Love Life with Matthew Hussey - 230: Why Men Don't Open Up | Rob Dial

Episode Date: March 6, 2024

In this episode, Matthew and Audrey sit down for a conversation with Rob Dial, host of The Mindset Mentor podcast. We cover why men don’t open up, the inner beliefs that affect our romantic relationships, healing our wounds, self-love, and how to be truly fulfilled.  ►► Jumpstart Your Dating Life with My FREE Virtual Event, Love Life Reset... Sign Up Now at. . . → http://www.LoveLifeTraining.com  ►► Pre-Order My New Book, "Love Life" at → http://www.LoveLifeBook.com ►► Follow Rob Dial: Instagram: @Robdialjr Podcast: The Mindset Mentor  

What's up guys welcome back to Love Life. Before we get into the episode I want to tell you about an event I have going on on March the 19th called the Love Life Reset. This is a completely free event that I am inviting you to if you want a clean slate in your love life where you can go out there and find love regardless of what has happened already. It doesn't matter if you want a clean slate in your love life where you can go out there and find love regardless of what has happened already. It doesn't matter if you feel like nothing's been working out for you, if you thought you'd be somewhere different by this point in your life, or if you're coming back out into the dating world having been in a long-term relationship or even a marriage for a long time and you're wondering or even scared about what dating is going to be like for you in this

new season of your life. The Love Life Reset is for all of us who want a fresh start and it's happening on March the 19th. The event is completely free as I said and you can become a part of it very easily in the next 20 seconds by going to lovelifetraining.com. You can sign up there in the next 20 seconds. And once you do, we will email you an exclusive link to the event so that you can join us on the day. That's March 19th, the Love Life Reset. Go to lovelifetraining.com to sign up now. Go do it now before you forget. And then come back here and let's begin the episode. Today, I was with Audrey for this episode where we interviewed Rob Dial, host of the Mindset Mentor podcast, author of the book Level Up, and someone who has some extremely

interesting perspectives when it comes to vulnerability, the male mind. We asked him about his relationship, what it was like for him being single, what made him make the decision to get married. You can't listen to this conversation without coming out feeling like you'll understand more about men, more about the shame that men carry,

more about why men don't open up, the way their history affects their behavior today, and what it takes for someone to commit. I think you're really, really going to love this. It's an incredibly open and vulnerable conversation. So without further ado, I present to you, Rob Dial. Well, we are here with Rob Dial from the Mindset Mentor podcast. Rob, thank you for being here. Hey, thank you for having me in your guys' house. It's great to be here. So we just got to do a podcast with you for your show. Yeah, it was amazing. The Mindset Mentor. Everyone go listen to that because it was, I honestly think it's one of my favorite podcast episodes I've ever done. Yeah, it was incredible. I was just observing, but it was really honestly think it's one of my favorite podcast episodes i've ever done yeah it was incredible i was just observing but it was really really strong really powerful episode and

um and that will be up on rob's at the mindset mentor um and rob is here today with us for the love life podcast and we have audrey in the room with us as well yes hi everybody i'm so excited i told you guys this is the first time i've had two people interview me in person so i'm excited about this i think it's gonna be fun and there's actually so much that we talked about on your podcast just now that i feel like is actually going to be incredibly relevant and powerful for our audience to hear about so i am also glad audrey's here because i feel like she's gonna have a lot of questions that are running through the minds of so many of our audience that you can ask Audrey. So I'd love to start by just getting a sense of the narrative of your love life until this point. Yeah. So I'll give you context on first off me.

That'll make make a whole lot more sense in my relationship with Lauren. So my story, kind of like we were talking about in my episode with you, like the quote unquote hero's journey, the life that I've been on, right? My father was an alcoholic and my parents got divorced when I was 10 because he was an alcoholic. I always tell people he was the best type of alcoholic father to have. He didn't beat me. He didn't touch me He didn't yell at me

But he would get drunk and he would fall asleep and he would forget about me Which after going to a therapist years ago found out that that she was like that's neglect and I was like, no No, I wasn't neglected and he's she's like no. No you you were emotionally neglected and so Then he passed away when I was 15 from his alcoholism. And so what happened was I started getting into relationships and I was very unpresent in relationships. I could see how I showed up incorrectly. And when I got into my relationship with Lauren, both of Lauren's parents are still together. So she comes from a loving home, both parents being there, she loves her dad.

So that was really good to see. But what I ended up finding out is that I always felt like she was going to leave me in some way. Like whenever there'd be like, we never get into big blowups or anything like that, but there'd be arguments or I do something wrong and I thought in my head,

well, this is the thing that's gonna make her leave me. Whatever, even if it was just like something stupid. And I noticed that triggering within myself. And I realized that triggering came from feeling like my father wasn't there and he left me. Like I always felt as a child subconsciously, and as an adult, I've come to make it conscious, was that my father loved alcohol more than he loved me. And so I always came second to it. And, you know, he would say he would come pick me up. I'd be on the stairs waiting for him for an hour with my fishing pole,

and he'd never show up. And so I always thought love is going to leave me. And with Lauren, she was very firm in her love and never really moved or swayed or any of that. And for me, that felt uncomfortable. I felt like a red flag more than anything else, because I was like, this isn't what love is. Every other person, they've either cheated on me or they've ghosted me or they've just ended up deciding they didn't want to be with me in some sort of way. And I just thought she's eventually going to leave me at some point in time. And she never did. She never did. And over time I started to notice my triggerings in that and in being able to, to go, well,

if she's not going to leave me, well, then maybe I can start opening up a little bit more and maybe I can feel safe opening up and showing her like another side of me that I've never shown anybody else. And as I did, and I slowly started doing that, she didn't leave. And not only did she not leave, she also just kind of grew stronger and more in love with me the more she started to see other sides of me.

And so that was the main thing that happened with Lauren and that I think that she has been able to help me heal parts of me that I haven't been able to heal for myself. I was so beautiful and I relate so much to that. I'm, I'm curious, how did those patterns show up before Lauren? Yeah. And cause I know when I look back on my patterns they didn't just hurt me they were

very capable of hurting other people and you know I I can look at my 20s and some of my 30s as a time where I have regrets about having hurt people yeah along the way yeah I'm curious, how did those patterns manifest themselves in a time before you met Lauren, your now wife, in a way that didn't just potentially push love away from you, but also hurt other people? Yeah. Well, I think what happened was because of the fact that I wouldn't... Every relationship was the same, it seemed like it was just the universal will always come to you over and over and over again until you work through the patterns and the things you've got to work through. And so it was always, they would get to a certain point. And even Lauren

and I got to this point too, where it got to a certain point where it feel like it just kind of like hit a glass ceiling. And I didn't know what was past it because I didn't, I had never been past it. I've never opened up fully past that. I think that women are, you know, much smarter than men. And I think subconsciously they would notice like, I'm not going to get more from this guy. I think it was, they were just feeling like he's not fully here. He's not fully connected and I'm not getting out of the relationship. Would I want to get out of it? And so it was never, I've never had any really, I could call up any of my ex-girlfriends and they would answer the phone like it's never been blow-ups it's never been yelling it's always

just been like yeah this kind of just fizzled out and I think that one of the main reasons why was because I wouldn't allow myself to get to the point of I trust you with showing you the deeper sides of me that I'm afraid to show to everybody else. And what would fizzling out look like for you? Would it, cause for some guys it's, I'm, you know, just going to date five people at the same time and just have fun and never get connected to anyone for other guys. It's, you know, you're just going to feel like you, you know, I don't give you very interesting answers to questions that you ask me. And it feels like I just never really open up what, cause I, you know, so many of the women that follow us encounter a range of patterns from men that they then ask us about what would they have

experienced or seen in you in the way that it actually showed up? Yeah, I think I, I think I probably got to a point where I started distancing myself, you know, where it's like the interest that used to be there would kind of stop being there as much, you know, and it felt like, um, there wasn't as much of a connection as the, as the main thing. So it was like, I would be really interested. I would be really engaged in all of that. And then I think that the, the lack that the glass ceiling that I would hit, they would feel it, but then I would also feel it as well. And so what it turned out, when it turned out being was that then they would start to distance themselves. And then I would want to come back stronger and be like, hold on. Well, no, we're not done with this thing yet. Like you, but by that time, a lot of times it's, it's, you're, you're playing a

losing game where it's like, we had kind of grown apart and then, you know, I wouldn't stop. I would stop hearing from her as much. She stopped hearing from me as much. And then a couple of weeks later, I'd be like, well, hold on. Like this, I don't, I don't like being alone. Being alone is not that fun. Like I want, I want someone to be around and to go out on dates with and to do stuff with. And, um, I think that for me it was, it was like, we would both kind of be distant.

There'd be less texting. There'd be less, you know, we used to hang out three times a week. Now we're hanging out once a week. And then it would come back to, but now I'm lonely. So let me go ahead and see if I can gain her back. Because it's almost like the chase. It was fun. Let me lose her a little bit.

Unconsciously, maybe consciously. And then I'd be like, I got to get back in. And so I think that was the main pattern for me. I want to hear what Audrey has to say about all of this because I feel like your mind's going to be just going um but just just one more question before I throw to Audrey did did you feel like in those moments you had any awareness of the fact that you weren't that you were hitting a ceiling or that you weren't opening up like how did you perceive it because i feel like a lot of women want to know like what's going through his head in those moments am i you know was it just that he felt really attracted to me and now he's not interested is there they start playing detective on right what's going on for you was it as simple

as you told yourself like oh this isn't as fun or I'm not as interested anymore or it's not as like what what would be playing out in your head in those moments where you started to fade yeah I mean I felt I was very conscious of something but I was unaware of what it was that was the interesting thing about it. I think that what actually helped me the most was me obviously going on the journey of trying to improve myself. But then the thing that really helped me was I had a friend who is a relationship therapist in Austin.

And when I really became aware of it was I met him at a poker tournament, charity poker tournament. He was awesome. He was awesome. He was cool. He's like, you and your girlfriend should come in. And this one, Lauren and I were together for like two months.

I'm sorry, two years. And, uh, went into him just like, let's see if what we can find out about ourselves. And then he also said the same thing that therapist said, which is you were neglected as a child.

And, and I left that session having felt more connected to Lauren than any person I've ever felt connected my entire life and the reason why is because I felt like I was actually seen and I didn't know this is the interesting part about it I didn't know the parts of me that I didn't know were not being seen. But going to that person ended up like I understood her better. She understood me better, but I felt more understood. And I think that actually is one of the first steps of making us closer. You know, we were talking about on my podcast, I was just over at Lewis's house and the relationship that he's in

now with his fiance, he was like, we're going to start in therapy. And it's interesting because it's like, I actually think that can be a really good idea for some people just because I think that is actually a thing that made me aware. So to answer your question, like I was aware there was something, but I was very unaware of what it was that was that glass ceiling. Yeah. And it's really interesting as a guy, because when you feel seen like that and you've been covering up either consciously or unconsciously covering up these parts of ourselves and for you it was suddenly actually like a new awareness right of something when someone is in on that with you right it can't not create some kind of special connection

because you're like i've i've never been seen to this degree. And so there's this bond that often gets formed in that, that is, um, something that you feel much more reluctant to lose. Yeah. And I think that's the important part about it too, is that we as men are taught that we have to be strong. We're big boys don't cry. We have to be strong. You can't be vulnerable. You know, like you can't be weak. We're kind of taught that. And we think that if we show that side of us, she's for sure losing us. Like we're, we're, we're losing her. She's, she does not want to be with a guy who's a, who's a wuss. It's kind of the way that we feel. But if the man, I think, is evolved enough

and has been working on himself, there is nothing that feels better than to feel safe to go, you know what, I think this is a person that's going to help me heal. I mean, I could listen to you guys talk for hours. I was tempted to jump in. But you know, what I wanted to ask,

because I think there's going to be a lot of our audience who is, you know, they're hearing all of this and they're saying, that sounds amazing, but how do I even get somebody to a place where they want to go to therapy with me and want to be open and, you know, allow themselves to be seen? Because the experience of a lot of people out there in dating men and women alike is, you know, there is a game to be played, you feel like people are distracted, they have all these other options. Nobody wants to commit, nobody wants to

really go deeper with you, everybody's kind of always looking around over their shoulder to see there's something better. And so, you know, it sounds like like with you Lauren was able to kind of almost break you open in this beautiful way and um and that's amazing but you know how do you discern emotional availability unavailability and someone just being afraid and needing a little bit of kind of patience and you know coaching and kind of just just a space for them to actually open up and be themselves? Yeah, that's a good question. I think I am of the belief, if somebody wants to be with you, they'll show you that they want to be with you. And if somebody wants to play games, then they're just wanting to play games. And that's just my own personal opinion. And that's, that's

how I actually, you know, started in the relationship with Lauren. And to give you context, we met on a wine tour at a friend's birthday in Austin. We took a bus. There was like 40 people we met. And she had come in and out of Austin. And she had gotten my number. And she texted me one night. And we texted back and forth and all that. And then she was in her phase of like, I just want to be single.

And I was like, but I haven't been given a chance, right? Like that. And so I knew of her before then I had seen her in pictures and stuff. And so the thing that she'll tell you is just, I was very persistent because I'm from, I'm from a sales background. She just never told me no. If you told me no, then I'd be like, okay, 10, four, cool. I'll move on.

Right. So I do believe that if somebody wants to be with you, they will take the right actions to be with you, they will take the right actions to be with you. Um, now going back to that as well is I think that energy should at least probably be in the relationship as well, which is, you know, um, a lot of people think that going to a therapist means something's wrong. And I don't think that that means that at all. Right. Like, so like, if I want to improve at golf, the fastest way to improve at golf is to get somebody who's a great golfer to help me get better quicker. And so I think that sometimes people approach, they approach therapy at the point where something's already wrong versus just saying

like, Hey, like, I really love you. I want us to be together and to stay together. What do you think about someone coaching us through this so that, so that we can just get better in our relationship and our communication? I think that would probably be a better way of bringing up therapy, you know, is to, is to actually say it's kind of like a relationship coach, whether I'd be a therapist or whether I actually be a real relationship coach. And the thing I always say is that we Never really have if we're not very conscious. We never really have a real relationship with somebody We have a relationship with the image that we've built of them in our minds

And so many people do this right like oh if I say this to her She's going to react this way So, you know what i'm not even going to say it because I don't want it to blow up or turn into this thing And so it's it's literally like I'm here and there's an image of me that I have of myself and how I react. There's an image of her that she has, how she's going to react. When in reality, she's, I'm here and she's here and we're not even interacting, but there's a whole story and there's a whole narrative that's happening in my head. And when you can have a third party there, in my opinion, um, I think the person just is allowed to get past that because they don't have the images built yet. And so they're able to see the people for who they are. They're able to see the patterns that we're not necessarily able to see because we're not skilled in this sometimes. therapist or relationship coach as the same way that if I want to improve at this specific skill

set, the fastest way to get there is to hire a professional. I think that that's the most important way for someone to approach it. And for men, especially if they played sports, if they are somebody who is competitive or someone who wants to achieve, I think it's going to strike a chord a little bit different of like, yeah, let's make this thing win versus, oh, we need to do this because there's something wrong with it yeah that's interesting that is interesting do you feel like there's anything anyone could have done or let's even just say lauren if lauren had met you five years sooner do you think there's anything that she would have been able to do that would have got you to that point sooner? Or do you feel like you, it doesn't matter what someone did at that point, you just

would not have been in the place to be ready for that? You know, that's so funny, just to very quickly piggyback off of that. That was my next question, which is this concept of, and I think our audience will really relate to this, like you hear a lot about men having their light on and being ready and it's almost like you know if you don't meet them at a time when their light is on you kind of you can't penetrate you can't get there right so I'm really interested in your answer in that yeah I mean it's a good question I first off just as a, I've never had a one-night stand. I've never been that type of person. It's never been interesting to me. Anybody that I've ever had sex with in my life has been someone I've been in a relationship with. I've never been the type of person that's

like, I'm just going to go out and hook up with people. There's nothing wrong if that's how people are. I also just wasn't that good at picking chicks up. So that's probably what the problem was too, right? Like I wasn't good at approaching. But I am really of the belief that everything happens the exact way it's supposed to. Peter Krohn always says, what happened happened and could not have happened any other way because it didn't. And I actually truly believe that that's how it is. And sometimes I think we are trying to force a square

peg into a round hole. And if Lauren had found me five years prior, no, I don't, I don't think I probably would have been ready yet. I don't think I would have been, I'll say this way. I would have been ready for her, but I don't think I would have probably been able to deserve her at that point. I think that's probably the best way. I would have been like, oh my God, she's amazing. She's gorgeous. She's awesome. But she would have not been attracted to me because I just wasn't.

I just don't feel like I was, and this isn't self-deprecating in any sort of way. I don't think that I was worthy of her at that point. I think that she was evolved further than I was and I probably needed more time to evolve to the point where she was. There's something about that that's really interesting to me because it sounds like when Lauren met you, she had a healthy sense of her self-esteem

and what her value was and what she was looking for but it that idea that you wouldn't have been worthy of where she was in her evolution i see far too often people not caring where he is in his evolution because they see what he could be they either see what he could be or they just see that there's an attraction they don't want to let go of. There's a connection that they feel to someone. Or a trauma bond. It's really bad and then sometimes it's good and he ignores me for hours

and then when he texts me, I feel elated. And so they're kind of only paying attention to what they feel for someone as opposed to paying attention to what is their level of evolution. Right. And I think there's a common feeling of, well, but if I feel this strongly about them and I am this excited by the connection and the attraction, then it's almost like a disregard for where this person is on their journey and their evolution. But I just don't want to lose it.

So what I'm hearing from you is like, it doesn't matter how attracted she would have been to you or how much fun you might have had together. It still would have put you fundamentally out of sync. Right. The level of evolution you were at. I mean, I think, I think that there's definitely the, the possibility in that case of like right person, wrong time. And if you're so focused on right person, wrong time, you are not going to see right person, right time. And I think that they could be right in front of you or right

out. If you're spending so much time chasing somebody that is right person, wrong time, or could be wrong person, wrong time. There probably is a right person, right time that could be out there that you could find. But you're spending all of your energy trying to go after somebody who's running from you. And so I think that if I'm being honest, I don I don't think like there is like one person that's made for you. Um, I think it's one person that you feel safe around. They feel safe around you and you decide, yeah, we're going to do this together. Um, and that was actually something like, even, even with Lauren, when we first started together, started, uh, dating a couple of years in, she's like, I feel like if you, I feel like if you left, you'd be okay. And I would say

I would be. And she hated that answer because she's like, I was like, I would be. And she's like, well, that's exactly what I'm saying. I'm saying, but that's not what I want. Like, don't you want me to choose you versus want you? Because I felt like at that point in time, I was at a really good place in my life and things were working out and all of that where I was like, I, I would be completely fine. It's not what I want, but I would end up being okay. I wouldn't be destroyed forever if, if this didn't work out. And for her that brought up the things that she needed to work on. Right.

Which is like, uh, what, that she felt like she had to be the only one who wanted. And so I think that it's, I think that some people are thinking about the person who is out there that's kind of like giving them the unrequited love or texting them every once in a while and thinking, well, this is my person. I need to keep going after them.

When in reality, it might be that there's 8 billion people in the world. There could be 10,000 your persons and you might be chasing after the wrong000 your persons, and you might be chasing after the wrong person, wrong time, maybe chasing after the right person at the wrong time. But if there's more of them out there, and more people that are at your level of growth and of development, then why don't you go try to find that person versus trying to, to chase the person who clearly isn't showing you the effort that you want. Cause it's also like, if you chase out this person, you wrangle them in,

you, you, you, you get them in your net and you pull them in. Um, and that's how they are. They're showing you how they are. And maybe they do evolve and maybe they do change, but maybe they don't, you know? And what if you did get married to them? Cause you're now at the age where you need to, or where you should, or, you know, you, you feel like you need to have babies sometime soon. How would you feel if they showed up that way for your children? Right? Like what if that pattern doesn't change? I don't think people project into the future enough. They think right now, what's right now in front of me. And so I think if they project in the future, it's like,

maybe that pattern evolves, but maybe that pattern stays there forever. Is that how you want them to be with you in 20 years that how you want them to be with your children? When they're teaching them how to be a human and an adult and the stakes will only keep getting higher. Oh boy. Yeah, right just layer off the layer of your lives becoming enmeshed and one and You know you now having the infrastructure of your life rely on this person in some way right then kids and then it's like you're just compounding an original kind of sin yeah in the relationship yeah just whatever it is you're feeling now if it never changes is not going to get easier it's likely to get way way harder right the the more you feel like your life is entangled it's such a good point you know i think as well we

so many of us are taught that we need to earn love and you know you spoke about your dad right and in a way you felt like you had to earn his love not consciously right but it was you know i'm not i don't receive his love if i'm just myself i have to consciously right but it was you know I'm not I don't receive his love if I'm just myself I have to jump through hoops and you know navigate through obstacles and you know quieten parts of myself and not express certain needs in order to get that attention and I you know there was something and I want to come back to the point I'm making there was something that our friend Dr. Ramani who we we love, said on the podcast that you guys did, where she talked about, you know, how certain people get obsessed in early dating

with like, you know, the scraps of attention that somebody gives them as they're trying to just really earn their love. Yeah. And she explained, she said, you know, I had a client who explained that, you know, she had a narcissistic father who literally would ignore her for weeks at a time, go on all these business trips, just completely neglect her. And on the way home from the airport, he would pick up a key ring and give it to her. And that little girl would literally just, she would dedicate a shrine to this key ring. And this key ring was the most important thing she had ever received and she said now when you look at it through that lens of course somebody is going look at that text he

sent me look at him saying I miss you right and it's the same thing we're repeating those patterns and so I think this is really interesting because I think what happens is we end up chasing the same kind of love that we received in our childhoods and then you know through our caregivers and so I have a question for you because you know I know for me I was in relationships and then single and now I'm obviously married but my healing journey was very kind of um I had different phases of it and when I met Matt I felt like I was really good I was like I'm in such a good place I've done so much healing I've done so much work on myself and then you know you're in a serious long-term relationship you get married and that brings up its own its own stuff right

like and then and then you have to coexist with another person. And so my question is how far along that journey do you feel like you have to be before you can be ready for someone? Because if you're still in that phase where you're trying to earn love and picking the wrong partners, how do you even trust yourself that you're with the right person? And how do you like, yeah, just how, how far along that journey do you think you have to be yeah I mean well it's it's my belief off of all the people that I work with it's and I can give example after example after example of what we're searching for from other people and what we're searching for from the external world is actually just what we're searching for for ourself that That's it. And if people can like really understand that in their bones, if you're searching for love and acceptance from other people, you're actually searching for love

and acceptance for yourself. And it is a hungry ghost that no matter how much you get it from somebody else, it's not going to be enough. It's not going to fill it up. You know, like the Buddhists talk about the hungry ghost, no matter how much a ghost eats, it's just going to go and fall on the ground and they're going to continue to be hungry. If you are searching for words of affirmation from your partner, you're searching for words of affirmation and love from yourself. And when you look at a human, I believe that the natural state of a human is love. And the only thing that gets in the way of that is acceptance. And so when someone says, how do I love myself more? The real question should be,

how do I accept myself more? And what we tend to do is we tend to look at parts of ourself that we don't like and say, I either need to hide this, I need to change this, I need to be at battle with it versus saying, I need to love this. So like for me, there are sides of Rob that are amazing and he is loving and he is great and he is beautiful and he is sweet. And there's also sides of Rob that are selfish and they're judgmental and they are rude and they are brash. And for a long time, I would take these like quote unquote negative sides and I would be like, I have to change this side of me. And what's interesting is the more that I tried to change it, the stronger that all of them got. And so it was like, I identify this thing I want to change

and now I want to change it. So I'm basically creating multiple conflicts inside of me versus being like all sides of Rob deserve love. Yeah. And that's, what's really hard for us is to say like, yeah, like the, the version of me that's fun and outgoing, of course, everybody should love that. But, and I love that side of me, but then there's also a side of me that's like really emotional and I don't want to be as emotional and we always want to change it. And what I've found is that these things that, that are like, it can be, you know,

at a fever pitch of like eight out of nine, a 10 out of nine or nine out of 10 on the volume where it's just like, it's way up there. As you start to love and accept those sides of you, they, they kind of get quieter. Like they're not really there as much anymore. Like what, what you resist persists and it actually gets stronger is what I've found. And so like for me, at least for my healing journey of the past five years is realizing that what my wife has, has, has done is, is held a space of like love and acceptance that I have gone, oh man, I need to learn how to do this for myself.

And instead of me trying to change all aspects of myself, why don't I look at the sides of myself that I consider negative that I want to change? And I can say, is there a way for me to love them? Like when I was, I'll give you an example of where this came up for me. When I was writing my book, two years ago, I was sitting there and I was like, of course I want to write the best book I possibly can because I want to help people and I want to change the world. And I want somebody who, who doesn't listen to the mindset mentor podcast to be inside of a Barnes and Noble and pick up this book, read it from, from first page to last page and go, Oh my God, this guy changed my life. This is amazing. And if I did that, it was a success. And I always like to play devil's advocate with myself. So I was like, but you also want to be like a New York Times bestseller, right? You want like the badge

that says New York Times bestseller. You want this to be a perennial bestseller because if it is, you make so much freaking money doing it, right? So I was sitting there and I was seeing like the duality of myself, like wanting to create this incredible book, but then also the egoic side that was like, you also want to just make, you know, make the best book you can so you can have a badge that says New York Times bestseller and make the most money. And I thought to myself, is there anything wrong with that? Like, can I use this egoic side as a tool in my tool belt to go, Hey, come on out real quick. I'm going to use this to create the best book possible and also help as many people in with that and editing over and over and over again, we'll make it a better book. So it's instead of

fighting that egoic side, I can go, okay, now I need you to come up, right? Like some people are very selfish, right? And like, I hate that I'm selfish. Well, there are some times in your life where you need to be selfish. If you start a business, you need to be selfish with your time. You need to learn how to say no. If you're the type of person that's a people pleaser, you need to be a little bit more selfish and you need to say no and put boundaries up. That selfish side can be bad when it's, you know, quote unquote bad where it comes out where it doesn't need to be. But when you use it at the right moments, it's good. And so I think that the thing that people are really searching for in their healing journey is to understand that what you're searching for from other people is what you're searching for

from yourself. So can you learn to identify the parts of yourself that you feel are the gross, dirty parts and say, is there a way that I can try to start to love this side of me? And if you do that, you don't need anybody at all. But now you want somebody that will add to your life. It's not me like, oh, I'm 50% of the, you know, this is my better half. It's like, no, I'm a hundred percent whole person. She's a hundred percent whole person and we're coming together to make a bad-ass partnership. That's what I want in a relationship. I absolutely love that. And I, I would add to it as well, because I think this is such an important thing because people will be going, okay, great. I need to learn to love all these horrible things

about me but i hate them so how do i even begin to do that i can barely love myself generally speaking and i would add to that as well you know that requires that idea of like this is my ego coming out wanting the new york times badge that requires such a high level of consciousness and self-awareness yeah to even notice that that's like almost a different side of you. It's not you, it's this other part of you that wants something and even just diving deeper into why do I want it? Where does this come from for me? And you tend to really always end up back at those very early developmental years where you're learning about beliefs about yourself, who you think you are.

And you realize that actually the reason you want it is because maybe you feel unworthy and maybe you think that, you know, this thing is going to make you worthy, valuable, lovable, interesting, important. It's going to bring you more opportunities, which is going to bring you more status and wealth and love and whatever it is that you want. And you think then I'll be happy. Right. Then I'll feel whole. Right. And I just think it's an interesting thing to add on to that. Just that, you know, if you do go, oh, I hate those parts of myself.

It's going, but why do those parts of myself exist? Because oftentimes they have been sort of created within us in order to protect us. Great point. Yes. And I think that that's such an important thing for us to remember, because otherwise, and when you start looking at it like that, you go, well, that's an easier part of me to love because I can have compassion for it. A hundred percent. It's like, why does that selfish side of you exist? Well, maybe because when you were a child, it was a defense mechanism that came up when you had to, you know, distance yourself from your parents because stuff became unsafe, whether that was physically or emotionally.

And you can exactly, there's not a part of you that exists that doesn't exist for some sort of reason. And if you can go back to the reason and say, yeah, like Rob was had to be selfish when he was 10 years old because of all of the turmoil Rob was, had to be selfish when he was 10 years old because of all of the turmoil that was happening in the house. And it was a safety mechanism that he developed within himself. Oh my God. Like, I remember all the things that Rob went through and you start thinking about that and you go, oh my God, when was the last time? Like I thought about like nine or 10 year old Robin, like tried to send him love for all of the crap that he had to go through when he was a kid. And then you actually start to realize that you can love those aspects

of yourself because they came in as a protection mechanism at some point in time and they held value at that point. And they can still hold value if you use them when they're needed at their correct moments, but not when it's coming up all day and it's, it's present all of the time. And so I think you make a really good point, which is they were important at one point, one point in time, and they wouldn't exist within you if it, if it didn't protect you at some point in time, most likely. Before we go any further guys, and I hope you are enjoying this episode, we have a free training called dating with results. That is something over half a million people have now come through to take control of their love lives no matter what's been going on for you in your love life if you feel like you're struggling if you feel like you keep

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Go to datingwithresults.com to sign up for this event for free and you can watch it today you don't even need to wait for this one join the half a million people who've already come through this training the link is datingwithresults.com i will see you over there and enjoy your training today yeah and and the last thing i'll say on it because i think it's important for everyone to hear this you know those sides of ourselves and i think people might go well i don't relate to being selfish i relate to maybe people pleasing or i relate to this like whatever that thing is when you mentioned earlier about the more you can kind of shine a light on it

accept it and just you know accept that it's a part of you and as we say that it's potentially a maladaptive response system from from your childhood and and whatnot the more you're able to go oh I get to I get to exist with this part of me. And then as a result of kind of allowing it to have space and sort of existing, coexisting with me, I get to work with it. So I get to go, you know, I do have this response. Oh, there I did it again. And instead of going, you are useless. You're such a piece of shit. How could you do this again?

How embarrassing. This is why everybody runs away from you. You're worthless. Instead of doing that, you go, oh, consciousness. I did that. Why did I do that? Oh, because in that moment i was afraid why was i afraid oh because blah blah blah yeah you trace it right back and you say okay well that's fine i understand why i did that i'm going to try and do a little bit better next time and next time you actually do do a little bit better even if it's two percent and those 2% shifts over time compound into you actually making real progress in those areas.

So I think it's so important, all of this. I love that. There's a real simple thing that I can give you and the listeners that I try to make things like very complex things as simple as possible. And I try to make it for like a four-year-old can understand, right? And so the first thing that you brought up is awareness, which is we do have to, in my opinion, I think more people need more silence. They just need to sit back and just be with themselves a little bit more to start to understand themselves. And I was on Jay Shetty's podcast the other day. And the last question he asked was if you could, if there was a law that you had to put in for the entire world, what would it be? And I said, they, every person would need

a five minute self-awareness practice every morning, whatever that looks like. Cause I think every problem in the world would eventually be solved if everyone was aware of themselves and how they interact with themselves and how that they interact with the rest of the world. And, um, and to go back to it, what I always tell people, just a very simple way to repattern yourself is, is it's APR. So awareness is the first thing I need to become aware of these things within myself. As I become aware of them,

I need to become aware when it pops up. So usually what happens is we have automatic thoughts. We don't notice it. It's subconscious. But what we notice is our body. I don't feel good. I feel anxious. I feel stressed right now.

Okay, what was I just thinking about? And we can go back and go to the awareness of, Oh, like, and so the people pleasing is a great example, right? I noticed myself starting to, uh, give in on my boundaries, right? And people pleasing, you can go back to like, what was the original benefit of people pleasing? I had a lady that was at an event I did yesterday. And, um, the only way that she got her mother's love was by being exactly what her mom wanted her to be and telling her like, she, she wanted to play basketball and her mom was like, be a cheerleader. Don't play basketball. And that's how she got her mom's love. So she became a people pleaser

because that all about children care about is do I have my mom's love? Do I have my dad's love? And sometimes we become chameleons to be able to get their love from them. And so in the case of people pleasing, it's like, okay, I'm noticing I'm aware in this moment that I'm people pleasing. The P side of it is just practice. I need to have a practice that when I noticed myself in a pattern, I already know exactly what I'm going to do. And then I need to have repetition. I do it over and over and over again. So for me, like I'll give you an example in my life. I hated years ago that I was like, I love people, but there's a really shitty judgmental side of me that exists. Right. And I was like, I love people, but there's a really shitty judgmental side of me that exists. Right. And I was like, I don't want to be judgmental. Like I love people.

And I was in a grocery store one time and there was a guy that has had this huge Bluetooth and like, it was like, you know, like he was making cold calls in the deli section, right? Like a Britney mic. It was huge. Yeah. Britney Spears mic, right? It was, it was all the way right here. And my immediate thought was like, judgmental on this guy. And the point is when you decide to practice, don't develop it in the moment

because when your emotions are high, your logic is low. But I was like, I don't want to be judgmental anymore. And so days before then I was like, I'm going to make myself, whenever I judge somebody, what I'm going to make myself do is say three things I like about the person.

I'm going to stop everything that I'm doing. And I'm going to force myself to be as present things I like about the person. I'm going to stop everything that I'm doing. And I'm going to force myself to be as present as I possibly can in that moment. Because this is something that is extremely important for me to repattern within myself. And I'm no longer going to allow myself to do this anymore. So I'm literally looking at this guy in the deli section, talking on his Bluetooth, ordering slices of turkey. And I'm like, I really like the shoes that he's wearing. Like I'm like coming up with things, right? And that was the first time I did it. And I was like, okay, cool.

And, and it started, but I have to do it over and over and over again and become aware I have to have my practice and I have to have repetition and I start to actually change myself as I do it. And, um, Oh yeah. It's, it's super simple. The situation that comes up for me is like, whenever I'm in our local coffee shop, I mean, anywhere really, but like, if there's just someone sat near me playing a video out loud. Yeah, or in the bathroom, you know, like they play it.

Or just like you're in a public place and you're playing a video out loud on your phone, like as if the rest of us want to hear this that brings out i like i have to really like send to myself because i'm just like the lack of conscientiousness that's because matthew is literally like the most conscientious person you will ever meet like i'm pretty conscientious and then i met you and i was like oh you're like next level conscientious like i look like just a yeah an inconsiderate obnoxious creature next to you I think that's my like I don't know how conscientious I am is like always a good thing yeah I think it's that comes you know, growing up around a sense of like things can go wrong

and growing up around a sense of conflict or danger where I'm like afraid that if, you know, if someone gets upset or if something gets upset, that things could go really wrong. Yeah. Everything needs to be good all across. Yeah. you know, if someone gets upset or if something gets upset, that things could go really wrong. Yeah. Everything needs to be good all across. Yeah. So it's like me trying to keep, I think it's a version of trying to keep the peace.

I know. I think, and I think it's, and I hope you don't mind me saying we can get rid of it if you do, but I think there is also a kind of like need to control. And I don't mean that in a bad way but control your environment make sure that everything is the way that you feel comfortable with and from the same thing and it's almost like somebody coming in who feels more unpredictable in their behavior triggers you and makes you just mad because it's almost like that's why you love japan so much i mean i love japan so much too but that's why you love it everyone's so quiet yeah so he's polite and yeah and it's and it's the thing about is like we don't have to change aspects of ourself but if somebody if he could keep that if he wants he doesn't have to change it you know and it's like if we decide yeah if we decide something's there and we want it to change like then we can say i need to become aware of it in the moment and i

need to have a practice to get myself out of it. And I think that that's what's really important. And just continue to do it over and over and over again. I would say you can't control your first thought, but you can always control your second thought. And if you control the second thought enough over and over and over again, your second thought usually starts to become your first thought over years. That's really good. I want to ask you in relation to, I'm always trying to think back to what our audience wants to hear about. A lot of our audience, some people in relationships, some people in marriages, but we haveitate towards unhealthy people, sometimes even toxic

people on the worst end of it, abusive people, or even just emotionally unavailable people who are aloof or whatever it might be. And some people even just take themselves out of the game completely, and they don't even bother to date anymore, because they've had so much disappointment. And so I know it's a it's a hard question to answer given that there's such a spectrum of different experiences. But when it comes to early dating and rewiring your patterns in love, how would you apply what you're saying to that? The interesting thing and the thing I always go back to is pay attention to how your body feels. And all too often we're on Instagram or on Netflix. We're so in our head, we're thinking about what's coming up next. We're thinking about the past. Our brain is almost

always in the future or it's in the past. It's very rarely ever here. And the thing that's always here and always giving you signals is your body and your body always responds to what your brain's thinking. And so in cognitive behavioral therapy, they have something called automatic negative thoughts, which is just, it's just a pattern just a pattern just comes in automatically and we don't really notice the thought we notice the feeling in the body and so if we can consciously feel and especially if you've got a lot of female listeners females tend to be more in the body than men which is what's great and so they tend to be more in the body and so they can notice a shift within themselves and they might this is the important part most people don't know why they feel the shift. And that's when you start to get curious

of yourself. And I think the, uh, one of the biggest skills that someone can have in trying to want to improve themselves is just be more curious. Like, uh, Krishnamurti, a guy that I follow, you know, Indian guru that passed away years ago says you have to stop knowing yourself because knowing is based in the past and you have to stop knowing yourself because knowing is based in the past and you have to start learning yourself because learning is based in the present and the way that you does become curious so it's like the other day I was about six months ago I was making eggs in my my uh my kitchen it's a great day I worked out everything was amazing and I'm making eggs and I'm watching something on YouTube it's it YouTube. It's literally like this flood of anxiety came up inside of me.

And I was like, what the hell is going on? But I noticed my body shifting. And so I was like, all right, I have to stop everything. So I'm making eggs. I'll just take them off real quick. And I said, what was I just thinking? And that was a question. I was like, okay.

And I went back and I realized about 10 minutes prior, I was watching a video that went up on YouTube that somebody else sent me from their podcast. And there was like one of the most judgmental comments I've ever seen inside of it. And I was like, I felt very misunderstood in the comments. And I realized that I was, I was starting to feel anxious, unconsciously feeling anxious. Cause I'm like, I try so freaking hard to help people. And I still can't get it right sometimes. And it was like the judgmental side. I was like, all right, no big deal. Whatever. I just guess, I guess it's just the way it is. Right. So

I had to take myself out of the moment and be like, what's going on? Let me pattern. Let me, let me try to repattern this feeling that's within myself. Right. So in, in dating, how you can take it. So it's like the whole core of that is I noticed my body shift. I had to go, what was I just thinking? And then I became aware of my thought in, in dating. It is so emotional and the body is always talking. Like I can think of times when I would text somebody and they wouldn't text back for a while, but you know, what's the craziest part? When you can see the three dots that they're texting someone else. And you're right. So you're like, they have their fricking phone. They're texting. Why are they not texting me back? Right?

And so then we create a whole story. And then what tends to happen is you notice that, that you saw three little bubbles pop up and that's what reality was. But you created a whole story about three little bubbles. And that whole story is, I'm always telling people like, I'm more concerned with what's going on in your head and what you're saying to yourself than I am with what you're doing in reality. Reality is there's three bubbles. But you sent yourself off down an emotional 45 minutes

because of the fact that you saw three little bubbles. You don't know what's happening. Like in reality, like maybe there's an emergency and they were texting their mom and they didn't have enough time to get back to the, you know, you look sexy last night text. Maybe their dad's in the hospital, they text their mom. Like we don't know what's actually happened in reality. And so what happens is you notice the body getting really anxious and you think, what was I just thinking? Oh my God, I'm in that pattern of I'm not good enough. I'm in that pattern of he must have thought that I looked really fat in that dress and I probably should have worn the other

one. I should have worn black instead of white because the white made me look like I was a little bit bigger. I should have worn the stripes. And like you go off on the whole thing or whatever it might've been when in reality it was three bubbles and the important thing is your body is always going to tell you what's going on you just have to take a step back and have the the the thought process of like what's my body trying to tell me oh i was off in another land that what doesn't even exist in reality yeah wow it's fantastic following on from that point what would you say to someone who is saying but the entire evidence of my life so far has been that those three little bubbles right have for me yeah meant that i'm not good enough i'm not attractive enough they're almost certainly texting somebody else because I'm just, you know, a bit of fun for a

moment, but I'm always, you know, I hear this a lot. I'm like the woman before the woman they marry or I never get past the second date. And that has, you know, it's, they just feel like they have a mountain of evidence for that story. So the objectivity of looking at the three bubbles and just saying they're just three bubbles feels just or it almost feels like uh you know it would be the ultimate act of like cognitive dissonance to try to create that objectivity when the world seems to have taught them you know we we for example see that some people get a thousand times more attention sure than other people and in the moment we might experience i don't know a crude example someone walking off from us to go and talk to someone who we see as objectively

more attractive and just the kind of person that's surrounded all the time we may focus on that and go well my the reality in this moment is just that a person who is standing in front of me has walked to the other side of the room to talk to somebody else but our mind is going yeah but you know better you know that you've never been the prettiest person you've never been the most handsome guy and that they always kind of go for the more handsome person or the prettier woman what would your advice be for applying that advice in that kind of a context yeah i, I'm going to definitely answer that question, but I'm just going to say something I think people probably need to ask themselves more often in dating. And it is, do you really want somebody who doesn't want you? Like, I don't think people ask themselves that enough. If somebody is not texting you back

and they're showing you signs that maybe they don't want you, do you really want somebody who's going to treat you like that? Is that how you feel like you deserve to be treated the rest of your life? Because if not, then maybe you should go find somebody who does want to be with you. So that's the first thing that I think, like, when we go back to the three bubbles, if they were texting another girl instead of you, do you want to be with somebody who wants to, who doesn't want to be with you? I, I, I don't want to be with somebody who doesn't want 100% to be with me. That's just the way that I feel. Now I understand in situations we have past experiences where it can show, okay, yeah, if I look at the

past, of course, there's all of these examples where I was left. He said that I wasn't good enough. I wasn't pretty if I wasn't smart enough. But a lot of times what I think is happening is, is we're creating a story in our head that's way worse than reality actually is. And so the reality is you saw the three bubbles or he didn't text you back. That's reality. And I always say, the amount of stress and anxiety that you feel in your life will be in direct proportion to how much you're resisting the way that the world is. And the way the world is, is he has not texted you back yet. The more that you resist it, the more that you're going to have anxiety, the more that you're going to have stress. If you can learn to accept that reality is he hasn't texted you back and maybe

he doesn't, maybe he doesn't, but at this moment he hasn't, then you can start to work with, okay, well, what's this trying to show me within myself? Because wherever we're triggered is just the universe showing us where we're not free. That's it. And so what tends to happen in this world is that the reason why patterns continue to keep coming to us is because we haven't learned our lesson from that pattern. The reason why you keep dating the exact same people is because you haven't learned that that's not the right type of person for you. Or the reason why people keep treating you this way is because you haven't learned that that's not the right type of person for you. Or the reason why people keep treating you this way is because you haven't learned that you teach people how to treat you. And so I think like, is there a whole lot of

experience in your past where it shows you you've been quote unquote, not good enough? Sure. But that's also another story of I'm not good enough being placed on top of it. Relationships work, relationships don't work. Like I, can I look at all of my past relationships before my wife and say they failed? I could, but I don't see any of them as a failure because they taught me everything that I needed to know to be the type of man to show up in the relationship that I'm currently in, to be able to be the person and the man that I am with my wife. Those weren't failures at all. Those are actually the most important lessons for me. And so I think that a lot of people look at them and they're like, Oh, another failed relationship. Oh, another person not texting

me back. But I think what's happening is we don't like read through the lines and say like, what am I actually supposed to learn from this? What's what lesson am I getting? Cause you know, you hear it all the time. Like I date the exact same person. They're always exactly the same. It's because you haven't learned the lesson. Have you taken a step back and said, what is the universe trying to teach me through this? And so for me, it's like, if you go into, I would say like your brain is like cosmic Google, right? If you go into, it's funny, if you go into Google and you type, is coffee bad for your eyesight? All kinds of studies show that coffee is bad for your eyesight. If you go into, it's funny, if you go into Google and you type, is coffee bad for your eyesight? All kinds of studies show that coffee is bad for your eyesight. If you go into Google and type,

is coffee good for your eyesight? All kinds of studies come in and show you that coffee is good for your eyesight. Your brain is the exact same way. So what happens is if you sit there and you say, oh, this person's not texting me back. How is this, you know, how am I not good enough? Your brain's going to find all of the ways where you're not good enough from your past. But if you sit there and you consciously try to get yourself out of a pattern and say, hey, brain, how am I good enough? And you actually quote unquote, Google that in your cosmic Google of your brain. Even if there's not as many examples, there are still examples. And if I'm trying to repattern the not good enough into the good enough, then what I'm going to do is I'm going to try to consciously pay attention to those as much as I possibly can to make myself feel like I'm actually good enough that's beautiful and you and you what you'll likely end up doing is also

changing the paradigm of what makes you good enough it won't be based around the old metrics right that you're trying to base it around. Right. Yeah. And what's important about it too is like, you know, like it's, it's funny, man. And you might have gone on this journey in life, but like you're incredibly successful, right? And you have this amazing house and you've, you've got followers and stuff. And I've gotten to points of my life where I'm successful and I have a great house and a great wife and I have everything that I ever wanted. And one day I woke up and I was like, I don't feel different. I still, I thought all of the things I thought making this money, I thought this achievement, these followers, this beautiful wife, this relationship, a great dog that is more

obsessed with me than any animal alive. Like everything is amazing. And I woke up and I was like, I'm still have this a little bit underlying feeling of not good enough and stressed out. And I need to achieve more and I need to do more. And we always search for the external to heal the internal and it never will ever. And so I think the practice that, that most people need to come to if they really want to just be better in life, but also better relationships is how can I make myself know that no matter what I do, no matter what I see, no matter how much money I make, no matter how pretty I look, no matter how many followers I have, that there is nothing that can make you make me more worthy of love than I currently

am. And that's what people need to hear is they think that they need to do something to be worthy of love. There's nothing that you could do or say or be to make you more worthy of love than you already are. And the person whose love you deserve more than anybody else's is your own how do you i'm so curious what your thoughts are on the kind of for one of a maybe a better example like the the jordan peterson strand of you will be more by making your bed and tidying your room and getting out there and being a person of value who contributes who you know there's a very kind of pull yourself up by your bootstraps kind of mentality to it which i don't uh i don't disagree with and it is clearly helpful for so many people but it could be read as a

kind of once you do those things you'll be worthy of right yeah as opposed to you're inherently worthy of love I'm wondering how you square those two kind of contexts yeah I mean I think you can live in both realities. Like I, I am, uh, a hard core, just put my, my head down and bash my head through a wall work ethic type of person. And I am the type of person who wants to achieve and wants to, uh, do amazing things in this world. But I also know that none of it matters. None of it, right? Like I had a really good conversation with Jay Shetty when I was in his podcast and we got like deep into some spiritual stuff. And he said something to me that was like, I've never said those words or heard

those words, but that's the way I've been trying to live. And it is that everything that we do, I mean, like for everything that I do, the Minds of Mentor podcast, everything that you do with, with your book and with your podcasts and everything that you put out into the world and the people who follow you, like everything that we do is very, very significant, but it is also incredibly insignificant. And we've got to be able to see the duality of both of those things. It doesn't mean that I wake up in the morning and realize it's so insignificant. I'm going to do nothing. It is because in a thousand years, nobody's going to know who I am and they're not going to know who you are. And I am, I'm okay with nobody knowing who I am now and nobody knowing who I am after I die because I'm not doing it for that, for that

reason. And so what I think is important is it is incredibly significant to significant to go out there and to create the life that you want to and to have the success and to be healthy and to work out and make your body work better and to show love to people and be that type of person. It's incredibly significant for you to do that. But none of it is going to fill the void within yourself. And the thing that will is turning it around every once in a while and saying, you know what? None of those, none of those achievements are going to make me feel better about myself. The only thing that's going to make me feel better about myself is if I try to heal the wounds that are inside of me that only I can heal.

And it's, it's now mind you. And I promise you this 10 years ago, Rob would have been like, what the hell is this guy talking about? Right? Like, I swear to you, like none of it would make any sense, but I feel like, like the, the, the people who listen to this podcast are probably on the level where they can understand this. Right. And they can understand, oh yeah, I'm at the point where I get this. I didn't, I didn't, it made no sense to me years ago. And I have people like, yeah, you deserve to love yourself. And I'm like, cool dude, but I also want to make money. So shut up. Right. Like I was at that point. And I think that it takes time to evolve into the point of realizing, um, you can make millions of dollars. How many, how many incredibly successful people

kill themselves? You know, it's like, it's so sad being, I think, and I don't, I don't know. And I've, I've, I've known people who have, and I don't know what's going through their head and there's, there's traumas or things that happening. But I think there's also part of a lot of successful people as they think that getting success is going to make me finally feel good enough. And then they get there and realize, I still feel the same that I did at 10 years old and it didn't give them anything. And so I think like, it is very important to go out and do something amazing in this world and to, to treat people with kindness. And it's very significant, but there's also a very huge level of insignificance as well with it, which I think actually for me, at least personally

makes it, uh, makes it feel more fun. Makes it feel like a playground. Like I love my wife. It stresses her out to see it, but I love watching videos about like how small we are, like how many stars and how small the planet is compared to like the universe and she's like this is stressing me out I'm like I love it because it shows you that nothing matters and if nothing matters then I can do whatever I want and I can be like a kid again and be free and realize that the judgments of other people don't matter and I can just be who I want to be you and I have the more we talk the more I realize how much you and i have in common that i'm curious just as an aside or whether you feel you could have learned that lesson

had nothing gone well for you if you hadn't attained a degree of success and status and so on you know it's it's a kind of of gift to learn that it doesn't work. Yeah. But for as long as you never get it, it still holds some kind of seductive mystery. Yeah. It's like, it's better to be crying in a Ferrari than a Toyota or something like that phrase that I've heard before. Well, at least, and at least if you're crying in the Ferrari, you're no longer trying to get the Ferrari. Right. Correct. You know, the danger of course, is you you're no longer trying to get the Ferrari right correct you know the danger of course is you spend your whole life trying to get the Ferrari because and never getting it but in the meantime losing all of your time to that pursuit yeah do you think

you and of course this applies in a love life context as well I think that one of the things that unfortunately plagues a lot of guys is that they, they never get to a point where being single feels like it doesn't kind of work for them or, or just being in hookup mode or whatever doesn't work for them. Or that frankly, being with the cheerleader at school that they thought they wanted and spend the rest of their life trying to get in some way right they never find that that person doesn't make them nearly as happy as they thought or makes them miserable or they want a deeper connection than the one they had with that person let's say because they never feel like they they attained it they never got to run the experiment right um And I think a lot of women suffer because of guys who feel like they've never

got theirs. They never, they never got to run the experiment and therefore they're never happy. Even if they find a great person. Yeah. Do you think you could have found that piece if you didn't attain it? And what would your advice be? Even maybe we point the question to guys who

may be listening to this who feel like they never got to the point of experiencing the things that they thought would make them happy and therefore they still can't get out of their head that if i could just live that entourage lifestyle and just get that kind of a woman or whatever, then all my problems would be solved. Yeah. God, that's a great question. I've never thought of it before, but even the guy from entourage lives in Austin on a farm with all of his children. So he even left the entourage life. Right. So, uh, he's, uh, he's out there now. Um, but he lived it, right? Yeah. Well, on TV, he lived it. yeah well on tv he lived it right yeah right right yeah like that what about the person who never does it's a good question man i think that even though

i was so caught up in the game for a very long time there was still a part of me that knew it was just a game and there was still a part of me that knew that it wouldn't get me so i'll put it this way there's still a part of me that still knew that it wouldn't fulfill me, but I still wanted to go on the journey and go get it. Right? So I think there's some people that don't need to be successful and don't care to make money and they can make, you know, 40, 50, $70,000 a year and have a family and pay their bills and they are incredibly content. And I am incredibly jealous of them because they got there and they, they, they, they felt it, um, without having to go through and bashing their head through a lot of walls and putting themselves through a whole lot

of turmoil of when I get there, I will finally feel that way. I think if people try to put their life in a perspective more often, I think that's a lot of, there's, I think a lot of people don't have enough perspective on life, which is if somebody is listening to this podcast, they're better off than like 99% of the world, most likely, you know, and you might sit there and say like, yeah, but you know, this is happening in my life. It's not me saying that life is perfect all of the time and that, that hardships don't come up cause they always do. But I think people are always looking in on, you know, Instagram and saying like, well, I don't have, I haven't traveled to this place. Like they have, I don't have the car. Like they have, I don't have the business. Like they have, I don't have the house. Like they have. But if you take

a step back, you can also see like, wow, but I'm also living in a place where I have food, water, shelter, clothing. And in, you. And 150,000 people died yesterday. And no matter how shitty you think your life is, if all 150,000 people had the opportunity to switch with you, they would. How often do you think about that? It's like very, very free. Very rarely do we think about how great our life actually is compared to the rest of the world, the rest of everything else that's happening. And so, um,

for my personality type, I, that's a really good question. I don't know if I would have ever gotten it. Cause I have the personality type of achieving, achieving, achieving, go, go, go. Like when you look at like strengths, find your test, my number one is competitiveness. And so like, I think that some people, um, find the thing that kind of lights them up inside. And if I'm being truly honest with you, like I would still be doing the exact thing I'm doing, same thing I'm doing now. If I wasn't making, I made $0 off my podcast for four and a half years, right. To put like a thousand episodes out and made $0 on it. Cause it felt like the thing that lit me up inside. I think that if I would have just continued

on the journey of working on myself, if I would have had a job where I was making decent money, but I had my podcast and I had a place of self-expression, I had a place, you know, the podcast is very cathartic for me as well. And like sharing my story and being vulnerable and, you know, taking the things that I used to try to hide from people and bring them to light so that I don't feel like they have more

control over me anymore. I think I would have probably gotten to the exact same place, but I don't think we get there unless we're actually trying to, I don't think, I think that we can all find peace, but I think in the society that we live in, it's hard for us to find peace unless we're seeking it. I think that you can get peace without having to seek it, but I don't know if it's possible in the society that we live in. And so I think that for me, I would have eventually found it. But, you know, like we said in the podcast on, on,

on my show of me and you, I think that what expedited the process was actually not having a successful business and building the company and all of that stuff. I think it was actually the relationship that I have with my wife that expedited the process for me. So I think that if I had her and I was able to pay my bills and I was able to have some fun and grow a family, I would have still gotten to the same place. I don't know if it would have happened sooner. I don't know if it would have happened, taken longer, but I think as long as someone's on the journey of, I want more peace in my life. I want more love. Maybe I should give it to myself.

Eventually get to a point where there's there, if we're seeking peace, I think eventually they will eventually find more peace. And I think that's also like a lifelong journey. I don't expect, like, I don't think, I'm incredibly flawed and I don't think I'm perfect in any sort of way. I think I'm in the best situation I've ever been in my entire life and I'm extremely grateful for it. But I don't think I'm ever going to be a point where I get like, I got it all figured out.

Because I still wake up and feel anxious sometimes and I still wake up and feel stressed and I still wake up and feel anxious sometimes. And I still wake up and feel stressed. And I still wake up and feel like I'm not good enough. And if I live to a hundred years old, I probably still will have a little bit of those feelings inside of me, but that's what makes it a journey and not getting to the destination. And I think it's like, as long as I can enjoy the passage of time in my life, then I think that's what makes everything better. I think that's a stunning answer.

And some people may hear that and almost feel pessimistic because it feels like a life sentence. But I actually think what that misses is how much a few percentage points in a positive direction on the things that we've always struggled with right makes a profound difference to your quality of life oh my god yes it's huge you don't actually i think what overwhelms us is thinking we need to eliminate the the parts of ourselves whether it's anxiety or stress or depression or whatever it may be, that we need to eliminate those in order to be happy and have a good quality of life. And if eliminating them is possible, then I'm screwed. But actually, just a few degrees of difference changes your quality of life profoundly. For sure.

I think it's kind of like um anxiety is a good thing at the moments where it needs to be around like if you're walking in a dark alley and you start to get a really anxious feeling your body might be sending you a signal right it is it is built into the human system for a reason and it's a protection mechanism. But if anxiety is running the show all day long, well then it's a problem. And so it's like when it has control over you, it becomes a problem. When you have control over it, it just becomes another thing that's a piece of the whole human of who you are. And I think that's what's important for people to understand.

And like, I don't expect to ever get to like, I'll be truly honest. Like I've, you know, I'm about to be 38 next month and I started in personal development at 19. So half of my life I've been working on myself. And I would say the first 17 years, I was like, when in the hell am I going to get there? I thought that like I was working towards a destination and that caused more anxiety, more stress. Cause I was like, I'm still not there yet. The past couple of years I've been like, there is no there to get to. It's about how can I just make myself a little bit less stressed out, a little bit happier, a little bit more peaceful today. And as I focus on that versus focusing on all the ways that I'm not good enough, not smart enough, whatever it might be not successful enough. But if I just focus on,

can I make myself a little bit happier, a little bit more peaceful, a little bit less stressed out over time, the past couple of years of working on, I'm like, yeah, there is no, there is no place to get to. There was no destination. And going back to like the whole feeling of being worthy. One of the ways that it really popped up in my head, I understood it. There was a meditation I used to do all the time by a guy named Muji, M OO-O-J-I. And he's in the meditation, he says, you have no pockets, you have no storehouse. And what he means by that is there's nothing that you could ever do to add to who you currently are. Like when you came into this world, you were completely naked. When you leave this world, you're leaving alone and naked as well,

which means that none of the things that we do or achieve or whatever it might be is ever going to make us more than who we came into this world as and if we can kind of have that perspective and start to allow that mindset to seep into ourselves i think just a little bit more peace comes in because of it i love that it reminds me of when you i forget what the, which birds pick up like random bits of trash and like start like decorating their nest with them. They'll pick up like, yeah, they're like grab bottle caps and, you know, all sorts of other junk that they just find. And they like, they like collect them like their treasures in their nest. And we can look at that from the outside and be like this is so absurd i none of these things this bird has any real value right and b it's not it doesn't change this bird at all it's just decorating its nest with a bunch of like random objects that we've thrown away and then you go

what is it any different about what we do what we spend our lives doing so true than what that bird is doing yeah i i have two two more questions and and like you said we need to talk more because yeah i really i really value your approach and i really value the the learning that you've clearly done, how seriously you take your craft and that it clearly has been a road for you. And, you know, there are a lot of people who do things for a very long time and they stay still.

And, you know, I remember about 10 years ago, a friend of mine who's a lot older saying to me once at his house he goes so i'm curious what are you it's very smart guy and he was just like i'm curious what are you doing to like keep up and like stay informed and i remember at the time thinking to like to myself i'm not a journalist like i don't what do you mean stay informed like and i and it kind of probably some part of me felt uncomfortable with him saying that right because i knew that i had somehow decided what i know right uh instead of learning and you know i i look back now and i'm like oh the reason i was

uncomfortable is because for whatever in that time i wasn't necessarily growing i decided i know the answers to things yeah and he he really needled that and i look at you and i i look at someone who clearly keeps growing and the the vulnerability that you bring to the table is really really beautiful and brave and i just i hope you keep doing it I hope you just keep learning new things and keep being as open as you are because it's very clear to me why you have the following you do and why you have the podcast you do thanks man and by the way before I ask these these last two questions which we can keep brief because we'll save longer answers for the next time we see Rob but

Rob has a book called Level Up, How to Get Focused, Stop Procrastinating, and Upgrade Your Life. So if you want to engage with Rob's work, two immediate ways you can do it are by going to grab a copy of this book and also by going and subscribing to the Mindset Mentor podcast,

which is Rob's extremely popular and successful podcast. Two quick things. One, when, you know, you, you alluded earlier in the podcast to your wife having to do her own work. And I don't, you know, feel free to just go as far as you feel comfortable going, given that she's not here, but she doesn't mind mind we're we're very open we'll tell everything well i suppose you know there there will be a lot of people listening to this who wonder like how did she kind of work on that because if my guy said that to me said to me you know i'd be okay if i wasn't with you if i if this relationship ended i'd be fine yeah and i totally understand the context in which you said that but a lot of people would feel insecure about

that and it would bring up all of this stuff for them about well if he would be fine leaving me then where's the barrier to exit right he could leave me at any moment it's made me feel incredibly unsafe and especially if you're with someone that you feel has options, that's even more profound. Yeah. Because it's like they, not only would they be fine, but they'd have plenty of other options if they left. And it feels like that's a threat to the relationship. What would be your advice to people out there who are on the receiving end of someone saying

something like that? Yeah. Which I agree with you. The strength of that statement is that I am choosing you. Right. And I'm not doing it from a place of lack, which God help you if I ever get to abundance, if the only reason I'm staying here is from a place of lack and scarcity.

So in a way, what I'm saying is my agency and my choice is your safety. However, when you're not hearing it that way, you're just hearing, oh my God, this is a threat. What would you say to people who feel that way? Yeah. Great question. I mean, it's, and you, you, you teed it up perfectly, which is what I was saying behind the scenes is I'm choosing you, not, I need you, any of that type of stuff. And so, yeah, it definitely triggered her in some ways, you know, where she was, she, she got triggered by that. We should, we should have another, when we do another episode,

we should actually bring her in and you could ask her these questions. All four of us on it. By the way, for everyone wondering what happened, did Audrey pass out mid episode? We kicked her out. She, she, she had to leave um halfway through the podcast for a personal engagement so um we she would have loved to have been here for the rest everyone's like wait hold on wasn't audrey there what happened like they're just gaslighting people what do you mean audrey was on the podcast it was always me going crazy um I think you're going crazy. Yeah, man, I think it's a really good question.

I think that my overall view of the entire game of life that we're playing, like, so I'll give you a couple of things. The book originally was going to be called The Psychology of Taking Action. And then that doesn't sound very sexy because people don't want to just take action, right? So we came up with Level Up

because of the way that I actually see the world is through the lens of this is like a video game. And I don't ever play video games now, but when I played video games as a kid, the thing that I always remember about them is that the levels always got harder. And with each, before you got to a new level, there was another challenge that would come into for you to try to battle and to conquer from and for you to get better. And you get better with every single level that you go through. And so the idea of like leveling up was this. How would your perspective of life change if you saw life as just a big video game?

And when something does trigger you, you go, okay, hold on. I'm noticing once again, as that guy on the podcast said, my body's shifting. Something's happening in my body. Why is that? And so no matter what somebody says to you, it has no authority to change the way that you feel. You give it the authority. So it's kind of like Eleanor Roosevelt's quote, which is, no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

So if you're feeling a certain way, it's because you're consenting to feel that way. So if I say to somebody, I don't need you here, but I want you here, that can be viewed a million different ways. And the way that you view it is the way that you view it. And so if I feel triggered by that, if I'm in her situation and the way that she could do it is she could take a step back and be like, man, I'm feeling really triggered. Why do I feel so triggered in this moment? Does it have to do with him or does it have to do with me? And most of the time it has to do with me. And then at that point in time, we need to go back to what I was saying earlier, which is at that point in time, become curious and start asking yourself questions.

You know, imagine that you were, you know, sitting and you're a, um, somebody that's a journalist, just sitting, trying to answer, get all of these questions answered. What questions would you want? If you could sit down with yourself and say, Hey, look, Stacy, I just noticed that you got really triggered by this comment that your boyfriend just made. Why do you think that triggered you? And then just become curious with yourself and answer from two different perspectives. The person asking the question, the interviewer and the interviewee, and then say, you know, is it reminding you of your childhood? Is it reminding you of past relationships? Is it possible that there's another viewpoint that you could see? And so what I find

is that a lot of people have the same thoughts over and over and over again, and those thoughts turn into beliefs, but beliefs are not reality. And I don't think people really understand that. Your beliefs are not absolute reality. And so you can think, I'm not good enough, I'm not good enough, I'm not good enough. And then you think that so much that that becomes your belief. It doesn't mean that's reality. It doesn't mean that by somebody saying, I want to be with you, but I don't have to be with you. When you take a step back and you say, like, why am I triggered in that situation? Well, what you're noticing is that that is triggering within you

a story that you're perpetuating your own head about yourself. And then you say, okay, well, can I see another viewpoint? And so with those beliefs, I always want to try to question every thought and every belief that I have. So I always say like, imagine that you're on the debate team, right? Like, so back in high school, there was always a debate team and you have been on the side of not good enough for a really long time. And that triggering is showing you the side that you're on. Can you for five minutes come to the other side and debate yourself and say, is it possible that Rob wasn't saying that you're not good enough. What could he have been saying? He could have been saying, I choose to be with you. And okay, is it more important that he chooses

to be with me or that he wants to be with me? Let me get curious around that. And so we're so firm in our beliefs and thoughts around ourselves that we need to go to the other side and debate the other side and try to pull apart in cognitive behavioral therapy. They say, question the validity of the thought. When you have a thought like that, question how valid it is. And what you realize is the more that you start to question it, the less that it holds weight. And you realize that your entire belief system is basically a house of cards and you just got to give it a good, and the whole thing just crumbles. But most people won't take themselves out of the house

in order to blow it down. And so I think if people would just become more aware and say, it's not him that said that to me, it's how I received it that made me feel that way. Yeah. I feel like this question could become like a new tradition when we have a male guest, but we'll see. Okay. One of the things that things that to be honest only came to my awareness in the last year or so was what seems to be i don't know if it is or not but what seems to be a growing number of men online who are very angry very disillusioned right very resentful i've noticed it too yeah yeah i found it disturbing and a bit scary and and sad and you know i for for a while i ignored it because i was like this just isn't my area you know i don't i predominantly work with women although shout out to all of our male

listeners because i know that there's just a growing contingent of of male listeners and people from the lgtbq community but but i feel like i can't keep ignoring it because it's if we're not somehow compassionately lending a voice to those people then you know we're not we're not part of a change in helping heal whatever's going on there and bringing men and women together and a huge part of of our ethos is we want to bring men and women together we don't want to be part of this content cycle that is constantly stoking differences between men and women all the time and almost fetishizing men are like this women are like this and it and so i'm just curious if you were to send a message to guys out there who who really either feel like they're already deep in that world of resentment and frustration

or feel tempted by it because you know either their mentors are preaching that or they feel very disillusioned with how they've been treated by women by society what would be your message to them that could help uh them become the best version of themselves and also one day be a great partner and be a great for want of a better word friend and ally to women in this world yeah it's an incredible question. When I see people, because I've worked with so many people that have gone through the worst things that I can possibly imagine,

the stories that I've heard from people and the stuff that people have shared with me, men and women, it's kind of just like a byproduct of what I do and what I choose to do. Whenever I see an adult, I actually see a child in an adult's body. And I always try to think what happened to make them that way. And so, you know, I was driving to Santa Monica the other day to go on a podcast and there was a lady that was, um, you know, homeless lady that was in a chair or wheelchair

and she was curled over and she was clearly on drugs. And I just thought like, man, what did, what did that little girl have to go through? And it's, it's fucking heartbreaking for me, if I'm being honest of what people go through. And so I think what we're looking at and what's kind of becoming, coming to a fever pitch in, in, in the world right now are problems in our society. Are there immediate fixes for them? I don't think that there are, but I do know that I used to be a very angry 20, 30 or 20, 25 year old, 23 year old as well. Um, just because of the fact that it was a protection mechanism because I was so hurt

and so wounded. Um, and I used to be the type of person that would try to hurt you first so that you wouldn't even try to hurt me because I was so wounded and vulnerable. And it got to a point where years ago, I remember sitting down by myself and being like, do I just not feel anymore? Like, do I not feel feelings? And I was like, I had to Google like, what is, what is like a sociopath? Like what is a psychopath? Like, and I was like, am I, am I like, do I have no feelings? And what I realized is that I had built up so many walls cause I was so afraid of feeling because that's kind of what I was taught. And that was a protection mechanism that was built within myself. And so I think within me,

what I realized, I always say, I'm about five seconds from crying all the time. I relate to that. Right. And so it's like for me, put on a movie, good chance I'm tearing up.

If it's a little bit emotional, a little bit sad. But I was so afraid of feeling that cause I was taught that that was wrong. And were you taught that directly or just growing up in an environment where it felt like your feelings didn't matter because there was so much to manage around you? Yeah. I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't that nobody ever specifically said that my feelings didn't matter, but I don't think that my family was good with emotions. We weren't good at talking through things. And I think that's why I've become good at this is because I had to figure myself out. But what I came to realize is that I was toxically masculine because of the fact that I was afraid.

And I don't know what the immediate fix is, but I think my immediate thought is that it comes back to people in parenting. And I don't know if it can be fixed in the next 5, 10, 15 years, but I think the people that are listening to this podcast, we have to fix it with the children that we raise. You know, I don't know if I don't know what's going to happen. I don't think I have a good answer for it, but I do know from my own personal perspective that, um, there was definitely a time where I felt like, um, I had to hide my emotions and it wasn't safe and not only hide them, but be overly masculine and toxic in that way so that

you wouldn't even see my emotions or try to get my emotions out of me. And, um, I think what we're seeing is just a product of our society. And every time I see something that, that is every time that I see something that I don't like in society for a a long time it was, I want them to change. I want that to change. I want society to change. Now, whenever I see something, I say, is there an aspect of that that lives inside of me? Because it's kind of like the Gandhi quote, which is to be the changes you want to see in the world. I can't change anybody.

I can't fix anybody. The only thing that I can do is try to work on myself. Because if I go out into the world, if I look in and I say, if there, if, if someone's an asshole online, is there a part of Rob that's still an asshole? Yeah, there is. Okay. Can I work on that? Because as I change myself, and as you were saying, like the peace that we feel, and we were talking about earlier, like how much more peaceful Lewis feels from the work he's done on himself, as I can make myself more peaceful and go out into the world and me put my message and talk to more people and talk on my podcast and talk on other

podcasts and yours, I think that people start to hear the message and they go, you know what? Like, yeah, maybe I should start to work on myself. And I think that's really the best thing that we can do is to be an example, me and you, of men that are on, kind of have a spotlight on us, of what it looks like to be comfortable in our masculine, comfortable in our feminine, and comfortable with being vulnerable and putting ourself out there. And I think that we can't force that onto somebody, but somebody can look at us and go, yeah, I actually want to kind of be more like them and just to really be the lighthouse. So I think that that's,

that's kind of my job is to try to be more of that and just be that and not try to show it and not try to push it out into the world. Just be that for people to be like, man, he seems like he's got something that I want and that peace, that happiness. And maybe I should see what they're doing. And it's kind of like the thing that we spoke about where like, if you have a friend that comes to your house and they've lost 50 pounds, you go, what happened?

Right. It's like the same thing where it's like, you seem so much more peaceful. What happened? Or you see someone online, like there's mentors. Someone asked me the other day, like, what do you think of mentors? How do you find mentors? I'm like, there's mentors online that you can never meet ever. I have so many mentors that are dead. You know, they died 20, 30, 40 years ago. And so it's like, some people are going to come across our videos or our podcasts or whatever it is, however we're being in the world. And they're going to go, yeah, that seems kind of nice. I wonder what they're doing. Maybe I should try to follow that path. So for me, it's like, how can I be more of what I want to see in the world? And

hopefully some of those people will come across me and say, you know what? I want to start to change myself as well. Stunning. I've really, really loved this, Rob. Thanks, man. I love this too. This is fun. I think this is going to be an instant favorite

from people who listen to our podcast. I feel like there's going to be a lot of people who i mean send me an email let me know what you thought of this podcast at matthewhussy.com um i feel like there's gonna be a lot of people who are like this is an all-time favorite on the podcast appreciate that and it has been for me i really i feel like we have so much to talk about i relate so much to the things you're saying and um yeah i feel like it's the beginning of a of a new friendship yeah me too yeah you make it easy though too like you're really good at your questions you you you you you're you're there's sometimes that you get

interviewed to people and they have like their specific things that they want to know and they want to hear and you can tell but it's like you you flow with it and once it's easy when someone else is is okay to be vulnerable because then you can be more vulnerable. And you've, you've given me the space to be more vulnerable, which allows us to be able to talk about those things. Oh, thank you, man. Yeah. Uh, where can people find you? I mentioned your book. Yeah. They can buy the book if they want to. It's called level up. And, um, the main place is the mindset mentor podcast. It comes out four times a And the main place is the Mindset Mentor podcast. It comes out four times a week.

We're at like 1,400 podcast episodes at this point. Amazing. Yeah, it was just this thing that I started nine years ago just because I felt like I had kind of improved myself and I kind of felt obligated to teach to other people. And we have 1,400 episodes. And it's crazy to me to think that we have 300 million downloads of it because I didn't even think we were going to get to a million ever. And so, um, so that's my main place. That's my, that's my therapy session for myself. I use myself as a Guinea pig.

Um, I don't like teaching things unless actually like I do it myself. And so I think it's, um, it's been, it's been the most cathartic thing that's ever happened in my life because it allowed me to be like, you know what, I'm going to start being vulnerable. Because when my dad passed away, I never told anybody. Just kept it in. Kept it all in like I was just used to doing. And then when I started the podcast, I was like, I'm going to talk about it. I'm going to freely talk about these things. And what I've come to realize is that the more that you can freely talk about those things the more people go I'm not the only one and I think if if more people has had like

the feeling of I'm not the only one and there's other people out there like me and there's other people trying to work themselves I think the everybody would just have a little bit less stress and anxiety and so yeah the Minds Mentor podcast amazing, thank you, brother. Yeah. Thank you, man. I hope you enjoyed the interview guys. Let me know what you think. Podcast at matthewhussey.com. Let me know what you want us to do in future episodes. And remember before you go on the 19th of March, we are doing the love life reset. Our. It is happening once, live only. Come join us. I promise you it is gonna be an incredible event, both for people who feel like

they've been struggling in dating so far and nothing's been working and they just need a fresh start and a new approach, and for people who have reached a point in their life where they feel like, I never thought I'd be dating at this age. I never thought I'd be dating again. I never thought I'd be out there trying to find love again.

I thought this part of my life was already taken care of. And now here I am single again. And in the wild west of finding love in 2024, this is for you. Go to lovelifetraining.com. Sign up for free now and we'll send you an email with all the details. Thank you so much as always for watching or listening to the Love Life Podcast. Be well and love life. you