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

the entire human drama is really complex I spent my whole career studying what is changing in relationships this tight structure of our society has moved into what we call today Network societies Network societies is not tight knots it's loose ends it's loose threats with commitment that can be revoked at any moment why are relationships seemingly so hard for so many people when it's the thing we need the most to feel alive to feel happy and feel connected this is the million dollar question you know I'm a relationship therapist for 35 plus years I work with people in the Romantic relationships family relationships friendships co-founder colleagues co-workers so love and work the two pillars of our life as Freud said and if I could just say why is the simple feeling of loving or caring not enough because the entire human drama is really complex the same way as nature is complex so is human nature complex and uh I 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 I have our expectations changed and they're on their that I have answers to I don't have answers to why is it so why you know but I do a little bit more complicated Now relationships yes 50 years ago yes absolutely why for a very simple reason for a long time we live and we're still in many parts of the world living 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 alt interact all of this was super regulated you know exactly then on Sunday you go to visit your family and that you guys to call your grandma and that and nobody 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 we 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 foreign 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 developed a 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 is 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 this is 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 right 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 are basically I call it the identity economy we spend our time trying to figure out who am I we have an enormous industry of self-help you know we disbelief 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 dike 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 yeah you know so suffering is part of life community and not being alone is what helps us with all our experiences definitely with suffering I look at the disappointments of relationships and the struggles that we have why are they so challenging what is the challenge what can you do about it when is it you who can do something and when do you have to realize the limitations that what you will do will not change another necessarily when it does and when it doesn't and how does this manifest at work and at home do 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 what did it 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 be 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 is 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 is 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 ever happened to you in your life and all of that okay so one version that's one version is you have got to look at the word happiness and driving 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 [Music] we have super high expectations I want we want everything we want the partner to be an entire Community my best friend my trusted confident my passionate lover my intellectual equal my co-parent and on top of it I want with you to deal with all the Physicians 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 I'm dancing every week yeah so Eli Finkel has the 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 wow 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're going to 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 a question differently I run I actually wanted to write that very article about 10-15 years ago I set out to write in peace what are creative couples and do you know because creative was the word I was interested in not so much happy passionate sure 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 a 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 talk about they 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 or authors or musicians or we all have a long list like 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 how do we how do we find how do we create that and 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 finkel's research calibrating expectations is probably one of the most the three main things for what he calls successful relationships wow and calibrating doesn't mean you lower your expectations necessarily but you also diversify them you don't ask one person to give you what 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 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 themselves growing themselves or what are the things they should be looking for in the right partner I just wrote my current blog which is a little bit of a critique of this taking care of yourself first okay yeah yeah yeah so um because you you learn to love yourself in the context of your relationships with others you know we 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 first and then go be in a relationship relationships help you to become who you are that's what happens between children and their caregivers the next thing is instead of constantly thinking who's the right person I'm gonna find why don't you ask yourself who do you want to be who should the other one be no maybe it's on occasion ask who will I be as a partner who have I been till now in my relationships how have I shown up what is it that I do not just you know finding the right person that's now what does it mean to find the right person and there I will say the simplest way of looking at it is this there are many people you will love and they are not necessarily the same people that you will make a life with are you looking for a love story or are you looking for a life story that's good you understand yeah there are many people 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 the all of that so 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 you did 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 [Music] think of all the amazing things in life that are expressions of just you for instance the song You Stream over and over again while you're in your 13th Hour of gaming at 4am in the morning with all the lights off trying not to wake up your roommates or the recommendations that you share with your friends on the top six comedy podcasts that are the best to listen to on your way to the gym and back or even your new haircuts which may or may not be an epic bowl cut from the 90s and hopefully is everything that makes you you makes all the difference State Farm believes Insurance should work the same way your plan your coverage they need to be personalized to you and the ability to choose the plan you want by picking the options that fit you like building your home and auto policies is exactly what the State Farm personal price plan is all about getting the coverage you want at an affordable price just for you so are you ready to make things personal call or go to statefarm.com today to create your steep Farm personal price plan M prices vary by state options selected by customer availability and eligibility may vary there are certain situations where you're not going to be able to get out of a relationship and follow your bliss yeah no you can but is there a world where you could at some point as opposed to saying I've got to live the next 30 Years with this person or 10 years with this person that sounds like a uh you know a free prison sentence you're in the Free World but you're living a prison inside in your own home that doesn't seem like a healthy lifestyle it's not because I work with such varied audiences I'm very very mindful of how painful it is for people to say if you don't go then now I've said to them if you don't go there's limits to how far I can take you on this growth process because you're still constantly having this echoing voice that invalidates you and reminds you of that invalidation you know in the next room so there's only but there's only so much but there's still a lot of growth I mean your life almost becomes a series of Silent acts of rebellion you know some people literally I know some folks told me you know what I was inspired by what you said so I just went to an online university and I got my degree and I never told them everything is a little game for yourself to like find your own Joy correct and they or they volunteer in their community and what they recognize is that the volunteering is joyful The Narcissist would say to them why would you want to help a bunch of people who are too stupid to help themselves they they if anything they'll say they're horrible negativity only reinforces and I'm totally right about them I'm not wrong about this I'm not a bad person for recognizing that they're toxic and I can go out and do something that fills my soul but you're right it's only a partial Victory um but if you can get out get out right okay so let me ask you this so again I know there are certain cultures and situations and countries that probably have harder harder restrictions of removing yourself so but it okay so let's let's figure this out it's gonna be painful to stay in the marriage if there's what the narcissistic person it's going to be extremely painful to leave for potentially years where you might have to find a whole new community move you know build friendships and relationships again like be on your own all that stuff but if there's light at the end of the tunnel when you leave you know three five seven years out as opposed to being in the relationship for that time is that the better solution you know I don't I think that here and it's so hard to say because if you somebody said to me tell me the best solution take away all the contextual factors it's obviously not to be in such a relationship when we talk about how people manage themselves in these relationships there's all these forms of contact you can have and the most extreme is no contact which means done you block them you cut them out you don't speak to them you don't take their calls nada nothing and you know what there's there's places I've actually seen the hard data on this everyone will say no contact awesome like I I feel so much better now that they no longer exist in my life but it's a really limited strategy if it's your family member if it's someone you co-parent with it's somebody you might still have professional contact with so that's such an extreme that it might work like somebody let's say someone dated someone and you don't have a ton of mutual friends and you move away physically no contact can happen and let me tell you I've done no content like whoo it's good okay yeah then there's low contact now low contact can be done in a couple of different ways but it tends to be you know what I'd say more perfunctory you don't really engage with them it's just really like just sort of if let's say it's a family member you've decided like okay this person's so bad for me I want nothing to do with them but your beloved cousins getting married you may just you say to beloved cousin just whatever the opposite side of the room for seating me is I'd appreciate it maybe they come and talk to you and you give them very simple yes no kids are great responses you go to the bathroom a lot when they approach you people are going to think you have some sort of digestive problem but it's a great out but you step away and if it gets to be too much you give yourself permission to leave so it is you know low contact doesn't mean like you they come to you and you don't speak to them you might say oh hi yeah grids are great yeah it's been a long time yeah I actually got to run to the restroom right it's one of those and so or I gotta run I've got a call or whatever so you find your ways to maintain and then you won't have contact with them maybe for 10 more years until there's another wedding or funeral or something like that so that's more of the low contact and you know and then there's all these techniques like gray rock and yellow Rock like all these techniques to figure out ways to communicate but the tool I give people and I think maybe I talked about this last time I don't remember but it's something I call don't go deep with them which means don't defend don't engage don't explain and don't personalize and I it's a mantra like don't defend don't engage don't explain don't personalize deep what happens if you do any of those If you defend you're going to get in the mud with them and they like it and you get dirty so that doesn't make sense so you don't want If you defend it's just going to escalate and Gaslight and fight and and there's no point because you're not going to end any kind of sane rational place when you explain they will definitely Gaslight you so there's no point to that engaging means don't get into a conversation with them do not ask them what they think of something do not tell them that good news and don't personalize this isn't about you they do this to anyone in your position they're going to manipulate it's what they do and so they're going to lie they're going to Gaslight it's just how their personalities are organized it's not about you there's nothing you can do to change this not you not me not anybody and so that's the it's a really fun it then that's what we call radical acceptance nothing you can do it ain't going to change and that's not because and a lot of people say well it's not going to change because I'm not enough it's not going to change because it's not going to change no one's ever enough for them so okay let me ask you a practical question there's different stages of being in a relationship right you meet someone you go on a date with them that's a certain stage of a relationship you date for weeks months however long before you say we're going to be committed or exclusive with each other right then there's a you know a marriage commitment and that type of relationship what would be in your mind the key things that an individual would should really focus on seeing or experiencing from the person that they want to date before they say I want to get committed and exclusive with you not before marriage but just okay I feel comfortable enough to be an exclusive committed relationship with you one of those key things you need to see or experience to make sure you feel comfortable taking that step watch how they respond to stress or frustration if you only had one thing you can do it's that because that's the test right do they start do they become really dysregulated impulsive say really awful things and then you know I was just really stressed out you know because if they did it there they're always always going to do that because they're on their best behavior in this early dating relationship they'll do it worse you know how are they handling themselves in a in a traffic jam how do they handle themselves when you get to the restaurant and they say oh we've lost your reservation you know because you really are looking for the person who says you know what you up for a fast food because there's a place across the street and you know what it could be the dinner where you fall in love with that person over your you know over a year exactly and so but if that person makes it do you know who I am oh let me tell you Yelp review blah blah blah you're gonna be sorry blah blah blah no I mean and I think those those situations manifest pretty early on and the trick is because everything else is sort of new and sparkly and fun people want to say oh they just had a bad day they have bad days all the time I would say that's your especially that early in the game that's right a runaway kind of like kind of or not even run away to say yeah just sort of slowly start distancing some people need to see two of those events okay so great there's your you'll get your second soon enough and so I would say that's a really that's a big one um I think other things you want to look at are things like are around equity equitability and balance in the relationship how often are you knocking yourself out for them so in other words you're shaping your schedule to them you're shaping your preferences to them you're giving up things for them and yet they still make it sound like you you give up maybe a I don't know you're you're invited to a old friend's birthday party you know send me a girls night out and they doubt your commitment like oh really it's your friends instead of me and then you end up canceling on the friends and you go out with them and they'll say isn't this so much more fun so they make it seem like your sacrifice was actually good for you that's something else you could say oh my gosh really in the game you know and especially narcissistic people do tend to like to control the narrative so they will there will be some isolating happening if you feel that you're not you you don't feel comfortable saying I'm gonna go see my friends or you know this is a I want to spend time alone with my sister or something like that and they pathologize that especially when it's early this is sort of a process for you and if they're trying to Annex all of your time that's a sign too that you need to pay attention yeah if they're trying to take you from your friends and family but sometimes it's not even that obvious it's it's more of a why am I why can't I come um or they doubt your commitment and so it's not as like you're not seeing your friends it's you know you spend a lot of time with your friends like you know maybe maybe this just isn't the right time in your life for a relationship I get that I got that so they play that game and then you're thinking no I'm kind of really into this person I'm not angry at you but they're doing it in a covert way yeah no doubt they doubt your commitment and because people want to prove their commitment right and they know I'm really committed to this okay you know it's just I find it interesting that on a Saturday night that's what you chose even though you've told them weeks ago and then you give in so look out for those two things it's interesting because I'm a uh you know I'm every time you say something like this I'm reminded of the past of like okay all these stressful situations but um uh with Martha I talk a lot about Marth on the show because she's been amazing for me but with Martha we we had an experience we went on a trip within the first like month right of kind of knowing each other and dating and we were supposed to go to Vegas um and we had flights booked before whatever reason all the flights that day like got canceled and we couldn't get there for like the event we're going to see an event until like the next morning on the flight and we're gonna miss it and so I'm coming to her kind of bringing some a little bit of this PTSD yeah yeah remnants of like hope she's gonna be okay you know she's gonna be upset the flight this and I bring it and say hey the flights are not you know happening we could try to take a later flight um but we may not make it in time for the events what do you want to do let's just drive yeah I was gonna say if this girl's got it going on humidity oh it's no worries like let's just drive we're so used to people being like well I need first class and I needed this and you know this kind of like don't you know who I am type of mentality she was like let's just you want to drive kind of like fun with it and I was like uh you sure you're okay with that and she's like yeah let's go and I was like cool let's jump so we jump we just grabbed our bags we packed we went in and we draw and they had the most incredible five hour drive there was traffic and it was on a Friday night and it was like whatever stressful but we had so much fun I was like this girl's got something yeah she got something going on and it's and I think when you travel with someone you can see yeah yeah stressful experiences yes I do agree that if you travel with someone you can see a lot and that's what I'm saying that stress can come out there too but I do think it's it's almost a way to create a living lab and create set up a trip in the first three months of the relationship it doesn't have to be elaborate it could be something as quickly it could be a weekend trip it doesn't be like two weeks somewhere watch how they do because I will tell you that's the test somebody who can be chill while they travel done that's that's one it's almost like a final examination yeah yeah before you exclusively commit and again for people to know this doesn't mean you have to have air tickets and this it could really be like a road trip it could be a camping trip it could be any number of things but like a few days where it's really just you and them and there's because when you travel inevitably it's something right and to watch how you manage that it's a great test because if it's a narcissistic person if everything isn't just so perfect and the thing is you got to watch how they they Gaslight try to Gaslight it away if you start getting a little leery on this is not okay they're gonna make it into don't you understand I wanted to make it perfect for you okay I just wanted it to be a great trip you know and and so if because if you might be pushing back and saying you know the way you were acting under stressor I just I'm trying to make it right for you and now you're feeling so guilty because they were trying to make it right for you so I will tell folks this if you're noticing there's some of those early patterns and you decide to distance from this relationship because it feels like there's some red flags don't tell them the why really yeah this ain't you you ain't their teacher their life coach you're trying to get out of this relationship because if you tell them the why they're going to Gaslight you they're going to say well I was stressed I'll try to be do something nice for you you're being you're unapprecular you're unappreciative exactly you're sensing a red flag you can make it about yourself and say yeah you know what whatever your reasons are I I think work's getting to be a lot for me or maybe this isn't the right time for me to have a relationship and people say well Dr Romney isn't that a missed opportunity no they ain't listening to you did I tell you about the castle Castle all right this is you're gonna like this so I was thinking about this whole idea of investment like buying a castle well that's the thing you can't buy a castle for a relationship I see to me the relationship is the castle right when you meet someone and you have a connection because I'm always you know me I do seminars all over the world we have thousands of women come and join us and the thing that there's always someone who puts their hand up and says it starts the story with Matt I have this incredible connection with this guy so they're already in America dating often not yeah now I now I know we have a problem when someone's justifying whatever they're about to say next with what an incredible connection they have with someone an incredible connection is like you meet someone you connect and you have a great plot of land this plot of land could be great because it's in the middle of a forest could be great because it's on the cliffs overlooking the ocean it's a beautiful place to build that's the connection you're just a connection but it's still just a plot of land all right let's see it for what it is its potential it's still just a plot of land now what you need is two builders two people who are going to build something here and that requires two people who show up each day and lay brick after break after break after break and slowly but surely create a castle most people have the experience of someone who joins them on that plot of land and they both look at it and they're like isn't this great the ocean great look at the view we have here look at the trees look at that this is amazing and they get real excited now one of them might be willing to build one of them might be a builder the other one might just really like the potential of this plot of land and then you have someone who's there building every day they're doing the investment I have the woman come to me who's building and a guy who's left the construction site I don't know where he is he's at home he's binge watching his favorite show he's out on another he's looking at another plot of land you know and then three weeks later he calls in and says he you know he sends a text to her after three weeks of ghosting her or just disappearing or just patchy communication and says thinking of you that's a builder started building then left the building site for three weeks and called him from home and went how's the castle going meanwhile she's over there building the castle on our own you can't build on your own and the problem we have right now is there are too many people who value the connection instead of the castle Castle is where it's at and if you don't have a true Builder who over time is going to build that's that's what a relationship is a castle this is why love at first sight is [ __ ] to me it doesn't work it takes time it's infatuation it's you she's hot he's hot he's you know there's some connection there that's based on the fact you like this and I like this oh my God we're supposed to be together this is very part of the equation you a castle becomes a castle because two people work on it and it becomes unique and ornate and there are secret passageways only the two of you know about and there's an argument that knocks down a wall and then you build it up and fortify that wall and it makes it even stronger and you know the the weather over time weathers the stone on the castle in a unique way that makes it your Castle there's other castles in the world but this one is Uniquely Yours it's been built by the two of you it's been hard one you know that's a relationship that's why you know a 20-year relationship on marriage or 30-year relationship or marriages is special is because two people have had to go through [ __ ] together yeah they've done things together they this isn't fantasy this isn't building a castle in the sky the idea of love the idea of what we could be the one day wage I call it the one day wager the one day I'm making a wager that one day you'll be what I want you to be one day you'll you'll invest in me the way I want you to one day you'll change the one day wager is the most dangerous wager you can possibly make in your love life the real [ __ ] is what's going on now is someone trying do they want to be here are they focused on the little [ __ ] not just the big [ __ ] because anyone can go and have a like people say but when we're when it's great it's crazy yeah when we go like we go we've been on some amazing dates or vacation we had the best time it was amazing of course you were on [ __ ] vacation anyone could go to Disney World and have a great time it's Disney World right that's the that's the job of the place is to make sure you have a great time no matter who you're with right right but you know what when I was 13 I had like when I was thinking it was 12 or 13 my parents took me to America for the first time and we came to Florida and where do you think we went we went today and I was massively excited you know I was I was so excited it was exciting to be in America I was excited to see the things I'd seen on TV decided to see the references to movies I'd seen excited for the rides before the interview continues if you feel like you're not living your most authentic life not leaning into your purpose and not living the life that your future self would be extremely proud of I've written a new book called The greatness mindset and I think you're gonna love this through powerful stories science back strategies and step-by-step Guidance the greatness mindset will help you overcome all the different challenges in your life to design the life of your dreams and then turn it into your reality make sure to click the link below in the description to get your copy today okay let's get back to this video we go into Disney World and I learned something very interesting about myself there this is gonna sound profound for a trip to Disney World yeah I but I realized something about myself because of course I go in there it's magical it's oh my God this is crazy it's huge take a photo with Mickey yeah there's Mickey there there's all these dazzling attractions but it was something that stood out to me even more than Space Mountain even more than the big ride and it was the trash cans oh yeah on some level that maybe I couldn't fully articulate at that age I saw the trash cans and I was moved by it I said someone had enough about this place to theme the trash cans yeah the trash can in Tomorrowland is a futuristic trash can the trash can in you know Indiana Jones land or whatever it's called is a tiki bamboo trash can the trash cans were different depending on where you were it's amazing someone cared so much about the detail of that world that they styled and themed the trash cans it moved me yeah I've never forgotten that wow the trash cans in life and I've thought about that endlessly in my business when I do Retreat I just got back from my retreat and you know someone K I told the story on the retreat someone came to me at the end of The Retreat because of all the little details we put on The Retreat you know the little it's not just a it's not just a seminar an event it's we hold parties and inside the experience and it's an immersive world it's like it it's it's we like to think we've created the immersive theater of the self-development world and ah someone came up to me at the end of this Retreat and said you achieved trash can status and it that's big the 13 year old in me wanted to cry that's amazing right and it it moved me again and I and I thought that's what I want and I'm I thought about this even today as I was coming here and I was like you know what absolutely applies to relationships too often in a you know in a breakup often when people are going through difficult times with their partner or whatever the thing they go back to is we had that amazing trip but we had those amazing times they go to these highlights they go to the Space Mountain of their relationship like I remember when we met Mickey it's that right the the meet and Mickey moment of their relationship but relationships are about the trash cans man the trash cans yeah because guess what in a day at Disney you ride Space Mountain once maybe twice how many times do you use the trash cans every day all the time every 20 minutes every day it's the trash cans and what will Define your relationship is the trash cans not Space Mountain the lower moments the messy moments that are barely noticeable the moments the micro attractions um the moment where we do something sweet where we think of our partner when we didn't need to and we worry about the day they had or support them or even just support them silently or in private you know or support them by what we don't bring to them it's that it's the detail it's the detail and that's what's going to determine how great your life is and my concern is and we've all been there my concern is the number of people out there who are staying in the wrong thing because of the Space Mountain of the relationship a few moments that were magical or they're spending too much time grieving the loss of the wrong thing because all they remember is Space Mountain interesting but they don't they don't think of how shitty the trash cans were and the trash cans that's the stuff that's the day today yeah how good was it day to day this is the difference between being in love and being happy hmm what is the difference between love and happiness you can be in love and be really unhappy be suffering inside and be in love you have constant be in love and be having a relationship that's causing you constant anxiety constant heartache constant pain feeling overlooked not feeling important you can be in love and all of those things still be true how crazy is that we think that love is this thing where it's like it's rational like I'm gonna love I'm gonna be in love with this person who brings me joy not true and we need to start worrying more about happiness because if someone isn't building with you if someone isn't committing to actually building the castle with you that's the quality of your life yeah not how in Love You Are you might love certain things about them you might have loved the date you went on you might have loved them the Space Mountain or certain characteristics they have sex was incredible Charming they were how charismatic how whatever it didn't but maybe it doesn't mean that you're happy day to day it's a big difference right when do you know I love this analogy and it made me want to ask you about when do you know you're ready for a committed intimate relationship when you know you're ready for it as opposed to you just feel alone and you want to have someone in your life I guess when you're when you're ready to build when you're ready to build when it's not you're going there because the fantasy of it all is exciting to you but when you're actually ready to build and and that doesn't mean that you're not looking see the castle analogy is is cool because when we were talking earlier about this idea of giving without expectation well you you do expect something in a relationship right it's overly simplistic we do expect things we expect respect as loyalty defined on whatever terms Loyalty means to us love appreciation all of that to be seen we have a lot of expectations in a relationship so it's not a relationship where we just we give without expectation but that to me is where the building thing is really interesting to me because you want to work damn hard as a builder in your relationship but you want someone else who's building two right that's where the expectation comes in I'm gonna I'm gonna work hard to build this thing and I'm going to build it at a really high standard I'm not going to look at your work and go well if you've missed out some of the grouting there then I'm gonna you know like skip it on my end no this is my standard I'm gonna build to a really high standard what if the person you've been with for a year isn't building to your standard that's that's a conversation that's a real conversation like here's what I need here's the kind of relationship I want to have when do you start to just say well it's okay if they do half the job that I do is the job is the job they're doing half fast one you really need them to do well or is it one that can be done half fast you know sometimes I think there are certain things we let go in a relationship that's where the compromise comes in that's where the sacrifice comes in there are certain things I'm okay with you not doing as well as I once thought I needed someone to do them and I thought this thing was really important it's not it's not that important yeah I love you so what are we doing I'm not worried it's not that big of a deal and we've all done that we've all seen those things that once were important to us and we let them we say you know what this I was at an age where I thought that was really important and it's no longer as important or significant as I made it and then there are things that never stop being important or they become more important you know the ability to communicate well I think as you get older those things become more important yeah the ability for someone to have genuine empathy to the the ability for someone in let's say an argument to to not jump to saying a spiteful thing that's hard to then forget someone who doesn't try and do damage in an argument but tries to build tries to figure out let's figure this out together we may both be hurt but let's come to this in a loving way when you're younger you say [ __ ] that's just me yeah right and then you realize oh God three months later they still remember that comment even though they said they forgot it but they hold on to it they still they they still have that in their head I'm not doing that again there's certain things I think as you get older hopefully if we mature we start to see these are the this is the important stuff what happens when we don't show our 100 authentic self to someone in the beginning um and we revealed that six 12 months later yeah whatever they're really they're really shocked I didn't know you were like that I had no idea because they've fallen in love with a version that you showed them that isn't even you and we forget the truth the vulnerability is the basis of friendships and indeed relationships When You're vulnerable you know people love you for you when you're sick when you have a bad day they always say then you know who your friends are but if you pretend you're okay I see that a lot with people who run a business always pretend everything's fine they never tell anyone they're lonely and then we realize like that great DJ who killed himself was it Avicii avici yeah who who never told anyone I'm falling apart here is it not Bon Jovi who was it Van Halen Eddie Van Halen there's so many people in the media who think I've got to pretend I'm great I can't say I'm lonely I'm sad I'm lost they often let you know through their songs Look at Prince I mean that's so sad that he was so lonely yeah but they feel that if they tell us we'll see them as weak and needy when in fact the basis of friendship is If You're vulnerable and I am I like you because you're showing me who you really are and I can love your very Soul because I know you but if I'm in love with an illusion then it can't work because I don't even know who you are wow how old were you when you started to realize that that you're lovable I think in my long time maybe I remember when I was 18 I had this really lovely boyfriend we'd always say you know I I love the way you look and I'm gonna say to my mom I haven't got a personality I really believed I had no person I could say I love your hair I love your body but I heard that he I didn't have any character whatsoever that really bothered me so I think um you know it's so weird because when you change so much you can hardly recognize a person you're looking back I'd say really my 20s maybe mid maybe even later than my mid-20s there's only working with my clients over and over again and seeing what was wrong with them that I began to realize oh that's what's wrong with everyone yeah and I began to see all of my clients they could only ever have one of three things wrong with them what's that well the first one was I'm not enough that was the biggie I every client I saw whether there were Nursery School teacher or they worked in a store or they were a billionaire a Seer or a movie star they all had the same thing I'm not enough and so I've got to earn love or buy love or keep being a bigger better deal to get love and that's so easy to fix you just go you just take the I'm the knot out I am enough I always have been always will be and you have you see the LIE is every day you tell yourself I'm not enough you don't know you're doing it you get up and go look at me I don't look right I didn't I messed that up I didn't leave enough time to get here my kids aren't perfect a client is annoyed so every day over and over again you're telling yourself you're not enough yeah and you just have to take out the knot and go I am enough if I'm prepared to lie to myself every single day over and over again why not have a better lie I'm enough it doesn't have to be true people say you know my legs are the size of Tree Trunks well clearly that can't be true this is killing me this is making me crazy this is driving me and saying none of these things are true but if you're prepared to lie at least have a better lie I have great coping skills this is a challenge but I've got it I can rest at the weekend I've got this right I've got great great I have great coping skills there's a great lie because if you say enough it actually becomes true really fast something I say a lot you're never given anything that you can't cope with or if I got a lot on well I'll rest at the weekend I I can deal with this I've got this this is fine this is okay so the first thing wrong with people is always I'm not enough and if you feel like that remember you weren't born with it you're in great company and just let it go because it's not true the second thing wrong is this belief that I'm different so I can't connect and that's kind of a modern day illness you know if you if you're in a tribe you would connect because you'd know that you're all interrelated you look the same but the this belief I'm different so I can't connect is um is it I can't connect or or people don't understand me no it's when you connect by being the same you know we're primitive people we connect by being the same so if you're different it's very hard to connect because you feel different and when you feel different you can't connect but then you have to remember the truth of that's your greatest fear it's most people's greatest fear so if you look at ET you can he connected to Elliot but he couldn't connect and he had to go home because he had to be with his people so why is there such a big fear for people they're connecting yeah I'm different so I can't connect well isn't different good in a lot of ways like being unique and being different unique well the answer is yes and no when you're a little kid you go I like SpongeBob SquarePants I I like green pasta I like Dr Zeus and we connect but I mean I got a friend and they like what I like gotcha so when we're little we connect by being the same and our DNA understands are we a hardwired to find connection and avoid rejection because that's how you make it as a child you find connection whether it's your little kitten clinging onto your leg your dog wanting you to leave the house a baby holding on so tightly to Mum you understand the truth if I'm connected I Will Survive and if I'm disconnected I will die because you know imagine 100 years ago you couldn't produce milk for your baby or 500 years ago we understood that connection is what made us live and disconnection killed us why every culture would practice banishment or isolation or marooning or casting out so connection makes us survive especially as adults yeah okay so we need to feel connected yeah and if you listen to all those songs I'll die if you leave me my world is empty without you I can't live with I can't breathe without you okay and to this day you know schools understand that someone trolls you someone ostracizes you kids you know cut you out of the group they don't speak to you so our greatest fear is if I'm Different I can't connect but if you go back to that everyone's fear is being different so if you have that fear it actually means you're the same and connection is a choice you can connect to anyone all over the world whatever their race religion Creed is the problem is that we we don't see that we still disconnect people you know we saw that a lot with the Boston bombers they were so disconnected from society that that turned into hatred and it's really important at schools to look at these disconnected kids and to bring them back you know if you look at the whole jail system in Finland it's all about reconnect we don't put them in isolation and then send them back out of the world crazy and full of anger we reconnect and so our greatest fear as humans is to be disconnected so how do we reconnect if we feel like our friend group has pushed us away our family has sent us away and how do we feel connected as we are as soon as you go to find a new group I mean you know your family are just what what I call your original family you can have a you know first of all you have your nuclear family mum dad brother sister Auntie Uncle Grandma but then when you get married they become your extended family and so you can always create a family so don't go back to the old tribe that hurt you and expect them to get better I think a lot of our problems is I expect my mum somebody's become wonderful she was always mean and hostile but I expect her to be kind and lovely she's got old now aren't old ladies sweet no sometimes they're still cranky a bitter cranky person doesn't become sweet when they're 80. and often the Believers I gotta go back to my family and make them love me when there's a whole world out there to love you right and if people hurt you I was intending to and you keep going back to them at certainly but they can't always make it better it's like you know if you if your family had that capacity to love you the cup but my capacity is Olympic swimming pool I can't expect that to fill me up I can fill them up they can't fill up me if I have a little if my parents have a shot glass capacity to give me love and I've got the ocean capacity how can a shot glass fill up the ocean stop going back to be able to hurt you and find they're people all over the world that will love you and fill you up but we keep going back to the hurt is expecting them to make it better they're often so hurt they can't and they often do things like well you know people like us we don't have that and look at those people we're not like that so it's I feel different you know if your dad was the town drunk if you didn't have a dad and everyone else did if you had money and everyone else didn't or vice versa We Buy in very early to this I'm different I'm different and you're not different you're the same so you have to stop looking for what makes you different because that's the confirmation bias whatever you look for you're going to find it I mean I was a principal's daughter I felt different the day I went to school my whole child because my dad was the Headmaster and that was actually horrible I realized now that was not a good thing but I was always looking for what made me different and then it became a self-fulfilling prophecy I kept looking for it because you know I could hypnotize people and that made me feel even more different and I had this kind of ability to work out what's wrong with someone really quickly and that's both good and bad it's actually good but whatever you look for you will find whatever you are moving towards you'll get more of if you look for why your head is killing you or so I'm a bit dehydrated I'm going to drink some water rub some lavender on my head I'll be fine in 20 minutes you've got to decide where you're going and if you look for What Makes You Different you will find it over and over again but if you say well why don't I look for makes me the same we're all the same somewhere then you'll find that too and it can be very hard if you're dealing with someone who's violent or aggressive or acting out but if you can look for what makes you the same and not different it really changes your life because then you can't be disconnected right and you can go all over the world you can hang out with tribes you know and my friend was in Rwanda with the gorillas and actually if you think you're like them I I did this thing of Walking With Wolves and the first thing you must do is you have to crouch down you mustn't bear your teeth you can't wear wool and the wolf comes I've never decides that you're a wolf and then you go for a walk and it keeps rounding you back up if you walk away it takes you back into the wolf pack because it thinks you're one of them and if you can make a wolf think you're one of them or a gorilla right then of course you can do it with people but you have to start from I'm like you you're like me I'm the same as you and I can connect with you somewhere somehow yeah stop looking for What Makes You Different to look for what makes you the same because it really is life-changing the third thing that's wrong is such a sad belief it's what I want isn't available I want love but I was abandoned when I was a baby I want wealth but I come from a family that never had worth so I can't have that I want half my whole family a overweight diabetic so that's not going to happen and if you want to or believing is not available that will block you when someone meets someone new when is the appropriate amount of time to know that this person could be one of the people that you spend the rest of your life with a long time with it's very instant and immediate so I think Society has brainwashed us to believe that love and identifying it takes time that's a lie in most situations when it takes months you have not fallen in love you've learned to tolerate them you've grown attack wow all right you you you've enjoyed a part of the process it's giving you connection you're not lonely exactly and and when you've invested months you are more likely to not want to walk away from it because all the time and energy you put in so now you mistake wow attachment to the investment as love and it's not really love when you sit down with people who can say they felt a real or they have a real connection with their partner I think every story I don't know of any one story that's opposite of this they will all say it was pretty much instant first date you may not know a hundred percent fact I'm gonna marry this person but you knew the potential was there you knew like this could be the one that that at least came to mind and so again when we don't have that in that first conversation that first day it's unlikely I'm not going to sit there and say it's impossible that it can happen days later or a week later or whatever um but typically and even if you can't articulate it as you knew they were they could be the one when people look back they can tell you that they felt something very strong in that initial engagement with their partner that said they knew something was different they may not even know what it was but they knew okay this isn't normal this isn't like the rest something's going on here and then there's a full realization of this is it what is that something that we can't understand that feeling what is that called is that just like your your magnets connected to each other is that your energy is so attractive because there's so much opposites or it's so much similarities what is that force that gets people to say there was something different about this person when I met them believe it's your spirit recognizing its match because there are there if you speak to a lot of people um of different religious beliefs there's a belief that things happen in the spirit before they happen in the physical all right so it's almost like the spirit is ahead of us which is why the spirit knows the truth which is why intuition gut instinct third eye whatever you want to call it it always seems to be accurate because your spirit knows before you know so we're feeling it within our spirit the problem is it's getting our mind in tune with the spirit it's allowing our heart to accept what the spirit is saying to us but we feel it we just don't know how to always explain it those who are very in tune with the spirit can recognize it much quicker and and accept it for what it is much quicker because they're very in tune already why is it so hard for our mind and our heart to get caught up to our gut or intuition of that initial explosion of chemistry and also can that explosion of connection and chemistry three be harmful in a different way okay so one fear fear is the number one reason why we we struggle to accept so one of the things I explained to a lot of women you know and I have my membership group for them so I've had this discussion where I say listen you know the difference between intuition and fear is logical deduction so when you're trying to analyze and break things down that's your mind all right and fear is coming into that because you're saying well I shouldn't do this because of that or this can't be this because of that intuition requires no logic your spirit requires no logic it simply feels it senses it knows that's it you don't have to explain it again gut instinct doesn't require things to logically add up it just tells you this is it or something's wrong or this is right or whatever the case may be so fear is the number one thing and that fear stems from lack of healing from past relationships we we've been down this road hold of emotional investment we've gotten hurt before we've been wrong in our lives about wanting to believe someone could be it even though we know this feels different we still have the fear of disappointment that creeps back in how do we let go of that fear and not sabotage an amazing opportunity in a relationship you gotta heal from your past there's no way around it and this is why I say people who have not healed they can meet their connection right now the most amazing partner and it will scare them to death and they will either run self-sabotage something it's gonna be a problem because they have not healed and when you have not healed the vulnerability that's required in connection is so unlike anything else or with anyone else that if you don't have a a level of confidence and again a foundation of healing in your life it seems way too overwhelming and scary so you've got to heal in order to not find yourself sabotage housing run away and not being able to embrace that real love what if both parties come to something and there's this explosion of chemistry or just instant like wow there's something different feeling and both have not healed their past but they stay together they figure it out and they're together is there going to be a lot of problems and Trauma and stress that comes up over the years if they both haven't healed before they get into a relationship or can they heal in the relationship together it is possible let me backtrack a little bit first let me say that people have to understand there is a such thing as right person wrong time all right people don't want to believe that there are a lot of people who reject that idea they say oh if it's the wrong time it's not the right person that's not true you can meet that individual that you have an amazing connection with but both parties still need growth before they can come together all right and so now what happens if they come together and they haven't healed so here's the thing it is possible to get through that and survive and have a healthy relationship it is unlikely for most people to survive being with someone you have a connection with and you have not healed again most people won't even allow themselves to be with that person no sabotage us so much they'll they'll dive in but then they'll cheat or they'll they won't respond to the person they'll do something right yes and and speaking of cheating they they tend to have a history of going back to an ex because the X feels safer because it's not as vulnerable over there all right I can maintain more emotional control it's familiar so it's easier so I've seen plenty of situations where again the connection was so overwhelming so they ran back to their ex no one did not they're not for the X is not for them and they're not for their ex but again it just feels safer there so yes a lot can go wrong if you try to be together when you have not here field and you have this connection it would be best to acknowledge okay you know what we got some work we need to do we realize we have a connection here let's work on ourselves in the meantime before we take that next step can you heal while having sex with one or multiple partners for fun on the side but again highly highly likely um sex is such a distracting thing and we we have to understand that so much can come from our sexual interactions there can be new drama there can be hell of unwanted pregnancy there can be a host of things and all of that will derail you in the healing process you also have to be honest with yourself you you may be having the sex because you're trying to distract yourself from the healing like the sex is just a coping mechanism for you same as drugs same as alcohol people turn to these things because they don't want to deal with their reality in life so you've got to be honest are you trying to just bury your head in sexual interactions or is it just if it's happening in a natural flow of life okay then there's a greater chance that you can survive this but you got to be really careful I would suggest cutting that off yeah if you're trying to heal you know again I don't want to say it's impossible but you're gonna make it extremely difficult and highly unlike for sure I want to ask you about the best ways to meet someone these days 2020 moving forward the do's and don'ts for online dating but what I'm hearing you say is that you shouldn't be trying to meet someone you shouldn't be doing the online dating game until you've fully healed or at least started the process of healing because healing is a journey sometimes things take a lot longer to heal fully um but at least acknowledging and starting that process what would be a process to start healing your past relationships or pains before we get into the conversation of do's and don'ts of online dating okay so of course going to a therapist or coach is the the ideal thing to do um you you typically need that outside party that can help you process some things help you see New Perspectives and go through a process of healing now I will be honest not every coach and therapist is going to help someone heal sometimes it just turns into a venting session so you've got to be real careful about okay if I've been going to this therapist or coach for many weeks or months now what progress have I really made have I have I been resolving or have I been coping because many are teaching you how to cope and manage and how to function within your Brokenness but they're not resolving it and helping you heal now of course you know I'm big on healing so I have my book love after heart break which gives people those exact steps to Healing so one of the steps I'll give you the first step is uh getting the hurt out in front of you so it's this who hurt me list and so you get a piece of paper you write down who hurt me and you ask yourself the question who hurt me and now everyone who comes to mind you put them on the paper doesn't matter if it happened very long ago it doesn't matter if you think you move past it if they come to mind when you ask the question then that means there's some kind of relevance there and so now you put them on the paper in like two sentences of what they did to hurt you this will now at least help us identify what you've been holding on to and where the hurt is and what needs to be properly addressed and then from there we can do the other steps of getting things off your chest and forgiveness and all these different things that's involved in healing I love that I'm all I'm a big proponent of writing letters to people that you never send them telling them how you how it made you feel what you're what you're frustrated and angry about with them for giving them letting it go and then I like to burn the letter and bury it as well in the ground to hopefully create a sense of like okay this was alive in me and now I'm killing this and this this feeling this energy and I'm I'm putting it to bed and I'm putting it back in the world to hopefully create something new to grow something new and more loving and powerful and create that intention but I think that's really important when should we know that we have are healed enough how do we know when our healing has gone far enough about its Journey before we should get into meeting someone new putting ourselves out there on social media online dating apps and things like that all right well first thing I want to say is now there are going to be times where sending the letter to the person is actually the best thing to do really yes a lot of people are scared about that and it's a very difficult hurdle to jump but I literally got a DM today from a woman who read the book she wrote her letter last year it was to her mother she didn't want to send it she held on to it she said she just finally built up the courage because I I tell them in the book 99 of the time I'm going to tell you to send the letter wow so she finally did it and she said they end up having the best conversation they've ever had in their life now they're like the best of friends like it's taking their relationship to a whole new level and it's not that's not the purpose of sending it but there's so much good that can come from taking the extra step of actually sending the letter and making sure that person is aware of how you felt and and what you were going through now in regards to knowing when you've properly healed number one thing is when you can Embrace being fully vulnerable with somebody all right if vulnerability still scares you you have not healed enough all right you've got to be willing to open your heart we can't say we want love and then put walls up around our heart and be afraid to give it to someone you're contradicting yourself you're working against yourself so you've got to be willing to be vulnerable you also have to make sure any negative perceptions that you've held onto due to past experiences you're you've done away with them so for example if you have been saying all men are dogs because you've been hurt by so many men well you can't be out there dating and still screaming all men or dogs that's gonna work in your favor you've got to accept that good men exists and you can receive a great man that you deserve a great man so when you have a more positive outlook and way of thinking and listen we're gonna all have our negative thought moments that happens but your dominant or more consistent thought pattern is positive hopeful and things of that nature now we we can say you're ready to get back out there how important is the language or the inner thoughts the actual physical words we use in the inner language the inner dialogue in terms of attracting or finding the right partner it's extremely important you know we hear all the time words are power and the reality is that the words you speak to yourself the thoughts you have they will whether knowingly or unknowingly to you they will dictate your energy the energy that you give off to people or the the way that your spirit comes across to individuals and so you can put on a happy face but if your thought is negative pessimistic all right and dwelling in this then your energy will still be negative all right what you do on the surface isn't going to be able to hide that which is why you have some people who swear well I'm not a bad person yeah but you're not a positive person all right you need to be good people but no you are miserable and and it's not even just you're miserable like you're you're dwelling in it in your life but you give off miserable energy and so who's gonna want to be around that who's going to want to commit to that at the most they might want to have sex with you but they're not going to want to tie themselves to you in a committed long-term relationship or marriage and people can feel that energy what I don't care if you're a man woman or between someone you can feel the energy of someone and if you haven't healed properly yourself you may be attracted to a wounded individual to then try to find some validation or try to find some connection there and that's why it's important for you to heal so that you can fully see the energy around you and see who is a potential great match for you because if you haven't healed you're going to keep attracting negativity and repeating certain patterns is that correct that is absolutely correct and if you talk to any person who has healed they can tell you how they feel energy even more now where they become more aware it's so much easier to see past the facades that so many people are putting up because now healing allows us to get more in tune with our spirit and by getting more in two of our spirit we get more into with everyone's spirit because technically we are all connected through the spirit all right and so it's easier to be in touch with that when you get away get rid of the blockage of trauma past disappointments and hurts disappointments things of that nature it's powerful stuff man I'm still trying to get into my one of my first questions which is what's the best way to meet someone these days in online dating but it sounds like that's so far ahead of what you need to be thinking about first like have I started to heal are there people who have hurt me is there people that I need to apologize to you know all these different things it's almost like you got to do the work before you can start doing the work of finding someone absolutely so I think it's important for us to remind people of this process first before we say okay you've done the work you've started the process of healing you feel like you can open your heart and be vulnerable to anyone and it's not going to hurt you and [ __ ] you I didn't prep you on this before but what do you think of the three or five components to a foundation of a relationship that has the potential to really Thrive long-term committed for decades what are like it needs to have these three or these five things otherwise it's going to be really challenging to be to sustain this type of love and joy and happiness I mean a couple of simple ones I guess uh I need to I need to show up for my partner in ways that they need me to not just ways that are comfortable to me we in other words pay attention to what your partner actually needs because it's really easy to say you know I'm going to bring them lunch every day that's that's like I I'm a really good cook and I'm really you know I want to slave away every morning to bring them lunch every day because you know that's me giving they don't care bring lunch every day like maybe they don't care maybe what would mean the most to them is you them getting home and you really being interested in their day um do you think Love Languages is an important part of this where it's like understanding someone's love language and giving them their top priorities I think I think it's I think that it's an interesting framework and it's been for a lot of people a very successful framework um I think any framework that just allows you to kind of you know create a little a structure for things that gives you some Simplicity around it is can be valuable sure you know and it doesn't mean it's the only framework you can apply but it's a valuable model to work from so it's showing up on ways yeah not what do I want to give but what do they actually need I think that's a lot of money that's a lot of conflict in relationships because and I think you need to understand do I want to do something that's uncomfortable every day that's not foreign to me or that's foreign to me or do I want to find a partner that enjoys the things that I like to give well that's that's that's an interesting question I you know any relationship is going to be a bit of both but sometimes it works even without like that's a kind of compatibility issue but I think it even works outside of that in day-to-day stuff because you might say the thing I want to give to my partner is an awesome you know night together but maybe what they need is an awesome night with their friends no and the maybe the most loving thing you can do is say hey I know you haven't seen this person in a while you should go and see them I know that relationship is important to you you should go and hang out with your mum tonight or you know recognizing not what's easy for me to give but what might be less comfortable for me to give but is actually what would mean the world to them yeah and and I think if you really want to make yourself Irreplaceable to someone it's recognizing that um because no one else is going to do that for them I mean you know what I mean like it's they some maybe but it's really rare to find someone who who's willing to do that for you okay so that's number one thing is to work on yourself yep and to say I'm responsible for me my partner isn't responsible for me I need to do the work to be the most loving confident person I can be in this world what are those fulfilled has their own purpose has things that drive them that to me is very very important if what's the first thing people should do to do work on themselves because you threw a few things out there but what's like I mean firstly do you have maybe here's an interesting question you can ask yourself if I had 10 hours free right now what would I do with them interesting if you can't give a good answer to that question you might already be describing one of the weaknesses of your relationship and been binge watching a series is not the best use of your time it's you know that if if the answer is oh my god well I have my purpose the thing I love getting stuck into or it doesn't even have to be some Grand purpose not everyone has found like their lives calling but it could be I really want to learn this language or I really want to see this friend I really want to go and you know whatever it is read this book or learn this thing take care of my health yeah I want to I can't wait to get to the gym be able to answer the question of my partner canceled on me today what would I do with that day now and if you can't that then you you begin to describe the person who's sitting there waiting for their partner to text them waiting for their partner to make them feel good enough that's unattractive it's not and it's not fair to our partners it's a lot of pressure it's a lot of pressure and and by the way people put a lot of pressure on their partners by expecting their partner to put a Band-Aid on all sorts of things for them you know if they're feeling like there's a lot of rhetoric about vulnerability right now now I think vulnerability is huge I think the work that people like brene brown are doing and so on is huge it's massively important vulnerability is absolutely an act of courage and we should encourage it more both sexes all the time but his vulnerability is something's making me insecure and I'm going to share it with you because you're my partner and I love you and I tell you things right now yes yes vulnerability if an hour from now I tell you feeling insecure again and then an hour from now you go that thing's affecting me again and this tonight because now in a way what we're doing is instead of sharing we're dumping I'm asking you now to fix it for me to put a Band-Aid on it for me make it feel better yeah of course it's part of our part a loving partner will support you and will do everything in their power to make you feel loved and to make you feel safe and to make you feel secure and it's absolutely true that sometimes what we're feeling is insecurity is because our partner isn't doing their job yeah in those things that's true they're not building they're not building they're doing things that are proactively making us feel insecure there's minor betrayals minor neglects uh all of that but sometimes we have to say Okay what part of my what part of this am I responsible for and it's my it's my partner's responsibility it's our responsibility in life together to share to share the load to work towards things together but it's not your job to carry the load for me to carry my problems to put the Band-Aid on every day I need to maybe once in a blue moon yeah of course of course we're all going to do that like we're we're going to have days weeks times where we're going through something really serious and our partner's job is to show up yeah you know but my friend of mine who's kind of blunt said to me some days or weeks you get to be needy and difficult and high maintenance and boring and you know insecure and then you don't and I thought yeah like we get to be those things for a time until we don't until it gets too much for somebody else because we need to be at the very least we need to show our partner we're committed to our own growth yeah so the you know the first one what do we have uh show up in ways they need not just ways you want to show up the second ones uh work on yourself yep um I think I guess the third one it to me teamwork is everything like being a genuine team is huge really looking at each other as teammates as opposed to you're there to meet my needs or I'm competing with you in some way yeah I've done that before like we're an actual team I and I saw you know one of the things I loved most about Chris Rock's recent stand up tambourine I haven't seen again such a genius name the whole concept is you know about the idea that he couldn't in his last marriage play the tambourine he couldn't play the backup instrument right right and and I thought it was such a great great uh metaphor because in a in a good relationship in a really genuinely mutually supportive relationship that some days you play tambourine some days you're their teammate you you can't he you know the way he says it her success is your success and vice versa you're in this together you and and some days that person's the the lead and you're you're on tambourine and a lot of people have never learned how to play tambourine you know there's the other thing I don't remember where it comes from but every relationship has a flower and a gardener right well I don't most people don't want to be in a relationship where they're always The Gardener and they want to be never the flower right blooming all the time yes and sometimes you have to be the gardener no matter how long you've played the flower right right you and I have played Flowers a lot in our lives right we've been used to being a certain you know having a leader role and having these kind of big lives and big worlds and whatever and then you go to a relationship and the relationship doesn't give a [ __ ] you know what I mean about you no yeah I don't care you know that you're the flower out there in the world sometimes in our relationship you have to be the gardener sometimes you've got to play tambourine even if to everyone else you are the the constant flower yeah right movie reference constant Gardner well you can't you can't be the constant flower right you can't you might be in your business in some way but but relationship is different you can't now you're coming as to equals hmm and so it's so much of it's checking your own damn ego and being like I'm in this to be with you as a teammate not this or this this when you know you've found your match for life or your potential match for life so you think this could be the match by the way these are much harder questions than the first interview you know is it when you see these three things after a period of time and you feel convinced that the the bricks are being laid equally in a circle yeah why do you say I'm ready to be committed All In I I think there are four four stages to a relationship okay stage one stage one is admiration that's when you don't have a relationship with this person you'll admire like I like you and I look at you and I'm like this person is hot they had something about them they like their qualities I like their energy they have a good potential yeah okay and by the way that doesn't even mean they have good potential for you right now it just means this is a person of high potential in some way you admire them yeah the second stage is connection and you could I think in that in a sense connection and chemistry are both relevant to this stage because you have this person where there's a mutual like I like things about you you like things about me I think you're attractive you think I'm attractive we share some common ideas common grounds in life our Outlook whatever beliefs yeah that could be found on a great date right doesn't really mean much still this is the plot of land yeah you can have great sex it'll be chemistry you can make out all night none of this means you're going to have a great relationship okay the third stage is commitment that says I want to do this with you I am committed to building with you and you are committed to building with me hmm right that's a really great stage to be at it's very important right it's you can't have a relationship without that any relationship without that or whether that's one-sided is unrequired Love by definition and there are a ton of people out there right now who say I'm just you know I created a program recently called attraction to Commitment which literally dealt with why people keep getting stuck in limbo yeah why they keep getting stuck in the Casual phases and it never gets to a relationship and one of the things that fascinates me is how long we stay with something that's just casual that isn't a real relationship on the hope that it will change [Music] um unrequired love you know certainly unrequired commitment yeah it's a nice time when you're like 23 right that's stage three stage four is compatibility hmm and the hard thing I think for a lot of people is I used to question this one myself like if you know the idea love conquers all right it doesn't it does not I wish I like it I like that phrase it's an amazing I love the phrase I love the sentiment of it amazing bumper sticker you know and there's nothing you know what is more powerful in the world than than love and all you need is love yeah apparently apparently not we need a little more it you can have love without commitment right and you can have you can have commitment without compatibility interesting and this is where things get I I used to think well maybe commitment is enough and maybe issues with compatibility can be overcome as long as two people are truly committed to each other I don't I don't believe that anymore I I think that it goes beyond commitment to truly lost you have to have two people who are really compatible like okay let's say we got commitment two people want to be together they admire each other they have chemistry right they say I'm committed to you but one person's Sex Drive is here and the other one's is here not compatible this is going to be difficult right one person likes to spend a lot of money another person wants to save all the money right one person believes in a certain religion another person doesn't believe in them one person you know wants to spend five days a week together the other person is happy with one night a week together one person wants their family to move in the other person wants their space right these are serious serious issues that often end relationships and so to me you want to say what how do you know when you found your match all four four stages I admire this person we have connection and chemistry we have genuine Mutual commitment what do you see is the Difference Maker for healthy long-lasting love yeah for decades versus those that stay married long time but aren't happy yeah and those that eventually get divorced I have to like 50 right so 50 of all marriages end in divorce the the illusion is is that the 50 that are left are happy no they're not no they're not right maybe 15 percenters maybe right and we don't really know I mean like if you went and polled everybody you might be even shocked that's five percent right why are they so challenging to to be healthy and happy in the long term for so many people well I think part of the deal is the bars very low so the bar is something like we get along right like that's it I've got t-shirts I get along with right you know yeah yeah so then what's it really all about if that's the struggle if the struggle is to get along like I said that's a very low bar you get along with lots of people right right I mean I get along with the prison it you know makes my coffee at Starbucks right you know I mean but really what I've found to be the case and it's not I'm not looking at like particular people for example that's right but I'm going to look at like what keeps a human being involved in anatha right so like why did somebody like so I love to play guitar why right why because I engage with that thing I'm curious about that thing I want to get better at that thing I like how it feels when I accomplish something in that thing if you take that in any aspect your life the same thing holds true so my relationship with my wife is a function of who I am in it and I need to keep bringing that to it that's there's no time when this is a done deal you know I have to keep showing up here not for like for longevity which is I think where a lot of people get messed up people look at the relationship like well I can't do this for the rest of your life the rest of my life and I'm like well you don't have to you just do it today right like right it's like being on a diet I don't need to go on a diet for three months I just need to be on it right now yeah and that is moment to moment to moment to moment the moment because that's really all you have but so what I do notice is that the areas of life where you are flourishing most there is some profound relationship you have between what you say and what you do there's a profundity at play so if you look at any area you're successful you are literally doing what you said you would do even when what I don't feel like it yeah right marriage is to say marriage is the same marriage and I talk about this in the book I say especially in the western world but you look at and I'm using marriages can I model but I place it all relationships yes but in a marriage there's a ceremony this is coming together or you make an agreement a commitment very good and you can use words and it's a vow yes right and and I talk about the bankruptcy of The Vow in a marriage because nobody vows anything anymore or they vow it but they don't live up to the well because they don't have a relationship to a vote so we're not going around a life going out I'll vote and meet you at three o'clock right right nobody's saying that but 200 years ago when you vowed something the American Declaration of Independence is just people vowing they brought something any existence on the strength of what they said yes there was no fighting well there was some fighting but they created a nation from words right right I mean that's what that is that's like a of the Declaration right we have declaring what independent what would you mean you're independent where we just declared it so yeah yeah and we vow our lives in our sacred honor and most of those people gave literally gave the life for that they literally gave the life to that promise I bet they were scared absolutely I bet they were intimidated but their word was greater than the experience of themselves that's the same in any area of your life well you have to start realizing that what you say is a big deal and what you say to yourself is a big deal a lifetime of constantly bending shaping and breaking your word to yourself will leave you with a diminished relationship to you you'll never do great things because somewhere in there you think you're full of it because you've broken your word to yourself so many times you're out of Integrity with yourself very good there's no there's no power to those words what happens when we are out of Integrity so consistently with ourself or even one time right what happens to ourselves well I mean you got to start relating to what you say like it's important just like it's important start there like I said I was gonna and this is important not because the thing's important but what's what I said to myself and my relationship to that thing is what's important yeah so any area in life like I said earlier where you're powerful or successful you'll see you have a very strong relationship to what you said very strong one sometimes you're committed to that thing there's just no question for you like it's on like Donkey Kong you know you're just doing it why is it easier in some areas of life than it is in others to be consistent with what you say right and what you want to do right and that's eventually it's great that you kind of put it that way because that's the path you'll follow uh-huh but the real strength of you is when you can say something like for instance when I was in my mid-40s you know I said I'm going to produce authentic wealth what's the difference between authentic and inauthentic yeah I'm doing it for that not for anything about me mm-hmm which was wild for me because everything up to that point about money was all about fixing something about me or my wife and I was just doing it to see if I could do it which I'd never done before and I'd never fully given it their attention like just for that and so I put a number on it which was CR a crazy number for that time in my life like crazy number like for your 40s or what how much you want I was 45 yeah and and I was and I said I'm going to do it I'm going to use my 50s for that and I'm going to produce it right I produced it by the time I was 52. and I only really started when I was 48. so I did it really fast the amount of money that you wanted money that I said but but it was wild because I had no attachment to it what do you mean like there was no emotion in it for me there was no like desperation no like I gotta do it and nothing no burning it was just like I said I was going to do and I'm doing it so I ended up with this really kind of flat relationship between between my words and my actions like it was flat like there were days when I felt like doing it and there were days when I didn't feel like doing it but the interesting thing for me was when I declared that when I said I was going to do it like the Declaration of Independence I had no idea how I was going to do something like that like I don't know how you even I'm not a money guy you know I'm not but now it's game on because I created the top of the mountain in my speaking so I spoke the top of the moon and the existence and then you figured out how along the way but that's no the game now the game people say well you know how do you even do such I think well that's the first question and you might have to engage with that question for two years or three years or four years but you've got to be actively resolving some of that stuff for yourself well it's the same in love like I'm committed to the most loving passionate and adventurous relationship that's possible that's the top of the mountain the top of the mountain speaks to me every day it's it's I can tell where that I'm walking that path or not that influences this it's not even necessarily about that it's more about what that does with us well how does that shape me today how does that am I lining up with what I said or no and if I'm not I might have a lot of reasons excuses and justifications for that but at the same time am I going to treat that like it matters to me or am I going to just be like well you know so far so good or it's been a tough week or you know it was a lot in my mind yeah or you know or you're being a jerk why am I loving with you um because I said I would um and that's what matters to me yeah that's what matters that I said I would matters to me someone once told me that the key to his success in relationships was 80 of it was who you choose yeah 80 of the relationship success is you know how you match well with the person you're choosing yeah you only spend I guess a year with the person that you chose yeah did you know that when you were choosing this person you were like okay I feel like we're gonna be in a great alignment with our values and our vision and yeah our lifestyle or was it more of just a feeling that you felt connected to this person and you've decided I did what everybody does right what everybody does is they get in a relationship because they feel as if this person resolves something about themselves that's what I did and so there was something about this woman that I thought wow like being with her everything seems right like I feel good about me right I don't feel good it's not about her right Ali like there's something getting fixed here so no I'm I'm not that pragmatic yes and I think most people aren't that pragmatic and I think there's an illusion out there that somehow you'll find the one and really I feel as if the job is to explore what's possible between you and this person whoever that person is in their potential and your potential and so it was less about having like finding something that matched up with me which I I don't know if that would work for me it might work for some people but I don't know if that will work for me what was really captivating for me at the time was being with her had me feel a lot better about me and I think I really fundamentally believe that that's what most people go into relationships for is that the right thing to look at or is it no that's an absolute it's a recipe because it's always relying on that person to make you happier well because whatever that thing is that they satisfy for you is something you have it sorted out for yourself right So eventually you're gonna have to do that otherwise you're always needing that from someone else right so you go in there and they're the solution and you end it with the notion that they were the problem ah wow and what's consistent and all of that is you right I mean I don't know if anybody's ever noticed this but in every crappy relationship you've ever had it's got one common denominator that's you right it's always you it's a big Awakening I had after my previous relationship ended I was like man it's been 10 15 years of relationships that that started and then that crumbled in some way or that fell apart and the core of all those things was me right was my choices was my getting into attracting those relationships was this very good commitment to those relationships was the unwinding those commitment those relationships and so why was I choosing these types of relationships what was unresolved within me that I get to take a look at now or I'm going to keep repeating this pattern until I address the thing inside of me right so what's great about your kind of pathway feel like you can't first of all you've got to be able to look at that distinct from blame right I know I know a lot of people just heard what you said and thought well but what if as them right I know a lot of people people sitting there right now going I did say that to myself and I say well if you take away like who's the blind yes and so sometimes people say stuff like why do I keep attracting these kinds of people and I say well what if it's not attraction what if you're literally looking for them what if it's you're seeking something about that person that initially solves what you're dealing with right but will allow it to keep perpetuating like it keeps showing up and showing up I call that an identity relationship there's something about you and it's the same for the other person right that when you get past all the stuff whatever's incomplete will keep getting activated there or keep showing up so when you when you start you see it like oh these are just two human beings doing what human beings do then it's it's not personal which is radical when you get it like that like it's not personal it's not personally then personally me like these are just two beings trying to work this out and what what a will essentially work themselves up yeah so that's why ancestry people the greatest work you'll ever do you'll ever do is to get complete with your first 20 years of life so true first 20 years because everything after that is a reflection of it I spent 20. I spent 26 years in Glasgow 26 years I've been longer here right and I still identify with that like it's me that have been longer here and it's some of the colloquialisms and the traditions and like I identify with that because it became so imprinted you know in my second book I talked about you're the little magic sponge and you you're you're not soaking up all of life you're soaking up the bets and then when you hit about 20 that little sponge just hardens and whatever's in there that's it yeah it's in there and that's what you use right oh that logic and until you awaken to that and realize that all of that that's there is really only a potential year there's so much more if you think about it like um quantum physics right like multiple universes endless universes all happening at the same time multiple potentials well that's every second of your life every second of your life there's a myriad of potential used it could be talking right now and what you typically do is the you that you did the second before and the second before and the same and so it perpetuates yeah until you get aware until you start to be like Oh I'm not stuck with us I could literally be somebody else when right now yeah right now I could be somebody else right now I could say something else so these things is expectations um not that they're a reasonable but the person can't you know they can't meet it they don't grow up they have their own you know demons they're fighting they are emotionally mature they're not reading a ton of self-help

Channel: Lewis Howes

Views: 24,389

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: NSWrGcTrDjg

Length: 110min 24sec (6624 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 07 2023