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you've made a great decision. And I say this as impartially as I possibly can, but this podcast

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is, it's really the reason why I started the diave CEO. It's to hear these kinds of stories

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from these kinds of people and I've got to be honest with you. I spent about a year asking this

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person to come on this podcast and have a conversation with me. Today's guest is Dr. Aria.

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And he's been on the podcast once before. He's a world renowned high performance coach and he works

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with some of the world's most accomplished athletes, actors and everyone in between as they

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try and reach a mindset state that is conducive with success, with happiness and with overall

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fulfillment. But he's not here to talk about that today. He's here to talk about something

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very, very different, something uncomfortable, something unimaginable.

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So without further ado, I'm Stephen Bartlett and this is the diave CEO. I hope nobody is listening.

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But if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

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Sometimes in life, you have these unbelievable, somewhat cruel coincidences that occur,

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that it's hard to make sense of. And last time you came on this podcast, I would define it as,

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for me anyway, a pretty cruel coincidence because we had a conversation to do with life generally

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and success and the mindset and psychology and all the things that you're an expert on.

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And for whatever reason, that day, I decided that I wanted to spend 30 minutes talking about

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marriage, cheating, love and asking you these very personal questions about monogamy,

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which I've never done before with any guest ever. And which I really had no place or reason to ask

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you more than anyone else. And it just feels to me for what we're going to talk about in part

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today, that that was a bit of a cruel coincidence. And you know, one of the questions I asked you was,

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do you believe in monogamy? And then I asked you, can you love someone and cheat on them?

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And when I listened to that podcast back, I now noticed why you laughed. Because it wasn't

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you laughed. Yeah. And it wasn't a normal laugh. It was like a real belly laugh. Yeah.

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Like a bit of a nervous belly laugh. Yeah. After we came off air on that podcast, you told me

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something. And it even gives me goosebumps now thinking about what you said. And it gave the whole

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team in the room who overheard our conversation, goosebumps as well. So

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after our 30 minute conversation about marriage and monogamy and cheating and love,

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what did you say to me?

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I told you a story. Yeah. And that was about two weeks earlier, I'd been traveling back from

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London home. And I got out of the train station. And my wife picked me up and we got into the car.

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And we had planned to go and have a brunch at my favorite little spot. They do amazing

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quarrels. Ranchals sauce was very spicy. And she said, let's go straight home. I've made sandwiches.

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And she doesn't make great sandwiches. So I said, I don't know. I think the brunch was a better

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option. And she said, no, there's something that I need to tell you. And I said, is it bad?

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And she said, yes. And I said, is that about the marriage? And she said, yes. And then we began to

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drive back. And I had the thinking feeling in me. And we drove for about five minutes in silence.

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And then I went to put my hand on her lap. And she said, don't touch me because you won't want

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you after I told you what's happened. And that's whenever it drops. And I remember that 10 minute

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drive back home then felt like an eternity. That's just looking at the window. And we got home

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we got into the house and the kitchen. And I was standing by the kitchen table,

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hands rested on it. And I said, what's happened? And she said, I've been having enough fare

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with a man from work. And I remember just tears began to stream. I didn't move completely

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motionless tears began to stream. And then she said, and that's not all. And she said, I'm pregnant

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with this child. And in that moment, it felt like I lost a lot. You know, I'd lost my wife,

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I'd lost life we created. I'd lost the dog, our home, her appearance, a lot of her family,

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everything that had really held dear. If someone said, what makes a meaningful life,

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I would have described these things. And it felt like they'd just been snatched away. It just

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came crumbling down like a house of cards. I'm in fast forward two weeks. I'm steep.

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And I remember because the first thing, no, no, it's fascinating because the first thing

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I asked was, you're married, right? And I did this high pitch laugh. I go, yes.

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I mean, and then conversation floed on. And it's themes that I'd really thought about.

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Can you love someone and cheat on them? Does manography exist? Is it natural?

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Are we set up to live a life where we're in one relationship with one person only? And so

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with the past 18 months, it's been a process and some of these themes have been very real to me.

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I just, as I reflect on that conversation and when I played it back, after you told me,

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so we come off air and we stood next to the table in the microphones and you explained to me what's

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happened. I'm first on my life's completely speechless. And the thing that blew me away even more

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than what you'd said to me was your ability to be so calm and rational and objective in the

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answers you gave. And even when I listen back now, although there was that laugh, which was a bit

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of an indication, you were able to speak about someone betraying you or being deceitful with

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a level of calmness and apparent emotional sort of restraint that I just admired so much from

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someone that was right in the middle of the emotional hurricane and had just been victim of that

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act. And you said that, you know, about the topic of monogamy. How did that change your opinion?

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And also the subsequent 18 months of processing on the topic of monogamy.

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So as a quick aside, I like that analogy and we touched upon it briefly about the hurricane.

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And it's funny actually because a friend of mine showed me a book about a week ago and it was

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different personality profiles depending on the day that you'd been born on. I want to be

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relic to mine up. There's a little meditation at the end, a summary. And it said, the stillest

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part of the hurricane is its center. And that essentially has been a philosophy that's guided

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my life where sometimes is a storm and it's horrendous and it's raging. But if you can cultivate

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that sense of stillness and calmness and clarity deep within you, no matter what life throws at you,

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you will be okay. Because the second part of whenever I was told that news and the tears were

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streaming and I felt that sense of loss and overwhelming sadness, those are remarkable moments

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where in that instant, and I can only describe it as a whisper, I heard a whisper within me

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as if it was resonating from a heart that all will be well, forwards all will be well, all will be

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well. And I knew even then I knew whenever you know there's tumultuous emotion, I knew everything's

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going to be okay. I will get through this. I don't have to walk through the desert and I have to

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endure horrific amount of an emotional level, but it's all going to be fine. How did you know that?

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I think it's something that I've cultivated over over 10, 15 years and that's why I do what I do

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now because I want to help other people to reach that stage. And it began on the journey of

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Buddhist exploration and understanding the nature of life. And I came to this realization that

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life involves suffering. There's no promise that it's going to be happy, go lucky, and really pleasant

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all the time. Really horrific things happen in life. And on one level there's no way that we can

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ever rationally explain it away. Sometimes bad things happen, but it doesn't end there. It's a bit

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like that line that someone wants to say to me, whenever you're suffering, don't ask God, why am I

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suffering? Ask God, where are you taking me? And so I've developed this ability to

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begin to view my life as though it's happening to someone else, as though the experience of their

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thoughts, the emotions are something that I can I can almost take it back on and have perspective

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and I can see it and I can feel it. But I know that my thoughts, that isn't just who I am. My

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emotions isn't just through my end. That's a temporary experience. And I've thought my life,

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no matter what has happened, even whenever it's been brutal, it's often shifted in a new trajectory

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and there's been a new meaningful life ahead of me. And I knew even then she's going to be okay.

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She'll be okay. It's going to be a tough road for her too, but she'll be okay. And it's going

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to be a tough road for me to you, but I will be okay. Anger. So many people in that situation,

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whether rightly or wrongly, just because of the way that they are, would have reacted with anger.

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And for some reason, you were both calm in telling me, you're calm now and this remarkable thing,

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which I think I struggle to understand a little bit, is one of your first concerns was her

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well-being versus your own. Why? Because I loved her and I was in the practice of placing

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her emotional well-being and her happiness on the same level as mine, if not sometimes first and

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foremostly, but at least on an unequal playing field. And I was just so in that habit and that was

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the toughest thing to let go of. The thing that I still struggle with today and I'm still,

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it's the one part that I realized the other day that I still had a fear of upsetting her or

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of her not being okay. And so that's something which just really developed and was so ingrained.

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And it's interesting on the point of anger, if you've said, like, your wife,

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partner for 10 years, married for five, has an affair and is pregnant with another man's child,

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how will you react? I would have said anger. I would be furious, but it wasn't there. At least

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not initially, it was this overwhelming sense of sadness. It was just that sense of loss of knowing

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that, again, that she's potentially done something that she might regret for a long time when I

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don't want anyone to go through that experience where they feel like they've fucked up hugely.

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Even if the future is positive in that moment, my sense is there will be regret or at least shame.

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And so it was a sadness because that was connected to the loss, the sense of loss of losing things

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that I held dear. It feels like you're living outside your body a little bit. I guess that's what

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self-awareness is or at least emotional awareness is because you're being able to see that situation

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which is utterly horrific for anyone from, as you say, from like a bird's eye view as if you've like

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looking down on it and that's allowing you not to just feel your animations but to feel

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empathy towards theirs. And I think that's the path in my eyes that's the path to enlightenment.

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And I'm not saying that I am enlightened, but I think we're all on that path and we're all

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progressing through it. And for me, that's what awareness is. It's being able to experience

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internally your thoughts and your emotions and externally what's happened

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as if it's happening to someone else. You're like holding them out in front of you and

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realizing them, right? So like, but if you're not holding them out in front of you and it's

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happening within you, then you are just almost like a passenger on a roller coaster.

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Totally. Whereas holding them out in front of you kind of makes you the conductor or the rollercoaster

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or at least able to understand and if you can understand, then you can address and can overcome.

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Totally. I love it. Whenever you're holding it really close to you, you're fused with it. Anything

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that happens instantly will provoke a reaction whether or not it's emotional or behavioral.

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But when you hold it in front of you, there's a bit more space. Now, you still experience it.

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I'm not going to lie to you. It was a brutal couple of months. I cried every day

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for maybe three months for hours, hours. I would walk and I process what happened.

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And if you want, we can talk about that at some point about my process of moving through it.

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But yes, it was, I'm not going to say it wasn't emotionally painful, but I wasn't defined by that

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pain. That was just a part that I was experiencing. Let's talk about that. So a lot of people experience

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grief in many forms and this somewhat feels like the central emotion you described it as a loss.

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It feels like a form of grief. What was your process for moving from, you know,

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finding out that it happened to where you are today, where you're, you know, you've

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quote unquote, processed it, I imagine as much as you

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might have been able to at this stage. Yeah. Yeah. What was your process?

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Where I think people often catch themselves in a counterproductive cycle is whenever they

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try and avoid experiencing what they're experiencing, they try and shun it, lock it away, put it

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in a box, disconnect from it, deny it, and they just focus on the future and where I am going.

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And there might time rationalize it. This happened because of X or because of Y.

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And then they try and forge ahead. And I think it comes back to bite them at some point.

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The simplest truth is that we can only ever experience

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one moment at a time. And I remind myself of that. I don't need to think about it right now.

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The financial separation, the divorce, what it means about friends or family or will I

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meet someone again or how long will it be or what will my life look like or where am I going to live?

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So many different factors that could be overwhelming. I just decided to deal with one

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moment at a time. All I need to do is deal with this one moment. And what is this one more

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bringing me and accepting and welcoming it sounds strange but welcoming whatever comes up.

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And so whatever emotion came up, I didn't try and push it away or shun or deny it or negate it.

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I let it sit. And that's why I cried so much because he was so much sadness. Did you write down

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the emotions you were experiencing? So I didn't write down the emotions, but what I did in

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the next step is so the first step was awareness and accepting whatever emotions I felt.

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And I'm seeing that they come and then they go, you know, that'd be a moment

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where I'd be laughing with my brother and then crying a minute later and then talking about

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something else. The second step was reminding myself of reality because I was so ingrained

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in an internal model of what life looked like. I have a strong, stable marriage in which

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my partner subconsciously implicitly, I believe, is faithful. We're meant to be together. We're

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going to be together for the next 50, 60 years until one of us dies. We're going to have children

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together. That was my internal model. And I had to rip it apart. I had to take it down. I had to

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dismantle it. And I had to remind myself of the reality of the situation. I had to accept it.

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I had to accept it's over. It's not going to change. There's no going back. The final nail is in

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the coffin. And you need to take that on board. And I'd write down reminders of what had happened.

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And I also wrote down any insights I had about the situation that I could remind myself of.

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And I wrote down how I wanted to handle this process. I could actually read a few out if you

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want. Please, please, I've got them. So I literally would just write them down on my phone.

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And so after I began to split them up into different sections, but this one was for the process.

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Hold yourself to the highest standard. Choose actions that you can be proud of.

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How you get through this process is more important than how quickly you get through this process.

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This for me, it was important that I still lived with personal integrity that I didn't,

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that I wasn't warped or changed or consumed with vengeance or acted in a ways that was out of

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spite or out of emotion. I wanted to be able to look back on this in 12 months, 18 months time

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and still feel good about it. Have a clear conscience still able to put my head down and feel as though

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I handled that to the best of my ability. With God, you can get through this. You can become

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stronger, wiser, more caring, more compassionate and more loving. And that's another thing that

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actually the deepest moments of suffering can actually be opportunities for growth. Even if you

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don't want it, there's something there that you can learn and can grow from. You don't need anything

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from her anymore. And then different reminders, you have nothing to feel bad about.

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You aren't responsible. You have nothing to feel guilty about. Nothing. Because there were

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moments where my mind would almost begin to, in a way, play trick on me and begin to try and

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create reasons to feel bad or to try and create shame. And at those times, while I would accept

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what came up, I decided not to pursue that line of thinking because that didn't fit. Whenever I

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was calm and clear, this came to me. And so I'd write down whatever came to me whenever I was in

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a place of wisdom. Then when the emotion hit, and I'm not seeing clearly, and I've got on a clouded

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lens, this little baby became my best friend because I'd go back to it. And I'd remind myself,

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and then it would reshift my mental paradigm. I have this before, please do keep your phone open

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because I want to hear the rest of this. But I have this analogy I make in moments where I

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experience a very similar thing that I'm going to take one example. It's the closest I can come

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to resonating with what your experience is. I was dating this girl and I broke up with her

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and three days later I find out that she's had sex with someone else.

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And I can only, the way that I described it was I'm flying on this plane and I'm the pilot.

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And then suddenly, when I look down and hear the news that she's just slept with somebody else,

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it was like terraced on the cockpit and they chucked the fucking rational pilot out and they

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were threatening to crash the whole fucking thing. And my whole objective as the pilot is to get

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back into the cockpit before they crash this plane into the side of a mountain because if they

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crash the plane, I'm fucked. And so what I wanted to do was lose my integrity. I wanted to crash

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the plane. I wanted to get her back, take revenge, tell her she's a this, this, and a this, and a this,

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and a this. And it was this, because I've got to a place where I'm able to hold situations

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out in front of me a little bit more than I ever was in the past. I was at war with myself.

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It was the terrace on one end telling me to crash the plane and the pilot saying, you've been here

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before, you know, you just need to keep the plane in the air until you make it. And I'm going

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for a round like Steve, go to the gym, go for a run, clear your head, I'm at the gym, the terrace

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that I'm going to finish, I'm going to finish it back and then I come back and back. And the crazy

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conclusion to all of this was my friend called me and said a few things to me about

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why she did what she did. My friend said to me, remember Steve, you rejected her.

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She really, really, really likes you. And she's done this as a way to make herself feel better

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for the rejection that you gave her. And it sounds like such a pathetic thing to say. But what it

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made me realize in that moment was much of the reason why the terrace had stormed the cockpit

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was my ego was bruised. And the thing that coached those terrorists out the cockpit was my friend

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massaging my ego again and letting me know that some of those stories we sometimes tell ourselves

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when we get rejected about why we got rejected weren't true. It's not because you're not

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enough. It's it's in fact because of something you've done. And that was the reason why I managed

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to take control of the cockpit. I did nothing. I didn't punish her anyway. I didn't even mention it.

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And it was and so yeah. But please two two things come to me there. One is this

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emotion of anger. So fascinatingly, 95% of the emotion from your sadness,

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5% was anger. And the anger struck early on. It was the first night. And I remember my brother had

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come over and was staying with me. And I woke up in the middle of the night, the night of that day

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that she told me. And it was like my body was burning. A havin' experience. I didn't

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feel like that before. It was it was almost like I was a flame. I was just infused with rage.

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And I began and I really feel for my brother having to witness this. But I was just

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moving up and down, shouting as loudly as I could. My wife. My house. My wife. My house.

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And for five minutes, it was like a supernova. It just was just seething. And then it burnt out.

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And I cried and I fell asleep and the next day. And then the anger didn't really come much.

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It would come now and again. But what I realized was the anger was intimately attached to my ego.

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The anger came whenever I was attached to my ego. And I'm very fortunate that I'm able to

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detach from my ego the majority of the time. But when I didn't, that's when it hurt. Because it

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came about my wife. As if I own her. As if there's ownership. As if it's a part of me. I don't

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own her. She's free. My house. I didn't even own the house. The mortgage company did. But as soon

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as we link it to ourselves and make it about us, then it's a place of vulnerability because you're

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getting inflicted. It's like getting stabbed in the heart. You feel that. But it's an illusion

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because we are not our ego. We can see our ego and have a relationship to our ego. But once we're

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refused with it, we're in trouble. And the other part of it is that because I don't want to come

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across like a saint like I didn't have dark thoughts or you know, I wasn't angry and I just

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handled it with grace the entire time. What I operate from a principle that the mind has a

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mind of its own. And I think we talked about it last time. But essentially your mind will

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populate your head with thoughts automatically. You're not asking for them. It'll just come up with

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judges, evaluations, assessments, predictions about the future, past memories, imagined scenarios.

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You know, if I said, okay, Steve, don't think about anything right now. Just for 10 seconds have

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a complete blank mind. And I'm going to say a word, but don't think about anything. Okay, so we'll

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just do it now. Don't think about a thing. Birthday. Okay. Right. So even though you were attempting

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not to think about anything, your mind came up with it automatically. And

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from my perspective, we are not our thoughts. We have thoughts. Our mind comes up with thoughts,

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but that's not me. I am the observer of the thought. Now why is that important? Because my mind

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should come up with really brutal thoughts. What thoughts? Like torturing the guy. Really? Yeah.

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Getting in a car, finding him in the back of the van and doing this elaborate, elaborate of what

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I would do to him. Absolutely. Because my mind was thinking about, about seeking vengeance,

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justice, justice, and it was like a Hollywood movie. And somehow no one found out I went back

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along the day. You know, and so yes, you can have those or whenever I was in deep pain,

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the thought of ending my life popped into my head. I didn't have any intent. I wasn't making any

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plans. I didn't want to kill myself. But my mind wanted a way out of the pain. It was suffering

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and it wanted an end to it. And what is one option? Killing yourself. And so when I've got a different

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relationship though with these thoughts, when I think about torturing someone or I, or when my mind

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comes up with a thought of torturing someone or my mind comes up with a thought of taking my life,

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there's no judgment. I don't think, oh, that means I must want to do it or that means that I will do

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it or that means I'm a bad person or that means that I'm evil. It just means my mind. I think

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what is my mind trying to do is it's trying to solve a solution and it's probably struggling to

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cope and it's trying to find a way to make me feel better. Near on this podcast, who you came on this

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podcast talked about how the mind is actually, people think we're in the search of pleasure, but

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the mind is programmed to avoid discomfort. We're constantly trying to seek, avoid it. And that's

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why we procrastinate because we've got a big project which is we may not feel competent to complete

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or we're a bit, there's a feeling of discomfort around it. So we go and wash the dishes or do the

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Hooverian. On the, you mentioned wanting to torture this man. I know, right. So like a moment of

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the mind having what my mind is, Steve, you didn't want to your mind. I'm a piece loving kind of guy.

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But I wanted to know how do you feel about him?

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So it's really interesting. I um, this stage, the process went

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away in an acceptance. How I wanted to handle the process. And then at some point, I realized I

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needed to find forgiveness. I'm quite a simple person and I don't, I don't like having a lot of

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items or objects or physical possessions and I don't like having a lot of emotional baggage either.

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I want to travel light. You know, I want to travel so lightly I could pass through the

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Ivan needle so to speak. And the weight of anger or resentment or the feelings of betrayal

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were weighing me down. And I wanted to forgive her and I wanted to forgive him. And honestly,

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you could view it as ultimately selfish because it's not going to impact their life,

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but it's going to make mine a lot easier. And during lockdown, I was in California and I was lucky

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because in Santa Barbara, where I was staying, the mayor didn't close the beaches because there's

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a lot of families there. And instead of as long as you socially distance, it's fine. And I'd run

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along the beach and I had this process where I would say out loud, I would imagine her and I'd say,

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I forgive you. I'm sending you my love and I wish all the best for the future. And I process so

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much by that at that point because I've been able to understand and see her situation. And in my

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mind, I have an idea of how it was created and why it unfolded. And so there was compassion there

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and I was able to reach that really relatively quickly. That was easy. The hard part was with him

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because I didn't know him. I didn't know his personality, his background, who he was. He could

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be a great friend and an excellent son or potentially a very loving partner. But all I knew about him

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was that he was prepared to take certain actions. And so whenever I tried with him and I'd say,

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I forgive you. It was like there was a knot and a wimp and I'd be like, and I would say, and I'm sending

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you my love. I don't wish you all the best for the future. You're still imagining pulling up in

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that vine and jumping out and blindfolding and trying to get me sticking something up his butt.

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How do you like me now? And so, but I would just notice it. I don't do not have this tension there.

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And actually I will say this was a year after I'd heard the news. I didn't try and do this initially.

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I think it would have been premature to have attempted this whenever I wasn't in a space where I had

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a lot more clarity and groundedness and and process the emotion. The emotion wasn't being clouded

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at this point. Now what am I holding on to? And for a matter of weeks, five, six weeks, I was running

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two, three times a week. And I would just try that, try that process. And then one day it was

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it was remarkable. I was running along and I said, I forgive you. And there was nothing. And then I

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said, and I'm sending you my love. And I felt easy. And I said, and I wish you all the best for

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the future. And I could tell that I meant it for them or their baby, you know, for them together as

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a family. And I felt a piece. And it's a bit like that saying, my yoke is easy, my burdens

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light. Now genuinely it sounds strange, but I don't really feel anything for them. It's almost as if

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you know, if you came to me and said, I've got a friend called Mike and he's going through a really

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difficult time. He was involved in a really complicated emotional relationship. Would you mind

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sending up positive thoughts to him and saying a prayer for him? I'd say sure. Like he hasn't

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ever done anything to me. I don't have any connection with him. No problem. It's almost that sort of

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relationship now where there are just other people on their journey. And I had that shared history

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with with my wife, which I look upon fondly, particularly the first eight years. We had a wonderful

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marriage for a long time. But there's no emotional tinge. There's second emotional and binocal chord.

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I'm imagining it as a letting go. Yeah. It's a letting go. And so that was that was a part that for

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me because I think it comes a time where you have to say, okay, I process it. I process it.

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How long do I want to hold on to it for now? And that's become my own choice. Do I want to carry

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this and let it define me? Or do I want to finally let it go and see it float down the river?

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And I think, you know, even you're someone that has a remarkable ability to practice like self-awareness

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and you have that sort of like emotional awareness as well. And it's good to hear, I think,

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for everybody listening to this, that even your process from finding it out to, you know,

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being emotionally unattached to the matter to the point that you can forgive both of them

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wasn't linear at all. It was up. It was down. It was up. It was down. And it was long. And I think

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people sometimes think that their experience of rejection or deceit or, you know, any of these things

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is uniquely bad because their process to recovery, per se, isn't linear. And it's long. And it

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feels like the more I've talked about this topic and the more people have met and, you know,

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from hearing your experiences, that in fact is the only way out. And I actually think realizing

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that that's the only way out will make your process out of that deceit or betrayal feel normal

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and natural and okay and therefore acceptable. And I think that's a really important point that

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you've made through the story you've told. Absolutely. And each person's journey will be unique

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and there will be peaks and troughs and little wax and wine. And I'm very aware that

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it's possible that my journey happened over a relatively short period of time because of

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my history and my background as a psychologist as a high-performance expert. This is the area

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that I deal with. It's what developing emotional resilience. It's how would you help people to cope

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with high-stakes environments when they've lost a sense of balance in their life, when they're

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struggling in their relationships, whenever they experience something in life which throws them,

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how do you get back up? This is what I've been trained to do for 15 years.

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Isn't it weird that life sent you this challenge when you think about your experience?

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Isn't it must be a part of you that, because I think I would, I would think to myself,

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life is testing me to see if I can deal with the worst and still maintain the values and principles

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that I spouse. This will sound really odd, but at times I felt in a way that I'm so lucky,

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because I'm so lucky that I am where I am when this happened. If this had happened 10 years ago,

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I would have been in a vastly different space. Because I struggled 10 years to cope with what life

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gave me on an emotional level, and I would react out of the emotion, so I'd experience it,

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and then I would just react. Essentially, that's what we make terrible decisions.

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Now you crash the plane. Now we crash the plane. If you look at NASA astronauts,

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they prepare for the sequence of events, the imp to launch, and they run through that over a hundred

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times, from putting on the kit to traveling down to the launch space to what could go wrong,

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and they rehearse and they run it through, and it's a way of being able to stay calm whenever

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there is uncertainty, or turbulence, or danger, or threat. Because that's whenever,

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that's the person you really want to be, whenever there's an emergency, let me talk to

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went in the podcast, you want to be the person that still has an air pocket, a space of clarity,

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that isn't affected, so that even though you're experiencing all these emotions on a very

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physical level, deep down, you're still grounded. You can take it. And so from where I was, I did feel

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as though I'm fortunate that life has thrown at me something that in my mind was one of the worst

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things that I could experience. There's lots of worse things without a shadow of a doubt, but it

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was a big one, and find a way to move through. And incredibly, it's informed even my work.

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Because in the last year, again, whether it's coincidence or not, I don't know. The number of

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clients I've been working with on relationship issues has gone up exponentially. And it's issues

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centered on a loss of connection, a loss of intimacy, the trail, confusion, how do you

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how do you say true to who you are in a relationship with someone else where you feel like there's

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a shift or you wake up one day and you're in a space where you don't know how you got there, where

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you become like best friends living together rather than the passionate lovers you were 10 years ago.

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You talked there a second about the calm that astronauts are trained to develop. And how

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crucial that is to making good decisions. I saw this quote the other day and it said when

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emotions go up, intellect comes down. And I was thinking about, just then as you said that,

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I was thinking, what are the factors that make somebody not calm? And then I thought, and I kind of

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answered myself, I thought, okay, so we talked about the ego playing a big role. And so I guess my

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conclusion there is the people who will struggle to maintain their calm in situations like that

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that are so personally associated are those with the lowest self-esteem and the most fragile ego.

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And it feels like the work that you've described that you've done over the last 10 years is really

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like building yourself a steam and really in some respects a separation from ego. Yeah, you've nailed

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it. One, we know on a neural level, so we know from newer imaging studies that when we experience

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emotion, the prefrontal cortex, they part the brain responsible for judgment, decision-making,

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impulse control, planning, goes offline. It shuts down. So we don't have access to that creativity,

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the wisdom that we have usually. And again, absolutely, I think the journey, for me, the journey of

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life involves developing a robust sense of self. A sense of self that is unshakable, that is

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immovable, that still experiences life and the whole gamut of emotions and the beauty and

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loveliness of life and also the darkness and the destruction of life, but isn't impacted on an

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essential level by it. And I think that's the journey and that's the journey that I work on with

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clients. No matter what the outwardly symptoms are, it could be weight gain, it could be relationship

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dysfunction, it could be struggling to experience that sense of contentment or fulfillment in life.

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You know, I have everything that life says I should have. It could be feeling like I'm lacking or

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I'm just not doing enough or I'm not being enough, but it all comes back to that stronger sense of

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self. And this, you know, horrific experience, what has it done to your opinion of monogamy?

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Because I'm sure I'm guessing from what you've said, the way that you planned your life ahead,

377
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you thought when you, you know, when you went walk down the aisle and you said those words

378
00:41:37.200 --> 00:41:41.520
till death do us part, you then planned the next 60 years of your life and how your life was going

379
00:41:41.520 --> 00:41:48.720
to pan out. And when you said those words at the end of the, at the altar, you were totally convinced,

380
00:41:49.360 --> 00:41:56.320
totally convinced that this person was the person your soulmate. How did you feel about all of those

381
00:41:56.320 --> 00:42:03.040
concepts now like soulmate and monogamy until death do us part? The experience has led me into

382
00:42:03.040 --> 00:42:08.240
position where I began to question my deepest assumptions about monogamy, about marriage,

383
00:42:08.560 --> 00:42:17.040
about lifelong relationships. And then the same way I began to take a step back and reflect and contemplate,

384
00:42:18.320 --> 00:42:25.520
I became very aware that there is a social script for relationships. And it generally goes,

385
00:42:25.520 --> 00:42:30.560
the conventional model is boy meets girl. It's not even boy meets boy or girl meets girl. There's

386
00:42:30.640 --> 00:42:40.640
a first date, a first kiss, a period of courting. At some point, there will be sex meeting the parents,

387
00:42:41.600 --> 00:42:50.720
hopefully not at the same time. Relationship become exclusive and engagement marriage children

388
00:42:50.720 --> 00:42:57.840
till death do us part. And I realized that that is a social construction. It's a conventional model

389
00:42:57.920 --> 00:43:07.920
based on assumptions that monogamy is natural, that marriage is a human universal and that any

390
00:43:08.880 --> 00:43:18.000
structure other than the nuclear one is aberrant. And so then I began to think, okay, well,

391
00:43:18.000 --> 00:43:24.480
what are the different elements? So on the one hand, we can take and we touch upon it briefly,

392
00:43:25.120 --> 00:43:33.440
a evolutionary perspective. And we are eights. It's not just that we've descended from eights,

393
00:43:33.440 --> 00:43:40.320
we are eights. We're one of the five homo sapiens or one of the five surviving species of great

394
00:43:40.320 --> 00:43:51.360
eights along with orangutans, binobles, gorillas and chimpanzees. And yet at some point, we

395
00:43:51.360 --> 00:43:59.280
separated from that psychologically. And actually, the fine print that distinguishes humans from

396
00:43:59.280 --> 00:44:08.080
other great eights has been described by primatologists as wholly inadequate. It's a fabrication.

397
00:44:09.360 --> 00:44:15.680
And at some stage, we began to see ourselves as special and unique and above nature and

398
00:44:15.680 --> 00:44:24.560
exempt from our primal history. Because we descended from hypersexual ancestors. So if

399
00:44:25.840 --> 00:44:30.720
the homo lineage has been around for two million years, modern humans have been around for two

400
00:44:30.720 --> 00:44:37.120
hundred thousand years. And about ten thousand years ago, there was a shift in going from hunter

401
00:44:37.120 --> 00:44:43.440
gatherers to settled communities because of the advent of agriculture. Now up until ten thousand

402
00:44:43.440 --> 00:44:51.280
years ago, the data now suggests that we actually lived by fiercely egalitarian principles.

403
00:44:52.000 --> 00:45:00.320
Everything was shared. Food, shelter, water, childcare and even sexual partners.

404
00:45:01.840 --> 00:45:10.560
Casual sexuality was the norm for our prehistoric ancestors. We're 95% of the collective experience

405
00:45:11.200 --> 00:45:20.960
of our lineage. That is what we experienced. And it wasn't based on meaningless random relationships.

406
00:45:20.960 --> 00:45:29.200
They were relationships that reinforced a social pattern that we needed to survive.

407
00:45:29.200 --> 00:45:35.120
It minimized our risk and it reinforced social ties. But then with the advent of agriculture,

408
00:45:35.120 --> 00:45:45.520
we began to settle. We had land. We had domesticated animals. And for the first time, private

409
00:45:45.520 --> 00:45:50.480
property came into play. And suddenly there was a change. And there's even a change in the

410
00:45:50.480 --> 00:45:56.800
status of women. Because when we look at it, the human female up until that point was on an

411
00:45:56.800 --> 00:46:02.960
equal playing field. They were as responsible for the hunting and the cooking and making decisions

412
00:46:02.960 --> 00:46:09.120
about where they were going to settle. And then it changed. And the female became the property

413
00:46:09.120 --> 00:46:16.320
of the men. Something that he had to maintain and keep. And actually the reason that property

414
00:46:16.320 --> 00:46:21.680
came into play is because we weren't moving. So it did matter what happened to our resources.

415
00:46:21.680 --> 00:46:26.240
We were accumulating. And biological paternity for the first time became crucial.

416
00:46:26.480 --> 00:46:35.840
And so on a on a natural evolutionary level,

417
00:46:37.440 --> 00:46:43.520
monogamy didn't exist. We didn't live in long term monogamous relationships.

418
00:46:44.240 --> 00:46:49.840
Then we bring in marriage. And up he fast forward about five and a half thousand years.

419
00:46:50.240 --> 00:47:00.720
In about 2,350 BC in Mesopotamia, we had the first marriage between the union between a man and a

420
00:47:00.720 --> 00:47:07.360
woman. And over the next few hundred years, it spread. The ancient Romans, Greeks, Hebrews,

421
00:47:07.360 --> 00:47:14.160
they began to adopt this widespread practice. But marriage had a very different meaning across the ages.

422
00:47:15.120 --> 00:47:25.280
In the fifth century with Anglo-Saxons, it was about securing trade ties. It was a diplomatic tool.

423
00:47:26.000 --> 00:47:32.400
In the 11th century, marriage was about financial, economic and political advantage.

424
00:47:34.560 --> 00:47:42.800
And as early as the 12th, religion became involved. And Roman Catholicism tied it to sacrament.

425
00:47:42.800 --> 00:47:46.480
And it to being a sacred experience related to experience in God.

426
00:47:48.880 --> 00:47:54.240
Then about 500 years ago, Thomas Kranmer came up with the modern day marital vials that we read

427
00:47:54.240 --> 00:48:02.720
up today. And he was architecture of English Protestantism. And then up until 1858,

428
00:48:03.600 --> 00:48:10.240
divorce was rare. Marriage was something which was lifelong. And it wasn't really questioned.

429
00:48:10.960 --> 00:48:16.080
But then it became a legal process that you could apply to do. And it was still relatively

430
00:48:16.080 --> 00:48:22.720
uncommon because it was expensive. And women had to prove aggravated adultery, bestiality,

431
00:48:22.720 --> 00:48:30.560
sodomy, cruelty. And then the divorce gates really opened up in 1969 with the Doors reform act

432
00:48:30.560 --> 00:48:36.240
and marital breakdown could then be cited. So whenever we begin to take a different lens and

433
00:48:36.240 --> 00:48:39.440
we see the journey that it's taken, and then we ask, well, where are we today?

434
00:48:40.880 --> 00:48:49.360
Since 1975, there's been a drop in marriages by about 30%. More people are now opting to cohabit

435
00:48:49.360 --> 00:48:54.640
than they are to get married. Divorce statistics in England and Wales are at 42%.

436
00:48:56.080 --> 00:49:01.600
You could arguably say that the system is collapsing, that it is beginning to crumble.

437
00:49:02.240 --> 00:49:07.280
And then it won't even take a cultural lens. And if I'm talking too much, just...

438
00:49:07.280 --> 00:49:08.480
No, I was fascinating.

439
00:49:08.480 --> 00:49:09.680
Jumping, super fascinating.

440
00:49:11.440 --> 00:49:17.360
Culturally, the Spanish word esposa means wife and handcuffs.

441
00:49:18.960 --> 00:49:26.480
We joke about the wife being the ball in chain. A friend got married, got married,

442
00:49:26.480 --> 00:49:31.600
got engaged last week. And the talk amongst the boys was, this is the beginning of the end of

443
00:49:31.600 --> 00:49:39.920
your sex life. But women don't fare any better. You know, 43% of American women report sexual

444
00:49:39.920 --> 00:49:46.080
dysfunction. Viagra sales are increasing every year. They're just record highs year upon year.

445
00:49:46.160 --> 00:49:49.760
Ones do the fucking reef. Not that I would know.

446
00:49:50.720 --> 00:49:51.920
Yeah, a friend told me.

447
00:49:51.920 --> 00:49:52.160
Yeah.

448
00:49:54.960 --> 00:50:01.280
The porn industry takes in about $57 to $100 billion worldwide.

449
00:50:03.680 --> 00:50:09.840
US report showed that Americans spend more strip clubs than they do at Broadway, off-Broadway,

450
00:50:09.840 --> 00:50:17.360
nonprofit and regional theaters, the ballet, jazz, and the opera collectively.

451
00:50:19.120 --> 00:50:24.160
We look at the church and there have been hundreds of Roman Catholic priests

452
00:50:24.160 --> 00:50:32.720
admitting to thousands of sex crimes. In 2008, they paid up $436 million to victims of sexual abuse.

453
00:50:32.720 --> 00:50:34.240
A fifth right under the age of five.

454
00:50:35.920 --> 00:50:38.560
And these aren't that's not to mention the forgotten victims.

455
00:50:39.360 --> 00:50:46.960
And we have to ask ourselves one, how do we get here? Two, how was that story constructed?

456
00:50:46.960 --> 00:50:54.080
And three is marriage giving us what we want and is it realistic and is it feasible?

457
00:50:55.040 --> 00:50:57.840
So number three. So where am I with that?

458
00:50:57.840 --> 00:51:02.640
Yeah, yeah. I'm still touring. I'll be totally honest with you. I can

459
00:51:03.520 --> 00:51:12.000
say it. I can imagine, okay, so I can imagine on the one hand, I can imagine being in a relationship

460
00:51:12.560 --> 00:51:17.360
with a woman and being with that long wound for the rest of my life.

461
00:51:18.400 --> 00:51:26.000
I can also imagine being with someone in a relationship and having more than one sexual partner.

462
00:51:26.960 --> 00:51:35.760
But if it was flipped around and someone asked me, would you want your partner to be with other

463
00:51:35.760 --> 00:51:42.320
men? I'd say hell no. Of course. It just seems that is not something because I'm so strongly

464
00:51:42.320 --> 00:51:48.960
programmed against that, even though that's potentially the biological heritage, I can't imagine

465
00:51:48.960 --> 00:51:52.720
being with someone who's with other people. I wouldn't want to be in that situation.

466
00:51:52.800 --> 00:51:59.120
And I'm aware of the acute hypocrisy contained within it. I think everyone feels the same way

467
00:51:59.120 --> 00:52:03.280
to some degree. I think people that tell you otherwise are probably talking shit because they're

468
00:52:03.280 --> 00:52:08.400
playing defense against not wanting to happen to them to some degree, right? But it's a,

469
00:52:08.400 --> 00:52:12.240
and I think it's an ideal situation for yourself, but not for the person you're with from your

470
00:52:12.240 --> 00:52:18.480
perspective. I've read this book a long time ago called The Mystery Method by one of the world's

471
00:52:18.480 --> 00:52:23.920
number one picker artist. And I don't know if this is true, but what he was saying was men are

472
00:52:23.920 --> 00:52:31.600
programmed in a way that seeks the woman to be faithful for them because the risk, the evolutionary

473
00:52:31.600 --> 00:52:38.080
risk was if I impregnate you as my wife, or no, so if I if I'm committed to you as my wife and

474
00:52:38.080 --> 00:52:44.240
then you are you cheat on me and get pregnant with someone else's child, I will then spend my

475
00:52:44.240 --> 00:52:51.920
resources, my energy, my time, raising someone else's child, and then my genetics won't pass on.

476
00:52:52.400 --> 00:52:57.120
That person's well, and essentially, if you think about it from an evolutionary perspective,

477
00:52:57.120 --> 00:53:04.080
I then wouldn't have existed if I didn't have that concern about making sure my sperm

478
00:53:04.080 --> 00:53:08.160
was the one that reached the egg. So you think about it from an evolutionary perspective,

479
00:53:08.880 --> 00:53:15.680
you wouldn't exist if your ancestors hadn't done a brilliant job of making sure their sperm

480
00:53:15.680 --> 00:53:19.840
hit the egg. And one of the ways of doing that was making sure it wasn't another guy's sperm

481
00:53:19.840 --> 00:53:24.560
hitting the egg by being territorial, by being whatever. And on the other side from the woman's

482
00:53:24.560 --> 00:53:30.160
perspective, the book talks about how, you know, if a woman got eight months pregnant,

483
00:53:31.600 --> 00:53:36.880
tens of thousands of years ago, she can no longer hunt and gather for herself. So really she has

484
00:53:36.880 --> 00:53:41.440
to find a partner that isn't going to abscond, that isn't going to bounce, especially once they've

485
00:53:41.440 --> 00:53:47.520
had sex. And so the book kind of talks about some of the reasons why, you know, in society we typically

486
00:53:47.520 --> 00:53:52.880
think women are more in search of a relationship and are trying to, you know, get a guy more than men

487
00:53:52.880 --> 00:53:59.600
are typically is because from an evolutionary perspective, they would have died on the savannah

488
00:53:59.600 --> 00:54:04.640
in Africa or whatever. If the guy had sex with them, impregnated them at a time when we didn't

489
00:54:04.640 --> 00:54:10.080
have birth control, got the eight months pregnant and then bounced. Yeah. And I don't know how true

490
00:54:10.080 --> 00:54:14.640
that is. Yeah, it's something that I've believed because I've read this book for some time. So that's

491
00:54:14.640 --> 00:54:24.720
the dominant traditional understanding of human sexuality. Because whenever you look at other

492
00:54:24.720 --> 00:54:34.400
species, yes, it's about essentially an aggressive alpha male, then being with a female and knowing

493
00:54:34.400 --> 00:54:42.240
that their offspring has been continued through that lineage. There's an alternative which has come

494
00:54:42.240 --> 00:54:50.080
out more recently where, and it's the paper published in science in 2015, that actually showed

495
00:54:50.720 --> 00:54:57.040
that what separated humans from other great apes was our social organization. Yeah, about 10,000

496
00:54:57.040 --> 00:55:02.240
years ago, we started living next to water and in camps. Exactly. Yeah. And then we were a tribe

497
00:55:02.240 --> 00:55:10.240
essentially. Yeah. And up until that point though, it's very possible that we had multiple

498
00:55:10.240 --> 00:55:16.320
sexual partners. But biological paternity was less of a concern because our structure was such

499
00:55:16.320 --> 00:55:23.440
that. So what we found out now is we didn't used to live with our close relatives. We actually

500
00:55:23.440 --> 00:55:29.280
created social ties with other individuals. And so we're set up in such a way that the focus

501
00:55:29.280 --> 00:55:37.120
wasn't ever on individual survival. It was on group survival, group identity, group welfare.

502
00:55:37.120 --> 00:55:43.920
And the reason is it's the group that keeps you alive anyway. And so it's very possible that then

503
00:55:43.920 --> 00:55:50.800
there was a shift which happened actually with this advent of private property because that's whenever

504
00:55:51.760 --> 00:55:57.840
eternity would matter because there's some hunter gatherer, communities that believe when multiple

505
00:55:57.840 --> 00:56:05.360
men have sex with a female that it's the collectively because you have to think where does our

506
00:56:05.360 --> 00:56:11.360
understanding of the sperm and the embryo come from? That's very recent, it's very recent biological

507
00:56:11.360 --> 00:56:16.880
understanding. Our ancestors wouldn't have known that. And there are some beliefs where collectively,

508
00:56:16.960 --> 00:56:24.240
the men contribute to the production of the child. But actually it's almost like an amalgamation

509
00:56:24.240 --> 00:56:28.560
of the different men that creates that child. And that child becomes part of the group as

510
00:56:28.560 --> 00:56:34.640
opposed to that one person's child. And this is the thing just to like challenge that thinking.

511
00:56:35.520 --> 00:56:40.800
Say that there was one man in the group that was slightly better and making sure he was the one

512
00:56:40.800 --> 00:56:49.760
that inseminated the female. His genes would pass on. His genetics would pass on as being

513
00:56:49.760 --> 00:56:56.880
slightly better for whatever reason and inseminating a woman. And therefore in the next round of

514
00:56:56.880 --> 00:57:03.200
the next generation, he would have a slight advantage that the kid of that man would have a slight

515
00:57:03.200 --> 00:57:07.360
genetic predisposition for being good at that, which would increase the probability that they

516
00:57:07.360 --> 00:57:13.120
would pass on again and again and again. And it seems like that those genetics and that ability

517
00:57:13.120 --> 00:57:17.040
to be good at inseminating whether it's through being territorial or being stronger or being more

518
00:57:17.040 --> 00:57:22.560
persuasive or being more of a peacock through generations over the space of a million years

519
00:57:22.560 --> 00:57:28.160
from the chimps. That would create a scenario where we are programmed to be through our psychology

520
00:57:28.160 --> 00:57:36.080
and our behavior and our peacocking good at winning. Even through slightly more malicious methods.

521
00:57:37.360 --> 00:57:44.560
And then there's also the social conditioning and the ideas of marriage, of monogamy, of romanticism,

522
00:57:44.560 --> 00:57:51.280
of what that means. And I think what had really come particularly through my work with clients

523
00:57:51.280 --> 00:57:56.400
is seeing that where people find themselves in trouble is when there's enmeshment. Whenever there's

524
00:57:56.400 --> 00:58:04.080
too much closeness, when actually the identity of one person is submerged with the identity of

525
00:58:04.160 --> 00:58:11.680
the other and there's no space, that happened to you in your marriage where you became more like her.

526
00:58:13.920 --> 00:58:20.640
It's incredible that you ask that. I have a little announcement to make and if you're watching

527
00:58:20.640 --> 00:58:24.960
this on YouTube, you might have seen a little clue as to what I'm about to say. When we brought

528
00:58:24.960 --> 00:58:29.760
this podcast back and we decided that we were going to do it every single week on Monday,

529
00:58:29.760 --> 00:58:35.200
we also decided that we wanted to find a sponsor and a partner to help support the growth of this

530
00:58:35.200 --> 00:58:39.520
podcast so that we can take it all over the world, we can produce the video format, we can hire a big

531
00:58:39.520 --> 00:58:44.640
team and we can make sure it gets out to as many people as possible. And so here's what I did.

532
00:58:44.640 --> 00:58:49.920
I thought of a couple of companies that I really, really love and companies that I've used for many,

533
00:58:49.920 --> 00:58:55.760
many years and I've been an avid customer of. And one of those companies, in fact the first company

534
00:58:55.840 --> 00:59:01.040
I contacted was this one, Hule. And if you don't know what Hule is, then you must have been

535
00:59:01.760 --> 00:59:07.920
living under a rock per se. But Hule has been a huge part of my life for about four years. I

536
00:59:07.920 --> 00:59:12.240
first started drinking Hule four years ago when I first moved into New York and I was running

537
00:59:12.240 --> 00:59:18.960
social chain. And the reason I did was because I was frequently missing meals. And if you know me

538
00:59:18.960 --> 00:59:23.520
personally, you'll know how true this is. I will wake up in the morning and I'll rush through my day

539
00:59:23.520 --> 00:59:28.160
meeting, meeting, meeting, meeting, speaking on stage, flying somewhere. And I'll get to about 9

540
00:59:28.160 --> 00:59:34.720
pm and I wouldn't have eaten a single thing. And there's no nutritional expert in the world that

541
00:59:34.720 --> 00:59:39.680
will tell you that's a good thing. And what then happened was I was binge eating at nine or 10 o'clock.

542
00:59:39.680 --> 00:59:44.240
And when I say binge eating, I mean like two large dominoes pizzas to myself. And so then I discovered

543
00:59:44.240 --> 00:59:49.360
this thing called Hule about four years ago. And for me, Hule is a nutritionally complete drink,

544
00:59:49.360 --> 00:59:52.880
which means that I don't have to spend hours preparing food, which I wouldn't do anyway,

545
00:59:52.880 --> 00:59:56.880
hence why I was skipping meals. It means that I get all the good stuff I need to perform and have

546
00:59:56.880 --> 01:00:03.040
a good diet, but I can have it in like 20 seconds. And as someone that values time so so much,

547
01:00:03.040 --> 01:00:07.120
Hule was a godsend. I've been a customer for I think four years. I've had my subscription with

548
01:00:07.120 --> 01:00:13.280
Hule for four years. So when I was looking for someone to sponsor the podcast, I contacted the CEO,

549
01:00:13.280 --> 01:00:17.520
who's been on the podcast before Julian and has bought this staggering company. I sent him an

550
01:00:17.520 --> 01:00:22.000
email. I said, listen, Julian, I would love you to sponsor my podcast because I can actually talk

551
01:00:22.000 --> 01:00:26.800
about your product authentically. And he said to me, because you've had a subscription with Hule

552
01:00:26.800 --> 01:00:31.600
for the last three, four years. And I know you're a customer. He was up for doing it. So I thank

553
01:00:31.600 --> 01:00:36.080
Hule. And every week on the podcast, I'm going to talk about different things to do with Hule, to

554
01:00:36.080 --> 01:00:41.280
do with time saving, to do with diet and nutrition. And of course, we're going to get Julian back on

555
01:00:41.280 --> 01:00:47.120
the podcast at some point. Their company is doing unbelievable things in the UK. If you've not seen

556
01:00:47.360 --> 01:00:50.960
and sort of kept up with the progress of Hule, I highly recommend you do because it's one of the

557
01:00:50.960 --> 01:00:56.000
most exciting companies we've seen in the UK in a long, long time. And it's an absolute honour

558
01:00:56.000 --> 01:00:59.920
and a privilege to have them sponsoring the day of the CEO, the perfect company to be on this

559
01:00:59.920 --> 01:01:04.480
podcast because you know, it's a company that is so in line with some of my central values.

560
01:01:05.120 --> 01:01:09.280
That happened to you in your marriage where you became more like her.

561
01:01:09.600 --> 01:01:21.280
It's incredible that you ask that. Whenever we first met, she was the sensible one.

562
01:01:21.280 --> 01:01:30.240
She was very prudent, very pragmatic, very level-headed. She made very safe sensible choices

563
01:01:30.320 --> 01:01:38.400
in life in general. And she was known in that way. I was a bit more of a rogue. I was

564
01:01:40.800 --> 01:01:46.480
a little bit more mysterious. It was probably sort of, you know, hint of mischievous

565
01:01:46.480 --> 01:01:59.040
events. Yeah, of playfulness. And there's an idea in psychology that we seek in the other person,

566
01:01:59.040 --> 01:02:07.360
a part of ourselves that we've lost. And so there was almost that attraction there,

567
01:02:07.360 --> 01:02:13.200
it created that chemistry. It drew us in together. I think she was looking for that excitement

568
01:02:13.200 --> 01:02:20.560
and in a way that's safe danger. I was actually looking for stability and groundedness.

569
01:02:22.160 --> 01:02:27.520
And over time, it connected us and brought us together. But over time, a remarkable thing happened.

570
01:02:28.400 --> 01:02:36.560
And that is just like you said, I began to become more like her. I became safer. And I actually

571
01:02:36.560 --> 01:02:47.440
lost an intrinsic part of who I was. I lost the wild child that's in me. I lost the part that's

572
01:02:47.440 --> 01:02:51.520
a bit more dangerous, that's a bit more risky, that doesn't always say something which is

573
01:02:51.520 --> 01:02:59.600
politically correct. And I became almost like a sanitized, clean version of who I was.

574
01:03:00.320 --> 01:03:04.800
And that's not the man that she met. And that's not the man that she fell in love with.

575
01:03:06.560 --> 01:03:17.360
And on one level, it worked in terms of a stable love. There was reliability. There was

576
01:03:17.360 --> 01:03:26.240
dependability. There was relatability. But it crushed the desire, the slow suffocation

577
01:03:26.960 --> 01:03:41.200
of that desire over the last couple of years. And so I believe that one day she woke up and she

578
01:03:41.200 --> 01:03:48.560
sensed that loss of connection, which I also sensed to and that loss of intimacy. And she was scared.

579
01:03:49.840 --> 01:03:56.240
And when the mind is scared, it comes up with thoughts. Is this it? Am I going to have to

580
01:03:57.440 --> 01:04:02.720
live like this for the next 10, 20 years? Well, I ever get that chemistry of that connection back.

581
01:04:03.280 --> 01:04:09.680
What if it never comes back? And when we're afraid, we're then seeking that

582
01:04:10.960 --> 01:04:17.120
that part of ourselves that we've lost. And so it's almost less about the other person

583
01:04:17.120 --> 01:04:22.480
and more about us. It's less about turning away from our partner and more about turning away

584
01:04:22.480 --> 01:04:28.960
from a part of ourselves. It's less about finding another person and more about finding another

585
01:04:28.960 --> 01:04:34.720
part of ourselves in which we feel alive. And I think the fear would have been wildly tempting,

586
01:04:34.720 --> 01:04:41.120
wildly exciting. It would have been all the things it would have given her a lot of the things

587
01:04:41.120 --> 01:04:46.800
that we had in the beginning that she missed. And suddenly it was back. And even the structure of

588
01:04:46.800 --> 01:04:53.920
an affair is such that you can't have the other person and the forbidden is erotic.

589
01:04:54.720 --> 01:05:01.280
And it's set up in such a way that it just perpetually creates desire because it has to be

590
01:05:01.280 --> 01:05:06.160
secretive. It can't be long lasting for long periods of time. There's continual space.

591
01:05:07.280 --> 01:05:15.920
Now, if fire needs air, desire needs space. And we found ourselves in the situation,

592
01:05:15.920 --> 01:05:21.280
which we're seeing each other every day. I used to be traveling. I used to be working

593
01:05:21.280 --> 01:05:26.080
away a lot more. We'd have pockets where we'd be apart. And in that pocket, even if you're

594
01:05:26.080 --> 01:05:32.000
away for a day or a couple of days, there's a sense of loss on a very micro level. And then a

595
01:05:32.000 --> 01:05:39.200
sense of excitement of the person coming back and reimagining that life together. And so

596
01:05:40.240 --> 01:05:45.840
going back to your point, I did. I changed. And that's something which I've learned from.

597
01:05:46.720 --> 01:05:58.320
I've changed and I became like a squeaky clean version of me. And she ironically ended up

598
01:05:58.320 --> 01:06:06.160
turning towards what she'd lost. That's something you regret. I could feel regret in the way that I

599
01:06:06.160 --> 01:06:17.680
said it there. Yes. Being honest, if I could have changed on one level, if I could have changed that,

600
01:06:17.680 --> 01:06:27.040
if I'd been aware of that and I'd seen it coming, then I would have wanted to stay true to who I am.

601
01:06:27.040 --> 01:06:34.480
And that's the path I'm on now. And I'd be curious to hear your thoughts. But I want to live

602
01:06:34.480 --> 01:06:40.800
in line with my truth. And it's like John 832, the truth will set you free. And I believe that when

603
01:06:40.800 --> 01:06:48.720
we're living in line with our truth, it saves you. And whenever we neglect our truth, it destroys

604
01:06:48.720 --> 01:06:58.320
you. And so if I'd been able to stay truthful, I think it would have been a very different trajectory.

605
01:06:58.400 --> 01:07:04.480
I don't, because the relationship worked on multiple levels. And it did, we had a wonderful

606
01:07:05.440 --> 01:07:12.160
time together for eight years. But it's a little bit like putting a frog in boiling water. It was

607
01:07:12.160 --> 01:07:17.520
in cold water. And the desire is to frog. It's alive. You don't notice the heat. There were

608
01:07:17.520 --> 01:07:25.920
unknown factors that were at play. And it was a dance. It was both of us. We both contribute to that

609
01:07:25.920 --> 01:07:31.920
situation. I think she wanted me to be that stable, dependable, reliable person without realizing

610
01:07:31.920 --> 01:07:39.120
that on a subconscious level, she actually was attracted to the man that I was. And I wanted to

611
01:07:39.120 --> 01:07:47.200
make her happy and didn't want her to be the kind of person that creates tension or there being

612
01:07:47.200 --> 01:07:52.960
too much grit. But actually, tension is what creates fire at the same time. And so the rough edges

613
01:07:53.600 --> 01:07:57.680
were a part of who I was and I didn't need to get rid of them. It's so crazy. It's almost quite

614
01:07:57.680 --> 01:08:02.240
contradictory. The typical narrative you hear about relationships is especially from, you know,

615
01:08:03.120 --> 01:08:10.800
dare I say it, women, movies and on Instagram is, there's this conversation around, can I change

616
01:08:10.800 --> 01:08:19.040
them? And it seems typically that people want to change, they hold out hope or they want to change

617
01:08:19.040 --> 01:08:24.080
their partner in some way to make them more like the image they have of that person. But in fact,

618
01:08:24.080 --> 01:08:30.080
what you're describing is the thing that ends up saving the relationship is a finding someone that

619
01:08:31.920 --> 01:08:36.880
you love for the way that they are and you're trying to do for the way that they are. But then

620
01:08:36.880 --> 01:08:43.600
both parties having a resilience to change, to some degree, because of that understanding that

621
01:08:43.680 --> 01:08:49.360
you formed your relationship on the basis of this person being like this. And then, but then you say,

622
01:08:49.360 --> 01:08:56.480
okay, so over time, people change. And in fact, in the last podcast we did, there's a quote where you

623
01:08:56.480 --> 01:09:01.200
said, changes the only constant. So both of you are going to change anyway. And you talk about the

624
01:09:01.200 --> 01:09:06.800
spiritual, psychological change that both parties go on. And again, this kind of draws it back

625
01:09:06.800 --> 01:09:11.440
to the conversation around monogamy is, you know, you're going to change anyway. Like you 10 years

626
01:09:11.440 --> 01:09:16.640
ago versus you now is probably a little bit more stable and a little bit more solid and a little

627
01:09:16.640 --> 01:09:22.800
bit more rational in your thinking. And because as you said in the last podcast, change is a constant,

628
01:09:22.800 --> 01:09:30.160
how do you form a, how can you guarantee that death will do you part when change might do you part

629
01:09:30.160 --> 01:09:35.360
first? And this kind of brings us back to the conversation around monogamy, which is, I guess

630
01:09:35.440 --> 01:09:44.320
is my question to you is like, if you, what do you suspect now, if not marriage is going to be

631
01:09:45.760 --> 01:09:50.000
the way that, you know, when you meet someone, what do you suspect? What's your hypothesis

632
01:09:50.000 --> 01:09:54.880
on how that relationship will be constructed? I mean, personally, yeah, I've got mine. Yeah, yeah.

633
01:09:56.560 --> 01:10:00.000
But mine kind of, I can tell you mine if you want first. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

634
01:10:00.480 --> 01:10:03.120
So mine kind of draws on something. I don't know how to say it, me too. Yeah.

635
01:10:03.120 --> 01:10:10.720
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're both good on to go. So it was interesting what you said there about

636
01:10:10.720 --> 01:10:17.760
space being good, the air to a flame, right? And for me, that's so critical.

637
01:10:17.760 --> 01:10:22.240
Early on when you were talking about marriage, one of the factors you were talking about was how

638
01:10:23.440 --> 01:10:29.120
where marriage came from as a social construct and how it centers on like, you know, religion and

639
01:10:29.120 --> 01:10:33.520
God and all of these things. And one of the things that I think is also really important to understand

640
01:10:33.520 --> 01:10:40.160
is as a general first principles rule, if people are different and we all are different, every

641
01:10:40.160 --> 01:10:45.440
single human being on the surface different, then the solution should be different. Like the,

642
01:10:45.440 --> 01:10:49.280
the glove we fit is different. We have different size fear and different size hands. So the solution

643
01:10:49.280 --> 01:10:55.600
to love or whatever that is as binary as it sounds should therefore be bespoke to who you are and

644
01:10:55.600 --> 01:11:00.400
the life you're living in. For me, I live a life where I'm, I get my fulfillment out of the

645
01:11:00.400 --> 01:11:05.200
podcast and my work and that's, it's such a big part of my wiring. I can't change that. It's the

646
01:11:05.200 --> 01:11:08.720
way that I am. I'm different from my brother. He's only a couple of months older than me. I'm

647
01:11:08.720 --> 01:11:15.280
completely different. And so as it relates to love and me having a bespoke solution to when I

648
01:11:15.280 --> 01:11:20.560
meet someone and I want to have kids or I want to, you know, want them to be my partner, the solution

649
01:11:20.640 --> 01:11:25.680
should also be bespoke. And so I look at the situation that would be right for me and it is one

650
01:11:25.680 --> 01:11:33.680
that's really, really reliant on space. I love being on my own. I'm happy there. I love having

651
01:11:33.680 --> 01:11:39.440
time to myself to reflect, to think, to work on my projects. Space is such a big thing for me.

652
01:11:40.000 --> 01:11:45.920
So marriage and the idea of moving in with someone and then being, you know, on top of me seven

653
01:11:45.920 --> 01:11:51.680
days a week for the next 60 years is something that I almost can't understand. I'm not sure if I'm

654
01:11:51.680 --> 01:11:56.320
like psychologically fucked up and that's why I can't deal with that. But I love this idea is

655
01:11:56.960 --> 01:12:03.520
the founder of Hule said on this podcast of treating my relationship with my romantic partner in

656
01:12:03.520 --> 01:12:07.040
the same way that I treat my relationship with my best friend. Me and my best friend seem to get

657
01:12:07.040 --> 01:12:12.240
on perfectly well. And I can't see a divorce ever coming, you know what I mean? Because we have

658
01:12:12.240 --> 01:12:17.040
that space and we have the the middle ground that we meet upon, which is the relationship.

659
01:12:17.040 --> 01:12:23.920
But we have a fundamental amount of space, which we both need. Like in fact, my best friend moved in

660
01:12:23.920 --> 01:12:32.640
with me and locked down for a month and yeah, it's like piss me off. You're so fucking

661
01:12:32.640 --> 01:12:38.400
loud. You know, like, like clean up after your cell. We had a lot of people. I remember we

662
01:12:38.480 --> 01:12:43.840
could have something stupid, like a video game or something. So I'm going to complete the

663
01:12:43.840 --> 01:12:48.880
point. I know for me that space and the lack of being on top of each other, it's something that

664
01:12:48.880 --> 01:12:52.640
would be a fundamental part of the relationship I have. I'm willing to commit because I actually

665
01:12:52.640 --> 01:12:57.760
can't see a world where I would allow them not to or that I'd be happy with them, not even

666
01:12:57.760 --> 01:13:03.280
the way to allow it's like permission, right? It's like such an asshole thing to say. But I can't

667
01:13:03.280 --> 01:13:07.200
see a world where I would be okay with them not committing to me. So I'm going to have to

668
01:13:07.280 --> 01:13:10.480
concede that. I think I'll figure that out. Hopefully if we can keep the sex good.

669
01:13:11.920 --> 01:13:17.280
So space and commitment, I hate that idea of marriage. I don't think religion or the law

670
01:13:17.280 --> 01:13:21.920
have any should have any involvement on the topic of love. I think they'd have a terrible track

671
01:13:21.920 --> 01:13:27.360
record religion with homosexuality and the, you know, the history it has on love and the law.

672
01:13:27.360 --> 01:13:31.760
I don't see why a court would have anything to do with how I feel about someone. So I hate the idea

673
01:13:31.840 --> 01:13:37.520
of marriage. Some kind of commitment that offers me space with the right person where we both

674
01:13:37.520 --> 01:13:42.640
understand that at some point we might grow out of each other. And when we do, that's fine.

675
01:13:42.640 --> 01:13:46.080
And I'm going to conclude with one point which you actually said in the last podcast, which is

676
01:13:46.080 --> 01:13:50.400
when I asked you about monogamy and about committing to someone for life, you said to me,

677
01:13:52.240 --> 01:13:55.600
don't view it like that. Just ask yourself the question every single day.

678
01:13:55.600 --> 01:14:00.960
Yeah. Today I'm happy to spend today. This day with this person in this relationship.

679
01:14:01.040 --> 01:14:05.200
If the answer is yes, fine. Yeah. If the answer is no, then there's something that needs to be

680
01:14:05.200 --> 01:14:18.000
addressed. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. I'll use it. I've actually got a photographic man.

681
01:14:22.240 --> 01:14:29.520
What I know for, for me, is there's definite similarities in that realistically, I can't see

682
01:14:29.520 --> 01:14:35.360
myself being in a non monogamous relationship. And if I was with someone that would be the person

683
01:14:35.360 --> 01:14:41.360
that I would be with. In the past though, in our last podcast, when you asked me what the definition

684
01:14:41.360 --> 01:14:50.240
of love, that hasn't changed in that I believe that love is fostering that emotional and spiritual

685
01:14:50.240 --> 01:14:58.400
growth of someone else. But what has changed is what I've realized in order to distinguish though

686
01:14:58.400 --> 01:15:04.400
between a partner that you're with and a partner that you have connection and chemistry and

687
01:15:04.400 --> 01:15:14.960
intimacy with, there has to be that physical intimacy which is maintained and which is and will

688
01:15:14.960 --> 01:15:23.200
wax and wane, but which can still be a light. Because whenever it dies, it irrevocably shakes

689
01:15:23.280 --> 01:15:28.480
the foundation of the relationship. And I don't think I put enough importance on that.

690
01:15:29.440 --> 01:15:35.920
I almost had like a zen-like view of marriage as opposed to appreciating. And it was,

691
01:15:36.960 --> 01:15:40.640
it was funny, it was a, some of us speaking to him and they were saying,

692
01:15:42.400 --> 01:15:50.000
from a male perspective, females want the new man during the day to be kind, sensitive, loving.

693
01:15:50.080 --> 01:15:53.120
And they want a Neanderthal. It's high them up in the evening.

694
01:15:56.640 --> 01:16:05.520
But do you know what I got me thinking? Because what if the same ingredients that lead to a long-lasting

695
01:16:05.520 --> 01:16:13.120
loving relationship or monogamous marriage, stability, dependability,

696
01:16:13.120 --> 01:16:19.520
relatability, safety, protection, caregiving, what if these are the same ingredients that kill

697
01:16:19.520 --> 01:16:27.440
desire? Because what I think is true is that, and I should just speak for myself,

698
01:16:29.360 --> 01:16:36.560
what I potentially find attractive in the bedroom might be the things that I actually stand against

699
01:16:36.560 --> 01:16:43.040
during the day. There might be power and there might be dominance. And that doesn't match up with

700
01:16:43.040 --> 01:16:49.840
how I see myself during the day. And so then you reach this conflict. And I think what I began to do

701
01:16:49.840 --> 01:16:57.920
was I began to become the new man and only the new man. And actually what I want to do more

702
01:16:57.920 --> 01:17:07.600
often is to tap more into all sides. I mean, there's no such thing as far to you

703
01:17:07.600 --> 01:17:14.480
on this. We talked about the importance of living the truth. 100%. And there's this great

704
01:17:14.480 --> 01:17:22.800
philosopher called Asha who says, a lady in the streets kind of freaking the bed. And it's like,

705
01:17:23.600 --> 01:17:29.120
I heard that lyric maybe eight years ago and I literally say it to my friends all the time when

706
01:17:29.120 --> 01:17:33.200
I'm talking about the type of partner that I want. And it's matching up exactly what you said,

707
01:17:33.200 --> 01:17:43.760
the civility and the class with the lack of class and the freakishness. And it's hard to find and

708
01:17:43.760 --> 01:17:52.960
maintain the balance. Yeah. I found yeah. And because sex can be really a journey of somewhere

709
01:17:52.960 --> 01:17:59.200
that you go. And so then there has to be that trust and that safety there. And at times it might be

710
01:17:59.200 --> 01:18:06.320
about letting go of responsibility and surrendering. It might be about taking control and being dominant.

711
01:18:06.960 --> 01:18:13.120
But it's an understanding what it means to you and at what times they should unfold and

712
01:18:13.120 --> 01:18:18.640
and be allowed to live so that your imagination can live. Because when it doesn't and then it just

713
01:18:18.640 --> 01:18:27.200
becomes an act or something that you should do or a way of having children, then we begin to feel

714
01:18:27.200 --> 01:18:32.800
lost. And that's what's happened with a lot of client surf scene. And so going back to how I would

715
01:18:32.800 --> 01:18:39.680
want to imagine the situation is yes, it'd be a monogamous relationship with another with a woman.

716
01:18:39.680 --> 01:18:51.200
And I would want to try and stay true to who I am and still keep that whole version of me. And

717
01:18:51.200 --> 01:18:55.920
that's what I've learned keeping. And I've gone back to that. The wonderful thing is would I,

718
01:18:55.920 --> 01:19:00.880
you know, you asked me would do I regret it? The reason also why I don't regret it because I'm not

719
01:19:00.880 --> 01:19:06.560
holding on to it. It's because the changes have happened. And I've trusted that it was meant to be

720
01:19:06.560 --> 01:19:12.400
and it was meant to unfold that way. And I'm much more in tune with who I am now. So I finally got

721
01:19:12.400 --> 01:19:18.400
my motorbike license. And I'm behind the phone. I bought my triumph, Bonnie, yesterday.

722
01:19:20.640 --> 01:19:25.920
And I'm doing the things which I realized because I'm drawn to more of a sense of risk and danger

723
01:19:25.920 --> 01:19:30.480
and actually activities where I have to be consumed within that moment and be present.

724
01:19:31.280 --> 01:19:35.440
And I'm getting back in touch with who I am and how I want to live my life and what I want to stand

725
01:19:36.160 --> 01:19:39.600
for. And it's on me to maintain that with the next person that I'm with.

726
01:19:40.400 --> 01:19:45.920
Another thing I learned was the space because where we went wrong is whenever we didn't have the

727
01:19:45.920 --> 01:19:51.520
space. And I actually realized I really enjoy living alone. I love that freedom. My other

728
01:19:51.520 --> 01:19:59.520
relationships are very important to me with my brother and my best friends. And so I don't know yet

729
01:19:59.520 --> 01:20:10.000
what that will look like. But it will definitely involve more space. And also that sense of

730
01:20:10.000 --> 01:20:13.760
adventure and spontaneity because that's what I enjoy. I want to travel. I want to see different

731
01:20:13.760 --> 01:20:18.640
countries. And I can set my life up where I'm doing that potentially with another person or

732
01:20:19.840 --> 01:20:27.680
still pursuing my passions. And that is a safe relationship where that person knows that I love

733
01:20:27.680 --> 01:20:32.400
them. And I'm there for them. But I won't always be. But then kids comes in the same room.

734
01:20:32.960 --> 01:20:38.080
It works up this whole fantasy. Do you know what I mean? We'll deal with that in podcast three.

735
01:20:39.360 --> 01:20:43.600
But that's the last bit where I'm like, okay, it's all wonderful and perfect. I was just

736
01:20:43.600 --> 01:20:48.000
thinking then my last three relationships, they've all lived in another country. And it's probably

737
01:20:48.000 --> 01:20:52.240
the reason why it works is because I can walk around here in my boxer shorts all day just like

738
01:20:52.320 --> 01:20:57.760
drinking my heal, you know, eating my pot noodle or whatever. And being myself, and then we come

739
01:20:57.760 --> 01:21:03.040
together. When they come there or I go there, we feel wonderful. Love it. Great. And then I go back

740
01:21:03.040 --> 01:21:11.840
and have my, you know, my bachelor lifestyle. But yeah, I think kids is a really

741
01:21:14.080 --> 01:21:20.560
a topic which we would be like intellectually dishonest if we didn't address because there'll

742
01:21:20.560 --> 01:21:24.480
be people listening to this that think, okay, well, that's all well and good. But when you become

743
01:21:24.480 --> 01:21:29.920
a father or a mother, you have to be there for your kids. Yes. And there's not a lot of science that

744
01:21:29.920 --> 01:21:34.880
says it's not good to be there for your kids, right? So yeah. And then the same way that we can start

745
01:21:34.880 --> 01:21:41.520
to though, make sure that we clarify between what the science says and then what the script is.

746
01:21:42.480 --> 01:21:52.560
Because absolutely we know that children will have better emotional outcomes and even physical

747
01:21:52.560 --> 01:22:00.960
development and situational success whenever they are brought up with a sensitive caregiver,

748
01:22:00.960 --> 01:22:08.320
someone who's responsive to their needs, someone who hears them, can hold them, give them safety,

749
01:22:08.400 --> 01:22:14.960
but also permission to be able to travel and come back. And who's invested in that child?

750
01:22:16.480 --> 01:22:22.800
But I'm not aware of studies that say that the parents have to be living in the same home

751
01:22:23.440 --> 01:22:28.800
in the one house 12 months of the year and there are lights to be set up in a certain way.

752
01:22:29.520 --> 01:22:35.040
And I don't know what the answer is yet and I'm not at that stage yet. But I would be curious

753
01:22:35.040 --> 01:22:41.360
whenever I am at that stage to begin exploring and it might not be as radical as it's envisioned

754
01:22:41.360 --> 01:22:48.160
at a certain point in time, but there might be enough space or enough still spontaneity or

755
01:22:48.160 --> 01:22:54.160
adventure or playfulness even on an internal level or in the way that you set your life up where

756
01:22:54.160 --> 01:23:01.200
both partners have that space and still are able to maintain that passion. Isn't it crazy how much

757
01:23:01.200 --> 01:23:10.400
of life's misery and failure and unhappiness stems from either trying to conform to the

758
01:23:10.400 --> 01:23:17.760
conventional way or the script, as you say, or trying to fit into or even sometimes answer

759
01:23:18.480 --> 01:23:22.480
an invalid question. We talked a little bit about this on the last podcast where I said I think

760
01:23:22.480 --> 01:23:27.040
so many people live their lives trying to answer invalid questions like what number is orange is

761
01:23:27.040 --> 01:23:34.000
what I said last time. And in the same way, you know, the question, are you in love presumes a yes

762
01:23:34.000 --> 01:23:40.880
just by asking it, I'm forcing you to say yes or no, I'm also presuming that we've agreed upon

763
01:23:40.880 --> 01:23:45.760
the definition of in love, which again is just a fucking maze because no one's ever told me what

764
01:23:45.760 --> 01:23:50.000
that is. No, you're not born and they go, okay, God goes, by the way, if you ever feel this,

765
01:23:50.000 --> 01:23:53.840
that's love, okay? And you go, okay, got you, right? Because I, you know, the word is so loosely,

766
01:23:53.840 --> 01:23:57.520
I love peanut butter, I love my dog, I love my girlfriend, I love my wife, I love my mom,

767
01:23:57.520 --> 01:24:02.400
and it's like, so what is it different? It's such a fucking confusing, complex, nuanced thing love,

768
01:24:02.400 --> 01:24:07.680
and we're forcing it into this yes or no. And people will like, they'll ruin good things because

769
01:24:09.120 --> 01:24:15.680
they feel pressured or they're unsure if this is it. And I just, I just wanted to kind of leave

770
01:24:15.680 --> 01:24:19.040
that point there in a sense of like that idea of like, you know, so I know so many people listening

771
01:24:19.280 --> 01:24:26.080
to this will will be unknowingly programmed by convention. And it's like the first principle

772
01:24:26.080 --> 01:24:32.880
thinking and the ability to question why you're doing what you're doing. And then I guess lastly,

773
01:24:32.880 --> 01:24:40.400
to have the fearlessness or the courage to potentially interrogate and then reject it,

774
01:24:41.840 --> 01:24:46.720
that can literally save you in every facet. It saved me like, go to university, get a job,

775
01:24:47.120 --> 01:24:51.120
and I stopped going to school because I thought it was a lot of shit, dropped out of university

776
01:24:51.120 --> 01:24:55.600
after one lecture, started a business, and I am, as I said on this podcast, but I'm the happiest

777
01:24:55.600 --> 01:25:00.160
person I know. I reached a level of success at a ridiculously young age, I managed to like write

778
01:25:00.160 --> 01:25:06.880
us, write a new story, write a new script for how life can be lived. And people admire me and

779
01:25:06.880 --> 01:25:12.000
listen to this podcast, basically only because, not because I'm smarter than anyone else or anything

780
01:25:12.480 --> 01:25:17.200
else. It's fundamentally, if you go back to where it started, was because I, for some reason,

781
01:25:17.200 --> 01:25:22.960
was willing to question the script and then had the, as they call it, fearlessness, for me, it wasn't

782
01:25:22.960 --> 01:25:27.440
feel it, for me the biggest fear was fucking following the script clearly, right? But had the perceived

783
01:25:27.440 --> 01:25:34.000
fearlessness to say, well, this doesn't make sense. How does that resonate with you? Two things come

784
01:25:34.000 --> 01:25:42.720
to mind. One is that, like you said before, the solution in my mind will be bespoke because we're

785
01:25:42.720 --> 01:25:49.040
trying to take a one-size-fits-all solution, a panacea and apply it to everyone. And we're all unique,

786
01:25:49.680 --> 01:25:56.080
and it's important, I think, for each to begin to become aware of the emotional resistance we

787
01:25:56.080 --> 01:26:04.320
have to considering possibilities outside of the conventional nuclear family unit. And just begin

788
01:26:04.320 --> 01:26:12.000
to think about what that might mean and where we might be able to see change. And the second part

789
01:26:12.000 --> 01:26:19.680
is to ask ourselves, what do I think I have to have in order to be happy? But in relationships,

790
01:26:19.680 --> 01:26:30.480
often people think marriage children. In business, it could be X revenue, Y set up, Z lifestyle.

791
01:26:32.240 --> 01:26:40.000
And then we can ask, what will that give me? Why will it make me happy? Because below will be the

792
01:26:40.000 --> 01:26:47.040
emotional need. So it could be in relationships, it could be because I want affection, physical intimacy,

793
01:26:47.040 --> 01:26:54.000
a sense of belonging, stability, for something else, it could be status to be accepted by others,

794
01:26:54.000 --> 01:27:03.600
not to be judged. Isn't the actual truth, based on that point of marriage, people thinking

795
01:27:03.600 --> 01:27:07.920
that they think marriage will make them happy, they've never experienced marriage before.

796
01:27:07.920 --> 01:27:14.000
Right. So where have they got that idea from? I think the actual fundamental truth is because

797
01:27:14.080 --> 01:27:20.160
they told me it would make me happy. Yeah, we've been sold that story. But what do people really want?

798
01:27:20.160 --> 01:27:25.200
What are they wanting out the marriage? If you go deeper, there'll be an emotional need that

799
01:27:25.200 --> 01:27:28.800
they're trying to meet through the marriage that they think the marriage will provide the solution

800
01:27:28.800 --> 01:27:36.400
to, but like you're saying, it doesn't. Well, it can, but it might not. And so what people might

801
01:27:36.400 --> 01:27:43.520
actually want is emotional connection or companionship. You know, if you said describe the marriage

802
01:27:43.520 --> 01:27:47.440
the ideal marriage to me, they might say, well, we're happy and we're there for each other and I

803
01:27:47.440 --> 01:27:52.640
have a confidant or a best friend or I have a lover. It's understanding those different parts.

804
01:27:52.640 --> 01:27:58.560
When we broken that down and understand what we're actually yearning for or searching for,

805
01:27:58.560 --> 01:28:04.720
we can then ask, can I meet those needs in a slightly different way that doesn't necessarily

806
01:28:04.720 --> 01:28:09.680
prescribe to the conventional model? And that's first principle thinking, in essence, which is

807
01:28:09.760 --> 01:28:16.560
exactly like to like the fundamental. Yeah. Yeah. Which is how? Yeah. Yeah. And which is what I said

808
01:28:16.560 --> 01:28:20.720
before is what I love about your mind because you take it back to your first principles. And then

809
01:28:20.720 --> 01:28:27.280
that's whenever you potentially become, you know, I just really think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

810
01:28:28.160 --> 01:28:32.800
That's, it's such a, I wish the school taught kids how to think in that way because

811
01:28:34.240 --> 01:28:38.480
for the first principles, just going back to the university point for me, I want to be a,

812
01:28:38.480 --> 01:28:42.800
I want to start a business and be a millionaire. That's what my stupid ass brain was thinking at that

813
01:28:42.800 --> 01:28:47.680
point, right? So this piece of paper, who am I going to show that to if I'm self-employed?

814
01:28:47.680 --> 01:28:53.360
Yes. Good point. I don't want you to show it to myself. Everyone else around me is sleeping on

815
01:28:53.360 --> 01:28:59.520
their desk and hung over. And I'm going to have the same stamp that they all have. But that's

816
01:28:59.520 --> 01:29:04.000
actually probably going to work against me. And I swear to God, this isn't high. I'll tell you

817
01:29:04.000 --> 01:29:08.240
if it was hindsight bullshit. I was thinking that I've got this vivid memory of my first day,

818
01:29:08.240 --> 01:29:13.040
university and my last, I'm looking over and this girl bits up and sitting on my right and she

819
01:29:13.040 --> 01:29:16.480
was drunk and sleeping on the desk. And I didn't get into a good university because I got expelled

820
01:29:16.480 --> 01:29:19.680
from school. So I didn't really take my exam seriously either again because of the same thinking.

821
01:29:20.720 --> 01:29:25.920
But I remember thinking, I'm going to go, I'm going to get the same trophy as her. Is that, how

822
01:29:25.920 --> 01:29:30.480
is that going to help me? If we don't start with me. And I was just, and then you've got, it was

823
01:29:30.480 --> 01:29:34.880
boring as far like they, I've been running businesses since I was 14 day one. They were like,

824
01:29:34.880 --> 01:29:39.760
make a poster. I swear to God, the lesson, my last lesson in my first at university was

825
01:29:39.760 --> 01:29:44.640
make a poster. And I thought, this isn't good. In terms of the information part, that's not going

826
01:29:44.640 --> 01:29:48.800
to give me the information. And it was that. And I walked out there, I walked into the business

827
01:29:48.800 --> 01:29:53.440
office and I spoke to the head of business at the university. And I said, I'm going to defer

828
01:29:53.440 --> 01:29:57.280
for a little while. She said, cool, fill out this piece of paper and you can defer. I never

829
01:29:57.280 --> 01:30:01.120
even filled it out and never went back. Turns out I actually hadn't probably registered for university

830
01:30:01.600 --> 01:30:08.560
as I was meant to. So I didn't really have to defer. And that was it. And I want to move on

831
01:30:08.560 --> 01:30:11.840
because you spent a long time talking about this topic. You said earlier on that you spent

832
01:30:11.840 --> 01:30:22.160
lockdown in California, which is, I'm jealous. You don't know, and it cuts both ways, you don't

833
01:30:22.160 --> 01:30:27.920
know what's going to happen in the next moment. We have a projection of the way that we think

834
01:30:27.920 --> 01:30:34.160
our lives will unfold. And often we become tied to it and bound to it. And any deviation we can

835
01:30:34.160 --> 01:30:39.200
see as a failure of some sort. But actually, sometimes life has other plans for us.

836
01:30:42.080 --> 01:30:46.400
And when we don't know what's going to happen, I think it keeps that freshness. You keep fresh

837
01:30:46.400 --> 01:30:52.560
eyes and you stay grateful for what you do have while you have it. On the other hand,

838
01:30:53.040 --> 01:30:59.040
we don't know what's going to happen. And it could all be taken away from us at any point.

839
01:30:59.600 --> 01:31:05.600
And I've got a good friend of mine and his father just had a stroke a couple days ago. And they

840
01:31:05.600 --> 01:31:12.080
now know the outcome as he won't be around. Ten days goes walking in South Ken. And five minutes

841
01:31:12.080 --> 01:31:21.440
after our pass, and it was coming back, there was barriers put up. And a refuse collector had been

842
01:31:21.440 --> 01:31:29.680
walking out in a bus and knocked him down. And in an instant, his life was over. And I just imagined

843
01:31:29.680 --> 01:31:33.840
that I could be completely wrong about it. I could have imagined gosh, he might have a family,

844
01:31:33.840 --> 01:31:37.920
he might have said goodbye to his wife in the kids in the morning and he went off to work. And he

845
01:31:37.920 --> 01:31:45.360
had no idea. And she had no idea. And the things that were really that might have been niggling or

846
01:31:45.440 --> 01:31:52.320
causing arguments don't matter now. Like none of that matters now. And I didn't see what was

847
01:31:52.320 --> 01:31:59.920
going to happen coming. And I lost it on one level. I lost a lot. And it makes me really appreciate

848
01:31:59.920 --> 01:32:03.680
what I had. But then on another level, that wasn't the end to the story.

849
01:32:06.640 --> 01:32:12.480
And then it was as if life said, you're on this path. And I'm going to shunt you onto a new

850
01:32:12.480 --> 01:32:17.120
trajectory. And that's the path you're meant to be on. This is where you're meant to be going. And

851
01:32:17.120 --> 01:32:21.760
I believe that it's a part of my path. And it was meant to unfold this way. The universe is

852
01:32:21.760 --> 01:32:27.680
unfolding as it should. And it's a lesson for me to continually trust. And that's why that voice

853
01:32:27.680 --> 01:32:34.560
came up in the very beginning in my heart saying all is well. Because I know on a deep level that

854
01:32:34.560 --> 01:32:41.600
all is well. It's just about trusting, sometimes letting go of our ideas and living in this moment.

855
01:32:43.440 --> 01:32:50.160
I can't think of a better ending. Listen, I don't even, you know, thank you so much for so many

856
01:32:50.160 --> 01:32:56.400
reasons. Because what you've done today on one hand will probably be selfish, selfish. As I

857
01:32:56.400 --> 01:33:01.360
as you me forward and realize that the release of your truth and talking about it and processing

858
01:33:01.360 --> 01:33:06.480
it with people is always liberating. But on the other hand, it's incredibly selfless because

859
01:33:06.480 --> 01:33:11.600
there are so many people that are going to have less pain deal with their pain better and

860
01:33:11.600 --> 01:33:15.760
understand themselves and hopefully be a little bit more self-aware because you had the guts

861
01:33:16.640 --> 01:33:23.280
and the humility and lack of ego to share what is an incredibly emotional,

862
01:33:24.560 --> 01:33:29.920
touching, personal experience. And so thank you so much. It's helped me.

863
01:33:30.880 --> 01:33:34.960
And I have no doubt that the hundreds of thousands of people that listen to this,

864
01:33:34.960 --> 01:33:39.920
it's going to help them in the same way. If people want to find you and they want to talk to you

865
01:33:40.000 --> 01:33:45.120
about this, and I'm sure there will be a lot of them, you know, the podcast was big back then.

866
01:33:45.120 --> 01:33:50.080
It's much bigger now, right? How do they find you? What's the best way to reach you?

867
01:33:50.880 --> 01:34:02.080
Done Instagram, it's just at dr.underscore.arIA, or on my website, which is dr-i-i-a.com.

868
01:34:02.080 --> 01:34:07.040
And what kind of services do you offer people that are going through various predicaments?

869
01:34:07.520 --> 01:34:14.400
So I do one-to-one coaching, so right now everything's done digitally, but essentially it's

870
01:34:15.120 --> 01:34:21.280
identifying what aspect of your life right now is critical for you to resolve and then helping you

871
01:34:21.280 --> 01:34:28.320
with the psychology and the mindset to be able to work through that or work with that.

872
01:34:28.320 --> 01:34:32.560
So it could be emotional resilience, it could be sustainable weight loss,

873
01:34:32.640 --> 01:34:38.160
it could be relationships, it could be taking your business to the next level in terms of how

874
01:34:38.160 --> 01:34:48.080
you view yourself as an entrepreneur. It might be fears, loss of intimacy, imposter syndrome,

875
01:34:48.640 --> 01:34:55.840
whatever issue is actually there for you. I'll check if it's something that we can approach from

876
01:34:55.840 --> 01:35:00.240
a mindset point of view, and that's where my expertise is, and then help you on your journey as

877
01:35:00.240 --> 01:35:04.880
you then have a more empowered mindset so that you're developing that robust sense of self,

878
01:35:04.880 --> 01:35:11.840
and you're able to change and adapt and be fluid in your journey and keep on growing essentially.

879
01:35:12.800 --> 01:35:17.440
We have such good conversations, even off the podcast, we've met up, I think last week

880
01:35:17.440 --> 01:35:20.320
all the week before, and had just an open conversation about a bunch of things in life.

881
01:35:20.320 --> 01:35:24.480
So I actually wanted to ask you, I've never asked this before, but is there anything that we've missed

882
01:35:25.280 --> 01:35:32.000
in terms of the topics that you think are curious to the relationship we have, or pertinent to the

883
01:35:32.000 --> 01:35:40.720
relationship we have, or any sort of learnings that you've garnered from our conversations,

884
01:35:40.720 --> 01:35:45.040
that you think we should be sharing with people, because I feel some, I feel those conversations

885
01:35:45.040 --> 01:35:51.200
are so rich, that we talked about so much last time, and even in our private conversations,

886
01:35:51.200 --> 01:35:54.880
I just wonder if there's anything else, any key topics that you...

887
01:35:56.880 --> 01:35:59.760
I'm sure there will be like, I don't think we've exhausted our conversation.

888
01:35:59.760 --> 01:36:01.920
We'll be back for a third, I'm going to say the same thing.

889
01:36:01.920 --> 01:36:05.920
Listen, thank you so much for the time, I appreciate it. I appreciate it so, so much.

890
01:36:05.920 --> 01:36:10.400
More than I've, you know, people, they give up so much time and they fly to come and do the podcast,

891
01:36:10.400 --> 01:36:17.280
but what you've given today, I don't think you'll realise how selfless that act was,

892
01:36:17.280 --> 01:36:20.800
because of the value it will give to people, and this is exactly why I do this podcast,

893
01:36:21.360 --> 01:36:25.520
to hear these kinds of things, and to hopefully make myself better, and the listeners

894
01:36:25.520 --> 01:36:30.800
better for hearing it, so thank you a million, million times over. Thank you, Steve. Thank you.