Eric: This is gonna be fun. I wanna, first of all, say this really clearly,
you know any...especially if any of you have ever studied speaking with me and so on. I'm gonna break just about every rule I'll
ever teach you about speaking by doing a talk I've never, ever done before or even really
contemplated doing. It's gonna be fun are you guys ready? Everybody: Yes. Eric: Also the talk that I thought I was gonna
do a week ago...you know, a week ago, I thought I had it all done, got on the plane, roughly
had an idea what I was gonna say. And then John Gray is on the stage, and then
Esther is on the stage, and then Marissa is on the stage. So I changed it a little bit here. And then that no, I gotta change over here. So this morning, I woke up and I had an idea
and then John and Missy got on the stage. And it's not so much that I wanted to change
what I was gonna say, it's that I didn't wanna repeat things that they'd already said. And it's also that I really found something
fascinating. And that was that they created a frame of
permission to speak about things that I generally don't. You know what I'm talking about? Everybody: Yes. Eric: You know, like, my wife and I, we run
retreats and there's one group of clients that occasionally we've done open mic, but
we have to know them for about three years. They come to our house, we kick the crew out
of the room, we turn the cameras off, we make them sign NDAs, and John and Missy got up
here and just did it. And I wanna, first of all, give them a huge
hand for that. But I also wanna acknowledge another energy
that made that possible. And together, what I wanna acknowledge is
Vishen for creating an environment where we can come here and speak our truth, and that
you can be here. And I wanna thank you, so all together, everything
that is A-Fest, thank you guys so much. So, it's funny the whip, you know, my marketing
people or other people, somewhere along the line years ago, they started referring to
me as like the Indiana Jones of the speaking world, right? And after my whole experience at the whip,
I have this horrible feeling I'm gonna open the press on Monday, and it's gonna be the
Christian Gray of the speaking world. If they write that article, I hope they at
least write it well. So I wanna share something with you about
cheetahs, you guys familiar with cheetahs? I'm not saying cheaters, cheetahs. For the English people, they don't have Rs,
I don't know what the deal with that is. But cheetahs, they're fascinating. Do you know that a cheetah can do zero to
60, or 100, depending on which measurement you're using at about the same speed as a
Tesla? Isn't that incredible? But there's something fascinating about them,
and that is that when they have their children, when they have their first litter, almost
always, the first litter doesn't make it. Almost always, the first litter rarely ever
makes it. And then the mother learns from that, and
then eventually, she goes on to have a second, and third, and she can then have successful
children. And I mention that to you because I am certain
that my brother and I were the first litter. It's a miracle that we're here. And I'm joking a little bit about that but
what I mean is...and this is gonna talk about parenting, you know. I think it's interesting we're here talking
about love, sex and relationships, and one of the things we've kind of left out a little,
that's been touched on here and there is love, sex and relationships often leads to children. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes not so much. In my case, it was on purpose. But one of the things that I got thinking
a lot about before I got into, you know, the idea of having kids was that, my parents created
a circumstance where I simultaneously felt very loved and unbelievably insecure all the
time. My father was an alcoholic and tried to drink
himself into oblivion on a number of occasions. He's sober now and everything's good. But this is the environment that I grew up
in. And that's what I mean about being that first
litter of cheetahs. I mention this because we, now as parents... How many of you guys are parents? Cool. That's excellent. And how many of you guys are gonna be parents
one day? Okay, excellent. How many of you are like, no, no, I've watched. I'm not doing that? Stick with that. No, I'm kidding. I'm totally kidding. And just to give you... I have a little credibility in the parenting
world because I have two children, right, it's a little credibility. One of them is 19 years old, and the other
one is 9 months old. So I'm seeing a spectrum. My one son has a driver's license, my daughter
will probably never need to drive. Isn't that interesting? Interesting, for sure. And so as I go into this thing about being
a parent, one of the things I think about is, wait a second now, I gotta make sure that
I don't put my kids through the stuff my parents put me through. I gotta protect them. I gotta take care of them. Because I would do just about anything to
prevent my children going through the things I went through as a kid. And in the weirdest twist of fate, I am grateful
for every single one of those things that happened to me as a child. That's the puzzle of parenting in my mind. Isn't it interesting? Everybody: Yes Eric: I woke up... not woke up. I felt like I woke up, I was sitting watching
"The Love Boat." You guys remember "The Love Boat?" Everybody: Yeah. Eric: I was watching "The Love Boat," I was
about eight years old, and my brother who is two years younger was in the room with
me. And I'm gonna ask you to do one thing. I know you're probably not supposed to be
recording anyway, but this, you're really not gonna record. Are we cool? Everybody: Yes. Eric: So I'm watching "The Love Boat" and
I suddenly hear some smashing, and banging, and crashing from the other end of my house. Now, this was not an entirely unusual thing,
but it seemed more intense than I was used to. And so I went out to the door, and I stuck
my head out the corner. Because you know when they're smashing and
banging, you don't just walk out into the hallway, who knows, right? Stuck my head around the corner and I looked
down and I see my mom and my dad in the kitchen, fighting over a knife. A knife that "Crocodile Dundee" would have
agreed was a knife. And I instinctively knew a few things. One is I knew my dad was not trying to hurt
my mom, I knew that. I also knew he wasn't trying to kill himself,
although my mom did not know that. Because I also knew that my dad was just terrorizing
my mom with this suicide thing and the knife. And I just knew this at seven. And my mom saw me, we locked eyes. And she says, "Call the police." She shouts down the hall, "Call the police. Call the police" Does this seem like a reasonable
request? Except again, by seven, I'd already figured
out that that would never work. Because violence plus violence just makes
everything worse. My dad in that state of mind and the police
could have only gone badly in my opinion. But I figured something else out and that
was that insanity is neutralized by respected sanity. Temporary insanity at least is neutralized
by respected sanity. I knew this as a kid. I knew that if I wanted to come home from
school and not feel terrorized that I should bring friends home with me because then everybody
would be on best behavior. And so instead of calling the police, I called
my father's best friend. He lived about a block and a half away. And I called him and I told him what was going
on and I asked him to come over. I was seven. He called the police but he understood what
I was doing instantly. He knew he could get to my house before the
police. He walked into the house, and what did my
father do when he walked in? What do you think? That's right, he put the knife down, you know,
he just put the knife down, and, "John, so good to see you." It was not John Gray. He says, "John, it's so good to see you." And it was over. And then the police arrived and it was so
over that my dad seemed a little bemused as to what the police were doing there. You know, there was no need for them anymore. Now, I mention this to you for two reasons. One is, stop trying to protect your children
from everything, really, like, really, really. My son called me, "Dad, I'm gonna go buy myself
this really cool Jaguar, 1982 Jaguar." Is this a good idea? You know, if you know anything about English...
well, okay, Jaguars, in 1982, you know, this is not a good purchase. So he says, "Dad, should I go ahead and do
that?" And I said, "Yeah, I think you should." He's, "You do?" "Yeah." "Why, dad?" I go, "I think it's awesome. It's a super sexy car. It's totally gonna help you meet girls. It's awesome. It's really excellent. I think you should do it. Plus, I think there's some really deep spiritual
lessons that that car is going to teach you." And he said, "What do you mean?" And I said, "Well, you know, the thing is,
you're gonna use all your money to buy it, and then it's gonna break. It's a Jaguar, it's an old Jaguar, it's gonna
break and its parts are gonna be really expensive, and then you're not gonna be able to afford
them. Plus, it's a V8, which means you're only gonna
be able to afford to drive to the gas station and home. So, you know, at some point, you're gonna
have this Jaguar sitting in the driveway that you can't drive and girls won't be that impressed
to come out and sit in your parked Jaguar. And then you're gonna learn the lesson that
I wish I'd learned when I was 18 years old. Instead of finding it out when I spent my
life's fortune buying a movie studio. You can make the mistake now." He's like, "Okay, Dad." Did he buy the Jaguar? Everybody: No. Eric: No, but I was totally happy for him
to, because I'm not trying to protect him from everything anymore. I'll tell him what I think but I won't tell
him what to do. Does this make sense? Everybody: Yes. Eric: So, in along with that, I think a lot
about what children do around creating meanings. Here's an interesting topic. After all this, I spoke to one of the children
that was in the room watching their parents on the stage. And I thought, wow, it's interesting when
your children get to see you speak. You know, Wayne Dyer used to say that his
daughter would be having a problem and he'd go to her and he'd say, "You know, honey,
I think maybe I can help you." "No, dad, no, I don't need to hear it. Thanks very much." And he's like, "But honey, people pay me like
thousands and thousands of dollars to help them." "You're my dad, right." And so for years and years, my son never had
seen me speak anywhere. And one day I showed up in Vancouver and I
was doing an event and there's about 1,000 people. Which is enough to create an impression on
a child. And he saw me speak, and then after the event,
he came up to me and we were walking along, he goes, "Dad, I think you know some things." It's a little different. But here's something, is anybody here bemused
about how to speak to children about sex? Anybody curious about that? I gotta tell you that I think this is a really
important topic that lines right into what we're talking about here. And I'll tell you, my parents, my mother,
she grew up in puritanical, you know, orthodox, Dutch, South Africa. So what do you think her sex education was
like? I will tell you that when her period came,
she thought she was dying. I mean it. She had two older sisters, mind you, and then
she thought she was dying. She didn't tell anybody because she wanted
to go to school and say goodbye to her friends. And so my parents decided, we're not doing
that to our kids. My dad, in particular, we're not doing that
to our kids, we're telling them everything. I remember sitting there one day, and he's
like, "Well, the man puts his penis inside the woman." And I'm immediately thinking, I don't know
how... I mean, it's just this little thing, a rubbery
little, you know? And he sees the look on my face. And he goes, "No, no, it'll get hard." And in my head, I'm going, call social services,
man, I'm four years old, you know. Like, he was telling me everything, I felt
like I was being abused. And so now I've got kids and I'm like, I know
one way not to do it, and I know another way that's even more dangerous, I think. So what do I do? So one day, my son came to visit me in Turks
and Caicos where I was living at the time. And I said, "Listen, Daniel, I need an hour,
you know, just an hour to catch up on some work and stuff. And then after that hour, you've got me, we'll
go drive the Jeep, we'll go have some fun." And, you know, my son, unfortunately, listens
to me how to do marketing. You know, know your target audience, know
what's important to them, speak to them where they live. I mean, that's the key to marketing, really. And so he knows his target audience, it's
his dad. And he knows what's important to his dad at
that moment was work. So if he comes up at asks me about kid things,
I'm gonna say, "Daniel, I told you I need an hour to work." No, he's really smart. He's like, "Hey, dad, did you guys work on
the "Transformers" movie?" So it's a work question, right, I'm working,
it's a work question. Resonance, this is marketing, guys. And I'm like, "Yeah, we worked on that movie." And in my head I'm thinking, "He knows that,
why would he ask that? Oh, well." And he goes, "Hey, dad..." Now, he's about 12 and girls are bad, right? They're icky, they're embarrassing, and they're
bad when you're 12 or when he was 12. And so he's like... I'm typing away and he goes, "Dad, what was
your favorite part of the movie?" I'm typing away, and I'm not conscious, like,
I'm working and I shouldn't be having this conversation. I'm fully focused. And I go, "Oh, it was probably that scene
when Megan Fox was running in slow motion through the..." I just referred to bouncing breasts to my
12-year-old son. And I'm thinking this, I've just done what
my dad did. And I look out the corner of my eye, my son
over here, I look at him and he goes, "Yeah, that was pretty cool, wasn't it, dad?" I'm like, we can talk. It's coming, right? So I sat down with him and I said, "Hey, Daniel,
listen, I want you to know, you can ask me about anything sex, drugs, rock, and roll,
bring it on, you can ask me anything." He goes, "No, I can't." "Why not?" He goes "Because you're my dad, it'd be embarrassing." I said, "No, no, but you see, here's the thing,
I've experimented, I've tried it. Why go make the mistakes on your own. And tell me, is there some 12,15 year old
out there, that you're gonna go ask them? You gotta ask me." He goes, "No, I can't do it, it's too embarrassing." I said, "I'll tell you what, I think I know
where the line of embarrassment is. So you ask me a question and then if I think
it's gonna hit you in the line, I'm gonna stop, I'm gonna warn you, and then you can
decide." And he goes, "Okay, we'll try that." So one day, he's like, "Hey, dad, I think
I wanna work out more, I wanna get more fit." Now, do kids care about their health? No. So trying to convince him to work out for
his health is a pointless... Again, lesson in marketing, right? What's interesting to him. So I don't talk to him about his health, oh,
yeah Daniel, that'd be great for your health and your longevity, and your... you know,
no, no, I go "That's awesome. It'll be great for meeting girls." And he goes, "It will? Why?" And I go, "Instincts, Daniel, instincts." And he says, "Can you..." You know, and he and I talk about natural
selection and instincts all the time. You know, he knows about my visits with the
bushmen, and all this stuff. So he goes, "If it's instincts, then it must
have provided like a breeding advantage somewhere along the line." And I go, "Yep, yep." And he goes, "Well, how?" And I go, "I can't tell you." "Why not?" "Boundaries." "Try." "Well, all right. I guess I probably can, I mean, all I'm really
saying is that if a woman sees a man that has really like strong powerful legs, good
bum, good chest, she doesn't even know it but her DNA responds to that." He's like, "Really?" I go, "Yeah, I mean, if you see one man who's
kind of standing like this, and another man that is just that much up..." I've watched that happen in the audience,
women responded to that, some. And I was amazed, even with the spotlights,
maybe I just felt it. But it was a disturbance in the force. So, my son, he goes, "Okay, why? I mean, why would that give them that response?" And I'm like, "Well, I don't think I can tell
you." "Why not?" "This is where the boundaries come in." "Try." "All right, all right, I can tell you about
the legs. The thing is, the legs indicate that he could
like, you know, run fast, and climb and hunt, and gather, and provide protection, and security,
and that's why." And he goes "That make sense." He says, "What about the chest?" And I go, "Well, similar thing, a broad chest
indicates that. you know, he's powerful, it's symmetrical. Again, providing, security, all that stuff." And he goes, "I get that." He goes, "What about the bum?" I said, "No, we're not talking about that. And he said, "Why not?" I said, "Boundaries, Daniel." And he goes, "Try." And I'm like, "All right." I said, "Daniel, at this stage, my presumption
is that you understand the biomechanics of procreation." He's like, "Yes." And I go, "Well, a really good solid bum indicates
excellent, thrusting capacity." Boundary reached. And so that's how we talk. When he went to Germany in summer camp he
picked up the phone, he called me and he goes, "Dad, it's been two weeks. I've been having a great time. My friends are going out drinking tonight. They're going out drinking tonight, and I
wanna go out with my friends. And I don't wanna be the odd guy out, what's
your advice to me?" He's smart, though, this little bugger. He doesn't say should I have been or not right? Again, marketing. No, yes or no questions, right. He's like, "How many beers should I have,
dad?" Smart kid. I go, "Daniel, you are below drinking age. So as your parental unit, I must inform you
that drinking below drinking age is unlawful and that you should absolutely not consider
doing that." I said, "Now, Daniel, that was for the NSA
because I think they're listening. Just you and me here." I said, "One is good. One is good. Two, if you really feel like you have to." But again, know your target audience. My son is phobic of vomiting, he hates it,
right. I said, "But be aware of the third beer." "Why?" "It's the puke beer." "What! It's the puke beer?" He's like, "I'm not having three beers. You mean if I drink a third beer, I'm gonna
puke?" And I go, "Not necessarily, but if you drink
a third beer, you will lose your decision capacity, and you will have a fourth beer. And then you will have the fifth beer and
then you will vomit." How many of you would love for your children
to call you before they drink their first drink? Create the frame, give them permission, create
the frame. And I'm grateful, grateful that I've been
able to do that. And one of the reasons that I've been able
to do that is that I just been trying to observe human behavior my whole life. I've asked questions from the beginning. Why do... You guys know Rudyard Kipling in the "Just
So Stories," anybody? You know, "How the Leopard Got His Spots",
that sort of thing. I'm kind of like that, I'm always asking why. John Gray and I years ago, we were walking
along and he goes, "Eric, why..." He's always studying the internal body chemistry,
the estrogen and glucagon. And, you know, he says, "Eric, we eat fruit
and we make insulin, but if we stop eating fruit and we don't eat sugar, we make glucagon. Why does, you know, the pancreas do that?" And I said, "Ah, well, if you're in Africa
with the bushman, what you'll find is that most fruit is available right before drought,
right before winter. And so when you're eating all that fruit,
your body knows to make, you know, insulin to break down the sugar. But when you stop eating it, your body starts
producing glucagon, and it starts pushing you toward ketosis. Which is saying, hey, winter is over now,
winter is over, so it changes the function of it." So I'm always... you know, and he was like,
"Holy cow." So he and I do this all the time. So for example, you know, John, he often says... He and I have many points of agreement and
we have lots of little contentious things, like, what time to end your talk. But one of them is that he... And this comes from old Mars Venus days. But he said, "Women say 10,000 words a day,
and men say 5,000 words a day." Women, how many of you would categorically
disagree with that statement? I agree with you. Because I don't think it's a matter of the
number of words a day they say, it's a matter of when they say them. It's a matter of when they say them and what
they're talking about. But before we go into this, I need to offer
a few things. The one I want to offer you is that I'm going
to occasionally use stereotypes. I'm going to say men do this, and women do
that. And I know that that is not consistent. But I am not ruling my life by what I call
the tyranny of the bell curve. You know, the story. The story of the woman who never ate well,
and drank, and smoked cigarettes, and all the way till the end, this was my grandmother,
by the way, and made it to the ripe old age of 86. That's somebody at the edge of the bell curve,
the rest of us living like that, it would go badly. Does this make sense to you? Everybody: Yes. Eric: And so in the middle of the bell curve,
men do this and women do that. Are we okay with that? Everybody: Yes. Eric: Cool. And so in order for us to really do this properly,
I also wanna put you into a time when things were a little different. Because you see, one of the things that's
difficult in discussing gender differences... And I go to Norway to discuss gender differences
sometimes. It's hard. I do this marketing exercise where I'm teaching
people about marketing, and I go, "Now, if we wanna sell wedding photography to a bride,
it's different than if we wanna sell it to a groom." We can't just use the old style of marketing. I say, brides, all the women in this room
and I really want an answer from you. How old were you the first time you fantasized
about, thought about, play, acted, your wedding? How old? Woman 1: Five. Eric: Five. Woman 2: Eight. Eric: Eight, 12, 14. If you're in Norway, the answer is 26. The answer is 26, it's culturally different. You can blame Disney maybe, but I'm gonna
say there's some instinct in it too. By the way, men, there are men in this room
that are married that have yet to really give it deep consideration. And so if you are marketing to them, you can't
sell the same thing. If I wanna get the bride to look at my marketing,
I'm gonna say, brides, there are seven... Wait, she's been thinking about this since
she's four. What does she want from her wedding day? Only one thing, perfection. That's what she wants that day. She gets to tell her friends what to wear. She gets to pick the music, choose the flower,
she wants perfection that day. And as she's about to marry a man, she better
get this one. Better get this perfect day, it's gonna get
messy after that, right. Then, on the other hand, if I wanna advertise
to the men, I have to do something different. What does a man want from his wedding day? Man 1: Beer. Eric: Beer. Everybody: Sex. Eric: Sex, yeah, but let's just get really
clear what a man really wants from his wedding day is for his bride to be insanely happy. Which is, incidentally, all he ever wants
for her for the rest of their lives. It is, I know our behavior doesn't demonstrate
that to you sometimes, but it is the primary thing that we want. And so we need to market differently. And so the challenge is, sometimes when you
start talking about gender differences, then there are people who go, "Well, I'm a strong,
independent woman, and I don't want it to be that way." Or a man is like, "I don't really feel like
that." So I wanna just... Are you guys up for a little time machine? Everybody: Yes. Eric: Can you give me Africa. You guys just relax for a minute. Just totally relax. In fact, if I could have a handheld mic that
would even be better. But it's not that important. I can... Oh, it's right there. Good. Just relax and give me Africa on the screens. Now, you guys know there was a time before
Netflix, right? Yeah, no, there was. And there was a time before television. What did families do before television? Everybody: Radio. Eric: They sat around... They had sex. What kind of conference is this? Before television, the family sat around the
radio, literally sat around the radio. Before radio, what did they do? Everybody: Fire. Eric: Sat around the fire. What percentage of time was around the radio
versus fire versus the... Or the fire, versus the radio, versus the
television, versus Netflix, what percentage? If this stage represents time, here we are
at the beginning of time, we were standing around a fire at some point. At some point about 2 million years ago, we
figured out fire. And fire, and we sat around the fire, and
we shared all our wisdom around the fire. And we educated around the fire, and we shared
our victories, and sorrows, and myths, and stories around the fire. And then right about here, we invented the
radio. And then just a little bit after that the
television. We're talking about an infinitesimally small
period of time. In other words, your DNA doesn't really respond
well to this whole other system, it needs the fire, it really does. How many of you feel a weird state of trance,
a real set of calm when you sit around the fire or maybe you see what I'm talking about? I wanna tell you... you guys can put it up,
throw it up. I wanna tell you that a couple of weeks ago,
a couple of months ago, I went off to Africa as I often do. And I brought one of my Wildfit coaches with
me, and two unbelievably intrepid and brave Mindvalley photographers. And they came with me and I said, "Okay, now,
when we go see the bushmen, you guys are gonna go in the lodge and I'm gonna sleep in the
camp with the bushmen." And when I say camp, the bushmen guys are
nomadic, they don't live in the same place for more than a few days. They're hunter-gatherers, they don't farm,
they don't have money. It's hard to find them. And so I said, "You guys are gonna stay in
the lodge, I'm gonna stay with them and the wild animals and all that stuff." And then my Wildfit coach, she's like, "I
wanna come with you." And I'm like, "Now the logistics are getting
difficult because I'm gonna have to separate the group." I'm like, "Okay." And I go to Karen and Kirstie and I say, "Are
you guys up for a little bit of an adventure?" And they're like, "Yeah." I said, "Then let's do it." And we headed out and we got to the bushmen
camp, and the bushmen had a fire going. And every now and again, you hear this sound,
it's a hyena. And we heard one, I think it was Karen and
Karen says...down a little on that. Karen says, "What is this?" And I said, "It's a hyena." "How far is it?" "It's about two miles." "Okay, that'll take it about 20 minutes." And we slept around the fire all night. And so I want you to sleep around the fire
for a moment now, does that sound okay? Go ahead and close your eyes if you're comfortable,
and if you're not, go ahead and close them anyway. And I wanna teach you something a little bit
about stress that you already know, but I want you to really know it right now. And that is that, with your eyes closed and
focused, and your lungs filling deeply with oxygen, I want you to recognize that the only
time in nature that you would ever allow yourself to breathe that deeply was when your entire
environment was safe. Would you breathe that deeply if there was
a lion 30 feet away? No. But when your environment feels completely
safe, it allows you to begin to breathe really deeply now, because your environment is safe. And the more deep breathing you do, the safer
you feel. And in that place of safety, you can let go
of any muscle tension from your toes, to your ankles, to your legs and knees, through your
hips. You can bring a warm sense of relaxation up
through your hips into your belly, and your bum, your back. You can let it roll up over your back, come
down the front of your face and relax your face. Even the little muscles at the corners of
your eyes, even your tongue can let go right now. And in this place, what I would like you to
do is understand that you are entirely safe. And that we're gonna travel in time. And we're gonna go back, we're gonna go back
to your parents, 2, and then your grandparents, 4, and then their parents, 8, and their parents
16, and then their parents, 32, and then their parents, 64, and then their parents, 128. And then their parents, 256. And then their parents, 512. And then their parents, 1,000 people, 10 generations
ago had sex to make you. And then another generation it's 2,000. And then it's 4,000. And then 8,000, and then 16,000, and then
32,000. And then 64,000, 128, 250,000, 500,000. And 20 generations ago, 1 million people fucked
to create you. And I want you to go back and be there with
them right now. I want you to imagine what the world is like
without a cell phone, without electricity. The stars are brighter than you could ever
imagine unless you've been in one of these places. In fact, when you're in that deep place in
Africa, thousands of years ago, the stars are so bright that they seem like all variations
of white in the sky. As in, there is no point in the black sky
that is not white. It's glittering. It was the primary entertainment and you stare
up and you look at those stars. And then I want you to imagine contemplating
that you're going to sleep that night. And while you are asleep, there will be large
animals all around you in the bush, elephants, rhinos, giraffes, lions, spotted hyenas that
can crush a giraffe's thigh bone with their jaws. Leopards that love hunting primates. For those of us that have ever had a fear
of the dark, it's natural, because it was a dangerous time. And then I want you to imagine that the next
day, when everybody wakes up with the sun and the birds start coming along, that you
start contemplating your day a little bit further. I want you to know that you were not safe
back then. And then for those of you who are women, I
want you to think about the moment that the men left camp to go hunting. The men left you with the children in the
camp to go hunting, there are still big, large animals out there. Then, if your partner died, you died. If you lost your partner, the world changed
irreparably. And this is why sometimes a split up feels
really bad. Even when in your heart you know it's the
right thing. You see your DNA is sitting there... How many of you ever heard one of your girlfriends
say or maybe said this yourself, "He took everything from me. My life is over." That's not an exaggeration, it's just in the
wrong era. And so I want you all to recognize that those
million ancestors that lived back then to create you, survived the most unlikely circumstances
in history. Really difficult times. And your DNA evolved in those times, not in
these ones. And so sometimes you have instincts that don't
match with the way we live today. And what we can do is remap that and we can
say, hey, you know what, that's what my instinct brain tells me, but I can have consciousness
at this point. And so I want you to sort of slowly come back
to the room, it's 2017 again, you've met some of your ancestors in a sort of vibrational
way. And now let's talk a little bit more about
relationships. If you guys can bring the lights back up,
and I'll switch to this mic. Now, I'm not usually in the habit of asking
my audience to relax and go into a deep state of relaxation and then talk, they might be
tempted to fall asleep. So I want you to know, I'm not gonna let that
happen you're going to stay awake. And the reason is, is that I'm going to share
with you kind of an interesting story. The first story is this. My wife and I, we went for dinner in Copenhagen. And my wife said, "We need to talk." Is this a good thing? Everybody: No. Eric: It is for her, isn't it? Everybody: Yes. Eric: It is for her, but it's not for me. And so she says, "We need to talk," we're
sitting down and she just starts talking. She's like, "Oh, anyway, I just wanted to
remind you that tomorrow, we're gonna be doing that thing with those people, and we're gonna
have that... oh, and also when we get to Stockholm next week, you know that shawl that I saw
in Tolland they had the red one there, but they've got the white one in Stockholm. And I think I wanna get the white one. Oh, also, I gotta make sure..." Because she's a CFO of an island, right. Says, "I gotta make sure I get those accounts
emailed off. I completed them I gotta get that done." And I'm just sitting there like, wow, that's
a lot of information right now, isn't it? A lot of information. Then she's like, "And, you know, Eric, I've
been thinking about something. You know, I think you work way too hard. You work way too hard and we don't get to
spend enough time together. And we work way too hard, you know." And I'm like, okay, remember, you know... I remember John saying. it's like martial arts, it's like...let it
go by. Like little throwing darts and I'm not gonna
let them in. And I'm like, yes, tell me more, tell me more. And she's like, "Yeah, and then oh, by the
way, also, something else I wanted to mention is that I ordered all that stuff in Amazon
that you asked for and that's gonna be coming along soon. And by the way, where do you think we should
go for Christmas?" And then, "And you know what? I just don't think you take work seriously
enough. I think you slack off all the time." What! In my brain, I'm going, she just said I work
too hard, and then over here, she says, I don't work hard enough. This woman is insane, I've got her. I've got her. Objection, your honor, the witness is lying. I've got her. I can prove her wrong. No, no, stop, don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that. Yes, maybe sometimes I could take it more
seriously while not working harder? I didn't say it, I thought it, I didn't say
it, right. And it just continues and continues. And then also, by the way, if you wanna save
your marriage right now, never go to a restaurant and let your husband sit when there are TVs
on the other wall. Why on earth would you do that? I mean, you understand the role of the man
is hunting and protecting, you know, in the DNA. And what do we hunt and protect? Movement, that's what gets us. So if we're sitting here and there's no movement,
and then suddenly there's movement, we have to look at it. Because for millions of years, it meant eating
or not dying. So we have to look, to not look is very stressful
for us. And so I'm sitting there talking my wife,
and she's giving me all this stuff. And I'm going, look at her eyes, look at her
eyes, look at her eyes, look at her, look at eyes her eyes. Don't look away, don't look away, don't look
away. Don't do it. Don't do it. Oh, no there's something over there. I did it, I looked away and it was just a
TV again. Okay, I can fix it. I can fix it. Shit. What was she talking about? Oh, my God, I wasn't listening. Oh, my God, she's gonna ask me if I heard
her. Oh, my God, just stop, don't worry about it. She might not do it now, if you start listening
now you'll get back. What's that? Please, no TVs, don't do it. And I wanna be really clear. My wife and I figured this out when we have
stuff, right, we go on the beach. We're lucky enough to live on a beach. But you it doesn't have to be on a beach you
understand. It could be in a park, it could be anywhere
that you can walk. And you take her for a walk, gentlemen, because
on a walk, you're not required to maintain eye contact. You just hold her hand firmly, that counts
that you're paying attention, right? And by the way, women, let me tell you something,
just a little sympathy for men about this, your eyes control your stress, particularly
for men. If I am walking along in Africa and I stumble
right at, oh, look, a lion track, will I relax and gaze at the lion track or will I stare
intently at it? Everybody: Stare. Eric: I will stare intently at it. Relaxing and gazing would have been, you know,
filtered out. Darwinian, you know, I stared and gazed, the
lion ate me, right. No, I'm gonna stare at it what do I wanna
know? Man 2: Where it's going. Eric: I wanna know the direction right away. If it's going that way, I'm going that way,
backwards, right? And by the way, what else do I wanna know? How fresh is it, right? I'm staring at it. If I do that, and some of the sand falls in,
it's fresh, it's very fresh. Will I look around with a casual gazing view
of the bush? No, I'm looking at it with piercing accuracy,
looking for any sign of anything that could be teeth. So men, and this is true of women as well
to a lesser degree, but men take this... Like, it's so funny. I often mention this in public speaking. People get up on stage and they're public
speaking and they get locked on to people and they're staring and they're generating
stress. In John's language, the minute they start
staring, the blood stops going to the conscious part of the brain and moves back into monkey
brain, right? It's really difficult. So when you demand eye contact from us, you
are inherently stressing us out to no end. So go for a walk instead. Now when my wife... My wife no longer says, "We need to talk." She goes, "We need to go for a walk." Now I know. I put on my sunglasses, the ones where she
can't see my eyes and we go for a walk, right. But now let's talk about talking. I'm puzzled by this whole talking thing, like,
she just said that I work too hard and that I don't work hard enough at the same time. Why can't I point that out to her? She clearly has brain damage. There's something wrong. But then I have to realize something, when
the men left camp, what do you suppose the women had to do to keep the animals away? Woman 3: Talk. Eric: They had to talk. Every hiker knows it, if you're in grizzly
country, you talk on the trail to keep the grizzlies away. So the women had to talk and they had to talk
a lot. They had to find very long ways to say quite
simple things. The men are going, dude, you said it and you
didn't get rocks thrown at you yet. They need to talk. And women, can I please have an honest thing
from you here? You know, I decided I'm gonna borrow from
like, you know, Marissa, and Lisa, and Dan, okay? If I say something that really works for you...and
I have to try and do this with an English accent so I can have Marissa, and then I have
to have Lisa, and I have to have Dan, okay, all right. Now, if I say something particularly poignant
for you at any given moment, what you're gonna do is say, fuck, yes. Now, what I'm getting at here is that if you
wanna compare this, it's very simple. In the bushmen camp, every single camp I've
ever had, ever been to, and I've been to many, there are two fires. The men are sitting at one, and the women
are sitting at the other one, and they do not speak to each other, almost ever. I've been with them for, like, days on end. And the women occasionally walk over, say
two words walk back over to their fire, done. There's almost no interaction. We've lived like that for millions of years. Oh, I get it now. Look, guys, if we have 10 men sitting around
the table, having a chat and one guy is not saying anything, is just sitting there, doesn't
say anything will, anybody notice? Everybody: No. Eric: No, no, they won't. The guys are like, one less guy to compete
with in this conversation. Now, if one of the guys does notice, he's
gonna turn to his buddy and go, "Hey, dude, what's up?" "Nothing." "Cool." Done, right? Ten women sitting around the table, one woman
doesn't talk for 12.4 minutes. About the 12.4 minute mark or sooner, one
of the women's gonna notice that Sally is not pulling her weight because talking is
a job. You know, the hyenas are out there. And so they're gonna go, "Sally, what's wrong?" And Sally's gonna go, "Nothing." But is it nothing? Everybody: No. Eric: No, it's nothing unless you actually
love me, and care about me, and you're willing to pull it out of me. And then when I say it, my stress is gonna
go down. Woman 4: Fuck, yes. Eric: So now, wait, now let's put the men
and the women at the table together. Johnny is not talking, nobody cares. Sally is not talking, the women care. But the women care that Johnny's not talking. Hey, Johnny... I'm in the car one day with my practice wife. She knows I call her that, we're very good
friends. My wife is very happy that I had a practice
wife. So I'm in the car with my first wife, and
we're driving along. And she says, "What's wrong?" "Nothing." I'm driving. "Nothing." "Is it your boss?" "No." "Is it our finances?" "No." "Is it your dad again?" "No, but it is fucking now." She goes through the whole inventory of everything
that's wrong with my life because she loves me enough to pull it out of me. It's insane. And so my wife and I, we started to navigate
this stuff. You know, now what happens is she starts talking,
immediately I start thinking, oh, interesting, she's afraid of the hyenas. Really, I honestly think that. I go, okay. But look, look, look, women, are there times
when you're trying to talk and if the man finishes your sentence for you, make the sound
that gives you? Everybody: Oh, man. Eric: Yeah, don't do that man. He finishes the sentence for you or finishes
the thought for you, and you don't have to then say what you were gonna say, does that
make you feel better? Everybody: No. Eric: No, she needs to say it. Not for the words themselves, but for the
sound they will create. Look, guys, so many women, I don't know but
many women come home and they turn on the TV and they're not even watching it. Because the sound is making them feel like
camp is safe. And that's why sometimes they talk in ways
that we don't really understand. It's why. And, you know, my wife, she talks in... She's very unreasonable, this woman. She talks in absolute terms all the time,
absolute terms. "You always do this stuff." And I'm going, "No, no, I don't. It's a Thursday I didn't do it. I have proof. I'll swear out an affidavit." "Yeah, but you never do this other thing?" "Oh, no, no, no. Tuesday, I did it, you're wrong again." My first girlfriend, we bought that cat litter,
the kind that you clump and you don't have to change it, you scoop it out. And it says that the bottle should last like
a good six weeks, right. But the thing is that the first one doesn't
last six weeks, because you have to fill the litter box up once then after that they're
gonna last six weeks. So knowing this, she bought this stuff. Knowing this, I filled the litter box all
the way to the top the way... like, to the line where you're supposed to,
which used up almost the whole bottle. And she comes into the bathroom with the cat
and she's like, "Eric, what the hell? This is never gonna last six weeks if you
use all of it right now." I go, "Yeah, but if you don't like put it
all the way in, then when the cat pees, it'll go all the way to the bottom. And then it's pointless, it'll get all wet
at the bottom." She goes, "No, this has to last six weeks." "No, really, the first one..." I'm calm, calm Eric, calm, calm and prove
her wrong. Oh, that's a new... I'm getting that t-shirt, keep calm and prove
her wrong, which will not sell very well. And so she's like freaking out and I get the
label and I show it to her. It says, "Use the whole first bottle," it
says that right on there. And I showed it to her, there was proof, and
now we should go out and have dinner and have sex, it'll be fine. She didn't talk to me for two days. She didn't talk to me for days, because she
talks in these absolute terms because she wants to have the whole conversation. And so when my wife and I walked out of that
restaurant in Copenhagen, I was stressed. I mean, I tell you guys, I'm telling you,
we can make jokes about all of it but my heart hurt, my brain hurt. I sweat, I was stressed from the conversation. She had bombarded me, and bombarded me, and
bombarded me. And I had taken it and said, tell me more,
and I was like... And then we walked out of the restaurant and
I'm kind of... "So, honey, how was dinner for you?" And she's like, "I think it was the nicest
meal we've ever had." Okay, she goes, "How was it for you?" And I said, "You know, I thought you were
gonna leave me." It was intense. But it's a different model communication because
when the men come back from hunting, they come back at night. What's different at night in Africa? The real wild animals come out. You see in the day, the cheetahs are out and
the elephants are around. And, you know, that's all fine and good. But you see lions and spotted hyenas... A spotted hyena can crush a giraffe's thigh
bone with its jaws. And it takes three hyenas to remove a female
lion from a kill, just to give you a strength ratio here. And it takes 30 hyenas to remove a male lion
from a kill. These are very big animals. How many of you have ever seen a lion? How many of you have ever seen a lion with
no bars, no glass, you and the lion? How many of you have ever walked around a
corner, walk around the trees, and there was a lion standing there, anybody had that? A couple of people. You know like I do that your DNA straightens. It's intense, we've known them for millions
of years. Leopards come out at night. Leopards are specialist primate hunters. They know exactly where your kidneys are. A leopard will jump on your back, grab you
by the neck to paralyze you. And then you know when you tickle your cat's
belly and they do that thing with their back legs? That's kidney removal. That's what it is. And those are the animals that are out at
night and the female voice does nothing to deter them, it is a dinner bell. The female voice does not scare those animals,
it's a dinner bell for them. They're not frightened by it. But what they are frightened by is the cavernous
voice that males make. And so when the sun goes down, and the men
gather around the fire, the men start talking and they talk like crazy. I asked the chief, I said, "What are the women
talking about all the time?" And he goes, "Who knows?" Oh, by the way, one of the visits, I went
with them... I sent out this broadcast to some of my close
contacts, and I said I'm going once again to visit the bushmen, do you have any questions
for them? And I got the most incredibly interesting
questions. I got some cool questions back from Tony Robbins,
John Gray sent me a list of 30 questions, 20 of which would have required therapy to
ask. They were pretty deep. He wanted to know how many orgasms they had. I don't even know how you say that in the
bushmen language. I'll really try that, it's not gonna be easy. But I did ask them on his behalf. I said to them, "How do you know when you've
picked the right woman? How do you pick the right woman?" He goes, "Oh, there's two things. If she has a good work ethic." Think about the time, guys, right? If she has a good work ethic, and now you
define this as you will. Those of you in the tantric crowd, you may
take it one step further than others might conceive. But he said, "If she has a good work ethic,
and she can produce the nectar of God, then she's a good wife." And I said, "But what about her personality?" And he goes, "Why would that bother me?" They have almost no interaction other than
mating, it's really fascinating. And then I said, "Well, how long does the
process take? You know, you see the girl, you're attracted
to her, how long till you're married?" And he goes, "Well, it could be instant, days,
weeks." Now, at this point, the chief was really fascinated,
nobody had done this with him. And he started firing questions back at me. Now, that was cool, right? He goes, "Well, what about your tribe? What's the mating ritual there? How long does it take to get married?" And I said, "Well, I come from a tribe of
many, many tribes." I said, "There are some cultures where the
parents choose the mate for you and with no choice to the woman at all. Or even to the man in some cases." I said, "It's a very weird world out there
outside of this little bushman area." And he said, "But what about for you?" And I said, "Oh, well, in my case, I was with
my wife for about eight years before we got married." And he went, "Eight years? Really eight years?" And I'm thinking, what's his problem? And I'm, like, in my tribe, premarital sex
is okay. "Oh, okay." He says, "Everything's gonna be okay." But back to the sun going down and the big
animals coming out. I asked the chief, in the end... I asked the translator what the women were
talking about before the sun went down. He says the women are telling stories about
the environment. And they're telling stories about the politics,
and telling stories about each other. And they're comparing notes on the different
men. They're sharing valuable information. They are, they're sharing snippets of information. It's like inventory to women. I've got my bag of information, you have some
information to share? Let's do that, right? But then we're at the night fire and the men
are there and they have this, like, cliquey sounds that they make when they speak, it's
really cool. And I said, "What are they talking about?" And he goes, "Oh, they're talking about the
most incredible hunting trips that they've ever been on, and the big animals they killed,
and the gorgeous woman from the other village. And they're talking about the big storm and
all this kind of stuff." They were talking about the same thing guys
do now, sports, women, achievement, they were talking about stuff that...you know, they
were comparing battles with each other, very different model of a conversation. Also at the men's fire, very often, it'll
be one man speaking, and nine men listening. And then one other man speaking. At the women's fire, wow, it was like birds
in the corner, you know, nattering and going away. It was almost like music over there. And this makes me think a lot about why my
wife and I have had communication issues. So I'll tell you some of the clues, a little
life hack, my wife learned this. I won't argue with her feelings. I won't do that. And so she no longer says to me, "I think
that you work too much." She says, "I feel like you work too much." And then I immediately realize it's totally
reasonable that she feels that way. I can see why she might feel that way at times. And if 10 minutes later, she says, "But Eric,
I feel like you don't take it seriously enough." Then I don't disagree with that emotion, I
can see how she might feel that way. Because I began to realize that my wife...and
I don't know if it's like this for the rest of you. But my wife, like, wears emotions like she's
shopping for clothes sometimes. It's like, I'll try this one on, and then
I'll try that one on, and it can switch and change, like, so fast. And I just put on this... Like Steve Jobs. I got my black shirt and my jeans on, and
there I am. And as I began to navigate that, I learned
that she learned that if she said I feel, that I would not argue with it anymore, because
there's no point arguing with a feeling. But here's one of the problems. One of the reasons that women do this stuff... Do you guys wanna know why PMS is tough? Would anybody like to know why PMS is tough? PMT for some of you who are... What we're really talking about is that one
time of the month when you hate him, you know what I'm talking about? What's really going on there, I believe, is
that you are testing him for eventual pregnancy. You're saying, you know what, when I get pregnant,
I'm gonna be grumpy, I'm gonna be moody, and it's gonna last a long time. And I'm gonna figure out right now if you
got the balls to stay with me. And so I'm gonna say unreasonable things,
I'm gonna be a little nasty to you. And if you run at the first sign of trouble,
you are not daddy material. Does it make sense? Everybody: Yes. Eric: So when I'm going through this stuff
with her, I began to really get to the point where I began to realize that sometimes she
didn't say I feel. And that's because the minute something becomes
a system, it's no longer a good test. See, she's saying that stuff to test me. But if she says I feel, she's giving me a
cheat sheet. And sometimes if she's really upset, she's
gonna remove that. She's gonna go, "No, you know, you can take
the test for real this time. You work too much, you're doing this." And I then have to translate, she means she
feels that way. And then I respond to her feeling and it changes
everything. Does this make sense? Everybody: Yes. Eric: It just navigates the situation so much
better. It makes me feel like I can communicate with
her and she can communicate. Do I get it right all the time? Absolutely not. I completely relate. I know John and Bonnie very, very well, I'll
share a little side story with you. They invited us over for dinner one day in
Mill Valley where they live. And we're sitting there and then Bonnie goes,
"Eric, I've noticed that you tend to end all of your talks dead on time, could you tell
us more about that?" She did. I'm not kidding you. I know them quite well. But I also can relate to the thing that she
has where it's like, people come and go, "You're married to John Gray, you're so lucky." People say that to my wife sometimes, you
don't know, I'm a nightmare. I'm a guy, I'm a nightmare. It is what it is, but I do the best that I
can. But what I'm sick and tired of is a personal
development industry that puts it all on the women, or puts it all on the men. Woman 5: Fuck yeah. Eric: It's like, oh, men, you gotta just understand
women are gonna do this and this and this. No, women, you gotta understand, too. Is that fair? Everybody: Yes. Eric: And my wife and I have figured that
out fairly well, we've been together for 12 years. And she is absolutely my best friend in the
world without question. And she is the mother of my new nine-month-old
baby. And I'm thrilled about that. And it's not always easy. In fact, I'll tell you right now, it's not
easy, right? Brand new baby in the house, is that easy? Everybody: No. Eric: No, and we're navigating it and we have
to. So what I was thinking is I wanna finish on
something to tie this all up for you guys. This time, I wanna take you to the future. Are you okay with that? Everybody: Yeah. Eric: Can you guys give me the fire again. I wanna take you to the future. So again, make yourself... You guys, I love... One of my favorite things about A-Fest... I remember the first time I walked up the
stage, I walk up and I see this. And I'm going, I think the whole room should
look like that. Wait, there was a room that I was in last
night that was a bit like that. All right, in the interest of time, sit back,
relax, take another deep breath. Sit back, relax, take another deep breath. And as you do that, and as you let your muscles
go, and as you breathe deeply. As you go right back to that state of relaxation
you had before, what I want you to know is that, again, you're in a safe place. But this time, we're not gonna travel quite
so far, we're only gonna travel into your future. And I don't know what day exactly it is. I don't know what month exactly it is. But I know that it's the day that you wake
up one day and you realize that you are enjoying the relationship of your dreams. It's that day. I don't know if it's tomorrow, I don't know
if it's five years from now or next week. But you woke up that morning and you woke
up with gratitude and realized that you are in the relationship of your dreams. And as you revel in the gratitude, and the
appreciation, and the adoration of being in the relationship of your dreams on that day,
all I want you to do is remember, I want you to remember what you did to get here. I want you to remember the times that you
forgave genuinely. I want you to remember the times that you
did the things that maybe you didn't necessarily wanna do because that's the price of admission. Because you love that person. I want you to remember the times when you
focused on all the things that you loved about that person, instead of all the little things
that you ignored in the beginning. I want you to remember how you arrived on
this day in your most incredible, amazing relationship. Think about some of the things that you changed
about yourself. Maybe there was that day. Do you remember way back in Ibiza? You learned all that incredible stuff from
Marissa, and John, and Dan, and John and Marissa. What did you change in your life after that
day? Why was your life so different? How did you create this unbelievable relationship? What did you change about yourself? Be the change that you want in your relationship. What did you do differently? What did you allow differently? Who were you to attract or create this relationship? And I want you to keep this consideration
going on for the next week or so, I want you to remember. For some of you, you're in this relationship
now, but some of you, it's in the future. And I want you to remember how you got here
and keep remembering how you got here. Because in the future, in the next week or
two weeks, as you go back to an old pattern, I want you to remember that you don't do that
anymore. The beautiful thing about human consciousness,
the beautiful thing about deep meditation, the beautiful thing about altered universes
is that humans have the unique capacity to go out into the future and remember their
past which is actually their future. How did you do this? And as you prepare to come back to Ibiza,
now. As you bring your consciousness back into
the room, retaining the memories, and the skills, and the realization of how you created
your unbelievable relationship. I want you to slowly ease your eyes open. And I want you to look around the room and
make eye contact with people. Don't say anything, just make eye contact
with them. Nice, deep eye contact. And with your eyes, I want you to give them
one awesome A-Fest message. Tell them you're glad they came, look them
in the eyes and say I'm glad you came.
