THE ED MYLETT SHOW - The Power of Being Vulnerable: The Real Reason Most People Fail at Love | Ed Mylett

Episode Date: January 3, 2026

What if the very thing you’re avoiding is the key to deeper love, stronger relationships, and real fulfillment? In this powerful mashup episode, I bring together some of the most honest and transformative conversations I’ve ever had about love, connection, and vulnerability. Too many people want intimacy without exposure, connection without risk, and love without discomfort. And the truth is, that trade never works. In these conversations, we get real about why most people struggle in relationships and how learning to be vulnerable is not a weakness, but the ultimate strength. You’ll hear from Jay Shetty on why self love and emotional awareness are the foundation of every healthy relationship, and how avoiding hard conversations quietly erodes connection. Humble The Poet shares deeply personal insights on emotional walls, fear of being hurt again, and why vulnerability is the bridge that allows love to flow both ways. His perspective will challenge how you think about pain, empathy, and what it really means to open your heart. I also sit down with LeAnn Rimes, who opens up about self acceptance, emotional healing, and the courage it takes to truly be seen, especially after public pain. And Matthew Hussey breaks down the patterns that sabotage modern relationships, from fear of rejection to the need for control, and how emotional honesty changes everything. This episode is not just about romantic love. It’s about the relationship you have with yourself, the walls you’ve built to protect your heart, and the cost of keeping them up. If you’ve ever told yourself, “I’m never doing that again,” after being hurt, this conversation will speak directly to you. Love does not require perfection. It requires courage. And vulnerability is the price of admission. Key Takeaways Why vulnerability is the foundation of real connection, not a liability How emotional walls meant to protect you often become prisons The difference between self love and self avoidance Why sitting with pain is sometimes the fastest path to healing How fear of being hurt again quietly sabotages relationships The skills required to build intimacy in a distracted, guarded world If you want deeper relationships, more meaningful love, and a stronger connection to who you really are, this episode will challenge you, stretch you, and move you. The life you want is on the other side of the conversations you’ve been avoiding. 👉 SUBSCRIBE TO ED'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL NOW 👈⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠   → → → CONNECT WITH ED MYLETT ON SOCIAL MEDIA: ← ← ←  ➡️ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠INSTAGRAM⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠   ➡️⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠FACEBOOK⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠   ➡️ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LINKEDIN⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠   ➡️ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  ➡️ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠WEBSITE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Edmiler Show. Hey, everyone, welcome to my weekend special. I hope you enjoy the show. Be sure to follow the Ed Milet Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Here's our first guest. Welcome back, everybody.

Well, let's talk about love today. Let's talk about a little love. I'm so excited for today. So many people knew that this. man was coming on and they're like, ask him this, ask him that, ask him this. I'll try to get the questions in for you guys, all right, but I got a lot of my own too. So Hummel, the poet is with me here today. Otherwise, Noah's Kanwer Singh, but he said, if I said his name correctly, which I think I did, that I've worked too hard to prepare for the interview. So we're going to call

him humble. Humble the poets here today. Our mutual friend Louis Howes was just with us and he said, not only is he a poet, but his life is poetry. So I can't wait to ask him a bunch of questions about the topic of love. He's got a book out called How to Be Love, D, both individually and the plural. Simple truths for going easier on yourself, embracing imperfection and loving your way to a better life. Man, do I need to know more about this?

So humble the poet, welcome, brother. Thank you so much for having me. Dude, your work is so good. Oh, I appreciate it. And what I love about the way you wrote this book is it's a bunch of very short, easy to understand chapters so you can move through the book if you want to read part of it right now, put it down for a day. You can pick it back up.

Did you do that intentionally? Just curious. I did. So I was an elementary school teacher before all of this. And the big word is accommodation, how to make things easier for everybody. So the way I write my books is you don't have to read them in order. You can just open up to any page and you'll find something you connect with. And for me as an artist, it's like the challenges, can I make it so you can open it up anywhere, find something you dig? But if you go end to end, is there also a thread that connects it? So it's a lot of really a lot of really fun. challenges for me to kind of make it all happen but um yeah i understand that look to get the idea

across you only need a couple of pages and we can explore those pages and um what i'm trying to do is to get people to start a journey i'm not here to have all the answers i'm just the kid at the front of the class sharing everything that he's learning while he's taking this well actually it's funny you say that because the first chapter of the book is love is a path not a destination yeah yeah what the heck does that mean i think so often we think that there's like a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and we don't realize that the pot of gold is the rainbow you know it's not about because we watch movies and there's always a happily ever after and we don't know what the day after they're happily ever after is but our lives move in cycles we have you know maybe

not in l.A but we have four seasons and it's just really important to understand that that it's not about what the work gets you it's who you become doing all this work we become on this journey And again, different cultures believe in different things, but this idea that there's something at the end waiting for us really has us always not appreciating where we are, you know? So it's really about climbing a mountain, not worrying about getting to the top and enjoying the view every step of the way. Yeah, that sounds good, but man, even me and my life, I've struggled with that. Like, I've struggled with enjoying right now because I'm looking so forward to the next thing that I've got. And you, when you meet you, like, there's a tranquility, that's a word that I would use to describe you, a tranquility about you. And I think like the topic of love itself, Lewis and I were just talking.

And one of the things that we both acknowledged about ourselves is are the work we're doing on allowing ourselves to feel loved. I'm pretty good at giving love, but receiving it. And your work's profound because it's not only, it explores a love. relationships with other people and the one you have with yourself. How do you think the one you have with yourself affects the one you have with other people? I think the one, the one that we have with ourselves is the only one. And our relationships with everybody else and every other thing is just a mirror of that relationship.

You know, like, as you're talking about this challenge to receive love, I think a lot of us, especially men, were kind of subtly signaled to put up these walls to protect ourselves, not realizing that these walls were pretty, You know, and we were blocking a lot of love and the pathways of love to realize love. It wasn't coming in because these walls were preventing us from being vulnerable. Vulnerability is the number one thing. You need to create a connection. You know, for me and you to become closer and closer friends is going to require us to get more and more vulnerable with each other.

You know, Lewis mentioning us going to Poland, we suffered together and we got closer. You know, had we gone to an all-inclusive resort trip to Hawaii, we wouldn't have bonded the same way. You know, we bonded off of sharing our fears, sharing our insecurities, sharing tears together on that trip. And we put up so many walls because we're afraid of being exposed. Yeah. I'm afraid of that. And again, it's not zero and a hundred. You don't have to go and start sharing your deepest, darkest secrets with somebody.

What I learned was have two vulnerable stories in your pocket that you can share with a complete stranger that would not scare them away. Give me an example of that. So one of mine is my relationship with my puppy. So I had a German Shepherd for 11 years. He lived out his life. And we had to make the decision to put him to sleep because his hips gave away. So he couldn't walk. And after that, I never wanted to own a dog again, you know, to watch your child, you know,

pass away in your arms. It broke my heart. So I would just be everybody else's backseat dog owner without having one myself. Until somebody, you know, during the pandemic said, hey, somebody had ordered this puppy through a breeder. and they thought it was going to turn out red or brown and it came out black. They don't want it. Do you want this puppy?

And I was like, dog racism. That's so weird. But also, I plan on moving to this. I lived in Toronto in Canada and I was like, I'm moving to the States. I can't have a puppy. You know, a few shots of tequila later. I was like, I need the puppy. You know, I need the puppy.

Give me the puppy. And even then, after I signed up for the puppy, I saw that to wait. The puppy was just born that day. I had still wait two months. And I got this beautiful puppy. and, you know, she took the plane right over here with me, and she's been living her beautiful girl, L.A. Life,

and it's been amazing. And during the pandemic, you drop your dog off at the vet at the front door. They don't let you in. That's right. And we're the groomer, same thing. Everything, yeah. And then, you know, as everything subsided, I went to a vet in Studio City, and I went inside,

and I saw the metal table, and I instantly had an emotional reaction because I hadn't seen that since I put my previous dog to sleep. And I didn't realize how much it would emotionally, you know, get me jarring. So that is, you know, and so it helps me realize how much of an emotional journey I've had owning animals and also realizing that I, if everything works out the way it's supposed to, I will always outlive them, you know, because even with this new puppy, she's a smaller breed, but that's still max 15 years. So that's an example of me being vulnerable. And I can tell that to a stranger without being worried that's going to scare them away.

No, it actually already makes me feel more connected to you and like you more too. And it also gives you an opportunity to be vulnerable with me. Exactly right. And I think that's the thing we all learn, whether we paid attention to or not, is when we're authentically vulnerable with other people, they generally don't judge us. And they see that as an opportunity for them to feel safe enough to be vulnerable with us, you know. And I think that's the important part. Bro, I love you because I have to tell you something. I love you too, man.

I'm not graded a lot of things. I'm really not. That is something I'm pretty darn good at, is being vulnerable, especially as I've gotten older. And I have found that that's been the pathway in my life to having other people open up to me. Yes. And to connect me with them. Whereas I used to have the prison you described. Whereas I just need to let you know how great I am, how perfect I am.

Yeah. And not show any of those weaknesses or vulnerabilities or anything actually even real. Yeah. You know? The other thing I made me think of when you're telling the story about when you lost your dog, the German Shepherd, right, that you were like, I'm not going to have another one again. That's how a lot of people have felt about having another loving relationship. And I coach so many people.

I'm so blessed to coach so many people that have achieved. you know certain levels of financial success or impact but i have to tell you one of the through lines is if they've been in what they thought was a loving relationship and it ended in a way that disappointed them or hurt them there's a lot of people even right now listening to this that are like and i'm not doing that again i'm not risking the pain i'm not risking the hurt again um the disappointment again in my life i'll just sort of put those walls up myself male or female and i'm going to live in this sort of protected place i might date i might get a little physical action in my life but I am not letting someone back in to my deepest, you know, emotions and feelings.

Do you see that? And what would you say to somebody who's thinking that? I mean, I see that. I live that, you know, you know, I'm, listen, I've, I've, you live that right now. We all live that. Listen, I'm not here to pretend that I've solved all my problems around love. And, you know, now buy the book and you'll be perfect like me. No, that's not this.

I'm on my journey just like you guys. This is the journey of awareness and it's, and it's being aware of your own patterns. I definitely have protective mechanisms up, whether I'm aware of them or not. And I think the big thing that I've realized is, you know, I think there's a 50 cent quote about, you know, the kid, it's the kid that avoids the fight at school that ends up with the black eye. And I think it's the same thing. A lot of the things that we think we're protecting ourselves from, we're inviting them. You know, you don't want to say anything to not start a conflict with your partner, but then the resentment grows and the conflict happens eventually. It blows up anyways.

You don't want to express your needs because you don't want to get rejected. But then not expressing your needs means your needs are already not being met. So what I realize with me is every time I did put up those walls because I didn't want to be disappointed, you know, it would lead to further disappointment. I was just sabotaging myself.

It's almost like you get a flat tire and you slash the other three. You know, it doesn't take you where you need to be. And I think the other part that's really important with all of that is negative emotions like pain, These aren't the enemy. These are messages. You know, pain can be telling you, hey, this isn't a person you need to be around.

It could also be telling you, take your hand off that hot stove. Pain is a message. It's a gift. Anxiety is a message. It's a gift. The challenges we have when we try to suppress the pain. Suppressed the anxiety. Negative emotions, you know, if humans, there's an emotion wheel.

You can Google emotion wheel for humans. The only positive emotions there are happiness and surprise. And surprise can go either way as positive or not. negative. Every other emotion would be considered negative, but that's what keeps us alive. You don't learn when you're happy. You don't survive when you're happy. It's the emotions that we consider negative that make us learn, make us grow, make us unlock our potential. You know, you go to the gym, an easy day at the gym would not be considered a successful day at the gym. You're right. You know, we require pain, and there's a chapter in the books that says love is sitting with your

pain. It does, yeah. You know, I, as a guy, when my partner, or my past partner would express her pain to me, a complaint, it would trigger my, I'll be a fixer, let me fix it, let me fix it. Very masculine male thing to do, isn't it? And I thought for a long time, because, you know, there's a lot of, you know, pop culture, TV shows would kind of create these kind of labels, like the man is the fixer, the woman is the venter. But what I realized was, no, I'm not fixing because I care to fix it.

I'm trying to fix it because she's triggering my pain. And I want to stop feeling my pain. because the way that I try to fix it is if I can't give her an actual pragmatic solution, then I may try to downplay the pain and be like, well, you know, other people have it worse. Or I might be like, that's not even really a problem. But the real goal is to make my pain go away because she's triggering it. She's reminding me of my pain. And what I learned way too late in life is empathy is sitting in the pain with that person.

If you express pain to me, I don't need to solve it. I need to feel my pain. Now let's just sit together and be in that pain. And we can hug it out, cry it out, and build a deeper connection that way. Oh. Yeah. And it's not something that, again, as you even use the term, we're talking about vulnerability. We use that term weakness, showing people my weaknesses.

But vulnerability is a strength. It's just we've been signaled maybe from those who raised us, maybe from a society that raised us, that vulnerability is somehow a weakness because it's what will allow people to harm you. You know, like, as if it's like, you know, we have vulnerable parts of our body. Protect them, you know, if you're getting a fight. But your vulnerability in terms of your story, your vulnerability in terms of your fears, you know, there are people going to try to exploit those because those are people in pain themselves. Oh, boy.

But in general, it's what creates that connection with other people. And it's realizing that, A, I don't want to feel any pain, even though that is the only direction that growth exists. If you want to go from a bad place to a better place, you have to go through a worse place. And it's no different than pushing yourself in the gym. It's got to kind of suck, you know, and that's the only way that I'm going to grow from this. And it's the same thing where, you know, sitting in a room by yourself with your thoughts, letting the anxiety build up, not having a phone, not having any distractions, and just feeling yourself, be super uncomfortable because you're so used to dopamine and rewards.

And all of a sudden being like, oh, my God, like, I can't, I don't want to sit with my own thoughts. So what we, and I feel lonely and I feel scared, sitting through that and realizing that we're not our thoughts, we're not our feelings. We are what's experiencing these thoughts. We are what's experiencing these feelings. You are not happy. You are not sad. You are feeling happy.

You are feeling sad. And in your, in your entire life, every single emotion you've ever felt eventually faded away, good or bad. And it's just that reminder of like, this is all going, this is all temporary on different levels and running towards it instead of doing everything we can to avoid it is the recipe to actually realize more love because the love is always there. What we have to do is create pathways for the love to flow. You know, me and you right now getting to know each other as we're building our bridge

for love to flow between us. Now we're slowly paving it. Now if we have a conflict and we just threw a piece of rubble in between and that's blocking the flow and then we have to have a conversation to clear that. So my belief with love is it's always there. And what we're doing is establishing pathways with ourselves and other people. And it's the same, same rules. If I want to be closer to you, I have to be vulnerable with you.

If I want to be closer to myself, I have to be vulnerable with myself. How can I be vulnerable with myself? Well, I can journal and I can write all my thoughts out. Prayer, I think prayer is an amazing, irrespective of your religious beliefs, prayer is an authentic moment to express what you actually want and desire. and to express what you actually are grateful for. Because those are the times that you're not doing it for anybody else, but yourself

and those or whoever you are praying to, that will allow you to be more deeply vulnerable with yourself. Dancing, dancing with yourself. Feel your body. Just dance all by yourself. Feel how your body moves. You're becoming more intimate with yourself. Intimacy is a level of vulnerability.

You can hug yourself. It's called self-havening. You know, these are examples. If you go on my Instagram right now, one of my pinned videos is me and my underwear, looking in the mirror. And the reason I made that is because self-love is, as I said, it's embracing imperfections, you know. I'm not 10% body fat. And I went there in my underwear and I said, look, I'm looking at my body with gratitude. I've always looked at my body like most of us have and been like, ooh, I could improve that.

Ooh, I can trim down over there. Ooh, I wish my shoulders were bigger. Ooh, I wish, you know. And women is probably even more in terms of expectations around their body. Why do you think, by the way, I want to acknowledge something with you? That was one of the most riveting experiences for me on the show ever. Isn't it easy once you stop doing something to realize, oh, that was working, and you don't realize it until you've stopped. And so if you've been looking for something easy to stick with that actually makes you feel better, this might be for you.

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Like, you can tell by my face, probably. I want to jump in on that and I'm going to come back. Like, I'm serious. That was really a beautiful expression right there. Why can't you do both? Why is that always a choice in our space of a, I either just really love myself or I have to fix everything. Why can't I actually love myself and still go, but I want to be 10% body fat?

That's not a bad thing, right? And I'm not disagreeing with you. I think what we need to do is we need to realize that in life, we're always moving. We're always moving. So you're either growing or you're shrinking. So what I say is in the book, I said, love is progress, not perfection.

I love that part of the book. Yeah. So there needs to be progress. Yeah. You know, and as I said, like you're climbing the hill. Yep. Right. Not promising yourself.

immaculate happiness when you hit the top you're enjoying every step of the way. Yeah. And I think a really good analogy for that would be video games. You're not, when you play a video game, let's say you dropped $80 on a brand new video game, you're not trying to rush to the end. You're trying

to soak in every moment, every challenge, everything. And that's how I view life, you know? It's, you know, as I said, going, I have a cousin who got a really good shape. And I was like, what program on you on? He's like, I just started working out because I felt sad and I go to the gym when I'm sad.

And, you know, like, well, you must have been very sad because you look great. And I think, you know, working out to feel good will also give you the consequences of the body or what have you. You know, you'll start to realize, hey, oh man, if I have, you know, a bacon double cheeseburger before my workout versus a salad or something, I can feel the difference. And so you'll naturally start making adjustments to your diet to feel good. to feel good. Feeling good is always more important than looking good. You're so right. You know one thing I just realized about myself as you were talking?

This is for the men who are like, oh boy, we're talking about love. You know, I know some of my male friends even, right? Man, you better be listening right now. You better still be here because you just said something a few minutes ago

that I need to go back to. I need to do a much better job of allowing others to sit for me to sit in pain with them and myself. My inclination is to constantly fix it, put it away. and you're a billion percent right, if I'm being honest. It's because it reminds me of experiencing my own pain.

You're a million percent right. And I do that all the time. I'm constantly trying to fix things. Oh, I got the answer for that. Oh, this is what you got to do. Oh, we can put that away. And just sitting in that pain, by the way, the few times in my life, and it is few, that I've given myself the gift of that experience.

It's been transformative. It's been wonderful. It's actually a gift you could give yourself. And as you were talking, I was talking to myself going, man, I've really robbed that gift of not others necessarily, but also myself of sitting in it and coming to a deeper level of understanding about myself. And I really want to thank you for that. Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that

way. Welcome back to the show today, everybody. So excited you're with me. Today's topic is self-love. and it's probably one of the most common topics on all of social media or podcasting. But I'd like to take a look at loving oneself from a different perspective today, kind of my angle on it. And it's probably a little bit different than you've heard before. You know, I've often said with many of my friends that I want my friends to love me, but I don't want them to accept me. And I think sometimes we conflate loving oneself with having to accept everything about ourselves.

And I just don't believe that's true. In fact, I don't think you can love yourself unless you're truly being yourself, you know, adhering to your values, that your disciplines, the things that you most want to pursue in your life, that you're taking actions in accordance to that, that you're living in congruency with what you say you want. And so there's a difference between loving somebody and accepting them. My great friends, I tell them all the time, I love you, I believe in you, but I don't want them to accept all my stuff. I want them to expect of me better than I'm doing. I want them to believe in me and love me so much that. they see the version of me I could be, that I'm capable of becoming. I think that's what a great friend does. And I think if you're going to be the best friend to yourself, perhaps it's

time to take a look at loving oneself from a little bit different perspective. And so I understand the idea of having to feel good about yourself and to have that internal dialogue with yourself that's favorable. I mean, let's just be honest. Studies tell us that 80% upwards of 90% of most people's thoughts are negative about themselves in a given day. Isn't that an incredible number? 80 to 90% of our thoughts about ourself are negative? So obviously we need to take a look at that and audit that and change that. So how do we think differently about ourselves? And by the way, we don't have to believe everything we think in our life. Most of the thoughts we have aren't true anyways. Whether they're about ourselves, other people, circumstances, situations,

we don't always have to just to accept what we think. In fact, many of us would be better off, not listening to ourselves so often and talk to ourselves a little bit more. Speak truth to ourselves. Speak power to ourselves. Speak faith to ourselves. Speak peace to ourselves. And so here's my version of self-love for today's topic. And there are other aspects of self-love than I'm going to cover today. But this is the piece everybody's missing. It's like just love yourself as you are. Well, you know, do you, would you want to do that with your children? Just anything, you love them, but are you going to accept everything they do? Should there be no improvement, no behavior change, no growth? I think with most people we love, we also expect something from them in terms

of the values they live up to, their performance. I love both my children very much, but when they're not living up to their capacity, when they're not living up to what they're capable of, or just behaving in a way that doesn't serve them or family or other people, I want to make sure they know that that's not acceptable. And so the day that I realize, write this down, the day that I realized that discipline is one of the purest forms of self-love, that when you discipline yourself, you're truly loving yourself. When you discipline another person, you're discipling to them. You're loving them. Even in the Bible, Jesus rebuked the apostles when he needed to. Discipline gives me the confidence that I need to forge a head in life. And so I want you to begin to

consider, is there an element of self-love or a large element of self-love that requires discipline? And like I said, I want my friends to love me, but I don't want them to accept me all the time. And I want to love myself, but part of loving myself is not accepting all of my stories, not accepting all of my behavior. I mean, here's what self-love really is. It's a state of appreciation for oneself that grows from the actions we take that support our physical, psychological, and spiritual growth. Self-love means having a high regard for your own well-being and happiness and having a high enough regard for yourself that you want to treat yourself physically, emotionally,

spiritually in a way that you're worthy of and not accept from yourself behavior. That's less than that. I mean, listen, I love myself enough not to eat terribly all the time. I love myself enough not to not pursue my dreams and goals. I love myself enough to believe in myself enough to discipline myself to pursue my ultimate capacity because it's only then that I can reveal the true me. It's only then that I'm living in congruence with myself. So I'll say it to you again.

You can't love yourself if you're not being yourself. And sometimes being ourselves requires taking an inventory of who we really are, re-auditing what we really want, who we really want to become. Maybe we're living an old dream or an old story. You know, maybe lately we haven't behaving in a way. where we're treating our bodies with the love it deserves, the hydration, the good food, the physical exercise required to truly love our bodies. And I just don't believe that you can just love yourself when you're not eating well, at least most of the time, hydrating most

of the time. If you're pouring drugs and alcohol into your body on a regular basis, that's not loving yourself. That's punishing yourself. That's hating yourself. And so this notion that self-love is just like take me as I am. That's a bunch of BS to me. I just don't believe it. And the notion that you should just continue to treat yourself poorly and just accept it. It's not what I want out of my friends. It's not what I expect out of myself. It's not what I want from my children. It's not from anybody that I love. Is that true? In fact, I think true love is being able to be willing to speak truth to somebody. You know, the higher you climb in life, it's harder to find real friends. because everybody starts to yes you, yes, you, yes, you all the time.

You have a lot of yes people around you. And I know the people in my life that really love me, they'll tell me the truth about me. Hey, Ed, that's BS. Or hey, man, come on, you're better than that. Or cut that out. Or whatever it might be. When my friends do that at this stage of my life, those are the ones who really love me that speak truth to me. And so the first thing I would just say is being mindful.

People who have more self-love tend to know what they think, what they feel, and what they want. right, on any given time, and they're auditing that regularly. The second thing you do is you take actions based on need rather than want. Take actions based on need rather than want. By staying focused on what you need, you turn away from autagmatic behavior patterns that tend to get you into trouble, that keep you stuck in the past. Really, they lessen self-love when you have patterns and behaviors and habits that don't serve you. What increases self-love is treating yourself out of what you need, not just what you want. In any given moment, I may want something, but it's not really what my body needs, my

spirit needs, my psychology needs, my mindset needs. Here's another thing you're not going to hear every day. Self-love means taking care of your own needs and not sacrificing them all the time just to please other people. Too many of us, including myself and maybe you, will sacrifice our own needs, what we really need in our life just to please other people, not to inconvenience them, not to make them uncomfortable. You know, maybe what you need to do is really pursue that dream you have right now, but you're not doing it because you don't want to make the people around you uncomfortable.

Maybe what you really need to do right now is see a therapist or go to a gym or change the way you eat, but you don't want to make the people around you uncomfortable. Don't sacrifice your own needs just to please other people. That is not a form of self-love. Okay. Really, truthfully speaking, you can't transfer to somebody that which you're not experiencing yourself. What do I mean by that. If you truly want to love the people around you to your maximum capacity, your max out capacity, the limitation to your ability to show them love is actually capped by how much love you feel for yourself. You can only transfer to somebody a limited amount of what you're not experiencing. You have to be experiencing something fully in order to transfer it to somebody

else. And so please understand this. To the extent that you invest in your own love, in your own care in your, and what I mean by this when I say is your own self-disciplines. Remember, I'm connecting self-discipline and disciplines to love. The more you do those things to treat yourself wonderfully, beautifully, faithfully, the more you can extend love in a way that you've probably never experienced before to other people. When you truly have self-discipline in your life and you're doing the things that you know serve you the most, you will find a whole new level not only for yourself of love, but your ability to give it and for other people to feel it from you. So next level is this. Practicing good self-care. You will love yourself more when you

take better care of your basic needs. People high and self-love nourish themselves daily through healthy activities. Like I've said, sound nutrition, exercise, proper sleep, intimacy, prayer, meditation, healthy social interactions. The next thing is this. You've got to make room for healthy habits. Start truly caring for yourself by mirroring that in what you eat, how you exercise, and what you spend time doing. By the way, earlier when I was talking about that 80, 90% of our thoughts aren't ones that serve us. What if we replace just 50% of those negative thoughts with loving, compassionate, and supportive

thoughts about ourselves? What if you did that? What if you took 50% of your negative thoughts and you replace them with loving and compassionate and supportive thoughts about yourself? You would find the support you've been looking for from within. You won't need it externally. In fact, if you're constantly looking from support, I need support from my partner, support from my spouse, support from my friends.

What you're really saying is, I'm not supporting myself. I need them to spell me. I need them to fill the gap. When someone is truly loving themselves, they don't need the support or the permission from other people. It's only when you're in necessity of that that there's a deficiency within you. And here's the truth. You already know how to do this for yourself.

Think about a loved one, someone you truly care about and that you want to see succeed. How do you talk to them? How do you talk to the people that you love, your children, your partner, your friends that you love when you're speaking power and belief and love into them how do you speak to them what do you say to them and begin to give yourself that same gift that same message so many of us that lack self-love are incredible about giving it to other people and by the way you think you're great at it but like i said earlier it's limited by how much you can feel yourself and so what you think oftentimes there's what good people think i'm being selfish when i work on myself i'm being

I'm bragging when I tell myself I'm built for this or that God made me in his image and likeness or that I can do something awesome with my life. I'm bragging. I'm brash. I'm putting myself in front of other people. But the truth is you can't pour from an empty cup. You have to begin to fill your own cup with the words you speak to yourself and the actions you take about yourself. You can't just tell yourself great things and not take any of the actions. Why? Because then you lose self-confidence. If you don't keep the promises you make to yourself, you begin not to trust you. And so it's not just enough to, I'm amazing, I'm amazing, I'm amazing. You're going to have to take the actions to validate it to prove it.

But once you start speaking truth to yourself, like you speak to your friends, and then you begin to act in congruence with that, your self-confidence explodes, your self-love explodes, your self-worth explodes. So I think what I'm saying so far is there's a lot to be said for the way you speak to yourself and the actions you take to truly create self-love and to feel self-confidence at the same time. Let me ask you this. When a loved one's struggling in a need of support,

would you kick them when they're down or would you extend a helping hand? You know exactly what you would do. Yet in our own selves, we kick ourselves when we're down. Here I go again. I always do this. I always make mistakes. I knew I was faking it.

We let the imposter syndrome come in and the thoughts start stacking in our heads about, that we're not legit and we're not real, and you always knew it was going to go back to what you're worth. And so when you're most down oftentimes is when you beat yourself up the most, and you know who needs you the most during those times? You. What I would say to you lastly, before we get into some really powerful stuff here,

is here's the truth. How would God speak to you? What would God tell you in that moment? Whatever your faith practices, most of you know that I'm a Christian, But whatever your faith is, what would God speak to you right now? I remember when I first adopted my faith, someone said to me, I'd had Max and Bella many years later and said, can you imagine, Ed, how much you love Max and Bella, those are my children, that God loves you even more. God loves you even more than that. It was hard for me to get my head around that.

But it's true. And so what would God say to you when you're down? Right? Are you open to listening to that voice? And then when you do, you've truly started to love yourself. You've truly started to give yourself the gift between your faith practices, the way you speak to yourself, the actions you take. By the way, when a loved one makes a mistake, do you tell them how terrible of a person they are? Or do you give them credit for their intentions?

Do you give them another chance? You got to give yourself the same gift. Remember this. We really can't truly love others when we're not loving ourselves. Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. We have all the links in our show notes.

You'll never miss an episode that way. Now on with the show. All right, welcome back to the show, everybody. So today's show is very, very personal for me and very important to me as a man. And so I'm going to talk to you today from a male's perspective about the men in your life. And some of the concerns I have that I just sense so often through a lot of the messages I received from men online on my Instagram through this podcast. so many men are tired right now and I mean that from not so much as physical but mentally and emotionally and spiritually so I'd like you to listen to this closely today if you have a brother or a son or a father

maybe a significant other and a husband in your life a boyfriend just like you to pay attention today the things I'm going to cover about whether or not your man is very tired and maybe even breaking a little now having said that I'm covering it today as a man because I am one but as I go through these things, this just as easily apply to anybody, man or a woman. And so many people are tired and down in our culture today. And I think we need to keep an eye on one another. But since I'm a guy, I'm going to talk about it from this perspective today, because I understand this one pretty well. But I know full well, as I've said, that many of you ladies listening to this will say, same here. This includes me as well. And so keep an eye on your sisters also. But these

just signs that maybe your man is tired or maybe even breaking a little bit. And like I said, it may not be physical. It may be more mental or emotional. But I'm going to describe him a little bit. I'm going to speak for him. And by the way, I'm also very, I hear all this, you know, alpha male content that's on the inner about do this and grind this. And a man's got to step up. And for the record, I believe in that very wholeheartedly. I consider myself, if there's such a thing, I don't know that I love the term alpha male, but I think most people that know me would say I'm an alpha of alphas almost in the sense that I coach a lot of strong male figures and they look to me for strength and confidence as well. Having said all of that,

I think some of that can be overcooked and some of that stuff makes men not be vulnerable or authentic with their real feelings of what they're going through because they believe it's a sign of weakness. And so I want to break some of those barriers down today. I believe you can be a strong man or a strong woman. At the same time, be vulnerable. and be willing to reveal fears and insecurities and things that are bothering you. And so let's just look at some of the signs and maybe I'll describe for you

some of the things that maybe your man is going through in his life. And again, of course, this applies to everybody. So again, it may not be physical. It could be mental and emotional fatigue, but let me tell you, he's tired of working so hard and having other people let him down. Things not working out.

Not catching a break here or there. and he's not going to probably tell you about this because a man thinks if he reveals things like this that he's tired or hurting that it's a sign of weakness and nobody wants a weak man most men think and so we're constantly putting on the face the mask of strength and we don't want to reveal to you that we're hurting a little bit because we don't want to scare you we don't want you to think we're not strong we're not an alpha we're not stepping up and you know in his case he he he may or may not want to die or anything like that. Maybe he does.

But although sometimes he thinks a little bit about what it might be like not to have this huge burden on his back, the feeling of being average and ordinary or invisible. Maybe he feels like he's just letting so many people down in his family because he hasn't won yet. And oftentimes in many men's lives, their favorite time of day is when they actually go to sleep because they get a chance to just hide.

they get a chance to escape and the irony is that even though he looks forward to sleeping so much he doesn't sleep very deeply or very well because so much is on his mind he may or may not be depressed but I can tell you this he feels sad often he feels alone often he feels isolated often

let me just stop right there and say if any of you men are feeling that way or any of you women are feeling that way it's okay to feel those things and there's a way out and we're going to talk about that towards the end oftentimes maybe he feels like he's done so much for other people and then when he needed them they let him down that he believed in other people and gave to other people and when

the chips were down and he needed that reciprocated they weren't there for him that he's learned in life that a lot of these buddies of his that he went drinking with or went to a ball game with or even grew up with they weren't really his friends they were there to use him they were there for a stage in his life and for him loyalty matters for him dedication to matters from him being there for a friend matters and he just always assumed that that would be reciprocated and it hasn't been reciprocated and so he's been let down he's been hurt and again as i say this i know so many of you ladies are going hello i know exactly what that's like and i know that you do and men if you have a woman in your life a daughter a sister a mother she may also be feeling these

things, a spouse, a girlfriend, that her friends have let her down. And she feels alone. She feels isolated. She feels hurt. She feels a lack of connection in deep relationships. Perhaps she feels invisible. And oftentimes, I can tell you this man that I know very well, he feels invisible. And he thinks about and often hides things because he tries to escape. And one of his escapes can be alcohol. It could be gambling. It could be drugs. It could be pornography. It could be hiding in the lives of other people like his favorite sports team. It's one of the most insidious places men hide in our culture today is they hide in professional or college sports teams and they live their lives through these people that are actually living their lives on the field

and they're just a fan in the stands. And the only way they gather any acknowledgement in their life is when a bunch of strangers on a field with other names on their back win or lose and that somehow we won and because their own lives have become so impossible to deal with so sad so frustrating so empty that they've attached themselves and latched themselves on to a bunch of strangers whom by the way switch teams every three or four years anyways and don't even play for their team much. And again, I understand there's a beautiful thing about being a sports fan. I'm a huge sports fan. I'm a huge sports fan. I love all my Boston sports teams. When they win, I certainly feel great. And when they lose, I don't. But there's everything in life is moderation.

I don't live my life through them. I don't feel a sense of achievement when they win a game. I don't. I feel a sense of happiness and joy. But I'm not hiding in those lives. I'm very much focused on my own. But oftentimes, a way to escape is alcohol. And by the way, alcohol in moderation for many people is fine. Even if you want to gamble once in a while in moderation, for some people, that's fine, right? Being a sports fan is great in moderation. But when it becomes your sole source of acknowledgement, your sole source of joy, your sole source of escape,

you're just hiding in your own lives. And so the problem for him is not that he's feeling a whole lot of anything right now. He feels a bit empty. He feels a bit alone. And maybe right now he's feeling a little bit lost. He overthinks things. He does not believe in himself like he used to. And now that's starting to impact his effort.

He's tried and tried and he believed in himself and he worked on himself, but it just hasn't worked. It's not that he's lazy. He's just lost. It's not that she's lazy. She's lost. And so over time, because of all of this discouragement that I've talked about in other videos, the four Ds, the Ds of doubt, discouragement, delusion, and delay, he's just a little bit lost.

And it looks like laziness, but he just doesn't believe in himself truly like he used to. And yes, he's got such a big heart. And frankly, the truth is his heart's been broken too many times. Broken because he's tried something that didn't work out. Broken because a friend let him down. broken because a relationship didn't work out broken because one of his dreams didn't come true and so how do we help this man that's going through this

how do we help this woman this brother or sister of ours that's going through this what are the things we can do because they're not going to tell you about it and the longer he goes in silence and doesn't express these feelings the deeper it will get and the scarier it can get and I can just tell you all so much as a man that yeah this alpha stuff is awesome and I do believe in those things very deeply. All you have to do is watch my content. But I also know there's

another side of things where vulnerability is almost shamed in men. It's shamed in everybody in our culture. It's, it's weakness. You're not focused. You're not on your game. You're not doing your cold plunge. You're not in your morning routine. I got all that. And then there's times in life where you've done all those things and it hasn't paid off. And then you did it again and it didn't pay off. And then a friend let you down and it didn't pay off and then a relationship didn't work out or a business didn't happen and you find yourself in life just where you never expected to be by this time you thought by this time had you worked that hard things would have been better you just always thought it would be better and you've tried and tried and tried and there's a lot of despair in men in our

culture in people in our culture and I fear that that despair is growing And I fear that despair is moving into depression, and is that depression potentially deepens, that terrible things can happen, that a, someone may hurt themselves or hurt someone else by acting out of that pain. Hurt people, hurt people. And I worry about so much hurt in the world. When I see people on social media doing harm to one another, I know what it is. They're hurting themselves. Internally, they're hurting themselves. And so they want to lash out and make a comment or lash out and do something to somebody. And somehow I can just make them feel some of the pain, some of the lack, some of the scarcity, some of the insecurity I feel about myself. I might feel

a little bit better about me. It's not who they really are. Most humans are good. Most humans are precious. Most humans are just acting out of something to feel some sort of sense of self, to feel some sort of importance. And if they can't achieve something, if they can't contribute something, if they've been let down repeatedly, then maybe if I just tear some stuff down, I'll feel better. If I can't get significance through my achievements, I'll get significance through doing harm. You see some of these precious children that end up doing harm in these schools, and oftentimes I really believe it's their way of just finally feeling significant, feeling important. Oh, you don't notice me?

Well, you'll notice me now. And so how do we help this man I'm describing? And so many men that are listening to this right now, I guarantee you are very connected to what I'm saying. So many of the ladies listening to this can see it in their man or see it in themselves or see it in their girlfriend, see it in their sister. So how do we help them? it's just not good enough that you let them know that you love them

I'm going to tell you what I believe part of the formula is you can't just love him you've got to let them know that you believe in him there's a huge difference between loving somebody and believing in them and you've got to tell them that you believe in them over and over and over again because they know you love them it's not that you don't love them it's that they don't believe in themselves enough they need to you can't pour from an empty cup and here's the good news truth vibrates at the highest frequency so if you truly do believe in this man, tell him over and over, sit him down and say, not only do I love you, I know I tell you I love you all the time, but I need to tell you,

I believe in you. I believe in you. And as a friend, as a brother, if you're listening to this, if you don't have someone else, I believe in you, brother. I believe in you, sister. I believe you were born to do something great. I believe it's not too late. And I also believe this person still wants to be challenged. So if you have this person in your life, let them know you believe in them, not just love them. Poor belief. You can't transfer to me that which you really aren't experiencing. So you've got to pour it into them. But when you tell someone the truth about themselves that you believe in them, it vibrates at a high frequency and you supercharge them, it's more powerful than you know. And it might take more than once. It might take five times, 10 times, 20

times, but every human is worth pouring into. If you have a child that's going the wrong way, love on him, love on them, but you've got to let them know, I believe in you. What happens when people make mistakes is they believe, they think you don't believe in them anymore. If you've got a child who's gone sideways or a friend who's gone sideways or a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a husband or wife who's just, they haven't won yet, they know you love them, but they don't think you believe in them anymore. And that's what's killing them. Nobody believes in me. I don't believe in me. And so the belief aspect is totally different than love. And I think as a parent oftentimes, I love you, but you've shamed the mistake. You've shamed them so many times.

You've punished them so many times. Listen, discipline is important. In the Bible, Jesus rebuked the apostles when they would make a mistake. That's what it means to disciple. It's okay to discipline. But discipline and shaming. Discipline and disappointment is different. The worst thing to hear you know this when you were a kid was not when your parents were mad at you. It's when they were disappointed in you, right? If someone thinks you're disappointed in them, they're not going to get up. So if you have a child who thinks you're disappointed in them, they're toast. If you have a boyfriend or a girlfriend who thinks you're disappointed in them, they can't get up if they're already down.

Your love doesn't get them up. Your belief does. And if you love me and you're disappointed in me, I'm staying down. So I want you to believe in them, number one. Number two, I want you to get them to accept a challenge from you. I believe in you, I believe in you, and I want to challenge you to do X, Y, Z. You've got to challenge them to do something. Let me tell you something.

All people want to be challenged, as long as they feel your belief. And what may be this person's suffering from right now is the lack of a new challenge, right? Because you got a first poor belief, that's step one. I believe in you, and it may take multiple times. And once you've dosed him with enough of that, then you challenge them. Honey, I want to challenge you to do this. Honey, I want to challenge you to do that. Son, I want to challenge you to do this.

Brother, friend, I want to challenge you to do this. Get them to accept a challenge, right? And then hold them accountable in that challenge. And what he needs is he needs to begin to get some small wins to create momentum in the other direction. What's happening is he's going downhill and he's stacking these dark thoughts and he just wants to go to sleep. And then when he sleeps, he's still tired when he wakes up. His favorite time of day is when he goes to sleep. His favorite time of day needs to be when he wakes up.

That he wakes up with someone who believes in him. He wakes up with a challenge to go get something. He wants to chase. He wants to hunt. He wants to win. He's designed to hunt to be challenged, to achieve, to win. But he only does that on the wins of belief. And what he needs is just some small wins.

Small wins are how you get it going. Small wins. Hey, get up at a particular time, a particular routine, a particular amount of contacts, a particular amount of reps in the gym, a particular amount of hydration, a particular amount of contacts in a given day. Small wins. Small wins beget big wins. The reason we spiral the other way is we get momentum going downhill. And it's very easy to get downhill momentum in our lives. And then we just feel like we can't stop tumbling. I can't stop. No one will. help me. This person let me down. I don't believe in myself anymore. She doesn't believe in me anymore. And it's this dark path. So we've got to reverse it. And the way we stop the downward path is belief, not just love, belief. And then we reverse it as we challenge them to take a step up the mountain again. And when they get one step and they get another, they get small, tiny little steps, they begin to build momentum in the other direction. And so that's the way. And so that's a big step. And then maybe he needs to try to connect again with his faith on a deeper level.

Challenge him to connect if he has faith to connect in his scriptures at a deeper level, to connect that way so that he's got this belief, he's got this challenge. Now he's got some small wins. He's connecting to his faith, which is the true belief of all belief, right, if he's got faith in his life. Maybe that challenge, if he doesn't have any, is to challenge him to explore that part of his life. The great comfort in life is to know. that you are never alone. The Bible tells us he will never leave you nor forsake you, that you are never alone. Maybe he's got to connect a little bit deeper with whatever his faith is, whatever that practice is. Whatever the one is that means the most to him, if he can reconnect

with that, it can create truth to him that vibrates at a high frequency. The ultimate truth is what we believe about whatever our faith is. And when we reconnect with that faith, we are now vibrating at the highest possible frequency again it's the greatest form of belief belief from a loved one is huge but belief in where we're going and what we were made for is a whole other level and then you know what he needs permission to start over and if you're listening to this my brother or my sister i'm giving you permission right now to start over i can tell you right now it's not too late there's a way out there's always a way out there's always a way out it's never to too late. You can turn this around. No matter what you've done, it's okay. You can fix this.

You can turn it around. I promise you. And maybe the next part of it is he needs to give up his addiction to being a part of the crowd. Too many of you men that are listening to this, you want to be a part of the crowd, you want to be one of the guys, you want to be just like everybody else. Here's the truth. You weren't born to be like everybody else. You weren't born to be one of the guys. You're not supposed to be like everybody else. You're supposed to be like everybody else. You're supposed to be an individual. When a man is in a group of guys all the time, he loses his individuality. He loses his ability to express his uniqueness and his greatness in the crowd. That's why even in every single team sport, they play individual positions. So it's great

to have a group around you, of course, that supports you that are your boys or your girls or your tribe. But don't hide in the tribe. Don't hide in the crowd. Don't hide in the pack. Still be an individual. Let me be very clear. One of the most important things that you can build around you is a tribe of people who support you, who believe in you, right? Who challenge you, who love you. But oftentimes, people take those to an extreme and they begin to hide in the pack. Hide in the crowd. Hide in the tribe. Hide as one of the boys. Hide as one of the girls. And you lose your individuality when you do that. And over time, if you just stay in the tribe, If you just stay in the pack, that is one of the keys that begins the downward spile in life.

Play your individual position, play your individual game, supported by the team around you, supported by the tribe. You've got to feel good when someone else scores that touchdown that you threw the block, right? That you threw the block, that if it's baseball, that you do your part, whatever it is in life, that if you're in a company, that you want the company to win, but don't hide in the company, do your part, be great at what you do. So give up your addiction to being a part of the crowd, one of the guys, just like everybody else, and begin to express this new version of yourself and become addicted to your expansion. I want you to get addicted again to expanding. The good thing about being in a small place, if it's not good, is it's very easy to expand from there. At the highest levels, expansion is more difficult.

So one of the advantages of being down on our luck or not playing well in our life is we can expand more easily. Become addicted. I always say I'm addicted to the expansion of my being. And so become addicted to that, not being a part of the crowd. Maybe you need to begin to tell yourself again a new story about who you're becoming. And stop telling the story about who you were or what's happened to you or what the past is. These stories we tell ourselves are very powerful. We keep telling a story about this guy let me down.

I tried this. I used to be that. And what you're doing when you're telling the story is you're actually comparing where you are now to that former story and it doesn't feel good. And it reinforces how bad things are now. Stop making the excuses. Stop telling the story. Enough of all that. Enough of all of it.

Tell a new story. There's power in just telling a new story. Yeah, that's what happened. But here's where I'm going. This is what I'm focused on. This is my challenge. These are the small wins I'm getting. See, if you're honest about where you are, there's, man, express it to somebody.

Tell them, I'm hurting. I'm down. I need some help. Express it. Right? It's okay to do that. It's not weakness. it's strength. Weakness is pretending to be living a way that you're not. If you're hurting,

express it. Tell them. They love you. They believe in you. And then create a new story. You cannot create a new story if you're not totally honest about the one you're in now. But once you're honest, I'm hurting, I'm down. I don't feel good about myself. Right. Now from that place of honesty and vulnerability and authenticity, you can build a new powerful story and create a new one any time you want. Do you know that at any time you want, you can literally write a new chapter of the book of your life. You and God are the author. At any time you can just decide, I'm grabbing the pen and I'm going to write a new chapter. And so these other chapters are part of my story and those tests I had are going to be my testimony. These previous chapters are going to make

the end of this book so incredible. Talk about a plot twist when I was one of my most downtown times in my life, I kept saying to myself, plot twist, plot twist. And that meant I was writing a new chapter. Yeah, I lost here. Yeah, I lost there. Yeah, I made that mistake. Yeah, I was down there. Yeah, I'd lost my confidence there. Plot twist. Bam. New chapter, new chapter. And I started to write that new story. And that first chapter doesn't have to be conquering Mount Everest. The first chapter needs to be a small win. When people look back on the turnaround of their life, it's usually a small thing, just a small one, and then another one, and then another one. And all of a sudden, you've got momentum going back up the mountain again.

I just want to say to you, my brother or my sister, you're good, and your past does not disqualify you. It's not too late. There is a way out. You can turn this around. I promise you. Partner with God if you have faith in your life. Partner with a friend if you don't have that at least. Start to create the right momentum.

You can start right this second when this video ends by taking one step towards whatever that new life is. It could be as simple as writing down a new set of goals. It could be as simple as stopping after this video and sending a loved one a text. It could be getting with someone right now and saying, I need your help. It could be just going to the gym and hitting the weights for the first time. It could be hitting your workout hard. It could be just when this is over opening up your scriptures again. I mean right when this is over.

Your past does not disqualify you and it does not equal your future. remembering that you were born to do something great. And also just remember this, my precious friend. Remember this. Most of the great people that you admire in your life went through the time you are. They went through their version of the wilderness, myself included, many different times. There's a wilderness in most people's lives. There's four seasons in everyone's life.

There's winter, spring, fall, and summer. And all of us have winter. All of us do. All of us have that time of year where all of a sudden we leave winter and spring begins with some hope again. I want this video to be the beginning of the transition from your winter to your spring. And before you know it, if you can get this momentum going and take some of these steps that I've required here, it'll be summer again, and it's going to be awesome. And then there'll be a time of change again in the fall.

And at some point, probably winter will return again. But the key thing in life is that winters become shorter and short. and shorter, and that the springs and summers become longer and longer and longer. This is just a season, my friend. This two will pass. You were born to do something great with your life. If you have this man in your life or this woman in your life, please tell them that you love them, but more importantly, get with them and allow them to express themselves to you, allow them to get it out. And if you have any of these feelings, everybody, get some help, go see somebody. The world needs you. It's not too late. interview with my next guest just want to remind you all that you can subscribe to the show on

youtube or follow the show on apple or spotify we have all the links in our show notes you'll never miss an episode that way now on with the show all right welcome back to the show everybody so the man sitting next to me here today is one of the really best people and all of the personal development thought leader space i love him um he's brilliant he works very hard at his craft but he has a kindness off camera that will be reflected on camera today when you listen to him I just want you to know the person you're going to listen to today is the same person on camera that he is off camera and I'm a big believer in him I believe he's one of the future people of this industry that are going to dominate it he already is he's got a new book out right now called

love life that I read cover to cover in a day and a half and I loved it and I cannot wait to share this man's wisdom with you here today so Matthew Hussey welcome back to the show brother Yeah. I don't know how to respond to that intro. I appreciate it so much, Ed. I love spending time with you. And some of my favorite moments are where we get to hang. Me too, brother. I love you. And I just wish we had more of those moments. So here we go. It's interesting. I'm proud of your evolution. I'm watching you evolve. And by the way, you didn't need to, but just like most people that are growers, you've evolved. And so I always used to think this is the guy that's known on the planet Earth is probably the preeminent. dating expert there is but now you've evolved to where you're really not just a relationship because this book is really about relationships more than it is anything else but what struck me about you i said this off camera in the beginning of the book you kind of admit in the beginning of the book that even though you were like this dating expert you were probably not a very good guy to date

and so why don't we start right there i just think that's an awesome place to start so they they see some of your vulnerability too i think this book is about relational intelligence that's the phrase i keep using um because it can be applied to all relationships and we're all in relationships i actually think we're all in we're all in three different like relationships for life we're in relationships with other people romantic or otherwise you know if you have a terrible relationship with a parent or a brother or you know best friend or someone at work that can ruin your life so you know we're all in relationship with other people, we're also in a relationship with life. And that relationship and how good your relationship is with that is going to determine how happy you are and you're in a

relationship with yourself. So those are three relationships you can't get out of no matter what. And how we manage those relationships is going to be the quality of our life. I suppose I started the book from a place of wanting to take myself off of any kind of pedestal that anyone could have put me on along the way mission accomplished you did well it you know for 15 years i've been working with people and and you know for so much of that in their love lives although i've you know i have a retreat every year that is much broader than people's love lives but i became known for that and i really it was it was a difficult actually reading comments along the way about what an amazing person i would be to date and you know he must be the

perfect person to date because he knows all this stuff and it was a very used to make me more insecure because I'd think these people don't know they don't know that you know I have am making mistakes I am hurting people I am hurting myself I have not figured all of this out I'm you know there were pieces of it that I felt very confident talking about but I also was figuring my own stuff out you know one of the big themes of this book is are we chasing the right things in love and in life and if you chase the wrong things i remember my now wife i started writing this book from a really really tough place i was heartbroken and i by the time i was doing the final edit of this book i was doing it on my honeymoon so it was really crazy by the way

it was a nice long honeymoon you had too but go ahead oh my god it was the best really really good but it but you know i i i realized that i was chasing a lot of i was chasing a lot of lot of the wrong things for a long time and that was continuously leading me to pain and there were blind spots i had about things that i hadn't worked on in myself things i hadn't healed in myself that you know was showing up as pain but not awareness i didn't know what was going on i just knew something's not something's off with me in the way that i'm going after things or the way that i'm falling in love or the way that i'm dating that's leading me to pain and and so what became really really interesting to me not just for other people but for myself was what what

are the deeper patterns that are happening with me right that keep leading me into either pain for myself pain for other people or frankly some form of kind of chaos in my life that i then have to put back together yeah what did you uncover about you so you because this the most fascinating topic of the three relationships to me is the relationship with yourself to me the three that you listed because i uh i'm constantly evaluating that with myself even at 52 years old what did you what did you figure out about yourself that was going on in the relationship with you i there's a there's a chapter in the book called never satisfy and i really love this chapter because i think it speaks to so many of us there's always a there's a line in hamilton where you know he's speaking

to one of the Shilah sisters and you know he says you're like me you're never satisfied and she says is that right and he says I've never been satisfied and I remember what kind of identifying with that and thinking what something's always I'm I'm never really at peace I'm always chase I'm chasing after something that is exciting and causes me chaos or stress or hurt you know or breaks my heart or I'm with someone who doesn't excite me or with someone who doesn't make me feel the things that I want to feel that clearly adores me

and if I could just make myself feel more I would be so happy but I can't seem to make myself feel more in this situation and I would observe patterns like that in my life and I think there's a very common one that so many people fall into and they go what is going on I can't ever seem to find the sweet spot yes and and so that was a key pattern i think i dated like an addict i think i was a kind of like

chasing highs and the excitement of dating and the excitement of you know of romance or intimacy or and and you know even after you realize it's not working you still have you you can realize something's not good for you or good for other people but you don't necessarily have the tools to change the behavior you're right right so it took me time to understand oh there's a kind of you know i have to find a way to rewire my brain to want different things you're on you're on to something i'm obsessed with right now which is that our space whatever we want to call it we have different you know seats in the space of personal development or self-help or thought leader influence wherever you want to call it right you're obviously one of the biggest ones and

but one of them is we're always growing and changing and evolving and But I wonder like where's the space where like what you have is enough and okay. Do you know what I mean? Like I find myself like it's almost like I'm violating a rule if I just really enjoy what I have and I don't want more. I don't want the next thing. So there's like this chase for the next level, the chase for how many books you can sell, how many falls you get, the chase for how much money you can have, the chase for the next house. In your case, the chase for the next date, the excitement of the new. And can I be equally happy and excited with. with the familiar because we're constantly taught in the space to kind of move away from where we are theoretically does it make sense what i'm asking of course and and by the way if you apply a classically kind of optimization mindset to dating you never choose anyone true because you constantly you're looking for what's wrong and how could i optimize to get you know well this person has 90 percent of what i want but they're still missing this one thing and maybe i could get someone who's

92% of what I want and so on and you can go through life like that and I I and then by the way when you're that person and you label it like well it's a kind of Taipei thing I'm I never want to settle for something that's not amazing but relationships require you at some point not to settle for something but to settle on something and there's a big difference between those two things because when you when you settle for something it's like telling yourself I got short changed somehow and no one wants to be short changed no one wants to be short changed no one wants to to get the worst end of the bargain. But if you settle on something,

it's a resolution that I'm going to make this as incredible as it can possibly be. And that's the thing that's going to make it special. But I see, so for me, it was a huge mindset shift. And I think that never making that mindset shift makes a lot of people incredibly unhappy. Because nobody's perfect. I'm not perfect.

If Audrey, my wife was looking for perfect, she would have been really disappointed from day one so it's but you're what you're speaking about there is something i am endlessly i think about all the time because and i even wrote a chapter of the book called happy enough and the reason i wrote that is because and by the way me six years ago seven years ago maybe even five years ago i would have hated that as a chapter name right i would been like that is such a there's such a cop out right such a like settling by another name yes happy enough has become like my favorite phrase in the world i love that because it's from happy enough is not a bad place to be happy enough is saying i'm happy enough with where i am that i really feel like

i can go and take big risks i can go and take big swings in any part of my life because my life already is enough so if this doesn't pan out great point this doesn't happen what i already have is enough for me and and it's you know we're so focused especially in the self-development world there's a lot of focus on like can't stay here it's too bad i'm gonna win because i have to and because and and actually there's a real power in saying if nothing changed i'd still be okay i love that and therefore i can go and take a big swing because I already have enough. And the opposite to that, by the way,

are the people that I see that are the least happy in the world. And that's not the happy enough crowd. That's the never enough crowd. You're right. And the never enough crowd, that's a dangerous place to be. And I see it. You and I see it all the time because we, you know, it's natural. When you're in circles of ambitious people

and people who are trying to make things happen in their life, it's hard to step out of the gear of making things happen all the time and say, well, at what point do i find contentment where i am it's a very difficult what we're doing right now what we're doing right now is one of the most important conversations that needs to take place on a bigger and broader scale the next five to eight years in our world and our culture i all the time uh i'm obsessed with it you and i have our our friends that we're all going for you've got a new book out and we want this book to do well but it's totally different that when i get there i'll

be happier then instead of saying i'm okay if it doesn't things are great right now there's this great clip that I've watched about 3,000 times of Jim Carrey on Instagram. I don't think he's seen this clip, but he says, he's in an interview. I'm paraphrasing. I'll probably mess it up, but it was how it affected me. He says, I'm going to say something you probably never heard an actor say in your life. And the guy goes, what? He goes, I've had enough.

I've made enough movies. I've got enough awards. I've got enough attention. I've got enough money. I have enough. And it's okay. And he goes, you know what? I want to paint now.

I want to spend some time. time and he goes these other things and i just even when he said it i breathed like like he almost gave me permission to feel that way and at the same time maybe he will eventually go make another movie but not because he thinks he has to for the next chase you know it'll be it'll be coming from the right place of intention and and and i'm sure that that spoke to you as it does to me because it speaks to some kind of truth in us yeah that wants to get out and wants to be acknowledged and and it's and it's we do breathe this sigh of relief when someone comes along and says that yeah and look it's let me tell you something i when i was

writing this book i i had very very different phases writing this book there was the panic phase of oh i'm behind i'm behind i'm in trouble i'm not going to make deadline and then when i realized i was behind i went back to i went to england for a month And I was living at my mom's house with Audrey, my wife. This was before we were married, actually. And I was there for a month, and every morning I'd wake up. And if you're doing a lot of business with America, the UK time zone's quite nice because you get like five to eight hours before anyone is even awake and bothers you.

So in those hours, I just sat and I wrote without anyone distracting me. I put my phone away. I literally put my phone in a drawer. I didn't touch it from the moment. I woke up until about 1 p.m. in the afternoon. and I would just sit in this room and write and grab a coffee and go back and write some more and I started to find myself over the course of this month

become happier and happier and happier and I felt so calm and I really, it was like almost it became an emotional thing for me I was like oh my God I feel like I've been released from some kind of tension and treadmill and writing itself for me at least and everyone has some activity like this

when I lose myself in it it becomes a kind of meditation and then at the end of an hour or two or three I get this kind of euphoria and this calm of feeling connected again and feeling like I've somehow lost myself in the richness of life and what's what really matters and in that moment I can tell you ed I don't care what I'm achieving I don't care what is happening in my business I don't care all i cared about was i feel like i just did something really meaningful for the last two hours i love it now let me tell you about where i am right now the book got written everyone's really happy with it i'm really excited about it i'm extremely proud of it the publishers are happy and then of course as you know as well as anyone everyone says right time to get out there

you're on the deal yeah and it has sort of screwed up my calm and it has put me back you know I'm now having to negotiate this tension between and I'm an introvert too so for me my phone blowing up with messages all the time and connecting with people and talking to people about doing their podcasts and this that and the other it's not my natural state you know some people are like that they're just like you know they that's not my natural state where I'm happy and but I'm in it and and it feels like a much more anxious and frenetic state and pace, and it's all about numbers and how many books you sell and wanting to hit the New York Times list and all of the stuff that we all get told

during that phase that is important to do. And I found myself in a moment just like suddenly this, I kept telling myself, when this book gets written, it's going to be such a joyful thing, because I'm so proud of it. It's going to be so joyful to go out and talk about this thing because I'm truly truly it's one of the pieces of work I'm most proud of in my life and I know it's going to help people and I lost touch for a moment in the last few weeks because I'm good it's like I'm you know God I'm in this anxious kind of like now I'm wanting it to do well and all of a sudden I'm in that phase of it and someone said to me Matt someone who's been with me through the whole process said to me you've worked so hard on

this and you put so much of your energy and your soul and your heart into it. This is a victory lap. You should be enjoying this part. This is a victory lap. You're going to get to go and talk about this thing that you really care about. And I'm saying this, I guess. You're the first podcast I'm recording of like a bunch of different things I'm going to be doing and TV and press and all of that. And I guess maybe I'm voicing it out loud because I want to set the intention. I do. I want you to have it too. I just want to enjoy this. And I don't want to lose so much of the message of this book is about being connected. And it's really easy, you know, we, we shield ourselves, and this is the reality.

Life doesn't allow you the perfect set up for you to feel calm and happy. It doesn't say to you, we're going to give you the perfect time zone and you're going to have to, you're going to get to not check your messages until 1 p.m. And you're going to, you know, life comes along and says, how robust are you? Can these things, but meet with real life and all of the things. that happen in a life and all of the disappointments and the headaches and the challenges and can you still maintain at least some of that stuff that you really enjoy and and i'm you know that's something i'm practicing in real time right please remember that because it's interesting you ever

meet someone who's had like a near-death experience or they've survived cancer or something they live their life like it's a victory lap want a victory lap and so one of the things i've reminded myself i was telling my kids this not that long ago i didn't use that term but i'll use that term but i'll use use your term life's a victory lap we're just running up the score you know what i mean like and if you can approach your life that way you know when i because i do the show so you know half the guests at least have a book usually by the way when you're listening to it now probably it'll be pre-order so you can go pre-order matthews book right now by the way let me help them sell some books right now sure the link for that is lovelifebook dot com there you go get that in there love lifebook dot com

and um but i have to tell you like i i sometimes feel sympathy for a lot of my guests because they're in that treadmill when they're sitting in that seat you know they're in that i got to make the times i got to sell this i got to do that i'm like you know and i know it because i did it right and i've avowed i'm in the middle of writing my next book and i'm like i am not doing that next time how will you prevent yourself from doing that next time i'm curious i actually think the next time um well i teach this with my athletes to people that i coach i have goals but then i separate from outcome wayne dyer taught me that so once you've executed the work right now just do you have a goal to make a list there's nothing wrong with that

but then emotionally separate from the outcome of it it's the same thing even like on a first date i think i think it's appropriate to be excited about the first date and have a goal i would love this to work out but then separate from the outcome just let it be right and so for me it'll just be reminding myself to separate from the outcome and also it sounds morbid but this isn't going to matter on my deathbed one way or the other and so it gives you perspective keep forcing perspective on yourself in your life that was a great conversation and if you want to hear the full interview be sure to follow the Ed Milet show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes.

Here's an excerpt I did with our next guest. All right, hey, welcome back, everybody, to the show. Today's an honor. I guess she's an icon. I think I would say she's an icon. I'm going to say that out loud. She's an icon. She's iconic for sure.

And she's just a really special being. She's an immensely gifted artist, and you all know who she has once I say her name. But I've just watched her. When I used to watch her when she was young, I thought she was this really young soul. And as I've watched her become a woman, I think she's stepped into a space where she's actually like a very old soul. No, thank you. Very wise.

She's gone through a lot. She's grown a lot. And she's just got a new album out, by the way, that I absolutely love. I cried listening to a song on there called How Much a Heart can hold with my wife. And her new album is called God's Work. And I'm really honored that she's here today. So share some time with all of you that I love so much. So, Leanne Rhymes, thank you for being here.

Thank you. Thanks for having me. I have uncovered something maybe the last year or two about me. I'm good at loving people, man. I love people. I think one of the reasons I'm pretty good in front of a group or the show or with friends is I love people. And I think they feel it when I'm, and I think people feel it from you too. I am still not good at getting love from other people.

Oh, I understand that. And I have people that really love me. But it's almost like, I don't know how to explain it. Like, I really almost never sit there and go, I'm loved. Like, I can't believe I'm saying this on the show right now. I can't because I have fans and friends and children and family and spouse. But I just don't allow it in. It doesn't mean I don't appreciate it.

Actually, I can appreciate that they love me and not feel it if that makes any sense. And I would like to figure that out. I think that's the thing. If you figure that out, let me know, because I'm working on it, too. Like, I really have to focus on people will give me a compliment, and I will sit there and really work to take it in. Too. Because it's so challenging. It's like it doesn't penetrate.

That's it. Yeah. It doesn't penetrate. Yeah. And it's, and I'm with you. I have people around me who love me so very much. And it's so interesting because I felt, I think with me when I, when I, when I, when I, talking with you when I'm on stage with people, I want people to feel less alone because I know

that's been one of my core pieces is like, I've felt so lonely in this world. And I want people to feel less alone. And so that's why I share so openly. Like, you know, we're so similar in so many ways. And, you know, and someone in our position can share about these things. It really does. Like, it gives people a hope and it makes them feel less lonely. And so I think that's, It's, for me, the loving piece is like, it's almost like, I think my nurturance comes out in that way with other people, and I'm starting to learn how to do it for myself, and then the next part is letting the love of others in, because I know it's there. It's so obvious.

It's the thing. And it's the thing. And for me, it's like, even talking about it with you and several other people that are listening, helps me because it's like, it becomes more apparent to me that I am. It becomes more apparent to me that I should. It's almost like, I've just spent too much of my life. I think everybody might relate to this. I'll get around to that.

Like, let me figure all these other things out. And then I'm sure there'll be this time. I'll just sit on a beach somewhere and it's just going to happen. Yeah. But that's not really how it. The reason therapy works so well is like, I think you're hearing yourself talk more than anything oftentimes. Totally.

That's why writing is so great too. It's like you're really working it out for yourself. What would you say to someone who says, I kind of share this with you. If you, I'll make you work at this right now. Someone says, I would like to feel a little. bit more loved myself so don't advise you because you probably would do it for you what would you say to them and i'm seeing you're looking up which means you're really thinking yes i am really thinking what would your answer be they want to feel more loved yeah to allow that to happen

well i always go back to how how deeply are you loving yourself because i think ultimately it's this it's this belief that we're not worthy of it um So the more we can actually love from the inside out, the more we'll believe that we're worthy of the outside in. And so I think that's the new, then that's like I said, that's my next piece or what I'm, what I'm toying with and playing with in my life right now is that I'm, I'm being kinder to myself. I'm loving myself more. I'm loving my own choices more. Like they don't have to be dictated by the outside world. like I loved creating this record and I get so much out of it

because it's the connection I have with not only people but myself like I'm doing things that I love so I think it's when we can come from that place then we start to believe maybe eventually that we're worthy of it from the outside you know you're right

the reason that I struggle with it and we'll have a few more minutes you guys like this one of these things just flew by But I, like, don't do this to other people, I do it to me. I really stack my mistakes against myself. I mean, even, like, stuff people don't know that's a mistake. Do you ruminate on your mistakes? Yeah, those are fun.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I actually think having friends who share this with you makes it easier. It does. Because I'm like, okay, I'm not completely alone on this. You said about feeling alone. Like, I'm not alone in this. And I, like, I just stack my mistakes. Like, hey, man, like, I don't do it without my other friends.

But, like, with me, it's like, you did this. You did this. you didn't do that very well. You didn't do. And then the stuff that I do very well is like, well, of course you do. You're good at that. I don't know.

Has anyone relate to what I'm saying right now? I'm like, well, of course you're already good at that. That doesn't count. Exactly. It doesn't count. It doesn't count. I could go on stage and do an amazing show. It doesn't count.

You're already good at that. Yeah, just that's what I do. Is that crazy? Yeah. It's really a form of crazy. But if I beat my husband at tennis, then I, that one, like, really counts. Isn't that I'm so.

weird we're so you know what you all have to accept at some point being human is just interesting it is I say that all the time I'm like this is such an interesting thing it is and it's you have to laugh about it at some point you know like all of the all the crazy habits we get ourselves into and the beliefs and at some point we there has to be some humor in it there has to be humor and what we said earlier is it's not like a one moment we're chipping away at ourselves we're improving we're evolving we're growing and I think you have to give yourself credit. I do these things I've described much less than I used to. Exactly. Much less. I just think I had this notion that at some point there was going to be this aha.

I'm like, ah, I'm never going to be down again. I think I felt that way too. And I think that's kind of the, that's what we're fed, right? I mean, that's in this world, it's kind of like the, you know, the lie, the big lie. That is the big lie. Yeah. And the other big lie, by the way, is that you're further from it. So I say this in my book. The Bible says, where there's no vision, the people will perish. Well, you've got to dig a little deeper on that. People have vision. Like if I said, do you want to be happy or sad? What's your vision for you like? I want to be happy. Would you like to have some money or be poor? I'd probably like to have some money. Do you want to contribute to make a difference or not? So you have a vision. The lie is that you're super far away

from it. Yeah. But you think it's 25 years away. And so because that's the lie you believed, you behave and have a, you don't, but most people do. They have a pattern. Well, you do in one thing with being happy or not being depressed. But you keep it so far away. And so you create these patterns in your life to perpetually keep your dreams and your vision that far away from you and perhaps this is a breakthrough for me that I don't do it with like achievements I just do it with emotions I think I do with emotions I think I'm just hearing myself say this right now but like I haven't done it with money or success or a show or I've done it with like the emotion of bliss I'm like it's just far away yeah and so I keep it there and you know what I've what I've been doing

recently and I've we always hear about gratitude list yes and we always I'm thinking I always think for myself like that's the simplest dumbest thing to do and i did it a long time ago and i remember it really helping and so i started it about a week ago okay and now i go through my whole day and i'm starting to notice like i'm really i'm really grateful for a conversation i'm really you know what i'm really grateful for this ice water like i'll start to it'll start to add up yep and it's really helping me so so simple good for me though but you're saying that that those you know the bliss that you're keeping so far away from you it's like oh no there's little moments of joy all the time all the time even amidst the you know the anxiety and everything that I have going on and that's what I loved I really

I was never going to get out of this this morning at all I was going to come in here because I was like you know what I'm going to enjoy this conversation and I'm going to walk out they're feeling different it's like going to the gym sometimes it's like once I get there it's like oh this feels really good so you know I think for me it's it's but you help several million people today and let me tell you something listen to me on this you're you're not good at this you are this you should be doing more of this just trust me i do it i know when i see it like like i i know really i'm really kind of decent at it too and i know when i see somebody that is this will be the most shared show i've ever done because we've hit on topics that really matter to people and two people that

maybe in your case anyway people really look up to are going to be like wow that was almost vulnerable conversation between two people I've probably ever damn heard, and they don't have every answer, but success leaves clues. There was a bunch of clues in there. Yeah. And one or two of these works for me. And keep asking questions. Curiosity's so important.

Curiosity's so important. And I remember I used to be such a curious child. And I, once again, that innocence piece, it's like our curiosity. That's imagination. It goes, yes. It's just kind of like drifts. And we have to come back to that. Like, you start asking questions.

I think we're on to it. I'm telling you guys, you've got to start to just. give yourself the gift of imagining and dreaming and curiosity and when a history and memory keeps popping. Listen, there's going to be a story for your life. If you keep telling the same story over and over again, you're going to keep repeating the same chapters. If you just start to imagine or curious about the next chapters, you try some different things. You walk on stage at an event. You go, I'm terrified, but I'm going to do this. I'm going to try this new hobby. I'm going to start the, you know, I'm going to get good at CrossFit. I'm going to do whatever

it is. I'm going to start writing. I'm going to start writing. on a journal, you're going to find gifts within you that were always there. You don't have to chase them, they're there, but they'll be revealed to you when you go into these spaces that Leanne's described today. Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes.

Now on to our next guest. Welcome back to the show, everybody. Today's such an honor for me because I've got this gentleman to my left back for the second time. It was one of the, maybe the most downloaded show of all time. And I think one of the reasons is this man is, his whole life is on fire right now. He's so electric. He's reaching so many people because his message, and more important, I just think his energy, the way he connects with people, just really resonates and it's perfect for these times.

And he's an icon. He's become an icon in the personal development space and healing and helping people. And he's got this new book out about the most important topic in the world, which is love. And his new book's called Eight Rules of Love, How to Find It, Keep It, and Let It Go. He's also the host of On Purpose with Jay Shetty, one of the biggest podcasts in the world. And some of the top leaders in every industry in the world look to this man for advice and counsel. And now you get to get it from him today. So Jay Shetty, welcome back.

Ed, I just want to say that I'm so grateful to be back with you because I was just saying this to you off screen, but I want everyone to hear it. The amount of your, first of all, the people you attract in your community are just unbelievable. Thank you. And the amount of people after our last interview that came up to me and said, I heard you on Ed's podcast or I loved you and Ed connecting. And then you came on the show too. It's one of those things where you go, when we were texting a messaging before we got to meet each other, you felt a connection.

But then when we sat down, it was just like no other. It was instant. And so I just, I feel really grateful when you feel like you reconnect with someone that you haven't even connected with in the past. That's so funny you say that. When you left that day, I told my first. wife. I feel like I've known Jay forever. Yeah, literally. I felt that way too. Do you think transitioning on that too? Is there any element of that that's in love? So I was preparing last night because I want to talk about this with you because it is, I'm at this stage of my life

where it's always probably been the most important thing. But for me right now, being with the people that I love and making sure they know how much I love them. And in my case, letting myself feel loved is a really interesting thing. What is actually love? Is it something we know when we feel it, do you think? Because I know you've studied this so deeply. Yeah, I mean, I want to start off by just saying that. So my wife and I, we have always said that we think we must have been together in a past life.

Like we have that since we met, we had that familiarity. We had that comfort. And even today, we've always had that. But what I've really tried to do in this book and in my work is when you speak to someone who's in love, they'll say, when you know you know when you feel it you feel it and the problem with things like that is someone's listening or watching right now going j i don't feel anything like i haven't felt it yet what do i do with that do i just keep meeting people and so what i like to do is take a subject like love and break it down and analyze it into really simple ideas that everyone can understand

rather than waiting for some like ethereal internal feeling which i want you to feel but it's going to take a few steps. So I define love. And in the book, one of my rules is make sure that you define love before you say it or feel it. Because I think one of the biggest mistakes that happens in relationships is two people say I love you, but they mean different things. Whoa. So I say I love you, and that means I want to spend my life with you. And you say, I love you, and that means you want to spend a night with me. And that's where all of our friction begins, because you never stop to say, no, no, no, what do you mean by that? So we have to really define love.

So I define love as three things. Okay. It's when you like someone's personality. It's when you respect their values. And when you want to commit to helping them achieve their goals, that is love in action. That is love in practice. That is love in reality. So like their personality, what do I mean by that?

Studies show that to make someone a casual friend, you have to spend 40 hours with them. 40 hours for a casual friendship. It goes on to say you need 100 hours to make someone a good friend. And if you consider someone a great friend, a best friend, you would have had to spend 200 hours with them. So the question about liking someone's personality is, could I like spending 200 hours with this person? That's the question I'm asking myself.

That's the question you should be asking yourself when you're dating someone. Do I want to spend 200 hours? Respecting their values. I've chosen the words very carefully The challenge in relationships is We want people to value what we value We want our partner to value what we value The way we value it

And when they don't value it We think you don't love me You don't care about me But what we have to learn to do is respect their values And for them to respect ours I'll give you an example Like for me, one of my deepest values Is my purpose and my work

And my wife respect it so much that if I tell her I have a purpose opportunity, she'll never hold me back. Yeah. She'll never make me feel guilty about it or bad about it because she knows that this is what fuels me. It's fuel. And my wife's fuel is her family.

Being with her mother, being with her father, being with her sister, being with our niece and nephew, being with her grandmother, who she's with right now, in hospital in London, actually. And again, I'm not going to make her feel guilty or bad if she wants to spend time with her family, over what I'm doing and so when you have this healthy respect

of actually I see that your fuel makes you who I love right like what makes you attractive to the other person don't take that away from them I think this is really just hit me right now we often extract what attracts us about someone meaning what we take that away from them

we want them to give up what they value because we want them to focus on what we value so we take it up Like the rug from beneath their feet. Let me validate what you're saying. Yeah. So I've been married 25 years. We've been together 35 years.

And when I feel the most unloved or disconnected, because the relationship's a real thing, are those moments where that isn't present. Meaning my purpose isn't admired or respected or appreciated. And in a relationship, you're going to have moments where those things don't happen. But I do know in the moments where I feel like that isn't existing is I feel the least connected. So you're a trillion percent right about that. I love hearing that from your perspective. And by the way, congratulations. What an amazing marriage and like phenomenal.

I aspire to be like you, Ed. And I'm learning along the way, and it's the same thing for me. It's like respecting someone's values means two things. You need to know your values because otherwise how can someone respect them? And you need to know the other person's values. And the third one is, do you want to commit? Are you willing to put the time to help someone achieve their goals? Achieve their goals.

Do you care enough to say, you know what, whatever you care about, whatever you believe in, I'm going to be there with you supporting you, cheering you on, redirecting you sometimes. But I care enough. There's a difference between saying, I want to see you win,

and I'm going to be there for you, watching you win, helping you win. You know,