The Blueprint for Better Relationships & a Peaceful Life - Dr John Delony

If you are married, your spouse should have all of the codes to your phones, email accounts, and social media accounts, and you should have theirs. Period. If your spouse isn't trustworthy or safe, you need to head directly into this challenge ASAP. You are worthy of safety and peace. If you are hiding things from your spouse, let today be your independence day from secret, shame, and fear. You are worth finally taking a full deep breath. >> How did people respond to that? >> Not well, man. >> Let's go. >> Not well, dude. Not well at all. the the idea that um privacy and secrecy are the same thing. They've been conflated and I think it's madness. I think it's madness. If you will create a human with somebody but you won't give them the code to your phone, I can't think of anything more insane. That's insane. >> There's a lot of dissonance going on there. >> It's not dissonance is like a kind way to say it. It's it's madness. It's madness. That is why >> um >> yeah the the number of folks that call into my show that are like hey I I can't I'm not going to give her my phone and it's like why like what is on that thing? It's like well it's mine. It's like well what so what what are you hiding? Right. And I think every every major pathology ends up secrets fuel that right it's gasoline for pathology. And so, man, if you can't have a place in your life with the person you're ride or die with that you can say like, "Can you can you check out my phone and get this picture off my phone?" If that gives if that causes you pause or worse, if your partner won't do that, yeah, man, you got to you got to have that conversation like now. Yeah. >> Why does that sound crazy? Does that sound crazy? >> I don't think so. >> I'm an old married man, so may maybe it doesn't occur to It would have it would have done to me 10 years ago, but that's because there was loads of [ __ ] on my phone that I didn't want my girlfriend. >> That's it. >> Whereas now, I don't care. I don't There's nothing on there that I need to be worried about. >> Yeah. >> Uh so I I what blows my mind is that conflation, that privacy issue, that privacy versus honesty thing. >> So people So my wife's a coach and I work in mental health, right? So, people are flying in all the time to stay at our house for a few days and then or we'll go out into the country where I've got a place and people will stay. I'll tell my wife, "Hey, I'm going out. Someone's coming in." So, that's private, but it's not a I'm not I'm not saying like, "Hey, uh, right. I'm I'm going to go run an errand." Right? And so, uh, and she she has clients, right? But the idea that >> I don't know. I think they're conflated and I think that's madness. I think it's madness. One interesting thing is the openness to give your partner your devices and email accounts and messages and social media and all that sort of stuff actually acts a little bit like a a guard rail for your behavior as well. >> You know, like there's there's always stuff that's kind of absolutely >> ambiguous. Yeah. some chick replies to your Instagram story or it's somebody from your past that is associated with an ex or party or whatever. Like it's, you know, there's a million ways that this could go. >> Your behavior with that person can be the beginning of a just a little bit. It's a little sort of fishure or a crack. Um, I got a ton of stick for saying that, uh, if guys want to remain loyal to their partner, but they've struggled to keep their dick in their pants in the past, it's a bad idea for them to go out to a nightclub and drink with their friends until 3:00 in the morning. And the implication, it was both people didn't like that. On one side, the guys didn't like it because it felt controlling, and the girls didn't like it because it sounded like the guys were uh only loyal due to a lack of options. I'm like, look, if you're a mild version of a guy that likes cocaine but is trying to quit, >> being in a house with no cocaine is a [ __ ] wonderful solution to that. It's way easier to avoid temptation than it is to resist it. Right? >> And this you can be the most loyal guy in the world, but if you're 15 beers deep and the wrong night with the wrong thing and you kind of didn't know what was going on and this is a terminal like an existential problem that you found yourself in now, >> just remove yourself from the situation. It's way easier. And it's kind of the same with this that if you and your partner have this level of honesty, transparency, openness where you're just sharing each other's social media accounts back and it's like, "Hey, can you just see if such and such has messaged me?" It's like, "What's this [ __ ] group chat with?" Like, it's just dickpicks. It's like, "Yeah, I know. I know. Like, [ __ ] the boys." Like, as opposed to, oh, I hope she doesn't open that message on the thing. >> Well, and it works in reverse. Like, you establish trust. I've got friends literally that uh we grew up on the same street in in Houston in Texas. Um same street since we were zero. She doesn't get into those text threads. Like she she may see the thread pop up and she knows or when I see something on if I grab her phone to get directions somewhere and text threads come from her college roommates. I don't open it, right? A because I have full trust but b um there's some there's private things but they're not secrets, right? M >> and and she could and you know what I mean? But like >> have you seen that video? It's a a girl driving in a car. She's in the passenger seat and it's captioned below. This guy's presumably saying, "Uh, can I check your text messages?" And she goes, hands him the phone. She goes, "Can I look at your social media accounts?" Hands him the phone. Says, "Can I look at your chat GPT history?" and she throws the phone at the woman. >> Yeah. I I I I think it's this I I want to have the benefits of a fully anchored partner, but I don't want to put all of myself on the table. I don't want to put both feet in that boat. >> And you can't have one without the other. >> Can you explain that a bit more deeply? >> Yeah. So, I want the benefits of being fully seen and fully known and fully celebrated and but I don't want you to see all of me. And so, it's a hedge. And if you've got past traumas, you got past relationship, you got burned, all that. The hedge makes sense, but you can't hope for all of this, right? It's like, I want to get in great shape, but I just don't want to mess with the diet part. Like, you can do that. You're not going to see the results you want. And we blame the other person for that. It's like we're going after the food companies now. We're going after the colors in the in my Skittles or like I mean, man, we're going down rabbit holes, dude. At the end of the day, if I want to go fully into this, then I got to go fully in. And if I don't, then I have to own that I didn't want to go fully into that. >> Yeah. >> Do you get what I'm saying? And there is some there's blame and there's there's pressure and you got I get that. But you have to say, if I want the benefit of this, I got to go all in. Which means you got to risk getting hurt bad, man. Because if you are not allin, there's always this thing in the back >> that said, well, you know, I wasn't rejected because that wasn't me. That was just 60% me, 90% me, but 10% was on my career, 10% was on my friends or 10% was on that that uh orbiting. >> That's not how it goes. It is 10% is you weren't trustworthy or you were going to use this against me. And so I start to weaponize the same person I'm in the boat with. Right? M and when I've got a foot on the side here, I like to poke them. Yeah, just either get in or don't get in. >> Well, I think that >> and it goes it goes, by the way, you're nuts if you meet somebody and you're like, "Hi, my name's John. Here's all my stuff." That makes you psychotic, right? But once you cross those lines and say, "Hey, this is for real. We're going to make a run at this." Or, "We're all in." Or you're standing at the >> also you can be all in at at varying levels, right? You can correct at at the very first date. It's like there is a appropriate level of disclosure at each different stage, but you can max out that disclosure as you go along as opposed to purposefully tampering that down. Right? >> So, yeah, I think that there's people who are all in in relationships and I think there's people who aren't and the people who aren't should get together and the people who aren't should get together and the problems occur when one group dates the other. >> That's fantastic, huh? >> You think? >> Yeah. They That's the Love Island, right? Those who can't like just go, you all stay there. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. You know I was on Love Island, right? >> No. >> No, you weren't really. >> I was the first person through the doors of season one. >> You didn't know this? >> I thought that's where you got the joke from. >> No, >> I was the first >> I wish I was that savvy. >> The first person through the doors of season one. >> Did you win? >> No. No, I didn't. >> How do you win? I've never even seen an episode. >> Uh, you It's like a vote thing toward the end. It's like popularity contest. Public popularity contest toward the end of each couple. >> Like big brother. >> Yeah. Basically, it's couple big brother. Okay. Kind of. And 24 hours a day you're surveiled by cameras and stuff. That was a [ __ ] That was a real That was 10 years ago. 10 years ago. This summer I was on >> That would have been a way better joke if I had known that. >> Well, you doubled up. >> Well, there we go. Edit this part out. >> You're You're right. Because the even within Love Island, you see that there's people in there who are a very small cohort of people and they usually don't stay very long that are actually in there trying to find a life path for the first >> and then the rest of them are just trying to play the game. But I think this would be a great uh analysis for somebody to do. If someone that's watching that's got too much time on their hands if you can take every couple that finished the show of Love Island UK and US and then track how long either how long they stayed together or just basically what the attrition rate is. I guess the attrition rate for couples that finished Love Island in a couple is over 95%. I think that like maybe one in 20 couples or less probably probably less than 95 like would have been able to stick together. So >> are there any that are still together from those original seasons? >> I I literally can't think of any. Tommy Fury and Molly May were the two like were the the big >> Tommy Fury the boxer. >> Yeah. Yeah. He he was on as well. It's an illustrious history in the UK. >> Um but they they separated but now they're back together. So, I mean, hardly a gold standard relationship. Got a kid, had a kid, kids like 18 months old, separated, got back together, public break, all this [ __ ] >> So, uh, but yeah, I I really think >> there's two cohorts of people. There's people who are all in in relationships and those that aren't. And the problem occurs when one group dates the other. If you're dating somebody or if you were or married to somebody and they won't show you their phone, I would head straight to a therapist office because that to me is a huge sign. That's a huge sign that there's some or maybe not to a therapist office, but at least sit at a table across from each other and say we got to put this issue on the table because there's something going on there that person has to feel safe with you. >> Talk to me about safety. What's it mean? Why is it important? I don't think you can have a relationship without safety and without trust. But I think safety says I can say what I want, put that on the table and you'll be curious about it. You won't hurt me with it. Or it means I can say I'm interested in and it basically says I can be me and you won't weaponize me against me. >> Give me an example. >> Um I'm a physician and I I'm not. Let's say I was a physician and my wife gets accustomed to a life. We're living a life as a as a doctor's house and I increasingly get frustrated with the HMO system and I am taking yoga on the weekends and I'm like, man, I'm going to get I want to be a yoga instructor and one day I come home and say, I think I want to quit medicine and I want to do yoga. Right? safety would say, that person won't instantly say, you know what, that's going to cost me. And somebody who is safe would say, tell me more about that. And we might get to a place where I need to go see somebody. I'm not doing well. I don't like the system. I want to start thinking about their careers. But at least it would be met with curiosity, not with instant, I'm going to weaponize this against you. >> You get what I'm saying? That may be a bad analogy, but it is taking the things that you want. >> And I'll even go as I don't like to say this in relationships. So, I'm going to say the things I need and I'm not going to use that against you, right? Um, one of the things we talked about last like one of the things when I'm on the road, I just like my wife to call every once in a while. We just call >> She did last night. This was the funniest thing. So, we're sad. >> We so [ __ ] dude. We're sat at dinner and your phone goes and you look and it was your Did you red button her or did you just like >> Yeah, cuz she knows I don't answer my phone when I'm in a at a meal. >> Did you you actually red buttoned her? >> What does that mean? like you you canceled the call or do you just let it ring out? >> Uh I don't remember. >> I can't remember either. Anyway, >> I have a thing about I try not to touch my phone when I'm at dinner. >> Your phone rings. You see that it's your wife. This is something that you've asked her to do >> because you like to know that she is thinking about you to the point where she'll ring you. >> Yeah. >> You watched it come up >> and then just went back to that was the funniest thing. >> I called her right when I got in into the car. But it's a but she doesn't say when I get home, "How dare you ask me to call you? All you ever want me to do is to reach out." She knows, "Hey, that's one way that my husband likes to feel loved when he's on the road." >> Mhm. >> Like cuz he gets lost in the sea of travel and whatever. And she doesn't weaponize it against me, however small that might be, right? >> Why is safety so important? >> I mean, that's Maslo's 101, dude. You can't you can't fully exhale until you're safe. Whether you're safe physically, whether you're safe professionally, whether you're safe relationally, you can't exhale. I think that's a core human need. Do you agree with that or no? >> Absolutely. Yeah. You >> I wish I could be more sophisticated. I think that's wired into like small tribes of people like I have to know my tribes with me. >> Um if your tribe gets up and leaves and you wake up the next morning and they're gone, >> you know you're not going to live, right? I think that's wired into us at our core. Core core. How do you think it's built in a relationship? What's safety? >> It's practiced. It's practiced from the the moment I meet you. Will you open the door for me? Are you going to pick up the bill? Are you going to respond when I text back? If I say, "Hey, I don't like that." Are you going to when the waiter comes and says, "Nah, we're good." Right? Um it's it's it's built piece by piece by piece. Or um hey, text me when you get home. You don't text. Like that's that's practicing safety or not practicing safety. >> And that can be get a conversation. Hey, you didn't text me last night when you got home. I can't stand feeling like I'm confined. Like I I can't stand that's when you get to have a conversation about honesty and integrity. I don't like feeling like I have a chore when I get done meeting with somebody. I really like when somebody calls. We can have that conversation. >> Got something intention which you need to navigate. >> That's exactly right. Otherwise, it becomes what was that uh Neil Postman quote? If I don't say anything >> Oh, unspoken expectations are premeditated resentment. That's right. If I don't say anything and I feel like I I feel like I got a chore every time I leave, >> um, then I'm going to start resenting. So, does compatibility in one way between two people look a lot like what you need to feel safe and what I am prepared to do in a relationship work well together? Because you can imagine a world in which getting a text good night is a really important part when you're apart to make you feel good. >> That's something you want. For the other person, that feels massively constricting. >> Mhm. And if you just build lots of these things up over time, one person really wants a thing, the other person cannot deliver that without it feeling like a huge sacrifice on their part. Is that what incompatibility is or compatibility? Yeah, but I I still like to distill it down to a choice, right? Like I get to choose to be uh inconvenienced and I'm going to text you, right? or I like to choose I I get to choose if if it's that big of a deal. I need to go look in the mirror and ask myself, why do I feel so constricted when this person says, "Hey, will you just check in?" >> Why do I feel I would need to sit down with my wife if she's like, I just can't call you at nine o'clock when she goes to bed real early. Like, I just can't call you. Like, we would need to have that conversation, right? >> Cuz she would be choosing to not call. But yeah, that is compat. That's compatibility versus incompatibility. I like that. It is I'm putting down what I want. Will you choose to do this or not do this? Well, I mean the super compatibility would be something like this is something that I really want and the other person going I love to give that. I absolutely love to give that as opposed to Yeah. But but that but that switches, right? It um I think you have to be careful with the initial feeling of that because you hear about that all the time. Like we love to do this when we were dating and now that we're married, you don't >> love to do that. So I think it's continually not saying what I want to do or what I really feel like I I it's will I serve you? >> That's true. I understand. But there is a degree of how heavy is the weight for somebody to make that choice. >> Absolutely. It's way easier for somebody to be like flying with a tailwind than flying into a headwind with this stuff. >> Absolutely. But I want I want the person on the other end of that to own own that, not to blame. >> Right. >> What's the difference there? Let's say that you've got two people who have uh one person really wants a thing, the other person really struggles to deliver it without it being a super heavy weight that they have to pick up. It's just not their love language or whatever it might be. How does that >> I think the I think the the the current cultural narrative is everything relationally that makes me uncomfortable. I have to blame you for it for needing this or wanting this. And all I want people to do is to say in this relationship I don't want to I don't I don't feel safe doing it. I don't like doing it. I don't want to do it. And I want people to own that instead of lobbing their grenade over the fence. >> What would lobbing the grenade over the fence be? coming up with sophisticated um dating dynamic articles and posting them in the Times. That might be one, right? Um it might be running you down, weaponizing it against you, right? You always you always need need me to call. You always need me to call. You always need me to call instead of saying, "I get so tired at night, I put the kids to bed, I just crash." Like, I I I'm choosing that. And then we need to have that hard conversation, right? And then I can go. She loves me. She's falling asleep at 9:00. She's running the whole house with me on the road. I'm a big boy. I'll be all right. >> It's another version of trust, right? It's another part of >> I don't have these weird little secrets. >> These bits of me that I feel shame around that I'm not prepared to show you. I'm not prepared. I don't feel sufficiently safe for me to be able to say I get tired after I put the kids to bed. >> That's it. That's it. But that's a you. That's me. That's I I'm putting that on the table >> versus I'm going to perpetually blame everybody else for my discomfort. I'm going to say I don't like this. I don't feel comfortable with this or I've got all these other things and I crash. You can choose to interpret that as I don't love you but I do. I really do. And then I get to be the big boy on the other side of the table and decide what I want to do with those feelings. But it's just about taking ownership of it. Right. I've been using eight sleep for years and I genuinely can't imagine life without it. Having a mattress that actively cools and heats each side of the bed is a total game changer. And their newest model, the Pod 5, takes things to the next level. 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Right now, you can get up to $350 off the Pod 5 by going to the link in the description below by heading to eight.com/modernwisdom and using the code modernwisdom at checkout. That's ei.com/modern wisdom and modern wisdom. A checkout. What are some of the powerful but non-obvious ways that safety gets degraded? I think it I think in two ways. One, if somebody has the courage to put that on the table and the other person hears it and metabolizes it and then I'm going to say chooses to not, um, it gets degraded in that way. And I think it gets degraded in big ways like you you sleep with somebody else but it gets degraded often little by little by little by little. Um or the other way it gets degraded is you don't say anything and right you I don't know your partner comes in on their phone all the time all the time. All the time well they set it down and then you take the phones and you put them away right and then they go get it. Well, you didn't say, "Hey, it bugs me when you walk in." And you still you're still carrying your work down on the phone or you're still just swiping when you walk in the door. Instead of saying that and then dealing with what happens when you put that on the table, you try to act your way to it, right? And it goes back to that resentment part. But trust is I don't trust myself with you or I don't trust I don't I'm not safe enough to put this on the table or you're going to take this and weaponize it or you're just going to disregard it. >> Just messy. >> Is this related to solving for peace? That's Yeah. I I I don't want to go to bed at night knowing I didn't say a thing. And I need to go to bed at night knowing I said that thing with somebody who wasn't going to weaponize it against me. >> Dig into the >> That's just basic honor and dignity, right? >> Dig into the solving for peace thing for me. It's an it's it's uh it's probably I'm probably pathological with it because my my whole my whole job is talking with like >> disregul highly disregulated people. >> Well, it's that but it's like hey man, I've got seven Dude, this may be you. I don't know. I've got um it's it's the Instagramification of like finance stuff. I've got 17 like uh passive income properties that are leveraged 140%, right? and I've got this and I've got this and I'm moving this around and let me put it this way. Here's one. I get so much grief for paying off I think my mortgage was 3.0 maybe. Dude, I just got abused online. What an idiot. You don't know how to do math. Like you're such a fool, right? Because you could have put that in a basic high yield savings account and it's like dude I I it's a sleep tax. That's what I call it. Like I put my head on my pillow knowing nobody can take my house away. >> And we don't have a psychology for that in this culture. It's all about amplification and it's all on paper money >> versus they can't take your house, dude. And it just >> different people will have different priorities. >> Of course. Yeah. Yeah. And for for for me it was that, right? Right. >> Of course you grow up. It doesn't need to be some [ __ ] childhood ancestral trauma thing. It can just be simply I have I have a story in my mind from somewhere maybe outside and maybe inside that I really want I know that my dad my my mom and dad paid the house off >> maybe in the mid the mid-50s and I I don't think I've ever seen my dad as proud of something >> where he said yeah mortgage free it's mine >> totally mortgage free yeah and they there was no expedited [ __ ] like you're paying it off at 40 times the pace that you're supposed to normally uh this was chugging away on a 25-y year mortgage, >> chipping, chipping, some [ __ ] like that. And then they get to the end of it and yeah, >> the it's it's solving for peace relationally, solving for peace financially, solving for for peace professionally, right? Like, >> man, the the number of folks I work with that are just they're just melting. And I always want to ask like, for what, man? Like, what do you for what? Like, well, you know, like like most I I tried to be uh cute with Jordan Peterson one time. And I was like, "Nobody can answer that question. For what?" And he he clapped back in the in the right way. He was he said, "Uh, of course, that's the hardest question to answer." It's like like, "For what? What do you want?" >> And yeah, I I think it took me taken me a long time to get there, but for me, my house, man, want peace. And then we'll go from there. >> Yeah. I uh I think that a good part of this is explained by this wonderful quote I had. So I had Adam Lane Smith on. Have you seen him? >> Oh, yeah. Yeah, I know Adam. >> Yeah. So, Adam, I think would be another one for the >> the attachment guy >> round round round round table [ __ ] super crazy [ __ ] stuff. Uh, he just had this wonderful [ __ ] insight around complexity. So, he said that your life is your issue in life is not that it's uh too busy but that it's too complex. Your system is built for hard work uh not for complexity. Uh, and his argument is that you can deal with any workload as long as it's sufficiently simple and linear enough. >> And I kind of get the sense with the peace versus war thing, too, that if there is a really, really heavy weight, but there's just one of them or two of them. >> Probably super easy. That's why you got two hands. Thank you. >> Or if there's a purpose for it, right? You'll carry it forever if there's a purpose for it. But complexity, yeah, they that's the old TB was somebody I told you I got obsessed with Tab when it came to complex systems and instead of dealing with reality, we just makes it more complex, we make it more complex and we duct tape and nail another, you know, we we jack up this side and shove a brick under it and it just means that when the thing does fall, which all complex systems do, it it will just have fall higher to fall, right? >> I've got a good story about this. So, I ruptured my Achilles. Uh >> oh, no. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Gnarly. Uh I >> How long did it put you out? >> Full 12 months. >> That was actually 5 years ago. That's interesting. I did Love Island 10 years ago. And the halfway point between then and now to the day was the day that I ruptured my Achilles. So, that's an interesting arc. Uh playing cricket, ruptured my Achilles. And this weekend, I didn't think, you know, this is during COVID. It was a brief interlude where the number had come down and everyone was able to go outside and I was playing sport. I go into the hospital. They um do the diagnosis on it. They say, "You need to come back in 13 days. We're going to open you up and stitch you back together. By the way, there's some painkillers. Go [ __ ] off." I'd driven my car to the cricket ground. After that, I needed to go and collect a TV that I'd ordered to the supermarket so that I could put it in the new rental property I just brought ready for the IKEA furniture builder guy to come in the next morning, open this stuff up because on the Monday it was the viewing day, it was the first day of photos and then people were moving in 3 days later and if I didn't this huge cathedralsized deck of cards that I'd built >> and one thing you remember when the Evergiven, you know that uh huge Suez Max size uh tanker got stuck in the Suez Canal. >> Oh yeah yeah yeah. >> It was there for 6 days or something and the entire global supply chain is so finely tuned that one tanker for 6 days in one canal is able to ruin the entire billions and billions of dollars of they're probably still dealing with the repercussions of that in small ways now four years later. That was what my life was like and that's what my life is always always like. I always think if one thing if one spanner gets thrown in the works there is no wiggle room in the system >> and in some ways that allows you to maximize your time and that's really it's thrilling to me. >> That's it. >> [ __ ] squeezing everything out. >> We're addicts to thrill. Yes. >> But when [ __ ] comes and like you [ __ ] I didn't I left foot so I had an automatic car. Thankfully, it was my right foot that went. My left foot drove home from the [ __ ] hospital. >> Put everybody on the road at risk. >> Correct. Correct. Correct. Correct. Um, yeah. Wild. Wild. >> There there's a there's a I I believe there is a direct link between the rise in anxiousness and margin >> and a lack of margin. >> Okay. >> Financial margin, relational margin, home margin. Um, but we have such an allergy to boredom. We have such an allergy to >> peace. Yeah, >> it's it's Yeah, it's an allergy. >> What are the most common issues that men call you about? Like what what do you wish more women knew about how men operated? >> Man, if I had to summarize the the male dilemma, it's like what did what did what did I do and why don't people like me? um from my elementary school teachers to my parents to my doctors to my schools to my um dating prospects to my my collegiate education to my employers like to the to the media at large like what did I I don't know why everybody doesn't like me. Um that's probably the most common question I get. Why doesn't my wife like me? What is it about me inher that's so inherently wrong? Um, and there's a litany of of reasons why you don't do this, you're to this, you fill in the blank. But, um, that's the ultimate question. Why don't people like me? >> Belonging. >> No, it's it's worth, man. It's worth. It's that question of worth. Um, I don't know many men, and I don't I don't live in the red pill sphere, right? heard the whatever. But like I don't know many men who don't want to be a net positive. I just don't know them. They just get the message at a very early age. Hey, quit wiggling in class. There's something wrong with your brain. Hey, don't say that so loud. Hey, don't be so aggressive. Don't be so running around. Don't be so don't be so you. And ultimately that message it becomes part of your nervous system which you walk into every situation like I'm a I'm a I'm a burden on this room. I'm a burden on this family. I'm a burden on this workplace. I'm a burden on this culture. And we're at we're at the tail end of a world where men can say, "Okay, I'll just I'll I'll opt out." And then now we're blaming you for opting out, right? M >> um and so it it's it's a privilege to be able to opt out that that's quickly coming to an end. But yeah, there's this idea that um I don't want to cause everybody around me all this pain. I'll just step out and that's not a that's not a good solution either. But but think about that worth question. I'm not worth going to the gym. I'm not worth going to see a therapist. I'm not worth going back to school to get more education to get a new job. I'm not worth any of these other the efforts it's going to take to um go do something better to go be something different. Um I I'll just be quiet. >> No one tried. >> I Why Why would I try? I'm not even worth the effort. And every time I I think many domesticated men, I don't if you can say that, um their homes are a failure factory, right? Um I want to help. Well, that's not how you do that. you need to do it like this and you need to do it like that. I remember a conversation with my wife like about helping and it occurred to me, oh, here's the the the underlying problem is I sleep just fine with a dish with a with a sink full of dishes. Like I'll do the dishes when we're all out of dishes. And so she can count like I did the dishes five times this week. You did them once. And then she can rightfully say, I'm doing so much more work around here. And I can say, oh, I didn't know that. it didn't occur to me that work needed to be done. So, we have to do the alignment stuff up up front, but if I'm walking around all the time, I can feel when I'm a burden in my house, when I'm in the way, right? And then I start to imagine them in the way everywhere. >> And so, if we're looking at masculinity as an illness or if we're looking at men's problems as an illness, then at least be compassionate enough to treat it that way, right? You and I were talking last night like um men won't share their emotions. Now, there's a whole new thing like men are too emotional. We're the only ones who have to carry. Like at some point, man, people just start gonna say, "I'm out. I'm out." >> Yeah. >> And it's that will be the that would be not a good result. >> What would your advice be to women on how they can make their partners feel more worthy? >> Man, it's a trope as old as time, but um it's Bnee Brown that says, "What you go looking for in the world, you're sure to find." And I love the way she says that. Find one thing on a day-to-day basis. Dude, I made an app for that. Just a day-to-day practice. Find one thing that you can see like, "Hey, I really see how hard you're working last night. Thank you for that." Or you came to bed at 10:00 instead of 2:00 a.m. Like, man, I you feel lighter today. Like, find one thing. Begin to practice admiration. Even if you got to search for it, man. Uh, but it begins to send a message. I like you. I like you. Sometimes it's as gentle as just putting your hand on somebody's arm, right? Um when you're driving instead of, "Hey, look, there's a there's there's red light. Look out. Stop. Slow down. We got to go left. Why aren't you going left? Turn the radio down." Just a gentle like, man, or a hand behind your neck, man. Just something that says, "I'm glad you're here." I think we over dramatize. It's so small. It can be so small. Or thinking, "That's not how I would have emptied the dishwasher, but he's a good man." You know what I mean? Or I I can see. Thank you for that. >> Or that's not where the the the the drying rack goes. Or that's not how you pack those kids lunches. Or >> at this particular school that school's nut-free and this one's not. You put the granola bar in the Man, I'm so glad he's making lunches. And then when I'm I've exhaled, I can say quick reminder this, you know what I mean? But it's just um I don't know. It's just it's just saying, "Hey, I appreciate you. I appreciate you." And then having the courage to say, "Here's here's a better way or here's another way." 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Just go to the link in the description below or head to functionhealth.com/modernwisdom. That's functionhealth.com/modernwisdism. If you want to go on an adventure, if you want all of the things in your life to be fixed, just start telling the truth. And every time that I end up having a conversation about like relating within a couple, it just comes back to that. Well, I I think there's a there's another arc to it. I have to see you. And I can't see you through the lens that is my life. And I think true relationship is I'm taking off the glasses that I see the world and I'm going to see you. And then I'm that's going to allow me to practice knowing you. And if you will if you will see and know that person and then tell the truth cuz I think you can weaponize truth also like I feel I feel you are >> um telling the truth is let's just get there culturally that'd be awesome right if we could just be honest with each other but relationally I have to see not the wet towels on the floor I have to see her and then I have to have know her and know she did not put those towels there as a stab to the patriarchy like what must have her day been like, "I'm pick up those towels." You know what I mean? >> Cuz if you came and stayed at my house for two weeks and you left towels on the floor, I just pick them up cuz we're friends. Like, I'll just pick them up and I'd be like, "Ah, Chris, dude, pick up your towels." And I But because she's my romantic partner, it has to be this big existential dramatic. >> How much of it's compounding as well that this is building up over time? This is the tower. >> Yeah, you're right. It goes back to telling the truth >> issues last week and the thing the week before and it's unspoken expectations >> and also just pick up the towels man you know what I mean >> okay so question on that this sounds great but I think a lot of people especially that are in longer term relationships will feel like this sounds wonderful when you're setting the tone 3 months in or 6 months in >> you're always setting the tone >> but how do you have some sort of a breakwater. If you've got a mountain sized amount of unspoken expectations, >> words that haven't been said, premeditated resentments that you need to somehow get out and you go, "Okay, you had this conversation with your wife. This is a breakwater. We need to move forward. Build something. >> This marriage is over." >> Yeah. >> We build a new one. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Uh what does that look like? Someone says, "I feel like this is the sort of relationship that I want inside of the relationship that I'm in, but it's not the relationship we have." And there is a big backlog of stuff that neither of us have said to each other. >> How does someone navigate that? >> They I think you start by writing down all the eyes, all the stuff that I brought to that mountain cuz it's really easy to go to that mountain and be like, "You've been doing this, you've been doing this. I'm going to sit down and say, "I have become a person that I don't like inside of my own marriage, inside of my own long-term relationship, and I want to work with you to build something new." And then you have to hope to that they're willing to put their stuff on the table, too. >> Instead of weaponizing what you just put on the table, >> that's a that's a tough, scary place to be. But I think the reality is >> is they're going to say, "Well, you remember when you told me that you did this thing?" Like, that's a thing, right? >> But here's the thing. That marriage is over. That relationship's over. When you get that mountain back, when you have that moment, it has we have to it has to be different. That thing's got a period at the end of it. And so you may let it run out of gas until the the volcano explodes. It's going to explode, right? So I can do it now with I and you can weaponize the eye and then we're going to end up in a in a divorce court somewhere or we can um just let it do its thing. But it's it's it's there now. And so you might as well be a person of integrity while the thing's happening. >> What about the opposite? What should men know about how women operate? What are the things that women are calling in and saying to you most frequently? Some of my women colleagues disagree with me on this. Um, and so I'll I'll caveat this with that, but um, I think women were sold a bill of goods also. And the question that pops into my head is why won't he change? But I think the deeper question is, I did all of these things that they said and why don't I feel better about me or my world or my the life I've constructed for myself? And what are the most common things that they have done that have not borne? >> I waited this many years to have kids. I waited till I was financially secure. I waited till I had a career. I waited until I was on my own two feet. I got this level of success. I or the opposite. I went all in on this relationship at a very young age. I went fully all in. I think the meta message has been if you will do these things or the the tradife thing or the full CEO thing, whichever one it is, that somehow you're going to feel complete on the other end of this deal. And that feeling is elusive. It just keeps moving. And so there's a there's a partner in your life and it's constantly you just need to you just need to you just need to. But really the thing is I'm desperately seeking this feeling that this is going to be okay. This rooted sense of anchored in >> and it's it's a constant constant constant. The other one is honestly is um are all men scumbags? Is every man out cheating? Is every man filling up his life with video games and pornography? Is every man >> and it's been it's it's >> harder and harder to defend when you look at the data >> and >> but it's it's it's a it's a it's a recursive problem, right? I don't feel like I have any worth. I don't my home is a failure factory. >> These porn and video games don't reject me. >> That's it. I'm just going to Yeah. Then I am going to take the exit ramp where I don't bother anybody and I'll just burn a hole in my head. >> Dude, that sucks. It sucks to hear and it must be rough to the least popular opinion for a guy to give on the internet with a mostly male audience is it must be tough for a woman to navigate dating at the moment because guys see all of the ways that it's way easier for women than it is for men. Um, but the thing that I would say to guys that this is a huge huge like blue ocean for them for is you have somebody that's been in counseling for like [ __ ] forever and does a call-in show with millions and millions of people that watch it and this is one of the biggest problems. Look at how low the bar is, >> dude. I tell my son that how low the bar is. >> I tell him all the time, you can you can have it all. It it really is not I get it. You watch enough like content on YouTube and you can think that because you're 56 or because you're not earning six figures or because you're whatever. Hey, that's those are some real things and there's some challenges out there. >> But Jesus [ __ ] like how many women are calling in and saying, you know what the problem is? These guys just don't earn enough. These guys just don't do this, that, and the other. It's like I don't know if he's going to >> I've gotten that question zero times. So, >> there's just too many short men out there. I've never got that. >> To caveat this, how many women do you think are calling in and saying, >> "Uh, this guy doesn't commit or isn't romantic enough or isn't whatever as a way to hide the more base, shallow, he's not tall enough, he doesn't earn enough." >> Maybe, maybe. And I've been called naive before. I like to just take people at their word. like if you're calling in and we can get to his not what you're really calling but um >> yeah man I like to just maybe maybe >> it >> yeah maybe and I do get like hey my husband's gained 150 pounds over the last few years but as you dig into that it's almost always I'm watching my husband die in front of me right and that's that's usually the question like how do I keep my I'm watching him die and I can't be a part of this anymore >> and yes he's not attractive anymore and yes he walks around his wy tidies and he's It's like it's not a pretty sight. But the deeper question is I'm watching I'm becoming someone I don't want to be cuz that guy at work thinks my jokes are hilarious and I'm starting to think up jokes all day so that maybe that guy at work like I'm becoming somebody I don't want to be >> because I'm watching the person I love >> wither away underneath me and I don't I don't know how to prop them up. >> Wow. >> Yeah. The bar is set so [ __ ] low, dude. >> It is. >> It's but but you know what? I think that's an important thing. The dating apps have screwed up every like no question about all that. It's a it's a train wreck. But personally, I've never had somebody call and say there's just too many short men out there. I've not had anybody call and say this person doesn't make this much money. I haven't I haven't got that call. And maybe it's maybe it's veiled and and people are being whatever. Um but most of the time it's I'm with somebody. Why won't they can they just stop cheating? Can they just plug back in? How do I let them know that they're worth something? >> I hear you speak to so many people about when or how they should forgive their partner after an affair. >> Is that even a question that has an answer? >> You know, this has come up a ton recently. Um, >> endemic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love watching your show. It's great. But >> I tell you what, man. The the place I always have people start is you got to forgive yourself. because almost every time either they'd created a world where they were so blindsided that there was a part of them way down that knew I don't know everything going on in this house or it's the opposite. I didn't listen in my gut and I knew they were spending too much time with so and so. I knew they were hiding their phone. I knew that these I had a sense that and most people that experience infidelity go through a period of I can't trust myself. I can't because I ignored myself or I didn't even see it coming. And so before you start trying to offer before you start trying to forgive somebody else, you have to forgive yourself. >> So that's a huge hurdle to get over. >> It's a massive hurdle >> because you've got to forgive two people. >> The sidewalk you walk on no longer exists. >> There's only two people in this relationship and you have to forgive both of them and you have to give forgive yourself first. >> You got to start with you first. >> And it's not as though you did anything wrong. Like that's not what the forgiveness is. But forgiveness is about reestablishing trust. I got to learn to trust myself again. And then I got to ask myself, okay, what must be true for me to reestablish trust with you? And that's a tough that's a tough thing because then you have to ask, well, what if what if he or she says no? And that's a scary proposition to find yourself. But I've also seen people experience infidelity and go on to have build something amazing and new, and it's just are y'all willing to put in the work. >> What do you think's the proportion of that? >> I don't know. I honestly don't know because I don't know the it's u gosh this is a horrific example that just popped into my mind. Um I remember when my wife and I when she had her first miscarriage I found myself part of a secret club that I didn't know existed. People came out of the woodwork to be like yeah us too. Us two. Us two. And so infidelities of often work the same way that I don't know how much of it goes unreported. they wouldn't fill out a survey or wouldn't you know >> what are some of the ways that you see infidelity showing up that isn't just about sex. >> You got a broader definition of infidelity than most people. I think >> I do. Yeah. Um I it's a place where you go to hide from the life that you've co-created with somebody. So I think you can cheat on somebody with money. I think you can cheat on somebody with a golf course. I think you can cheat on with somebody with work. It be who's your mistress? All right. Um where are you putting your passion and your time and your efforts and your energy? And if your work isn't a means to an end that supports this thing you're co-creating with somebody else, as far as I'm concerned, that's infidelity. If I hide from my family or from my romantic partner on a golf course or on a fishing boat, that's infidelity. I am I am taking my vitality and I'm channeling it elsewhere to avoid this. And that's different. Like I like to go to punk rock shows, dude. I like to like I don't know. I live over in the comedy club by my house. I have passion about those things. But I'm not hiding from my family. They're hobbies. They're they're they enrich me so that every year um where I work, they they throw a big battle of the bands. It's in Nashville. Like everybody goes to Nashville to make it in the music industry. Then they all have to get real jobs at some point. So every year they they throw a big battle the bands. One year I had a book coming out. I was on the road and so I was going to skip it. And my wife said this. She said, "I get a better version of you when you're playing music with your friends." And so it's not a matter of hiding, not doing hobbies, not not that, but if you're hiding from if you're numbing out with um I think I think infidelity is easily distilled down into intercourse with somebody else. And I think that's too narrow of a view. M >> it's just it's escape. >> What about financial infidelity? >> Yeah, that's the way people that's that's the way people control their their partners in a major way or the way they they hide money. Um yeah, it's devastating. >> How common is that? >> No, it's extremely common. But it goes back to the thing you asked me at the very beginning like uh with if I won't share your codes, man. The the other way I get beat up on the internet all the time by the by the internet warriors is saying, "Dude, if you're married, share a checking account." Like they just >> Have you seen the difference in divorce rate between couples that do and don't share a savings account? >> It's madness. >> It's I think it's like multiples of likelihood difference. >> And there'll be some selection effect there. There will be course of course but but seriously again going back >> if I don't we will share DNA >> but we won't bank account or our social media >> you make 65 grand and I make 75 grand we won't share that and we have to say like well that's mine again it goes all the way back to trust and safety and if I feel like I have to say no no no that's mine well we need to put that on the table and have that conversation tell you one of the patterns that I learned from your show which I now use in my day-to-day life and >> uh oh I can't wait to hear this. >> It is I I saw you do this I think I saw you do this twice separately and I was like that seems like a pattern. I'm just going to start maybe mentioning this if I see this come up. people partway through a relationship where one partner lightly floats the suggestion of starting to open things up just a little bit. >> Mhm. >> The >> open things up with another partner. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, we're still, you know, like we've been together for however long. And I just think, you know, like wouldn't it be >> the number of times that that person has already been in >> Oh, yeah. an extrammarital extra partner and they're now trying to retroactively create conditions to make the thing that they did when you hadn't agreed it agreeable so that they can continue it >> in future and uh I've pattern matched that I'm not kidding I've pattern matched that incorrect correctly like 100% of the time and it's come back into land someone said like such and such things happened and you know sort of suggesting this like >> it's already happened >> I'm gonna tell you Yeah, >> I'm going to tell you something that you're really not going to want to hear. And I'm probably wrong inside. I'm like, I'm right. John said I'm right. And uh it's it's happened a few times now, and each time I've been correct. I can you seek a sense of aliveness with the person you're with? >> No, we need someone new. And but again, if I if I man, if I need to go sleep with somebody else to save this. >> It does sound insane. It does sound >> I was with someone recently. They're a they're a a comedian there in Nashville and he said, "I've accidentally become a Dave Ramsey apologist. Like all these young comedians now are coming up like, "How do you do this?" And he said, "If you're trying to make art and you owe somebody money, you'll never make the art you were meant to make because you're always going to have to ask yourself, will this joke, the one that would be the one right over the line, >> what will my boss think or what will like I've got I got a hedge?" And he asked me like my thoughts on the debt stuff. And I was like, "Hey, if we are arguing on like spend less than you make, we're I'm I'm probably not the guy to argue with you because the ma like it's just such a basic if you think sleeping with her will solve your intimate relationship with the like it's just the the math doesn't work." And I think we have so many intellectual gymnastics nowadays that we can we can justify anything. But I think going back to simplicity, peace, salt for peace, man. It's just all for peace. And I I honestly don't know why we can't do that other than um I mean there's the psychology of uh of conspiracy theories. There's the psychology of complexity. Um I just don't think we have a psychology for boredom. Or Lane says we step over $100 bills to pick up pennies. like man just mostly eat healthy and exercise >> and then worry about red number 40 and like whatever like do that later you know what I mean it's just it's a strange place we found ourselves and I think it's a luxury well we spoke about this it's a luxury we spoke about this over dinner last night that there isn't a particularly good uh meta in the world for reinjecting excitement and there is one for increasing peace that you say we need more commitment, we need more loyalty, we need more downtime, more regulation, you should be, you know, nervous systems should be in in align, all this stuff. But it's much scarier to say, I'm bored >> in this. This is too mundane because it sounds an awful lot. It's perilously close to I want more novelty, >> which is straying, eyes lingering on somebody else, extrammarital stuff. >> But but but that's because we've made every and we may have talked about this the last time, but we've made every sexual encounter of the Super Bowl. We've made every everything has to be this eruption. And it's insane, right? Like you got to see the like in my world you got to see the relief when I tell a parents who have two kids under the age of three like hey you're you're going to have 13 minutes to get this done and they'll look at each other and be like like nobody talks about survival sex with a young couple. >> Survival sex >> dude we got 13 minutes between that nap and this feeding. Are you in? Right. That's that's that's in no movie. That's in no TV show. In fact, they'll tell you if that's what it's reduced to, then your marriage has probably run its course. This relationship's probably over >> as opposed to just a practical reality. >> Yes. Just traffic in reality, man. Traffic and peace. >> Your air traffic control. >> And and by the way, you can create novelty in this funny little moment. We can create play and laughter and silliness. And you want to give this a shot? All right. We got six minutes left. You in? Like you can while you're on vacation with your family at a at a at a cheap hotel while they're asleep, y'all can try to figure it out in the hotel bathroom that you can barely turn around and like that is tiny ways that you can inject novelty and fun and play and that next morning when your kids's like, I want pancakes and you just cut eyes across the hotel room at your spouse and you're like, man, like that becomes that becomes good, man. It's it's that's the good stuff. And if you try to make the firework show bigger every time, I just think that's a that's how that's how you end up overdosing, man. >> We'll get back to talking in just a minute, but first, some things are built for summer. 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And you don't even need to return the box. That's how confident they are that you'll love it. Plus, they offer free shipping in the US. Right now, you can get a free sample pack of Element's most popular flavors with your first purchase by going to the link in the description below or heading to drinklnt.com/modernwisdom. That's drinklnt.com/modernwisdom. I got a bunch of guy friends that are first time dads. Uh, one's kid is two months old, no less, less. 6 weeks. Uh, another is 6 months old, another is one year old. What is your survival kit of the most important strategies or realizations for new adults? >> I may have told you this. The greatest parenting advice I ever heard in my life was from Jack Black, which is you haven't told me. When he said this, I was like, that's that's it. That's all of my graduate school distilled into one sentence. Don't try to make a happy kid happier. Like, and the story he went on to tell was, and again, I'm going to bastardize it, but his son was playing in the mud with a stick or something, and he was like, I'm that's not my kid. like and and you end up sec six hours later sugared up, exhausted, fried, you spent $300 on a thing and then you went to this. It's like, man, I should have just gotten a hose out and sat in the mud and got another stick. And that stuff he's going to tell at his funeral. Remember that time, Dad? You rolled me around in the mud versus yet another. So, man, if your kids are happy, get on the floor and have fun. And then the other thing is you have to be intentional about your relationship. And it just shifts, man. And that's okay. It's a season. It's winter, man. It's cold. Put on coke. Like we don't stand out in the out in the street here in December and just >> what's the shift? >> Curse the sky. You got new responsibilities. I I had a a grad school colleague once that he had four kids and I was in man that was maybe two or three years into marriage. It was rocky. It was tough. And I was like, I don't know how you do this. And he said this, it's just a different kind of awesome. And he goes, you know, when you first meet somebody and you're like cannot sleep and it's amazing. That's awesome. and then you kind of get real serious together and you'll start get like that's awesome. He goes you get kids for it's just a different kind of awesome. He's like you can't just, you know, swipe off the kitchen table and just get after it like at 4 in the afternoon like you used to be able to cuz you got kids running around. It's a different kind of awesome. And also you don't know what it's like to see your your middle school kid run across the finish line and just feel kind of big, right? Um or I watched my daughter, she's nine, out at a at a lemonade stand on a Saturday, but dude, it was hot and I was like, "Man, drive by and buy some, you know what I mean?" I was like rooting for her from the you know what I mean? My neighbor texted him like, "Dude, go like I'll reimburse you, brother." And he's like, "No, we got this." But it's like I want her to succeed. It's like it's a different kind of awesome, >> but it's trying to drag that old relationship, that old freedom, the old excitement into this present thing. That's what kills folks, man. So that when you have baby one, that marriage is over. It's over. Awesome. Build a new one. When my wife got pregnant, I was like, "Okay, I got nine months till I get my wife back." And then when Hank was born, I was like, "All right, so maybe it's going to be nine more after this." Like in a year, then slowly it took me for it took me 15 years to realize that marriage was over and it was awesome. And now we get to build a new one with a kid involved. Does that suggest that people who are together and intending on becoming parents and aren't yet at the point where they're about to should lean in and make the most of that time because you're not it's >> it's that kind of awesome. It's finite. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> And if you are constantly comparing it to this and this, it's it's like um like if I have a I'm not going to measure from here to the end of that wall in gallons. Those are both valid measurements. It's just the wrong measure. And so that time we were together before we had kids and before they took all our money and our time and our bodies and our exhaustion, it was amazing. And now we're going to measure this new time in our life in gallons. And we're going to measure this one in meters. We're going to measure this time in our life in in hours. Right? Those are all good measurements. You just got to use the right measurement for the right season. >> You mentioned before about um instinct versus rationality, gut or head, heart. M how do you come to think about making decisions in a relationship when it comes to gut versus head? How do you sort of stress test each of these? >> I've just come to learn with this is equals one here. I I get over emotional about things and I make very emotional decisions. And so I've got a few people in my life, both professionally and long-term buddies, long-term men in my life, that I will sit down with and say, "Here's what I'm experiencing, and here's what I'm seeing. Here's what I'm about to do." And I I mean, I wish I had a better way, better answer for you, but I outsource that because I'm not a reliable I'm not a reliable person in the thick of it. >> And I just learned that about myself. I make up really remarkable stories about why somebody else is my fundamental attribution error is brutal, dude. The stories I make up are extraordinary. About the dude in the square Kia that like cut me off. The story I make up about that guy, dude. It's it's it's an abomination. So, I outsource it because I'm not a good judge of it. And I think anyone who says go with all your feelings or go with all fact, both of them are those are pathologies. on either side of the bell curve. >> M >> how do you handle it? >> Uh I tend to be too head dominant. >> Okay. >> Yeah. So I need to actually listen to my gut much more. Uh my >> is that a learned response? Has your gut led you astray or was listening to you how you feel about stuff not not >> encouraged? Okay. >> Uh so uh everything would be sort of controlled. um very important to have a measured response, hypervigilance, >> that kind of thing. So, yeah, learning to actually trust instincts and to know how what's an appropriate threshold for something that isn't your rational brain to be screaming to go do this thing or to not do this thing. >> You go, well, that's pretty loud, but is it loud enough? Yeah. >> And uh that's where it comes back to the trust thing, like selfrust. >> It's a very interesting situation to get into. I wonder how much of that, you know, is borne out. I think a lot of my friends have this, too, that we're all trying to now listen to the fleeting thoughts that are coming up from our gut as opposed to the really loud, >> sophisticated ones that are coming down from our head. Because my adult awakening was built around Farnum Street blog and mental models and Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger and Talb and Robert Green and so much and Peterson and so much of this is >> uh dictating top down like wrote learning >> ah >> the ways to operate >> that are trying to compensate for the fact that you never actually allowed that to emerge in the first place. But that's just more top down, right? Just top down now in a in the right direction. Hopefully, it's one that's a little bit more aligned. >> But it's still not just allowing yourself to sit with >> I I I don't think this is working >> or I think that that's a really [ __ ] good idea. >> Okay, so let me try out a hypothesis. I think we do not have a a cultural psychology. We don't have a road map for grief. And grief is a communal experience. and we've extracted all of that. Uh the great David Kesler, I think he's just the grief guru, but says that grief demands a witness. And I don't think we have a witness anymore. And so we we distill grief into sad and then we go on and try to solve sad and we pathize sad. But I don't think we have a cultural un I don't I I struggle with just like I went all in on this thing and it didn't work. And I'm supposed to want to stay under my covers for a few days and not crush and crud. And I'm supposed to just want to mainline whatever fat or sugary or salty substance is around. There's some basic biological mechanisms for dealing with grief. We used to have a parlor in our house. That was the that and we changed it to the living room, but they had a part where they held bodies until we outsourced that to funeral professionals, right? Like we have no ability to sit with this ended and I think that's that's unhealthy. >> What do people want to hear situation like that? There's been a a loss >> nothing >> large or small >> presence. That's my lived experience sitting with people who have lost children. Uh, which I can't think of a worse a worse loss. Um, makes me wonder how like how AI is going to take over everything. There's a biology to presence and it is not found in an answer. It is found in a guy coming to sitting by you and bringing half a casserole or a bag of Taco Bell and a couple of drinks and like I'll be here. And anybody who tries to come up with a bunch there's there's in the in the grief world there's a whole bunch of things to not say. Um there's >> what are the things to not say? >> God needed another angel. Everything happens for a reason. Like nonsense like that. It's just like a knife in your soul, right? >> Um but just I'm coming over >> or the worst the worst text uh let me know if you need anything. >> Well, my kid died. I need a whole Right. >> Which I'm going to put the burden on you to let me know how I can take care of you. Right. Yeah, >> it's I'm just coming over with some [ __ ] tacos. >> I'm coming over and I'll sit here. We may throw all those tacos away. I'll be right here. And there's something it's it's biology. It's presents. >> Yeah. Which is like, hey, me and my wife are going through a rough time. I'm coming over, dude. I don't have any answers for you. I'll listen to you. Right. And that's being comfortable enough. I in this new job, I've just decided I'm gonna stop trying to answer questions I'm not asked. I'll just I'll just be here. You know what I mean? Which I've had to wrestle with because my purpose was always like given an answer. Um nah, not my purpose. I I'll show up. I'll come. There's a kind of a bit of a narcissism in that too. I'm aware that it's a lovely thing to do. you're there for your friend, but there is a little bit of a narcissism because it centralizes you as the helper in the person's situation like >> as a presence or as with words. >> Yeah. When you're coming up with a solution, I know that this is your problem, but allow me. Well, no, no, no. I I will step down from high and allow me to bestow. >> It uses a hurting person. It it they become a Xanax for you. I'm uncomfortable with your loss. Ask anybody who's who's been diagnosed with cancer. They spend most of their energy making sure the people around them are okay. >> Well, and that's madness, right? Because now I'm uncomfortable because I'm staring at >> My discomfort is making you uncomfortable. I'm sorry. I'll fix it. >> That's right. Yeah. Like, hey, I just got diagnosed with cancer. I'll be right over. It's going to sit here. >> I just got diagnosed with cancer. Sorry. >> Yeah. Let me know if I can do anything. So cool. I just gave you a chore. Now that you got this this terrible diagnosis, I'll give you a chore to make me feel better. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, well, if man, if I can tell anybody if somebody's hurting, just show up. Or if somebody says, "Hey, I need to go grab something to eat," I'll be there, right? And I just learned that from a group of West Texas, like no therapist, man. It was just West Texas guys that I saw almost come to blows over who's going to pick up the check. It's like, "Oh, that's what friendship looks like." Like, not like, "Bro, you Venmo me 425 for that." No, dude. I got it. I got it. We'll figure it out later. There's just something about that, man. And I think even, you know, talk about like Perkins has written about like, but again, all that's all for peace, man. It's all for peace. Big difference between an abundance mindset and a scarcity mindset. I don't think you need to get into Rhonda burn the secret woo energy attraction territory. >> Mhm. >> To just kind of understand that going through life assuming that things will go okay. Mhm. >> is just a better way to exist. Bill B's got this wonderful bit where he says uh things are going to be fine. And even if things aren't going to be fine, is it not better to assume that things are going to be fine? And if they're not, you'll deal with it when the time comes. >> Yeah, that's Amos Traverski's Daniel Conan's research partner had that great line like being pessimistic is stupid because if it comes true, you experience it twice. I love that. Yeah, man. >> Let's just assume it's going to work out. I'm going to do the best I possibly can and if it doesn't if like we if we get hit by a meteorite we'll deal with that then. >> Yeah. >> But I'm going to we're going to plow ahead as though but I think we trying to hedge grief because we don't know what to do if it actually comes true >> because it's such an overwhelming emotion. >> Mhm. >> And we have no we're not designed to handle grief alone and we don't have anybody else to call. >> So the people that we do call we feel like we need to manage there. >> We end up having to take care of sorry that I'm a burden. >> Right. Yeah. There's a great piece in the Kardashians that Charlie Hooper broke down which was u one of the girls has gone through a breakup and the mom is there and they're talking and the mom says the line I really need you to get over this and it's Charlie explains it perfectly and he's like that literally says your discomfort is making me uncomfortable. I need you to sort yourself so that I can be okay. I don't have time for the discomfort. Yeah. >> Oh, that's tough as a kid to feel. That is [ __ ] rough. >> Yeah. >> But I think parents like sometimes going back to what you said about your buddies having young kids, never lie to your kids. A buddy of mine uh and here here's what I mean by that, not just on big stuff. A buddy of mine um he had a neighbor whose boat fell off the trailer. And so he called all these neighborhood guys to come over and help put the boat back on the trailer. and he he had a young son, maybe seven or eight, and he's like, "Come on over. We're going to go do something." All these guys helped three, two, and they got the boat back on the trailer and they did all this stuff. On the way home, he said, "Man, we helped that guy out." And he said, "Daddy, I didn't do anything." And already he knew. Like, I just lied to my kid. Like, I was using the proverbial Wii and I kept moving him out of the way. Hold on. Back up. Back up. We're going to pick this thing up. And so, don't lie to your kids, man. If they come in seventh place, don't say, "Great job." Or don't say, "Man, you did so good. You got seventh place. Your kid knows you're lying." Say, "Man, that really stinks. You gave it your all and you got seventh place." Or if they didn't give it your all, you can ask them like, "Do you feel good about your performance on that one?" Um, but it's telling your kids the truth, but it's Yeah. In other news, this episode is brought to you by Momentous. 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Right now, you can get 35% off your first subscription and that 30-day money back guarantee by going to the link in the description below or heading to live momentous.com/modernwisdom using the code modernwisdom at checkout. That's l i v m o m n o.com/modernwisdom and modernwisdom a checkout. How often do you see relationships where there hasn't been that sort of honest, open transparency between the partners be uh fixed or made worse by the presence of kids? Because I imagine that there must be some couples that have a child and it just galvanizes in them this, oh, we have a project like we need to get really, really serious now. But the question of do you think you had kids and started being truthful or you started being truthful and then had kids to me it it seems more likely that the increased difficulty of having kids around is just going to make that problem >> No, I mean I think there's always a temptation to to make the person in front of you feel good and yeah I don't know that's a great question. I don't know. But I know that um every stage along the way, at least in my kid, I have a 15-year-old who's a sophomore in high school, and I have a uh my daughter's nine. She's in fourth grade. Um every stage has been a there's been some sort of GPS pin in my Wi-Fi that's gone off. That's all tethers all the way back. High school was not a great time for my wife. >> I peaked at 18. It's been downhill ever since. Man, high school was the greatest time of my life. I was a Texas high school football player. Like it was it was it was I loved all of high school. >> And so as my son was heading into his freshman year, >> everything about me was like this is it, man. And >> championship. >> This is good. Yeah. I was going to live vicariously. It's like dude, if you just I was Uncle Rico, man, like if you just work even harder. And for her it was just get small, get small, get small. And so I think that happens at every stage along the way. Um, I didn't know what >> So interesting. >> I didn't know what I didn't know when I had a kid and it made me feel super inept. And I have I have a script for when I feel inept, which is put your head down and go work more, which then took me away from my house more, which made me harder to be around cuz I knew my house was every time I showed up, I didn't do the diaper right, I didn't do the time right. So, it just started this thing. So, it's just now we know enough to know, hey, we're getting ready for college and this the the starting to already the the the schools are already circling, right? The sharks are circling. what college you going to go to? If you don't know your major, you're gonna you're gonna be a failure. All that. That wasn't a good time for me. That was a great time for her, right? And so we I now know that. So now we can sit down and have that conversation like, man, this makes me uncomfortable. Like I can't wait for this. Which make which brings us back to the table. But that's a great question. I don't know >> how much healing gets done through raising kids like revisiting reparing yourself seeing the patterns that you imagining what you were like at that age cuz not that many people have gone and done their inner child work or their narrative therapy or their internal family systems or whatever and have pieced together the arc of wow that's what it was like to be seven and me and >> [ __ ] I wonder how many >> it's made me way more compassionate for my parents and at the same time way. Um I was just with my sister this morning and I've got an anger too that I didn't know was there. >> Um and so yeah, I don't know. >> Has it made you more compassionate for yourself? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> For the the younger version of you that did the whatever >> like oh dad was going through stuff that wasn't me. I was dying. Yeah. It's made me a lot more compassionate with myself. I was 16, man. I didn't know. You know what I mean? like I was being a 16-year-old and I got a lot of compassion for that kid. Yeah. A lot more compassion. Um and then I think the challenge for me is how do I extend that compassion yet also know that my son lives in a world now that the world doesn't have any compassion for that. He can he could text something that makes him unemployable forever now. Right? I had the privilege of being a 16-year-old and he doesn't have that. And so there's a different level of oversight that makes me more nervous. But I'm confident that every generation of parent has some sort of >> It wasn't when I was It wasn't when I I'm sure. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's infinite regressive that wasn't like that in my day. >> Right. Right. Right. Which is I mean at some point I sat down with him the other day and I was like, "Hey, there's we're at a stage now where um there's certain things you can get into that I I can't stop. I can't I mean I literally can't. Um, and you're going to have to make some decisions at 16 that I didn't have to make until I was older about what I want in my head, what I want to experience, what I want to see. Um, he's in a world where the wrong aderall at the wrong party, it'll kill him. >> There's a a billboard near the gym that I go to. I saw that the other day fentinel thing >> with a with a young boy on there. >> Oh, this was this is a kind of like a a lineup I guess >> of there must be 30 people 40 people young old men women and uh fentanyl kills. >> Yeah, >> on that presumably some of them will have been you know maybe treading the line a little bit more closely than others but definitely in that lineup there'll have been someone that just oh I'll just take a little sniff of this or whatever and that's it. Right. Or it was a it was a like it was a Navy Sealesque adventure to find a playboy when I was a kid. And he's got and his own and even we're pretty um I'm pretty much a lite. I was born in the wrong century. My wife says but um every human he interacts with has a phone right with >> you went phone free with your kid. Right. >> We're not phone free but I'm I'm I'm pretty pretty dark ages. Yeah. We've taken everything off of it. It took a while to get even dumb phone. >> Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. His parents are nerds. So my son had to give us a I tell you all this he had he had to when he was when he was 14 over Christmas break in 8th grade he actually he had a great point that paused me. He said at least when you were a kid cuz we had no no cell phones at all and we lived out in the country. And he said at least when you were a kid there was a phone on the wall with one of those little squiggly cords and you got to call your friends. And he said I'm getting left out of everything. no birthdays, no nothing. And I said, "That's you're actually right." And so, um, we he had to draft the first round of the contract and then me and my wife, it was basically like Shark Tank with me and my wife. It was >> You are so [ __ ] Dave Ramsey coded. >> It was fun. >> It is unbelievable how Dave Ramsey coded you are. >> How so? >> You've drawn You had to draw up this kind. Did he have to do a presentation? Did you do a >> Oh, he absolutely did. But that's cuz we're academics. That's where we got it from. Like [ __ ] nerd. >> You have to Oh, his both of his parents are nerds. But like I want to talk through now what happens when this if this thing goes sideways. But it was good like and um yeah we've slowly I mean he's about to be 16. He's about to be driving through down the highway >> national driving but still not texting. >> I mean he can text now. Yeah he can text. Um yeah he can but but it's that like hey the the wrong text thread >> y >> and it's over man. It's over. And so, and I know that cuz dude, I spent 20 years with screenshot text messages and Snapchats and WhatsApps getting during sexual assault investigations and during this and all of a sudden, >> man, like dude, I just I've just experienced it on the other side of that thing, man. It scares me for But I have to sit down with a 16-year-old and say, man, at some point you have to make some choices >> and I'll do the best I can, but um to love you through it and I'll always sit here with you. There isn't really a good archetype for the danger of a young person making a digital error. >> There's not, >> you know, because full protectionism isn't helpful >> because they're going to walk out and >> just get it's like showing up to it's like showing up to a like uh town square your first time like at midnight. It's just so much, right? That will that will be the day he walks out of the house. So, you can't do that to your kid. Um, but also man, like Sean Ryan says that great quote about uh you're not you're not giving your kid access to the world, you're giving the world access to your kid. And I think that's there's some there's some truth to that. >> When you hand your kid a smartphone, tell them to walk out the door. Best of luck to you. Make good choices. You just gave the world access to your child and they're better than than all of us. There's too much money and experts and now it's now it's not even real people, man. >> It's an unfair fight. >> It's a way unfair fight. And if you're an adult, fine. take on an unfair fight if you want to. If you're at the bar and you want to fight all four of those dudes, I mean, you get to live with the consequences. I can't you can't put a child in that. It's just not fair. It's not fair. >> What do you as you've got to this stage now, son's 16, soon will be 18, some sort of college thing. What how does that make you reflect on the upbringing of a a kid and kind of the arc of being a parent, I suppose? Cuz I remember when I moved out, I was 18 and I went to university >> and I didn't realize that, you know, the most amount of time I was probably going to spend back in that house in any one go was 5 days over Christmas >> for the rest of my life. >> Yeah. >> And you just you're just fired up. I just wanted to go. Oh, I couldn't be bothered the fact that I didn't have a clothes saw or that there wasn't a [ __ ] iron like ready. I was like, I don't care. [ __ ] I'm not going to iron my clothes in any case. You know, it doesn't matter. I just want to go. I want to go go. This is so exciting. I'm going to move to a big city. I'm going to go to university. I'm going to make new friends. I'm going to be living on my own. It's going to be so >> And that's Yeah. You're not there to regulate your parents feeling like this Yeah. >> huge deceleration is about to happen in their life. >> I'm having to work really hard not to not to premourn him being gone. My wife had a great >> ruining the remaining time that you do have with him thinking about >> this is the last one. Yeah, man. Just got to be with it. And I've got to be ready to grieve on the other end of it. Um there's a there's a shift that happens when a kid's 24 25 and when you it's actually much earlier than that, but when a kid leaves your payroll, you can't tell them what to do anymore. You a parent shifts to an encourager, right? or uh you know and so what I want to do now is to model a you need to know this not intellectually but you need to know this in your chest you can always come back home and if you find yourself over your head you can always come back home and the fun for me and my wife is let's make this a place they want to come home and that when they're thinking man let's go to let's go see mom and dad and that's I don't know if that's even possible but that's a fun thing to try to put put out into the universe. >> And also, man, you got to go have adventures. And I'll say this, I don't know many kids, in fact, I know very few, if any, that are foaming at the mouth to get their license like my son is. That's a thing that's gone away. Like when when I was a kid, like turning 16 was like, "Give me my car key so I get out of here." Um, but I have to believe that constricting so much time on social media or video games or just creating a digital bubble in our home. Um, and he can't wait to get out, which means he can't wait to go to college. And he's already done the math. He's like, "Man, I need to be at least this far from you at university because it'll be too easy to come home and I need to go out and learn." And I hate that, but I love it, right? I don't I don't I want him to come home every weekend, but I don't. I want him to go out and have adventures because that's how you learn, man. That's how you end up in a whole other continent with a whole with a job that didn't exist when you were at university, right? That's how that's how that happens. >> Yeah, dude. When I did uh I did two business degrees, and neither of them had social media in >> no one talked about nothing. The year that I went to university, 2006, was the year that Facebook uh became available in the UK. If you had a university email address, >> that was Yeah, you had to have a university email address. And I remember when my grandpa friend requested me, it was like and we're out. Like I'm off this thing. >> Yeah. I'm out. I'm out. I'm out. Yeah. >> Get me back in. >> But I remember you had to have an edu.edu address. >> ac.uk for the UK. And uh yeah, it 5 years at university and >> nothing about social media. So yeah, we still don't have a good way of communicating that to >> people that are way younger. Me and you don't know how to use social media. We don't know how to mediate our own use. I use my phone too much. So do you. >> Yeah, I have it on a separate phone. >> Yeah, >> that's the only way I can do it. >> Cocaine phone and phone. >> That's right. >> George Max solution. >> Yeah, >> I've never heard of that. >> Yeah. Uh just going back to something that I think is really important that if business is your drug, rest will feel like stress. For the people who are like hard charging type A insecure overachievers, what is your advice for someone learning to sort of let go of that chaos a little bit and deriving a a better sense of well-being from somewhere outside of that? Have you done it yourself? Cuz you're someone that kind of lives for the lives for the chaos and when faced with a problem defaults to the same thing I do, which is I'll just grip the bar harder. >> Oh, yeah. I'll just rip this sucker off. >> I'll hit that, dude. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's all solvent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's wired in there. Um, an important exercise for me was writing a letter to myself 10 years from now and it was that for what? So, you're here and you got this thing and that was an important exhale. Um, >> can you elaborate on that? >> Yeah. I had given myself a number that I had to be making in a salary um by the age of I think it was 35 was my big one. And when I blew through that and I felt more insecure than ever and more exposed, it was sitting down and having an honest conversation with my 45-year-old self. Like, and it goes back to for what? Like, what is this going to have for us, right? And so, I think when you start decoupling yourself from how busy you are as a as a an identity, you just have to know it's going to be painful. Being bored is going to feel like feel painful and that's okay. And not being productive in every moment. It's going to feel like you're losing something. Resting is going to feel silly. Um calling a friend just to see what's up is going to feel awkward. And it's letting yourself know that >> is that worthwhile pursuit. Why not just keep crushing it? >> You can, but for what? I mean, for what? I mean, how much higher in the hills do you need to move, man? That goes back to solving for peace. If you want to solve for ROI, you can. You can do that. And my problem is I like working. It's a fun thing for me. And so even the busyiness is I I enjoy it. I enjoy finding the next project and and always text. I was text my manager earlier like, "Hey, what about this and this?" And he's like, "Okay, man." Like it's always like, "What's the next thing?" I like that. I don't think it comes from a pathological place or an insecurity or I just like it. Um, but it's just don't if you're redlining a red line and a red line. It's like, man, we talked last night. You were like, "Hey, how's your sleep?" It's like, "Ah, geez, man. I don't want to I don't want to fix >> Don't bring up the >> I don't want to fix testosterone with sleep, man. I want it to like be a supplement." It's like, do you sleep? And so, >> you can or let me ask you like write write your letter to your 45-year-old self. What would you tell him? >> I don't understand. So, with that, I don't understand how that exercise works. You're I'm now 37. Writing it to my 47. >> I'm doing these things now for the life you're going to have at 45. At 47. >> That's interesting. Um, I'd say I'm I'm working really hard at at letting go of the coping mechanisms that I used to uh hide a lot of the senses of in insufficiency that I had for a very long time. >> Yeah. that if I can make myself sufficiently impressive or status or charming or enigmatic or aloof, >> right, in distance, in absence. >> Um, >> and >> that's a good one. That's one of my favorites. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm working really, really hard to not appear like I'm working. I'm working really, really hard to not be present. >> Six. Yeah. It's the uh it's the bad hair day punks. They work six hours on their hair to make it look like they didn't work on their hair. >> Red sneaker effect. Yeah. >> Um, yeah. A lot of it, a lot of it's that I I really hope I really hope that I look back in 10 years time and go, "Fuck, like, I'm so glad of the work that that guy put in." >> Yeah. >> And this is, you know, I'm chirping on this a lot at the moment. This entire podcast is a thinly veiled autobiography, dude. >> Like the whole thing is the whole body of work is just what am I thinking about at the moment? What do I care about? What's important to me? And I'm fortunate that even though I'm I'm a pretty weird guy, but I face questions that a significant cohort of people do as well. >> Mhm. >> And uh what that means is that if there's something that I'm thinking about or struggling with, a non- insignificant number of other people are also thinking about it or struggling with it too. Right? It means that if I just pursue my own instincts and follow sort of what to me feels like a challenge or something that I'm interested in, >> in the tailwind behind me are all of these other people that are also, oh my god, never really no one's ever >> asked that thing before. This Mel Robbins, a good example, some of my favorite conversations >> that people have is when another person reveals something in them that you thought was a unique curse that only you have. Mhm. >> Uh, and it's happened hundreds of times. Uh, slightly less so recently, maybe just because I've listened to a lot of other people talking, so I've picked up a lot of the lowhanging fruit. >> Um, but one of them was Mel Robbins, and I can't even remember who she was speaking to. A couple years ago, I was researching for an for a guest, >> and uh, Mel's talking. She says, "Uh, throughout my entire life, I always had this sense that someone was mad at me. somebody was I'd done something wrong >> and someone was mad. >> I always just felt like I had to sort of be on tents a little bit and someone was going to find out whatever it was that I'd done that was wrong. I was in the wrong. >> That was like a bad girl. >> And uh I paused it and put it down. I was like, "Holy fuck." >> I just just put a word to a thing that I'd never named, identified, even knew existed. didn't know that. And even if I'd known those things, didn't know that it wasn't just some weird, you know, uh, random pathology that only my unique constitution has managed to create. Oh, this is some idiosyncrasy of just me. >> And to hear, >> oh, [ __ ] >> somebody else is like that. >> Yeah. I that's that's it's the most it's the reason that I'm continuing to try and lean into talking about relating, talking about emotions, talking about how people feel when when when stuff comes up >> because so much of what we're doing is just trying to manage our emotional state. And one of the most reassuring things I think that you can hear as a human is >> Yeah, man. >> Yeah. Me, too. >> Yeah. >> Me, too. >> Okay. So, think about 10 years from now to 47y old Chris. So, 10 years ago, you were a contestant on a on a on a game show. >> Dating show. >> Dating show. Yeah. Um I guess it wasn't the prices, right? Huh. Um so, let's assume podcasting doesn't exist. >> My wife found letters from her grandfather while he was off fighting Nazis to her grandmother who kept the dairy farm in in Eastern New Mexico going while he was gone. It's a treasure trove of letters. Okay. romantic letters, here's what's going on letters, the whole thing. And she's taken to making sure I remember her saying like, I got to make sure our kids know these letters like know that. >> And so no matter what technology exists 10 years from now, what a great like amazing gift you'll have be able to give to your kids as a library of >> this is where I was at then. >> This is the arc of of your dad going from this guy to this guy. This is our human experience. >> I can think of no greater gift. >> That is that is cool. Yeah, I uh I would like to think that at least this podcast will become part of that. You know, it it's done in the third person a lot of the time, but so many of the things that I'm talking about is Oh, [ __ ] That was a question that that dad or granddad was asking at that point. >> Fair, man. >> How cool is that, dude? >> Yeah, it is. It's fun. You always do. We always get toward the end of one of these episodes and then you [ __ ] turn around, right? Okay. We've come on. What else is there? I'm sure that you've got other stuff. >> No, I'm just fascinated. But but it goes like a 47y old Chris could put his head on the pillow. >> That to me like how fast can I go to sleep? >> Mhm. >> That's that's that's my metric for suffer piece. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. And I don't know why that's such a you you have a better grasp of psychology theories than I do. I I don't know why that's that's so hard these days. I don't know why that's such a foreign concept. >> That's a good question. I wonder as well how many people for how many people that's a priority. I get the sense for some for someone like you and certainly for somebody like me uh I know that that is something that I need. I know it's something it's when I feel my happiest is when things are >> yeah peace but that can be peace in the midst of chaos. Of course it can't be peace in the midst of war, >> right? the difference between lots of things are happening and it's all high pressure and I have uncertainty and unpredictability and ambivalence and ambiguity and I really do not know who's got my back and who doesn't. That's not good, >> right? >> But I have lots of fights on lots of fronts and I'm prepared to go for all of them and this is exciting and in infusing and uh >> safety and autonomy, man. >> Yeah. >> If I'm anchored in, I can repel off the side and just go be crazy, man. Yeah. >> And I get to repel. War feels like I'm getting shoved into it. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's out of your control. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Uh but I think enoughness is a big part of that. Um you know, this like you said before, this sense that you're enough as you are. You don't necessarily need to perform. You don't need to show up in any other way. You can be as whatever you are to me and I'll just be here and I'll just sit and I'll just listen. And I think that the the hard part of that algorithm is when you establish that, it allows you to go further and more powerfully than you could have ever imagined. And I think that's that's the hard part of trying to is we've been sold that if you hack around that, then you can get that thing that you want. And it's like, no, man. If you can establish I'm worth the work that I'm about to put in on this thing, >> then you can go you can go forever. If you're chasing worth, you can't. your body eventually says, "I quit. I'm out." >> Interesting to think people that you see uh that are very successful and in committed long-term relationships. How much of in a different universe if somebody had chose a partner that was worse for them or better than better for them than this one? >> How divergent would those two worlds have been? You know how much is the person that you are directly due to the fact that you chose a woman%. Yeah. Like you know if you chosen somebody who was let's say that you chose 100 >> and you could have chosen uh 50 a zero or a minus minus 50 minus 100. What did those different worlds look like? You know how how resilient are you to this? And how much of this is totally contingent on the fact that you had somebody that was a rocket ship that you were able to be refueled of? >> Yeah, absolutely. I I mean I think that's the wisest like marry will and tell the truth and be curious like if you can establish those and then just go do the next right thing. Man, >> I had this uh thought I'm going to bring it up with Scott Galloway the next time I sit down with him. He keeps having he's got super famous for this same the most important decision that you make in your life is not going to be where you work. It's not going to be where you live. It's going to be the person that you marry. Charlie Munger's got the same thing. The most important decision that you make in your life is your spouse, etc., etc. And I understand why that's a a talking point that people are pushing because people fall backward into relationships. They're not intentional about this stuff. They don't try and cultivate a practice of honesty. They don't deal with their unspoken expectations. They don't all of these things. I do wonder though whether it is putting even more undue pressure. It is >> on people. And this is the problem of a one-sizefits-all piece of advice for a very broad audience that some people, it's the same thing with um some of the sort of postmeto messaging around how guys should behave with women. M >> uh some of the messaging, lots of the messaging says basically don't be pushy. >> The problem is the men who really need to be told don't be pushy won't take that to heart. They're just going to plow through it. And the guys who really need to be encouraged are going to really really embody it, >> right? >> You know, so well and the other side of it, the number of Texas women who are like, I just want a guy who Right. So it's I get the one size fits all. I think the challenge to that to the statement is we take that the the most important person is is the person you marry, right? Um which I I believe that but I think we dump it on a person, not on the thing, not on the marriage. And so I need I force this other person to carry it all instead of saying, "Hey, can you and I carry this thing?" And I think that's a different totally different perspectus. >> You get what I'm saying? Otherwise, you're gonna give somebody a burden no human can carry. Mhm. >> Like the, you know, Brad's stuff that says like Will Cox says like a good or great marriage, everything in your life ROIs this way and a not great or bad marriage, everything like un ROI is the other way, right? It's like a it's like a a D ROI. Um, but if I put that on a human being, man, nobody can carry that. But if I say, "Hey, you and me, can we pull this thing together?" Man, those two horses can pull more together than they can individually. I like that. >> But it does put a lot of pressure on it. Okay. So, as somebody who's 37 and not married, it's easy for me to run my mouth about this. I got married when I was 24, right? I was a child. And so, tell me about the nature of that pressure. >> Yeah, I it's it's certainly palpable. Um, especially if you take it to heart and if you want if you think, well, what's the sort of relationship? What's the sort of future that I want to have? What's the sort of marriage and family that I want to have? And I have a bunch of guys. There is no good archetype for this, but I have a bunch of guy friends who are unbelievably eligible. Like, like some of the most eligible me maybe maybe a at least one of the most eligible men in America. >> Is he over six foot though? That's where >> Yes. >> to kid. >> Yeah, it's true. And earns many many many figures. >> Anna uh he just wants a family. Like he just can't wait to be a dad. But the fact that he has waited a little while is is making the pressure mount. And you see this in um women that have built up a career. There's a a good example with a lamp that Luis Perry taught me about it where if you're moving into a new house and you need to buy a lamp, it's a piece of piss. You've got nothing else in the house. There's a lamp that'll work and you build the house around the lamp. If you've done the opposite, you've built this very elaborate internal decor, you need to find the perfect lamp. Ah, >> right. >> That that comes in at this time. And it's one of the unseen costs that people who wait longer pay, both guys and girls. >> Um, you know, if you wait until you're in your 30s or your late 30s or your 40s or your 50s before you finally decide to settle down, >> your life, you have more preferences. You have uh greater complexity. you have this sense that you know what you like and what you want and what you deserve and how this should and >> it's more hard it's more difficult to find >> but so that's a >> can I pull that thread for a second >> that essentially turns another person into the remaining puzzle piece for your puzzle instead of being I had fewer things to dump out my puzzle was jaggedy and small and trashy so when we were like hey we have to build a new puzzle together it was easy I didn't own anything. I was right. It just means there's more at stake for you to >> swipe the table. >> It It feels like there's more at stake because >> you've spent all of this time building it up. You spent all of this time creating this life that is yours. >> But it goes back to for what? >> Correct. Ultimately, if all of this was basically you in a holding pattern waiting and this is what are you doing? Are you are you trying to create a life and a partnership and a family? That is the thing. >> Mhm. >> Or is it just a side dish to your career? And there is a big cohort of people for whom they, you know, the family thing is just the thing that they do. Like that's it's it's what people do, right? It's not their alchemy. It's it's not their um uh zenith of reason of of their contribution to this world, right? Uh and again the problem occurs when somebody from group one gets into a relationship with somebody from group two >> that I I want this thing to be everything and we can build our lives around this. Uh but yeah, if you've spent a long time constructing a very elaborate cathedral, this this wonderful orchestral life that's got these moving parts and it's all perfectly put together and >> it feels like you're giving away more. Even if the end goal that you need to get to is the thing that you wanted all along, even if all you did was be in a holding pattern waiting for this thing to start, >> you feel the deceleration. you feel the the the um imagine this, somebody's got a really big bank account and they need to give away 50% of their net worth in order to be able to do a thing. >> If your bank account's got 10 million in, it's way easier than if it's got $10. >> Of course, >> right? Like if you've got $10, sorry, it's way harder if you've than if you've got $10. If you've got $10 and you just give away five bucks, like well [ __ ] like it's five bucks. What does that matter? Even if it's 50% of my wealth. M but if you've got this huge bank account you feel the amount that you've got to withdraw more it's a bigger overall number >> so what would feeling that feeling and then going doing the next right thing look like in real life >> commitment I think >> uh rep prioritization >> of this is that period of my life's Right. As you said, >> it's a different kind of awesome. >> It's a different kind of awesome. I had an awesome where I lived for me. >> Huh. >> But eventually you just kind of get bored of yourself. >> And it's a choice between a familiar kind of awesome and an unfamiliar kind of awesome. And some people are not prepared to trade the former for the latter because they just don't know. They don't know what it is. people that we're not good with uncertainty, good with unpredictability. >> It's fascinating that the things that we evolve to do to prove worthiness to a mate are the things that end up trapping. >> They're getting in the way of doing the thing. Yeah. The the the thing that you want >> the peacock feathers are now like in front of our face and we can't even see the mate. >> Yeah. The thing that you want is being sacrificed for the thing which is supposed to get the thing that you want. >> Yeah. Huh. >> I was supposed to be successful so that I could find a maid so that I could start a family. And the reason that I can't start a family is because I'm so busy working so hard to try and Yeah. Exactly. to try and find a Yeah. Yeah. Dude, the bar stools I mean that when you see don't sacrifice the thing you want for the thing that's supposed to get it. It is >> it is a universal rule. Don't sacrifice happiness in order to achieve success so that when you're finally sufficiently successful, you can allow yourself to be happy. >> Like so many people do that. People sacrifice freedom in order to be uh uh uh wealthy, right? They they think, well, if I turn to a life of crime, I can be wealthy. And it's like, why do you want to be wealthy? Well, so I can be free. You go, if you get caught, you're in jail. >> Yeah. >> You're sacrificing the thing you want for the thing that's supposed to get the thing that you want. >> And it it just appears everywhere. And it's a it's a a misunderstanding of uh means and ends, and you've got them the wrong way round. You you keep confusing the we'll just I'll just keep saving. I'll just keep saving. I'll just keep working. I'll just keep building. And you go for what? That's it. But how much of that is a fear of of Man, this is such a an abused word. How much of that is a fear of being vulnerable? Cuz I can control all of these other things, but when it comes to building a life with somebody else, I can only I can only control me in that boat. >> Oh, 100%. So much of it is about control. Like the reason that people commit to careers over relationships is that a career can't leave them. >> Ah, >> and another person can. >> I think that's why you you're 95% in on the relationship, but you can't see my text. >> Yeah. And I'm not I'm not prepared to let go of that bit of the career. >> Uhhuh. Because if I do that and you leave, I have no hedge. I have nowhere to hide. I haven't got anything that's just for me. That's just for me. It's my my little secret. It's my little thing. It's not for you. It's the side account that you don't know about. And I guess the hard part is you can't know how extraordinary the other side of that is without when you're all in on our that you can't know until you risk it all or you risk getting hurt really badly. >> Dr. to John Deloney only. Dude, you're [ __ ] awesome, >> dude. Thanks for being my friend, dude. >> Yeah, thank you, too. >> And man, can I just Can I plug Newtonic? >> Yeah. Yeah, >> you don't even pay me. >> It's a It's a laser, man. >> [ __ ] >> This has become my So, once a week I we have to do ads. It's, you know, and you've done that. Like, I get to do ads. Let's say it that way. And you have to read them, read them, read them. Your tonic, man. It's my laser beam. >> It takes my chaotic mind and says, >> you can work for one focused hours. It's awesome. John Deloney, everyone should go and check out your show, your books, everything. You're awesome. >> Appreciate you, man. >> Thank you. >> Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, you will love this one with Mr. Naval Ravakan. It's first episode in six years. Go on.