00:00:00
If you had to give one relationship
00:00:02
ritual to stay in love, what would that
00:00:04
be? Once a week, tell your partner three
00:00:06
things that you love about them and
00:00:08
three things they could have done
00:00:09
better.
00:00:09
>> But some people thinking, well, and if I
00:00:11
told Dave that we're going to start
00:00:12
writing these notes to each other, he's
00:00:13
going to cringe and not going to do it.
00:00:14
[ __ ] Honestly, Dave can't name
00:00:16
three things he likes about you. Really,
00:00:19
Dave? Is that a big ask? I absolutely
00:00:21
call bull on that. The bigger question
00:00:23
is what's uncomfortable about that for
00:00:25
you? And look, I'm not a therapist. I'm
00:00:27
a divorce lawyer. I represent some of
00:00:29
the most high achieving minds, athletes,
00:00:31
entrepreneurs, and they're just as bad
00:00:33
at this as anybody because there's a
00:00:35
part of us that's afraid to poke at what
00:00:37
do you love about me? What am I getting
00:00:40
wrong? And it's not just romantic
00:00:42
relationships. Like,
00:00:45
my mom died 10 years ago after a long
00:00:47
battle with cancer.
00:00:49
There was a lot between us that needed
00:00:52
to be said and wasn't said.
00:00:56
And there's a part of me that wishes she
00:00:58
was here so that I could have apologized
00:01:02
for some things I got wrong. But we
00:01:04
don't do that because people just don't
00:01:07
want temporary discomfort. And so I
00:01:10
think there's something deeply
00:01:11
courageous about love, about commitment,
00:01:14
about saying I'm going to give them the
00:01:16
opportunity to hurt me. Like it's scary,
00:01:18
but I'm brave. You know, your marriage
00:01:20
will end. It ends in death or divorce.
00:01:22
And for two people at the end of their
00:01:24
relationship to say, "This person helped
00:01:26
me become the most authentic version of
00:01:28
myself." That's the greatest gift you
00:01:30
could give to another human being. And
00:01:31
as you can see from this photo, I just
00:01:34
proposed to my fiance. I'd like some
00:01:36
advice on how not to mess this up. Like
00:01:38
if my fiance ends up walking into your
00:01:41
practice, what is the reason she's
00:01:42
likely to end up there? The number one
00:01:44
reason that I'm going to have a woman
00:01:46
sitting across from me, divorcing
00:01:47
someone who's a great provider, great
00:01:49
protector is
00:01:52
>> that is not obvious to everybody
00:01:54
>> and it'll keep me in business for the
00:01:56
rest of my life.
00:02:00
>> Guys, I've got a quick favor to ask you.
00:02:02
We're approaching a significant
00:02:03
subscriber milestone on this show and
00:02:05
roughly 69% of you that listen and love
00:02:08
this show haven't yet subscribed for
00:02:10
whatever reason. If there was ever a
00:02:11
time for you to do us a favor, if we've
00:02:13
ever done anything for you, given you
00:02:15
value in any way, it is simply hitting
00:02:17
that subscribe button. And it means so
00:02:19
much to myself, but also to my team,
00:02:20
because when we hit these milestones, we
00:02:21
go away as a team and celebrate. And
00:02:23
it's the thing, the simple, free, easy
00:02:24
thing you can do to help make this show
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a little bit better every single week.
00:02:29
So, that's a favor I would ask you. And
00:02:31
um if you do hit the subscribe button, I
00:02:33
won't let you down and we'll continue to
00:02:34
find small ways to make this whole
00:02:36
production better. Thank you so much for
00:02:38
being part of this journey. Means the
00:02:40
world. And uh yeah, let's do this.
00:02:45
James,
00:02:47
as you can see from this photo, I just
00:02:50
proposed to my fiance and gladly she
00:02:52
said yes. So, I've brought you here in
00:02:55
part because I'd like some advice on how
00:02:57
not to mess this up because I know from
00:02:59
speaking to you previously about 50% of
00:03:02
people that get down on their knee end
00:03:04
up messing it up in some way. Before we
00:03:05
get into this though, and before you
00:03:07
help me figure out how to stay in love
00:03:08
and not mess it up.
00:03:09
>> Yeah.
00:03:10
>> Where do you find us at as it relates to
00:03:13
love as a society? If you were to zoom
00:03:15
out and diagnose society's relationship
00:03:18
with the subject of love and their um
00:03:21
ability to keep it, find it, and
00:03:23
understand it, where are we?
00:03:25
>> I think we we're in this really
00:03:27
uncomfortable moment as a culture. I
00:03:29
think we we want more than anything to
00:03:32
feel real connection. I think we're sick
00:03:35
of just looking at screens. I think we
00:03:38
came out of the pandemic with a feeling
00:03:40
of, okay, I want to be in the world with
00:03:42
other people and feel the warmth of real
00:03:44
people.
00:03:46
And yet, we have an increasingly
00:03:51
lower number of useful tools in finding
00:03:55
connection and staying connected, which
00:03:57
are two totally different skills. And
00:04:01
yet we're yearning for it more than
00:04:03
ever. So we're more hungry than we've
00:04:05
ever been and we have no idea how to
00:04:08
cook
00:04:09
>> in your head because you've seen so many
00:04:11
people go through divorce and
00:04:13
relationships fail.
00:04:14
>> There must be a sort of checklist of
00:04:16
things that I'm likely to mess up.
00:04:18
>> Yeah. I mean, well, you know, first of
00:04:20
all, when I when I knew you, you know,
00:04:21
heard you got engaged,
00:04:23
>> I was thrilled because I'm always
00:04:26
cheering for people. I really am. I'm
00:04:27
always cheering for love. And so I think
00:04:30
in our prior conversations, you're
00:04:31
obviously someone who loves very deeply
00:04:33
and and the fact that you found this
00:04:36
person, you know, to me is the most
00:04:39
lovely thing. You know, I I think at its
00:04:41
core, this is your favorite person. I
00:04:44
just can't think of anything more lovely
00:04:45
than that. Like the idea that you would
00:04:48
look at a person and go, "You're my
00:04:50
favorite person." And and that person
00:04:52
would look at you and say, "You're my
00:04:54
favorite person." And that you would
00:04:55
know that it's true. like when they say
00:04:57
it that it's true. Like that that feels
00:05:00
to me like something worth pursuing.
00:05:02
That feels like something that if I
00:05:04
tried to get it and I failed, I'd try
00:05:06
again because if you could find it, it's
00:05:09
just about the greatest thing in the
00:05:10
world. Like the the thought to me that,
00:05:13
you know, I I I won't get to give a
00:05:14
toast at your wedding, but I will say
00:05:16
that if I was going to give the toast,
00:05:18
it would be that there are two wishes I
00:05:21
have for you. You know, your marriage
00:05:23
will end. I mean, I've said it to you
00:05:25
before in one of our first
00:05:26
conversations. Every marriage ends. It
00:05:27
ends in death or divorce. I hope yours
00:05:29
ends in death. And I hope when it ends
00:05:32
in death that let's send you off first
00:05:35
that when you're dying that she will say
00:05:39
hopefully to you or to those around,
00:05:43
you helped me become the most authentic
00:05:45
version of myself and you're still my
00:05:48
favorite person.
00:05:50
Because I can't think of a greater
00:05:52
blessing than that. like for two people
00:05:54
at the end of their life, at the end of
00:05:56
their relationship to say, "This person
00:05:58
helped me become the most authentic
00:06:00
version of myself and they're still my
00:06:02
favorite person." That's the greatest
00:06:04
gift you could give to another human
00:06:05
being, I think. And I like the idea that
00:06:10
even in the face of knowing that this is
00:06:13
risky, this is something that may not
00:06:16
work, this is something that
00:06:17
statistically the odds are against, but
00:06:20
I'm going to give it a shot because, you
00:06:22
know, there's something it adds to my
00:06:24
life and there's something I add to her
00:06:26
life and, you know, we're going to we're
00:06:28
going to give it a shot. I don't know. I
00:06:29
found that very beautiful. As a divorce
00:06:31
lawyer who is also a very big fan of
00:06:33
love, do you ever find yourself trying
00:06:35
to get someone not to get a divorce, has
00:06:38
there ever been an instance where you
00:06:39
you looked at the situation and thought,
00:06:41
you know what, they should just get back
00:06:43
together? Yeah. I what I'll say is my
00:06:46
first thought is often,
00:06:49
is this person accurately perceiving the
00:06:52
situation that they're in? So people
00:06:53
will come in and they'll say, you know,
00:06:56
it really people come to me in very
00:06:57
different situations. So sometimes
00:06:58
people will come to me and they're
00:07:00
they're they've been served with divorce
00:07:02
papers like the marriage is over and now
00:07:04
it's about okay we have to react
00:07:06
defensively. So you know when people
00:07:09
come to my office the situation is often
00:07:12
so dire and so broken that they're
00:07:15
coming in to hire me for that specific
00:07:17
purpose. But I will say without question
00:07:20
that if I get any sense that this person
00:07:23
would either a benefit from individual
00:07:26
therapy that might help them view the
00:07:28
relationship differently and come to the
00:07:30
relationship differently. I will not
00:07:33
hesitate to refer them. And then there
00:07:35
are people that and it's more common
00:07:39
than you'd think that something awful
00:07:42
has happened in the relationship. They
00:07:44
had an affair and got caught. they
00:07:46
caught their spouse having an affair. Uh
00:07:48
they've lost their job and it created
00:07:50
tremendous discord in their
00:07:51
relationship. And that often will feel
00:07:54
to me like something that perhaps would
00:07:56
benefit from the intervention of mental
00:07:59
health professionals or everyone just
00:08:01
taking a breath and taking a minute,
00:08:02
especially when there's kids involved,
00:08:04
but even when there aren't.
00:08:05
>> Are your clients predominantly men or
00:08:06
women?
00:08:07
>> It's pretty much an even split really.
00:08:09
>> Yeah. I represent a lot of either very
00:08:12
high achieving high- netw worth
00:08:14
individuals or people married to them.
00:08:17
>> And are the reasons that they come to
00:08:19
you, those two different groups,
00:08:20
>> different?
00:08:22
>> Like the reason why they want a
00:08:23
separation, is it fundamentally
00:08:25
different?
00:08:26
>> So the specific example of cheating, I
00:08:29
would say men get caught cheating more
00:08:32
often than women.
00:08:33
>> Does that mean they cheat more?
00:08:35
>> No, it means they get caught cheating
00:08:36
more. I I don't think that anyone could
00:08:39
really truly accurately say, you know, I
00:08:42
know people love statistics and I know
00:08:44
that that, you know, guests have a
00:08:46
tendency to come out and say, well, 72%
00:08:48
of people who are everything I'm saying
00:08:50
is based on what I've observed in 25
00:08:53
years of facilitating the demise of
00:08:54
marriages. Men and women both cheat. Men
00:08:58
cheat in just more scattershot stupid
00:09:01
ways than women do. When women cheat, in
00:09:04
my experience professionally, it's
00:09:06
usually an indication of like the it's
00:09:08
the absolute end of this relationship.
00:09:10
The relationship is over and this is
00:09:12
either a soft place to land or it's sort
00:09:14
of a final opportunity for this person
00:09:17
to solidify, this woman to solidify in
00:09:19
her head that yeah, this thing is over.
00:09:20
Whereas men, I I've really had hundreds
00:09:25
at this point of men sit across from me
00:09:27
who've been caught in an affair or sense
00:09:30
that they're about to get caught in an
00:09:32
affair and they say to me like, "Yeah,
00:09:35
this had nothing to do with my wife.
00:09:37
Like, I love my wife. It had nothing to
00:09:38
do with that. It just I don't know. I
00:09:41
just I don't know why I did what I did.
00:09:43
I just did it." And I I know everyone
00:09:45
kind of wants to because in civilized
00:09:48
society it feels good to kind of go like
00:09:50
I can't believe that. That's how could
00:09:52
someone say that? But shut up. Like if
00:09:55
you have you have potato chips in your
00:09:56
cabinet, you know, you you you know that
00:10:00
you're not supposed to eat them. You
00:10:01
don't want to eat them. You want vibrant
00:10:03
good health. You want to take care of
00:10:04
your but they're there. They're there.
00:10:07
And you're human. And like I can control
00:10:09
my food environment better than my
00:10:10
brain. Like I have a lot of resolve when
00:10:12
I wake up in the morning. But at about 7
00:10:14
8:00 at night when I'm a little bit
00:10:16
tired and it's been a long day and I
00:10:18
deserve something nice, if the potato
00:10:20
chips are there, I'm eating the potato
00:10:22
chips. Like, we're human. We're human.
00:10:25
There are times where we're just feeling
00:10:27
lonely or hungry or angry or tired or
00:10:31
some combination of those factors. and
00:10:34
this warm thing like the connection to
00:10:37
another person, the the joy of
00:10:38
flirtation, the excitement of of feeling
00:10:41
the energy between yourself and whatever
00:10:43
it is type of person that you're
00:10:45
attracted to. I think it's very normal.
00:10:48
And then the problem becomes that you're
00:10:50
not thinking about the consequences of
00:10:52
those things. If you were thinking about
00:10:54
the consequences of those things, you'd
00:10:55
make better choices. But we all know
00:10:57
that discipline is trading what you want
00:10:59
now for what you want most. And
00:11:01
sometimes it's hard to remember what you
00:11:02
want most and to keep it in your line of
00:11:04
sight.
00:11:04
>> So from your experience, you know, if my
00:11:06
fiance someday ends up walking into your
00:11:08
practice, what is the
00:11:11
reason she's likely to end up there from
00:11:13
her perspective asking you to help her
00:11:16
get out of the relationship with me?
00:11:19
the most obvious, if you're going to be
00:11:21
like the most the average, the
00:11:22
statistical average, it would be that
00:11:24
you've stopped seeing her and stopped
00:11:26
noticing her in in the list of things
00:11:29
that are important to Steven, that she's
00:11:32
somewhere in the middle to bottom of
00:11:33
that list. Like for for a high achiever
00:11:35
like you, for someone who's
00:11:36
entrepreneurial in the manner that you
00:11:38
are, for someone who, you know, lives
00:11:40
the kind of lifestyle that you do where
00:11:42
you're on this coast one day and this
00:11:43
country another day and flying here on a
00:11:45
moment's notice and getting invitations
00:11:47
to interesting things and you have to
00:11:48
triage because you couldn't possibly do
00:11:50
all the things that you'd like to do. It
00:11:52
usually would be that she just feels
00:11:57
herself slipping in the rankings. And I
00:12:00
think that that is often not a function
00:12:02
of what you're like that lifestyle I
00:12:05
just described. It's a function of where
00:12:08
you take time to fit her into that.
00:12:11
Because I genuinely have found
00:12:13
tremendous number of examples of people
00:12:15
who and this is in the relationship work
00:12:18
who have that level of intensity in
00:12:20
their life and that level of chaos in
00:12:22
their schedule and it's unpredictable
00:12:24
but they have that ability every morning
00:12:27
or every afternoon or every once in a
00:12:29
while but consistently to say hey I have
00:12:34
a minute between recordings. I just
00:12:35
wanted you to know I was thinking of
00:12:36
you. Or hey, you know, I heard that song
00:12:39
when I was in the car from here to here
00:12:41
and it makes me think of you and I can't
00:12:43
wait to see you next week. You know,
00:12:45
something like that to me, like how hard
00:12:48
is that? By the way, doesn't have to be
00:12:50
like a global lifestyle. It could even
00:12:52
be, hey, we got a couple of kids and two
00:12:54
dogs and you know, my my mom is sick and
00:12:57
I got to tend to her so I'm super busy.
00:13:00
But how do you let your partner know,
00:13:01
hey, you're still really important.
00:13:03
we're still really connected to each
00:13:05
other because that's the number one
00:13:06
complaint. That's the number one reason,
00:13:08
particularly with women, that I'm going
00:13:10
to have a woman sitting across from me
00:13:12
divorcing someone who's a great
00:13:13
provider, great protector, great all of
00:13:16
those things.
00:13:17
>> That is not obvious to everybody. And
00:13:20
I'll be honest, it's not it wasn't
00:13:21
necessarily obvious to me. The way that
00:13:23
I operate naturally, and this is just
00:13:25
the way that I am. I've spoken to so
00:13:27
many of my friends to understand how
00:13:28
they operate and the way that their
00:13:30
brain works is when I'm here.
00:13:32
>> The only thing I'm thinking about is
00:13:34
this
00:13:35
>> and I almost I'm remarkable at
00:13:37
forgetting everything else
00:13:39
>> and and being completely here.
00:13:41
>> Now that sounds like a good thing,
00:13:43
>> but it also means that I can lose 14
00:13:46
hours and forget to to check in. I can
00:13:48
forget, you know.
00:13:50
>> Is it is it also true when you're with
00:13:52
her? Yes. When we have scheduled the
00:13:55
time.
00:13:56
>> Good.
00:13:56
>> So, you know, when we schedule the time
00:13:58
to go and do something together, I'm I'm
00:13:59
there. I'm not on my phone. I'm not
00:14:00
doing anything else.
00:14:01
>> Good. I think that's a tremendous
00:14:03
priority. I'm hearing more and more from
00:14:05
people the feeling of, yeah, we're
00:14:07
together, but we're not together. We're
00:14:09
sitting there and they're on their phone
00:14:11
or they're doing other things. And I
00:14:13
think that it's really really important
00:14:16
that one of the really important aspects
00:14:19
of relationship be that there is time
00:14:21
where you give each other that level of
00:14:23
focus. But again, you know, like it's
00:14:25
just not something we are necessarily
00:14:28
taught. We have maybe we have our
00:14:30
parents as models, but very often
00:14:32
they're they're not good models.
00:14:34
>> What's interesting here as well is for
00:14:36
some reason I've chosen someone who's
00:14:37
like the opposite of me in terms of the
00:14:39
way that I
00:14:40
>> partly because she Yeah, probably. And
00:14:42
when I've spoken to some of my friends
00:14:43
who are quite like me, they've also
00:14:45
chosen partners who are the opposite of
00:14:46
them.
00:14:46
>> Could you imagine? I know.
00:14:48
>> Could you imagine two of you? Like
00:14:49
imagine me with me, you know, you with
00:14:52
you. That would like it would be so
00:14:53
intense. But
00:14:54
>> this is why it becomes so easy to
00:14:56
misunderstand because we go through life
00:14:58
assuming the other person has the same
00:15:00
perspective as we do
00:15:02
>> and they feel the same way that we do
00:15:04
about things. And
00:15:05
>> but what's the solution to that? I've
00:15:08
had to learn
00:15:10
to
00:15:12
check in.
00:15:13
>> Yeah. But don't you think she loves that
00:15:14
about you?
00:15:15
>> She does. She actually just sent me a
00:15:16
message this morning saying, "Thank you
00:15:17
so much." Because I said when I left
00:15:18
this time, I said, "Listen, I'm going to
00:15:19
FaceTime you every day,
00:15:21
>> even if it's for just one minute."
00:15:24
>> Yeah.
00:15:24
>> So,
00:15:25
>> isn't that lovely, though? You're still
00:15:27
trying to figure out how can I be better
00:15:28
at this thing? And that's amazing.
00:15:30
That's a beautiful thing. You know
00:15:32
what's so funny is if I walked into your
00:15:35
home and on the table there was, you
00:15:39
know, the power of habit by during or
00:15:41
the seven habits of highly effective
00:15:43
people, I would go, "Oh, look at look at
00:15:45
Stephen. He's still so successful. He's
00:15:47
still trying to sharpen the point of the
00:15:48
spear. Amazing." You know, but if you
00:15:50
walk in and you see a book, you know,
00:15:51
how to stay in love, you go, "Things all
00:15:53
right with Stephen? Like things going
00:15:54
okay? What's going on with the
00:15:56
relationship?" Why? Why don't we as a
00:15:59
society just acknowledge we're we're
00:16:01
kind of bad at this? We're kind of bad
00:16:03
at maintaining connection. We're kind of
00:16:05
bad at helping like feeling loved and
00:16:07
feeling worthy of love and helping our
00:16:09
partner feel loved and figuring out how
00:16:11
to maintain connection. And maybe the
00:16:13
key is that little thing, that one
00:16:17
minute facetime, that one minute of
00:16:20
saying, "Hey, maybe we should try this
00:16:22
other thing." What are you actually
00:16:24
saying? What you're actually saying is,
00:16:26
"I want to be good at this job. How can
00:16:30
I be good at this job? How can I stay
00:16:32
good at it? How can I get even better at
00:16:34
it?" Like, we go for the job interview
00:16:36
and we want this job so bad. Like,
00:16:38
that's what dating is. Dating is I'm
00:16:41
sending my resume all over the place.
00:16:44
I'm sending it all over the place. I
00:16:45
hope I can find something, something
00:16:46
that suits my skills and my needs and
00:16:48
where they want me and I'll be well
00:16:50
compensated and I'll get something from
00:16:51
it and I'll give something to it because
00:16:52
I have all this talent and I have all
00:16:54
this stuff and I want to give it to a
00:16:56
worthy cause and I want to be
00:16:57
compensated for that and I want to feel
00:16:59
part of something. That's all dating is
00:17:01
is it's a job interview and then you get
00:17:03
the job and for a little while you're
00:17:05
like I got the job. It's the oh my god
00:17:07
you should see the office is amazing and
00:17:10
you should and I could I knew exactly
00:17:11
what's going you know there's room for
00:17:12
growth. There's room for growth in this
00:17:14
job. It's going to be great, you know,
00:17:15
and I I really feel like there's room
00:17:16
for advancement. Like, this could be the
00:17:18
job. This could be my career. This could
00:17:20
be my vocation. It could be meaningful
00:17:22
and wonderful. I think I have something
00:17:23
I could contribute to. And we're so
00:17:25
excited. And you jump ahead 3 years
00:17:27
later and we're like, that [ __ ] job.
00:17:29
That job. Yeah. No, I got to go to work
00:17:31
again. Like, yep. All right. Here we go.
00:17:33
That's it. You know, I got a friend who
00:17:34
just got the best job. Oh my god. They
00:17:37
had their they got the great and that's
00:17:39
all we instead of trying to remember
00:17:42
that at some point the relationship that
00:17:46
you're in was something you aspired to
00:17:49
like the idea that you were someday
00:17:52
going to find a person who just was your
00:17:55
favorite person and you were their
00:17:57
favorite person and you were going to be
00:17:59
there for each other and see each
00:18:00
other's blind spots and help each other
00:18:02
like figure out who you are and be it
00:18:05
and that you were going to grow together
00:18:07
and change together. And some core
00:18:09
things would stay exactly the same. And
00:18:11
some things would change in beautiful,
00:18:13
meaningful ways. And you'd see each
00:18:15
other through amazing things and
00:18:16
terrible things and all the things that
00:18:18
the world throws at you. You'd never be
00:18:20
alone again because you'd have this
00:18:23
person like, and somehow
00:18:26
it's considered sort of odd to check in
00:18:30
and want to be good at that job and have
00:18:32
performance reviews. Like, you run
00:18:34
teams. you run so many teams. How how
00:18:37
often do you go, we don't need to have
00:18:38
performance reviews?
00:18:40
>> I think at the heart of this is we
00:18:42
assume probably through media and social
00:18:44
media that relationships are supposed to
00:18:46
be effortless.
00:18:48
>> Why?
00:18:48
>> I don't just kind of what you see,
00:18:50
right? Like I remember I remember um my
00:18:53
girlfriend telling me the other day, she
00:18:54
was like, "Oh, there's this couple I
00:18:56
follow on Instagram and they're like
00:18:58
amazing. um they're like the perfect
00:19:00
couple and it's just just turned out
00:19:02
that the guy is sleeping with someone
00:19:04
else.
00:19:04
>> Yeah. And I thought and again I thought
00:19:06
well that watch my girlfriend
00:19:08
vicariously watching that couple for the
00:19:10
last 5 years has probably increased her
00:19:12
expectations on what a relationship
00:19:13
should be cuz she's just had this sort
00:19:15
of two dimensional window but there was
00:19:17
some
00:19:19
the natural mess of relationship was
00:19:20
taking place outside of you and we all
00:19:23
just have the 2D window like
00:19:24
relationship problems on Instagram
00:19:26
broadcasting that doesn't doesn't drive
00:19:28
followership. No. And what what what
00:19:30
I'll also say is look, we formulate a
00:19:32
lot of our conception of what a
00:19:35
relationship should look like by
00:19:37
portrayals of relationships in film and
00:19:40
television, right? Yeah. Okay. So,
00:19:43
>> can we agree that the romcom or the
00:19:46
romantic film
00:19:48
is basically just an emotional version
00:19:51
of pornography? like it's a stylized
00:19:55
excerted falsehood that's designed to
00:19:59
amplify the the most visually and
00:20:01
emotionally compelling or stimulating
00:20:04
aspects of things like yes there's
00:20:07
conflict but it gets cleaned up very
00:20:08
neatly and very nicely like there's it's
00:20:11
so this perception that that
00:20:12
relationships should be effortless
00:20:15
is based I think on largely that which
00:20:18
is this feeling that and again whether a
00:20:20
story is a comedy or a tragedy depends
00:20:22
and where you end the story, right? So,
00:20:25
we always end the story in a spot where
00:20:26
it's like, "Tada, they're in love and
00:20:28
they walk off hand in hand." But, right,
00:20:30
they walk off into life. They walk off
00:20:33
into this ecosystem of life that's
00:20:36
filled with complexity and there's
00:20:38
factors beyond our control that are
00:20:39
impacting our emotional state, the
00:20:41
emotional state of our partner, the you,
00:20:42
the me, and the Wii. So, there's a lot
00:20:45
going on and and the thought that, well,
00:20:48
this should be effortless. everything
00:20:50
else is a lot of work and potentially
00:20:52
and by the way the opposite
00:20:55
like this is effortless and this is a
00:20:57
drudgery and we tend to just see things
00:21:00
in that binary way unnecessarily like
00:21:04
we've made so much progress as a society
00:21:06
when it comes to not viewing everything
00:21:08
in a binary like there's there's not as
00:21:10
much rigidity about gender roles anymore
00:21:12
there's not as rigidity about you know
00:21:16
are you a worker are you like a career
00:21:18
person or a family person like there's a
00:21:20
sense of weight. You can kind of be a
00:21:22
little bit of both. Like look at these
00:21:23
things as a spectrum a little bit. So,
00:21:26
but this we're still pretty glued into
00:21:28
this idea that like relationships are
00:21:30
supposed to be the smoothest, easiest
00:21:31
thing or relationships are hard work.
00:21:34
You're not supposed to be happy all the
00:21:35
time. And shut up if you think that
00:21:36
that's what you oh you're not happy.
00:21:38
Nobody's happy or you're not supposed to
00:21:39
be happy. That's not the point of
00:21:40
marriage. The point of marriage is a
00:21:42
commitment.
00:21:42
>> Are relationships supposed to be simple?
00:21:45
>> I don't know what you mean by simple.
00:21:47
Simple to navigate? No, they're
00:21:48
obviously not simple to navigate because
00:21:50
56% of them end in divorce.
00:21:52
>> Is it going to be hard?
00:21:53
>> If your definition of hard is I have to
00:21:57
pay some level of attention to it, then
00:22:01
yes, it's going to be hard. Is that
00:22:03
hard? Like, is that hard? Really? Is
00:22:06
that hard? Like, I don't think it's that
00:22:08
hard. Paying attention isn't that hard.
00:22:13
Remembering to pay attention might be
00:22:16
hard, but don't you create reminders for
00:22:20
yourself? You've got so many gadgets and
00:22:22
you can't have some reminder in the day
00:22:25
of like, oh
00:22:27
her, keep her in my line of sight.
00:22:29
Again, it doesn't mean you don't love
00:22:31
her, that she's not front of mind. It
00:22:32
means you're a driven, hardworking
00:22:34
person. I'm a driven, hardworking
00:22:36
person. There's tons of times where very
00:22:39
important things in my life aren't front
00:22:40
of mind. But that's why I use reminders.
00:22:43
>> So to invert that question that I asked
00:22:45
at the top of this, if I am to come to
00:22:47
you at some point in the future, James,
00:22:49
and I say, "Listen, I need a divorce."
00:22:52
>> What am I likely to give as the reason
00:22:53
for that based on, you know, who I am
00:22:56
and how that correlates to the clients
00:22:57
like me that you deal with?
00:22:59
>> Yeah. So the reason you're going to give
00:23:01
and the underlying reason is different.
00:23:03
So, the the reason you're going to give
00:23:04
is going to be a practical reason, which
00:23:06
is either I've met someone else, she's
00:23:08
met someone else, um we've had a
00:23:11
terrible fight and uh I've said things
00:23:13
that we can't take back. I had a
00:23:16
spectacular failure financially and
00:23:18
she's just bailing on me because she
00:23:20
sees that the future's really rocky or
00:23:23
she made some terrible decision and did
00:23:26
something awful that's a betrayal that I
00:23:28
can't abide by. But again, that's the
00:23:31
presenting reason.
00:23:34
Underneath that is the bigger reason,
00:23:36
which is we lost the plot.
00:23:38
We lost the plot. Like that that's a
00:23:41
that's the start of a chapter in a
00:23:43
story. It's the end of a chapter and the
00:23:45
start of a chapter. That photo like the
00:23:47
first chapter in that story was was was
00:23:51
this person and this person wandering
00:23:53
around on the same planet trying to
00:23:56
figure it out, trying to figure out what
00:23:57
they're doing. And they have their
00:23:58
origin story and they have their you
00:24:01
know their complimentary pathologies
00:24:03
that developed over time and then you
00:24:07
know they found each other. 8 billion
00:24:09
people in the world and somehow their
00:24:11
paths intersected you know and they
00:24:14
started to have this connection and so
00:24:17
there was the you and there was the me
00:24:18
and then there was the Wii and that ven
00:24:21
diagram started right and then you start
00:24:24
to fill it with things you fill it with
00:24:26
people. You fill it with experiences.
00:24:28
And this is just a stop along the way
00:24:31
like this. These two people, this is
00:24:33
just a moment. It's an incredible
00:24:35
moment. It can be like kuman. It can be
00:24:38
like a moment that there was this and
00:24:41
then everything after this. It's a
00:24:42
punctuation mark. Like I like to say
00:24:44
that life has punctuation marks. Like
00:24:47
you had a kid, you lost your job, you
00:24:50
got a job, whatever. Those are
00:24:51
punctuation marks. This is a big
00:24:53
punctuation mark. And it will either be
00:24:56
you know the beginning of the end or the
00:24:59
end of the beginning. You get to write
00:25:00
that. You get to write that chapter. But
00:25:03
this is a moment for me. The reason why
00:25:05
this is a beautiful moment is this is a
00:25:08
moment of tremendous optimism. This is a
00:25:11
moment where the two of you said you're
00:25:13
my favorite person and and I I want to
00:25:16
write this next chapter with you as as
00:25:21
having a different title in it. But
00:25:23
really, like the title's just a symbol.
00:25:26
The the ring is just a symbol. It's just
00:25:29
a symbol of a commitment. It's a symbol
00:25:31
of of a promise. And all a promises is a
00:25:35
symbol of intention. That's all. It's
00:25:37
just an intention. Our intention is
00:25:38
we're not going to be alone anymore.
00:25:40
We're going to do this together. And by
00:25:41
the way, you're already not alone. The
00:25:43
fact that you got to this place that you
00:25:44
would ask this question, that that's a
00:25:47
beautiful confirmation of the fact that
00:25:49
you don't feel alone.
00:25:50
>> We would have lost the plot.
00:25:52
Yeah. Yeah. You would have lost the plot
00:25:54
of the story. I So, this is a story.
00:25:57
Where does this story go? Where do you
00:25:58
want it to go? You want it to go to a
00:26:00
future that features the two of you old
00:26:04
together someday. Maybe it features
00:26:06
children. Maybe it features companion
00:26:09
animals.
00:26:09
>> And what what is the most likely reason
00:26:11
that we would lose the plot?
00:26:12
>> You stop paying attention.
00:26:14
>> You stop you stop doing what you're
00:26:16
currently do. How did you get to this
00:26:18
beautiful moment? You start doing the
00:26:20
opposite. You got to this moment by
00:26:23
paying attention. You got to this moment
00:26:25
by making this a priority. You got to
00:26:27
this moment by by keeping this front of
00:26:30
mind. By valuing what is this but a
00:26:32
symbol of you are valuable to me. Why
00:26:34
did you get on one knee? Why do you get
00:26:37
on one knee? I mean, think about the
00:26:39
symbols of all of this. We live in a
00:26:41
world of symbols. Like the outfit I'm
00:26:44
wearing, I'm saying something to you. I
00:26:47
take this seriously. That's why you wear
00:26:49
a suit. is you wear a suit to say I take
00:26:51
this seriously. So what why did you do
00:26:54
this? What is this as simple? I'm down
00:26:55
on one knee. Why? I'm humbling myself in
00:26:58
front of you. I'm offering something to
00:27:00
you. I'm hoping you will accept the gift
00:27:02
I am giving to you. Like there's
00:27:04
something very lovely about that symbol.
00:27:06
>> Is this is this what you call slippage?
00:27:09
>> Slippage is exactly when you start to
00:27:13
unintentionally again people rarely have
00:27:15
slippage intentionally. It's usually
00:27:18
that, okay, we got that knocked out. Now
00:27:22
we can focus on the other stuff. And
00:27:24
that's slippage. Slippage is these small
00:27:27
disconnections. Small disconnections
00:27:30
that in of themselves mean nothing. Like
00:27:34
no single raindrops responsible for the
00:27:36
flood. That little raindrop, it's just a
00:27:38
little raindrop. That's all it really
00:27:40
is. But slippage is this gradually
00:27:44
increasing number of small
00:27:47
disconnections that eventually leads to
00:27:49
the giant marriage killer that you come
00:27:52
in and say, "Here's why we're getting
00:27:54
divorced." But it wasn't that. It it was
00:27:57
all these little pieces, but at some
00:28:00
point you were there.
00:28:02
>> Do you think people
00:28:04
spot the slippage in the moment, but
00:28:06
they don't think it's big enough to
00:28:07
fight about or do something about?
00:28:08
>> 100%. And that's that's the cognitive
00:28:11
bias. That's the fallacy that will keep
00:28:14
me in business for the rest of my life
00:28:17
because people just don't want temporary
00:28:21
discomfort. Like our desire for joy
00:28:25
versus our aversion to pain, our
00:28:28
aversion to pain will win every single
00:28:30
time. We know this. That's why there was
00:28:33
an opiate crisis more so than a cocaine
00:28:36
crisis. Because one of those things is
00:28:38
about making you feel really good and
00:28:39
the other is about getting rid of pain.
00:28:42
Like the the human desire any scientist
00:28:45
will tell you this ask our friend Andrew
00:28:46
Huberman ask anybody they will tell you
00:28:48
the human desire to escape pain is the
00:28:52
controlling aspect of self. So escaping
00:28:57
pain even discomfort even dis and again
00:29:00
this is this is pushed by the narrative
00:29:02
that love should be easy. If you're
00:29:04
going to make if anything's
00:29:05
uncomfortable about it, you must be
00:29:06
doing it wrong. Maybe you're not with
00:29:08
your soulmate. You know, it would be so
00:29:10
easy and effortless. You'd always know
00:29:11
what the other person wanted. You'd
00:29:13
never have to tell them. They would
00:29:14
know. They would know you well enough to
00:29:15
know what it is that you need. And they
00:29:17
would get you. Even though, by the way,
00:29:19
really, really like I'm 53 years old.
00:29:23
I've been in therapy for 20 years.
00:29:26
I get like 70% of this guy, I think,
00:29:30
like at best. Like, and I'm in here. I'm
00:29:33
in here and I get about 70% of this guy.
00:29:37
Like, and I'm supposed to get you a
00:29:39
100%.
00:29:40
Because we're exchanging bodily fluids.
00:29:42
Like, we're I'm supposed to just cuz
00:29:44
we've slept in the same bed, I'm
00:29:45
supposed to get you 100% and get ahead
00:29:48
of stuff. Like, I get me 70%. And that's
00:29:51
with a lot of reflection. So, I I really
00:29:53
think that it's wildly unfair for us to
00:29:58
to to think that, you know, this should
00:30:00
be effortless, this should be easy, and
00:30:02
that it should never be uncomfortable.
00:30:04
It's okay to be like I I think because
00:30:06
of what I do for a living, I have to
00:30:08
tell people things they don't want to
00:30:10
hear all day because it's true. And I
00:30:14
tell them what they need to hear and not
00:30:15
what they want to hear. And you know,
00:30:17
when clients say to me at the end of a
00:30:18
consultation or conversation like, "Oh
00:30:20
my god, I feel so much better." better.
00:30:21
I always go, "That's great. That wasn't
00:30:23
my intention." Because I don't want
00:30:25
anyone I talk to professionally to think
00:30:27
I am telling you something to make you
00:30:29
feel better. I'm not here to make you
00:30:30
feel better. I'm not a therapist. I'm
00:30:32
here to tell you the truth. And if the
00:30:34
truth makes you feel better, great. If
00:30:36
the truth makes you uncomfortable, at
00:30:38
least you know the truth now. So, I feel
00:30:41
like in relationship again, if what you
00:30:43
want most is lasting lifelong connection
00:30:48
where we get each other as best we can,
00:30:50
we can help each other navigate self and
00:30:52
each other as best we can and we cannot
00:30:56
lose the plot of a story that is really
00:31:00
beautiful right now. So, everybody
00:31:02
listening can probably think about
00:31:03
something in their relationship which
00:31:05
has gotten a little bit worse
00:31:08
>> since they first got into that
00:31:10
relationship. And it could be the way
00:31:12
that they argue is getting a little bit
00:31:15
worse. They're not listening as much.
00:31:17
>> Maybe the voice the the tone has gone up
00:31:19
or it's getting a little bit more angry.
00:31:21
>> Um, whatever it is in their
00:31:22
relationship, what do they need to do
00:31:24
now? It's like it's not flooded yet.
00:31:27
>> Yeah.
00:31:27
>> But there's
00:31:28
>> best time to look at it, best time to
00:31:29
talk about it. There's a puddle.
00:31:31
>> So, what I do for a living in court
00:31:34
is I try to manipulate people's
00:31:36
emotional state. That's my job. Like, my
00:31:38
job is to go and make the judge like my
00:31:40
client, dislike the other side. I want
00:31:41
the other side to feel scared. I want my
00:31:43
client to feel safe. I want the court
00:31:44
reporter who's taking things down and
00:31:46
the court officer to like me and to like
00:31:48
my client so that when we take a break
00:31:50
in testimony and they go in the back
00:31:52
with the judge, they go, "I like Jim.
00:31:53
He's a really good lawyer." Or, "Oh, his
00:31:55
client seems so nice." Or, "Boy, the
00:31:56
other guy seems like a jerk." Or, "Boy,
00:31:58
that other lawyer is a jerk." Like so
00:31:59
I'm here manipulating people's emotional
00:32:01
state. That's my job. Like that's what a
00:32:03
trial lawyer does. We manipulate
00:32:04
people's emotional state. We play with
00:32:06
the levers, right? So I say this as to
00:32:10
say
00:32:11
we should be doing this in our
00:32:13
relationships. There's nothing nefarious
00:32:15
about that. These are tools and how you
00:32:18
use them will will give you a sense of
00:32:20
whether it's good or bad or what. Look,
00:32:22
if what you are doing is to maintain
00:32:25
connection, how you parse it is going to
00:32:28
be everything. So, even the way you just
00:32:30
said that, like, well, something's kind
00:32:31
of going wrong in the relationship.
00:32:33
Okay, we're already off to the wrong
00:32:35
narrative because when someone tells you
00:32:37
something's been done wrong, there's
00:32:39
this automatic defensive response of,
00:32:41
well, I didn't mean to do it wrong and
00:32:42
well, you know, it's not my fault that I
00:32:44
did it wrong. It brings out something
00:32:45
defensive in us rather than saying
00:32:48
something's changed. Have you noticed
00:32:51
that something changed? Have you noticed
00:32:52
that remember when we used to talk to
00:32:54
each other about you know sometimes like
00:32:55
and I don't know if it's something that
00:32:56
I've done and if it is you know I I I
00:32:58
really would appreciate you telling me
00:33:00
but like when we have been fighting
00:33:02
lately like that the tone seems to have
00:33:04
changed. Have you noticed that? Is it
00:33:06
just me? I now it's a non-defensive
00:33:09
dialogue. I'm not accusing you of
00:33:11
something. I'm noting that something has
00:33:14
changed. And by the way, good. We love
00:33:17
each look at how much we love each other
00:33:20
in that picture. Like look at put the
00:33:22
wedding photos up somewhere. Look at
00:33:25
that moment. We were nuts about each
00:33:27
other in that moment. We were everything
00:33:29
the other person ever wanted and more.
00:33:32
So anytime something has changed from
00:33:34
that, don't you want to know? Don't you
00:33:37
want to know? And by the way, not in an
00:33:39
accusatory fashion. The most common one
00:33:41
is we're not having sex as much as we
00:33:43
used to. We're not having sex. We're not
00:33:45
having much sex. I'm not getting as much
00:33:46
oral sex as I used to get. We're not
00:33:48
getting Okay, there's a way to say that
00:33:50
the way I just said it. That's just
00:33:52
going to blow up in your face. It's not
00:33:53
going to work because it's, well, well,
00:33:55
YOU HAVEN'T BEEN AROUND AS MUCH. WELL, I
00:33:56
HAVEN'T BEEN AROUND AS much cuz I'm
00:33:57
working so much and I don't see you
00:33:59
spending less. Well, you know, honestly,
00:34:00
if it comes down to that, I'd spend a
00:34:02
lot to not have you treat me this way.
00:34:04
Now, we're just having a fight. Whereas,
00:34:06
if we say like, oh, remember how clo
00:34:08
remember when we went away? I was just
00:34:09
thinking yesterday about when we went
00:34:11
away that weekend. Remember we ended up
00:34:12
not even leaving the room? It was so
00:34:14
fun. I love when we're like feeling that
00:34:16
connected and close, you know? I feel
00:34:17
like I feel like lately sometimes like
00:34:19
we're maybe not as connected and close
00:34:21
like and if there's something I'm I'm
00:34:23
doing that's making that like I I really
00:34:25
want to get it right. Like I really want
00:34:27
to get it right. You know, there's
00:34:28
something about
00:34:30
apologizing first, like having some
00:34:33
humility in relationship that has
00:34:35
tremendous value. Like when a lawyer
00:34:38
like I'll I'll tell you one of my trade
00:34:39
secrets. You know, I my job is a very
00:34:42
combative job sometimes. So, there's
00:34:45
times where being very aggressive is the
00:34:46
right move. But there's times where
00:34:47
being aggressive just doesn't accomplish
00:34:49
anything. And if I'm interacting with a
00:34:51
lawyer for the first time, this is
00:34:52
someone I haven't had cases with. So, we
00:34:54
don't know each other except by
00:34:55
reputation and they come at me really
00:34:58
hard, the first thing I'll do is
00:35:00
apologize. I'll say, "You know, I I I'm
00:35:03
sorry. I just have to say like your tone
00:35:05
like you're coming at me like it if I
00:35:08
said something in our initial
00:35:09
interaction that made you feel like that
00:35:12
I didn't have respect for you or that
00:35:14
you know I didn't value your perspective
00:35:17
or like it I have a tendency to
00:35:18
interrupt people sometimes I have a
00:35:20
tendency to so if I offended you I
00:35:21
apologize because the way that you're
00:35:23
kind of talking to me like I feel like I
00:35:25
must have said something wrong or I must
00:35:27
have so I apologize absolutely if I did
00:35:30
what is the per what choice do they have
00:35:32
but to then
00:35:33
Oh, no, no, that's that's just my tone.
00:35:35
That's just how I Oh, yeah, of course.
00:35:37
Look, hey, we all have a game face or I
00:35:39
just felt like, oh my god, like this
00:35:40
guy's coming at me so hard. Like I I
00:35:42
felt like I must have said something
00:35:43
inadvertently or, you know, and and then
00:35:45
everyone's kind of calmer now, you know?
00:35:48
So I think that this is a very easy way
00:35:52
to invite discussion about these small
00:35:55
preventative maintenance things without
00:35:57
turning it into a whole like because we
00:35:59
again we just think that oh if I bring
00:36:01
that up it's going to turn into a whole
00:36:02
thing. It doesn't have to turn into a
00:36:04
whole thing period.
00:36:06
>> Yeah. Yeah, I think I asked that in part
00:36:07
because I it's something that I I've
00:36:10
like subtly noticed that when we were
00:36:12
when we first met 7 years ago, we were
00:36:14
much more patient.
00:36:16
>> And I'm like, I probably need to have a
00:36:18
conversation about returning to being
00:36:21
more patient when we're trying to solve
00:36:22
problems. We kind of like rush through
00:36:23
them now. And I just I'm like, oh, you
00:36:25
play this forward.
00:36:27
>> You play this forward a decade or two
00:36:28
decades. I'm like, damn, we're really
00:36:30
not going to be great at solving
00:36:30
problems if we don't just like slow down
00:36:33
with them. Yeah. And
00:36:34
>> a lot of that just means like listening
00:36:35
to the other person's point of view a
00:36:36
bit bit more intently.
00:36:37
>> Yeah. And that's hard. That's hard
00:36:39
because you know your your brain moves
00:36:42
quickly. Like it's something I struggle
00:36:43
with in relationship for sure. Like any
00:36:46
kind of relationship is I'm very like
00:36:47
all right, come on. We got to land this
00:36:48
plane. Like let's go. Like skip to the
00:36:50
end. Time is money. Like what are we
00:36:51
what are we doing? Where are we going
00:36:52
with this? Like and I I'm terrible at
00:36:54
it. I interrupt people constantly. Like
00:36:56
I'm I'm not good at that. And it's
00:36:59
something I'm working on because I I I
00:37:02
think I know what they have to say next.
00:37:05
And I'm wrong a lot of the time,
00:37:07
especially in relationship, I'm wrong.
00:37:08
Like it's not a popular opinion to say
00:37:10
that men and women are different, but
00:37:12
men and women are different. And and and
00:37:15
I don't say that to say one is superior
00:37:16
and one is inferior. I say that to say
00:37:19
that we're different. We we navigate
00:37:21
things differently. We experience life
00:37:24
differently. We're treated differently
00:37:26
from a societal standpoint. We've had
00:37:28
different life experiences and I
00:37:30
genuinely believe that it would be very
00:37:33
valuable for us in relationship to to
00:37:37
sort of think, hey, I don't really know
00:37:39
everything about how this person is
00:37:41
wired. It took me fully
00:37:45
40 some odd years, if not 50, to figure
00:37:48
out that if I'm in a romantic
00:37:52
relationship with a woman and she comes
00:37:53
home and starts telling me about
00:37:55
something that's upsetting to her, that
00:37:57
she doesn't want what my male friends
00:37:59
want. Like if I called a buddy of mine,
00:38:01
if I called you, I've called you before.
00:38:02
If I called you and I said, "Stephen,
00:38:04
I'm having this problem, man. I'm
00:38:05
dealing with one of my sons and he's
00:38:07
doing XYZ." I ex if you went, "That must
00:38:10
be very hard, Jim. I'd be like, "Yes, it
00:38:13
is, Stephen. That's why I called you. Do
00:38:15
you have any suggestions? Like, what do
00:38:17
you think I should do here? Like, you're
00:38:18
a smart guy. I called you cuz I wanted
00:38:20
you to help me." Very often, that is the
00:38:22
opposite. Most women want you to hear
00:38:26
them. Give them some support. You guys
00:38:29
can have this conversation. A couple can
00:38:32
have this conversation. You can say,
00:38:34
"Hey, listen. right now in this moment,
00:38:38
we're not you're not coming to me with a
00:38:39
problem. But when you come to me with a
00:38:42
problem, my natural proclivity is to
00:38:44
start throwing solutions. And I've I've
00:38:46
learned or I I heard Stexton say on
00:38:49
Steven's show that, you know, maybe
00:38:51
that's not the best way. Do you find
00:38:53
that's true? Like, do you want me to
00:38:54
maybe like when you say these things,
00:38:56
could I because again, this is a job. I
00:38:58
want to be good at this job. Why Why is
00:39:01
it wrong for me to ask you how to how
00:39:03
can I be better at this job? I found it
00:39:05
really useful to state explicitly to my
00:39:08
fiance what my needs are in those
00:39:10
situations. And again, it didn't come
00:39:12
naturally to her and vice versa. Like it
00:39:14
didn't what she needs from me in those
00:39:16
situations
00:39:18
is the opposite of what I need from her
00:39:19
in those situations. I'm thinking
00:39:20
particularly when she's like going
00:39:21
through something and she's struggling
00:39:22
with something. She wants me to
00:39:27
be be present and she
00:39:31
um often wants like some advice on it
00:39:34
and she
00:39:38
and her advice is like the opposite of
00:39:39
mine often and in the inverse when I'm
00:39:42
going through those situations
00:39:45
I actually
00:39:48
don't want to talk about it at all.
00:39:49
>> Yeah.
00:39:50
>> I just wanted to be there.
00:39:51
>> Yeah. Yeah. But please,
00:39:52
>> she wants to talk about I don't want to
00:39:53
talk about it.
00:39:54
>> But what but what would be wrong with
00:39:57
saying in that moment?
00:40:01
I've got a menu.
00:40:03
I've got a menu for you. Can you tell me
00:40:06
which one you want? Cuz just like just
00:40:08
like you said, you're hungry. And I
00:40:10
said, "What are you hungry for? Do you
00:40:11
want sushi? Do you want me to make you
00:40:14
something? Do you want some cheese
00:40:15
toast? Do you want us to go out
00:40:17
someplace and we can get burgers? What
00:40:19
is it you want?" Right? Couldn't you
00:40:21
just say, "Hey, I've got a menu. I can
00:40:24
just listen and tell you I love you and
00:40:26
just be here. I can give you some
00:40:30
solutions and and how I might handle the
00:40:32
problem. I can try to distract you and
00:40:36
tell you a funny story about something
00:40:37
that happened to me today or I can pick
00:40:39
you up and tickle you. We can go in the
00:40:41
other room and roll around in the sheets
00:40:42
for a little while and take your mind
00:40:43
off it and then we can figure out which
00:40:45
of the other options you might want. We
00:40:47
can go for a walk together and we can
00:40:49
talk about it or not talk about it. What
00:40:51
would you like on the menu? Because
00:40:52
that's I'm serving all of those things
00:40:54
for you. Which one would you like? And
00:40:57
the worst thing she could say is, "I
00:40:59
don't know." And you go, "Okay, then I'm
00:41:01
going to pick one. I'm going to pick
00:41:03
one. And if it feels good, great. And if
00:41:05
it doesn't, you'll tell me, okay? And I
00:41:07
won't be offended." Like again, what'
00:41:09
that take, Stephen? 30 seconds. 30
00:41:12
seconds. Throw that out there. Like
00:41:15
that. That's instead of just blindly
00:41:17
throwing darts at the target, not
00:41:19
knowing where the target is.
00:41:21
>> If you had to give everybody listening
00:41:24
one relationship ritual that you would
00:41:27
think would most increase the
00:41:29
probability that they stay together,
00:41:31
stay in love.
00:41:32
>> What would that relationship ritual be?
00:41:36
>> I think that once a week you should make
00:41:38
a specific task of telling your partner
00:41:41
three things that you really like about
00:41:43
them.
00:41:45
And every week it should be something
00:41:47
different. I think you should tell your
00:41:48
partner if you really want to want to
00:41:50
take the advanced edition of this. If
00:41:52
you want to turn it from a 30- secondond
00:41:54
task into like a whole five minutes that
00:41:55
you devote to your relationship, you
00:41:57
know, I feel about relationship
00:41:58
maintenance the way that if you've ever
00:42:00
heard the story, I think the Daly Lama
00:42:01
is the one credited with saying it.
00:42:03
That's that a high high-end executive,
00:42:05
you know, paid a colossal amount of
00:42:06
money to have a private audience with
00:42:08
the Daly Lama. And the Daly Lama said to
00:42:10
him, you know, um, if you're searching
00:42:12
for inner peace, you should meditate for
00:42:14
15 minutes a day. And the executive
00:42:16
said, I don't have 15 minutes a day to
00:42:18
meditate. He said, then you should
00:42:19
meditate for an hour a day. I feel the
00:42:22
same way. If you don't have five minutes
00:42:24
a week to devote to your spouse or
00:42:26
partner, then you're going to need
00:42:28
hours. I think you should actually set
00:42:30
aside hours. Like five minutes a week, I
00:42:33
would suggest the following exact s just
00:42:35
systematic basic thing. This is what my
00:42:38
next book is about. out. It's about a
00:42:39
systematic approach to being good at
00:42:41
love. And the idea is
00:42:44
once a week, I think here's the advanced
00:42:46
version, but minimum just write down,
00:42:50
send an email, send a text, whatever it
00:42:51
is, tell your partner three things that
00:42:54
you love about them.
00:42:57
The advanced version is tell your
00:42:58
partner three things you love about
00:43:00
them. Tell them three times this week
00:43:02
that they made you feel loved. Here's
00:43:05
three things you did this week that made
00:43:06
me feel loved. Like here's three. When
00:43:08
you sent me that message and said that
00:43:10
made me feel so soft, that made me feel
00:43:11
very loved. Like whatever it is, I'm
00:43:13
sure you could find off the top of your
00:43:14
head three things that she did this week
00:43:16
that made you feel loved. And it's only
00:43:18
Monday.
00:43:19
>> People at home are in relationships
00:43:21
right now. They're hearing you say that
00:43:23
and some of them are still not going to
00:43:25
do it. Why do you think they're not
00:43:27
going to do it? Like what is that mental
00:43:29
conversation they're having where they
00:43:30
go?
00:43:30
>> I think we're I Well, I think we're I
00:43:32
think they think it's pointless. I think
00:43:34
they they might be at a point in their
00:43:36
relationship where it feels like what
00:43:38
would be the point we're so far gone it
00:43:39
wouldn't help. I think more than
00:43:42
anything my my real feeling on this the
00:43:46
secret that I don't think people want to
00:43:48
say out loud
00:43:50
I think we're terrified. I think we're
00:43:53
terrified. And I think what we're
00:43:54
terrified of is not
00:43:57
is not the future of our relationship. I
00:44:00
think what we're terrified of is that we
00:44:02
we feel like we're not worthy of love. I
00:44:05
think it's most people's fundamental
00:44:06
terror. I think most people's
00:44:08
fundamental fear is that if you knew me,
00:44:10
you wouldn't love me. If you could see
00:44:14
me, the real me, like the me that's in
00:44:18
here, all the weakness, all the fear,
00:44:22
all the horrible selfish thoughts, all
00:44:25
the perversity, all the all the darkest
00:44:29
things that are inside of me and every
00:44:31
single one of us that if you could if
00:44:33
you saw that, you couldn't possibly love
00:44:36
me. and
00:44:40
the feeling that comes with that which
00:44:42
is so you love the character I'm playing
00:44:47
that's not showing you all those things.
00:44:49
I'm just I'm just showing you the best
00:44:51
parts of myself. If you saw the real me,
00:44:54
you wouldn't really love me. I think our
00:44:56
greatest fear is that we're not worthy
00:44:57
of love. And I think that there's a part
00:45:00
of us that's afraid to like poke at what
00:45:04
do you love about me? What do I love
00:45:07
about you? How how what am I getting
00:45:10
wrong? Like again, like finishing that
00:45:13
exercise,
00:45:15
you know, here's some things. Here's
00:45:17
three things I love about you. Here's
00:45:19
three things you did this week that made
00:45:22
me feel loved. Here's three things I
00:45:25
could have done better. Or tell me three
00:45:28
things I could have done better. Or tell
00:45:29
your partner three things they could
00:45:30
have done better. And then if you want
00:45:31
to have a fun one thrown in there, cuz I
00:45:33
think you should end on fun stuff,
00:45:34
here's three things you did this week
00:45:35
that made me want to have sex with you.
00:45:38
>> I guess some people would
00:45:40
are listening right now and they're
00:45:41
thinking, well, you know, I'm I'm dating
00:45:43
Barry or they think I'm dating Joanne
00:45:45
and she is she is not verbally intimate
00:45:49
in this way. She would, if I suggested
00:45:52
this to her,
00:45:52
>> write it down. Don't do it. You don't
00:45:53
have to do it verbally. I think verbally
00:45:55
is too much pressure on people. But but
00:45:56
even written down, if I told Dave that
00:45:58
we're going to start writing these notes
00:45:59
to each other about three things I love,
00:46:00
he's going to cringe and he's
00:46:01
>> [ __ ] [ __ ] Honestly, really,
00:46:05
that's that's too hard. It's too much of
00:46:06
an ask. Like Dave, I don't care what
00:46:09
Dave does for a living. Dave could be a
00:46:10
ditch digger for a living who's not
00:46:11
articulate in any way. Dave is moving in
00:46:15
with you. Dave married you. Dave went
00:46:18
out and put his money on the counter and
00:46:20
bought a ring. Dave Dave can't name
00:46:22
three things he likes about you. Really,
00:46:24
Dave? Is that a big ask? Is that hard,
00:46:26
Dave? Like, come on. That I absolutely
00:46:29
call [ __ ] on that. Maybe he doesn't
00:46:31
want to. Okay, that's a different
00:46:32
conversation. Why don't you want to?
00:46:34
Why? What's uncomfortable about that for
00:46:36
you?
00:46:36
>> It is uncomfortable for some people,
00:46:38
isn't it?
00:46:38
>> Yeah, it's very uncomfortable for some
00:46:40
people.
00:46:40
>> It's quite interesting that you could be
00:46:41
in a loving relationship with someone,
00:46:43
but also be at some deeper level scared
00:46:45
of intimacy. And I'll be honest, because
00:46:49
it's just me and you, nobody's
00:46:50
listening.
00:46:50
>> Sure. Of course.
00:46:51
>> I think at some client privilege.
00:46:53
>> Yeah. I think at some level I've always
00:46:56
been scared of intimacy. It makes it
00:46:58
sound more conscious than it is,
00:47:00
>> but at some deeper level I've always
00:47:02
been, I don't know, a bit disconnected
00:47:05
intimately when it comes to like
00:47:08
uh being able to articulate
00:47:11
>> these things. We keep it simple. That
00:47:14
that's why I want to keep that simple. I
00:47:16
didn't say what is what is your love for
00:47:19
me rooted in and what is the nature of
00:47:22
our connection and how does it fit into
00:47:23
the broader context like I had a very
00:47:26
challenging relationship with my mother
00:47:27
growing up and I feel like you fill some
00:47:30
of the wounds that guys we don't need
00:47:32
like Sigman Freud doesn't have to show
00:47:33
up in the relationship
00:47:35
what are three we could do it right now
00:47:38
in this relationship what are three
00:47:40
things I like about you what are three
00:47:43
experiences you and I have had with each
00:47:45
other that made each other laugh. Like
00:47:48
we have a friendship. Like what a joy
00:47:50
that is by the way. Like what a joy it
00:47:52
is to sit across from someone and say,
00:47:54
"You know what I like about you?" [ __ ]
00:47:56
man. I I want to hear that list. Like
00:47:58
that's lovely.
00:47:59
>> Do you think the whole idea of people
00:48:01
being avoidant and sort of anxious? You
00:48:04
know, this attachment style and stuff.
00:48:05
Do is that does that stuff track to what
00:48:07
you've seen? It does. But you know, I I
00:48:09
also think too like I don't understand
00:48:11
why we treat our connections to other
00:48:14
people differently than things we are
00:48:17
like exercise. Exercise. Okay. Haven't
00:48:21
been to the gym in a while. You go to
00:48:23
the gym, you're going to be sore. You're
00:48:25
not going to be able to lift a lot.
00:48:27
You're going to have to start slow. And
00:48:29
for a couple days, you're going to be
00:48:30
sore. And if you go, oo, I that was I
00:48:33
was very sore after that. I'm not going
00:48:34
back to the gym. Okay. then you're never
00:48:36
going to get fit and you're never going
00:48:38
to get past the sore stage. Cuz if you
00:48:40
go, I'll wait a month and then I'll go
00:48:41
back and do the same thing again. Guess
00:48:42
what? You're just going to You have to
00:48:44
move through the uncomfortable part to
00:48:47
get to the part where it starts to feel
00:48:48
really good and you're not as sore.
00:48:50
Yeah, you'll sometimes still be sore.
00:48:51
You pushed it a little too hard. Maybe
00:48:52
worked out with Huberman that week. But
00:48:54
you know what? Other weeks like you go,
00:48:55
"Hey, I don't feel sore. I just feel
00:48:57
strong and healthy." So, there's going
00:48:59
to be moments where this might feel a
00:49:00
little weird. It might feel a little
00:49:02
awkward. It might feel a little sore.
00:49:03
There might be weeks where that kind of
00:49:04
a simple little practice feels a little
00:49:07
like, oh, it feels a little
00:49:08
uncomfortable. Or, yeah, the list of
00:49:10
things that you did this week that made
00:49:11
me feel loved, I have to reach for it.
00:49:13
Okay, great. Isn't that little
00:49:16
uncomfortable conversation that might
00:49:19
prevent slippage? Isn't that little
00:49:21
conversation better than the long-term
00:49:26
impact of having a distance start
00:49:28
growing between the two of you that
00:49:30
eventually becomes impossible to
00:49:32
navigate because it becomes a chasm
00:49:34
between the two of you?
00:49:37
>> Do you think the attachment style theory
00:49:40
has any truth to it from what you've
00:49:42
seen? Do you tend to find people are,
00:49:44
you know, there's some people that are
00:49:45
avoidant of intimacy, there's some
00:49:46
people that are anxious, there's some
00:49:47
people in the middle.
00:49:48
>> Yeah. I mean, look, I I think that we're
00:49:50
all creatures of our our upbringing, and
00:49:54
I think a lot of our I'm amazed as a
00:49:57
53-year-old man in therapy how often
00:50:01
a lot of my challenges are rooted in
00:50:03
seven-year-old Jim.
00:50:05
>> As a man that talks so much about love,
00:50:07
I'm I'm curious to know what it is that
00:50:08
you still struggle with in terms of, you
00:50:11
know, because I I mean, I know from my
00:50:12
own experience that I can know every I
00:50:13
can know so much. I sit here with
00:50:15
experts all day every day. It's not like
00:50:16
I don't know this stuff. Yeah.
00:50:18
>> But then putting it into practice is a
00:50:20
different task.
00:50:21
>> Yeah. I mean, it's why you'll never hear
00:50:22
me use myself in my relationships as an
00:50:25
example because I think you can be, you
00:50:28
know, an incredibly skilled person at at
00:50:31
the theory of something and then in its
00:50:34
practical application, you have your own
00:50:35
unique challenges. I think that using
00:50:39
yourself as the example and your
00:50:41
relationships as an example is dangerous
00:50:44
because I I learned it in my own
00:50:45
professional life when I had a very
00:50:47
friendly divorce. And so my experience
00:50:50
of divorce is the unique function of the
00:50:53
constitution of my ex-wife and of me and
00:50:55
of our unique circumstances that brought
00:50:57
us where we are. So if I use that as the
00:50:59
basis for my analysis of things, I think
00:51:01
it's a very shallow sample size. I I
00:51:04
know for me
00:51:07
my greatest challenge in every
00:51:09
relationship I've ever had, but even in
00:51:12
my my professional relationships is
00:51:16
acknowledging when I need help. I I
00:51:19
think because I was raised in an
00:51:21
environment where a lot of my needs
00:51:24
weren't met. My father was a very
00:51:27
serious alcoholic. My mother was trying
00:51:29
to tend to a very serious alcoholic.
00:51:32
when I needed something even from a very
00:51:34
young age I I felt a lot of shame
00:51:37
because it wasn't met with you know I'm
00:51:39
hungry for breakfast like of course let
00:51:42
me make you some breakfast it was met
00:51:44
with what you can't make your own
00:51:45
breakfast what's wrong with you and I
00:51:49
it was this guy yeah that was me that
00:51:52
was me Bruce Lee poster and my was Chuck
00:51:56
Norris up there um yeah this is probably
00:51:58
like
00:52:00
nine nine years old Okinawa and Goju Ryu
00:52:03
karate. This is my room. Yeah, I was
00:52:05
very um very lonely. I was really
00:52:08
lonely. I was really sad. And
00:52:12
um I loved martial arts because there
00:52:16
was this
00:52:18
very clear kind of masculinity on
00:52:21
display, like this protective, strong
00:52:26
superpower that you could build.
00:52:29
>> It wasn't just gifted to you. like you
00:52:31
didn't win the genetic lottery. Like you
00:52:33
could through discipline and practice
00:52:37
you could have this superpower that
00:52:38
would make you feel safe and and that
00:52:41
was what I obsessed about having.
00:52:45
There's still a lot of that that person
00:52:49
that young man still in me that is
00:52:51
afraid to ask for help. I wanted to be
00:52:54
someone who I could do do it all for
00:52:56
myself.
00:52:58
And I I I wish I could say looking back
00:53:00
that it was because that was my natural
00:53:02
proclivity is to want to be very
00:53:03
self-actualized, but it really was that
00:53:05
I was just absolutely sad and terrified
00:53:08
that if I asked I'd be shamed if I said
00:53:11
like could you be nice to me that the
00:53:15
answer would be no.
00:53:18
So I learned how to do everything like I
00:53:24
cook amazingly well. like I'm good at a
00:53:27
lot of things. I'm good at most things.
00:53:29
Almost anything I put my mind to I'm
00:53:31
good at. But it took me a lot of years
00:53:34
to figure out that that although that
00:53:38
has served me really well and it's built
00:53:41
my career and the security and safety
00:53:44
that came with being so successful and
00:53:46
having financial success and you know
00:53:49
now some level of notoriety.
00:53:52
It took me a long time to figure out
00:53:53
that that also has been the greatest
00:53:55
obstacle in my life. And I it it I'm
00:53:58
learning at the age of 53 that this guy
00:54:03
is like he's still there and talking to
00:54:07
me all the time. And I've learned now
00:54:10
again through my own therapy to say to
00:54:12
him like, "Oh, I hear you. Like, I hear
00:54:16
you. I'm glad you're still there. Like,
00:54:18
you don't have to be so scared anymore.
00:54:24
I'm not
00:54:26
I'm grateful to him.
00:54:29
I think that's the best thing to aspire
00:54:30
to is to make peace with that. Like I'm
00:54:34
sure in you
00:54:37
there is some little boy
00:54:39
like hiding in some part of his room
00:54:43
feeling very lost and very lonely. And I
00:54:47
don't think there's anything wrong or
00:54:49
weak or not masculine or not strong
00:54:53
about acknowledging that that's still a
00:54:56
voice in your head.
00:54:58
And acknowledging that that voice in
00:55:00
your head, like it it brought you where
00:55:02
you are, but it also held you back in
00:55:05
some ways. And you're never going to get
00:55:07
rid of it. But maybe what you'll do is
00:55:10
hear it for what it is, which is is it's
00:55:12
a voice that was once there really
00:55:14
important to save you. and it did a
00:55:16
really good job of that. But that it's
00:55:19
okay. Like it's okay. You don't have to
00:55:21
beat that out of you, but you don't have
00:55:23
to listen to it either. You don't have
00:55:24
to let it drive the car.
00:55:26
>> I was thinking as you were speaking
00:55:27
about how those of us that Do you want
00:55:30
me to take this foot back?
00:55:32
>> Oh, but it's great. It's fun to see that
00:55:34
guy. I It's funny that you you pulled
00:55:36
that out. I have to tell you, I I It's a
00:55:39
lovely It's a lovely thing.
00:55:43
I think there's something to learn from
00:55:46
those versions of oursel.
00:55:48
Like if you hang out with kids,
00:55:52
you you just see like
00:55:54
>> they don't have all that hate in their
00:55:56
heart. They hate naps. It's the end of
00:55:58
the list. Like everything else like they
00:56:01
just want to like love each other and
00:56:03
hug each other and play. And when they
00:56:06
like think they hurt someone, they stop
00:56:08
and they're very scared cuz they didn't
00:56:09
mean to. And then we turn into these
00:56:12
creatures that are just attacking each
00:56:15
other all the time, you know? And I
00:56:17
think at the end of the day, like all we
00:56:18
want is that. Like all we want is to
00:56:20
just be like that warm, open version of
00:56:25
ourselves before the world beat the [ __ ]
00:56:26
out of us. And maybe that's what love's
00:56:29
supposed to be. Like maybe what love is
00:56:31
is an opportunity for us to like
00:56:34
reconnect to that part of ourselves that
00:56:36
was just so simple. Like I just want you
00:56:39
to love me. I want to be loved by you. I
00:56:41
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00:56:43
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I was thinking about how um there's a
00:58:46
lot of people that at a very early age
00:58:48
had to be very independent for whatever
00:58:49
reason. Maybe a parent wasn't around.
00:58:51
Maybe in your case, you know, I've
00:58:52
heard, you know, doing this podcast, you
00:58:55
get a bit of pattern recognition where
00:58:56
you you sometimes think, oh, okay, so if
00:58:59
one of the parents was an alcoholic,
00:59:01
>> adult children of alcoholics were were I
00:59:03
remember reading the book recovery,
00:59:06
adult children of alcoholics, I stumbled
00:59:07
on it when I was in college in a
00:59:08
bookstore and I remember reading it and
00:59:11
going, have they been reading my diary?
00:59:14
Like what the holy because there was
00:59:15
this profile of like one of the types
00:59:18
one of the archetypes of adult children
00:59:21
of alcoholics is that you yeah control
00:59:23
control
00:59:25
like wanting to control everything
00:59:27
because life feels so chaotic when you
00:59:30
live with an alcoholic. When the person
00:59:31
who is supposed to be your primary
00:59:34
caregiver and the primary mechanism for
00:59:37
you to feel safe feels unpredictable and
00:59:40
chaotic and that is that creates in you
00:59:43
this constant sense of a heightened you
00:59:46
know heightened sense of I need to hold
00:59:48
on as tight as I can and also that drove
00:59:51
you to be incredibly independent.
00:59:53
>> Yeah.
00:59:55
Independence and connection seem to be
00:59:58
on like two ends of the spectrum. And I
01:00:00
say this in part because I look at
01:00:03
>> I look at all my friends that are very
01:00:04
very very independent and I would say
01:00:06
that they typically struggle the most to
01:00:08
form relationships because they've kind
01:00:10
of built their own
01:00:11
>> castle with a moat.
01:00:12
>> Yeah.
01:00:13
And generally if we zoom out on this
01:00:14
point of independence and dependency
01:00:16
>> I would say that the narrative in
01:00:18
society over the last I know 10 20 years
01:00:20
or whatever has been
01:00:22
>> pointed at glorifying independence and
01:00:25
not dependency. Dependency is like not
01:00:27
cool. It's like be your own boss start
01:00:28
your own business down on your own two
01:00:30
feet.
01:00:30
>> Yeah. Yeah. I so I used to view
01:00:34
I would say the defining characteristics
01:00:36
of my 30s and 40s
01:00:39
was the belief that there were two
01:00:42
versions of Jim Sexton.
01:00:45
One was the one that was the most
01:00:49
forward- facing at that time which was
01:00:51
lead pipe cruelty and mercenary
01:00:52
sensibility. Like I'm I'm I'm going to
01:00:54
do this job. I'm going to do it really
01:00:56
well. I'm going to get better and better
01:00:58
at it. I'm going to just take my skill
01:01:00
set and weaponize it and that's who I'm
01:01:03
going to be. And then there was this
01:01:05
other part of me that was always there.
01:01:06
I kind of stuffed it in the closet for a
01:01:09
while that like gets misty eyed when I
01:01:12
talk about love and cries when I think
01:01:14
about dogs and, you know, watches Love
01:01:17
on the Spectrum and can't make it
01:01:19
through an episode without weeping three
01:01:20
or four times. Like this very soft,
01:01:23
gentle, loving, compassionate,
01:01:25
empathetic, sensitive part of me. And I
01:01:28
felt like they were two waring forces.
01:01:32
There were two versions of me. And the
01:01:35
question was, how can I beat that soft
01:01:37
little, you know, wuss out of me and be
01:01:42
the final form, which is like the me
01:01:45
that's a machine that can just do it
01:01:48
like that can just do what needs to be
01:01:50
done and do it in a way that nobody else
01:01:52
can do. And I'm very blessed that I am
01:01:54
in my line of work. what yoyo ma is in
01:01:58
cello like in a courtroom
01:02:01
I have a god-given talent and I remember
01:02:04
thinking okay that's the final form of
01:02:06
me is a master in the courtroom and and
01:02:10
everything else is just what do I need
01:02:12
to do to get there I remember my ex-wife
01:02:15
saying to me you know you will never
01:02:17
love any woman as much as you love the
01:02:20
law like every woman who you ever meet
01:02:24
for the rest of your life will be
01:02:25
playing second fiddle to how much you
01:02:27
love being in a courtroom. You're great
01:02:29
in a courtroom and you have no idea what
01:02:32
to do in your living room. Like in your
01:02:34
living room, you're just totally
01:02:38
paralyzed. Whereas in a courtroom, you
01:02:41
know every it has why it has defined
01:02:43
rules. It has a cadence. I know what the
01:02:46
goal is. Like I know exact it's
01:02:48
controlled chaos. I'm great at it. So
01:02:51
there was a part of me that went, okay,
01:02:55
there's this soft, warm, wonderful,
01:02:56
lovely, empathetic side of me, and then
01:02:59
there's this real successful, and that's
01:03:01
the one that got me everywhere. That's
01:03:03
the one that got me everything I have.
01:03:04
So I have to figure out how to get rid
01:03:06
of this one and keep this one. Like,
01:03:11
and for my entire 30s and most of my
01:03:13
40s, that was my primary thing was
01:03:16
trying to figure out how to get rid of
01:03:17
that part of me. And no matter how
01:03:19
loudly I blared 9-in nails on on on on
01:03:22
my headphones and tried to become a
01:03:25
machine, I couldn't get rid of that part
01:03:28
of me. And then I came to realize, I
01:03:31
think in part because of this work. I
01:03:34
think because of like somehow I stumbled
01:03:36
into
01:03:38
being in a position where I end up
01:03:39
talking about feelings a whole lot. And
01:03:42
it's somehow I I I got brought in to
01:03:45
have go here's this interesting divorce
01:03:47
lawyer who's going to talk about divorce
01:03:48
stuff and somehow ended up talking a lot
01:03:50
about love and softness and warmth and
01:03:53
compassion.
01:03:54
>> I didn't think it somehow
01:03:56
>> Yeah. No, exactly. And what I came to
01:03:58
learn from that from from giving that
01:04:01
voice
01:04:02
is that there actually isn't two waring
01:04:04
forces. It's two very authentic aspects
01:04:07
of self that have to exist inside of me.
01:04:11
And each one of them creates the other
01:04:13
in some ways. Like I don't think I'd be
01:04:15
anywhere near as good of a lawyer and
01:04:17
courtroom advocate if I didn't have a
01:04:20
tremendous sensitivity and empathy and
01:04:23
couldn't put myself in the heads of the
01:04:24
various people in the room. So I think
01:04:27
that when we start to see what seems
01:04:29
like opposite traits in us instead as
01:04:32
authentic representations of aspects of
01:04:34
who we are that we have to learn how to
01:04:37
do let them dance, let them move
01:04:40
together in some way. And there's times
01:04:42
where this guy should take the lead. And
01:04:46
there's times where that very focused
01:04:48
self that you know is very
01:04:50
missiondriven, that person should lead.
01:04:53
And and for men in particular, like
01:04:55
we've been taught a rigidity. Like the
01:04:57
gender role for men has a tremendous
01:05:00
rigidity. I mean, I grew up in a time
01:05:02
where you either got to be Clint
01:05:03
Eastwood or Richard Simmons. Those were
01:05:05
your two choices. You either had to be,
01:05:08
you know, like icy 100% or you had to
01:05:12
be, you know, you could be warm and
01:05:13
fuzzy, but then you were just not really
01:05:14
masculine. And I just don't think that's
01:05:17
the case. Like you look at like I've
01:05:19
spent 20 years on the Brazilian
01:05:21
jiu-jitsu mat. I have to tell you like
01:05:23
there are some dudes could snap your
01:05:24
neck with like any with their thumb and
01:05:28
they're some of the warmest most lovely
01:05:30
people because these are all authentic
01:05:32
aspects of self. And to know that like
01:05:34
the soft warm version of me feeding it,
01:05:38
letting it spend some time letting it be
01:05:40
in conversation, it it makes me better
01:05:44
at the other part. It makes me more
01:05:46
authentic. It makes me better at that
01:05:48
part. And by the way, letting that part
01:05:51
out, it hasn't done anything to diminish
01:05:54
this part. So when you start to see it
01:05:56
that way, I I really think that there's
01:05:58
a tremendous
01:06:00
broader menu of possibilities out there.
01:06:04
I've got several friends in my life that
01:06:06
have really struggled with relationships
01:06:08
and love. And uh for all those people
01:06:11
that have really really struggled in
01:06:13
love and they look around at everybody
01:06:14
else and everybody else seems to have
01:06:17
worked it out or at least be working
01:06:19
through a situation but they look at
01:06:20
themselves and go, "It just doesn't work
01:06:22
for me. What's going on? Why am I the
01:06:23
only one in my friendship group that
01:06:25
hasn't found love or isn't in a
01:06:28
relationship?" And they kind of beat
01:06:30
themselves up about it. I think that's a
01:06:31
great starting point. Why is this
01:06:34
happening to me? and start looking at
01:06:38
when did it start happening and what's
01:06:40
the consistent thread through all of it
01:06:42
and are there people that I could ask
01:06:44
that question of who know me and love me
01:06:46
and would be willing to tell me honestly
01:06:48
and if there aren't great what are some
01:06:49
resources out there in terms of the
01:06:51
wisdom of other people that might share
01:06:53
that experience I think there's so many
01:06:56
entry points to that conversation with
01:06:58
yourself I think the start is to
01:07:01
identify that yeah I'm drowning like
01:07:03
what here's what the solution is not is
01:07:06
to pretend everything's fine. And that's
01:07:09
the ecosystem we've created.
01:07:12
We're we're living our gag reel and
01:07:14
watching everyone's greatest hits. And
01:07:16
we're encouraged all day long to tell
01:07:19
everyone how great we're doing and how
01:07:21
we're crushing it and how great we feel
01:07:24
and how focused we are. Because why?
01:07:25
Because we're terrified that if we said,
01:07:27
"I don't know. I feel like I'm drowning.
01:07:29
I feel like I'm drowning sometimes. I
01:07:31
have moments where I feel so put
01:07:32
together and then I have moments where I
01:07:34
think I'm drowning. And and by the way,
01:07:37
when people have that kind of honesty,
01:07:40
there's something so beautiful about it.
01:07:43
Like I have to tell you, like one of the
01:07:45
things that people say about me when I
01:07:48
go, I don't understand why anything I'm
01:07:50
saying resonates with anybody. People
01:07:51
are like, "Dude, you're so real. It's so
01:07:53
real. It's so blunt and honest and like
01:07:55
real." This is it's in every one of us
01:07:58
is that same realness, that same basic
01:08:01
just all it is is just saying out loud
01:08:04
like, "Yeah, I don't know. I don't know.
01:08:05
Like, I don't have it all figured out."
01:08:07
AND THAT'S OKAY CUZ I HAVE SOME THINGS
01:08:09
really figured out. So maybe if I've got
01:08:12
these things really figured out and
01:08:14
you've got these other things really
01:08:15
figured out and we're just stop
01:08:17
bullshitting each other for five minutes
01:08:20
and instead go, you know, I'm doing
01:08:22
great on this, but like this I feel like
01:08:24
I'm a train wreck on. Like every high
01:08:26
achieving friend I have, every celebrity
01:08:29
friend I have, every per I have friends
01:08:31
who people look at them and go, "Oh,
01:08:33
dude, he is murdering it." Like you're
01:08:36
my friend. People look at you, they go,
01:08:38
"He's murdering it." There are aspects
01:08:39
of your life that you're like, "I got to
01:08:41
work on that." There's tons of aspects
01:08:44
of my life where I go, I got to work on
01:08:45
that. Like I I figured all these other
01:08:47
things out, but I haven't figured that
01:08:49
out yet. And you know what? It's so
01:08:51
lovely to have that conversation. Like
01:08:55
why why can't we just make some space
01:08:57
for that all of us a little bit more? I
01:09:00
don't think it's that hard.
01:09:02
It's at least as important as our
01:09:04
workout routine. It's at least as
01:09:06
important as remembering someone's
01:09:07
birthday.
01:09:08
>> Yeah. I I I wonder why that I wonder why
01:09:10
it is that we um there's so little space
01:09:14
for us to work on our connection
01:09:16
challenges
01:09:18
these days.
01:09:18
>> It hasn't been prioritized. We become
01:09:20
what we behold. We prioritize what we've
01:09:23
been told to prioritize. We've been told
01:09:25
to prioritize conspicuous consumption.
01:09:28
>> We've been taught that the measure of a
01:09:30
person is is how much financial success
01:09:32
they have. That's why I genuinely
01:09:34
believe that if we continue to barrel
01:09:36
along
01:09:38
using this the metric of success being
01:09:43
financial above all else really
01:09:45
consumption, what we own, what we wear,
01:09:47
what we have or how we look, right? as
01:09:50
the priority, we're barreling towards
01:09:53
nothing. Whereas if we were to change
01:09:56
that and say, hey, like joy, peace,
01:09:59
finding some peace within ourselves,
01:10:02
finding some balance that feels right to
01:10:05
us individually.
01:10:07
>> I think that's a really good simple word
01:10:09
which people don't think about enough
01:10:10
when they're thinking about the KPIs of
01:10:12
success in their life, which is how do I
01:10:14
feel? And I think we've all grown up in
01:10:17
different contexts learning to tune out
01:10:18
of how I feel and in its place put how
01:10:22
does the world feel about me as like the
01:10:25
primary metric. And it's like I I was
01:10:27
thinking the other day that actually,
01:10:29
you know, we can go do all these
01:10:30
podcasts and books and whatever else,
01:10:31
but we were all born with this sort of
01:10:33
internal compass that tells you every
01:10:36
day how you feel, but like none of us
01:10:38
tune into it.
01:10:39
>> Yeah. Yeah. And actually the metric
01:10:40
becomes like how many followers do you
01:10:42
have? How rich are you? How
01:10:43
>> it's beaten out of us by the world. Like
01:10:46
I I I will tell you, you always get the
01:10:49
most emotional stuff out of me, Stephen.
01:10:51
I will tell you my most shameful moment
01:10:53
as a parent.
01:10:55
So I have two sons. They're 26 and 28.
01:10:58
28-year-old just got married in
01:10:59
September. He's a lawyer. He's awesome.
01:11:03
He must have been five or six.
01:11:08
and something happened
01:11:10
like and he was he started crying like
01:11:13
someone hurt his feelings or something
01:11:15
happened but it wasn't I don't know it
01:11:18
wasn't that big of a deal like it it to
01:11:20
me at the moment I mean I was in my 20s
01:11:23
he was 24 when I I was 24 when he was
01:11:25
born so yeah I was in my 20s and he was
01:11:28
crying he was crying and like I wanted
01:11:30
him to stop crying because it made me
01:11:32
sad to see him cry like I love him so
01:11:35
much like that I was like it made me so
01:11:37
uncomfortable able to see him crying.
01:11:39
And I remember I like I like grabbed
01:11:42
him, not roughly, I grabbed him and I
01:11:44
just looked at him and I was like,
01:11:45
"Control yourself." I'm like, "Control
01:11:47
yourself." I'm like, "Calm down and
01:11:50
control yourself."
01:11:52
And I remember like he he managed to do
01:11:55
it.
01:11:58
It's 20some years later. Like, and I I'm
01:12:03
ashamed of that moment.
01:12:07
because I understand what I was trying
01:12:10
to say to him. Like I was trying to say
01:12:13
to him, I I don't want you to be in
01:12:14
pain. Like I'm uncomfortable with your
01:12:17
pain. I also wanted I wanted to say
01:12:20
something to this guy probably which is
01:12:22
like dude like the world's not going to
01:12:24
be nice to you if it knows that you have
01:12:26
all these feelings. Like you got to find
01:12:27
a way to hide it. There's so much going
01:12:29
on in that moment. But like I look back
01:12:32
on that moment and I just think like
01:12:35
no like that was the wrong thing to do.
01:12:38
Like it was the wrong thing to do. Like
01:12:40
I don't think we should be telling
01:12:43
people not just boys like boys
01:12:45
particularly maybe. But I don't think we
01:12:47
should be telling people like control
01:12:49
yourself. Like stop feeling so much.
01:12:52
Like I think I think
01:12:54
I think there's a difference between
01:12:57
trying to like get people to control
01:12:59
their feelings and not letting like
01:13:02
everything be governed by the transient
01:13:04
feelings that you have from moment to
01:13:06
moment. And I I think it's a harder more
01:13:09
subtle message. But like I think fe if
01:13:12
we lead with the feelings, if we lean
01:13:14
into the feelings first, if we identify
01:13:16
the feelings first, if we figure out
01:13:18
what it is we want to feel, we want the
01:13:20
other person to feel to bring it back to
01:13:22
marriage to bring it back to connection
01:13:24
that what were the questions I was
01:13:26
asking earlier that that exercise. When
01:13:29
did I make you feel loved this week?
01:13:32
Here's some things you did that made me
01:13:33
feel loved this week. Here's some things
01:13:36
that made me feel desire towards you
01:13:38
this week. Here's some things you did
01:13:39
this week that made me feel less than
01:13:42
loved by you or that made me feel less
01:13:44
connected to you. Like what? Maybe we
01:13:47
just need to help each other learn
01:13:51
how to identify our feelings and feel
01:13:53
our feelings. Like maybe we need more
01:13:55
Mr. Rogers and less, you know, intense
01:13:59
self-help. Like maybe we just need more
01:14:02
help not trying to control our feelings,
01:14:05
but just figure out what they are and
01:14:07
feel them. I think, you know, a lot of
01:14:08
us are distracting ourselves as a way to
01:14:10
avoid feeling anything because even I
01:14:12
was thinking about like a practical way
01:14:14
for you to get back in touch with
01:14:15
actually how you're feeling. Yeah.
01:14:17
>> And every solution I came up with was
01:14:19
like interrupted by doom.
01:14:20
>> Well, the best definition of addiction
01:14:21
I've ever heard was from a therapist
01:14:23
Dave Klugman
01:14:25
>> who said to me, um, addiction is
01:14:28
anything you do to get away from feeling
01:14:29
what you would would have felt if you'd
01:14:31
done nothing at all. And I've always
01:14:34
said to people, work is my favorite
01:14:35
narcotic.
01:14:36
Like if you look at the most productive
01:14:39
times in my life, they were almost
01:14:40
always when something awful was
01:14:42
happening in my personal life. Either I
01:14:44
was getting divorced, my mother was
01:14:45
dying, some some painful thing was
01:14:49
happening. So I took tremendous comfort
01:14:52
in feeling in control and competent,
01:14:54
which is how I feel at work. So the the
01:14:57
more I'm working is usually a gauge of
01:15:00
of where there are aspects of my life
01:15:03
that I don't want to feel certain
01:15:05
things. And again, that's why I think
01:15:06
that the the best question to ask at the
01:15:09
start of therapy, the only question
01:15:10
really, is what is it I'm afraid to
01:15:12
feel?
01:15:14
I think because we're closing off on
01:15:16
this section where we were talking about
01:15:18
people who have struggled in love, it is
01:15:20
probably worth just closing the section
01:15:22
by
01:15:24
giving them
01:15:26
a why as to
01:15:30
like the the reason why they should take
01:15:32
love seriously and stop distracting
01:15:35
themselves and stop avoiding it and stop
01:15:37
avoiding going to therapy,
01:15:39
>> brushing it under the carpet.
01:15:42
like what what is what is the why there?
01:15:44
Why should they take love seriously?
01:15:46
Because they could continue to, you
01:15:47
know, bomb on for the next 10, 20 years
01:15:49
and become
01:15:50
>> really professionally accomplished.
01:15:52
>> Mhm.
01:15:53
>> And, you know, get rich, nice house,
01:15:55
nice holidays.
01:15:57
>> Yeah. Those are all great things. Those
01:15:59
are all worthy pursuits.
01:16:04
I think when you look back on your life,
01:16:07
whatever stage of your life you're in,
01:16:10
most people
01:16:12
will recall a moment where they felt
01:16:14
loved or where they felt tremendous love
01:16:18
as the highest points of their life.
01:16:22
I I think even celebrity and I represent
01:16:25
a lot of celebrities and now like you
01:16:27
I've had a little taste of it.
01:16:31
That's really just the praise of
01:16:33
strangers. It's like the love of
01:16:35
strangers, which is lovely. It's lovely.
01:16:38
It's like neutrieet. It's sweet. It's
01:16:40
not sugar, but it's sweet. Like, feels
01:16:43
good to have strangers adore you. It's
01:16:46
lovely, you know? But is it the same as
01:16:49
having someone who genuinely knows you
01:16:52
and has a history of with you and really
01:16:55
loves you? Like I think all of us know
01:16:58
if we're honest that when we look back
01:17:01
on our life at the moments where we felt
01:17:03
the most glad that we're here, it was
01:17:07
usually
01:17:08
something that we felt that made us feel
01:17:10
loved or that we got to feel loved
01:17:13
towards someone else or or ideally a
01:17:15
combination of the two. So I think
01:17:17
romantic love is a great opportunity and
01:17:20
you don't have to be someone who's
01:17:23
religious and therefore believes that
01:17:25
marriage is a sacrament that you're
01:17:26
called to for the purpose of creating
01:17:28
children. You don't have to be someone
01:17:30
who believes that you know marriage is
01:17:34
good for society and therefore that's
01:17:36
why we have to do it is if you love
01:17:37
America or you love the UK you have to
01:17:39
do this for the country. It really can
01:17:42
just be to look inside your own
01:17:43
experience as a human being and look
01:17:45
inside your own feelings and say, "Okay,
01:17:47
when have I felt truly loved? When have
01:17:49
I felt love? And were those the highest
01:17:52
moments in my life? Were those the best
01:17:54
moments in my life?" A lot of those
01:17:55
other things that you just described
01:17:57
like holiday, it's usually not by
01:17:59
yourself. It's usually with other
01:18:01
people. It's usually with someone. Even
01:18:02
if it's transient love, it's some kind
01:18:05
of connection to another person. So the
01:18:07
the bigger question is is is the unique
01:18:10
form of love that that comes with a pair
01:18:14
bond, right? I you find one person and
01:18:18
you make that person your person. Like
01:18:22
is that the permutation that works for
01:18:25
you? And I think there are a lot of
01:18:29
people who try at that and fail. The
01:18:31
majority of people try at that and fail.
01:18:34
Is the solution to that to give up on
01:18:37
it? I don't think so. I think the
01:18:38
solution to it is to figure out when it
01:18:41
works because when it works, it it's so
01:18:43
good, right? Talk to anybody who's
01:18:45
really had a great successful long-term
01:18:47
relationship. Again, even if it
01:18:50
eventually ends, even if you know,
01:18:52
happily ever after means happily ever
01:18:53
after separately. If you had 10, 20
01:18:55
years of your life where you felt deep,
01:18:58
wonderful intimate connection with
01:18:59
another person and great sexual
01:19:01
satisfaction and all kinds of other
01:19:02
things like you know at best right like
01:19:06
you're you're getting married okay and
01:19:09
if you have a monogous marriage I would
01:19:12
like to think that
01:19:16
you will sleep with as many women as you
01:19:18
want to which will be one
01:19:22
and she will sleep with as many men as
01:19:24
she wants to, which will be one. Cuz
01:19:27
when I'm full,
01:19:29
I'm not hungry. I don't need more to
01:19:31
eat. Like when I'm satisfied, I don't
01:19:35
need more. Like if if the goal of a
01:19:38
monogous marriage, if the goal of a
01:19:40
traditional marriage is that we're going
01:19:42
to say to each other, "Hey, you and I,
01:19:46
we're going to share space. We're going
01:19:47
to share a journey together. We're going
01:19:48
to play a very important role in each
01:19:50
other's lives. We're going to add to
01:19:53
that. there's this romantic and sexual
01:19:54
component which makes it something other
01:19:56
than a friendship and most marriages
01:19:59
you're saying we're going to only share
01:20:01
that aspect of self with each other.
01:20:04
Okay. So if that's what you want and
01:20:08
what comes from that is you know
01:20:12
something you want to feel and that is I
01:20:15
want to feel deeply connected. I want to
01:20:17
feel a connection that gets deeper and
01:20:18
deeper. I want to feel safe in this
01:20:20
relationship. Emotionally, physically, I
01:20:23
want to feel safe in it. Like, I just
01:20:26
think that there's tremendous value in
01:20:28
saying that out loud to each other from
01:20:31
the beginning and saying to each other,
01:20:34
what can we do to to if we both have
01:20:37
decided this is something we're going to
01:20:39
do, we don't have to do it, but we're
01:20:40
going to do it. How can we keep this
01:20:44
thing lovely and connected? And I I
01:20:47
think the answer really is not that
01:20:49
complicated.
01:20:49
>> Do you think prenups help marriages
01:20:52
last?
01:20:53
>> Yes.
01:20:53
>> You're saying that as a divorce lawyer
01:20:55
who gets paid to write them?
01:20:56
>> No. Because it's the least profitable
01:20:57
thing we do.
01:20:58
>> Oh, okay.
01:20:59
>> Yeah. Prenups are so easy. Like they're,
01:21:01
you know, they're really like to the
01:21:03
point now where they're essentially
01:21:04
automated. Like I see a future where AI
01:21:06
is just going to do them. Like it's
01:21:07
really not that tricky.
01:21:08
>> Do you think I should get a prenup?
01:21:10
>> Yes, of course.
01:21:11
>> Why do you think I should get a prenup?
01:21:12
>> You have a prenup? It'll either be
01:21:14
written by the state legislature or
01:21:15
it'll be written by you and she. Who do
01:21:17
you trust more? You've been to the DMV.
01:21:20
Have you walked into the DMV and went,
01:21:21
"Oh, these people are great. They should
01:21:22
be in charge of everything." I mean, you
01:21:24
know what? They should make the rules
01:21:25
for our marriage. And by the way, even
01:21:27
though this legislature changes
01:21:29
constantly, like whoever you are,
01:21:31
whatever your political views are, in
01:21:33
the last 20 years, at some point you've
01:21:35
gone, I cannot believe who's in charge
01:21:37
here. I cannot believe who's in charge
01:21:39
of the government. Whatever side of the
01:21:41
aisle you're on. So what you're saying
01:21:43
cuz your marriage has a prenup. You get
01:21:46
married, you've got a prenup. You're
01:21:48
saying I trust the legislature of the
01:21:50
state in which we will be residing in
01:21:52
the future in the event we break up more
01:21:55
than I trust my partner who I've chosen
01:21:58
out of 8 billion options.
01:21:59
>> I imagine a lot of people listening
01:22:01
would
01:22:02
be scared to mention a prenup to their
01:22:05
partner.
01:22:06
>> And those people in particular, by the
01:22:08
way, it's just like I said about, you
01:22:09
know, I don't have 15 minutes a day to
01:22:11
meditate. Great. that you need an hour.
01:22:13
If you'd be scared to mention a prenup
01:22:15
to your partner, then then you should
01:22:18
definitely mention a prenup to your
01:22:20
partner because what that means is I'm
01:22:22
afraid to have a hard conversation with
01:22:23
my partner. And if you're going to get
01:22:26
married, you should get accustomed to
01:22:29
having hard conversations. Life is going
01:22:31
to come at you very fast. And there's
01:22:32
going to be lots of things that happen
01:22:34
that require hard conversations.
01:22:36
>> What if my partner says no?
01:22:38
>> Says no to the prenup.
01:22:39
>> Yeah.
01:22:40
have a conversation about why
01:22:42
>> and they say you don't trust me like you
01:22:44
think I'm going to take your stuff. This
01:22:45
is not very sexy. This is
01:22:47
>> well arguably you don't trust me
01:22:49
equally, right? Because that trust works
01:22:51
both ways. So what what what you're
01:22:53
saying when you say you don't trust me
01:22:56
is you're saying that you don't trust
01:22:58
that this marriage is going to last or
01:23:02
you don't trust you're saying you don't
01:23:04
trust that in the event this marriage
01:23:06
ends we won't be fair to each other.
01:23:09
Right? So, why would you marry someone
01:23:11
who you don't believe that they're going
01:23:13
to be fair to you? What you're you're
01:23:16
not protecting yourselves against each
01:23:18
other. You're protecting yourselves
01:23:20
against the government making the rule
01:23:23
set in the event that that your marriage
01:23:25
ends in something other than death.
01:23:27
>> You know, I've got a friend um there's
01:23:29
two people that convinced me that I
01:23:30
should get a prenup.
01:23:32
>> One of them was you.
01:23:33
>> Thanks. Um, and then the other was
01:23:36
watching a friend go through divorce and
01:23:37
he said to me actually when we we went
01:23:40
for dinner one time that it was it was
01:23:42
it was looking at his face and seeing
01:23:46
the like depression in his face from the
01:23:48
process because not only had it ruined
01:23:51
his relationship with his ex-wife
01:23:53
because they've gone through this
01:23:54
onslaught for seven years where two sets
01:23:56
of lawyers were fighting either side. He
01:23:57
said that he had paid for the lawyer her
01:23:59
lawyers
01:24:00
>> which he has to do which I I wasn't
01:24:02
>> Yeah. There's a presumption that the
01:24:03
higher earning individual should be
01:24:06
responsible for the legal reasonable
01:24:08
legal fees of the the less uh earning
01:24:12
spouse.
01:24:12
>> He said her lawyer has now got like a
01:24:15
skyscraper whereas when this divorce
01:24:17
started he was in a small little office.
01:24:18
Now he's got like some massive building
01:24:20
because he's had to spend tens of
01:24:21
millions on her lawyers.
01:24:23
>> And
01:24:24
>> yeah, I've had clients who paid
01:24:25
millions. The other thing he said was
01:24:26
that he has
01:24:30
her lawyer is trying to inflate his
01:24:33
assets
01:24:35
>> to tell the judge that his business is
01:24:38
worth
01:24:39
>> billions of dollars when now I know why
01:24:41
this divorce is taking so long. They
01:24:42
have dueling experts. So instead of of
01:24:45
the two lawyers hiring neutral a neutral
01:24:47
expert to value his business interests,
01:24:50
what they've elected to do instead is to
01:24:53
hire individual partisan experts. And
01:24:56
that happens sometimes. And when you
01:24:58
hire an individual partisan expert, of
01:25:00
course you're going to, you know, if you
01:25:02
represent the party who wants half of
01:25:04
this thing, you're going to find
01:25:06
someone. You can, the cigarette
01:25:07
companies had doctors who were willing
01:25:09
to testify that cigarettes are good for
01:25:11
you. Like you can find an expert to say
01:25:14
almost anything if you pay them enough.
01:25:16
So you find credible experts that will
01:25:18
overly value the business and then
01:25:20
because value is speculative and then
01:25:22
the other side has an incentive to hire
01:25:24
experts who will deliberately diminish
01:25:26
the value of the business and then you
01:25:28
have two opportunities. One is you can
01:25:30
play with the data set and you can
01:25:32
impeach the data set and then the other
01:25:34
is you can impeach the conclusion that
01:25:36
came from the data set. So you can say
01:25:37
you used the wrong data and that's how
01:25:39
you got to the wrong conclusion. Or you
01:25:40
can say you use the right data but you
01:25:42
came to the wrong conclusion or some
01:25:43
combination of both. Like this is the
01:25:44
[ __ ] I get to do all day in a courtroom
01:25:47
is to like try to engineer those optics
01:25:49
or prevent those optics from being
01:25:51
engineered in that direction.
01:25:53
>> And say that I was going through a
01:25:55
divorce now with my partner. Mhm.
01:25:57
>> My wife would well her lawyer would
01:26:01
theoretically be trying to say that this
01:26:03
podcast is worth a billion dollars
01:26:05
because then theoretically
01:26:07
>> she's entitled to a larger percentage.
01:26:08
Yeah.
01:26:09
>> She might be entitled to 500 million.
01:26:11
And if the judge believes that this
01:26:12
podcast is worth a billion, I need to
01:26:13
find a way to pay her 500 million.
01:26:15
>> Yeah.
01:26:16
>> Even if I don't have it,
01:26:17
>> it can be paid over time. It's what's
01:26:18
called a distributive award. It can be
01:26:20
paid over an extended period of time.
01:26:21
That's
01:26:22
>> and my lawyer is going to be trying to
01:26:23
argue that this is worth nothing.
01:26:24
>> Nothing. It's absolutely effortless.
01:26:25
It's worth nothing. You should have
01:26:26
negative contingency discounts, a key
01:26:28
man discount. It's a lack of discount
01:26:30
for marketability. There's Yeah, this is
01:26:31
all I do all day. This is the gig. And
01:26:34
and see, you know why you want a prenup
01:26:37
is cuz God forbid for both of you that
01:26:41
that happens. Like you're you're going
01:26:45
to pay me. I get a thousand dollars an
01:26:48
hour to help people navigate that kind
01:26:52
of chaos or to create that kind of chaos
01:26:56
as a weapon against a person or to just
01:26:59
threaten that kind of chaos.
01:27:02
>> Doesn't that mean it's your in your
01:27:03
interest to stretch to amplify conflict
01:27:07
and stretch it out and protract it? And
01:27:09
by the way, I manipulate people's
01:27:11
emotional state for a living. I said
01:27:13
that earlier. You don't think I could
01:27:14
use my powers for evil to get my client
01:27:17
terrified and worried that forces are
01:27:19
aligning against him? By the way, that's
01:27:21
how good lawyers get their reputation as
01:27:24
being good lawyers because sometimes we
01:27:26
have a client where we could potentially
01:27:28
make millions of dollars and we settle
01:27:30
the case within like $10,000 worth of
01:27:33
fee. Like I have a case right now where
01:27:36
my opposing council is I I would
01:27:38
consider the only lawyer in New York
01:27:39
City better than me. like he's sort of
01:27:42
like an idol to me in the sense that
01:27:43
he's such a good trial lawyer and he's
01:27:46
my adversary on this case and it's not
01:27:48
the first case we've had against each
01:27:49
other and we are like when the two of us
01:27:50
go in a courtroom it's like T-Rexes
01:27:52
fighting
01:27:54
we're going to settle this case in like
01:27:55
two phone calls because we both are just
01:27:58
not the kind of people that are going to
01:28:00
unnecessarily amplify conflict. We we we
01:28:03
have our reputation because we don't do
01:28:06
that. Like the best of us, that's how
01:28:09
you earn the reputation. The people that
01:28:11
do that amplifying of conflict, word
01:28:14
gets out. Word gets out and that's this
01:28:16
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01:28:18
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01:29:41
I will speak to you there.
01:29:43
>> So, I have
01:29:46
some M&M's here or something.
01:29:48
>> You love M&M's. Um, explain to me.
01:29:51
>> So, this is actually a great
01:29:53
illustration of what a prenup should be.
01:29:55
Okay. All a prenup is, a prenup is not a
01:29:58
referendum on the likelihood of us
01:30:00
breaking up. A prenup is not a
01:30:03
commentary on how much we trust each
01:30:05
other. A prenup is not um, you know, an
01:30:08
opportunity to screw the person you're
01:30:10
about to join lives with. Okay? A prenup
01:30:15
is a rule set. It's creating tranches.
01:30:17
Okay? So, you have some things. She has
01:30:21
some things. Right now, you don't owe
01:30:23
her anything. She doesn't owe you
01:30:25
anything. Yours is yours. Hers is hers.
01:30:28
You're in the title system.
01:30:30
>> Can we talk about if we're just dating?
01:30:33
>> So, if we're dating, I heard that
01:30:35
there's some laws where if you date
01:30:36
someone long enough, eventually they can
01:30:39
basically argue that they own your
01:30:40
stuff.
01:30:41
>> Yeah. So that's called what used to be
01:30:42
called common law marriage or it makes
01:30:45
you responsible for what we used to call
01:30:46
palimony which is like alimony for a
01:30:48
friend palimony. Okay. Um most
01:30:51
jurisdictions no longer honor that. It
01:30:53
doesn't exist. It was largely a function
01:30:55
of the absence of marriage equality. So
01:30:57
once marriage equality occurred, once
01:30:59
gay and lesbian individuals could marry,
01:31:02
the court system essentially started
01:31:04
saying there's no such thing as a quasi
01:31:06
marital relationship anymore. If you are
01:31:09
married, you're married. If you're not,
01:31:11
you're not. So, if you decide to live
01:31:14
together and you don't have a marriage,
01:31:16
then you can't have a quasi marital
01:31:18
relationship anymore. Now that marriage
01:31:20
equality is the law of the land and
01:31:22
everyone who wants to get married is
01:31:24
allowed to get married. You can't say,
01:31:26
"Well, we were kind of like married, but
01:31:28
we weren't married." Like, you're either
01:31:30
married or you're not married. Those are
01:31:32
the two tranches. So, that situation,
01:31:35
you're in the title system. Yours is
01:31:37
yours, hers is hers. There is no wei
01:31:39
except for the voluntary wei.
01:31:41
>> Okay. So now using coming back to this
01:31:44
example of these M&Ms and prenups.
01:31:45
>> So here's what marriage is simply put.
01:31:50
There's you, there's me, this is we.
01:31:53
This is the bucket of we. Okay? When we
01:31:57
get married, we're going to take you.
01:32:06
I didn't put it all. See how I didn't
01:32:08
put it all? Okay, I'm keeping this
01:32:11
separate. That's called separate
01:32:13
property. Okay, in California, this is
01:32:14
called community property. This is
01:32:16
anything I acquire during the marriage.
01:32:18
Okay, this is separate property. If I
01:32:20
keep it separate, it stays separate.
01:32:24
Okay, it stays separate. Keep that
01:32:26
thought. This is her. Okay.
01:32:35
So, she's put some of hers in there,
01:32:38
too. May not be exactly the same, but
01:32:39
it's pretty close to it. And by the way,
01:32:40
we just got married. It's pretty obvious
01:32:42
to see which one's which, right? Okay.
01:32:45
So, so this is any marriage really, with
01:32:47
or without a prenup. Okay? This is what
01:32:50
marriage looks like. There's you and
01:32:52
there's me and there's we. We're
01:32:53
combining. And by the way, this isn't
01:32:54
just for assets and liabilities. This is
01:32:56
like the nature of our stuff, our
01:32:57
furniture, the things we bring to the
01:32:58
relationship. You could even argue it's
01:33:00
like what we watch on TV, right? It's
01:33:02
you, me, we, and we combine the two.
01:33:04
Okay. Now, you and I both know this is
01:33:07
actually what it starts to look like. It
01:33:08
never stays just neat, does it? It
01:33:10
always starts to get kind of mixed up
01:33:11
together. In the law, we call that
01:33:13
co-mingling. Okay. Now, here's what's
01:33:17
interesting with a prenup. This stays
01:33:21
this simple because anything you put in
01:33:25
this bucket is marital.
01:33:27
>> And that could be stuff I bought for the
01:33:29
house. It could be a joint bank account.
01:33:31
It
01:33:31
>> could be anything.
01:33:32
>> Okay? All we're doing when we have a
01:33:34
prenup is yours, mine, ours, and we're
01:33:39
defining that. So maybe I want you to
01:33:43
feel I'm very invested in this
01:33:44
relationship. So I throw some more in.
01:33:47
Hey babe, I just got a bonus at work.
01:33:48
I'm throwing it into the wei. I'm
01:33:50
keeping a little over here. I'm keeping
01:33:52
a little over here.
01:33:53
>> Wait, can you do that after the
01:33:55
marriage?
01:33:56
>> With a prenup?
01:33:56
>> Yeah.
01:33:57
>> So, you can add to a prenup.
01:33:58
>> With a prenup, what you're saying is if
01:34:01
it's in my name, it's mine. Asset or
01:34:03
liability. If it's in your name, it's
01:34:04
yours. Asset or liability. If it's in
01:34:06
our joint names, we divide it 50/50 or
01:34:08
how we agree in writing. But we create
01:34:10
three separate buckets. Yours, mine, and
01:34:14
ours. Okay? Do you know what happens in
01:34:16
the state of California after seven
01:34:19
years or in the state of New York if you
01:34:22
co-mingle assets in any way?
01:34:26
This is solely things in your name. This
01:34:28
is solely things in her name. Things you
01:34:30
owned before marriage. This is the you
01:34:32
and the me before you got married.
01:34:39
It's community property now. All of it.
01:34:41
>> Everything.
01:34:41
>> All of it. Every bit of it. You didn't
01:34:43
have a prenup. Everything that's in it,
01:34:45
everything in here is is subject to
01:34:50
division. Everything that's in here is
01:34:52
subject to identification, valuation,
01:34:55
and division. And think about think
01:34:59
about
01:35:00
sorting that out.
01:35:02
>> And also going back to my friend, some
01:35:04
of the value of these assets is up for
01:35:07
debate.
01:35:08
>> Sure. Sure. Not only is the value
01:35:10
because look, some of these are cracked
01:35:11
and some of them aren't. And did they
01:35:13
crack in this process or were they
01:35:14
cracked before? Did she crack them or
01:35:16
did you crack them? And which ones are
01:35:17
worth more than the others? And were
01:35:19
these the same at the be? It doesn't
01:35:20
matter. It's all in. And by the way,
01:35:22
take take out the marital take out your
01:35:24
property. Now, how long is that going to
01:35:26
take you? It's impossible to do that.
01:35:29
Once you're in the community property
01:35:31
system, once you've put something into
01:35:33
the Wii category, if you get married
01:35:34
without a prenup, you can
01:35:36
unintentionally
01:35:38
buy into this into this system, which by
01:35:42
the way, I make a very comfortable
01:35:44
living helping people sort this out.
01:35:48
Whereas
01:35:50
whereas
01:35:52
all you had to do was agree on the rule
01:35:55
set of yours, mine, ours, and then this
01:35:58
is intentional. Now, I understand why
01:36:01
that's scary for some people because you
01:36:03
have to have a conversation about, well,
01:36:05
are we putting that in joint names? Or,
01:36:07
well, you got that bonus. Are you
01:36:09
putting it in my account or your account
01:36:11
or some in your account and some in my
01:36:13
account or some in this? But isn't it
01:36:15
better to keep some level of control
01:36:18
over this?
01:36:19
>> If I was a financially motivated
01:36:23
individual and I was marrying say you
01:36:25
and you were a billionaire,
01:36:27
>> I mean it's very much in my interest to
01:36:28
avoid this prenup.
01:36:31
>> Maybe.
01:36:31
>> Yeah.
01:36:32
>> Because then, you know, it's all going
01:36:33
to become we in seven years time. So
01:36:35
I've just got to be with you for seven
01:36:36
years and then I can bounce out of this
01:36:37
and I'm going to make half half a
01:36:39
billion dollars. Have you ever seen
01:36:40
that?
01:36:41
>> Of course. Have you ever seen but here's
01:36:43
also what I will say to you. Flip that
01:36:45
story for a second.
01:36:47
So we're married for 6 and 1/2 years.
01:36:50
It's going pretty well.
01:36:53
We're at the 6 and 1/2 year mark.
01:36:56
You're you're a billionaire. You're
01:36:58
probably not stupid, right? Are you
01:37:01
going to take that bet?
01:37:02
>> Is it seven years is the moment
01:37:04
>> 7 years is the moment
01:37:05
>> when it all becomes
01:37:06
>> community property. Yeah. So do you find
01:37:08
some very successful people
01:37:09
>> they spike the divorce rate at six years
01:37:11
six and a half years because why? It's
01:37:13
the same reason why I tell people don't
01:37:15
put don't put what we call you know
01:37:17
sunset clauses in a prenup because
01:37:20
people people all have the bright idea
01:37:21
that they're going to oh well we'll do a
01:37:23
prenup but after 10 years it'll go away
01:37:26
after 10 years you know it'll
01:37:28
self-destruct like in Mission
01:37:30
Impossible. And all that does is makes
01:37:32
people ask really icky questions at the
01:37:34
nine and a half year mark where they
01:37:36
have to start going because seven years
01:37:38
seven years it's like the honeymoon's
01:37:40
over. Maybe you got a kid or two and all
01:37:42
of a sudden you go, "Okay, do I want
01:37:45
fully one half of everything I owned
01:37:47
prior to the marriage to now be subject
01:37:48
to division? Is it going that good? Do I
01:37:52
want to take this bet?" Like look, we
01:37:54
live in reality.
01:37:55
What you're doing when you marry someone
01:37:57
is you're marrying your destiny to them
01:37:59
and you're making decisions about a
01:38:01
future that you can't see. It hasn't
01:38:03
happened yet. If seven years is the
01:38:05
moment when our assets become co-mingled
01:38:09
to the point that community property
01:38:11
where we have to kind of split our
01:38:13
assets in a relationship, have you ever
01:38:15
seen someone get to like seven years in
01:38:17
one day and then file for divorce
01:38:19
because they're going to get
01:38:20
>> Yeah, I've had people who wait until the
01:38:21
exact moment. Like there's other there's
01:38:24
other formulas that are applicable. Like
01:38:26
I I have plenty of people right now that
01:38:27
have come to me for a consultation and
01:38:29
they're like, "Yeah, I'm not going to
01:38:30
file for another 6 months because we'll
01:38:31
hit 20 years in 6 months." And when we
01:38:33
hit that, it kicks up to another level
01:38:34
of alimony in terms of the formulas.
01:38:37
Like here's the thing. When the
01:38:38
government makes decisions for you, they
01:38:41
set numbers. Like there's a highway near
01:38:45
where we are right now. It's 55 miles an
01:38:48
hour is an acceptable legal speed to
01:38:51
drive on that. 56 and you're committing
01:38:53
a crime. 76 and you're committing a
01:38:56
different level of crime. 106 and you're
01:38:58
committing a higher level felony crime.
01:39:00
Right? Is 56 and 55 that much different?
01:39:04
No. We had to pick a number. So, we
01:39:05
picked that number. So, do you trust the
01:39:09
government to pick the number? That's
01:39:12
the only question to ask when you're
01:39:13
thinking about a prenup is, do I trust
01:39:15
the government so much that I'm going to
01:39:16
let them pick the number? Personally, I
01:39:19
don't. Personally, if I like someone so
01:39:22
much that I've decided I'm going to
01:39:23
choose them out of 8 billion other
01:39:25
options, I would think I have enough
01:39:27
faith in that person to come up with a
01:39:29
rule set between us that we and BY THE
01:39:31
WAY, NOT A COMPLICATED rule set. If it's
01:39:33
in my name, it's mine. If it's in your
01:39:34
name, it's yours. If it's in our name,
01:39:36
it's ours. Then you can have all the
01:39:38
conversations you want about why aren't
01:39:39
you putting things in joint names or why
01:39:41
are you putting things in joint names
01:39:42
and here's what I need to feel safe
01:39:43
because here's the thing. If you're the
01:39:45
billionaire or you're the person
01:39:46
marrying the billionaire you both want
01:39:48
to feel remember we're going back to
01:39:50
what is it you want to feel? What is it
01:39:51
you want to feel? That's the key
01:39:52
question. You what do you want to feel?
01:39:54
You both want to feel safe. Isn't that
01:39:56
fair? I've represented a lot of victims
01:39:58
of intimate partner abuse and domestic
01:40:00
violence and course of control and I can
01:40:02
tell you you can't feel loved if you
01:40:04
don't feel safe. And there's lots of
01:40:06
ways for a person to feel unsafe
01:40:08
physically, emotionally, financially.
01:40:11
There's lots of ways to make someone I
01:40:13
hope you want to make your fiance feel
01:40:16
safe. And I hope she wants to make you
01:40:17
feel safe. So, one of the ways that you
01:40:20
make her feel safe. By the way, you
01:40:22
can't protect her from everything in the
01:40:24
world. You know that, right? Like
01:40:25
somebody drops a nuke, there's nothing
01:40:26
you're going to be able to do to help
01:40:27
her with that. Okay? There's lots of
01:40:29
things that can happen that you can't
01:40:30
keep her safe from, but you're going to
01:40:32
do your darnest, and that's great. Okay.
01:40:35
And by the way, like she wants you to
01:40:37
feel safe. She wants you to feel safe
01:40:39
and not taken advantage of and loved for
01:40:41
who you are. Right? I I have every
01:40:43
confidence she does not love you just
01:40:45
for money. There's lots of people with
01:40:46
money in the world. So, she loves the
01:40:48
unique combination of things that are
01:40:50
you. One factor of which may be that
01:40:52
you're a very successful man
01:40:53
professionally. And that makes her feel
01:40:55
safe. And that makes her feel secure.
01:40:56
And it makes her feel like she can
01:40:57
really have a future with you that's a
01:40:59
bright and lovely one. And she can focus
01:41:01
her energies on things other than find.
01:41:03
That's great. This is great, man. We're
01:41:05
both happy. We're doing the thing. So,
01:41:08
what is wrong with just keeping this
01:41:11
conversation an ongoing conversation
01:41:14
about what is it we need to feel safe?
01:41:16
Cuz if you are in that dynamic where
01:41:18
she's gorgeous and he's rich, if she
01:41:22
says to him, "Hey, if we split up, I'm
01:41:25
going to like need some things. Like, I
01:41:27
I'm not really focusing on finances and
01:41:29
you have so much more than me. You're
01:41:31
telling me a guy's not going to say,
01:41:33
"Yeah, it makes sense." And by the way,
01:41:35
when's the time to have that
01:41:36
conversation? WHEN YOU'RE MADLY IN LOVE
01:41:38
WITH EACH other in the beginning of this
01:41:39
thing, when you're on your knee in front
01:41:40
of the restaurant, you know, proposing
01:41:42
to the person. You don't have it when
01:41:44
you're breaking up. That's the worst
01:41:46
time to have that conversation. Have it
01:41:48
when you're first having that abundance
01:41:50
of optimism and connection to each
01:41:52
other. And then and then, by the way,
01:41:54
what does he feel unsafe? He feels
01:41:56
unsafe that he's saying, "Look, I'm
01:41:58
willing to contribute financially to
01:42:00
this relationship. Clearly, I've proven
01:42:01
that. I bought you a Birkin bag. I
01:42:03
bought you a car. I pay for your bills.
01:42:05
I'm signing on to marry you and to give
01:42:07
you a wonderful, beautiful life." Are
01:42:09
you entitled to 100% or 50% of
01:42:12
everything I've ever owned? I have so
01:42:15
much more than you right now. Like, that
01:42:17
seems wildly. Do you Are you saying that
01:42:19
everything I earn from the date of
01:42:21
marriage on we should split? Like,
01:42:23
that's what's great about a prenup. You
01:42:25
can make whatever rules you want to in
01:42:27
that situation. So I I believe there is
01:42:31
genuine value in having honest
01:42:33
conversations about these things. Look,
01:42:36
I it's just M&M's. It's just money the
01:42:40
end of the day. And by the way, this has
01:42:42
no more real value than the pieces of
01:42:44
paper you're holding in your pocket that
01:42:46
we've attributed value to. If anything,
01:42:47
this tastes good. Chew on money all you
01:42:49
want. It won't help. I did have this
01:42:52
conversation with my partner and we we
01:42:53
talked about it and she was very um she
01:42:56
was very supportive of a prenup because
01:42:57
she also wants one and she wants to
01:42:59
protect her assets and the business that
01:43:00
she's built and all those kinds of
01:43:02
things which was useful but also I
01:43:05
acknowledged you know that I'm I earn
01:43:07
more money so in the event that we have
01:43:10
a big family in the future we have four
01:43:11
five kids
01:43:13
>> you I think I need to contribute more to
01:43:15
make sure that she's fine in the event
01:43:16
>> I'm not of course but but see this is
01:43:18
the point you're a reasonable person if
01:43:22
your response when she said well you
01:43:24
know I we may want to have a family and
01:43:26
you know if we do like you have so much
01:43:28
more than me and although I'm signing
01:43:30
off to protect your assets like you know
01:43:31
the pursuits I I am really concentrating
01:43:34
my day on are not purely financial
01:43:36
they're more for the good of the world
01:43:38
or for the good of individuals I'm I'm a
01:43:40
helper I'm a person who wants to to to
01:43:41
to make the world a better place you
01:43:43
know I know a little bit about her that
01:43:45
I know that these are these are her
01:43:46
goals her goal is not to be I want to be
01:43:48
the CEO of everything her goal goals is
01:43:51
to help the world and to help people.
01:43:52
That's beautiful. That's probably one of
01:43:54
the reasons why you love her so much.
01:43:56
And so, isn't that a conversation the
01:44:00
two of you should have now and say,
01:44:01
"Well, of course." And by the way, if we
01:44:03
have kids, I'm going to need different
01:44:05
things. What's great about a prenup is
01:44:06
you can make one that says, "If we don't
01:44:08
have kids, it's this. If we have kids,
01:44:10
it's this." Like, there's protections
01:44:12
you can put in that make sense to both
01:44:13
of you.
01:44:14
>> What about pets? I've heard about this
01:44:16
petnup.
01:44:17
>> Petnup? Yeah.
01:44:18
>> What's a pet nup? And do people actually
01:44:20
>> Yeah. Yeah. Pet a PTNUP is I actually
01:44:23
created the site trusted petnup.com and
01:44:26
uh it's free. It's 100% free. It's uh if
01:44:29
you it's a pay as you wish. So if you
01:44:31
want to to pay anything towards it, 100%
01:44:33
of it goes to animal shelters basically
01:44:36
to to 501c3 animal shelters. But
01:44:38
essentially what we have found is
01:44:42
happening more in the legal system right
01:44:43
now is the equivalent of custody cases
01:44:45
but for companion animals. So people
01:44:47
have a dog, people have a cat, people
01:44:49
have a bird, people have any combination
01:44:51
of animals. We feel deeply emotionally
01:44:53
invested in our pets. Um the law for
01:44:56
many years looked at pets as what was
01:44:58
called cattle. Chatt is property and
01:45:01
property is essentially like if you
01:45:03
killed someone's dog, you owed them the
01:45:06
replacement value of the dog.
01:45:08
>> What do you tend to see from a legal
01:45:10
perspective here? Is it that at one
01:45:12
point they bought a pet together, they
01:45:15
never really clarified who owns the pet.
01:45:17
They go through a divorce. They're both
01:45:18
arguing over the pet.
01:45:19
>> That happened a lot. Yeah, that was the
01:45:20
most common permutation. Sometimes it
01:45:23
was they got a pet together while they
01:45:24
were dating and one of them was living,
01:45:27
you know, in their own apartment or
01:45:29
whatever and the dog or cat was living
01:45:31
with them and then they merged their
01:45:32
homes and now they both grow deeply
01:45:34
attached to this animal and you know
01:45:36
they've spent 5 years or 10 years
01:45:38
together with this animal and now they
01:45:40
both like a child. They both have this
01:45:42
like a stepchild is very similar like
01:45:44
it's not my blood child but it's you
01:45:46
know someone who I've spent a long time
01:45:48
with and been part of their care and I
01:45:50
mean something to them. What's the
01:45:51
legal? What's what what's the
01:45:53
>> Well, for many many years, pets were
01:45:54
considered chatt. They were considered
01:45:56
property. So, you know, I I remember a
01:45:59
case in New York County where the
01:46:01
parties could not agree on what to do
01:46:03
with the dog, like who would keep the
01:46:05
dog. And the judge said, "Okay, I'm
01:46:06
ordering the dog to be sold and the
01:46:07
proceeds divided." And of course, the
01:46:10
people then went outside and figured, it
01:46:11
was very Solomonike. The people went
01:46:13
outside and figured out a visitation
01:46:14
schedule for the dog. But what we're
01:46:16
just saying is just like anything in a
01:46:18
prenup, do this in advance. Just do this
01:46:20
in advance. you have a pet, have a
01:46:22
petup. Even if you're not getting
01:46:23
married, if you're cohabitating or
01:46:24
you're dating someone, have a contract
01:46:26
that says, "We both care about this
01:46:29
animal. We've adopted this animal or we
01:46:31
purchased this animal or we brought this
01:46:33
animal into our lives. And now, in the
01:46:36
event that our relationship ends, here's
01:46:39
what the rules will be. We will jointly
01:46:42
make important medical decisions and be
01:46:44
guided by the veterinarian's, you know,
01:46:46
perspective. Um if if either of us ever
01:46:49
is going to give up the animal for
01:46:50
adoption, the other person will have the
01:46:52
automatic right to adopt the animal. If
01:46:54
the time eventually comes where there
01:46:56
has been a recommendation of euthanasia
01:46:58
by we will both be entitled to be there
01:47:01
when we say goodbye to that dog or we'll
01:47:03
both be entitled to jointly agree on
01:47:06
where that animal's ashes will be or
01:47:08
where they'll be buried or we'll each be
01:47:10
entitled to one half of the ashes or
01:47:12
we'll have a visitation schedule for the
01:47:14
dog in the event that we separate.
01:47:16
That's what a petnup is. A petup is a
01:47:18
contract between two people. Look, just
01:47:20
like kids,
01:47:22
pets didn't ask for this. Pets didn't
01:47:24
ask for you guys to break up. It's not
01:47:27
their fault. Like, I don't know anybody
01:47:29
that ever broke up because of the dog or
01:47:30
the cat. I'm sure there's somebody out
01:47:32
there, but that's not what it's about.
01:47:34
So, it is very, very useful to have in
01:47:37
advance a rule set. I like rules in
01:47:39
advance. I like to know the rules of the
01:47:41
game that we're playing because we can
01:47:43
adjust our behavior accordingly. Is um
01:47:45
divorce increasing statistically?
01:47:48
>> So it's the most recent statistic is the
01:47:51
divorce rate is slowly going up. It was
01:47:53
low. It had it had gone down. It went
01:47:56
down during the pandemic. Part of that
01:47:59
was a function of access to the court
01:48:01
system. When again when you're looking
01:48:03
at the divorce rate, the divorce rate is
01:48:05
calculated based on the filing of what's
01:48:08
called certificate of dissolution of
01:48:10
marriage, which is the final document
01:48:11
that's filed with the state by the court
01:48:14
system when a divorce has been
01:48:16
finalized. So all you're really seeing
01:48:17
there is what marriage is
01:48:18
catastrophically failed and and there
01:48:20
was a judgment of divorce center. There
01:48:21
are many people that just go out for
01:48:23
milk and never come back or they
01:48:24
physically separate and then they never
01:48:25
finalize the divorce. They're not
01:48:27
factored into that statistic. So, and
01:48:29
the people who quietly stay together
01:48:30
miserable or live in different places
01:48:32
and just move out and never finalize
01:48:33
their divorce. That that that statistic
01:48:36
doesn't include any of those people.
01:48:37
These are just the people that it
01:48:38
actually ended in divorce and that
01:48:40
divorce was registered with the state.
01:48:42
But the divorce rate went down and then
01:48:45
it the divorce filing rate spiked when
01:48:47
the court systems opened back up post
01:48:49
pandemic and now it's steadily going
01:48:52
back up again. Now what's interesting is
01:48:54
the marriage rate is going down and the
01:48:58
average age at which people marry is
01:49:00
going up. I was looking at the
01:49:03
generational divide here and it says
01:49:05
younger couples so millennials and Gen Z
01:49:07
divorce rates have plummeted. They are
01:49:09
marrying later, cohabiting first and
01:49:11
statistically more selective leading to
01:49:13
more stable marriages. However, there is
01:49:15
something called the gray divorce.
01:49:17
divorce rates for people over 50 um they
01:49:21
refer to as gray divorce has doubled
01:49:22
since 1990 and tripled for those over
01:49:25
65.
01:49:26
>> Yeah. Gray divorce is a uh something
01:49:28
that a lot of divorce lawyers are
01:49:30
thinking and talking a lot about right
01:49:32
now which is that first of all people
01:49:34
are living much longer. People are
01:49:36
living in a different way much longer
01:49:38
thanks to things like erectile
01:49:39
dysfunction medication. like you know an
01:49:41
80year-old having you know a active sex
01:49:44
life is not something that really
01:49:46
existed
01:49:48
so often prior to the pharmaceutical
01:49:51
advent of erectile dysfunction drugs
01:49:53
which really only occurred in the last
01:49:54
20 years. So there's a big change in in
01:49:58
what a 70year-old or 80year-old's
01:50:00
quality of life is and what they look
01:50:02
like and what their health is like. So,
01:50:04
you know, with with uh hormone
01:50:06
replacement therapy, with you know, all
01:50:07
the different medications that are out
01:50:09
there, people are living more uh
01:50:13
sexually uh you know, and romantically
01:50:16
charged lives in their elder years than
01:50:18
they used to, which often leads people
01:50:20
to say, you know what, I've got 10 more
01:50:22
years. I'm not going to stay in this
01:50:23
unhappy relationship and I'm going to
01:50:24
split up. I actually don't think, by the
01:50:26
way, that those two statistics that you
01:50:28
just talked about are unrelated. I think
01:50:31
millennials they they haven't been
01:50:32
married for that long yet. Like the
01:50:35
question of catastrophic failure of a
01:50:37
marriage like I I've said it before that
01:50:39
people get divorced the same way they go
01:50:41
bankrupt very slowly and then all at
01:50:43
once.
01:50:44
>> What two of the reasons given in the
01:50:45
research I did as well were quite quite
01:50:49
unobvious on the surface. One of them is
01:50:50
that women in this generation boomers
01:50:52
and Gen Z are more likely to have their
01:50:54
own careers and retirement savings than
01:50:56
previous generations. Meaning they can
01:50:57
afford to leave unhappy marriages. And
01:50:59
when I've spoken with menopause experts
01:51:01
and so on, they they've told me they see
01:51:02
this often that in this season of life,
01:51:04
women will, you know, make a decision to
01:51:06
to leave. And the other one is the
01:51:08
reduced stigma about divorce.
01:51:11
>> Yeah.
01:51:11
>> So divorce is no longer seen as a moral
01:51:13
failure, making it socially easier to
01:51:15
split later in life.
01:51:16
>> I believe that that's true. I think that
01:51:18
we've definitely changed the manner in
01:51:20
which we relate to divorce. We no longer
01:51:22
consider it a catastrophic failure
01:51:25
socially. I think that we often see it
01:51:27
as the ending of a chapter and the
01:51:29
beginning of a new one. I don't think
01:51:30
that that's bad. I think dstigmatizing
01:51:32
divorce and seeing that, okay, sometimes
01:51:35
it is better for people when the
01:51:36
relationship is no longer working for
01:51:38
both of them and they've done the things
01:51:40
they've tried to do to make it work and
01:51:42
they've decided that happily ever after
01:51:43
means happily ever after separately. I
01:51:45
don't think that's necessarily a bad
01:51:46
thing. Similarly, you could make the
01:51:49
argument that one of the reasons
01:51:50
millennials, and again, only time will
01:51:51
tell, that millennials are better at uh
01:51:55
staying married is going to be that they
01:51:56
go into it with more realistic
01:51:57
expectations. They don't go into it with
01:51:59
the expectation that this person's going
01:52:01
to be their everything. They they look
01:52:02
at it and go, "Yeah, as a human being,
01:52:04
I'm marrying another human being. I
01:52:06
haven't quite figured myself out."
01:52:08
>> Which of your books was more popular?
01:52:09
How not to [ __ ] up your marriage,
01:52:11
straight talk from a divorce lawyer
01:52:13
who's seen it all, or how to stay in
01:52:15
love? So, How to Stay in Love has been
01:52:18
out longer. Yeah. So, it's done quite
01:52:20
well um over the period of time. It's in
01:52:22
its fourth printing right now.
01:52:24
>> And what what about this book do you
01:52:26
think was resonant? Is there a
01:52:27
particular idea that was number one in
01:52:30
this book?
01:52:30
>> I think a it was the first book written
01:52:34
by a divorce lawyer to headon take on
01:52:37
the topic of how to not get divorced. It
01:52:40
was a how not to book basically. So, I
01:52:42
think that that was the the key concept
01:52:45
was uh keeping people connected and and
01:52:48
what you could learn. Look, who are you
01:52:50
going to go to if you want to learn how
01:52:52
to keep your car in good condition? A
01:52:54
new car dealer or a mechanic? Like, a
01:52:58
new car dealer only sees brand new cars.
01:53:00
They don't know anything about, you
01:53:02
know, about how to actually keep one
01:53:04
together. Mechanics are good at that. We
01:53:06
tell you where the predictable points of
01:53:07
failure are. So, I think that was what
01:53:09
made the book popular. What's the most
01:53:12
important thing we didn't talk about
01:53:13
that we should have talked about as it
01:53:14
pertains to the subject of holding on to
01:53:18
this very precious thing and very
01:53:19
elusive thing for many called love? You
01:53:22
know, something I've been thinking a lot
01:53:23
about lately is two,
01:53:27
and I say this to you as an engaged man
01:53:28
and as a friend.
01:53:31
I think there's two seemingly
01:53:33
contradictory
01:53:36
assumptions people make when they get
01:53:37
married that I hope you're not making.
01:53:40
Okay? I hope this couple neither person
01:53:42
in this couple is making
01:53:44
one
01:53:46
is thinking that
01:53:49
marriage will change the other person.
01:53:53
So, you know, Steven works so much and
01:53:55
he's so hard charging, but once we get
01:53:56
married, he'll come home more and he'll
01:53:58
be home more and he'll calm down more.
01:54:00
You know, she's uh uh you know, very
01:54:03
worried about me when I'm I'm making
01:54:05
something up, but she's worried about me
01:54:06
when I'm out and on the road and she's
01:54:08
worried about temptation bothering me.
01:54:09
But once we're married, she'll know we
01:54:11
have a really solid commitment. She
01:54:12
won't have that worry anymore. Okay.
01:54:14
Thinking that marriage is going to
01:54:17
change someone is a very dangerous
01:54:20
assumption. And a lot of the people that
01:54:22
come into my office, they entered
01:54:24
marriage thinking this is going to
01:54:26
change things that I want to see
01:54:28
changed.
01:54:30
The contradictory second thing is
01:54:33
thinking once we get married nothing
01:54:36
will change.
01:54:38
thinking, "This is so lovely. She's so
01:54:41
wonderful. I love the version of me she
01:54:44
brings out. So, I'm so wonderful when
01:54:46
I'm with her." And her thinking, "He's
01:54:48
so wonderful, and I love who he how he
01:54:50
makes me." Because, you know, we don't
01:54:51
just love the person. We love the person
01:54:54
we are when we're with that person. We
01:54:57
love how that person makes us feel about
01:54:59
ourselves. That's a lovely thing. It's
01:55:00
one of the best things about love,
01:55:02
right? So making the assumption that
01:55:06
that will never change that nothing
01:55:08
about this rel that marrying will
01:55:11
somehow build a wall around this
01:55:13
beautiful wonderful warm thing that we
01:55:15
found together and it'll protect it from
01:55:17
all the other things in the world and
01:55:19
nothing will change and it'll just stay
01:55:21
wonderful is another very dangerous
01:55:24
assumption. So even though it seems like
01:55:27
a contradiction,
01:55:29
I hope that things change and I hope
01:55:32
some things don't change. And the only
01:55:35
way that I can think of to let those two
01:55:38
contradictory elements peacefully
01:55:40
coexist in a manner that doesn't lead
01:55:42
directly to the desk in front of me is
01:55:45
to just keep talking about it. And when
01:55:48
things change, just talk about it. Just
01:55:52
point it out. Not with judgment, not
01:55:53
with anger, not with the belief that
01:55:56
because something changed it's bad. And
01:55:58
not with the change that change is
01:56:00
automatically good. Just saying, "Hey,
01:56:03
remember these two people?
01:56:06
That guy's a little different now. Is
01:56:07
that okay? Why did that happen? Is it a
01:56:10
good thing? Is it a bad thing? Do you
01:56:11
miss him? Is there something that we
01:56:13
could do that's different or better?"
01:56:15
Like these two people found value in
01:56:19
each other. They they love the other
01:56:21
person and they love who they are when
01:56:23
they're with the person. And again, I'll
01:56:24
I'll say it again. Your marriage will
01:56:27
end. I promise. I hope it ends in death.
01:56:30
And I hope when it ends that you will
01:56:33
look at her and you will say, "She
01:56:36
helped me become the most authentic
01:56:38
version of myself and she's still my
01:56:41
favorite person."
01:56:43
That's the greatest gift that you could
01:56:45
give to her and that you can give to
01:56:47
each other and that I think the two of
01:56:48
you together could give to the world
01:56:53
and that's worth all the M&M's.
01:56:57
Why do you point to authenticity as
01:56:59
being so important in this context?
01:57:03
Because you use that word, she helped me
01:57:04
become the most authentic version of
01:57:06
myself. Why does that matter?
01:57:07
>> Because it's not about becoming the
01:57:09
version of you that she envisions for
01:57:11
you. or her becoming who you want her to
01:57:14
become. I think that sometimes love
01:57:19
the person doesn't become what we wanted
01:57:22
them to be. And I think sometimes what
01:57:24
we wanted them to be might not be the
01:57:26
most authentic version of who they are.
01:57:29
You know, Cahil Gabbron in the prophet
01:57:31
when he's talking about children, he
01:57:33
says that children are living arrows
01:57:37
and and and that you you fire the arrow
01:57:41
and yes, your aim has something to do
01:57:43
with it, but the wind has something to
01:57:45
do with it and so many other things have
01:57:46
something to do with it. And so, you
01:57:49
know, God loves the archer with the
01:57:52
steady hand and the arrow that's
01:57:54
straight. And I feel like if you were to
01:57:57
say
01:57:59
this person became who I wanted them to
01:58:02
become like because again I think our
01:58:05
duty in the best symbiosis
01:58:09
you
01:58:11
care a lot about her even more so than
01:58:14
you do about yourself. And she cares
01:58:17
about you even more so than she does
01:58:20
about herself. but not to have you
01:58:23
become the man she wants you to be and
01:58:25
not for her to become the woman you want
01:58:27
her to be. You want to be of service to
01:58:30
her and she wants to be of service to
01:58:32
you. I want to help you become the most
01:58:35
authentic version of you. I can see your
01:58:38
blind spots. You can't. That's why
01:58:40
they're blind spots. So, I'm going to
01:58:42
help you become the most authentic
01:58:45
version of yourself. That's the promise.
01:58:48
That should be the promise in marriage
01:58:50
is I want to help you become I'm going
01:58:52
to do what I can to be of service to
01:58:55
helping you become the most authentic
01:58:57
version of yourself. And when you become
01:58:59
it, you'll still be my favorite person
01:59:02
because at the core of you is this thing
01:59:05
that I love.
01:59:09
>> I hope I do a good job.
01:59:11
>> I hope you do, too.
01:59:13
>> Scary, isn't it? Cuz you think of all
01:59:14
the ways you can [ __ ] it up. It's like,
01:59:16
do you know what I mean?
01:59:17
>> But you know what? There's so many ways.
01:59:18
>> That's why it's brave.
01:59:20
>> Like, if you're not scared, it's not
01:59:21
brave.
01:59:22
>> It's brave because you're scared and you
01:59:24
do it anyway.
01:59:25
>> And it's worth doing it because if the
01:59:28
prize at the end of it is figuring out
01:59:30
who you are and helping someone figure
01:59:32
out who they are and having a partner in
01:59:35
all of this, like what's better than
01:59:37
that, man? What what riches could you
01:59:39
hold that are greater than that? Like,
01:59:41
that's the greatest gift you could seek
01:59:43
in life. And and by the way, it also has
01:59:47
the power, if it's done right, to
01:59:48
transform the world because it really is
01:59:52
family, community,
01:59:55
culture, world, you know, and so yeah,
02:00:00
it's it's the fact that you say it's
02:00:02
scary is great because it means you
02:00:06
realize this is a serious thing and
02:00:09
something that you realize is serious,
02:00:11
you're going to make a concerted effort
02:00:12
to be good at.
02:00:14
Amen. We have a closing tradition. As
02:00:16
you know, the question left for you is,
02:00:19
what is the most significant dream you
02:00:21
have had in the past year and how did it
02:00:25
change your behavior?
02:00:31
Go on. I know. I want to get through
02:00:33
this without crying. I had a uh I had a
02:00:36
dream about my mom.
02:00:47
It's okay.
02:00:50
My mom died 10 years ago after a long
02:00:52
battle with cancer.
02:00:55
There was a lot between us that needed
02:00:57
to be said and wasn't said.
02:01:01
We had some peace and some closure, but
02:01:06
there's a lot I didn't hadn't figured
02:01:08
out about myself
02:01:11
by the time she passed. And there's a
02:01:13
part of me that wishes she was here so
02:01:15
that I could have apologized for some
02:01:19
things I got wrong and I could have
02:01:21
understood her better.
02:01:24
And I had a dream
02:01:26
that she was just there
02:01:29
just sitting with me.
02:01:33
And my mom was like me. She never shut
02:01:36
up. She would just constantly talk and
02:01:40
talk over you. And
02:01:43
I got that from her. Her very energetic.
02:01:45
She also cried constantly and for for
02:01:48
joy, tears of joy. She would listen to
02:01:50
music and just start crying because it
02:01:52
was so beautiful. I realized I got that
02:01:54
from her. Most of the really warm things
02:01:56
in me came from her.
02:01:59
And in this dream, she just sat there
02:02:02
silently.
02:02:04
And I kept talking to her. I don't
02:02:06
remember what I was saying, but I just
02:02:07
kept talking to her.
02:02:09
And she just sat there quietly and just
02:02:12
was patting my leg.
02:02:22
And I I remember I woke up
02:02:26
and I felt
02:02:28
I felt very like calm. I felt very like
02:02:33
I'd spent time with her.
02:02:36
And I thought to myself, I think that
02:02:39
that was something. I don't know if it
02:02:41
was her visiting me. I don't know if it
02:02:43
was God talking to me. I don't know if
02:02:44
it was just my subconscious telling me
02:02:46
something I needed to see.
02:02:49
But I felt like it was saying to me
02:02:50
that,
02:02:52
you know, that sometimes the words got
02:02:55
in the way between the two of us and
02:02:58
that maybe what really mattered the most
02:03:00
was just that we were next to each
02:03:02
other.
02:03:05
And I tried to
02:03:08
since I had that dream
02:03:10
um do that more with the people I love.
02:03:16
It's it's hard for me to stop talking.
02:03:20
And I'm learning
02:03:24
with my sons and with the people that I
02:03:26
love that sometimes just being next to
02:03:29
them is nice. that I don't need to uh
02:03:34
I'm really good at talking so I just
02:03:36
keep doing it and that maybe sometimes
02:03:39
it's nice to just stop and just be with
02:03:42
someone. And so I felt like that that
02:03:46
was a very powerful dream. It was a very
02:03:48
simple dream, but it was one that it it
02:03:52
changed the way I'm trying to relate to
02:03:54
people.
02:03:56
So, you got me to cry again, man.
02:03:57
Killing me.
02:04:00
>> At the end of the day, it all comes back
02:04:01
to love, doesn't it?
02:04:03
>> Yeah, it does. Isn't it funny?
02:04:05
>> All roads.
02:04:06
>> Isn't it funny? Like, we've added all
02:04:08
these layers of complexity to it. That's
02:04:11
all it comes down to.
02:04:12
>> Isn't it crazy?
02:04:13
>> Yeah, it really is.
02:04:14
>> Someone asked me that on stage that like
02:04:15
last week I was speaking in the Middle
02:04:17
East somewhere and they asked me about
02:04:18
like what does everybody want? That was
02:04:21
literally the question and my answer was
02:04:22
love. And we all we're like confused
02:04:24
about the path to it. So, some of us
02:04:26
think the path to it is like if I get
02:04:27
the number one podcast, maybe that would
02:04:28
mean or
02:04:29
>> maybe that would mean I'm worthy of
02:04:31
love.
02:04:31
>> Yeah. Like
02:04:32
>> like we we we've come to we've come to
02:04:34
associate accomplishment with being
02:04:37
worthy of love.
02:04:39
>> And that's really all that it is. Like
02:04:41
it's really all that it is. Like what
02:04:42
otherwise what's the purpose of it? Like
02:04:44
how many super cars can one person have
02:04:46
and how much joy can they really give
02:04:48
you? You can only drive them one at a
02:04:49
time, you know? Like it really is about
02:04:51
like no, I feel worthy. I feel worthy of
02:04:53
love. I feel proud of who I am, which is
02:04:55
I'm proud of who I am, which means I'm
02:04:57
worthy of love. It really all comes back
02:04:59
to love. It really all comes back to
02:05:01
love. The the the two things that late
02:05:04
middle age is helping me see
02:05:07
is that the hardest thing to become is
02:05:09
yourself,
02:05:11
your authentic self. And that really all
02:05:15
any of us want is to be loved, like and
02:05:18
to be worthy of love. And that
02:05:21
everything you have will add up to a
02:05:23
great pile of nothing
02:05:25
other than the people who you love and
02:05:28
the people who loved you and the
02:05:30
experiences you had with those people.
02:05:34
That's it. That's all that matters.
02:05:37
Everything else is noise.
02:05:43
>> James, thank you.
02:05:44
>> Thank you. Always good to see you.
02:05:47
>> Good to see you, too. YouTube have this
02:05:49
new crazy algorithm where they know
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exactly what video you would like to
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watch next based on AI and all of your
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viewing behavior. And the algorithm says
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that this video is the perfect video for
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you. It's different for everybody
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looking right now. Check this video out
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and I bet you you might love