Episode Transcript
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0:00
By the way, in case you haven't heard, my brand
0:02
new book, Feel Good Productivity is now out. It is
0:04
available everywhere books are sold. And it's actually hit the
0:06
New York Times and also the Sunday Times bestseller list.
0:08
So thank you to everyone who's already got a copy
0:11
of the book. If you've read the book already, I
0:13
would love a review on Amazon. And if you haven't
0:15
yet checked it out, you may like to check it
0:17
out. It's available in physical format and also ebook and
0:19
also audio book everywhere books are sold. Hey
0:22
friends, and welcome back to Deep Dive, the podcast
0:24
where it's my immense pleasure to sit down with
0:26
academics and authors and creators and other inspiring people.
0:29
And we find out how they go to where they are and what we can learn
0:31
from them to help build a life that we love. What
0:33
you're about to hear is an interview between
0:35
me and Matthew Hussey. Matthew Hussey has got
0:37
a new book coming out called Love Life.
0:40
He is an absolutely enormously followed person
0:42
on the internet and on his podcasts
0:45
and on his first book, Get the
0:47
Girl, giving relationship advice,
0:49
mostly aimed at women. But his new book,
0:51
Love Life is aimed at everyone, not just
0:54
women. So this conversation
0:56
is mostly about relationships and how
0:58
to find and retain
1:00
love in a healthy fashion in the context
1:02
of a healthy relationship. This
1:05
was a super interesting conversation for me because we
1:07
start off talking about some stuff around like masculine
1:09
feminine energy and like kind of our
1:12
men and women looking for different things in that
1:14
kind of sense. But then after a little bit
1:16
of time, the conversation transitions into me basically
1:19
turning into a bit of a therapy session
1:21
and asking Matthew for advice about my own
1:23
love life. And man, the stuff
1:25
that Matthew shares is just absolutely incredible. And
1:28
if you are in a relationship or have ever been
1:30
in a relationship, I think you're gonna get a lot
1:32
of value from this episode. So
1:35
I hope you enjoy this conversation between me and
1:37
Matthew Hussey. All righty, Matthew,
1:39
welcome to the podcast. How are you doing?
1:41
Yeah, I'm good, man, I'm good. It's good
1:43
to see you. Thanks for having me. I'm
1:45
on a crazy three month, just
1:47
running around everywhere right now. So it's
1:49
actually nice to have an hour with
1:51
a friend. Yeah,
1:53
just kidding. So you
1:56
have a funky new book, great title by
1:58
the way, Love Life. What a title. How
2:00
is that taken by the way? I
2:03
know. I know. Every time I see really
2:06
good titles, I'm so jealous. I'm like, oh, shit. I
2:08
wish I'd written a book called Love Life. What
2:12
is the book about? The book is
2:14
designed to be a co-pilot for anybody
2:16
who is looking for love. You
2:19
know, the subtitle is how
2:22
to raise your standards, find your person
2:25
and live happily, no matter
2:27
what. And
2:29
it's been a real labour of love
2:31
for me because I started this 17
2:33
years ago, working with people in their
2:35
love lives. And so much has changed
2:37
in the way I think about this.
2:39
So much has changed in
2:42
the way, in some of the things that
2:44
I'm seeing out there with people trying to
2:46
find love. The work has gotten a lot
2:48
deeper. And
2:50
I got to the point where I went, why is it
2:52
so many of us are still struggling? Either
2:55
to find opportunities in love or
2:58
to find happiness in love
3:00
because opportunities and happiness are
3:03
not the same thing. And I know for a
3:05
while, even past the point where I'd learned how
3:07
to create opportunities in my love life, I
3:10
still struggled to find what
3:12
I felt was my person. Like I struggled
3:15
to find the kind of love that I
3:18
thought I wanted or needed. I
3:22
felt continuously not at peace
3:25
in my own love life. And I know
3:27
so many people felt the same. They either
3:29
felt they were chasing someone who was exciting
3:32
but made them miserable because
3:35
of how elusive they were, or
3:38
they were settling for someone who made
3:40
them feel safe, but they
3:43
found themselves continuously doubting
3:45
was the right person for them. And
3:49
just going through that cycle over and
3:51
over again. And
3:54
I felt like, you know what there
3:56
needs to be a book out there
3:58
that acknowledges these
4:01
struggles in a very real way
4:03
and in a very nuanced way
4:06
and is that copilot for
4:08
anybody at any stage of
4:10
life that is looking
4:12
for love even if
4:14
they are absolutely frustrated
4:17
exhausted and burned out from
4:19
the process of dating. Nice
4:23
okay so I
4:25
have lots of questions on this. Firstly
4:28
and it might be controversial but to what extent
4:31
assuming heterosexual relationships and cisgendered
4:34
people to what extent do
4:37
men and women have similar
4:39
or different struggles when it comes
4:41
to finding love? There
4:45
are things that I
4:47
hear more from women than
4:49
I do from men so
4:53
and this isn't necessarily just true
4:55
of women but I think
4:57
I hear it a lot more from women is I'm
5:02
you know why is it men don't want to commit and
5:09
I think that there are some typically
5:12
male challenges
5:16
I suppose with settling
5:19
down whether they're societal or genetic
5:21
or whatever that's almost beyond my
5:23
pay grade but it is it
5:26
is true that women seem
5:29
to suffer more with men who don't
5:31
want to commit than men suffer with
5:33
women who don't want to commit. So
5:37
I would say that's probably
5:39
a big one. I think
5:42
there are some interesting dynamics
5:44
right now between
5:48
men trying to figure out where
5:50
their power comes from and
5:55
facing women who you know
5:58
a lot of men were raised to believe that their
6:01
tools for impressing
6:03
someone were status and
6:06
money and power. Certainly
6:09
as a guy those feel like the
6:11
tools we can control, right? We may
6:13
not be able to choose how tall
6:15
we are or you know the bone
6:18
structure we have but we
6:21
can make ourselves more successful and
6:23
we can earn more money and we
6:26
can get more status and
6:28
I think that men are increasingly
6:30
coming up against women who already
6:32
have those things and at the
6:36
very least aren't
6:38
as easily impressed by those
6:40
things in men or like
6:43
I'm at that same level as you or
6:45
I'm you know higher on the food chain
6:47
in that way than you. So I think
6:50
men are suffering
6:52
a little bit today from trying
6:55
to figure out where does my power come
6:57
from, where does my
6:59
worthiness come from because
7:02
the old tools aren't
7:04
working the way they used to, it's not enough you
7:06
know there was a time where as a man you
7:08
know slapping
7:12
you know
7:14
money on the table for the night
7:16
dinner was enough
7:18
you know that was like decades ago that
7:21
was like that was what you were supposed
7:23
to do is provide and you
7:26
know bonus points if you're not
7:28
physically abusive. There
7:32
was a time when like that was like
7:35
the expectation and the
7:37
expectation has
7:40
got thank God significantly
7:43
higher for men
7:46
and I think a lot of men are
7:48
trying to figure out now they're
7:51
either having to find someone who
7:53
doesn't intimidate them
7:57
so let me try and find someone who's not
7:59
got as much going on as I
8:01
have or someone who's you know
8:03
needs me in all of those ways or they're
8:06
having to reevaluate where
8:08
their source of confidence comes from. I think
8:11
on the other side of the equation there's
8:13
something interesting going on with women where it's
8:15
like a lot of I
8:19
think a lot of women are going
8:21
to face and already are facing a
8:23
reevaluation of what's of
8:26
what they consider indicators of
8:28
a great
8:31
partner because if
8:34
you're in a strong position in your own life,
8:37
if you've got to a certain
8:39
place in your career and
8:42
your financial independence, then
8:46
I've always felt well that
8:48
gives you more choice, that
8:50
gives you the ability to
8:52
really pick who you want to pick. You
8:54
really can choose for love, you really can
8:57
choose for who has the
8:59
greatest qualities,
9:01
who has the most character,
9:04
who brings you the
9:06
most as a partner as
9:09
opposed to feeling like the more I go
9:11
up the food chain the less options I
9:13
have because I'm
9:15
still looking for someone who's at
9:17
my level and there's
9:20
less and less guys at my level.
9:24
I think that's a that's
9:26
a scarce way
9:28
of looking at it and I
9:31
think that depletes your options. But
9:33
I think it is
9:35
important for women to reevaluate what's really
9:37
important to me in a partner and
9:39
is it all of these, well at
9:42
the very least, is it some of
9:44
these things that I've told myself are
9:46
important in the past that
9:48
are actually not nearly as important as I
9:51
thought they were especially now that I've got
9:53
to this position for myself. So
9:55
I hope all that makes sense, I'm happy
9:57
to dive in. Again it's just a And
10:00
this is empirical for me because I'm
10:02
seeing what's going on out there. Um,
10:05
I'm not a data scientist in these
10:07
areas. I'm not someone who is
10:09
studying evolutionary biology, but
10:12
watching the actual patterns empirically of what's
10:14
going on for people in their love
10:16
lives. These are very real things that
10:18
I think people are coming up against. Okay.
10:21
Nice. So, um,
10:24
you know, I listened to, uh, the
10:26
modern wisdom podcast from my friend, Chris Williamson from time
10:28
to time, and he always has
10:30
these psychologists or evolutionary psychology type people
10:33
on, uh, talking about
10:35
the mating crisis, talking about this exact point. So
10:37
if we take this point of a woman who
10:39
is super successful, what
10:41
these guests and supposed experts on this podcast
10:43
would say is that that,
10:45
you know, because of hypogamy where women
10:48
want to date and marry upwards rather
10:50
than downwards. It
10:52
is just a fact, unfortunately, biologically or
10:54
psychobiologically, where wired women are wired in
10:57
a way as such
10:59
that they will not be interested in someone who
11:01
has lower status than them. They want someone on
11:03
a higher level. And it sounds
11:05
like what you're suggesting is that they
11:08
should reevaluate that perhaps the evolutionary psychologist
11:10
bros might say, yeah, but in the same
11:12
way that a guy can't choose to be attracted to
11:14
a woman. He's not attracted to a woman, a woman
11:17
cannot choose to be attracted to a man that she
11:19
doesn't view as above the level. To
11:21
what extent would you, would you agree with that? I think
11:23
that a lot of these people
11:25
have a very selective focus. I
11:28
don't doubt that they can find data
11:30
and a huge amounts
11:32
of data for, to support their arguments.
11:34
And I don't doubt that there's
11:38
an enormous amount
11:40
of truth in some of what they're saying. I
11:42
don't, you know, I don't think
11:44
it's either or.
11:47
I think that if you, if
11:49
I look around in my life, I
11:53
have, I'm not sure of
11:55
examples of women
11:58
who have chosen. men who
12:01
are not in the same position as they
12:03
are, they are the person
12:05
earning more, the woman is the person earning
12:07
more money in the relationship, the woman is
12:10
higher up the food chain and
12:14
she's not in an unhappy relationship going when
12:16
can I get rid of this
12:18
loser and go and find someone who's on
12:20
my level. She's found
12:22
an incredible partner that she's
12:25
incredibly happy with and
12:27
her career is its
12:30
own thing outside of that. Not
12:33
to mention if I look on
12:36
the male side of that equation,
12:39
the men that I know in those relationships
12:41
and granted I'm talking about the successful ones,
12:43
I have no doubt that I could find
12:45
unsuccessful versions of this too in my life
12:48
but the guy in that
12:50
relationship is also
12:52
not saying God I feel like
12:56
I hate myself because she earns more money
12:58
than me and she's in a
13:00
more high flying career than I
13:02
am and what I do is
13:04
more subtle or more modest. Some
13:07
of those men are the most
13:11
confident men I know and
13:14
I don't look at them from
13:16
a distance and go God they wish they
13:20
were more alpha. They
13:22
strike me as just incredibly secure
13:24
men who have
13:27
found their peace within a relationship where
13:29
those men are not going I have
13:31
no significance because she earns more money
13:33
than me. They're saying my
13:35
significance didn't come from that in the
13:37
first place. So I know
13:42
those relationships exist and I
13:45
think it is entirely possible to
13:48
look at ourselves and go where does
13:51
my happiness come from?
13:53
Maybe society has steered me this way
13:55
or maybe even to some extent nature
13:57
has steered me in a certain way.
14:00
and direction, but there's
14:02
plenty of things in life that, you
14:04
know, nature has steered us towards over time that
14:07
we no longer do. And we
14:09
make more conscious decisions
14:12
and more intent we, we human
14:14
beings have the benefit of intent,
14:16
we can put intent behind
14:18
things and we can, I believe, we have
14:20
a great degree to which
14:22
we can choose what
14:24
we value. We can even
14:27
train ourselves to value new
14:30
things. I mean, I was a, there
14:32
was a stage in my life where I didn't
14:34
date in a healthy way. Like, I
14:37
would say my nature, my
14:39
instinct guided me towards
14:42
things that just felt good or things
14:44
that felt like a buzz or a
14:46
high, I think there was an addictive
14:49
quality to the way that I dated,
14:51
which I look back on with some
14:53
regret. And
14:55
the, the, the way that ways
14:58
I hurt other people ways that I hurt
15:00
myself in that process, I don't
15:02
look back on that with a huge degree
15:04
of pride. I go, Oh,
15:06
that was where I was then that was
15:08
my degree of evolution. Then I had
15:11
a lot to learn. I didn't have the
15:13
tools to fight. I didn't
15:15
know how to make myself happy. In
15:18
my love life, I just was this
15:20
like ball of reactivity. And
15:22
at a certain point in my love
15:24
life, I started to value peace. I started
15:27
to go, I really want peace in
15:29
this area of my life. And
15:33
yes, I still want attraction. It's not,
15:35
I'm not giving up on attraction. Yes,
15:37
I still want chemistry and I never
15:39
could have been with a partner
15:41
where I had no chemistry, but peace
15:45
started to become this really
15:47
important overriding thing. Am I
15:50
with someone who I can
15:52
build with? Am I with someone where I
15:55
feel a high degree of peace? Do I
15:57
feel more of myself with this person? And
16:00
those things were not things, if you'd have
16:02
asked me at 25 what I
16:05
was looking for, I wouldn't have said peace. But
16:09
nowadays, that's like the greatest thing in
16:11
the world to me. If you take
16:14
a woman who has come out
16:16
of a 10-year relationship or
16:18
a 10-year marriage or a 30-year marriage
16:20
with a narcissist, the things she's looking
16:23
for at the end of that, when
16:25
she gets to a place where she's healed and
16:28
recovered enough from that relationship to go back out
16:30
there again, the thing
16:32
she's looking for will be different than
16:35
the thing she was once looking for. And I
16:37
guarantee you peace or safety
16:40
will be a lot higher on her list. So
16:42
I do think our values change. I
16:44
do think what we want
16:47
change is. And whether
16:49
you wait for life to do that to you
16:51
because you have to experience enough pain
16:54
in chasing the other that you
16:57
feel like your hand is forced.
16:59
To value something different or
17:01
whether you can see the
17:03
writing on the wall early where you don't
17:05
have to experience all of that pain. And
17:08
you can start to pay attention to where
17:10
your true happiness comes from, where
17:12
your true peace comes from, where true alignment
17:14
comes from for you. I
17:16
think we can actually start to choose what
17:19
to value and those choices change the decisions
17:21
that we would have once made in our
17:23
dating lives. No.
17:25
Okay. This is interesting. So
17:27
as you were talking, it was kind of
17:29
reminding me of the concept of like first
17:31
and second mountains. I remember called Second Mountain
17:34
by David Brooks where he kind of talks
17:36
about how in life there are two mountains.
17:38
The first mountain is the mountain of success
17:40
and achievement and money and freedom. And
17:42
then you get to the top of the
17:44
first mountain and you realize it's kind of a bit hollow.
17:46
Or you get knocked off the first mountain by a health
17:48
scare or someone close to you dying or something like that.
17:51
And then you realize there is the second mountain and that
17:53
is the mountain of commitment, of family,
17:55
of like really dedicating yourself to a particular
17:57
cause. It's not the mountain of life. I
18:00
want to be free to do whatever I want. I actually,
18:03
what I really want is to commit to
18:05
this thing which myself at age 21
18:07
might have thought like, that's
18:09
so boring but actually that's the thing that brings me
18:11
joy. And it sounds like
18:13
there's almost this sort of like two
18:16
phases of how people view
18:18
dating and relationships. Would that be
18:20
fair to say where phase one is maybe, you
18:22
know, call it the party years, call it the
18:25
have sex with as many people as possible years,
18:27
call it the I'm looking for someone really hot
18:29
with like high drama years and maybe like a
18:31
phase two which is more like actually I'm looking
18:33
for peace, contentment, commitment, someone I can build a
18:35
family with, someone I can build a life with.
18:38
Would you say that's a reasonable approximation? Yes,
18:41
well I think that's very good Ali. I think
18:44
that the comparison is really strong and
18:48
some people never get over that first
18:50
mountain by the way. That's
18:53
a scary thing I think for a lot of
18:55
people in their love lives is that, you know,
18:58
they get to their 50s or 60s and they're
19:00
still chasing that first mountain as
19:02
if that's the one that's going to make them
19:04
happy. And I don't come from a place of
19:06
saying that everyone should end up in a place
19:09
where they value marriage above all else. I don't
19:12
have any kind of a gender around what
19:15
mountain people end up deciding
19:17
is important. But it does
19:19
seem to me that we
19:22
are happier at depth
19:26
whatever represents that
19:28
depth for us
19:31
in our life. And
19:33
I think that if
19:35
we can get to that depth and decide what that
19:37
is for us, that will
19:40
be the thing that ends up making us a
19:42
lot happier. And often, you know,
19:45
I think that the same thing you can,
19:47
one thing I've been saying a lot that I talk
19:49
about in this book is
19:53
the difference between what serves your ego
19:55
and what serves your happiness in your
19:57
love life. And I think that there
20:00
is even maybe something analogous with
20:03
the mountain idea of saying the first mountain
20:05
there's a hell of a lot of ego
20:07
in that mountain and the
20:09
second mountain there's a hell of a lot
20:11
more happiness because
20:13
that money, status,
20:15
excitement, opportunity, validation, all of
20:17
that, there's a lot of
20:20
ego behind all of that
20:22
and we tend to get
20:24
to a point where we find that that
20:26
doesn't work nearly as well or as sustainably
20:29
as we hoped it would and
20:31
then the second mountain, in
20:34
some ways it's the opposite of
20:36
ego because the things that
20:39
work for us on the second mountain are
20:41
often a lot more subtle, they
20:43
don't necessarily come with as many
20:45
applause or as
20:48
many cheers from the sidelines or
20:50
they're not always as easy to
20:52
show off. I
20:55
have this challenge in my work today and
20:57
I'm sure you do too in some capacity
20:59
which is there
21:02
was a propensity for me in my 20s
21:04
to want to do the thing that would
21:06
create the most applause and now
21:09
in my late 30s I'm going
21:11
I want to do the thing that
21:13
fulfills me the most and
21:15
makes me the happiest and that's
21:18
often a very different thing
21:21
and I have to be prepared to
21:23
give up the thing
21:25
that gets me the most attention for
21:27
the thing that brings me the most
21:29
joy. The same is true in
21:32
our love lives, when we're looking
21:35
for a partner often
21:38
the things that people do
21:41
to get them attention push
21:43
the real love that they want
21:45
further away. You know you've got
21:48
how many guys message me every
21:50
month that want to
21:52
connect with me or do something with me
21:54
and I look at their profile and
21:56
it's all Ferraris
21:58
and lanes and,
22:02
you know, this insane
22:05
lifestyle that they
22:08
are putting forward as the be all end
22:10
all and it's
22:13
women in thongs sitting
22:15
next to them on a cabana,
22:18
you know, it's like while they're
22:20
drinking a cocktail in Dubai. That's
22:26
not what I value. So it's kind of like I
22:30
struggle with, I'm less likely to
22:33
connect with that person, not because I think they're
22:35
a bad person, but just because I'm like, I
22:38
don't think we have a lot in
22:41
common and people
22:43
do that in their love lives too. It's like I
22:45
have people that men
22:48
that I've worked with who are like, why do women
22:50
always only want me for
22:53
my money or for my, you
22:55
know, what I've achieved in my life? And
22:58
I'm like, well, you
23:00
keep going to five star restaurants for
23:03
a first date. Why do
23:05
you, why don't you stop doing that? Why don't
23:08
you take them to somewhere more normal? And
23:12
I know it's because they feel like
23:15
their greatest weapon is what they've
23:17
achieved, but it's hurting them
23:19
because it's attracting a certain kind of person all the
23:21
time to achieve actual connections, to
23:23
achieve actual love. We sometimes have to
23:25
be prepared to let go of the
23:28
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23:30
know how to get. We
23:32
might get a lot less attention, but what
23:34
we get instead as its replacement is a
23:37
lot more depth. And
23:39
to David Brooks point, raising a
23:42
family or being
23:44
in an amazing relationship, it
23:46
doesn't necessarily get you a lot of applause, but
23:49
it can get you an awful lot of happiness,
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thing I like about your view
27:00
of the world compared to a lot of these like
27:03
evolutionary psychology pros is that I
27:06
think the evolutionary... I mean this is a little bit of
27:08
a mischaracterization on my part but broadly I think
27:10
the evolutionary psychology pros around relationships act
27:13
as if attraction
27:16
is never a choice
27:18
and you have no control, broadly
27:21
no control over who you've fallen off with or
27:23
the kind of relationship you end up in and
27:26
therefore you are almost forced to... I guess
27:29
guys just have to go after the hot girl, I guess
27:31
girls just have to go after the rich guy kind of
27:33
thing and therefore as a girl you've got to be hot
27:35
or you have no chance or as a guy you've got
27:37
to be rich or you have no chance. But
27:40
in much the same way it's like sure
27:42
we might be default wired in that direction
27:44
just like we are default wired to seek
27:46
status and money in our jobs even if
27:48
they're not that fulfilling. Eventually
27:51
people realize that actually chasing
27:53
money and fame and
27:56
shit in my job or in my life is
27:58
not actually the thing that brings me fulfilling. And
28:01
even though it's not
28:03
in line with your potentially your
28:06
innate urge, you can in fact act against your innate
28:08
urge. Will that be a fair summary of your position
28:10
unless that we actually can choose? Yeah,
28:13
absolutely it would. I
28:19
haven't studied the data that some of
28:21
these people have studied or in some
28:23
cases made a living out of that
28:27
enough to know whether the extent to
28:30
which they talk about it is
28:32
true. But even if we just
28:34
take it at face value that
28:37
everything they're saying is
28:39
true on some level, I
28:42
don't find
28:45
it compelling because
28:47
I know that there
28:49
are so many decisions we make all
28:51
day every day that are intentional about
28:53
what takes us towards a better life.
28:56
And I think that's so much of what you've done in your
28:59
most recent book and what
29:02
you talk about is sometimes
29:05
it's actually saying we
29:07
have some bad instincts. Some
29:11
of our instincts make us incredibly unhappy. There's
29:14
a chapter in my new
29:16
book called Question Your Instincts.
29:20
And that
29:22
kind of rails against a lot of common
29:24
advice about trusting your instincts.
29:27
I don't think our instincts are always
29:29
to be trusted. I think that they
29:31
often lead us down bad paths towards
29:33
people who don't treat us well, towards
29:35
lives that make us unhappy. And
29:37
I think our work intersects there, Ali,
29:40
because I think a
29:42
lot of your work is also training people
29:44
out of bad instincts towards instincts that are
29:46
going to lead them to more fulfilling jobs,
29:49
calmer lives, working at
29:51
a sustainable pace, balancing
29:54
their work life with other parts of their
29:56
life that are also important. So yeah. that
30:00
stuff interests me more than the
30:02
kind of very fatalistic, pessimistic view
30:05
of the world that it
30:07
always seems to kind of... I
30:10
find myself suspecting it a lot
30:12
because it always ends up being
30:18
tinged with um, being
30:22
slightly misanthropic. Like
30:25
it really
30:27
doesn't always seem to come from a place of
30:29
liking people very much. It
30:32
always feels to me, maybe I'm wrong, but
30:34
it feels to me like there's an edge
30:36
there where it's like, you
30:38
know, I come
30:40
from a place of really loving people
30:43
and seeing the best in people and
30:45
I just feel like so much of that
30:47
is very surface level and when I get
30:49
under the surface with people I always find
30:52
them much more interesting than those conclusions. Nice.
30:55
Okay, what is
30:58
your view on masculine and feminine energy?
31:01
Is it a thing? Do I have a...
31:03
I always feel
31:05
like I suck in
31:07
these conversations because there
31:10
are people that have thought about it so much and
31:14
I can
31:17
tell you this, in
31:20
my relationship, which is the happiest
31:22
relationship I've ever been in, we
31:24
never talk about masculine feminine energy
31:26
ever. Like it's never a... it's
31:29
just never a thing. Now if I were
31:31
to try and present the biggest counter argument
31:33
to that, it
31:36
would be, yeah, it's never a thing because you
31:38
guys are nailing it. Like
31:41
it's going well, like there's a real femininity
31:43
about Audrey and there's a masculinity that you
31:45
bring to the table, but I also have
31:47
a lot of feminine energy too, so I
31:51
bring that to the table as well and, you
31:53
know, is
31:57
polarity a real thing? Of
31:59
course. Of course it is,
32:01
you know, that there are
32:03
areas where we need,
32:06
like, there are areas where people need
32:08
to feel strong and they need someone to see
32:11
them as strong and to recognize that they're
32:13
strong. I'm not sure that that goes hand
32:15
in hand with that person not being able
32:17
to be strong themselves. I think they
32:20
can still bring that strength to the
32:22
table as long as they
32:24
also are prepared in other moments
32:27
to really recognize and acknowledge and
32:29
celebrate the strength in the other person. So
32:32
I think, I don't
32:34
know that I subscribe to this idea
32:36
that one person has to always be
32:39
feminine and the other person has to
32:41
always be masculine. I think
32:43
that polarity is
32:45
needed but I
32:49
feel like you can
32:51
experience polarity being,
32:54
you can experience reverse
32:56
polarity in different
32:58
days of the relationship depending on who's
33:01
the one who's showing up as a leader that day
33:03
or who's the one who's presenting as strong that
33:08
day, who's the one
33:10
in this conversation that
33:12
is being the strength for the other person.
33:16
And where the masculine feminine arguments turned
33:18
me off a little bit is,
33:22
you know, I was
33:24
part of a conversation, I was
33:26
on Red Table Talk with
33:30
Jada Pinkett Smith and a round table
33:33
of people all talking about
33:35
masculine feminine energy and
33:37
I felt slightly unprepared for
33:40
it because again it's just
33:42
not something I talk about a lot and
33:46
there was one particular argument put
33:48
forward that there has to be
33:50
a decision maker in the
33:53
relationship and no points
33:57
for guessing which gender was...
34:00
Being put forward as the one that needed to
34:02
be the decision maker, but there needed to be
34:04
one ultimate decision maker who
34:06
was the leader of the relationship
34:09
and Ultimately the
34:11
other partner in her
34:13
feminine had to you know
34:16
Defer to that decision ultimately because
34:18
you can't have two ultimate
34:20
decision makers in a relationship and
34:24
I I Have
34:29
been doing this for 17 years and I know where
34:33
that goes in so
34:35
many relationships that that
34:37
that is a mandate for abuse
34:39
in a relationship that
34:41
is a mandate for narcissism in
34:44
a relationship the there
34:46
are so many relationships that are terrible because
34:49
at some point and I'm Some
34:52
point the man decided my
34:54
way is the way and you
34:57
don't get a say or Ultimately,
35:00
I don't need you to weigh in
35:02
on these decisions because I make these
35:04
decisions for our family and because and
35:06
I've seen how bad that gets So
35:09
I can't I
35:12
can't subscribe to such what
35:14
I see as reductive ideas about
35:19
Initiating people in these
35:21
ways and who's responsible for what I?
35:24
think that it's also true
35:26
that people are more complex than I
35:28
I'd like to think I'm
35:30
more complex than You know,
35:33
I do a lot of very stereotypically
35:35
masculine things like I might pass
35:38
my hobby in my spare time is
35:40
Brazilian jiu-jitsu and boxing, you know, like
35:42
I'm not I'm
35:44
someone who and I don't do those
35:46
things because they're manly I do them because I
35:48
really enjoy them But those would
35:51
be typically associated with masculinity But
35:54
I can tell you right now. I there are
35:56
plenty of other areas of my life where I
35:58
don't fit into it a traditionally
36:01
masculine stereotype.
36:05
And it's nice
36:07
for me to be able to play
36:09
in both and for me to have
36:11
a relationship that has the kind of
36:13
ability, the versatility to be able to
36:15
play in both. So,
36:17
and I think vice versa.
36:20
So I just, I struggle, I struggle
36:22
with where the argument goes with these
36:24
things. Do I think polarity is important?
36:27
Yes. But
36:30
I, I think you can have a
36:32
lot of polarity going in both directions in
36:34
the same relationship on different
36:36
days. What we do have to
36:38
ask ourselves, I think is, is
36:43
am I ever, am
36:45
I ever helping to create the
36:47
polarity that
36:50
my partner needs in
36:52
order to feel what they need to feel?
36:56
Often enough, like
36:59
as often as they need to feel it,
37:01
because I don't need to feel
37:03
like a strong man, a hundred
37:05
percent of every day. It doesn't matter to me.
37:08
But sometimes I
37:11
do want Audrey to be feminine and I want
37:14
to be the man and
37:16
I want to feel that polarity.
37:18
Sometimes I want to feel that. And it's
37:20
nice that she knows how to play that
37:22
role and I know how to play that
37:25
role and she enjoys that too. Right. So
37:27
it works for both of us. But my
37:29
God, if our relationship needed to live by
37:31
that lens a hundred percent of the time,
37:34
I, that, that
37:36
would be strange. And I think it wouldn't, it
37:38
would be very reductive for both of us. Okay.
37:43
I really like that take. That's, that's, that's
37:45
very, yeah, it's nice and nuanced and kind
37:47
of speaks to, you know,
37:50
certainly rings true in my experience that yeah,
37:52
polarity is a thing, but it
37:54
doesn't need to be a thing a hundred percent of the time. Like
37:57
happy and for the life. Yeah. I've
37:59
been thinking about something over. last couple of weeks, I would love
38:01
to get your take on. And that
38:03
is the concept of personal
38:06
boundaries within a relationship.
38:10
So for example, let's say I
38:15
want to go on this boys trip
38:17
with my guy friend and
38:20
the wife or my partner does
38:23
not want me to
38:25
go on this boys trip.
38:27
Like clearly
38:31
it's not being in
38:33
a relationship is about compromising some of the
38:36
time and you know understanding why the
38:38
other person feels that way and sometimes going with them.
38:41
But I also get the sense that it's
38:43
not about always going with
38:45
what the other person wants you to do or not
38:47
do not do. So how do you think about this
38:49
balance between personal autonomy, personal
38:51
boundaries, but also compromise and respecting the
38:53
other person's wishes and all of this
38:55
sort of stuff? Yeah, it's so interesting.
38:58
It's such a great question. Because
39:01
we've all seen that
39:03
from the outside as well, where we
39:05
have a friend that can't
39:08
come on the trip.
39:11
Because you know, their partner has
39:15
an issue with the trip, even though you
39:17
know that there's literally not a single thing
39:19
about the trip that should
39:21
raise any alarm bell for
39:24
anyone. And you
39:26
just end up feeling a bit sad for
39:28
your your friend because you go, wow, that's
39:33
you sort of it's sort of sad for
39:35
everybody, because you're like, we've, you
39:38
know, his partner
39:40
must be having a hard
39:42
time about this, which is
39:44
completely unnecessary. And
39:48
now my friend, now I know
39:50
that my friend is in a relationship where
39:52
there's that kind of dynamic, where
39:55
there's something he would I know he would really
39:57
like to do, but he's not essentially
39:59
a little allowed to do because
40:03
it's presenting as
40:05
a challenge for his
40:07
partner, it's always a bit scary
40:09
sometimes to observe those relationships from the
40:11
outside because of course you do, you
40:14
tend to on behalf of your friend extrapolate
40:17
out what their life is going to look
40:19
like based on that and
40:22
I think that's true
40:24
in our own relationships as
40:26
well when we're the one being
40:29
controlling or when we're the one saying
40:32
I don't want you to do this or I you
40:34
know you have to do it like this whatever. There's
40:38
also an extrapolation going on on their
40:40
side, also human
40:43
beings, we struggle, we all have
40:45
our struggles and we all have
40:47
our trauma and our things that
40:50
you know activate that trauma and
40:53
make us afraid and our partner going on
40:55
that trip even though there might be nothing
40:57
untoward about it does
40:59
make us feel something that's very real to
41:02
us and so
41:05
how much do they owe us saying
41:08
you know what I just won't
41:10
do it because it makes you uncomfortable.
41:12
I think sometimes that's
41:14
the right answer, sometimes the
41:16
right answer is it's
41:19
not worth it to
41:21
me to make you uncomfortable you
41:23
know it's a bit like you
41:26
met someone two weeks ago that you
41:30
know for business and that person
41:32
wants to go to lunch with
41:34
you one-on-one and there's something
41:37
about that person that makes your partner
41:39
deeply uncomfortable. You
41:41
know if your partner says I just
41:44
this person makes me uncomfortable, you going
41:46
for lunch one-to-one with them makes me
41:48
feel weird, maybe that's a
41:50
moment where you go okay
41:53
fair enough like it's
41:55
not this isn't the business opportunity
41:57
of my life and It's
42:00
not make or break. And
42:03
I only met this person two weeks ago.
42:05
So frankly, it doesn't
42:07
matter that much. I
42:10
don't need to have lunch with this person. I
42:12
can just say, you know what? You get a
42:14
pass on this one because this person makes you
42:16
uncomfortable and you feeling good
42:18
is much more important to me than
42:20
this lunch with someone I met two
42:23
weeks ago that for me
42:25
was innocent. But if you feel
42:27
uncomfortable, fair enough. Now, if your
42:29
partner does that with the
42:31
next seven business meetings, then
42:35
it's like, okay, we need to talk about
42:37
this because then we
42:39
need to have an, we need to understand
42:41
where this comes from for you and
42:44
what, how we can get you to a
42:46
place of comfort. How do we, can we
42:48
look at this differently together? Is there a
42:50
different way of seeing this whole situation? Can
42:53
we, you know, I want to understand more
42:55
about you and what makes you feel unsafe
42:57
in this situation. You know,
42:59
I think there needs to be more of that
43:01
because if it's like, I think we always have to
43:04
be asking ourselves the question is
43:07
me, is
43:11
me acquiescing to this
43:13
sustainable for
43:16
the relationship? Um,
43:20
you know, if it's not,
43:23
then we need to dig deeper on
43:25
this and it doesn't, I don't think we should
43:27
apply a lens of just, no,
43:29
I'm not going to change that for you. I think
43:31
it's more, let's understand
43:33
our way around this better and where
43:35
it comes from, what
43:38
situations in the past have made
43:40
you feel unsafe or
43:43
have represented not just unsafely, but
43:45
like genuinely hurt you genuinely resulted
43:47
in bad times for you that
43:50
are making you feel unsafe in
43:52
this situation today in a context
43:54
in which I know you are
43:56
a hundred percent safe, but
43:59
it's. making you feel unsafe. Let's
44:02
talk about that. And
44:04
if we do it in therapy, great. If
44:06
we do it outside therapy, great. It doesn't
44:08
matter. But let's figure that out because
44:11
actually those moments
44:14
can be very, what
44:17
would be talked about in therapy as corrective
44:19
experiences. If
44:23
your partner can go on the boys trip that
44:25
would normally have freaked you out and
44:29
you have a very positive experience of that
44:31
with a person who makes you feel very
44:33
safe with a person who
44:35
gives you no reasons not to trust them with
44:37
a person who can check
44:40
in with you or like that can be a
44:42
very corrective experience. And that
44:45
that going towards that
44:47
thing that makes you uncomfortable might actually end
44:49
up being the most healing you can do.
44:51
I know that in
44:53
my relationship today, there are things
44:55
that 100% would
44:58
have made me jealous even five
45:00
years ago. And, and because
45:03
of the relationship I'm in and how safe
45:05
I feel in that relationship, it, it's
45:09
been such a corrective relationship for me
45:11
that I don't, Ali, I
45:13
barely ever get jealous. Like
45:15
I can't remember the last time I got
45:17
jealous and it's not I'm not someone with
45:19
a history of no jealousy. So
45:22
I don't feel jealous today. And that's
45:24
because this relationship has been, has been
45:27
highly corrective for me. And part of
45:29
that has been me feeling really safe.
45:32
So again, that invites another conversation.
45:35
If something about this
45:37
experience is making you feel unsafe, is
45:41
that just to do with this experience?
45:44
In which case, maybe we can address that or
45:46
is it to do with a greater feeling of
45:48
unsafe do you have in this relationship? And
45:51
we're not talking about that. Because maybe
45:53
what you're feeling about this experience is
45:55
that is not about this experience at
45:57
all. Maybe it's pointing to some people.
46:00
something much broader in the landscape
46:02
of this relationship that we
46:04
need to address and
46:07
this is just the inflamed
46:10
representation of that. Oh
46:13
man, it's like
46:16
you read into my heart and mind at the same time as
46:18
since you were giving that up, which is like wow, really
46:22
good. And I give you very little context
46:24
about my situation because you just hit the nail on the head
46:26
in terms of like, that's really good advice. Okay,
46:31
again, purely asking for a friend, but what
46:34
if you're in a situation where your
46:37
partner wants thing X and
46:40
your mom wants thing
46:42
Y and things X and Y
46:44
are somewhat contradictory. How
46:47
does Adeban go about approaching the situation
46:49
in this sense? Well,
46:59
firstly, I think we have to show
47:01
ourselves compassion in that situation because it's
47:06
likely an
47:10
indicator of something that this isn't the first
47:13
time that has caused us pain
47:16
in some way. There's
47:19
probably something long standing there that has
47:21
caused us a lot of pain in
47:24
our lives and we've
47:30
adapted to that. We've
47:33
adapted to needing
47:36
to make various people happy in
47:38
our lives. That is
47:40
not always easy to make happy and
47:43
maybe should never have
47:46
been our job as much as it is to
47:49
appease that person or to make them
47:51
happy with our decisions. And so
47:54
I think it's worth taking a
47:56
moment just to acknowledge ourselves and to
47:58
go, Oh,
48:01
you've probably not had it easy in this
48:03
area, have you? You know, there's been
48:06
a lot of needing
48:08
to live life in such a way as
48:10
where we're managing someone else's feelings a lot
48:12
of the time. And this
48:14
is just another representation of that. I,
48:17
you know, I now have this other
48:19
important person in my life whose
48:23
feelings I'm also worried about and
48:26
I've, you know, gotten as far
48:28
as I have and I've survived by
48:32
managing these feelings around me. And
48:34
so it's probably a gear that
48:37
you're good at going into in
48:39
those situations. It
48:42
is actually really good at taking care of
48:44
people and managing people, but you're
48:46
the one who ends up quite
48:49
unhappy or resentful or burnt out at the end
48:51
of it all. So
48:53
it's worth, firstly,
48:55
that compassion can be really healing because you
48:58
realize like, oh, this is, this is,
49:01
it might be what I'm not getting from anyone else right
49:04
now. It might be the exact
49:06
thing that I need is that acknowledgement. And
49:10
then saying, well, you know, maybe
49:12
this is an opportunity for me to have
49:15
to do, to put
49:20
a boundary in place that
49:22
I actually never did
49:24
before. You know, this, this
49:26
actually might be a moment for me. This
49:28
might be a healing moment for me and
49:30
a moment where I get to, I get
49:35
to make some progress in
49:37
my life because maybe there
49:39
are expectations that I have allowed
49:43
to be set up
49:45
over time that have, I've been
49:47
able to manage so far. I
49:49
mean, it's kind of like, Ali,
49:52
it reminds me of what you do so
49:54
well with people in their careers
49:57
is that you, you're so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so,
49:59
so, so, so good at helping people see
50:01
that there's like an expectation
50:04
maybe you've had of yourself or
50:06
your business or the way you
50:08
work, your capacity for doing
50:10
hard things that works
50:15
until a point, right? You're like
50:17
nearly killing yourself and
50:19
then it takes something bubbling
50:21
over to make
50:24
you realize like the insanity
50:26
of the expectation you've had on yourself
50:28
for so long. That was
50:30
like functional in a time where
50:33
it wasn't, there wasn't like
50:36
one more demand but the moment there was one
50:38
more demand or the moment like someone
50:40
got sick or the moment there was
50:42
a catastrophe you know some other problem
50:45
in your life that demanded that 10%
50:47
of energy that you do
50:49
not have, that was when
50:52
you realized like oh this isn't a problem that
50:54
started with this catastrophe,
50:56
this is a problem that started
50:58
10 years ago that was waiting
51:00
for a catastrophe to bring
51:02
it out and I kind
51:05
of think that it's the same thing
51:07
with what you're talking about in relationships
51:09
is like oh there's probably something here
51:12
that has been demanding an unreasonable amount
51:14
of sacrifice or energy or me managing
51:16
someone else's feelings for a very long
51:19
time and now because there's one more
51:21
person in the mix it's
51:24
hit a kind of breaking point
51:26
so those I
51:29
find those to be really good moments to
51:31
have a conversation with a mother
51:33
and a partner where we say
51:36
to our partner look I
51:39
that they giving them context
51:43
for your life I think is really important
51:45
in those moments like because
51:47
it's very easy just to for it to
51:49
become an ego battle between you
51:53
know your partner and your mum and
51:57
that's the thing it has to be removed
51:59
from because actually
52:01
you and your partner have to be on
52:03
the exact same team. So
52:05
I think that it's almost
52:08
enrolling your partner as part of the team
52:10
in saying, look, this is
52:13
something I've had to manage my whole
52:15
life. And I love
52:18
my mum to pieces and she's like
52:21
an amazing friend to me and she's
52:23
done so much for me. And I
52:26
also acknowledge she comes with her
52:28
challenges. And I
52:30
don't want to gaslight you that
52:33
my mum's an angel and doesn't have any of
52:35
these challenges because that will also then
52:38
your partner will like, they won't listen
52:40
anymore because they're like, don't you
52:42
see this or don't you like what? Surely
52:44
you're seeing this and you're like, no, no,
52:46
no, she's great. How dare you like that?
52:48
That's the quickest way to alienate your partner.
52:51
But if instead it's like, no, no,
52:53
no, I see it. I
52:56
trust me. I see it. In
52:58
fact, more than I see it,
53:02
I've been dealing with it my
53:04
whole life. And I've
53:07
been trying to manage this my whole life. And
53:10
as much as you're exhausted by it in
53:12
the last year, I am
53:17
borderline burned out from it from
53:19
a lifetime. And
53:24
I need you to be a teammate with
53:26
me here because
53:29
I actually need
53:31
love and I need support in
53:33
this because it's really, really hard. And
53:37
I don't maybe demonstrate always how hard
53:39
it is. You know, I
53:41
keep the emotion in because I don't have
53:43
part of this pattern is that
53:46
I've never acknowledged myself and
53:48
my own needs in this
53:51
situation. So an
53:53
extension of that pattern is me also not
53:55
communicating to you how hard this is
53:58
for me. I
54:00
need you on my team, but I also know
54:02
that I need to be on your team as
54:05
well. And I know that part of that is
54:07
me having boundaries that are
54:09
healthy with my
54:11
mom. And for me
54:13
to start to use these experiences
54:15
as an opportunity to maybe have
54:18
some boundaries that I haven't
54:20
had before and to trust
54:23
that my mom's love for me
54:25
runs deeper than my ability to
54:29
please her in this way and to
54:31
make the decision that's going to make her the
54:33
happiest, that she loves me more than that. And
54:36
that if I do make a hard decision
54:38
and I communicate that
54:40
hard decision to my mom in the
54:43
most loving way possible, that even if
54:45
she's hurt in the beginning, actually
54:47
her love for me is going to be the
54:50
thing that supersedes all of that once she's had
54:52
a chance to understand not
54:54
only that, but it
54:57
gives me, and this is the reframe
54:59
for ourselves, it gives me a chance
55:01
to reset a boundary with my mom.
55:05
That's actually going to make both all
55:07
of us a lot, lot happier in the
55:10
future because once my mom, once
55:13
I've reset this boundary with my mom and
55:16
said, mom, I love you so much and
55:18
I'm so afraid to make this decision or
55:20
I feel it's so hard to make this
55:22
decision because one of the things that hurts
55:24
me the most is hurting you and I
55:27
hate the idea that this would hurt you or it
55:29
would affect you negatively and that I
55:31
know you don't, I know the last thing you
55:33
would want is for me to be unhappy and it makes me
55:35
so unhappy to think that I've made
55:38
you unhappy, but I
55:40
need to do this because it's the
55:43
right thing to do for right now. If
55:47
we can overcome the initial guilt that
55:50
we'll feel and the
55:52
initial feeling of like, oh god, I've
55:55
hurt my mom and she's angry at me and
55:57
she's this and she's that, if we can overcome
55:59
that, then I actually
56:03
think it opens us up to a much
56:05
more real relationship with our mum. It
56:08
opens us up to a relationship that's not based
56:10
on pleasing the
56:12
parent all the time, but one
56:14
where we actually, it's just based
56:16
on love. And here's
56:18
the beautiful part about it, like this to me
56:21
is the real catharsis, is that when
56:25
we suddenly feel like we're doing something
56:27
that's good for us, and
56:30
not just good for somebody else, the
56:34
love that you can then give your mum
56:36
is so pure, because
56:39
it's not like, we've all
56:41
done that with a parent where we show up because
56:43
we feel like we should or we did something because
56:45
we think it would make them happy. And
56:48
what we're giving them in that moment is
56:51
not our like pure love. What
56:53
we're giving them is like service. But
56:57
when we stop giving them the thing
57:00
that we've kind
57:02
of brainwashed ourselves or been brainwashed by them
57:04
to think is the source of our love
57:07
with them, when we stop doing that and
57:09
we start meeting our own needs again, all
57:13
of a sudden it like frees up energy.
57:15
And then we're calling our mum or visiting
57:17
our mum or sitting and having a quality
57:19
moment with our mum just
57:21
because we love them and because
57:24
we want to. I
57:26
believe that deep
57:29
down they start to feel that
57:31
shift in energy and they
57:33
start to feel like even if they couldn't see it
57:35
in the beginning because they were just afraid of losing
57:37
something, they start to realise, oh
57:39
my God, I'm getting more back. What
57:41
I'm getting is much more pure and much
57:44
more intentional and
57:46
the basis of a different kind of relationship. So
57:49
I apologise because I feel like that
57:51
was a really long winded answer, but
57:54
I feel like it's important to add all of that
57:56
nuance because otherwise it's incomplete. Yeah, that made
57:59
sense. smashed out the park that was great
58:01
I will I'll pass that along to my friend it
58:07
sounds like you had personal experience with that particular issue well
58:10
I think that I think that it's
58:12
I've certainly had my experience of
58:17
operating so much of my
58:19
life out of a feeling
58:21
of obligation or guilt and
58:25
and not and
58:29
resentment deep down and
58:32
not realizing how close I
58:34
was to snapping and
58:36
how close I was to breaking point
58:38
at trying to manage so many different
58:40
people's feelings all the time and it's
58:42
been a pattern not with one person
58:44
in my life but with multiple people
58:46
in my life where you
58:48
know I've had to really learn to
58:52
not only set boundaries but
58:55
to feel safe and
58:59
in having set boundaries that that
59:02
people will that it's
59:05
not like I'm gonna irrevocably upset someone
59:07
to the point where they're now never
59:09
gonna be happy again that actually
59:12
something better can come in its place if
59:14
I'm brave enough to do that but that's
59:16
been a real journey for me and I
59:18
sympathize with anyone who's going through that because
59:21
it is not easy and it you
59:24
know it requires a lot of healing to be
59:26
able to do that this
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for sponsoring this episode. So, okay,
1:00:37
so one thing that I've
1:00:39
been thinking about a lot is the
1:00:42
idea of duty
1:00:46
and respect in a way,
1:00:49
I guess. You know, as you know, I'm from
1:00:51
a South Asian background, and I'm sure there are
1:00:53
people in your audience and in your programs and
1:00:55
retreats and stuff who are
1:00:58
from family backgrounds, which is
1:01:00
not necessarily tied to ethnicity, but is
1:01:02
often correlated with it. I feel like
1:01:04
I've got the most ethnic, non-ethnic family
1:01:06
in the world, because my family
1:01:09
are all from the East end
1:01:11
of London, and there's everything people
1:01:13
describe, whether they're from a
1:01:15
Middle Eastern family, Asian family,
1:01:17
like Italian family. I
1:01:20
always feel like my family's come with all
1:01:22
of that same stuff, so I get it.
1:01:24
Oh, okay. So, the
1:01:26
idea of duty and respect
1:01:28
to parents compared to, you
1:01:30
know, this more...
1:01:36
I think in Asian cultures, it's more like the parent
1:01:38
is the parent rather than a friend, and
1:01:41
that has like these concepts of duty and
1:01:43
obligation and should... Oh, I should do XYZ
1:01:46
for my mum or my grandma or my
1:01:49
family because it's just, you know, familial
1:01:51
duty in that sense comes before,
1:01:53
I don't know, a personal relationship.
1:01:57
I think, as I'm saying this, this is...
1:02:00
There's maybe a parallel in
1:02:04
Islam, for example, like duty and
1:02:06
submission to God comes way before
1:02:08
personal relationship with God. And
1:02:10
when I first heard Christians talk about personal relationship with
1:02:13
God, I was like, wait, what?
1:02:15
Like, that seems completely…
1:02:19
And I'm often surprised when people I
1:02:21
know have kind of friend kind
1:02:24
of relationships with their parents. Because
1:02:26
it's not the model of parental and child
1:02:28
relations that I'm familiar with, kind of
1:02:31
way from a South Asian background. Any thoughts
1:02:33
on any of that? I always have
1:02:35
a question there. You know,
1:02:37
sometimes it's different in
1:02:39
that it's a different culture, but maybe
1:02:41
there's some similarity. But I, you know,
1:02:45
I sometimes would
1:02:48
hear, let's say, an
1:02:50
expectation my mum had and
1:02:54
feel that same sense
1:02:56
of duty, obligation, respect,
1:02:58
and so on. And
1:03:04
then I'd be like, but wait, you
1:03:09
did this with that. Like
1:03:12
the thing that I'm… You
1:03:16
know, you prioritized that.
1:03:19
So like clearly at
1:03:23
some point you broke with mindless
1:03:28
obligation to your
1:03:30
family and did what was right
1:03:32
for your relationship. And
1:03:36
I think there's something a little bit
1:03:38
freeing about that to
1:03:41
me, because… And
1:03:43
maybe not everyone has that example
1:03:45
in their life. So I sympathize
1:03:47
with that. But it was good to almost
1:03:50
point out a little bit of
1:03:52
the hypocrisy that I was seeing that
1:03:55
my mum didn't just have some mindless obligation
1:03:58
to her mum and dad. that
1:04:01
in her trauma, she might wish
1:04:03
for me to have, you
1:04:06
know, with her. Actually, there
1:04:08
were times in her life where I can point
1:04:10
to examples where she did what
1:04:13
was right for her. Where
1:04:16
she did what felt right for
1:04:18
her new family that she was
1:04:20
building. And that
1:04:23
we are all going to
1:04:25
navigate in
1:04:27
our lives this respect
1:04:31
for the structures that
1:04:33
have been built before us
1:04:35
that already exist. And
1:04:38
that generational
1:04:40
trauma is very
1:04:43
real. And these,
1:04:47
you know, we
1:04:49
are some of us lucky
1:04:52
enough, especially I've got
1:04:55
friends in Indian families, for
1:04:58
example, where I've got
1:05:00
both types of friends. I've
1:05:02
got friends in Indian families who their
1:05:06
the generations above them, their
1:05:08
mom, their grandmother, never
1:05:12
were in any way unshackled from
1:05:16
automatic sense of obligation and
1:05:18
sacrifice that permeated every facet
1:05:20
of their lives for as
1:05:22
long as they lived. And
1:05:24
they never knew any different.
1:05:27
I also have Indian friends
1:05:29
who have seen
1:05:33
that they've had the gift
1:05:36
of a mother, one
1:05:38
friend of mine in particular,
1:05:40
has the gift of
1:05:43
a mother who has
1:05:46
actually exercised the freedom in
1:05:48
her 70s and 80s
1:05:52
that she never
1:05:54
saw of her mother. And
1:05:58
that she got the. see
1:06:00
what her mother looks like when her
1:06:02
mother is starting to heal and realize
1:06:04
that she
1:06:07
can, if she
1:06:09
chooses, have a kind of autonomy of
1:06:11
her own that she doesn't just have
1:06:13
to live in
1:06:15
relation to a man
1:06:18
or to her parents and
1:06:22
that for her, for my friend,
1:06:24
was a very healing experience because
1:06:27
she realized, oh there
1:06:29
isn't just some law somewhere that says
1:06:31
that this is the way it is.
1:06:35
There are, even the older generations
1:06:37
can sometimes surprise
1:06:39
us and if you're lucky enough to have someone
1:06:42
like that in your family, it's
1:06:44
a very, or even to know someone
1:06:46
like that, if anyone who's ever
1:06:49
seen it knows it
1:06:51
is an incredibly,
1:06:56
man, it's like one of the most powerful things
1:06:58
you can ever see is someone who's lived their
1:07:00
whole life being
1:07:02
in service suddenly realize
1:07:04
that it doesn't
1:07:06
have to be that way and that they have,
1:07:10
that they can have a
1:07:13
life of their own or a mind of their
1:07:15
own that they never realized their power, they never
1:07:17
realized what they were capable of, that they spent
1:07:19
a whole life in
1:07:22
some way being
1:07:24
constrained and never realizing what was
1:07:26
possible for them. God only
1:07:28
knows who would they have been if they
1:07:31
had had the resources or
1:07:34
the influences to be able to
1:07:36
set those boundaries or realize that
1:07:38
about themselves 20 years earlier. God,
1:07:41
who knows who they would have been or
1:07:43
what they would have done or what they would
1:07:46
have been capable of and the tragic part is
1:07:48
for so many, we'll never
1:07:50
know because it just didn't happen in
1:07:52
their time. But my point
1:07:54
with that is, if
1:07:58
we weren't lucky enough to accept experience
1:08:00
that with our elders, with
1:08:03
a grandmother who got to experience something
1:08:05
that her grandmother didn't, or a mother
1:08:07
who got to experience something that her
1:08:09
mother didn't. We
1:08:13
might actually, we might be the one.
1:08:17
It might be us who
1:08:20
is the inspiration. It
1:08:23
might be us who breaks
1:08:25
that generational cycle. And
1:08:27
being the one who breaks that generational cycle
1:08:30
of just
1:08:33
automatic or even mindless service and
1:08:36
obligation against all of our wishes
1:08:38
or all of our needs and
1:08:41
the subjugation of that inner
1:08:43
child of ourselves or that part of
1:08:45
ourselves that wants to express itself but
1:08:47
can't in that environment. Breaking
1:08:50
that is an incredibly brave thing
1:08:53
to do. You become the pioneer of
1:08:55
your family. And
1:08:57
for a long time, you'll
1:09:00
never get any thanks for that. You'll
1:09:02
only get resistance and fear and resentment.
1:09:07
And that will be in many ways the hardest part
1:09:09
about it. It's like in
1:09:12
family therapy there is a concept
1:09:15
of homeostatic pull, the
1:09:18
desire for the system to remain the same.
1:09:21
And if something changes, it will reassert
1:09:23
itself. And when
1:09:26
you're the part of the system
1:09:28
that's changing, the system will
1:09:30
work to reassert itself and change
1:09:32
you back because that's easier than
1:09:35
the system living now with this
1:09:37
uncertainty and having to somehow figure
1:09:39
out a way to evolve around
1:09:41
you, which is much more work
1:09:44
for everyone in that system. But
1:09:47
if you can be brave and stay
1:09:49
with it, knowing that you're going to
1:09:52
create a better life for yourself,
1:09:54
for those who come after you, and
1:09:56
maybe even the people that came before
1:09:58
you, if you're you're lucky,
1:10:01
if you can stick with it, it can be one
1:10:04
of the most surprising things in life
1:10:07
to learn at some point that you've
1:10:09
not only inspired the people that
1:10:12
will come after you, but you've actually in some
1:10:14
way changed the course of a
1:10:16
life from someone who came before you that
1:10:19
sees you and gets
1:10:21
a reference point for themselves they never knew
1:10:23
they would get and it starts to change
1:10:25
them too. And you will never, you will
1:10:27
not, you cannot rely on the luxury of
1:10:29
that, that is a bonus because
1:10:32
there will always be people in your life
1:10:34
that they just, it's not in them to
1:10:36
be able to make that change at this
1:10:38
point but I know that
1:10:40
for me some of the
1:10:43
ways that I have broken that cycle in my
1:10:45
own family, I can
1:10:48
tell you Ali, the changes I've seen in
1:10:50
my mum who remains to this day one
1:10:53
of my best friends in the entire world,
1:10:55
I love this woman to pieces and you
1:10:58
know we've been through so much together, we've
1:11:01
had our ups and downs, the
1:11:04
ways that I'm seeing her brain
1:11:06
today form new
1:11:09
connections and
1:11:12
evolve is one of
1:11:14
the most rewarding things in my entire
1:11:16
life and it's one of
1:11:18
the most inspiring things in my entire life
1:11:20
to see that she's making those connections at
1:11:22
her age. So I just
1:11:25
would encourage you if you haven't got the
1:11:27
reference point for someone breaking free of that
1:11:29
cycle in your life, you
1:11:34
might be the pioneer
1:11:36
in your family and rather than
1:11:38
seeing that as like you
1:11:40
know somehow this fatalistic thing like it's always
1:11:43
just this way in my family, you
1:11:45
can actually see it as a very kind of inspiring
1:11:48
and deep thing that you get
1:11:50
to be that person. I
1:11:53
love that, just turning into a therapy session
1:11:55
for my friends. You
1:11:58
should do this every week. So I've read
1:12:00
the book, No More Mr. Nice Guy,
1:12:02
about a dozen times over the last 10 years.
1:12:04
It's absolutely sick. And every time I read it,
1:12:06
I take something new away because I think I
1:12:08
have this strong, like, people-pleasing tendency, this
1:12:11
strong sense that if
1:12:14
I do things right, then the people around
1:12:16
me will be happy and that is the
1:12:19
recipe for like a chill and fulfilled life
1:12:21
and stuff. And
1:12:23
then, you know, at various points
1:12:25
in my life, I've googled how to
1:12:27
set boundaries and stuff like that. And
1:12:29
the thing I haven't quite been able to shake is the
1:12:33
word selfish, like the concept of
1:12:35
selfishness, that is putting
1:12:37
my own needs. It's like, and I think like
1:12:40
needs, like, you know, I don't really
1:12:42
need them. Like, what's like, I'm need for like food
1:12:44
and water and oxygen. I don't really have a need
1:12:46
to, I don't know, make decisions
1:12:48
about my career or make decisions about do I marry
1:12:50
or, you know, any of the sorts. They aren't needs,
1:12:52
they're wants, really. So like, is it, to
1:12:55
what extent is it selfish of me to not
1:12:57
put someone else's needs and wants ahead of my
1:12:59
own needs and wants, if that makes sense? Well
1:13:02
I tried to look at it like this,
1:13:04
that the
1:13:07
idea that I have that the things I'm
1:13:09
doing for people is
1:13:11
making them happy is in
1:13:14
itself a flawed thought.
1:13:18
Because it's not the people
1:13:20
in my life that I have with
1:13:23
all my might wished
1:13:26
that would be happy, would like,
1:13:29
because that often is why I'm showing up, right? It's
1:13:32
not just a sense of obligation. It's
1:13:34
a feeling of I really
1:13:36
want this person to be happy.
1:13:39
And if I do this for them,
1:13:41
they'll be happy. And if I
1:13:44
don't do this for them, they'll be unhappy. And
1:13:47
then that feeds into the guilt. I don't want to
1:13:49
be the source of their unhappiness because I love them
1:13:51
so much. But
1:13:54
nothing I have ever done on
1:13:58
that basis has ever... made
1:14:00
happy any of those people. Like
1:14:03
it's never worked, in
1:14:06
other words. There's
1:14:09
always a next week and the next week they're
1:14:11
the same person they were the week before in
1:14:13
spite of the thing I did the week before
1:14:16
that was designed to try
1:14:18
to make them happy. So when
1:14:21
I realized like, oh, I'm not, there's
1:14:25
almost a godlike arrogance about this
1:14:27
thing that I'm doing that I
1:14:29
think that me
1:14:32
going and picking up these
1:14:34
things that they need me to pick up or
1:14:36
that me going
1:14:39
and spending the extra hour or
1:14:41
doing this or doing that or running around like
1:14:43
a crazy person to try to make them that
1:14:46
that's actually the thing like I'm
1:14:48
the reason they're happy. If
1:14:51
you're the reason they're happy, why are they still not
1:14:53
happy? Why are
1:14:55
they still frustrated or why are they
1:14:57
still complaining about the same things? So
1:15:01
I think that that's
1:15:04
like an important pressure valve is
1:15:07
to be like, oh, I'm not making them
1:15:09
happy that they're
1:15:11
as happy as they are because of
1:15:14
so many bigger things than
1:15:16
me. There's their
1:15:19
DNA, the way they're wired, the
1:15:23
unresolved trauma of their
1:15:25
life that they're not
1:15:27
even focused on and they're not doing any
1:15:29
work to actually heal. Maybe
1:15:32
they're not even aware of it. Their
1:15:35
view on life, the fact that they're
1:15:38
making me the source of their positive
1:15:40
emotions in the first place, like
1:15:43
there's all these reasons why
1:15:45
they're not feeling as good as I
1:15:47
would like them to feel that have
1:15:49
nothing to do with me.
1:15:53
So I think that allows us
1:15:55
to stand back and put almost like
1:15:57
put down all of these things we're
1:15:59
carrying. and go
1:16:02
that's clearly not
1:16:05
the answer and
1:16:08
then to go the only
1:16:12
really sustainable way for me to
1:16:14
live is in
1:16:18
a way that allows me to bring
1:16:21
my best energy and
1:16:24
to model my best self for
1:16:26
the people that I love and
1:16:31
then to say what way of
1:16:33
living allows
1:16:35
me to do that what
1:16:37
way of operating allows me to
1:16:39
do that and
1:16:42
I think that when
1:16:44
we think of our own
1:16:47
needs I think it's about
1:16:53
saying what's I'm
1:16:56
just a person in the room like everybody
1:16:58
else like if I if I
1:17:01
imagine me
1:17:03
in a room with all of my family we
1:17:06
often think of there being you know
1:17:09
there's my I'm in a room with my
1:17:11
five family members but
1:17:13
on a human level there's six human
1:17:15
beings in that room and
1:17:20
I think it's really important for us to
1:17:22
remind ourselves of that because I often think
1:17:24
we don't think of ourselves as a person
1:17:26
in the room with needs I
1:17:28
think we think like I'm no I'm just
1:17:31
two eyes looking out onto the world and
1:17:35
everyone else is people whose
1:17:38
feelings I worry about who I
1:17:40
concern myself with whether I'm doing enough
1:17:42
for where I worry
1:17:45
if I said the wrong thing and
1:17:47
hurt someone's feelings I feel like I
1:17:49
didn't stand up for that person enough
1:17:51
in my life or whatever it is
1:17:53
those are the people I'm just me
1:17:57
well we have to start including
1:18:00
ourselves as a human being in the
1:18:02
room and going, at
1:18:05
the very least,
1:18:07
I deserve as
1:18:11
much love as
1:18:13
I'm giving to other people. I
1:18:16
deserve as much time and
1:18:18
attention as I'm giving to
1:18:20
other people. Anything
1:18:22
else doesn't make sense, especially if I
1:18:24
say I care about people. I am
1:18:26
a person, so if I care about
1:18:29
people, then I have
1:18:31
to include myself in the calculation. There's
1:18:34
no special reason I should
1:18:36
be exempting myself from my love
1:18:38
for people. But
1:18:42
I actually think we have to go one step further
1:18:44
than that, Ali, which is,
1:18:46
and this is, there's a chapter in the
1:18:48
book where I talk about this, and I
1:18:50
think it's one of the, for me, it's
1:18:53
one of the most important concepts I've ever
1:18:55
discovered because, and there's
1:18:57
various versions of this in different,
1:19:00
you know, teachings in the world, but I found
1:19:02
a way to connect to it myself that
1:19:07
really changed the way
1:19:09
I felt about self-love,
1:19:12
which was to say, it's
1:19:15
not just that I am
1:19:17
a person in the room and
1:19:21
therefore I shouldn't
1:19:23
exempt myself from the same dignity
1:19:26
and love and
1:19:28
care that I give to everyone else. It's
1:19:31
actually a little bit more nuanced
1:19:35
than that. There's an important
1:19:38
distinction between us and everyone else in
1:19:40
that room. That
1:19:43
of all the human beings in that room,
1:19:47
there's only one human being
1:19:51
that I am truly responsible
1:19:54
for. I
1:20:00
think people waste their lives trying to figure
1:20:03
out why they're special or how to feel
1:20:05
special. I think it's an utter waste of
1:20:07
life. Because
1:20:09
the truth is, as long as you're playing that game, you're
1:20:11
playing an ego game, and you'll
1:20:14
always lose because there'll always be someone who walks
1:20:16
into the room who's more
1:20:18
impressive, who's better looking, who
1:20:20
has made more money, who
1:20:22
is more talented, who's more
1:20:25
likeable, who's funnier. You're
1:20:27
just never going to win the battle of
1:20:30
trying to tell yourself you're special. But
1:20:35
there is something special about us
1:20:37
that doesn't require any of that.
1:20:40
And it's realising that of the
1:20:42
8 billion people on this earth,
1:20:46
you're the only one who
1:20:49
has custody of
1:20:52
the human that is you. And
1:20:57
that means that what's special
1:20:59
about you is not all
1:21:02
of your qualities. What's special
1:21:04
about you is the relationship
1:21:07
that you have with you, which
1:21:10
is, imagine at birth
1:21:12
you were given a human, and
1:21:15
someone told you at a time, whispered
1:21:17
in your ear at the beginning of
1:21:19
your time, and said, hey, just
1:21:21
so you know, you have one
1:21:24
job. Your
1:21:27
job, you may take on many voluntary jobs
1:21:29
in your life, but you
1:21:32
have one job that is undeniable.
1:21:35
And that is, for the rest of
1:21:37
your life, you have to take care
1:21:39
of this human. You
1:21:42
have to stand up for them, you have
1:21:44
to encourage them, you have to
1:21:46
take care of them, you have to
1:21:48
try to nurture them and their potential, you
1:21:51
have to try to give them the best
1:21:53
life you can possibly give them. That's
1:21:56
your job. You have one
1:21:58
job. Do it well.
1:22:02
Now. Most of this. Have
1:22:05
never truly understood that that's
1:22:08
our job. And we
1:22:10
have abandoned our post. when
1:22:13
I'm burn out. And
1:22:15
I feel like I'm gonna.
1:22:17
I'm over worked, I'm unhappy
1:22:19
on being mean to myself
1:22:21
and. Saying. Horrible things
1:22:23
to myself I i stop these
1:22:25
days and I same. Met.
1:22:28
What The hell? He. Had one
1:22:31
job. Where.
1:22:33
The hell have you been? That.
1:22:37
Shit, That to me turns
1:22:39
cells laws into a feeling
1:22:41
we think we're supposed to
1:22:43
have. Which by the way,
1:22:45
good luck. Good luck. Having
1:22:47
the feelings of love for
1:22:49
yourself on a daily basis
1:22:51
is not easy, but you
1:22:54
don't need the ceiling. When.
1:22:56
You realize. It's your
1:22:58
job. That loving
1:23:00
yourself isn't a ceiling is an
1:23:02
approach. And
1:23:05
and you take that job
1:23:07
seriously. You
1:23:09
don't' Catering
1:23:12
to your needs doesn't
1:23:14
look like a selfish
1:23:16
things through that lens.
1:23:18
It looks like doing
1:23:20
your job. And.
1:23:24
From their why I really believe is
1:23:26
when you take care of those needs
1:23:29
for yourself. The amount
1:23:31
the you then have to get
1:23:33
to the job you have volunteered
1:23:35
for in loving everyone else. Is.
1:23:40
It a whole different thing. As
1:23:43
great as up. the
1:23:46
so we would all mothers idea of the
1:23:48
not responsible for someone else is happiness because
1:23:50
the sloppy to do though actually make make
1:23:52
them happy. And to what
1:23:54
extent does that hold true for being responsible
1:23:56
for someone else is on the happiness as
1:23:58
well. Like could I not. A while I
1:24:00
cheated on my honor, but hey, I'm not responsible
1:24:02
for their unhappiness as a result of that. It's
1:24:05
just a story that having themselves but he blew
1:24:07
up you know that kinda. Will.
1:24:09
That's true, In some
1:24:12
way. Right
1:24:14
there. If. You look at
1:24:16
the little. If you look at life through the
1:24:18
lens of accountability. I'm
1:24:20
I'm a big believer in
1:24:23
separating accountability from from blame.
1:24:25
Right? A win, win, For.
1:24:27
Example: The way I overcome my own. Mistakes
1:24:30
or regrets in life is I. I
1:24:32
go. That was a version of
1:24:35
me that was less able or less evolved
1:24:37
than I am today. On
1:24:39
not gonna blame Need to Die.
1:24:42
For. That mistake. but I do
1:24:44
have to be accountable for fixing
1:24:46
it. right? So.
1:24:49
I I come free myself of the burden
1:24:51
of blame here. But.
1:24:55
I'd com free myself from
1:24:57
accountability. I have to make
1:24:59
myself accountable for fixing whatever
1:25:01
mistakes a past version of
1:25:03
me. Has. Done.
1:25:05
Whatever damage they've done, Whatever trials
1:25:08
they've created, I. I.
1:25:10
Don't have to take on all
1:25:13
the blame as the person living
1:25:15
today, but I have to take
1:25:17
accountability. Well. If
1:25:20
you apply that to what you
1:25:22
just said, you know I T
1:25:25
and on my partner. they're unhappy
1:25:27
that I'd I'm not responsible for
1:25:29
their unhappiness. Whoop! Fine.
1:25:33
But. You may be responsible for them leaving
1:25:35
you. If
1:25:38
they decide the. Eat
1:25:40
because of what you've done. This
1:25:43
So unhappy that they can be in this
1:25:45
relationship anymore. That their
1:25:47
version of taking control of their happiness
1:25:49
might be you not being in the
1:25:51
picture anymore. So.
1:25:54
If he, if you take the view the
1:25:57
are not responsible for their unhappiness. That's
1:26:00
fine, But. You're
1:26:02
also going to suffer the
1:26:04
consequences of not valuing their
1:26:06
happiness and not taking ownership
1:26:08
of the thing that you
1:26:10
have done that helped to
1:26:13
create the unhappiness in the
1:26:15
and that they sealed to
1:26:17
die. So
1:26:19
I. I would be looking
1:26:21
at that going. Is
1:26:23
something I've done has contributed to
1:26:25
them ceiling unhappy and unsafe. How
1:26:29
much do I value? Keeping
1:26:32
this person in my life is. What
1:26:36
are the correct is a fine
1:26:38
being truly accountable. What the corrective
1:26:40
measures the I can take that
1:26:43
can help create the conditions for
1:26:45
them to be happier you com
1:26:47
if you see it on someone.
1:26:49
It's true to say. I
1:26:52
can't. It's. It's. It's
1:26:55
both What you did was
1:26:57
you created the conditions. For
1:27:00
them. To be incredibly
1:27:02
unhappy. right? Now
1:27:06
all you ultimate in the
1:27:08
truest sense, are you responsible?
1:27:10
For their unhappiness? Well I
1:27:12
would say. Their risk.
1:27:15
but they are responsible for creating the
1:27:17
emotions they want to feel. So they
1:27:19
they're responsible for their happiness to even
1:27:21
if you did something that made them
1:27:23
unhappy. And that might mean trying to
1:27:26
find happiness with in this relationship or
1:27:28
it might mean leaving you. right?
1:27:30
But they're responsible today for
1:27:32
creating their happiness. You.
1:27:37
If you want to keep them. Better
1:27:41
make yourself responsible for creating the
1:27:43
conditions for them to be happy
1:27:45
so you can make them happy
1:27:48
either. But. You.
1:27:51
I would say if you value
1:27:53
this relationship, you better three. Creating
1:27:56
the conditions for them to be
1:27:58
happy to die. like it's your job.
1:28:03
Because if you don't, then you're
1:28:06
playing with fire because you can say I'm
1:28:08
not responsible for their emotions, but if they
1:28:11
leave you tomorrow, you will be responsible for
1:28:13
why you're alone. No,
1:28:16
no, thank you very much. This
1:28:18
has been great. Where can people
1:28:20
find out more about the book? And who's the book
1:28:22
aimed at? Like who should read the book? Probably
1:28:26
anyone who wants
1:28:28
to find love, anyone who
1:28:30
is trying to recover from lost
1:28:32
love, anyone who is
1:28:34
experiencing the pain of being
1:28:36
single and feeling like
1:28:39
I'm lonely and I don't know what to do
1:28:41
with those feelings because I really
1:28:43
want, I want to find love
1:28:45
but I feel like
1:28:47
I'm chronically unhappy. Anyone who's struggling
1:28:49
with chronic indecision in their
1:28:52
love life, really
1:28:54
this is a book about doing love better,
1:28:57
whether we have it or whether we don't. And
1:29:00
I've aimed it to be, I've written this
1:29:02
book to be a co-pilot for
1:29:05
anyone who is trying to
1:29:07
find love in their lives and
1:29:10
be happier along the way because I
1:29:12
think that a lot, anything can change
1:29:14
in our lives. We can find
1:29:17
love, we can lose it, we
1:29:19
can find ourselves in a long stint of being
1:29:21
single while we're waiting for the right love to
1:29:23
come along. Anything can
1:29:25
happen in life and I
1:29:28
believe we have to find the resources and
1:29:30
the tools to learn to be happy
1:29:33
enough in any
1:29:35
of those seasons. And
1:29:37
the book also shows you how
1:29:39
to do that through very practical
1:29:41
tools. So I invite
1:29:45
anyone at any stage of life who
1:29:47
relates to any of what I've just
1:29:49
said to read it. I'm
1:29:51
very proud of it. It's
1:29:54
called Love Life, how to
1:29:56
raise your standards, find your
1:29:58
person and live happily. No
1:30:00
matter what. And. I'm.
1:30:03
You can pre order it from any of
1:30:05
the normal or actually no by the time
1:30:07
this comes out I think is actually out
1:30:09
and ready for you can order it right
1:30:11
now been but you can order it from
1:30:13
where have you like. I would suggest that
1:30:15
you order it from Love Life boots.com. Even
1:30:18
still order it from any retailer you want
1:30:20
on that page. But what's cool about that
1:30:22
page is right now I have a really
1:30:25
special bonus were by anyone who buys a
1:30:27
book gets a ticket for free to an
1:30:29
event undoing on my force which is a
1:30:32
virtual event could find your person and it's
1:30:34
gonna take all of the ideas of the
1:30:36
book and bring them for mice in helping
1:30:38
you create a path over the next year
1:30:41
of your my to find your person. So
1:30:43
if you got to Love Life book.com. And.
1:30:46
Enter the code from your receipt whether you
1:30:48
get it from Amazon or physical bookstore. It
1:30:50
doesn't matter if you enter your code from
1:30:52
your receipt, you can get tickets to the
1:30:54
event on May fourth with me as well
1:30:56
so that website His Love Life book.com. Thanks
1:31:00
so much for the best of the promo and
1:31:02
I was elated or Usama trying to rally. Appreciate
1:31:04
you. For
1:31:06
this week absurdity type. Thank you so much for watching or
1:31:08
listening. All the links and resources that we mentioned input costs
1:31:10
A can be linked down in the video description or in
1:31:12
the sooners depending on where you're watching or listening to this.
1:31:15
if you listen to this on a podcast platform and do
1:31:17
please leave a review on the I Ching story really helps
1:31:19
other people discover the podcast or if you're watching this in
1:31:21
full Hd of okay on you tube and you can leave
1:31:23
a comment below and have any questions or an insight or
1:31:25
any thoughts about the episode that feel some and if you
1:31:27
do this episode uma to check out this episode here as
1:31:29
well which links in with some of the stuff that we
1:31:31
talked about to be upset by for wanting to hit the
1:31:33
subscribe button if you're already and I'll see you next time.
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