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Change your question, change your life.
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When it comes to planning your life, I want to get you to learn to ask three questions now.
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And the first one is not, what am I going to do?
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The question you want to ask yourself is, what do I want?
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What s my outcome?
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What s my result?
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The first one is to get you focused on the target.
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The target is not the activity.
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The activity can change.
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It s what s the result I m after.
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If you know exactly what it is you really want, what you desire, what you re really after, clarity is power.
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The more clear you are on specifically what you want, the faster your brain can get you there.
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This episode is brought to you by RPM, the Rapid Planning Method.
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It s the system that Tony personally developed to make a plan for his life and create his $6 billion business empire, write bestselling books, travel the world for his events, and still have the time and energy to spend quality time with the people he loves most.
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We have a special offer for podcast listeners.
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Go to TonyRobbins.com slash RPM and use the promo code POD20 to receive $20 off the Rapid Planning Method.
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That s TonyRobbins.com slash RPM.
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The discount code is POD20.
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What does it take to successfully create a lasting change in your life?
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The first step is you got to have a vision for what it is you really truly want.
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Something has the power to pull you.
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Push requires willpower and willpower never lasts.
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What will last is having something so exciting, so attractive, something you desire so much that you have a hard time going to sleep at night, you get up early in the morning to a rocket and take it to the next level.
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Welcome to the Tony Robbins Podcast.
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You re listening to an episode that s part of a special season where we explore the five areas of life that many people focus on improving at the start of new year, like health, productivity, personal finance, career, and of course, relationships.
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When it comes to relationships, so many people think that there s some sort of finish line, that once you finally find your person, you ve somehow made it.
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But in reality, it s just the beginning.
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Relationships, like any area of your life, require attention, intention, and mindfulness in order to thrive.
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And who among us doesn t want a wildly passionate, intimate relationship in which we re challenged, cherished, and cheered on?
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When you put the work in, when you actively engage yourself in your relationship, and focus on becoming the best partner you can be, on giving all that you can to your partner, you ll discover a love like you ve never known.
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In this episode, we re talking to Dr. Cheryl Fraser.
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She s a clinical psychologist, a sex therapist, Buddhist teacher, author, and speaker.
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In fact, she s spoken to Tony s platinum partners at his relationship seminar in Maui.
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Dr. Fraser has conducted extensive research on behavior in relationships and on what causes them to succeed or fail.
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She helps couples around the world cut through the resistance and reignite the connection they think they ve lost.
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Here s Dr. Fraser as she explains the three components that make up a truly exceptional relationship.
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A healthy relationship is not an accident.
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People tend to wait around, waiting for things to get better.
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And let s face it, we re all really good at falling in love.
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Any idiot can fall in love.
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Falling in love is easy.
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Staying in love takes mindfulness.
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When we re falling in love, we ve got all this interest and charge.
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We plan.
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We re intentional.
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We want to impress the person.
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We want to dazzle their world.
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I think of it sometimes that, you know, falling in love, the feelings are so fantastic.
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We re like a Rottweiler who gets given a squeaky squirrel toy.
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We jump on it.
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We clamp down on it.
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I want to feel this way forever.
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Falling in love is easy, staying in love takes mindfulness.
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The exceptional couples who have a passionate, deep, emotionally connected, sexually and erotically alive, exciting love affair in the long term, that doesn t happen by accident.
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What makes an exceptional relationship?
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Exceptional couples cultivate what I call the three keys to passion.
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I suggest you visualize it as a triangle, the passion triangle.
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This is an equilateral triangle.
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Ideally, what we do is we re strong in all three of these keys to passion.
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The first one is intimacy.
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The second one is thrill.
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And the third one is sensuality.
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So imagine a triangle with all three sides strong, that s an exceptional couple.
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Now what do I mean here by intimacy?
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I mean the psychological, emotional, connected communication aspect, the friendship aspect of a great love affair.
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This is where we manage conflict reasonably effectively.
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We apologize and repair well.
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We have a deep friendship.
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We re truly intrigued and interested in our sweetheart.
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We care about what s going on in the world.
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And we feel connected and like our sweetheart has got our back.
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Most couples in a long term relationship are pretty strong in intimacy, but they may be weak in the following two.
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Again, these are the three keys to passion.
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Intimacy is the first.
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The second is thrill.
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This one s a little ineffable.
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Again, when we re falling in love, we ve got all the hormones, biochemistry, hopes, dreams, and romantic, insane, and unrealistic projections going on.
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It s really easy to be fascinated with you.
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Thrill is the butterflies in the stomach, the rushes of erotic attraction, the excitement, and the laser-focused interest in you I had when we were falling in love.
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How you doing on that these days?
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If you ve been together for five years, 15 years, are you excited when your sweetheart comes home?
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Or does the dog barrel to the front door and jump up and down and freak out and you sit in the living room and go, hey, where are you in terms of showing thrill?
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The second of the three keys.
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The first key, intimacy.
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The second key, thrill, and the third key, yum, yum, yum, sensuality.
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And by there, I don t simply mean sexuality.
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I mean literally all your five senses, how you relate to your sweetheart through your body and your voice, through touch, sound, smell, through all of it.
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Sensuality covers the entire spectrum of the erotic and the special way we relate to our partner, whether that s holding hands when we walk the dogs.
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whether that s having my hand on the back of your neck when you re driving us to our appointment, and the entire realm of sexual and erotic contact, from a passionate kiss goodnight to a warm hug hello, to the simple, sweetest, soul-shaking lovemaking, and to the wildest, sexiest, taboo, raw, hanging off the rafters kind of sexual contact.
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intimacy, thrill, and sensuality.
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Strong, amazing, exceptional couples have a good dose of all three.
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What I ask each of us to do right now is briefly do a quick internal check on you and your relationship these days.
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Where are you on the passion triangle?
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Are you strong in intimacy?
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But like the majority of longer term couples, you may be strong in intimacy, but pretty weak in thrill.
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Yeah, mediocre in sensuality.
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You don t make love very often and it s not very exciting.
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I call that marriage incorporated and I would say it s kind of the number one long-term relationship doldrums.
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Marriage incorporated.
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We re approaching our love affair and our family like a business, not on purpose.
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We kind of fall into that over time.
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So we re doing a pretty darn good job of marriage incorporated.
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We high-five each other in the hallway when you re taking Billy off to Taekwondo and I m taking our daughter to her activity.
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The bills get paid.
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We re building some equity.
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We ve got a home that we feel good about.
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We go camping in the summer.
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We re awesome parents and we re good friends.
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Thrill?
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Are you kidding me?
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I m in fuzzy socks watching Netflix and you re like, hey, hey babe.
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I m like, what, who are you?
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Thrill can really die when you re in Marriage Incorporated and our sensual, sexual, erotic life can be very neglected, I sometimes say.
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the typical long-term relationship encounter.
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A, it tends to be infrequent, people making love maybe once every few weeks or once every few months.
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And B, I call it nipple, nipple, crotch, good night.
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It s a very simple routine.
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We do it over and over and there s very little thrill or creativity.
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That s what happens when you re unbalanced in the three keys to passion, intimacy, thrill, and sensuality.
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Too much intimacy is the death of desire as the brilliant Esther Perel says.
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Now conversely, quickly I ll mention, some people are really strong in sensuality and thrill and very weak in intimacy.
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They can only really connect and relate through sexual contact or adventure, going on trips, having fun, going to nightclubs, but they find it really hard to be deep and emotionally connected and develop meaning and depth and connection and communication.
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And that s an unbalanced triangle as well.
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Exceptional relationships are not the result of falling in love with the right person, which is what we re often told.
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In our society, there s a huge emphasis on who we choose to be with.
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And while that s extremely important, choosing the right person does not guarantee happiness.
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It takes much more than that.
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Think about your own life.
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How s your health?
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How are things in your job or your business going?
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It s likely that if you re an achiever and you re not doing well in any of these areas, you ve held yourself accountable and taken action to improve the situation.
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As Tony says, action is the most important key to any success.
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According to Dr. Fraser,
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work in the exact same way.
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If you re not happy or you re having challenges in your relationship and you re suffering, it s up to you to change it.
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Here she is with more on that.
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I think a lot of us accept that when it comes to our health and our weight and our fitness, that it s up to us ultimately.
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And I think most of us accept it when it comes to business, that it s up to us to create the change, to solve the problem, to bring the solution to the team, not wait around for the team to figure it out.
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But does this fall apart for a lot of us when it comes to our love relationship?
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Tell you what, I can t tell you how many people over the years I ve heard say something along these lines.
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If only my spouse was more romantic, why doesn t he or she take me on dates anymore?
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Or they say, you know, I guess the thrill s just gone.
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And it s just the way it is, right?
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I mean, it s what happens, right?
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That thrill doesn t last forever.
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Listen to the complete and utter lack of ownership, the passivity in those comments.
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The phrase I like to use is become passion.
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that it s up to each of us to become passion.
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And it dovetails beautifully with the energy we hopefully bring to the rest of our lives, fitness, business, et cetera.
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It s up to me to make my relationship great.
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It s up to my mind to decide I m going to become the passion I am waiting around, waiting for you to bring to me.
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So, how about I step up and I create that change?
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Tony uses this beautiful term here.
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He uses the term being a generous lover.
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The term I use, which is basically identical in its meaning, is becoming an awakened lover.
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How can I awaken fully to my intimacy, thrill, and sensuality?
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How can I become passionate, actively bring these qualities to you, and be an extraordinary lover for you?
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Lover s a verb.
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The most important letter in that word is the R at the end.
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Can I be a lover instead of waiting around to feel like I m in love?
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What s the story we make up in our mind when we re in a rough patch in our relationship?
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those real relationships are going to have multiple rough patches.
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Do we start to go into an escape clause story about how well if it doesn t get better, then maybe I ll look for something else.
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If it doesn t get better, maybe we re not meant to be with each other.
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Oh my goodness, I hate that phrase.
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Not meant to be.
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Create the meaning.
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Choose to be.
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Commit 100% to being an extraordinary lover.
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That s not easy.
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I never want to sound cavalier.
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Like anything else we want to master, mastering ultimate relationship is going to take time, energy, effort, and intentionality.
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And I have a little exercise I d like to offer to everybody listening.
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five minutes a day or so, and it will start to change the quality of your love affair by having you become intentional.
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My sweetheart and I try to do this every morning.
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He s got his cup of elite Ethiopian special blend coffee, and I ve got my lovely special blend
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tea and we sit in the living room and we take a couple of minutes.
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I ll share with you actually our aspirations from this morning.
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I call this setting loving intentions.
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And we each quietly think takes about a minute or so what is an intention or aspiration I want to set about my relationship today.
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So this morning we did that and I said okay I ll go first and I said today I intend to be very careful with
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my voice and to be very careful about my voice sounding impatient when I m in a rush.
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I want to really focus today on a kind, loving tone of voice.
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That was mine.
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A little backstory, I m in the middle of a business launch right now and it s a very, very, very busy time.
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And I get a little tired and it is possible that Cheryl the passion expert gets a little crabby.
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And I have a very expressive voice.
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So that was my intention.
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Simple, sweet, to the point.
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My sweetheart went next and to my delight, this is the one he came up with.
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He said, I want to create a special romantic event for my wife tonight.
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And that s what my intention is.
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Great.
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That was it.
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We go off for our days.
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We re not going to see each other for 10 hours.
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We come back and we have the rest of our day.
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And what we try to do, what I encourage you all to do, set an intention.
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Honestly, you can do this in two or three minutes.
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And at the end of the day, hopefully together if that s possible, but you can do this on your own in the evening.
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Review for a minute.
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A minute.
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How did I do on my intention today?
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So I would review quickly and say, you know, was I impatient and snappy in my voice today or did I catch it and use a warm tone?
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And he would review his.
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Make love intentional.
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If you want something great, it s not going to happen all by itself.
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If you ve ever been in a romantic relationship, you know that conflict, whether you like it or not, is a part of it.
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Human beings have conflict because we re different people with different opinions and different frames of reference.
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Conflict is inevitable.
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And according to Dr. Fraser, one of the most critical skills that couples can develop is to manage it well.
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In other words, it s not about if we mess up, but when and what we can do about it.
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Here s Dr. Fraser again with some healthy and productive ways that you can approach conflict in your relationship when it arises.
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So let me offer a couple of ideas for kind of mindful, loving, intentional ways to attempt to do a better job when we run into a difficult problem between the two of us.
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First, I ll talk about a way to start a difficult conversation.
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And most of us really suck at this, myself included.
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Unless I bring intentionality and I catch myself before I bring up a difficult topic, I m upset about something.
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I want to lodge a complaint about something.
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I m triggered about something.
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How do I bring it up?
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Research indicates that the first three minutes of a discussion, same as business, the first three minutes of a discussion tend to predict the outcome of the discussion to about an 80% level.
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Meaning, if I phone the tech support that I m having trouble with, and I start, you know, it s not working, I come in, you know, hot and mean, generally, the call doesn t go well.
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We know this.
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But why do we forget when it comes to love?
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So
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Here s a very simple technique, not easy, but it s simple, on how to approach a difficult topic with skill.
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Set yourself up for a higher likelihood that the conversation can go okay.
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I ll use a real simple example that happens to a lot of people, certainly happens to me.
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which is we have certain chores or deals around the house that he s responsible for this, I m responsible for that.
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One of his is taking up the garbage.
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Every two weeks where we are in the country, they pick up the garbage.
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So if you miss a garbage pickup, you end up with a lot of stinky garbage that s going to be around for four weeks.
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So you know where this is headed.
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Yes, it is actually true that on occasion,
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My dearly beloved chosen person forgets to take the garbage up.
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And then I notice.
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And sometimes in the past, maybe in the future, I hope not.
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I ve been very unskillful in how I brought it up.
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Oh, for goodness sakes, you forgot the garbage.
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I can t count on you.
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Get it together.
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What s the deal?
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Do I have to do everything around here?
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I m sure nobody listening resonates with that little mimicry, do they?
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Now, how would I bring that up in a skillful way?
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to review.
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How can you bring up a difficult topic in a skillful way?
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Very simple, elegant formula.
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I feel X about Y and I need Z. So you forgot to take out the garbage.
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I m pretty upset about it.
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I feel frustrated that you forgot to take the garbage out.
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and I need you to be more aware and better at keeping that commitment.
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I feel X about Y, upset about the garbage, and I need Z, I need you to do a better job and be reliable.
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Now, you don t have to be Mary freaking Poppins here and have the joy voice of all time.
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You re allowed to be upset or crabby, emotions and biochemistry happen, keep working on that, keep working on that nicer tone.
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But the formula means that there s a possibility for success.
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I feel X about Y and I need Z. Try it right now if you can or later today.
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I want you each to think about a small or a large annoyance, disconnect, argument or conflict you had with your sweetheart.
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You can do this with a work issue as well.
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And I want you to think, how could I have brought it up using this formula?
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I feel X about Y and I need Z. And see what that s like and then try it out.
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You might relate to some of these things that Dr. Fraser has been talking about.
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Maybe you re arguing with your partner a lot, you ve lost the passion, or you re experiencing marriage incorporated, where you re running your relationship like a business.
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If you know that you re ready to improve your relationship for good, Date With Destiny can help.
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Date With Destiny is Tony s favorite event, and it s the one that you might have even seen in the Netflix documentary, I Am Not Your Guru.
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Over the course of six days, you learn how to ignite or reignite your passion in all areas of your life, including your intimate relationship.
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And we have a special offer for podcast listeners.
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Act now and you could get up to 45% off a Date with Destiny ticket.
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Go to TonyRobbins.com slash destiny and enter the promo code DWD45 at checkout.
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Welcome back to the Tony Robbins podcast.
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You just heard from Dr. Cheryl
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who gave a framework of how to productively approach difficult conversations with your partner.
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But what do you do when you ve really messed up?
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Maybe you had a really bad argument and said something hurtful.
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Or maybe you ve done something in your actions that has caused them pain.
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For most people, the immediate reaction is to apologize.
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But according to Dr. Fraser, it s the way we apologize that s the key to moving forward.
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Here she is with how you can be more mindful in your apologies.
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I m going to teach you the art of the mindful apology.
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This takes both people.
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And I m going to set this up as though I have said something that has hurt you.
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Okay.
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Now there s three steps to this.
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First, I deliver a specific apology.
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I m going to tell you how to do that in a moment.
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Second, you receive my apology and forgive me.
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And third, together we begin again.
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Let me give a tiny bit of context for this because it s really important.
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Masterful couples take 100% responsibility for everything in their relationship.
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So if I ve wronged you, I ve said something that s hurt your feelings, you take as much responsibility as I do for trying to get us back into alignment.
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My mistake or your mistake has taken us out of alignment.
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We re not as connected.
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We re not in flow.
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We re not as trusting, open, deep, and vulnerable.
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And instead of sitting there metaphorically with your arms crossed saying, well, Cheryl hurt my feelings.
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She better fix this now.
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The idea is that we re both in this apology together.
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The one who delivers it, in this case, me, I ve made the error.
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The one who receives it are equally important.
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If you want excellence, follow this formula.
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So let s say you said, hey, babe, are you coming to my baseball game tomorrow night?
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And I said, no, I don t want to come to your game.
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You know, I think baseball is stupid and I think it s a waste of time.
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Not a very skillful thing to say.
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And you re hurt by that.
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Now we re going to enter into me choosing to apologize.
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Here s the thing.
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I am not a fan of people just saying, I m sorry.
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I know that s a bit of a surprise.
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I m not a fan of people saying, I m sorry.
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Well, I think I m sorry.
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It can be pretty weak.
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We can toss off and I m sorry and nothing s going to change.
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So I train people to do a three step, little three step process.
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When I apologize to you, when I offer my apology to you, I m going to own my behavior.
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I m going to repair and I m going to vow to do better.
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So what might that sound like about the comment I made about your baseball game?
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I might say, hon, look, I m really sorry I made this snide comment about your baseball game.
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That wasn t cool, wasn t kind.
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Boom, I m owning my behavior.
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That s the part most people skip.
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Secondly, I then offer my repair in the form of an apology.
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Usually, I m sorry I said it.
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It wasn t my best moment.
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I feel badly.
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But then boom, boom, boom.
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You want to make change?
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You need to set goals and create change.
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And by doing the following step, which is vowing to improve, I complete my behavior change intention.
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So I ve said, I own it.
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I ve offered you my repair, my apology, and I m going to vow to do better.
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So I might say, Hey babe, I m really sorry.
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I said that thing that was ignorant.
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It was kind of mean of me.
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I m sorry I said it.
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I feel badly.
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Tell you what, I think I can come to your game tomorrow.
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You know, it s not really my thing, but maybe your friend could teach me the game a bit while I watch and make it more fun.
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Cause I do want to support what matters to you.
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I vowed to do better.
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Now, most of us think that was an epic apology.
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Cheryl, you re the best.
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I can see why you re a love expert.
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And then we d walk away considering it was done.
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No, the receiver of the apology is equally important for us to be back in alignment, love and connection again.
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So if the receiver goes, thanks and walks away, that s pretty good, but you can do better.
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The person receiving the apology, I want to also do three steps.
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I want you to thank the person who s apologized to you.
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I want you to acknowledge what they ve done, and I want you then to accept, if you re ready, you can t then accept an apology you re not ready to take into your heart.
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That s okay, might take you a bit of time.
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But the person who wants to play baseball might say, hey, Cheryl, thank you.
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I do appreciate you owning that, that s really great.
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Yeah, it kind of bugged me and hurt my feelings and baseball s important to me and you re important to me and I d like you to come and I accept your apology.
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I really do appreciate it.
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What I m expressing here, it sounds again, really simple and very elegant, but it s hard to do.
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But I promise you, if you practice a mindful dual apology, where we re both taking responsibility for our happiness, where we re being awakened lovers, generous lovers, you will find you re able to repair hurts.
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And then we get to the third and final piece.
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There s the person offering, the person receiving, and then we begin again.
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Begin again in this present moment here and now.
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What happened before literally doesn t exist unless we choose to keep a story alive in our head.
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And by doing that, from Buddhist philosophy, there s a story of we pick up a hot coal, what happens?
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Well, we know what happens, it burns our hand.
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And then we hang on to the coal and we wonder why it keeps hurting.
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let go, open your palm, let the hot coal fall to the ground.
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This is what we practice and rehearse over and over again with our love, which is letting go of the small and large ways we mess up, and beginning again fresh and clear in this present moment, because it s the only one we ve got.
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And in this present moment is ultimate, open, generous, non-defended love.
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If we can just clear out the clouds and sink into the love that was already there.
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And there s one practical thing you can do to anchor this into action that will help you deliver on your vow to do better.
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So I ve apologized to you and I vowed to do better.
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Now vows, tricky thing, right?
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The intention kind of floating around in space doesn t always come to fruition.
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So what I d suggest there, if I vowed to do better by saying in this case, I m going to come to your game tomorrow night, I m going to try to learn more about baseball, that would be a terrific thing to feed into tomorrow morning when I do my mindful relationship intention with you.
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So we re sitting with our coffee and tea and I say, okay, my relationship aspiration today is to come to your baseball game tonight.
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But more than that, it s to do it with a glad heart and to actually try to find something fun about baseball.
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At the beginning of this episode, you heard Dr. Fraser talk about the passion triangle and its three components that lead to an extraordinary relationship, intimacy, thrill, and sensuality.
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So how does mindfulness play a part in each one of those crucial pieces?
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And how do we choose where to focus our attention?
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Here is Dr. Fraser again on how mindfulness can lead to a loving and passionate relationship that lasts a lifetime.
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Listen closely because she s going to walk you through an exercise that can help you bring some of the excitement and thrill back into yours.
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We ve talked about intimacy and here again I define intimacy as the emotional, psychological, communication, conflict resolution, and friendship side of our passion triangle.
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We ve talked about bringing intentionality to how to approach a difficult conversation.
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and we ve talked about bringing intentionality on how to repair forgive and begin again when we ve messed up.
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The second side of the passion triangle I call thrill again those are those ineffable charged wonderful attraction interest feelings we get in the beginning of a relationship.
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Now thrill is the trickiest side of the passion triangle.
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Thrill is the quality that is
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the most elusive for long-term couples.
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Why?
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Quite simply because thrill thrives on novelty.
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That s why falling in love is easy.
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Everything s new, exciting, and fresh.
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Now, I want you to do a little tiny thought experiment right now.
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Let s say you did wake up this morning in bed next to your partner.
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Maybe they re traveling or whatever, then think of the most recent time.
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When you woke up, opened your eyes, looked over at your slumbering or waking sweetheart, what was the quality of interest?
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What s the quality of curiosity?
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Now, imagine it was the first or second morning they d ever woken up in your bed next to you.
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What was the quality of interest then?
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What was the quality of mindful mind that you brought when you woke up and this new love, this new lover was in your bed for one of the first times?
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Bingo.
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That s why it s hard to have thrill in the longterm because thrill thrives on novelty, on things being new.
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Here s the thing though.
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Mindfulness is 100% about showing up in this moment and experiencing this moment, this breath, this kiss, this conversation, as though it has never happened before.
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And guess what?
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It literally hasn t happened before.
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Imagine this.
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Imagine that we were able to give you right now, through the airwaves, a tiny sliver of the most exquisite Belgian chocolate.
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And I want you to imagine putting that on your tongue.
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and it melting, and it s soft, and it s gorgeous, and the flavor explodes in your mouth.
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Now, almost none of us are going to say, eh, it s a chocolate, I ve had a thousand of them before.
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Big deal, because we re enjoying the moment of this chocolate.
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We don t get bored with chocolate.
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If you re bored with your mate, it s because you re not bringing mindful interest to this fascinating human being that you have the profound pleasure to spend your life with.
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You know why affairs happen?
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One of the most common reasons is that someone finds your
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interesting again.
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They meet someone at a work function at lunch and that person s fascinated.
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They re simply bringing the quality of novelty and interest.
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They like listening to your mate s stories instead of rolling their eyes.
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So thrill and mindfulness are key together.
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If I m going to find my beloved fascinating after 25 years, after 10 years, after a lifetime, it s my mind that I need to train.
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I need to bring the mind of interest.
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You re absolutely fascinating.
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If I m bored with you it s because I m not training my mind to bring novelty and focus and mindfulness to who you are.
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And the third side of the passion triangle where mindfulness is also very very key is sensuality.
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All things erotic and sensual.
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There s some extraordinary and very important research showing that mindfulness, learning to focus directly on what s happening on a touch, on a moment, on a breath, training our mind to allow the busy cocktail party chaos in our mind.
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Imagine you re at a busy cocktail party and you and I are having a fascinating conversation.
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we automatically sort of phase out and blur out all the other noise, the laughter, the clinking glasses, the rock music on the stereo.
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We let it all fade into the background.
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We re still aware of it, but it fades in the background because we re bringing mindful, focused attention to our fascinating conversation with you.
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Imagine making love like that, touching like that.
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The quality of bringing your mind into sensuality is what will light up your sensual and erotic life as though for the first time.
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Unless you re driving, I want you to take a moment right now and close your eyes and do a
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30-second exercise with me.
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You can do it later if you re driving.
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And I want you to close your eyes.
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I want you to take the fingers of one hand and focusing as deeply as you can on the touch sensation, I want you to gently stroke the top of your other hand with your fingertips.
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And I want you to focus just for a few seconds as deeply as you can on what that touch sensation of finger stroking the back of the other hand feels like.
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Wow.
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What the majority of us experienced is that was way more intense than we thought it would be.
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Was it a super magic touch?
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No.
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It was the simple quality of bringing mindful attention to the touch itself.
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So if you want to light up your sensual life, it s by bringing the mind in alignment with touch, with body, with lovemaking that will light things up.
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I m going to share a beautiful little story.
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This was a couple I was working with a couple years ago.
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They were in my office and this was a heterosexual couple in this instance and the woman was bringing forward a pain point for her, a complaint.
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She said he never compliments me, he never says anything nice about how I look or my clothes.
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She said last night we were going to this gathering and I came out of the bedroom and I was wearing a new dress and makeup and hair and I really felt good and I know I looked great, I know I looked pretty and he didn t even seem to notice.
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And I watched her guy and he kind of crumpled a little bit next to her on the couch.
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It was subtle, but I saw it.
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He felt defeated.
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And I started asking him his thoughts and he said, you know, of course I think she s beautiful.
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I always think she s beautiful.
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This was a man of few words.
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Articulating his experience was not in his comfort zone.
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He wasn t a good compliment giver.
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So I started digging.
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There s got to be some gold in here.
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And I asked him, you know, you say you think about her all the time.
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Can you give an example of a time you re thinking of her and what you do?
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And he says, sure, that s why I bring her shoes in.
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I was mildly puzzled, so I asked more.
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He then went on to say, they lived in a house that had an attached carport and the carport, of course, wasn t heated.
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It was also their mudroom.
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They tended to leave their shoes and coats out there.
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So what he went on to explain was every morning when she was in the shower he d go out and get her shoes from the carport, bring them into the house by the front door and of course I asked him why and he said well I don t want her to have to put her feet
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in cold shoes before she leaves the house to go to work.
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And I watched and she melted a little bit because she heard the love and the attention and the thoughtfulness her guy had for her.
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Yeah, he wasn t good at giving compliments.
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The moral of the story, it s up to her which thing to focus on.
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Do you want to focus on the fact that he s not good at saying you look pretty
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Or do you want to focus on the fact that he brings your shoes out of the cold carport every morning because he doesn t want you to have to put your feet in cold shoes.
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That s a beautiful act of love.
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So as I sometimes joke, when your partner steps out of the shower in the morning, do you want to focus on their hairy back or focus on their radiant smile?
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It s completely up to you.
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Don t change your mate.
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Change your mind, change your focus, intentionally choose to look for what s working instead of what s not working and notice the increase in your openness, your heart, your attraction, and ultimately people, your happiness.
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If there was one thing I could offer for how to make this year to come and every year to come rich and deep and to develop your passion triangle to bring more depth, breadth, love, happiness, sensuality, and joy to your relationship, it s don t work on your relationship.
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What?
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What did you just say?
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What I mean is this, how many of us want to work on our relationship?
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We work all the time on everything it seems.
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Now that is not in contradiction to what I said at all.
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I want you to reframe the idea of working on your relationship and I want you instead to approach your relationship like a hobby.
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Think about that for a sec.
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What are the qualities of a hobby?
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When I teach this to groups, I have them shout out, you know, what makes something a hobby as opposed to not a hobby?
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And people say, well, a hobby is something you want to do.
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You do it because it matters to you.
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What else?
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You don t get paid for your hobby.
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Most of us want to become better at our hobby.
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If we re a potter or a golfer or a dancer,
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We often study or take a class, work with an expert.
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We want to continue to master and improve our skills at our hobby.
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We create time for our hobby.
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Please, please memorize that one.
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We create time for our hobby.
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We carve out time.
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We make it a priority.
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That means intention, planning, prioritizing, valuing.
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Make your love life a hobby this year and in the years to come.
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That s where you apply your intentionality.
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That s where you might choose to have your daily rituals of setting a loving intention.
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having a deep passionate kiss good night, making love, making a priority, not letting it fall onto the back burner, but make it a hobby.
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Bring a quality of curiosity and interest and joyfulness to your love life and don t work on your relationship as much as dive into the hobby of mindful loving.
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Because again, ultimately great happiness is up to us.
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Great love and great sensuality begin and end in the mind and in our choice to become and be a generous awakened lover, to bring the very best of our heart and mind to this love affair between you and I at this time.
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Train your mind and train your heart to be an awakened lover.
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My greatest hope is that I will learn in my own relationship to fall in love over and over with the one I m already with, one moment at a time.
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Because remember, love ultimately is a choice, and the choice is yours.
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The Tony Robbins Podcast is directed by Tony Robbins and produced by the Tony Robbins editorial team with audio editing and sound design by Jeremy Ence.
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Today s guest was Dr. Cheryl Fraser, a clinical psychologist, sex therapist, and Buddhist teacher.
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To hear more about some of the principles she covered today and how you can become a more mindful lover, check out her book.
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It s called Buddha s Bedroom and it s available on Amazon and in bookstores.