The School of Greatness - 144 The Truth About Successful Relationships

Episode Date: February 27, 2015

"Fear is what's stopping most people from living the lives that they could." - Jack Canfield If you enjoyed this episode, check out the video of us playing pool at www.lewishowes.com/144.

This is 5-Minute Friday! Hey, hey, what's up everyone? Thank you guys so much for joining me on 5-Minute Friday. We're doing a special one today. I just had Jack Canfield on the last episode, and I'm getting a lot of messages from people who said they loved it. This is one of their favorite episodes of all time. They're listening to it two and three times. And we actually played a game of pool afterwards. There's a video back on the site at lewishouse.com slash 143. And there's a video of the full episode, but then also another video of us playing pool. And during this section where we were playing pool, Jack and

I had a lot of fun, a lot of banter back and forth. But he actually drops a lot of knowledge on more success principles that he didn't share during the original interview. And we talked a lot about relationships, building a legacy, vision, things like that. So I wanted to give you guys that. It's a short clip as well. As opposed to me talking this five-minute Friday, you're going to hear more from me and Jack combined and hear more about his success principles. Before we dive in, I want to give a quick announcement that we hit 5 million downloads on the School of Greatness podcast. Again, we've been around for just over two years now.

Five million freaking downloads. That's so awesome. And it's all because of you guys. So thank you so much for sharing and for promoting it and listening two, three times an episode. Keep doing the good work. If you keep it up, I'll be able to keep bringing on powerful, inspiring guests like Jack Canfield. We've got a big guest coming up next week, Julianne Hough, winner of Dancing with the Stars. But without further ado, let's go ahead and dive into this five-minute Friday with Jack Canfield.

Good break. Get in somewhere. Oh, that three almost went in. Okay, it's all you. We'll let him set me up for the eight ball. Oh. In my book, I teach something called free focus and buffer days, where a free day is midnight to midnight with no work. So my wife and I, we sit down in either late December, early January, plan out all our vacations, and that becomes inviolate. Just like, you know, like your sister's wedding. You're not going to miss it. Yeah, yeah.

So I can't schedule those days. Even I've had, you days. I've turned away $100,000 for a little trip to Asia to speak for three days. But if I don't, I'd rather still have a wife.

Yeah, yeah. And my kids have a dad and all that kind of stuff. A lot of entrepreneurs have that challenge. Yeah, it is. I mean, the problem is if you're really

a great entrepreneur, you love what you do. It's tough to stop. So it's just a matter of planning it and then keeping it valid. Because if you're really a great entrepreneur, you love what you do. And sometimes... It's tough to stop. So the... It's just a matter of planning it and then keeping it valid. During the week, we would have like Thursday night would be family night. Friday night would be date night if I'm home. And Monday night was my night.

I can watch Monday night football. I can work in my office till midnight. My wife wouldn't say, come to bed. So I think if you... You have to ask the other person what what is your minimal requirements to feel like we're in a good relationship and then when you find that out if that's something you can agree to then you you commit to it and you follow through if you keep the commitment then trust develops and you know it all turns out really

good do you think it's possible well obviously you're making it happen. Do you think it's possible, well, obviously, you're making it happen, but do you think it's the really, really big leaders in the world, the ones that have a huge vision that's so big and so out there to save the world, do you think it's possible to be married and have a successful relationship and be so on that vision, or do you have to give up a little bit of your energy for the relationship and not be focused only on the vision well i don't think you can maintain a relationship if you're only focused on a vision women are programmed to keep you around to make

sure that the offspring that you produce with them gets raised yeah men are programmed to spread their seed as much as possible to make sure the genealogy continues. So it's two kind of combative, two competing realities. And so it's challenging. I have been what I call a serial monogamist. I've been married three times. And first time I never should have got married, five years, then 20 years, and now 15 years. But I've been in love with other women. They attract me. They've been my friends. They've been in love with other women, you know, that just, they attract me, they've

been my friends, they've been people I work with, and I absolutely could have been just as happy married to them. And, but the reality of splitting up your fortune every time you get divorced is a bad strategy for building a life, you know. Right. I've been through that a couple times. I think that, you know, there are people who believe in polyamorism, which is the idea of having many lovers. I know some people that have pulled that off pretty well.

It's tough to make it work, though. It's very hard. I think it's very hard because women get jealous and insecure. And I'm not sure some men wouldn't get jealous and insecure as well. Sure. But I would say this, if I had any advice to give to a younger person, it would be really conscious about who you marry. Yeah. You know, I would definitely live with them for a while, definitely travel with them because when people travel together, the worst parts come up. And, you know, but here's the other thing.

When you, when humanity was first created, the average age back in Rome was 35 to 40 years people died at 40 years old of old age and so you could have one career and one wife and you were happy what I find is that over time

you do tend to grow a little bored we like novelty novelty, new they call it strange and if your wife says I love you it's not nearly as cool as if Cindy Crawford said it We like novelty. New. Novelty, new. They call it strange. Yeah, if your wife says, I love you, it's not nearly as cool as if Cindy Crawford said it. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. Some new person. Yeah.

And so you have to really work intentionally on your relationship. The other thing I found is that as you're in a relationship, little tiny upsets begin to occur. And if you don't process that and work through that, they build. And then you start to shut down to each other. John Gray's taught me a lot about that. But I think what Byron Cady has taught me is that when you are upset with the other person, it's really some part of you you need to look at. Because I have this belief that you shouldn't be attracted to other people. Well, that's a ridiculous belief. Everyone's going to be attracted.

You know, and even if you act that out on that, my belief that you shouldn't do it is what's made me uncomfortable. My fear of being abandoned is what's made me uncomfortable. My fear that I'm not enough is what made me uncomfortable. It's not your behavior. Right. You know, I mean, you were in Singapore and I wasn't there. I couldn't do anything about it. And you slept with someone, so what?

you were in Singapore and I wasn't there, I couldn't do anything about it. And you slept with someone, so what? So it's really our inner fears, our inner inadequacies, our inner self doubts that are creating the problem. So if you're a conscious person, I always teach people, is if you want to grow as fast as you can in terms of spiritual development, get married, have children, start a business. Because anything that's not clear is going to come up in terms of yourself and your relationships and your doubts and your fears and all that. So the trick is when you're in that relationship and you're starting to fractionate a little bit

is to say, okay, let's work on ourselves. Yeah. Can we work through this and get that excitement back again? Sure. I don't have any judgment about how anyone relates to anybody in terms of if they want to be in relates to anybody in terms of they want to be in a menage a trois, they want to be swingers, whatever. Fine.

I just think a lot of times what happens is they're avoiding dealing with their own issues. But not always. Some people are just, they're wired up differently and they're happy and nobody's threatened and why not? It's good if you're enjoying yourself. But generally, it's people avoiding the difficult issues. I'll go with someone who's nice to me instead of deal with the uncomfortable stuff that we have to deal with. Yeah, right.

And that's why guys often will, the entrepreneurs, they're much more comfortable in their business than they are with their teenage daughter who's giving them a hard time. Sure. Or their kid who needs his diaper changed in the middle of the night. You know, it's much easier to be just out there selling and looking at your spreadsheets and doing all that. What would you do if you were, I'm 31 right now, what would you do with, if you could go back and manage your money then, what would you be doing differently? Would you be saving more? Would you be investing more in your own brand? Would you be hiring people?

What would you do if you had? I don't think there's a one answer for that. It depends on where you are, what you're trying to do, what your goals are. There's a time when you should be investing. But I'm a big believer in building up some capital. But for years, all my investments went into my own company. I mean, I just kept building this. Yeah.

And then when Chicken Soup took off, finally there was enough excess that I could say, okay, now we can start really salting away some money. And that's what I did. And now, I mean, I could retire and live off my money if I wanted to. Sure, sure. But I don't want to. I enjoy what I do. It's too much fun.

What was the biggest win from an investment you made? What brought the most return? I would say it's still my Apple stock has been the best thing I ever invested in. Yeah. Well, cool. I don't know what to do here. I just didn't hear. No, that's a tough one.

Yeah. But just get it away from me. Oh, I could have been in there. Oh, get in. Look at that. Get in the corner. Look at that. Look at that.

Yes. All right. All right. Make it some magic, Jack. You been in there. Oh, get in. Look at that. Get in the corner. Look at that. Look at that. Yes. All right. All right. Make it some magic, Jack. You can do this. Okay. What do I know for sure about life? Should never play eight ball with this guy.

God, what do I know for sure? I think love's the most important thing. That fear is what's stopping most people from living the lives that they could. I think I know for sure that we need to listen more than we talk if we want a relationship to work. I think we need to learn that

no is not the end of the world. Be willing to ask for what you want. Not be afraid of rejection. I think that our level of consciousness is the main thing you need to work on, that everything else flows from that. That's why I meditate and work on myself a lot. You know what I should have done was just play safe and keep you from... You should have.

Yeah. Set me up to win. I know, I know. That's what I do. I help people win in life. And when you help people become successful, you become successful. There you go. Right? Isn't that the key to success?

It is. The more people you help become successful, the more people will help you back. Oh, spun it off. I'm an idiot. I shouldn't have said that. I should have said that was great. Oh, this is fun. Okie doke. Should we put a friendly wager on this? No. No? Not at this point.

Okay. Well, what if you score this one? And a bad investment. Oh, nice. What's your favorite form of meditation? Is it tapping or is it... Form of meditation? Yeah.

Two forms. There's one called vipassana it's a buddhist meditation technique and it's just basically watching your breath and then there's one called tree of life meditation which is a comes out of kabbalah i think you can do it oh i was so ready to have you do that you're like get on with the game no that would have you do that. You're like, get on with the game. No, that would have been impressive. That would have been fun, right?

It would have been good video. Yeah. Now, if you do miss this, that'll be the biggest choke. Won't happen. Of the month. That'll be the biggest choke. I understand that.

Just make sure you hold the stick firmly. Watch out for that. Watch out. No distractions, Jack. Don't worry. Just your reputation on the line. Oh, snap! Okay, now that's a still hard shot. No, it's not. That's easy. Okay, let's see if I can do this. Oh, no, I couldn't. Now you're going to get that. I don't know. That's tricky.

Oh, good job. Good game. I appreciate it. Alright, good job, man. Outro Music