I still think about this one or that one or my ex or I have attractions. This is normal. We choose not to act on them. Monogamy is a practice. It's not a dogma and it's not natural. It's a choice. It's a practice that we exercise because we choose a certain relationship that we want to be in. So I say from the start, in an integrated fashion. No, we need to discuss some of that.

Right.

Just, you know, isn't it a normal question to ask to a new person, you know, have you been heartbroken? That's kind of a different way of saying, you know, have you... And why? You know, have you ever dicked somebody around? Have you ghosted somebody? Have you been ghosted? You know, have you had somebody who just kind of Yesterday I had a woman come to me at a conference and she says to me, Do you think people can change? I said, How many times? He did it once, he did it six times. What's the story? She says, It hasn't stopped. And I said, Look, it's eating you up at this point. I see you. It's not like I have to ask you five questions. It's eating you up a lot. How long? Two years.

So.

But she has a child from a previous relationship. And I. And then she said, but he must be suffering from something. I said, now you're going to take care of him. On top of it, you're going to be the nurse. How about you take care of yourself for a minute? Your entire. You're about to have your self-esteem crumble under you. At some point you say, no, no, because it's eating. It just is like.

Yeah. Sapping your confidence or you accept it in your. That's your relationship, I guess, if that's what you. to be.

If that's what you choose. But she wouldn't be coming to me to say, right? She was heartbroken. She's like, she couldn't talk. Yeah. When you see this, you know that you're not with somebody who says, I know my man. That's the kind of guy he is. It doesn't matter to me because I know I'm his queen. Okay. But no, no, we're in a complete different story here. She's like, you know, aching.

So how does someone regain trust then? Because we were talking about this earlier. How do you. regain trust and regain open communication if someone's been unfaithful or just hurting them for a couple of years in a relationship and you feel like it's not working.

You know, it's interesting because you're asking me this and yet you as an amazing role model have spoken about some of your own experiences of abuse. So you know this question. How do you let someone touch you? come near you, not feel like they're gonna harm you. Understand the difference between caring touch and hurtful touch. Allowing yourself to experience pleasure again, allowing yourself to surrender without thinking that while you're not on guard, nothing bad is going to happen.

Really challenging. Right.

Okay. But it's that same trajectory, right? It's like you begin to, first of all, you're, you, well, in this case, you're child versus adult, but you.

You.

Hope that it's not because one person hurt you that you lose your faith in humanity. You hope that you know that there are people who are not harmful, that they really are good people that care and love. You probably trust with your eyes more open. It doesn't have the same naivety. And it depends. If you're asking me, How do I trust you again? after you have cheated on me or how do I trust another people again? I think it's two different stories.

What about the person you're in a relationship with?

Look, it depends as well.

Because it's hard to let go of stuff in the past, right?

So it depends how long is the past? If you and I have been together for two years and this just happened, it's a different story than if you and I have been together for the past 20 years. and we have a family, and we have built a life, and we have buried parents, and we have buried children, and we have built homes, and we have created jobs, and we have a whole life together. And in the midst of this, this experience happened, and you, my woman, or my partner, male or female partner, went out. And then you kind of want to know, how did this happen? What happened to us? Where were we at? Is this related to the relationship? I think the big distinction for me is to figure out what betrayals take place because the relationship had disintegrated in some way or degraded and which ones have nothing to do with the relationship. People who have been sick, people who are unemployed, people who have lost their sense of confidence or people who have made a lot of money suddenly the other way around. People who suddenly feel like they deserve something. Because in a way, when you allow yourself this experience, it's because you feel you deserve it. You justify it to yourself. You come up with good explanations for why you, of all people, can do this. I need to understand what you were thinking about me while this was going on. Did you even think about me? Did you think what this would do to me? or to our kids if we have kids. Did you feel guilty about it? Were you tortured in any way or did I disappear from your screen and you were so grandiose that I didn't exist anymore? Did you want me to find out? Are you relieved that it's come out? Do you actually want to come back? And are you coming back just because it's convenient to you or are you choosing me again? I think the most important feature in the trust is not only that you won't do it again, but that you really are choosing to be with me again. And that you're not just here because it suits you or because I make the money or because we have a.

Comfortable family or whatever.

It's comfortable. What I really want to trust is that you love me and you want to be with me. And not that you're here while you're thinking about the person there. And that goes hand in hand with something else. I think that's probably the most important thing about hurt and the breach of trust is I come to you and I say to you, I'm really sorry that we know from any trauma that it's the wrongdoer coming to acknowledge what they've done. If the perpetrator doesn't, isn't able to acknowledge it. And I'm not calling this perpetrators, but we know in the experience that we When you hurt someone, nothing helps you more than the person who hurt you to say to you, I have remorse and I feel guilty for hurting you. Even if they don't feel guilt about the experience of the affair itself. Maybe you think that the affair was one of the greatest things that you have experienced in your life.

Fantasies or whatever, yeah.

Or you've been a mother and a wife for the last seven years and you haven't had a minute to think about yourself and you felt like you had completely died inside and for the first time you reconnect with your own sensuality and your own liveness and you remember that you're more than just a mother and just a wife, for example. So you may think this was really important to me, but nevertheless, what it meant to you and what it does to your partner are two different things.

Right.

So my acknowledging that remorse and that guilt is essential.

It's the first step.

First step.

Yeah.

And that is very different from feeling shame. Because when I feel shame and I feel so bad about myself, I can't believe I did this. It's more self-involvement right. It's more about.

Yeah, you know, make it about me so you can say it's okay or whatever. Yeah.

Yes. I feel so bad about myself that I can't feel bad for what I did to you.

Right. Right.

So I have no empathy. I still have not in the empathy. It's like you need to be able to. feel bad for making the other person feel bad. And that means that you can't be so bad about you because then it's all about you. Big difference between shame and guilt. Okay? Guilt is a relational responsibility. Guilt is an accountability to the other. That's the first one. And the second thing is that I then become the vigilante of the relationship. Meaning that I, for a while, while you are asking me the same questions again and again, because you're trying to figure this out, because your whole reality has just been shattered, I am able to tell you it's okay, I am here, just keep asking, I'll answer you. I'm not gonna say come on, enough already. Haven't we gone over this? Let's move on, let's move on, it's over, don't you see it's over? No, I cannot rush you. I have to give you the space to make sense, to be in your pain, to hurt, to get angry, to push me, to pull me, until we slowly settle. And there is a period like that of that acute crisis that you just can't push. You have to go through it because it is in the nature of the beast.

It's a process.

It's a process.

No one's going to rationalize it right away and move on. It might take some time. Some people, it takes years probably that you've been working with where it takes years for them to fully trust again, right?

But you know, even when you say fully trust, Trust for what? Like I saw this couple recently last week actually and you know I said you still leave your children with him, you have your money together, you share a home together. While your mother was in the hospital in the last year he continued to come see her every week. He still is paying for your alcoholic brother. You trust him for a lot of things. It's not one big categorical. You don't trust that he really has finished his story with this woman because you actually know that he fell in love with this woman and you're right not to trust him. You are right because he doesn't trust himself yet. He is going to take some time to come back. And this is a very ambiguous period for the two of you where it's very, very shaky because you want him back but you know he's not he's not fully back and he wants to come back, but he knows he's not fully there. But you trust him for many other things. And you need to remember that too. And it'll take a few months. It'll take a few months because he has made a decision. He wants to come back. He believes in what you've built together. But yes, for a moment, he was ready to go.

Wow.

And I. And I. My work is I hold this. I offer structure, calmness, reassurance, and I basically try to not make anybody make rash decisions because when your limbic system is hijacked, you better not make a decision about your life.

If I'm honest about where I am today, that is the only way that I can get to my better tomorrow. And so when it comes to why.

Are we lying to ourselves so much?

Because it is shameful. And a lot of times we hate that we got there.

We hate ourselves.

We hate ourselves that we got there. How in the world did I get to this place? How do I need these pills to go to sleep or to wake up? How in the world do I have to keep kissing their butt to still work at this job? Like, this is not me. This is not who I want. And so because we have disdain for who we have become, it's like if we acknowledge it, that reinforces that we're actually there and maybe we can't live with that. And so it's this vicious cycle of faking to make it. And that's why a lot of people say, you got to fake it till you make it. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Face it.

Face it. So you can make it be real so that you can actually move on to there. And a lot of people are delaying the inevitable. You can't hold up a facade forever.

No, it's gonna crumble.

At some point it's gonna crumble. The sad thing is a lot of time it crumbles when it has more people to damage. A lot of times it's almost always, right? Yeah, a lot of time it crumbles. Now I have three children and they're in relationships and now everything's dependent on me and I've built this empire of podcasting or business or fitness and now I'm in this space and place that if I'm honest, it'll cost too much. May I submit to you, if you're not honest, it's gonna cost you too much. Yeah, I'm already on one, let me stop.

So how do, have you had to heal in the last 10 years your relationship from stuff that happens every year, or is it only stuff from 10 years ago that you guys have to work on?

Bro, you know the answer to this question, man. I'm a flawed man. My wife is a flawed woman. We serve an amazing God. We were people of faith, but he knew we were gonna mess up. And there was room in the plan for imperfection. That's what I always tell people, 'cause I'm a pastor and people know I'm a person of faith and they think I'm just gonna throw the Bible at them all the time. And what I tell them, I was like, no, no, no. Just first look at my life. I've experienced amazing grace and now I have to extend amazing grace and I have to receive amazing grace. Cause I'm still gonna mess up. My wife had to forgive me for something before I came up here. You know what I'm saying? Like this is a daily walk. But that's why I tell everybody the beautiful thing about journey, if you can get this stuck in your brain and in your heart really is that this life is about progression, not perfection. I know culture sells us perfection. I know your parents may have wanted perfection from you. I know you've probably required perfection of yourself, but that is the wrong metric. This is about progression. How much did you move forward from yesterday to today? Or how much did you move past... I know you wanted to cuss them out last week, but you only said one cuss word this week, you know what I'm saying? Or last year it was about being successful, you didn't take any But this year, you actually took a few days and had soul care and self-care and spiritual enlightenment and getting back in your place of faith. Like, how did you progress? And I think for me in all of my relationships, especially the one with my wife, the one that I'm in covenant with, I have to know that I'm going to need grace because I'm still figuring it out.

-Right.

-Like, there's nobody, anybody on earth that says they're a relationship expert are liars. Nobody knows everything about all relationships. We're just trying to share from our journey and truth that we've experienced. And I know for me that in the journey that I'm in right now, I make a lot less mistakes than I made 10 years ago. -Right. -Because I've progressed. But am I going to make more mistakes the next 10 minutes? Probably, you know what I'm saying? And so, it is daily. And yeah, there's tons of healing that has to happen. from every lie, from every deception, from every wrong word that was spoken. I tell people this because a relationship is all about trust. And this is the thing that people don't really factor in. You can spend decades, years, months building trust, but this is the truth. Trust is lost in buckets, but gain back in drops. So you can have an entire five gallon bucket of trust built up. But one thing that you never said you would do, you do, and the whole bucket goes out. Gone. And now you have to come back in every day.

Drop by drop.

Drop by drop. You don't get a fount of trust built back up. And that's where most relationships fail, is because they lost the trust and they were not diligent enough to build it back up.

God, because it takes a lot of work.

But the problem is you have history with that person and a lot of times they would rather start over with somebody else to do the same exact thing instead of going back and yeah, it sucks. Yeah, no, didn't we talk about this? You know, I don't, you know, oh, come on. But no, this is valuable and I'm the one who tipped this thing over. And so, I'm going to be the one to be consistent enough or disciplined enough to put those drops back in.

What's been the biggest lesson for you in the last 10 years of putting drops back in over a decade plus with your wife? What's the lesson you've learned as a human being through that discipline, through that daily drop? Yeah. After breaking trust, you know, back in the past.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Trust is way more valuable than money. Trust is way more valuable than connection. Trust is way more valuable. There's a book that I encourage everybody to read. It's called the Speed of Trust. And basically the premise is that where there's trust, everything takes less energy. It takes less money and it has better results. But where there is no trust, it takes more energy, it takes more money, and there are minimal results. And you can apply this to business, relationships, you can apply it to your family, family. And I think our culture is one that doesn't trust. You prove to me. And at the moment that we don't go into situations with trust, there's this disconnection that doesn't allow people like the vibe's not right or all these different sayings. I think for me, I've learned that trust is probably a higher commodity than anything else. My greatest relationship, me and my wife, Natalie, don't have to be doing anything, but when I'm in a bed in a hotel with a woman that I fully trust, it's more satisfying than any platform I've ever been on.

Wow.

It's more euphoric. It's more when I can say something and somebody believes me and I don't have to prove it to them, but they know what I'm saying is real.

That's amazing feeling.

Oh, what are you talking about? Name the places you get that. Name the places you got to make presentations to make people you pay believe you. Come on, let's be honest. Because there's still not full trust there. But when you put in so much trust that that person, your yes is a yes and your no is a no. And then you fully trust what you say.

Yeah.

When I told my wife that I was going to take care of her and I would never hurt her again, and to be able to now 10 years removed, we just did a 10 year vow renewal. and we went out to this sand desert, and now it was me and our three kids, and we're sitting there and Glass Runway, it's on YouTube, and we just, like, it was just the most beautiful thing to look into her eyes and say the words unscripted that came from my heart and to look at her and knew they were hitting her heart and she fully trusted what I said. You can't tell me nothing. Like, nobody, like, there's no feeling like that. And the sad truth, Louis, is most people will never feel that. They will never know what it is to have another human being with your flaws, with knowing the worst about you. I can't hide from my wife. She knows everything that I do. She knows when I do take showers, when I don't take showers, she knows when I leave the toilet seat up or when I put it down. So in the most vulnerable place, she knows when I do my workout and when I don't. I can't hide from her. I can hide from people on social media. I can hide from people that are that I work with, but from her, I'm vulnerable. And to know when I speak, she trusts it. It was well worth everything that I had to do.

And what happens if you are 100% in integrity with your word? You're following through, you're being honest, you're showing up, you're delivering in a relationship with a person doesn't trust you.

Yeah.

After years.

Yeah.

And you're like, you have access to my phone.

Yeah.

Your passwords.

You.

You know where I'm at 24/7. Yeah. And you still don't trust me. Is that still my responsibility or is.

That the other Partners work they get to? So the beautiful thing about the story that I'm telling you, I'm telling you from my side.

Yeah.

But if you were to talk to my wife right now, there were things she had to do on her own during this whole process, or she wouldn't have made it. She wasn't sitting there, like, prove to see that you were. No, there was self-discovery she was going on. Do I want to stay in this relationship? Is this worth it? What do I bring? What do I have? What am I worth? And that's why I tell people all the time, no matter if you're a couple, you're still single. Like, even though you're in a relationship, you still have to be single enough to continue to improve. A lot of people stop improving once they get in a relationship.

Like, I got it.

Like, that's what I need to do. I made it. And all that But when you are in a relationship, there are still two very single people that need to work on their communication, work on their insecurities, work on their ability to communicate, work like, and if you stop developing your singleness in marriage or in relationship, that relationship is headed for at one point for somebody to be on another level and be like, this is not what we signed up for. Hey, I thought we were partners. I thought we were doing this together. I thought we were growing and going towards this together. And that's why I encourage people all the time, like, what have you brought to the relationship lately? Like, what skills have you improved in? Has your emotional intelligence gone to another level? Has your spiritual awareness gone to another level? Has your faith gone to another level? Have you learned a new language? So when we go, On our vacation two years from now, we don't get swindled at the, you know, like, what are you bringing to the relationship? And I just would encourage every couple not to focus on, because when I say this, a lot of times they'd be like, see, you ain't brought nothing to the relationship in three years, Kathy. Hold on one second. No, ask yourself, what have you brought to the relationship? And if you both are asking yourself, that's part of the reason we wrote that this book, Taking a Relationship from Good to Great, because it allows people to evaluate where they're at spiritually, emotionally, and then be able to say, what do I need to change? How do I need to do this? And that's the only way that you can go from good to great in any relationship. Yeah.

My friend Matthew Hussey talks about this. He talks about relationships from women on how to really attract the right man in their life, the right partner, and he said to me one time, you know, if you want to find a great partner, make a list of all the things you want from them and then become that list yourself. Whatever you want in someone else, you need to become that first and really add that value to them as well. It's kind of like what I'm hearing you say is, okay, after a year, two, five, 10 years, you have to keep becoming that list yourself to keep that partner excited or engaged and trustworthy and connected. and both parties have to be working on that list.

Is that right? I have a little different perspective on the list because sometimes the list limits you. Who?

Tell me more.

So I tell people a lot of time, because specifically a lot of my sisters, a lot of them make lists. Now they got lists. He's got to be 6'5. He's got to have this amount of money.

He's got to have this amount of money. Are they becoming the things that they want from the qualities, not the things. The qualities.

Yeah, and that's the thing. Sometimes I do believe that there are certain things that you need to be able to lay out and really ask yourself, am I becoming those things? I don't think, though, the package always comes the way you think it's going to come. Of course, true. And so a lot of times-- Like.

6'5, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And all kinds of things, even some of the qualities, because the thing is, I tell people this, you write down what what you want. I believe God factors in with your mate what you need to. See, the problem is, like, if you ask Natalie, I'm not what she wanted.

What does she want?

She wanted some big Hispanic model for lotion. Like she wanted somebody, you know what I'm saying? The typical beautiful. But what she needed was me and.

And.

When you look, a lot of people make these lists at the beginning of their list, but somebody needs to start a podcast interviewing couples who actually made it. Right. So somebody, you maybe need to do a series of relationships who lasted for 40 plus years.

That thrived.

That thrived.

Not that stayed together and resented each other. And not that were business partners. Right. That thrived, because if you ask a lot of them, which I did a lot of research, writing relationship goals, the book. When you ask them, most of them did not get what they wanted on their list. They got what they found out they needed. And the honestly, the things that I need, I don't never write down on the list because I need somebody to help encourage me when I want to go have ice cream instead of stick to my diet. I don't write that down on the list. I just write down I want somebody supportive. Well, in my mind, when I'm writing that down on the list, I'm thinking support me in whatever I'm feeling. that moment, maybe not support me in what I've decided in a different moment. And I need that, but it's not necessarily that I want it. And I found out that a lot of times when you rip up the list and start becoming the best version of you that you can be, you will then begin to see that I am now worthy and worth being with somebody who's worthy and worth being with. And you don't settle for a lot less. And that's why I called it a relationship goal. I know it's a proper a popular term in culture but I said people aren't doing good at relationship is because they don't have aim. Like they're not aiming at a goal that actually is going to produce the greatest end for them. And so, that's my whole thought about it. I do believe you got to become your best version, your best self. But then when you do that, a lot of times it creates an entitlement in people that they will dismiss the right thing because of the wrong package.

And what happens if you continue to be your best version year after year and the other person's not willing to go on that journey? Is it till death do we part? Even if they're constantly pulling you down and saying, I'm not going to work on myself, Yeah. You do all the work. This is-- I don't trust you, even if you're 100% honest.

Yeah.

Is it, you know, is that what--.

There's always provision in a relationship, especially when there's infidelity and there's different things that have happened that there may be, this may be an unhealthy situation that we can't progress in. I honestly feel though, a lot of people give up too soon on that. Yeah. Nothing good ever comes out of the easy way. There is nothing great, I'll say great, that comes out of easy. If it's going to be great, there's got to be some work that goes into it.

There's some pain.

There's got to be some pain. There's got to be discomfort. There's got to be, do I got to do this again? Are we still talking about this? And I really do believe in our society today that we rush into things because we know how easy we can get out of them. instead of taking the time. That's honestly why I've written books and done series and millions of people have watched it, because I'm trying to convince people like, hey, like, take this seriously. It's not just like, oh, we met at the bar, we hooked up, we lived together. Now we should make a life together. And I'm not saying that people haven't been in relationships that have worked like that. I'm just saying that if you had to take a test to get a driver's license and be able to drive legally in your state. It's easier to get in a relationship with somebody, build a marriage, have kids that are going to affect the rest of us with no actual preparation, no training, no required reading, no counseling, no honesty. Like, no, like, hey, just before we get married, let me tell you how much debt I'm in. Hey, just before we get married, let me tell you that your friend and that friend and that friend, I slept with all of them.

Just before.

There's no requirements. And that's why I'm saying if we don't put that in and build that into the relationships we want, how can we expect it's gambling? It's like, maybe this will work or maybe it won't. don't. I think we can be more intentional.

Yeah.

On setting a real goal. And I believe those goals need to be put on principles that have lasted in faith, that can last for a long time, man.

What are the main principles that every relationship should be founded upon?

Bro, I wrote a whole book about it. I'm gonna give you three. Let me give you three of them. The first thing has to be transparency.

Yeah.

About everything.

Everything.

Like, I had this.

Yeah.

I looked at this, any idea?

So I'll say this, you have to be wise because you have to, depending on the layer of relationship you're in right now, if you just meet somebody today and you don't even know if you wanna be with them, I don't think it's wise that you tell them everything. But I do believe that there's a difference between transparency and honesty. And many people have adopted the thought process and the philosophy of being honest, but not transparent. Honesty is when you ask me, I'll tell you the truth. But until then.

But until then.

I'm hiding something.

Yes.

And a lot of times, most of us don't get asked the questions that we need to answer. Because those questions are scary to ask.

Oh my gosh.

They're scary to ask.

And you don't want to know the answers.

And you don't want to know a lot of times. And then it automatically, if the person is not emotionally secure enough, then they're like, what you don't trust trust me, like there's so many different things that are there. And that's why I always ascribe to the philosophy of being transparent. You don't have to ask me, I'm going to offer it up. I'm going to tell you, hey, this when you talk to that guy at the restaurant that made me feel some type of way and it made me really start thinking about the insecurities of my last relationship and why we broke up. And I'm not asking you to solve it at this moment, but I'm letting you know how that made me feel and I'm just going to process with that. There's no question that your mate could have asked to get that response that genuinely. Because then they'll say something like this are you okay? Yeah, I'm fine. And the truth is no, you're not but I don't emotionally know how to let you know that honestly, it wasn't really what you did it's what I've been through. That triggered something in me and now I'm insecure about what I know I have, but it's because of what happened to me. But that takes being transparent and what I found is when I'm transparent it honestly provides more empathy from the other person to be able to man, I'm sorry you felt that way. Well, what can I do? And like that then is deepening that relationship more than it is creating a wedge between them. So, I would say number one, transparency has to be the top thing that you have in a relationship. I think that you need to have common faith goals. I think for me, a lot of things that I found in relationship is a lot of people like each other, but what their faith is founded on are two totally different things. And I think you should be equally yoked in the or equally compatible in the things that you believe. And when you do that, it's more easy, it's easier to have conversations about how to raise children, finances, it's easier to be able to go to, for me and my wife, we're Christians that believe in the Bible. And so there are certain things that we disagree on and then we can go to the Bible and we're like, okay, but this is so something that we believe together. Let's wrestle through this. Let's work through this. Let's, how does that make you feel? Let's ask somebody. There are so many problems that have been solved because we believe the same things foundationally in our faith. And I'm encouraging people a lot of times that when you do that, it creates a foundation that moves past emotions. A lot of times. Yeah, it's just like, well, I can't get it I can't get it. But then when you go to certain things, love is patient, love is kind, love keeps no record of wrong. 1 Corinthians 13 is jacking me up right now. Love offers forgiveness. Love, oh, love is long suffering. Like these are words that we have adopted from a book that we believe has truth in it and principles to live by. And because we are on the same in that faith, it corrects us sometimes when we don't want to be corrected. And that's where I tell people the Bible is one of the only books you can read that when you read it, it reads you. And for us, that has helped us. And so transparency, having strong faith foundations, and then the third thing that I would say is fun. If you cannot have fun with the person that you're in relationship with, good luck. Like, good, 'cause there's certain things.

Life is hard.

It is hard. There will be trouble. It's promised. But if you can find somebody to look at in the darkest part of the valley.

And laugh.

And laugh with them. It happened to me and Natalie on the plane yesterday. I told you before, we brought two of our daughters with us, and they're seven and three years old, and we're on a plane from Tulsa to LA, three and a half hours, You can imagine all the fruit snacks and the iPads and all of the different things. Crying. Just the whole nine. And my wife is pregnant right now, so put that on top of it. And she's trying to eat, and I'm sitting in the chair next to her and something drops off of her plate and I can just-- I can see the breakdown. Breakdown, just right up ahead like a movie. And I just look at her and I just start laughing. sees me and she breaks out. And for 20 minutes, laughing. We are dying on the plane. Not because everything's good, because we have somebody to be through and go through everything with us. And that joy, I mean, literally we got off the plane and all the other stuff, she said, I haven't laughed like that in so long. And she was just kept laughing about it. And those are the moments that I found Like I told you a little bit before but our son, MJ, he's five, he was diagnosed with autism. And this has been the greatest emotional faith journey that we've been on. He's five years old, still non-verbal. I'm the guy of faith. I lead a church. I'm a pastor, I'm believe. And in my home, there's a situation that has not changed yet and it's challenging. changed everything. The one thing that has gotten us through, or excuse me, the three things that have gotten us through are the three things I just gave you. Transparency, our faith foundation being the same and being fun. I wouldn't be sitting here today talking to you on my way to a fourth child after my wife battling depression, me challenging my calling, trying to figure out why is this happening at the moment where everything great in my life is happening. And it's those three things being transparent about how I felt and my emotions and her being transparent about how she felt and her emotions and having our faith anchored to something that was stronger than us and us having fun that I told you before we came in here, I am having the most fun in relationship. I'm not faking. This is authentic. This is the joy that I have to be because we have decided that there are some principles we have to live by that most people aren't going to show you in reality television. Most people aren't going to give you in a blog or a tabloid, and it has to be lived out. And that's what we're trying to do.

You talk about rewriting your story from the past, and I believe that we hold on to our stories, and we probably continue to write them in a more powerful way that keeps us trapped or traumatized. Is that fair to say that something happens in our past, we hold onto the story daily or whenever we're triggered and it amplifies the story in our minds?

Well, it does. And the problem is that often whatever that version of the story is, we carry with us and we never revise it. And so you create a story when you're younger, for example, about something that happened in your life. And then as an adult, you've never looked at that story through the adult lens. You're still looking at it through the childhood lens. And so that's why I say that when people come in that we're all unreliable narrators.

Yes.

That we all tell a story through, you know, this lens. And the thing is these are usually faulty narratives. So there's a broader version of the story that people haven't looked at. And so so I feel like in a lot of ways what I do as a therapist is I act as an editor and I have of course a writing background. And so I help people to revise their stories because the reason they can't move forward in the story, the reason they can't get to the next chapter is because of something is wrong with the story. They are stuck. And so it's almost like I'm helping them with writer's block.

I mean for me life is an interpretation.

Yes.

Right? There's an instance that happens and we can interpret it as good or bad, or we can interpret it as this is a neutral event and I'm going to make the most of this.

Is that fair to say? Yeah, absolutely. And also how we attribute other people's parts of the story, right? So who are the villains and the heroes in the story? You know, I talk in the book about the difference between idiot compassion and wise compassion. And idiot compassion is what our friends do. They back up our story, no matter what. this happened. This happened with my boss. This happened with my partner. This happened with my parent. This happened with my best friend. And we say, yeah, that was terrible.

Screw them.

They're a jerk. That's awful. You're right. They're wrong. Don't let anyone treat you that way. That's what we do. And if you listen to your friend's stories, you start to realize over time that even though the situation and the names might be different, the kind of story they're telling is similar. It's kind of like if a fight breaks out in every bar you're going to, maybe it's you.

Yeah, exactly.

We don't say that. That's idiot compassion.

Idiot compassion is where we as friends say, yeah, you're the best person in the world. This person's horrible. Leave them or let them go. Forget about them. They're so bad at what they did. There's always two sides to every story.

Well, right. And so the value of therapy is that we offer wise compassion. We hold up a mirror to you and help you to see yourself in a way that maybe you haven't been willing or able to do. And that's where the other version of the story comes in.

So how do we have wise compassion for our friends when they're like, she cheated on me, he left me, they had an affair, whatever. Yeah. How do we change our story and also show compassion that we're there for our friend, not making it when they're in a vulnerable place, not making the other person right or wrong.

Yeah.

Being there for them and also kind of giving them some tough love, I guess?

I wouldn't call it tough love. I would just call it-- Reality. Love.

Love.

It's love. It's much more loving to be truthful in a compassionate way. So I sometimes call them compassionate truth bombs because we need to hear them. But how do we do it? It has to do with timing and dosage. So the timing is when they're really raw, when something just happened. you know, now's not the time to say, you know, this has happened with your last three boyfriends.

Maybe you're the problem here.

Have you noticed that going through people's phones is not working well for you? We are not gonna say that maybe in that moment. So that's timing. And then the dosage is how much are you going to say in a particular moment and in a particular conversation? It doesn't all have to happen in one conversation. So I think that that has to do with being a good listener. listener. And a lot of us don't know how to listen. And I think it's really helpful. I see a lot of couples in my practice, too. And if you can say to the person, when they come to you with something, how can I be helpful in this conversation right now? I know you're really hurting. Do you want to just vent? Do you want to hug? Do you want me to help problem solve with you? Do you want, do you want my honest opinion, or do you want me to hold off and we can have that conversation another time? Let them tell you what they want so you can give them something that is helpful to them in that moment, and then in another conversation, you might be able to offer them something more.

When they're not completely raw or broken, and hurt. Yes. So what is that specific question when anyone's coming to you with a challenge or a complaint or hurt, what's the question you should ask them?

How can I be helpful to you right now? I know you're really hurting.

What does that do for the person who's hurting when they hear that?

It helps them to reflect on, oh wait, what do I need?

Right?

Am I just going to download all of this stuff and then I'm not going to feel any different at the end? Or is there something else that I want right now? And maybe downloading it will make them feel different. Just make them feel seen and understood and heard, which is important. Or maybe they want something else, but let them tell you. And I think the other thing is these three words that are really helpful when they're talking to you are tell me more. Instead of saying, when they say, oh, here's what's going on, and we say, oh, well, we try to cheer them up. Here's what you can do. We try to fix it. We try to cheer them up. We try to make it seem like it's not so bad. Whatever we do, instead just say, tell me more. We do this with our kids. I can say as a parent, we do this all the time. So your kid comes to you and says, I'm really sad about this, or I'm really worried about this. We say, oh, don't worry. No, it's not a We say, oh, don't be sad, right? Go have ice cream. Right, exactly. But the thing is that then you get the message as a kid that like, oh wait, I'm not supposed to feel this. And really what it is is we get uncomfortable as parents with our kids' feelings.

Why is that?

Because we can't, we are uncomfortable with feelings. We grew up in a way where feelings were messy, feelings were uncomfortable, feelings Feelings were something that, you know, they were gonna be trouble. As opposed to feelings.

Stop crying, stop crying.

Yes, as opposed to just, you know, feelings are actually a great thing. People say, oh, there are these negative feelings like sadness, anxiety, anger, whatever. Even envy. I always say feelings are like a compass. They tell us what direction to go in. So with envy, for example, I say follow your envy. It tells you what you want. If you are feeling envy, That's great because it says, what do I desire? It puts you in touch with your desire. What is it that I desire? And what steps can I take to get something like that in my own life? If you're feeling sad, if you're feeling anxious, what is not working right now that you can look at if you stuff down that feeling, if you pretend it's not there, it just gets bigger. And here's what happens. It doesn't go away. It comes out in too much food, Alcohol, drugs, insomnia, a short-temperedness, inability to function, distractibility, that mindless scrolling we all do through the internet. A colleague of mine said that the internet was like the most effective short-term non-prescription pain killer out there.

Wow.

And so what happens is your feelings are still there, but you're not dealing with them.

What happens when we never deal with our emotions or feelings?

Well, you first of all get sick. Physically sick, emotionally sick, mentally sick. Everything, everything, right? So we have, just like we have a physical immune system, we have a psychological immune system. And we have to take care of our psychological immune system. So it's just like, you know, what do you do to keep healthy with your body? Like you're gonna eat right, you're gonna exercise, you know, you're gonna do all the things that you want to do to take care of yourself, you're going to get enough sleep. Those things also help your psychological immune system. They're not totally separate. The mind-body connection is profound. But at the same time, are you going to be around people who don't nourish you? That's going to hurt your psychological immune system. That's going to make you sick. Are you going to stuff down your feelings? That's going to make you sick. And so how do we take care of ourselves? And part of it is, instead of trying to numb out your feelings because numbness isn't the absence of feelings. Numbness is a state of being overwhelmed by too many feelings. And then not only do you not experience the feelings that you don't want to experience, but you don't experience the other feelings. You mute one feeling, you mute the others. You mute the pain, you mute the joy. So you're living in this state where you don't actually get to feel the range of feelings that make us human.

What is that state called?

I was gonna say dead. I mean, I feel like you can be alive but not living. And that's what happens to people, is that they're alive, they're going through the motions, they wake up every day, but they're not really living their lives.

What's an assessment we could take for ourselves, if someone's listening or watching, to ask themselves how alive or how dead they are, and if the people in their life closest are actually good for them, or are hurting their psychological states. Is there a questionnaire we could take just off the cuff? Is there an assessment? Is there a few things we could ask ourselves?

Yeah, I think that it has to do with a sense of vitality, right? Which of course, like vitality, the word life is right in there. When you wake up in the morning, are you excited about what you're doing? Is there meaning in what you're doing? Do you feel connected to how you're spending your days. Because at the end of your life, are you going to look back and say, what did I do that was meaningful? You know, in maybe you should talk to someone in my book, there's a woman that I treat, she's this young woman who goes on her honeymoon, she's newly married, she comes back, and she has cancer. And she says to me at one point, she says, why do we need a terminal diagnosis?

To have a wake-up call.

Why do we need a terminal diagnosis to live our lives with with intention. Why do we need that to really pay attention? And I think that if we can keep the awareness of death sitting on one shoulder, and I don't mean in a morbid way or in a creepy way, it's not depressing. It's actually, again, going back to vitality, it helps us feel alive because life has 100% mortality rate and that's not for other people. We like to believe that, right? And so the thing is that if we I know that we have a limited time here, I think we would pay more attention to what we're actually doing every day.

Why is it so hard for people to pay attention?

Fear.

But they feel like they're stuck sometimes for years.

Yes.

It's like I stay stuck in a relationship that I know is not right for me for years. I stay in a depressed state for years. I stay in a job that I hate for years. It's all based on fear.

Well, I think it is fear. you know, I think it's fear of uncertainty. This is going to sound strange, but change is really hard because we cling to something that's familiar to us. So even though we may know, oh, this would help me. This would be a good change for me. We don't do it because it's unfamiliar. And so if you grew up with a lot of chaos, if you grew up feeling sad all the time or anxious all the time, that feels like home to you, even if it's unpleasant or even miserable.

She'll keep finding chaotic environments.

Right, recreating it.

Yeah, and so, you know, it was funny because my own therapist gave me this great analogy. He said to me, he said, you remind me of this cartoon, and it's of a prisoner shaking the bars, desperately trying to get out, but on the right and the left, it's open, right? No bars. So basically, the prisoner is not in jail, and that's what so many of us are like. We feel trapped. We're not in jail. We can change. We can just walk around the bars. But why don't we? Because with freedom, the freedom to walk around the bars, comes responsibility. And if we're responsible for our own lives, that scares us. We feel like, oh, I don't know if I can do that. I don't know if I'm competent enough to do that. Or now I'm to blame if things don't go right.

I can't blame it on everything else. Is this one of the reasons why Inmates after a long time being in prison who get out, go back into prison because they feel like they need to be back in that environment, or are there other reasons?

I think there are other reasons. I think we don't give people the support when they come out. You know, the mental health issues that they needed to be treated for were never, you know, they never got that support. Then they come out and they're back in the same situation where they don't have that community support.

Why is it so hard for us to take responsibility for our own happiness?

I think that if you grew up in a household where you were seen and heard and understood, those are the people who do take responsibility for their own happiness. I think for people who felt like they were ripped off in their childhoods, there's a part of them that's still in a fight. There's a part of them that still wants that redo. And so it's kind of like they're not aware of this. But what they're saying is basically, I will not change mom and dad until you give me the things that I did not get in childhood.

So they'll go find a partner that emulates their environment from mom and dad and try to change them so they well, right.

This is the irony of relationship, right? For those people who have not sort of worked through it. This is so common. And I think all of us have this peace in us, right? Because nobody has they had a perfect childhood. So what happens is people say, okay, when I'm an adult, I'm gonna pick a partner who really makes me feel nourished, who really gives me all those things that I did not get growing up. But what they don't realize is unconsciously they have this radar for the people who look very different from their parents on the surface. But then once they get into that relationship, it's kind of like, -oh, this feels familiar. Right? And so what they did was their unconscious said when they were picking their partner, hey, you look familiar. Come closer. Even though consciously they thought, oh, you're totally different from my parents. This is gonna work out great. But no, they have radar for that. If they haven't worked out the stuff that's sort of their unfinished business, there's this saying we marry our unfinished business. We actually do marry our unfinished business. So that is why it is so important as an adult to take responsibility and say, you know what? I'm going to have to grieve this loss of what I didn't get, and I'm going to have to work through this and assess where I am as an adult so that I pick people and surround myself with people who are healthy for me.

What if you've chosen someone that you love deeply, but it's unconsciously your unfinished business? Is that the wrong person for you once you realize, oh, they're never gonna change, Or is that a point for us to reflect back and say, actually, I need to heal the past, accept this person for who they are, and be willing to flow within this relationship?

Well, what happens is, so you married your unfinished business, but so did they. And so if you can both recognize that, if you realize, hey, wait, we have a lot of conflict in our relationship, or we're really avoidant in our relationship, or we don't feel connected in the way we want to feel connected, That's a great opportunity for both of you to work out your unfinished business.

To heal together.

To heal together, right.

And so that relationship could thrive.

If you both are willing to look in the mirror at yourselves and do the work, yes, that could be a really beautiful relationship. And it could be very healing for both of you, in fact.

It could potentially be the strongest bond ever if you both were able to go through that. But if you're unwilling to go through that, Then what?

You're gonna be in couples therapy. Both people have to be willing. Right, well both people have to be willing. I mean that's the thing. So it's like you may wake up one day and say, oh wait a minute, I have all this unfinished business and then your partner says, yeah, it's all you. You're the problem in the relationship. You know, it's kind of like in couples therapy so often I'll see something like, someone will say, you never listen to me.

And I'll say, how well do you listen to them?

Right. Right, it's always like, if you're just yelling at someone all day, they're gonna wanna listen to you. Right. Right, so there's this dance that we do in relationship. And what happens is people are doing these dance steps and people become very, they become very ingrained. It's like, oh, here we go. You can script out people's arguments. You know exactly what they're gonna look like.

It starts with one thing and then.

It goes back into many different things where you're like, oh, I don't know. And you know exactly how it's gonna go and who's gonna feel what and who's gonna accuse the other person of what. And that's the dance. And so if one person changes their dance steps, the other person either is going to fall flat on the dance floor or they're gonna have to change their steps too if they want to keep dancing. And usually, so we always say you can't change another person, but you can influence another person. How? By changing your dance steps. So for example, we like to say insight is the booby prize of therapy. Meaning people will come and they'll be like, oh now I understand why I keep getting into that argument with my partner. And so then they go home and they come back the next week and I'll say, well did you do something different when you got in that argument? Well no Oh, but I understand why I didn't. So you have to be both vulnerable and accountable when you come to therapy.

How do we fight better when we are in constant read-through pattern? Every month or every week it becomes an argument around something for whatever reason. It's a pattern. And couples start to notice it. How does one person or both people recognize and say, okay, I'm gonna change my dance steps and I'm gonna fight or dance better.

Yeah.

The first thing is to notice sort of what do you own in this? What is your reaction? So we have a choice. Every time someone presents us with something, there's a great quote in the book, it's a Victor Frankl quote, where he says, Between stimulus and response, there is a space. And in that space lies our freedom to choose.

Between stimulus and response, so between an action happening and your response to the action.

So your partner says something.

There's a window of opportunity.

Opportunity.

Yes, there's that space. Usually that space for us will look like a breath. The breath is everything. The breath, really.

If you don't breathe, you're screwed.

If you need to take the breath or you will just respond, it's sort of like we have these neural pathways that are wired, right? And someone says something and you react not just to what that person in front of you is saying, but it goes back to something that reminds you of from a long time ago, people who aren't even in the room are in that moment with you. And so that's that neural pathway. And so what you need to do is you need to take a breath. It's like a big stop sign on that road that's your neural pathway. So hold up the stop sign. You can even picture a stop sign in your mind.

Stop.

Breathe. Now you get to choose, how do I want to respond to this? Do I want to respond in the way I've responded the last gazillion times? which has not worked out well? Or do I want to try something different? So that's part one. Part two is perspective taking. A lot of people who are in really highly conflictual relationships have trouble with perspective taking. They can't imagine that the other person has a valid perspective. Now you might not agree with every piece of how they view this, but there's some overlap. between how this person views it and how you view it, but you are not willing to see that. And so, I have this new podcast called Dear Therapist and on the podcast so much of what we do is we help people to take the perspective of the other person. There's something that you are not seeing right now.

Why is that so hard for people to see someone else's perspective?

Well, two things. One is because, you know, that unreliable narrator thing that we think that we are right and we don't want to be told. And so what we hear when we say there's another perspective, we're not saying you're wrong. We're saying there's more to the story. So there's a difference between their perspective is valid as well, is not saying your version is wrong. We're saying there's more. So people hear it though as you are wrong. And the other part of it is that there's a lot of shame. that people are sticking to a certain story because if they allow that other part of the story to come in, the part that they're responsible for will probably come up and they feel a lot of shame. So when I see individuals in therapy, they come in and they tell me a story and they leave out the parts that they are embarrassed about, the parts that they feel like that was not my finest moment.

Like what? Give me an example. Like, oh, I screamed back or I.

Did this or... Yeah, yeah. like, you know, here's what happened, or this is the situation, and my partner did this, or my mother did this, or my child did this, or my boss did this, whatever. And they don't tell you these other details, and they sort of trickle out later on. And they're very relevant to the story. But that's shame, right? And so, you know, that's why the therapeutic relationship is so important, because you get to a point where you really trust the therapist, and you're able to be really honest.

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We've all been through stuff. We've all been damaged. We've all been disappointed and hurt, but we have not properly processed those things. And then we take those negative experiences and we project them onto people, we project them onto our future, we project them onto our self-esteem and self-worth and we throw everything out of whack. And now, we can't even embrace or set ourselves up for that great relationship because we're still holding on to the bad one that we experienced before. So, it completely gets in the way of people seeing progress in their life. So, to me it's like, okay, we can give you all these tools and tips on how to date and how to navigate navigating through this relationship.

-Online dating stuff.

-Exactly. And it's all useful but if you don't heal you're going to end up in a bad spot. There's no way around that it's inevitable and people who think they can ignore a lack of healing and still have a great relationship are being naive.

Yeah, it sounds like if you don't heal you're going to keep hurting yourself.

And hurting the person you're in a relationship with. Yes, and or hurting people that you could have been in a relationship with because so many people have run away or pushed away that real love because it was scary. It made them feel too vulnerable. And again, that stems from you've been hurt and so, you don't want to go back to that hurt again. So, when somebody you feel deeply for pulls out all this love and this vulnerability out of you it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is too much.

That's interesting you know, I many years ago I was dating someone. And it was like, you know, we were very connected very quickly. I felt like, wow, there's something different about this person. And after months, she started sabotaging things. Like, we were having, like, the most incredible nights. Like, everything was going great. And then all of a sudden, she would just get mad at me over nothing, right? Which seemed like nothing. I was like, what? What did I say? Or didn't say? Like, I thought we were having fun here. And then the whole night, the next 24 hours would be ruined because she would be upset about something. But wouldn't tell me. And I was like, what is going on? She was not the right fit for me in the long run and we broke up eventually. But at one point she said to me, she goes, I didn't think I'd find you. I didn't think I'd find you now at this age of my life. I thought I'd find you in my 30s. She was in her 20s. Right. I thought I'd like have my fun in my 20s and then the version of you, the idea of you would come at like 30 or something when she was ready. And she was holding on to so much baggage and like hurt from previous relationships, but she wasn't healing from it at the time.

Exactly.

She was just kind of like sabotaging and like pushing away like the vulnerability that we were creating. We were having so much connection and vulnerability, but she was just like, I'm scared, you know.

Exactly, it's crazy. Because she lost emotional control with you and that's a scary place to be in. And so, the only thing she can do at that point is look for something to be wrong to validate walking away. Because if she can't find something wrong how can she say I can't do this I don't want to be here anymore? So, now it starts to nitpick, create issues but it all stems from yes, she has not healed. I would argue that the vast majority of people are married to someone they don't even have the deepest feelings for.

Really?

Yes.

What's the percentage you think in your mind?

If I had to throw out a number, I'm gonna say 60%. 60% I'm just gonna throw out there. And it could be a lot higher.

I feel like 60% of people don't love, what did you say?

They're not married to the person they have the deepest feelings for, all right? The person they have the deepest feelings for that situation somehow went left, people run. Like in your situation, in her mind, you were too good to be true. This was not real. And she could not believe that she was experiencing this at this time of her life. And to be honest with you, she wouldn't have been ready at 30 either. Because at 30 she still wouldn't have healed. You would have came along and she'd been like, what is going on here? And so, it's a very common thing. It happens a lot more than people think. Like, I'm willing to bet there are men who are going to hear this and they're going to say oh, my gosh, that happened to me.

Wow, all right.

And people don't hear about it as much because now when that woman tells her story to someone else she doesn't say oh, he was too good, I was scared, I ran away.

He did this and he had this fault and I had this red flag.

Yes.

All these challenges came up and he looked at me, I don't know something.

Exactly, because again, she has to validate her decision and she has to make herself feel more comfortable about the fact that she ran away from you. But I'm gonna tell you right now, it's gonna hit her. It's gonna hit her hard one day. And don't be surprised if one day.

I mean, I don't know if she's gonna be okay. Oh, it's already happened many times. It's happened many times. Don't worry. We weren't the right fit.

It was, you know, it's all good.

And I wish her the best. But yeah, she's tried to come back many times.

Always, always.

It's all good. Who do you think runs away more from vulnerability and a relationship that has the potential to be great, men or women?

People gonna be shocked with women, hands down.

Why is that?

Okay, one, I think that because women are more emotionally in tune and they give more emotionally, so become a lot more emotionally emotionally invest in situations, it's quicker for themselves to feel like they're losing themselves when they feel this amazing connection with somebody. Because again, it pulls you into an area that you're not used to being in.

They lose control.

Yes, because it's like if you're with a guy that you really like, all right, and you're really into him but he doesn't call you today, it'll bother you. But it's not going to drive you crazy like the guy who you're madly into too, all right. When he doesn't call you, you might be thinking oh, my gosh, what is he doing? What's happening? Am I good enough? Women will start to question and analyze everything that will drive them insane. Also, the reality is that women are hearing so much from other women or from what they've only experienced good men don't exist. There are no good men here. This is a fairy tale to believe you can meet this a guy who's so great and so amazing. So, when they meet that guy it's something has to be wrong. It's too good to be true. Exactly, I cannot believe this is what it is.

Let me check his background record.

He went to jail. He must have secret kids somewhere. Something is going on. On the flip side, when men come across that situation they think oh, my gosh, I've hit the jackpot. Like, I found a woman who separates herself from everyone else. They latch onto it. The problem though with men is we don't typically handle those situations well in regards to one, how that woman is reacting. So, if she's feeling insecure or she's feeling uneasy we get frustrated because it's almost like well, we had this amazing connection, I'm doing my best to love you, why are you acting like this? So, now we may react in a way that fuels her fear. That fear, yeah, exactly. It creates more problems So, we do contribute to the issue but we're not quicker to run away. We're quicker to latch on and say oh, my gosh, I want this, this is an opportunity I can't let pass me by. Where she's thinking this is not a real this can't be true. I'm fooling myself let me run now before I get hurt even worse later.

Before I get too deep in and then it's hard for me to get out.

Exactly.

Wow, man. Yeah. Who messes up relationships?

More.

If women tend to run away more, if a man knows how to like manage the running this away. Who ends up messing up relationships more men or women in your experience?

That one's hard to say. I'm going to lean towards men and only because I feel like men aren't as in tune into what we're doing wrong in the moment. So, for example, the other day I had a client came to me me, his fiance broke up with him, all right. And he had said that back in earlier this year they had this argument and it was over the fact that there weren't towels prepared for her when they were staying at some family's house. Now, she's saying to him in this argument you don't appreciate me, you don't make me a priority essentially. And he's saying why are we arguing about a towel? And I had to explain to him like listen, it's not about the towel listen to her words. She said, you, never appreciate me. Let's explore that. So, I think that there's a disconnect a lot of times with guys not understanding what they're overlooking, what they're missing, not truly hearing what the woman is saying because she's not always very clear and transparent about what's going on. Which yes, is an issue which does contribute to the problems. But I do think that men knowingly and unknowingly sometimes make a lot of mistakes that cause damage the relationship. I don't want to say we put more blame on them, but I do.

In general, you're saying.

Yeah, it happens more on that side.

And when did you start to learn about relationships so well? Because right now you're not married, you're not in a relationship. So, what gives you this experience of relationship expertise and understanding?

So, it's a combination of things. One, it was ever since I was a kid, people came to me and told me their life Really? Yes, I remember being 13, I met a woman for the first time at a party. At the party, she's telling me how she's been raped, how all these horrific things have happened to her that she's never told anyone else. And I could see this was a one-time thing but this was a reoccurring theme. People I could be... I remember at the bus stop one time someone sitting next to me and then opening up and I never understood why but what that did was it allowed me to see into people's lives more than the average person does. Therefore, gain a better more clear understanding of what's really going on. But what really I think bust the doors wide open was when I went abstinent. Because I feel like as men when we still have sex on the brain and sex as the focus we don't see straight, all right. And we don't process things properly.

You were in a relationship at the time, you mean?

No, I was single and you know, I f*cked I was telling me I need to step away from women and just be abstinent. And this also coincidentally was when the business really took another step and went to a higher level. And so, it allowed me to refocus but it not just refocusing purpose and business wise, I was able to really see things for what they were. I was able to step away from situations and really evaluate, understand because so much is happening and so much It's not that we don't know, but sometimes we don't know how to articulate it, we don't know how to process and break it down. Now, that I do believe is a natural gift that I've been given. I just know how to express things in a way that people can understand it and I know how to process things and see beyond what you're showing me. Because a lot of people will act like I'm happy, I'm good, nothing wrong with me and I can see right through that, all right. So, that combination of natural gift letting God lead me as far as my purpose is concerned. But I do think that being abstinent and really taking my selfish desires out of it.

Wow. When did this happen? How old were you?

This was... I was what? 27?

You've been abstinent since 27?

There's been some on and off. I haven't been perfect with it.

Sure, sure.

But I did go a stretch of five years.

Wow.

I really think that helped open my eyes to another level and really allowed me to see things more clearly and not just see things more clearly but also fine tune how I express things because I was the person when I was younger who was very blunt, very bold, just said how I felt, didn't care how you felt about it. And I learned, you know, it's not what you say is how you say it. And learning how to convey the message in a way that people can actually receive it was something something I had to work on as well, especially as I found myself in this position. I never knew I was gonna be doing this. I never saw this as my future, but once I kind of got to that place of accepting it, I realized I had things I had to improve upon and make better so that I can truly help people the way they need to be helped.

What's the greatest lesson you learned in a partnership or intimate relationship of yours that you've had?

Don't internalize things personally. And what I mean is a lot of times we react to what they're doing or how they're talking to us or their behavior towards us in that moment not realizing it's deeper than us in that moment. It's not about us, it's about them. Exactly. And if we internalize it and we react to that, we will now make things worse and we will pile on more negative energy into the situation and it starts to make things to overcome or it can just break apart the whole relationship. So, learning to kind of take a step back and really again, hearing them not just listening to what they're saying or not just hearing them more so listening as far as listen to the key words, listen to what's really going on with them. Take your own emotions out of it don't react emotionally to things. I think that's a lesson for not just romantic relationships that's for any relationship. business, family, whatever. Don't be so quick to react emotionally. Allow yourself to process. I always tell you know how they say think before you speak, pray before you speak, pray before you react. Allow yourself to just calm your spirit, listen, process, then speak. Because too many times that emotional reaction it's just adding more fire to the flame.

What should be the key things people are looking for in any partner to thrive and maintain a relationship long term in today's society.

The first thing that came to mind is connection, all right? I am a firm believer that you can't have an amazing relationship at least long term without connection. A lot of people get by on that initial hype, all right? That initial excitement, oh, they're so wonderful, their resume is so great, blah, blah, blah. Okay, that's cool, but that's not going to sustain you. Is there something deeper there? Can you two truly be each other, be yourselves with each other? Open up, share your inner thoughts, you know, be emotionally naked with this person. If you can and you still enjoy their presence, enjoy speaking to them, you feel good when they're around you, okay, we got something we can work with here. Even if everything's not in perfect alignment, we have the foundation to now grow the relationship. But without that it's just fluff.

Is connection something that's created or is it just... Does it only happen between certain people?

It only happens between certain people.

Really?

It's either there or it's not.

You can't... And you should know it in the first few minutes or is it maybe it takes...

I won't say you'll know it in the first few minutes. I think it can vary. I think it depends on how spiritually in tune you are or how emotionally grounded you are. If you're in a very emotionally healthy place, I do think you're going to recognize it very quickly, all right. But a lot of times you pick up on it, but you're scared to embrace it. You're still rationalizing what's going on here. And we've been programmed to believe it all takes time. So, when we see this experience where two people are... It's like this they click and they're feeling these intense feelings right away everyone else is saying slow down, this can't be real or you know, you're jumping the gun. In reality, no. Because in most situations let's just say if not in a few minutes the first date people know. People know like there's potential here or there's not or this one could be the one or they're not. But we rationalize why we should entertain this and move further give it a chance waste our time and then we find ourselves stuck in situations we don't belong in. And now we try to make it work because we've invested so much and we don't want to now admit that we were wrong or we wasted our time, we're lonely. Various reasons cause us to hang on to situations we don't belong in. But we knew from the beginning like when I speak to people who are divorced and I ask them, When did you know? When did you know yet?

A lot of people like my wedding day. Exactly. Exactly. When I was walking down the aisle, you're like, why did you get married? Exactly. I hate when people answer that way.

I'm like, why would you get married? And even way before then. Forget the marriage day might have been when reality truly hit, but they allowed themselves to see it.

But then at that point, what are you gonna do?

Yeah, you gotta fall through. Your family's there and you don't wanna be embarrassed.

Exactly.

But again, the reality is that person saw it Way before, but again, they rationalized past it then and now they found themselves in this more difficult position and they can't do anything about it.

And then they get a divorce a year or two later.

25 years later. I know, listen, I know one couple who were married for 25 years. After they got divorced everyone was against it because on the outside looking in they looked like this great couple, all right? But they were miserable, all right, behind closed doors.

Words.

Well, the wife let me read a letter that the husband wrote her before they got married. I read this letter and the first thing I say is, why did you ever get married? It was clear as day in this letter that you guys should not have taken that step.

What did it say generally?

It was just in general calling out all these different issues and problems. It was a clear disconnect between the two and once I to learn the real story you saw that they did not have that deep connection. They were two people who did not fit together and what they lacked was the other thing I was going to bring up as far as what people need is balance, all right. I think too many times we're fixated on equality and not enough on balance.

The difference.

The difference is this equality is almost like all right, LeBron and Dwyane Wade joined together They both are alpha males of their team. They're both superstars. They both can shoot. There's some level of equality there. But you know what? They could not win a championship until one decided who's going to be the main person here. It wasn't about equality. It was about balance. It was about complimenting each other, learning how to work together. D-Wade or the rest of the team being able to do the things that LeBron can't do everything on his team. He needs the right players around him. So, it's the same thing in relationships. It's not about they have to be able to do everything we do we got to be able to do everything they do. It's about can we compliment each other? Can we balance each other? Can I fit in or can I have the strengths where you have the weaknesses, all right. And in a way that doesn't conflict and I believe the conflict part is when you don't have a connection they will conflict. When there is a connection that's when you're going to find balance. Because now when there's a connection we embrace our differences.

Communicate better. You can say this is what you're really good at why don't you do more of these things and let me do these things.

Exactly and we can find a way to make it a whole unit. That's how we create amazing relationships. Balance to me is the greatest key. Balance and connection, you have those two things you win. And if you look at most failed relationships they lack those two things.

Connection and balance. It might be some forced connection or they've lost the connection because it wasn't really a...

They never had the connection.

It was never true. It was like the hype of the connection. Exactly. Hold on. Sexual connection or the resume of this.

Person or the ID of this person. Well, it was more so chemistry. Chemistry is not connection, all right? Chemistry can be created, all right? And again, so using the whole basketball analogy, a team comes together, you can build chemistry. We can learn how to work together, we can learn how to coexist so to speak. But that doesn't mean we really like each other at its core, all right.

Yeah.

There's the difference. So, you can have a team where the players learn to play together but they still hate each other, all right.

So, they had chemistry.

But no connection.

But not connection.

Exactly. When you have connection in relationship that is way more important than chemistry because the connection will bring the chemistry. We don't got to worry about the chemistry part. When two people have a connection they learn.

It's like that.

Exactly.

And it's a rare thing again, we don't experience that with everybody. It's something that happens... It's rare to find someone who can say they've had that deep genuine connection more than two times in their life. If even twice, all right. It's usually once. I'm going to pretend that I'm fearfully.

And wonderfully made and I'm going to I'm going to make decisions from this heart posture.

I'm going to pretend that I am.

Not random and my life has purpose.

And I'm going to see how I.

Show up in the world as a result of that.

And I started loving the person who.

I was becoming when I believed that I was more than what just happened to me.