What Makes Men Ready for Commitment | Lewis Howes

You know, I'm afraid that the woman I'm with is gonna get less attracted to me.

I had a woman laugh at me saying, I know I'm not supposed to laugh, but for whatever reason, it's crazy. I swear to God. She said, I know I'm not supposed to laugh, but you just look weak. You look weak to me.

This is the first Lewis Howes interview in the new studio.

It's so nice, man.

It's also the first time You coming back on the podcast as a married man.

Feels good. Feels good, man.

Congratulations.

Thank you. It was five weeks ago we were at my wedding.

It was amazing. It was such a fun weekend.

What was the biggest takeaway for you?

Oh, man.

You've been to a lot of weddings. You've seen a lot of people talk about their weddings.

I just think, you know what was nice? It was really because it was your wedding, I knew so many people there. Like, I've gotten to meet your family over the years. We share a lot of friends and, you know, we, and your friends that I don't know as well, I still, I now kind of know, you know, a little bit. And so it was really nice to be just in a wedding where I knew so many people and didn't feel like a stranger everywhere. And there was a moment on the first evening, on the Friday evening, where we were all sat around. Actually, it was really nice. You said to everyone, Like, what's everyone's advice for me going into my wedding day?

That was a special moment.

Yeah, you were like, Can everyone give me a piece of advice who's been through this about like how to enjoy my wedding day? And there was so much good advice around the room. I mean, you had like 10 of the world's most well-known advice givers all surrounding, but it was really special, very intimate. It was really special, and I just thought, God, it's not easy to get this group of people together.

No.

And how special to have all of those people in one place. It made me feel like, God, we need to find more excuses to do this. But it takes someone getting married.

It does. And you can't just say, hey, let's plan a cool trip. Like, just doing a cool trip is not enough for everyone to be like, yeah, I'm gonna take time off to go and do that trip. Unless it's something crazy, like going to Poland, I guess. But it's like, you have to really enroll people at that level to come together.

Well, when we did Poland, when we.

Did Poland, I think that was five years ago.

What was that? 29, 2020. Beginning of 2020.

January, right before the pandemic, five years ago. It's crazy to me.

And we went, we were with Wim Hof on that, the, you know, ice. What I always call it, an ice trip.

It was like a jumping in frozen rivers.

Yeah, like the, the. Cold exposure and going up the mountain in nothing but our shorts in the snow for hours. It was crazy, but it was so bonding. And I remember we were in a place where our phones didn't really work.

It didn't work, man.

So, like, some of the, a couple of the guys who needed to make phone calls or something had to, like, climb. They had to go, like, yeah, like, go out of this cabin that we were all staying in, in bunk beds. and like trek up a hill to be able to even get a little bit of signal. But what it did was it took us completely off the radar for five days and it was super bonding. And I remember Jesse Itzler saying at the end of that, like, we have to do this once a year. Like, let's all put a date in the diary at the beginning of every year. And we didn't do it.

I know.

It's hard, man.

What people have life happens, people get married. children, book launches. Like, there's just stuff happening to coordinate all that together. That's why I think it takes something like a wedding to bring everyone together.

Yeah.

If they're your real friends, they're gonna show up, you know?

Does it feel any different being married? I don't know if I've asked you this or not in, like, private, but does it feel different or this or kind of like just another day afterwards?

I think there's, like, a more spiritual alignment that I feel inside of me that I'm like, okay, we are. really won. And we had few months leading up to it. We were very intimate and vulnerable and asking tough questions of each other within the first year of dating. But three months leading into it was like, oh, we are going another level around finances, around kids, around extended family. It was like a deeper level. Like, what do we do now as we're actually getting married around all these things? We talked about some of these things, but now we've got to actually integrate them. and how do we navigate the things that are coming up for us and our emotions around that? So I just think that was a powerful experience going even deeper and then having all our friends and family together. And we got married in the church a week before the wedding in Mexico. And I don't know if I've ever felt that type of a spiritual presence in my life. It was pretty awe-inspiring. It was just six of us in a church. And it was extremely powerful for me. So I think a lot happened that morning, right before I got married. I was like by myself hiking in Fryman. I haven't shared this with anyone, but I was hiking in Fryman Canyon. I was just like, oh, I'm actually getting married today. Like when I was with you guys at the wedding, the second wedding, you know, at the ceremony in Mexico, I was playing pickleball in the morning with you guys, right? It was like, I felt relaxed.

It was really hilarious. It was like 9:00 AM. I was like, this is such a funny group of people. It was the morning of your The wedding, and Martha had to be somewhere, like, getting ready, doing all the things with the ladies. And we were like, it was like 8 or 9 a.m. outside in the heat playing pickleball. In the jungle.

It was incredible, man. It was like, I just wanted to play all day, you know? But I felt so relaxed 'cause I'd already gotten, you know, officially married.

That makes more sense. I don't think I knew that.

That makes more sense to me. I don't think I would have-- I think I would have been a mess that whole day. and really stressed out and having kind of like this crisis moment of like, oh, it's happening. But that happened a week before where I was like hiking by myself. I was planning to go to the gym and I was sitting in the gym parking lot over here at Equinox for an hour bawling. I can't, I kid you not.

The day, the morning of the wedding.

Dude, I was crying for a number of reasons. Not because something was like wrong. I was crying because like, I was like, oh shoot, my dad's not here to see this. I was like, oh, you know, we decided to do it just like us and her parents and then two witnesses in the church. And, but I was like, her whole family wasn't there. My whole family wasn't there. And I was like, oh man, I'm actually getting married. Something that I've been afraid of my entire life. Now I have the courage and the confidence and the peace to do it. And it just, it was all the emotions were coming to me. until that morning of. And then I couldn't go into the gym. I was like, I need to get the energy out. I sat in the gym parking lot for an hour crying. I was listening to like Andre Bocelli and Celine Dion. And I was just like, man, the emotions of this music. And I was just bawling, just imagining everything that I've gone through to get here and all the hard work and all the healing and all the breakups and all the pain and all the just the doubts and the confusion. And I was like, man, I'm really proud of the work that I've done to get here at 41, you know, when I never thought I was really gonna get married. I always wanted love and connection and intimacy, but I feared the commitment of fully joining as a union with someone. And a lot of it was because I didn't feel like I was ever with the right person. And so that was a fear of mine. It was like, I don't wanna feel trapped. I don't wanna feel suffocated. I wanna make sure I can be who I am. and I was just excited about stepping into it, knowing that for me it felt right finally. And I was just kind of like, wow, reflecting on all this stuff over the years. And then I left the gym because I couldn't go inside. I was like, man, I can't go in just bawling like this. And so I just went for a hike by myself up from in Canyon, and I was just, like, reflecting on it all. And it was a beautiful moment just to be kind of by myself. hiking, seeing how far I'd come. I was literally hiking up the mountain, looking out, and just kind of thinking about it all. And it was a beautiful day. And so that's why I felt way more relaxed a week later when we did kind of the celebration of Mexico.

It's special that you are capable of... I don't know if I've ever told you this, but I've always found it really impressive and inspiring the way you emotinally connect to things. Like you don't shy away from emotionally connecting to things. And, you know, I hear from a lot of people who are out there dating and they're, you know, they're dating people that they feel are just not in touch with their emotions.

Yeah.

Not in touch with what they're feeling. Don't share what they're feeling. And you, you're very, you're a very open person. to me, it's very beautiful. Even just hearing that story, I didn't know that. But, yeah, for you to not just rush into your wedding morning, but to take the time to actually be like, oh, wow, I'm feeling something right now. What is that?

Yeah.

Let me even kind of help myself tap into that with. With music and a moment by myself and. And not shy away from it, but lean into it and then. go on a hike where I can just be recognizing that this is a moment for me to feel something. And I could just go in the gym and like wipe my eyes and be like, I'm just gonna kind of brush it off. But instead, like actually going towards it. You know, David Kessler has this analogy of the Buffalo, where he talks about like, you know, Buffalo are the, unlike cattle who run away from a storm, Buffalo go into the storm. when they see a storm coming because they know that the storm will pass if they go into it.

Quicker.

It will pass quicker than if they're trying to run away from it and it's constantly catching up with them. And it's, it's just, it's really inspiring that you do that. And I think it's important because I.

Didn'T always do that. It's been like a decade of, you know, work and healing and processing stuff. And I'll, you know, Martha is, my wife is, she's way more sensitive and I wouldn't say emotional, but she, she'll, she sees a commercial, she'll cry about something, but it'll be like 30 seconds, you know, just tears will come out. She's not like irrational. She just. When she feels emotional, she cries. Where I see her cry sometimes and I'll hold back. I might feel it, but I'm not gonna be like, I'm gonna cry with you every day. But I've definitely allowed myself, when I'm feeling something, to allow myself to process. And again, I'm not crying every day or every week or whatever, but it's like that was a moment where I had sadness coming up because my dad wasn't going to be. there. I had grief. I also had to like, it was like letting go of the version of me that I had my identity for 41 years. It was like, oh, I'm stepping into a spiritual version of me in this commitment, in this union, in this symbolic way, but also a spiritual way that I have never done before. So I'm stepping into a new me, I'm becoming someone new. So it was like the shedding of like, decades of an identity in a moment. And it was all kind of coming to me because everything leading up to the wedding was like planning the wedding and sending out invites and like the logistics and okay, the bank accounts, all that stuff was like logistical. Now I had to step into more emotional and actually letting go of the old version of me that I could also appreciate and thank and forgive and let go of and, you know, all these different things and thank for getting me to this place. And so it was just a mix of every emotion, excitement, joy, grief, sadness, like all of it.

People don't talk about that enough, I don't think, that when these really amazing moments happen in our lives, it's often quite complicated.

Very complicated.

Because there are things that a great thing happens and there's something that that can be a trigger for a really sad thought. You know, my parents no longer alive to be here for this, whether it's a marriage or the birth of a child or just a big moment for you, or my parent is still alive, but we're not in touch. We don't talk. And the. The disappointment of, like, I thought this would be a really special moment for me to share with the people in my life.

Yeah. And.

You'Re simultaneously in this place of happiness about what's happening, and then it's so Bittersweet because you have this deep sadness that you're not enjoying it in precisely the way that you imagined you would be. Yeah.

It should be this beautiful celebration and this perfect moment, but it was a mix of a lot of emotions. Yeah. And after the, you know, the celebration was beautiful and the, the ceremony was beautiful, and then afterwards is beautiful. But I also had, like, moments of sadness. It's like, okay, you know, I can still be grateful and joyful and have a beautiful moment and think about something that I'm sad about too. And I think you can have that when something great or beautiful happens, and you can have the opposite when something sad happens. When there's a death or a breakup, there can be a extreme sadness, but also there's an opportunity for like fertile ground for something new to emerge. you go through a heartbreak of someone that you were with for years and you're like, we thought we were going to be together forever. It didn't work out. The expectation, whatever reason, didn't work out. But there's a possibility for some, becoming someone new. And I think both ideas that can happen.

I think that's a really, I, I haven't heard it framed, like, from that perspective before that. the same kind of phenomenon that can make a really good moment feel bittersweet can be the thing that makes a really bitter moment feel sweet.

Absolutely. And it's all perspective too. If you look back at all the hardest moments of your life, breakups, sadness, friendships that maybe didn't work out, family stuff, whatever it might be, business breakdowns, within the next year, something, it was fertile ground for something to become new inside of you, hopefully, where you were able to grow, create something new, a new idea, heal, overcome, meet a new friend, get in a better relationship, whatever it might be, from that horrible moment, from that breakdown. And so something beautiful can come from pain, just like something challenging can come from something beautiful.

What do you think is the appropriate balance or amount of time when something difficult happens, like a heartbreak, a divorce, a tragedy. What do you think is the right amount of time to kind of lean into the feelings that you have there and to fully feel them, feel the sadness of it, feel the grief of it? And before you decide to kind of look at ways to reframe it or open yourself up to the possibilities that could come that could allow you to feel a bit better. Because, you know, some people rush right over their grief and do their best not to feel it, right? They just immediately try to... It's almost like they reframe in real time so quickly...

They bypass the emotion.

That there's the... Yeah. And I suppose a second part to that question would be for, for people listening, men or women. But I'm, I'm, I'm also thinking a lot about men and men who are listening to you right now who maybe struggle to access their emotions and really connect with what they're feeling and they're used to avoiding and just working or dismissing things and whatever, and I what would be your advice to men to do what I think you have learned to do very well, which is to tap into that emotion and not be afraid of it?

I think for many years I was running from my emotions, specifically in my 20s, and kind of going to the next thing quickly to try to create relief or pleasure from the pain. And the more I ran from things, it was kind of like what David Kessler says, like the storm kept chasing me and finally caught up to me and it was more painful later. so I was trying to avoid the storms, but it's still looming in the background in my psyche or my body or my emotions and still coming after me. So I'm, like, anxious because I'm trying to get away from it, but I still see it in the distance attacking me, and it's always coming, so it never stops until I go through it. It's not like the storm goes away. Like, you have to go through the storm at some point. when there's a heartbreak, a breakdown, grief, loss, upset, an interruption in life, you've got to go through it. It's not just going to stop chasing you. And so the proper amount of time is when you realize that you've got to do some inner reflection, go through whatever storm that is that you're facing. And that storm, it might be a long time. You got to go through it. It might be a quick storm. It all depends on how you can emotionally regulate your feelings and process them within that. You know, at this season of life, I can probably process my emotions because I know how to regulate them. I'm not afraid to sit in a parking lot and cry for an hour and even look silly, you know, if someone's walking by and just ball it out.

So if I'm a guy listening and I'm going, All right, I'm in the car, right? I'm about to go to the gym. I'm in this big moment in my life.

It's only happened, I think, once in my life in the car, in the gym.

But I think it's kind of perfect.

Right?

Because it's, you know, what, and I can relate to this so much. You, you know, you might get a feeling that starts in your stomach of like, you know, in your case, okay, you think about your, oh my God, I'm getting married today. And then there's almost simultaneous feeling of, oh wow, my dad's not here. And then there's that knot in your stomach.

Yeah, a lot.

And a lot of people, when they feel that knot in their stomach, it's like, like, all right, shake that off. Like, let me think of something else, because it's too painful. What's the. I know it's such a strange thing to have to break down in a granular way, but for people, these little emotional Fork in the Road moments are what make the difference between us processing even a little bit and just moving on. So what you. Could you tell. Walk people through. Like, they feel that not in their stomach, their instinct maybe is to just. like call a friend or just to like distract themselves or do whatever they what should they do?

Social media or get on social media or whatever it might be. I think it depends on the size of the the emotion For me, that was a big mixed emotion and a lot of energy swirling all at once and youd know some heightened excitement a lot of anxiety like it was all coming I was getting married in a few hours. It was like all happening right then and and that's just what I needed to do right then. So I started to feel myself driving to the gym, kind of feeling emotional and, like, starting to cry a little bit. And I was like, okay, I'm just gonna get in the gym and push through it. This is kind of the athlete mindset. I'm just gonna push through this, and I'll be good. But as I sat in the car, when I got there and parked, I was like, man, I'm actually really sad. So I just allowed myself to. To take a moment, and that moment turned into an hour. And I was just like, I'm gonna keep going through this until I feel complete with these emotions, until I don't feel like they're coming up anymore, and they just kept coming. so for me, that's what I needed in that moment. And then I just said, actually, I'm not gonna work out. I'm gonna go for a hike. I'd rather be in nature. I don't want to be around a hundred people. I don't want people to come up to me and like say, Hey, you know, I love your show or whatever it is. I just wanted to be alone. And that's, I was listening to what I needed in that moment. But most days, if I go through a minor stress or a minor breakdown, I'm not sitting in the car for an hour because the emotion isn't as strong and as big. But what I do do is I try to process it like coming in here, I had some anxieties about what I'm going through next week and book launch and tour, and I'm just like talking it through. It's not enough for me to get emotional and sad and cry and like be trapped in my emotions, but it's just let me talk about it. Let me breathe into it and let me tell you how I'm reflecting on it.

So it's like talk about it with a person.

Yeah, someone you trust. and when you have a partner, you know, I think for the men here, if you're in a relationship, something me and Martha do every day, it's like we talk about just how the day go and is there anything that's going on that you need support with? And I think just having that few minutes, we do it over dinner. We sit down, we have dinner, we talk about it. That's ability for me to process my emotions, let it out, whether it's something beautiful or challenging or anything in between. And I think if we don't allow ourselves to process by talking about it in some way, Then it's just gonna keep chasing us.

What's your message to men who feel like they're gonna be perceived as somehow weak by talking about it, that they're not gonna seem as in control? A lot of guys are watching a lot of content out there that is making them feel like they always have to be a leader. They always have to be in control. They have to be bold, 'cause bold is attractive and sexy. They, you know, they can't be the one to doubt. Their, you know, their partner can doubt, but they can't because their partner sees them as this strong rock and they have like that. All of that advice makes so many men feel like they can't do what you just described. I think this will mean a lot to people coming from you because you're far from perceived as someone who is in any way you know, not a go-getter not someone who, like, you know, goes out there and makes it happen or goes after what they want. But you have this, what I call unique pairing of having those abilities to do that, but also not being afraid to actually voice. Yeah. What you're feeling in those moments when you're anxious about something that's coming up or is this thing I'm doing? So what could you say to men that could actually help them bring some more balance into the ways that they share.

I come from the athlete world, and if you are a fan of sports in any way, shape or form, you watch sports at all, and you have a favorite sports star in your sport that you watch. That star has coaches and mentors guide them through the most challenging times from their childhood of early days, high school, college Pro, and they continue to guide them and give them feedback and coaching at the highest level to be a champion, to be the best killer they can be in their sport. And there's times when there are breakdowns, they get injured, and they need that support emotionally, psychologically, all these different things. A lot of them have mental coaches. And I just think it's, it's weak to not ask for help. You're, you're trying to act like the tough guy as opposed to saying, I need all the help I can get to keep me in a state of calm, of responsibility, of leadership in my life. and I can't do it all on my own. And I just think finding the right mentors, coaches, guides, pastors, leaders, therapists, whatever it is you need, finding the people that can support you and be on your side will continue only not only to give you more tools and information to make you a better human being, make you an effective leader in your intimate relationship and in your career or your sport or your life. But it's going to give you this, like, superpower of a support system that's going to elevate Constantly. But if you think I can do it all on my own, I don't need to show emotions or process anything. I got this or it's gonna look weak. I think that is weakness, not being able to look out for support and not being able to invest in or reach out for wisdom from people who have life way more figured out than you do.

And for the guys that are like, okay, I could do that with a mentor or with a someone who I can offline with, but you know, I'm afraid that the woman I'm with is going to get less attracted to me. That's true.

What could you, what comes to you offer them? I've seen that because I've been in relationships where I've shown my emotion or shown a vulnerable side of me where I've been, you know, going through emotions, right? Processing something that I'm struggling with. And I've had women laugh at me when I've cried in the past or when I've, like, shown emotion. And I had a woman laugh at me saying, I know I'm not supposed to laugh, but for whatever reason, It's crazy. I swear to God. She said, I know I'm not supposed to laugh, but you just look weak. You look weak to me when you show emotion. And she goes, I know it's not true, but something is built inside of me that like makes me think you're weak. And I'm just like, that's fine. But that's fine because she's not the right one. She wasn't the right one for me. But it messed me up for a little bit because I was like, okay, I can't show emotional weakness because then the girl I'm with is gonna laugh at me and think I'm weak. And it just wasn't the right relationship. But it can really mess up a man's psyche if the woman doesn't find it attractive when you show any type of emotion or vulnerability or lack of certainty or lack of clarity in a situation or stress. And it can feel daunting to always need to be the leader in your life and in your relationship. But I think if you're looking to have a beautiful, positive, empowering life and beautiful, positive, empowering relationship, you must need to continue to develop tools to be a more responsible human being in your relationship. It can be unfair, it can be all these different things. I'm not saying it's fair or it's like I wish it was easier. But I just feel like life becomes much richer when you take full responsibility of everything. And you say, this is the role I'm choosing to step into in my relationship. And I am choosing a role that is going to make me a better human being in my intimate relationship with Martha, my wife. And she is choosing a role to support me in the relationship as well. and vice versa. And that role also allows me to have flexibility and grace and emotions and be able to process things. But it doesn't look like the way that she processes them and that's okay. And I also don't take all of my emotions to her when I have them. She doesn't do that for me. She goes through a filter process before bringing me her upset or problems or sadness or emotions. She goes to her sister. her mom, her friends, your wife, her therapist, her dad, before she brings all of the problems of her life to me every day. That there's some filtering of emotions. So then when it comes to me, she's already processed a lot of it. Unless she hasn't shared it with anyone yet and she brings something to me, cool. But it's not like, oh, the world's collapsing and let me bring it to you every single day. that's a lot of emotion. I don't do the same thing to her. I don't come to her every day and say, ah, this person in my job did this and this person did this and I'm stressed about it. I don't bring her everything right when I get home. I try to process some of it and talk about the beautiful things in life as well. And I think it's just learning how to navigate your own motions. You know, I think the most powerful tool any human can have is the tool of emotional regulation. and that means the ability to recognize when you're feeling something, when you're stressed, anxious, overwhelmed, hurt, sad, feeling taken advantage of, feeling abused, whatever it might be, feeling unseen, unheard, recognizing it, and figuring out tools for self soothing first, and having the courage and confidence to have a support system to support you in processing those emotions as well. Not dumping it all on one person like Esther Perel says, it's like you've got to be the therapist in the relationship. and the lover and the, you know, the sexy person and the smart person. It's like it's too much for one relationship. And I think finding that support system makes you a champion, not someone who's weak.

Hey, everyone. I hope you're enjoying the interview with Lewis. This is one of my favorite conversations I've had in a while, so I'm looking forward to reading the comments. Before you continue, I just wanted to point out what Lewis said is so, so important about emotional regulation being the number one skill that anyone can learn for their happiness. Because if you know how to regulate your emotions, you can be happy in any season of your life. You can find peace in any season, whether you're in good times or whether you're in bad times. And life is always going to give us challenges. But our ability to get control of our emotional states determines our ability to handle those challenges. Well, it also determines our ability to be happy in the good times because many people, hands up if this is you, have been through good times where they're unable to enjoy them because they're still suffering from stress or anxiety or unhappiness or depression. So our ability to control the contents of our mind, to know how to change emotional states and to know how to use emotional states, is one of the most important skills we will ever learn, which is why I am going to be working with people on this for two days in October on my weekend retreat. All the best tools I have for emotional regulation, for breaking patterns, and for building core confidence are what I'm going to be teaching over these 48 hours. I really hope you'll join us, because if you like me as a coach, if you like my style, this is the Pinnacle of what I do. All of the information is at MH Retreat. and men, if you're watching, which I know you are, you're invited too. So I don't want you to think this is a female only event. It's not. Everyone's coming. The link again is mhretreat.com. I really hope to see you there. All right, back to the interview. I couldn't agree more on emotional regulation being the number one thing you can learn. Because that basically will shape the quality of your life.

100%.

Like bad decisions come from dysregulated states.

And reacting out of fear and stress and anxiety.

When we think of all the, when I think of every text message I've ever sent that I regret sending, it's from some kind of dysregulated emotional state, whether it's anxiety, stress, fear, anger, you know, Impatience. Then I'll send a text and then 20 minutes later, I'll be like, I wish I hadn't sent that text. And that plays out on all sorts of different scales in our life. And our ability to regulate those emotions in the good times and the bad times is everything. And I think it's interesting what you're saying about that balance between what we bring our partner and, you know, when we choose to have we got our own filters that are in place? Because you're right. It's, there's a, we each have a responsibility to be a great teammate to our partner.

Yes.

It's not like, you know, I think where a lot of guys get it wrong is they feel like they have a responsibility to always look like some kind of sexy alpha male to their partner. Like, yeah, that's my responsibility. I have to. And if I don't do that, I'm vulnerable.

Yeah.

I'm gonna get eaten alive. She's no longer gonna be attracted to me. I've been there before. I've had that before. And I actually wish on that note that more men would see it as a filtration system for the wrong people when they show vulnerability. And a woman, you know, dismisses them, laughs at them, doesn't think it's. Points out that they don't think it's attractive. I've had that happen to me, you know, and that's when you need to.

Walk away and say, this is not right for me.

But a lot of guys instead go, There's something wrong with me for being weak. I must never do that again. I kind of hate women now. And then they get gravitate towards content and advice online that then further takes them down the rabbit hole of, I having disdain for women, for being these people that hurt them, for being themselves, essentially. And B teaches them the answer to that is to turn yourself into some bulletproof, inhuman, invulnerable man who can go out there and get women because he's never, never shows weakness. And all the while the women he's getting, he doesn't likes because he doesn't like the fact that he's able to get people people who want him, not for who he really is, but for this bulletproof Persona that he's created.

It's awesome.

Scary, man.

Yeah. And I think you have to have a lot. I mean, the self-awareness is the key here, because if you're in emotional breakdown every week, then I don't think anyone's going to be attracted to that. You know, it's like if you're a man and you're constantly in breakdown and.

You'Re constantly depressed and you're stressed and.

You'Re overwhelmed, that's not sexy for anyone constantly. And it's not taking any accountability. It's not taking accountability. You're just being more of a victim. mindset and a scarcity energy versus an abundant, positive, peaceful energy. And so it's like friends don't want to be around you if you're like that for years. Like there might be a season, a few months of like, I'm going through a hard time. Okay, cool. But then you've got to take responsibility of your life at some point, take back ownership of your energy, and try to create a meaningful vision, a dream, a purpose, and start working towards that. And that's why it's like, for me as a man being married, I told Martha, like, this is my mission. This is what I'm, the role I'm choosing to play. And I think of sports terminology because when I play basketball, there need to be different roles on the court in order to be successful and thrive as a team. And if we are a team as a partnership, I don't want to play her role. that's her responsibility. I want to play my role 100% and her role 100%. We will be better together than me trying to play multiple roles. And so that's why it's important to have a support system for each individual, I think, in the relationship or the marriage to regulate emotions and get back to being the best version of you.

And I think figuring out what, you know, we can all fall too far on one end of the spectrum, right? I think we all, it is incumbent on all of us to say, have I brought my partner bad energy for too many days in a row? Yeah. Like, and of course, as you say, we go through seasons that we're gonna, there are gonna be hard times where it's just a, a fact of life that it's gonna take you some time to get through something, and you want a teammate that doesn't make you feel like they're about to leave you for going through that, but, but. I have had times where I'm like bringing an energy too many days in a row because I'm stressed or because I'm anxious about something that's happening that at a certain point I wake up and I go, I'm not doing my job here because I, it's part of my job to be a great teammate to her and not just rely on support from her.

Exactly.

So, but, but I've also gone way too far. What's more characteristic of me is going too far the other way where I giving too much? No. Where I don't express enough, you know, that something has bothered me. And it may not even to do with the relationship. It could be something. I remember being in a situation that really, like, triggered me, really activated me. It was. Audrey wasn't even there, but it, like, got my blood up, and I, you know, it was. I was ruminating about it. It was like obsessively ruminating about it afterwards. And I called a guy I know and started talking with him. And he was like, I remember he said to me at one point, he was like, I was like, When I get home, I don't want to. I just don't. I almost felt ashamed to talk to Audrey about this thing that had triggered me. I was like, I want to talk about it. Or maybe on some level, it made me feel, like, kind of, like, vulnerable or weak or something. I was, like, had some shame around, like, the fact that it was even affecting me because I didn't want it to affect me. And he was like. He was like, Matt, that. That person sitting at home, that's your best friend. That's your best friend. Like, that's who you go. Like, you have to go and talk to her about this. If you're feeling this. and it's like not something like your filters aren't working right now, then you have to go talk to her about this. It's your best friend, that's your teammate at home. And I really want to encourage more people to realise, to recognise that they are, that the right relationship is like you genuinely have a teammate. You don't have to, you shouldn't be in a relationship where you're afraid all of the time that by that, that by being vulnerable or showing who you are, that person's gonna leave you any minute.

Yeah.

And there's so many of us, especially if we've been burned in the past, you do go into the next thing being like, oh, now I have to. Now I'm gonna play a role. And that role is what's going to keep me safe because you don't really think you have a teammate. You feel like someone who you, you're with someone who's got a gun to your head. They have a gun to the head of your confidence where it's like, if I put one foot wrong, you're gonna decide I'm not good enough for you. And even in dating right now, we live in a world where it's like popular to make TikTok videos about the ick and like all of the different ways that someone can get the ick and there's thousands of them and it's like, oh my God, how many more things can I add to the list of ways I can put a foot wrong that someone is gonna like decide that I'm not good enough for them? And it has people go into dating instead of going and being like, A, go in to make an impact. And B, go in to find a genuine teammate who I'm excited to go through the world with. We're going in with this fear based mindset, afraid that we're going to step on a landmine somewhere that's going to blow the whole thing up.

Yeah, I mean, there's, there's one agreement that I was necessary for me in order to get committed to Martha when we were dating. and turning it into a committed kind of exclusive relationship. And the agreement for me was like, I will never get angry at you, never get angry at you because I've seen 90% probably of your personality in the first three months. Sure, there's things I don't know about you. But for the most part, I've seen your personality because we've done a lot together. We traveled a lot together. We met family, friends, we did a lot of things. And I was like, I'll never get upset at you for being who you are. Know the career you have. I know you're an actress. I know you do these things. You're all these different things, but you can never get upset for me for who I am also. That was one agreement. I know you're not going to be perfect. I'm going to make mistakes. I'm not going to be perfect. You're going to have quirks that I probably don't like. I'm going to have quirks that you're going to be like, oh, you don't clean up or whatever it is. But we need to learn to accept each other. That is the role we need to play. It doesn't mean we don't communicate what we want to improve or something's frustrating us. pool, let's talk about it. But who I am at my core, you can't try to change me and I'm not going to try to change you. And I think people aren't willing to go into relationships with that in mind. I wasn't like that in the past either. I wanted the women to change. I'm sure they wanted me to change to fit their needs. And that just didn't work. We weren't accepting of each other. And again, have the courageous conversations, express yourself, all these different things. It doesn't mean shun who you are. but be willing to accept one another once you've dated. If you cannot accept the person, you shouldn't be with them. I just think. So if it's too much ick and you're like, I can't deal with the way they eat their food, it's such an ick for me, or the way they don't text me back right away, it's such an ick or whatever it is, then don't be with them. If you cannot accept their personality because their personality is their personal reality, it becomes your reality. If you can't accept that, don't be with that person.

I want to just ask you this on behalf of women out there who feel like they keep running into guys who are not expressing their emotions or who aren't in touch with their feelings or who are afraid to express themselves and be emotionally articulate. What would your advice be? Or is there, do you have any ideas, I suppose, for how women might be able to help create an environment where guys will be more open with them and talk more.

Tell them that they look sexy when they're sharing their emotions. Encourage them, touch them, rub the back of their neck, listen to them, let them know that they're safe to express that. And it doesn't mean the man is going to do this every day and every week, and you're going to feel like, oh, my man doesn't have it put together. But I think allowing him to feel safe emotionally is going to allow him to love you even more because he's gonna feel he can trust you more with who he truly is. Inside every grown man is a little boy that had some pain, some hurt, some problems, and had some fears at some point. And those fears and hurts may not go away overnight for that that grown man. It may take time for him to feel safe emotionally with a new woman in his life or the woman he's been with for years that he's never felt like he could fully open up to. to. And if you can look at the man inside of you, just like the man can look at the woman in front of him and say, okay, inside every woman, there's a young girl who had her own unique story, her own unique lessons, challenges, pains, hurts, sadness. And there might be still some of that young girl who's hurt inside of this grown woman. If you can look at this and allow each other to process and heal together, you're only going to come together stronger if you allow the man to feel emotionally safe. you make him feel emotionally safe, he's going to want to be stronger. He's going to want to step into his masculine, I think, stronger. And if you're unable to accept him for who he is, then he's not the guy for you. He may be a good guy, but if you're constantly trying to change him to fit into a mold that you have, that means you are not accepting of who he is. And it's like, it's just, I don't know. It's just, I don't think it's going to work long term. maybe you can manage it, but you're both not stepping into who you are.

Is there something that you think, is there any insight that you could share? I feel like I keep gravitating towards men, but I think it's actually this conversation is so interesting for the guys listening because a lot of guys will hear you say, you know, I had a lot of anxiety about the idea of, you know, getting married, the idea of being trapped, the idea of like, you know, being. Being ready for something that big. And, you know, I can relate to. To all of that. And I I actually didn't know. I didn't grow up going, I'm gonna get married one day.

Yeah.

You know, I I didn't know if it was on the cards for me, honestly, because I was like, I don't. I I almost didn't trust myself to be able to run that Marathon. I I was very sober about what, you know, I wasn't. I'm a romantic at heart, but I was very sober about the significance of making that pact with the summers of.

My life or whatever. Yeah, it's like, yeah.

And I, and, and, and it, it. I actually, I think I was resistant to it because I took it seriously. If I'd have been a more impulsive person, then I think it would have been much easier for me. to just get married to someone and then for it to blow up and then do it again. But like, I took it seriously and for that reason, I always felt for my whole life until I got to that point with Audrey, I was like, I don't trust myself to be able to run this race. What would you say to guys who maybe where you and I were a few years ago, questioning whether they can run that race, not wanting to end up being the villain in someone else's story who, to put it in, in the words of the show Hamilton, to, you know, not not want to get themselves into something where they don't trust themselves because they're like, I'm anxious. I don't want. I, I do associate this with being trapped. I do associate this with, like, You know, oh my God, I'm suffocated. What can you share with them that might help them to make... And by the way, I say this not from the point of view of everyone should get married. I don't think that. I think that it's a very personal and private decision that everyone has to make. And I think, you know, there's few things more destructive than marrying the wrong person. So I don't want to like, this isn't just about blindly encouraging people to go and get married, but For those people who feel like it's not that they're never meeting someone that's great, it's that they just are constantly afraid or constantly in the search of something better or constantly trying to optimize. And so even though they might have someone really wonderful with amazing qualities, they're still going, yeah, but they could look a bit more like this, or they could be a bit more of that, and they could, their body could be a bit like, You know, they're in optimization mode, thinking that there's going to be this perfect situation and perfect person that meets every ideal. What would you say to them to help calm the... -Those are women. -I think I'd like to ask this on behalf of men. Because men... Not that this... I mean, there's plenty of women have phobia of commitment too, don't get me wrong. And plenty of women are too much in optimization. optimization mode. But, you know, so many of the women I hear from are struggling with guys who are struggling with commitment.

Yeah.

And, and no doubt a lot of men who listen to the show, it will be coming from a very good place. They're not bad guys that, but they just really, really struggle with letting themselves get into a situation where they're going to truly commit to someone.

If I look back at all my dating and and relationships that I was in, I never dated, if I'm being fully honest, I never dated with the intention of getting married. And so if we're not dating, as I'm looking back now as a married man, if you're a woman and you're starting to date a guy and he doesn't have the intention of getting married, what are you doing if you want to get married? If you're a woman and a guy is with you and you say, Do you want to be married someday? And he's like, I don't know. I'm not sure. Maybe if it works out, that's not gonna work out, in my opinion. Even if he's unsure?

If he's unsure, I'm not sure if.

He wants to get married or not. And you say, okay, let me go into the next three years journey and convince you of how great I am so you will get married. I just think you're setting yourself up for a lot of pain. and a lot of disappointment and a lot of let down and a lot of waiting. So if you're a woman and you're willing to have the courageous conversations early on in the first few weeks of dating someone, it doesn't have to be the first day. But if you're like, I don't want to waste my time, Martha asked me a lot of these questions early on. And if you allow yourself to truly be present to what the man is saying verbally and what he's saying non-verbally, and you allow yourself to courageously ask follow up questions and see how he reacts and see if is he getting fidgety? Is he like, well, yeah, sure. You know, is he truly present and connecting with you on some of these conversations? I think intuitively women know if a man is serious when he says something or not. If you're a woman and you're courageous enough in the first week or two to ask questions, it doesn't have to be like sit down in interrogation mode. But if you're like, My intention one day is to be married and to have a family. Is that something you want? Is that something that you see yourself wanting to do? It doesn't have to be with me right now, but is that something you want in life? And is that something you'd want in the next few years? It doesn't have to be like, by this date, this is what needs to happen, because that's going to scare a guy away. But if you're like, this is something I want.

If you put yourself in the shoes of someone receiving that conversation, when would be too soon for someone to be saying that? Like, do you think that you need to build attraction chemistry? The first five minutes, maybe, is too.

Like, a few dates in or a.

Few weeks in or a few. I think if you're having a long.

First date that's, like, three, four hours long and you're, like, really vibing and you're connecting and you feel like, oh, there's some type of chem, there's some type of deeper chemistry that's more maybe elements of a spiritual chemistry happening, not just. sexual chemistry. If you're like, oh, there's an energy that is different than I've ever felt. It's not just he's attractive and tall and handsome and like says the right things. And I feel like sexually turned on by this man. But if you're like, oh, there's a quality about this man that just is, oh, there's something unique. There's something different. He's got the unique pairing there that is beyond, you know, masculine or chemical attraction for me. but it's like, oh, this guy's got a quality to him, an essence to him. There's, like, some depth. Be willing, I think, if you're three, four hours in, kind of one of those long nights, the dinner goes on, people are leaving the tables, and you're still there, like, shutting down the first night and just having a Vibe. Just be like, you know, this is something I'm really looking for. You know, this is something I'm really interested in this and. I have no idea where we're gonna, you can make a joke about it. I have no idea where this is gonna go, but this is just a vision I have for my life. Is that something you see you'd wanna have? Martha asked me something around this probably within the first couple weeks. She was like, In the next few years, I would love to be married and start the process of having a family. And initially I was like, I don't even know you. My first thought was, I don't really know you. I'm not sure initially, but she was like, if we had started dating and everything worked out, could you see yourself wanting that? It was just more of like, could you see yourself wanting that? And I don't think a woman has to be like, you need to give me an answer right now, yes or no, do you want to get married and have kids? That's maybe extreme. But she was like, would you see yourself wanting that over the next couple of years? And I go, to be honest, I can't say yes right now, but if we were dating, And we went in this for a year, and I felt emotionally safe. I felt like you were my teammate. I felt like we were great partners. We were in alignment and agreement on most things in life. And we were thriving together. Then yes, I could safely say I would be confident then. But I can't tell you now how I'm going to feel in a year. So I was very honest with her about that. She goes, yeah, completely fair. I can't expect you to know right away. It's not about knowing it, but about are you open to that and seeing if the man is honest in his response.

And I think that someone can be being very honest and say to you, in some ways, marriage is something I struggle with because... And I've never been one of those people who thinks for sure they're going to get married. But, you know, I'm like, if someone, if they said like, but I'm learning about myself all the time, you know, I'm in a stage of my life where I'm growing a lot and I suppose, you know, it would really depend on the situation.

And that's kind of what I said. I was like, I've been afraid of marriage. My parents got divorced. Like, I've never thought about getting married, but I want a great partnership and I'm open to it for sure. And I want to have a family. But I would need to feel emotionally safe. I would need to feel I can trust you. I would need to feel like you're not trying to change me, all these different things because that's what I felt in every other relationship and that's why I never wanted to go into it. And so I think being fully honest about where you're at, not lying to the girl saying, yeah, of course I would in a few years. If it all works out, that's when you should be honest as a man. Actually, I've had fears about getting married. Actually, I'm concerned. I just want to make sure that I can live my life, I can do the purpose I have, I can take care of my health and not feel trapped. Whatever it is your fear, I think the earlier you can say it, the better. Because you're not delaying the honesty until three months in, six months in, a year in when you've chemically bonded. I think it's hard to break a chemical bond when you have sexual intimacy before creating spiritual alignment. And creating some type of open spiritual courageous conversation with each other so you can think clearer. I was never able to think clearly when I was intimate sexually with women before. I couldn't. You have an honest conversation with me? Sure, I'll tell you whatever you want to hear because that's like I'm chemically bonded and I'm just doing my best. Oh, you want me to change for you? Sure, because it feels good to have the pleasure. And I think delaying pleasure as long as possible so you can have these more purposeful conversations will just allow you to create more clarity on if you want to keep moving forward in this dating phase. And the faster I ever leaned into chemical sexual connection, the more painful it was at the end of it. It's almost like I was running away from the storm of having courageous conversations up front. and that storm just kept chasing me until a year, two, three years later, where now I had to have those conversations and it just was boom. It was like a freaking tornado, a hurricane, a lightning storm all at once.

I feel like Audrey never let me off the hook of any courageous conversation. I was much more in the gear of like, let's just keep seeing each other.

Let's just keep a light and fun.

And it's like, She never, and I wasn't in, you know, I wasn't like consciously like, I want, you know, trying to waste anyone's time, but I was like, the scary conversations of like, you know, what, what's- what do you want? Exactly. And like, Hey, what are we doing here? Because you live in LA and I live in London. And like, you know, I remember being in London and we'd gotten really close and she was just like, We were on a train actually. And she was just like, Hey, look, you know, what are we doing here? Because we're spending a lot of time together. And what are we? And we're like, and it's great, like we have a really good thing here, but you're going back to LA and she wasn't even, there was no pressure, but it was like, if this is you going back to LA and Then that's it for this until the next time you're in London. Then let's not do the next time in London. Let's just like, it's okay. I've had a great time. This has been really amazing. Like, I feel like I really treasured, like, the time that we've spent together. But let's not do this again.

Yeah.

If you're going to go back to LA and that's you're going to kind of just drift and that's going to be that. And it really it was an uncomfortable conversation because it put me in a spot where I was like having to kind of decide something. But sometimes we need people to put us in a spot where we have to decide something. 100%.

And that's why I go back to like, it's probably easy for me to say this now as a, you know, I'm 41, I'm married. But I just don't think if you are a woman and you want to have a marriage a committed, trusting partner to start a family with. You should not date without the intention of marriage. And so you need to get clarity if the man wants to potentially be married. It doesn't have to be with you right away. And like, I need to know, but it's like, does he want to be married in the future? Does he see that for himself? Does he want to have kids? Like, that needs to be something you ask early on.

And openness is that important word, right? If someone can have a complicated relationship with these things, but if they own their complicated relationship with these things.

And they want to grow into it and they're willing and they're not resistant. And also, it's like if they say no, I have no desire to get married, why are you dating this guy? If you're asking a man questions about, Are you open to marriage? And if he's honest, like, Sure, I'm open to it, but I'm not sure when, or I don't know, I can't tell you, I don't get married to you, I don't even know you. But I'm open to it, then cool, you can keep exploring dating. But if he's like, yeah, I just kind of want to have fun and I'm just in a transition in my life and I'm just not sure. And if he is unclear about what he wants, you should not be with him. No matter how handsome he is, how much money he has, how successful or all the accolades or how many followers he has, you're only gonna get hurt if you want something different. If you want to just have fun and just like have a fling, cool, know what you're getting yourself into. know that this is not going to turn into something he's not going to magically want to get married when he says he doesn't. And when I look back at my dating experiences, I wanted intimacy, I wanted connection, I wanted companionship, I wanted pleasure, all these things. But I didn't want to feel trapped and ever get married. So it was very conflicting. So I would be loving and connected and follow up all these different things. But come the hard questions, I was just shy away from it. And if those women wanted to get married to me, if that's what they wanted, they should have never been with me. And that might have meant I would have just been single and kind of jumping around dating girls left and right until I figured out my stuff. But the quicker you have the hard conversations with a guy, you know, maybe you can go on a few more dates and like explore a little bit more and just continue to ask these questions while having fun. You don't have to be serious the whole time, but you just gotta really trust your intuition and say, is he matching his words? Is his energy matching what he's saying? Is he being real with me? It doesn't mean he has to be like, yes, I want to get married right away in the next few years, and yes, I want to have a family. He may say, I've had a complicated past with relationships and My parents got divorced, so I've always been afraid of it, but I see myself wanting that.

-Yeah, it's a subtle distinction, but it's funny because when you were talking about your past self, you used the language that your past self would have used, right? I wanted intimacy, I wanted connection, I wanted companionship, I wanted pleasure, but I didn't want to get trapped. I didn't want to feel trapped and get married.

-I did not want the responsibility.

But that's, I, you know, I think that men get married when it's a, when they're doing it in a healthy way, men get married at the point where they no longer associate marriage with being trapped, where the association itself changes.

In a healthy way. Yeah.

In a healthy way.

Yeah.

Because I, I, yeah, I mean, there's plenty of men who make that decision who can't honor that promise and But I know for me, it shifted when my associations changed.

My associations with marriage, your feelings with commitment.

They were no longer negative, but they were positive. Now, did I... It wasn't so binary as like, I had zero fear or anxiety, but like, the scales shifted all of a sudden. The headline of marriage was the excitement of, you know, building something with someone. Like, I wasn't anymore thinking of, like, movies where a guy was, like, trapped by being in a relationship as my reference point. I was thinking of, like, the movie Up and the montage at the beginning and the two people growing old together and her adjusting his tie each day and like they're building a life together. Like all of a sudden my associations changed with marriage. And so now it didn't feel like something I had to like will myself to do. It was changing. And I think that what the nuance point you're making about early on in a relationship is that someone may have a complicated relationship with marriage in the same way that they may have a complicated relationship with the, with having kids because they, they themselves might have had a difficult childhood. They, they might have, you know, they might look at it and go, I don't know if, like, I'm scared that I'm gonna be a bad parent because of, I've not, I'm not equipped or, or just, you know, I don't have good associations with family units because of what I learned growing up. But if that person owns the complications. They're like, I look, I'll be honest with you. I have a complicated relationship with the idea of having children because I've, and here's why and here's what I'm learning about that. But I am working on that because, you know, I, I realize that's something, that's something that's personal to me. And I, and I, and I want to work on it. That's a very different thing from being in front of someone who's, like, very unconsciously talking about how, oh, kids, I don't know. It's all like, you know, I don't know if I want that 18-year commitment in my life. And I don't know if I want, like, the idea, you know, for me, it's all a bit scary and what. That's not conscious. That's not someone who's self-aware that's not someone who's doing that work. It's just someone who you can tell from listening to them. has all negative associations. And hoping that those associations are just going to magically change in a relationship is a really dangerous thing to do.

Correct. Push back on me if you think I'm wrong here, but I think there's two things that women are extremely attracted to in a man. The first one is certainty. When they see a man who is speaking with certainty, clear on what they're doing in their life, they have a direction, they're taking care of themselves, they've got things figured out. It creates a level of certainty. And they have confidence around themselves and they speak certainty of what they see in the person and the relationship they're going to build together. I see us having a beautiful family. I see I love you right away. They're like certain about their feelings, their emotions, what's going to happen in the relationship. This is what we're going to do. We're going to do this together. It's going to be amazing all within the first few days. that can be very sexy and attractive for a woman. But that's also could be someone who's conscious or someone who's more narcissistic, who acts with certainty and was like, I love you right away. I know I'm going to marry you. I know this is going to... they're like certain, certain, certain. That can be very seductive, but in the wrong hands of the wrong person could have you feeling trapped and brokenhearted. The other sexy and attractive thing is courage. And that's the courage to be honest early on. Gosh, here's some of the challenges I've been through in my past that have made me kind of hesitant or I've gone through some challenging relationships and I've been hesitant around marriage. But I've been really doing the work on myself, I've been processing, I've been healing. And it's allowing me to have more confidence and going on dates like this and speaking up and sharing how I really feel. because one day I want to have a beautiful relationship and I want to have an amazing family. But I'm not sure when or how, but I know it's something I want. I think that courage to be honest is also extremely attractive to the right woman. When she can see, oh, this guy is really growing and developing and he's honest about his mistakes in his past, I see that attractive as well. So you just have to be intuitive about how you're asking questions and reading the energy of the man you're in front of to see, like, and if you can find a certain and courageous man, that's a unique coupling that is like, you know, hold on to that.

Yeah. And there's that. Look, there's no shortage of. Firstly, I think sex certainty is like the sexy quality across the board.

Sure.

I think there is a lot of women have horror stories, enough horror stories around guys who are immediately certain.

Yeah.

And love bomb them to know that, like, I maybe shouldn't take that as a sign of, like, things come.

Slow it down. Yeah. Yeah.

Because look, for someone, especially for someone who whose greatest fear is abandonment, if someone has an abandonment wound, if someone has been used to dealing with people who never showed up for them, or were highly inconsistent. If someone comes along and gives you the highest level of certainty you've had in years or maybe ever, it can be incredibly seductive. By the way, it can also be very disconcerting and it is disconcerting for a lot of people. They do get that there is kind of a gut feeling of like for a lot of people have something maybe is off about this or this feels too good to be true or something doesn't feel right that they could feel all of this so quickly when they don't even know me. But for many people, the seduction of someone being this certain, someone having giving them such laser attention, someone not making them question themselves for once, someone telling them everything that that that child in them wants to hear.

Yeah.

You know, you're everything to me. You're the person I'm gonna marry. I'm never leaving you. Like, it's everything that innocent child has ever wanted to hear. And so the adult in the room goes quiet. The adult in the room checks out and the kid says, this is it. Yeah, this is the thing. So it's. But when someone's been through that, it. It becomes a real reality check for how. when we don't listen to that intuition, we can go really far astray.

Yes.

Now, that's not to say that there's some certainty in the beginning that isn't like there is.

I.

Listen, there's some certainty that can happen early on. I think I even heard. I think Jesse itzler was telling a story about Sarah Blakely. I hope I'm not getting it the wrong way around.

Saying, like, I want to have four kids with you or something.

She said, I think she said to. It was either the first date or a very early date. She was like, oh, I could marry you. -I could marry you.

-Yeah.

Which is, you and I both know Sarah, and I could imagine her saying that in a very confident and playful way.

And what that means for me is she's like, I could accept you. I could be with you. I could marry you 'cause I can accept you.

-All of you. -And I think that, like, What I'm seeing is like, oh, you're an interesting package. Like, you represent an interesting set of qualities. And it's almost like, I could imagine, I don't know, but I could imagine her saying that in a way that was very confident and very playful.

Yeah, of course.

That almost felt kind of sexy to hear someone, you know, she's basically, she's not just saying, oh, I could marry you. She's saying, I am confident enough that I can say something like that and not feel like you're gonna run away. And even if you did run away, I'm fine. Like, there's something... Now, look, that's a really hard line to pull off. So, like, I'm not saying that that's great advice for a first date, that someone should go and do that. But it's obvious to me how someone could pull that off, and it'd be a very positive and sexy thing, 'cause it's both self-certainty that I can get away with this. And it's demonstrating like it's a massive compliment to him at the same time.

100%.

So there is a sexiness to that, but for all the reasons I've just said, if that turns into a love bombing, that can very quickly go wrong. And that's why you have to judge someone over time. You can't judge them on a first date. The second thing you said about someone being courageous with their honesty is that's a really interesting quality. And it's, and it's actually, in some ways, a very admirable quality. It can, for some people, I think it gets mutated into the, I call them the I speak my mind crowd.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Who, like, whatever apparently is on their mind, they feel the world needs to hear.

Yeah.

And that is like a mutation of that idea that's just used as a way to have no filter and not give a about anyone's feelings on anything or how obnoxious you come across as. I don't think that's a good thing. But yes, there is a level of like, oh, how refreshing that I'm dating someone who is actually giving me straight answers about how they feel about things. That's an admirable quality. What we have to be careful of, though, is not to get so lost in how admirable of a quality that is that we stop paying attention to the honesty they're giving us. Because if the honesty they're giving telling us they're not right for us because...

Don't be with them.

They plan on traveling for the next three years and they're not interested in a relationship. Don't be with them. As much as you say to yourself.

At least they were honest. Yeah.

I've never met an honest man. The answer still is, thank you for being so honest. I really admire that quality in you. It makes us not right for each other. But like, hey, I so appreciate you sharing that. Thanks for not wasting my time. Wow, you're so honest. You're so different. We should keep trying.

Let me chase after you for three years.

Real quick, before you go on with the interview, if there's a question right now that as you're watching this has come up for you and you really want it answered, I want you to go ask that question of Matthew AI. This is my clone that can literally answer your question using my brain, my content, It's at askmh.com, you can text it or you can call. If you call, you'll hear my voice speaking back to you. It's like having me as your one-on-one coach anytime you need. Askmh.com is the link. Go check it out, ask your question, and enjoy the rest of this interview. Now, I want to switch gears to kind of, I suppose, expand our perspective to life in general, you, it's, it's fun being your friend and it's inspiring being your friend and watching kind of from the outside how you, you take on a lot of things. Like, you do a lot and you, I've seen, I've watched you in periods of your life where you do so much at the same time. And listen, you may come to your, you may sometimes go, oh, I learned a lesson to not do this much at the same time or whatever. But what's always evident to me is that you have this great way of managing a lot of stress and a lot of things like I. I think I get more flustered than you do. I think I am more of an anxious type than you are. And it's always. I draw inspiration from what watching you kind of handle having a lot of things at the same time. And I, and I, don't get me wrong, I have a lot on my shoulders at the same time, but I don't think I handle it as well as you do.

Do you have any, like a badge of honor I should be celebrated for?

But I suppose I wonder just even out of curiosity, if there's anything you can share with people as to if they've, if they have taken on a at the same time, and it's making them feel overwhelmed and it's making them feel like they're kind of drowning in responsibilities. Even, you know, it could be the responsibilities of I go to work, I'm also looking after a sick parent, I'm also trying to manage being a single parent. I'm, you know, I'm trying, God, I'm trying to see friends in this somewhere. And then also I'm trying to date and on top of all of it, I'm trying to find time to date. Like what? I wonder if there's any words you could share with people to help them, a, manage having a lot of things and also, like, manage it better, regulate their emotional States while having a lot of things, and also finding the time amidst, you know, you, you are going through a crazy time right now. You have so much on your plate. I'm aware of what the next two weeks of your life look like, and it's insane. You've got the new book out, and I want to talk about that. Make money easy, the brand new you are going on tour, like you have so much going on in the next couple of weeks. And you were like, I'm trying to get the guys together to play pickleball this afternoon. And I was like, wait, what? How do... You know, like the fact that the pickleball might even feature as like something you do today in the midst of all of that is kind of amazing to me. So, could you just talk about that?

Three things that come to mind. One is, I wouldn't be able to... take it all on at the same time without having the tools of emotional regulation and processing and healing different things. Because if I was 10 years ago, I'd still be like people pleaser mode and anxiety and stressed out and it needed to look perfect. Even just sitting down before, I was like, this tour is not the way I would hope it would be. And we might have to cancel some stuff and it's, you know, maybe people don't show up or whatever. and I'm just kind of like, it doesn't have to look perfect or a certain way anymore. I've. I've. Because I'm gonna be okay even if no one shows up.

How did you get that lesson? Did it.

Was it like, man, it's been a 12-year process, and it's like putting myself in this scenario is actually an exercise and an experiment to show myself that I'll be safe. It's almost like. It's almost like we need the breakdowns. so we can experiment more and see how we're gonna respond. So even just sitting down with you and processing and talking about it, like, oh yeah, it's not gonna be like, maybe not every venue is gonna sell out, maybe we have to cancel a venue, maybe people don't show up, I don't know, it's hard to sell tickets, whatever it might be. Talking about it with you and knowing, oh, you're still my friend and I'm gonna be okay. All right, and so what? And then there's the next thing in a year that I get to do again or six months or whatever, I still go home, I have a beautiful wife, I'm healthy, I'm able to play pickleball maybe, like all these things like, okay, if it's not perfect, I'm going to be okay. Another thing, so it's learning how to heal and be okay with my expectations not being met. It doesn't mean I don't have high standards and I don't have high expectations. And it doesn't mean I'm not, you know, inspiring and motivating my team to get the results that we're looking for. It doesn't mean I give up. go all the way to the end, all the way to the last moment of everything, the book launch, the tour, the whatever the thing is, and give them my all. But it's not worth gaining 20 pounds and being exhausted and getting no sleep over. That's not worth it. I've done that so many times. I don't want that life anymore. So it's making sure I'm in alignment with how I want to live and the responsibility I want to have for my health. So that's the first thing, is being in that healing journey so it doesn't have to look perfect. be and accepting myself if it fails, if it's not perfect, if it doesn't look good online, whatever, letting my ego be okay. Second thing is one day at a time. Like I'm just thinking, what do I have today? I had an interview this morning, I had to come to you today, and I'm just focusing on what do I need to do next and how can I be present with you and not let the stress of all the logistics. Two minutes before here, I was talking to my assistant, before I'm parking, she's like, here's the next day, all the travel, all the logistics. I need to download you on everything. And I go, I'm gonna have to call you afterwards. You're not gonna be able to get it to me right now. And we're gonna get through it tomorrow or get through it afterwards because I need to be present with Matt. That's the second thing. The third thing is being okay with saying no. This time around, two years ago in a book launch and all these different things, I said yes to everything and I exhausted myself. cause I felt like if I don't say yes, I'm not gonna get the maximum out of this. And now I told you again before, I was like, I'm only doing like 10 or 15 interviews over the next few weeks. And then we'll see afterwards, like we'll see. And I'm saying no to opportunities that could generate me money or could be potentially big. But if I'm not feeling excited about it, I'm not going to extend myself so much to get no sleep and get sick just to try to say yes to everything.

It's really interesting because I last year when Love Life came out, I, you know, I felt the pressure of I haven't released a book in ten years.

Yeah, that's a lot.

And so I'd built it up so much by that point. Not only that, but like, I took like five years to write Love Life.

It's gotta be perfect. I say everything the right way.

Yeah, and I was like, Let me do as many interviews as possible. Let me put, because I was so I just, it was so important to me and I cared so much. And I came out of that, the book kind of tore, you know, they're going around doing all the interviews. It started in January and it ended by about April. And I did, we counted, I did 120 interviews.

Wow. It did double what I did two years ago, and I was exhausted.

I was. My mental health was terrible.

And.

And I had a.

It.

It really beat me up, and it took me a while to recover from that emotionally, mentally. I just. And I I look back on that, and I'm like, God, I wouldn't. I'd never do it that way again. Like, I I really. That took something from me, and. But I'm wondering. you know, I can imagine, let's say I write another book. I don't know when I'm gonna have the stomach to write another book, but let's say I write another book, and four years from now, I can imagine the amnesia of, like, forgetting and then taking on too much again. What for you? And it's also when ego gets involved.

Yes.

When you're like, oh, I want this to be a New York Times bestseller. I want it to be on all the lists. I want it to be celebrated. And how have you this time managed your ego around it so that your well-being is more important? Are you just telling yourself, like, nothing is worth me not feeling good anymore? I'm just, I'm curious how you've reprioritized so that you don't just kill yourself doing. Because you could have done 80 interviews for this. You know everybody.

Well, I think, I mean, this maybe a pro and a con that I got married five weeks ago. So I was planning a wedding for months before a book launch and a book tour. So I think not having that time to work on the book at all promotion, because I was planning a wedding production and having so much change in my life, I only had like two weeks to work on this to like promote. And so in some ways it was like, what am I thinking? Trying to do these two big moments in life back to back. But also I wasn't like, I have all the free time in the world. Let me just over commit myself to interviews for the first three months of the year. I would say the final thing is really knowing that giving myself an ending of the season of like the playoff run. Okay, there's a wedding planning for that. There's travel planning for that. There's a book launch planning for that. There's a tour moving on all these things. But the tour ends on this date and I'm going to take some time off. and I think knowing that's a few weeks away and every day, what can I do to make sure I just get enough sleep today and be present for what's next? That's what I'm trying to focus on. And it's like, okay, I got two weeks. Give it my best. Whatever happens, have fun. And whatever happens, I can't control the rest. We'll be okay with that. And the ego part is hard. It's been a decade of doing this, and it's like we're in an industry where we have friends who are extremely famous and successful that are crushing it and everything they do. And it's really hard not to try to compare yourself to other people. But at the end of the day, I'm clear on my mission. And like you said, chance the rappers 3333 song or whatever. I don't know if that's the name of it.

Yeah, I was talking about this song that chance the rapper has called 3333, where the whole song is about him, his team booking him an event at the Minnesota State Fair. I think it holds like 14, 000. And he, he got a call from his manager or his brother or someone basically saying, we have to cancel. This is like a code red. We've sold 3, 333 tickets.

Yeah. And not even half sold out. This is gonna be empty. It's like horrible. Yeah.

We can't have the videos. come out and it looks like you're slipping, you know, like we, we have to cancel. And his, you know, that, that song really inspired me because it was, it was really him saying, the craft is what's important to me. This is only what I was doing. If I forget the Grammys that I've won, and if I forget the, if I, or the Grammy, I think if I forget the success and the adulation that I've got and all the hype, ultimately, I was a kid who started, you know, as a teenager, getting on stage in bars with no one listening or giving a who I am. So if I just look at that guy, he was doing it then. I can do it now because what I care about is the craft.

Yes, exactly. So for me, that's what I'm inspired by, is focusing on, you know, if I can serve one person at a time, it's still meaningful. It may not be whatever, selling out Arenas or whatever, but it's like. focusing on the person in front of me that I can make an impact on. And if that's the season of life I'm in, accept that's a season of life. It doesn't mean don't stop growing and trying and try to reach the goals you want, but it's like focusing on.

What'S in front of me and being okay with it. Do you have, like, a positive trigger, like a practical anytime you find yourself getting lost in comparison with someone who's doing more, got more creating, you know, like, on, you know, someone who's just.

Like, killing it in an I do now.

What is the hack that you use for that?

I mean, yeah, I mean, jealousy used to be the, the, the tool, the negative tool, just like, let me work harder because I'm jealous or I wish I could be there. And now it's when someone is thriving or having a big moment of success or doing something that I haven't done yet. It's like, wow, thank you for showing me what's possible. Thank you. Like, if you can do it, I can do it. Or, Anyone can do it, you know, with the right elements and the right timing, the right season of life, like, okay, cool. You're showing me it's possible. Thank you. And I'm so happy for you. Thank you for leading the way.

How do you handle self-doubting thoughts when they come up? Do you have any tools for like moments where you doubt yourself and you're like, well, well, maybe it's going well for them because you know, they're super talented or maybe it's going, maybe they're smarter or. And the dating version of that, of course, people faces, they're better looking and they get more attention than me. And they look, they're younger or they're like, they have something I don't. So how do you deal with self-doubting thoughts when you have them?

I don't have too many self-doubt thoughts. You know, it's interesting because I. I guess maybe I do in some ways, in other ways, I don't. one of them is like, just the unknown of what's going to happen. You know, this is a whole nother conversation, and I'll try to shorten it, but, you know, I have this dream of going to the Olympics in three and a half years in LA, and that's probably the only.

But actually being.

Participating.

That's why it's a lot. Being an Olympian.

It's a long story for a whole nother time.

But it's not a, it's not a dream to get a ticket to the.

Olympics, just to be clear. To be on the US Olympic handball team and play in the Olympics in Los Angeles 2028. It's a dream of mine. And for the last, I don't know, eight months, I've been training and practicing and rehabbing to get ready to go to Spain for a month to practice with the professional team. And I feel the aches in my body and I see how much harder it is to recover. And I'm like, can I do this? I don't know. I don't know. But I'm also knowing what can I do today to see how much closer I can get to making this happen? So the dream is so far away, three and a half years seems like a forever away. And there's so much that could happen in between that. But all I'm thinking about is what can I do today to get me a little bit closer to see if it's even possible? So there is this, I don't know, this uncertainty, which I don't enjoy. I like having certainty. But I'm also in a season where all I'm trying to do is get to this one month where I'm going to go to Spain and play professionally, and then I'm going to reassess. I'm going to see from there, and then it's going to be the next month. One month at a time.

I think that's really valuable. And do you tell yourself, like, even if it never happens, this next step that I'm doing was worth it for its own sake, or do you see it as a waste of time? if it didn't happen.

I think that my future self will always beat me up and say, man, you are a coward if you don't explore this and don't take it as far as I can. I think as long as I go and pursue it, if it doesn't happen, I think I'll be like, you know what? I might be sad and bummed out and like having to grieve this loss of I didn't get to do this thing that I dreamed of as a kid my whole life and I trained for hard. But I'll be like, I have no regrets in not going for it. And I don't have to worry and think about, what could I have been? Who could I have been? It's just the pursuit that is going to make me the most proud. And the cherry on top will be being an Olympian. It'll be like, this is a fucking dream come true. Thank God you went for this. And you didn't let your fear or your doubt or your uncertainty hold you back and just say, you know what? I'm just going to focus on my business because I know that's going to do well. This is probably the most courageous thing I'll ever do in my life is like going for this dream because I have no clue what's going to happen.

It's really inspiring, man. And I, you know, when you first told me about this, I think actually what inspired me the most in many ways was this kind of simultaneously holding to. To truths that I really want this to happen, and it's a dream of mine. But also, I'm just right now getting to the next step, and if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. But right now, I'm just putting the next piece of the puzzle in place, like, one foot in front of the other and just. And just, like. Taking it forward. I think that both that acceptance of, like, I can handle it not happening. And if it falls apart seven months from now because I get injured or because what? Like, that's life or if I don't make the cut or whatever. But, like...

It might be sad.

Right now, I'm just focused on laying the track that's right in front of me. I found that really inspiring.

And here's how I relate this to dating for women or guys watching or listening. listening. Like, four years ago, I didn't know Martha, but I was laying the tracks to become a better version of me, of healing from a breakup, to set myself up to try to have a thriving relationship in the future. I didn't know when it was going to happen. I thought I was going to be single for many years and just kind of have fun and, like, didn't want to be in a relationship initially, but I was laying the. The groundwork in the tracks to have something beautiful be available for It doesn't mean I was going to meet Martha. And it doesn't mean we were going to get married. But without that happening, without me pursuing that growth within me, that healing, I would not be married today. And I didn't know it was going to happen, you know, four years down the road. But I kept leaning into it. I kept taking the next steps with her. We kept exploring. We moved in. We went to therapy together. We did counseling at the church together. We did all these different things that allowed us to get to marriage. And had we not done that, we wouldn't be here. So I'm kind of applying that to this dream as well.

That's beautiful. I love that. Because people can apply that to dating simultaneously going, this is a huge dream of mine.

And it may not work out.

And it may not work out, but I'm just gonna lay the track right in front of me.

Exactly.

I have three questions I want to ask you about money.

Okay.

You have just released a new book, Make Money Easy, Create Financial Freedom and Live a Richer Life.

Yes.

I love the COVID of the book, by the way. I told you that when you came in. It's gorgeous. I am so excited to read it because I actually feel like I have a... You talk... One of the things I know you talk about in the book is the relationship you have with money. you and I were talking when you were creating this book. And, you know, I think I probably have quite an anxious relationship with money. So that's. I'm looking forward to reading this book from the point of view of, like, healing that relationship. But I have three questions I want to ask you.

Go ahead.

One of them might be a bit selfish, and the others are for everyone. So my first question is the selfish one. How can someone heal their anxious relationship with money? If you have money anxieties. And we all know that like, those don't just go away because you got to some point that you originally told yourself, if I get to that point, then I'll never have any money worries again. It those have a way of following you around. so for anyone, including myself, who suffers with that kind of a relationship with money that's quite fraught, what would you say?

Take yourself to money therapy. And just like you would have any wound around anxiety, stress or abandonment or whatever it might be, abuse, you've got to take yourself to therapy and heal that. And so on page 73 of the book, I have a whole process of taking yourself to money. therapy, I'll just kind of list them out to give some tactical stuff. But when you change the way you see and feel about money and you change the way money interacts with you, that's when you can really start to feel more safe with money. So we have to change our relationship with it. And by taking yourself to money therapy, first step for me is really just identifying your money triggers, your money wounds. What is that? You know, our, the way we think about ourselves, the way we think about our partner or anything else, shapes our beliefs. You know this, you talk about this. Our thoughts and our feelings shape our beliefs, and that's usually our story and interpretation around anything. So if it's around our parents or relationships or money or friendship, whatever it might be, and our beliefs, as you know, influence our behaviors, how we act and how we respond to certain things. to things. So we need to be thinking about our own money story. And I have many different moments in my childhood that shape my belief around money. I'm sure you do as well. And maybe later you can share on your podcast with your audience about some of those stories. But I remember I used to steal things at stores. I stole money at times. Someone stole money from me. I met my parents I argued a lot around money. So I have these moments and memories that created anxiety and my nervous system didn't feel safe around money and I didn't understand it. And so the first thing is identifying your money triggers, writing these triggers down, starting to talk about these things. If you don't feel safe talking about something, that thing has power over you. I don't care if it's about a relationship, money, whatever. If you never speak about money, because you feel insecure around it, then why would you have a secure relationship with money? We have to be able to talk about these things. But don't just talk about it with like your broke friend. Talk about with someone who's got a better relationship about money than you do and start having those conversations. A big one for me, I felt a lot of shame and guilt around money because I stole things when I was a kid. And I had to learn how to forgive myself. That was probably one of the hardest things is I did these things, I hurt people, I hurt stores, I stole candy bars, whatever it might have been. But it was like I was living out of integrity. I was living in a way that was not in alignment, that was respecting money. And I was disrespecting myself and others in that relationship. So I had to learn how to start forgiving myself for my childhood traumas and past that I did. And then the next thing is really starting to to practice overcoming these triggers. So the next time you feel, for example, I used to feel like people would take advantage of me when I started making money. When I was broke on my sister's couch, no one asked me for money because I didn't have anything. As I started making money, people come out of the woodwork from childhood asking me for money. I was like, huh, that doesn't feel good. Our relationship is now related to money and you wanting it from me. that doesn't feel good for whatever reason, unless there's something else involved in the relationship, but just coming to me for money only, I felt taken advantage of and felt like I was being abused. So I had to learn the next thing, which is how to create healthy boundaries. And most of the time, if we want to overcome a wound in anything, relationship or relationship to money, we've got to create healthy boundaries with ourselves. So when the next time something comes up, we've got to have the difficult conversation and say, no, I'm not willing to give you money. No, that doesn't work for me. Whatever it might be, we've got to create the healthy boundary for us so that we feel more safe with us, irrelevant of what anyone else does around us.

And that requires us to relinquish a role that we've been playing.

Yes.

That might give us some kind of hidden validation.

Sure.

We.

Or.

Or a sense of certainty. If you keep helping out your brother or your sister or your best friend with money underneath that, you. We do have to ask ourselves, like, what need is that meeting for me?

Yeah, maybe it gives you some validation, some sense of power, some sense of rescuing. So I can help someone, whatever it might be.

Or I'm not unlovable unless I. I'm not lovable. Unless I say yes to this request, if I say no, they might not be my friend anymore. My brother might be mad at me, my sister might not like, you know, might go cold on me and might abandon me. And that's even worse is like, if they freeze me out, I can't handle that. So I'd rather live with the resentment of giving money.

Exactly. And here's an exercise for everyone watching or listening, and I love for people to leave a comment on your YouTube of what their response is to this question that I'm going to give you. Imagine money as a person. The idea of money is in a person's body. And that person, money, walks in the door. And they walk in the door and they stand right here in front of us. What is the first thing that you would feel in your body if money walked in the door? What would you think? What would you feel? What would you say? What would you not say? Would you feel excited? Would you feel uncomfortable? Would you want to, you know, shy away from this person? And before you respond, I'll give you an example of what someone told me. You can think about this. I asked this to someone in their late 20s. I said, if you're at a restaurant and money walks in the door, what do you do? This person said, I would run to the bar and hide. cause I wouldn't want to speak to money. Then I would speak bad about money behind its back to other people at the bar. Then when money came up to me, I would act like I was his friend and be act interested. Then I would use and abuse money when I needed to use it. Then I would ghost money if it ever reached out to me. And I go, wow, imagine if that was a person actually in your life. How would you make them feel if you treated them that way? and I want people to just imagine money as if it was a person in a relationship in your life. Do you have a healthy relationship with it when you think about it, when you receive it, when you spend it, when you, when you, when people ask you for money, when you give gifts to people and it's not received in a certain way, how does it, all of it make you feel? Do you know how much money do you have in your bank account? Do you never look at your bank account because you don't want to stress about it? Do you have lots of credit cards that you just spend freely and know you're in debt, but you're like, oh, I'll figure it out one day. Do you hoard all of your money and never spend it because you're afraid to go broke? Just take inventory on that exercise and write your comment below to share what that relationship was with you. It doesn't mean you're good or bad, right and wrong based on this relationship. It's just giving you awareness on how it shows up for you. So what would be your relationship with money if it showed up and walked in the door right now?

Oh, man.

Your honest thoughts, honest feedback.

I think I would maybe see it as a friend, but a friend I don't want to piss off.

I don't want to upset it.

Yeah, I think a huge amount of my anxiety with money is having a, a childhood of, you know, most of my life where, you know, there was a lot of, like, the rug being pulled out. Like, you think you're safe, but then you're not. But then, you know, like, oh, just kidding. We're in massive trouble. Like, we've got to dig ourselves out of the hole. And so, I don't... For me, if money walked through the door, I think I would have a relationship with it of thinking, like, you might go away at any moment. Like, you could abandon me at any moment. Like, you've been really good to me. You're a friend to me. But, like, at any moment.

Yeah.

So you could disappear and I could not hear from you.

So if there was a woman watching or listening right now or that you were coaching at one of your events and they said, when a man comes in my life, I really want it to stay, but I'm afraid if it goes. And they were, you know, sharing kind of an energy of more scarcity or worry concern. What would you coach or what would you say to that woman on how if they wanted to create a healthier relationship with a man in their life? what would they need to do to overcome that scarcity and feel more safe whether the man stayed or left?

I think partly to connect with the ways that even in the absence of that man, she has already successfully protected herself as an adult.

Yes.

That she's gotten through life without that man. at times so far, because he may not have been there. He probably wasn't there at some point. He definitely wasn't. At that point, she may have felt afraid, but she stayed alive. Yeah, she got through. She took care of herself. So it wasn't the case. See, even though she's telling herself, like, this person has showed up and this is the reason you're now okay. No, you're the reason that you're now okay.

This is.

Yeah, I'm realizing this as I'm saying this, but, yeah, you're the reason that you're now okay. And then I would have her look at the. The reference points she has for her relationship with this man that it doesn't, you know, it's not. This man isn't that man, right? He's. his own person and what's been the evidence that she's had with her specific relationship with this man. In other words, this isn't her father. This isn't her mom and dad's relationship. It's her relationship. This isn't her first boyfriend. This is this boyfriend. And so that doesn't mean that this boyfriend can't betray her or can't go away or whatever. And if he does, she's been fine before, she'll be fine again. But it does mean that if she looks at the evidence of her relationship with this person, and it's different from the relationships that she's had with men in the past, and that the way he shows up is different and the way she shows up is different, and they, you know, she the evidence says actually you are safe. Look, you have a reference point for it. You have built a sturdy foundation in this relationship.

Yeah.

You have chosen well. You know, I would say that's responsible.

You can create boundaries, all these different things. Yeah.

And by the way, when you did create a boundary with that man, it went with this man, he responded well. Yeah. Remember that three weeks ago when you expressed what you wanted, the last guy gaslit you over it. and made you feel like your needs didn't matter. But this person actually heard you and is still here. So you may be responding to an old situation, but let's root ourselves firmly in the present of this situation and recognize it can be its own thing. And on both of those, I mean, speaks to the power of the exercise you're talking about, because on both those accounts, It's extremely relevant to my relationship with money is not the same as, you know, the relationships with money that I saw when I was growing up.

It's evolved.

Those weren't even my relationships, right? Like this, I have my own relationship with it. And it's a very different thing. It's a very personal thing.

Not only that, you might have an eight, but you might have a tendency of anxiety at times with your relationship around money based on the money story and the money wounds that you saw growing up through your parents, through your own business, through your career, everything like that. And through the research of doing this book, I've seen similarities, not with 100% of the time, but I've seen similarities a lot where people's attachment style in intimacy is similar to their attachment style with their relationship with money. and so I had a very anxious attachment style in relationships where I, I would change and people please and do whatever to have the person to try to make the relationships work in the past. And I didn't want to end the relationships because I craved intimacy and I craved love and connection and all these things, and I didn't want someone to be mad at me. So I would be anxious, more of that tendency, and I would see that around money as well. I would make money and hoard it. I would just like hold on to it. I was I wouldn't invest it in me. I wouldn't spend it on nice things because it's like, I don't want to go broke again. I don't want this money to leave me. And both those times, it's like you're creating it from a scarcity energy. And so this whole book and process and premises around what is our energy with our relationships? And if we have an anxious or avoidant energy or style, then we're probably just gonna have more conflict and stress in the relationship and our nervous system doesn't feel safe. So everything is about how can I make my nervous system feel safe in the partner that I'm choosing to be with intimately? How can I feel emotionally safe so I'm more secure? Whether the person does something I like, they do something I don't like, whether they want to leave or they want to stay, I feel more secure. It doesn't mean it's always perfect and I have no care what they do and you create boundaries and agreements. But how can I feel safe with me? Like you were talking about coaching that woman, like she's going to be safe, she's going to be okay because she knows how to regulate her emotions. And I struggled around money for years when I didn't have it. I didn't know how to make it. And I felt anxious and avoidant as well. And until I learned to make it, that's when I was hoarding it and I was just like anxious to lose it. So I was always kind of clenched. and when we have clenched hands, it's hard for us to receive more freely and it's hard for us to give more freely. I think the goal around a relationship with money is to be able to greet it like an amazing friend, being able to appreciate it, be grateful for it, say, how can I be of support and service to you? And how can you be in support and service to me? How can we help one another? How can we flourish and grow and, and use each other, not in a negative way, but for good in a positive way. How can I develop my skills to feel more empowered emotionally? And how can I be rewarded for that through money wanting to come to me, but also being able to use it how I can and not having to hoard onto it? And so the goal is to kind of see how can we become more secure in that relationship with money, just like we want to be secure in our relationships with our partners. And when we can do that, It just feels more abundant and it feels richer. And when I think about richer, I think about harmony, joy, love, connection, loyalty, freedom. That's what I think about, the qualities of richness, of abundance. And when I think about scarcity, I think about anxiety, worry, fear, uncertainty, stress. , you know, all anger, resentment, all these things, these kind of energies that harm a relationship when someone is living in that space consistently. So it doesn't make us right or wrong, good or bad. If we have tendencies of anxiety around money, we can still make money and use money and, and, and be respected in our life. But the goal is how can we feel more emotionally safe when money comes to us, when money leaves us, when we have to spend a lot, when we spend a little, when people give us gifts. It's hard for a lot of people to receive gifts. We're saying no to money. We're saying no to generosity. And if we're blocking someone else wanting to give to us, then we're saying, I don't want money. I don't feel safe with money. I don't feel good. I don't feel like I deserve money. It's like when a great man shows up and he's treating you kindly and you're saying, I'm not ready for this yet. You're signaling in an energy in the world of rejection of get away from me. I'm not safe. So how can you find love and intimacy if you don't feel safe with you and you're rejecting love, abundance and opportunity to come to you? So this whole process is allowing you to notice your nervous system, your energy, your thoughts, your feelings, your beliefs around money and how your behaviors are either supporting you or hurting you and just to give you some tools on how to grow beyond that.

It's really powerful, man.

It's not really about investing or making money. There's no charts in this. It's about your relationship to it. I mean, and the quality of our life is related to our relationships and the qualities of those relationships. And money is such a, can be a, such an empowering tool in intimacy. to create a sanctuary, to go on beautiful trips, to invest in charities, do whatever you want to do as a family. But it's also, as you know, one of the biggest things that cause argument, stress and overwhelm that cause divorce and breakups around disagreements and a lack of healing and individuals relationships with money. It causes a lot of pain as well.

Well, one of the things that came up for me when you were just this talking. This is really powerful, by the way. I'm really excited about this for you.

Thanks.

Like this. The content here is like, this is really powerful, powerful ideas. I can. I know it. I can feel it because I feel it in my stomach as you're talking. And I'm like, it's got my mind whirling. But, you know, one of the things that came up for me as you were talking was how many times over the last 20 years. I have been anxious about money while keeping on board members of a team that are costing a lot and putting an enormous burden on the organization, on me, to be able to pay everyone every month, but who I wasn't satisfied with the performance of, but how long it took me to... It's like almost... I was more comfortable in, like, being anxious all the time. About money.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Than respecting the work that I was doing and the hard work that everyone who was performing was doing. by having a boundary with someone that said, Hey, I need you to do better, or, Hey, this isn't working. But how often I chose my anxiety with money over having a higher standard and a boundary with someone in my life.

And having courageous conversations that would give you more peace. And so we delay having peace to try to not ruffle feathers, or hurt someone or upset someone or create a boundary. And therefore, our energy is more scarce. Our emotional energy is limited because we feel less free. We feel less abundant. We feel less peace. And the goal is to creating, you know, inner peace is rich. Yeah. Stressed and anxious, but having some money that you can't feel good about, that's not rich.

But it. But the thing is, like, I can remember times where I saw I I didn't have money because I was just trying to, like, living to pay everybody and. Which is fine when you have people around you who you're like, we're really doing this. But when you have people who you're like, you're not performing, it's not peaceful.

That's.

And it almost. I don't know. There's something very interesting about what you're doing with this personification of money because I. It almost makes me think like, oh, I wasn't. respecting that relationship when I was putting it under constant strain just because I was worried about hurting someone's feelings or I was saw it as somehow a sign of disloyalty by, you know, letting someone go instead of month after month after month not being happy. Like, year after year, I was putting a strain on that relationship. And in a way, I've kind of almost just look at it because of what you're saying, like disrespecting that relationship that actually for most of us, it's not like acquiring money is hard. Takes a lot like, and maybe this is a relationship thing, but my experience of life has been that it's taken a lot of hard work to get to a place to acquire any money and to build and. It's not respecting all of that work and that energy and that relationship in yourself by continuing not having boundaries in certain areas.

And I'm sure people watching or listening can think about a intimate relationship they've been in with another person, whether it be a career relationship, a friend, a family member, or an intimate partner where they've allowed something to go month after month, year after year, without having the courage to create those boundaries and respect themselves and the relationship for what they want. And therefore, you feel more stress, more pain, more anxiety. And it's just a lower energy that you have. And it's hard to feel abundance and free when you have scarcity and anxiety. It's hard. And I'm not saying this is going to be a perfect relationship every day. And kind of like these seven key habits on how to make money easier in your life instead of believing it has to be hard. And the seventh habit is the mastery habit, which is when you think you figured it out, it's like you almost have to go back to the basics because every new time you break through a barrier or a boundary financially and you hit some new financial goal, you're gonna now need to spend more on taxes. more people are going to ask you for money. You're going to have different, you're going to buy more things, you're going to have more expenses, and you're going to have to learn, oh, there's a whole new relationship at this level of having money. And the anxieties come back up. You have to process them again and keep evaluating and learning and growing. Oh, more people are asking me for stuff now. That's a weird pressure that I've never felt before. They see me in a different light now. They expect me to be a certain way now. I've never felt that before. We're going to continue to learn and grow as our money grows with us.

One of the lessons Audrey and I have, it's a personal lesson. It's not right for everybody because we have friends who think completely diametrically opposed to this. But for it feels right for us, you know, we always say this to each other. We're like, for us, it feels like the key. to peace in life on this front is as we create more financial independence, not needing a bigger life to go with it.

You don't need it, man.

Like, stay... If we can be happy with what we have, if we can say everything we need... And by the way, this is true. This is 100% true. what we need in our lives to be happy, we have. Yes. And that's a privileged place to be in. We are so, so fortunate to be in that place. And it doesn't mean there's never anything like I. Of course, there are things that I, like, look at, and I'm like, oh, I don't want to. I don't want to spend that money. Or I look at a piece of clothing, and I'm like, oh, no, I can't. I can't make myself buy that. You know, it's too expensive or whatever. still do that. That's the truth. But. But, like, I always step away from it five minutes later, and I'm kind of like, I'm glad I didn't buy that. I didn't need it. I was caught in a trance for five minutes.

Yeah.

But we always tell ourselves, you know what? Let's never forget that we're what. Where we are now is enough.

Yeah.

And if.

If.

Doesn't matter if things grow or whatever, if they grow great, but if we can. if while things grow, we can stay where we are now, that's actual peace and freedom. If as everything grows, we keep our appetites just keep growing.

We stress out.

We're going to stay in an anxious relationship with money forever.

Yeah.

And so that's my happiness. And so that's my happiness. I know people who are the opposite. I know people who, when we've said that to them, they're like, I mean, okay.

I'm not happy talking about billionaires.

Yeah, I want this and I want this thing and I want this, but it's just, that's just not us. And I think for that reason, it's such an intensely personal relationship.

And I think the whole goal is for you to define what does a rich and abundant life feel like with money with you.

Well, that brings me on to this. I've got two more questions. How do you feel abundant with money when money is tight?

Well, there's kind of four things that every person can have around money. The first one is you can be broke and you can be miserable. And that was me on my sister's couch, I don't know, 16 years ago or something, broke, miserable, clueless of what I was going to do, didn't think I was valuable enough to make money, didn't know how to make money, stressed out, anxious, all that. That's not a good place to be in. Then there's broke and feeling abundant. And after I started finding mentors and feeling like, okay, I'm at the bottom. My dreams are over. I'm injured. I'm sleeping on my sister's couch. She's taking care of me. I'm a grown man that can't take care of myself. After I got through the sadness, the depression, all those phases, and I finally said, I got to do something with my life, I started to take responsibility and I started to tackle the fears and insecurities and doubts that were holding me back. And over six months, 12 months, I started to feel so powerful, even though I didn't have any money. I was overcoming things that were holding me back and I was feeling like, man, I can do anything. Like, look at what's starting to unfold. Maybe I'm not making money yet, but I feel encouraged. I feel motivated. I feel like I'm meeting people, opportunities are unfolding. I felt more abundant. I didn't feel, I didn't have financial freedom, but I felt emotionally more abundant and empowered. Then there's rich and scarce. It's like having money, but feeling anxious, scarcity, stress, overwhelmed. I had that for a long time. It's like after I started making money and it was exciting, then I was like, oh, the freedom and having my own apartment, I never want to go back to being broke on my sister's couch. So let me just not spend it on anything. I didn't have a car for a year and a half. I took Greyhound buses around the country. I stayed in freaking hostels with 20 dudes throwing up on the floor after drinking all night. When I had money, but I was afraid to invest in me to have like peace of mind or save time. That's not abundant. That's still scarcity. Having money and feeling insecure constantly, it's almost as bad as being broke and feeling miserable. Because now you have money, the thing you've always wanted potentially, but you still don't feel enough. And there's this big separation, like I should be happy, I should feel free, but I'm not. And then there's I'm financially stable or I'm financially abundant and I feel abundant. And I think the goal for each person is how do I feel like I have enough money that I feel like I'm taking care of myself. I don't have to be a millionaire, but I feel financially good. And then I feel good about me and my life. It doesn't mean I have everything I want. I'm doing everything I want. I'm in the right position, but I'm moving in that direction. And I think that's the goal. And it doesn't mean you're always going to be perfect in that quadrant, but I think that's where we want to lean into.

What do you this final question, bringing it back to people's love lives. For those people who are out there dating and looking for love and not feeling in a good place with their finances, what would you say to them so that their financial position or their debt, their financial worries and reality doesn't really hurt their confidence in the dating process in a way that makes them lower their standards or accept less.

I think this goes back to the, you know, there's two types of, I guess, attraction. There's like the certain and the courageous. And if you, for whatever reason, gotten yourself in a lot of debt that you didn't want to get to or you realize that was a bad decision or you took out too many credit cards or whatever, you change degrees, but you now have 100 Grand in debt that you're never going to use for that. degree or something, and you're thinking, man, I've got a hole to get myself out of. I think as long as you're clear on like, my intention is to become more financially secure, and I'm creating a game plan, and I have a map for the direction I'm heading, and I've gotten support, and I've read books by Ramit Sethi, and I've found the tools on how to get out of debt, and I'm doing the practical steps, and I have a game plan. I think you can go with someone, go into a relationship with someone saying, yeah, I made some mistakes financially. You can't lie about it. Otherwise you're going to find, they're going to find out about it later. It's like having the courage to say, here's where I'm at financially, here's my debt. But I've owned it, I've forgiven myself, and I have a game plan of how I'm going to get out of it. Maybe it's going to take three years, five, ten years, but I'm working towards overcoming it. I think that's the best place to come from power. by owning the challenges you've been through and saying, but I have a game plan, I have a map, I've got a coach, I've got the whole process, it's automated, I don't think about it, and now I can just work to overcome it. That for me is sexy. It shows, oh, this is a person who can own their mistakes. They're already working towards overcoming it. They're not trying to sweep it under a rug and act like they don't have any debt. They're owning it. And a person who can see that, if if it's the right match, I think they'll receive you okay. I think if you're lying about it and hiding it, that's when the financial infidelity will come back to hurt you.

That's amazing, man. This is like powerful. Thanks, man. People are going to love this. I'm excited to read it myself. This is really, I'm so excited for you. Is there a particular place that people should go for it or is it just everywhere? Just go on Amazon.

Yeah, type in make money easy on Amazon. on or any bookstore you're at, check it out and heal your relationship with money.

So make money easy. I love, love, love that you focused on your relationship with money as the way into this book, because I think that's what we all need. And it is important, regardless of where you are in life. I need this. I know so many people.

I wrote it for me, man. It's like I wrote it for me, and I've interviewed all the and I was like, how can I keep improving? Because even though you and I have successful businesses and we know how to make money now, it doesn't mean I don't have my own challenges with money and my relationship to it. And even at the end of writing this book, I guess a year and a half ago or whatever, I had a big thing came up where a company owed me a million dollars and they didn't pay me over many, many months. And I had all this anxiety, all this rage and anger. It was like, amplified again. And you feel like you've mastered a certain level, then here's a bigger test to see if your nervous system can handle what you're about to go through. And I felt the abuse. I felt the taken advantage of. I felt all the hurt, the freaking disloyalty, the all these things are stealing from me. All of it came out. And I go, isn't it perfect that I'm still writing this book when all this is happening to continue to teach me a lesson that I need to go through the practice of identifying the wounds, going through the steps of taking myself to money therapy, shifting my beliefs and creating boundaries, using my voice, all these things. It's a relationship, whether it's with your employer, your boss, a business partner, a friend, a family member, it's like we have to apply these tools at different stages. And so it's not like I've mastered and in some way and it's like I have the answers. It's like I've interviewed the people, I've gone through my own stories and traumas, and I'm on the journey with everyone as well. And I feel like by going through it and by talking about it consistently and practicing it, I have a better relationship with it. And it doesn't mean I'm gonna have a perfect relationship. It just means I'm gonna have a healthier one. Yeah.

Well, I feel lucky to have you to talk to about all of this in public and in private. The book is Make Money Easy, Lewis Howes. Thank you, brother.

Thanks, brother. Appreciate it.

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