Speaker 1: At the end of a workday, we're all on like
Speaker 1: three percent battery life, and instead of charging up again,
Speaker 1: we expect more from that three percent, only for people
Speaker 1: to shut down on us. And we often say that, hey,
Speaker 1: why do you always shut down? Oh you work so
Speaker 1: hard at work, but you shut down when you're with me.
Speaker 1: We shut down because we're already depleted. Hey everyone, welcome
Speaker 1: back to our Purpose, the number one health podcast in
Speaker 1: the world. Thanks to each and every one of you
Speaker 1: that come back every week to listen, learn, and grow. Now.
Speaker 1: I am so excited for today's episode because it's been
Speaker 1: something that I've been thinking about a lot, and as
Speaker 1: you know, I've been focusing so much on our relationships,
Speaker 1: romantic friendships, family community this year and my new book
Speaker 1: Eight Rules of Love, which is releasing on the thirty
Speaker 1: first of January, that you can preorder right now, and
Speaker 1: when you preorder, you get my free workshop on the
Speaker 1: eight Cliches of Love. This free workshop is only for
Speaker 1: those who pre order the book before the thirty feet
Speaker 1: of January, and I walk you through some of the
Speaker 1: cliches that we've been told about love and whether science
Speaker 1: shows them to be true or false. So whether you
Speaker 1: think about love at first sight or whether you think
Speaker 1: about waiting for the one. I actually debunk a lot
Speaker 1: of those myths. As you can tell, I've been obsessed
Speaker 1: with love and relationships because I feel the pandemic led
Speaker 1: us to being less connected, less closer, and less able
Speaker 1: to form deep bonds. Also because I keep talking to
Speaker 1: people who find that they're winning in so many areas
Speaker 1: of their life but losing in relationships. How many people
Speaker 1: do you know that feel like they're winning in their passion,
Speaker 1: on their business, but feel like they're struggling in their
Speaker 1: love life. How many people do you know that are
Speaker 1: successful at being great friends but are struggling to find
Speaker 1: that partner. In this episode, I'm going to break down
Speaker 1: the four key challenges that every relationship will go through
Speaker 1: and how to have a new perspective to think about
Speaker 1: it differently. You're going to find that these four key
Speaker 1: issues we talk about are universal. You're going to be
Speaker 1: listening and thinking, jay I broke up with my ex
Speaker 1: because of that, I'm struggling with my present partner because
Speaker 1: of that. I'm scared of getting into another relationship because
Speaker 1: of that. Right, the themes and the insights in this
Speaker 1: episode are going to help you, whether you're single, whether
Speaker 1: you're in a committed relationship, or whether you just broke up.
Speaker 1: I want this to be an episode that you'll also
Speaker 1: pass on to your friends because I find that, as
Speaker 1: I always say, we haven't been educated on how to
Speaker 1: have healthy relationships. We haven't gone to a class or
Speaker 1: learned how to build real connection, and so we keep
Speaker 1: waiting for the right person. We keep looking for the one,
Speaker 1: We keep hoping that this person is going to miraculously appear,
Speaker 1: that we don't realize that it's something we have to learn, understand,
Speaker 1: break down, and create. So I'm going to walk you
Speaker 1: through these four key challenges and issues that every relationship
Speaker 1: will go through. I'm going to share with you the
Speaker 1: insights and the takeaways, and I want you to make
Speaker 1: notes if you can on this one. If you are walking,
Speaker 1: or you are moving around, or you're driving, that's absolutely fine.
Speaker 1: Make sure you take a screenshot and come back to
Speaker 1: this one. And I want to say thank you to
Speaker 1: everyone who's been leaving reviews recently. I have been reading
Speaker 1: them and truly brown away by your love and your
Speaker 1: commitment to on purpose. I appreciate you. I'm grateful to you.
Speaker 1: And I cannot wait for you to listen to this episode.
Speaker 1: So I want to dive in with the first one.
Speaker 1: So the first challenge is something that I know everyone's
Speaker 1: going to be able to relate to. I recently shared
Speaker 1: a section of a Q and A session I did
Speaker 1: on my Instagram page. It went absolutely viral Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 1: I could see that a lot of you resonated with it.
Speaker 1: And I was talking about a friend of mine who
Speaker 1: just got back from a vacation with her partner. She
Speaker 1: was telling me that she didn't fell she spent any
Speaker 1: time with him. And I was like, well, you just
Speaker 1: went away. What do you mean And she said, well,
Speaker 1: he was on his laptop, and then he was on
Speaker 1: his tablet, and then he was reading his book, and
Speaker 1: I didn't really spend any time with him. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: the challenges you're not really asking for time. You're asking
Speaker 1: for presents. You're asking for energy. But the word you're
Speaker 1: using his time. So in his eyes, spent the weekend
Speaker 1: with you, he spent time with you. But really what
Speaker 1: we're looking for his energy, what we're looking for his presence.
Speaker 1: And what we find is that even when we're in
Speaker 1: the same space. Even when we're in the same room
Speaker 1: as our partners, if they are distracted while watching a
Speaker 1: show on their phone, on their laptop doing some work,
Speaker 1: we know that their attention isn't with us. And therefore,
Speaker 1: even if someone sits with us for an hour or
Speaker 1: two hours or three hours, it feels like less than
Speaker 1: three minutes. And even more than this, it feels worse.
Speaker 1: If you don't see someone. It's different than when you
Speaker 1: see them but you don't feel seen. How many times
Speaker 1: have you sat with someone you can see them in
Speaker 1: front of you, but you don't feel seen. It's worse
Speaker 1: than if you didn't see them that week. And this
Speaker 1: term is such a common experience that it's called techno ferens.
Speaker 1: And one study found that techno ferens, where computers, phones, tablets,
Speaker 1: or TVs interrupt couples everyday. Interactions occurred in around seventy
Speaker 1: percent of relationships. Now, I don't know a relationship that
Speaker 1: doesn't have this challenge, so I'm sure that's more like
Speaker 1: one hundred percent. But in another study, thirty eight percent
Speaker 1: of partners said they even sent texts or emails during
Speaker 1: conversations with their partners. Right, how many of you know
Speaker 1: that you're constantly dealing with this where you're trying to
Speaker 1: talk to your partner but they're checking the results of
Speaker 1: the game, or you're trying to communicate with your partner
Speaker 1: but they're distracted because they're thinking about something at work,
Speaker 1: or how many of you have noticed your partners say yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I'm with you, but then their phone rings and they
Speaker 1: immediately go to grab it. This can be okay in
Speaker 1: the beginning. You can tolerate it, you can understand it.
Speaker 1: But it starts to wear on us. It starts to
Speaker 1: create challenges, it starts to create stress. And I know
Speaker 1: many many of you can relate to this. So how
Speaker 1: do we navigate this? The first thing I want you
Speaker 1: to do is I want you to set a rule
Speaker 1: that when you want your partners undivided attention, you communicate that.
Speaker 1: I think instead of saying I hope we can spend
Speaker 1: time together or I hope we can hang tonight together.
Speaker 1: When you want their undivided attention because you have something
Speaker 1: important to share or something important to communicate, say to them,
Speaker 1: when can we have some undivided attention time? When can
Speaker 1: I sit with you? When you will have the opportunity
Speaker 1: to fully listen. I know you have a lot going on.
Speaker 1: I know that there are a lot of demands on
Speaker 1: your time. When is the right time the challenges? We
Speaker 1: often want now to be the right time. We want
Speaker 1: whenever we want to be the right time to be
Speaker 1: the right time for them, And often out of fear
Speaker 1: or pressure, our partner can say, shure, so sure, I'm
Speaker 1: with you, I'm totally focused, And they're doing that just
Speaker 1: to make us feel better. And then they're not focused
Speaker 1: because they were distracted. And now you notice they're distracted,
Speaker 1: So now you're even more upset with them. Now they're
Speaker 1: upset because they actually tried to make you happy, But
Speaker 1: now you're not happy because they tried even though they
Speaker 1: weren't ready. And now they're upset because they haven't focused
Speaker 1: on what they needed to. Notice how your intentions can
Speaker 1: be beautiful, your perspective can be wonderful, your desire to
Speaker 1: be there for each other can be totally right. But
Speaker 1: you can make a complete mess. I want you to
Speaker 1: avoid this, and the way to avoid this is to
Speaker 1: ask your partner, when can I have your undivided attention?
Speaker 1: Have something really important to share with you? Sometimes we
Speaker 1: just go straight in and we say, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I have to tell you this, and we're demanding. We're
Speaker 1: expecting complete focus from our partners, and at best they
Speaker 1: give us their attention, but we're not satisfied. And at
Speaker 1: worst they can't give us their attention, and we feel
Speaker 1: they don't love us, or they don't care about us,
Speaker 1: or they don't value what we've just told them. What
Speaker 1: I've found is that when you're communicating big news with someone,
Speaker 1: when you're communicating important things with someone, you've had time
Speaker 1: to process that thought and idea, and when you're ready
Speaker 1: to share it with them, you want to make sure
Speaker 1: they're ready to right. It's almost like when you get
Speaker 1: if you got asked to a pop quiz at school,
Speaker 1: or you get asked a really tough question that you
Speaker 1: weren't expecting in an interview. You don't want to put
Speaker 1: your partner in that position, and you don't want to
Speaker 1: be in that position. So set the expectation of when
Speaker 1: you're going to do it, what you're going to talk about,
Speaker 1: clarifying their ability. The second thing is as much as
Speaker 1: you can when you are having meals together, put your
Speaker 1: devices away, but make a commitment. Again, we expect that
Speaker 1: if we're putting our devices away. Our partner is going
Speaker 1: to put our devices away instead of checking in and
Speaker 1: saying when can we have dinner? When we can be
Speaker 1: truly present with each other. Again, you're not asking the
Speaker 1: question in a sarcastic tone. You're not asking it in
Speaker 1: a condescending tone. You're asking it in a collaborative way.
Speaker 1: You're asking it in a way that inspires you and
Speaker 1: the other person to be fully present with each other.
Speaker 1: Presence creates intimacy. Intimacy creates connection, Connection creates longevity. I
Speaker 1: want each and every one of you to feel connected,
Speaker 1: to feel seen, to feel heard, to feel understood. And
Speaker 1: I find that in order to be that way, in
Speaker 1: order to feel that way, we can take some responsibility
Speaker 1: to share that. The next thing I'm going to add
Speaker 1: to that is, in order to truly feel present, there's
Speaker 1: an incredible technique called mirroring that was popularized by Chris Voss. Now,
Speaker 1: Chris Voss was a negotiated for the FBI, so he
Speaker 1: knew how to have difficult conversations and he knew how
Speaker 1: to get people to talk. When he would listen to people,
Speaker 1: he would say that the skill we have to use
Speaker 1: is mirroring. So if someone was answering a question, you
Speaker 1: would repeat the last one to three words they said.
Speaker 1: So if you said to someone, how's your day to
Speaker 1: day and they said, yeah, it went great, you would
Speaker 1: say it went great as a question for them to
Speaker 1: then say, yeah, you know, I had a really good
Speaker 1: conversation with my friend and at work and we really connected.
Speaker 1: Or they'd say I had a really bad day, and
Speaker 1: you'd say a bad day and they'd say, yeah, you
Speaker 1: know what, I was late for this meeting and I
Speaker 1: haven't got this work done on time, and you know,
Speaker 1: my boss isn't really happy with me. And you'd say, oh,
Speaker 1: your boss isn't really happy with you. And so you're
Speaker 1: repeating those last few words, which creates the truth of presence.
Speaker 1: There is no better way of showing your present than
Speaker 1: the repeating of the words your partner has said. In
Speaker 1: any circumstance, noddingming, whatever else you do isn't the same
Speaker 1: as actually repeating what someone has said. How many times
Speaker 1: does your partner say to you, well, you're not really listening.
Speaker 1: You don't really know what I'm trying to say. What
Speaker 1: did I say? Tell me what I said? Right? How
Speaker 1: many times do we hear that in an argument, and
Speaker 1: we hear it because people don't feel heard. When you're
Speaker 1: repeating what someone's saying, it's saying I hear you, it's saying, hey,
Speaker 1: is this what you're aiming at? Is this what your
Speaker 1: thing thinking about? The second key challenge in a relationship
Speaker 1: is us bringing our work stress home or today when
Speaker 1: we're working from home, we're is constantly stressed. So now
Speaker 1: we don't have that distinction between work and home. It's
Speaker 1: all at home, right, So many of us are working
Speaker 1: multiple days a week at home. People are overworking, people
Speaker 1: are overstressing, people are working insane amounts of hours, and
Speaker 1: we don't get time to decompress. We have to go
Speaker 1: from being connected at work to being connected at home.
Speaker 1: And now you don't even get the train ride back
Speaker 1: or the car journey back. And if you do, then
Speaker 1: you still have a bit of time. But most of
Speaker 1: us just switch off our laptop screen or look off
Speaker 1: our phone and you're right there at home. Without that
Speaker 1: natural divide. You don't have that decompression, you don't have
Speaker 1: that distressing, you don't have that disconnection. Now, one of
Speaker 1: the things that Rad's done unbelievably in our space is
Speaker 1: that when it hits around six pm, she'll put on
Speaker 1: a diffuser with a calming scent, and she'll turn on
Speaker 1: some relaxing music. And this really sets the tone of
Speaker 1: how we want the evening to go. And I find
Speaker 1: having these physical cues, having these physical responses to how
Speaker 1: we're feeling, really sets us up to relax and rest
Speaker 1: and sets us both up to connect. An American Psychological
Speaker 1: Association survey found that sixty five percent of people named
Speaker 1: their job as their top source of stress, and just
Speaker 1: thirty seven percent felt they were doing a good job
Speaker 1: managing it. Now, think about that for a second. Not
Speaker 1: only is workplace stress the number one cause for stress,
Speaker 1: it's also something that we are worried about. And so
Speaker 1: when we don't feel we're performing well at work and
Speaker 1: we don't we're managing our workload well, when we then
Speaker 1: feel like failures at home as well, you go home
Speaker 1: and your partner makes you feel like you're not really
Speaker 1: delivering at home either. It's no wonder that so many
Speaker 1: of us have so much self doubt. It's no wonder
Speaker 1: that so many of us are dealing with so many
Speaker 1: high levels of stress because we feel like failures at
Speaker 1: work and failures at home, and the home is meant
Speaker 1: to be an environment that protects us. The home is
Speaker 1: meant to be an environment that rejuvenates us and refuels us.
Speaker 1: And I want us all to think about that. How
Speaker 1: can we create our home to be a sanctuary, a
Speaker 1: place where we feel refueled and rejuvenated to deal with
Speaker 1: the challenges that will come outside of our home. So,
Speaker 1: if you're in a position, if you're in a place
Speaker 1: where your home life is feeling like a place where
Speaker 1: you're constantly being questioned, constantly being demanded upon, constantly feeling
Speaker 1: like you don't gain, or if you're creating that environment
Speaker 1: for your partner, I want you to be aware of
Speaker 1: that as well. The use someone who as soon as
Speaker 1: your partner's home is expecting so much for them, or
Speaker 1: expecting them to fill your carp or expecting them to
Speaker 1: build you up, and suggest you do is take a
Speaker 1: moment to just breathe. When they come back, when you
Speaker 1: come back, when you both switch off your computers, just
Speaker 1: take a moment to breathe. Don't expect anything from each other,
Speaker 1: don't expect anything right away. Just give each other that
Speaker 1: time to breathe, to disconnect to switch off. Just as
Speaker 1: our computers and our devices take time to power down,
Speaker 1: so do we. And before we start putting pressure on
Speaker 1: our partners when they're at three percent battery life, let's
Speaker 1: just be aware. Think about that for a second. At
Speaker 1: the end of a work day, we're all on like
Speaker 1: three percent battery life, and instead of charging up again,
Speaker 1: we expect more from that three percent, only for people
Speaker 1: to shut down on us. And we often say that, hey,
Speaker 1: why do you always shut down? Or you work so
Speaker 1: hard at work, but you shut down when you're with me,
Speaker 1: We shut down because we're already depleted. Find a way
Speaker 1: to create habits for both of you, separately collectively to regenerate.
Speaker 1: For me and Radi, we found that doing something exercise
Speaker 1: based or health and wellness based really helped for me.
Speaker 1: I can't work out in the evening, It doesn't work
Speaker 1: for me. Rady can often get a workout in the
Speaker 1: evening too, and so if she's going to work out
Speaker 1: in the evening to refuel and regenerate, I may stay
Speaker 1: at home and catch up with a friend or spend
Speaker 1: some time on my own. Now, if we're together, we
Speaker 1: may go to a cold plants together or go to
Speaker 1: an infrared sauna together, because that's something I do like
Speaker 1: doing in the evening and that makes me feel not depleted,
Speaker 1: that recharges me. And so find out what are your
Speaker 1: individual recharging exercise and find out whether your collective recharging exercises.
Speaker 1: Figure out which nights are individual recharges or collective recharges.
Speaker 1: The other thing I wanted to share was I was
Speaker 1: speaking to a client recently who's a CEO of a company,
Speaker 1: and they've been going through some mental health challenges and
Speaker 1: stress and we've been working through them and they've been
Speaker 1: feeling a lot better. And they were saying to me
Speaker 1: that they've been struggling with this and they don't know
Speaker 1: how to communicate it. So we were working through how
Speaker 1: they could communicate it to their team at the off site.
Speaker 1: Now my client said to me, they said, Jay, I'm
Speaker 1: scared of telling my team. When I was suggesting that
Speaker 1: they should open up to their team about what they've
Speaker 1: been through, I said, why are you scared? They said, well,
Speaker 1: I'm the strong one, I'm the leader, I'm the brave one.
Speaker 1: My response was, what's more brave? What's more strong? Then
Speaker 1: to tell them the truth of how you feel isn't
Speaker 1: that the sign of the greatest strength and bravery that
Speaker 1: you're willing to be open with them at the offsite,
Speaker 1: they went and shared this insight. They went and shared
Speaker 1: how they felt, and all their colleagues, all their peers,
Speaker 1: had one response, us two. They were feeling the same way.
Speaker 1: Often we feel alone at work and we expect our
Speaker 1: home to make us feel connected. But we also have
Speaker 1: to reconnect at work by creating safe spaces. If you're
Speaker 1: a leader, lead from the top and create safe spaces.
Speaker 1: If you're not a leader, create safe spaces within your peers.
Speaker 1: This will help you feel connected at work so you
Speaker 1: don't disproportionately expect more from home, and home can be
Speaker 1: a place of refruel and rejuvenation. Now, the third key
Speaker 1: area that causes stress in relationships is finances. Money. A
Speaker 1: lot of the research from the Gottman Institute shows that
Speaker 1: there are a lot of arguments that happen around money,
Speaker 1: around financial planning, around budgeting, and so on and so forth. Now,
Speaker 1: one study from Pew Research shows that twenty nine percent
Speaker 1: of millennials aren't financially ready for marriage. According to Pew
Speaker 1: Research Center findings, millennials are three times more likely to
Speaker 1: stay unmarried than the Silent generation born between nineteen twenty
Speaker 1: five to nineteen forty two, and seventy percent of millennials
Speaker 1: want to get married, according to the Millennial Relationship Statistics. Now,
Speaker 1: when it comes to this idea of commitment and finances,
Speaker 1: I want to talk about something that only hit me
Speaker 1: a lot later too, and it was this idea of
Speaker 1: how much money is spent on a wedding versus how
Speaker 1: much is spent on a marriage. Now, I did some
Speaker 1: research into this, and I was reading this article on
Speaker 1: CNN which talks about some of the research around this,
Speaker 1: and it said that on a detailed survey completed by
Speaker 1: over three thousand adults in the United States, they found
Speaker 1: that women whose wedding cost more than twenty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: divorced at a rate roughly one point six times higher
Speaker 1: than women whose weddings cost between five thousand to ten
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, and couples who spent a thousand dollars or
Speaker 1: less on their big day had a lower than average
Speaker 1: rate of divorce. Now, it's incredible, isn't it that studies
Speaker 1: are showing that the more we spend on our wedding days,
Speaker 1: the less likely our marriages to last. Now, I'm not
Speaker 1: saying don't have a big wedding. I'm not saying don't
Speaker 1: have an expensive wedding. You should have the wedding you
Speaker 1: want to have. What I am saying is, please invest
Speaker 1: in your relationship, whether you get married or not. You
Speaker 1: can invest in your travel, you can invest in your
Speaker 1: wedding day, but please invest in your actual relationship. Do
Speaker 1: you spend quality time together? Do you go to a
Speaker 1: couple's therapy if you need that or want that. Do
Speaker 1: you spend time talking about your relationship and the life
Speaker 1: you want. Do you communicate about your needs, your desires,
Speaker 1: your interests, and your concerns. These are the things that
Speaker 1: make a relationship last. You can have the most beautiful
Speaker 1: wedding in the world and have the most painful marriage,
Speaker 1: and I don't think it gets talked about enough because,
Speaker 1: of course everyone wants to have an amazing party, but
Speaker 1: the party won't ensure that you don't part ways, and
Speaker 1: so don't rely on a party to make sure that
Speaker 1: you will stay together and won't fall apart. I want
Speaker 1: you to be really conscious of this idea as to
Speaker 1: what are you doing that is benefiting you as a
Speaker 1: couple as a commitment to each other. That's the real
Speaker 1: investment you want to make. The final thing that the
Speaker 1: Gottman Institute says causes challenges in relationships is chores. And
Speaker 1: the big thing around chores is that we usually label
Speaker 1: our partners as lazy, as people who are slacking, as
Speaker 1: someone who doesn't want to help or doesn't want to support.
Speaker 1: And chances are, in the beginning we were happy to
Speaker 1: do a lot of it, but we didn't really divide
Speaker 1: and conquer. I think it's so important that we come
Speaker 1: up with schedules, expectations, breakdowns of who's doing what. When
Speaker 1: I remember when I lived as a monk, we had
Speaker 1: a cleaning rotor and everyone could see it every week.
Speaker 1: It was up there for everyone to visualize who was
Speaker 1: meant to do what. And I think that in couples
Speaker 1: we often say, oh, I'll take care of it, I'll
Speaker 1: do it, and then as time goes on, it becomes
Speaker 1: harder and harder to live up to that. Please have
Speaker 1: conversations about this, Please set expectations and responsibilities around this.
Speaker 1: And for those of us who keep letting our partner
Speaker 1: down by not showing up, by having excuses, maybe you
Speaker 1: genuinely have too much on but then communicate that it's
Speaker 1: unfair to expect the other person to pick up our slack.
Speaker 1: A lot of the time, our relationship with chores and
Speaker 1: housework is based on what we saw in our families.
Speaker 1: If we saw our mom doing everything, a lot of
Speaker 1: people may expect the women in the relationship to do everything.
Speaker 1: Or if you saw your mom do everything, you want
Speaker 1: to help out because you saw how tired she was.
Speaker 1: If you grew up in a family where your dad
Speaker 1: helped out, you may expect your partner to help out more,
Speaker 1: but they may not have grown up in that way.
Speaker 1: So having an expectation based on our parenting and our
Speaker 1: home isn't healthy and doesn't help. What helps is creating
Speaker 1: a new standard together, and I think this is at
Speaker 1: the core of all relationship issues. We bring our own expectations,
Speaker 1: our own projections from our own experiences, and expect that,
Speaker 1: of course the other person will want to do it
Speaker 1: that way, not realizing that we have to reset a
Speaker 1: new standard and we have to review and reassess these
Speaker 1: standards as life changes. Maybe your partner picked up an
Speaker 1: extra job, maybe you're spending more time at home, maybe
Speaker 1: you've started a new side hustle, whatever it may be.
Speaker 1: These expectations need to be reset and reassessed regularly. I
Speaker 1: really hope you enjoyed this episode today. I hope that
Speaker 1: your relationship doesn't fall apart because of some of these
Speaker 1: smaller things that just pile up. I know so many
Speaker 1: people's relationships that end based on small things. When they
Speaker 1: started based on big things. They started based on big
Speaker 1: points of connection, but they ended based on small points
Speaker 1: of disconnection. I don't want that to happen for you,
Speaker 1: and I want you to be prepared for a future relationship.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening to today. I hope
Speaker 1: this helps you now the gates some of these common
Speaker 1: challenges and relationships, and I can't wait for you to
Speaker 1: listen to another episode of On Purpose. Thank you so much.