Simple Communication Shifts That Build Stronger Relationships

Welcome to Inside the Speakeasy Podcast, the private room where today's sharpest founders, innovators, and renegade thinkers come to trade the ideas that move industries. This show is brought to you by HighLevel, the AI-driven business operating system trusted by over 2 million businesses to help automate, scale, and create real leverage. HighLevel isn't just a tool, it's the engine behind some of the most agile and high-performing teams on the planet. If you're ready to streamline everything, amplify your reach, and actually build a business that works for you, you're in the right place. Visit www.gohighlevel.com/speakeasy-mastermind-promo to get an exclusive 30-day trial for being a listener of the Inside the Speakeasy podcast. Enjoy the show. From amazing corporate and leadership trainer fixer guru all the way to relationship specialist and guru. I am so excited today. We're going to talk about two such critical things in your massive amount of experience that us as entrepreneurs, if we're not doing right and we're not focused, we're literally just destroying our potential, our future. We're not living the life we should be living. And I can't wait to get into that. So excited to bring from my hometown of LA, welcome Ms. Tressa Yanakawa.

Eric, such a pleasure to hang out with you and your listeners here. Thanks for having me.

Yes, thanks so much for coming. And just to give a little background, I know I kind of teed it up a little bit. I mean, we're talking, you used to do some corporate training and leadership training and really working with some of the top gurus. We're talking to companies like Nike, the government, Apple, some of the biggest healthcare companies out there, some of the big universities. And we were in the green room and there was some top secret like celebrities and leaders right now that you're working with that. You'd probably have to shoot me if we told me, so we're not gonna get into violence, but you cannot tell me through those deep NDAs. So I know there's some, and just having gotten to know you, I know there's some big names out there that you really make a massive impact for. Thank you again for coming on, and I can't wait to get into this.

Oh, thank you so much. I'm so excited about this. This is the one thing in life that I do is I fix relationships. And so everything is a relationship. And when we look at it that way, there's a lot of ground to cover and a lot that we can do.

That's right. I mean, you're right. Everything is relationships, communication, and all that. Now, all of us as entrepreneurs, I'm fascinated because I want to get a little bit of the backstory, because right now I know your core focus— we'll talk about that— your core focus actually is on relationships with couples. You said a little bit more women, but you actually still do a lot of men right now and fixing that. And that came from all this amazing work you did on the corporate side. And let's talk about how you actually came to work on relationships. What was wrong? How do, how do we get to this point?

Well, I'll take you back one step and then I'll take you back one step further. So the one step back is that working with top leadership, I recognized that I was getting a lot of feedback from leaders and teams that their home lives were getting better. So they started asking, when I use these tools that you're teaching us here to be better leaders, to work better as a team, to be better creatives, those same things that I'm applying at home are starting to help me have better relationships. With my spouse and with my kids.

That's how it came to be. And then, so did the trigger start hitting, or how did you start going down this path? And are you doing both right now?

I do a little bit of both. I do less on the corporate side. I'm a co-founder of a consulting company out of Portland, Oregon, Taproot Ventures, that is doing all of that. I'm not in that, the day-to-day on that, but it's being handled beautifully right now. And so the couples and the families right now are one of my passion places because I feel like if we can help fix relationships. Just one at a time, we can make the world better. And the more we can impact kids, the better the world is going to be for a longer period of time. So I'm really passionate about that.

I was just thinking about that as you were saying that, and you just beat me to it. Your thought, I love— it's just so beautiful. You're right, because how many of us kids are messed up because of the messed up relationships? And if it starts with that, I mean, you are saving the world. And I can see why that's more passionate, more exciting than some of the business stuff you're dealing with.

Yeah, right now it is. And, you know, I'm at a place in my life, very fortunately, I'm very grateful that I do not have to work any longer for survival. And so as I was determining what I want to do with my life and my time, which is the most precious asset we have because life is short no matter how much time we get. When I was looking at that, I didn't want to do anything more than work harder at this because my time is limited. Our time together is limited. And so how can I have the most impact in the most positive ways and make sure that I'm doing the work that I'm here to do?

Love it. Love it. Okay. So we're gonna get in just a little bit and I don't know if now's a good time to weave in the pre-story. Cause the first time I met you, you told me that we actually did some interesting work as a dominatrix. I have to get into that cuz it's just, I wanna see how we weave that into the story. And then I wanna get into the two things. I mean, everybody's listening. You gotta get to the two key things you're gonna teach, but let's get a little bit more backstory cuz that's interesting and relevant to how we got here.

Yeah. Well, I appreciate that. And I usually don't lead with that because that will distract people, that word dominatrix. We all have stories in our heads about what that looks like. Now for me, For me, what it looked like was I got done with grad school. I was just wrapping up grad school in the Midwest, and that was in neuroscience for cognition and communication. And I was applying for a business loan, about $30 grand is all, to start a medical ancillary medical rehabilitation therapy staffing company because I wanted people who were 3 hours or more away from major healthcare to have the best services in the world. Like, just because you choose to live out in the woods doesn't mean that you should be excluded from amazing medical or healthcare mental health services. So I had everything lined up. I had $70-some thousand a month in contracts. I had new therapists who wanted to start, all of the things. And I got turned down from the bank. And at the time, I didn't understand how banking worked and that I had no history. I was just getting outta grad school. You know, I had a car loan, like all of the things, and I didn't have a job yet. So to me, when they told me no, I was crushed and all I heard was the no. But it was a male middle-aged banker who said, He laughed at me. He laughed, maybe not at me, that was my story, and said, "Honey, I can't possibly loan you my bank's money, but I can take you out for drinks to talk about it later." And I didn't hear that overwhelming kind of misogyny. I just heard the no. As it so happened, I wander aimlessly into a local pub that makes root beer, 'cause I love root beer, and I get a root beer and I'm sitting there trying to drown my sorrows in sugar and bubbles. And I hear this woman behind me talking to these two men. And I turn as they're getting up to leave her table and they're practically bowing. They're like, They're not quite sure what to do with themselves, but they're doing a little bow. And she's just looking through a book, not paying attention, not saying anything, not saying thank you. And I went over to her and I said, hi, I'm not sure what just happened, but I think I need to understand how you just did what you did. And she kind of giggled and she said, oh gosh, yeah, of course. She said, it's my name is Madame Karuna and I am a dominatrix spanking the mayor of this town and others. It's a pleasure to meet you. And she said she was working for like $1,500 an hour. And I just thought, oh, well, I could certainly finance my company with $1,500 an hour. But I was so sheltered, and I still will say that I'm pretty naive in the world. I like to keep it that way. I'm not street smart, but I am educated and I am curious, and there's wonder and awe still. So I said, I would love to learn what you do, but I had no idea. I had no background. I had never seen anything that would tell me what that meant. So she lived in Texas. I ended up getting a job in Texas in an elementary school, working in neuroscience communication for speech pathology. And I went over to learn from her what she was doing. As it turns out, she was about 65 years old. That's what she told me. She was probably 10 years older than that. And she was working with some very high-profile people in entertainment, in music, in finance from all over the world. And she wanted to get retired. She wanted to be done. And so she said, I will give you my clients. You can see them. This is gonna be so much fun. And the first time I went over there, She said, okay, at 9 o'clock, this person is coming. He does this in the world and he wants humiliation play. No idea what she's talking about. Walk into her space. There's AstroTurf up the walls of this garden shed and all these implements on the wall and this big like black plywood cross in the corner. I have zero idea. I'm overwhelmed. She says, this is gonna be so much fun. Just leave the donation over there next to the door in the bowl. I've got an appointment. I trust you. It'll be great. And I stood there for about an hour and a half and panicked, like complete shock. What am I doing? Like, this person's going to come and I have no idea what any of these things on the walls are. I have no idea what this is. I just know that I get to dress pretty, you know? And so the man came in, he was dressed impeccably in this olive green suit with a cream-colored pocket square and these beautiful brown shoes and probably more wealth than I'd ever encountered in my whole life. And I had no idea what to do. I did not know what humiliation play was. I knew that I didn't want to hurt people. And so I got to just stand in my full presence, take some deep breaths and just go, okay, like, here's what we're going to do, like in wonder and awe. And what ended up happening was this transference of power. And what I started to understand from the people that I was seeing now, you know, 75-80% of her clients decided to go with more traditional domina, which I totally understand, dominai. But a handful of people, about a dozen people stayed with me and I built my own dungeon, always the entrepreneur. I hired some women who had come from Germany with army husbands and taught them how to do what I did, which is stand in our power, stay fully dressed. We were never touched. We were never really looked at or even breathed, in part because of fear. And in part because it was really important to hold our power so that these very powerful men could let theirs down. And one of the things that I discovered in working with these amazing, brilliant men was that they didn't really know what to do with the power that they had been given by society or by the element of having money or all of these things. And so they wielded it poorly. And in the work that we did together, which was— I call it soul work. You know, it was more dismantling what that power was about. And instead of harming them because of it, I started to understand how to work with it. And then a couple of those gentlemen asked me to work with their wives, and a couple of the other gentlemen asked me to work with their teams. And so I backed into consulting and coaching that way, and I would never trade that. It was an MBA in power, in gender, in money, in influence, in how our words can be spells, in how clarity means more than believability. And that when we can do that as leaders, everything that works to be a great leader also works to be a great lover.

Wow. Okay. So much to unpack there. Thank you for sharing that story. And I mean, there's so much that I wanna go deeper because there's so much that threaded into what you learned there, into ultimately what you did in the corporate training, which leads into relationship training. So you kind of touched up on it, but I wanna go deeper to make sure I get the full, you know, we can all get the full meanings outta that. So you're saying a lot of these A lot of leaders, they get this control, they get this power, they don't know what to do with it. And I think some of the stuff we talked about before is that all these people that have this power, they're not happy with life. They're missing something. So go down a little bit deeper, if you don't mind, on what you found and discovered through this process. And now you're actually in the world of doing leadership training.

I think that pretty much every client that has ever worked with me, male, female, couples, whoever, has said some version of, listen, I have everything the world told me that I needed to have. To be happy, tell me why I'm still not happy. And what it comes down to with everyone, unless we have sociopathic issues, mental health, deep mental health issues, but everyone that I've worked with, the main core, the problem with influence, the problem with creativity, the problem with success, with connection, is self-worth. So it seems so simple, but it is the deepest, most vulnerable truth of us that We came in without any self-worth problems. We learned to be less, to be smaller, to be more controlled, to be something that somebody else needed us to be for their sake. So when we take that on, and I can give you a really good example of what can happen when we take on those stories that other people offer us without examining them, it leads to us holding power in ways where those wounds are still going to leach out into what we do and who we are and how we hold ourselves in the spaces between us.

Wow. Okay, so can we go, can we do some examples that help make that work?

Yeah, I'll give you one example.

Yeah.

During COVID when my flight was canceled to go work in London at a corporation to do some training, I was like, well, I have a speech therapy background and I know how to work with tracheotomies and with ventilators and with teams, so I'll just go do that for the 8 weeks we're not gonna be able to fly across the world. And it ended up being a couple of years. But when I went back into speech therapy, everything just clicked. I got my license within minutes. I got assigned a job in Oakland at a nursing home for people primarily who were unhoused, and I just wanted to do good in the world. So I go into this nursing home, everything's on lockdown, of course. And one of the gentlemen that I meet used to work for NASA, and he's now homeless, and he's been homeless for a number of years. And what had happened, well, I was assigned to assess his cognition. And what had happened over time is that he had started drinking. His wife left him, took the kids. He stopped showing up for work. He lost the house. His world crumbled. He didn't have anyone around him. He had his one set of titanium cufflinks pressed into his undershirt underneath the clothes that he wore. That was all he had left of his lifetime before. And he was dying. He was dying. He had abused substances for a long time and he wasn't going to live much longer. And he said hours before he passed, you know, when my dad told me when I was a kid that I was never going to amount to anything and that I was too stupid to do anything good in the world, I tried to not believe him, but I recognize now that I carried that through my whole life. And even though I reached the pinnacle of success by some people's standards, I never felt good enough. Wow. Yeah.

Chasing this thing that's deep inside and not having the tools to do the work that yourself or others obviously could do to just to carry that through and never felt. How does something like that, like that lead to destruction within families and wives in relationships as they kind of tip on that side?

Yeah. Well, you know, when we have a certain amount of chaos that we learn, chaos or degradation or just unhappiness, when we have that and we think that that is comfort because that's what we know. It doesn't have to be right and it doesn't have to make sense, but it's comfortable because it's the truth of what we know. We don't know anything else. And we aren't taught how to communicate. We aren't taught how to connect with ourselves, have a relationship with ourselves and each other. That is something that we don't ever learn, but I believe that we should because the tools are relatively simple and clear. So what happens is that breakdown in us, we start to push other people to help create that for us. And so you'll see this in couples dynamics, you'll see this in team dynamics, you'll see this from leaders that I need, now that I know, right? Now that I feel comfortable with pushback, now I'm gonna create opportunities for pushback. If I just never feel quite good enough, then I'm gonna create opportunities for me to fail so that you can tell me that I'm not good enough. And these aren't conscious thoughts. These are definitely subconscious patterns. So I always say there's no, you know, shame and no blame happening here. These are patterns happening.

Right.

And once we see them, we can't unsee them. And while I know that talk therapy is so beneficial, what I want to do, especially as an entrepreneur who wants things to happen fast, is I want to make progress on this now. So we don't have to go back and unpack every single thing that's happened. We just have to look at what the pattern is, where it initially started. And then we go, oh my God, now I'm going to fly over and see all the places in my life where that has impacted me negatively. And we can do that in 8 minutes. At the most.

What? Okay. We're gonna talk about that. So—

Totally.

Well, first question, is it almost like the first thing you're able to do is almost inevitably go back to that childhood and pull out inside of them what that thing is, which inevitably is holding back almost all entrepreneurs? Like, how do you help somebody identify, you know, if I'm listening on this podcast right now, how can we be listening and say, gee, there is something there that's a roadblock holding me back?

Yeah. I think one of the easiest ones is if you're partnered, what is the fight you continually have? What is the fight on repeat that you keep having? If we can identify what that is, it's either like an easy one is my partner says they'll take out the garbage every Friday. They don't do it. Right? They never do it. I end up doing it. If we have that as a starting point, then we go and we say, first of all, always give approval and acceptance and that love for the things that people are doing right. And we tend to bypass those things. We tend to just be, oh, well, Finally, you took out the garbage. Instead of, you know, wow, your butt looks cute when you take out the garbage, you know, and have something where we have something positive and we're acknowledging, I see you taking out the garbage and doing the thing that you promised me that you would do. When I see you do that, it makes me feel so loved and supported because I see you doing the thing that you promised me. So I have trust in you. You're telling me the truth and I feel safe with you. And that's hot. Wow.

So acknowledging the things that a partner in a relationship is doing that's probably out of their comfort zone, they probably don't naturally want to do that, but they're doing it because they know it makes you happy. So, so you're talking about going above and beyond to really make them feel— it's almost like creating a positive neuroassociation to the work that they're doing.

It is, yeah. And it works really well if we've made an agreement, either formal or informal, that person's going to do that thing, or if we see them going out of the way. Absolutely. And then One of the things in a partnership that we can say is, "I love you right now because you." So we use "I love you" as a pass-through. It becomes an invalidating script. "Hey, good morning. I love you." "Hey, I love you." "Oh, great. Have a great day. I love you." But it means nothing. It means nothing until we start saying, "I love you right now because I'm witnessing you." Either your eyes are lighting up when we're just walking on the beach or whatever it is. But when we can notice that and If you try this, you'll find that you get stuck. If every time you wanna say, I love you, you're trying to say, I love you right now because you will get stuck. I teach this and I get stuck figuring what to say. And then we start to notice, I notice that I use it as a pass-through. I use it as a bid for connection, but it's an actual connector if we give the person the reason, because now we see them and now they can feel us.

Right. I love you.

It's so simple.

I love you right now because you. I love you right— okay, so instead of I love you, it's right now because you. So everybody listening, I want everybody to think about that tonight. You are gonna do that with somebody you love and watch the magic happen. And you're gonna be so thankful of Tressa. I love you right now because you. I totally see that. I can totally understand, relate to what you're saying. You're right. It becomes a thing we just say. I'd say I'm just analyzing my own, like everything. I think all of us, I think it just, it becomes a natural. It becomes almost like a, some kind of subconscious obligation slash duty to feel like, well, I did my duty. I said I love you. So therefore I'm paying attention. Right.

I'm off the hook. Yeah.

I'm off the hook. That's right. I'm off the hook. I said it. See, you know what? You know, you said I don't say it enough. You don't hear from me enough. Maybe your love language is X, Y, and Z. I love you right now because you.

Yeah. And do it with your kids. If you have kids, do it with your kids. It's so powerful.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Thank you for that gift. Wonderful. So now you got me going here. I know there's a couple of things, couple Tressa techniques that are just amazing for relationships that— and it's so important, like you said, with the kids and all that. And I just love this. So was that one of your two things? I know we got two things, your two big ones.

Oh, the two things are self-worth and connection.

Okay, so self-worth. So if we don't get our self-worth correct, and connection. Okay, so I'm gonna go down the hall again. So self-worth, we talked about a little bit, but how do I get my self-worth correct?

When we're talking about righting the ship, you know, we can do this little exercise that I talked about where you do the flyover. Should we just drop in and do it with everybody listening?

Yeah.

All right, so we're gonna take a deep breath and get really present because we know that breath is powerful. It's life, you know. And as we take that deep breath, we're just— notice that we're safe and that We're here and we're just gonna do a little experiment and see how it goes. So we're going to think about a fight, frustration, anxiety that comes up for us repeatedly. And when you identify that, just take another breath and just notice that's not impacting you right now. You're totally safe, but let's take a look at it and have it look us in the eyes. So we're just gonna, presence, this frustration, this anxiety, this fight we keep having in front of us, and we're gonna open it up and we're gonna notice what it's about truly. What is it in us that is feeling not respected or not met? What needs in us are not being met when this comes up? And then when we can see that unmet need, we go back as far as we can and we go, when was the first time in my life that this happened? When is the very first time in my life that I remember having this feeling? And go back as far as you can. Just trust yourself. You're completely safe right now. And as you remember the first time that you can presence right now, breathe and just notice that feeling is the same as the feeling that happens here in your adult life when you have anxiety, frustration, separation, when you feel left out, when you're having that fight again, and then fly forward from that moment, that first moment. And typically it's before we were 7, 7 or 8. Fly forward and notice all the times that we have carried that baggage with us and that it has impacted us negatively. There are patterns, and once we see them, we cannot unsee them, and then we have choices. So when you notice that pattern, you notice the feeling, you now know what it's about. Now we can open that up and choose a new pattern. We don't have to go back and fix anything. We can choose a different pattern and now start to practice that new pattern with the awareness that when we start to have these these feelings, our breath quickens, our heart quickens, we start to get spun. We can take a deep breath. We don't have to go through the whole abuse cycle, self-abuse or other, whether that's verbal, emotional, physical. We can stop that cycle, save our energy to be more successful, to be more connected, allow this to dissipate just by taking some deep breaths, noticing what's coming up and that it's old stuff coming at us. And then be present to notice what's true. And then we can say out loud, I'm gonna take a deep breath and just slow things down because I notice this old pattern happening. And I promise you, I am not going to say anything that's harmful to you or to me or to us. And I know that we love each other. And on the other side of this conversation, we're going to love each other. And I wanna take care of that. So how can we do this better together?

Wow.

It'll change your life.

Wow.

And it takes practice.

I was gonna say, yeah, this is a podcast I think myself and others are gonna wanna listen to a few times, hit that rewind button, go through that exercise. Amazing.

Yeah. Incredible. So another one?

I did, yeah, all day.

All right, let's change lives today. So another really important one, and this, this is something that I've used with top leaders as well as my couples, is we take a breath again. We just reset. And If somebody says something confronting, you notice your stuff starting to come up, you take a deep breath and you say, I notice I have a story that you are saying things to diminish me, right? I'm just gonna use that as an example, that you're calling me names or you're, you know, telling me that I didn't do things right because I in some ways have not met your needs. Is that true? So the core of this is I have a story that you are demonstrating this behavior because I have not met your needs, because I am not understanding clearly, because whatever you think it's about. I have a story that you are because I, is that true?

Got it. I'm sure it's true.

When you do this, that takes the place of, you will never again need to say, you never, you always, I can't believe this is happening again. Why can't you? All of those things go out the door. We no longer have to have combative, explosive, arguments ever.

It's totally disarming the way it was. Yeah, right.

So neuroscience background, this is where this comes in, is that we disarm that— the oldest part of our brain, which is part of the amygdala, right? The amygdala is part of it. So this— the brainstem is all about survival. Everything we hear, everything we see, we're on high alert for survival, and we're going to defend ourselves. And man, have we learned how to armor up.

Yeah, that's great.

So one more time, I have a story that you are doing this behavior because I, whatever your perception, your story, is that true?

Is that true? Okay. So I have a story. I got it. Love it. I have a story saying my, it's like you're saying, this is me. This is not you. This is not, I'm not blaming you.

I'm taking responsibility. I just want to get clear. And now you can say, Eric, yes, that's true. Yes, you have not met my needs. You are right. That is true. And then I can say, okay, I hear you saying that it's true that I have not met your needs. And that's why you are demonstrating these other behaviors. Can you tell me which needs you feel are not being met for you? And now you get to take a breath and go, oh, now I get to have a say. Now I'm gonna be seen. Okay, well, well, you haven't told me that I'm hot. You haven't, you know, made dinner for 6 weeks. You, you know, forgot to pick me up from the ballgame the other week. You know, you're not considering me. And then I can say, I hear you saying that I didn't pick you up, I'm not making dinner for you, and I'm not telling you enough that you're hot. And that that's upsetting you because you feel like I should be filling those needs for you, or those are things that I've promised that I would do and I failed to do. Did I get that right?

I would rate for clarity. Yep.

Right? Yeah. And then you can say yes or no. So now we both have choices. We both have say-so. Our high alert system is down. We're talking to each other. We remember that we love each other. And it's really good to say, hey, I just want a presence here that we love each other. Again, that we're gonna love each other on the other side of this and we're gonna be okay through this, right? We've got each other through this. We're not in opposition to each other. We're figuring this out together.

Wow.

And it changes everything.

Wow. That's beautiful. And I could see how that threads in the corporate world all the way to the, to, you know, partners and back and forth.

Oh, it's different languaging in the corporate world, but it's exactly the same.

Same concepts. Yeah. The story. Yeah. No, I get it. That's beautiful. I mean, love it. You know, other the self-worth. I'm going to go back, and you said connection, right, was the second thing. So can we go more into that, or is that part of how we're communicating?

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, all these tools are part of building that connection. So one builds on the other. And I created this pyramid, and this pyramid is about trust. So when we have trust, we can do anything. We can create, we can explore, we can build empires, we can take chances, we can do anything. But trust is often— we feel it's the foundation If we have a foundation of trust, it's not. The foundation is presence. So if you think of a triangle, the bottom layer is presence. If we show up and we're fully present, we're not distracted, we take that breath, we let our brains calm, we're here together, I'm present. From presence, we build, we grow emotional safety. So when I know you're fully here with me, we're fully engaged, you're not checking your phone while you're answering me, then we have emotional safety. From emotional safety, Right? From that foundation of emotional safety, I'm starting to trust you. Right now we have curiosity, right? So we have presence, emotional safety, curiosity. We're not at the peak yet. When we have curiosity, we have playfulness, we have creativity. We can ask questions, we can fail, we can try new things. This is what makes sex better, right? So this is what makes our creative teams better, this curiosity, because now we have it on a foundation of emotional safety. And full presence together. Now, the pinnacle, when we have presence, emotional safety, now this curiosity, playfulness, and then on top of that, the pinnacle is safety in trust, right? So now we have the safety in trust, pure trust. When we have trust built on all of these other layers, we can do anything.

Right. No fear. No. Yeah. You cannot break that trust because it all comes crumbling. But if you have that, magic can happen.

Yes. And if you have these tools for clear communication, that trust can't ever be broken because we're always clear. Oh, that's great. You'd have to go out of your way to break my trust if we're using these tools.

Right. Oh, that's amazing. That's great. Okay. So as business, this is fascinating. These, these are such great nuggets. As all of us entrepreneurs, you know, most of us entrepreneurs are reading this, you know, I'm gonna go into the couple side. Those are that are in relationship or dating, you know, what do you see as the most common thing you're getting from, I guess there's multiple sides. I guess there's probably two parts to this question. I mean, we can get into one is the, I call it the entrepreneur and non-entrepreneur relationship. And then maybe there's the two entrepreneurs kind of, you know, like, what do you see mostly?

It doesn't matter what field people are in because, well, right now I'm working with very high-profile people who something would be on the line if people knew that they were struggling in their relationships or that they had difficulty in their relationships. So I've also worked with my neighbors, you know, and people in my family. So it really doesn't matter where your head is, where your line of work is. It comes down to being able to clearly communicate our needs. And we suppose we have stories about each other that we never say. So one of the ways to get to that, and this is— I'll just give you this quick example because this is for couples, is that no matter what you do in the world, you have an assumption of what your partner likes and doesn't like. So if you would do this little experiment together sometime and just sit down together and one of you without talking, gets to touch your partner in a way for 30 seconds that you know they love to be touched, whatever that is. You know they love it. They've loved it since the beginning of time. You know this is how they want to be touched. And sometimes that's like holding their face in your hands. Sometimes that's like hugging, whatever that is for you. And then you ask them, how, when you really tune into your own self right now, how would you like to be touched right now? How would you like me to give you physical touch and physical comfort right now. And I would say that 99% of the time, the partners are shocked when it is not what they have just done.

Wow. Wow.

Yeah, because something that worked when we started dating, we'll keep doing that. We'll never ask again. We just assume that it's working, and then we'll go through the motions of making it look like that's the best thing ever, or that it's working well enough. But that's where the boredom comes in.

Or we tend to do to others what we think that we like. We tend to think that they like the same thing.

Exactly. So another thing you can do if you're partnered is both of you take 6 different slips of paper and you write on there something that you want for an amount of time that is between 1 and 5 minutes. And we keep it time limited so that it's more fun and it's more— it's a little more teasing. So for 3 minutes, I would love you to give me a back rub or whatever that is, or just hold my hand and breathe with me, whatever whatever you want. So you write 6 different things, and then once a day, your partner pulls a slip, and then you pull a slip for your partner, and you do that. And it takes less than 10 minutes typically, but it's such deep connection to offer your partner something that they want. And you can check in and say, hey, this is what's on the slip. Is this really what you want today?

Right.

Right? You wanted it Thursday when you wrote this down.

So yeah, it's just still today thing. Yeah.

Right. And then that helps us get to the point where we can say, hey, You know, how do you want to interact today? Can we spend some time alone together today? And how do you want that to look? What do you need to receive today so that you know I'm listening to you, I'm connected with you, and I really want to be here with you?

Right. Thus, thus lies number 2, self-worth, and now connect, communicate, I mean, communication, connection, all the things you talked about. And these are all strategies to get there. I love it. I can see why people are paying you lots of money for your time and energy. I thank you for sharing some of these tips. Last sort of area I want to get into is for you said it earlier, and to me it's so powerful because I understand the value of the parenting. And, you know, going back in time and all the things you learn now, and you look back at somebody who's, let's say, a new parent, mid-parent, and you say, knowing what I know now, can't guarantee anything, but in order to probably have a better chance of not messing up the kids by screwing their self-worth and everything else, what strategy should we have as parents to make sure we have built confident kids that are, you know, The number one thing that works and that I still get feedback on 3 decades later from people is this strategy that when you are starting to change how you interact with yourself and each other, you say it out loud.

If your kid's here and you say, I'm taking a breath right now, I'm just gonna notice that I'm safe and I'm not going to say anything harmful to anybody in the room or to myself or make the space in between us difficult. And here's what I'm seeing that is frustrating for me right now. I have a story that we use exactly the same languaging. We'd say it out loud and we'd process through it with our kids so that they learn it too. And the feedback that I've gotten for 30 years now is my kids stopped calling me a jerk when I walked in the door. Now those kids are grown up. They're using these tools with their kids. They have amazing relationships. Their kids are going to bed without a fight. They're, you know, all good things are happening because kids use this better than we do. They'll grok it better, faster than we did. It's taken me decades to get there. If they start using it now, it becomes part of the repertoire. They know how to communicate. They know how to connect. They can disarm that, the things that shatter us in miscommunication. When we can do the hard stuff better, everything gets easier.

That's powerful. I mean, part of what you're saying there, which resonated with me, is this concept of whatever We're learning to become better at communicating, whether it's talking to you, getting some of your content, taking some of the tips from today, or just whatever skills we're investing in ourselves to improve better, not being afraid to share them with our kids despite their age. They are going to gobble it up. They are going to learn it. Why not start them at 6, 7, 10 years old if it's communication skills to give them those tools? They are, you're right. They're sponges. They know they, let's give them the good stuff to start with.

Yeah. I've done this work with 3-year-olds. 3 and 4-year-old. Yeah. And they totally get it. And the languaging might change a little bit. We might not use as big of words, but when we're demonstrating it and they learn from what we do. So if I'm saying to you in front of our kids, Eric, that here's how I'm handling this and that I love you so much and that we're gonna be an amazing family when, as we work through this problem and at the end of it, right on the other side of it.

Yeah.

That gives our kids safety and it doesn't matter if we then stay together or not. Right? So there's— we can go all different directions with this, but if we come to an elegant exit, this work makes us remember, lets us remember and be connected that we loved each other. So even if we're not the right people to move into the future together, we remember that we love each other, which is way harder than saying you're a jerk. It's way harder to do an exit remembering that we're connected and that we really do care for each other and for our family. Harder to do that than to cause blame, create blame, and to vilify somebody else so that we feel justified in leaving.

Right.

Right. But when we can do that, our kids are, they're okay.

Right.

They're okay-er. They're okay-er. Ideally, we would stay together and be a jovial, happy family, and we chose exactly the right partner to create this family with. When that doesn't happen, let's at least do it in an elegant way.

Right, right. Very cool. Very cool. Wow. My head is spinning with amazing goodness. Is there a question or anything we didn't cover? Anything that I should be asking you that I forgot, that I didn't get a chance to cover that you think—

I, you know, I think the only thing is, and we've talked about this before too, that there is an estimated $1.2 trillion left on the table or lost by miscommunication in the workplaces. And, you know, when we talk about that number, we have a quantifying, qualifying number in business because we keep track of those things. We don't keep track of those numbers because there's not really a number to calculate in our relationships that are romantic or friends or family or those things. But I guarantee you that equivocally, there is a very high rate of loss, whether that's the fullness of your life, your happiness, missed opportunities to really enjoy who you are in this lifetime, which is never long enough, no matter how long we get. So if this place of communication, self-worth, our own relationship with ourselves and with each other, if we can get any of these tools and make life just a little bit better today and onward, like that's fully living and that's the goal. That's how we win.

Wow. I love it. I totally can resonate what you're saying. You're right. And it's so funny because we tend to just focus on these other metrics. It's easy to see the P&Ls and the wins and losses and dollars in and out, but this intangible and what you're saying, it's not hard. There's some simple steps. which has massive impact to help everything else.

Yeah. But it takes, I will tell you, it takes about 6 months to get these tools so that you're using them and they don't feel clunky. And they're gonna feel clunky because it isn't the habit, it isn't the pattern. But we, it feels clunky for about 5, 6 months and then we start walking with it a little easier. And then by the end of a year we're like, oh yeah, we're doing this thing. This is how we live now. We don't have big fights anymore. We're helping other people engage with us in better ways. Like, It's a miracle. It's amazing to watch.

Well, I appreciate you saying that too. It's not just, you know, do a couple things and presto. There's like anything else, and we all know that now, people listening, you know, things take work. I mean, it's not like, you know, years of work. It's just a little bit of work and dedication and desire and interest, and you've now changed your patterns for the better forever.

Right? Yes. And, you know, keep going to your therapist, but if you don't want to just sit on a couch for 10 years and hope that it gets better, please use these tools. Please change it.

Love it. Well, thank you so much for coming in today to the Speakeasy Mastermind and enlightening us with some beautiful tips and ideas and very powerful. And I hope everybody's listening and rewinding and listening again. And so we all are enlightened and lifting up together and look forward to seeing you again soon.

Thank you, Eric. I love hanging out with you and everyone you know has been incredible that you've introduced me to. So thank you everyone. I appreciate you.

Yeah, my pleasure. And that's a wrap from the Speakeasy Mastermind. If something sparked for you, don't keep it to yourself. Share it, review it, and pass it to the one person who needs to hear this right now. Want in on the real mastermind? Tap the link in the show notes to apply. Until next time, keep scaling, stay sharp, and don't be the smartest one in the room.