the bossbabe podcast - 273. Jay Shetty on Breaking The Illusion Of Romance To Find True Love

Episode Date: February 14, 2023

Do you find yourself comparing your love life to that of fairy tales + rom coms and are unsure how to truly be happy and confident in your relationships? Jay Shetty, #1 New York Times bestselling author, award-winning podcast host of On Purpose and Chief Purpose Officer of Calm, returns for a third appearance on the bossbabe podcast to talk about his evolving relationship with the concept of love, writing his second book 8 Rules of Love and how, through self-love and self-understanding, we can greatly improve our relationships with the people in our lives. This one is packed with takeaway wisdom whether you’re in a good relationship, one that could use some TLC or just looking to enhance your connection to the world around you. If you want the secrets to finding and keeping great love (and when to let it go), this is the episode for you. Highlights: A peek into Jay and Radhi’s relationship: learn what it really means to be a “perfect” match. The most important thing you can do for your love life AND your business’ success. Is winning the argument costing you your relationship? Jay’s Rule #6. Links: 8 Rules Of Love by Jay Shetty Catch Jay on his first ever world tour 'Love Rules' Love Languages Quiz The Real BTS of Building My Business with Jay Shetty #146 Follow: Jay Shetty: @jayshetty bossbabe: @bossbabe.inc Danielle Canty: @daniellecanty

What I learned through writing this book was that the love you have with your parents, the love you have with your children, the love you have with your colleagues, the love you have with your brother or your sister, those are all equal forms of love. They're beautiful and cherish all of them. Don't fall for the illusion that's been created by society that if you don't have a partner, then you don't have the peak form of love. A boss babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise, keep going and fighting on. She is on a mission to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself. Confidently stepping

outside her comfort zone to create her own vision of success. Welcome to the Boss Babe Podcast, the place where we share with you the real behind the scenes of building successful businesses, achieving peak performance, and learning how to balance it all. I'm your host, Danielle Canty, and today was one of my favorite episodes yet. As you guys know, I went through a divorce about two years ago. And well, actually, we separated two years ago. It takes a lot longer for that divorce to actually go through. But I did a lot of soul searching on that. Why did the relationship break down? Were there things I could have done differently? What are my learnings? And ultimately, why did that chapter come to an end in my life? And through that, I've learned a lot about myself and I've learned a lot about

relationships that I like to curate around me. And so when Jay Shetty decided he was bringing out the book, Eight Rules of Love, I said to Jay, please come on the Body Story podcast and talk about how people can grow in partnership together. And you are going to absolutely love this episode, whether you're in a relationship or not. I think it's really, really insightful. We talked about how to find a partner, what those values are. And if you are in a relationship, how to have consistent drop-ins and conversations about whether you're both happy, what your love languages are. And if you're not happy, how can you actually go about changing it? But here's one of the things I learned on this episode is that we

often look for love within our relationships, our romantic relationships, but how much love can we be bringing to the relationships around you? I would love for you to listen to this podcast with the idea of how can I bring more love into this world? How can I grow and strengthen the relationships around me, whether they are romantic relationships or not anyway I hope you enjoy this podcast Jay was a phenomenal guest and it really was one of my favorite ones and I'd also love for you to share your takeaways with myself at Danielle Canty and also at Jay Shetty because we're going to be sharing some of them so thanks again and and appreciate you always listening. Jay, welcome back.

Third time on the Boss Baby podcast. What an honor to have you here. I love it. It's so good. It is the third time, isn't it? Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah, because you came on, first of all, I think it was 2019.

I think so too, yeah. With Nally and you were talking about social media growth. Then you came in 2020 with Radhi. Radhi, yeah. We were talking about the behind. Actually, we kind of touched relationships a little bit in that episode. We did, we did. Because you guys were just founding Sama, which is now Joyo.

Correct, yes. So that was really exciting, wasn't it? Yeah. And I'm really excited to get you on today because this is a subject that I've actually never discussed with you. And I really want to be chatting all things relationship and growing with a partner because the audience know, I think there's two ways that you either grow together and you stay together when you're on this journey, or sometimes you grow apart. And so I just really want to dial in a little bit more about what has made your relationship with Raddy get stronger

as you've gone through this journey versus move apart? Yeah, I want to start off by saying, first of all, I'm so grateful to be here. Thank you for having me. I love your energy. Like from the moment we walked in today, I was like, I don't think I know a happier, more vibrant, abundant person and your wonderful team too. And it's so beautiful to see that, but so grateful to be here. I want to start off by saying that whether you choose to grow together or whether you grow apart, one is not a success and one is not a failure. I think we think if two people grow apart, then they failed. They made a mistake. Something went wrong. And we think if

people grow together, then that's a win. That's a success. That should be celebrated. And I actually think it takes a lot of courage for someone to say we grew apart. It takes a lot of strength to say, we learned everything we needed to learn. Now we're no longer going to learn together. And it takes a lot of honesty and vulnerability to say, thank you so much. I'm so grateful, but I think my path's going another way. And I think if we look at it that way, we also don't force false relationships. Like growing together isn't the same as forcing yourself to be together. And I think often people say we're growing together, but really we're just settling. We're accepting less than we deserve.

We're pushing ourselves to be okay. We're convincing ourselves that we should be grateful and we should be happy. And so I just wanted to clarify that, you know, at the beginning. And at the same time, I'd also like to say that, you know, Radhi and I do not have a perfect relationship because there is no such thing as a perfect relationship. And anything that's good about our relationship is because of a few things. One is there's a high degree of forgiveness both ways. There's a high degree of mutual compassion and understanding. And the third thing I'd say is that both of us

are not trying to change each other and know that that's not the goal of a relationship. And so if there has been any good, and if it is going in the right direction, it's because of these three things. And I think the day we can't do these three things for each other, we won't grow together, we'll grow apart. And so really, it's about committing to these three things more than it is committing to a person,

because the things help you keep the relationship flourishing. I love that. And I think that's such a great taking a step back and looking at that way. Because I do think in society, there's like, oh, did your marriage work out or did your marriage fail? And definitely through my journey, I've looked back and I was like, I would not change this absolute thing about that. I just learned all the lessons I needed to in that book, so-called closed at that point. But I'm really curious, like a lot of people, like when they're on this entrepreneurial journey, I always think entrepreneurial journey is like teaches you

all the life lessons in a very short period of time. Like it's like accelerate your growth and how you need to show up all the lessons that you need to learn. Because if you have anything that's triggering you, a blind spot, you are going to find it during that point. And I'm really curious as to how, when you've gone on like from being a monk to the following the limelight that you have, how have you addressed that within relationships as you have gone? What are the discussions that you've taken? What are the lessons from being a monk that you have that you have gone? What are the discussions that you've taken? What are the lessons from being a monk that you have that you've now applied? And how do you think other people can apply them? Yeah, I think one of the first things when Radhia and I first got together,

which she's been the only person I've been with after I lived as a monk, was I was very self-aware and I was very open about my self-awareness. So I was very clear about this is the type of relationship I want. This is the kind of human being I am. If you're looking for someone who's like this, I'm not your guy. Like I was just very open and honest where in the past, I would have molded myself to be the person the person wanted me to be. So I would never have said who I really was. I would have said, I can be that and I can be anything you want me to be. So I would never have said who I really was. I would have said, I can be that. And I can be anything you want me to be. And that's almost seen as romantic and poetic. We think that if someone looks at us in the eyes and says, I can be anything you want me to be, I'm ready to be anything you want me to be, that that's love. And really, I think for me,

during my time as a monk, I learned that love was expressing who I truly am. And I was having this thought earlier today that if your relationship starts as an interview, it will end as a firing, right? Ooh, that is a good one. Right? If you start a relationship as an interview, like I'm trying to be the best version of myself and impress you,

and you're trying to be the best version of yourself and impress me, then one of us is going to fire the other because in three months, when the facade is down and the masks are off, I'm going to say, you're not who I thought you were. And we've all heard that or we've all said that. And the reason we've all heard and said that is because we know people put their best foot forward. So I think what I learned from my monk life was to be fully honest, to be fully transparent, to be fully open about who I was. And then even if the girl I wanted to be with didn't want to be with that, that was better

than me lying to her. And so I said that to Radhi. And so Radhi always knew she married a purpose driven human being who was fairly relentless and determined, type three on the Enneagram, as we discussed. And I knew that I married someone who was very family-oriented, who was obsessed with her mom and dad and her grandma and her sister and her family unit was so important to who she was. So one of the biggest challenges that we ever went through was we get married and Radhi's main condition was we had to live within a one mile radius of her family's home. And I was cool with that because a lot of my friends are in that area because her home's not far from the school I went to. And so I was very happy with that. That wasn't hard for me to commit to.

Two weeks after we get married, I get the job opportunity of my dreams in New York. Now that's not one mile radius, it's six hours flight apart. And I remember Radhi didn't talk to me for two days because it was so much for her to process. And in that two days, she was processing the fact that this is Jay's dream. I'm going to miss my family.

Do I go? Do I stay? What do I do? And I was having the same anxiety in my heart. Like, it's not like I was like, oh, I've got the best job in the world. I'm really excited. I was feeling the same pain. I was like, gosh, like, what do we do?

And so I remember saying to Radhi, I said, I feel compelled to go to New York. Like, this is my path. This is my journey. But if you want to live in London, I will visit you every weekend. Like, if that's what it takes, because I love you and I want to be with you. But that doesn't mean that my choice is more important than yours. And she was kind enough to want to come with me. And I know that that journey has been really tough for her, like to be in a new city, to be in a new country, not have any friends or any family. And then we moved to LA 10 hours away. It's been really tough. And so I think what's been really integral to all of this is we've always reset expectations or we've reset our mutual

agreement and understanding every time. And we're constantly having the conversation of, are you happy? Is this good for you? Is that what you need? And I think being mindful of that for each other has been huge for us. So, I mean, there's so many things. So let's go over a couple of those points. And I'm really grateful you guys opening up about your relationship because I do think that helps ground it for a lot of people. So when it comes to values, and I think that's the beginning of a relationship, even if you're not in a relationship, you would always advise having that conversation, like what is important, like who you are versus like who I am in this relationship. Yes. This is who I am.

And this is what I can bring to the table. Do you word it like that? Yeah, it's like, this is who I currently am. This is what my priorities are. And this is what I care about. And what are yours? And it's not that they have to match. I think that's the word matchmaking has misled us.

So we're always trying to see whether we match with people. Most people I know who are together are not the same. To be honest, if you were with someone who's just like you, they'd probably drive you crazy. And so the word matchmaking has been very misleading. And so me and Radhi don't match in values, but I respect her values. And so what I'd say is, yes, you're spot on. I share my values, they share theirs. And then the second thing is me saying, I respect you for what you value.

I appreciate what you value. I don't need you to value what I value. And I think that's where relationships often go wrong. It's like, if this is important to me, it should be important to you. But actually love is, if that's important to you, I'm going to keep letting that be important to you. And if this is important to me, you're going to keep letting this be important to me. Love isn't me saying, I like this, so you've got to like it too. And I think that's where we get

lost. And you guys did a reel on social media recently, which was like the love languages, which I thought was so great because you were basically sharing that you guys have, if you give someone love in the way that you want to receive love, they're not going to feel loved. And that was definitely something that I've learned because my ex's, his was quality time. That was not mine at all. I don't need to spend time with anybody. Like mine's words of affirmation all day long so how do you like what was that journey for you and Maddy finding out love did you do the love language test yes okay yeah so we need to put a link to that yeah yeah definitely it's a great quiz yeah so my love languages and this

took me a while to unravel as well my love language was gifts that was my number one and then words of affirmation was probably my second and Radhi's is quality time I could see that from quality time top one and physical touch and those that's her second one so those are hers and there's mine and they're completely different and it took me a while to also understand what I really wanted in gifts because I think gifts is something when you're young and that's where I got understand what I really wanted in gifts, because I think gifts is something when you're young and that's where I got it from. I really looked forward to gifts when it was my birthday or Christmas, like gifts were a big part of how my family loved me. And as I got older, I realized that there weren't many gifts that anyone could buy you because as you get older,

you buy what you want and you choose what you want and you choose what you need. And so almost wanting gifts from someone else was a false expectation because Riley's like, well, how do I buy you stuff? Like, I don't know what you want. And it feels weird. And so I realized that really what I loved about gifts, and this is why I would go a step further than the love languages. What I realized is I like the element of surprise. So I like the gift, but I always got gifts as a surprise. And so what I really wanted was a sense of surprise and excitement. So Radhi threw me... That's such a good, interesting insight, actually. Yeah, like it's like, what is the feeling you want behind the love language? That's what you're really looking for. And so I realized that mine was surprised. Sorry,

you were going to say something. Yeah. No, I'm actually just listening being like, oh, because gifts is quite high on mine. Yeah. I think it's a three. And I could never really understand it because I'm like, I actually don't really care about the gift. But for example, when someone would give me a gift, I like it to be wrapped. Yes. If someone gives me it in the bag, the store that they got it from, like, I'm like, but now you... Noted. Yeah. It has to be wrapped.

Like, I don't even care what it is. It just needs to be wrapped. And I was always like, why? Why is that? But now I'm realizing I like surprise. I like people surprising me with things. Yeah. And so Radley realized that.

And then two years in a row, maybe three, she did a surprise birthday party for me. And it was with our closest friends at the time. And it just, it was so fulfilling. And it was such a great discovery for me because I got to a point where I was like, well, what's someone meant to buy me if I buy everything I want for myself?

And so anyway, that was a really thoughtful part of it. And I think what I find is really interesting is that we think telling our partners what we need makes us weak. So we feel if I share my needs with my partner, it puts me in a position of weakness because it shows them that I need them. And I don't want them to know that I need them because I don't want to appear desperate or needy or clingy. Or we're the opposite. We're very clingy, needy, and desperate. We share all of that,

but then we feel guilty about it later. Or we feel like they're not clingy with us, like they're not needing us enough. And we're like, why don't you need me? And so I think getting to a point where at different stages, you can allow the person to say, hey, here's who I am.

This is what I need. This is what I'm looking for. That's so needed. And you think that's how people like learn and grow I am. This is what I need. This is what I'm looking for. That's so needed. And you think that's how people like learn and grow together as being upfront with what they need, sharing each other's love languages. And then you said something earlier about coming together regularly. What does that look like for you guys particularly? Like how do you make sure you're always on the same path and aligned? Yeah, I found that one habit that really transformed our relationship was at one point, every 30 days, we took three days together or two to three days together. And we went somewhere two to three hours away from where we lived.

We'd drive away. Maybe we'd get an Airbnb. Maybe we'd stay at home and do a little staycation together. But every 30 days, we'd spend a whole weekend together, we'd lock our phones away, and we'd actually be present with each other. Because we found that if you force me to do that every day, it's not possible. Maybe you've got a work emergency. Maybe someone else has to work late. Maybe you've got to hang out with a friend. Maybe there's a family need. So like weeks can go by when you haven't had an intimate, deep connection with the person you love. And carving out time to have quality time to say, hey, are we still in sync? Are we in the right place? And if you do that every month, you're less likely going to have a really tough year.

So when someone says like, oh, we've just been going through a rough few months, we've been going through a rough few years, you hear this often. It's because we haven't done these check-ins. You know, in a business, and I know you talk about this here on the podcast, you have to have regular check-ins. I mean, how many check-ins do you... I always see you post on your Instagram, like, what you're doing today is like team check-in, this and that. And I love seeing that because it's very real, but you're having team check-ins every week. But when do you have a team check-in with your partner? That's your main team member and you never had a check-in with them. So to me, every 30 days, a check-in is so needed. Let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform, Kajabi. You know, I've been singing their praises

lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity, which I love. Not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place. So it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business you know get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students so if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering Boss Babe listeners

a 30-day free trial go to kajabi.com slash Boss Babe to claim your 30-day free trial. That's Kajabi.com slash Boss Babe. Usually my check-in with Radhi is a few of these questions. So the first question is, is this relationship going in the direction you want it to go in? It's a very open, vulnerable question. And people are like, that's scary to ask. And people are scared to ask it

because maybe if I ask it, it makes her feel uncomfortable. But I think that's where a relationship wants to get to a safe space where we can talk about these things. And the second is, if it's not going in the right direction, what can we do? And if it is going in the right direction, what do we do more of? What do we keep going? And I think having that conversation every month keeps you on track or it helps you get back on track or at least it lets you know which track you're on. Yeah. And I think you're right. A lot of people just take relationships for granted versus putting in this effort and on a routine basis, like you would do a job, like you would do like your key performance indicator at work. You're always checking like,

hey, how am I doing? Am I on track? Am am I on course for that what if you're not on course what if there is like yeah I'm not happy with things or what if there's like okay this thing you did really upset me yeah how can people be having more conscious communication I went to Hoffman recently which was awesome yes you told that. Yeah. And it really teaches you to understand your own triggers. And they've also done a lot of therapy where you talk about from my side of the bridge and your side of the bridge and understand that truth isn't anyone's description of truth. We each all going to have our own different variations of truth. So how do you, have you advised or how do you and Radi articulate disagreements?

Yeah. So I think the first thing that we have to do with anything that annoys us is what you just said, is know where the trigger comes from. And I find that a lot of our triggers come from our parents. And so we're either trying to replicate something our parents did,

or we're trying to reject something our parents did. And so a lot of the times we want our partners to do the same things our parents did. Or sometimes we want them to not do something our parents did. Or we're triggered by something our parents got triggered by. I found that in my relationship so often, where Radhi's upset with me about something that her mom would be upset at her dad about. Or I'm upset with Radhi about something my dad would be upset at my mom about. And you're repeating that behavior. So I think the first thing you want to do is check your trigger. Because often you realize your trigger isn't even your trigger. It's someone else's that you adopted.

And then you go, well, maybe that doesn't trigger me. So I have this trigger that whenever Radhi's late, if I have to be somewhere on time and she's late and we become late, that is like one of my biggest issues because my mom always told me if you're not on time, if you're not early, you're late. My mom would always say that. If you're not early, you're late. My mum would always say that. If you're not early, you're late. If you're not early, you're late. So for me, being on time has become this massive obsession

and I'm addicted to it to some degree. And so whenever, and Radhi's late because she's spontaneous and she's bubbly and she's creative and she's in flow and she's in her feelings. And for years, I was so upset with Ravi every time we'd be late. And not only would I be upset in the moment, it would ruin the evening. Because now I'd be anxious that we're late.

I'm looking at the maps. And every time she looks over at the maps, I'm like, look what you did. And then we're running late. We get there late. And actually, it's not even that bad. Everyone's okay about it. But I'm still holding on to my badge of honor that being late is really important.

And you made us late. And so now not only have I ruined how I feel, I've ruined how we feel. And I've ruined the evening for us. And I'm not saying anything. It's not like I'm being mean to her verbally. It's just the energy is not healthy. And I've reflected on that

because it was a... Radhi didn't become... That didn't make her come on time. She's not going to have it. She stayed the same. And I came to this really... I came to this really beautiful realization. And this is...

I'm not saying you have to do this with every trigger. I'm saying that this was one way of formulating a trigger was I came to this conclusion that what I love most about Radhi is that she's spontaneous, is that she's childlike, is that she's silly, is that she's fun. That is what I find most lovable about her.

And what she likes about me is that I'm driven and I'm focused and I'm organized and all of those things. Now, if I want Radhi to be everything I am, she may have to give up some spontaneity. You can't be in flow and be organized all the time. And so I realized that if I do truly love her for being spontaneous, I have to accept that that comes with, she's not always going to do everything on time. It's just not going to work that way. And same way, if she was like, Jay, you need to be more spontaneous. Well, you don't necessarily get someone who's very driven and purpose driven and focused being massively spontaneous all the time. But she's accepted that about me. Yeah,

I'm trying to change her. And so sometimes our triggers are coming from our own parenting and our upbringing. And I think we need to look at that. I could go on on this, but I want to pause there before because I could answer more parts of your question. No, I think that's actually a really good reflection for a lot of people. And it comes back to that full circle to that values conversation right in the beginning, like this is who I am. And maybe it's around owning the positive traits, but also owning some of your negative traits too. I mean, look this is who I am. And maybe it's around owning the positive traits, but also owning some of your negative traits too. I mean, look, I wish I could change this about myself. It's unlikely that is ever going to change. Like for me, my number one value is growth. Like I

always like to be moving towards a goal and that is okay for some people to be around and other people are like, I don't want that in my life. That is just not the energy that I want. And I think it's just ultimately like nothing is good or bad. They just are. And just realizing what are you okay with accepting and what are you okay not accepting? Yeah.

And maybe what I'm really just listening and focusing on looking back on my own journey is that the more you can own who you are, the more the relationships around you will thrive because people know what they're getting. People understand. And my mom and dad always brought me up with this rule like kids just like to know where they stand. It's not that they just want to know where the boundaries are so if you mark the playground this is how we always got brought up if you mark we knew the playground that we could play in we knew what was on the edge and we knew when we crossed the line and my mom and dad always said that was really really important in bringing us up and now I

think that about relationships like you have to know what the playground is for both of you to play in there has to be room within that but you also have to know what the playground is for both of you to play in. There has to be room within that. But you also have to know what is out of bounds. I think that's great. And I think some people have that everyone has a different playground, but kind of bringing that together. So part of this as well, I think, is really understanding triggers. And you just mentioned it, but I'd love to kind of dive a little bit deeper into that because we did a lot of work about Hoffman. And I think, how do you feel that people can become aware

of what triggers are? Because again, the more you understand yourself, the more you can kind of build relationships around that. So how did you, because you didn't do Hoffman, like how did you know what your triggers were? Yeah. So I look at triggers through two questions. I briefly mentioned it, but I'll go deeper into it now. So it's great. The first thing is, what gifts did your parents give you? Like, what did they do for you that made you feel loved? What did they do for you that made you feel special? It's interesting that even a gift can be a trigger

because now you expect a future partner to do just that. And when they don't do that, that triggers you. When they don't live up to what your parents did for you, that triggers you. Because you've been loved in that way before. And now you're wondering, well, why doesn't everyone love me that way? And so even a gift, so I would ask everyone who's listening right now, write down a list of gifts that you've received from your parents. How did they love you that you appreciated that have now become expectations, subconscious, hidden expectations? So not necessarily physical gifts, but just like things that you're like, oh, I felt loved by.

Correct. Yes. I don't mean presents I wrapped in a box like me and Danielle want. Definitely wrapped. Yeah. Hint hint for us. We want gifts, but I'm talking about gifts in the sense of like, just beautiful things you received from your gifts in the sense of just beautiful things you received from your parents in the form of qualities, love, time, whatever it may have been. The second question is, what are the gaps that your parents left? What are the gaps? Are the gaps that you had a college basketball game and they didn't turn up? Is the gap that no matter how well you did, they never celebrated it? Is the gap that no matter how well you did, they never celebrated it. Is the gap that no matter how

well you did, they always compared you to your friend. Now, when someone else does that habit, you're triggered by it. Not because of what that person's doing in that moment, but because it reminds you of something that your parents did that you feel uncomfortable about. So to me, those are two very simple questions for anyone and everyone to start evaluating their triggers. What are the things that I falsely expect because of what my parents gave me? And what are the things that trigger me because I never got them? And now when someone doesn't give me them, it hurts even more. So let's go a layer D. What do they do with that information? Yes. Okay. So once you have that, and I'm going to give a personal example. This also applies not just to parents, but first loves. And what I mean by first loves are like the people that love you first in the world are your parents, your family, maybe your first

boyfriend or girlfriend, anyone in that life. I had someone who loved me a lot growing up that gave me a lot, but that always made me feel guilty when I didn't love them back the same. Okay. Right? So they overloved me. And when I couldn't reciprocate with their love, they made me feel guilty that I didn't love them at all. And I had a relationship like that.

What I found is that when I started dating Ravi, I replicated that behavior with her. So I would over love her. I would give her everything. I'd be amazing. I'd be incredible. But then if she didn't love me back at the standard that I had set, I'd guilt trip her.

I'd make her feel guilty. And I'd say, well, how do you not look what I did for you? Why are you not doing that for me? And I would do that again and again and again. So, but I didn't realize that for years when I was like, oh my gosh, like there was a gap in my upbringing where I was loved with guilt.

And now the only way I know how to love is to love with guilt. So now what I started to do was, A, make Radhi aware. Radhi, every time I use this guilt method, know that this is where it comes from. Let me make my partner aware so that she understands that it's not personal to her, that it's coming from another place. The second thing is, now let me add a personal diligence and a due diligence of like, let me notice every time I get into that zone. Let me create a

reminder whenever I get in that zone that this is why I'm in this position because of this thing that happened. And the third thing you want to do is go, okay, well, why do I over love and why do I guilt trip that person? Is there a healthier way to love? Ultimately, I have to substitute and heal this habit. So those would be three steps to actually put that in the practice. I love that. It's so practical too. And I think that, you know, the biggest thing I learned on my journey was that I would approach business with looking for these tools, these questions to do. Okay, how can I run a better team meeting? How can I do better goal setting for the company? How can I do better quarterly standups, whatever they were, but I never really

applied these same things to relationships. So I think asking those questions is really powerful. In the book, you talk about win or losing together. I think it's like rule number six. How do you know when it's like, I'm curious your perspective, like, oh, like we can win through this and we can come out the other side of this. Or, oh, hang on a minute. We're never going to be eye to eye on this piece. Yeah, yeah, definitely. So just to give a kind of like a brief overview of that rule for everyone.

I believe that one of the biggest things that gets in the way of growing together or forces us to grow apart is ego. And ego is the desire of, I am right, I want to win, and you're wrong. That's what ego is. Anytime you have a thought in an argument with your partner of I'm right, you're wrong, and I want to win,

you're setting yourself up to lose with your partner. So if you want to win, which means they have to lose, you both lose because you're on yourself up to lose with your partner. So if you want to win, which means they have to lose, you both lose because you're on the same team. And if you lose so that they can win, you both lose because you're on the same team. So you have two choices. You either win together or you lose together. It's as simple as that. And so when you talk about it in terms of going back to your question, I think the biggest challenge that I see is there's a step-by-step process of knowing whether you can get somewhere with someone. And that step-by-step process that I break down in the book starts at intolerable. So there may be something that is currently intolerable about your partner, right? There

may be something about them. They may have a habit, a trait, a belief system, whatever it may be, and currently find it intolerable. And the question you're asking yourself is, can I turn that intolerance into understanding? Can I at least understand where they gain that habit from? And chances are we've never asked them, hey, why are you this way? Like what brought you to this in a non-combative way? We've never had that. The conversation you're having with yourself is like, where are my triggers coming from? How many of us have ever sat down and had that conversation with our partner and said, hey, I really want to learn when I do this, why it triggers you. We never ask that because we don't care. Yeah.

We care more about winning. Can we turn it into understanding? When we learn to understand, wow, like my partner went through something really tough with his parents or her parents or their parents. That's why they have that habit. Oh my gosh, when they were at school, they were really badly treated by their teacher. Oh, that's why they have this complex around intellect. Oh, when they were young, their parents always told them they wasted money. That's why they have this trigger around money, whatever it may be. I'm not saying that makes you love them more. It makes you excuse it. At least you have some context of why they're that way. So that's intolerable to understanding. Now, the next question you're asking yourself is now that I've understood it, can I accept that that is a part of who they are? Am I willing to accept that that is a part of who

they are and maybe they're aware of it and I'll be patient as they work on it? Or am I happy to be that they may never change and that's okay? And then the final thing is you actually appreciate them as they try and make the steps. I find that if you can go on that journey with someone, you will win together. But if you can't go on that journey for whatever reason, you don't want to get to the next step,

that's your choice, that's your prerogative and you can step out. And so to me, it's about whether you are willing to go through that entire step-by-step journey from intolerable to understanding, to accepting, to appreciating that person, or whether you're like, you know what, I've had enough. I don't think I even have the skills or the patience or the openness to deal with this. There's two things that came up for me there. I heard this quote recently and I cannot remember who said it,

but it was like, whenever you're in an argument, fair is what you want minus 30%. And both sides have to be willing to forego that 30% to actually reach the compromise. And I thought that was a really great way of looking at it. Your version of fair or what should happen or whatever it is, is never actually. And so just bearing in mind, like both parties always need to be willing to compromise to come to resolution. And if you're not willing to compromise and the other person isn't,

then it's always going to be like, you're never going to reach that resolution i love that and the second point too which i was just hearing about like there's like 30 and making sure how do you know like do you think couples should go through this together or they should always have like a therapist or an external support system i think it's healthy for the majority of people to have an external support system. Ideally, not someone untrained as well. No family members, no moms and dads involved. Yeah, sometimes the challenge is you talk to people you love and trust in your life, which is beautiful for sharing. And it's great for sharing and you should.

But when it's getting advice from someone who's untrained, it can be unhealthy because they're not really seeing things from both sides. They're not really being objective in the scenario. And they're also not seeing it from a position of knowing what would benefit you both. And so I find that having external counsel is useful. Having external counsel together is useful too. But I'll say more than any of that, the challenge is sometimes we have our best conversations with the person who's not our partner. Sometimes I'm sitting with a client

and they'll say something to me and be like, can you please say that to your partner exactly how you just said it to me? Because I promise when you said it to them, you were like, you need to change this right now or I'm done with this or I hate this about you or God, you need to change this right now, or I'm done with this, or I hate this about you, or God, you always do this. Whereas when you told me, you were vulnerable and you opened your heart and you were, and I'm like, please say it like that to them. I promise you,

they'll respond. They seem like a decent human being. And so I do find that often the biggest issue is we talk more about our relationship with people who are not in the relationship. And the person, the people that can change the relationship are the ones in the relationship. Yeah, why do you think that is? That is, that's true. Because we're easier to be harsh and assertive with our partner and easier to be nice and vulnerable with someone who's not involved.

And so when we speak about our truth to a therapist or a coach, we can be thoughtful and reflective and mindful. But when we talk about that same truth to our partner, we don't communicate and articulate it in that way. And so I would encourage people that I remember this when Radley and I were getting married as in our wedding. Weddings are really, really stressful. And I think a lot of people who get married go through these stressful periods where planning this big event, planning this big day, lots of opinions, lots of expectations. Everyone in your family wants it to go a certain way. You've got this massive guest list. And it was at that time where I said to Radhi, I was just like, Radhi,

you know, this is a great case study of what our relationship's going to be like. Everyone's going to have opinions about what me and you should do. Everyone's going to have expectations of who we should be. And the only two expectations and opinions that matter are mine and yours. And if you're listening more to everyone outside, and I'm listening more to everyone outside, then we'll never figure this out inside. But if we're listening to each other, and we're talking to each other, chances are we might create something special. And that was the day I remember

we just made that commitment that we had to talk about relationship with each other. It feels like going into your relationship with Radhe. Like how quickly did you meet her after coming out of being a monk? So I'd actually met her before I became a monk. Oh yeah, actually I remember the time we did. She has a tattoo too.

Yeah, so I met her before I became a monk, but not I remember the time yeah yeah she has a tattoo too yeah yeah so I met her before I became a monk but not dating we didn't date the tattoo was after but we were we weren't dating we met briefly I started dating rather around six months after I left the monastery so that's when we got together properly and do you think you ended that relationship with this wisdom or do you, because you guys have been, how long have you been together? 10 years. 10 years. What is the evolution of Jay and Raddy in that time?

I mean, I think I learned a lot of this through the relationship and I'm still learning. And I really mean that. I don't mean that to be like, oh, you're always learning. I genuinely mean like, life is just throwing curveballs at everyone. And you can get to a place where you can deal with your own curveballs. But when the person you love is going through their own curveballs, like that's a different change in the relationship again. And everyone's going through their curveballs at different times.

And so when I met Radhi, I had high self-awareness of who I was, and at least I could express that to her. And she had a decent level of self-awareness that she could share with me. We'd been dating for around three years when we got married. And we went, the first year we went from getting married, moving country, moving house, and changing job three times all in the same 12 months. Wow. That's a lot. And that was you changing jobs? That was me changing jobs, but she had to quit her job as well and move to New York. And so I was changing jobs. She changed jobs. We got married. We moved country. We didn't know anyone

all at the same time. And we talked a lot about that, but then we moved state again, and we moved to LA. And so I feel like what I'm saying is that anytime there's a life change, this all has to happen every time. This isn't something that you do once and then you're set for life. And so we're always going through life changes. I'm traveling more for work, like Radhi was stuck in London for a bit. You know, she was there for like six months. And so there's so many life changes that keep happening that there's this beautiful conversation between a student and the Buddha that I start the book with. And I love this because it underpins everything I'm saying. And a student asks the

Buddha, what's the difference between I like you and I love you? And the Buddha replies, when you like a flower, you simply pluck it. But when you love a flower, you water it every day. And to me, that's the simplest visual I have in my mind. If I want this relationship to grow, what am I doing to water it every day? If I want my business to grow, what am I doing to water it every day? Anything that you are not growing is dying. Nothing stays the same.

There is nothing on planet Earth that just remains the same. There is no plant. The sun doesn't do it. The moon doesn't. Like nothing just stabilizes. And I think we believe that somehow something's just like this house. It's beautiful. Over time, things will start to break and crack and whatever because we don't tend to it. And I

think we just assume that, oh, it's just a tiny little crack. Oh, it's just a dent in the wall. Oh, it's just a little leak. And it's like, in our relationships, we let those things go for months and years, only for one day for the pipes to burst, the flood comes through the home, drowns you both. And then you wonder, where did we go wrong? And so I feel you have to really, really, really tend to the small stuff. You have to be aware. The details count. They count. They count. All the tiny stuff.

Yeah. When you were writing the book, The Eight Rules of Love, I imagine some things came up for you in writing it. What were your biggest learnings? Writing. Because every author I speak to, it's always such a journey for them to put pen to paper.

Yeah, I'm waiting for your book. Mine's going to be a long one. So I wrote the book three times. Wow. The first time I wrote it, my editor told me, and he was right, it was too raw. It was too direct. Like there was no compassion in it because I was just trying to get the truth out. Okay.

And then the second time I wrote it, my editor told me it was too soft. It had gone the other way. And then the third time I wrote it, my editor told me it was too soft. It had gone the other way. And then the third time I wrote it, I got the balance right. And what I mean by that is I want to tell the truth, but the truth has to be direct, but compassionate. It has to be affectionate and assertive. That to me is a healthy truth. If the truth isn't encased in forgiveness and love and compassion, it's not the truth because the truth demands that. The biggest thing I learned throughout the book is actually something that maybe will surprise people. It might even be unpopular, but it's something I definitely learned. I think we've put romantic love on such a pedestal. So we've made it out to be that no matter how much love you have for your mom your dad your kids

your friends your family your colleagues if you don't have a partner you're not complete so we've made people believe that the greatest love story in the world is a love between you and your partner that is romantic now when I look at this from a scientific level, a study level, a research level, a historic level, if you think about the greatest acts of love that we've experienced as humanity, I don't think any of them come because someone was in love with someone else. I think of people like Martin Luther King, who loved people he'd never met and wanted equality for humanity. I think about people like Nelson Mandela.

That was love. The people who went out of their way to do phenomenal things for other people that they'd never meet, they'd never benefit from, they'd never gain anything from, that were the biggest displays of love. When has someone in a relationship ever done something that emphatic for their partner? It just doesn't exist. And so if anyone's out there who feels like they're too old for love, or maybe they feel they're too young for love, or maybe they feel like they're too tired of trying to find love, or maybe you do have a wonderful partner, even then you're like,

there must be something more. The truth is that what I learned through writing this book was that the love you have with your parents, the love you have with your children, the love you have with your colleagues, the love you have with your brother or your sister, those are all equal forms of love. They're beautiful and cherish all of them. Don't fall for the illusion that's been created by society that if you don't have a partner, then you don't have the peak form of love. I'd say that the closest form of love that anyone experiences is mostly a mother's love for a child.

Like that's generally the most unconditional, at least love that people experience is a parent's love for their child. And if you didn't experience that, you have the opportunity to create it in any relationship. Don't limit it to just one person. How sad would it be if you wasted all your love on just one person?

That's such a beautiful reflection, you know? And I think when people read this book, if you are in a relationship, read it from that perspective. But now I think when people read this book if you are in a relationship read it from that perspective but now I think I'll read it again from that different perspective of just like who can you bring love to in the world like whether it's a friend like you say a parent a brother a sister or maybe just people you're coming into contact with on a daily basis like how can you have compassion how can you have you know more understanding forgiveness whatever it is because I think right now we're also in a

really interesting place with the world where something like we're forgetting how to love there's a lot of I'm right you're wrong it's my opinion or no opinion and I think what the world needs right now is to be a little bit more united and a little bit more understanding of like, okay, where are people coming from with this? And how can I meet them that 30%? Like, how can we all put our best foot forward to bring like unison? So I'm really glad that you shared that perspective. Because you're right, we watch on television, and it's all like, oh, yes, the knight in shining armor, this is love or this example of love and always romantic versus like, oh, what does it actually look like at its core? Yeah. And I think the other thing that I learned in partnership with that was just that we limit love to being something you experience with one person and something you have to find or wish or wait for. And I genuinely have experienced

this and I experienced it mostly through my monk teachers and I try to emulate that in the best way I can. I honestly feel that the more you share love, the more you feel it because it's an endless energy. It's not like Danielle has a limited amount of love to give. You don't have a bank account of love. Love just exists. It's who we are. It's what moves through us all day long. And so if you choose to give love to everyone every day, you get to feel it every day with everyone. And it's not something that's limited to just experiencing it with one person. And today we've been like, I love these people.

These people are not part of my love community. As opposed to, oh, actually, maybe being kind to this person, being forgiving to this person, smiling at this person, offering support to this person, actually allows me to be filled up with love throughout the day. So now I don't go home empty expecting my partner to fill my cup. And so, yeah, it's been a journey writing the book. I poured my heart into it for two years. Lots of research, lots of studies,

lots of uniting ancient wisdom and modern science. And just, it's been really beautiful to do it. And I've definitely, I wouldn't say I just want to say I've learned from it. I feel like my relationship with love has deepened. And I hope that's what it does for other people. I hope it helps people find a slower, longer, deeper love. My reflection from reading it is, yes, with the partners and like how you can work on a relationship.

But outside of that, one of my key takeaways was like, how you can work on a relationship. But outside of that, one of my key takeaways was like how you can love yourself. And I think when you love yourself first, then the ego falls away and the lessons are there and you can come together in conversation versus, oh, I need to be right or they're wrong or any of that aspect. And like I said, that what you just shared about just how can we put more love into the world and we just have such a huge, there is an endless supply of it. And bringing that, I think it's just going to leave

like such an impact for so many people. So thank you so much. Thank you, Danielle. No, this is so fun. No, I'm like really, honestly, it's like such a beautiful book and I'm so excited for people to read it. So we'll definitely make sure we put all the links in there.

And thank you again. I know this won't even be the last time you're on. You're going to be on again. Of course. Yeah. And you're coming on too. So I'm excited about that. I can't wait to have you guys on on purpose.

No, thank you so much. It's always such a joy being with you. And doing this with friends is the best feeling. So thank you so much. I love your community. I appreciate you so much. Thanks, Danielle. Thank you so much for listening.

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