The #1 REASON You're Single & Can't FIND LOVE... | Robert Greene & Lewis Howes

what are the qualities that i really really want what is important for me that i didn't get in that last relationship right who am i right that's just the question who am i what are my deepest needs and what are my dark patterns right yes and then to go through a process of i think you gotta have a dream the school of greatness please welcome us i wanna ask about the biggest mistake that you've seen in your research and maybe also your personal experience that people are making when it comes to finding love and using seduction within that discovery of finding love well the greatest mistake people make is they judge simply on appearances yes and of course you know we all have sexual desire we have physical desires and often we're attracted to people from and and there's a sexual component but the character of that person doesn't mesh with us right yes and so the the physical stuff doesn't last that long it can't go on forever although we can go on fairly well if if you connect on that level but it kind of dies down at some point and then you're confronted with their psychology their personality their character you have to be able you have to think can i talk to this person in five years and carry on an interesting conversation can i sit across from the table if that is if you want a long-term relationship and you know find a stimulating conversation with them you know because that's that's really what it ends up boiling down to and so you really want to be able to also judge their character and if you're able to look inside the other person a little bit and to see a kind of deeper connection between you i believe that that the sexual part which is extremely important in any relationship will actually be intensified and heightened right as opposed to the immediate kind of animal attraction that we have to people so if you deepen your connection to that person and love is involved where you actually feel a vulnerability to them in this kind of back and forth electrical charge i think the physical component you know the value of it increases right so that's the number one mistake people make you know um is it is it do people have sex too early well i don't know what's going on necessarily with young people right now i know the hookup culture is still pretty strong and you know guys are watching a lot of porn and so you know that's probably a tendency and in the traditionally and things have changed it was the woman who had more to lose by becoming pregnant who tried to keep the sex at bay for at least several weeks or months or longer and that's kind of been lost but yeah i think the fact that the falling and love process generally takes time right i mean that we do have love at first sight and it is a real phenomenon and i and i've had it myself really yeah but um the idea so there's a famous french writer named stendahl who wrote a great book called on love one of the greatest books written about love it was in the 19 early 19th century and he compared to falling in love to what he called crystallization and it's based on this thing where you would throw a piece of wood into this mine in in germany somewhere at salzburg and then you would pull it out like a week later and it would be filled with all of these brilliant crystals and he compared that to the process of falling in love the person is just who they are they're like a a trunk of a tree but your mind kind of puts all these qualities on them crystallizes them into some kind of ideal figure right and so that mental process takes time right it requires also some distance and some fantasizing you know sort of basic elements of human psychology so what do you mean by distance well like don't spend all your time with the person in the first year and if you're having sex right away it's it's too close it's too intimate it's too it's too early to be able to go through that process right and often you know there's usually a letdown after the after that initial sexual encounter if you have it too early right whereas opposed to letting time go by and letting the other person begin to think about you and fantasize about you and in their mind sort of imagine some interesting qualities about you and fascinate them which is what he calls this crystallization process i mean literally think of it that way that you're you're having a you're in in their mind they're kind of forming the sort of ideal crystal um image of you right and it takes time and it takes some absence it takes the ability to say you know you're not in their face all the time you you disappear for a couple days a couple of weeks or whatever not weeks but a few days you let them think about you and you let that kind of spell because seduction and love is kind of a spell that you're casting right and there's an art to it and so the mistake people have is they're in too much of a hurry right too much in a hurry to want to have sex to fall in love to yeah or to have like a really you know intimate relationship or or to get married or whatever it is in general in our culture people are too much of a hurt they're too much for her to make money too much in a hurry to get attention it also involves you know in romantic relationships right right so what's the difference between seduction and love well i maintain that the process of seducing is making the other person fall in love right the process of seducing is getting the other person to fall in love could you continue yeah can someone fall in love without being seduced without seducing them no even in love at first sight there could be like a moment of seduction that turns into that or how does that work well even in love and first sight which i say i've kind of maybe experienced it doesn't necessarily lead to something right you still have to go through a process where the other person's character that you start idealizing and romanticizing and thinking about them you know even even that immediate attraction there is still the seduction process that has to go on sure right and so you know i try in the art of seduction i make the point that political seduction marketing seduction social seductions because in your office you're continually seducing it's the same process and it's getting you're getting the other person to think about you and getting them to fall in love with your product with your idea with your political platform or whatever it is and that process of internalizing that other person of having their presence their their spirit or whatever inside you inhabit you and you're thinking about them a lot is a process of falling in love right so it doesn't mean that there aren't seductions where you're seducing the other person and then it's over after a month right it doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to lead to a relationship but i don't so i i separate seduction from just having sex yeah so if you go to a bar and you you pick up a woman in the barn that night you go back to your place and you have sex that's not seduction right because we are psychological creatures right we're not we're not animals and the process of actually having our emotions engaged by the other person is takes a lot deeper process right it can't happen quickly can't happen overnight so seduction isn't like you know pickup artists don't really like the art of seduction so much why is that because it's not quick enough for them i'm telling you you have to go through these steps i don't want to have to go through all these steps i don't have to wait three weeks to sleep with her or a month i don't have to surprise her and give her gifts or i'm talking about the male point of view sure do all of these things that robert talks about you know i want a quick you know some of them aren't like them but some of them are and so there are plenty of books written out there about how to pick women or guys in a bar but the seduction isn't about that it's something else it's something more elemental and i talk in the art of seduction about how it goes back to our childhood how we are incredibly vulnerable to the emotions of other people it begins with our parents right and the sense of you know we internalize their presence we're thinking about them we have this kind of very deep emotional attachment to them we're seduced by our parents in some ways it kind of sets the tone from early childhood this need to feel vulnerable to other people right um that's the thing as well is um you know it's a lot of people mistake seduction and that's the reason i wrote the book they have really bad ideas about it what do they think it is well they have an idea that it's this kind of cold process typically it'll be a male seducer but it can be a woman and they're really conniving and they're coming up with all kinds of tricks schemes and schemes to get the woman or man to like fall for them and either they're after money or sex or something else right and actually seduction is a matter of vulnerability it's making yourself vulnerable to the other person really yeah um and you know we live in in times where people have a hard time being vulnerable you know if you're insecure if you're filled with a lot of anxiety you tend to close up inside of yourself and to let another person in and to let them have some control over your emotions can be kind of a scary process but if you can't feel that vulnerability if you can't open yourself up to the power of that other person there won't be a seduction it'll be this kind of cold mechanical process right so how do we learn to open ourselves up and be vulnerable to allow for seduction to happen if so we're really interested in someone we're like oh we're really we want to start dating this person we're really excited about the potential but we're also don't want to ruin it and mess up yeah well um it you know each relationship is different right you know i i talk to a lot of people on this vulnerability issue particularly women who've come to me for for counseling but they've had a bad experience right they dealt with maybe a man who was a kind of cold calculating seducer type or an abusive relationship right and what happens is they get kind of bitter and hardened by it and they don't want to open themselves up to another relationship they don't not aware of that's happening but under unconsciously that's what's going on and i try to tell them if you let that happen that means that that person that abuser or whoever it was they've defeated you not only you know physically but mentally they have conquered you they have ruined one of the most important aspects of your life they've made it impossible for you to feel vulnerable and open because you can't trust another person and it's very difficult so i my process in there is telling them that making clear to them that if that happens then they have they have this power over you you don't want to let them have that power right and so we work on ways first making it clear how important it is in life to feel vulnerable not just to other people but to everything in the world that's sort of the subject of my next book but to feel vulnerable when you read a book to open yourself to other people's ideas to open yourself in general to people into their spirit and to let them in and to let them have some influence over you and some power over you you know why is that important because it allows you then to have a deeper understanding and a deeper connection with people so you know we all kind of live in these castles where we're trying to protect ourselves right and we're all kind of defensive beca and it's for good reason we live in a world that's very harsh you know a lot of information a lot of things going on at the same time so we kind of live in these castles and you're you're not understanding people unless you can kind of open up to their spirit i talk about in the art of seduction enter the other person's spirit is one of the key chapters where you're able to kind of put yourself inside of the other person and feel what they might be thinking right which is i think a problem that a lot of men have in in dealing with women that they're trying that they're interested in putting yourself in their position trying to understand what makes them tick what their psychology is about to do that you have to kind of let go of yourself you have to be willing to kind of float and let yourself go into them and open yourself up to their spirit and not assume that you know everything about them or that everything all of your ideas are correct so vulnerability is a very important element that we must have in this world in order to be able to have empathy and to be able to understand people is it you know you wrote a book about the laws of power the 48 laws of power is this you know different than the laws of power the you know the seduction strategies where you're being more vulnerable as opposed to you know well believe it or not um i wrote the art of seduction as a kind of not a sequel but it kind of played off the 48 laws and there were a few chapters in the 48 laws that dealt with seduction such as use absence to create honor and respect you know or make others come to you or create compelling spectacles there were at least eight or ten of the 48 laws that were very sort of seduction oriented and the idea is we all want power in this world i maintain that's sort of my key thesis that drives all of my books and the it's not power just in a political sense it's the idea that you have some control over your fate control over destiny right and control and the ability to influence the people around you well seduction is the ultimate form of that kind of power really that's what i yeah as i talk about that in the 48 laws it's a form of soft power so people if you seduce them they're not even aware that you have gained this kind of power over them they've opened up to your influence it's kind of hypnotizing in a sense right it's like this you're not even aware yeah just being hypnotized by someone's message or their their brand or their product or their political uh message as well i guess right yeah yeah just like i like this i don't even know why i like this person right interesting yeah because if people sense that you're trying to get power over them if they sense that you're scheming that you've read robert's 48 laws of power or whatever they get defensive and they close themselves off to you and then you can't move them you can't get maneuver them in the right way i know um about 16 years ago when the pickup artist thing was really big and hot with the game and the game and everything me as a friend of mine is a great guy but um you know every woman in los angeles to where i live had been approached by a pickup artist right they all knew the strategies the negging all that kind of you know putting them down and yes yeah yeah they knew all of it and so it didn't work anymore it lost i lost all its power because everyone had been exposed to it right they could see through the tricks they could see a pickup artist coming from a mile away you know all the little gag little tricks like cards or reading their palm stuff oh come on man i know you've read that book so it doesn't work anymore so if people sense that you're trying to manipulate them they close off and that's why in advertising and marketing they know that they have to make it seem like they're not advertising that it's just kind of word of mouth that's just the average person on the street who's touting their products etc because if you're advertising it's so clearly how you're manipulating it doesn't work so the trick in seduction is to have such a gentle touch that people don't even understand what's going on and that's what a kind of a master seducer can do [Music] and what i'm hearing you say that's that's living for more of a vulnerable state is that right being open to um being vulnerable or well you know there are people who are cold seducers and they seduce women but i don't you know there's kind of a limit to it as well it's not the kind that i'm interested in so i've known a lot of really great seducers there was a person in paris who was sort of the to me the the greatest seducer i ever personally met he was this brazilian guy in paris very tall very handsome guy but he was the most brilliant seducer i've ever seen right and i've known others as well what did he do well i say it was this kind of openness that he had um you know and and you could call it a vulnerability it was a kind of a childish boyish quality so women felt comfortable in his presence he might you know dump them in a week and go after someone else but in that week he was completely at their feet he you know he was inside their brain he understood them deeply and he was like a boy you know he didn't seem threatening at all right and i know probably the greatest male seducer who ever lived is probably errol flynn the great american irish american actor i think he's irish actually and errol flynn supposedly had slept with i don't know like 3 000 women and he died at the age of 51. i remember when i wrote the art of seduction i was kind of doing the math that's crazy and it was like wilt chamberlain or something like that it had to be like a woman every other day or something that's crazy and then i wanted to understand what made him so powerful right because he was one of the icons in the art of seduction and finally i found a book written by a woman an actress who'd been seduced by him and she kind of revealed to it all of his secrets and the key was he made women feel so relaxed right she said just being next to him was like drinking two martinis i felt so calm and so relaxed he had this kind of animal presence where he was very comfortable with himself and that was the thing about that brazilian man he wasn't defensive at all he was very very comfortable with himself he wasn't arrogant or grandiose but he just felt comfortable in his own body and his physicality and in who he was and i think the problem that a lot of people have is they bring their insecurities into the seduction realm and it's very anti-seductive it kind of breaks the spell because when you're insecure and you're trying to to pick up on a man or a woman the other person can sense it right you're not saying anything but they read it in your body language because we're animals that read a lot from nonverbal communication and when another person is insecure like that it means they're thinking about themselves right and it's a very off-putting sense like they're more worried about if they say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing and it makes the other person tense and insecure i don't know if you've ever had this experience with lewis but if you've ever been around a very insecure person it kind of makes you uncomfortable and awkward yeah super uncomfortable so probably the most important lesson i tell people in in the realm of seduction is to be able to project a degree of confidence and calmness and comfort with yourself are probably the most important qualities what about when you're in a relationship and you want the relationship to work long term you want to have whether you're getting married and you want to you know you want to last and you don't want to just hang on to the marriage and be miserable but you want to be a happy thriving existence healthy conscious loving to the best your ability should we continue to seduce our partners in committed long-term relationships or is that not something you do once you're in a relationship well i have a chapter in the art of seduction that deals with i think it's 20 the last chapter and basically i think um a lot of people complain it used to be women complained about it but i think it transcends that where we've been in a relationship for a year and all the things that i'm going and hearing the woman talk because i've heard this before everything that he used to do he doesn't do anymore right he doesn't take me special places he doesn't make that extra effort he doesn't buy me special gifts anymore all the things that he he did when he wanted to have sex he was like going crazy and doing all these these things he was dressing really well now he kind of dresses like a slob he kind of doesn't want to go out anymore i hear that more than i hear the opposite like he keeps trying to seduce me and i'm getting tired of it i don't hear that too much right but i hear that he's taking me for granted right so it's not like you're practicing the same things that you did when you were trying to get that other person to fall in love that would be exhausting right and i don't think it would really work but it's that you still do some of the effort right you still try to surprise the other person you still have sides of your character that they don't know about you do things that they've never seen before you take you still take them to places you still put effort into buying gifts right you buy that special gift you still take effort to take them one night to a special restaurant or to a movie they something that they had you know like if you understand if you listen deeply to that other person and they reveal their secret desires and what they're not getting from the world just take that in and go if i give her a gift or take her to a place that feels that very thing that she said she's not getting man that'll have such a powerful effect on that person even if you've been in a relationship for two or three years and i've been in a relationship for for decades i'm afraid to have to admit and you still have to go through that process really yeah what is the questions you can ask to find out someone's secret desires without saying what are your secret desires you just have to listen there they okay so the main thing is get them to talk about their childhood really yeah i mean obviously don't go tell me about your father did he what was he nice to you know what question can you ask in an organic relaxed way that would open that up well in the course of a context you you can say um you know our i don't know it's like are how are you close to your parents do you see them um and then just without being you know too inquisitive without making it clear that that's what you're doing just get them to talk about their early life why is that important to figuring out people's secret desires as adults asking them about their because it's the key to everything really in in in the laws of human nature i have a chapter about um i call it about gender about the mix of the masculine feminine in us and there's a concept from the great psychologist jung called the anima and animus and he's basically says that from a man from his mother if you're straight because it these things change it the man from his mother internalizes an image of women that it will haunt him for his entire life wow right because the relationship between a mother and son is very intense it's not the same as between a mother and a daughter right because she's the opposite gender you're you're cycling on her breasts she's the only person you know for the first couple of years it's very powerful powerful and unconsciously her image slips inside of you you internalize the part of it and you're going to have this you're going to carry with this even if you don't like your mother and you come to a lot like her later on that image is still inside of you and you're still going to choose women that have some of those qualities that you would like you wish your mother had or that she did have so those early relationships the the woman with her father will tell you so much about about her and about her weaknesses and her vulnerability really and what she's missing yeah so what if they or if the person that's one okay you know anything where the person gets excited right then just take note of that yeah and start if you touch upon a subject and you see that they they get nervous or they laugh a lot they're very excited just put that in your little index there and go and return to it no you've hit upon a chord a subject that either excites them or gives them like fear or whatever there's something very powerful going on there right right so um but and child is a very powerful one like that so what what should people be aware of when they're getting into relationship what do you think are a few questions they should ask and get answers to to see if it's a potential for a good relationship or it's going to be completely off or they're just wasting their time trying to get into this are there any questions you can think of well no i can't think of questions it's more like or should it be asking how is your parents relationship and this and that it's not that direct it's not that verbal it's not that intellectual it's more of a kind of a spirit meshing between two people right so there are plenty of examples of of couples that have done extremely well where they kind of disagree on political issues although that can be a problem as well but there's a little bit of tension on that but they connect on some deeper level i refer people to that chapter i was just talking about in the laws of human nature where there's a level where we connect to people that is not on the surface that is kind of non-verbal it has to do with our unconscious it has to do with things that we've never been able to get from our parents or whatever and we've kind of have these ideals that have been unmet and connecting on that level connecting on the level of spirit where your emotions you have it's more like your emotions um mesh together well than your ideas like there's you know yes and um because if that other person is is incredibly um dramatic and out there and you know that's something you can even though they have the similar ideas to you it's gonna grate on your nerves you know i saw a post recently excuse me about something like i'm going to mess this up but something like you don't you don't marry the person you marry the persons like trauma you marry their you know in-laws trauma you marry like what they haven't healed yet you're married they're emotional yeah um you know the relationship to certain things you're you're marrying the emotions yeah of the person really yes exactly and being aware like just because they look great and just because we have fun together certain times you're really marrying all the other stuff along with it right and you won't find that out right away because they're good at hiding it yeah right they're good at like reserving that until six months a year two years later right yeah so it's making sure that your emotions mesh well over your ideals is that what i'm hearing over the intellectual part over just the superficial fact that you both vote democratic or republican or that you both like this movie director i mean certain tastes that mesh are important but i don't think there has to be kind of a charge between you a kind of something that goes on underneath the surface that has nothing to do with just words or kind of superficial things you know something deep spiritual yeah because sometimes people think oh we have all these things in common we have this connection this is a great match but then they don't experience the emotional or spiritual level right and then that comes out later and you're like well we are from the same city and we went to the same school and we voted whatever yeah and we have similar friends and we like to go to baseball games but if there's not that spiritual or emotional meshing rubble you just you hit you your idea is very is very apt you are marrying the other person's emotions right and so that's not something that you see right away and you could love the same movies you can have all these other things but if that part isn't connecting on the right way if they're revealing something that's going to really drive you crazy after several months or years it doesn't matter about how well your ideas are similar what if your ideas are amazing together this sexual connection is incredible but the emotional level is not in sync like well you know it's hard to generalize you know have a relationship it'll probably last just a few weeks or a couple months you know it'll be hard to build a relationship where you don't connect on this kind of deeper level but that's not to say that it doesn't happen and it doesn't to say that people can't change right so um you know you might discover after five years that this person has qualities to kind of get on your nerves a little bit you wish you would have seen them earlier but by then you've fallen in love with them right and you go you know i i can appreciate their weaknesses i can love their weaknesses i can get over it it still kind of irritates them me it still irritates me but there's something deeper i actually really love this person and even their flaws are lovable and that happens right so it's hard to generalize about everything and you can't change you can like see that maybe i'm overreacting maybe i'm too cold and rational and they're too dramatic and maybe i can learn from her or him and become more like them people change and you that's the great thing about a great relationship is the ability for the other person to change you as well to influence you yeah how long have you been in your relationship now it's over 20 years over 20 years what do you wish you knew about you know being in a long-term relationship like this 20 years ago is there anything you would have done differently on your end or anything that you would wish you would have known to i don't know it seems like it's been a happy healthy relationship to last that long but is there anything you wish you would have knew earlier robert you know at that point before getting into the relationship you mean and not have the relationship or what no i'm being in a relationship like things that you could have i don't know it's things you could have eliminated or things that you could have done differently yourself to make it even greater i wish you would have like solved things before challenges came up for you if they did come up well it's or have you just been like the king of relationships no no no no no no no no no as i said as i've made very clear i have got my own problems my own flaws you know um no i mean um being more forgiving would have probably helped you know um i'm i can be kind of rigid and kind of stubborn thinking i know the right way all the time and i felt like you know she had certain flaws that were really too strong and if i could just like you know go with them and say that i have flaws as well and be a little more humble and be more forgiving of her i think that would have helped yeah you know that's not that's not easy all the time how important is it do you think being in a healing process before entering a new relationship as opposed to just jumping into a relationship without the process of reflection self-awareness looking at what pain has caused you in your past you haven't forgiven or healed it's very very important because um often times your choices with a partner occur for reasons that you're not aware of really and i talked about an example in the laws of human nature that's sort of a classic case in therapy where this man had come to a therapist and he had a series of like 10 very powerful emotional relationships and each time he broke it off and he out he would say you know she did she betrayed me here she did i found out that this was happening and and i and i no longer loved her on and on and on the therapist started to go into his early childhood and he discovered that he had a mother this man who was very cold wasn't very loving to him and he had a sense and this is what happens to children it happens to boys when the mother is like that you feel abandoned you don't feel like it's your fault i'm sorry you don't feel like it's their fault i feel like something's wrong with you and they have chosen to abandon you it scars you it scars that three-year-old in a way that will never get over and so what his pattern was each time he got in a relationship before the woman could begin to maybe hurt him and abandon him he was the one doing the abandoning it gave him a sense of power and control it was like he was redoing the mother relationship where he was the one abandoning and not being abandoned he was not aware of this at all he'd gone through 35 years of his life and all these relationships probably choosing women that would that kind of mirrored that early relationship as well but that he could then have abandoned them so he could have this feeling of power now you might not be having something so dramatic going on in your life but you will have patterns like that and i know i've had patterns like that and i've analyzed them and i've become aware of them and so if you've been in a very bruising kind of damaging relationship which we've all had if you've been alive for enough years right it is absolutely essential that you step back and analyze it because kind of negative relationships and and traumas like that will reveal a lot of truths about yourself they will you will tend to blame the other person for everything but you need to look at yourself and see the patterns that are making you fall for people like that right you're getting into those relationships over and over again yeah so what would it look like when you start the healing process or the awareness process of okay i'm the one who's responsible for this pattern i'm the common denominator of all these relationships so there's you know partially me to be responsible for what would it feel like to start the healing process and what would that next relationship look like when you make a commitment would it just feel different would it feel like oh this is very healthy how would that look do you think well there's a lot of problems it's not easy yeah and the and the main problem lewis is believe it or not some of those early dysfunctional relationships with your parents are charged with this kind of sexual energy really yeah and so you'll find yourself attracted to the very man or woman who's going to hurt you whereas the man or woman who is good for you there's no kind of sexual charge because this isn't everybody this is maybe a third i don't know what the percentage is don't quote me sure but you are actually more attracted to the person that has these damaged qualities why is that because you get to relive some of those early traumas right and so the problem that will happen and i can see this in my own life as well that the person who is good for you that's actually caring that will mesh with you that physical charge maybe isn't as strong right and that's a problem right because you want to have that element but you need to be aware of this you need to be aware of the fact that some of the people that you're most attracted to you're not attracted to just because of their sexy body or whatever it is there's also some kind of issues you haven't worked out from your early childhood that are at play in that relationship and that are going to cause you a lot of pain why does that turn us on sexually do you think why is the human brain turned on by drama and you know unhealthy relationships like what is that well um you know i would be a multi-billionaire by now if i could answer those questions doc the ultimate doctor of love but i can say this that when you're a child you're two or three years old you know we'll talk about entering the spirit try and enter the spirit of the three-year-old lewis house you're very vulnerable you're very weak right you're at the mercy of this person who's very powerful your mother and also your father it depends on what you know you're at their mercy right and you're open to them you depend on them for so much so the emotional energy that you are putting onto them is extremely powerful wow more powerful than any other relationship you will have in your life and you're not aware of it and so it's mesh it meshes with all these other kind of physical impulses and desires that you have because a child who's two or three years old is actually still having like sexual impulses very early on it's kind of creating a pattern of attraction that you are very rarely aware of it's not to say everybody is like that but it's a pretty common denominator that you know if you have for instance a very narcissistic mother right who was more interested in herself than in you you're going to be attracted to narcissistic women if you're a man yeah wow yeah um and you're not aware of it and you know it creates this a lot of pain for you right um so you've got to go through a process it's kind of like there there's the there's the ancient greek play of oedipus right i don't know if you were he um he married his he killed his father and then he ended up marrying his mother crazy yeah you know so we get the oedipus conflicts from right and he never realizes it until he's like in his late 30s and he's gone through this his whole career as elite king of this thebes and then suddenly he's made aware of it through various things that happen right and it's like oh my god really i've done all that this is what my life is and he's so overwhelmed that he cuts his eyes out and he blinds himself as proof of you know how blind he was in life and so the greeks are saying in that play that we're all kind of blind fate kind of pushes us around and we're not even aware of it and the moment of feeling enlightened about becoming aware of some of these patterns in your childhood is actually a great moment it's very painful but it's very powerful you know sorry i didn't mean to take it i don't mean to take it to such a dark i love this let's say someone has been through a a tough breakup and maybe this is their first breakup they've gone through that was tough a tough relationship or this is a pattern this is their third or fifth relationship in 10 years that's been like you know what's wrong with me what would you say would be the next three things they should focus on after the breakup on how to find that awareness and open their eyes on how to start you know observing men or women in a different way before they get so committed and go all in and start fantasizing about how amazing they are what would you say are three things they could do before entering another relationship well first of all to become acquainted with yourself and to see know who you are and know the source of your own desires so if it's your very first relationship it's a little hard to see patterns but you can begin to see patterns of the kind of person that you're attracted to after the third or fourth time and to analyze that and to be aware of it now if you know your some people will say well won't that kind of ruin the whole relationship game that i'm speak analyze myself that seems so unseductive etc and you know if you're in your 20s and and you're you're healthy and you're young maybe it doesn't matter so much right you know you're going to have some painful moments but you're having a lot of fun okay i'm not going to i'm not going to you know rain on that parade but eventually you're not going to be so you're going to be in your late 20s you're going to be in your early 30s and the series of bad relationships they're going to start wearing on you you're going to start creating trauma and they'll start infecting you with this kind of negative this kind of defensiveness where every time you meet someone you're worried that they're going to hurt you and you can't like you know open yourself up to them right so you've gotta as early as possible understand your own patterns why am i attracted to this person just simply ask that's that question right it's you know like what was it about him or her that attracted me to that person you know is there something i'm not thinking about could i have foreseen some of the darker side of this person earlier on yes obviously could i have seen the fact that he could be someone who could be kind of cold and abusive yes you know he oftentimes a man who is like that will love bomb the woman he'll overwhelm them with emotion so they get confused and they're not aware of it that also is a sign when when a man overwhelms you in the first two days with so much attention wow that he's hiding something dark but don't look at it as if it's always the other person see your own temptation why you give in to someone like that why you are attracted to people like that right go through that process and then say all right what are the qualities that i really really want what is important for me that i'm not they're not getting from this person you know the sex is great but there are other things that are more important like validation like the other person cares about my work and about my career they're not just interested in me as a physical presence but they actually show interest in my future right yes what are these things that i need that are very important to me that i didn't get in that last relationship right who am i right that's just the question who am i what are my deepest needs and what are my dark patterns right yes and then to go through a process of if i we talked about this earlier if i now become all defensive and closed and if i'm like always judging the person you know oh he's not right for me or she's not you know because you're afraid of being hurt again that last person has power over you yeah they defeated you they conquered your spirit wow so you can't be afraid to have some more of that pain again right you have to open yourself up a little bit here yeah and if you do that and you're hurt again at least you can say that that person who hurt me earlier on has no more power over me you know i'm still able to fall in love i'm still able to let myself open myself up to another person yes it's incredibly important to be able to feel vulnerable to another person it's it's a deep human need it goes back to our childhood it's part of our human nature and if you close yourself off it's not only going to affect your romantic relationships it's going to affect you in work and everything yeah so don't jump into another relationship if you're closed off is what i'm hearing you say like be willing to heal that part or process it and then and then one last thing you ask for three those are just a third the third is learn to judge people by their character so true right so not the superficial charm and smiles and all the great stuff that they're able to fake but who they are deep inside right you know do they have some of these strong character traits can they take criticism man you have no idea that that is such an important quality in a relationship taking criticism yeah if that other person cannot take any kind of criticism how can you be in a relationship with them and they'll make you they find ways to to make you pay for for criticizing them they get passive aggressive they get called oh i'm never going to do that again you can't be in a relationship right so judge someone like that can they take criticism can they deal with moments of stress can they get outside of themselves and think about me you know think about how they are in a conversation do they hear what you're saying did they come back with things that reveal the fact that they've been listening to you that they picked up signals from you get inside them get inside their character and be able to judge them on that basis as opposed to their their sexy veneer that they have so those would be the three things those are powerful what's your thoughts on relationships and money and should we be focusing on money as a factor in relationships because it seems to me like a lot of people end relationships with money problems so it's one of the main factors there's an inequality between the two inequality or just like the value of money if someone sees spending money in a certain way another person sees in a different way it's just like the topic of money seems to mess with people how do we develop seduction with money involved in a relationship and how do we stay in a healthy relationship and not allow money to ruin the relationship well money isn't just money money is a sign money is something that has psychology has other things attached to it so let's just say it's a woman who is finding herself losing her attraction to a man because he's not making any money right that could be because it's a sign that he doesn't have enough ambition he doesn't have enough drive or it could be a sign he's just finding himself and eventually he'll discover it but you you kind of turned off a lot of women and i think you know yeah it's mostly women by the fact that this person doesn't have any drive has no ambition they're not trying to make something of their life right and so it's not about the money that they're it's the fact that there's something missing in them right that kind of masculine energy such as masculine women have great drive to make money as well i don't mean to put it that way but that kind of drive that energy that makes them want to get ahead can be very seductive and very powerful that's powerful for women to see that in men yeah and to re see sense that he's just kind of a slacker okay maybe he's got good qualities maybe he's a wonderful person and that's fine and then the money isn't a problem you don't care and maybe what if you do care it's because it reveals something about their character right the other thing is generosity in a relationship is very important right it's not just giving money but it's also giving your energy giving your time to the other person so a lot of a classic ex turn off that men will do is that they're not so generous with money time attention etc and it's a sign of something closed inside of them so you know they don't want to pay for a meal they don't want to pay for something they don't want to spend money on a nice gift or whatever it's not the money it's the sign that someone isn't generous in their spirit in their heart they're not willing to take risks right that's that'll be another thing that the lack of money will say you know to start a business and fail would not be such a bad i don't think would be such a turn off as opposed to never starting a business as always talking about oh i could have been great i could have done this but never trying because it reveals a lack of of security about yourself confidence because confidence is a key quality so i think money is often a sign of something else another problem it's revealing something about their character you know i mean it could be he's he or she isn't pulling in their weight and that that's an issue yeah and i kind of resent that right but that's not about the money that's about the other person not caring enough to pull their weight or to not thinking about the other person's needs that's what's underneath the money yeah i think so you mentioned confidence for a second how does um how much does someone lack in confidence affect their ability to seduce and maintain a level of seduction in a long-term relationship well confidence is extremely important i mean it can border it can go off into grandiosity and arrogance and hubris and that can be a turn off but in general most people men and women make the mistake by not having enough confidence really that i'm enough secure yeah it's right it's better to reign someone's confidence down a little bit than to have none at all right it's like it's better to have more of it yeah and be like okay your ego is getting out of control let's take it down a little bit yeah yeah then like i have no confidence at all well the fact that you feel confident about yourself is very seductive in itself it has an attractive power you know i talk in the art of seduction of charisma i have a whole chapter on on the charismatic and the origin of charisma and what i define charisma is there's a person who has a kind of inner light inside of them they're so confident that they kind of glow with that confidence that their words are kind of revealing it their eyes are glowing their gestures are glowing and they're very charismatic it could be a malcolm x it could be a marilyn monroe it could be a john f kennedy it could be a mick jagger whomever right we sense this incredible confidence in this power and it's like an inner lantern that just makes everything glow and we are so attracted to that that's what charisma is why are we attracted to it because we envy people who have that kind of confidence we wish we could have that and we find it very compelling we want to know them we think that some of it perhaps will rub off on us i know in working with 50 cent i wrote a book with him this guy is very charismatic he's extremely seductive he's one of those men that i mentioned earlier who's like in that pantheon of great seduces and i've seen him up front doing his seduction so i know i speak from from experience um and he has this incredible charisma this insane confidence it's not in what he says it's not in his eloquence it's just in how he carries himself right and it could be a little bit cocky sometimes if it was all seen from him but man it is so seductive and women go crazy over things like that and men will go crazy over that in women as well so confidence is extremely important in the in the realm of seduction you can almost not go wrong with it yes you can border on on being insane and grandiose but the feeling of that person is comfortable and confident and has that kind of inner you know force energy that's coming up from from somewhere they don't know is very powerful and very compelling so um and the and the lack of confidence is extremely anti-seductive it is very it'll probably hurt the relationship if your partner is always lacking confidence in themselves it doesn't make you feel attracted to them right right so what would you say if someone's been through a break after breakup after breakup or even just one bad breakup and they feel heartbroken or closed off how can they reclaim that confidence what would you say to that person if they've lost confidence on how to reclaim it themselves and also if your partner has lost confidence and you're in a long-term relationship how can you help someone gain confidence in a relationship so individually how do you reclaim it and then your partner is lacking it well there are several ways to answer that i mean you know seduction is is is almost like a skill it's almost like being able to hit a baseball in bat 300 yes so the best thing you can do after a bad relationship is go back in the game and try and and and meet other women and and go back in and and if you fail to have a kind of a life attitude and not care but closing yourself off will make it harder each time harder to get outside of yourself right i can remember one time i was in new york i was young i was maybe 24 i was on the subway and i just received some great news about my career about this thing that i had written right 24 yeah yeah and i was on the subway going in somewhere in manhattan and all of a sudden like these these women were looking at me and you know i'm not i'm not i'm not saying that that never usually happens right right that yeah i'm not bragging yes what's going on here wow this you know this is one really attractive one what's going on here and then i i can never i can't forget that moment it stuck out of my mind so strongly that there's this energy that i had that they were picking up and they were sensing it and they were attracted to it i didn't say anything i just heard it wasn't on we didn't have a phone then i just had heard it and i was really happy in a great mood but i'm certain that that was that energy was kind of projecting itself onto other people yes so seduction is a skill and getting out there and trying your hand at meeting other women and going through the process you'll learn about yourself you'll you won't take things don't try and take things so personally get back in the game by being defensive and going into your shell and saying oh i don't want to get hurt again you're going to make it harder each time to get out of that shell yes you know so um the you know that other gender is kind of mysterious to us we don't really know them right right right they have a different world a different personality right but the more you interact with the with women or men the more you can kind of get a sense of what drives them and what it is you can't ever totally understand them a man can never ever ever understand a woman there's always a big mystery there eventually thank god there is but to the degree that you interact with women or men in any situation you're kind of learning about them you're getting more comfortable with them right yes so a lot of great male seducers had sisters a lot of great female seductresses had brothers interesting they grew very comfortable with that male or female presence and they might have been around the the sisters friends or the women who might have been around their brothers guy friends and been around that energy more right so if you had just brothers you know women seem kind of scary or weird or what do they why you know and and the opposite is true yeah so interacting getting outside yourself interacting with women you'll get to feel more confident you'll learn more and you'll be more comfortable in their presence so don't go into a shell that's the main thing that's the key and what about did you have something else no you had a second part what about if your partner you're in a relationship for 10 years and whatever reason your partner and a woman is lacking confidence they're insecure they're doubting themselves over and over what could the other partner do to help them reclaim their confidence or is that not something you can do no you can do that um you can find what it is that they need validation about and you can you know give them pep talks and make it clear to them this is the most important thing lewis make it clear to them that you still have confidence in them you haven't lost it because the sense that that other person is losing faith in you and your abilities is deadly that's big so if you care about that person and you don't want to see them go down the drain with their insecurities make it clear that you haven't lost faith in them and show it to them in certain ways you know whatever it is that they're worried about show them that you still believe that they can accomplish something you know the relationship i've been in it predates the 48 laws of power just just barely right and before the 48 laws of power i was a nobody i had no money i had no success i was very frustrated i was depressed i was very depressed even bordering on suicidal wow i was 37 i hadn't go anywhere it didn't bother her she had faith in me she had confidence in me right she saw that something probably would happen and you know and then it did with the 48 laws but you know i could sense that she could sense that there was something i could do right so she kept boosting me about my writing and about my career so what is it that the person is insecure about boost them up make them feel like you haven't lost faith in them and that will be almost enough in itself robert uh like always i've got one final question for you yeah but like always i want to acknowledge you for being my first ever guest on the school of greatness for always showing up and uh being consistent in your life since i've known you and serving people you're using your uniqueness your talent your gifts your energy to create beautiful pieces of art that serve and help people and i think it's incredible that you continue to show up and do this you don't have to anymore but you keep doing it even when you have your own personal challenges that you're facing you continue to show up to serve so i acknowledge you for for always being the example even during challenging times for yourself it's a beautiful thing to see and i appreciate your friendship thank you lewis of course likewise of course i have very fond memories of that first time you came first time in your house your little recording device you didn't know really what you were doing was your idea you gave me an opportunity you said hey i'll interview you i liked you i liked your energy exactly and i could see that you were good something was going to have come from this yeah yeah and sometimes when you don't know what's going to happen sometimes but if you have an enthusiasm and an appreciation and a gratitude and you're having energy hopefully good things can happen yeah so i appreciate you being the first one but i think i also was like hey listen i want to sell a bunch of books of yours and we're going to do this thing and i was excited about selling books for you and um you guys i think it's always important to create a win-win sure you know experience so but i appreciate you taking the chance on me launching the podcast with you as the first time no no no no i enjoy it's very memorable yes yes my final question is what's your definition of greatness my definition of greatness is kind of what i've talked about before it's realizing your potential to some degree so we may not realize 100 of our potential i certainly haven't realized 100 of my potential the things i probably could have done other more but if you're if your potential is to raise a great family and raise really great kids and you've done it that's greatness if your potential is to is to just build something however small it is and you realized it and you put you realized 50 60 of your potential that is greatness and then you can you can go to bed at night feeling good and power and proud of yourself right so a lot of it is is it's not the money that matters it's not the attention that matters it's the inner feeling you have that you have accomplished something is you have fulfilled your potential that you have accomplished some of the dreams that you had as a child for yourself right and to to have that sense that i have done that that i have wrote this book that i created this business that i started this podcast that's greatness to me of course there are levels of greatness right but that that's that's enough for me as well just yeah the sense that um i was born with this potential and i worked and i realized some of my gifts i think that's that's an amazing thing that's greatness for me robert greene thank you so much appreciate it so if you enjoyed that interview then i know you'll love what we have coming up right now we could choose to be in prison and suffer with poor conditions and poor treatment but we can we also choose to be out of suffering in our mind and in our heart even if there's even if there's uncertainty even if there's physical abuse or emotional abuse can we still try to not be in suffering or do you feel like there's nothing we can do sometimes it's a both end right men search for meaning basically victor franklin victor frankel what he he's in the concentration camps he tries to have a little notebook in which he writes his scientific research the book is the proof of his existence at one point he loses that little book and he realizes that all traits that he's ever been may forever be gone and he does develop the notion of local therapy right an idea that that you cannot change your circumstances but you can change your response to the circumstances that you still have until the last moment fundamental freedom which is the freedom to to the meaning that you give to what is happening to you and in that sense no he can't change his conditions in the concentration camp but he is able to still maintain a sense of sovereignty and dignity over the human degradation that is happening to him on a minute-by-minute basis and i think it's both end if you say to the people that are struggling at the borders of mexico you have chosen your prison it's it's indecent right people are not always choosing their suffering sometimes within that they can still sing a song to their child hold their loved ones write a letter to someone that is mis that they're longing for staying alive for the ones that are waiting for them and that's where you are coming out of the prison or out of the suffering you know and with a sense of freedom and i think if one is to be really careful sometimes to say we we we choose our pains we choose to stay in pain it's it does it deserves some discernment sure so suffering and pain is not a choice all the time oh no i think suffering and pain are part of life there's three things that religion has dealt with forever what is not explainable why do we suffer and why is there evil and those three things have been the purview of where religion from an anthropological point of view really entered and because of secularization other people have entered to take the space people explain to you what is understandable people are trying to help you with your suffering and experts gurus teachers speakers and all of that are trying to help you with why the bad things happen to good people what is the answer to that there is no answer to that otherwise we wouldn't have had religion from the beginning of time right these are not things that are answered these are things that these are these are questions existential conundrums that we learn to live with it is that nobody has ever had an answer there's so many religions not a single one has been able to answer they give you a way to live with it they never tell you you're not going to suffer they tell you what you can do with your suffering right have faith have faith go pray go to rosaries go do good things help other people you know change your story there's lots of ways today that we're dealing with something but nobody has ever said you're not going to suffer so we're always going to suffer there is always going to be suffering as part of life yes you're going to deal with loss you're going to deal with tortured hopes you're going to deal with disappointments with heartbreak with death with i mean those things you nobody is going to tell you that there will never be loss and loss is probably one of the most important sources of suffering do you feel like with your experience and wisdom that suffering gets easier for you over time since you know what's going to happen you know you're going to lose a friend a pet you know a sibling a loved one you know you're going to be disappointed do you have tools for yourself to suffer less or lesser time amounts or is it still a deep sense of pain when things happen unexpectedly that are that are hurtful i think that you don't suffer less you suffer differently and the most important thing is if you're not alone probably the most difficult thing in all our experiences and certainly in the experience of pain or loss or suffering or ache is not to be alone so that somebody else tells you i too have gone through this that's why we read books that inspire us from other people who have also lost and found their way back and saw the light again and they created new hope and reconnected with someone and allow themselves to love again and have another child and start another business whatever it is you know you what you you go through it but you have a sense that there is that thing called going through it and that you can come out of it on the other side that there is hope that you're not alone that there is a day when it won't hurt and ache as much that there is a day you will be able to wake up and you won't be thinking about obsessing over obsessing about it when was the last time you suffered the deepest i have to honestly say it's been a while i have been in a really blessed blessed time it's great you know um there's a while 10 years three years seven years what's look i haven't had loss since my parents died um i have had periods of high anxiety for things that were going on around illness around you know things like that but i have not had a major crisis luckily in a while you know except dealing with you know the proximity of illness in my life not my own for that matter so people in my life people that are really really close to me so in that sense i have been really blessed it's an amazing thing and you know what happens is that when you don't live it you know it exists but you forget it's like if you've had a wound in your leg you know where the thing was but it no longer hurts and you're looking sometimes with your finger was it exactly here was it exactly there is this amazing way in which when we when we are not in pain we have we we have the sense of what pain can be but we can't feel the pain that is not unless you are reminded of something and you say i remember i i felt that i know and i also had that once you know and you can instantly re-experience the moment with acute pain but if you don't if the story is not there you uh you you you can say yeah i remember i remember i've gone through this but you don't feel it in the moment and i think that form of resistance of immunity i think is an amazing resilient quality that we have actually that we are able to separate ourselves from something for the time being but i could get hit any any minute we live in such uncertain times i think that anybody who thinks that they are immune from it uh are i mean i love you have these two podcasts called where should we begin and how's work which i haven't checked out how it's worked yet i'm going to but where should we begin is transformation transformational it's saving people's relationships intimate relationships around the world it's it's really amazing done and it you know relationships seem to be some of the hardest things for people to figure out i have my friend matthew hussey who helps women find men and every girl that seems to be that i know is always like louis can you help me find a good man it seems like women are just trying to find the right partner find great relationship partners and then when you're in a relationship it seems to be like people are always struggling in relationships whether it be intimate or work related relationships business partnerships why are relationships seemingly so hard for so many people when it's the thing we need the most to feel alive to feel happy and feel connected this is the million-dollar question you know i'm a relationship therapist for 35 plus years i work with people in their romantic relationships family relationships friendships co-founders colleagues co-workers so love and work the two pillars of our life as freud said and um if i could just say why is the simple feeling of loving or caring not enough because the entire human drama is really complex the same way as nature is complex so is human nature complex and i spent my whole career studying what is changing in relationships you know why are they more complicated today are they more painful today you know are have our expectations changed and they're on that i have answers to i don't have answers to why is it so what you know but i do is it more complicated now relationships yes 50 years ago yes absolutely why is that why for a very simple reason for a long time we live and we still in many parts of the world live in traditional societies where relationships are clearly codified there are clear rules there are roles there are obligations there's a tight structure from which you can't get out but it tells you clearly who you are where you belong where you rooted and what's expected of you and you don't have too much questions about whose career matters more and who's going to wake up to feed the baby and who has a right to demand for sex and what and everybody every husband knows exactly what they can ask from their wife and the wife knows exactly what she should not tell her husband and children know their place and adults can all interact all of this was super regulated you know exactly then on sunday you go to visit your family and that you have to call your grandma and that and nobody happened and you go to church or you go to any other religious institution where you go to pray to be with the community etc and you know what nobody needed to explain to you why it's important you just went because i said so and because that's what you do that's what we do and that's what we don't do because what will the neighbors say and there is a community that looks over you all the time and the streets are narrow like that and everybody knows what's going on in the neighbor's house right now your best friends could be breaking up and you didn't even see it coming nobody knows what goes on in the neighbor's house that's where where should we begin became i think so powerful it gave you back a sense of what actually goes on in other people's lives so that you're not alone wondering am i the only one who's going through all of this this tight structure of our society has moved into what we call today network societies network societies is not tight knots it's loose ends it's loose threats with commitment that can be revoked at any moment that's why your women are constantly writing to you i thought we had something and the next day he disappears i thought we had to develop the sense of trust you know where is the care where is the loyalty where is the continuity all these things that now are not just set fixed they all have to be negotiated everything that was a rule is now a negotiation a conversation who's going to go to work who is are we going to move you to the west coast or are you going to move with me to the east coast are we going to have children are we ready to have children how many children do we even want children you know on and on and on am i happy at work oh i could do better should i stay a few more months should i leave should i you know is this what i really want to do is this who i really am is this my passion is this my passion you know this identity quest the whole time is this who i want to be is this and all of these questions are rather new questions why because in the past or in other parts of the world today you kind of know who you are seriously you're the son of somebody even you're the son of somebody it starts with that ben you know and you probably will even do what your father has done if you are a man and maybe not too much of any of the outside the house if you are a woman or you may begin a charting course of working outside the house and all of these things are very very normative and now it's different we don't have any of that at this moment we basically i call it the identity economy we spend our time trying to figure out who am i [Music] we have an enormous industry of self-help you know with this belief that we are self-made that we can have selfies that we do self-care it's this self-self self that is so focused such the center of everything and so fragile the freaking self has never been more fragile we are constantly making sure that it that it doesn't get overwhelmed that it doesn't get triggered that it doesn't get violated that it doesn't get shattered because it stands there alone like the little dutchman with his finger trying to hold back the dyke you know and that is the times i think we are in at this moment and there that's the waters i think you swim in sure well i think that's where suffering uh inner suffering comes from on the surface is when you obsessively think about yourself when you're you're obsessively self-centric thinking all the time trying to improve yourself and feeling not good enough right i think it's the combination comparing now i don't know that people didn't compare themselves when they all went to and stood on the steps of the church on a sunday morning i think communities people have always compared themselves but there was much there was a different type of social control the one that we have on social media today social control has always existed you know so suffering is part of life community and not being alone is what helps us with all our experiences definitely with suffering i look at the disappointments of relationships and the struggles that we have why are they so challenging what is the challenge what can you do about it when is it you who can do something and when do you have to realize the limitations that what you will do will not change another necessarily when it does and when it doesn't and how does this manifest that work and at home you ask me how relationships have changed i think we've never had more expectations of love and work than we do today i think we expect today from love and work many things that we expected before from religion and from community we want our relationships to be transformative transcendent meaningful spiritual purposeful erotic passionate and we want it at home and we want it at work we wanted to work too oh because we we want work to be purposeful today we want work to you know to give me a sense of identity of meaning of self-fulfillment of development i don't just want to go to work only for the paycheck i need the paycheck but i also want the paycheck to be meaningful to me work has become an identity economy it's not just what am i going to do it's who am i going to and um and it parallels it parallels you know what do we talk about at work transparency belonging authenticity trust psychological safety i mean when did the entire emotional vocabulary enter the workplace to such a degree that soft skills what they used to be called which are emotional and social skills relational skills which used to be seen as feminine skills and feminine skills you don't you can idealize them in principle but disregard them in reality and these soft skills have very quickly become the new heart skills and that's why i'm working in the workplace it's not because i have changed and i certainly am interested in work it's because work has changed and is suddenly interested in what i have been doing for decades i love this i'm going to ask you a question that may be hard to answer maybe it's easy but you've had you've seen a lot of intimate relationships work and fail over 35 plus years right yeah how many of the relationships what's the percentage of people in your mind who are in intimate long-term relationships marriages are not married but together are actually happy most of the time thriving beautiful i'm sure there's challenges but like they're able to work through them with semi-ease how many relationships in your mind are super happy and thriving after decades of the changes of the times society work family all the dynamics that happen in life so i have two ways of answering yes the first one is cultural your definition of happy and thriving and fulfilled is probably very different than many other cultures where being healthy having enough to eat having children having grandchildren having good jobs being respected in the community he's happy and thriving he's happy and thriving it's not about you and i are talking on the couch and i'm pouring my hearts at you and you are telling me i'm the best thing that's ever happened to you in your life and all of that okay so that's one version is you have got to look at the word happiness and thriving really in a cross-cultural context because a lot of us by the way who have the new definition have parents who think about marriage and what is a happy marriage with the with the other definition and i'm wondering you know that maybe we are so unhappy because we want so many other things that are maybe not part of marriage we have such high speculation we have super high expectations i want we want everything we want a partner to be an entire community my best friend my trusted confidant my passionate lover my intellectual equal my co-parent and on top of it i want with you to deal with all the physicists of the everyday life and all of what we need to get to all of that and then we should also be passionate great lovers fantastic travelers exactly you know and very few dancing every week yeah so eli finkel has a best answer for you on that okay he's a researcher on marriage and basically what he says is that the good relationships of today are better than the relationships of history but they're very few because the good what you call that happiness is the top of the olympus it's climbing the mountain and at the top of the mountain the view is fantastic but the air is also thinner and not everybody can climb the mountain the people who get to the top their top is probably better than the tops of the past now what is the top it used to be that marriage was for survival then it became a romantic enterprise and it became what i call the service economy from the production economy to the service economy you want children but no longer just eight so you only want two so sexuality becomes for pleasure and connection so it becomes a service economy it's no longer a production and then from there you go into identity which is what i want to become the best version of myself and you're going to help me do so that's the identity story of marriage and that goes up the maslow ladder now if i asked the question differently i wrote i actually wanted to write that very article about 10 15 years ago i set out to write in peace what a creative couples and do you know because creative was the word i was interested in not so much happy passionate but creative meaning not stable not solid but what is this thing creativity the spark and i went and i asked almost 100 people do you know couples that inspire you do you know couples that you think have that spark still and the frightening thing was that the majority of people could sometimes come up with one maybe two and that was it you know they knew people who were very good at renovations and people who were great parents together and people who were great business partners together but that whole that you talked about there were very few and i thought that is so sad because here we are we want something i mean if i say good business partners or business leaders you would give me 10 people who you think inspire you to run a company or authors or musicians or we all have a long list who can say what's your favorite musician i mean most of us have more than one when it comes to intimate relationships people have very few models now maybe it is because what they want is so high that there is very few models actually and that's probably the challenge of intimate relationships today so how do we how do we find how do we create that in an intimate partner or is it setting a lower expectation for what we want so that we don't it's both i think sometimes if you lower your expectations you're much better off no doubt calibrate so back to eli finkle's research calibrating expectations is probably one of the most the three main things for what he calls successful relationships and calibrating doesn't mean you lower your expectations necessarily but you also diversify them you don't ask one person to do everything to give you what the whole village should actually give you right okay that was the first thing what's the second you said there's three so one is the calibration of the expectation two is the diversification and three which is the one that very much speaks to me is um doing new things with your partner that if you do the things that you enjoy that's really nice that's comfortable that's cozy that solidifies the friendship but if you want to create intensity it is it demands risk taking doing new things outside of your comfort zone a little bit more on the edge how often should we be doing new things with our intimate partner i think as often i mean look the answer to this is very simple often enough but not too often that you become chaotic and you dysregulate right now you're asking me a systemic question this is true for an individual a relationship or a company if you don't change or grow you fossilize and you die if you change too much too fast there's no stability you go chaotic and you dysregulate so how often it depends on where you are at in your life are you the two of you do you have kids do you have little ones do you have aging parents are you taking care of somebody what else is going on here we'll tell you if this is a period where you need more stability or if this is a period where it's time to go and be curious and explore and discover and go into the world and launch right if you're a young 30 something female i get this all the time from a lot of women who reach out to me who are ending relationships that were really stressful for them or they've been single for years and they're trying to figure out how do they find the right person or how do they create the right relationship for them that's going to be a a long-term partner if you're a female in your young 30s what should they be thinking about like should they be focusing first on themself growing themselves or what are the things they should be looking for in the right part i just wrote my current blog which is a little bit of a critique of this taking care of yourself first okay yeah yeah so um because you you learn to love yourself in the context of your relationships with others you know with this idea that you go first to work on yourself here and then you prepare this little nice little package and you bring it to relationships that's that is completely off actually it's it's it's interactive you do do you need a good amount of self-awareness but you also need to be in relationships because it's people who help you become more aware practicing it practicing it but other people let you see who you are it's by being with others that you get to know who you are not just by sitting there alone and say who am i who am i right but this is a relational perspective on life and i will stand by that read the newsletter i really poured myself into that one because i'm tired a little bit of this no what i will say to you i'm tired of the go fix yourself first and then go be in a relationship relationships help you to become who you are that's what happens between children and their caregivers the next thing is intent instead of constantly thinking who's the right person i'm going to find why don't you ask yourself who do you want to be who should the other one be no maybe it's for on occasion ask who will i be as a partner who have i been till now in my relationships how have i shown up what is it that i do not just you know finding the right person that's now what does it mean to find the right person and there i will say the simplest way of looking at it is this there are many people you will love and they are not necessarily the same people that you will make a life with are you looking for a love story or are you looking for a life story that's good you understand yeah there are many people have had love stories this is a whole different story i never thought for a minute i would live with these people take something else to have a partner in life with whom you're going to go through the pains the sufferings the challenges the you know the all of that so can you have a life partner and still have a love story of course of course you want the life partner to be a love story too but the love stories per se are not life stories it's different ingredients it's different values there's some things that you don't need in order to have a beautiful love story with someone it lives in its encapsulated version on its own you're not thinking can i do this with you can i get old with you can i take you to my parents can you know do we share similar it's about values life not just about feelings so when you're looking for the right person it's not just what attracts you it's who can you build the life with how many values in common do you need to have with your partner life partner because the important ones it's not how many but there are a few of them that are really that are really important which ones would you say make or break based on your experience i think i'm not going to say them in order of importance but one of them that really matters is your relationship to others if you are a person that values relationships that sees the presence of others in your life as central and you are with somebody who does not want community or does not know how i mean i'm talking not about what they would like to learn through you but their value is you do things alone you live alone you rely on yourself you you know you don't bring people over to the house i have a couple i just spoke with yesterday you know and he loves to have people over and she just nobody should come over to the house her space the whole thing and i'm thinking wow this is a tough one it's not just about the how it's his whole life is about being with people and her whole life is about not being with people necessarily that's not how she experiences it now the question is is she drawn to more of what he has to offer and is he drawn to more of what she if these are totally more yeah then then okay different values come together and they they mix and match but if you have these two separations like that so that's one one of the beautiful questions i ask in how is work is um were you raised for autonomy or were you raised for loyalty were you raised for self-reliance or were you raised for interdependence which one would you say for me it was a self-reliance meaning what you have nobody will ever help you as well as you can help yourself you only have yourself to count on don't trust people you're on your own buddy or raised for interdependence loyalty you're never alone there's people around you you owe others others are there for you relationships is what makes you i think i was both based on like circumstances correct the circumstances made you reliable because you were alone with mom but the messaging was you have me yeah yeah of course okay so i think both i think that question is a fundamentally interesting question okay that people can ask themselves when they partner in business and in love raise for self-reliance or loyalty yeah okay interdependence are you part do you see yourself as connected to others and it's your connections that give you a sense of anchoring meaning relevance importance it all of that or do you see yourself as fundamentally on your own i think travel curiosity you often will have a complementarity between one person who is curious and eager to discover and goes on you know and then another person your question about to be alone or doesn't want to travel once doesn't want but it's also likes comfort likes repetition likes the familiar mm-hmm um i think the religious values if you have a person who who you know those those matter a great deal um children do you want family or do you not want family if you you know if you want a family then make sure that you find someone who wants a family what do you what do you want what are you gonna do try to convince some you know now i don't think you have to have the same values on everything i think you have to have a similar outlook on life which is a vision like exactly the same as when you a vision do you you know do you want to own a home do you think that economic achievement is important do you want to live in an extended family you think that living intergenerationally really is important and you have somebody else who says you know i don't want your parents over you know do you [Music] do you want to live in more than one place you know i think these are essential you know money feelings or emotions religious beliefs attitude toward life it's not a specific value about something it's a value is a cluster of things it's a cluster of importance of systems of meanings that's a value it's and you may not find someone with everything that's the same but someone with a similar mindset is what you're saying i met a husband of mine with whom i am for more than three decades who had never left the us when i met him really i never knew such a person existed coming from europe that was unheard of for us no he lived in the states he was american i came from europe in europe you travel everywhere all the time even if you have nothing you work one month you get the money and then you go to the next country which is two hours away and so i traveled outside he had never been outside of the us yeah he will always tell me he'd been to the virgin islands but you know for the re and i thought oh my god how does one you know who is such a person but i knew it was because of the circumstances of his life and that if he could he would and he was intensely curious if you just said oh he's never traveled then you misinterpret you don't want to just look at the manifest thing of you know you want to say and behind this is there someone who would actually like that who just hasn't had the opportunity and he's curious and just says let's go so don't get fooled just by what you see find out what is the belief behind it the aspiration the longing the interest and then you get a sense of what is the value do you think it's uh let me go back to expectation do you feel like we should lower or should diversify expectations or what did you say the word was calibrated calibrate expectations or should we be finding someone that can reach that expectation that we want no i think it's you think it's just impossible i think you you need to calibrate calibrate always calibrate you calibrate you constantly will be disappointed do you know a single relationship where you haven't been disappointed okay i mean disappointment is which can lead to suffering is part of a relationship the minute you have a relationship you have an expectation that expectation means that you want something love closeness intimacy partnership you know business affiliation you name it it creates dependence the moment you have an attachment you have dependence that dependence means that you have power or i have power if i expect something from you i confer power on you you have power over me i have power over you by definition there will be moments when that power doesn't go in the direction that i want and i'll be disappointed i'll be disappointed is there a single child that didn't have a disappointment from their parents it doesn't exist this this idyllic thing you're talking about it doesn't exist the next thing is what do you do with that disappointment hey can i come tell you i'm really disappointed you let me down i thought we were in this together i trusted you and you say i see your point or do you say what the hell are you talking about you're just inventing this you're delusional none of the you know and everything in between that's how you do a relationship it's really based on the repair it's not based on the it's how we heal the disappointment yes it's how you repair all these breaches moment by moment you come back you know and the repair is not i am so sorry you prepare me sometimes be hey do you want a glass of water or hey did you see this article in the newspaper john gottman is this very interesting thing about that he says the repair is not that you come and you do a me a culpa is that you do what he calls bids for connection you show the other that they still matter i brought the newspaper in at the time when we still had newspapers that was one of these examples you know i brought the paper in like i think of you i'm pissed at you you just annoyed me we just had a spat but but you still don't care about you i still care you're still in my life yeah i respect you so it's how we repair disappointment on a daily or weekly or monthly basis minutes sometimes the is the success of the relationship and that means also how you come and you say you take responsibility yes i think i actually think that taking responsibility is the ultimate freedom i've i messed up i shouldn't have done this you know can i do that you know it really is being accountable mm-hmm what if you're instead of blaming the other whatever what if it actually in that moment wasn't it doesn't matter it wasn't you don't have to agree with anything i didn't mean to it wasn't my intention yeah so you know we are going to sleep a lot but it's about just saying it and for that you have to it's about saying it and for that you have to be able to see that you're a flawed person who can be accountable without that becoming a major source of shame and i'm terrible it's a different thing between saying i messed up and i'm messed up how i like this distinction how do we in our mind because i think in the past relationships when i messed up in a small term right like a disappointment a small disappointment feeling saying like i'm sorry or taking responsibility or saying you know what that was my fault it was like a humiliation well it's more like look at when i'm like why shall i no it's more like here's all the actions i'm doing right right today i've done this which was an expectation and i've done that and i took the trash out or whatever i'm just and i you know did something kind of and i wrote a note and i did this and i took us to dinner i did all these things well today but i messed up on this one thing so for me i used to say to myself like gosh but can't you see the whole picture of like all the good things i'm doing why do i need to be an hour conversation about like one small thing that's what i used to feel like and do you feel like we should just be saying you know what take responsibility anyways for those moments even if you're doing lots of good things what i mean yes but i'm not a perfect human being you know it's like i might slip the story is told by you yes the other person is the one that needs to take to tell you about all the good things that you've done if you felt i do all of this i do one thing wrong and now i have to go into the dark pit yes you know but that's because you had a partner who did not enough tell you about all the good things you did so this is about me if you are in a relationship you need that other person to acknowledge all of the positive stuff so that when you have to say something about the moment what you messed up you don't feel like you know this is an endless chore well i think yeah exactly or i think it's more like okay if we're going to acknowledge one thing that i didn't do at least acknowledge something of that that's what i did right it's not at least it's a must it's a must it's a must it's not bad if i i shouldn't be needing that or i shouldn't be you shouldn't need it i should need it you should need it you totally should need it don't only acknowledge the bad also acknowledge the game not also it's it's it's a must it's a mandate you know what happens sometimes in distressed relationships because you were in a distressed relationship at that moment and this is true you can directly take this into the workplace in a distressed relationship the tendency is to highlight the negative and disregard the positive the positive is just a given the negative will make a big deal out of it so the one thing you didn't do becomes the whole conversation and then what does that person do of course that person says but you disregard all the other stuff and rightly so because it has been disregarded in a distressed relationship the positive you know if we get there on time it's because there was no traffic and if we get there late it's because of you the good is chance the bad is attributed to you or in a different version of that is what we call negative attribution error if i am in a bad mood it's because i had a bad day but if you're in a bad mood it's because you're a nasty person who is always so contuncturous mind is circumstantial yours is characterological so when you'd say i was in a relationship in which when i did one thing bad it was so overblown and i felt like everything else was being disregarded that's a sign of a distressed relationship in and of itself interesting the fact that you because in a normal relationship somebody else says thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you then you finally don't do something he says i really messed up there i forgot sorry right it's not such a big deal okay because you are seen for the whole person if you have to make a speech about you should see the whole person you're not in a good relationship oh there you go okay or you're not in the dynamic in your relationship is not a good one no that's that's that in itself is a sign of a bad dynamic you shouldn't have to say this so i wasn't crazy okay guys no okay gotcha no and the interesting thing about this is how much it applies at home and the same thing happens at work can it work so is it a mandate to acknowledge uh team members at work as well in the good and not just the negative i absolutely think so yeah but i am not the best at it myself right you don't even know what your team the best i do it's hard we see a lot of the things that are slipping through right yeah yeah it's like my tendency is to it's different because in a relationship you're not it's not a paycheck right it's like well maybe there is but it's different in terms of like an intimate relationship versus a working rate how much has your team taught you because look you are probably like me we wouldn't be sitting here on some level if we were not actually more self-critical people of course and very demanding of ourselves and hence we surround ourselves by people who we think we can be demanding from as well and that is true but it is also important that we learn to be sometimes a little kinder with ourselves and not just highlight the negative while at the same time asking the girlfriend to not be like that even though you are doing it with yourself and to also do it with our team yeah um i i don't think you can go wrong you know if it's not just kind of fluff i think that acknowledging the efforts of people is a good thing to learn and my team teaches me that teach me a lot too yeah i've grown so much in the last seven eight years of launching this my business just by seeing how much you know my words or my energy could affect someone if you know i'm only focusing on like what they messed up on so we we do acknowledgement all the time every meeting it's like we try to acknowledge a team member and acknowledge people all the time because i've learned over the years just like it's not good just to focus on the negative and what's what's not working even if you're the boss and even if you're paying everyone or whatever and have you ever connected that to the fact that your focus was on self-reliance they come together self autonomous people people who are raised for autonomy need to learn what you're describing to be more to to give those comments to see what other people are doing they need to learn not to just look like this yeah that's true now in how's work i'm excited to dive in on this i had a business partnership before the school of greatness about eight years ago that we we started a company together i guess 11 years ago we started a company we ran this for like three years the company took off it started to be very successful financially started making millions of dollars in sales a year with a very small team it was essentially just us and we outsourced a few things they did very well until the dynamics of the relationship started to change we had both had nothing starting out and then we grew and we started to get some success some financial stability things like that and things started to shift where we didn't have our values aligned we didn't have our i guess our work ethic aligned and we didn't communicate specific we didn't communicate about expectations we went into it quickly into a business partnership were you friends before we were friends maybe for like six months like we just met we were in a co-working space i was working on something similar to what he was working on let's we were just talking and hanging out helping each other giving advice and then we worked on a project together hey we should do let's try this thing it did well let's do this again next week let's keep doing we're making money let's let's grow them okay now let's build a business together so there was not a level of communication beforehand or an agreement on okay if in five years you want to leave what's the expectation if i want to leave we didn't have them so i take full responsibility with both of us not clearly communicating expectations and so anyways after a few years we i start to get a lot of resentment because i had an expectation that this person would be working as hard as me i'm up till 2 a.m every night he has a kids and a wife i don't have that so i can work all day all night and i'm thinking let's grow this thing let's build this thing and i didn't communicate so i take full responsibility so after a while i remember saying to myself why am i why am i giving up 50 of this when i'm doing 90 of the the sales generating efforts that are bringing in the revenue right and i even had him um i was like a lot of our stuff was based on sales from live webinars and i was the guy who was doing the live webinars so i even said like hey why don't you try to do this webinar on your own and see if you can generate some sales and there was zero sales when he did it so i think he realized okay like in order to generate income he needed someone to sell for him and where i was out thinking like okay i could probably pay someone five grand a month to do all the responsibilities of him but he's generating a lot more than that and so there was a level of resentment where i just didn't communicate i just got angry it was resentful and when you get angry what do you do um i would be reactive i'd be dismissive i would be you know i would be distant i would focus on my own stuff and i started thinking of like how do i get out of this right how did i get out of this i was also very immature didn't know like didn't really know myself didn't heal my trauma from the past like didn't do all these things before this and i remember like going through a lot of internal pain and suffering because of this lack my my lack of emotional courage to have hard conversations was he acknowledging the fact that but did you have a shared sense of reality did he agree with what you see no no no no so that's the first time i think until he he tried like to do a webinar himself to sell when he didn't make any money on it i think he was like a first wake up call like oh i guess i do need louis in a sense like we needed each other and to a point where i was like i could just pay someone to do your job but we started this together so it was just like trying to figure it was just messy and then um i remember like we were in the middle of times square one day arguing and a friend of ours was their mutual friend and we were arguing and it just got really heated and i wanted to like literally fight him in the middle of times square because i was like you're not holding your weight i'm doing this you know it's just like an argument we're both arguing our case right and i was just like this is not working you know and it's not going to work i ended up selling the company to him i remember i ended up started going through emotional intelligence work and starting healing trauma in the past and i approached him and i said even though i have this what was the piece that you needed to address from the past that was going to help you with this um what wasn't the piece i needed to address but i think it was the sexual abuse and the trauma that i faced and a lot of like feeling abused and taken advantage of my entire life feeling like people were out to get me or fairness of like what's fair what should we both have what should we both get type of thing so i think once i started to do a lot of that work on myself and heal from past hurts from other people where i felt taken advantage of i remember coming to him and emailing him and saying hey i want to meet you in person and literally the first thing i said was like 10 minutes of acknowledging him and gratitude for him i wouldn't have started this without you i was just like there's no way we be here right now without you i'm so grateful even if there was like things i wasn't happy with i was just like here all the things i'm really grateful about you and i think he was in shock because for six seven months prior it was a lot of stress for both of us a lot of resentment both sides but that mindset and attitude was able to get us to a place to find a deal where i sold the company to him whereas if i didn't come to him from that place of gratitude i probably wouldn't have been able to sell it to him and there were other challenges since i exited that we had but i remember i needed to come from a place of gratitude i needed to come from a place of calm and peace in order to make some resolution happen and you have a show i know we're i'm actually over my time right now so i want to be respectful but your show how's work deals with a lot of people who are in partnerships and business that like go through different challenges of business right so your story could be an episode on housework okay complete right you know um every your story says in order for me to deal with my co-founder i needed to deal with the other part of my resume my relationship history i needed my past to pass the way that i had felt that people had used me the way that i felt that i've always had to do more the way that i felt that even when i did more they still thought that they did more than me the way that i didn't know if i took them on that they wouldn't hurt me more you know and so my invisible history that is right there as i'm working with my co-founder that he didn't know about that he did not know about you know um that was that's an episode of how it's worked that's what we address i deal with it it's where should we begin for anybody who's ever had a job it's co-founders colleagues co-workers family business 65 of co of startups will fail like yours because of the relationship between the co-founders just so you know that's why because the relationship the economy no that's an enormous amount of good ideas that fall apart because the relate that's howard massaman at harvard that's not my statistic here and what you did is you first of all went and you realized i am bringing stuff here that i need to acknowledge then you went to him you didn't just do gratitude you actually did basic reality testing it is true that without him you may not have been where you were or where you started and all of that it was also true that at a certain moment you no longer wanted to continue be with him and it's both it's disagree it's the ability to not have to deprive the other of anything they've done in order to justify and to just say i know you've done all of this of course when you come to me and you first acknowledge my contribution i'm not on the defensive then you can come come and say i would like to sell you the company right because i if you came and you talked about everything you do i would answer to you with everything i've done and everybody's holding their card but if you come and you tell me what i have done then i don't have to go into that script and i can actually choose a different path yeah i don't have to to to hold on my credentials and remind you what i have done here but this thing about two people who start together and one starts to do more and feels that they are pulling putting in all the effort and they're the generating one and that you know and then the other one is still trying to tell them you know no no we are equal and they feel like we are not equal anymore and it's unfair and then it taps into and i know that feeling used feeling i've been there you know and are one yeah and now you have this past and the present sitting on each other the personal and the professional the invisible resume with the reality of the workplace i wish you'd come with your partner to an episode but i invite anybody else in a similar situation to come and do an episode of how it's work that that is it's riveting it's riveting because you tell it now and and i listened to it like that because you made the connections yeah but the episode is often the opportunity for people to make the connections for the first time before the wow no with me in the session it's a three-hour session that then gets edited but it's a three-hour session with the colleagues and the co-founders going exactly into that you know wow i have two firefighter pilots in iraq and afghanistan together and they then create a company the company is very successful and then at one point one of them wants to go and do something that the other one doesn't want to do and their whole question is were we successful because we had a great idea are we successful because we had each other i have two brits who are college friends like you who say let's do this thing they start with a an idea and it becomes this lucrative successful communications company but they can't talk to each other one word you know and they realize it in the session so you're telling me the story after the fact how his work is the actual unearthing of this very time where should we begin is amazing so excited to listen to this as well so anyone who's got a job or entrepreneur or got a co-founder with you go listen to that right now um they're both on spotify right on spotify and anywhere else where you listen to your podcast okay uh this is a question i've asked you before i think the last time you came on but i want to ask you again to see if it's different i'm going to go back and check them um this is called the three truths so imagine it's your last day on this earth and you have to say goodbye and your body dies and you go on to the next place wherever that is and it could be any year any time hundreds of years from now but eventually you gotta go and you've accomplished every dream you can imagine you've you know healed millions of relationships you've written the books you've done the speeches anything you want to do you've created it but it's all got to go with you all of your work all of your message but you get to leave behind to the world three things you know to be true from all of your work and life experiences three lessons that you would share with the world to live by what would you say are your three truths the quality of your relationships determines the quality of your life okay hence make sure that you have a rich life and invest in your relationships nobody's ever died hoping they had worked more and then the next one is make it so that when people remember you they smile that's a good one never heard that one that they were touched by you in a way that really left them with something to cherish i see so many people in my office as a therapist who who are left with things that people left them with that are bitter cruel hurtful and i just think i want to be remembered with a smile as somebody you know it was a it was great to know her to meet her to have her in my life as my mother as my wife as my friend as my boss if you have that then you continue to live inside the hearts and minds of others in a way that you leave a positive impact for many years to come yeah that's beautiful okay and the third one oh i thought that's why i already three the first one is the quality of life uh the second one would have been therefore you invest in your relationships nobody has ever really seriously people on every deathbed people will talk about how they wish they had spent more time with their loved ones and i actually have to say i don't think i will say that because i'm doing it um and but if it was the third one i think it would be something inspired by what you probably would think if you have a dream that has accompanied you your whole life go ahead and try it if it's doable it would be the pity that you would spend i mean there are certain things you won't do i will never be a pilot you know that kind of but there are certain things that you know you want to try one day just go ahead and dare it what what what do you stand to lose on some of these things and i think that's a piece that i take from your work is that that notion of there's just so many ways that you can explain why you don't go ahead and there dare yourself on some things you want to play that freaking piano go get yourself a music whatever it is there and i like that i take from you that's great thank you i want to acknowledge esther for for constantly showing up you bring so much healing to so many people and clarity and inspiration every time you speak i swear it's like sound bites of like clarity and inspiration to how to live a better life and have better relationships so i'm so grateful for you i acknowledge you for this where should we begin is amazing for anyone in an intimate relationship you have to go watch or listen to it season four coming out soon the first two i listened to were unbelievable i'm not listening to the car i mean you have to listen to four when it comes three is incredible but four is even better they keep getting better it's all i can tell you how's work i'm excited to dive into you can listen to both on apple or spotify or anywhere pogba yep um where else can we support you or how and follow you where do you i i i mean you know i told you about the newsletter and the blog i really write people want i don't always want to write another book on my website on social on all the channels estherparel.com and uh it's monthly it's uh it's really what we are talking about but in on a deeper level so that i can't always do another you know book of course there's the books uh mating in captivity and the state of affairs um and there's two other things if you're a coach or a therapist it is my training platform which is called sessions with a stair parel where i like you bring some of the people that i learned from the most in the field of relationships and then if you're a couple and you feel like you've sexuality has sagged and you're on a in a rut rekindling desire is the place to go it's also on the website and it's the course that you take to kind of reconnect with your erotic self um appreciate you you're the best thank you you become what they want you to be even though it's not who you really are you get to then end of your life and can you live with doing what was expected but never what was destined can you live oh man with doing what was expected but never what was destined

Channel: Lewis Howes

Views: 303,327

Keywords: Lewis Howes, Lewis Howes interview, school of greatness, self help, self improvement, self development, personal development, success habits, success, wealth, motivation, inspiration, inspirational video, motivational video, success principles, millionaire success habits, how to become successful, success motivation

Id: aS3oxcTk-9Q

Length: 125min 9sec (7509 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 18 2021