00:00:00
You've made a great decision. And I say this as impartially as I possibly can, but this podcast is it's really the
00:00:08
reason why I started the Diary of a CEO. It's to hear these kinds of stories from these kinds of people. And I've got to
00:00:15
be honest with you, I spent about a year asking this person to come on this
00:00:20
podcast and have a conversation with me. Today's guest is Dr. Ari, and he's been on the podcast once before. He's a a
00:00:27
world-renowned high performance coach, and he works with some of the world's most accomplished athletes, actors, and
00:00:32
everyone in between as they try and reach a mindset state that is conducive with success, with happiness, and with
00:00:39
overall fulfillment. But he's not here to talk about that today. He's here to
00:00:44
talk about something very, very different, something uncomfortable,
00:00:50
something unimaginable. So without further ado, I'm Steven Bartlett and this is the Diver CEO. I
00:00:57
hope nobody is listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.
00:01:04
[Music]
00:01:10
Sometimes in life, you have these unbelievable, somewhat cruel coincidences that occur
00:01:18
that it's hard to make sense of. And last time you came on this podcast, I would define it as for me anyway a
00:01:25
pretty cruel coincidence because we had a conversation um to do with life
00:01:31
generally and and success and the mindset and psychology and all the things that you're an expert on. And for
00:01:36
whatever reason that day, I decided that I wanted to spend 30 minutes talking
00:01:43
about marriage, cheating, love, and asking you these um very personal
00:01:49
questions about monogamy, which I've never done before with any guest ever. And which I really had no place or
00:01:54
reason to ask you more than anyone else. And it just feels to me for what we're going to talk about in part today that
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that was a bit of a cruel coincidence. And you know, one of the questions I asked you was, um, do you believe in
00:02:07
monogamy? And then I asked you, can you love someone and cheat on them? And when
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I listened to that podcast back, I now noticed um, why you laughed?
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Because it wasn't You laughed. Yeah. And it wasn't a normal laugh. It was like a real belly laugh, right?
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Like a bit of a nervous belly laugh. Yeah. After we came off air on that podcast,
00:02:30
you told me something. Mhm. And uh it even gives me goosebumps now thinking about what you said and it gave
00:02:37
the whole team in the room who overheard our conversation goosebumps as well. So
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after our 30-minute conversation about marriage and monogamy and cheating and love, what did you say to me?
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Showed you a story. Yeah. And that was uh about 2 weeks earlier. I'd been traveling back from London home
00:03:01
and I got out of the train station and my wife picked me up and we got into
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the car and we had planned to go and have brunch at my favorite little spot.
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They do amazing Corvos Rancho sauce. I was very excited and she said, "Let's go
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straight home. I've made sandwiches and she doesn't make great sandwiches." So I said, "No, no, I think the branch is a
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better option." And she said, "No, there's something that I need to tell you." And I said, "Is it bad?" And she
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said, "Yes." And I said, "Is it about the marriage?" And she said, "Yes." And then we began
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to drive back and I had this sinking feeling in me.
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And we're we drove for about 5 minutes in silence. And then I went to put my hand on her lap and she said, "Don't
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don't touch me cuz you won't want to after I've told you what's happened." And that's whenever it dropped. And I
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remember that 10-minute drive back home then felt like an eternity. I was just looking out the window and we got home.
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We got into the house into the kitchen and I was standing by the kitchen table,
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hands rested on it and I said, "What's happened?" And she said, "I've been having an affair with a
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man from work." And I remember just tears began to stream. I I didn't move, completely
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motionless. Tears began to stream. And then she said, "And that's not all." And
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she said, "I'm pregnant with this child. And in that moment,
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I felt like I lost a lot. You know, I'd lost my wife. I'd lost life we created.
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I'd lost uh the dog, our home, her my parents-in-law, her family, everything
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that I'd really held dear. If someone said, "What makes a meaningful life?" I would have described these things. And
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it felt like they just been snatched away. It just came crumbling down like a house of cards.
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And then fast forward two weeks and Steve decides to ask and I remember because
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the first thing No, no, it was fascinating cuz the first thing you asked was, "You're married, right?" And
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I did this high pitch laugh and I go, "Yes."
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And then and then the conversation flowed on and and it's themes I'd really thought about. Can you love someone and
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cheat on them? Does monogamy exist? Is it natural? Are we set up to
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live a life where we're in one relationship with one person only? And
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so over the past 18 months, it's been a process. And some of these
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themes have been very real to me. I just as I reflect on that conversation and when I played it back um after you
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told me, so we come off air, we stood next to the table and the microphones and you you explained to me what's
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happened. I'm for the first time in my life completely speechless. And the thing that blew me away even
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more so than what you had said to me was your ability to be so calm and rational
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and objective in the answers you gave. And even when I listen back now, although there was that laugh, which was
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a bit of an indication, um, you were able to speak about someone
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betraying you or being deceitful with a level of calmness and apparent um,
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emotional uh, sort of restraint that I I just admired so much from
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someone that was right in the middle of the emotional hurricane and had just been victim of that act. And um you said
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there you know about the topic of monogamy. How did that change your opinion and and
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and also the subsequent 18 months of processing on the topic of monogamy? Um,
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so as a quick aside, I like that analogy and we touched upon it briefly about the hurricane and and it's funny actually
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because a friend of mine showed me a book about a week ago and it was
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different personality profiles depending on the day that you'd been born on. And whenever we looked mine up, there's a
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little meditation at the end, uh, a summary and it said, "The stillest part
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of the hurricane is its center." And that essentially has been uh a
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philosophy that's guided my life where sometimes there's a storm and it's
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horrendous and it's raging. But if you can cultivate that sense of stillness
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and calmness and clarity deep within you, no matter what life throws at you,
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you will be okay. Because the second part of whenever I was told that news and and
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the tears were were streaming and I felt that sense of loss and overwhelming sadness.
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It was a remarkable moment where in that instant and I can only describe it as a
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whisper. I heard a whisper within me as if it was resonating from a heart that
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all will be well. Four words all will be well. All will be well. And I knew even
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then I knew whenever you know there's tumultuous emotion I knew everything's
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going to be okay. I will get through this. I'm going to have to walk through the desert and I'm going to have to endure a horrific amount on an emotional
00:08:34
level but it's all going to be fine. How did you know that? I think it's something that I've
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cultivated over over 105 years and that's why I do what I do now because I want to help other people to be able to
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reach that stage and and it began on a journey of um Buddhist exploration and
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understanding the nature of life and I came to this realization that life
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involves suffering. There's no promise that it's going to be happy golucky and really pleasant all
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the time. really horrific things happen in life. And on one level, there's no way that we
00:09:11
can ever rationally explain it away. Sometimes bad things happen, but it
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doesn't end there. It It's a bit like that line that someone once said to me, whenever you're suffering, don't ask
00:09:24
God, why am I suffering? Ask God, where are you taking me?
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And so I've I've developed this ability to
00:09:35
begin to view my life as though it's happening to someone else, as though the
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experiences, the thoughts, the emotions are are something that I can I can almost take it back on and have
00:09:47
perspective. And I can see it and I can feel it. But I know that my thoughts,
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that isn't just who I am. My emotions isn't just who I am. That's a temporary experience. and and throughout my life,
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no matter what has happened, even whenever it's been brutal, it's often shifted me in a new
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trajectory and there's been a new meaningful life ahead of me. And I and I
00:10:11
knew even then, she's going to be okay. She'll be okay. It's going to be a tough road for her too, but she'll be okay.
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And it's going to be a tough road for me, too, but I will be okay. Anger.
00:10:24
So many people in that situation whether rightly or wrongly just because of the way that they are would have reacted
00:10:30
with anger. And for some reason you were both calm in telling me you're calm now.
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And this remarkable thing which I I think I
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I struggled to understand a little bit is one of your first concerns was her
00:10:46
well-being. Mhm. Versus your own. Mhm. Mhm. Why?
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Because I loved her and I was in the practice of of placing her
00:11:00
emotional well-being and her happiness on the same level as mine,
00:11:06
if not sometimes first and foremostly, but at least on on equal playing field.
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And and I was just so in that habit. And that was the toughest thing to let go of. the thing that I still struggle with
00:11:20
today and and I'm still it's the one part that I realized the other day
00:11:25
that I still had a fear of upsetting her or of her not being okay.
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And so that's something which just just really developed and and was so
00:11:37
ingrained. And it's interesting on on the point of anger. If you'd said like your wife
00:11:45
partner for 10 years, married for five, has an affair, and is pregnant with another man's child, how will you react?
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I would have said anger. I would I'd be furious, but it wasn't there. At least not
00:11:57
initially. It was this overwhelming sense of sadness. It was just that sense of loss of knowing that again that she's
00:12:04
potentially done something that she might regret for a long time. And I don't want anyone to go through that
00:12:10
experience where they feel like they've [ __ ] up hugely even if the the future
00:12:15
is positive in that moment. My sense is there will be regret or at least shame.
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And so it was a sadness because that was connected to the loss, the sense of loss
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of losing things that I held dear. Feels like you're living outside your body a little bit. I guess that's what
00:12:34
self-awareness is or at least emotional awareness is because you're being able to see that situation which is utterly
00:12:41
horrific for anyone. Yeah. Um from as you say from like a bird's eye view as if you've like
00:12:47
Yeah. looking down on it. And that's allowing you not to just feel your own emotions but to feel empathy
00:12:52
towards theirs. Yeah. And I think I think that's the path in my eyes that's the path to
00:12:58
enlightenment. And I'm not saying that I am enlightened, but I think we're all on that path and we're all progressing through it. And for me, that's what
00:13:05
awareness is. It's being able to experience internally your thoughts and your emotions and externally what's happened
00:13:13
as if it's happening to someone else. You're like holding them out in front of you and analyzing them, right? So like,
00:13:19
but if you're not holding them out in front of you and it's happening within you, then you are just almost like a passenger on a roller coaster.
00:13:25
Totally. Whereas holding them out in front of you kind of makes you the the conductor or the roller coaster or at least uh
00:13:30
able to yeah understand and if you can understand then you can address and then you can overcome. Totally. I love it. Whenever you're
00:13:37
holding it really close to you you're fused with it. Anything that happens instantly will will provoke a reaction
00:13:43
whether or not it's emotional or behavioral. But when you hold it in front of you there's a bit more space.
00:13:49
Now you still experience it. I'm not going to lie to you. It was a brutal couple of months. I cried every day uh
00:13:56
for maybe 3 months for hours hours. I I would I would walk and I'd process what
00:14:02
happened and if you want we can talk about that at some point um about my process of moving through it.
00:14:08
But yes, it was I'm not going to say it wasn't um emotionally painful, but
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I wasn't defined by that pain. That was just a part that I was experiencing. Let's talk about that. So a lot of
00:14:20
people experience grief in many forms and this somewhat feels like this the central emotion you described it as a
00:14:26
loss. It feels like a form of grief. What was your process for moving from
00:14:32
you know finding out that it had happened to to where you are today where you're you know you've quote unquote processed it I imagine as
00:14:39
much as you might have been able to at this stage. Yeah. Some you know
00:14:45
what was your process? So where I think people often um catch
00:14:52
themsel in a in a counterproduct productive cycle is whenever they try and avoid experiencing what they're
00:14:59
experiencing. They try and shun it, lock it away, put it in a box, disconnect from it, deny it, and they just focus on
00:15:06
the future and where I am going. And they might try and rationalize it. Uh this happened because of X or because of
00:15:12
Y. And then they try and forge ahead. And I think it comes back to bite them at some point.
00:15:18
The simplest truth is that we can only ever experience
00:15:24
one moment at a time. And I remind myself of that. I don't need to think about right now the financial
00:15:31
separation, the divorce, what it means about friends or family or or will I
00:15:38
meet someone again or how long will it be or what will my life look like or where am I going to live? So many
00:15:44
different factors that could be overwhelming. I just decided to deal with one moment at a time. All I need to do is deal with this one moment and what
00:15:51
is this one moment bringing me and accepting and welcoming. It sounds strange but welcoming whatever comes up.
00:15:58
And so whatever emotion came up, I didn't try and push it away or shunt it or deny it or negate it. I let it I let
00:16:05
it sit and that's why I cried so much because it was so much sadness. Did you
00:16:10
write down the emotions you were experiencing? So I didn't write down the emotions but
00:16:16
what I did in the next step is so the first step was awareness and accepting
00:16:23
whatever emotions I felt and and a lot and seeing that they come and then they go you know that there'd be moments
00:16:28
where I'd be laughing with my brother and then crying a minute later and then talking about something else.
00:16:35
The second step was reminding myself of reality
00:16:40
because I was so ingrained in in an internal model of what life looked
00:16:47
like. I have uh strong stable marriage
00:16:53
in which my partner subconsciously uh you know implicitly I believe is
00:17:00
faithful. We're meant to be together. We're going to be together for the next 50, 60 years until one of us dies. Uh,
00:17:08
we're going to have children together. That was my internal model.
00:17:14
And I had to rip it apart. I had to take it down. I had to dismantle it. And I
00:17:19
had to remind myself of the reality of the situation. I had to I had to accept it. I had to accept it's over. It's not
00:17:27
going to change. There's no going back. the final nail is in the coffin and you
00:17:34
need to take that on board. And I'd also write any so I'd write down
00:17:39
reminders of of what had happened. And I also wrote down any insights I had about
00:17:46
the situation that I could remind myself of. And I wrote down how I wanted to
00:17:52
handle this process. Um I can actually read a few out if you want. Please. I've
00:17:59
got um so I I I literally would just write them down on my phone. Um and so
00:18:06
afterwards I I began to split them up into different sections. Mhm. But this one was for the process.
00:18:14
Hold yourself to the highest standard. Choose actions that you can be proud of.
00:18:21
How you get through this process is more important than how quickly you get through this process. Cuz for me it was
00:18:27
important that I still lived with personal integrity, that I didn't
00:18:33
I wasn't warped or changed or um
00:18:38
consumed with vengeance or acted in ways that was out of spite or out of emotion.
00:18:44
I wanted to be able to look back on this in 12 months, 18 months time and still feel good about it, have a clear
00:18:49
conscience, still be able to put my head down and feel as though I handled that to the best of my ability.
00:18:55
With God, you can get through this. You can become stronger, wiser, more caring, more compassionate, and more loving.
00:19:04
And that's another theme that actually the deepest moments of suffering can actually
00:19:10
be opportunities for growth. Even if you don't want it, there's something there that that you can learn and can can grow
00:19:16
from. You don't need anything from her anymore. Um and there and then different
00:19:24
reminders. You have nothing to feel bad about. You aren't responsible. You have
00:19:29
nothing to feel guilty about. Nothing. Because there were moments where my mind would almost begin to in a way play a
00:19:36
trick on me and begin to try and create reasons um to feel bad or to try and
00:19:42
create shame. And at those times while I would accept what came up, I decided not to pursue that line of thinking because
00:19:50
that didn't fit. Whenever I was calm and clear, this came to me. And so I'd write
00:19:56
down whatever came to me. Whenever I was in a place of wisdom, then when the emotion hit
00:20:02
and I'm not seeing clearly and I've got on a clouded lens, this little baby became my best friend cuz I'd go back to
00:20:09
it and I'd remind myself and then it would it would reshift my mental paradigm.
00:20:14
I have this um before, please do keep your phone open because I want to hear the rest of this. Okay. But I have this um analogy I make in
00:20:21
moments where I experience a very similar thing that I'm going to tell you one example. Yeah. It's It's the closest I can come
00:20:27
to resonating with what your experience is. I was dating this girl
00:20:32
and I broke up with her and three days later I find out that she's had sex with
00:20:38
someone else, right? And I can only The way that I described it was I'm flying on this
00:20:44
plane and I'm the pilot and then suddenly when I find when I
00:20:51
when I look down and hear the news that she's just slept with somebody somebody else. Yeah, it was like terrorists stormed the
00:20:57
cockpit and they chucked the the [ __ ] rational pilot out and they were threatening to crash the whole [ __ ]
00:21:04
thing. And my whole objective as the pilot is to get back into the cockpit before they crash this plane into the
00:21:09
side of a mountain because if they crash the plane, I'm [ __ ] And so what I wanted to do was lose my
00:21:15
integrity. I wanted to crash the plane. I wanted to get her back, take revenge, tell her she's a this, this, and a this,
00:21:21
and a this, and a this. And it was this because I've got to a place of where I'm able to hold situations out in front of
00:21:27
me a little bit more than I ever was, you know, in the past. I was at war with myself. Yeah. It was the terrorists on one end telling
00:21:33
me to crash the plane and the pilot saying, "You've been here before. You know, you just need to keep the plane in the air until you
00:21:40
and and I and I'm so I'm going for a run. I'm like, "Steve, go to the gym. Go for a run. Clear your head." I'm at the
00:21:45
gym. The terrorists that And I'm like, "I'm going to finish. I'm going to finish. They're back in." And then I come back and back in.
00:21:51
Yeah. Yeah. And the crazy conclusion to all of this was my friend called me and said a few things to me about
00:21:58
um why she did what she did. My friend said to me, "Remember Steve, you
00:22:03
rejected her. She really, really, really likes you. And she's done this as a way to make
00:22:09
herself feel better for the rejection that you gave her." And it sounds like such a pathetic thing to say, but what
00:22:14
it made me realize in that moment was much of the reason why the terrorists had stormed the cockpit was my ego was
00:22:20
bruised. And the thing that coached those terrorists out the cockpit was my friend
00:22:25
massaging my ego again and and letting me know that some of those stories we
00:22:31
sometimes tell ourselves when we get rejected about why we got rejected. Yeah. Weren't true. It's not because you're
00:22:37
not enough. Mhm. It's it's in fact because of something you've done. And that was the reason why I managed to take control of the
00:22:43
cockpit. I did nothing. I didn't punish her in any way. Didn't even mention it. And it was and so yeah um but please
00:22:51
two two things come to me there uh one is this uh emotion of anger so
00:22:57
fascinatingly 95% of the emotion for me was sadness 5% was anger and the anger struck early
00:23:04
on it was the first night and I remember I my brother had come over and and was
00:23:10
staying with me and I woke up in the middle of the night the night of that day that she told me and it was like My
00:23:18
body was burning. I I haven't experienced anger like that before. It was It was almost like I was a flame. I
00:23:25
was uh just infused with rage. And I
00:23:30
began and I really feel for my brother having to witness this, but I was just
00:23:35
moving up and down shouting as loudly as I could, "My wife,
00:23:41
my house, my wife, my house." And for 5 minutes it was like a supernova. It just
00:23:48
was just seething.
00:23:53
And then it burnt out and I cried and I fell asleep and and
00:23:59
the next day and then the anger didn't really come much. It would come now and again. But what I realized was the anger was
00:24:07
intimately attached to my ego. The anger came whenever I was attached to my ego. And I'm very fortunate that
00:24:13
I'm able to detach from my ego the majority of the time. But when I didn't, that's when it hurt because it came
00:24:20
about my wife. As if I own her. As if there's ownership. As if it's a part of me.
00:24:27
I don't own her. She's free. My house. I don't even own the house.
00:24:33
The mortgage company did. You know, but as soon as we link it to ourselves and make it about us,
00:24:39
Yeah. then it it's it's a place of vulnerability because you're getting
00:24:44
inflicted. It's like getting stabbed in the heart. You feel that, but it's an illusion because we are not
00:24:52
our ego. You know, we can see our ego and have a relationship to our ego, but once we're fused with it, we're in
00:24:57
trouble. And the other part of it is that because I don't want to come across like
00:25:03
a saint like I didn't have dark thoughts or, you know, I wasn't angry and I just
00:25:08
handled it with grace the entire time. But I operate from a principle that the
00:25:15
mind has a mind of its own. And I think we talked about it last time. But essentially, your mind will populate
00:25:24
your head with thoughts automatically. You're not asking for them. It'll just come up with judges,
00:25:31
evaluations, assessments, predictions about the future, past memories, imagine
00:25:36
scenarios. You know, if I said, "Okay, Steve, don't think about anything right now. Just for
00:25:43
10 seconds, have a complete blank mind, and I'm going to say a word, but don't think about anything." Okay. So, we'll
00:25:49
just do it now. Don't think about a thing. Mhm. Birthday. Okay. Right. So, even though you were
00:25:56
attempting not to think about anything, your mind came up with it automatically. And
00:26:02
from my perspective, we are not our thoughts. We have thoughts. Our mind
00:26:08
comes up with thoughts but that's not me. I am the observer of the thought. Now why is that important? Because my
00:26:14
mind would come up with really brutal thoughts. What thoughts? Like torturing the guy.
00:26:20
Really? Yeah. Getting in a car, finding him in the back of the van and doing this
00:26:25
elaborate elaborate of of of what I would do to him. Absolutely. Because my mind was thinking
00:26:31
about about seeking vengeance. Justice. Just justice. And it was like a
00:26:37
Hollywood movie and somehow no one found out and I went
00:26:42
back along my day, you know, and so yes, you can have those or whenever I
00:26:49
was in deep pain, the thought of ending my life popped into my head.
00:26:56
I didn't have any intent. I wasn't making any plans. I didn't want to kill myself. But my mind wanted a way out of
00:27:03
the pain. It was suffering and it wanted an end to
00:27:09
it. And what is one option? Killing yourself. And so when I've got a
00:27:14
different relationship though with these thoughts, when I think about torturing someone or I think or when my mind comes
00:27:21
up with a thought of torturing someone or my mind comes up with a thought of
00:27:27
taking my life, there's no judgment. I don't think, oh,
00:27:35
that means I must want to do it, or that means that I will do it, or that means I'm a bad person, or that means that I'm
00:27:44
evil. It just means my mind, I think, what is my mind trying to do? It's it's trying
00:27:50
to solve a solution and it's probably struggling to cope and it's trying to find a way to make me feel better. M Neo
00:27:57
on this podcast who who came on this podcast talked about how the mind is actually you know people think we're in the search of pleasure but the mind is
00:28:03
programmed to avoid discomfort we're constantly in trying to seek you know avoid it and that's why we
00:28:08
procrastinate because we've got a big project which is we might not feel competent to complete or you know we're a bit there's a feeling of discomfort
00:28:14
around it so we go and wash the dishes or do the hoovering um on the on the you mentioned wanting
00:28:20
to torture this man I know right so like a moment of the mind having
00:28:25
my minded Steve, you didn't want to. Your mind wanted to. I'm a peaceloving kind of guy. I just
00:28:31
But I wanted to know how do you feel about him?
00:28:38
So, it's really interesting. I um
00:28:43
this stage the the process went awareness and acceptance
00:28:50
uh how I wanted to handle the process and then at some point I realized I
00:28:56
needed to find forgiveness.
00:29:01
I'm quite a simple person and I don't I don't like having a lot of uh items or
00:29:08
objects or physical possessions and I don't like having a lot of emotional baggage either. I want to travel light,
00:29:14
you know. I want to travel so lightly I could pass through the eye of a needle, so to speak. And the weight of
00:29:23
anger or resentment or the feelings of
00:29:29
betrayal were weighing me down and I wanted to forgive her and I wanted
00:29:35
to forgive him. And honestly, you could view it as ultimately selfish because it's not going to impact their life, but
00:29:42
it's going to make mine a lot easier. And during lockdown, I was in California
00:29:48
and I was lucky because in Santa Barbara where I was staying, the mayor didn't
00:29:53
close the beaches because there's a lot of families there. And he said, "As long as you uh socially distance, it's fine."
00:30:00
And I'd run along the beach. And I had this process where I would say out loud,
00:30:08
I would imagine her and I would say, "I forgive you. I'm sending you my love. and I wish you
00:30:15
all the best for the future. And I processed so much by that at that point because I've been able to understand and
00:30:21
see her situation and in my mind I I have an idea of how it was created and
00:30:26
why it unfolded. And so there was compassion there and I
00:30:32
was able to reach that really relatively quickly. That that was easy. The hard
00:30:37
part was with him because I didn't know him.
00:30:43
I didn't know his personality, his background, who he was. He could be a
00:30:49
great friend and an excellent son or uh
00:30:54
potentially a very loving partner, but all I knew about him was that he was
00:31:03
prepared to take certain actions. And so
00:31:08
whenever I tried it with him and I'd say, "I forgive you." It was like there was a knot and a wimpse and I'd like and
00:31:16
I would say and I'm sending you my love and I'm like
00:31:23
and I wish you all the best for the future. You're still imagining pulling up in that van and jumping out and
00:31:30
blindfolding him dragging him sticking something up his butt and
00:31:36
how do you like me now? Uh, and so but I would just notice that
00:31:42
I don't do you know there's tension there and and actually I will say this was a year after I'd heard the news. So
00:31:49
I didn't try and do this initially. I think it would have been uh premature to have attempted this whenever I wasn't in
00:31:57
a space where I had a lot more clarity and and groundedness and and and process the emotion. The emotion wasn't being
00:32:03
clouded at this point. Now was what am I holding on to?
00:32:08
And for a matter of weeks, five, six weeks, I was running two, three times a week. And I would just try that try that
00:32:14
process. And then one day it was it was remarkable. I was running along. And I
00:32:20
said, "I forgive you." And there was nothing. And then I said, "And I'm
00:32:27
sending you my love." And I felt easy. And I said, "And I wish you all the best for the future." And I
00:32:33
could tell that I meant it for them. or their baby, you know, for them
00:32:39
together as a family. And I felt at peace
00:32:44
and it's a bit like that saying, my yoke is easy, my burden is light. Now, genuinely, it sounds strange, but I
00:32:52
don't really feel anything for them. It's almost as if, you know, if you came to me and said, um, I've got a friend
00:33:00
called Mike and he's going through a really difficult time. he was involved in a
00:33:06
really complicated emotional relationship. Um, would you mind sending out positive thoughts to him and saying
00:33:12
a prayer for him? I'd say sure. Like, he hasn't ever done anything to me. I don't have any connection with him. No
00:33:19
problem. It's almost that sort of relationship now where they're just other people on their journey. And I had
00:33:26
that shared history with with my wife, which I look upon fondly, particularly
00:33:32
the first eight years. We had a wonderful marriage for a long time, but
00:33:37
there's no emotional tinge. There's it's like an emotional umbilical cord.
00:33:42
I'm imagining it as like it's a letting go. Yeah. It's a letting go. And so that was that was a part that for
00:33:50
me because I think there comes a time where you have to say, okay, I process
00:33:55
it. I've processed it. How long do I want to hold on to it for now? And that's becomes my own choice. Do I want
00:34:03
to carry this and let it define me or do I want to finally let it go and see it
00:34:09
float down the river? And I think you know even you're someone that has a remarkable ability to
00:34:15
practice like self-awareness and you know you have that sort of like emotional awareness as well. And it's
00:34:20
good to hear, I think, for everybody listening to this that even your process to from finding it out to, you know,
00:34:29
being emotionally unattached to the matter to the point that you can forgive both of them
00:34:34
wasn't linear at all. It was up, it was down, it was up, it was down, and it was long. And I think
00:34:40
people sometimes um think that their experience of rejection or deceit or you
00:34:47
know um any of these things is uniquely bad because their process to recovery
00:34:54
per se isn't linear and it's long and it feels like the more I've talked about this topic and the more people I've met
00:35:00
and you know from hearing your experiences that in fact is the only way out and I actually think realizing that
00:35:06
that's the only way out will make your process out of that deceit or betrayal
00:35:12
feel normal and natural and okay and therefore acceptable and and I think
00:35:19
that's a a really important point that you've made through the story you've told. Absolutely. And each person's journey
00:35:26
will be unique and there will be peaks and troughs and it'll wax and wayne. And
00:35:32
I'm very aware that it's possible that my journey happened
00:35:37
over a relatively short period of time because of my history and my background
00:35:42
as a psychologist as a high performance expert. This is the area that I deal with. It's what developing emotional
00:35:49
resilience. It's how do you help people to cope with high stakes environments when they've lost a sense of balance in
00:35:55
their life? When they're struggling in their relationships whenever they
00:36:01
experience something in life which throws them how do you get back up? This is what I've been trained to do for 15
00:36:07
years. Isn't it weird that life sent you this challenge when you think about your
00:36:12
experience? Isn't it there must be a part of you that cuz I think I would I would think to myself
00:36:18
life is testing me to see if I can deal with the worst and still maintain the
00:36:24
values and principles that I espouse like it it sounds this will sound really odd
00:36:30
uh but I almost felt at times I thought in a way I'm so lucky because I'm so
00:36:36
lucky that I am where I am when this happened. If this had happened 10 years
00:36:41
ago, I would have been in a vastly different space, right?
00:36:46
Because I struggled 10 years to cope with what life gave me on an emotional level
00:36:54
and I would react out of the emotion. So I'd experience it and then I would just
00:36:59
react and essentially that's when we make terrible decisions. Oh, you crash the plane. How we crash the plane. If you look at
00:37:06
NASA um astronauts, they prepare for uh
00:37:11
the sequence of events leading up to launch and they run through that
00:37:16
over a hundred times from putting on the kit to traveling down uh to the launch space to what could go wrong and they
00:37:24
rehearse it and they run it through. And it's a way of being able to stay calm
00:37:30
whenever there is uncertainty or turbulence or danger or threat
00:37:36
because that's whenever that's the person you really want to be whenever there's an emergency like we talked about in the podcast. You want to be the
00:37:43
person that still has an air, a pocket, a space of clarity that isn't affected.
00:37:49
So that even though you're experiencing all these emotions on a very
00:37:55
physical level, deep down, you're still grounded. You can take it. And so from
00:38:03
where I was, I did feel as though I'm fortunate that life has
00:38:09
thrown at me something that in my mind was one of the worst things that I could
00:38:14
experience. There's lots of worst things without a shadow of a doubt, but it was a big one. Um, and find a way to move
00:38:20
through. And incredibly it's informed even even my work
00:38:26
because in the last year again whether it's coincidence or not I
00:38:32
don't know the number of clients I've been working with on relationship issues has gone up exponentially and it's
00:38:39
issues centered on a loss of connection a loss of intimacy betrayal confusion. How do you
00:38:48
how do you stay true to who you are in a relationship with someone else where you
00:38:53
feel like there's a shift or you wake up one day and you're in a space where you
00:38:58
don't know how you got there where you become like best friends living together rather than the passionate lovers you were 10 years ago.
00:39:04
You talked there a second about the calm that astronauts are trained to develop and how crucial that is to making good
00:39:10
decisions. I I I saw this quote the other day and it said when emotions go go up intellect comes down
00:39:16
and um I was thinking about just then as you said that I was thinking what are the factors that make somebody not calm
00:39:23
and then I thought and I kind of answered myself I thought okay so it's we talked about the ego playing a big role and so I guess my conclusion there
00:39:29
is the people who will struggle to maintain their calm in situations like that that are so personally associated
00:39:36
are those with the lowest self-esteem and the most fragile ego and it feels feels like the work that
00:39:41
you've described that you've done over the last 10 years is really like building your self-esteem and really in
00:39:47
some respects a separation from ego. Um, yeah, you've nailed it. One, we know on a neuro level, so we
00:39:56
know from neuroiming studies that when we experience emotion, the preffrontal cortex, the part of the brain
00:40:02
responsible for judgment, decision- making, impulse control, planning, goes
00:40:08
offline. it shuts down. So we don't have access to that
00:40:13
creativity, the wisdom that we have usually. And again,
00:40:20
absolutely I think the journey for me the journey of of life involves developing a robust sense of self.
00:40:29
A sense of self that is unshakable, that is immovable, that still
00:40:35
experiences life and the whole gamut of emotions and and the beauty and
00:40:40
loveliness of life and also the darkness and the destruction of life, but isn't
00:40:48
impacted on an essential level by it. And I think that's the journey and that's the journey that I work on with
00:40:53
clients. No matter what the outwardly symptoms are, could be weight gain, it
00:40:59
could be relationship dysfunction, it could be struggling to experience that sense of
00:41:05
contentment or fulfillment in life even though I have everything that life says I should have. It could be feeling like
00:41:11
I'm I'm lacking or I'm just not doing enough or I'm not being enough. But it all comes back to that stronger sense of
00:41:17
self. and this um you know horrific experience
00:41:23
what has it done to your opinion of monogamy
00:41:28
because I'm sure I'm guessing from what you've said the way that you planned your life ahead you thought when you you
00:41:35
know when you went walked down the aisle and you said those words till death do us part you then planned the next 60
00:41:40
years of your life and how your life was going to pan out and when you said those words at the end
00:41:45
of the at the altar you were totally convinced Yeah, totally convinced that this person was
00:41:51
the the person your soulmate. Um, how do you feel about all of those concepts now like soulmate and monogamy
00:41:58
and till death do us part? The experience led me to a position where I began to question my deepest
00:42:05
assumptions about monogamy, about marriage, about lifelong relationships.
00:42:12
And in the same way I began to take a step back and reflect and contemplate
00:42:18
I became very aware that there is a social script for relationships and it
00:42:24
generally goes the conventional model is boy meets girl. It's not even boy meets boy or girl meets girl. There's a first
00:42:31
date, a first kiss, uh a period of courting. At some point um there will be sex
00:42:39
meeting the parents hopefully not at the same time eventually [ __ ] relationship
00:42:45
becomes uh exclusive and then engagement marriage children till death do its part
00:42:53
and I realize that that is a social construction it's a conventional model based on assumptions that monogamy is
00:43:01
natural that marriage is a human universal and that any structure other than the
00:43:10
nuclear one is aberant.
00:43:16
And so then I began to think okay well what are the different what are the different elements. So on the one hand
00:43:22
we can take and we touch upon it briefly uh a evolutionary perspective
00:43:30
and we are apes. It's not just that we've descended from apes. We are apes. So we're one of the five homo sapiens
00:43:38
are one of the five surviving species of great apes along with orangutangs, bonobos, gorillas and and chimpanzees.
00:43:49
And yet at some point we separated from that psychologically. And
00:43:56
actually the fine print that distinguishes humans from other great apes has been described by
00:44:01
primatologists as wholly inadequate. It's it it's a fabrication.
00:44:09
And at some stage we began to see ourselves as special and unique and above nature and exempt from our
00:44:18
primal history because we descended from hypersexual ancestors. So if the homo
00:44:26
lineage has been around for 2 million years, modern humans have been around for 200,000 years and about 10,000 years
00:44:34
ago, there was a shift in going from hunter gatherers to settled communities
00:44:40
be because of the advent of agriculture. Now up until 10,000 years ago,
00:44:46
the data now suggests that we actually lived by fiercely egalitarian principles. Everything was shared. Food,
00:44:55
shelter, water, child care, and even sexual partners.
00:45:02
Casual sexuality was the norm for our prehistoric ancestors.
00:45:08
For 95% of the collective experience of our lineage,
00:45:13
that is what we experienced. And it wasn't it wasn't based on
00:45:18
meaningless random relationships. They were relationships that reinforced
00:45:24
uh a social pattern that that we needed to survive. It minimized our risk and it
00:45:30
reinforced social ties. But then with the advent of agriculture, we began to settle. We had then we had
00:45:38
land, we had uh domesticated animals and
00:45:44
for the first time private property came into play and suddenly there was a change and there's even a change in the
00:45:50
status of women because when we look at it the human female up until that point was on was on an equal playing field.
00:45:58
They were as responsible for the hunting and the cooking and making decisions about where they were going to settle.
00:46:04
And then it changed and the female became the property of the man,
00:46:11
something that he had to maintain and keep. And actually the reason that property came into play is because we
00:46:18
weren't moving. So it did matter what happened to our resources. We were accumulating and biological paternity
00:46:24
for the first time became crucial.
00:46:30
And so on a on a natural evolutionary
00:46:35
level, monogamy didn't exist. We didn't live in
00:46:41
long-term monogous relationships. Then we bring in marriage.
00:46:47
And if we fast forward about 5 a half thousand years in about 2,350
00:46:54
BC and in Mesopotamia we had the first marriage between the union between a man
00:47:00
and a woman. And over the next few hundred years it spread the ancient Romans, Greeks, Hebrews, they began to
00:47:08
adopt this widespread practice. But marriage had a diff had a very different meaning across the ages. In the um fifth
00:47:17
century with Anglosaxons, it was about securing trade ties. It was a diplomatic
00:47:25
tool. In the 11th century, marriage was about financial, economic and political
00:47:32
advantage. uh and as early as the 12th, religion be
00:47:37
became involved and and Roman Catholicism tied it to sacrament and it
00:47:43
to being a sacred experience related to experiencing God.
00:47:48
Then about 500 years ago, Thomas Cranmer came up with the modern-day marital vows
00:47:54
that we read out today. And he was the architecture of uh English Protestantism.
00:48:00
And then up until 1858, divorce was rare.
00:48:06
Marriage was something which was lifelong and it wasn't really questioned. But then it became a legal
00:48:12
process that you could apply to do. And it was still still relatively uncommon because it was expensive and women had
00:48:18
to prove aggravated adultery, bestiality, sodomy, cruelty. And then
00:48:26
the divorce gates really opened up in 1969 with the divorce reform act and marital breakdown could be could then be
00:48:32
cited. So whenever we begin to take a different lens and and we see the journey that it's taken and then we ask
00:48:38
well where are we today? Since 1975
00:48:44
there's been a drop in marriages by about 30%. More people are now opting to cohabit than they are to get married.
00:48:51
Divorce statistics in England and Wales are at 42%. You could arguably say that the system
00:48:59
is collapsing, that it is beginning to crumble. And then I would even take a cultural
00:49:04
lens and if I'm talking too much just no I fascinating jump super fascinating. So
00:49:11
culturally um so the Spanish word esposes means wife and handcuffs.
00:49:19
We joke about the wife being the ball and chain. Uh a friend got married got married got
00:49:26
engaged last week and the talk amongst the boys was this is the beginning of the end of your sex life. Yeah,
00:49:34
but women don't fare any better. You know, 43% of American women report
00:49:39
sexual dysfunction. Viagra sales are increasing every year. They're just record highs year upon year.
00:49:46
Porn is through the [ __ ] roof. Not that I would know. Yeah, a friend told me.
00:49:52
Yeah. Um, the porn industry takes in about 57
00:49:58
to$undred billion dollars worldwide.
00:50:03
A US report showed that Americans spend more at strip clubs than they do at Broadway, off Broadway, nonprofit and
00:50:10
regional theaters, the ballet, jazz, and the opera collectively.
00:50:19
We look at the church and there have been hundreds of Roman Catholic priests admitting to thousands
00:50:25
of sex crimes. In 2008, they paid out $436 million to victims of sexual abuse.
00:50:32
A fifth were under the age of five. And these aren't that's not to mention the forgotten victims.
00:50:39
And we have to ask ourself, one, how did we get here? Two, how was
00:50:45
that story constructed? And three, is marriage giving us what we want? And is
00:50:52
it realistic and is it feasible? So number three. So where am I with that?
00:50:58
Yeah. Yeah. I'm still touring. I'll be totally honest with you. I can
00:51:05
say it. I can imagine. Okay. So I can imagine on the one hand I can imagine being in a relationship with with a
00:51:14
woman and and being with that one woman for the rest of my life. I can also imagine
00:51:20
being with someone in a relationship and having more than one sexual partner.
00:51:28
But but if if it was flipped around and someone asked me, "Would you want your
00:51:34
partners to be with other men?" I'd say, "Hell no." Of course. Like it just seems Yeah. it that is not
00:51:40
something cuz I'm so strongly programmed against that even though that's potentially the biological heritage. I
00:51:48
can't imagine being with someone who's with with other people. I wouldn't want to be in that situation. And I'm aware
00:51:53
of the acute hypocrisy contained within it. Yeah, I think everyone feels the same
00:51:59
way to some degree. I think people that tell you otherwise are probably talking [ __ ] because they're playing defense against
00:52:04
not wanting to happen to them to some degree, right? Um, it's I think it's an ideal situation
00:52:09
for yourself, but not for the person you're with from your perspective. I read this book a long time ago called
00:52:15
The Mystery Method um by one of the world's number one pickup artist. And I don't know if this
00:52:20
is true, but what he was saying was men are programmed in a way that seeks um
00:52:28
the woman to be faithful for them because the risk the evolutionary risk was if I impregnate you as my wife um or
00:52:35
no, if I if I'm committed to you as my wife and then you are you cheat on me
00:52:40
and get pregnant with someone else's child, I will then spend my resources, my energy, my time raising someone
00:52:47
else's um child and then my genetics won't pass on that person's will. And essentially,
00:52:54
if you think about it from an evolutionary perspective, I then wouldn't have existed if I didn't have
00:53:00
that concern about making sure my sperm was the one that reached the egg. I So,
00:53:06
you think about it from an evolutionary perspective, you wouldn't exist if your ancestors
00:53:12
hadn't done a brilliant job of making sure their sperm hit the egg. Mhm. And one of the ways of doing that was
00:53:18
making sure it wasn't another guy sperm hitting the egg by being territorial, by being whatever. And on the other side, from the woman's
00:53:24
perspective, the book talks about how, you know, if a woman got 8 months pregnant
00:53:31
um tens of thousands of years ago, she can no longer hunt and gather for herself. So really, she has to find a partner
00:53:37
that isn't going to abscond, that isn't going to bounce, especially once they've had sex. And so the book kind of talks
00:53:43
about some of the the reasons why, you know, in society we typically think women are more in search of a
00:53:49
relationship and are trying to, you know, get a guy more than men are typically. Um, is because from an
00:53:56
evolution perspective, they would have died on the savannah in Africa or whatever if if the guy had sex with
00:54:03
them, impregnated them at a time when we didn't have birth control, got them 8 months pregnant, and then bounced.
00:54:08
Yeah. and and I don't know how true that is, but it's something that I've believed because I've read this book for some time. So that's the dominant
00:54:17
traditional understanding of human sexuality because whenever you look at other
00:54:24
species, yes, it's about essentially an aggressive alpha male than uh being with
00:54:31
a uh female and knowing that their offspring is being continued
00:54:37
through that lineage. There's an alternative which has come out more recently where uh I know
00:54:45
there's a paper published in science in 2015 that actually showed that what
00:54:51
separated humans from other great apes was our social organization. Yeah. About 10,000 years ago we started
00:54:58
living next to water and in camps. Exactly. Yeah. So and then we were a tribe essentially. I've read about that. And
00:55:04
up until that point though, it's very possible that we had uh
00:55:09
multiple sexual partners but biological paternity was less of a concern because our structure was such
00:55:16
that so what we found out now is we didn't used to live with our close
00:55:22
relatives. We actually created social ties with other individuals. And so we're set up in such a way that the
00:55:29
focus wasn't ever on individual survival. It was on group survival,
00:55:34
group identity, group welfare. And the reason is it's the group that keeps you alive anyway.
00:55:41
And so it's very possible that then there was a shift which happened
00:55:46
actually with this advent of private property because that's whenever
00:55:52
paternity would matter. Because there's some huntergatherer communities that believe when multiple men have sex with
00:55:59
a female that it's to collectively because you
00:56:04
have to think where does our understanding of the sperm and the embryo come from. That's very recent.
00:56:10
It's a very recent biological understanding. Our ancestors wouldn't have known that. And there are some
00:56:15
beliefs where collectively the men contribute to the production of the child
00:56:22
that actually it's almost like an amalgamation of the different men then creates that child and that child becomes part of the group as opposed to
00:56:29
that one person's child. And this is the thing just to like challenge that
00:56:34
thinking. Say that there was one man in the group that was slightly better at making sure
00:56:39
he was the one that inseminated the female. Yeah.
00:56:44
He his genes would pass on his his genetics would pass on as being slightly
00:56:50
better for whatever reason at inseminating a woman. And uh therefore
00:56:55
in the next round of you know the next generation he would have a slight advantage potent that that the kid of
00:57:01
that man would have a slight genetic predisposition for being good at that which would increase the probability
00:57:07
that it would pass on again and again and again. And it seems like that that those genetics and that ability to be
00:57:13
good at inseminating, whether it's through being territorial or being stronger or being more persuasive or being more, you know, more of a peacock
00:57:20
um through generations over the space of a million years from the chimps, that would create a scenario where we
00:57:25
are programmed to be through our psychology and our behavior and our peacocking good at,
00:57:31
you know, Yeah. at winning. Yeah. Even through slightly more malicious methods or
00:57:36
Yeah. And then there's also the social conditioning and the ideas of of
00:57:42
marriage, of monogamy, of romanticism, of what that means. And and I think what
00:57:48
I've really come particularly through my work with clients is seeing that where people find themselves in trouble is
00:57:54
when there's inshment. Whenever there's too much when there's too much closeness
00:57:59
when actually the identity of one person is submerged with the identity of the other
00:58:05
and there's no space. Did that happen to you in your marriage
00:58:10
where you became more like her. It's incredible that you ask that.
00:58:17
I have a little announcement to make. And if you're watching this on YouTube, you might have seen a little clue as to
00:58:23
what I'm about to say. When we brought this podcast back and we decided that we were going to do it every single week on
00:58:29
Monday, we also decided that we wanted to find a sponsor and a partner to help
00:58:34
support the growth of this podcast so that we can take it all over the world. We can produce the video format, we can hire a big team, and we can make sure it
00:58:41
gets out to as many people as possible. And so, here's what I did. I thought of a couple of companies that I really,
00:58:47
really love and companies that I've used for many, many years and I've been an avid customer of. And one of those
00:58:53
companies, in fact, the first company I contacted was this one, Hule. And if you
00:58:59
if you don't know what Hule is, then you must have been living under a rock, per se. But Hule has been a huge part of my
00:59:05
life for about four years. I I first started drinking Hule four years ago
00:59:10
when I first moved to New York and I was running Social Chain. And the reason I did was because I was frequently missing
00:59:17
meals. I And if you if you know me personally, you'll know how true this is. I will wake up in the morning and
00:59:22
I'll rush through my day meeting meeting meeting speaking on stage flying somewhere and I'll get to about 900 p.m.
00:59:28
and I wouldn't have eaten a single thing. And there's no, you know, nutritional expert in the world that
00:59:34
will tell you that's a good thing. And what then happened was I was binge eating at 9 or 10:00. And when I say
00:59:40
binge eating, I mean like two large Domino's pizzas to myself. And so then I discovered this thing called Hule about
00:59:45
4 years ago. And for me, Hu is a nutritionally complete drink, which means that I don't have to spend hours
00:59:51
preparing food, which I wouldn't do anyway. Hence why I was skipping meals. It means that I get all the good stuff I need to perform and have a good diet,
00:59:58
but I can have it in like 20 seconds. And as someone that values time so, so much. Hu was a godsend. I've been a
01:00:04
customer for I think four years. I've had my subscription with Hu for four years. is. So, when I was looking for someone to sponsor the podcast, I
01:00:12
contacted the CEO who's been on the podcast before, Julian, and has built this staggering company. I sent him an
01:00:17
email. I said, "Listen, Julian, I would love you to sponsor my podcast because I can actually talk about your product
01:00:22
authentically." And he said to me, "Because you've had a subscription with Hule for the last 3, four years, and I
01:00:28
know you're a customer, he was up for doing it." So, I thank you. And um every week on the podcast I'm going to talk
01:00:34
about different things to do with hule, to do with time saving, to do with um diet and nutrition. And of course, we're
01:00:40
going to get Julian back on the podcast at some point. Their company is doing unbelievable things in the UK. If you've
01:00:46
not seen and sort of kept up with the progress of your I highly recommend you do because it's one of the most exciting companies we've seen in the UK in a
01:00:53
long, long time. And uh it's an absolute honor and a privilege to to have them sponsoring the D of CEO, the perfect
01:00:59
company to be on this podcast because, you know, it's a company that is so in line with some of my central values. Did
01:01:05
that happen to you in your marriage where you became more like her?
01:01:11
It's incredible that you ask that. Whenever we first met,
01:01:19
she was the sensible one. She was very prudent, very pragmatic, very
01:01:25
levelheaded. She made very safe, sensible choices in life in general. And she was known in
01:01:32
that way. I was a bit more of a rogue. I
01:01:38
was uh a little bit more mysterious. There was probably
01:01:44
sort of, you know, hint of mischievous of um Yeah. have playfulness
01:01:50
and and there's an idea in psychology that
01:01:56
we all that we seek in the other person a part of ourselves that we've lost.
01:02:03
And so there was almost that um that attraction there. It created that chemistry. It drew us in together. I
01:02:11
think she was looking for that excitement and and in a way that safe danger. I was actually looking for
01:02:18
stability and groundedness and over time it it connected us and
01:02:24
brought us together. But over time a remarkable thing happened and that is
01:02:29
just like you said I began to become more like her. I became became safer and I actually
01:02:36
lost an intrinsic part of who I was. I lost the
01:02:44
the wild child that's in me. I lost the part that's a bit more dangerous, that's a bit more risky, that doesn't always
01:02:50
say something which is politically correct. And I became almost like a
01:02:56
sanitized, clean version of who I was. And that's not the man that she met. And that's not
01:03:03
the man that she fell in love with. And on one level it it worked in terms
01:03:10
of a stable love. There was reliability.
01:03:16
There was dependability. There was relatability.
01:03:22
But it crushed the desire. There was a slow suffocation
01:03:27
of that desire over the last couple of years.
01:03:33
And so I believe that one day
01:03:39
she woke up and she sensed that loss of connection which I also sensed too and
01:03:46
that loss of intimacy and she was scared. And when the mind is scared it comes up
01:03:52
with thoughts. Is this it? Am I going to have to live like this for the next 10,
01:03:59
20 years? will I ever get that chemistry or that connection back? What if it never comes back?
01:04:06
And when we're afraid, we're then seeking that that part of ourselves that
01:04:12
we've lost. And so, it's almost less about the other person and more about
01:04:18
us. It's less about turning away from our partner and more about turning away from a part of ourselves.
01:04:25
It's less about finding another person and more about finding another part of ourselves in which we feel alive. And I
01:04:31
think the fair would have been wildly tempting, wildly exciting. It would have
01:04:36
been all the things it would have given her a lot of the things that we had in the
01:04:42
beginning that she missed and suddenly it was back. And even the structure of an affair is such that
01:04:50
you can't have the other person. And the forbidden is erotic.
01:04:55
And it's set up in such a way that it just perpetually creates desire because it it has to be secretive. It can't be
01:05:03
long lasting for long periods of time. There's continual space. Now, if fire needs air,
01:05:11
desire needs space. And we found ourselves in a situation which we were seeing each other every
01:05:18
day. I used to be traveling. I used to be working away a lot more. We we'd have
01:05:23
pockets where we'd be apart and in that pocket, even if you're away for a day or a couple of days, there's a sense of
01:05:28
loss on a very micro level and then a sense of excitement of the person coming
01:05:34
back and reimagining that life together. And so going back to your point, I did I
01:05:42
change and that's on that's something which I've learned from. I've ch I changed and I became
01:05:51
like a squeaky clean version of me and
01:05:56
and she ironically ended up turning towards what she'd lost. Is that something you regret?
01:06:04
I could feel regret in the way that I said it there.
01:06:10
Yes. Yeah. Being being honest. If I could have if I could have changed on
01:06:16
one level, if I could have changed that, if I'd been aware of that and I' and I'd seen it coming, then
01:06:24
I would have wanted to to stay true to who I am. And that's the path I'm on now. And I'd be curious to hear your
01:06:30
thoughts. But I I want to live in line with my truth.
01:06:36
And it's like John 8:32, the truth will set you free. And I believe that when we're living in line with our truth, it
01:06:42
saves you. And whenever we neglect our truth, it it destroys you.
01:06:49
Yeah. And so if I if I'd if I'd been able to stay truthful, I
01:06:56
think it would have been a very different trajectory. I don't because the relationship worked on multiple
01:07:02
levels and we and and it did. We had a wonderful um time together for for eight
01:07:07
years. But it's a little bit like like putting a frog in boiling water. It was
01:07:12
in cold water and the desire is the frog is alive. You don't notice the heat.
01:07:17
There were unknown factors that were at play and it was a dance. It was both of us.
01:07:23
There's no we're we both contributed to that situation. And I think she wanted me to be that stable, dependable,
01:07:29
reliable person without realizing that on a subconscious level, she actually
01:07:36
was attracted to the man that I was. And I wanted to make her happy and didn't want her to
01:07:42
be the kind of person that creates t tension or or or there being too much
01:07:47
grit, but actually tension is what creates fire at the same time. M and so the rough edges were a part of
01:07:54
who I was and I didn't need to get rid of them. It's so crazy. It's almost quite contradictory. The typical narrative you
01:07:59
hear about relationships is especially from, you know, dare I say it um women
01:08:06
movies and on Instagram is there's this conversation around can I change him? M
01:08:12
and it's and it seems typically that people want to change their or they they
01:08:17
hold out hope or they want to change their partner in some way to make them more like the image they have of that person.
01:08:23
But in fact, what you're describing is the thing that ends up saving the relationship is a finding someone that
01:08:32
you love for the way that they are and you're attracted to for the way that they are, but then both parties having a
01:08:38
resilience to change. Mhm. um to some degree because of that understanding that you formed your
01:08:45
relationship on the basis of this person being like this and then but then you say okay so
01:08:51
over time people change and in fact in the last podcast we did there's a quote where you said change is
01:08:57
the only constant so both of you are going to change anyway and you talk about the spiritual psychological change that both parties
01:09:04
go on and again this kind of draws it back to the conversation around monogamy is you know you're going to change anyway like
01:09:10
you 10 years ago versus you now is probably a little bit more stable and a little bit more you know solid and a
01:09:16
little bit more rational in your thinking. Um and because as you said in the last podcast change is a constant.
01:09:23
How do you form a how can you guarantee that death will do you part
01:09:28
when change might do you part first? Mhm. Mhm. And and this kind of brings us back to the conversation around monogamy, which
01:09:34
is I guess it's my question to you is like if you what do you suspect now
01:09:41
if not marriage is going to be the way that you know when you meet
01:09:47
someone what do you suspect? What's your hypothesis on how that relationship will be constructed for me personally?
01:09:53
Yeah, I've got mine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But mine kind of I can tell you mine if you want first.
01:09:59
Yeah. Okay. So, mine kind of draws on something and then I'll just say me too. Yeah.
01:10:05
Yeah. Yeah. We'll both go down together. So, what it was interesting what you said there about um space being
01:10:13
the the air to a flame, right? And for me that's so critical earlier on when you were talking about marriage.
01:10:19
One of the factors you you you were talking about was how where marriage came from as a social
01:10:25
construct and how it centers on like you know you know religion and and God and all of these things and one of the
01:10:31
things that I think is also really important to understand is as a general first principles rule if people are
01:10:38
different and we all are different every single human being on this earth is different then the solution should be different
01:10:44
like the the glove we fit is different we have different sized feet and different sized hands so the solution to love or whatever that is, as binary as
01:10:51
it sounds, should therefore be bespoke to who you are and the life you're living. And for me, I live a life where
01:10:58
I'm I get my fulfillment out of the podcast and my work. And that's it's such a big part of my wiring. I can't
01:11:04
change that. It's the way that I am. I'm different from my brother and he's only a couple of months older than me. I'm completely different. And so as it
01:11:11
relates to love and me having a bespoke solution to when I meet someone and I want to have kids or I want to, you
01:11:17
know, want them to be my partner. Um the solution should also be bespoke. And so I look at the situation that
01:11:24
would be right for me and it is one that's really really rellyant on space.
01:11:29
Yeah. I love being on my own. I'm happy there. I I love having time to myself to
01:11:34
reflect, to think, um to work on my projects. Space is such a big thing for me.
01:11:40
So marriage and the idea of moving in with someone and then being, you know, on top of me seven days a week for the
01:11:47
next 60 years is is a is something that I almost can't understand. I'm not sure if I'm like psychologically [ __ ] up
01:11:53
and that's why I can't deal with that. But I love this idea as the founder of Hu said on this podcast of treating my
01:12:00
relationship with my romantic partner in the same way that I treat my relationship with my best friend. Me and
01:12:06
my best friend seem to get on perfectly well and we and I can't see a divorce ever coming. You know what I mean?
01:12:11
Because we have that space and we have the the middle ground that we meet upon which is the relationship
01:12:17
but we have a fundamental amount of space um which we both need. Like in fact my best
01:12:23
friend moved in with me in lockdown for a month and yeah uh you start to piss me
01:12:29
off like you breathe so [ __ ] loud. You know what I mean? like like clean up
01:12:35
after yourself. How lowly do you choose? We had an argument. I remember we I go over something stupid like a video game
01:12:41
or something. Um so I going to conclude the point. I know for me that space and
01:12:46
the lack of being on top of each other is something that would be a fundamental part of the relationship I have. I'm willing to commit because I actually
01:12:52
can't see a world where I would allow them not to or I'd be happy with them not. Even the word allow it's like
01:12:58
permission, right? It's like such a [ __ ] thing to say. But I can't see a world where I would be okay with them
01:13:04
not committing to me. So I I I'm going to have to concede that and I think I'll figure that out hopefully if we can keep the sex good. Right.
01:13:12
So space and commitment. I hate the idea of marriage. I don't think religion or the law have any in should have any
01:13:18
involvement on the topic of love. I think they'd have a terrible track record. Religion with homosexuality and
01:13:24
and the you know the history it has on love and the law. I don't see why a court would have anything to do with how
01:13:29
I feel about someone. So I hate the idea of marriage. Some kind of commitment that offers me space with the right
01:13:36
person where we both understand that at some point we might grow out of each other. And when we do um that's fine.
01:13:42
And I'm going to conclude with one point which you actually said in the last podcast which was when I asked you about monogamy and about committing to someone
01:13:49
for life, you said to me um don't view it like that. Just ask yourself the question every single day.
01:13:55
Yeah. today. Am I happy to spend today, this day with this person in this relationship? If the answer is yes,
01:14:02
fine. Yeah. If the answer is no, then there's something that needs to be addressed. Yeah.
01:14:08
Thanks for sharing that. Don't use it.
01:14:16
I've actually got a photographic memory where doesn't have word for word. Um,
01:14:22
what I know for for me is there's definite similarities in that
01:14:28
realistically I can't see myself being in a non- monogous relationship and if I was with someone that would be the
01:14:35
person I would be with. In the past though, in our last podcast when you asked me about the definition
01:14:41
of love, that hasn't changed
01:14:46
in that I believe that love is fostering that emotional and spiritual growth of someone else. But what has changed is
01:14:54
what I've realized. In order to distinguish though between a partner
01:15:00
that you're with and a partner that you have connection and chemistry and intimacy with, there has to be that
01:15:09
physical intimacy which which is maintained and which is
01:15:14
and will wax and wayne but which can still be a light because whenever it
01:15:20
dies it irrevocably shakes the foundation of the relationship. And I
01:15:25
don't think I put enough importance on that. I almost had like a zen-like view
01:15:31
of marriage as opposed to appreciating. And it was it was funny. It was a um
01:15:38
someone I was speaking to and they were saying from a male perspective.
01:15:44
Females want the new man during the day to be kind, sensitive, loving, and they
01:15:50
want a neanderthol. tie them up, hang them and tag them at night.
01:15:56
Yeah. And it but you know it got me thinking because
01:16:01
what if the same ingredients that lead to a longlasting loving
01:16:07
relationship or monogous marriage, stability, dependability, relatability,
01:16:14
safety, protection, caregiving? What if these are the same ingredients that kill
01:16:19
desire? Because what I think is true is that, and I
01:16:26
should just speak for myself, what I potentially find attractive in
01:16:32
the bedroom might be the things that I actually stand against during the day.
01:16:37
There might be power and there might be dominance and that doesn't match up with
01:16:43
how I see myself during the day. And so then you reach this conflict. And I think what I began to do
01:16:50
was I began to become the new man and only the new man.
01:16:56
And actually what I want to do more often is to tap more into
01:17:02
both sides. I mean far too honest. No, no, there's no such thing as far too
01:17:07
honest. We talked about the importance of living your dream. That's what I'm trying to lean into 100%. And uh and there's this great
01:17:14
philosopher called Usher who says, "A lady in the streets and a freak in
01:17:21
the bed." And it's like, and it I heard that lyric maybe 8 years ago, and I literally say it to my friends all the
01:17:28
time when I'm talking about the type of partner that I want. And it's matching up exactly what you said, the civility
01:17:34
and the class with the lack of class and the freakishness and the and and
01:17:41
it's it's hard to find and maintain the balance. Um I found
01:17:47
Yeah. And because sex can be really a journey of somewhere that you go. And
01:17:54
so then there has to be that trust and that safety there. And at times it might be about uh letting go of responsibility
01:18:02
and surrendering. It might be about taking control and being dominant. But it's an understanding
01:18:09
what it means to you and and at what times they should unfold and and be allowed to live so that your imagination
01:18:16
can live. because when it doesn't and then it just becomes an act or something
01:18:21
that you should do or a way of having children then we begin to feel lost and
01:18:27
that's you know what's happened with a lot of clients that I've seen and so going back to how I would want to
01:18:33
imagine the situation is yes it'd be a monogous relationship with with another um with with a woman and
01:18:42
I would want to try and stay true to who I and still keep keep that whole version
01:18:50
of me. And that's what I've learned keeping and I've gone back to that. The wonderful thing is would I you know you
01:18:56
ask me what do I regret it? The reason also why I don't regret it cuz I'm not holding on to it is because the changes
01:19:03
have happened and I've trusted that it was meant to be and it was meant to unfold that way and I'm much more in
01:19:10
tune with who I am now. So, I finally got my motorbike license and bought my
01:19:15
Triumph Bonnie uh yesterday. Amazing. Um, and I'm doing the things which and I
01:19:22
realized cuz I'm drawn to more of a sense of risk and danger and actually activities where I have to be consumed
01:19:28
within that moment and be present. Uh, and I'm getting back in touch with who I am and how I want to live my life and
01:19:34
and what I want to stand for. And it's on me to maintain that with the next person that I'm with. Another thing I
01:19:41
learned was the space because where we went wrong is whenever we didn't have the space and actually I realized I
01:19:48
really enjoy living alone. I love that freedom. My other relationships are very important to me with my brother, my best
01:19:55
friends. And so I don't know yet what that will
01:20:00
look like, but it will definitely involve more space
01:20:06
and and also that sense of adventure and spontaneity cuz that's what I enjoy. I
01:20:12
want to travel. I want to see different countries and I I can set my life up where I'm doing that potentially with another person or
01:20:20
still pursuing my passions and that is a safe relationships relationship where
01:20:26
that person knows that I love them and I'm there for them but I won't always be. But then kids comes around
01:20:31
in the same room [ __ ] up this whole fantasy like do you know what I mean? Because then we'll deal with that in podcast three.
01:20:39
But that's that's the bit where I'm like, "Okay, it's all wonderful and perfect." I was just thinking then my last three relationships, they've all
01:20:45
lived in another country and it's and it's probably the reason why it works is because I can walk around here in my
01:20:50
boxer shorts all day just like drinking my heel, you know, eating my pot needle or whatever and um being myself and then we come
01:20:57
together when they come there or I go there or we find wonderful, love it, great. And then I go back and have my, you know, my
01:21:05
bachelor lifestyle, you know. Um but yeah, like I I think um kids is a is a
01:21:11
really a topic which we would be like
01:21:16
intellectually dishonest if we did it didn't Yeah. address because there there'll be people listening to this that think okay well
01:21:22
that's all well and good but when you become a father or a mother Mhm. you have to be there for your kids.
01:21:28
Yes. And there's not a lot of science that says it's not good to be there for your kids. Right. Yes. And in the same way that we can start to
01:21:35
though make sure that we clarify between what the science says and then what the
01:21:41
script is. Sure. Because absolutely we know that uh
01:21:47
children will have better emotional outcomes and even physical development
01:21:53
and uh situational success whenever they are brought up with a sensitive
01:22:00
caregiver. Someone who is responsive to their needs, someone who hears them, can
01:22:06
hold them, give them safety, but also permission to be able to travel and come back
01:22:12
and who's invested in that child. But I'm not aware of studies that say
01:22:20
that the parents have to be living in the same home in the one house 12 months of the year and be their lives to be set
01:22:28
up in a certain way. And I don't know what the answer is yet and I'm not at that stage yet. But I would be curious
01:22:35
whenever I am at that stage to begin exploring. And it might not be as radical as is envisioned at a certain
01:22:42
point in time. But there might be enough space or enough still spontaneity or
01:22:48
adventure or playfulness even on an internal level or in the way that you set your life up
01:22:53
where both partners have that space and still are able to maintain that passion.
01:23:00
Isn't it crazy how much of life's misery and failure and um
01:23:06
unhappiness stems from either trying to conform to the conventional way or the
01:23:12
script as you say or trying to fit into or even sometimes
01:23:17
answer an invalid question. And we talked a little bit about this on the last podcast where I said, you know, I
01:23:22
think so many people live their lives trying to answer invalid questions like what number is orange is what I said
01:23:27
last time. And in the same way you got, you know, the question, are you in love?
01:23:32
Presumes a yes. Just by asking it, I'm forcing you to to to say yes or no. I'm
01:23:38
also presuming that we've agreed upon the definition of in love, which again is just a [ __ ] maze. Cuz no one's
01:23:45
ever told me what that is. No, you're not born. And they go, "Okay, God, by the way, if you ever feel this, that's
01:23:50
love, okay?" And you go, "Okay, got you." Right? Cuz I, you know, and the word is so loosely, I love peanut butter. I love my dog. I love my
01:23:56
girlfriend. I love my wife. I love my mom. And it's like, so what is it? Different types. It's such a [ __ ] confusing, complex, nuance thing, love.
01:24:02
And we're forcing it into this yes or no. Yeah. And people will like they'll ruin good things because they they
01:24:09
they feel pressured or they're unsure if this is it, you know? And um I just I just wanted to kind of leave that point
01:24:16
there in a sense of like the idea of like you know so I know so many people listening to this will will be
01:24:21
unknowingly programmed by convention and it's like the first principle thinking
01:24:26
and the ability to question why you're doing what you're doing and then I guess lastly to have the
01:24:34
fearlessness or the courage to potentially interrogate and then reject
01:24:40
it. um that can literally save you in every facet. It saved me like go to
01:24:45
university, get a job, do this, and I I I stopped going to school because I thought it was a load of [ __ ] Dropped
01:24:50
out of university after one lecture, started a business. And I am, as I've said on this podcast before, I'm the happiest person I know.
01:24:56
I reached a level of success at a ridiculously young age. I managed to like write us write a new story, write a
01:25:02
new script for how life can be lived. Mhm. And um people admire me and listen to
01:25:07
this podcast basically only because not because I'm smarter than anyone else or anything else. It's fundamentally if you go back
01:25:14
to where it started was because I for some reason was willing to question the
01:25:19
script and then had the as they call it fearlessness for me it wasn't fear for me the biggest fear was [ __ ]
01:25:24
following the script clearly right but had the perceived fearlessness to say well this doesn't make sense.
01:25:30
Mhm. Um, yeah. How does that resonate with you? Two things come to mind. One is that
01:25:37
like you said before, the solution in my mind will be bespoke because we're
01:25:42
trying to take a one-sizefits-all solution, a panacea, and apply it to everyone. And and we're all unique. And
01:25:50
it's important, I think, for us each to begin to become aware of the emotional resistance we have to considering
01:25:57
possibilities outside of the conventional nuclear family unit and
01:26:04
just begin to think about what that might mean and and where where we might
01:26:09
be able to see change. And the second part is to ask yourselves, what do I
01:26:14
think I have to have in order to be happy? So in relationships often people
01:26:20
think marriage, children. In business it could be
01:26:26
X revenue, Y setup, zed lifestyle.
01:26:32
And then we can ask what will that give me? Why will it make me happy? Because
01:26:39
below will be the emotional need. So it could be uh in relationships this could be because I want affection, physical
01:26:46
intimacy, a sense of belonging, uh stability. For something else, it could
01:26:51
be status to be accepted by others, not to be judged.
01:26:56
But isn't just a question, isn't the actual truth based on that? So
01:27:01
on that point of marriage, people thinking that they think marriage will make them happy. They've never experienced marriage
01:27:07
before, right? So where have they got that idea from? It's I think that the actual the fundamental truth is
01:27:13
because they told me it would make me happy. Yeah, we've been sold that story.
01:27:18
But what do people really want? What are they wanting out of the marriage? If you go deeper, there will be an
01:27:24
emotional need that they're trying to meet through the marriage that they think the marriage will provide the solution to, but like you're saying, it
01:27:30
doesn't. Well, it can, but it might not. And so, what people might actually want
01:27:37
is emotional connection. or companionship. You know, if you said, "Describe the
01:27:43
marriage, the ideal marriage to me," they might say, "Well, we're happy and we're there for each other and I have a
01:27:48
confidant or a best friend or I have a lover." It's understanding those different parts. When we've broken that
01:27:53
down and understand what we're what we're actually yearning for or searching for, we can then ask, can I meet those
01:28:01
needs in a slightly different way that doesn't necessarily prescribe to the
01:28:06
conventional model? And that's first principal thinking in essence, which is exactly going back to like the fundamental.
01:28:12
Yeah. Yeah. Which is how Yeah. Yeah. And and which is what I said before is what I love about your mind
01:28:18
because you take it back to your first principles and then that's whenever you potentially become, you know, I just
01:28:25
new things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's it's such a I I wish the school taught kids how to think in that
01:28:32
way because the when I the first principles just going back to the university point for me were I want to
01:28:38
be a I want to start a business and be a millionaire. That's what my stupid ass brain was thinking at that point, right?
01:28:43
So this piece of paper, who am I going to show that to if I'm self-employed? Yeah, it's a good point. I don't want to
01:28:49
show it to myself. Mhm. Everyone else um everyone else around me is sleeping on their desk and hung over
01:28:54
and I'm going to have the same stamp that they all have, but that's actually probably going to work against me.
01:29:01
And I swear to God, this isn't I'll tell you if it was hindsight [ __ ] I was thinking that I've got this vivid memory
01:29:07
of my first day at university and my last um of looking over and this girl bit being sat on my right and she was
01:29:13
drunk and sleeping on the desk. And I didn't get into a good university because I got expelled from school. So I didn't really take my exam seriously
01:29:18
either again because of the same thinking. Um, but I remember thinking I'm going to go I'm going to get the
01:29:23
same trophy as her. Is that how is that going to help me? Do you know what I mean? If we both show up
01:29:28
and I was just think and then you've got it was boring as [ __ ] Like they I've been running businesses since I was 14.
01:29:34
Day one they were like make a poster. I swear to God the lesson my last lesson in my first at university was make a
01:29:40
poster. And I thought this isn't going to in terms of the information part that's not going to give me the
01:29:45
information I need. And it was that. And I walked out of there. I walked into the business office and I spoke to the head
01:29:50
of business at the university and I said, "I'm going to defer for for a little while." She said, "Cool. Fill out this piece of paper and you can defer."
01:29:56
I never even filled it out and never went back. Turns out I actually hadn't properly registered for university either, like as I was meant to. So, I didn't really
01:30:03
have to defer to be honest, but um and that was it. And you know, I want to I want to move on cuz you spent a long
01:30:09
long time talking about this topic. I you said earlier on that you spent lockdown in California. Yes. which is uh you know I'm jealous.
01:30:19
You don't know and and it cuts both ways. You don't know what's going to happen in the next moment. We have a
01:30:26
projection of the way that we think our lives will unfold and often we become tied to it and bound to it and any
01:30:33
deviation we can see as a failure of some sorts. But actually sometimes life has other plans for us.
01:30:42
And when we don't know what's going to happen, I think it keeps that freshness. You keep fresh eyes and you stay
01:30:47
grateful for what you do have while you have it. On the other hand,
01:30:55
we don't know what's going to happen and it could all be taken away from us at any point. And I've got a good friend of
01:31:01
mine and his father uh just had a stroke a couple of days ago and they now know the outcome is he won't be around.
01:31:09
10 days ago I was walking in in South Ken and 5 minutes after I passed and was coming back there was um barriers put up
01:31:16
and a uh refuge collector had been walking
01:31:21
out in a bus and knocked him down and in an instant his life was over.
01:31:28
And I just imagined, and I could be completely wrong, but I could I imagined, gosh, he he might have a family. He might have said goodbye to
01:31:34
his wife and the kids in the morning. And he went off to work. And he had no idea. And she had no idea. And and the
01:31:42
things that were really that might have been niggling or causing arguments don't
01:31:47
matter now. Like none of that matters now. And and I didn't see what was going
01:31:52
to happen coming. And And I, you know, I lost on one level. I lost a lot and it
01:31:59
makes me really appreciate what I had. But then on another level, that wasn't the end to the story.
01:32:06
And then it was as if life said, "You're on this path and I'm going to shunt you
01:32:12
onto a new trajectory and that's the path you're meant to be on. This is where you're meant to be going." And I
01:32:17
believe that it's a part of my path and it was meant to unfold this way. The universe is unfolding as it should. And
01:32:23
it's a lesson for me to continually trust. And that's why that voice came up in the very beginning in my heart saying
01:32:30
all is well because I know on a deep level that all is well. It's just about
01:32:36
trusting sometimes letting go of our ideas and living in this moment.
01:32:43
I can think of a better ending. Listen, I I don't even you know, thank
01:32:49
you so much for so many reasons because what you've done today on one hand will probably be selfish selfish as I as you
01:32:56
move forward and realize that the release of your truth and talking about it and processing it with people is
01:33:02
always liberating. But on the other hand, it's incredibly selfless because there are so many people that are going
01:33:08
going to have less pain, deal with their pain better, and understand themselves and hopefully be a little bit more
01:33:14
self-aware because you had the guts and the um and the, you know, the humility
01:33:19
and lack of ego to share what is an incredibly emotional um touching
01:33:25
personal um experience. And so, thank you so much. It's it's helped me, you
01:33:30
know, and I have no doubt that the hundreds of thousands of people that listen to this, it's going to help them in the same way. Um, if people want to
01:33:38
find you and they want to talk to you about this, and I'm sure there will be a lot of them,
01:33:43
you know, the podcast was big back then, it's much bigger now, right? Um, how do they find you? What's the
01:33:49
best way to reach you? So on Instagram it's just gr
01:33:56
i a uh or my website which is dren r i
01:34:01
a.com. And what kind of services do you offer people that are going through you know various predicaments?
01:34:07
So I do onetoone coaching. So right now everything's done digitally but
01:34:13
essentially it's uh identifying what aspect of your life right now is critical for you to resolve
01:34:19
and then helping you with the psychology and the mindset to be able to
01:34:26
work through that or work with that. So it could be emotional resilience, it could be sustainable weight loss, it
01:34:32
could be relationships, it could be taking your business to the next level in terms of how you view yourself as an
01:34:39
entrepreneur. Um it might be fears, loss of intimacy, uh
01:34:47
imposttor syndrome, whatever issue is actually there for you.
01:34:52
I'll check if it's something that we can approach from a mindset point of view and that's where my expertise is and
01:34:58
then help you on your journey as you then have a more empowered mindset so that you're developing that robust sense
01:35:04
of self and you're able to change and adapt and be fluid in your
01:35:10
journey and keep on growing essentially. We have um we have such good conversations even off the podcast. We
01:35:16
we we met up I think last week or the week before and had just an open conversation about a bunch of things in life. So, I actually wanted to ask you,
01:35:21
I've never asked a guest this before, but is there anything that we've missed in terms of the topics that you think
01:35:28
are curious to the relationship we have or pertinent to the relationship we have
01:35:33
or um any sort of learnings that you've garnered from our conversations
01:35:40
that you think we should be sharing with people? because I feel somewhat I feel those conversations are so rich
01:35:46
that I I I you know we talked about so much last time and um even in our private conversations I just I just
01:35:52
wonder if there's anything else any sort of key topics that you
01:35:57
I'm sure there will be like I don't think we've exhausted our conversation we'll be back for a third episode listen
01:36:02
thank you so much for your time I appreciate it I I yeah I appreciate it so so much more than I've you know people they give up so much time and
01:36:08
they fly to come and do the podcast but um the what you've given in today. I
01:36:14
don't think you'll realize how selfless um that act was because of the value it will give to people. And this is exactly
01:36:19
why I do this podcast um to hear these kinds of things and to to to hopefully make myself better and the listeners
01:36:25
better for hearing it. So, thank you a million million times over. Thank you, Steve. Thank you.
01:36:32
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