The School of Greatness - How to Know They’ll Cheat on You - Cheating Expert Reveals Warning Signs! | Neil Strauss

Episode Date: May 13, 2024

Today, Lewis sits down with best-selling author Neil Strauss to explore the complex world of relationships, infidelity, and personal growth. Strauss opens up about his own journey from infidelity to intimacy rehab, sharing powerful lessons on rebuilding trust and nurturing secure connections. He delves into the psychology behind cheating and the signs that can indicate whether a partner might be unfaithful. Strauss provides a candid look into his most secure and insecure moments in adulthood, discusses the challenges of monogamy, and reveals the keys to a healthy relationship. Drawing from his experience interviewing extreme personalities, he sheds light on persuasion, manipulation, and how to identify red flags in potential partners. After today’s episode, be sure to check out Neil’s new podcast, To Die For!In this episode you will learnHow to identify red flags that suggest a partner might be unfaithful.The essential principles for fostering trust and intimacy.Why commitment can be challenging and strategies for overcoming fears.Insights from Neil Strauss’s journey through intimacy rehab.How to spot manipulation and protect yourself in relationships.For more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1614For more Greatness text PODCAST to [phone]More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:Matthew Hussey  – https://link.chtbl.com/1590-podCharles Duhigg – https://link.chtbl.com/1580-podJay Shetty – https://link.chtbl.com/1571-pod

The reason I'm such an expert on cheating is because, well, I cheated, got caught. And I remember talking to Rick Rehman. He's in the book, so it's not. He's the producer. He's like, you did all this for, like, sex that wasn't that good anyway. Right, right, right, right. You know, that wasn't even a great experience. It wasn't worth it. Yeah. And so what's wrong with you? And it took a long time of talking to him to recognize something was broken in me.

Our next guest became the world's greatest pickup artist. Former New York Times rock critic Neil Strauss, one of the most renowned and respected pickup artists in the world. Please say hello to Neil Strauss. Please welcome. Welcome again, Neil Strauss. Well, you know why you've never been in a relationship.

Now why? And she goes, well, because your mom wants to be in a relationship with you. And then like as soon as she said it, Wow. Like logically made no sense. My whole body felt the truth of it. I felt it like just I'll never, I'll literally never, that moment like exact moment changed my life. When people lie, they think they're protecting the person or something but they're not. They protect themselves from feeling uncomfortable emotions from that person. Right? They're like, I can't from feeling uncomfortable emotions from that person.

They're like, I can't deal with your emotions, so I'm not going to tell you what I'm doing in case you have an emotion that I'm uncomfortable with. Wow. Do you have any signs that you can see if someone potentially would be a cheater that you're getting into a relationship with? Totally. I mean, yes, totally. Wow.

Here's a great hack that I haven't heard other people talk about, but it's also affordable, powerful, and will change your life. Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Neil Strauss in the house, my man. Awesome. So good to see you. Good to see you again. I think we met originally about 13, 14 years ago.

And one of the first interactions I had with you was at your house, you were doing an interview show with a number of porn stars. And since I've met you over the last 13, 14 years, we've had a number of interactions. You worked on so many high-level books, projects, podcasts. You were originally famous, I think, for writing The Game. Then you wrote The Truth.

You now got a podcast that's about Russian spies on how women can manipulate men and persuade them to falling in love with them. You've had these wide range of topics and conversations that you've dived into for 20, 30 years. And I'm fascinated with your idea on relationships because really you're a person who understands relationships from all the journalism that you've done, the interviews, the books, the conversations. And the first thing I want to talk about is, again, you went from the game to the truth.

One was black, one was white. was black, one was white. And I want to talk about cheating first, because I think cheating is a hot topic right now in relationships, but also just hookup culture. I think people are in this world of hookup culture with social media. And I'm curious, do you think someone can be in a monogamous long-term relationship after they've cheated first off? And also from all the interviews you've done do you have any signs that you can see if someone potentially would be a cheater that you're getting into a relationship with totally i mean yes totally so that they're absolutely they're absolutely signs before you say that by the way it's just so great seeing you because when we met all those years ago i remember you were sort of looking for your place. I remember you were sort of like, OK, I'm going to transition from sports to sort of

doing something that helps other people. And I remember sitting on my couch and talking about that and really seeing how much I really had this great feeling. I knew this is going to work out for him because you just have this quality. And besides greatness is like likability. You're a very likable guy and you communicate yourself with so much heart. I'm like, oh, that's he's like going to be great. And so it's been so fun to watch your career and check in over the years.

Thank you. I appreciate it. Appreciate it. So, so, so, so back to the question, there were two questions. The first one was, can a relationship recover after cheating? The second one is what are signs to spot someone who would cheat um so the first answer is a relationship can absolutely recover out of cheating but not by someone promising not to cheat again really right because what happens is there's a cycle that happens which is someone they get caught they're not guilty about it till they get caught usually right there's a pain there's a wound there's a trauma afterwards right from the other person

and then and then the relationship they currently have is then threatened they go get uh fearful and desperate of abandonment and they promise anything to get that safety and security again interesting once they get the safety and security again they then get that safety and security again. Interesting. Once they get the safety and security again, they then rebel against it and cheat again. Really? Yeah, that's the pattern, right? How many people would you say cheat one time in a relationship, repair, and then cheat again?

What do you think that percentage is? I guess I couldn't tell you the percentage, but the saying, you know, if only one shame on you, if only twice shame on me. but the saying, you know, if only once shame on you, if only twice shame on me. However, being somebody like that, short version of the answer is you can, if you actually do the work to change, right?

So in other words, if someone says I cheated, that's, I really need to look at myself and why I would do that to somebody I supposedly, I do love and care about and like, that's, I really need to look at myself and why I would do that to somebody I supposedly, I do love and care about and like, you know, in a relationship with or married to or live with or have children with. And I'm really going to do the work on myself and to really understand, first of all, they have to own it entirely, a hundred percent. One like important message about cheating is that it's so hard when you're cheating on to think, what did I do or what did I do wrong or it's my fault or you have nothing to do with it.

There's nothing that is your fault that makes someone else act outside of their integrity. So we'll talk about the cheating later. But they have to do the work, which is why did they do it? What was going on? What was the wound? And then actually do the real work to repair that wound and become whole again. And then relationship is possible. Flip side of that.

So a partner, I don't know if this is too much because it's such a broad topic. I love it. So the cheater can repair and can really repair, but the relationship can still not work out. And this is because the person who was cheated on can experience, does experience what's called betrayal trauma. Literally is a trauma. Being cheated on is a trauma and betrayal. And sadly, even though you're the victim in a situation, it's it's a trauma one that it's important to heal from. So, uh, so a lot of times, uh, how do you have forgiveness? Someone, how do you have trust

again? You can't repair the relationship unless, uh, that trust is restored gradually over time. Now you have, you've had a many a many i mean open conversations in your books and on interviews um you know from the game to the truth and the truth you talked about how you were in an open relationships i think you lived in a house at one point right like everyone in a relationship with everyone type of thing yeah and you were at that house that same house right everyone there was like a bunch of people lived together and just had open love, essentially. And because I think at one point you said, this is the way.

And then you flipped it to no monogamy and intimacy with one person and commitment. That's the way. And then, you know, it's kind of gone back and forth. Where are you now in terms of relationships of what is a healthy, loving way to be in the best relationship possible? Yeah. I mean, I think to back it up, I really, when I started writing the book, The Truth, I think it's interesting. For me, I start writing

a book with a question and the book tells me the answer, right? Not say, because I started, or I really thought, started writing the book thinking monogamy isn't natural, monogamy doesn't work. It's just there are all kinds of evolutionary reasons why that support this. But what I've actually found out, and I think this is 100% true of just about everybody, is that if you are not healthy in one kind of relationship, you won't be healthy in the other kind of relationship. So I thought there are so many couples in, or throuples or whatever you want to call them, in open relationships and polyamorous relationships that still cheat.

Really? And I found it happened so often. But cheating might be like, okay, you can, there's some just small rules, like just be protected. Right? And they're not protected. And they get carried away, you know, or don't do that or this or that, or being honest.

So I found that a lot of cheating happens the same almost in all relationships across the board. Even in open relationships, people still cheat. Yeah, there's still cheating or betrayal or this. And again, there are some that are amazingly healthy and great ones I've seen. But, and just like they're healthy monogamous relationships. But that said, I believe if you're not healthy in one kind of relationship, you won't be healthy in another kind of relationship.

And what I found was separate from monogamy, polyamory, you know, ethical non-monogamy, all those things, and just like get healthy and secure in yourself and any kind of relationship will work. Wow. That said, to have a healthy, like non-monogamous relationship, it takes a lot more work on yourself in terms of communication and, you know,

emotional maturity and all those sorts of things. Do you know anyone in a 20, 30 year plus open relationship that have been together themselves, but are in an open relationship that have a thriving relationship, healthy, conscious relationship together, lots of love, lots of trust, have kids and have raised healthy, conscious kids as well.

Have you seen that? I have seen it. Really? Yeah, I have seen it. And I think just to, I think in a sense, I think that, let me start with this. There's actually a study on polyamorous families that showed, and again, I guess studies can show anything, right? Right, right.

To prove whatever point you want. Exactly. I think there's even a study on studies that shows it just confirms the bias that the researcher had at the beginning, especially in psychological studies. That shows it just confirms the bias that the researcher had at the beginning, especially in psychological studies. But that said, that children born in healthy poly families grew up healthier because I think it actually makes sense. If you have more loving caregivers, like how great is that instead of just mom and dad? Wow, that's interesting. how great is that instead of just mom and dad? Wow, that's interesting.

But the answer is the unhealthy version of an open relationship is when one partner wants to explore other partners, the other partner doesn't, but they don't want to lose that partner. So they're like reluctantly accept it. That's the unhealthy version. But they don't really want it, but they accept it because they don't want to lose something. Yes. So they just go along with it, even though

it's against the way they feel. Is that a lack of self-worth or a lack of creating boundaries in that person? I think it comes from both sides. I think one side has a narcissism, right? It's the balance. One side is narcissism and the other side has the opposite, insecurity. And together, that's how that dynamic works. So I think it's sort of on both sides. Versus a healthy one is, if you think about it this way, there's three entities in a relation, which is the person, one partner, the other partner, and then the relationship itself.

Or if there's more partners, you can do it. But the relationship itself, and if you, so if you're going to choose to explore, and I think, I really think that most, a lot of couples want to explore, there's just fears attached to that. Yes. Right? Just to, even just for a night or a weekend, like, but there's fears attached to that. So I think we should kind of remove those definitions, and I'll talk about that in a second.

But I think everything you do should be healthy for all three entities. I think everything you do should be healthy for all three entities. So in other words, we're in a relationship, but like, I feel, uh, uh, trapped. So I want to just go have another experience with someone else, but, and you're going to let me, even though it hurts you, well, that's not good for you or the relationship. So if you think about what can be good for all three and if it's a yes or a green light, then go. Right. But it's gotta be healthy for all three. Right. Exactly. If it's not, then you're fracturing a part of the relationship, right? You're fracturing yourself or you're fracturing the relationship or the person you're with. So it's choosing out of a place of, you know, conscious integrity that is best for all three, I guess. Well said. That's good. But if

one is against it, then you can't really choose that then. Right. Right. And you have to either accept that or not be in the relationship, I guess. and the key the other key is a lot of people want to uh explore outside because they're lacking something in their relationship and like the smartest kind of uh polyamorous sort of uh experts that i spoke to said and i think this is so true your partner has to have an abundance of you before you testar with. And then they're on that secure platform. But if you're like, this is starting not to work, maybe we should try some other things,

that's going to go downhill quickly. So why do you think, because not all monogamous relationships work out, right? People are not happy after 20, 30 years, but they're monogamous, I guess. What do you think are the keys of a happy, healthy, monogamous relationship? Yeah.

What are each partner doing for themselves and for the relationship? As a note, I think it's the same for all relationships. And the way I think about it, because it's funny when you ask the question, well, you're monogamous and you're this. And I think that a relationship should be a constant discussion and it can evolve. Like imagine you're just working a job and you're like, this job is never going to change. Don't even discuss it changing. This is your job forever.

But people grow and people change and you can have discussions. You know, as an example, when I had that serious radio show, the engineer, I think that's okay to share. His wife was going through menopause for several years. She said, you know what, I feel bad for you. Like, I don't want to be touched. I want to think physically. You should go have some experiences and get that need met And then she thought that was healthy for him She it was good for her because he was she wants him to be happy and it's good for the relationship interesting so these things can change so I think I'd like the idea of a relationship is just hmm, I Love you what I've committed to you and let's just see what's the most what grows from there and it's the most exciting for us

Yeah I think each individual focusing on their own happiness and the happiness of their partner and saying, how can we both be happy together? I think that's really key at the end of the day. Yeah. Yeah. When do you feel like it's been the most insecure time of your adult life and the most secure time of your adult life in a relationship and out of a relationship? Can you think about those times? Yeah, for sure.

I think the most insecure time in a relationship, and again, I'm just being super, I don't think I really talked about this, but I think the most insecure time is probably right after my wife at the time had our first child and I think I wasn't ready I was really ready to be a good parent all the stuff we know about trauma the healing I'm like I can this is the chance to write to the

wrongs of the previous generations before us and live what I talk about but what I wasn't ready for was how that affected our relationship really and so it's the most insecure time was when all of a sudden all of a sudden for the next couple years any need it does say in my case it was sort of it was all very overwhelming for her combined with postpartum and the things that are going on with that that uh that that just kind of sort of completely disconnected. The relationship or yourself?

The relationship, to the degree that I remember I was doing my podcast about with the missing persons case. To Live and Die in LA. Yeah. Incredible podcast. And I was getting a death threat from someone. And I was trying to tell her about it. And she's like, listen, I have no time for you. But I'm getting, someone's trying to kill me she's like just enough what I'm like

and because I'm recording everything this is a podcast I literally have it on tape I didn't put on the podcast but I was like man I'm like I I but I but by the way I I think it's important to say that she was just overwhelmed in a capacity. It's not like she was, she was just at capacity. And I think the toughest time for me then was having no space and my partner having no space, no space. I think it's tough. And I think it was something I wish, hopefully for those of you who have children on the

way or first or sometime in the future can prepare you for it is like, is that it's a really, it's a, it's really hard on the other part it's hard on both partners you know like it's imagine going through you're going through postpartum like your identity is changing yeah husband's still running around doing exactly what he did before and somehow it just feels even though even you can spend the time exactly equally i just think for the person who carried the baby it's her feels like her responsibility it's such a i feel like i'd love to see a book i can suggest someone write it for it's not about parenting but about relationshiping after having kids wow so that was the most insecure interesting when's been the most secure time for you in your adult life? Yeah, well, secure time. Same relationship right before the child.

Really? Yeah. Really. And this speaks to exactly your first question. By the way, thank you. I love this conversation because it's like, these are things I think about all the time. So it's so interesting to talk about.

Is that the reason I'm such an expert on cheating is because, well, I cheated, got caught, went to not just to rehab, but really just made it a mission. I'm like, whether this relationship works out or not because of what I did, I want to be a better person who lives inside my own values system. And it's because why would I hurt somebody who I love, who I care about, who I want to get married we weren't married at the time and just really it took like a long time but healed so much i'm

we can talk about the steps i did or the things they did helpful but uh how long were you in the relationship for committed and again when was the first time you cheated within the relationship i guess how long after you were committed yeah we, we were probably, I want to say it was maybe about like a couple years and then maybe like nine months in or something like that. And it was like, and I remember talking to, and it's in the book, so it's not, to like my kind of friend mentor, to Rick, to Rick Rearman. He's in the book, so it's not, he's the producer and-

In The Truth? Yeah, in Rick Rearman. He's in the book, so it's not. He's the producer. In The Truth? Yeah, in The Truth, yeah. So he's like, you did all this for sex that wasn't that good anyway. Right, right, right. You know, that wasn't even a great experience. It wasn't worth it. Yeah. And so what's wrong with you?

And it took a long time in talking to him to sort of recognize something was broken in me. What do you think are the main reasons a guy or a girl might cheat? By the way, just to finish that second part of the question. So after I did all the work on myself, and this speaks to like the monogamy, and I got back in the relationship. So you went to rehab.

Yeah. And to kind of heal the wounds or the root cause of why you wanted to cheat or. Yeah. And I think, and I think actually rehab is not enough. I think, I literally think rehab should be a year long, but if it, but it's hard to sell. It's hard to sell it if it's a year long, but it takes a long time to rewire those patterns. It does.

Built up in our brain over 17, 18 years of childhood and then reinforced over another 10 or 20 years of adult living. So I probably went to several rehabs. I really made it a project, almost like this podcast or a book we do or something. I made it my healing is the most important project in my life. Wow. And so I really did and tried everything until... What did you learn in, I it's sex rehab or what's the rehab yeah yeah yeah yeah it's called like yeah it was it was uh it was like sex sex addiction

rehab or whatever but a lot of it to me felt like uh maybe it's just splitting calling it a nicer word but it felt like an intimacy disorder but what i learned there i'll tell you what i what i learned there but just to finish the point was, once I was back in the relationship, like I felt so, I didn't need to look at people on, so you know, just little things like, I felt so happy to be with her. I felt so committed, same person, I just changed. And then those three things,

the relationship and she changes within that. So side note, if you wanna change your relationship, something's wrong, the only thing you have control over is yourself. If you change yourself, the whole system changes and gets better. Wow. So that's literally like all you have to do

to make your relationship better is actually change yourself and stop trying to get someone else to change. Why is it so hard for people to want to look within and change the things about them that might be broken or that need improvement on? Why is it so hard for us to look in the mirror and say, I need to work on me? Yeah, because it's so much easier to criticize someone else.

It's so easy to look at all of Twitter as people looking what's wrong with the world and everyone else. And then would they do better in that position? Probably not. They'd be defending their own behavior. So I think it's really hard, and I've worked really hard on it, to say I have no control over anyone else. And before I accuse anyone of anything, like how am I contributing here? What's my part in it?

What am I doing? How am I engaging? Uh, and how am I trying to control for my own safety? All these, all these types of things. It's so hard to, uh, I mean, grow up and have a perfect set of values that your integrity with all the time, especially if you've got trauma, wounds, psychological breaks from childhood that you never addressed. Right. It's hard to carry those wounds into your adult life and then say, okay, here are my values. I'm going to stick to them at all times. I'm not going to lean into temptation. I'm not going to sway away from my commitments. I'm going to honor my word. It's really challenging unless you do the healing work.

And you can't do it alone because the hard thing, the other reason it's hard is you can't see yourself. So nobody thinks they're a bad person. Nobody actually thinks they're a bad person. But some people do really, really bad things and justify it. They justify it by getting into a story of, well, they had it coming. They did this to me. That was wrong. And who even knows that those are factual so like it's important to have someone qualified see from the outside thing pointed out and you to be open

to it i have a hack for that that's good because the other problem is healing is expensive it is we have this like expensive and health insurance usually doesn't cover it it's a really broken our whole mental health model and it takes time healing doesn't cover it. It's really broken our whole mental health model. And it takes time. Healing doesn't happen overnight or a weekend or two weeks in rehab. It happens, you might have aha moments during those times, but then it takes months, if not years, to rewire your brain, to integrate the lessons,

to process, to transform into a healthy version of yourself. Yeah, and so here's a great hack that I haven't heard other people talk about, but it's also affordable, powerful, and will change your life. That sounds like you can just put that out there. But here's a great hack, which is, and I did this and it really helped a lot,

which is I've got a group of men in my community who are in the same place. Maybe they were just married, just had children, wherever they're at. And we decided to form sort of a therapy group. And if you get a bunch of guys together who are broken in their own ways to form a therapy group, it's not going to go well. And then we hired a therapist. To help all of you. Right, to help all of you.

And so when you think about it, even going to individual therapy can be expensive for some people. But if it's five, six, ten of you, hiring one therapist, you can all split that and afford it or pay as you want. We've been meeting every Monday night for what's now like, I want to say it's eight years now.

Wow. Same group of guys. And so when I walk in and I say, hey, you know, I'm having this issue with my relationship or with work or something. I don't even have to finish the story.

They're all like, Neil, that's you again. You're doing that same thing you did that time and that time. But the reason why it's powerful going back to us not being able to see ourselves is if I'm sitting with a one-on-one therapist or even just a friend and they have a critique or something to point out, I can just disagree. But if it's eight guys or eight of your people you respect,

even if you don't respect them, and all eight of them have this point you can be like i don't agree but you probably they probably got something there interesting so you can do that almost every week for like eight years yeah and i literally don't make any major decisions without discussing wow yeah that's powerful i really i mean i'm such a believer in either group therapy, one-on-one therapy, therapeutic experiences, week-long retreats to help you kind of reset, re-look at yourself, re-evaluate your values, where you're at in your life, and just try to get you on track to a better version of you. So I think it's really beautiful you're doing that. And I think in general, a lot of men don't have one friend that they can open up to and talk about their insecurities, their problems, their challenges.

And it feels suffocating when you don't feel like you have the ability to just share or express your feelings. So the fact that you're creating that commitment for yourself and other men is a beautiful thing. And they'll say things that they maybe can't share with their partners or even with their best friends because there's that cone of trust in in there wow um yeah it's really it's really i i love it so i really recommend that and also there's something our wounds happened in relationship right relationship with our parents they're relational and so we can heal them in healthy trusting relationships as well interesting so our wounds happen in relationships and the only way to heal them is through relationships it sounds like yeah yeah interesting and and what and i was interesting

the other thing for i think a lot of people will be precious about what they do to help themselves like i'll give you one caveat but i think anything you do with that as the intention of healing you is not gonna hurt i'll talk about a couple exceptions to that obviously but but you know what i mean if someone's gonna say there's a therapy and it's, I don't know, surrounding you, anything, as long as A, like obviously there's a, you know, that the person running it isn't toxic, dangerous, abusive. And then B, there is a certain segment of, and just a warning, And then B, there is a certain segment of, and just a warning, there's a certain segment of self-help improvement courses that are mind blowing, phenomenal, amazing. However, they also try to get their members to recruit for them.

So if you ever, some of you will be mad for me saying this, but if you're ever doing a course and part of the idea of improving yourself is going to get other people to join the course, you know, get people to join the course if you want it. But if it's sort of a compulsion or part of the education, it's beware. Beware, for sure. What were the three main takeaways you got from sex rehab or intimacy rehab? Yeah. I mean, I think the big takeaway, and this actually goes back to your second question you asked. I love that we have so many. Yes. So it goes back to your second question you asked. I love that we have so many.

So it goes back to the second question about how can you identify a cheater ahead of time? So the big takeaway, and I'll never, the big takeaway was understanding the idea of enmeshment, which I didn't understand. What is enmeshment? Do you know what it is or are you saying it's a thing? No, what is it? Yeah. Okay. So there's like generally like three types of parenting. There's, you know, healthy parenting, which is the parent takes care of a child's needs. Right.

And obviously a parent can take care of all the child's needs because children are so needy and wherever they sort of miss a need or especially consistently miss a need or one time dramatically miss a need, that creates the wounds that we're talking about as trauma. Then we all know about abandonment, which is a parent's... We actually don't know as much about it. I think people think abandonment is a parent physically not being there, but abandonment can also be a parent emotionally not being there, right? A parent can literally be present all the time and just emotionally checked out. Yeah.

And that creates the same kind of abandonment. Abandonment can also be, by the way, if you're really young and a parent passes away, that has nothing to do with you. But when you're that young and a little bit, you know, it just feels like, why is that parent not there? Right. You know, even sometimes having surgery, having an operation when you're young or something like that, your parents left you with someone who then cut into you and caused you pain. Like, why weren't you protected so there's a lot of things that are actually come from that are uh out of the parents control even come from love or protection they can still land these wounds i think it's important people often think it's

blaming the parents but it's just understanding ourselves yeah okay that's the second thing you said oh so the sex there so so so so there's there's the there is enmeshment and enmeshment is if abandonment's when a parent doesn't take care of the child is enmeshment and enmeshment is if abandonment's when a parent doesn't take care of the child needs enmeshment is when the child take care of the parent's needs right like a lot of a lot of people can relate to that i think yeah like they had to grow up too fast the parent was throwing their baggage on them their problems on them saying oh you're a lifesaver you're you're so strong for me, you know, all these different things.

Yeah. And why it's so hard to catch, I don't know why I just got the chills for some reason, because what's so interesting about it is it doesn't feel like trauma, because abandonment is, like, disempowering. We feel like, why don't I matter? If that parent cared about me, they'd be there,

or they'd not just, like, divorce, and they'd never see me again except for like twice a year like them and why what's wrong with me but so it's disempowering whereas enmeshment is falsely empowering like look at me I'm taking care of dad look at me I'm taking care mom look at me dad relies me look at me mom relies me look at me I'm special to that like look at me like you know so so you so you feel you're being sort of elevated. So it's harder to recognize this trauma. And that's why it's lesser known.

Wow. And those people, by the way, this will probably hit like a chord for some people. People who are enmeshed and they get into relationships, they like tend to date people they can help or save. Really? Like projects. And then what happens is they date someone they want to help and save because that's how they get their worth and save. Really? Like projects. And then what happens is they need someone they want to help and save

because that's how they get their worth and value. Right? Because that's how they got from mom or dad. Right, exactly. That's my job. Like if I don't have a job

then I'm not lovable. Right? And then what happens is that after a while they can't really help save, change that person and they start to resent like they did with their

parent and then push them apart and cheat or act out like they feel trapped wow yeah wow and they might act out in some other way it doesn't have to be right right it can be some other addictive uh compulsive behavior man that's interesting there's a big book out there i can't remember the name of it i think it's something like adult children of Emotionally Immature Parents or something like that. I'd love to have that too. I don't know if you've seen that. Apparently it sounds great. I see it out there. I've got to check it out. But it sounds like being raised by a parent who was emotionally immature, that you had to grow up and kind of be the parent to your parent.

Yeah. And the wounds and the traumas that that causes. Yeah. Of those three, which one did you experience the most growing up? Oh, for sure enmeshment. Really? Yeah, that was the big takeaway in rehab when all of a sudden, I literally thought as a journalist and a writer,

I thought I was the sane person who wrote about the extreme people who were unhealthy. Because for most of us, our childhood just seems normal because we have nothing to compare it to. That's just normal. That's how it's done, right? So once I was there, and as we're talking, I saw my child from the outside.

I remember the therapist pointed, once she pointed out the patterns, it was like all of a sudden everything made sense. Really? Yeah. What was that like like the first time you rode to see little neo in front of you yeah i think that i think that um and i love that you know because you've done the work we're talking about little me we have a it's true that just to

speak to what you said we have that inner child that feels that when it recognizes something familiar takes over and gets in the driver's seat and all of a sudden we're not in control of our own lives. And so I remember the first time, I really didn't expect that. I was super cynical, like rebellious, you know, like a... And then when she pointed out the patterns and said, well, you know why you've never been in a relationship?

And I'm like, you know why? And she goes, well, you know why you've never been in a relationship. And I'm like, why? And she goes, well, because your mom wants to be in a relationship with you. And then like as soon as she said it. Wow. Like logically made no sense. My whole body felt the truth of it. Like I felt it like just I'll never, I'll literally never let moment like exact moment change my life. Wow.

So you had the aha in that moment. Yeah. But healing didn't happen right away. It probably took a little time to kind of process and integrate it right yeah i think i think the hardest part of healing is having the awareness and still doing the same stupid right because like because man the the it's the awareness is just the first step right once you have have awareness now you have to actually do the work together. Like I have awareness, I have this goal, but the awareness doesn't get to the goal.

Why do you, you mentioned, you know, you wanted to kind of write about interviewing and do journalism on kind of like the weirdest or most extreme types of people. Why do you think you were fascinated with the most extreme personalities in the world for the last 20 years? Well, you guess from what we just talked about.

Just put the puzzle pieces together. I think, see if you just give it a quick shot. Well, I mean, I think you, I don't know. It sounds like you were trying to learn about extreme personalities because you didn't feel emotionally safe or you didn't feel like you had safety growing up in some way from the relationship you had with your mother, it sounds like. And you were trying to make your life more normal by interviewing or learning about extreme people and their personalities. And who is the extreme person I grew up with? Your mom? Yeah. So, so yeah. So, so thinking, yeah. And you were trying to make her feel normal

by looking at, well, there's got to be more extreme people out there. So my mom can't be that extreme. Right. And by the way, at that time, and I think that there's a lot of accuracy to that, I think I didn't see her as extreme because I didn't know any other mom. Exactly. So I think what it is is enmeshment makes you great. Were you enmeshed at all? Mom and all?

I felt I was the youngest of four. Right. And my brother went to prison when I was eight. So from eight to 12, it was just kind of like scarcity survival feelings, you know, for a number of years because we would go to the prison to visit him on the weekends for visiting hours.

It was just a lot of trauma and sadness and shame. Right. And so I didn't feel like I had the attention towards me because it was my older siblings, my brother. It was just us trying to get through this time of sadness. Right. So, by the way, it's interesting you said that because one of the signs of enmeshment is not like, oh, I'm taking care of mom sometimes or dad. Sometimes it's like if mom or dad are sad or depressed and uh that can be yeah they didn't have a loving relationship either right so there was just no love between them so it was

always just kind of insecurity fear so when are they going to scream at each other it was just like uncertainty constantly one subtle form of mission was kind of mom or dad, they feel bad, you don't want to bother them with your needs. So if you feel sorry for a parent, that's usually a good measurement. Interesting. Did you feel sorry for one of your parents or now out of curiosity? Man, I was just like, I felt sorry for myself. That's a smart, wise child. I felt like, you know, I'm stupid, I have no friends. I'm not enough. I felt

just like very insecure, you know, and I didn't feel the love. I know they loved me and they showed moments of love, but it was hard for me to feel it. Right. I think, yeah, it sounds like abandonment stuff. Yeah. And I was dealt with sexual abuse, which you know about that when I was five from a man that I didn't know. So I just had like a lot of uncertainty and like, like when's, what's going to happen next? Right. There'd be screaming in the house. There'd be fighting.

There'd be a disconnection feeling between my parents. So I just didn't know what's going to happen all the time. Yeah. It's like hypervigilant. Yes. Yes.

Yeah. So it just, yeah, it fractured my personality. Yeah. And it took years to heal. Yeah. So it drove me,

probably just like you, it drove me to be like, how do I be the best I can be? And how do I win? And how do I get girls to like me? And how do I make money? And it's like, how do we become significant in society? But it also left me feeling- And like wanted and accepted and seen.

100%, yeah. And loved. And safe. And loved and safe. But no amount of success, money, girls, or fame made me feel more loved. Yeah, of course. And so about 11 years ago, I started going through my own transformation, healing journey,

you know, events, therapies, workshops, meditation retreats to reclaim the inner child and create safety within myself. And that, you know, it's been a 10 10 11 year journey of different waves of emotions and healing and then regressing and healing and you know ups and downs and i finally feel like i'm in a extremely emotionally safe place with myself i feel like the adult me is on a conscious healthy journey to to take care of the little me inside of me. And it's a constant relationship with the two. To be my word to my younger self, to acknowledge my younger self for carrying me all the way to this moment.

Right. For loving and accepting myself. But also it's like just really doing the work like you talked about from, you know, I guess sex rehab. It's like being committed to the daily practices and work where I can align with my vision and values for myself and the effort that I'm putting in consistently. Yeah. Not trying to be perfect, but being consistent. And that journey gives me peace. The effort gives me harmony.

It makes me feel grateful and abundant, as opposed to beating myself up or talking negative to myself or saying, oh, you could be doing better. It's like, yes, I want to improve, but not from a negative place. And that's been a beautiful journey. Yeah, and I love that you said it really is. I think a lot of people like this pretend like it's, and again, even some stuff I said may may uh appear that way but it really is a back and forth thing

like you're I mean I think a healing like the half-life irradiation like you're cutting it half and half and half but it never goes away entirely you know and I I love I want to say this is I'm going to elaborate this and it goes goes back to what we're saying in the green room back there before is I get excited when I backslide. Really? Why? Meaning that like, I'm like, there's something to learn here. Okay, there's something I got to work on here. Like, so it's just easy to beat yourself up when you backslide and go into reactive mode, shutting down or, you know...

Ego. Ego, whatever it is. And it's easy just to be like, all this healing is for nothing. I'm just right back here where I was before and how I know... But it's really about how quickly you recover from it. It's not about never backsliding or never getting in a reactive place again. It's about how quickly when it happens can you go back and recover to your healthy, adult, functional self. And then I'll go back and look at it and say, okay, what was going on?

I'll try to look at it this way. What was the stimulus that I received? Then what was the behavior that I had? Then this is the key question. What was the belief that was underneath it that drove the behavior? Because literally so often, like I grew up with a very critical mom, right?

So it explains a lot of self-esteem issues. Yeah, yeah. And so if I get, you know, if Ingrid was my ex-wife and best friend uh if she criticizes me i might take it more personally and i might be like you're always criticizing me or something i'm like wait maybe it's a fair maybe what she said was actually just factually accurate so so uh but in my brain i'm like well what did what am i what's my belief where does that come from and as soon as you can make it not about the other person then you have a shot of

healing and then the other key thing i'll think about afterward is how did i feel after it afterward so you know often when someone's is in a reactive state and some people act in a lot of people act in some people act out some act in how do I feel afterward which is usually shame exactly and so so I'll try to look

at those pieces and then figure out is there a lie is there a lie I'm telling myself that I need to intervene on like you were saying about your childhood

I don't matter like you know I don't fit in like I'm all those things you were saying were all uh they when you say as an adult they're not true they're just lies and you have to intervene

when you talk about being consistent that was a great word you said you have to intervene on the lies like right away as soon as they happen you have to tell yourself the truth yeah not an affirmation because i think some affirmations are in other forms of lies like it's like a spiritual bypass right right right but but if you as an example, here's a small intervention I'll do is, let's say, when I first moved to LA, I started driving. My friends would call me Kirby because I always hit the curves when I was trying to park.

So maybe I'm driving and I hit the curb. I'm like, I'm such an idiot. That's not true. That's not true. And so but the truth is, I'm still learning to drive and I made a mistake. Exactly. Right? So you can just, you can not, you don't have an idiot instead and say, no, I'm a super

powerful human being, which is great too, but it's nice to just actually correct it with the actual fact. Yeah. I don't know if we answered this yet, but I wanted to get back to you. I wanted to ask you about if you're entering a relationship, what are the signs that you might be entering a relationship with a potential cheater? Yeah, so I think a few signs are, obviously,

if they cheated before and haven't healed. But I think it goes back to the paradigm. So it goes back to the enmeshment. Like I tend to find, as an example, I was somewhere in the makeup artist's work i mean she was talking about she's never had like a relationship cheats all the time i'm like what's your relationship with your dad like she rolls up her sleeve and it says like daddy's girl on her sleeve oh my gosh and i'm like i'm like okay you you because nobody's like

your dad so you know and so i think i think and I don't want to say like never date someone who's enmeshed, but, but you can actually see that, but if your parent's just calling you every day for everything. Just a victim. Right, right. And just relying on you just for their own mental... for their own, just to get through each day. Often what'll happen in a relationship after some period of time is they'll start to feel smothered by their relationship and then act out for their freedom. And again, it doesn't have to be sex or cheating

but it doesn't mean oh they're going to cheat a hundred percent but you can say oh this is something and just see if they're aware of it and working on it but they numb themselves they do drugs or alcohol to numb the feelings of being stuck or trapped and then they're they're neglect the relationship they're not present they're not intimate and vulnerable whatever it might be right right they distance themselves some way yeah they have to distance themselves in some way because they're not suffocated right and literally i remember when i was they just just being with one person and dealing with their need neediness and

they usually choose someone needy as a partner right right uh can can be a big deal i think it's interesting when i we've talked about cheating and I just think when it comes to cheating, it's someone being, it's afraid to be honest in a sense of that like I realized afterward is

you're, it's also you're making your partner, people who cheat often think, my partner's not letting me do this. They don't allow me to do this. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna take care of myself because they're not letting me. Like they get in this victim child position

to their partner. But the truth is, you can literally do anything you want and your partner can respond to it how they want to. So you can literally just say like, hey, you know, I met someone today and I would love to go sleep with them. And you can say, cool, you can do that.

I don't think I can still be in a relationship afterward, but go enjoy yourself and thanks for letting me know who you are, right? Like, I think, I actually think it would be healthy if you can, and then would you still cheat with that person given that choice? You know, but you kind of want to... Yeah. And then people think, well, I don't want to hurt the person, so I'm not going to tell

them what I'm doing. But you're actually... When people lie, and I'm jumping to a thought, but I think it's important, which is when people lie, they think they're protecting the person or something, but they're not. They protect themselves from feeling uncomfortable emotions from that person. They're like, I can't deal with your emotions, so I'm not going to tell you what I'm doing in case you have an emotion that I'm uncomfortable with. Yeah, I think they're probably also hurting themselves the most because they're out of integrity with their commitments or their word

to their partner they're with. Totally. And you're lying. You're not even in a relationship. You're lying in bed next to your partner in this secret world that they don't know about. And that's also important thing to say is what is cheating? Cheating to me is break acting outside the rules that you have established for your relationship. Meaning that if someone's like, you can't watch pornography, guess what? You watch porn, you didn't sleep with somebody down at a fair, but that's, you broke the rules and that's cheating. Yeah. You can't take a, you know, exchange phone or whatever.

First of all, rules should be stated. A lot of times people start dating and they have these assumptions, but you haven't agreed on the rules. And secondly, you don't have to agree to anything you don't want to. It's a consensual thing. No one's making you not do that. You're choosing to do it because it's important to your partner. Yeah. I think that's beautiful with my fiance, Martha and I, when we got into a committed relationship, we were dating for a few months, but then we entered a committed relationship. One of the things I requested was to start the relationship in therapy.

And I said, I've always... Dude, man, that's a year to keep her right there. Because I'd had five or six kind of year to three-year relationships for the last 20 years, right, since I was in high school or college or whatever. And all of them ended in therapy. Right. And they didn't ended in therapy. Right. And they didn't end, you know, typically well. I tried to end them well.

I tried to like make them work. And I was the one who was always requesting to do therapy. This was the crazy thing. I don't know if this is something wrong with me or me choosing a certain type of personality. I would always say, let's do therapy. Let's try to find a way to make this work. And the people that I was choosing to be in relationships with never wanted therapy. They resisted it. It was almost had to beg them for like six months to a year to be like, something's not working. I'm trying to improve.

I'm trying to do what you want me to do. It's still not working. Can we go to therapy? And they didn't want to go. And so we would finally go and then it would end. Right. And it wouldn't end well. They weren't happy that we went to therapy and i never understood so i was like i'm not entering another relationship i'm happy to be single for as long as it takes and i'm not entering another relationship unless the person is willing to work on themselves and create agreements in therapy together in a conscious way from the start and martha right away was like, yeah, man, let's do this. Yeah.

And for the right person, that's like such a value add. It's amazing. So when you talk about rules, we created agreements early on. Right. Like every time we did a session, we're like, okay, we're experiencing a little discomfort here or friction here. Can we create an agreement around this? Yeah.

So that we both know where we're at. Yeah. And just make sure we're going in the right direction. Otherwise let's get out of this thing early. You know, it's like, why wait two years and just have all these chemicals connecting and not talk about our values, our vision, our lifestyle, kind of our agreements and make sure we're aligned. And so it has created a lot more peace and harmony in the relationship by creating that. And it doesn't mean everything's perfect every moment, but it's creating more safety. Yeah. One thing I love, I always have so many thoughts on what you said, but one thing I love, someone said, and I haven't been able to do it. I think I liked, I think it's a way better way to, they said we have intentions, not rules.

Yes. I think intentions. Ours are agreements. Yeah. Yeah. What's one of your agreements? One of the agreements was like, I don't know, within the first year and it's like little things could turn into big things right you know it's like a little thing we're like oh maybe it's not that big of a deal but it can be if it happens every other month for sure um one of them was like within the first year you know she would want to talk about something challenging uh at night like we get into bed, I'm ready to fall asleep. I'm exhausted. You know, it's 10, 11, 12 o'clock or whatever. I'm like winding down mentally, emotionally, physically. And then she wants to start a conversation. And it's not like a light conversation. It's like something that takes time and energy and presence from me. And a couple of

times this happened where it's like, all right, we're up until 3am, 4 4 a.m talking about these things and I want to be there to support her, right? It's not that I don't want to talk about these things, but I I'm like listen This doesn't work for me anymore having these conversations like after 10 p.m. Do not work Because I want to show up fully for you and I can't show up fully to be present So I have to wake myself back up. I have to turn the lights on, I have to sit up at like 1 a.m. and try to like look you in the eyes, be, you know, open body position,

be present with you, like open my heart when I'm like falling asleep. Right. So the agreement was no challenging conversations when we're in bed. Like we talk about what we're grateful for, we talk about like lighter things so that we can go to sleep. Yeah. And we can talk about what we're grateful for. We talk about like lighter things so that we can go to sleep.

Yeah. And we can talk about them tomorrow and everything's going to be okay. Yeah. And so we created that agreement in therapy together and it has created so much peace for both of us. Yeah. And I think it's really understanding too. People have different processing styles. Yeah.

She might want to process everything right away. Exactly. In the moment and maybe accepting that you waiting a little bit to your present is going to help her process it better versus getting, you know, re-wounded by you not being present journey. And then we're both exhausted the next day. And the more we're resentful the next day because we didn't solve this thing. So it's like, let's just talk about it over dinner. Like, let's talk about it when we're both awake, when we're both, like, still of energy.

And if not, then we'll wait till the next day. We'll talk about that. There's one little tool I love that I use. Like, I call them, I guess, check-ins. Uh-huh. I don't know. So I realized that sometimes in a relationship, you can start, stop, you can sort of just

grow distant without meaning to by not talking about certain things, especially things that might be uncomfortable with each other. So I started doing this every other night. It was in bed, but earlier. Sure, sure, sure. And I kind of recommend this. It's great for relationships.

Here's how it works. One person shares everything uninterrupted of what's going on for them. Then afterward, the other person can share everything of what's going on for them. Then afterward, the other person can share everything of what's going on for them. And the deal is you just listen, don't interrupt the other person, and you also don't defend yourself, right? If they're like, you know, I was frustrated.

And sometimes when you hear everything versus reacting right away, you'll see that it's not about you. Like one big key, when like this is like the hardest thing for people to do but the most important thing to do whether work or relationships it's so hard it's just not to defend yourself very hard as soon as you defend yourself someone shuts down from telling you their truth it's very challenging and even if they're wrong

if i'm like listen lewis when when i walked in here you were so disrespectful to me like i walked in and you like you were busy doing other stuff and I haven't seen you in so long. Let's just say it. And we know that's not what happened. You're nothing but awesome. When I walked in, you can say, like, so what was your experience of that? Like, what was it like for you? Did that hurt?

Was that hard for you? Without ever validating that reality as being yours. And so you can just let them say everything about it, well, how they felt. as being yours. And so you can just let them say everything about it, well, how they felt, and once they feel emptied and complete, you can say, I'd love to show what my experience of you was when you walked in, and I just want to show my reality with you. Right, right.

And so you can actually, it's like, it's the most beautiful thing to really hear someone out when you don't disagree, and you never need to agree with them or say it's right, but what is right is those were their thoughts and feelings, those are facts that those were their thoughts and feelings. Those are facts that they were their thoughts or feelings, whether a camera would have seen those same actions or not. Yeah.

But it's how they were feeling. It's their interpretation. Yeah. Yeah. I love relationships. I literally think some people think they're healthy until they get into a relationship, right? And it's like, so I think like once you're in a relationship,

going to therapy, doing that work is like like it's two people growing together is beautiful. Well, the thing I think I, you know, I don't, I would, I recommend it to everyone, but I know not everyone's going to do this because it's like completely opposite of what people would want to do is start a relationship in therapy. But I've, for me, my highest currency is inner peace and harmony. Yeah. For me, my highest currency is inner peace and harmony. Yeah. And to have and be harmonious and to create peace inside of me means having uncomfortable conversations consistently. Yeah.

It doesn't mean like never having challenging conversations. It means being willing to go there and having the courage to communicate and listen when you, ah, that doesn't feel that good. But communicating it gives me more peace. Yeah. And the consistency of it is supportive for us both. I respect her so much more

because I know she wants to continue to evolve and grow. Yeah. It doesn't mean we have to do it every week or every month even. It's just we're committed to each individually growing. And for me,

I value that a lot. Yeah. And it creates more peace in the relationship. Great. I i mean doing it ahead of time before there are problems but as you said like with all your relationships most people the time you're in therapy dealing with a problem it's almost it's challenging it's challenging it's hard to like make it work right so by the way i love i love what you said it was interesting i just had a thought on what you were saying earlier which is i dated these people who wouldn't go to therapy. And then you said later, because I wasn't doing what they wanted me to do.

I think the key of why, tell me if this fits. And then I would stay with them and try to change myself to make them happy. Because I think the idea was like, for them, tell me if this is right. I don't know. But for them, control was safety. Probably, yeah. Yeah, yeah yeah they wanted to control me yes yeah and so if they can't bring a therapist in the mix who might ruin their control over you 100 i think that's 100 because when we do that it's funny because when we go to therapy the therapist and i always say you choose the therapist right like you choose who you like

i will go anyone right because i'm willing to open up and reveal and talk about anything. And the therapist would be like, okay, yeah, you shouldn't be doing that to the, you know, the previous partners I had. Like, this is like a better way of going about it. And here's how you can look at it. But also they would criticize me for what I needed to work on. And I was like, cool, tell me more. What do I need to do? You know, but the other people didn't want to look themselves in the mirror based on what the therapists were sharing. And I don't blame these women. I accept them for who they are.

And I just chose out of a wound these types of personalities. And so, again, it's not me blaming anyone and saying, oh, they didn't want to go to therapy or whatever. It's me looking within and having to say, why did I repeat this pattern consistently? And why did I stay in this pattern? Why was I unwilling to heal from certain traumas or what, why did it take me so long? And so I don't think you're being blaming your victim to me about it. No, no, no. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, it's just looking myself in the mirror and saying, okay, I chose a lot of my relationships I chose out of, uh, you know, chemical reactions over actually communicating values, vision, and lifestyle. Or maybe being lost in your family, you're like, and basically just

someone tell what to do and how to be. Maybe you're, I'm just throwing this out there, but look at your whole, your whole like life is like, let me be around parental figures who can tell me who can be healthy parents and tell me good things. And some of you are choosing someone to, to give you some of the structure. And some of you are choosing someone to, to give you some of the structure. I know. Even if it's unsafe, it's still like someone trying to control or something.

So anyway. And also, yeah. And then like, how can I be better? How can I be better for you? How can I, you know,

and then eventually you're like, you realize that it's actually not about you. It's not. Yeah. I think it's so interesting. So many, there are a lot of partners who, who just like you were saying about self-esteem,

right? I'm trying to get it from, you know, work, career achievements. Some people are like that with, um, that they're trying. So you try to get your self-esteem. I'm just trying to think because some people try to get their self-esteem from the outside world, just as some people try to get their safety from their relationship partner. And then they're like, if you didn't't then the relationship partner starts like like okay i have to do this this and that to make you feel safe and i didn't call you that thing you're not safe and all of a sudden

like it just that's the most it can be a real toxic dynamic 100 and then you really eventually realize and it breaks up when the other partner realizes oh nothing i'll do will make you feel safe nothing nothing yeah no matter how much i change who I am and change my behaviors, they're never going to feel like it's enough. Yeah. It's exhausting. Right. It sucks the life out of you.

Yes. And I repeated that so many times. It's like, why did it take me so long to learn this lesson? But I think the lesson is going to keep coming to you until you're willing to make a change and heal. And the ironic thing is that's often when people cheat because I feel like the life's getting sucked out of me and I just want to be somewhere where I just feel free

and I can connect with myself again. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. I really think that just relationships are so hard and our culture does not raise us to have that right. We just see movies and you know tv shows and instagram all these things where we're just told how they're supposed to be and we develop this fantasy and we don't get any tools i know well i'm glad you're teaching these tools

right now um i want to i want to pivot a little bit yeah i know i know we can talk about this is fascinating it's a great such a good good subject. It's a good subject. But I want to use part of the subject we their game, I guess, from, you know, musicians, porn stars, FBI spies, Russian spies, and everywhere in between. You've dived into these worlds of unique personalities that have learned a unique set of skills around charisma, persuasion, manipulation, lies, creating fake personalities, and literally transforming themselves to get anything they want from anyone else. And you have a new podcast that I'm so excited about. It's called To Die For, where you essentially immerse yourself in a number of conversations with a female Russian spy who learned how to make men fall in love with them so that they could get information and ultimately hurt them in big ways. And I'm curious, what have you learned from all these different personalities about manipulation, persuasion, influence that they used for evil that we could actually start to use for good? Yeah. Well, let's think about that for a second. Because first of all,

I would guess that a spy thinks they're using it for good. So if you take the case of the woman in the podcast, the Russian spy, she was kind of brainwashed to believe you're serving your country. You know, these are bad people. And by doing this, you're using this for good. So I don't think... You're doing a service for your country. Right. So I don't think... You're doing a service for your country. Right.

So it wasn't until later when she gets out of the country and sees all the horrible things and is sort of... They do that she realizes that she's willing to talk about it now because it wasn't good. She was brainwashed. And what was some of the things that this woman that you have on this podcast series did? I'm trying to think if I'm allowed to say them yet.

Let's see. Okay. But let's just say she was trained to seduce men for their secrets or sometimes their lives, right, depending on what they need. And literally, again, according to her, was in this training thing where she was taught there's a great… So she was trained on how to manipulate men yeah yeah and there's and one of the keys is is this and i was i was reading about actually like a lot of men are

caught in these love traps or honey traps the love trap is longer love trap some people are literally some people and this is this is like historical fact there were like the uh so that it's such a crazy world so that the men are called often called romeos uh and and and the women uh uh or and the women are called swallows here they it's called red sparrow but the real word is swallow in russian but swallow has different connotations is uh they probably changed a spouse to Sparrow but the there were women who were often if they were this one woman who worked in an embassy or several people who they get someone lower level who was secretary in this Romeo from Russia as East Germany I think at least at that time seduced. And she literally was in a relationship with him.

And he was saying he was working on a world peace project. Never knew he was a spy and she was giving him data to help him find world peace. Wow. To help him create his world peace project and literally he's just feeding it

all back to the Russians. Then as soon as the Soviet Union collapsed, well, guess what? That guy, that relationship ended. And later she's, you know, being looked at as a traitor. yeah so men were doing this but then there's women doing this as well yeah there's women doing yeah and there's all kinds of different forms of it what was the training like for this woman that you you know interviewed in this podcast what like what is training camp on seduction and manipulation and getting men to fall in love with you.

What does that look like? The training, what's interesting is that the key part of the training is that he has to approach you. So the man has to approach you. So you have to get the man to approach you. And I was reading other sort of cases. There's one, and again, men can be kind of not so sparse when it comes to, she has a great line. She's like, yeah, like men's biggest weakness is sex. And so there's one case in the podcast about this Israeli nuclear technician who defects to spill the secrets of the program.

And then he's in London talking to reporters, he's at a newsstand getting a cigarette or whatever, he meets, there's a woman that he's attracted to. He starts talking to her, so he thinks he picked her up, you know? And so the first thing they'll teach you is how to sort of get someone... It started for her, she says, that she was... It started with posture, clothing, makeup. She was actually from... She's from Kazakhstan, so she... Yeah, I think Kazakhstan.

She really strict upbringing and never even, you know, wore makeup. Wow. Never had a boyfriend, never even kissed anyone before and so really a lot of it was well it sounds sexy so much as is really you know abusive abusive power and like it was a horrible you know it's really is it that was it's dramatic for everybody this kind of line of work wow um but uh so they put her through a training camp on essentially how to get men to approach her without her saying anything to them yeah every everything literally like they teach

you about poisons and they literally and they also yeah oh my god how to poison someone yeah like for example and i'm an expert on this but but coca-cola like sodas like coke is a good thing because it has such a strong taste that it covers up other things. The water is tough. You know, so rum and Coke is a great concealment. So then the other thing is also they taught her how to like to be sexual stuff. So if you're the best he's ever been with, you start to want more. Yeah, I still want more. It's like a drug.

That's that's what she says in the podcast. She says she says like a drug. You get a little bit and you says like a drug you give a little bit and you take it away you give a little bit you take it away till they're addicted to it and then they reveal all their secrets yeah and there's there's two ways yeah there's you can do sort of overtly covertly you know different different ways to get the information sometimes not about revealing their secrets sometimes it's about uh trapping them in other words like uh if they are married or acting outside of sometimes it's about trapping them black black male or yeah it's so sophisticated and i don't know if this is it's just your listeners but i'm just it's so sophisticated that let's just say you're you're uh and it's

very funny it's really widespread uh the transcriber of my podcast is transcribing it. At the interview, she gets the first interview. She's like, oh, you know, I used to work on like a secret program. And they warned everybody about these women that if you're somewhere traveling and you meet someone who's out of your league, they probably are. Right, right, right. Yeah. So this is how kind of once they got somebody on the hook, so let's just say they have some blackmail material.

They call it compromise, blackmail material. They would just say, hey, we just need you to do this for us. And it might be a real harmless thing. We just need to get this piece of information. Like, this doesn't hurt this security mic safety. It gets rid of this thing. You give them the harmless piece of information. Then they really have you,

because now it's one thing to be caught having sex with someone. Now you've actually betrayed your country with this tiny piece of information, and now we really have you. Oh, man. Yeah. This is crazy. It's crazy.

There's like a world out there that I never knew about. How do men know if women are truly falling for them or are trying to manipulate them yeah now we've gone from cheating to are they russian agents yeah or maybe they're just more narcissistic they want to get money from them or they want to get you know fancy dates from them it's like wanting them for their personality and who they are versus wanting them because of what they have yeah that's a great that's a great, great, great question. And let's match that with there's some men and some people who are just so insecure

that they think their only value is giving something if I'm not paying, buying, giving. I'm not lovable as I am. Right. So like we take the first step is like, do you feel that you're lovable as you are? And if you don't, you're really ripe for manipulation. And the second thing is, is like, is if you don't comply with a request, are they still going to love you or care about you? So how do you know if they're actually manipulating you or if they care about you based on how they respond to your actions or? Let's see.

How do you, so how the question is, how do you know if someone's just kind of using you or with you? I mean, I think the things are that, I mean, first of all, they're always telltale signs. And by the way, I would also say the other ones, how do you know if someone's using you just for sex also? And I think the sex money dynamic across across the board is are they willing to spend time with you without any of that right yeah like like there's so many it's like you have to be uh um secure enough within yourself or

at least runa for yourself that you can see that oh okay then unless they're when all of a sudden you're jumping through hoops when i when a maybe that person won't get it doesn't want to see you if there's not a sex possibility involved right like we'll see each other on saturday night instead instead of meeting for lunch junior work like okay they probably are interested in that or on the other side is like okay they're not going to do this unless i roll out all these luxuries. Otherwise they don't want to go for dinner or something. But that said, I do think that I like to operate on a position of trust with everybody. Meaning like, even if they're enmeshed, you know, even if all these other things we're talking about, like I really want to give someone a hundred percent trust because if you don't,

you're already hurting the potential for what it can be. And just be aware if there are warning signs and just be like, hey, I don't know. Be discerning, yeah. Yeah, be discerning. So I think being really, really open and then not being afraid to see the warning signs and take a step back or discuss it. Wow. Yeah, but I think it all starts from being secure within yourself.

Yes. I think that it's important. I don't know why people know this intuitively, but they know it emotionally that we're wired when we're children, right? If our parents, caregivers leave us, well, we die when we're just infants. So some people think that as adults, that if the person we love leaves us, we're going to die. And some people, you know, do catastrophic things to themselves or others because of that, you know. But the fact is, you're literally going to be okay. And you're going to find love again.

And just having that security to be like, I'm going to find someone great or probably better. Right. And again, if somebody cheats on me, like, thank you. You show me who you are. Like, now I get to move on. Like, I wish you told me sooner. Right. But so there's a great line that one of the therapists in The Truth said,

that the only people who are going to be abandoned are, you know, children and dependent elders. Everyone else, the only person who can abandon you is yourself. That's strong. It seems like people want love and intimacy more than ever, but people are afraid of commitment more than ever. Why do you think that people are afraid to commit? Yeah, I think it's part of that paradox of choice, right? I've noticed that too, that we live in this uh people have that mind and i think and those possibilities or choices can i do better and now it's so easy to meet like literally

like you're single you download three apps and now you've got 50 options right and it's so easy to be like well i'm going to trade this i'm going to trade i can get better i can do better and that thing's not right i don't have to fix it I can just throw it out and start all over again. And that's why on these apps, when you're hiring for a job, it's really hard if you're going off, if you do a posting, because a lot of people come to you who've been looking for jobs forever. And we're just leaving jobs there for a few months because they're not hireable. The same is true in the dating apps, which is a lot of undateable people are circulating endlessly there.

With other undateable people. Yes. Yeah. And not to be hard on that. And by the way, many people have met, had love and gotten married and amazing things. And just as many people have gotten amazing jobs through job searches. But it's tougher and there's less time to interview people. Wow.

This is fascinating stuff, man. Yeah, it's really interesting. It's funny, we got back to relationships. It all gets back to relationships. I've only got about 10 minutes left with you. I've got a whole other section on creativity that we'll have to do another episode on. But I want to ask you,

from this podcast that you're launching, when we put this out, it'll be out that week. It's called To Die For. And it's really powerful. Eight episodes from this series of interviewing this former Russian spy who manipulated men, who did harmful things to men, who got secrets from men, all these different things. What were the three biggest takeaways you learned from interviewing her about the human mind.

Yeah. So in other words, yeah, I think the three biggest takeaways is, one is she had this technique called circles of hell. What was that? I know. So circles of hell was basically that what really gets us hooked and be aware of this in your own life when you fall for it is is The push-pull if I if I give someone I start she would control people by punishment reward

So we really up we really go crazy with punishment reward, which is you're acting nice You get to come close and hang out with me and get then you're now I don't like how you're acting So I'm gonna punch you make take your your distance so until you beg or forgiveness or whatever yeah and we've seen people in relationships who fall on that and also in really toxic ways so we would have a very toxic partner but all of a sudden the person's all nice and loving and they go back to them and they've experienced that in the past yeah and so so just beware if you're sort of so so that was one i needed to listen to this podcast like 20 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I would have heard the signs. Yeah.

It's funny too. I also think, listen to your friends when you're in relationships. Oh man. Yeah. Sometimes the friends, I have so many friends, I've had friends in those relations where I'm like, I can't say anything to them until later. Like, why didn't you tell me earlier? Like I tried, but you shut me out of your life when I tried.

So I stopped. It's tough. Okay. Circles of hell. Circles of hell is one. And then second one is, let's see, second awesome technique from her. It's funny, a lot of the stuff overlapped with the game, right? But she...

But from a female point of view. From a female point of view. And besides sex, men's other biggest weaknesses? Flattery. Compliments, flattery, oh you look so good in that right they get addicted they get addicted to how they feel about themselves when they're with you wow right flattery yeah so it's like it's so nice to be around uh that but like sometimes it can be like a manipulation i remember yeah it's very seductive and manipulating yeah

i'd say so flattery circles of hell um let me think there were so there was there was so much uh stuff a lot of the stuff came from nlp she did like a lot of oh she just she did a lot of uh do you know what anchoring is so basically she's talking you and having you talk about a peak positive experience she tried to touch you somewhere touch you on your shoulder your arm try to choose a place where maybe people normally don't touch so like your neck really a good one i can go forth bonus one she's like you know when the men are the most vulnerable yeah yes in bed yeah and that one certain point in bed that she's like at that point you can do anything she's like you could kill it's pretty can do anything. She's like, you could kill...

It's pretty intense. I can't even believe. She's like, you can kill them, or you can, if you whisper something or tell them something, it really implants in their brain in that point. At their most vulnerable sexual moment. Yeah.

Yeah. It's unbelievable. I mean, but I think it's... None of this makes me be any less trusting in the world but also so i think none of this stuff i think we should still have trust but i think we should also see warning signs and run absolutely yeah this is fascinating so the new podcast is called to die for you can find it anywhere on on podcasts um where else can we connect with you personally you i mean it i don't know if everyone knows this but we had uh rick rubin on and you

helped co-write the book with him which has been i think on the new york times bestseller list for what a year and a half now or something every year yeah it's crazy how this has taken off and it's such great writing so congrats on the work together because i know you played a big part in that collaboration but how can we connect with you and support you besides listening to this podcast um thank you by the way it's a great question i don't know i just love i i think i just i just love i love what i do like i love telling i love i love having these discussions and i'm learning the stuff about the human mind whether it's creativity from rick or like you know men's vulnerabilities from the russian spy or you know again talking to you about your past so i think just like uh just means a lot just either engaging conversation or yeah reading listening to the works or whenever i love sharing the stories and the information

wow where can we connect with you online What's the best website and social media? I guess it's whatever one people use. But I would really rather people connect with me through, like, just listen to the podcast. Yeah, listen to the podcast. But where can they, if they want to leave a comment about, like, messages, Twitters and Instagram. I try to, like, but boy, it's so hard promoting myself because I hate when people do that. I like it. But it's good.

You're a professional assistant. Yeah, probably Instagram. Neil Strauss on Instagram, right? Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah. So maybe if you listen to the podcast, share this with a friend, if you thought this was interesting, send it to a friend and then leave a comment of one of Neil's Instagram posts and let them know what you thought about this episode, of course, but listen to To Die For. It's an eight-part series. The last one you did, which was To Live and Die in L.A. Is that right? To Live and Die in L.A.

took over the world. It was fascinating what you did with that. And I think that was four or five years ago when you had that podcast. So if this is anything like that, and I know you're probably even better now, five years later, it is going to blow people's minds.

So I'm so excited to listen to it myself when it comes out March 26th. Make sure to leave a review on there. You know, leave a comment. Give it five stars when you listen to it because that'll help get the traction for the podcast as well. But it's to die for on Apple, Spotify or anywhere you listen to podcasts. By the way, first I'm going to make a quick note. First of all, thanks for saying all those things. I'm giving an example of,

remember what we talked about earlier when you do something, then you reflect on it later. I grew up in a childhood, this relates to exactly what you're saying, just to create epiphany from what you just did, which is I never spoke up for my own needs. We're like, what can we do for you? How can we do that?

Nothing. I'm like, nothing. I'm like, nothing, right? And I'm like, oh, me doing that instead of just saying, yeah, I'd love it if you could do this was actually like a bit of that left over the discomfort of like that. So interesting, right? So, so, so no matter where we get, we're still working on ourselves and looking at these things, but that's a cool lesson. So thank you. That's good, man. That's good. Yeah. but that's a cool lesson so thank you that's good man that's good

couple final questions for you Neil this is called the three truths and you answered this five years ago when you were on last I think

but I'm curious where you're at with this question now right hypothetical question imagine you get to live as long as you want to live right

but it's your last day on earth right you're as old as you want to be but you know you're turning off the lights you're going somewhere somewhere else. You're not in this world anymore. And you get to, from this moment until then, create anything you want to create. You get to have the relationships, the life, the art, the work you get to do. It all happens. But for whatever

reason, you've got to take it all with you. So we don't have access to any of the articles, books, podcasts, anything you've ever make it's gone. It's a hypothetical world. But on the last day, you get to leave behind three lessons to the world. And this is all we have to remember your information by. I call it three truths. What would be those three truths for you? I don't know. You know, it's funny. These questions always so... I think, you know, I think, you know, I guess my, my thought is I don't want to like, I feel like we learn through stories and so I'm a storyteller. So I probably would find a way to, you know, to, to tell a story. I try to only rhyme to some, it's a very short story that you remember here, uh, that, that

people would remember and that somehow helps them with themselves. But if there are three truths, I don't know. I don't, I don't know. I don't know. Maybe I got a little longer before I find what those truths are. And because I also know that what I said five years ago is not what I'd say now. Right, right. I'd say five years from now. What would you say today?

What would be those three things? Today, I'd be like, don't listen to anyone else's truths. Just go find your own. Uh-huh. You know, I think we have to. The truths don't work if you don't find them yourself. Uh-huh you know i think we have to the truths don't work if you don't find them yourself and so and and i realized that like as an example i've read a friend recently was like i just did this

experience where i did ayahuasca straight for seven days it was like mind-blowing it changed my whole life i'm like cool after doing ayahuasca straight for seven days and doing whatever you just did your brain like what did what did you learn? He goes, man, tell what I learned. Trust. You know, so I could just say my lesson is trust, but you have to be in that guy's life for 30 years and then take ayahuasca for seven days to really get that lesson. So yeah, go live and experience and find your own truths.

Okay, cool. There is this live, experience, find your own truths. There's three, I still- There you go, I like it. There you go. Before I ask the final question, Neil, I want to acknowledge you for a moment, even though you don't like acknowledgement. Um, but I would acknowledge you for the consistent, really commitment you have to your craft because you have such a wide range of unique talents from writing and researching and podcasting

and interviews and conversations, and then shaping stories and narratives to help people or share experiences in a beautiful way. I just want to acknowledge you for the gift you have and consistently showing up. You've written so many books in the last five years for some of the biggest names and talent in the world that you co-write with. You've written many of your own books. You've got this journey you're on with the podcast so i just appreciate you man i acknowledge you for the whole journey you're on and and how you keep evolving as a human being in life and health and relationships so i just want to acknowledge you for a moment thank you and i'll give you all my secret information that was great thank you no thank you seriously uh final question what's your definition of greatness? I think my definition of greatness is like,

just always improving and striving to be better of taking where you are and thinking what, looking at yourself and saying, how can I do better or be better from whatever your starting point is? I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show

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