The 9 STEPS To Find The PERFECT RELATIONSHIP Today! | Lewis Howes

Men and women refuse to accept what the other gender desires and is looking for in a partner.

You want to talk about deep attraction, not surface level, deep attraction. The kind of attraction that gets relationships comes from.

There are many people you will love and they are not necessarily the same people that you will make a life with. Are you looking for a love story or are you looking for a life story?

Finding the right partner is challenging in today's world. That's why in this video, I bring together some of the top relationship experts to teach you how to find the right partner. If you're enjoying this, make sure to like the video, click the subscribe button on this channel and leave your biggest takeaway in the comments below. Why are relationships seemingly so hard for so many people when it's the thing we need the most to feel alive, to feel happy and feel connected?

This is the million dollar question, you know. I'm a relationship therapist for 35 plus years. I work with people in their romantic relationships, family relationships, friendships, co-founder, colleagues, co-workers. So love and work, the two pillars of our life, as Freud said. And if I could just say, why is the simple feeling of loving or caring not enough? Because the entire human drama is really complex. The same way as nature is complex, so is human nature complex.

And.

I spent my whole career studying what is changing in relationships. You know, are they more complicated today? Are they more painful today? You know, have our expectations changed? That I have answers to. I don't have answers to why is it so, you know, but I do have answers to.

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

Yes, absolutely.

Why is that?

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

Is this my passion?

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

And now it's different.

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

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

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

We want it at work, too.

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

I love this.

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

Yeah.

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

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

Is happy and thriving.

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

We have such high expectations.

We have super high expectations. I want, we want everything. We want a partner to be an entire community. My best friend, my trusted confidant, my passionate lover, my intellectual equal, my co-parent. And on top of it, I want with you to deal with all the vicissitudes of the everyday life and all of what we need to get to, all of that. And then we should also be passionate, great lovers, fantastic travelers. Exactly. And very few... Or dancing every week. So Eli Finkel has a best answer for you on that. He's a researcher on marriage. And basically what he says is that the good relationships of today are better than the relationships of history. But they're very few. Because the good, what you call that happiness, is the top of the Olympus. It's climbing the mountain. And at the top of the mountain, the view is fantastic, but the air is also thinner. And not everybody can climb the mountain. The people who get to the top, their top is probably better than the tops of the past. Now, what is the top? It used to be that marriage was for survival. Then it became a romantic enterprise. And it became what I call the service economy, from the production economy to the service economy. You want children, but no longer just eight, so you only want two, so sexuality becomes for pleasure and connection, so it becomes a service economy. It's no longer a production. And then from there you go into identity, which is what? I want to become the best version of myself, and you're going to help me do so. That's the identity story of marriage. And that goes up the Maslow ladder. Now, if I ask the question differently, I actually wanted to write that very article. About 10-15 years ago, I set out to write a piece, what are creative couples? And do you know, because creative was the word I was interested in, not so much happy, passionate, but creative. Meaning, not stable, not solid, but what is this thing, creativity? The spark. And I went and I asked almost 100 people, do you know couples that inspire you? Do you know couples that you think have that spark still? And the frightening thing was that the majority of people could sometimes come up with one, maybe two, and that was it.

Wow.

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

So.

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

I think sometimes if you lower your expectations, you're much better off, no doubt. So back to Eli Finkel's research, calibrating expectations is probably one of the most the three main things for what he calls successful relationships. And calibrating doesn't mean you lower your expectations necessarily, but you also diversify them. You don't ask one person to give you what a whole village should actually give you.

That was the first thing. What's the second? You said there's three things.

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

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

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

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

I just wrote my current blog, which is a little bit of a critique of this taking care of yourself first. Okay, yeah, yeah. Thank you. Because you learn to love yourself in the context of your relationships with others. You know, this idea that you go first to work on yourself here and then you prepare this little nice little package and you bring it to relationships. That is completely off, actually. It's interactive. You do it, you need a good amount of self-awareness, but you also need to be in relationships because it's people who help you become more aware.

Practicing it.

Practicing it, but other people let you see who you are. It's by being with others that you get to know who you are, not just by sitting there alone and say, who am I? Who am I? But this is a relational perspective on life, and I will stand by that. read the newsletter. I really poured myself into that one because I'm tired a little bit of this. No, what I will say to you, I'm tired of the go fix yourself first and then go be in a relationship. Relationships help you to become who you are. That's what happens between children and their caregivers. The next thing is instead of constantly thinking who's the right person I'm going to find, why don't you ask yourself who do you want to be? Who should the other one be? No, maybe it's on occasion, ask who will I be as a partner? Who have I been till now in my relationships? How have I shown up? What is it that I do? Not just, you know, finding the right person. That's now, what does it mean to find the right person? And there I will say the simplest way of looking at it is this. There are many people you will love. And they are not necessarily the same people that you will make a life with. Are you looking for a love story or are you looking for a life story? Ooh, that's good.

You understand?

Yeah.

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

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

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

For all the people at your treats or the women who are watching or listening at home that just want to find their match, their partner, what's the first step they can take to start getting out of the weeds of like failure after failure and start seeing some progress to greater potential matches or a couple of things.

I mean, firstly, there's a guy called John K. Who wrote a book called obliquity. And the whole idea of the book was obliquity is when you reach goals through indirect means. So if you take building a business, you're far more like, if your goal is to make money, instead of focusing on making money, focus on all the things that provide value to people. Because the making money part will be the byproduct. If you focus on, I need to get rich, I need to get rich, I need to get rich, you're probably not going to do the things that are going to get you rich. Because what makes you financially wealthy, the relationships you take time to build, that often for a long time, you don't ask for anything, you don't even care to, you're just building, you know, the products that you create for no reason, then you just think that they're great or that you think they have value or whatever the service that you provide people, it's just, it's not, what's the quickest way for me to make money? Most people like that don't get rich.

Right.

In a relationship, there's all these things that build a relationship. that really have nothing to, that don't feel like they have anything to do with a relationship. Like who would say knowing what you would do with the next 10 hours of your life if it was free is actually going to be a huge determinant of the health of your relationship. It's like ones over here and ones over here. Shouldn't we be talking about how to have better sex? Shouldn't we be talking about how to communicate well with my partner? No, we're talking about you being an independently attractive Purpose driven independent independent person who is attractive just to watch from afar because of the life you lead that's gonna lead to a much better relationship by the way even that will lead to better sex. Yeah, because your partner looks at you.

And it's like this person more attracted.

This is a person this isn't just an extension of me. Yeah, this is a person so it's the indirect things that I that contribute. And so let's now take that to the single place. I'm single. What do I do next? Understand and study, and this is a big part of what I do in my work, so I'd encourage people to come check that out. Study the things that contribute to getting you a relationship that often have nothing to do with getting a relationship. the things you do with your spare time?

Do I, you know, do I do...

If I want to learn yoga, do I do it on my own at home with a YouTube video? Learning yoga, by the way, on its own could be a good thing just because it makes you more interesting, you have more to talk about, you feel confident in yourself, all of that. But okay, now let me do a more sociable version of that. Let me go into a class where I might actually have the chance of meeting other people. Maybe they're not men, maybe they're other single women, but other single women are useful too. Another indirect variable because you have more single friends or more fun friends, more charismatic friends, friends who come knocking at your door going, Hey, we're going out. Get out of your goddamn pajamas. We're going out. That person is going to be great for your love life.

Makes you more desirable, how much value.

And makes you leave the house. Instead of staying in every weekend, makes you leave and go to places where people are. The books you read, who would say the books you read have anything to do with your relationship, but they do on a date when you have shit to talk about.

Absolutely.

Right? So there's all these factors. Now, the reason I'm saying that, because of course there are direct factors, but look, my programs in my company, which by the way, people could go to howtogeettheguy.com to go and find all of these, but the programs I have there are about very direct things like how to flirt, strategies, how to meet someone, how to do this, how to do that, but that's one piece of it, right? It's, I encourage people to do all those indirect things and then someone can't say, I'm just sick of going out. I give up.

On what?

On what? Like someone said that to me in a seminar and said, I just feel like giving up. Tell me what.

On yourself, on life.

What are you giving up on? I want to hear this. Tell me. What are you giving up on? Well, I don't... Meeting people? Meeting people? Would you not meet people? If someone said you can never find the love of your life, that's off the table. Would you really stop meeting people? Your need for a human interaction would disappear? I don't think so. You'd stop flirting with people? That's part of your character. Being flirtatious is a part of who we are at times. So why would we lose that? Being sexual? Would you really lose that? You're gonna stop being sexual just because the end result isn't coming? I don't buy it. stop doing hobbies, you'd stop getting out there. All the things that you have to get rid of to say, I'm done with relationships, are things that would absolutely erode your life. Even if you take the relationship out of the equation.

Yeah.

So I think people have to, I understand, I know there is a terrific level of like dating burnout right now. And if you're out there feeling that right now, I I urge you to think about this differently and to say, I don't have to constantly have it in my mind. I'm trying to meet someone. I'm trying to meet someone. I'm trying to meet someone. That game gets boring. And now when you go on a date and it doesn't go anywhere, you're a failure.

You're exhausted.

Yeah, I'm done. See it as life. This isn't dating, it's life. It's meeting people. It's experiencing a great conversation. having a fun moment of interaction of flirtation, doing things you want to do anyway, doing hobbies you want to do anyway, because they'll enrich your experience of life. All of those things are really important. You don't have to call it dating. Just go live.

It's kind of like the analogy you said about running a business. If you're focused on I need the relationship, whereas like I need to make a certain amount of money is getting the relationship as opposed to Why don't I add value to the world and I'll attract the customers that will pay me and I'll make some money.

Because I need to make money focuses on things that make the short-term economics work. And those things are generally not good for a business. That's it. Same in love.

I want to ask you a couple of final questions. This just came to me. I don't think I've ever asked anyone this, but since you're the love guy, I'm going to go there. Typically, I would ask the three truths question, which is what are your three truths if it was the last day of your life? But I'm going to ask you a different spin on this. Imagine it's the last day of your life and you've been in a committed, compatible, loving relationship with the woman of your dreams for the last 30, 40, 50, whatever years. and you've been a part of this journey and experience where you've built this incredible castle with all of its dents and wears and tears and love and magic and unicorns and everything. And it's your last day and you've got to, the lights are going to go off and you're not going to be on this world anymore. And your partner has one more day. to live. Hypothetical. You're 150 years old.

Your partner has one more day to live.

Your partner has one more day to live. Let's screw that. Your partner has a few more years to live. She's gonna live a little longer than you. And you get to write three things, a love letter to your partner, about the three things you loved about her the most. that brought you the most joy, the most incredible life from this relationship that you built together. What would you say or write to her are the three things you love the most about this woman that she would remember and go on for a few more years afterwards?

But that would be specific to a relationship, right? To a specific person.

To that relationship. Yeah. To that person and the relationship. Imagine the relationship is everything you could ever dream of. Got it. You created the relationship of your dreams. It's the golden standard for the world. To look at a relationship and say, wow, they lived it.

They did it.

They loved. They went through it. They were vulnerable. It wasn't perfect. But man, this couple is the golden standard.

Man, okay.

What would you say are the three things? So I want you to go there because I believe you're gonna create that in the relationship that you want to create. What were the three things you would write a love letter to your wife on your last day about the three things you appreciated the most about the love you created together? That.

Maybe one would be youe made me feel safe enough to be the best I could possibly be. You know, your love made me feel so secure. gave me such a platform to go and make an impact in the world on that. That, you know, and I. Don't get me wrong. I think we should have our internal security, but I felt so secure in the relationship that this gave me, this relationship gave me the energy to go out there and do amazing things with that energy. So I made a bigger impact in the world. because of the energy that your love gave me.

I'm getting chills already. This makes me emotional just thinking about it.

See if I have anywhere to go from there.

So safety, security.

That you, you made me feel.

Like.

I wasn't alone in the world. And I don't just mean because we had each other. You can feel very lonely in a relationship, especially if you don't feel seen. But you find someone who sees you, you know, who really gets you. And all of a sudden you don't feel so alone in the world because life is lonely. You can have tons of people around you, but there's a certain existential loneliness that many people feel in life.

That.

For moments or times evaporates when you feel a true connection with someone and you see each other. You go, wow, that to me is transcendent. So your ability to see me made me feel less alone in the world. And I guess.

You.

Were a role model for me.

Wow.

That through observing you and seeing the way you live and seeing the way you approach things, that there were so many times where I noticed you were better than me. And that taught me how to be better. It taught me how to you. I grew because I saw the way you were.

Wow.

And that showed me, no matter where I thought I was, being around you showed me how wonderful people can be. And that made me want to be more wonderful. I guess those would be three.

It's a beautiful love letter. What's the letter you would write to yourself? You're 200 years old. It's the last day still. And you write a letter to your 32-year-old self. 32 now?

31, 32 in a couple of weeks.

You write a letter to your 32-year-old self and say, one piece of advice, looking back at what you'd say to yourself on how to become the best partner to create that magical relationship.

One thing I would say, looking back at myself.

Here's what you need to do to become that partner with that other person. Here's what you need to let go of. Here's what you need to step into. Here's where your ego needs to take a check.

I think how many things do I get?

Give yourself a few.

Let's do a couple. I think I always loved just the idea of you question everything. thing, you know? Don't, that thing that you take for granted that you're right about, you know, question everything. Because it's, I mean, it's just amazing to me the things I look back on now and I no longer agree with what the 23-year-old version of me thought, the 25-year-old version of me thought. And I think understanding that, at least we're not very good at thinking about all the ways we might be wrong today. But we're really good at knowing the ways we were wrong before, right? And it's more, that's, you know, if you think of a lot of self-improvement people, right? Gurus, leaders, whatever.

Yeah.

People want to call themselves. They struggle. They're very good at telling stories of how they fucked up. Ah, five years ago or ten years ago.

But now you should have seen me then.

But not many people are good at talking about today. And I think that that's a kind of blind spot we, most of us have in life, people in general. And I think if we can apply that thing of, oh yeah, God, I was so wrong about that five years ago. I was so, I couldn't be more wrong about that. And I know that now. We should apply that to the next five years too.

Yeah.

You know, in the next 10 years and say, there's a lot of shit I'm gonna look back on five years from now. and say, God, I did not know what I was talking about. That doesn't mean we should not trust ourselves on anything. You know, there's, I've heard it said, you know, strong opinions loosely held. You know, it doesn't mean we shouldn't be passionate about what we think now, but it does mean we should leave room for questioning. And to that end, I think I would tell myself to be kinder to myself over the course of my life. things that I'd, mistakes I'd made within relationships. I have definitely, I have definitely been the person and even today have to wrestle with making, doing something that I know, oh, that wasn't the best reaction to that. I wish I'd have handled that differently. I wish I'd have said a different thing. I wish I'd have phrased that differently. I wish I didn't say that. and then really, really beating myself up for it. You know, not letting it go. Even after you've finished the argument, even after you get to the other side.

Holding on to it, yeah.

Continuing to berate yourself for it. And the shame about that is that it lacks humanity. It makes us forget that we're human. and that we don't get everything right. And the only way we're gonna get more right is by making certain mistakes and learning from them.

That's true.

And it also stops us from being effective because that energy that we're putting into berating ourselves is actually stopping us from doing the very things that would move everything forward from that mistake. It doesn't make relationships better. Mistakes actually make relationships better. very often.

Because you learn or you hopefully you'll learn.

You learn.

Those things, they really can transform mistakes can transform relationships but not if you sit there consistently dwelling on them. They make relationships better if you can improve from them and move on and be the thing you want to be now. So I think I would tell myself to be kinder to myself. for mistakes. To not obsess over things I should have said or done differently.

Yeah.

You know what, to that end, we should, halfway through this interview, I was kept losing my train of thought. And probably you were gonna edit that out to be kind to me.

I'm gonna keep it in.

Let's keep it in.

All right. Don't beat yourself up over it.

Give people the real shit. Matthew Huss, he's really eloquent. Oh, look at the way he could string a thought together. Well, I lost my train of thought three or four times. I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened. I couldn't think of the thing I was gonna say next. I kept blanking. Okay, show people that. That's inspiring. Oh fuck, if Matthew Hussie can be in the middle of an interview and just go completely blank and not know what the hell he was saying. Then what am I worried about? That's more interesting. And that's, you know, that's a real relationship. A real relationship, that's the real stuff. That's the stuff we're not seeing when we see other people's relationships and everything. Things are great and everything. No, this is like, if we want to change our world. Forget the world for a moment because it's always seems a bit grandiose when we talk about changing the world, but changing our world. Let's bring in the real because that genuinely changes things. You know what makes relationships better? True realness, vulnerability, people living their truth, people being more real, being more upfront, more direct. You know what makes you more attractive on a date? being more real, not going there. You people worry about their hair and is this all right? Tell a real fucking story on the day. That's what's gonna... You want to talk about deep attraction, not surface level bullshit. Deep surface level bullshit is in 2D on Instagram. Deep attraction, the kind of attraction that gets relationships, comes from real stories. Real shared experiences. And if you want, and if you do want to change other people's worlds, as you know, because you're so good at it, it's bring people the real.

Yeah.

Because that's more inspiring than the guy who sits there and does great for an hour and always knows exactly what he's gonna say.

The perfect person, yes.

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 gonna 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 it is?

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 got to be some pain. So, there's got to be some pain, there's got to be discomfort, there's got to be Do I gotta 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 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 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. I think we can be more intentional 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.

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 of them. Let me give you three of them. The first thing has to be transparency.

Yeah. About everything.

Everything.

Like I had this thought.

Yeah.

I looked at this. I did 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 want to 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 you're like, what? You don't 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? that then is deepening that relationship more than it is creating a wedge between it. 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 in the, are 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 something that we believe together. Let's wrestle through this. Let's work through this. 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 that- Triggers. Yeah, it's just like well, I can't get it and I can't get it. But then when you go to certain thing 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're on the same level 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. Like, 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. Because 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 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. Just right up ahead like a movie. And I just look at her and just start laughing. And she 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 fine. 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 nonverbal. I'm the guy of faith. I lead a church. I'm a pastor. I'm believed. And in my home, there's a situation that has not changed yet. And it's challenged 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 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's 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.

What has been the biggest challenge for you during the rise of your personal brand success, the church success, the audience.

Growth.

The financial growth, what has been the biggest challenge emotionally on how you've handled the emotional weight with the information about your son, the stuff with your wife and everything. How do you personally manage the emotional weight?

So there's a scripture that I go to all the time. And just because I'm a man of faith, there's a scripture that says, cast all your cares on the Lord because he cares about you. I have to I have to offload daily. And most people carry daily. They keep picking up more, they keep picking up more. And every day I go to my secret place of meditation, of spending time with my Creator, and I say, Hey, everything that's happening in this life, I'm casting it on you, because you care for me. I'm mentally casting it. I'm not going to-- I got to let that go. I can't fix the situation. If I could pay for MJ to talk, I would, but I can't, so I'm casting it. I have this organization that's reaching millions of people, and I've never led anything like this in my life before. I have people's jobs and lives and benefits and everything, but I'm casting it. And what ends up happening is it doesn't make it go away. It just means I don't have to carry it alone.

The weight.

The weight. That's where anxiety and pressure and bad decisions and not resting and all that other stuff comes from. Imagine going to the gym and doing squats, 200 pounds on you do the squats, you do your 10 of them. Killing. Lewis Howes is a beast. Imagine walking out of the gym with that on your shoulders. Driving with that on your shoulders.

That's exhausting.

Doing the podcast with it on your shoulders.

Like, you can't sustain it.

You cannot sustain it. And I think the weight of life people feel that they have to carry all the time by themselves. It doesn't mean that I'm not gonna have to squat stuff every day. But I'm gonna squat it and then I'm gonna cast it.

Do you think there's a way for people that aren't in your faith? Yeah. Who don't believe.

Yeah.

In the same things you believe. Is there a way for people to let go of that weight even if they don't have the same faith?

I believe there's a way to start that process. I believe the first thing that you have to realize is you're not in control. Like, no matter what faith, no matter what you believe, where you came from, make the sun come up 20 minutes early.

You can't.

Like, add another hour to the day. And I think there's this false sense in a lot of our beliefs that make us feel like we're in control of stuff. There are certain things you are in control of, but there are so many more that you're not in control. The business failed, coronavirus.

Who?

We didn't, how? Like, and so I think that if you first recognize that you're not in control, then it gives you the ability to see what you are in control of. You are in control of the toxic relationships you let into your life. You are in control of what you do with your time. One of the other reasons that I feel like during this, what I call the whirlwind of change in my life, why we've been able to sustain and be anchored is because I made some very hard decisions to do less when everybody was telling me to do more. I can't control that my son has to go to therapy three times a week and I can't control what's happening with this business and with this, but I can control what I do. So, when we went from four speaking engagement requests in 2017 to over 3,000 a year later.

Crazy.

Nuts. I still did less than five.

Really?

Because I knew that I couldn't control everything. But what I could control is the pace that I was graced for. Like, I believe everybody has a pace that they go that they're graced for. And anything that you do outside of what you're graced to do, you have to sustain or carry that weight by yourself. How many people? You got a successful business but somebody told you you need to double it. So, you started another one and now the other one's killing you. You were graced to be successful at that business but because now you've seen some success and you want to do it, now you're going to lose your family three years from now because what was supposed to be enjoyable and now give you freedom to be able to spend time with your wife, your kids, your family, your whatever like that. Now you've put something else you weren't graced for and now you're falling under the weight. Those are the things that I really do believe that when people step back out of this, like I got it all handled kind of mentality and say, hold on, I can't control everything, but there are certain things I can control and they start taking off the things that they that awaits on their life. And putting those aside, I believe that gives you the margin. This is a big word that people need to adapt In 2021 is margin. Most people do not have margin for life.

They don't have a margin of time, space, mental energy, money, right?

Nothing. So at the moment, you're at the brink of everything. And when life happens, 'cause it's gonna happen.

You're gonna break down, man.

And this is why- you- can't hold it all up. This is why somebody that's worth a half a billion dollars can jump off a building because what you got everything, you got all the connection, you got everything. It's because there was no margin. There was no relational margin. There was no financial margin. There was no spirit. And I don't know what it is for every individual, but everybody has to be able to evaluate that in their own life. And I think that is something that is key to everybody being healthy.

I think I heard on an interview you talked about where you had a mentor that taught you about or just told you, hey, listen, as you continue to grow, it's gonna be important to have space time every year that's just for you and family.

Yeah.

So when was that? Who was that? And how has that process been?

So I am grateful and thank God for mentors, ones that I've met and ones that I haven't met through books and all that other stuff because you don't know what you don't know.

Yeah.

But you can learn from people who have been there before, and I became the lead pastor of a church in 2015, Transformation Church. And shout out to Transformation Nation, anybody watching, I love you. But I became the pastor of that church and what ended up happening was a mentor set me down. His name is Tim Ross out of Dallas, Texas. And this was such a divine moment in my life.

How old were you?

I was 27, 26 when he told me this. and I'm about to take over this church. I didn't know anything about leading this type of congregation. I was a music producer. I was supposed to be at the Grammys, and now I'm about to be a pastor of a church. I'm like, what in the world is going on? And he said, listen, you're going to need a month break every year so that you can be able to calibrate what has happened to you, how to heal from it, and how you move forward. I'm like, there's no way I can do this. It's February and I'm about to be the pastor of the church and I'm leaving in June for a month. I was like, I'm gonna come back. There's no church gonna be there. The building's gonna be burnt down. All that. He said, no, no, no, no, no. I'm telling you, if you don't take time, he's like, even if it's not a month, whatever you can get, if you don't take time to do this, he said, you,'re gonna look up and be somebody you don't wanna be. And I had the presence of mind to say, all right, I trust you.

I trust you.

I don't know that. When I tell you, Louis, that this has given me more mental clarity about my calling, my relationships, my family, my future, and my success than any other thing, it's better than meeting anybody. It's better than networking. I get to be with me and my creator and decompress and relax and celebrate and grieve and be able to grow. And it's like being flushed out and ready and open for whatever's next. And it has been the most life-giving relationship goals happened after I was on sabbatical. Like every great thing that I've ever done came after after I took a break.

There's a lot of people that are like, I've been single for years. I can't find the right man. I can't find the right woman. What is wrong with them? Or is nothing wrong with them?

There is something wrong with them. I don't want to say it to insult them because I don't want anyone to feel bad or beat themselves up. But the reality is that if we're not getting the results we want in life, there's an adjustment we need to make. You know, people who are successful, they understand that. We didn't get to where we are by simply saying oh, it's just the way the world is and I can't do anything about it, there's nothing wrong with me. No, if we're not seeing progress, we need to make adjustments. So, in regards to relationships, I think one of the biggest issues is that men and women refuse to accept what the other gender desires and is looking for in a partner. They want the other person to accept them as they are. This whole take me as I am flaws and all nonsense, all right. That only keeps them stuck in being single or having to settle for less than they actually desire and would actually make them happy. If people would just accept the qualities and things that the opposite gender needs they would see greater success and a lot faster.

So, what do you think is the number one reason people are single who don't want to be single?

Again, I think it boils down to not tapping into what the opposite sex is looking for or not tapping into what the type of person you desire is looking for. So, it's like, okay, for example, if you have a man who says he wants a woman down, let him be the leader of the household. And will trust his decision making so on and so forth. But you refuse to accept that she needs financial stability from you. You refuse to accept that you may have to take on some of the burden of the bills. Not that she won't contribute, but if you want that kind of dynamic, that kind of woman is looking for a man who will first lead financially, all right. On the flip side, if you're a woman saying, well, I want a man whose passes stuff together who's an alpha man but you're exuding nothing but masculine energy all the time, you're not going to get that kind of man. You have to tap into femininity because that's what attracts the alpha man, the masculine man so on and so forth. So, again, it's like we're not tapping into the qualities and things that that person would desire in a partner. We just want them to take us as we are and give us what we want. And it's like no, it doesn't work like that.

Why do so many people continue to live in that, I don't know if you call it a fantasy world where it's like, what's the famous quote? Like, if you don't accept me at my worst, you shouldn't deserve me at my best or something like that, right? It's like this fantasy world of, okay, I get that men and women and individuals are going to have bad moments in their life. We're not all going to be perfect. We're not always going to be at our best, but we shouldn't always be at our worst either. And if you're always at your worst and not improving, why should someone settle for you at your worst consistently? Is that fair to say?

That is fair to say. And I think that's another big problem is that people are looking for partners who will take their works. And it's like listen, yes, they should be able to get past the rough moments that you have. As you mentioned, we're going to have those moments we're not perfect, cool. But you're supposed to bring your partner your best, all right. Like, you shouldn't always be coming home and bringing nothing but drama and stress to your partner and say hey, deal with it because you're supposed to love me, all right. And it's like, yeah, cool. If you had a bad day, a bad week, I'm there for you. But if every damn day is bad and you're stressed out and you're stressing me out, you can't expect to have a healthy relationship with that. So absolutely, people have to get out of that mindset. What would you want in your partner?

If you're going to be your worst all the time, would you want to be around someone who's their worst all the time? It's not going to be fun or fulfilling It's going to be stressful and overwhelming and you don't want to get into a relationship to deal with more stress. You want to find someone can support you with your vision and creating more joy and fulfillment and happiness. So I think a lot of people need to realize, like the thing I love about my girlfriend the most is she keeps me at such a high standard for myself. She continues to elevate me to say, how can I be better for me, for my dreams and also for the relationship? you know, if I start to slack off in certain things, she lets me know, like, hey, it's okay for a little bit, but consistently it's not, it's not what she wants in a relationship. Absolutely. So I think, and the same for her, like, I tell her, like, hey, listen, you know, you're bringing a lot of stress to this relationship. Like consistently, it's time, it's time that we shift. We've, we've addressed it. You felt it. It's okay. It's been a couple weeks now. Let's get back to vision. Let's get back to responsibility. Let's get back to, okay, what are some habits we can create together, some goals of the week we can create. to get us out of this funk. And I think a lot of people had a lot of stress the first couple months of COVID And maybe some of them were just like, we're not the right fit for each other. And maybe some just didn't have the tools to be able to figure out how do we get through this together? What are some of those tools when both partners are down and out and stressed and overwhelmed and both lost their job and both are dealing with money challenges and both are, you know, what are some tools we can get back on track with to have a thriving relationship.

Communication is number one. We've got to be able to talk to each other. But I think in times like that, it can still be difficult to have these verbal conversations and both parties have a lot to get off their chest. So that's why I'm such a huge fan of writing letters because I feel like at that time, it will allow both parties to have a full release, all right? Because you gotta imagine if we're both going through it, Then we're both trying to get our side of the story out or we're trying to express how we're feeling. And that's a long conversation that can have a lot of distractions. Things can, you know, cause you guys to maybe even forget.

Bring up stuff from the past that wasn't even a part of this conversation. Exactly. It's the worst.

Exactly.

We're trying to address this one thing and you bring someone up from six months ago, right? Exactly.

Or someone gets offended and they get defensive when you were just trying to be honest. So much can go wrong. So to me, when you write a letter, it really gives you both parties, it gives the writer a chance to get everything out and to assess proper tone and delivery with the message. It gives the receiver time to process and really take it in and listen to understand not to rebuttal because in verbal conversation, it's very easy to listen to rebuttal. But in the letter writing format, you don't really have an opportunity to rebuttal right then and there. So you're more likely to actually take it in. So I think communication is definitely a big part of it.

Hey, it's Lewis here and I would love to connect directly with you. Text me the word YouTube to my number 614-350-3960 to receive weekly inspirational messages from me.

I also think that if we're going through hard times, we need to at least identify one day out the week where we don't talk about any issues, all right. All right, cool. We already know we're out of work right now. We know we're stressing. Worrying is not going to change that. Let's pick a day where we just enjoy each other. Let's just have fun. I don't care if it's watch Netflix all day together, laid up in the bed, whatever. Let's just enjoy each other and we agree on this day we leave all the drama and stress alone We can return back to that tomorrow. That way, I feel like, you know, when you're constantly discussing all the tough times, you're putting a wedge between each other and you need something to bring you two back so that you don't drift too far apart. And so I think that having that day of us time is going to be extremely beneficial for people who are going through it.

When someone meets someone new, whether it be a moment, five minute conversation, a couple hours or whatever it may be, when is the appropriate amount of time to know that this person could be One of the people that you spend the rest of your life with, a long time with, could be your love partner. When should we actually know in our gut, in our mind, and bring it together that, okay, this is the person? Is it a moment instance, yes, or is it once you learn after months? What do you think?

It's very instant and immediate. So here's the thing. Society has brainwashed us to believe that love and identifying it takes time. That's a lie. In most situations when it takes months you have not fallen in love, you've learned to tolerate them, you've grown up.

Wow. You've enjoyed a part of the process, it's giving you connection, you're not lonely.

Exactly. And when you've invested months you are more likely to not want to walk away from it because all the time and energy you put in. So, now you mistake attachment to the investment as love and it's not really love. When you sit down with people who can say they felt a real or they have a real connection with their partner. I think every story, I don't know if any one story that's opposite of this, they will all say it was pretty much instant. First date, you may not know 100% fact I'm going to marry this person, but you knew the potential was there. you knew like this could be the one that at least came to mind. And so, again, when we don't have that in that first conversation, that first day, it's unlikely. I'm not going to sit there and say it's impossible that it can happen days later or a week later or whatever. But typically, and even if you can't articulate it as you knew they could be the one, when people look back they can tell you that they felt something very strong in that initial engagement with their partner that said they knew something was different. They may not even know what it was, but they knew, okay, this isn't normal. This isn't like the rest. Something's going on here. And then there's a full realization of this is it.

What is that something that we can't understand, that feeling? What is that called? Is that just like your magnets connected to each other? Is that your energy is so attracted because there's so much opposites or it's so much similarities? what is that force that gets people to say there was something different about this person when I met them?

I personally believe it's your spirit recognizing its match. Because there are, if you speak to a lot of people of different religious beliefs, there's a belief that things happen in the spirit before they happen in the physical, all right? So, it's almost like the spirit is ahead of us, which is why the spirit knows the truth, which is why intuition gut instinct, third eye, whatever you want to call it, it always seems to be accurate because your spirit knows before you know. So, we're feeling it within our spirit. The problem is it's getting our mind in tune with the spirit. It's allowing our heart to accept what the spirit is saying to us. But we feel it we just don't know how to always explain it. Those who are very in tune with the spirit can recognize it much quicker and accept it for what it is much quicker because they're very in tune already.

Why is it so hard for our mind and our heart to get caught up to our gut or intuition of that initial explosion of chemistry? And also, can that explosion of connection and chemistry be harmful in a different way?

Okay, so one, fear. Fear is the number one reason why we struggle to accept. So one of the things I explain to a lot of women, you know, and I have my membership group for them. So I've had this discussion where I say, listen, you know, the difference between intuition and fear is logical deduction. So, when you're trying to analyze and break things down, that's your mind, all right? And fear is coming into that because you're saying, well, I shouldn't do this because of that or this can't be this because of that. Intuition requires no logic. Your spirit requires no logic. It simply feels, it senses, it knows. That's it. You don't have to explain again, gut instinct doesn't require things to logically add up. It just tells you this is it or something's wrong or this is right or whatever the case may be. So, fear is the number one thing and that fear stems from lack of healing from past relationships. We've been down this road of emotional investment. We've gotten hurt before. We've been wrong in our lives about wanting to believe someone could be it. Even though we know this feels different, we still have the fear of disappointment that creeps back in.

How do we let go of that fear and not sabotage an amazing opportunity in a relationship?

You got to heal from your past. There's no way around it. And this is why I say people who have not healed, they can meet their connection right now, the most amazing partner and it will scare them to death. And they will either run, self-sabotage, something. It's going to be a problem because they have not healed. And when you have not healed, the vulnerability that's required in connection is so unlike anything else or with anyone else that if you don't have a level of confidence and again, a foundation of healing in your life, it seems way too overwhelming and scary. So, you've got to heal in order to not find yourself sabotaging, running away, and not being able to embrace that real love.

What if both parties come to something and there's this explosion of chemistry or just instant, like, wow, there's something different feeling and both have not healed their past, but they stay together, they figure it out, and they're together. Is there going to be a lot of problems and trauma and stress that comes up over the years if they both haven't healed before they get into a relationship? or can they heal in the relationship together?

It is possible... Let me backtrack a little bit. First, let me say that people have to understand there is a such thing as right person, wrong time. All right. People don't want to believe that there are a lot of people who reject that idea. They say oh, if it's the wrong time, it's not the right person. That's not true. You can meet that individual that you have an amazing connection with but both parties still need growth before they can come together. All right. And so, now is... What happens if.

They come together and they haven't healed?

So, here's the thing, it is possible to get through that and survive and have a healthy relationship. It is unlikely for most people to survive being with someone you have a connection with and you have not healed. Again, most people won't even allow themselves to be with that person.

They'll sabotage it so much they'll dive in but then they'll cheat or they won't respond to the person, they'll do something, right?

Yes, and speaking of cheating, they tend to have a history of going back to an ex because the ex feels safer because it's not as vulnerable over there, all right. I can maintain more emotional control, it's familiar so it's easier. So, I've seen plenty of situations where again, the connection was so overwhelming so they ran back to their ex. No one is not, they're not for the ex is not for them and they're not for their ex. But again, it just feels safer there. So, yes, a lot can go wrong if you try to be together when you have not healed and you have this connection. It would be best to acknowledge, okay, you know what? We got some work we need to do. We realize we have a connection here. Let's work on ourselves in the meantime before we take that next step.

Can you heal while having sex? with one or multiple partners for fun on the side.

I'm not going to say it's impossible, but again, highly unlikely. Sex is such a distracting thing. And we have to understand that so much can come from our sexual interactions. There can be new drama, there can be hell, an unwanted pregnancy, there can be a host of things. And all of that will derail you in the healing process. You also have to be honest with yourself. You may be having the sex because you're trying to distract yourself from the healing. Like, the sex is just a coping mechanism for you. Same as drugs, same as alcohol. People turn to these things because they don't want to deal with their reality in life. So, you've got to be honest. Are you trying to just bury your head in sexual interactions or is it just... If it's happening in a natural flow of life, Okay, then there's a greater chance that you can survive this, but you got to be really careful. I would suggest cutting that off.

Yeah.

If you're trying to heal, you know, again, I don't want to say it's impossible, but you're going to make it.

Extremely difficult and highly unlikely for sure. I want to ask you about the best ways to meet someone these days, 2020 moving forward, the do's and don'ts for online dating. But what I'm hearing you say is that you shouldn't be trying to meet someone, you shouldn't be doing the online dating game until you've fully healed, or at least started of the process of healing because healing is a journey. Sometimes things take a lot longer to heal fully, but at least acknowledging and starting that process, what would be a process to start healing your past relationships or pains before we get into the conversation of do's and don'ts of online dating?

Okay. So of course, going to a therapist or coach is the ideal thing to do. you typically need that outside party that can help you process some things, help you see new perspectives, and go through a process of healing. Now, I will be honest, not every coach and therapist is going to help someone heal. Sometimes it just turns into a venting session. So you've got to be real careful about, okay, if I've been going to this therapist or coach for many weeks or months now, what progress have I really made? Have I been resolving or have I been coping? because many are teaching you how to cope and manage and how to function within your brokenness, but they're not resolving it and helping you heal. Now, of course, you know, I'm big on healing. So I have my book, Love After Heartbreak, which gives people the exact steps to healing. So one of the steps, I'll give you the first step, is getting the hurt out in front of you. So it's this who Hurt Me list. And so you get a piece of paper, you write down who hurt me and you ask yourself the question, who hurt me? and now everyone who comes to mind, you put them on the paper. Doesn't matter if it happened very long ago, doesn't matter if you think you moved past it. If they come to mind when you ask the question, then that means there's some kind of relevance there. And so now you put them on the paper and like two sentences of what they did to hurt you. This will now at least help us identify what you've been holding on to and where the hurt is and what needs to be properly addressed. And then from there, we can do the other steps of getting things off your chest and forgiveness and all these different things that's involved in healing.

I love that. I'm a big proponent of writing letters to people that you never send them, telling them how it made you feel, what you're frustrated and angry about with them, forgiving them, letting it go. And then I like to burn the letter and bury it as well in the ground to hopefully create a sense of like, okay, this was alive in me and now I'm killing this and this feeling, this energy, and I'm putting it to bed and putting it back in the world to hopefully create something new, to grow something new and more loving and powerful and create that intention. But I think that's really important. When should we know that we have are healed enough? How do we know when our healing has gone far enough of that on its journey before we should get into meeting someone new, putting ourselves out there on social media, online dating apps and things like that?

All right.

Well, first thing I want to say is now there are going to be times where sending the letter to the person is actually the best thing So.

What do you think they should do?

Really?

Yes. A lot of people are scared about that. And it's a very difficult hurdle to jump. But I literally got a DM today from a woman who read the book. She wrote her letter last year was to her mother. She didn't want to send it. She held on to it. She said she just finally built up the courage because I tell them in the book 99% of the time I'm going to tell you to send the letter. And so she finally did it. And she said they end up having the best conversation they've ever had in their life. Now they're like the best of friends, like it's taking their relationship to a whole new level. And it's not, that's not the purpose of sending it, but there's so much good that can come from taking the extra step of actually sending the letter and making sure that person is aware of how you felt and what you were going through. Now, in regards to knowing when you've properly healed, number one thing is when you can embrace being fully vulnerable with somebody. All right, if vulnerability still scares you, you have not healed enough, all right. You've got to be willing to open your heart. We can't say we want love and then put walls up around our heart and be afraid to give it to someone. You're contradicting yourself, you're working against yourself. So, you've got to be willing to be vulnerable. You also have to make sure any negative perceptions that you've held onto due to past experiences you've done away with them. So, for example, if you have been saying all men are dogs because you've been hurt by so many men, well, you can't be out there dating and still screaming all men are dogs. That's not going to work in your favor. You've got to accept that good men exist and you can receive a great man, that you deserve a great man. So, when you have a more positive outlook and way of thinking and listen, we're going to all have our negative thought moments. that happens. But your dominant or more consistent thought pattern is positive, hopeful, and things of that nature. Now, we can say you're ready to get back out there.

Everybody's dreams are lies because they don't exist, right? Everybody's dreams are they're just making that up and that's why other dreams. And so the difference, though, between people who are successful or not is how they choose to pursue those dreams. So let's just say I had a dream to become an Olympian. I always, in my mind, picture that dream on the top of a staircase. And I have these series of steps that go down. And every step represents a quantifiable smart goal that I'm going to put on there.

Right.

So let's say I've got a dream.

Speaking my language, because I would frame my dreams and goals.

100%.

So, I'm gonna get out of bed every day and exercise for 30 minutes. I'm gonna get out of bed at 5.

Step one.

Exactly. What's step two? I'm gonna get out of bed every day, right? And I'm gonna find myself a coach. That is from the very, I am gonna, I love what you did when you went to New York City. Same thing Bruce Jenner did. When he decided he wanted to go to the Olympics, he found out where the best people were that were training for the decathlon. He went to San Diego. and he started training with them. Step number three, I'm going to find the best person in my field and I'm going to be relentless and pursue them and train with them. If that means I got to pick up their shoes, if that means I got to clean their toilet, whatever that is. And that is you start putting those steps in there. Now, when you put those steps in, be like, oh, success came. No, they're going to say, no, hell no. Just like they said to you, what are you doing here, Gringo? You don't belong here. This is Eastern European handball.

Exactly. Right?

But now you got to say, stop. Don't let that come in. That's where you use the power of affirmations. Stop. We talk in psychology about this thing called centering. Physical actions that you'll see athletes do.

Like a trigger, like some like a snap of a rubber band.

Stop the negative stop.

Slap in the face, whatever it is. Yeah.

Replace deep breath in. You got this.

Yeah.

Right? Whatever that is. ever it is when because you're gonna be on your step, your first step, I didn't get up today. You start again tomorrow.

So you need that mantra or positive affirmation or stopping process and then a mantra, right? Yes. You gotta stop and add a positive affirmation.

Make it automatic and recognize that it's a skill. Get your three. You got this. I work harder than anybody. Nobody outworks me. I can learn everything. Whatever it is, get it ready and then figure out what your trigger is gonna Don't mix it all up. Get your trigger. A friend of mine was when he was trying to quit smoking, he put his hands in there because he always jingled coins. Another person, always their keychain, shake shake. And then it becomes automatic. Becomes automatic and that's where you want it to be. I got this. You can't beat me cigarettes. No, no, no, not today. Whatever that might be. But recognize how important it is to ladder up that step because if you put that big dream out there, it becomes so overwhelming. Where am I going to start?

Start.

Oh my gosh. The tiniest step is the one that moves us towards our goal. The tiniest step. And then do you celebrate after you.

Reach the next step? How do you... You've been studying. I feel like I've studied a lot of sports psychology just through the practice of sports and then reading a lot of books and interviewing a lot of.

People, but I always love everyone's take on it. This is, I think, a mistake that people make is they don't take a moment to make the celebrations. And so they don't ever get to reward I just tweeted the other day somebody who graduated from high school, university, and I said, Savor the moment. You're a person from Yale, she will speak about savoring. That's a big component about happiness. And savoring means live in it, feel it, relish it, embrace it. You know, and sometimes it's cold and you want to just get out in the sun, you're just like, ah, and you just feel it. That's savoring. Pausing, slowing down, engulfing it. It's almost like when something's happening, like pull yourself out and just watch yourself with your friends and appreciate it.

Because those moments don't happen that often. No. You've got to really create those little moments every day in order to make them happen. I remember when I, my whole dream was to be an All-American athlete growing up. And when I took on the goal of doing this into decathlon, I told you before the show a little bit that I you know, I had six months to train for the decathlon my senior year. I decided to do it my senior year. I waited. And I remember I got the top eight are all Americans in track and field in each event. And I got eighth place. And I remember I was like, my whole life I've been dreaming about this. I spent six months of like sacrificing all sugar, waking up at 6am, falling on my back on the pole vault and all these different, you know, heartaches over the last six months. I finally was on the podium holding the trophy. I have the trophy in the other room still. And was like so happy and then 10 minutes later I was miserable. And I found every reason why I wasn't good enough. Why I should have gotten sixth place or how I messed up this event and how I didn't do this right. And I put myself down more and more and continue to beat myself up. And I was like, you know what? I'm gonna go out to the next goal. because I don't feel the way I want to feel, so I got to go achieve something greater and bigger to believe in myself more. And I kept doing that and realizing no matter how much I achieve or accomplish, I need to savor those moments of celebration, not even just at the end of the celebration or the end of the goal, but each step along the way I need to celebrate because it's not about the end.

You have a thing that what we would, I would identify you with a thing what we call maladaptive Perfectionism in the world of sport. So we all, perfectionism is a good thing, right? Until it becomes a bad thing.

Obsessive, yeah. Right?

And so when perfectionism hinders your ability to have joy, to move on, to pursue something because of your fear of failure or you're never good enough or you can't relish your accomplishment, it becomes maladaptive.

What's maladaptive mean? Bad, bad adaptive.

Yes, right? It's bad for your skills, right? And so just, it sucks. And then it inhibits you. And you'll see this in a lot of high performing athletes who are driven to excellence, that that perfectionism becomes so debilitating that they then can't perform. They can't get in the flow.

Yeah.

Cheeks meant to hail like flow. Yeah, yeah.

Right?

They can't get in the flow.

Yeah.

They can't be present because they're so anxious and worried about everything else.

I once had an athlete, who, his game just started going down further and further. Every time he had a mistake, oh gosh, oh. I remember he's like, well, I think I should make nine out of 10 passes, 10 out of 10 passes. And then I remember taking him and putting Roy Keane, a famous footballer on TV, and showed him how Roy Keane made four out of 10 passes, five out of 10 passes. The very best footballer in the world. And you 19-year-old kid wants to make.

10 out of 10? Yeah, good luck.

Changed his mindset. It allowed him to let go of being excellent. Because if you're perfect, then you could be, but then you're not stretching. You're in some place that's comfortable where you can be good and excellent. But if you're moving forward and you're driving to these new places where the skill is novel to you, you're a new boss, you're a new leader, of course you're gonna screw up. That is the example of you pursuing excellence.

You need to fail in order to grow. need to mess up over and over again to then see and adapt and change and get the feedback necessary to improve.

Yes.

It is part of the process. You have to fail over and over again. Amen. It's how you handle it with a positive affirmation as opposed to I suck, I'm stupid, I'm horrible, I'm never going to be good enough. It's how you would change that. What's that? What is it you call it in psychological terms when you stop and then adds a mantra or what's that? Cycle up. When you mentioned earlier about, okay, when you do something wrong, you stop it with the trigger.

Centering.

Centering, and then you add a positive mantra, is that what you call it? Centering.

Centering. So whatever you're centering, and all that is, is it gets you out of your head, center here, now you go forward.

In the moment.

Yeah.

Because so many of us are never in the moment. What about this situation when you don't have the skills or the repetitions, you haven't done the steps, but you've got a big opportunity that just came in your, on your lap. You've got an interview for something you're really excited about. You've got a first date of your dream girl, whatever it is. You've got this moment and you're like, man, but I don't have the reps. Yeah. I don't have the preparedness. I don't have the confidence. I don't have the skills. Do you just say, I'm not going to go into this and I'm not going to take on the challenge or the speech in front of an audience when I haven't practiced. How do we lie to ourselves in a positive way to get through that moment and do the best we can without falling on our face.

It's a good question because what your level of preparation in terms of readiness for the event versus my level will always be different. You might have done a thousand repetitions and I did 10,000 and I'm still not ready. So, this is true no matter who you are, no matter where you're going into that new and novel situation. and one of the things you have to let go of is being perfect. When you set yourself up to go into that event and think that perfection is the only way to excel, to measure success, it will never happen. One of the things I've always said to myself is this is a process. What am I here to learn? And so that is one of the questions I always tell myself.

But this is a big moment. This is the opportunity. It's came to me. What if I fail?

And you're going to embrace failure because that is not the outcome that measures your success. If you come into something and say, Success is only if I don't make a blunder. When you make the failure, you're done.

It's over. You might as well give up.

Exactly. And so reflect on it. It is the reflection after the event. I am in this. I know I'm not ready, but there's lots to learn for me going now. And when I do this, I will now be better prepared for the next time.

Yeah.

I'm a new vice president. I've been, I will say, average at best. Oh, I've screwed this up, screwed this up. I gotta do this better next time. That's always in my head is, man, these are great teachable moments. The next university that gets me for a vice president is gonna be really lucky. What am I saying?

I'm not saying, right?

What am I saying?

See how I'm interpreting that?

Yeah, of course. It's all interpretation.

Life is an interpretation.

This is true.

So confident people, they interpret feedback differently.

Yeah, so true. You're speaking like a self-help coach, huh? I am a sport psychologist. It can't help. But interpretation, I mean, when I've studied this emotional intelligence training for a long time, out of need of suffering and pain and holding on to past hurts and not healing and trauma and all these things, where, you know, I realized the interpretation of being sexually abused as a kid, holding on to that for 25 years as this horrible, painful thing is what kept me down. But when I flipped the interpretation and said, yeah, this sucked and I don't wish it on anyone, but what did I gain from this and what value did it bring to my life and how can I improve and make sure this doesn't happen to any other young boy out there in the world? what content can I provide and how can I become a better human being because of it? That interpretation switch gives me more joy, more passion, more love, happiness, as opposed to holding on to a negative story interpretation and making that my life. Yes.

And recognize that, you know, you are doing what's known as protective factors to protect yourself from that, the trauma that that caused. And when you were able to get and embrace that conversation, you know, I can't speak for yourself, but I'm assuming you were able to let go and move forward through it.

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And it takes, you know, it can take you a long time if you continue to hold on to that. You're never gonna be truly fulfilled if you hold on to that. And so you've got to learn how to interpret things differently. My girlfriend broke up with me. You've got to learn how to say, this is a blessing. not a painful thing. Even if it is, someone died in my life. This is horrible. How can I celebrate their life and not hold on to the pain forever? It's all about interpretation. Guy Winch, I don't know if you've studied Dr. Guy Winch. He talks about rumination, like holding on to rumination of anything small, big, or in between and grieving, holding on to this for a lifetime of ruminating on something that you did wrong or that didn't work out well or what you you forgot to do, that rumination process will continue to make you doubt yourself on everything you do if you're holding on to it forever. So that's powerful. I'm curious. So it's all about interpretation. When you have a big moment, a big opportunity, you got one shot. Even if you fail, you got to interpret it beforehand. I had a coach that would, because I used to get really nervous speaking in front of people. I used to be terrified. I don't know if you were terrified speaking in front of people.

No. On stage.

When I was young, you had to play the piano or the Recitals. The organ, yes. Nobody wants to play the organ.

Oh my gosh.

I sweat bullets underneath that seat, man.

Wow.

Yeah.

Oh my gosh.

I had a speaking coach that after years of training and speaking, I would still get nervous in front of audiences. I didn't know why. And I called him before the speech and he said, you,'re still worried about what people think about you. You're still worried about failing in front of people or forgetting to say something. you're going to fail. It's not going to be perfect. He said exactly what you said. And think of your speech as you're here to serve the audience, not to look good in front of the audience. And when I switched that interpretation, I was able to be more in flow and more free and not worried about what people think. Love it. But we are so concerned about this, about what people think about us. How do we overcome that opinion of other people? The judgment, the negative feedback, the gossip behind our back that we don't hear, how do we let go of that fear?

You're asking a question my wife, the counselor, the social worker would talk about right now. One of the reasons why we are so concerned about what other people think and how they look at us and what they think about us is because, to be honest with you, we don't love ourselves. And I know this is like, what the heck? When we are not comfortable with who.

We are.

When we're not appreciated by the people around us, we go elsewhere to find it. But one of the key things is that we do that because somewhere along the line, somebody has put us down, somebody has shut us, somebody has told, and then we've owned that, to your point, then we've worn it like a cloak of shame, and we're embarrassed, or we don't feel good about ourselves, you know, there's lots of things you could go back and you could study psychology and say, you know what? He wasn't loved as a child, his mom or his dad or his sister or his wife or whatever, right? But all of those things we don't have control over. And so it's when we start to just really look at ourselves and embrace who we are, whatever it is, warts and all, when we really try to just get past all the external pressures of who we are and what society wants us to be, and can truly love ourselves and appreciate the one skill, the one talent that we might have, whatever it is, then we stop performing and needing it to come from Johnny or Sally or Frida out there, whoever that is in the audience, then we don't need it. And then we're okay if we fail. The key though, and you said this right there, is that people will interpret all their skills a little bit differently. And sometimes you need that person, that one person to just remind you of that.

A cheerleader, yeah. How do you love yourself when everyone and especially you have reminded yourself of how horrible you are all the time? How do you acquire the skill of loving yourself? And then also, how do you love yourself without being too egotistical or too into self indulgence so much?

So let's start with the big one, which is the ego.

Right?

Because I don't believe loving yourself is about telling everybody else. To me, loving yourself is about the things that you tell yourself. It's about how you're putting yourself up and forgiving yourself for your mistakes. It's about how you're willing to look past your baubles and just like, Hey, whoa, four diving. You know, the other day I was at a job interview. Oh my goodness. And the interview started at this time and it was on Zoom. and I made the time zone wrong, and I showed up a half hour late.

I'm the worst.

I'm like, holy sugar sticks. And I was just beating myself up, and my wife said, hey, you gotta love yourself. And she just reminded me, I got other strengths, I got other things. This one mistake does not define who I am. And I think that's really important. And so then I was able to move forward. But I want to make sure that for all your audience out there, there are people that are mentally unwell. And some of those folks might be battling depression and battling whatever different psychological challenges where it's hard for them to love themselves. And they need to either engage in counseling, they need to engage in whatever that process is to get themselves well. I'm not speaking about those folks. Well, just flip a switch. Because we need to recognize that some people have different chemicals that are in their brain that are really impacting their ability to make rational decisions and rational thoughts. And so I don't want somebody sitting here and listening here. I can't do it. There's something wrong with me. There are many ways and there's processes and systems and you have to get help when you're unwell and you're not able to navigate this process by yourself. And if you've been trying for a long time, engage others. Nobody does anything alone.

Yeah, right.

Just like, put together your team. And so that's an important team. Team is so powerful.

If you're a life team, you know?

Yeah, if you've been struggling and you've been using the tools, the letters, the affirmations, all of these things, recognize and it's hard. There's a stigma with mental health. For me, it's if you needed to wear glasses, Louis, because you can't see the board, then it's no different than somebody who has to get a counselor or who has to do cognitive theory. therapy because it will help them get to where they need to be.

The expectation that people have as human beings is so great right now. It's so high that the world is judging everyone who has any influence to be perfect on every level of every word they say, action they take. And yet, what I'm hearing you say is you need to fail, you need to make mistakes, you need to be an idiot sometimes. so you have perspective. And it sounds like for the next decade, two, maybe more, you're going to make a lot more mistakes.

You don't know what you're going to do. That's the fucking amazing thing about life. That's literally the amazing thing about life. You have no idea. It's your job to try to do your best to grow. and to set up whatever you can for those around you. And if you don't have people around you, then you're living for yourself. But it's your job to do the best that you can in doing that.

Yeah.

Along the way, you gotta.

You're gonna.

You're gonna make mistakes here. Here's the.

That.

That is so simplistic. that people just don't get. Who do you think plans to go to fucking jail?

Who?

No one.

What bank robber do you think ever put the plan together to rob a bank to get caught after?

Not many.

Who?

You don't think they all think that they're gonna be the ones to get away?

Right.

Yeah, you don't think that in their mind, this is, this is going to be a life changing moment. You don't think that people that overdose on drugs think that there's no shock that it can happen to them. You don't think that there's, there's actual mistakes that happen within bad decision making.

There is.

You don't think that the person that bungee jumped thought that this would come back up. You think that person knew it was snapped? these are all just really just examples that I'm pulling out my ass. But these are all examples.

Yeah.

You know, my little girl, my daughter, she went to go pet a dog and a dog start growling and barking real crazy. My daughter ain't went to go pet a dog since. Think that she thought in her mind, this dog is nice because all dogs are supposed to be nice. It's not until you see that they're not that you know they're not. so I say all that to say you have to experience some down to know why you're getting up. You know, like this.

This whole.

The whole thing of a canceled culture and the consequences being so severe for so many, it's ridiculous. Do I think that there should be consequences for people's actions? Absolutely. Absolutely. But are you telling me that you should never be able to recover from a mistake? Then why the fuck do people go to jail? Aren't you supposed to go to jail?

To learn.

To learn from your fucking mistakes so you can get out and then do better. That's what this whole reform thing is. It's like you send me to jail to go do better.

And get better.

And then I come out and because I was in jail, nobody wants to allow me to get better. It's a backwards thing. So are we teaching lessons or not? Are we, do we want people to improve or do we not?

Right.

What do we, what do we say?

How do you, yeah. How do you personally handle the emotional side or the weight or the pressure of media or whatever, just the online internet world or potential sponsors or brands or shows. They're saying like, oh, you're in the middle of some adversity right now or some controversy. How do you personally deal with the emotional weight to not let it affect you? Because it seems like you just continue to thrive no matter what mistake you make here or there.

Well, it's, it's a, there is no pressure. And here's what I mean when I say There's no pressure. Okay? If you make a bed, lay in your bed. Bottom line, you made it lay in.

Okay?

So in laying in that bed, whatever comes with it is what you're willing to take because you made it.

Hmm.

Right now, yes, I have to maneuver differently. Yes, I have to make sure I carry myself in a certain way. I'm a CEO, I'm a brand, I'm a business, and there's a lot of layers of that go underneath the machine that runs the world of Kevin Hart now. There's a lot of people that are involved in that world.

So.

I don't have the fuck it, fuck it attitude, but I do have an attitude of, I've done my share of shit. And in doing it, I've addressed it. And in addressing it, I made my share of mistakes within addressing it. Learned from that, too. I've done all of that. None of this stuff has affected the character that I have. None of it has affected me to start to doubt me.

Really?

I am. Never doubt yourself after all this.

Wow.

I know who I am. I know what I am. And in knowing what I am and who I am, you can go look in the mirror and go, oh, that.

Was a dumb move.

Oh, you're. You're a jackass. I'm not a bad person. So within my relationships and Partnerships, I think that I've done a good job of letting you know, them all know who I am, and they see who I am, and we have a really good relationship. So in the future, moving forward, I have a job to do to protect those relationships because I care about them. I value them.

Right.

So.

So I can't just. I can't just move willy-nilly because that means that I'm not. I'm not staying true to my relationships. And that's what the older you get and the more you experience things you learn, not just about you, it's about others that can be affected by what you do. So now I see that, I understand that. The younger version of me didn't see that or understand that. And there was a high level of fuck it, man. Look, I'm not gonna deal with this, because this ain't got shit to do with this or that. And that's not the right attitude. But if I didn't have the wrong attitude when I had it then, and if I didn't understand what I know now, I wouldn't be prepared for this next wave of shit that may be coming my way or may not.

Right.

If it does, I'm prepared for it now. I'm at least prepared. I'm at least, I'm in a different space of understanding. I'm in a different space of knowledge.

It's almost like going back to the Last Dance. You know, Jordan was talking about the, you know, when he had to go through all of it publicly, how much that took a toll on him at first, but then he gave him the experience for the future and for his friends when they went through scandals and stuff to be able to be a leader in in that situation and have more knowledge. And it sounds like you're in that situation right now. I'm curious about your wife. I asked this, the Rock did a live about a month ago on his Instagram. And I asked a question on there and he answered it. And it was really powerful response. And I'm curious what yours is to this question. The question is, 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.

Her understanding for reality versus false reality is so crystal clear. You know, it's not, it's a, 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 type of a sell. I mean, it's, 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, there's a root against. And she experienced a lot of that, you know, a lot of, 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 the same. 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 gonna 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.

Are in a relationship, right? That's. That can be considered a solid household, a marriage or anything you show.

And.

And if you don't see that, separate yourself from that for a second and.

Then make a decision.

When she looked at 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.

If a pregnant woman went through what she went through.

Yeah.

Delivered a healthy baby. An amazing mother to not just her child, but my two kids, which she acts as a stepmother, stepped up on so many different levels while taking one of the biggest punches in life. What the fuck? 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, are hard things to overcome and deal with. they're very hard.

Yeah.

So when you, when you, 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, that's a thing. That's a, 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, 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, they had an attitude. They're going through some stuff. I think the, the craziest thing is, you know, they were going through something and they were, like, really down about it. They were just pissed. They want to do something, and I'm like, I said, the thing that's crazy, but 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 success.

Yeah.

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 your order book. Yeah.

My son, you know, to my son and my daughter, and it's like, yo, cowboy the fuck up. 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. Cowboy and 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 shit that acted as lessons that have hit. But if you don't embrace those moments, then you're missing out on the beauty of life. 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.

It's not the amount of time, it's the quality of the time and the presence of your quality of time. That I find, which is most powerful, at least in my relationship, where I may only have a half hour to an hour of time a day, certain days, maybe right now, but my phone is not anywhere near me. I am looking in her eyes the whole time. I'm engaged, asking questions. How's your mom? How's your family? How's this? what can I do for you? Can we play a game right now? Can we do something fun? Can we dance a little? It's the presence to the quality of time. And I'm sure the more time you have, better, but it's got to be quality time from my personal experience. Are you finding that that's what I guess women and men want as well when you're coaching people?

Oh, these issues go both ways. You know, men can have the same insecurities as women can in these situations. And it comes down to which partner might feel busier, which one has got more to do right now. It could be like if you, it's a tough situation if one person in a relationship right now and they're living under the same roof feels like they've got tons to do and tons of purpose and tons, you know, like I can lose myself in my mission and what I'm doing right now and their.

Partner is... and be fine. And your partner has lost the job or lost this or. Right.

Or I haven't figured out what my thing is yet. I don't know what, you know, you have your mission. I don't know what, like, what I do.

I'm waiting for you to come home every day.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

I'm sitting here picking random hobbies out of thin air because I feel like everyone keeps telling me now's the time to learn a hobby.

So I'm like, should I learn guitar? Should I. Right. Or. Or worse, I'm on social media watching everyone else's perfect relationship. and everyone else thriving and I feel less than.

Yeah, exactly. And that, by the way, that's really, we've got to be really careful of that right now. We're used to comparing ourselves to others on social media through the lens of, you know, we're seeing their highlight reel.

Of.

Their life, you know, oh, they're traveling now, look at them sipping a beach on the cocktail, look at them doing this skydive, look at, we're seeing the highlight reel of their life. I think now we're seeing the highlight reel of people's emotions. so in quarantine, people don't have that life, right? We've not got all of these activities that we could be doing, but we're all of a sudden seeing that moment where someone's just finished their yoga workout and they post and they're like, you know, I'm, you know, I got this quarantine. Just did my yoga, blah, blah, blah.

And you're like, on the day.

Exactly. But, yeah, exactly. But you're not seeing, like, Matthew Hussey in the moment where he's, like, super grumpy and, like, irritable and just like, today is not, this is not my day, and I'm not feeling it today, and I don't want to make a video today. And, and I've made a point of saying things like that out loud because I, I think it's important that people get the full spectrum of what other people are going through because guess what? Other people are going to dark workplaces. Other people are having their freak outs. Other people are having those moments of depression or deep melancholy. People are having those, but it's not necessarily the things that they're posting about, especially in the worlds that we operate in, Louis, where there's a hell of a lot of people wanting to show how well they're doing under circumstances, how positive they're being and so on.

Yeah. What would, what advice would you give to people that are feeling really lonely because they just went through a breakup, whether it be the end of the year, or months ago, or maybe, you know, they just went through a breakup this week in the middle of quarantine, and they're lonely, they're alone, they're emotionally hurt, and they're needing that kind of quick connection again. They're needing, they might go back to the person because they're feeling weak and they miss that feeling of connection or love or intimacy. Yeah, but they know it's not the right fit for them long term. They know. But this is in a heightened state of vulnerability for them that they go back quicker. What advice do you have to someone like that? Very hard.

I have so much. Firstly, a breakup even under normal circumstances is a tremendously difficult thing. True, I shouldn't say a breakup because there are many joyous breakups we go through. But a truly, when you experience true heartbreak, it is one of the most devastating feelings in the world.

Devastating!

You'Re a zombie.

You're dead inside.

And it's worse than you're dead inside. You act dead to everybody else inside. You feel like you're dying. On loop, all day.

You can't get out of it, yeah. Yeah.

In a breakup, and this is as true now, now is no different. People need to recognize that now is just a difficult breakup on steroids. If you're going through heartbreak right now, you're just doing it on steroids. But it's just the same emotions. So don't fret that, oh my God, why did it have to happen now when this was going on? You're giving it a big story. It's still just the same emotions of heartbreak. You're just experiencing them in a very, in a heightened way.

And you don't have the ability to rebound physically with that person or a new person.

Which we could see as a gift.

Right.

Why is that a gift?

Because there are plenty of things, as my brother Stephen Hussey, a wonderful writer for our website, As he says, in a breakup, there are two methods of recovery. There's the athlete recovery method and there's the hangover recovery method. You're gonna like this, Louis.

Tell me.

I love it. You haven't heard it before, but you're gonna love it because the analogy is perfect for you.

I love it.

The hangover recovery method, you think about how do people deal with a hangover? They wake up, they eat greasy foods because they're like, oh, I just need something to make me feel better. They watch crap TV, they lay on the sofa, they sleep in.

Wake up at 2 p.m. yeah.

Cut all the blinds, don't let any light in, eat ice cream. Essentially they do all of these things that are temporary kind of pleasure and comfort, but ultimately are not nutritional and are not the things that are needed to get, you know, what's needed. Massive amounts of hydration.

Water.

Go take a walk.

Sunshine. Right. exercise. Yeah.

Get the metabolism moving again. Get that, like, crap out of your system. Like, that's all the stuff that's needed in that moment. But it's. It can feel harder to do the things that are actually going to get you out of it. Now, look at the way an athlete recovers in an injury.

Right.

You know better than anybody.

Yeah. You.

You don't. Firstly, you still train whatever you can train. You don't ignore everything simply because. your shoulders injured, you do what you can.

You do some abs, you do some legs, you do something else.

Right. Let me keep a hand- Jeff: Swiming, yeah. Exactly. You eat well, you get tons of rest, as much rest as you possibly can. You do rehab where necessary, but you don't do so much that it injures what you're doing.

Yeah, you reset your vision, you visualize what you want and start mentally rehearsing the reps, the the repetition, the action steps, you mental rehearse, you, you know, all those things, right?

So now if you apply that to a breakup, the hangover recovery method is let's go and sleep with other people quickly just to get my fix, just to feel connected, just to feel like I'm worth something, just to feel like I'm still sexy. Let me go out and drink, party, let me eat ice cream, bad food. Keep going to the fight.

Get on Tinder and all the apps.

Or just hide away under the covers, don't engage life. It could be either or, but they're all hangover recovery methods because they don't make you feel better long term. They're just short-term pleasure. The athlete recovery method in a breakup is you do the same as an athlete. You say, okay, my heart might be injured right now. My heart's offline, so to speak. But I still have everything else. So let me make sure the rest of my life is firing on all cylinders right now. Let me do everything. Let me be kind to myself. Let's maybe like put dating aside for the moment or put that. But let me go and make platonic connections. Let me go and build my relationships with my friends and family. Let me eat well, let me sleep well, let me train, let me go and do all of these things that train every other muscle in my life so that when my heart comes back online, Every other part of me is ready to go. So you've got one problem right now, you're in pain, right? But if that pain causes you to let every other part of your life go down spiral, now you've got six problems. So that's the part we want to avoid.

And only have one problem, not six.

And you know, look, all of this is easy to say, and when you're heartbroken, you just feel like, you feel so bad and so sick in your stomach and so nauseated all the time that you even hearing this sounds like a lot of work. And what I would say to people is a really manageable step is, I, you know, there's that quote, emotions are weather. Let them come and go, right? And that's true. Emotions are weather. I used to think that emotions were really important. A friend of mine, Jameson Jordan, who you know, who shoots my videos, he he would always tell me, whenever I would be in a real Funk, a bad place, whatever, he. I would talk to him about it. He was one of the closest people to me. And I always remember he used to say to me, like, I just think you, like, think your emotions are more important than I feel like mine are.

You put more emphasis on.

Yeah, you. You, like, think they're really important.

You think your emotions are you.

Yeah.

He would be like, you. You just seem to like, give more weight to your feelings than I do. And I, at the time, I didn't quite hear that. And over time, I've come to understand what that means. And of course, a lot of this is taught in mindfulness, training, meditation, and so on. But that idea that just because you have a thought, just because you have an emotion, it doesn't make it important. And in a heartbreak, just because you miss your partner, that doesn't actually make that feeling that important. just because you feel hurt and you feel like, oh, my God, I'll never find anyone like that again. That's just a thought and an emotion that's attached to that thought. And it doesn't make it that important. And so when I was going through terrible times, when I've gone through heartbreak, one of the key lessons I learned was, okay, there's really cloudy skies right now. That's the weather.

Right?

And it feels like that weather will never pass. But what I would begin to pay attention to is I would realize that I would realize, oh, for the last 20 minutes, I didn't think about my breakup.

Small wins.

I'd be like, yeah, and often you only notice it after the fact. Because when you're in it, it could be that you're in a flow state with your work and that's taken you out of it. It could be that you're having a funny moment with a friend. It could be that you lost yourself in a movie. It could be you just had a conversation with your brother, your mother, whoever.

A workout, yeah.

For a few minutes, even if it's just five, for five minutes you noticed, I felt better. I felt, maybe I didn't feel amazing, but I just, for five minutes, I didn't feel like I was dying.

I didn't feel suffering.

And when that happens, here's what I would say to myself, I'd be like, well, that's interesting. Notice those things as interesting. And this, this applies not just to heartbreak, but to depression, to anxiety, to all sorts of different emotions that are undesirable. When you notice that for five minutes of your day, you didn't feel that thing. Because what happened? Here's what happens. We have our, like, whatever is our home, whether it's depression, heartbreak, anxiety, sadness. We have our home that we're, we go to.

Yeah.

90% of our day. And when we feel that, we focus on it so intensely that it becomes very difficult to get out of it because we are focused on that 90% the whole time. And what we don't acknowledge is this interesting window in the day where we didn't feel that. And that window has some clues, has some, there's some truth often in that window, that five percent of the day where you felt all right. There's some truth there that's waiting to be discovered, enlarged, held under a microscope. And what I would do is when I would feel better for five minutes, I'd go, well, okay, so what did that if nothing else, what did that prove? It proved that I it's possible for me to feel better. I had a reference point for the fact that I could feel better. and then you go, well, if I felt better for five minutes, if I even felt better for a minute, let's make more of those.

What?

How did. What was happening? How did I do it? I might not be able to get my day to the point where I even feel good for a quarter of the day right now.

Right?

That might be an unrealistic goal. But if I had one good minute or one good hour, let me make the new goal. not to be great or to be happy or to get over this. Just make more of those.

Yeah.

And multiply those moments. Multiply those minutes into five and ten and 20 minutes.

It's a manageable task. Suddenly, getting over your heartbreak. You need to get over it, dude. You know, blah, blah, blah. It's not, this isn't, that's not practical advice for someone who's going through hell. But for someone who realizes that just for five minutes, the clouds parted. and they go, oh my God.

It's like one of my favorite movies, Swingers, where Mikey is always thinking about his ex and who he left and then now she won't come back to him six months ago or whatever and he's constantly talking about it, obsessing about it, suffering in pain and then he finally learns to just put his attention somewhere else.

That's right.

For a few minutes and then put it for an hour and then he goes on a date with someone and then he thought about her for a day and he was like, wow, I didn't talk about her all today, you know?

And here's what's so important about that because there's a, what's really interesting about that movie is he begins to do these things that slowly start to create more moments of good weather in his day.

He goes salsa dancing, he does this, he does activities. Yeah. Right.

But what we have to be aware of, you have to respect whatever is the drug, whether it's your ex, whether it's genuinely a drug or booze or whether it's a situation that makes you feel bad or whatever. Often when we start to create more good weather, we start to take for granted that the bad weather can't appear now. It's like, oh, I'm past it.

Yeah, it could come back. A storm could come I'm raging through again.

Someone, your, your ex could text you. And if you text back and start engaging, knowing, knowing what happens that you're, when you start in a conversation with that person again, you're going to spiral. You're not respecting the drug. You got, you might have been clean for months or years, but you gotta respect the drug because it's what you don't is when you, when you get cocky. and you don't remember that there are rituals and routines and practices daily that got you to this good state. You are liable to fall back into that trap because you're. Because you're blind. Don't be blind. Don't be afraid. It's not about fit. You're not fearful. You're not worried. Because, you know, if I got. If I didn't die at the height of my breakups pain, if I didn't die on day two, I'm not going to die on day 22 or day 52. or day 1002. If I could deal with this at the height of its pain, I'm not going to die now. So I'm not going to be afraid of this, but I'm also going to respect it and know that there are certain things that make me feel better in my day. And I have to consciously put them into my day because the moment I take for granted that I just feel better, that's when that thing starts creeping.

Yeah, exactly. I'm laughing so hard because we have a mutual friend that we've been helping, I won't say his name, but we've been helping navigate certain things in their relationship. And it just reminded me of that, of replying to people when they text you, when you think you're good, hey, don't go back into that. Make sure you stay true to what you want, what you're committed to by the athlete mindset of envisioning something that you want for your future, envisioning the right relationship or the better match or how you want to be feeling and all those things.

And by the way, and just remember, and this is true not just for people going through heartbreak right now, but people going through solitude right now, because there's a lot of people who right now are just in solitude. They're not necessarily heartbroken, but they are experiencing a deep kind of existential loneliness. And when we're on our own for long periods of time, many people, not everyone, but many people, and perhaps even most, have more of a tendency to go to dark places. with their thoughts. Yeah. And there's a lot of people that are there that are listening to us right now that certainly can't that, you know, the I, you know, some people might be in a hell with someone in the house, but these people in solitude are looking at that going, I'll take that right now over the hell I'm in of being constantly on my own and going out of my mind. I would say to people that, you know, the same weather rule applies that, you know, you might feel really kind of dark and lonely at points in your day, but there are other points in your day where you don't notice the good weather and pay attention to the good weather and what made you feel good. Did you just have a conversation with one of your siblings? Did you have a little group chat with a bunch of friends? Did you watch a life affirming movie? Did you read a book that made you feel connected to an author from some period in time? Maybe who was also alone and writing about it. And by reading that author, you go, oh, my God, I feel, you know, someone else is having the same experience as me. I think that's really important, is if you're in solitude right now on your own, you connect to other people who have experienced that because some of the greatest figures of all time have spent inordinate amounts of time alone, have experienced the darkness that you're experiencing, and you're in good company. You, you may feel you're alone and, oh, man, if we have solipsistic attitude that only one who's alone. We know it's not rationally true. We know it's not logically true, but we feel it on an emotional level. Those are moments where you have to remind yourself, I'm in good company, not just today, but throughout time. Key figures, brilliant people, people that are far more brilliant than this will ever be, have experienced the deepest, darkest, existential loneliness and. In a way, there is something slightly romantic about that. I always love when I read an author and I hear that author who's brilliant and who I love. And I was just reading Bertrand Russell and then you hear about something that someone suffers with or something that they've gone through and you go, thank God. This person that I love also. Also, you know, There's that element of it that's really, really powerful. And so I think that you can adopt, yes, accept that it's difficult. It is difficult. Don't look at other people and think they're handling it so well.

It is difficult.

I'd call my dad at times when business is hard and business was messy and like chaotic and I screwed up or I'd lost money or I'd done something, I'd call my dad and I'd be like, you know, my dad's one of my big mentors and I'd call him and say, Dad, like, I'm just so stressed, I'm so overwhelmed. This is happening, this is going wrong. I've got 10 people asking me for this, whatever. And he'd say, Matt, part of the problem is you don't think that other people's businesses are just as messy. It's almost like you think that you're struggling with all these things and other people aren't. He said, Matt, I've been in business for 40 years. Business is messy. That is the nature of it. It is messy. It is chaotic. There are always things going wrong as well as things going right. That's how it is supposed to be. And when he would say that to me, it didn't take my problems away. But what it made me realize is, oh, it's all right. It's not... This is normal. I'm on top of my problems. I'm beating myself up and taking it personally. that I'm doing a horrible job.

Yeah. It's kind of like your dad and Jameson are saying the same thing. Your feelings are more important. Your mess is more important. It's- yeah.

A, don't give it so much power and B, and don't give your feelings and emotions so much power. Not every emotion is a cue to do something.

Yeah. Yeah.

At the same time, except that this is your view that, you know, in the Road Less Traveled, M. Scott Peck talked about, I think one of the first line of his book is life is hard. and one of the things that makes life more difficult for us is that we expect it to be easy. Well, that's true of relationships, it's true of business, it's true of everything. And when we have someone close to us who says, you're all right, you're at home on your own right now and you feel like it's dark and lonely and you're having these kind of existential thoughts and you're welcome, that's normal. Of course you do. You're living at home on your own in isolation right now. Of course you're feeling these things. You're not a screw up. You're not weak. You're not handling it terribly because you're having these thoughts. That is absolutely normal. And that's what makes it heroic. You're having all these thoughts and you're having all these feelings, but you're in the company of wonderful people throughout history who have experienced this, who have had just as bad a time, who were dealing with it no better than you. But in that company, you can kind of then assume your hero's journey and go, yeah, my personal hell right now, I'm gonna keep going anyway.

How does someone learn to believe in their worthiness? Period. Whether there's success or not success. Because sometimes people achieve everything and still don't believe in the world.

They still don't believe in worthiness.

So how do we get to that place?

So for me, this is an answer that goes back to what I really believe. And I'm a pastor by nature. I work in all types of different fields, but there was a place in my life that I didn't feel worthy of anything. And I believe that there is a higher power, a divine creator, God Jesus, for me is what I believe with my whole heart that transformed my life. And what ended up happening in this process for me, Lou, was I was a bad like how I became a pastor, this is the whole nine addicted to all kinds of different things, all that other stuff. And at my lowest moment, I was reading the Bible, and for the first time in a long time, I felt loved. I felt worthy. I felt like, you know, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son whosoever believes in him could not perish but have everlasting life. And like, Hold on, like all of this happened on a maybe, like whoa, like hold on somebody while I was yet a sinner doing everything that was filthy and jagged and raggedy and horrible, like you loved me and I started reading these scriptures and something connected in my heart. I can't explain it people like that's not real, that's not nobody can take this experience away from me because I know who I was and I know how jacked up I was. and I know how backwards my thinking was, and I know how perverted I was, and I know how manipulative I was. The person I am today is only because I found my worthiness in a creator, not from a creation. A car is a creation. But there's a creator. Our phones are a creation. That iPad's a creation. But the creator, people, people, creations. But from the creator, that's where you only can find identity. And so I went back and I just went on this journey of discovering my faith and discovering God and discovering. And what I came out of that with, bro, nobody could ever take anything away from me. I got not happiness, I got Joy. I didn't get relief. I got peace. I didn't get a sexual satisfying experience. I got love. And from that place, I began to take steps of progression on my purpose. I started forgiving people. Do you know what type of weight it is lifted off of your life when you walk forgiving people?

It's amazing. Bro, it is like holding your grudge is heavy, man.

It is devastating. But it gave me the ability and the power to begin to forgive people that I was holding grudges against to say sorry, to own up to stuff. And it's crazy how when you become a better person, moving and maneuvering in the image of Christ, in my opinion, and in my belief and in my experience, it changes everything around you. I'm able to be a light anywhere I go. Like people don't have to believe how I believe or anything. And I come in and I'm like, man, I like talking to you. I was like, bro, you would have hated talking to me seven years ago. But let me tell you what happened to me. And that's where I say, like, you cannot find identity in something that didn't create you. And if my iPhone breaks, I don't go to Honda to figure out how to get it fixed. Not because Honda didn't make something, it's because they didn't make that. I would go to Apple. The same thing with me and you. I really do believe when you need to find the origination, even if you have bad parents, had a traumatic past. You did things that were horrible. Like when you go back and you connect to your faith and you see what God says about you, how you're fearfully and wonderfully made, you're the head and not the tail. You're beautifully and wonderfully made. There's a purpose before you were even formed in your mother's womb. God knew you and that he has a plan and a purpose for you. When you start taking off the lies and believing the truth, I'm telling you from that place, it starts to transform and change everything. And the only reason I'm sitting here talking to you is because I went through that transformation.

Process.

And now I'm able to live in joy, hope, peace, and I just hope that everybody experienced that at some place in their life, bro.

I love that, man. And you said, you can't heal what you won't reveal. About eight years ago, I started to share my shame, the things that I was afraid to reveal. And I wasn't able to heal. I realized that statement that you said right there is so powerful for me because for 25 years, I was holding on to pain, shame, resentment, anger, frustration. And I've talked about this many times publicly about dealing with sexual abuse as a child, holding on to that for so long. It wasn't until I started to share the shame where I was able to start the healing process. And I think a lot of people hide their shame, and it's hard to heal if you're hiding, right? It's really hard to heal.

So good.

So how does someone get to a place of of sharing, opening up, revealing so that they can heal when it is so dark, so painful, so traumatic from something in the past.

So this is where counseling comes in heavy, you know what I'm saying? Or good, in my opinion, Godly Community, like people who you can tell that won't trash you while you're pulling back this onion. Like, you know what I'm saying? Super vulnerable. Well, you're super vulnerable. And I just, people make circles based on success a lot of times in networking instead of making circles based on insulation. When you have a circle around you, you need an insulation. You need people you can be your 100% self with and they protect you and cover you, not cover up, but cover you. and help lead you to the right place. And for me, I had that. I had a good godly community as well as we had counseling. And sometimes you've got to be able to be put in positions that make you answer questions you don't want to answer and talk about things that nobody wants to like when they start asking you what's one thing that happened to you when you were younger and I encourage everybody to ask you this. What's one thing that happened to you when you were younger that negatively shaped who you are today?

Yeah, there's a lot of things for me.

But see, if you answer that question honestly, you start opening up things that probably there needs to be some more conversations about.

What happens if we don't open up and talk about those things?

It's the same thing that happens when you put food that was good at one point and you leave it by your bed for three months. It festers. It spoils. It rots.

It's amazing.

And then it attracts. Hold on, watch. It attracts things that will eat off of it. This is what some of our relationships look like. And then it becomes the aroma of your living.

Ooh, it becomes your environment.

It becomes your environment. It doesn't matter. how many millions you spent on the bedroom if something's rotting in the corner. It doesn't matter how many Gucci Prada, it doesn't matter how many Maserati, it doesn't matter how many times you 10x'd it, it doesn't matter if your soul is rotting, if your love is spoiled, if your emotions have eroded. And that's what I tell people, A lot of times we dress up something that is completely contaminated. And I just didn't want to live like that. I was affecting people. Could smell the aroma of my life. Have you ever met somebody like something?

I was bloated on that.

That's what a lot of us look like spiritually, emotionally, and in our relationships. is because we haven't dealt with the things and it's been there since you were 6, 7, 15, 22.

They don't teach us how to deal with these things.

No, no. And that's why for me, especially in my context, especially in church and business and all that, I'm like, yo, we got to talk about relationships, we got to talk about counseling, we got to talk about inner healing, we got to talk about our faith, we got to talk about this because I've seen too many people get to what they thought was the mountain top and it feel emptier than a different season in their life.

I want to bring it back to jealousy for a second.

Let's go.

Why are we jealous human beings? And is there a place in which we can be completely not jealous of our partner or someone else?

Yeah. So jealousy is our nature. We are all born with a nature that you do not. I have kids, I don't have to teach them how to be bad. Like all of my kids learn no, mine. I never taught any of my kids those words. I have to teach them share. I have to teach them give.

Yeah, contribute.

Can help.

Yeah.

We're all born with what I call a lower nature, a sin nature that's in a and jealousy is the primary nature that is formed there. All the way back to Cain and Abel, the first two brothers kill each other over jealousy. It's our nature. And so what you have to do is fight that nature with the thing that is countered that nature. So when you think jealousy, when you think competition, when you think selfishness, you have to do the opposite of those things. You have to celebrate others. You have to be generous. You have to give. The only way to put out the fire is give it the opposite thing. And so I found in my life that again, you got to be. We can't act like this stuff is not real because we'll never deal with it. A lot of people won't even admit they're jealous of something. Jealous that the friend got a new house or everybody's getting married and they're not or. that doesn't even happen. So those people, they just tuned us out right now. But for anybody that would actually admit, hey, there's areas in my life that I wish I had what they had. I'm coveting those things. When you start to give what you wish you had, somehow those things begin to come into your life in a different way, or you don't desire them.

Anymore.

And that's how I have found for me that I give what I desire to have. It's the principle of sewing. Okay, so when we were in a season, I'll talk about it business wise, when I was in a season of not making a lot of money and was trying to really figure out like how am I gonna like, I want to marry this girl, I want to do this, I need savings, I need investments, all that other and stuff. And I heard so strongly in my time of devotion, hey, you need to give something to somebody who's where you want to be.

They already got it.

That doesn't make sense. And it was almost like instead of looking at what they had and trying to be like, I wish I had that, okay, become a part of it. So into it. Give what you desire. to somebody else and help their journey. And it's the principle of sowing and reaping. You're always going to reap whatever you sow. So you might as well sow good things, because everything you give out is coming back with friends.

And hopefully it's good friends.

If you sow good seed. But if you didn't, it's coming back with friends. And that was a game-changing moment and I've become generous. Generosity kills jealousy. That's good. Like when you start helping people, giving to people, networking with people, and then the other thing that's very practical with jealousy, if you don't see it, you won't be jealous of it. So many people are jealous because of overexposure. There are certain things I'm not supposed to know about somebody else's life, but because of the culture we live in today, I'm jealous. things that I didn't even know existed.

It used to be in the, I guess, 50s and 60s, the Joneses, where it's like the neighbor. Yeah. You saw the neighbor's house and car. You didn't go see everyone's house and.

Car on social media. And that's where, again, I think we come back to the idea of margin. Yeah. Like, there are days of every week that I cut off my social media. Like, there are, there are time periods. When I go on that sabbatical, I'm.

Off of social media the whole month.

A month. Are people posting for you, though, or can I tell them to go black. Now, think about this, when I'm talking to book publishers and people I've made contracts with and everything like that and telling them, hey, just before we sign this, I want you to know that once a year I go black, I won't be posting, I won't be promoting, I won't be doing anything. And I'm telling you, they freak out. And I said, but I promise you, when I do this, it's going to make me more fruitful in everything else I do. and now any partner that's been with me, they're like, oh, we understand now. They still scared to do it. But, and again, I went off the number, I was, by the grace of God, I was on the number one New York Times bestseller for three weeks, and we were on the top 10 New York Times bestseller list for 15 weeks in a row. I went off a New York Times bestseller list because I went on sabbatical. So I knew I was going to take myself off of the New York Times bestsellers list. because I was gonna stop promoting my book.

Wow.

And I did it. Now, for some people, that would seem stupid. For me, that was success. I was unattached.

Yeah. My work to the results. Yeah.

Was not based on being on New York Times Sellers, best seller for 30 weeks. Never went back on it yet. Haven't got back. It's not like I'm trying to.

No.

I'm just grateful the fact that we did it once. It happened, but I'm still worth it. I'm still a good guy. I'm still loved. I'm still, no matter if I'm somebody in the book publishing world may think I'm nothing, but I know who I am. And those are the type of decisions that are countercultural, that people don't understand, but that's why I have my peace. That's why I'm full of joy. that's why when I talk to you, I don't got to put on any type of allure and act like I'm bigger than I am. Because I'm actually when all of this is over, I'm going to be good. Like I'm actually go back to the hotel with my daughters, take them to the pool, I'm actually going to enjoy and be fulfilled in what I believe God has called me to do. And so, it really is one of those things that jealousy many times comes from being overexposed. So, if you would limit your exposure, it would help you. Think about it. When horses run in the Preakness and in the Kentucky Derby, there's a very inexpensive piece of equipment that is very...

Blinders. Yeah.

Very intentional. And effective to the horses winning. Blinders. And the reason is because if they could see the other horses, they would go into their lanes and be disqualified.

My goodness.

Think about how many of us are distracted and getting ultimately disqualified because we're jealous of somebody else's lane when we already have our own to run.

You gotta run our own race.

Come on, bro.

We gotta run our own race.

Come on, bro. And for some reason, it's not sexy enough to have one lane. You gotta have 10 lanes.

You want every lane.

You want the track.

You want the world.

You want, and I'm just saying, maybe Just maybe, I'm not saying I know everything, but maybe the end result of running in several lanes is not the fulfillment in the success that we think it is.

How do you create a financial abundant mindset as a pastor of a church where it's probably, I'm assuming, taboo to be talking money or be thinking, let's build wealth and abundance as a pastor as a church, you guys have publicly announced acquiring this $40 million arena center in Tulsa, which is amazing in creating communities and opportunities for people there. How did you one go from not acquiring a lot of wealth and an abundance mindset, maybe you had it before, how did you transition that knowing that I am a pastor where people are going to judge me based on how much money we bring in based on things. How do you manage that stigma maybe and also be at peace with creating financial abundance?

Yeah.

And how can we learn to create financial abundance in a spiritual way?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I love that question. That's a good question, bro. I think the first thing that you have to realize is I'm aware of the landscape of most pastors in the world when it comes to finances where there's been a lot of abuse. There's been a lot of misuse.

Mistrust.

Mistrust. And so the first thing that I did when I came in as a pastor is I decided, it goes back to what I've talked about in relationship. I thought I was going to be completely transparent.

Yeah.

So, like, every year we tell the church every dollar, every cent that came in, we tell them that every dollar that comes in, 10 plus percent is going out in missions. We let people know what we're doing, how it's going to happen, and you can't make anybody give to nonprofit. You cannot make anybody. I mean, they have to do that on their own. We don't make a big deal about any of those things. We decided that finances would be the fruit and not the focus. And I think that's something that everybody needs to adapt. A lot of times, money and finances is the focus. But I believe that if you make the focus people, the focus reaching purpose, the focus helping others, then finances is the fruit. not the focus. Yes. And for us, that has been our entire mission. When I took over our church, we started in a converted grocery store in the hood of Tulsa. So, like, I didn't come from this big machine of people understanding. There was less than 300 people that came to my church, and most of them was sitting there like, he not gonna make it. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, let's be honest.

And.

And I just told people that. this is going to be a generous church. And I remember it. I remember the day everything changed for our church. I was reading a book by another pastor named Robert Morris called the Blessed Life. And he was talking about how many churches and non-profits talk about give to get, give to get. And really the principle of the Bible and God is give to give, not to get. Like we're giving just as an extension of love, not because not expecting something in return. for God so loved the world that he gave, like, without an expect expectation of return. And I said, that's what we're gonna do. I went to our platform, less than 300 people in our church, and I said, hey, guys, today, I just really feel that we're supposed to raise money, and none of it's supposed to help us. It's supposed to go out and help other people. And you should have seen the faces of those people. They were like, huh? Like, what do you mean? Like, how are we gonna do this? And I was like, I I want us to be a generous community that blesses people in need, blesses other churches, blesses non-profits and people who are helping with sex trafficking. Let's just do it. And we raised $833,000 and something dollars that day. That day. And we gave it all away. And that was the seed that went in the ground that I believe transformed our mindset around it. the, the thought that it is more blessing to give than it is to receive. And from that point on, keeping transparency, teaching, being honest, and then being prepared. See, this is the big thing people don't understand is preparation is really the, the Avenue that you're ready for the big things that are coming to come in your life. When this Arena came open, it was because we had years of preparation. being generous, giving to people, teaching, and then saving, and then being ready. And then this $50 million arena came available. We were able to get it for like $10.5 million and pay it off in six months. It is crazy. It's crazy faith. It's crazy crazy. It doesn't make sense at all. The only reason it happened though is because we had practical preparation with principles of generosity.

Yes.

And I think those are two things that everybody can take.

Before we continue this video, make sure to subscribe below and turn on the notification bell right now so you don't miss out on these great videos every single day. 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, it's.

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 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 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, oh, 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 or like...

Exactly.

When I was walking down the aisle. 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 date might have been when reality truly hit or they allowed themselves to see it. But then at that point, what are you going to do?

Yeah, you got to fall through. Oh, your family's there and you don't.

Want to 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.

They try to make it 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. 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 started 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 is what 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. Balance and connection, you have those two things, you win.

-Wow.

-You know? And if you look at most failed relationships, they lack those two things. -Two things.

Connection and balance. -There might be some forced connection or they've lost lost the connection because it wasn't really... 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 idea of this person. Well, it was more so chemistry. Like, chemistry is not connection, all right? Chemistry, 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 a 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 you 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. To be honest with you.

Wow.

But I'm going to give it two times and yes, they're going to be some people out there that say well, there's billions of people in this world why could it's not about Yes, is it technically possible? Maybe so, but you're not going to come across billions of people in the world. You're only going to come across a certain amount of individuals and in that group of people, yes, you're only going to find that connection maybe once or twice. And once you get there like once somebody sets the bar that high in your life, it is very hard.

Yeah, you have to refine that.

Exactly, you're not going to feel comfortable anymore. more going beneath that. If you do you're going to find yourself not at peace and very miserable in your relationship.

Wow. Connection, balance, is there anything else or is those the really the main two things and everything else is figure out.

I would the last thing I'm going to throw in is attraction. And the reason I throw it in is because I feel like in this world we try to shame people for putting a focus on attraction. And to me it's not about looks. This is about specifically saying you have to look like this, you have to be this tall, you have to have this body shape. I'm not saying look, I'm saying attraction. We have to be physically drawn to each other. That's the last ingredient that takes a relationship from platonic to romantic. And that's the ingredient that if you remove it will make a romantic relationship. Exactly, friends, roommates, you got people living together. No sexual chemistry. Exactly, because why the attraction is gone. But if you bring it back into that relationship see how quickly things change. That is the ingredient so, we have to be willing to embrace the fact of yes, attraction is necessary one, when we first meet each other and we need that to be more drawn to each other. But then to maintain and sustain that great relationship we can't make excuses for letting ourselves go and understand there's a difference between aging and letting yourself go. A lot of people are letting themselves go, making excuses for it. I understand life hits us, it's tougher as we get older, yes, but you got to work to maintain attraction in your relationship. You let that go to the wayside.

Friends.

Exactly.

How important is sex in a relationship?

Hugely important.

This is coming from a guy who's abstinent, right?

Yeah, right. Well, you know what to me, I say hugely important from the standpoint of, I think People have to look at sex not just from the perspective of pleasure but from the perspective of bonding. I believe it is an opportunity for two people to grow closer together and when two people know how to truly satisfy each other it creates an amazing bond.

Deeper connection, better balance, more attraction.

Yes, all of that.

Keeps it going.

Exactly, because if you have two unsatisfied people sexually, you're going to have a problem. You can't find a relationship where that exists and they're all happy and everything's great. It doesn't work that way. People crave intimacy, people crave that level of bonding with each other. And yes, biologically speaking, we can talk about the needs of a man and a woman and all these things. But I think even going deeper spiritually and all that sex is important and we are not taking enough of a mature approach to understanding and learning sex. I think people are very much behind in their understanding of it.

Especially in America, it's like we weren't educated.

Exactly.

It's a very like hush hush type of thing. It's not talked about in schools. Your parents, at least most parents, aren't talking about it. So it's like the moment and it's like let me say something to just get it out and then let them figure it out.

And not just that, a lot of our parents either.

Right.

Like, people just don't take time to get more educated on their bodies, on sex, on true sexual satisfaction. There's a lot of lies going on. I tell people all the time listen, a lot of women aren't being sexually satisfied, all right. But they're lying to their friends, they're lying to their partners. So, there's a perception that everything is all good. No, it's not. There's a huge disconnect between the reality or the perception of women's sexual satisfaction and the reality of women's sexual satisfaction. And that contributes to a disconnect in marriages because again, if the woman is not satisfied she now becomes less willing to be sexually involved with her husband. Now, he starts to gain resentment, he starts to feel neglected, he starts to wander. Exactly, every snowballs from there. We can't overlook that and act like everything's going to be fine. And we can't say well, you should love them enough to where it doesn't matter. Listen, we're talking about maintaining a committed relationship, that's a part of it plain and simple. And we have to learn how to make it better on both sides and how to be more honest with each other. I think if we can learn to be more honest and transparent then we can work on the things that are lacking. But people again, they feel very uncomfortable speaking about sex speaking about their needs and constructively criticizing their partners. We have to learn how to communicate.

'Cause you don't wanna hurt someone, yeah. Exactly. How often should we be talking about our sexual needs in an intimate relationship? Should it be like once a month we sit down and like schedule it out? Is it like pillow talk every week? Like what should be, again, everyone's different, but what do you think is an appropriate amount of time?

Yeah, I think it depends. so, what jumps in my head I would say every three months if I had to put a number on it, all right. But I do think it depends on the couple. I think more so it's when an issue arises talk about it. The key is we have to create environments where we can have those talks. See again, we're laying the wrong foundations in our relationships to where we can't have these open discussions about sex and other things lacking in our relationship and we're afraid to push our partners away, we're afraid to ruffle the feathers or rock the boat. But if you can't talk to them, we resent things, right? Exactly, and what happens is you hold it in and now the negative energy comes out in other ways. And now they're confused because they're like, why are they giving me this attitude? And they're thinking like I said earlier, he's thinking it's about the towel. No, it's not about the towel, it's really about something else that you're not telling him. So, we need to be more and transparent and we need to create an environment where we can have this talk and you're not going to take it personally to where you're going to internalize it or allow it to now throw our relationship off because you're getting upset and you're allowing it to you know, have a negative impact. No, take it as okay, that's how you feel cool, let's work on this. How can we make this better? You know, we have to be serious about tending to the needs of our partner if we're going to have successful relationships.

There's so many Divorce is happening, you know, it's higher than ever, right? I think it's the, we had a divorce attorney on who's talking about how it's higher than ever. There's also even more people who stay married who probably shouldn't be divorced, who aren't happy. And so it sounds like there's a very small percentage of married people who've been together for many years who are actually still thriving in relationship. I'm just, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there's more, but it sounds like it, right? -uh there's a very small percentage that are having like these incredible long lasting marriages and relationships that like have the attraction and connection and balance and all these things. Why do you think that is and how can we decrease the number of failed relationships? Or is that the wrong question to ask?

No, I think it's a good question. I think, well, we have to understand marriage is not the issue. It's marrying the wrong person. and marrying for the wrong reasons, all right. And then underlying to those things are the lack of healing. Because it's the lack of healing that leads us into these wrong relationships and allows us to entertain situations we should not entertain. Because again, for example, if you're a guy or a woman, if you've been through some things and now you think you don't deserve that great person, that great relationship because your perception yourself is low. Now, you're going to just latch on to whoever comes around who says, I want to be with you and willing to give you what you want at that moment. And you're thinking, okay, this is safe, this will work. Let me go ahead and go with it. But you're never truly into them like that.

It's never going to be the relationship it needs to be. If you want to learn how to make yourself more desirable in relationships, then.

Check out this powerful interview with relationship therapist, Esther Perel. We interpret I see it as women are less interested in sex, rather than women are interested in probably just about the same kind of things that many men are.