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Guess what, Will?
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What s up, Mango?
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I ve been trying to write a promo for our podcast, Part-Time Genius, but even though we ve done over 250 episodes, we don t really talk about murders or cults.
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I mean, we did just cover the Illuminati of cheese, so I feel like that makes us pretty edgy.
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We also solve mysteries like how Chinese is your Chinese food and how do dollar stores make money?
0
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And then, of course, can you game a dog show?
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So what you re saying is everyone should be listening.
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Listen to Part-Time Genius on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
0
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This is the story of how a group of people brought music back to Afghanistan by creating their own version of American Idol.
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The joy they brought to the nation.
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You re free completely.
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No one is there to destroy you.
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The danger they endured.
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They said my head should be cut off.
0
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I m John Legend.
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Listen to Afghan Star on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
0
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A new season of Bridgerton is here.
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And with it, a new season of Bridgerton, the official podcast.
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I m your host, Gabby Collins.
0
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And this season, we are bringing fans even deeper into the ton.
0
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Watch season three of the Shondaland series on Netflix.
0
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Then fall in love all over again by listening to Bridgerton, the official podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Subscribe to catch a new episode every Thursday.
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This segment about sleep rituals is brought to you by DreamCloud Sleep, the world s most affordable luxury mattress.
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Have you ever thought about why having a sleep ritual or routine is so important?
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Let me clue you in.
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It s like giving yourself a special bedtime treat that helps you relax and recharge.
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Once you start practicing a sleep ritual, you ll wake up feeling totally refreshed and ready to take on anything.
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Establishing a relaxing sleep ritual signals to your body that it s time to unwind.
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Consider incorporating activities that calm your mind, such as journaling, listening to a sleep-focused podcast, or using aromatherapy with essential oils.
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Make it your own special routine and aim to do it every night so your brain associates the activity with sleep.
0
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Another tip for a much better quality sleep is creating a soothing environment.
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Your sleep environment plays a crucial role in getting quality rest.
0
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Make sure your bedroom is a sanctuary dedicated to sleep.
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Dim the lights, keep the temperature cool, and invest in a comfortable mattress and pillows.
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Remember, a calm and peaceful space sets the stage for a rejuvenating slumber.
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Having a good mattress can give you the right comfort and support, which means you can sleep deeply and wake up feeling refreshed, which is essential for your overall health, reducing pain, and feeling your best.
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With DreamCloud, it s much more than just buying a bed, it s an investment in yourself.
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So go ahead, slip into something more comfortable and feel the DreamCloud difference.
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Go to DreamCloudSleep.com and use code J for 40% off plus an additional $50 off any mattress purchase.
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DreamCloud, rest reimagined.
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Hey everyone, I m so excited because we re going to be adding a really special offering onto the back of my solo episodes on Fridays.
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The Daily J is a daily series on Calm and it s meant to inspire you while outlining tools and techniques to live a more mindful, stress-free life.
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We dive into a range of topics and the best part is, each episode is only 7 minutes long, so you can incorporate it into your schedule no matter how busy you are.
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As a dedicated part of the On Purpose community, I wanted to do something special for you this year.
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So I ll be playing a hand-picked Daily J during each of my Friday podcasts.
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This week, we re talking about your relationships and how to create the most meaningful connections with the people that matter to you.
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Of course, if you want to listen to the Daily J every day, you can go subscribe to Calm.
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So go to calm.com forward slash J for 40% off your membership today.
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I think like a monk it was good to have my face on the cover because it had elements of my story.
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And while I do tell stories about me and Radhi in this book, this book is not about our relationship or about our experience, it s about relationships.
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And so I didn t want this to ever feel like a book of I ve mastered relationships, look how perfect my relationship is, learn from me.
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That s not what this book is.
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This book like,
0
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all my other work is me studying something, me coaching clients, working with people, and then trying to extract the lessons and saying, here s what I learned by watching, observing, coaching, researching.
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And I felt that I wanted something bold and beautiful on the cover that almost felt like you were part of a movement as well.
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And I thought, how beautiful would it be that
0
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Millions of people across the world, billions of people are going to see the word love every day in a very bold, beautiful way.
0
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And even if that just, even if they don t buy the book, but it injects some love into the world, I think that s a good thing.
0
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Yeah, I was curious about why a book on relationships and love.
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I mean, you could have done so many different things after, you know, your first book and then the second book of quotes, but why love and relationships?
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What could I have done?
0
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Tell me, I want to know what should I have written about?
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Um, best hair, how to be, how to crush entrepreneurship.
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I feel like it makes sense, but you know, when I think about love and relationships, it s like a very kind of,
0
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narrow focus when you usually are so broad.
0
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Your life, you re a purpose coach.
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You put it on purpose.
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Yeah, so I have, no, and I really appreciate that.
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And I think for me, I ve always talked about how there are four important decisions you make in life.
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And this is something that I developed a few years ago.
0
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The first decision is how do you feel about yourself?
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That is one of the most important decisions you make every single day.
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When you look in the mirror, when you wake up,
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when you re talking to your partner, when you re talking to a friend, what do I feel about myself?
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The second most important question, or the second most important decision we make every day, what we do is who we choose to give our love to and who we choose to receive love from.
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The third most important decision we make in life is what do we do for money and how do we make money?
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And the fourth most important decision we make in life is who do I serve and how do I serve?
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How do I contribute back to the world?
0
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And so I am working through writing a book on each decision, and after answering Think Like a Monk answers the decision of how do I feel about myself, that s what it s dedicated to, I was just sitting down with so many friends, so many clients, so many people, where their relationship was the cause of their greatest pain and suffering.
0
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So I knew people who were incredible entrepreneurs,
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but their relationship was on the back burner and they didn t feel fulfilled.
0
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Or I knew people who were starting something cool up, but because they didn t have a partner, they didn t feel complete.
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Or I knew people who d got divorced and broken up and they had a beautiful relationship with their kids, they had great friends, but they still felt inadequate because they weren t in a relationship.
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And so I just saw relationship as like the core of so much human happiness.
0
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And when I interviewed Dr. Robert Waldinger, he talked about how this 75-year study at Harvard, he s the fourth professor to complete the study.
0
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I think he just told me it s now 85 years they ve been looking at humans and watching humans  lives for 85 years.
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And the number one thing that human happiness came down to was the quality of our relationships.
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And so I felt as someone who loves serving and supporting people, I couldn t avoid this topic.
0
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And I think I was drawn to it because of my own mistakes in the space, my own successes in the space, and looking at both those around me.
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Something you and Roddy have talked about that I thought would be a beautiful way to sort of start the conversation was kind of understanding the landscape for how we understand love today.
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So I know you talked a lot about Bollywood culture and sort of like happily ever after and I ve been thinking a lot about that too as far as the programming around relationships, you know, I remember my life was once you get married and have kids it s like
0
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Bye.
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You know, there wasn t any other resources or support and I, my parents separated and now I have so much compassion for them.
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Cause I m like, Oh my gosh, like now I understand what it takes to build a healthy relationship and it s not just happily ever after.
0
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So I d love to talk a little bit about your upbringing, the Bollywood experience and sort of where we are today as far as our understanding of love.
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Yeah, so for anyone who has never watched a Bollywood movie, Bollywood is like Hollywood on romantic steroids, right?
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So if you take a rom-com and then you add music, dancing, more color over
1
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dramatic stories of love and sacrifice and surrender, you get Bollywood.
1
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And I grew up on Bollywood and Hollywood movies.
1
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And to me, I loved rom-coms growing up, like I love rom-coms.
1
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And I think that s a big impact on my mom, like watching rom-coms at home and, you know, us getting together and watching them and me wanting that kind of fairytale love.
1
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And I can definitely
1
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admit openly that I wanted a fairytale kind of love, I wanted a rom-com kind of love, because you start to realize that that s the only images of love that you see.
1
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And then I started to think about other images of love I saw,
1
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My family didn t have great relationships, so there were no good images of love there that I could say I want that.
1
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If anything, I was saying I don t want to repeat that.
1
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And then if I looked at my friends  parents or I looked at extended family, I didn t see any great images of relationships there either.
1
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So the only happy relationships I saw were in movies.
1
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So then that became my image of that s a good love story.
1
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And I think I pursued that and chased that a lot only to feel really disheartened every time because you couldn t recreate a movie in real life.
1
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It just wouldn t work.
1
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And so when I talk about my upbringing, I found a lot of
1
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habits that I didn t want to repeat in my own life.
1
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I saw a lot of things that I would never want to replicate and I started almost making a mental note saying, I don t want to argue like that.
1
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I won t behave like that.
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I won t speak like that.
1
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Anything that I saw that was hurtful or damaging, I almost made a mental note saying, I don t want to be a part of that in my life.
1
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I don t want that to be my behavior.
1
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And then everything I saw in the movies, unfortunately, I wrote a list going, I want that.
1
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I want that.
1
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I want that.
1
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So I was like, I was getting 50% right.
1
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And then I was getting 50% wrong.
1
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And you know, you have to let life humble you.
1
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I think that s what s so beautiful about this whole journey is that life
1
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shows you what reality is.
1
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And I think a lot of us are thinking, how do I get my relationship right?
1
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Or what did I get wrong?
1
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Or how do I find the right person?
1
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Or I just met the wrong person.
1
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And I don t think it s about right and wrong, it s about reality.
1
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And reality is right in the middle of right and wrong.
1
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And so if you just go, what is the reality of what I m experiencing?
1
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What is the reality of what s possible?
1
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Reality is a much healthier metric than right or wrong.
1
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Yeah.
1
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And I think, so in addition to the media programming in Bollywood, there s also social media and that can also portray a certain type of love.
1
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So people nowadays are figuring out relationships from social media or looking at social media.
1
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It s kind of like the new TV.
1
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How do you think that impacts people and their relationships?
1
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And do you have any advice for how people should sort of navigate social media if they re looking for relationship advice or expanders?
1
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Yeah, wow, what a great question.
1
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And you re right, social media is the updated version of rom-coms or Bollywood movies or whatever it may have been.
1
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So there s two sides to this.
1
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Everyone s allowed to share and show whatever they want to share and show of their own relationship.
1
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It s up to you to decipher and learn to create distinctions in what s reality and what s an image that you re seeing.
1
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And I think I like to take that responsibility on myself because I don t think you can expect everyone in the world to change how they communicate.
1
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And at the same time, when you take that responsibility for yourself, now you re in a position of strength.
1
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And if you re someone who has real relationships and you re spending time connecting with real people, you will know that every couple argues, you will know that every couple
1
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goes to sleep sometimes not talking to each other.
1
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You will know that people wake up angry next to each other.
1
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You will know that people wake up the day after their wedding and have the worst argument they ve ever had.
1
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You know people who are about to get married and are fighting the day before they get married because of all the pressure and stress.
1
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If you have real friendships and real relationships, social media actually doesn t get as much of a hold on your
1
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mind as it could.
1
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Whereas I find that if we re not investing in real friendships and real relationships and no one ever tells you, like, I ve been really fortunate, I ve always had friends that are older than me.
1
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And I think that s been one of the biggest techniques of growth that I ve life hacked, is that I ve always had friends who are older than me.
1
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And having friends who are older than you meant that they made mistakes before you, they were able to share their learnings with you,
1
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they were always ahead of you in life decisions so they could come back and share their notes.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so I had so many friends who would say to me, Hey Jay, like I got married for this reason.
1
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I think that didn t work out for me.
1
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Or, Hey, you know what?
1
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I think I rushed having kids.
1
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I wish I slowed that down.
1
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Or, you know, I wish me and my,
1
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wife had that conversation up front.
1
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We should have talked about it then, not 10 years later.
1
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And so I was almost collecting all of these great pieces of insight and then I was able to use their hindsight to help me.
1
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And so again, if you have these real friendships and real relationships where you re vulnerable with each other and you talk about these things, you re not using social media as your frame of reference, you re looking at real life human experience as your frame of reference.
1
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In the same way as if I see a picture
1
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of Bali on Instagram, or I talk to my friend who just went to Bali, who s going to give me a better insight on what that experience was actually like?
1
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And I think if you have a friend who just went to Bali, that s who you d go to.
1
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And that s why I think our relationships, our depth of connection, our vulnerability with our friends and the people we love saves you from using social media as a frame of reference.
1
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That is like the biggest facts I want to talk about in the book kind of moving from the dating period to relationships and then even breakups So in the book, I really loved this part about solitude and solitude being the antidote to loneliness I d love to talk about that because most people will listen and they re like, um, those are the same thing.
1
SPEAKER_01
So, how are they different?
1
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Yeah, it was Paul Tillich who talked about how there s a difference between being alone and being lonely.
1
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And he talks about how, or being alone is like the strength of being alone, but loneliness is the weakness of being alone.
1
SPEAKER_00
And it s really interesting that in the English dictionary, we have two words for being alone.
1
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One s alone and one s solitude, but we never use the word solitude.
1
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So we always say, oh, I m going to be alone tonight.
1
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We say, oh no, I m just going to stay in and be alone tonight.
1
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Or if you were at school and lots of people didn t come to your party, you d always be considered less popular.
1
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A loner.
1
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A loner, exactly.
1
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If you re the person at the lunch table who s sitting alone, you re the loner.
1
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If you turn up to a wedding and you don t have a plus one, it s like, oh, poor you.
1
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When are you going to get married?
1
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When s your turn?
1
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That s the language.
1
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We ve made being alone an enemy.
1
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We ve made being lonely the enemy.
1
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And we all know this, this is common wisdom today, that we can all feel surrounded by so many people and still feel disconnected.
1
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That s what we all experience pretty much every single day.
1
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So being alone doesn t mean, being alone is not defined by your physical proximity to people.
1
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Being alone is defined by how well you understand yourself and how well others understand you.
1
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If you don t feel understood by your friends, you will feel alone.
1
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If you don t feel you understand yourself, you will feel lonely.
1
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So solitude is a space you create to take the time to get to know yourself.
1
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And I know that sounds strange.
1
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It s like, what do you mean I need to get to know myself?
1
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Shouldn t I just know myself?
1
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Don t I just know myself?
1
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And I equate this to something I learned during my time as a monk.
1
SPEAKER_01
I was going to say, this is monk vibes.
1
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Yeah, it is full on monk vibes.
1
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And the book starts with that because I do feel like the only reason I m able to have a healthier relationship with Radhi today is because she s the only person in the world who s experienced me after living three years as a monk.
1
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So she s the only person I ve been with after that experience and
1
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anything that I m trying to get right in my current relationship comes from what I learned during that time.
1
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And so there s this beautiful experience that I had where on my first day when I became a monk or monk school that I see a 10 or 11 year old teaching like six year olds how to meditate or they re doing a class and I m wondering what s going on and so I m
1
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you know, peeking and trying to figure it out.
1
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And then I go up to the teacher who s, you know, 10, 11 years old afterwards.
1
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And I m like, what did you just teach them?
1
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And he said, oh, that s their first day of school.
1
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And I was like, amazing.
1
SPEAKER_00
What did you teach them?
1
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And he said, well, what did you learn on your first day of school?
1
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And I was like, ABCs and one, two, three, maybe like, maybe I don t, I can t even remember.
1
SPEAKER_00
And he said, well, I was teaching them how to breathe.
1
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And I was like, what do you mean you re teaching them how to breathe, like we just breathe?
1
SPEAKER_00
And he said, well, think about it.
1
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He said, the only thing that stays with you from the moment you re born to the moment you die is your breath.
1
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Because when you re happy, what changes?
1
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Your breath.
2
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When you re sad, what changes?
2
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Your breath.
2
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When you re ecstatic, what changes?
2
SPEAKER_00
Your breath.
2
SPEAKER_00
When you re nervous, what changes?
2
SPEAKER_00
Your breath.
2
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Because your breath is interconnected to every emotion in life.
2
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So when you learn to navigate your breath, you learn to navigate life.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I was just thinking,
2
SPEAKER_00
that just blew my mind at the time and it still does today and even now I think about how every emotion we say well that s breathtaking you just took my breath away like everything is related to the breath so similarly everything is related to the self so just as simple as it sounds of like you should learn how to breathe
2
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That s how I feel when I say you should spend time alone.
2
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It sounds really basic and obvious, but there is a whole wisdom behind it.
2
SPEAKER_00
And the reason I say it is because when you get into a relationship and you don t know yourself, what ends up happening is 10 years later you blame that person for taking away who you were.
2
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you argue with them three months later and saying, you made me lose who I was.
2
SPEAKER_00
But you never lost who you were because you didn t know who you were in the first place.
2
SPEAKER_00
So you adopted all of their behaviors, all of their beliefs, you accepted whatever love they gave you and then started to discover that it didn t live up.
2
SPEAKER_00
So you could save yourself from so much pain and so much suffering if you started out knowing what love meant to you, how love felt to you, what love looked like to you.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I think, so I guess even going on that, like, how can people really think about that?
2
SPEAKER_01
Because I ve thought about this a lot, where I don t know how much people really understand what true love is.
2
SPEAKER_01
Like, unconditional love is so rare.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I m even someone that, I just did a darkness retreat last week.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, so cool.
2
SPEAKER_00
It was so cool.
2
SPEAKER_01
psychological, but in it I was like, do I know unconditional love?
2
SPEAKER_01
Like the love of the creator, yes, but still sometimes love feels conditional.
2
SPEAKER_01
So how can people really figure out what love is for them and how love feels?
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I break it down into three key areas and I recommend everyone defines love.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think what was beautiful about ancient traditions and when you look at the word, we only use one word to describe love, love.
2
SPEAKER_00
And what s fascinating about that word is someone could say I love you and it means they want to spend their life with you.
2
SPEAKER_00
And someone could say I love you and it means I want to spend one night with you.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like literally it can be that extremely different.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so the challenge is when someone says, I love you, you don t stop to ask them, hey, well, what do you mean?
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, do you mean tonight?
2
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Do you mean today?
2
SPEAKER_01
Do you mean forever?
2
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Yeah.
2
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Yeah.
2
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Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
What do you mean?
2
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Jay told me to ask you what you mean.
2
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And we don t do that.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I, and I m not asking you to do that in that moment, but it is interesting that when someone says, I love you, you accept their words, but you re really accepting your meaning of love.
2
SPEAKER_00
If someone says, I love you, you re actually saying, oh, I think they mean what I mean by love, and now they love me.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then you say, I love you back, which means you re projecting your definition onto them, and you never had a conversation about what it meant.
2
SPEAKER_00
So for me, I ve defined love, and I share this in the book, and I share exercises in Eight Rules of Love of how to answer each section.
2
SPEAKER_00
I define love with three key areas.
2
SPEAKER_00
One is you like their personality.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s the most obvious basic form of love is that I enjoy their company.
2
SPEAKER_00
I enjoy being around them.
2
SPEAKER_00
I genuinely appreciate spending time with them.
2
SPEAKER_00
I maybe admire some qualities that they have.
2
SPEAKER_00
Now that you could feel for a lot of people.
2
SPEAKER_00
So that in itself is not love and I think that s the challenge Krista.
2
SPEAKER_00
The challenge we have is that we see attraction as love or we accept validation as love.
2
SPEAKER_00
So we re almost taking payments in attention
2
SPEAKER_00
pretending that it s love.
2
SPEAKER_00
Does that make sense?
2
SPEAKER_00
And so the receipt doesn t say love, the receipt says attention, but we got paid as if we were like, oh no, no, but that person loves me because they gave me attention, they gave me validation, they complimented.
2
SPEAKER_01
Controlled sometimes.
2
SPEAKER_00
Controlled.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s like they re doing everything I want.
2
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
2
SPEAKER_00
I love them.
2
SPEAKER_00
I love that answer.
2
SPEAKER_01
Only when they re like doing everything I want, saying what I want, do I love them.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, or ownership.
2
SPEAKER_00
They take care of everything, I don t have to think about anything.
2
SPEAKER_00
I accept that as love.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so that in and of itself is not enough, but it is a pillar.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I think what happens is, Krista, is that we want to accelerate attraction or liking someone into love so fast that we don t want to do the unsexy, uncool, uninteresting work of actually falling in love with someone or building love with someone.
2
SPEAKER_00
The second part of my definition is that you respect their values.
2
SPEAKER_00
Now this, I ll go deeper because everyone always hears about respect.
2
SPEAKER_00
What I mean by respecting their values is you don t want to change them.
2
SPEAKER_00
you actually respect why they live their life the way they do and how they live their life the way they do.
2
SPEAKER_00
You re not trying to change or transform what they care about.
2
SPEAKER_00
You love what they care about because you see it brings them joy.
2
SPEAKER_00
In mine and my wife s relationship, it took me a while to understand.
2
SPEAKER_00
So my wife s number one priority is her family.
2
SPEAKER_00
Family is her biggest value and you ve interviewed her and you know, you guys know each other and
2
SPEAKER_00
My value is my purpose, like it s very clearly my purpose.
2
SPEAKER_00
Very clear.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I ve always known that, my wife s known that from day one and I ve known hers from day one so it helps.
2
SPEAKER_00
But my wife has never tried to make my number one value family and I ve never tried to make her number one value purpose.
2
SPEAKER_00
It just won t work.
2
SPEAKER_00
Her family is her purpose, that s how she would see it.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I would see my work as my purpose.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so the point is that you have to respect each other s value in order to truly have love.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I find most people like someone s personality and they don t respect their value, so they re trying to change their values.
2
SPEAKER_00
They re like, I want your value to be me.
2
SPEAKER_00
I want your value to be my family.
2
SPEAKER_00
I want your value to be travel.
2
SPEAKER_00
I want your value to be this.
2
SPEAKER_00
You re trying to control someone s values, not love.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then the third and final step of my definition of love that I share in the book is wanting to help someone towards their goals.
2
SPEAKER_00
Wanting to support someone towards their goals.
2
SPEAKER_00
That is real love.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, I may like a lot of people, I may respect what they value, but there s very few people in the world that I m gonna say, I m gonna stand with you and I m gonna make sure you get to where you wanna go, whatever that may be.
2
SPEAKER_00
That requires the greatest commitment to someone
2
SPEAKER_00
in saying, not just like a friend, like, oh, I ll help you out, I ll network and I ll connect, not that kind of thing.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m dedicated, my life is dedicated to helping you get to your goals and I know you re going to help me back to mine.
2
SPEAKER_00
I still recommend everyone comes up with their own definition of love.
2
SPEAKER_00
I talk about in the book how the Greeks, the ancient Greeks had seven different words for love.
2
SPEAKER_00
They have family love, they have affection, they have passionate love.
2
SPEAKER_00
They define it, but today we just put it all into one.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so if someone pays us a compliment and they re kind, we re like, oh, they love me.
2
SPEAKER_00
They re really great.
2
SPEAKER_00
They re wonderful people.
2
SPEAKER_00
And we halo effect qualities.
2
SPEAKER_00
So we take one quality that someone has and we blow it up and go, they must be great at everything.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I think with love too, it s like in the social media world, you re like, love you, love.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I think it s a girl thing too.
2
SPEAKER_01
We re like, love you, love you, love you.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it just kind of, I mean, we re all, it s like we do.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then I m like, but I want to love everyone, but how am I saying this to my husband?
2
SPEAKER_01
And then like personal online.
2
SPEAKER_01
But I think it s interesting listening to what you were saying.
2
SPEAKER_01
Cause you could really see how clearly it s or how important it is to know yourself because if you don t know your values, if you don t know your goals, you re going to get really lost within trying to find a definition.
2
SPEAKER_01
I m curious what you think about this, and I don t even really have an answer, but for people that are dating, what do you think about the spark?
2
SPEAKER_01
Like, do you think there needs to be a spark when people start, or do you think there needs to be butterflies?
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so I really looked into this because I ve been fascinated by this a lot, and I ve also been friends with guys who feel the spark every week with a different person.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I ve had a ton of guys that I ve mentored and worked with who literally would come back to me every week, every month, and be like, I just felt the spark at the gym.
2
SPEAKER_00
You know, I just felt the spark at the bar.
2
SPEAKER_00
And they just find a new person to have a spark with.
2
SPEAKER_00
Is that similar with women?
2
SPEAKER_00
With women?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think we romanticize things a little bit more.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I think it s interesting because I m sure men is that physical attraction, you know, really like that testosterone or maybe there s like a biological component.
2
SPEAKER_01
But I think for women, it s like the spark and then the story.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
2
SPEAKER_01
Kind of the fantasy goes.
2
SPEAKER_01
So I think they re very different in the way that they go.
2
SPEAKER_01
But I don t think women feel the spark as much as the men.
2
SPEAKER_00
Got it, okay, yeah, and that was my, I wanted to get that sense, because I have a similar sense.
2
SPEAKER_01
Speaking for every single woman on Earth.
2
SPEAKER_00
Of course, and I m not trying to make gender stereotypes either.
2
SPEAKER_00
Of course.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m just saying from my experience of speaking to people, there s been a lot of people who I ve met, a lot of men, who feel that way.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so I was really interested, and I started looking into it.
2
SPEAKER_00
What the science showed, which I do find fascinating, was that when you meet someone that you feel that spark with, or chemistry, there is actually something chemical happening.
2
SPEAKER_00
And what s happening is that your excitement level is
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh, that s a new person.
3
SPEAKER_00
But your stress level is high.
3
SPEAKER_00
Do they like me?
3
SPEAKER_00
So you re experiencing excitement and stress at the same time.
3
SPEAKER_00
So you re like, they re hot.
3
SPEAKER_00
Do they think I m hot?
3
SPEAKER_00
Excitement, stress.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh my gosh, like, are they coming over here?
3
SPEAKER_00
Excitement.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh no, what do I say?
3
SPEAKER_00
Stress.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh no, I have their number, so exciting.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh wait, they haven t messaged back in two hours, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
So you re feeling excitement and stress.
3
SPEAKER_00
And what ends up happening, this really, really at least blew my mind and it was very fascinating for me.
3
SPEAKER_00
So you re feeling excitement and stress.
3
SPEAKER_00
Now as you get to know that person, they give you a sense of comfort.
3
SPEAKER_00
So what happens is the stress decreases.
3
SPEAKER_00
now you don t get that same spark anymore because your stress levels have gone down around them because they actually help calm you down because you have a relationship now and then we think the spark just went away but actually the stress just went away so i just want you to think about that for a second anytime you have thought the spark went away
3
SPEAKER_00
It didn t.
3
SPEAKER_00
The stress went away of meeting someone new.
3
SPEAKER_00
And actually, if your stress has gone away, chances are that person s good for you because they ve helped calm you down because now you feel safe around them.
3
SPEAKER_00
When you re first attracted to someone and you don t know whether they like you, you feel unsafe, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
Everyone knows what it feels like to go out on a limb and text someone and wait a day to have it back.
3
SPEAKER_00
You feel unsafe, but that feels exciting.
3
SPEAKER_00
Whereas now, two months later, you feel safe with them, you lost the excitement.
3
SPEAKER_00
So it s not about whether you feel a spark or you don t feel a spark.
3
SPEAKER_00
Whether you feel a spark or you don t, it has to be followed up with skills in a relationship.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think that s where people go wrong.
3
SPEAKER_00
People think if we have the spark, we don t need anything else.
3
SPEAKER_00
And if I don t have the spark, it doesn t matter how many skills this person has, this can t work.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think it s both.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think there s a need for chemistry, compatibility, and connection.
3
SPEAKER_00
And often we just take chemistry and hope that that s going to last.
3
SPEAKER_00
And chemically, that s not going to last.
3
SPEAKER_00
Hopefully.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
And therefore, from a feeling point of view, it won t last.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so I think the more we focus on compatibility and connection, the healthier a relationship can be.
3
SPEAKER_00
Now, if someone just says, all I want to feel is sparks, then great, you should move from lots of three-month relationships consistently and that will fulfill you.
3
SPEAKER_00
But if you re someone who s saying, I want a long-term relationship, please focus on the skills and the tools because that s what s really needed.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s almost like the difference between saying, I m really attracted to this apartment
3
SPEAKER_00
versus I m attracted to it, but I can also vision where this could go, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
Like I have a vision for how this could be.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_01
On the flip side of that, do you think that people should marry their best friend?
3
SPEAKER_00
Ooh, that s a good question.
3
SPEAKER_00
I ve never been asked that before.
3
SPEAKER_00
Uh,
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t think you can just marry your best friend.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I mean, just being straight up.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t think that that s, again, a good enough reason, because being friends and being in love are two very different things, just like being friends and being in business are two very different things.
3
SPEAKER_00
When you add the energy of money or you add the energy of love,
3
SPEAKER_00
there s different expectations, there s different commitments.
3
SPEAKER_00
If you don t talk to your friend for a couple of weeks and you catch up, you feel like you had the best conversation ever.
3
SPEAKER_00
In a relationship, your partner may need more attention than that.
3
SPEAKER_00
In your friendship, you may be more forgiving.
3
SPEAKER_00
Because at the end of the day, you don t have to wake up next to that person every single day and sleep next to them every night.
3
SPEAKER_00
When you re in a relationship, you re seeing that person all the time.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s different expectations.
3
SPEAKER_00
So again, I think what we like to do is simplify and go, okay, well, if we got this part of our life right, we can get this part of our life right.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it doesn t work that way because you re always infusing a new energy
3
SPEAKER_00
when you add an element to your relationship and it truly applies in business, it truly applies in love.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think a friendship can be a beautiful foundation for a great relationship.
3
SPEAKER_00
But I think assuming that it already is, is where we go wrong.
3
SPEAKER_00
Does that satisfy you or do you want to dig into that?
3
SPEAKER_01
No, I agree with you.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s like, yeah, it s again, I think thinking about how do people define it, because for some people they might define best friends as, you know, it might be something where they want the comfort of that and they actually don t want that sparky chemistry part.
3
SPEAKER_01
So thinking about how people define it, but I m not exactly, you know, sure the truth.
3
SPEAKER_01
I was thinking about this before and I think it s something that a lot of people in my life have been experiencing is like the growing apart of being in a long-term relationship and two people that come together at a different period in time in their life and then they find themselves after however many years being like what the heck like we re so
3
SPEAKER_01
we ve grown apart.
3
SPEAKER_01
And there s like a beauty in that, and then there s also can be really scary, because you re like, okay, what are we gonna do?
3
SPEAKER_01
Are we gonna choose to grow together?
3
SPEAKER_01
So I d love to talk a little bit about growing apart versus growing together.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I have a whole section in the book called, you know, almost like you have to make that choice to either elevate or separate.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think that couples that want to last the test of time, and first, actually, let s take it back a little bit.
3
SPEAKER_00
First of all,
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t think length of time should be used as a metric of success of a relationship.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think that s a really unhealthy way often of gauging the success of a relationship.
3
SPEAKER_00
I knew someone who was married for like 14 years, and then when they got divorced, everyone was so shocked.
3
SPEAKER_00
But anyone who knew them closely knew that they were struggling for 10 years already.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so really it was a four-year relationship, 10 years of pain, and then there was a divorce followed by that.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so I was like, oh my God, they were together for 14 years.
3
SPEAKER_00
I never thought that would happen to them.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it s like, well, no, it wasn t 14 years.
3
SPEAKER_00
It was four years and 10 years of pain.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so I think we have to start looking at how long was an actual relationship and a connection versus how long is a marriage or a partnership, which are often wildly different.
3
SPEAKER_00
Now, if someone does want a long-term relationship with someone, if that is your definition of love and success in a relationship,
3
SPEAKER_00
You re going to have to grow together multiple times.
3
SPEAKER_00
And here s the hardest part.
3
SPEAKER_00
You always grow at different times.
3
SPEAKER_00
So everyone grows at a different time, at a different pace, in their own way.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it rarely happens that you re growing at the same time, at the same pace, in the same way.
3
SPEAKER_00
So now you ve got one of your partners going off on their journey.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I m someone who, you know, was very aware about my passion, my purpose, what I wanted to do in the world.
3
SPEAKER_00
And when I met Radhi, she was extremely talented.
3
SPEAKER_00
She s always been extremely gifted, but she didn t necessarily know what her purpose was.
3
SPEAKER_00
or her passion was.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so it s been really interesting for me watching her in that discovery.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that requires patience on my part.
3
SPEAKER_00
It requires support and it requires openness because she has to find her own path.
3
SPEAKER_00
Now she s had to do the same with me.
3
SPEAKER_00
When she met me, she was already healthy.
3
SPEAKER_00
She ate well, she worked out, she puts in the hours.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was like staying up late to work.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was- I love this.
3
SPEAKER_01
I love this Jay.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I was staying up late to work.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was, I love eating fried food.
3
SPEAKER_00
Uh, I love like sugar.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was addicted to sugar when I met her.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so it s like, I was also learning in a different part of my life just cause I figured out my purpose and my mindset doesn t mean I figured out everything in life.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so she had to be patient with me.
3
SPEAKER_00
So Riley s given me so many insights on how to improve my health and how to have better, like work hygiene and so many other things that I ve gained from her.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think that,
3
SPEAKER_00
The challenge that most people have is ego.
3
SPEAKER_00
We don t want to learn from our partners because it almost makes us feel weak and it puts them in a position of superiority, not realizing that when you can trade
3
SPEAKER_00
And I have a whole section in this book, a chapter called Your Partner is Your Guru.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it s this idea of if you really love someone, chances are they have something to teach you.
3
SPEAKER_00
And if they can teach you in a way that isn t preachy, isn t projecting, and isn t critical, and if we can be that for our partners, you can grow together endlessly.
3
SPEAKER_00
Now if you feel you ve grown together, you ve learned everything you possibly can from your partner, now there s no more learning to do, it s wonderful to grow apart.
3
SPEAKER_00
But that should also be celebrated as a success.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think we often use words like divorce, ended, like these words are so aggressive.
3
SPEAKER_00
Split.
3
SPEAKER_00
Split, exactly, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it was over forever.
3
SPEAKER_00
These words are so aggressive and they paint this picture of,
3
SPEAKER_00
animosity of you know of enemy kind of feeling not realizing that someone could have a really healthy as the as the um you know the famous book like a conscious uncoupling like the idea of uncoupling is so much more of a healthier idea for people
4
SPEAKER_00
And I think that s the language we need to trade that yes, you could have a wonderful relationship and you could have a wonderful afterlife from that relationship if you both wanted that.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that doesn t mean the relationship failed.
4
SPEAKER_00
It did its part.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s like, you don t go to college for three years and if you don t become a professor, it s like, no, you failed.
4
SPEAKER_00
You failed, like you should have become a professor.
4
SPEAKER_00
No, you did, it served its path.
4
SPEAKER_00
Even for me, when I look at, I lived as a monk, I didn t become a monk for the rest of my life.
4
SPEAKER_00
It served its purpose.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I think relationships have to be seen in that way of like, did it serve its purpose?
4
SPEAKER_00
And if it s done, it s done.
4
SPEAKER_00
And let s not,
4
SPEAKER_00
make people feel bad about that, you know?
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, it s again the happily ever after vibe, you know, if you re not together and everyone s like, wow, your parents are still together.
4
SPEAKER_02
And it s like, well, they re miserable or don t talk and they re not in communication and they re not engaging and they re not connected.
4
SPEAKER_02
So it s like, what s the point?
4
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_02
But it was interesting, like just watching you and Roddy, it s so beautiful because
4
SPEAKER_02
it s like when you re talking to one another, you are listening to each other as if you are the guru.
4
SPEAKER_02
There s an openness to being taught by each other that I feel like sometimes can get lost in relationships.
4
SPEAKER_02
And I don t know if it s because there is a point, and the book is, it could be Conscious Loving by Gay Hendricks, or it could be Getting the Love You Want, but it talks about how you sort of make the person your parents, and then you kind of project all the pain.
4
SPEAKER_02
So I m wondering if that s what happens with folks, where they are making the person their parent, and then when you re telling them what to do, you re like,
4
SPEAKER_02
No mom or dad, you know what I mean?
4
SPEAKER_00
So in this book, I talk about how there are different relationship roles and we all slot into one of these and I have a test in the book that helps guide you to figure out what you are and what your partner is.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so these are the three roles.
4
SPEAKER_00
Everyone who s listening, you can figure out which one you re in and if and when you get the book, you can do the test to make sure of it.
4
SPEAKER_00
So the first is fixer.
4
SPEAKER_00
The second is dependent, and the third is supporter.
4
SPEAKER_00
So some of us are fixers.
4
SPEAKER_00
We get our value in a relationship by trying to fix the other person s problems.
4
SPEAKER_00
If the person, we see them as broken, and we think we can fix them, and that makes us feel good.
4
SPEAKER_00
So we like to find projects, we like to find people who need help, and we go and make a relationship with them because we want to feel really powerful and strong that we help them.
4
SPEAKER_00
What ends up happening is that a few years down the line, we get exhausted and then we go, oh, stop acting like a kid.
4
SPEAKER_00
You just, you don t do anything.
4
SPEAKER_00
You re not really involved.
4
SPEAKER_00
You re not engaged.
4
SPEAKER_00
But we set them up to be that way because that s what we wanted in the beginning.
4
SPEAKER_00
The second is the dependent.
4
SPEAKER_00
The dependent is someone who wants to be the child.
4
SPEAKER_00
They walk into a relationship looking for mom and dad.
4
SPEAKER_00
They want the other person to fix everything.
4
SPEAKER_00
They want to find someone who s going to take care of all their needs, provide for everything they need, take care of them mentally, emotionally, maybe even financially, and we go there in like a little kid.
4
SPEAKER_00
What ends up happening?
4
SPEAKER_00
You drain the other person.
4
SPEAKER_00
That doesn t end so well.
4
SPEAKER_00
And the third one is the supporter.
4
SPEAKER_00
The supporter goes,
4
SPEAKER_00
Real love and real support is I m going to help you develop the skills you need to take care of yourself.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m not going to take care of you.
4
SPEAKER_00
What is care?
4
SPEAKER_00
Is care me saying to you, I m going to take care of you?
4
SPEAKER_00
Or is real care, I m going to help you learn the skills to take care of yourself.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s real love.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s real care.
4
SPEAKER_00
Like I believe in you so much that I want you to have the tools and skills and I m going to help you.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m going to guide you.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m going to introduce you to things, whatever you need so that you feel safe.
4
SPEAKER_00
Whether I m here or not, that s love.
4
SPEAKER_00
One day I may die before you, if you only feel safe when I m alive next to you, that s not love.
4
SPEAKER_00
Love is I m going to protect you by helping you protect yourself.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s safety.
4
SPEAKER_00
Don t we want that for our kids?
4
SPEAKER_00
Don t we want that for our partners?
4
SPEAKER_00
Like if my kid, I don t have any kids, but if I had kids and if they only felt safe when I was in the room,
4
SPEAKER_00
That wouldn t be a win.
4
SPEAKER_00
That would be a loss because you can t always be in the room.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I think we do that with our partners.
4
SPEAKER_00
So a supporter says, I m here to help you develop the skills you need to take care of yourself.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I m ready to develop the skills I need, whatever you need to teach me to take care of myself.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so I set that up because the fix is almost like the parent.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
the dependents like the child, and then the supporter is the collaborative one, the one who recognizes that the only person who can take care of me is me, and the only person who can take care of you is you.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so when I help you take care of yourself, and you help me take care of myself, that s real care, that s real love.
4
SPEAKER_05
When the Taliban banned music in Afghanistan, millions were plunged into silence.
4
SPEAKER_05
radios were smashed, cassettes burned.
4
SPEAKER_05
You could be beaten or jailed or killed for breaking the rules.
4
SPEAKER_05
And yet, Afghans did it anyway.
4
SPEAKER_05
This is the story of how a group of people brought music back to Afghanistan by creating their own version of American Idol.
4
SPEAKER_05
The danger they endured.
4
SPEAKER_04
They said my head should be cut off.
4
SPEAKER_05
the joy they brought to the nation.
4
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You re free completely.
4
SPEAKER_05
No one is there to destroy you.
4
SPEAKER_05
I m John Legend.
4
SPEAKER_05
Listen to Afghan Star on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
4
SPEAKER_03
Guess what, Bango?
4
SPEAKER_03
What s up, Will?
4
SPEAKER_03
So iHeart is giving us a whole minute to promote our podcast, Part-Time Genius.
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SPEAKER_04
I know, that s why I spent my whole week composing a haiku for the occasion.
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Mango, I m going to cut you off right there.
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4
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SPEAKER_04
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Plus, we cover questions like how Chinese is your Chinese food?
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Listen to Part-Time Genius on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
4
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A new season of Bridgerton is here.
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And with it, a new season of Bridgerton, the official podcast.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m your host, Gabrielle Collins.
4
SPEAKER_01
And this season, we are bringing fans even deeper into the ton.
4
SPEAKER_01
Colin Bridgerton has returned from his travels abroad.
4
SPEAKER_01
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4
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Meanwhile, the ton is reverberating with speculation of who holds Lady Whistledown s pen.
4
SPEAKER_01
We re discussing it all.
4
SPEAKER_01
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Then, fall in love all over again by listening to Bridgerton, the official podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Subscribe to catch a new episode every Thursday.
4
SPEAKER_02
How can people watch when they re slipping into that?
4
SPEAKER_02
Because that s kind of like people go into that unconsciously.
4
SPEAKER_02
And I ve seen in relationships with myself, I ve seen in relationships with friends where you don t even realize it s happening and then you re like, wait, whoa.
4
SPEAKER_02
Is there a way that we can be more conscious about
4
SPEAKER_02
that journey so that you know because it s it s an opportunity for healing that s why we do it to bring it up for healing so it s important that it comes up and you could even work through it together but how can we work with that energy yeah so i think the first step and the reason why i put it in the book is is this level of awareness like even knowing so i m a classic fixer i i have that natural ability whenever anyone s working in
4
SPEAKER_00
coaching or it s a natural element of wanting to help people that way.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I m a classic fixer and for so many years in so many relationships, I tried to solve all of my partner s problems, whoever I was with.
4
SPEAKER_00
I was just trying to fix their problems and I wanted to be their knight in shining armor and I wanted to be their savior and I wanted to be that person, only to realize they were never satisfied.
4
SPEAKER_00
no matter how much of a savior I was, because there was always more saving to do.
4
SPEAKER_00
And they never really fully saw me as a knight in shining armor, because now you think you re a knight in shining armor, but literally you re a person with a stretcher, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
Like it s like you wanna be this idolized version of a savior, but really you re just in the emergency room every day, and now there s no knight in shining armor, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
You re like a person who s batted their job in the medical department, and so,
4
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What ended up happening was having tested it out, and I think people can relate to that.
5
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That s my experience.
5
SPEAKER_01
I realized that being a fixer didn t set me, the other person, or the relationship up for success.
5
SPEAKER_01
It set us up for failure.
5
SPEAKER_01
So how do you become vigilant of it, which is your question?
5
SPEAKER_01
The way you become vigilant of it is when someone asks for help.
5
SPEAKER_01
What s the first thing you say back?
5
SPEAKER_01
If your partner asks for help and you go, Oh, I ll take care of that.
5
SPEAKER_01
Don t worry.
5
SPEAKER_01
And we do that at the start of relationships because we, again, think, Oh, they re going to think I m so nice and they re going to think I m so likable.
5
SPEAKER_01
As opposed to that saying, it s different if someone says, Oh, can you grab some milk when you re out?
5
SPEAKER_01
And you go, no, I m not going to do that.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s not that kind of thing.
5
SPEAKER_01
But like a good example is when, when me and Radhi first started.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like Radhi would always ask me, and this is going to annoy so many people, but I promise you it works.
5
SPEAKER_01
Radhi would always say to me like, how do you feel I look in this?
5
SPEAKER_01
And I would always be honest with her, but one of my favorite responses after I d be honest with her is, how do you feel you look in this?
5
SPEAKER_01
And she d always be like, no, you just tell me, like, do I look good or not?
5
SPEAKER_01
And I m like, I think you look beautiful, but I want to know how you feel you look in this.
5
SPEAKER_01
And when we d be out picking furniture for our apartment or whatever it may be, we d look at the piece of furniture and she d be like, oh no, you just decide.
5
SPEAKER_01
I d be like, no, what do you think?
5
SPEAKER_01
Like, what s your taste?
5
SPEAKER_01
And so what I find is that when your partner is trying to outsource something to you,
5
SPEAKER_01
You may feel like doing it for them makes you more likable, but actually you re setting themselves and yourself up for always having to answer that question.
5
SPEAKER_01
And when you rather say, well, what are your thoughts?
5
SPEAKER_01
Like, I want to know what you really care about.
5
SPEAKER_01
I want to know what you believe in.
5
SPEAKER_01
You actually are strengthening their inner voice.
5
SPEAKER_01
So one way to be vigilant is when you re asked to solve a problem,
5
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First, take a second on becoming the fixer.
5
SPEAKER_01
If you re a classic dependent and you want someone else to solve your problems, that can be a lot harder because you already don t feel you have the confidence to fix anything.
5
SPEAKER_01
So actually it can be really hard when you feel like the dependent, the anxiety is really hard being a dependent because you want the other person to deal with it and now if they re not dealing with it, you don t feel strong enough.
5
SPEAKER_01
What I d say is that anyone who feels weak or has that self-doubt, it comes from not a lack of belief or a lack of quality, it comes from a lack of ability.
5
SPEAKER_01
And abilities can be trained and learned.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I always say this to people, if something makes you nervous, if something makes you unconfident, if something makes you scared,
5
SPEAKER_01
You can t just believe in yourself.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I think a lot of people talk about self-belief, and really it s about self-respect.
5
SPEAKER_01
And self-respect comes from doing hard things.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so if you re dealing with something that you don t feel you re good at, go and try and get decent at it.
5
SPEAKER_01
Go and take a course.
5
SPEAKER_01
Get a coach, get a mentor, go out there and read a book about it.
5
SPEAKER_01
Listen to this podcast, right?
5
SPEAKER_01
Like when you re, when you re searching for the answer, all of a sudden your skill starts to develop and now the problem starts to feel easier to solve.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so as a dependent, especially if you re single, start solving problems yourself and guess what?
5
SPEAKER_01
You re going to feel so much self-respect and now your self-doubt goes away at the root.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so those are two ways to be vigilant and there s plenty more that I explained.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I love those examples.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I was talking to our community before you came.
5
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And this is something that comes up quite a bit with women.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I think a lot of our community are people that identify as women.
5
SPEAKER_00
And they re finding that in the dating world or out in their relationships that they re growing, perceived to be growing more than their male partner, and that there s a discrepancy between the growth rates.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I m curious about how much you re seeing that trend, where women are deeply interested in personal growth, self-development, all of these things.
5
SPEAKER_00
And there, for me, is a part of that that s self-hate-led and actually not self-love.
5
SPEAKER_00
But then there is that moment where they re doing a lot more work personally than the men.
5
SPEAKER_00
Are you seeing that as a trend?
5
SPEAKER_00
And what would you suggest?
5
SPEAKER_01
And I love the distinction you just made about the reason we work on ourselves too.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s almost like, and again, I know we re both not making broad generalizations, we re trying to, based on what we ve experienced, if society has set up women to doubt themselves, society has set up men to pretend they re strong.
5
SPEAKER_01
And they re both
5
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opposite sides of the same coin.
5
SPEAKER_01
So men feel they have to be the protector, the savior, the provider.
5
SPEAKER_00
To have the answers.
5
SPEAKER_01
To have the answers.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so they re trying so hard to present that facade that they don t want to be vulnerable and they don t want to do the work.
5
SPEAKER_01
Because if you have to show you have to do work, that means you re not done.
5
SPEAKER_01
And they re scared that if I show a woman I need to do work, then maybe she won t respect me and love me because isn t that what they want?
5
SPEAKER_01
And regardless of gender, whatever you identify as, I think we all feel this about anyone.
5
SPEAKER_01
You may be with someone and think, they re with me.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s a corporate example, but it s true.
5
SPEAKER_01
I was working with a CEO recently, CEO of an extremely successful company, very highly regarded, achieved so much in the world.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I ve been working with him on his mental health.
5
SPEAKER_01
And we re seeing a lot of progress.
5
SPEAKER_01
So I said to him, at your next offsite, I said to him, I want you to tell your team the journey you ve been on with your mental health.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s all I want you to do.
5
SPEAKER_01
Just share with them this journey that we ve been on together just with your direct team, not the whole company or some press article, just the people you work with daily, your C-suite, the C-level.
5
SPEAKER_01
And he said to me, he said, Jay, I don t think I can do that.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I said, why?
5
SPEAKER_01
He said, because they see me as the strong one.
5
SPEAKER_01
He said, they see me as the powerful one.
5
SPEAKER_01
They see me as the one who has it all together.
5
SPEAKER_01
If I tell them that, they won t see me that way.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I said to him, I said, what s more powerful than you sharing your truth?
5
SPEAKER_01
What s more strong or courageous than you being honest with them about what you ve been through?
5
SPEAKER_01
Isn t that what real strength is?
5
SPEAKER_01
But the challenge is that, and so transferring that experience into relationships,
5
SPEAKER_01
A lot of people are feeling, well, if I showed them that I m vulnerable, aren t they with me because I m all sorted, right?
5
SPEAKER_01
And so I think that s the issue.
5
SPEAKER_01
And then, of course, the other way around, it s like, oh, well, I m working on myself.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m showing that I m building myself up, but then I m scared my self-doubt will actually push a good person away.
5
SPEAKER_01
If we have this conversation with the genders that we re talking about, if women are feeling, oh no, but if I doubt myself too much, he ll run away.
5
SPEAKER_01
And then he s thinking, well, if I show her that I doubt myself, then she ll run away.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so we re at this like tension.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I think that requires, that s why the tools in the book of like, why actually if both people, regardless of gender, regardless of identification, if both people have compassion for each other, have empathy for each other, understand that this is another imperfect human,
5
SPEAKER_01
That s where we go beyond gender and beyond expectation and beyond all of this and actually can deal with each other.
5
SPEAKER_01
But that only comes when you ve gone through your own work of, when you ve seen the deepest darkest parts of your own soul, you re comfortable when someone s exploring theirs.
5
SPEAKER_01
But if you haven t done that,
5
SPEAKER_01
it s very uncomfortable to watch someone else.
5
SPEAKER_01
The other thing I d say is, if you feel you re growing at a faster rate than your partner,
5
SPEAKER_01
that should result in more compassion, more empathy, and more patience.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s actually a result of more work.
5
SPEAKER_01
The result of more work is not more judgment, more critique, and more spotting of weaknesses.
5
SPEAKER_01
That is not.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I think that s the challenge sometimes in early spiritual circles or early self-development or personal growth.
5
SPEAKER_01
You start thinking,
5
SPEAKER_01
oh, I can see everything clearly, and I can see all these faults, and now we start to critique.
5
SPEAKER_01
I ve worked with so many couples where men and women have come to me and said, my wife criticizes me daily.
5
SPEAKER_01
My wife has changed my entire diet, rather has changed my entire diet, my workout plan, and so much in my life, and yet I ve never felt criticized or judged.
5
SPEAKER_01
And that s genius.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like it s unbelievable the level of coaching she s given me in an area of my life that I was negligent about.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I ve never felt criticized.
5
SPEAKER_01
I ve only felt encouraged.
5
SPEAKER_01
And she s always set the example because she s doing it regardless of whether I do it or not.
5
SPEAKER_01
So it s not like, oh, you have to do this with me.
5
SPEAKER_01
Oh, look at me.
5
SPEAKER_01
Look what I m doing.
5
SPEAKER_01
Oh, look what all these other guys are doing.
5
SPEAKER_01
Why don t you do this?
5
SPEAKER_01
Why don t you look like this?
5
SPEAKER_01
Like, how does that make anyone change?
5
SPEAKER_01
Like, how does it make anyone change?
5
SPEAKER_01
But that s the kind of stuff we say to the people we supposedly love.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so for me, if you genuinely believe you re growing spiritually, that s more compassion, more empathy, more love, not more criticism, judgment, and fault finding.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that s what I ll see oftentimes where it s like I m becoming more spiritual, I m doing the work, and then the focus becomes everyone else s now.
6
SPEAKER_01
You know, it s like, then you turn to everyone and you re like, and I just realized that my mom s a narcissist and they re codependent and all these things.
6
SPEAKER_01
And then they turn and label everyone with everything.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s just, it s kind of heartbreaking because you re like, okay, that s again, you know, not the point.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s kind of like part of the path.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
And hey, I m compassionate to that person too.
6
SPEAKER_00
Going back to this whole conversation, like the reason why I m compassionate to the person that labels
6
SPEAKER_00
is because we re doing that for our own security in the beginning.
6
SPEAKER_00
So when you can finally see and you re like, okay, and I m not pointing at you for real, but like narcissist, like whatever, like when you start labeling people, really you re doing it to show yourself, I am learning, I know, I m understanding.
6
SPEAKER_00
So I also have compassion for that because in the beginning you have to protect yourself.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s like when someone first makes a big shift in their life,
6
SPEAKER_00
They have to cut other people out and they have to look at the difference and be very black and white because they don t know how to do it otherwise.
6
SPEAKER_00
Right.
6
SPEAKER_00
If they don t cut that group of friends out, they won t be able to stop drinking.
6
SPEAKER_00
If they don t cut that group of friends out, they won t be able to disconnect from Instagram or whatever it may be.
6
SPEAKER_00
And that s an early stage of change.
6
SPEAKER_00
So we don t want to be, we don t want to hate on them either because we understand it.
6
SPEAKER_00
But I think when you are that person, you want to be aware of it so that you don t push people away.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s like, how is it leading you to more separation?
6
SPEAKER_01
You know what I mean?
6
SPEAKER_01
It s like, let s be mindful of like, what, again, it s always coming back.
6
SPEAKER_01
What is more separation?
6
SPEAKER_01
What is more separation?
6
SPEAKER_01
In the book, it talks a little bit about purpose too, like purpose as it relates to love and relationship.
6
SPEAKER_01
So what is that correlation?
6
SPEAKER_01
Because I think sometimes people think about them separately.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
Before we dive into that, I wanted to touch on one more nuance because the questions you ve asked have been so great.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, I want to make sure that we touch on that.
6
SPEAKER_00
There s a nuance also of when someone s starting their journey, and I deeply mean this, and it took me a while to learn this, even as a coach in this space, was not everyone s going to learn from the same books you read, from the same podcasts you listen to, and from the same teachers and guides and coaches that you found your truth through.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I often say to people I work with, one of my favorite things I get to do is my podcast.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I sit down with so many different people from so many different walks of life.
6
SPEAKER_00
Some of them are neuroscientists, some of them are athletes, some of them are actors, musicians, models, some of them are philanthropists and professors.
6
SPEAKER_00
What I m hoping is that that allows multiple different people
6
SPEAKER_00
to come on their journey of personal growth.
6
SPEAKER_00
Like I remember when I first sat down with Ray Dalio, who s become a dear friend at this point.
6
SPEAKER_00
Ray Dalio is the founder of Bridgewater Associates, highly sought after in the financial world.
6
SPEAKER_00
If anyone has a partner or a friend who s well-known in finance, Ray Dalio s like, and I didn t even, when I first met Ray, I did not know that about him.
6
SPEAKER_00
And it was really funny because all my investment banker friends and hedge fund manager friends, after that episode, they were like, Jay, you re so cool.
6
SPEAKER_00
Like, we love you now.
6
SPEAKER_01
I was like, what?
6
SPEAKER_01
You re like Kendall Jenner was on last week.
6
SPEAKER_00
But it s like for them, Ray Dalio is like their person.
6
SPEAKER_00
And so when they hear Ray talk about meditation, and Ray does meditate, Ray s been meditating for years, and he credits meditation as being one of the most successful
6
SPEAKER_00
parts of his success, all the hedge fund managers, investment bankers going, Oh my God, I need to meditate.
6
SPEAKER_00
Right.
6
SPEAKER_00
And they could have heard about it, about meditation from me for like years, and it didn t move them.
6
SPEAKER_00
So people have to hear about it through a voice that affects them and not my voice doesn t affect everyone.
6
SPEAKER_00
And that s okay.
6
SPEAKER_00
And.
6
SPEAKER_00
You know, it doesn t work that way.
6
SPEAKER_00
So I feel like when you re watching your partner not progress on the journey, it s often because you re trying to get them to go on your journey, not theirs.
6
SPEAKER_00
And so if you can open and broaden your mind and think,
6
SPEAKER_00
Maybe they re not gonna read the same book as me.
6
SPEAKER_00
Maybe they need to listen to this episode of this podcast, right?
6
SPEAKER_00
So anyway, I wanted to touch on that.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I love that, because it is, and again, I said it before, but it s like, I think for women, there s like a communal aspect to who we are and what we do.
6
SPEAKER_01
Even with Roddy, it s so interesting hearing your guys  values, because it s so masculine, feminine, if we re looking at just the archetypes of the energetics, yours is purpose, focus, hers is family.
6
SPEAKER_01
But it s like for women, we re like, okay, we re doing this thing, come on everybody, join us, join us in this thing, but,
6
SPEAKER_01
Again, there s that moment, and I think a lot of women are going through this, where it s almost like personal growth, self-development, work fatigue.
6
SPEAKER_01
Because we ve just been inundated with so much of it.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I just also want to be mindful, like, how much is this personal growth work
6
SPEAKER_01
or information supporting you and loving yourself more.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
And that s the period of it.
6
SPEAKER_01
You know, this needs to support you in a depth of love for yourself and acceptance that goes beyond really being concerned about what everyone else is doing in their world too.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
That s so beautiful.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I couldn t agree with you more.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I deeply, I mean, I was raised by a mom who
6
SPEAKER_00
did everything for me.
6
SPEAKER_00
So, you know, I have a lot of, I ve had a lot of perspective on that from day one where my mom woke me up, got me ready for school and for my sister too, made us breakfast, dropped us to school, made us packed lunch, went off to work all day.
6
SPEAKER_00
She learned a new career so that she could be flexible for me and my sister.
6
SPEAKER_00
So she quit her full-time job, took exams in a whole new career path so that she could be self-employed to set up her own work from home situation so that she could pick us up.
6
SPEAKER_00
And she didn t, you know, she never did exams beyond 16 years old.
6
SPEAKER_00
Like she didn t get to go to college or anything like that, but she did all of that just for us.
6
SPEAKER_00
and then she pick us up from school make dinner for us help us with our homework and then we go to bed and so i saw i saw like superwoman and at the same time i saw someone who.
6
SPEAKER_00
You know didn t have enough time to love herself or didn t have enough time to do things for herself and.
6
SPEAKER_00
and that pains me now looking back because obviously as an eight-year-old or as a 12-year-old, there s very little understanding you have of the full picture of what you can do.
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You re like, mom, what s your self-care like?
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Yeah, exactly.
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I wish, I wish, I wish.
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And I do it now as much as I can, of course.
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But at that time, I didn t have that.
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And I look at that and I m like, wow, my mom gave everything for me and my sister to be set up.
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And I know that I m fueled by that love and I know that the love I try to give out in the world is my mom s love that she filled me up with.
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Like, you know, the book, she s one third of the dedication of this book because she literally taught me how to love endlessly.
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And so when I look at the pressure that she had and the fact that she never made time for herself and she did set me up,
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I really feel that, and we ll go back to your purpose question afterwards, and it s kind of linked to this, but I do feel that the point of all of this work is to lead you to being happier, healthier, and more healed.
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And the path to being happier, healthier, and more healed is not beautiful in the external sense.
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It s difficult.
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And so just because your life looks tough or difficult, it doesn t mean you re on the wrong path.
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Chances are you re on the right path.
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But I think what you brought up, Christa, which I love, is that there s a spirit of self-love that kind of underpins all of it.
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And really, that comes from self-forgiveness and grace, and that is
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a cultivation in and of itself, and so actually what I would say, based on your thoughts, which I appreciate and I agree with, most people s self-development work should actually be aimed at developing self-forgiveness and grace, because that becomes a path to all of this.
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Because hey, whether you wanna learn how to meditate or whether you want to work out more or whether you wanna eat healthy or whatever you wanna do, I promise you, self-forgiveness and grace are gonna be a part of the process because you re gonna miss a day at the gym, you re gonna miss eating that healthy meal, you re gonna not wanna meditate for three days in a row.
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And the skill that helps you with all of that is self-forgiveness and grace.
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And so I encourage you all to make your personal growth journey about self-forgiveness and grace.
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to assist what you said.
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Instead of changing who you are.
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Correct, yeah.
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I think that s the goal, you know, for a lot of people is how can I change who I am?
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How can I make myself different instead of accepting where you re at?
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Yeah, the purpose piece on relationships and purpose.
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Yeah, the reason why I bring it up is kind of related to this and it s the idea that Albert Einstein once said, if you want to be happy, like focus on a goal, not a person or a thing.
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And it s like the idea that I think a lot of people make people their purpose.
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And when I ve worked with people, especially people who ve been in relationships for a long time, maybe your partner was the entrepreneur, so you sacrificed your journey to help them.
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Maybe your partner was the breadwinner, so you put everything you cared about aside and went all in for them.
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That s fine for a bit, but when someone s done that for 10, 20,
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30 years, what I found is a lot of people come out in their 50s and then feel like they didn t achieve their potential.
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So I ve seen people who potentially look happily married or in relationships for 10, 20, 30 years, and then one person comes out and says, we worked for your dreams, not mine.
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And now they feel misled.
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And so what I do in the book is I create a scenario-based support system
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regardless of your financial position or where you are, to help you make sense of how do we decide, how do we consciously make an effort to decide how we both help each other focus on our purpose of where we re at.
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And again, it s a consciousness thing.
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What happened in these relationships that I m talking about is the person who was the breadwinner, they assumed their partner should help them and they never talked about it.
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And so what ended up happening 30 years later, they hate each other.
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Well, one of them hates the other one for saying, you took me away from my purpose.
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And they re like, no, I didn t take you away.
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I was just taking care of the family and you were helping me.
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And so it ends up being this awkward thing where it s like, we just never talked about it.
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And so I feel like when you have a healthy conversation and you re like, well, I think, you know, if you can give me 12 months to experiment, could you hold it down for 12 months?
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OK, we experiment.
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OK, I got some.
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Can you do this?
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And I think having that conversation up front just saves you so much stress and hassle.
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And I think we avoid that conversation because we want to be the supportive partner.
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We want to be the partner who sacrifices everything because, look, how much I love you.
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And I think that just misleads us and the other person.
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So I would encourage you all to make the pursuit of purpose
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a healthy pursuit in your life, and I call it a pursuit rather than finding your purpose, because the pressure of finding your purpose, again, stops you from loving yourself, because you re like, I don t have it, I don t know what it is, I don t have it, I don t know what it is.
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And all I m saying is, hey, just have stuff you care about, and don t let go of it, that s all I m saying.
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Have something you care about, and you don t let go of it.
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It could be something as simple as going for a coffee with your friend every week, it could be as simple as helping out at
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a homeless shelter or a soup kitchen.
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It could be as simple as working on your creative pursuits of art or sport or whatever it may be, but just don t give it up because you think now you have to grow out of it.
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And I think that s, in the book, I really give step-by-step focuses on how, no matter what your situation is, how you both don t have to sacrifice, but there s a way of figuring it out.
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Yeah, that s huge.
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I think also too, it s what I found during that, and I ve learned this over time, just even watching my parents or other relationships, so much can be remedied or supported by talking about it.
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You know, even with a lot of the, a lot of my women friends are the breadwinners.
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Like I think almost,
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more than half now are breadwinners.
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And it s like, there s a dynamic, there s a power play happening within the relationship where they re the breadwinners, you know, the husband or partner or boyfriend might not be.
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And so there s this like power struggle, but there s not an actual conversation of like,
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Hey, if I m making more money, what s your contribution or how are we going to work with this energy?
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How are you feeling about, you know, there s so much can be remedied by communication.
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It s so wild.
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Yeah.
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And, and I guess that s why we ve always had communication, communication, communication, but, but the challenge is that.
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We want to talk about how people behave, or their actions, but we don t want to talk about our intentions.
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So we d rather talk about, you did that wrong, you should be doing this, or I expected this from you, rather than, this is what I m feeling, this is what I m thinking.
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How are you thinking about it?
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And that s because we re scared
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that if we say it out loud, the other person doesn t have the humility to hear it.
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We re scared that if I tell my partner, hey, I m the breadwinner, I really need your support, that they don t have the humility or the lack of ego to say, yeah, I think you re right, that s what we should do.
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And that s why what we have to realize is it doesn t have to be about winning and losing.
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The reason why ego gets involved is because we want to win.
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And the way I see it in relationships is if I win and you lose, we both lose because we both are on the same team.
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And if you win and I lose, then we both lose because we re on the same team.
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So we have two choices.
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We either win together or we lose together.
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There s no third option.
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Whereas we think there s a third option if I won and you lost.
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You both lost, and so my encouragement is in a relationship, if you re genuinely committed to working it out with someone, first of all, bring up conversation in a non-confrontational, non-aggressive way.
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Talk about things when they re not heated.
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We wait till things are heated to say how we really feel, rather than doing it when it s cool and just saying,
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I ll often ask Radhi, and this is when we re not having a fight or not in a disagreement, I ll say, is this relationship going in the direction you want it to go?
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But that question has to be asked in a safe space because what I don t want her to think is, Jay thinks it s going in the wrong direction, which is not what I m saying.
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I m asking a question because if we re both going to be in this, I want to know if it s going in the direction you want, and I want it to go in a certain direction.
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And then I want a safe space to say, hey, you know what?
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It s not quite going in the direction I want.
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Here s why.
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But it s like it needs to be a safe space where I don t feel that person s going to destroy me for raising a concern.
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And I think we ve created conversations and communication where anything that s uncomfortable to talk about or anything that s difficult to talk about, you never talk about it.
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We saw our parents do that, we saw families do that, we saw friends do that.
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And now we only talk about uncomfortable things when we re screaming at the top of our lungs.
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and that pushes the other person apart.
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So I think humility, I think presenting things properly.
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I mean, there s this beautiful research that shows that when you give feedback to someone, if you re walking together in the same direction, the other person s more likely to digest it.
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If you re sitting at a round table instead of opposite each other, it s less confrontational.
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It s creating less animosity.
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But if you re sitting opposite each other at a table,
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it feels like I m against you.
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It doesn t feel like we re together.
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And so the idea of can you create that environment externally and internally that if I really want this person in my life, we re gonna solve this together.
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If I really want them in my life, it can t be about getting one up on them.
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That can t be where we go.
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Yeah, and conscious loving, they say that most arguments when they re unconscious are a fight for the victim position.
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So you re like, who s the who s the victim?
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When me and Lindsay have a confrontation, or even me and my husband, it s we ll usually go to the beach.
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And if I have something that I want to talk about, or she does, it s like you ll kind of massage the first
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part of the conversation to be like normal.
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Yeah.
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And then you ll bring it up.
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Cause it s like, okay, we re regulating in our nervous systems together.
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And it s nice to have the walking in the same direction because not only is it like that symbol of we re walking together, but it almost gives your eyes and your body a little bit of a break to just be okay.
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I m looking ahead.
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I m not, we re not face to face.
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Like there s a face off element.
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Yeah.
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And so being in nature and finding the right environment is really important.
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You know, being outside, being at the park, kind of breaking the pattern of potentially being in the home or being in the bedroom or being in all these things, I think is so nice.
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Absolutely.
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Yeah.
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And I love that you do that.
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And it s such a valuable skill.
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And, you know, I think learning how to fight, I talk about in the book about fight styles.
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And the reason why I brought up fight styles is I was a huge fan of, you know, Gary Chapman s five love languages.
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And I think that s beautiful.
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But I was looking at all the Gottman Institute research shows that learning how to fight, learning how to deal with conflict is core to a long lasting relationship.
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And if you look at our weakest skill in a relationship, it s communicating during conflict.
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Why do people,
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struggle in a relationship because we don t know how to talk about hard things.
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We don t know how to have a conversation about things we disagree on.
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Like literally you can ruin the whole night because you disagreed about what to watch or what to eat.
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Like everything can go, because we don t know how to talk about things that we could debate on.
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And so I created this, and inside the book there s a test that you can do that helps you figure out what your fight style is.
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And there are three fight styles.
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You have venting,
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Hiding and exploding.
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Venting is I want to talk it out and I want to talk about it right now.
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Let s solve this.
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Let s figure it out.
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Hiding is I need a break.
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I need to go somewhere by myself.
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I need to let myself emotionally regulate and then I ll come back when I m ready.
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And exploding is like, you know, like maybe I m like, I just burst into tears.
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I like just like, I need to blame you.
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I need to just like be aggressive.
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Maybe even it can be aggressive and it can
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just be like, I just feel, I just don t know how to control anything.
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Hiding is like, at least I know where to go away.
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Venting is like, but sometimes we explode and we all experience all of these three, obviously, but I hope you find your one.
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And it s important to know that because otherwise you re a kickboxer and your partner s doing MMA and it doesn t, you know, you can t fight accordingly.
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And so.
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In our case, I m a venter, I want to talk about it, I want to talk about it now.
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And Radhi is a hider, she wants to go and reflect on it.
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And in the beginning of our relationship, I often said to Radhi, I felt she didn t love me because she didn t want to talk about it right now.
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I was like, you obviously don t care because we just had a big argument.
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And if you need to walk away from this space, that means you don t care.
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That means you re not invested.
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That s just not true.
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Her way of investing is taking out time.
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My way of taking investment is showing I want to talk.
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And so I think knowing your fight style and being aware of it and being aware of your partner s fight style, I realized Radhi needed two days, I wanted it now, so we re talking one day.
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Let s meet in the middle, let s give you some time, but let s not leave me in anxiety.
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Let s create a space where we can safely connect.
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And so when we communicate about our fight styles, when we communicate our relationship roles, when we communicate about
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All these things, we start getting tools and skills and abilities.
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When we don t talk about any of these things, we just create the story in our head.
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You re not here, that means you don t care.
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You re late, that means you don t care.
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You never turn up, that means you don t care.
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But those are just stories that we re creating without letting that person tell us their story.
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And we never know what their story is after many years.
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I m so excited about the book.
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I m so excited.
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Last question from me.
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What is one hope that you have for people when reading it?
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Or when having it?
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My hope for people when reading it is that it s not about completing the book.
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It s not about finishing a book.
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I think a lot of people today, it s like, I can finish a book, I completed a book, I listened to it.
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Of course, it s just such a funny concept.
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Yeah, and my hope is that you use it as a consistent guide, a consistent companion, a consistent workbook.
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There s activities, there s exercises, there s tests, there s quizzes, there s just a lot of material.
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It s not meant to be read just to finish it.
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It s there to help you at any point in your life when you re struggling and you flick to a page and go,
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Talk to me.
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I want people to have a slower, longer, deeper love.
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And so I hope that your process of moving through the book is slower, longer, and deeper because that will lead to that type of love.
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So grateful you re here.
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Thank you, this was beautiful.
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You asked me so many, you re such a brilliant interviewer.
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You asked me so many questions I haven t yet talked about, haven t been asked.
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I really hope everyone who s been listening, like I really hope this serves you.
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I want you to have a beautiful love story in your life.
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I want you to have the most fulfilling, powerful, abundant love in your life.
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But I want you to have the skills in order to create it.
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I don t want you to hope and wish and wait and want for it.
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And so Krista, thank you so much for sharing this with your community and your audience.
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And I m so grateful to you.
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So thank you.
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We love you guys.
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Thank you.
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Each year, around the holidays, I do a secret Santa gift exchange with my team.
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And I get so caught up in finding the perfect gift for my secret Santa, I almost forget that someone else is doing the same for me.
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If only we could treat all our relationships this way.
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If we could give with such enthusiasm, without thinking about what we ll get back.
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And that s what the next seven minutes are about.
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Relationships, expectations, and where we can get into trouble.
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I m Jay Shetty.
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Welcome to the Daily Jay.
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Let s start with a few mindful breaths to get centered in this moment.
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Breathing in and breathing out.
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Expanding with the inhale, releasing with the exhale.
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Settling in to right now and sinking into right here.
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When people think of monasteries, love is not the first thing that comes to mind.
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But, believe it or not, the biggest lessons I ve learned about relationships came from my time as a monk.
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The ashram works like a big extended family.
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We re taught to love and look after each other, lend a hand whenever possible, and generally show kindness towards each other.
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After months of giving my all, I began to feel like I wasn t getting all my giving back.
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So finally, I went to one of my teachers for advice.
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I m upset, I said.
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I feel like I m giving out a lot of love, but I don t feel like it s being returned in kind.
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I m caring and looking out for others, but they don t do the same for me.
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I don t get it.
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Then he said something that forever changed my relationship with relationships.
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Love is like a circle.
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You assume the love you will receive will come from the person you gave it to.
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But it doesn t always come from that person.
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The problem, he told me, lies in our expectations.
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We tend to think of relationships as transactions.
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You scratch my back, I ll scratch yours.
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We keep scorecards in our minds.
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We go tit for tat.
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But love and relationships don t always work that way.
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Or at least they shouldn t.
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A tit for them doesn t always equal a tat for you.
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You know, this makes me think of my mum.
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Caring.
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Loving.
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Always there for me.
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In fact, if she had her way, we d be FaceTiming all day long.
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And don t get me wrong, I love my mom.
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I m eternally grateful for her, and I try to show it.
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But even if I don t pick up her call or give her the same attention back, her approach to me doesn t change.
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She never expects anything in return.
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I think we could all use that lesson.
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To focus on what we re giving out, let go of the scorecard, scratch your back without worrying about the itch on ours, and give without expectations.
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We should give love purely to give love.
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No other reason.
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It s as simple as that.
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And let s reflect on that now.
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Begin by thinking about how you tend to view relationships.
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Do you look for reciprocation?
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Do you keep a tally?
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Who has shown you kindness or consideration without expecting something equal in return?
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How could you be that person for someone else, for everyone else?
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See what happens if you let go of your expectations and join into the feedback loop of love.
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So for today s meditation, we re going to do a loving kindness practice to work on giving with no agenda.
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Start by getting comfortable.
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Feel free to close your eyes if you want.
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and bring your attention to your breath, the natural flow of air in and out.
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Now let s send some love.
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Bring to mind someone that s easy to feel kindness towards.
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It could be a family member,
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A friend, even a pet.
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Think of their positive qualities and just send them love.
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Simple as that.
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You can silently repeat these phrases if it helps.
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May you be happy.
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May you be healthy.
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May you be peaceful.
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Showering them with well wishes.
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Nothing in it for you.
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Now extend this out a bit and include a group of people or even the whole world.
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May you be happy.
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May you be healthy.
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May you be peaceful.
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This practice of sending love can help open our hearts and a famous quote by Katherine Hepburn sums it up well.
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Love has nothing to do with what you re expecting to get, only with what you re expecting to give, which is everything.
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Thank you for trying something new with me.
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Go ahead and share this message with someone else who could use a little love today.
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I love you all, and I can t wait to connect once again tomorrow.
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Hey everyone, this is Molly and Matt, and we re the hosts of Grown Up Stuff How to Adult, a podcast from Ruby Studio and iHeart Podcasts.
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It s a show dedicated to helping you figure out the trickiest parts of adulting.
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like how to start planning for retirement, creating a healthy skincare routine, understanding when and how much to tip someone, and so much more.
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Let s learn about all of it and then some.
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Listen to Grown Up Stuff How to Adult on America s number one podcast network, iHeart.
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Open your free iHeart app and search Grown Up Stuff.