The BEST TIPS To Have A Healthy ROMANTIC Relationship | Lewis Howes

The entire human drama is really complex. I spent my whole career studying what is changing in relationships. 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.

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 to 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. If I could just say, why is the simple feeling of loving or caring not enough? Because the entire human drama is really complex. The same way as nature is complex, so is human nature complex.

And.

I spent my whole career studying what is changing in relationships. You know, are they more complicated today? Are they more painful today? You know, have our expectations changed?

And.

That I have answers to. I don't have answers to why is it so, you know, but I do.

Have- Is it more complicated now, relationships, than 50 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 all interact. All of this was super regulated. You know exactly that on Sunday you go to visit your family and that you have to call your grandma and that nobody has- Church, yeah. 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? 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? Should I, you know, is this what I really want to do? Is this who I really am?

Is this my passion?

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

And now it's different.

We don't have any of that at this moment. We Basically, I call it the identity economy. We spend our time trying to figure out who am I? We have an enormous industry of self-help, you know, with this belief that we are self-made, that we can have selfies, that we do self-care. It's this self, self, self that is so focused, such the center of everything, and so fragile. The 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. You know? 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 that'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, 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 are 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 is 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. 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 of them.

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 gonna 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 everything.

To give you what the whole village should actually give you.

Right.

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

So one is the calibration of the expectation. Two is the diversification. And three, which is the one that very much speaks to me, is doing new things. With your partner. 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 launch.

Right. If you're a young 30-something female, I get this all the time from a lot of women who reach out to me who are ending relationships that were really stressful for them, or they've been single for years and they're trying to figure out how do they find the right person or how do they create the right relationship for them? That's going to be a long-term partner. If you're a female in your young 30s, what should they be thinking about? 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? 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. It takes 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 with you. Can I take you to my parents? Can, you know, do we share similar, it's about values life, not just about feelings.

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Yeah, no, you can.

But is there a world where you could at some point, as opposed to saying, I've got to live in the next 30 years with this person or 10 years with this person. That sounds like a free prison sentence. You're in the free world, but you're living in prison inside in your own home. That doesn't seem like a healthy lifestyle.

It's not. Because I work with such varied audiences, I'm very, very mindful of how painful it is for people to say, if you don't go then. Now, I've said to them, if you don't go, there's limits to how far I can take you on this growth process. Because you're still constantly having this echoing voice that invalidates you and reminds you of that invalidation in the next room. So there's only but, there's only so much, but there's still a lot of growth. I mean, your life almost becomes a series of silent acts of rebellion. Some people, literally, I know some folks told me, you know what? I was inspired by what you said. So I just went to an online university and I got my degree and I never told him.

Wow.

And I was like, inner victories.

Inner, like, everything's a little game for yourself to find your own Correct.

Or they volunteer in their community and what they recognize is that the volunteering is joyful. The narcissist would say to them, why would you want to help a bunch of people who are too stupid to help themselves? If anything, they'll say, Their horrible negativity only reinforces that I'm totally right about them. I'm not wrong about this. I'm not a bad person for recognizing that they're toxic and I can go out and do something that fills my soul. But you're right, it's only a partial victory. But if you can get out, get out.

Right.

Okay, so let me ask you this. So again, I know there are certain cultures and situations and countries that probably have harder restrictions of removing yourself. So, but okay, so let's figure this out. It's going to be painful to stay in the marriage if there's with the narcissistic person. It's going to be extremely painful to leave for potentially years. where you might have to find a whole new community, move, build friendships and relationships again, be on your own, all that stuff. But if there's light at the end of the tunnel when you leave, three, five, seven years out, as opposed to being in the relationship for that time, is that the better solution?

I think that here, and it's so hard to say because if somebody said to me, tell me, the best solution, take away all the contextual factors, it's obviously not to be in such a relationship. When we talk about how people manage themselves in these relationships, there's all these forms of contact you can have. And the most extreme is no contact, which means done. You block them, you cut them out, you don't speak to them, you don't take their calls, nada, nothing. And you know what? There's places, I've actually seen the hard data on this, Everyone will say, no contact, awesome. Like, I feel so much better now that they no longer exist in my life. But it's a really limited strategy. If it's your family member, if it's someone you co-parent with, it's somebody you might still have professional contact with. So, that's such an extreme that it might work like somebody, let's say someone dated someone and you don't have a ton of mutual friends and you move away physically, no contact can happen. And let me tell you, I've done no contact. Whoo, it's good.

Okay.

Then there's low contact. Now low contact can be done in a couple of different ways, but it tends to be, you know what I'd say more perfunctory. You don't really engage with them. It's just really like just sort of, let's say it's a family member, you've decided like, okay, this person's so bad for me. I want nothing to do with them, but your beloved cousin's getting married. You may just say to beloved cousin, just whatever the opposite side of the room for seating me is, I'd appreciate it. Maybe they come and talk to you and you give them very simple yes, no, kids are great responses. You go to the bathroom a lot when they approach you. People are going to think you have some sort of digestive problem, but it's a great out. But you step away and if it gets to be too much, you give yourself permission to leave. So it is, you know, low contact doesn't mean like they come to you and you don't speak to them. You might say, oh, hi, yeah. Mm-. Kids are great.

Yeah.

Mm-. It's been a long time. yeah, I actually got to run to the restroom. It's one of those. Or I got to run, I've got to call or whatever. So you find your ways to maintain and then you won't have contact with them maybe for 10 more years until there's another wedding or funeral or something like that. So that's more of the low contact. And then there's all these techniques like gray rock and yellow rock, all these techniques to figure out ways to communicate, but the tool I give people and I think maybe I talked about this last time. I don't remember, but it's something I call don't go deep with them, which means don't defend, don't engage, don't explain and don't personalize. And I, it's a Mantra, like, don't.

Defend, don't engage, don't explain, don't personalize deep.

What happens if you do any of those? If you defend, you're going to get in the mud with them and they like it and you get dirty. So that doesn't make sense. So you don't want, if you defend, it's just going to escalate and Gaslight and fight and, and there's no because you're not going to end in any kind of sane, rational place. When you explain, they will definitely gaslight you. So, there's no point to that. Engaging means don't get into a conversation with them. Do not ask them what they think of something. Do not tell them that good news. And don't personalize this isn't about you. They do this to anyone in your position. They're going to manipulate. It's what they do. And so, they're going to lie. They're going to gaslight. It's just how their personalities are organized. It's not about you. There's nothing you can do to change this. Not you, not me, not anybody. And so that's the, it's a really fun, then that's what we call radical acceptance and nothing you can do.

Oh, man.

It won't, it ain't going to change. And that's not because, and a lot of people say, well, it's not going to change because I'm not enough. It's not going to change because it's not going to change.

No one's ever enough for them. So, okay, let me ask you a practical question. There's different stages of being in a relationship, right? You meet someone, you go on a date with them. That's a certain stage of a relationship. You date for weeks, months, however long before you say we're going to be committed or exclusive with each other, right? Then there's a, you know, a marriage commitment and that type of relationship. What would be in your mind the key things that an individual would should really focus on seeing or experiencing from the person that they want to date before they say, I want to get committed and exclusive with you. Not before marriage, but just, okay, I feel comfortable enough to be an exclusive committed relationship with you. What are those key things you need to see or experience to make sure you feel comfortable taking that step?

Watch how they respond to stress or frustration. If you only had one thing you can do, it's that. because that's the test, right? Do they start, do they become really dysregulated, impulsive, say really awful things and then, oh, you know, I was just really stressed out, you know, because if they did it there, they're always going to do that because they're on their best behavior in this early dating relationship.

They'll do it worse in the future.

You know, how are they handling themselves in a, in a traffic jam? How do they handle themselves when you get to the restaurant? and they say, oh, we've lost your reservation. You know, because you really are looking for the person who says, you know what? You up for a fast food? Because there's a place across the street. And you know what? It could be the dinner where you fall in love with that person over your, you know, over your cheeseburgers. Exactly. And so. But if that person makes up, do you know who I am? Oh, let me tell you, Yelp review, blah, blah, blah. You're gonna be sorry, blah, blah, blah. No, I mean, and I think those situations manifest pretty early on. And the trick is because everything else is sort of new and sparkly and fun, people want to say, oh, they just had a bad day.

They have bad days all the time.

I would say that's your, especially that early in the game, that's your first few months. A runaway kind of like, kind of, or not even runaway to say, eh, just sort of slowly start distancing. Some people need to see two of those events. Okay. So, great. You'll get your second soon enough. And so, I would say that's a really, that's a big one. I think other things you want to look at are things like are around equity, equitability and balance in the relationship. How often are you knocking yourself out for them? So, in other words, you're shaping your schedule to them, you're shaping your preferences to them, you're giving up things for them, and yet they still make it sound like you give up maybe, I don't know, you're invited to an old friend's birthday party, it's gonna be a girls night out, and they doubt your commitment. Like, oh, really, it's your friends instead of me. And then you end up canceling on the friends and you go out with them and they'll say, isn't this so much more fun? So they make it seem like your sacrifice was actually good for you. That's something else. you could see.

Oh my gosh.

Early in the game. You know, especially narcissistic people do tend to like to control the narrative. So they will, there will be some isolating happening. If you feel that you're not, you don't feel comfortable saying, I'm gonna go see my friends or, you know, this is a, I want to spend time alone with my sister or something like that. And they pathologize that, especially when it's early. This is sort of a process for you. And if they're trying to annex all of your time, that's a sign too, that you need to pay attention to.

If they're trying to take you from your friends and family.

But sometimes it's not even that obvious. It's more of a, why can't I come? Or they doubt your commitment. And so it's not as like, you're not seeing your friends. You spend a lot of time with your friends. Maybe this isn't the right time in your life for a relationship. I get that. I got that. So they play that game. and then you're thinking, oh, I'm kind.

Of really into this person.

But I'm angry at you for doing.

It in a covert way.

Yeah.

No doubt. They doubt your commitment. And because people want to prove their commitment, right? And they know I'm really committed to this. Okay. You know, it just. So I find it interesting that on a Saturday night, that's what you chose. Even though you've told them weeks ago.

And then you give in. So look out for those two things. It's interesting because I'm a, you know, every time you say something like this, I'm reminded of the past of, like, okay, all these stressful situations. But with Martha, I talk a lot about Martha on the show because she's been amazing for me. But with Martha, we. We had an experience. We went on a trip within the first, like, month, right? Of kind of knowing each other and dating. And we were supposed to go to Vegas, and we had flights booked, but for whatever reason, all the flights that day, like, got canceled, and we couldn't get there for, like, the event. We're going to see an event until like the next morning on the flight and we were going to miss it. And so I'm coming to her kind of bringing some, a little bit of this PTSD remnants of like, hope she's going to be okay, you know, is she going to be upset this flights, this. And I bring in and say, Hey, the flights are not, you know, happening. We could try to take a later flight, but we may not make it in time for the event. What do you want to do? Let's just drive.

Yeah, I was gonna say, if this girl's got it going on, she would always drive.

Oh, it's no worries. Let's just drive. I was so used to people being like, well, I need first class and I needed this. And this kind of like, don't you know who I am type of mentality. She was like, let's just, you want to drive? Kind of like fun with it. And I was like, you sure you're okay with that? And she's like, yeah, let's go. And I was like, cool, let's jump. So we jumped. We just grabbed our bags, we packed, we went in and we dropped and had the most incredible Five hour drive, there was traffic and it was on a Friday night and it was like whatever, stressful, but we had so much fun. I was like, this girl's got something. She's got something going on. And I think when you travel with someone, you can see these stressful experiences.

Yes, I do agree that if you travel with someone, you can see a lot. And that's what I'm saying, that stress can come out there too. But I do think it's almost a way to create a living lab and set up a trip in the first three months of the relationship. It doesn't have to be elaborate. It can be something as quick as a weekend trip. could be a weekend trip. It doesn't have to be like two weeks somewhere. Watch how they do. Because I will tell you, that's the test. Somebody who can be chill while they travel. Done. That's, that's one. It's almost like a final exam.

Yeah.

Before you exclusively commit. And again, for people to know, this doesn't mean you have to have air tickets in this. It could really be like a road trip. It could be a camping trip. It could be any number of things, but like a few days. where it's really just you and them and there's, because when you travel inevitably it's something, right? And to watch how you manage that. It's a great test because if it's a narcissistic person, if everything isn't just so perfect and the thing is you've got to watch how they try to gaslight it away. If you start getting a little leery on, this is not okay, they're going to make it into, don't you understand? I wanted to make it perfect for you, okay? I just wanted it to be a great trip, you know? And, and so if, because if you might be pushing back and saying, you know, the way you were acting under stressor, I just, I'm trying to make it right for you. And now you're feeling so guilty because they were trying to make it right for you. So I will tell folks this. If you're noticing there's some of those early patterns and you decide to distance from this relationship because it feels like there's some red flags, don't tell them the why. Really?

Yeah.

This ain't your, you ain't their teacher, their life coach. You're, you're trying to get out of this relationship. relationship because if you tell them the why, they're going to gaslight you.

They're going to say, well, I was stressed.

I was stressed. I was trying to do something nice for you. You're being unappreciative. You're unappreciative. Exactly. You're sensing a red flag. You can make it about yourself and say, yeah, you know, whatever your reasons are, I think work's getting to be a lot for me, or maybe this isn't the right time for me to have a relationship. And people say, well, Dr. Romany, isn't that a missed opportunity? no, they ain't listening to you.

Did I tell you about the castle?

Castle.

All right, this is. You're gonna like this. So I was thinking about this whole idea of investing, like buying a castle. Well, that's the thing. You can't buy a castle for a relationship. I see. To me, the relationship is the castle, right? When you meet someone and you have a connection, because I'm always. I'm. You know me. I do seminars all over the world. We have thousands of women come and join us. And the thing that there's always someone who puts their hand up and says it starts the story with Matt, I have this incredible connection with this guy.

So they're already in a relationship.

No, no, no, no, no.

They're just dating.

Often not. Now I know we have a problem when someone's justifying whatever they're about to say next with what an incredible connection they have with someone. An incredible connection is like, you meet someone, you connect and you have a great plot of land. This plot of land could be great because it's in the middle of a forest, could be great because it's on the cliffs overlooking the ocean. It's a beautiful place to build.

That's the connection.

Just a connection, but it's still just a plot of land. All right, see it for what it is. It's. potential. Still just a plot of land. Now what you need is two builders, two people who are going to build something here. And that requires two people who show up each day and lay brick after brick after brick after brick and slowly but surely create a castle. Most people have the experience of someone who joins them on that plot of land and they both look at it and they're like, Isn't this great? Look at the ocean. This is great. Look at the view we have here. Look at the trees. This is amazing. And they get real excited. Now, one of them might be willing to build. One of them might be a builder. The other one might just really like the potential of this plot of land. and then you have someone who's there building every day. They're doing the investment. I have the woman come to me who's building and a guy who's left the construction site. I don't know where he is. He's at home, he's binge watching his favorite show, he's out on another, he's looking at another plot of land. And then three weeks later he calls in and says, he sends a text to her after three weeks of ghosting her or just disappearing or just patchy communication. and says, thinking of you, that's a builder who started building, then left the building site for three weeks and called him from home and went, how's the castle going? Meanwhile, she's over there building the castle on her own. You can't build on your own. And the problem we have right now is there are too many people who value the connection instead of the castle. Castle. is where it's at. And if you don't have a true builder who over time is going to build, that's what a relationship is. A castle. This is why love at first sight is bullshit to me.

Doesn't work.

It's whatever.

It takes time.

It's infatuation. She's hot. He's hot. You know, there's some connection there that's based on the fact you like this and I like this. Oh my God, we're supposed to be together. This is only part of the equation. a castle becomes a castle because two people work on it and it becomes unique and ornate and there are secret passageways only the two of you know about. And there's an argument that knocks down a wall and then you build it up and fortify that wall. And it makes it even stronger and you know the weather over time weathers the stone on the castle in a unique way that makes it your castle. There's other castles in the world but this one is uniquely yours. It's been built by the two of you. of you. It's been hard. One, you know, that's a relationship. That's why, you know, a 20-year relationship or marriage or 30-year relationship or marriages is special. It's because two people have had to go through shit together.

Yeah.

They've done things together.

They.

This isn't fantasy. This isn't building a castle in the sky. The idea. of love, the idea of what we could be. The one day wager, I call it the one day wager. One day, I'm making a wager that one day you'll be what I want you to be. One day you'll invest in me the way I want you to. One day you'll change. The one day wager is the most dangerous wager you can possibly make in your love life. The real shit is what's going on now. Someone trying? Do they want to be here? Are they focused on the little shit, not just the big shit? Because anyone can go and have a, like, people say, but when it's great, it's great.

The crazy, yeah.

When we go, like, oh, we've been on some amazing dates, or we did that vacation, we had the best time. It was amazing. Of course, you were on fucking vacation. Anyone can go to Disney World and have a great time. It's Disney World, right? That's the job of the place, is to make sure you have a great time no matter who you're with. Right. Right. But you know what? When I was 13, I had a, like, when I was, I think I was 12 or 13, my parents took me to America for the first time. And we came to Florida. Where do you think we went? We went to Disney World. And I was massively excited, you know? I was so excited. I was excited to be in America. I was excited to see the things I'd seen on TV. Excited to see the references to movies I'd seen. Excited for the rides.

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We go into Disney World and I learned something very interesting about myself there. This is gonna sound profound for a trip to Disney World.

13.

Yeah, I. But I realized something about myself because, of course, I go in there. It's magical. It's. Oh, my God, this is crazy. It's huge.

Taking a photo with Mickey.

You've got Space Mountain. Yeah, there's Mickey there. There's all these dazzling attractions. But it was something that stood out to me even more than Space Mountain, even more than the Big Ride. And it was the trash cans.

Oh, yeah.

On some level that maybe I couldn't fully articulate at that age, I saw the trash cans and I was moved by it. I said, Someone cared enough about this place to theme the trash cans. The trash can in Tomorrowland is a futuristic trash can. The trash can in, you know, Indiana Jones Land or whatever it's called is a tiki bamboo trash can. The trash cans were different depending on where you were.

It's amazing.

Someone cared so much about the detail of that world that they styled and themed the trash cans. It moved me. I've never forgotten that.

Wow.

The trash cans in life. And I've thought about that endlessly in my business. When I do retreat, I just got back from my retreat. And, you know, someone came, I told the story on the retreat, someone came to me at the end of the retreat because of all the little details we put on the retreat, you know? It's not just a seminar, an event. We hold parties and inside...

Experience.

It's an immersive world. It's like it's, we like to think we've created the immersive theater of the self-development world.

Mm-.

And, Someone came up to me at the end of this retreat and said, you, achieved trash can status.

Mmm.

And it... That's big. The 13-year-old in me wanted to cry.

Wow, that's amazing.

Right?

And it moved me again and I thought, that's what I want.

And.

I thought about this even today as I was coming here and I was like, you, know what? This absolutely applies to relationships too. often in a, you know, in a breakup, often when people are going through difficult times with their partner or whatever, the thing they go back to is we had that amazing trip, but we had those amazing times. They go to these highlights. They go to the space mountain of their relationship. Remember when we met Mickey? It's that, right? The meeting Mickey moment of their relationship. But relationships are about the trash cans, man. It's the trash cans. Yeah. Because guess what? In a day at Disney, you ride Space Mountain once, maybe twice. How many times do you use the trash cans?

Every day. All the time.

Actually 20 minutes every day. It's the trash cans. And what will define your relationship? is the trash cans, not Space Mountain. The lower moments, the messy moments that are barely noticeable. The moments, the micro attractions. The moment where we do something sweet, where we think of our partner when we didn't need to, and we worry about the day they had or support them or even just support them silently or in private, you know, or support them by what we don't bring to them. It's that, it's the detail. It's the detail. And that's what's going to determine how great your life is. And my concern is, and we've all been there, my concern is the number of people out there who are staying in the wrong thing because of Space Mountain of the relationship.

The few moments that were magical.

Or they're spending too much time grieving the loss of the wrong thing because all they remember is Space Mountain.

Interesting.

But they don't think of how shitty the trash cans were. And the trash cans, that's the stuff. That's the day to day. Yeah. How good was it day to day? This is the difference between being in love and being happy.

What is the difference between love and happiness?

You can be in love and be really unhappy.

Be suffering inside and be in love.

You can have constant be in love and be having a relationship that's causing you constant anxiety, constant heartache, constant pain, feeling overlooked, not feeling important. You can be in love and all of those things still be true. How crazy is that? We think that love is this this thing where it's like, it's rational. Like, I'm gonna love. I'm gonna be in love with this person who brings me Joy. Not true. And we need to start worrying more about happiness. Because if someone isn't building with you, if someone isn't committing to actually building the castle with you, that's the quality of your life.

Yeah.

Not how in love you are.

You might love certain things about them. You might have loved the date you went on, you might have loved.

The Space Mountain or certain characteristics they had.

Sex was incredible.

How charming they were, how charismatic, how whatever. It didn't. But maybe it doesn't mean that you're happy day to day. It's a big difference. Right.

When do you know? I love this analogy. And it made me want to ask you about when do you know you're ready for a committed, intimate relationship? When do you know you're ready for it? As opposed to you just feel alone and you want to have someone in your life?

I guess when you're ready to build. When you're ready to build. When it's not you're going there because the fantasy of it all is exciting to you. But when you're actually ready to build. And that doesn't mean that you're not looking. See, the castle analogy is cool because when we were talking earlier about this idea of giving without expectation, well, you, you do expect something in a relationship, right? It's overly simplistic. We do expect things. We expect respect as loyalty defined on whatever Tom terms loyalty means to us. Love, appreciation, all of that to be seen. We have a lot of expectations in a relationship, so it's not a relationship. where we just, we give without expectation. But that to me is where the building thing is really interesting to me. 'Cause you wanna work damn hard as a builder in your relationship, but you want someone else who's building too, right? That's where the expectation comes in. I'm gonna work hard to build this thing and I'm gonna build it at a really high standard. I'm not gonna look at your work and go, well, if you missed out some of the, grouting there, then I'm gonna, you know, like skip it on my end. No, this is my standard. I'm gonna build to a really high standard.

What if the person you've been with for a year isn't building to your standard?

That's a conversation. That's a real conversation. Like, here's what I need. Here's the kind of relationship I want to have.

When do you start to just say, well, it's okay if they do half the job that I do.

Is the job they're doing half-assed when you really need them to do do well or is it one that can be done half fast? You know, sometimes I think there are certain things we let go in a relationship. That's where the compromise comes in. That's where the sacrifice comes in. There are certain things I'm okay with you not doing as well as I once thought I needed someone to do them. I thought this thing was really important.

It's not.

It's not that important. I love you. What are we doing? I'm not worried. It's not that big of a deal. And we've all done that. We've all seen those things that once were important to us and we let them, we said, you know what? I was at an age where I thought that was really important and it's no longer as important or significant as I made it. And then there are things that never stop being important or they become more important. You know, the ability to communicate well. I think as you get older, those things become more important. The ability for someone to have genuine empathy. to the ability for someone in, let's say, an argument to not jump to saying a spiteful thing that's hard to then forget. Someone who doesn't try and do damage in an argument but tries to build, tries to figure out, let's figure this out together. We may both be hurt, but let's come to this in a loving way. When you're younger, you say shit that's just mean. 'Cause you're hurt.

Yeah.

Right? And then you realize, oh God, three months later they still remember that comment, even though they said they forgot it.

And they hold on to it.

They still have that in their head. I'm not doing that again. There's certain things I think as you get older, hopefully if we mature, we start to see these are the, this is the important stuff.

What happens when we don't show our 100% authentic self to someone in the beginning? and we revealed that six, 12 months later. Yeah. What happens?

They're really shocked. I didn't know you were like that. I had no idea because they've fallen in love with a version that you showed them that isn't even you. And we forget the truth, vulnerability is the basis of friendships and indeed relationships. When you're vulnerable, you know, people love you for you. When you're sick, when you have a bad day, they will say, then you know who your friends are. But if you pretend you're okay, I see that a lot with people who run a business, who always pretend everything's fine. They never tell anyone they're lonely. And then we realize, like that great DJ who killed himself. Was it Avicii?

Avicii, yeah.

Who never told anyone, I'm falling apart here. Was it not Bon Jovi? Who was it? Van Halen, Eddie Van Halen. There's so many people in the media who I've got to pretend I'm gray. I can't say I'm lonely, I'm sad, I'm lost. They often let you know through their songs. Look at Prince. I mean, that's so sad that he was so lonely. But they feel that if they tell us we'll see them as weak and needy, when in fact the basis of friendship is if you're vulnerable and I am, I like you because you're showing me who you really are. and I can love your very soul because I know you. But if I'm in love with an illusion, then it can't work because I don't even know who you are.

Wow. How old were you when you started to realize that, that you were lovable?

I think in my long time, maybe, I remember when I was 18, I had this really lovely boyfriend. We'd always say, you know, I love the way you look. And I was saying to my mom, I haven't got a personality. I really believed I had no personality because I love you. your hair, I love your body, but I heard that I didn't have any character whatsoever, and that really bothered me. So I think, you know, it's so weird because when you change so much, you can hardly recognize the person. I'd looking back, I'd say really my 20s, maybe even later than my mid 20s. It is only working with my clients over and over again and seeing what was wrong with them that I began to realize, oh, that's what's wrong with everyone.

Yeah.

And I began to see all of my clients, they could only ever have one of three things wrong with them.

What's that?

Well, the first one was, I'm not enough. That was the biggie. Every client I saw, whether they were a nursery school teacher or they worked in a store or they were a billionaire CEO or a movie star, they all had the same thing. I'm not enough. And so I've got to earn love or buy love or keep being a bigger, better deal to get love. And that's so easy to fix. You just go, you just take the not, I am enough. I always have been, I always will be, and you have, you see, the lie is every day you tell yourself, I'm not enough. You don't know you're doing it. You get up and go, look at me. I don't look right. I messed that up. I didn't leave enough time to get here. My kids aren't perfect. That client is annoyed. So every day over and over again you're telling yourself you're not enough. And you just have to take out the knot and go, I'm enough. If I'm prepared to lie to myself every single day over and over again, why not have a better lie? I'm enough. It doesn't have to be true. People say, you know, my legs are the size of tree trunks. Well, clearly that can't be true. This is killing me. This is making me crazy. This is driving me and saying, none of these things are true. prepared to lie, at least have a better lie. I have great coping skills. This is a challenge, but I've got it. I can rest at the weekend. I've got this. I've got great coping skills as a great lie, because if you say enough, it actually becomes true.

Really?

Yeah.

Something I say a lot, you're never given anything that you can't cope with. Or if I got a lot on, Well, I'll rest at the weekend. I can deal with this. I've got this. This is fine. This is okay. So the first thing wrong with people is always I'm not enough. And if you feel like that, remember, you weren't born with it. You're in great company and just let it go because it's not true. The second thing wrong is this belief that I'm different so I can't connect. And that's kind of a modern day illness. You know, if you if you're in a tribe, you would connect because you'd know that you're all interrelated, you look the same. But this belief I'm different, so I can't connect, is... Is it I can't.

Connect or people don't understand me?

No, you connect by being the same. You know, we're primitive people, we connect by being the same. So if you're different, it's very hard to connect because you feel different. And when you feel different, you can't connect. But then you have to remember the truth, if that's your greatest fear, it's most people's greatest fear. So if you look at E.T. he couldn't, he connected to Elliot, but he couldn't connect. And he had to go home because he had to be with his people.

So why is it such a big fear for people?

Connecting.

Yeah. I'm different, so I can't connect. Isn't different good in a lot of ways? Like being unique and being different.

Unique. Well, the answer is yes and no. When you're a little kid, you go, you go, I like SpongeBob SquarePants. I like green pasta. I like Dr. Seuss. And we connect by being, I got a friend and they like what I like. So when we're little, we connect by being the same. And our DNA understands or we are hardwired to find connection and avoid rejection because that's how you make it as a child. You find connection, whether it's your little kitten clinging onto your leg, your dog wanting you not to leave the house, a baby holding on so tightly to mum, you understand the truth. If I'm connected, I will survive. And if I'm disconnected, I will die. Because imagine 100 years ago you couldn't produce milk for your baby or 500 years ago. We understood that connection was what made us live and disconnection killed us. Why every culture practiced banishment or isolation or marooning or casting out. so connection makes us survive.

Especially as adults.

Yeah.

Okay, so we need to feel connected.

Yeah. And if you listen to all those songs, I'll die if you leave me. My world is empty without you. I can't live with. I can't breathe without you.

Okay.

And to this day, you know, schools understand that someone trolls you, someone ostracizes you. Kids, you know, cut you out of the group. They don't speak.

To you.

So our greatest fear is if I'm different, I can't connect. But if you go back to that, everyone's fear is being different. So if you have that fear, it actually means you're the same. And connection is a choice. You can connect to anyone all over the world, whatever their race, religion, creed is. The problem is that we don't see that. We still disconnect people. You know, we saw that a lot with the Boston bombers. They were so disconnected from society that that turned into hatred. and it's really important at schools to look at these disconnected kids and to bring them back. You know, if you look at the whole jail system in Finland, it's all about reconnect. We don't put them in isolation and then send them back out into the world crazy and full of anger. We reconnect. And so our greatest fear as humans is to be disconnected.

So how do we reconnect if we feel like our friend group has pushed us away, our family has sent us away, how do we feel connected.

Well, sometimes you've got to find a new group. I mean, you know, your family are just what I call your original family. You can have an, you know, first of all, you have your nuclear family, mom, dad, brother, sister, auntie, uncle, grandma. But then when you get married, they become your extended family. And so you can always create a family. So don't go back to the old tribe that hurt you and expect them to get better. I think a lot of our problems is I expect my mom suddenly become wonderful. She was always mean and hostile, but I expect her to be kind and lovely. She's got old now. Aren't old ladies sweet? No. Sometimes they're still cranky. A bitter cranky person doesn't become sweet when they're 80. And often the belief is, I've got to go back to my family and make them love me when there's a whole world out there to love you. And if people hurt you, not always intending to, and you keep going back to them, but they can't always make it better. It's like, you know, if your family had that capacity to love you a cup, but my capacity is an Olympic swimming pool, I can't expect that to fill me up. I can fill them up, they can't fill up me. If my parents have a shot glass capacity to give me love, and I've got the ocean capacity, how can a shot glass fill up the ocean? Stop going back to people that hurt you and find, there are people all over the world that will love you. fill you up, but we keep going back to the hurt is expecting them to make it better. They're often so hurt they can't. And they often do things like, well, you know, people like us, we don't have that. And look at those people, we're not like that. So it's, I feel different. You know, if your dad was the town drunk, if you didn't have a dad and everyone else did, if you had money and everyone else didn't, or vice versa, We buy in very early to this, I'm different. I'm different and you're not different, you're the same. So you have to stop looking for what makes you different because that's the confirmation bias. Whatever you look for, you're going to find it. I mean, I was a principal's daughter. I felt different the day I went to school and my whole childhood, because my dad was the headmaster. And that was actually horrible, I realize now, that was not a good thing. but I was always looking for what made me different. And then it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I kept looking for it. Plus, you know, I could hypnotize people, and that made me feel even more different. And I had this kind of ability to work out what's wrong with someone really quickly. And that's both good and bad. It's actually good. But whatever you look for, you will find whatever you are moving towards, you'll get more of. If you look for why your head is killing you or say, I'm a bit dehydrated, I'm going to drink some water, rub some lavender on my head, I'll be fine in 20 minutes. You've got to decide where you're going. And if you look for what makes you different, you will find it over and over again. But if you say, well, why don't I look for what makes me the same? We're all the same somewhere, then you'll find that too. And it can be very hard if you're dealing with someone who's violent or aggressive or out. But if you can look for what makes you the same and not different, it really changes your life. Because then you can't be disconnected. And you can go all over the world. You can hang out with tribes. My friend was in Rwanda with the gorillas and actually if you think you're like them, I did this thing of walking with wolves and the first thing you must do is you have to crouch down, you mustn't bare your teeth, you can't wear wool. and the wolf comes up and decides that you're a wolf and then you go for a walk and it keeps rounding you back up. If you walk away, it takes you back into the wolf pack because it thinks you're one of them. And if you can make a wolf think you're one of them or a gorilla, then of course you can do it with people. But you have to start from, I'm like you, you're like me. I'm the same as you and I can connect with you somewhere somehow.

Yeah.

Stop looking for what makes you different and look for what makes you the same, because it really is life changing. The third thing that's wrong is such a sad belief. It's what I want isn't available. I want love, but I was abandoned when I was a baby. I want wealth, but I come from a family that never had wealth, so I can't have that. I want health, my whole family are overweight, diabetic, so that's not going to happen. And if you want it while believing it's not available, that will block you.

When someone meets someone new, 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?

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 a tolerance.

Wow.

All right, 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 Wow. 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 the 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 runaway 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 gonna 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'll 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 if you're trying to heal. 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 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 move 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 all, I'm a big proponent of writing letters to people that you never send them, telling them how you, how it made you feel, what you're, 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, this feeling, this energy and I'm putting it to bed and I'm, 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 down 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 I'm going to 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. 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.

How important is the language or the inner thoughts, the actual physical words we use in the inner language, the inner dialogue in terms of attracting or finding the right partner?

It's extremely important. You know, we hear it all the time, words are power. And the reality is that the words you speak to yourself, the thoughts you have, they will... Whether knowingly or unknowingly to you, they will dictate your energy. The energy that you give off to people or the way that your spirit comes across to individuals. And so, you can put on a happy face. But if your thought is negative, pessimistic, all right, and dwelling in this, then your energy will still be negative. All right, what you do on the surface isn't going to be able to hide that which is why you have some people who swear well, I'm not a bad person. Yeah, but you're not a positive person, all right. You may be good people but no, you are miserable. And it's not even just you're miserable like you're dwelling in it in your life but you give off miserable energy. And so, who's going to want to be around that? Who's going to want to commit to that? At the most, they might want to have sex with you But they're not going to want to tie themselves to you in a committed long-term relationship or marriage.

And people can feel that energy. I don't care if you're a man, woman, or in between, you can feel the energy of someone. And if you haven't healed properly yourself, you may be attracted to a wounded individual to then try to find some validation or try to find some connection there. And that's why it's important for you to heal so that you can fully see the energy around you and see who is a potential great match for you. because if you haven't healed, you're going to keep attracting negativity and repeating certain patterns, is that correct?

That is absolutely correct. And if you talk to any person who has healed, they can tell you how they feel energy even more now where they become more aware. It's so much easier to see past the facades that so many people are putting up because now healing allows us to get more in tune with our spirit. And by getting more in tune with our spirit, we get more in tune with everyone's spirit. Because technically, we are all connected through the spirit, all right? And so, it's easier to be in touch with that when you get rid of the blockage of trauma, past disappointments and hurts, disappointments, things of that nature.

It's powerful stuff, man. I'm still trying to get into one of my first questions, which is what's the best way to meet someone these days in online dating? But it sounds like that's so far ahead of what you need to be thinking about first. Like, have I started to heal? Are there people who have hurt me? Is there people that I need to apologize to? All these different things, it's almost like you got to do the work before you can start doing the work of finding someone.

Absolutely.

So I think it's important for us to remind people of this process first before we say, okay, you've done the work, you started the process of healing, you feel like you can open your heart and be vulnerable to anyone and it's not going to hurt you and cripple you. I didn't prep you on this before, but what do you think of the three or five components to a foundation of a relationship that has the potential to really thrive long term, committed for decades. What are like... It needs to have these three or these five things, otherwise it's going to be really challenging to sustain this type of love and joy and happiness.

I mean a couple of simple ones I guess are I need to, I need to show up for my partner in ways that they need me to, not just ways that are comfortable to me. We, in other words, pay attention to what your partner actually needs, because it's really easy to say, you know, I'm gonna bring them lunch every day. That's, that's like, I, I'm a really good cook, and I'm really I want to slave away every morning to bring them lunch every day because that's me giving. They don't care.

They don't care.

They don't bring lunch every day. Maybe they don't care. Maybe what would mean the most to them is them getting home and you really being interested in their day.

Do you think love languages is an important part of this where it's like understanding someone's love language and giving them their top priorities?

I think that it's an interesting framework. and it's been for a lot of people a very successful framework. I think any framework that just allows you to kind of, you know, create a little structure for things that gives you some simplicity around it is can be valuable.

Sure.

You know, it doesn't mean it's the only framework you can apply, but it's a valuable model to work from.

So it's showing up in ways that.

Are not what do I want to give, but what do they actually need.

And I think that's a lot of conflict in relationships because I think you need to understand, do I want to do something that's uncomfortable every day that's not foreign to me or that's foreign to me? Or do I want to find a partner that enjoys the things that I like to give?

Well, that's an interesting question. I'm probably going to attract the wrong people. Any relationship is going to be a bit of both, but sometimes it works even without like that's a kind of compatibility issue. I think it even works outside of that day-to-day stuff because you might say the thing I want to give to my partner is an awesome, you know, night together. But maybe what they need is an awesome night with their friends. And the, maybe the most loving thing you can do is say, hey, I know you haven't seen this person in a while. You should go and see them. I know that relationship is important to you. You should go and hang out with your mom tonight or, you know, recognizing not what's easy for me to give, but what might be less comfortable for me to give, but is actually what would mean the world to them. And I think if you really want to make yourself irreplaceable to someone, it's recognizing that. Because no one else is going to do that for them. I mean, you know what I mean? Like, it's... It's really rare to find someone who is willing to do that for you.

Okay, so that's number one.

To work on yourself and to say, I'm responsible for me. My partner isn't responsible for me. I need to do the work to be the most loving, confident person I can be in this world.

What are those?

It's fulfilled, has their own purpose, has things that drive them. That, to me, is very, very important.

If... What's the first thing people should do to do work on themselves? Because you threw a few things out there, but what's like...

I mean, firstly, do you have... Here's an interesting question you can ask yourself. If I had 10 hours free right now, what would I do with them?

Interesting.

If you can't give a good answer to that question, you might already be describing one of the weaknesses of your relationship.

And binge-watching a series is is not the best use of your time.

It's, you know, that if. If the answer is, oh, my God, well, I have my purpose, the thing I love getting stuck into, or it doesn't even have to be some grand purpose. Not everyone has found, like, their life's calling, but it could be, I really want to learn this language, or I really want to see this friend, or I really want to go and, you know, whatever it is, read this book or learn this thing. Take care of my health. Yeah, I want to. I can't wait to get to the gym. if you should be able to answer the question of my partner canceled on me today, what would I do with that day now? And if you can't, then you begin to describe the person who's sitting there waiting for their partner to text them, waiting for their partner to make them feel good enough.

That's not attractive.

It's not.

And it's not fair to our partners.

It's a lot of pressure.

It's a lot of pressure. And, and by the way, people put a lot of pressure on their partners by expecting their partner to put a band-aid on all sorts of things for them. You know, if they're feeling like there's a lot of rhetoric about vulnerability right now. Now, I think vulnerability is huge. I think the work that people like Brené Brown are doing and so on is huge. It's massively important. Vulnerability is absolutely an act of courage and we should encourage it more, both sexes all the time. But his vulnerability is something's making me insecure and I'm gonna share it with you because you're my partner and I love you and I tell you things, right?

But you don't wanna do that every day.

Vulnerability if an hour from now I tell you, oh God, I'm feeling insecure again. And then an hour from now you go, that thing's affecting me again. And tonight because now in a way what we're doing is instead of sharing we're dumping. I'm asking you now to fix it for me, to put a band-aid on it for me.

Make me feel better.

Of course it's part of our part, a loving partner will support you and will do everything in their power to make you feel loved and to make you feel safe and to make you feel secure and it's absolutely true that sometimes what we're feeling as insecurity is because our partner isn't doing their job in those things. That's true.

They're not building.

They're not building. They're doing things that are proactively making us feel insecure. There's minor betrayals, minor neglects, all of that. But sometimes we have to say, okay, what part of this am I responsible for? And it's my partner's responsibility. It's our part. Responsibility in life together to share, to share the load, to work towards things together. But it's not your job to carry the load for me. To carry my problems, to put the band-aid on every day.

I need to... Maybe once in a blue moon, yeah.

Of course, of course. And we're all gonna do that. We're all gonna have days, weeks, times where we're going through something really serious. And our partner's job is to show up. you know, but a friend of mine who's kind of blunt said to me some days or weeks you get to be needy and difficult and high maintenance and boring and you know insecure and then you don't and I thought yeah, like we get to be those things for a time until we don't until it gets too much For somebody else because we need to be at the very least we need to show our partner we're committed to our own growth. Yeah, so the you know, the first one what do we have? Show up in ways they need not just ways you want to show up the second ones work on yourself.

Yep.

I Think I guess the third.

One it.

To me, teamwork is everything. Like being a genuine team is huge. Really looking at each other as teammates, as opposed to you're there to meet my needs or I'm competing with you in some way.

Man, I've done that before.

Like we're an actual team. I saw, you know, one of the things I loved most about Chris Rock's recent stand-up, Tambourine.

I haven't seen it yet.

Such a genius name. The whole concept is about the idea that he couldn't in his last marriage play the tambourine. He couldn't play the backup instrument, right?

Right.

And I thought it was such a great, great metaphor because in a good relationship, in a really genuinely mutually supportive relationship, Some days you play tambourine, some days you're their teammate. You can't, you know, the way he says it, her success is your success and vice versa. You're in this together. And some days that person's the lead and you're on tambourine. And a lot of people have never learned how to play tambourine. There's the other thing, I don't remember where it comes from, but every relationship has a flower and a gardener. Right. Well, I don't. Most people don't want to be in a relationship where they're always the gardener. They want to be never the flower. Right.

Blooming all the time.

Yes. And sometimes you have to be the gardener. No matter how long you've played the flower. Right.

Right.

You and I have played flowers a lot in our lives. Right. We've been used to being a certain, you know, having a leader role and. having these kind of big lives and big worlds and whatever. And then you go to a relationship and the relationship doesn't give a fuck. You know what I mean? No.

Yeah.

I don't care that you're the flower. You know that you're the flower out there in the world. Sometimes in our relationship, you have to be the gardener. Sometimes you've got to play tambourine. Even if to everyone else, you are the. The constant flower. Yeah, right. Movie. me reference constant gardener. Well, you can't. You can't be the constant flower, right?

You can't.

You might be in your business in some way, but the relationship is different. You can't. Now you're coming as two equals. And so it's so much of it's checking your own damn ego and being like, I'm in this to. To be with you as a teammate. Not this or this, this.

When do you know you've found your match for life or your potential match for life or you think this could be the match?

By the way, these are much harder questions than the first interview we did.

You know, is it when you see these three things after a period of time and you feel convinced that the bricks are being laid equally in a certain way?

Yeah.

When you say, I'm ready to be committed all in.

I think there are four stages to a relationship.

Okay, stage one.

Stage one is admiration. That's when you don't have a relationship with this person.

You admire, like, I look at you.

And I look at you and I'm like, this person is hot, they have something about them, I like their qualities, I like their energy.

They have a good potential.

Yeah.

Okay.

And by the way, that doesn't even mean they have good potential for you right now. It just means this is a person of high potential in some way.

You admire them.

Yeah.

The second stage is connection. And you could, I think, in that, in a sense, connection and chemistry are both relevant to this stage because you have this person where there's a mutual like, I like things about you. You like things about me. I think you're attractive. You think I'm attractive. We share some common ideas, common grounds in life, our outlook, whatever.

Beliefs, yeah.

That could be found on a great date, right? Doesn't really mean much still. This is the plot of land.

Yeah, you can have great sex, there could be chemistry, you can make out all night.

None of this means you're gonna have a great relationship.

Okay.

The third stage is commitment. That says, I want to do this with you. I am committed to building with you and you are committed to building with me. Right? That's a really great stage to be at. It's very important.

Right?

It's. You can't have a relationship without that. Any relationship without that or where that's one-sided is unrequired love by definition. And there are a ton of people out there right now who say, I'm you know, I created a program recently called attraction to commitment, which literally dealt with why people keep getting stuck in limbo. Yeah. Why they keep getting stuck in the Casual phases and it never gets to a relationship. One of the things that fascinates me is how long we stay with something that's just casual, that isn't a real relationship on the hope that it will change unrequired love. you know, certainly unrequired commitment.

Yeah, it's a nice time when you're like 23, right?

Right. That's stage three. Stage four is compatibility. And the hard thing, I think, for a lot of people is I used to question this one myself. Like, if, you know, the idea love conquers all, right?

It doesn't. It does not.

I wish. I like it. I like that phrase.

It's an amazing...

I love the phrase. I love the sentiment of it.

It's amazing bumper sticker, you know?

And there's nothing, you know, what is more powerful in the world than love.

And all you need is love.

Yeah, apparently not.

It's not true.

We need a little more. You can have love without commitment, right?

And.

You can have commitment without compatibility.

Interesting.

And this is where things get. I used to think, well, maybe commitment is enough, and maybe issues with compatibility can be overcome as long as two people are truly committed to each other. I don't. I don't believe that anymore. I. I think that it goes beyond commitment to truly lost. You have to have two people who are really compatible. Like, okay, let's say we've got commitment. Two people want to be together.

They admire each other, they have chemistry. They say, I'm committed to you.

But one person's sex drive is here, and the other one's is here.

Not compatible.

This is gonna be difficult.

One person likes to spend a lot of money, another person wants to save all the money. One person believes in a certain religion, another person doesn't believe in that.

One person wants to spend five days a week together, the other person is happy with one night a week.

Together.

One person wants their family to move in, the other person wants their space.

Right. These are serious, serious issues that often end relationships. And so to me, you want to say what? How do you know when you found your match?

All four.

Four stages.

All four.

I admire this person. We have connection and chemistry. We have genuine mutual commitment.

What do you see is the difference maker for healthy, long lasting love?

Yeah.

For decades versus those that stay married a long time but aren't happy and those that eventually get divorced?

I think the statistics are something like 50%, right? So 50% of all marriages end in divorce. The illusion is that the 50% that are left are happy.

No, they're not.

No, they're not.

Maybe 15% are happy.

Maybe, right?

And we don't really know. if you went and polled everybody, you might be even shocked.

It's five percent or maybe right. Gosh. Why are they so challenging to, to be healthy and happy long term for so many people?

Well, I think part of the deal is the bar's very low. So the bar's something like, we get along.

Right.

Like, that's it. I've got t-shirts I get along with.

Right.

You know?

Yeah. Yeah.

So then what's it really all about? If that's the struggle, if the struggle is. to get along. Like I said, that's a very low bar.

You get along with lots of people.

Right, right. I mean, I get along with the person who, you know, makes my coffee at Starbucks. Right. You know, I mean, but really, what I've found to be the case, and it's not, I'm not looking at, like, particular people, for example, right. But I'm going to look at, like, what keeps a human being involved in anything. Right. So, like, why does somebody, like, so I love to play guitar. Why?

Right.

Why? Because. I engage with that thing, I'm curious about that thing, I want to get better at that thing, I like how it feels when I accomplish something in that thing. If you take that in any aspect of your life, the same thing holds true. So my relationship with my wife is a function of who I am in it. And I need to keep bringing that to it. There's no time when this is a done deal. You know, I have to keep showing up. here, not for, like, for longevity, which is, I think, where a lot of people get messed up. People look at the relationship like, well, I can't do this for the rest of your life, the rest of my life. And I'm like, well, you don't have to. Let's do it today.

Right.

Like, right. It's like being on a diet. I don't need to go on a diet for three months. I just need to be on it right now.

Yeah.

And it is moment to moment to moment to moment to moment, because that's really all you have. But. So what I do notice is that the areas of life where you are flourishing most. There is some profound relationship you have between what you say and what you do. There's a profundity at play. So if you look at any area you're successful, you are literally doing what you said you would do, even when what? I don't feel like it.

Yeah.

Right.

Marriage is the same. Marriage is the same. Marriage. And I talk about this in the book, I say, especially in the Western world, but you look at, and I'm using marriage as kind of a model, but it applies to all relationships.

Yes.

But in a marriage, there's a ceremony.

There'S this coming together.

Or you make an agreement, a commitment. Very good. And you use words. And it's a vow.

Yes.

Right.

And, and I talk about the bankruptcy.

Of the vow in a marriage because.

Nobody vows anything anymore. Or they vow it, but they don't live up to the. Well, because they don't have a relationship to a vow. So we're not going around a life going. I'll vouch to meet you at three o'clock.

Right, right.

Nobody's saying that. But 200 years ago when you vowed something, the American Declaration of Independence is just people vowing. They brought something in the existence on the strength of what they said.

Yes.

There was no fighting. Well, there was some fighting, but they created a nation from words. Right. Right. I mean, that's what that is. That's like a. Well, it was a declaration, right? We're declaring what independent. Well, what do you mean you're independent? Well, we just declared it.

So we are.

And we vow our lives and our sacred honor. And most of those people literally gave their life for that. They literally gave their life to that promise. I bet they were scared.

Absolutely.

I bet they were intimidated. But their word was greater than that experience of themselves. That's the same in any area of your life. You have to start realizing that what you say is a big deal. and what you say to yourself is a big deal. A lifetime of constantly bending, shaping and breaking your word to yourself will leave you with a diminished relationship to you. You'll never do great things because somewhere in there you think you're full of it. Because you've broken your word to yourself so many times.

You're out of integrity with yourself.

Very good. There's no power to those words anymore.

What happens when we are out of integrity? so consistently with ourselves or even one time with our partner. What happens to us?

Well, I mean, you got to start relating to what you say like it's important. Just like it's important. Start there. Like I said, I was gonna, and this is important not because the thing's important, but what I said to myself and my relationship to that thing is what's important.

Yeah.

So any area in life, like I said earlier, where you're powerful or successful, you'll see you have a very strong relationship to what you said, very strong one. Sometimes- you-'re committed to that thing. There's just no question for you. It's on like Donkey Kong, you know, you're just doing it.

Why is it easier in some areas of life than it is in others to be consistent with what you say and what you want to do?

Right.

And that's eventually, it's great that you kind of put it that way because that's the path you'll follow. -uh but the real strength of you is when you can say something, like, for instance, when I was in my mid-40s you know, I said, I'm going to produce authentic wealth.

What's the difference between authentic and inauthentic?

Yeah, I'm doing it for that, not for anything about me, which was wild for me because everything up to that point about money was all about fixing something about me or my life. and I was just doing it to see if I could do it, which I'd never done before, and I'd never fully given it that attention, like, just for that. And so I put a number on it, which was a crazy number for that time in my life. Like, crazy number.

Like, for your 40s or what? How much you want to.

I was 45.

Yeah.

And.

And I was. And I said, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna use my 50s for that, and I'm going to produce it, right? I produced it by the time I was 52. and I only really started when I was 48. So I did it really fast. The amount of money that you want.

The amount of money that I said.

But.

But it was wild because I had no attachment to it. What do you mean? Like, there was no emotion in it for me. There was no, like, desperation. No, like, I gotta do it. Enough. No burning. It was just like I said, I.

Was going to do it.

I'm doing it. So I ended up with this really kind of flat relationship between. Between my words and my actions, like it was flat, like. There were days when I felt like doing it, and there were days when I didn't feel like doing it. But the interesting thing for me was when I declared it, when I said I was going to do it, like the Declaration of Independence, I had no idea how I was going to do something like that.

You just did it.

Like, I don't know how you even, I'm not a money guy, you know, I'm not, but now it's game on because I created the top of the mountain in my speaking. So I spoke the top of the mountain in the existence.

And then you figured out how along the way.

But that's no the game now. The game, people say, well, you know, how do you even do such a thing? Well, that's the first question. How do you even do such a thing? And you might have to engage with that question for two years, or three years, or four years, but you've got to be actively resolving some of that stuff for yourself. Well, it's the same in love. Like, I'm committed to the most loving, passionate, and adventurous relationship that's possible. That's the top of the mountain. The top of the mountain speaks to me every day. I can tell whether I'm walking that path or not. That influences this. It's not even necessarily about that. It's more about what that does with us. Well, how does that shape me today? Am I lining up with what I said or not? And if I'm not, I might have a lot of reasons, excuses, and justifications for that. But at the same time, am I going to treat that like it matters to me? Or am I going to just be like, well, you know, so far, so good, or it's been a tough week, or, you know, there's a lot in my mind. Or, you know, are you being a jerk? Why am I loving with you? Because I said I would. And that's what matters to me. That's what matters that I said I would matters to me.

Someone once told me that the key to his success in relationships was 80% of it was who you choose. 80% of the relationship success is how you match well with the person you're choosing. You only spent, I guess, a year with the person that you chose. Did you know that when you were choosing this person? Did you were like, okay, I feel like we're gonna be in a great alignment with our values and our vision and our lifestyle. Or was it more of just a feeling that you felt connected to this person and you decided.

I did what everybody does, right? What everybody does is they get in a relationship because they feel as if this person resolves something about themselves. That's what I did. And so there was something about this woman that I thought, wow, like being with her, everything seems right. Like, I feel good about me.

I didn't feel good until I met her. Right.

I like, like, there's something getting fixed here. So, no, I'm. I'm not that pragmatic.

Yes.

And I think most. aren't that pragmatic? And I think there's an illusion out there that somehow you'll find the one. And really, I feel as if the job is to explore what's possible between you and this person, whoever that person is, and their potential and your potential. And so it was less about having, like finding something that matched up with me, which I don't know if that would work for me. Might work for some people. I don't know if that would work for me. What was really captivating for me at the time was being with her had me feel a lot better about me. And I think I really fundamentally believe that that's what most people go into relationships for.

Is that the right thing to look.

At or is it- no, that's an absolute- It's a recipe to- because then.

You'Re always relying on that person to make you happier.

Well because whatever that thing is that they satisfy for you is something you haven't sorted out for yourself yet.

Right, yeah. So eventually you're gonna have to do that. Otherwise you're always needing that from someone else.

Right.

You go in there and they're the solution, and you end it with the notion that they were the problem.

Ah, wow.

And what's consistent in all of that is you, right? I mean, I don't know if anybody's ever noticed this, but in every crappy relationship you've ever had, let's get one common denominator.

That's you, right?

It's always you.

It's a big awakening I had after my previous relationship ended. I was like, man, It's been 10-15 years of relationships that started and then that crumbled in some way or that fell apart. And the core of all those things was me. Was my choices, was my getting into attracting those relationships, was this commitment to those relationships, was the unwinding of those relationships. And so why was I choosing these types of relationships? What was unresolved within me? that I get to take a look at now, or I'm going to keep repeating in this pattern until I address the thing inside of me. Right.

So, what's great about your kind of pathway, if you like, you can't, first of all, you've got to be able to look at that distinct from blind, right? I know a lot of people just heard what you said and thought, well, what if it is them, right? I know a lot of people sitting there right now going, dang it, I did say that to myself. and I say, well, if you take away like who's to blame, and so sometimes people say stuff like, why do I keep attracting these kinds of people? And I say, well, what if it's not attraction? What if you are literally looking for them? What if it's you're seeking something about that person that initially solves what you're dealing with, right? But will allow it to keep perpetuating, like it keeps showing up and showing up. I call that an identity relationship. There's something about you, and it's the same for the other person, that when you get past all the stuff, whatever's incomplete will keep getting activated there. It'll keep showing up. So when you start to see it like, oh, these are just two human beings, doing what human beings do, then it's not personal. Which is radical when you get it like that. Like it's not personal. It's not personally, them personally, me. Like these are just two beings trying to work this out and work water will essentially work themselves up. So that's why on Sesame Street, people, the greatest work you'll ever do, you'll ever do, is to get complete with your first 20 years of life.

So true.

First 20 years, because everything after that is a reflection of it. I spent 20 years in Glasgow. 26 years. I've been no longer here. And I still identify with that like it's me, but I've been longer here. And it's some of the colloquialisms and the traditions and like I identify with that because it became so imprinted. you know, in my second book, I talked about you're the little magic sponge, and you. You're. You're not soaking up all of life. You're soaking up the bits. And then when you hit about 20, that little sponge just hardens and whatever's in there, that's it. Yeah, it's in there, and that's what you use, right? Oh, that logic. And until you awaken to that and realize that all of that that's there is really only a potential you, there's so much more. If you think about it like quantum physics, right? Like multiple universes, endless universes all happening at the same time, multiple potentials. Well, that's every second of your life, every second of your life there's a myriad of potential use that could be talking right now. And what you typically do is the you that you did the second before and the second before and the set. And so it perpetuates.

Yeah.

Until you get aware, until you start to be like, oh, I'm not stuck with this. I could literally be somebody else when. Right now. Yeah, right now I could be somebody else. Right now I could say something else. So these things.

These expectations.

Not that they're unreasonable, but the person can't, you know, they can't meet it. They don't grow up. They have their own, you know, demons they're fighting. They aren't emotionally mature. They're not reading a ton of self-help.