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 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 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
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hope nobody is listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself. [Music]
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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
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pretty cruel coincidence because we had a conversation um to do with life 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 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? 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
00:02:44
after our 30-minute conversation about marriage and monogamy and cheating and love, what did you say to me?
00:02:53
Showed you a story. Yeah. And that was uh about 2 weeks earlier. I'd been traveling back from London home
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and I got out of the train station and my wife picked me up and we got into the car and we had planned to go and have brunch at my favorite little spot.
00:03:12
They do amazing Corvos Rancho sauce. I was very excited and she said, "Let's go 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. 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
00:03:51
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, 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 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. I'd lost uh the dog, our home, her my parents-in-law, her family, everything
00:04:57
that I'd really held dear. If someone said, "What makes a meaningful life?" I would have described these things. And
00:05:02
it felt like they just been snatched away. It just came crumbling down like a house of cards.
00:05:09
And then fast forward two weeks and Steve decides to ask and I remember because the first thing No, no, it was fascinating cuz the first thing you asked was, "You're married, right?" And
00:05:23
I did this high pitch laugh and I go, "Yes." 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 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 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
00:06:20
and objective in the answers you gave. And even when I listen back now, although there was that laugh, which was
00:06:25
a bit of an indication, um, you were able to speak about someone betraying you or being deceitful with a level of calmness and apparent um,
00:06:38
emotional uh, sort of restraint that I I just admired so much from someone that was right in the middle of the emotional hurricane and had just been victim of that act. And um you said
00:06:50
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, so as a quick aside, I like that analogy and we touched upon it briefly about the hurricane and and it's funny actually
00:07:10
because a friend of mine showed me a book about a week ago and it was 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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
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can ever rationally explain it away. Sometimes bad things happen, but it 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
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God, why am I suffering? Ask God, where are you taking me? And so I've I've developed this ability to
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begin to view my life as though it's happening to someone else, as though the experiences, the thoughts, the emotions are are something that I can I can almost take it back on and have
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perspective. And I can see it and I can feel it. But I know that my thoughts, 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,
00:10:00
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 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.
00:10:17
And it's going to be a tough road for me, too, but I will be okay. Anger. 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 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? 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, 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 that I still had a fear of upsetting her or of her not being okay.
00:11:31
And so that's something which just just really developed and and was so 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?
00:11:51
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 is positive in that moment. My sense is there will be regret or at least shame.
00:12:23
And so it was a sadness because that was connected to the loss, the sense of loss
00:12:28
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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 because I was so ingrained in in an internal model of what life looked
00:16:47
like. I have uh strong stable marriage 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. 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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, my house, my wife, my house." And for 5 minutes it was like a supernova. It just
00:23:48
was just seething. And then it burnt out and I cried and I fell asleep and and 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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? So, it's really interesting. I um
00:28:43
this stage the the process went awareness and acceptance uh how I wanted to handle the process and then at some point I realized I
00:28:56
needed to find forgiveness. 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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? 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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? 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 offline. it shuts down. So we don't have access to that
00:40:13
creativity, the wisdom that we have usually. And again, 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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. 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 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 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. 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 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 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. Casual sexuality was the norm for our prehistoric ancestors.
00:45:08
For 95% of the collective experience of our lineage, 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 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 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, 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. And so on a on a natural evolutionary level, monogamy didn't exist. We didn't live in
00:46:41
long-term monogous relationships. Then we bring in marriage. 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 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 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 became involved and and Roman Catholicism tied it to sacrament and it
00:47:43
to being a sacred experience related to experiencing God. 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. 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 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 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. 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 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. Yeah. Um, the porn industry takes in about 57
00:49:58
to$undred billion dollars worldwide. 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. 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. 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 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? 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. 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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? 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 of a stable love. There was reliability.
01:03:16
There was dependability. There was relatability. But it crushed the desire. There was a slow suffocation
01:03:27
of that desire over the last couple of years. And so I believe that one day 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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. 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. 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. 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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. 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 what if the same ingredients that lead to a longlasting loving
01:16:07
relationship or monogous marriage, stability, dependability, relatability, 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 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. 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. 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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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