- I have two firefighter pilots that were in Iraq and
Afghanistan together, and they then create a company. The company is very successful. And then at one point, one of them wants to go and do something that the other one doesn't want to do. And their whole question is, were we successful 'cause
we had a great idea? Are we successful because
we had each other? (upbeat music) ♪ Ya la la ♪ - You could choose to be in prison and suffer with poor
condition and poor treatment, but can we also choose
to be out of suffering in our mind and in our heart, even if there's scarcity, even if there's uncertainty, even if there's physical
abuse or emotional abuse, can we still try to not be suffering? Or do you feel like there's
nothing we can do sometimes? - It's a both end, right?
- Right. - Men search for meaning.
- Yeah. - Basically--
- Viktor Frankl, right? - Viktor Frankl, what he... He is in the concentration camps, he tries to have a little notebook, in which he writes his
scientific research, the book is the proof of his existence. At one point, he loses that little book and he realizes that all
trace that he's ever been, may forever be gone.
- Hmm. - And he does develop the
notion of logotherapy, right? The idea that you cannot
change your circumstances, but you can change your
response to the circumstances, that you still have until the last moment, fundamental freedom.
- Right. - Which is the freedom to the meaning that you give to what is happening to you. And in that sense, no, he can't change his conditions
in the concentration camp, but he is able to still
maintain a sense of sovereignty and dignity over the human degradation that is happening to him on
a minute by minute basis. - Yeah.
- And I think it's both end. If you say to the people that are struggling at
the borders of Mexico, you have chosen your prison, it's indecent.
- Right. - If people are not always
choosing their suffering. Sometimes within that they can still sing a song to their child, hold their loved ones, write a letter to someone that is missed that they're longing for, staying alive for the ones
that are waiting for them. And that's where you are
coming out of the prison-- - Yeah.
- Or out of the suffering, with a sense of freedom. I think if one has to be really
careful sometimes to say, we choose our pains, we choose to stay in pain.
- Mm-hmm. - It's deserve some discernment. - Sure, so suffering and pain
is not a choice all the time. - Oh, no, I think suffering
and pain are a part of life. - Yeah. - There's three things that
religion has dealt with forever. What is not explainable, why do we suffer and why is there evil. And those three things have been the purview of where religion from an anthropological
point of view really entered. And because of secularization, other people have entered
to take the space. People explain to you
what is ununderstandable. - Mm-hmm. - People are trying to help
you with your suffering, and experts, gurus, teachers, speakers, and all of that are trying to help you with why do bad things
happen to good people. - Mm-hmm. What is the answer to that? - There is no answer to that. (laughs) Otherwise, we wouldn't have had religion from the beginning of time.
- Right. - These are not things that are answered, these are things that, these are questions existential conundrums that we learn to live with. Nobody has ever had an answer. There's so many religions not a single one has been able to answer. They give you a way to live with it. - Right.
- They never tell you, you're not gonna suffer. They tell you what you can
do with your suffering. - Right. Have faith. - Have faith, go pray, go do rosaries, go do good things, help other
people, change your story, there's lots of ways today that
we're dealing with suffering but nobody has ever said
you're not gonna suffer. - So we're always gonna suffer? - There is always gonna be
suffering as part of life. - One a scale--
- You're gonna deal with loss. - Mm-hmm. - You're gonna deal with thwarted hopes, you're gonna deal with disappointments, with heartbreak, with death. I mean those things... Nobody is gonna tell you that there will never be loss and loss is probably one of the most important sources of suffering. - Do you feel like with
your experience and wisdom, that suffering gets
easier for you over time, since you know what's gonna happen? You know you're gonna
lose a friend, a pet, a sibling, a loved one, you know you're gonna be disappointed, do you have tools for
yourself to suffer less or lesser time amounts? Or is it still a deep sense of pain when things happen
unexpectedly that are hurtful? - I think that you don't suffer less, you suffer differently.
- Okay. - And the most important
thing is if you're not alone. Probably the most difficult
thing in all our experiences and certainly in the experience of pain, or loss, or suffering or ache, is not to be alone.
- Hmm. - So, that somebody else tells you, I too have gone through this.
- Yeah. - That's why we read books that inspire us from other people who have also lost and found their way back
and saw the light again, and recreated new hope and
reconnected with someone and allowed themselves to love again and have another child and
start another business, whatever it is.
- Yeah. - What you go through it, but you have a sense that there is that thing called going through it and that you can come out
of it on the other side. That there is hope, that you're not alone, that there is a day when it
won't hurt and ache as much. That there is a day you
will be able to wake up and you won't be thinking about-- - Obsessing over it.
- Obsessing about it. - When was the last time
you suffered the deepest? - I have to honestly
say it's been a while. I've been in a really
blessed, blessed time. - That's great. It's a while 10 years, three
years, seven years, what's? - Look, I haven't had loss
since my parents died. - Mm-hmm. - I have had periods of high anxiety for things that were
going on, around illness, around things like that. But I have not had a major crisis, luckily in a while, except dealing with the
proximity of illness in my life. Not my own for that matter. - People in your life. - People in my life, people that I really really close to me. So, in that sense, I
have been really blessed. It's an amazing thing
and you know what happens is that when you don't live it, you know it exists, but you forget. It's like if you've had
a wound in your leg, you know where the thing was, but it no longer hurts and you're looking
sometimes with your finger, was it exactly here?
- Right. - Was it exactly there? This is an amazing way in which when we, when we are not in pain, we have the sense of what pain can be, but we can't feel the pain that is not. - Mm-hmm, right. - Unless you are reminded of something and you say, "I remembered
that, I felt that. "I know when, I also had that once." And you can instantly reexperience
the moment of acute pain. But if you don't... If the story is not there, you can say, "Yeah, I
remember, I remember. "I've gone through this, "but you don't feel it in the moment." And I think that form of
resistance, of immunity, I think is an amazing resilient quality that we have actually, that we are able to separate ourselves from something for the time being. But I could get hit any, any minute. We live in such uncertain times, I think that anybody who thinks
that they are immune from it are grandiose.
- I know, I know. You have these two podcasts. Where Should We Begin and How's Work which I haven't
checked out How's Work yet, I'm gonna. But, Where Should We
Begin is transformational. It's saving people relationships, intimate relationships around the world. It's really amazing done. Relationships seem to be, some of the hardest things
for people to figure out. I have my friend Matthew Hussey, who helps women find men and every girl that
seems to be that I know, is always like, Louis, "Can
you help me find a good man?" It seems like women are just trying to find the right partner, find great relationship partners. And then when you're in a relationship, it seems to be like, people are always
struggling in relationships. Whether it be intimate or work related relationships,
business partnerships. Why are relationships seemingly
so hard for so many people, when it's the thing we need the most, to feel alive, to feel
happy and to feel connected? - This is the million
dollar question, you know. I'm a relationship
therapist for 35 plus years. I work with people in their
romantic relationships, family relationships, friendships, co founder, colleagues, coworkers. So, love and work, the
two pillars of our life as Freud said. If I could just see why is
the simple feeling of loving or caring not enough?
- Hmm. - Because the entire human
drama is really complex. The same way as nature is complex, so, is human nature complex. And I spent my whole career studying, what is changing in relationships. Are they more complicated today? Are they more painful today? Have our expectations changed?
- Mm-hmm. - That I have answers to. I don't have answers to why is it so. - Right. Is it more complicated now, relationships, than 50 or 100 years ago?
- Yes, yes, absolutely. - Why is that?
- Why? For a very simple reason, for a long time, we live and we still in many parts of the world, live in traditional societies, where relationships are clearly codified. There are clear rules, there are roles, there are obligations,
there's a tight structure from which you can't get out, but it tells you clearly who you are, where you belong, where you rooted and what's expected of you. And you don't have too
much questions about, whose career matters more and who's gonna wake up to feed the baby, and who has a right to demand for sex. And everybody, every husband knows exactly what they can ask from their wife, and the wife knows exactly what she should not tell her husband and children know their place and adults can all interact. All of this was super regulated. - Mm-hmm. - You know exactly, that on Sunday, you go to visit your family, and that you got to call your grandma, and that nobody--
- You go to church and yeah. - And you go to church or you go to any other
religious institution where you go, to pray, to be
with the community, et cetera. And you know what? Nobody needed to explain
to you why it's important. You just went, because I said so. (laughs) And because that's what you do. That's what we do. And that's what we don't do, because what will the neighbors say? - Hmm. - And there is a community that
looks over you all the time, and the streets are narrow like that, and everybody knows what's going
on in the neighbor's house. Right now, your best
friends could be breaking up and you didn't even see it coming. - Hmm. - Nobody knows what goes
on in the neighbor's house. That's where Where Should We Begin became, I think so powerful. It gives 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 networks societies. Networks societies is not tight knots, it's loose ends.
- Mm-hmm. - It's loose threads, with commitment that can
be revoked at any moment. That's why your women are
constantly writing to you. I thought we had something, and the next day he disappears. I thought we had to
develop the sense of trust. 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. - Hmm.
- A conversation. Who's gonna go to work? Are we're gonna move
you to the west coast, or are you gonna move
with me to the east coast? Are we gonna have children? Are we ready to have children? How many children? Do we even want children? 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... Is this what I really want to do? Is this who I really am? - Is this my passion?
- Is this my passion? 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--
- (laughs) Right. - Eben, you're the son of somebody, it starts with that, then. And you probably will even
do what your father has done. - Mm-hmm. - 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 charting a course of working outside the house. And all of these things
are very, very normative. - Mm-hmm, and now it's different. - We don't have any of
that at this moment. - Yeah. - We act basically, I call
it the identity economy. We spend our time trying
to figure out who am I. - Hmm. - We have an enormous
industry of 'self help.' - Yeah. - With this belief that we are self made, that we can have selfies, that we do self care, it's the self, self, self, that is so focus, such the center of everything and so fragile. The freakin' self has
never been more fragile. (laughs) We are constantly making sure 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 little Dutchman with his finger trying to hold back the dike. - Hmm. - And that is the times I
think we are in at this moment and that's the waters
I think you swimming. - Sure. Well, I think that's where suffering, inner suffering comes from on the surface, is when you obsessively
think about yourself. When 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 yourself.
- Comparing. Now, I don't know that people
didn't compare themselves when they all went 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. 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? - Yeah, yeah. - You asked 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--
- Spiritual. - Meaningful, spiritual--
- Sexual. - Purposeful, erotic, passionate, and we wanted that home
and we wanted it at work. - How do we get it at work too. - Because we want work
to be purposeful today, we want work to give
me a sense of identity, of meaning, of self
fulfillment, of development. I don't just wanna 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 gonna do, it's who am I gonna be? And it parallels. It parallels, what do
we talk about at work? Transparency, belonging, authenticity-- - Mm-hmm.
- 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.
- Mm-hmm, true. - And that's why I
working in the workplace. - Yeah. - It's not because I have changed and I suddenly am interested in work, it's because work has changed and is suddenly interested in what I have been doing for decades. - (chuckles) I love this. I'm gonna ask you a question
that may be hard to answer, maybe it's easy. (Esther chuckles) 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 or not married, put 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. - Mm-hmm. - Your definition of happy
and thriving and fulfilled is probably very different than many other cultures.
- Sure. - Where being healthy--
- Right. (chuckles) - Having enough to eat, having children, having grandchildren, having good jobs, being
respected in the community-- - Is happy and thriving.
- Is happy and thriving. - Mm-hmm. - 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 that's ever happened to you
in your life and all of that. Okay?
- That's one version. - That's one version. You see you've got to
look at the word happiness and thriving, really in
a cross-cultural context. - Okay, I like that. - 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 other definition.
- Mm-hmm. - And I'm wondering, that
maybe we are so unhappy because we want so many other things that are maybe not part of marriage. - Hmm. They set high expectations. - We have super high expectations. I want, we want everything. We want a partner to
be an entire community. My best friend, my trusted confidant, my passionate lover, my
intellectual equal, my co-parents. And on top of it, I want you to deal with all the vicissitudes of everyday life and all of what we need--
- All responsibilities. - All of that. And then we should also be
passionate, great lovers, what fantastic travels--
- Travel the world with you. - Exactly.
(Lewis laughing) - And very few of us--
- Or dating every week, yeah. - So Eli Finkel, has a best
answer for you on that. - Okay. - He's a researcher on marriage, and basically what he says is that the good relationships of today are better than the
relationships of history. - Hmm. - 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. - Hmm. - 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 a
pleasure and connection, so, it becomes a service economy. - Hmm. - It's no longer a production. - Right. - And then from there, you're gonna identity which is what? I want to become the
best version of myself and you're gonna help do so. That's the identity story of marriage. And that goes up the Moslow ladder. Now if I ask the question differently, I actually wanted to
write that very article. - Hmm. - About 10, 15 years ago,
I set out to write a piece, what are creative couples? And do you know, because creative was the
word I was interested in. Not so much happy,
passionate, but creative. Meaning, not stable, not solid, but what is this thing, creativity? The Spark, and I went and
I asked almost 100 people, do you know couples that inspire you? Do you know couples that you
think have that spark, still? And the frightening thing was that the majority of people could
sometimes come up with one, maybe two, and that was it. - Wow. - They knew people who were
very good at renovations and people who were great parents together and people who were a great
business person together, but that whole that you talk
about, there were very few. And I thought that is so sad, because here we are, we want something... I mean, if I say good business partners, or business leaders, you
would give me 10 people, who you think inspire
you to run a company, or authors or musicians or, we all have a long list. Who can say what's your favorite musician? I mean, most of us have more than one. - Hmm. - 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. - Wow. So, how do we create
that intimate partner? Or is it setting a lower
expectation for what we want, so that we don't--
- It's both. I think sometimes if you
lower your expectations, you're much better off, no doubt. Calibrate so, back to
Eli Finkel's research, calibrating expectations is
probably one of the most, the three main things--
- Wow. - 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--
- They're everything. - To give you what the whole village should actually give you. - Okay, that was the first thing, what's the second, you
said they're three things. - 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 doing new things.
- Mm-hmm, with your partner? - 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 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 disregulate. 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 fertilize and you die. - Hmm. - If you change too much, too fast-- - No stability.
- Yes, no stability, you go chaotic and you disregulate. - Right. - 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'd 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 gonna be a long term partner. If you're a female and you're young 30s, what should they be thinking about? Like, should they be
focusing first on themself, growing themself, 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. - So, because you learn to love yourself in the context of your
relationships with others. - Mm-hmm. - 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 is completely off actually. - Wow. - It's interactive. 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.
- Wow! - Read the newsletter, I really
poured myself into that one, because I'm tired a little bit of this, know, 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 the 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, finding the right person. - Mm-hmm. - 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? - Uh, 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 gonna
go through the pains, the sufferings, the challenges, all of that. - So, can you have a life partner and still have a love story?
- Of course, of course. You want the life partner
to be a love story too. But the love stories, per
se and that life stories. - Mm-hmm. - It's different ingredients. It's different values. There's some things that you don't need in order to have a beautiful
love story with someone. It lives in its encapsulated
version on its own. You're not thinking,
can I do this with you? Can I get old with you? Can I take you to my parents? Do we share similar values? It's about values life,
not just about feelings. - Mm-hmm. - So, when you're looking
for the right person, it's not just what attracts you. - Mm-hmm, right. - It's who can you build a life with? - How many values in common do you need to have with
your partner, life partner? Because--
- The important ones. It's not how many but
there are a few of them that are really, that
are really important. - Which ones, would you say? Make a break based on your experience? - I think, I'm not gonna say
them in order of importance, but one of them that really matters is your relationship to others. If you are a person, that
values relationships, that sees the presence of
others in your life as central and you are with somebody
who does not want community or does not know how... I'm talking about what they
would like to learn through you. But their value, you do things alone, you live alone, you rely on yourself, you don't bring people over to the house. I have a couple I just
spoke with yesterday, and he loves to have people over and she just, nobody should
come over to the house. - She wants her space.
- Her space, the whole thing, and I'm thinking, wow,
this is a tough one. It's not just about the house, it's his whole life is
about being with people. And her whole life is about not being with people necessarily. That's not how she experiences it. Now, the question is, is she drawn to more of
what she has to offer? And is he drawn to more of what she... If these are totally
- They go for lot more, yeah. - Then look at different
values come together and they mix and match.
- Yeah. - But if you have these
two separations like that, so that's one. One of the beautiful questions,
I asked in How's Work is, were you raised for autonomy, or were you raised for loyalty? Were you raised for self reliance or were you raised for interdependence? - Hmm. - Which one would you say? - For me, it was like,
self reliance mean what? - Nobody will ever help you as well as you can help yourself, you only have yourself to count on, don't trust people, you're on your own buddy. - Or raised for loyalty of--
- Interdependence, loyalty-- - Family--
- You're never alone, there's people around you, you owe others, others are there for you, relationships is what makes you. - I think I was both, based on like circumstances--
- Correct. The circumstances made you reliable because you were alone with mom, but the messaging was you have me. - Yeah, yeah, of course.
- Okay. - So they're both.
- I think that question, is a fundamentally interesting question. - Wow, okay. - That people can ask themselves, when they partner in business and in love. - Raised for self reliance or loyalty. - Yeah.
- Okay. - Interdependence. Do you see yourself as connected to others and it's your connections that give you a sense of anchoring, meaning, relevance--
- Mm-hmm. - Importance and all of that or do you see yourself as
fundamentally on your own? - That's true. - I think travel, curiosity, you often will have a complementarity between one person who is curious and eager to discover and goes on, and then another person,
your question about-- - He wants to be a loner or doesn't want to travel,
wants to sit at home-- - But she's also likes comfort, likes repetition, likes the familiar-- - Mm-hmm. - I think religious values, if you have a person who
those matter a great deal, children, do you want family
or do you not want family, if you know if you want a family, then make sure that you find
someone who wants a family. What are you gonna do--
- Otherwise, what's the point of being like partners, yeah.
- What are you gonna do, trying to convince some, you know? Now, I don't think you have to have the same values on everything. I think you have to have a
similar outlook on life-- - Which is?
- A vision. Like exactly the same as when
you have a vision, do you? Do you want to own a home?
- Mm-hmm. - Do you think that economic
achievement is important? Do you want to live in an extended family? You think that living intergenerationally, really is important and you
have somebody else who says, "I don't want your parents over." Do you want to live in
more than one place? I think these are essential, money--
- Mm-hmm. - Feelings or emotions, religious beliefs, attitude toward life. It's not a specific value about something, a value is a cluster of things. - Yeah. - It's a cluster of importance
of systems of meanings. That's a value. - You may not find someone with, everything's the same but
somewhat a similar mindset, what you saying, overall feeling. - I met a husband of mine and we withdrew from him
for more than three decades, who had never left US, when I met him.
- Really? - I never knew such a person existed. (laughs) Coming from Europe, there
was an unheard of for us. - You lived in Europe? - No, I lived in the States.
- Oh, you live in the States. - He was American. I came from Europe, Europe you travel--
- Everywhere. - Everywhere, all the time. Even if you have nothing, you work one month, you get the money and then you go to the next country, which is two hours away.
- Yeah. He had never traveled outside the US? - He had never been outside of the US, where he will always to me
been to the Virgin Islands. But, you know, and I thought, oh my god, how does one... Who is such a person, but I knew it was because of
the circumstances of his life, and that if he could, he would and he was intensely curious. If you just said, "Oh,
he's never traveled." Then you misinterpret, you don't want to just
look at the manifest thing, of you know, you want
to say and behind this is there someone who
would actually like that, who just hasn't had the
opportunity and he's curious and just says, "Let's go." So, don't get fooled just by what you see. Find out what is the belief
behind, the aspiration, the longing, the interest, and then you get a sense
of what is the value. - Do you think it's... I wanna go back to expectation, do you feel like we should lower or should diversify expectations or what did you say the word was? - Calibrate.
- Calibrate expectations, or should we be finding someone that can reach that
expectation that we want? - No, I think it's really--
- It's just impossible. - I think you need to calibrate. - Calibrate, always calibrate.
- You calibrate. You constantly will be disappointed. Do you know a single relationship where you haven't been disappointed? - No!
- Okay. I mean, disappointment is
which can lead to suffering is part of a relationship. The minute you have a relationship,
you have an expectation. That expectation means, that you want something,
love closeness, intimacy, partnership, business
affiliation, you name it, creates dependence. The moment you have an
attachment, you have dependence. That dependence means that you have power, or I have power. If I expect something from you, I confer power on you. You have power over me,
I have power over you. By definition, there will be moments when that power doesn't go
in the direction that I want. - I'll be disappointed.
- I'll be disappointed. Is there a single child that didn't have a disappointment
from their parents? It doesn't exist.
- Right. - This idealic thing you're talking about, it doesn't exist. The next thing is What do you
do with that disappointment? A, can I can tell you? I'm really disappointed, you let me down. I thought we were in this
together, I trusted you. And you say, "I see your point.' Or do you say, "What the
hell are you talking about? "You're just inventing this. "You're delusional. "None of this, and everything in between. That's how you do a relationship. It's really based on the repair. It's not based on the-- - It's how we heal the disappointment. - Yes, it's how you
repair all these breaches. Moment by moment. You come back and the repair
is not, "I'm so sorry." The repair may sometimes be, "Hey, do you want a glass of water?" Or, "Hey, did you see this
article in the newspaper?" John Gottman says this very
interesting thing about that. So, the repair is not that you
come and you do a mea culpa, is that you do what he
calls bids for connection. You show the other that they still matter. I brought the newspaper in, at the time when we still had newspapers. - Right, right, right. - I just wanna use this examples. I brought the paper in, like I think of you, I'm pissed at you, you just annoyed me, we just had a spat. But you still--
- I still care about you. - I still care.
- I still value you. - You still in my life.
- I still respect you. So it's how we repair
disappointment on a daily or weekly or monthly basis-- - Minutes sometimes. - Is the success of the relationship. - And that means so how
you come in you say, you take responsibility? Yes.
- That's right. - I think I actually think that taking responsibility
is the ultimate freedom. - Really? - I messed up, I shouldn't
have done this, can I do that? It really is being accountable. - Mm-hmm. What if you it wasn't your fault? - Instead of blaming the other. - What if it actually in that moment, wasn't your fault?
- It doesn't matter. - Just take the ownership.
- You don't have to agree with anything, I didn't mean
to, it wasn't my intention. - Yeah. - We are gonna slip a lot, but it's about just saying it and for that you have to... It's about saying it. And for that you have to be able to see that you're a flawed person--
- Mm-hmm. - Who can be accountable--
- Yeah. - Without that becoming
a major source of shame, and I'm terrible. It's a different thing between saying, I messed up, and I messed up. - I like this distinction. How do we in our mind, because I think in the past relationships, when I've messed up in a small term, right?
- Mm-hmm. - Like a disappointment,
a small disappointment, feeling, saying like, "I'm sorry," or taking responsibility or saying, you know what, that was my fault.
- Mm hmm. Was like a humiliation? - What was more like, look at when I'm like--
- Why should I? - No, it's more like,
here's all the actions, I'm doing right.
- Right. - Today, I've done this--
- Mm-hmm. - Which was an expectation
and I've done that and I took the trash out or whatever. I'm just, and I did something concrete and I wrote a note and I did
this and I took us to dinner. I did all these things well today, but I messed up on this one.
- Mm-hmm. - So, for me, I used
to say to myself, like, "Gosh, but can't you
see the whole picture, "of like all the good things I'm doing? "Well, I don't need to
be an hour conversation "about like, one small thing." That's what I used to feel like. And do you feel like we
should just be saying, "You know what, I'll take
responsibility anyways," for those moments.
- Yes. - Even if you're doing
lots of good things. You know what I mean?
- Yes. - I'm not a perfect human being it's like, I might slip. - The story is told by you.
- Yes. - The other person is the one that needs to take to tell you about all the good
things that you've done. - Uh-huh. - You felt, I do all of
this, I do one thing wrong and now I have to go into the dark pit, but that's because you had a partner, who did not enough to tell you about all the good things you did.
- Right, so this is about me. - If you are in a relationship, you need that other person to acknowledge all of the positive stuff, so that when you have to say
something about the moment that you messed up, you don't feel like, this is an endless chore.
- I think, yeah, exactly. I think it's more like, "Okay, if forget to acknowledge
one thing that I didn't do at least acknowledge something that I did do, right?
- That's it. It's not at least, it's a must. - It's a must.
- It's a must. - It's not bad if I
shouldn't be needing that, or I shouldn't be--
- You should need it. - I should need it, right.
- You shouldn't need it. You totally should need it.
- Got you. Not only acknowledge the bad, also acknowledge the good.
- Not also, it's a must. It's a mandate.
- Mm-hmm. - What happens sometimes in
distressed relationships, because you were in a
distressed relationship at that moment.
- Yeah, yeah, yes. - This is true, you can directly dig
this into the workplace. In a distressed relationship, the tendency is to highlight the negative and disregard the positive. - Right. - The positive is just a given. The negative we'll make
a big deal out of it. So, the one thing you didn't do, becomes the whole conversation. And then what does that person do? Of course, that person says but you disregard all the other stuff. - Yeah.
- And rightly so, because it has been disregarded. In a distressed relationship, the positive, if we there on time, it's because there was no traffic and if we get there late,
it's because of you. The good is chance, the bad is attributed to you. Or in a different version of that, is what we call negative
attribution error. If I am in a bad mood, it's because I had a bad day. But if you're in a bad mood, it's because you're a nasty person who is always so cantankerous.
- Right. - Mine is circumstantial,
yours is characterological. So when you'd say, I
was in a relationship, in which when I did one thing bad, it was so overblown, and I felt like everything
else was being disregarded, that's a sign of a
distressed relationship, - Mm-hmm.
- In and of itself. - Interesting. - The fact that, because in a normal relationship, somebody else says thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Then you finally don't do something says, "Ugh, really messed up there, "I forgot sorry."
- Right. - It's not such a big deal.
- Okay. - Because you are seen
for the whole person. If you have to make a speech about You should see the whole person, you're not in a good relationship. - Ah, there you go, okay. - The dynamic in your relationship, is not good one.
- It's not working. - No, that in itself is
a sign of a bad dynamic. - Got you, got you. - You shouldn't have to say.
- So, I wasn't crazy. Okay.
- No! - Okay, gotcha.
- No! (laughs) And the interesting thing about this, is how much it applies at home and the same thing happens at work. - And at work. So, is it a mandate to acknowledge team members at work as well? In the good and not just a negative? - I absolutely think so.
- Yeah. - But I am not the best at it myself. - Right.
(both laugh) So, you don't acknowledge
the team that does the best? - I do, I do.
- It's hard though, caus when you are running the show, we see a lot of things that
are slipping through, right? - Yeah. It's like my tendencies is to-- - And it's different
because in a relationship, you're not, it's not a paycheck, right? It's like, maybe there is, but it's different in terms of
like an intimate relationship versus your working relationship. - How much has your team taught you? Because look, you are probably like me, we wouldn't be sitting here on some level, if we were not actually
more self critical people. - Of course. - And very demanding of ourselves. - Of course. - And hence, we surround ourselves by people who we think we can
be demanding from as well. - Mm-hmm.
- And that is true. But, it is also important that we learn to be sometimes
a little kinder with ourselves and not just highlight the negative-- - I know. - While at the same time
asking the girlfriend to not be like that, even
though you are doing it with yourself--
- Sure, sure. - And to also do it with our team. - Yeah. - I don't think you can go wrong, if it's not just kind of fluff. - Yeah. - I think that acknowledging,
the efforts of people is a good thing to learn, and my team teaches me that.
- It teach me a lot too, yeah. I've grown so much in the
last seven, eight years of launching this my business just by seeing how much you know my words and my energy could affect someone if, only focusing on like
what they messed up on. - [Esther] Mm-hmm. - So, we do acknowledgement all the time, every meeting, it's like we try
to acknowledge a team member and enough people all the time because I've learned over the years, it's just like, it's not good
just to focus on the negative and what's not working, even if you're the boss, and even if you're paying
everyone or whatever. - And have you ever connected
that to the fact that your focus was on self reliance? See, they come together. Self autonomous people, people who were raised for
autonomy, need to learn, what you're describing,
to give those comment, to see what other people are doing. They need to learn not
to just look like this. - Mm-hmm, yeah, it's true. Now in How's Work, I'm
excited to dive in on this. I had a business partnership
before the School of Greatness about eight years ago, that we started a company together, I guess 11 years ago,
we started a company, we ran this for like three years. - [Esther] Mm-hmm. - The company took off and started to be very
successful financially, started making millions
of dollars in sales a year with a very small team,
was essentially just us and we outsourced a few things. They did very well, until the dynamics of the
relationship started to change. We had both had nothing starting out. And then we grew and we
started to get some success and financial stability, things like that. And things started to shift where, we didn't have our values aligned, we didn't have our, I guess
our work ethic aligned and we didn't communicate--
- Be specific. - We didn't communicate
about expectations. We went into it quickly
into a business partnership. - Were you friends before? - We were friends, maybe
for like six months. Like we just met, we were
in a co working space, I was working on something, similar to what he was working on. We were just talking and hanging out, helping each other giving advice and then we worked on a project together. - "Hey, we should do--"
- Let's try this thing. It did well, let's do
this again next week. Let's keep doing, we're making money. let's grow this, okay, now
let's build a business together. So there is not a level of
communication beforehand or agreement on, okay, if in
five years you wanna leave, what's the expectation of I want to leave, we didn't have that. So, I take full
responsibility with both of us not clearly communicating expectations. And so anyways, after a few years, I start to get a lot of resentment, because I had an expectation that this person will be
working as hard as me. I'm up till 2 am every night, he has kids and a wife, I don't have that. So, I can work all day, all night. And I'm thinking, let's grow this thing. Let's build this thing. And I didn't communicate, so
I take full responsibility. So after a while, I
remember saying to myself, "Why am I giving up 50% of this, "when I'm doing 90% of the
sales generating efforts "that are bringing in the revenue?" Right? And I even had him, I was like, a lot of our stuff was based on sales from live webinars, and I was the guy who was
doing the live webinars. So, I even said like, "Hey, why don't you try to
do this webinar on your own "and see if you generate some sales." And there was zero sales when he did it. So I think he realized, okay, like, in order to generate income, he needed someone to sell for him. And where I was, I was thinking like, okay, I could probably pay
someone five grand a month to do all the responsibilities with him, but he's generating a lot more than that. And so there was a level of resentment, where I just didn't
communicate, I just got angry, and was resentful.
- And when you get angry, what do you do? - I would be reactive, I'd be dismissive, I would be distant, I would
focus on my own stuff. And I started thinking of
like, how do I get out of this? Right? How do I get out of this? I was also very immature,
didn't know like, didn't really know myself, didn't heal my trauma from the past, I didn't do all these things before this. And I remember, like, going through a lot of
internal pain and suffering because of this my lack
of emotional courage to have hard conversations.
- Was he acknowledging, the fact that, did you have
a shared sense of reality? Did you agree with what you see?
- No, no, no. - So that's the first-- - I think until he tried like to do a webinar himself to sell when we didn't make any money on it, I think he was like a first wake up call, like, "Oh, I guess I do
need Lewis, in a sense." Like we needed each other. And to a point where I was like, I could just pay someone to do your job. But we'd started this together. So it was just like trying to figure, it was just messy.
- And then? - I remember like, we're in the middle of Times Square one day, arguing and a friend of ours was
there, a mutual friend and we were arguing and
he just got really heated and I wanted to, like, literally fight him in
the middle of Times Square 'cause I was like, "You're not holding your weight, "I'm doing great" It's just like an argument. We're both arguing our case, right? And I was just like, "This is not working, "and it's not gonna work.' I ended up selling the company to him. I remember I ended up started going through emotional intelligence work and starting to healing
trauma in the past, and I approached him and I said, "Even though I have this--
- What was the piece, that you needed to address from the past that was gonna help you with this? - What wasn't the piece
I needed to address? I think it was a sexual abuse
and the trauma that I faced and a lot of like feeling abused and taken advantage of my entire life, feeling like people are out to get me or fairness of like, what's fair, what should we both have? What should we both
good give type of thing. So, I think once I started to do a lot of that work on myself, and heal from past
hurts from other people, where I felt taken advantage of, I remember coming to him and emailing him and saying, "Hey, I wanna meet you in person." And literally, the first
thing I said was, like, 10 minutes of acknowledging
him, and gratitude for him. - I wouldn't have
started this without you. - I was just like, there's no way, we'd be here right now without you. I'm so grateful. Even if there was like
things I wasn't happy with, I was just like, here all the things I'm
really grateful about him. And I think he was in shock, because for six, seven months prior, it was a lot of stress for both of us, a lot of resentment, both sides. But that mindset and attitude was able to get us to a place to find a deal where I
sold the company to him. Whereas if I didn't come to him from that place of gratitude, I probably wouldn't have
been able to sell to him. And there were other challenges
since I exited that we had, but I remember I needed to
come from a place of gratitude. I needed to come from a
place of calm and peace in order to make some resolution happen. And you have a show, I know we were actually
over my time right now, don't wanna be disrespectful, but your show How's Work,
deals with a lot of people who are in partnerships and business that like go through different
challenges in business, right? - So, your story could be
an episode on How's Work. (laughing)
- Okay. - Complete.
- Right. - Your story says, in order for me to deal
with my co founder, I needed to deal with the
other part of my resume, my relationship history--
- My past. - My past, the past that I had
felt that people had used me, the way that I felt that
I've always had to do more, the way that I felt that
even when I did more, they still thought that
they did the more than me, the way that I didn't
know effect took them on that they wouldn't hurt me more. - Right. - And so, my invisible history that is right there as I'm
working with my co founder-- - That he didn't know about.
- That he did not know about, that's an episode of How's Work. That's what we address. I deal with co... It's where should we begin for
anybody who's ever had a job. It's co founders, colleagues,
co workers, family business. 65% of of startups will fail like yours because of the relationship
between the co founders. - Wow!
- Just so you know. - They fail because of the relationship. - Because the relationship--
- Not just the economy? - No, no, that's an enormous
amount of good ideas that fall apart because they relate... That's Howard Muscleman at Harvard, that's not my statistic here. And, what you did is you first of all went and you realized I am bringing stuff here that I need to acknowledge. Then you went to him, you
didn't just do gratitude, you actually did basic reality testing. It is true that without him--
- There's no way! - You may not know when where you were or where you started and all of that. - Absolutely. - It was also true, that
at a certain moment, you no longer wanted to continue, being with him.
- Right. - It's the ability to not
have to deprive the other of anything they've
done, in order to justify and to just say, "I know
you've done all of this." 'Cause when you come to me, and you first acknowledge my contribution, I'm not under defensive.
- Yeah. - Then you can come and say, "I would like to sell you the company." - Right. - Because if you came and you talked about everything you do, I would answer to you
with everything I've done, and everybody's holding their cards. But if you come and you
tell me what I have done, then I don't have to go into that script and I can actually
choose a different path. - Yeah. - I don't have to do to
hold on my credentials and remind you what I have done here. But this thing about two
people who start together and one starts to do more, and feels that they are
putting in all the effort and they're the degenerating one and then the other one is
still trying to tell them, "No, no, no, we are equal," and they feel like we are not
equal anymore and it's unfair. And then it taps into and I know that feeling, used
feeling, I've been there, and ugh, one...
- Yeah. - And now you have this past and the present sitting on each other, the personal and the professional, the invisible resume with
the reality of the workplace. I wish you'd come with
your partner (laughs) to an episode, (Lewis laughs) but I invite anybody else
in a similar situation, to come and do an episode of How's Work. - Okay. - That is, it's riveting.
- Wow. - It's riveting, because you tell it now, and I listened to it like that because you made the connections. - Yeah. - But the episode is often the opportunity for people to make the
connections for the first time. - Before you let them out. - No, with me in the session, it's a three hour session,
that then gets edited. But it's a three hour
session with the colleagues and the co founders,
going exactly into that. - Wow. - I have two firefighter pilots. They were in Iraq and
Afghanistan together, and they then create a company. The company is very successful, and then at one point
one of them wants to go and do something that the
other one doesn't want to do. And their whole question
is, were we successful, because we had a great idea? Are we successful because
we had each other? I have two Brits who are
college friends like you, who say, "Let's do this thing." They start with an idea and it becomes this lucrative successful
communications company, but they can't talk to
each other one word. (laughs) And they realize it in this session. So, you're telling me
the story after the fact, how his work is the actual
unearthing of this very dynamic-- - I'm excited to listen, where should we begin, it's amazing. So, I'm excited to listen to this as well. So, anyone who's got a job or entrepreneur or got a co founder with you, go listen to that right now. They're both on Spotify, right? - On Spotify, and anywhere else--
- Apples, Spotify. - Where you listen to your podcast. - Okay. This is a question I've asked you before, I think the last time it came on, but I want to ask you again
to see if it's different. I'm gonna go back and check them. This is called the three truths. So, imagine it's your
last day on this earth, and you have to say goodbye, and your body dies and you
go on to the next place, wherever that is. And it could be any year, anytime, hundreds of years from now,
but eventually you got to go. And you've accomplished
every dream you can imagine, you've you know, healed
millions of relationships, you've written the books,
you've done the speeches, anything you want to do you've created. But it's all got to go with you, all of your work, all of your message. But you get to leave behind to the world, three things you know to be true from all of your work
and life experiences. Three lessons that you would share with the world to live by. What would you say are your three truths? - The quality of your relationships determines the quality of your life. - Mm-hmm. Okay. - Hence, make sure that
you have a rich life and invest in your relationships. Nobody's ever died hoping
they had worked more. - Yeah. - And then the next one is make it so that when people remember you, they smile. - Hmm. That's a good one. Never heard that one. - That they were touched by you in a way that really left them
with something to cherish. - Hmm. - I see so many people in
my office as a therapist, who are left with things
that people left them with that are bitter, cruel, hurtful. And they just think I want to
be remembered with a smile. - Wow, that's a good one. - As somebody, it was great to know her, to meet her, to have her in my life, as my mother, as my wife,
as my friend, as my boss. - Hmm. - If you have that, then you continue to
live inside the hearts and minds of others in a way that-- - You leave a positive impact
for many years to come. - Yeah.
- That's beautiful. Okay, and the third one. - Oh, I thought this one already three. - The first one is the quality of life. - Determine the quality-- - Acquire the quality for your life, yeah. - [Esther] The second one
would have been therefore, you invest in your relationships. - Okay. - Nobody has ever really seriously, people on every deathbed,
people will talk about how they wish they had spend more
time with their loved ones. - Mm-hmm. - I actually have to say I
don't think I will say that because I'm doing it.
- Mm-hmm. - If it was the third one, I think it would be something inspired by what you probably would think. If you have a dream
that has accompanied you your whole life, go ahead and try it, if it's doable.
- Mm-hmm. - It would be the pity
that you would spend... I mean there's certain things you wont to, I will never be a pilot,
you know that kind, but there's certain things that you know, you wanna try one day. Just go ahead and do it, what do you stand to lose on some of these things? And I think that's a piece that I take from your work is that that notion of... You have so many ways that
you can explain why you don't, go ahead and dare. Dare yourself on some things. You wanna play that freakin'
piano, go get yourself a music, whatever it is, dare. And I like that take from you. - That's great, thank you. I want to acknowledge Esther,
for constantly showing up, you brings so much
healing to so many people and clarity and inspiration. Every time you speak, I swear
it's like soundbites of like clarity and inspiration, to how to live a better life
and have better relationships. So, I'm so grateful for you,
I acknowledge you for this. Where Should We Begin is amazing for anyone in intimate
relationship you have to go watch or listen to it. - Season Four coming out soon. - The first two I listened
to her unbelievable, I've been listening in the car-- - And then you have to
listen to four when it comes, three is incredible,
but four is even better. (laughs) That's what I can tell you. - How's Work, I'm excited to dive into, you can listen both on Apple or Spotify or anywhere podcasts are.
- Anywhere, yep. - Where else can we
support you or follow you? - Well, I told you about
the newsletter and the blog, I really write, people want... They don't always want to write another book--
- where do we get that? - On my website. On social, on all channels--
- Esther Perel.com. - Esther Perel.com.
- Okay. - And it's monthly, it's really what we are talking about, but in on a deeper level, so that I can't always do another, book. Of course there's the books, Mating in Captivity and
the State of Affairs. There's two other things, if you're a coach or a therapist, this is my training platform, which is called Sessions
with Esther Perel, where I like you bring some of the people that I learned from the most, in the field of relationships.
- Yeah. - And then if you're a couple, and you feel like your
sexuality has sagged and you wanna interact, Rekindling Desire is the place to go. It's also on the website, and it's the course that you
take to kind of reconnect with your erotic self.
- Hmm, that's dope. Appreciate you, you're the best. - Thank you. Pleasure to be back, I'll come again.
- Thanks a lot. Lets do it, let's do it. I love it.
